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Which had worse launch, Age of Conan or Darkfall?
GalacticMMO
Member Posts: 11
Both games had huge problems at launch.
Age of Conan billing and account creation worked pretty well but the game itself had tons of issues and became worse after each new patch. Finally players got fed up and quit.
Seems like in Darkfall you can't even get in game because it keeps getting sold out in a matter of minutes! I guess they are letting in more people slowly so that their server can handle it. Those who got it generally say the game is pretty good although there are some who say it sucks.
Both situation are ad but in your opinion which one is worse?
Comments
Isnt this kinda a dumb question. AoC at least launched. You could buy the Preorder well before game launch. You could buy the game on day one. The servers didnt crash all day. Only thing AoC had wrong was a few bugs. Darkfall on the other hand. do we need to really go there
Well with AOC most people actually got "ingame" within the first couple of hours. As a matter of fact I was able to get in the day of launch. So, yeah, AOC had a better launch. Besides huge "Server Queus" and whiny guilds complaining that they cant get all their members in RIGHT away, as if they didnt have the rest of time to play the game. I'd say AOC was Smmoooooth.
After all, DF still has wha? %90 of it's playerbase still waiting to set up payment plans and hop ingame? Nao WAi!!! AV probably doesn't even have the money to put out multiple servers for launch so they half to take a "Limited access" approach. OOoohhh Ahhh, limited accesssss! That sounds sooo eligent and yet it tickes my hardcore funnybone in a wonderfull yet, cliche sort of way. It's just my cup of tea.
But in all realness, Both their launches blew, but that has little to say of the "end result" of how the game does. After all these game arent built to "end" per se. I'd give DF a few months and it will be twice what it is now. "Hopefully".
From what i recall AoC had a pretty smooth launch, servers were quite stable in comparison to many other games at their launch, including wow. Besides some client side crashes and annoying quest bugs i was able to play for long time since day 1.
From what I ve read about DF things have been far from smooth, and it reminds me of Dark and light, and 2 days of major F5 spam to get the preorder which i payed in order to be pioneer but never recieved the box from them, major scam.
I couldn't agree more. AoC had NO launch problems. It was just unfinished, but apart from a few bugs you couldn't see that in the starter levels. Its real problems started to become visible to players in its middle to end-levels.
DF on the other hand didn't deliver at all, few could buy the game and even fewer play it. I doubt the world history has ever witnessed such a false start from an MMO
If you look at AoC's launch purely on server stability it was close to flawless, AoC's issues was that it wasn't finished and after a month we also started to see the OOM and other crash errors pops up. The launch itself was quite good, and if you look at Darkfall's launch where they struggled with getting people in and servers had issues shortly after launch I would say the answer is easy. DFO was way worse then AoC.
DFO is a game that will attract a minority of players over the months, sure it is the next big thing now, but once people start to realize the effects of full loot you will see the hardcore UO fans stay in the game and have fun. DFO isn't made for the masses, as the masses don't like to loose their gear, it's one of the most precious things they have. I do like the ideas behind DFO, but I doubt I will try it as from what I have seen the game just won't suit my "needs" for a MMO.
Playing: Battlefield - Bad company (Xbox360) Arma2, DFO (PC)
On my radar: TSW, MO
MMO's played: SWG (pre cu/cu), WoW, AoC, WAR, DFO, Planetside
MMO's that I have tested: Lotro, L2, Aion, Ryzom
I couldn't agree more. AoC had NO launch problems. It was just unfinished, but apart from a few bugs you couldn't see that in the starter levels. Its real problems started to become visible to players in its middle to end-levels.
DF on the other hand didn't deliver at all, few could buy the game and even fewer play it. I doubt the world history has ever witnessed such a false start from an MMO
Indeed, AoC was nice gaming experince for me since mid 40 lvl range, that was the time where some major issues appeared involving quest bugs and lack of content to help progression but I do not think someone could the blame them for failed release instead they should have taken some time polishing their product before bringing it in the market as it was unfinished in terms of high end content and from my point of view pvp system. still other pvp focused games took a while before they actualy implemented a decent pvp system but they did have pve content to keep players going without complaining.
DF seems to be lacking a lot of stuff unfortunately for the time and effort those guys spend developing it.
In my opinion there are 2 different situations here:
Age of Conan
Smooth launch in a way that all got in and there were almost zero server crashes BUT the game was lacking in content and players quickly became bored and quit.
Darkfall
Had horrible launch with only about 10% of players getting in BUT most those who got in seem to like it a lot.
Now which one is a bigger failure?
If we only talk about the initial launch, then it's of course Darkfall. But if we talk about first couple of months, the answer could be Age of Conan. Time will tell whether Darkfall will deliver or not.
p.s. here's a thread on the Darkfall forums: www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/227856/300-in-a-city-siege.html. Reading that story really got me hyped up. The battle sounds awesome. I just hope AoC had something similar and not that instanced crap.
You know, I used to think there is nothing more annoying than hyping a game to the sky and promising unseen and unique features, new generation engine, unique combat system, stunning world, etc, blablabla <insert your cliche here> and when the game comes out, you only see an ordinary game in a different setting. That was what AoC was to me, the unique, innovative game was simply another level grind with pvp turned on.
But NOW I know there's an even more annoying thing. To promise the sky and not deliver at all. I don't even know if DF is a good game or not, all I know is that I wasn't able to preorder it, nor to buy it. And I know a bunch of people who couldn't do it either. If a failure has a name, it's Darkfall
A game has to officially launch before you can discuss launch. Darkfall is a "partial" launch, and it is still having issues. AoC DID launch, thus, it got my vote...no matter how cool someones description of a fight is.
Oh, and I am not bored and quit yet, so it does not seem to be my issue, just yours I would assume.
i was there. the only problem with the AoC launch was they had to open up new servers to meet the demand and the faulty collector ed. keys. Since the topic is about "launch" what happened after 2 months is for another topic.
AO launch is a "not to do" example as far as launches concerned, AoC the opposite imo.
I need more vespene gas.
darkfall of course
Age of Conan had similar issues with Darkfall like bugs and missing contents but everything else are functioning with 1 million users banging on their website and game servers. Darkfall cant even get a forum up. LOL
for me a game is launched when it is available to everyone in their target market (i.e. na launch, european launch)
imho darkfall is in a "paid preview phase" at best. the difference to aocs "early access" is that for conan that phase lasted only a few days while i have no clue when ill be able to purchase and play darkfall.
looking at their official homepage i dont see any indication either that they considder the game "officially launched"
wether their method of distribution is better then funcoms i cant really say.
if they keep the people that are in now as slowly expanding customer base they didnt do anything wrong. they just shouldnt expect people to join a server later where certain people had a headstart of a few month.
i think they will struggle with the fact people are reserved to join this early server later similar to joining eve wich gets awesome reviews but few people feel comfy to joining the game at this point or later because of the early players. darkfall may nontheless have smaller problems if they release new servers.
if your bored, visit my blog at:
http://craylon.wordpress.com/ dealing with the look of mmos with the nvidia 3d vision glasses
It seems like people keep getting "launch" and "state of the game" wrong.
It is preferable not to travel with a dead man.
There have been nothing posted about battles in DF that make it stand out from SB/UO/AoC/DaoC... nothing in size or epicness makes it surpass battles in all of those games, so I don't get the hype... 3 guilds or a big guild attacking 1 guild [with or without allies] is not anything to write home about in this day and age in MMO PvP... and nothing thats happened has been any more than that...
Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood. -Nietzsche
Well since 50% quit AoC after just one month i think that will say that people didnt have a good launch or game experience after launch.
I doubt we will see the darkfall numbers drop, but instead see them increase.
Ofc if darkfall had let EVERYONE in to begin with the trend would be the same.
But imo darkfall is doing pretty good, and have not WASTED money on empty servers.
Have to agree with a lot of the other posters at least you could buy AoC and get into the game.
Worst launch so far of an MMO that I have experienced would have to be Anarchy Online for me.
If your going to do a comparison don't just put up 2 options, include other disasters please.
Didn't vote in the poll because I haven't played Darkfall and I don't plan on it. I guess it would depend on how you define "launch". Has Darkfall technically launched? It's only available via download and they're sold out? How do you compare a game with one server with less than 10k players to a game that launched with 48(?) servers and 800k players?
Actually at launch AoC ran great for me. It didn't start crashing on me until they started patching it. Early they made bazaar decisions like bringing down NA servers at 5pm EST for patching, but overall I'd say AoC's launch wasn't the problem ,it's what happened later.
I agree that alot of people left AOC after the first few months, but I see alot of people quitting DF.
The mechanics are simple and boring. I do like the AI on the mobs. I think the combat is just not intuitive or well implemented.
AOC melee is one of them most complex and hard to learn compared to other games. Most people who quit within a month never really had a chance to learn the nuances of combat. There is nothing to learn about DF except how to macro a few commands and your done. I don't even want to get into the HAXXORS. The hacking alone will doom DF.
never in the history of MMO's has there ever been a worse launch than Darkfall. Peroid!
LOL at least with Conan you could actually buy the game.
I dont think you can compare as I wouldn't consider what DF is doing as a release.
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The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
The servers weren't empty at first, so they were needed/used. if you look at the development cycles, how many years do you think DF will need to get all the bugs worked out like AoC did?
Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood. -Nietzsche
your in an AoC page posting this, you will probably have many people say Darkfall had a worse launch, I would sugest you post this in the General discussion part of the site.
This is easy.Day one i could play Aoc and if something was wrong i could complain on the forums.By the reports i have heard by the servers crashed alot and you could not get on the official forums.Currently right now i am trying to get my hands on darkfall to try it out for myself and can't. Darkfall early launch is a slight failure.
Aoc has real probelms but at one point AoC had 700,000 players and was the second largest mmo after WoW.Its launch was far from a failure.
Im guessing the OP didnt actually play AOC at launch whatsoever or they would realize this is just a rediculous poll. AOC's launch was just about as close to perfect as you can get with an mmo launch. Everyone was able to get in, servers were stable, I dont remember a server crashing once. It wasnt until weeks after launch that all the problems started surfacing.
Darkfall, has had the most horrible, joke of a launch I can recall for an mmo period. Im sure there has been worse but I wasnt around for them.