And So It Begins...My First Day in Darkfall

Well, finally after about a day or so the server finally came up.

My initial want was to be an Alfar, but the majority of this PvP (Player vs Player) guild I joined were going Mirdain, so I decided to roll Mirdain as well. It was my first time being in Darkfall, so as what most people said it was a bit confusing. It's a good thing that I watched videos of previous game play; as well as, read up on how to use the interface, so the learning curve wasn't that bad. Actually, I kind of like it in a Vi-sort of way. It will take some time getting used to it, but it's not a bad way to do things at all. So yeah the learning curve was there, but I think after a few hours I got the hang of the interface and combat.

When I first logged into the game I went and got the two quests for killing goblins. I checked the mini-map and it told me where the goblin camps were. I headed there with high hopes, but also expecting to see tons of people camping a few goblin spawns since everyone was at the same skill level as me. And sure enough it was very crowded. Noobs were going gray here and there chopping at the goblins and fellow Mirdains. Initially, I just went from tombstone to tombstone to see if I got lucky and could find some unlooted ones. I did, and I was "noob-" rich. However, the place was way too crowded for me, so I moved onto the next goblin camp further from town.

Here, it was pretty busy too, and a bit farther from town meant a few more people going rogue. I actually, saw a red there, but I doubt he meant to go red. This was all a new experience for most of us. The rogue system in place so far is good. Since friendly fire is on, if you damage another Mirdain you are flagged as a rogue for only 10s. So if you do not engage for 10s you will be blue again. This helps people who accidently hurt others, and not be completely outcasted from the start.

The second goblin camp was ok, but I wanted more loot and a better chance of killing goblins for the quest, so I moved onto the third goblin camp even further away from the town. Here, it was ok spawns and people. There was a huge tree there, which you could climb, and a GM was there watching the action. I guess I should mention that by the third goblin camp I really noticed that perhaps it wasn't the amount of people that was causing me to not be able to hit goblins, but there was a sync problem with the server. The devs have acknowledged this and currently the servers are down to hopefully solve this problem. So yes, there I was swinging my starter sword at thin air, when on my client screen the goblins were right in front of me. It was very frustrating to say the least. However, I saw that some people had staffs and were firing away magic missiles. I decided that I may as well level my magic skill while I wait for them to fix this bug.

I went on a looting mission, and held back till a goblin was almost dead. I would unsheathe and run up to the dead body as fast as I could and loot it. At the end, I ended up with about 21g ,and I went back to town to switch starter weapons which cost 20g. I am much happier now with my staff and casting noobie magic missiles. There is an AoE (Area of Effect) to the spell, so it is very easy to go rogue. However, I didn't really care about killing goblins, but more on leveling my skill by using it. I decided to be an ass for an hour or more, so I just shot whole groups who were pounding on a goblin or standing around a tomb to loot. I would go rogue, then run around for 10s and then go back to normal. I decided it might be too dangerous doing this right in the middle of everyone, so I climbed a big hill at the first goblin camp and practiced being an ass as well as my aim. It was pretty fun actually to stand on top of this hill and shoot huge crowds of people in an AoE fashion. I really missing the griefing that other games lack...this brings back memories.

A few people saw where the magic missiles were coming from and climbed up the mountain to see who was causing this ruckus; however, they never engaged me. I think it was intimidating, since I had full health and stam (stamina), and I only used my mana to be a douch. Also, I was completely naked with nothing but my starter weapon (which can't be looted or lost), so I wasn't worried at all. Also, I never hit again within the 10s timer, so the person would know I would be blue any second. A few people from down below got tired of me fucking around and shot some magic missiles back at me. This helped me practice dodging them, which is really, really easy from that distance. Actually, even with the AoE it was still hard to hit people unless they were right in my crosshairs.

So I played around with this other magic user for about 10 minutes. Of course, I had the advantage cause of the elevation. He hid behind some trees, and such, but if he had to engage a goblin, then he was free game for me to target him and cause a bit o' havoc :)

Anyways, I eventually got bored of this, and came down the mountain to my fellow Mirdains. I was missing a lot up on that huge hill, so here I would be able to hit more people more often. I held back, and AoE-d people who were in big groups beating up on one goblin. A few of course went gray from friendly fire, so I made sure that I punished them as long as I could. While I was doing that for about 20 mins, I guess a guy realized I was being a dick and decided to try his luck against me. He had ok gear on, some goblin drop chest and a better sword. His name was Baron A...something. He stood behind me, ready to hit me, and when I blasted a group of people and went rogue, he was sure to give me a few whacks. I ran around a bit, etc, but I had full stam and HP (Hit Points, i.e. life), plus I have a self heal spell so I was never in any danger. We cat and moused it a bit, and I made sure that when he decided he got bored and went to hunt goblins I would AoE him or his group as much as I could. He chased me a few times, but since I only had a 10s timer of being a rogue, sometimes he would hit me when it expired and he would then go gray (i.e. rogue). Then, I would start casting magic missiles at him and he would run away so far away that I couldn't see him anymore.

A few times, he tried to fight goblins and I made sure to shoot him...just to lessen his life so perhaps the goblins would kill him. I made him run away so much that he eventually left the area. lol.

Anyways, so far the game is interesting. The sync issues are really, really bad to the point that the game is unplayable for me. Hopefully, they will fix that. There are some other minor issues as well, but hopefully overtime things will work itself out.

Ok, until next time.

The Trials and Tribulations of a New Released MMO (DFO)

So here I am still waiting for Darkfall to be released. I was one of the lucky ones who hammered the web site long enough till I got a preorder of the game. At first, it was pretty bad. The web site was overloaded with connections timing out and giving internal server errors. Then, after about an hour or so into trying to get a preorder, I got the message "Temporarily Sold Out." I was like WTF! I was crushed and started to go emo; however, I just didn't believe this message.

So I went to the forums, and I heard people were getting the same error too, but also some people who said they got it too but kept trying and finally got a preorder copy of the game. So I tried for another hour or so and finally got through.

In the meantime, I have been playing this F2P (Free to Play) MMO called Atlantica Online (http://atlantica.ndoorsgames.com/center/default.asp). I have been playing it for a few months now. It's actually quite a good F2P MMO, and it reminds me of playing Final Fantasy (the single player version), but in an MMO format. I actually recommend this game to play, if you don't have much time or don't feel like paying for an MMO. It's worth it to play.

Anyways, back to DFO. Currently, I am doing their second over 120 meg patch...not sure what would entail about 250 megs of untested patching before putting the servers live. I guess we will have to see how that goes...

Hmm...well an update was posted as I was writing this blog. Apparently, a bug was found during the final testing of beta, and they said the ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival) would be 2 hours...so I am thinking more like 5 hours. Oh well, better that they caught and fixed the bug now then post-release. I have waited for this game for over 3 years, so a few more hours isn't going to kill me...I don't think.

It's Been a While

Well the title says it all, "It's Been a While." Actually, it applies to so many things, but let me just touch on a few of them.

First, yes it has been a while since I contributed to this "blog" of sorts. It actually wasn't supposed to be a daily blog per se, but a review for my then WoW buddies. I have known some of them for over the 2+ years I played WoW...and now probably closer to 4 years, since I still keep in contact with some of them out of the game.

I wanted to give a review of WAR for the few of them that were interested. Well, of course my opinion of WAR has changed since my open beta review. Please remember, it was all new and I only had a few days of playing it. Also, since it was all new there were lots of people around and they were all my level (all starting out noobs). As the game play developed and I leveled, it started to feel like the classic elements of "the grind." Questing and trying to get renown points.

It was all kind of fruitless; as well as, the bugs in the game and the eventual pitiful showing of the later PQs wasn't fun for me to play. And then, I eventually just did what I did in WoW. I logged in, did some scenarios (BGs), tried to see if anyone was in any PQs my level (the answer was 'no'), and then logged off.

I did some keep battles, but they weren't very fun either. I think I got to level 28 or something on my magus with the same renown and that was about it. I stopped playing about a month or so after the game went live. Even though I played on the most populated Open RvR server, and got into a pretty big and decent guild, the pvp/rvr was very minimal and the keep fighting wasn't particularly fun. It was more all about the zerg more than anything. I think I had another month left on my subscription but I just let it fade away.

The only fun parts were rerolling and playing up to level 10 in the beginning scenarios, but that wasn't worth paying $15/month for.

But finally...the wait is over. Dark Fall Online is suppose to be released in just 2 days!! Let me tell you something, I have seriously waited for this game for over 3 years. Yes, I logged back into my forum account on their web site and I joined in sept of 2005. I have been waiting and watching this game at least every few weeks to see updates and whatever was released on it...and finally it seems it will be released.

So...I have decided that I will try to do a daily blog of my game play of Dark Fall Online. Let's see how that goes, but I am hoping for the best.