I played DF now for a month, and plan to continue playing, but here is my take on it:

Good:

1. It is open PvP, my first day I got PKed and my hard-earned sword was looted. Feels like home smile

2. Game is fairly complex, in a month of playing I still don't have full understanding of many nuances. It took me over a week to understand basics.

3. City and asset ownership, ship to ship combat, mounted combat...

Bad:

1. Grind. Yes, you can meditate but as newbie player you can't make enough gold on your own to really use this system. Even with meditation going at 100% you won't be able to contribute to PvP for at least couple months. Plus, even if you meditate stats and base skills you still have to macro/grind individual abilities.

2. Combat system. With FPS 'underpinnings' you expected to use range. This is ether archery or magic. Melee plays almost exactly like trying to shank someone in the open in CounterStrike, and about as successful against competent opponents. Further compounds this the fact that disables (think CC) and knock-ups (think roots) are all magic effects, you can cast while moving and melee does not have charge or snare.

3. Lack of PvP objectives. Assets are all statically fixed and are not very important/relevant. As a result main objective in PvP is to gank the other guy.

Overall - DFO has a lot of feel of UO, and was strongly inspired by it, but ultimately wrong design turns took it somewhere weird.

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