Tag: Darkfall

Darkfall: Unholy Wars Announced


Tasos Flambouras has gone to Youtube to announce Darkfall: Unholy Wars. In the video, Flambouras talks about how the job of fixing the current Darkfall was too great, and as a result Aventurine has decided to relaunch as a separate game entirely. In the video, Flambouras praises the community for its extensive feedback, and notes that Unholy Wars is in internal testing and is gearing up to roll out.

Unholy Wars features a massive art change, as well as an entirely new map, new races, new environments, a new GUI, and more.

Quite exciting news. Check out the video trailer below.

Big Darkfall Announcement Coming…Maybe, At Some Point.


Darkfall. The game hasn’t been featured here at MMO Fallout much lately, in fact not since June when Aventurine announced that the client price would be suspended in favor of simply subscribing after the trial runs out. Meanwhile, Aventurine is still plugging away at Darkfall 2.0 (or Darkfall 2010 as many of you know it), and Community Liason Unuldur appeared on the forums last Friday to announce an upcoming announcement:

Hello Darkfallers!

Apologies for the delay. We have an important announcement to make this Monday and we needed to turn our attention there.

And yes, I realize that it is already Tuesday. So what was the announcement? It wasn’t made. Granted, Aventurine is only off by a day, so we’ll have to wait and see what the important announcement is.

(Source: Darkfall Forums)

Darkfall Client Becomes Free, Subscription Reduced


As we’ve already announced: Aventurine plans on removing the initial cost of Darkfall’s client. Rather, players will simply have to subscribe once their trial is over (or any point in the middle) in order to start enjoying the world. Additionally, Aventurine will be dropping the subscription price from its current point of $15 a month to an undisclosed amount.

All of this goes live on June 29th. Starting June 27th, existing players will be given two free days to return, during which time skill gains will be increased. The promotion runs until the launch of Darkfall 2.0, at which time the game may or may not wipe and may or may not go free to play. Probably not.

(Source: Darkfall Epic Blog)

Darkfall Suspends Client Cost


Darkfall 2.0 may still be far off in the distance, but Aventurine is still working hard to bring new players into the community. In a few weeks, players will be able to get into Darkfall for the easy price of $14.99. Similar to Warhammer Online a couple years back, Aventurine is dropping the client cost in favor of simply paying for the subscription once the trial runs out.

This promotion comes with both purchasing and game play relayed changes and it will last until the launch of Darkfall 2.0. We will be removing the client purchase fee and to start playing Darkfall you will only need to pay the monthly fee. We are also preparing something that has to do with skill gains.

More in a few weeks.

(source: Darkfall Website)

Darkfall Developer Blog: Korea And Onward


Who loves Korea? MMO Fallout loves Korea, and not just because the country has spiraled up to about 50% of my traffic over the past couple of days. Aventurine also loves Korea, in the latest Epic Blog Tasos Flambouras starts by commenting that the developers are heading to Korea to sign an agreement with new partners with more details to come next week.

In addition, you can check out the entirety of the blog to read up about changes to the user interface, the upcoming addition of “player points,” the addition of an achievement system, and new village control system.

Darkfall 2.0, the major relaunch of Darkfall is set to go live this year, or more specifically, sometime between today and the apocalypse.

(Source: Epic Blog)

Darkfall's New Player Experience: Safe Zones


As someone who enjoys playing video games even more than I do writing about them, I am sympathetic to the plight of the newbie. After all, I’ve played enough of other games to have gotten a good feel for Darkfall when it released a few years ago, but I understand that there are plenty of others who will have a harder time getting attuned, not only to twitch controls in an MMO but the overall idea of free for all combat in an open world environment and full loot rules.

While I’m sure at least one person will object to the idea of a new player experience being something other than a mace to the face by a fully geared veteran, Aventurine has laid out some plans for the new new player experience.

The training areas consist of a series of chambers where new players can train before they move on. Training starts with basic movement and progresses all the way up to spellcasting and combat. This training process is actually a nice adventure with an epic ending, before new players earn their pass and are transported to the actual world. The goal is to ensure that, before entering Agon, new players become familiar with the basic mechanics, as well as the essence of Darkfall, and they can do this at their own pace.

Additionally, it will become a lot harder to steal someone else’s mount as the creature will remember its owner for a short period after dismounting, leaving enough time to de-summon the mount without having to worry about another player running in and riding off. There are a few other new game systems revealed in the blog post, which you can check out at the link below.

(Source: Darkfall Epic Blog)

Darkfall’s New Player Experience: Safe Zones


As someone who enjoys playing video games even more than I do writing about them, I am sympathetic to the plight of the newbie. After all, I’ve played enough of other games to have gotten a good feel for Darkfall when it released a few years ago, but I understand that there are plenty of others who will have a harder time getting attuned, not only to twitch controls in an MMO but the overall idea of free for all combat in an open world environment and full loot rules.

While I’m sure at least one person will object to the idea of a new player experience being something other than a mace to the face by a fully geared veteran, Aventurine has laid out some plans for the new new player experience.

The training areas consist of a series of chambers where new players can train before they move on. Training starts with basic movement and progresses all the way up to spellcasting and combat. This training process is actually a nice adventure with an epic ending, before new players earn their pass and are transported to the actual world. The goal is to ensure that, before entering Agon, new players become familiar with the basic mechanics, as well as the essence of Darkfall, and they can do this at their own pace.

Additionally, it will become a lot harder to steal someone else’s mount as the creature will remember its owner for a short period after dismounting, leaving enough time to de-summon the mount without having to worry about another player running in and riding off. There are a few other new game systems revealed in the blog post, which you can check out at the link below.

(Source: Darkfall Epic Blog)

Darkfall’s New Investors: InternetQ


Although inevitably someone will come and tell me otherwise, investors have historically had major impacts on MMO development and direction on a fundamental level. For instance, I would never make the direct claim that Insight Venture Partners told Jagex to reverse course and start including exclusive in-game items packaged in with certain vendor cards, but if you look at the history, the two match up. Now, you could also speculate good features coming from such new investors, including the reversal of the free trade restrictions, finally thrashing bots from the game, etc.

InternetQ has announced a €2.6 million investment in Aventurine, affected by a convertible bond set to mature in March 2015, but InternetQ can convert it into equity at any time. If this takes place within 7 months of the Darkfall 2.0 launch, InternetQ will own 40% of Aventurine, with the option to buy more shares to become majority share holder.

The investment is specifically for Darkfall 2.0, the launch of free to play Darkfall in Asia, and development of InternetQ’s AKAZOO network.

With the Darkfall’s sequel launch later this year, Aventurine will have the opportunity to become a successful franchise.

Hold the phone: Darkfall is set to become a franchise? Is InternetQ suggesting that Darkfall 1.0 will continue alongside Darkfall 2.0?

It will be interesting to see the effect InternetQ has on Darkfall’s development. At the risk of sounding pessimistic, the press release tells me that InternetQ doesn’t fully understand exactly what Darkfall 2.0, or for that matter an MMO, really is and may be under the impression that Darkfall 2.0 is a standalone sequel (unless they know something we don’t)

(Source: InternetQ release)

Darkfall's New Investors: InternetQ


Although inevitably someone will come and tell me otherwise, investors have historically had major impacts on MMO development and direction on a fundamental level. For instance, I would never make the direct claim that Insight Venture Partners told Jagex to reverse course and start including exclusive in-game items packaged in with certain vendor cards, but if you look at the history, the two match up. Now, you could also speculate good features coming from such new investors, including the reversal of the free trade restrictions, finally thrashing bots from the game, etc.

InternetQ has announced a €2.6 million investment in Aventurine, affected by a convertible bond set to mature in March 2015, but InternetQ can convert it into equity at any time. If this takes place within 7 months of the Darkfall 2.0 launch, InternetQ will own 40% of Aventurine, with the option to buy more shares to become majority share holder.

The investment is specifically for Darkfall 2.0, the launch of free to play Darkfall in Asia, and development of InternetQ’s AKAZOO network.

With the Darkfall’s sequel launch later this year, Aventurine will have the opportunity to become a successful franchise.

Hold the phone: Darkfall is set to become a franchise? Is InternetQ suggesting that Darkfall 1.0 will continue alongside Darkfall 2.0?

It will be interesting to see the effect InternetQ has on Darkfall’s development. At the risk of sounding pessimistic, the press release tells me that InternetQ doesn’t fully understand exactly what Darkfall 2.0, or for that matter an MMO, really is and may be under the impression that Darkfall 2.0 is a standalone sequel (unless they know something we don’t)

(Source: InternetQ release)

Darkfall: Down The Path of Trammel


Whenever the topic turns to a free for all PvP MMO, I often bring up the subject of what I refer to as “Trammeling.” It is also known as “pulling an NGE,” and occurs when a developer makes dramatic changes to underlying fundamentals of a game in order to achieve what they believe will appeal to a broader range of gamers. And like New Game Enhancements, this runs the risk that the current population who are more likely to depart may not be fully replaced by the potential for newer, more casual customers. This is not the same as Ropering, the concept of alienating potential customers by monetizing everything up to each individual breath.

Today’s topic covers death in the upcoming Darkfall 2.0 relaunch. As of now, when a character hits zero health, they enter an incapacitated state during which another player can gank them, or they can wait out the timer or hit a button the bleed out and respawn at their bind stone.

When 2.0 launches, death will work slightly different. Rather than bleeding out, when the bar empties players will revive with minimum health. Aventurine hopes this will add another layer to larger scale PvP combat as downed players will need to be ganked to ensure that they are unable to get back up and start fighting. To balance this feature out in player vs environment situations, higher level monsters will be more likely to outright execute the player, rather than simply incapacitate them.

The changes don’t end at ganking, however. When ganked, a player will enter a state of limbo, during which they will be able to equip items from their bank box and then respawn near their tombstone. This is time based, will cost gold based on how much equipment you take, and is time based: If you don’t hit a specific button in time, you are still teleported back to your bind stone.

Community reaction to this news is naturally divided. More news to come as Aventurine releases more details.

(Source: Epic Blog)