Darkfall Official Blog - September 30 Activity Report

Implementing the new siege system has been a very difficult task, but from the feedback we’re getting, it was well worth the effort. Player feedback has been very useful as far as us issuing quick fixes. Today’s patch hopefully addressed any remaining issues with the new siege system as well as some of Darkfall’s outstanding issues from a list the community compiled for us last week. Our feedback on the siege experience is very good, players seem to be having a lot of fun, and we’re committed to monitoring performance and your feedback to make all necessary adjustments to the system.

Today we’ll give you a report on team activity as well as on recently completed tasks.

Darkfall programmers have been working hard on the many tasks to be completed and there’s a lot of activity between coders and testers as features are tested, tweaked and added to the game. It’s not all about implementation; we’re also testing a lot of potential features like for example an improved third person camera added to the game. We are examining if players could benefit from a properly implemented tight third person camera which allows a better overview of their surroundings as well as watching their character in action. An improved camera coupled with other effects such as crosshair wobble could make combat much more immersive and fun. Momentum mechanics have also been reworked as you may have seen in the Bone scale armor video, a first implementation of the new mechanics. The current implementation looks much better and impacts gameplay in a more meaningful way. We’ll do a media peek on this feature after testing is concluded on this feature. More aesthetics programming tasks include ragdoll physics which will be added to animations. The initial implementation is complete and they are now in the tweaking phase.

We’re making changes in starting areas to protect new players during their first steps in the game. More and more powerful guard towers have been added. This will create a safer place for new players since the towers will react to any PvP even if it’s between players of enemy clans. As usual, red players won’t be welcome in starting areas. We’re not looking to create safe zones but we think that a tiny fraction of the game should have safer zones than what we offer now, and that new players should be able to enjoy some protection against disruptive behaviors while they learn the game basics. In contrast, the vast majority of Agon, outside starting areas, is now lawless.

Clan city and hamlet tower and bank options can be adjusted on a per holding basis and you don’t need to apply universal rules. This gives clans with multiple holdings greater freedom and more options. We are also upgrading the defensive options for player holdings. Player-controlled cannon towers are more powerful and also fully customizable, meaning that clan members can choose what type of cannon they want on each one of them. We’re also experimenting with guard towers of increased effectiveness with the limitation that this occurs only when and for as long as they’re being “fueled”. The idea is to provide more options to the defending clan, therefore promoting the use of siege machinery (e.g. war-hulks and cannons) by the attacking clan(s). To this end, the construction cost of siege machinery is reduced while the defensive structures (e.g. guard towers and cannon towers) are more fragile. Additionally, we are working on options which allow all clan members to operate a city gate, without compromising the city’s security, without the need of a higher ranking officer being present.

Obviously the new armor specialization system is one of the major focus areas in our activities. Every armor in the game has to be checked, rebalanced and tested in order to achieve balance between play-styles. The core work has been completed and the system is ready for testing. The same team working on the new armor system is also working on the new spell system that goes along with it in determining each character’s strengths, weaknesses, so ultimately their play style. In this process, spells have been removed; others will be available only to certain monsters, and opposing magic schools will be reintroduced to the game. With the large number of spells in the game, there’s a lot of balancing to be done in this area as well.

On the new map/journal/clan tool, we have reported all that we can in previous blog articles. The only thing to say here is that this new tool is now waiting for the new GUI to be implemented so it’s development can be concluded. Which brings us to the new user interface: This is the centerpiece of the relaunch version in terms of impact, as well as development time, connection to other features, and complexity. Our two lead programmers are focused on this task and as development progresses, more people from the team are getting involved so that we can complete implementation in a timely fashion. The GUI is the pivot for the relaunch, as nearly every other feature and system will be using it.

Time to move on to the Art team that also has its hands quite full. The main tasks that our artists are keeping themselves busy with are modeling new and existing monsters, animating new ones and working on customization options for the player characters. Currently the new Infernal and Celestial monsters are being animated, finishing touches are being applied to the new Khamset monster family models and new haircuts are being worked on for all races. The haircuts for Humans, Alfar, Mirdain and Orks are done and the artists are now working on Dwarves and Mahirims. Also, new props are being created for a new Red Pharaoh themed dungeon that is in the works. There is also concept art that has been created for various aspects of art, monsters, weapons for the new crafting system, dungeons, props and new coat of arms images for all the NPC factions of Agon.

World builders are working on re-designing the Orc NPC cities, as they recently completed work on the Human cities. All clan holdings have now been re-designed and await testing. Dungeon remakes and additions are underway and the all new Red Pharaoh themed dungeon, located in Rubaiyat, is currently being worked on. This is a completely new dungeon and, while the big guy himself will not make an appearance yet, it will be inhabited by the Red Pharaoh’s most powerful servants. One thing to note here is that up to now dungeons where created by stitching various props like corridors, floor pieces, walls and the like together. The new system we’re using now allows for dungeons to be created from a seamless mesh much like terrain is created for the rest of the world. This allows our world builders to create much more intricate and appealing dungeons while keeping polygon counts to a manageable number.

Lore and quest wise, the team is working hard on re-writing all of the text and descriptions for old as well as new quests, dungeons and areas. The central task here is working the re-launch into Darkfall’s existing lore and providing a role playing aspect to all of the changes that are coming. Some specific player actions are also being integrated in to the lore of Darkfall 2.0. This team is also working on re-naming some monster families as well as items, equipment and NPC factions to provide a smoother overall consistency.

We hope that this gives you an idea on all that we’re working on at the moment. There’s also more that we’ll speak about in next activity reports. As always your feedback on what we say here is very welcome and it is sorted and presented in our development meetings.

Thank you for reading.

Darkfall Official Blog - Quick Update September 23

We spent this past week monitoring the servers for issues related to the new siege system added to the game and making sure everything was functioning as intended. Your feedback, as always, was very useful in identifying problems which we fixed during hot fixes this week and the week before. We are continuing to address issues as they come up and we’ll continue monitoring the new system’s performance, as well as your feedback through the direct use of the new siege system.

We identify with a request on the community forums asking for smaller, more frequent patches from now on. While we used to do frequent large patches in the past, we have recently focused on major development of Darkfall’s relaunch and the implementation of the new siege system. Having finished with the latter, we do intend to return to smaller and more frequent patches to the game. The thread I mentioned earlier is by user Ka0ru and in it he’s compiled a specific list of fixes, and I quote:

“1 – The dungeon portals, (Fixed on the siege patch, but could have come before it)
2 – The tower scream, (Was promised to the siege patch, but didn’t come)
3 – House taxes, make that only owner and guests are allowed to pay it.
4 -House safe, make that if the owner authorize guests or specific guest can access it.
5 – House slots, make guest rooms for house and villa that allows +1 for house and +2 for villa.
6 – Increase the village reward + items/resources if you feels like
7 – Increase the trade route reward
8 – Sea fortress timers
9 – Emotes cutting sounds and animations.
10 – Submarine bluetails, bluetails running on the bottom of the ocean
11 – Hear to other ppl swinging their weapon.
12 – Bag bug when porting – (I don’t think this one is as simple as the others).
13 – Spell lock bug when switching staves and keying a spell too fast
14 – Players being able to release spells under the water.”

We intend to address most of these issues in upcoming patches in the next few weeks. Some are relatively straightforward, others are not so simple but we’re always looking into all the issues reported by our players. There are more fixes to other issues that we’re also investigating but we prefer looking into your priority issues, so keep providing us with feedback on those.

Development on Darkfall’s relaunch is moving at a steady pace. Recently, momentum mechanics have been reworked and there have also been some changes to the camera. We’ll show these changes in a media sneak peak as soon as they’re finished.
Due to transportation strikes in Greece this week, making it difficult for some of our developers to get to work, our sprint presentation meeting has been postponed for next week and with it, so has our activity report.

Thank you for reading

Darkfall Official Blog - New Siege System: Dev Notes and Manual

Here are the development notes for the new siege system :

► New Siege system. For more specific information on this read the related article as well as the Siege System Manual that has been compiled by Jon, the main developer of the new system. You can get the Manual in PDF format here.

► Resource changes:

• Clan-stone hamlet, health decreased.

• Clan-stone city, health increased.

• Small siege-stone, health decreased.

• Small siege-stone, maximum binds increased.

• Large siege-stone, health decreased.

• Medium siege-stone now “useless”, can be sold back to NPC Vendors for full-refund.

• New item – protection shard small, gives 3 hours protection from siege initiation.

• New item – protection shard large, gives 6 hours protection from siege initiation.

• Both protection shard items can be purchased from Councillor NPC in racial capitals

• Protection shards must be activated near the clan-stone of the holding to be protected, by a high-ranking clan member of the clan who owns the holding, and only that holding will be protected

• Protection shard items share a clan-wide 24-hour cool-down (ie. only 1 can be used, per clan, per 24 hours)

• Clan-city barrels prop, health decreased.

► Activation timers added to dungeon portals. To activate a dungeon portal you will need to stand still for 10 seconds after using it.

Darkfall Official Blog - Siege system update / Media Sneak Peek

This week in development we’re finishing up work on the new siege system and we’re continuing our work on Darkfall’s relaunch features. Our next scrum meeting will happen after the new system is in place, and this should yield more specifics. Business meetings have been focused on Asian and other localized versions of Darkfall, on Darkfall relaunch distribution, partnerships and timing specifics.

On the new siege system, things are looking good for deployment next week. Some bugs that where discovered during testing this week were addressed and no other issues have come up. The new siege system apart from the things we detailed in a previous blog article will also feature protection shards, an item that has been requested quite a few times by the community. Protection shards will come in 2 variations, large and small, and they will protect your holding against siege for 6 and 3 hours respectively.

There is another item related to sieges that has been inserted into the system but will not be active in the upcoming siege patch. Extension shards will enable the defending clan to push back or forward the actual time that siege goes live. There is an internal debate at the moment on whether to activate this feature, and if so, what sort of limitations should be imposed.

At the moment the shards can extend the time that the siege goes live by 3 or 6 hours. There are thoughts of adding 2 more extension shards that will make the siege go live 3 or 6 hours earlier than the original time. Some things to consider are:

• -how long after the initial siege declaration a defending clan can use an extension shard,
• -if there should be different time restrictions for shards that push the siege time back and ones that bring it forward, and
• -if the 3 or 6 hours are too short or too long.

Keep in mind the extension shard implementation to the game will come with a small patch after the siege patch provided the community response is favorable.

We await your feedback on this feature.

For today’s media peek, our art team shared a concept of the redesigned Khamset monster family. Our artists are in the process of modeling now and we will show you the finished product as soon as it’s completed.

Our lore team provided the following:

As the Red Pharaoh exerts his tenuous influence from beyond the veil that separates life and death, the lands that were once his dominion begin to shift and distort. As Ur-Khamset grows in power in his bid to return to the lands of Agon, he reaches out to prepare his minions! The dry, dusty bones of those he cursed with undeath so long ago, twist with growing flesh, warping them into their master’s image and needs.

Thank you for reading

Darkfall Official Blog - Update, September 2

We noticed that there was some anticipation building up to the end of last month having to do with an ETA for Darkfall’s relaunch. We had previously mentioned that we would know more around this time. We’re in a better position to estimate but we haven’t concluded our discussions with our partners yet. Also, there are positive developments after the GDC which need a lot of consideration. Our goal is to have a smooth launch without problems for our players. Having learned from Darkfall’s first launch, we know there are numerous factors to consider. We’ll keep you updated on all our developments.

As far as the wipe or no wipe debate within the community, we are looking at ways to satisfy both sides. We respect our playerbase and our long-time active players and our relaunch is not meant to destroy the current game, but extend it. In the meanwhile, if it’s any indication, we’ve been investing heavily in the current game with the siege expansion.

Regarding the Siege expansion, we’re still working on it. As we’ve explained previously this is a system we’re bringing back from the new version of the game and it’s a complete rewrite. We “trashed” the old system and did something new. We created a system to create siege systems that is completely configurable. This has been a lot of work. We had to develop it, test, configure the system, test everything, reconfigure, test, merge it with the current game which has been very difficult, test again etc. It’s a huge undertaking and we wouldn’t be doing this if we didn’t care about the state of the current game. At the moment it’s undergoing heavy final testing which, if all goes as planned, should be concluded early next week. We understand this is taking a long time but it also brings a lot to the game.

We have a video for you today. It’s important to understand that some things you see in these videos are from the new version, others are placeholders from the current functionality. Consider this something like an alpha version:

In this video you can see part of the new Niflheim dungeon. The dungeon will be inhabited by yetis among other things. You can also see one of the dynamic dungeon elements that we will be adding. These elements will make dungeon crawling a lot more interesting but also more dangerous. You can also catch a glimpse of the new blood spatter system that has been implemented.

The following bit is from our Lore team:

The locals refer to these icy depths as Frostbyte Lair. Among it’s numerous denizens hungering for the warmth of flesh one can find the ravenous yeti. While many roam above the caverns in the light of day, their main population has been driven below ground by their battles with the Vargashi. These lords of ice build cunning traps within their dungeon home to best prepare hapless adventurers into a hearty meal. Pictured below is Tenderizer Pass, a deadly bridge used to soften up their potential prey before meal-time!

We’ll keep you updated on any developments. After the siege expansion is out, we’ll be running down our development priorities and we’ll give you an activity report about that.

Thanks for reading

Darkfall Official Blog - Crafting System Update

Before we go into the crafting update, please allow me to give you a small update on the Siege expansion. What we’re working on now is merging it with the current version of the game. As we’ve explained in the past, the siege system was originally meant to go into the Darkfall relaunch version. Since we decided to make the relaunch a much bigger project, we decided to bring a few of its features to the current version. Merging it with this version of the game has proven to be a large task, so we estimate about another week’s worth of work for it to come out. When we’re done with that, we’ll go into more detail about more relaunch features and the production schedule. Today, we have some information on the new crafting system coming straight from our design team:

As we explained on our “Darkfall 2.0: A closer look” article, we will be giving you more details on each feature on that list, as they become available. Today we offer insight into the philosophy behind the new crafting system as well as some details on how weapon crafting will work.

The general philosophy behind the upgraded crafting system involves an increased importance of rare ore, more unique looking items, many more customization options and more opportunities to excel as a crafter. Also, mastery skills will be added to more crafting skills.

In the current system, crafters are able to choose a specific amount of designs for their weapons and these designs are different per rank. If, for example, you like the design of a rank 1 weapon but you want to use a rank 5 because it has better stats, you are obligated to use the rank 5 design.
In our updated system, crafters will have the initial choice of six distinctive base designs per weapon type and these will only alter in style to reflect its higher rank and materials used. Below you can see a concept example of the 6 initial designs in Image 1. New designs will be added as we go so new aesthetic choices will constantly become available.

When it comes to crafting weapons, the rare ores will see their importance increased and their use will become more consistent. First of all, weapon rank and ore rarity will be tied together. Low rank weapons may just require iron ingots to craft but as you move on to the higher ranks, Selentine, Veilron, Neithal, Leenspar and Theril ingots will be needed in that order. Image 2 shows a concept example of the association of ore and weapon rank.

That’s not all for rare ores though. In the new crafting system materials such as wood, leather and cloth, will be able to be infused with rare ores to create higher quality variations. Following suit, a rank 90 bow will require wood infused with Theril ingots. Conversely, rare wood types will be removed.

A lot more has changed as far as crafting is concerned especially in enchanting and potion making. We’ll explain all about those changes in a future article.

Darkfall Official Blog - Media Sneak Peek 6

In today’s media sneak peek we present the new Bone armor, renamed to Bonescale as well as a new golem based on the old obsidian golem that goes by the name of Necroguardian.

The new bone armor will be the high end medium armor and to craft it you will need some special components. The Necroguardian will inhabit undead themed areas.

[Not a PvP Vid] Knif is so bad i cant belive it

..tornati in città 2min dopo avevano già tutti sloggato.. o_O'

Darkfall Official Blog - Darkfall 2.0: A closer look

We’ve talked about Darkfall 2.0 and Darkfall 2.0 features on several occasions. We’ve explained that this is a new game created on top of the current game rather simply an expansion. We do not want to get too specific for several reasons including that we don’t want to give everything away, also doing so might lead people to draw the wrong kind of conclusions or get caught up in irrelevant speculations and debates. On the other hand there are things we need to present to you in order to get feedback and to inform you of the changes to come.
Today, we’ll talk a bit about some of the changes that are already implemented. This is far from everything that’s going in to Darkfall 2.0, or what is changing. These are some of the points we’ll be giving more details on and discussing with you in the weeks to come. Thanks to Adam, Elias, and George P. for the information and Vagelis for putting it together.

• Character skill set customization and role selection through the implementation of Darkfall’s new armor system and through attribute boost via achievements: What armor you wear  greatly affects which skills you can use effectively and it makes others ineffective. You’re highly specialized in one role making your character extremely efficient and effective in that role. The major attribute boost works exponentially to give your character access to special items and weapons setting him further apart from the hybrids. New skills are going to be added, and redundant ones will be removed from the game.
• Skill and attribute gains have changed considerably. If a new player focuses on a single role, he will excel at that role in a relatively short time frame through casual play. More options and more roles will become available to him. Players can use one specialization at a time however.
• Crafting System Overhaul: More customization options, visual cues as to what players are wielding as equipment rank is visually distinguishable. Increased importance of rare ores through infusion of other materials and closer correlation of ore rank and equipment rank. Gems are also a lot more important since they’ll be used in enchanting.
• There’s a great increase in player housing spots and a more meaningful connection between villages and player holdings.
• The world map has been completely changed. This isn’t simply about moving locations around, it’s about changing the geography of the world. Monster spawns have been redistributed so they are more relevant, and all NPC and player holdings have been completely redesigned.
• Combat dynamics are much more tactical now. Changes affect several skills like blocking and disabling blow, and introduce new mechanics such as momentum and crosshair wobble.
• Complete redesign of the magic schools and their physics with clearly defined roles to spells, opposing magic schools, ability to assume different roles in combination with the attribute boost system (damage dealer, healer etc.). The magic system is built to promote cooperation among players.
• Complete redesign of most dungeons. New dynamic elements such as traps, moving objects and one-way doors have been implemented.
• Changes to the grid of teleportation chambers. No chambers exist in player holdings anymore and they are strategically placed to enhance PvP tactics.
• More changes to the Alignment system: Lawful areas are limited to the immediate vicinity of racial capitals and surrounding NPC faction cities. There’s an increase in the lawful area protection with increased tower coverage.
• The incapacitation system (gank/decapitation/revive rules) is revised in order to improve player PvP and PvE experience.
• There have been adjustments to physics to achieve more realistic results.
• All item properties, numeric values, calculation formulas and the like are completely redone.
• We’ve introduced a new Graphical User Interface which includes both new visual elements and new functionality. It offers a streamlined experience to the players alleviating all shortcomings of the previous one.
• A new map tool with a lot of information added including vendor locations and items for sale.
• Serious improvements to the new player experience, including training quests on all basic aspects of the game.
• More changes to the new siege system we’ve already described.
• Redesigned monsters, monster families, monster abilities, and all loot tables redone from scratch.
• A new lighting system and new visual effects.
• New environmental audio system and many additions and replacements to existing sounds. New area based music.
• Changes in models, textures, animations and most visual aspects of the game.

These are just brief mentions on exciting and sweeping changes compared to the existing game. These changes, along with the ones we’re not talking about yet, are the products of years of experience with Darkfall, lessons learned, and thousands of pieces of feedback from the community. In the coming weeks we’ll present each of these points in depth, with specific information on the mechanics of each point.
As for our current activity, we’re fighting some bugs in the new siege system which are pushing our ETA back again. We’ll keep you posted on our progress with that.
Thank you for reading.

Darkfall Official Blog - Media Sneak Peek 5

As we’ve mentioned before, everything is being redone in the new Darkfall world. Today we’ll give you a sneak peak into Sandbrook redesigned. It doesn’t remind much of old Sandbrook, other than the surrounding scenery. The city has been completely optimized and everything is conveniently located where players can find it easily. Furthermore, we should mention that it’s no longer a starting area but a faction city. A mysterious looking prop you can see close to the bindstone has to do with some of the new training quests that will be introduced to the game with the relaunch.

Key people are missing this week, so our planning meeting will happen next week and that’s when we can give you an activity report and possibly another Q&A segment that we’re working on

Darkfall Official Blog - Quick Update

There’s not much to report today. Most of the work being done right now is on the testing and the balancing of the siege system. We hope to run final tests next week before we can deploy it. We’ve also been looking through your feedback on the points we made in the siege system presentation. Thank you for that. We also understand that we’re running a bit behind our target date again but we need to make sure everything is working properly.
We also took a couple of screenshots of the intricate leather armor for you today. Some of you asked for them after we posted a short video of the armor yesterday. You should be able to see it more clearly now. We hope to have more information for you on our overall progress next week

Darkfall Official Blog - Media Sneak Peek 4

In today’s sneak peek we present to you one of the completely new armor sets that will make their appearance with the relaunch. The intricate leather armor will be better than the leather armors that are in game right now.
 

Darkfall PvP - Caer griefing new players

Il miglior PvPer di EU-1 concede al popolo di Agon il piacere di ammirarne la grazia e la potenza delle sue gesta.

Tenete conto che tutti i nemici son top player, più o meno..

Darkfall Official Blog - Darkfall’s new Siege System

We’ve been talking about the new siege system for a while now. While we have given you some of the specifics, we had to be vague on some things we were not yet sure about.

The new siege system is now complete and is going through final testing. Today we’ll present it to you in detail, leaving out only a few parts we’re still testing/balancing. As we mentioned before, we rewrote the entire system to be fully configurable. This gives us the ability to make very quick changes and to correct any imbalances that may come up when the new siege system goes live. Below we mention considering making some further changes, these can be made in no time at all. Thanks go out to Jon, who rewrote the siege system and to Vaggelis who gathered the information and wrote it up for us today:


The start of a siege is one of the few elements that have remained the same in the new system:
Your clan needs to be at war with the defending clan and you will need to use a clan shard in the vicinity of the clan stone that you wish to capture. From here on the system has changed in quite a few ways. First, clan size will affect your ability to initiate sieges. A siege against a city will require more members than a siege against a hamlet. Characters on trial accounts do not count towards clan size.

Once you use the clan shard you will get a confirmation dialogue informing you of the wager you will need to place in order to take part in this challenge. If you accept, the gold will be taken straight from the clan bank and the clan shard will be used up. If you decline, nothing happens. If there is insufficient gold in your clan bank you will not be able to initiate the challenge. Note that all attacking parties will need to pay a wager. Attacker holdings will not be going vulnerable.

The amount of the wager is affected by a few factors. First of all by the defending holding’s power level. A holding’s power level depends on how many of its’ buildings are standing. To make this clearer, a holding that allows for 10 buildings to be built will have a higher power level than a holding that allows for 5 provided at least 6 of them are actually constructed.

The second wager determining factor is how many attackers are already part of the challenge when your clan enters it. If you are the first clan declaring siege you don’t need to worry about this but the second challenger and onwards will need to pay a progressively higher wager. There is no hard cap to how many challengers can participate in the siege but the wager amount will eventually become quite high.

Joining the challenge late will also result in a higher wager. Every hour that passes since the first clan issued their challenge, means that potential besiegers will need to dig deeper in their pockets to take part in it. The same goes for ambitious conquerors that want to participate in more than one challenge, at the same time. Every additional active offensive action will result in higher wager prices.

After the challenge has been successfully declared, the attackers will have a specific amount of time to place at least one siege stone; even clans owning holdings will need to do this as, like we’ve already mentioned, their holdings will not be going vulnerable. Now, this may seem to favor the attackers but in the new system absolutely anyone can declare siege against anyone else, at the same time. So if you are going off to besiege a holding while you own one of your own, you better be prepared to defend it at the same time as your offensive action is taking place. Furthermore, if your clan drops a siege, the defenders may benefit from a wager reduction if they decide to pay you back in kind while your offensive action against them is active.

After the siege stone placement has finished, the usual preparation phase follows. One quick change we are considering is making siege stones go vulnerable some time before the clan stone does. This way we defenders a chance to take them down before they need to start defending their clan stone.
When the challenge becomes active, a certain percentage of walls will need to be destroyed before the clan stone goes vulnerable, just as it is now. Once this has been accomplished, anyone will be able to damage the clan stone. An attacker’s siege stones can be attacked and destroyed by anyone, like with the current system. However, if they are destroyed by any of the other attackers that are participating in that specific challenge (or the defender), then the destroyer’s clan will be getting a percentage of the wager paid by the siege-stone owner, right there and then. Attackers that have all their siege stones destroyed, while the clan stone still stands, are removed from the challenge and are not entitled to any of the wager money.

If the clan stone is destroyed before the challenge times out, holding ownership will pass on to whichever of the clans that had issued a challenge did the most damage. The wager money will be divided between all attackers that still had an active challenge against the holding when the clan stone got destroyed. Damage dealt to the clan stone will affect the percentage of the wager each attacker will get. Damage dealt by clans that had not issued a challenge against the holding will not be calculated for the wager distribution neither for deciding which clan gets the holding. So for example if clan-A that had active challenge does 20% damage, clan-B does 10% and clan-C, that had not issued a challenge, does the remaining 70%, the holding will pass to clan-A and clan-C would not be entitled to any of the wager money.
If all the attackers’ siege stones are destroyed or the challenge times out while the clan stone still stands then the defenders have won and they will be receiving all the wager money.
Some more things that are under consideration include restricting the use of small siege stones to hamlet sieges, and medium and large siege stones to city sieges. This will make hamlets more accessible to smaller clans as larger clans will not be able to bind as many of their members to them or benefit from the increased hit points of the medium and large ones.

We are also considering adding a variable grace period to holdings where no one will be able to declare siege on them. This grace period will be applied after a challenge has been completed and its length will depend on the outcome of the challenge. If the holding has just been successfully conquered by a clan, the grace period will be longer, allowing the new owners to settle in, rebuild and enjoy the fruits of the labours for a little while before having to defend. If the city is successfully defended then the grace period will be quite shorter.

Finally, this new siege system will bring with it a new database that will be storing all information that has to do with sieges. Every detail will be stored from who challenged whom, and when, to specifics like which clan did how much damage to a clan stone during which siege. This will help us with fine tuning the system once it goes live and we may also provide some way for players to check out holding ownership history and the like.

As you can see the new system brings substantial changes to how sieges work, and will not only eliminate issues like self-sieging, but will also make sieges a lot more strategic, profitable and interesting.

Your feedback on what we’ve posted here is, as always, greatly appreciated.
Thanks for reading.

Darkfall Official Blog - Media Sneak Peek 3

In today’s sneak peek we have another video for you. There’s a little bit of new in quite a few things that you will see. New dungeon and new lighting system that you have already seen but also a new monster, and a new armor model. New Yssam Dungeon

Darkfall Official Blog - Update and Q&A

Today we have some questions gathered from the Q&A posted in the community. These were answered by Elias, one of our designers, and by George, one of our programmers who are involved with the specific topics in the questions selected. Before we go into these, please allow me to address a couple of issues:
Wipe speculation: We addressed this, to the extent of our knowledge of the topic, during our last activity report when it was brought up by some members of the community in relation to Darkfall’s relaunch. This is not an issue for the present, but you wouldn’t know it looking at our forums. Furthermore the speculation and discussion about the possibility of a wipe is based on the current Darkfall status and facts. We haven’t wiped the server and we wouldn’t do it as things are now, so discussing this is pointless.
We’ll ask you to be patient a little longer until we give you all the facts on “Darkfall 2.0″ and we can have a discussion on a great number of topics, including this one.
We also read around the Internet about Darkfall going free-to-play: Rumor has it that if you start a sentence with “rumor has it…” you can say pretty much anything you want. Not true.
Also, don’t miss: this Saturday, there’s a Darkfall event taking place on both servers.
On with the Q&A questions:
Q: Originally Posted by gipsi: Are you considering the idea of limiting the potential for some types of spells such as launch, wall of force, stormblast, telekinesis (prevent to overcome the city walls with a click) and to lower the cost of warkulks to use them actively during the attack, all to make the defense a real defense, and attack a real attack?
A: (George) Yes, making city walls more meaningful is a big priority for us. We are working on many things that when combined will seriously improve the defenses of a city, and one of them is the better management of the potential of the physics spells. We are really determined to make siege machinery such as warhulks and cannons a lot more useful.
A: (Elias) Even more, with the redesign of spells, skills and magic schools we will try to give a boost to the cooperation of more than one players combining different spells / skills and roles to achieve the desired result.


Q: Originally Posted by Aristos: Will the subject of actual character personalization be re-addressed for the expansion? As of now, there are very few choices to pick from in terms of armor and weapons. There’s hardly any room for actual personalization.
A: (Elias) The combat gamelogic and all the gear / skills / spells have already and are still being redesigned in order to offer the players many viable gameplay choices and combinations.
Q: Originally Posted by Aristos: Will we ever see a more flexible crafting system where we can truly create original armor/weapons?
A: (George) Yes! The new crafting system is a complete overhaul.
A: (Elias) We put a lot of effort into making crafting more balanced and more interesting. Expect many changes on this one.
Q: Originally Posted by k4ts0u: Will you ever change the game mechanics like surges and fizzles???
A: (George) Both of these mechanics have been reworked. We will reveal more details when we properly present the gameplay changes.
Q: Originally Posted by topets123: Will there be a limit of buffs that can be used on players through the magic school chosen or will it continue like now that everybody can use
all buffs?
A: (George) There are new spell trees and new rules on how different magic schools can be combined. On top of that, we concentrated on reworking the buffs (and the debuffs). So you can be sure that it won’t “continue like now”.
Q: Originally Posted by Master Isaac: Will we ever see a rework of the melee AOE bringing melee AoE in line with magic AoE adjustments?
A: (George) We are determined to make the melee-focused player more viable. This includes many changes, but bringing more melee AoE is not one of them. On the other hand, you should expect that a magic-focused player capable of casting powerful AoE spells will have other disadvantages.

Q: Originally Posted by lokerrt: Will the changes to armor, weapons, and staffs render all old items completely useless, as before, or do you plan to introduce the salvage skill simultaneously with those changes?
A: (George) A new salvage skill will be available and it will play an important role in crafting.
A: (Elias) New materials and material combinations will be available as well to work in conjunction with the salvaging/dissolving skill.
Q: Originally Posted by martyn1987: Will race weapons have there crafting mats added to the game to be farmed?
A: (Elias) Top rank gear is being redesigned with everything else and thus will be in the game more often than it is now. However, it may not be race gear per se as we only have 6 races and many more gear types.
Q: Originally Posted by SgFg: Are you planning to bring in armor dyes/guild emblems/city flags/cloaks/tabards or something soon?
A: (Elias) We’d love to and really pushing for that direction. We’re waiting to find out the impact this has on game performance, which is our number 1 concern.
As always, thank you for reading.

Darkfall Event: The ancient scrolls

Deep under the sands of Rubaiyat, in the tomb of a long forgotten royal subject of Ur-Khamset, a group of tomb raiders came upon a number of leather bound scroll cases. Inside many of these dusty cases, crumbling pieces of parchment were found. Most were too damaged to reveal any of their secrets. However, some were in good enough condition to be barely legible!

Maps marked with a red X, mayhaps even leading to ancient treasures. The raiders planned to use the maps to reveal whatever treasures could be noted by the red markings. However, it seems that Ur-Khamset takes the defiling of his subjects tombs all too seriously. The curses scrolled along the dusty walls of the crypts were more than mere decoration! One by one the hapless raiders perished under mysterious and, more often than not, quite gruesome circumstances. The last one sold all the maps to the Acolytes, hoping the curse would pass him over and on to them. He was wrong…

However the Acolytes surmise that the curse affects only those who defiled the tomb itself. Hungry for knowledge of what the maps may reveal, the Acolytes require the brave men and women of Agon to go and explore the marked locations and report back any unusual objects that they may find. Depending on what they are, a reward will be offered. Any ordinary items can be kept by the treasure hunter.

This is a Darkfall dynamic event that will be taking place on Saturday, July 16th on both servers. For the EU server the event will take place at 8 pm CEST and for the NA server at 8 pm CDT. At those times, map images will be provided and the hunt will begin. The event will not be using the gameplay mechanics for treasure hunting so shovels will not be required. You might want to bring some siege equipment along though. To inform the Acolytes of your findings a simple reply to the thread with the images of the maps will suffice.

Darkfall Official Blog - Media Sneak Peek 2

It’s time for another sneak peek. Today we have a video for you that shows the new Chain Mail armor. Filming had to be cut short due to unforeseen circumstances…

Check the video by clicking here.

Darkfall Official Blog - Darkfall 2.0

During last week’s activity report we spoke of a relaunch for Darkfall. We had talked about major changes to the game in the past using various internal terms such as Darkfall 2010 and Darkfall Arena. So let me explain a bit more about this:

We started with the changes we had in mind for Darkfall, from all the lessons learned since the game went live and in the process we delivered 3 expansions, and more than 60 updates. About a year ago, we decided that we should branch out development and build a new game out of the one we had. This was in order to better implement the major changes we had in mind.It is not a sequel, it’s version 2.0. It’s a very ambitious project, and it’s the product of more than 2 years of lessons learned and evolving the game, and a full year of development with a much larger team than we had for Darkfall. No aspect of the game has been left untouched. It’s very much a new game, but at the same time it’s the next chapter to the game we’re currently playing.

There were concerns about wipes: We’ve considered wipes on various levels, however these are important decisions because while this is like a new game, it’s still the continuation of the current one. Also, the way things will work in the new version, it would not be as necessary to wipe, but wiping would also not be as drastic as it would be in the current version. This is a topic we’ll open up for discussion after we’ve given you more information on the new version of the game, so you can understand all the parameters involved.
There were also questions about having to pay for the relaunch version, and the answer is no if you’ve already bought Darkfall. Active subscribers will have priority in playtesting and in a developer interaction group about the new game. They will also participate in the major events that conclude the first chapter of Darkfall. The ending of the first chapter is the reason we’re bringing the relaunch version of the siege system to the current version. We expect quite a few people that have taken a break from the game to return for the exciting ending of the first chapter and the beginning of the new version.

About an ETA for this, as I mentioned in the last activity report, we’ll know more in August. As far as development goes, the major tasks are almost concluded, however there’s quite a bit of internal testing, balancing and polishing left.

I hope this clears things up a bit more, we’ll follow up with more details on the new version, as these become available.
Thank you for reading.

Darkfall Official Blog - Media Sneak Peek

Media Sneak Peek is a new blog entry that we will be starting today. The goal is to provide one media file, be it concept art, screenshot, render, video or picture, as often as possible. What we want to achieve with this is to provide you with some extra insight on what we are working on as well as behind the scenes looks at the office. Sometimes we may just post something with the goal of seeing if it makes sense without any explanation and sometimes we may provide explanation of what we show, or request your feedback.

Keep in mind that due to the nature of this blog entry, the Art department may be presented more often than other things. Still, we will try and give you insight on other department’s work by posting videos.

Today’s image is something that was presented to the team on Thursday during the sprint meeting. As we have already mentioned, a lot of monsters are getting revamped and new ones are being created. The Jungle Stomper will be a monster exclusive to Yssam. As you can see the model was based on the Granite Golem and it was adjusted in the concept phase to fit the area it will inhabit. Finally you can see a 3D render of the monster. Click on the image to see the full size.

Darkfall Official Blog - Activity Report July 1st

The sprint meeting took place yesterday and we presented our work and development progress to our peers. There was a film crew present that was getting footage for the making of a documentary. We’re also very happy to have one of our comrades back who was out due to health issues for almost 2 months and was sorely missed.

Before we go into the sprint meeting details, please allow me to address a few points of concern we’ve noticed within the community:

1. The Political Map we were going to launch in February, was not launched for the following reasons: Firstly, the world has changed so much due to the relaunch activities, that we need to wait for everything to be in place. Also, it is no longer just a political map, it is a complete information interface and contains everything inside the Darkfall world. Finally it has been enhanced with many more features. It’s a very powerful tool, which we are still working on and we think it will definitely be worth the wait. We apologize for not mentioning this change of plans specifically, this was an oversight. The mention of an ETA for the political map should have been followed up.

2. The new Siege System Expansion: Is still being tested and (re-)balanced. It’s a massive framework with numerous parameters and it’s taking time. I can tell you that our testers think it’s awesome and that it’s going to improve the experience in a big way. Some more info on the Siege system and a GUI element from it is available in today’s Activity Report. As for an ETA, I’m told it should be out within the month.

3. The Darkfall relaunch: First an ETA: Development should be completed sometime in August and we should know around that time when we’re going to release it and we’ll give out a release date and all the details. This relaunch is not an expansion. It’s a new game we’ve been developing in parallel with the current version of Darkfall. The scope is massive, and it has been difficult to stay on schedule after several unexpected issues we’ve had with the current version, changes and additions we decided to make for the new version, some business developments, and the decision to add the siege system into this version of the game rather than in the relaunch. There are shifting priorities having to do with business issues for this relaunch, and another part being some Asian developments we also need to take into consideration. We can assure you that everything we’re doing in this regard is in the best interest of our players and of Darkfall, and that the relaunch of the game will be very exciting for everyone.
Finally, we try to give you estimates based on our best information at any given time. This is done with the understanding that this is a dynamic environment and that priorities shift every day based on feedback from the live game and from the development process. We understand the frustration of being a player waiting for things to change. We’ve been there, and this is exactly why we’re moving forward with a complete redesign of the game incorporating the lessons learned from the current version, rather than just keep patching up this version. Please know that we are very hard at work trying to make Darkfall the best it can possibly be. We apologize for the inevitable inaccuracies in trying to predict the stages of our development cycle, but we feel it’s better than “it’s done when it’s done”.

On to the sprint meeting:
The redesign of the world continues and the designers and the worldbuilding team has been working long hours. Starting areas and NPC cities have been redesigned in a way to make them practical and easy to navigate while also improving aesthetically. We were presented details on the completed central area spawns and dungeons complexes, also of Yssam, Nifleheim, Rubaiyat and Cairn’s details having to do with dungeons, spawn redistribution and hamlets. We were also shown localized versions of monsters and monster types to suit the variety of the environments of Agon, as well as some of the completely redesigned epic monster lairs and new epic monsters. These were some really amazing details and designs.
Dungeons have continuously evolved to the point that aside of the redesigns, mob placement, new lights and environmental effects, there are also new mechanics introduced. A few nice examples were presented during the meeting: A character navigating a bridge in a massive cavern was trying to avoid massive ice spikes coming out of the walls with Yetis waiting below. Dungeons are no longer static. Doors open and close to protect boss rooms, walls shift to change the dungeon layout, shifting rocks and other contraptions will hinder progress, and various trap types will be sprung on the unsuspecting players.
The new audio system is still receiving enhancements. We’ve noticed complaints on how some of this is boring to read about, however, this audio is really exciting and innovative, and more importantly it’s designed with Darkfall’s unique gameplay characteristics specifically in mind. The music system for example is geared to enhance player immersion and isn’t something repetitive players will turn off right away. Music isn’t constant, but dynamically shifts depending on location and time of day. Day/night cycle related sounds and the dynamic weather audio system has been finalized and the quest sound notification system is also complete. The reverb effect in enclosed spaces is fully implemented and tweaked, and it makes a big difference in how these spaces feel to the player. A new system that allows us to add specific sounds to monsters and wildlife is being developed. Sounds will differ on the state the monster is in and will reflect that state. Finally audio morphing which deals with distortion having to do with player movement, is now implemented. We saw/listened to several impressive demonstrations of these systems.
The new Information Interface we spoke of above, has been getting more optimized, detailed, accurate, practical and helpful with each new build. The latest additions allow us to implement any type of marker faster and more efficiently. There are more zoom levels now that allow you to zoom in all the way to highly detailed images of individual cities.
Also the siege system we spoke of above: As we mentioned in previous updates this is a complete rewrite of the siege system. On our end it’s a siege system tool with numerous configurable parameters. There’s now a new button in the main menu named “Conquest”. This opens up a new window which lists all active attacking and defensive activities a player’s involved in. Right now, there’s no limit on how many challengers can declare a siege on the same holding at the same time. Each clan though pays a higher wager depending on how late it joins in an active challenge, how many clans are involved in the specific challenge, and how many challenges the clan has issued. As you can understand the system is completely open allowing for a single clan to declare siege on multiple holdings and multiple besiegers to contest for the same holding, all that at the same time. When it comes to attackers, scores are calculated depending on clan stone damage and in case the stone is destroyed the city will pass to whichever of the active
 challengers that dealt the most damage.

 

The siege system is currently undergoing extensive testing: Challenge initiation, multi-attackers, multi-defenders, siege stone placement, clan size limits, challenge end scenarios and the new conquest interface are all tested and working properly. Wagers paid, wager penalties , wager division, and wall destruction are currently being tested.
The lighting system got some more enhancements, some final adjustments and some issues solved. The blood decals system got more enhancements and the blood splatter effects look really good. All new armors are now in the game and so are their icons and we heard about challenges in refitting everything. Also, 5 percent of the world’s coastline needs to be redone and we have a new vendor creation system in place which allows us to customize vendors even more.

Finally, some of Darkfall’s resources were not loaded asynchronously. A new system is now in place which will fix this and alleviate load lag experienced in various situations.
There’s a lot more that was presented during our sprint presentation meeting and we keep telling you about things we’ve seen and heard, without actually showing you most of them. The reason for this is that these are usually not presentable enough for public consumption, they are developer presentations for utility purposes. However, we’ve decided to start showing you media from our sprint presentations from now on, as long as you can keep these disclaimers in mind. Today we have a video for you of a test of some of the latest additions to the lighting system, and a siege system GUI element. We’ll show more during the course of next week.
Thank you for reading.

[PvP Short Vid] Xzyzz - asdadasd

10v10 Zagenda vs SUN, destroyer PoV.



Finale epico x)

Darkfall Official Blog - Update & Dungeon Q&A questions

Our Sprint presentation will be held next week, and we expect to present our progress to you then. In the meanwhile we’ll give you a small update on some of the questions you’ve asked on the forums and a small presentation on the work we’re doing with dungeons.
There were a few questions about our trip to Asia. To address some of these, I’ll say that we went there after we were invited to meet with several of the Asian majors. There is great interest in Darkfall for Asia. To suit the Asian markets, Darkfall would need to be localized and there would need to be some co-development along with our Asian partners. This will be good for the game overall since we’d be tapping into some vast development resources. Unfortunately I can’t be more specific but there will be announcements when we can.
There were also some concerns about the financial crisis in Greece and how this might affect Aventurine. It doesn’t directly. Darkfall is an international product and we do not depend on the Greek market. We are experiencing delays with various requests and processes but nothing critical yet. If the situation in Greece were to start affecting the company, there are many alternative options available to us.

There were some questions on our new dungeons. The philosophy behind these improvements has to do with a campaign to improve existing features and this is a theme you’ll see throughout our development planning.  There is a lot of work being done on the new dungeons, and we feel that these dramatic improvements will provide many new and meaningful gameplay options: 

 
Originally Posted by apocalisse
A year ago you gave us a couple updated dungeons and promised that many more were coming shortly.Where did they get lost?
 
They didn’t get lost, there is a lot of work needed to be done and done properly. This, of course, included many more aspects than simply the world-building part of development. The new Central Dungeons, for example, will consist of 4 different main areas. Depending on which way you choose to go through you will end up in one of  four areas and face one of the four main bosses. In addition to the unique boss fight, each area has their own theme, lore, quests, design and concepts. The way to the main areas will also offer several challenges as players have to beat and evade several different types of traps and obstacles.
The new chests in these advanced dungeons will very much be worth the time and effort, we’ve made sure of that.
One of the rooms will have the Demon Queen as main boss. Players will fight on a big spider web like structure. Adventurers will also have to find the way to actually get to the area and find a way to enter the web itself. For the ones of you who are familiar with the Movie “Krull” you might get some fond memories while exploring this specific area of the Central Dungeon.

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Here are a few concepts of the “Dark Bridge” a part of the Central Dungeon. A black knight area the player has to fight his way through in order to proceed further:

 

 

 

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Originally Posted by Tibernicus
Is the new dungeon on Cairn Kasdim?/will we ever get to see that Chal d’Ean dungeon with all the cool artifacts?

  The new dungeon is not Kasdim (yet). There are plans in the making that will finally unearth the Chal d’Ean‘s own important storyline and dungeon. They will tie together many elements, including the last bastion of Kasdim, the presence of the fire dragon in that area, and much more!
We can, however, show you some screenshots of the Cairn Dungeon that is hosting an intricate Labyrinth, you will have to fight and find your way through to get through to the main boss of the area.

Community Q&A: Armor System and Balancing

This week we’ll answer some important questions asked by the community on Darkfall’s official forum. We selected a batch of connected questions for today having to do with the new armor and specialization systems.

• Originally Posted by bmfof: Can we get an explanation on how exactly will the new armor system works, with actual examples?
• Originally Posted by Melkorus: Can you provide us with real and factual examples of prestige class AND specialized armor?

We can talk about the goals we had creating the new armor and specialization system:

• More diversity: There shouldn’t be a single role (e.g., hybrid) that dominates all others. Our goal was to make all roles viable in PvP.  A player that wants to be a fighter, for example, should have a fair chance to win versus a mage.
• Reduce the power gap: it shouldn’t take a very long time to be viable in PvP.  If a player focuses on a single role, he should be able to excel in that role in a specific time-frame. A more experienced player could be able to excel in multiple roles but he will not be able to utilize all of them simultaneously. This will help level the playing field.
• Consistency with basic Darkfall principles: players will still be able to freely select, change and combine roles. The difference now is that there are trade-offs: each choice will have a consequence; each advantage will also have a disadvantage.

Your play-style depends on the type of armor you have on and on the main base attribute that you choose to boost with specific title enhancements. Getting titles, how you use them, and how they work is different than it is today.
There will be distinct play styles, among them obvious ones such as melee, archer, magic, but there are also more like for example being a defensive tank. Hybridization will be possible by wearing a type of armor (heavy,medium,robe) and mixing a base attribute to boost e.g. medium armor + strength might work out for a one handed weapon and archery hybrid.
You will be able to boost one base attribute past its current limit through the title.  There is a prerequisite base attribute value for usage of armors and weapons. Armor types block opposing spells and/or skills and/or special skills.
We are also experimenting with special exception slots where you could select one of the blocked skills or spells to become available in your arsenal. Of course this wouldn’t work at the magnitude it would for a fully specialized character. Each play-style might also be enhanced with new special abilities and skills in order to be viable against other styles.
BALANCING
A lot of spells and relevant skills, also passive skills/spells will be gone. Magic schools are  completely redesigned by moving spells around, re-balancing their strength and usage and adding new spells. There are now distinct roles for specific magic schools.

• Originally Posted by bobii: Is the staff magnitude-to-damage scaling ever going to get fixed?
  
  • Yes, it’s fixed as a part of the overall balance work we’ve been doing for the game.

• Originally Posted by Bomanz: You have stated nearly a year ago (see my question in the last Q &A) that a game wide balance evaluation was being conducted, examining the above issues. What are the conclusions of this evaluation, and are we going to see this content balanced and made useful in the next expansion?
  
  • Most of the work done on the overall balance is based on information from the evaluation you mention concluded back then. There have been more evaluations since then taking into account parts of the game that have changed, and these have been taken into consideration during the overall re-balancing of the game.

• Originally Posted by screw loose: What are your views on Wall of Force, fire knock-ups, and bunny-hopping?
  
  • We like physics in Darkfall and the freedom they give players to find fun and interesting ways of using them. We also think that some mechanics like bunny-hopping should be adjusted: It’s a fun way of using physics but we never intended for players on foot to be able to keep up with mounts. All three of the points mentioned in the question above are being rebalanced.

• Originally Posted by Sarphus: A while ago an AV rep said there would be new spells in the expansion. Can we have some examples?
  
  • We’ll get back to you on this with a proper presentation for the new spells. Please allow us to skirt the question for the time being.

• Originally Posted by bongloads: Fire has been the premiere elemental spell-circle choice since launch. It used to be the only spell circle with complete animations and it also did the most damage, now it’s the only elemental with secondary effects (air’s gimped version of knockup doesn’t count… it’s an ineffectively scaled copy-paste of fire; it barely does anything). Are there any plans to attempt to balance elemental spell schools, by adding secondary effects to water, fire, lightning
  
  • Yes, absolutely. We’ve given value to all the schools, each has its’ role in the game. As we mention above, spells are more distinct, more specialized and more role-focused than before.

• Originally Posted by MillionAlts: Will the farming to fighting ratio ever be addressed? Not necessarily for the best gear, but many players feel that the ratio is way out for “everyday / every player” gear
  
  • Yes, this is a big part of what we have been working on. Redistributing of locations, quest  rewards, loot, all these points and more are being changed with this concern in mind. The goal is to considerably reduce the daily prep time for your character to join the action.

• Originally Posted by Trismagistus: Do you have a time-frame when some of the spells in game will be readdressed such as healing chant, tornado, arcane damage, and earthquake for usefulness?
  
  • When the overall balancing will start being implemented. All spells have been readdressed.  We’re trying to get prioritized items into the game as soon as possible, as they become available.

• Originally Posted by schlock: Will one-handed melee ever be viable? If so, how do you plan on doing that? We feel that the balance and importance between the different play styles is not like we want them to be.
  
  • We spoke above on the armor specialization. You can excel at using one-handed melee to the point where you should be able to compete with other play-styles. Combined with a shield and a new mechanic for blocking , you will be very viable within the constraints of the melee specialty, since there are trade-offs to be made.

• Originally Posted by Liquid20: When will you balance the melee weapons so that they are all viable? Currently, 90% of the server uses greatswords.
  
  • Like the spells, every weapon type has been rebalanced.

• Originally Posted by Darkfiend#billy: Right now, the magic system is developed in a way that your character must master multiple schools in order to be competitive in PvP encounters. Are there any plans to make deep specializations in one specific school (possibly via prestige classes) such as Earth/Fire/Air/Water mage to add diversity and particular focus into one school of magic at the expense of others?
  
  • This is being looked at. For the time being we’re working on properly balancing all the schools and spells. You can still specialize as a support or an offensive mage by boosting your wisdom or your intelligence respectively.

We’ll follow-up with answers to more questions the community is asking on the forums sometime next week.

Thank you in advance for your questions, comments, and feedback.

Darkfall Official Blog - Activity Report 3rd of June 2011

This week, we still have some of our people in Asia while the rest of the team is here working hard on new features for the expansion and improving existing features as well.

Your input on our questions towards the siege system has been processed and is being taken into consideration and testing. Thank you very much for all the feedback!

That also means we would like to add a bit of additional information and new questions to the discussion:
The fact that a challenge can be joined by any one during the first phase obviously bears the question as to who will get the wager in the end. Right now there are several options we are taking into consideration. After some more testing over the weekend we will get back to you with more info and feedback requests for this specific part.

One thing we already asked you about was the minimum amount of active players a clan should have in order to issue an attack.

We will also check how many members a specific clan has DURING an attack and make sure that this number doesn’t fall below a certain amount. Only the amount of clan members will be checked and not the amount of members that are actually online during the siege. With this knowledge what numbers do you think would be fitting? What differentiation should there be between attacking a hamlet and attacking a city?

Another point that we would like your feedback on is what you think the maximum amount of possible attackers on the same clan should be. Obviously we know that you are not in favor of the 1 siege per clan rule which means we added the option to freely customize this from our side to any number we see fit.

Our current plan for the new siege mechanics is to have them live within a month. Obviously, everything depends on testing and internal QA. Once the system is live with the settings we deem right, we will be monitoring your feedback on it closely and adjust the settings as necessary.
We also realize some of you were wondering about the Bi-Weekly Chaos Chests News Summary. They are not gone, but we are currently streamlining and reorganizing them internally. On this topic, we always get a lot of complaints about the political part of the Chests and are still very dependent on players willing to report on them. If you are interested and willing to work with us on this part, please feel free to contact any of the Liaisons on the forums.

In a rough overview we also mentioned that the PvE content is being worked on for Darkfall Arena – in that regard we would like to give you a bit more information about the new PvE Dungeons:
Each continent will have their own themed dungeon. All of them are huge and have different areas that you need to traverse. Doing this, however, leaves you with choices as to which way to go and which challenges to face. The way you choose will not only determine the opponents you have to fight and the rewards you’ll get, but it will also present different challenges that come with the terrain and the areas you need to travel through. Let’s take the main Cairn Dungeon as an example:  Minotaurs are some of the main inhabitants of this area and in order to get through this challenging location, you will also have to find your way through a labyrinth area. Other dungeons have similar challenges that are fitting with the themes and inhabitants.

We are also reworking the concept of risk versus reward for a lot of the monster encounters and taking this into special consideration for the new dungeons as well.

PvP Content is being worked on as well and will be introduced gradually leading up to the actual Expansion. These new features are not only coming from our own designs but we also monitor the suggestion forums closely and often take ideas from the community as a base to develop from. The idea here is that we will build on existing, frequently used features and rethink existing ones that either will get improved/balanced or removed due to them no longer deemed fitting.
The next patch will also, among other things, include fixes to things the community has been asking for, such as addressing the tower screams, timers for the NA Sea Towers and timers for zoning in and out of dungeons.

And to finish this short overview we leave you with one of many new denizens of Agon that you will encounter sooner or later!

Crafty as a fox on fire, Imps are the yes-men of hell.  They have recently arrived on Agon to take their place as the diminutive and homicidal minions of the Devils. These cunning little sycophantic creatures will swarm around their masters and support them in whatever way they can.  In return the Devils will show their gratitude by occasionally not stomping one into a bloody smear.  They have been known to eat brownies, small pebbles, and generally anything that happens to be in the immediate vicinity during a feeding frenzy.

[Vid] The days in the Life of a Lars conwall

Video utile per capire come raidare una città.

[PvP Vid] Umberto Finito - PvP #9

[PvP Vid] Try Hard - PvP Post-Server-Move Volume Dos

Darkfall Official Blog - Patch Notes May 27th, 2011

Due to patching the maintenance on both servers will be extended by 2 hours to an overall downtime of estimated 3 hours.

The patch has much more impact coding wise then the patch notes would imply thus the longish downtime.

Patch notes:

• Changed mechanics after recalling/teleporting from a lawless to a lawful area. You will no longer get attacked by guard towers and your rogue status will be cleared.
• Corrected and cleaned-up messages related to entering and leaving lawless/lawful areas. On screen notification display of said messages has also been adjusted.

Additionally, some of our team members are currently residing in Asia to meet with potential business partners. For this reason today’s activity report will be postponed until next week.

Thanks for your patience.

Poker di siege NoCry vs [SUN] vs Eclipse

I NoCry hanno siegiato Oethrain, in risposta i SUN hanno counter-siegiato Tiquiya (Server Up).

Inoltre ci saranno due siege in serata su Spear Waters e Bladethorpe, i SUN cercano di riprendersi gli hamlet già conquistati e venduti dagli Eclipse.

Darkfall Official Blog - Darkfall Siege Mechanics and Values Balancing Feedback

Today we’d like to involve you in some of our work with the new siege system. As we mentioned in the previous activity report, the new siege system is complete and in the testing and balancing phases. We’ve already mentioned that it will end self-sieging and it will also allow multi-sieging. We also mentioned that it is completely configurable. We’re testing the functionality of it right now but the big task is getting the balance right and for this we’ll need input from Darkfall’s players.

To give you an idea behind the philosophy for the new siege system I’ll publish an excerpt from the introduction of the design document for the new siege system by one of our programmers (John) who was tasked with the rewrite:

“The primary motivation behind rewriting the siege system was to remove the self-sieging issue (which has both worlds partially locked up), by allowing multi-sieging. This is not possible in the existing system as it had been implemented throughout with the assumption of 1-on-1 sieges taking place. A complete rewrite was required. The new system has become something of an exercise in configuration, as the goal was to write a system that was as open as possible, to avoid the need for future rewrites if alterations were required. The new system has been described as “more of a tool for creating siege systems”, given the vast number of possible configuration states it allows”.

Before we solicit your feedback, let’s talk about some more changes in the basic mechanics of the new siege system:

Challenges won’t happen between two parties anymore. They can be joined by additional attackers at any time before the battle begins. This is one of the largest fundamental changes in the new system. There are many additional mechanics and a myriad of options linked to this and these will determine the difficulty for attackers and defenders to achieve their goals. Right now the thought is that the wager amount for entering a challenge after the initial attack issue of the main attacking clan, is dependent on how many additional attackers are trying to join the siege, the number of challenges the attacker has already issued, and the time that has passed in the challenge before the new attacker tried to join in.

And here are our topics for discussion for today:

1. Do you think attacking clans should have a minimum number of active players to be able to issue an attack and, if yes, how many? If “yes”, then should trial members be included in the numbers?
2. In the case of several attackers: What do you think the defenders should have to accomplish in order to win the challenge? Destroy the attacker clan stones (or siege stones), or to simply destroy siegestones placed?
3. How do you feel about the timer running out without any of the sides having accomplished their goals? Should the defenders get the chance to both keep their city AND win the wagers for a successful defense?
4. What do you think of an attacker’s city not going vulnerable automatically but the need of having to issue an actual attack on that city? (with the option for the defenders getting a free attack option without having to pay a fee).

To clarify: the siege system is finished so these values can be adjusted and tested very quickly, and will not require further development. There are virtually countless options which the new siege system allows for. We’d like to start with these 4 important points, but there are others that will follow. Additional information and important points, including topics on how we’ll determine the winners when several attacking parties are involved, will be put up for discussion in the following days.

You can share your feedback in the spotlight forum thread or in the comment section below.

Thank you in advance for you input.