Darkfall

good for you, plenty of mmorpgs on the market where you get some invisible wall around you that makes you immune to other player attacks.

This way you can bash rats all day long without any worries pretending to be some invincible hero even if only in your own mind.

So go ahead, knock yourself out.

If you define "Hardcore" by "Hard" or "Time consuming", WoW wins by a mile. 12-hour raids and endless wipeouts  FTW.

On a skill based level, complication level (I imagine the learning curve will be fairly steep), and PvP level, Darkfall is more hardcore.

Originally posted by shukes33

theres been a few interesting threads recently on this subject and i notice more and more are jumping on the DF hardcore wagon too. But really i can't see a single reason why DF is considered hardcore! niche maybe but hardcore...not a single reason.

What do the real DF followers think? not the "i like FFA PVP so i'm hardcore" kids but the real DF fanboys if you like. ( i mean no insult by fanboy btw...im a huge EQ fanboy ) i dont want to go into the whole what is hardcore and what is carebear thing again, but rather would like to see why players think of DF as hardcore and then the replys against.

Not hardcore at all, it is all about how you approach a game. Hardcore is permadeath other than that DFO should be a challenging fun game.(Remember it is a game and nothing is hardcore)

Games are not designed hardcore, It's the playstyle of the subscriber that makes them that way.

The guilds in WoW who rush for world first instance clears are hardcore.

The people who level to 99 on Diablo hardcore servers and then cry on ventrilo when they die are hardcore...... HARDCORE D-BAGS... lol

But seriously... Compared to the new gen mmo's the PvP system is hardcore. Compared to the more traditional template, it's just doing the job the way it's meant to be done.

Well if you ask me Hardcore is when the game mechanics are designed not to make the game easier but just more interesting and challenging. I agree that EQ was more hardcore then WoW but by no means would I consider EQ more hardcore then DF is promising to be.

What DF doesn't do is hold your hand, it sets you out on your own to make your own path whatever that maybe.

1. They allow you to pick and chose whatever skills you want and won't just go "here, either you pick this class or that class." rather they challenge you to make your own choices and lots of them.

2. They don't tell you who you can or who you cannot attack, they don't tell you where you can attack people are where you cannot. The only thing they do do is set up the world that you play in but then its always up to you how you act within that world.

3. You have to rely on your own skills and not only that of your character and this means that you will always be challenged as a player to improve as it can be the difference between life and death.

4. Which brings me to the point of full loot, in Darkfall life and death really does have a meaning, sure there isn't perma death but compared to the other mmo's out there there are serious consequences to dying/losing since whomever kills you will have the right to whatever you had on you. Again this is not really a feature imo as much as a case of them just not holding your hand.

5. They also allow you to invest large amounts of time and gold into doing things like building cities and in other ways expanding your clans holdings but at the same time just as with the gear you carry on you you run the risk of losing everything.

These aspects of Darkfall among others is what I define as Hardcore, you need a hardcore not to break under the pressure of Darkfall as great glory or utter disaster could be lurking around every corner.
It's not just a matter of spending 8 hours in a raid to gain 1 out of the 40 people attending a part of an item but once its done he never runs any risks of losing those items and in the end it's all very cosy and safe.

I don't believe that you could consider something truly hardcore without risk and without risk the rewards you gain are shallow.

Well for me I guess I do see it as a hardcore MMO.  Compaired to current choices it most definetly is hardcore. My reason for seeing it as hardcore are the following.

1) You put everything on the line (Virtualy speaking). Nothing is safe. Your home, your gear, your mount even your reputation. Reputation since there is only 1 char per server, what you do sticks with you.

2) Aventurine is the under dog company to me and I respect em for it. There a small company that has decided to take on the big dogs with out any big time publishers or anything. They havent been spending millions trying to convience people it will be a good game and they are dedicated to there core features. Thats hardcore to me for a developer.

3) No auto attack. You have to do every swing manually and friendly fire is always on. There's no safety nets realy. I will be playing Alfar to add to the difficulty. Alfar is the enemy of all other races we have no allies oO.

Pretty much there isn't any other MMO out right now that decided against safety nets for there players. Even UO added trammel. If you build a house in DarkFall it can be destroyed, clan cities can be destroyed, your gear and items can be destroyed and looted, your friends can kill you on accident if not careful, any friend can potentialy be an enemy, there are no safe zones pvp anywhere any time, the world is huge with intellegent AI npc's that will call for back up as well as flee ect. if there camped to much they migrate if not camped they grow stronger and there numbers increase.

As far as MMO's go DarkFall to me is Hardcore.

For me its not a hardcore game, a hardcore game would have perma death, would have no health bar but rather a realistic damage dealing simulation (a sword hit and you'r good or for the cemetery or to go rest for few weeks in a nonne room)...

Now for a carebear it would be a hardcore game, so i guess for 90% of actual mmo players. So yes over all you can say its a hardcore game. But as i said for me its just an other game, since it doesn't try much to simulate real life.

Originally posted by zymurgeist

Define hardcore? Really I think it would be better described as "old school". One of the great benefits of which is often overlooked. You need to interact with other people to survive. By interact I don't just mean gank them and go look for another victim.  We shall see.

Spot on

I think it's hardcore just for the simple fact that it's you against the world. The environment can be your best friend or your worst enemy. Hardcore to me isn't just FFA, but it's adding a realistic factor to FFA. No skill smashing, just straight up hack-and-slash skill. If you die, it's your fault, not your character's (meaning spec / abilities / class type / ect.). That to me is hardcore.