MuroBBS

Ensinnäkin on kiva huomata, että on porukkaa kiinnostuneena tästä, tosin hiukan ehkä epätoivoisestikin. Ite kiinnostuin kamalasti pelistä ja latasin kaikki maholliset videot ja luin tekstit yms. Itse UO:ta pelanneena aikasemmin kiistellyt loottisysteemit ja muut pitää totta kai olla. Stoundi ja jos sua ei kiinnosta ni mitä sä tulet tänne aukomaan pelin rumuudesta? Taidat vaan olla epätoivoisen turhautunut tuohon odottamiseen, että purat sen tänne. Sitäpaitsi idioottimaista tuo grafiikan jumaloiminen. Jotkut ei vaan tajua, että se grafiikka ole se nro.1 tai edes 2. Joku tuossa totesikin jostain pikkupettereistä tms. kohtalaisen osuvasti. Pettyneenä sain selville, että peliä on kehitetty ties kuinka kauan ja ties minkälaisella tiimillä. Toiveikkaana odotan tästä "sitä" peliä, mutta jää nähtäväksi tuleeko ikinä tai vuosiin julkaistuksi ja sitäkään ei tiedä floppaako peli. Onko tästä minkäänlaisia arvioita julkaisuajankohdasta? Tämä yksi herra ainakin heitti aivan liian toiveikkaan veikkauksen viime syksynä :)

Postaan vielä erikseen tähän, että joku tuossa meinas jotain beta-testaukseen ostallistua klaanina. Oisin valmis osallistumaan ilomielin. Kokemusta paljon vastaavista peleistä jo 90-luvun puolen välin jälkeen.

Tässä vähän developereiden kertomusta tuosta yllä ylevasta videosta.

http://df.warcry.com/scripts/news/view_news.phtml?site=7&id=68574

Developer Journal #2: The Video

In this journal I'd like to pass on some information and developer commentary about the latest Darkfall video. If you haven’t seen it yet, you can get it here http://files.darkfallonline.com/darkfall_battle.zip.

The video was made from internal testing gameplay footage we took using Fraps. Ricki and Henning spent the most time on it, which wasn't more than a few hours. Panayiotis, our sound engineer, wrote the music. The test builds we use are optimized for testing and not all elements of the game are enabled in them. The footage consists of highlights from developers testing on older test builds. Darkfall is in a more advanced state at the moment. The graphics for the video footage are set to "default" which means that you're not seeing dynamic shadows, among other things.

Two different regions are shown in the video. BT Oren describes them:

"Monkfield lies just west of Sanguine, the human capital. A walled mining village called Longstowe lies in the heart of this region, in the in the shadow of the majestic, snow-clad Hermitage mountains. Elsewhere in this mountain range, a dwarven village clings to a narrow plateau among cloudy peaks, while goblins have carved out a precarious home on the steep northern slopes. Away from the mountains, Monkfield is dominated by sparsely wooded, grassy plains which are home to a rich variety of game, as well as a small but vicious tribe of gnolls.

The Stormcove Islands is an archipelago in the Mirrorsea, which lies west of Agon's main continent. The largest of these islands is home to Threshold, a bustling freeport which welcomes visitors of all races and moral inclinations. On a less hospitable note, the Stormcoves are home to several tribes of hobgoblins which were recently united by an ambitious warlord, and a necromancer who is disturbing the dead of a long-ruined dwarven colony."

We see three different mounts, the horse, the death pig, and I believe we catch a glimpse of the garmir. In one scene the mounts are crossing a river and they are actually swimming across. In another, you see the death pig doing a frontal attack.

There are four character races shown in the video, the ones missing here are the Mirdain and the Alfar. Both are done but they didn’t exist in the test builds. We'll showcase them properly in the future.

We can see a great variety of armors and weapons being used and mixed in with other items. Even so, these are developers playing around and they don't go to great lengths to pimp out their characters, they’ll just throw on whatever.

The fighting starts with a human and an ork fighting outside a gate. Some of you get this scene, and it was nice to see that. The human character uses distance well, anticipates the ork's miscalculated attack, moving out of his striking range, and then moves back in for the hit as the ork misses and overextends. This scene, while very commonplace in Darkfall melee combat, illustrates what we mean by Darkfall real-time combat. You see a simple example of player skill and timing at work. Henning wanted me to point out that there is much more than the hack and slash attacks you get to see here, many different skills and special attacks that come into play which weren’t enabled in the test builds.

We can also see some fast paced and seemingly chaotic FFA combat. It's not that chaotic if you're in it. Sure you can just swing wildly and hope that you'll connect to something but that's not going to put you on top as we notice with the orkish-human duel we see earlier in the video.

You may realize the precision and purpose of the human female character killing the ork standing in her way using dual wield daggers as she moves off to her next target which is standing behind. The well-placed exploding firebolt spell blowing two opponents apart is used like that for maximum damage. They continue moving apart on their own, both on fire, as they keep taking damage by the explosions. You may also notice a couple of human characters working together to box in a couple of orks which they kill.

In the naval combat scenes we notice several types of ships including a pretty large one which can hold more than 30 cannons. This is not our largest one. Kjetil likes to describe the largest ship we have as being "as large as a Quake level.” We see naval attacks on the coast, a coastal dragon cannon firing against the ships, a fireball slamming into one of the ships, ships smoking, and one sinking. When a ship sinks, the passengers get to swim. Those inside the ship have to swim out or drown trapped. Henning also wanted me to mention that the ship's sinking animation does have many more effects to it than what we see in this video. We see an ork running to man the helm of one ship and in another scene a boarding party taking hold of another one.

The mounted combat scene where the human rider seems to be a bit too far to achieve the hit on the ork rider, Claus explains is because the striking distance, and swing radius values are a bit high at the moment for testing purposes.

The cannonball graphics you see are placeholders, and Kjetil explains that per-pixel motion blur, not enabled in the testing, makes it look good.

Claus explains that the cannon’s rate of fire is indeed higher for testing, and that the load time will be activated in beta and well balanced for release. In the first person cannon scene where it appears that the cannon is firing repeatedly, there are two rows of cannons below the one we see firing and more on each side, which are also firing, as well as cannonballs hitting, all of these shaking the ship so it’s hard to say what’s going on.

Ricki explains that the slight choppiness some people reported about in the battle scenes, doesn't exist in the game and the perceived choppiness might have something to do with recording / playback issues. We're running in debug mode but we're still getting really good framerate.

We’re glad you enjoyed the video. Claus had pointed out that this is a very small hint to intensity, fun, and action possible within the Darkfall combat system. There's so much more to Darkfall, and now that we're at a much better position to produce video fairly quickly, we'll follow up with another one as time permits.

Tasos Flambouras
Associate Producer - Dakfall

aVilu:Stoundi ja jos sua ei kiinnosta ni mitä sä tulet tänne aukomaan pelin rumuudesta? Taidat vaan olla epätoivoisen turhautunut tuohon odottamiseen, että purat sen tänne. Sitäpaitsi idioottimaista tuo grafiikan jumaloiminen. Jotkut ei vaan tajua, että se grafiikka ole se nro.1 tai edes 2.

Luetun ymmärtäminen ei taida olla vahvimpia lajejasi? Enkö helvetin selvästi todennut, että:

1. Toivottavasti pelistä tulee hyvä.
2. En odota peliä grafiikoiden takia.

Siitä huolimatta, että odotan peliä ja toivon sen olevan loistava alkaa usko kehitystiimiin loppua. Peli on karmean ruma, animaatioista päätellen testikäytössä muutamalla pelaajalla lagaa helvetisti, hahmot poukkoilevat täysin holtittomasti ympäriinsä, missään ei näy npc:tä toiminnassa eikä luvatusta elävästä maailmasta näy merkkiäkään... Kaikki näyttää olevan TÄYSIN keskeneräistä. Ottaen huomioon, että peliä on kehitetty kuusi vuotta, ei tämä hyvältä näytä.


Miksi sitten välitän grafiikasta, pelattavuudesta ja elävästä maailmasta? Peli on pvp-peli. Luotaantyöntävä grafiikka, holtittomasti poukkoileva pelattavuus yms ajaa mahdolliset pelaajat pois. Mitä sitten jää jäljelle pvp-pelistä, jossa ei ole pelaajia?

Taitaa käydä niin, että Darkfallissa suurin osa vakavista pelaajista juoksentelee alasti monkkeina tai vastaavina. Tämä on nähty ennenkin.

Kaupunkien piirityksestä & tuhoamisesta artikkeli: http://df-en.curse-gaming.com/general-news/community-news/1130/darkfall-cur se-exclusive-qa-city-sieging/

Here it is, I've really enjoyed the answers. I've made up some of my own questions and also gathered some old questions (regarding city sieging) from various darkfall forums. First things first, here's a quote from Tasos Flambouras regarding this Q&A:

There's a lot of detail in conquest and city building that we cannot talk about. We wanted to answer all the questions, and if some answers seem vague or raise more questions, it's in an honest effort to give as much information as we're allowed to.

Here comes the good stuff:

Answers by Tasos Flambouras, Claus Grovdal, and Kjetil Helland.

1) Is the Gloomer system still in? Do we need it to weaken the clanstone of an enemy city, so we can proceed to destroying enemy walls and structures?

The gloomer isn't in the game in its original form. The concept remains but has been added on and improved. The attackers need to protect their assets and their challenge shard - which isn't stationary anymore but in the hands of a clan leader. While in possession of the challenge shard, the holder is a bleep on the defender's and attacker's maps and global messages are issued. He cannot use magical means of transportation, and his clan has to protect him while the defenders and allies need to kill him within the allotted time in order to break the siege. There are other ways to break the siege, by taking attacker territories, or defending your clan stone.

2) What is needed for an attacker to construct the Gloomer, and other siege equipment used to conquer a city?

Siege equipment is made by crafters, who use the appropriate resources. These are player spawned. For the higher level siege equipment you need a siege workshop which can only be constructed in clan cities.

3) How much time does a newly constructed clanstone need to become invulnerable to enemy attacks?

No time, it’s invulnerable immediately until the challenge phase.

4) Can we use cannons, or are the cannons only available for ships (apparently, gunpowder wasn't invented in Agon) ?

Players can spawn cannons, city defenses can spawn cannons. There are several different types some of which can fire different elements and projectiles aside from the cannonballs.

5) What types of siege equipment do the defenders have at their disposal?

The defenders have all the siege engines available in the game, in addition they can use huge defensive bombards spawned by the clan leaders, defensive structures, towers etc.

6) Can the defenders set traps in front of their city, or some kind of obstacles for mounts?

There are several options along these lines, but we cannot be more specific at this time.

7) What types of siege equipment do the attackers have at their disposal?

They can use cannons, siege weapons, mobile attack platforms, warhulks, and ships.

8) How long does a siege usually take?

A siege can last several hours, depending on how evenly the opponents measure up. There is a time limit when the siege effort fails.

9) Can you burn down wooden structures with fire arrows shoot from outside the city walls? Can fire spells set wooden buildings on fire?

There are spells that can damage structures, and the structures will catch on fire at some point. The arrows will not set buildings on fire though.

10) Are walls and/or other structures repairable when the actual siege has taken place? If it is, does it take up resources (like stone)?

Yes they are repairable, during the siege. You need to craft the repair materials, so you need crafters and resources. A well prepared clan will have the materials needed for repairs stockpiled in advance of a siege.

11) Is there a limit to how many structures the attacker can destroy after they conquer the city?

There is a limit - per day on all buildings except for the walls which can be destroyed liberally. You have to consider that since the attacker has conquered the city, destroying the buildings is destroying his own property. The limit serves the purpose of allowing the original city owners to fight to recover their lost city.

12) Do large clans have an advantage over small clans when it comes to conquering each other's cities? If yes, how big of an advantage is it?

We've talked about how a small disciplined unit that trains together can fight back the zerg. Also, a large clan has a lot more to defend. When you issue a challenge on a clan city, all your assets become vulnerable to attack by anyone. So size is both an advantage and a burden.

13) What prevents or discourages "Ninja Raiding", aka 3 am raids on your city while everyone is asleep? Will NPC guards play an important role in this aspect of the game?

There is a process which takes a while to be able to begin the siege, it's not instant. Also, universal messages are issued and the attacker's assets all go vulnerable for a certain time. Allies are alerted, enemies are alerted, the 3am raid may not be the optimal time for a clan to try to attack and defend at the same time. There is also out-of-game messaging, so the clan which is being attacked can be alerted. City defenses can be spawned by few defenders, and the guards will also help in fighting back. If all else fails, the defenders always have the option to mount a counter-attack to take back their city.

14) Will clans instead of destroying or taking over their enemy clan's town be able to just take some control or tax them for a period of time?

It’s not a game mechanic, but players have the freedom of playing out a scenario like that. There are some resources that could be taken over and taxing those who want to use them, mines for example.

15) Can attackers "starve" a city until it surrenders by cutting out supply lines, for example?

They can starve a city logistically by waging a war of attrition on the population and controlling resources. Full loot can eventually exhaust defensive resources, making a city takeover attempt easier.

16) Is it even possible to conquer racial towns, or even racial capitals?

Most of the cities in Darkfall are clan cities and are player controlled. There are a few NPC cities and racial capitals that cannot be conquered at this time.

17) Can you tell us anything specific about attacking port towns and the importance of ships when attacking ports?

Imagine a quiet port town. Now imagine a couple of 50-cannon ships, or worse, firing on it.

18) Do you think that the servers will be able to handle a large scale city siege without much lag?

The game and the technology have been designed from the ground up for massive real-time battles. So far we've simulated battles with a couple of hundred players, and it works great every time.

Ah, pitkästä aikaa Shadowbanen jälkeen pääsee kaupunkeja valtaamaan. :)

Dev Journal #5: A Look Under The Hood http://df.warcry.com/news/view/70315-Dev-Journal-5-A-Look-Under-The-Hood

Darkfall Online's bi-weekly developer journal series continues today with a unique approach. Tasos Flambouras typically writes a few pages on something game related. Today, he shows us the guide to a demo the team did last year. This is a unique piece of information for fans of the upcoming game and should help visualize how the whole thing works.

Darkfall Developer Journal #5: Under The Hood
Article by Tasos Flambouras, Associate Producer of Darkfall

This document is a gameplay document from the first Darkfall demo from last year. This was a very limited version which we put together whose purpose was to demonstrate functionality and to give a clinical glimpse at what the game is supposed to look and feel like. It was also used as a war server where we tested PvP. Even though it wasn't meant for fun, everyone, including us, seemed to have a blast playing it.

Since we're done with the demo, and we've moved to the next stage, I thought you might find the document interesting to check out. Giving a look under the hood is usually a bad idea, but we'll take our chances.

- Tasos Flambouras, Associate Producer of Darkfall

Darkfall Limited Demo Server Gameplay Document

Disclaimers

* Darkfall demo is pre-beta software and has not passed Aventurine's quality assurance program. Nothing has been finalized and performance should not be taken to be indicative of the final release of Darkfall.
* Darkfall demo is a limited in functionality and features version of the game.
* Darkfall demo is in debug mode.
* The graphics setting is set to default. (geforce 4, pixel shader 1.1, vertex shader 1.1) Higher graphics settings cannot be enabled prior to optimization.
* Characters used in this demo are using a default skill and attribute setting that is not balanced or optimized.
* Weapon reach and radius is not optimized.
* Character movement, speed, attack speed, rate of turn etc. are subject to balancing and optimization based on testing.
* Animations are not complete or finalized in the demo.
* Textures: many are temporary and will be changed or updated.
* Effects like particles, blood effects etc. are placeholders and will be changed or updated
* Terrain textures are being updated and issues like the overlay noise that stretches on vertical surfaces will be resolved.
* Spawning effects are missing.
* Water effects are missing and water appearance is temporary and will be upgraded.
* Sounds are temporary placeholders. Final Darkfall sounds are in the process of being completed.
* AI behaviors have not been optimized in the demo and exist only for testing and demonstration purposes.
* Quests in the demo are placeholders and exist to test functionality.

Features Present in the Demo

* Four of Darkfall's six character races to select from (male and female)
* Basic character creator functionality
* Character dressing system
* A variety of weapons and armors
* Player vs. Player combat functionality
* Two Monster AI types complete with weapon /dressing functionality and spell casting ability.
* Collision detection on characters
* Spells and skills
* Ranged weapon attacks
* Player spawnable assets (mounts, cannons, ships)
* Three of Darkfall's five racial mounts
* Mounted combat
* Two of Darkfall's ship types
* Basic Naval combat functionality
* Cannons
* Jumping- Sprinting- Climbing -Swimming
* Vendors
* Basic quest functionality
* Basic crafting functionality

• Basic Environmental system functionality
  
  Starting Out
  
  Character creator
  
  1. Character Race selection screen: Select a race for your character between the four (4) available in the demo using the arrows to cycle between them. Once you've made your selection, click "Next" to continue
  2. Gender selection screen: Choose the gender of the character using the arrows to cycle between "Male" and "Female". Click on "Next".
  3. Character Appearance Screen: Personalize your character's appearance by selecting the facial characteristics of your choice. When done, click on "Next".
  4. Character Naming Screen: Type in a first and last name for your character and click on "Next" to continue.
  5. Character Attribute Screen: Allocate points (20) to your character's attributes and click "next". This is a placeholder; the demo characters have a default set of attributes.
  6. Character Skill Allocation Screen: Allocate specialization skill points and click "Next". This is a placeholder; the demo characters have a default set of skills.
  7. Starting and Racial Spell selection Screen: Select your starting spells and racial spells and click "Next". This feature is disabled in the Darkfall demo.
  8. Spawn Point Selection Screen: Choose your starting point on the map and click "Next". This feature is disabled in the demo. Your character will spawn in a predetermined location.
  9. Character Creation Warning: You will be asked "create this character?". Press "yes" if you want to save your character and start the game or press "cancel" if you want to go back and make changes.(Once a character is created it can not be modified in the demo).
  
  Controls
  
  The most common default keys are now:
  
  Character Controls
  
  Right Mouse Bring up / Close the User Interface windows
  W,A,S,D movement: forward, strafe left, backwards, strafe right
  Mouse Turn, mouselook
  F Use/ action key (vendors, mounts, ships, guns, vehicles, looting)
  R Sheathe / Unsheathe (equipped weapon or staff)
  C Crouch
  Space Jump
  Numlock Autorun
  L Shift (+WASD) Sprint
  Ctrl (+ WASD) Walk
  0-9 Hotbar Slots skill/spell selection
  Shift + 0-9 Hotbar selection(For fast access to the hotbar use shift 0 - 9)
  
  First Person Mode Controls (Ranged, Spells)
  
  * Mouse left button - Fire
  
  Swimming Controls
  
  * W,A,S,D - Forward, left, backwards, right
  * C - Dive
  * Space Bar and movement key - crawl-stroke swimming (faster)
  
  Special Controls
  
  To revive the character needs to have its weapon sheathed.
  
  * Z - Revive (LMB/Attack bind to use)
  * X - Gank (Press LMB/Attack bind to use)
  * SPACE - Release(die) when incapacitated before the timer runs out.
  
  Mount Controls
  
  * To deploy a mount, double click on a mount figurine from your backpack while aiming at an appropriate spawning location. To ride the mount, sheathe weapons, target it from close proximity; use the "F" key. To dismount, sheathe weapons and use the "F" key.
  * F - to mount/dismount
  * R - Sheathe/Unsheathe a weapon on mounts
  * W,A,S,D - move forward, turn left, move backwards, turn right
  * Mouse - Mouseloook
  * Q,E - Lean left, right
  * Space - Jump
  * Movement +Ctrl - Mount walks
  * Numlock - Autorun
  * Left Mouse when mount is standing still - Mount attacks Forward
  * Left Mouse + S when mount is standing still - Mount attacks Backwards Left
  * Mouse+ W,A,D - Weapon attack when mount is in motion
  
  Ship Controls
  
  Deploy a ship by double clicking a ship figurine in your backpack, while aiming at an appropriate spawning location for it. You'll need to swim to the ship and climb up the rope ladder to enter it.
  
  * target the helm and press F key - Character takes control of the ship
  * WASD - move forward, turn left, move backwards, turn right
  * Mouse - Mouseloook
  * Numlock - Autorun
  
  Cannon controls
  
  Deploy a cannon by double clicking on a cannon figurine in your backpack, while aiming at an appropriate spawning location for it.
  
  * target cannon and press F key - man / abandon the cannon (with weapon unsheathed)
  * Mouse - aim
  * Left Mouse - Fire cannon
  
  For all other options, and to change the default bindings, go to the Options -> Input Options, Key Bindings
  
  Player Guide to Darkfall Demo
  
  * See "starting out" in this same document
  * You start Darkfall in first person mode. You can move around with the WASD keys and your mouse.
  * Right click to bring the interface up.
  * Open your backpack and in them you'll find loose equipment and more containers with more equipment.
  * Double click on items or drag them on the paperdoll to equip them.
  * Equip a weapon by double clicking on it in the backpack or dragging it on to the paperdoll.
  * Use the -R- key to unsheathe a weapon and to go into melee combat mode. Your character is now in the 3d person perspective.
  * The figurines in your backpack are character spawnable mounts, cannons, and ships.
  
  Mounts
  
  * To summon a mount, double-click one of the animal-shaped figurines in your backpack. The selected mount will appear somewhere in front of you. Run over to it and press F to jump onto the saddle. Please note that you can't mount anything while in combat mode. Press R to switch between the combat (3rd person) and movement (1st person) modes.
  * While riding press and hold Ctrl to make the mount walk
  * Press F again to dismount after you've sheathed your weapon.
  * Since figurines can be looted and summoned mounts can be killed, it is quite possible to run out of mounts. Replacement figurines can be bought from Aldan Rein, who runs the marketplace in the center of Threshold.
  * In this demo, the following mounts are available to you: human (Mercian) warhorses, orkish death pigs, and dwarven garmirs.
  
  Deploying Cannons
  
  * To deploy a cannon, double-click on one of the two cannon figurines in your backpack while aiming at an appropriate spawning location for it. If you get an error message, try again aiming at another spawning location.
  * Use the F key to use.
  * Cannons can be destroyed
  
  Spawning and Driving ships
  
  * To launch a ship, double-click on one of the two ship figurines in your backpack while aiming at an appropriate location for it.
  * Go up to the helm and use the F key to take control of the ship.
  * Whether or not someone is behind the helm, the ship's cannons can be manned and used.
  * Ships can be sunk
  
  Monsters in the demo: locations
  
  * There are two primary monster haunts in this demo: a zombie-infested dwarven ruin which lies east of Threshold, and two hobgoblin forts on a mountain plateau to the north.
  * To get to the ruins, first go to the statues which stand sentinel at Threshold's northeastern entrance. From there, travel straight east through a short pass, then follow the rock wall on your left until you see some stone buildings in various states of disrepair.
  * The majority of undead in these ruins are Zombie Warriors equipped with grave-plundered weapons and improvised suits of armor. These undead grunts are commanded by much more dangerous Dire Zombies, who prefer to bombard enemies with spells while the Zombie Warriors do the dirty work.
  * To get to the hobgoblin forts, travel north from the twin statues in Threshold's northeastern corner. Keep left through the mountain pass, then travel northeast through the forest until a plateau rises in front of you. Travel east in the shadow of the plateau until you reach a north-south pass. Once on the plateau itself, travel left until you see the wooden hobgoblin forts.
  * While all hobgoblins are tough fighters, you should be extra careful around the fierce and relentless hobgoblin stormtroopers. Hobgoblin Heroes are very rare, but each such individual is extremely dangerous.
  
  Quests
  
  * In Threshold, pure player vs. player quests are handed out by Maugre, a sophisticated necromantic construct who serves Oncylus, a wizard bent on the village's destruction. Maugre stands in the northeastern part of town, just outside the inn. She only gives out quests that involve killing other players.
  * A more conventional chain of quests is initiated by Skuldgrim Bighammer, a dwarf who owns a smithy in the western part of Threshold. This sequence immerses the players in an ongoing struggle to save Threshold from the machinations of Oncylus. Subquests include delivery missions, gathering missions, and several quests which involve killing the local zombies and hobgoblins.
  
  Vendors
  
  * Aldan Rein runs the marketplace in the heart of Threshold. He sells items needed for crafting, such as wood, leather, cloth, and iron ingots.
  * Skuldgrim Bighammer is a blacksmith who stocks a wide variety of weapons and pieces of armor. His smithy stands in the eastern part of Threshold.
  
  Swimming
  
  * The character can swim by going into the water. See the controls section for character swim controls.
  * Mounts also swim when controlled by the character.
  
  Using melee weapons
  
  * Use the crosshair to aim at your intended target and with the melee weapon unsheathed, click the left mouse button to attack.
  * Weapon reach has not been optimized.
  
  Using Ranged weapons
  
  * Arrows need to be equipped, double-click on them in the backpack, or drag them on to the paperdoll.
  * Equip a bow and use the R key to ready it.
  * Aim at the target, take arrow drop, and distance into consideration before firing.
  * Bow and spell rate of fire is very high in the demo for testing purposes.
  
  Using Spells
  
  * Open up the spell interface
  * Select the spell school - see which spells are available.
  * Drag the spell icon into the hotbar
  * Equip a staff and use the R key to ready it
  * Select the active spell by using the number key for the position the spell holds in the hotbar.
  * Aim and Click the left mouse button to load and deploy the spell.
  
  Basic Crafting
  
  From the initial spawn point, run south down the hill and through the twin statue gate into Threshold. Turn right after the inn and continue through the village's main street until you see a marketplace on your left hand side. Within that marketplace stands an old human merchant (Aldan Rein) who sells crafting supplies. Position the pointer over him and press F to bring up a trade menu. For the purposes of this demo, the only raw material you'll need to buy is iron ingots. Double click and choose yes to buy ingots.
  
  Continue west through the village until you see a hammer-and-anvil sign on your left. Move close to the anvil on the adjoining stone platform and press F to start crafting. On the resulting menu, first choose either weaponsmithing or armorsmithing, and then select a subcategory by clicking the plus sign next to it. Finally, click on one of the available items in order to preview its stats and see a list of required ingredients. At the bottom of the item window, you'll see your current character's chance of successfully crafting the item in question. This percentage chance is tied to your character's proficiency level(s) in the requisite skill(s).
  
  If the crafting check succeeds, all ingredients and money will be lost and the created object will appear in your inventory. The equipment (i.e. the hammer) will be lost after several uses. If the check fails, the money and some ingredients will be lost.
  
  Player vs. Player Combat
  
  * You can freely engage in Player vs. Player combat in the Darkfall demo
  * Mounted combat, mount vs. foot and foot vs. mount.
  * Basic naval combat
  * Land to ship combat using cannons and ranged weapons.
  
  Dying
  
  * When your character dies in Darkfall he's incapacitated for a short time. You can release by hitting the space bar, or wait to be revived, but you can also be finished off (Ganked).
  * There is a tombstone which appears in the spot your character has died.
  
  Looting
  
  * Target the tombstone (which appears after a character or monster dies) and use the F key to open. Drag items from the opened window into your backpack to loot.
  
  Chat commands
  If for any reason you get stuck type in the chat box:
  /do commit_suicide
  
  When your character dies he respawns without equipment type:
  /exec backpack
  
  For a list of emotes type /list_emotes and type /emote name in the chatbox to execute the emote.
  

Disclaimers

* Darkfall demo is pre-beta software and has not passed Aventurine's quality assurance program. Nothing has been finalized and performance should not be taken to be indicative of the final release of Darkfall.
* Darkfall demo is a limited in functionality and features version of the game.
* Darkfall demo is in debug mode.
* The graphics setting is set to default. (geforce 4, pixel shader 1.1, vertex shader 1.1) Higher graphics settings cannot be enabled prior to optimization.
* Characters used in this demo are using a default skill and attribute setting that is not balanced or optimized.
* Weapon reach and radius is not optimized.
* Character movement, speed, attack speed, rate of turn etc. are subject to balancing and optimization based on testing.
* Animations are not complete or finalized in the demo.
* Textures: many are temporary and will be changed or updated.
* Effects like particles, blood effects etc. are placeholders and will be changed or updated
* Terrain textures are being updated and issues like the overlay noise that stretches on vertical surfaces will be resolved.
* Spawning effects are missing.
* Water effects are missing and water appearance is temporary and will be upgraded.
* Sounds are temporary placeholders. Final Darkfall sounds are in the process of being completed.
* AI behaviors have not been optimized in the demo and exist only for testing and demonstration purposes.
* Quests in the demo are placeholders and exist to test functionality.

Ehhhh! Mitähän nuo ovat tehneet viimeisen kuusi vuotta, jos näin hemmetisti on vielä keskeneräistä... Ei kyllä ole ihan lähiaikoina tulossa tämäkään tekele. Valitettavasti.

Onhan noissa Online pelejen tekijöillä paljon hidasteita. WoWia tehtiin, mitä 7 vuotta? Lopullinen peli tehtiin kait parissa vuodessa.

Eli peliä kehitetään ajanmyötä... koneiden ja tietoverkkojen kehitys voi vaikuttaa huomattavasti pelikehitykseen.
Puhumattakaan rahoituksesta.
Tai jos vaikka joku tärkeä työntekijä menehtyy tai ottaa loparit.

TrooperFIN:Onhan noissa Online pelejen tekijöillä paljon hidasteita. WoWia tehtiin, mitä 7 vuotta? Lopullinen peli tehtiin kait parissa vuodessa.

World of Warcraft:
8/2001 - Game announced
8/2003 - Alpha version previewed at GenCon
1/2004 - Open Alpha started
3/2004 - Closed Beta started
11/2004 - Open Beta started
11/2004 - Game released
3/2007 - 8.500.000 subscribers reached

Darkfall Online:
8/2001 - Game Announced
3/2007 - Game still in closed development with no version previewed anywhere

Cerwin:
World of Warcraft:
8/2001 - Game announced
8/2003 - Alpha version previewed at GenCon
1/2004 - Open Alpha started
3/2004 - Closed Beta started
11/2004 - Open Beta started
11/2004 - Game released
3/2007 - 8.500.000 subscribers reached

Darkfall Online:
8/2001 - Game Announced
3/2007 - Game still in closed development with no version previewed anywhere

Aivan... Ihmetyttää kyllä millainen rahoittaja katselee tällaista touhua. tosiaan ei wowia seitsemää vuotta tehty, vaan käytännössä 3-4v ja peli oli "valmis". Todellakin kun ei kehdata oikeasti näyttää koko peliä. Lähes ainoat videot jotain "vahingossa vuotaneita alpha-videoita". Ainoa firman julkaisema video oli sellaista kuraa, että jos lopullinen tuotos on tuota luokkaa niin huhhuh.

Toki peli paperilla olisi parasta, mitä aikoihin mmorpg-puolella olen nähnyt. Mutta on mennyt usko tähän firmaan jo vuosia sitten.

Jooh, tekiväthän ne Vanguardia vuodesta 2002 ja nyt n.2kk julkaisun jälkeen peli on vieläkin beta kunnossa, pakko julkaista kun rahat loppuu kesken. :| Mutta parempi että tekevät pelin kunnolla valmiiksi kuin puskevat puoliksitehtyä ulos.

http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?t=33483

News in the Dutch press
“At the end of March the software manufacturer, Aventurine, caught a Dutch intruder in the act. The intruder had made an illegal copy of a part of a trial version of Darkfall Online, a highly anticipated online computer game under development. The intruder also placed an affiliate banner to a well known "gold farming" website on a hosted site on Aventurine's webserver. Aventurine immediately reported the illegal actions and the Dutch Public Prosecutor's Office took firm action and traced after which he was remanded. The equipment was confiscated. It was not established that any further copies of the game had been made or distributed via the Internet. The effect of the intrusion is minimal to the release date of Darkfall."


That’s a rough translation of the statement we had to make for the media in the Netherlands through our representative there. A news story ran there about a “hacker” breaking into the systems of a game developer and stealing a copy of the game. The story didn’t name us, however it was about us. The article mentioned other gaming companies as “victims” of the “hacker”.

What happened basically is that we caught an intruder on our web server sometime in March. We forwarded our evidence to the Dutch Public Prosecutor’s office and they promptly made an arrest and confiscated the intruder’s equipment about three weeks ago.

What’s important to know is that the Darkfall source code is safe. We keep our valuable assets offline. What the intruder managed to do is to download an older test client. The client, for those who don't know, is the software that every user installs on his computer to connect to the game server and play the game. Dutch authorities have informed us that there doesn’t seem to be any distribution of the test client. To be on the safe side, we have been taking all measures necessary to protect the game - as if the test client had been distributed.

There’s a lot more we’d like to say on this topic, but there’s an ongoing criminal investigation and the person in question is in custody.

In the original article there’s mention of the intruder being an enthusiastic fan of online games. Any little sympathy we might have had for him went out the window when we discovered a “gold farmer” connection. He placed an affiliate advertising banner for a well know gold farming company on a hosted site on our web server. If his motivation was gold farming profits, then that’s one less pimple on the ass of online gaming.

No onneksi ei saanut sourcea pöllittyä... :|

Golianth:Jooh, tekiväthän ne Vanguardia vuodesta 2002 ja nyt n.2kk julkaisun jälkeen peli on vieläkin beta kunnossa, pakko julkaista kun rahat loppuu kesken. :| Mutta parempi että tekevät pelin kunnolla valmiiksi kuin puskevat puoliksitehtyä ulos.

Niin... Jos tekevät, sehän tässä harmittaakin kun eivät tunnu tekevän.

Darkfall = Ultima Online nykyaikaisella grafiikalla? =O

Golianth:
No onneksi ei saanut sourcea pöllittyä... :|

Mikä olisi sinun mielestäsi ollut suurin haitta siitä, että joku pöllii pre-beta lähdekoodin? Minä tiedän, mutta mietin vain mitä sinä ajattelet tapauksesta :)

Zakhal:

stounedi:
Äläs nyt, betahan on jo ihan ovella.

- 2003: "check that your e-mail is valid, beta invites start soon"
- 2004: "clan beta coming this year"
- 2005: "internal beta"
- 2006: "register for clan beta"
- 2007: WOHOO, ANY DAY NOW!

Totta puhuen en ole enää kahteen vuoteen jaksanut odottaa Darkfallia...

Olen kuullut että darkfallin tekijät on yrittäny epätoivoisesti myydä pelinsä (kasan alphakoodia), mutta ostajat eivät ole olleet kiinnostuneet vaikka hinta on tiputettu yhteen miljoonaan. Jos siis pitää paikkansa niin aika paljon keskeneräinen se vielä on ja niillä on ilmeisesti rahat lopussa.

Tyrkätään tuo nyt tännekin, koska koskee tätä peliä nimenomaan.

No hö :(
Itsekkin odotellut tätä peliä, mut näemmä tulee lykkäytymään vielä :/

Darkfall Dev Journal #6: Hacker, beta and Screenshots!
Journal by Tasos Flambouras

I don't have a lot prepared for this journal for lack of time. We've been really busy since the last update. Aside from all things to do with Darkfall, we've had to deal with the added time sink of that hacking attempt on our webserver.

I got some private messages from community members ranting something like "WTF HOW IS IT POSSIBLE FOR SOMEONE ...." regarding the intruder. I'll remind our friends of incidents involving colossal projects like Half Life 2 and World of Warcraft, and so many more you never hear about, and say that at least we caught the guy before he could do any real damage. These things happen. As far as we know he's still in custody. We hate seeing people in trouble but this guy did everything he could to land himself in it and there are also other gaming companies involved.

This happened right in the middle of our huge effort to prepare the beta, so I'll say a couple of things about that. There are a couple of variables to be sorted out before we talk about a date. It will happen in phases leading up to the open beta. We're not looking forward to a prolonged beta period, and we've already performed extensive internal testing in order to minimize it.

The first beta build will be very close to the full game: all races, the whole world, full gameplay, around 300 quests, countless adventure areas, hundreds of monsters, all the mounts, ships, cities, sieging, with as few limitations as possible.

Since this journal is short, we've got a couple of screenshots of the Alfar mount for you, the Shulgan drake. We recently added it to the game so we've been riding those around testing them. I would also like to thank everyone who responded to our dev sparked debate on what a next generation MMOG is, there's some great stuff there.

http://df.warcry.com/news/view/70839-Dev-Journal-6-Hacker-Beta-and-Screensh ots

No niin, toivottavasti Beta oisi nyt vähän lähempänä, tosin kyllähän tässä jaksaa vielä odotellakkin. :)

Golianth:The first beta build will be very close to the full game: all races, the whole world, full gameplay, around 300 quests, countless adventure areas, hundreds of monsters, all the mounts, ships, cities, sieging, with as few limitations as possible.

Mä en tykkää yhtää tosta sanonnasta, et eka beta on lähes valmis peli... Niin monta kertaa tullu nähtyy et Beta on hyvin paljon Betassa vielä julkaisun jälkeenkin.

Mut erityistä plussaa täytyy antaa kuvista. Toivottavasti yhtä pelattava miltä näyttää.

Tuli tos yks pelottava juttu mieleen... jospa WAR ja DarkFall julkasee Betan samoihin aikoihin? Muuten hyvä mut 2 pvp MMORPG peliä. No olihan WoW ja EQ2 muistaakseni samoihin aikoihin mut nyt kyseessä on pienempi pelaaja kunta.

Siis oli kumpi vaan parempi niin ne tulevat repimään pelaaja kunnan kahtia -> huono menestys kummallekkin :(

Uutta artikkelia pukkaa: http://df.warcry.com/news/view/71431-Dev-Journal-7-The-Elves

Dev Journal #7: The Elves

Today we get our seventh developer journal from Tasos Flambouras and the Darkfall crew. This week, they look at the Elf race, as we learn more about our pointy-eared friends. We also have two exclusive screenshots of Elves riding their mount: the Aerdin Cat.

Temu:Taitaa käydä niin, että Darkfallissa suurin osa vakavista pelaajista juoksentelee alasti monkkeina tai vastaavina. Tämä on nähty ennenkin.

Ja idlaavat cityssa itemeitä esitellen :P

Developer Journal #8: The Sands of Rubaiyat

The desert continent of Rubaiyat is one of the many varied locations in the upcoming MMO Darkfall. Today's journal is an extensive, detailed look at that continent from Associate Producer Tasos Flambouras. We also got our hands on three exclusive screenshots of the area.

http://df.warcry.com/news/view/71873-Developer-Journal-8-The-Sands-of-Rubai yat

Hienoja nuo kuvakaappaukset. :)

Lisätäänpä vielä: http://www.darkfallonline.com/races/mahirim/index.html

7 uutta kuvaa Mahirim rodusta.

Ei noita grafiikioita kyllä enää voi rumiksi haukkua. :)

Darkfall Developer Journal #9: The Beta Question

This update will be a proper journal entry, the last couple of weeks we did some race presentations here, before we had a couple of lore updates.

We've been throwing around the word beta quite a bit, and it's not to churn the waters, it's because it's what we're working on right now. An editorial on this site urged us to come out with a date. Well that's nice, and we will when we have one. We've specified that our internal target date is this summer and we can't get more specific yet, but we will when we're ready to make an announcement. We have recent negative examples of games with good potential being rushed out having been improperly tested and we don't want that for Darkfall. Things are going well and we'll keep you updated on that front as we know more ourselves.

Some of you may have noticed that we're doing a small facelift to the site which involves a lot of new screenshots, new texts, etc. So far the areas we've done are in the race section: the Mirdain, the Alfar and the Mahirim. The other races will follow. We've updated the monster section and we'll keep adding to it. We updated the Agon map, and updated the Rubaiyat area text and added screenshots. The changes and updates will keep happening all over the website over the next few weeks.

This Darkfall affiliate site has stood by our game and has supported the Darkfall community for a long time. I don't think it's out of line to ask you to do the same and help it evolve. To be honest with you, I'm not fond of the editorials and we've had enough ranting to last us a lifetime, but we do appreciate intelligent commentary and critique. In that spirit, I got an interview question from a Greek journalist. He asked me if the Alfar have any unique characteristics that counter-balance their socialization drawback. Their advantage isn't technical, there's no built-in superpower, but the question is interesting. I've answered the question but I would like to hear your opinions as well on this topic.

http://df.warcry.com/forums/read/270.42541

Developer Journal #11: Aerdin Cat Gameplay Video

http://df.warcry.com/news/view/75060-Developer-Journal-11-Aerdin-Cat-Gamepl ay-Video

We're back on track with a new exclusive update from Tasos Flambouras and the Aventurine SA crew. This week, Tasos tells us a bit about the delay, what's been going on over in Greece and gives us a rare gameplay video of the Aerdin Cat, the Mirdain mount.

Darkfall Developer Journal #11: Aerdin Cat Video
Written by Tasos Flambouras (Ass. Producer, Darkfall)

It was nice that DF Warcry took the blame for the lack of update last week but it's our fault as well. We had to travel on business which took longer than expected, and then E3 got in the way so we all got behind and lost track, and here we are, minus a couple of journals. We might also have to take a break from the journal on August 15th but I'll try to plan for it if possible.

Since our last status update, there is not much to report: we've been fighting to meet our milestones, we've been adding content, and we've been testing. The beta build is essentially a release version functionality-wise so there are numerous things to go over.

There have been some updates to the website and now all races except for the humans are updated. They're next when we get a chance. I was going to add a couple of screenshots, but Henning took the time to put together a short video featuring the Mirdain mount, the Aerdin Cat, which you can view here:

Editor's note: Here is the video through our embedded Flash player, but please keep in mind this players at a greatly reduced quality. To show off things like the dynamic shadows, please download from the link below the player.

http://files.darkfallonline.com/aerdin_mount.zip

Tämä peli on vaporware. Mulle ja meidän killalle tuli guild-invite jo yli vuosi sitten. Eipä olla peliin asti vielä päästy. Tämä on täsmälleen sama kuin se Realms of Torment. Jos joku edes moista yritystä muistaa. Lupaillaan paljon, mitään ei saada aikaan. Tuo "stounedi":n lista kuvastaa just täsmälleen näitä projekteja.

Muistaako kukaan peliä nimeltä DAWN:)

Näitä riittää.