Darkfall Online

 PC
User Score
6.7

Mixed or average reviews- based on 317 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 200 out of 317
  2. Mixed: 30 out of 317
  3. Negative: 87 out of 317

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  1. TravisG
    May 7, 2009
    9
    No other game like it, abseloutely cutthroat. The starting mobs on this game will own half of the WoW playerbase. Not for new gamers.
  2. BrianT
    May 7, 2009
    10
    I have been playing Darkfall since release and I'm completely addicted. There are slight flaws in the game just like any other new release mmo but AV has been making great patches constantly to remedy all issues. There are no games on the market that even compare to the hardcore playstyle this game offers. Just wandering around in the wilderness leaves you on edge listening to the I have been playing Darkfall since release and I'm completely addicted. There are slight flaws in the game just like any other new release mmo but AV has been making great patches constantly to remedy all issues. There are no games on the market that even compare to the hardcore playstyle this game offers. Just wandering around in the wilderness leaves you on edge listening to the sounds around you in case someone may be sneaking close by. I'm not a typical game fanboi but Darkfall has everything I am looking for. Risk vs reward. You can lose everything you've worked days for or gain everything from one great fight. Everyone must use actual battle tactics to offset friendly fire and watching shield blockers running ahead of archers in massive raid combat is just exhilarating. Everyone that wants a hardcore sandbox game should play darkfall. You'll see me on very day for at least 5 hours.… Expand
  3. BoddlerT
    May 7, 2009
    8
    Definitely a niche title for those who like "consequence" gaming. Character models and animations are relatively simple. Weapon models look quite good, and are uncommonly creative. Environment is graphically impressive, and the large world has many interesting and hand-crafted locations to explore. UI works quite well for its purpose, although there's a slight hint of Definitely a niche title for those who like "consequence" gaming. Character models and animations are relatively simple. Weapon models look quite good, and are uncommonly creative. Environment is graphically impressive, and the large world has many interesting and hand-crafted locations to explore. UI works quite well for its purpose, although there's a slight hint of "wheel-reinvention" in places (e.g. rotating a model 360 degrees during character creation is done with a slider instead of the conventional click-and-drag on the model). Keyboard controls do have rare moments of slow-responsiveness. All hotkeys may be rebound. Very large group pvp (150+) is functionally and graphically smoother than any other game in the genre that I have played.… Expand
  4. Max
    May 7, 2009
    2
    Game which has no redeeming features aside form full loot and world pvp. It sports one of the most horrible skills and resources grinds, one the most broken and incomplete UI on top of very laggy and often crashing servers. I do not even mention the non existent content. Awfull combat and skill system which has no room for variety or skill Only good quality is world which is interesting Game which has no redeeming features aside form full loot and world pvp. It sports one of the most horrible skills and resources grinds, one the most broken and incomplete UI on top of very laggy and often crashing servers. I do not even mention the non existent content. Awfull combat and skill system which has no room for variety or skill Only good quality is world which is interesting to explore.… Expand
  5. MatthewS
    May 7, 2009
    10
    This game is not for everyone and it was developed as such. You will see low ratings from players whom like the ease of having the game play itself for you and the brainless thinking of mmorpg gaming is heading towards thanks to WoW.
  6. MIchaelT
    May 7, 2009
    8
    I think the Eurogamer review was absolutely atrocious, unprofessional, and it's obvious he did not even try to become familiar with the game. Yes, the first 2 hours or so (which is as much as he played), is rough, but once you figure out the controls it becomes quite easy to maneuver around and get in fights, and the game quickly becomes a blast. Shame on Eurogamer for being so I think the Eurogamer review was absolutely atrocious, unprofessional, and it's obvious he did not even try to become familiar with the game. Yes, the first 2 hours or so (which is as much as he played), is rough, but once you figure out the controls it becomes quite easy to maneuver around and get in fights, and the game quickly becomes a blast. Shame on Eurogamer for being so unprofessional. I give it an 8 because there is a lot of room for improvement, but for a game at this stage after launch, I think it's been doing excellent.… Expand
  7. [Anonymous]
    May 7, 2009
    8
    Graphics: + Beautiful world; no repetition, even after walking for hours. + Awesome Night and Day graphics + Scales wonderfully (200v200 runs like a charm on my laptop) + Dynamic soft shadows + Allows fine control of all options (down to setting the number of dynamic lights as an actual number) - Sometimes not bad models - Animations sometimes bad (though they're being improved) - Graphics: + Beautiful world; no repetition, even after walking for hours. + Awesome Night and Day graphics + Scales wonderfully (200v200 runs like a charm on my laptop) + Dynamic soft shadows + Allows fine control of all options (down to setting the number of dynamic lights as an actual number) - Sometimes not bad models - Animations sometimes bad (though they're being improved) - Technicaly outdated for year 2009 While the graphics aren't perfect, the scalability of the engine combined with how amazing the game can look at times still surprise me sometimes. While watching beta videos might leave a player wondering how anyone could play a game with such horrible animations, they have been improved in more than one patch recently. Overall, Darkfall strikes a good balance between graphical quality and accessibility on older machines. Score: 7 Sound: + Music is atmospheric and doesn't distract from the game (or Ventrillo chatter) + Combat is heard before it is seen. - In large battles, the sound of 512 players' footsteps being played at once is maddening. - Volume control broken on Windows XP Sound is an area that has relieved mixed comments. I personally like the sound when I'm venturing around by myself or in a small party, but it can get quite annoying in larger confrontations. Adding to the sound's issues, the game's Volume Control is based around the Vista scheme: it assumes that each program has its own separate volume setting in system options, and attempts to lower that. For XP users, this means that muting Darkfall's sound will mute all of your sound, including important things like Ventrillo. Score: 5 Balance: I agree with this from the OP, so I'll just leave it here. Strangely, the topic that was barely raised in Darkfall, due to nature of a game and skillbased progression system. Everything feels quite balanced, polearms were claimed to be OP and few other minor things; but from my assessment there REALLY wasn't any serious balancing issues, and the minor that were were fixed really fast. The only "balance" issue would be people who raised their rigor due to exploit, but that's about it. PvE is fine. Even best PvPer in best armor stocked with pots e.t.c can be taken down by few naked people if they know their game, although it wouldn't be easy. Score: 9 Atmosphere: + World design: No copy-pasting and retexturing + Politics similar to EVE, except that limited city locations lead to more necessity for conflict. + Gameworld matches up to the lore + Music complements the atmosphere - Playerbase sometimes hostile to newcomers. Score: 10 Operation: + Flexible UI + UI minimalism helps immersion N UI learning curve N Lack of plugins - Chat Interface - Journal and Clan page interfaces Darkfall's UI is perhaps the best out-of-the box UI I've worked with, ever. It has a rather steep learning curve, but Race chat should be willing to answer any questions you have about it. Windows can be moved to any location on the screen, given custom transparencies, and pinned / unpinned from the combat HUD. Once you get everything set up how you want it, there is a sense of satisfaction - you created that. Later, if you decide you'd rather have it organized differently, you can simply move your windows around in a few mouse clicks. Unlike other games there is no need (and no availability) for third-party plug-ins. Right-clicking to switch between the full UI and the combat HUD is a wonderful flashback to Morrowind, and while it takes a little getting used to, it feels quite intuitive after a couple of hours. The journal and clan pages use a somewhat clunky web-based interface - it takes just a little while longer to load that I would like, and are generally two of the things that receives across-the-board negative reception. Thankfully, you won't need to be using them very often. The chat system is another common complaint. Chat is split into "tabs" - /race, /racealliance, /party, /clan, /clanalliance, /say, tells, and more recently, /trade. They can be selected by clicking them, or by pressing enter and using Ctrl+Tab to cycle tabs. What the chat system lacks is a way to integrate multiple tabs into one meta-tab; it can get annoying to constantly have to cycle through chat channels to view new messages. Most clans use Ventrillo as a primary means of communication for this reason. Score: 7 Scope: + HUGE world + Seamless and non-repetitive terrain + player built cities + naval warfare + mounted combat + Sandbox 'Goals' Score: 10 Quests: Quests are... there. They reference the lore rather often, especially after the first few starter quests, but overall are nothing special. Then again, Darkfall is a PvP-focused game, and quests aren't really all that central to its quality at all. Most people don't bother progressing far into the quest lines. Score: 4 Character System: + Skill based development - Most players at the moment have focused on the easy / fast route (melee + archery), so there's less diversification than some would like. Good, but it could offer more potential for diversification, but that will come with time. EVE's progression was quite simplistic at first as well. Score: 8 Combat System: + twitch based melee combat + fps aim for archery and magery + mounted combat + naval combat + big and massive pvp encounters + player skill and character skill both matter + "Real-world" stealth - no invisibility. ++ Full Loot! N Some players report unplayable framerates in massive (500 v 500) battles, but any newer computer should be able to handle it. - latency (not a big deal for most) - Players opting for the easy route in skilling up make battles less unique than they could be with more diversification Ranged combat in Darkfall is a blast, both attacking and dodging projectiles. Hitting your target comes down almost entirely to your (player) skill with he bow, or with the spell you're firing. Melee also requires skill, mostly at dodging the other player's attacks while hitting them with your own. It may start to seem a little repetitive at times though - most players currently use a two-handed melee weapon and a bow, as there is far less cost in gaining these skills than higher magics. With a little more diversification, combat would be flawless. Also, there is no invisibility stealth, and camouflaged (i.e. leather or cloth) / non-shiny armors won't help you slip out of sight after you've been spotted, but there are definate stealth elements to the game. Since everybody's camera is fixed to their character's eyes (or a short distance behind the character with a drawn melee weapon) in most cases (exceptions = mounted and resting), you can pretty easily move up on a target undetected if you stay out of their line of sight and more quietly. From behind isn't much of an issue, you just crouchwalk up on them, utilizing terrain to stay out of view just in case. Approaching from the front is near impossible, so you can use the terrain to circle around a target, shoot him with arrows (get him surrounded for best effect, there's nothing like getting suddenly peppered with arrows from multiple directions), or wait for him to walk by. There is a lot of quick thinking and player skill involved in moving undetected. Score: 9 Items: + Player - Driven economy + Items are replaceable + Variance across items of the same type related to crafter + Game doesn't come down to gear, gear only helps tilt the balance. - crafting large numbers of items can be a chore, needs a "Craft All" button Darkfall is not another item-based game, thankfully. It couldn't be, when you lose everything you're carrying on death. Items do, on the other hand, help to skew the odds in your favor - you'll hit harder with a rank 40 sword than a rank 0 one, but not by too much. Players can craft 90% of the items in the game, with most of the rest being crafting tools, player-gathered resources, or mob-specific types of armor (which are uniformly worse than similar armors when made by crafters). A major gripe, however, is that it takes too long to craft large numbers of items. Personally, I feel that the time investment itself is not an issue; the issue is that the player must manually click the "create" button once for each item he or she intends to make, then wait until that one is done and repeat. Score: 7 Overall: graphics: 7 sound: 5 balance: 9 atmosphere: 10 operation: 7 scope: 10 quests: 4 character system: 8 combat system: 9 items: 7 With even weights: 76 / 100 Personally I'd round it up to an eight on a 10 point scale. Also keep in mind that my scale is weighted with 50% (5) being average.… Expand
  8. DylanR
    May 7, 2009
    7
    This game in its current form is a solid 7/10 for the pure and simple reality that's its not finished. Only a few times in my online gaming carrier, which spans ten years, have I felt the blood pumping excitement in PvP that this game provides. This game is far from being polished but with every patch the atmosphere and technical improvements are on the rise.
  9. marko
    May 7, 2009
    6
    This game is somewhere between a 6 and 7 in its current state. They definitely did not deliver on their promises, and the gameplay could be MUCH more engaging. BUT, the Eurogamer reviewer is full of crap. It was proved, by logs, that he played for a grand total of 2 hours. Most of it was spent in character creation. He only played a few minutes at a time. 90% of his complaints are This game is somewhere between a 6 and 7 in its current state. They definitely did not deliver on their promises, and the gameplay could be MUCH more engaging. BUT, the Eurogamer reviewer is full of crap. It was proved, by logs, that he played for a grand total of 2 hours. Most of it was spent in character creation. He only played a few minutes at a time. 90% of his complaints are completely...false. Completely. The entire review is a joke.… Expand
  10. GradRock
    May 7, 2009
    7
    PvP is what this game is about. It is not about grinding all your Skills (No Levels) to the max. A skilled first day player can kill an unskilled max character. It is not about gathering pixils, weapons, armor and such. Sure they help but a nakid player can kill a fully geared player. It's about Politics, Intrigue, conquering the world, building an empire, defending an empire and PvP is what this game is about. It is not about grinding all your Skills (No Levels) to the max. A skilled first day player can kill an unskilled max character. It is not about gathering pixils, weapons, armor and such. Sure they help but a nakid player can kill a fully geared player. It's about Politics, Intrigue, conquering the world, building an empire, defending an empire and probably re-building said empire. Yes its a new game, some of the features promised are not in, yet. The GUI is clunky and not very user friendly. The controls are FPS style WASD with a hotbar for fast switching and using skills and or items. Graphics are nothing to rave about, I rate them with Vanguards. There are some weird anomalies with the graphics, such as seems in the world, where between server lines you can see light that should not be there. The community are a bunch of pricks, but I love em!… Expand
  11. Richardp
    May 7, 2009
    8
    A diamond in the rough, darkfall Online is the kind of game many have been wanting for a long time. it is still needs work on the UI, tweaks to skilling and combat, and features that haven't made it to release. Still in its infancy, many changes and improvements are anticipated over the first months (like in any MMO) Empire building, politics, large scale war, FPS combat, and free A diamond in the rough, darkfall Online is the kind of game many have been wanting for a long time. it is still needs work on the UI, tweaks to skilling and combat, and features that haven't made it to release. Still in its infancy, many changes and improvements are anticipated over the first months (like in any MMO) Empire building, politics, large scale war, FPS combat, and free will are the basics of this game. This game is declared a Niche game, not meant for the average "theme-park" gamer. User discretion is advised! Overall it is a good game, IF you are the right type of gamer.… Expand
  12. GradyT
    May 6, 2009
    8
    I give this game an 8/10. I love the game, its got all the elements a true MMORPG gamer could want, but it has the potential to do so much more. I still have faith in Aventurine to accomplish all their dreams/goals for this game, but they need time and most of the players understand that. Eagerly awaiting the next and all subsequent patches.
  13. HolgarC
    May 6, 2009
    2
    We have seen unfinished or broken games released on the market over the last 7-8 years, but we have never seen one this broken and this unfinished. Worst part is the lead Developer THINKS his product is top quality, when the game is rudementary in all aspects. The FPS element of the game is a joke. It cannot even compete with 5 year old FPS games and there is absolutly no real mmorpg We have seen unfinished or broken games released on the market over the last 7-8 years, but we have never seen one this broken and this unfinished. Worst part is the lead Developer THINKS his product is top quality, when the game is rudementary in all aspects. The FPS element of the game is a joke. It cannot even compete with 5 year old FPS games and there is absolutly no real mmorpg elements in the game. They are just shells of what one would normally expect.… Expand
  14. JC
    May 6, 2009
    9
    Overall, Darkfall is a relatively awesome game. It has many faults after two months after release, but it is still being refined as it goes, and the possibilities for the game are more than enough to keep me paying, even with the game lacking a handful of things. Eurogamer's initial review by Ed Zitron, however, is quite unfair, seeing as how based on server logs, he hardly played Overall, Darkfall is a relatively awesome game. It has many faults after two months after release, but it is still being refined as it goes, and the possibilities for the game are more than enough to keep me paying, even with the game lacking a handful of things. Eurogamer's initial review by Ed Zitron, however, is quite unfair, seeing as how based on server logs, he hardly played enough of the game to even realize he could hotkey weapons for faster weapon-switching. His review is a joke, and in my opinion, heavily biased against Darkfall. Reviewers like Ed shouldn't bother reviewing a game like Darkfall if they don't intend to give it a thorough review. (And even without server logs, certain statements Ed made obviously showed that he didn't spend 9 hours of in-game gameplay. The weapon-switching hotkeying as one example. Anyone playing 9 hours worth of actual INGAME playtime would have realized that.) I give Darkfall a 9, due to the current gameplay added with its potential.… Expand
  15. zem
    May 6, 2009
    8
    Unfinished game wich has the potential to be the best ffa-pvp mmo ever made, and is the best of his kind on the market right now.
  16. ChuckR
    May 6, 2009
    8
    While definitely not the most polished game I have, it is by FAR the most fun I have had since the first month of EQ rallos zek(back when it was full loot) Is it a grind? yes Is it buggy? yes Do I get pissed off when 2 hours of work goes down the drain because someone killed me? Yes If you would have asked me to rate the game one month ago I would have given it a 5 but now that the While definitely not the most polished game I have, it is by FAR the most fun I have had since the first month of EQ rallos zek(back when it was full loot) Is it a grind? yes Is it buggy? yes Do I get pissed off when 2 hours of work goes down the drain because someone killed me? Yes If you would have asked me to rate the game one month ago I would have given it a 5 but now that the politics are in full swing I have to give it a 8. The feeling that the large scale wars provide can not be matched by any other game for me. Rolling up with 120 people in boats and just murdering another clan, knowing you destroyed hours of their hard work. This can not be matched in any other fantasy game currently. (I do not like scifi or flying spaceships so EVE does not compare for me).… Expand
  17. samw
    May 6, 2009
    0
    Half developed pile of crap. Not ready for release and probably just short few months until it closes. Worst community of inbred degenerates on the internet. If we ordered the userbase of DF to death it would only improve our gene pool.
  18. DraganE
    May 6, 2009
    8
    Darkfall is not a game for those who do not enjoy long term charater and gameplay development, who do not enjoy pvp or actuall consequences to their actions. if you do... try darkfall, chances re you'll ike it.
  19. ThomasS
    May 6, 2009
    8
    Game is stable for me, and fun. Has a ton of potential to be great. Every week they make it better. Not for everyone though.
  20. bryanw
    May 6, 2009
    9
    Anyone who reviews it like its the next WoW clone is a fucking carebear fag that needs to STFU never had more fun in my life then when i do defending my clans former city.
  21. StevenW
    May 5, 2009
    8
    This game takes a while to get used to, but is incredibly enjoyable. Although there seems to be more grind than you can measure, the pvp combat is thrilling. The variety that is available in the skills and combat trees is amazing and the world is varied and complex. The size is immense and every moment can be spent exploring new places or fighting familiar foes both player and npc alike.
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Critic Reviews

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No score yet - based on 2 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of 2
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 2
  3. Negative: 1 out of 2
  1. Eurogamer
    20
    Its skill system is like a twisted version of EVE Online's, without the intricacy or CCP's talent. Its mise-en-scène is somewhere between the grittiness of Conan and WAR's orcs and humans. Underneath the lack of originality, there's a hole where the game should be: a loose, incongruous mess of bad controls, horrible user interface, and broken combat system.
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  2. Meristation
    70
    Darkfall is definitely a good MMORPG. It's not for the new massive online game players, because the learning curve could be considered extreme and the PVP is based on the FFA loot system Ultima Online had, but hardcore players should enjoy their journey around the biggest world ever created for an MMORPG.
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