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Game Over for Darkfall in the West?
Maejohl
Member UncommonPosts: 126
There are so many reasons why Darkfall has failed as a game in the West.
However, the main reason is:
Aventurine.
Their continued failure to:
- communicate;
- make the game interesting beyond the initial prowess gain;
- communicate;
- make the game interesting for anyone other than the most mindless, hardcore arena player;
- communicate;
- keep to any of the timetables they have set for themselves; and
- did I mention communicate?,
has brought the Western playerbase to its knees.
Given that we know (from the drunken ravings of one of the core developer team) that Aventurine:
- is also now facing insolvency,
- has stopped paying all of its employees; and
- needs another 15,000 (this figure could be wrong) people to buy the game in the West for them to be able to keep on running as a company,
the writing is very much on the wall for both the Western version of Darkfall and the company itself.
Comments
I did post warnings and other bits of history which have again come to light in this 2nd game. Too bad - good concept but the company just cannot deliver.
Aventurine for sure try to win over the worst company award from $OE mobsters...
And it isreally hard to win against the masters in disappointing mass of customers and destroy their hobby, ironically the opposite should be their business, but they do "good" in it in the same manner like $OE btw
wiping your customers and replacing a version with the NGE (DF:UW in that case), silence any critics and even influence 3- party forums to hunt down valid concerns.
AV is the new mobster on the block apperantly.
But we have had our experience thanks to $OE and we ready to win if a company starts that war..
-----MY-TERMS-OF-USE--------------------------------------------------
$OE - eternal enemy of online gaming
-We finally WON !!!! 2011 $OE accepted that they have been fired 2005 by the playerbase and closed down ridiculous NGE !!
"There was suppression of speech and all kinds of things between disturbing and fascistic." Raph Koster (parted $OE)
From the first day DF launched this was bound to happen sooner or later and we all knew that.
I think there was a thread on here about just that. I agree if some developer could figure it out they would make a huge profit. I wonder if is possible however. Is is really possible to duplicate the vastness of EVE online in an online fantasy world coupled with the PvP aspects?
It appears that the moderators on forumfall are now deleting posts that are critical of AV even where they are balanced:
http://gyazo.com/92a9c1b6ba3ed03b13e7b1538da0307b
The video they did not like was made by Valroth - a massive DF supporter in his day:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMJdEQrV1u8
EDIT:
And yup, that thread I took the screenshot of has already been deleted.
www.luxarcana.org
Darlfall seemed to be an extremely well built mmo, but had 4 faults :
1) The key board sucks real bad - when you have web site after web site and many Youtubes on how to remap the keys to make it playable should be an indicter that it should be fixed.
2) Prowess - people told me not to venture out of the safe zone until 6 thousand, then it turned to 10 thousand then to 13 thousand only to find out that at 13 thousand you will still get one shotted most of the time. Many others in my guild were saying the same thing.....People HERE will say " you have to learn how to play ". a) one shot is one shot, period. b) 90 % of players are not that good anyway, and the 90% will quit !
3) Have to harvest and craft - More people than not don't like harvesting and crafting....This is 99% of your time.
4) Need more PvE - I know its not a PvE game, but in order for this game to survive, THEY BETTER START MAKING MORE PvE.
Now, Like I say in the beginning, its a well built game.
I think the immersion and graphics are the best I've ever seen in an mmo. You can really hide in a bush or behind a log. The game could have turned around with fixing the above and have a major turn around with just a few months of hard work that never did happen.
I agree with most of what you have said (you can't get "one shotted" in the game at all, but I think you mean "killed very very quickly", which is very possible).
The sad thing is that Aventurine just does not have the manpower or ability to make DFUW what it could have been.
The rights to the game in the West need to be sold to a company that has the finances and technical ability to do something with Darkfall.
If the game is a big and continuing success in Asia, then that might happen. Otherwise, it is undoubtedly 'game over' for Darkfall.
www.luxarcana.org
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/875/view/forums/thread/397973/Clause-live-streaming-honest-discussion-about-future-of-Darkfall.html
www.luxarcana.org
Oh man, that's just sad... I almost feel sorry for the company. Almost. It can't be helped though if they're not running it the way it should be ran. Niche properties/games will never do well in the states I'm guessing. I played Darkfall 1.0 for a few months but quickly grew bored with the game. I'm actually surprised that it's managed to close its servers and come back again. Not to mention that it's survived this long into the 2.0 version.
Best of luck to any of the developers that are freed up and out of work in the future. As for that Claus fellow... Seems a little off. High or not lol.
It is a very, very sad state of affairs when a company's communication is so poor that players get excited about the drunken ravings of a former programmer who had not even played DFUW.
Aventurine does now need to sell this game to someone else out there in the West.
Sadly, though, I think AV and its forum moderators have so poisoned even previously loyal members of their playerbase against them, that finding a Western producer/developer would be pretty much impossible.
www.luxarcana.org
Aventurine started failing already back around 2005, it was obvious when they moved to greece TASOS and prolly other greeks(speculation) did not want what original norwegian developers had in mind.
Slowly on forums sinds 2003 ideas that first where introduced where eather dismissed or changed so it would be more friendly for casuals.
But the real demise came to light around 2008 when every hardcore was agains the dumbdown ideas you get instant ban from forumfall for month or perma.
Then the terible amateur runned BETA(for most part it was tested with BOTS WTF? where they thinking about) was so rediculous it was bound to be failor not been properly tested.
No tress test eather only in februari 2009 we had max around 3000 players for few weeks.
But it was clear how game had MANY BUGS AND EASLY BEEN EXPLOITED none was solved with launch all bugs and exploits still ingame.
Then the deal with preorders and stupid long waits to get in only through credit cards and even then it was hard.
when the game was launched in 26-3-2009 game went downhill they started to dumbdown it even more make it safer and more easy every patcher.
Insanely stupid starwars towers who shoot with laser beams lol.
We had local banks with wars around them players start whining and aventurine placed towers near banks:(
Gamers themselfs many not comming from the other hardcore pvp mmo's keep whining and whining.
So cheating get worse macro afk 24/7 and exploiting the living daylights out of this game.
US players whined the most and demanding also there own server(belongs to one of biggest mistakes AV made spillting up a thin populations into 2 servers).
AV bad communications plus small team and funds making bad dicisions on one site.
Whining and cheating community on other site.
And game flawed warfare with zergs in first months that was so stupid it was no fun at all.
Clans who after few months suddenly came on top super rich super geared and already many max skills by CHEATING/EXPLOITING.
Bloodwalling and the AFK macroing plus splitting up community eventually killed the game.
Then they release DFO 2 and make the game a carebear game with safezones and easy cassual play its logic that many hardcore complaint alot this was not the game i followed sinds 2003 with original devlopers from norway.
Its your own fault it fails if you support cheating and dumbdown carebearing the game then it deserves to DIE.
P.S Oh and the EUROGAMER REVIEW also destroyed alot for Darkfall with 2/10 score this reviewer was insanely stupid but every carebear on the internet jumped on it like predator and agreed with this bastard while 99% including reviewer not even properly tested the game or hated this genre lol
Hope to build full AMD system RYZEN/VEGA/AM4!!!
MB:Asus V De Luxe z77
CPU:Intell Icore7 3770k
GPU: AMD Fury X(waiting for BIG VEGA 10 or 11 HBM2?(bit unclear now))
MEMORY:Corsair PLAT.DDR3 1866MHZ 16GB
PSU:Corsair AX1200i
OS:Windows 10 64bit
Unfortunately, I don't think it would make a difference who was running the game. An FFA PvP MMO with Full Loot will not be able to attract the amount of players it needs to survive. It's too niche.
You keep bringing up EVE, but you are ignoring that 90% of EVE's playerbase is spending most of their time in High-Sec space.
A full loot MMO can survive - especially in these days when I see more people complaining on these forums (ie the MMORPG forums generally) about how boring the generic PvE/questing MMOs are becoming, that are now being churned out.
I agree that the full loot genre is not for everyone, but companies are starting to catch onto the idea that a change is needed. Perhaps not as extreme as that posited by Darkfall, but a real change is needed nonetheless.
Pulling this discussion back onto topic, I agree that Aventurine has now proven itself not to be the company that could achieve this much needed change.
www.luxarcana.org
Yes you keep repeating that mantra, but you have no proof. Absolutely nothing.
All Full Loot FFA PvP games have failed to meet developer and player expectations. Every single one.
Of course that doesn't, and shouldn't, stop people from trying. I just don't believe this failure has so much to do with Aventurine incompentence, but the fact that they chose a wrong type of game to develop.
And yet we have games like EvE with full loot and AoC which is adding partial loot. Loot is not the issue. Only people who think that the most an MMO can offer is killing mobs for "epics' that everyone else has think this way.
Now that said, until the western servers belly-up and AV shuts down, don't count it out yet. People have been saying this since July of 2009 and look how long AV kept DFO 1.0 open and F2P.
Games:
Currently playing:Nothing
Will play: Darkfall: Unholy Wars
Past games:
Guild Wars 2 - Xpiher Duminous
Xpiher's GW2
GW 1 - Xpiher Duminous
Darkfall - Xpiher Duminous (NA) retired
AoC - Xpiher (Tyranny) retired
Warhammer - Xpiher
Now I can say - "I told you that." I am glad that I didn't fall on every stupid hype and didn't wasted my money for a fail company like Aventurine was.
Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.? -Albert Einstein
"The ability to speak doesn't make you intelligent" - Qui-gon Jinn. After many years of reading Internet forums, there's no doubt that neither does the ability to write.
So if you notice that I'm no longer answering your nonsense, stop trying... because you just joined my block list.
To be fair, AV only became a "fail company" once it stopped completely communicating anything of worth to its members. To show how far it has fallen, you only need to see the last update by Tasos, part of which was taken up copy/pasting the Terms of Service.
I kid you not.
www.luxarcana.org
I already touched EVE in my previous post, thanks for reading the whole thread. EVE survives because it offers consensual PvP and PvE on top of the FFA PvP part. Yes, you CAN be ganked in high-sec, but it only happens if you're really asking for it. Incidentally, a vast majority of EVE players never go to null sec. Never. This is a fact you are always quick to conveniently forget.
A game CAN have full loot and FFA PvP to be successful, but it cannot be built on just that. You need the PvE and consent-only PvP parts to have a viable playerbase.
And I wouldn't use AoC as a successful example of a full loot PvP. In fact, I wouldn't use it as an example of anything successful, really.
EVE remains the exception to the rule that "All FFA PVP games fail".
Why ?
Because EVE has a huge "safe" zone where players who are not members of corporations (a.k.a. guilds, clans) can play in almost complete safety. I played EVE for many years, and I was never once killed in high security space. That did not require any great effort on my part either.
There have been countless "player campaigns" and forum threads in EVE's history calling for the removal of the safe zone. Luckily, all have failed to change CCP's vision for the game. As a result, EVE continues to not only survive, but grow and thrive. While the hardcore PVP-everywhere games struggle and die one after the other.
1. Communication is not vastly overrated if (like AV is doing pretty much constantly) you are having to play for time to keep your playerbase engaged whilst you work to improve the game environment.
AV is currently failing at doing both of these things, and despite having hung in there for many months now, I have to come to the sad but inevitable conclusion that they don't have the money, the drive, or the ability to deliver on either communication or the game itself.
2. DFUW did attempt to follow the EVE model by introducing safe zones. Sadly, AV failed.
www.luxarcana.org
I agree that for Aventurine there is really nothing more that they can do to sink lower in the estimation of many Western gamers. Their continued inability to a) improve their game; b) tell players what they are doing to improve their game has led to a position where they are financially in serious difficulty, are not paying all of their employees and have not produced any meaningful change to the game in about half a year.
That is, to my mind, a clear signal that the game is very much over for Darkfall in the Western world.
Indeed - Aventurine either failed to listen, or they simply did not have the resources to implement what was being suggested by the players.
Either way, they have sadly failed.
It's a very real shame given everything that Darkfall I was promising to be - it remains the one game that has truly been amazing for me and my clannies and kept us entertained like no other game did for 2 - 3 years.
www.luxarcana.org