Topic Index
Darkfall Dev Journal #19: A Round-Up

Username:Password:
Log In
lepidus
WarCry Choice
Posts: 1986
Joined: 29 Jan 2004

Darkfall Dev Journal #19: A Round-Up

Due to the perils of email file transfer, this article appears on Monday as opposed to its regularly scheduled Friday slot. Nonetheless, Tasos Flambouras gets us up to date on a slew of the latest questions the community has been asking in our regular bi-weekly developer journal.

All this work is making it hard to release more updates than what you get in this journal and even this is a stretch. We made an effort last week and got some screenshots from siege testing and released more later in the week on our website. We'll keep trying to make more frequent updates as time permits. We want to give you videos, and we will, as soon as we can get around to it.

The last journal raised some questions which I think need answers...

Read more after the click and our apologies for the delay.

Read Full Article

Dana "Lepidus" Massey

teedle
Posts: 280
Joined: 11 Aug 2006

"Things have been progressing smoothly in most areas except for testing. We're behind on the actual tasks and it's a lot of work. We have on-site testers on the job right now and we're looking for more."

Hey I have this wild and crazy idea. Since you're looking for more testers why don't you have something called A PUBLIC BETA TEST. Then you can have tons of testers free of charge testing. Pretty cool idea right??

"All this work is making it hard to release more updates than what you get in this journal and even this is a stretch."

They think releasing a dev journal once every 2 weeks is a "stretch"?. Man it must take so much work snapping screenshots and recording videos. Fucken hilarious.

Hey I have another great idea. Why don't you hire someone called a PR man. Then all he can do is sit around releasing all your updates for you. Great idea right? Unfortunately they don't want to do that though.. wonder why..

Do they really expect anyone to buy into these lame BS excuses? Bunch of idiots.

I have a feeling that it's going to be a REALLY LONG time before anyone gets even a sniff of a Beta to play..

Hybrisu
Posts: 6
Joined: 10 Dec 2007

Fully agree with teedle.

This is a fucking joke! Why do Warcry or people even bother to follow this vaporware shit?
Everyone with common sense should know by now that this shit are never going to succeed.

They dont even have a working gameengine to record some sort of working gameplay, a player fighting a monster or other stuff that proves this game existence... ahahaa.

So sad, this game and aventurine are one big fiasco and failure, seriously... Face it!

Hybrisu
Posts: 6
Joined: 10 Dec 2007

:o

Matt M.
Posts: 5
Joined: 9 Aug 2007

"We want to give you videos, and we will, as soon as we can get around to it."

These guys are supposedly developing and testing a MMORPG with a vast world, naval combat, hundreds of skills, player built cities, and much more. Yet they somehow can't find the time to make gameplay videos. I think that's a bit strange.

[IMG]Pyro
Posts: 1
Joined: 10 Dec 2007

Seriously, you guys are dumb. First of all, they have released numerous game play videos, but in building a vast world where everything must be tested, they have a lot to do and no much time therefore for video making. And the vaporware thing? Asp from LoD has already gone to Greece and played the game. So it exists, and you can read his review on the boards or on LoD's website.

Hybrisu
Posts: 6
Joined: 10 Dec 2007

Asp from LoD is paid by aventurine or a close friend to one of the devs.

Quote from Tasos: "Our internal beta date is this summer 2007" hahah

....and no videos other than crappy looking alpha shit portraying 5% of gameplaymekanisms for a game that has been in in development for over 5 years.

As teedle says: All serious companies that have a product has a PR deparment or at least one person doing PR related work... Aventurine doesnt, why? They dont have a product that is worth doin PR for. lol

This project is so doomed.

yamisniper
Posts: 306
Joined: 15 Sep 2007

wasting your time guys

Egghaus
Posts: 9
Joined: 30 Sep 2007

It's a question about deciding to make a video, not getting around to it.

It actually sounds like myself, I always study, as soon as I get around to it, instead of just deciding to do it and do it.
Tasos, I'm sure you've heard this a billion times but ignore their comments, they're just pissed little school bitches who don't know how to grow up. Except for yamisniper of course, he's always the one to the rescue to answer these guys. ;) But they are right about one thing, making a video, it's not hard, it doesn't even have to be long or good, just something. It should be no problem.

Don't get around to it eventually, just do it. :)

Galadourn
Posts: 44
Joined: 3 Sep 2007

I'm sure you're mistakenly thinking that working in a game developing company, like Aventurine, is the same as working in a big multinational corp. I would dare suggest that is not the case; the type of working environment game development demands is much more lax than your average desk job, much more artistic if you like, so give these guys a break. If they feel they don't have enough time to make a video it doesnt really matter whether they actually HAVE the time to make it - possibly making a video demands a distraction from what they are currently doing which, although it may sound trivial to you and me, to them is disorganizing.
And about Aventurine not being well organized in PR and other areas: this is exactly the reason (a major plus in my view) they are able to let their imagination loose and make a revolutionary game. They are not constrained by marketing chaps and tight timeschedules.If you want big corporations (aka Blizzard) with every job position filled and everything working clockwork then you must also be prepared to play the games these companies make.

Wufiavelli
Posts: 16
Joined: 9 Dec 2007

Releasing a dev journal actually requires a lot more then typing and snapping screen shot. Everything that is written has to pass through a check to make sure that information that is not supposed to be released it s not released. Devs are under NDA and what not(Please do not follow this up by a dumb comment about devs owning the game).

For a small company doing this over and over is a hard process. Also on the PR note it is pretty obvious that aventurine is keeping their pr on the down low currently. Which i think is a smart idea, having your product nit picked apart during beta testing, or in house testing is a bad idea. Just look at the bad reviews of tabula rasa from beta testers, and compare those to the good reviews from people who only played the final released game.

And i think we also all should be thanking aventurine for at least to have the balls to make this kind of game. The industry is riddled cowards who only wish to make wow clones with whip cream on top. Aventurine was also smart enough not to release their game to early, or put themselves in a position for that too happen. Too many other games that were as bold normally suffered from poor financial and other managemental problems that forced their release.

I do find it funny how so many in the industry seem to like to laugh at Darkfall, and even Shadowbane, yet they are all too cowardice to step into the same arena that these games have tried.

manaburn
Posts: 42
Joined: 2 Oct 2007

The problem with forcasting ANYTHING software related is that it may be called 'writing' code, but its nothing like writing a paper. so all you non egghead dill-holes who think they should have a progress bar pop up with their word count need to seriously get an education.

"ooh! 1897 words out of a 2000 word paper! I can finish this off in 20 minutes!" does not apply here because of this. "Oh Crap, they changed what the word 'the' means? son of a..."

Oh, so now its not a 2000 word paper, its a 2500 word paper, but we cant use the letter P?
Ugh....

Um, hey guys, where did all my periods go? and why are half my words in spainish now? what did you do?

whoa, physics change, now we write from right to left, great, this is gonna take forever to translate what is ALREADY written!

Get a clue, you have to be able to predict the problems before you can predict when its gonna be done. And as Wufiavelli said, if they spent 8 hours RECORDING a video, then they would have to spend about 80 man hours editing it to make sure nothing was leaked, and yet it was impressive enough to not disappoint people.

Every little thing comes into play, for instance:

What if in one of the video segments somebody falls to a negative Z, meaning that where they landed is lower than where they jumped from, and they showed a few frames of the falling animation, but they hadnt been synced yet? BAM, that shots no good. or the little blade trails, what if that was still in development, and not supposed to be released, but in a screenshot it was. Bottom line, more goes over your head than you are grasping, I would wager its an 80/20 battle for you Hybrisu. Oh, and Hybrisu, I sincerely hope you go by that name ingame, I want to see what LoD does to you for slandering their name like that lawl! (I dont just say that because I would sell my left nut for an invite to that clan)

Other notes:

Yami, thank you for keeping it brief, we all know your opinion.
Teedle, you forgot to accuse it of being vaporware.
:P tot he rest of you!

~Manaburn

Egghaus
Posts: 9
Joined: 30 Sep 2007

Tasos, if you actually read these comments, most are pretty boring to read I know, could you maybe in the next journal tell us a little about how big the world is and how long it takes to cross it? People have been worrying that it's to big if the server only holds 10k at a time. Some say it's as bis as Germany, I'm pretty sure they can't locate Germany on a map, and some say it takes 12 hours to cross from one side to the other. If the second one is true, is that zig-zagging or in a straight line? I find the world of Agon to be pretty round so 12 hours would be pretty big.

Anything to confirm any of this would be awesome.

Thank you! :)

URHD
Posts: 1
Joined: 11 Dec 2007

"There are many other reasons why we prefer one character per server but these are the main ones. If we're left to our own devices, this is probably the way it's going to be, one character per server, unless we're convinced otherwise in testing, or by a publisher. You should also know that your views on this debate are known to us and we have, and will continue to consider them."

Well if that's true, its time you tell us ALL the reasons so we can debate (give you our opinon) on those. If you decide to keep these other reasons from us, then you don't truly value and consider our views.

Shad0wyone
Posts: 26
Joined: 22 Sep 2007

URHD, if they gave us all the reasons, they'd be revealing the game, it looks like their trying to keep the game secret, they don't want to show something that might not make it into the beta, their being pressed hard to get beta at least in 2008.

Trikk
Posts: 11
Joined: 12 Dec 2007

teedle:
"Things have been progressing smoothly in most areas except for testing. We're behind on the actual tasks and it's a lot of work. We have on-site testers on the job right now and we're looking for more."

Hey I have this wild and crazy idea. Since you're looking for more testers why don't you have something called A PUBLIC BETA TEST. Then you can have tons of testers free of charge testing. Pretty cool idea right??

"All this work is making it hard to release more updates than what you get in this journal and even this is a stretch."

They think releasing a dev journal once every 2 weeks is a "stretch"?. Man it must take so much work snapping screenshots and recording videos. Fucken hilarious.

Hey I have another great idea. Why don't you hire someone called a PR man. Then all he can do is sit around releasing all your updates for you. Great idea right? Unfortunately they don't want to do that though.. wonder why..

Do they really expect anyone to buy into these lame BS excuses? Bunch of idiots.

I have a feeling that it's going to be a REALLY LONG time before anyone gets even a sniff of a Beta to play..

If you knew anything at all about computer game development you would know how ridiculously childish your post sounds.

Public beta tests are released for two reasons: marketing and stress testing. That's why they release public betas late in development; if you release a buggy game with lots of features missing you will lose a big chunk of your potential player base.

Internal testing is natural for a game that's not yet had their basic features finalized. Closed/clan beta will come when they start focusing on polishing their game rather than implementing fundamentals.

They don't have a publisher yet, which means that they won't have a bunch of servers to let beta testers play on, and they don't have any dedicated PR staff. Very few developers have their own PR department, that's always left up to the publisher to take care of.

teedle
Posts: 280
Joined: 11 Aug 2006

Most Darkfall followers are too delusional to see the reality of the situation.

It's really sad man.

Egghaus
Posts: 9
Joined: 30 Sep 2007

teedle:
Most Darkfall followers are too delusional to see the reality of the situation.

It's really sad man.

From what I've seen from you for the last months you're a Darkfall follower yourself. You read every journal, comment on it and argue about it. Doesn't that make you sad? Why do you call yourself sad? Are you lonely? Nobody loves you? You want a sodaaa?

Nah just kidding. We are not sad, we're cool, hell yeah! Call it want you want, but we are not sad. That's your mirror talking.

manaburn
Posts: 42
Joined: 2 Oct 2007

lol @ Egghaus

Teedle is known for his constant naysaying, it has been accused he is being paid to do so. He just has that reputation, just like I have a reputation of making really long posts lol :P

~Manaburn

mayhemnc
Posts: 2
Joined: 13 Dec 2007

What i am really asking myself is: who pays those guys over at aventurine?
i mean, they gotta make money to pay their rent, food and family. Where does that money come from? An Investor? But every investor with a little sense would tell those guys, to finish the game in a given time - else they would stop pumping money in this doomed project.

yamisniper
Posts: 306
Joined: 15 Sep 2007

like we have said the investors have seen the game so they must be good enough to keep pumping money into to it SO get over it and stop calling it doom just because your ass says its doom doesnt mean it is

manaburn
Posts: 42
Joined: 2 Oct 2007

yamisniper:
like we have said the investors have seen the game so they must be good enough to keep pumping money into to it SO get over it and stop calling it doom just because your ass says its doom doesnt mean it is

who hacked Yamis account lol

gummianden
Posts: 1
Joined: 14 Dec 2007

honestly what the hell is peoples problem? okay they have taken along time to do this. you know what. i don't give a rats ass! get a grip please. this is not one of the big concerns of gaming they have been trying to make a huge game only a couple of people. then some people who doesn't have anything to do with this goes into their forum and starts to whine about them not being finished. you know what, i don't know what your reasons are, all i can see is a little group of people who is trying to make something huge and they get a huge mass of people who apparently has some sort of need to ruin it for other people. i can't see why they are doing this, and i can't see any reason to not do 1 out of 2 things: 1 GET THE FUCK OFF THIS FORUM or 2: support the guys who has been working their ass off since 2001 to make a huge game. they have had a goal and you retards tryes to ruin it. normally i would start out calling you alot of names, but serious. i hope you got a bad taste in your mouth. its fine if you don't believe in them getting done, but why use your time here then? and when all comes to all, those whiners here sounds alot like small kids who didn't get what they wanted for christmas.

yamisniper
Posts: 306
Joined: 15 Sep 2007

what do you mean mana O_O

Galadourn
Posts: 44
Joined: 3 Sep 2007

mayhemnc:
What i am really asking myself is: who pays those guys over at aventurine?

you must be aware that software development is one of the market sectors in Greece that is subsidized by the state using EU funds to help develop the local industry. So my guess is that a significant portion of Aventurine's money comes from state sponsorships via these funds...

mayhemnc
Posts: 2
Joined: 13 Dec 2007

gummianden:
honestly what the hell is peoples problem?
....
and i can't see any reason to not do 1 out of 2 things: 1 GET THE FUCK OFF THIS FORUM or 2: support the guys who has been working their ass off since 2001 to make a huge game. they have had a goal and you retards tryes to ruin it.

Noone here ruins their goals. You can't ruin someones work with a few flames. If they really had a working game/engine whatever, they would just ignore it and keep doing what they did the last 7 years. Because they are sure, that the haters are wrong.

I only feel pitty for those guys at Aventurine. I mean, they had these beautiful things in mind for this game. They worked for seven years, day and night. And now, they have something which is not even worth making a video or screenshot off (and not those enviroment screens which can be made with a lot of render programms in a short amount of time).
Maybe they realize now, that this project is no longer the project they startet seven years ago. That all the code you did back then is just trash because hardware and software changed over the years.

Maybe they realise that it takes more than just a bunch of motivated enthusiastics to develop a game.
(And please don't go now the "you are no developer, you don't know how this works"-way. You don't seriously claim, that working on a game for seven years without seeing the end of it, is the normale procedure.)

Trikk
Posts: 11
Joined: 12 Dec 2007

Prey was released 10 years after the first demos. TF2 was released 9 years after the first demos. There's been 4 CoD games in the last 5 years.

Development time means nothing.

Wufiavelli
Posts: 16
Joined: 9 Dec 2007

mayhemnc:

gummianden:
honestly what the hell is peoples problem?
....
and i can't see any reason to not do 1 out of 2 things: 1 GET THE FUCK OFF THIS FORUM or 2: support the guys who has been working their ass off since 2001 to make a huge game. they have had a goal and you retards tryes to ruin it.

Noone here ruins their goals. You can't ruin someones work with a few flames. If they really had a working game/engine whatever, they would just ignore it and keep doing what they did the last 7 years. Because they are sure, that the haters are wrong.

I only feel pitty for those guys at Aventurine. I mean, they had these beautiful things in mind for this game. They worked for seven years, day and night. And now, they have something which is not even worth making a video or screenshot off (and not those enviroment screens which can be made with a lot of render programms in a short amount of time).
Maybe they realize now, that this project is no longer the project they startet seven years ago. That all the code you did back then is just trash because hardware and software changed over the years.

Maybe they realise that it takes more than just a bunch of motivated enthusiastics to develop a game.
(And please don't go now the "you are no developer, you don't know how this works"-way. You don't seriously claim, that working on a game for seven years without seeing the end of it, is the normale procedure.)

Are you shooting to win the gold metal for the dumbest speculation on darkfall ever? If i were you I would of stuck with the classic vaporware argument, still dumb but at least you would have a horde of lemmings to back you up.

Unbreakable
Posts: 16
Joined: 15 Dec 2007

mayhemnc:

gummianden:
honestly what the hell is peoples problem?
....
and i can't see any reason to not do 1 out of 2 things: 1 GET THE FUCK OFF THIS FORUM or 2: support the guys who has been working their ass off since 2001 to make a huge game. they have had a goal and you retards tryes to ruin it.

Noone here ruins their goals. You can't ruin someones work with a few flames. If they really had a working game/engine whatever, they would just ignore it and keep doing what they did the last 7 years. Because they are sure, that the haters are wrong.

Uh, they are doing the same thing they've been doing for the last 7 years. They're developing the game. And whether or not flaming ruins a person's work is irrelevant. You don't flame for any reason. If you want to flame, find someone's blog and rant away. Otherwise, get the fuck off this board. We don't need people posting garbage that is either wrong or extremely misinformed.

mayhemnc:
[I only feel pitty for those guys at Aventurine. I mean, they had these beautiful things in mind for this game. They worked for seven years, day and night. And now, they have something which is not even worth making a video or screenshot off (and not those enviroment screens which can be made with a lot of render programms in a short amount of time).

No, they're doing exactly what they should be doing. Keeping the fans in the dark until the actual game is ready for beta. By beta, I mean stress testing and other technical issues. If they listen to the fans, the WoW fanboys that troll the official forums will start getting their ideas implemented into the game. This game is not WoW. If you want to play a game that mimics WoW, wait till June for WAR. By keeping the fans knowing very little and not taking their advice on what goes into the game other than logical aspects, they remove the possibility of the game turning into anything that remotely resembles WoW which is what the true fanbase wants.

mayhemnc:
[Maybe they realize now, that this project is no longer the project they startet seven years ago. That all the code you did back then is just trash because hardware and software changed over the years.

It's actually not that hard to adapt their engine. I believe they've done it every year to keep the game up to date with the best graphics without causing stress problems with an average PC.

mayhemnc:
[Maybe they realise that it takes more than just a bunch of motivated enthusiastics to develop a game.

You're right. It also takes money, programming knowledge and enthusiasm. They have all of the above.

mayhemnc:
[(And please don't go now the "you are no developer, you don't know how this works"-way. You don't seriously claim, that working on a game for seven years without seeing the end of it, is the normale procedure.)

You are no developer, you don't know how this works.

Seriously, my goal isn't to get you to understand how the game works or even convince you that the game obviously exists and isn't vaporware. I could care less about what you think. You mean nothing to me. What I do care about is you imposing your views on other people who are here to read comments about the game that will help them better understand how it's being developed. Not to read you sound off about how the game isn't out yet and how impatient you are about it.

Most people have no idea just how much dedication and effort really has been put into this game. Look at the FAQ on their official site and you will understand exactly why a staff of developers a third the size of Blizzard's development team has taken 8 years to develop Darkfall.

teedle
Posts: 280
Joined: 11 Aug 2006

Posted by: Heokin 12/16/07 8:16:57 AM Report Block #52
- mmorpg.com


Lets do some comparisons, shall we?

This was DF last "update"..
http://www.warcry.com/articles/view/devjournals/darkfalljournals/2707-Darkfall-Dev-Journal-19-A-Round-Up

Not one screen shot, announcement of beta(AGAIN) or even a working in game video of an alpha build. Kudos for it being a month to month update but the lack of any information debunking its "vaporware" status STILL hasn't been achieved. BTW this monthly "updates" we're just a recent addition overall with prior "updates" being hit and miss. Keep in mind these updates alone have been going on scince 2001.

http://www.warhammeronline.com/english/media/video/
OMG look at this... videos, screen shots, class updates... even without the enriched lore backing Warhammer, War is light years ahead of Darkfall and its been in development for alot less time.

To be fair lets look at a game that isn't even rpg but still multiplayer.
http://www.starcraft2.com/

Even in a developmental hang up with one part of this game, SC2 is leaps ahead of DF and its only been in development for the last couple years. And the website shines 1000 time better than DF.
Seriously Darkfallers, I can design a better website than Df main page. It looks like it was put together by my little brothers 8th grade computer science class.

Let's just face it Darkfall fan bois , if this game was a solid idea and had a great foundation for play, then a major publisher would have picked up this game SEVEN YEARS AGO. Even if this game miraculously hit a release date within the next 2 years, it will be so far behind the competition and lost so much credibilty, that it will fold on those 2 issues alone.

yamisniper
Posts: 306
Joined: 15 Sep 2007

actully its not a proven money maker so everything you just said goes to hell
teedle you have some issues you realyl need to go to the doctor and get a brain scan i think you have a tumor growing

manaburn
Posts: 42
Joined: 2 Oct 2007

teedle:
Posted by: Heokin 12/16/07 8:16:57 AM Report Block #52
- mmorpg.com


Lets do some comparisons, shall we?

This was DF last "update"..
http://www.warcry.com/articles/view/devjournals/darkfalljournals/2707-Darkfall-Dev-Journal-19-A-Round-Up

Not one screen shot, announcement of beta(AGAIN) or even a working in game video of an alpha build. Kudos for it being a month to month update but the lack of any information debunking its "vaporware" status STILL hasn't been achieved. BTW this monthly "updates" we're just a recent addition overall with prior "updates" being hit and miss. Keep in mind these updates alone have been going on scince 2001.

http://www.warhammeronline.com/english/media/video/
OMG look at this... videos, screen shots, class updates... even without the enriched lore backing Warhammer, War is light years ahead of Darkfall and its been in development for alot less time.

To be fair lets look at a game that isn't even rpg but still multiplayer.
http://www.starcraft2.com/

Even in a developmental hang up with one part of this game, SC2 is leaps ahead of DF and its only been in development for the last couple years. And the website shines 1000 time better than DF.
Seriously Darkfallers, I can design a better website than Df main page. It looks like it was put together by my little brothers 8th grade computer science class.

Let's just face it Darkfall fan bois , if this game was a solid idea and had a great foundation for play, then a major publisher would have picked up this game SEVEN YEARS AGO. Even if this game miraculously hit a release date within the next 2 years, it will be so far behind the competition and lost so much credibilty, that it will fold on those 2 issues alone.

I dont even know where to start, but Im gonna go with a criticism of your comparison choices...

WARHAMMER = EA
Starcraft II = Blizzard

WTF are you even thinking trying to use these megapower game dev studios that pump out games every couple months, with monster teams and virtually unlimited resources to draw upon, with the little guys?

Heres something you non programmers probly dont know:
Major game dev studios, whom have countless games under their belts, have developed proprietary libraries of pre-programmed code snippets. SO, Alot of their work is already done, tried, and proven, not needing any testing. Whereas this little company, with a big ambition, is taking a long time, because they dont have these thousands of man hours spent programming to pull from. Think of it like this, you are stranded on a desert island, you want to be rescued... now, build yourself a radio to get rescued.

OH! YOU SUCK! Japan makes radios in seconds, and it took you 14 months!!! hahahaha
Oh, and most people are just going to assume you cant make a radio, cuz you dont know how...

How about this, are you Heodin on mmorpg.com? or did you just rip off his comment cuz you are too lazy to write your own criticisms? for your sake I hope so. As it is, I have a hard tiome believing Heodin can FEED himself, let alone have an intelligent thought.

Oh, and Yami, my remark was in reference to some of your earlier views, didnt you used to be card carrying member of the 'vaporware' club? Maybe Im mistaken on that tho :(

Egghaus
Posts: 9
Joined: 30 Sep 2007

Nah. Yami has always been one of us. He's just the only one that has been arguing with the same guys for months on these comment sections. You've probably seen him write so many times you figured he's one of the stupid guys. He's not. :)

Egghaus
Posts: 9
Joined: 30 Sep 2007

Trikk:
Prey was released 10 years after the first demos. TF2 was released 9 years after the first demos. There's been 4 CoD games in the last 5 years.

Development time means nothing.

Best... comment... ever. Suck this everybody.

yamisniper
Posts: 306
Joined: 15 Sep 2007

lol yea i beleive the dev mostly but i do argue in stupid ways tho bahh stupid adhd i have ; /

 
Topic Index

Reply to Thread

You must be logged in to post.
Username:  
Password:  
  

Not registered? Sign up for a free account!