Aventurine is notably one of the few MMOs to ever attempt to justify a lack of trial program, citing that the game was “not ready for it.” Back in February, Aventurine decided no time was better than the present, and with Darkfall reaching nearly one year in age, opened up a trial for the cost of $1/€1. Due to the reaction to the one dollar/euro trial, Aventurine has decided that it is time for a free fourteen day trial, twice the length of the original trial, for none of the cost!
So what’s been going on in Darkfall lately? Well, if you haven’t been paying attention to the bi-monthly Darkfall articles, the game has become quite a bit fairer. Couple that with a few mass bans, and the upcoming Darkfall 2010 patch, and you have plenty of improvement to a one year old MMO. With new player protection, health balancing. Depending on who you ask, Darkfall has gone down in population recently, so with any luck this new trial program will bring fresh meat…new players into the game for the veterans to kill…care for and introduce into the game.
Accounts from Asia are being throttled with priority to American and European players on American and European servers respectively.
Here at Darkfall central, we have just one gripe: Carebears. No not the product line of adorable bears with the rainbows, we’re talking players who just can’t take a hardcore game like Darkfall. It always pains us to see the same posers who killed Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, and World of Warcraft come to Darkfall and get Aventurine to put in some noob updates to protect players who should be playing Free Realms instead.
As if the newbie protection program wasn’t enough of a shot to the gut, and let’s face it: If I can’t gank newbies until they rage-quit in my high-end gear in two shots, something is very wrong in this game. Anyway, the patch notes released on April 1st (I assumed they were a poorly thought out joke) just adds more to the downward spiral:
Now when declaring war on another clan, the process takes five minutes before going into effect. What is this? How am I supposed to kill crafters in protected cities without any repercussions? And if you’re going to up the price to 2000 gold to declare war, why not just shoot me in the face and get it over with? Now I can’t declare war on small clans just so I can gank them in cities.
More importantly, portal chambers? Now clans can teleport from portals to their exits, with new buildings inside of their clan hamlets and cities. If they knew anything, they would be speed hac-actually I think I should move on to the next point of interest. Strongboxes are the next sign of carebear appeasement. Now players can have a local bank anywhere they want, all they have to do is put their stuff in and no one else can use it. They can be destroyed, but have quite a bit of health, allowing the player to grab his clanmates and zerg rush us like noobs before we can crack it open.
Lastly, new quests? Sixty new quests? What is this, World of Darkfallcraft? This is a sandbox game, no quests! I’m moving to Mortal Online. At least they know hardcore.
This atypical Darkfall patch reaction is brought to you by The Beginner’s Guide To MMO Trolling. Reserve your copy today!
When Darkfall launched last year, it was met with some heavy issues. Not only was the game virtually un-buy-able for months post-release, but there were many game-breaking bugs. That being said, following endless patches, and two expansion packs, the Darkfall of today is very different from the Darkfall that launched in 2009.
With the game’s first birthday on the horizon, Aventurine is continuing their effort to make the newbie experience more enjoyable: Namely removing the requirement to buy the game just to get a sampling of its flavors. Starting today, players with new accounts have the option to buy the Darkfall Trial, a seven day romp through Agon that costs a mere one dollar.
On the downside, you need a credit card to purchase this. On the other hand, this is in place so players do not abuse it to aid their main accounts, and players who do abuse it can be tracked down to their real accounts to receive swift judgement. Requiring a credit card will also prevent the gold farmers the game has done so well holding back this past year.
If you haven’t had a chance to try out Darkfall, and want some player vs player orientated gaming, check out the $1 demo. Head over to your local Darkfall website now! If you live in Greece, the magazine offer is still valid, I believe.
Eurogamer! To many gamers, Eurogamer is a great source for gaming news, reviews, and other editorials. To Darkfall fans, on the other hand, Eurogamer is just another shady “unbiased” review website that backs up writers with questionable journalistic integrity. It feels like only a year ago that Eurogamer was launched into a controversy regarding the then-recently launched Darkfall. A contributor by the name of Ed Zitron wrote a scathing review of the title, scoring a 2/10 (Or a “Don’t touch this game”), and causing quite a stirrup at the Darkfall community. Aventurine, the title’s developers, shot back quickly: Publicly revealing logs from the accounts that revealed not only did the reviewer spend less than two hours in-game, but the majority of that time was spent in the character creation screen, with only a few minutes of login time each session. Tom Bramwell of Eurogamer did nothing to fan out the flames when he announced that Eurogamer was backing up Zitron. Of course, it was Zitron’s word (And who wouldn’t trust a man who laid out in writing his complete inability to do the most basic tasks in Darkfall?) versus Aventurine’s log files. Eventually, Eurogamer had another reviewer take a look.
Like water down the Niagara, the slip ups just keep flowing. This time, Gamespot is in some hot water after a review giving the recently launched Global Agenda a 5.5/10. Being as loyal to the title as one would expect a community, the Global Agenda community quickly did some dirt digging on the reviewer, and found quite a dearth in play time. The reviewer’s account, fittingly named DoofusJones, clocked in less than six hours of gameplay, making it to level 13 and wholly ignoring the subscription areas of the game.
I don’t get paid to write for MMO Fallout, but I often get the idea that I have more integrity than some of those who do get paid. Although Ed Zitron was not paid for his review of Darkfall, the Gamespot reviewer was, even though the review has since been removed. Myself, along with a legion of millions of other gamers, would kill to have the opportunity to be paid to write reviews for MMOs. Hell, if MMO Fallout paid my college tuition, you’d see me here every waking minute I wasn’t at my regular job or at classes! Alas, my future is in political talk, but the legion of millions still stand.
As if Gamespot needs to hand out more stakes to the people who are still angry over the Kane and Lynch fiasco several years back. I vet my own articles before I publish them, and I do my own fact checking in-house, but I still do fact-checking. For the companies that actually pay people to be “main editors,” do your jobs and make sure the person doing the review isn’t skimming off the top and putting out a half-assed piece of work.
More importantly, and I regularly reinforce this, if you are looking for a source to base your purchase on, don’t read a review. Don’t listen to what Gamespot tells you, or any other review website. I even tell people not to listen to what I say in the “month in review” articles, foremost because MMO Fallout is not in the business of reviewing titles, and secondly because I don’t want people basing their purchases of a genre where enjoyment comes out of the player’s own experience, to come from a piece of text no matter the size. The Month In Review is meant to be an, albeit morbid, comedic article about my own failed attempts to reign in spending.
So I’ll say what I always say when it comes to choosing your MMO: Go window shopping, almost every MMO on the market has some form of demo available, and in cases of Champions Online and Warhammer Online, you can try entire sections of the game for absolutely free, without limits. You may go through a large number of MMOs before you find the one that suits you, but look at it this way: You’re not spending thirty dollars a pop for each title that eventually ends up gathering dust. And if a title doesn’t have a demo, that is their loss, not your own.
Last month I talked about Aventurine’s plans for Darkfall this year, more specifically the focus on making the new player experience much more of a soft palm and not a bronze-knuckled fist. I also raised concern that this is creating speculation in the Darkfall community that this will bring updates along the lines of the New Game Enhancements, Ultima Online’s Trammel, and Runescape’s trade restrictions. The fact that those updates went through with as cryptic a notice, and Star Wars Galaxies did a lot of damage to developer-customer trust, doesn’t help the situation. I noted that more information would be coming in the near future.
I can say what I want, but with a recent announcement by Aventurine, the usual group just got another reason to call care-bear on the title. In a message to the community earlier today, Tasos announced the specifics of the previously mentioned new player experience. With it brings a very limited protection program, where new accounts have what is called newbie protection, that protects them from other players. Lasting for only a few hours, newbie protection will only allow for combat against monsters, inside of the new player zone. You can not damage other players, nor can you use structures that cause damage to other players. Teleports, Runestones, portals, clans, mounts, and skilling up on other players is also disabled while Newbie Mode is active.
The NPE is optional, and can be turned off at any point. Luckily the Darkfall community as a whole is backing up this protection, and Tasos’ confirmation that it was implemented specifically “without softening the game.” Despite the outcry of the normal vocal minority, who still believe this to be a ‘slippery slop’ towards a Trammel-esque update, Aventurine is showing that they know who they are advertising to, but that those players should be helped as they get used to the game, not punished.
Darkfall is coming upon its first anniversary, and two expansions out the door is already looking at expansion number three. Dubbed “Darkfall 2010” the expansion looks to focus on everything. Armor dying, tons of new craftable items, more impact with the dynamic lore system, death animations, more PvP and PvE opportunities, better drops, wandering mobs, scavenging, mounts, and of course user interface upgrades, among others.
Of course, thanks to games who may or may not be Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, Runes of Magic, and Runescape, players are reasonably concerned by the idea of “sweeping changes,” and some have expressed concern about any less desirable surprises that may be in store for this update. Unfair ganking practices will be slightly more difficult with the changes, making it impossible for players to declare war on players simply to gank them inside normally safe cities. Granted, as the MMO community often does, likely the following will be taken far out of context:
Yes we’re always adding more things and we’ll keep adding elements to make the game friendlier to new players, solo players, and more casual players.
I’m not normally one to forward conspiracy theories (or stir the pot of an already paranoid community), but the planned updates I have seen are quite reasonable. Disallowing players invading a city to use the city’s guild bank, putting a stop to griefing by players declaring war to gang up and attack sole players in starter areas without fear of the town’s natural defenses.
Either way, hopefully these sweeping changes will continue the reported upward trend in Darkfall’s subscriber rate. More on Darkfall as it falls into our hands. You can read the entirety of the community Q&A here:
We enter January as 2009 comes to a close, we look at the year before us, and the year ahead, and remember that life goes on, no matter what happens in the present. I’ve dubbed 2010 the blue moon year because it has the pleasure of beginning with a blue moon, an event that won’t be occurring on New Year’s Eve for a long time to come.
I’m going slightly out of character with this article, if anything just to be the one time a year I get to be a jerk and pick on the same companies I spend the other 364 days vying for the attention of (Thank you Tork, Hasbro, Aventurine, Cryptic). This is a comprehensive list of some questions I have going into the new year, that I hope to get answered by this time next year.
According to the MMO Fallout reporters currently stationed in Greece, PC Master Magazine is currently giving away a promotional 10-day time card for Darkfall, alongside a client DVD.
A taste of things to come...
…for those of you living in Greece. According to the MMO Fallout reporters currently stationed in Greece, PC Master Magazine is currently giving away a promotional 10-day time card for Darkfall, alongside a client DVD. This is going to be a short article, but I felt it was worth mentioning for a couple of reasons:
The trial will most likely expand to Europe and, eventually, North America.
Darkfall will see a surge of new players.
This demo system will bring a lot of help to Darkfall, of which is currently in a sinkhole of sorts: The only way to obtain the title, currently, is to pay the full $50 price tag, which many players are not willing to do on a game they haven’t even been able to trial.
I have no idea what this has to do with December...
Welcome one and welcome all. Although I realize that for half of the world, December 1st has come and gone, I speak for all when I say: Welcome to December! Festive seasonal holiday deals continue this month in an effort to bring you into that festive cheer, just cheerful enough to reach for your wallet (or memory if you have your card number memorized like I do).
I have no idea what this has to do with December...
Welcome one and welcome all. Although I realize that for half of the world, December 1st has come and gone, I speak for all when I say: Welcome to December! Festive seasonal holiday deals continue this month in an effort to bring you into that festive cheer, just cheerful enough to reach for your wallet (or memory if you have your card number memorized like I do).
MMO Fallout 