General Information About Darkfall

[Anamodiel]

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.

[Anamodiel]

In this post I will be posting some of the quotes from the Beta players, concerning different aspects of the game. Please note that this is the only Beta report that has been posted to the general public (due to the NDA) and is more than a month old. However, much of it is still relevant. I will only be taking one or two quotes that I feel are the most important to know, but I will provide the link to the full Beta report at the end of the post.

Overall Impressions:

“I love the sandbox feel of the game. I can chop a tree for wood, skin a tombstone (doesn't feel right), mine a rock, and whack some weeds for herbs and feel like I'm in constant danger running around in the countryside doing so.”

“This game is extremely solid, and just needs polish. They've done all of the fundamentals right, and the remaining problems are things like UI, tweaking AI, hardware compatibility issues, etc.”

The World-Graphics-Technology

“Build 50 is extremely stable. I haven't crashed once and I've been playing a lot of hours. I have found very few bugs.”

“I walked from Chopping Necks (westernmost Ork starter town) to the coast to the east over 2 or 3 hours and NOT ONCE was I bored with repetitive landscape. There is almost always a settlement of goblins, freaky bird-men, hivekin, or something going on, and it's on all sides of you. I swam to an island off the coast, then to a second island. In total, the trip took about 4-5 hours one-way. I explored what looked like ~3% of the total map. Do the math! The world is gigantic!”

“The amount of scaling possible with the graphics is genius. You have more options than ever and they all make sense. You don't have to have an enthusiast-level rig to enjoy df.”

“Main thing that has impressed me so far is the quality of the worldbuilding. The people responsible for that really outdid themselves and should be proud of their work. It is sheer delight to go striking out in a random direction and seeing what you can see; both overall settings and nuanced details are superb.”

“I wont nit pick for silly things but the game it self ran very smooth I was running at 120-150 ping to the European servers. I only ran across one lag spot as I was running around the land. I love seeing the skill gain system working just from using abilities, it's been to long to see that. I have a high end system but I run on an 8800GT (waiting for release to get my new card) and it still ran smooth.”

AI

"Those little bastards {Goblin mobs in the starter areas} are the bane of my existence with their strafing. I have never wanted to squash an NPC as bad as that before. I love it."

“Intelligent AI? This is something I've not experienced until entering Df. It's as if fighting the mobs mirrored fighting other players. They actually work together attempting to kill you rather then serving as your training material.”


“The AI is very cool, and just needs some tweaking. You can get it trapped trying to run away from you in some cases, for example. Otherwise it presents a big challenge. One guy trying to take on 4 goblins is not simple - the goblins will melee you and then sprint away to kite you around while the other ones shoot you, and the second you go for them instead, the one that was running will pull out its own bow...”

“The AI on the goblins in the newbie areas definitely needs to be toned down. I would even send out patrols of one or two goblins farther away from the spawn area with the great A.I. But having 2-3 linked and calling in even more so quickly as it is now makes soloing virtually impossible. Unless you're really really good which new players aren't. In other words, the AI in the newbie areas is TOO good. I know it is good training, but I've been getting my butt handed to me all day and as a new player it would be very frustrating.”

Controls - We started out the beta without any instructions whatsoever. This was done to assess the intuitiveness of the game. Those who play FPS games have reported fewer problems with the GUI and controls.

“It's a unique experience, albeit frustrating none-the-less even after figuring
out how to properly use things such as "rest" "looting a monster"sheathe/unsheathe" "attach/detach weapon/item", i'll be honest, even after learning it, frustrating and clunky is the only way I can express my feelings in regards to it, I have to watch my system messages like a hawk just to make sure i've attached/detached a weapon from my hands before I even want to try and go into a sheathe/unsheathe type stance. I can say even with how it functions right now I can handle 4-6 goblins at a time quickly and efficiently and loot them without needing a break, I currently am very proud of how well I can melee them down and finish them off via magic/range...which leads me to my next subject."

“I know that the interface becomes second nature after a day that you use it, but it's NOT intuitive when one first starts. For the love of God, get people to go through a mock-up of the equip/sheathe/load/fire etc. etc. when they first start, when the game goes live.”

"I do understand some concerns people have with the UI and the whole "equip and then use" system instead of just click to use but since it's an fps style game I don't see any alternative. Plus I am getting quite used to it and it will allow good players to shine in combat as other will be strugling to equip their staff and then ready their spell to cast it. I believe it promotes the "player skill" element very much."

"Its a matter of personal taste, really. I prefer to manually unseathe my weapon the same way i cannot autotarget the enemy. I also like the idea the game starts hard mob-wise (its a cruel world) and, according to an "upscaled" difficulty gets even harder. Imho people that come to play darkfall dont want to see carebaring ruining hardcore aspects of the game."

"The chat and Interface is a little tough to get used to, especially without directions. At first I was wondering why everything stopped and I couldn't move after I right clicked. It would be nice if I could organize my pack and chat, look at icon descriptions etc... while I ran long distances. Or even had a mouse option for checking out the icons at the top of my screen when I get hit with a spell so I could see the description. I am completely vulnerable while I'm chatting, looting, selling, looking at options, spells, skills, etc... But that's also the beauty of it if anyone attacks me."

PvP – Looting - We’ve been wiping characters very often so it’s still hard for the testers to dive headfirst into PvP.

"My biggest gripe at the moment is looting corpses. It's easy enough to switch between weapons during combat but I find it near impossible to quickly loot something. I have to drop out of FPS or combat mode, switch into pointy clicky mode open up the corpse, drag everything at once, pray i'm not dead yet, switch back into combat."

"Seriously guys, the drag & drop looting is something that should not be touched. It *should* take awhile to loot corpses and sort through piles of things. This worked great in UO and there's no reason why it shouldn't work great in DF."

“PvP combat in this game reminds me so much of watching a sword fight in a movie where the fighters almost dance around each other looking for a weakness to strike at. There is no break and there is no breathing space. Every moment of combat contains so much movement and requires constant brainpower. You won't have time to turn away from your screen or take a phone call, even while fighting mobs.”

“Group PvP is going to be neat. It's already dangerous going 3v1 because the '3' side will constantly hit eachother in melee or with spells accidentally. A skilled solo player can definitely pull off some cool stuff there.”

“I love the fact that you can hear someone fighting from quite far away. The other day myself and a couple of others ran from the alfar land to the human one, which took a while btw, and we eventually found someone killing goblins when we started hearing the sounds of fighting. Of course our attempt at ganking didn't exactly go as planned, since we didn't really have any way of slowing someone down and the one starter spell available to us does about as much damage as a ball of yarn at the newbie skill levels we had, so our target was able to escape back into a town. We did get him eventually though, when he came out to bait us and stayed for a bit too long before retreating back to safety (the npc towns have guard towers that do some damage, you can handle one tower for a while but as you go deeper in you get in range of multiple towers and the damage starts to mount up).”

“Furthermore, the everchanging surroundings allow for great stealth/ambush tactics. Crouching behind an abandoned cart alongside a large road, waiting for your target to pass by and quietly landing a few arrows in their back was a very gratifying experience.”

Crafting - The testers haven’t been reporting on crafting much yet. I suppose you start delving in it after you check out the basics, so we expect more on this soon.

"Did some cooking and the crafting system is alright. It's nothing new but it is straighforward and works fine, at least for the few things I crafted."

"Crafting is pretty neat, rudimentary and to the point. Nothing big and fancy like Vanguard, but it gets the job done without becoming a hassle."

“Crafting so far seems fairly simple but very robust; there's nothing really new or groundbreaking here but it works and it covers a ridiculous amount of stuff. One really nice touch I appreciate here is the fact that any equipment-grade crafting acts as a gold sink - a very cunning ploy by the devs there, and one that should go a long way towards maintaining equilibrium in the in-game economy once in the long run. It all gets stamped with your name too, so pretty satisfying!”

Final Thoughts

"Upon running to a distant castle we spotted over a frozen lake, hopping between the floating ice blocks as fast as our stubby dwarven legs would take us, it was like a book coming to life in front of me. Only in this case the book was a particular scene from the gameplay video where that very thing had played out. Something so simple as that in a video can spark the imagination. Sure, we all looked at that and said "Man, those guys in the video are going out on a cool adventure!" but is the game really going to be like that? Are you really going to be solemnly exploring the rich world with your friends at your side, without a watered down experience where you're more practically chasing down some flashing waypoint in easy-mode? Yes, you absolutely are, and every bit of back-story and reasoning you interpreted into the motives of those intrepid explorers are there as well. I guess with the current trend in gaming, the grandeur of simple things has been completely lost on much of the current generation of gamer... but I sure in the hell was impressed that I could have such a fulfilling experience from something so base as mere wanderlust.

Of course, it helped cap off the night that the location we were traveling to was just itching to dish out wholesale slaughter on anyone curious enough to take a peek. I felt like I was being shelled by artillery after some of the mobs unloaded their repertoire of spells on us. Screen shaking, firebombs exploding all around you, your friends screaming obscenities and running away... the game definitely has a tendency to abruptly take your head out of the clouds and grind your face into the dirt with its heel on the back of your head with no warning at all. And this was just the PvE! PvE!"

All the quotes can be seen here in the first Beta Report, posted November 18th, 2008. Quotes compiled by Anamodiel for the Furious Angels.

[Anamodiel]

Different Interviews with Tasos, the Community Manager:

http://www.curse.com/articles/darkfall-en-news/372269.aspx
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm?bhcp=1&game=4&feature=2494%2FInterview-with-Tasos-Flambouras

Other stuff:

http://beta.thenoobcomic.com/df_preview/part1.html
http://beta.thenoobcomic.com/df_preview/part2.html
http://beta.thenoobcomic.com/df_preview/part3.html
http://beta.thenoobcomic.com/df_preview/part4.html
http://beta.thenoobcomic.com/df_preview/part5.html
http://beta.thenoobcomic.com/df_preview/part6.html


Last Updated: December 26th, 2008.

[Phienyx]

Is there any type of pre-order going on for Darkfall?  (Sorry, I am not able to access any Darkfall sites here at work.  They are "FORBIDDEN".

[Anamodiel]

Is there any type of pre-order going on for Darkfall?  (Sorry, I am not able to access any Darkfall sites here at work.  They are "FORBIDDEN".

There is no official pre-order available from Aventurine, and there is no pre-order that they have announced. Any that you see in retail or on websites (EBGames, Gamestop, Best Buy, etc.) are not endorsed by Aventurine and are thus not part of their program.

No.

[Phienyx]

Any announcement on monthly fee?

[Lits]

i have to confess this is the first time I've read that synopsis... and justly, the first time I've been excited about this DF idea.

I know, I know, I'm a bad Lits.

8 HOURS from one end to the other? Oh man... I guess that gives up the idea of staying together if someone misses a night, lol

[Subb]

I hope there's a quick travel system ala Fallout 3, Hardlines in MxO and Oblivion.

[Tbone]

There won't be, which I think is a good thing. Hardlines in MxO made everything lose it's epic-feel. While it was convenient, it took away the reward of working to get somewhere.

[Phienyx]

There won't be, which I think is a good thing. Hardlines in MxO made everything lose it's epic-feel. While it was convenient, it took away the reward of working to get somewhere.

I agree.  Games that add short cuts tend to lose the feel they were originaly going for.  

Just as an example, I loved how SWG originally handled travel.  You either waited in line at a shuttle station for a transport or you had to travel it on a mount or on foot (vehicles when they were introduced.)  I had endless fun trecking across planets exploring and just seeing what we'd encounter on the way.  

If you add too many unnecesssary and unrealistic "conveniences" to an MMORPG, it spirals into merely a game of who has the best stats and equiptment.  This is what bored me in most other MMORPGs.

[Subb]

Well I think the whole 'you can only fast-travel once you've been there' option kinda works.

[Lits]

Its scenario based. In MXO it made sense that you could travel anywhere you knew how to get to at speed because of the technology being used. In games like WoW and DF it makes sense that it takes a while to get anywhere because cars, phone lines, etc are not part of the world in which its set. I was just remarking on how vast it must be, or rather, how realistic it must be.

[Lits]

*ammendment

Additional example: Star Wars Galaxies.
It made sense that you could travel to different systems or planets with ease because of the level of technology. However the suspension of disbelief that you could make it there in a few minites was a convenience of gameplay not flush with the reality.

It seems that DF will be providing both, even if it is a pain in the ass, it is true to form.