Here's some answers about beta/release date from Tasos

rageagainst

This is an old article, but people often forget about it. This whole post applies to you only if you believe the devs at all; my personal opinion is, yeah it could all be a HUGE april fools joke, and aliens might come from space to save our planet by killing us. Both could be true, who knows. From Warcry: www.warcry.com/articles/view/devjournals/darkfalljournals/3570-Darkfall-Dev-Journal-25-Philosophy

I feel that referring to it now is important because a LOT of threads have been popping up saying "this game will fail b/c of the small closed beta" and "the release date will be pushed back like all of their other release dates." I encourage y'all to read the entire thing but I'm going to post some excerpts from the article here:

About release dates, this is the only one they EVER posted (other than the one in like 2003, I'm not sure if that counts because I wasn't around back then O.o ), and here is what they said about release dates:

    Based on the above, it's conceivable that we may be further along in development than several games in beta, or with announced release dates. So why don't we announce a date already? It's because there's no way we'll miss a release date and we're not going to just set a date as a goal, and either postpone or be forced to release something unfinished. We resolve to stick with our release date because we know how people tend to plan around this as far as organization, time and hardware goes when they're looking to make a commitment to an MMORPG, especially a competitive one like Darkfall.

About their beta testing:

Darkfall is feature complete and we're doing beta testing using professional testers as we've said before. Our policy on testing has always been that it's to aid the developers in making Darkfall as stable as possible, and not to aid some artificial goal like investor relations, or public relations. We don't care about that and the effectiveness of testing based on these goals is very questionable judging by the beta leaks everyone is accustomed to and which have been hurting the games in question. It's also not good for the players because they usually don't enjoy the experience. We don't expect playtesting to sort out major problems, other than getting reports on hardware configurations and further testing out some gameplay features. (this is why there's no hardware requirements for the game yet)

    We prefer to do our testing this way so by the time we get to the playtesting, we'll have as close to the actual game as possible. We would like to let the playtesting carry on for a while uninterrupted just like the actual game would be instead of allowing access for a few days here and there. That's the best way to decide if the game is fun, something you really can't have an opinion on when it's not near-complete. In the playtesting phase, we're not looking for testers, we're looking for players, the same way most people enter a beta: to try out and play the game rather than help the developer with quality assurance.

    We welcome the "too good to be true" or the "Darkfall promises everything" ranting about Darkfall because we're in a position to know that we'll offer more than we promise. (meh, I don't believe this part, but this DOES answer why they aren't telling us "what's been cut")

ethion

Originally posted by rageagainst


This is an old article, but people often forget about it. This whole post applies to you only if you believe the devs at all; my personal opinion is, yeah it could all be a HUGE april fools joke, and aliens might come from space to save our planet by killing us. Both could be true, who knows. From Warcry: www.warcry.com/articles/view/devjournals/darkfalljournals/3570-Darkfall-Dev-Journal-25-Philosophy
I feel that referring to it now is important because a LOT of threads have been popping up saying "this game will fail b/c of the small closed beta" and "the release date will be pushed back like all of their other release dates." I encourage y'all to read the entire thing but I'm going to post some excerpts from the article here:
About release dates, this is the only one they EVER posted (other than the one in like 2003, I'm not sure if that counts because I wasn't around back then O.o ), and here is what they said about release dates:
    Based on the above, it's conceivable that we may be further along in development than several games in beta, or with announced release dates. So why don't we announce a date already? It's because there's no way we'll miss a release date and we're not going to just set a date as a goal, and either postpone or be forced to release something unfinished. We resolve to stick with our release date because we know how people tend to plan around this as far as organization, time and hardware goes when they're looking to make a commitment to an MMORPG, especially a competitive one like Darkfall.
About their beta testing:
Darkfall is feature complete and we're doing beta testing using professional testers as we've said before. Our policy on testing has always been that it's to aid the developers in making Darkfall as stable as possible, and not to aid some artificial goal like investor relations, or public relations. We don't care about that and the effectiveness of testing based on these goals is very questionable judging by the beta leaks everyone is accustomed to and which have been hurting the games in question. It's also not good for the players because they usually don't enjoy the experience. We don't expect playtesting to sort out major problems, other than getting reports on hardware configurations and further testing out some gameplay features. (this is why there's no hardware requirements for the game yet)
    We prefer to do our testing this way so by the time we get to the playtesting, we'll have as close to the actual game as possible. We would like to let the playtesting carry on for a while uninterrupted just like the actual game would be instead of allowing access for a few days here and there. That's the best way to decide if the game is fun, something you really can't have an opinion on when it's not near-complete. In the playtesting phase, we're not looking for testers, we're looking for players, the same way most people enter a beta: to try out and play the game rather than help the developer with quality assurance.
    We welcome the "too good to be true" or the "Darkfall promises everything" ranting about Darkfall because we're in a position to know that we'll offer more than we promise. (meh, I don't believe this part, but this DOES answer why they aren't telling us "what's been cut")

 

Sounds good but also pretty naive to me... I've done development as have others and I'd say getting something working is like half the problem the other half is getting it working for a variety of people.  Doing controlled closed testing is find for alpha but going to release from that state is VERY optimistic...

thinktank001

The thing that bugs me the most is the " professional tester " statement.  There is no way they can do any large scale testing if they are paying all their beta players.  Only 100 testers for 1 month is gonna run a company a bill around 200k, and an open beta would be much, much cheaper.   This is especially true for a game that is in the polishing stage.

I also completely disagree with the statement about fun.  Players know whether or not there is any chance of enjoyment in the first 10 minutes of playing.  It just sounds like the devs have been working on this game so long they have lost a sense of reality.    

Kien

Originally posted by thinktank001


The thing that bugs me the most is the " professional tester " statement.  There is no way they can do any large scale testing if they are paying all their beta players.  Only 100 testers for 1 month is gonna run a company a bill around 200k, and an open beta would be much, much cheaper.   This is especially true for a game that is in the polishing stage.
..

 

I'm disturbed by that as well. My step-brother works for a company that does game testing. The testing company receives the product and tests the game 24/7 over a period of time measured in days or weeks, not years. The testing company start testing the game when the game developer believe the product is finished, polished, and ready to release.

Incidentally don't think I missed the missing "s" in your quote

daelnor

I don't think anyone really cares about what they've said over the last year, it's what they've said over the last five or six years that has so many people spurning the claims of this game.

 

I hope it comes out, and I hope it's awesome...but no way in hell will I defend them.

Azrile

This really just shows how nieve they are.  It's kinda like their 'feature' list.  It's a whole bunch of stuff that in theory sounds nice, but in the real world it won't work.   Yes, there are certain companies that used a limited beta testing process for PR purposes (warhammer and AOC)... but even those games found a ton of issues that would have never been found by a handful of testers.

Simply put, expect the official 'launch' in January to be the real beta.   If games like Warhammer with a huge open beta and huge finanical resources had a ton of CTD's and major hardware bugs at launch, wait until you see what happens when your custom build computer tries to play Darkfall.

downtoearth

Originally posted by Azrile


This really just shows how nieve they are.  It's kinda like their 'feature' list.  It's a whole bunch of stuff that in theory sounds nice, but in the real world it won't work.   Yes, there are certain companies that used a limited beta testing process for PR purposes (warhammer and AOC)... but even those games found a ton of issues that would have never been found by a handful of testers.
Simply put, expect the official 'launch' in January to be the real beta.   If games like Warhammer with a huge open beta and huge finanical resources had a ton of CTD's and major hardware bugs at launch, wait until you see what happens when your custom build computer tries to play Darkfall.

 

they ahve already beent esting custom build that whatt he hardware test was for ibet yout he few hundred testers have diffrent setups for computers

Genoknight

About their beta testing:

Darkfall is feature complete

He keeps saying its complete, but I havent seen any proof.

 

 not to aid some artificial goal like investor relations, or public relations. We don't care about that

Why would he not care about public relations?

  

 We welcome the "too good to be true" or the "Darkfall promises everything" ranting about Darkfall because we're in a position to know that we'll offer more than we promise.

Seriously, I've been looking forward to a game like Darkfall, but everything this guy says is a load of

 They don't even update their website.

NeroScuro

Even though I know nothing about the development cycle of MMOs, I've played a few and therefore feel qualified in making half-formed statements based on my very limited personal experience as a consumer;

U NEED LOTS UF PLYRS TO BETA TEST LULZ!!1

Perhaps I've even beta-tested a game, and based on the boundless knowledge that brings, feel further ennobled to provide my excellent advice on a subject I know virtually nothing about;

NO SRSLY GUYS LIEK WAR NAD AOC HAD LUDS OF BETA TSETERS AND THUS GMAES WHERE RLY BUGGY SO IT MSUT BE A GUD IDEA!!!11one

 

Yeeeeeeeah. Excuse me, but I really don't think the barely literate, vague and hysterical bug reports written by the 2% of beta testers who actually write bug reports is any help to game devs, nor is it worth the cost of keeping the servers up and running for external sources or the bad press you get from beta leakers who slam the game for not being 100% stable during beta.

I'd rather spend the time and money on professional testers.

rageagainst

Originally posted by thinktank001


The thing that bugs me the most is the " professional tester " statement.  There is no way they can do any large scale testing if they are paying all their beta players.  Only 100 testers for 1 month is gonna run a company a bill around 200k, and an open beta would be much, much cheaper.   This is especially true for a game that is in the polishing stage.
I also completely disagree with the statement about fun.  Players know whether or not there is any chance of enjoyment in the first 10 minutes of playing.  It just sounds like the devs have been working on this game so long they have lost a sense of reality.    

 

O.o just because they have professional testers won't mean the won't have open and closed beta. Closed beta is already going on, they said open beta is coming.

I mean yeah, you can assume the game is going to be a failure if they don't have open beta (I will)  because its needed for stress tests, but they said that there WILL be an open beta (which will probably be like 2 weeks long at the most), so until the point passes that there will be no open beta, your point is invalid.

And about hardware config, they've specifically chosen people from different hardware configs for the closed beta, they even put it on their updates that that's what their criteria was in that stage of testing.

I don't think this is an opinion btw: professional testing is better than gigantic and long betas.