Media Sneak Peak: New Sandbrook
August 05, 2011 
Tasos Flambouras 
As we’ve mentioned before, everything is being redone in the new Darkfall world. Today we’ll give you a sneak peak into Sandbrook redesigned. It doesn’t remind much of old Sandbrook, other than the surrounding scenery. The city has been completely optimized and everything is conveniently located where players can find it easily. Furthermore, we should mention that it’s no longer a starting area but a faction city. A mysterious looking prop you can see close to the bindstone has to do with some of the new training quests that will be introduced to the game with the relaunch.
Key people are missing this week, so our planning meeting will happen next week and that’s when we can give you an activity report and possibly another Q&A segment that we’re working on.
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Ok, but what about siege system? That supposed to be patched “within a month”, “within a week” and so on?
We’re shooting for next week. The ETA shifts have to do with the parameters and the testing. We’re trying to get it right.
Thank you, please just keep us posted on delays. We dont mind a eta that shifts as long as you are explaining why.
Will these Faction Cities still be NPC towns that lock out 95% of the game’s population? or will it be easy to get blue again like the old days?
u know I normally put in my two cents on these things but I think this time I’m just going to recommend that YOU TASOS read what ppl are saying. because if u notice 90% are still unhappy and are telling u how to fix it.maybe u and ur design team should listen to them for once instead of taking what we say putting it in a blender and throwing it back at us as if we asked for some sloppy bs. I have all the greatest respect for AV because u guys built this world from scratch with like 4 ppl. but that doesn’t mean that u have to stick with JUST 4 ppl. higher some ppl, make things go faster,get some new ideas flowing. or just listen to the ones we give u. 60% of them are brilliant ideas.u guys just always pick the other 40%.
much love to the DF community that is still playing and not unsubdued on the forums bitching about shit they have no idea about because they don’t play.
I’m going out on a limb here, but maybe their entire engine wasn’t created as adjustable as their new siege system? Maybe they CAN’T just change things on a player’s whim because of the actual changes it requires, and all the systems affected by said adjustment. Maybe that is why they are redesigning pretty much everything in the first place. I don’t know for sure, but if they don’t change something that tons of people ask for, I’m sure it isn’t just to spite their player base. Most of what we ask for doesn’t constitute a simple number change, it is a full-on mechanic change most times. Besides, as long as it may be taking, there is no point in adjusting a small thing now that will be taken care of later with everything that is coming, and to make that change mesh correctly with all that comes with it.
Oh, and their team is more then four people…
http://www.aventurine.gr/games/credits.html
Accounting for duplicate postings of names, it’s still ~35 or more…
yes well.. I think he might be referring to the sick feeling you are left with when after a couple of years of NOT seeing easy fixes (10 minutes to adjust the second floor at the minotaur spawn just to pick one obvious and easy fix), or exploits being fixed as they crop up, but instead having to wait for months (or as the above case, forever) for something they COULD have just hotpatched the day they found out about it, sorta gets to you, in the end.
Now I have a great deal of respect for av and what they have created so far, and I have been defending them more than most up through the years because I always felt that they would surely improve and the game would evolve over time to become truly masterful. I am way, way over that threshold now, as quite frankly, the manner we are being treated by their pr department (tasos for one) is so amateurish and disrespectful, it borders on the edge of a circus.
Still waiting for a clearification about a possible wipe or not, btw. Newsflash, it IS a matter for the present.
Summary, I do not mind seeing development going slow, as long as something, anything is being done now and then, I’m all peachy.
Seeing bugs and exploits run rampant for years, instead of being fixed right away, on the other hand, PISSES ME OFF after a while, and transforms everything from expectations and joy to annoyance and rage.
We are paying for this you know, the very least you should be Assed to do, is fix bugs when they come up instead of taking us from behind while you mock us with eta’s and promises of patches, postponed 20 times before coming with half what has been promised (and still no bugs fixed).
35 is still really small amount for that type of game.
Can’t you change this horrible safe-texture already ? I hate these banks. They even kill the last immersion. Maybe a small massive stone-building with metal doors and an npc in front instead ?
agree
I agree about the banks. It looks silly to have 5-10 players all staring at a metal box. Think about making it a structure with a tent out front and a few NPC’s that give access outfront.
I love how dark and mysterious it looks. Hopefully we will be able to enjoy the dynnamic lighting and great looking shadows without a serious fps loss.
I agree to an extent. How will banks be destroyed for strategic reasons in player cities if they are NPC’s? Maybe a structure is the bank and they sit out front. The NPC’s should fight like in DAOC and WoW. At least the player city ones.. They seem too static just standing there while fights are breaking out before there very eyes.
Super Arch Dreading thinks this is is evidence chaos towns are going to be even more fun! In redesigning the game world, are secrets of the terrain going to be removed? Meaning: little escape splines where you can straight up things you otherwise wouldn’t be able to–the places where it gave the locals the advantage in a fight ( get it?).
will there be a wipe?
The whole charm of Sandbrook was that it was a small Mercian fishing town.
Looks like someone just dumped a lot of buildings that people can’t go in into town.
I think that looks pretty amazing. I disagree with you Keith on the “dumped a lot of buildings” part, it doesn’t look like too many extra buildings, if any. I don’t really know how to explain what I see, except that it just looks A LOT better then before.
I do agree with the bank thing though. It’d be nice to see a building instead of a giant safe, but the ease of access on the safe is hard to ignore. Plus, random banks out in the wilderness? That’s just silly…
I agree with Keith, I loved Sandbrook because of it’s humble charm as well. Yay for a ton of buildings that don’t add to immersion at all since you can’t interact with them whatsoever or go inside.
Sandbrooke looks awesome, I love the redesign. Hope you’ve done some work on Alfar towns as well as they are all terrible at the moment.
Loved the new look of Sandbrook! Good work, hopefully all the world will look so impressive.
I agree how banks should be something other than just a square metal box and it would be really nice if we didn’t have many buildings in game that we can go in and interact in.
Looks great.
Can’t see shit, captain.
Can’t you show a bit more ? Like, what has been studied to re-do the layout of the city, the plans you’ve made etc ?
I’m sure there’s some doodle of it somwhere ! That would be interesting to see.
We dont need the sights of new cities. We need a full information what we should expect in the future. All the server is tighten up the belts and wary about humors about future wipe after this dam years.
Music was good, city looked like something out of Oblivion with less complexity.
If I rated the current layout and what you showed us currently your rating a 6/10 the new layout is 7/10.
Need more footage 40 seconds is nothing, but the game appears to be looking more intimidating. Also I thought Sandbrook was a Goblin fort captured and purposed… Need more official lore
Still no details on any prestige classes… fail.
No information on what the new armors do… fail.
No information on how the new armor system balances melee magic archery… fail
Seriously, we have been screaming for balance and nerfing magic with robe/blackbolt for over a year… fail.
I’m happy for what you show us. But I’m mad for what you don’t.
C’mon this is like a really good TV series, with 40 seconds airtime.
Agree. It won’t take much longer to capture at least 3-5 min video and some voice explaining design moves.
Really good example are videos for patch notes of LoL.
Looks very good, I especially liked the big rock near the guard tower.
Also dont forget that the city may look good from your view point but the players dont have those view points unless you give them. So for cities to be admired for its full you either design them to look good first hand or you give them the view points to look at them from above.
2.0 like a new game my ass..
fucking fail company only consist of art designers
you can’t even implement the armor you showed us 2 years ago
Just a suggestion : I never liked how the Banks look; they just don’t feel right or “real” so-to-speak to me. I would much prefer it be a building, a sort of small keep or counter, where we could imagine that clan goods and your gear are kept.
Come to think of it, the House Vendors could be a nice inspiration for a new look for the Banks.
So can we finally go into all the buildings in town? Or are they just something pretty to look at?
Rather than complaining about things I don’t know I’ll comment on things I do know now.
I think the city looks very nice. I agree with the banks being better if they were actual buildings, but it’s a little hard to change that this far in, the whole layout of every city would have to be changed again to fit another building. I also agree that a random bank out in the wilderness wouldn’t be very practical or realistic.
So to sum it up, looks good, & I understand why banks are what they are & have no real issue with it.
Shut the fuck up
I disagree. A new texture and maybe a npc in front would add immersion in the game, but wouldn’t be hard to change. They don’t need to make banks lot bigger, but change these ugly safe-texture.
looks very nice! good job!
I love the new texturing.
everyone i have talked to that still plays or used to play says the population is decreasing rapidly or people are just waiting for their sub to run out. they are all waiting for DF2.0 my advice would be to just focus all energy on getting 2.0 done or you will loose a huge player base. im personally waiting for 2.0 <3
after 1.5 years of nothing, i pretty much consider this a fail…
wtf is wrong with you aventurine? why do you have to keep everything u develop as if it were top-secret. from the last expansion all we got like 4 months before release was a spotlight of freaking funhulks? come on, are you kidding me?
You can rearrange models all you want. All I care about is if this game is going to run with 100 people on the field.
I don’t mean to dimish the hard work. I think that the darkfall world does need some remodeling, but your active player base is really looking forward to being able to play it with that new siege system you are taking about.
I placed a 500k gold bet that you guys would release 2.0 this year. Please don’t let me down.
there’s someone in that company that is actively trying to destroy it. Or else it wouldn’t keep on producing shit. The over all product is fantastic, but people survive on additional content to expand into. This is simply an example of bad management.
so you say that you will rerelase this game etc.
why don’t you make a small post about how you plan to do it?
its a bit disapointing that we don’t see any news on important stuff for the playerbase
if you havent noticed graffics and pve is way way below in the list of what to fix for this game