The revival of Darkwind 2019-2020

[Murphy01]

In December of 2019, I was bored and scrolling through my library. I remembered dimly playing DW and having some fun with it, so why not?
I installed the client, set up the webpage, and logged into the lobby. 8 people on.
I began asking questions. I wanted to know everything again. Then I went and found the Facebook page.
I began posting there almost daily.
Dark wind is unique. There is nothing out there like it. Once you get past the UI and client/webpage set up and the dated graphics, you find a world that is both brutal and rewarding.

SO I began. I started off doing town events, races, deathraces and arena combats. I read the wiki for help, I asked a ton of questions. I wondered why more people didn't play this game. It's literally Car Wars on the computer.
Two things
1) The UI takes a lot of getting used to. There are almost weekly updates because the dev is back in action but the UI is not intuitive. IF you get past that, then there's the other thng

2) Dark Wind takes TIME. Your gang (the group of characters you use to crew your vehicles and participate in events) do gain skills but those get updated on a real life week. Repairs and hospitalization takes time.
But I'm getting ahead of myself

I did subscribe for a month ($7 btw super cheap and NOT required to progress. There is an in game currency you can use to train your chars a bit faster but make no mistake there is no 'Pay to Win' option here).
I went out on group scouts. A scout is when multiple players get their gangs together and you all fight an event together.
Then I did a solo...with all my cars. I drew 14 bad guy cars on my 8. It went badly. I was left with one shot up car and about 20k in the bank.
Took a couple days to rethink my strategy. And I blew up Facebook because I wanted to know why the game had to be so hard.

Thing is, the game has a learning curve. And I was trying to skip past it.
If you can't be bothered to learn mechanics and tactics, then sadly, this is not the game for you. However if you enjoy complex mechanics, keep reading

I was told how to scout. I was shown how to not to do the things I had been doing. I learned and kept going.
I figured out how to navigate the world maps. The starter town Somerset or SS is just that. I wanted more. So I got a travel car and threw an injured character (She had one leg. This game is Dwarf Fortress or XCOM brutal) in it. And I pointed my nose south and went.
The first encounter saw me chased at 117mph through a crumbling residential estate and I escaped. I made it to Gateway truckstop and asked people for advice on the next leg.
Badlands.

See, DW gets progressively harder the further south you go. The reason for this is the AI has a number of NPC gangs that hire new people and train them up every week just like a human player. When the human players stay in Somerset and don't leave to go kill the pirates, they get weekly training and get better. This leads to elite gangs in ths South and bigger numbers of tougher chassis in an encounter.

Also Badlands is when the terrain starts turning evil. By this I mean if you leave the crude destroyed potholed asphalt you will shred your tires. SO better enemies in tougher chassis who are going to outnumber you in a hellscape. Now that sounded like a challenge so I swapped tires for reinforced ones and kept going south.

It was just as tense and scary as promised. At one point, I was chased by a Cutlass which is a Buccaneer muscle car with a laser. BUT I had help. Several veterans offere to 'flag' for me. They logged into the event as I was running and put down flags to show me which way to go.

My girl got past Badlands truckstop, the mutant enclave of Shantyville, and the oil Town of Texan. Two maps south of Texan her run came to an end. See, when you hit 40 skill, you can nick name your characters. EVERY single bad guy car had a nick named character in it. I tried desperately to take my muscle car up a 90 degree slope and flipped it. The bad guys closed in like hungry sharks as I hopped out to flip the car back over ( yes this is a thing you can do). And my girl got her one remaining leg shot out from under her.

I was hooked.
This game has everything I want in an experience. Permadeath, hard mode, consequences for your actions.
So I went back and started reading through the forums. And it occured to me that more people should be playing this game.
I began promoting it everywhere and now we have 30 people regularly on daily. We have an extremely active discord with multiple channels for coordinating scouts over voice, or showing off paint jobs (called skins in game), or just bsing. We have an active FB page and the forums see daily use.

IF I had to elevator pitch this game think 'Postapocalyptic Sims and XCOM meets Mad Max'
You will lose gangers and gear, you will get beat up but if you stick with it you will get better.
The community here is awesome. As a new player, you will find it very easy to get assistance and help. I even wrote a newbie survival guide called Murphy's Survival Guide.

For those of you returning or thinking of returning, come home. There have been several great changes. The map of Evan is now interactive and is tile based because the Camp War system is undergoing a massive revamp. We have Fire Extinguishers now, we have reload timers (no more guessing when Johnny Newganger is gonna reload that machinegun), solo looting doesn't have a delay anymore. The town events payout has been increased. Medicines are getting new functionality. There are scouts going on nearly 24/7. Come back. :)
We have daily discussion and a monthly 'town hall' via Discord.

Darkwind lives, baby. It's only getting better. I'm Hati of Murphy's Mercs. Look me up when you get in there.

[Eightball]

Damn, it's real good to see DW getting some love and attention from Sam again! Well done dude.

Graphics might be old but the gameplay is still there.

[Rune]

I love this story, I have a similar one as I went back to playing this.

But I have not left SS yet, lol. The vets are saying I should level up my characters first before even going to Gateway Truckstop Elmsfield etc.

Originally posted by Eightball:

Damn, it's real good to see DW getting some love and attention from Sam again! Well done dude.

Graphics might be old but the gameplay is still there.

I remember yesterday people were talking about DW2 or updating the game, no it's not official but people were suggesting what Sam should do.

Imo they shouldn't make DW2, Sam should get a team to improve the graphics a little, or improve the current existing UI. Would make the game a hundred times better.

And now that you mention it, I've been trying to get my friends to play this game but they don't show that much interest to it unfortunately...

[Evilpopcorn]

It's great to see it revitalizing, I was able to bring in a buddy of mine- he plays more than I do now, so now my Cam Combustors have some friends in the wastes, Monsterz.