EQ1 Graphics Staged machinima style excitement. People are so easily fooled. When I see real people playing, and hear real peoples opinions, then vaporware will not come to mind here.
"Personally i think it's going to be epic - a fantasy-based MMO like EVE on steroids. There's so much stuff to do -- build cities/houses/props, territorial conquest, REAL world PVP, mounted combat and cavalry, naval combat and high seas piracy, hardcore PVEer/raider, explorer... the possibilities are only limited by imagination." Ah...let's wait to see what the game provides when released, just because the features mentioned are on the website does not mean they will be implemented anytime soon in the game. It usually takes years to get a feature set like that working correctly. I would rather they have what is in game working then a bunch of features that are there that don't work. With the small staff they have, some features are going to be way down the road.
tasos stated it is feature complete and working as youc an see the ship and buildin destrction isnt up to par but the feature still works
EQ1 Graphics Staged machinima style excitement. People are so easily fooled. When I see real people playing, and hear real peoples opinions, then vaporware will not come to mind here.
EQ1 gfx lost credibility there
yep, comparing DF graphics to EQ1 == zero credibility. not to mention the DF video was made using real people, and finally, machinima requires a full-featured graphics engine to make.
one of the worst and most uninformed trolls ever seen on mmorpg.com, impressive.
Sorry, but Eve server technology is so far advanced over anything Adventurine can afford it is not even close and no one even knows what Adventurine is going to use yet. It is just obvious that they won't have the funds to invest in top end server technology like Eve uses.
1. It's Aventurine. If you don't know enough to spell it right then don't assume you know about their server technology.
2. They have plenty of funds to do whatever with servers. Some people assume they are trying to rush because of a lack of funds - they have millions in cash (borrowed) and they secured this cash only recently.
"Aventurine SA is an online game developer and publisher based in Athens, Greece that was formed in October 2002. Aventurine SA is currently developing Darkfall in addition to research into game and simulation technologies. Aventurine recently obtained a €20 million convertible bond loan from Marfin Bank ."
I joined MMORPG.com a long time ago in the hopes of finding a good place to discuss Darkfall. I did some reading here and decided that posting back then would do me know good because the majority of what I was seeing was vehemently against Darkfall. Back then it was mostly people spouting that it was vapor.
Since it finally appears that Darkfall is coming out I still see a mass if malice toward Darkfall but now it seems like the vapor trolls are spouting a new line... outdated graphics and that they can't possibly have put in all the features they claim. I've said it before and I'll it here now.
If Aventurine gets even 1/4 of their claimed features into this game at release it will still blow everything out there today right to perdition.
You know what I find really really funny? Every single person who posts a malicious comment about Darkfall probably either works for a competing company or will play Darkfall when it's realeased. They will for no other reason than see if they were right or not for themselves. They will either love it or hate it... but not for anywhere near the reason they spewed all over these forums.
See you in Darkfall. I'll be the one munching on your entrails and looting your stuff.
"Darkfall server tech is more advanced than Eve in this respect, because DF can do dynamic resizing of zone sizes, as well as being distributed over a multi-PC server cluster" Sorry, but Eve server technology is so far advanced over anything Adventurine can afford it is not even close and no one even knows what Adventurine is going to use yet. It is just obvious that they won't have the funds to invest in top end server technology like Eve uses. As to storage, Eve uses Ramsam storage for all databases, I don't know of another MMO that has invested anything close to what CCP has invested in their server farm. Here is a blurg on Ramsam: http://www.superssd.com/products/ramsan-400/
I'm talking about server tech not server hardware. Darkfall server tech is more advanced than EVE's - i know because i'm a veteran programmer who codes large-scale scientific applications designed for distributed server farms so yeah, i know this stuff inside out because i could code it myself.
DF haven't made any statements about what hardware they'll run, so it's pointless to chest-beat about it. suffice to say SANs are hardly anything to get worked up over. It's worth mentioning that EVE needs to spend more on server hardware because the game is almost entirely implemented in Python, a non-compiled (scripting) language that is slow and requires tons of memory.
So, to recap: Darkfall server tech can resize zones dynamically and redistribute these split zones to other, less-loaded nodes in their cluster. EVE uses fixed-size zones, and zones cannot be split/resized, nor redistributed. This is why EVE zones often crash when too many ships jump into a single zone -- their server tech can't redistribute the load so the node crashes. DF should not suffer from this limitation, making 1000v1000 battles possible on the server side, though it's highly unlikely that clients will be able to draw 2000+ characters at acceptable FPS though (this underscores why DF has gone for simple character model graphics over bling).
It is really a shame when someone supposedly knowledgable in this industry completely goes off the deep end. Firstly, if you took the time to read, CCP changed the fixed clusters with the code changes last November, servers now dynamically adjust to load. The problem CCP has is even when one server is dedicated to a system, it just can't keep up with the number of objects which is significantly increased by the number of drones everyone puts out. Sure the client is written mostly in Python, but the server code has been mostly rewritten in C++. Actually stackless Python is more efficient than compiled code in some applications, it does threads far better than most compilers do, You should take the time to read up on it.
Secondly the only thing you are relying on is a few comments by the Adventurine devs on their website, an extremely weak argument to say the least. Especially considering the amount of disinformation they have put out. In concept their code should work well, we will just have to wait and see if they can walk the talk at release.
You can count on me pointing out the lag fests, 200 x 200 fights will be when the game releases. I will enjoy explaining again why hardware is just not up to this yet. Your simple character models will only help on the client side, they do nothing for the server side at all. Not very smart to try to use a client issue in a discussion of server performance.
I just hope they can handle 100 x 100 battles without too much lag, that will be far better than most MMO's achieve today.
This is amazing how people forget themselves playing Battlecity or Mario, or may be shooting ducks at Dendy/Nintendo consoles and PRAISING For SUPER MEGA Graphixx leet shit.
We've been playing Ultima Online for almost 4 years! And it had amazing graphix! oh... wait? It was not. But the ammount of freedom u could do was just THAT much. For fuck sake, i bet some of u are still playing world of warcraft, u log in each day, each evening, and yell at the general chat "OMG IM BORED!" "LF PUG RAIDIN" rofl or u go and wipe in some shitty instance just wasting your time man, cuz u haven nothing else to do but grind and wipe.
I hate people saying that Gameplay is more than Graphix, or that Graphix is more than Gameplay, since those things can't be devided. It is both that makes the game good, and damn Darkfall is good. gg
Here are my impressions for somebody who has been looking at DF from a year or 7 ago. I want a freaking game that can take Ultima Online's shoes. That expands on the gameplay. That brings the graphics to the year 200x ( fill in the current year, because i've only been waiting for what, 10 years? ). So, don't start to categories me as one of those people that are out to break a game.
Graphics: I need to agree with some of the comments. No offense to anybody, but the graphics based on the video look almost exactly the same like it did when they released there first screenshots all those years ago.
I for one, can not see how the video graphics, and the gallery on the official website are so different.
You know where i have seen the same pattern? Several other mmorpg's, where they showed screenshots of the game, that (a) are touched up, (b) are running high end textures, shaders etc, that turn the game to a 1fps slideshow, (c) are taking from a distance, (d) enhanced with lots of bloom ... Take it from me, screenshots are not going to give the correct idea of the game. Video, now, thats a lot harder to manipulate. So in general, i rather base my experiences on those.
Animation: Major problem here. You can clearly tell that the animation is very limited, almost block like. In other words, there has been no motion captor used. Maybe its me, but you where able to tell that the ground, and the feet where misaligned. Resulting in a detached shadow.
Same with the boarding / leaving of ships, the swimming, etc. Very limited looking animations.
Ships:
Well, no offense, but what the hell was that? Most of you may not have noticed, but the insides of the ships are just empty rooms. You can notice this the best on the big battleship, what also make a impossible turn! You can't turn a ship on a dime.
I also had a problem with the cannons on several fronts. The way the cannons are handled, they looked more like somebody's idea of a minigun on a Huey, then cannons. Suspended, fixed position ( handing from above the hull ) canons, with no recoil? Same with the hit explosions on the ships. There looked to be no damage indicator. You had ship, and you had ship sinking aka, reduce level by x every sec. Thats it...
The same can be said about the city siege, and the walls.
Beta Testers:
Now, let me put a few ideas out of the way that some people have. A payed beta tester is only helpful in specific instances. Take it from me, testing a product will result in people repeating the same pattern. If you have 10 payed testers, you will have 10 * the same pattern. In other words, when i come in the game, i might click a, c, b, where as there beta testers always click a, b, c... It may look silly, but as a software developer you notice a lot how something that looks to work perfectly, ends up crashing, or creating other problems, because you did not anticipate a end user doing x actions. And the more complexer the software, and in this case, the gameplay, the more easy it is for problems to sneak in. So, yea, if they are planning on running a short 2 months beta, for a 2008 release. Good luck on you early buyers, *kuch* i mean, beta testers.
General:
To me, it looked like was lacking a lot of details, to put it bluntly, it looked like those city siege, navel battle looked like a afterthought that where quickly added to the game.
Also, to the people who say: "But, its not feature complete", "Its going to be added or fixed in the beta", "They will increase the graphics, animation in the beta". Take it from somebody who has been in 6 beta's ( including several possible UO successors ). What you see, it what you get most of the time.
I hope that this video is very misleading, and that the final game will be superior, and a worthy successor to UO. But, i'm sorry to say, that video did not show anything to make me conclude it will. On the contrary, i had more the feeling that somebody put x number of concepts, and threw them together without having a complete idea what they want.
For something that has been in development longer then i can remember, to me it looked more like a game that 2 schoolkids put together in there spare time, then any professional work. And no amount of pink glasses is going to change that.
So, to conclude, my impression after 2 years not looking at any updates: Not very promising. I'm sorry that some will hate my for writing this, but i can't hide my disappointment. One may say that it caters to a niche market, like Eve. But, i'm sorry to say, Eve was not not 7 or 8 years in development? Yea, i lost track, it has been so long that DF has been in development!
So, i hope that it will turn out ok, and i can finally, after all there years, play a worthy successor to UO.
Ps: there are a few seconds off what looks like part of a interface mechanism in the video ( look at the banking, and smithing scene ).
Oh, yes. Thank you very much for the attention. This game is simply put - AMAZING - ... and it is going up. There is nothing like Darkfall out there. It's vital that MMORPG.COM covers Darkfall way more than they have done in the past. ..
Really why?
Another great example of Moore's Law. Give people access to that much space (developers and users alike) and they'll find uses for it that you can never imagine. "640K ought to be enough for anybody" - Bill Gates 1981
Here are my impressions for somebody who has been looking at DF from a year or 7 ago. I want a freaking game that can take Ultima Online's shoes. That expands on the gameplay. That brings the graphics to the year 200x ( fill in the current year, because i've only been waiting for what, 10 years? ). So, don't start to categories me as one of those people that are out to break a game. Graphics: I need to agree with some of the comments. No offense to anybody, but the graphics based on the video look almost exactly the same like it did when they released there first screenshots all those years ago. I for one, can not see how the video graphics, and the gallery on the official website are so different. You know where i have seen the same pattern? Several other mmorpg's, where they showed screenshots of the game, that (a) are touched up, (b) are running high end textures, shaders etc, that turn the game to a 1fps slideshow, (c) are taking from a distance, (d) enhanced with lots of bloom ... Take it from me, screenshots are not going to give the correct idea of the game. Video, now, thats a lot harder to manipulate. So in general, i rather base my experiences on those. Animation: Major problem here. You can clearly tell that the animation is very limited, almost block like. In other words, there has been no motion captor used. Maybe its me, but you where able to tell that the ground, and the feet where misaligned. Resulting in a detached shadow. Same with the boarding / leaving of ships, the swimming, etc. Very limited looking animations. Ships: Well, no offense, but what the hell was that? Most of you may not have noticed, but the insides of the ships are just empty rooms. You can notice this the best on the big battleship, what also make a impossible turn! You can't turn a ship on a dime. I also had a problem with the cannons on several fronts. The way the cannons are handled, they looked more like somebody's idea of a minigun on a Huey, then cannons. Suspended, fixed position ( handing from above the hull ) canons, with no recoil? Same with the hit explosions on the ships. There looked to be no damage indicator. You had ship, and you had ship sinking aka, reduce level by x every sec. Thats it... The same can be said about the city siege, and the walls. Beta Testers: Now, let me put a few ideas out of the way that some people have. A payed beta tester is only helpful in specific instances. Take it from me, testing a product will result in people repeating the same pattern. If you have 10 payed testers, you will have 10 * the same pattern. In other words, when i come in the game, i might click a, c, b, where as there beta testers always click a, b, c... It may look silly, but as a software developer you notice a lot how something that looks to work perfectly, ends up crashing, or creating other problems, because you did not anticipate a end user doing x actions. And the more complexer the software, and in this case, the gameplay, the more easy it is for problems to sneak in. So, yea, if they are planning on running a short 2 months beta, for a 2008 release. Good luck on you early buyers, *kuch* i mean, beta testers. General: To me, it looked like was lacking a lot of details, to put it bluntly, it looked like those city siege, navel battle looked like a afterthought that where quickly added to the game. Also, to the people who say: "But, its not feature complete", "Its going to be added or fixed in the beta", "They will increase the graphics, animation in the beta". Take it from somebody who has been in 6 beta's ( including several possible UO successors ). What you see, it what you get most of the time. I hope that this video is very misleading, and that the final game will be superior, and a worthy successor to UO. But, i'm sorry to say, that video did not show anything to make me conclude it will. On the contrary, i had more the feeling that somebody put x number of concepts, and threw them together without having a complete idea what they want. For something that has been in development longer then i can remember, to me it looked more like a game that 2 schoolkids put together in there spare time, then any professional work. And no amount of pink glasses is going to change that. So, to conclude, my impression after 2 years not looking at any updates: Not very promising. I'm sorry that some will hate my for writing this, but i can't hide my disappointment. One may say that it caters to a niche market, like Eve. But, i'm sorry to say, Eve was not not 7 or 8 years in development? Yea, i lost track, it has been so long that DF has been in development! So, i hope that it will turn out ok, and i can finally, after all there years, play a worthy successor to UO. Ps: there are a few seconds off what looks like part of a interface mechanism in the video ( look at the banking, and smithing scene ).
The screen shots are not "touched" up and nor is the video. Thats in game stuff on a medium end machine.
Your main complaints are about minor aesthetics...
I'd play a game made out of blocks and triangles if the game play were supreme. lol
Ive read this thread, and many others on MMORPG.com, and wish to state my opinion on the matter.
I am a die-hard PvE player, and hope this game is at least somewhat succesful. While I donot like PvP, I feel that the PvP playstyle should get its game the way it wants it, and for them to be able to enjoy it. I mean this sincerely.
Unfortunatly, I dont see this game becomeing much more than a very small niche game. Thats my view, and could be wrong, but I dont think so.
I agree with the Pro-DF players that graphics really dont matter. I still play EQ1, (though the pictures posted earlier for EQ1 are really outdated and nolonger apply), and dont mind the graphics at all. It really IS about the gameplay. And from what I see, the gameplay in DF will only agree with a small hard-core audience. If the playerbase becomes larger than 1-2 EQ servers, I will be surprised.
The truth of the matter is, the majority of people play a game to have fun with others on fun content. Not to be the negative content of others. Because of this, no matter how big a sandbox, with no matter how innovative the gameplay features are put in, if the game cannot keep significant amount of paying players because they are not haveing fun because of constantly being ganked and killed, then this game will eventually die a slow painful death.
Like I have said, this is my opinion, and could be wrong.Only time will tell.
I wish DF and its fans do well. I personally will never play the game, but that doesnt mean I donot think others cannot have thier fun on thier own type of game, dubious as it is.
Well, I am looking forward to this game, it is been long awaited. I heartily agree that gameplay overrides graphics any day in the week.
As to the video, let me say this, a very good friend produces movies and with some of the software he has, he could easily make an avatar of anyone of you and make you fly through the video like it was actually happening on screen. Some of the software out there is that good. Hence, I don't really trust any videos anymore, they are so easily faked it is ridiculous.
As to features, let's wait and see what beta and release provides. I have to agree with the majority here that anyone saying this game is feature complete has a few rocks loose upstairs. We know so little about this game, I have rarely seen the developers really explain anything in detail. Some of you are assuming way too much.
Hopefully they can get it out by the end of the year or early next, but we had better see a beta data soon for that to happen.
My only concern is the open pvp. No game has ever survived open pvp without consequence. Maybe this one can, but history says otherwise. I hope they limit guilds to small to medium sizes also, otherwise you will end up with a few large guilds dominating everything. Hopefully they know the mistakes made in previous pvp games and made allowances for them.
The general feeling is that the beta will be out before the end of october.
You have to dig for information from the devs, its true. But its there.
God I hope the open pvp works. I want a system like that that works so bad...
Enough of the sentence fragments I think. Anyways, the idea behind the lower profile of streaming information from official sources, I think, is to create a game completley hyped by the community, and hereby washes their hands of angry fans screaming about promised game features. Its like the opposite of AoC, which is nice.
Not that I think that will happen. (god I hope not)
Anywho, my statements and thoughts are nothing new or unique, but there ya go.
I hope the really negative people can just look at this as a new experience for MMO's and I'm not sure what their problem is with a game that promises so much.
That's the problem - This game promises to be the greatest thing since sliced bread but the very fact it even exists is in doubt by a lot of people.
I hope the really negative people can just look at this as a new experience for MMO's and I'm not sure what their problem is with a game that promises so much.
That's the problem - This game promises to be the greatest thing since sliced bread but the very fact it even exists is in doubt by a lot of people.
On the surface it may appear that way, but the systems in Darkfall aren't anything revolutionary. They were around since 1997, the only real big thing was that theres a modern day company daring to make a good game for once. And if people actually did a little research into the company, you know its not the same kind of people as were behind AoC. I do have my doubts for the game, like when it will actually release, and in what condition, but I do believe its feature complete.
I must say, as a MAJOR skeptic of this game, due it's ridiculous production time, it looks better than I thought it would (ie, I thought it was vaporware). The features (if they have half of them) are what I have wanted in a game since Shadowbane promised but had no hardware to support their ideas.
But I will temper any excitement. The graphics simply put are bad. The animations are worse (could the blood particle effects look worse?). And if this is the best you can do in a studio built "in-game footage" demonstration I wonder about its quality overall.
But again, shockingly better looking than I expected. We'll see......I'll let the Darkfall "cultists" try it first while I'm playing WAR. But I'll keep my eyes on it for sure!
Probably the funniest post on this thread. They don't even have a date for the beta and you think it will be out this year? Adventurine has not made a date yet, in fact they have not even come close to making any date.
Expect it in 2009, I really think they are getting close though.
"European release date is Late 2008." Probably the funniest post on this thread. They don't even have a date for the beta and you think it will be out this year? Adventurine has not made a date yet, in fact they have not even come close to making any date. Expect it in 2009, I really think they are getting close though.
if you watch the darkfall video, in the video, at the end, it states "coming in 2008", in pretty large letters that you can't miss.
and i know that everyone supporting darkfall DID watch that video and DID see that "coming in 2008" in there.
how did you miss it?
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
I believe there was an article in a Greek newspaper about an EU publisher picking up Darkfall...It's pretty obscure though, I'll have to go find it. Point is, with that article, and this video, and the beta sign up, you can only come to one conclusion: DARKFALL IS COMING!
gods-n-heroes were actually IN beta and almost on the shelves, weren't they?
honestly, if i were a rabid darkfall fan, i'd be quite upset with the devs for not showing any of the cool items listed on the website and for not even showing any "class" variety. yet, for some reason, all the darkfall "fans" seem to be capable of is talking about how wonderful this incredibly shyte video is. and are quick to follow up with all the wonderful things that darkfall has... pretty much NONE of which were shown in the video.
that, i find to be frustrating. present intelligent arguments backed with facts. the only "facts" evidenced are from a video which really didn't show ANYTHING that you couldn't have seen in a diablo 2 (or similar game)'s cut-thru movies.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
So i'm wondering what's so 'Controversial' about this game. Anyone got a link or feel like typing out an example?
Darkfall is controversial because it is staying true to the real MMOG experience, that of a persistent seamless non instanced virtual world, where each player has the freedom to choose what to do and where to go without being pigeonholed into preset classes and forced to follow a linear task performing experience driven game.
Freedom is very scary to many people. They need to be told what to do and when to do it.
That is quite true Samurai, then again while freedom is scary, the gank squads are even scarier.
From what we can tell from the website the game has no consequences for killing and a significant death penalty. NO game, to date, has survived such a scenario, not to say that this game can't, just that it is unlikely.
I can remember some of the best times I had in a game were in the original UO, but at least that game had some form of consequence even then, as the bad guys turned red, you won't even be able to pick out the bad guys in Darkfall.
So while everyone gets excited about finally seeing this game, I wonder if it can succeed in the current state. Another problem with these games, people will flock to the winning side, hence if they allow large guilds, you will end up with a few guilds dominating and the rest of them leaving. They need to keep guilds small and not allow alliances.
We will have to wait and see, but the picture is not as rosy as some of these posters would like you to think.
Comments
EQ1 gfx lost credibility there
tasos stated it is feature complete and working as youc an see the ship and buildin destrction isnt up to par but the feature still works
EQ1 gfx lost credibility there
yep, comparing DF graphics to EQ1 == zero credibility. not to mention the DF video was made using real people, and finally, machinima requires a full-featured graphics engine to make.
one of the worst and most uninformed trolls ever seen on mmorpg.com, impressive.
1. It's Aventurine. If you don't know enough to spell it right then don't assume you know about their server technology.
2. They have plenty of funds to do whatever with servers. Some people assume they are trying to rush because of a lack of funds - they have millions in cash (borrowed) and they secured this cash only recently.
"Aventurine SA is an online game developer and publisher based in Athens, Greece that was formed in October 2002. Aventurine SA is currently developing Darkfall in addition to research into game and simulation technologies. Aventurine recently obtained a €20 million convertible bond loan from Marfin Bank ."
http://www.glossary.com/reference.php?q=Aventurine+SA
That means no rush.
I joined MMORPG.com a long time ago in the hopes of finding a good place to discuss Darkfall. I did some reading here and decided that posting back then would do me know good because the majority of what I was seeing was vehemently against Darkfall. Back then it was mostly people spouting that it was vapor.
Since it finally appears that Darkfall is coming out I still see a mass if malice toward Darkfall but now it seems like the vapor trolls are spouting a new line... outdated graphics and that they can't possibly have put in all the features they claim. I've said it before and I'll it here now.
If Aventurine gets even 1/4 of their claimed features into this game at release it will still blow everything out there today right to perdition.
You know what I find really really funny? Every single person who posts a malicious comment about Darkfall probably either works for a competing company or will play Darkfall when it's realeased. They will for no other reason than see if they were right or not for themselves. They will either love it or hate it... but not for anywhere near the reason they spewed all over these forums.
See you in Darkfall. I'll be the one munching on your entrails and looting your stuff.
I'm talking about server tech not server hardware. Darkfall server tech is more advanced than EVE's - i know because i'm a veteran programmer who codes large-scale scientific applications designed for distributed server farms so yeah, i know this stuff inside out because i could code it myself.
DF haven't made any statements about what hardware they'll run, so it's pointless to chest-beat about it. suffice to say SANs are hardly anything to get worked up over. It's worth mentioning that EVE needs to spend more on server hardware because the game is almost entirely implemented in Python, a non-compiled (scripting) language that is slow and requires tons of memory.
So, to recap: Darkfall server tech can resize zones dynamically and redistribute these split zones to other, less-loaded nodes in their cluster. EVE uses fixed-size zones, and zones cannot be split/resized, nor redistributed. This is why EVE zones often crash when too many ships jump into a single zone -- their server tech can't redistribute the load so the node crashes. DF should not suffer from this limitation, making 1000v1000 battles possible on the server side, though it's highly unlikely that clients will be able to draw 2000+ characters at acceptable FPS though (this underscores why DF has gone for simple character model graphics over bling).
It is really a shame when someone supposedly knowledgable in this industry completely goes off the deep end. Firstly, if you took the time to read, CCP changed the fixed clusters with the code changes last November, servers now dynamically adjust to load. The problem CCP has is even when one server is dedicated to a system, it just can't keep up with the number of objects which is significantly increased by the number of drones everyone puts out. Sure the client is written mostly in Python, but the server code has been mostly rewritten in C++. Actually stackless Python is more efficient than compiled code in some applications, it does threads far better than most compilers do, You should take the time to read up on it.
Secondly the only thing you are relying on is a few comments by the Adventurine devs on their website, an extremely weak argument to say the least. Especially considering the amount of disinformation they have put out. In concept their code should work well, we will just have to wait and see if they can walk the talk at release.
You can count on me pointing out the lag fests, 200 x 200 fights will be when the game releases. I will enjoy explaining again why hardware is just not up to this yet. Your simple character models will only help on the client side, they do nothing for the server side at all. Not very smart to try to use a client issue in a discussion of server performance.
I just hope they can handle 100 x 100 battles without too much lag, that will be far better than most MMO's achieve today.
This is amazing how people forget themselves playing Battlecity or Mario, or may be shooting ducks at Dendy/Nintendo consoles and PRAISING For SUPER MEGA Graphixx leet shit.
We've been playing Ultima Online for almost 4 years! And it had amazing graphix! oh... wait? It was not. But the ammount of freedom u could do was just THAT much. For fuck sake, i bet some of u are still playing world of warcraft, u log in each day, each evening, and yell at the general chat "OMG IM BORED!" "LF PUG RAIDIN" rofl or u go and wipe in some shitty instance just wasting your time man, cuz u haven nothing else to do but grind and wipe.
I hate people saying that Gameplay is more than Graphix, or that Graphix is more than Gameplay, since those things can't be devided. It is both that makes the game good, and damn Darkfall is good.
gg 
Moo. Luf u.
Here are my impressions for somebody who has been looking at DF from a year or 7 ago. I want a freaking game that can take Ultima Online's shoes. That expands on the gameplay. That brings the graphics to the year 200x ( fill in the current year, because i've only been waiting for what, 10 years? ). So, don't start to categories me as one of those people that are out to break a game.
Graphics: I need to agree with some of the comments. No offense to anybody, but the graphics based on the video look almost exactly the same like it did when they released there first screenshots all those years ago.
I for one, can not see how the video graphics, and the gallery on the official website are so different.
You know where i have seen the same pattern? Several other mmorpg's, where they showed screenshots of the game, that (a) are touched up, (b) are running high end textures, shaders etc, that turn the game to a 1fps slideshow, (c) are taking from a distance, (d) enhanced with lots of bloom ... Take it from me, screenshots are not going to give the correct idea of the game. Video, now, thats a lot harder to manipulate. So in general, i rather base my experiences on those.
Animation: Major problem here. You can clearly tell that the animation is very limited, almost block like. In other words, there has been no motion captor used. Maybe its me, but you where able to tell that the ground, and the feet where misaligned. Resulting in a detached shadow.
Same with the boarding / leaving of ships, the swimming, etc. Very limited looking animations.
Ships:
Well, no offense, but what the hell was that? Most of you may not have noticed, but the insides of the ships are just empty rooms. You can notice this the best on the big battleship, what also make a impossible turn! You can't turn a ship on a dime.
I also had a problem with the cannons on several fronts. The way the cannons are handled, they looked more like somebody's idea of a minigun on a Huey, then cannons. Suspended, fixed position ( handing from above the hull ) canons, with no recoil? Same with the hit explosions on the ships. There looked to be no damage indicator. You had ship, and you had ship sinking aka, reduce level by x every sec. Thats it...
The same can be said about the city siege, and the walls.
Beta Testers:
Now, let me put a few ideas out of the way that some people have. A payed beta tester is only helpful in specific instances. Take it from me, testing a product will result in people repeating the same pattern. If you have 10 payed testers, you will have 10 * the same pattern. In other words, when i come in the game, i might click a, c, b, where as there beta testers always click a, b, c... It may look silly, but as a software developer you notice a lot how something that looks to work perfectly, ends up crashing, or creating other problems, because you did not anticipate a end user doing x actions. And the more complexer the software, and in this case, the gameplay, the more easy it is for problems to sneak in. So, yea, if they are planning on running a short 2 months beta, for a 2008 release. Good luck on you early buyers, *kuch* i mean, beta testers.
General:
To me, it looked like was lacking a lot of details, to put it bluntly, it looked like those city siege, navel battle looked like a afterthought that where quickly added to the game.
Also, to the people who say: "But, its not feature complete", "Its going to be added or fixed in the beta", "They will increase the graphics, animation in the beta". Take it from somebody who has been in 6 beta's ( including several possible UO successors ). What you see, it what you get most of the time.
I hope that this video is very misleading, and that the final game will be superior, and a worthy successor to UO. But, i'm sorry to say, that video did not show anything to make me conclude it will. On the contrary, i had more the feeling that somebody put x number of concepts, and threw them together without having a complete idea what they want.
For something that has been in development longer then i can remember, to me it looked more like a game that 2 schoolkids put together in there spare time, then any professional work. And no amount of pink glasses is going to change that.
So, to conclude, my impression after 2 years not looking at any updates: Not very promising. I'm sorry that some will hate my for writing this, but i can't hide my disappointment. One may say that it caters to a niche market, like Eve. But, i'm sorry to say, Eve was not not 7 or 8 years in development? Yea, i lost track, it has been so long that DF has been in development!
So, i hope that it will turn out ok, and i can finally, after all there years, play a worthy successor to UO.
Ps: there are a few seconds off what looks like part of a interface mechanism in the video ( look at the banking, and smithing scene ).
Oh, yes. Thank you very much for the attention.
This game is simply put - AMAZING - ... and it is going up. There is nothing like Darkfall out there.
It's vital that MMORPG.COM covers Darkfall way more than they have done in the past. ..
Really why?
Another great example of Moore's Law. Give people access to that much space (developers and users alike) and they'll find uses for it that you can never imagine. "640K ought to be enough for anybody" - Bill Gates 1981
The video is AMAZING.
The screen shots are not "touched" up and nor is the video. Thats in game stuff on a medium end machine.
Your main complaints are about minor aesthetics...
I'd play a game made out of blocks and triangles if the game play were supreme. lol
-Kin
Ive read this thread, and many others on MMORPG.com, and wish to state my opinion on the matter.
I am a die-hard PvE player, and hope this game is at least somewhat succesful. While I donot like PvP, I feel that the PvP playstyle should get its game the way it wants it, and for them to be able to enjoy it. I mean this sincerely.
Unfortunatly, I dont see this game becomeing much more than a very small niche game. Thats my view, and could be wrong, but I dont think so.
I agree with the Pro-DF players that graphics really dont matter. I still play EQ1, (though the pictures posted earlier for EQ1 are really outdated and nolonger apply), and dont mind the graphics at all. It really IS about the gameplay. And from what I see, the gameplay in DF will only agree with a small hard-core audience. If the playerbase becomes larger than 1-2 EQ servers, I will be surprised.
The truth of the matter is, the majority of people play a game to have fun with others on fun content. Not to be the negative content of others. Because of this, no matter how big a sandbox, with no matter how innovative the gameplay features are put in, if the game cannot keep significant amount of paying players because they are not haveing fun because of constantly being ganked and killed, then this game will eventually die a slow painful death.
Like I have said, this is my opinion, and could be wrong.Only time will tell.
I wish DF and its fans do well. I personally will never play the game, but that doesnt mean I donot think others cannot have thier fun on thier own type of game, dubious as it is.
Peace, and be safe.
Well, I am looking forward to this game, it is been long awaited. I heartily agree that gameplay overrides graphics any day in the week.
As to the video, let me say this, a very good friend produces movies and with some of the software he has, he could easily make an avatar of anyone of you and make you fly through the video like it was actually happening on screen. Some of the software out there is that good. Hence, I don't really trust any videos anymore, they are so easily faked it is ridiculous.
As to features, let's wait and see what beta and release provides. I have to agree with the majority here that anyone saying this game is feature complete has a few rocks loose upstairs. We know so little about this game, I have rarely seen the developers really explain anything in detail. Some of you are assuming way too much.
Hopefully they can get it out by the end of the year or early next, but we had better see a beta data soon for that to happen.
My only concern is the open pvp. No game has ever survived open pvp without consequence. Maybe this one can, but history says otherwise. I hope they limit guilds to small to medium sizes also, otherwise you will end up with a few large guilds dominating everything. Hopefully they know the mistakes made in previous pvp games and made allowances for them.
European release date is Late 2008.
That was updated on their site last month.
The general feeling is that the beta will be out before the end of october.
You have to dig for information from the devs, its true. But its there.
God I hope the open pvp works. I want a system like that that works so bad...
Enough of the sentence fragments I think. Anyways, the idea behind the lower profile of streaming information from official sources, I think, is to create a game completley hyped by the community, and hereby washes their hands of angry fans screaming about promised game features. Its like the opposite of AoC, which is nice.
Not that I think that will happen. (god I hope not)
Anywho, my statements and thoughts are nothing new or unique, but there ya go.
That's the problem - This game promises to be the greatest thing since sliced bread but the very fact it even exists is in doubt by a lot of people.
That's the problem - This game promises to be the greatest thing since sliced bread but the very fact it even exists is in doubt by a lot of people.
On the surface it may appear that way, but the systems in Darkfall aren't anything revolutionary. They were around since 1997, the only real big thing was that theres a modern day company daring to make a good game for once. And if people actually did a little research into the company, you know its not the same kind of people as were behind AoC. I do have my doubts for the game, like when it will actually release, and in what condition, but I do believe its feature complete.
Darkfall Travelogues!
I believe there was an article in a Greek newspaper about an EU publisher picking up Darkfall...It's pretty obscure though, I'll have to go find it.
Point is, with that article, and this video, and the beta sign up, you can only come to one conclusion:
DARKFALL IS COMING!
I must say, as a MAJOR skeptic of this game, due it's ridiculous production time, it looks better than I thought it would (ie, I thought it was vaporware). The features (if they have half of them) are what I have wanted in a game since Shadowbane promised but had no hardware to support their ideas.
But I will temper any excitement. The graphics simply put are bad. The animations are worse (could the blood particle effects look worse?). And if this is the best you can do in a studio built "in-game footage" demonstration I wonder about its quality overall.
But again, shockingly better looking than I expected. We'll see......I'll let the Darkfall "cultists" try it first while I'm playing WAR. But I'll keep my eyes on it for sure!
"European release date is Late 2008."
Probably the funniest post on this thread. They don't even have a date for the beta and you think it will be out this year? Adventurine has not made a date yet, in fact they have not even come close to making any date.
Expect it in 2009, I really think they are getting close though.
if you watch the darkfall video, in the video, at the end, it states "coming in 2008", in pretty large letters that you can't miss.
and i know that everyone supporting darkfall DID watch that video and DID see that "coming in 2008" in there.
how did you miss it?
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
gods-n-heroes were actually IN beta and almost on the shelves, weren't they?
honestly, if i were a rabid darkfall fan, i'd be quite upset with the devs for not showing any of the cool items listed on the website and for not even showing any "class" variety. yet, for some reason, all the darkfall "fans" seem to be capable of is talking about how wonderful this incredibly shyte video is. and are quick to follow up with all the wonderful things that darkfall has... pretty much NONE of which were shown in the video.
that, i find to be frustrating. present intelligent arguments backed with facts. the only "facts" evidenced are from a video which really didn't show ANYTHING that you couldn't have seen in a diablo 2 (or similar game)'s cut-thru movies.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
So i'm wondering what's so 'Controversial' about this game. Anyone got a link or feel like typing out an example?
Darkfall is controversial because it is staying true to the real MMOG experience, that of a persistent seamless non instanced virtual world, where each player has the freedom to choose what to do and where to go without being pigeonholed into preset classes and forced to follow a linear task performing experience driven game.
Freedom is very scary to many people. They need to be told what to do and when to do it.
That is quite true Samurai, then again while freedom is scary, the gank squads are even scarier.
From what we can tell from the website the game has no consequences for killing and a significant death penalty. NO game, to date, has survived such a scenario, not to say that this game can't, just that it is unlikely.
I can remember some of the best times I had in a game were in the original UO, but at least that game had some form of consequence even then, as the bad guys turned red, you won't even be able to pick out the bad guys in Darkfall.
So while everyone gets excited about finally seeing this game, I wonder if it can succeed in the current state. Another problem with these games, people will flock to the winning side, hence if they allow large guilds, you will end up with a few guilds dominating and the rest of them leaving. They need to keep guilds small and not allow alliances.
We will have to wait and see, but the picture is not as rosy as some of these posters would like you to think.