But somehow I just can’t bring myself to log into this game. That’s it I guess.

155 – the number of hivelings I’ve killed in 1 hour. Now how often can I do that until my brain starts bleeding because it’s tortured with boredom over and over again?

This game is such a boring grindfest, why am I playing this shit? What’s keeping me going? Is it the 70€ I wasted? I’ve seen and played the Korean grind, this is a whole new level of grind. This is the greek grind. The easy mobs are so retardedly easy and the medium mobs are impossible. Balance, do you hear me? Linear progression. Increased skill and statgains. Make it so!

I didn’t log on for a while, been playing some tower defense maps in wc3 with a friend checked out EQ2′s new game update “Will of a tyrant”, what a joke. EQ2 has switched to a 3 month update cycle but their updates have the same amount of content as when they were on a monthly update cycle. A whole 3 new quests and the frostfell thing they had last year and some maps redesigned because Freeport’s Citadel tower collapsed and a number of typos fixed and some minor cosmetic changes. It’s an insult is what it is. Anyway met 2 members of my old guild who usually don’t log into the pvp server but that day they were. One just checked out the 6 year veteran rewards and I wanted to powerlevel the other and we met some other group so it was fun with the usual bit of pvp drama. Us 3 getting killed by mobs twice in the same spot and finally getting killed by a lvl77 Shadowknight. The two of us had fun but the members of the other group raged and some also logged off.

Anyhow I’ve been more or less avoiding to log into Darkfall, worked on my browserbased game. The first few skills are in now and translation engine and registration works, at least the input, processing and output not the sql queries yet. It’s going to be a BMMO[RPG/TBS/RTS] (Browserbased Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game and Turnbased and Realtime Strategy hybrid). At least in theory, we’ll see what I can or can’t pull off.

So yesterday I logged into Darkfall. Harvested some and fell sleep while doing it, woke up and decided to check the Bone Knight spawn. It was camped, went to Zombies, camped, went to Skeleton Archers and Warriors, camped. Fuck my life . So after running around checking spawns for like 30-60 minutes, finally the Bone Knight spawn wasn’t occupied anymore. Killed a few waves and someone appeared who healed me and also killed Bone Knights. Offered her (or him) to go to the dungeon but she was obsessed with hitting 50 in greater magic. My armor was mostly banded about to break soon with a few other mixed pieces so I decided to check out the dungeon to see how they changed the undead dwarves.

Stopped at kobolds on my way got a few arrows and impalers just in case and entered the dungeon. I remember my last experience in there and somehow I knew bad things would happen and I was right. I just zoned in and moved to the dwarf spawn traded a few blows, it didn’t even scratch them and they hit for 29HP a swing. No chance. Ran away and of course there were 2 red dwarves from “French Kiss” waiting. Great low on HP and 2 french kiss assholes ahead of me. 2 arrow shots in the back and 2 swings and hello red screen. I didn’t bother to go back as I’d get killed again anyway by them. Kindof ruined my good mood as I had my only mount with me and the best polearms I had (R20). I knew this would happen, sensed it somehow.

That’s my grief with this game, staircase progression. You can kill a number of mobs quite easily but then you hit a wall. The increase in difficulty isn’t linear it’s like a staircase. And to climb the next stair you have to grind, grind, griiiiind. But you can’t because all the spots are fucking permacamped. And the way people are in this game. They don’t have the courtesy to ask if it’s ok if they come to your camp and kill all the mobs, they just do. Most of them anyway. Doesn’t matter if you can kill 4 at once with more than 50% HP left. It’s annoying but they’re probably in the same boat as I am so I understand, just say hello before you come there and act like you own the spawn. Then there are those who stand there while you fight and mind you in the heat of battle I hit everything that looks like a mob and damn alfar in leather look like a mob. And they’re so strong when they’re in groups. Like these 2 “New Hope” bitches. I hit one by accident and she freaks out and starts shooting. Want to know why? Because her guildmate was near. But she stopped shooting when I wasn’t grey anymore. Pathetic weakling.  Reminds me of primates in the zoo.

So in conclusion, like I wrote on the forum, Darkfall is a game for 18-25 year old males who have no life. Us 30+ types who play casually will have to find something else. I don’t know about other 30+ people from all over the world, me and my friends became more relaxed over the years and are not taking things so seriously anymore and we have a life and we’re aware that life is short so how do you want to spend your life? Do you want to spend it hating and raging in a bad mood or do you prefer a friendly environment and a good mood? On one hand Darkfall is the base of what a game should be on the other hand it’s just that, the base and it’s too much on the hardcore side. If it had a child with one of the EQ clone MMOs or in other words with the too casual and easy MMOs it would be a good child. Meridian 59 did things better than Darkfall does. It was for both casual and hardcore for people who liked to socialize and a game for individuals. In Darkfall you have to join a clan or play the prison bitch. It’s not sandbox it’s lack of content and forced playstyle. Who wants to play a game where all you do is get owned by groups if you solo? I log on in Darkfall and think yeah too long too time consuming, too extreme. I log on in Everquest 2 and think yeah too easy too little risk, not extreme enough. The best of two worlds guys, the best of two worlds in one game and you have a winner.

Since I’m still quite new and can only comment on the low/easy mobs, I like the changes. Sure chaincasting mobs are a bit rediculous, but apart from that, I like it.

Before the patch I couldn’t a bone knight, no matter how hard I tried. Now after the patch it’s actually possible for me to kill them, because I wear banded mail and because they don’t have that much HP anymore. Well it’s not like I’m standing there letting the 4 shoot me and it’s not like I’m always sure to win. I have to run and hide , rest up, drink potions, watch my back. Even with only archery they’re quite manageable.

Polearms got nerfed, that sucks. Instead of a 0.20 swingspeed they have 0.1 now, the lowest in game. Also I’ve noticed that the cross-hair was changed or did I just not notice before? It’s builds up on consecutive hits. You hit once and a small red, well I’ll call it star, appears. Hit again the star gets bigger and again, 3 or 4 times I think then you get some kind of powerswing that hits for extra damage and it starts counting up from the beginning. Also combat animations were changed, there’s more diverse and it’s more fun to swing than before.

As for my character, I’ve progressed. Hit 30 Wisdom and bought 2 skills, one was that my armor’s durability doesn’t drain so fast and the other was survivalist, extended nourishment duration of food. Survivalist increases while fishing and cooking. Also I “crafted” my first mount. Riding is fun alright, apparently you can only use a 1H weapon while mounted. Well how does riding work? You craft a figurine into your backpack. Then doubleclick the figurine and it spawns the mount somewhere at random ahead of you, press F to mount, which is about instant. W = ride, A and D turn left and right, S = Stop. I saw a player kick me with his mount, i don’t know how that works. Oh yeah here’s some mount humor for you to enjoy

Anything else? Yeah I hope to get 75 Polearms and 75 Mining in the next few days.
75 Polearms means I can buy a new skill that improves polearm damage, Polearms Mastery.
75 Mining means I can buy a new skill that improves mining speed.

Whenever I’m near Akathos, there’s toolbox and I empty it. This time it was a smithing hammer (100g at NPC to buy, for armor and weaponsmithing) and a sickle (20g for farming, Alchemy Herbalism Cooking). Two guys were there logging. I went to bank the hammer and sickle (lol communist metaphor) and just wanted to leave for an advanced NPC town when I saw one of them popping at the bindstone in Akathos. Conclusion: A red is near. Saw him loot the guy who was fishing went in ID range to see who it was, “Ihopeyou gotlewts” and since I was equipped and stocked I thought hey ok this could be interesting. Evaded one of his arrows, shot mine, not far enough, adjusted range, he ran south, got the right range but he stopped when he heard I fired the shot so it missed. He went south, away from the city (because in the city there are towers who would’ve shot him) and I guess he tried to lure me out, since I don’t know how good he is or isn’t and also have my share of experience in EQ2′s sinking sands lure and kill fights, I decided to play it safe and wait for a while. Someone else rode out, I warned him, no response (np next time I’ll let you ride to your doom) left the city north and saw Ihopeyou quite injured on his warpig fleeing west. I thought ok whatever and went to the NPC town.

It was a good day and for once I had fun in this game.

The feedback from the changes are heavily leaning on the suck side. I’m speaking of the PvE changes. I’m seeing this very often that developers read feedback and alter things. SOE always used to make the very same mistake. When their customers yelled about one thing being too strong it was nerfed into oblivion.

Here in Darkfall, changes to PvE were introduced. Mobs being resistant to one type of attack while being vulnerable to another type of attack. They paired it with AI changes. Things IMHO are out of balance and that’s the point I’m trying to make. They did change the way mobs were, their resistances and how they attack, but they overdid it, just like SOE did with their nerfs and about any other MMO company I can think of.

So what should they have done? They should’ve introduced the changes, but not in the full spectrum and they should’ve made slight, small changes. If there were no mob resistances on mobs before they should’ve added (arbitary number) 10 points of resists, not 50 or even just 5 points to see how the players accept it. And most of all they should’ve tested those changes beforehand. They can’t just force a different playstyle on players who were used to how this game was.

These changes (mob resistances and AI) have made the game more of a timesink than it was before. IMHO they should adjust the radii especially for easy and middle mobs and in general make all mobs 3/4 less resistant than they are now. Also they need to make sure that mage mobs don’t machinegun your ass with surehit casts. Easy mobs, always hitting, over vast distances, not good.
Like I wrote in the forum it’s a step in the right direction but it needs tweaking. And if you ask me the next step should be to add diversity to mobs, because farming goblins day in and out isn’t fun. I want to travel and see something different but at the same difficulty as goblins and also at the same efficiency as goblins, near a tower and bank (because I’m a newbie). I know such spots exist, but there’s not enough of them and there’s not enough diversity.

Expansion inc in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3.
They’re still working on it. EU1 went down today at 03:30 CET.
I didn’t want to go to bed so I was harvesting some while reading and pondering the universe. Here’s the screenshot I took.

That’s probably what Lum meant, you don’t really play Darkfall, you do other stuff while playing, like taking screenshots and writing stupid blog entries

Well since there isn’t anything to write about yesterday I’ll post another funny video Enjoy

I really don’t want to only post negative stuff, but now I found the time to play some and I can’t connect to login server. Wanted to practice my archery, finally got the 75 skill after a mind numbing boring grind ugh. Well I hope the game will improve a bit now, if only I could play

Can't connect to login server

Tomorrow is another day I guess. Account management is down too. ZOMG maybe that’s the expansion! The Sky is falling run for the hills! No wait that doesn’t make sense, if they sky was falling you’d be dead sooner in the hills than if you moved away from it.

Died to two other newbiekillerfags, but the day is still fresh right? I can still be killed alot more often!
And guess what both were afraid of a duel with words!

Seeing this video I felt like the guy in the black robe while fighting them