Darkfall Online Comments by Ed Zitron

Have you personally played the game?
If not you cannot call it pure bollocks.

Oh I can, it's well within my remit to label anything I want to as pure bollocks. What I have seen of the game in terms of footage and screenshots is laughable.

If I want my PvP fix I'll go back to EVE. Frankly I'm surprised that with good PvP-centric MMOs like that around that a raw turd of a game like Darkfall even has a market.

I've never even heard of this game.

I'm sure the four people who are interested in it are heart-broken as the poor review score.

Sorry, I'm a Yank, don't know what Blinkered means... Many people playing don't even check the forums. Read the Alliance and War blog from the link I posted above. The real Darkfall is a political game of virtual RISK where you play one piece on the board. There is no way this review could have come close to experiencing that.

Hold on, it took a team 8 years to make an MMO that turns out to be pure bollocks?
Incompetence or what . . .

Technically no, it didn't. It only took them 5 years. Apparently they sacked everyone after 3 years and got a new team in.

I also don't see how people can charge for this either, when there are many free PvP MMOGs that do it far better and prettier.

@AphoticCosmos
Personally then i would negate your opinion.
I don't call any form of media crap untill i've tried it/ read it / played it.
Obviously you (and the reviewer) haven't played much of darkfall at all- which is a decent full loot game.

Seeing as you like Eve don't write off this game. My clan is full of former Eve players.

This thread is wonderful. The 'arguments' are thrilling. Jenson, you are the epitome of what I find hilariously depressing in gaming.

p.s. silvervein, re: the now ancient comments on WoW. What I meant was, yeah, a bot can play the game enough to do certain things. But they don't appreciate anything in it, in the aesthetic, worlds, script, quests, ambience et al. That's dependent on the tastes of the player, of course, but they are unsurpassed in my gaming experience (except script). That doesn't mean WoW is perfect, nor does it mean I want all games to be like WoW.

The problem with most Darkfall Defence Force posters here seems to be an inability to seperate Darkfall criticisms from some wider 'noob' problem that doesn't appreciate a specifically designed and almost deliberately obtuse game style, which is TAILORED (more often than not), to appeal to a specific taste.

I second the lol, arguments? comment. There haven't been any arguments, just enraged whines.

Interesting noone has been able to defend the author or any factual mistakes he has made in the 200 comments. The extent of the defence relies on insults at the poor grammar of some posters. This review should be taken down and at least edited to remove factual mistakes.
Personally as an editor of the website i would think about getting a second review when the article is clearly inundated with factual errors.
It breaks down to one of two things either the author didnt play it enough or is just incompetent.

I vote a fail on this article.

MMO PvE lite reviews MMO PvP hardcore... didn't expect much else from the article then what was put really. If it's not as retard simple as a PvE server in WoW, it must be broke.

Reviewers working for game companies don't have the time to invest in an MMO and give a true review IMO. You have to play multiple MMO's like a real MMO gamer to get the flavor before you can really write a solid review. Except AoC, I think everyone reviewed how horrible that was about right.

@Redsparrows

The main arguement is that regarding the review:

1) its stinks of bias

2) severe lack of facts or knowledge about the game. Knowledge that should be known within 20mins of playing the game never mind 10hrs. I'm seriously doubting the reviewer played the game for more than 15minutes.

Convince me otherwise.

Don't get me wrong, there is a lot wrong with Darkfall : there is only one server, limited number of copies are sold each week, game itself is stable, but unfinished and unbalanced in many areas.

Darkfall reminds me of Daggerfall. Daggerfall had it's share of problems but you were free to do ANYTHING you want. In 1996 there were games much better polished, much more stable and balanced than Daggerfall, but there was something missing in them - sense of danger, adventure and freedom.

When you play Darkfall as soloer, it's something like Daggerfall 2009 with most vicious, intelligent and deceptive adversaries ever seen in videogame. They are not looking for fair fight, only for the right moment to kill you, or at least steal your mount.

As in Daggerfall, in Darkfall there is no linear progress or obvious path to follow - also you won't get to lvl 80 or get a TIER6 gear. But there is something magic about UO, Darkfall, Daggerfall which seems to be completely missing from WoW, LOTRO or AoC - and I don't mean "outdated graphics" or "bad reviews".

Shall we query the book of Eurogamer scoring for a 2/10?

What you're facing here is a game with appalling generic visuals built around an awful design, cursed with cretinous AI, brain-frying audio and controls that feel like they've been designed to upset people

Sounds right to me. Especially when every other writeup of the game so far says the same thing.

This thread is hilarious. Nothing like a bad review to bring the rabid fans out of the woodwork. Liking the neckbeard thing too.

@ZtruK

Thank you for the link to another darkfall preview you provided. I found it a bit more informative than eurogamer version (sadly).

For those interested in another point of view, here's link.

http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/Paragus1/022...

Keep in mind that I don't play darkfall, or any other mmo other than city of heroes at the moment.
I do get a bit tired of the levels of immaturity on display in this thread though.

I wish people would discuss the game itself, instead of doing their best to insult each other.

@seasidebaz

You mentioned other reviews of darkfall. Could you provide links? I'd like to read them, see what were the impressions of other people.

I googled some other reviews of Darkfall. Here's some titbits:

"The commands in Darkfall are just unintuitive."

"Darkfall is rough and unpolished. There are missing descriptions of NPCs, in game displays that are raw (Like a weapon’s damage listed to 6 significant digits …i.e Weapon Damage 31.0162)"

"Terrain graphics and shadows are great…all else is …gah! You really have to look past graphics in order to enjoy this game. If you cannot, you won’t last long."

"Click , click, click ..what that sound? Thats you playing Darkfall. A lot of left clicking to do pretty much eerything in this game ....especially gathering."

"Various Forum boards from the official Darkfall forums to MMORPG.com are chock full of threads about Darkfall. The forums, like the game, is PvP. Those who post on the forums are often radicalized (both pro and con) and the true measure of the game's players fall well into the middle. In the end, just as with RL, the playerbase is a mixture of good and bad."

Not just EG then, is it?

This is an interesting forum post too: http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm?po...

'@Redsparrows

The main arguement is that regarding the review:

1) its stinks of bias

2) severe lack of facts or knowledge about the game. Knowledge that should be known within 20mins of playing the game never mind 10hrs. I'm seriously doubting the reviewer played the game for more than 15minutes.

Convince me otherwise. '

Number 2) I cannot comment on - if it is true, then of course that is shoddy. I doubt, however, he played it for only 15 minutes. You only do yourself a disservice by using blanket arguments ad hominem.

However, it is 1) that I have a problem with.

Biased? To whom? His subjectivity? Shit, shoot him now. 'Bias' is a very maligned term - just check out the IGN boards for the festering idiocy that surrounds its use. Or is it to some grand anti Darkfall conspiracy?

@Hypercube

Thank you for bringing the quotes from other reviews. But could you post links to them also?
I'd like to read them myself.

Unlike you typical theme park MMO, you can't base the game on 3hrs of play. Sorry to say it, but this review is complete crap.

No problem, I would use this link isntead:

http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/Paragus1

The other only gives you his beta review, and not the 8 or so great articles about other parts of the game that follow. Keep in mind, may negatives he does point out have been fixed already. Particularly read alliance & war, that gives you the best idea of the RISK/RTS type nature of this game.

As for community, my guild of about 80 people and the alliance I PvP/play with each day is very cordule. If you read the "alliance leaders interviews" you will see what each alliance's view of the "world" is. You join the one you agree with most, or have friends in and hate the others, kill them, take their possessions and ultimately their cities and territory.

223rd.


... Seriously though, lol. I remember when everyone was hyping the shit out of this game. Yet another game that proves that WoW will never ever be defeated.

How good would a Theme Park MMO be? I'd have to be an engineer :D

Silvervein: Use Google. I'm sure me and Hypercube both did.

@seasidebaz

I'd use google, but I'm one lazy SOB ;)

However, I do treat quotes taken from articles I never saw (or have links to) with a grain of salt, since they might, or might not be true. No offense mate, just saying.

@Silvervein: All those comments come from http://www.theburialgrounds.com/Articles...

The guy has some positive things to say about the game, but I posted his comments about the flaws mainly to try and illustrate that it's not EG that's being unfairly harsh.

Most (99%) of the critics of the review are such rabid fundamentalist fanboys that I wanted to make it clear that reviews of this game seem to agree that there are a lot of issues with it. Some of the reviews quite happily state that it is an "old school" game, full of "hardcore PvP" - while that may be the case, the reviewer has put it in context with the current state of play of MMOs and has clearly had many issues with it. I find most of the reviews on EG to be pretty close to how I feel about a game, and I would wager that the majority of the people reading the review are not people who would enjoy the game, based on what I've read of it.

I applaud any small developer trying something like this, and I will be following the state of this to see if it changes, but what really puts me off is the community. Seriously, I really don't want to play alongside most of the people standing up for Darkfall here.

Hehe these comments are hilarious.

While the review didn't mince words, it didn't spell any wrong either.

I've played darkpants at a mate's, at his bequest. Then I showed him World of Warcraft, which he'd heard of but hadn't tried.

He's never looked back.

I'll say one thing about fanbois playing Darkfall; I feel genuinely sorry for them. They are the technological equivalent of cavemen.

Introduce a friend to a good game: You might actually save their souls.

@silvervein - why would I bother making something up about a game I don't give a shit about? Jesus, paranoia...

@seasidebaz: A theme-park MMO is an MMO where the developers build all sorts of rides for the player to enjoy. Think of the WoW style of raid dungeons. Once you've exhasusted all the rides, the game essentially ends. DFO is a Sandbox game. In a sandbox game the developer gives a player a bunch of tools to use in order to build their own game. Think EvE or UO. The reason I brought up theme-park MMOs is because you can actually judge them after only playing the game for about 3hrs because the entire game is going to be a repeat of what you are currently doing just on a bigger scale.

The person who reviewed DF has only played theme-park style MMOs and its apparent that he/she isn't a big PvPer and didn't spend more than 3hrs in the game. Half of what he/she says is wrong, and the other half is biased. He/she should be fired, or EU gamer should put up another review by someone who actually enjoys the style of game that DFO is.

People who love WoW will hate DFO, and everyone has heard of WoW and seen it played.

"EU gamer should put up another review by someone who actually enjoys the style of game that DFO is."

So what you're saying is, bias is okay so long as it agrees with whatever you want?

ARG this shite that is effectively latent 'hardcore/casual' dressed up as something else is galling.

There is nothing WRONG with people liking 'theme park' rides (WoW has far more nuance and beauty and player made moments than you give it credit for.) and there is nothing WRONG with people liking sandboxes. What is fucking irritating is the latter pulling some 'hardcore' rubbish out from their heads and decrying everyone else who doesn't enjoy their particular niche brand of gameplay (which is designed, apparently, to be as awkward as possible, because that's what Real Men Enjoy) as being simple idiots.

I see the fanboys are still hovering then, if anything they are driving the game further into the dirt. If that's possible.

PearOfAnguish: No, what I'm saying is that if a person doesn't like the game play that DFO they can't give a balanced review of the game. If I were to review WOW like this person reviewed DFO I'd give WoW a 4/10.

RedSparrows: Never said there was anything wrong with WoW or theme-park games,but the review obviously has only played those types of games and believes they are the best type of game. Sandbox PvP games aren't for everyone.

BTW, the PvP in DFO is FPS lite, but its still fun. I'd say its more fun than EvE which boils down to spreadsheet v spreadsheet.

Edit: Not a fanboy of DFO either. I've played better games, they just don't exist anymore. For what DFO is, a Full Loot FFA PvP sandbox game with out some polish, the game is still good and Fun to me. DFO is for everyone either. Most of what the reviewer complains about was intended as a game design i.e. the fully customizeable UI, looting, and FFA PvP.

No, I mean a REAL Theme Park MMO. Based around Theme Park. It would be way better than any other MMO. Ever.

No, what I'm saying is that if a person doesn't like the game play that DFO they can't give a balanced review of the game. If I were to review WOW like this person reviewed DFO I'd give WoW a 4/10

But that would go against Eurogamer's scoring policy. Which this game doesn't.

seasidebaz: The article does go against the policy in that he/she states the game design is complete crap, has archaic visuals - FYI it doesn't, especially for a game where 1000 people can be on the battle field at once. The only thing that is inherently wrong with DFO is sound. DFO has problems, but giving it anything under a 5...

Let me know when this thing goes to brussels xpiher.

LOL anyone who reads this article needs to read this

http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthr...

"We checked the logs for the 2 accounts we gave Eurogamer and we found that one of them had around 3 minutes playtime, and the other had less than 2 hours spread out in 13 sessions. Most of these 2 hours were spent in the character creator since during almost every one of the logins the reviewer spent the time creating a new character."

LOL and a troll gets to publish an "official" review


Gl3n: Not sure what you meant by that, but the game is released world wide and can be bought online at the link below

http://www.darkfallonline.com/accounts/f...

@ xphier, I didn't mean you, I meant the more general attitude of people about games like this. It happens around many other games.

If those playlogs are true then for shame!

/facepalm

I feel for Oli.

Darkfall’s reviews so far have been mostly good ones

What other reviews? There aren't any. Not ones with scores, anyway. The text all matches up though. And the game's not on Metacritic.

This review might keep new players from ever trying a game they would enjoy

Doubt it. This is the kind of game that you will actively look for if you want to play it.

because this review was designed to drive people away from our game

I found it to be a very informative review, as usual from Eurogamer. Make the game better and get a better score, that's how to not drive people away.

RedSparrows: The screen shots are done in low res, or default settings as well. The default graphics are pertty low because in game battles can be and have been around 500-750 v 500-750. When you have that many people in one area, you better hope the graphics aren't high or you comp is going to fry. This is why MO's sieging will either be limited, completly instanced, or both

"believes they are the best type of game. Sandbox PvP games aren't for everyone."

Where does he say this?
The issue is not that the writer inherently dislikes sandbox games, it's that Darkfall is crap.

"because this review was designed to drive people away from our game "

Oooh...a conspiracy! How exciting!

seasidebaz: mmorpg italia, mmorpg.com, an serveral other bloggs give the game between a 5-7/10 rating.

Not as good as BioShock, then?

whut? I didn't talk about that :) I was referring to posts like jenson's pseudo-elitist rubbish.

I trust a blog review even less than I trust a man at the bus stop trying to sell me a Rolex for a tenner.

I want a Theme Park MMO, sounds lovely.

I must be a Carebear because I have subscribed to WoW since it's UK launch, I have played most of the MMOs launched since and never felt the need to leave WoW for any of them. The thing is Blizzard know how to fine tune what people like, if I sat down and thought just how WoW has evolved over time I think I would be amazed. As it is I don't really notice because the whole thing is so seemless.

Darkfall looked like an interesting idea when I first read about it but having read this review I feel no need to bother playing. You see I am just not Hardcore enough, and that suits me fine.

http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthr...
That would the games head-dev pointing out some issues with the review (such as, the amount of play time from the reviewer).

http://vault.ign.com/View.php?view=edito...
That would be a hands on preview from a few months ago. Theres no score, but reading through it gives a better impression of the game. Also (like i mentioned), that was posted a few months ago. The devs are releasing patches almost weekly fixing many issues.

http://www.theburialgrounds.com/Articles...
Just another review.


I've been playing since week 1 and I can say that for me (and many others) this game is better than WoW. But like the reviewer said, this game is not for everyone. Some games your char gets better with leveling, in Darkfall you start out very weak, but over time youl realize that your char has turned into a complete beast.

But this isnt the traditional MMO like WoW or War, which allot of people expect coming in. It's meant to be something different altogether, which is why its stupid to compare DF to WoW or War.

Why are you posting a link to a preview as though that somehow proves your point? You do realise previews are almost always positive, yes?

Emilia'sHorse: and thats fine too. Just because you play WoW doesn't make you a carebare. The problem with the review is that not only are its facts wrong: There is a lot of lore, the controls and UI are completely customizable, quest are about as indepth as they are in other games, but that it doesn't actually review the game.

The game isn't meant to appeal to the masses anyways. Most people like games like WoW, were you can sign in play for a few hours and feel like a hero because you beat a big boss. DFO is meant for people who like deeper political interactions, nation/city building, want rewards, and complete character customization. 2 different play styles, nither one being worse than the other.

I love this line from that wheedling, pathetic excuse of a developer miserably trying to justify his bastard creation:

Darkfall is the largest MMORPG game of its kind and this guy spent a few minutes playing(?) before he tore it apart. How can someone do that responsibly? Ed Zitron didn’t even give Darkfall a chance.

Obviously that's because Ed Zitron thinks that the game was so shit that it didn't warrant further investigation, and who can blame him. EVE - as similar as you can get to Darkfall - suffers from the problem of slogging through a lot of crap to get to the good stuff, and is consistently knocked for it, why should Darkfall, which obviously has much lower production values and is evidently a lot buggier, be any different?

A review is an opinion, and Ed's entitled to it. You don't have to heed it if you don't want to, but most game reviews I see are pretty accurate.

Also, EVE is the largest freeform PvP Sandbox MMO without question. Guy is obviously blowing his own trumpet.

@hypercube
No offense. I'm sure you know how some people on the internet are, and I'm not implying anything. Just stating what I learned the hard way.

@xipher
That's interesting link, and a post it leads to. While it's written by game dev, so it's hardly surprising he's defending the game. But if what he says about reviewer playtime is true....ouch.