Can you tell us, as of the answering of this Q&A exactly where Darkfall stands in terms of nearness to being a launch-ready title?
Tasos Flambouras: Darkfall could launch today. It's more ready for launch than most, if not all of the MMORPG titles at the same stage that I've personally sampled and it has been for quite some time. Everything has been tested internally and since November 10th we've been using an ever-growing number of external testers.
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MMORPG.com: Darkfall has been in development for a very long time, can you please tell us why this game's development process has been so long?
Tasos Flambouras: So long compared to what? We've been in development since 2003. Look at all that makes Darkfall stand out compared to other MMOs. In order to deliver all that we've had to develop proprietary technology from scratch. We also had to develop a company from scratch and everything associated with running a long game development cycle. We've done this independently.
Even games that license all their technology are taking 5+ years, while still using teams several times the size of our own. All this usually with the backing of major publishers, and most of their everyday problems solved.
So I would say that our development time is consistent with the making a breakthrough game, all the reusable technology to run it, and limited resources to do so. It's a long time, sure...but not for what we've achieved.
MMORPG.com: The length of time that this game has been in development have led some to speculate that this game is vapourware, can you speak to that point?
Tasos Flambouras: We don't pay much attention to speculation but it's not the length of development that has led some to speculate...this has been going on since day one. I'd question the motives of those speculating all these years. We're almost talking about obsessive "trolling" either looking for a reaction, more information, or trying to hurt our efforts.
Darkfall is a game that stands out, it's not a clone. Some people doubt it's possible, others worry that it is. Either way it generates a lot of interest. If people were dismissing it, then they wouldn't be talking about it. The well-meaning gamers root for efforts that try to raise the bar. So who's left? It's so easy being a skeptic.
Another red flag is Darkfall's large, active and very passionate community. A lot of communities would like to be like Darkfall's. Slandering our game is a way to get a reaction.
We have a thick skin; this kind of thing doesn't touch us. It actually makes us feel like we're on the right track. It has also served to fire up our community and has created diehard fans. It got a lot of people to take a closer look at our game and realize that this is what they've been waiting for. All the "trolls" have achieved is to inadvertently help perpetuate the buzz for Darkfall.
We know exactly what we've got on our hands. Our best answer is that our game is coming out and then the voices will have to find something else to talk about.
MMORPG.com: Darkfall is a game that has many within the MMO community buzzing. Can you tell us why we haven't seen a marketing campaign similar to those conducted pre-launch by many other MMO studios?
Tasos Flambouras: The MMO community is buzzing, and then you ask why we don't have marketing. It's somewhat of an oxymoron. We've done what we could with the resources we've had available.'
This has been a time for development. We're not going to sink development resources into traditional marketing before Darkfall is out. We need to be able to support this game and the response is overwhelming as it is.
What would a traditional marketing campaign achieve? To help sell some more game boxes? This is not a single player game. When you sell an MMO you're in it for the long-haul. The best marketing for an MMO is having a great game that retains your players.
Our marketing effort will be in response to our needs. The game speaks for itself...we expect a great deal of word of mouth. Darkfall can compete on merit with any MMO out there, but we can't compete against their huge marketing budgets. A traditional marketing campaign is not where our strength is. Having said that, we'll focus on working with online media that has been supporting Darkfall, and we will have a traditional marketing campaign as well, when we feel that Darkfall is best served by it.
MMORPG.com: Can you tell us, at this time, how many players are in the current incarnation of beta?
Tasos Flambouras: It amazes people that we don't have leaks yet. Our explanation is that people in our beta are serious about our game and they like it. You don't leak information easily unless you don't care, you're disappointed, or feel let down. Our testers seem to care about our game. Most of them have left MMOs they just started playing and are invested in our beta. We find that amazing. We can't talk about our total number of selected testers to date, but several hundred testers are in the game as I write this. We're adding more every day, and their numbers will go up considerably in the days to come.
MMORPG.com: Why is Darkfall's beta being run differently from betas that we have seen other MMO companies run?
Tasos Flambouras: I'll agree that we're different. Even though we're a small team we've invested early in testing the game as much as possible. We know that even large game development studios keep testing as an afterthought, if that. We knew that with the complexity of Darkfall, we'd have to make sure that everything works well together. We're banking on our game being stable. In addition to our overall QA philosophy, we've had a team of professional testers on the game for over a year. An MMO is very complex software..We're not going to depend on playtesters for everything...the game is already tested. We need the playtesters mostly for extra gameplay feedback and to test hardware configurations.
Having said that, there's certainly no prescription on how to run a QA phase of development. Our development certainly has little to do with traditional MMO development. We have a great deal more features, more technologies, and more innovations to test.
We're doing our QA in such a way that we get good feedback on the game, so that we can handle our bug reports. The game is very stable, we're continuously patching, the testers have been impressed at our debugging turnaround. In short, we have to do what's best for Darkfall.
MMORPG.com: There is a great deal of confusion surrounding Darkfall's beta and release schedule. Could you clarify any of this for us?
Tasos Flambouras: We've been trying to get our partners up to speed and there will be an official statement in the next few days announcing a release date for the game. This should clear things up.
Tasos Flambouras: We don't pay much attention to speculation but it's not the length of development that has led some to speculate...this has been going on since day one. I'd question the motives of those speculating all these years. We're almost talking about obsessive "trolling" either looking for a reaction, more information, or trying to hurt our efforts.
That's kind of a funny thing to say. So he's stooping to calling people who are genuinely interested in his product but are extremely confused and somewhat critical about the game "trolls" who are just trying to start shit?
The reason people like myself (and I realize some are just trolls who are just looking to be ignorant online) question shit is because he says shit like:
So long compared to what? We've been in development since 2003. Look at all that makes Darkfall stand out compared to other MMOs. In order to deliver all that we've had to develop proprietary technology from scratch. We also had to develop a company from scratch and everything associated with running a long game development cycle. We've done this independently.
Even games that license all their technology are taking 5+ years, while still using teams several times the size of our own. All this usually with the backing of major publishers, and most of their everyday problems solved.
So I would say that our development time is consistent with the making a breakthrough game, all the reusable technology to run it, and limited resources to do so. It's a long time, sure...but not for what we've achieved.
We just want to see this "groundbreaking" shit, yet all you've let us see is screenshots and videos of a game that doesn't look all that groundbreaking. To be honest, all the stuff I've seen looks exactly like The Elder Scrolls series as an MMO. I haven't seen crafting, housing, etc etc etc etc and you expect us to not ask why? Kind of a shitty way to do things tbh.
"We've been trying to get our partners up to speed and there will be an official statement in the next few days announcing a release date for the game."
Well, he's standing on his dick now. If a release date for the game does not happen in the next week, he may as well sit on it too.
And a final note: A big hearty F-YOU! to all the assh-les that SWORE TO GOD that it would release in 2007,2008, and 2009. I love it when a plan comes together.
I really don't see this as news, it is the same evasive crap Tasos has been spewing for a while now. He should be a politician he is great at not really giving any information at all. I think it is complete BS that they aren't showing more and revealing more of the promised features. I don't buy any of their BS excuses anymore... what the F company doesn't want their product promoted ahead of release? If it really is so great and innovative many a news agency / game and otherwise would be singing it's praises.
bloodyleach: I don't buy any of their BS excuses anymore... what the F company doesn't want their product promoted ahead of release? If it really is so great and innovative many a news agency / game and otherwise would be singing it's praises.
There are over 200000 thousand registered members on their forum. That's more than some games have subscriptions (omit WoW). I think their word of mouth idea has worked. Pretty well, too. Of course, that's just my humble, demented, and ever-so-cupcake eating opinion.
Why is it that the voice in my head refuses to get me a cupcake?
bloodyleach: I don't buy any of their BS excuses anymore... what the F company doesn't want their product promoted ahead of release? If it really is so great and innovative many a news agency / game and otherwise would be singing it's praises.
There are over 200000 thousand registered members on their forum. That's more than some games have subscriptions (omit WoW). I think their word of mouth idea has worked. Pretty well, too. Of course, that's just my humble, demented, and ever-so-cupcake eating opinion.
Okay great their word of mouth campaign has garnered them 200,000 why not let people see something and double it to 400,000. Piss poor excuse when they could get the press for free. There is no logical reason for them to be so secretive at this point so close to supposedly releasing this phenomenal masterpiece.
bloodyleach: I don't buy any of their BS excuses anymore... what the F company doesn't want their product promoted ahead of release? If it really is so great and innovative many a news agency / game and otherwise would be singing it's praises.
There are over 200000 thousand registered members on their forum. That's more than some games have subscriptions (omit WoW). I think their word of mouth idea has worked. Pretty well, too. Of course, that's just my humble, demented, and ever-so-cupcake eating opinion.
Okay great their word of mouth campaign has garnered them 200,000 why not let people see something and double it to 400,000.
Because they don't want to needlessly spend money on advertising when they already have such an effective way to do it that is free. And when the game comes out, we're going to see more and more word of mouth advertising, if it's as good as they claim.Wow. Even I can understand that logic, and logic is something that is usually missing a couple of steps with me.
Why is it that the voice in my head refuses to get me a cupcake?
bloodyleach: I don't buy any of their BS excuses anymore... what the F company doesn't want their product promoted ahead of release? If it really is so great and innovative many a news agency / game and otherwise would be singing it's praises.
There are over 200000 thousand registered members on their forum. That's more than some games have subscriptions (omit WoW). I think their word of mouth idea has worked. Pretty well, too. Of course, that's just my humble, demented, and ever-so-cupcake eating opinion.
Okay great their word of mouth campaign has garnered them 200,000 why not let people see something and double it to 400,000.
Because they don't want to needlessly spend money on advertising when they already have such an effective way to do it that is free. And when the game comes out, we're going to see more and more word of mouth advertising, if it's as good as they claim.Wow. Even I can understand that logic, and logic is something that is usually missing a couple of steps with me.
I think it is awesome how you cut out the next line of my text.. which states advertised for free by media!!! Don't cut my text to make your point... scroll up and reread what I said.
bloodyleach: I don't buy any of their BS excuses anymore... what the F company doesn't want their product promoted ahead of release? If it really is so great and innovative many a news agency / game and otherwise would be singing it's praises.
There are over 200000 thousand registered members on their forum. That's more than some games have subscriptions (omit WoW). I think their word of mouth idea has worked. Pretty well, too. Of course, that's just my humble, demented, and ever-so-cupcake eating opinion.
Okay great their word of mouth campaign has garnered them 200,000 why not let people see something and double it to 400,000.
Because they don't want to needlessly spend money on advertising when they already have such an effective way to do it that is free. And when the game comes out, we're going to see more and more word of mouth advertising, if it's as good as they claim.Wow. Even I can understand that logic, and logic is something that is usually missing a couple of steps with me.
I think it is awesome how you cut out the next line of my text.. which states advertised for free by media!!! Don't cut my text to make your point... scroll up and reread what I said.
PS: I think you owe me a cupcake!
Free press? Since when? You forget that not only money is money; time is money. Better just to let the raging fans spread the word and only occasionally invite some people in... which is what they've been doing. And you're not touching my cupcakes, ya filthy baaastard.
Why is it that the voice in my head refuses to get me a cupcake?
bloodyleach: Naw... DF will just rely on it's rabid cult like fans' hive mind for getting the word out there.
Don't worry bloodyleach. Everyone already knows this game is going to be a total failure. They're just sitting around waiting for the trainwreck to happen.
Less than 2 months from a supposed launch and they still don't have the balls to show this amazing innovative feature complete and launch ready game to the general public and editors for review.
Instead it looks like they have about 10 people "testing" and posting up horrid looking screenshots like this
bloodyleach: Naw... DF will just rely on it's rabid cult like fans' hive mind for getting the word out there.
Don't worry bloodyleach. Everyone already knows this game is going to be a total failure. They're just sitting around waiting for the trainwreck to happen.
Less than 2 months from a supposed launch and they still don't have the balls to show this amazing innovative feature complete and launch ready game to the general public and editors for review.
Instead it looks like they have about 10 people "testing" and posting up horrid looking screenshots like this
bloodyleach: Naw... DF will just rely on it's rabid cult like fans' hive mind for getting the word out there.
Don't worry bloodyleach. Everyone already knows this game is going to be a total failure. They're just sitting around waiting for the trainwreck to happen.
Less than 2 months from a supposed launch and they still don't have the balls to show this amazing innovative feature complete and launch ready game to the general public and editors for review.
Instead it looks like they have about 10 people "testing" and posting up horrid looking screenshots like this
bloodyleach: Naw... DF will just rely on it's rabid cult like fans' hive mind for getting the word out there.
Don't worry bloodyleach. Everyone already knows this game is going to be a total failure. They're just sitting around waiting for the trainwreck to happen.
Less than 2 months from a supposed launch and they still don't have the balls to show this amazing innovative feature complete and launch ready game to the general public and editors for review.
Instead it looks like they have about 10 people "testing" and posting up horrid looking screenshots like this
if graphics make or break a game why the hell is WoW so popular?
seriously guys this sounds like a witch hunt. You're just looking for someone to burn at the stake and dont care who or why.
Shh, don't go there. Now we'll get a praise of Blizzard's sparkless professionalism compared to the 5 college guys of Aventurine operating in Tasos' basement, but who are also hardcore scammers funded by the illuminati.
I have to agree with Teedle here. I'm so sick of seeing half-assed screenshots of someone shooting a bow or random scenery or some boring looking fight scene. I want to see screenshots of the UI pertaining to crafting and housing.
If the game is centered solely around combat (which it appears to be) then the playerbase will be tiny. The game promises something like UO, where if you got bored you could go work on your house, go to town and drop trapped chests all over the bank, stealth around town and ninja loot random items from people, etc. ALL I've seen from DF so far in terms of what's been shown visibly is combat and scenery. I haven't seen anything groundbreaking as promised by WORDS.
Now, before someone jumps on me, I really do not care about the graphics of this or any other game. I was playing UO when most people were doing the EQ, WoW, DAoC shit with the snazzy newer graphics, I just want to see some of the other 5 million features promised outside of "I shoot arrows at this guy HEHEHE".
The game has a release date, so lets just wait and try it before throwing the gauntlet. If DF sucks or rocks, I'm sure we'll hear about that then from the entire world. Patience :D
Sigoya: The game has a release date, so lets just wait and try it before throwing the gauntlet. If DF sucks or rocks, I'm sure we'll hear about that then from the entire world. Patience :D
Won't be the entire world, just europe. I do have to get onboard the hate-wagon of "we don't want to show anything, cuz we don't have to" childlike mentality of Tasos. There is NO reason for it at this point. Who is going to steal your ideas and come out with a simuilar product in the next 2 months?
Sigoya: The game has a release date, so lets just wait and try it before throwing the gauntlet. If DF sucks or rocks, I'm sure we'll hear about that then from the entire world. Patience :D
Won't be the entire world, just europe. I do have to get onboard the hate-wagon of "we don't want to show anything, cuz we don't have to" childlike mentality of Tasos. There is NO reason for it at this point. Who is going to steal your ideas and come out with a simuilar product in the next 2 months?
More importantly, people like myself won't be buying it until I hear no shit unbiased reviews from people playing it. Don't wanna disappoint myself after 3 years of waiting for this game :)
Sigoya: The game has a release date, so lets just wait and try it before throwing the gauntlet. If DF sucks or rocks, I'm sure we'll hear about that then from the entire world. Patience :D
Won't be the entire world, just europe. I do have to get onboard the hate-wagon of "we don't want to show anything, cuz we don't have to" childlike mentality of Tasos. There is NO reason for it at this point. Who is going to steal your ideas and come out with a simuilar product in the next 2 months?
More importantly, people like myself won't be buying it until I hear no shit unbiased reviews from people playing it. Don't wanna disappoint myself after 3 years of waiting for this game :)
Im down with that. Although I have NOT been waiting for DF...I have been waiting for ANYTHING. I have been dissapointed for the last 3 years by the offerings of companies with insane budgets and the most talented devs. So when some gyro smoking nobodies shout they are making "THE" game...
Im sure happy that you guys all have seen how things will unfold in your glass balls!
I am with Sigoya on this though, since the game is so close to release there's not really a point trying to prove it's godlike or sucks donkeyballs since you can judge for yourself soon.
Well isn't it really hard to discuss anything about DF without a whole bunch of speculation and guess work either way since they won't show anything worthwhile about the game? Like any of the promised features or actual sequential game play.
Thats why Jan 22 you will see all the things you mentioned and maybe before if you subscribed to a public beta.
Why go state it sucks or rocks now, when in a few weeks you can actually state that after having seen or played it? (and yes i know that is if they make the jan 22 deadline...)
Limited disbursed information could be attributed to the increased weariness of releasing any early information (damaging or not) or prolonged Beta testing and risk their release/launch sales. I still recall how Auto Assault and Tabula Rasa extended open betas were blamed for the lackluster sales by the publisher.
Sigoya: Limited disbursed information could be attributed to the increased weariness of releasing any early information (damaging or not) or prolonged Beta testing and risk their release/launch sales. I still recall how Auto Assault and Tabula Rasa extended open betas were blamed for the lackluster sales by the publisher.
So what you're saying is that sharing information about the features they tease us with constantly will hurt their sales?
I'm more a believer that the lackluster sales for the 2 games you mentioned is because they are retardedly boring games.
No, it's not releasing feature information, it's more about letting players try these features and be disappointed in the early Beta stages. Many AA and TR players left the games during the Beta stage due to bugs that were fixed following release.
Limiting information and access is still a bad tactic and can only yield short term profits and that's why it's important that a well-kept production title be released with *all* the promised featured rather than generate a backlash afterwards.
Can you tell us, as of the answering of this Q&A exactly where Darkfall stands in terms of nearness to being a launch-ready title?
Tasos Flambouras: Darkfall could launch today. It's more ready for launch than most, if not all of the MMORPG titles at the same stage that I've personally sampled and it has been for quite some time. Everything has been tested internally and since November 10th we've been using an ever-growing number of external testers.
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MMORPG.com: Darkfall has been in development for a very long time, can you please tell us why this game's development process has been so long?
Tasos Flambouras: So long compared to what? We've been in development since 2003. Look at all that makes Darkfall stand out compared to other MMOs. In order to deliver all that we've had to develop proprietary technology from scratch. We also had to develop a company from scratch and everything associated with running a long game development cycle. We've done this independently.
Even games that license all their technology are taking 5+ years, while still using teams several times the size of our own. All this usually with the backing of major publishers, and most of their everyday problems solved.
So I would say that our development time is consistent with the making a breakthrough game, all the reusable technology to run it, and limited resources to do so. It's a long time, sure...but not for what we've achieved.
MMORPG.com: The length of time that this game has been in development have led some to speculate that this game is vapourware, can you speak to that point?
Tasos Flambouras: We don't pay much attention to speculation but it's not the length of development that has led some to speculate...this has been going on since day one. I'd question the motives of those speculating all these years. We're almost talking about obsessive "trolling" either looking for a reaction, more information, or trying to hurt our efforts.
Darkfall is a game that stands out, it's not a clone. Some people doubt it's possible, others worry that it is. Either way it generates a lot of interest. If people were dismissing it, then they wouldn't be talking about it. The well-meaning gamers root for efforts that try to raise the bar. So who's left? It's so easy being a skeptic.
Another red flag is Darkfall's large, active and very passionate community. A lot of communities would like to be like Darkfall's. Slandering our game is a way to get a reaction.
We have a thick skin; this kind of thing doesn't touch us. It actually makes us feel like we're on the right track. It has also served to fire up our community and has created diehard fans. It got a lot of people to take a closer look at our game and realize that this is what they've been waiting for. All the "trolls" have achieved is to inadvertently help perpetuate the buzz for Darkfall.
We know exactly what we've got on our hands. Our best answer is that our game is coming out and then the voices will have to find something else to talk about.
MMORPG.com: Darkfall is a game that has many within the MMO community buzzing. Can you tell us why we haven't seen a marketing campaign similar to those conducted pre-launch by many other MMO studios?
Tasos Flambouras: The MMO community is buzzing, and then you ask why we don't have marketing. It's somewhat of an oxymoron. We've done what we could with the resources we've had available.'
This has been a time for development. We're not going to sink development resources into traditional marketing before Darkfall is out. We need to be able to support this game and the response is overwhelming as it is.
What would a traditional marketing campaign achieve? To help sell some more game boxes? This is not a single player game. When you sell an MMO you're in it for the long-haul. The best marketing for an MMO is having a great game that retains your players.
Our marketing effort will be in response to our needs. The game speaks for itself...we expect a great deal of word of mouth. Darkfall can compete on merit with any MMO out there, but we can't compete against their huge marketing budgets. A traditional marketing campaign is not where our strength is. Having said that, we'll focus on working with online media that has been supporting Darkfall, and we will have a traditional marketing campaign as well, when we feel that Darkfall is best served by it.
MMORPG.com: Can you tell us, at this time, how many players are in the current incarnation of beta?
Tasos Flambouras: It amazes people that we don't have leaks yet. Our explanation is that people in our beta are serious about our game and they like it. You don't leak information easily unless you don't care, you're disappointed, or feel let down. Our testers seem to care about our game. Most of them have left MMOs they just started playing and are invested in our beta. We find that amazing. We can't talk about our total number of selected testers to date, but several hundred testers are in the game as I write this. We're adding more every day, and their numbers will go up considerably in the days to come.
MMORPG.com: Why is Darkfall's beta being run differently from betas that we have seen other MMO companies run?
Tasos Flambouras: I'll agree that we're different. Even though we're a small team we've invested early in testing the game as much as possible. We know that even large game development studios keep testing as an afterthought, if that. We knew that with the complexity of Darkfall, we'd have to make sure that everything works well together. We're banking on our game being stable. In addition to our overall QA philosophy, we've had a team of professional testers on the game for over a year. An MMO is very complex software..We're not going to depend on playtesters for everything...the game is already tested. We need the playtesters mostly for extra gameplay feedback and to test hardware configurations.
Having said that, there's certainly no prescription on how to run a QA phase of development. Our development certainly has little to do with traditional MMO development. We have a great deal more features, more technologies, and more innovations to test.
We're doing our QA in such a way that we get good feedback on the game, so that we can handle our bug reports. The game is very stable, we're continuously patching, the testers have been impressed at our debugging turnaround. In short, we have to do what's best for Darkfall.
MMORPG.com: There is a great deal of confusion surrounding Darkfall's beta and release schedule. Could you clarify any of this for us?
Tasos Flambouras: We've been trying to get our partners up to speed and there will be an official statement in the next few days announcing a release date for the game. This should clear things up.