From what I gather, the dev team has designed a new server technology and that is what they are currently testing in the beta. The game will not be up at all times, nor will testers be spending much time in game. Also, this would be the time that the devs are hoping to weed out many bugs in the programming.
If my analogy is correct, play-testing is supposed to be a time when players play the best they can and the devs look for overpowered skills that they never thought to use in the OP way the players are using them.
I am a skeptical supporter of DF. I am not a fanboi nor a troll. I seek the truth in every discussion, and I am truly sorry if I mistakenly state a fallacy.
Like i said, you refuse to believe anything at all, thus its pointless to argure with you. Moving on.
Hmmm no wait, I will keep believing Tasos for the next 6 years.
These guys are learning how to develope an MMO. If they can produce a half assed game they will be really happy, they will have learned a lot and can think of working in a real company with some experience.
Oh... sorry I forgot Darkfall is going to be the best game ever. Just forget what I said.
Your an obvious troll, just gtfo. You have 0 faith in the game and do nothing but try to shoot down the community. do you really have nothing else to do with your time then troll the boards of a game you dont even like? maybe you should get a better hobby, or more time consuming one at that.
Darkfall is in closed Beta. the game is real, the game is coming out this year, and i hope you fall down 3 stairs for your insolence.
Like i said, you refuse to believe anything at all, thus its pointless to argure with you. Moving on.
Hmmm no wait, I will keep believing Tasos for the next 6 years.
These guys are learning how to develope an MMO. If they can produce a half assed game they will be really happy, they will have learned a lot and can think of working in a real company with some experience.
Oh... sorry I forgot Darkfall is going to be the best game ever. Just forget what I said.
Your an obvious troll, just gtfo. You have 0 faith in the game and do nothing but try to shoot down the community. do you really have nothing else to do with your time then troll the boards of a game you dont even like? maybe you should get a better hobby, or more time consuming one at that.
Darkfall is in closed Beta. the game is real, the game is coming out this year, and i hope you fall down 3 stairs for your insolence.
I want this game to come out this year. But i highly doubt it., since closed beta hasn't even started yet. And i mean like hard playing closed beta. Not technical and server stuff.
I want this game to come out this year. But i highly doubt it., since closed beta hasn't even started yet. And i mean like hard playing closed beta. Not technical and server stuff.
Non-technical is in "closed" beta. Technical is in "open" beta.
Note: "Open" beta does not nesseccarily mean that anyone who wants to can participate. It is a limited number.
The devs have been using proffessional testers for roughly one year now, which is a "closed" beta.
I am a skeptical supporter of DF. I am not a fanboi nor a troll. I seek the truth in every discussion, and I am truly sorry if I mistakenly state a fallacy.
I want this game to come out this year. But i highly doubt it., since closed beta hasn't even started yet. And i mean like hard playing closed beta. Not technical and server stuff.
Non-technical is in "closed" beta. Technical is in "open" beta.
Note: "Open" beta does not nesseccarily mean that anyone who wants to can participate. It is a limited number.
The devs have been using proffessional testers for roughly one year now, which is a "closed" beta.
Oh, well ok. Ive never really known what takes place in which phase of testing. The only basis of my last post is what ive read from other posts in different threads.
But i still dont think that the game will be ready in 4 months. Just a feeling.
@signs Those are not random delevoper quotes, they are official recent dev quotes with signed publishers and events like whats going on in athens greece on the 16th of this month to back up the statements. You are all ignorent and just think of anything possible to be skepticle. in fact you guys go through alot of trouble to try and find reasons to be skeptical like bring up quotes from an entirely differnt game in the making from 2003. The game has been pushed back numerous times to modernize the graphics engine and also because new technology has given them access to putting features in the game that would of otherwise been scrapped. if you can put in features origionally intended rather then release a product your not happy with, wouldnt you choose the delay and better product?
Bringing up past quotes that were mostly "we intend to have" or "our goal is to reach" have little bearing on OFFICIAL news. the majority of past quotes were nothing but vauge statements that were blown up by others imaginations and hopes and not official features or promises. the only ones lying are the haters to themselves.
The quotes that were brought up earlier are just as "official" as the ones you allude to. Just to make that clear. It's official Aventurine employees speaking about their game. Nothing "unofficial" about them.
Pushing a game back to have a better game is a good thing sometimes, it also depends however on how you do it. And there is no "we aim to" and "we hope" in many of Tasos statements that the game is nearly feature complete and has been for the past 5 years.
If they spent 5 years on polishing the game, superb, excellent and we shall see when it comes out. I have no qualms with DF, I don't hate it, but what I do hate is the obnoxious way the supporters put down any possible bad thing about the game as a) irrelevant or b) unfounded. It is much the same way as the obnoxious haters continue to claim the game is vapor-ware and whatnot, just the other side of the medal.
We are all ignorant? We only look for things to be skeptical? If I weren't this interested in the game, I would not bother to point out worries and possible problems with the game. I would ot bother to read through Tasos interviews and through all the developer quotes. Fact is, some people believe the man, some people don't believe everything. Who's to say who is right hm?
The only way we will find out is when the game releases and we can test it. No matter how recent your quotes, no matter how much you try to make quotes from the past be "unimportant", that is a fact. Supposedly we have a beta soon and a release this year. I'll keep DF to that promise and wait for the game to pass final judgement. But to put down every possible flaw or problem or discrepancy as irrelevant is just plain silly, just as silly as to point and yell Vaporware anytime a thread about DF pops up.
this just further points out your ignorence. 5 year old outdated quotes about an outdated version of the game itself and nothing but vauge statements, hold just as much merit and are just as official as this years statements about an entirely differnt darkfall all togather?
How is it you do not understand that everything the devs have ever said in the earlier years was said very carefully to keep as vauge as possible with no promises attatched? You dont seem like your stupid, so im sure if youve read them yourself you could point out exactly how undescriptive and uninformative everything they have said was. THEY PROMISED NOTHING AND LIED ABOUT NOTHING! They had clan beta signups for an entirely differnt darkfall then todays. They scraped that build and started over. how is that so hard to grasp? This is the darkfall they wanted from the start, the darkfall that technology wouldnt let exist at the time of thier old project.
I honestly doubt you have any hopes of this game being successful considering you have never said 1 positive thing about it. you speak like your of neutrallity and of both extreams being wrong while the entire time you seem to always be on one side. your hypocracy is very clear.
Its obvious some people will just not see the glass half full, and will have to wait for open beta to make sure the evil devs arnt pulling a fast one!! So when it comes, and it will come soon, i'll gladly come back to these forums to see everyone spouting "i told you so!" wether its the fanbase saying it to the haters, or the haters saying it to the fanbase, I guess all we can do is wait and see.
I want this game to come out this year. But i highly doubt it., since closed beta hasn't even started yet. And i mean like hard playing closed beta. Not technical and server stuff.
Non-technical is in "closed" beta. Technical is in "open" beta.
Note: "Open" beta does not nesseccarily mean that anyone who wants to can participate. It is a limited number.
The devs have been using proffessional testers for roughly one year now, which is a "closed" beta.
Oh, well ok. Ive never really known what takes place in which phase of testing. The only basis of my last post is what ive read from other posts in different threads.
But i still dont think that the game will be ready in 4 months. Just a feeling.
Closed beta has been goin on for quite a while with paid inhouse testers. They are actually doing things right as opposed to all these other company who let random idiots in that contribute about 1/10 of what a paid tester can do. sure you have a few good beta testers who actually go out of thier way to help the game, but the gap between serious testers compared to random idiots is very large. this way they ensure they catch all the big stuff as soon as possible.
Also id like to point out that even beta testing the game gives you an extream advantage over those who havnt and with this being such a highly competitive game im sure they wouldnt want that hence why the public closed beta testers are not playtesting.
this just further points out your ignorence. 5 year old outdated quotes about an outdated version of the game itself and nothing but vauge statements, hold just as much merit and are just as official as this years statements about an entirely differnt darkfall all togather? ...So the game they started developing has nothing to do with the game that is coming out this year. Interesting. How is it you do not understand that everything the devs have ever said in the earlier years was said very carefully to keep as vauge as possible with no promises attatched? You dont seem like your stupid, so im sure if youve read them yourself you could point out exactly how undescriptive and uninformative everything they have said was. THEY PROMISED NOTHING AND LIED ABOUT NOTHING! They had clan beta signups for an entirely differnt darkfall then todays. They scraped that build and started over. how is that so hard to grasp? This is the darkfall they wanted from the start, the darkfall that technology wouldnt let exist at the time of thier old project. OK. I'll just ignore every quote from developers up till this year henceforth. Everything that's not from this year is, as of now, outdated information and cannot be trusted and has nothing to do with the game that will be released this year. I honestly doubt you have any hopes of this game being successful considering you have never said 1 positive thing about it. you speak like your of neutrallity and of both extreams being wrong while the entire time you seem to always be on one side. your hypocracy is very clear. I don't need to point out positive things nearly as much. The supporters of this game do a good job of praising the game, sometimes they even go overboard. But there's few people who constructively point out possible problems of the game. Why? Because everytime someone does that, you are all over them with attacks on said people's intentions. Just like you are doing now. Calling me a hypocrite? Why is it you people have to get insulting whenever you feel someone doesn't share your opinion?
And by the way, I am always on one side. That's -my- side and I have always made it quite clear what side that is. It is neither the fanbois side, nor the haters side. I have my hopes for this game, I have explained why I hope it to be a success and I have pointed out where I see possible problems with it. If you feel like you need to attack me for that, go on, I don't mind, but it just shows that you only have one view of the game for yourself and will not accept anything else, not even the remotest bit of discussion. Anyone who does not share your full enthusiasm of the game is a hypocrite and a hater, mh?
this just further points out your ignorence. 5 year old outdated quotes about an outdated version of the game itself and nothing but vauge statements, hold just as much merit and are just as official as this years statements about an entirely differnt darkfall all togather? ...So the game they started developing has nothing to do with the game that is coming out this year. Interesting. I dont know how to change the color, so ill use a diff font... There are many core features and components that have been revamped and reworked since those quotes have been said. The sieging system, manual blocking, hitboxes, schools of spells, and server size just to name a few. How is it you do not understand that everything the devs have ever said in the earlier years was said very carefully to keep as vauge as possible with no promises attatched? You dont seem like your stupid, so im sure if youve read them yourself you could point out exactly how undescriptive and uninformative everything they have said was. THEY PROMISED NOTHING AND LIED ABOUT NOTHING! They had clan beta signups for an entirely differnt darkfall then todays. They scraped that build and started over. how is that so hard to grasp? This is the darkfall they wanted from the start, the darkfall that technology wouldnt let exist at the time of thier old project. OK. I'll just ignore every quote from developers up till this year henceforth. Everything that's not from this year is, as of now, outdated information and cannot be trusted and has nothing to do with the game that will be released this year. Like i pointed out above, alot of quotes are just plain outdated and what was once said is completely differnt. I honestly doubt you have any hopes of this game being successful considering you have never said 1 positive thing about it. you speak like your of neutrallity and of both extreams being wrong while the entire time you seem to always be on one side. your hypocracy is very clear. I don't need to point out positive things nearly as much. The supporters of this game do a good job of praising the game, sometimes they even go overboard. But there's few people who constructively point out possible problems of the game. Why? Because everytime someone does that, you are all over them with attacks on said people's intentions. Just like you are doing now. Calling my a hypocrite? Why is it you people have to get insulting whenever you feel someone doesn't share your opinion? there is no constructive discussion goin on here. you dont argue why you think they cant have their game feature complete or why they wont be releasing this year in any constructive manner at all. you simply point out that somehow the devs have lied to you and you dont trust them or anything they say because of the way they have acted in the past. That is not constructive by any means. THE DEVS SUCK I DONT BELIEVE THEM CUZ IM NOT A MINDLESS DRONE AND I WONT FALL FOR THEIR SNEAKY TRICKS!!
And by the way, I am always on one side. That's -my- side and I have always made it quite clear what side that is. It is neither the fanbois side, nor the haters side. I have my hopes for this game, I have explained why I hope it to be a success and I have pointed out where I see possible problems with it. If you feel like you need to attack me for that, go on, I don't mind, but it just shows that you only have one view of the game for yourself and will not accept anything else, not even the remotest bit of discussion. Anyone who does not share your full enthusiasm of the game is a hypocrite and a hater, mh?
I did not attack you, i simply pointed out that your a hypocrit. you say your on neither side but constantly telling everyone "ohhh ill believe it when i see it" thus putting no trust in the developers at all or so it seems. that would put you on the haters side of the wall.
I did not attack you, i simply pointed out that your a hypocrit. you say your on neither side but constantly telling everyone "ohhh ill believe it when i see it" thus putting no trust in the developers at all or so it seems. that would put you on the haters side of the wall.
And thus you further strengthen my point. No, I choose not to believe everything the developers tell me on their word alone. That does not mean I think there is no game. It doesn't mean I think the developers are lazy, incompetent idiots or that they only try to scam people. It also doesn't mean I hate the game.
It merely means that I will believe -everything- only when I have seen it. For you to consider me a hater just because I do not put absolute faith in the developers just shows your black-and-white attitude towards the people who are interested in this game. Love it or Hate it...there is no in-between, eh?
Closed beta has been goin on for quite a while with paid inhouse testers. They are actually doing things right as opposed to all these other company who let random idiots in that contribute about 1/10 of what a paid tester can do. sure you have a few good beta testers who actually go out of thier way to help the game, but the gap between serious testers compared to random idiots is very large. this way they ensure they catch all the big stuff as soon as possible. Also id like to point out that even beta testing the game gives you an extream advantage over those who havnt and with this being such a highly competitive game im sure they wouldnt want that.
Every company uses paid in house testers in alpha and the initial stages of beta testing. It's not some new innovation.
Less stress man. It would make no difference if the game was finished twenty years ago or they finished it fifteen seconds before I got my hands on it. It may as well not exist until I can play it.
This is true and i never made it sound new or innovative, i simply pointed out the fact that other companys started relying on random people to help fix their game instead of payed employees. the results of those betas show in the latest games tenfold. AoC and War are both full of bugs and yet had huge betas full of random people, ontop of the paid inhouse testers in alpha. maybe if they stuck with the guys they paid, they would be in a better position right now?
statements like " it may as well not exist untill I can play it", further points out my ignorent stance. 90% of the world must not exist in your head then.
I did not attack you, i simply pointed out that your a hypocrit. you say your on neither side but constantly telling everyone "ohhh ill believe it when i see it" thus putting no trust in the developers at all or so it seems. that would put you on the haters side of the wall.
And thus you further strengthen my point. No, I choose not to believe everything the developers tell me on their word alone. That does not mean I think there is no game. It doesn't mean I think the developers are lazy, incompetent idiots or that they only try to scam people. It also doesn't mean I hate the game.
It merely means that I will believe -everything- only when I have seen it. For you to consider me a hater just because I do not put absolute faith in the developers just shows your black-and-white attitude towards the people who are interested in this game. Love it or Hate it...there is no in-between, eh?
I dont see a point in there being an in-between. you either believe or you dont, whats the point in being confused about it? The people who love everything about it and believe in it will ultimatley enjoy the game that much more when it finally comes. people who doubt everything wont even enjoy themselves because they will be trying to find something wrong with it the entire time.
Like i said, you refuse to believe anything at all, thus its pointless to argure with you. Moving on.
Hmmm no wait, I will keep believing Tasos for the next 6 years.
These guys are learning how to develope an MMO. If they can produce a half assed game they will be really happy, they will have learned a lot and can think of working in a real company with some experience.
Oh... sorry I forgot Darkfall is going to be the best game ever. Just forget what I said.
Your an obvious troll, just gtfo. You have 0 faith in the game and do nothing but try to shoot down the community. do you really have nothing else to do with your time then troll the boards of a game you dont even like? maybe you should get a better hobby, or more time consuming one at that.
Darkfall is in closed Beta. the game is real, the game is coming out this year, and i hope you fall down 3 stairs for your insolence.
You are clueless, shutup.
About the hardware test.. I don't think it's worth trying to understand the technical details. They are not plahing the game, maybe just parts of it, or just connecting to servers, who knows, maybe a network scheleton, or just graphical tests, not necessarily in-game.
This is true and i never made it sound new or innovative, i simply pointed out the fact that other companys started relying on random people to help fix their game instead of payed employees. the results of those betas show in the latest games tenfold. AoC and War are both full of bugs and yet had huge betas full of random people, ontop of the paid inhouse testers in alpha. maybe if they stuck with the guys they paid, they would be in a better position right now?
statements like " it may as well not exist untill I can play it", further points out my ignorent stance. 90% of the world must not exist in your head then.
Actually, it is not a fact that they have been using "paid" employees to test the game for a year. We know that Aventurine advertised for local college students to test as UNPAID interns. Aventurine likes to use the term "professional" testers, which is misleading enough, IMO.
Have you never beta tested a game before? If you had, you would know that blaming the "random people" that beta test games is absurd. In every test I have been part of, the bugs that went to release were well known by both testers and devs. In fact, the testers say the game should NOT be released more often than not, and I have seen many a long thread in beta forums arguing against launch. But in the real world, business decisions are made. It might mean they shoot themselves in the foot, but that is not because they didnt use "paid testers" in later stages of beta!
It is clear you are a fanatic, so no doubt this post means nothing to you. Feel free to ignore it. I am really writing this for the benefit of those with an open mind.
Like i said, you refuse to believe anything at all, thus its pointless to argure with you. Moving on.
Hmmm no wait, I will keep believing Tasos for the next 6 years.
These guys are learning how to develope an MMO. If they can produce a half assed game they will be really happy, they will have learned a lot and can think of working in a real company with some experience.
Oh... sorry I forgot Darkfall is going to be the best game ever. Just forget what I said.
Your an obvious troll, just gtfo. You have 0 faith in the game and do nothing but try to shoot down the community. do you really have nothing else to do with your time then troll the boards of a game you dont even like? maybe you should get a better hobby, or more time consuming one at that.
Darkfall is in closed Beta. the game is real, the game is coming out this year, and i hope you fall down 3 stairs for your insolence.
You are clueless, shutup.
About the hardware test.. I don't think it's worth trying to understand the technical details. They are not plahing the game, maybe just parts of it, or just connecting to servers, who knows, maybe a network scheleton, or just graphical tests, not necessarily in-game.
How am I clueless? they can work for a real company? would you like to name even 1 company that supports the ideals of a sandbox MMO and isnt just a moneymaking scheme? just because the world is comprised of idiots doesnt mean the companys they support are good.
Wtf? Of cource its worth understanding the technical details! they have to know min system req, recommended, and whats compatible or not. there are many graphical drivers and hardware compatabilities to test just on their engine in general to see if they support it or have problems with it. you sir seem to be the clueless one.
This is true and i never made it sound new or innovative, i simply pointed out the fact that other companys started relying on random people to help fix their game instead of payed employees. the results of those betas show in the latest games tenfold. AoC and War are both full of bugs and yet had huge betas full of random people, ontop of the paid inhouse testers in alpha. maybe if they stuck with the guys they paid, they would be in a better position right now?
statements like " it may as well not exist untill I can play it", further points out my ignorent stance. 90% of the world must not exist in your head then.
Actually, it is not a fact that they have been using "paid" employees to test the game for a year. We know that Aventurine advertised for local college students to test as UNPAID interns. Aventurine likes to use the term "professional" testers, which is misleading enough, IMO.
Have you never beta tested a game before? If you had, you would know that blaming the "random people" that beta test games is absurd. In every test I have been part of, the bugs that went to release were well known by both testers and devs. In fact, the testers say the game should NOT be released more often than not, and I have seen many a long thread in beta forums arguing against launch. But in the real world, business decisions are made. It might mean they shoot themselves in the foot, but that is not because they didnt use "paid testers" in later stages of beta!
It is clear you are a fanatic, so no doubt this post means nothing to you. Feel free to ignore it. I am really writing this for the benefit of those with an open mind.
either way, paid or unpaid, they are inhouse. which means if they have problems they are directly noted and brought up to the devs face to face. not through bug reports. Also i have beta tested alot of games and the majority of the players dont care about the better of the game. the majority of "bugs" and problems are mostly "imbalances" in character classes they favor or something to that nature. public beta testers do not do what inhouse testers do and are capable of. inhouse testers do things like run north through 500 feet of terrain spamming ability X, then step to the side and turn south and repeat 500 feet untill every inch of terrain is covered while spamming that 1 skill to make sure nothing irregular happins. then they start over usuing a differnt skill. they do tedious mind numbing tasks over and over. public testers just play the game and stumble apon bugs on the way. its nowhere near as effective. you can assume what you will about me being a fanatic, all i know is im gunna be happy to play this game when released, not happy to try and find things wrong with it.
either way, paid or unpaid, they are inhouse. which means if they have problems they are directly noted and brought up to the devs face to face. not through bug reports. Also i have beta tested alot of games and the majority of the players dont care about the better of the game. the majority of "bugs" and problems are mostly "imbalances" in character classes they favor or something to that nature. public beta testers do not do what inhouse testers do and are capable of. inhouse testers do things like run north through 500 feet of terrain spamming ability X, then step to the side and turn south and repeat 500 feet untill every inch of terrain is covered while spamming that 1 skill to make sure nothing irregular happins. then they start over usuing a differnt skill. they do tedious mind numbing tasks over and over. public testers just play the game and stumble apon bugs on the way. its nowhere near as effective. you can assume what you will about me being a fanatic, all i know is im gunna be happy to play this game when released, not happy to try and find things wrong with it.
EVERY game has in house testers, as well they should! As mentioned there is nothing remarkable about this. Further, early stages of public beta are very structured, typically scheduled and requiring specific actions. Perhaps you have not been part of that.
Now what IS remarkable, is that less than 3 months from release Aventurine has not expanded it's closed beta. Exposing differing player styles to the game mechanics is important. Playtesting the game is important. It often uncovers issues that require extensive work or even redesigns. Some bugs only manifest under certain conditions, or when people do things the "wrong way" rather than the way the devs had it tested. All of this is multiplied when you are talking about a sandbox with very few restrictions and hundreds of skills and spells to balance.
And I dont have to assume you are a fanatic. You spelled it out in your reply to Sings.
either way, paid or unpaid, they are inhouse. which means if they have problems they are directly noted and brought up to the devs face to face. not through bug reports. Also i have beta tested alot of games and the majority of the players dont care about the better of the game. the majority of "bugs" and problems are mostly "imbalances" in character classes they favor or something to that nature. public beta testers do not do what inhouse testers do and are capable of. inhouse testers do things like run north through 500 feet of terrain spamming ability X, then step to the side and turn south and repeat 500 feet untill every inch of terrain is covered while spamming that 1 skill to make sure nothing irregular happins. then they start over usuing a differnt skill. they do tedious mind numbing tasks over and over. public testers just play the game and stumble apon bugs on the way. its nowhere near as effective. you can assume what you will about me being a fanatic, all i know is im gunna be happy to play this game when released, not happy to try and find things wrong with it.
EVERY game has in house testers, as well they should! As mentioned there is nothing remarkable about this. Further, early stages of public beta are very structured, typically scheduled and requiring specific actions. Perhaps you have not been part of that.
Now what IS remarkable, is that less than 3 months from release Aventurine has not expanded it's closed beta. Exposing differing player styles to the game mechanics is important. Playtesting the game is important. It often uncovers issues that require extensive work or even redesigns. Some bugs only manifest under certain conditions, or when people do things the "wrong way" rather than the way the devs had it tested. All of this is multiplied when you are talking about a sandbox with very few restrictions and hundreds of skills and spells to balance.
And I dont have to assume you are a fanatic. You spelled it out in your reply to Sings.
I know every game has in house testers! lol. Im sayin, there will be no public closed beta. bug finding will not be a part of open beta. its a playtest, not a betatest. its more of a try before you buy. they are not intrusting the public to find bugs, they have said it before they are doing it all inhouse. the only thing they couldnt possibly test on thier own, was the wide variety of machines the players would be usuing. thus the hardware test. once again, the open beta, will be a stress test/playtest. they are debugging and bug hunting themselves via staff and inhouse testers, and its taken a long ass time. release is shedualed to follow the upcoming open beta an closed beta has already been goin on for a while. the public was not included in closed beta aside from hardware testing. the hardware testing WAS the expanding of closed beta.
I will believe Darkfall is in beta when it can be confirmed. This whole thing has become a joke, at least if you have been following the game for many years. They have been in some form of "beta", and just about to start public testing since 2003! Lets take a look at Darkfall and "beta" over the years - 08-03-2003
Claus: Darkfall is entering closed beta testing in September this year. The closed beta is fully playable, with most core features implemented. We will be adding features and content during closed beta, while we gear up for the next beta stages. GB: In the past couple of years, have any of your design goals changed? Has anything been cut/added from the development process? Claus: Very little has changed. We have stayed true to the original design, and kept almost all of the features promised when we launched the Darkfall site two years ago. We sadly had to remove some popular features such as flying mounts, for reasons having to do with game balance issues related to sieges, and deformable terrain, due to possible latency issues. We have tried to make up for it by adding more content than originally planned. We'll be looking at possibly implementing these features at a later date. (guess there was no "restart" or "do-over" in 2003, eh?) GB: Will there be multiple phases to the public beta? Have you arrived at a date when you might begin such a beta? Claus: Starting from Closed Beta in September, we will slowly add more and more testers. We will have an open beta shortly after, for stress testing.
Tasos: We feel that the Darkfall community deserves an update on the state of the game, this being the last day of Septemeber. We had said that we expect to be in beta this month and there has been a lot of speculation and uncertainty about what we meant by that. We've been in a tech beta since September 2nd, testing, working on bugs, tuning and tweaking, adding content, and building the world. We're slightly behind schedule in some areas of development, ahead of schedule in others, and we're always working on new things, the latest being an optional third person perspective that can fit in with our gameplay design. Overall we're very happy with the progress, we don't have any serious problems, and we believe that we'll be able to deliver an advanced beta build for playtesting before long. 11-27-2003
Tasos: We've been quiet for a while, being in a stage of implementation with little to report. We thought it would be best to start by giving the community an overview with information of where we're at, and what we're doing now. We'll continue with frequent status updates as needed until Darkfall's release. 1-26-2004
Tasos: Since our last update we've completed a lot of work and we're busy working on our latest Darkfall build which is on schedule and due to be out on February the 3d. This build is an important step towards community playtesting. 4-6-2004
Darkfall is currently in the final stages of internal beta testing. This means that the game is being tested in-house in preparation for public playtesting. A beta registration form will become available on this website soon. 7-9-2004
Darkfall is still in internal beta. Delays and development taking longer than anticipated is the norm in the gaming industry as we all know, even in companies and projects with virtually unlimited resources. In our case the time related problems were tied more with the development of the advanced technology and the tools behind the game and not so much with the game itself. 5-4-2005
(Munka) I'm sure the biggest thing on the mind of the fans is when the beta is going to be held. Is the team nearing this stage or is there still a great deal to do before you can think about a beta? Darkfall Team: We've been asked this question often and we know that this is on the mind of the fans, it's on our mind as well since there's nothing we would like more than have people playtesting the game. We do have an internal milestone for the beta as the fans perceive it, and that's the state where the game can be playtested and fun could be had. We're nearing this stage. Other than that, we've been testing the game internally for quite some time now. 11-28-2005
Tasos Flambouras: We're preparing for beta testing as we speak; you can apply on this page of our website. It's a huge job, and we want it done right. The start of the beta is affected by multiple variables, and not just development ones. The same goes for Darkfall's launch date. Once we have a date that we're reasonably sure of, we'll announce it immediately. The additional time taken to work on the game was a decision made in an effort to make Darkfall directly competitive with the largest MMOG titles out there. Nobody is going to feel they've stepped down by switching to Darkfall, or play Darkfall as an alternative to their main game. 8-26-2006
They've kept their game fairly low on the PR radar until this year. "Too many MMOs are released before they're ready to go to market," said Associate Producer Tasos Flambouras. "We want the beta to be almost finished before we show it to the world." When I asked how far along they were with their game, they seemed pretty confident that the engine was almost ready. "We're spending a lot of our efforts tuning the graphics and art assets right now," explained Flambournas. 10-11-2006
Tasos: We're in the middle of an effort of maintaining beta preparations while continuing to develop the game. In regards to that, I understand that the main information you need is a date, and we're getting closer to locking a schedule in. 11-30-2006
MMORPG.com: As Darkfall continues its development cycle when can we expect to see a Beta? Also do you have a target for production?
Tasos Flambouras: We've mentioned before that it's difficult to run a beta test while continuing development on the game, especially when all our human resources are in development. We are now at a stage where we can and we are preparing the beta test which will allow external beta testers in and this is now a high priority for us. We do have a target for production but realistically the target date will be tweaked during testing. We think it's better to hold off on an announcement until then. MMORPG.com: What is in the near future for Darkfall? After launch are there plans for an expansion?
Tasos Flambouras: We're moving towards external testing in the near future. As for after launch, Darkfall follows a timeline and the design looks past the release of the game. We already have plans and guidelines for part of our first updates. 1-17-2007
The beta development milestone was met early in December. Since then we've had a fully functional and stable beta build up on remote servers, which is being patched regularly. 5-31-2007
Tasos: We've been throwing around the word beta quite a bit, and it's not to churn the waters, it's because it's what we're working on right now. An editorial on this site urged us to come out with a date. Well that's nice, and we will when we have one. We've specified that our internal target date is this summer and we can't get more specific yet, but we will when we're ready to make an announcement.
Tasos: If there's an interesting development it's that we've narrowed in on a specific beta date and we should be announcing it very soon, right after we make sure that a couple of conditions are met. 1-11-2008
Overall, we have a near complete implementation of the game, speaking of the technology and our feature list. We're running the game through proper QA testing at the moment, and doing full optimizations to make sure everything will run smoothly even when demands on the game are high. 4-11-2008
Tasos: Darkfall is feature complete and we're doing beta testing using professional testers as we've said before. (HUH? Seems they have wanted players testing this game as early as possible...guess they changed their mind!) Tasos: 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.
Wow, just wow!
Can anyone not understand how people would have doubts about DF, and Tasos's word after this? For most of us soon is not 3+ years.
I will believe Darkfall is in beta when it can be confirmed. This whole thing has become a joke, at least if you have been following the game for many years. They have been in some form of "beta", and just about to start public testing since 2003! Lets take a look at Darkfall and "beta" over the years - 08-03-2003
Claus: Darkfall is entering closed beta testing in September this year. The closed beta is fully playable, with most core features implemented. We will be adding features and content during closed beta, while we gear up for the next beta stages. GB: In the past couple of years, have any of your design goals changed? Has anything been cut/added from the development process? Claus: Very little has changed. We have stayed true to the original design, and kept almost all of the features promised when we launched the Darkfall site two years ago. We sadly had to remove some popular features such as flying mounts, for reasons having to do with game balance issues related to sieges, and deformable terrain, due to possible latency issues. We have tried to make up for it by adding more content than originally planned. We'll be looking at possibly implementing these features at a later date. (guess there was no "restart" or "do-over" in 2003, eh?) GB: Will there be multiple phases to the public beta? Have you arrived at a date when you might begin such a beta? Claus: Starting from Closed Beta in September, we will slowly add more and more testers. We will have an open beta shortly after, for stress testing.
Tasos: We feel that the Darkfall community deserves an update on the state of the game, this being the last day of Septemeber. We had said that we expect to be in beta this month and there has been a lot of speculation and uncertainty about what we meant by that. We've been in a tech beta since September 2nd, testing, working on bugs, tuning and tweaking, adding content, and building the world. We're slightly behind schedule in some areas of development, ahead of schedule in others, and we're always working on new things, the latest being an optional third person perspective that can fit in with our gameplay design. Overall we're very happy with the progress, we don't have any serious problems, and we believe that we'll be able to deliver an advanced beta build for playtesting before long. 11-27-2003
Tasos: We've been quiet for a while, being in a stage of implementation with little to report. We thought it would be best to start by giving the community an overview with information of where we're at, and what we're doing now. We'll continue with frequent status updates as needed until Darkfall's release. 1-26-2004
Tasos: Since our last update we've completed a lot of work and we're busy working on our latest Darkfall build which is on schedule and due to be out on February the 3d. This build is an important step towards community playtesting. 4-6-2004
Darkfall is currently in the final stages of internal beta testing. This means that the game is being tested in-house in preparation for public playtesting. A beta registration form will become available on this website soon. 7-9-2004
Darkfall is still in internal beta. Delays and development taking longer than anticipated is the norm in the gaming industry as we all know, even in companies and projects with virtually unlimited resources. In our case the time related problems were tied more with the development of the advanced technology and the tools behind the game and not so much with the game itself. 5-4-2005
(Munka) I'm sure the biggest thing on the mind of the fans is when the beta is going to be held. Is the team nearing this stage or is there still a great deal to do before you can think about a beta? Darkfall Team: We've been asked this question often and we know that this is on the mind of the fans, it's on our mind as well since there's nothing we would like more than have people playtesting the game. We do have an internal milestone for the beta as the fans perceive it, and that's the state where the game can be playtested and fun could be had. We're nearing this stage. Other than that, we've been testing the game internally for quite some time now. 11-28-2005
Tasos Flambouras: We're preparing for beta testing as we speak; you can apply on this page of our website. It's a huge job, and we want it done right. The start of the beta is affected by multiple variables, and not just development ones. The same goes for Darkfall's launch date. Once we have a date that we're reasonably sure of, we'll announce it immediately. The additional time taken to work on the game was a decision made in an effort to make Darkfall directly competitive with the largest MMOG titles out there. Nobody is going to feel they've stepped down by switching to Darkfall, or play Darkfall as an alternative to their main game. 8-26-2006
They've kept their game fairly low on the PR radar until this year. "Too many MMOs are released before they're ready to go to market," said Associate Producer Tasos Flambouras. "We want the beta to be almost finished before we show it to the world." When I asked how far along they were with their game, they seemed pretty confident that the engine was almost ready. "We're spending a lot of our efforts tuning the graphics and art assets right now," explained Flambournas. 10-11-2006
Tasos: We're in the middle of an effort of maintaining beta preparations while continuing to develop the game. In regards to that, I understand that the main information you need is a date, and we're getting closer to locking a schedule in. 11-30-2006
MMORPG.com: As Darkfall continues its development cycle when can we expect to see a Beta? Also do you have a target for production?
Tasos Flambouras: We've mentioned before that it's difficult to run a beta test while continuing development on the game, especially when all our human resources are in development. We are now at a stage where we can and we are preparing the beta test which will allow external beta testers in and this is now a high priority for us. We do have a target for production but realistically the target date will be tweaked during testing. We think it's better to hold off on an announcement until then. MMORPG.com: What is in the near future for Darkfall? After launch are there plans for an expansion?
Tasos Flambouras: We're moving towards external testing in the near future. As for after launch, Darkfall follows a timeline and the design looks past the release of the game. We already have plans and guidelines for part of our first updates. 1-17-2007
The beta development milestone was met early in December. Since then we've had a fully functional and stable beta build up on remote servers, which is being patched regularly. 5-31-2007
Tasos: We've been throwing around the word beta quite a bit, and it's not to churn the waters, it's because it's what we're working on right now. An editorial on this site urged us to come out with a date. Well that's nice, and we will when we have one. We've specified that our internal target date is this summer and we can't get more specific yet, but we will when we're ready to make an announcement.
Tasos: If there's an interesting development it's that we've narrowed in on a specific beta date and we should be announcing it very soon, right after we make sure that a couple of conditions are met. 1-11-2008
Overall, we have a near complete implementation of the game, speaking of the technology and our feature list. We're running the game through proper QA testing at the moment, and doing full optimizations to make sure everything will run smoothly even when demands on the game are high. 4-11-2008
Tasos: Darkfall is feature complete and we're doing beta testing using professional testers as we've said before. (HUH? Seems they have wanted players testing this game as early as possible...guess they changed their mind!) Tasos: 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.
Wow, just wow!
Can anyone not understand how people would have doubts about DF, and Tasos's word after this? For most of us soon is not 3+ years.
Can anyone understand why the DFO devs would rebuild again and delay more now that it has its biggest fan base, hype ,and least amount of compitition ever? they wouldnt, unless they were very stupid.
this just further points out your ignorence. 5 year old outdated quotes about an outdated version of the game itself and nothing but vauge statements, hold just as much merit and are just as official as this years statements about an entirely differnt darkfall all togather? How is it you do not understand that everything the devs have ever said in the earlier years was said very carefully to keep as vauge as possible with no promises attatched? You dont seem like your stupid, so im sure if youve read them yourself you could point out exactly how undescriptive and uninformative everything they have said was. THEY PROMISED NOTHING AND LIED ABOUT NOTHING! They had clan beta signups for an entirely differnt darkfall then todays. They scraped that build and started over. how is that so hard to grasp? This is the darkfall they wanted from the start, the darkfall that technology wouldnt let exist at the time of thier old project. I honestly doubt you have any hopes of this game being successful considering you have never said 1 positive thing about it. you speak like your of neutrallity and of both extreams being wrong while the entire time you seem to always be on one side. your hypocracy is very clear. Its obvious some people will just not see the glass half full, and will have to wait for open beta to make sure the evil devs arnt pulling a fast one!! So when it comes, and it will come soon, i'll gladly come back to these forums to see everyone spouting "i told you so!" wether its the fanbase saying it to the haters, or the haters saying it to the fanbase, I guess all we can do is wait and see.
Humm so according to you DF was scrapped several times most recently last year? I'd be carefull calling anyone else ignorant when your own arguement is so full of holes.
Yes we get the point anything that doesn't agree with your arguement / opinion is unimportant. only things that agree with you opinion have any merrit. Odd you can't see who is wearing the blinders as all those post made up from last year back to 2003 (no they aren't all 5 year old post as your arguement states) were from the same people whose posts you believe 100% this year. The vaporware troll and the fanatic Fanbois are just 2 sides of the same coin, both are just as ignorant to truth.
Incidentally, no one has ever bothered to answer my question earlier i the thread. What exactly is (in this case) the difference between the Hardware-Tests and the Play-testing (which is currently still only being handled by Internal professionals)?
No-one answered this in full or plainly, so I will.
When AoC opened their beta they'd really clearly not done hardware testing (they were to release their game 2 weeks later, as well!) I know that my system at work, a sortof rare Dell build (not that rare, it was a dell build!) had an x600 in it and faced a variety of problems and would continue to face some difficulties throughout the beta and the launch... though not nearly as bad as the ones found in beta. We're talking crash after crash, automated bug reports, the works.
Now aventurine has gotten over 100k dxdiags from people and they chose the systems that they'd not been able to test on before - after all there are thousands of combinations, and it'd take a lot of unnecessary work to get those combinations right.
I don't know what they're doing or how they're testing, but I do know that there are a series of tests that can be performed for any graphics engine that would show weaknesses or reveal bugs. They've said in their latest update that they worked on the patcher (even patchers can have problems with certain OS's and etc.) and they've been patching many times a day.
In other words, with 2 weeks to go AoC hadn't even diagnosed my x600's problem, and they launched to at least some degree of success (for the first 20 levels everyone was very wowed).
Now aventurine is trying to get all the more technical stuff behind them. It's much easier to work with people's bug reports when you've been able to see the span and scope of hardware problems and limitations. I was very pumped to see they went that route.
As for beta, they've been testing for a while just without non-paid external people (yes I know, that means closed). They've also apparently been using bots in places for stress tests and whatnot. That's not the same as stress testing with lots of external people, but it's a damn sight better than nothing.
Can anyone not understand how people would have doubts about DF, and Tasos's word after this? For most of us soon is not 3+ years.
Thanks, that was actually the sort of reply I hoped for. I didnt post it to be a dick, or a troll, or to entice either of those types to reply. All I was looking for was someone to understand that I have REASONABLE doubts.
I did not make that stuff up, it was what we were being told by the devs. They never said they were remaking the game from scratch, needed to do major overhauls, or anything of the sort. It was always just out of reach. So, maybe some will understand why we have learned to be skeptical.
this just further points out your ignorence. 5 year old outdated quotes about an outdated version of the game itself and nothing but vauge statements, hold just as much merit and are just as official as this years statements about an entirely differnt darkfall all togather? How is it you do not understand that everything the devs have ever said in the earlier years was said very carefully to keep as vauge as possible with no promises attatched? You dont seem like your stupid, so im sure if youve read them yourself you could point out exactly how undescriptive and uninformative everything they have said was. THEY PROMISED NOTHING AND LIED ABOUT NOTHING! They had clan beta signups for an entirely differnt darkfall then todays. They scraped that build and started over. how is that so hard to grasp? This is the darkfall they wanted from the start, the darkfall that technology wouldnt let exist at the time of thier old project. I honestly doubt you have any hopes of this game being successful considering you have never said 1 positive thing about it. you speak like your of neutrallity and of both extreams being wrong while the entire time you seem to always be on one side. your hypocracy is very clear. Its obvious some people will just not see the glass half full, and will have to wait for open beta to make sure the evil devs arnt pulling a fast one!! So when it comes, and it will come soon, i'll gladly come back to these forums to see everyone spouting "i told you so!" wether its the fanbase saying it to the haters, or the haters saying it to the fanbase, I guess all we can do is wait and see.
Humm so according to you DF was scrapped several times most recently last year? I'd be carefull calling anyone else ignorant when your own arguement is so full of holes.
Yes we get the point anything that doesn't agree with your arguement / opinion is unimportant. only things that agree with you opinion have any merrit. Odd you can't see who is wearing the blinders as all those post made up from last year back to 2003 (no they aren't all 5 year old post as your arguement states) were from the same people whose posts you believe 100% this year. The vaporware troll and the fanatic Fanbois are just 2 sides of the same coin, both are just as ignorant to truth.
If you say so friend, you have no idea what your talking about. You have a handfull of random dev quotes and think you know what your talking about. If youve been following DFO for 5+ years like I have youd understand how close we are now to the final product. Do you really think any sort of fanbase would stick that long with the development of a game thats surely gunna fail, full of false promises, and lying developers? The people who have been around know whats goin on and we are not excatly stupid or easily manipulated. We all have our doubts, we have been through it before, but this time is very different. they actually started scrapping less important things from the launch, usuing actual dates instead of "SOON TM", there are signed publishers and events being held, newspaper articles, beta testing, videos (we were lucky to get a model rendering) people actually goin to greece on vacation and playing it themselves.
There is nothing out there worth my money in the MMO world anymore, and if this turns out like shit... ill quit all togather, sell my desktop, and get a shitty laptop for browsing the web. might as well play console games.
Thanks, that was actually the sort of reply I hoped for. I didnt post it to be a dick, or a troll, or to entice either of those types to reply. All I was looking for was someone to understand that I have REASONABLE doubts. I did not make that stuff up, it was what we were being told by the devs. They never said they were remaking the game from scratch, needed to do major overhauls, or anything of the sort. It was always just out of reach. So, maybe some will understand why we have learned to be skeptical.
You should be commended Theodgrim. You presented nothing more than a extraordinarily complete history of Darkfall's convoluted development with references to back it up.
Facts are something too often lacking in discussions in the MMORPG community, not just Darkfall but any game on this site.
You are perfectly justified to say you have reasonable doubts about the game. The fact that anyone can look over that history and NOT have reasonable doubts is ridiculous.
That's not to say one can't still support and follow the game while having those doubts. But it is more than reasonable, at this point it should be mandatory to have caution color any excitement over developer annoucements or hype.
Given that history, I'm very interested to see if Aventurine will be able to pull it off. It will certainly be a epic acheivement given the past of their developement if they do.
Comments
From what I gather, the dev team has designed a new server technology and that is what they are currently testing in the beta. The game will not be up at all times, nor will testers be spending much time in game. Also, this would be the time that the devs are hoping to weed out many bugs in the programming.
If my analogy is correct, play-testing is supposed to be a time when players play the best they can and the devs look for overpowered skills that they never thought to use in the OP way the players are using them.
I am a skeptical supporter of DF. I am not a fanboi nor a troll. I seek the truth in every discussion, and I am truly sorry if I mistakenly state a fallacy.
Hmmm no wait, I will keep believing Tasos for the next 6 years.
These guys are learning how to develope an MMO. If they can produce a half assed game they will be really happy, they will have learned a lot and can think of working in a real company with some experience.
Oh... sorry I forgot Darkfall is going to be the best game ever. Just forget what I said.
Your an obvious troll, just gtfo. You have 0 faith in the game and do nothing but try to shoot down the community. do you really have nothing else to do with your time then troll the boards of a game you dont even like? maybe you should get a better hobby, or more time consuming one at that.
Darkfall is in closed Beta. the game is real, the game is coming out this year, and i hope you fall down 3 stairs for your insolence.
Hmmm no wait, I will keep believing Tasos for the next 6 years.
These guys are learning how to develope an MMO. If they can produce a half assed game they will be really happy, they will have learned a lot and can think of working in a real company with some experience.
Oh... sorry I forgot Darkfall is going to be the best game ever. Just forget what I said.
Your an obvious troll, just gtfo. You have 0 faith in the game and do nothing but try to shoot down the community. do you really have nothing else to do with your time then troll the boards of a game you dont even like? maybe you should get a better hobby, or more time consuming one at that.
Darkfall is in closed Beta. the game is real, the game is coming out this year, and i hope you fall down 3 stairs for your insolence.
I want this game to come out this year. But i highly doubt it., since closed beta hasn't even started yet. And i mean like hard playing closed beta. Not technical and server stuff.
I give no mercy
I want this game to come out this year. But i highly doubt it., since closed beta hasn't even started yet. And i mean like hard playing closed beta. Not technical and server stuff.
Non-technical is in "closed" beta. Technical is in "open" beta.
Note: "Open" beta does not nesseccarily mean that anyone who wants to can participate. It is a limited number.
The devs have been using proffessional testers for roughly one year now, which is a "closed" beta.
I am a skeptical supporter of DF. I am not a fanboi nor a troll. I seek the truth in every discussion, and I am truly sorry if I mistakenly state a fallacy.
I want this game to come out this year. But i highly doubt it., since closed beta hasn't even started yet. And i mean like hard playing closed beta. Not technical and server stuff.
Non-technical is in "closed" beta. Technical is in "open" beta.
Note: "Open" beta does not nesseccarily mean that anyone who wants to can participate. It is a limited number.
The devs have been using proffessional testers for roughly one year now, which is a "closed" beta.
Oh, well ok. Ive never really known what takes place in which phase of testing. The only basis of my last post is what ive read from other posts in different threads.
But i still dont think that the game will be ready in 4 months. Just a feeling.
I give no mercy
The quotes that were brought up earlier are just as "official" as the ones you allude to. Just to make that clear. It's official Aventurine employees speaking about their game. Nothing "unofficial" about them.
Pushing a game back to have a better game is a good thing sometimes, it also depends however on how you do it. And there is no "we aim to" and "we hope" in many of Tasos statements that the game is nearly feature complete and has been for the past 5 years.
If they spent 5 years on polishing the game, superb, excellent and we shall see when it comes out. I have no qualms with DF, I don't hate it, but what I do hate is the obnoxious way the supporters put down any possible bad thing about the game as a) irrelevant or b) unfounded. It is much the same way as the obnoxious haters continue to claim the game is vapor-ware and whatnot, just the other side of the medal.
We are all ignorant? We only look for things to be skeptical? If I weren't this interested in the game, I would not bother to point out worries and possible problems with the game. I would ot bother to read through Tasos interviews and through all the developer quotes. Fact is, some people believe the man, some people don't believe everything. Who's to say who is right hm?
The only way we will find out is when the game releases and we can test it. No matter how recent your quotes, no matter how much you try to make quotes from the past be "unimportant", that is a fact. Supposedly we have a beta soon and a release this year. I'll keep DF to that promise and wait for the game to pass final judgement. But to put down every possible flaw or problem or discrepancy as irrelevant is just plain silly, just as silly as to point and yell Vaporware anytime a thread about DF pops up.
this just further points out your ignorence. 5 year old outdated quotes about an outdated version of the game itself and nothing but vauge statements, hold just as much merit and are just as official as this years statements about an entirely differnt darkfall all togather?
How is it you do not understand that everything the devs have ever said in the earlier years was said very carefully to keep as vauge as possible with no promises attatched? You dont seem like your stupid, so im sure if youve read them yourself you could point out exactly how undescriptive and uninformative everything they have said was. THEY PROMISED NOTHING AND LIED ABOUT NOTHING! They had clan beta signups for an entirely differnt darkfall then todays. They scraped that build and started over. how is that so hard to grasp? This is the darkfall they wanted from the start, the darkfall that technology wouldnt let exist at the time of thier old project.
I honestly doubt you have any hopes of this game being successful considering you have never said 1 positive thing about it. you speak like your of neutrallity and of both extreams being wrong while the entire time you seem to always be on one side. your hypocracy is very clear.
Its obvious some people will just not see the glass half full, and will have to wait for open beta to make sure the evil devs arnt pulling a fast one!! So when it comes, and it will come soon, i'll gladly come back to these forums to see everyone spouting "i told you so!" wether its the fanbase saying it to the haters, or the haters saying it to the fanbase, I guess all we can do is wait and see.
I want this game to come out this year. But i highly doubt it., since closed beta hasn't even started yet. And i mean like hard playing closed beta. Not technical and server stuff.
Non-technical is in "closed" beta. Technical is in "open" beta.
Note: "Open" beta does not nesseccarily mean that anyone who wants to can participate. It is a limited number.
The devs have been using proffessional testers for roughly one year now, which is a "closed" beta.
Oh, well ok. Ive never really known what takes place in which phase of testing. The only basis of my last post is what ive read from other posts in different threads.
But i still dont think that the game will be ready in 4 months. Just a feeling.
Closed beta has been goin on for quite a while with paid inhouse testers. They are actually doing things right as opposed to all these other company who let random idiots in that contribute about 1/10 of what a paid tester can do. sure you have a few good beta testers who actually go out of thier way to help the game, but the gap between serious testers compared to random idiots is very large. this way they ensure they catch all the big stuff as soon as possible.
Also id like to point out that even beta testing the game gives you an extream advantage over those who havnt and with this being such a highly competitive game im sure they wouldnt want that hence why the public closed beta testers are not playtesting.
And by the way, I am always on one side. That's -my- side and I have always made it quite clear what side that is. It is neither the fanbois side, nor the haters side. I have my hopes for this game, I have explained why I hope it to be a success and I have pointed out where I see possible problems with it. If you feel like you need to attack me for that, go on, I don't mind, but it just shows that you only have one view of the game for yourself and will not accept anything else, not even the remotest bit of discussion. Anyone who does not share your full enthusiasm of the game is a hypocrite and a hater, mh?
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
And by the way, I am always on one side. That's -my- side and I have always made it quite clear what side that is. It is neither the fanbois side, nor the haters side. I have my hopes for this game, I have explained why I hope it to be a success and I have pointed out where I see possible problems with it. If you feel like you need to attack me for that, go on, I don't mind, but it just shows that you only have one view of the game for yourself and will not accept anything else, not even the remotest bit of discussion. Anyone who does not share your full enthusiasm of the game is a hypocrite and a hater, mh?
I did not attack you, i simply pointed out that your a hypocrit. you say your on neither side but constantly telling everyone "ohhh ill believe it when i see it" thus putting no trust in the developers at all or so it seems. that would put you on the haters side of the wall.
And thus you further strengthen my point. No, I choose not to believe everything the developers tell me on their word alone. That does not mean I think there is no game. It doesn't mean I think the developers are lazy, incompetent idiots or that they only try to scam people. It also doesn't mean I hate the game.
It merely means that I will believe -everything- only when I have seen it. For you to consider me a hater just because I do not put absolute faith in the developers just shows your black-and-white attitude towards the people who are interested in this game. Love it or Hate it...there is no in-between, eh?
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
Every company uses paid in house testers in alpha and the initial stages of beta testing. It's not some new innovation.
Less stress man. It would make no difference if the game was finished twenty years ago or they finished it fifteen seconds before I got my hands on it. It may as well not exist until I can play it.
This is true and i never made it sound new or innovative, i simply pointed out the fact that other companys started relying on random people to help fix their game instead of payed employees. the results of those betas show in the latest games tenfold. AoC and War are both full of bugs and yet had huge betas full of random people, ontop of the paid inhouse testers in alpha. maybe if they stuck with the guys they paid, they would be in a better position right now?
statements like " it may as well not exist untill I can play it", further points out my ignorent stance. 90% of the world must not exist in your head then.
And thus you further strengthen my point. No, I choose not to believe everything the developers tell me on their word alone. That does not mean I think there is no game. It doesn't mean I think the developers are lazy, incompetent idiots or that they only try to scam people. It also doesn't mean I hate the game.
It merely means that I will believe -everything- only when I have seen it. For you to consider me a hater just because I do not put absolute faith in the developers just shows your black-and-white attitude towards the people who are interested in this game. Love it or Hate it...there is no in-between, eh?
I dont see a point in there being an in-between. you either believe or you dont, whats the point in being confused about it? The people who love everything about it and believe in it will ultimatley enjoy the game that much more when it finally comes. people who doubt everything wont even enjoy themselves because they will be trying to find something wrong with it the entire time.
Hmmm no wait, I will keep believing Tasos for the next 6 years.
These guys are learning how to develope an MMO. If they can produce a half assed game they will be really happy, they will have learned a lot and can think of working in a real company with some experience.
Oh... sorry I forgot Darkfall is going to be the best game ever. Just forget what I said.
Your an obvious troll, just gtfo. You have 0 faith in the game and do nothing but try to shoot down the community. do you really have nothing else to do with your time then troll the boards of a game you dont even like? maybe you should get a better hobby, or more time consuming one at that.
Darkfall is in closed Beta. the game is real, the game is coming out this year, and i hope you fall down 3 stairs for your insolence.
You are clueless, shutup.
About the hardware test.. I don't think it's worth trying to understand the technical details. They are not plahing the game, maybe just parts of it, or just connecting to servers, who knows, maybe a network scheleton, or just graphical tests, not necessarily in-game.
Actually, it is not a fact that they have been using "paid" employees to test the game for a year. We know that Aventurine advertised for local college students to test as UNPAID interns. Aventurine likes to use the term "professional" testers, which is misleading enough, IMO.
Have you never beta tested a game before? If you had, you would know that blaming the "random people" that beta test games is absurd. In every test I have been part of, the bugs that went to release were well known by both testers and devs. In fact, the testers say the game should NOT be released more often than not, and I have seen many a long thread in beta forums arguing against launch. But in the real world, business decisions are made. It might mean they shoot themselves in the foot, but that is not because they didnt use "paid testers" in later stages of beta!
It is clear you are a fanatic, so no doubt this post means nothing to you. Feel free to ignore it. I am really writing this for the benefit of those with an open mind.
Hmmm no wait, I will keep believing Tasos for the next 6 years.
These guys are learning how to develope an MMO. If they can produce a half assed game they will be really happy, they will have learned a lot and can think of working in a real company with some experience.
Oh... sorry I forgot Darkfall is going to be the best game ever. Just forget what I said.
Your an obvious troll, just gtfo. You have 0 faith in the game and do nothing but try to shoot down the community. do you really have nothing else to do with your time then troll the boards of a game you dont even like? maybe you should get a better hobby, or more time consuming one at that.
Darkfall is in closed Beta. the game is real, the game is coming out this year, and i hope you fall down 3 stairs for your insolence.
You are clueless, shutup.
About the hardware test.. I don't think it's worth trying to understand the technical details. They are not plahing the game, maybe just parts of it, or just connecting to servers, who knows, maybe a network scheleton, or just graphical tests, not necessarily in-game.
How am I clueless? they can work for a real company? would you like to name even 1 company that supports the ideals of a sandbox MMO and isnt just a moneymaking scheme? just because the world is comprised of idiots doesnt mean the companys they support are good.
Wtf? Of cource its worth understanding the technical details! they have to know min system req, recommended, and whats compatible or not. there are many graphical drivers and hardware compatabilities to test just on their engine in general to see if they support it or have problems with it. you sir seem to be the clueless one.
Actually, it is not a fact that they have been using "paid" employees to test the game for a year. We know that Aventurine advertised for local college students to test as UNPAID interns. Aventurine likes to use the term "professional" testers, which is misleading enough, IMO.
Have you never beta tested a game before? If you had, you would know that blaming the "random people" that beta test games is absurd. In every test I have been part of, the bugs that went to release were well known by both testers and devs. In fact, the testers say the game should NOT be released more often than not, and I have seen many a long thread in beta forums arguing against launch. But in the real world, business decisions are made. It might mean they shoot themselves in the foot, but that is not because they didnt use "paid testers" in later stages of beta!
It is clear you are a fanatic, so no doubt this post means nothing to you. Feel free to ignore it. I am really writing this for the benefit of those with an open mind.
either way, paid or unpaid, they are inhouse. which means if they have problems they are directly noted and brought up to the devs face to face. not through bug reports. Also i have beta tested alot of games and the majority of the players dont care about the better of the game. the majority of "bugs" and problems are mostly "imbalances" in character classes they favor or something to that nature. public beta testers do not do what inhouse testers do and are capable of. inhouse testers do things like run north through 500 feet of terrain spamming ability X, then step to the side and turn south and repeat 500 feet untill every inch of terrain is covered while spamming that 1 skill to make sure nothing irregular happins. then they start over usuing a differnt skill. they do tedious mind numbing tasks over and over. public testers just play the game and stumble apon bugs on the way. its nowhere near as effective. you can assume what you will about me being a fanatic, all i know is im gunna be happy to play this game when released, not happy to try and find things wrong with it.
EVERY game has in house testers, as well they should! As mentioned there is nothing remarkable about this. Further, early stages of public beta are very structured, typically scheduled and requiring specific actions. Perhaps you have not been part of that.
Now what IS remarkable, is that less than 3 months from release Aventurine has not expanded it's closed beta. Exposing differing player styles to the game mechanics is important. Playtesting the game is important. It often uncovers issues that require extensive work or even redesigns. Some bugs only manifest under certain conditions, or when people do things the "wrong way" rather than the way the devs had it tested. All of this is multiplied when you are talking about a sandbox with very few restrictions and hundreds of skills and spells to balance.
And I dont have to assume you are a fanatic. You spelled it out in your reply to Sings.
EVERY game has in house testers, as well they should! As mentioned there is nothing remarkable about this. Further, early stages of public beta are very structured, typically scheduled and requiring specific actions. Perhaps you have not been part of that.
Now what IS remarkable, is that less than 3 months from release Aventurine has not expanded it's closed beta. Exposing differing player styles to the game mechanics is important. Playtesting the game is important. It often uncovers issues that require extensive work or even redesigns. Some bugs only manifest under certain conditions, or when people do things the "wrong way" rather than the way the devs had it tested. All of this is multiplied when you are talking about a sandbox with very few restrictions and hundreds of skills and spells to balance.
And I dont have to assume you are a fanatic. You spelled it out in your reply to Sings.
I know every game has in house testers! lol. Im sayin, there will be no public closed beta. bug finding will not be a part of open beta. its a playtest, not a betatest. its more of a try before you buy. they are not intrusting the public to find bugs, they have said it before they are doing it all inhouse. the only thing they couldnt possibly test on thier own, was the wide variety of machines the players would be usuing. thus the hardware test. once again, the open beta, will be a stress test/playtest. they are debugging and bug hunting themselves via staff and inhouse testers, and its taken a long ass time. release is shedualed to follow the upcoming open beta an closed beta has already been goin on for a while. the public was not included in closed beta aside from hardware testing. the hardware testing WAS the expanding of closed beta.
Wow, just wow!
Can anyone not understand how people would have doubts about DF, and Tasos's word after this? For most of us soon is not 3+ years.
Wow, just wow!
Can anyone not understand how people would have doubts about DF, and Tasos's word after this? For most of us soon is not 3+ years.
Can anyone understand why the DFO devs would rebuild again and delay more now that it has its biggest fan base, hype ,and least amount of compitition ever? they wouldnt, unless they were very stupid.
Humm so according to you DF was scrapped several times most recently last year? I'd be carefull calling anyone else ignorant when your own arguement is so full of holes.
Yes we get the point anything that doesn't agree with your arguement / opinion is unimportant. only things that agree with you opinion have any merrit. Odd you can't see who is wearing the blinders as all those post made up from last year back to 2003 (no they aren't all 5 year old post as your arguement states) were from the same people whose posts you believe 100% this year. The vaporware troll and the fanatic Fanbois are just 2 sides of the same coin, both are just as ignorant to truth.
No-one answered this in full or plainly, so I will.
When AoC opened their beta they'd really clearly not done hardware testing (they were to release their game 2 weeks later, as well!) I know that my system at work, a sortof rare Dell build (not that rare, it was a dell build!) had an x600 in it and faced a variety of problems and would continue to face some difficulties throughout the beta and the launch... though not nearly as bad as the ones found in beta. We're talking crash after crash, automated bug reports, the works.
Now aventurine has gotten over 100k dxdiags from people and they chose the systems that they'd not been able to test on before - after all there are thousands of combinations, and it'd take a lot of unnecessary work to get those combinations right.
I don't know what they're doing or how they're testing, but I do know that there are a series of tests that can be performed for any graphics engine that would show weaknesses or reveal bugs. They've said in their latest update that they worked on the patcher (even patchers can have problems with certain OS's and etc.) and they've been patching many times a day.
In other words, with 2 weeks to go AoC hadn't even diagnosed my x600's problem, and they launched to at least some degree of success (for the first 20 levels everyone was very wowed).
Now aventurine is trying to get all the more technical stuff behind them. It's much easier to work with people's bug reports when you've been able to see the span and scope of hardware problems and limitations. I was very pumped to see they went that route.
As for beta, they've been testing for a while just without non-paid external people (yes I know, that means closed). They've also apparently been using bots in places for stress tests and whatnot. That's not the same as stress testing with lots of external people, but it's a damn sight better than nothing.
Sorry for the wall of text.
Originally posted by winter
Can anyone not understand how people would have doubts about DF, and Tasos's word after this? For most of us soon is not 3+ years.
Thanks, that was actually the sort of reply I hoped for. I didnt post it to be a dick, or a troll, or to entice either of those types to reply. All I was looking for was someone to understand that I have REASONABLE doubts.
I did not make that stuff up, it was what we were being told by the devs. They never said they were remaking the game from scratch, needed to do major overhauls, or anything of the sort. It was always just out of reach. So, maybe some will understand why we have learned to be skeptical.
Humm so according to you DF was scrapped several times most recently last year? I'd be carefull calling anyone else ignorant when your own arguement is so full of holes.
Yes we get the point anything that doesn't agree with your arguement / opinion is unimportant. only things that agree with you opinion have any merrit. Odd you can't see who is wearing the blinders as all those post made up from last year back to 2003 (no they aren't all 5 year old post as your arguement states) were from the same people whose posts you believe 100% this year. The vaporware troll and the fanatic Fanbois are just 2 sides of the same coin, both are just as ignorant to truth.
If you say so friend, you have no idea what your talking about. You have a handfull of random dev quotes and think you know what your talking about. If youve been following DFO for 5+ years like I have youd understand how close we are now to the final product. Do you really think any sort of fanbase would stick that long with the development of a game thats surely gunna fail, full of false promises, and lying developers? The people who have been around know whats goin on and we are not excatly stupid or easily manipulated. We all have our doubts, we have been through it before, but this time is very different. they actually started scrapping less important things from the launch, usuing actual dates instead of "SOON TM", there are signed publishers and events being held, newspaper articles, beta testing, videos (we were lucky to get a model rendering) people actually goin to greece on vacation and playing it themselves.
There is nothing out there worth my money in the MMO world anymore, and if this turns out like shit... ill quit all togather, sell my desktop, and get a shitty laptop for browsing the web. might as well play console games.
You should be commended Theodgrim. You presented nothing more than a extraordinarily complete history of Darkfall's convoluted development with references to back it up.
Facts are something too often lacking in discussions in the MMORPG community, not just Darkfall but any game on this site.
You are perfectly justified to say you have reasonable doubts about the game. The fact that anyone can look over that history and NOT have reasonable doubts is ridiculous.
That's not to say one can't still support and follow the game while having those doubts. But it is more than reasonable, at this point it should be mandatory to have caution color any excitement over developer annoucements or hype.
Given that history, I'm very interested to see if Aventurine will be able to pull it off. It will certainly be a epic acheivement given the past of their developement if they do.