Gianna made some clarifications on her experience of Darkfall beta and to the response she got so far from fans. Seems the game is very stable so far. Also nice clarification on stealth.
3. Stealthing. I didn't mention (oops) that if you crouch and sneak up on people like that, while you don't go invisible, semi-transparent, etc., you advance silently. Having shadows turned off doesn't mean that you are particularly able to spot a guy who's using cover to sneak up on you and being clever about it, but you'll see it for yourselves when you start playing, it's something that has to be experienced and cannot be described.
This is very important and I am glad she explained somewhat how this would work.
This "review" or "preview" or whatever is a total JOKE. It's an insult to anyone who has ever been waiting for this game. This is almost as bad as the 2 italian forum mods. Wtf is it with Aventurine? Why can't they show their game to REAL gaming sites or magazines? My prediction: the game is 50% ready with working starter area and smart goblins. Everything else is unfinished and needs about 1 more year to be ready.
We've already heard that the entire world is built and populate.
Nice troll though. Enjoying WoTLK?
Wow your an idiot... We also heard open beta would be finished by the start of december. We also heard two times in the past from Aventurine that the game was ready for beta... One of those statements was from 2005!
The world would be better off if we required proof for claims made. I am not saying aventurine does not have the other areas populated. What I am saying is that it is very stupid to say
"Weve already heard that the entire world is built and populated"
solely from the word of a developer.
What we heard was Open beta would be finished Early December.
Quote: "The announcement during ADW was that the open beta phase is scheduled to end early in December."
guess you missed the part where she said that they were deliberate server wipes.
she compared DF beta to WAR 1 month after release and said DF was more stable. it's a fair comment.
It is the deliberate server wipes at this stage that concern me...so no, I did not miss anything.
I think server wipes are pretty normal: to change the focus of testing, stop testers from getting too advanced, retest functionality with new features enabled/disabled, etc
Umm... that's a fine stategy for the end of Alpha or the very beginnings of Beta.
But... Wait a second, let me make that a bit bigger.
BUT... we are 3 weeks away from Release... right?
So, with the understanding that we are 3 weeks away from Release... how is doing server wipes and "stop testers from getting too advanced" a good thing?
Or, perhaps everyone thought that Funcom's strategy of "saving" the "High-End content" as a "surprise" was a good thing? Heh... yeah that worked out pretty well for everyone didn't it?
But, I'm sure everything is going fine and if they weren't going to be able to Release in 2008 that Tasos would have told us by now. Seeing as he is so trustworthy and honorable, and above reproach.
Gotta love when people resort to saying Tasos isnt trustworthy and honorable lol. People just dont understand the world of business...though what can you expect on this kind of forum.
Newsflash: Tasos has never lied...sorry but thats a fact.
Honorable? Please. Aventurine owes you NOTHING. Take your teddy bear and false sense of entitlement and go sit in the corner.
Really Imbant? Never lied? I guess you must have an extremely fine line between lie and mislead. Please, explain to me this post forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php, by Tasos, made in 2004 stating things like "Darkfall is still in internal beta"... But wait, haven't the fanbois been spouting that the game started beta this year? or "We see the light at the end of the tunnel"... They must have super vision, because 4 years later the casual onlooker still doesn't see the light at the end of the tunnel. Did he blatently lie here? You could argue no... Tasos is good at leaving enough vagueness to never be held responsible for what he says. But in my opinion, his misleading of everyone has stumbled over the lying line.
Internal beta(which makes no sense btw, that is alpha) with beta starting "soon" as stated in 2004... which could very well be posted again today and be eaten up by all of the fanbois. If that isn't a lie, I don't know what to call it.
Tried: LotR, CoH, AoC, WAR, Jumpgate Classic Played: SWG, Guild Wars, WoW Playing: Eve Online, Counter-strike Loved: Star Wars Galaxies Waiting for: Earthrise, Guild Wars 2, anything sandbox.
Really Imbant? Never lied? I guess you must have an extremely fine line between lie and mislead. Please, explain to me this post forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php, by Tasos, made in 2004 stating things like "Darkfall is still in internal beta"... But wait, haven't the fanbois been spouting that the game started beta this year? or "We see the light at the end of the tunnel"... They must have super vision, because 4 years later the casual onlooker still doesn't see the light at the end of the tunnel. Did he blatently lie here? You could argue no... Tasos is good at leaving enough vagueness to never be held responsible for what he says. But in my opinion, his misleading of everyone has stumbled over the lying line. Internal beta(which makes no sense btw, that is alpha) with beta starting "soon" as stated in 2004... which could very well be posted again today and be eaten up by all of the fanbois. If that isn't a lie, I don't know what to call it.
You just could be more honest and quote more of the linked source cause Tasos was very specific just in these update about the progress :
"• We're putting a lot of resources into testing and refining the combat system and the actual PvP gameplay, doing our best to make combat fluid and as much fun as possible without making it too complicated.
• We're revising the conquest system that we weren't very happy with and we've come up with several ways to improve it. We'll leave it open for further adjustment during open beta testing.
• Races: Character models, armors, weapons, architecture are completed.
• Monsters: Completed.
• Worldbuilding: We're still working on the Alfar and Mirdain areas, the Ice and the Jungle continent.
• Dungeons: We're redoing some of them that turned out less than great.
• Skills and spells are about halfway done being implemented. " 2004
Does it sound same the what is currently going on ? Did you have been honest and fair with your opinion about Tasos lying ?
-----MY-TERMS-OF-USE-------------------------------------------------- $OE - eternal enemy of online gaming -We finally WON !!!! 2011 $OE accepted that they have been fired 2005 by the playerbase and closed down ridiculous NGE !!
"There was suppression of speech and all kinds of things between disturbing and fascistic." Raph Koster (parted $OE)
guess you missed the part where she said that they were deliberate server wipes.
she compared DF beta to WAR 1 month after release and said DF was more stable. it's a fair comment.
It is the deliberate server wipes at this stage that concern me...so no, I did not miss anything.
I think server wipes are pretty normal: to change the focus of testing, stop testers from getting too advanced, retest functionality with new features enabled/disabled, etc
Umm... that's a fine stategy for the end of Alpha or the very beginnings of Beta.
But... Wait a second, let me make that a bit bigger.
BUT... we are 3 weeks away from Release... right?
So, with the understanding that we are 3 weeks away from Release... how is doing server wipes and "stop testers from getting too advanced" a good thing?
Or, perhaps everyone thought that Funcom's strategy of "saving" the "High-End content" as a "surprise" was a good thing? Heh... yeah that worked out pretty well for everyone didn't it?
But, I'm sure everything is going fine and if they weren't going to be able to Release in 2008 that Tasos would have told us by now. Seeing as he is so trustworthy and honorable, and above reproach.
Gotta love when people resort to saying Tasos isnt trustworthy and honorable lol. People just dont understand the world of business...though what can you expect on this kind of forum.
Newsflash: Tasos has never lied...sorry but thats a fact.
Honorable? Please. Aventurine owes you NOTHING. Take your teddy bear and false sense of entitlement and go sit in the corner.
Gotta love it when people have to resort to attacks on the poster because they can't admit when the point is correct.
Don't worry, I'm sure we'll all be playing OPEN Beta and the Release... Soon.
So you gotta love when people do exactly what you are doing?
Sorry if YOU cant admit it but i did address your points and this post of yours is ignoring the points I made.
Sorry but Tasos has never lied and you are not entitled to anything. Thats the point. You know its true and dont want to admit it.
And we will be in game soon...i would much rather it be delayed to q1 09 if it has to be. Sorry if you are rooting for it to fail and be just like the AoC and WARs of the world that released too early.
Sure o.k. fine you win.
I still think that not letting Beta Testers progress past just the basic starting levels without resetting them is odd for a game that is 3 weeks away from release though. But yeah, as you said you addressed that point.
It's funny what we actually consider a LIE in society..
Tasos hasn't "lied" but he hasn't been honest. When suggesting an open beta happening this "year".. and it not materalizing, everyone says "he didn't SAY it was going to happen.."
I liken it to a robber shooting someone witha gun. The police ask "Did you kill him?" and the robber replies, "no, I did not"..
In fact, the robber did NOT kill the guy.. the bullet did..
"Luckily I know that while you make nonsnese baiting threads that get locked....threads I make get sticked by the mods on this forum...." -imbant (greatest board warrior EVER) Darkfall Countdown: http://darkfallreleasedate.com/
Really Imbant? Never lied? I guess you must have an extremely fine line between lie and mislead. Please, explain to me this post forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php, by Tasos, made in 2004 stating things like "Darkfall is still in internal beta"... But wait, haven't the fanbois been spouting that the game started beta this year? or "We see the light at the end of the tunnel"... They must have super vision, because 4 years later the casual onlooker still doesn't see the light at the end of the tunnel. Did he blatently lie here? You could argue no... Tasos is good at leaving enough vagueness to never be held responsible for what he says. But in my opinion, his misleading of everyone has stumbled over the lying line. Internal beta(which makes no sense btw, that is alpha) with beta starting "soon" as stated in 2004... which could very well be posted again today and be eaten up by all of the fanbois. If that isn't a lie, I don't know what to call it.
You just could be more honest and quote more of the linked source cause Tasos was very specific just in these update about the progress :
"• We're putting a lot of resources into testing and refining the combat system and the actual PvP gameplay, doing our best to make combat fluid and as much fun as possible without making it too complicated.
• We're revising the conquest system that we weren't very happy with and we've come up with several ways to improve it. We'll leave it open for further adjustment during open beta testing.
• Races: Character models, armors, weapons, architecture are completed.
• Monsters: Completed.
• Worldbuilding: We're still working on the Alfar and Mirdain areas, the Ice and the Jungle continent.
• Dungeons: We're redoing some of them that turned out less than great.
• Skills and spells are about halfway done being implemented. " 2004
Does it sound same the what is currently going on ? Did you have been honest and fair with your opinion about Tasos lying ?
No, it wouldn't be exactly the same, as he already used those excuses. Obviously if he were to make this same statment today he would make up some other feature that "they just aren't happy with" or "needs a little more refining". Those are just fluff, little tidbits to reassure people that progress is being made, when really we have absolutely no idea if they were actually working on that or not. But if you read the whole post, Tasos makes it sound as though there were a couple things that needed a little fixing but beyond that the game was ready for beta. That was a lie, because that was 4 years ago, and here we are still in the exact same situation. Tasos claims the game is ready to roll, it is in internal testing(no proof it isn't(no, 3 outside people play testing the game does not count as them being in beta)), and open beta is imminent.
Tried: LotR, CoH, AoC, WAR, Jumpgate Classic Played: SWG, Guild Wars, WoW Playing: Eve Online, Counter-strike Loved: Star Wars Galaxies Waiting for: Earthrise, Guild Wars 2, anything sandbox.
Why all this pussyfooting about at this stage of the game? Holding a NDA so close to the supposed release in my experience normally means the truth is somewhat different to the PR they've been preaching... Though, they do claim they will allow us to try before we buy. So if they keep their word this may not be another Funcom misinformation tactic to increase retail sales with a war mount thrown in. So it will be interesting to see how this unfolds.
I predict release not happening by Dec 31. NDAing the early stage of beta is IMO understandable and normal, because we all know how gamers like to get carried away on forums over minute irrelevant minutia
Ýou're right, release is the 22th of january 2009.
It's funny what we actually consider a LIE in society.. Tasos hasn't "lied" but he hasn't been honest. When suggesting an open beta happening this "year".. and it not materalizing, everyone says "he didn't SAY it was going to happen.." I liken it to a robber shooting someone witha gun. The police ask "Did you kill him?" and the robber replies, "no, I did not".. In fact, the robber did NOT kill the guy.. the bullet did..
How can you not be honest and not lie? Now on the dates that he said they were going to launch and it didn't happen. He could be lying because he knows that it wont happen and he just said it to deceive or maybe they thought they could do it but they didn't make the deadline. The 2nd of the two I don't consider a lie.
Lie: a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive; an intentional untruth; a falsehood.
2. something intended or serving to convey a false impression; imposture: His flashy car was a lie that deceived no one.
3. an inaccurate or false statement.
Now about the robber killing someone, yes the bullet may have been the object that killed the person but that bullet can't decide Im goign to kill this person. So even though the the robber physically didn't kill the person he used something to kill the person and Is responsible for the guns actions.
Thus the saying "Guns don't kill people, people kill people."
Why all this pussyfooting about at this stage of the game? Holding a NDA so close to the supposed release in my experience normally means the truth is somewhat different to the PR they've been preaching... Though, they do claim they will allow us to try before we buy. So if they keep their word this may not be another Funcom misinformation tactic to increase retail sales with a war mount thrown in. So it will be interesting to see how this unfolds.
I predict release not happening by Dec 31. NDAing the early stage of beta is IMO understandable and normal, because we all know how gamers like to get carried away on forums over minute irrelevant minutia
Ýou're right, release is the 22th of january 2009.
here here!
Oh no they missed their release goal by 22 days....that is so not worth me waiting anymore for a potential quality MMO that caters to type of gameplay me and other gamers have been craving for awhile.
They have stolen from me with this delay! except that they havent...in any ways...whatsoever
"The monsters are tough. I was looking for a challenge, but these things are just too damn smart." -DF Beta Tester
"If people were dismissing it, then they wouldn't be talking about it. The well-meaning gamers root for efforts that try to raise the bar. So who's left? It's so easy being a skeptic." -Tasos
whatever, hype level for DF is what like 8.40? Another review like this one and we may get 8.80 in about a week.
edit: it's 8.41 whoohoo
hype meter has been scewed and broken forever....not too long ago they were all in the 6 something range and magically all went up into the 8 range.
in before someone says that the proven 28 people from the o boards made a difference in attacking the hype meter that consists of over 4000 votes....that still cracks me up
"The monsters are tough. I was looking for a challenge, but these things are just too damn smart." -DF Beta Tester
"If people were dismissing it, then they wouldn't be talking about it. The well-meaning gamers root for efforts that try to raise the bar. So who's left? It's so easy being a skeptic." -Tasos
Comments
This is very important and I am glad she explained somewhat how this would work.
We've already heard that the entire world is built and populate.
Nice troll though. Enjoying WoTLK?
Wow your an idiot... We also heard open beta would be finished by the start of december. We also heard two times in the past from Aventurine that the game was ready for beta... One of those statements was from 2005!
The world would be better off if we required proof for claims made. I am not saying aventurine does not have the other areas populated. What I am saying is that it is very stupid to say
"Weve already heard that the entire world is built and populated"
solely from the word of a developer.
What we heard was Open beta would be finished Early December.
Quote: "The announcement during ADW was that the open beta phase is scheduled to end early in December."
Source:
http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?t=77544
Shaar had said finished by the start of December.
Tasos said it would be finished Early December.
It is the deliberate server wipes at this stage that concern me...so no, I did not miss anything.
I think server wipes are pretty normal: to change the focus of testing, stop testers from getting too advanced, retest functionality with new features enabled/disabled, etc
Umm... that's a fine stategy for the end of Alpha or the very beginnings of Beta.
But... Wait a second, let me make that a bit bigger.
BUT... we are 3 weeks away from Release... right?
So, with the understanding that we are 3 weeks away from Release... how is doing server wipes and "stop testers from getting too advanced" a good thing?
Or, perhaps everyone thought that Funcom's strategy of "saving" the "High-End content" as a "surprise" was a good thing? Heh... yeah that worked out pretty well for everyone didn't it?
But, I'm sure everything is going fine and if they weren't going to be able to Release in 2008 that Tasos would have told us by now. Seeing as he is so trustworthy and honorable, and above reproach.
Gotta love when people resort to saying Tasos isnt trustworthy and honorable lol. People just dont understand the world of business...though what can you expect on this kind of forum.
Newsflash: Tasos has never lied...sorry but thats a fact.
Honorable? Please. Aventurine owes you NOTHING. Take your teddy bear and false sense of entitlement and go sit in the corner.
Really Imbant? Never lied? I guess you must have an extremely fine line between lie and mislead. Please, explain to me this post forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php, by Tasos, made in 2004 stating things like "Darkfall is still in internal beta"... But wait, haven't the fanbois been spouting that the game started beta this year? or "We see the light at the end of the tunnel"... They must have super vision, because 4 years later the casual onlooker still doesn't see the light at the end of the tunnel. Did he blatently lie here? You could argue no... Tasos is good at leaving enough vagueness to never be held responsible for what he says. But in my opinion, his misleading of everyone has stumbled over the lying line.
Internal beta(which makes no sense btw, that is alpha) with beta starting "soon" as stated in 2004... which could very well be posted again today and be eaten up by all of the fanbois. If that isn't a lie, I don't know what to call it.
Tried: LotR, CoH, AoC, WAR, Jumpgate Classic
Played: SWG, Guild Wars, WoW
Playing: Eve Online, Counter-strike
Loved: Star Wars Galaxies
Waiting for: Earthrise, Guild Wars 2, anything sandbox.
You just could be more honest and quote more of the linked source cause Tasos was very specific just in these update about the progress :
"• We're putting a lot of resources into testing and refining the combat system and the actual PvP gameplay, doing our best to make combat fluid and as much fun as possible without making it too complicated.
• We're revising the conquest system that we weren't very happy with and we've come up with several ways to improve it. We'll leave it open for further adjustment during open beta testing.
• Races: Character models, armors, weapons, architecture are completed.
• Monsters: Completed.
• Worldbuilding: We're still working on the Alfar and Mirdain areas, the Ice and the Jungle continent.
• Dungeons: We're redoing some of them that turned out less than great.
• Skills and spells are about halfway done being implemented. " 2004
Does it sound same the what is currently going on ? Did you have been honest and fair with your opinion about Tasos lying ?
-----MY-TERMS-OF-USE--------------------------------------------------
$OE - eternal enemy of online gaming
-We finally WON !!!! 2011 $OE accepted that they have been fired 2005 by the playerbase and closed down ridiculous NGE !!
"There was suppression of speech and all kinds of things between disturbing and fascistic." Raph Koster (parted $OE)
It is the deliberate server wipes at this stage that concern me...so no, I did not miss anything.
I think server wipes are pretty normal: to change the focus of testing, stop testers from getting too advanced, retest functionality with new features enabled/disabled, etc
Umm... that's a fine stategy for the end of Alpha or the very beginnings of Beta.
But... Wait a second, let me make that a bit bigger.
BUT... we are 3 weeks away from Release... right?
So, with the understanding that we are 3 weeks away from Release... how is doing server wipes and "stop testers from getting too advanced" a good thing?
Or, perhaps everyone thought that Funcom's strategy of "saving" the "High-End content" as a "surprise" was a good thing? Heh... yeah that worked out pretty well for everyone didn't it?
But, I'm sure everything is going fine and if they weren't going to be able to Release in 2008 that Tasos would have told us by now. Seeing as he is so trustworthy and honorable, and above reproach.
Gotta love when people resort to saying Tasos isnt trustworthy and honorable lol. People just dont understand the world of business...though what can you expect on this kind of forum.
Newsflash: Tasos has never lied...sorry but thats a fact.
Honorable? Please. Aventurine owes you NOTHING. Take your teddy bear and false sense of entitlement and go sit in the corner.
Gotta love it when people have to resort to attacks on the poster because they can't admit when the point is correct.
Don't worry, I'm sure we'll all be playing OPEN Beta and the Release... Soon.
So you gotta love when people do exactly what you are doing?
Sorry if YOU cant admit it but i did address your points and this post of yours is ignoring the points I made.
Sorry but Tasos has never lied and you are not entitled to anything. Thats the point. You know its true and dont want to admit it.
And we will be in game soon...i would much rather it be delayed to q1 09 if it has to be. Sorry if you are rooting for it to fail and be just like the AoC and WARs of the world that released too early.
Sure o.k. fine you win.
I still think that not letting Beta Testers progress past just the basic starting levels without resetting them is odd for a game that is 3 weeks away from release though. But yeah, as you said you addressed that point.
It's funny what we actually consider a LIE in society..
Tasos hasn't "lied" but he hasn't been honest. When suggesting an open beta happening this "year".. and it not materalizing, everyone says "he didn't SAY it was going to happen.."
I liken it to a robber shooting someone witha gun. The police ask "Did you kill him?" and the robber replies, "no, I did not"..
In fact, the robber did NOT kill the guy.. the bullet did..
"Luckily I know that while you make nonsnese baiting threads that get locked....threads I make get sticked by the mods on this forum...." -imbant (greatest board warrior EVER)
Darkfall Countdown: http://darkfallreleasedate.com/
You just could be more honest and quote more of the linked source cause Tasos was very specific just in these update about the progress :
"• We're putting a lot of resources into testing and refining the combat system and the actual PvP gameplay, doing our best to make combat fluid and as much fun as possible without making it too complicated.
• We're revising the conquest system that we weren't very happy with and we've come up with several ways to improve it. We'll leave it open for further adjustment during open beta testing.
• Races: Character models, armors, weapons, architecture are completed.
• Monsters: Completed.
• Worldbuilding: We're still working on the Alfar and Mirdain areas, the Ice and the Jungle continent.
• Dungeons: We're redoing some of them that turned out less than great.
• Skills and spells are about halfway done being implemented. " 2004
Does it sound same the what is currently going on ? Did you have been honest and fair with your opinion about Tasos lying ?
No, it wouldn't be exactly the same, as he already used those excuses. Obviously if he were to make this same statment today he would make up some other feature that "they just aren't happy with" or "needs a little more refining". Those are just fluff, little tidbits to reassure people that progress is being made, when really we have absolutely no idea if they were actually working on that or not. But if you read the whole post, Tasos makes it sound as though there were a couple things that needed a little fixing but beyond that the game was ready for beta. That was a lie, because that was 4 years ago, and here we are still in the exact same situation. Tasos claims the game is ready to roll, it is in internal testing(no proof it isn't(no, 3 outside people play testing the game does not count as them being in beta)), and open beta is imminent.
Tried: LotR, CoH, AoC, WAR, Jumpgate Classic
Played: SWG, Guild Wars, WoW
Playing: Eve Online, Counter-strike
Loved: Star Wars Galaxies
Waiting for: Earthrise, Guild Wars 2, anything sandbox.
whatever, hype level for DF is what like 8.40? Another review like this one and we may get 8.80 in about a week.
edit: it's 8.41 whoohoo
the funniest thing is that Darkfall has the mmorpg trolls to thank for getting the word out there.
tasos has played those guys like puppets.
I predict release not happening by Dec 31. NDAing the early stage of beta is IMO understandable and normal, because we all know how gamers like to get carried away on forums over minute irrelevant minutia
Ýou're right, release is the 22th of january 2009.
How can you not be honest and not lie? Now on the dates that he said they were going to launch and it didn't happen. He could be lying because he knows that it wont happen and he just said it to deceive or maybe they thought they could do it but they didn't make the deadline. The 2nd of the two I don't consider a lie.
Lie: a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive; an intentional untruth; a falsehood.
2. something intended or serving to convey a false impression; imposture: His flashy car was a lie that deceived no one.
3. an inaccurate or false statement.
Now about the robber killing someone, yes the bullet may have been the object that killed the person but that bullet can't decide Im goign to kill this person. So even though the the robber physically didn't kill the person he used something to kill the person and Is responsible for the guns actions.
Thus the saying "Guns don't kill people, people kill people."
I predict release not happening by Dec 31. NDAing the early stage of beta is IMO understandable and normal, because we all know how gamers like to get carried away on forums over minute irrelevant minutia
Ýou're right, release is the 22th of january 2009.
here here!
Oh no they missed their release goal by 22 days....that is so not worth me waiting anymore for a potential quality MMO that caters to type of gameplay me and other gamers have been craving for awhile.
They have stolen from me with this delay! except that they havent...in any ways...whatsoever
~~
Darkfall Releases on: February 25th, 2009
Darkfall Recap of everything that has happened the last 3 months: http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/213296
"The monsters are tough. I was looking for a challenge, but these things are just too damn smart." -DF Beta Tester
"If people were dismissing it, then they wouldn't be talking about it. The well-meaning gamers root for efforts that try to raise the bar. So who's left? It's so easy being a skeptic." -Tasos
hype meter has been scewed and broken forever....not too long ago they were all in the 6 something range and magically all went up into the 8 range.
in before someone says that the proven 28 people from the o boards made a difference in attacking the hype meter that consists of over 4000 votes....that still cracks me up
~~
Darkfall Releases on: February 25th, 2009
Darkfall Recap of everything that has happened the last 3 months: http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/213296
"The monsters are tough. I was looking for a challenge, but these things are just too damn smart." -DF Beta Tester
"If people were dismissing it, then they wouldn't be talking about it. The well-meaning gamers root for efforts that try to raise the bar. So who's left? It's so easy being a skeptic." -Tasos