Jasdemi's Corner

The next free “big” expansion is coming to Darkfall, Conquer the Seas. Aventurine said that it will be released in mid November, so the earliest date would be in 3 days. Of course they won’t hold this promise, so we should better expect the expansion at the end of November or early December.

Let’s stop talking about AV and their date promises and move on what the expansion has to offer ( what we know so far, much more is inside for sure).

New skills

Some new skills will make it into the game. Most of them are for melee and ranged combat. The following examples were given:

• Rage – A buff that increases your resistances greatly. Heals some of your HP over time. Especially designed to counter the imba magic. Yay for this. As a mostly melee fighter, I love this addition.
• Disabling Shot/Blow – It’s really annoying to fight people that use their goddamn shields to block all the time. Blocking with shield absorbs ~90% of the damage. For melees, it’s nearly impossible to kill such an opponent, since you will run out of stamina pretty fast. With these two skills you can temporally disable the ability of your target to block attacks. This is currently my most favourite addition in the coming expansion. There’s nothing worse than fighting carebears that block all the time.
• Spotter - Allows you to identify players from great distances. Will sure be damn useful to find victims => moar lewt!

Race skills

Race skills will be introduced as well. Each race will get unique advantages.

Mirdains - Keen sight: Sounds interesting, but we’re not sure yet how it will work. Will we be able to see through clothes with our x-ray eyes? Bewbz all day long, omg! :P

Alfars – Moar resistance to magic. They get the most useful racial skill, imo.

Orks – Tough => less damage received than other races.

Mahirims – “swoft of foot” they say. Will they run faster?

Specialities

We will be able to choose from various specialities. 2 expamples were stated:

• Double Jump
• Dodge attacks by double tapping in a direction

Sounds pretty good. If they’ve done a good job, this will sure make melee combats much more exciting and not just running around and hitting left mouse.

A keep and player vendors

A new player house type will be introduced, it’s a keep. The largest of all and most likely pretty rare. A keep will support up to 10 bind slots. Over 800 house plots will be available in the world of Agon. I think I should start saving money to be afford one. Jasdemi, his majesty wants a keep! NOW!

Player vendors

A new extension will be added to player houses, it’s a gnome vendor. It’s an NPC that will sell your stuff close to your house, even if you’re offline. I really don’t think this feature will be used that much. I mean, why should I carry thousands of gold to travel from village to village to buy stuff, if I can complete trades in cities, where it’s much safer?

To make this feature less pointless, local banks must be introduced.

Live Agon, live!

Finally wildlife will be added to the world of Darkfall, Agon. These critters won’t be aggressive and can be found all over

the world. Their HP will be low, but instead they will run away pretty fast, so it will still challenging to hunt them. Lewt will be stuff like meat, leather, etc.

Some of them will form form packs and follow their pack leader. For mobs they of course won’t be invisible, so they will attack them as well. Some will even support them by healing and some ignore them completely.

Better AI

Currently the AI of mobs is .. well .. bullshit. They often do some dumb moves, run in circles or just do nothing while you beat on them. With the expansion, this part will be enhanced GREATLY.

Also different mobs will now have different fighting styles. This will force us, players, to think about other ways and develop tactics in order to kill them properly and efficient.

I hope PvE will get better thanks to these changes.

Economy boost

Different weapons will be required in order to fight the mobs successfully. Well, not really a big boost, but .. oh well ..

Sources

If you want to read more about the upcoming changes, check the following posts out:

• Second Developer spotlight article
• Spotlight on Expansion skills
• Expansion Spotlight – Player Vendors and new house type