Originally posted by MadnessRealm

Originally posted by SEANMCAD

Originally posted by MadnessRealm

Originally posted by bcbully

That being said. I'm not sure I've seen a game where the the player base thinks so little of the developer, but love the game so much. That says a lot for the systems they have in place.

I think it's mostly because of the lack of competition. If another game were to offer features similar to Darkfall's list but without Aventurine, we'd see a lot less movement around DF and much more hype toward that other game. Probably not going to happen however.

 

 

@Snoepie

I had actually completely forgotton about that thread. It is rather pathetic how a company can continue lying and still continue to be supported by their fanbase.

true

however..its a bit dubious to trash the one company who is actually trying while all the others are not but instead making adult versions of Hello Kitty

Just because they're making a niche game whereas other companies are not is a poor reason to give Aventurine a pass for all their lies and bullshit.  Whether your product targets a niche audience or not is not an excuse to take your customers for idiots, and this is exactly what Aventurine has been doing.

I don't know what's dubious about calling a pig, a pig. If you're willing to support a company that clearly makes fun of you, well great for you, but I won't be joining it. I'll support developers that cares about their playerbase, not developers that take their fanbase for granted and lie continuously and getting away with it.

I couldnt disagree more for two reasons.

1. I WILL give a developer a LOT of slack for at least trying while the others dont and I wil certiantly not give them MORE grief then the ones busy making cartoons. I am not playing a cartoon because the developers dont lie..f*** that sh**..

2. ALL the games I was intrested in last year didnt make deadline, every single last one of them. As far as I am concerned all developer firms lie and bullshit around but personally I dont care. what I care about is the game I can play, I dont care about their website, fourm page or public announcements only the code I can play right now at this exact moment.

Your definitioon of lie is different than mine.   If someone doesn;t make a dadline they might be un-reliable but they did not knowingly tell a mis-truth.

If you and your girl have a date and she gets into a car accident and goes to the hospital missing the date, dis she lie to you?

Take a deep breath, go out into the big room (the one with the big blue ceiling) and get a grip on reality.

Originally posted by BuniontToes

Your definitioon of lie is different than mine.   If someone doesn;t make a dadline they might be un-reliable but they did not knowingly tell a mis-truth.

Take a deep breath, go out into the big room (the one with the big blue ceiling) and get a grip on reality.

Who said "lies" were referring to delays?

You can't be saying that seriously when you've got Aventurine who were about to release a game with a major game-breaking bug, and then changing at the last hour (literally) and announcing a Beta instead. You can't be serious, when DFUW was not even supposed to affect the development of DF1.0, and yet DF2010 expac never came to be, all those 'fixes and updates' mentionned by Aventurine were never added (or barely). You can't be serious, when Aventurine claims DF2.0 was "not even in the planning phase"  and that it would be developped by a seperate team alongside DF1.0 ... only to find out 2-3 months later that they're dropping DF2010 (DF Arena at that stage was it?) and going to work on the full production of DF2.0 (now DFUW) and servers will be wiped.

The list goes on and on.

It's YOU who needs to get a grip on reality. It's fine if you want to forgive Aventurine and all that, but if you're ignoring those then you're the one living in a dream. Follow your own advice.

Originally posted by MadnessRealm

Originally posted by BuniontToes

Your definitioon of lie is different than mine.   If someone doesn;t make a dadline they might be un-reliable but they did not knowingly tell a mis-truth.

Take a deep breath, go out into the big room (the one with the big blue ceiling) and get a grip on reality.

Who said "lies" where referring to delays?

You can't be saying that seriously when you've got Aventurine who were about to release a game with a major game-breaking bug, and then changing at the last hour (literally) and announcing a Beta instead. You can't be serious, when DFUW was not even supposed to affect the development of DF1.0, and yet DF2010 expac never came to be, all those 'fixes and updates' mentionned by Aventurine were never added (or barely). You can't be serious, when Aventurine claims DF2.0 was "not even in the planning phase"  and that it would be developped by a seperate team alongside DF1.0 ... only to find out 2-3 months later that they're dropping DF2010 (DF Arena at that stage was it?) and going to work on the full production of DF2.0 (now DFUW) and servers will be wiped.

The list goes on and on.

It's YOU who needs to get a grip on reality. It's fine if you want to forgive Aventurine and all that, but if you're ignoring those then you're the one living in a dream. Follow your own advice.

 

Nonsense.

They didn't release.  You are promoting an agenda based on might have beens and not what is.

Take a  breath, relaex, there are decaffenated brands on the market which are just as good as the real thing. That is reality.

Originally posted by BuniontToes

Originally posted by MadnessRealm

Originally posted by BuniontToes

Your definitioon of lie is different than mine.   If someone doesn;t make a dadline they might be un-reliable but they did not knowingly tell a mis-truth.

Take a deep breath, go out into the big room (the one with the big blue ceiling) and get a grip on reality.

Who said "lies" where referring to delays?

You can't be saying that seriously when you've got Aventurine who were about to release a game with a major game-breaking bug, and then changing at the last hour (literally) and announcing a Beta instead. You can't be serious, when DFUW was not even supposed to affect the development of DF1.0, and yet DF2010 expac never came to be, all those 'fixes and updates' mentionned by Aventurine were never added (or barely). You can't be serious, when Aventurine claims DF2.0 was "not even in the planning phase"  and that it would be developped by a seperate team alongside DF1.0 ... only to find out 2-3 months later that they're dropping DF2010 (DF Arena at that stage was it?) and going to work on the full production of DF2.0 (now DFUW) and servers will be wiped.

The list goes on and on.

It's YOU who needs to get a grip on reality. It's fine if you want to forgive Aventurine and all that, but if you're ignoring those then you're the one living in a dream. Follow your own advice.

 

Nonsense.

They didn't release.  You are promoting an agenda based on might have beens and not what is.

 

Take a  breath, relaex, there are decaffenated brands on the market which are just as good as the real thing. That is reality.

I said they 'were about to release', I never said that they did release.

Originally posted by MadnessRealm

You can't be saying that seriously when you've got Aventurine who were about to release a game with a major game-breaking bug, and then changing at the last hour (literally) and announcing a Beta instead. You can't be serious, when DFUW was not even supposed to affect the development of DF1.0, and yet DF2010 expac never came to be, all those 'fixes and updates' mentionned by Aventurine were never added (or barely). 

The basic misconception is that many people imagine AV as major corporation, with hundreds employees working full time on DF, and base their expectations accordingly. In reality they are so small, that one guy taking sick leave may cause patch to be delayed for 2 weeks. To launch expansions every 9 months they had to use external contractors for 3d models.

Part of the problem is that Tasos certainly likes to talk in a way that  AV seems bigger than it really is - maybe because they charge the same subscription fees as Blizzard or EA.

But, to be fair, you need to have in mind that they do not charge extra for expansions, and expansions considerably improved DF 1 in many areas:  They completely revamped PvE, almost completely rebalanced  PvP, added dungeons, treasure maps, player houses, villages etc.

The mythical "DF 2010" was probably nothing more than development branch - as opposed to stable, production version.

Two major things from "DF 2010" were added to live version - new siege system and terrain / texture system. In both cases it required a lot of additional, unplanned work. So at some point they've decided to not port back new features, and try to stabilize development branch - now called DF:UW.

Originally posted by Azdul

Originally posted by MadnessRealm

You can't be saying that seriously when you've got Aventurine who were about to release a game with a major game-breaking bug, and then changing at the last hour (literally) and announcing a Beta instead. You can't be serious, when DFUW was not even supposed to affect the development of DF1.0, and yet DF2010 expac never came to be, all those 'fixes and updates' mentionned by Aventurine were never added (or barely). 

The basic misconception is that many people imagine AV as major corporation, with hundreds employees working full time on DF, and base their expectations accordingly. In reality they are so small, that one guy taking sick leave may cause patch to be delayed for 2 weeks. To launch expansions every 9 months they had to use external contractors for 3d models.

Part of the problem is that Tasos certainly likes to talk in a way that  AV seems bigger than it really is - maybe because they charge the same subscription fees as Blizzard or EA.

But, to be fair, you need to have in mind that they do not charge extra for expansions, and expansions considerably improved DF 1 in many areas:  They completely revamped PvE, almost completely rebalanced  PvP, added dungeons, treasure maps, player houses, villages etc.

The mythical "DF 2010" was probably nothing more than development branch - as opposed to stable, production version.

Two major things from "DF 2010" were added to live version - new siege system and terrain / texture system. In both cases it required a lot of additional, unplanned work. So at some point they've decided to not port back new features, and try to stabilize development branch - now called DF:UW.

Aventurine now has 55 employees, they're not exactly a "small indie" dev team anymore. They were when DF1.0 initially launched that's for sure.

With that being said, I'm all fine with delays and whatnot. I've dealt with indie companies in the past (not related to gaming however), I know it happens. Main difference with them and AV however, is that when they have to delay they tell you why and they're clear about it.

Aventurine on the other hand... I'll just quote this part again from the thread Snoepie linked:

----

The siegejoke of all time:
April: self siege fixes - changes to siege system.
May: siege system rewritten and ready for testing.
June: new siege system out within one month.
Early July: siege system still being testes. should be out within one month
Late July:: testing siege system ongoing
August: siege system expansion still testing.
September: siege expansion still being worked on. in "final testing " stage. (but now it’s a hard task because they now state it was made for df2.0 and they are working on putting it in df1 – please look at june and july siege updates – does it smell of …?).

----

It's like that employee everyone hates but have to deal with anyway because he's friend with the boss. Ask him "Is that paper ready" and he'll reply "Yeah, I'm almost done with it, will be on your desk tomorrow morning. " then the day after it's still not on your desk so you go ask him why and you get the "I had some issues, will be on your desk by tomorrow", and it repeats itself over and over again until the final day where it just can't be delayed anymore and suddenly you find out he never even started it. Now he rushes at the last minute and gives you some half-assed piece of crap and now you've got to present that to your customer? Great! No **** it, I'll take care of it myself.

If it only happened once however, I would've forgiven the guy and moved on. Things happens, person could have a very bad week, can't help it. I would've forgiven Aventurine if it had happened to them once, or twice. But it's happened so many times already, and they're not even trying to justify it, as shown by the quote above. That's the biggest issue.

I know full well delays can happen. But at least try to justify it and make it seem like you're actually trying to get it delivered. Don't tell me "We're launching the game on 'x' December'" and then at the last hour say "Turns out we're going to enter Beta instead, pre-order for Beta access open next monday!".  I've dealt with one company that did something similar to us and it screwed us up for a month, never again have we dealt with that company again.

Originally posted by MadnessRealm

If it only happened once however, I would've forgiven the guy and moved on. Things happens, person could have a very bad week, can't help it. I would've forgiven Aventurine if it had happened to them once, or twice. But it's happened so many times already, and they're not even trying to justify it, as shown by the quote above. That's the biggest issue. 

In TV documentary about AV, Norwegian programmer working on DF explained that it's part of Greek culture to say "avrio", even if you're not that sure that something will be done "tomorrow".  Besides, when you miss original launch date by 5 years, few months delay in launching patch / expansion does not seem like big deal anymore.

Originally posted by Azdul

Originally posted by MadnessRealm

If it only happened once however, I would've forgiven the guy and moved on. Things happens, person could have a very bad week, can't help it. I would've forgiven Aventurine if it had happened to them once, or twice. But it's happened so many times already, and they're not even trying to justify it, as shown by the quote above. That's the biggest issue. 

In TV documentary about AV, Norwegian programmer working on DF explained that it's part of Greek culture to say "avrio", even if you're not that sure that something will be done "tomorrow".  Besides, when you miss original launch date by 5 years, few months delay in launching patch / expansion does not seem like big deal anymore.

You're certainly not making a very compelling case in favor of Aventurine :P

With that being said, I don't mind developers delaying a game until they're happy with it. FEZ is a great example of an indie game that took 4 years to launch and it's doing really well. What I have a problem with however is the justification for delays (or lack thereof in many cases with Aventurine) even more so considering DarkFall is a game we paid for and has now been shutdown to leave room for DFUW. 

Those kinds of decisions takes some pretty good reasoning for it not to hurt your userbase, and I've not seen Aventurine present any solid justification to go from a "Finished product" to a "Beta" 1 hour before the official launch of the game. The delay, I don't care, I expected it. What I did not expect however was for it to go from a "Finished product" to a "Beta", within an hour with some very poor justification considering the timeframe. If being Greenlit was that big a deal, they didn't  need to wait at the last hour to delay it, no? They could've done it much earlier. All of that raises a lot of red flags (and with reason considering they were about to launch a game with an item persistance bug). It shows poor judgement, poor management, and poor customer services.

Originally posted by MadnessRealm

You're certainly not making a very compelling case in favor of Aventurine :P

I'm not trying to. 

People should not expect timely releases from AV, and esp. should not pay for "cat in the bag", which is beta under NDA, with no clear launch date.

Maybe it's a little unfair to AV, as other companies are using much more questionable business practices to get money from desperate sandbox fans (just one example of many: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/382040989/xsyon-apocalypse). And AV will actually deliver working, fun game at some point, which is much more than can be said about other guys making sandbox MMOs.

But I think "preorders" are always done in the company, not consumer interest.

Originally posted by Azdul

Originally posted by MadnessRealm

You're certainly not making a very compelling case in favor of Aventurine :P

I'm not trying to. 

People should not expect timely releases from AV, and esp. should not pay for "cat in the bag", which is beta under NDA, with no clear launch date.

Maybe it's a little unfair to AV, as other companies are using much more questionable business practices to get money from desperate sandbox fans (just one example of many: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/382040989/xsyon-apocalypse). And AV will actually deliver working, fun game at some point, which is much more than can be said about other guys making sandbox MMOs.

But I think "preorders" are always done in the company, not consumer interest.

 

whats wrong with xsyon ? it is working and has some fun features if you like to create things. however it lacks PvP and any form of conflict. i would rather give them my money than any of those other projects out there that only exist on paper

In an attempt for DF restoration in UW, AV pulled a ecce homo..

Originally posted by Niburu

whats wrong with xsyon ? it is working and has some fun features if you like to create things. however it lacks PvP and any form of conflict. i would rather give them my money than any of those other projects out there that only exist on paper

Nothing wrong with the game itself.

But the kickstarter campaign was a shameless money grab.

Originally posted by Azdul

Originally posted by Niburu

whats wrong with xsyon ? it is working and has some fun features if you like to create things. however it lacks PvP and any form of conflict. i would rather give them my money than any of those other projects out there that only exist on paper

Nothing wrong with the game itself.

But the kickstarter campaign was a shameless money grab.

What why ? It is not less shameless and all the other project that dont even have a working game. Atleast they have a working game with some of the features already ingame.

Ofc they need money they are 5 Dev's or so and they need new programmers/artists to finish the features faster.

Originally posted by ironhelix
All they had to do was patch the original game with a few game system fixes, and they would have had the greatest sandbox MMO that the world has ever seen. Instead, they throw out the whole thing and start over, ending up with what (so far) is a dumbed down, lackluster attempt at widening the appeal of the game. In the end, they have alienated their original customers, and done nothing to attract new ones.

TBH original customers are part of the problem, not a solution. 

DF 1 was amazing at launch, and was later destroyed by it's players. Veteran players behaviour was very hard to accept for new guys coming into the game. DF had to be wiped, because it lost any potential to grow.

If they were going to take away all vet players advantages, change skill system to eliminate 95% of macroing, change UI to eliminate the need for AHK, force diversity - they had to do it in one clean cut. 

Originally posted by Azdul

Originally posted by ironhelix
All they had to do was patch the original game with a few game system fixes, and they would have had the greatest sandbox MMO that the world has ever seen. Instead, they throw out the whole thing and start over, ending up with what (so far) is a dumbed down, lackluster attempt at widening the appeal of the game. In the end, they have alienated their original customers, and done nothing to attract new ones.

TBH original customers are part of the problem, not a solution. 

DF 1 was amazing at launch, and was later destroyed by it's players. Veteran players behaviour was very hard to accept for new guys coming into the game. DF had to be wiped, because it lost any potential to grow.

If they were going to take away all vet players advantages, change skill system to eliminate 95% of macroing, change UI to eliminate the need for AHK, force diversity - they had to do it in one clean cut. 

 

 

I ahve subbed two accts from the beginning.  I loe the game but.....your nostalgia goggles are much stronger than my memories. 

DF1 had huge issues which Av  is trying to address in DFO:UW:

• UI is overly complex
• UI back-end had huge perfromacnce issues
• Players mistakenly think that every skill is needed to be effective (when it certainly was not)
• Alignment system was hugely exploitable
• The grind was too long and the gap between vetts and new players was insurmountable
• The siege system in the begging was horrendous.  resulting gin day long sieges and call chains outside the game to defend holdings.
• skill-gain system crated the whole "blood wall" phenomena which drive many causal players from t eh game.  It simply was not fun.

The gme was great but only for a small niche of players.  Expanding the playuers base is a very good thing.  The new changes keep the best aspects of the old game while adding new group dynamics.