Maybe this is just one of those games that comes under the 'marmite' heading... You either love it or hate it!
i hate it. Apart from the warm retro feeling I got on first firing it up, taking me back all those years ago to the days of starting EQ...... this game, IMO, should have had a lot more time and creative energy spent on it before release!
I can understand MrBloodworth, who has a vested interest in this game's failure for some reason, but Caesar you should know better. Heck, this could almost hit a hypocritical level with you Caesar. Shall we go back to the RapidReality days with this one?
I'd like to address this right quick:
Go ahead and go back to my RR days if you wish. Almost all my responses at the time were dictated from people above me, I had no Producer level powers as Tasos has. On top of that, I believe I've well documented, to anybody who wants to bring it up in ANY given thread, the situation I was in, powers I had (read: none), and the final outcomes.
However:
I'd like to point out that I defend Darkfall where I feel it's warranted. They released a game for a crowd (that does not apply to the one I prefer). They got the game out the door, that's more then I can say for MY previous employers.
Finally:
There's absolutely no excuse to fail to update the "Features" page of the Darkfall website. I don't care who you are, or what you say... that's easy. Anybody can do it, and it takes only an hour max. It's not the job of an interested gamer to go and dig through Forums for answers on basic feature sets (I said it at RR all the time as well) or even advanced features that'll be available AFTER launch.
So when a Game Reviewer goes to the website and reads the game has X and Y features as it's downloading, gets ingame, fails to see ANY of the listed features... well that makes the game a little difficult to give a good score.
- CaesarsGhost
Lead Gameplay and Gameworld Designer for a yet unnamed MMO Title. "When people tell me designing a game is easy, I try to get them to design a board game. Most people don't last 5 minutes, the rest rarely last more then a day. The final few realize it's neither fun nor easy."
If you feel that i want any game to fail, you are sadly mistaken. What the real issue is, is that i comment freely about MMO's, all of them, and you do not agree.
I do not buy into the thinking that Hardcore sandbox is defined as: Incomplete, needless tedium, ganking low level players is a healthy feature for a game, convoluted system that require macros to circumvent are a acceptable alternative to a unfun and rewarding skill system, or that lack of polish is acceptable, creation of a community, that by its nature and by guidance is hostile to new users.
I could go on.
Other than that, the fact the even launched is a feat into its self, that i have congratulated them on many times truly an achievement to be prowled of, they have done what most here dream of doing. May of the systems they were going to create would have been great, to bad they didn't follow through, and talked smack while doing so.
---------- "Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
For all you haters, like MrBloodworth or Caesar (who haven't even played the game), what if it's the truth that the reviewer only played for two hours? Furthermore, for an MMO, you really think that (if the reviewer did play this long) nine hours is enough time to get an accurate reflection of an MMO beyond the initial starting areas/new player levels? I can understand MrBloodworth, who has a vested interest in this game's failure for some reason, but Caesar you should know better. Heck, this could almost hit a hypocritical level with you Caesar. Shall we go back to the RapidReality days with this one? Could see a reviewer who doesn't care for pvp or a non-leveling system, or a more twitch based combat system, hating a game and giving up after losing their stuff for the 10th time in two hours to gankers (especially a WoW or LoTRO fan, or especially a non-mmo player). As a reviewer playing for 'two hours' or even nine, they don't have time to form relationships in this game, nor would they have a vested interest in doing so. And, for a game like Darkfall, you need to find buddies to survive in the world. It's what makes the game appealing to so many people. Furthermore, people yell to high heaven about Tasos constantly lying. Going as far as to say that it's non-debatable. I've seen some of the arguments of him lying before, and 50% of it is a matter of perspective, another 40% of it is flat out taking things out of context. For example, Tasos said they weren't going to have pre-orders, but later on Aventurine changed their mind and they decided to do pre-orders, which Tasos came out well before hand to announce. Changing your mind about something isn't lying. Skills being consolidated into other skills or not having as many skills, and features, as planned and having to trim things down isn't lying either. All MMOs end up doing this. Heck, I've seen far worse cases of this from far bigger and more well funded companies, without them even announcing it and having it printing right on the box. It's funny how people spit so much venom towards Tasos and Aventurine, as if they are really on the Dark and Light or Mourning level. Hell, some of you were defended the worse there is, which is Rapid Reality, but going after Tasos and Aventurine with a pitchfork. I didn't see Aventurine taking your money with early pre-order cash in (think Mourning) before you could cancel. Nor do I see them stealing their technology (like Dark and Light), lying about some miracle build and players playing only the shell of it. And, at the bottom of the barrel (looks over towards Caesar), Rapid Reality. These guys took pre-orders and never even produced a game. Heck, they went as far as to make a new company, release a game called Phylon (a butchered version of Endless Ages) and ripped off even more people with that endeavor. I've seen liars (Turbine and SOE), I've seen crap (Mourning, D&L, Rapid Reality), Tasos/Aventurine has never reached the level that any of these companies have reached and yet you guys spit so much venom/crap towards Tasos and Aventurine, on the same level as those companies.
Go a little further back.. like to the 2003 era..The man is a liar. This is undisputable.
If you feel that i want any game to fail, you are sadly mistaken. What the real issue is, is that i comment freely about MMO's, all of them, and you do not agree.
I do not buy into the thinking that Hardcore sandbox is defined as: Incomplete, needless tedium, ganking low level players is a healthy feature for a game, convoluted system that require macros to circumvent are a acceptable alternative to a unfun and rewarding skill system, or that lack of polish is acceptable, creation of a community, that by its nature and by guidance is hostile to new users. I could go on.
Other than that, the fact the even launched is a feat into its self, that i have congratulated them on many times truly an achievement to be prowled of, they have done what most here dream of doing. May of the systems they were going to create would have been great, to bad they didn't follow through, and talked smack while doing so.
/signed
there you have it, I agree with that.
- CaesarsGhost
Lead Gameplay and Gameworld Designer for a yet unnamed MMO Title. "When people tell me designing a game is easy, I try to get them to design a board game. Most people don't last 5 minutes, the rest rarely last more then a day. The final few realize it's neither fun nor easy."
I'm a guy that has put lots of hours into lots of MMO's while still juggling an active social life and a pretty good career. I started out as a dopey kid playing Ultima Online till 3-4 in the morning with friends just as mesmerized as me. Now this isn't going to turn into one of those "UO is better than this" arguments, I just wanted to say that as someone with not a heck of a lot of time on his hands I choose which MMO's I try carefully. A bunch of other UO vets along with myself were super excited about Darkfall. At the time we thought it really was going to be the second coming of our favorite MMO of all time.
I'm not even going to talk to about all the features that were apparently left out or the maturity level of most players who hear "free pvp sandbox gameplay" and equate that to "kill anyone and everyone and forsake any resemblence of a real world structure." I have not even had a chance to try this game (or play UO, thank you Vista) because of the purchasing issues. I've still got the client downloaded and waiting to be installed. But I'm not going to install it. Just reading Tasos' posts and hearing all the nonsense surrounding this game, positive and negative, I'm almost afraid to try it.
Will it be a waste of time, when time is precious and few? I don't know what to think about it and I don't even want to find out. And this is coming from a guy who you could consider a MMO vet. I had to search the damn world over to find this game. Imagine normal Joe WoW Player, someone who doesn't search out such things. He gets the advantage in not having to put up with the BS that takes place on the boards about it, but he also, assuming he can even find it/buy it, is in for a rude awakening when he does play the game and find its not what was listed on their website.
And then he goes to the boards. And then he sees all of this nonsense. And then you have one confused, angry, disappointed customer. So yes, hype killed this game before it even came out, but they sure didn't do themselves any favors by half assing it and then acting like children when people don't like it.
All the posts he makes about things like reviewers who don't like their game, you'd think he could update their website...
Everyone blames the reviewer, insted of the game. This is funny.
C'mon Bloodworth,..
IF what Tasos wrote about their total amount of playing time is true (which is pretty much backed up Eurogamer's offer to redo the review) it is utterly clear that this reviewer didn't even remotely try out DF.
Handing out an extreme verdict like this, whether it is extremely positive or extremely negative should be founded on FACTS and actual ingame experience. And if DF is close to, or exactly worth a 2 out of 10 to you personally, that doesn't change a thing to the fact that this is not a way to conduct any kind of serious journalism.
If this would have been a release of one of Eurogamer's primary advertisers, or a release made by a big and well established company, I seriously doubt that they would have made the same mistake of puting an external nutter on the job and support such a badly founded and extreme verdict.
I can understand MrBloodworth, who has a vested interest in this game's failure for some reason, but Caesar you should know better. Heck, this could almost hit a hypocritical level with you Caesar. Shall we go back to the RapidReality days with this one?
I'd like to address this right quick:
Go ahead and go back to my RR days if you wish. Almost all my responses at the time were dictated from people above me, I had no Producer level powers as Tasos has. On top of that, I believe I've well documented, to anybody who wants to bring it up in ANY given thread, the situation I was in, powers I had (read: none), and the final outcomes.
However:
I'd like to point out that I defend Darkfall where I feel it's warranted. They released a game for a crowd (that does not apply to the one I prefer). They got the game out the door, that's more then I can say for MY previous employers.
Finally:
There's absolutely no excuse to fail to update the "Features" page of the Darkfall website. I don't care who you are, or what you say... that's easy. Anybody can do it, and it takes only an hour max. It's not the job of an interested gamer to go and dig through Forums for answers on basic feature sets (I said it at RR all the time as well) or even advanced features that'll be available AFTER launch.
So when a Game Reviewer goes to the website and reads the game has X and Y features as it's downloading, gets ingame, fails to see ANY of the listed features... well that makes the game a little difficult to give a good score.
The 'finally' argument is the only good argument you have. The rest of it is coming from someone who was part of the WORSE MMO developers of all time. Who DEFENDED them when they were ripping off people left and right. No matter how many excuses you use, you had people more powerful than you or whatever, you were still a part of Rapid Reality and went along with the scam, even if you had a boss.
Now, let me ask you a question. It seems you are a designer for another game. If you had a review from a magazine that had someone test your game for two hours, when it takes a few weeks (at least) to get a full picture of it, would you not question the credibility of that review and reviewer?
Furthermore, what was your beta or retail name? Or, if you want to keep those private, how long did you play Darkfall?
If you feel that i want any game to fail, you are sadly mistaken. What the real issue is, is that i comment freely about MMO's, all of them, and you do not agree.
I do not buy into the thinking that Hardcore sandbox is defined as: Incomplete, needless tedium, ganking low level players is a healthy feature for a game, convoluted system that require macros to circumvent are a acceptable alternative to a unfun and rewarding skill system, or that lack of polish is acceptable, creation of a community, that by its nature and by guidance is hostile to new users. I could go on.
Other than that, the fact the even launched is a feat into its self, that i have congratulated them on many times truly an achievement to be prowled of, they have done what most here dream of doing. May of the systems they were going to create would have been great, to bad they didn't follow through, and talked smack while doing so.
Have you played Darkfall's retail, and if so, have you played it more than just one day?
Everyone blames the reviewer, insted of the game. This is funny.
C'mon Bloodworth,..
IF what Tasos wrote about their total amount of playing time is true (which is pretty much backed up Eurogamer's offer to redo the review) it is utterly clear that this reviewer didn't even remotely try out DF.
Handing out an extreme verdict like this, whether it is extremely positive or extremely negative should be founded on FACTS and actual ingame experience. And if DF is close to, or exactly worth a 2 out of 10 to you personally, that doesn't change a thing to the fact that this is not a way to conduct any kind of serious journalism.
If this would have been a release of one of Eurogamer's primary advertisers, or a release made by a big and well established company, I seriously doubt that they would have made the same mistake of puting an external nutter on the job and support such a badly founded and extreme verdict.
Again, amount of time is irrelevant, i don't see where he commented on things he did not experience.
It is not the responsibility of the player to find the fun, its the responsibility of a game to show the player the fun.
This guy, for what ever reason, could not get past the games implementation of the most basic things, or even get bootstrapped into its game, or game play.
That's more revealing than any of his choice of words.
---------- "Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
I can understand MrBloodworth, who has a vested interest in this game's failure for some reason, but Caesar you should know better. Heck, this could almost hit a hypocritical level with you Caesar. Shall we go back to the RapidReality days with this one?
I'd like to address this right quick:
Go ahead and go back to my RR days if you wish. Almost all my responses at the time were dictated from people above me, I had no Producer level powers as Tasos has. On top of that, I believe I've well documented, to anybody who wants to bring it up in ANY given thread, the situation I was in, powers I had (read: none), and the final outcomes.
However:
I'd like to point out that I defend Darkfall where I feel it's warranted. They released a game for a crowd (that does not apply to the one I prefer). They got the game out the door, that's more then I can say for MY previous employers.
Finally:
There's absolutely no excuse to fail to update the "Features" page of the Darkfall website. I don't care who you are, or what you say... that's easy. Anybody can do it, and it takes only an hour max. It's not the job of an interested gamer to go and dig through Forums for answers on basic feature sets (I said it at RR all the time as well) or even advanced features that'll be available AFTER launch.
So when a Game Reviewer goes to the website and reads the game has X and Y features as it's downloading, gets ingame, fails to see ANY of the listed features... well that makes the game a little difficult to give a good score.
The 'finally' argument is the only good argument you have. The rest of it is coming from someone who was part of the WORSE MMO developers of all time. Who DEFENDED them when they were ripping off people left and right. No matter how many excuses you use, you had people more powerful than you or whatever, you were still a part of Rapid Reality and went along with the scam, even if you had a boss.
Now, let me ask you a question. It seems you are a designer for another game. If you had a review from a magazine that had someone test your game for two hours, when it takes a few weeks (at least) to get a full picture of it, would you not question the credibility of that review and reviewer?
Furthermore, what was your beta or retail name? Or, if you want to keep those private, how long did you play Darkfall?
All one has to do is look at your signature to realize you can't discuss any topic rationally. Just to make a point here, using the word hater strictly puts you in the fanboy department of people who have to put negative labels on anyone that criticizes something they like.
I personally think the reviewer was a bit over the top, but then again, all Tasos did was prove how poor their logging system was. Of course anyone playing the game knows how poor the log system is. Claiming the got rid of most of the cheaters is probably the most ridiculous claim to come out of a MMO to date.
Believing anything Tasos says at this point, labels you as one blind to obvious facts. The guy has an uncanny ability to stick his foot in his mouth and swallow whole.
While I personally still would love to find the game to get, 2 hours does not a review make. And I know server logs since you make them very verbose for cheat tracking. To fake a server log would take many man hours and not worth it. It sounds like the game is not for everyone, and should be reviewed by 2+ reviewers as all games should. Its like a warhammer/blizard groupie reviewing any new game by any other company or any other genra. Or putting an FPS player to review an TBS game that takes months to play.
In all, I think that Darkfall needs to work on some sort of digital distribution to ease people playing. Then after that, if there is a problem, fess up to it. But Eurogamer needs to admit their failings too. I've seen reviews a plenty on that site which have no basis in reality. They need to get their reviewers to stop using paid review time as a good time to smoke pot. And start actually reviewing. I also knoticed some of the images used in the review look suspiciously like images publically available or available on other sites. They need to check this, becuase if their reviewer is plagarizing without even a slight "image taken from" or "Cropped image from". Then they are liable for that image. I've done reviews for quite a while myself freelance. I spend no less than 1-2 weeks for the review, and plan on a minimum of 12 hours of gameplay time and 12 hours of writing time. With 8 hours spread incase of needing a re-write or re-play.
Once I can find this game, I'm going to do a comprehensive review. And we will see how much of the eurogamer review is right, and how much of the overhype is right. Which I'll try not to get on all the overhype reviews right now. IF someone can tell me exactly how to find a retail box or digital download, please mail me on mmorpg.com.
While I personally still would love to find the game to get, 2 hours does not a review make. And I know server logs since you make them very verbose for cheat tracking. To fake a server log would take many man hours and not worth it. It sounds like the game is not for everyone, and should be reviewed by 2+ reviewers as all games should. Its like a warhammer/blizard groupie reviewing any new game by any other company or any other genra. Or putting an FPS player to review an TBS game that takes months to play.
In all, I think that Darkfall needs to work on some sort of digital distribution to ease people playing. Then after that, if there is a problem, fess up to it. But Eurogamer needs to admit their failings too. I've seen reviews a plenty on that site which have no basis in reality. They need to get their reviewers to stop using paid review time as a good time to smoke pot. And start actually reviewing. I also knoticed some of the images used in the review look suspiciously like images publically available or available on other sites. They need to check this, becuase if their reviewer is plagarizing without even a slight "image taken from" or "Cropped image from". Then they are liable for that image. I've done reviews for quite a while myself freelance. I spend no less than 1-2 weeks for the review, and plan on a minimum of 12 hours of gameplay time and 12 hours of writing time. With 8 hours spread incase of needing a re-write or re-play.
Once I can find this game, I'm going to do a comprehensive review. And we will see how much of the eurogamer review is right, and how much of the overhype is right. Which I'll try not to get on all the overhype reviews right now. IF someone can tell me exactly how to find a retail box or digital download, please mail me on mmorpg.com.
This is all based on if Tasos is telling the truth, from what i have seen he lies alot. so i will guess that EG really hated the game and gave a little worse review, but played it longer .
slightly offtopic but... why did we need another thread on this, with almost the exact same title as another thread, outside of the darkfall forums? could this either get moved to the darkfall forums, or simply deleted? there are 4-5 other topics on Tasos' response. let alone another 3 or so on the original rewiew, and plenty more attacking the reviewer personally.
Everything creates huge amounts of negativity on the internet, that's what the internet is for: Negativity, porn and lolcats.
Everyone blames the reviewer, insted of the game. This is funny.
C'mon Bloodworth,..
IF what Tasos wrote about their total amount of playing time is true (which is pretty much backed up Eurogamer's offer to redo the review) it is utterly clear that this reviewer didn't even remotely try out DF.
Handing out an extreme verdict like this, whether it is extremely positive or extremely negative should be founded on FACTS and actual ingame experience. And if DF is close to, or exactly worth a 2 out of 10 to you personally, that doesn't change a thing to the fact that this is not a way to conduct any kind of serious journalism.
If this would have been a release of one of Eurogamer's primary advertisers, or a release made by a big and well established company, I seriously doubt that they would have made the same mistake of puting an external nutter on the job and support such a badly founded and extreme verdict.
This guy, for what ever reason, could not get past the games implementation of the most basic things, or even get bootstrapped into its game, or game play.
As in: he didn't even remotely try. And for a proper review, you need someone who gives a game a shot. Which this guy obviously didn't. His clear dislike of FFA pvp and having to play in a vast open world without much handholding speaks volumes also. This guy had his verdict ready and didn't even try to get past the 'getting to know the UI phase' which we all go through when playing a new game for the first time.
Seriously, project this 'review' on any other game and you'll see how much it fails;
The Lotro equivalent would be having a hardcore FFA PVP fan stumble around in the shire for thirty minutes, failing some of the timed mail delivery quests, logging off and writing a rant on how much the lack of PVP and the silly timed quests are lame as hell.
Same thing with EVE; you wouldn't want to read a review on EVE by a handholding/storylined gameplay fan who barely played it for an hour.
Etc, etc. Goes for every game out there.
Whatever DF's shortcomings, this was obviously a case of very bad journalism and with an open mind and clear judgement you don't even have to like DF to see that.
slightly offtopic but... why did we need another thread on this, with almost the exact same title as another thread, outside of the darkfall forums? could this either get moved to the darkfall forums, or simply deleted? there are 4-5 other topics on Tasos' response. let alone another 3 or so on the original rewiew, and plenty more attacking the reviewer personally.
This one is the official one, technically the others are duplicates and should be moderated.
---------- "Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
Everyone blames the reviewer, insted of the game. This is funny.
C'mon Bloodworth,..
IF what Tasos wrote about their total amount of playing time is true (which is pretty much backed up Eurogamer's offer to redo the review) it is utterly clear that this reviewer didn't even remotely try out DF.
Handing out an extreme verdict like this, whether it is extremely positive or extremely negative should be founded on FACTS and actual ingame experience. And if DF is close to, or exactly worth a 2 out of 10 to you personally, that doesn't change a thing to the fact that this is not a way to conduct any kind of serious journalism.
If this would have been a release of one of Eurogamer's primary advertisers, or a release made by a big and well established company, I seriously doubt that they would have made the same mistake of puting an external nutter on the job and support such a badly founded and extreme verdict.
This guy, for what ever reason, could not get past the games implementation of the most basic things, or even get bootstrapped into its game, or game play.
As in: he didn't even remotely try. And for a proper review, you need someone who gives a game a shot. Which this guy obviously didn't. His clear dislike of FFA pvp and having to play in a vast open world without much handholding speaks volumes also. This guy had his verdict ready and didn't even try to get past the 'getting to know the UI phase' which we all go through when playing a new game for the first time.
Seriously, project this 'review' on any other game and you'll see how much it fails;
The Lotro equivalent would be having a hardcore FFA PVP fan stumble around in the shire for thirty minutes, failing some of the timed mail delivery quests, logging off and writing a rant on how much the lack of PVP and the silly timed quests are lame as hell.
Same thing with EVE; you wouldn't want to read a review on EVE by a handholding/storylined gameplay fan who barely played it for an hour.
Etc, etc. Goes for every game out there.
Whatever DF's shortcomings, this was obviously a case of very bad journalism and with an open mind and clear judgement you don't even have to like DF to see that.
What? looks to me like he talked about the games mechanics and features, all most to a bullet list.
"Sadly, every little thing Darkfall does is tragic, but without a personality that might make you feel sorry for its developers, Aventurine. From the grubby textures and grammatically incorrect quest text to the anarchic control system, any attempt to glean joy from this torrid husk of an entertainment product is met with disdain. It's almost as if Darkfall doesn't want you to play. But nevertheless, a job is a job, and play I must."
Again, I am trying to figure out, what because of its style of game play, its excused from being a complete, and polished product. There are other PvP sandbox hardcore games that seem to meet this standard, but apparently darkfall is excused from this measurement, even after calming for years, that they are more polished than AAA games, to the point of insulting them, and the developers.
Please, explain it to me.
---------- "Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
I can understand MrBloodworth, who has a vested interest in this game's failure for some reason, but Caesar you should know better. Heck, this could almost hit a hypocritical level with you Caesar. Shall we go back to the RapidReality days with this one?
I'd like to address this right quick:
Go ahead and go back to my RR days if you wish. Almost all my responses at the time were dictated from people above me, I had no Producer level powers as Tasos has. On top of that, I believe I've well documented, to anybody who wants to bring it up in ANY given thread, the situation I was in, powers I had (read: none), and the final outcomes.
However:
I'd like to point out that I defend Darkfall where I feel it's warranted. They released a game for a crowd (that does not apply to the one I prefer). They got the game out the door, that's more then I can say for MY previous employers.
Finally:
There's absolutely no excuse to fail to update the "Features" page of the Darkfall website. I don't care who you are, or what you say... that's easy. Anybody can do it, and it takes only an hour max. It's not the job of an interested gamer to go and dig through Forums for answers on basic feature sets (I said it at RR all the time as well) or even advanced features that'll be available AFTER launch.
So when a Game Reviewer goes to the website and reads the game has X and Y features as it's downloading, gets ingame, fails to see ANY of the listed features... well that makes the game a little difficult to give a good score.
The 'finally' argument is the only good argument you have. The rest of it is coming from someone who was part of the WORSE MMO developers of all time. Who DEFENDED them when they were ripping off people left and right. No matter how many excuses you use, you had people more powerful than you or whatever, you were still a part of Rapid Reality and went along with the scam, even if you had a boss.
Now, let me ask you a question. It seems you are a designer for another game. If you had a review from a magazine that had someone test your game for two hours, when it takes a few weeks (at least) to get a full picture of it, would you not question the credibility of that review and reviewer?
Furthermore, what was your beta or retail name? Or, if you want to keep those private, how long did you play Darkfall?
Paragraph 1:
when the refunds went out, that was out of my own personal pocket. So when you say that I (CaesarsGhost) was ripping people off, you should note that I A) Did not get a refund myself, and Paid out of my own pocket for people who felt "ripped off" (it was well into 4 figures).
...I'd dare Tasos to do so... I'd dare him to even think about paying out of his own pocket!
Paragraph 2:
I'd accept the review actually... last game I helped with got a rather dim review, I didn't fight it.
Paragraph 3:
I cannot divulge as it was leftover time on a friends account. A dozen or so hours a week for about 2.5 weeks though... it definitely wasn't for me, I won't even pretend it was my type of game.
- CaesarsGhost
Lead Gameplay and Gameworld Designer for a yet unnamed MMO Title. "When people tell me designing a game is easy, I try to get them to design a board game. Most people don't last 5 minutes, the rest rarely last more then a day. The final few realize it's neither fun nor easy."
Everyone blames the reviewer, insted of the game. This is funny.
C'mon Bloodworth,..
IF what Tasos wrote about their total amount of playing time is true (which is pretty much backed up Eurogamer's offer to redo the review) it is utterly clear that this reviewer didn't even remotely try out DF.
Handing out an extreme verdict like this, whether it is extremely positive or extremely negative should be founded on FACTS and actual ingame experience. And if DF is close to, or exactly worth a 2 out of 10 to you personally, that doesn't change a thing to the fact that this is not a way to conduct any kind of serious journalism.
If this would have been a release of one of Eurogamer's primary advertisers, or a release made by a big and well established company, I seriously doubt that they would have made the same mistake of puting an external nutter on the job and support such a badly founded and extreme verdict.
This guy, for what ever reason, could not get past the games implementation of the most basic things, or even get bootstrapped into its game, or game play.
As in: he didn't even remotely try. And for a proper review, you need someone who gives a game a shot. Which this guy obviously didn't. His clear dislike of FFA pvp and having to play in a vast open world without much handholding speaks volumes also. This guy had his verdict ready and didn't even try to get past the 'getting to know the UI phase' which we all go through when playing a new game for the first time.
Seriously, project this 'review' on any other game and you'll see how much it fails;
The Lotro equivalent would be having a hardcore FFA PVP fan stumble around in the shire for thirty minutes, failing some of the timed mail delivery quests, logging off and writing a rant on how much the lack of PVP and the silly timed quests are lame as hell.
Same thing with EVE; you wouldn't want to read a review on EVE by a handholding/storylined gameplay fan who barely played it for an hour.
Etc, etc. Goes for every game out there.
Whatever DF's shortcomings, this was obviously a case of very bad journalism and with an open mind and clear judgement you don't even have to like DF to see that.
/agree.
Look folks, I don't play Darkfall and I don't plan to either. However, I would hope that you Darkfall bashers could find a better review than this one to point out the failings of Darkfall (let's define failing as what you don't like in the game b/c a lot of people don't see it as failed and find it quite enjoyable). This guy obviously didn't even attempt to play the game... the entire read sounded like he came onto these forms and just picked a random Darkfall thread and summarized it. You can't say that he gave the game a fair shot and in this instance I would actually believe Tasos. If you're going to copy and paste images from websites to do a game review, at least word the article so that it sounds like it's unbiased... This guy didn't even try. I love how all of you are always so quick to jump to the extreme... The simplest answer is usually the correct one and I bet this reviewer only played 2 hours.
Everyone blames the reviewer, insted of the game. This is funny.
C'mon Bloodworth,..
IF what Tasos wrote about their total amount of playing time is true (which is pretty much backed up Eurogamer's offer to redo the review) it is utterly clear that this reviewer didn't even remotely try out DF.
Handing out an extreme verdict like this, whether it is extremely positive or extremely negative should be founded on FACTS and actual ingame experience. And if DF is close to, or exactly worth a 2 out of 10 to you personally, that doesn't change a thing to the fact that this is not a way to conduct any kind of serious journalism.
If this would have been a release of one of Eurogamer's primary advertisers, or a release made by a big and well established company, I seriously doubt that they would have made the same mistake of puting an external nutter on the job and support such a badly founded and extreme verdict.
This guy, for what ever reason, could not get past the games implementation of the most basic things, or even get bootstrapped into its game, or game play.
As in: he didn't even remotely try. And for a proper review, you need someone who gives a game a shot. Which this guy obviously didn't. His clear dislike of FFA pvp and having to play in a vast open world without much handholding speaks volumes also. This guy had his verdict ready and didn't even try to get past the 'getting to know the UI phase' which we all go through when playing a new game for the first time.
Seriously, project this 'review' on any other game and you'll see how much it fails;
The Lotro equivalent would be having a hardcore FFA PVP fan stumble around in the shire for thirty minutes, failing some of the timed mail delivery quests, logging off and writing a rant on how much the lack of PVP and the silly timed quests are lame as hell.
Same thing with EVE; you wouldn't want to read a review on EVE by a handholding/storylined gameplay fan who barely played it for an hour.
Etc, etc. Goes for every game out there.
Whatever DF's shortcomings, this was obviously a case of very bad journalism and with an open mind and clear judgement you don't even have to like DF to see that.
What? looks to me like he talked about the games mechanics and features, all most to a bullet list.
"Sadly, every little thing Darkfall does is tragic, but without a personality that might make you feel sorry for its developers, Aventurine. From the grubby textures and grammatically incorrect quest text to the anarchic control system, any attempt to glean joy from this torrid husk of an entertainment product is met with disdain. It's almost as if Darkfall doesn't want you to play. But nevertheless, a job is a job, and play I must."
Again, I am trying to figure out, what because of its style of game play, its excused from being a complete, and polished product. There are other PvP sandbox hardcore games that seem to meet this standard, but apparently darkfall is excused from this measurement, even after calming for years, that they are more polished than AAA games, to the point of insulting them, and the developers.
Please, explain it to me.
After you made clear what you consider to be a properly executed review and why this review doesn't stink.
The paragraph you quoted consists of general conclusions anyone could have written after a quick glance of the game and it most definately hints to what I wrote before: "This guy had his verdict ready and didn't even try to get past the 'getting to know the UI phase' which we all go through when playing a new game for the first time."
p.s. This is not about whether DF is an utter failure, which it arguably is. And DF OF COURSE shouldn't be exempt from devastating reviews when it is merrited, but that devastating review should be based on a reasonable experience with said game.
The mere fact that this guy goes on ranting about how looting a corpse takes so much time shows how much he knew or read about DF beforehand; next to nothing. He is totally oblivious that this was a conscious gameplay decision; to have looting be a risky affair in a combat situation and more true to realism in that it takes actual time. A thing everyone who has remotely followed this game knows about.
In that regard I think that you would do a much better job in writing that devastating review than this Ed Zitron, in that you actually know much more than him about DF's and AV's shortcomings over the past years. Then again, you would have to play it and it doesn't look like that will ever happen, lol
I never said he wasn't extream in his wording, or that he was inaccurate about some things. However, looting? Even the darkfall community thinks it sucks (Read: Auto-loot-macro).
---------- "Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
Comments
You missed out the bit about the game being pants
Maybe this is just one of those games that comes under the 'marmite' heading... You either love it or hate it!
i hate it. Apart from the warm retro feeling I got on first firing it up, taking me back all those years ago to the days of starting EQ...... this game, IMO, should have had a lot more time and creative energy spent on it before release!
I'd like to address this right quick:
Go ahead and go back to my RR days if you wish. Almost all my responses at the time were dictated from people above me, I had no Producer level powers as Tasos has. On top of that, I believe I've well documented, to anybody who wants to bring it up in ANY given thread, the situation I was in, powers I had (read: none), and the final outcomes.
However:
I'd like to point out that I defend Darkfall where I feel it's warranted. They released a game for a crowd (that does not apply to the one I prefer). They got the game out the door, that's more then I can say for MY previous employers.
Finally:
There's absolutely no excuse to fail to update the "Features" page of the Darkfall website. I don't care who you are, or what you say... that's easy. Anybody can do it, and it takes only an hour max. It's not the job of an interested gamer to go and dig through Forums for answers on basic feature sets (I said it at RR all the time as well) or even advanced features that'll be available AFTER launch.
So when a Game Reviewer goes to the website and reads the game has X and Y features as it's downloading, gets ingame, fails to see ANY of the listed features... well that makes the game a little difficult to give a good score.
- CaesarsGhost
Lead Gameplay and Gameworld Designer for a yet unnamed MMO Title.
"When people tell me designing a game is easy, I try to get them to design a board game. Most people don't last 5 minutes, the rest rarely last more then a day. The final few realize it's neither fun nor easy."
If you feel that i want any game to fail, you are sadly mistaken. What the real issue is, is that i comment freely about MMO's, all of them, and you do not agree.
I do not buy into the thinking that Hardcore sandbox is defined as: Incomplete, needless tedium, ganking low level players is a healthy feature for a game, convoluted system that require macros to circumvent are a acceptable alternative to a unfun and rewarding skill system, or that lack of polish is acceptable, creation of a community, that by its nature and by guidance is hostile to new users.
I could go on.
Other than that, the fact the even launched is a feat into its self, that i have congratulated them on many times truly an achievement to be prowled of, they have done what most here dream of doing. May of the systems they were going to create would have been great, to bad they didn't follow through, and talked smack while doing so.
----------
"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
Go a little further back.. like to the 2003 era..The man is a liar. This is undisputable.
/signed
there you have it, I agree with that.
- CaesarsGhost
Lead Gameplay and Gameworld Designer for a yet unnamed MMO Title.
"When people tell me designing a game is easy, I try to get them to design a board game. Most people don't last 5 minutes, the rest rarely last more then a day. The final few realize it's neither fun nor easy."
I'm a guy that has put lots of hours into lots of MMO's while still juggling an active social life and a pretty good career. I started out as a dopey kid playing Ultima Online till 3-4 in the morning with friends just as mesmerized as me. Now this isn't going to turn into one of those "UO is better than this" arguments, I just wanted to say that as someone with not a heck of a lot of time on his hands I choose which MMO's I try carefully. A bunch of other UO vets along with myself were super excited about Darkfall. At the time we thought it really was going to be the second coming of our favorite MMO of all time.
I'm not even going to talk to about all the features that were apparently left out or the maturity level of most players who hear "free pvp sandbox gameplay" and equate that to "kill anyone and everyone and forsake any resemblence of a real world structure." I have not even had a chance to try this game (or play UO, thank you Vista) because of the purchasing issues. I've still got the client downloaded and waiting to be installed. But I'm not going to install it. Just reading Tasos' posts and hearing all the nonsense surrounding this game, positive and negative, I'm almost afraid to try it.
Will it be a waste of time, when time is precious and few? I don't know what to think about it and I don't even want to find out. And this is coming from a guy who you could consider a MMO vet. I had to search the damn world over to find this game. Imagine normal Joe WoW Player, someone who doesn't search out such things. He gets the advantage in not having to put up with the BS that takes place on the boards about it, but he also, assuming he can even find it/buy it, is in for a rude awakening when he does play the game and find its not what was listed on their website.
And then he goes to the boards. And then he sees all of this nonsense. And then you have one confused, angry, disappointed customer. So yes, hype killed this game before it even came out, but they sure didn't do themselves any favors by half assing it and then acting like children when people don't like it.
All the posts he makes about things like reviewers who don't like their game, you'd think he could update their website...
C'mon Bloodworth,..
IF what Tasos wrote about their total amount of playing time is true (which is pretty much backed up Eurogamer's offer to redo the review) it is utterly clear that this reviewer didn't even remotely try out DF.
Handing out an extreme verdict like this, whether it is extremely positive or extremely negative should be founded on FACTS and actual ingame experience. And if DF is close to, or exactly worth a 2 out of 10 to you personally, that doesn't change a thing to the fact that this is not a way to conduct any kind of serious journalism.
If this would have been a release of one of Eurogamer's primary advertisers, or a release made by a big and well established company, I seriously doubt that they would have made the same mistake of puting an external nutter on the job and support such a badly founded and extreme verdict.
My brand new bloggity blog.
I'd like to address this right quick:
Go ahead and go back to my RR days if you wish. Almost all my responses at the time were dictated from people above me, I had no Producer level powers as Tasos has. On top of that, I believe I've well documented, to anybody who wants to bring it up in ANY given thread, the situation I was in, powers I had (read: none), and the final outcomes.
However:
I'd like to point out that I defend Darkfall where I feel it's warranted. They released a game for a crowd (that does not apply to the one I prefer). They got the game out the door, that's more then I can say for MY previous employers.
Finally:
There's absolutely no excuse to fail to update the "Features" page of the Darkfall website. I don't care who you are, or what you say... that's easy. Anybody can do it, and it takes only an hour max. It's not the job of an interested gamer to go and dig through Forums for answers on basic feature sets (I said it at RR all the time as well) or even advanced features that'll be available AFTER launch.
So when a Game Reviewer goes to the website and reads the game has X and Y features as it's downloading, gets ingame, fails to see ANY of the listed features... well that makes the game a little difficult to give a good score.
The 'finally' argument is the only good argument you have. The rest of it is coming from someone who was part of the WORSE MMO developers of all time. Who DEFENDED them when they were ripping off people left and right. No matter how many excuses you use, you had people more powerful than you or whatever, you were still a part of Rapid Reality and went along with the scam, even if you had a boss.
Now, let me ask you a question. It seems you are a designer for another game. If you had a review from a magazine that had someone test your game for two hours, when it takes a few weeks (at least) to get a full picture of it, would you not question the credibility of that review and reviewer?
Furthermore, what was your beta or retail name? Or, if you want to keep those private, how long did you play Darkfall?
splat
Have you played Darkfall's retail, and if so, have you played it more than just one day?
splat
C'mon Bloodworth,..
IF what Tasos wrote about their total amount of playing time is true (which is pretty much backed up Eurogamer's offer to redo the review) it is utterly clear that this reviewer didn't even remotely try out DF.
Handing out an extreme verdict like this, whether it is extremely positive or extremely negative should be founded on FACTS and actual ingame experience. And if DF is close to, or exactly worth a 2 out of 10 to you personally, that doesn't change a thing to the fact that this is not a way to conduct any kind of serious journalism.
If this would have been a release of one of Eurogamer's primary advertisers, or a release made by a big and well established company, I seriously doubt that they would have made the same mistake of puting an external nutter on the job and support such a badly founded and extreme verdict.
Again, amount of time is irrelevant, i don't see where he commented on things he did not experience.
It is not the responsibility of the player to find the fun, its the responsibility of a game to show the player the fun.
This guy, for what ever reason, could not get past the games implementation of the most basic things, or even get bootstrapped into its game, or game play.
That's more revealing than any of his choice of words.
----------
"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
Awe, poor Tacos... the truth hurts doesnt it?
I'm Awesome, Deal With It.
I'd like to address this right quick:
Go ahead and go back to my RR days if you wish. Almost all my responses at the time were dictated from people above me, I had no Producer level powers as Tasos has. On top of that, I believe I've well documented, to anybody who wants to bring it up in ANY given thread, the situation I was in, powers I had (read: none), and the final outcomes.
However:
I'd like to point out that I defend Darkfall where I feel it's warranted. They released a game for a crowd (that does not apply to the one I prefer). They got the game out the door, that's more then I can say for MY previous employers.
Finally:
There's absolutely no excuse to fail to update the "Features" page of the Darkfall website. I don't care who you are, or what you say... that's easy. Anybody can do it, and it takes only an hour max. It's not the job of an interested gamer to go and dig through Forums for answers on basic feature sets (I said it at RR all the time as well) or even advanced features that'll be available AFTER launch.
So when a Game Reviewer goes to the website and reads the game has X and Y features as it's downloading, gets ingame, fails to see ANY of the listed features... well that makes the game a little difficult to give a good score.
The 'finally' argument is the only good argument you have. The rest of it is coming from someone who was part of the WORSE MMO developers of all time. Who DEFENDED them when they were ripping off people left and right. No matter how many excuses you use, you had people more powerful than you or whatever, you were still a part of Rapid Reality and went along with the scam, even if you had a boss.
Now, let me ask you a question. It seems you are a designer for another game. If you had a review from a magazine that had someone test your game for two hours, when it takes a few weeks (at least) to get a full picture of it, would you not question the credibility of that review and reviewer?
Furthermore, what was your beta or retail name? Or, if you want to keep those private, how long did you play Darkfall?
All one has to do is look at your signature to realize you can't discuss any topic rationally. Just to make a point here, using the word hater strictly puts you in the fanboy department of people who have to put negative labels on anyone that criticizes something they like.
I personally think the reviewer was a bit over the top, but then again, all Tasos did was prove how poor their logging system was. Of course anyone playing the game knows how poor the log system is. Claiming the got rid of most of the cheaters is probably the most ridiculous claim to come out of a MMO to date.
Believing anything Tasos says at this point, labels you as one blind to obvious facts. The guy has an uncanny ability to stick his foot in his mouth and swallow whole.
While I personally still would love to find the game to get, 2 hours does not a review make. And I know server logs since you make them very verbose for cheat tracking. To fake a server log would take many man hours and not worth it. It sounds like the game is not for everyone, and should be reviewed by 2+ reviewers as all games should. Its like a warhammer/blizard groupie reviewing any new game by any other company or any other genra. Or putting an FPS player to review an TBS game that takes months to play.
In all, I think that Darkfall needs to work on some sort of digital distribution to ease people playing. Then after that, if there is a problem, fess up to it. But Eurogamer needs to admit their failings too. I've seen reviews a plenty on that site which have no basis in reality. They need to get their reviewers to stop using paid review time as a good time to smoke pot. And start actually reviewing. I also knoticed some of the images used in the review look suspiciously like images publically available or available on other sites. They need to check this, becuase if their reviewer is plagarizing without even a slight "image taken from" or "Cropped image from". Then they are liable for that image. I've done reviews for quite a while myself freelance. I spend no less than 1-2 weeks for the review, and plan on a minimum of 12 hours of gameplay time and 12 hours of writing time. With 8 hours spread incase of needing a re-write or re-play.
Once I can find this game, I'm going to do a comprehensive review. And we will see how much of the eurogamer review is right, and how much of the overhype is right. Which I'll try not to get on all the overhype reviews right now. IF someone can tell me exactly how to find a retail box or digital download, please mail me on mmorpg.com.
This is all based on if Tasos is telling the truth, from what i have seen he lies alot. so i will guess that EG really hated the game and gave a little worse review, but played it longer .
update tbl_UserAccount set TimePlayed = TimePlayedHour - 7 where UserName = 'Ed';
Yes, it would take years to change SQL data... YEARS I SAY!
I'm Awesome, Deal With It.
slightly offtopic but... why did we need another thread on this, with almost the exact same title as another thread, outside of the darkfall forums? could this either get moved to the darkfall forums, or simply deleted? there are 4-5 other topics on Tasos' response. let alone another 3 or so on the original rewiew, and plenty more attacking the reviewer personally.
Everything creates huge amounts of negativity on the internet, that's what the internet is for: Negativity, porn and lolcats.
C'mon Bloodworth,..
IF what Tasos wrote about their total amount of playing time is true (which is pretty much backed up Eurogamer's offer to redo the review) it is utterly clear that this reviewer didn't even remotely try out DF.
Handing out an extreme verdict like this, whether it is extremely positive or extremely negative should be founded on FACTS and actual ingame experience. And if DF is close to, or exactly worth a 2 out of 10 to you personally, that doesn't change a thing to the fact that this is not a way to conduct any kind of serious journalism.
If this would have been a release of one of Eurogamer's primary advertisers, or a release made by a big and well established company, I seriously doubt that they would have made the same mistake of puting an external nutter on the job and support such a badly founded and extreme verdict.
This guy, for what ever reason, could not get past the games implementation of the most basic things, or even get bootstrapped into its game, or game play.
As in: he didn't even remotely try. And for a proper review, you need someone who gives a game a shot. Which this guy obviously didn't. His clear dislike of FFA pvp and having to play in a vast open world without much handholding speaks volumes also. This guy had his verdict ready and didn't even try to get past the 'getting to know the UI phase' which we all go through when playing a new game for the first time.
Seriously, project this 'review' on any other game and you'll see how much it fails;
The Lotro equivalent would be having a hardcore FFA PVP fan stumble around in the shire for thirty minutes, failing some of the timed mail delivery quests, logging off and writing a rant on how much the lack of PVP and the silly timed quests are lame as hell.
Same thing with EVE; you wouldn't want to read a review on EVE by a handholding/storylined gameplay fan who barely played it for an hour.
Etc, etc. Goes for every game out there.
Whatever DF's shortcomings, this was obviously a case of very bad journalism and with an open mind and clear judgement you don't even have to like DF to see that.
My brand new bloggity blog.
This one is the official one, technically the others are duplicates and should be moderated.
----------
"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
C'mon Bloodworth,..
IF what Tasos wrote about their total amount of playing time is true (which is pretty much backed up Eurogamer's offer to redo the review) it is utterly clear that this reviewer didn't even remotely try out DF.
Handing out an extreme verdict like this, whether it is extremely positive or extremely negative should be founded on FACTS and actual ingame experience. And if DF is close to, or exactly worth a 2 out of 10 to you personally, that doesn't change a thing to the fact that this is not a way to conduct any kind of serious journalism.
If this would have been a release of one of Eurogamer's primary advertisers, or a release made by a big and well established company, I seriously doubt that they would have made the same mistake of puting an external nutter on the job and support such a badly founded and extreme verdict.
This guy, for what ever reason, could not get past the games implementation of the most basic things, or even get bootstrapped into its game, or game play.
As in: he didn't even remotely try. And for a proper review, you need someone who gives a game a shot. Which this guy obviously didn't. His clear dislike of FFA pvp and having to play in a vast open world without much handholding speaks volumes also. This guy had his verdict ready and didn't even try to get past the 'getting to know the UI phase' which we all go through when playing a new game for the first time.
Seriously, project this 'review' on any other game and you'll see how much it fails;
The Lotro equivalent would be having a hardcore FFA PVP fan stumble around in the shire for thirty minutes, failing some of the timed mail delivery quests, logging off and writing a rant on how much the lack of PVP and the silly timed quests are lame as hell.
Same thing with EVE; you wouldn't want to read a review on EVE by a handholding/storylined gameplay fan who barely played it for an hour.
Etc, etc. Goes for every game out there.
Whatever DF's shortcomings, this was obviously a case of very bad journalism and with an open mind and clear judgement you don't even have to like DF to see that.
What? looks to me like he talked about the games mechanics and features, all most to a bullet list.
"Sadly, every little thing Darkfall does is tragic, but without a personality that might make you feel sorry for its developers, Aventurine. From the grubby textures and grammatically incorrect quest text to the anarchic control system, any attempt to glean joy from this torrid husk of an entertainment product is met with disdain. It's almost as if Darkfall doesn't want you to play. But nevertheless, a job is a job, and play I must."
Again, I am trying to figure out, what because of its style of game play, its excused from being a complete, and polished product. There are other PvP sandbox hardcore games that seem to meet this standard, but apparently darkfall is excused from this measurement, even after calming for years, that they are more polished than AAA games, to the point of insulting them, and the developers.
Please, explain it to me.
----------
"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
I'd like to address this right quick:
Go ahead and go back to my RR days if you wish. Almost all my responses at the time were dictated from people above me, I had no Producer level powers as Tasos has. On top of that, I believe I've well documented, to anybody who wants to bring it up in ANY given thread, the situation I was in, powers I had (read: none), and the final outcomes.
However:
I'd like to point out that I defend Darkfall where I feel it's warranted. They released a game for a crowd (that does not apply to the one I prefer). They got the game out the door, that's more then I can say for MY previous employers.
Finally:
There's absolutely no excuse to fail to update the "Features" page of the Darkfall website. I don't care who you are, or what you say... that's easy. Anybody can do it, and it takes only an hour max. It's not the job of an interested gamer to go and dig through Forums for answers on basic feature sets (I said it at RR all the time as well) or even advanced features that'll be available AFTER launch.
So when a Game Reviewer goes to the website and reads the game has X and Y features as it's downloading, gets ingame, fails to see ANY of the listed features... well that makes the game a little difficult to give a good score.
The 'finally' argument is the only good argument you have. The rest of it is coming from someone who was part of the WORSE MMO developers of all time. Who DEFENDED them when they were ripping off people left and right. No matter how many excuses you use, you had people more powerful than you or whatever, you were still a part of Rapid Reality and went along with the scam, even if you had a boss.
Now, let me ask you a question. It seems you are a designer for another game. If you had a review from a magazine that had someone test your game for two hours, when it takes a few weeks (at least) to get a full picture of it, would you not question the credibility of that review and reviewer?
Furthermore, what was your beta or retail name? Or, if you want to keep those private, how long did you play Darkfall?
Paragraph 1:
Paid out of my own pocket for people who felt "ripped off" (it was well into 4 figures).
when the refunds went out, that was out of my own personal pocket. So when you say that I (CaesarsGhost) was ripping people off, you should note that I A) Did not get a refund myself, and
...I'd dare Tasos to do so... I'd dare him to even think about paying out of his own pocket!
Paragraph 2:
I'd accept the review actually... last game I helped with got a rather dim review, I didn't fight it.
Paragraph 3:
I cannot divulge as it was leftover time on a friends account. A dozen or so hours a week for about 2.5 weeks though... it definitely wasn't for me, I won't even pretend it was my type of game.
- CaesarsGhost
Lead Gameplay and Gameworld Designer for a yet unnamed MMO Title.
"When people tell me designing a game is easy, I try to get them to design a board game. Most people don't last 5 minutes, the rest rarely last more then a day. The final few realize it's neither fun nor easy."
C'mon Bloodworth,..
IF what Tasos wrote about their total amount of playing time is true (which is pretty much backed up Eurogamer's offer to redo the review) it is utterly clear that this reviewer didn't even remotely try out DF.
Handing out an extreme verdict like this, whether it is extremely positive or extremely negative should be founded on FACTS and actual ingame experience. And if DF is close to, or exactly worth a 2 out of 10 to you personally, that doesn't change a thing to the fact that this is not a way to conduct any kind of serious journalism.
If this would have been a release of one of Eurogamer's primary advertisers, or a release made by a big and well established company, I seriously doubt that they would have made the same mistake of puting an external nutter on the job and support such a badly founded and extreme verdict.
This guy, for what ever reason, could not get past the games implementation of the most basic things, or even get bootstrapped into its game, or game play.
As in: he didn't even remotely try. And for a proper review, you need someone who gives a game a shot. Which this guy obviously didn't. His clear dislike of FFA pvp and having to play in a vast open world without much handholding speaks volumes also. This guy had his verdict ready and didn't even try to get past the 'getting to know the UI phase' which we all go through when playing a new game for the first time.
Seriously, project this 'review' on any other game and you'll see how much it fails;
The Lotro equivalent would be having a hardcore FFA PVP fan stumble around in the shire for thirty minutes, failing some of the timed mail delivery quests, logging off and writing a rant on how much the lack of PVP and the silly timed quests are lame as hell.
Same thing with EVE; you wouldn't want to read a review on EVE by a handholding/storylined gameplay fan who barely played it for an hour.
Etc, etc. Goes for every game out there.
Whatever DF's shortcomings, this was obviously a case of very bad journalism and with an open mind and clear judgement you don't even have to like DF to see that.
/agree.
Look folks, I don't play Darkfall and I don't plan to either. However, I would hope that you Darkfall bashers could find a better review than this one to point out the failings of Darkfall (let's define failing as what you don't like in the game b/c a lot of people don't see it as failed and find it quite enjoyable). This guy obviously didn't even attempt to play the game... the entire read sounded like he came onto these forms and just picked a random Darkfall thread and summarized it. You can't say that he gave the game a fair shot and in this instance I would actually believe Tasos. If you're going to copy and paste images from websites to do a game review, at least word the article so that it sounds like it's unbiased... This guy didn't even try. I love how all of you are always so quick to jump to the extreme... The simplest answer is usually the correct one and I bet this reviewer only played 2 hours.
public void RapidRealityComeBacks ( bool HorseIsDead, object Horse )
{
if(HorseIsDead)
Beat(Horse);
return Horse;
}
I'm Awesome, Deal With It.
C'mon Bloodworth,..
IF what Tasos wrote about their total amount of playing time is true (which is pretty much backed up Eurogamer's offer to redo the review) it is utterly clear that this reviewer didn't even remotely try out DF.
Handing out an extreme verdict like this, whether it is extremely positive or extremely negative should be founded on FACTS and actual ingame experience. And if DF is close to, or exactly worth a 2 out of 10 to you personally, that doesn't change a thing to the fact that this is not a way to conduct any kind of serious journalism.
If this would have been a release of one of Eurogamer's primary advertisers, or a release made by a big and well established company, I seriously doubt that they would have made the same mistake of puting an external nutter on the job and support such a badly founded and extreme verdict.
This guy, for what ever reason, could not get past the games implementation of the most basic things, or even get bootstrapped into its game, or game play.
As in: he didn't even remotely try. And for a proper review, you need someone who gives a game a shot. Which this guy obviously didn't. His clear dislike of FFA pvp and having to play in a vast open world without much handholding speaks volumes also. This guy had his verdict ready and didn't even try to get past the 'getting to know the UI phase' which we all go through when playing a new game for the first time.
Seriously, project this 'review' on any other game and you'll see how much it fails;
The Lotro equivalent would be having a hardcore FFA PVP fan stumble around in the shire for thirty minutes, failing some of the timed mail delivery quests, logging off and writing a rant on how much the lack of PVP and the silly timed quests are lame as hell.
Same thing with EVE; you wouldn't want to read a review on EVE by a handholding/storylined gameplay fan who barely played it for an hour.
Etc, etc. Goes for every game out there.
Whatever DF's shortcomings, this was obviously a case of very bad journalism and with an open mind and clear judgement you don't even have to like DF to see that.
What? looks to me like he talked about the games mechanics and features, all most to a bullet list.
"Sadly, every little thing Darkfall does is tragic, but without a personality that might make you feel sorry for its developers, Aventurine. From the grubby textures and grammatically incorrect quest text to the anarchic control system, any attempt to glean joy from this torrid husk of an entertainment product is met with disdain. It's almost as if Darkfall doesn't want you to play. But nevertheless, a job is a job, and play I must."
Again, I am trying to figure out, what because of its style of game play, its excused from being a complete, and polished product. There are other PvP sandbox hardcore games that seem to meet this standard, but apparently darkfall is excused from this measurement, even after calming for years, that they are more polished than AAA games, to the point of insulting them, and the developers.
Please, explain it to me.
After you made clear what you consider to be a properly executed review and why this review doesn't stink.
The paragraph you quoted consists of general conclusions anyone could have written after a quick glance of the game and it most definately hints to what I wrote before: "This guy had his verdict ready and didn't even try to get past the 'getting to know the UI phase' which we all go through when playing a new game for the first time."
p.s. This is not about whether DF is an utter failure, which it arguably is. And DF OF COURSE shouldn't be exempt from devastating reviews when it is merrited, but that devastating review should be based on a reasonable experience with said game.
The mere fact that this guy goes on ranting about how looting a corpse takes so much time shows how much he knew or read about DF beforehand; next to nothing. He is totally oblivious that this was a conscious gameplay decision; to have looting be a risky affair in a combat situation and more true to realism in that it takes actual time. A thing everyone who has remotely followed this game knows about.
In that regard I think that you would do a much better job in writing that devastating review than this Ed Zitron, in that you actually know much more than him about DF's and AV's shortcomings over the past years. Then again, you would have to play it and it doesn't look like that will ever happen, lol
My brand new bloggity blog.
I never said he wasn't extream in his wording, or that he was inaccurate about some things. However, looting? Even the darkfall community thinks it sucks (Read: Auto-loot-macro).
Keen and Graev’s Gaming Blog Seems to agree with me.
----------
"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me