Darkfall: NDA Lifted & System Specs Revealed

Darkfall Online fans and detractors will finally get the real story about the game. As of today, the NDA for the 'stress test' beta has been lifted. We also have some information about pre-orders so be sure to keep reading.

As of the time of this posting the NDA is officially lifted. In the next couple of days the Darfkall pre-orders will open up and stay up until right before Darkfall's launch on February 25th or until they are sold out. This is how the pre-order will work:

The pre-order consists of the Darkfall client digital download along with a month of play starting on February 25th. The full cost for this is 42 Euro. This amount WILL NOT be charged during the pre-order. What will be charged is an initial 2.52 Euro non-refundable payment to activate the process. The remainder (39.48) of the pre-release price will be billed on release, February 25th. You'll be free to cancel the purchase any time before the additional charge goes in on February the 25th.

Darkfall's monthly subscription is set at 11.77 euro. A 3 month subscription with a 10% discount and a six month subscription will be offered with 15% discount on the monthly subscription rate.

There is 19% VAT added to both the initial payment of 2.52 Euro and to the remainder (39.48) for residents of the European Union. The same applies to all the subscription charges. People outside the EU will not be charged VAT.

For the pre-order all major credit cards are accepted. For Darkfall's launch direct debit will also be available. More payment options will be available shortly after Darkfall's launch such as Paypal, prepaid cards, wire transfer etc. Our partners for the billing are GlobalCollect, a leading and trusted global payment processor. ( http://www.globalcollect.com/ )

Players in North America are welcome to participate in the European Launch. The plans for US servers aren't finalized at the time of this announcement. We will offer the option for character migration to US servers for N. American players who wish to use it. We have had people playing without problem from all over the US and Canada. That being said, our servers are located in Germany and distance does affect ping-time.

If the pre-orders are sold out, more Darkfall copies will become available on the launch date February the 25th. If they are also sold out, we will offer more copies every few days as we upgrade our capacity.

The initial system requirements for Darkfall are as follows:
Operating System: Windows XP, Vista
Processor: 2.5GHz Pentium 4, or equivalent
RAM: 1GB for Windows XP, 2GB for Windows Vista
Graphics Card: 128MB PixelShader 2.0 support
Hard Drive Space: 12 GB Free Space Minimum

With the NDA lifted, there will be a lot of information out in the next few days both official and unofficial. There is a lot of passion surrounding Darkfall, both positive and negative. Some views, unsubstantiated by evidence, have become almost tenets of faith at both extremes. Now you can finally judge for yourselves and make up your own mind, through player testimonials and game footage. Be cautious of what is said however, by whom, and based on what experience. The beta has been through several phases, and it's still a beta. The main purpose of beta is to provide the developers with testing data, and not provide players with a fun experience. Even during this process however the game has been extremely playable and while many consider it to be their best MMOG experience to date, others see the potential, some had something else in mind, and few don't like it at all. Darkfall isn't for everyone.

It should be stressed that as with any MMOG Darkfall will always be a work in progress. Darkfall's potential however, being a sandbox game, is dependent on its players more so than other MMOGs. This is why we've been communicating with a lot of our players, have been listening very closely to the testers and are taking all the feedback, positive and negative, very seriously. Something important to understand is that we are committed to fully supporting this game and working with our player base to make Darkfall the best game it can possibly be. After launch we're not going with just a "live team" to do simple maintenance to the game while the rest of us move on to other projects. All our resources are committed to Darkfall, and we will even increase our team size to meet our ambitious future goals for the game.

Thank you for reading and we hope to see you in Darkfall.
The Darkfall Team

UPDATE: I didn't think this would be necessary to explain but the volume of questions about it made it so:

Pre-orders will open in the next couple of days. You'll get a link to a page where you can preorder. This is not yet available. We will announce it as soon as it is.

Be sure to let us know what you've thought of the game and point us to any other pertinent articles.

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And the first beta tester's review is here:

http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/Paragus1/022009/3314

Darkfall is still pretty rough around the edges and could use some polish in many areas. Given all of the hype and hysteria surrounding the game, it would be easy to be disappointed if you go into it with unrealistic expectations. The game is being developed by Aventurine, an Indy developer that has made an MMO with a fraction of the manpower, and at a fraction of the price compared to the industry leaders. I personally think the game would have benefited a bit by prolonging the release for at least another month or so, and some players who demand polish may be better off waiting for a little bit before jumping in especially with access being limited initially.

That being said, Aventurine has created the solid framework of an MMO that offers a unique experience that the genre has not seen in quite some time, and I am sure many players will be more than happy to jump into Darkfall at the ground level despite its issues. Anyone who has seen their patches can attest to the fact that they are frequent and robust. I have no doubt that as time goes on, Darkfall will further develop into an interesting and needed alternative to the theme-park model that has been beaten to death in the last few years.

If you are a fan of harsh free-for-all PvP, full looting, clan warfare, and non-linear gameplay, Darkfall might be just the sort of thing you have been looking for. If you are a casual gamer, someone who enjoys a linear style gameplay, or looking for a graphically intense experience, this game might not be for you. I also think to fully appreciate the game, playing with a group of friends or being in a clan will expose you to more of what the game has to offer. I don't think it was ever intended to have mass appeal, but more to cater to a niche of PvP players who are looking for something more than what is out there now, and I think in that respect it will succeed.

I kept wanting to ask... why's it only being launched in Euro for now?

No one knows but you can...

Oh give it a year or five and they will announce the US release, or they will lament in the flames of their own destruction.

What's 42 Euros in dollars anyway? And that's gonna be less since I'm from Canada and don't have to pay the included VAT, right?

42 Euros is 52.90 USD.

Where's teedle?

Teedle?

Ralackk:
Where's teedle?

Heh, makes me think of
this and this.

I'm sure Teedle will be back with all the negative comments he can copy/paste as soon as he can. :)

Maybe he's trying to find a job, now that his favourite game is about to launch?

Sigoya:
Or maybe he's just busy playing the game :)

My thoughts too...

p.s. Teedle for Attorney General of U.S.!

YaaY! Can I get in line now to NOT play it?

After jumping in at the release of games with insane budgets(that ended up sucking the big one), I'll pass on this "indy" project and its "rough" edges.

Actually, FusionFall is a helluva lot of fun. Are you being a 'snob' PI because it's an ostensible kid's game? ;)

mrcheese:
Translation of the beta tester comments - if you're a Darkfall fanboy you're going to cry, if you expected it to fail, you may be pleasantly surprised.

Nuff said.