This game would of been WAY more popular if it went f2p instead of its extremely niche population or better yet somebody should open a private server. I doubt the game would be hard to manage and update it only took 3 guys 10 years or so to make.
F2P would only make things worse, F2P does not make gameplay better. Private servers just breed corruption. Either those running them fall to the temptation as P99 has or they find themselves incapable of keeping up with the tide of it flooding in. Usually it's the former that occurs, IIRC even Shards of Dalaya's staff finally succumbed.
This game made me realize how much PvP needs PvE. Wolves need sheep to prey on, they just shouldn't be in a world where the sheep can so easily outstrip the wolves that the wolves can't fight against them.
I think the problem with this game is it's fully built up front for the wolves and gears its world more to almost political warfare of sieging fortifications and
controlling territory without the "PvE" aspects of a game like Eve (which went in its own extremes).
I don't think a game like this could work in an MMO, I think the only viable type of PvP world that can be both functional and enjoyable is one that both attracts and sustains PvPers and PvEers in a setting that keeps the latter from outpacing the former while keeping the former from driving latter out of the game.
I can only think of that working either in a game world like EQ with plenty of PvE for the sheep to enjoy with the PvPers being outlaws living on the social fringes whom people flee from or hunt down when noticed in zone, or a unstructured wild west where people create their own content to fight over between decent PvE areas much like how UO was with home construction.
Now you could say DFs structure is much like the last thing I mentioned, but they way much of PvP culture is, sadly after the initial contest the losers either get driven away/pack up and leave or begin to break out the hacking and other illegitimate means to win and be the ones that drive everyone else away.
Unfortunately I think much of this advice as well wouldn't work and the main problem with a game like DF is that it's behind the times in that it's being built in mind with the way MMO culture was around the turn of the millennium when we were all naively learning the ropes which left room for everyone to find their niche in the games instead of too many PvPers playing not to have fun and build an enjoyable environment for all but to win, dominate and continue to crush anyone that tries to rest control from them that all too often leads to those that are dominant simply seeking to get on top and then bully everyone else keeping them from growing in power so they simply have a reliable population of invested people they can pick on at leisure until said population grows sick of the state of things and quits.
Sadly much of this is contained within the sentiment of Dawkins'. Now he can sneer and give me a bad rating all he wants, it won't change the fact that the very words he used in his OP contain the reason why it be another failure:
Basically, this is an extreme game for hardcore motherF7@43R5 and u gotta play.
That is the perfect recipe for a small population, something that doesn't play to the strengths of a game like this where it needs a sizeable population to provide bodies for all of this warring to get it's nice battles and casualty counts from in the way Eve does despite the bullshit in Coalition wars that players have always had to work in spite of.
People need to focus on what is good for the games' servers as in what keeps people playing in them, and if most want PvE bullshit, then it needs to be in there even if the PvPers loath it, it simply needs to have a balance where the PvEers don't just gain so much strength they can steamroll the PvPers. Whatever you think of PvEers I'm not asking you to like them, simply to support mechanics that attract them that don't make them dominate so you have prey to hunt. The wolf has no love for the sheep, but without the sheep it's simply wolf against wolf, and none of them have the ability to keep each other in check the way a horde of sheep can from sheer volume of numbers, they hyper-competitive nature results in a poisoning of the server culture that ultimately drives everyone but the dominant guild away until eventfully they too get bored from lack of prey.
Examples to illustrate what I'm talking about are: Being a newbie PK on Rallos Zek rolling around Commonlands and Nektulos and quickly building up a reputation that resulted in my name being called out as soon as I became noticed and hunting parties forming looking for me that could quickly build into the dozens that soon turned the hunter into the hunted as I began to sneak around trying to ambush and whittle their numbers down.
Alongside that PvEing with one of the last anti-pk minded raiding guilds on RZ, MIM, and having to pay attention to pks rolling into zones jumping you and hunting them down if they cause too much trouble as they try roll in and out of zones or try to do their own thing knowing people will try to disrupt it in kind along with with those odd moments at banks doing your business next to one of the more notorious names on the server.
The prime example I can think of the over competitiveness that has taken over since then was what killed VZTZ2 when Eight Inches Unbuffed tried to take over top spot from Heresy, failed only to pull out hacks that blackened every foes screen until typical emu staff corruption resulted in that iteration of the server dying days later.
PvPers need to be the underdogs. They know it in their hearts even if they don't want to admit it and sadly Darkfall doesn't encourage an environment that produces that state of being.
I think the graphics are kinda a barrier for a lot of people as well because they haven't really aged well but hey runescape is still doing fine so idk, maybe they just need some big twitch streamers or something. Can't say I understand graphic whores but they do seem to be the majority
WOW GUYS LOOK MY VIDYA GAME LOOKS JUST LIKE A MOVIE WOWOWOWOW then go watch a movie u fuck cunt bitch
That we can agree on, but I'm someone fine with EQs old graphics and the only big thing that annoyed me with DF at launch was that the Mahirim couldn't mount run on their own at launch since that was a big draw for me. Had that not happened I'd have gone Dark Elf and wound up having tons of fun booting afk people into the acid pools in their town much as I did to Orcs in their lava as much as I could do (and not much).