EVE is a much simpler style of game to develop because its all free space based... Are there hundreds of dungeons in eve??? no Monster AI pathfinding?? no.. the list can go on..
No, EVE is not a "much simpler game". You have no clue about it apparently. It has the most expensive server cluster in private sector, and server code that dwarfs that of other games. Yes it does have hundreds of dungeons (deadspace), economy and crafting systems that makes WoW's look like kindergarden simulation etc.
WoW has tons of quality PvE content which EVE doesn't have, and DFO isn't supposed to have either. That's not complexity, though.
Yes, it's about logic and common sense. Games have different budgets, just like movies. If for you a game needs $40 million bugdet to be good, then go play World of Warcraft / Vanguard / Age of Conan and stop wasting my time. I'll continue playing games that are good instead.
First of all, what you consider good is relative. Second of all, EVE is a much simpler game. Do not let the learning curve fool you, EVE's core mechanics are just as easy to implement as WoW's , if not easier. Having the biggest cluster for a commercial MMO only entails having more servers linked together than others, that's a design issue, for a game that isn't even seamless you only need scalable server code and some load balancing, not considerably more than what you'd need for any other MMO, definitely not dwarfing. The economy is, again, a design issue, not an implementation issue, WoW was never intended to simulate anything.
Where EVE does cut massive corners in comparison to WoW is in amount of content. EVE is basically empty space with objects floating in it and static, though pretty, backdrops. The hundreds of dungeons you mention are the exact same. We're not talking about a huge seamless handcrafted world with hundreds of items (what WoW is and some of what DF is promising). But hey, that's what space looks like and it's just conveniently way cheaper, easier, and faster to create than the WoW alternative, even if not less fun for some.
There's a reason why EVE was a lot cheaper than WoW, it does not have nearly the same amount of art assets, content or polish as WoW, and the complexity of its mechanics is in the usage, not the implementation. Attempting something near, similar, or even better than WoW, as DF is, would end up costing near, similar, or even more than WoW, or at the very least a multiple of what EVE did.
Even though I'd hope so, it is not clear to me, especially given the lack of evidence of previous industry experience across the board. Can you substantiate this claim to remove all doubts and speculations to the contrary? Conversely, professionals don't make a MMO full time for 7 years either. It's unprecedented anyway.
The rest of your post seem to be attacks on people or games you do not agree with, wishful thinking, or wild claims (my doubts are derived from the fact I am intimately familiar with software development strategies, especially the "release strategy", which I hear has been employed by every successful software product in the past, perhaps Aventurine should look into it), which are your right to express but will be dismissed as such.
well i'm a professional software developer with over 10 years experience developing commercial products, so yeah i feel comfortable saying i know what i'm talking about here. the DF devs may be guilty of OCD and sticking to the timelines they set for themselves, but i find it ludicrous for people to suggest it's never going to come out or is vapourware of somesuch. it's clear there's development there and there is actually quite a lot of info available about game features & mechanics.
Even though I'd hope so, it is not clear to me, especially given the lack of evidence of previous industry experience across the board. Can you substantiate this claim to remove all doubts and speculations to the contrary? Conversely, professionals don't make a MMO full time for 7 years either. It's unprecedented anyway.
The rest of your post seem to be attacks on people or games you do not agree with, wishful thinking, or wild claims (my doubts are derived from the fact I am intimately familiar with software development strategies, especially the "release strategy", which I hear has been employed by every successful software product in the past, perhaps Aventurine should look into it), which are your right to express but will be dismissed as such.
well i'm a professional software developer with over 10 years experience developing commercial products, so yeah i feel comfortable saying i know what i'm talking about here. the DF devs may be guilty of OCD and sticking to the timelines they set for themselves, but i find it ludicrous for people to suggest it's never going to come out or is vapourware of somesuch. it's clear there's development there and there is actually quite a lot of info available about game features & mechanics.
In that case you need to find a new line of work because you obviously don't have a clue how this industry works or how marketing and hype attribute towards potential investors.
The only thing that's 'clear' is that they have made a lot of announcements about game features and mechanics none means anything unless they can provide actual PROOF of implementation. To date they have provided no proof of any features or mechanics, so exactly what are you basing your fanboism on? faith?
Anyways, I think great things can come from small developers.
That's your prerogative, but by no means fact. I too think great things can come from self-funded inexperienced small developers, like innovative casual games or creative niche games with low production value but a lot of bang for the buck, just no revolutionary MMO of scopes so vast that they've have never been succesfully attempted before, that touts better features than all commercial MMO to date and more of them to boot as well as AAA quality polish and technological breakthroughs (200 characters on screen and 30 FPS on average hardware with the graphics shown on the latest screenshots) unattainable by other much more experienced studios with far more employees and resources. But that's merely my opinion, derived from my personal experience and the past, and if it's proven wrong I'll be pleasantly surprised.
UO attempted something on the same scale/scope as Darkfall, and i would say they were rather successful ;-) and that was 10 years ago. Darkfall's features are revolutionary because they are daring to give them to players, not because they are amazingly technologically challenging. well, dynamic zone clustering is hardcore tech, but it's certainly within the scope of what others are doing these days - i myself have written services that dynamically sequestered & shared resources dynamically in a cluster.
thing is, most game companies aren't even trying to push the boundaries of what's possible in a MMOG because they're too busy emulating WOW, which is itself quite a simple & restrictive game at heart. why invest extra development resources into an expansive sandbox game when you can get 10mill subscribers making a polished theme-park-style game and rake in the dough?
lastly, 200 chars on screen at 30+ FPS is not a big deal if the game/graphics are designed for it. DAOC had more than 200 players active during sieges and that was 6 years ago. it was often laggy with this many players in a single siege but that lag was server load & latency related, not graphics per se.
well i'm a professional software developer with over 10 years experience developing commercial products, so yeah i feel comfortable saying i know what i'm talking about here. the DF devs may be guilty of OCD and sticking to the timelines they set for themselves, but i find it ludicrous for people to suggest it's never going to come out or is vapourware of somesuch. it's clear there's development there and there is actually quite a lot of info available about game features & mechanics.
In that case you need to find a new line of work because you obviously don't have a clue how this industry works or how marketing and hype attribute towards potential investors.
The only thing that's 'clear' is that they have made a lot of announcements about game features and mechanics none means anything unless they can provide actual PROOF of implementation. To date they have provided no proof of any features or mechanics, so exactly what are you basing your fanboism on? faith?
i don't think you're in any way qualified to comment on my employability nor on the software development process. why do *you* think they need to prove anything to you? they don't owe you *anything*. there's no business sense in hyping anything until release time. small independent studios do not have big marketing budgets to blow on pre-release hype for stupid kids & teenagers, get over it.
not to mention there are several videos, scores of screenshots, and a few hundred pages of written developer info... what more proof do you need? are you so docile to think this is all part of an elaborate sham?
there's no business sense in hyping anything until release time.
You are correct so why is Tasos hyping the hell out of Darkfall all of the time then by talking about it going into a beta phase when it doesn't deliver?
I myself would love to play this game and i want it to be released but at the moment my faith in this game has almost all gone.
Even though I'd hope so, it is not clear to me, especially given the lack of evidence of previous industry experience across the board. Can you substantiate this claim to remove all doubts and speculations to the contrary? Conversely, professionals don't make a MMO full time for 7 years either. It's unprecedented anyway.
The rest of your post seem to be attacks on people or games you do not agree with, wishful thinking, or wild claims (my doubts are derived from the fact I am intimately familiar with software development strategies, especially the "release strategy", which I hear has been employed by every successful software product in the past, perhaps Aventurine should look into it), which are your right to express but will be dismissed as such.
well i'm a professional software developer with over 10 years experience developing commercial products, so yeah i feel comfortable saying i know what i'm talking about here. the DF devs may be guilty of OCD and sticking to the timelines they set for themselves, but i find it ludicrous for people to suggest it's never going to come out or is vapourware of somesuch. it's clear there's development there and there is actually quite a lot of info available about game features & mechanics.
Well, so am I, and I happen to work in the industry (not all my career, it's relatively recent) to boot, and it's not clear to me. Funny how that works eh? In the end all is speculation and faith, nothing is clear about the game or its state. I personally think they have something, but that something isn't even close to all the promised features, a design document a game does not make. To you everything they claim is clear, to many others it's not, and to some it's clear there's nothing, the only difference is that you are more easily convinced than the others, since it's not like there's definite proof of anything, after all.
And how is it clear to you they're not amateurs, again?
Anyways, I think great things can come from small developers.
That's your prerogative, but by no means fact. I too think great things can come from self-funded inexperienced small developers, like innovative casual games or creative niche games with low production value but a lot of bang for the buck, just no revolutionary MMO of scopes so vast that they've have never been succesfully attempted before, that touts better features than all commercial MMO to date and more of them to boot as well as AAA quality polish and technological breakthroughs (200 characters on screen and 30 FPS on average hardware with the graphics shown on the latest screenshots) unattainable by other much more experienced studios with far more employees and resources. But that's merely my opinion, derived from my personal experience and the past, and if it's proven wrong I'll be pleasantly surprised.
The problem is, is that its about as much fact as saying that the best MMOs are made by commercial game makers.
Thats very much not true, some of the worst MMOs are made my commercial gamemakers, and the only reason you know about them, is because of the companies that create them. You've gotta admit for a "no name. unexperienced, amateur" company DarkFall sure has their work cut out for them, and they've hit somewhat mainstream just by their game design ideas alone.
Not to mention everyone loves to root for the underdog, I'd like nothing more then for DarkFall to release and make a difference hands down on these larger publishers who are all about money, whereas darkfall is in it to make the game they want to make. Whether they create it or not, theres no reason to really hate them, because they aren't out to "steal your cookies" they just want to create something amazing.
First of all, what's with the "commercial game maker" distinction? Unless Aventurine plans on only charging for Darkfall until they recoup costs then they're also a "commercial game maker". Second, no one has ever stated as fact that the best games are made by anyone (except for fanboys of anything). Best, good, bad, worst are all relative and subjective. Game design ideas only need imagination and an audience, so having "hit somewhat mainstream" based on those alone means nothing, except that there's people that want them.
With sheer amount of features and claimed quality of them as long as the size of the handcrafted world and other content, Aventurine, with their inexperience, numbers and funding (or lack thereof), must have faced (past tense because they announced feature completeness already) a lot of hardships during development. It would be great to see them accomplish everything they set out to do.
Anyways, I think great things can come from small developers.
That's your prerogative, but by no means fact. I too think great things can come from self-funded inexperienced small developers, like innovative casual games or creative niche games with low production value but a lot of bang for the buck, just no revolutionary MMO of scopes so vast that they've have never been succesfully attempted before, that touts better features than all commercial MMO to date and more of them to boot as well as AAA quality polish and technological breakthroughs (200 characters on screen and 30 FPS on average hardware with the graphics shown on the latest screenshots) unattainable by other much more experienced studios with far more employees and resources. But that's merely my opinion, derived from my personal experience and the past, and if it's proven wrong I'll be pleasantly surprised.
UO attempted something on the same scale/scope as Darkfall, and i would say they were rather successful ;-) and that was 10 years ago.
lastly, 200 chars on screen at 30+ FPS is not a big deal if the game/graphics are designed for it. DAOC had more than 200 players active during sieges and that was 6 years ago. it was often laggy with this many players in a single siege but that lag was server load & latency related, not graphics per se.
About the first: No, the scale and scope of UO is vastly different to DF's. Certain ideologies are shared, but that's about it. UO was not designed to be what we call today a sandbox, it just ended up being one and defining the term because of the developers' inexperiences and assumptions about the players. It was successful for a time because it was the only decent choice in the market, once EQ released they started losing subs very fast to it, so they introduced Trammel (which essentially saved the game, despite the hate some have for it) and got further away from the sanbox ideal in order to stay afloat. The conditions are not the same nowadays, there are a lot of choices and certainly a lot more people, but what hasn't changed is the nature of them.
About the second, yeah, that's why I said "with the graphics shown on the latest screenshots". Do you think that framerate is attainable "with the graphics shown on the latest screenshots"? If they are, they must have some godly LoD implementation, which was my point originally when I mentioned technology unattainable by others.
Comments
No, EVE is not a "much simpler game". You have no clue about it apparently. It has the most expensive server cluster in private sector, and server code that dwarfs that of other games. Yes it does have hundreds of dungeons (deadspace), economy and crafting systems that makes WoW's look like kindergarden simulation etc.
WoW has tons of quality PvE content which EVE doesn't have, and DFO isn't supposed to have either. That's not complexity, though.
Yes, it's about logic and common sense. Games have different budgets, just like movies. If for you a game needs $40 million bugdet to be good, then go play World of Warcraft / Vanguard / Age of Conan and stop wasting my time. I'll continue playing games that are good instead.
First of all, what you consider good is relative. Second of all, EVE is a much simpler game. Do not let the learning curve fool you, EVE's core mechanics are just as easy to implement as WoW's , if not easier. Having the biggest cluster for a commercial MMO only entails having more servers linked together than others, that's a design issue, for a game that isn't even seamless you only need scalable server code and some load balancing, not considerably more than what you'd need for any other MMO, definitely not dwarfing. The economy is, again, a design issue, not an implementation issue, WoW was never intended to simulate anything.
Where EVE does cut massive corners in comparison to WoW is in amount of content. EVE is basically empty space with objects floating in it and static, though pretty, backdrops. The hundreds of dungeons you mention are the exact same. We're not talking about a huge seamless handcrafted world with hundreds of items (what WoW is and some of what DF is promising). But hey, that's what space looks like and it's just conveniently way cheaper, easier, and faster to create than the WoW alternative, even if not less fun for some.
There's a reason why EVE was a lot cheaper than WoW, it does not have nearly the same amount of art assets, content or polish as WoW, and the complexity of its mechanics is in the usage, not the implementation. Attempting something near, similar, or even better than WoW, as DF is, would end up costing near, similar, or even more than WoW, or at the very least a multiple of what EVE did.
Even though I'd hope so, it is not clear to me, especially given the lack of evidence of previous industry experience across the board. Can you substantiate this claim to remove all doubts and speculations to the contrary? Conversely, professionals don't make a MMO full time for 7 years either. It's unprecedented anyway.
The rest of your post seem to be attacks on people or games you do not agree with, wishful thinking, or wild claims (my doubts are derived from the fact I am intimately familiar with software development strategies, especially the "release strategy", which I hear has been employed by every successful software product in the past, perhaps Aventurine should look into it), which are your right to express but will be dismissed as such.
well i'm a professional software developer with over 10 years experience developing commercial products, so yeah i feel comfortable saying i know what i'm talking about here. the DF devs may be guilty of OCD and sticking to the timelines they set for themselves, but i find it ludicrous for people to suggest it's never going to come out or is vapourware of somesuch. it's clear there's development there and there is actually quite a lot of info available about game features & mechanics.
Even though I'd hope so, it is not clear to me, especially given the lack of evidence of previous industry experience across the board. Can you substantiate this claim to remove all doubts and speculations to the contrary? Conversely, professionals don't make a MMO full time for 7 years either. It's unprecedented anyway.
The rest of your post seem to be attacks on people or games you do not agree with, wishful thinking, or wild claims (my doubts are derived from the fact I am intimately familiar with software development strategies, especially the "release strategy", which I hear has been employed by every successful software product in the past, perhaps Aventurine should look into it), which are your right to express but will be dismissed as such.
well i'm a professional software developer with over 10 years experience developing commercial products, so yeah i feel comfortable saying i know what i'm talking about here. the DF devs may be guilty of OCD and sticking to the timelines they set for themselves, but i find it ludicrous for people to suggest it's never going to come out or is vapourware of somesuch. it's clear there's development there and there is actually quite a lot of info available about game features & mechanics.
In that case you need to find a new line of work because you obviously don't have a clue how this industry works or how marketing and hype attribute towards potential investors.
The only thing that's 'clear' is that they have made a lot of announcements about game features and mechanics none means anything unless they can provide actual PROOF of implementation. To date they have provided no proof of any features or mechanics, so exactly what are you basing your fanboism on? faith?
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
That's your prerogative, but by no means fact. I too think great things can come from self-funded inexperienced small developers, like innovative casual games or creative niche games with low production value but a lot of bang for the buck, just no revolutionary MMO of scopes so vast that they've have never been succesfully attempted before, that touts better features than all commercial MMO to date and more of them to boot as well as AAA quality polish and technological breakthroughs (200 characters on screen and 30 FPS on average hardware with the graphics shown on the latest screenshots) unattainable by other much more experienced studios with far more employees and resources. But that's merely my opinion, derived from my personal experience and the past, and if it's proven wrong I'll be pleasantly surprised.
UO attempted something on the same scale/scope as Darkfall, and i would say they were rather successful ;-) and that was 10 years ago. Darkfall's features are revolutionary because they are daring to give them to players, not because they are amazingly technologically challenging. well, dynamic zone clustering is hardcore tech, but it's certainly within the scope of what others are doing these days - i myself have written services that dynamically sequestered & shared resources dynamically in a cluster.
thing is, most game companies aren't even trying to push the boundaries of what's possible in a MMOG because they're too busy emulating WOW, which is itself quite a simple & restrictive game at heart. why invest extra development resources into an expansive sandbox game when you can get 10mill subscribers making a polished theme-park-style game and rake in the dough?
lastly, 200 chars on screen at 30+ FPS is not a big deal if the game/graphics are designed for it. DAOC had more than 200 players active during sieges and that was 6 years ago. it was often laggy with this many players in a single siege but that lag was server load & latency related, not graphics per se.
In that case you need to find a new line of work because you obviously don't have a clue how this industry works or how marketing and hype attribute towards potential investors.
The only thing that's 'clear' is that they have made a lot of announcements about game features and mechanics none means anything unless they can provide actual PROOF of implementation. To date they have provided no proof of any features or mechanics, so exactly what are you basing your fanboism on? faith?
i don't think you're in any way qualified to comment on my employability nor on the software development process. why do *you* think they need to prove anything to you? they don't owe you *anything*. there's no business sense in hyping anything until release time. small independent studios do not have big marketing budgets to blow on pre-release hype for stupid kids & teenagers, get over it.
not to mention there are several videos, scores of screenshots, and a few hundred pages of written developer info... what more proof do you need? are you so docile to think this is all part of an elaborate sham?
man some people are clueless.
You are correct so why is Tasos hyping the hell out of Darkfall all of the time then by talking about it going into a beta phase when it doesn't deliver?
I myself would love to play this game and i want it to be released but at the moment my faith in this game has almost all gone.
Even though I'd hope so, it is not clear to me, especially given the lack of evidence of previous industry experience across the board. Can you substantiate this claim to remove all doubts and speculations to the contrary? Conversely, professionals don't make a MMO full time for 7 years either. It's unprecedented anyway.
The rest of your post seem to be attacks on people or games you do not agree with, wishful thinking, or wild claims (my doubts are derived from the fact I am intimately familiar with software development strategies, especially the "release strategy", which I hear has been employed by every successful software product in the past, perhaps Aventurine should look into it), which are your right to express but will be dismissed as such.
well i'm a professional software developer with over 10 years experience developing commercial products, so yeah i feel comfortable saying i know what i'm talking about here. the DF devs may be guilty of OCD and sticking to the timelines they set for themselves, but i find it ludicrous for people to suggest it's never going to come out or is vapourware of somesuch. it's clear there's development there and there is actually quite a lot of info available about game features & mechanics.
Well, so am I, and I happen to work in the industry (not all my career, it's relatively recent) to boot, and it's not clear to me. Funny how that works eh? In the end all is speculation and faith, nothing is clear about the game or its state. I personally think they have something, but that something isn't even close to all the promised features, a design document a game does not make. To you everything they claim is clear, to many others it's not, and to some it's clear there's nothing, the only difference is that you are more easily convinced than the others, since it's not like there's definite proof of anything, after all.
And how is it clear to you they're not amateurs, again?
That's your prerogative, but by no means fact. I too think great things can come from self-funded inexperienced small developers, like innovative casual games or creative niche games with low production value but a lot of bang for the buck, just no revolutionary MMO of scopes so vast that they've have never been succesfully attempted before, that touts better features than all commercial MMO to date and more of them to boot as well as AAA quality polish and technological breakthroughs (200 characters on screen and 30 FPS on average hardware with the graphics shown on the latest screenshots) unattainable by other much more experienced studios with far more employees and resources. But that's merely my opinion, derived from my personal experience and the past, and if it's proven wrong I'll be pleasantly surprised.
The problem is, is that its about as much fact as saying that the best MMOs are made by commercial game makers.
Thats very much not true, some of the worst MMOs are made my commercial gamemakers, and the only reason you know about them, is because of the companies that create them. You've gotta admit for a "no name. unexperienced, amateur" company DarkFall sure has their work cut out for them, and they've hit somewhat mainstream just by their game design ideas alone.
Not to mention everyone loves to root for the underdog, I'd like nothing more then for DarkFall to release and make a difference hands down on these larger publishers who are all about money, whereas darkfall is in it to make the game they want to make. Whether they create it or not, theres no reason to really hate them, because they aren't out to "steal your cookies" they just want to create something amazing.
First of all, what's with the "commercial game maker" distinction? Unless Aventurine plans on only charging for Darkfall until they recoup costs then they're also a "commercial game maker". Second, no one has ever stated as fact that the best games are made by anyone (except for fanboys of anything). Best, good, bad, worst are all relative and subjective. Game design ideas only need imagination and an audience, so having "hit somewhat mainstream" based on those alone means nothing, except that there's people that want them.
With sheer amount of features and claimed quality of them as long as the size of the handcrafted world and other content, Aventurine, with their inexperience, numbers and funding (or lack thereof), must have faced (past tense because they announced feature completeness already) a lot of hardships during development. It would be great to see them accomplish everything they set out to do.
That's your prerogative, but by no means fact. I too think great things can come from self-funded inexperienced small developers, like innovative casual games or creative niche games with low production value but a lot of bang for the buck, just no revolutionary MMO of scopes so vast that they've have never been succesfully attempted before, that touts better features than all commercial MMO to date and more of them to boot as well as AAA quality polish and technological breakthroughs (200 characters on screen and 30 FPS on average hardware with the graphics shown on the latest screenshots) unattainable by other much more experienced studios with far more employees and resources. But that's merely my opinion, derived from my personal experience and the past, and if it's proven wrong I'll be pleasantly surprised.
UO attempted something on the same scale/scope as Darkfall, and i would say they were rather successful ;-) and that was 10 years ago.
lastly, 200 chars on screen at 30+ FPS is not a big deal if the game/graphics are designed for it. DAOC had more than 200 players active during sieges and that was 6 years ago. it was often laggy with this many players in a single siege but that lag was server load & latency related, not graphics per se.
About the first: No, the scale and scope of UO is vastly different to DF's. Certain ideologies are shared, but that's about it. UO was not designed to be what we call today a sandbox, it just ended up being one and defining the term because of the developers' inexperiences and assumptions about the players. It was successful for a time because it was the only decent choice in the market, once EQ released they started losing subs very fast to it, so they introduced Trammel (which essentially saved the game, despite the hate some have for it) and got further away from the sanbox ideal in order to stay afloat. The conditions are not the same nowadays, there are a lot of choices and certainly a lot more people, but what hasn't changed is the nature of them.
About the second, yeah, that's why I said "with the graphics shown on the latest screenshots". Do you think that framerate is attainable "with the graphics shown on the latest screenshots"? If they are, they must have some godly LoD implementation, which was my point originally when I mentioned technology unattainable by others.