World of Warcraft: Extend Polymorph length exploit

There is a bug with Mage’s Polymorph spells, namely Polymorph (Black Cat) and the other Polymorph abilities. It’s seems Blizzard messed it up again and Polymorph (Black Cat) is on different dimish return timer.

This basically allows a mage to sheep a person with Polymorph (Black Cat) for 10 seconds, then sheep someone else for 10 seconds. Then sheep the person with Polymorph (Black Cat) again for 5 seconds and resheep him with another Polymorph skill for 5 seconds etc.

Very useful in Arena where it has it’s biggest potential.

World of Warcraft: Tenebron no whelps exploit

There is a little nasty exploit to prevent the whelps from Tenebron from spawning. All you need to do is

 

• Wait until Tenebron spawns
• Have one Disciple Priest run in the portal
• Wait for 1-2 seconds
• Cast Divine Hymn
• Then zone out (use the portal inside)
• The Eggs will be disoriented and won’t spawn when Tenebron calls them!

It saves you from having to use additional tank and risk of him dying as well as increasing the dps time (DD’s don’t have to kill the dragon adds and can dps on Tenebron)

Warhammer Online: Patchnotes 1.2

Patch notes for the latest game update 1.2 are here! The list of changes is huge: over 500 bug fixes, 10 plus pages of career balancing, numerous RvR improvements, UI improvements, improving performance and server stability and a considerable review of dungeon loot itemization.

Patch highlights

• New Careers! Unleash the savage fury of the relentless Orc Choppa, or take up the doom-laden oath of the unstoppable Dwarf Slayer. These two new melee-focused careers relish the thrill of fighting on the front lines and laying waste to all foes that come within reach of their mighty blades.
• Bitter Rivals join the battle! Introducing the newest live event for Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. “Bitter Rivals” focuses on the ancient hatred that burns between the Dwarf and greenskin races. Millennia of conflict in the Worlds Edge Mountains have honed the enmity that exists between the Orcs and Goblins and the stout Dwarfs to a razor-sharp edge, and when these nemeses meet in battle, it is war without mercy.
• Fight for control of the warped Twisting Tower! The battle rages in this new Tier 4 Scenario found deep in the heart of the maddening Chaos Wastes. Here, the warping power of Chaos is at its peak, transforming the very fabric of reality in defiance of all reason. Warriors of Order and Destruction must grapple for control of this ancient citadel, for if the secrets of the Twisting Tower should fall into enemy hands, the tide of battle will surely turn. Like the Reikland Factory, the Twisting Tower will be available for all players for a limited time as a preview to accompany the Bitter Rivals event. Be sure to stake your claim to the Twisting Tower while you can!
• Answer the Call to Arms with new Realm vs. Realm gameplay enhancements! Introducing the new Open RvR Rallying Cry system that summons you to key battles for Tiers 1 and 2. The new Zone Control Domination System for Tiers 2 through 4 rewards a realm that truly conquers the battlefield. Also, many improvements to siege weapons ensure that the mighty engines of war are now more lethally effective than ever. See below for additional details.
• New treasures await! Across-the-board itemization improvements have been made to the Fortresses, world dungeons, and city dungeons of WAR, including better world drops, quest rewards, Influence rewards, and more!
  
• Crafting System Improvements! We’ve made many improvements to the game’s crafting system, including pairing-off specific gathering skills with specific production skills in order to make crafters more self-sufficient. Also, the leveling curve of trade skills has been improved and fewer components are required to create items. Last, but certainly not least, is the addition of new craftable items!
  
• Easy Public Quests make their debut in Tiers 2, 3, and 4. Scaled for courageous bands of 1 to 3 adventurers, these Public Quests offer a rewarding PvE experience without a large commitment of forces. You’ll find one Easy Public Quest in each Chapter, so gather a few friends, or venture out alone… if you dare!
  
• Multiple mail attachments! Now you can send several attached items with a single mail message.
  
• Two new secret lairs await! Finding the new hidden lairs is only half the battle. Figuring out how to open the door - and surviving the dangers inside - is another matter, entirely!

The full 1.2 patch notes can be found here. Enjoy!

Darkfall Online: MMORPG Interview

We haven't heard anything new from the developers since the Jan 22nd news item announcing the first round of invites. Can you tell us why we haven't heard any further updates?

That’s not entirely correct because we’ve had a substantial update on January 25th and a few interviews since then but basically we’ve been doing what we said on the 22nd. Our first priority is getting the game ready for release. There are also thousands of testers to support and all this has been keeping us very busy. We have announcements coming soon with all the info the public needs in order to play Darkfall.

We keep hearing that the developers have responded to quite a bit of user input since the 22nd. Can you give us an idea of some of the changes that have come about as a result of player feedback?

We have been getting a lot of valuable user feedback and responding to it as we have done throughout the development cycle. Most of the feedback confirms our original intentions meaning that often players ask for changes or fixes that are already planned or in production.

We have benefited from the feedback in several areas where we needed testing input and we’ve had a lot of great feedback related to balancing, and on tweaking the gameplay experience. A lot of the user feedback has led to more testing of features. We’ve also been doing our best to respond immediately to any bugs reported by the testers and so far our track record has been very good at fixing them immediately. By looking at the player logs, we’ve corrected many areas that the players didn’t need to report.

It’s our commitment to continuously and proactively support this game throughout its lifecycle, on a daily basis, and to listen closely to what the players have to say so that the game can evolve and grow. We won’t simply assign a ‘live team’ to support the game while the rest of us move on to something else. The testers working with us already know this.

There had been some speculation that there are plans to push the launch date further back than the originally announced 25th date. Can you tell us if there is any truth to this?

Consistent with the usual speculation sources, there’s no truth to this.

Can you give us any more details on pre-order plans?

We will have a pre-order so that we can service Darkfall’s customer’s better pending release. The pre-order customers will be able to download the game prior to the 25th and to enter the game on the launch date. We considered offering early access to the pre-orders, but decided against this due to the competitive nature of the game. Our pre-order consists of a minimal charge to activate the process which will be concluded on the launch date. You’re not pre-buying the game; you’re simply reserving your copy for the launch date. Our billing partner is Globalcollect, a leading and trusted global payment service.

There will be a limited number of pre-order copies of Darkfall offered, and a limited number of copies available at launch. We won’t try to support more users than we can guarantee a good gameplay experience for, and if demand is higher than supply, then we will move to a structured release. It’s also not a matter of simply throwing up a few more servers to meet increased demand. Darkfall being a sandbox, real-time, seamless world able to support over 10 thousand concurrent users requires considerably more infrastructure and support in place than your average MMOG. We will do what is necessary to support the demand, but it’s not going to be instantaneous.
The overwhelming majority of the people who have played the game have expressed their interest in pre-ordering, but it’s not our intention to urge anyone to pre-order, rather to inform that this is an available option.

As of now, are there any systems or features that players have expected to see in the game that will not be ready for launch?

The only feature we haven’t had time to implement is the Mahirim 4 legged run. Mahirim characters can of course use mounts until this is implemented.

We have consolidated several skills and spells and taken out redundant ones but we’ll continue to continuously add more throughout the lifecycle of the game. Running guards have been replaced by guard towers because they are more effective and also because more NPCs in the world just take up player spots. Repair works on ships, cannons, warhulks, structures, but not on player items and this was done to better facilitate the game economy and the appropriate adjustments were made to balance this out.

Then there are the old features we’ve announced changes on already through various updates, like individual player housing consolidated for now under clan housing, ritual magic being left out, prestige classes left out, and ARAC guilds being possible for practical reasons with only the penalty of incompatibility.

I’m sure I’m not addressing a few smaller features since I’m answering this question off the top of my head, but any changes we’ve made are mainly because either the feature was impractical in the Darkfall environment, it wasn’t fun, it was redundant, tedious, didn’t add to the gameplay experience, or because we are rethinking it.

Of course, we’ve also added hundreds of extras to the game that the players are not expecting and will continue to do so throughout the lifecycle of the game.

Can you give us an idea of when you plan to lift the game's NDA

We will lift it in time for people to get enough feedback to make an informed decision. We would rather not say when that is exactly.

Has any progress been made in moving toward a North American launch date after the European date of the 25th?

We’ve been looking at this, but we don’t have anything to announce yet. As I mentioned above, this is a serious commitment in resources and infrastructure, and we need the time to do as good a job as possible. For the time being, the European servers have been handling N. American players very well, and no problems have been reported due to player location. We will of course facilitate the migration of N. American players if they choose to join the N. American servers when these become available. There will be more information on this shortly.

Darkfall Online: Leaked Beta Patchnotes Build 121

New Patch

A new patch has been released.

Fixes and updates in this patch includes:

• Invisibility problem has been fixed. If you should experience this ever again, please notify us immediately
• Minimap images and resolution have been updated
• Darkfall help screen on startup has been introduced
• Missing magic staff unsheathe animation has been enabled
• Some bugs in the crafting system has been fixed. (Some stats on player crafted gear was missing or not being influenced by the crafting)
• Misc. GUI problem fixes
• Cost and ingredient requirements for alchemy potions have been reduced
• Success probability for alchemy potions have been slightly increased
• Monster loot have been updated
• New big secret dungeon has been enabled
• Several spells have been tweaked with regards to magnitude, duration, casting-time, lower reagent requirements and blocking timers:
• Agility in Air Magic has been tweaked
• Arrow Shield in Air Magic has been tweaked
• Arrow Ward in Air Magic has been tweaked
• Ball Lightning in Air Magic has been tweaked
• Come Hither in Air Magic has been tweaked
• Exploding Charge in Air Magic has been tweaked
• Guiding Wind in Air Magic has been tweaked
• Lightning Bolt in Air Magic has been tweaked
• Lightning Shield in Air Magic has been tweaked
• Lightning Strike in Air Magic has been tweaked
• Lightning Ward in Air Magic has been tweaked
• Lightning Weakness in Air Magic has been tweaked
• Stormblast in Air Magic has been tweaked
• Thunderstorm in Air Magic has been tweaked
• Tornado in Air Magic has been tweaked
• Acid Arrow in Earth Magic has been tweaked
• Acid Rain in Earth Magic has been tweaked
• Acid Shield in Earth Magic has been tweaked
• Acid Ward in Earth Magic has been tweaked
• Brawn in Earth Magic has been tweaked
• Corrosive Blast in Earth Magic has been tweaked
• Infliction Shield in Earth Magic has been tweaked
• Items sold by vendors have been modified in order to remove things that are only to be craft able by players
• Bags and empty bottles have been added to vendor inventory
• Updates to the world
• Some quest updates

World of Warcraft: Love Is In The Air Achievement Guide

It's Valentine Day and the Valentine event is back, this time with a few achievements to earn.

Update: For some of the civilian I've added an list on bottom of the page, as it can be quite hard to find civilians, especially if the area is overcrowded. If you find another civilians, please post in the comments and I'll add them as soon as possible.

The Summary

• Heartmender
• Shafted!
• Flirt With Disaster
• Lonely?
• Nearest and Dearest
• The Rocket's Pink Glare
• Nation of Adoration
• Fistful of Love
• Sweet Tooth
• Be Mine!
• My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose
• I Pitied The Fool

Update: For most of the achievements, you'll need items which you get from Gift/Pledge of Adoration. This can be obtained from any NPCs who have a Amorous debuff. Amorous can only be seen if you have either Perfume or Cologne buff which you can get from Perfume Bottle and Cologne Bottle respectively. Additionally with Perfume you can only give Love Tokens to male NPCs, while with Cologne you can only give Love Tokens to female NPCs.

Additionally, you will get Gift of Adoration/Friendship from civilians only (scroll down to the bottom for a list of civilians), while you will get Pledge of Adoration/Friendship only from City Guards. When you first give a gift to them you will either get a Gift of Adoration or a Pledge of Adoration and will receive an Adored debuff. While having this debuff, you can't receive any Gift/Pledge of Adoration anymore. However, you can still give gifts to the NPCs and get Gift/Pledge of Friendship, which will contain the items necessary for Gift Giving (Alliance) or Giving Gift (Horde) Quest. 2 of the items necessary will always drop from Pledge of Friendship (Guards) and 1 only from Gift of Friendship (Civilians)

The Heartmender

This one is quite easy and self explaining. Simply use 20x "Unbestowed Friendship Bracelets" on people with Broken Heart debuffs. Best to be done with a friend, who so you can cure each other.

Hint: To make it easier (if you're alone), just collect enough rings and wait at a good spawn point (For example in front of Darnassus Bank and wait until someone gets it and quickly heal him). Update: Also the Unbestowed Friendship Bracelets can only be used on people with Heartbroken debuff. You get this debuff only by giving Love Token to the NPCs who have a hearth above their head. If they refuse it, you will get the Heartbroken debuff. It's chance is quite low, compared to last year's event.

Shafted!

This one takes more time, but isn't too hard too. Use 10x Silver Shafted Arrow on 10 players (only works on players with no current critter/vanity pets). You can get the Silver Shafted Arrows by doing the Gift Giving (Alliance) or Giving Gift (Horde) Quest. This is a repeatable quest. They can also be obtained from Gift of Adoration/Pledge of Adoration with a quite high chance (15-30%, but can only be done once per hour)

Note: Only Civilians will drop the special items like Handmade Woodcraft (Darnassus), Dwarven Homebrew (Ironforge), Homemade Bread (Stormwind), Freshly Baked Pie (Ogrimmar), Freshly Picked Flowers (Thunder Bluff), Romantic Poem (Undercity)

Update: Seems there is a bug which allows you to get credit for this achievement without using any of the Silver Shafted Arrows. All you need to do is, to use the Silver Shafted Arrow and as soon as the cast bar appears move forward. The cast animation will be canceled but you will get the credit for this achievement. Nice tip if you don't have much time to get the Gift of Adoration every hour!

Flirt With Disaster

This one is an easy one too, if you got a Handful of Rose Petals, or Bouquet of Red Roses.

Alliance

• Go to Ironforge
• Buy some Strong Alcohol
• Drink as much of it until you get the System message "You are completely smashed" (or something like this)
• Then go find Sraaz. He's running inside the inner circle of Ironforge (click on the link above to see it on WoWHead)
• Once you found him, use your Handful of Rose Petals, Bouquet of Ebon Roses and then do a /kiss Sraaz emote.

Horde

• Go to Undercity
• Buy some Strong Alcohol
• Drink as much of it until you get the System message "You are completely smashed" (or something like this)
• Then go find Jeremiah Payson. He's the Cockroach vendor in Undercity (67, 44 - at the stairs where the bank is)
• Once you found him, use your Handful of Rose Petals, Bouquet of Ebon Roses and then do a /kiss Jeremiah Payson emote.

Congratulation, you're done with this achievement too.

Lonely?

You'll need a Romantic Picnic Basket, which can be a quite rare drop from Gift of Adoration/Pledge of Adoration. But in order to do this achievement, you can use this basket from another player. Only requirement: At least 2 players needs to use it, in order for the achievement to be credited.

Nearest and Dearest

In every Capital City there is an NPC giving out a quest, which sends you to another NPC (on Alliance side, they will send you to an NPC in Stormwind) which starts a Quest chain starting with Dangerous Love (Alliance) or Dangerous Love (Horde). The Quest chain is quite easy so not necessary to explain it with the exception of the last step, which will send you to Ravenholdt to Apothecary Staffron Lerent, which is located behind Ravenholdt (there is a small path on the right side of the Ravenholdt building which leads behind it to a small sea and an undead with a cauldron)

The Rocket's Pink Glare

Shoot off 10x Love Rockets in 20 seconds. As with Shafted!, they can be obtained either by doing Gift Giving (Alliance) or Giving Gift (Horde) or from Gift/Pledge of Adoration with a quite high chance.

Hint: You have to wait until you have at least 10 of them, before that it's useless to try. Once you got 10 Love Rockets, pull them in the action bar for example in the first slot and go to a city which doesn't lag too much (like Darnassus or Thunder Mountain, you don't want to fail because of lag!) and click that button and then click with the left mouse button in the world. This way you can fire them rather quickly and with 1.5 second cooldown, it takes 15 seconds without lag

Nation of Adoration

This is probably the most confusing achievement available. In order to get a Gift of Adoration (and not Pledge of Adoration) you have to give a Gift to an civilian(!). Only works when you don't have the Adored debuff, so it can only be done once per hour.

Fistful of Love

Use 10x Handful of Rose Petals or Bouquet of Red Roses on

• Gnome Warlock
• Night Elf Priest
• Tauren Druid
• Undead Warrior
• Draenei Paladin
• Human Death Knight
• Orc Shaman
• Troll Rogue
• Blood Elf Mage
• Dwarf Hunter

Sweet Tooth

Well one of the bit harder ones, as it's somewhat based on luck. However, Box of Chocolates which is random drop from Gift of Adoration Boxes. You need each one of them:

• Buttermilk Delight
• Sweet Surprise
• Dark Desire
• Very Berry Cream

Be Mine!

Probably the hardest and most luck depended achievement. They are random created by Bag of Candies, which is random item from Gift of Adoration, which makes it very limiting and luck depended.

Only tip I can give you: Camp and get a new Gift of Adoration as soon as your Adore debuff runs out and pray to the cruel Blizzard gods.

My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose

Either get a Bouquet of Ebon Roses or Bouquet of Red Roses.

Bouquet of Ebon Roses drops from:

• Maiden of Grief (Halls of Stone)
• Prince Keleseth (Utgarde Keep)
• Prince Taldaram (Ahn'kahet: The Old Kingdom)

While Bouquet of Red Roses used to drop from

• Princess Moira Bronzebeard (Blackrock Depths)
• Illyanna Ravenoak (Dire Maul West)
• Archivist Galford (Stratholme)
• Lorekeeper Polkelt (Scholomance)

However, it seems the Bouquet of Red Roses doesn't drop anymore in Wrath of the Lich King.

If anyone can confirm (or deny) it's drop rate, place drop a comment.

Update: Seems there is still a chance for Bouquet of Red Roses to drop from the Northrend bosses who also drop the Bouquet of Ebon Roses

I Pitied The Fool

Again one of the easiest one. You only need 5x Love Fool, which as most of the stuff, is either a reward from Gift Giving (Alliance) or Giving Gift (Horde) or a random item from Gift of Adornment. Just visit the places below and use the Love Fool and do an /pity Love Fool Emote.

Tip: You can do this with a few friends together. Only one of you need 5x Love Fool (or 5 together). Saves a bit time and can be done without even gathering having the Love Fool (when someone of your friends got some)

Perma-Peddle (link)

This one is quite rare, as it can be a rare item from Gift of Adoration and you need to be lucky to get him. How ever, he's not an requirement for the meta-achievement anymore.

To get credit for this you either need the item Truesilver Shafted Arrow or the pet Peddlefeet (if you learned it before the achievement system was introduced)

Lovely Luck Is On Your Side (link)

This is another optional achievement, which awards you a Lovley Black Dress. It's very rare and if you want impress your girl friend (assuming she's playing too) and using Red Ribboned Wrapping Paper and give it to her. Girls like this, believe me! And it looks damn sexy!

Note: You will only get credited, if you get it from a Gift/Pledge of Adoration! If you trade it or buy it from auction house, you won't get credit for it!

 

Locations of the civilians

If you find some which are missing, make sure to drop a comment and I'll add it at soon as possible.

Stormwind

• Colara Dean (female)
• Topper McNabb (male) - Beggar
• Thomas Miller (male) - Baker
• Renato Gallina (male) [unconfirmed]
• Woo Ping (male) - Weapon Master
• Arnold Leland (male) - Fishing Trainer
• Caretaker Folsom (male)
• Orphan Matron Nightingale (female)

Ironforge

• Dolman Steelfury (male) - Weapon Merchant
• Bimble Longberry (female) - Fruit Vendor
• Brombar Higgleby (male) - The Keymaster
• Tynnus Venomsprout (male)  - Shady Dealer
• Sraaz (male) - Pie Vendor
• Tilli Thistlefuzz (female) - Enchanting Supplies
• John Turner (male)
  Important: He is in Ironforge, but counts toward Stormwind!!
  

Darnassus

• Alaindia (female)  - Reagents Vendor
• Corand  (male)
• Shylenai (female) - Owl Trainer
• Sheldras Moontree (male) - Druid Trainer
  Important: He is in Stormwind, but counts toward Darnassus!!!

Ogrimmar

• Shan'ti (female) - Fruit Vendor
• Garyl (female) - Tabard Vendor
• Felika (female) - Trade Supplies

Undercity

• The Apothecarium is the place where you can find them (would appreciate it if someone could get the names of the NPCs with gender)

Thunder Bluff

• Chepi (female) - Reagents Vendor

If you did all the achievements you should receive Fool For Love and the title "The Love Fool". Congratulation, you've done it!

Update 1: Added Horde version of Flirt With Disaster

Update 2: Added Locations of Civilians, as they are quite rare. Most of the civilians won't have fixed positions so posting the coordinates is quite useless. Instead, a WoWHead Link will be provided, where you can see the route of this NPCs

Update 3: Added some clarifications on how the mechanics on getting Gift/Pledge of Adoration/Friendship

Darkfall Online: Leaked Beta Patchnotes Build 120

Darkfall Build 120 is out. Enjoy!

New Patch

A new patch has been released.

Fixes and updates in this patch includes:

 

• Double protection from armor has been fixed
• Bug with max power level on spells have been fixed *1)
• Bug with not being able to open clan vault has been fixed; IF you should experience this bug again try to move closer to the bank and open it again. If that doesn't help, save your logs and send us a bug report
• Sync issues have been addressed for the remaining few. IF you should experience sync issues (other reporting yourself teleporting around their screen), please exit the game and send us a bug report
• Updates to sounds and how they are handled. (Note that our final sound mix have not yet been placed on the live servers and that is why the volume difference between sounds are not correct)
• Players being invisible have been resolved
• Players appearing purple have been resolved
• Bug where harvesting from empty clan city quarries stopped the players from being able to harvest anymore has been fixed
• The bug where the roster would not show the correct online status of clan members has been fixed
• Clan Farms have been updated to give out correct resources and correct amount
• Clan Groves have been updated to give out correct resources and correct amount
• Clan Quarries have been updated to give out correct resources and correct amount
• Clan mines (all versions of them) have been updated to give out correct resources and correct amount
• Higher level cooking recipes have been tweaked to have a slightly better chance of success

All magic staffs have had their stats enabled:

• Some staffs will have better performance on a specific magic school
• Some staffs will reduce overall casting time
• Some staffs will increase overall casting time, but yield greater results

 

• Some monster loot have been tweaked
• A.I. have been tweaked
• Some updates to the world (World building)

 

*1) Notes on the power levels of spells:
When a spell reaches 100 in skill level, you will have 1 shot that yields a tremendous amount of damage/healing/etc.
When you fire this 1 shot, it drops down again and you can skill it back up to the power shot. You can save up these power shots to use them all against your worst enemies if you like.

Notes on magic staffs and crafting:
ALL the best staffs will only be craftable by players. You will not be able to buy it from vendors. Right now we have enabled some of them on vendors, but this is for testing purposes only. They will be removed shortly.
The same goes for almost all the gear in Darkfall.

Darkfall Online: The Darkfall Manifesto

There is another leaked post about Darkfall, 2 weeks before the release, and it sums up of previously stated developer intents and player feedback.

Read on

The Darkfall Manifesto - *INCOMING WALL OF TEXT, FAIR WARNING*

We are two weeks away from release and while nobody really expects sweeping changes in gameplay at this point there is a great deal of interest in developer intent. This manifesto is the rough sum of previously stated developer intent and player feedback. I will try to go light on specific problems and instead cover general areas of gameplay are not quite where everyone wants them to be. This is going to be long but as succinct on each topic as possible:

Contents:

 

• 1. Combat
• 1a. Melee Combat
• 1b. Archery
• 1c. Magic
• 1d. Gear
• 2. Tradeskills
• 2a. Harvesting
• 2b. Crafting/Trade
• 2c. City Building
• 3. Exploration/The World
• 3a. Travel
• 3b. Monster Spawns/PvE
• 4. General
• 4a. Skill System
• 4b. Audio
• 4c. Newbie Weapons
• 4d. Animations

 

1. Combat

The stated intent for combat in Darkfall is that it would contain strong elements of player skill but not necessarily require 'twitch' reflexes. As things stand Darkfall is incredibly close to that ideal, however there is also a lack of depth in certain aspects of combat that allows most good players to master the system in a very short time.

1a. Melee Combat

Melee combat requires a moderate amount of tactics and a low degree of 'twitch' skill. Amateurs often get the impression that melee combat is just a 'clickfest' because of the lack of conventional MMO depth (little to no skills to activate), however this isn't the case. Careful management of stamina, well timed swings and a firm grasp of the reach of whichever weapon you've chosen (as well as your opponents weapon) will give any player an edge over someone who runs in spamming attack and holding sprint. That said, melee combat could be much more involved than it is. Many weapons share the same reach and swing timers, and the animations that drive real-time action based combat are far too homogenized. Many good ideas have been suggested to 'spice up' melee combat, among those the ones that best fit with both the current design of the game and what players want have to do with different swing styles. There are many ways to implement different swing styles, one of the most popular being 'weapon' based styles such as "polearms get an extra long thrust attack". Animation/style changes would make combat more varied and entertaining to watch while also forcing players to reckon with a metagame of how best to tackle users of different styles.

Request for crowd control should be ignored. The people requesting crowd control in a game that relies purely on positioning and movement in action style combat are just very confused by other MMOs they have played. If you want a better game to compare DF combat to try Jedi Knight I, II, and Academy where force powers (crowd control spells) were, popularly, turned off so that players could enjoy the light saber combat. Please keep DF 'force powers' free; there are plenty of ways to add depth and skill without making players lose control of their characters.

1b. Archery

Archery is a very basic FPS style system that is difficult to find fault with, however it is also lacking in depth. As things stand many players feel it is a bit too effective at low skill levels. One possible solution for this would be to separate arrow types into tiers. Basic arrows would include the starter craftable arrows as well as arrows found off of low level monsters such as kobolds. Basic arrows would deal lower damage than what arrows do currently and higher level arrows (which could be crafted for greater costs at higher skill and found on more difficult monsters) would do the same or more. Archery is a great combat dynamic and it should absolutely not be limited by bow type alone. It would be best if both developers and players looked at archery as stamina based magic. This would open up cool possibilities like poison arrows which stop your food/potion regeneration for a duration.

1c. Magic

Unfortunately, too much about magic is unknown. The only school that can be reasonably addressed is Lesser Magic where players have reached cap on some spells and have experimented with most of the available spells. As things stand the most major issue with magic are the results yielded when switching into a new tier, and unfortunately I'm going to have to cite specific examples since we have so little material to work with. Having Mana Missile leveled to 50 is going to be a very common circumstance for players who have leveled Lesser Magic to 50 and begin using Greater Magic. Players who begging casting Rend (which is comparable to Magic Missile in that its purpose is damage based) will quickly learn that is does less damage than the Mana Missile which they leveled to 50. Not only does Rend deal less damage but it costs a reagent and has a significant cooldown where Mana Missile has neither. A common argument in favor of things working like this is that you can't get the full effect of greater magic while using a newbie staff (and that staff levels haven't been implemented). However, if staff levels should be limiting anything its not schools of magic, but maximum damage dealt. Progression in other areas of the game works smoothly; high skill in Greataxes means dealing more damage. Not just with upgraded weapons, but with any weapon. Same for archery.

Because magic is divided into 'schools' there seems to be a high level of confusion (and tremendous lack of consensus) on how exactly it should work. However, its fair to say that as players skill up and progress to new abilities and skills they shouldn't be forced to 'gimp' themselves by using a skill repeatedly until its as effective as a skill they had earned at a lower tier. The parallel to this in melee combat would be that power attack actually hits for less damage than a normal strike until it gets leveled up. This is silly and counter-intuitive to how the vast majority of gamers have been taught to play games.

1d. Gear

Equipment plays an important role in DF and it looks pretty good so far. Light armor is not very effective but it is also very easy to come by. Heavy armor is very effective and is much more difficult/expensive to acquire. Still, many players feel that the disparity between a lightly armored player and an unarmored one is simply not enough. Fighting naked is currently a viable tactic against all but the most heavily armored opponents. Two naked guys can easily dispatch one heavily armored opponent and that is a concern. Risk vs. Reward is one of the core tenants of gameplay in Darkfall and it would be a shame to see naked raiding parties become flavor of the month after release. A part of the problem is obviously newbie weapons but an equal amount of blame can be put on gear. The best suggestion I've seen deals with a general idealogy rather than hard numbers but it goes something like this:

 

Player Armor Type - Ability to Soak Damage

• Naked - 1x
• Light Armor - 2x (leather/studded/ancient/crap)
• Medium Armor - 3x (chain/banded/scale)
• Heavy Armor - 4x (scale/plate)
• Super Heavy Armor - 5x (full plate)
• Mighty Morphin Power Ranger Dragon Armor - 6/7x

In that system a light armored player could soak (roughly, obviously gear isn't tiered so cleanly) twice as much damage as a naked player and so on and so forth. The weapon system should be similar with a 0.0 weapon doing doing 100% dmg, 0.10 - 110%, 0.20 - 120% all the way up to 200% at maximum skill (more for exceptional quality weapons/dragon armor weapon equivalents). There needs to be a disparity in the way weapons and armor scale because you can wear a ton of armor and only one weapon. If you make weapons too powerful people will just go naked with a weapon, and armor has a penalty tied to it where there is no penalty for using the best possible weapon.

The final issue with weapons is that of durability. More testing will need to take place but unless a repair system is implemented, or crafted weapon durability is increased - it is likely that weapon durability is decaying too quickly.

2. Tradeskills

The largest complaint with trade skills appears to have already been adressed (barrier to entry costs). This leaves the 'grindy-ness' of the system as the primary concern. Almost every MMO to date has had the same basic resource farming mechanics (with a few notable exceptions). There really doesn't appear to be a good 'quick fix' for this. Tradeskilling could be turned into a mini-game but that is a bit gimmicky and probably not what most players are looking for. The biggest and most addressable problem with trade skills is the lack of trade options in the game. The universal banking system removes the need for traveling with goods and the only sanctioned trading areas appear to be in the newbie cities which is going to hurt the game in the long term (as players migrate to the rest of the world). Player cities may become meccas of trade but for this to work correctly some features need to be added.

2a. Harvesting

There is not much to say about harvesting. Its tedious, repetitive and necessary to do everything tradeskill related in the game. Could the system be better? Absolutely. Should it be a priority in this stage of DF's lifecycle? Probably not. Its the same ole same ole for harvesting in DF as every other MMO and while that's not necessarily a good thing, it is something many will be willing to settle for... for a time.

2b. Crafting/Trade

Almost as tedious as harvesting, but not quite. Managing resources and grinding towards bigger and better things is a bit better than the prospect of hitting the same rocks you were hitting at 0 skill when you reach 100 skill in mining. The system could definitely be tweaked to be more interesting. Alchemical crafting systems are always interesting to players (systems where unique combinations of ingredients can yield unique results) but much like harvesting this something that isn't in imminent need of change for most players. What does need to be changed is how players buy and sell items to each other. The ability to set up vendors in player cities is crucial. Player cities shouldn't just be locations to defend and siege, they should centers of player trade and while this may happen to some extent regardless; a little trade support would go a long way. Stockable vendors, price settings, buy orders, sell orders, taxation, and the ability to flag your city as a trade location on the world map are all features that would go a long way towards allowing crafters to make a niche for themselves in the world.

2c. City Building

Like Magic, not enough is really known about city building at this point. The costs vs rewards of city building remain, for the most part, a mystery (unless you include what has been said in the past, but not tested). There have been some good posts on the subject but until this system is more thoroughly tested its difficult to say what really needs to be changed, if anything.

3. Exploration/The World

The world of Darkfall is unequivocally one of the game's greatest strengths. That said, it needs to be more populated with both players and monsters. This should be solved by release so its not a great concern, but it still bears mentioning. Agon is big enough to have plenty of interesting locations but not so big that it will lack for player conflict.

3a. Travel

This a point of some contention mostly due to the fact that its paradigm shift for the majority of MMO players. Ever since the stamina consumption was reduced for mounts there should be no real issue for players wanting to travel across the world. Many players are taking issue with traveling long distances but there are as many cons with quick travel as there are pros. Whatever kind of recall/gate system the game will include (its been mentioned often but the details seem hazy) hopefully it won't shrink the world into a few points of interest that become all most players see of the game.

3b. Monster Spawns/PvE

As mentioned earlier the world needs a bit denser monster population but this is reportedly on the way (and already happening). Not a lot denser, its good to see as many players running around as monsters but there are some barren stretches of land that could use populating, as everyone is no doubt aware. Beyond spawns there are some serious issues with PvE in DF. The monsters are too hard in most situations. The group I play with has been able to kill absolutely everything we've come across (minus the Dragon) but only as ten people. Trying to fight monsters that drop weapons below my skill level even 3v1 is an impossible chore without exploiting the AI. Assuming the AI is tweaked to avoid being exploited its going to take serious group efforts to take down everything above the starter monsters (kobolds, trolls, gnolls etc.). Again, to use a specific example; myself and 2 other players all decked out in plate and chain fought one beastman chieftain (with good weapons and 40-50+ weapon skill) and had we not run away we would have been defeated easily. The amount of hit points even moderate monsters have seems outrageously high compared to the amount of damage a player can take. This is similar to Ultima Online, and sadly this is one area where it would be good to not emulate UO. UO PvE was bad, no one ever really talks about how much they loved the challenge of killing earth elementals or harpies- so making the PvE a bit more approachable would be a great place to start. If solo or small groups players have 30 weapon skill, good armor and an appropriate weapon they should be able to tackle monsters that drop gear at their level.

4. General

Everything else.

4a. Skill System

Everything from 'its perfect' to 'grindfest' has been posted in regards to the skill system. One of the biggest complains about skill gains are that the effects aren't very noticeable. The term 'instant gratification' gets tossed around a lot but its probably fair to say that after weeks of playing without a wipe there are still players who feel they have gotten nowhere. These complaints are probably symptomatic of Darkfall's topheavy skill system. Low to medium high (0-70 skill) level skills see very modest differences where some skills have been reported to surge at 99+ (Mana missile does 14 damage at 50, 75, then 26+ at 99). Some players will undoubtedly support this system as it strongly favors 'specialization' over a smattering of decent skill levels, but it will greatly damage the average player's sense of accomplishment. Is there a balance reason for mana missile to double in effectiveness over the course of a single skill point? It's almost as if Aventurine has made artificial skill 'levels' instead of the organic skill system many fans expected. The disparity between high skill and maxed skill is probably too extreme in the current system. The majority of players seem to favor a more natural progession to skill caps over the curren top-heavy incarnation which will greatly favor veteran players over new ones because new players will have a very steep hill to climb before they start seeing significant returns on their time investment.

4b. Audio

If the world is one of Darkfall's strongest aspects, Audio is probably one of its weakest. A total overhaul of audio (with the possible exception of footstep sounds) would make a lot of players happy. Most of it just seems low quality, hashed together, or presented badly. Some audio levels still need to be tweaked (as the guard tower hit volume was lowered recently). The biggest problem is how the directional audio doesn't always work properly. Sometimes it seems to 'stick' and when you turn to a different direction you are still hearing sounds from where you originally heard them. The directional audio issue needs to be resolved asap, the rest can probably be improved later in retail without bothering too many people.

4c. Newbie Weapons

In a full loot game newbie weapons should be absolute garbage. Unfortunately, they aren't. They're quite effective and while you certainly take a damage penalty by not using an appropriately skilled weapon it would be fair to say that the difference between low skill weapons and newbie weapons is very small. If a normal 0.0 skill weapon deals 100% damage (based on the aforementioned damage scaling) newbie weapons should be dealing something like 50% damage. Newbie weapons are never at risk of being lost or decaying. Its silly to even include 0.0 skill weapons in the game when players can equip a newbie sword, bow, and staff to cover every dimension of Darkfall combat with a few one time payments (that are easily affordable). Also, note that the above example would apply an effectiveness penalty to magic as well. Lesser Magic should not get a free ride just because you have to level an individual skills (mana missile/Heal Self) alongside the main one. Ideally, a naked player of one skill specialization should be just as dangerous as a naked player of another skill specialization. This is a very important system that should not be overlooked before and immediately following release. A great deal of naked rushing will be stopped by making newbie weapons less effective, and along with greater disparity between light armored players and no armor we should see, at the very least, people forced to waste basic gear if they want to have any impact on a fight.

4d. Animations

The general consensus seems to be that Darkfall animations need some work. This is a pretty cut and dry topic so the only thing worth mentioning is that when and if the animations are updated it would be a great opportunity to add the swing styles from the melee combat section.

 

Overall DF has a great foundation and personally, I enjoy the game a lot. I will be pre-ordering/buying it for release. All MMOs (especially at release) are works in progress and DF should always be treated no differently. Its core systems need to be fleshed out a bit and of course many things will need tweaking so that some semblance of balance is reached at the end game. The client is incredibly stable for a beta (I've played a dozen MMO beta's and including almost every major one and DF takes the cake on this front), the combat is world's apart from the industry norm (which is great for everone like myself who is tired of getting more of the same), and the world is the first in a long time that I've genuinely wanted to explore. Even Eve, which has set an excellent example as a Sandbox MMO, failed to make a World/Galaxy/Universe that I actually cared about exploring. Aventurine has a tough job ahead of them. "Listening to their players" sounds really good on paper but in reality there is a tremendous amount of disagreement towards how things should be. In my opinion, they should stick as closely as possible to how they are already doing things and focus on the players who already like the game, but want to see it improved - vs. the players who don't like the game and want to see it changed.

DFO Manifesto - Beta Build 119, two weeks prior to release

Darkfall Online: US & European Launch on February 25th?

There was a post on the official Forums about a Google translated Greek page. The rough translation says that the game is supposed to be released on 25. February 2009 and having a subscription fee of ~14 EUR (no info on US prices). However this information wasn't confirmed yet by Aventurine.

14 EUR seems a bit high, not even Mythic/Electronic Arts dared to charge 14 EUR (even though they announced that Warhammer Online is going to be "cost more" than the current MMOs).

However it's yet unknown if you have to buy a retail version for 30-40$ like it's usual with other MMOs. Just let's hope the money will be worth it after the recent Siegesystem which are somewhat alarming and if the release date is true, there is almost no time to address this issues and many others. 

Mythic already did a fatal error pushing their half-done game (2/3 of the endgame was missing, 4 out of 6 towns and 4 out of 24 classes were cut off from the released version and even now, almost 5 months later, the missing content is not in yet, only 2 out of 4 missing classes) and let themselves fool by Blizzards Wrath of the Lich King release.

The result for Mythic was that from 800.000 registered accounts (out of 1.2 million sold copies) ended with only 300.000 subscribers when EA published their annual report at February 3rd. Against beta testers demand to delay the game for another 6 months at least, EA pushed for an overhasty rush if the game in order to release it before Blizzards Wrath of the Lich King, which was a big mistake. Most people quitted a few months later, because they where to busy to with World of Warcraft.

Had they released the game 4-6 months later, they'd had much more time to finish the game instead of releasing a half-done work and could have grabbed some of the people who cleared World of Warcraft's thin content within the first 4-6 weeks and are bored now.

Aventurine, don't do the same mistake! We've seen two big MMOs failed lately because they rushed in order to release their game before Blizzard did (either Expansion or big content patch) and both failed miserably! Take some time, fix the bugs, fix the serious issue and deliver us the old school PvP game we all want!

Darkfall Online: Leaked Beta Patchnotes Build 119

Finally a somewhat bigger patch was released. This one is currently 380 big.

Have fun!

• The bug that would freeze the GUI have been fixed
• Bug where text on the HUD would be clipped (like player names) after a resolution change has been fixed
• The bug where the chat box would get focus after pressing a hotkey for a window (e.g. the map) has been fixed
• Fix for a bug where you would get extra speed if you swam along the bottom
• Swim skill will now skill up again
• Some bugged quests have been fixed
• Bug where you would lose footstep sounds after a respawn has been fixed
• Timed quests will now display their countdown timer
• Small graphics update to crafting window
• Sync issues have been worked through and fixed. The problem of players jumping around on your screen should be severely reduced. We need your help to verify this
• More fixes has been done to the Clan and Journal window. If you still can't see them, please send us a bugreport with logs. (Also give it some time, since we are running in debug mode)
• Holes and inconsistencies in the world have been fixed
• Monster spawn rate has been increased and number of
• Monsters in spawns has been increased.
• A.I. has been tweaked
• Changes to the chat system:
• /tell has been enabled as an alias for /msg
• /clan has been enabled as an alias for /say_clan
• /officers has been enabled as an alias for /say_clan_officers
• /party has been enabled as an alias for /say_party
• Global chat has been disabled for players
• /race has been enabled. This will send a chat message to all members of your race
• /alliance has been enabled. This will send a chat message to all members of your racial alliance. (e.g. a human using it will send a message to Humans, Dwarves and Mirdains. An Ork using it will send a message to Orks and Mahirims. )
• /calliance has been enabled. This will send a chat message to all Clans where both your clan and the other clan has declared each other as Allies

Changes to damage, consummation of reagents and more has occured in these spells:

• Blast in Lesser Magic has been tweaked
• Eldritch Sphere in Lesser Magic has been tweaked
• Heal Self in Lesser Magic has been tweaked
• Health to Mana in Lesser Magic has been tweaked
• Lay On Hands in Lesser Magic has been tweaked
• Mana Missile in Lesser Magic has been tweaked
• Mana to Stamina in Lesser Magic has been tweaked
• Stamina to Health in Lesser Magic has been tweaked
• Flesh Curse in Greater Magic has been tweaked
• Frailty in Greater Magic has been tweaked
• Heal Other in Greater Magic has been tweaked
• Infliction Shield in Greater Magic has been tweaked
• Infliction Ward in Greater Magic has been tweaked
• Missile Fury in Greater Magic has been tweaked
• Rend in Greater Magic has been tweaked
• Shrapnel in Greater Magic has been tweaked
• Venom in Greater Magic has been tweaked
• Firebolt in Fire Magic has been tweaked
• Dragon Breath in Fire Magic has been tweaked
• Fireball in Fire Magic has been tweaked
• Inferno in Fire Magic has been tweaked
• Ball Lightning in Air Magic has been tweaked
• Acid Arrow in Earth Magic has been tweaked
• Icicle in Water Magic has been tweaked
• Disease in Witchcraft Magic has been tweaked
• Exhaust in Witchcraft Magic has been tweaked
• Insect Swarm in Witchcraft Magic has been tweaked
• Palsy in Witchcraft Magic has been tweaked
• Pestilence in Witchcraft Magic has been tweaked
• Sluggish in Witchcraft Magic has been tweaked
• Stupidity in Witchcraft Magic has been tweaked
• Some magic schools has had their charging effect tweaked
• Updates to the world (Worldbuilding)
• Several fixes to rare client crashes
• We turned off more heavy logging and verification on the client side. Do, however, bear in mind that we are still running servers + clients in debug mode.

Darkfall Online: Leaked Beta Patchnotes Build 117

 

A new patch has been released.

Fixes and updates in this patch includes:

 

• An exploit where a player could sprint for a very long time has been fixed
• Gold requirement for crafting Repair Shards has been removed
• All monsters was dumbed down as a test in the last patch. This has been reversed
• Many monsters will now respawn faster
• Some of the lag problems that some players experienced have been fixed
• Some rare client crashes have been fixed
• Several world building updates
• More monster loot has been added

Darkfall Online: Leaked Beta Patchnotes Build 116

More patchnotes, this build was just a small one

This is mainly a build to fix some harvesting issues that was introduced in build 115

In addition this has been fixed:

• Number of reagents for casting Eldritch Sphere in Lesser Magic has been reduced
• Spell Description for Lay On Hands has been updated
• Heavy duty logging has been reduced more to prevent FPS drop

Darkfall Online: Leaked Beta Patchnotes Build 115

Some patchnotes for your guys who're interested in what's got changed in the last few builds

A new patch has been released.
This is mainly to address some server issues, but a couple of other things managed to get in.

Fixes and updates in this patch includes:

 

• Lay On Hands in Lesser Magic has been fixed so you can't parry it.
• Lightning Bolt in Air Magic has been tweaked
• Run skill has been fixed so it skills up much faster
• You can now skill up in crouch, so that you can sneak up on your enemies at a faster pace
• Block/Parry will now skill up a bit faster
• If there are any errors when starting the game, they should all be reported back to you
• The problem some testers experienced with stuttering should now be much better. (We are doing some heavy duty logging on the client to catch the last few remaining client side bugs)
• An transparency slider has been added to all GUI windows, so that you can choose transparency level of each individual window
• Updates to the world

Darkfall Online: Orc Fortress Assault Video

Another Video... this one shows an Orc sneaking into the fortress and attacking some of the NPCs there. Also a few interesting comments about the NPC AI.

Darkfall Online: Siegesystem Information Leaked!!!

Finally the more interesting information are leaking (from internal Betatest Forums, which show us some insight of the more advanced and organized Guild-vs-Guild (GvG) PvP.

First report is from a group of players who tried to raid the city. Some very interesting (and some alarming) information can be taken out of this report, but first read on:

First, we were bored so we decided to siege a close by city, mainly looking for a fight, but also just to see what things were like.

There were no siege weapons, we went in with 13 or so people the defenders showed up with 1 hour left on the count down, they had 6 or 7 I think.

Once we started fighting inside the city limits the battle timer began, it was a three hour count down.

My first comment is that it will be impossible for attackers to win these battles with anything short of a MASSIVE numerical advantage.

While we technically outnumbered the defenders, in reality the dynamics of the system meant that they outnumbered us. They respawned with full stamina and full health 10-15 seconds away from the fight. In effect that allowed them to have an unlimited force to fight us. While we had a 5-6 minute run when they were able to suicide gank someone, they were back in action in a matter of seconds.

This isn't a total shock we know that people respawn with full stamina/hp already but in a siege this HAS to change.

This kills and deaths really don't matter in this situation. That said we probably took 10 deaths total, and I have no idea how many times they suicided into us, 30+ at the very least.

To attack structures you can't just club them down, you have to actually have special siege weapons. That was one of our goals and we confirmed it.

If the current spawn mechanics stay in game for sieges, the battles will go something like this.

Attackers will launch attacks from either their city or a chaos stone. Defenders will bind into the city, excess will bind at a nearby city or chaos stone. The defenders in the city will simply zerg into the besieging force keeping pressure on and expending stamina. The excess defenders will either defend inside the city as a mop up crew, or attack the attackers externally. Losses won't matter on the defenders side because by killing them you simply strengthen their position and weaken yours. You expend stamina/consumables/health while you simply give them a free refresh.

Sieges NEED to be decisive battles, not endless bind rushes. Once a city is cracked open and assaulted really the defenders should be able to make A (singular) last stand, not continue to spawn and rush until the attackers are worn down.

In any case it was amusing.

We hope, the developers will address some of this issues, especially the instant respawn thing with full stamina which will make it quite hard to siege anything without an numerical advantage of 3:1 at least in a reasonable amount of time.

Next leaked thread is directly related to the one posted above, with some suggestion/comparison to Shadowbane's siege system (Shadowbane was a great game, but it failed due to bad support and many bugs, how Aventurine won't do the same mistake).

Please refer to this thread:

the link is the text above

Shadowbane's siege system worked. Here are several simple solutions to make Darkfall's work.

1. When a city is under siege, resurrecting at the clan stone comes with a five minute timer on regening health and stamina. This prevents endless bind rushing and allows the attacker to gain ground. It could be two minutes or one minute, the point is allow the attacker to gain ground.

2. Get rid of this piece of shit shard system and go back to the gloomer. Dropping rocks in Shadowbane worked. Allow each side to beat the other side's siege engine down to some degree.

3. THREE HOUR SIEGE WARNING CURRENTLY?
Install Shadowbane siege system with a siege timer where the defender elects when they want to defend their city within a 72 hour time period. This stops 3am raids and ends up having far more primetime Epic Battles. The current system will simply have people raiding at 3am.

This is the part of your game that will keep people interested. Sieging is the most important feature to 90 percent of the guilds here. If you cannot have sieging done in a fair and fun manner, that bodes poorly for Darkfall.

I hope others agree.

This sounds quite reasonable, especially the respawn timer idea. Well I have another suggestion too, which is taken from Lineage II siege system and is very good in my opinion. In Lineage II the defenders would respawn inside the castle (if they belong to the defending factions alliance or clan who owned it) and there were some a few crystals which regulated the respawn timers. At the begin, respawn is like 1 min and as more crystals get destroyed by the attackers the respawn goes up to 5 min.

Additionally to that, the attackers had to place a banner somewhere inside the siege zone. The banner would be their respawn point. The clue: The banner was destroyable. So if the defender destroy them, the attacker of this clan have to walk a big way back when they die. This also adds an additional layer of strategy to the siege, as the attackers also have to take care and defend their "camp" instead of rushing with every single person to the city/keep to siege it and it prevents from defenders to barricade inside the city and wait for the attackers (if defenders come out and go for the banner of the attacker, it would make defending much easier if enemy has to run 5 minutes until they are back at the city ;))

The last leaked thread/post is about the beta testers feelings about the current state of the beta and shows how unhappy some of them are and it also gives you an idea how costly such a war declaration can be.

Darkfall Online: Information on Stamina Regeneration

There are some information leaked on how the stamina regeneration system works.

 

I have done some experiments on how fish (the only food I can currently reproduce) affects stamina regen.

All numbers are relative as people have different stamina bars, different resting skills and so on. Since it's hard to measure exact numbers (need to keep track of stop watch, perfectly drained stamina bar, eating food and using the sit skill) these are rounded off, but they are pretty accurate still. Not trying to prove anything, complain or suggest. Just sharing the data.

• My full bar of stamina is 236.
• My resting skill is just above 30.

These are the fish types I've tried, they all increase stamina regeneration by the same amount:

• Cooked cod - Lasts for 120 seconds | Regens 120 stamina in that time
• Grilled swordfish - Lasts for 120 seconds | Regens 120 stamina in that time
• Tasty herring - Lasts for 120 seconds | Regens 120 stamina in that time
• Smoked salmon - Lasts for 120 seconds | Regens 120 stamina in that time
• Cooked Trout - Lasts for 120 seconds | Regens 120 stamina in that time
• Smoked Bass - Lasts for 120 seconds | Regens 120 stamina in that time

While standing up without any food, I regen 60 stamina in 120 seconds.
While resting without any food, I regen 120 stamina in 120 seconds.

While standing up and eating fish, I regen 120 stamina in 120 seconds.
While resting and eating fish, I regen 120 stamina in 120 seconds.

• Stamina regen with fish (standing/walking): 1 stamina/second
• Stamina regen with fish (resting): 1 stamina/second
• Stamina regen without fish (resting): 1 stamina/second
• Stamina regen without fish (standing/walking): 0.5 stamina/second

It seems the stamina regeneration bonus from fish doesn't add to the resting bonus, in fact resting and not eating (or eating, for that matter) gives the same regeneration rate as walking/standing around and eating. Don't waste your fish sitting down!

As we'll see, the regeneration isn't quite the fastest one, as it seems stamina will be an important attribute to care of. As for all who don't know: You need stamina for all actions in Darkfall, like Sprint, Block, Cast or wield with a weapon. No Stamina basically means, you're dead because you're unable to do anything!

Darkfall Online: A Beta Leakers PvP Experience Report

There is another report from a guy who has written down his today's PvP experience into a short report to show you how a usual day could looks like in Darkfall Online:

It started of by me getting griefed by two people after I had just thought a mob, which led to me using one of the guys to sort of shield me off from the other guys magic/attacks and I took one of them down and then went on to the next, I took him down to half his HP but then died.

So I went back there, found a really cool hinding place behind a castle wall and started launching mana missles at one guy, little did I know that the guy I was launching missiles at had another 2 guys with him...bad move for me.

It took them a couple of mins to find me but when they did they were throwing everything at me...arrows..missiles, so I started to run jumping over the wall under the water around the corner and behind a rock which led to me loosing them...phew.

A bit later I came across an area which had some skellies, zombies and a little way up some Mercian brawlers which had some nice armor (well it was better than being naked) and also a decent sword.

I killed them for an hour or so and finally got a lvl 25 skill in lesser magic..Eldritch missile here I come!

I thought I'd call it a day and head back to Heart of Eanna to place my new items in my vault....or so I thought, just as I start putting my cash in I start getting whacked on from behind.

I thought to myself..ah the Guard Tower will have him, down to half health...mmm why do I not hear the awful zapping sound fron the guard tower? So then I started to panic.

So I started grabbing all my banded mail and chucking it in the safe, then my cash followed by the weapon (down to 1/4 health now) off came the boots.....then...I died ; ;

Thankfully I didn't lose much other than my viking looking hat 

So I respawn and what do I see the same guy parading his new hat around outside the vault.

I'm not going to stand for that I thought to myself so I started whacking on him...zap...zap...zap...dead. WTF?!?!?

So after all that I had quite the night and to top it off Eldritch missile looks crappy.

Here's a screenie of the area I was fighting the Mercians, the zombies and skellies were through the little arch way.

World of Warcraft: Intense Cold Achievement Exploit

If you're a movement retard and can't move out or your healer simply sucks and can't dispel quickly enough, this little trick may be something for you (although, Intense Cold is one of the easiest achievements out of there)

Usually you get a debuff if you don't move while fighting Keristrasza, the last boss encounter in Nexus. In order to complete this achievement, you shouldn't have more than 2 stacks of the debuff at any time during the fight. This can be quite tricky, as Keristrasza can cast Frost Nova trapping the player and preventing him to move. If it's not dispelled quickly, you could gain more than two stacks and the achievement is failed for you.

If you stay outside of the doorway before she Frost Novas you, you don't get the debuff. After she yells, run in and do damage for ~10-15 seconds then run out again and repeat this until she's done.

World of Warcraft: Ganking people on flying mounts (Mage, Shaman)

If you want to gank some people you don't like and you're a mage or shaman, you can easily do this by flying next to them, then dismounting and use one of the follow skills:

• Mage: Blast Wave (you can use Slow Fall, Ice Block, Blink to avoid death)
• Shaman: Thunderstorm (you can use something like Engineering Slow Fall or similar effect which will lower your fall speed or dismount people where you don't get too much fall damage and finish them off on the ground)

Have fun ganking, before Blizzard fixes it

World of Warcraft: Things you can do while Hexed

Hex behaves differently than any other Crowd Control (CC) effects. There are several things you can do while you're Hexed.

Confirmed

• Bandage
• Use potions
• Shadowmeld
• Drop totems (Shaman)
• Vanish (Rogue)
• Sprint (Rogue)
• Healthstone (Warlock)
• Weapon swapping
• Trinkets

Unconfirmed

• Spell Reflection (Warrior)
• Intervene (Warrior)
• Evasion (Rogue)

World of Warcraft: Capping Flags and Graveyards in Battlegrounds as Frog exploit (PvP)

There is a little nasty exploit which will make it much easier for you to win a battlegrounds. It works in Arathi Basin and Alterac Valley (basically everywhere where you can capture something by using it). All you need are two things:

• Mojo vanity Pet (you can receive it in Zul'Aman by turning in ...)
• This Macro
  /target mojo
/kiss mojo

Now when ever you want to cap a flag or other battleground objective, put your Mojo out and use this macro. What it will do is, to turn you into a frog. As the frog is so small its hard to target or see it. It allows you easily to capture the flag, especially if you're fighting against random enemies.

Darkfall Online: Latest Darkfall Beta Leak Videos

There are the latest 5 videos I've found about Darkfall Online Beta. Not much to say, watch and enjoy.

Darkfall Waterfall Village

Darkfall Sunny Trees

Darkfall Wicked Forest

Darkfall Ship

Darkfall Alfar Gate

World of Warcraft: Become Invisible exploit (Any class/race)

Did you ever wanted to sneak up on your enemies and gank them and always having the surprise on your side? You're not a Mage or Rogue? No Problem. With this little exploit, it's possible to become invisible with any class/race.

It can be done in 4 easy steps:

1. Make or by some Savory Deviate Delight (similar effects may work too, untested)
2. Do the quest chain Need to Know which leads to The Perfect Dissemblance located in Dragonblight
3. Use Banshee's Magic Mirror (The Quest item) on an Onslaught Raven Priest which grants you a Raven Priest costume
4. Now eat the Savory Deviate Delight and you will become invisible, only your shadow will still be there

Now have fun ganking other players.

P.S. This only works in Dragonblight

Update: If you're mage, you can Polymorph the Priest before using the Mirror and then you'll be a Sheep/Black Cat/Pig/Serpent/Turtle instead of a priest. Quite funny!

World of Warcraft: Nice AoE-Grinding Spot in Borean Tundra

In Borean Tundra at coordinates 68,49 there are boats with level 68 mobs called "Kvaldir Raiders". There are two boats which are very close to each other. The respawn is less than 90 seconds. If you manage to pull both together and bomb them.

There are 2x 5 Mobs which give 800 XP each, which is 8.000 XP unrested or 16.000 XP rested, which results in 320.000 XP/hour unrested or 640.000 XP/hour rested. Which is great, as this is almost 50% XP necessary for one level.

Best of all: If you just sit there, the mobs will run past you, so you can sit down next to them without the risk that they will supprise your while you're resting.

Wups! Misspelled "Word of Warcraft"-Tag

I'm sorry, for some reason the label was called "Word of Warcraft" instead of "World of Warcraft".

So I updated all the tags, but since a few pages are linking to this Label, this here serves as information an redirection.

The correct label is of course World of Warcraft.

World of Warcraft: Free Abyss Crystals

There is one little trick where you can get some Abyss Crystals for free. Well actually it should be common sense, but maybe some people don't know it yet, as it wasn't possible in the past.

Long story short: You can disenchant badge items and they will always grant at least one Abyss Crystal. Best is to buy Lillehoff's Winged Blades as it only costs 15x Emblem of Heroism.

If you're enchanter, this is a better money making alternative than Frozen Orbs, as latter ones sell on most servers for only as less as 30-45g while Abyss Crystal sells for 80-100g.

World of Warcraft: Mousecloner for Multiboxer!

A while ago a new Tool for Multiboxers was released, which will clone the Mouse movement. Michael Sacco posted some information about MouseCloner. The tool was originally developed by Tim Sullivan, the former CEO and partner of WoWHead.com.

Original post:

Now here's a subject with my name written all over it. Those of you who followed my exploits over on the official forums will likely remember my responses to multiboxing questions with a nice, clear stance on what Blizzard does and doesn't support with regard to multiboxing tools. It was good for the multiboxing community -- and bad for anti-multiboxing trolls -- to have readily-available blue responses to those kinds of important questions. Even Tom Chilton (a.k.a Kalgan) has come out in support of the practice.

For those of you unfamiliar with it, multiboxing is the act of playing more than one WoW account/client at the same time. There have historically been a number of programs used by multiboxers that help with client-switching or keybinding to make controlling two or more accounts easy.

Now, as a boon to multiboxers everywhere, former Wowhead CEO Tim Sullivan has released MouseCloner. To quote his site, "Mousecloner is an application that enables you to 'replicate' mouse commands on your desktop with the simple pressing of a single key. The pressing of 1 keystroke can activate single mouse movements and clicks on seperate instances of World of Warcraft." It follows in the spirit of the "one action per keypress per account" policy that Blizzard has publicly expressed many times.

What's refreshing about this as compared to a lot of other multiboxing aids is that Mr. Sullivan has made a great effort to make sure that every function of the program is in accordance with Blizzard policies. He's even compiled a list of Blizzard responses on the website for those who're concerned about its validity, and states that if a feature of the program comes under fire by Blizzard at any time, they'll immediately remove it.

I'm not a multiboxer myself, surprisingly -- I'm pretty universally terrible at it -- and I haven't tried MouseCloner, but having a developer focused both on obeying Blizzard policy and helping players is a nice change and I hope he gets a lot of support for it.

Update: Despite evidence that Blizzard was okay with this app, on the Customer Service forums, Malkorix tells users he "strongly advises shying away from this program." Use it at your own risk, folks.

Update 2: The folks behind MouseCloner have informed us that while the app did originally use "prerecorded x/y coordinates" (which is what Malkorix found a problem with), they have specifically recoded the app to use only mouse position, in order to stay away from questions about scripting. To our (and their) best knowledge, the app is safe to use, but as always, you use third-party programs with your client at your own risk. You can find more information and ask more questions on the Mousecloner forums.

As seen in the bluepost responses, this opens door widely to legal botting. Blizzard won't, at least for the moment, do anything about it. But beware: Blizzard could at any point change their Term of Service to disallow it, after all the tool is automating all additional WoW Clients. Technically it's against the ToS, just Blizzard doesn't seem to care about as long as you pay for it.

Darkfall Online: Two Screenshots and a few new Videos

A beta leaker discovered this, while exploring the world. It looks like a big castle or city, pretty impressive!

 

 

The first 2 Videos showing Dual-Wield Combat

And some Exploration Videos (I'll add them as simple links, otherwise the whole post would become a bit hard to see and loading times will become annoying):

• Exploration 1
• Exploration 2
• Exploration 3
• Exploration 4
• Exploration 5
• Exploration 6
• Exploration 7
• Exploration 8
• Exploration 9
• Exploration 10
• Exploration 11