Darkfall Unholy Wars - Christmas patch day PvP

Darkfall End of the Year event "Silent Fright... Unholy Blight...."

Snowpiercer

Relic system released to push Clan warfare into new heights

 What will you do with your Relic?

Relics may spawns randomly in any location.

In today's patch Darkfall introduced 9 persistent relics that spawns randomly in the world.  When a player finds it, he/she may bring it back to their clan holdings to get a clan wide global buff  or he/she may destroy the relic at specific alter to receive an individual powerful heroic buff known as "The Immolator".

Relics are unique object they can't be removed from the world by player action such as logging out or storing them in a bank, bag, etc.  Player also can't instantly move the relic with recall, port out or through summon mechanism. The player must transport on land or sea! Below is the official explanation of the Relic System.

Here is the official Relic demo video.

{Objectives
Based on the community feedback and our own thoughts, we designed a system with three primary objectives:

•     Increase clan holding value.
•     Promote clan holding raiding.
•     Introduce a player driven capture the flag type of activity.

The mechanic
The basic operations that outline the mechanic are the following:

•     Nine (more later) relics randomly and mysteriously appear around Agon.
•     A player that discovers a relic can use it to load it up on his back through a channeling action.
•     The pack is visible on the players back and emits a special effect as well.
•     Players carrying relics cannot recall in any way, use mounts or sprint (Considering blocking movement skills as well).
•     Players carrying relics can be transported by vehicles as usual.
•     A relic can be dropped voluntarily or if the player carrying it is killed or disconnects.
•     Players can carry the relic to any clan holding church and use the altar inside to place it there.
•     Clan members that control a holding with a relic, receive a global buff.
•     If the church is disabled the buff is disabled until the church is repaired to above 25%.
•     If the Church is reduced to rubble the relic is also destroyed and it reappears at a random location again.
•     The relic can be removed from the alter by any player as long as the holding asset protection is inactive.
•     Relics can also be carried to a demonic altar where they can be destroyed, granting the player that destroyed them a prowess reward (Considering some special limited time buff as well).
•     Destroyed relics reappear at a random location again.

Clarifications
A relic only exists in the world, carried on a players back or in a church. It cannot be placed in a backpack or bank or removed from the world in any other way apart from the ones described above, whereupon it will respawn at a random location.

In that vein, dropping a relic means it will actually appear where it is dropped allowing for a hasty escape or for hiding a relic in a remote area only to divulge the information of its location to the highest bidder.

Also, each church can only hold one Relic but clans can take advantage of multiple relics by having multiple holdings with churches. }

This new relic system jolted existing clan / meta game. Clans now have strong incentive to conquer more holding from rival clans, so that they can store more relics and get multiple (stack) buffs.  Smaller clans now have reason to consolidate and join forces to participate in the relic system.

Relic system encourages players to explore and find relics in the wild and bring it home safely through team work and careful planning.  Clans now have a purpose to raid rival holdings to find and steal relics and bring it home.  City defense is also equally important to safeguard relic from raiders and bandits.

Relic system increased the depth of planing, strategy and logistics by many folds. A clan that wants to excel through resource or warfare are now given the avenue with the introduction of the relic system.

Relic system is essentially driving Darkfall players into large scale warfare, territorial control with economical dominance. 

Here are the 9 relics introduced.

Relic of Warfare
Decreases Siege Ladder spawning time to 10 seconds, delays enemy city warning message by 20 seconds and grants +5 arcane protection

Relic of Greed
Halves Globules of Greed consumption and doubles requisitioning speed

Relic of Aegis
Increases the damage absorbed when blocking and increases penetration damage against enemies who block.

Relic of Gluttony
Doubles food duration and halves potion cool down timers.

Relic of Deception
While crouching, increases movement speed, hides player information and silences archery attacks and movement.

Relic of Alacrity
Boost your clan mates Health and Stamina!

Relic of Avidity
Boost your clan mates Mana and Stamina!

Relic of Ability
Boost your clan mates Health and Mana!

Relic of Hearth and Home
Help your clan mates get home quickly!


Alternatively, players who discover a relic can sacrifice it at the Altar of Immolation located somewhere beneath Nurenfau and claim the title and unique buff of the Immolator.

Altar of Immolation

The Immolator

• Grants 4000 Health, 800 Mana and 800 stamina.
• Hits are always critical.
• All healing effects are only 10% effective.
• Recalling with runes is blocked.
• Dash skill is blocked.

Lasts for six hours or until the Immolator is killed

Here is a video of first Immolator killed by players!

Aventurine S.A. has done  a great job by bringing in a CTF (Capture the flag) type system into a sandbox environment. This enhanced existing game by giving players new tools to shape their game world politically, economically and militarily.

Daedrus' Tales update June 20th

If you love to read head to Daedrus' Tales. This is a dedicated blog for high quality player made Darkfall lore! Click on each image to read the stories behind them!

The Seven Legends of Bloodscar : When the black tower rose 

out of the Moldar Plains at the behest of the powerful

Opus of the Traitor (Traitor Series: Part IV) : Ruins 

and a graveyard. I'll admit I was rather

UI Suggestion and Feeback for Dev Part 2

Here are some more concept design submitted by user to improve Darkfall UI. See Part 1 here.

Here is the forum discussion talking about these UI.

Ragnarok Del presenting this Wire frame.

Key binding and other UI suggestion by World Dominator binding suggestion

World Dominator suggested  these changes to world maps

World Dominator presented this cleaned up
add friend Window.

Health/Int/Stamina Bar suggestion by World Dominator

Make current Bars straight.  See top of the picture by Naglfar Yotunov

UI Improvement suggestion for developers

Here are few Darkfall UI improvement suggestions to the Dev team. Click on each picture to enlarge it. Dev please check Part 2 as well. Players contributing a lot of effort in that one also.




Portal Tab Needs to be separated.  Move the "Register" and "Option"
buttons below.



A loading progress bar will assure client didn't crash and how long
to wait. 

Steam user playing Darkfall should register with AV to get Tech Support, Official Forum, Seletine Gold, etc

All Steam users playing Darkfall should register with Aventurine (AMS) so that you can get full Tech support, privilege to post in official forums, and purchase Selentine Gold for fluff items.  You can also play Darkfall directly without using Steam.  Also when AV gives out special gifts and offers you can redeem them in your AMS account.

Registering with AV (AMS) is easy.

1) Run Darkfall client from Steam and click "REGISTER"

click on Upper Right corner

2) Fill it out with accurate and truthful information because you can't change once you submit.

Once you finish registration you can now access AMS by going here https://ams.darkfallonline.com/AMS/ to buy Seletine Gold for fluff items, Play Darkfall directly without steam, link official forum account, etc.

You can also get customer support from https://cs.darkfallonline.com/

How to stop Steam from taking screen shots when playing Darkfall

By default Steam bind "i" key to take Screen Shots.  This key is also used in Darkfall to bring up Roles overview.  Also you will type i multiple times in chat as "i" is an English Vowel.

There are multiple ways to fix this. 

1) Exit out of Darkfall
2) Open Steam
3) Go to Steam Settings

4) Choose In-Game
5) You can either "uncheck" Steam Overlay or Change Screenshot shortcut keys to something Darkfall doesn't use. For example "ctrl+\"

6) Restart your computer. (Restarting Steam will also work)

Special thanks to a player for sending me these screen shots and instructions.

Darkfall Unholy Wars New Tutorial Video

Darkfall The Path Ahead

Here is a (very long) post from Darkfall developers about where the game is headed. It also includes details of how Relic, Specialization, and New Player Experience will be implemented.

We’ve spoken before about our vision for ‘Darkfall: Unholy Wars’ and the direction we intend to take the game in, and today we would like to expand upon that, by providing some insight as to how we aim to realize that vision.

What we want to present here is our medium and long-term vision for Unholy Wars, as we feel that an important step to moulding the game into the experience that we all want it to be is to define where it is that we want to go; it is this vision that we would like to include you all in today.

What follows is a relatively “high-level” overview of related/interconnected aspects of the game, and mechanics, that we feel should be tweaked, enhanced and developed in order to take Unholy Wars in the direction that we want. Future updates/announcements will delve much deeper into each area, to provide further details about specific mechanics.

We would also like to point-out that we do not see this as another change in direction, or shift in focus. What we are presenting here is our long-term goals, a continuation of our previous announcements. All our immediate goals and focuses, as laid out previously, remain in place; such as enhancements to the function of the GUI, improvements in client performance, increased fluidity and responsiveness in combat, economy and loot re-balancing and increased holding desirability.

So, without further ado, in no specific order:

Fully Localised Economy

In order to create a dynamic and active in-game economy, we feel (and we know you all agree) that localisation of resources is essential; however, for this to work, we believe it’s important to also address the methods of banking and travel, so this aspect does not focus only on loot but also inventory systems, banking, the inclusion of more methods of “fast travel”, the reduction of “instant travel”, along with systems to reduce self-sufficiency and encourage inter-dependence between play-styles.

 

 

 

PvE and AI Improvements

 

As a major source of resources, along with localisation, we want to focus on improving and increasing our AI, to offer a more challenging and rewarding experience for all levels of player. We also aim to make the world feel more dynamic (and dangerous) by not only increasing the variety and difficulty of our monsters, but also “unleashing” them from the static spawn-points they now inhabit. With more dynamic and intelligent monsters come several other features, such as taming and monster raids, which we very much want to see in Agon.

Do you have Steam? Darkfall in Steam is FREE to try till November 19th!

Do you already have Steam? If so head to the Steam Darkfall page and click "Play Now"!  It is free till 19th of November.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/227400/

{Darkfall PvP Video} Down Here 2- Unbreakable

Free Weekend for all! Starting Friday 3rd ~ Monday 6th

Free Weekend for all!

During Friday's (3rd October) maintenance, til Monday's (6th October) downtime, Darkfall will be free for all!

Don't miss the chance to try out the new school, new combat and movement mechanics!

Benefit from the D.U.E.L item (purchasable with in-game resources) and continue playing Darkfall for free!

Follow these instructions and Register your account.

Developers explains a new unique quest system for Darkfall

Darkfall Unholy Wars developer ^Ma$$^ has been good enough to respond to the many requests asking for more information and background on the upcoming Unholy Quests, and he prepared the following :


Some information on Unholy Quests

We thought it might be a good time to present some of our thinking behind the introduction of quests to Unholy Wars, with the aim of making it clearer why we believe the inclusion of such a system is important to the game, to explain the reasoning behind the decision, and hopefully to include you all in our excitement about the system. So here goes:

One of the issues we faced when thinking about how to bring quests to Unholy Wars was how to make them distinct from the Feats system, which is such a large part of the game. The quest system that we had in DFO, while very capable, was ultimately restricted to a linear “Quest/Sub-Quest” structure, which bore too much of a resemblance to Feats to be truly “useful” for Unholy Wars; so something new was required.

After (a lot of) discussions and design meetings, several “key differentiators” were identified, to give quests their “own place” in Unholy Wars, the most important of these were:

1. Where the focus of Feats is to “complete x task”, the focus of quests should be to “tell stories”, about Agon and its lore.
2. While Feats are presented as a static set of goals, quests should be dynamic, allowing players' choices to shape their personal journey through the lore of Agon.
3. Where Feats reward players with Prowess, quests should provide material rewards to players. That’s not to say there can’t/won’t be Feats for “complete x quest”, but Prowess is gained from Feats, not directly from quests; quest rewards should provide players with the things they need, for their future journeys through Agon.

During our (extensive) discussions on the topic, we also realised that this re-design of our approach to quests would also afford us the opportunity to re-consider what questing, in general, can “bring to the table” in an MMO; especially as they relate to the open-world, full-loot MMO, that is Unholy Wars.
In most games quests serve as a “means of character progression”, as this role is already fulfilled in Unholy Wars by Feats, this “frees up” our quest system for other purposes; also, quests in other games tend to be very “character-centric” and attempt to give the player a “special role” in the world, while this may be fitting for single-player, or instanced, games, this feels ill-suited to Unholy Wars (there will be no “Saviour of Agon” quest-lines in our system!).

This led us to 3 main “goals” for our quest system:

1. To help teach new players about the game and mechanics in a more interactive, engaging and rewarding manner than a tutorial ever could.
2. To present the wealth of lore and history about the world of Agon, and the races that inhabit it (both past and present), within the game, for players to explore and immerse themselves in as they wish.
3. To offer an “alternative PvE experience” for players, provide goals to work towards and rewards for achieving them, with a more fully “fleshed out” motivation than “for the loot” (or “for the Prowess”).

In the hope of realising these goals, we moved away from linear systems, in favour of a graph-based system, similar to the dialogue systems used in several other games. This system gives us unprecedented freedom, both in the structure of the quests and the way they are presented to players (branching progression paths, based on player choices, with multiple possible outcomes are fully integrated into the system), and also in the complexity of the individual tasks that players must perform to progress (these can be highly customised to integrate with any game mechanic, in any manner).

One final feature that is prevalent in a lot of other games’ quest systems, and was an absolute requirement of the quest system in DFO, that is worth mention is that of “quest givers” (NPC characters that invariably want players to do things for them). With our new system being more “world -centric” than “player-centric”, we saw no need to maintain such a requirement; in fact, we found such a requirement to be quite limiting. As a result, quests in Unholy Wars will not (for the most part) be started as requests from an NPC to “do something for them”, they will not be presented as “missions” that the player chooses to accept or reject; they will be (much like Feats) things that, once certain conditions have been met by the player (which might, on occasion, be “spoke to some NPC”), will be “available” to the player, to pursue if and when the player chooses to do so. This allows us to “distribute” quests around the world, far more freely than would be possible with “quest givers”; quests can be made available to players based on any number, and any combination, of factors, such as being in a specific area of the world, or a certain time of day, or using a specific item (or even, using a specific item, in a certain location, at a specific time of day!). We hope that locating, and receiving, all of the quests in the system will be as engaging and rewarding as the quests themselves can be.

We are all very much looking forward to presenting the system, and the stories it contains, to you all, and reading all your feedback about your experiences with it.

Source: Official News Forum

Clan having fun with the new siege Engine Catapults & War

Siege Engine Preview speechless

Darkfall will soon have sophisticated siege engine.  Here is a sneak preview of one of them.

Click to Enlarge

How to play Darkfall free for 14 days using a buddy key

Aventurine S.A. recently introduced a system where existing player can get a buddy key to allow a friend to play Darkfall for free for 14 days. 

If you do not have a buddy key or have a friend that plays Darkfall then simply request a free one in this official discussion. 

If you already have a buddy key, here are all the steps to activate your key. 

Remember buddy keys are  only for brand NEW account.  If you have an old Darkfall account you can't use buddy key. 

STEP 1 

• Go to Account Management System :https://ams.darkfallonline.com/AMS/
• Click on Login

Darkfall Unholy Wars - The MMO you've never heard of - Articles - Team Dignitas : Professional Gaming Team

Darkfall, as a title, has been around for years now but has always seemed to slip under the mainstream radar. Why it does is an absolute mystery. The developers, Aventurine, have been working hard to bring huge changes to their original release and we have now been presented with their latest offering: Darkfall Unholy Wars.



From the moment you first create your character and step into the world of Agon you already sense there is something different about this game. (The fact that you can only make one character per server seems unusual but it will make sense later). At first it seems easy to draw comparisons to other sandbox MMOs but as you start to progress and kill your first troll, gnoll or goblin you notice the combat and you begin to see the glaring differences between DFUW and its competitors...Read the full article from Team Dignitas [Darkfall Unholy Wars - The MMO you've never heard of - Articles - Team Dignitas : Professional Gaming Team]

The fall of Khanruk

The whole siege timeline documented within the video.

DFUW Champions League 2v2 Tournament - June 27th, 2014

Watch World top PvP players showing their skills at the tournament.

State of Agon - Episode #6

This episode mostly covers the recently released custom roles.

.

Here's a little background information on these honorable guests!

Joining me tonight is a plethora of top end PvPers who will finally be able to discuss everything we've speculated on in past episodes. Some people joining me have been on before, others or new friends but the one thing we have in common is that we all love PvP.

As always here is a breakdown and mini bio of each of the guests joining me tonight.

Jonah[fataLity]
27 years old.
Leader of Council of Elders.
Considers fighting outnumbered as his trade mark through out DFO/UW
Looking forward to the upcoming patch and bringing his old crew back
Played UO for 8 years + before DFO
Considered a top tier PvPer.

Haylando SP
18 years old.
Came Second in the Burning Embers rumble DFUW tournament.
Started playing DFUW after the release of Slayer and duelist and quickly gained a reputation for PvP.
Favours small scales PvP.

Best epic ship fight ever!

Daedrus' Tales update June 20th

The Mouth of the Shadow

Intrigued by the tale of Garroth Dagon, I set out, perhaps...[read more]

The Second Return of Garroth Dagon

The dark clouds above Sweetwater seemed to gather...[read more]

The Ghost of Savaril

The abandoned villa of Savaril was not always so empty...[read more]

The Massacre of Yithmoore Post patch group pvp video

Aventurine released the most anticipated Darkfall Unholy Wars patch

Today Aventurine released the most anticipated Darkfall Unholy Wars patch commonly referred to as “Custom Role” Patch.  This patch removed all class restriction and now allows users to choose any combination of skills.  Many of the existing skills has gone through adjusted and balancing.  As part of the patch, all player prowess (XP) has been reset so that player can re purchase their skills.  

This patch changed fundamental game play.  This patch provides much needed changes to bring back tens of thousand subscriber who didn’t migrated from the old game and to rejuvenate and jolt the interest of the existing players. 

So far it looks like the patch is delivering on its promise.  The number of people in offical forum doubled.  An official stream this morning previewing the patch had the highest number of viewer of any Darkfall Unholy Stream.  Some users are also reporting login queue.  Judging from our Sanguine city cam the population have tripped in the city

Check the Darkfall twitch.tv streams.

Here is the patch notes for custom roles.

State of Agon Episode #5

Players have come together and decided to create a new "talk show" series about Darkfall's current affairs.  Enjoy the fifth episode.  

Here's a brief list of topics.

Economy - mob loot tables ,new crafting mats and if they're good for new players and old. Sea tower loot, levy loot, village loot map drops and everything in-between.

World events - Do we want AV to be organising them, should the players keep organising them. How often, more FFA world events or scheduled tournament events (a league table perhaps?) More support from AV required to make these easier to run?

Naval warfare/water fighting - What do we really want to see changed in regards to naval warfare? More editions like spy glasses? More active boat use? Any way to make water fighting more interesting?

A brief talk about next weeks patch.

Here's a little background information on these honorable guests!

Diana

24 Years old Started Darkfall with the release of Unholy Wars. Tournament commentator and State of Agon Host. Combat/Siege leader of Lux,TFK and now SUN Was in the British Army for 7 years. Feel free to call me Dan

EU Race war footage from June 3rd.

Darkfall is made up of 6 races.  On EU server players decided to align themselves with their own race for this event and escalated a large war against other races.  This event had 100s of participants. There will be more similar event in future based on the large participation and interest. Furion Hunter from EU organized this event.

Daedrus' Tales latest entries.

Secret of the Eastern Shores

I've pored over countless scrolls, tomes, and accounts of the Third Alberian Fleet of Alberworth, but...(read at Daedrus' Tales Blog)


The Broken Temple of Verthandir

Long before the existence of the Tovarr race, before the Dwarves of Ymir sacrificed themselves...(read at Daedrus' Tales Blog)

Official March 29th Newsletter

We are pleased to present a sneak preview video of Custom Roles, an update of our latest patch, the changes at Aventurine and our exciting offers for the weekend. CUSTOM ROLES TEASER VIDEO

Darkfall removes class and gear restrictions and embracing a free build system.

Old Class System

Darkfall Unholy Wars was launched on April 2013 with a character development system that followed traditional role based system. These role included melee heavy Warrior (Tank), high mobile and range based attacker know as Skirmisher, a spell damage dealer known as Elementalist and finally a healing class known as Primalist. Beside common skills, all other skills/spell were specialized and only usable by 1 class/school combination. (NOTE: Each of the 4 classes were further specialized using a system known as ‘schools’. The official manual covers it well)

There were also restrictions in place on which class can wear what type of armor or use what type of weapon effectively. Different skill and spells were bound to a particular weapon. For example, a warrior had to equip plate and a one hand/two hand melee weapon to execute most skills.

The class based system served its purpose because it defined a strict role for people, however, balancing it became increasingly difficult. Each offensive and defensive skill needed a counter move by 3 other opposing classes, and the impact of each spell/ability needed to have damage based on who is on the other end. Realistically, balancing so many spells/skills, 4 classes, 3 school customization, with 4 types of armor in 4 tiers with 8 types of weapon of 4 different tiers is not possible( to balance remove this)given the number of permutation and combination involved.

Player can customize stats distribution

The current class system also impacted PvE because certain classes had a big disadvantage. For example, those who chose (past tense) to be a prime had a difficult time killing mobs as a healer. Killing higher end mobs as a mage was also a challenge due to low resistance where damage/survivability didn’t scale compared (past tense) to a Skirm/Warrior.


Aventurine (AV) the maker of Darkfall have finally decided to remove all class and armor restrictions!

Daedrus' Tales series unveiled

Daedrus Dragoneye journey in Agon.  (Click on the images below to read about the exciting journey)

Hapless Hadar and the Port of Grivendale

The Song of Wanderlust

The Lustmord Report: May 21st Economy Patch.

So far, 2014 has been a great year for Darkfall: Unholy Wars.  We've received the Chaos School, the Sinspire Dungeon, the Area of Influence System, new Village Control Points systems, Levy Collections, among other things. All of these have been well received by the community.

On May 21st,  AV released the New Economy Patch. Here's what it's all about:

The New Grind

 

 

These items can be found in greater abundances in the lower tier danger zones, while in the higher tier zones you'll find more essences.

If you aren't familiar with it, essentially the new economy system includes Inferior Raw Mats in the low level danger zones that need to be converted to Regular Raw Mats, that in turn need to be converted to Rare Raw Mats, that in turn need to be converted into Rare Refined Mats.

On top of that, there's a new conversion item for each type of mat. As examples, if you want to create wood from lumber, you'll need Linseed from a bush. If you want to create cloth from wool, you'll need Lye from a tree.  If you want to create the rare variations of these mats, it will require even more of the conversion materials based on the rarity of the end product!

Example-

Livestream Questions and Answers with the Devs!

Incase you missed it, here is the livestream Q&A with the Darkfall Developers.

Player provided Transcript of the livestream (not exact)


What happened in AV with communication?
- Post tomorrow

What is endgame gonna be?
- PvP battles, politics and economics generally.
- Holding worth should affect character power (cast speed, attack speed, armor), as well as abilities that can be activated

Suicide Sheep does it again!

Spotlighted at Darkfall Official Facebook.  She is beasty Primalist (healer) who also plays hard mode using First Person View! 

Community Talk: State of Agon Episode #3 (NA Edition)

Players have come together and decided to create a new "talk show" series about Darkfall's current affairs.  Enjoy the third episode.  Show cover custom class, balancing, mentoring system, game economy, etc. The show is intended to spark more interest in the game from non players and have a rich debate about various changes to improve the game.

Here's a little background information on these honorable guests!

Diana

24 Years old
Started Darkfall with the release of Unholy Wars.
Tournament commentator and State of Agon Host.
Combat/Siege leader of Lux,TFK and now SUN
Was in the British Army for 7 years.
Feel free to call me Dan