Theory on Darkfall Server Downtime

Hello,

During a server restart we experienced a hardware failure we're currently dealing with. We're informed that it shouldn't take longer than 1 hour to fix.

We appreciate your patience and apologize for the delay it getting the game back up.

The Darkfall Team

Here is what is really going on at Adventurine HQ:


Seriously I really hope I am wrong!

Make your own video at:
http://www.grapheine.com/bombaytv/index.php?lang=uk

or leave a comment!

Last if it makes you feel any better you can contact GNi directly here, they're the company responsible for hosting the Darkfall game servers.

Other DF Server Downtime Comedy:

Tasos PMed me..wtf? (from Centurion)
We now take you behind the scenes (from Atropa)
Tsatziki in the Raid arrays (from Zealot-EX)
Screenshot of current DF Build (from Drahx)

BREAKING UPDATE! Tasos just got out of the pool and made the following post:

Downtime update 4.20 AM GMT:

We're afraid that the effects of the failure experienced during a routine server restart have proven considerably more time-consuming to address than originally estimated. We keep getting persistent errors that need to be corrected before the game is back up. The sources of these errors have finally been identified and now it's a matter of time before they are corrected.

We expect the servers to be up by 12pm noon GMT today(Tuesday) but we're doing everything we can to minimize this estimated downtime. During this timeframe we'll also apply a scheduled update patch meant to address some of the issues players have been experiencing the past few days.

We have been working non-stop on getting the game back up. We truly regret the downtime but we must be able to focus on the job at hand and we appreciate your patience and support. We will keep you updated on all developments.

There will be ample compensation for any missed game-time.

With our apologies,
The Darkfall Team

Looks like the ETA for servers coming back up is around 7AM EST on Tuesday morning.

Warhammer is Boring: Mythic To Close 63 Servers

Warhammer was released on September 18th, 2008. It's six month anniversary is coming up next week and they just announced the closure of 40 servers. The populations from those have been spread out across the sixteen that remain (FYI these are US numbers, the Euro side is closing 20 with 23 remaining).

When Warhammer launched (smoothly I am told) the group of us who hit 40 first almost all stopped playing and went back to WoW. I joined after this in early December and caught up to the slower leveling bastages and eventually most of us were hitting 40 in late January. This is right around when Darkfall Beta opened and everybody jumped ship to try out the game we've been years and years for. I canceled my subscription last week before the 3-month period was up. Out of all of us I think there are only one or two bastages still hanging on to their subscriptions.

I wanted to like this game, and at times I had a lot of fun, especially early on. The T2 scenario (forget the name), and Tor Anroc were fun and didn't get old since you quickly out leveled them. The lava could be a bitch but you have to admit it was funny watching people get owned by it. The only really memorable RvR fight I had was also in T3 going after the keep in Saphery. A group of about 6 or 7 of us and a bunch of order fodder busted through the outer gate. There was a good number of T3 Destro and a couple of Destro in the mid-30s so we were having trouble getting through the second gate. I think we had three warrior priests and a rune priest all specced salv plus two or three bright wizards and maybe someone was there on their melee. Our squad sat in the middle of the courtyard killing Destro and trying to nuke down the door. We held our ground well but the fodder just kept dying around us. Before we knew it the gates had closed behind us and more of the fodder that died were getting stuck outside the walls. Even past that point I think we held our ground until we were the last men standing and eventually got zerged out.

After T3 the game went downhill. I really didn't care for any of the scenarios, most of them were rehashed versions of Arathi Basin from WoW. Add that to the fact that for most of the time I was playing I had to fight level 40s. I feel that RvR through the 'dominion system' was flawed as well. When given a choice, most players will take the path of least resistance. This means while Order was capturing keeps in Praag, Destruction was capturing keeps in Caledor. No one really defended since the incentives for taking a keep (phat lootz) greatly outweighed the incentives for defending (rep/influence... QQ). In the end this basically boiled down to two sides zerging essentially defenseless keeps in a race to cap two zones in order to access the fortresses and eventually the capital cities.


The few fortress fights I did were pretty boring as well. I only did one at 40 and even then I didn't have enough wards to really do much. I just followed the zerg and /random'd for some loot.

The Capital City was even worse. I was never on for a defense of Altdorf. I did siege the Inevitable City twice. What this essentially amounted to was joining a public quest instance that was heavily lopsided and ended quickly. Then not being able to get into one at all. They also had an instanced battle ground was essentially what you would get if you took Arathi Basin, Warsong Gulch, made them have a baby and beat it with a fugly stick. Not to mention the queue times were also terrabad.

How does this relate to Darkfall Online? You can almost view DF and WAR as mirror opposites. Smooth Launch vs. FUBAR Launch. Multiple servers with excess capacity vs Single Server with insufficient capacity. Zero risk (no loot / losing keeps is laughable) vs High Risk (Full loot / Player Cities can be captured). Class/Level based vs Skill based.

It remains to be seen how Darkfall will play out. I hope that six months from now I am not writing a similiar post about it...

If you do feel like playing a boring game again, Mythic is sending out messages to canceled subscribers offering 10 days free if you sign up again.

Related Posts:
Gamasutra: Mythic to Close 63 Warhammer Online Servers
Tobold's MMORPG Blog: WAR server shrinkage
Broken Toys: Because I'm Leet Like Karl Franz

Darkfall Online: City Building Review

I haven't written a post all week since I finally got my Darkfall account, but I did come across the following article today that is worth sharing and discussing. Paragus of Inquisition posted the following review of Darkfall's City Building systems on mmorpg.com. In it he lays out the initial process, costs and personal thoughts on the system. His overall review is positive:

The good thing about the entire concept of city building in this game comparedto other MMOs is that there is a real sense of satisfaction when you start putting up structures because it is not instanced. Everyone in the world who comes by your spot will be able to see the work you have done, unlike in AOC where everything was instanced. They definitely have a solid and interesting foundation for their city building system, despite the fact that I think some tweaks would go a long ways. This aspect of the game really adds another layer to the game play, and reinforces what I originally said about being in a guild to fully experience all that Darkfall has to offer.

There are some good bits in there, such as the fact that there are approximately 97 claimable plots on the map. He also mentions, which supports other accounts I have read, that city layouts are largely predetermined. Having played Shadowbane, I wish that this was different. I really enjoyed the city architect role of that game in building cities on Scorn and Vengeance. There were some really terrible layouts and some strategic, well thought out ones. It added another layer of skill to the game.
Another city design, or essentially siege element that differs greatly from Shadowbane is that it appears gates don't have doors. At first, my initial impression is that this is a design flaw. But this is not Shadowbane circa 2004. Your city's clanstone does not need to be defended 24/7. Combat in DF is much more balanced between melee and ranged. Stacking a group of high def casters on one spot is not a viable tactic in Darkfall.

I think the standoff between defenders on a wall and attackers on the ground worked well in Shadowbane due to the game mechanics and combat systems heavily skewed toward magic users and ranged combat. DF combat mechanics are closer to Warhammer Online in that there is collision detection and much more melee oriented combat. If you added closed, locked doors to walls in DF you'd end up with something similiar to a (boring) keep siege in WH:

1. Defenders on the wall dump oil on attackers bashing door. Casters cast AOE on the bashers. Healers stand around. Melee stand around.
2. Melee bash door. Healers heal bashers. Ranged shoot door or try to pick off oil/defenders.
3. Door goes down. Attackers rush in and either zerg the keep lord or get stuck at the choke point at the top of the stairs and die. Usually the former as unless there are not really any significant incentives to defend a keep successfully.

I can't say definitively yet as I have yet to lay siege to a city but I think the lack of doors will allow for the use of more complicated tactics other than numerical superiority in a ranged standoff.

It also allows you to raid clans cities for the sake of PvP without actually having to siege them. More PvP = more deaths = good.

Read the full article here, or leave a comment below.

Daylight Savings and American Ethnocentrism 4tw

Did you remember to set your clocks ahead an hour this weekend? If so it means you are most likely living in the continental US. It is also safe to assume that the majority of you assume that just because we set our clocks forward an hour this weekend that the rest of the world did as well.

Fortuntately for me this is not the case. While some countries do practice 'summer time' they have their own dates for when they make the change. What does this have to do with Darkfall? I like to believe all of the people who incorrectly calculated 7PM GMT as 2PM EST today and had given up by 3PM EST gave the servers enough breathing room to process my account activation on the first try. Either that or Tasos and company actually did something to increase the server capacity for their account management system. I like to think the reason lies with the fact that most Americans are self centered when it comes to world views.

Either way, I got my account activated today:

If you were unsuccessful today, try again tomorrow at 3PM EST. Suckers.

They're Not Making it Easy, 27 New Accounts Created today and Darkfall Speed Hacks

I tried again to get an account for Darkfall. I must have hit F5 about 100 times over the course of 30 minutes around 7PM GMT when the account management site was open for new subscriptions. I got as far as clicking on the continue to your order button but never any further.

It is hard to tell what the long term implications from this horrible launch will be. Looking at the past, I think it is safe to say that Age of Conan shot itself in the foot because of all the problems it had at launch. The Darkfall devs are essentially staggering in their new players in order to stress test the server. This may allow them to optimize server populations in the future. The problem is they're pissing off a lot of people in the process. I hope that this doesn't end up alienating so many potential players that the game doesn't last.

I really hope that they succeed. But their certainly not making it easy. There are also reports of players using third party programs to speed hack. I was skeptical at first until I came across this YouTube video:


This needs to be addressed immediately. It is one thing to exploit crappy AI or bugs in game but an entirely different ballgame to use third party programs to defeat other players in PvP. There is no point in fighting honorably and fairly if your opponent will simply cheat to defeat you. In my opinion there is nothing more pathetic. An example, last night I was playing Counterstrike: Source (since I still can't play Darkfall...) and some guy joined the server and promptly got owned a few times. He apparently rhee'd in real life and told everyone to F**k off n*****s. Naturally I laughed out loud at his reaction. A few seconds later he was somehow crashing the server. It was funny and pathetic to me at the same time. I took it with a grain of salt since it was just a counterstrike game, but when similiar game breaking hacks are applied to an persistant MMO world then we have a problem Houston...

I hope that the Darkfall development teams is able to resolve these issues quickly. If left unchecked they could end up being the nails in the coffin for Darkfall Online. I have had enough of Electronic Arts and Activision Blizzard producing carebear, no consequences, zero risk, mega grind MMO's. I came across an interesting blog post today from Scott Jennings, AKA Lum the Mad from the old UO days. I would venture to say that he is a bit of a carebear himself, but at least he is rooting for us bad guys:

http://www.brokentoys.org/2009/03/02/punching-babies-why-darkfall-can-should-and-must-succeed/

Leave a comment if you believe in Darkfall Online!

Breaking News: Darkfall Online NEW SALES OPEN

UPDATE (5:16 PM EST): Shop is now closed again for the day:

We processed as many orders as we could take in today, we'll open up tomorrow around the same time. We'll try to do this every day until things slow down and we can leave sales up.

Those very few of you that show you have pre-ordered rather than ordered will be processed normally and enabled.

Well that was pretty pathetic. I'd estimate the ordering system was open twice for about two minutes each time. I actually managed to hit the order button once only to get the 'Service is unavailable message.' At least Tasos admits how few people are getting in. At least they'll be doing it every day from here out. Still no word on additional servers and it remains to be seen whether the staggered release will yield any positive benefits to long term server health.



UPDATE (4:06 PM EST): Account management server is still down...

From Tasos:

Until sold out which shouldn't take too long by the traffic we're seeing.

Again, please don't abuse the system with multiple tabs and windows open,
or spam the refresh. We had to add a security measure in place that will give
you a 10 minute block if you do. If used properly, the system should work better
for everyone.

Thank you,
The Darkfall Team

Update: Had to bring it down for a few minutes, be back up shortly

I guess I'll be checking every 10-15 minutes or so. These will probably sell out quick!

How to Order Darkfall

Credit to Babu for this handy how-to guide for getting your hands on a Darkfall account.

Go to: https://www.darkfallonline.com/accounts/f/default.php?pname=Homepage

Create an account, fill up everything on the first page, including ur billing info, and confirm the information by putting in your password again and checking the confirmation box.Click "Update profile and billing info".

Click on the "Backorder" tab on top, leading you to: https://www.darkfallonline.com/accounts/f/default.php?pname=Products

Stay on that page and refresh it later this evening to put your order in. We can post a message in this thread once you should refresh, so keep track of the board/IRC.

Remember not to spam F5 or open multiple tabs/windows!

Good luck! Leave a comment if you're successful!