|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||
|
Platform: PC
|
Darkfall
Do
you like waiving your fist angrily at MMORPG clichés that should have
been weeded out of the genre years ago?
How about people that mistaken time sinks for challenge?
Yeah, we hate that crap too.
It would seem that Adventurine feels the same way, and they’re
been hard at work over the last few years trying to do something
about it as they develop a MMORPG of their own called Darkfall for the
PC, which will attempt to address all of those little nuances that annoy
the hell out of more than a few MMORPG players.
Taking
place in the world of Agon, Darkfall is steeped in myth and legend.
Peppered throughout the continents and islands of the game are
all sorts of ruins hinting at the ancient past of the game’s world.
There is a lot of lore waiting to be discovered as players make
their way through the game. There’s
also quite a bit to look at, as Darkfall’s developers have gone
through a lot of effort to create hand-made realms that players can
appreciate, as opposed to some of the games out there where the
environment seems to have been slapped together with automated map
plotters. A nice touch that
will be included is a weather system that actually impacts the game
world. If a strong storm
hits a region, players will have a heck of a time traversing it.
Rain and snow will be a lot more than just eye candy in this
game.
What will likely get a lot of people excited right out of the gates is that character advancement won’t be achieved through conventional leveling. So, no more acquiring a ton of experience points, and patiently waiting until you’ve earned an arbitrary amount of them before you can have a slightly higher number next to your name. Instead, Darkfall is going for a skill-based system, where players can buy a basic skill like mining, or archery, and |
|
|
start using
it right away. The more a
player uses these skills, the more proficient they will become at them.
The same also holds true for spells.
There’s going to be quite a few skills and spells in the final
game, with 300 skills and 200 spells decided upon thus far, and 500 of
each planned for the game in the long run.
Since characters progress in a skill-based manner, this also means that the game won’t be so class-oriented as most other RPGs are. If players want to be a swordsman, they won’t choose to be a Fighter class, but will get basic training in how to use a sword, dodge, parry, and how to |
Advertisement
|
|
|
use
related armor. Also,
players don’t need to worry about being locked into a given class, as
they can just pick up totally new skill sets and fiddle with those
should they get tired of their character in its current form.
As
far as bonafide classes are concerned, these will come in the form of
prestige classes like assassins, paladins, and enchanters.
These classes each have special skills, and spells that can give
them specific benefits, though there are also downsides to going with
such a class as well. Whatever
the case, none of them are mandatory, and players can just as well spend
their entire time in the game playing as a classless character.
While
things are fairly open-ended in terms of character development, the game
is a lot more concrete in how it presents the various races of Darkfall.
With a total of six to choose from, players can be a human, a
dwarf, a mirdain (an elf-looking race), ork, mahirim (wolf-like beings),
or alfar. These races
don’t exactly get along well, so expect some tension depending who you
play as, and depending who you meet.
Generally, humans, dwarves, and mirdain get along well, but they
can’t stand the marhirim, and the ork, though these two races are quite
chummy. Then there is the
alfar who pretty much hate everybody, and everyone hates them too.
Due
to these racial tensions, there will be quite a few opportunities for
PvP play in Darkfall. Players can form clans and team up in order
to attempt destroying a town run by a different race, so a clan of
humans and dwarves may try and take down an alfar settlement.
What Adventurine plans to do is provide a system somewhere
between Shadowbane and Dark Age of Camelot in terms of players trying to
destroy each other’s cities. By
this, the developers don’t want to punish players too harshly if they
lose the fight, but they also want to make sure there’s a good balance
of risk and rewards in this aspect of the game.
PvP won’t be a mandatory part of playing Darkfall, but players
won’t be able to completely avoid it a la World of Warcraft by heading
to a PvE server either.
One
other area of the game that is worth noting is that items in the game
decay over time. Players
will be able to repair them if they have the proper tools available, but
they can only do this a certain number of times before the item is
irreparable. As such, it
will be interesting to see how extremely rare weapon drops will be
handled here.
At
this point, Adventurine has been slaving away on Darkfall for
four years, slowly tweaking and improving the project, getting it closer to
how they envision the final product.
Between how the game will tackle character progression, and
attempt to provide a balanced PvP system, there could be quite a bit to
look forward to in this game. The
developers are currently looking for clans to help out with beta testing
of the game. If you and your clan think you’d be up for the challenge,
all the pertinent sign-up info can be found here.
Mr. Nash October 26, 2005 |
||
|
|
||
