If we take a long look at the feature list from darkfalls own homepage, what we see is an endless stream of promises. Who here believes Aventurine can deliver on such a deep and varied game, with a small development team, where their engine has been swapped several times and where we literally haven't seen any examples of most of the below? And why believe when there is not one piece of credible evidence they can deliver?

Look at the features and FAQ info from their website, quoted in full context:

1.
Explore five continents, countless small islands, trackless underwater depths, and a sprawling underworld. Hundreds of dungeons and adventure areas await.

2.
Play any of Agon's six dominant races. Each race has a unique set of abilities, as well as its own civilization, culture, and way of life.

3.
Meet hundreds of unique monsters, and take them on in their lairs, strongholds and domains. Repetitive monster encounters are a thing of the past.

4.
Travel through geographically diverse regions that are alive with plants, trees, birds, animals, and even insects.

5.
Experience a world brought to life by real-world physics and dynamic lighting and shadows. Watch trees and grass sway in the wind as sunlight peeks through passing clouds. Observe the movements of Agon's twin moons, which are part of a dynamic planetary system with

smooth day/night cycles. Sail your ship through rough seas, then become hampered by fog as the waters calm. Struggle as your battlefield-bound army marches into a severe storm. In Darkfall, the weather is more than just window dressing

6.
Darkfall?s terrain has been painstakingly hand-crafted by our artists, rather than conveniently auto-generated. This means non-repetitive, unpredictable, and unique locations to explore, discover and use. Darkfall's world is full of wonders, small and large.

7.
Uncover the mysteries of an ancient civilization, which left more than just ruins for later generations to discover. Untold riches and incredible power is the prize, as you join the race to claim an age-old inheritance

8.
Enjoy the smooth and flowing gameplay, the fast paced action, and the highly responsive controls. You can forget about point - click - and wait: In Darkfall, the action is real-time and your character feels like an extension of yourself.

9.
You don't have to spend endless hours playing in order to enjoy yourself, or to become successful. Even if you only play in small doses, your character can be effective within his chosen field, and a lot of fun to play. Whether you?re looking for intense involvement or just casual fun without a huge time investment, Darkfall accommodates your playing style.

10.
In Darkfall, there's much more to character development than, say, raising your riding or mining skill by mindlessly killing rats all day. Instead, you'll need to practice your skills if you want to get better at them. Darkfall?s skill based system makes sense, and it saves you from having to waste your playing time leveling.

11.
You will never have to re-roll your character again. With Darkfall?s flexible character development system, your character simply adapts to the choices you make for him. We give you hundreds of skills to learn and master, and around a hundred Prestige classes to further specialize in.

12.
You have the freedom to follow the rules, or to break them and face the consequences. Darkfall?s Alignment system is hard but fair.

13.
Multiple safeguards protect you from cheats and exploits that would otherwise interfere with your gaming experience.

14.
In Darkfall, all items in the world can be made by the players.

15.
Darkfall?s crafting system is intuitive, non-repetitive, challenging, useful, fun - and profitable. Using Darkfall?s virtually limitless item creator system, you could invent and be the first to use a weapon as awesome as the Flamefury Raudstaal Battleaxe of Bloodshed, or just make a simple saddle for your horse.

16.
Bring your goods to market using Darkfall?s sophisticated and secure trading system, bringing buyers and sellers together easily whether they?re inside the game or not.

17.
Darkfall is optimized for both player versus player action and for massive battles.

18.
Protect your home and expand your holdings as you build your empire. In Darkfall, clans struggle for supremacy and survival as they compete over land ownership, resources, and strategic objectives.

19.
Darkfall's combat system is well balanced and well thought out, and the action is real-time, fast paced, and exciting. You?re in the thick of the action, not merely observing it.

20.
Apply strategy, tactics, logistics, and individual skill to defeat your opponents.

21.
Choose from a great variety of weapons, armors, hundreds of offensive and defensive spells, and special attacks.

22.
Fight on horseback during a cavalry charge, participate in a naval battle, fight from vehicles and control siege and heavy weapons.

23.
Your victories are documented for posterity and success is measurable, so you'll never have to wonder what really happened.

24.
There are no safe zones in Darkfall. The only protection you can count on is your friends watching your back.

25.
We give you a world full of options, choices, and possibilities, and the ability to shape and define your game environment. Politics, diplomacy, trade agreements, and even player defined legal systems, are all supported by the game.

26.
Darkfall places no restrictions on player interaction, so there are no developer imposed safe zones, no realms, factions, PvP zones, or any other roadblocks that limit your game. Anyone can fight anyone, anywhere as long as they are willing to face the consequences - in the form of Darkfall's alignment system.

27.
You can enjoy easy communication with your friends, even while outside the game. Darkfall's Communication interface includes in-game message and trade boards, an IRC-style chat system, instant messaging, voice support, and even mobile phone SMS messaging.

28.
In Darkfall, advanced clan management tools take care of the tedious and repetitive tasks, allowing you to focus on the real challenges (and the fun) associated with clan leadership.

29.
Trade your hard earned items using Darkfall?s secure trade interface and in-game trade boards.

30.
When you play Darkfall, you take part in a constantly evolving, world-spanning storyline. Your reputation will precede you, and your fame will grow through clan victories and individual achievements. Whether you're a fearless fighter, a respected leader, a persuasive politician,

or a skilled artisan, you will get the recognition you deserve. In Darkfall, your deeds and views are recorded and chronicled as you become a part of - and a shaper of - world history. With Darkfall?s narrative Legend system, your name will live in fame or in infamy, and it will never be forgotten.

31.
Darkfall combines Massively Multiplayer Role playing, Real Time Strategy, and Action gaming, extending the competitive environment on many different levels.

32.
Top clans and top individual players from various gaming genres will be there, along with over ten thousand simultaneous players per world. You?re in very good company.

33.
Explore the many different paths to being successful, and discover new ones that nobody thought of before.

34.
Test your mettle in Darkfall?s Arena Events where individual players and teams compete for fun and profit.

35.
Every single person involved in the production of Darkfall is a gamer first and foremost. We?ve been where you?ve been, and we play the games you play.

36.
We are committed to delivering and maintaining a complete, stable, and balanced game; a game that makes good on its promises, with regular and free expansion-size updates, prompt and swift customer service, and superior value for our players.

37.
Darkfall offers you more ways to give feedback, and more ways to collaborate with the Darkfall Team in the evolution of the game. Your voice is heard loud and clear.

38.
Racial wars?
Yes. Darkfall has six different main character races: Elves, Dwarves, Humans, Mahirim, Orks and Alfar. Each race has different political standings with the other races. The Elves are at peace with Dwarves and Humans, but are wary of Mahirim, and are at war with the Orks.

Everyone hates the Alfar, and the Alfar hate everyone. In effect this means that Elven players may travel to Dwarven and Human cities without having any problems with the city guards, and may buy and sell in stores. If an Elven player traveled to an Orkish city, he would be killed on sight, both by city guards and other players. In Alfar cities, any other race is attacked.

39.
Can I be successful at combat without learning magic?
It’s possible, but it won’t be easy. We are balancing magic and melee/archery skills so that you can compete even if you choose not to learn magic. Darkfall is a magical world though, so if you are totally against picking up any magic skills or spells, you may have to rely on magical items, potions or scrolls to aid you in combat.

40.
What’s the best path to follow to be successful in combat?
The best individual fighters in Darkfall will most likely be the characters that have a good combination of skills. In Clan warfare, clans with a good mix of various specialties should fare the best.

41.
I enjoy playing support characters. Will my contribution make a difference in combat?
Your contribution could be very valuable. Logistics are very important in Clan warfare. The tradesmen, farmers, bakers, miners and other support characters stocking up supplies of spell reagents, gold, weapons, potions, armor, and whatever else is needed, are crucial to the war effort. Fighting ability alone will not be able to sustain a successful campaign for long. A clan will need to balance their activities, or cooperate with other clans in order to be successful.

42.
Can I make a name for myself as a solo fighter?
Yes you could, but it won’t be easy. Without a support network you will have serious disadvantages and there’s a limit to what you can accomplish fighting against all odds. However, if you’re intelligent, persistent and skillful you could be very successful playing the “lone wolf” character.

43.
Can you fight in cities?
Yes you can fight wherever you want. There are no safe zones

44.
Aren’t you worried that out of control random player killers will ruin the game?
No. Being a random player killer of evil alignment is definitely possible, but also an extremely hard career. You will have enemies everywhere, and will have a hard time finding a safe city to trade in. You have the freedom to play such a character, but there’s also accountability for the choices you make.

45.
How does alignment come into play when a good clan is at war with another good clan?
Once clans have declared war on each other, no alignment adjustments will occur due to your actions towards members of the clan you are at war with.

46.
Can you walk through other players in Darkfall?
No, so blocking entrances will be a viable combat tactic. It is possible to push players and monsters out of the way though, so this tactic can be countered.

47.
How many skills and spells will Darkfall have?
We will have as many as we can possibly add before the game launch. We currently have about 300 skills and 200 spells designed on paper, but we are hoping to get at least 500 skills and 500 spells in there before retail.

48.
Why so many skills and spells?
We would like to make combat, spell casting, trading, and item creation as interesting as possible. Our goal is to promote more variety in combat and allow for a large number of possible combinations to be used in offense and in defense, rather than the same predictable

routines being used over and over.

49.
How do I get new skills and spells?
Most spells and skills can be purchased from NPCs, and they will teach you the basics of the particular skill or spell, so you can start using it and training it. Some skills and spells can be learned from other players.

50.
NPCs may ask you to help them perform certain quests before they are willing to teach you special spells and skills.

51.
What is the spell system like?
Spells will be divided into several different schools of magic: Lesser Magic, Greater Magic, Element of Fire, Element of Earth, Element of Water, Element of Air, Witchcraft, Spell Chanting, Necromancy, Wild Magic, Arcane Magic, and Ritual Magic. In addition there are some special spells that do not fit directly into any school of magic, such as racial specialty spells, and Prestige class specialty spells.

52.
Do you have skill caps?
Yes, skills start at one and cap at 100.

53.
So I can learn any spell or skill?
Some skills and spells are race specific, meaning you can not learn them unless you are of the appropriate race. The races also have limits on what they can and cannot learn. The dwarves for instance, are better at melee fighting than they are at magic, so they can master some awesome melee techniques, but they can not learn some of the most advanced spells. Dwarves are however the best smiths in the world, so they can make magical armor that’s a lot better than what the smiths of other races can make.

54.
There are some special skills and spells that can only be learned by specific Prestige class characters.

55.
Can I cast spells while wearing armor?
Yes, however, your casting time will increase significantly if you are wearing heavy armor. So for example, while it takes only two seconds for a player wearing a robe to cast a spell, it may take as long as five seconds for a player in a full plate to cast the exact same spell.

There is also a slightly increased chance of making a mistake while casting a spell if you are wearing heavy armor.

56.
Can players make magical items?
Darkfall features an extremely sophisticated item creator, which will enable players to create powerful items, like weapons, jewelry, armor, wands, potions, food and more.
We have invested a lot of time and design resources into creating the ultimate player based economy. Players who enjoy trading and crafting will truly enjoy Darkfall’s virtually limitless item creator system, something never before seen in a MMORPG.

57.
Will items decay with use?
Yes they will.

58.
Is it possible to repair items?
It is possible, with the proper skills and tools, up to a point. Eventually an item will be destroyed after being repaired several times.

59.
What types of items can I make?
You will be able to make almost every item found in the world like weapons, tools, armor, clothing, food, containers, furniture, jewelry etc.

60.
How do I get the resources I need to make items?
You can gather the resources you need from hunting, or from mining the specific resource. You could also buy them from a vendor or another player.

61.
What different crafts buildings are there?
There’s a smithy, a workshop, an alchemist shop, a herbalist’s shop and the mage guild.

62.
What do you mean by next generation?
By 'Next Generation' we mean that while Darkfall was inspired by the pioneers of online role-playing games, such as Ultima Online, Everquest and Asheron?s Call, it has advanced features and technology never before seen in online games. We are confident that Darkfall will help to advance the genre further.

63.
What kind of advanced features does Darkfall have?
Darkfall has most of the features one would associate with fantasy based MMORPGs, but also contains elements found in real-time strategy and action games. In Darkfall it?s the players and their actions that shape the world. We provide you with the platform and the tools to engage in grand activities such as kingdom building, politics, strategy, diplomacy, combat, warfare, conquest, and racial wars. We also offer you the freedom and the option to not get involved in any of that if you don't want to, and to follow a path of your own.

64.
Who is making this game?
Darkfall is being made by Aventurine SA, a company based in Athens, Greece.

65.
Will Darkfall support many different languages?
Yes it will. Darkfall is an international game and it will support several languages.

66.
Do I need to spend half my life playing this game to be any good?
Playing a lot will help you develop a stronger character, it will help you to improve your character handling skills, and it will familiarize you better with the world and the way it works. However, this game is not all about individual skill, and there will be a skill cap so characters

can develop up to a point. There are many elements that come into play in Darkfall, and a casual player can have as much fun playing the game, and possibly be more successful than a hard core gamer, in some fields.

67.
Do I need to be a twitchy gamer to be good?
Skill does come into play in combat, but so does intelligence, strategy, group tactics, preparation, equipment, conditions etc. There are many elements that will affect the outcome of a confrontation.
>>

68.
What camera view is used in Darkfall?
More on this soon

69.
Can I play all races on the same server?
No you may not. This is something we have discussed at length, and we believe that it would allow for easy spying, taking away from the gaming experience. If you play an Alfar, for example, you may log on your Elf scout just to check if the Elven town of Charybdis is well defended at the moment or not. If you want to play a different race, you may do so on a different server / game world.

70.
How do I tell my NPC hirelings what to do?
You can either give an NPC hireling a direct one-time order, such as "heal me", or you can set up a more permanent chain of orders, through an advanced NPC hireling interface in Darkfall. This advanced interface can tell the NPC hireling to heal you every time your health goes below say 10% of your max health. Obviously the NPC hireling must have the matching skills and spells to perform these actions.
NPC hirelings have skills and spells like players do. The more skills and/or spells an NPC hireling has, and the better skill and/or spell levels he has, the more gold he will require for his services.

71.
Will Darkfall have universal banks?
It will be tested in alpha and beta. We like the idea that if you deposit a longsword in a bank, you have to go back to the exact same bank to withdraw it. However this might prove too annoying in the long run, and as with everything else, we have to consider gameplay issues vs. realism.

72.
How will trading work?
We have developed a pretty sophisticated trading system that brings buyers and sellers together easily, and it will work in, but also out of the game. There will be more on this at a later date.

73.
Can I have pets or NPC hirelings in Darkfall?
You can have pets and NPC hirelings in Darkfall, ranging from tamed animals and monsters, to summoned skeletons, charmed animals and monsters, hired NPC merchants, hired NPC guards, etc.

74.
What can my NPC hirelings do?
NPC hirelings can follow you around and fight with you, they can carry your loot, they can perform skills and spells to aid you, etc. NPC hirelings can do pretty much everything that player friends can do. In addition, NPC hirelings can be given advanced orders such as patrolling your city, looking for enemies, criminals, and thieves. They can be a vendor in your shop that you have set up, they can mine for minerals in a mine, they can go out into the forest and chop wood for you, or stand on the banks of a river fishing for you all day.

Supposedly this game features all this. They have tons of monsters, NPC hirelings that can get advanced orders and do what the player does, they can be player vendors, there are five continents incl. TRACKLESS water depths and underworld. Where are the videos? Where are videos of just a fragments of the spells and these water depths or NPC hirelings?

How can this small team create and balance this game? With hundreds of unique skills in a skill system? Where are any supporting evidence that all this exists?

They have multi-language support already? Really? Tasos says the game is feature complete and ready? And there is varied ressources built into the game? Think about how complex such a system is to code and create. Yet Darkfall can do this where everyone else fail? Yet you can make all that "weapons, tools, armor, clothing, food, containers, furniture, jewelry" There is even repair and decay mechanics. Darkfall offers "Darkfall features an extremely sophisticated item creator, which will enable players to create powerful items, like weapons, jewelry, armor, wands, potions, food and more." But AoC and WAR could hardly implement a fraction of all that with all their $ and large development team.

They have "Lesser Magic, Greater Magic, Element of Fire, Element of Earth, Element of Water, Element of Air, Witchcraft, Spell Chanting, Necromancy, Wild Magic, Arcane Magic, and Ritual Magic" where AoC and WAR is really limited compared to this. AoC had hardly tested or getting to work most of their skills and powers at launch. Yet Darkfall offers 12 schools of magic..

What about the servers, they haven't even been tested yet and there are supposed to be tens of thousands sharing them. No mention of instances at all.

And yet there are tons of races and details to the combat and it is twitch based and second generation. Where are the videos of all the different races in combat and the videos of a working crafting system? And what about all the creatures and monsters?

They even promises a hundred dungeons. Sure. Right.

EVEN IF they had a development of 500 and large company and $ behind them I would still doubt them. But this is just plain silly.

I love sandbox, skill-based games, but that doesn't mean I can not call out a development "company" that is obviously bogus..

You Sir, are a posting machine!

Of coarse, I didn't actually read that wall of text...

But, I salute you just the same!

/salute

It's been quite awhile since that list was updated.

I didn't go through the whole thing again but off the top of my head:

--- Prestige classes are out for Release, they still want to bring them back at some time

--- Pets are out, possibly permanently

--- Hirelings are out, possibly permanently

Those are the ones I know of off the top of my head.  There may be others as well. 

Edit:  This has actually been one of my biggest complaints about Tasos and Aventurine.  Good luck finding an up-to-date listing of what Features are actually planned for being in at Release.  The only thing recently that Tasos has said is "Feature Complete".  Those items I listed above I know about from reading on the official forums.  But, obviously there may have been other "announcements" that I've missed.

My personal opinion on it. 

If you haven't heard Tasos or Aventurine talk about a feature recently, or you haven't seen it in one of the recent videos or screenshots...  Probably safe to assume it didn't make it in for Release.

I could be completely wrong on that assumption, but that is what I'm going with until I get a chance to try the game for myself. 

Originally posted by xzyax

It's been quite awhile since that list was updated.

 

I didn't go through the whole thing again but off the top of my head:

 

--- Prestige classes are out for Release, they still want to bring them back at some time

--- Pets are out, possibly permanently

--- Hirelings are out, possibly permanently

 

Those are the ones I know of off the top of my head.  There may be others as well. 

Yet none of that is removed on their website. Not even the release date is announced. Lol

The removal of pets really disappointed me. Ive always loved pet classes, and I was intrigued by how they were going to implement them given the fps type enviroment.

Originally posted by Draccan

Originally posted by xzyax

It's been quite awhile since that list was updated.

 

I didn't go through the whole thing again but off the top of my head:

 

--- Prestige classes are out for Release, they still want to bring them back at some time

--- Pets are out, possibly permanently

--- Hirelings are out, possibly permanently

 

Those are the ones I know of off the top of my head.  There may be others as well. 

 

Yet none of that is removed on their website. Not even the release date is announced. Lol

 

Relese date is announced, what are you talking about?
 

Originally posted by busdriver

Originally posted by Draccan

Originally posted by xzyax

It's been quite awhile since that list was updated.

 

I didn't go through the whole thing again but off the top of my head:

 

--- Prestige classes are out for Release, they still want to bring them back at some time

--- Pets are out, possibly permanently

--- Hirelings are out, possibly permanently

 

Those are the ones I know of off the top of my head.  There may be others as well. 

 

Yet none of that is removed on their website. Not even the release date is announced. Lol

 

Relese date is announced, what are you talking about?
 

Perhaps he means they dont have it on their home page?

this thread needs a sticky in my opinion, I looked at the DF website but couldn't find as much specific information as this. I found thier FAQ to be extremely vague, I have heard followers of DF to make these claims but don't remember anything defianate from Aventurine. This should be stickied for post Jan 22nd, I'd love to see if what the fans have been saying is true. If so I'll buy it in a heartbeat, but in all honesty I don't see how it could be possible for 30 semi-pro code crunchers in Greece to do it without a proper beta even!

Originally posted by busdriver

Originally posted by Draccan

Originally posted by xzyax

It's been quite awhile since that list was updated.

 

I didn't go through the whole thing again but off the top of my head:

 

--- Prestige classes are out for Release, they still want to bring them back at some time

--- Pets are out, possibly permanently

--- Hirelings are out, possibly permanently

 

Those are the ones I know of off the top of my head.  There may be others as well. 

 

Yet none of that is removed on their website. Not even the release date is announced. Lol

 

Relese date is announced, what are you talking about?
 

I think he meant on the official web page. 
 

Seems like the official release date would be something they'd want to post in real big letters all over the front page.  It's still not even up on the news page yet. 

Originally posted by busdriver

Originally posted by Draccan

Originally posted by xzyax

It's been quite awhile since that list was updated.

 

I didn't go through the whole thing again but off the top of my head:

 

--- Prestige classes are out for Release, they still want to bring them back at some time

--- Pets are out, possibly permanently

--- Hirelings are out, possibly permanently

 

Those are the ones I know of off the top of my head.  There may be others as well. 

 

Yet none of that is removed on their website. Not even the release date is announced. Lol

 

Relese date is announced, what are you talking about?
 

He meant that they havent put the release date up at their site..

Ah yes, of course. Silly me. Yes, they really should update the page. But about the feature list, if they don't give out preorders and let people first try the game before buying it, what would they gain by hiding things/lying? It really is simple as that IMO.

Well the thing is that they have been working on this game for like 8 years, so I am pretty sure they do have all this in the game. If you are that skeptical about then find a beta tester and ask him about it in a PM or over AIM or something like that. End of story.

Originally posted by busdriver

Ah yes, of course. Silly me. Yes, they really should update the page. But about the feature list, if they don't give out preorders and let people first try the game before buying it, what would they gain by hiding things/lying? It really is simple as that IMO.

Why would ANY game that launches January 22nd. not give out preorders before xmas? If it is ready, feature complete and second generation and better than all the rest of the poorly programmed games like WAR, WoW and Lotro and the like?

Why not get a big chunk of the xmas sales??

Maybe because the day the accept preorders and money it will be fradulent and illegal. That is the only boundary they haven't overstepped, ... yet!

So where is Original Eggplant or whatever he is called.. come tell us all how they created this feature complete mmo with such a small team? A huge open world, twitchy combat mechanics? You can make kingdoms and more in depth ressources and crafting than anyone else? 

Can they even just create that many skills and test them in this time and create all the spell effects?

What happened with the whole pirating business?

Where are the proof???

Enlighten us!

Originally posted by Draccan

Originally posted by busdriver

Ah yes, of course. Silly me. Yes, they really should update the page. But about the feature list, if they don't give out preorders and let people first try the game before buying it, what would they gain by hiding things/lying? It really is simple as that IMO.

 

Why would ANY game that launches January 22nd. not give out preorders before xmas? If it is ready, feature complete and second generation and better than all the rest of the poorly programmed games like WAR, WoW and Lotro and the like?

Why not get a big chunk of the xmas sales??

Maybe because the day the accept preorders and money it will be fradulent and illegal. That is the only boundary they haven't overstepped, ... yet!

 

I originally thought the '08 release was going to have to do with getting it out before Christmas. Guess not.

Originally posted by Draccan

Originally posted by busdriver

Ah yes, of course. Silly me. Yes, they really should update the page. But about the feature list, if they don't give out preorders and let people first try the game before buying it, what would they gain by hiding things/lying? It really is simple as that IMO.

 

Why would ANY game that launches January 22nd. not give out preorders before xmas? If it is ready, feature complete and second generation and better than all the rest of the poorly programmed games like WAR, WoW and Lotro and the like?

Why not get a big chunk of the xmas sales??

Maybe because the day the accept preorders and money it will be fradulent and illegal. That is the only boundary they haven't overstepped, ... yet!

 

Maybe because they haven't spend millions to let the big public know that the game even exists? Maybe they prefer a slower start? One reason could also be that they still can't give exact date for NA launch? Take your pick.

Originally posted by busdriver

Originally posted by Draccan

Originally posted by busdriver

Ah yes, of course. Silly me. Yes, they really should update the page. But about the feature list, if they don't give out preorders and let people first try the game before buying it, what would they gain by hiding things/lying? It really is simple as that IMO.

 

Why would ANY game that launches January 22nd. not give out preorders before xmas? If it is ready, feature complete and second generation and better than all the rest of the poorly programmed games like WAR, WoW and Lotro and the like?

Why not get a big chunk of the xmas sales??

Maybe because the day the accept preorders and money it will be fradulent and illegal. That is the only boundary they haven't overstepped, ... yet!

 

Maybe because they haven't spend millions to let the big public know that the game even exists? Maybe they prefer a slower start? One reason could also be that they still can't give exact date for NA launch? Take your pick.

Those are not replies. If the game releases in Europe in January why not take preorders?

Prefer a slower start? Jeeeezess.. how old are you? Have you ever heard of a company that wanted to earn less money?????

THANK YOU Draccan!!

So far, no one has put forth a plausible reason for not taking pre-orders before Xmas, when your release is Jan 22, 2009.

Perhaps their Publisher is just not up to the task.

Pre - orders are very unpopular within the official community ..i think they respect this ...