Here are my thoughts for improvements to fix the game and have a healthy population.


The point of an alignment system is to alert players of the morality of other players in the game world, and has always been an iconic and prolific feature of Darkfall, portraying players as evil or good, red or blue, pker or peaceful based on the consequences of their previous choices in open world encounters with other players. It is logical to conclude that this system fails when blue players are able to kill other blue players without suffering an alignment loss as it defeats the entire design and purpose of the system. The alignment system is necessary… more importantly for new player experience and new player retention, but also for veteran blue style player experience and retention. These are the type that love PvP but also like to farm and play the pve portion without forced PvP every time they go to a spawn. Removing this system and allowing full PvP will ultimately purge the overwhelming majority of the player base. It is imperative that this alignment system is allowed to achieve its purpose. Lawless lands compromise the integrity of the alignment system, rendering it essentially useless, proven by a “Saint” standing next to the player they just murdered and robbed at the bank in a capital city. Lawless lands force players into PvP with either flight or fight with every player encounter in the world, (these should be limited to encountering a red player, including enemy factions, which also will encourage faction teamwork and cooperation to repel the other) which may be enjoyable for few, especially elite vets and zergs, but discourages most small clan and solo play and discourages the majority of players to interact with these areas, and considering the resources that are only available in these areas, they bank stare and eventually leave the game entirely. For Darkfall to survive, it is crucial to have a large healthy player base, with a mixture of red and blue play styles. Pkers of own race should be red. This creates natural PvP and allows alliances and friendships to flourish. The neutral and peaceful stances is a good improvement allowing blue players to fight each other in the world, as they consent to fighting each other, so no alignment hit is necessary.

If you are not welcome in a player city, you should be force flagged neutral after a warning and grace period, the welcome players in that city should be able to stay blue and trigger an alignment hit if killed. Players shouldn’t be forced neutral and be free to kill just because they’re in their clan owned city. This is causing players to only go to the city to craft or duel, and cap recall once done, and wait an hour before doing anything…and leaves it empty at other times. Just rename them Crafting Cities.

Forcing players into PvP causes the majority of the player base to be stagnant in game: bank staring, market staring, keeping to spawns in blue zones (Think: Winterworth Dungeon when it was blue) farming nodes for resources, etc., causing people to lose interest and they stop logging in, only to leave the safe zones when they’re in a group with their clan. Artificially created PvP hot spots, including limited mobs that drop rare materials such as rare ore golems, ravens/hobgoblins for pots, rare mines and groves,  limited higher end mob locations, etc only benefit elite veterans, opportunistic pkers, and zergs, and make it impossible for the majority of players to access and become places for vets to farm noobs.

This game will survive without red style players, but it will not survive without blue style. This has been said a thousand times… if you run off the pveers, farmers, crafters, and new players, the game world stagnates and the pkers get bored and quit. The vets won’t fight each other for long. No one truly wants a fair fight. The nature of the majority of PvP is simple, find an advantage and utilize it in an effort to achieve victory; whether by using skill, gear, environment, zerging numbers, surprise attacks when opponent is low, etc. Very few players want and look for truly fair fights. Pkers want easy kills with easy loot. If you keep catering to the pkers, your new player retention will suffer, you’ll run off the blue players, and the low skill pkers will quit, followed by your vets.

I would heavily advise against increasing the grind for skills and crafting, this game is almost 20 years old and has suffered many failures with resets. Most players are discouraged by another start, especially with an increased grind. This also will just widen “the gap”. I feel players won’t be run off being killed by more skilled players but new player retention will suffer greatly if it takes too much time to close that gap. Again it’s almost 20 years old, let everyone play the game, not grind goblins and hit trees.

Fix Alignment, remove lawless lands and tile ratings, except for the 3x3 tiles around capitals with no loot drop, full drop everywhere else, put mines and groves back in player cities, (leaving wilderness ones, as long as they replenish like city ones) rework the forced PvP mentality, fix the resource restrictions, implement race wars, fix stances in player cities. And please fix rune glyphs! Forcing ppl to pay thousand of gold, plus 2 portal shards after marking a rune is terrible. Either remove entirely or let players use their 1 bind like chaos cities. 

Add a queable instanced arena system in a few different environment backgrounds with 1vq, 5v5, and 15v15 and allow players to wager with no additional rewards. Schedule tournaments with title system and rewards.

I’m not sure how the faction sieges will work out, I have hopes it will, but don’t like losing the player cities on the mainland, and think it’s a bad idea. 

We still need mastery armors for tailoring, robes and leather. More sea/naval content. Remove ability to port to villages, and add good and rare drops to rewards.