Friday 22 April 2016

DF:RoA - Life in Ymneck owned by Immortals

For the last week or two, Immortals has been living in the city of Ynmelek in the desert island of Rubaiyat (south west) - aka Ruby for those who are intimate.

The fact that we are in alpha and the increased gains specifically for the alpha, means that everyone has levelled up their character to the maximum and has easy access to gear, so the need (and will) to go PvE is highly diminished.

And as such, we are left with the activities of duelling, having PvP visits from distinguished guests and going out to make PvP visits of our own (we mainly do these to our Russian neighbours who live in Khayud - a city that is on the frontier of the mainland continent and Ruby)...


Monday 18 April 2016

Darkfall: Rise of Agon NDA LIFTED!

After 3 years it happened.

Darkfall 1 is back in business with the alpha of Darkfall: Rise of Agon, whose NDA has been lifted: pretty link

The game that is treasured by so many and which has spoiled MMOs for most of us, is BACK!

I was so excited for having received an alpha invite, clan forums and chat were buzzing with excitement; teamspeak alive with old names, etc. Yay!

After toying around a bit with DF:Standalone, where it was awesome just to hold a justicebringer and a cobra staff again and hear those familiar sounds... there is now a functioning server with at least 700 alpha players? (not sure about figures, maybe more) and it is awesome. The only things that are not so awesome is me not having as much free time as the game deserves and my lacking vocabulary making me use the word awesome so many times in a single entry.

In any case, Thaliost Riverblade is back in action to the fear of all the mounts I ride! I'm thinking about changing my nickname to something more obscure or hardcore for game launch. Maybe it will help out with my PvP skills! Who the hell expects a blade from a river to do any damage (if it made any sense at all to begin with!)?


There is a single server, hosted in the US (I think it's the US... at least on that side of the world) and I have 120 ping (hailing from Europe). It's not the best but it's enough and I do hope they keep a single server. Darkfall needs masses to reach it's full potential and for players of all types and preferences to be able to thrive, find like-minded friends/clans and to change scenery when in-game life doesn't go according to plan.

I think a key aspect for player retention is what happens when you lose in-game, what comes next. If a clan loses its city will it disband or will it look for revenge? Will the players get demotivated and stop playing or will they look for other clans to get excited once again and recover from their losses?

The most time I played in a row was yesterday (sunday) when I finally bound my keys and started duelling. I use the mouse razor naga (which has these pretty 12 side-buttons which are AWESOME).
I realize I'm still as good as I was in DF1 (!!) and I'm messing up a lot switching the hot bars. This might be because I am rusty or because my binds suck. I need to figure this out before I get too used to them .p

In Immortals clan, we started our lives in Nifflheim (North-west island which is ice-frozen). It is a nice place to start in because it is relatively secluded and one can get reunited with their inner-warrior/hybrid mage, in peace. It is also very good to capture chaos chests, because the scenery consists of white plains with very little obstruction (few trees and hills) so you get a very far and unobstructed view.

We have since then captured some more holdings, including a city in Rubbyiat (the desert island on the south west). Man, I do love the desert! It's so much better to look at than the frozen wastelands where everything is white. My nordic brothas (and penguins), I feel your pain!!!

We have grown a bit from the initial group (think we had 39 members yesterday) because all the old people are returning and some old DF1 players who played in other clans, come back to find themselves without their old groups, so they look for friends to join. And we are a very friendly bunch indeed!


Suggestion/tip: In settings-> video options, don't forget to turn off shadows (untick boxes), except for player shadows (I always think maybe the enemies' shadows will help you find them). The world becomes more lit and it is easier to see (it also helps a bit in the FPS department).


And on a side-note, what the hell is up with page views on this blog? In March 2016, it had 2.178 views; April 2016 already has 648 views! That's crazy considering the historic and the fact there have been no new entries (the better month had been April 2011 with 1.045 views). And 98% of those page views come from the USA.

Are those bots? Is it the DF1 vets coming back? Can't explain it... [please talk to me on the post thingy (or PM) to help me understand what is happening.]


Concluding: this entry was a bit mambo-jumbo in organization but I hope to be able to start recounting the adventures of ALL-MIGHTY THALIOST RIVERBLADE IN ZIE CLAN IMMORTALS!!! RAWWWWR!!!!!