I was exchanging email with a friend of mine who also happens to be in the KGB (50-50), talking about what I was hoping for from Darkfall, and I figured I'd post a part of that exchange here. I don't think 50-50 would mind.

Quote:

I can tell you have a fair amount of enthusiasm for DFO... I hope it plays out like you are hoping for.



Well, it's not so much enthusiasm for Darkfall as much as it is hopeful optimism that it won't turn out to be a big bite from yet another crap sandwich. I was very excited to start with playing SWG, WoW, Vanguard, and AoC but all of those games failed to develop any long term playability. I think this is a failure of a quest driven game design. Unless developers can supply an endless supply of quests, what is there for players to do once they hit the top levels?

Quests really break the believability of the artificial world too. When I travel around in a game like AoC or Warhammer or Wow, I feel like I'm going from room to room in a big house, even in areas that are supposed to be outdoors. Certain animals are compacted in one little area, and no other. Humanoid mobs are stuck in one spot and they don't move either. They just stand there waiting for you to come by. In between quest areas there is nothing. No animals, no monsters. Nothing. In UO, it felt more like a real world. There were animals and monsters everywhere, but they weren't clumped into little crowds. There was a more natural distribution, and it didn't feel crowded in some areas and barren in others. Orcs, for example, were more common in some areas than others, but you could encounter them more rarely just about anywhere. In the areas where they were more common, they didn't just stand around statically, though, but would wander about at random, patrolling their territory.

That is what I liked about UO - I wasn't continually running from npc to npc fulfilling quests. At first, I was busy exploring the new world that really felt like a real world while building my skills. I did have quests, but they were quests I gave to myself. The first time I entered a dungeon, I was woefully unskilled and poorly equipped, and was quickly reduced to a grease spot. Over time, as my combat skills, weapons, and armor improved, I'd go in again and again, and each time I'd get a little deeper until I'd hit a spot where I was overmatched again. It took me months to get to the bottom of my first dungeon solo, and it was a real achievement, and I didn't need an NPC quest giver to grant me any rewards in gold, xp, or gear for doing it. And the dungeons were BIG too, far larger in comparison that dungeons in WoW or other games. You could no shit get lost in a UO dungeon, even if you had been in there lot.

The accomplishment was its own reward, and because it was HARD, and it DID take me months to manage, partly because of the variability in the environment due to the open PvP design of the game, and because the dungeon became progressively harder the deeper you went. But over time, the PvP became the main part of the game, not the exploration of the world, or the killing of npcs. When you went into the dungeons (or anywhere for that matter) you were not just hunting mob's, you were mostly hunting players, and the players were by far the most challenging. NPC mobs were there for cash and supplies. PvP against other players was what made the game entertaining and fun to play.

PvP in a game like WoW or Age of Conan seems like a distraction because usually you are busy trying to finish a quest, or you are trying to find your way from one location to another, and PvP interrupts that. But you HAVE to do the quests in order to level up, so you get trapped in the level grind mentality.

Now in a game like BF1942, to use a first person shooter example, you never feel that getting attacked by another player is an interruption, because PvP in the online maps is why you are playing in the first place. You aren't there to explore the map, you are there to kill other players and capture spawn points. It helps if you are familiar with the terrain, but you learn the maps by playing solo. You play online or at a LAN party to fight other players.

This aspect of PvP is what is missing from current MMOs. UO had it at first, but lost it. ShadowBane had it, but was beset by game killing bugs and a truly crappy user interface. Other MMOs have never had it. I don't know if DarkFall will have it, but I can only hope.

If I'm lucky, my hope will be justified.

To the everlasting glory of the infantry...

Owain ab Arawn
KGB Supreme Knight
King's High Council