Getting the urge to reactivate my Darkfall account!

It is happening again! After a few months away from the game, I'm starting to get tingly feet and a wish to go reactivate.

Amidst all the news of an empty EU server and transfers to NA, the urge is still there...

The only thing that would suck is the daunting task of rebinding all spells and skills but still... I think it will just be a matter of time :)

Apo Fury: well chosen surname

At the behest of Utar Usher, I logged in to Darkfall yesterday night, in the same old place: Lost Untilik crazy asylum. Not having much to do, I decided to go visit Aerngardh city to the south, as I often do when I have nothing else to do and where Pain Killers (partially) reside.

After checking the nearby dungeon and finding it devoided of human players, I proceeded into the city with a pickaxe in hand. There it was... the juicy mine all alone! As I checked the surroundings and prepared to start leeching it, I hear a blindm (I think... it was one of those screaming spells) being cast. At first, I think I am about to get attacked but as time moves on and the blind is constantly and periodically being cast, I realise it is someone leveling magic.

My most pathetic raid yet: Dagnamyr and Raiding in sexeh Robes

As usual, I start writing an entry then I store it in drafts, time passes... and the drafted entry gets out of context. Nonetheless, I ignore the timeline problems and complete the entry and post it! As such, this entry is about some raids we did one night, in Wanted, still living in Ottenhal (before we moved to Lost Untilik city):

Ok... I'm a casual player, as I state several times and I'm not that good. I've played Darkfall for 10 months (or around that) and my character isn't complete newberish and I am somewhat proud of it, even though it does not compare with probably more than half the server (I have 363 hp, if that can be used to form any sort of judgement). But what happened in Dagnamyr completly imasculated my elvish person...

Settling in: Lost Untilik

Despite all the setbacks explained in my previous post, we managed to transfer Lost Untilik without much problems. Only Tyrant (our leader back in Coldblooded) and Lord Cadaver suicide attacked and were dealt with swiftly. Talking about buthurt people who just can't let go, Ceron and company destroyed our portal exit in Inmak hamlet. Must be a lonely life :(

So getting back to the cold north. Lost Untilik is nice because it is calm and secluded but it is also a pain because we need to swim everywhere to get anything done (pve and pvp). But as people have been resting a bit after the non-stop work during the weekend, in the end, it's nice.

Bank theft and betrayal: always a shock

Our clan bank has been stolen by Ceron Eternal who in conspiracy with Gorglir Eternal and Captain Nemo have created their own clan. These 2 last had joined Elders of Agon so they could ninja loot in the war between SUN and Eclipse, as they liked to brag about. I hear they were kicked :\

This is disturbing also at a personal level because this was a person with whom I talked on mumble and laughed around. How can he then turn against us without any explanation and without answering any PMs. It is even more sad because of all the surrounding context. I'll explain this weekend and the events that unfolded this Sunday, late at night (like robbers operate).

The clan Wanted was created 1 or 2 weeks ago and as I have been telling in the blog, we have been living around chaos cities, having fun. First, we lived in Ottenhal, near the centre and 1 week ago, we moved to Tolenque, in Yssam. We have then decided to acquire a holding and we ended up acquiring 2: Inmak (hamlet near centre) and Lost Untilik (city in Niflheim). As we had very little gold, we have been pveing like crazy during this weekend: kill erodach, dark dragon and baradron; rinse and repeat.

We managed to gather 450k gold to acquire both the hamlet, city, siege stones and other mats required. Through all of this pve, Ceron has been on our side helping out constantly and having fun.

Late at night, he stole our clan bank, left and created a new clan. He has now destroyed our portal exit in Inmak hamlet. He has contacted the Nomads SG, owner of LU, saying that we are trying to scam him on the trade. These are all actions of a very troubled person, who despite being able to play and laugh alongside people, had been faking it so he could steal them afterwards... I wouldn't have that ability to fake so much...

I'm very disappointed that I have lost a semi-friend, because even though this is a game, we do talk on a daily basis in mumble and we get to know people and be used to their humour.

He is also known for having stolen MAG (?) clan bank, who joined TFK later (?), a long while ago. He told us he had been abused by them and that was why he had stolen 55k from their cbank. I now believe he really stole it just for the pleasure of the action and not in retaliation for a bad action done upon him.

It's a sad night.

Life in a chaos city: Ottenhal, Kraken killing strategy and Andruk raid

As I explained in my last entry, some guys left Coldblooded to form a new clan, 'Wanted', which I joined. This involves having no player controlled holdings to live in and no alliances. As such, we moved from Mar Shral to the chaos city of Ottenhal, near the centre of Agon.

I had never lived for a prolonged time in a chaos city and the thought of it was a bit daunting. I mean... will we be in constant PvP and in fear of being killed by random travellers all the time?

New clan change |||| Tu...ghri, or not Tu...ghri, Devil runs and going red! [analepsis #2]

On current events: This will be the end of the analepsis and a change of my casual blog adventures (no, I am not going to cancel). I went away for the Easter weekend and when I came back, some guys had left Coldblooded to form a new clan: Wanted. I like everyone in both clans but as I had more friends (including ex-azure members) in the new "Wanted" clan, I also moved out. Best of luck to the guys that stay with Coldblooded though.

Now, getting back to the last adventures from my time with Coldblooded: I have been PvPing more since I joined Coldblooded and this included a few PvP trips to my homeland: Elf country, after we had moved to Mar Shral. I participated in 2 of them and they invariably included a stop by Moradar hamlet and Tughri city which belongs to Greece clan (a friendly group of people who are very liberal on who can bind at their city).

Move to Mar Shral [analepsis #1]

The timeline in this blog is getting screwed up, but I had this post already drafted and would be a waste to trash it :( The objective is to report the location shift in my clan's base of operations which took place on a sunday, after I had joined them on friday. The story goes as follows:

We have moved to Mar Shral city, which is located on the border of alfar and human lands. Most people would just teleport from one place to the other, but not me!

Zaghuroth and Mehatil: Proof of the evil zerg machinations - TEH HORROR!

Alluding to my other post about the boat trip: proof has been found of how the mighty zerg planned and prepared for weeks and months to go do asset damage on the poor "10 man clan" who lives in Zaghuroth. And of the mighty subsequent battle on the outskirts of Mehatil...

May this be a warning of the unspeakable horror that shall be unleashed for the sorrow of millions!

Zarghuroth and Mehatil... knock knock... who's there?

Just for future reference, I want to make 2 other posts besides this one regarding our clan's attempt to go kill the Devil for 2 times now (and how High Dro and his gang are the luckiest bunch around!) and the 2 raids I participated in, to Greece's city of Tughri.

For now, I'll go back to the topic at hand, which took place yesterday night (Monday) and began by very naughty actions! Around 8 of Coldblooded were just practising 4vs4 near Mar Shral, when we are declared Weary by Ultimatum and Elders of Agon (I think). Well, we take this to heart and while all the women are crying in desperation, drowning their newborn babies and I'm crawled up in a corner, someone has the brilliant idea to go check Elders of Agon's city, in a cruise-type voyage.

Sunday Events: Sieges by SUN

Since my last post, I have rode all the way from Aerngardh in Niflheim to Mar Shral in Human Lands. There were a lot of PvP encounters and other stories to tell but so as not to lose the timeframe of current events, I'll write about yesterday's sieges instead.

There isn't much to talk about really as I got pissed off at the whole thing and hadn't planned properly to get me trough the evening.

First things first: 6PM: around 7 of Coldblooded ride out from Mar Shral. Objective: reach Tiquiya or Western Tlaloc (can't remember exactly now). We first go to the city of Alberworth, to the east, killing just a few humans and passing by some allies who we initially attack by mistake. When we arrive, we notice the portal chamber is destroyed, so we kindly repair it only to find out it had a 1 hour timer until it was back online.

Around the world [=Niflheim] in 60 days: there and back [=dead] again!

Another beautiful day starts in the white subcontinent, when I login to Darkfall. Birds are chirping, snowflakes are falling, city fauna is running around happily but my luck is still controlled by the 2-horned devil himself as I get myself killed yet again!!!!!

I'll explain better. As I was saying, I login during the evening and go out with Galfurien to do some PvE (warthanes and vile gaunts). I think they are great mobs as they are easy to kill and give good gold/mats/r50 GS, which we direly need as one is poorer than the other. Two guys approach on horses and as we are a bit low on health and stamina we step away to recharge but they don't even follow us.

From Cairn [NOT YSSAM] to Niflheim: first day in Aerngardh and Angfrost

I'm not typing these entries fast enough as events are moving forward quickly: I'll post this entry and a next regarding Niflheim but we have already moved back to Dayar (I can see that I'm gonna need to start begging for portal shards in the slums of Sanguine soon).

As I was saying in the previous entry, I logged in on Sunday, in Dayar, just to find out the clan had relocated to Aerngardh in the north-western subcontinent of Niflheim. God damn it... spend 2 more portal shards and puff... there I am. The city seems to be well populated by the way, at least there are always a few people in it (not a whole lot but some). I am kind of happy to be here as I remember the nice mob spawns from when I had been here for Equilibrium's Qiqatak hamlet siege.

New life in Yssam and Dayar city: first impressions

Would just like to thank once again everyone at Equilibrium. Talked with a lot of friends on Friday and everyone was very nice.

So this past Wednesday I had moved to Charybdis, gathered a bit and logged off. On Thursday, I had moved to Iriendir and waited for a bit until I was accepted into Coldbooded. I then proceeded to Hal'Kali city, south of Greece's Tughri, so I could use their portal chamber, to teleport to Dayar, my future home in Yssam, the arid subcontinent of Cairn (where my old mate Mage DNA was).

When I get off loading screen, I see I'm on top of a hill, inside a cave, overlooking a very shadowy and maze-like city, full of dark walls and dark buildings which from atop, seem to mix with the cave walls. First things first, let's get bound to the city before anything else... but wait I don't see any shining light connecting heaven and earth... I call for help in mumble and sure enough, I am led to it (it is located in an adjacent cave or something like that).

Changing clan: Sad goodbye, Hopeful future

It is with great sadness that I have quit Equilibrium. And I say sadness because I had gotten to know a lot of cool and friendly people with whom I've had a great and funny time.

To give a bit of context, I had joined this clan in the beginning of January 2011 (on the same day I resubscribed to Darkfall - after a 6 months break) and I quit on the 6th of April, which totals around 3 full months of membership. I was a captain and member of the clan's council, so I felt I was trusted, like I belonged and had a great time.

New blog functionality: page breaks

That's right distinguished readers and scholars of Darkfall, high tech progress and development have swept through this blog, just like the IMF will sweep through debt-ridden Portugal.

My posts are a bit too long and take too much space on the main page, so it would be interesting to have a "read more" option and just a teaser introduction (those things that have existed for decades now...). It would also enable me to understand which posts people find more interesting as I think I will be able to see which posts get chosen more, in statistics.

But my feeble brain, the same which doesn't seem to be able to handle posting screenshots very well (this will be progress #2) hadn't had time to digest this idea and put it to practise. Of course it isn't hard at all and it was just a question of going to "Design" -> Edit "Blog Posts" -> press on the question mark next to "Read more".

Apparently this wasn't so simple and I screwed up this message's first publication. Apparently, I was using the old editor and the "page break" button didn't exist. Apparently google solves all world problems.

So, going back to the...

To zerg or not to zerg! Practical examples: EoA and NO-SUN War

Following the last post which described the siege on Darkmoore (and my brutal and heroic slaughter of a SUN SG of course :D alongside my clan friend by mistake :( ), I would like to talk about zerging, nutcupping and other related urban dictionary terms.

I'm not going to invent the wheel or change the spirit of this topic as there is no way of having what people like to call a "fair fight". Which standard should be used to judge if a fight is fair? By the same amount of people? By the skill of people involved? How do you measure skill and how do you compare it in terms of players?

It's impossible, of course, and the reason why it creates so much drama in Forumfall (by the way, I like this term for Darkfall's forums... it has some distinctiveness to it). Even though people can troll and complain about everything, even that the earth is not flat, when it comes to scientific stuff, the trolling is easier to tone down. But as what one considers a zerg, is all but a precise science, posting counts in Forumfall get easily on the high thousands (well not easily... you do have to put some effort into it).

Coming back to the Darkmoore siege, we were attacked by what seemed like overall better players and characters (just like in the Qiqa siege when we were attacked by Malus Spiritus). When this happens, it is the job of the not so good players to try to counter their enemies' skills with numbers. And this shouldn't be called a zerg or nutcupping afterwards, because it was an even fight skill wise.

Also, if you rule out bringing in friends, allies or even mercs into fights, then you take away a big part of the game: diplomacy and political strategy. When someone attacks a clan, he shouldn't expect to face just that clan, but all the political might behind it. And this should be OK.

But then, the trolling wheels start to spin on the forums and people care about what others think of them ( which is indeed important). I'll give 2 practical examples, in which I had no involvement: Elders of Agon losing their city in Niflheim and the recent NO-SUN war.

When EoA were first sieged, some Equilibrium guys who were friendly with them, went to assist them. I guess that some other alliance members who had nothing better to do at the time, also went to have fun. This was promptly called out on the forums, by the attackers (who lost the first siege) as a hidden alliance and that sieging like this was impossible... They sieged again and this time, Equilibrium (or the equilibrium members who were friends with EoA) decided not to send any aid (also because I think EoA are ARAC and the attacking clan was RAC, and we are supposed not to deal with ARAC; and the leaders of EoA and the attacking clan decided it that way).

Nonetheless, the point I'm trying to make is that the propaganda spewed in the forums, really made us think if we should help out or not and I think that, eventually, made the leader of EoA abdicate their friends' help, so as not to seem like wimps. It shouldn't be this way.


Regarding the "NO-SUN War", there is a big alliance going against SUN. It fielded short of 300 members (according to Tsalarian Crystalshard's thread... you know who... just that SG from SUN, I VICIOUSLY KILLED just the other day) against 100+ on SUN's side (or similar numbers, don't really care... the point is SUN is heavily outnumbered). Is it fair? ...
SUN has had a good life and they have created a lot of antibodies, wether it be from screwing others or just because they are the most powerful clan in-game. The fact is, they should be able to get allies or friends to come help them in this most dire of times. If they are not able to, it's because their DF lifestyle hasn't been conducive to that possibility and begs to question if they shoudln't have prepared for this.

Diplomacy is important and you should always think about who your friends are or can be. Some like to play the "alone style" and just walk right in with melee pwning everyone. But they forget that others play the "strenght in numbers" game and someone help us if that gamestyle doesn't suit the loner type.

Simplistic conclusion would be: there are no zergs only lack of allies.

To recycle the purpose of this thread, brushing on the "NO-SUN" war (it would be fun if all the major wars had titles and their ownn entries in Darkfall wikipedia), I think that SUN will keep losing a few holdings. The self siege tactic can't last forever and I'm not seeing anyone coming to their aid in the short term (nor will SUN be desperate enough to get it in a serious manner). The Eclipse coallition won't try to take all of SUN's holdings and for those who say that they will just keep the best ones, don't forget that the coallition isn't one clan (like in the SUN-Zagenda war: how about naming it Zagenda-Zappear War? - as in disappear .p) and there are a lot of wants/needs/egos to soothe (I'm sure).

There are still a lot of powers who have not engaged in this conflict yet, so you might see them joining in +/- 2 weeks. If SUN manages to keep their memberbase, they will still be an excellent ally candidate and the coallition will have many good holdings to be conquered. If this doesn't happen, all European are pixel huggers! :)

Disclaimer 1 - In case irony and joking is not conveyed properly in my posts, I'm joking about me killing Tsalarian in a vicious and heroic manner. Myself and a friend caught him half health, semi-naked, in the middle of pve.
Disclaimer 2 - I talk a lot about things I am not involved with nor do I have specific knowledge about, so just take it as a superficial opinion on matters.

Darkmoore sieged by Wired Chickens

This last Friday, at around 22pm if memory doesn't fail me (which it usually does), we were attacked in our friendly city of Darkmoore by around 10 guys pimped out in infernal. They were members of Wired Chicken, a neverheardofclanbefore and I think they had 1 SUN guy with them. A bit of shittalk in public but nothing extraordinary.

They make their way to the bank while killing everyone. In the meanwhile, a ship is spawned in our little church lake, to destroy the city walls. I manage to get onboard the ship (naked) and drive it for a bit, just for a laugh, before I am quickly killed of course.

With Qiqatak siege still fresh in our memories, we all bind south in Charybdis, the great Elven Capital city. On my way south, near the trolls area, I run into 3 Happybrawlers Inc guys who attack me. Just beyond them is 1 blue SUN guy who just makes 1 heal to my mount. At the time, Happybrawlers being there almost seemed coordinated to try and catch our guys fleeing south of Darkmoore. Either that or they were looking for newbs to kill as they usually populate that troll spawn (if they weren't newbs themselves and leveling on the trolls... but being red and all...).

Now, to provide some context of how I viewed the situation:

Overall, Equilibrium and the alliance tries to live an honourable life in Darkfall to the best of our habilities. We don't roam sieges (even though it sounds really fun), we stick with our RP policy of dealing only with well-aligned races and we try not to zerg or nutcup.

In the Qiqatak siege, we were sieged by Malus Spiritus who are much better PvP players than us. We didn't bind in any of the ARAC holdings, near Qiqa hamlet and we didn't accept any outside help. The hamlet wasn't worth us breaking any of the valours we strive to play by (although this is discussable and will be addressed in this post). Our alliance activity levels weren't exactly the best in that siege and we only managed to get 15 or so guys (I think we didn't reach the 20), which against the +/- 12 Malus Spiritus, we had very little chance of winning.

Now, it was our only holding and City that was in question. People might not love Darkmoore but we paied 700k for it and it has been our home for 1 or 2 months now. Even if we would like to change holdings, I would feel very enraged if we simply didn't do everything to try and win the siege. One thing is to lose the city because we sold it, another is to lose it because someone conquered it (obviously :)).

So I argue that we shouldn't take this siege like we did Qiqa's and that we should do the best to our ability to keep it. The decision isn't taken lightly or instantly but eventually, we accept the help of 2 clans outside the alliance. We didn't know who those Wired Chicken guys were nor if they had any outside help (specially with 1 SUN being there, which might of been just a friend or a coincidence of course).

Coming back to that friday night, we bind in Charybdis. In Darkmoore, the walls are being teared apart and after they are done and unspawn the ship, they log off. We find the siegestones: 1 medium on top of the western plateau and a small one, on the ground below, right next to the medium. As such, we mark some 30 runestones on the western plateau, thinking we will try to hold it before the siege goes live and use the bridge that leads up to it as a chokepoint.

BTW, during this friday night, me and Skuldlang rode south west to go kill some deathless mages. We approach the place and find a semi-naked Tsalarian Crystalshard, one of SUN's SG, pveing. We wait for him to kill the last mobs (I think he had 50% health at the time), and we ninja approach and proceed to attack him. Skul takes the offensive and I manage to hit him with an arrow, a ray and do a sacrifice heal on Tsalarian. So, my first 3 actions were all rubbish... When I see skul's health getting a bit low, I tell him to stepback and have me take over with the melee. Ofc when I am attacking Tsalarian, I kill skul by mistake but no matter... Tsalarian didn't really have a chance, semi-naked and with low health. I kill him, gank and rezz my clan mate who I had also killed :(

I found this interesting as the new alignement system was already in place: skul attacks first and probably gets grey but as he dies in the end, he didnt lose alignement. When I jump in the fight, Tsalarian probably attacked me first so he got grey. So when I kill and gank him, I don't lose any alignement. Hurrah! :p

We loot everything we think is worthwhile but it is not much... he probably hadn't been there for a long time. There is a 5 dura justicebringer that will come handy in the siege on the following day. We leave because everytime we see SUN, we have the feeling that more of them are on the way .P


Sleep sleep, stuff to do, log in game 30 minutes before siege goes live. As I login late, I don't know the full story but our people are already on the plateau fighting and keeping the chickens away from it. It seems this is not like Qiqa siege and we probably have 20-25 guys from alliance logged in + 8 from helping clans (I think -> these are all rounded estimates). Me and 4 other guys from the clan who were in Iriendir get a runestone and port on the plateau, at the command of Master Owyn Cavall, who is already there.

From what I understand, most are on the plateau and a small group is on the ground. One of the outside clans who is helping us is by the clanbank which hadn't been disabled by the attacking clan.

When I get on the plateau there are fights going on around the plateau. I guess some have come through the bridge (where we tardly place a clanbox) and others have jumped up using magic. Heavy fighting going on...etc etc... I eventually get killed and I see a few others getting killed as well. I think that they are getting the upperhand but apparently they must not have been, as I see the surviving ones running away. People (me included) are rezzed and the graves are looted.

From there until siege start, we just had some sporadic attacks by 3(?) enemies, which were easily and obviously won. I found this last part more entertaining as there is nothing better than stickybacking a running enemy over and over... which happened with one of the enemies. Just as he was very close to dieing, he loads up a blast spell to get away and I manage to hit him with a ray or with a greatsword slash and I just see his dead boddy blasting away... friendlies on the ground ganked him, I think.

Siege starts and we just battlesike destroy the siegestones without being further interrupted and the day is saved. Hurrah! :)

I think they PMed us saying that we were too many and GG. Some might argue that we were and I said, previously in this post, when I say that we strive to play by good values, that I would explain what I mean better. But as this post has run long enough, I will make another post on the issues of zerging and nutcupping.

Anyways, at least, for now, you can rest assured that The Great City of Darkmoore, last bastion of defence against the Mahirrim selvatic hordes, still belongs and is the seat of the RAC, RP Alliance :)

Equilibrium's Darkmoore Jousting Tournament (Mounted Combat) - video link inside

After having our Mounted Tournament event cancelled on Sunday due to Qiqa's siege, I hosted it on the following Sunday.

Thane Solus, who was frapsing everything edited a video and uploaded it on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsSD5qe1CxM

I think it's great because it involves us, but it might not be so great for others :p

Just know that Mounted Combat is great fun and I think the event went well.

If anyone wants to know, here are the detailed Tournament results:

Round 1:

Yanick vs Tiax = Yanick Won
Daetas vs Satine = Daetas won
Thane vs Gugnir = Gugnir won
Carac vs Jack = Carac won
Clansman vs Ewenzy = Clans won
Owyn vs Meddea = Owyn won
Siulka vs Jack = Jack won

Round 2:

Yanick vs Satine = Yanick won
Daetas vs Gugnir = Daetas won
Thane vs Jack = Jack won
Carac vs Ewenzy = Carac won
Clansman vs Meddea = Meddea won
Owyn vs Siulka = Owyn won
Tiax vs Gugnir = Gugnir won

The 8 finalists and points:

With 2 points: Daetas, Yanick, Carac and Owyn
With 1,5 points: Jack and Gugnir (they had 3 duels instead of 2)
With 1 point: Clansman and Meddea

Sudden Death Phase:

Daetas vs Yanick = Yanick won

Carac vs Owyn = Carac won

Yanick vs Carac = Carac won


Jack vs Gugnir = Gugnir won

Clansman vs Meddea = Clansman won

Gugnir vs Clansman = Gugnir won

FINAL DUEL:

Carac vs Gugnir = Carac won!

Kraken at off-hours Darkfall

I'm feeling compelled to write this because I want to try to keep the blog active and all the stuff that has happened in-game, I would normally write about, has taken place a few days/weeks ago and I don't remember very well. So:

Yesterday, I fell asleep at an unusual time: 7pm. Not being used to fall asleep so early - even before dinner time (that's right you nordic people, dinner is at 8pm! ..not at 15.00 or 16.00), I woke up at 2.30 am. After taking care of some urgent business I go to the computer and my character is still by Darkmoore's quarry where I had left it... Tiax is online and the master scrub talker Thane as well.

Get on vent and Tiax suggests going after zie Krakens and I immediately think of GOLD... So me and thane ride south to Imrathir and board the ship Tiax had spawned, all ready to make some profit. I'm already thinking what great blog entry and screenshots, us killing a few krakens at 3 or 4 am, will provide.

We get to spawn, Tiax goes to try and pull the big tenctacular beast but it doesn't come. I always tend to think of bugged spawns when this happens but someone else could also have been trying to make a buck at that happy hour time. So we just port back and log off (bye 10k gold... sniff).

Not much of a post... but it could have been :)






EDIT 6th August, 2012:
Adding the strategy to kill the Kraken in case, you found this entry by chance:

Strategy consists of having one man on the water taking the damage from the Kraken and pulling him to the boat. As the bait has a shield, he doesn't take much damage from the Kraken's attacks and prevents the ship from being damaged. Steps:
1) Sail on the ship until the Kraken spawns and attacks it
2) Move the boat away from the spawn and stop the ship when the Kraken stops following (this will prevent the ship from taking damage, so you can concentrate on killing)
3) Get a man on the water (with shield, stamina pots and stuff for transfer spells) to go after the Kraken
4) The Kraken will eventually turn back to attack the man-bait
5) The man-bait should swim towards the boat and when the Kraken is upon him, just block his attacks (do not turn your back on the Krazen, zie is evillll)
6) The people on the boat should shoot the cannons (uses blackpoweder) and makew pew pew on zie Kraken
7) The Kraken will go close to the ship, attacking the man-bait, but will turn back as it is on the border between his domains and otherwise
8) It is the job of the man-bait to go "get" the Kraken back again, otherwise he will lose aggro and move away or unspawn
9) The man-bait should use pots, food and transfer in-between Kraken attacks to regain his stats

This results in a smooth and easy killing where you have your boat stationed with the cannons calmly shooting at the overgrown tentacular mammoth.

Thoughts on Role-Playing, Hyperion Alliance and Kingdoms [ramble alert!!!!]

The announcement of the return of Hyperion and various other posts/hapenings have made me think more of the state Darkfall is in and the urge to ramble a bit on what Role-Playing is to me and its' application in Darkfall. As an introduction, I'm a very light Role-Player in the sense that I have never gotten "into character" mode and talked in a way that is completly foreign to me. I can tone down or cut the use of acronyms and text simplifcations like "wtf", "u", "pwn", etc., in order to give it a more realistic aspect, but I've never RPed in a hardcore fashion where I pretend to be someone else entirely. For me, RPing happens when a clan creates a cool ranking structure, where each rank is logical and brings a reason of existence to the other ranks (they are interconnected in a meaningful way). Another example is when someone creates fan art or makes a cool RPish video that stands out from the normal ones that exist in such ambundance, when someone creates a nice story based on the Lore, etc. In Eve-Online, one didn't need to RP because, symply playing the game itself, created its' own RPing stories. Backstabbing, robbery, scams, territorial fights, investments, etc., all this belonged to the normal life of the Eve universe with players creating their own never-ending and unfolding stories by simply playing the game. This situation, in my opinion, is RPing in its' purest form: without any effort whatsoever. In Darkfall, things are not the same. Maybe it's from the lack of players (compared with launch) that doesn't allow for the same type of drama to take place, maybe it's because of the lack of official lore, maybe it's because of the level of independence players enjoy from each other, maybe it's because of the lack of sand in the box. Giving a practical example, when there is a bank scam, it's because someone used an identical name to an officer and tricked another one to promote him. I consider this to be a very artificial and game-breaking way of stealing a bank. The problem is not so much the fact that a clan bank is stolen, but rather the way the theft is committed. In Eve, the background of hard-driven and ruthless capitalist corporations makes this a familiar scenario. In a fantasy setting... not so much. Of course the way players act is uncontrollable and the reason why we all love MMORPGs so much. I don't want RP enforcement ever to be needed, as players' liberty of action should be preserved, in a general sense. Noone can be forced to play or act in a way they don't want/like/feel like. I understand those who just want to loggin with some friends and go kill other players, grief them if necessary and just have fun,not caring for organization. However, the game and the devs can budge and nudge parts of the game to provide a better and more meaningful experience. And these nudges don't even need to be in-game. For example, if you go to DF clan discussion, you will see all sorts of insults thrown around with some hardcore language. If this type of posting was better controlled and kept in check, I think it would reflect positively in-game. Of course, I am assuming that the game developers want this. Other things devs could do have already been talked about in the forums, ranging from apparently simple stuff like clan rank customization to more complex like player cities' designs chosen by the builders (no pre-placed buildings). In short, give more liberty to the players to decide/edit things to shape their own lore and support and acknowledge the diversity of clan/player types, in the game.

Returning more to the Hyperion Alliance and to the Rex Quonderam thead (where I've posted some friendly jabs) [ramble break] I went to check what the thread name meant and it refers to: "King Once" (as in, who was "once king"). It most probably came from: "Hic jacet Arthurus, Rex quondam, Rexque futurus", Here lies Arthur, King Once, and King in the Future (there are other suggestions/interpretations for the latin phrase and for the translation but they do not deviate much) [/ramble break] one must acknowledge that Darkfall has lived far too long without any sort of RP. So, when you encounter such a blown-out RPing thread, it almost looks misplaced or out of context. What also worries me in these types of organizations, is that RPing a Kingdom always seem provide all the fun to the King and none to the "serf". Let's all RP this stuff but the ones stuck with the lowlife roles are the ones getting the raw end of the deal. One could also argue that in a normal clan, the leader also has more fun since he is also behind the curtain, pulling the strings, so this thought might not have much merit. I'm not saying that Hyperion is like this, but I bet it is the general perception many might have. Remembering Darkfall beta and launch days, the idea I got is that Hyperion existed as a civilized and organized mega power and then, the others were divided into neutral and the mindless hateful barbarians, who had no regard whatsoever for the names they chose, the way they talked, etc etc. So one seems to have had on one end, civilization and on the other, l33t chaos. (I'm sure non-Hyperion might have felt that Hyperion was a huge menacing zerg who just kept gobbling up holdings and land) This seems to be a very simplistic and narrow-minded way for a server to exist as we can't have only 2 extremes co-existing because, eventually, one of them will succumb.

This ramble has been going on for a few days now, in the blog edit mode, and I'm getting a bit tired of it... so I'll just end saying that Kingdom-style organization is something that sounds attracting and regarding lore, a plea:

Aventurine hasn't promoted/developed lore much, for reasons beyond my imagination. I would presume it wouldn't cost much to have one employee writing lore for the game or as theluntary moderators for the forums, maybe you could also find voluntary lore writers. AV could just feed them tids and bits of what they have planned for Agon's background and have them fashion legends and myths around it. This would greatly help find other meaning for in-game actions, besides hate or getting off on killing someone else. Please AV, give us more lore (and some quests to go along with it btw!).

Malus Spiritus - me is wrong

So after having been to Qiqa, invited by Malus Spiritus, to verify that they were not cheating or exploiting, I did just that and verified that indeed, they weren't exploiting.

It seemed to me they were, but they weren't, so I apologize for being wrong and posting difamatory information.

Fail Event, Fail Siege, Fail exploit - Qiqa

As usual, I find it very boring to type regularly on the Blog but the idea of having a place where some adventures are written down for future memory, interests and compells me to keep writing. That and Utar Usher, the non-fuctioning microphone dorf, reminding me I need to write more!

So, I'll talk about his past weekend. It all started (for story-telling purposes) with me organizing an alliance Tournament for Saturday. It would be fun, have a prize and garner eternal glory for the victor! But, apparently people have lives and almost noone could make it on Saturday... so I ended up changing the event to Sunday.

I should stress that Children of the Forest used to be the owners of the holdings in the alliance but as it was decided that Equilibrium would be the new owner, we had been transfering the holdings from CotF to us. Long story short, we had already sold 2 hamlets and were left with Darkmoore city, where we reside, and Qiqatak hamlet in snowy Niflheim subcontinent.

On friday, a bunch of Equilibrium guys, me included, rode to Qiqa to siege it from CotF.

[story break]
I had just lived briefly in Niflheim, in Lost Untilik, when I was a member of Azure and which is already explained in a previous post. But for those of you who haven't memorizes my entire blog yet: I hated it at the time, everything was white white white, and us/me lost at the edge of the known land, in the middle of nowhere. At the time, it was with relief that I logged in Lost Untilik to find myself being zapped by the towers and chased away.
[/story break]

Well, this time, I found the continent much better! I still hate all the white but I really liked the mobs and the short weekend I spent there made me think it would be a nice resort to come PvE a bit. Soooo, on Friday we place the siege and on Saturday we win the hamlet. And on Sunday, alliance Tournament!! WRONG

We were sieged by an alt clan of Malus Spiritus clan. So, the Tournament got cancelled :( Apparently, I also have a life and couldn't be online on Saturday night, but on the next day, I login in Qiqa and there are a few Equilibrium guys around. Near lunch time, GMT (yes, lunch time is a scientific hour), there are 5 or 6 of us geared and we decide to go check White View, a Chaos city, to see what those guys are up to. As we ride out, we see them coming in and they roll us. These guys are good players, even if infantile delinquents. We have just a few guys who are on par with them, which is not enough.

So, I get bindcamped a lot at Qiqa, in the afternoon. They only have 1 guy chasing, so I use the 2 minute protection, to run in one way (with the bad guy following me), while my mates run afterwards on the other direction. It's some fun 30 minutes of me running out and getting killed (the guy must of really loved me). And Qiqa hamlet is a cave surrounded by white plains, so it's kinda hard to escape properly.

Anyways, I'm sure the guy was just bored and I eventually managed to escape. Interestingly, in many of my deaths, I would respawn having "fallen off the world", a very known and even common bug in Darkfall. While I am standing inside the cave walls, I notice 2 Malus Spiritus' guys resting inside the walls as well, fully geared. It seems they exploit this heavily and I recorded them standing there, getting inside the wall, getting outside the wall,... maybe they are the same guys who loot graves in Sea Towers, under the terrain. I contacted a GM who said they would look it up and ofc they won't do anything. It's not so much the fact that they won't do anything that bothers me but the fact that they will never tell me how their "investigation" went. Bad service .p

Regarding the siege itself, we managed to gather 17 players, which is less than I expected, with a lot of newbs and semi-newbs (much like myself) there. We ride to Qiqa and we get rolled by almost an even number of guys from their part. I should stress #2 that we did not ask any other clan in the vicinity to bind at their holding or for any help, and not for a lack of oportunity. If we are a RAC alliance, we try to be RAC all the way, inspite of the consequences.

We had allso previously decided, the hamlet would only be worth 1 push and after dieing, we go back to our lives.

In short, this postponed the event; we lost the siege and Malus Spiritus seem to be a bunch of retarded teenagers who don't mind exploiting.

Hope to add screenshots or videos at a later time. Cheers :)

Money, Tower and Alliance

As usual, I haven't been posting that often so I have semi-old events to talk about.

First things first: moneh! --> I resubscribed to Darkfall for 3 months, taking advantage of that 29,95€ deal. I had first subscribed using a 6 month deal. Then I quit and when I came back I subscribed for one month. Oddly enough, the automatic recurring subscription was able to withdraw money from my account for a 2nd month (it shouldn't have been able to, due to reasons I don't want to have the work of writting about). So now, I just resubbed for 3 months.

Last Sunday, I went to the northern sea tower with the rest of my alliance. It was cool to ride around in "big" numbers and we had a cool new addition: Imperial Dreams. They are a bunch of guys that got tired of Eve-online and have just started playing Darkfall. So there are like 20-30 1/2 week guys running around (with the same funny last name, no less). All of them belong to well-aligned races so they came with us to the northern tower. If their experience was the same as my first tower, they must of been all excited because it's a new experience and everyone else looks much stronger than them. And then... entering a ship (probably for the first time)... pretteh! And then... cannons to shoot! Sexeh!

We start out a bit bad but it is ok, because we are going to end pretty worser. By badly, I mean we ran into the kraken... no big deal. We surround it, while having the ship repaired and the new guys having fun shooting the cannons. As we set again our bearings towards the Tower, we see a ship coming behind us and gaining terrain. Also, it was shooting at us due to having a forward cannon... that's right... here comes SUN. We try to cannon them down, to no avail, while they keep getting closer.

After being boarded by what looked like 15 guys in Infernal/Dragon armour, we were pretty much all dead in 1 minute. It wasn't a very fun Tower experience, which is OK with me as I am already used to disappointment in-game :) But felt a bit sad for the new guys. Anyways, more will come and they must be used to dieing in Eve already!

Good news is they have joined our little Auros worshiping alliance of good-doers! I hope they fit in with us and don't isolate themselves as they are probably a very tight-knit group of players, who are starting out in a new game. So, I'm not expecting most of them to move to Darkmoore anytime soon.
A secondary positive outcome from this, is that my bruised epeen Ego is great! I feel like a powerful player! :D

Tune in for updates. This Saturday I'm trying to organize a Mounted Combat Tournament with a 10k gold prize to the winner. Let's see how that goes!

Sooooo, this Saturday I logged in at around 5 pm GMT. Bored and without knowing what to do, I talked with my mate Epoxy (we call him 'fat dorf' because he is a fat dwarf) and we decided to ride from Darkmoore to the Ork lands in search of PvP.


Needless to say, we found more chaos chests riding from one side of Agon to the other, than players. This becomes even more tragic as we only found one chaos chest.

We enter into Ork territory and near one of the NPC cities, we find a guy PVEing. I quickly dismount my fast mount and start attacking him with magic spells which completly miss him. It then goes on to melee and my health starts going down fast and I start healing and running away while Epoxy takes over. Then, the bastard gets on my FAST MOUNT and ditches for the NPC city. We're arrowing him down careful not to take down the mount but the guy manages to escape with 2% of life. Very pissed!! (only fast mount I had)

Epoxy very rudely calls me a noob and that I should of unspawned my mount (as he had done). But this is where I think opinions differ. If we are going in for a kill, we shouldn't lose time unspawning the mounts, amiraite?

Anyways, bummed out that I rode all the way to Ork lands and all I got, was my fast mount stolen, we run to the chaos bank to get slow mounts. We go around the rest of the NPC holdings and we see only 1 player but he has newb protection. We end up going to the hamlet Aldan Enak from Pain Killers and there is an afk guy in robes, who we proceed to kill. What a sad first kill :(

We go to the nearby village where I purchase another fast mount and some other stuff. We talked about going down to Andruk (LA) to see if we finally got some PvP, even if it was just to probably get killed. But I had to leave and we just port back to Darkmoore.

All in all, a pretty bad experience that so many people go through on a daily basis, in search for balanced PvP.

At night, me and 3 others go to a dungeon for a bit and we managed to get 5k gold each + other stuff, which was nice. I know it's not a lot for a lot of people but it is enough to satisfy me, specially when you are usually getting killed/losing stuff more often than not :)

All in all, Darkfall on a Saturday experience!

Rosalynn and Pandora

So, I haven't been posting anything new. It's because I get really motivated and excited when I start something new and then I have a hard time commiting to it, but I'll try to kick-start stuff again. I also had put in my mind that the blog would have screenshots so as to make it more interesting and I think it's part of the reason why I haven't posted earlier. It's too much of a hassle for my weak and feeble brain to manage screenshots, so I'll just make text-only posts at will.

Equilibrium wise, we and the rest of the alliance have moved to Darkmoore. We are currently trying to sell some hamlets because we don't need so many holdings and to concentrate people.

Our best neighbours for life are the french Le Clan Neanais and I gotta give special focus to Krytcheck who loves to visit us for tea. LCN own all the houses (I think) in the nearby village of Savaril, so they have an easy access to us. They have more and better developped characters I think, so we tend to lose more often than we win, but it's still good PvP practise and what would DF be without raiders?

Moving on to yesterday's events, I was going to meet up with some of the alliance buds at the elven capital, when I see a blue noob being killed by NPCs outside the town. I rezz him and I notice he is a recruit of Brothers of War. Who is the person that belongs to BoW that I absolutely hate for her pesky comments in DF forums? Rosalynn Goushall.

The recently ressurected recruit PMs me, saying thank you and I tell him no problems and to tell Rosa she is a bitx :D which he promptly does.

Rosa PMs me and we have a very nice and civil conversation, so I have stopped disliking her, although I must remain wary of forumfall .p Anyways, the big lesson here is that people and opinions CAN CHANGE! You might really hate someone and then have a change of heart 6 months later.

After this lovely episode, I meet up with the rest of the alliance guys (we were 8 in that group I think) and we head out to Ultimatum's city. We only find 2 naked guys in the city and their mine was empty. Then we went to Issar Ruins from The Horde... empty.

We check a nearby dungeon and a chaos bank... empty.

We proceeded to Svartfjord from Lost Legion and on the way we find 2 Pandora PvEing. They mount up and run on different directions. We chase the left one and we kill him.

We had thought about checking Sunthrone but with the warning given, the slim chance we might have had of winning was close to nill now. So hapilly we get back on our way to Svartfjord. We find another Pandora running there and we chase him. The guy cowardly disconnects (mental note for the future: Pandora members disconnect to avoid a fight they think they will lose) and we are left staring at the guy on the mount, not being able to hit him.

Then mayhem starts as +/- 2 guys were still in the hamlet and we start hearing a lot of noise. Not understanding what is going on, we go back to the hamlet and it takes a while to understand that we are being attacked (the tower is zapping everyone, everyone is moving around, making it very hard to distinguish what is happening).

It was Pandora with maybe 5 guys? (at the time we were probably 6 because some had disconnected). We fight for a while and end up dead. Hurrah \o/ riding around all evening to find noone and just die at the end in quite a lame way. At least my power of riding surged for the first time (that's right god damn it!) :p

I think 2 things went wrong:
- It was such a surprise (I gather) for the guys that were attacked inside the hamlet that they didn't say anything on Teamspeak
- We, as a group, should of grouped up just north of the hamlet so we could have a clear view of the enemies and not be trapped around buildings and zap towers

I mourn the loss of my dawnrazor :( Down to 1 now, so I'll need to get busy again. I know it's not much but I'm very cheap :)

So that's what happened yesterday. I hope I'll continue to narrate my adventures and that it is interesting to you guys.

Cheers!

Chaos Chest #12 mention

I would like to thank the mention in Darkfall's Chaos Chest #12 posted by Thraiax and for calling it "well-written" :D

I've been with a bit of a fever so I haven't really felt like playing DF except for some semi-afk stuff. Lots of sleeping needed :(

It's true!

Little Introduction - part 4 (Lux Arcana, afterwards and quits)

I think this will be the last part of the introduction and finally, I'll be able to move on to my current DF life.

So, as I was saying in the other post, I went with some Azure members (including the SG Galfurien Pendragon) to Lux Arcana, living somwhere in the main continent (think it was Darkmoore). Lux Arcana is a friendly independant clan with lots of actives, which was a very nice change of scenery. Having so many people around and their incentive to organize guild events, made life in the clan very active and life in DF very enjoyable.

For the record, my stay with LA and the events described below happened during a bit more than 1 month (I think), through all of which I was a recruit, although I didn't feel any distinction due to that fact.

Darkmoore (if I got the city right) was attacked from time to time as well, with us being able to defeat the enemies most of the time (usually and during prime time, at least 20 people would be on). Winning often made DF life even more fun and the subsequent sharing of the loot, made life easier when organizing ready bags.

The amount of wins are due, no doubt, to the amount of LA members who would congregate against the enemy and their growing level of organization, but also to Maejohl's, in my opinion, too careful and safe acting. I felt there were, sometimes, a lack of rushing the enemy, of being bold. It is true that if people come to attack our city, we don't owe them nothing, so we don't have to leave our walls to go after them into an eventual trap, but still... there's always a part inside us who wants to go wild from time to time.

We eventually moved to Ymennek in rubayiat, next to SUN's hamlet with a mine, Silmiyat. This was the place where I had the most PvP action during my DF career. A group of SUN started attacking our city (and defending their mine from the eventual miner :) ) and realized LA would fight back, even if losing. Every evening I would log in DF to find a bloody battle going on with SUN usually having the upper hand. Ready bags started going down fast.

Also, at the time (as probably still happens and will continue to happen) people complained a lot there was no PvP hotspots in Agon, etc etc, and word soon spread out that Ymennek was the place to be for every day there were lengthy and fun PvP confrontations. I remember being on the city walls and being attacked from the west by SUN, from the north by Nadirian Hordes (I think) and by south by another clan. Clans and random players just started visiting Ymennek and its surroundings to check out what was the reason for this talked about PvP mayhem.

Lux Arcana acted admirably in my opinion, during this time. Maejohl calmly told people not to worry, pvp was always abundant wherever they moved, they would retreat to one of their hamlets for some pveing to remake those lost ready bags and they would come back in force, not shying away from a fight and knowing that whatever they went through, it would make them stronger and better players. Although I didn't participate in that part of LA's life, I thought the overall idea/way of acting was cool.

In general LA was and probably still is a great clan to belong to. You have lots of active clan members living alongside you, people are friendly, you have a lot of PvP visits right on your doorstep and the quantity of organized guild events keep you occupied.

Now things get a bit hazier than they usually are for me. I think I left LA while they were still living in Ymennek (not sure) along with Galfurien and maybe 2 others to reform an old clan. It was a hard life after having been in LA. We conquered Somerstone hamlet but we had very few members, life in DF was not as fun, I was starting not to log in even when I could and summer vacations were getting close.

After 2 or 3 weeks of having left LA, it was the beginning of August 2010 and I had a roadtrip in Spain to do. I didn't re-subscribe my account, went inactive and didn't think of DF for a long time (although I would check its forums from time to time, specially the awsome Off-Topic forums :) ).

In the beginning of January 2011, after a 5 months interruption, I re-subscribed to Darkfall and joined the clan Equilibrium (BTW recruiting Humans, Dwarves and Elves: http://eqvilibrivm.guildportal.com/), with my love for the game renewed. Sometimes you just need a little break...

THE END


In the next posts, I'll finaly start talking about, and maybe post some screenshots, of my casual life in Darkfall!

Little Introduction - part 3 (ANG ANG ANG!!!!)

This is turning out bigger than I thought... but moving on...


Mathyra hamlet and furry Heldy out of the picture, we were homeless again. But it didn't take long until we find a new home again. This time with the creepiest possible bunch: ANG.

I didn't know them nor their reputation at the time and they seemed to me like leet pvpers as so many others I had seen and been around with.

We joined them probably at the height of their power. They had lots of holdings and we could live in any of them. We moved to Kholesh near the centre dungeon, but some clan members moved around frequently to other holdings (like Seelie) for some quiet PVEing.

One of the episodes I remember and which reflects the "top notch" communication and caring is one time, when we are asked to gear up and go with them out of the city (Kvitstein in the north before SUN conquered it). I mount up, go after them to the shore and I see a small ship... cool, only been in one once before.
I'm handed a repair tool and repair shards and told we are going to the sea tower. Cool, even if we were treated as cannon fodder. Anyways, we end up losing the small boat and everyone dies (hurray).


After about a month of living in Kholesh and having our members a bit spread out through ANG's several holdings, we decide it's time to get a place of our own where we can unite and re-kindle the clan spark again. A discussion in Azure's forums goes on for a while to chose either to buy a city (think it was Tughri) or conquer Ghanalaj in Rubayiat.
The voting favours Ghana which means siege time... my first offensive siege!

When Azure's leadership informs ANG of our next move, they offer to pay for the siege and in return, although the city would be ours, it would oficially belong to ANG, which would also enable the usage of their portal network and therefore, fast mutual help if needed. We agree, which would come to be our demise later on.

I ended up only participating in the eve of the siege with a huge ship and 3 spider scarabs being spawned to tear down the walls. The next day, when I get back home in the evening, the city is already ours. For non-important informational purposes, the attacks were launched from Elharrat (another Rubayiat city which belonged to ANG).

The guys who used to live in Ghana (Pain Killers?) were extremely pissed. At a time when people complained a lot of lifeless holdings where noone lived, we had kicked an active clan from their city. All I can say about that is we wanted it and life sucks :) I still remember one of the characters who lived there, Union Jack, for his frequent harassment outside our city, killing me at least once while I gathered herbs near the river. Apart from these small nuisances we, or at least I, had a good life, enjoying a mine and some nice spawns nearby.

The longer we stayed in ANG FRISST KINDER alliance, the more retarded those guys seemed. We had no friendly ties whatsoever, they were all german speaking, they were mentally impaired and led by a mcdonald's employee with deluded ideas of grandeur. We decided this was not what we wanted from an alliance and after one month of living in Ghanalaj, we wanted to leave and keep our city. They demanded from us 500.000 gold in advance to cover what they called their "siege costs". Grumply but eager to part ways, we accepted only to have them take and keep our money without ever releasing the city to us.

This was a huge blow to the clan which had already some members who were getting tired of Darkfall, as is so common and which happened with myself at a later time. We were not only homeless but also penyless this time, which in combination with some members leaving or quitting, resulted in the end of the clan Azure.

The only satisfaction coming out of this was the start of the end for the ANG minions. Having been scammed, the only thing left for us to do was going public with it, which turned in a pretty interesting thread and shattered all good opinions unknowing players could have had for ANG:

http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?t=250921 - ANG sinks to a new low (500k scam)

And for easy access, the disclosed Teamspeak conversation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HV93DL7cwlQ - WHAT IS FAIR IS FAIR DUDE!

They went downhill from this time onwards.

And what about me? I followed quite a few other members into Lux Arcana, which apparently will need a part 4 to be addressed.

I'm trying not to screw up here but as you have already probably figured out, I'm not very good with names.

Little Introduction - part 2 (Jungle Warriors and Frozen North)

So, picking where I left off... Dusk Raiders disbanded a few weeks after I joined due to internal disagreements/problems/whatever. Most people went on to form their own small clan and the leader joined Azure. He had asked everyone to join Azure as well, but I was the only one to follow (I really didn't want to join a very small clan without any perspectives of organization).



So, I pack my humble bags and move to one of the sub-continents for the first time in my short DF career! Exciting and harsh times as the sub-continent was Rubaiyat and the city in question was Ul'sulak, which I didn't find very friendly at the time. The clan was nice enough and with a bit more actives than I was used to. The alliance was Jungle Warriors of the infamous Celiah, who lived nearby in Ghana.



I participated in one of Ghana's defensive sieges, in the beggining of the big war against Jungle Warriors. First big fight I ever partook and quite awsome to my newbish eyes. I had never seen so many people together and so many spells beings flown around. Everyone seemed to have ultra awsome powers and spend regs as if they grew in their banks... which I could not. We won, which was an extra prize on top of an extra cool fight. I hated dieing more at that time than I do now :)

A few weeks after joining Azure, things go sour with Celiah because we help them out whenever they get attacked and when our city got attacked, we never or hardly got any help.
So the clan moves to another city: Lost Untilik in Nilfheim (some drama ensues over the city of Ul'sulak with Celiah which I explain further down).
As the poor newb, I travel all the way by horse instead of using those expensive things called runes and whatnot. Luckily for tourism, the server is semi-empty so people can travel around with relative safety.

Long story short we get the money and the city gets transfered to Jungle Warriors... and us in the white north...
I didn't like it much there... all very white, not a lot of people, not a lot of good spawns (imo). Apparently, the national hobby there was getting some bears stuck in some columns and skilling melee (and dieing to the PKers who went to that spot looking for prey).

I don't remember very well how but we either conquer or bind at Mathyra hamlet and start living there, enjoying our PK runs to Darkmoore where Greeklords lived (fun times).

Our stay at Mathyra would be short lived and the time when I started disliking Heldy:
- Azure was on trial to join BdW's alliance (can't remember the name);
- Azure had kicked Vanilla Soprano from the clan due to whatever problems with him;
- Vanilla forms his 1 man clan and joins BdW's alliance on trial as well;
- Heldy accepts this and the guy actually comes to Mathyra and wants to bind there;
- We refuse but Heldy wants to force us to let him bind there;
- We obviously kill him on sight;
- We get kicked or leave from the alliance trial to the dismay of Wolfen Silva (if I remember correctly);
- To this day I wonder why Heldy forced our hand to disobey the alliance and leave it, in detriment of a 1 man clan. It definitly helps explain why lots of people call her a ***** and a *** ****.

So there we are again... homeless... but with our pride intact! And at least, we were out of that white wasteland!

A new chapter begins... with ANG ANG ANG!!!!

Little Introduction - part 1 (MMORPGs and 1st DF clan)

Hello there.

My nick is Thaliost Riverblade and I like Darkfall.

I started playing MMORPGs with a free trial of Anarchy Online and it was completly awsome. I never subscribed because it was too much money for a kid but I got hooked up.

In the meanwhile, I would play "Planetarion", an old space browser game, which charged something like 15€ for 6 months and which was kindly paid by other more mature guildies.

The first real MMORPG I subscribed to was Eve-Online (by "I", I mean my grandfather who had no idea what the hell he was paying for but whose credit card didn't need to know either). The game was great with all the sand in the box, real political drama unfolding before our eyes, a huge and prosperous player driven market ever fueled by constant wars.

I played for almost a year until I changed to World of Warcraft. It was a great game, with entertaining quests and very well polished (imo). It lasted 3 months... after hitting level 60 the game became boring and devoided of a raison d'être.

I had to wait a lot until Darkfall, to the disbelief of many (specially after Dark n' Light's failure), was launched. Finally! A game with consequences to your actions, with conquerable cities, political action and semi-decent crafting/trading system.

I was accepted into beta and despite the bugs, it was awsome! The servers were loaded, clan activity was huge, people everywhere... ACTION everywhere. The potential for what players and clans could dream of and do was unparalleled!
The grind at the time was insane but noone even realized it or used the term "grind" because everyone was more or less at the same level and all the fights were intense and fun. During beta, I joined Fist of Europe, a sub-guild of one of Hyperion's main clans (can't remember which). It was a normal smallish clan of friendly and laid back people.

Then game launch came... and I couldn't get an account for the life of me. I saw everyone around me eventually getting one, I read the forums with the daily announcements of cities being conquered and characters evolving and I felt left behind. After 2 weeks of trying to buy an account I thought SCREW YOU AVENTURINE... and I stopped worrying about DF.

Around the time the 1€ trial was announced, I decided to take the game for a spin and finally subscribed. I started by joining Dusk Raiders (or something like that) which was a badly organized clan but semi-fun nonetheless, due to the bunch of active players who did a lot of stuff together. It was also exciting because it was the first time I was living outside NPC holdings, at the city of Tughri.

Hmm... this seems to be running long so I'll make it part 1 and continue on in part 2!