Darkfall

Just saw the thread about the new screen shots and was curious.

Not trying to be a jerk, or a troll, but I am curious.  If this game is not really being developed, what have they to gain from deceiving us with dev updates?

I mean, the game is either being developed or not, right?

Among Darkfall skeptics, there are two camps: one camp believes the Darkfall "developers" milk the game as their cash cow and just want to keep the money flowing; the second camp believes the Darkfall developers are in over their heads and won't be able to release a final product, especially not a product with as many features as they have promised.

I'm in the second camp. I don't necessarily believe the screenshots are fake, but consider: there is a huge difference between creating a world a single programmer can run around in, and creating a true MMO* world that won't crash every other minute.

I don't think its necessarily two camps. You don't have to think the screenshots are fake to think they are milking this cash cow.

What they are basically doing is this:

• create a name/brand/identity (first video which appeared somewhat around 2002?)
• use viral marketing methods (aka mouth to mouth propaganda, providing a video to youtube is a good start)
• produce information to make the game seem legit (website, devblog, screenshots, etc.)
• setup either a beta-registration or at least a newsletter (number of signups are used for projectories of userbase aka subscribers aka customers)

All that and the information they get this way is being used to charm investors to pump as much money as possible into this project.

I am not making this up, this is how most enterprises start when they don't have the financial backing or a sound finance plan / business plan at first. A friend of mine has sold screenshots of a website to an investor, used to money he got to hire web programmers who actually built the site then. I even sold a powerpoint presentation once, thats how entrepreneurs work, especially with venture capital.

The only problem with Darkfall is, that they not only tricked investors with it, but also fanboys, who are out there trying to defend Darkfall for whatever reason. My prognosis is that Darkfall will either remain what it is now: Vaporware - or they will find a large enough investor to hire a project manager and devs to built it, at which point it will be clear, that the game won't be released before 2010, which would conclude a total of development time of 10 years.

It would be really fun if we could see the headlines on a newspaper "Darlfall was just a big hoax".

That would really make it hard for anyone else to make a MMO.

But i just think the project got announced to early, thats all. And peope whine when a game is released two years to early and they whine when it takes two years to long. Still, we havent seen anything in the same scale as DF beeing devekoped...so noone can say how long it would take.

There was a house of commons chat, and they said they were going to try and get darkfall out q4 of this year, but I would be happy if it released within the next 4 years rofl.

Originally posted by daarco

It would be really fun if we could see the headlines on a newspaper "Darkfall was just a big hoax".

Star Trek Online development anyone?

Originally posted by De4th_M0nKee

Originally posted by daarco

It would be really fun if we could see the headlines on a newspaper "Darkfall was just a big hoax".

Star Trek Online development anyone?

Star Trek online got sued and lost the rights. Wasn't a hoax.

star trek ended pretty damn fast hence why darkfal will be released.

because enough people have bene there to know this but the trolls dont beleive anyone.

i could slap them upside there heads with a final product and they still say its all lies lol

Originally posted by downtoearth

star trek ended pretty damn fast hence why darkfal will be released.

because enough people have bene there to know this but the trolls dont beleive anyone.

i could slap them upside there heads with a final product and they still say its all lies lol

I don't think the whole debacle that occured w/ Perpetual and Gods & Heroes and Star Trek Online is the same situation as what's going on with Darkfall. I think the Perpetual guys intended from the start to try and make some really good MMO's, but b/c of mismanagement, etc, they got in WAAAAY over their heads and used up all their funding before they got anything finished and then their creditors got mad b/c they didn't have anything to show and would not give them any further funding for development and they lost everything.

I think the Darkfall situation is a bit different though. I'm not 100% sure they are actually intentionally trying to make a money grab, but if that is their only intention they seem to have done a great job at it b/c they have said they have gotten lots of funding from investors. On the other hand, they might have actually wanted to make an ambitious, revolutionary, open-PvP MMO and have just gotten in way over their heads and are slowly choking despite their claims that everything is just fine and the game will be released someday.

It's really hard to tell what's really going on with this project. Part of me tells me that it is just a scam and the devs are just living big off all that investment capital they have gotten, but another part of me hopes that isn't actually the case. Whatever is really going on I have a hard time believing that they will ever actually get a game out the door in a playable state until they allow some reputable people in their to get some hands on time with the game and come back and give a report. And by reputable I don't mean some guy that that is supposedly a leader of a guild that no one has every heard of that could possibly be one of the devs cousins or something. I mean a legitimate gaming journalist from a major publication or website that is allowed to get their hands on a build of the game. And don't give me that "they are focusing purely on the game and not on PR" BS, that doesn't fly here b/c it takes no more then 2 mins to burn up a disc and send it to a reputable journalist, or I'm sure with all the history of this game that a publication or website would pay for themselves to visit their studio for hands on time, it would cost the devs nothing.

In the end though, no one REALLY can say what the truth of the matter is, there are just opinions based on very little actual, verifiable information.