PvE

Despite being heralded as a PvP centric game, Darkfall has complex and revolutionary Player versus Environment (PvE) game play. This includes questing, and the creatures that players encounter in Darkfall have sophisticated Artificial Intelligence (AI) making combat more similar to that with other players. In addition, creatures may move from place to place in the world, develop settlements, and even attack nearby player settlements, meaning that in Darkfall sometimes the PvE comes to the player, rather than the player seeking out challenges in the environment.

Quests

Darkfall has also a large number of quests for players to complete, they mainly consist in killing a certain number of NPC's or even player characters, harvesting certain resources or crafting determined items, etc. It has been stated that as of September 2007 there were 706 complex quests implemented in the game.

Creature AI

Agon is populated with a wide array of creatures, perhaps more than any other MMORPG available today. Creatures have sophisticated AI, making them behave in battle and out of combat in different ways.

For example, a developer described a possible encounter where a player is ambushed. When the player starts to overwhelm the creature, it runs, and draws a ranged weapon. Furthermore, other creatures join in the fight, casting spells at the player and working together as a team. Finally, when the player attempts to escape, the creatures kill his mount from under him.

In short, creatures who are cowardly (meaning they have a low aggression level) such as goblins will run away and get friends. Creatures who cannot swim will drown if thrown into water. Creatures who are social in nature will fight using group tactics. Creatures will attack based on strategy rather than aggression or who has caused the most damage to it. Some species may even remember players who have attacked them in the past.

Monsters will also not automatically detect players in their vicinity as they do in many other games. Creatures will use a combination of line of sight, sound, and even scent to detect players. It will take skill and awareness of the environment to surprise many creatures in Darkfall.

Creatures will also "skill up" in the game, meaning creatures that have lived longer on the server and which have fought and beaten other players or other creatures will become more adept at certain skills.

Adventure Areas

The distribution of creatures in Darkfall is planned and dynamic. Players will find creatures that are specific to an area or habitat, and some are connected to the races. Creature spawns are dynamic, and display great variations in composition, equipment, tactics, and attitude depending on a number of factors. The humanoid creatures, if left to their own devices, will develop settlements dynamically, and each race of creatures has their own unique architecture and style. Just because a goblin isn't on your screen doesn't mean that it ceases to be a goblin and stops acting as a goblin should.

However, the locations of creatures will also not be static. If a player or a group of players regularly attack and decimate a population of creatures, that population of creatures may move to a safer location.

Another major difference in how Darkfall presents PvE is that creatures spawn dynamically. Their spawns are not random; spawn points are selected by hand, and the spawns are connected to form interconnected adventure areas.

As a result, PvE for those players who don't enjoy questing will be quite different in Darkfall. Darkfall won't have 'grinding zones' in as much as open-air adventures. A player may return to a place he or she was hunting a week before and find that the creatures have built defensive structures and remember (and hate) him for the killing he did there before.