Launching Is Hard

TariqOne :

You’re banging on these dudes pretty hard.

Only for 60 seconds, until their death timer expires.

“Darkfall could launch today. It’s more ready for launch than most, if not all of the MMORPG titles at the same stage that I’ve personally sampled and it has been for quite some time.”

Sadly, remembering some of the MMOs I’ve played shortly after launch lately, I have no trouble at all believing this one.

I wonder if servers will be up in time for the scheduled down time.

I’m…. not sure why you are still so quick to jump on the Darkfall rage-wagon. Why does the concept of a game that you have no intention of playing make you so insecure?

Rage wagon? We’re all just trying to help Darkfall succeed by letting them know they’re on the right track.

@Scott Jennings
Hahahaha…so mean, so funny. Make sure you loot him too, Scott.

I can’t claim to speak for Mr. Jennings. However, in my case it’s a combination of several factors:

1) Tasos’ excuses over the years and his smug and arrogant claims about Darkfall. In this particular case, it’s the technological readiness which is in question, something Tasos assured was entirely under control despite the repeated concerns over the lack of stress tests (not to mention sheer exploits such as macroing). Not to mention…

2) The numerous things that were promised and never delivered. I’m not just talking about beta reports versus the initial promises of in-game features by Aventurine. I’m also talking about the missed deadlines over the years (wasn’t there supposed to have been a guild beta back in 2006?) and the complete refusal of Aventurine to offer even the slightest explanation when those never took place.

3) The rabid “community” that developed around the game over the years and would end up backing Aventurine on everything it did, including the January pushback, even jumping the gun on it, actually: “Better delay than release incomplete”, they said. Oh wait, didn’t Tasos say in December that the game was ready for launch? I’m pretty sure that despite this latest embarrassing moment, there will still be plenty of fanboys jumping to the defense of Aventurine — while discreetly calling Visa, just in case.

4) Said community abusing and dismissing the slightest questioning of Aventurine and Darkfall as “trolling”.

5) Aventurine, instead of offering evidence to dispel ongoing rumours of vaporware­, apparently capitalizing on it for free publicity (while doing otherwise no effort to promote its game, not even doing something entirely in-house like updating its website).

6) And yes, the “play to crush” mentality which Aventurine not only tolerated but facilitated, claiming it was superior to the rampant carebearism of the industry. I’d like some alternatives to WoW’s superficial dreck, true, but what Darkfall goes for is the other extreme, just an excuse for leet guilds and alliances to develop their e-peen at the expense of every other type of player, including small guilds (which is the form I prefer), and if the pattern holds, at the expense of the game itself. It’s not like there isn’t plenty of evidence to this effect already, so nobody will be weeping for a company that stuffed plugs up its ears.

So yes, there’s an element of schadenfreude involved, and I’m savouring every moment of it.

All that is needed to complete this picture is to find that a coder left the GM teleport command available to the average player.

In the spirit of hate, and obvious bitterness infusing this post: I hope more of the people you know, and care for, lose their jobs and have their lifesavings flushed down the toilet. After the tirades about ethical behavior one would think you’d know the golden rule.

Wait, is Tasos Flambouras some kind of anagram for Uwe Bowl?

And this just in: The guy who made the Hitler-tries-to-beta-test-Darkfall video made a new masterpiece: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_05vPCO58o

Game mechanics and raison d’être aside, the contempt for the would-be-player base regarding this new ‘release’ is scandalous, especially in an already beleaguered industry – I would go so far as to say it’s in the same league that US mmo companies in the main treat EU customers.

It would take moments to remove the “apply for beta” button from the front page.

It would take moments to put a statement on the front page (and link it to the URL for the pre-order page) making people aware that pre-orders were sold out (which surely would be a great thing to advertise – the record time in which they sold out???)

It would take moments to do any of the above.

I’ve heard the “They’re too busy to waste time on small things like that when they have servers to get running” argument. This is of course a complete crock and the scant moments invested in the above would help allay many fears and reduce potential customer frustration the world over.

You have become better at Fail (42)!

I’m really confused as to whats happening, but the general jist I’m getting is that no is able to play. Damn fanboys and smoke tactics.

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/2671028#2671028 That you vatarnias? I’m not going to read the full thing but what’s happening brah?

Vetarnias :
And this just in: The guy who made the Hitler-tries-to-beta-test-Darkfall video made a new masterpiece: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_05vPCO58o

I love the ‘sorting the pre-orders’ part! Just about wet myself.
All this just goes to prove that there are people who will pre-order anything.
It’s not like there were not multiple signs it would go badly.
They may still be able to get a game out of it – but that could be days (weeks? months??) away?

Anyway, I for one am glad it is here.
It will help sort the real PvPers out from the wannabes and the ganker (so long as I am doing teh pwning) set.
I look forward to forums where wannabes no longer dribble on about their utopia of ‘hardcore’.
It’s here – they can play it. My bet is that 99% of them don’t have the stomach for it.

@axegrindmorenoob

I think the difference comes in that a lot of the people laid off from the other companies were hard workers that put out good work. I wouldn’t care if the entire Darkfall team was fire because they’ve only proved themselves to be lazy and deceptive.

I think that the reason people read Scott as bitter is that they’re mistaking the source of his pessimism.

The Darkfall well-wishers see a bitter old man scowling “Mankind will never fly! If we were meant to God would have given us wings! Oh god my crippling acrophobia! If anyone achieves flight I will be undone! I fear change.” And then Orville and Wilbur Wright are drifting over the land at Kitty Hawk, and poor crazy Scott is left to moan about how they didn’t really fly because he could probably be six feet off the ground, so that isn’t good enough, and anyway get off his lawn.

I see it more like watching a film montage of people trying to fly by wearing a special wing harness and flapping their arms really, really hard… and then along comes Darkfall insisting that it can fly, by wearing an extra-special wing harness and flapping its arms really, really, really hard. And there’s Scott on the sidelines in a spiffy bowler hat saying “Uh, you know that people have already tried this, right? Shadowbane’s shoulder still hurts when it rains.” And apparently what happens next is that Darkfall sneers “Shows what you know, old man!”, runs off a nearby cliff, falls twenty feet while flapping its arms, and breaks a leg in two places.

Darkfall isn’t doing anything new. It’s doing the same things that have failed in the past. And while it’s true that past failure does not guarantee future failure, if the newcomer is doing the same things that have failed in the past only harder, failure’s the way to bet.

This is hardcore. I love watching people experience this level of disappointment about a game, let them whip themselves into a frenzy and quit. Let the game die, or survive and adapt into a better game. All this, so that in six months I can buy a copy if it is getting good reviews and play then. These people are my raging proxies. They suffer so I don’t have to.

Does Darkfall actually exist? Everything I’ve read is coming from people that can’t get in.

I’m not convinced they are a company, I picture 2 guys in the basement convinced that their home internet connection can handle the load.

Good luck all!

@Tobold, my last post. Woops.

“For good game performance, you should have a PIII-800 and a GeForce1-2 or ATI Radeon.”

*raises hand* OoOOoO
I got one of those…actually mines a 900 sitting on the floor beside me in pieces! And it maxes out at 512 ram.
I was building a Mame box out of it until I realized just…how… freakin… slow… it really is.
This is pacman I’m trying to play. Not an Mmog.

On a side note Quakelive, runs pretty well in a browser (with an updated computer).

When you fail to plan for forseeable problems in an endeavour of this kind you deserve all the ridicule you get, moreso when you have had innumerable chances to learn from the mistakes of others doing the same thing over the years.

Phil Sandifer :It seems like the servers being down means that the game is actually better than expected, no?

… er, no. This would be the opposite of a logical conclusion. The best you could say is that the game is more popular than expected – which is by no means a mark of quality. It could also mean the server software is terrible.

But given how most MMOs have rickety launch days, I don’t put much stock in this. I mean, I’m sure it’s just the tip of the Fail Iceberg, but on its own it’s not that big of a deal.

Well, pride from devs, and specially taking in account that pride it must be the only thing holding the proyect together for years and years is expected.

Uber crap launches are also expected, look the WoW 3.0.9 patch mess. But i think that now they should polish the game a lot.

Yes they are going to bleed customers in the process but they are going to keep their niche if they do polish and i mean what ive said before: exploits, BIG and EMPTY world, etc.

Of course is not going to be perfect from day one (It would be good, but it isnt going to happen). And all that karma biting the developers in the ass its fine but in the next few months they are going to work their ass off if they want to survive.

Yeah getting all “second coming of christ” and developing a niche game it sucks, but lets face it: stockholders want to put their money in the second coming and “the WoW slayer”, not in niche games. That means that, just like the EA news, those BIG news arent for players, they are for stockholders.

And only a 1/4 of the guys that buy that game are going to stay in the next few months. All of those things arent ok but if money werent an issue, if people stop trying to get the WoW success instead of their own, if people undestood that MMOs are a service. If.

/endrant

I really can’t see any of the hate or bitterness that some commenters apparently can in this article. This is pure snark – the taxi-to-victory Lum of the old days. Thumbs up!