DF has been in closed beta for over 15 months now, they're doing it with professional testers. Open beta is merely a free trial, the're shooting to have the game complete when it goes to open beta. So it's not like there never was a testing period, it's been going on as a process for quite some time too bad people live under a rock and have not realized it. Open Beta will not be long less then a month from what I heard, but that does not mean that they wont delay the game; if the servers need more optimizing then they will delay it. I am still of the opinion that they will delay it, and release 1st quarter 2009.
I just wonder how many pro testers they have on there team. Since this is supposed to be the biggest MMO ever and its sandbox, there is a lot of things that could go wrong. While the guys that get paid they will do a good job, but still I think it would be wise to have a closed beta with thousands of players to also find bugs.
I can see this coming to bite them in the but when open beta starts and thousands of people are playing the game and a ton of bugs pop up because of all the stuff that the pro testers did think of testing.
Beta was done in house for one reason only.... Noone can get an unfair advantage. Why do you think it's taken sooo long. Yes beta testers are not always testing you see. They take notes and learn the mechanics of the game. When it goes live, those that didn't get into beta are at a disadvantage because they have to learn the game from the ground up and the beta testers already know who, what, where, when, and how things work.
This game will have a very very short open beta to test the servers, and thats pretty much it. When this game goes live, noone will really have any advantage over anyone else. It will be a level playing field for all. Good luck to you all.
(If you think I'm full of it, I could give a rats arse. Read what it says under my avatar, oh and have a nice day.)
DF has been in closed beta for over 15 months now, they're doing it with professional testers. Open beta is merely a free trial, the're shooting to have the game complete when it goes to open beta. So it's not like there never was a testing period, it's been going on as a process for quite some time too bad people live under a rock and have not realized it. Open Beta will not be long less then a month from what I heard, but that does not mean that they wont delay the game; if the servers need more optimizing then they will delay it. I am still of the opinion that they will delay it, and release 1st quarter 2009.
Even MMORPGS with large teams need thousands of people to test their game for a year, and even then they don't get all the bugs out.
And you believe a small dev team with a few internal beta testers can do all that. Its just another absurd lie Adventurine is telling. Just add it to all their other lies
Its amazing that fanbois believe everything Tasos says, no matter how ridiculous it is.
But why is it so important to you that Darkfall is bug free? Al other MMOs have huge betas for RP and bug testing. Still many come out as halfdone.
How is it that there was 25+ years of game design before the "open beta" concept even existed and all of the games made during this period were not bug filled crap? Was it some kind of phenomenal streak of luck? In fact since this concept has emerged games have got more buggy as they release them before they are ready.
The open beta concept is mostly for show and pr reasons at this time.
But as i've said before, i sure hope Aventurine had enough testers to make sure their servers is up to the task when it comes to handling many people at once.
DF has been in closed beta for over 15 months now, they're doing it with professional testers. Open beta is merely a free trial, the're shooting to have the game complete when it goes to open beta. So it's not like there never was a testing period, it's been going on as a process for quite some time too bad people live under a rock and have not realized it. Open Beta will not be long less then a month from what I heard, but that does not mean that they wont delay the game; if the servers need more optimizing then they will delay it. I am still of the opinion that they will delay it, and release 1st quarter 2009.
Even MMORPGS with large teams need thousands of people to test their game for a year, and even then they don't get all the bugs out.
And you believe a small dev team with a few internal beta testers can do all that. Its just another absurd lie Adventurine is telling. Just add it to all their other lies
Its amazing that fanbois believe everything Tasos says, no matter how ridiculous it is.
believe it if you want or don't it's your choice. People make many assumptions and complain without doing any research what so ever and then start this style of troll parade saying theres no way they can do closed beta open beta and launch in the little time they have left so in an attempt to stop some of this please read the following.
In this journal we'll talk a little about our beta testing process, about playtesting, our philosophy on announcing a release date, and I also have some comments on the reactions to the last journal.
Darkfall is feature complete and we're doing beta testing using professional testers as we've said before. Our policy on testing has always been that it's to aid the developers in making Darkfall as stable as possible, and not to aid some artificial goal like investor relations, or public relations. We don't care about that and the effectiveness of testing based on these goals is very questionable judging by the beta leaks everyone is accustomed to and which have been hurting the games in question. It's also not good for the players because they usually don't enjoy the experience. We don't expect playtesting to sort out major problems, other than getting reports on hardware configurations and further testing out some gameplay features.
We prefer to do our testing this way so by the time we get to the playtesting, we'll have as close to the actual game as possible. We would like to let the playtesting carry on for a while uninterrupted just like the actual game would be instead of allowing access for a few days here and there. That's the best way to decide if the game is fun, something you really can't have an opinion on when it's not near-complete. In the playtesting phase, we're not looking for testers, we're looking for players, the same way most people enter a beta: to try out and play the game rather than help the developer with quality assurance.
Darkfall testing put simply consists of testing each and every feature of the game and all associated features in a pyramid structure. It's not the same as testing a railroad, linear game. There's no path to follow, Darkfall is a sandbox game and we have to make allowances for numerous combinations of occurrences. Take the closest Darkfall comes to anything scripted: even in quests there is no instancing and there are more than one ways to complete it including PvP ways. There is no single set of actions and the end justifies the means.
Something that Darkfall has that other games may lack during testing is help from the AI. In Darkfall the game doesn't really distinguish between a player and the AI. The AI are bots actually living their life and skilling up within the game. The AI has been helping us test a large part of the game almost as if players were in it.
Our tools allow us to test features locally, we can run servers on any operating system and we run multiple clients per machine to which anyone in the office can connect to, in order to assist with what's being tested. At the moment we're testing clans and conquest and we're continuing the terrain testing which has been a long process.
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.
The beta that players will be invited to is basicaly open beta ........Closed Beta has been going on for some time.
Believe it or not it's your choice, the question that has been asked is how they plan to do all this and launch before the end of 2008. The answer is above so READ and RESEARCH so I don't have to do it for you guys next time. Closed Beta has been underway, Open beta is what we are waiting on. The above is information stating such. If you don't believe it fine but if your going to say it is a lie then have evidence to back it up like I have saying that closed beta has been going on and there reasoning behind it as well as the lack of NDA breakers. So now it's put up or shut up time, want to say there lieing bring proof.
From what I heard and what they said it's somewhere between 200 to 300 professional testers. Which is decent considering most Clan Vs Clan battles will number that many people participating in a battle. The point is not to have 1,000 testers vs 1,000 testers in a single battle, the world is hudge and it has over 100 buildable locations for clans to build their cities; most conflicts will be regional because of the size of the world.
As for stress test, that's open beta; like I said they might delay it but considering they are shooting for a full completion of the game before they go to Beta I doubt they will use that time for fixing bugs. There's 2 possibilities here, you will either see a Polished and Complete game when open beta starts or we wont; from what I heard from Asp (The guy who got to play the game last year October 2007) he specifically mentioned the state of the game and praised the polish of the game itself..... and this was last year. He also mentioned that the testing of the game was on going using professional testers, closed beta for the most part has been going on for a good while now.
If you don't believe it fine but if your going to say it is a lie then have evidence to back it up like I have
I still wont consider it "evidence" by the pure fact that "they said so" when there's really nobody here to confirm anything. And neither can you really
$OE lies list http://www.rlmmo.com/viewtopic.php?t=424&start=0 " And I don't want to hear anything about "I don't believe in vampires" because *I* don't believe in vampires, but I believe in my own two eyes, and what *I* saw is ******* vampires! "
DF has been in closed beta for over 15 months now, they're doing it with professional testers. Open beta is merely a free trial, the're shooting to have the game complete when it goes to open beta. So it's not like there never was a testing period, it's been going on as a process for quite some time too bad people live under a rock and have not realized it. Open Beta will not be long less then a month from what I heard, but that does not mean that they wont delay the game; if the servers need more optimizing then they will delay it. I am still of the opinion that they will delay it, and release 1st quarter 2009.
Even MMORPGS with large teams need thousands of people to test their game for a year, and even then they don't get all the bugs out.
And you believe a small dev team with a few internal beta testers can do all that. Its just another absurd lie Adventurine is telling. Just add it to all their other lies
Its amazing that fanbois believe everything Tasos says, no matter how ridiculous it is.
But why is it so important to you that Darkfall is bug free? Al other MMOs have huge betas for RP and bug testing. Still many come out as halfdone.
Don't mind him, he just wants the advantage, and he can't have it.
From what I heard and what they said it's somewhere between 200 to 300 professional testers.
why would they be paying 300 testers when they could get people to test it for free? And they can only afford a dev team of 30 people. So how are they supposed to afford 300 paid testers? Again, this makes no sense, and yet you guys believe every word of it.
Is they are really shooting for a release in 2008, i don't know if a open beta would suffice.
You see, i've been stress testing an mmo before, namely LotRO and many of the problems i encountered there was still evident when the game released, i don't remember when the test actually was, but it's safe for me to assume that it was more than a month away from launch and if Aventurine really are determined to release in 2008 that gives them a little more than 2 months to get the beta started and the server problems phased out, not a lot of time, but maybe they are up to the task.
Well done to the last post. It pretty much sums up and answers all the ridiculous comments about how they are going about testing all wrong. Well if beta testing results are anything to go by in the recent launches then I think every company should ditch it.
Looking at both models I can see a lot of pro's for in-house testing.
In-house testing:
* Professional testers who know how to systematically run through the game and properly log issues.
* Pro testers are there 8-12 hours a day and not just a nobody rushing around playing the game and throwing up random issues.
* No leaks, no bad press, no flamers (stated in the press release already)
INTERESTING POINT: I am a little gob smacked at the comment about NPC's leveling and going about their daily lives in the game...about time I say! Great concept
From what I heard and what they said it's somewhere between 200 to 300 professional testers.
why would they be paying 300 testers when they could get people to test it for free? And they can only afford a dev team of 30 people. So how are they supposed to afford 300 paid testers? Again, this makes no sense, and yet you guys believe every word of it.
YO!! They don't have to be full time employees. SHEESH!!
If you don't believe it fine but if your going to say it is a lie then have evidence to back it up like I have
I still wont consider it "evidence" by the pure fact that "they said so" when there's really nobody here to confirm anything. And neither can you really
That is fine your allowed your opinion, It just urks me that peple try to state it as fact that it's all made up lol. I mean we have had players visit there HQ and confirm this, we've seen video's confirming much of it, A presentation at Athens Digital Week confirming many other things (And the next person that says Athens Digital Week was some small event, they had over 30k attend.... so yeah real small bud!) . You are still entitled to your opinion but to state it as fact you need evidence that negates the dev journal. Tasos being part of Aventurine has more credibility than the nay sayers. Considering they just recieved a 20 mil loan recently gives them a bit more cred as well as the Athens Digital Week, as Well as being featured on the news lol. I don't mind opinions to the contrary everyones allowed there opinion but those stating there opinion as fact to the opposite of what Tasos has said have nothing to back it up while Tasos has plenty to back what he has said up. So Until proven a lie I tend to believe the Devs over the Nay sayers.
From what I heard and what they said it's somewhere between 200 to 300 professional testers.
why would they be paying 300 testers when they could get people to test it for free? And they can only afford a dev team of 30 people. So how are they supposed to afford 300 paid testers? Again, this makes no sense, and yet you guys believe every word of it.
I'd say to improve the quality of the testing, volunteers may not seek out bugs and flaws but may be trying to get a sneak peek, an edge compared to the ones joining at release, anything really.
With a paid team you know (Assuming the team is competent of course) that they will actively seek out and report whatever flaws they find, the price is of course that the the amount of potential bugs found suffers, but that is a decision you have to make as a developer, quality versus quantity.
Well done to the last post. It pretty much sums up and answers all the ridiculous comments about how they are going about testing all wrong. Well if beta testing results are anything to go by in the recent launches then I think every company should ditch it. Looking at both models I can see a lot of pro's for in-house testing.
In-house testing:
* Professional testers who know how to systematically run through the game and properly log issues.
* Pro testers are there 8-12 hours a day and not just a nobody rushing around playing the game and throwing up random issues.
* No leaks, no bad press, no flamers (stated in the press release already)
INTERESTING POINT: I am a little gob smacked at the comment about NPC's leveling and going about their daily lives in the game...about time I say! Great concept
Yeah I loved that part myself lol NPC's really sound like they will be epic in DarkFall. With a KOS list they add players and other mobs to as well as there leveling up and such and many other forms of the AI it is truely amazing. But can you truely expect less from a guy that has background doing AI type of work for the millitary lol.
Yeah I loved that part myself lol NPC's really sound like they will be epic in DarkFall. With a KOS list they add players and other mobs to as well as there leveling up and such and many other forms of the AI it is truely amazing. But can you truely expect less from a guy that has background doing AI type of work for the millitary lol.
Wait a minute... NPC's playing the game for them?
...
*jaw drops*
Wow... what can I say This just sounds more and more amazing. I mean... yeah....
$OE lies list http://www.rlmmo.com/viewtopic.php?t=424&start=0 " And I don't want to hear anything about "I don't believe in vampires" because *I* don't believe in vampires, but I believe in my own two eyes, and what *I* saw is ******* vampires! "
Yeah I loved that part myself lol NPC's really sound like they will be epic in DarkFall. With a KOS list they add players and other mobs to as well as there leveling up and such and many other forms of the AI it is truely amazing. But can you truely expect less from a guy that has background doing AI type of work for the millitary lol.
Wait a minute... NPC's playing the game for them?
...
*jaw drops*
Wow... what can I say This just sounds more and more amazing. I mean... yeah....
I am not sure if your being sarcastic about that or not, the point of the excitement is that the more I hear about the AI the more excited I get, you won't be playing against some retarded NPC that just continuosly tries to kill you when it obviosuly can't. In many respects they will intellegent to some degree with self preservation an actual factor as well as working as a team when they deem it necassary. The AI truely sounds epic and as far as the testing goes, they are using the NPC's along with the proffesional play testers.
why would they be paying 300 testers when they could get people to test it for free? And they can only afford a dev team of 30 people. So how are they supposed to afford 300 paid testers? Again, this makes no sense, and yet you guys believe every word of it.
They have well over 40 full time developers + support staff, also their testers are professional and fill the job of quality assurance they are paid; 200 to 300 full time testers will do the job of 10,000 noobs admitted to beta who don't contribute to the development process.
Well done to the last post. It pretty much sums up and answers all the ridiculous comments about how they are going about testing all wrong. Well if beta testing results are anything to go by in the recent launches then I think every company should ditch it. Looking at both models I can see a lot of pro's for in-house testing.
In-house testing:
* Professional testers who know how to systematically run through the game and properly log issues.
* Pro testers are there 8-12 hours a day and not just a nobody rushing around playing the game and throwing up random issues.
* No leaks, no bad press, no flamers (stated in the press release already)
INTERESTING POINT: I am a little gob smacked at the comment about NPC's leveling and going about their daily lives in the game...about time I say! Great concept
Yeah I loved that part myself lol NPC's really sound like they will be epic in DarkFall. With a KOS list they add players and other mobs to as well as there leveling up and such and many other forms of the AI it is truely amazing. But can you truely expect less from a guy that has background doing AI type of work for the millitary lol.
This is something I have been looking out for, for a very very long time. Take all the current games as an example. EVE - if players dont complete missions then there could be a ticker showing aggro from NPCs building up. Once it hits max then an NPC fleet could end up blocking a gate which requires a very large fleet of players to clear. AoC, WAR or any fantasy game...if NPCs are left alone they should breed, expand and start gathering resources like in the RTS models. By gathering resources they start to impact on player crafting then they begin to build more weapons and develop keeps. So if left untouched they could seriously block main roads and cause disruption. Once a model like this is developed then players could support or attack factions. Imagine if a NPC keep was built and then NPC traders appeared. Players that have a good faction rating are then able to use whilst other players want to destroy it. There is your Faction vs Faction warfare as you would have players fighting on the NPC's side against players who want them dead. In a way it could create an NPC / player guild mentality.
AI is under used massively and the days of NPCs standing around waiting to be tagged have to stop because its dull and stupid. I played Tabula Rasa for 6 months because its the only game where NPCs actually act like they are living. They attack bases, run away when badly damaged and best yet the NPC soldiers fight along side you and that totally makes a game more realistic. I hated games like Vanguard where they show skeletons standing outside a wall with siege equipment and its like an eternal stand off because neither side moves or does anything. Bah...kill that gameplay already.
I am not sure if your being sarcastic about that or not, the point of the excitement is that the more I hear about the AI the more excited I get, you won't be playing against some retarded NPC that just continuosly tries to kill you when it obviosuly can't. In many respects they will intellegent to some degree with self preservation an actual factor as well as working as a team when they deem it necassary. The AI truely sounds epic and as far as the testing goes, they are using the NPC's along with the proffesional play testers.
I wasen't sarcastic. I've heard lots of valid stuff and lots of bull**** so far in my so far short visit over at the Darkfall forums.
But when we start talking about revolutionizing AI in the game aswell I become very very scared.
To my experience ANY game in history promising superhuman AI has delivered the very same stuff as always, cookie-cutter mobs you stab untill they die, nothing more. If Darkfall, in any way makes AI stand out, I will personally donate all my internal organs on E-Bay
$OE lies list http://www.rlmmo.com/viewtopic.php?t=424&start=0 " And I don't want to hear anything about "I don't believe in vampires" because *I* don't believe in vampires, but I believe in my own two eyes, and what *I* saw is ******* vampires! "
I am not sure if your being sarcastic about that or not, the point of the excitement is that the more I hear about the AI the more excited I get, you won't be playing against some retarded NPC that just continuosly tries to kill you when it obviosuly can't. In many respects they will intellegent to some degree with self preservation an actual factor as well as working as a team when they deem it necassary. The AI truely sounds epic and as far as the testing goes, they are using the NPC's along with the proffesional play testers.
I wasen't sarcastic. I've heard lots of valid stuff and lots of bull**** so far in my so far short visit over at the Darkfall forums.
But when we start talking about revolutionizing AI in the game aswell I become very very scared.
To my experience ANY game in history promising superhuman AI has delivered the very same stuff as always, cookie-cutter mobs you stab untill they die, nothing more. If Darkfall, in any way makes AI stand out, I will personally donate all my internal organs on E-Bay
lol ok no worries mate, I try to be weary of sarcasm on the net for the simple fact it rarely if ever trasnlates well as text lol.
why would they be paying 300 testers when they could get people to test it for free? And they can only afford a dev team of 30 people. So how are they supposed to afford 300 paid testers? Again, this makes no sense, and yet you guys believe every word of it.
They have well over 40 full time developers + support staff, also their testers are professional and fill the job of quality assurance they are paid; 200 to 300 full time testers will do the job of 10,000 noobs admitted to beta who don't contribute to the development process.
Again, you aren't answering my question of how can they afford 300 paid testers when they can only afford a small staff of 30 or 40 people.
If they had all that extra money, they would have had a much larger dev team and they would have finished this game long ago.
why would they be paying 300 testers when they could get people to test it for free? And they can only afford a dev team of 30 people. So how are they supposed to afford 300 paid testers? Again, this makes no sense, and yet you guys believe every word of it.
They have well over 40 full time developers + support staff, also their testers are professional and fill the job of quality assurance they are paid; 200 to 300 full time testers will do the job of 10,000 noobs admitted to beta who don't contribute to the development process.
Again, you aren't answering my question of how can they afford 300 paid testers when they can only afford a small staff of 30 or 40 people.
If they had all that extra money, they would have had a much larger dev team and they would have finished this game long ago.
Since they have done a lot of recruiting from universities for students majoring in programing or other gaming/computer related fields I would imagine that they are doing an internship style setup. For the most part it is either free or very low pay but you get to add it to you resume. Considering many companies do this sort of thing I would see that as relatively plausable.
In any case we do not know, only Aventurine does. There is also they fact that they are subsidised a bit by the Greek goverment that that may play a factor as well as how they could afford it or even the fact that they recieved a 20 mil loan not that long ago coupled with the fact the many years it has been in development thus far as costed roughly 10mil from what they have said in recent interviews when asked.
Now as far as This goes
"OMG every time i see that i think .. How stupid do you have to be.
Them saying Our AI is so advanced we dont need you to test it. hahaha.,"
You obviously did not read. They have the AI to help as well as the Proffessional beta testers. So I don't see how thats much to laugh at considering it isn't in the context you thought it was. Having proffesional play testers as well as an AI that can help with the closed beta seems like it's a bit better approach than many current MMO's. I think AOC, War and several others maybe could have benefitted from this approach rather than having the massive ammount of bugs and tech problems they seem to have had. I may be wrong and neither may have had any problems, well on War atleast AoC I know had many lol.
OMG every time i see that i think .. How stupid do you have to be.
Them saying Our AI is so advanced we dont need you to test it. hahaha.,
Okay so I know I never post but read this.
Something that Darkfall has that other games may lack during testing is help from the AI. In Darkfall the game doesn't really distinguish between a player and the AI. The AI are bots actually living their life and skilling up within the game. The AI has been helping us test a large part of the game almost as if players were in it.
The game doesn't distinguish between the players OR the AI. Thus the AI can get the same exact errors players will get. Plus the AI are part of the game and not written code to "test" the game. They are living parts of it.
Originally posted by DuraheLL I wasen't sarcastic. I've heard lots of valid stuff and lots of bull**** so far in my so far short visit over at the Darkfall forums. But when we start talking about revolutionizing AI in the game aswell I become very very scared. To my experience ANY game in history promising superhuman AI has delivered the very same stuff as always, cookie-cutter mobs you stab untill they die, nothing more. If Darkfall, in any way makes AI stand out, I will personally donate all my internal organs on E-Bay
I don't think it's going to be as revolutionary as mobs that are indistinguishable from real players.
My understanding of it is that if you leave a mob spawns alone they get bigger over time. After a while it will spawn a champion mob and maybe some fortifications. Eventually the whole group might decide to go on the rampage and run around owning people or head to the nearest populated area for some looting and pillaging.
Also if mobs are getting their asses kicked they will attempt to run away, but other mmo's already have mobs like this. With regard to KOS lists WoW already has that, look at Timbermaw hold reputation it's basically the same thing.
Also mob spawns will not stay in the same area to have acts genocide committed on them, they will relocate somewhere else.
I'm hoping it's better than what we have seen before as it's reasonable to expect progress but I'm not expecting it to blow my socks off.
Comments
I just wonder how many pro testers they have on there team. Since this is supposed to be the biggest MMO ever and its sandbox, there is a lot of things that could go wrong. While the guys that get paid they will do a good job, but still I think it would be wise to have a closed beta with thousands of players to also find bugs.
I can see this coming to bite them in the but when open beta starts and thousands of people are playing the game and a ton of bugs pop up because of all the stuff that the pro testers did think of testing.
Beta was done in house for one reason only.... Noone can get an unfair advantage. Why do you think it's taken sooo long. Yes beta testers are not always testing you see. They take notes and learn the mechanics of the game. When it goes live, those that didn't get into beta are at a disadvantage because they have to learn the game from the ground up and the beta testers already know who, what, where, when, and how things work.
This game will have a very very short open beta to test the servers, and thats pretty much it. When this game goes live, noone will really have any advantage over anyone else. It will be a level playing field for all. Good luck to you all.
(If you think I'm full of it, I could give a rats arse. Read what it says under my avatar, oh and have a nice day.)
Even MMORPGS with large teams need thousands of people to test their game for a year, and even then they don't get all the bugs out.
And you believe a small dev team with a few internal beta testers can do all that. Its just another absurd lie Adventurine is telling. Just add it to all their other lies
Its amazing that fanbois believe everything Tasos says, no matter how ridiculous it is.
But why is it so important to you that Darkfall is bug free? Al other MMOs have huge betas for RP and bug testing. Still many come out as halfdone.
The open beta concept is mostly for show and pr reasons at this time.
But as i've said before, i sure hope Aventurine had enough testers to make sure their servers is up to the task when it comes to handling many people at once.
Even MMORPGS with large teams need thousands of people to test their game for a year, and even then they don't get all the bugs out.
And you believe a small dev team with a few internal beta testers can do all that. Its just another absurd lie Adventurine is telling. Just add it to all their other lies
Its amazing that fanbois believe everything Tasos says, no matter how ridiculous it is.
believe it if you want or don't it's your choice. People make many assumptions and complain without doing any research what so ever and then start this style of troll parade saying theres no way they can do closed beta open beta and launch in the little time they have left so in an attempt to stop some of this please read the following.
In this journal we'll talk a little about our beta testing process, about playtesting, our philosophy on announcing a release date, and I also have some comments on the reactions to the last journal.
Darkfall is feature complete and we're doing beta testing using professional testers as we've said before. Our policy on testing has always been that it's to aid the developers in making Darkfall as stable as possible, and not to aid some artificial goal like investor relations, or public relations. We don't care about that and the effectiveness of testing based on these goals is very questionable judging by the beta leaks everyone is accustomed to and which have been hurting the games in question. It's also not good for the players because they usually don't enjoy the experience. We don't expect playtesting to sort out major problems, other than getting reports on hardware configurations and further testing out some gameplay features.
We prefer to do our testing this way so by the time we get to the playtesting, we'll have as close to the actual game as possible. We would like to let the playtesting carry on for a while uninterrupted just like the actual game would be instead of allowing access for a few days here and there. That's the best way to decide if the game is fun, something you really can't have an opinion on when it's not near-complete. In the playtesting phase, we're not looking for testers, we're looking for players, the same way most people enter a beta: to try out and play the game rather than help the developer with quality assurance.
Darkfall testing put simply consists of testing each and every feature of the game and all associated features in a pyramid structure. It's not the same as testing a railroad, linear game. There's no path to follow, Darkfall is a sandbox game and we have to make allowances for numerous combinations of occurrences. Take the closest Darkfall comes to anything scripted: even in quests there is no instancing and there are more than one ways to complete it including PvP ways. There is no single set of actions and the end justifies the means.
Something that Darkfall has that other games may lack during testing is help from the AI. In Darkfall the game doesn't really distinguish between a player and the AI. The AI are bots actually living their life and skilling up within the game. The AI has been helping us test a large part of the game almost as if players were in it.
Our tools allow us to test features locally, we can run servers on any operating system and we run multiple clients per machine to which anyone in the office can connect to, in order to assist with what's being tested. At the moment we're testing clans and conquest and we're continuing the terrain testing which has been a long process.
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.
Source: http://www.warcry.com/articles/view/devjournals/darkfalljournals/3570-Darkfall-Dev-Journal-25-Philosophy
The beta that players will be invited to is basicaly open beta ........Closed Beta has been going on for some time.
Believe it or not it's your choice, the question that has been asked is how they plan to do all this and launch before the end of 2008. The answer is above so READ and RESEARCH so I don't have to do it for you guys next time. Closed Beta has been underway, Open beta is what we are waiting on. The above is information stating such. If you don't believe it fine but if your going to say it is a lie then have evidence to back it up like I have saying that closed beta has been going on and there reasoning behind it as well as the lack of NDA breakers. So now it's put up or shut up time, want to say there lieing bring proof.
From what I heard and what they said it's somewhere between 200 to 300 professional testers. Which is decent considering most Clan Vs Clan battles will number that many people participating in a battle. The point is not to have 1,000 testers vs 1,000 testers in a single battle, the world is hudge and it has over 100 buildable locations for clans to build their cities; most conflicts will be regional because of the size of the world.
As for stress test, that's open beta; like I said they might delay it but considering they are shooting for a full completion of the game before they go to Beta I doubt they will use that time for fixing bugs. There's 2 possibilities here, you will either see a Polished and Complete game when open beta starts or we wont; from what I heard from Asp (The guy who got to play the game last year October 2007) he specifically mentioned the state of the game and praised the polish of the game itself..... and this was last year. He also mentioned that the testing of the game was on going using professional testers, closed beta for the most part has been going on for a good while now.
I still wont consider it "evidence" by the pure fact that "they said so" when there's really nobody here to confirm anything. And neither can you really
$OE lies list
http://www.rlmmo.com/viewtopic.php?t=424&start=0
"
And I don't want to hear anything about "I don't believe in vampires" because *I* don't believe in vampires, but I believe in my own two eyes, and what *I* saw is ******* vampires! "
Even MMORPGS with large teams need thousands of people to test their game for a year, and even then they don't get all the bugs out.
And you believe a small dev team with a few internal beta testers can do all that. Its just another absurd lie Adventurine is telling. Just add it to all their other lies
Its amazing that fanbois believe everything Tasos says, no matter how ridiculous it is.
But why is it so important to you that Darkfall is bug free? Al other MMOs have huge betas for RP and bug testing. Still many come out as halfdone.
Don't mind him, he just wants the advantage, and he can't have it.
why would they be paying 300 testers when they could get people to test it for free? And they can only afford a dev team of 30 people. So how are they supposed to afford 300 paid testers? Again, this makes no sense, and yet you guys believe every word of it.
Is they are really shooting for a release in 2008, i don't know if a open beta would suffice.
You see, i've been stress testing an mmo before, namely LotRO and many of the problems i encountered there was still evident when the game released, i don't remember when the test actually was, but it's safe for me to assume that it was more than a month away from launch and if Aventurine really are determined to release in 2008 that gives them a little more than 2 months to get the beta started and the server problems phased out, not a lot of time, but maybe they are up to the task.
Well done to the last post. It pretty much sums up and answers all the ridiculous comments about how they are going about testing all wrong. Well if beta testing results are anything to go by in the recent launches then I think every company should ditch it.
Looking at both models I can see a lot of pro's for in-house testing.
In-house testing:
* Professional testers who know how to systematically run through the game and properly log issues.
* Pro testers are there 8-12 hours a day and not just a nobody rushing around playing the game and throwing up random issues.
* No leaks, no bad press, no flamers (stated in the press release already)
INTERESTING POINT: I am a little gob smacked at the comment about NPC's leveling and going about their daily lives in the game...about time I say! Great concept
why would they be paying 300 testers when they could get people to test it for free? And they can only afford a dev team of 30 people. So how are they supposed to afford 300 paid testers? Again, this makes no sense, and yet you guys believe every word of it.
YO!! They don't have to be full time employees. SHEESH!!
I still wont consider it "evidence" by the pure fact that "they said so" when there's really nobody here to confirm anything. And neither can you really
That is fine your allowed your opinion, It just urks me that peple try to state it as fact that it's all made up lol. I mean we have had players visit there HQ and confirm this, we've seen video's confirming much of it, A presentation at Athens Digital Week confirming many other things (And the next person that says Athens Digital Week was some small event, they had over 30k attend.... so yeah real small bud!) . You are still entitled to your opinion but to state it as fact you need evidence that negates the dev journal. Tasos being part of Aventurine has more credibility than the nay sayers. Considering they just recieved a 20 mil loan recently gives them a bit more cred as well as the Athens Digital Week, as Well as being featured on the news lol. I don't mind opinions to the contrary everyones allowed there opinion but those stating there opinion as fact to the opposite of what Tasos has said have nothing to back it up while Tasos has plenty to back what he has said up. So Until proven a lie I tend to believe the Devs over the Nay sayers.
why would they be paying 300 testers when they could get people to test it for free? And they can only afford a dev team of 30 people. So how are they supposed to afford 300 paid testers? Again, this makes no sense, and yet you guys believe every word of it.
I'd say to improve the quality of the testing, volunteers may not seek out bugs and flaws but may be trying to get a sneak peek, an edge compared to the ones joining at release, anything really.
With a paid team you know (Assuming the team is competent of course) that they will actively seek out and report whatever flaws they find, the price is of course that the the amount of potential bugs found suffers, but that is a decision you have to make as a developer, quality versus quantity.
Yeah I loved that part myself lol NPC's really sound like they will be epic in DarkFall. With a KOS list they add players and other mobs to as well as there leveling up and such and many other forms of the AI it is truely amazing. But can you truely expect less from a guy that has background doing AI type of work for the millitary lol.
Wait a minute... NPC's playing the game for them?
...
*jaw drops*
Wow... what can I say
This just sounds more and more amazing. I mean... yeah....
$OE lies list
http://www.rlmmo.com/viewtopic.php?t=424&start=0
"
And I don't want to hear anything about "I don't believe in vampires" because *I* don't believe in vampires, but I believe in my own two eyes, and what *I* saw is ******* vampires! "
Wait a minute... NPC's playing the game for them?
...
*jaw drops*
Wow... what can I say
This just sounds more and more amazing. I mean... yeah....
I am not sure if your being sarcastic about that or not, the point of the excitement is that the more I hear about the AI the more excited I get, you won't be playing against some retarded NPC that just continuosly tries to kill you when it obviosuly can't. In many respects they will intellegent to some degree with self preservation an actual factor as well as working as a team when they deem it necassary. The AI truely sounds epic and as far as the testing goes, they are using the NPC's along with the proffesional play testers.
why would they be paying 300 testers when they could get people to test it for free? And they can only afford a dev team of 30 people. So how are they supposed to afford 300 paid testers? Again, this makes no sense, and yet you guys believe every word of it.
They have well over 40 full time developers + support staff, also their testers are professional and fill the job of quality assurance they are paid; 200 to 300 full time testers will do the job of 10,000 noobs admitted to beta who don't contribute to the development process.
Yeah I loved that part myself lol NPC's really sound like they will be epic in DarkFall. With a KOS list they add players and other mobs to as well as there leveling up and such and many other forms of the AI it is truely amazing. But can you truely expect less from a guy that has background doing AI type of work for the millitary lol.
This is something I have been looking out for, for a very very long time. Take all the current games as an example. EVE - if players dont complete missions then there could be a ticker showing aggro from NPCs building up. Once it hits max then an NPC fleet could end up blocking a gate which requires a very large fleet of players to clear. AoC, WAR or any fantasy game...if NPCs are left alone they should breed, expand and start gathering resources like in the RTS models. By gathering resources they start to impact on player crafting then they begin to build more weapons and develop keeps. So if left untouched they could seriously block main roads and cause disruption. Once a model like this is developed then players could support or attack factions. Imagine if a NPC keep was built and then NPC traders appeared. Players that have a good faction rating are then able to use whilst other players want to destroy it. There is your Faction vs Faction warfare as you would have players fighting on the NPC's side against players who want them dead. In a way it could create an NPC / player guild mentality.
AI is under used massively and the days of NPCs standing around waiting to be tagged have to stop because its dull and stupid. I played Tabula Rasa for 6 months because its the only game where NPCs actually act like they are living. They attack bases, run away when badly damaged and best yet the NPC soldiers fight along side you and that totally makes a game more realistic. I hated games like Vanguard where they show skeletons standing outside a wall with siege equipment and its like an eternal stand off because neither side moves or does anything. Bah...kill that gameplay already.
Sorry for rant but its a sore point.
I wasen't sarcastic. I've heard lots of valid stuff and lots of bull**** so far in my so far short visit over at the Darkfall forums.
But when we start talking about revolutionizing AI in the game aswell I become very very scared.
To my experience ANY game in history promising superhuman AI has delivered the very same stuff as always, cookie-cutter mobs you stab untill they die, nothing more. If Darkfall, in any way makes AI stand out, I will personally donate all my internal organs on E-Bay
$OE lies list
http://www.rlmmo.com/viewtopic.php?t=424&start=0
"
And I don't want to hear anything about "I don't believe in vampires" because *I* don't believe in vampires, but I believe in my own two eyes, and what *I* saw is ******* vampires! "
I wasen't sarcastic. I've heard lots of valid stuff and lots of bull**** so far in my so far short visit over at the Darkfall forums.
But when we start talking about revolutionizing AI in the game aswell I become very very scared.
To my experience ANY game in history promising superhuman AI has delivered the very same stuff as always, cookie-cutter mobs you stab untill they die, nothing more. If Darkfall, in any way makes AI stand out, I will personally donate all my internal organs on E-Bay
lol ok no worries mate, I try to be weary of sarcasm on the net for the simple fact it rarely if ever trasnlates well as text lol.
Again, you aren't answering my question of how can they afford 300 paid testers when they can only afford a small staff of 30 or 40 people.
If they had all that extra money, they would have had a much larger dev team and they would have finished this game long ago.
OMG every time i see that i think .. How stupid do you have to be.
Them saying Our AI is so advanced we dont need you to test it. hahaha.,
Again, you aren't answering my question of how can they afford 300 paid testers when they can only afford a small staff of 30 or 40 people.
If they had all that extra money, they would have had a much larger dev team and they would have finished this game long ago.
Since they have done a lot of recruiting from universities for students majoring in programing or other gaming/computer related fields I would imagine that they are doing an internship style setup. For the most part it is either free or very low pay but you get to add it to you resume. Considering many companies do this sort of thing I would see that as relatively plausable.
In any case we do not know, only Aventurine does. There is also they fact that they are subsidised a bit by the Greek goverment that that may play a factor as well as how they could afford it or even the fact that they recieved a 20 mil loan not that long ago coupled with the fact the many years it has been in development thus far as costed roughly 10mil from what they have said in recent interviews when asked.
Now as far as This goes
"OMG every time i see that i think .. How stupid do you have to be.
Them saying Our AI is so advanced we dont need you to test it. hahaha.,"
You obviously did not read. They have the AI to help as well as the Proffessional beta testers. So I don't see how thats much to laugh at considering it isn't in the context you thought it was. Having proffesional play testers as well as an AI that can help with the closed beta seems like it's a bit better approach than many current MMO's. I think AOC, War and several others maybe could have benefitted from this approach rather than having the massive ammount of bugs and tech problems they seem to have had. I may be wrong and neither may have had any problems, well on War atleast AoC I know had many lol.
Okay so I know I never post but read this.
Something that Darkfall has that other games may lack during testing is help from the AI. In Darkfall the game doesn't really distinguish between a player and the AI. The AI are bots actually living their life and skilling up within the game. The AI has been helping us test a large part of the game almost as if players were in it.
The game doesn't distinguish between the players OR the AI. Thus the AI can get the same exact errors players will get. Plus the AI are part of the game and not written code to "test" the game. They are living parts of it.
Just my 2 cents.
I don't think it's going to be as revolutionary as mobs that are indistinguishable from real players.
My understanding of it is that if you leave a mob spawns alone they get bigger over time. After a while it will spawn a champion mob and maybe some fortifications. Eventually the whole group might decide to go on the rampage and run around owning people or head to the nearest populated area for some looting and pillaging.
Also if mobs are getting their asses kicked they will attempt to run away, but other mmo's already have mobs like this. With regard to KOS lists WoW already has that, look at Timbermaw hold reputation it's basically the same thing.
Also mob spawns will not stay in the same area to have acts genocide committed on them, they will relocate somewhere else.
I'm hoping it's better than what we have seen before as it's reasonable to expect progress but I'm not expecting it to blow my socks off.