Darkfall: Unholy Wars

Darkfall: Unholy Wars is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed by Aventurine SA. It was announced on the 18th of September and is the next chapter in the Darkfall Saga. It's a fast-paced, PvP MMORPG with full loot. Players are called to form clans and battle for dominance across the seamless and open fantasy world of Agon, recruit and train new warriors, conquer fortresses and clan cities, engage in epic land and naval battles with thousands of concurrent players and build powerful empires.

The initial release date was the 20th of November as it has been announced by Aventurine; however, due to "combination of external factors, last minute issues, and final testing feedback", Aventurine announced that the new launch date is December 12. Darkfall Unholy Wars will be digitally distributed.

On November 28, 2012, Aventurine submitted Darkfall Unholy Wars on Greenlight Steam. After two days, on Friday 30th, the game was greenlit. On December 11, Aventurine announced another launch delay due a mix of internal and external factors. Instead of commercial release, the company decided to offer a beta. On December 14, 2012, Aventurine aired the new Darkfall Unholy Wars website while at the same time opened the pre-orders of the new game to the public. The beta of the game officially started on Tuesday 18 December.

On April 3rd, Aventurine announced that Darkfall Unholy Wars will be released on April 16th, 2013.

Gameplay

G.U.I.

The Darkfall Unholy Wars GUI, as mentioned by the game’s Coordinating Designer on his developer’s diary, was designed in order to make the gaming experience faster, quicker and more fun. The main concept when designing the users interface was mostly based on FPS and Action games so players will experience a more instant and accurate combat. Also, many features from the Darkfall Original game are still present. Aventurine examined how the best players of the original game were using the interface and the amendments that they made as the bases to create a fast paced interface for the Darkfall Unholy Wars.

Character Progression

The character progression system in Darkfall Unholy Wars is based on prowess points. Prowess can be gained from all meaningful interactions with the game. From harvesting and crafting, to killing monsters and PvP activities, everything you do will reward you with Prowess Points. The amount of points that you gain will depend on the difficulty or rarity of your achievements. Thus, players' prowess is a representation of their accumulated experiences, victories and achievements throughout the world of Agon. Prowess points can be used as a form of currency to acquire a multitude of skills and boosters within the game. Spending Prowess is the only way to improve your attributes, combat, and harvesting skills. Crafting can only be improved by using the skill to successfully craft items.

Roles and Skills

The new roles system introduced in Darkfall Unholy Wars requires the player to pick up a role, along with 2 schools from that specific role. One of the schools is set by the player as the primary and the other as the secondary, and each school contains 4 skills/spells, and the ultimate, the most powerful in that school.The biggest difference between the primary and secondary schools is that you can only use the ultimate from your primary school. The skills/spells available in the secondary school have full potential, but require more mana and stamina, and have increased cooldowns and charging times compared to the primaries. So far, Aventurine has presented schools from the Warrior, the Skirmisher, the Elementalist, and the Primalist roles.

The Warrior

From the Warrior role, the Baresark School has been presented. According to the company's blog, Baresarks like close combat, and specialized in dealing with multiple enemies and their skills affect anyone that is standing near them or crosses their path. Aventurine published a video on Darkfall Unholy Wars official channel to showcase this specific school. His skills are the following:

• Maelstrom: A weapon-based attack that deals damage to anyone around the Baresark.
• Stomp: An attack that will knock everyone away from the Baresark.
• Stampede: The stampede dramatically increases the Baresark’s sprinting speed for a short period of time, while damaging and knocking back any targets that cross his path.
• Roar: An area-of-effect debuff, that reduces the base attributes of anyone inside its range.
• Pulverize: (Ultimate) Pulverize is the Baresark’s best weapon to deal with multiple opponents in a tight space. Pulverize damages everyone around the Baresark, knocks them back and blinds them for a short period of time.

Besides the Baresark School, Aventurine SA, has presented the school of Battle Brand. According to Aventurine, the Battle-Brand is a very strategic role, he is the ultimate defensive warrior, designed to keep fighting for as long as possible. In more details, the skills of the Battle Brand are the following:

• Foebringer: is a skill that pulls everyone around the Battle-Brand closer to him. Using the Foebringer, the Battle-Brand can misdirect his opponents when drawing them close, delivering critical hits that can turn the tide of a battle, while giving his fellow warriors a chance to regroup and fight back.
• Bandage: is a self-healing skill that gives a sizable health boost to the Battle-Brand, allowing him to have a second wind during a drawn out battle.
• Stinging Riposte: is a self-buff that returns a percentage of damage back to the enemies attacking the Battle-Brand. This skill used strategically can help wear down the opponents, while discouraging their attacks.
• Spellbane: is another self-buff which increases magic resistance for the Battle-Brand, allowing him to stand up to magic users more effectively. This is something we’ve wanted to give our players who prefer warrior tactics for a while, to make them more viable against magic attacks.
• Stoic Defense: is the Ultimate skill of this School. While using Stoic Defense, the Battle-Brand renders himself immune to all damage for a short time, while consuming both mana and stamina. Good timing while using this skill can result in routing your opponents, give the Battle-Brand free attacks, and this could make the difference in any confrontation.

The Skirmisher

From the Skirmisher role, the Deadeye School has been presented. According to company's blog, a Deadeye is extremely skilled with the bow, and can utilize it to damage single targets or even small groups. Again, Aventurine published a video on Darkfall Unholy Wars official channel to showcase this specific school. His skills are the following:

• Puncture: A magically imbued arrow attack that can travel through enemies, and damaging everyone in its’ path.
• Exploit Weakness: A debuffing attack that greatly reduces a target’s arrow protection.
• Explosive Arrow: An explosive arrow attack that will damage everyone around the area of impact.
• Trueshot: A very powerful arrow shot, that offers extreme speed, accuracy and damage. An arrow shot with Trueshot will travel in a completely straight line, with no arc.
• Salvo (Ultimate): A devastating barrage of arrows fall from the sky towards the Salvo’s point of impact. Everyone affected by Salvo’s deadly rain will suffer serious damage and will be unable to sprint for a short duration.

The second school of the Skirmisher role, which has been presented by Aventurine SA at the company's blog, is the one of the Brawler. The Brawlers’ competitive advantage is his maneuverability and endurance. They quickly move in and out of combat, dodge attacks and take advantage of their surroundings better than any other role can. The Brawler skills are the following:

• Efficiency: This skill reduces stamina consumption of other skills. Since this school is heavily dependent on Stamina, the Efficiency skill is crucial so that the Brawler can keep going.
• Dash: This gives a bonus to the sprint speed and allows the Brawler to escape in a rush, or move in for the kill.
• Leap: Leap is a double-jump skill so that the Brawler can reach areas or jump over obstacles or area-of-effect attacks. Leap can be used in conjunction with Dash to cover even larger distances.
• Evade: allows the Brawler to leap and roll in the direction he’s moving in either to dodge incoming attacks, to put distance between himself and their opponents, or close the distance to their target.
• Heightened Reflexes: is the Ultimate skill of the School. When active, the Brawler gains a sprint speed bonus as well as an attack speed bonus to both ranged and melee attacks.

The Elementalist

From the Elementalist role, the Fire School has been presented. The Fire Mage specializes in dealing large amounts of damage from long range. His skills are the following:

• Attunement to Fire: A self-buff that increases the fire protection, while rendering the player immune to lava damage while buff is active.
• Fireball: A ranged attack that will burn your enemy on impact, along with those in close proximity around him.
• Dragonbreath: A breath of fire that will damage everyone in front of you.
• Magma Bomb: A huge burning ball of magma, so large that itʼs affected by gravity. It has a very long range, and a large area of effect.
• Heat Stroke (Ultimate): A long range projectile that will massively drain the stamina of anyone that is inside it
• Range on impact.

Again, Aventurine published a video on Darkfall Unholy Wars official channel to showcase this specific school.

The second school of the Elementalist role is the Air School. Air Elementalists are masters of wind and lightning. Summoning thunder and fierce winds they are able to keep attackers from getting within striking range. This alone makes them truly formidable on the field and a force to be reckoned.

The Air Elementalists skills are the following:

• Attunement to Air – Embrace the Storm. This buff increases your lightning protection and anybody attacking you will receive a large percentage of their damage returned.
• Thunderbolt – A rapid firing, short range spell to deal damage and fling an enemy away!
• Lightning Bolt -A searing bolt of lightning that will plow through everyone in line of sight! Those hit will also be temporarily blinded.
• Tornado – You are the eye of the storm. The buffeting winds that surround you will damage enemies and fling them about like dry leaves.
• Static Field (Ultimate) – Channel the power of lightning through every pore of your being.

The Primalist

The Primalist is the new and anticipated Role added to Darkfall Unholy Wars. More than just a support role, he is the healer and protector of his group and can help turn the tide of any battle with his interventions. Below you will find a breakdown of the Primalist’s Life and Law school, complete with the descriptions of the spells each school features.

The Primalist school of Life will focus upon healing others.

Life School Spells:

• Exalted Sacrifice: Give of your own health to heal another. You will lose 70% of the health your ally is healed for.
• Consecrate: Tap into the very essence of life and consecrate the ground you stand on. Everyone in range will have their health and stamina restored over time.
• Resuscitation: Quickly bring an ally back from the brink of death!
• Healing Blast: An explosive and powerful burst of rejuvenating life force centered at your target point. This missile of healing energies is affected by gravity.
• Spirit Bond (Ultimate): Channel a primal, life-giving bond between yourself and an ally. While you maintain this link, your ally will gain any health he loses directly from your mana-pool. You can maintain this link indefinitely.

The Primalist school of Law will allow righteous smiting of enemies, self healing, as well as defensive abilities.

Law School:

• Virtuous Wrath: With the righteous speed of justice this spell has a small impact and a long range!
• Invigoration: Let the forces of righteous law command your wound's to bind and your body to recover quickly.
• Bastion: The zeal of your faith creates a palpable aura of protection to all forms of harm for you.
• Primal Surge: A ray of righteous energy strengthens your target's resolve. Their maximum health, stamina, and mana pools are increased for its duration.
• Wall Of Righteous Force (Ultimate): Your faith is a palpable barrier. Your allies can see enemies through the barrier, but your foes will only see a confusing blur of movement and their projectiles, both magical and mundane, will bounce harmlessly off the barrier.

With the addition of the Primalist, there are now 4 roles in the game for players to choose from.

The Races

Mercians

“Hailing from a continent long sunk beneath the seas, the Humans of Mercia are the only race not originally native to Agon. Since arriving on these shores many centuries ago, the Mercians have established one of the richest and most prolific empires on Agon. Their inherent adaptability to any situation and passionate approach to life has amassed them a powerful and prosperous nation-empire on the banks of the river Eanna among the ruins of the ancient civilization of Chal' Dea.”

Tovarr

“Descendants of the Dwarves of old, the Tovarr are a stalwart and stoic people living under the mountains of Cor Ymirhal. Honoring the great sacrifice of the Dwarven nation during the early Unholy Wars, they embody their descendants’ love for all things techno-magical as well as their fierce sense of honor. At the same time the Tovarr share the human traits of versatility and creativity garnered from generations of inter-marrying between the surviving Dwarves and their Mercian benefactors.”

Mahirim

“The youngest of the races to join civilization, the fierce and proud Mahirim maintain their hunting grounds in the Tribelands of the west. Tracing their origins back to a pit-fighting slave race bred for the savage entertainment of the Vargashi empire, the Mahirim defend their developing homeland with a fierce pride. Their capital, Amurran is named in the honor of their first hunter-prophet who brought them from the forests and showed them the ways of civilization.”

Mirdain

“The elves of the Mirdain nation are amongst the oldest surviving races on Agon. Since the days of their freedom after their benevolent masters known as the Nithron mysteriously vanished eons ago, the Mirdain have established their nation among the vast forests of Mirendil. From there the roots of the Emerald Throne, a vast network of spies and informants, stretches to all parts of Agon. Like all elves, the Mirdain move with a grace and haughty nobility that sets them apart from the younger races.”

Ork

“The powerful Ork embody the traits of the volcanoes under which they have lived since their warring tribes were united under one banner many centuries ago. Veins of explosive flame housed in a mountain of rock, this is how the Ork see themselves. During the early Unholy wars, when the races warred with each other, only the steely resolve and mighty, green, iron fist of the Ork nation was able to unite them against the combined threat of Goddess and Demon. “

Alfari

“Once a race of Elves much like the Mirdain, the Alfari minds and bodies were long ago twisted by their mad god-king Melek. Responsible for such acts as the genocide of the Chal'dean empire, the Alfari were a much reviled race. Yet now, due to the death of their god at the hands of the Goddess, the Alfari find themselves with no guidance and no twisting influence. Were it not for the steely resolve of the Orks they would have been slaughtered by the vengeful Mirdain. Now, they seek to find a way to fit into a world bereft of divine guidance.”

The Clans

As it has been stated in Darkfall Unholy Wars blog, the basic role/function of clans in ‘Darkfall: Unholy Wars’ remains as it was in ‘Darkfall Online’. However, to give clans more freedom in choosing their own internal structure, Aventurine has removed the old system of clan rank determining a member’s access to clan features, and replaced it with a new permissions based system. In the new system, company states that permissions to access clan features are assigned to members individually, making it possible for clans to assign highly specialized roles to specific members, without them “inheriting” unrelated (and perhaps undesired) access. Permissions in the new system have been grouped by category (“Clan-Vault”, “Holdings” etc.) and each category has a “management” permission associated with it; clan members who are assigned the management permission have the ability to assign (or remove) permissions from within their own category to (or from) other clan members. This additional “tier” of the permissions system, we believe, will allow clans to distribute the tasks (and responsibilities) of managing the clan between any number of members, and enable them to create a hierarchical management structure, if they so wish.

Fansites

There are several fansites

Darkfallunholywars.info is a fansite relaying information to it's viewers. It contains basic information that could interest newcomers and veterans alike. Contains community events, clan lists, tournaments as well as skill and classe explanation.