Profile: SignusM
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• • Still vaporware? E3 presence?

  • Originally posted by ddev
    

     

    "The company BUSINESS AND SOUND EIKONOS SA announces training Memorandum of Cooperation with the company AVENTURINE SA, with the sole purpose of printing, distribution and operation of online games subscriber (on line gaming) in all countries of Europe. To this end, the SOUND AND BUSINESS EIKONOS AU will create a new section Gaming Division paying royalties to the above beneficiary than 35% of sales. By exploiting the online games subscriber BUSINESS AND SOUND EIKONOS SA (AVE) estimates that avoids the loss of revenue from any piracy in any form. "

     

    Let's break this down. Sadly with an MoC, it can either be an outline of INTENT, or it can be legally binding, depending on what is outlined in the exact business statement. None of us have access to that. So, I suppose that's left to speculation.

    Next part, pretty clear " sole purpose of printing, distribution and operation of online games subscriber (on line gaming) in all countries of Europe"  A publisher. They'll be advertising and selling the game to all countries in Europe. 

     

    Here's the interesting one. "EIKONOS AU will create a new section Gaming Division paying royalties to the above beneficiary than 35% of sales. By exploiting the online games subscriber BUSINESS AND SOUND EIKONOS SA (AVE) estimates that avoids the loss of revenue from any piracy in any form. "

    Ok, with this, two things I want to point out. The company is planning to create an entire new division for video games (they've previously only dealt with other kind of media). This is a pretty serious deal, considering and announcing it will have an impact on their stock, so they wouldn't just do this on a whim, and it also means they're fairly confident they'll be able to make money out of the deal.

    The second bit, it that it reassures its investors that there's no danger of piracy. They're talking directly to their stock holders here. Again, they wouldn't make that kind of announcement and then not do ANYTHING, because any active investors will watch this company's news feed and buy and sell accordingly. Creating a division for an entire new group of media, then telling the stock holders not to worry about it, they're just not "thinking about it if maybe it ever happens."

    That's my two cents anyway. I could be COMPLETELY wrong, but what I know about the business world, that is how I interpret it.

     

    There are many ifs in that stockholders communication as you mention it.

    The biggest problem here is, that its just another business plan in the end, which it might materialize or not, depending on many things. The most important of those of course are:

    1. there has to be an actual product for them to distribute, which means that DF should elevate from vaporware status. Not very possible in my eyes, but one can believe in anything (even that Mars has aliens)

    2. Even if in the end Aventurine releases DF in some kind of game, some kind of date, even then there is HUGE chance of failure.

    I don't know when this MoU was formed, but if some of you want to drill further I am providing you with 2 links:

    this is the Athens Stock Exchange link, where you can find AVE stock and check it with its announcement:

    http://www.ase.gr/content/en/Companies/ListedCo/Profiles/Profile.asp?cid=1000

    Finally this is the link of a site, where you will look at the stock's info further back in time (ASE dont keep records of more than a month's old)

    http://english.capital.gr/q.asp?s=AVE&market=0&page=q.asp&catid=&x=0&y=0

     

    As you can see, the supposed announcement did NOTHING in that stock. And the Market KNOWS... 

    The MoU was announced about less than a month ago. An MoU has an equal chance of being a formally binding contract, and just a agreement of intent. We don't know unless we have an exact copy of the document that was written.

    As for the market knowing, I do believe the company is question is large enough that news of signing on to another company isn't incredibly substancial, but who knows, the market certainly doesn't all the time :P (stock market crashes anyone?)

    We'll see in time. As for you still holding on to the vaporware status, I don't think that can even be considered at this point. Signing an MoU is not something you do over coffee, the company would have had to see the game in detail before thinking about going into business with Aventurine.

    The next few months will hopefully answer some questions.

  • Posted: 7/19/08 1:20 AM
    Darkfall
• • Still vaporware? E3 presence?

  • Originally posted by COORS
    

    Originally posted by SignusM
    

    Originally posted by COORS
    

    Originally posted by SignusM
    

    Originally posted by Thomas2006
    

    The only year Darkfall showed up at E3 they had nothing more then a booth to show of the game. There was no demo or anything other then some screenshots and paper info of the game.

    This year they didn't even bother to show up at E3. Doesn't much sound like a game that is anywhere near launch.

     

    Nope, not vaporware. They have a European publisher/distributer. And old and well respected company that announced to its stock holders that it would be distributing the game, as law states they must. (gotta keep the investors in on whats going on)

    
    So as of now (and I'm sick or repeating it, but something has to counter the years of idiodic trolls going "lol vaporz") they are not vaporware. I'm very surprised anyone believed they were, cause the evidence has always been there, people just chose to ignore it.

     

    Now the only question is, what state is the game in? Will it deliver what it promised? Will it suck? Will it be amazing? We'll see soon, I hope. I'm not getting my hopes up though.

    
     

    I agree that Darkfall is not total vaporware. There is actually some code there somewhere to be sure.

    But.. They DON'T have a distributor. Not really. That was a ploy by Tasos to buy more time.

     

    Are you KIDDING ME?! WHY would someone go to all this trouble. To buy time? You don't sign a publisher deal with a game that they haven't seen. They have a publisher, the publisher agreed to sell the game in Europe, they told their stock holders. How can you possibly fight this so hard?

    
     

    Sorry.. I'm NOT fighting anything.

    They DO NOT have a publisher, period. Please tell me what publisher OFFICIALLY announced they were ACTUALLY publishing Darkfall? Go ahead... tell me.

    I have read NOTHING on the entire Internet announcing a publisher deal for Darkfall. Come on here. ALL gaming sites I visit have an UP-TO-DATE news section. I read about ALL kinds of things happening in the industry, even law suits and NEW game ideas.

    But...

    NOWHERE have I read a word about an OFFICIAL publisher for the game of Darkfall.

    A reasonable person would ASSUME, that a VALID publishing deal would be at least announced and make the news sections of the various gaming sites, if nothing else.

    A reasonable person would ALSO assume that an OFFICIAL publisher, of a game that's to be RELEASED in 5 months, would want some publicity. After all, publishers make a percentage of the sales profits. makes sense huh?

    So.. tell me this.

    Where is the OFFICIAL announcement?

    And... I mean official publishing announcement for DARKFALL.

    Thank you, and have a nice day.

    You must be blind then. I'll make a nice little donation in your cup.

    http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.audiovisual.gr%2Farticles_list.asp%3Fe_cat_serial%3D001001009002%26e_cat_id%3D106&hl=en&ie=UTF8&sl=el&tl=en

    Have a nice day. Read the whole thread before you go crazy with trolling next time.

  • Posted: 7/18/08 8:47 PM
    Darkfall
• • Developer update 18/07

  • Originally posted by SlyLoK
    

    Originally posted by chokepoint
    

    Originally posted by sinjin
    

    If they don't show some kind of UI I call it  a fake. It will be a movie and that is all, nothing real.

    I guess you're not aware that UIs are among the easiest and most trivial part of MMO development.

    Developing all the icons for the spells and abilities often takes longer than coding the UI because UIs are built from pre-existing widget libraries.

    So claiming that having a UI is some kind of proof of realness is totally without merit.

     

     

    Not really.. Their past videos have been nothing but simulations with NPCs ( from what I have seen ). So having a UI will show that someone is actually playing the game and its not another staged video. Seeing a mouse cursor move around clicking / targeting things goes a good ways in showing something is actually happening.

    I never noticed how many people that follow Darkfall go on vacation in Greece....

    Uh...you do realize that almost ALL MMOs that show a video have the UI disable to especially showcase the graphics. Dark Age of Camelot had this, Vanguard, Age of Conan, World of Warcraft, because no one really cares about the UI, they want to see the features. Thats what a gameplay movie is. Just eye candy.

    Now if you want a DEMONSTRATION, that's completely different. Someone sitting in the chair playing the game while someone with a camera is over their shoulder. That usually occurs at press events.

     

    And, perhaps you hadn't noticed, but there are already screenshots with the UI. The UI does not count towards the game being real, I think the fact that they have a well known publisher is testiment to them being real.

  • Posted: 7/18/08 3:58 PM
    Darkfall
• • Fantastic Games Ruined My Instancing

  • Originally posted by zaxxon23
    

    People who get their panties in a bunch over instancing always give me a good laugh.  There's good and bad features for instancing, and there's good and bad features for non-instancing.  The goal of the developer should be to develop the right balance between the two.  It is my opinion that the days of completely seemless and non-instanced worlds are gone because that type of structure is obsolete.  Very few people feel like sitting there for hours or days waiting to tag a mob, and that is the primary failing of the non-instance system.

    
    

     

     

    Its the job of the designers to make a game where "tagging a mob" isn't absolutely neccessary to the point that there are lines of people waiting for one mob. Vanguard had a good system going before they cut it (due to the fact that they released early and couldn't finish it, yeah we know the story) where as your group moved through a dungeon, certain things, like killing a random mob, would drop a key, that would open a side passage in the dungeon, not instanced, but still seperate, and made a private encounter of sorts without forcing you into your own little world.

    I actually MISS seeing people in dungeons. Its how some of the best groups are formed. I used to wander around there by myself, get in over my head, try to run out, and some group would save my life, or if I died, some friendly cleric would come from somewhere else in the dungeon and rez me. We'd then team up, and push deeper, collecting vagabonds as we go.

    Seamless worlds aren't obsolete, they just take more work, and the big name developers  these days just want to make quick WoW clones and get as much money as possible without putting any real heart into the game.

  • Posted: 7/18/08 3:54 PM
    General Discussion
• • Fantastic Games Ruined My Instancing

  • Originally posted by Sovrath
    

    Originally posted by Netzoko
    

    First off, don't give me that BS about how instancing is a must for servers. 1997 UO had a massive, seamless world supporting just as many players as current MMOs. Yeah, nineteen ninety fucking seven.

    Now, developers have realized a short-cut that we're all too stupid to fight against....instancing. This short-cut has ruined what would have been great MMOs.

    _____________________

    Age of Conan: Hyped to hell then dumbed down for the Xbox 360. The worst, however, is that fact that every zone has multiple copies, on multiple servers. Way to break up a massively multiplayer game, right? Why have servers then? If every zone is broken up, why have separate servers? It makes no sense. Epic siege battles? Laff. Instancing ruined this game.

    Pirates of the Burning Sea: This game could have been amazing. Imagine sailing the seas and docking at ports for trade, or conquering if wanted. Explore the many islands of the Caribbean? Sorry. The reality is that you enjoy one big loading screen of small environments. Everything is instanced. Missions, sea battles, ports.... All separated by loading screens. You cant walk around islands, your boat... anything.

     

    _____________________

     

    It's sad when games plummet and the devs sit and pick their noses wondering what went wrong.

    
     

    Did you ever think that the graphics of UO didn't put as much of a stress on the '97 technology as compared to games today? Granted those computers were less powerful but are the computers today exponentially more powerful compared to what is needed to render everything?

     

    Actually, it probably put MORE stress on it. Really basic video cards, no dual core processors, dial up connection? People had both frame rate and latency issues back in Ultima, but there was no instancing and it was fantastic.

     

    As for games ruined by instancing? Dark Age of Camelot. It never had instances in the begining. There was zoning into dungeons and cities, as per usual, but no instancing. Then the fourth expansion came out and introduced instanced dungeons that gave you bonus exp and better items. What groups there were left in the game dissapeared cause everyone went to these randomly generated and boring dungeons. It was terrible.

  • Posted: 7/18/08 12:18 PM
    General Discussion