New player shares his experience

https://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?374548-A-Noob-s-Tale-%28fair-warning-wall-o-text-inc%29/page2

I started playing this game a couple weeks ago with a few irl friends. We hang out in vent and just have fun playing whatever game we find that’s good. For now, it’s Darkfall. This is just a little story to demonstrate just how great this game is.

From the start a couple weeks back I’ve just been doing the normal noob crap. Doing feats in the noob zone, doing treasure maps, crafting junk, etc. We crafted our first boat, and did some exploring -- Darkfall life is simple and, outside of the safe zone, always exciting.

I eventually get an invite from a clan of new players. They seem like good guys so we start to go do more clan-related stuff. My irl friends join as well, but we still hang in my vent mostly (this comes into play later).

Eventually, the clan joins an alliance that has a fledgling city (Sweetwater) south of Sanguine. I start to go down there, hang out, duel, and give them stone and stuff like that. Every so often, the place is attacked. Even at my 15K prowess, it’s still very fun to PvP. I spend a few days defending the city from enemies (I never thought to look at their names or affiliations). They are just the enemy because they have no A, C, or P (friendly tags for those who don’t play Darkfall) over their heads.

Over the next couple days I get a few of my friends to check out Sweetwater. We dueled a lot to learn the classes and counters. Last night is when the real fun happened. After a bit of dueling with my buddy he went outside to mine (this is a IRL friend who I was in vent with at the time). I decided to practice long range bow shots on him as he mines. All is cool until suddenly I’m attacked from 3 or 4 guys from the walls of the city. This isn’t anything out of the ordinary at first since people mess around constantly in there. It wasn’t until I was down to about 50% health that I started to run away thinking “well, I guess I’m being punished for attacking a miner and they just don’t know he’s in on it." No problem there.

I started to type in alliance chat asking what’s going on and that we are together but can’t pay much attention since I’m being chased by 4 angry allies. My mount dies, but I’m a skirm so I make some good distance and only the skirm in the group keeps up at first. I decided “fuck it” and just start attacking. 5 arrows and a salvo later this dude is at 25% and running for his life back to his friends (he didn't manage to hit me once). In Darkfall, it seems, someone with low prowess can put a beat down on bad players who have more prowess and better gear. I didn’t pay attention to his name otherwise I’d call him out at this point for being a terrible.

Anyway, at this point 3 or 4 of them are on me and I’m completely out of stats, I die and get ganked and end up back in noob zone where I’m bound. Now I focus on alliance chat where I catch up on what been said. Apparently attacking allies in the city is NOT ALLOWED and punishable by a gank. I asked how, then, these No-Fun Police Officers could explain all the dueling that happens constantly within Sweetwater (up to and including about five minutes before all of this nonsense started). The douche-in-charged replied by insisting that there had been no dueling going on for hours (a complete lie -- dueling had been constant since my friend and I got there). He goes on about me being in “the wrong com” and that they have been fighting all night and I should be defending the city. What’s funny is my buddy and I had been in the city for a while and had just finished defending the city from some dudes that had sneaked in. I had also spent the last two nights straight PvPing around the city defending it from whoever the hell was attacking.

At this point it was abundantly clear to me I was dealing with some internet tough guy who thinks very highly of himself in a video game. I jumped in my clan vent and told them to boot me from the clan because I was about to break ties to the current alliance. They refused to boot me and, instead, stood with me after I called this douche-bag out for what he is in alliance chat. To be fair, the No Fun Police offered to give my stuff back if I installed mumble and came back to the city. I got many sympathetic private messages from other self-proclaimed “core alliance” members saying they did not support what happened.

Losing my stuff isn’t a problem (hell, it's Darkfall -- the economy and game is based on people losing stuff). The problem is with the attitude of the perceived leader in this situation ("Knuk Eh" was the guy's name if I remember correctly) and his sheep allies who enable his electronic narcissism to go on un-checked.

Here's what is awesome (and the point of my post): loot is meant to be lost and is of no consequence. What this chain of events has given me, however, is better than any loot: the unbelievably lame behavior Sweetwater provided me with a true enemy. A bad guy. A villain -- a force worth hating. Until now I’ve only killed people because they weren’t allies; I never even looked at their names. Now I have a goal, a purpose in Darkfall -- something that makes all that tree chopping seem worth it. Anyone who wants to can follow me; my clan has stood by me so far. If you are an ally of Sweetwater or whoever this Knuk Eh dude is, I’d recommend you turn on them (or at least him) in due time. Why put up with that kind of ass-hattery. Internet tough guys only get to play that way because noob followers enable them. A high prowess number does not make a leader worth following.

This experience has been amazing. I’ve had my first taste of Darkfall politics. I’m just a noob with a lot of prowess to gain and a lot of duels to go before I am fully viable. That won’t stop me from constantly ganking around Sweetwater until it is no longer controlled by the current alliance. If you are aligned against them send me a PM, my clan and possibly some others may be interested in helping you take them down.

PS: if you are wondering why I’m posting this in the noob forums it’s because I’m too lazy to link my acct. Just like I’m too lazy to install mumble right now. Also, I think it’s a good story of the sort of stuff that can happen in ~2 weeks of playing Darkfall.


edit/update: at this time the clan that owns Sweetwater (AA) has kicked out Knuk Eh's clan and invited us back. The Alliance chose noobs over asshats. We have accepted and are now back with Sweetwater. Further evidence of an amazing game!