Darkfall Day 5 & 6

These little daily diaries have ended up being more of an examination of individual game elements, which is fine, but at some point I reckon I'll have covered most of Darkfall's features and end up doing "What happened this week." In the meantime...

The last couple of days have been more soloing fun, though I have found a guild I like and joined. Small with an interesting backstory, I think it'll be a good fit. Now I just need to schlep my ass out to our alliance city and partake in some heated PvP. I'm encouraged that they have beta experience and seem to approach warfare with some strategic intent.

As for my aforementioned examination of game elements, what came to mind last night as I did the gathering and magic-practice thing again was that the difference in starting stats among the various races may have more influence than I originally estimated. I didn't think a 5 point difference here of there was significant, but seeing how slowly stats increase, I believe I was wrong, at least in respect to the early game. Humans start with 20 in every stat with the eventual maximum being 100. Other races get bonuses and penalties; for instance, dwarves start with 25 in Vitality and Wisdom, but 15 in Dexterity and Intelligence. Other races are balanced towards other strengths and weaknesses. Stats increase over time as the skills they're associated with increase, but it seems to be a slow process. I've gained a little in all of the stats over the last week, but the only stats I've seen a whole point increase in are Strength and Wisdom (because of all the gathering I've done; gathering skills, as "crafts," are associated with wisdom). This all occured to me because it would sure be nice to have an extra 5 points in Intelligence and thus is mana! It would make levelling magic a bit easier for sure.

On the day before, Day 5, I took a break from the gathering and casting Mana Missile over and over and went out to do some quests. This brought me in contact with several different monsters. I was hunting hivekin, for one, and got see a few of the tougher varities, such as the Soldier, who hits a lot harder and has a nastier range attack than the Foragers I had been fighting. In teams of three, as they'd sometimes come at me, they were too much to solo and I retreated several times. I also ran across some centaurs out in the woods. They hit pretty hard with their bows and didn't seem overly impressed with my Mana Missiles. They did a good job of circling around me as well, so I had to high-tail it. I also saw some skeletons in route to somewhere else, but didn't have the time to stop and fight them just then.

As I found a couple of days ago, the new gathering situation doesn't seem to be too bad. I don't know if it's that so many of the players are from Europe or what, but I haven't had a problem finding places to gather relatively close to the cities. Sure, many of the nodes right in town are already exhausted, but there are lots of other places to get resources right nearby. So I'm not too worried about it.

Also last night I bought a horse, but I've yet to ride it. I just stuck it in the bank. A horse in the bank? Well, it's just a little statue you use to summon the actual horse. Should help with travel, and yolu can even fight from them, but I didn't have a need for it last night so I just stowed it away. I'm sure it'll see some use this weekend.