Please post in this thread once you get a key off of a mob/person so that we can organize a key run so that you, and the people that helped you get the key, can get Gold.

WE'RE SO SORRY FOR FORGETTING YOUR BIRTHDAY!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

We’ll open up sales of a limited number of copies of Darkfall tonight European time Tuesday March 3d. We will try to repeat this every weekday until the extreme demand slows down and we’re able to leave the shop open 24/7. To answer the questions of how you can sell out a digital download, we’re throttling the number of new players in the world to limit queue times and protect the user experience. Server optimizations first and adding new servers in time are the steps we are taking to improve this experience.

From our launch experience, the extreme demand caused the account management infrastructure to lag and often time out. The hammering of the system by the users made things worse. Repeated attempts by users led to charge failures because of bank security rules. Incorrect billing information also led to failed transactions.

We expect the account management system to face extreme demand today as well. In order to try to avoid the issues we describe above, users who refresh before timing out, open multiple windows or tabs, and hammer the system will be temporarily blocked. Please do not refresh unless you have timed out or you will lose your place in the queue.

We'll post when sales open. If the copies we have available for today sell out, we will repeat this process again tomorrow.

Thank you,

The Darkfall Team

Here is detailed information about City Seiging, along with patch notes for 126.

Patch notes:

A new patch has been released.

Fixes and updates in this patch include:

    * A bug where the clan vault would not open for some people has been fixed
    * Skill gain when invulnerability (respawn) shield is up has been disabled
    * Timers for how often you can change armor has been tweaked
    * Any item you delete from your backpack will stay in limbo for at least 5 minutes, and can be looted from your body. This is to prevent people from deleting items from their backpack just as they are about to die.
    * Mount health has been increased by 35%
    * Mounted combat damage has been increased by up to 250%
    * You can now properly identify a character riding a mount
    * Emotes can no longer be spammed
    * Small loading screen bugfix
    * When a player ends up in gank mode (incapacitated on the ground) his weapon will automatically be sheathed. If he gets revived, he will have a short period of invulnerability (of course broken if he unsheathes or tries to use something)
    * Chat system fixes
    * Players in the same clan will now have a visual marker to identify each other. This can be toggled by /clan_toggle_display
    * Players in the same party will now have a visual marker to identify each other. This can be toggled by /party_toggle_display
    * Skinning and some other skills can now be canceled by clicking a cancel button
    * Alignment Rogue handling has been tweaked:
          o If you have positive alignment and attack another player with positive alignment, you will go rogue for 10 seconds
          o Every subsequent attack towards a good player while on the 10 second rogue mode will make you go rogue for at least 2 minutes
    * Clan Stones and Clan Hamlets can no longer be damaged by arrows, melee or magic
    * Clan Blacksmith will now sell the armor they are supposed to sell
    * Melee stamina drain has been modified to better correlate with attack speed of different weapons
    * Melee skills have been tweaked to gain skill level faster
    * Crafting skills have been tweaked to gain skill level faster
    * More skills have been enabled and tweaked:
          o Diving : Increases lung capacity
          o Maintenance : Reduces your equipments durability loss in combat
          o Veteran Archer: Reduces your stamina cost for archery
          o Spirited Archer: Decreases load time for archery
          o Veteran Mage: Reduces your stamina cost for all spells
          o Survivalist: Increases duration for nourishments
          o Muscular: Increases your max strength
          o Clever: Increases your max intelligence
          o Sturdy: Increases your max vitality
          o Nimble: Increases your max dexterity
          o Fleet: Increases your max quickness
          o Ingenious: Increases your max wisdom
          o Trueforge Armor: Increases durability of your crafted armor by up to 50%
          o Trueforge Weapon: Increases durability of your crafted weapon by up to 50%
    * Ranks for high-ranked weapons have been updated
    * Monster loot has been tweaked for these monsters:
          o Hill Giant Clobberer
          o Hill Giant Slugger
          o Lava Golem
          o Menhir Aelder
          o Menhir Stoneguard
          o Minotaur Brute
          o Minotaur Shaman
          o Greater Mummy
          o Elder Nalaed
          o Oathliege
          o Obsidian Golem
          o Raven Veteran
          o Sandstone Golem
          o Seidbound
          o Selentine Golem
          o Serpentine
          o Shadow Knight
          o Iklit
          o Nightscarab
          o Infernal
    * Some monsters have gained new skills and spells:
          o Minotaur Brute
          o Minotaur Shaman
          o Greater Mummy
          o Elder Nalaed
          o Oathliege
          o Raven Standard Veteran
          o Sandstone Golem
          o Selentine Golem
          o Shadow Knight
    * Blightmaul (Great Club) has been tweaked
    * Legbreaker (Great Club) has been tweaked
    * Silverbranch (Bow) has been tweaked
    * Hill Giant/Cairn Giant Club (Kre'as) has been added
    * New skill and weapon added: Siege Hammer
    * Misc. rare client side crashes fixed
    * A.I. tweaks
    * Updates to the world




Conquest


The rules for conquest have been finalized.

Here is the real deal straight from the horse's mouth:

Definitions


All Cities and Hamlets have CityPoints associated with them.
This is calculated by the potential of the City or Hamlet; e.g. a City with a potential Wonder will have a high CityPoint score while a small Hamlet will have a small CityPoint score.

A City or Hamlet is either owned by a Clan or it is Neutral.
All Cities and Hamlets start out as Neutral.

A Clan can be in only one Conquest Challenge at a time.

A Clan owned city is conquered when the Clan Stone or Clan Hamlet is destroyed.

You get CityPoints by destroying Clan Stones.

Claiming a Neutral City

In order to claim a neutral city you need to:

   1. Be in a Clan
   2. Have the rank of General or higher
   3. Be within the city/hamlet limits (You will get a message that you are crossing the city boundary)
   4. Not be in a Conquest Challenge with another clan
   5. Have a Clan Shard in your backpack (These can be bought from various vendors)
   6. Double click the Clan Shard in your back pack
   7. Congratulations your Clan is now the new owner



Note: A Clan can claim only 1 Neutral City every 24 hours.

Conquering a Clan owned City/Hamlet when your Clan also owns Cities/Hamlets


In order to start a challenge against a Clan owned City/Hamlet, these preconditions has to hold true:

   1. You must be in a Clan
   2. You must formally declare WAR against the city owners (Or they must have done so against you)
   3. You must have the rank of General or higher
   4. You must be within the city/hamlets limits
   5. You must have a Clan Shard in your backpack
   6. The Clan you are about to challenge must not be in another Conquest Challenge
   7. Your Clan must not be in a Conquest Challenge
   8. Double click the Clan Shard in your back pack
   9. Congratulations you have now initiated a Conquest Challenge



A City vs City conquest consist of 2 Stages:

Stage1:


Stage 1 lasts 4 hours.

The City that was issued a challenge against is invulnerable for these 4 hours.


All cities and hamlets belonging to the attackers will be vulnerable in this period.
Anyone (including Mercenary clans, allies etc.) can help the defenders by attacking the attacker's Clan Cities/Hamlet Stones.
If a Clan City/Hamlet Stone of one of the attackers Cities is destroyed during this time, ownership is transferred to the defenders.

A Conquest Challenge can end during this period if:

   1. The total sum of CityPoints lost by the attackers exceed the CityPoints of the Defender's Challenged City. Defenders WIN.
   2. The attackers have lost their last City/Hamlet. Defenders WIN.
   3. A formal Peace Treaty between the Attacker and the Defender is negotiated. It's a DRAW.


If none of these conditions have been met during the 4 hour period then Stage 2 of the Conquest will commence.

Stage2:


Stage 2 lasts 2 hours.

During this stage the challenged City/Hamlet will become vulnerable.

All the Attacker's Cities/Hamlets will remain vulnerable.

A Conquest Challenge will end during this period if:

   1. The total sum of CityPoints lost by the attackers exceed the CityPoints of the Defender's Challenged City. Defenders WIN.
   2. The attackers have lost their last City/Hamlet. Defenders WIN.
   3. A formal Peace Treaty between the Attacker and the Defender is negotiated. It's a DRAW.
   4. The attackers destroy the Defender's City Clan Stone. Attackers WIN.


If, after 2 hours, there is no outcome the Conquest Challenge will result in a timeout. This means it's a draw.

Conquering a Clan owned City/Hamlet when your Clan does NOT own any Cities/Hamlets


When you do NOT own any Clan Cities/Hamlets you have to put up a “wager” in Gold for the Clan who owns the city. The exact amount has to do with the number of CityPoints of the City/Hamlet you are about to challenge.
You will get the “wager” back only if you WIN the Conquest Challenge.
If you do NOT win the challenge this amount of Gold will be transferred to the Clan that owns the City when the Challenge is over. This also happens in a DRAW.

In order to initiate a challenge against a Clan owned City/Hamlet while your Clan does NOT own any Cities/Hamlets, these preconditions have to hold true:

   1. You have to be in a Clan
   2. WAR must be formally declared between the two parties.
   3. You must hold the rank of General or higher
   4. You must be within the city/hamlets limits
   5. You must have a Clan Shard in your backpack
   6. The Clan you are about to challenge must not be involved in another Conquest Challenge
   7. Your Clan must not be in a Conquest Challenge
   8. Your Clan must have enough Gold in the Clan Vault to Challenge the City/Hamlet
   9. Double click the Clan Shard in your back pack
  10. Congratulations you have now initiated a Conquest Challenge
  11. The person who initiated the Challenge is now the Challenger



The Challenger becomes a target for the Defending Clan.
His location will show up on all the Defender's members world and mini maps.
The Challenger is incapable to teleport, and if he logs out for whatever reason the Challenge is lost.

A No City vs City Conquest Challenge consists of 2 stages:

Stage 1


Stage 1 lasts 4 hours.

The Challenged City is invulnerable in these 4 hours.

A Conquest Challenge can end during this period if:

   1. The Defenders KILL the Challenger. Defenders WIN.
   2. A formal Peace Treaty between the Attacker and the Defender is negotiated. This means a draw.


If none of these conditions have been met during the 4 hour period then Stage 2 of the Conquest will commence.

Stage2:


Stage 2 lasts for 2 hours.

During this stage the challenged City/Hamlet becomes vulnerable.

A Conquest Challenge will end during this period if:

   1. The Defenders KILL the Challenger. Defenders WIN.
   2. A formal Peace Treaty between the Attacker and the Defender is negotiated. This means a draw.
   3. The attackers destroy the Clan Stone of the Defender's City. Attackers WIN.


If, after 2 hours, there is no outcome the Conquest Challenge will result in a timeout. This means a draw.

NOTE: The Gold deposited by the Attackers will always go to the defenders unless the Attackers win.


Destroying a Clan Stone


A Clan Stone can be destroyed using this equipment:

    * Siege Hammers (2 Handed Weapon)
    * Different types of Battle Spikes (thrown weapons)
    * Dynamically deployable Cannons
    * Warhulk Weapons
    * Ship cannons



When a City has changed ownership:

    * If a bank is present, it's automatically destroyed, and the new owner will have to haul new building modules across the land to build it. These modules are heavy and if you overload, you can not use runestones or other means of teleportation.
    * All members of the previous Clan currently bound to the City will be booted out
    * The record of this Challenge will live forever.





Other information regarding cities

    * You can only destroy one building per day. The only things exempt from this rule are:
         1. Walls
         2. Palisades
         3. Decorations
         4. Clan City Cannons
    * You can disable buildings at all times.
    * Disabling a building that has a local bonus (Gives attribute bonuses to all Clan Members when they are within the city limits) associated with it, will cause the Clan Members to lose the bonuses
    * Disabling a Wonder will cause the global bonus to be removed
    * Disabling Houses and Barracks will decrease the number of people able to bind at the city.
    * All buildings can be repaired using repair shards and a repair hammer
    * Different Cities have different abilities:
    * There are 9 unique Wonders located in 9 different cities. These give Global bonuses to all members of the Clan that own it.
    * Warhulks can be crafted only in certain cities.
    * Coastal cities and hamlets may have harbors you can build Ships at.
    * Mines producing a variety of resources can be found in various cities.
    * Every city is laid out and strategically positioned for warfare .

This thread will contain general information about Darkfall. If you have any general questions about Darkfall, but don't want to spend hours looking on their forums, this post would be the place to look. If a topic is not addressed, or you need further clarification regarding the game, please feel free to post here after reading through all of this stuff. Be warned, it is lengthy, but highly informative.


To begin, lets define the type of game systems or mechanics Darkfall will be using, and compare them to the most popular ever made, World of Warcraft, and define how they differ. Before I get started though, let’s make one thing clear: I have not ever played Darkfall. No one has. Everything I write in this article is based upon the developer journals and posts from the DF website and my own experience at MMOs and my own understanding of game/MMO mechanics.

Also, let’s specify that WoW is mostly a PvE game with PvP added in, and Darkfall is much more PvP-centric, with city building, siegeing, and clan based PvP and war as one of its primary selling points, but also contains an absolutely massive game world with many, many non-PvP elements.

-Levels

Darkfall has no levels; instead it uses a stats system to determine the strength of your character. These stats will determine your total amount of health, mana, stamina, and other attributes your character may have. By increasing your stats, such as strength, intelligence, dexterity/agility, you increase your characters overall strength(note that these are hypothetical stats and I do not know what the actual stats in DF will be). In WoW, however, the system used is a level system. The current level cap in WoW is 70, soon to be raised to 80. Your stats in WoW are determined directly by your level and at max level every class of every race has almost the exact same stats (to within 1-2 points out of hundreds depending on your race). Attributes such as hit points, mana, damage output, etc, are the same throughout all characters with no available customization at the base level. In a system like this the way to customize your character is through your choice of gear. The disadvantage of that being that the customization of gear is limited because all gear has preset stats according to your class, which leads us straight to our next game mechanic: classes.

-Classes

In Darkfall, there will be no classes. Darkfall uses a skill based system such as is found in MMOs like Asheron's Call, Ultima Online, and EvE. The way a skill based system works, for those who haven’t played one before, is that you make a character, but instead of choosing a class, you simply customize your appearance and log into the game. There is no class selection of any kind. Once you are logged into the game, you must make the decision of what types of skills you want. This is where vast character customization comes into play. Your personal decisions as a player will determine what type of “template” you will play. This, then, stops the beginning user from making uninformed decisions that will negatively affect their character's ability to flourish in the game. I will give two examples of templates I am personally interested in trying out.

Say I log into my character for the first time and I simply want to be a straight fighter type class. I want to run around in heavy armor with a great big two handed sword and chop my enemies to bits. I would simply find an armor smith and weapon smith and purchase a suit of heavy armor, and a two handed sword, and adventure out into the world and start chopping my enemies to bits. As I hit enemies and take hits from enemies, my skill in both two handed swords and heavy armor begin rising because my character is learning how to use these skills and items. But the system goes a bit deeper than that. Not only do those two skills rise, but also my stats, as described above, will start to rise. Since my armor is heavier than simply wearing clothes my strength will start to rise, and since I must use finesse to swing my sword and score hits my agility begins to rise. Then with these abilities rising my hit points and damage output rises also. Seeing how this works now?

Lets say that I wanted to go a different route from a fighter template and mix a little bit of magic in with my fighting. I go and find someone who will teach me a spell (either an NPC trainer or another player), lets say a low level shock damage spell. Since I want to be more mobile and not suffer slowdown penalties from wearing heavy armor, I'll pick up a suit of leather armor and put the heavy armor in the bank. Now I head back out and start casting shock on my enemies in between chopping their body parts off. So now the stats that are rising are strength and agility from wearing the armor and swinging the sword, and my intelligence from casting my spell, which in turn raises my mana pool and the damage that my spell does.

Now take a moment and chew on the fact that Darkfall will have between 500 and 700 different skills to choose from, including at least 12 different schools of magic, with more promised from the developers as the game progresses.

So next lets see how the WoW system works. WoW uses a class based system combined with a level based system. When you create a character in WoW, you not only customize your characters appearance, but you select what class you want your character to be. There are currently 9 classes in WoW. The classes are: Warrior, Hunter, Paladin, Rogue, Shaman, Priest, Mage, Druid, Warlock, and Death Knight. These classes are very specific in what they can and cannot do and have very particular strengths and weaknesses. For example, a warrior can wear all types of armor and use all kinds of weapons in the game, but cannot cast spells of any sort and has no significant ranged abilities. The warrior is very dependent on having group support to survive, but they are unstoppable killing machines with a solid group behind them. A mage, on the other hand, can only wear cloth armor and use daggers and staves/staffs. Their damage comes from casting spells and they have a great many tricks to control things going on on the battlefield around them. They have very low armor and less hit points than other classes, but have several types of defensive shields and many escape options to get away from other classes that are harming them.

While there is variation from class to class in WoW, you cannot really customize your character to its fullest extent and play exactly the type of character you want to play. You simply have to choose whichever class is closest to the play style you would enjoy the most. In Darkfall, for example, you could play a Warrior Mage template if you so desired, or any other combination of the class archetypes you desired as long as you can find a skill similar to them in the lineup that DF provides.

On a final note for this section, one of the largest complaints I see about skill systems is “everyone will find the strongest template and there will really only be one template to go”. I’ll go ahead and dispel this myth right now. In no game that has ever offered a skill based system has there been an “uber template”, and I do not expect Darkfall to be the first. Furthermore, with all of the different skills available to the user, there will always be a counter-balance to some supposed "uber-loadout". With the large amount of skills as well, new loadouts and combinations will continue to be discovered many years on down the road.

-Gear and the Grind

Grinding is defined/described as “the process of engaging in repetitive and/or non-entertaining gameplay in order to gain access to other features within the game”. Grinding essentially removes the “fun” aspect from any given game and turns it into an “un-fun” or outright “feels like work” aspect. This is not why people play games. At least not the people I know. Grinding is universally seen as the worst part of all games.

My biggest issue with grinding is what I perceive to be the reasoning behind it being necessary, which is two-fold. The first is that MMO makers don’t want to lose their customers too quickly and want to milk all the money they can before people finally give up and quit. The second is that since there is a massive lack of in-game and end-game content in many MMOs, they use “the grind” to keep people playing. There is, to me, a huge flaw in this line of thinking. Basically I see it as MMO makers saying “Since we don’t have enough content in the game to keep you interested, we’re just going to make it require months to achieve your goal or goals; whether those goals are to reach maximum level, or to acquire a full set of gear.” And then as if that weren’t bad enough, once you have actually acquired that maximum level and full set of gear, another set of gear is released that is so much better than the set you are currently wearing that you must grind for it if you want to stay competitive. It’s a hook to stay in an otherwise stale game that makes up for its lack of content by making you grind.

This leads back to an earlier part of the article where I talked about character customization and templates: Gear, gear, and more gear. This is, from what I have seen, people’s single largest aversion when they hear about Darkfall. Darkfall is going to be a full loot game. This means that when you die, whether it is in PvE or PvP, your corpse can be looted of all of the items you had on your character at the time of death. This concept is absolutely, 100 percent mortifying to MMOers whose only experience is World of Warcraft or a similar game where the game, your character’s strength, and your status is based almost entirely on a set of gear that has taken you months to acquire. WoW has truly taken gear to the next level in MMOs. It’s the hook of the game, as I described above. The content provided in WoW is just enough that once you’ve finally put that hallowed set of epic gear together and start looking around saying “Ok, I’ve not only completed all of the content in game, but I’ve just spent the last several months grinding it out, so what next?” Then you start to realize the real lack of content in the game, and some may even suspend their account out of boredom waiting for… you guessed it, the next gear grind to be released. Whether it is Tier 7 or Arena Season 5 gear, it will always be a grind towards the next set.

So how is full loot realistic? What makes a full loot type system work and not punish you by making you lose all that gear you’ve worked months for? The answer is simple, and one many players of MMOs since Ultima Online are familiar with: De-emphasis on gear, emphasis on skill. In WoW, a full set of competitive gear may take you from three to six months to grind and achieve. In a game like UO, and hopefully Darkfall, It may take you from three to six hours to grind enough money to purchase a full set of competitive gear from a crafter. Since you will constantly be losing, breaking, and replacing gear sets, the availability of gear will be much greater in a system such as DF will use because all of the gear will be craftable by the players. This has the added effect of making a thriving player run economy. Crafters of all kinds will be in constant demand for their goods, and prices will have to be competitive for crafters to sell their goods. In Darkfall, player skill takes priority over gear, as opposed to World of Warcraft, in which there will be many situations that you will lose a fight based solely on the fact that you are wearing old, outdated gear that doesn’t match up to your opponent’s. This is not to say that gear is unimportant or meaningless in a game like Darkfall. Armor, weapons, trinkets, and other items will still affect your character and make them more efficient, but there will never be the kind of gear inequity as found in WoW, and you will never lose a fight based on gear alone.

In the above paragraph, I mention grinding for gold in DF right after going over many ways grinding is bad, so let’s clarify how the “grind” will be different in a game like DF, and also take the opportunity to touch on the exploration aspect of an MMO like Darkfall as opposed to WoW. In Darkfall, since there are no levels, you can literally go anywhere in the game from the moment you make your character. You don’t have to worry about things like “aggro” from higher level monsters or going to an area above or below your level. You can explore and find your favorite spots in the game world to do your fighting and skilling up, as opposed to level based games where you are railroaded into only being able to be in one or two areas of equality to your current level at a time. WoW has an impressively large game world, but it is severely hindered by the fact that each zone in WoW is only made for a certain level range. So any area you may have really enjoyed playing in earlier in the game, you really cannot revisit once you out-level because there is no benefit or challenge to being there. In Darkfall, there will always be a new, interesting area to explore. The landmass in DF is said to take 8 hours of real time to go from one edge to the other. In WoW you could run from the tip of Azshara to the bottom of Booty Bay in around 20-30 minutes on an epic mount, so 40-60 minutes on foot. There will also be very limited fast travel options in DF, so it will actually take time and effort to find and explore new areas, so the exploration will hopefully feel very rewarding. Especially since one of the things you can find in the game world is a clan stone around which you can build your player city. In addition to all that exploration, any type of skills you are working on will go up as you naturally play and enjoy the game and its content. There hasn’t been a skill list released yet, but suppose that you decide to ride your mount around to do some exploration. I’ll take examples of skills from other skill based games: If you were to get into combat while mounted, hypothetically these skills could go up: Riding, Mounted Combat (Oh yes, there is mounted combat in DF), two handed swords, and heavy armor. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, so exploration and enjoyment of the game world can and will be fulfilling in more ways than one.

-Player Skill and Gameplay

Throughout the whole article I keep talking about how player skill is paramount to gear in a skill based game system such as Darkfall will provide. What exactly do I mean when I say that? In a skill based system, as I described above, you can completely customize your character into whatever template of skills you desire. You can make any of the classic “class” templates: Fighter, Mage, Rogue, and Healer. But why limit yourself? Why not make a fighter who can heal? Or a mage that wears light armor and is skilled with a blade? How about a healer who is also an archer? These are extremely basic templates. With over 500 skills to combine into a very specific template customized to your exact play style, you can make any sort of character you want.

The combat system style that will be used in Darkfall will be very reminiscent of first person shooters or first/third person action-rpgs. The combat system is real time with no targeting. When you press a button to swing your sword, you hit whatever is in front of you. The most popular game that uses this type of system for combat that I know of is Oblivion, except in Oblivion you can only hit one target at a time with your weapon swings. In Darkfall you will hit and do damage to every target your weapon makes contact within its arc, even if that means your clanmate or someone who you view as friendly (the game is FFA, so this is possible). In DF, all ranged combat will be done in first person mode, and all melee/mounted combat (when mounted, you can only perform melee attacks) in 3rd person mode. This type of combat system will merge the skills of FPS players and RPG players alike. There is no targeting and no auto attack, so you cannot simply target a monster or other player, click your auto attack button, and go get a snack. You are in full control of every one of your character’s actions in game and the outcome of any given fight will be determined not by your gear, but by how well you are able to play your character and how well you use your combination of skills.

Another large benefit of a system such as Darkfall’s is that you will never know the strength, weakness, or skill level of someone else you see in the game world. You may be able to take a guess based on their appearance or gear, but you’ll never really know until you engage them in combat (which is optional, you know?). Class based systems, on the other hand, affect PvP in their predictability. Simply seeing a class lets you know their full range of abilities and in many cases will even predefine the outcome (counter-classes), whereas in a skill system you will never know the template or capabilities.

Going further into this, there will be no floaty names over anyone's head, and, with no targeting, this seriously gives you the ability to ambush someone in no way that could have been done in any other game. You can literally hide from view while in the grass and wait for someone to walk by, jump out, and kill them. Because your in first person view while walking, too, this means that you won't simply be able to mouse-click and look around while you're exploring. If you really want to look around, you will literally have to turn around. Even while you're in combat with a mob, you will have the chance to be killed by another player because, when you're in combat, you make a LOT of noise, and you will be able to be heard from a considerable distance. It would be very easy for you to sneak up on someone right after they got done with a mob and kill them. For this game, you will really need to stay on your toes, and you will get a huge wave of adrenaline while in combat and an even bigger wave of satisfaction after you killed someone you'd been tracking for 30 minutes.

This post taken from here. Edited and added to by Anamodiel for the Furious Angels.

With Manic jacking out for good, it was suggested that we hold a final goodbye night for Manic, celebrating and mourning the last time that he jacks into the Matrix. Furthermore, I hope to not only hold a goodbye party for Manic, but also a game night so everyone can get on and discuss things and hang out, seeing as we haven't done that in a seriously long time.

Please post your time availabilities for the next two weeks, most preferably the weekend of the 12th and the weekend of the 19th. After those dates we start getting into Christmas time and people having family commitments and not being able to be online and being busy doing whatever else you do for the holidays. Manic's last day in, according to his sub (if I recall) is the 28th of December. It has to be before or on that date.

Thanks guys! Let's make this a great last day for Manic. Even if we don't jack into the Matrix for most of the time, Counter Strike, other games, and general TS chatter would be just as, if not more, fun and appreciated for Manic and everyone.

I am personally available whenever. My break starts this Tuesday, so any date after that will be workable for me.

For all of our American friends, happy Thanksgiving!

Today is one of the days that we reflect on all that we have and remember that we should be thankful for everything our life has been gracious enough to give us. Each and every one of us is truly lucky, even if we sometimes don't really realize it, and this day is set up to remind us of that. Thanksgiving is also a day of reconnecting with family and friends, or making the best of things when you cannot get together with your family by being here with this family, us, the Furious Angels.

Remember, even if it may seem like you have nothing to be thankful for, remember that you have many things that others all around the world do not have: a network of closely-knit friends who deeply care for each other, two or three meals a day, running water, a safe environment, a disease-resistant body, and every freedom that you could possibly dream of.

Most people in the world don't have water that they can magically get from a faucet, or food that is nutritious enough to sustain a body, or medicine to combat many diseases and sicknesses that seem trivial to us. I never meant this to be a sop story, but, honestly, each and every one of us is lucky, even if we don't realize it.

Be sure to take a minute today to ponder everything in your life that you've been blessed with. Each and every one of us is truly lucky, even if we don't realize it.

Now, go eat as much as you possibly can; I expect to see at least 5 people drunk in Teamspeak tonight! w0000t.

For those who still play the game, or even still are remotely interested in the game, I have some information for you.

Preface: This information has already been sort of leaked by a close friend of Trucidos who was in LESIG for a brief period of time (but he has since now been booted). While the fact remains that the information has already been posted in the MXO forums for a brief period of time, it is still taboo and is to not be discussed ANYWHERE except in the security of Teamspeak and our forums here until it is officially announced by Walrus in an upcoming Producer's Letter. Rarebit thinks that it will be posted either this week or next week. Either way, this stays in the faction. If anyone finds out that I leaked this to you guys...

Posted on 9/14 on the LESIG Forums by Rarebit:

What follows is a rough and relatively non-sugar-coated version of something I may be posting on the public boards once update 63 has hit Live (that is scheduled for next Thursday). I haven't shown it to anyone else yet... I'll have to show it to Walrus before I post it publicly, but I'm not too worried about being able to bring him around. At the moment you guys are the ones I'm primarily concerned about in relation to this, because not only does this affect you as players, it will have a profound effect on what you do in your capacity as LESIG members.

The short version is that despite the vast amounts of effort that we have all put into pushing the story via live events, and despite the great success of many of these events in their own ways, I am coming to realize--based on what I see in terms of who shows up to events, what their responses are there, what little feedback we get on the forums, how players spend their time in the game, what they say about the game, and where our overall population is going--that events themselves are ultimately unable to make a sufficient impact on enough of our players, and that we need to redirect our energies into methods that will be more fruitful in the long term--and that we'll be able to sustain for the long term.

It's possible that I've only driven myself crazy, and that I'm completely wrong about this, which is also partly why I'm showing it to you guys before I try running it by anyone else.

There are undoubtedly some players--those precious few who follow every day's event, and every week's missions--who will feel what is laid out below as a significant blow, and to those people I don't know that there's anything I can say that will make it better. But I really do think that these changes will, for the great majority of our players, make it much easier and more interesting to follow the story, and to play the game as a whole.

And, as I say at the end, I need a change too. I have been increasingly tired and irritable, and treating people badly--particularly here in LESIG, I'm ashamed to say--for months and months now, and I can't keep doing that.







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If feedback is positive, or at least not wholly negative, this far-reaching change to how we do things in MXO could kick in as early as chapter 11.3 (update 64).

Hm, actually, something will have to happen, regardless of whether or not everyone thinks I've gone loco. More and more of late I have felt that our existing format is nearing its limits, and we need a fresh approach to bring the Matrix to our players. I have tried to push the story as far as I have been able using our age-old methods of critical missions and live events, but, although these have helped create a very intricate story, and have been able to involve small groups of players in very individual ways, I think that ultimately these mechanisms are too complicated to have the necessary impact on the player base as a whole, and that we need to move to more direct methods.

This is still only a proposal, and I am flinging it out in order to gauge reaction. You may find it shocking, but please take time to think carefully about what it would mean to you and your fellow players. I will have much more to say about it once the initial dust cloud has subsided.

 

Brace yourselves:

- no more critical missions

- no more daily live events

- existing Cyph/EPN factions keep their tags, but no new Cyph/EPN tags will be given


We continue to update the game every six weeks:

- new (silent & subtitled) hand-drawn cinematic that continues the Matrix story

- Zion(EPN), Machine, Merovingian(Cyph) all-org meeting between players and the story character org leaders:
-- at a date, time (probably ~2:00pm Pacific), and server announced at least two weeks in advance
-- each of the three meetings is on a different server
-- which org meets on which server rotates each update

- new quest that ties directly into the story advancement seen in the cinematic:
-- level 30, 40, 50 reward items for each org
-- org-specific quest rewards, sometimes org-specific goals: you have to be a specific org to get a reward item from an org collector, but you can trade it to a player in a different org later, if you want
-- quests may involve such things as neighborhood-specific missions, outdoor spawns, or opening up a building's floor and populating it with unique NPCs
-- while this new quest content is directly tied into the latest part of the story, it will remain in the game permanently

- all-org party thrown by the Effectuator on one of the three servers, announced at least two weeks in advance


Mission Archives:

- timers on existing chapter FX reward items are extended to five minutes, and re-use timers and activation timers are removed: they still have to be re-activated when their timer runs out, but they can be re-activated immediately

- IS Booster consumable rewarded for completing each set of (5) missions


Forums:

- increased discussion of Matrix story direction with players; with the story coming in cinematics rather than critical missions, we can be much more flexible and open about story developments

- one player from each server elected to maintain official role-player list for that server:
-- lists forum handles (and main per handle, if the name differs) per org (Machine(Cyph), Merovingian, Zion(EPN))
-- nobody is allowed to be on more than one server's list
-- the people in the list are those those who post in the thread asking to be added; asking to be added signifies that the person feels themselves ready and willing to play along with official story characters to continue the Matrix story, if they meet the story characters in the game; this does not mean "hardcore RP" is required, just a willingness and interest to interact with the story characters in a supportive and constructive fashion


Events:

- will occur when and where needed by the story

- story characters will often prefer to seek out those characters registered in the official role-player forum lists, if they can find them jacked-in


LESIG:

- can continue to create and run dev-assisted side stories, write the Sentinel, and so forth

- can continue to play existing liaison characters, but interacting with those characters is no longer a (near) requisite for players to meet Matrix story characters

 

Why?

- existing mission/event format is too complicated for many veteran players to follow easily, not to mention new players

- existing mission/event format does not appear to be sustainable, both in terms of dev time, and size of the game's player base; a change is required to get us to something we feel we can maintain more or less indefinitely

- daily live events take up a disproportionate amount of game dev time for the small number of players they are able to reach, whereas cinematics, quests, and pre-announced gatherings can reach pretty much everyone

- replayable quest content can now relate directly to the Matrix' story

- critical missions and daily live events limit the Matrix' plot to game mechanics; moving it back into cinematics will remove most of the current limitations on where the story can take us

- general player feedback suggests dwindling interest in the existing format

- Rarebit needs a change, too