Profile: AnsgarIsen
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• • So it's dead?

  • Originally posted by Artjom2
    

    Ansgarisen.

     

    SoG was a "dumbed down" or pre-version of DnL live.

    So was the beta if you say that they were the same. Things that weren't stable were taken out from SoG untill they could be repaired (knockback spells etc..) . That unfortunately only happened to some things. Hence some of the improvements of DnL live. Other improvements was due to longer development time. .. SoG was also much smaller in size.

    It had a different look and feel than the live game. I remember this clearly.

     

    The question is why these things were not working!!

    BECAUSE "PIXEL" didn't care about mmorpg gamers, left the company and left behind a code noone could work with. Not because they were incompetent. But, because he was incompetent and his code was sloppy.

     

     

     

    I think there's a little misconception on your end:

    I wasn't posting assumptions but what I know for a fact.

    SoG was NOT a dumbed down version, it was all that they had at that time, - nothing but putting the latest beta version into production. They didn't take anything out of it, they simply didn't have any more at hand.

    The only thing that they did to SoG in the direction you're poiting at was the decision to keep some parts of the map locked. They were still there however.

    Everything making the final release of DnL different was coded and "tested" (beta wasn't running any more at that ime, mind you) while SoG was running, leading to the desastrous QM everybody involved had the pleasure of witnessing.

    The reasons for the massive problems on the technical side none of us knows for real. I can only assume from all I saw that the main problem was an incredible lack of management skills.

    It was obvious that they had quite capable coding resources and also brillaint ideas, however, no matter where you look, there was nobody to tie all this together and make it work.
    I'm with you in my personal disblief in regards to the habit of quite some folks to make a demi-god out of Pix. He's giving his side of the story, and that's fair enough and absolutely understandable. Also he's claiming what he sees as his rights here. How far he holds responsiblity for the failure of the entire project, nobody knows. He will have his share somehow, - to blame him as being the single point of failure is ridiculous however.

    In fact his part was amongst those that acutally worked pretty well. It's just as ridiculous to state he was the only one doing his work. The VWolrd part by far is NOT the only thing that actually was brilliant about DnL, - there are numerous other bits and pieces.
    It's managing all this and quality management where the overall failure happened; - an amazing level of incompetence when it comes to actually integrate and produce a well rounded gaming service out of it.

  • Posted: 10/10/08 4:27 AM
    Dark and Light
• • The Psychology of RPGs

  • Originally posted by Praetoriani
    

    Psychology as it is today is an empirical science, the vague theories of Freud, while fun, do not have many followers anymore today. I was wondering what experience, if any, you have with psychology and/or psychiatry? You see, people posting vague descriptions of what they think is happening in the psyche really give modern day psychology a bad name. You have no idea of the amount of people I talk to who think psychology is just a bunch of philosophical bullcrap and endless talking about nothing. Not that I don't think there is any wiggle room left, but maybe you could call it like 'the philosophy' of RPGs.

    I think you're actually stepping into exactly the trap you're trying to warn about. Narrowing Psychlogy to some empirical science is far more bound to give it a bad name than any maybe naive approach to someones own theories in an open discussion.
    No matter if we're discussing Pschology or Sociology, The empirical approach is merely one facet of what's some widespread field of approach in permanent discurse. Empirical science is not an indicator for modern science as opposed to historical approaches, not in the least.

    When the OP merely states his own little theory after obviously having some thoughts here, he's well interfering with aspects that belong into Psychology, Thus applying it in the way he did (I don't see anything like him highlighting his thoughts as proven) is fair enough in my opion.

    As soon as you're touching psychological aspects in a discussion, you're indeed moving in the range of this science's facets.

     

    More on topic, the basic idea is very interesting. While the reasons for overly bashing a game that in no way can do any harm to you will have a multitude of reasons, there quite obviously is a lot speaking for this theory as being amongst those.

    Also, I don't really understand why some people instantanously get annoyed by a statement like the OP made. I openly admit I did and do enjoy both, rather linear games as well as the sandbox approach at times. It's correct, sometimes you just feel the need of just mindlessly gaming something that doesn't put any extra strain on brain and nerves while at some other times, you might look for something you can immerse yourself a bit more into.
    There is nothing wrong with both approaches, as they will indeed very much be influeced by how your life is looking like, just as much as any other form of preference.
    Why does that, however, have to make a fraction of gamers feel the need to bash on what is not their style. For several reasons I don't like WAR, it's simply isn't for me. Why would I go and attack the game, and, even more so, those who are into it in any form? It's those that feel that urge that the OP addressed and some individual thoughts about to share them here.

    Some nice thoughts, a nice post and, as a result, a generally nice discussion. What more can you expect?

  • Posted: 10/02/08 6:22 AM
    Darkfall
• • For newbies to Sandbox mmorpg's

  • I still think most here don't get the difference between classical P6P RPGs and todays MMORPGs, Sandbox or not:

    There bascially is not a single MMORPG, including DF, that supports one of the central, main ideas of the typical RPGs, no matter what ruleset: They are encouraging and, most of all, gving you benefit and progression through roleplaying.

    To characterize MMOs as an evolution of P6P RPGs is as much a far fetch as a very bsic misconception. They're an attempt to translate the basic idea of playing together with a high degree of freedom, based on nothing more but a common ruleset and the decisions of a GM as well as the underlying principle of social interaction as THE core component of the game into an electronic world.

    The outcome is not an evolution, but some more or less lacking attempt that generated a genre on it's own over time. I'd call that a devolution, even though I love MMOs for what they are in themselves. Still, the comparision is nonsene.

    Sandbox games are getting a tad closer to these ideas in regards to freedom. Unfortunately, at least in regards to how they were conducted in the past (and I still don't see any different approach in DF so far)they are at the same time getting farther apart form them in regards to some sort of supervision of true RPing,that would be the task of the GM in the non-elctrionic world. Non-sandbox games like EQ and the likes try to address this by their game dynamics, taking the player by the hand to some extent. In a sandbox, this would have to be done by massive GM activity, but I dare to say that never really ever happened in those titles.

    The MMO that would get closest to P&P RPG in my opinion would have to fulfill the following needs:

    -open, sandbox world

    -highest degree of freedom to interact with the world, other palyers and npcs

    -independant lore for the world (no license please, as this again would lead to problems in freedom), providing a base for morale decisions

    -massive GM intervention with GM-driven, worldwide interwoven plots as a standard, not as some sort of bonus

    -experience and progression thorugh various activities, including quality RP and morale decisions

    The main point in this is that you just can't replace a human GM with programmed game dynamics. This is impossible and intrinsically leads to a completely different gaming experience.

    Sad enough, the game I saw getting closest to this idea was the epic failure DnL has been. Apart form all the shortcomings, messups, lies and whatever else you can throw at it, it incorporated all of the above to some extent for a while.
    DF however doesn't seem to take a lot of care of the RP side of things, while concentrating on the sandbox idea. I'm still eagerly awayting this title, as I love a lot of it's ideas and if might truely be different in many aspects, but to say it's close to P6P RPGs is just plainly wrong. Ask yourself one question: How will staying in character, palying your role well make you progress your character?

  • Posted: 10/01/08 3:26 AM
    Darkfall
• • So it's dead?

  • Originally posted by Raltar
    

    China maybe? Other than the main servers, the only other location the game was released in was China. It wouldn't suprise me, last I heard the last employees of Farlan had retreated to China to hide out from the lawsuit.

    Its funny. I remember back during that "SoG" non-sense which was really just beta for the game, there were conspiracy theories all the time about how when the servers were "down" they were actually still online but all the non-chinese players had been locked out of the game so that the Chinese publisher could hold events for the Chinese SoG players. Maybe its happening again?

     

    I highly doubt they just moved the server to asia (or made it available over there without any physical move). The main reason is it going up and down a bit before it finally went down for what appears to be good.

    However, the phase with all the chinese folks on the server when the Settlers where going insane to get on it actually was no theory, - that happened as a matter of fact.

    This occured exactly in the timeframe when the beta server(s) went down and before SoG came up. Also, for all 3 phases just stated, it was one and the same server. SoG never was a dumbed down version of DnL in it's state of development, it was the latest version in beta at that time when it came live. There also was no more beta as soon as SoG started, for no other server was available for that.

    The so called "miracle version" that went gold after SoG was nothing else than what the devs could nail together during the time SoG was live, and never betaed in any way.

    There were enough people that knew this exactly at the time and treid to give enough hints to the proud settlers, just they were too much convinced of their own theries to listen in any significant way.

    The rest is history; those theories unfortunately turned out as what they were over time,

  • Posted: 9/29/08 8:09 AM
    Dark and Light
• • No skills

  • +cough*

    http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?t=43318

    (see post 3 for information on skills)

     

    Apart form that, I agree with the OP that the new videa, titleed as "comprehensive" is a bit combat-heavy. However, the thread titles is clearly giving away true intensions here, as it doesn't even hint at any connection to the trailer.

    Put like that,  it plainly is a flat headline, fitting boulevard press at best. Sure, there are no skills in DF. Oh wait, there are no levels either...not much left then, eh? :D

  • Posted: 9/05/08 11:20 AM
    Darkfall