Darkfall

Look, they are a small company, with a small staff. They couldn't possibly hire that many intenal testers. 10 or 20 maybe

If you don't see the difference between 10 testers and 10,000 testers, then I can't help you anymore

10 testers are a core test unit, they are there to find where the game is broken , and write reports ect. External Closed beta is for testing server hardware and client issues.

Internal folk are focused on the actual code and usually have a degree in programming...

Besides all the discussion about beta hehe I got my eye on the fact that...

1) their contact from warcry left so they wont know how will they publish their future dev journals?

2) the dev journals borned as an answer of the fact they did not communicate anything to the public.  All the non ETA for next journal means the end of that mechanism of communication?

3) Universal banking in... so they are changing features. Lets all hope whatever if what they realase it's what we all are waiting for (at least in an important percentage of the features that each of us is waiting for).

Btw, DFO is not in public beta.  It's in internal beta. Even Vanguard had a QA group... of one guy!  LOL  If anyone that's not a customer test the program, it's QA thing but it's NOT a public (closed or open) beta.  Public betas aren't just to try client things or such... it's for testing all.  Sadly internal tester never test all.  Having public tester gives you, besides other stuff, many free of charge testers, who will try to do things the internal tester didn't even care to think about.

For  what Tasos had been saying these last months:

- The game is featured complete.

- The game is in the internal testing cycle

- The game will be released this year

Anyway, 6 months and counting... it's this or WAR. AoC it doesn't seem to be the game I really want to play.

Originally posted by Keeper2000

Besides all the discussion about beta hehe I got my eye on the fact that...

1) their contact from warcry left so they wont know how will they publish their future dev journals?

2) the dev journals borned as an answer of the fact they did not communicate anything to the public.  All the non ETA for next journal means the end of that mechanism of communication?

3) Universal banking in... so they are changing features. Lets all hope whatever if what they realase it's what we all are waiting for (at least in an important percentage of the features that each of us is waiting for).

Btw, DFO is not in public beta.  It's in internal beta. Even Vanguard had a QA group... of one guy!  LOL  If anyone that's not a customer test the program, it's QA thing but it's NOT a public (closed or open) beta.  Public betas aren't just to try client things or such... it's for testing all.  Sadly internal tester never test all.  Having public tester gives you, besides other stuff, many free of charge testers, who will try to do things the internal tester didn't even care to think about.

For  what Tasos had been saying these last months:

- The game is featured complete.

- The game is in the internal testing cycle

- The game will be released this year

Anyway, 6 months and counting... it's this or WAR. AoC it doesn't seem to be the game I really want to play.

 

From what you say you seem have not followed the  Beta discussion here.

DarkFall is  in closed Beta and will go  in open beta for some extended period like weeks  just before release  like  AoC is gone in Open  Beta Mai 1 - Mai 20 whats 20 days and  they announced April 17 these date.  So there is plenty of time for DF to announce and complete the actual Open Beta for DF. AoC i took just as example for how short Open Beta can be  and how close to the start of Open Beta  some company can announce the date. This i used as example to people saying 6 Months is too short they should announce date now for beta to be successful.

As for internal or external its a matter of how you define. If you call external only people from "community" then yes you may be right. If you count to external any  people  you show  you beta  release  build , professionals or not then  DarkFall is in test with external help.

a) About the Warcry journal its not decided if  it will  remain or not. There will be updates for the community.

b) There will  be given interviews  to various mainstream media and specialized updates to community.

c) Universal Banks will be balanced as well as possible.

I don't see how this feature "has changed"  now like you say.  To my Knowledge Developer  journal 13  mention Banks to be in game without giving more details on them being universal or not.  Maybe you can show me where this info can be found  about "Universal Banks will be not in game"

During the Beta phase btw  features can be changed ,is a common and usual practice for all companies (AoC lost open PvP feature for  example although it was initially designed for PvP everywhere). I don't hope lovely features get changed to worse.  This UB issue  has some negative effects like the lost realism a swell as positive effects like more safety to your items. If we finally see how its finally balanced we can see how it turned out. For example how big is the UB inventory. What places this UB you have access to and how many  such places will there exists.You can't say  Universal Banking is all bad now.

Originally posted by Stanford

 

Originally posted by Keeper2000

Besides all the discussion about beta hehe I got my eye on the fact that...

1) their contact from warcry left so they wont know how will they publish their future dev journals?

2) the dev journals borned as an answer of the fact they did not communicate anything to the public.  All the non ETA for next journal means the end of that mechanism of communication?

3) Universal banking in... so they are changing features. Lets all hope whatever if what they realase it's what we all are waiting for (at least in an important percentage of the features that each of us is waiting for).

Btw, DFO is not in public beta.  It's in internal beta. Even Vanguard had a QA group... of one guy!  LOL  If anyone that's not a customer test the program, it's QA thing but it's NOT a public (closed or open) beta.  Public betas aren't just to try client things or such... it's for testing all.  Sadly internal tester never test all.  Having public tester gives you, besides other stuff, many free of charge testers, who will try to do things the internal tester didn't even care to think about.

For  what Tasos had been saying these last months:

- The game is featured complete.

- The game is in the internal testing cycle

- The game will be released this year

Anyway, 6 months and counting... it's this or WAR. AoC it doesn't seem to be the game I really want to play.

 

From what you say you seem have not followed the  Beta discussion here.

 

DarkFall is  in closed Beta and will go  in open beta for some extended period like weeks  just before release  like  AoC is gone in Open  Beta Mai 1 - Mai 20 whats 20 days and  they announced April 17 these date.  So there is plenty of time for DF to announce and complete the actual Open Beta for DF. AoC i took just as example for how short Open Beta can be  and how close to the start of Open Beta  some company can announce the date. This i used as example to people saying 6 Months is too short they should announce date now for beta to be successful.

As for internal or external its a matter of how you define. If you call external only people from "community" then yes you may be right. If you count to external any  people  you show  you beta  release  build , professionals or not then  DarkFall is in test with external help.

a) About the Warcry journal its not decided if  it will  remain or not. There will be updates for the community.

b) There will  be given interviews  to various mainstream media and specialized updates to community.

c) Universal Banks will be balanced as well as possible.

I don't see how this feature "has changed"  now like you say.  To my Knowledge Developer  journal 13  mention Banks to be in game without giving more details on them being universal or not.  Maybe you can show me where this info can be found  about "Universal Banks will be not in game"

During the Beta phase btw  features can be changed ,is a common and usual practice for all companies (AoC lost open PvP feature for  example although it was initially designed for PvP everywhere). I don't hope lovely features get changed to worse.  This UB issue  has some negative effects like the lost realism a swell as positive effects like more safety to your items. If we finally see how its finally balanced we can see how it turned out. For example how big is the UB inventory. What places this UB you have access to and how many  such places will there exists.You can't say  Universal Banking is all bad now.

 

I can see that Keeper2000 has been following the discusion better than you ha done Satanford :D

Darkfall is in internal beta testing. Tasos calls them "profesional beta testers". In fact,  they are the Aventurine workers when they are not programming and maybe some of their relatives.

The development of a mmoprg involves for example testing the engine with a thousand people playing at the same time. You have to do this on a early stage to get the feedback necesary to continue the development. Pretending to do this on the last satge of the development is quite arrogant.

I doubt that something good can come from this project.

Originally posted by Stanford

 

Originally posted by Keeper2000

Besides all the discussion about beta hehe I got my eye on the fact that...

1) their contact from warcry left so they wont know how will they publish their future dev journals?

2) the dev journals borned as an answer of the fact they did not communicate anything to the public.  All the non ETA for next journal means the end of that mechanism of communication?

3) Universal banking in... so they are changing features. Lets all hope whatever if what they realase it's what we all are waiting for (at least in an important percentage of the features that each of us is waiting for).

Btw, DFO is not in public beta.  It's in internal beta. Even Vanguard had a QA group... of one guy!  LOL  If anyone that's not a customer test the program, it's QA thing but it's NOT a public (closed or open) beta.  Public betas aren't just to try client things or such... it's for testing all.  Sadly internal tester never test all.  Having public tester gives you, besides other stuff, many free of charge testers, who will try to do things the internal tester didn't even care to think about.

For  what Tasos had been saying these last months:

- The game is featured complete.

- The game is in the internal testing cycle

- The game will be released this year

Anyway, 6 months and counting... it's this or WAR. AoC it doesn't seem to be the game I really want to play.

 

From what you say you seem have not followed the  Beta discussion here.

 

DarkFall is  in closed Beta and will go  in open beta for some extended period like weeks  just before release  like  AoC is gone in Open  Beta Mai 1 - Mai 20 whats 20 days and  they announced April 17 these date.  So there is plenty of time for DF to announce and complete the actual Open Beta for DF. AoC i took just as example for how short Open Beta can be  and how close to the start of Open Beta  some company can announce the date. This i used as example to people saying 6 Months is too short they should announce date now for beta to be successful.

As for internal or external its a matter of how you define. If you call external only people from "community" then yes you may be right. If you count to external any  people  you show  you beta  release  build , professionals or not then  DarkFall is in test with external help.

a) About the Warcry journal its not decided if  it will  remain or not. There will be updates for the community.

b) There will  be given interviews  to various mainstream media and specialized updates to community.

c) Universal Banks will be balanced as well as possible.

I don't see how this feature "has changed"  now like you say.  To my Knowledge Developer  journal 13  mention Banks to be in game without giving more details on them being universal or not.  Maybe you can show me where this info can be found  about "Universal Banks will be not in game"

During the Beta phase btw  features can be changed ,is a common and usual practice for all companies (AoC lost open PvP feature for  example although it was initially designed for PvP everywhere). I don't hope lovely features get changed to worse.  This UB issue  has some negative effects like the lost realism a swell as positive effects like more safety to your items. If we finally see how its finally balanced we can see how it turned out. For example how big is the UB inventory. What places this UB you have access to and how many  such places will there exists.You can't say  Universal Banking is all bad now.

 

I did follow the beta discussion and laugh like crazy.

The "internal" and "external" is not a matter of definition.  Or, saying it in other way, it's defined already (you even posted a link!) It's a matter of who do it.  Internal is done by your testers and external is done by customers.  Is not that difficult to comprehend.

AoC had a beta with customers (put the name you want) for a year.   WAR had been in that beta since almost the start of the project (which is amazing because the customer feedback is there as soon as they show stuff).  This is not bashing DFO.  This is just a difference.  People is saying that 6 months or less of "external" beta (do you like it better if we call it like that? just "external beta"?) will not be enough.  I am not sure if they are right or not.  I hope they aren't because I want to play a good game.

Btw, AoC had an internal beta and external closed beta at the same time (I hope the terminology fits everyone now lol).  And then they had the external open beta for a month (the 20 days you emntioned).  And that pvp weekend thing too.  The client that people used to get in the external closed beta was first tested by the internal beta.  That cycle last for a year.  It still didn't start for DFO.

A fact is that DFO had been beta tested only by Aventurine employees. So it's not in... what name shall we use so everyone is happy? public beta? closed public beta? open beta? external beta?  customer test?  User test?

Now, if the 3 points I mentioned that Tasos told us about are true, then DFO is going well.  It's featured completed and they testing it internally.  How much will be the open/external/closed (wahtever) beta done?  No idea... he was clear in saying all that will be necessary.   Lets suppose they do a closed public beta which starts before the end of the year.  That will be enough to believe this is not vaporware.  And if they posponed it some months, who will say anything?  It will be in closed beta but public!  So no one will be able to yell vaporware.  Of course, you will have people yelling the game will suck but you will have trolls all the time.  Anyway, imo, a closed/open public beta is in need to finally stop all the goship.

As for warcry I will quote Tasos "Our main contact has left Warcry so we’ll see what we’ll be doing with the Journal there.".  What I am asking is if they will continue the dev journals which were made because of the lack of contact with the external world that Aventurine appears to suffer.  Many DFO followers were extremmely happy to recieve the dev journals (I was one of them)!  And now they had turned into: "There's no ETA for the next update, but we'll do our best on that".  It sad but I do think, and hope, they will produce something in the next 6 months.  If they dont, the game is dead for me.  If they do release a beta or something, I will be happy.

As for the banking, it was not there.  The discussion started around 2005, I think.  I followed this game since 2001 and there was a time when I was actively participating in forums and such... until I got bored.  They said it and discussed it several times.  It wasn't suppose to be there.  Even Tasos is saying it, implicity, in his update when he is explaining the why they are finally putting in.  Or why do you think he does all that explanation?  Because more than 50% of DFO forums didn't want it and it wasn't in the features (I think there is even a poll around there... I wont be around searching for data for you to "believe" in my opinion LOL  As I don't ask you to proof your "opinions" neither; if you don't want to believe in what I say, just don't) .  As a fact and to clarified, they said a couple of times they they didn't want it and will prefer to not have it.  But they did said they may introduce universal banks, if the test show it lowers the tedious.  So, is it a change of feature or not?  Hmmm... I don't care.  For me (in my opinion) it is.  I understand that for you it isn't and I respect that.

Do I like universal banking?  Yes, I like universal banks.  I concord with Tasos it can be extremely tedious not to have them and I want to have fun not to have another job by transporting items from a town to another.   Anyway, my point reminds.  I do hope they don't change other features (but as you said even in beta features can be changed so lets not be naive and think they won't change).  I am pretty sure they won't deliver all they promised or the how they deliver wont be as most people expect it.  But that's my opinion based on that every game did that.  They just can't make everyone happy.  I hope what delivers will make enough people happy to make this game to last in time.

As for things changing during beta, yes... as features must be changed already too.  All feedback will tend to make things change.  I hope the changes will be for the better.

So again, I hope for DFO or WAR to success because I want a new PvP game.  Meantime I will be killing people at DAoC hehe

The feedback of professional tester is as good  as the "customer feedback " (you are the first calling them "customer" but of course they aren't customer- they are just teste