Darkfall Unholly Wars isn’t a game at this point; it is software being beta tested. I say this not to dis the game, I knew that logging in, or discourage anyone I say it because of those of you who are expecting to log in and play a game – will be disappointed at best. There are a lot of little things that define it as software being beta tested not a game.

For instance:
Log in times (with drops and retrying) longer than many people’s play time, most people’s attention spans. (Ok, nothing new here I can remember it in uo at times but that was years ago at 56K, I get 28mg down today I expect more)

Empty bank each time you log in. (crash or not). No collecting items, no evidence of gaining skills (that may require accruing regs which I can’t keep).

I could never see crafting tools where ever I got them, a chest or purchased them, although I could see the messages saying I bought them and my weight increasing, as well as my gold decreasing.

Haven’t been able to figure out how to skin a corpse (or see the skinning knife as previously mentioned)

The UI is strange but I am not sure bad, just something to learn. Not able to play or do enough to learn to love/hate it.
PvP isn’t even on my horizons.. Have heard of it, but doubt I would call it PvP considering it may have been some kid getting killed with some screen he doesn't have access to locked and being unable to move (I died to mobs x2 that way).

No accumulating pixels in the bank, no skill gain, the only purpose is enjoy the moment hang out and explore and look.
I suggest we go in low key wait for them to finish and secure our place. Our seasoned vets looking hit the ground running and dominate will not have a warm and fuzzy experience here today.

Starting out on a brand new toon you have a "tool bag" that has one of each tool type. You also get a portal shard so that you can port to an outlying area if you choose to.

Stats are gained and saved although inventories are not. (a ding sound and a message in the top left of your screen informs you of a stat/skill gain.)

I put a total of 18 hours into the beta so far playing each role and using each skill. Range is hard to play on the high ping but you can do it. (staff to 32, archery to 21, great axe to 26) I went to the southern bindstone of ice island after sitting in the northern most elfland starter city and farmed the bandit camp.

I even had a guy on a mount try to PK me so I jumped in the water until he decided to quit chasing me. (mounts still swim for free)

How do you access this tool bag? Although without it being stored in the bank there is not much point.


Also I do remember seeing such a bag... but put it in the bank for safety. :)

It appears that you flip a coin anytime you log out, or crash (in the current 12/20/2012 build); lose the coin toss and you log back in without anything in your bank, as well as losing everything but the basic weapons from your inventory as well...tools included. Fun, fun, fun!

How do you portal somewhere else? Too many people in the starting areas for me.

I think you have to follow the tutorial thing on the left to make the barriers disappear, the last one instructs you to follow the path to find leather huts or something, I was bored, wandered, saw a cave with mobs went in it. At the bottom is the portal, underneath a dragon. There are lots of things to use as cover to get to the portal.

You'll end up in your racial capital.

You actually get a portal stone when you start the game that allows you to port to someone on your friends list. To bad that everything gets wiped when you log/crash so you lose it.

It wiped this morning and with my new character I was able to put something in the bank and it was there when I relogged. But that doesn't tell me if the bug is fixed or just not happening with my new character, as it didn't happen to my eu character before.

I just read someone say they lost their stuff after a crash....

bleh ill play very casual until this software test is more stable im not putting effort into anything. i have the same problems ismash does ive managed to kill a few ediots but anyone not wanting to die can jus run. warriors r super tanks when geared with even shitty gear. magic missile is useless in pvp dont waste ur time the players regen faster then u can kill them with it. range combat is hard mode big time fuck it ill just hide behind shit and hit people with 2h swords.
melee wayy over powered but towards the end of dfo it was melee that was on top anyways.
ive been chased by a few players i was on mjy mount the other night and 2 dudes almost took my mount on with archery. so archery will have its day again but b more for those twitch players with amazing skills. hehe anyways game is a fucken bug crash fest and the world is empty of content so no point in doint anything other then killing people.

Blah...all my inventory / tools / bank are gone after a normal logout earlier today. I'll be playing very infrequently until they get that fixed. Hard to ever get anywhere when I lose my weapons, tools, and money every time I log out. Hehehehe.

Getting into the game is A LOT easier. There are some lag issues, but at least now the game is stable enough to play and really test things. It seems to be getting better everyday, even though logging off or crashing can lead to your bank being wiped. But we have over came that and seem to have taken care of and figured out how to work around some issues.

The game is still grindy as shit. I'm out.

Arkh I am worried about this going back to an afk macroer grind game. If it is I won't be playing past launch.


But right now the login issues are fixed and everyone can get in the game. Right now they are having desync issues that get progressively worse the longer the server is up, memory leak maybe? Once they get that nailed down and really fix the persistence issue with people's inventory and personal bank we can start to test the systems.

There will be multiple wipes so don't get too attached to anything. We are using the clan banks to offset the personal bank issue but inventories lost on crashes can be frustrating, don't carry stuff you don't have to drop it in the clan bank.

We had some great fights right after the last wipe with a 4 vs 7 at a chaos bank where they hit us the moment Mor was trying to form the clan. We actually beat them as a couple hours old nubs.

i dunno how much your going to macro grind past the 4 or 5 general spells just to get them higher i was running a loop on 3 spells last night to grind em up while running around for chaos chests

past that and crafting 100 swords at a time im unsure where afk macroing will come into play.
i thought they made blood walls ect not usefull anymore in df1 by removing exp gains from hitting the same player over and over or something its been years tho i could be imagining it

What they did was make experience gains 6X more on mobs. But the really is you can beat on somebody in safety more in the same period of time than constantly re-gearing trying to level on mobs. But blood walls did die when they increased gains on mobs. What really stopped it was everybody got maxed, than your finger speed/aim is the only thing that matters (both of which I suck at).

I personalty would rather macro than put in more hours than I have to give farming mobs. Grinding has been with us since the first mmo... I grinded several 7X in pac... maybe one ore two before I ever used a macro or razor, any thing like that.

i could not agree more

There will still be some sort of grind with it. But it won't be near as bad as DF1. I'm already in the 40's with the Greatsword, that's while fighting through some crashes. You hit mobs outside the protected area's and the gains seem to be really good. So there is some sort of reward for the risk now it seems. The Beta is still shaky, so the more they work through the bugs the better it should be. Right now it's tough to say how launch will be, they could change some things either for the better or the worst. We will have to wait for launch to see how it will be then.

My game philosphy is this: you can have grind for a lot of things (quests, crafting, building cities, cool looking shit).
But not for PvP things. I won't pay a monthly fee for a game where a jobless living from other people money has the advantage because he can play 20 hours per day while I have a couple hours. Fuck this.
I don't want to pay for a game where I can't tell a friend "try this game, I'll give you some items and you'll be settled to kick ass".

I stopped playing any MMO between SB and DFO1. I have no problem playing 0 MMO for years if none implements what I like.

i think any mmo will be like that honestly
some people have no life some people do
only way to get away from having the advantage from time played is battlefield esque where u start with a standard setup but even thats changing and you have to unlock shit in those games by playing
but pretty much every game online is based off time played for rewarding skills weapons ect
i dont see a way around that and i dont see it changing.

If any of you are reading the beta boards there are many vets crying bitter tears over the "dumbing down" and "slowness" of combat. These are the same people who are uber in every game; they have the time, money, and inclination to put into the game. They discover broken mechanics and exploit them- remember when you could fire all your rays at the same time? Remember how some guilds had seemingly infinite amounts of money a week after launch?
I have a family, and will not be putting that much time, money, and effort into the game. I will play it every chance I get, however, because there is nothing else out there like it.
It's not for everyone- you need to have a high threshold for self-abuse. But when you down one of the ubers it makes up for the 30 times you got killed.

I think the new combat system is going to reward teamwork and group composition much more than the old system.

If you decide you want to play one class and not craft, you are going to have like 15 skills to "grind". Each additional class you pick is going to add like 8 more skills- there is a bit of overlap. From what I've seen, the skills level up pretty quick. You can probably do it in half the time it takes to get a WoW toon to 85- maybe less than half. If that sounds like too much, I would not recommend playing. To me, it sounds wonderful.

Don't worry about the elite- they will always be elite. If you chose to play any competitive game, you will encounter them.

I agree with you Morlander, a lot of older people or people our age think they are entitled to a game of pwning people, truth is you will always have to earn those abilities, and if you can't then either you are doing it wrong or have lost the edge to work at competing against the kids that play. It's called perseverance and determination and some people lack that motivation and drive. I am getting repeatedly owned by BR 30-65's from other Factions in PS2 and I know I am behind the curve, but I refuse to let the game or those playing it beat me, and when I do stick it to someone it's that much sweeter. Every game will be this way there is no old timers retirement mmo/mog so remove that thought if you want to continue gaming online, or play your Xbox the choice is yours.

SB dominated every other game in toon development. You could have a max lvl character in one day. Everything else was skill/ teamwork. I'm glad the grind will be less then df1! Anything tasos can do to make it more like SBs character development I will welcome:)

I don't play Xboxes. I play tribes or I 4 box Diablo 3.
And if I want to be competitive in some shit MMO, I'll do a simple thing: use some of the $ I get from working during the day to buy a completed toon to some kid. He'll get something like $2 per hour spent but still be happy. I won't have to lose any time doing shit tasks and be able to enjoy the end game if there's one I want to play.

DF2 has been a challenging game so far. Starting with long download of game, long wait to char creation que, long wait to login. Consistent crashes, to wait again in a long que to come back and have nothing in your bag or bank. Things have improved, but are definitely still in beta and beyond the tolerance of most.

There is nothing to enjoy in this game if you are starting with nothing in your bank or bag, and no guild. Fighting the mobs with newbie gear is a challenge for these old hands and eyes. Fighting in the starter mob areas is a race to loot, and if you are not quick, a lot of your kills loot will be lost to quicker sticky fingers.

I enjoy working as part of a team, and knowing that my play makes a difference to the group as a whole. After 2-3 days of crashes and fining my way out of the training area, I was able to join and meet up with KGB. Having access to the guild bank made all the difference in enjoyment level. I could get starter tools/equipment, and enough gold to craft, and move on. I was able to focus on the harvesting side of the game. My prowess/dominion point that are needed for guilds to claim cities/hamlets rose quickly as I gathered 200 of each item (timber/cotton/stone/iron). Once the steedgrass started to come in, I knew that I was of some assistance.

I do not mind the crafting/gathering grind. I could go afk for 15-30mins and take care of wrapping presents, dealing with family issues or play another game. I know this is not for everyone, but it was working for me.

I have always enjoyed figuring out a new game, and DF2 is no different. This game is a challenge and deserves the hardcore title. There is no tab, tab, 1 2 1 1 3 success to be had that my GW2 thief had. You actually need to aim time and hit your targets. But I enjoy a challenge, and will need to find a role that I can play in DF2 that helps the guild as a whole...

Really the only two game mechanics related things really annoying me now bank bug & wipes. Yes, I know this is beta not the game - but I want to play a game, and would happily suffer 3X as many wipes in beta if it helps the game.

dont waste any time until the wipes stop. just play casual and test things dont worry about building a toon.