The combat system of Darkfall is completely different from all other MMOs that I've tried, and similar to that of FPS games. Instead of selecting a target and using various skills strategically, here you have to aim your attacks, predict your enemy's moves, and evade their strikes. I am not saying that Darkfall doesn't have a lot of skills to choose from, but right now most people only use simple melee attacks. The strategy involves trying to hit your opponent in the back and pelt him with Mana Missiles or arrows if he tries to run away. If you are the one doing the running, make sure you're not going in a straight line because if you do, you'll become a perfect target for your enemies' projectiles. Chases, by the way, take the longest time since everyone has a lot of stamina and can run/sprint around for minutes. Overall, the combat gives you a lot of freedom and is very different from other MMOs; FPS gamers will surely find a good application for their skills in Darkfall.
The full loot PvP ruleset adds a lot of excitement and sense of danger to the game. It also adds a lot of annoyance sometimes and naked people ganking everyone and some spawnpoints. I haven't ever played UO and the other MMORPG that I'm subscribed to - Age of Conan - has a pretty much non-existand death penalty, so this is all new for me. I rather like it so far: it never made much sense to me when in AoC the death penalty was so light that people used to kill themselves as means of transport.
There are a lot of skills, including ones like Running, Swimming, or even Resting. The system definitely reminds me of Morrowind, and it's a lot of fun to get "skill ups" no matter what action you take. Combat skills are harder to level up though, and might take a long while to master since the higher you get, the slower you learn.
The world is huge and seamless, except for a little HDD trashing at the beginning of each invisible "zone" (might be just my 1 GB of RAM though). Regrettably, it also feels very empty. Don't get me wrong: it is very detailed and full of landmarks such as mountains, rivers, meadows, trees (some giant ones), lakes, lava fields, and so on. However, there are very little mobs around (they're concentrated in a few small camps), the world is so big that the few thousands of players who bought the game aren't enough to fill it (run from Alfar to Mirdain starting town for 30 minutes and you'll likely meet no one), and finally, there are precious few NPCs. Only the starting and the main towns have NPCs in them; while exploring, I've come across many very nice and detailed looking towns, which were completely devoid of life. I do hope this only means that Aventurine hadn't had the time to populate them with NPCs, and not that the server wouldn't handle the load of they did.
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