Apparently the game is progressing along slowly in development.
They allowed some guy to try out a standalone alpha version of it, and these are his comments -
There has been a fair amount of info released recently, but the thing that's grabbed most attention is the fact that the game will be 1st person perspective and will be twitch based. No auto targetting or auto following. Everything including aiming have to be done manually.We've been watching Darkfall for a while. Back in 2003 Deyth visited them in Greece and the first ever video of Darkfall gameplay was released through Combine last year. Of all the PvP games on the horizon none has appealed more to hardcore PvPers than Darkfall. Near the end of the day I got a call from Tasos Flambouras and Kjetil Helland, producer and lead programmer respectively, offering to give me a private viewing of the game. I had already read the writeup Deyth did a while back so I couldn't wait to actually see it. They spent a long time with me…
They had a standalone version of the game with them (they're not in beta yet) and they came armed with plenty of Fraps movies. Darkfall si designed to be a hardcore PvP game, completely skill-based with no leveling system and requiring plenty of player skill. The people developing the game have played other PvP games and found them lacking. They are looking to make a game that really caters to the PvP market without worry of alienating the non-PvP community. By PvP I mean FFA PvP. The real thing. They do think that the game will still appeal to some non-PvPers because of features like the crafting and lore systems.
Combat in this game reminds me a lot of Savage, requiring players to aim their spells and weapon attacks. No auto-attack auto-follow bullshit. You swing your weapon and it either hits or doesn't. You shoot your spell and if you miss and hit a friendly target they will take damage. Hitting a target with a spell or weapon will raise your proficiency with that type of attack. A player could skill up by only killing other players.
Strategy is very important in combat. Friendly fire is a real concern. Large groups could hurt themselves in confined areas so a small group using choke points could beat a larger one.
When a player dies the corpse remains on the ground, unconscious and twitching. You can either release, wait for a friendly to resurrect you, or your enemy can come and perform a finishing move that sends you back to your bind point. If that happens or if the player releases, the corpse becomes fully lootable. Everything in your inventory can be looted, even weapons and armor. They described it as being a huge rush going up to someone and finishing them off and suggested in large guild battles there will probably be people assigned to run around and finish people off before they're resurrected.
Crafting will play a huge role. All armor and weapons in the game can be crafted, making guild crafters very important. A guild preparing for war will have to stockpile large amounts of equipment (reminiscent of UO, one of their inspirations). Running out of gear could mean losing the entire war. Materials for crafting can be acquired by killing NPCs, mining ore, or chopping trees. If you happen to run into another player who has just finished gathering some materials you can always just kill and loot him. The lazy man's option. NPCs will also drop items including the ones you see them using on you. No more useless loot like rat tails and fish eyes.
Guilds will be extremely important. Guilds will be able to build cities and claim resource points. They can declare war or ally with other guilds. Politics will be meaningful. Guild-controlled cities will be a huge part of the game. Guilds can only build cities in preset locations around the world (I was assured that there would be a large amount of possible locations, like on the sides of mountains or islands, etc.) Picking a strategic location will be crucial. The actual city building is done RTS-style and materials are provided by crafters. NPC guards can be hired and equipped to protect the city. Cities can be attacked and destroyed by other guilds without limitations (such as baning a tree a la Shadowbane.)
The game world is quite large, about 12 hours to cross from one end to the other, making mounts very important. Each of the 6 races has its own mount (except the wolf race which has a skill allowing them run fast). Combat can be done without dismounting but has a chance to kill the mount. If a player is killed while on his mount, or dismounts and then dies, the mount is fair game for anyone to claim. A human character wanting to ride an orc mount just needs to kill an orc and take it. Also leaving a mount unattended also makes it fair game.
Climbing will be a feature in the game. I'm mentioning this because I have always been annoyed by games enclosing me within a zone through mountains and zone walls. Since this game will not have any zones or instances, if you can see an area, you can get there by climbing (within reason of course).
Naval battles were described as being a very important feature. A guild would have to build a shipyard, gather all the materials needed, and build the ship. Someone with the skill in navigating the ship gets behind the wheel and steers it around. Speed of movement and turning is affected by the skill of the driver and current weather conditions. Cannons are mounted on the side of the ship and players need to attend to each cannon, turning them, aiming, and firing. Ships can be boarded by players either scaling up the side or if two ships come close enough for someone to jump over. If everyone on the boat is killed and the ship is still intact anyone can get behind the ship and drive it away. Ships can also be used to siege a city that's along the coastline.
Weather will play a part in this game as well. Rain and snow causes very low visibility. A weather map will be accessible in game showing weather patterns and their direction of movement. A guild can anticipate a rain storm and use it to ambush another guild. During good weather players can be seen from an extremely long distance. They can be seen as a small dot in the clipping range.
It will be like an FPS game for the most part.
