Darkfall

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Originally posted by Brenelael
HashBrick-

I get what your saying and we're basically on the same wavelength. I just have a habit of "Dumbing things down" as I deal with a lot of clients directly and you don't know how many times I've gotten the *Deer in the Headlights* look when describing something to them. I'm sorry if I sounded kind of rude in my last post its just that I'm used to dealing with this crowd as well.

I also have my doubts that they will be able to release with all of what they have promised but who knows really they just may pull it off. I'm willing to give them the chance to succeed or fail but until they do I'm not going to say that they can't do it. As I've said many times I'm no fanboy but I'm not a hater either. I prefer to stay neutral as until we see for ourselves what this game called Darkfall is all about none of us has the proper info to judge what they can or can't do.

Edit: Oh and I think it was me that said that WoW did the load between continents to cut down on travel time which is true to a point. The continents are on different shards and I'm sure the main reason they did this is its a lot easier to code a load screen than to make the transition between shards seamless. The WoW manual states that they did it to cut down travel times so I thought I could get away with it.Someone here called me on it though so I guess I didn't.

Bren

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We both came on a little hostile at first but as you said that comes from knowing the community within the board.

I'm neither a hater or obviosuly a fanboi myself either, but frequently called a hater. I guess facts are too much for some of these die hard fanbois but no matter. I will wait and see how it pans out as well.

Thanks for posting and see you around Bren.

Originally posted by 1Ness

Let's put things into PERSPECTIVE shall we? and dish out a little bit of a REALITY CHECK to delusional who still follow this 7 year old illusion and get excited over players standing on terrain screenshots.

Since this was first announced publicaly back in 2001 the only things they have EVER released from it are a few video's showing a camera floating around some buildings and terrain with 2003'ish graphics , some world screenshots , and some extremely basic gameplay vids that would not take any game dev studio any longer than maybe 6 months to do.

^ FACT. 

 

After 7 years they still haven't shown ANY of the following stuff in-game in any kind of functioning form. 

Skills or ability’s.

Character creation. - this one's really sad considering it's the earliest and most basic thing you develop for one of these games

Character customization

Character equipment and inventory

World map

Quests

Crafting

Resource gathering.

NPC hirelings

Guild interface

City building

City sieging

Login screen/character selection

NPC enemy camps

Banking, market, mail system

Travel system

NPC’s

Alignment system

Chat interface

Trading

 

So please.. let's stiop getting excited over some player models standing around some tree's.  Ya???   Ok.

This game would be absolutely perfect for a pen and paper table top RPG.  Because that's exactly what people do and have been doing while following this for all these years --- looking at some empty screenshots and videos , than filling in the rest with their imaginations.

Go read up most dev journals and you will see this game will launch and they come true whit  what they have promise.

Darkfall is hardcore, taos have pointed out not much will be revealed about gamelore,  people have to find out for them selfs.

And darkfall is so different from all mmorpgs out there, that there is not much comparison to other mmoprgs, its 100% sandbox hardcore game!

Originally posted by Evasia

 

If you would have read the dev  journals you would have known why they dont tell much, but on other hand they also tell alot about most points you make.

 

Go read up most dev journals and you will see this game will launch and they come true whit  what they have promise.

Darkfall is hardcore, taos have pointed out not much will be revealed about gamelore,  people have to find out for them selfs.

And darkfall is so different from all mmorpgs out there, that there is not much comparison to other mmoprgs, its 100% sandbox hardcore game!

Reading the dev journals does not mean the game will launch, or that their promises will come true.  Come on folks...talk is cheap, and you all know it.  (or should know it)

Why dont they tell much?  Even they dont know what will work by release, or exactly how it will work.  I am guessing much of this stuff hasnt even been coded yet, but only exists on paper or as an idea.  I dont buy their excuses for a second - competetive advantage or a "surprise".  (unless you count the devs being surprised too)  If they could show us something, but choose not to, they are just plain stupid.

Originally posted by Entreri28

RV and DnL started about the same time is DF.  They released 2-3 years ago.

I’m perfectly well aware of how long there development times where and what there launches where like and the numerous reasons for there complete failures because I was in beta and played after launch in both.

So their short developement time caused them to fail by not having all the features they promised.

What you call a “short” development time of 5 years many people consider as an average time in the industry, of course your still indulging in the logical fallacy that a longer or extended development time is automatically a good thing when numerous examples of other MMO’s developments prove otherwise.

But this is where things get farcical concerning Darkfall and its supporters, because many supporters of this project fervently insist this game re-stared development in 2003, so that’s 5 years the same as RV and DnL.

I guess you didn't understand this or thought these two games started sooner thanDF.

And I guess you still don’t understand the many similarity’s between the developers of RV and Dnl and the developers of Darkfall, and there actions and how these similarity’s could potentially negatively effect Darkfall.

Apparently you didn't understand the point about WoW either, why would you expect a small dev team making a game far more ambitious than WoW to have the same developement time?

I understand your point which is quite simple but as I said I still fail to see how it supports your position that Darkfall will defiantly be Awesome, considering how relatively lacking Aventurines resources are but how ambitious there goals are in your comparison to a company like Blizard.

I think a more pertinent question is why have the developers of Darkfall themselves apparently expected to be able to develop the game in the same time, of course this is irrelevant because the developers have officially stated they are launching this year so we can all decide for ourselves if they have had enough time in development.

Yeah, I do think the game will be awesome, from the gameplay videos it looks that way.

Yes we understand you have decided that Darkfall will be awesome based it appears entirely on a few minutes of game play videos, but have you or even the developers managed to convince many other people else yet? Because many of us will require a lot more substantial evidence before start sharing your obvious enthusiasm.

I think probably the only thing that could screw it up is lag.

I agree with you about the possibility of lag but not that its probably the only thing that could screw it up.

They could just make a FPS RPG that has online play like a FPS and I would still think it is awesome.

Well that probably explains why you are so enthusiastic because you have set your standards so low that you obviously will accept almost anything and think its awesome, but the majority of us who have been following Darkfall for many years and listening to the developers talk about there game expect a lot more then just a FPS RPG.

The combat system is IMO the best feature of this game, and we have seen it in action, that alone is enough to make the game awesome IMO.

Again I think your standards and expectations are so low that you have accepted a singly demonstrated feature alone as rationalization for your belief that Darkfall will be awesome, many of us require a lot more of the features of Darkfall to be demonstrated before we concur with your point of view.

I can assure you that although many people are interested in the combat system many people also are not as easy to please as yourself and are expecting a lot more from Darkfall then only combat based entirely on what the developers have constantly talked to us about for years.

However, the original point you didn't get.  By leaving it in developement time longer they can fix more bugs and polish the game making it better, so it would be awesome comapred to if they released the same time as RV/DnL.

Your not really making a point for me to get though, your just making a statement of belief that Darkfalls long and extended development time will defiantly mean it will be awesome, be polished and have more bugs fixed and will be better.

But unfortunately that is just your belief we cant be sure that any of it is true until they finally start showing the game to us ,I personally would rather ere on the side of caution until they demonstrate the game before I commit myself to such extreme expectations about how awesome, polished and bug free Darkfall will defiantly be like yourself.

I was wrong though, if they put time into making a great website and tons of videos and stuff it would have an effect on them.  It would make DF worse because that would mean less people working on it.

If they are so stretched for man power or financial reasons that they cant update there website frequently or adequately over 7 years of development or even 6 months before launch what sort of message is that sending out to there potential customers?

Or more importantly about their potential capacity (or incapacity) to successfully develop the most revolutionary and ambitious MMO in history.

RV and DnL tried to have the same developement time as your average MMO, about 5 years.  And they failed for it.  The point is they didn't have long developement times, may seem that way since they were announced sooner, but developement time wasn't longer than your average MMO.

There where many other reasons why they failed which you appear to be ignoring many of which quite possibly could be repeated by Aventurine considering the similarities between the company’s.

Even if your two examples did have increased or longer development times it does not necessarily mean they would have been more successful, just as it does not necessarily mean that Darkfall's increased or longer development time will defiantly mean it will be successful.

Unless your still trying to support your contention that Darkfall will be awesome based entirely on its abnormally long development time I don’t see the relevance of your point, we know your two previous examples had average development times but these where not the only or even necessarily most significant deciding factor in there failures.

If they really have a feature complete game that is good, that is what comes from developing the game as long as they need, unlike RV/DnL.

I detect even yourself expressing some doubt about the possibility of a feature complete game launching this year, seems a bit contradictory of you to assure us this game will defiantly be awesome whilst at the same time harboring doubts that the developers might be able to fulfill there promises considering your contention that the long development time virtually guaranties it in this case.

Whether or not Darkfall has been in development for as long as it needs will be made immediately apparent if they do start beta or launch within the next 6 months or even if they don’t.

Polorization-

As a programmer and someone with a masters degree in computer science I can tell you that longer development does equal a better end product if the development time is used wisely. First off the longer you spend in pre-development the better as you should not only have a complete feature list but also a roadmap of your entire development cycle, a complete flowchart of all aspects of the finished project and even breakdowns of what each part of the finished project will comprise and how they will interact. This should all be done before a single line of code is written. This part of the development cycle can take many months to even years depending on the overall scope of your project. Given Darkfall's scope I would hope that they spent well over a year at least in this aspect of their development cycle. Not to mention that if they did start over in 2003 after merging with Aventurine I hope that they at least went over this part again and made any changes that were needed before they went back to coding.

This combined with the actual coding, testing and recoding can draw out a projects development time greatly as the bigger the scope of the project the more time is required to not only get every individual part of the project working properly but also the interaction between parts needs to be smooth as well. Given Darkfall's scope in comparison to other MMOs I'm not really to surprised that its taking longer to get everything working properly. I'm actually happier that it is taking longer as it tells me that they are not rushing and are most likely doing things according to well established guidelines in the program development industry.

You guys are all so quick to point out the size of Darkfall's scope and say that it can't be done just because you've never seen it before. I say that it can be done given enough time as larger projects require longer development cycles. Given the scope of Darkfall I would say that 7-8 years development time is not unreasonable at all and maybe even expected. Whether or not they can get it all working however does remain to be seen so I guess we'll all just have to be patient and see what they come up with.

Bren

Originally posted by Brenelael

Polorization-

 

As a programmer and someone with a masters degree in computer science I can tell you that longer development does equal a better end product if the development time is used wisely. First off the longer you spend in pre-development the better as you should not only have a complete feature list but also a roadmap of your entire development cycle, a complete flowchart of all aspects of the finished project and even breakdowns of what each part of the finished project will comprise and how they will interact. This should all be done before a single line of code is written. This part of the development cycle can take many months to even years depending on the overall scope of your project. Given Darkfall's scope I would hope that they spent well over a year at least in this aspect of their development cycle. Not to mention that if they did start over in 2003 after merging with Aventurine I hope that they at least went over this part again and made any changes that were needed before they went back to coding.

 

This combined with the actual coding, testing and recoding can draw out a projects development time greatly as the bigger the scope of the project the more time is required to not only get every individual part of the project working properly but also the interaction between parts needs to be smooth as well. Given Darkfall's scope in comparison to other MMOs I'm not really to surprised that its taking longer to get everything working properly. I'm actually happier that it is taking longer as it tells me that they are not rushing and are most likely doing things according to well established guidelines in the program development industry.

 

You guys are all so quick to point out the size of Darkfall's scope and say that it can't be done just because you've never seen it before. I say that it can be done given enough time as larger projects require longer development cycles. Given the scope of Darkfall I would say that 7-8 years development time is not unreasonable at all and maybe even expected. Whether or not they can get it all working however does remain to be seen so I guess we'll all just have to be patient and see what they come up with.

 

Bren

FWIW, I am a retired Systems Engineer and former Test Lead. 

More time is good - sometimes.  When the time is planned for up front and used efficiently, that is good.  When more time is needed because the project you are working on is crap, needs to be scrapped and done over again - that is bad. 

Lets assume they did start over in mid 2003, just as Tasos says.  Going from fresh design docs to release in 4 1/2 years (assuming end of year 2008 launch) would be very fast for a large, experienced, and well funded team working on a "typical" game.  For a game with all of the features and complication that DF promises, and only a small team, it is beyond fast...it is half-fast. (read: half-assed) 

Of course, they could just be that much better than any other dev team out there.  It just isnt very damn likely, especially when you consider how little they are willing to show.