I believe MMORPG.com should change the status of this game back to in development as it has not truely released yet. My arguments: I can not purchase the game. Therefore is it truely released?
There is no official announcement anywhere about it being released on the official website.
Having less then 20k people playing sounds more like a Beta or trial then a release to me.
Only 1 server. How can a game release with such little hardware?
No customer service or support that I can find.
Prove to me without a doubt that this game is avaible to the public! I can find no method to purchase this game. I have yet to see any website or brick and mortar store selling this game.
Its an indie developer. Please someone give me a company their game name and the amount of employees they had, whom had less tahn 30 employees who were able make a successfull launch on a sandboxed full PVP twitch combat MMORPG.
Really its getting sad to see everyone knocking this game cause of the rocky launch. Just in terms of quality this game has is alot better than its getting credit for in terms of Price to performance. This company went from 12 dev's to a whopping 28 and been actually developing the game in 5 years (They scratched it 3 years into then started up again 5 - 5 1/2 years ago). They were able to make a full MMORPG in the same time blizzards 200+ employees were able to make a generic version of Diablo II 3D.
With an indie developer comes not only flaws (Compared to a corporation) and risks (Thats where "we" come in). And in time this will be sorted out but instead of yelling at the storm to not be so windy learn that you gotta ride the waves.
People on this forum keep throwing around the words, "indie developer" like its a get-out-of-jail-for-free card for any mistakes the company makes.
Someone on this forum once said that Aventurine is an indie company charging mainstream prices. If they're going to charge mainstream prices, they should be treated like a mainstream company.
Credits to the guy who said this, because I couldn't agree more.
Let's use the Funcom steak/hamburger analogy for example...
Funcom refered to Age of Conan as a steak, and World of Warcraft as a hamburger. People prefer steaks over hamburgers, yes? So people should prefer Age of conan over World of Warcraft.
The problem is that steaks cost more than hamburgers, but Age of Conan costed as much as World of Warcraft.
So what does that make Conan? A hamburger trying to act like a steak, and failing.
I'm going to try and incorporate Darkfall in to this analogy.
Think of hamburgers as indie companies, and steaks as mainstream companies.
Darkfall is a hamburger pretending to be a steak. It's trying to do all of the things a steak can do, but it fails because it's a hamburger.
Why does it fail? Because a hamburger is a hamburger. When it tries to be something else, it'll mess up.
When Aventurine tried to act like a mainstream company, charging mainstream prices for their product, charging mainstream monthly fees, they accepted the responsibilites to be treated like a mainstream company/steak.
But the problem is that now people are going to start comparing a greasy, sick hamburger with ketchup and mustard to a tasty grilled steak with A1 sauce.
If the hamburger/indie company can't handle being compared to steaks/mainstream companies, then maybe they should go back to acting like what they really are, an indie company/hamburger.
Charge indie prices for their game ($20.00-$30.00), and indie monthly fees ($5.00-$10.00).
Once they start doing that, they'll have an excuse for all of their slack.
I believe MMORPG.com should change the status of this game back to in development as it has not truely released yet. My arguments: I can not purchase the game. Therefore is it truely released?
There is no official announcement anywhere about it being released on the official website.
Having less then 20k people playing sounds more like a Beta or trial then a release to me.
Only 1 server. How can a game release with such little hardware?
No customer service or support that I can find.
Prove to me without a doubt that this game is avaible to the public! I can find no method to purchase this game. I have yet to see any website or brick and mortar store selling this game.
This game never released. Fanbois just buy all the crap Aventurine is feeding them. An intelligent observer would tick off the points you mentioned and conclude, negative... there was no release. Just a bunch of suckers duped into paying Tasos's bills for a couple more months.
You should have pre-ordered the game if you really wanted to play it, I mean I wouldn't - and I'm sure you wouldn't either, since the way you put out your post.
I'm sure the game is soon available through some direct download store or something if you really want it so much, I doubt you can get it from any store shelf directly.
And isn't Eve Online only 1 server? The "so little hardware" means it has clusters of machines to work as a one big server, I think Aventurine is aiming for something like that.
And unfortunately the release was like it was, I'm sure you'll get over it. I'm sure MMORPG.com don't have to prove anything to you, you just have to use some of that common sense. The game is out, though the state of the game is bit "unfinished".
C'mon, we all know Darkfall is what it is. Bitching, moaning and wallowing the same old news isn't going to change anything. Even us pro-Trolls know it. You should rest now, get your shit out of here and wait for another messed up mmorpg-launch.
Im not saying their an INdie developer so dont give them ANY crap. But alot of peeps are basing their idea of the game based on the launch of the game. Yes their having a rocky launch and having trouble dealing with the massive amounts of hits their game is taking. But the fact of the matter is they're doing the best in their power to deal with it. Now I know for a fact that as a business their not handling it as well as they should. But in time people will learn to realize they're taking a huge risk (just as much as people buying the game are taking a huge risk) as trying to break the mold (There are other games, mortal online, earth rise, and others I might not know about that are finaly coming out). And they SHOULD be given crap because of their failure to handle this. But at the same time alot of people dont understand what they were able to create with the low employee base they have.
Darkfall, in itself, is a solid game with great gameplay (If you base your experience with the combat via videos kill yourself now) and you gotta try it out to fully understand how fun it really is. A few months down the road when their able to increase their employee base, release some big patches and really bring Darkfall to a shining glory then KUDOS to them for being able to start up a company from nothing and really bring something new to the MMO world. At the same time if they blow up and everyone loses their money because the company flops, then thats the chance we all gotta take.
All we need to do is look at reviews and post about the game release, play, support and based on that buy or not. Wether they are a large or small company, or even that they did this on a low budget doesn't really matter to the gamer. All the gamer wants is a stable game that was better than the last one.
in all games I have seen the fanboys blow thier trumpet supporting the game asking for patience and just wait. This is always down to the fanboys have gave so much time and expectations to the game its hard to see the light sometimes.
As it stands now from the website, how to buy, the release, just looks like a couple of guys threw this together in a bedroom.
Look at AOC, great game, superb graphics and due to crap support the game basically went from big to small. Game companies need to learn about getting it right or they lose.
BTW it also worries me about it being client sided as no company has managed to prevent blatant haxxors (we are not talking about bugs, or exploits).
All in all I was hoping to play this but looking at others now. Sorry honest opinion.
All we need to do is look at reviews and post about the game release, play, support and based on that buy or not. Wether they are a large or small company, or even that they did this on a low budget doesn't really matter to the gamer. All the gamer wants is a stable game that was better than the last one.
in all games I have seen the fanboys blow thier trumpet supporting the game asking for patience and just wait. This is always down to the fanboys have gave so much time and expectations to the game its hard to see the light sometimes.
As it stands now from the website, how to buy, the release, just looks like a couple of guys threw this together in a bedroom.
Look at AOC, great game, superb graphics and due to crap support the game basically went from big to small. Game companies need to learn about getting it right or they lose. BTW it also worries me about it being client sided as no company has managed to prevent blatant haxxors (we are not talking about bugs, or exploits).
All in all I was hoping to play this but looking at others now. Sorry honest opinion.
I didnt say you HAVE to take a chance, merely stating that if you buy a game, in this case this game, your taking a chance. Like for instance i pre-ordered Auto-Assault, took a chance and lost. WIth Darkfall if you buy the game, either way your taking a chance even 3 months down the road.
I played in beta and i can tell you str8 up it was a very stable game. AoC didnt have what Darkfall has in terms of alot of factors. Yes Darkfall can take a few months before becoming all it should be, then from there grow. But my whole thing is people basing the game Darkfall off of the actions of Aventurine not being able to support the massive load their going with the ordering and Sales.
Now the game works fine and is released, and sales have opened.
Hellfire london had to do a server reset after launch.
And thats only the most recent example of crappy MMO launches.
Furthermore Darkfall is not in Beta, it has some thigns that needs to be straightend out like some menu buttons that needs to be removed and minor stuff like that.
Other then that, and even counting that, its JUST as ready as any other mmo on release.
All MMOs are a work in progress and all MMOs get better over time, but the game is solid, its stable, it has content for every progression of the game and everything works well. Thats not a beta.
I didnt say you HAVE to take a chance, merely stating that if you buy a game, in this case this game, your taking a chance. Like for instance i pre-ordered Auto-Assault, took a chance and lost. WIth Darkfall if you buy the game, either way your taking a chance even 3 months down the road.
I played in beta and i can tell you str8 up it was a very stable game. AoC didnt have what Darkfall has in terms of alot of factors. Yes Darkfall can take a few months before becoming all it should be, then from there grow. But my whole thing is people basing the game Darkfall off of the actions of Aventurine not being able to support the massive load their going with the ordering and Sales.
I can assure you the game isnt CLIENT SIDE.
This argument is flawed. Its always true that any action involves risk. By typing here you risk suddenly dying of a stroke. But what are the odds that it will happen? At least I am not worried about it.
Why should we not bring in the behaviour of the developer in accessing the odds we face when considering their product. Oh great, we have here a developer that is worst than amateur, who makes wild claims and delivers nothing to prove it. Their long list of claims, and an empty world. Their AI testing and now they cannot even launch the game for 5k players. Enuf said. And you demand that I ignore all their past record and plunge ahead with faith? Does that not contradict your first paragraph? Its risky and by all measures the worst case for risk management. My money is safer in my pocket and I lose nothing, cos the game is not yet playable to me.
You assure me its a stable game, its not client side. Ok that contradicts with a lot of other people's view. But I come to wonder, how do you know its not client side? You already hacked it? While I cannot prove that it is client side is used to process mission critical tasks, I know thru my schoolday books that every distributed processing system involves some form of client side processing, or else it is a dumb terminal. It is the allocation of tasks between client and server that makes and breaks the system. If the game is not client side what is it? The server paint the screen and feeds your display card with bitmaps for display?
But yeah OMGWTFBBQ category does this game fit into? Is a game released if only a few people can actually purchase it ? Is it released if basic elements sucy as stress testing have not yet been performed ?
If I was feeling cruel I'd say but DF in the "point & laugh corner"... but my cold is dieing and I am feeling mroe constructive. Maybe we need an indie MMO section... whatever indie is defined as
I believe MMORPG.com should change the status of this game back to in development as it has not truely released yet. My arguments: I can not purchase the game. Therefore is it truely released?
There is no official announcement anywhere about it being released on the official website.
Having less then 20k people playing sounds more like a Beta or trial then a release to me.
Only 1 server. How can a game release with such little hardware?
No customer service or support that I can find.
Prove to me without a doubt that this game is avaible to the public! I can find no method to purchase this game. I have yet to see any website or brick and mortar store selling this game.
I am playing the game. If this is, indeed, an unfinished beta version, I simply cannot imagine how great the release version will likely be...
(No, this is not a beta version and the game, already, is far ahead, in terms of fun, than any other online game that I have personally ever played.)
Someone on this forum once said that Aventurine is an indie company charging mainstream prices. If they're going to charge mainstream prices, they should be treated like a mainstream company. ...
When Aventurine tried to act like a mainstream company, charging mainstream prices for their product, charging mainstream monthly fees, they accepted the responsibilites to be treated like a mainstream company/steak. ...
Charge indie prices for their game ($20.00-$30.00), and indie monthly fees ($5.00-$10.00). Once they start doing that, they'll have an excuse for all of their slack.
What makes you think that, being an indy company, they can afford lower prices ?
Let me explain: take two games, one is an AAA title with a 50 millions dollars budget, the second one is an indy title with a 1 million dollars budget.
Both games are sold at the same price: 50$.
The first game sells 1 million copies , while the second game sells 20K copies.
If you calculate the net income, you'll find that they both exactly cover their development cost. But the indy game had to be sold at a full AAA price to achieve that. If it were sold at 20$, it would have lost a lot of money, and the company would have closed.
That's for the box price / fixed fee. What about the monthly fee ? Do you think hardware, bandwith, customer support, etc.. is cheaper for indies ? "No, but they need less servers and bandwith", will you say. True, but they also have less players to pay for those servers and bandwith, so it compensates. It's all relative. The "cost per player" ( amount of money each active player is costing to the company ) is roughly equivalent, whether this player is playing on an AAA title or an indy title. It would make little business/logic sense to reduce the price just because you're an indie IMO.
Whatever the 'true' story is about DF, with all of the negativity and problems with release, I think that DF will struggle. Gamers tend to be impatient, and a lot of games have never fully recovered bungled releases. A lot of games have done poorly even with decent releases. With DF the negativity seems to be coming even faster and earlier than in other releases. That doesn't bode well.
Back in EvE. Started with BatMUD. Main MMOs have been EvE and DAoC.
And isn't Eve Online only 1 server? The "so little hardware" means it has clusters of machines to work as a one big server, I think Aventurine is aiming for something like that.
Eve's server: Virtually unlimited amount of players
DFO's Server: Official 10k Cap
aka No comparison
I need a new MMO world to call home as Tom Chilton keeps destroying them
I believe MMORPG.com should change the status of this game back to in development as it has not truely released yet. My arguments: I can not purchase the game. Therefore is it truely released?
There is no official announcement anywhere about it being released on the official website.
Having less then 20k people playing sounds more like a Beta or trial then a release to me.
Only 1 server. How can a game release with such little hardware?
No customer service or support that I can find.
Prove to me without a doubt that this game is avaible to the public! I can find no method to purchase this game. I have yet to see any website or brick and mortar store selling this game.
Here's the bottom line: The game has launched. The company told us that the game had launched and people are paying to play it at the full monthly rate.
The other things that you mentioned: lack of availability, population, servers... while those may be valid concerns, the simply don't impact the game's classification. Those are business decisions made by a company. In the end, if people are paying full price for your game, you've launched your game.
Someone on this forum once said that Aventurine is an indie company charging mainstream prices. If they're going to charge mainstream prices, they should be treated like a mainstream company. ...
When Aventurine tried to act like a mainstream company, charging mainstream prices for their product, charging mainstream monthly fees, they accepted the responsibilites to be treated like a mainstream company/steak. ...
Charge indie prices for their game ($20.00-$30.00), and indie monthly fees ($5.00-$10.00). Once they start doing that, they'll have an excuse for all of their slack.
What makes you think that, being an indy company, they can afford lower prices ?
Let me explain: take two games, one is an AAA title with a 50 millions dollars budget, the second one is an indy title with a 1 million dollars budget.
Both games are sold at the same price: 50$.
The first game sells 1 million copies , while the second game sells 20K copies.
If you calculate the net income, you'll find that they both exactly cover their development cost. But the indy game had to be sold at a full AAA price to achieve that. If it were sold at 20$, it would have lost a lot of money, and the company would have closed.
That's for the box price / fixed fee. What about the monthly fee ? Do you think hardware, bandwith, customer support, etc.. is cheaper for indies ? "No, but they need less servers and bandwith", will you say. True, but they also have less players to pay for those servers and bandwith, so it compensates. It's all relative. The "cost per player" ( amount of money each active player is costing to the company ) is roughly equivalent, whether this player is playing on an AAA title or an indy title. It would make little business/logic sense to reduce the price just because you're an indie IMO.
So you will walk into a motorway diner/rundown cafe/take a way joint and pay 5 star resturant prices without a quibble?
Because that's what you are saying
I need a new MMO world to call home as Tom Chilton keeps destroying them
Someone on this forum once said that Aventurine is an indie company charging mainstream prices. If they're going to charge mainstream prices, they should be treated like a mainstream company. ...
When Aventurine tried to act like a mainstream company, charging mainstream prices for their product, charging mainstream monthly fees, they accepted the responsibilites to be treated like a mainstream company/steak. ...
Charge indie prices for their game ($20.00-$30.00), and indie monthly fees ($5.00-$10.00). Once they start doing that, they'll have an excuse for all of their slack.
What makes you think that, being an indy company, they can afford lower prices ?
Let me explain: take two games, one is an AAA title with a 50 millions dollars budget, the second one is an indy title with a 1 million dollars budget.
Both games are sold at the same price: 50$.
The first game sells 1 million copies , while the second game sells 20K copies.
If you calculate the net income, you'll find that they both exactly cover their development cost. But the indy game had to be sold at a full AAA price to achieve that. If it were sold at 20$, it would have lost a lot of money, and the company would have closed.
That's for the box price / fixed fee. What about the monthly fee ? Do you think hardware, bandwith, customer support, etc.. is cheaper for indies ? "No, but they need less servers and bandwith", will you say. True, but they also have less players to pay for those servers and bandwith, so it compensates. It's all relative. The "cost per player" ( amount of money each active player is costing to the company ) is roughly equivalent, whether this player is playing on an AAA title or an indy title. It would make little business/logic sense to reduce the price just because you're an indie IMO.
So you will walk into a motorway diner/rundown cafe/take a way joint and pay 5 star resturant prices without a quibble?
Because that's what you are saying
If the food is just as good or better, yes I will.
The problem IMHO is that the MMORPG.com rules listed here are out of date
Does it meet our requirements? 1. Make sure that the game isn't already on our list. We know that this sounds simple, but there are a lot fo them and sometimes they get overlooked.
This one is okay.
2. The game must be based entirely inside of a graphical world. 3D, 2D and 2.5D games are all welcome on our list, but unfortunately we are unable at this time to provide listing for text-based MUDs.
Graphical World. This is no longer the challenge it was. There are tools and engines available on the internet now that put the development of a graphical world within the reach of 'advanced users' (no longer strictly the domain of professionals). A talented teenager can develop a 3D world now. Not that this is a bad thing - but it does mean that this rule should be re-examined.
3. The game should have the capability to support at least 500 congruent users on a single server. This is not a reflection of the game's current subscriber count, but rather reflects the capabilities of a game's technology.
500 players? Another area for re-examination perhaps? 500 players is nothing when you are effectively marketing globally the instant you put up a website.
4. The game must include some form of graphical common area where players can interact with one another inside of the persistent game world. This excludes lobby and chat room based interaction.
Needs definition. I could argue that the "travel map" in PotBS is nothing more than a 'graphical lobby' for example. Looks like The Agency is built around a similar idea too.
5. The game must make use of persistent characters. This means that you should be able to log in after logging out and find your character as advanced as you left them (or more).
Data is cheap. Persistent Characters? This is no more than a SAVE GAME feature?
How about a persistent presence in the game world that other players can interact with while you are logged out?
6. The game must contain some form of character advancement.
Very subjective.
*A visual representation of the game, a transparent .psd of your game's logo, a textual overview of your game, *a professional website, name of publisher, name of developer, press contact information. It can also be helpful (but is not required) to provide us with a 1,000 word + developer journal introducing the MMORPG.com readers to your game. Just a general overview of what the game is about and some information about what you feel are the stand-out features of your game. *A visual representation of the game 3-5 Screenshots: These screenshots must be in-engine, un-doctored screenshots. They must be representative of what a player would see when playing the game.
Again, nothing too hard here. A couple of hours on Photoshop?
Note that even Stradden admitted that while "Press Contact Information" is required this does not mean that they have to reply. *Website Requirements All games to be listed at MMORPG.com must have an active, professional website. The site must be completely free of pop-up ads and spyware. In the case of an active or in-beta game, the site must also provide access to some kind of user support system including, but not limited to: developer active help / support forums, direct petition system or support contact email.
Again, Darkfall (and other recent games have exposed holes in this.
How about a site that can support demand? (most of the time at least)
It could be argued that Darkfall does NOT meet this requirement, when their site is down actually?
As for Developer Help / Support... should include a standard of service here - support emails can be provided as much as you like if no-one ever responds?
I would suggest that rather than change Darkfall's status it is a good case study for a review of the rules as they stand.
In a month, join me in the suggestions forum with this post.
Whoa, hang on there:
Ok, first and foremost. I didn't say that the press contact didn't have to reply. They do have to reply... to US. I do not, however, expect a press contact to reply to the general public. That would be silly as they are press contacts.
Now, let's go down line for line with the rationale behinf the rules, shall we?
Graphical world - I am well aware of the ease with which a graphical world is created. This rule is in play to let people know that MUDs and the like will not be listed. Why would we re-examine the rule, it's doing its job extremely well. If some teenager wants to make an MMO, they are welcome to it, and if it meets all of our criteria, we'll list it.
500 player minimum - While you may feel that this number is small, we put this in place because there are a large number of online games that do not meet this simple criteria. These, in our opinion, are not MMOs and should not be lsied here. You also didn't read the rule correctly. The game (and by extension its technology) needs to support 500 concurrent users. We're not saying that it has to have at least 500 subscribers. In factm, we don't put a minimum subscriber number on there at all and we stand behind that.
Graphical Common Area - Once again you have mis-interpreted the rule. I didn't say that the game couldn't include some form of lobby, but that there must be a place where players can gather in graphical form. PotBS has that, in towns and other places where avatars are used. This disqualifies games like Battlefield or Diablo, for example.
Persistent Characters - You said:
"Data is cheap. Persistent Characters? This is no more than a SAVE GAME feature?
How about a persistent presence in the game world that other players can interact with while you are logged out?"
Once again, you haven't thought this through and your suggestion makes absilutely no sense. persistent characters that players can build and continue building are a hallmark of the MMO genre. Therefore, they are a requirement for listing. it really is that simple.
Character advancement - you called this subjective and it really should be. This rule, I suppose, could fold into the one above, but the reeason that it's here and not more specifically worded is so that we don't get into the business of telling people how they need to advance charactders. What if we said that the characters needed to progress through levels? While that is traditionally the way of MMORPGs, we certainly don't want to discourage companies from creating other, more unique forms of advancement.
The graphical requirements: Ok, I'm going to lump all of what you said into a single subject because I'm tired of breaking it down at this point.
I've already responded to teh press contact thing. They need to respond to recognized members of the press. That doesn't mean that they have to respond to you. As for teh whole "you could fake screenshots in photoshop" argument. Yes, you can. I won't argue with that. Of course you can. That being said, a) why would you? and b) it's one of many many requirements. This one is actually there so that we have something to put in our gallery when we list the game.
It's not up to us whether a game supports the demand for it. This is how they have chosen to handle their launch. If you have aproblem with it, grerat. Don't play it. That doesn't disqualify them as an MMO.
Developer support - We simply need to see thata m echanism is in place. We have seen that with Darkfall on many occasions. If a company chooses not to avail themselves of their system or provides poor customer service, that's the realm of a reviewer or you folks on the forum to talk about. Once again, it doesn't make a game suddenly not an MMO. That being said, if this was an issue with any game for a protracted period of time, we would investigate on a case by case basis.
Also, we're not going to take a game off the list every time their website goes down. Please, give me a break.
Look, your complaint is that our rules aren't picky enough. The bottom line is that we don't want them to be picky. We want to list every english MMORPG that we can find, the good, the bad and the ugly. That's the purpose of our Game List, to show people what's out there. It's the realm of editorial content and forums to judge the games. being listed on the Game List doesn't mean anything other than: This company is or has produced an MMORPG. That's it and that's what these rules were designed to do.
I'm not sure why you decided to rip these rules apart, but I would suggest that maybe next time you look at the wider issue and the overall purpose of the game list.
Oh, you pissed off Stradden enough for him to make some uncharacteristic typos. You can say alot about the man, but his grammar is quite good, better than most atleast. Silly thread though. The game is released, at a limited rate though, but that doesn't mean anything.
Oh, you pissed off Stradden enough for him to make some uncharacteristic typos. You can say alot about the man, but his grammar is quite good, better than most atleast. Silly thread though. The game is released, at a limited rate though, but that doesn't mean anything.
I wouldn't say [issed off so much as that I have a metric ton of work to do today and didn't have time to be careful on a forum post I hadn't scheduled myself to make
Oh, you pissed off Stradden enough for him to make some uncharacteristic typos. You can say alot about the man, but his grammar is quite good, better than most atleast. Silly thread though. The game is released, at a limited rate though, but that doesn't mean anything.
I wouldn't say [issed off so much as that I have a metric ton of work to do today and didn't have time to be careful on a forum post I hadn't scheduled myself to make
just take the game off mmorpg.com, make the fans and the trolls happy.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
Look, your complaint is that our rules aren't picky enough. The bottom line is that we don't want them to be picky. We want to list every english MMORPG that we can find, the good, the bad and the ugly. That's the purpose of our Game List, to show people what's out there. It's the realm of editorial content and forums to judge the games. being listed on the Game List doesn't mean anything other than: This company is or has produced an MMORPG. That's it and that's what these rules were designed to do. I'm not sure why you decided to rip these rules apart, but I would suggest that maybe next time you look at the wider issue and the overall purpose of the game list.
Thanks for clearing this out Jon! These silly "petitions to remove this and that from mmorpg.com" pop out every once in a while and everytime the main reason to remove a game is just because the OP doesn't like it, can't afford it or he just begs for some kind of attention.
I really like MMORPG.com to be a unbiased gaming site where I get info from every game under mmorpg category, I don't want other users to select which game is good enough to be listed in MMORPG.com's gamelist.
Aventurine has floated a new method of testing in this genre, it is called a paid beta. Hey, if you can find enough fools to do it, why not. They most certainly need the revenue. Darkfall is most certainly NOT in a release phase. You can argue all you want, but the facts speak for themselves.
Comments
Its an indie developer. Please someone give me a company their game name and the amount of employees they had, whom had less tahn 30 employees who were able make a successfull launch on a sandboxed full PVP twitch combat MMORPG.
Really its getting sad to see everyone knocking this game cause of the rocky launch. Just in terms of quality this game has is alot better than its getting credit for in terms of Price to performance. This company went from 12 dev's to a whopping 28 and been actually developing the game in 5 years (They scratched it 3 years into then started up again 5 - 5 1/2 years ago). They were able to make a full MMORPG in the same time blizzards 200+ employees were able to make a generic version of Diablo II 3D.
With an indie developer comes not only flaws (Compared to a corporation) and risks (Thats where "we" come in). And in time this will be sorted out but instead of yelling at the storm to not be so windy learn that you gotta ride the waves.
People on this forum keep throwing around the words, "indie developer" like its a get-out-of-jail-for-free card for any mistakes the company makes.
Someone on this forum once said that Aventurine is an indie company charging mainstream prices. If they're going to charge mainstream prices, they should be treated like a mainstream company.
Credits to the guy who said this, because I couldn't agree more.
Let's use the Funcom steak/hamburger analogy for example...
Funcom refered to Age of Conan as a steak, and World of Warcraft as a hamburger. People prefer steaks over hamburgers, yes? So people should prefer Age of conan over World of Warcraft.
The problem is that steaks cost more than hamburgers, but Age of Conan costed as much as World of Warcraft.
So what does that make Conan? A hamburger trying to act like a steak, and failing.
I'm going to try and incorporate Darkfall in to this analogy.
Think of hamburgers as indie companies, and steaks as mainstream companies.
Darkfall is a hamburger pretending to be a steak. It's trying to do all of the things a steak can do, but it fails because it's a hamburger.
Why does it fail? Because a hamburger is a hamburger. When it tries to be something else, it'll mess up.
When Aventurine tried to act like a mainstream company, charging mainstream prices for their product, charging mainstream monthly fees, they accepted the responsibilites to be treated like a mainstream company/steak.
But the problem is that now people are going to start comparing a greasy, sick hamburger with ketchup and mustard to a tasty grilled steak with A1 sauce.
If the hamburger/indie company can't handle being compared to steaks/mainstream companies, then maybe they should go back to acting like what they really are, an indie company/hamburger.
Charge indie prices for their game ($20.00-$30.00), and indie monthly fees ($5.00-$10.00).
Once they start doing that, they'll have an excuse for all of their slack.
EDIT: Anyone else get hungry all of a sudden?
This game never released. Fanbois just buy all the crap Aventurine is feeding them. An intelligent observer would tick off the points you mentioned and conclude, negative... there was no release. Just a bunch of suckers duped into paying Tasos's bills for a couple more months.
Darkfall still has major league scam potential.
You should have pre-ordered the game if you really wanted to play it, I mean I wouldn't - and I'm sure you wouldn't either, since the way you put out your post.
I'm sure the game is soon available through some direct download store or something if you really want it so much, I doubt you can get it from any store shelf directly.
And isn't Eve Online only 1 server? The "so little hardware" means it has clusters of machines to work as a one big server, I think Aventurine is aiming for something like that.
And unfortunately the release was like it was, I'm sure you'll get over it. I'm sure MMORPG.com don't have to prove anything to you, you just have to use some of that common sense. The game is out, though the state of the game is bit "unfinished".
C'mon, we all know Darkfall is what it is. Bitching, moaning and wallowing the same old news isn't going to change anything. Even us pro-Trolls know it. You should rest now, get your shit out of here and wait for another messed up mmorpg-launch.
Im not saying their an INdie developer so dont give them ANY crap. But alot of peeps are basing their idea of the game based on the launch of the game. Yes their having a rocky launch and having trouble dealing with the massive amounts of hits their game is taking. But the fact of the matter is they're doing the best in their power to deal with it. Now I know for a fact that as a business their not handling it as well as they should. But in time people will learn to realize they're taking a huge risk (just as much as people buying the game are taking a huge risk) as trying to break the mold (There are other games, mortal online, earth rise, and others I might not know about that are finaly coming out). And they SHOULD be given crap because of their failure to handle this. But at the same time alot of people dont understand what they were able to create with the low employee base they have.
Darkfall, in itself, is a solid game with great gameplay (If you base your experience with the combat via videos kill yourself now) and you gotta try it out to fully understand how fun it really is. A few months down the road when their able to increase their employee base, release some big patches and really bring Darkfall to a shining glory then KUDOS to them for being able to start up a company from nothing and really bring something new to the MMO world. At the same time if they blow up and everyone loses their money because the company flops, then thats the chance we all gotta take.
I disagree we don't need to take any chances!
All we need to do is look at reviews and post about the game release, play, support and based on that buy or not. Wether they are a large or small company, or even that they did this on a low budget doesn't really matter to the gamer. All the gamer wants is a stable game that was better than the last one.
in all games I have seen the fanboys blow thier trumpet supporting the game asking for patience and just wait. This is always down to the fanboys have gave so much time and expectations to the game its hard to see the light sometimes.
As it stands now from the website, how to buy, the release, just looks like a couple of guys threw this together in a bedroom.
Look at AOC, great game, superb graphics and due to crap support the game basically went from big to small. Game companies need to learn about getting it right or they lose.
BTW it also worries me about it being client sided as no company has managed to prevent blatant haxxors (we are not talking about bugs, or exploits).
All in all I was hoping to play this but looking at others now. Sorry honest opinion.
I didnt say you HAVE to take a chance, merely stating that if you buy a game, in this case this game, your taking a chance. Like for instance i pre-ordered Auto-Assault, took a chance and lost. WIth Darkfall if you buy the game, either way your taking a chance even 3 months down the road.
I played in beta and i can tell you str8 up it was a very stable game. AoC didnt have what Darkfall has in terms of alot of factors. Yes Darkfall can take a few months before becoming all it should be, then from there grow. But my whole thing is people basing the game Darkfall off of the actions of Aventurine not being able to support the massive load their going with the ordering and Sales.
I can assure you the game isnt CLIENT SIDE.
They had two days of lag, and then fixed it.
Now the game works fine and is released, and sales have opened.
Hellfire london had to do a server reset after launch.
And thats only the most recent example of crappy MMO launches.
Furthermore Darkfall is not in Beta, it has some thigns that needs to be straightend out like some menu buttons that needs to be removed and minor stuff like that.
Other then that, and even counting that, its JUST as ready as any other mmo on release.
All MMOs are a work in progress and all MMOs get better over time, but the game is solid, its stable, it has content for every progression of the game and everything works well. Thats not a beta.
-Darkstar
I didnt say you HAVE to take a chance, merely stating that if you buy a game, in this case this game, your taking a chance. Like for instance i pre-ordered Auto-Assault, took a chance and lost. WIth Darkfall if you buy the game, either way your taking a chance even 3 months down the road.
I played in beta and i can tell you str8 up it was a very stable game. AoC didnt have what Darkfall has in terms of alot of factors. Yes Darkfall can take a few months before becoming all it should be, then from there grow. But my whole thing is people basing the game Darkfall off of the actions of Aventurine not being able to support the massive load their going with the ordering and Sales.
I can assure you the game isnt CLIENT SIDE.
This argument is flawed. Its always true that any action involves risk. By typing here you risk suddenly dying of a stroke. But what are the odds that it will happen? At least I am not worried about it.
Why should we not bring in the behaviour of the developer in accessing the odds we face when considering their product. Oh great, we have here a developer that is worst than amateur, who makes wild claims and delivers nothing to prove it. Their long list of claims, and an empty world. Their AI testing and now they cannot even launch the game for 5k players. Enuf said. And you demand that I ignore all their past record and plunge ahead with faith? Does that not contradict your first paragraph? Its risky and by all measures the worst case for risk management. My money is safer in my pocket and I lose nothing, cos the game is not yet playable to me.
You assure me its a stable game, its not client side. Ok that contradicts with a lot of other people's view. But I come to wonder, how do you know its not client side? You already hacked it? While I cannot prove that it is client side is used to process mission critical tasks, I know thru my schoolday books that every distributed processing system involves some form of client side processing, or else it is a dumb terminal. It is the allocation of tasks between client and server that makes and breaks the system. If the game is not client side what is it? The server paint the screen and feeds your display card with bitmaps for display?
Aventurine.. redefining terms such as :
But yeah OMGWTFBBQ category does this game fit into? Is a game released if only a few people can actually purchase it ? Is it released if basic elements sucy as stress testing have not yet been performed ?
If I was feeling cruel I'd say but DF in the "point & laugh corner"... but my cold is dieing and I am feeling mroe constructive. Maybe we need an indie MMO section... whatever indie is defined as
Well at least they removed the Apply for Beta button lol.
I am playing the game. If this is, indeed, an unfinished beta version, I simply cannot imagine how great the release version will likely be...
(No, this is not a beta version and the game, already, is far ahead, in terms of fun, than any other online game that I have personally ever played.)
What makes you think that, being an indy company, they can afford lower prices ?
Let me explain: take two games, one is an AAA title with a 50 millions dollars budget, the second one is an indy title with a 1 million dollars budget.
Both games are sold at the same price: 50$.
The first game sells 1 million copies , while the second game sells 20K copies.
If you calculate the net income, you'll find that they both exactly cover their development cost. But the indy game had to be sold at a full AAA price to achieve that. If it were sold at 20$, it would have lost a lot of money, and the company would have closed.
That's for the box price / fixed fee. What about the monthly fee ? Do you think hardware, bandwith, customer support, etc.. is cheaper for indies ? "No, but they need less servers and bandwith", will you say. True, but they also have less players to pay for those servers and bandwith, so it compensates. It's all relative. The "cost per player" ( amount of money each active player is costing to the company ) is roughly equivalent, whether this player is playing on an AAA title or an indy title. It would make little business/logic sense to reduce the price just because you're an indie IMO.
Infinity: The Quest for Earth, space-sim MMO with a seamless procedural galaxy.
Whatever the 'true' story is about DF, with all of the negativity and problems with release, I think that DF will struggle. Gamers tend to be impatient, and a lot of games have never fully recovered bungled releases. A lot of games have done poorly even with decent releases. With DF the negativity seems to be coming even faster and earlier than in other releases. That doesn't bode well.
Back in EvE. Started with BatMUD. Main MMOs have been EvE and DAoC.
Eve's server: Virtually unlimited amount of players
DFO's Server: Official 10k Cap
aka No comparison
I need a new MMO world to call home as Tom Chilton keeps destroying them
Here's the bottom line: The game has launched. The company told us that the game had launched and people are paying to play it at the full monthly rate.
The other things that you mentioned: lack of availability, population, servers... while those may be valid concerns, the simply don't impact the game's classification. Those are business decisions made by a company. In the end, if people are paying full price for your game, you've launched your game.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
What makes you think that, being an indy company, they can afford lower prices ?
Let me explain: take two games, one is an AAA title with a 50 millions dollars budget, the second one is an indy title with a 1 million dollars budget.
Both games are sold at the same price: 50$.
The first game sells 1 million copies , while the second game sells 20K copies.
If you calculate the net income, you'll find that they both exactly cover their development cost. But the indy game had to be sold at a full AAA price to achieve that. If it were sold at 20$, it would have lost a lot of money, and the company would have closed.
That's for the box price / fixed fee. What about the monthly fee ? Do you think hardware, bandwith, customer support, etc.. is cheaper for indies ? "No, but they need less servers and bandwith", will you say. True, but they also have less players to pay for those servers and bandwith, so it compensates. It's all relative. The "cost per player" ( amount of money each active player is costing to the company ) is roughly equivalent, whether this player is playing on an AAA title or an indy title. It would make little business/logic sense to reduce the price just because you're an indie IMO.
So you will walk into a motorway diner/rundown cafe/take a way joint and pay 5 star resturant prices without a quibble?
Because that's what you are saying
I need a new MMO world to call home as Tom Chilton keeps destroying them
What makes you think that, being an indy company, they can afford lower prices ?
Let me explain: take two games, one is an AAA title with a 50 millions dollars budget, the second one is an indy title with a 1 million dollars budget.
Both games are sold at the same price: 50$.
The first game sells 1 million copies , while the second game sells 20K copies.
If you calculate the net income, you'll find that they both exactly cover their development cost. But the indy game had to be sold at a full AAA price to achieve that. If it were sold at 20$, it would have lost a lot of money, and the company would have closed.
That's for the box price / fixed fee. What about the monthly fee ? Do you think hardware, bandwith, customer support, etc.. is cheaper for indies ? "No, but they need less servers and bandwith", will you say. True, but they also have less players to pay for those servers and bandwith, so it compensates. It's all relative. The "cost per player" ( amount of money each active player is costing to the company ) is roughly equivalent, whether this player is playing on an AAA title or an indy title. It would make little business/logic sense to reduce the price just because you're an indie IMO.
So you will walk into a motorway diner/rundown cafe/take a way joint and pay 5 star resturant prices without a quibble?
Because that's what you are saying
If the food is just as good or better, yes I will.
Whoa, hang on there:
Ok, first and foremost. I didn't say that the press contact didn't have to reply. They do have to reply... to US. I do not, however, expect a press contact to reply to the general public. That would be silly as they are press contacts.
Now, let's go down line for line with the rationale behinf the rules, shall we?
Graphical world - I am well aware of the ease with which a graphical world is created. This rule is in play to let people know that MUDs and the like will not be listed. Why would we re-examine the rule, it's doing its job extremely well. If some teenager wants to make an MMO, they are welcome to it, and if it meets all of our criteria, we'll list it.
500 player minimum - While you may feel that this number is small, we put this in place because there are a large number of online games that do not meet this simple criteria. These, in our opinion, are not MMOs and should not be lsied here. You also didn't read the rule correctly. The game (and by extension its technology) needs to support 500 concurrent users. We're not saying that it has to have at least 500 subscribers. In factm, we don't put a minimum subscriber number on there at all and we stand behind that.
Graphical Common Area - Once again you have mis-interpreted the rule. I didn't say that the game couldn't include some form of lobby, but that there must be a place where players can gather in graphical form. PotBS has that, in towns and other places where avatars are used. This disqualifies games like Battlefield or Diablo, for example.
Persistent Characters - You said:
"Data is cheap. Persistent Characters? This is no more than a SAVE GAME feature?
How about a persistent presence in the game world that other players can interact with while you are logged out?"
Once again, you haven't thought this through and your suggestion makes absilutely no sense. persistent characters that players can build and continue building are a hallmark of the MMO genre. Therefore, they are a requirement for listing. it really is that simple.
Character advancement - you called this subjective and it really should be. This rule, I suppose, could fold into the one above, but the reeason that it's here and not more specifically worded is so that we don't get into the business of telling people how they need to advance charactders. What if we said that the characters needed to progress through levels? While that is traditionally the way of MMORPGs, we certainly don't want to discourage companies from creating other, more unique forms of advancement.
The graphical requirements: Ok, I'm going to lump all of what you said into a single subject because I'm tired of breaking it down at this point.
I've already responded to teh press contact thing. They need to respond to recognized members of the press. That doesn't mean that they have to respond to you. As for teh whole "you could fake screenshots in photoshop" argument. Yes, you can. I won't argue with that. Of course you can. That being said, a) why would you? and b) it's one of many many requirements. This one is actually there so that we have something to put in our gallery when we list the game.
It's not up to us whether a game supports the demand for it. This is how they have chosen to handle their launch. If you have aproblem with it, grerat. Don't play it. That doesn't disqualify them as an MMO.
Developer support - We simply need to see thata m echanism is in place. We have seen that with Darkfall on many occasions. If a company chooses not to avail themselves of their system or provides poor customer service, that's the realm of a reviewer or you folks on the forum to talk about. Once again, it doesn't make a game suddenly not an MMO. That being said, if this was an issue with any game for a protracted period of time, we would investigate on a case by case basis.
Also, we're not going to take a game off the list every time their website goes down. Please, give me a break.
Look, your complaint is that our rules aren't picky enough. The bottom line is that we don't want them to be picky. We want to list every english MMORPG that we can find, the good, the bad and the ugly. That's the purpose of our Game List, to show people what's out there. It's the realm of editorial content and forums to judge the games. being listed on the Game List doesn't mean anything other than: This company is or has produced an MMORPG. That's it and that's what these rules were designed to do.
I'm not sure why you decided to rip these rules apart, but I would suggest that maybe next time you look at the wider issue and the overall purpose of the game list.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Oh, you pissed off Stradden enough for him to make some uncharacteristic typos. You can say alot about the man, but his grammar is quite good, better than most atleast. Silly thread though. The game is released, at a limited rate though, but that doesn't mean anything.
---
Grammar nazi's. This one is for you.
I wouldn't say [issed off so much as that I have a metric ton of work to do today and didn't have time to be careful on a forum post I hadn't scheduled myself to make
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
I wouldn't say [issed off so much as that I have a metric ton of work to do today and didn't have time to be careful on a forum post I hadn't scheduled myself to make
just take the game off mmorpg.com, make the fans and the trolls happy.
ditto to you.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
Thanks for clearing this out Jon! These silly "petitions to remove this and that from mmorpg.com" pop out every once in a while and everytime the main reason to remove a game is just because the OP doesn't like it, can't afford it or he just begs for some kind of attention.
I really like MMORPG.com to be a unbiased gaming site where I get info from every game under mmorpg category, I don't want other users to select which game is good enough to be listed in MMORPG.com's gamelist.
Aventurine has floated a new method of testing in this genre, it is called a paid beta. Hey, if you can find enough fools to do it, why not. They most certainly need the revenue. Darkfall is most certainly NOT in a release phase. You can argue all you want, but the facts speak for themselves.