Developer Discusses Darkfall's Past and Future

Aventurine has been quite busy with its social media push and the recent launch of Darkfall's Hellfreeze expansion. We spoke with Tasos Flambouras about these changes and the possibility of Darkfall 2.

ZAM: Your newest expansion pack, Hellfreeze, was released last month following some delays. Can you give us some insight into the design process?

Flambouras: First, I’d like to mention that Darkfall’s expansions are massive as far as changes or additions to the game. We offer these expansions for free to our players. Darkfall’s first expansion was focused around the character: Re-balancing many aspects of the game, introducing player housing, the village system, a character specialization system, new quests etc. The second Darkfall expansion called “Conquer the Seas” was themed after the major sea gameplay elements added to the game, it also brought a complete revamp of the siege system, among many other new features and additions to the game. The Hellfreeze expansion brings changes to the world. First the largest development milestone we’ve had since launch was delivered, the upgrade of Darkfall’s terrain. This was a huge task and this is why we faced some delays before we could deliver the expansion. Many changes are introduced to the dungeons and new monsters and improved monsters are added to the world. We further added more sandbox features and elements for players to host their own events.

There’s a method to Darkfall’s expansions and they’re all designed keeping the big picture in mind. The greatest evolution for this game comes not from the application of one patch but from the cumulative improvements and additions since the game’s launch after three expansions and more than fifty content updates.

ZAM: Speaking of expansions, you mentioned the next one will be a “revamp” of the game. Can you give us any more details on that statement? What is the team's philosophy behind the upcoming expansion?

Flambouras: Our next expansion is meant to tie everything together. We play to our strengths. We enhance what Darkfall does best without losing sight of what Darkfall is today. It’s too soon to give out any details I’m afraid but the changes and additions to the game are going to be massive.

ZAM: You also vaguely hinted that Darkfall 2 may be a possibility. Can you elaborate on that? At the very least, can you tell us why you're considering a sequel for a game that's so young?

Flambouras: Darkfall is almost 2 years old and Darkfall 2 won’t be here tomorrow. It takes years to develop a MMORPG. When we said that Darkfall is the game we wanted to play ourselves, this wasn’t a marketing statement, it’s how we approach game development, much like the players do, and we’re never satisfied. We’ve been putting everything back into the game and into the technology. We’re expanding our team.  We’re not looking to milk Darkfall for all it’s worth, that’s not why we went into game development. Our goal is to deliver the best gaming experience ever. Darkfall is a great game and it can be even greater and that’s what we’re running a full development effort for, rather than just doing maintenance. There are things that Darkfall cannot do however, but we still want to do them. There are lessons learned that we’re eager to apply that can’t be used on Darkfall. It’ll take a while but eventually we’re going to hit a wall. This is where Darkfall 2 comes in. When we feel we can’t deliver a better experience anymore, we’ll move on to something that can. 

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Honestly?
# Dec 22 2010 at 3:45 PM Rating: Decent
I think the above poster had a bad experience playing this game. Honestly this game isn't for everybody, but there is a large enough audience of players who really enjoy the game, myself included. I've played a lot of different MMOs in the past decade and I can easily say that Darkfall is one of the best. It has its flaws but overall it does so many things right and is taking a different approach to the ever-so stagnant genre.

Everybody's experience with a game is going to be different. Sorry it wasn't the game for you but I disagree with just about everything you said.
junk
# Dec 04 2010 at 10:08 AM Rating: Decent
This game is the biggest pile of junk I've ever tried in my 11 years of MMO gaming. It literally looks as if a bunch of stupid broke college kids got together and completely failed in every way at trying to build a MMORPG.

Outdated, featureless, totally unpolished complete crap. I am shocked this junk even has a few people left actually paying money to play it. I wouldn't play this if it was 100% free.

Darkfall 2?? Ha too funny.They haven't even made a single penny in profit off of this game and never will. They'll be very lucky if they even have any subscribers left by the end of 2011. The game world is completely empty already.

Do not waste a minute on this junk. There are free to play games that are even much higher quality than this.


Edited, Dec 4th 2010 11:23am by tris8
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