Gufando

Whoa!

**** Humans!

Mahrim's ftw! Will the ability to run on 4's be avalible from the begining? And will get better and better as we keep using it?

Obi

Interesting point. I could speculate but I really have no idea.

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SloppyJoe

Hey what you do at home is your business. I don't care about running around on all fours and biting ankles. Give me a sturdy mount and warhammer!

Here's my 2 cents on the whole thing (since I haven't posted it yet).

I think, given the design of the game is heavy PvP or moreover clan v. clan, alliances are going to be a far more powerful and long term factor than cool racial quirks/benefits that the funkier races will receive. I'm sure it would be fun to play an outcast race but I think that it would be more niched for very small groups or individualistic type players.

What is really attractive to me is the larger scale that this game allows for. Alliances, defensive pacts, trade agreements, building cities, and large scale battles/campaigns are probably more likely to manifest out of the human/dwarf/elf races.

And that's where my vote is going.

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Gufando

I don't really know where you are getting that.

Not only can you create your only aliances (it is recommended that you use races that can hang out in the capital cities together, but it is not needed) but there is no way to tell who will have the bigger guilds (server wise) and whether or not we will be able to ally with them or not - they can fight us if they want, nothing is stopping them.

The best thing we can do is in beta, explore the areas, make alliances with clans and make some final decisions before retail hits and we can everything change then.

We'll see what happends once Beta starts, I suppose.

SloppyJoe

I see where you are coming from that beta is a good time to experiment. However, in my experiences in other betas, guilds that play with each other or even ally during beta often go the same course when retail pops and take advantage of using beta period as the cohesion time and come out strong and dominating and with plans at retail.

I never said that the outcast races couldn't ally. I said it's probably more likely that the human/elf/dwarf combo will be more likely to form alliances. Just for the simple fact that it's 3 races that get along in the world, vs 2 (orcs and wolves) vs 1 (the Alfalfas). Just a case of numbers. Sure, we could find that 80% of the players are dog lovers and decide to play wolfmen or whatever, but I don't think it's statistically likely. I don't particularly care what racial make-up we play, but I do think that we have more chance of acquiring power socially as the 3 friendly races that have less... complications.

I do agree that the beta time is a good time to explore and experiment, but I also wouldn't want to think of it as a time that is disposable, ie, when retail hits change everything. I would definately want to use beta as a time to get a jump start on retail and try to have alliances set up already and raring to go.

Also, your point that other guilds can fight us if they want, sure, but given some of our talented and diplomatic members I see signed up for the game (no names mentioned because I'll never hear the end of it), I have every confidence that we'd be better at convincing strong, forward looking, powerful guilds to join hands with us for some "greater" goal (whatever that is we'll have to make up lol), than fight us.

Also, to address an earlier post by... someone... saying that kids tend to play the "prettier" races; In my experience, kids tend to play the uglier races for the "freedom" to act childlike, and to top that off, adults that act like kids tend to play them for the same reason- double whammy.

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Vyko

Geez.. you could at least scroll down a bit and find my name

Just playing, but I stand by my point. In my opinion, the younger crowd gravitates towards human-like races because they want to feel older than they are. They can make their character a "superhero", in a sense. Kids will stay away from making an Ork for the same reason they'll stay away from, for example, making a fat and balding human - no kid wants to be either when they grow up. On the other hand, most kids have had dreams of being ninjas and warriors, or having Dragonball-Z-like powers where they shoot fireballs out of their hands. They can do this as an "ugly" race, but it's not the image they had in their head.

I thought the same way you did until I saw this manifest itself in World of Warcraft and City of Heroes.
But I do respect your opinion, and I'm very open to the prospect of playing a Dwarf

It's almost a certainty that the Human-like faction will outnumber the other two - the last poll I saw on the Darkfall forums had Humans/Elves/Dwarves outnumbering Orks/Mahirim and Alfar combined. I think this could work to unify the minority factions and prevent in-fighting. You probably won't see Alfar getting along with anyone very much, but I think the Orks and Mahirim will be on friendly terms in most situations, both with each other and within themselves.

Also, while diplomacy is important, I feel tactics in small-group combat will be the factor that contributes the most to our success. I admit - I look forward to the PvP aspects of Darkfall far more than I do the empire-building aspects, but it is a very heavy PvP game. PvP plays a part in expanding the empire when we siege another city, or in fighting over resources and transporting goods, or even in defending the empire we built. I still feel the Ork and Mahirim races promote a tactical group atmosphere and style of gameplay the most.

SloppyJoe

I must say Vyko, you have very good points.

Since this game seems designed to allow anyone to build any skill, it doesn't seem to appear that Ork/Maharim will exclude certain "classes". Traditionally you don't see too many orc thiefs, but hey anything goes with darkfall right? So ruling out O/M races on that basis doesn't matter.

I am totally down with PvP and agree with you on that. But I don't think we can approach this game without considering empire building or at least alliances with a strong empire. Believe you me, one thing I learned in Shadowbane, is if you get a big and powerful empire against you it can be a serious pain in the butt, to the point where tactics and PvP skills don't matter against a tidal wave of crazy numbers to the point where it's no fun to even log on.

Thinking about alliances though, perhaps playing O/M races might actually be better. Smaller numbers playing those races may actually encourage teamwork oriented play and strong alliances and may be easier to manage than trying to sort out who's who in a large swamp of human/elf/dwarf guilds.

I recant. I'd be perfectly willing to play O/M character.

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Nemesis

Have to agree with Vyko's experience in WoW and CoH. Mine was almost exactly the same with the Horde being outnumbered on my server by a 4 to 1 ratio. (Alleria)

So playing Horde had a more unified feel to it. (Tauren rocked. ) Call it underdog syndrome or what have you, but it was there and frequently commented on. Characters were ugly and considered the "bad" guys, but the players were just more friendly and mature in my experience.

All that said, I'd really like to play a Mahrim character but I wouldn't have an issue playing Human either. (What I usually tend to be in most Fantasy games...damn reading LotR all those years ago and wanting to be Aragorn and a Ranger!)

So whatever way the majority feels on this issue is will work for me.

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Havok

Imo Mahimir and Orcs unifying will help them defend/attack Humans/Elves/Dwarves as they will undoubtedly want to fight each other, and the Alfars, according to the racial allignements, will most likely just be pirates and raid weaker cities/ships for some easy money.

The centralzied base connected to three seperate tunnels is a good idea, but would it be possible for a sieging army to use siege weapons to just "punch" a hole into a tunnel and just slip past all the guards?