Darkfall "Released"

[Signe]

I suggested putting it in the graveyard weeks ago but no one every pays me any mind! 

[Draegan]

If you really need a taste of fail just go play Vanguard, you probably bought that one too.

The Vanguard you refer to is no longer a live game. Sorry. :)

No, it's still there.

[Iniquity]

You're the reason people make shitty MMOs in the first place.  Don't give them money if their product is shit.

If Darkfall's shitty, it won't be for lack of trying.  Giving money encourages more trying in the same vein.  By contrast, giving money to DIKUs means more people willing to try to build DIKUs.

This is why I wouldn't subscribe to WoW even if it weren't a pile of total horseshit (IMHO, of course); I'd be contributing to the decision for someone to try and build WoW-part-2.

[kildorn]

You're the reason people make shitty MMOs in the first place.  Don't give them money if their product is shit.

If Darkfall's shitty, it won't be for lack of trying.  Giving money encourages more trying in the same vein.  By contrast, giving money to DIKUs means more people willing to try to build DIKUs.

This is why I wouldn't subscribe to WoW even if it weren't a pile of total horseshit (IMHO, of course); I'd be contributing to the decision for someone to try and build WoW-part-2.

So you only buy unpopular crap to stimulate the unpopular crap market?

edit: to be less snarky: I like lesser known music. This means I buy albums from unknown artists I really enjoy, not "I buy low selling albums to spur the creation of more unknown bands" or that I avoid buying albums that are popular because they're actually solid albums.

You correctly energize markets by buying things that you enjoy, be they popular or not. Giving money to something just because it's failing just makes people think failure is a niche market.

[Arthur_Parker]

Giving money encourages more trying in the same vein.

Give me money and I'll agree with you.

[Murgos]

If Darkfall's shitty, it won't be for lack of trying.  Giving money encourages more trying in the same vein.  Money to Dikus means more people willing to try to build DIKUs.

Um, no.  More money MADE from games means more money to make games.  More money lost making games means less money to make games.  Encouraging failure is not the way to get good games made.

[Iniquity]

So you only buy unpopular crap to stimulate the unpopular crap market?

Unless you're one of those majoritarian types who thinks 'popular' has much of any correlation with 'good'... the problem with that is...?  I'm willing to make a fixed-cost investment in an unpopular but superior idea, whether the implementation is done well or poorly, so that the next round of people who are considering embracing that same idea and giving it a go will be more likely to take the plunge.

The argument with potential investors will hopefully go something like the one we're having here:

Investor: "Well, you want to do full-world PvP.  Darkfall did that, and their game failed."

Designer: "They failed because the game sucked, not because it was full-world PvP.  People were chomping at the bit for a game like that, if it was done right -- and if we scale back on some of the more ambitious but unnecessary things they tried to deliver and recognize that world-PvP frees us from a lot of the content-building that a traditional, AAA PvE MMO has to launch with these days, we can deliver a world-PvP game that will satisfy this audience within a reasonable budget."

Investor: "Got any evidence that the game might have succeeded if it didn't suck?  That the market for a game like this isn't just hopelessly small?"

...At which point, the designer points to Darktide's box sales.  I want that number to be a high one.

edit: to be less snarky: I like lesser known music. This means I buy albums from unknown artists I really enjoy, not "I buy low selling albums to spur the creation of more unknown bands" or that I avoid buying albums that are popular because they're actually solid albums.

Apples to oranges -- the investment and product creation structures in each market are entirely different.  People get into making music on a wing and a prayer, and the costs of making your first song and putting it on MySpace aren't terribly high.  MMOs are a different beast entirely, and require investors to make a leap of faith with serious cash.

[kildorn]

So you only buy unpopular crap to stimulate the unpopular crap market?

Unless you're one of those majoritarian types who thinks 'popular' has much of any correlation with 'good'... the problem with that is...?  I'm willing to make a fixed-cost investment in an unpopular but superior idea, whether the implementation is done well or poorly, so that the next round of people who are considering embracing that same idea and giving it a go will be more likely to take the plunge.

The argument with potential investors will hopefully go something like the one we're having here:

Investor: "Well, you want to do full-world PvP.  Darkfall did that, and their game failed."

Designer: "They failed because the game sucked, not because it was full-world PvP.  People were chomping at the bit for a game like that, if it was done right -- and if we scale back on some of the more ambitious but unnecessary things they tried to deliver and recognize that world-PvP frees us from a lot of the content-building that a traditional, AAA PvE MMO has to launch with these days, we can deliver a world-PvP game that will satisfy this audience within a reasonable budget."

Investor: "Got any evidence that the game might have succeeded if it didn't suck?  That the market for a game like this isn't just hopelessly small?"

...At which point, the designer points to Darktide's box sales.  I want that number to be a high one.

By buying something that is, in essence, crap, you're telling the investors "wow, people like shitty UIs with horrible implementation and low end graphics."

Your money did not come marked with "I really enjoyed feature X, please make more of that, the rest needs serious rethinking"

I do not equate "popular" with "good" but I also don't reverse the fallacy and equate "popular" with "bad".

Apples to oranges -- the investment and product creation structures in each market are entirely different.  People get into making music on a wing and a prayer, and the costs of making your first song and putting it on MySpace aren't terribly high.  MMOs are a different beast entirely, and require investors to make a leap of faith with serious cash.

Making a national selling album is not a wing and a prayer, it's a distribution method, and usually years of work creating, recording, finishing and distributing said work.

Is it fewer people and less startup cash than an MMO? Well yes, and there's a larger market. But the same theory prevails: buying something you know to be shit because it's unpopular is simply putting forth the argument that shit is secretly the next up and coming popular thing, and your argument included not buying WoW even if you LIKED it, just to prevent WoW 2.0. Sometimes something Worked, and deserves to be a genre. Just because people like it doesn't mean you need to go all fucking hipster and hate it because your band sold out and went mainstream.

[Iniquity]

Your money did not come marked with "I really enjoyed feature X, please make more of that, the rest needs serious rethinking"

This is generally true, except that Darkfall exists for one reason, and one reason only -- to be a full-world PvP game.  Its box sales are going to be taken as a sign of what the demand for full-world PvP games truly is.  That's not just 'feature X', it's basically the whole effing game.

[kildorn]

Your money did not come marked with "I really enjoyed feature X, please make more of that, the rest needs serious rethinking"

This is generally true, except that Darkfall exists for one reason, and one reason only -- to be a full-world PvP game.  Its box sales are going to be taken as a sign of what the demand for full-world PvP games truly is.  That's not just 'feature X', it's basically the whole effing game.

So nothing but it's full world PVP is in the box?

Because what I see to bitch about on the game is everything but it's pvp to start. Can't mouselook around? What the shit? I mean, the entire UI seems to be built to excessively punish gameplay. It's not just full world PVP, it's an attempt to be harder core than anyone else on the block. I'd play a full world pvp game for a lark, but I wouldn't put money anywhere near a game design created by someone who adamantly HATES end users. I don't want that gameplay design decision to ever get mistakenly pitched as "good" again, much along my feelings about QTEs being used to replace what should have been cutscenes in console games.

[Arthur_Parker]

Unless you're one of those majoritarian types who thinks 'popular' has much of any correlation with 'good'... the problem with that is...?  I'm willing to make a fixed-cost investment in an unpopular but superior idea, whether the implementation is done well or poorly, so that the next round of people who are considering embracing that same idea and giving it a go will be more likely to take the plunge.

Do you also post elsewhere as Lindorn?

[Iniquity]

So nothing but it's full world PVP is in the box?

From a money guy's perspective, pretty much.  I'm sorry, but you're just blind to reality if you don't think Darkfall's box sales numbers are going to be read as a major data-point on the size of the market for a world-PvP MMO.

Do you also post elsewhere as Lindorn?

...No?  A bit of googling says he's a guy who's heavy into WoW catassery.  I'm... kind of the opposite?

[Draegan]

Is Darkfall going to even have boxes?  No one's going to look at it for anything.

[Venkman]

So nothing but it's full world PVP is in the box?

From a money guy's perspective, pretty much.  I'm sorry, but you're just blind to reality if you don't think Darkfall's box sales numbers are going to be read as a major data-point on the size of the market for a world-PvP MMO.

No. To actually do that they need a well rounded marketing plan that already began months ago and has a solid plan to continue doing so after having worked out a robust publishing plan to ensure prime placement in major retailers who along the way chipped in their own efforts to market in circulars and magazines and online.

What DF has is a bunch of quasi-hobbiest who got some great Angel-like funding to fulfill their inner-geek fantasies of delivering the dominant fetuspult man a few thousand people might have been interested in that day eight years ago this project actually began.

This is fine though. DF doesn't need to have market relevance to be enjoyable to be people. But it's important to manage one's expectations. If you want to play a game other people will care about, this one will not be it.

And if you care about market relevance, before extolling the virtues of DF, you still need to look at whether world-PvP matters. Because in the last five or so years, the only people that do are the same people building them. That's not a market any bigger than a statistical rounding error.

DF isn't going to prove world-PvP or not. And therefore world-PvP will continue to be unproven.

[Zzulo]

I thought Darkfall was going to be distributed online only?

[Falconeer]

No traces of Darkfall on european resellers yet.
Worse, no traces of a release date on their main page either, or the news section. Let alone a preorder program.

[EdNiche]

Let alone a preorder program.

Preorders at this point would smell too much like a scam. I hope we don't see them until open beta or lifting of NDA.

Also, hi.

[mutantmagnet]

No traces of Darkfall on european resellers yet.
Worse, no traces of a release date on their main page either, or the news section. Let alone a preorder program.

Their usage of the main website has always been inconsistent. I wouldn't sweat that. The resellers? Maybe.

[Goreschach]

So are they planning on launching without any kind of stress test?

[peryn]

How many times have we seen this before?

> Game struggles along in development hell, finally gets a release date.
> Release date is within two months and still no large scale beta testing.
> Game is obviously being rushed to meet a deadline.
> Game releases with broken features, lack of polish, and the few subscribers that stay fund the rest of the development?

I have hope for Darkfall, but this just sounds all too familiar.

[Draegan]

How is this game rushed when it has been in development since 2001?

[peryn]

How is this game rushed when it has been in development since 2001?

I don't think it has been for the whole of the development cycle. But they're obviously going to need to rush to get the game into beta when the release date is January 22nd and they still haven't entered into a stress testing period. It seems that right now they're in a sort of friends and family beta, which seems odd this far into development.

[mutantmagnet]

One also can't talk about broken features when it hasn't released yet.

The only good point is the long dev time. Something like that brings up spectres of past disappointments: Battlefield AD3000 "the last game we would ever need to play", Shenmue "an epic trilogy that ended on its first episode", Daikitana "supposed to make us its bitch", and Too Human "the last hope for the Gamecube several years too late".

I hope Darkfall bucks this trend of flops from unconventionally developed games.

It seems that right now they're in a sort of friends and family beta,

Well they aren't.

[peryn]

One also can't talk about broken features when it hasn't released yet.

Notice the question mark? I was hinting that this could be the end result, where the game is rushed to the point of game features either being in or being poorly implemented, a la Vanguard or AoC. I'm just worried that the warning signs I've seen with many MMOs which failed are apparent here as well.

Well they aren't.

Maybe I was mistaken. All of the names that were in the leaked beta picture a while back happened to be moderators, devs and some other people associated with the company.

[DraconianOne]

I'm willing to make a fixed-cost investment in an unpopular but superior idea, whether the implementation is done well or poorly, so that the next round of people who are considering embracing that same idea and giving it a go will be more likely to take the plunge.

I'm planning on solving the world fuel crisis by developing unlicensed portable fusion reactors. I've worked out that I can keep costs down by using volunteers who've read physics books, unskilled labour and inferior grade plutonium as well as surplus kit from the Chernobyl site that's going for cheap.  To keep funds flowing I'm thinking of selling on any refined product to Iran for use in their weapons development program.

No I know that this might sound a little flaky but it really is a good idea and I really do want to stop the world fuel crisis and provide cheap, clean and efficient fuel to everyone. It might even have a positive effect on the economy. 

Granted I can't guarantee that the implementation will be poor but it is definitely a superior idea so gief gold plz. Kthx.

[Murgos]

From a money guy's perspective, pretty much.  I'm sorry, but you're just blind to reality if you don't think Darkfall's box sales numbers are going to be read as a major data-point on the size of the market for a world-PvP MMO.

I'd like to meet your money guy.  A 'money guy's perspective' is money in less than money out.  He doesn't care if it's shit in a box, if it has a positive return he will fund it.  He funds NOTHING that shows money out less than money in.  Every failed project is a toll on the funeral bell of future projects.  Rational people do not reinforce failure, which is one reason why smart publishers, who may need to seek funding in the future, let failures quietly die before ever seeing the light of day.

Darkfall's box sales will absolutely be read as a major data-point on the size of the market for any future MMO, world-PVP or otherwise.  If Darkfall blows it's ass out on the real market, which is what it looks like they will do, every other person with money will look at that and say, "there's less money in MMO's than I thought.  Warcraft must be an abberation and is getting it all.  There must be even less money in 'World-PVP' style MMO's I should take my money elsewhere.

[Baldrake]

Rational people do not reinforce failure, which is one reason why smart publishers, who may need to seek funding in the future, let failures quietly die before ever seeing the light of day.

Darkfall aside, this isn't really true. VC's are typically more likely to fund someone with failed startups behind them than someone with no experience at all. Because they understand there's a learning curve and a lot of luck involved, and if you show you've learned from your past, you're better than the naive starry-eyed guy who has no clue what's ahead of them.

[Murgos]

Note that I said "Publisher".

The publishers want to show investors that they don't waste money by reinforcing failure.

Developers can benefit more from showing that they have experience, even when that experience was a flop, but even then I doubt that they want to sell the idea too hard that they are mostly incompetent.

[LC]

I remember when Aventurine was a greek publisher with deep pockets, and had come down from the heavens to save Darkfall.

[Vinadil]

So nothing but it's full world PVP is in the box?

Because what I see to bitch about on the game is everything but it's pvp to start. Can't mouselook around? What the shit? I mean, the entire UI seems to be built to excessively punish gameplay. It's not just full world PVP, it's an attempt to be harder core than anyone else on the block. I'd play a full world pvp game for a lark, but I wouldn't put money anywhere near a game design created by someone who adamantly HATES end users. I don't want that gameplay design decision to ever get mistakenly pitched as "good" again, much along my feelings about QTEs being used to replace what should have been cutscenes in console games.

Am I wrong in assuming that most FPS games operate in the same way?  I am not a huge FPS gamer, but at least in Team Fortress 2 I don't remember being able to do much mouselooking in a 360 way.  I don't see how this feature is "hating end users" so much as clearly targetting a specific set of end users.  At this point most of the naysayers are arguing that their target audience is just too small, not that they have designed a game that hates its own target audience.

[Venkman]

Mouselook has been a core part of PC FPS games since Doom. TF2 had it for sure.

As to hating on end users, that part is a stretch. It's more that they don't understand what would make an end user enjoy the game.

[mutantmagnet]

Bah, kildorn created confusion by calling freelook mouselook.

It's more that they don't understand what would make an end user enjoy the game.

Don't you mean "It's more that they don't understand what end user they are going to gain the attention of?"

The UI is fine. It might be able to pull off the level of immersion Deadspace achieved but it's not a feature to be overly concerned about.

[Venkman]

It's both. They don't know who they'll get so are not designing appropriately for them.

[Redgiant]

Any chance DF is thinking of picking off some lost goodwill WAR blew on the DAoC crowd? if so they better rethink things like no freelook. Fast.

After being disappointed in WAR's schizoid "I'm WoW...no I'm DAoC...um, no I am WoW" act. There has to be a load of people who are looking for their open world fix, and since DAoC Origins isn't an option and Wintergrasp is even further from what they wanted in WAR ...

[Iniquity]

No freelook has me more interested in the game, rather than less.

If you allow freelook, you have to use it constantly in order to be competitive.  This was one of the things that took AC Darktide out of 'world' territory and back to 'game' territory for me, that as I ran I had to be schizophrenically spinning the camera around myself at max range for every possible advantage.

No freelook allows for really good sneaky tactics, and forces me to make real choices about how I use perception.  The optimal playstyle that freelook incentivizes for PvP isn't nearly as fun.

And, as someone above noted, freelook is standard for FPS games anyhow -- and that's the direction I want to see PvP MMOs evolving toward in general, FPSes strike me as capturing a more mature sense of what constitutes 'good gameplay' than your average MMO, IMHO.