Okay Stradden et al, I have a little time to respond properly so I will answer a few things you mentioned:

Ok, first and foremost. I didn't say that the press contact didn't have to reply. They do have to reply... to US.
Ah good.  That is not how I understood your reply last time.

 If some teenager wants to make an MMO, they are welcome to it, and if it meets all of our criteria, we'll list it.
This is where my opinion starts to diverge.  Don't get me wrong - I have nothing against teenagers developing games (Old Ant Attack fan) but I would prefer to see only the 'quality' contributors get through.
Yeah - quality is subjective too.  And I think we can pretty much say there seems to be a fanboi for everything - which is why I think that this criteria could use review to something more stringent?

500 player minimum - .... You also didn't read the rule correctly. The game (and by extension its technology) needs to support 500 concurrent users. We're not saying that it has to have at least 500 subscribers. In factm, we don't put a minimum subscriber number on there at all and we stand behind that.
No, I got the difference between subscribers and concurrent users.  500 just seems small to me - but I guess it depends on the game.

Graphical Common Area - Once again you have mis-interpreted the rule. I didn't say that the game couldn't include some form of lobby, but that there must be a place where players can gather in graphical form. PotBS has that, in towns and other places where avatars are used. This disqualifies games like Battlefield or Diablo, for example.
Here you misunderstood me.  As I said, some games have what I consider a 'graphical lobby (PotBS for example).  In PotBS on the Travel Map you can wander the Carribean and view other players and NPCs.  You can chat to other players there.  You can move to new locations there.  But that's all you can do there.
Someone will no doubt say "But you can fight there!"?
Well, no you cannot.  The fights take place in instances off the travel map. There is a marker on the travel map - but other players cannot view the fight from the outside.  To find out what is going on within any instance in PotBS (fights, towns etc) a player must leave the travel map and enter that instance.
How is this different from a 'lobby'?
i.e. You could view the PotBS Travel Map like this:
>Travel to Grenville
**Player 7 sails by**
>/Say HI player 7!
**You say HI to player 7**
**Player 3 and Player 4 are engaged in battle near by**
>/fight player 3
**player 3 already engaged in battle in Battle Instance 2.  Entry timer has expired**
**Player 5 sails by**
>/fight player 5
**Player 5 declines your challenge**
**Player 8 sails by**
>/fight player 8
**Player 8 has accepted.  Please wait while you are assigned a Battle Instance.** 
**Battle instance 7 assigned.** 
**Loading...**

Ah yes... but it's graphical isn't it?
Okay, so the Wii offers a graphical lobby... does that make it an MMO?

Persistent Characters - You said:

"Data is cheap. Persistent Characters? This is no more than a SAVE GAME feature?
How about a persistent presence in the game world that other players can interact with while you are logged out?"

Once again, you haven't thought this through and your suggestion makes absilutely no sense. persistent characters that players can build and continue building are a hallmark of the MMO genre. Therefore, they are a requirement for listing. it really is that simple.
I don't know how to make this suggestion clearer?
It needs to be a persistent world... but how is it persistent if characters within that world have no persistent presence?

...

It's not up to us whether a game supports the demand for it. This is how they have chosen to handle their launch. If you have aproblem with it, grerat. Don't play it. That doesn't disqualify them as an MMO.

Developer support - We simply need to see thata m echanism is in place. We have seen that with Darkfall on many occasions. If a company chooses not to avail themselves of their system or provides poor customer service, that's the realm of a reviewer or you folks on the forum to talk about. Once again, it doesn't make a game suddenly not an MMO. That being said, if this was an issue with any game for a protracted period of time, we would investigate on a case by case basis.

Also, we're not going to take a game off the list every time their website goes down. Please, give me a break.
Not what I was suggesting.  In any case - you answered this above (my bold)

Hope that makes things a bit clearer?

Originally posted by Zinzan

Originally posted by Gestankfaust

Originally posted by dark-merlin

you must be hardcore to play the Darkfall

 

obviously, you are not

 

once again....no such thing

 

MMO's cannot ever get hardcore unless you have perma death.

 

Stop acting like PvP in an MMO is anything but carebear carnage

 

 

Great answer tbh.

For a bonus point, which mainstream MMO once seriously considered perma-death?

Wasn't it SWG with jedi characters?

Originally posted by damian7

Originally posted by Ian_Hawkmoon

Originally posted by KOrnfan4evr

 

Its an indie developer.  Please someone give me a company their game name and the amount of employees they had, whom had less tahn 30 employees who were able make a successfull launch on a sandboxed full PVP twitch combat MMORPG.

Really its getting sad to see everyone knocking this game cause of the rocky launch.  Just in terms of quality this game has is alot better than its getting credit for in terms of Price to performance.  This company went from 12 dev's to a whopping 28 and been actually developing the game in 5 years (They scratched it 3 years into then started up again 5 - 5 1/2 years ago).  They were able to make a full MMORPG in the same time blizzards 200+ employees were able to make a generic version of Diablo II 3D.

With an indie developer comes not only flaws (Compared to a corporation) and risks (Thats where "we" come in).  And in time this will be sorted out but instead of yelling at the storm to not be so windy learn that you gotta ride the waves.

 

Why should anyone give an Indie developer any more leeway than any other developer?  It should be that you are judged on what you produce.  Not on what you produce according to what you have to start with.  You produce a crappy game (whether big or indie) you should get crap for it.  You have a shakey launch (whether big or indie)  you should get crap for it.  We as consumers should expect and demand quality from both big and indie developers.

just for clarification (and for logic's sake) -- is this indie team charging a reduced price for the game/subs?  or, are they charging the going price for these games?

 

if it's a reduced price, sure, cut them slack, cuz they're not charging what others are charging.

There is no reduced pricing...

And to the poster comparing production costs...  You might want to consider that by charging a lower initial cost and lower monthly cost they "could" get more purchases and more subs by charging less.

See post below

Originally posted by Orthedos

Originally posted by KOrnfan4evr

...

 

I didnt say you HAVE to take a chance, merely stating that if you buy a game, in this case this game, your taking a chance.  Like for instance i pre-ordered Auto-Assault,  took a chance and lost.  WIth Darkfall if you buy the game, either way your taking a chance even 3 months down the road.

I played in beta and i can tell you str8 up it was a very stable game.  AoC didnt have what Darkfall has in terms of alot of factors.  Yes Darkfall can take a few months before becoming all it should be, then from there grow.  But my whole thing is people basing the game Darkfall off of the actions of Aventurine not being able to support the massive load their going with the ordering and Sales. 

I can assure you the game isnt CLIENT SIDE. 

 

This argument is flawed.  Its always true that any action involves risk.  By typing here you risk suddenly dying of a stroke.  But what are the odds that it will happen?  At least I am not worried about it.

Why should we not bring in the behaviour of the developer in accessing the odds we face when considering their product.  Oh great, we have here a developer that is worst than amateur, who makes wild claims and delivers nothing to prove it.  Their long list of claims, and an empty world.  Their AI testing and now they cannot even launch the game for 5k players.  Enuf said.  And you demand that I ignore all their past record and plunge ahead with faith?  Does that not contradict your first paragraph?  Its risky and by all measures the worst case for risk management.  My money is safer in my pocket and I lose nothing, cos the game is not yet playable to me.

You assure me its a stable game, its not client side.  Ok that contradicts with a lot of other people's view.  But I come to wonder, how do you know its not client side?  You already hacked it?  While I cannot prove that it is client side is used to process mission critical tasks, I know thru my schoolday books that every distributed processing system involves some form of client side processing, or else it is a dumb terminal.  It is the allocation of tasks between client and server that makes and breaks the system.  If the game is not client side what is it?  The server paint the screen and feeds your display card with bitmaps for display?

Be realistic now. By typing in a response for all you know im a homocidal maniac with ties in to some dangerous people. By doing that I could kill anyone on a forum. Thats a risk we all could take. So really try to keep it in terms of the games.

I have actually played this game that had a world with nothing on the list. And actaully they accomplished the lot that they wanted. They currently have over 6k people on their server. This is a non-instanced server where players rome around the world and can hunt other players. NOt a game like WoW where the clusters are formed on the server in order to better handle the numbers.

The gameworld files are altered on the client side. But character, stats and clan structures are all stored server side. You can come and make all these philosophical points you want but when it comes down to it you need to bring in common knowledge of the game world.

They have a rocky start on a game they've been working on that has been in development as long as most MMO's (5 years, the previous 3 years were scartched and started a new so technicaly it is a "Different" game). They have a very small team of AMATEURs whom are mainly gamers that wanted to create a game that htey wanted to play. Their mishandling of sales is mainly because they're billing server could not handle the multitudes of orders that were being placed. Yes it is their fault for not being able to handle it but it doesnt reflect the quality of the game, just the billing aspect of the company.

WHen you play the main game files (Map, building, textures, models, animations, music so on and so forth) are stored on to your computer. When you log into the lobby you choose which character you wsiht o play that is stored on the server. The server then "finds" the character and his stats, then sends the information back to the client to process and display on the personal computer. That is where the different packets can be recognized whether they have been altered from the different of whether the server see's something happening and the client see's something happening. Like if the client were to alter one of the packets to show he got X amount of hits in and the server didnt register any hits, thats considered altering a packet which can be investigated as a hack.

You can come up with all these BS theories you want about how things work and what happens but the fact of the matter is the majority of online games are server side these days. Diablo II was server side, Diablo I was not. Dungeon Siege was not, but Darkeden is.

Now the difference between Client side and Server side applications is that the client side would have every form of information required. Server would just send and recieve information to send to the right individuals, AKA people in the same game. Server side holds and manages allt he information coming through and sends and recieves information to the clients based on what projections it makes (High ping causes the Teleport effect where players are basicaly "Slapped" around). Almost all known MMO's are server side.
 

Originally posted by Saben001

I believe MMORPG.com should change the status of this game back to in development as it has not truely released yet.

My arguments:

I can not purchase the game. Therefore is it truely released?

 

There is no official announcement anywhere about it being released on the official website.

 

Having less then 20k people playing sounds more like a Beta or trial then a release to me.

 

Only 1 server. How can a game release with such little hardware?

 

No customer service or support that I can find.

 

Prove to me without a doubt that this game is avaible to the public! I can find no method to purchase this game. I have yet to see any website or brick and mortar store selling this game.

Either way you can come here and troll, or kiss the Holy Butt Crack of Tasos, or eat popcorn. So what difference does it make?

OP did it not happen to you that things are sold out ?

You just had bad luck cause others have beaten you in buy the game and is sold out now for you ..just wait till spots are for sale again..and try not to suck at buying this time LOL

Originally posted by DarthRaiden

OP did it not happen to you that things are sold out ?

You just had bad luck cause others have beaten you in buy the game and is sold out now for you ..just wait till spots are for sale again..and try not to suck at buying this time LOL

 

 

Software is an infinite good. It can't "sell out", especially when it's download only.

Originally posted by DarthRaiden

OP did it not happen to you that things are sold out ?

You just had bad luck cause others have beaten you in buy the game and is sold out now for you ..just wait till spots are for sale again..and try not to suck at buying this time LOL

 

 

Maybe you are not aware but it is digital download only purchase. You don't get the game on disks. So, being sold out in this case is basically "we aren't going to sell anymore" regardless if they were on disk or not. I have to vote with the OP. This game has not been anything that was promised. I thought AoC was a bad launch but this one is probably far worse at this point.

And don't worry, I don't plan to buy this game at this point (although I was going to at one time).

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

Originally posted by DarthRaiden

OP did it not happen to you that things are sold out ?

You just had bad luck cause others have beaten you in buy the game and is sold out now for you ..just wait till spots are for sale again..and try not to suck at buying this time LOL

 

 

 

Software is an infinite good. It can't "sell out", especially when it's download only.

 

It can sell out, its not just software ..it is a service tied to that piece of software too and the service can be sold out cause of various valid reasons..try to book  a table at a famous restaurant and you know what i mean ..your capacity to eat food may be infinite but to get a good spot for it  depends ...maybe the restaurant has no free table ? 

btw the piece of software cost nothing to download  ;) its accessible via torrent download for everyone ..for free..

THis game is pure BS if you cna buy it / dl it its npt released. Saying that they dont wanna sell too many copies at the same time just shows they have no clue about what they are doing.

Dont bother saying this is trolling, this is a basic thing in trade: if you cnat meet the customers demand it means you did something wrong. Either because you couldn't anticipate the demand (come on this game has had more fanboy/troll publicity that any other) or because you are clearly incompetent and shouldn't be playing around with mmos.

Originally posted by DarthRaiden

OP did it not happen to you that things are sold out ?

You just had bad luck cause others have beaten you in buy the game and is sold out now for you ..just wait till spots are for sale again..and try not to suck at buying this time LOL

 

 

Exactly, just like that other MMORPG that went live and sold out..............which one was that again?

They might run out of boxes, but your streching saying they ran out of """tables"""" ?  They have one server up, they are testing.......and your paying for it......=paid beta

I just have 2 points on this topic that I've been wondering about.   Perhaps someone can answer them for me.

First Point:

How many have heard the woes from Tasos and other defenders of Tasos' "talents" that one of the big problems that Aventurine and DarkFall ran into is that they didn't anticipate the number of players interested in DarkFall.   That was the reason given for at least one of the delays... right?

That was the reason given for switching to pre-orders... right?

That was the reason for abandoning the true OPEN BETA... right?

So then, why is their answer to that above a server that currently supports 7k users? 

And those are not even concurrent users.  Their answer to a higher than anticipated player-base is a server that has 7k users... total?

How many forum users did they have in 2005?

How many forum users did they have in 2006?

How many forum users did they have in 2007?

How many forum users did they have at the begginning of 2008?

How many did they have in Oct. of 2008?

How many did they have at the end of 2008?

For those that don't know... the answer to all those is MORE than 7k. 

So... given that they knew they had more users than 7k going back years... exactly how truthful was Tasos' reasoning for the delays again? 

Second Point:

Tasos said that since they could not meet the demand they were going to do a "Limited Release". 

Tasos also said: "We won’t try to support more users than we can guarantee a good gameplay experience for..."

So my question is... Would you say that Feb. 25th and the next few days met that guarantee?  They had full control over the number that made an account and logged into the game.  Yet... it still ended up like it did. 

Sure, there have been other MMOs that have botched their Release (and NO... not ALL... some have been very, very good and polished games at Release). 

However, has their EVER been a P2P MMO that has done a LIMITED Release with the small numbers that DarkFall did... and STILL had such problems? 

Tasos said they would NOT try to support more users than he could GUARANTEE a good gameplay experience.   Was Feb. 25th a good gameplay experience?  I wonder what he considers a BAD gameplay experience? 

Just a couple things I've been wondering about. 

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Aventurine has floated a new method of testing in this genre, it is called a paid beta. 

this is a NEW thing that they pioneered?  

clue:  its more the RULE than the exception for a MMORPG release.

Originally posted by xzyax

I just have 2 points on this topic that I've been wondering about.   Perhaps someone can answer them for me.

 

First Point:

How many have heard the woes from Tasos and other defenders of Tasos' "talents" that one of the big problems that Aventurine and DarkFall ran into is that they didn't anticipate the number of players interested in DarkFall.   That was the reason given for at least one of the delays... right?

That was the reason given for switching to pre-orders... right?

That was the reason for abandoning the true OPEN BETA... right?

 

So then, why is their answer to that above a server that currently supports 7k users? 

And those are not even concurrent users.  Their answer to a higher than anticipated player-base is a server that has 7k users... total?

 

How many forum users did they have in 2005?

How many forum users did they have in 2006?

How many forum users did they have in 2007?

How many forum users did they have at the begginning of 2008?

How many did they have in Oct. of 2008?

How many did they have at the end of 2008?

 

For those that don't know... the answer to all those is MORE than 7k. 

So... given that they knew they had more users than 7k going back years... exactly how truthful was Tasos' reasoning for the delays again? 

 

Second Point:

Tasos said that since they could not meet the demand they were going to do a "Limited Release". 

Tasos also said: "We won’t try to support more users than we can guarantee a good gameplay experience for..."

 

So my question is... Would you say that Feb. 25th and the next few days met that guarantee?  They had full control over the number that made an account and logged into the game.  Yet... it still ended up like it did. 

Sure, there have been other MMOs that have botched their Release (and NO... not ALL... some have been very, very good and polished games at Release). 

However, has their EVER been a P2P MMO that has done a LIMITED Release with the small numbers that DarkFall did... and STILL had such problems? 

 

Tasos said they would NOT try to support more users than he could GUARANTEE a good gameplay experience.   Was Feb. 25th a good gameplay experience?  I wonder what he considers a BAD gameplay experience? 

 

Just a couple things I've been wondering about. 

You spend way to much time thinking sbout things that do not effect you at all.

Originally posted by Gruug

Originally posted by DarthRaiden

OP did it not happen to you that things are sold out ?

You just had bad luck cause others have beaten you in buy the game and is sold out now for you ..just wait till spots are for sale again..and try not to suck at buying this time LOL

 

 

 

Maybe you are not aware but it is digital download only purchase. You don't get the game on disks. So, being sold out in this case is basically "we aren't going to sell anymore" regardless if they were on disk or not. I have to vote with the OP. This game has not been anything that was promised. I thought AoC was a bad launch but this one is probably far worse at this point.

And don't worry, I don't plan to buy this game at this point (although I was going to at one time).

Actually they did stop the sales because they didnt wanna sell it to a bunch of people if they couldnt play.  They know the limits to their servers and dont want to make it to where their supplying the game, and taking hte money to more people than are able to play.  Just think if it was like trying to create a Diablo II game for the first 5 months of launch, lol.  So yes they stopped the sales.

Originally posted by jonyak

Originally posted by xzyax

I just have 2 points on this topic that I've been wondering about.   Perhaps someone can answer them for me.

 

First Point:

How many have heard the woes from Tasos and other defenders of Tasos' "talents" that one of the big problems that Aventurine and DarkFall ran into is that they didn't anticipate the number of players interested in DarkFall.   That was the reason given for at least one of the delays... right?

That was the reason given for switching to pre-orders... right?

That was the reason for abandoning the true OPEN BETA... right?

 

So then, why is their answer to that above a server that currently supports 7k users? 

And those are not even concurrent users.  Their answer to a higher than anticipated player-base is a server that has 7k users... total?

 

How many forum users did they have in 2005?

How many forum users did they have in 2006?

How many forum users did they have in 2007?

How many forum users did they have at the begginning of 2008?

How many did they have in Oct. of 2008?

How many did they have at the end of 2008?

 

For those that don't know... the answer to all those is MORE than 7k. 

So... given that they knew they had more users than 7k going back years... exactly how truthful was Tasos' reasoning for the delays again? 

 

Second Point:

Tasos said that since they could not meet the demand they were going to do a "Limited Release". 

Tasos also said: "We won’t try to support more users than we can guarantee a good gameplay experience for..."

 

So my question is... Would you say that Feb. 25th and the next few days met that guarantee?  They had full control over the number that made an account and logged into the game.  Yet... it still ended up like it did. 

Sure, there have been other MMOs that have botched their Release (and NO... not ALL... some have been very, very good and polished games at Release). 

However, has their EVER been a P2P MMO that has done a LIMITED Release with the small numbers that DarkFall did... and STILL had such problems? 

 

Tasos said they would NOT try to support more users than he could GUARANTEE a good gameplay experience.   Was Feb. 25th a good gameplay experience?  I wonder what he considers a BAD gameplay experience? 

 

Just a couple things I've been wondering about. 

 

You spend way to much time thinking sbout things that do not effect you at all.

But that is my choice... right? 
 

By the way... you didn't hypothesize an answer to any of the questions I raised.   Why was that?  

Perhaps because you don't care one way or the other would be my guess as to your answer.  Yet, you decided to respond to the post... interesting.   

Originally posted by xzyax

I just have 2 points on this topic that I've been wondering about.   Perhaps someone can answer them for me.

 

First Point:

How many have heard the woes from Tasos and other defenders of Tasos' "talents" that one of the big problems that Aventurine and DarkFall ran into is that they didn't anticipate the number of players interested in DarkFall.   That was the reason given for at least one of the delays... right?

That was the reason given for switching to pre-orders... right?

That was the reason for abandoning the true OPEN BETA... right?

 

So then, why is their answer to that above a server that currently supports 7k users? 

And those are not even concurrent users.  Their answer to a higher than anticipated player-base is a server that has 7k users... total?

 

How many forum users did they have in 2005?

How many forum users did they have in 2006?

How many forum users did they have in 2007?

How many forum users did they have at the begginning of 2008?

How many did they have in Oct. of 2008?

How many did they have at the end of 2008?

 

For those that don't know... the answer to all those is MORE than 7k. 

So... given that they knew they had more users than 7k going back years... exactly how truthful was Tasos' reasoning for the delays again? 

 

Second Point:

Tasos said that since they could not meet the demand they were going to do a "Limited Release". 

Tasos also said: "We won’t try to support more users than we can guarantee a good gameplay experience for..."

 

So my question is... Would you say that Feb. 25th and the next few days met that guarantee?  They had full control over the number that made an account and logged into the game.  Yet... it still ended up like it did. 

Sure, there have been other MMOs that have botched their Release (and NO... not ALL... some have been very, very good and polished games at Release). 

However, has their EVER been a P2P MMO that has done a LIMITED Release with the small numbers that DarkFall did... and STILL had such problems? 

 

Tasos said they would NOT try to support more users than he could GUARANTEE a good gameplay experience.   Was Feb. 25th a good gameplay experience?  I wonder what he considers a BAD gameplay experience? 

 

Just a couple things I've been wondering about. 

Have you played the game?

Originally posted by damian7

Whoa, hang on there:

Ok, first and foremost. I didn't say that the press contact didn't have to reply. They do have to reply... to US. I do not, however, expect a press contact to reply to the general public. That would be silly as they are press contacts.

 

av has a press contact?  is it like the journalist beta?  like, they say "yeah we are having that" but then they don't really have one? perhaps it's like individual player housing, or the freedom to place your home anyplace?  maybe it's like the advanced, super fun crafting system?  oh wait, they DO have skills/skill points that degrade over time if you don't use them... is it like that? or maybe it's like a closed beta, where they stress test and slowly increase the number of invite-only pay-to-play participants?  or is it tasos, the jack of all trades and belittler of all that do not support his folly?

You do, I hope, realize that what you're saying has nothing at all to do with their press contact info, right? You used what I said to go on a little diatribe of your own. you could have at least attached it to something someone said that had anything to do with what you were saying. if you need to try this hard to chime in with negative things to say, i'd suggest maybe finding something else to do.

Originally posted by Gyrus

I have not decided to 'rip the rules apart' without reason.

And you touch on why here: ""Being listed on the Game List doesn't mean anything other than: This company is or has produced an MMORPG. That's it and that's what these rules were designed to do."

And that's my issue with the rules as they stand.

MMORPGs seem to be changing.  Quite a lot actually.  Some of the recent games are bordering more on Single Player Games with a Multi - Player Element than what *I* consider an MMO.
Note that I said *I* - because I realize my opinion is just that.

 

My concern is that MMORPG.com could very easily be 'over-run' by a bunch of low quality titles that sneak past the rules on a technicality.
I guess it is up to you (Managing Editor) to see that does not happen...okay fair call.

 

I certainly think it's worth discussing in the appropriate forum (Site Suggestions) at a later time.

(would like to discuss more now... but short of time ATM)

 

Didn't we have this discussion before... on another thread? Ddn't I mention then that I considered this matter closed? If not, my apologies and let me say this now. Our rules work for us, because they're guidelines, not rules. We don't just blindly accept anything onto the list. We use our discrtion. We will not be changing our guidelines.