Darkfall
Darkfall was a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by Aventurine SA that combined real-time action and strategy in a fantasy setting.
Aventurine has since sold the license of Darkfall Online to two independent companies, Ub3rgames and Big Picture Games.
Approximately 14 months later, in October 2002, the Razorwax team was integrated into Aventurine SA, a newly formed company based in Athens, Greece, ostensibly created for the continued development and subsequent commercialisation of Darkfall.
Eventually, the two teams realised that this idea actually made very good business sense,[5] and by December 2002,[6] the relocation of Razorwax, now Aventurine, was finalised.
[7] A later statement from associate producer Tasos Flambouras explained that a decision had been made internally to devote additional money and resources into expanding the scope of the game.
[10] Six months later, on 17 January 2007, Aventurine announced they were in active discussions with prospective partners, distributors, publishers, and technology providers, and that a fully functional and stable beta build was running on remote servers.
[15] Later, in April 2008, it was announced that Darkfall was feature-complete,[16] and in May, that "... our launch date will be inside 2008, with the public beta preceding it by a few weeks.
On 29 August 2008, Darkfall's official beta was announced as the final scene of a 17-minute gameplay video,[19] which demonstrated numerous aspects of the game, such as small and large group PVP, including small and large group mounted combat, ship sailing and naval combat, magic and archery, and vehicular combat, creative use of in-game physics and magic, crafting, banking, 3 different PVE encounters demonstrating mob AI, and city building and sieging.
Shortly before both servers went live extensive patch notes were released for the 2nd expansion titled "Conquer the Seas".
It increased skill gains and loot while removing the purchase fee entirely and reducing monthly subscription cost to $9.95, down from $15.
On 14 November 2012, Aventurine announced that due to a combination of external factors, last minute issues, and final testing feedback, the company was forced to push back the release date to 12 December 2012.
[32] The company released a set of feature, game play and developer diary videos to support the launch on their official YouTube channel.
[33] On 28 April 2015, Axilmar, a gui developer working on the actual Unholy Wars, posted a petition on Reddit[34] to taste the interest in a classic Darkfall server due to the demand of the community.
On 15 June 2015, after 3 days of delay the CEO of Aventurine Zad Mehdawi posted a message[35] where he explained that Darkfall is not feasible due to the large investment in the infrastructure and development support needed to run the game, and so they ditched a Darkfall revival but were continuing to work and improve the actual game Unholy Wars.
On 18 November 2015, the community manager Ici Wave in a post on the official forum,[37] wrote that Aventurine was under negotiations with 2 interested parties[38][39] for the license of Darkfall Online.
[46] On 16 August 2016, Darkfall: New Dawn switch from free stress test to InDev beta, only people who bought the game can play it.
The races, organised by faction, are: As with other MMORPGs, player characters have a set of semi-static attributes, which determine their in-game physical and mental prowess.
There are also three dynamic attributes: hit points, mana, and stamina, which determine a player's overall vitality and capacity for physical activity and/or magic, which fluctuate in response to performing actions and receiving damage.
[citation needed] The developers have opined that historically successful battle formations and tactics will be widely adopted and adapted for use in Darkfall.
These pre-made city sites are spread across the entirety of the world, and vary greatly in location, surrounding terrain, access to nearby resource nodes, and consequently, their ability to be defended by the owning clan.
In the patch "Conquer the Seas", Darkfall received two large fortresses at the North and South ends of Agon.
If a clan controls the sea tower they get a server wide broadcast of their accomplishment, free recruitment postings in NPC towns, and additional revenue.
A succession of evil actions results in negative alignment, and a permanent "kill on sight" ("red") status.
[56] Since Darkfall is a classless MMORPG, any player is able to practise stealth-enhancing skills such as "crouch-walking" and to follow a stealthy play style.
Stealth in Darkfall is also made possible through the deliberate lack of showing players on the minimap and use of first-person perspective for ranged combat and general movement.
[citation needed] (For comparison, Blizzard's World of Warcraft continent of Eastern Kingdoms is three hours from north to south.
Mobs also display generally higher artificial intelligence than in other games,[citation needed] and will frequently call for help, strategically retreat, dodge, and switch between melee and ranged attacks.
[59] The launch saw a number of setbacks due to unexpected high demand; players stumbled upon a critical bug which the developers took the game down to fix, and Aventurine's website was unable to handle the overwhelming amount of traffic to the online store and forums, causing those features to become generally unavailable to customers for several hours.
[64] However, this review was not received well as it contained several basic gameplay description errors, and Darkfall lead developer Tasos Flambouras claims that game server logs show that the Eurogamer reviewer played the game for under three hours, a claim denied by the writer.
[65] Eurogamer's subsequent offer to compromise by commissioning a second opinion review[66] (by noted games critic Kieron Gillen) was declined by Flambouras,[67] but was carried out anyway, being awarded 4/10.
