I would greatly appreciate a beta key, thanks!

Hahaha, in response to SnarlingWolf's remark:

You should definitely give the game a try, rather than worrying about whether it's "alive" or not, you're gonna find yourself worrying about whether your pked or not within the first 5 minutes of playing :P

Darkcrystal,

The only thing that has prevented me from trying the game earlier has also been the fear of low population.  The population is actually quite healthy (at least on Darktide and Frostfell)  is what I'm trying to say.  Although it doesnt have a ridiculuous amount of people, the population as it is functions perfectly given the world size and allegiance home system.

A game like Everquest, for instance, really needs a large player base in order to be playable. This is because there is an outrageous amount of zones, and as you level up those areas become obsolete and desolate.  The world of Dereth somehow makes it so you always are running in to people.... maybe because the world is smaller? I'm not sure, but it's definitely functioning well.

Playing on Tichondrius (one of the most popular servers in Wow) I've run in to less people than here on Darktide. Of course alot of the people are in instances... but ya catch my drift.

I think we've become subject to a bit of a psychological trick- -an illusion persay---people avoid games that they think are "unhealthy" when really all is well. AC has a really hardcore player base that won't ever leave, so the population isn't going to drop any lower than it is.... the people here are here to stay (since the games ridiculously fun). It can only grow further.

Give it a try if you have some time, we're all MMORPG addicts here and I know how it is.... but I'm telling ya this is a nice fix :)

So I've played just about every p2p mmo out there on this list minus one or two.  However, for some reason I never tried AC.

The most recent games I've played have been Darkfall, WoW, and Eve. Darkfall was fun, but the loot system sucked and it felt like more work than play.  A bunch of people I played with during my Darkfall experience had come from Asheron's call and would always talk about how great it WAS.

Well, after burning out on Darkfall and WoW (ugh), I decided to take a risk and try this ancient, yet revered game. I logged on with a slightly negative attitude, expecting the servers to be dead and the gameplay and graphics to be dated. Sure, the graphics are dated, but to my surpirse-- THE WORLD IS STILL ALIVE!

I started a character on Darktide since pvp is my bag, and was immediately pledged to an allegience and cared for. People were running around shooting crazy looking missiles and slashing eachother with sparkling swords and pikes--- it actually looked pretty cool. So I gave it some time and 2 weeks later, here I am COMPLETELY addicted to this game I thought was dead.

I haven't had this much fun since playing UO years ago, and everyone I've met ingame seems to be incredibly enthusiastic about the game. Although there aren't many new players, the community is vibrant and the game mechanics encourage players to help eachother while sill appealing to the loner.

You have to dodge shit, but it's not a complete FPS like Darkfall. When you cast spells, you have to plan the trajectory for instance. Debuffs are viable.  Movement is incredibly fun, and with practice you can manipulate your character so that you can cast while actively dodging. Fights against other players can last a while or end instantly---- attacks may hit for 200 damage, but high leveled characters have around 500 hp. Which means you really need to be careful and dodge attacks and manage your vitals. You have to heal and convert mana to stamina and vice versa, all while trying to avoid getting clobbered by your enemies.

The experience system is awesome. I was initally turned off by the high level cap, but leveling is actually really fun. You buff your characters abilities, and add temporary buffs to armor that can let lower level players get in on the action.  And each time you kill something, you gain a portion of experience that you can distribute like in a classic  RPG. You don't have to wait to reach a new level to spend the experience!

Anyway, I just thought I'd share my joy with you all and I encourage people who are currently disconent  with whatever theyre playing to give the trial a go.

thebius@gmail.com

ty

Haha, Hercules, I remember that post you made about the CS knife fights. I can't believe they banned you for that. Kind of ridiculous.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Khrymson

Originally posted by luckypotato

So..am i the only one whos fed up with mmorpg's?

 

You only waited 5 min....give us time to see this post and respond silly!

 

To a point I am, they've all gone easy-mode: 

Which is a good thing. More fun up front, less frustration.

Almost Entirely Solo  {very few require long-term groups or they last long enough to kill one enemy and then everyone parts and goes their own way...lets stick together and get to know each other...isn't that what an MMO is about...playing together with other people!?}

I like PUG .. i don't want commitment in games. I have them in real life.

And nope .. MMO is about BEING with lots of people in the world, not necessarily PLAYING with them. I can show others my gear, i can chat, I can buy/sell from them, I can kill them in BG, I don't have to ONLY group with them.

No Death Penalties  {come on I want to lose that hard-earned XP and even my levels if I screw up...will make me rethink what I did wrong or change my strategy!}

Great .. less frustration. It is not really challenging anyway .. just a time sink. If i want a real time sink, I will knit or something.

Stupid ! ? O  {and other designs above NPCs heads indicating; hey come talk to me for an easy quest for mass XP so you can rush to the cap and stand around in ur L33t gear calling everyone else n00bs!  Lemme find you myself by talking to all the NPCs and don't tell me exactly what to do and where to go!}

When i want to read, i read novels. I don't want reading in my games. I want hack-n-slash fun and max my gear/power. And by the popularity of all the info sites, lots of people agree with me.

Instances  {fricken hell go away....the whole point of an MMO is to play together, not separate us into our own little groups away from others...make huge non-instances areas that any # of players can enter, but increase the difficulty and number of mobs the more that are in there to the point of requiring many groups to slowly work your way through.....Teamwork Please!!!}

Instances are great. EQ type take a number camping still bring back nightmare. Luckily no one is going back to the old days. It is a heck lot better to have an instance with scripts & events tuned to your group.

Plus, do I really need to see more people in a dungeon than my 10 or 25 man raid group? Not really. You don't interact with all 25 people anyway. Why do i need more?

Player/Guild Housing  {stop making zones so small and confined....make huge open plains and mountainous regions that we can freely build our own homes and cities on, non-instanced and give them more purpose than just a place to display our trophies!  Why can't I sleep there, or craft...or hold events for my friends/guild/random other players to get to know?}

I would rather developers spend their resources making more dungeon/adventure zones than playing housing. I cannot really do anything in them and I have  a bank to house my stuff. You can always use a webpage to display your trophies .. easier to see anyway.

Exploration  {again with the small confined zones, its ok to make large areas with nothing in them besides well made designs and to show off the skill of the artists making the MMO.  Many of us, me included love to just set out and explore and look at things, and many times die from being stupid, "I can make that jump!"}

...and many other things..I could go on for a long time, but stopping here!

 Nope .. just no. Big empty space with nothing is BORING and most will never go there without a quest or some objective. If i want to look at scenary, i buy a  postcard. MMORPG is a *game*.

 

 

Both Khrymson and Naruisseldon make excellent, well articulated points here. I can understand where both of you are coming from.

The fact is, there are different types of MMORPG players. I used to be the type that really enjoyed exploration,looking at sunsets, discovering new places, hanging out with friends, etc.  I find myself still looking for a game like that but I never stick with it due to the following reasons:

I'm 20 years old now, when I started MMORPGs I was 10. I wasn't playing them to be the best, I was playing them as a virtual world. Now as an adult, I still enjoy exploring, but I don't feel comfortable investing so much committment to a game in order to have fun.

Everquest and UO were the earliest MMORPG experiences I had, and although it was great then, as a person with limited time (not 12+ hours a day anymore heh), I find myself not wanting to be punished and upset in a game. Yes, being punished for dying added to the excitement, but I don't want to spend hours just to get my corpse back so I can start having fun again. I don't want huge penalties that make me wait around and not do shit for 30 minutes. I think a lot of people feel this way, even though we miss the good ol' days of exploration and LFG, a part of us also feels like we're wasting time.

I still go back to EQ and UO everyonce and a while, and although I might have an excellent night with a GREAT group, I don't want to pay 15 dollars a month to only have 1-5 nights per week of good gameplay.

That's where WoW has succeeded (amongst also having great class balance+quality due to blizzards huge resources).

Although I want to play Darkfall, I don't know if that will be any better than what's out simply because I've been spoiled with polished games like WoW. I don't want to play half-ass produced games when I know that it's not up to par quality wise.

Originally posted by Netzoko

Maybe theres a Greek translation error that confuses "Free Trial" with "Another round of closed beta"

LOL true.

Also, I can't access the forums so I don't know why they'd be releasing a "first wave" without fixing their forums first...

"We are constantly refreshing the inbox"

LOL

"You'll GET ME A BETA KEY NOW YOU FU**ING 09er" 
ROFLMAOLOLLERSKATESROFLCOPTERZZHAHAHAHA JAJAJA!!!

Originally posted by jrlchris

Hello, I am pleased to release this clip straight from Hitler's bunker about the struggles of waiting for beta.  My source risked his life to get me this video and I was up all night translating it. 

I hope you enjoy.

www.youtube.com/watch

SUPERB JOB!!

Everyone should watch this video it's very entertaining (even if you don't know what Darkfall is lol)

Originally posted by loxleynew

Originally posted by heartless

I think that all of the fanbots should chip in an buy Tasos a new server. That Pentium II Xeon might've been state of the art in 1998 but it just doesn't cut it anymore.

 

Which is when they first said the game was ready and soon heading to open beta? lol

I haven't been following Darkfall since conception, but on and off for around 4-5 years. If you look on the forums, you can find very dated posts where Tasos claims that the game is ready and heading to beta or even release. I know someone recently posted a link here, on MMORPG, that is directed to an old 04' post by Tasos In which he claims the company is 'well funded' and that everything is coming along and the delay was due to x,y, and z.

I was really excited when I first learned about Darkfall 4-5 years ago, but with very little media announced, and signs of intense skepticism in the community, I decided that I shouldn't get excited.

It does seem to all come together now if you consider all the variables. If Aventurine had a larger team and more funds, then Darkfall would probably both be released and be an excellent game. The problem is, as they have stated, that they are a small company.

Although many games take a long time to develop (especially MMORPGS), the ones that succeed need a combination of both adequate funds AND good game design.  Aventurine keeps leading us on because it is working very well as a promotion technique. Everyone who's anyone in the MMO world now knows about Darkfall whether they've heard about the game via rants or praise.

There is a leak website out there in which people have been interviewed as recently as January 20th. From what they have said, very few people (only a couple hundred) are in the game. Everyone seems to agree that the game is running decently and has some good features implented but from these "leakers" responses, it also seems like MUCH of the content is not implemented yet.

I think that if we were to get in to beta today, most of us would be very dissapointed. I think that from an internal viewpoint, it's actually a very wise idea to delay this game as much as possible. I just think it would be more proffessional if they didn't keep on making up new dates and just picked a realistic date (which unfortunately might not be for another year or more) and stick with it. Although a lot of people will be dissapointed, PEOPLE ARE ALREADY VERY DISSAPOINTED.

I think Aventurine probably felt pressured into making the 22nd a "beta" invite day since they had promised people initially that the game had been released. They probably felt like they needed to do something!

The problem here is that sometimes you have to realize when to stop doing something that's not working, no matter how invested in it you may be, and do what works. It seems like Aventurine is caught in a downward spiral because they are afraid of admitting they miscalculated things and are continuing to invest their funds, effort, and direction in a proccess that has proven not to work.

Originally posted by Hrica

They need a bailout

Haha ,yeah they really do. From all the interviews with Tasos that I've read, i've gotten a vibe full of arrogance and pride. Those two traits don't mesh well when you are leading a project and low on funds.

I sense financial ruin.

Also, if you read everything that has been "officially" posted by Aventurine, you will find that they actually aren't making many specific promises. It seems like we are all just being lead on by that fox which is Aventurine.

A professional company should not be having problems like this with all the new techology to prevent internet attacks. There are plenty of very simple security measure that can be taken to avoid most know attacks... hence why most professional companies don't have their servers falling down.

I believe that the reason for server problems is actually simply because too many people are trying to access Aventurine's servers. However, Aventurine HAS acknowledged that more people than they had expected signed up for the beta/trial, so why didn't they prepare their servers?

It seems pretty clear that Aventurine is in a financial crisis (like many businesses atm) and cannot afford the staff, bandwith, security, or tools to run this game profesionally.

Feeling entitled to something is better than being a passive follower who just accepts failure.

Also, it's not like people are feeling entitled for no reason, they are feeling entitled to what Aventurine promised them.

Generation of entitlement? Heh...

---

Originally posted by NileZ

waaaaiiiiiittttt a sec, if i remember correctly, noobcomics and forums/site are on same system?
at least tehy all went down at the same time ?
so why isnt forum up yet ?
 

---

 
<Mod edit>
First off, a "system" can consist of more than one server.
Secondly, what do you think is getting more traffic, the darkfall official forums or some shitty comic site?
 

Morons. There's  a colon after "Tasos". The person saying "lol" was called "Tasos:" not Tasos.

Hence when they typed it looked like Tasos::

look closely

Originally posted by DarthRaiden

Originally posted by sundraziw889

 

The Darkfall project DOES have some serious issues, and the team has acknowledged these issues. There's more to an MMORPG than the game itself- account creation, billing, publishing, bandwith, security, etc., are all different aspects to consider.

Although I sincerely wish the best to the Darkfall team and hope the game is successful and playable, it's very likely that the launch will fail/be cancelled. It takes more than just a really good game for the game to be successful. Running MMORPGs is very costly and even if you have an awesome game, if you cannot afford to run it (even if you have 200k fans), then the game will not be a success.

Of course Tasos and adventurine want their game to succeed, of course they want to satisy their customers! Adventurine isn't some evil force out there just to fuck with people's heads for no reason. Plus, we've seen plenty of footage of the game to know that it IS real and playable.

 

The question is: will this  GREAT game have enough funding and support to ever be released, and if so, will it be sustainable?

 

You point to many  directions of issues could exist and say it DOES have issues without giving further info ..

Do you have a  quote or link on this beside Tasos claiming "things have to come together" and "publisher joined late" etc. ?

I not disagree, in fact i agree with you..just asking if there is some info available on this...  

I didnt see that you said besides "the publisher joining late" but the publisher generally controls account creation, bandwith, security, billing, and the other "issues" I mentioned. I haven't given any information that one couldn't discern from that "acknowledgement" link I posted.
 

Aye, sure. Sorry I forgot the link

http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?p=2369617#post2369617

...and for those that don't like to read much:

"The reasons for the new release date follow:

At this stage, everything is connected: Hundreds of elements need to come together. When one thing falls behind, everything else tends to follow.
Demand for Darkfall at launch could be much higher than expected. If this is the case, we need a different process to better handle the demand.
Darkfall’s partners (distribution, billing, account management, support, etc.) entered into the game at a late date and we needed more time than expected to integrate properly.
We fell behind on a couple of weeks of beta testing progress and we need to make this time up. We need more playtesting data on several features we haven’t had much chance to test externally.
We’ll use this extra time to implement updates based on tester feedback and also make some enhancements we were saving for after release.
We want as many players as possible in the game before the launch and we haven’t had the chance to stress test our servers with live players yet.
We underestimated the effect the holidays would have on our preparations. While we worked through them, the world around us seemed to stop.
We don’t want to rush things more than needed. An extra month may not seem like a lot of time, but it’s enough to allow us to take care of any compounded delays."

The Darkfall project DOES have some serious issues, and the team has acknowledged these issues. There's more to an MMORPG than the game itself- account creation, billing, publishing, bandwith, security, etc., are all different aspects to consider.

Although I sincerely wish the best to the Darkfall team and hope the game is successful and playable, it's very likely that the launch will fail/be cancelled. It takes more than just a really good game for the game to be successful. Running MMORPGs is very costly and even if you have an awesome game, if you cannot afford to run it (even if you have 200k fans), then the game will not be a success.

Of course Tasos and adventurine want their game to succeed, of course they want to satisy their customers! Adventurine isn't some evil force out there just to fuck with people's heads for no reason. Plus, we've seen plenty of footage of the game to know that it IS real and playable.

The question is: will this  GREAT game have enough funding and support to ever be released, and if so, will it be sustainable?

I've played everything. And here I am back at UO. I don't know how long this will last, but I'm getting bored with cookie cutter mmorpgs. At least everquest one had a virtual world feel to it, but it seems like mmorpgs base don that model have forgotten what the game is all about: a virtual world.