Yes, it has been awhile hasn't it? I wouldn't be surprised to find that this is the most un-viewed blog-type thing ever.

Which of course is my own dumb-arse self's fault.

Still, I did get into Darkfall.

It's good, to me, very good, but to others, a certain aquired taste will apply. We'll start with the basics of the game as whole.

Open world PVP. This includes your own race being perfectly able to slaughter you too. There is penalties, but certainly not enough for it to be rarer then unicon shit, in fact on the scale of rarity, I would say it was rather quite common, like duck shit, not quite as commonly seen as pigeon shit, but it does depend on where you go.

Full Loot. Kill someone, loot ALL their items. If this makes you a little apprehensive, thats normal, if this turns you off completely, then good, because it probably means you like to play WoW, and that kind of attitude in DF will simply get you no-where. However, if this makes you think "cool, I wonder if that works?" then you should try it, as it does work in my opinion.

Player Economy. Except for the most basic of items, you want something, you ever kill a mob for it, or get it from a player, be that killing or trading, the race chat and race alliance chat(none of the latter for the Affar though (Dark Elves.) their like nasty little blue skinned gnomes.(Their supposed to be all evil and shit, but their actually quite adorable and I know one or two like a tickle under their chin.)

No Levels. Unless you count the thousands of skill points you'll need to raise in all sorts of areas to be the all-shit-kicking and conquering master of the fucking universe, those with real lives(tm) won't be seeing the later magic trees for quite some time. That being said, there's some basic skills all players share that enable you to make a difference, if at first a very small one. A few months on, you'll know a lot more and be able to do more damage due to tactics and/or being a sneaky cunt.

It's fucking huge. It's not just the travelling aspect that makes it feel large ether, it's the sheer scale, even with fast travel, it would feel massive, there really is a lot of landmarks and interesting places to find.

It has player Hamlets and player Cities. If your planning to join the current server(there is only one atm.) You'll need to join a good clan/clan alliance to see the better ones, or anyone's really, as their all taken. Of course, Adventurine have said they will be introducing more servers, including at least one server for north America, so you would have more chance waiting a little while if your a collection of friends.

There's no super-fast travel, just feet and mounts. Although this sounds annoying at first, and I'll admit it does take a certain acquired taste, it does make those journey's to places far more meaningful, you'll need to find various stones on your travels to bind your soul too, should you snuff it, you don't want to be restarting all the way from the beginning if your doing a long trip

There's a fair few major wankers/arseholes/cunts/cockstains in the world. I've seen more blatantly obvious speed-hackers in this game then any other in ten years of pc gaming, as much as adventurine insist that that their banning accounts and that every person with a 3rd party program WILL eventually be banned, it's not happening that fast as they need server logs and a GM to double confirm the cheater, and I have personally seen one speed hacker, simply stop moving when a GM turned up, of course, we killed and looted them once they did, but it's not the point.

Right, so, basics sorted, lets move on to starting out. Want a beginners guide? Here it is...

Firstly, think about future weapon choices straight away, you can have three weapons that you will always spawn with, the newbie weapons(They've recently patched it so no newbie weapons can't raise your weapon skills, I hope they limit this to only starting at weapon level 10 or the like as this isn't helpful for new players at all, it's the older players that have abused the system by afk hacking at each other.) The first slot will default as the leafblade, 1 hand sword, you can farm a bit and get some cash to swap it with 20 gold to another weapon, like a two hander (Most people tend to do this, you can still block with out a shield, but it's less effective.) The damage a two hander does is higher and has a longer reach.

When you start the newbie quests, spend the first hundred (or 120 if your swapping.) gold for sorting your weapons, this will serve you better in the future the 2nd weapon slot will cost 100gold and the 3rd is 1000, quite a way off unless you have very nice friends helping. You'll want a staff for the second slot so you can always cast spells(You start with two spells, shitty healing and shitty damage, but they don't need any reagents(ingredients.) to cast, so you'll always fall back on them, use them a lot to raise lesser magic, which will eventually lead on to greater magic, which then leads on to all the others. Anyway, you don't have to do the above, I just wished I had as my 2 hander isn't as raised as my 1 hander. On to the rest!

You'll start next to an NPC, talk to him and run all the quests he has, following all the various tangents, then repeat those quests at the other 2 starting cities, try to avoid arseholes, kill a lot of goblins for the appropriate skill-ups and items, shoot mana missile as much as possible without hitting another player, ('less they hit you first.) and finish all those quests, there's plenty of gold and items for the quest that will serve you well.


By that time as well, you will have a better feel for the game and it's at-first-tricky GUI. Your next best bet is to find a decent clan, in a decent alliance. I can only really see things from a Doggies point of view but your first port of call for any website to look into the game is http://www.exploiter.org/darkfall/ , this website is a google earth type map with plenty of markers for the various things in the game, be it dungeons, mobs, player hamlets and cities, npc cities, chaos stones, the works. It will however take a lot of the mystery away, so don't bother with it for a while. There's also plenty of places it doesn't know about.

Travelling is something you had best be getting used to , you can sprint a far way but not as long as you'd want still. It's a very engrossing world, and with the constant danger of people being able to kill you, you'll still find plenty of journeys exciting enough, you'll even start to wish some of them weren't, trust me!

Make sure you get the basic gathering skills raised too, especially herb gathering, as this will net you steed grass (Try gathering at as many bushes as you can when the server comes back up, steed grass will be more common then with the reset.) which you trade with a player for a mount (Straight swap.) or buy the necessary items and skills to go alongside it to make your own mount.

Wood is common and easy to get, but there's still plenty of need for it as it's in so many different recipes, of course, that still depends on your crafting choices. On that, if your playing with other people, all choose the skills that help you all out as a whole, ideally having all corners covered, and help your friends to gather as well, it makes things much better and you can make each other good items from crafting once you've committed a little bit of time into it. But as per usual, I digress. Wood is made by getting 5 timber and heading to a workbench with a saw, each 5 nets you 2 wood.

Iron is worth farming if you can find a safe spot, most of the ore is found out of towns and safety, but again, friends will help you here too. Regardless if you use it much, iron ingots are worth getting, they sell for 10+ gold each and are in constant demand, constant demand. Also if you know someone that makes armour or weapons, they might do some for you for the cost of the mat's, banded is quite expensive, but get the iron yourself and ask a mate, you'll be sorted. Iron ingots are made from 5 Iron ore and using a smelter and a pair of tongs, this will net you 2 ingots.

For the record, 1 ingot and one wood will make 20 arrows with the bowyer skill and a wood knife.

That's it for now.

More to follow, requests welcome, I will investigate!