Darkfall Unholy Wars: The myth behind the polarizing labels

If you have read my blog or comments on other blogs over the years, one of the things I despise is how often MMO pundits toss out "labels" on games.  I prefer to think the actual truth of a game lies within the features that comprise that game and not some "label" that is tossed out to force a game into some box.

Darkfall: Unholy Wars is a prime example of labels in action.  It will be described as both a "sandbox" game and as a "hardcore pvp" game.  As such, it will be compared to EvE ad nauseum and success or failure, you'll hear all about why people don't want a "hardcore pvp" game.

Bullshit. Darkfall is no more like EvE than it's like WoW.  

The similarity between EvE and Darkfall can be summed up in the following way - these are games without a story. That's it.

Even here, both games take a radically different approach. EvE is largely about empire building and actual PvP is very rare. In many ways, PvE and crafting is more central to the EvE universe and the game has more in-common with Minecraft than Darkfall.

In Darkfall, the game centers around the PvP. Crafting, as it exists, serves only to create a value of sorts for the zero-sum PvP.  Darkfall is not an empire building game any more than it's a PvE raiding game.  

Darkfall is a fast-paced shooter style MMO with a focus on controlling specific bind points through PvP.  In other words, it's a conquest game that has as much in common with a persistent world-wide version of Arathi Basin as it does with EvE's sandbox game.

In other words, start with elements of EvE (city building) and elements of the classic control-point scenario (like Arathi Basin).  Mix them all up and put them in a large persistent world.  Then throw in some first-person style arcade combat and zero-sum PvP.  That's Darkfall.

If DF:UW fails, the reasons will have nothing to do with so-called "hardcore PvP"

Wait, you say, EvE also has zero-sum PvP.  Umm, kinda.  

There is loss in EvE, for sure, but it's not zero-sum (which means winner-takes-all).  It's a winner-take-some scenario because some items are destroyed.  Also, it's relatively rare.  The loss is something to be feared and protected against.

In Darkfall, PvP truly is a zero-sum game. Often labeled as "hardcore PvP" what most people don't understand about such PvP is that because it's zero-sum, it's just as possible to GAIN as it is to LOSE.

Zero-sum, by definition, means that if one person loses 10 gold, then another person gains 10 gold.  The problem with the original Darkfall was not the zero-sum PvP, it was that there was such a vast gap between the veteran and the new player that the new player was always the one to lose the 10 gold.

This is an important distinction because it's not zero-sum PvP that poses the problem but the relative balance between players that leaves one player at a significant advantage.  A problem that has since been corrected in Unholy Wars.  New players can and will become viable in PvP very quickly.

The myths of zero-sum PvP

The biggest misconception about zero-sum PvP is that there is this monumental loss when you lose your items. In other games, gear progression is an important form of character progression and it's not uncommon to spend weeks and weeks to try and get that one key drop.

There are no make or break drops in Darkfall.  Ever single usable item can be crafted and farming for those items is no more of a time sink than harvesting some mats for your typical crafting profession.  In fact, most of the "time sink" comes from leveling the skill to craft the item and not the harvested mats.

Instead, you see a different dynamic that is based on people managing their own level of risk. You don't always go out in your best gear.  You save that for the special events.  And sometimes, you wear bad gear on purpose because you don't want to take the durability hit on higher cost items.

It's a game of easy come and easy go. Everyone loses gear and the game is designed in such a way that individual losses are not monumental.

NDA Lifted: Beta Tester impressions of Darkfall Unholy Wars

AV lifted the NDA this morning on Darkfall: Unholy Wars and the release date is set for April 16th.  You
can expect me to be posting a lot more actively now that I can speak freely about the game I have been beta testing for 5 months.

Yes, a 5 month beta.  Normally in these types of posts you get "first impressions" of a game.  My first impressions were gone many many months ago.  To put this in perspective, I played the original DF1 for 3 months so my "beta" experience with Unholy Wars is already 2 months longer than the original game.

It was a long beta and Tasos had one ask as he lifted the NDA: to comment on the game as it exists today and not on issues that were addressed earlier in beta.  I think that's a very fair request.

The first month will be incredible.
The second month may start to stall.  And by the third month, they better have something new or anyone without a strong vision for the game is going to lose interest.

In other words, par for the course with every other MMO that has launched in the last billion years.  That said, I'll make a caveat -- that first month will be worth the price of the game.  If you like PvP, it's going to be fun times and worthwhile.

Also, it's worth pointing out that interest isn't going to start waning immediately and mileage will vary depending on how actively you play.  Also, there are pieces expected at launch (dungeons, in particular) that could be introduced to keep players interested longer than I'm anticipating.

Not enough sand in the sandbox...
The problem, in a nutshell, has nothing to do with the "hardcore" nature of this game. I'll speak to this in a future post but this is mostly a red herring thrown out there by people who would never truly enjoy a game like Darkfall.

The problem lies in that progression is very fast for "characters" and mind-numblingly slow for everything else. This is incredibly ironic if you were at all familiar with the original Darkfall, but the net of the problem is this..

In these types of conquest games, players need things to do when they aren't out conquesting. Right now, the potential problem is that there simply isn't enough interesting things "to do" when not sieging to keep people logged in.

This isn't inherently obvious to someone who hasn't spent a lot of time in the latest beta round that introduced the new "prowess" system for character advancement. All due respects to Syncaine and his opinions, but I'm fairly confident that I have logged 4-5 times the hours he has in this latest beta (having played it full-time).

For many players, the biggest "thing to do" draw is improvement to become more viable at PvP.  Early game, the new prowess system is going to be a big draw and feel very rewarding.  It's also going to create a lot of competition for important mob spawns. This is going to make for some fantastic PvP and a real sense of accomplishment during the first month.

And then that will end.  Around 100k prowess, there will be an effective prowess cap for your role that means you'll gain very little benefit for further character improvement.   In other words, you will still have choices but the level of effort required will likely not be worth the gain.  [EDIT: To be clear, I'm not implying this is "grindy" -- I'm saying you are effectively almost "maxxed" within that role for the purposes of PvP.]

There are still other choices, of course, what gear to wear, what to siege, and so forth but the main motivating force that keeps people logged in will be minimized.  That's a problem.  Because in order for you to have PvP, you need to have people.

A game of conquest!
The counter-argument you will hear is that Darkfall is about conquest, sieges and crafting.  Crafting, in it's current state, lacks the "bones" in which to build a strong economy.  That's the backbone of EvE, but it's not the backbone of Unholy Wars and needs considerable work if that's the intent.

On sieges, I absolutely agree and these are extremely fun.  That's not the issue.  The issue is -- players will log on for a siege -- then log off once it's over.  Any "spontaneous" PvP will be virtually non-existant and largely consist of 15 bored guys rolling into a city that has 2-3 semi-AFK harvesters.

And to be clear, PvP is the goal.  The content that needs to be added should drive PvP and come in the form of "hotspots" that bring people together for a fight.  My criticism here is something needs to be added that is rewarding in such a way that people will congregate in areas that will allow PvP to flourish.

On Aventurine...
I want to comment briefly on AV.  It's obvious this isn't a big budget company and I admire what they are able to accomplish with limited resources.  It requires a different approach, one that is more iterative in that pieces of the puzzle are slowly added into the mix.

You do need to be comfortable with the idea that the game will always be a work-in-progress. That's true of all MMOs but particularly true here where the budgets are small.  This approach does work and I do think it results in a better game but it requires patience from players which is often in short supply.

Fortunately, I do have patience and do believe in the vision.  It's a fun game and I do plan to continue playing many months after launch.  But I'm also not most people..

And thus, my prediction that unless something new is introduced (which is possible) players are going to hit the same "lack of content" wall that they hit with every other game.

Group Lurkers: The silent MMO majority

Call it "cracking the code" but I think I understand what the "masses" really want out of an MMO.  They want what I would call Group Lurking.  

Players want to be grouped and play with others — this is why they are playing online — but they don't always want the convention of interacting socially with others. In other words, they want the interaction and benefits of grouping without actually having to invest in interacting.

In almost every online community, the vast majority of people are lurkers.  Why would we assume this is different in MMOs?  While that may seem illogical, all evidence seems to point towards this being true even in MMO communities.  The "silent majority" want to group but they also want to remain silent. 

Voice chat / communications

To find your first group of lurkers, look no further than the voice comms of your clan or guild.  How many of the people in your comms don't talk?  In every guild, the "talkers" are usually limited to maybe 8-10 really active speakers and everyone else stays quiet.

Are you the one lurking?  Then you already know the reasons why you don't speak up. There could be a 1000 reasons.  The point is.. you want to participate but you are perfectly happy not participating as much as the guys doing all the talking.

But this is only one type of "lurker" and lurking isn't always black/white.  For example, on the other extreme we have ...

The "solo" grouper

People who write about MMOs often mistake lurkers as wanting to play a "solo" game. This is a gross oversimplification and untrue.  Why play an MMO at all if you don't want a shared world with others?

Simply look at some of the most widely praised features among casual gamers as evidence: party finders, scenarios & battlegrounds, public quests, and really anything that facilitates a "group" forming automatically which has a relatively short duration.  Remember how much "open groups" and "public quests" were praised for Warhammer Online?

That's what this group wants -- they want to group, they just don't have the real-life time to invest more than 30-90 minute chunks of time.  Any feature that facilitates this type of player's ability to group is appreciated.  And just because they want to group for a bit, doesn't mean they want to invest in making long-term friends.

Cracking the Code: How to retain your players

I would posit the theory that these "group lurkers" want to be led by others.  The easier a game makes it for these "group lurkers" to be led, the better the chance that the game will succeed and retain players.

The most vocal people in “vent” are the guys who do the leading. An important group, to be sure, but not the silent majority.  In sandboxes, the quiet ones are the lurker slaves quietly farming all the resources to build your battleship/city/whatever.  In theme parks, they are the 15 silent guys making up 60% of your 25-man raid group. These players are the heart-and-soul of an MMO's success.

At it's core, I think this is what most games lack to be successful in the long-term.  Sure, they need content.  Sure, they need to be fun.  Sure, a good IP helps.  But at the core, online gaming is about interacting with others.  The easier and more important this becomes, the more successful the MMO will be at retaining players.