Will Darkfall Unholy Wars Launch? We’ll see.

Darkfall Unholy Wars comes out day after tomorrow.  At least… we think it comes out tomorrow?  No one has heard a word from Aventurine.  Why is there such a communication blackout?

The forums are in complete disarray as people have already begun rocking back and forth with, shaking violently with anticipation — or one too many Red Bulls.  As I write this there are four posts on the front page questioning whether or not the game will launch on 12/12/12, a few taking bets for a new release date.

The big problems I foresee are account management issues.  Forget the communication about what day and time; We don’t even have details on how or when we’ll be able to actually buy the game.  At this rate, if the game does launch in just over 24 hours will everyone be slamming the site at once?  Does anyone else remember the four day process of trying to actually buy the original Darkfall?  I think they sold a few copies an hour at most before the site imploded.

It doesn’t take much at all for one person from Aventurine to log in to their forum and make a simple post about the game coming out or not.  I can do that in 30 seconds for free (hit me up Aventurine!). That’s why I believe they themselves have no idea what the next 24 hours holds.  Chances are the third party people that handle their billing are either unresponsive, or there’s a last minute hiccup that will probably delay the game another two weeks.

Regardless, these are things you communicate to an eager following of players who are literally begging to throw money at you (see forums).  I believe any communication at all, good news or bad, is better than none.

Darkfall fans are an odd bunch.  I guess I count myself among them right now, as I am eager for any sandbox experience like the one I hope Drakfall will become.  We get ignored, the game gets delayed, there were tons of things wrong with the original game, yet we’re banging on the gate to be let in with our money in hand.   That’s all the proof you need to know there’s a market for a game like Darkfall.

Once we learn whether or not the game will even come out, I’ll make another post detailing my plans for tackling launch.  There should be a fair amount of extended coverage over the first few days of launch as well.

  • Aventurine’s track record with communication is bad at best.

    I’m sure the six people they have working on the game are too busy to make said forum post to notify fans. (Yes, this is an obvious exaggeration, we all know there are 12 devs)

    ((Yes, that was another exaggeration within an exaggeration!))

    😛

  • Is Darkfall combat all twitch based or can also be played more tactical? I am looking for a sandbox experience as well but I really don’t like solely twitch focused games.

  • Let’s not forget that the new Darkfall also didnt even have a public beta…this could become one big epic fail. It does seem odd that we are supposed to believe that they can “fix” their game if there is no apparent “learning from the past” when it comes to communication issues, deadlines, and marketing. It still is the same ol’ Darkfall…and the community is pretty loyal but I think it is because they are mostly just thinking…whatever…it is either Darkfall or nothing.

    I do agree that it is very likely that they dont know what is going to happen on 12/12…

    Anyway, I am cheering for them but my expectations are pretty low for that date…if someone took the day off for launch…that would be just silly (they should try to launch on a sunday to avoid that hehe)

  • @Rawblin: Oh come on now. There are at least 20 devs. They employ almost half of the population of Greece, y’know.

    @Rasli: I think the best way to categorize combat is twitch based. Think of it as being closer to Elder Scrolls or Mount & Blade Warband than something like WoW.

    @Argorius: The forums are funny right now. People took the day off and they’re panicking asking, “Should I cancel my day off?”

    The lack of a beta, the lack of communication, it all screams repeat of the past. I like the ideas they’ve presented on paper, though.

  • I remember that less than a month before the launch of the original Darkfall, people were still not sure if it’s a scam or not. So this is pretty much standard for Aventurine.

    I love a company that focuses more on building their game and less on marketing it, but AV is taking this to a whole new level I never knew it existed. 😀

    Even so, Darkfall was incredibly fun. And in the end, that’s what really matters. So I’m willing to endure a few weeks of chaos / confusion, I just hope the new DF will be a real version 2.0

  • yeah, im dubious itself as this point since this is taking it to a new level, even by AV standards :p .

  • My (totally uneducated) guess:
    Tomorrow (12.12.) it will be delayed onto the 21.12.
    But we will still not be able to play DF:UW since all the internet will cease to exits (the maya predicted it!) 😛

  • I spent about five days trying to aquire DF on launch, but their payment processing was unable to verify account creation so I ended up never buying it at all, despite having looked forward to it since 2003.

    I will keep keep track of Darkfall: Unholy Wars, but since I have lost faith in Aventurine’s ability to deliver product, I am currently downloading Mortal Online in order to try the new f2p account status. Have you guys considered trying it? It would be nice, while on the beloved sandbox subject issue, if you could give it an afternoon and publish your thoughts.

  • I can’t say I’ve really followed Darkfall lately (because I haven’t), but this is pretty much Community Management 101 (or Social Media 101 or even Customer Service 101). Having your community feel like they are yelling at a wall is never a good thing.

    Understandably, there is some red tape when trying to make certain announcements / updates (believe me, I know all about red tape) but even if it is a simple “Hey guys, we hear you and hope to have information to you soon” (and actually, y’know, post an update soon) is better than “…”.

    Granted, who knows what is going on over there. They could have a game stopper bug that just reared its ugly head and they are trying to squash that… or they had a pre-launch party and still recovering 😉

  • So how big IS the darkfall fanbase? Are we talking about pissing off 1,000 people or 20,000 people, or more? And, either way, seems like since the fanbase put up with this last time, they will do so again – since no one else is offering this particular MMO jesus juice.

  • Beta is overrated. What did it accomplish last time anyway? Ah yes, the exploiters were able to learn all the exploits and have them ready for day 1 of launch. And with a game like DF, not knowing the lay of the land is huge, and has caused a lot of meta-gaming already amongst serious clans. Good times in that regard.

    That said this silence and likely delay blows.

  • I’m surprised people are getting their hopes up after the debacle that was their first launch and having already moved the UW launch back once. I guess I’m becoming increasingly cynical and jaded but I will definitely be taking the wait-a-month-and-see-if-people-are-still-playing approach with this one, whenever it does actually launch.

  • @Lumos: I’ll be playing it. I can’t convince Graev to try it, though.

    @Sleepysam: Honestly, I have no idea just how big it is right now but wasn’t it around 100,000 at one point? Someone out there can give me the numbers.

    @Sean Dahlberg: Yeah, I’m sure you had a lot more red tape with a big title like SWTOR. Definitely makes even more sense for then to at least acknowledge we exist.

    @SynCaine: They learned the servers could at least stay up for 30 minutes before hours of downtime and patches! I’m curious how the skill system operates. If they had all 5 people in their office testing it, we’re in for some real fun.

    @Neuronomad: I’ll keep you updated with my thoughts.

    @Misaligned: I’m expecting the worst. My hopes aren’t high at all for the title — heck, I just want to play on a brand new server with the new skill system.

  • Outside of actually hoping DF releases midnight tonight, here’s a response I’m waiting for:
    13/12/12 – “Oooh Hey guys…. Guess the world didn’t end like we were counting on. Sooo… Darkfall, huh? Gonna be awesome, yeah…. It’s delayed. Indefinitely.”

    I’m guessing there is no beta because they didn’t change their engine, network coding and infrastructure, any map meshes (is is a new map?). All they changed were the way skills worked, the UI and some models.

    In the meantime (sorry, I’m going OT), Ive tried out other Sandbox MMOs:
    Salem – Fun at first, exploring is mandatory. Combining items for food, items to learn new skills, etc was addicting. Interest is falling off as things are getting tedious, but it’s still good.

    Wurm Online – Worst noob experience of my life. I walked for 2 hours looking for an empty lot to even chop a frigging tree and couldn’t find anything. Exit and Delete. And the whole time the player base was talking about ways to attract new players. Hah!

    Xsyon – This game is actually headed in the right direction as far as requiring teamwork and making you feel needed in a community. You can pick from 2 “Gathering” professions and 1 “Crafting” profession to start off with heightened skill, and most crafts need 1-3 other crafts to function.
    2 problems: due to the size of the map, the slow speed your character runs (and the fact your char can run out of steam and needs to sleep), dieing to animals can mean your 2 hour trek will need to be restarted.
    Also, the game quickly becomes boring, as crafting is just a mindless clicking grindfest of watching a progress bar fill up.

    I downloaded Torchlight 2 last night and it is awesome. Miles ahead of Diablo 3. Giving me that stay-up-WAY-past-bedtime complex that Diablo 2 gave me.

  • They seem to be putting out decently edited videos i was somewhat hoping their normal communication would improve also. I guess I was wrong.

  • I think it’s after 10:00pm in Greece. They launch tomorrow. Not a shred of information about launch details. Remind me how they’ve stayed in business?

  • Quality product that lasts longer than a month > manifesto videos and a game-over screen at 80?

    I’d say that might be a good way to stay in business.

    (This is a new low for AV though, and that includes DF2010 releasing in 2012… or 2013?)

  • I should have answered my own question. They stay in business because people want to play the type of game they make — or attempted to make. In a sense, they’ve stayed in business entirely because of action taken by the players. I would give Aventurine at most 5% of the credit for their success and 15% for their idea. The rest goes entirely to a player-base that persevered through their crap.

  • I absolutely love how every single post here is cynical at best. Usually there are at least a few fanbois or people with optimism.

    Aventurine really does know how to crush people’s hopes. If only there was a market for that, they’d be rich as hell.

  • Launch delayed until January at the earliest with some sort of beta test if you pay them to get in. How does a company not communicate this news until the day before launch?

  • That’s pretty bush league and disappointing but can’t say I’m surprised. It’s a shame to see good ideas executed so poorly.

  • Paid beta is nothing weird these days, but only AV could get away with witholding this news until the eve of launch :p . I was expecting there was something to do with the Steam deal tho.

  • I knew that they would use the Steam Green Light thing as one reason to push the game back. My guess is that this is merely a side issue for them but once I heard the the game went green on Steam I knew that this would be a great excuse to push the game back (sadly…the effort of the fans appeared to have backfired but in reality it probably didnt and just provided them with a “good” excuse).

    They believe that the game will release in January…and they want to get the Steam thing worked out until then…but they also talked about a Headstart. A headstart means that you release the game in phases…they could have already released the game as promised (Phase 1) and then release it on Steam for the masses (yeah…right…masses) later.

    Kudos for not waiting until Friday for this announcement – that is the biggest surprise! haha

  • Anyone that’s going to purchase this deserves everything coming to them.

    Even if I wanted a FFA, full loot MMORPG, I wouldn’t give AV a dime.

    There’s indie, and then there are snake oil salesmen, and that’s precisely what AV is.

  • Lost in the mists of poor communication is the notion that this is actually a logical decision on their part. This is how they should of launched in the first place. It is just sad they did so less then a day before launch. If this was the right decision, it was the right decision a month ago too.

  • So Adventurine took the original Darkfall offline for the new one and now the new one is delayed. You can’t keep playing the original but you can pay Adventurine money to play the beta of the new one? Okay…………..

  • Don’t forget whom you’re dealing with here. Aventurine are still a bunch of rank amateurs when it comes to administration, and any form of roll-out plan. This is the exact same thing that they did with DF1’s release, and that was tainted for the year after release with rampant hacking that was all but ignored.