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Darkfall: Eurogamer Re-Review: 4/10
MikeB
Community ManagerAdministrator RarePosts: 6,555
Anyone closely following Darkfall should know of the Eurogamer vs. Tasos 2/10 review fiasco. Well, Eurogamer has since agreed to re-review the game, assigning writer Kieron Gillen to the task, and that re-review is out today. What's the new verdict? A not-so-improved, but certainly better, four out of ten.
Kierons opening comments:
There is a history here, which would be foolish to pretend doesn't exist. When Darkfall was first reviewed on Eurogamer, it scored 2/10. The developer, Aventurine, was incensed. They'd checked their logs to discover the reviewer had a total logged-in time of a couple of hours. Eurogamer pressed their reviewer, who claimed their numbers must be wrong. He gave it at least nine hours. Eurogamer offered a re-review. Aventurine declined. Eurogamer bought an account anyway. And two months later, I'm here.
A bit more:
At the moment, I don't think there are many who will put up with Darkfall's madness. I certainly won't. I hope Darkfall grows and becomes a game which can take its charms and appeal to a wider audience (EVE wasn't EVE when it launched, for example - it began with fine ideas that appealed to a niche, and as they improved the game it sold its ideas to an ever-larger niche). Darkfall's just launched in the US and its expansion has gone live, after all. But as a game, it's just not there yet, its rewards too distant and the road there too barren to recommend to fellow travellers.
Read the full Eurogamer re-review here.
Comments
hopefully Aventurine wont have a fit over this review either. Seemed like a pretty good review to me.
As for Darkfall being crap/bad. Name a single game that is all of what it promised after the first 6 months of release. AoC still hasn't reached that far, WAR isn't quite there. All the games being released fail to meet expectations and they take a while to fix. Darkfall should be a decent game come the end of the year.
MMO wish list:
-Changeable worlds
-Solid non level based game
-Sharks with lasers attached to their heads
Nice review, i enjoyed reading it. It's clear that the reviewer really put some time into the game, i'm wondering if Aventurine will react to this review. I think 4/10 is a fair review, 2/10 was a bit harsh.
Now I've read this a good few times now to make sure. I think the result he comes out with is pretty fair, however I dont know how he gets there. The review is basically empty, if you cut out all the wasted space talking about what he didnt do, the old review, the history etc, you have about a page of very airy empty content which barely describes what his likes and dislikes actually are, and more importantly, the WHY of it all. We all like to don our rose tinted glasses every so often but reviews these days are piss poor more often than not, and this one in particular is a great example of such a review. Its just bad journalism and it seems to be written purely to ease attention off of the even more lacklustre first review.
Playing polished, lag free, feature complete games is carebear. Whining about a game you hate but still play is hardcore man!
I didn't read the review since I've played the game myself and don't really care to, but I will say that's it's pretty unprofessional for Eurogamer to go ahead and review the game when AV told them to forget about it. Not that AV hasn't been unprofessional themselves, but two wrongs don't make a right.
And it's so professional of you to comment on something you did'nt read. They bought a copy of the game (like everyone else), so they had all the rights to review it.
And it's so professional of you to comment on something you did'nt read. They bought a copy of the game (like everyone else), so they had all the rights to review it.
He's not a professional, they are.
And it's so professional of you to comment on something you did'nt read. They bought a copy of the game (like everyone else), so they had all the rights to review it.
Seeing, as how I didn't say a single thing about the content of review, my comment is fine. And, do I look like I'm working or representing some company that requires professionalism? Honestly bro.
Hm. I found it to be quite refreshing. It was lengthy, but none of it came across as unnecessary to me. Here are the main and non biased points I picked up from reading it:
The game isn't quick to progress in.
The game was published while there were exploitable game mechanics to allow players to stay competitive.
It's beneficial to be selective about how, when, who, and where you choose to fight.
Full looting pvp is in the game, but people avoid participating by equipping nothing.
There is little penalty for having no equipment on. (I am assuming this is in comparison to equipping AI owned equipment rather than player crafted equipment.)
Looting cannot be done by a simple click, you must drag each item individually.
User interface (Specifically for combat) could provide better visual feedback to the user. This makes the game more difficult, which is not the same as being difficult because of an AI or a game hampering bug.
The game's setting and environment causes one to believe that walking vertically along a mountain or building is unusual.
The community is very helpful and friendly overall.
Personally speaking, I don't care if the reviewer likes his coffee black, his eggs over easy, or prefers wireless mice over wired. The review doesn't put much emphasis on "This is what should be done better, according to what I prefer." The review seemed to basically state the things he noticed in the game and how they compared to other games that are out there.
I think it was very well done, and I really like his writing style.
4/10 is what I've given the game in several threads here.
Most reviews are done so on the basis of purchasing a copy and playing it for themselves. Only a handful of review sites get a free account to play on and are asked to make a review. So it's not unprofessional at all. No game company can tell you not to review a game, they can only ask that you not. They can also ask that you not put out a review, but it's really up to your company. There is no NDA or EULA that prevents them from doing so therefore nothing is unprofessional about the matter. What was unprofessional though was a executive ranting about said review when his investors should of told him to keep his mouth shut. People and companies get bad reviews all the time, but they don't retaliate because it makes them look unprofessional. So you try to spin your head around that one, eh?
Good review by the way, but there was no reason to recant an old review.
So it went from a 2/10 to a 4/10. I hope those +2 extra points were worth it!
Hi! My name is paper. Nerf scissors, rock is fine.
MMORPG = Mostly Men Online Roleplaying Girls
http://www.MichaelLuckhardt.com
25% of a good review
75% of a "We're bitter we were called out for being poor reviewers"
Thats the contents of the review summed up.
I bet no one expected eurogamer to give DF any better than 4/10 because even 6/10 would of been saying "Ed Zitron does poor job"
well eurogamer sucks when it comes to reviews.. ugh really poor site imo.
About Darkfall.. I never played it and never will.. ugh I don't feel like spending 50$ (propably more since I'm from eu) for it.
-1 * -1 = +1
math proves you wrong and dorkfail ist still failing...
Hurray for Eurogamer finally someone that shows the fanbois of Darkfail where the table should stand
I mostly had that impression aswell when reading it. But what I also see here is the final score not matching the review itself, because while reading it I really had the impression it was going to be a 6/10 (he wrote he liked some parts, hated some parts, really just a mixed bag without anything extremely negative), but they gave it a 4/10.
Right away I thought this was only done to save Mr. Ed Zitron's ass - which I guess is fine, any company should take care of it's employee's, but knowing the history here I personally would have not given it a score and left it with only the review itself.
On a side note, I don't like Eurogamer's score system (if they even have one). They write a review and at the end they slap a number on it. There is no detailed information about how they came to such conclusion.
Given the serious complaints he listed about the gameplay, I thought a 4/10 was quite generous.
Originally posted by Wighty
It's like the latest batch of MMO's are like a f'n Kevin Costner movie... <think Waterworld, the Postman, etc> they cost a FORTUNE, they sound like they may be good but then you just realized you sat around for 3 hours of WTF...
Lord of the rings online
-1 * -1 = +1
math proves you wrong and dorkfail ist still failing...
-1 + -1 = -2 , math proves you wrong!
Does anyone care by now? Seems this game quite vanished. I dont know anyone who plays it.
nope it has gone from 3/10 to 4/10 which is also on par with the other 2 or 3 reviews i have read about this game as well. Then there is another review that gave it a 7/10 or was it 8/10 and said it was a below average game. So why give it a high score, i dont know, probably not to alienate the company into handing them future reviews.
I agree, i have never played it (way too much bad publicity and player feedback in teh negative) to waste money checking it out. I do however have a friend who plays, he does like it, though he does also say the game graphically is like stepping back by 2 decades and the sounds are not brilliant, but something has to give way to allow the 200-300 player battles that can happen which are still very playable on high end machines (meaning gameplay does slow down and all, but not to unplayable standards). But for me, a game with a monthly fee of £10 has to be good in several departments and this fails in all but 1 from what i have gathered on reading.
If the game ever does come out with a free test play period of 14 days (or so) i will probably give it a try, but right now, as it stands, i wont even consider touching it without at least a trial play. Thats just me and my opinion though. I also know several others who had had it, played it, and left it after their initial first month and all do tally with a 4/10 scoreline.
Ah...you do realize that Eurogamer reviews games as a business. The pretty much makes your "unprofessional" comment laughable. They don't need permission by the developer. They did promise their readers they would do a rereview of it and they followed through.
I think the reviewer did a fairly good job. Certainly fits my feelings after playing the game. The game still has a lot of rough edges. The problem with Darkfall, the pve is an afterthought. I think a good game needs to balance the pvp and the pve.
Honestly, I read the entire review. I have to say, WTF. I have played, and currently actively play this MMO. It is one of the best MMO concepts I have played since Ultima Online, and Star Wars Galaxies.
Playing on NA-1 this last week, I can say that 75% of the player base on the new NA-1 server have never played darkfall before, and actualy love the game. The comments and feedback are very positive. Players enjoy darkfall bottomline. Most players who have bought the game since NA-1 Server launched are enjoying the game.
I am part of a huge gaming community called The Exodus Syndicate. We play 8 MMOGAMES as a community, no player from the community who tried Darkfall Online has actualy dis-liked the concept, or the gameplay.
Is not the most important part of writting a review the players perspective? If players who actualy play the game, as it is now in its current form enjoy the game greatly doesn't that carry more weight the sound or graphics?
Finaly, I dare Euro-gamer to post the day 1-7 racial chat logs. By far the overwhelming majority of players just coming into the game are making positive comments about the game. Dispute what you want, over 20k players logged into 1 server at 1 time is impressive to say the least. What game besides eve online can boast higher single server peak time loads greater?
I just re-read the review all the way through.
I must be reading a different review than some here (and on another thread opened previously about it).
They spend more time talking about the first review than they do on the re-review? Someone states 75% of it is about the Zitron review... Come on. Exaggerate much?
I'd say it's more accurate that 75% of some people's *attention* is on the parts regarding the first review. But the actual re-review spends 2 "interludes" addressing the first review, and even then it's seldom directly addressing it. The 3rd "interlude" is him discussing his thoughts on how a MMO could/should be reviewed.
He's presenting certain considerations he had when approaching the re-review in light of what happened with the first one. As he said it would be ridiculous to pretend the first review, particularly all the drama around, it never happened, and it definitely casts a shadow over the re-review, no matter what.
You can completely skip those "interludes" (very do-able considering they're separated into their own sections, set off by italicized text), and you would have a good, stand-alone review that would spread across at least 2.5 pages.
Seems to me some people are just looking for something "easy" to nit-pick at.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
That would be impressive if it was true, but it's far from the case. The server was built to handle up to 10k concurrent players. It's highly unlikely the EU server has ever had close to that. The largest event on records was an allegedly 2k player WAR soon after launch. Since then, numbers have dwindled and it's unlikely there are even 2k logged in at any one time. The best estimates for total overall membership for the EU server capped at 18k TOTAL players (not concurrent). That estimate is based, in large part, on the figures I gathered from the in-game clan journal, which had ~15k total clan characters as of 05/23/2009. I confirmed that the clan membership total included characters that quit the game without first leaving their clans and it included characters that were deleted without quitting their clans. As such, the ~15k total clan membership count is a maximum value, but probably much higher than the actual live clan player count.
How did myself and others arrive at the max ~18k estimate? Since Darkfall is so heavily clan-oriented, it's no big stretch to assume that most players, especially those who stay beyond their initial month, belong to clans. As such, most active players are probably clan member, which means the active players out of the ~15, number quality as "most players". Even assuming generous 25% active non-clan member count, the number is under 4k. Add that to a conservative 14k (clan members - 1k) and you arrive at an estimated ~18k total active subscriber count for EU. The exact formula is:
(~15k clan characters- invalid clan characters + non-clan characters) = total subscriber count (1 chat/account)
So, simply put, your 20k concurrent number is bullshit...
~Ripper