Random Thoughts. And Darkfall’s “Dinner with Dahmer.”

Today’s post is a two parter.

It was a originally a “Darkfall will fail” post. But then I thought, nobody cares about that, so why bother. I’ll post it at the end here since I spent time typing it up. And it’s the second time I took the time to write up something about Darkfall and free-for-all pvp and the people that’ll play it and why that means it will fail. I find the hype machine fascinating.

Random thoughts about our WoW adventures.

Msaker and Droonda are working for the Sons of Hodir. It took a little while, and maybe it’s purely a guy thing, but the Mrs. wasn’t following along when I pointed at the quest names. “Blowing the Horn” and “Polishing the Helm.” I had to give it away and mention “Thrusting Hodir’s Spear.” “You guys, is that all you think about?” is what she concluded. You know what you’re dealing with when one of the first quests starts “Jormuttar is so fat.” Who is this Hodir, and why are his sons so childish?

And what should we be spending our time on? I’m out of my raiding guild anyway, so I’ve got lots of time just to do what I want.

I don’t want to run through the same content over and over. Sholazar, Storm Peaks, Ice Crown, on every character? Of course the Oracles have a nice Helm for an Enhancement Shaman, the Ebon Blade has the shoulders, and the Sons have some nice Axes. (By “nice” meaning “good enough for a casual player like me.) For a Warrior, the Sons have some nice shoulders, the Ebon Blade a cool looking two-hander, and rather nothing from the Oracles. That’s to say, why, oh why, do I have to level up to Revered or Exalted with everyone to complete the “set.” Okay, that’s easy, because you want me to see all the content. But have you, “you” being Blizzard, considered I can take multiple routes to 80 and I have multiple characters to do it with? I don’t necessary want to follow in the same steps.

Stormsoul’s 80 and doing the Dalaran cooking quests.

Msaker and Droonda are 78 now and doing the Son’s of Hodir thing in the Storm Peaks. They’ll no doubt reach level 80 there in the Peaks.

(Okay, “Sons of …., Oh, dear!” Is that it?)

Greenclaw and Itarilde are levels 76 and 75 now. Just kind of relaxing, doing cooking dailies, helping the Kulak, and otherwise engaged in the fight in Zul’Drak. Then it’s on to whosoever’s got better Druidy gear, Argent Crusade/Ebon Blade or Sons of Hodir.

Honorus and Effilda are levels 64 and 63 and starting in on the Zangarmarsh quests.

Cenotaph and Ombria are levels 65 and 63 and he’s doing Northrend Inscription studies now but they’re also in Zangarmarsh.

I figure one couple will wind up in Netherstorm, and the other in Shadow Moon Valley. The XP gain seems good enough that we’ll be able to clear out of Outlands at 68 without all too much duplication. And always having someone covering our back, Northrend at 68 should be easy enough.

Both of these couples I envision doing the Ice Crown/Argent Crusade/Ebon Blade quests when they get to that point. No sense running Msaker and Droonda through them first now.

Crafting is also, I haven’t mentioned this yet, pretty awesome this time around. Full sets of gear craftable for reasonable material requirements available at 78. Leather of various sorts, plate, mail, etc. That’s really nice. If I put the time in gathering materials I’ll have my folks in decent gear. Yeah, it’s all browns and browns, but still. Not shabby. And some craftable epics as well, with a couple warriors, a couple paladins, a couple deathknights, and there’s a lot of plate and weapons to be made.

Arcarius, the hunter, is not progressing other than as a leatherworker in support of the alliance leather wearing druids. They can quickly farm up lots of leather, he turns it into gear.

I’ve been also working on Darkhand, who was my 2nd real character. He’s all of 55 now and really working at getting to 58 so he can get into the Outlands. But, you know, the thought of going through the Plaguelands all over again, or Winterspring all over again, … Argh!!!!! It’s taking forever!  He’s my engineer and I picture him on a motorcycle in Dalaran.

… Did I seriously say I have time enough to do what I want? Heh.

Part 2.  Darkfall’s “Dinner with Dahmer.”

The misfits, miscreants, and gamers are all abuzz.

Darkfall is coming.

Ooh, the opportunity to kill anyone, at anytime. Better yet, to get into gangs, groups, guilds, whatever, and kill folks. Not just kill them, but humiliate them. And for good measure, strip them naked of all their stuff.

I’m not sure which is the tastier icing on the Cannibal Cake: That you can “gank” them and totally humiliate them with a head chop, and I’m not sure if you get a graphic with the skull rolling away from the body, but the point is you have 60 seconds to toy with your victim, maybe “teabag” them for 40-59 seconds, then decapitate them. Or that you can strip
them of all they’ve earned so far. Effectively meaning all they’ve worked for, except skill ups, is taken from them by someone stronger. And there’s always someone stronger.

Yeah, baby, yeah. That’s what the gaming world was missing. The equivalent of al-Qaida training videos set in a medieval world. (Yeah, that is kind of contradictory, isn’t it?)

See, this won’t work. Because there’s maybe a handful of folks who’ll cooperatively play this. Most folks don’t gravitate into wandering gangs killing other people. Even in post-apocalyptic visions like Mad Max, “humanity” gathered into protective camps wishing to live in peace.

There can be only one Lord Humungus. His followers prey on themselves like starving dogs. He needs victims to direct his people at lest he be victimized himself.

As ever, the griefers will be wondering: “How do I ruin someone’s game? Screw the graphics, screw the story, screw the world, screw the mechanics except where I can exploit it to my advantage. I just want to screw someone.” If they could violate all the women folk in your village after dispatching you, they’d do that too.

And the gist will be they’re surrounded by fellow griefers.

I remember the type in Warhammer. Level 20 something, running around Chapter 2, clearly avoiding the PvP lake, dressed looking like clowns, flagged, and chasing after people want them to engage in combat. They did this solo. Because they couldn’t attack their own ilk. Not in a Free-for-All environment like Darkfall promises.

I just can’t imagine Dahmer getting together with Gacy and Bundy and chasing their counterparts around a world to kill them.

These types tend to be soloists. And you’ll have a handful of subscriptions of people willing to join up, like they did in Lord of the Flies, choir boys gone bad.

If Warhammer boasts 300k in subscriptions, and offers sizeable PvE content, I see Darkfall getting bought by the curious, maybe in numbers sufficient to recover the cost of manufacturing, if they’re lucky. But those willing to make it their primary game will number a few thousand. This is going to be niche to the extreme.

Anyway, that’s my prediction. Dahmer will be dining alone.

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