There is a new MMO out that I am dying to play. I can’t tell you why. I don’t have any time to dedicate to a new game. I’m not even a die hard PvPer. But the more I read impressions on various forums, the more I’m convinced I want a taste, even if in the end I find the flavor is more bitter than sweet. As much as I might want to dish out $50.00 plus USD for a game running on one European server I can’t. The developer won’t take my money. What the hell is Darkfall and why can’t I play it?!
I’ve read little blurbs throughout the years about Darkfall, which the faithful believe to be the spiritual successor to Ultima Online and Asheron’s Call, two very influential and highly regarded MMORPGs. I have read in various MMORPG centric forums opinions ranging from Darkfall being the savior of sandbox MMO to the Duke Nukem Forever of the genre. Darkfall in a sense became the poster boy for the term ‘vaporware’ in the MMO industry, and a running joke among many circles of MMO gamers. However, in 2008, 7 years after the Official Darkfall website went live, whispers of an actual live beta began to surface. From there, developer Aventurine SA quickly ramped up the marketing for a game that had been in development an astonishing 8 (!) years, a development cycle that could severely hurt a well financed corporate game giant, let alone a relatively unheard of independent developer.
In some ways, Darkfall has already become a legendary MMO. The brainchild of independent Norwegian/Greek developer (no, really) Aventurine SA, Darkfall has had a rather vocal fanbase for years. Darkfall has been brilliantly kept in the spotlight by Aventurine’s Associate Producer Tasos Flambouras, who at times comes across as an overly boastful, egomaniacal persona with a media personality more like Kanye West or Tom Cruise than your typical game developer. Magnify the mythical status of Darkfall over the years, by the master of spin, company cheerleading, in your face approach of Tasos, and it’s no wonder Darkfall has a garnered a rabid fanbase quick to pounce and rend to shreds anyone who dares to criticize the game or the developer. Tasos caters to the target audience, and he does it well.
Which brings us to February 25th, 2009. The world must be coming to an end because after years of delays, Darkfall launched. At least, Darkfall was supposed to launch on the 25th but supposedly a major bug was discovered necessitating a patch and hence a 12 hour delay. When the server (yes, server) went live a syncing issue wreaked havoc across the game, with players not able to see the mobs attacking them, and which also allowed players to take advantage of various exploits and farm riches and gear that otherwise would not have been possible to obtain at this stage of the game. Cries of server rollbacks are prevalent on the forums. It will be interesting to see how Aventurine handles this issue.
Darkfall’s launch was to be extremely unconventional in the traditional sense. But why launch a game that really did not follow the traditional development path with a traditional launch? Approximately February 19th preorders opened up. The massive volume of hits to the site pretty much broke the systems in place and Aventurine had to take the preorder sales link down. In the days between the preorder date and launch, there were apparently small windows of time where people managed to get in and secure a preorder for the February 25th launch. From reading various forums, including the Official Darkfall Forums, it appears a rather large percentage of customers who wanted to get in on launch day are out of luck, as Account system issues are still prevalent and performance issues are being addressed. Reactions on the web vary from seething finger pointing at the developer to the championing of Aventurine for wanting to resolve all major issues prior to letting any more players in game. Unfortunately some customers who claim they have had successful preorder experiences claim they still cannot get authorization to play in game. It would be really interesting to know how many potential customers are out there for Darkfall. We will probably never know, but the heavy traffic since preorders went live seems to suggest a healthy (though probably a niche) fanbase for Darkfall is out there.
Any way you look at it, the launch of Darkfall has been as controversial as the game’s development history. From account issues, preorder issues, client issues, forum outages, exploits and what some consider a lack of communication from the developers on the state of the game, Darkfall has had anything but a smooth launch. However, despite what many would consider to be game breaking (and game killing) issues, there are many people who are defending Aventurine’s handling of launch setbacks and continue to swear allegiance to the game. Fans of the game are triumphing the developer for what they have accomplished as an independent studio, and there is no lack of love for Darkfall by many who have experienced the game in beta, as well as those who were one of the few that were able to secure a preorder and play the 30 or so hours the server has been up since launch (as of this writing, not official data). Although Darkfall may not be a leader graphically, or have the polish of corporate MMOs, the core of the gameplay is what fans of this game are gushing over. In the end, the forums are buzzing with talk of Darkfall both good and bad, and I would argue that this is a good omen for Aventurine and their project. It means people care. And when people care about your product, you have a chance to be successful.
I’m not sure when I’ll get to play Darkfall, but all of the debate on the forums has more than peaked my interest in the game. I must say, that the enthusiasm on the forums by the people who enjoy Darkfall is incredibly infectious. I also very much like the idea of supporting an independent, non-corporate studio. It’s the classic David vs. Goliath story, even if Tasos’ schtick drives me nuts in interviews. His attitude matches Darkfall’s survival of the fittest game design. How can I fault him for that? I’d very much like to know how Aventurine, as a small independent developer, survived all these years. If nothing else, Darkfall must be a huge labor of love. In the end I hope this journey ends up with a happy ending for Aventurine and it’s fans, and not a tragedy. It would be nice to see an independent studio find success in this day and age of corporate game giants.
See you in game… someday. Please don’t take my stuff.
This editorial is in no way to be considered a review. I have not played 1 second of the game. All of my perceptions are based on reading and participating on various forums.
The Good
- Seamless, large and apparently beautiful game world
- Mobs have very good AI
- Skill based system, no traditional MMO levels
- No restrictive Class system
- Rafts, boats, naval combat, how cool is that?!
- Elder Scrolls-like first person combat
- Ability to loot corpses and take everything on player
- Mounted combat (may not be in present build)
- Unrestricted PvP
- Aventurine trying to resolve open issues before taking more money for new Accounts
The Bad
- You can’t buy the game as of this writing
- Customer service has yet to deal with many frustrated preorder customers who can’t get in game
- Indy dev, low budget title, not as polished as many have become accustomed to
- Sync issues (somewhat resolved according to what I’ve read) allowing for exploits, making game difficult to play at best for some
- Main Darkfallonline.com site does not reflect state of game, still reflects old information and news, just kind of bizarre
- Some expected content does not appear to be in at launch
- Some report game world looks great but does not feel alive
- Exploits and macros in droves
- Due to length of game development, Darkfall does not boast latest technical bells and whistles