We Wonder About: Darkfall

By Luke Chandler | January 26, 2008 | | Filed under: Features

MMO players who prefer full-scale PvP have not had many games to call their own for awhile now. On several gaming websites one can read posts lamenting the current crop of fantasy based MMOs and their state of “carebear” PvP. Many insist the PvP golden age came and went with Ultima Online, never to be seen again. Others keep their hopes up and are anxious for pending releases such as Age Of Conan or WAR to satiate their thirst for action.

However, one game in development remains an enigma, considered by some to be the holy grail and savior of “real PVP” and by others to be simply a dream and nothing more than vaporware.

That game is Darkfall.

Darkfall began its development way back in August of 2001 by a little company in Norway called “Razorwax” (later to be integrated into Greece based “Aventurine S.A.”). To put that in perspective, just a few months prior had seen the cancellation of plans for Ultima Online 2, and most Americans still didn’t know who Osama bin Laden was.

Six long years and through it all there have been beta announcements, beta signups, beta announcement retractions – and the last few years, save for a few screenshots here and there, Darkfall has all but fallen off of the mainstream radar.

However, with over 47 thousand members signed up on the official Darkfall forums, it’s clear that gamers are still excited about the game’s promise.

What makes it special? Features like unrestricted PvP, full-looting of players, and skill-based progression (rather than levels or classes) are definitely not new, but haven’t been seen in a mainstream fantasy genre title in years. The prospect of owning and maintaining a city, “empire-building”, and warring with other guilds over resources have “hardcore” PvP players excited. Add to that nearly all items and weapons being player created, player ships, housing (the list goes on and on), and Darkfall begins to sound like a dream for PvP and sandbox lovers alike.

But could the dream be too good to be true?

Six years in development is a long time, even for a small team of developers. While this fact alone shouldn’t be cause for alarm, the curiously small amount of real updates and information about the game could be. Not only that, but developing a game costs money – developers have to eat! And six years is an eternity without a product.

Beyond that, assuming Aventurine has a successful beta phase and finally releases Darkfall, will it even prove financially successful? Darkfall certainly has its following, and EVE Online has proven that there is a niche market for PvP full-loot games. But this niche is a small percentage of potential customers, will it be big enough to be profitable?

Will the company be able to survive after release? Using EVE Online as a comparison once again, it took the game four years of continuous updates to get to the point they are now. Their growth has been stable, but very slow. It’s a lot of money to keep a development company running for four years with a live game.

Even with the long years of development and beta phase push-backs, there is hope for the future. The large guild “Lords Of Death” happened to have one of its members, “Asp”, in the middle of a business trip through Europe. His route had him near Greece, and improbably enough Aventurine was contacted and Asp was able to visit with the developers and even play a live demo of the game. Although it was reportedly an older build (the current build was down), this news had internet forums abuzz and new excitement for Darkfall was generated.

Asp seemed genuinely excited about the game. A write-up of his visit was posted on the Lords Of Death website (subsequently pasted all over) and in it he said, “Frankly, based on the demo I played, I felt I could put up with a heck of a lot of issues just to begin playing this thing as soon as possible. IT LOOKED AND PLAYED THAT GOOD!”

Asp’s report would make it seem that beta shouldn’t be very far off. So what is holding it back? In the end, it could be any number of things, and certainly Aventurine is free to promote its product however they wish.

But Darkfall remains a mystery, 47 thousand forum members or not, and probably won’t be taken very seriously until some sort of beta phase alleviates gamer doubts in a genre that has suffered more than its share of disappointments.

As of publishing time, The MMO Gamer had not received any responses to emails sent to Darkfall developers Aventurine S.A.