F13.net Interview with Claus - Monday May 03

[Tasos]

F13.net, formerly Waterthread, conducted an interview, and has set up an online discussion with Claus.

You can read the interview HERE (http://www.f13.net/2.php?subaction=showfull&id=1083586002&archive=&start_from=&ucat=2&)
You can participate in the F13.net discussion HERE (http://www.f13.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=425)

[^J^]

"Players tend to organize themselves into primitive tribal communities within the games they play."

Claus! It's called IRC! ;)

Great interview though!

[Andonis]

Thanks for the link Tasos and its great to see some more interveiws come up!

[Gaintlord]

Cool!!! Always good to see a good interview done by claus

Though wish claus will stop by IRC and say a little hello :)

[Jax]

Dont know if i like the part about the part about the limited building destruction. It sounds like it could just be a method of control that sounds good in theory (i.e. waking up every morning without a bank). Will be interesting to see how that works out. I guess that would all depend on how long it takes to get a gloomer activated.

[Darkmatter]

CG: Darkfall is currently in internal testing, and we are slowly gearing up for external play testing. We are in a fortunate position financially, and having a knowledgeable and understanding community, we're able to take the time to try and get everything right before we release the game.

Why, thank you. :)


Good interview.

[Phooey]

Awesome interview! I love it when I check these boards and there's a nice new interview to read. :D

[Falstaff]

I think the reasons he stated for only letting you destroy a few buildings at a time are good ones. But maby there should be a few types of buildings that can be destroyed as much as you want. They could be ones that are easy to build and cheap. That way you get to express your need for large scale destruction by destroying many small structures and a few big ones, but the guild you conquered still wont have too much rebuilding to do after they kick you out of their city.

[Kito]

I thought the discussion of ingame politics was especially nice. Providing the tools for government and managment and letting the players run themselves has only been (to my knowledge) in Dark Ages (not DAoC). The political systems of that game are chaotic at times, but they work. It is also democratic, with many checks and balances. I think the devs should take a look at the site of the man behind that system, Dave Kennerly ( http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~kennerly/game_design/index.html ). Check out the articles on the bottom right, they are very well written and informative. I am looking forward to the social structure of DF more than the combat, and I want it to come out as good as it can!

As for the rest it, in game boards are great. =P And the city destruction idea sounds very sound and reasonable. I do wonder how looting of buildings will work, though. If you raze the bank, will you get a large amount of money right then, or will you be able to loot it as soon as your character breaks into the city and reaches its vaults?

[Dozier]

it was an "ok" interview, nothing really interesting, guess its good to get the word out there about darkfall and all, but i'd rather see more game info

[AkielVonStrife]

It's difficult for me to be positive about this interview after reading that estimated development dates almost always fail, then later reading that Darkfall

[Decius]

Some things have been asked and answered before but it's good to see the devs out chattering about the game and increasing interest.

Claus' comment about not being certain there is a large casual-gamer customer base is good to hear.

It seems that they are sticking to that limited destruction idea though - too bad. As someone on F13.net's boards put it, it would be better to give some very good in-game reasons for not destroying structures than limiting our ability to raze them.

If after the local clanstone is replaced the ownership of captured city assests can be passed to the conquering clan and locksmiths are able to change locks, they'd at least be able to sell those assets to a third party if they choose not to retain control.

Additionally, if the resource conversion buildings (ie- refinery= ore-> ingots) in the captured province aren't a complete repetition of the clan's current assests, they might be worth the effort to keep and protect - especially if they are expensive to make in terms of both time and materials.

[Trip]

^^Yah but if you really think about it back in the day no one spent a month seigeing a castle/town just to burn it down when they got it....they kept it to launch other invastions from until they finally won or it was taken back.

[Veilroth]

After this last update on the website, things have really been happening now. Theres atleast a couple of new things to read about every week. I remember the very first web site outcast, barly anyway, and the second one. Theres no boubt that this one is the best. Thanks for the interview reading.

[Elric[GoD]]

My favorite quote from the interview was this one:

"We plan to release Darkfall within 2004."

Wewt!

[Myrd[SUN]]

see first...
cheer later... :D

[Jangang]

Good interview. Keep em coming, its nice to see things like this while we wait for beta. Glad to hear that its still looking like a '04 release. :ninja: :ninja: :ninja:

[Prime]

I seriously doubt that 2004 release. Claus said that at the end of the interview, sure, but what was he saying through the entire thing? Something along the lines of games shouldn't be rushed through production and if they took their time, there would be a higher quality of games.

[Drax]

Well as i am current reading these boards rather then getting last 40% to level my cleric to lv 40 in Lineage 2. Its a safe bet that i am more interested in darkfall ( a game not even in beta)rather then any other upcoming titles.

I guess part of this is other night after spending good part of 10 levels in same dungeon killing same slow retarded golems primos and other critter of lineage 2. I did a little maths lv 36 to lv 37 i only need to kill 1400 of these mobs @.@. If i spend 10 levels inside cruma tower killing these mobs i have a 1% chance of getting a weapon drop.

So anyway i think Lineage 2 can safely be placed in bin as one the worst time drains of all morphs. Not just because takes time to level up and i would safely say three or four months of power leveling is required to reach the required summit of pvp or guild vs guild warfair. That time frame only would get to basic pvp ready and would still be handicaped by fact higher lv players would own you.

A hard road normaly means that once reach the summit that people look up and say wow that must took some effort. But problem is if takes to much effort people look up and laugh :) at amount of time you wasted.

The reason i am most attracted to Darkfall is simple fact that the game from ground stages is designed as a PvP game. Rather then a game with pvp added on.

No possibilty of EQ2/SWG or any semi pvp enabled games ever holding my interest as flaws of such system are so obvious.

I dont think anyone would expect Darkfall to be perfectly balanced on release its pretty much impossible even under the longest betas to test and retest the countless templates players will develop in the effort to gain an advantage over the other players. But fact the games does not require 100000 billion games hours to reach the pvp rdy stage means that exp players. Will test a lot of combinations in beta stages which is extremely positive.

I just hope that the selected players make the effort to give honest feed back.

Anyway this getting rather long winded and all i wish to say is that each time i check out forums here or news on sight i am more and more excited i surpose is word aboat upcoming beta/developments happening in darkfall :)

[Figrix Voidstar]

Good interview, Claus has always impressed me with his replies to questions regarding the state of mmorpg's and what makes them fun/worthwhile. Hopefully these ideas and visions will have the same amount of effort making them come true invested as they do genius.

[Spawl]

I love interviews. They give alot of insight into some things even beyond the actual descriptions.

I have one question though. Why not set up an interview about Darkfall, given by Darkfall fans? Take in questions for a period of time, sort through them, pick a few, compose your answers, and post them all. I think this is a good way to elaborate on things you would like to get out there and also allow you to control the information flow.

Not only that, but it would get us fans involved a bit more as well.

[Bothil]

ROCK, I love new interviews

[Calypso]

I hope they dont put too much emphasis on city owning, because thats what made shadowbane suck so bad (aside from tech issues), city building took time away from exploration and pvp skirmishes. I hope a clan can survive on a clanheadquarters surrounded by a wall as well any larger city can with all the different buildings available ( in terms of offering what players need for regular play). The only reward larger cities should have is its a bit safer for its public and its a good source of income or resources.


I think if it takes so many of various resources to build a city thats how the damage should be calculated - by the amout and type of resource needed to repair it to 100%. So if it takes say 200 units of stone and 100 units of wood to build a section of a city wall if the wall is damaged 10% over 2 hours of light assault and for whatever reason the attackers fled the city would need 20 units of stone and 10 units of wood and 1 hour to repair it to 100%.

That way attackers even by failing there objective still managed to hurt that city economically. If they new that city wasnt getting any supplies they know its only a matter of time before they cant repair that wall and can start to occupy the city and eventually claim it under there rule. But by taking there time they also save themselves the problem of having to use there resources to rebuild all the damage they did themselves. Going this way would eliminate the need for bane circle opps I mean siege forts and if it would smooth out any benefit of 3 am raiding.

[B-Prime]

I love interviews. They give alot of insight into some things even beyond the actual descriptions.

I have one question though. Why not set up an interview about Darkfall, given by Darkfall fans? Take in questions for a period of time, sort through them, pick a few, compose your answers, and post them all. I think this is a good way to elaborate on things you would like to get out there and also allow you to control the information flow.

Not only that, but it would get us fans involved a bit more as well.
An interview done by Darkfall fans about Darkfall would jusy yield a bunch of softball dev felating questions that would be given vague answers to, because you people will swallow anything the Darkfall Devs say.

I thought the f13 interview was pretty good, but it sounded a bhit like you were just saying the things that the f13 posters wanted to hear. Nice job though. Getting pissed of jaded cynic gamers(like those on f13 and corpnews) to play and enjoy your game can really help spread good word of mouth advertising and make your game mroe successful, same with doing what you can to get a lot of the big multi-game guilds to come over. For example, I bought CoH and am playing it because of the gloing reviews and songs of praise that were coming from rant sites about it.

[Xkiller]

Very Very cool interview, Happy as can be to see this (We plan to release Darkfall within 2004)

[Requiamer]

Claus' comment about not being certain there is a large casual-gamer customer base is good to hear.


I guess he could just take the % of player over 28/30 years old, or just evaluate the impact those players have on a MMo, which its not hard because im sure he is over 28 ;)

[Decius]

I guess he could just take the % of player over 28/30 years old, or just evaluate the impact those players have on a MMo, which its not hard because im sure he is over 28 ;)

An MMOG development company might want to soften some parts of their game to appeal to the hordes of people wanting play for 3 hours a week and could ruin a lot of its most entertaining aspects.

This is why I liked comment Claus made about being unsure such a horde exists.

[B-Prime]

An MMOG development company might want to soften some parts of their game to appeal to the hordes of people wanting play for 3 hours a week and could ruin a lot of its most entertaining aspects.

This is why I liked comment Claus made about being unsure such a horde exists.
The problem with this kind of concept is that it won't work. Niches are the future of MMOGs, especially from less than filthy fucking rich dev houses and publishers that don't have the marketing or distribution power to sell 500,000 units or keep 300,000 subs. Darkfall should aim to be a successful and profitable game that operates on a budget pre-release and gets a return on investment with a healthy number of subs by picking its niche and its target audience, then gearing their game towards that audience.

When a game tries to expand its playerbase too much by trying to market to too diverse an audience, they end up not satisfying anyone because even though they do something for everyone, they don't do any of it well enough.

[Requiamer]

Decius they could also ruin it if they just don't give a shit about them, the last exemple is lineage II, with a game that is so much time consuming it become boring.
Casual players are the old generations, with all the impact it have.

I would like an exemple of an mmo that was ruined because of casual gamers i just can't find one.

Developers implement stupid features to respond to the need of casual gamers (or they want to implement such features in next generation mmos, because nothing was done yet), as instant teleportation, but maybe they just don't know how to make their game interesting enought, except if you wait 24 hours straight to have a good moment.

[lexi]

I'm a MMORPG newbie, lineage 2 was my first. I"m so sick of that game that I can't wait for a relief from the lvl grind. I have a lvl 44+ howler and I don't think i'm ever gonna play it again. The game (although I didn't realize why) is so flawed. Even being a novice at MMORPG's I could tell how crappy the system was. I am looking forward to this breath of fresh air and not having to worry about PvPing someone because you might drop your weapons/armor, which cost about as much as a small downpayment on a house.

All and all, I'd say i'm looking forward to getting selected for the closed beta :)


Shoutout to Elusive for recomending this game/site!

[Elusive]

Lexi is my apprentice ;)