Darkfall Online Comments by Ed Zitron

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

To be fair, that's pretty damning. Hope Ed has a good explanation.

It gets better in the official fora:

LivingDead:
What exactly were the errors in the review? I couldn't find any.

ApocaRUFF:
You're also an idiot.

edit: stupid quote tags not worky here :P

"Darkfall is the largest MMORPG game of its kind" I LOL'D

@spimmy
I think the guy might be right. Darkfall is sandbox medieval pvp game. I can't think of any other game currently running that would fit this category. Eve is space pvp, a different thing. So, basically, what he says is correct.

By the way, does anyone have any data on how many people play darkfall at the moment?

AphoticCosmos,

Opinion or not, there are tons of factual errors in this review. Simple things that ANYONE who actually sat with the game for more than an hour would have known. I really have trouble believing that this person played for enough time to seriously write a review based on both opinion and facts.

With that said, no.. I do not love the game but I do think it has potential.

Because the Darkfall staff have always been the paragons of truth. Fact.

LOL @ this websites credibility.. previously I thougt it was good ... clearly wrong, the review on darkfall is not only inaccurate with regards to gameplay but the reviewers spent less than 5 minutes playing on one of the provided accounts and 2 hours in character creation on the other LOL.
Darkfall has its issues and I am not exactly a fan of how it is all happening over in that game but....
Complete joke = Eurogamer who ask a non staff reviewer to make a review who then lies about his game activites and writes an inaccurate review.
I guess now I know not to visit your site and stick to other more established gaming sites like gamespot and mmorpg.com.

Silvervein, by that token, I am the world's greatest person sitting in a chair wearing a red jumper, with a book on ex-Communists sitting 5 inches from my left hand. Fascetious yes, but you get my point.

I think the guy might be right. Darkfall is sandbox medieval pvp game. I can't think of any other game currently running that would fit this category. Eve is space pvp, a different thing. So, basically, what he says is correct.

By the way, does anyone have any data on how many people play darkfall at the moment?

No, it's not. You can't be that specific when referring to a genre as broad as MMOs. Darkfall is directly comparable to EVE in many aspects, and EVE is both the biggest sandbox and PvP-centric MMO out there.

No, but I would bet my house that it's not 300,000 people as in EVE.

AphoticCosmos: EvE started off very similar to DFO and almost went completely under and was just as "shoddy" as DFO is currently. EvE didn't get "good" until late 2006. That's all based off of fans of EvE. Also, EvE doesn't have an FPS like combat, is a SciFi MMO, and PvP is centered around the ships "rig" and stats making it more spreadsheet v Spreadsheet. I've played it and imo DFO PvP > EvE PvP.

Oh, had the review been posted on some one's blog it would be ok, but Euro-gamer is considered a legitimate site for gaming news and reviews and is pretty much a gaming newspaper. This article doesn't follow a journalist decorum or rules and regs

Silvervein: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=p... That link is the current list of major guild/clan alliances that are present in DFO. Before I removed the numbers of players comined in the alliances, the spreadsheet showed that the alliacnes themselves were over 10k players. The numbers came from the guild's rosters which I pulled directly from the game. Not all alliances are on the spreadsheet, not all guilds that belong to alliances are on the spreadsheet, and not all guilds are in alliances, so we have to assume that its over 10k. Most realistic estimates put the game's pop at 15k-30k which should be about right for a single gloabl game world which isn't devoid of players.

This article doesn't follow a journalist decorum or rules and regs

Failure to understand the concept of a free press is truly epic

Now we are in a situation where we have one groups word against the other’s.

I've been playing Darkfall since week2. I also played UO thru WoW and liked them all for differnt reasons. My inital reaction to the review when it was linked to me was that it was a fancy troll post made to look like a review. I soon realized this is a real site (I just hadn't hear of) and a supposedly legit review.

There are so many factual inacrasies in the review along with the genral tone and now Taos's logs, I have no doubt that the reviewr is lieing about how much tiem he spent in the game. Now, the probelm is, you don't know the list of incorrect "facts" are indeed false unless you play, and it's not easy to get the game, then factor in, if you belvie the review why would you ever want to play?

In this case I have every reason to believe Darkfall's logs are true and the "contributing reviewer" is a complete liar. I hope this site gets that second review done and they clean this crap up.

AphoticCosmos: Lol! really? do you not understand that all professions have ethic and standings guide lines?

Notice that none of the screenshots had any hotkeys in his hotbar... Every Darkfall newbie guide on the Internet will tell you the first thing you do is put your weapon and the Rest skill on your hotbar. Switching weapons during a fight is not a "5 or 10 minute" ordeal, it is literally a quick push of a hotkey. This fact alone made me want to register on this site I've never even heard of to post a comment on an article that is written by an obviously incompetent gamer. Can you honestly say, as a gamer who is playing a new game for the first time, and there is a hotbar on the UI, that you would not start adding *ANYTHING* to the hotbar? This article is 100% biased of a complete newb who did not spend a single minute reading what this game was about before he logged in and died over and over because he did not know how to add his weapon to his hotbar and expected goblins to die at his feet as quest updates spammed his screen. Do your own due diligence and research, find out what other reviewers say and youtube Darkfall videos even, but do NOT use this review as your only source of information about Darkfall.

Eurogamer, this review is FAIL. You should consider re-review with a better understanding of what you are playing before logging in to a game. I hope that all of your reviewers are not as incompetent as Ed Zitron.

ZtruK said "I hope this site gets that second review done and they clean this crap up. "


Problem is the eurogamer editor appears to of basically said my reviewer played and did not lie we stand by our review... even though there are total falasies in that review... again showing this site is a bit of a joke... clearly not a site I can trust the reviews of.

Also interesting to note the reviewer has only contributed on LOTRO in the last 8 months... so he is not that credible a source either.
When we have small independant games like darkfall being released I believe sites such as this have a responsibility to ensure reasonable practice is taken with the reviewers, for no other reason than to ensure that we are not left with EA, Blizz and SoE clones in our hobby. We need diversity in MMO games to stop our hobby becoming stagnant.

AphoticCosmos: Lol! really? do you not understand that all professions have ethic and standings guide lines?

Journalism isn't a profession you mong, it's an occupation. There are no "guidelines" to journalism, no little book to quote rules from, no governing body [except where the press isn't free, and that's not the case in any of eurogamer's national sites] to make rules. People can report on whatever they want freely. It's up to the editor and contributor as to what the article contains, nobody else as long as the article doesn't break any laws.

Xipher: 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.

----------------------------------------

C'mon now man. I had to create an account after following this thread all day just to dispute what you've written in this post:

1. There is a lot of lore -- Oh really? Why do alfar hate all other races? Why are Orks and Mahirim allied? I could go on but you get the point. This lore may be present on the website but there is precious little of it in the game.

2. The controls and UI are completely customizable -- Really? Tell me how I make my hotbar horizontal then. I could never figure that out.

3. Quests are as in depth as other games -- All I'm going to say to this is not by a longshot and you can't objectively claim they are.

AphoticCosmos,

You don't believe that it is the writers responsibility to provide factually accurate information?

AphoticCosmos: How old are you? Really. Journalism is a profession. You go to school to be a journalist. There are rules, ethics, and guidelines to working for a newspaper or other journalist type of work. The only thing a "free press" means is that the government can't dictate what the press releases.

Be cool kids stay in school

So can we get an answer to how long Ed spent playing?

If it was just 2 hours I would say the review is not accurate, I spent over an hour dual speccing my WoW characters the other week and I have been playing that for years. Two hours mostly spent creating characters does not constitute in-depth play.

AphoticCosmos,

You don't believe that it is the writers responsibility to provide factually accurate information?

I believe it is the writer's choice.

Emilias Horse said "So can we get an answer to how long Ed spent playing?

If it was just 2 hours I would say the review is not accurate, I spent over an hour dual speccing my WoW characters the other week and I have been playing that for years. Two hours mostly spent creating characters does not constitute in-depth play."


Needless to say Eurogamer are not commenting ritght now but the darkfall website states" 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. The rest of the time was apparently spent taking the low-res screenshots that accompanied the article. At no point did this reviewer spend more than a few minutes online at a time."



*** apparently Eurogamer have the logs and the reviewer stated that he played for over 9 hours to them.

Osprey: Its all explained in the quest why the different races hate each other just like it is in other games. Alfar are basically Nazis Orks and Dwarves have been warring since forever mainly due to the gods hate of one another, humans have tried to take over ork territory (which is why Hyperion staked that area as part of its kingdom), etc However, unlike other games you can't just do the noobie quest to figure that out. For instance, after doing about 10 quest I got a quest from the Ork lands to find a chalice that the Dwarf god told the Dwarves to make in order to beat the Orks in a war. It worked, but the dwarves that drank for it turned undead and have been on that island ever since. Interesting, and pretty much just like every other game

The quest aren't any different then they are in any other MMO out there and follow: The gather x item, kill x mob, find x locations, delevier x item to y person, etc. WoW perfected this model for PvE and its been followed by every other game since. DFO dose have some PvP quest though.

This is probably the most clueless, misleading, pure hate, worst review i've ever read.
Eurogamer lost all its credibility in my eyes after this.

What a totally hopeless review, you sir are incapable of reviewing this game. Eurogamer get some real players to review hardcore games next time.

AphoticCosmos: How old are you? Really. Journalism is a profession. You go to school to be a journalist. There are rules, ethics, and guidelines to working for a newspaper or other journalist type of work. The only thing a "free press" means is that the government can't dictate what the press releases.

Be cool kids stay in school

Incredible. I'm truly astonished. Calling me a child! Bravo, sir! How original! +1 internets!

The rules which a journalist must obey are dictated almost entirely by the publication for which said journalist is contributing to. Yes there is legislation regarding slander, libel, publication of potentially obscene material, etc., but a free press is a free press. As Eurogamer stands by Ed's review, it is not in breach of any kind of guidelines as Eurogamer has determined it to not be so.

In the UK, the free press is a concept that is vehemently defended.

Ed Yiffhead...

It takes quite a bit for me to bother registering for some no-name jackass review site. You got me to do it. Your review of Darkfall was the most irresponsible piece of shit I have ever seen in 20 years.

Not only are you incredibly wrong on 90% of your complaints, you go a bit further and openly admit you have no skill at FPS games. "get your crosshair over your target at some point"... You mean fucking AIM??? Are you serious? Please tell me this guy is a joke.

The truth of this matter (the lowest score in EuroGamer) is clearly a personal one. An agenda, a vendetta.

Judging distance of a bow shot is guesswork? Your review was guesswork, sir.

In fact, the only thing you got right was the hard grind, but you even ruined that point by complaining that you got "murdered by hobgoblins" Well, welcome to Darkfall idiot. You want EZ Mode obviously which is why you dumbasses give WoW a 10/10.

This review is an atrocity of journalism.

They should at least have to post a retraction of the 16 just plain false statements in the review that I listed on Page 2 at the bottom. IMO There is much more false information in the review but it is simply his opinion so it cannot be proven false by any means.

oh lol this thread
http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthr...

AphoticCosmos: Sorry most people on the interwebs tend to be children. We agree for the most part, i just don't think the reviewer followed any of that, or the publisher is completly biased.

oh lol this thread

Absolutely. Internet lawyers for the lulz.

@Khahan
WoW was awarded a 10/10 because it deserved it. But that is not the issue here today as I am sure you will agree.

If you see a house that has a scratched up door, do you assume the entire interior of the house is terrible? Or that the people inside are bad people? Because that is what this article is doing.

I've never read a worse review of anything in my life, and not just for video games exclusively. This is like watching the first few minutes of a movie and deciding that the "extra" actors paid to not talk and just stand there are all that the movie has to offer, so you turn it off and say its a terrible movie. One reviewer [b]only spent a few minutes playing this game[/b]? Are you trolling me? I couldn't tell me friends this was a legitimate reviewing company because they thought this was a joke. And the other one, that so called expert that spent only a couple hours on the game, believes he has the right to criticize something he's never experienced beyond the outter edges? This is ludicrous.

Darkfall is not perfect, by far and wide, and no fanboy will ever say it is. It has plenty of problems, and the developers know that- but it does not warrant a 2/10. If i were the reviewers, i would be embarassed and changing my name right now, because no one in the history of the world has ever been as wrong about any subject as they were. It wouldn't be so bad if this was just the opinion of a couple no-bodies whose opinion isn't cared for by anyone, but this is a site where a lot of people get their information from and it is dead wrong.

The amount of slander this review has gotten and the subsequent amount of money that Aventurine will lose because of this review might actually be a legitimate case for suing.

And the next time you want to review a game, get the facts straight.

Emilia'sHorse: hmmm I don't think any game is perfect. Even I game I find to have everything I could absoulty want wouldn't get a 10/10.

Its libel not slander. Slander is spoken libel is written ;)

because no one in the history of the world has ever been as wrong about any subject as they were.

Fucking priceless dude

I'm wiping the tears of laughter from my eyes now.

Thanks Darkfallolerskaters for a great night.

A repost of somel of the factual Errors that was posted on the second page

o 'do' anything - talk to an NPC, bind yourself to a location, loot a corpse, and so on - you have to click the right mouse button to toggle between interaction or movement mode.

-You simply have to hit F

Unbelievably, to do anything that involves any interaction at all, you have to stop still - this includes any and all inventory management, looting, chatting - anything interactive.

-You can auto run while interacting with your inv or anything else, you can also hold shift to sprint while doing these things. (save looting by design)

like an FPS, except with little to no reference point.

-You have a small crosshair on your screen

how slow and floaty the controls tend to be.

-The controls react just like any other FPS (I have 170 ping)

The difference in feedback between a sword hitting or missing is negligible

-Hearing the sound of the sword hitting, blood splattering and the grunt of whatever race or monster is not negligible compared to “whiff”

lack of hit detection

-If you hit, you hit, if you miss, you miss. Hit detection is spot on.

Judging the distance that one needs to be at to fight a foe is largely guesswork

-I could see this on the first few swings, but each weapon has a set range and it is the same every time you swing it. There is no guesswork, you hit if you are in range.

your combat skills affect how often you actually connect.

-Just false, combat skill has nothing to do with hit or miss.

changing weapon (a ten-second operation - five if you're particularly nimble)

-If you use a hotbar (most people do) it takes as long as it takes you to click a key. In no way can you justify saying this, even if it’s hyperbole (I don’t think it is in this case with nothing on his hotbar)

EverQuest - which was actually graphically superior

- This is opinion, sort of, but no way 99% of people would agree with this, EQ2 maybe.


no definition in areas except those where you spawn as a newbie

- The entire world is hand crafted and looks amazing, no auto generation of terrain or anything.

It doesn't even have [snip] some form of tutorial

- there is a breif tutorial of controls and UI at sigon.

horrible user interface, and broken combat system.

- the UI works fine, it’s FPS not MMO Combat is one of the best parts of the game and is far from broken

the few Darkfall servers Adventurine is running

- There is a single server farm called EU1

You can't turn off the UI - the game just occasionally forgets to load it.

- There is a setting to turn off the UI that you can hotkey

At times you'll be left waiting to die - for up to a minute.

- after 15-20 seconds you can hit spacebar and “tapout”

10/10 is not....I repeat not and indication that the game is perfect. It is the highest score possible without breaking the system down to percentages, if EG used them I suspect no game would ever receive 100%. If the highest score was 9/10 then why bother having a scoring system out of 10?

WoW is a 10/10 for what it is. DF fans saying WoW sucks etc are stating opinion. I personally had fun in WoW for a few years while waiting for something like DF to coem along.

DF fans do a disservice to their argument here when they bash reviews of WoW. It's not a bad game, it's just that if you are one to like DF, you probably don't like a game like WoW, that doesn't mean it's a bad game. I'll never play Zoo Tycoon, but my wife loves it.. no idea why but I'm nto saying it's a bad game, it's just not for me. This reviewer seems to be lying about playtime and stated false information, that's he problem.

Xipher: fair enough if that lore is there, I admit I didn't get to it. Starting as an alfar, you don't really have the luxury of doing too many quests unless you want a knife in the back.

You still didn't tell me how to make my hotbar horizontal though :P

WoW and Darkfall are pretty different games tbh... The main issue is for me as someone that has used Eurogamer as a review site is the lack of due diligence in its reviewer selection and the complete and utter falsehoods allowed to go to print.

Also as I stated earlier Indie companies are a valuable part of our hobby and I believe Eurogame owe our hobby due diligence in giving them a fair review... time to go now though, have fun all...

Eurogamer = Fail for me though, I hope the rest of you consider the points above regardless of what you think of Darkfall and WoW

OMG. That is called a review? What a lot of tripe. "no slots in inventory" lol. "twitch based"! Learn to play. Biggest troll I've ever read trying to pass for a review. Sure if things stand as they are i'll not likely be playing DF in a year's time, but I'll be enjoying myself plenty until then.

For a complete overview of the reviewers credibility, please read some of the first comments unders his Lich King's review: http://www.computerandvideogames.com.......

Looks like it's not the first MMO game he played for 2h to review it.

@Yrk

My PC at work restricts access to CVG website, did he like Lich King?

This thread is awesome!

/hands out more flaming swords

Remember people: the stone ones are resistant to magic!

@ Emilias horse

This is from the first comment of that lich king review.... I am seeing a pattern here... nighty night.

"Yes i play WoW and would defend it to death, but to be honest as a WoW player i can tell the reviewer didn't play it enough"

Nice, the LK review and associated comments seal it for me on this. That first post had me chuckling.

Emilia'sHorse: The review didn't reflect his final score and it was obvious that he based his review off of maybe 3hrs or less of game time.

Your review of Darkfall was the most irresponsible piece of shit I have ever seen in 20 years.

Is it really? The single most irresponsible thing you have ever seen?

Never picked up a newspaper, then.

(the lowest score in EuroGamer) is clearly a personal one. An agenda, a vendetta.

It's not the lowest score, and you're starting to sound like a conspiracy nut.

I love how whatever goes on people on this site have to argue like little bitches. Clearly the reviewer has fucked up. There is no need to defend him.

Notice that none of the screenshots had any hotkeys in his hotbar... Every Darkfall newbie guide on the Internet will tell you the first thing you do is put your weapon and the Rest skill on your hotbar. Switching weapons during a fight is not a "5 or 10 minute" ordeal, it is literally a quick push of a hotkey.

Haha, I just went back and looked at that, now I understand why this guy hates the game so much.

In WoW terms, he was using the spellbook to fight instead of hotkeys.

Or in CS terms, every time he wanted to change his weapon, he would open the "Buy" menu instead of using a hotkey.