Darkfall Day 15 & 16

Tuesday I did a little gathering. Not much magic practice this week as I need to farm up or buy some bone so I can get to work on Greater Magic. I did get the chance to spar with a new player and work up my melee skills a bit, but I really have to make that a priority this weekend. I'm not enamored of the melee in this game, but I'll need it to survive.

Last night I was planning to do some PvE for a change when the call came that our clan and its alliance were involved in a siege on another city. Our task was to defend the attacking city throughout its window of vulnerability. This is a feature of the siege system that makes the attacker's city itself vulnerable before and during the siege on the target city. It was important to ensure that the battle didn't end before it could begin.

Riding in a war party can be one of the most fun things I've experienced in Darkfall. All around you are warriors in armor, bristling with weapons, helmets topped with Romanesque plumes. The thundering of hoofbeats drowns out every other sound; I'd hate to be a lone crafter in the forest and hear that sound coming over the hill! On a long journey, though, the excitement of the war party can dull to that of a tedious expedition, especially when the romance of the thing is interupted by people losing their connections, lagging up at server boundaries, etc. I even had the peculiar experience of seeing a comrade's mount countinue on up a hill while he sat suspended in the air!

Meeting up with others of our clan, our war band eventually numbered somewhere around 20. We got to the attacker's city in plenty of time to set ourselves up on top of a building to act as snipers guarding the clanstone. Unfortunatley, there were some enemies who were bound to the city's clanstone (not sure what the story is there) who made a nuisance of themselves for the hours preceeding the attack and during it as well. I say unfortunately, but at least it gave people something to do.

I think I've compared warfare in Darkfall to the real thing before, only in the sense that everything is "hurry up and wait." There is a lot of tedium, especially on defense it seems. In this case, it took quite awhile for anyone to show up and try to attack the city we were defending and even then they didn't advance far enough into the city to make it to our position. Most of our guys ended up back on the ground to meet the attackers at the city gates where the latter were stymied most of the attack. Me being fairly useless in melee, I stayed with the rest on the building to watch the clanstone and occassionaly fire a Mana Missile down on the harrassers. A few attackers did make it through to the clanstone and proceeded to hit it with siege hammers, but the combination of arrows and Mana Missiles raining down on them ended that pretty quickly. I feel a little bad for the city defeders who were on foot and attempting to engage the hammer-wielders because they must have gotten caught in some furious crossfire.

The most interesting part was when some of the attackers managed to get on top of a tower and send a salvo of Mana Missiles at us. I used the Magic Shield spell to some effect, and the cover around, while returning fire. Pretty quickly some defenders made their way up the tower and ended the brief magical battle. The experience does confirm for me, though, that at this stage of the game magic is most effective as an artillery of sorts, best practiced from some height and distance.

Speaking of artillery, this was an alfar-style city and the cannons were pretty cool to see in action :) I've been on the receiving end of cannon fire and I know it can be intimidating. When the shots land, they really shake the screen and make a lot of noise. Plus they seem to have a decent sized area-of-effect. Glad I was inside the city this time.

The pre-emptive attack never got anywhere and after the target city became vulnerable it was essentially done. I ended up joining my clanmates on the ground, prowling around outside the walls. We killed a few stragglers and I picked up a little more positive alignment. But two of us also ended up chasing a lone enemy into a counter-attack and got killed. So what was almost a death-free PvP experience for me ended with a death after all. Lost some scraps of armor and a handful of reagents I'd not had to use. I ended up back at the elven city where I'm currently bound, so that was it for me.

Overall an interesting night with not a lot of action, but the attack was succesful, I hear, so our allies picked up a new city! Which, I expect, will be lost and won again many times over.