About Darkfall and This Guide
What is all this jibber jabber?
This is not a Walkthrough
This guide is not a step-by-step hold-your-hand-through-every-detail walkthrough. Each race and each starting area for each race is different. To detail every single step would require 18 different guides.
I am not going to go into detail about each and every function of the user interface, or tell you exactly what to do with your time in the world of Darkfall.
If you need your hand held through each and every step with exact locations of towns, vendors, goblins, and resource nodes, stop reading right now. Uninstall Darkfall, and return it to your local gamestore if you can. Darkfall is not the game for you.
If you like to explore, crave danger, and are seeking a game that offers exciting and meaningful combat, you have come to the right place. Darkfall is a harsh, but rewarding world.
General Tips
* Paranoia is your friend! Bank anything you don’t immediately need on you early and often. You will die a lot at first, and you will lose everything you had on you more than once.
* Don’t trust anybody! People will try to scam you. They will try to jump in front of your attacks to turn you grey. This will allow them to kill you without penalty. They will pull any dirty, underhanded trick in the book to profit at your expense, and sometimes just seeing you suffer is profit enough. Always be on your guard.
* Keep spare gear! When you get an upgraded piece of gear don’t just vendor your old one. At some point you will lose everything you have on you. If you vendored all of your extra gear, you will be left naked. Stockpile a lot of extra gear in the bank. Not just one extra set, many extra sets.
* Save the good stuff! I know it’s tempting to cruise around in that shiny new kit you just looted, but don’t run off solo in it with no consumables. The shinier the gear, the bigger a target you become. Only break out the good stuff when you are running with a group you trust and/or when you have plenty of food/potions with you to help you get away from danger.
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The Interface
WTF is this?
It’s Different
The user interface in Darkfall is very different from what you are used to if you have played World of Warcraft, Warhammer, or other similar games.
As of this writing there is definitely room for improvement. Some windows are slow to load. A lot of tooltips and information could be more clear. Chat windows and slash commands need work.
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BETA NOTE: The devs have listening to the community and reacting rather quickly. It is entirely possible the UI could make great strides where it is lacking by release.
Many actions may seem cumbersome requiring many steps to perform.
The reality of FPS style combat means that your mouse is how you aim. So in order to be able to aim and still enjoy using the mouse for what it was designed (clicking stuff!) you need to switch between modes.
Right-clicking is the default to swap between aim-mode and clicky-mode. Some people like to rebind the mouse-mode-toggle from right click to the Escape key, or their middle mouse button (if they have one).
You don’t use your abilities by hitting their corresponding hotbar button. That only loads them up. Once loaded you need to left click to perform the action.
Holding down the left shift key will make you sprint. This will make your character run faster, but it uses up your stamina.
There are some functional difficulties with having the shift key as your sprint key. While sprinting if you hit one of your hotbar buttons you are actually hitting shift-1 or shift-2. This switches to a different hotbar instead of loading up an action. For this reason it is a good idea to rebind Sprint to something else.
If you moved the mouse-mode-toggle away from your right mouse button as suggested earlier, binding sprint to your right-click is a good way to go.
But It’s Good
All I can say is give the interface time. What may seem cumbersome and frustrating at first will become second nature in just a couple days. This is really a well thought out interface, it’s just very different then what you are used to.
There is a reason your bags are a mess. There is a reason it takes time to loot a tombstone. The first time you polish off some jackass that looked at you funny and you get attacked by some opportunist that came along to find you with a grey (or red) alignment, you will have a choice to make.
You can try to grab what looks good, and run for the hills. Or you can decide you want it all and fight back. Either way standing there while dragging each and every item from the tombstone to your bag is not an option if you want to make it out alive.
At that moment you will appreciate, even if you still don’t like, the fact that there is no auto loot.
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Getting Started
So you’re logged in. What now?
The Clanstone and the Councilor
You will arrive into the world of Darkfall naked, and with only a small crappy sword to your name. Next to you will be the starter town’s Clanstone. This is where you will respawn when you die.
Somewhere nearby is a Councilor. Go talk to him/her. Make sure your weapon is sheathed ('R' key), run up and target him/her and hit your ‘use’ key ('F' key).
The Councilor (and all NPCs) is a combination quest giver, trainer, and vendor. Accept any quests you can from him/her. The Councilor will start you on a quest chain that will take you to a nearby goblin spawn, and run you around town to get acquainted with the various NPCs there.
These quests will get you some gold, and some basic tools to start gathering resources.
WAIT!! Don’t run off to smash some goblins just yet. There are a few things you need to know first.
Little Green Bastards
The quest you got from the Councilor should have put some marks on your map to help you locate those filthy buggers. Hold on, you aren’t just running for the closest marker like a newb are you? Use your brain. Every other nubbie is doing the exact same thing.
If hanging out naked in the woods with a bunch of other clueless naked idiots is your thing, then go for it. But if you want to actually kill some goblins, go to one of the further locations. You will find many more tiny jerks with bad breath to kill.
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BETA NOTE: Not all mob spawns are turned on yet. This includes Newbie Goblin Camps. If you can't find any, move to a different starter town. They are marked on your map.
Forget everything you think you know about fighting monsters in an MMORPG. Your thousands of hours raiding 4 story tall dragons will do you no good against these tiny little buttheads. Goblins are bastards. You will hate them and love them at the same time.
First off, the obvious: you have to manually aim your attacks. No auto-targeting.
Secondly, less obvious: unlike in most other games, these goblins do not want to die. I can’t imagine their pathetic smelly existence is all that great, but it’s all they’ve got, and they don’t want to give it up.
They will run away, they will call in their buddies, they will try to get behind you, and they will lodge arrows in your backside from far, far away if they can see you.
As big of bastards as these goblins are, they don’t cheat like monsters in other games do. Their health won’t rocket back to full as soon as you lose aggro.
You need to unlearn the tendency to stick it out and get that last swing in to finish them off. When you are at 50% health you should be evaluating your escape options, and when you are at 25% health you should be running away like a bitch. Remember, you drop everything you have on you when you die, and anybody can come along and loot your grave before you get back.
Go ahead. Run away. Eat some food. Cast your self heal. Rest up a bit. When you come back that teenie green douche will still be wounded, and you can resume bashing his brains in.
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Spending Wisely and Being Prepared
You should strive to be an economical Boy Scout.
So you’ve killed a couple goblins, you completed a few quests, what should you do with your first few pennies?
1. First 20 Gold -> Get a 2 handed starter weapon. Any NPC will let you swap it out.
2. Next 100 Gold -> Buy an addition starter weapon slot, and use it for a staff so you can always cast spells
3. Next 20 Gold -> Buy a Fishing Pole if you didn’t get one off the Goblins, you can get one from a “Merchant” NPC. Leave this in the bank unless you are using it.
4. Next 200 Gold -> Buy the Herbalism skill. You can get it from an “Arcanist” NPC
5. Next 20 Gold -> Buy a Mortar + Pestle. You can get it from a “Merchant” NPC. Leave this in the bank unless you are using it.
6. Buy some Empty Potion Bottles, you can get them from a “Merchant” NPC. Leave these in the bank until you fill them with goodness.
Gather what you need
If you complete all of the quests around the starter town one of the items you should have acquired is a Scythe. If you sold it or haven’t gotten it yet it can be purchased from a “Merchant” NPC for 20 gold. This can be equipped to harvest herbs. Harvesting herbs gets you 4 key things:
* Ingredients for Potions
* Reagents for Spellcasting
* Steedgrass
* Berries
With the skills and equipment you bought above you can begin making stamina, health and mana potions. From now on you shouldn’t leave town in your good gear unless you have at a minimum 3 health and 3 stamina potions on you. Don’t use these to fight mobs unless you have a lot more than the minimum. These are to save your bacon and get you away from mean nasty players trying to kill you.
If you are planning on being any sort of mage, save up the reagents you get from herb gathering in your bank for later.
Steedgrass is an ingredient needed for making mounts. It is valuable. You can save it up for later or sell it to other players, but make sure you are getting a good price. Remember, it is a valuable herb.
Berries are bottom of the barrel food, they only last 60 seconds. But they are useful. That brings us to fishing.
Fishing
Fishing is a great source of food. You also get some nacre, a spell reagent. You should fish early and often, and cook up your fish at the oven in town. You may also get some lobsters. For now you can sell them or bank them for later. They are a great food item, but they cost 10 gold each to cook, and you don’t have that kind of money.
Between berries from herb gathering and your cooked fish, you should be able to stockpile up a lot of food very quickly. Do so.
Along with your stamina and health potions you should always have ample food on you. Once again, if your supply is getting thin, don’t use it to help fight monsters. Save it to help you escape other players that are after your loot.
Stockpile, Stockpile, Stockpile
You shouldn’t ever gather just what you think you need. In addition to having some reagents, potions and a decent amount of food on you, you should always have plenty more in the bank. A player without food or potions is an easy target. Be that slippery bastard that got away.
Beyond Potions + Food
Weapons take durability hits fast. Never leave town with just one weapon that is low on durability. It will break on you when you need it most, and you will be stuck swinging your pathetic newbie weapon.
If you are into Archery, picking up Bowyering (500 Gold) is a good idea. You will also need Tongs (30 gold?), A Saw (30 gold?), and a Wood Working Knife (30 gold?). You should already have the other 2 things you need (pickaxe and wood axe) from the starter quests. Farm some materials and make yourself a ton of arrows. You will go through them fast.
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Combat and You
Outlasting and outrunning your opponents.
I cannot stress enough the importance of having plenty of food and some stamina potions on you at all times. Fights are won and lost on stamina management. If you have a full health bar, but an empty stam bar, you are as good as dead.
Heals are not strong, food is not strong, potions are not strong. They are all relatively weak and act over time instead of all at once. Eat food early and often.
Health pots are not emergency buttons. In an all out fight start chugging them at well before 25% health.
Never use up your last 3 stam potions to keep swinging your sword. If it has gotten to that point, you should have already started running away.
Never stand still unless you are intentionally boxing somebody in. You should always be dancing around and trying to hit your opponents in the back, while keeping them from doing the same. Hitting somebody in the back increases your damage.
Hotbar/Hotkey your different weapons, bows, and staffs, and get used to switching between them often during a fight. A single fight can switch between close quarters, long range, and cat and mouse many times over.
Most importantly if a fight turns on you, run away. Run like a bitch. Do it over and over. Use your emergency stam potions, and eat a lot of food. Doing so will let you sprint for a very long time.
Getting ganked is a big setback. Next time you run into your opponent he may be using YOUR sword to cut you down again. Don’t give it to him. Get the **** out of Dodge.
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Face Punching
What you need to know about Alignment.
There is a system to limit (but by no means eliminate) same-faction killing sprees called Alignment. When you start out you have enough alignment to kill one member of your own faction. If you kill another you will go red. Once you are red anybody can attack you without taking a hit to their own alignemnt. And they will.
Anytime you hit a same-faciton player you will temporarily turn grey. While you are grey anybody from your faction can attack and kill you (and they will) without taking a hit to their own alignment. Guilds can war on same-faction guilds to avoid taking the alignment hit when killing each other.
You do not turn grey or get any alignment penalties for hitting/killing members of your guild or group.
There are two ways to build up your alignment. Kill players of enemy factions, or complete quests.
People will pull all sorts of tricks to get around the alignment system. They will jump into your swings when you are attacking something else. They will randomly invite you to a group. Be wary or strangers acting strangely.
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A Skill Based System
WTF no levels!?!
Darkfall is a skill based game. There are no levels. There are no artificial barriers. If you want to carebear it up and craft all day, you can. You don't need to be good with a sword or fight monsters to get good at chopping down trees.
Each skill progresses in strength from 0-100 (with some exceptions) as you use it. In general the progression doesn't mean much except at the 25-50-75-100 levels. When you pass those barriers you should notice a difference when using that skill, and other skills may become available at trainers.
If you are into magic, be prepared for a long haul towards becoming a feared fireball slinger. You will need reagents, and for the time being you will need a traditional Melee weapon to round your character out.
You can't be a pure mage from the outset. You will simply be too weak. Stop being Emo about it and just deal.
There are no classes. You simply have a pool of skill points that are "easy" to skill up. Once you use up that pool skilling up in anything becomes harder and harder, but there is no hard cap. This prevents you from skilling up everything in the game.
Some skills, like gathering, are considered "trivial". This means they count much less towards your skill pool. Don't be afraid to skill up any gathering skill you want.
If you don't want a skill anymore, stop using it. Your points will decay eventually, and will flow into something else you are using.
There is no stat-allocation. As you skill up certain skills, your stats related to those skills will rise. For example if you skill up your swords skill, your strength will increase.
The bad news about this system is that it is complex and will take a good long while to develop your "build". The good news is that it is impossible to permanently gimp your character, and as the game evolves you can easily evolve with it.
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The End
Have fun out there!
Thats all for now. What are you doing still reading this? There is somebody out there waiting eagerly for you to introduce your axe to their face
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