Darkfall : tasos

Update: August 22nd

stragz — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 04:22:05 GMT

A small update posted on the 22nd from Tasos on the official forums:

Hello,

I thought to quickly check in before too much more time passes. As we step up publishing activities, the updates should increase in frequency and quality, which should make up for the ones we’ve been missing the last months. We take for granted sometimes that the Darkfall community is savvy enough to understand the limitations of independent game development and make allowances, however we’re also keeping track of what we need to give you in order for you to know exactly what you’re getting into with Darkfall.

On progress, there are no major problems to report, some minor delays maybe here and there which don’t affect our timeline. Most of us had a short break, the last for a long time. Everyone is back and we officially entered into our crunch period on Monday. We’ve had several new people join the company the past month, and more on the way.

There's a video coming out, most probably next week, or shortly after. We’re talking about a long 100% in-game pure gameplay trailer with no scripting, no simulation, no post-processing. It’s us play-testing while fraps is running on free cameras and playercams and all the footage was collected and edited. The scenarios for it had to be run as part of our testing and development schedule as they came up. Nothing is scripted. We wanted to give you something that can put you in the true spirit of the game and this requires us to be actually playing the game like you would be, and not just taking you on a sightseeing tour or have a company make a marketing cinematic trailer for us.

If you're experiencing problems with the website and the forums it's because these days we're upgrading our webservers and this should be going on most of next week as well. Thank you for your patience.

Our next update would be the video, so until then, thanks for reading

source: http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?t=63380

European vs. North American Launch

stragz — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 20:59:02 GMT

Theres been alot of talk in the last few days about whether Darkfall would be launched simultaneously in both Europe and North America. Earlier today Tasos made a post on the official forums to clarify what going on with publishing and launch in different regions. Here's what he posted:

The answer to the question on whether we're going to launch in N. America and Europe at the same time is: "Right now it doesn't look that way"

I’ve been frustrated by issues like these while waiting for a game myself, and I’ll try to explain this as well as I can:

1. First of all, this isn’t an issue of us being located in Europe. It just means that things are moving faster for Darkfall in Europe. A few months ago, it was the other way around and that’s how fluid things are at the moment.
2. It would be a publishing and a logistics issue that the European launch might precede a N. American launch. We have a publishing partner in Europe; we haven’t settled on one in N. America yet. Unfortunately as things stand right now, we can’t launch in both regions at the same exact time but, of course, we would like to.
3. While the actual status on this hasn’t changed much since our friends visited our offices, things are moving at a fast pace.
4. What we can say with relative certainty is that the first beta test will be on the European servers. This isn’t to say that N. American players will be excluded from it.
5. It also doesn’t necessarily mean that N. American players would be excluded from playing on a European server.
6. While we haven’t selected a publisher in N. America yet like we have in Europe, this doesn’t actually mean that we need one, or that we're going to wait for one, in order to launch the game there.
7. Our publishing effort has been for a common infrastructure and we’ve been adopting solutions with a global reach so that the setup in one region could be shared by- or quickly duplicated in the other. I don’t want to say that we could be up in N. America in no time, but that’s our intention.
8. It’s important to remember that our preferred scenario is to launch Darkfall in N. America and Europe at the same time. This is on our mind as we move forward. Even if we don’t manage this, it’s our intention to move very quickly to catch up.

http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?t=61038

Update: State of the game

stragz — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 22:03:03 GMT

Yesterday Darkfall Online developper Tasos Flambouras posted a small update on the state of the game on the game's official forums.

Briefly checking in with you on our progress:

We're working on two fronts, development and publishing.
Development is mainly focused around testing and fixing bugs. We're also optimizing client and servers. We're playtesting a lot, we've also logged many hours of large battles and we're very excited with what we're experiencing. While playtesting we're getting a lot of video footage that's going to end up in a video we'll be releasing next month so you'll get an idea of what we've been talking about.

As far as publishing activities go, we're working on the servers, customer and technical support, billing, and distribution solutions along with our partners.

We've been hiring people in all departments, and we have eight new team members.

Since it's summer and a lot of people are on vacation in Greece, we've been getting a lot of requests to visit the studio. We've already had a few people come over and we had to say no to a couple of others due to the bad timing of their visit. The people who have been here may or may not write about their visit, we didn't make them sign NDAs and we showed them the game.

We enjoy these visits, but unfortunately we can't spare the time unless it's media so we won't allow more visits for at least a couple of months. We've also had some media over here and there should be a couple of articles in the local press.

We've been putting in the long hours, so the next three weeks we're on a weekly vacation rotation, the last chance we'll get to rest for a long time.

The next update will likely be in a couple of weeks.

Thanks for reading.

source: http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?t=60100

Darkfall Community Q&A

stragz — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 04:54:37 GMT

Earlier today Darkfall Online developper Tasos Flambouras posted a new community QA on the official forums. It covers quite a few interesting topics, so enough with the jibber jabber and lets get straight to the QA:

Here’s the QA…we worked with lists sent to us by community members and tried to answer as many as possible without too much embellishing. There was an effort to answer question categories that weren’t addressed in the previous QA’s. We didn’t address the questions having to do with beta and publishing due to recent developments, we would like more time before we get into that.

Do different weapon types damage them (mobs) easier, like a spear, mace, etc.?

Different monsters are vulnerable to different types of attack. In some cases they could be nearly immune to certain attacks like a fire elemental may not take fire damage. This applies to various armors and protections as well, the varying degrees in which they could protect the player against specific types of damage. There’s a whole system in place behind this, and players will learn from experience and through various information sources within the game.

In regards to this (link) info, are factions in the way described still in?

Factions work like they were described and this is through the quests. You get the symbol of the faction you’re working with when you accept the quest. Factions in Darkfall aren’t meant to be an active part of the world in themselves, but rather more of a storyline element of the lore guiding the actions of the players.

Will flying creatures (dragons, birds, etc) actually fly or just hover like in most MMO's?

They fly, turn, they swoop down, and they hover as well depending on the situation. They work like a proper flying mob should.

Will we see mobs walking around, with one mob every 5 meters, on a "zone" (EQ, wow, style)? Or will they be more spread, and you'll have to find them a bit? (Oblivion, morrowind style)

More like Oblivion and Morrowind but it’s usually more complex than that…In Darkfall monsters have their own habitats, they’re not just scattered randomly. In the generic example of the goblins we tend to use, you would likely find them in a goblin village.

Can you tell us anything about the way crafting materials are gathered?

You can gather crafting materials from killing mobs, and looting and/or skinning them. You can harvest materials from the environment, for example from rocks, trees, bushes etc. You can get the materials faster from organized resource production, like mines and farms, while collecting in nature is slower. You can craft crafting materials used to build complex items when they’re made of building blocks. Finally you can kill players and take theirs.

Are solo players able to venture into a clan controlled mine and harvest there if it’s not guarded?

You can harvest in someone else’s mine, however they’ll get a message that you did. So as with everything else in the game, you’re free to do whatever you like, but you’re held accountable for your actions.

What kind of explosives does DF have in it? By explosives I mean anything from exploding arrows to explosive traps. And I don't mean siege weapons--I mean explosives that someone can craft and use on his/her own.

Darkfall has a thrown explosive called a battle spike, they’re crafted and there are various types. They’re used to damage structures and vehicles mostly. Darkfall also features several explosive spells.

What about maps? How do maps work in game? Will it be possible to mark a map with an interesting location on?

Darkfall has a global map and a mini map interface. There is also a weather map where you can zoom in to get local weather. You can add your own markers on the global map.

Will the whole world map be visible from the start or will players have to explore to view the whole map?

Yes it’s visible. The world is pre-existing; this isn’t the dawn of time in the storyline. We could have opted for map fog, but it’s just going to be a pain and someone will have a full map online anyway relatively quickly.

I'm wondering is the cave system going to be complete at launch?

Nothing is ever complete in an MMO, but we’ve done what we planned to do for launch.

How extensive is it?

There are caves all over the world, the dwarves live inside a mountain, some clan city locations have caverns and tunnels going through them, there are the Dungeons, and the underwater passages.

Can caves lead you well into another races territory going undetected below the ground surface?

No they don’t. There's no need for that....the world is so massive you don't really need to sneak underground to go undetected.

Will you actually have employees that’ll work closely with the community to record the happenings of a server and put it on the website in the form of Lore?

We have talked about a journal before, and there will be an effort to have one. We have an automated feature like a newsreel in place which reports events as they happen. Players can access these newsreels even when they’re out of the game.

You've mentioned that if you are attacked by someone of a "friendly" race and kill him while defending yourself, there is no alignment penalty. My question is what if you are attacked but the attacker misses, and you end up dealing the first blow to your attacker? Wouldn't this be interpreted by the game as you attacking the other player?

Yes you’ll get hit with the alignment penalty. Turn-based games know what’s going to happen before it does, but Darkfall is a real-time game. You cannot lock a target, you actually have to aim. When you let an arrow fly towards a target, the system can’t know where it’s going until it hits. Between the time you let it fly and it hits something, many things can happen: someone could run into its path, the intended target could duck etc. While a turn-based game could deal with this specific scenario by penalizing the attacker, it misses out on all the real-time coolness.

Is there an option for chat bubbles?

No chat bubbles, no damage numbers jumping, no neon rings around your feet, no glowing characters, no radar, no attack indicators. You can spell-cast a beacon on someone that signals his location for the duration if you like but that’s about it.

Do clans that don’t have a clan city have access to clan vaults?

Yes they do if they go to a city.

Will a clan member’s rank be visible as a title?

Yes it’s visible right after his name when you identify them with a mouse-over.

Are there writeable books in-game?

Not really other than your player journal, various in-game public and clan forums there isn’t anything you can write on at this time.

Are offensive skills going to be dependent on supporting skills?
For example, like in UO, to take up swordsmanship you needed Tactics and Anatomy. Is DFO going to be like that or if you want archery you can just take up archery?

Both; there are skills that unlock others, but there are also skills you can just learn and practice without prerequisites.

What’s the status on taming?

There are no pets and no taming. Our goal was to move Darkfall as far away as possible from MMOG half-measures like instancing, zoning, use of NPCs where you can use players, various automations etc. So taming falls into that category in a way, on the other hand we give you mounts you can use in combat, which you can control to attack while you’re riding them. The functionality is there, we just don't feel that pets would add much to the game as it is.

Will there be a sprint feature?

There’s a sprint feature, using it will use up stamina. You can sprint for a reasonable amount of time before you run out of stamina.

What happens when you run out of stamina?

You can’t sprint, you can’t do melee attacks, you can’t run with a mount, and various other discomforts.

Also, for the most part swimming in any MMO usually sucks major balls because it is so damn slow. Any idea how it will be in DF?

In real-life, running is about 5 times faster than swimming so it’s an existing analogy. You can sprint-swim in Darkfall, it’s not that slow but if you want to get somewhere fast, you should probably use a vessel.

Do you need a skill to place buildings (architect)?

No skill, you need appropriate rank in the clan, or be the city mayor to place buildings.

Can characters go into prone mode?

No they can crouch though. Before someone feels this might be some pvp limitation, I’ll remind them that you can’t go prone in Counterstrike or Quake.

If two people are dueling with swords, will their swords bump in to each other when they attack at the same time? Will there be sparkles, as a special effect? (In other words, is there weapon collision?)

This is probably too much to ask for from a MMOG, and from most games for that matter. In console games where you might have seen something like this, it’s not the collision detection on the weapons that creates that effect.

Can we move while we have an arrow stringed on our bow?

Yes, you can move, jump, and crouch freely.

Most spells will burn up reagents. How common are these?

Some spells don’t require reagents. For most of the ones that do, you can get them all over the world by harvesting, buy them at vendors, loot them, or you could build farms for higher outputs.

Will they "stack" easily in our inventories?

Yes they’ll stack.

Does the low level spell/special ability become completely useless when you earn high level one like we can see in other games?

That’s a good question actually. In Darkfall, the early spells are not useless at all. Some of them don’t require ingredients and they cast faster, fail less, so they’re very practical. Others are unique and really useful so they are used regularly throughout the character’s game-life.

Is a staff/wand and reagents needed for healing spells as well?

You always need a wand or staff to cast, but some spells don’t require reagents. Other than spells for healing you can use potions, food, and resting to recover hit points.

In a war is it possible for me as a lone wolf, to hide in the city about to be sieged, and then kill whoever I want, or will the city be closed apart from to those involved?

I said earlier in the Q that we try to move away from MMOG half-measures. So you’re free to do what you asked if you could do. We don’t lock any players out of events or locations like sieges, quests, dungeons, etc.

Will there be sabotage that can be performed against enemy towns which doesn't involve siege warfare?

You can destroy buildings at the rate of one per day without a siege. You can disable buildings without any limits. By ‘disable’ I mean that you can bring their structural integrity down to zero which negates all bonuses the building may give out, and functions that it may perform.

Can boats sail from ocean to river and sail deep on into the continent?

Yes you can depending on the size of the boat. If it’s too big, it could run aground; not fit inside a small river, it could get stuck under a low bridge etc.

On the subject of mounts can I get knocked off in the middle of a battle?

If your character gets incapacitated or killed, or if your mount is killed, you get knocked off.

If I do what happens to my horse if everyone else dies will it just wander around the map so anyone can take it, or will it stay in the same area?

The horse stays in the area for a while, then after a while it will die.

Do we acquire mounts except stealing them from other players? Do we buy them from vendors, are they bred/crafted or do they spawn in the wilderness?

You summon them through a medium which is crafted. You can also loot this from players.

Will mounts be allowed everywhere or will there be places where you can't mount?

They’re allowed everywhere, and they can also swim.

source: http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?t=58769

Darkfall: May 23rd Update

stragz — Sat, 31 May 2008 21:56:44 GMT

The following as been posted by Darkfall developper Tasos Flambouras on the game's official forums:

This is not an update as much as it is checking in with the community. Just to inform you about the sparse updates: they're due to an urgent health problem that landed me in the hospital for a week and I'm still trying to catch up with work.

Our main contact has left Warcry so we'll see what we'll be doing with the Journal there. We will be giving out a few interviews to various mainstream media and we will try to keep some specialized updates for the core Darkfall community. We're looking at releasing a comprehensive video sometime in the next few weeks. We're doing this ourselves and our first priority is working on the game, so we can't just slap something together in a couple of days. We also won't hire a production company to make a Darkfall-inspired cartoon for us, so we'll be using actual Darkfall gameplay footage like we always do.

I don't have the time to continue last week's Q&A but I'll address some specific concerns stemming from it:

I never said that public beta would be two weeks. I said several weeks. Public beta will be as long as it needs to be. We hope and we're working hard so that it won't need to be very long. The clan beta will likely be a stage of public beta. The announcement of launch within the year is an official company commitment and it's not a guestimate. We're making strides with publishing in the direction where we maintain full creative control on the game.

The universal banking system we're implementing in Darkfall is because we found it was very tedious not having it. Universal banks have become an industry standard for a reason. We've found that their existence does wonders for the fun factor as opposed to their absence. Darkfall is challenging in every way, you don't need it to be tedious. We'll balance universal banks to work as well as possible and we'll continue balancing them if we have to.

As for caravans, firstly, we never confirmed that they were in the game. They were never in the original design; they weren't announced as a feature, they were just brought up and have been promoted by some community members. We have looked at them as a possible cool feature but to be honest, I can't say they're that cool in practice. As things stand you can form a caravan using mounts, ships etc. With them you can move large quantities of goods, fairly fast, rather than running small loads back and forth over and over. The world is huge and the distances to travel are great and there will be a need for transport of large amounts of resources such as those intended for city building.

You do have the freedom of forming caravans. You also have the option of universal banks. When we make design decisions like these, we're thinking of the majority of players and we speak from experience. Few players would initially enjoy the absence of universal banks, but even they would get tired of the wasted time commitment.

Finally, these raised undead armies, armies of dead players, and armies of NPCs etc. we keep reading on the boards: What's this NPC fascination about? Why not raise a player army instead? Every bot takes up resources players could be using and Darkfall is a massive multiplayer game. Even if it's all the rage in MMOs lately we want to further the multiplayer real-time aspect with Darkfall rather than go the other direction. There is no progress in having to introduce single player features such as more NPCs to a MMORPG.

As for underscores, numbers, etc. in names it's just the way it works right now. If you don't like them, sure we'll take them out until you petition them back in when you run out of naming options. : )

There's no ETA for the next update, but we'll do our best on that.

Thanks for reading

source: http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?t=55937

Tasos is alive

GhettoFish — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 19:32:50 GMT

Since the october there has been nothing but silence from the Darkfall developers at Aventurine, yesterday however we got a few words from Associate Producer Tasos Flambouras.

This is premature by a couple of days but here it is anyway:

Despite development push related mayhem, trying to juggle several tasks at the same time, and the holidays cutting in, we've made a feeble effort to maintain updates with some new screenshots from internal testing that we periodically upload in the gallery section, and the odd interview. We'll try harder in January.

In the meanwhile know that development-wise everything is pretty much on schedule, and that we're lagging a bit on the QA and support side. We'll have a proper status update next month.

We really appreciate your support and your feedback on these community boards so far, and we're looking forward to working with you more actively in the near future.

Until then, and on behalf of the entire Darkfall development team, and everyone here at Aventurine, I'd like to wish you and yours a Happy New Year.