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Small company comparison
Spellborn combat
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/31619.html
vs
Darkfall
Just wanna get peoples thoughts on the comparisons of these 2. Both are FPS MMOs from a small company.
My thoughts is they are apples and oranges. But it is still spellborn has a lot more fluid animations and spells but lacks the overall feature list. I have a feel that its smaller features though will have more depth and polish then some of darkfalls. But you will no where near the freedom you do in darkfall.
Comments
It looks ok.
I will still be following Darkfall though because as far I know it allows greater freedom for the player.
I might look into that game more if DF fails to deliver.
This is a good topic. I enjoy this sort of comparison between two newcomers to the MMO/Game Development arena.
You sir, have given very precise and concise analysis between two of the companies. Spellborn can only gain from their small feature list, as this allows them something to focus on and refine. What I fear the most from the freedom of Darkfall is that there is a rule that occurs in a gaming environment.
The more freedom you have in a gaming environment, the more work you have to put forth in refining it.
We could end up with the Lionhead effect where they promise so much and couldn't do enough (Fable). Still ended up a good game, but not what was promised. They're making up for it in Fable 2 (hopefully).
Yep, interesting post. I think I prefer the longer feature list (as long as they can deliver them). With any luck, though, the polish will get in before release as well.
To put things into perspective. Blizzard does not even give you the sort of feature lists that Aventurine proclaims. By experience (working in the denim industry), and practice, promising a whole lot of things and not delivering on them is not good business. Blizzard is smart by dazzling people with what they have WHEN they have it, and even then they don't make promises until that aspect of the game is presentable and solid. Gameplay, videos, they make a press coverage of what they have so far. Whether its WoW, Diablo 3, or Starcraft 2.
In the past, there have been game developers who make promises of a long list of features. Peter Mullenix (sp?) for Fable, made very many promises... he only delivered on half of those. The developers of Age of Conan promised a very many things, but only delivered on a portion of those promises. And compared to Aventurine, those other two games I mentioned have a fairly large development crew.
We need to be real here, folks. Longer feature lists are a bad omen to any game. If they kept it short and showed more press coverage, it would make (not just more sense), but better investment advertisement. Plus, keep the majority of players from disappointment.
Because here's the thick of it. If Aventurine does not deliver on all they've promised and a stable launch, Darkfall will sink fast. Not merely from disappointment, but from lack of investor support. However, I'm sure if the launch was just as bad as Anarchy, people will still play it for whatever freedom Darkfall make allow them compared to the controlled gameplay of other games.
I like the comparison between DF and TCoS. Both developers have gone thier own way, not looked so much over the shoulder of all others. I also wish that WAR should have uses a similar engine that DF have. That would have made much more sense.
Small companies make better games.
Mythic used to be a small company. DAoC still have over 20k subs (it's 7 years old)
Verdant was a small company.. look at EQ..
Turbine was a small company.. And AC is great (although they were backed by MS..)
Blizzard is a large company.. And WoW is the best selling MMORPG in history.. (although, I'll argue this point that 35% of the subs are strickly gold farming accounts.)
Funcom.. don't know much aside from AO had a crappy launch.. but it was actually a really deep game. AoC was a huge let down (they made a lot of promises that they still haven't delievered on.. I mean. look at the feature list for AoC.. DAMN)
See what I'm getting at??
Currently playing Real Life..
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Small companies also make pretty bad games:
RedBedlam (Roma Victor), Farlan (D&L), Flying Labs (PotBS), Virtrium (Horizons).
Pretty much the only thing that can be said is that (Blizzard aside) pretty much all the successful companies now in the genre started from humble beginnings and saw many other companies / games fall along the way.
Ryzom was made by a small company. Where it has not been a grand success. It is still a very good and stable game.
Roma Victor is good for the people that play it. And those people are literially the most hardcore gamers around. The game seems to work good for people who want their games harder then reality.
Dark and light, yeh impossible to argue any defense with this one.
PoTBS, have not given it a try, see how it turns out in the long haul.
Little companies do not build wows , warhammers or aocs. But they are the ones also building a lot of the more innovative games. Its also good to remember a lot of the giant companies right now were once small company. Turbine started out with a bored MIT geek, now look at it.