Rock, Paper, Shotgun

I’m Too Tired To Think Of A Pun: First Forge Footage

By Jim Rossignol on August 1st, 2012 at 9:00 pm.

Skeleton got a paintjob!
Honestly! And forge is a great word, too. Connotations of making, metal, fire – all sorts of fertile stuff. I think the pun lobe of my brain must have burned out. Perhaps they’ll grow me a new one in the vats. Anyway, Forge is a new online action title that developers Dark Vale claim “plays like a third-person shooter, but with the abilities, strategy and pacing of the best MMO PvP titles.” Make of that what you will. Dark Vale apparently want this to be a skill-based antidote to the usual grind-biff of MMOs.

There’s a trailer below, so you can examine the fancy Unreal-powered mechanisms in motion: a bunch of people storming big fortress-temple environments and so forth. There’s certainly a lot going on: bad dudes getting set on fire and all that good stuff. It perhaps goes without saying that the project has an attendant Kickstarter, asking for a mighty $300k. Will you pledge?

Here’s what Dark Valve have to say about their project: “We’re not just developers, we’re also the gamers who have been in your guilds, your raids, and your battlegrounds spit-balling about what we all wish online multiplayer competition could be,” said Tim Alvis, COO/CTO of Dark Vale Games. “Dark Vale Games and FORGE is our solution – an incredible online experience that rewards players for developing skills, not grinding for gear. And through this Kick-Finish campaign, we’re giving all those online gamers the chance to get a game made by them, for them and to have a voice in the future of the title.” And there’s a bunch more detail about what they’re they’re aiming to achieve on their Kickstarter page.

It’ll be interesting to see how this one pans out.

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65 Comments »

  1. 01/08/2012 at 21:13 Metalfish says:

    The puns are coming.

  2. 01/08/2012 at 21:20 JoeGuy says:

    Newly Forge-d Footage?

  3. 01/08/2012 at 21:21 Connor Magee says:

    A game called ‘Forge’ and the article wasn’t written by Adam Smith.
    What are you people doing with yourselves?

  4. 01/08/2012 at 21:24 aliksy says:

    “Here’s what Dark Valve have to say about their project” — Are they Valve’s evil twin? More beard, faster release cycle?

  5. 01/08/2012 at 21:36 Nevard says:

    Ugh, look at all those stuns

    • 01/08/2012 at 21:47 Sakkura says:

      Jumping around, circlestrafing, and stunlocks. Looks like they deliberately copied some of the worst parts of WoW PvP.

      • 01/08/2012 at 21:56 Nevard says:

        There’s nothing more fun than having your controls completely removed by another player!

        • 01/08/2012 at 21:58 Brun says:

          Conversely, there are few things more fun than removing another player’s control, and then wailing on them.

          They wouldn’t put it in if it weren’t fun for SOMEONE.

          • 01/08/2012 at 22:26 SojournerForge says:

            There is a system in place, “Determination”, that limits stuns. You can’t be endlessly stunned, you’ll go immune for quite a period of time. The system isn’t active in all video we have presented. The rest? Jumping is pretty habitual, circle strafing is common in most games with wsad.

        • 01/08/2012 at 23:18 Snargelfargen says:

          One of my favourite parts of WoW was playing a rogue in pvp. This game was made for me, and it looks like tons of fun!.

          That said, stunlocking was only really useful in one on one fights and only then if you had a specific set of talents that were largely useless in other situations. In battlegrounds and larger fights, the risk of getting interrupted during a lengthy stun lock routine is quite high, so you really have to mix it up and improvise a lot more.
          I think a lot of peopleare scared away from pvp in mmo’s because their first experiences are usually being ganked by somebody much more experienced. There are so many abilities and things firing off that the player often doesn’t know why they died, leading to a lot more frustration than simply getting shot by some dude with a bigger gun in an fps. The huge variety of abilities and skill trees means that there is a very complex and rewarding meta-game involving deducing what your opponent will do next and finding a suitable counter. The barrier to entry is pretty steep because of that.

          • 02/08/2012 at 02:46 InternetBatman says:

            The skill ceiling is pretty much the least of the worries playing pvp in WoW. One huge barrier to entry is the difference between PVP skills and fighting mobs. Skills have fairly different effects on mobs than on other players. If skills are differently viable, builds are doubly so and never explained in game. There even used to be the huge cost barrier of respeccing. Gear disparities mean that many players go into a fight with a huge disadvantage. Speaking of gear disparities, twinks ruined the lower level battlefields, the places where new pvp players are supposed to train.

            The pvp system requires a new player to enter into a game where the numbers are stacked against them for a long time, there’s no training, it’s a new grind where the scenery never changes, and then there’s the skill difference on top of that.

            WoW does many things well, but every time I play its pvp it feels irreparably broken and just not fun, especially when I compare it to LoL.

          • 02/08/2012 at 03:31 Snargelfargen says:

            All very good points, and part of the reason I no longer play WoW. Hopefully Forge can avoid similiar problems, although assuming it is f2p, monetization could come with it’s own set of problems…

      • 01/08/2012 at 22:09 Keymonk says:

        That’s what I thought too. This is why I don’t PvP in MMOs. Most of them are like that. Garbage.

      • 01/08/2012 at 22:51 FakeAssName says:

        honestly it looks more like Dark Messiah’s clusterfuckery pvp mode ….

    • 01/08/2012 at 22:40 Beemann says:

      Yeah I was pretty excited until I saw the stuns everywhere
      I could see if they took some time and effort to set up, but these ones look like “run up to enemy, hit stun button” which is just too much output for too little input, and it’s frustrating for people on the receiving end

      Aside from that everything looks great, and I’ve actually spent the last few days ranting about how new MMOs should just start including all skillshots already.
      …Actually, to be more specific I was saying that a MMO with all skillshots and SWG’s crafting + city-building would be perfect, but maybe I’m just crazy

    • 02/08/2012 at 00:29 zeroskill says:

      “Ugh, look at all those stuns”

      It’s called PvP.

      • 02/08/2012 at 02:08 Nevard says:

        Funny, I’ve played a load of games against other players that didn’t take my controls away once
        I guess that didn’t count as REAL PvP

      • 02/08/2012 at 03:01 InternetBatman says:

        I don’t mind stuns, but the stuns in this game look hideously long. Stuns are fine when they’re a short thing that interrupts your moves, and act as part of the flow of the game. They are less fun when they entirely interrupt the flow of the game and force you to wait. I also mind stuns less if they take skill to do, these don’t look like they take much skill.

      • 02/08/2012 at 10:28 Hobz says:

        No it’s called “pvp for dummies” : take away the risk of your opponent hitting back by stunning him or hiding in stealth ;)

        • 02/08/2012 at 13:26 zeroskill says:

          The point of most GOOD PvP games like Dota or Guild Wars is to counter your opponent. If you let yourself be stunned or don’t have any counters to stuns or your teammates don’t support you properly then you are obviously just bad at the game.

          PvP in most good games of this sort involve a lot of different spell types and crowd controls so you actually have to use your brain and have to have the right answer to that certain situation you might find yourself in, like being stunned. But hey I guess it a lot of fun to shoot fireballs at each other until one persons health bar is down. Pfff.

    • 02/08/2012 at 10:22 Hobz says:

      Glad to see i’m not the only one concerned about stunlock, I’m not found of perma-stealth either.

  6. 01/08/2012 at 21:36 bigtoeohno says:

    Too tired to forge a pun??

  7. 01/08/2012 at 21:39 ZIGS says:

    FORGEFACE

  8. 01/08/2012 at 21:43 Smashbox says:

    Minaret it through your skull: Dark Valve’s freshly tempersmithed Forge Forgetage

  10. 01/08/2012 at 22:33 Hardmood says:

    they should call it FORGE: Return of the sons of noobcloak

  11. 01/08/2012 at 23:26 Reapy says:

    Going head to head with GW2 is probably not a smart idea… looking at the vid seems like a lesser version of that. They look to have a lot of talent on the project, just seems focused in the wrong place imho.

    I hope they prove me wrong… good luck to them!

  12. 01/08/2012 at 23:53 Unpoetic says:

    For those interested, the Game is being streamed right now at: twitch.tv/reckful

  13. 02/08/2012 at 00:25 Kein says:

    I really tried to figure out what is happening in the trailer and who is killing who. I failed.

    • 02/08/2012 at 09:45 Skhalt says:

      Wait, weren’t they dancing? Running in circles around each other like that…
      Or some sort of “the last one to get nausea wins all” contest.

  14. 02/08/2012 at 05:35 Caiman says:

    “We’re not just developers, we’re gamers…”

    Are there any developers who are not gamers? I mean, I know you’re trying to tell us you’re looking after our best interests, but I’d say that’s what all developers are trying to do. Whether they achieve that, despite the restrictions placed onto them, is another matter entirely.

    • 02/08/2012 at 09:51 Gnoupi says:

      Developers who are not gamers? Approximately everyone working on a financial program.
      Game developers who are not gamers? Ask Zynga.

      Joke aside, you can be developer on a specific field and not have anything in common with it. There are usually enough layers for you to work on something which is purely “programming”, and not specific to your particular program.

  15. 02/08/2012 at 07:51 Hunchback says:

    So how is that any different from WoW PvP ?

  16. 02/08/2012 at 11:49 Hmm-Hmm. says:

    All I see is shades of grey! Well, and some gritty black, bone white, poisionous green and blood red.

    Interesting that they took WoW-like combat and intend to make it more PvP-worthy. I doubt it’ll succeed, but then again, they are obviously targeting the WoW audience and there are a lot of (former) WoW players around.

  17. 02/08/2012 at 12:08 NightShift says:

    It looked promising at the first scene, until the combat. I hate how it looks like who ever circle strafes the most, whoever stuns the other first, whoever gets a lucky crit, wins. And what a shame, I thought it was another Darksiders 2 article.

    EDit: Also, I can already see the Forge 360 no scope bow shots Xxl33tsnp1rrrrxXr videos.

    Edit 2: After watching the video again, what the heck is up with all those stuns? Good lord.

  18. 02/08/2012 at 12:48 spitfires_son says:

    Fury by Auran Games. Anyone remember that and how badly a PvP focused “MMO” did?

    Maybe the market has changed after 5 years.

  19. 02/08/2012 at 18:13 Ultra Superior says:

    Dark Valve.

    lol

  20. 03/08/2012 at 15:42 BreadBitten says:

    Does alliteration count as a pun these days?

  21. 03/08/2012 at 20:12 Viper50BMG says:

    All this untempered punning…

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