We play: DarkFall Online

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For the time while DarkFall Online was in development, he became something like Duke Nukem Forever From online. No one knew whether the developers were implementing at least half of the promised when the game will come out and whether he would come out at all. But in less than eight years, Aventurine Sa figured out her long -term construction – and one of the most mysterious online projects turned into the most controversial after.

Goblins-killers

Why controversial? Yes, because DarkFall Online (DF) can either be passionately love or fiercely hate. A representative of a rare type of playwright games, he does not lead the player by the handle on quests, does not slip through him helpfully all the new and new content as the character develops, but throws the player into the harsh world, offering to have fun on his own.

Adventures begin before entering the game. DF works by subscription, the “alleged release” took place six months ago, but the number of players is still limited: the developers, as if the game is still tested, decide for themselves when to let the new batch of fans into the world. The only way to get the cherished key is to guard the official site, waiting for the creators to throw the next portion.

DarkFall was developing passionate fans Ultima Online. The authors wanted to maintain the dignity of their favorite game, but to wrap them in new technologies and add a scale: a huge world, thousands of skills and freedom of action, which will bend in the ballads Trubadura. Well, in one they definitely succeeded – the world of Agon is so large that Kalimdor from it will easily fit in it World of Warcraft , Eriador from The Lord of the Rings Online , Haiboria from Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures And there will still be a place for the open spaces Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. Moreover, no hacks: each bush and mound are created manually, so the world is not deprived of beauty and diversity. The problem is that in pursuit of dimensions the developers forgot to inhabit the car – the gunpowder was not enough. You can run a broken hour without meeting a single living soul. DarkFall – probably the only MMOG where there are more players than monsters.

Six races are offered to choose from, but besides appearance and sled animal, they are not much different from each other. Veterans wise by experience choose dark -skinned alphas, since it is quite difficult to get to these shorties in battle, and seeing them in the night is not easier than a bat in a dark cave. The starting locations of all races are similar – a small town with a bunch of nondescript NPCs, a banking safe where you can store the loot, and nearby is a goblin camp.

In the early interviews, the developers promised that the monsters would have "incredibly advanced intelligence". Partly their promises were justified. And although the goblins do not quote Shakespeare, in battle they are much more ingenious than opponents from other MMOG: they are struggling, they strive to smoke behind their backs, and if it becomes hot, they run after helping. The feeling does not leave that you are not fighting with a small bipod, but by some boss. It is on the goblins that you can earn starting capital, and money in df oh how you need.

Return quake and blue bagel

One look at the price of skills is enough to start counting every penny. Unlike the popular World of Warcraft clones today, DF does not have classes and levels. The development of the hero depends entirely on the pumping of skills. If the character digs ore, he improves the skill of a mining, if it flounders in water for a long time – starts to swim faster, even the usual run through the forest clearing brings visible fruits. But the main thing, of course, is combat skills https://sister-site.org/instaspin/.

Battles in DF are the main entertainment, but the fighting itself looks extremely straightforward. Since the purchase and pumping of steep skills needs a lot of time and means, in the arsenal of players the first months there is only a basic blow with a sword, a block, a shot from a bow and a starting spell – throwing a blue bagel. Fencing is very reminiscent of old RPG: we run in circles around the enemy, trying to hold it in a sight, and continuously hollow the left mouse button. One animation of the blow, one sound, a second pause until the next attack.

Shooting spells most like … Quake in battle mode on rocket launches. Only in DF instead of a bright charge of a rocket launcher from a staff with a nasty buzz, a blue bagel flies out. After 10 minutes, anyone realizes that it is necessary to shoot with ahead of the body, not in the body, but under the feet, and if the enemy ran closely, quickly switch to the sword. It is more primitive to imagine a more primitive system, but because of the risk of dying and losing all the adrenaline, it beats with a key, and you stop paying attention to the uniformity of shots.

The game interface is organized very unusual. If you need to heal after the battle of the wound or take the trophies from the carcass, you will have to first remove the weapon. And while the player does not deal with the macros, he will be forced to open the character’s window every time, then the bag, drag the weapons from the window to the bag and perform a bunch of other unnecessary actions-after the ergonomics of Wow, all this looks like some kind of monstrous anachronism.

Macros in DF is generally an indispensable thing. Fighting skills grow mockingly slowly, and if you do not play around the clock seven days a week, it will take several years to develop them to the maximum. Therefore, fans of the game can forget to brush your teeth at night, but they always remember that before going to bed you need to start macro for pumping. Do not give the enemy an enemy. Assembly of resources on the machine is also a common phenomenon. Since the process of extraction of wood and ore in the game is extremely tedious, and craft requires tons of all sorts of things, in some places you can see whole colonies of programmed worktops that do not wilted with pickles. For their head hunters, such “automated” characters are easy prey, so only the most naive leave their “collectors” in the middle of a clean field. Profi hide in the bushes somewhere on the outlet and carry ore to the bank exclusively at night.

The economy in DF is poorly developed. The difference in the price between resources and the finished product, as a rule, is ridiculous (most players are in clans and are self-support), and due to the fact that the developers did not take care of introducing the market, the goods have to be saved to their hands, finding customers in the chat. And it’s good if the buyer is a couple of kilometers, sometimes you have to wind it for distant lands, thinking to myself: “What the hell are I touched there for pennies?»Nevertheless, only crafts can build a city, lower the ship and provide fighters with everything necessary, so the axes of the ax and the fugan are happy in any guild.

The ax of war

The phrase "free loot" for a fan of PVP is the same as a bell for the dog Pavlov: immediately causes abundant salivation. But the games where everything can be removed from the enemy’s corpse, there are so few that many began to forget the sensations that Ultima gave. When you run to the saving city with a car, to the top stuffed with treasures, and you pray on the run so as not to stumble upon a thug. DF gives a chance to survive these exciting minutes again, and you don’t need to go far: even in starting locations are full of people who want to profit from someone else's expense. The fact that the eared goblins are not enough for everyone, only spurs the players to understand who is right and who is to blame, a long time ago a proven way.

There are no safe corners in the world of Agon – you can attack even in the city. But if you have a stigma of the killer, you immediately become a target for city guns. To avoid this, some players like to provoke the first blow. Do not be surprised if, during the battle with the goblin, it is not clear where some cunning will come out of where it comes out, block the little animal with his body and begins to jump and exclaim: “Well, hit me! Afraid? Scary, yes?"

To survive in DF, you will have to learn the main rule – do not believe anyone. You will help some poor fellow, and he will easily put a knife in your back, you will meet in the middle of the field of a lone horseman-he will not miss the case of pitch your inventory. The ability to revenge the corpse to the thread acts on the players as a red rag on the bull, and the murders (often completely meaningless) happen everywhere. But if in the initial locations this is more likely the pampering of the kids who run naked and poke rusty pieces of iron at each other, then real wars are raging on the territory of PVP alkyans.

About a hundred places where players can build cities and villages are scattered around the world of Agon. Construction is only possible for large guilds, for which cities are a place of military training and warehouses for trophies. The city’s ownership also makes it possible to collect resources under the side, build ships and siege tools, and if high -level monsters settled nearby, they regularly “finish them”. But, as you can guess, free lands are not enough for everyone, so guilds constantly besiege other people's possessions, trying to take them to their hands.

Any clan, having paid a tidy amount, can turn on the siege mode for the enemy city. After that, he has 4 hours to find and kill the city leader, with the help of siege guns to break through the defense and destroy the “clan stone” – the heart of the city. Siege in DF – an enchanting spectacle. Blue bagels and arrows fly in all directions, the cavalry presses the infantry, on the city square of the massacre, in which it is sometimes impossible to make out where yours are, where are strangers. And every fighter feels that the success of the operation for which the clan may have been preparing for several weeks depends on him.

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Unfortunately, the disadvantages of the game outweigh its advantages. The transition, say, from a friendly Wow to DF for an unprepared player can end with a cultural shock. The almost complete absence of quests and any guidelines, crowds of barbarians, killing for no reason, a community from which you will not wait for help (and the questions that can still be done in this game arise constantly). However, the developers never hid that DF is not for everyone. This is a platform for military and political showdowns of PVP gildes, and there is nothing to do with ordinary mortals here.

Gameplay: 6

Graphics: 6

Sound and music: 2

Interface and management: 4

Waited? DarkFall Online is a game for harsh gamers who do not tolerate wow clones, but they love the hardcore PVP with the risk of losing everything and are ready not to sleep at night for the benefit of their native clan. The rest is better to pass by.

Gamery rating: 5

"Medium"

[Break]] Passions around the Eurogeumer

DarkFall gaming press has not reacted at all for a very long time. Partly due to the fact that the developers did not respond to the requests of game keys for a long time and journalists produced them in a general manner for a long time (and this is how difficult). The first review was released a couple of months after the release of the game. Author's article from a European site Eurogamer.Net Immediately attracted a lot of attention. ED Zitron freelancer ED Zitron issued all the shortcomings of the game in one sitting, having seasoned his already sarcastic text with undercuts and mocking jokes. “Creating DarkFall, someone clearly ignored all the rules by which excellent games make,” the author summed up and slapped the creation of Aventurine 2 out of 10 points.

Upon learning of this, the vice president of Aventurine and the producer DarkFall Tasos Flamburas published a discreet letter on the DF website, where he said that with the account allocated to the game, they entered the game for only 2 hours, and most of this time was spent on creating a character. Euroacher responded that Ed Zitron played at least 9 hours. The fans howled: to know all the charms of DF, it is necessary to play for months. At the Euroiger, they retorted that if the game did not hook a person in the first fifteen minutes, then he simply would not play it further and he did not need any high -level content. Tasos in strong expressions demanded to remove a review from Euroiger because it undermines the authority of Aventurine. Euro -Gamer said this contradicts the site’s policy: articles from the resource are not deleted. In the comments on the review, a serious dispute broke out, Darkfall rushed to call Darkfail, and, finally, the eurogeimer editor promised that they would publish a second review, but they would not remove the first. On such conditions, Tasos refused to allocate a second press account. Eurogamer retorted that he didn’t really want to cooperate with him, and announced that he would buy an account on general conditions when such an opportunity would appear.

At the time of passing the number of passion around the Eurogeimer, they still boil. One joker even created a guild in the game with the name Eurogamer.Net, and almost all the clans in the game immediately declared war on her.

First World War

Conflicts of different scale occur in DF every day, and they have already got used to them. But recently in the world of Agon, the First World War DF ​​flared up.

Until recently, the entire eastern part of the map was under the control of the Kingdom of Hyperion, led by King Manus. The self -proclaimed ruler created a feudal structure that allowed to control thousands of players under control. In the best of times, under the rule of Manus, there were 27 cities and several large regions. But not everyone liked the power of Hyperion. To overthrow Manus, Western alliances united into the largest union in the history of the game and inflicted a crushing blow. Hyperion tormented by internal conflicts could not resist the onslaught and gave the territory almost without a fight. The denouement occurred on May 12, when His Majesty Manus published a message about surrender at the official DF forum.

“If you ask me what led to the fall of Hyperion,” the defeated king wrote, “I would call not only the numerical advantage of enemies, but also the problems of the game itself. Due to the endless grind of DF, the best players left the most important positions in the kingdom, and there was no one to replace them. Their friends stretched after them, and the population of Hyperion was significantly reduced ". Despite the defeat, Hyperion still dominates the east of the game world, but now this is only a miserable likeness of the former empire.