I stumbled across a link to some WOW publish notes. It appears that Blizzard is now pushing out fixes virtually every day. And it isn't just one or two critical things needing fixing, it can be a dozen of fixes. They must feel very confident about their publishing process to be able to do it every day. Well with a game that has 12 million people playing, I guess you need to ramp up publishing to that speed.
On the subject of Blizzard, it appears they are over the "we have how many subscribers?" shock and are getting down to business. They were making so much profit per year but were not working on anything. Now they have Starcraft II, Diablo III and a secret MMO project all in the works. Plus with all that money coming in they have an unlimited amount of time to polish their games. These titles will probably be the most refined in the history of video games. Starcraft II likely would have been released up to a year or more ago from a publisher such as EA who likes to rush things out the door (Warhammer Online). As long as World of Warcraft keeps going, in four or five years Blizzard could be a one studio game producing powerhouse. Their no longer restricted in terms of time and money with a gravy train such as WOW under their belt. But who knows how long that will last.
Plus what is up with taking 18 months for an expansion? They should be able to knock that down to a yearly release. As time goes on players are going to get more and more bored. With no news on an expansion yet it doesn't sound like they'll have one ready. Who knows, maybe it will be a big surprise.
May 27, 2009
May 25, 2009
I need to post something
I am so bad at this. I need to try and post more often.
So what should I post about? I guess I should comment about Darkfall. The game is in an obvious downward spiral. The shop to purchase the game has finally been opened for several days, perhaps permanently. I don't play the game so I have no idea what the population situation is, but with the developers sticking with a one server implementation, it appears they have exhausted their backlog of players iching to play. That certainly does not bode well if the amount of people quitting is as estimated.
Darkfall promised a lot and has utterly failed in almost every field a MMO can possible fail in. Poor user interface, bad lag and disconnections, a multiple of hacks, unending amounts of exploits, substandard graphics, no community management, a website with the latest announcements about beta, no marketing, unfun PvM, sparse PvP, unbalanced mechanics favoring huge numbers and alliances, etc. It just goes on and on.
Darkfall is in such bad shape that quite possibly it could end up shutting down by the end of the year. Aside from some current die-hard players, no one has any faith in the future of the game. People who cite potential are only fooling themselves. Everything has potential. UO has potential. Shadowbane had potential. Potential is only worth something if it can be utilized, which Aventurine has demonstrated an inability to access. They can't even update the main website for the game after 3 months of release. Darkfall is likely to go down as the worse MMO in history unless by some miracle the game can be salvaged.
So what should I post about? I guess I should comment about Darkfall. The game is in an obvious downward spiral. The shop to purchase the game has finally been opened for several days, perhaps permanently. I don't play the game so I have no idea what the population situation is, but with the developers sticking with a one server implementation, it appears they have exhausted their backlog of players iching to play. That certainly does not bode well if the amount of people quitting is as estimated.
Darkfall promised a lot and has utterly failed in almost every field a MMO can possible fail in. Poor user interface, bad lag and disconnections, a multiple of hacks, unending amounts of exploits, substandard graphics, no community management, a website with the latest announcements about beta, no marketing, unfun PvM, sparse PvP, unbalanced mechanics favoring huge numbers and alliances, etc. It just goes on and on.
Darkfall is in such bad shape that quite possibly it could end up shutting down by the end of the year. Aside from some current die-hard players, no one has any faith in the future of the game. People who cite potential are only fooling themselves. Everything has potential. UO has potential. Shadowbane had potential. Potential is only worth something if it can be utilized, which Aventurine has demonstrated an inability to access. They can't even update the main website for the game after 3 months of release. Darkfall is likely to go down as the worse MMO in history unless by some miracle the game can be salvaged.
May 5, 2009
Suspended from Darkfall's Forum
I've been meaning to write something about Darkfall for a while. Well today a review came out that gave the game a 2 out of 10. That is pretty bad. Anyway, I post on the Darkfall forum asking if this is the first review of Darkfall and get suspended for it. Here is what I recieved:
That was almost immediately after I posted it. Aventurine appears to be in full damage control mode. Their developer Tasos wrote a rebuttal almost as long as the review itself. He claims that the reviewer spent almost no time in the game. No play session lasted more then a few minutes. Eurogamer replied saying the reviewer spent around 9 hours. I'm sure more details will come out soon.
Someone replied to my post saying there is one on MMORPG.com. But there isn't, the closest is an opinion piece. No review with a score. After almost a full page of responses later, no one has replied to that person and stated this. The vast majority of replies are just remarks dispariging the reviewer and investigative posts of his MySpace or other reviews. I think this event shows the current Darkfall community in its true light. And that light isn't very bright at all.
Dear JC the Builder,
You have received an infraction at Darkfall Forums.
Reason: THREE - You may not excessively communicate the same idea, phrase, or create spam within the community; you may not create any thread or post for the sole purpose of causing unrest in the community; you may not cause any sort of disturbance within a thread with the intent of ruining it; and you may not make one line posts such as IBTL, IBTB, BUMP, etc. Moderators are at their full discretion to enforce the spirit of this rule.
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Please refrain from trolling, thank you.
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This infraction is worth 10 point(s) and may result in restricted access until it expires. Serious infractions will never expire.
Original Post:
http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?p=3345212All the best,Quote:
Can someone link to another review of Darkfall? I am having trouble finding any. Does this mean the first official review of Darkfall by a gaming website gave it a 2 out of 10? That is not good.
Darkfall Forums
That was almost immediately after I posted it. Aventurine appears to be in full damage control mode. Their developer Tasos wrote a rebuttal almost as long as the review itself. He claims that the reviewer spent almost no time in the game. No play session lasted more then a few minutes. Eurogamer replied saying the reviewer spent around 9 hours. I'm sure more details will come out soon.
Someone replied to my post saying there is one on MMORPG.com. But there isn't, the closest is an opinion piece. No review with a score. After almost a full page of responses later, no one has replied to that person and stated this. The vast majority of replies are just remarks dispariging the reviewer and investigative posts of his MySpace or other reviews. I think this event shows the current Darkfall community in its true light. And that light isn't very bright at all.
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