Darkfall issues: Immersion.

[Yakamoz]

I will post here less or more random things which I believe would make Agon feel more immersive and atmospheric. I encourage you to do the same.

Graphics:

I like Darkfall style and I have no complains in that department, maybe except lacking animation and sharp terrain, mountain edges.

Sound:
Lack of world stroke me back in times of beta and unfortunately nothing changed in this subject. When I enter a forest I want to hear birds singing, trees swinging in the wind river rolling down the hill and waterfall cascading. When in mountains or on a desert I want to hear wind, when on a coast waves crashing on the beach line.

Empty, static world:
The world feels empty I would love to see more various types of settlements: mines, farms, fishing villages, trade towns etc. Another problem is mob spawn mechanic, there is many locations in the game where you expect to see a mob spawn, you wait and wait and nothing happens...which leads us to mob spawn rate problem.

Mobs:
basically mobs don't spawn fast enough, it makes a bad impression especially to a new player who doesn't know the spawn locations. Make the mob spawns pop up faster and create more mob spawns around the world. Change the respawn mechanics ! Apart of general respawn timer, looting and skinning the graves should trigger the mob respawn, people don't want to wait 10 minutes for respawn !
Incoming roaming mobs are a step in a good direction. Another more advanced stuff could be mobs hunting players and raiding their settlements, damaging buidlings, attacking people, NPCs etc. It could be handled by creating a mob spawn in a close proximity of a player points of interest to save the hassle of path finding.

Interaction:
The world feels static, not dynamic at all. Example: clan cities they are really static experience: apart of building stage and sieges nothing happens there. They should provide players with more interaction: a need to maintain the cities, fix buildings, running caravans full of general goods like furs, wine, tools, mob raids mentioned before, some roaming NPC guards and general NPCs. Players should be able to get some random, generic quests to take care off their settlements: destroy near by Beastman camp attacking our miners, go to city X and establish a trade agreement - run a caravan once a day to sustain it, create a antidote, a rare potion for a local alchemist etc.
Furthermore a player should be able to leave a foot print by his actions: trade caravans and trade routes established by him should boost taxes from clan cities and villages, mine, farms should yield more resources if you finish quest related to a farm, mine, ignoring mobs raiding a city or a village will lead to damaged buildings, slaughtered NPC population, lower taxes, resources from nodes or even result in mobs conquering the settlement ! More about it here:
http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?t=216813

[Lord Zeb]

Good points.

Also lack "friendly NPC population", there should be Guards and other NPCs roaming around, that players would get Alignment hits and bonuses from killing depending on Race... Would essentially be Mob Spawns that the local players shouldn't attack. ;) And people that would disdain running around with such mobs, can move out to the sub-continents.

To the Graphics area I could however add the following flaws limiting immersion:

Moon is visible below the water surface, like it was an entity that shone through both earth and water.


Trees swaying like reeds, where the trunk of the trees should be sturdier, and the leaves of the trees and the slimmer parts is what should be moving.


No panoramic views due to graphics engine limiting range of vision. Think that if one is standing on a peak, one should get a grand view of the world. (Graphics engine should pan out if one is at high altitudes with unusued graphics capacity.)

[Aristos]

Great suggestions.

However I think the most vital factor in increasing immersion would be environmental sound like you suggested. It shouldn't be too overdone though, because you still want to be able to hear someone's footsteps if you're beside a river. However, if you're standing beside a waterfall you shouldn't be able to hear hardly anything and no one should be able to hear you either.

Also, please please please add sound effects to weather. I want to hear thunder and the wind pick up before it starts raining, and maybe add some lightning here and there too =]