January 4, 2010

Darkfall Day 30

David X. Messer's final Darkfall post... for now. And I'd like to thank David for his work on this over the past month and a bit; it's brought a great many visitors to the site, and I've really enjoyed reading...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 8:06 PM | Comments (0)

Darkfall Day 29

David X. Messer's penultimate Darkfall post... I'm cheating a little. This is the last post, next post will be a bit of a wrap up piece on thoughts so far. I'd love to say that for my last day there...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 8:03 PM | Comments (0)

December 22, 2009

Darkfall Day 27

David X. Messer provides guidance for newcomers to Darkfall. This post is basically a checklist of things I did as a new player and either got dead right or got wrong. Essentially I thought it might be useful for other...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 8:57 PM | Comments (0)

Darkfall Day 26

David X. Messer gets attacked by sea in Darkfall. My new favourite past time is hunting for chaos chests. These seem to spawn fairly randomly and containt random items. Mostly money, the odd bit of materials. Early evening I went...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 8:54 PM | Comments (0)

Darkfall Day 25

David X. Messer investigates sieges in Darkfall. The slow death of our clan continues as a lot of the new members we'd gained over the past three weeks have started to leave. This was to be expected and isn't really...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 8:49 PM | Comments (0)

Darkfall Day 24

The best laid plans, of course, didn't happen. What happened instead was there was a shift in Clan alliances wherein the Clan I'm in has moved sideways and is now allied with a completely different bunch of Clans....
Posted by Drew Shiel at 8:46 PM | Comments (0)

December 11, 2009

Darkfall Day 23

David X. Messer lays plans to get out into the world of Darkfall. A couple of things happened this evening which confirmed a couple of thoughts I'd had recently. The first of which is the recall point to a fellow...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 1:39 PM | Comments (0)

Darkfall Days 21 & 22

David X. Messer compresses time in Darkfall. Yes, I'm cheating bundling days 21 + 22 together, but the reasons are simple. Day 21, the server was down all evening. The forums suggested that there was a patch being applied that...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 1:35 PM | Comments (0)

December 7, 2009

Darkfall Day 20

David X. Messer seethes quietly in Darkfall. While waiting for the clan channel to deliver my daily dose of something to do the topic of building up our clan Hamlet and where we'd get the funds to do so. As...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 7:41 PM | Comments (0)

Darkfall Day 19

David X. Messer thinks about the Darkfall expansion, since he can't play it much yet. The morning brought news, via the offical Darkfall twitter account, that the patch notes were now available : http://www.darkfallonline.com/expansion/1209.html Excellent to see they've 'fixed' the...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 7:38 PM | Comments (0)

Darkfall Day 18

David X. Messer did not in fact get ganked horrbly or rage-quit. Read on for more. First off apologies for the lack of updates last week. You would be forgiven for thinking that I got ganked horribly last weekend and...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 7:35 PM | Comments (0)

November 30, 2009

Darkfall Day 17

David X. Messer works on making the numbers go up in Darkfall. Logging in for the evening I checked what the status of the expansion was, apparently it's due on the 4th of December now, which gives me a bit...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 12:28 PM | Comments (0)

November 28, 2009

Darkfall Day 16

David X. Messer investigates the mechanics of mounts in Darkfall, using an unsuspecting PK as a tutor. Having logged out on the previous evening in Deep Yishku I decided to do some exploring while taking screenshots as I went. Suddenly...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 11:22 AM | Comments (0)

November 26, 2009

Darkfall Day 15

David X. Messer gets ganked again in Darkfall, but finds safety in numbers. Contains expansion commentary. Day 15 started out with me being ganked twice. Which was fine, I wasn't carrying anything of value, but I gather people like to...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 4:03 PM | Comments (0)

November 25, 2009

Darkfall Day 14

David X. Messer goes exploring, and engages in some time-altering PvP in Darkfall. Today I decided to go exploring. By this point I've got about 5 mounts so I decided I could afford to waste one. I stripped down to...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 3:56 PM | Comments (0)

Darkfall Day 13

David X. Messer does some gathering and crafting in Darkfall today, and doesn't get his herbs stolen this time. Another slack day in Darkfall. Having spent some time cutting down trees and mining ore it was now the turn of...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 10:50 AM | Comments (0)

November 23, 2009

Darkfall Day 12

David X. Messer has a forward-looking post today. Today brought some interesting news. Our little hamlet rests just south of a largely abandoned player city. The Clan/Alliance who used it apparently were party of some large Alliance which recently disbanded....
Posted by Drew Shiel at 11:13 AM | Comments (0)

Darkfall Day 11

David X. Messer has a quiet day in Darkfall... Another day spent gathering I'm afraid. For not apparent reason other than the fact I could, I've been pushing the lumbering and mining skills a bit more. This turned out to...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 11:11 AM | Comments (0)

November 19, 2009

Darkfall Day Ten

David X. Messer has a day in Darkfall in which he Gets Things Done. The plan for the day was simple enough. The slaughter of twenty or thirty goblins for money. Yes. I am that shallow. I was short the...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 2:14 PM | Comments (0)

Darkfall Day Nine

David X Messer has had a quiet day in Darkfall. Today was one of those days spent "just fishing", I'm afraid. A couple more hours spent skinning/mining/wood cutting/fishing. During which conversation piped up in the Clan channel about a possible...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 11:45 AM | Comments (0)

November 17, 2009

Darkfall: Day Eight

David X. Messer's eighth day of Darkfall sees him visiting player cities and player housing. "Do you want to try a fairly safe Goblin and mining spawn?" I was asked shortly after logging in. I fancied building up some more...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 10:25 PM | Comments (0)

November 16, 2009

Darkfall Day Seven

In Day Seven of his Darkfall adventures, David X. Messer thinks about thinking about the game. Day seven and one week of playing Darkfall! It's customary at this point to have some self important waffle about week one and make...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 2:12 PM | Comments (0)

November 15, 2009

Darkfall: Day Six

Day Six of David X. Messer's journeys in Darkfall. Bit of an odyssey this time... Shortly after I joined my first Clan there was a brief comedy moment where I found out that the Clan Hamlet was. It was possibly...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 5:00 PM | Comments (0)

November 13, 2009

Darkfall: Day Five

Hot on the heels of David X. Messer's account of Day Four comes Day Five. And this time I'm publishing it the day I get it. Planning on doing things in an MMO is a bit like taking a bath...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 3:33 PM | Comments (0)

Darkfall Day Four

Apologies for the late arrival of Day Four's happenings - it's my fault, not David X. Messer's. Today's entry is going to be a bit short, as I only got an hour or so of play and even that was...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 9:36 AM | Comments (0)

November 11, 2009

Darkfall Day Three

David X. Messer continues into Darkfall. Today, Clan helpfulness, weapon skills, and gathering. Day 3 in Darkfall was a bit disruptive. Having joined a Clan only the day before, the conversation in the Clan channel naturally turned into a shopping...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 11:44 AM | Comments (0)

November 10, 2009

Darkfall: Day Two

The continuing adventures of David X. Messer. His mission: to try out Darkfall while paying for a month's subscription. This follows Day One. There was a tiny moment of doubt in my mind as I started day two but that...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 12:36 PM | Comments (0)

November 9, 2009

Darkfall: Day One

David X. Messer returns, trying out the hardcore MMO experience that is Darkfall. He expects to be flamed; don't disappoint him. It was with some excitement that I clicked the 'Buy Darkfall' link. Free trials are all very well and...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 10:32 AM | Comments (0)

September 24, 2009

Little Big Planet Charms Skeptical Gamer

David X. Messer returns to review Little Big Planet, and finds it not quite what he expected. I'm possibly the worst person to review a platform game. In fact things are so bad one could describe my experience of platformers...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 2:03 PM | Comments (0)

August 11, 2009

EQ2 and WAR: First impressions of a WoW Tourist

Guest article by David X Messer. I talked him into trying EQ2; he talked himself into trying WAR. This lunchtime, I bought myself a packet of Seabrook Salt and Vinegar crisps. For those of you unfamiliar with said fried potato...
Posted by Drew Shiel at 2:01 PM | Comments (0)