For a long time before beta started, and during the beta, people made the ignorant comparison of the developers lack of public updates was a sign that they will be slow to patch and solve problems on release.

Now even that statement alone is terribly ridiculous as we all know Aventurine did not commit resources to a PR campaign, so the fact that they didnt do a lot of prerelease marketing and communication doesnt mean they would be slow to deal with the game.

And now that the NDA is lifted, we can all see that the fans were right yet again about that point.

Developers listen to the beta testers, and will eventually listen to the community on release.  Many threads, some started by developers to get input, were listened to and drastic changes were made to the game as a result of community input.  Of course no decision makes everyone happy, or else they wouldnt have the need for discussion as the answer would be obvious, so some people obviously didnt get "listened to" but usually the majority won.

Also during beta, they patched almost every other day, especially towards the end.  This latest patch, a big one and for some issues a "miracle patch" is just another example of how they are listening to us and getting things right. 

No launch is 100% smooth with MMOs, and DF will be no different, but you can bank on these developers taking care of the problems as soon as they come up.

The rogue system, sieges, mounts, rez griefing....all just some of the things that were being complained about heavily and they hit them all pretty head on.

The people who have their own agenda to see this game fail will never admit it, but to everyone else, to the people who used common sense all these years to see that Aventurine was working on a game and were just small and indie at first, we now know that we have one hell of a dev team working for us that care about the community and for their game. 

They wouldnt have made such a niche market game if they only cared about huge numbers, and from day one we knew they were gamers making a game for the people who liked UO and that style of play like they did.  You can knock on them all you want for missing deadlines....but at the end of the day...the game is fun, is releasing, and people love it.

And the fans couldn't be happier.

Amen

I agree.

Has any improvment been made on the sound more importantly the sound direction or any info from the dev about improving it? For a game that places so much importance on hearing to detect ambushes and such the sound sucks

Originally posted by ImperiumRule 

And the fans couldn't be happier.

Until they start to listen to the mainstream mmorpg fans. I hope Tasos will stay true to his word that he knows better than we do sometimes. If he doesn't the long time fans will vacate the game. At least that is my impression of the hardcore pvp's.

Originally posted by WharfRat

Has any improvment been made on the sound more importantly the sound direction or any info from the dev about improving it? For a game that places so much importance on hearing to detect ambushes and such the sound sucks

The sound could use some love, they are aware of this but i agree that it is something that should be on the bottom of the to-do list.  Now in terms of the sound for hearing to detect ambushes...that is working just fine from what I have seen.

You can hear footsteps, unless they are crouch walking of course.  The spells and arrow sounds are easily heard as well as weapons striking...the "help me" cry and mob noises are also indicators of where action is.

Oh and as a side note...the patcher and installer are very fast for me anways. 1700kb/sec is where im usually at.

This of course could change on release with so many people trying to access it...but they are making it availible to dl 4 days before release so a great move on their part.

Beta testers only need to dl the latest patch as well, no need to dl a new client.

Read patch notes for build 120

Updates to sounds and how they are handled. (Note that our final sound mix have not yet been placed on the live servers and that is why the volume difference between sounds are not correct).

Originally posted by Galadourn

Read patch notes for build 120

 

Updates to sounds and how they are handled. (Note that our final sound mix have not yet been placed on the live servers and that is why the volume difference between sounds are not correct).

 

 

Nice. 

I tend to glance over those things in the patch notes because they really arent important to me at all.

Originally posted by ImperiumRule
....

Developers listen to the beta testers, and will eventually listen to the community on release.  .... Of course no decision makes everyone happy, or else they wouldnt have the need for discussion as the answer would be obvious, so some people obviously didnt get "listened to" but usually the majority won.

...

The people who have their own agenda to see this game fail will never admit it...

 ...

They wouldnt have made such a niche market game if they only cared about huge numbers, and from day one we knew they were gamers making a game for the people who liked UO and that style of play like they did.  ...but at the end of the day...the game is fun, is releasing, and people love it.

And the fans couldn't be happier.

Pluses and minuses here.

Listing to players is a double edged sword.  Even within the 'fanbois' are players pushing their own agenda who want a game that allows them to play 'their way' even if that ultimately results in the game failing and the developer going out of business.
Whenever I see someone promote the idea that a game is (or should be) aiming a a 'niche' market I get weary.  
'Niche' does not pay the bills or for dev time.  But I guess it depends on how 'niche' you mean?  10,000 or 100,000?

There is also the problem that many players think they know what a game needs but have very blinked vision and even less idea about game design.
MMOs are funny critters in that they are very complex and depend to some degree on player psychology as well.  Something many people (including some professional MMO designers) still struggle to understand.

Originally posted by Gyrus

Originally posted by ImperiumRule
....

Developers listen to the beta testers, and will eventually listen to the community on release.  .... Of course no decision makes everyone happy, or else they wouldnt have the need for discussion as the answer would be obvious, so some people obviously didnt get "listened to" but usually the majority won.

...

The people who have their own agenda to see this game fail will never admit it...

 ...

They wouldnt have made such a niche market game if they only cared about huge numbers, and from day one we knew they were gamers making a game for the people who liked UO and that style of play like they did.  ...but at the end of the day...the game is fun, is releasing, and people love it.

And the fans couldn't be happier.

Pluses and minuses here.

Listing to players is a double edged sword.  Even within the 'fanbois' are players pushing their own agenda who want a game that allows them to play 'their way' even if that ultimately results in the game failing and the developer going out of business.
Whenever I see someone promote the idea that a game is (or should be) aiming a a 'niche' market I get weary.  
'Niche' does not pay the bills or for dev time.  But I guess it depends on how 'niche' you mean?  10,000 or 100,000?

There is also the problem that many players think they know what a game needs but have very blinked vision and even less idea about game design.
MMOs are funny critters in that they are very complex and depend to some degree on player psychology as well.  Something many people (including some professional MMO designers) still struggle to understand.

I had some fears here about the dev team listing to players too much, but one experiance was with the wilderness towers things, They caused many threads on the beta forums about how they are bad and what not and overwhelming beta polls where the players said remove them at over 80% rate. But the devs said that they were there for a reason and told the community why

"* We recently added one guard tower to each faction quest hub. There are only three faction quest hubs in each racial territory, so they have little impact on gameplay, other than offering some protection for players who just started playing the game."

Were alot of people unhappy still? yes myself even being one of them.

But they are sticking with it because it makes the game more enjoyable to play.

Another thing with this is also universal banks, the devs think the community is wrong on removing them so they are staying in also.

There is plently of stuff the devs have said that the tests just have no idea what they are talking about and ignored them on it while still listening to the overwhelming.

Originally posted by ImperiumRule

For a long time before beta started, and during the beta, people made the ignorant comparison of the developers lack of public updates was a sign that they will be slow to patch and solve problems on release.

 

Now even that statement alone is terribly ridiculous as we all know Aventurine did not commit resources to a PR campaign, so the fact that they didnt do a lot of prerelease marketing and communication doesnt mean they would be slow to deal with the game.

 

And now that the NDA is lifted, we can all see that the fans were right yet again about that point.

 ................

The people who have their own agenda to see this game fail will never admit it, but to everyone else, to the people who used common sense all these years to see that Aventurine was working on a game and were just small and indie at first, we now know that we have one hell of a dev team working for us that care about the community and for their game. 

 

They wouldnt have made such a niche market game if they only cared about huge numbers, and from day one we knew they were gamers making a game for the people who liked UO and that style of play like they did.  You can knock on them all you want for missing deadlines....but at the end of the day...the game is fun, is releasing, and people love it.

And the fans couldn't be happier.

Sooo.. yet another "we were right; you were wrong; in your face trolls" thread

very original

Originally posted by drogtor

 

Sooo.. yet another "we were right; you were wrong; in your face trolls" thread

 

very original

Thanks for the bump!

And im sure you quoted and posted every time someone yelled "lol vaporewarez you noobzers" when people tried to discuss the game on this forum and told them that they werent being very original.  Right?  uh huh....

OP I felt was more than just a "lol trolls fail", but sorry if you are too bitter to see that.

I don't post at all, how ever I like the discussion.  I was on the fence about darkfall, I have known about the game a long time.  Thus leaving me on the fence, I am an old school UO player from the Great Lakes or Great Lag as we liked to call it.  Old school UO and this game get compared so much these days I am not sure its fair.  Any way not to thread Jack, I am interested ( like others ) to see how much the community trys to push their desires on the devs, and how much the devs bend.

The only reason I say this and veiw it as negative if you wish, but up untill there were boards to post on.  The devs got to make a game and mold a game, the player base had away of saying how upset it was, it was turning off subs.  As long as this wasn't happen then everything was great.  Hence why I think UO was such a great game, we the gamers had no way to complain, bitch, whine, and moan. 

This is the end of my statement, I am a chef for a living and when a customer comes to me and ask for my food.  They know what is coming there way, I do not serve vegans, or vegi's I serve the meat eaters.  Is my resturant a niche?   I am hoping the devs hold true to there statement and keep this old school UO, and serve us meat eaters what we long for.  A game where you step out of town it could be a costly trip, or it could be you hitting the lottery by rolling by a field of unlooted tombs. 

Just my 2 cents. 

PS, Guys lay off the trolls about the hahaha I am right.  Because to be honest I love the idea of this game but I would have bet money against it making it out on the 25th.  I would have lost but I would have bet against that happening.

Big John

The thing is the biggest problem (the mindless tedium of raising skills by either macroing or left clicking every xx seconds for 6 weeks) isn't simply fixed by a few patches. Darkfall (technology wise) works pretty much but  gameplay wise it needs a hell of a lot of work.

Originally posted by Gorilla

The thing is the biggest problem (the mindless tedium of raising skills by either macroing or left clicking every xx seconds for 6 weeks) isn't simply fixed by a few patches. Darkfall (technology wise) works pretty much but  gameplay wise it needs a hell of a lot of work.

eh yes and no (in my opinion)

If you are only concerned with the number besides your skill and fire mana missle into a wall all day, yea its boring....if you are out pvping etc you wont notice, just like any other mmo.

also they are taking steps...the improved the crafting skill gain, which was decent before and now is probably right where it needs to be.