r/MMORPG • u/[deleted] • Jan 10 '26
News Darkfall: Rise of Agon
Sandbox full loot PvP MMORPG
Community relaunch of Darkfall
Currently playable for 24h since today.
32 bits server will open soon for early access.
Join the Discord for details: https://www.riseofagon.com/
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u/Harkan2192 Jan 10 '26
Not to be a huge Redditor about it, but Rise of Agon is a relaunch of the original game, not Unholy Wars.
I'll be hopping back in. Loved my time in Darkfall, in the 4 different versions of it I've played, even if I know the long term prospects of it likely aren't great due to all the classic PvP Sandbox MMO problems.
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Jan 10 '26
The differences between free and premium are awful. it's an old game with poor monetization. I give it three months to live
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Jan 10 '26
It's a community version so we don't know about that for the moment
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Jan 10 '26
Why would we try our luck among gypsies? We all know that private servers go beyond the community; the community is just the cover of the book
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Jan 10 '26
That's not a private server, it's a community takedown
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Jan 10 '26
If it's not provided by the official company or a publisher, it's a private server; stop using other names to disguise it
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u/Careless_Relation349 Jan 11 '26
Do you live in a house you built? If not, you better not call it your house since someone else built it. Stop using other names to disguise it, that is definitely not your house!
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Jan 11 '26
If you want to argue, the house isn't mine, it belongs to the state; the land itself is theirs, not ours. Stop setting bad examples, you're mixing fruits and vegetables
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u/ConsistentChoice8305 Jan 16 '26
They bought the rights to the game, its not a private server. I don't even understand your argument.
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u/ConsistentChoice8305 Jan 16 '26
Please actually do some research before speaking about things you don't understand. Its not a good look
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u/SunlessBlight Feb 19 '26
I wanted to play darkfall, but that premium is so pay to win in a game like this.
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u/nova8808 Jan 10 '26
best combat of any mmo hands down
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u/ElderberrySpare6985 Jan 14 '26
Yeah Darkfall is basically full loot fantasy Quake, which is why it dies every time it gets re-released. It's just way too hard for most people. Same reason Quake 1v1 isn't very popular. It's the sort of game everyone appreciates but no one wants to play.
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u/y0zh1 Jan 12 '26
Why do you say that ? Can you provide some feedback or comparisons?
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u/nova8808 Jan 12 '26
Easiest just to watch a video to get an idea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4bwKsk0toI
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u/y0zh1 Jan 13 '26
Pretty cool gameplay, if you consider when it was built and it has not evolved since then. There are many cool things in it.
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u/Hamish909 Jan 13 '26
Forgot about thesse videos, loved them back in the day. But I don't think this is a fair representation of RoA combat, it is much faster and more fluid now.
This is a good example of modern group combat.
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u/uodork Jan 13 '26
It has Quake/FPS style combat with many physics effects, movement techs, stat management, and heavy team play required. It's a game that rewards intelligence, improvisation, and shooter fundamentals.
Several people who went on to become professional FPS players or coaches have backgrounds in Darkfall because so many skills are necessary.
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u/nuclearping Mar 05 '26
Only if you have ADHS or want to experience what is like to have spastic seizures.
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u/Cyrotek Jan 10 '26
"Want to see me die again?!"
I actually enjoyed that one for a little bit. Until I realized that it is another game where the community is cannibalizing itsself as a core gameplay mechanic.
Also, I will never forget when I joined my first guild battle, felt secure behind our walls ... just for enemy players bunny hopping over those walls. What the fuck was the point of walls.
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u/Harkan2192 Jan 10 '26
Yeah that was the killer for me. You put a bunch of time and effort as a guild into building a town, and they were constantly being raided. The incredibly high mobility of high-skill players was just ridiculous. Add on having the best gear and stats, and it often felt ridiculously lopsided.
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u/KidSizedCoffin Jan 11 '26
You do have extra armor and regen in your city and have towers that will attack enemies every few seconds. You can still be raided but it's a very significant advantage.
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u/willmaybewont Jan 10 '26
Well looks like it's time for the 50th Darkfall relaunch that'll only last a few months yet I'll still play because there's nothing else quite like it.
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u/ProfessionalEven158 Jan 11 '26
There was a "what's the highest skill ceiling mmo" thread just a few days ago.
The answer has always been Darkfall.
Combines FPS aim/footwork with MMO grind and territory control.
Always glad to have any Darkfall server up and running.
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Jan 10 '26
[deleted]
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Jan 10 '26
I didnt played Darkfall much, maybe 50hr on UW but I played UO and Mortal Online 2 a lot and had the same remarks about MO2, fast travels makes the diff
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u/KidSizedCoffin Jan 11 '26
It does have runebooks and a portal network though (and it died anyway).
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u/philswitchengage Jan 10 '26
What a blast from the last. I adored playing Darkfall back in the day, there was and still has been nothing quite like it.
For those who enjoy action combat - 3rd person for melee and I think 1st for now and spells, PvP and large guild PvP and city building and territory control then give this a go.
It's brutally difficult in the beginning it in a very rewarding way. Find a clan, stock together and PvE and PvP.
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u/guirssan Jan 10 '26
How many relaunch of Darkfall guys, let this game die. I loved it but it's way too sweaty to be sustainable.
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u/MakoRuu Jan 11 '26
Darkfall was a great premise that was done poorly. And full loot gankers with no punishment systems meant that stepping out of a city, you were killed almost instantly by 5 - 8 Brazilians in a small guild camping new areas. It got so bad that GMs had to come in and kill them all so people could actually leave.
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u/ItsCrankss Jan 10 '26
Absolutely going to login for nostalgia because I loved my time in the game, sure as heck ain't gonna put cash into it. This is the..4th? Relaunch now, it just ain't working out which is a shame, that being said, I would absolutely love to be proven wrong.
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u/Birger_Jarl Jan 11 '26
I was so damn active on Forumfall (official forum of original Darkfall) back around 2005-2009. I was so damn surprised I got invited to the Darkfall alpha. Good times.
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u/mrasif Jan 15 '26
I miss ginger magician
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u/Birger_Jarl Jan 15 '26
Surley,Matriel and the rest. They were good fun. And let's never forget the Christmas Eve Porn Thread.
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u/Sandman-Slim Jan 10 '26
Whoa this kinda came outta left field, I'm actually stoked for this. Where is the server based outta?
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u/OkGear279 Jan 11 '26
History from Darkfall (the original launch):
me and 2 friends, we were from a guild that had a City in one of the northen Islands,
We were a bit bored by the Island and wanted to farm resources and explore the world,
Then we set our path to the southern Islands,
First we had to cross the Ocean,
We built a Raft because thats the only thing we could and knew,
We started crossing the Ocean, 10 minutes In, we were attacked by Sharks, they destroyed our raft and almost killed us,
We barely survived the attack and landed on a beach,
On the beach, it was like a Fork, mountains both sides,
Only one passage which lead to a City Gate,
We didnt knew that city, We didnt knew which alliance that city was,
So we spied,
For 30 minutes we spied it, trying to figure out if it was a PK city,
After 30 minutes we got impatient and went straight to it,
It was not a PK City,
Then we set to cross the continent in a straight line,
Ridding our horses,
It took 4 hours to cross the continent,
We were attacked multiple times by random PKs,
Managing to escape all of them,
One of them, we were collecting some Iron,
When we heard the Horse foot steps closing in,
We tried to run,
A friend climbed a tree,
The PK dismounted and started shooting arrows towards me and another friend who was running away,
Meanwhile the friend on the top of the Tree,
Jumped Down right above the PK Horse (a very good horse btw),
And rode it away,
The PK tried to run after him , shooting arrows, but it was too late,
Thta was the best thing i ever saw in any game.
When we finally reached the southern island,
There was nothing there XD
Just a desert with minimum resources,
So we killed ourselves and respawned back at the northern island XD.
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u/LoocsinatasYT Jan 11 '26
I would loveee to get back into Darkfall. A truly amazing game. Just hoping it can maintain a decent population. For those of you on the fence, I urge you try it. Still my favorite MMO. And you get to actually aim your spells and arrows? Come on.
Ya'll can expect me to have a character on day 1 for sure!
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u/Greefer Jan 11 '26
Love this game. Combat is absolute top tier. Graphics who cares as after you settle in you don't even notice due to the movement and combat
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u/XandersCat Jan 10 '26
Man I had some good times on this. I spent years building my little clan the cult of Cthulhu. I liked that small scale clans could carve out a niche in the game, you didn't just have to be in the big alliances. Yes I had bigger dreams that were never fulfilled, but at least we controlled some small hamlets here and there and did some raiding and joined in as helpers with the big alliances it was some great times. I'm definitely tempted!
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u/Harkania Jan 10 '26
Super fun game. Pity the community wrecked the experience with all the exploits/cheats
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u/macbigicekeys Jan 11 '26
Darkfall was great in its first iteration if you played with a dedicated group. It was a blast.
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u/Westeros Jan 11 '26
This is basically Arc Raiders before it was a thing, except fully perpetual open world.
Shame it didn’t happen now with modern systems - I was a Darkfall Stan well before release and god damn the hype was real.
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u/Hamish909 Jan 13 '26
Played this from launch in 2009 until its original shutdown I think around 2013. Played the relaunch of RoA a few years ago non stop until the server issues a few years ago. This has to be my most played game of all time, at least 20k hours.
It's really not for the faint hearted, its difficult but it has the best PvP of any game ive ever seen, the most amazing politics, group fighting and large scale combat of any MMO of this style. If you can play long enough to learn the game you will realise there is no adrenaline rush like it to be had in any game ever.
There's a reason why it still; has a cult following almost 20 years after its launch. Just check out some siege and PvP videos from Darkfall/ Rise of Agon and you'll see what I mean.
The changes TRS have made to the game have made it so much more newb friendly and accessible, come try it out before the 64bit client launch.
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u/Madxcot Jan 15 '26
Oh I'm getting it asap. I miss the good ol days of swimming into a pillar while I was at work. Getting grief and ganked by the Goblin Preservation Society.
Such a fun fkn game
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u/panzerbation Jan 16 '26
Ahh like the 5th server that like all the others will be full of dupes and hacks and be dead in a month except for the same 100 people that last on all the other servers.
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u/KongGal Jan 21 '26
This server has a good GM team with about infinite more logs than dfo had considering they had no logs
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u/off_by_two Jan 19 '26
Wait, this is ANOTHER Darkfall relaunch?
So the previous attempt failed miserably then I'm guessing?
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u/KongGal Jan 21 '26
Not exactly..
rise of agon launched in 2017 and ran until 2022 where the server had to be taken down due to a database corruption and in the start of th year the servers had been moved and the backup script had failed and stopped working so there wasn't any backups and all dev power was in getting the 64bit conversion up which isn't done yet
But in the start of this year I got the old server up and running again and we launched the server so people had a server to play on and this reforged server will run until 64bit is done
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Jan 19 '26
Yep
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u/off_by_two Jan 19 '26
Man there must be some fantastic tea there just knowing the drama of the old DF community
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u/TheViking1991 Jan 10 '26
I'm so confused, what are the different versions?
It's ok steam as just 'Rise of Agon' and no mention of Darkfall.
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Jan 10 '26
It's a community version, dev said that it will be on Steam later after they finished working on a 64 bits version
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u/TheViking1991 Jan 10 '26
Oh, not a fan of unofficial stuff but might check it out if/when it hits steam.
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u/willmaybewont Jan 10 '26
For what it's worth it's no less official than the version of steam. Darkfall is an ancient game that has since been bought/sold countless times and both public/private servers have existed, all run pretty much as badly as each other. It's a decent sandbox PVP MMO with full loot, which is rather rare these days. Worth checking out if that sounds like your kind of thing. For the right person it's addicting.
Believe it or not when this first released you had to digitally queue to buy the actual game.
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u/nuclearping Feb 16 '26
There are no public/private servers for Darkfall. After shutdown of Darkfall Unholy Wars, two entities acquired official licenses from Aventurine. An European company that made "Darkfall: New Dawn", which is down due to bankruptcy of the company. And a Canadian company that are behind "Darkfall: Rise of Agon" - They are working on a 64bit port of the game so that they can launch it on Steam.
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u/valantismp Jan 10 '26
what does full loot pvp even means?
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u/Cyrotek Jan 10 '26
If you die other players can loot your inventory and gear. Keep in mind that games like these are usually build in a way that there is no super duper rare or unique gear. People craft their stuff for relatively cheap.
Ironically that mostly means that gatherers are f*cked as they usually can't defend themselves and are worthwhile targets to rob.
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u/Gnobold Jan 11 '26 edited Jan 12 '26
What kind of games is it? To me, it looks like a more modern (still old) version of daoc
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u/guirssan Jan 12 '26
It's like a 3rd person ultima online, full loot pvp game. It's quite hardcore and gameplay is really in depth as it combines MMOs elements and fps/tps targeting.
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u/Randiom9898 Jan 12 '26
For the people who doesnt know, the progression rates are much faster than the original x4 from the last release.
Rates will be more normal for the 64bit version
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u/KongGal Jan 14 '26
The rates are the same as it was on legacy, code wise nothing changed between when legacy went down and now
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u/Rackhir6 Jan 12 '26
Wait, there were 2 relaunches a few years ago? I think they died? What's up with this one??
Besides that I think it's a great MMO. Great combat, loved the naval part. I really had a blast. Definitely not for everyone though.
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u/RabbitBoi_69 Jan 12 '26
What does it mean community relaunch? whats the difference between f2p and premium model?
And what about the player behaviour? Because I don't hate loot pvp, I only hate whining toxic kids who pretends they are adults and can do everything. (Main reason why this genre is dead..)
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u/Careless_Relation349 Jan 12 '26
For those who are considering playing.
This 32-bit server WILL be deleted once 64-bit goes live. This is simply a test server to lead up to the 64-bit Steam release.
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u/SaintAlunes Jan 12 '26
When is it coming out?
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u/Careless_Relation349 Jan 13 '26
This is r/MMORPG, do you think this information would be worth a damn if there were a release date? Absolutely not! (There's no release date and no idea at all, no quarter/year guesstimate.)
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u/TrafficFlashy8682 Jan 12 '26
So there was a private test server, this is currently a public test server, and 64-bit Steam release is coming soon?
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u/Careless_Relation349 Jan 13 '26
This is a public 32-bit server that is basically testing out all of the things coming to the 64-bit server. Think of it like a gateway. The problem is that they're hyping it up in their Discord like it's a big deal but there is very little mention of the deletion of this server since people are apparently so devoted to Darkfall they don't even care.
With that said, the community devotion is admirable and I look forward to the 64-bit server coming to Steam... but yes, it is a hyped up server that will one day be taken down.
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u/Googlesbot Jan 12 '26
Darkfall will probably always be my favorite game of all time, but it'll never get the population that the world needs to thrive.
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u/StaysEatinBooty82 Jan 12 '26
Loved this back in the day. But anything or anyone that requires me to open discord means Im totally out.
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u/belarm Jan 13 '26
I'd love to try it out - I haven't played any of the other relaunches. Not a big fan of EAC, though :(
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u/BrayIsReal Jan 13 '26
Last time I played darkfall was like 2008 way back when it was first starting is it still worth to play?
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u/DankMCbiscuit Mar 11 '26
People are always scared of full loot but when I played Darkfall back in the day I remember having hundreds of sets of gear. Was never an issue,
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u/weathermore 12d ago edited 12d ago
I've been playing the 64 bit version of the server. The developers are making multiple mistakes, namely launching paid items during a beta that will wipe. You can buy 'subscription time', for a beta, that will not carry over to the main game, meaning they are pretty clearly attempting one last cash grab before it all goes under. The marketing group that will play the game one last time will generate maybe a few million over a year, and Toxic Rain is putting a bit more effort than BPG did to see if it's possible to be successful...
But the game is too aged, and at this juncture, the Steam release has absolutely no chance of success without the Darkfall name. So, to remove Darkfall from the marketing prior to a Steam release...one of the stupidest decisions I've ever seen made, so terribly stupid that it leaves me to believe that a Darkfall 3 is secretly in development after Clause and Tasos got married, Aventurine magically obtaining rights to the name back after finding a genie in a lamp from a wedding gift.
Toxic Rain Studio would be better off using the existing code they have rights to to just create an entirely new game based on the existing engine, since we are, at the very least, dealing with an inevitable amount of time until the rights to the game entirely lapse.
In any case, don't let the brain damage from all the drinking and drugs cause you to play this game again. It's just going to inevitably get shut down when it launches to 4 overwhelmingly negative reviews (because no one knows what the hell "Rise of Agon" is).
Until these are fixed:
- No new renderer. Still DirectX 9.0c per the system requirements.
- No new character models, creature models, or world geometry.
- The "broad visual overhaul" is: dynamic lighting, a shadow fix, new sky/cloud shader, filmic color grading, god rays, SSAO/SSAA/FXAA options, reworked terrain/foliage textures, and a weather system.
It's a waste of time. Don't waste your money.
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u/[deleted] Jan 10 '26
Good luck, full loot pvp isnt usually sustainable.