Seriously guys I'm sure the next expansion and the transfers and boxed version that are hopefully coming very soon will totally change things, not that they need changing because games fine, population is fine, Aventurine are fine, community is fine, everythings fine.

You might think that more people having read this thread then are actually playing at peak time on either of the servers or this forum having more people reading it then Darkfall has subscribers are a bad thing, but it actually shows how much interest their still is in this groundbreaking revolutionary advanced next generation title.

See what Aventurine are doing is slowly working on improving the game until its absolutely perfect then WHAM! they will hit us with the 1 year launch anniversary free trial and will totally blow away all of the 300,000 troll haters that have deserted them with its best game evar awesomeness, then we will all be playing it and holding hands singing kumbaya and weeping about how wrong we were to doubt Aventurine and apologizing for being horrible little troll haters.

Just like Eve Online, Darkfall will grow slowly at first but then rapidly increase its player base and finally start receiving the incredibly positive mainstream press reviews it truly deserves.

The Xfire numbers will prove this, mark my words.

So in closing a heart felt thanks to all the hardcore elite brave patient persistent old school gamers who have kept the faith all these years and fought the good fight to keep the dream alive, your efforts will be rewarded and this game will be the tremendous success we all in are deepest hearts know it is destined to be.

Darkfall will not go quietly into the night, oh no! It will be reborn like a phoenix from these ashes and will rise into internet gaming history as the single most important piece of entertainment software of the 21st century, Aventurine will eventually be acclaimed for their genius, perhaps not in are lifetimes but in some distant more enlightened time.

Please don't give up, keep your subscriptions going and convince as many people as possible you can to keep playing this incredible success by any standards game even though we don't need you anyway this game is obviously not for you go back to WoW.

Darkfall has over 10 thousand concurrent players per game world, and the largest MMORPG battles ever - involving thousands.

If all the conclusive evidence presented so far in the form of the numerous screenshots, videos and player testimonials has not convinced you that this is in fact the case, then check the website if you don't believe me and Tasos, its on the official website so it must be true, as everything on the official website has always been true.

Remember Darkfall is also massive by design so it surely must likewise have a massive amount of players or that would be a serious design flaw, and the Darkfall developers are flawless as many of their friends have repeatedly been telling us for years, so it probably does.

And don't believe Xfire numbers they are lies and mean nothing unless they indicate a rise, optimistic anecdotal unsubstantiated subjective story's about rapidly growing and healthy server populations are all you need to pay attention to unless you are a troll hater.

Dont know how many other people are doing this but if you are new to the game and are not sure about investing money yet you can still get access to a reasonable amount of extra content before paying.

All you have to do is keep making new characters on several servers.

Play the first 2 slots on any server to around level 4-6 each and you will have around 200-300 free points to spend.

Keep an eye on the special offers each day and wait until they are 20% off a lower level dungeon pack before getting it

Then start on another server and repeat, but wait until another offer and get another dungeon pack for free.

I've only been playing since the game has gone F2P casually and have 3 dungeon packs from free points doing this, and have only used 3 servers so far, theoretically you could even get some of the higher level dungeon packs doing this.

The more you do it the less repetitive the game becomes because you have access to more content, not to mention you can try out some wacky builds and experiment whilst getting free content before you decide which character you want to play further.

 This game reminded me of Spore.

The character creator is the best part and everything else after that is mediocre and repetitive at best, the only reason why you would be motivated to play threw the same identical content again was if you wanted to see what a different character played like, personally the game did not motivate me enough to attempt this more then a few times before I lost interest.

The game being yet another massive single player online game did not help either, UI is awful and pvp is unbalanced and the usual tacked on as an after thought rubbish.

And 6/10 is fair, its the over inflated hyped up based on "potential" reviews that most MMO's get its being compared to that are at fault, this is just another slightly above average game with very limited re-playability that is currently flavor of the month which will experience at least a 50% drop in subscribers after the first month.

Originally posted by thinktank001

Originally posted by kobietruman

as the english would say (at least the ones i've seen on t.v.) "not bloody likely"

  

 

 

From what I understand is the preorders only gave them enough cash to run the game thru Q4 09.   It has to release sometime then or they will have to try to open up another beta server ( or more slots on the current one ) to make more cash.   Unless they get a nice anonymous donor.

They can just keep offering new waves of pre orders and then delaying them for the chance to participate in various stages of "beta" testing with various exciting bonus goodies that may or may not actually ever be received whenever they need more money.

They started at 50$'s which was a bit steep but they obviously wanted to start by skimming of the cream, if they drop down to 25$'s a pop I'm sure they will get a whole new even larger gaggle of excited eager beavers biting at the bit for the incredible once in a life time chance to become the MMO philanthropist investor tester developers of their dreams.

I mean as long as they are being totally honest about the state of the current game and what any prospective customers can expect from the current state or the game I'm sure the actual release state of the game or the possible eventual non release of the game will not actually be their responsibility if you did not read what you were buying.

As long as they continue being totally honest and communicating regularly on twitter with their customers they have never lied, If they mysteriously stop being totally honest and stop communicating regularly on twitter with their customers some time around the possible release or non release of the game then that would be your fault for not reading what you were buying.

Just a reminder if you have already had the enormous privilege of paying for the chance to beta test this game please don't attempt to cancel your order and charge back on your credit card, you could go to jail or get sued by Star vault or worse, so just say no and don't do it you evil heartless morons , and just wait patiently for your tin box and T-shirt that I'm sure is coming very soon along with the finished game.

Remember Starvault have never lied, you just did not read what you were buying, so its all your ignorant fault.

Darkfall has the largest world of any MMO ever,excluding all the ones that are larger that don't count because there not hand crafted.

With over 10,000 concurrent players per server participating in the largest MMO battles ever involving thousands, all you need is a good imagination and some wishful thinking to experience them.

It also offers the ultimate left click circle strafe AOE spam PvP action and that's the reason why its the #1 choice of top players and clans, if Darkfall is not your #1 choice then you are obviously not a top player or a member of a top clan like me.

But be warned that PvP is everywhere but its with accountability, so don't worry about the pointless ganking and griefing without consequences you might of experienced in every other so called PvP MMO.

Also there's no leveling , you just improve the skills you use, so you can finally say goodbye to the monotonous level grind found in so many other inferior titles.

If you don't believe me do some research and read the official website, or ask Tasos and his friends, or any of the few people left that are not troll haters.

Did I mention that its roleplaying mouth breathing strategy shooter adrenaline rush nerd rage politics in a MMO, truly massive by design, its obvious why Darkfall is currently one of it not the most rapidly increasing MMO on the market.

Patch and second expansion coming in October or soon, please play, we promise we wont charge you a third time for the game.

This is all indisputable because you can't disprove it only speculate and hate rage, I saw it with my own eyes and Tasos has the logs to prove it.

No sorry, Darkfall subs are rapidly increasing, Javacfact.

If subs were decreasing then Darkfall would not be a tremendous success, but because its a tremendous success we know that subs are definitely rapidly increasing.

This has already been conclusively proven 100% many times by multiple verifiable and highly credible sources, only troll haters think subs are decreasing.

I logged in and all the towns I visited were bustling with activity I must of seen at least 10 people afk macoring and bloodwalling per hour, and there were at least 4 or 5 new players at the goblins before I ganked them until they logged.

If you were not completely ignorant and actually did some research on this game before making this pointless pathetic wall of text about nothing post you would understand that the vast majority of the above 10,000 concurrent players playing at anyone time on both the US and EU server don't use X fire because it causes lag in game when you unsheathe your Johnson.

Ignore this thread and its lies, they are only the machinations of the troll hater blizzard employee brigade, White Border commands it.

I have informed Tasos about this fowl indiscretion and he is preparing another 10 paragraph nerd rage diatribe on the evils of X fire and all who frequent its fettered domain, he has asked me to personally thank all the US customers who paid for this awesome best game ever again as well as another much deserved 1 month holiday for the Aventurine team (interns excluded).

Remember another awesome massive expansion is in the works and will surely be coming soon or soon after, so keep subscribing, but if your not, then we don't need you anyway and this game was obviously not for you, and don't forget another patch will probably hopefully fix the game and maybe some more exploits and hacks or not that don't exist because I've never seen them anyway or possibly only once.

True story, Ed Zitron used Xfire when reviewing Darkfall, let that be a lesson to you on the dangers of this perfidious software.

And that is so true, LOL, just because a lot of people only play for the free month or stop playing soon after does not mean they have also stopped subscribing, that's just another crazy hair brained conspiracy theory from a pathetic clueless troll hater.

Actually I'm not going to even bother arguing.

TROLL

Originally posted by Ajmags

AV is a dishonest Company and Quite frankly I hope there game fails .

I was one of the biggest fan boys these theives had and they lied and Deceived I cant deal with people like that.

Not only that but the game is boring and severely lacking in content.

 

No sir you have failed , Aventurine is an honest company, and quite frankly Tasos hopes you will go away now that he has your money.

The only people who have lied and deceived are the troll haters like you.

Game is not boring because I think its the best game ever and it has sandbox freedom politics adrenaline rush potential content.

You obviously have never even played Darkfall and are not hardcore enough but the games not for you anyway , we don't need/want you.

In the unlikely event that there's anyone still questioning Javacs figures, more irrefutable evidence that Darkfalls subs are indeed definitely increasing rapidly:

The new website update is clear a sign of a game that's subs are increasing rapidly, you can see for yourself that not only is Darkfall the #1 choice of top players and clans, it also has over 10 thousand concurrent players per game world and it has the largest MMORPG battles ever - involving thousands.

And if that's not enough to convince you this certainly will, would a company losing subscribers spend weeks on holiday without updating its community or addressing any of the serious complaints from its customers?, Would a company that's losing subscribers charge the people left interested in their game twice or never advertise?, of course not, even more proof that Aventurine are sitting pretty fully confident in their game and its continued incredible commercial success, if anything they probably still want to reduce the amount of people that are playing so they can provide a better service.

Obviously Darkfall has over 20 thousand subscribers already, probably a lot more, the website facts prove that, and subscription rates obviously must be rapidly increasing or are exactly the number Aventurine currently want, according to all the credible and reputable information presented, if you can't accept this has been proven beyond reasonable doubt then you must be an unreasonable and ignorant troll hater.
 

Originally posted by miagisan

#134 down from #132 yesterday
Highest: #50 on 2009-03-18

 

dropping like a rock! :)

Yeah but playtime is INCREASING RAPIDLY, and subs are INCREASING RAPIDLY because I say so, why can't you troll haters understand, this game is a major success story.

Tasos "EU2 is on our minds, perhaps a couple of months down the road. There's no specific date as of yet but it's definitely in the plans."

See, Tasos would not have a second EU server on his mind and be making plans for it with no specific date if subs were not RAPIDLY INCREASING!, more proof that Darkfall subs are indeed definitely RAPIDLY INCREASING! or will be soon, perhaps in a couple of months.

What a tremendous success this game has turned out to be for those left playing it, these Xfire statistics prove that beyond doubt.

No sir not dropping like a rock,far from it, much more like a meteoric rise success story that will stand the test of time.

The reason why the game has dropped from 50 to 134 on Xfire is because most of the tens of thousands of Darkfalll subscribers don't actually use it so its very unreliable for statistical analysis except for when it can be desperately interpreted positively in some way or form no mater how ridiculous, then its highly reliable.
 

Originally posted by niceguy3978

Originally posted by javac

i love how trollbois are trying to spin this obvious upward trend as meaning nothing or being somehow negative.

 

Ave are about to open a third server, official forum registered accounts are still going up by 500 per week, clan counts from the actual game show an steady upward trend since the expansion and now xfire also shows solid growth in both users and playtime. quite the contrast to eg: WAR which has now closed 63 servers since release, or AOC which is also on life support.

 

Just another case of the emperor has no clothes.

 

Can you link to where they are talking about opening a third server?  I'm genuinly curious, especially as to which region it would/will be in.  Thanks!

He can, but it would be a link to another one of his posts talking about them talking about it.
 

Originally posted by miagisan

#132 ranked

193 players

 

 

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Yeah but those 193 people playing Darkfall have INCREASED THEIR PLAYTIME TIME BY ALMOST 100% THIS MONTH!

Based on this compelling body of evidence presented I now understand why Javac thinks Darkfall could have 150,000 subscribers 1 year from now.

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by Cyborg99

Originally posted by Mazin

Originally posted by Cyborg99

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by Cyborg99

I'm not a fanbot but where are you getting the idea that they're strapped for cash?

 

Selling somewhat expensive pre-orders to raise enough cash to finish the game was my first clue.

 

 

Yea but where does it say they need money to finish the game? I'm not calling you a troll....oh wait yea I am. Provide a link or troll away

 

You can't really be that dense??

Blizzard or Bioware isn't gonna come out 6 months to a year before they launch a game to give out 10,000 preorders to get in beta for there games, they are going to finish there games and do internal beta's to you know actually fix problems.

It's obvious what they are doing, I'm not knocking them for it they are an indy company, they are doing what they have to do to try and complete the game.

Call me a troll if you want, I'm calling you blind.

I don't even like indie/small developers. All I'm asking for is some hard evidence. I can make up stuff too if I don't need to provide any hard evidence. So if you can't find anything on google about them being broke then just admit it, lol I'm not going to bash you (or maybe I will)
 

 

Er...what makes you think I mind being called a troll?  That sort of thinking makes no sense to me.  OK, to make you feel better, I'm insulted by your accusation sir.    (ROFL, Internet forums are such serious business)

Go ahead, play detective, look for "proof" if you like.  It is possible to observe the actions of something and make some intelligent inferences (call them hunches, guesses or what not) especially when compared to its peers.

Major development companies do not sell semi-expensive pre-orders months (if not a year or more) in advance.  That's a fact. 

One Development company (Aventurine) recently sold pre-orders for their game because they were a small, indie developer who needed the money.  Fact again.

MO is a small, underfunded indie developer. Fact. (compared to say, Blizzard, Bioware or even Cryptic.

MO/Starvault looks far more like DF/Aventurine than it does ToR/Bioware.  Fact.

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, its most probably a duck.

Sure, I might be wrong, and in no place did I say they weren't going to succeed (I voted that they probably would make it). but it doesn't change the fact they are not a cash rich organization.

Even their intial beta start up problems are all characteristic of an underfunded effort.  Nothing wrong with that, but it does put the project at risk, and I do risk analysis for a living.

Am I always right? Of course not, but I get pretty close on most occasions.

If you don't believe me, fine, keep looking for proof, meanwhile, I think I'll just keep "trolling"

 

 

Looks like he's got you their Kyleran, just admit it and move on don't you know using common sense and basic knowledge of the industry is a dead give away and the first sign that you are a trolling troll troller (and quite possibly a hater if you attempt to use it on more then one occasion).

(Priceless to see a Darkfall supporter preaching about realistic expectations from an indy developer in this thread)
 

Really sad and pathetic to see all the desperate no life troll haters still resurrecting year old posts full of all their walls of text about nothing crazy conspiracy theories and failed predictions when they have allready been proven wrong time and time and time again.

Darkfall is only just getting started and already has a tight knit and rapidly growing community of thousands of dedicated players, since the awesome new expansion and the hugely successful US launch the game has only gone from strength to strength and is widely predicted by many industry experts to be this years sleeper hit.

Great things are in stall for this wonderful and unique game that's only just leapt from the starting block, Just like another indy developer CCP and their comparable smash hit title Eve Online, Aventurine are starting slowly with Darkfall and building on strong foundations and wont repeat the same mistakes and failures of the past made by so many less competent company's.

Despite the naysaying and ignorant complaining of the tiny vocal minority of disgruntled themepark enthusiasts and PvE fans Darkfall is thriving and expanding rapidly, the future is bright and the sky's the limit for this incredible next generation revolutionary title that's only just got started.

Expect subscribers to smash threw the 50k mark in the next few weeks or days and grow ever increasingly way past 100k in a few months, I think its safe to say based on all the evidence so far that Darkfall will almost definitely be challenging Eve Online for its leader of the niece market by the end of the year.

All this makes the prediction of 750,000 peak subscribers from a year ago start to look very conservative and perhaps a little to cautious, indeed 1 million subscribers sometime next year could even be a possibility if this level of growth and interest continues unabated.

R.I.P Troll haters, Darkfall is alive and kicking!

Dont listen to all the hype and spin about FE, there are a number of cheerleaders falling into 3 categorys:

1, Bandwagon boy! Loves to join the hype, not based on experience or anything other than joining in on the excitement about whatever flavour of the month next best thing MMO is coming!

2, Clueless fanboy! Thinks no one else did much in beta, but tried, failed and still didn't get past the fact that most people will fully cast judgment on the awful content before they get past lvl 20, and that the game is to blame for the missed opportunity to give them a better sample experience of the awful lot of awful content before and after lvl 20, awful.

3, The Ex wow boy! Understands only the simple difference between the game mechanics, the crafting, the faction organisation, the skill system etc etc He doesnt understand that just becuase its different to WoW its not necessarly better , so he loves it, oh yeah baby! wow killer anyone?

FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE NOT YET EXPERIENCED FE, STANDBY AND HOLD ON TO YOUR JOHNSON, OPEN BETA IS SOON, BUT REMEMBER TO CONTINUE BREATHING AND CONSUMING SUSTENANCE AS WELL AS CLEANSING YOUR BODY A LEAST ONCE PER MONTH OR LESS UNTIL THEN. YOU WILL GET THE CHANCE TO EXPERIENCE THE GAME FOR YOURSELVES SOON. TO EXPERIENCE FOR YOURSELVES THE GAME YOU WILL GET SOON THE CHANCE.
IF YOUR AN ANCIENT LORD OF TIME GAMER OR A MORE INTELLECTUAL SUPERIORLY ADVANCED ENLIGHTENED BEING MMO ELITE HARDCORE VETERAN SANDBOX POTENTIAL, YOU WILL LOVE IT!!!!!!!!
 

Originally posted by cosy

in defence of this model i say eve-online started like that and things got bad lost publisher buy the publish right back and almost bankrupt in the process

What model are you talking about?, Eve Online did not start like Darkfall in any way whatsoever, wishful thinking at best.

Eve Online had publishers and boxes on shelves for a simultaneous launch in the US and Europe along with the usual full marketing and advertisement campaigns, it was demonstrated at E3 prior to launch and got awards and its still getting awards every year, not to mention public testing started 6 months before launch and they were stress testing with over 13k concurrent beta testers weeks before launch.

Totally different ball park to Aventurines amateur hour shenanigans of a 2 week google Adwords campaign last year, a Greek publisher who does not publish anything, friends and family reviews and awards, finally demonstrating their game for the first and only time at a virtually unknown Greek Tech Expo,taking preorders after declaring they would never take preorders,charging people twice for a game they already paid for to name just the tip of the ice berg of incompetence, dishonesty and failure.

The only time Aventurine ever went to E3 they had some screen shots of their features complete ready to launch game on a lap top and seemed more interested in getting pictures taken with Paris Hilton wearing their Darkfall t-shirts then trying to arrange interviews in the cafeteria with anyone they could find who might be interested and then not turning up for them anyway.

CCP's American publisher was Simon & Schuster for launch but CCP were unhappy with their performance and decided to self publish themselves after launch, not before , and not because no body was interested in publishing their game, which is the problem Aventurine has had for years, which is why they self published in the USA but lied and said it was a different publisher so they cold sell the game twice to anyone silly enough to pay.

Eve Online had over 35 thousand subscribers after launch and this has gradually grown over the years to around 250,000, Darkfall shows no indication whatsoever of following this trend, at best it had 10-15k subscribers at its peek which is very optimistic and every sign including server populations show a rapidly dwindling population.

Also more fundamental differences in the "models" is Eve online only took 3 years of full time development and only required a modest loan of 2-3 million to launch that was paid of very quickly.

Darkfall has taken 9 years of full time development with an official cost of 10 million that has obviously not been paid back quickly nor will it ever at this rate.

Also CCP never went bankrupt but the first company the original Darkfall developers started called Razorwax did in 2006.

WW2 did start like Darkfall with an unfinished untested launch due to financial reasons with technical problems.

But It still had a publisher with boxes on shelf's in the US and sold around 50k units for launch, Darkfall has no boxes on shelf's, no advertisement, and has sold much less then 50k units.

CRS apologized, gave months of free time to its customers and was relatively open and honest about the problems and communicated regularly which managed to save a small part of its community despite the atrocious launch and the state of the game, Aventurine have failed on this part in my opinion, what percentage of the over 300,000 people that signed up for beta are still playing or waiting to play 10%, 5%, 2.5% ?.

Aventurine so far months after launch have not.

Advertised or marketed the game.
Managed to get their only "publisher" that Greek DvD distribution company to actually distribute a single Boxed copy of the game to any country in Europe not even Greece.
Apologized to the community and been honest about their financial situation or the real state of the game.
Offered a free trial which is essential for long term stability or growth.
Made the pricing more competitive.
Seriously addressed the hacking/macro issues that could potentially destroy the game or already has.
Seriously addressed any of the fundamental design flaws with the game like the atrocious grind and no skill caps.
Seriously addressed the problems with its community and its moderation.
Seriously addressed the continued poor state of community relations.
Seriously addressed the major disparity between the actual state of the game as sold and what was actually promoted as feature complete, fully tested, and more ready for launch then any other game amongst many other things for months and years prior to launch.
Seriously addressed Aventurines continued reputation for unprofessionalism and dishonesty.

WSI Mike I am not disputing that WW2 has survived or that it has some merits, But if that is the best that can be expected for Darkfall then that is the whimper i was expecting and a sad end when their is so much potential in such an open market.

I have played the game for years and enjoyed it and hopefully Darkfall will still be around for years so I can play it when there is a free trial or the price is more reasonable but if CRS and other Indy company's and even many mainstream company's did all of the things listed plus more and were in much stronger positions and have only barely survived or worse, what chance does Aventurine have when so far they have done almost nothing comparable.

(Edit WSI MIKE yes that does all sound familiar as I followed SB pre launch and after closely but did not play until it was free because of all the horror story's, but I got many months of enjoyment from Shadowbane years after launch, Its another good example but a pity to think about yet another one of the few similar games to Darkfall with potential that was lost to rabid fans and incompetent developers amongst other things which still seems to be happening in Darkfalls case as far as I can see despite it actually finally managing to launchish.)
 

Originally posted by Trenchgun

Stop pretending you have a clue.

Niche MMOs have a very dedicated playerbase who seek it out, so they don't have the same retention patterns as a mass market MMO.

WW2OL is a game that has survived and thrived with constant updates which around 10k-15k subs. 

Adventurine reminds me a lot of CRS with their commitment to an idea, unwilling to compromise it for mass market appeal, totally dedicated to improving it with every resource they have, and content to have enough subs to operate it.

 

 

I followed WW2 online for a few years before launch, imported the game from the US so I could play on launch day (total disaster and took 2 weeks before anyone could really even start playing (sound familiar?).

Just a few more facts about WW2 online from a totally clueless person.

WW2 online does definitely not have 15k subscribers its much more likely to be lower then 10k then above, and the server population during US peak times is normally only around 500-800 players occasionally going over 1000 during a free trial, the tiger or other piece of popular equipment is RDP'ed or when one side is winning with a big zerg (sound familiar).

The server is a total waste land for the majority of the time outside that ( Darkfall EU ?), Darkfall is already the same or will be soon on both its server unless things change.

They only have around 6 developers working on the game now, they have reduced the number heavily to stay afloat over the years, Darkfall took 9 years with 30+ developers for the majority of its development cycle to get where it is now.

 Imagine what it would be like just with Tasos and a few of his chums at the helm, well you don't need to, look at WW2 online for the past 8 years.

Game launched in 2001 barely in a beta state much more like alpha for financial reasons (sound familiar) , and 8 years later after a snails pace of development (sound familiar?) they are now ideally only were they should of been for launch.

 But still have many unimplemented features and content that were listed and touted by the devs pre launch that were removed from the site (sound familiar again?), the ubiquitous soon TM (sound familiar) have not only been Aventurines watchword for years as anyone who reads Docs fire side chats will appreciate.

To say that WW2 has thrived shows who's the clueless one really is, but I agree it has survived barely, but despite its merits (but huge flaws) its still only really of interest to a tiny tiny minority of the already niece WW2 FPS / simulation market, as Darkfall is only really of interest to a tiny tiny minority of the already niche open PvP full loot "sandbox" MMO market.

Claiming CRS (and Aventurine) have not made compromises for mass market appeal again shows who is the clueless one, CRS have spent years changing the original game to make it easier and more accessible to new players and a wider audience to the disgruntlement of a significant proportion of the original fans, not to mention many so called "nerfs" for game play and balance improvements endlessly whined about by the community.

Lazor tower safe zone, ARAC guilds, universal banking, pocket ponys, flat pack ships, no skill caps, PVE development focus to name a few are just more of the same and only the start when Aventurine see subscribers dwindling even more.

I had been comparing Darkfalls probable launch and state of development to WW2 online for years pre launch and was called a clueless troll hater by the supporters because Darkfall was going to be the awesome feature complete, fully tested finished best game ever success with hundreds of thousands of players.

The delicious irony now is that the supporters are now attempting to compare Darkfall favorably to WW2 online with its miniscule ultra niche player base but are still calling me a clueless troll hater.

Comparing Darkfall to WW2online is not a sign of success or anything to crow about and is a pathetic attempt to paint Darkfall as anything but a failure considering the pre launch hype from its supporters and developers for year after year and its huge potential considering it virtually has zero competition, games launched over a decade ago or canceled excluded, its condemning the game to obscurity, mediocrity and unfulfilled potential.
 

The reason why I made this post and the other was because I actually care and still want to play Darkfall, so obviously its in my interest to highlight the possibility that unless things change like a free trial, advertisement, a change of policy and attitude by Adventurine, an improvement in the official community and its moderation, a more reasonable price for the game etc etc as predicted this game seems to of hit its peek interest and subscriber base wise on launch day and is on a steady decline (despite the US server launch) to failure or at best stagnation.

But all of the above is exactly what CRS have been doing and more for years and why your comparison is flawed, CRS have frequent free trials and promotions, have very competitive pricing, have a mostly welcoming and helpful community for new players, have improved the experience for first time players and are very open and honest with frequent updates (relatively) and have a considerable presence on the community forums actually talking to their players instead of hiding (shock horror puts Tasos and his 1 paragraph update a month if your lucky to shame), all of which Aventurine and Darkfall have so far failed to do.

And yet despite all of this effort WW2 online still remains super duper niece with a tiny player base with only a few developers barely surviving, and this is the favorable comparison you are attempting to make with Darkfall despite it still failing to take any of these measures, remind me who's the clueless one and who is supposed to be defending and promoting this game again.

We saw who was clueless for many years prelaunch, and we will see again who is clueless post launch in time if its not obvious enough allready.

Very bad news for anyone left playing hoping this game will grow or at least have a somewhat stable but tiny playerbase.

Considering the almost unanimous consensus from the community that joining a clan is essential but to be as generous as possible lets assume only 50% of players are in Clans the other 50% are solo, and be even more generous by upping the number to 4000 claned players and 4000 non clan players for a total of 8000 characters and then being even even more generous and adding another 2000 players because Tasos is awesome and Darkfall is the best game evar and being even even even more generous by not not subtracting any players who have stopped playing already or who deleted and remade characters multiple times or who joined and left multiple clans.

We get around 10,000 people who have payed for and played Darkfall on the US server so far at best.

Industry standard for most MMO's is a 50% retention rate after the free month, Darkfalls is the same or probably much lower, so best case scenario we get around 5,000 subscribers for the US server after the free month, normally 15-25% of players are logged on during prime time, so that will be 750 -1250 players playing concurrently on the US server during prime time all though the actual number of logged in account may be much higher due to the significant proportion of people afk macroing.

Looks very bad and the US server looks set to be a repeat of the already ghost town EU server, hope this game can keep going but this makes the publishing scam by Aventurine look even more like the desperate quick grab for as much cash as possible it really was, the actual player demand as predicted hardly justified a second server when it continues to barely justify the first.

Now quote this post and say its all troll hater BS because Darkfall is a tremendous success with 10's of thousands of players that is growing every day and will be just like Eve Online in a few years time.

This is quite clever from MMORPG, they mention the pros (and mostly) cons giving a good general impression of what you can expect for your 50$'s but then give a middle of the road score so they don't alienate either spectrum of the community or goad the wrath of another bad review nerd rage from Tasos the almighty.

Its what they have been doing with the moderation of the Darkfall forum section for a long time and I think its worked out quite well for all concerned, Aventurine and their lackeys excluded of course.

When a reviewer mentions "good concepts and non standard design" as 2 of the 3 pros you know their really struggling.

Originally posted by Arcken

Harcore is nothing more than a term used to make one nerd feel superior to another nerd. Frankly its ridiculous on so many levels. MMA? Id say thats hardcore. A soldier fighting for his country? Hardcore. Getting arrested during a demonstration? Hardcore. Hell flying down the side of a mountain on skis going 50 mph. Hardcore. What do all these things have in common that makes me think hard core? They put your health and well being at risk. Sitting on your fat pompice ass trying to pretend you are better than everyone else in a video game? the farthest freakin thing Ive ever heard from "hardcore".

Thank you sir.