Darkfall "Released"

[Merusk]

After millions of refreshes today I got a notice saying that I had already pre-ordered the game. It wouldn't let me purchase it. Instead it suggested that I contact the support email address that never responds. I have sent them dozens of emails over the last week, and haven't gotten a single reply.

Hey about that, the volunteer is really irate he keeps having to hit the Delete key so often. Knock it off!

[Draegan]

After millions of refreshes today I got a notice saying that I had already pre-ordered the game. It wouldn't let me purchase it. Instead it suggested that I contact the support email address that never responds. I have sent them dozens of emails over the last week, and haven't gotten a single reply.

Hahahahaha sucker.

[UnSub]

Admist all the calls for failure and horridly incompetent ninny developers the game is fun...poll after poll of players in game LIKE it.  Irate IRC idle folks bashing on the game go from 'screw this' to 'wow this is actually fun'. 

I've love to see these "poll after poll" results. Especially if only 5k players are actually in DF.

The issue is never if a new MMO is fun right after launch - it's if it is fun 30+ days after launch.

[Signe]

That said, bragging didn't make this game a failure.  It just made it fun to laugh at their failure.

Admist all the calls for failure and horridly incompetent ninny developers the game is fun...poll after poll of players in game LIKE it.  Irate IRC idle folks bashing on the game go from 'screw this' to 'wow this is actually fun'. 

As for it's impending doom and limited scope:  it's not a marriage, it's a game and if it fails to hold long term interest then I'm sure <Insert Game Title Here> will welcome me with open arms.

I'm not calling for failure, I'm calling the game a failure.  At least so far.  I didn't mean to imply that it's a failure because people don't find it fun to play - just because of all that other stuff.  You know - failure to properly launch, disintegrating servers, exploits, and all that other broken stuff.

[Delmania]

I don't think Darkfall is going to be shut down.  It's different enough from other games out there that it can get the people who want to play an online game that isn't a WoW/DIKU clone, and the marketing spin is enough to appeal to the egos of these people.  Advertine has indicated they know this is a niche game with a small population.  Hell, I'm interested in playing it.  A lot however, depending on how quickly AV can fix bugs and how well they do it.  Given that their attitude has gone from "We're better" to "shit, this is harder than it looks" I am doubtful.

[BoneDancr]

Admist all the calls for failure and horridly incompetent ninny developers the game is fun...poll after poll of players in game LIKE it.  Irate IRC idle folks bashing on the game go from 'screw this' to 'wow this is actually fun'. 

As for it's impending doom and limited scope:  it's not a marriage, it's a game and if it fails to hold long term interest then I'm sure <Insert Game Title Here> will welcome me with open arms.

It's called the honeymoon effect.

Have you played the game or are you just another person commenting on something you have no experience in.  I mean I'm sure there are people who have played the game and say it sucks; I just want to know how many of them are here.

[gryeyes]

6 months max.

I still believe they are just milking what they can knowing they will never be able to provide a stable and supported product. The complete lack of dev interaction coupled with the seemingly rampant game breaking problems seem to indicate this. FFA PVP with rampant cheating and douche baggery within the first week? Sign me up!

[Delmania]

Have you played the game or are you just another person commenting on something you have no experience in.  I mean I'm sure there are people who have played the game and say it sucks; I just want to know how many of them are here.

First, this would require that people be able to buy and play the game.  However, not sure what you're getting at here.  The people who play the game say it's fun.  So?  There are people who play Shadowbane, DAoC, and UO would say those games are fun if you asked them.  I don't think any of those would classify as successes.  It's easy for a bad game to stay afloat while a good game sinks.

[Draegan]

I would call DAOC and UO successes.

Darkfall is just a size 9 pair of clowshoes.

[BoneDancr]

Have you played the game or are you just another person commenting on something you have no experience in.  I mean I'm sure there are people who have played the game and say it sucks; I just want to know how many of them are here.

First, this would require that people be able to buy and play the game.  However, not sure what you're getting at here.  The people who play the game say it's fun.  So?  There are people who play Shadowbane, DAoC, and UO would say those games are fun if you asked them.  I don't think any of those would classify as successes.  It's easy for a bad game to stay afloat while a good game sinks.

Thought not.  It's called an informed opinion which appears to be a rarity in regards to Darkfall.

[Delmania]

Thought not.  It's called an informed opinion which appears to be a rarity in regards to Darkfall.

Oh fun time!  Let's play the next round!  I will ask why an informed opinion about Darkfall is rare.

[BoneDancr]

Thought not.  It's called an informed opinion which appears to be a rarity in regards to Darkfall.

Oh fun time!  Let's play the next round!  I will ask why an informed opinion about Darkfall is rare.

Ignorance is not a game. 

[squirrel]

Have you played the game or are you just another person commenting on something you have no experience in.  I mean I'm sure there are people who have played the game and say it sucks; I just want to know how many of them are here.

First, this would require that people be able to buy and play the game.  However, not sure what you're getting at here.  The people who play the game say it's fun.  So?  There are people who play Shadowbane, DAoC, and UO would say those games are fun if you asked them.  I don't think any of those would classify as successes.  It's easy for a bad game to stay afloat while a good game sinks.

Thought not.  It's called an informed opinion which appears to be a rarity in regards to Darkfall.

Of course it's rare. You can't buy the fucking product. Yeah. that's the road to success! 

[Delmania]

Ignorance is not a game. 

I suppose DFO is srs bzs, eh?

However, you still didn't answer the question: why are informed opinions so rare?

[DLRiley]

Why is UO and DAOC being mentioned? They were both profitable a long time ago and when shit went south had enough money to scale down and keep it on life support for the remaining zombies playerbase. Their were failures in the long run but ultimately even mmo's have a shelf life, if not an exaggerated one, though arguable both games playerbases emptied out way before the expiration date hence why their failures. DF is not profitable now and is a bad game on top of that. Two wrongs not making a right now how much the zombies playerbase thinks the game is fun, considering there isn't even enough of them to cover the initial development cost of 10 million let alone servers. 

Bad games only stay afloat because they make a decent amount of money during and/or the publishers have no intentions on pulling the plug. Now considering that i've never played a mmo that qualifies as a good game the only real difference between one mmo sinking and another staying on life support is if the publishers see profit in the foreseeable future. The only mmos that launched extremely weak and hold a profitable status now is...EVE and EQ2.  But i'm sure EQ2 initial box sales were decent so it probably doesn't count.

[Redgiant]

It's pretty obvious that AV is stuck and they have no choice but to drag out this charade while they do whatever they can to dress up the turd they have.

How do I know this, BoneDancr?

Easy. If I wanted to fuck people out of money, lead on stupid fanbois and take whatever I could get knowing full well that there is no way this "game" is going anywhere short or long term, I would do EXACTLY what they have done every step of the way.

This is not an accident. A joke yes, an accident no.

[tmp]

It's called the honeymoon effect.

Have you played the game or are you just another person commenting on something you have no experience in.

I'd say if there's one thing this forum has experience in, it is the honeymoon effect

[NiX]

Ignorance is not a game. 

You sound like a complete idiot. As it stand, Aventurine opened their mouth and now it's all coming back to bite them. Even if people could or wanted to play DF, I'm pretty sure the general consensus here would be that it's a piece of shit. But, if it rubs you the wrong way that most haven't played it, how about we base its success on the companies attitude or the very apparent exploitation.

[BoneDancr]

Ignorance is not a game. 

You sound like a complete idiot. As it stand, Aventurine opened their mouth and now it's all coming back to bite them. Even if people could or wanted to play DF, I'm pretty sure the general consensus here would be that it's a piece of shit. But, if it rubs you the wrong way that most haven't played it, how about we base its success on the companies attitude or the very apparent exploitation.

You are so angry.  I asked if anyone had tried the game, nobody here has responded they had.  If you prefer to go on posting ignorant comments and predictions of Aventurine's impending doom by all means go on with your bad self. 

[BoneDancr]

nt

[Bzalthek]

Some people are able to learn from the mistakes of others.  It's not a fucking light grenade.

[Nhare]

Ignorance is not a game. 

You sound like a complete idiot. As it stand, Aventurine opened their mouth and now it's all coming back to bite them. Even if people could or wanted to play DF, I'm pretty sure the general consensus here would be that it's a piece of shit. But, if it rubs you the wrong way that most haven't played it, how about we base its success on the companies attitude or the very apparent exploitation.

You are so angry.  I asked if anyone had tried the game, nobody here has responded they had.  If you prefer to go on posting ignorant comments and predictions of Aventurine's impending doom by all means go on with your bad self. 

They made a game for a niche of a niche.  In today's saturated market, where are people going to spend their money?  With a company that spitting amateur hour nonsense every time they open their mouths?  Or with a company that has some kind of proven track record?  Even WAR looks like a better long term investment for a player than DFO.

Darkfall will fail, there is no way around it. 

[WindupAtheist]

Why is UO and DAOC being mentioned? They were both profitable a long time ago and when shit went south had enough money to scale down and keep it on life support for the remaining zombies playerbase. Their were failures in the long run but ultimately even mmo's have a shelf life, if not an exaggerated one, though arguable both games playerbases emptied out way before the expiration date hence why their failures.

*dons his fanboy hat and adopts a bareknuckle boxing stance*

I beg to differ sir!

Camelot may have blown it's own foot off with the TOA expansion, I'm no DAOC expert so I won't debate except to state the conventional wisdom. But while the sort of people that are currently hacking Darkfall to death in it's cradle want to pretend the Trammel expansion killed UO, the fact is the game gained subscribers for a good 3 years afterward and didn't really start shedding them until it's successor arrived in the form of SWG. Hell there was even an odd plateau and faint increase in UO subs for a brief period following the NGE.

Shit, the old bitch is going on 12 years old and they just hired a new live events team and are working on an expansion. Anyone want to lay odds on anything that came out in this past year still producing expansions in 2021?

The few thousand fags who quit UO when they couldn't PK miners anymore just plain don't matter. They didn't matter then, and they don't matter now. They're no different than the PVE poopsocks who were drooling over Vanguard, noisy but irrelevant. Its's no accident that the only serious PVP game to achieve real success (EVE) is the one that managed not to paint itself as a UO refugee griefer's paradise.

[Triforcer]

Sir, how can one consider UO a success when at one point, shortly after Trammel, it had negative 55,000 subscribers?  That fact leads me to respectfully disagree with your premise.

[squirrel]

Ignorance is not a game. 

You sound like a complete idiot. As it stand, Aventurine opened their mouth and now it's all coming back to bite them. Even if people could or wanted to play DF, I'm pretty sure the general consensus here would be that it's a piece of shit. But, if it rubs you the wrong way that most haven't played it, how about we base its success on the companies attitude or the very apparent exploitation.

You are so angry.  I asked if anyone had tried the game, nobody here has responded they had.  If you prefer to go on posting ignorant comments and predictions of Aventurine's impending doom by all means go on with your bad self. 

Look you irrational tool. We couldn't try the game if we wanted to. Ok? I tried. They won't sell me THIS GAME. I HAVE TEH MONIES. For the sake of Schadenfreude. Fuck the idea that it's ignorance - YOU CAN"T BUY THIS GAME. So STFU about anything else. It's a game you can't buy. Like, are you so completely out of touch that this fact escapes you? It's not about whether it's a good game or not at this point. It's about whether you can form an opinion. Which you can't. BECAUSE YOU CAN'T BUY OR PLAY THE FUCKING GAME.

EDIT: 5 will get you 10 that the response to this is "Well if you could buy it you'd see how awesome it really is!"

[Soln]

You know I haven't see anyone else mention this (at least lately), but I doubt Aventurine has that big an overhead.  Or have that much debt. 

They may be "successful" (profit!) with only 50k paying subs or even less.  We don't know.  And after all the messaging on so many boards and Youtube posts I suspect they may get 50k. 

So the game and service may suck etc. etc. etc. for what people are used to.  BUT Aventurine may make enough coin to manage the game and keep it active.  It sounds like they are suffering now from getting hammered by subs (and griefed).  Both of which are normal for a new MMO launch.  So I doubt it will ever be polished, but this could limp along.  Don't be surprised if they "succeed".  WURM Online and other semi-homebrew projects are also still out there.  Hell, ATitD anyone?

[squirrel]

Soln - you can't actually *buy* this product right now. The CC auth is broken. And if you get charged it's a 50/50 chance you will have an account. Not sure that's in the same class as the Niche games you're mentioning, which can at least process a CC transaction. Both ATitD and Runes of Magic (plus 100+ other RTM or low cost MMOGS) seem to have this covered. If billing is your biggest issue - with <5000 users - you're fucked.

[ashrik]

I thought it was made clear that this was an opinon-free thread.

[DraconianOne]

You know I haven't see anyone else mention this (at least lately), but I doubt Aventurine has that big an overhead.  Or have that much debt. 

How did you come to that conclusion? 8 years in development isn't going to be cheap and then there's that alleged $27.5m bond that they took out in 2007 that they've got to pay off. How many servers do they currently have and how many are they planning on adding? Do they have the capacity to support enough players to recoup their money before any investors demand their money back? With 50k subscripers at, say $15 a month, that would still take them over three years to break even, much less make a profit.  If they get 100k then you may look at half the time. Are they going to get a 100k? Do they have the infrastructure to support that amount of users? Have they found an investor for a NA release?

[ashrik]

Such questions are best left to be pondered by the 5000 who are currently stress testing playing the game.

[Merusk]

Soln - you can't actually *buy* this product right now. The CC auth is broken. And if you get charged it's a 50/50 chance you will have an account. Not sure that's in the same class as the Niche games you're mentioning, which can at least process a CC transaction. Both ATitD and Runes of Magic (plus 100+ other RTM or low cost MMOGS) seem to have this covered. If billing is your biggest issue - with <5000 users - you're fucked.

You're just mad your Credit Card was PK'd. Quit your crying, and try again, noobcakes.  This game is serious business. So serious you have to be willing to take those lumps even from the online store!

This thread keeps getting better.

[Soln]

Soln - you can't actually *buy* this product right now. The CC auth is broken. And if you get charged it's a 50/50 chance you will have an account. Not sure that's in the same class as the Niche games you're mentioning, which can at least process a CC transaction. Both ATitD and Runes of Magic (plus 100+ other RTM or low cost MMOGS) seem to have this covered. If billing is your biggest issue - with <5000 users - you're fucked.

point taken  /salute

[BoneDancr]

Look you irrational tool. We couldn't try the game if we wanted to. Ok? I tried. They won't sell me THIS GAME. I HAVE TEH MONIES. For the sake of Schadenfreude. Fuck the idea that it's ignorance - YOU CAN"T BUY THIS GAME. So STFU about anything else. It's a game you can't buy. Like, are you so completely out of touch that this fact escapes you? It's not about whether it's a good game or not at this point. It's about whether you can form an opinion. Which you can't. BECAUSE YOU CAN'T BUY OR PLAY THE FUCKING GAME.

EDIT: 5 will get you 10 that the response to this is "Well if you could buy it you'd see how awesome it really is!"

Nothing I've said is irrational.  My many condolences on your inability to purchase the poorly made, entertainment-free, product.  

My guild had similar problems and we were only able to get about 25 in.  Given the amount of guilds in the 50 - 100 membership currently playing we are seriously behind the competitive curve.  Anyways, glad to hear that you soon will be able to make an informed opinion.  Have a nice day.

[BoneDancr]

Such questions are best left to be pondered by the 5000 who are currently stress testing playing the game.

There were 6,500+ players on the server listing eligible for KOS via clan management on Saturday afternoon; have not checked since.

[Delmania]

Nothing I've said is irrational.  My many condolences are your inability to purchase the poorly made, entertainment-free, product only suited for 4y old wolverine puppies.  My guild of the same had similar problems and we were only able to get about 25 in.  Give the amount of guilds in the 50 - 100 membership ranged on the clan roster now we are seriously behind the curve.  Anyways, glad to hear that you soon will be able to make an informed opinion.  Have a nice day.

Apparently, Bondancr, you seem to think the fact that you and the people who play the game find it fun is meaningful.  There were people who found Hellgate London, Wish, and Tabula Rasa fun.  Making a game that some people find is fun is not something that's particularly challenging.  The problem is that Advertine is so focused on doing everythings its own way that it's not doing anything well.  Rampant exploits, a botched launched day, and roulette style account system.  The "it's a new game" excuse will only last so long.  The success of the game will depend on how well Advertine can turn things around, and basedon their past and current performance, not sure there's much to go on here.