Friday, April 17, 2009

Darkfall - PvP Ambush

I logged on late last night to get some game time in before bed, but because of the late hour I figured I would just gather timber & ore to craft some arrows.

That was before I heard the call in vent for help defending our clan's hamlet. I started throwing my gear together and prepared to head out; however, by the time I made it to the hamlet, two of our guys had chased off the attackers. They weren't far away, so I made my way towards them on my mount. I was halfway to their location when I noticed I was taking damage from behind; upon rotating my camera angle (something you can do while mounted), I noticed I was being chased by 3 mounted players with an additional guy dismounted trying to shoot down my mount with his bow.

I called out the situation in vent and was instructed to lead them north towards the other two clan members I was already headed towards. I cut and weaved around trees and hills to avoid the incoming arrows from killing my mount before I reached the soon-to-be ambush location. We had two members hiding behind a rock directly up ahead, and another rapidly approaching from the south, which would turn this fight into a 4v4. But as I rode past the rock hiding our guys, I looked back to see a couple of the enemies mounts quickly drop due to arrows from our skilled archers that had popped out from behind the rock. They didn't know what hit them!

Even outnumbered 4 to 3, we still had the element of surprise, and this was the prevailing factor! I circled back around, now with only one enemy chasing me on mount, but I ignored him and moved directly to the almost-dead guy on foot. I rode by and landed a successful hit (I'm getting better at mounted combat). The clan-mate approaching from the south had just arrived and landed the next hit on this enemy for the final blow.

By this time we dispatched three of their guys, and only one remained and was hauling ass into the distance on his mount. With all the commotion on vent, another 4 clan members had arrived and helped us chase the last guy. We ended up calling off the chase and everyone headed back to the hamlet. I called it a night at that point, since it was already late to begin with.

I wish I could have seen the look on those guys faces when they thought I was their lone prey and how quickly they became the hunted with a spur of the moment trap. It's moments like these you just can't find in a themepark MMO; Darkfall is shaping up to be a great MMORPG!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

While I'm not a huge PVP fan, I've enjoyed your views on PVP combat, from WoW to now. Darkfall sounds intriguing, as I've never fully engaged in a PVP only MMO. Would you recommend this for someone who by nature, is not a PVP'er, but is willing to give it a try?

Keystone said...

It depends if you're a solo or group player more-so than if you're a PvP'er. It appears through the forums and other blogs that the people having fun in the game aren't necessarily the PvP'ers, but rather those that enjoy playing in a group / clan.

It's not impossible to solo, but the way the game is setup you'll be diminishing the overall fun from the entire experience.

There are alot of gathering / crafting skills, exploration, and PvE to be had in Darkfall, but all those tend to be more enjoyable when done in a group, or for a group (crafting supplies to help out your clan).

But after saying all that- it's still a PvP game. Everything does revolve around PvP in some way or another. Some PK'ers target people gathering supplies, those supplies are usually bought by people going out to PvP, Groups trying to PvE in the same location sometimes refer to PvP to push the others away from the NPC camp.

One last note, the ranged combat is done through a first-person perspective, and I know people who can't play games like that due to motion sickness; that might be another issue to consider. In the end the decision is yours though, but if you decide to check it out, then give me shout in game and I'll help get you started.