This is kind of sad to read, because Tasos has kept such a tight lid on the BS for 6 years , and I always secretly admired him for his ability to mislead so many people so easily, but now it just free flowing, in 3 days he's written more in reply to this single bad review then he did in some entire years to update his community during this games development since he got involved.

Ed Zitrons review is now listed on metacritic, very foolish of Tasos to decline this re-review considering this may now be the only mainstream review it has or may ever have for a long time if ever, and there was a good possibility it might of been at least slightly better.

Shows how much confidence Tasos really has in his game when he declines a re-review, he knows it will probably be the same or only a bit better, so he's just refusing it and making more allegations in a desperate attempt to keep his game going and save what ever credibility he might have left with his community.

Some of the previous illustrious MMO titles that also share very low scoring reviews as a badge of honor from that lier Ed Zitron include smash hits such as Roma Victor and DreamLords.

So as we can see Darkfall is in very good company and hopefully will despite this set back also go onto tremendous success despite another fraudulent smear attempt by that lier Ed Zitron.

There's a silver lining to every cloud, it's not as if Tasos really needs it after coming up with so many excuses for failure himself over the last 6 years, but at least he now has the perfect one.

If anyone was in doubt about the dire state of this game and its company's finances and how close it is to the brink of collapse this is testament to how bad it really is, and how low Tasos is willing to go to maintain his own personal investment in this project as a part owner.

How do current players feel about devs releasing detailed logs of other players activities onto the internet?  I wouldn't touch a game where people were that unprofessional with a bargepole.  Suppose you fell out with a dev on the forum or something.  Next thing - up comes the "logs".  What a f-up.

"I would have given it a 4/10 after reading the explanation of how they rate games. "

That's the quote from Keen from the site linked below after reading the EuroGamer's review.

www.keenandgraev.com/

Keen's been in and playing the game since Feb. 26th.  He's put in plenty of time by anyone's measure of legitimacy.

Here is what 4/10 game means:

" Four - getting into the realms of poor

When you see a four out of ten anywhere you know the reviewer's had a fairly miserable experience and is issuing caution to potential punters to stay away from it. Somewhere there will be some semblance of playability, but it's the kind of game you wouldn't even really want to suggest renting most of the time. At best you should maybe borrow from a friend or have a look in-store (or download the demo if it's a PC game, naturally) if you're really curious and want a second opinion. There are maybe some redeeming features in there; maybe it's technically acceptable in certain areas with some decent graphics, but completely ruined by broken gameplay that's possibly full of bugs, a terrible control system and all manner of collected irritants like bad camera system, offensively bad script and voiceovers, rotten level design, and probably stupid AI quirks or balancing that's too easy or too hard. But games that have scored this badly and suffer from these exact issues often sell very well indeed, so there's no accounting for taste. If you don't like wasting money, then stay the hell away from a four. There are so many better games you could be looking at. "

www.eurogamer.net/scoring_policy.php

So there you go.  Tasos should be happy now.  Keen spend plenty of time in the game to give it a proper Review.  He's re-vised the original 2/10 to a 4/10.  

So which is worse?  A person who obviously doesn't like the game, or it's play-style giving the game a 2/10, or someone like Keen giving the game a 4/10? 

Funny thing is... the vast majority of us would have no idea who Ed Zitron is, or would have never even read his review if Tasos hadn't made it center spot-light reading material. 

Ed's stock most likely just went up for his future reviews.  For those who are naive in how this industry works... the actual words in the review mean very little to the hosting site.  It's all about the hits and views that the article generates.   This review has brought a LOT more visitors to EuroGamer's site. 

I'm sure they are smiling all the way to the bank.  And, they have Tasos to thank for it.  Kind of why I think Tasos and/or Aventurine is getting a cut of the action.  Despite Tasos' words to the contrary... this review will not negatively impact DarkFall's reputation.   It's already as low as it can get.  Tasos most likely knew that and decided there is nothing like a scandal to bring in more attention and free advertising.

One little step that Tasos should have had ready to go though.... more capacity.  DarkFall is missing out on a ton of potential customers over this because the shop is closed. 

Oh well... perhaps the kick-back from EuroGamer will be enough to make up for it. 

Yeah the guy shouted out for help, constantly...did he get help from the players in general chat?

No.

Did he get abuse slung at him and constantly ganked?

Yes.

Does DF just on those two points sound like a game I would wan't to go anywhere near?

Hell no.

Pure comedy gold.  So after all that has gone on since the review.  Now he wants to play the Martyr.  Oh woe is poor Darkfall.  Hurt by a single review by a Editor.  That most DF fans probably couldn't give two shits about.  Until he said some bad things about their love child DF.  I've never heard so much crying and whining in my life, from a "hardcore" crowd.  As has been said several times already.  Grow a pair, and move on.  If one little review is enough to upset Tasos.  You should just quit gaming now.

hahahahahahaahhahaaaa

aventurine and tasos.....

its a regular greek tragedy....

Originally posted by Bodeus

its a regular greek Geek tragedy....

FIFY!

Originally posted by Bodeus

its a regular greek tragedy....

Bad pun is....... Bad....

*edit instead of second post*

So seriously we get someone like Keen who i trust as he has been in many games given us honest oppnions and shown to have a decent knowledge of the Genre, saying that this game is relatively crap and needs to fix itself. But that is being ignored completely by tasos because people know who he is, people know he is playing the game... So he centers in on someone he can possibly discredit due to time played... Notice how he never says its a good game himself or that the guy would have given a diff review had he stayed... Just that its unfair to judge it that fast.

Originally posted by Galadourn

Doesn't this sound very much like an excuse for preparing a grand finale...pulling the plug off Darkfall and then blaming it (for their fans, ofc) on the bad press, that spread from media to media like a wildfire and tore them apart?

I think you're on to something there.

There's no reason on this planet why a single bad review- -or even an unfair one -- should provoke this sort of public anger so quickly from a game developer. There's something more going on behind the scenes.

My guess? They're in deep financial shit, and overreacting and creating this huge stink over Eurogamer's review will give them some sort of cover for when the game folds. They can then blame EG and Ed Zitron due to any negative publicity rather than saying that they gave it a good try but the game failed on its own.

I might be totally wrong, but that's what it's all starting to look like.

Originally posted by Polarization

 http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?t=185733

Regarding Eurogamer's offer to re-review Darkfall

Dealing with this Eurogamer scandal has been extremely frustrating for us. To those of you that believe we’re unprofessional for calling Eurogamer out on this, we’ll have you know that there’s nothing professional about this entire affair. It’s obviously personal when someone will tear our game apart without actually playing it. It’s certainly personal for us to see our livelihood being torn to shreds by a fraud using a respected large game site to do it through. We tried to deal with this privately but Eurogamer wouldn’t hear it, so we had no recourse but to go public. 

We would never accuse Eurogamer , Ed Zitron or anyone without solid evidence. We know for a fact that we’ve been wronged. Eurogamer is right to keep it up as they’re seeing some good traffic from this, but in the meanwhile we‘re taking irreparable damage and there’s simply nothing we can do about it. We are in an impossible situation, with many future possible repercussions to our game and we’re helpless to react. The Eurogamer smear piece is picked up by online media everywhere and this will stay with us long after this issue is forgotten. Gamerankings and Metacritic for example have already used this Eurogamer score of Darkfall, and unless this review comes down, a new review won’t be taken into consideration. Metacritic informed us earlier today that they sympathize but they can’t do anything unless the review comes down.

So we considered Eurogamer’s offer to have Kieron Gillen re-review our game on their behalf but in the meanwhile they will not take down the original review. We have to decline the offer for a re-review (as if we have a choice) for the following reasons:
 

• We don't need a re-review, we need a real review. We know for a fact that the original review is a fraud and yet Eurogamer stands by it. They should keep standing by it then or take it down based on the evidence *we have offered them, the numerous factual errors and omissions, the feedback they’re receiving on it, the reviewer’s questionable track record, former similar accusations about him, and our word. These half baked measures to save face mean nothing while this assassination piece stands. We’ve offered enough proof to justify taking it down to protect our game and their credibility. If they as much as suspect that we might be right, and we believe they know we are, they should have taken it down pending a re-review.
  
  *The evidence: The reviewer’s supervisor and MMO Editor for Eurogamer spent 2 minutes in the character creator but didn’t create a character. Ed Zitron spent 2 hours 33 minutes logged in the game and the character creator. In this time the reviewer tried 9 different characters. Much of the time was spent creating and deleting these characters. 14 minutes before the reviewer stopped playing Darkfall altogether he said in global chat: “how do I cast spells…..help”. During his entire time in the game he repeatedly asks: “what do I do?” in public chat. After less than an hour logged in the game he speaks in race chat and says “this game is awful” His entire chat log shows someone biased that spent very little time in game, didn’t understand even the very basics right before he stopped playing to write his review. We offered to pay to fly one of Eurogamer’s IT people over here and cover all his expenses so he can also inspect all our logs, verify our claims, and see that they are practically impossible to doctor. Eurogamer refused.

• I spoke with Kieron and I believe he is capable of doing an excellent job at reviewing Darkfall, so much so that it’s completely unfair for him, and for us, that he does mop-up duty after the original fraudulent review. We hope he’ll review Darkfall for another respectable publication sometime and we don’t want to blow it on this one. If they wanted Kieron Gillen they should have let him write the original review instead of tossing Darkfall to some random and unsupervised amateur. They got what they paid for but why should we have to suffer for it?

 

• It’s not helpful to us, this is not some grand gesture on Eurogamer’s part and it doesn’t do us justice. Eurogamer is running the re-review for their own sake, again at our expense. We’re not going to sit here looking at their bogus review while we wait for their next verdict in about a month. We won’t play that game. It’s pointless. If Kieron gives us a good review, a bad one, or an average one, the perception will be that he’s simply mopping up. Eurogamer will not take down the original review even if the new one overturns it.

 

• The MMO Editor for Eurogamer should have checked up on the review when Darkfall received a 2/10. When your site instructs the public to avoid someone’s livelihood at all costs, and calls their playerbase morons, you should at least make sure you’re not pulling these things out of your ass. We gave them 2 accounts for this reason and the MMO Editor chose to not use his. We pleaded with him to give us some time to discuss this, but he turned us down and sited Ed Zitron’s supposed impeccable track record. This about a guy who at best was happy to take Eurogamer’s money and spend a couple of hours using troll posts as reference to write a review on our game. We’re not the first developer to accuse Ed Zitron. He seems to have done this kind of thing before on several occasions and mostly against independent games. It’s not often that you see these kinds of accusations, but Ed seems to have collected a few of them. So much for his impeccable record. Eurogamer also knows this but chooses to ignore it. They’re forced to take his word over our proof and his prior track record because they’ve got nothing else to go on.

• It’s a conflict of interest any way you want to look at it. Eurogamer is paying another writer according to Eurogamer’s editor to “…see whether he agrees with Ed or not”. Ed is a fraud, there’s nothing to agree with here as far as we’re concerned.

So if it’s all the same to Eurogamer we’ll just take it on the chin and stick with the original review. We don’t need their concessions. If they can live with this, so can we. 2/10 from the likes of Ed Zitron is going to be a badge of honor for us. They can keep that fraud up as our memorial contribution to journalistic integrity and to independent games everywhere. At the very least they may think twice before they try doing this to someone else. 

We hope these can be our final thoughts on this topic.

 

The only Fraud is darkfail..
 

This is undisputable

 Look here all. Think about it for a moment. This hitched on part time Eurogamer reviewer spent 3 hours and 33 minutes in an MMO, an MMO!! and that was making NINE characters in that time. So out of that 3 hours of making characters and running around a starting area gives you enough experience to write a damn review? Seriously, this is just not acceptable by any standards. If I were the managing editor of that site, I would tear down that piecemeal review, get my money back and place an apology to the public and the developer. This is for any MMO out there that gets a review in this amount of time. Its a standard for ALL sites to play an MMO for months, not hours before typing out a review. I do feel sorry for the Dev's in this case.

Lastly, lets just all admit it here. If you like this MMO, ( Or any MMO for that matter ), you will play it. If you do not like it you will move on and find something more entertaining and worth you time and money. I wish the Dev team of Darkfall success, and I hope that other independant Dev's out there to drive on even through all the heat and flames.

Actually, I think Tasos makes some valid points in his rant, but it seems most of the folks here are not interested in discussing them, but have some sort of hatred of him so intense they don't want to listen, they just want to see him fry.

I'm no fan of DF or Aventurine, but I did read Ed's review, and if what AV claims is true about his actual play time he should be called to task for acting so irresponsibly in writing this article.

At the very least he should have said the game sucked so bad he didn't really even bother to play it, rather than post a bunch of information that many people have proven is untrue, and clearly calls out his lack of playtime.

The good news is, all it will take to debunk Ed are more reviews by other sites.  If 3 or 4 more come in at 6 or 7 out of 10, then people will quickly dismiss Ed's as a lone abberation in the chain.

seriously though,  after the Hissy fit Tasos has thrown If I were a gaming site/magazine id refuse to even review Darkfall. Imagine if every game dev did this sort of thing for every opinion or review given about their games that they didnt agree with.

Tasos, in my opinion has put himself right up there with Smed

Also as someone earlier brought up. Whose "logs" are next? are they gonna be posting logs on regular customers that happen to make  a post they dont like? Are they passing your super sexy cyber logs around the office and laughing at your lack of skils? They have shown a willingness to break a trust for there own gain. So id be careful what i typed in Darkfall, you never know who will be eading it.

OMG!

I have never witnessed this much CRYING about a game review in my life, nor has ANYONE else, ever!

This is surely "hardcore"!

Originally posted by Lidane

Originally posted by Galadourn

Doesn't this sound very much like an excuse for preparing a grand finale...pulling the plug off Darkfall and then blaming it (for their fans, ofc) on the bad press, that spread from media to media like a wildfire and tore them apart?

I think you're on to something there.

There's no reason on this planet why a single bad review- -or even an unfair one -- should provoke this sort of public anger so quickly from a game developer. There's something more going on behind the scenes.

My guess? They're in deep financial shit, and overreacting and creating this huge stink over Eurogamer's review will give them some sort of cover for when the game folds. They can then blame EG and Ed Zitron due to any negative publicity rather than saying that they gave it a good try but the game failed on its own.

I might be totally wrong, but that's what it's all starting to look like.

Probably but I think it's more to do with him not having any control over the reviewers at all. Remember they offered to help them with their time reviewing the game...why?

If your going to review a game you don't do it with the creators of the said game breathing down your neck because then the said creators would try and influence your review.

We already know Taso's is a control freak....he likes things done his way and when there not done his way ( including articles and reviews) he throws a freakin woobly.

Originally posted by Trollstar

Actually, I think Tasos makes some valid points in his rant, but it seems most of the folks here are not interested in discussing them, but have some sort of hatred of him so intense they don't want to listen, they just want to see him fry.

I'm no fan of DF or Aventurine, but I did read Ed's review, and if what AV claims is true about his actual play time he should be called to task for acting so irresponsibly in writing this article.

At the very least he should have said the game sucked so bad he didn't really even bother to play it, rather than post a bunch of information that many people have proven is untrue, and clearly calls out his lack of playtime.

The good news is, all it will take to debunk Ed are more reviews by other sites.  If 3 or 4 more come in at 6 or 7 out of 10, then people will quickly dismiss Ed's as a lone abberation in the chain.

 

This is exactly the point.. What Tasos says about the length of play time is not true. I can prove this simply by telling you, "because Tasos said it."  This is based on his track record. Tasos is a liar and of course, this is undisputable.
 

The review was fair, seeing as how he gave it 10 more points than I would have.

 Yesterday, I finally started doing quests.  I hadn't done them before because I'd read reviews on how hard they were to complete, because you had to constantly fight ninja looting, players jumping in front of you, etc.. and that the quests were inconsequential, anyway.  Since I hadn't experienced any of that, I figured I'd give them a shot.  So far, here are my impressions:

• The quests I've done so far, for the NPCs in Hunter's Moon, are basically newbie quests.  They're designed to show a new player the ropes.  Kill some goblins, collect some axes, harvest some nodes for crafting.
• The questing interface, like much of the overall UI design is non-intuitive.  Please note, I'm not talking about the NPCs not having big, glowing yellow exclamation points.  Examples are:
  • Click on an NPC - it's not immediately clear that the NPC has quests for you, since there's no real dialogue.  There's a quest tab, but there may or many not be any quests in it.  If there aren't any quests, why have a tab? Just hide it when it's empty.
  • If there's at least one quest, you'll have an interactive header for it.  Clicking this doesn't actually open the quest, however.  You must first select it by clicking it, then click the view button.  Why not just open the quest to read it when you click the header.  From a UI design perspective, one keystroke is better than two. 
  • Turning in quests - you literally just click on the Quest NPC and you have to click once/completed quest.  Clicking on the NPC doesn't open a dialogue window like when you accepted the quest and it doesn't give you a quest window with a button that says "complete  quest" or anything like that.  The mechanism has both good and bad elements:
    • Good - it gets to the point - just click the NPc and it completes the quest.  You don't have to go through screens or read anything.  This is the opposite of how you accept a quest, so for those of you ready to argue that the first two points are nitpicking, i'd say that the combination of the three shows the inconsistency in design and implementation
    • Bad - why do you need to click once/complete quest and then click again if you want to actually use the NPC for something else, like buying/selling items or checking out new quests.  If, after completing once quest you have to open the dialogue window to see if there are new quests in the chain, wouldn't it make more sense to simply have you open the dialogue in the first place and go to the quest tab.?

Something else I learned, indirectly, as a result of my questing is bag/bank management.  I received two bags as rewards for completing quests.  Each bag has the same capacity as the backpack, but the bags fit inside the backpack or bank, so they're very useful for managing the clutter of items that just get piled up in your bank (mats, gold, arrows and other items stack, but weapons and armor don't, for example).  Without bags, your bank and backpack can become frustratingly cluttered.  Had Ed Zitron bothered to complete the newbie quests, he would have a better idea of how bag/bank management works in Darkfall.  I played for days, on-and-off, and didn't know about bags, but I also didn't do the newbie quests, which are pretty important in many games, since they can help acclimate you to the game.  I didn't need them to know how to kill goblins, but they did help explain resource gathering and bag/bank management.  Not doing the quests was my fault, not the game's.

Ultimately, the point of these comments is that Yes - the game mechanics and UI should be more intuitive, but that the game actually does a few things to help new players get pointed in the right direction.  Not doing the quests is nobody's fault but the player's.

~Ripper

Originally posted by Trollstar

Actually, I think Tasos makes some valid points in his rant, but it seems most of the folks here are not interested in discussing them, but have some sort of hatred of him so intense they don't want to listen, they just want to see him fry.

I'm no fan of DF or Aventurine, but I did read Ed's review, and if what AV claims is true about his actual play time he should be called to task for acting so irresponsibly in writing this article.

At the very least he should have said the game sucked so bad he didn't really even bother to play it, rather than post a bunch of information that many people have proven is untrue, and clearly calls out his lack of playtime.

The good news is, all it will take to debunk Ed are more reviews by other sites.  If 3 or 4 more come in at 6 or 7 out of 10, then people will quickly dismiss Ed's as a lone abberation in the chain.

 

He did make some good points, tho not all of them were a plus towards his arguement... I mean come on, how many times have YOU as an avid MMOer gone into a game and been completely lost? Not knowing how to use skills, not knowing what to do next? I mean lets be honest that almost never happens to most of us, lets give Ed the benefit of the doubt that he, himself, is an avid MMOer. How much does it say about a game when you get "lost" because the game offers no direction at all..... And lets be honest even a sandbox should give you SOME details about how it opperates.

And in before the rebuttle, even UO and SWG at launch both gave people direction on what to do and where to head. I mean if you can't get into a game because the game itself it designed badly it's as much the devs fault for a bad review as a reviewer who plays it for a short period.

Originally posted by Ubel12

 Look here all. Think about it for a moment. This hitched on part time Eurogamer reviewer spent 3 hours and 33 minutes in an MMO, an MMO!! and that was making NINE characters in that time. So out of that 3 hours of making characters and running around a starting area gives you enough experience to write a damn review? Seriously, this is just not acceptable by any standards. If I were the managing editor of that site, I would tear down that piecemeal review, get my money back and place an apology to the public and the developer. This is for any MMO out there that gets a review in this amount of time. Its a standard for ALL sites to play an MMO for months, not hours before typing out a review. I do feel sorry for the Dev's in this case.

Lastly, lets just all admit it here. If you like this MMO, ( Or any MMO for that matter ), you will play it. If you do not like it you will move on and find something more entertaining and worth you time and money. I wish the Dev team of Darkfall success, and I hope that other independant Dev's out there to drive on even through all the heat and flames.

 

and you are taking Taso's word for it that he only played a few hours.   Here is a test.  Taso's said in December that the game was feature complete.  Now go to the official website and read the game's features.   Now, do you still believe this reviewer only played a few hours?

This guy has just lied so many times, it's impossible to believe anything he says

I would say any press is good press in this day and age, but the current way AV is running things this will not yield them anything (subs, box sales, etc). I guess there is only one thing to do, wait for the made-for-TV movie to come out. This is the best $50 I never spent. GL Darkfall fans...

Originally posted by Polarization

This is kind of sad to read, because Tasos has kept such a tight lid on the BS for 6 years , and I always secretly admired him for his ability to mislead so many people so easily, but now it just free flowing, in 3 days he's written more in reply to this single bad review then he did in some entire years to update his community during this games development since he got involved.

I noticed that as well.   For years they deliberately hid and refused to give information to the community about the status of the game but now they're more than willing to share user log information and write extensive posts all because they finally have to face the reality of being in the gaming market.  

Originally posted by spector75

Originally posted by Bodeus

its a regular greek tragedy....

 

Bad pun is....... Bad....

 

 

*edit instead of second post*

 

So seriously we get someone like Keen who i trust as he has been in many games given us honest oppnions and shown to have a decent knowledge of the Genre, saying that this game is relatively crap and needs to fix itself. But that is being ignored completely by tasos because people know who he is, people know he is playing the game... So he centers in on someone he can possibly discredit due to time played... Notice how he never says its a good game himself or that the guy would have given a diff review had he stayed... Just that its unfair to judge it that fast.

Which is exactly the reason Tasos is making the ploy about "denying" them the second review. 

I'm starting to lean more and more towards this all being a setup by Aventurine and EuroGamer to garner them more attention and publicity though.

How many extra hits has EuroGamer gotten to their site because of this?

When did Tasos start caring about DarkFall and/or Aventurine's "Reputation"... what Reputation?

Nah... if it had just been a one and done posting from Tasos I might have bought it... but with this much drama, and the "declining" of the second review... which EuroGamer will obviously run anyway.

Then we will hear about how "out-raged" that Tasos is against EuroGamer still going through with their second review.  This will go back and forth, with possibly a few new twists thrown in.

It will culminate with the releasing of the second "Review" of DarkFall... and EuroGamer's hits will go through the roof again.  It will make no difference what the actual second review states, or even what the score is... well the more extreme to one side or the other would probably be better... it will end up another big win for EuroGamer's ad revenue.

I must commend them on some very savy business marketing here.  Sadly, as the success of this strategy is becoming all too apparent... prepare to see this scenario repeated from a number of other online "Review" sites. 

Originally posted by FunkyLasagne

How do current players feel about devs releasing detailed logs of other players activities onto the internet?  I wouldn't touch a game where people were that unprofessional with a bargepole.  Suppose you fell out with a dev on the forum or something.  Next thing - up comes the "logs".  What a f-up.

You're excactly right. People should be worried as this is going on. I hope that Tasos isnt stupid enough give out user and payment info because he doesnt like a reviewer or a player who doesnt like the game. You just never know.

Originally posted by jinxit

Taso's is right that review was pathetic, biased and darn right negative in every respect.

I say give a respectable journalist a go at it...

but personally I'd love to see Yatzee Croshaw do one to...

Hehe, yeah. That would be the day. Only we already know he focusses on negative aspects no matter what and he has an intense disliking for "momorpegers", hehe. Gotta love his EVE and AOC reviews, though. Still, Zero Punctuation ftw!

AOC review by Yathzee