July 27 08 - Yellowbeard visits
The official write up
My brother and I were in Greece visiting family and I contacted Tasos months earlier about stopping by. I had set the date between some island hoping knowing we would be going into Athens for a few days. I didn't want to keep bothering them so a few days before I left I verified things were still set and Tasos said it was a go. I got up early that morning wanting to call and get in as soon as we could but I didn't want to call to early.
Tasos picked up right away and after I told him who I was and making sure everything was set I got a long pause and he said well now is not a good time. I thought oh shit here we go I can't wait to blast his ass right now. I was getting ready to run down to an internet cafe and post what bullshit it was. He told me around noon would be better but we couldn't stay long.... Again I was getting really pissed but I thought I would wait till noon. I already had the address and phone number so around noon we decided to just go on over
Taos told us all the directions we needed to get there. The only problem is no fucking cab driver wanted to take us there. Half of them didn't know where it was and the others said it wasn't worth it to drive us. Now we both had our wives with us and we just figured we would ditch them when we got into the studio. They started nagging the shit out of us right about now about how we dragged them down there and we weren't going to see shit. Being the real Greek that I am I said "Bitch you better get back on your goat and go to your moms house, I don't need this in the middle of my Darkfall visit" Finally we found a cab driver to take us there!
Enough of the story filler I know what all you bitches ants so here we go.
We get in and are greeted by Tasos. He takes us to his office and tells us they had just recently moved to this location because they were expanding. At the moment they had the second floor and were taking over the third. The game is legit and it is fully functional. I mean everything is there. None of this horse shit that other games are promising is in a game and then they tell us they will patch it or it's coming in the expansion. We saw any and everything castle building, crafting, ships, ship combat, PvP system and more.
When we walked into Tasos office we saw the game up. On the way in you also saw a lot of people working on the game. I would say they had at least 20 people out there working that day. The game has a lot to offer if you are old school like me and Vaprak are. It has so much of UO that it makes me want to shed a tear of joy. It seems to have a lot of new things out there too and I cant claim them as being copied because there is no way they could get this into a game with such detail as it is.
Here's a quick breakdown of some of the questions we asked and things they showed us. By the way there was a huge developer who came in during the whole visit and showed us most of this. I am fucking sorry I cant spell his name but it starts with an S
No Stealth - the only way you have stealth is wearing non shiny armor and hiding in a shadow. Or wearing dark armor (leather or whatnot). None of this stealth and sneak up to backstab you shit, but if you cross a tree and in the shadow is someone who just ganked your ass, all is good.
No pet system - They said fuck pets and fuck those things chasing you across the whole damn world while the guy sits back and does jack.
Alignment system - basically just like UO with the chaos and honor shrines and all. Depending on your alignment that will determine where you can rez. You can always rez in your player city no matter what your alignment. But if you are chaos you will only be able to rez at chaos shrines. (We know where camps spots will be haha) Forget about going into main cities if you are evil alignment.
Skills and caps - OK, here is where they have UO with a twist. You can have as many skills as you use and the cap is at 100. Now it doesn't actually stay at 100. They told us that when you reach the 100 point mark you get a super ability. (Like an enhanced offensive spell or a big ass heal) Once it is used you drop your skill back down to 99 (or 99.9 I'm not sure if they are using the decimal system) It's not an easy thing to get your skills up and they will be cracking down hard on anyone macroing. There is somewhere between 500-700 skills we didn't get a specific number.
City system - This seems to be a very cool it takes a lot of AoC and makes it so much better. This is where I say there is no way this could be copied because the detail they have for this system isn't something you make in a day. If you ask me it seems like AoC tried to copy them. You can create your own political system. Who pays tributes, who can enter the city who can shop at your vendors, mayors, penalties and so on. When you siege a town you can only destroy one building per day. I like this and I don't. I guess it's good for people who don't have a city and they just want to take one over. But if you have a city and you just want to destroy one it can take a while. BUT could take one over and sell it to a group who needs one. Now the guard situation I am not 100% sure if I understood this right so don't blame them if I get this wrong. I think there will be no guards. You can create guard towers that will have range and can attack enemies of the town. You can also kick the city guild leader if he is not doing his part. I think they have to fulfill a certain quota or they can be ousted. This also keep people from just setting a newb as the guild city leader. (My damn wife took off with my paper and pen so I am pulling this part from memory)
Wonders - Scattered throughout the land there will be certain relics/wonders that will give benefits to whoever holds them. There are a limited number and there is no doubles. It is possible for one guild to hold all the wonders/relics if they are found. We didn't get any detailed information on what the actually buffs would be.
PvP - Here is where it gets interesting. There is no safe AoE spell or melee combat. If you swing your big ass 2H sword at an enemy and your group is on top of him they are getting hit too. If you use an AoE spell in the middle of a group and your guys are there they are getting nuked too. This works for friendly spells as well. If you are casting a big ass Heal AoE for your group and your enemies are in the middle of that fight they are getting healed. This makes no difference if you are grouped, guilded, same race, or gay lovers. This is where skill will definitely come into play. Flanking and rear attacks will also do more damage. They have collision so you won't be running through guys to get behind them either. We got to play some PvP and watch some. While Tasos and Big S were in the room showing us a character we saw a big orc start shooting us with a bow. It was cool because you could see the arrows flying at you and when they stuck you know what direction they came from. Big S I can tell is a total gamer freak. He was trying to be polite to us for a second but I saw him typing to the other guy to fuck off and I think he was about to leave the room and go kick whoever's ass.
Transportation - I should have asked a little more here but I thought we were limited on time so I was just spamming questions for a little bit. There will be racial mounts (but anyone can ride other races mounts) Boats, and Recall Runes (UO style). You can kill someone and take their mount (I think... another one of those times where I didn't write it down) Boats are just like it was in UO. You carry the little miniature of the boat on you and you got to a spot of water and place it (more on this in a minute). Recall runes (not what they called them but I will) you have to go to the location and mark it. Then you can recall to that location from the rune. You will lose these if you are killed.
Boats - God I love this part. Like I was saying about carrying the little miniature and placing it in water to raise your boat. I saw rafts, skimmers, and war ships but you just can't summon the big boats in a pond. It checks for depth before you can place a ship. (by the way be careful when you leave town with the ship if you die someone just got a new ship) I actually got to run around on the boats and shoot the cannons. (Thank you to the beautiful Russian bombshell!! I won't give her name out because I know there are a lot of freaks out there. When did programmers get so hot I thought they looked like the giant we were dealing with) This could turn out to be a lot of fun. You could possibly have a guild controlling the seas. If you get on a large enough warship and have the guild mount the cannons (there are a ton of canons on the large ships that can each be mounted) you could tear through the whole sea and control it.
Day/Night timers - A whole day runs through 5 hours actual playing time. You can set up ambushes according to when you have shade to hide behind. Or know when it's safe to travel during daylight if you have some shit you don't want to lose.
Dungeons - Yes, there will be dungeons and yes they are instanced. Guess what though, everyone gets the same instance! So please go PvE and kill the big boss that way you can have a shitload of people/guilds chasing you before you even finish to get that cool new item.
Paperdoll - UO style plus new MMO style. You have the bags just like UO used to be but you can see item slots and whatnot. You have your usual slots plus neck and multiple ring slots. I want to say I saw 6 but I don't actually remember how many there were.
Spells - lots and lots and lots of spells. While we didn't get a lot of time to play with the spells this list is huge. It didn't even cross my mind to ask how wearing armor would affect the spell casting, but the person we were using had more than just leather armor on.
Sieges/Guild City Fights - Like AoC where you declare a war on a city but it takes a certain amount of time before the siege can actually begin. This gives both attackers and defenders time to get people ready.
This is all I can think of right now. I really would like to thank Tasos and the Darkfall team for letting us come visit. They said they only had a little bit of time but we were there for over 2 hours and I think they would have let us stay longer but they had real press and financial visitors there they had to attend to.
Here's a bit of bad news for the Americans though. We probably won't get to play this game till after the Euros do. While the dollar is getting the shit kicked out of it American publishers can't compete with the Euro. Let's say the Americans want to offer the them $100k for publishing end result is it's about 50k. Now the Euros could offer them 60k and still be ahead.
The game was fully functional and they were all playing it plus developing. They have had large battles to test stuff and have testers form other countries. Now I know this number is VERY small and I don't think there will be a big beta opening for users to test. This is where I think there should be. Not because everyone wants to play but I can tell you from the shit AoC just pulled by not having a big test and totally fucking the game when people paid and it wasn't working. Granted they have had this game working for some time there really needs to be some outside testing and big stress testing for large battles and all that jazz.
They did say without a doubt it would be out this year. I just don't think the Americans will have it by then.
Before I left I said I want a bunch of free stuff. I got a handful of T-Shirts but I won't pose and show pics of those you fucking pervs
http://s39.photobucket.com/albums/e169/yellowbeardcc/
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