Darkfall "Released"

[Vinadil]

Vin, the issue I have with your response is that you seem to enjoy the metagaming elements of DFO more than how than actual gameplay.  The social interaction of playing with guildmates, bartering with other guilds for control of regions, setting up alliance and what not are benefits of the design of DFO, but the reviewer was talknig more about the gameplay itself.  I said that having a group of friends to play with on a regular basis can actually add an element of fun to a game that will help you overlook the glaring issues with the game, but it doesn't make those issues dissappear.  I could easily play WAR right now since I know some people that I more or less enjoy gaming with who are playing it, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that somehow makes the design flaws with the game right.

Well, pulling from my memory of that review he lists design flaws like, "It takes a long time and is boring to level up skills and harvest stuff."  That is true.  It is true in every MMO I have ever played.  If a MMO comes out that has both the meta-gaming experience I like and the in-game experience I love I will likely move to it.  Right now, though, I enjoy the Darkfall combat experience.  It does not feel like a grind to me, I never felt the need to macro skills/spells, I was competitive in PvP and very useful in PvE (played the role of main tank).  I enjoy the fact that I can log in, harvest for 10-15 minutes and have accomplished something that benefits me (stat increase) and the guild.

I enjoy the gameplay, I don't see the "grind" as that big a deal... mostly because it is no worse than other games.  Again, it is not that Darkfall does everything right, it is that they don't do it SO wrong as to make other games look more appealing.  To me.  That said, I am even in the minority in my guild, which has say 20 people play WAR and 8 moving to Darkfall.  I stopped waiting for perfect games a long time ago.  I am that guy who played Shadowbane off and on for years after it went free... because it was fun and had gameplay aspects that no other game has.  Darkfall has a LOT of those, things no other game has, so it works for me.

[Delmania]

None of this was beta tested....... Was anything beta tested? Because as i understand it, none of the high level skills were tested, none of the mid-high level crafting was tested, city raids were not tested, naval battles were not tested, The supposed high settings of the graphics options were not tested, Large scale battles were not tested, the servers have never been stress tested, theaccount system was never tested,   NOTHING ABOUT THE CORE OF THIS GAME WAS TESTED.

Did you honestly expect any different?  7 years just getting something together that resembles a game, followed by a minuscule beta period.  It's no surprise to me that Advertine does not have a NA release at launch.

[raydeen]

Your motivational video for the day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1k3hsv0tfU

Now, I realize it's flooded with hype, but I'm very interested now. Graphics aren't bugging me as I can look past that. If the game is half as fun as the video makes it out to be, I think I'd like to give it a go. The thing that's hooking me is it's classless and skill based for advancement. I know full well that given the chance I'll gimp myself to hell and back but I like the idea of custom tailoring my character to how I think he/she/it should be. Gonna be interesting to see how balancing works if it all.

[sidereal]

So for those paying attention has this been released yet? I just went to the official site which hasn't been updated since Jan 25th.

Evening, EU time.

Which is...   now.

[Mrbloodworth]

So for those paying attention has this been released yet? I just went to the official site which hasn't been updated since Jan 25th.

Evening, EU time.

Which is...   now.

[LC]

So for those paying attention has this been released yet? I just went to the official site which hasn't been updated since Jan 25th.

Evening, EU time.

Which is...   now.

Congratulations on your purchase

[schild]

I suppose that's an email Mike Mr Spohrer will regret ever deserving.

[Threash]

Gotta admit that last video looked incredibly cool.

[Mrbloodworth]

So for those paying attention has this been released yet? I just went to the official site which hasn't been updated since Jan 25th.

Evening, EU time.

Which is...   now.

Congratulations on your purchase

Not me, that's some fanboi that posted it as proof the game is real.

Lolz.

[K9]

I hear question marks are the currency of choice in the current economic climate.

[Delmania]

I hear question marks are the currency of choice in the current economic climate.

Or that said browser cannot render the Euro symbol.

[Nebu]

K9's response was better. 

[Arthur_Parker]

Somebody should review it for the front page, preferably with screen shots showing them role playing.

[Mrbloodworth]

We’ve been waiting for the pre-orders to process through billing and it has been moving along but not fast enough. We’re almost done with this. Many of you will be getting notifications of this during this process. As soon as this is concluded we’ll process the accounts and open up the servers for the pre-orders. This will be done tonight; the game has been ready and waiting.

Unfortunately we’re running behind schedule as far as opening up the extra sales which we hoped to do tonight as well. We’ll do this tomorrow as early as possible, likely sometime around noon GMT time, around the time of our first scheduled maintenance. At this time we will also process the problematic accounts which had 0 euro problems, no charges, no balance, but received a successful pre-order message. We are also looking into the few cases that have pre-ordered but have not received a confirmation email and we will resolve all these issues. Most of these problems were due to a combination of lag, multiple sessions, and multiple charge attempts.

We want to thank you for your patience again, and we would like to let you know that we’re adding a couple more days to the free month of play making them 33 for everyone that pre-ordered and that will buy the game tomorrow. This is to make up for any bad experience with the account management, the lag and the delays you’ve had to face with purchasing.

The traffic volume we’ve been experiencing has been unbelievably high because of the initial rush and was compounded by users hammering the system with multiple sessions. You should also know that we have been doing everything necessary to resolve all these issues as soon as possible.

We’ll post again as soon as the server is open.

[Delmania]

Wait, wait, the servers are not open because "billing is hard"?  This is a solved problem, did Advertine choose to do everything from scratch?

[Mrbloodworth]

Wait, wait, the servers are not open because "billing is hard"?  This is a solved problem, did Advertine choose to do everything from scratch?

If i am reading it right, they won't open till tomorrow...but the server is "Ready and willing".

They are talking about pre-orders by the way, i think they are doing it all by hand.

[Delmania]

Well, my issue was that billing shouldn't really be a holdup, especially if you're allowing people to download your client.   To me, it justs seems like Advetine is trying to do everything on its own and stepping all over its feet because it's taken too big of a bite.

[sidereal]

Wait, wait, the servers are not open because "billing is hard"?  This is a solved problem, did Advertine choose to do everything from scratch?

Yes.  This pre-emptively explains the next 6 months of their existence.

[cmlancas]

Will they make it that long?

[ashrik]

A non-release release date. They guys are tearing down all the barriers

[K9]

These guys are pro

[Herring]

It's pretty exciting.  They've shut down their forums, can't or won't get the servers up, and are slowly going through preorders.  The real source of info is from their official IRC chatroom at http://chat.stratics.com/content/channels/channels_df.php

Everyone is muted and the moderator there is repeatedly broadcasting this incredibly helpful message:

[18:14] <Brannoc> We are currently processing all pre-orders and when that phase is complete the game servers will be available for play. The forums are offline temporarily while we make adjustments. The IRC channel will remain locked during this time.

 

[gryeyes]

Could they possibly make themselves seem any more shady?

Soon they will announce all payments must be made in cash using unmarked 20 dollar bills.

[Signe]

Where is the fun in being prepared, anyway?  

[Ixxit]

I think Mourning had a better pre-order/launch than this:



 

Maybe they should have got that company that does adult site billing;  at least it would have worked.

[gryeyes]

I predict within 6 months of launch they pocket the funds and vanish. An MMO with 36 years of development and they cant even manage to ACCEPT your money in an efficient way. Let alone the inherent sketchiness of closing down all forms of official communication.

[UnSub]

Simply paying to play is carebear. Real hardcore is giving your money to some guys and then waiting for them to start the servers at some unspecified point in the future.

Slightly more seriously: they never expected to be so popular. However, by being so exclusive the desirability of getting into Darkfall on the ground floor has increased. Now, if people are going to keep seeing Darkfall as desirable when the next major release of copies are... well, that's the question.

[DraconianOne]

They're so hardcore, the first scheduled day of maintenance is the day after release. Or non-release as it were.

[gryeyes]

The darkfall forums have always been very active. I started browsing them i believe 3-4 years ago. If anything id say there most recent funding was probably directed related to its buzz. They promised all kinds of crazy shit and people just clung onto those promises.

The way adventurine (sp) carries themselves has been real shady for long while. Having trouble billing? Thats fine completely understand first time developer learning the ropes. Shutting down your forums AND IRC channel instead of directly communicating with your largely cult like fan base? Unacceptably sheisty. People could be getting robbed right now and they have no direct means to discuss the situation. Complete lock down rarely has well intentioned motives.

[Delmania]

Slightly more seriously: they never expected to be so popular. However, by being so exclusive the desirability of getting into Darkfall on the ground floor has increased. Now, if people are going to keep seeing Darkfall as desirable when the next major release of copies are... well, that's the question.

I don't think that's really the case.  After all, isn't that the cause of all this?  They were only going to accept a limited number of preorders and then slowly open the game up over time.   This is not some challenging problem that no one has ever done before.  Billing should really be a trivial matter.

[Evil Elvis]

- You think you can wait a day?

- Baby, I can wait two days!

[Venkman]

They're so hardcore, the first scheduled day of maintenance is the day after release. Or non-release as it were.

Darkfall: The Chuck Norris of MMOs.

[LC]

If you look at it from a different angle, the game servers haven't crashed or lagged once on the first day. It was a perfect launch!

[Sheepherder]

This world is huge, and incredibly well done.  But, you won't see much of it solo unless you just run past all the mobs and such.

Screenshots of a city that isn't built in an area that was clearly ran over with a flatten terrain brush, please.

[slog]

from the SA forums

Is there any chance that the company actually decided to fold a week ago and their exit plan is to 'sell' as many accounts as possible and collect as many credit card numbers as they can to milk for a few weeks before just dissapearing in the middle of the night?

That would be fucking HARDCORE.

I mean it's a shitty five man development team in Greece for fucks sakes, it's not like they have to worry about the BBB or anything, they can just take the cash they milk from a fake game launch and duck out to a neighboring country and face zero repercussions for the rest of their lives. All five of them.

It's possible