Leaker review - PVP & More!! : DFO - General / Guide - Discussions

From a friend:

First thing: as it stands, it looks like I will be buying DF.

Now... the character creator. Its a very polished looking character Creator. Better looking then WoW's for sure, and it has more customization options then WoW. It has two slider options for hair color and skin color, but atm they seem to be disabled. Other options include different faces, nose rig, earrings, lip rings, facial hair and other miscellaneous forehead ornaments. Each has around 5 to 17 different options. But don't expect a SWG-level character creator.

One cool look with Alfars are these rows of piercings that look like short fat nails that either stick out above or below the lips. Having both gives a visual affect of a mouth wide open with jagged teeth sticking out. Looks cool. Dumbest thing I saw is facial hair for Mahirim, but some of the beards look alright.

The world itself is very organic. You feel like you are in a huge world, and not a enclosed play pen. Night and day cycles, weather cycles and realistic moving moons and sun gives the world a grandiose feeling. Sun sets looks ridiculously cool. Night time in some of the Ork starter cities is creepy. Especially with the background music that sounds like it came out of silent hill.
My main gripe with look of the world is that from far away buildings and characters tend to have this cell shaded look to them. Im srue you've noticed it in the screenshots.

The ork areas are mostly empty with players. We really need more ork players. But the Human and Alfar areas are full of people. I haven't tried the other areas yet.

As for Pve, Ive only fought goblins..lots and lots of goblins. They are annoying little !@#$%^&*, that won't sit there and let you wail on them. Im sure you've heard all this before. They run away, call for back up, kite you, ect...And yes, if they are wearing it, you can loot it. Goblings usually carry a crappy bow and axe, 3-4 arrows and 5 gold. But some come with shields, some cheapy armor, a better bow or some food. And you can see the weapons and armor on them.


PVP> With full loot, FFA pvp you really can't go wrong. But I have some issues with it. Keep in mind that Im using mostly the basic stuff you come with and all of it at low skill level. I might see a little over critical, but its really not that bad.
I have played Savage 1 and 2, Jedi Academy Age of Chivlary ... pretty much any FPS game with a melee system, and in comparison DF right now is very basic. Biggest problem with it is the current 3 minute sprint and inefficient block. You've probably read what they are saying about sprint, and I agree its currently a little bit broken. But they are looking into it, and there have been many great ideas brought up by some of the testers.
But as it stands, due to the spring lasting so long, people sprint in melee constantly, so it turns into a chaotic random circling jousting match. What I have tried to do is to let them use up all their stamina running around everywhere, and then just finish them up. Melee fights are won and lost in stamina management. But what people do is run right into you full speed and swing then run another direction ( like jousting). This gives them the initiative and ping/lag advantage, which forces you to do the same. I also tried to use block/parry when they are charging with their jousting tactics, but block uses up so much stamina that i end up losing out in the stamina management department. If they just simply switched sprint and block's stamina consumption, it would go along way to improve melee fights, imo.

Archery and spells fell better. Though with the constant sprint, players can get hard to hit sometimes. With archery you can actually get quite good at hitting targets at range...but it takes practice.
A lot of people !@#$%^&* about spells being way too hard to land a hit. But most players don't know how some of the spells properly. Anyone who has played tribes will know exactly what im about to describe. A Player and I got together and started ganking players in the goblin area....using the basic mana missiles at range, and then finishing them up once they closed in...or they would simply run away (again --->3 min sprint). It has significant splash. You don't try to hit the players but the ground around the players. You try to anticipate where the player is moving and hit the ground there. Again, If you have played tribes you'll be right at home.

great post. I think this game is going to live up to the hype.