In the last article about Darkfall, we discussed some of the many features that are going to be released with Darkfall and how it would affect MMO players at best. In this article, we will be discussing the details about the recent beta announcement and the new gameplay teaser we got. And teased we were.
On August 29th we finally recieved a long awaited teaser gameplay video from the developers of Darkfall. The video featured eighteen minutes of pure gameplay shot from various cameras and player screens. They used Fraps to record all of the ingame sequences and we were assured by Tasos Flambouras, the Executive Producer of Darkfall, that it didn't do the game justice. The video was in response to the community getting hungry for something besides the monthly developer journals. And I couldn't have agreed more. It was time for Aventurine to do something since the game has been in development since 2001. What really worries me is the fact that since it has been in development so long, will MMO players still be hyped to play it? Their community seems to think so since their IRC channel on Stratics has seen a surplus in users chatting about Darkfall since the announcement of the game's development.
The video featured many of the already listed details such as, FPS combat, city building and trading, and even more importantly, naval combat. We also got a first look at what it will be like when a moderately sized clan will attempt to take over cities with nothing more than your mount and weapons and a few clan members. It was very exciting and it is probably the most talked about feature on the Darkfall forums. Brannoc, the Community Manager for Aventurine, stated that the game will be very similar to Mount and Blade. An Indy game developed in Afghanistan. From what we saw from the video, he couldn't have been more right. From the way your character swiveled and swayed with his mount, to the movement and stances, it looks to be an awesome game.
The video also highlighted spell casting. A topic of mass discussion. The developers stated that the combat would be just the same as if you were playing a first person shooter and you needed to aim EVERY spell. Even healing spells. I was thinking. Awesome. A game where "Auto Shot" is frowned upon. A game in which there is no characteristics of the dreaded World of Warcraft. And finally, no gear dependant game. We saw lots of players in the video that would not normally have a good set of armor, take down two or three enemies solely on his ability. The time of skill in MMO's has joined us once again.
In our next article, we will be covering news of the beta announcement and how you can get in on the action. In the past, the developers stated that you needed to be an active community member to participate or have favor amongst the community to get in. This is not the case anymore and will be covered in the next article. Until next time, frag gently.