The Darkfall Expedition Report

[Zorak]

After six weeks of play, we have good news to report. So you don't have to keep reading I'll say right up front, Darkfall is a keeper. Unless some unforeseen development occurs, the game is on track to be the most fun MMO since UO. It's UO, AC1 Darktide, and SB, all wrapped up and on steroids.

Is the game perfect? Nope. Does it needs tweaks and balances in several aspects? Yes. But it's fun. A lot of fun.

An expeditionary CQ force entered the game at launch with some of our brothers from PRX under the Covenant of Swords flag. Additionally, some members of The Ancient Order joined us.

We were able to quickly secure a city, Sunthrone, on the mainland. We later found out that gates were not in the game, and with Sunthrone vulnerable on 3 sides, we opted to move to Yssam before sinking too much money into Sunthrone.

HeRog worked his political magic and set up an epic battle for control of a Hyperion city, we fondly named La Chucaracha (I can't remember the real name), owned by Bloodclan Orks. As far as I know, we are the only guild to take a city away from Hyperion. We spent several days reconning the area and setting up a multi-front assault. We won the day by the skin of our teeth in an epic battle.

We have allied ourselves with the Stasis Alliance, a group of like-minded guilds that are fighting for independence on Yssam. Some of the guilds in Stasis are The Crimson Skulls (Quickshot's new guild), Covenant of the Phoenix, Lux Arcana, Roamers, and Dogma. All are fairly small guilds. Together we can field 150-200 on a good day.

It wasn't long before the Hyperion zerg retaliated with full force and took back the city. Hyperion can field 300+ without blinking - who knows how many actually showed up to take their city back. We are now living in the chaos city on Yssam, Tolenque, skilling up and running guerrilla strikes against the Yssam Coalition, a division of Hyperion.

TAO decided to create their own tag and moved to the mainland, joining a Hyperion affiliate named Mortis Consortium. CoS remains loyal to the Stasis Alliance and we're working to strengthen it.

So now CoS finds itself in distant, but familiar territory. We're the underdog, we're outnumbered, and we're behind the learning curve of the game. We find our mettle being tested daily, and we're at a point where only a strong will and gritty determination keep us going. Victories seem few and far between. It reminds me a lot of early Shadowbane beta.

Darkfall is a game that we're committed to playing, so don't expect us to remain at the bottom. Given time, we will claw our way to the top. We've done it before, we will do it again.

Getting there will be the most fun part.

The expeditionary force was tasked with determining whether or not DF was worth playing. I think we've answered that question. Now, it's just a matter of finding accounts for those that want to join us. The North American server is probably not going to happen, but that's probably a good thing. The world community has been interesting.

Hopefully more CQ and PRX will be joining soon.