The gameplay is definitely there. I have spent hours just running around and exploring the remote parts of the world. It's also so refreshing to play a game where there are consequences for actions. For example: The other night a friend and I were killing some opposing faction players and after a long battle, some random 1337guy of our faction runs up and decides he's going to ninja the loot from their corpses. Well.. if someone ninjas in a game like WoW, that's that, nothing to be done. But this is Darkfall! So we turned around and killed our "teammate" and took all of the stuff he stole, plus more!
Also, the mechanics of the game are very much in line with what Trimmers would need to enjoy a game together. There are NO levels. Once you are in game you can go journey with your friends and fight the same monsters as them. None of this "Oh I can't come play with you guys cause I'm only level 6!" Granted, you may not be as useful without some nice weapons/armor and some skills in whatever combat style you are using, but there is no mechanic that prevents you from doing WHATEVER THE HECK YOU WANT.
The crafting in the game is decent. It's nowhere near SWG, but it's better than WoW. In fact, I would even go as far to say that it's difficult to be a crafter in this game. Acquiring materials means going out into the world to harvest them, which means you gotta hope that no one comes and shanks you while you're pounding away at a tree for lumber. It sucks getting killed while harvesting, but you get over it quick. I've had hundreds of ore stolen from me, along with several rare gemstones, but items in this game come and go - something you just get used to after a few deaths.
As far as criticisms to the game are concerned. Yeah, graphics are not incredible - but we saw what happens when graphics are placed over gameplay (AoC). The environment still feels incredibly rich, in fact I would say it's one of the strong points of this game. The website really hasn't been updated in years. These guys are a very small indie company and their time is spent working on the game rather than updating the website (and sometimes even communicating with the playerbase). It can be frustrating at times not know what is going on, but everything I've seen from these devs says that I shouldn't worry. In the week or so that the game has been out there has been at least 500megs of patches. These guys have been working literally around the clock to get the game into a very stable state. I personally have not had any issues with bugs since the first two days of release. It would be hard for me to say that I have ever seen a dev team more efficient with fixing things.
All in all, I'm enjoying my time spent here immensely. It's such a refreshing nonlinear game style - you can literally do anything you want. I log on and think to myself.. "hmm, should I work on my crafting today? Oh, but I want to go explore this area over here, I heard there are some dragons and floating cities. But I kinda want to go kill some orks!!" Please ask any questions you have about the game and I will try to inform as best I can. Or better yet, try to get yourself a copy and log in and see this amazing game for yourself. I know about being burned in previous games, but I haven't felt this way about a game in a very long time. I'm having FUN!
