anouncement on Launch and Playtest
December 11, 2012 Tasos Flambouras No comments

Dear Friends,

We have come to a decision, not without much internal debate, that instead of commercial release this Wednesday as planned we are going to launch the game for playtesting first. We also believe that we owe the community a thorough explanation for this last minute decisions, so the reasons behind it are the following:

While we have done a lot of internal testing for the game, the platform has been thoroughly field tested, and the game has also been tested by external partners, we have always felt that the game should be tested by the players and last checks corroborate this. Time however was not on our side.

Secondarily, some of the reasons which caused us to slip from our original launch date last month are not yet fully resolved to our satisfaction and a bit more time is needed. For the record, what’s left shouldn’t take more than a few days longer.

Being Greenlit on Steam so quickly was beyond our expectations, this success was 100% community driven and it showed us how important to the community this is. After evaluating the procedure needed for proper Steam integration, we realized that if we launch on schedule it would be impossible for us to launch with Steam.

Despite considering this a setback, we actually also consider it a perfect opportunity to get the community involved directly in the fine tuning of the game features before launching on Steam. We have been working with the dream of making Darkfall Unholy Wars the best competitive experience ever and lack of community feedback would have been a missed opportunity. We also believe that a Steam launch can help the game get the critical mass it needs to be as fun as it can possibly be, and we feel it’s important to have the game tested more thoroughly before this happens.

So now what?

We’re launching a fully playable beta version of the game as soon as we get the build ready. We have a firm ETA for Monday,December 17th. By beta version we mean the game will be running in debug mode so that we can quickly get valuable feedback from playtesting and we can identify and address issues as quickly as possible.

Pre-orders get beta access; we’re making pre-orders available on Friday so you can download the game over the weekend.

Some details regarding the pre-order: returning Darkfall players will get the game at the price of the subscription during pre-order. New players will get the game at a discount. Pre-orders get 30 days of game-time when the game launches, beta access for as long as that is live, plus you can reserve your character’s name. We will also explore offering a head start. Pre-order slots may be limited and will be throttled if needed.

We can focus on playing and working with you to identify any bugs and imbalances and will continue working closely with our players to improve the game so that by the time the game launches it will be as perfect as possible. There will be developer – player interaction on issues that come up, and we want to keep developing a user-centric culture throughout the lifecycle of Darkfall Unholy Wars.

We will also be working round the clock on getting the game ready for a Steam launch with all the Steam features we want integrated.

The Darkfall Unholy Wars launch should happen as soon as we’re cleared to do a Steam launch, we assume that the game will be properly tested by then as well. Our estimate is January after the holidays. We will announce a specific launch date as soon as possible. We need to estimate the exact time it takes to integrate all the Steam features, and to assess what feedback we get from our playtesters.

We feel there are compelling arguments for us to take a little extra time and to involve the community. The very amusing community insider joke “we’ll do it live” is not how we prefer to do things, but in the past we had been forced to by our circumstances or by external factors.

We regret the last minute announcement, we had to agree on this with several parties and get approval from all our departments so we’ve been agonizing over this since last week. We do appreciate your understanding on this, it was not an easy or a pleasant decision for us to make, especially at the last minute, and we feel badly that we’re not true to our word even though everyone at Aventurine has been working extremely hard for tomorrow’s planned release date. However, we also feel that this is the best possible option for the game, for the players, and we promise to make the best of it involving you as much as possible in making Darkfall Unholy Wars reach the potential it deserves.

More information on the playtesting process and on the pre-orders, will become available in separate announcements starting tomorrow. We’ll also be happy to address your concerns and provide answers to your questions.



Thank you for reading.

Everyone who is surprised raise your hand. I was seriously considering coming back, but now that there is clear evidence that little or nothing has changed with the development team, I'm more leery.

not sure that was my take on it i saw this coming when they did steam they didnt do it soon enough things like that take time
in essence imo this entire delay is due to steam and them wisely wanting to use it with their launch

my only annoyance is wanting to know about this head start stuff..
i dont want to play beta just to get wiped myself not skill grinding anyhow but if its a beta/headstart then im totally in im curious if we can set up the clan in beta ect and be done before the game starts selling on steam or if we get wiped.

ive seen more than enough from videos alone to be honest that i know a lot has changed in the game that is exactly what needed to be changed which is due to the development team.
i have very few complaints about them atm
other than them not getting steam going before the original launch date

The steam thing sounded more like a last minute excuse they could use to earn themselves more time to fix things they hadn't already fixed. That's just more of the same stuff we put up with two years ago. But I don't want to poopoo the game for you guys, just letting you know where I stand.

I agree it is more of the same from them, I expected it when there was no word on anything yesterday. Waiting to launch with steam, even if it is just an excuse for more time, is not a big deal.

Interested to here about the beta details though. I am really hoping its not a cluster fubar pain in the ass for getting in, like it was with EU launch.

this was expected i just laugh at this company. its sad it takes ediots like this to make games we wanna play why cant the big companies get behind a project like this so its done right. oh well lets see how this turns out hehe i wanna see epic launch fail again.

I think you guys do not understand Tasos and DF..
Darkfall is and will be on eternal BETA..
This has a good side and a bad side, its the game of his life(Tasos). I read in some place that even at the launch it will not has all features pretended. The good side its Tasos will not give up DF for the next 10 years, what is different from other games that are abandoned by their developers.

DF is love it, or leave it.

And this new launch it will help small and medium guilds(KGB case), and people that didnt play for the last year or +.. because the players will have a chance to test and know what to do for real launch. Also more KGB players will have cool down from others games(gw2 and ps2)m giving them more time to join the faction.

and contrary to Kaotic said, I think this is really about Steam, beta is just to please players waiting.. because that we know the bugs encountered by players until launch will not have time to be fixed.. we know that to fix a major bug Aventurine can take like MONTHS do to that... SO enjoy and play..

Well this is an epic fail. I'm not sure if I want to waste my time playing it. I'm beginning to think Tasos and the DF team likes to shit where they eat. Because right now they just took a huge dump all over their Greek Gyros!

no, hes playing smart, the possibility to get more some thousands subscribers from Steam is good, he bet on puting in greelight on steam and didnt expect that good response/results, so now he has to run to adapt to steam plataform.

mithus seems to see it the way i do

Not sure how anyone can complain if they are doing an actual beta test before launching. Seriously, do you remember the last launch. Anytime put testing with real players is good for the game in the long run. Also, launching with Steam is a good play. With all the bitching about no marketing last time around, you can't get any better than being on Steam.

I was much more inclined to skip the launch because there was no beta, at least now I will know the actual state of the game before I put down any money.

I registered on their forums in 2003. I applied for a beta key in 2004 when they supposedly had a playable demo, there was a cool looking video, etc. I got my beta key one week before beta closed due to changing email addresses a few times in the interim. I sat there and hammered the server to buy a copy of the game at EU launch; I ended up with ticket number 37.

The point of all of this is simply to say: be patient. If you are so upset by a delay of a couple months, you may not have the attention span for this game. I'm sure we are all playing other games and doing other things. Just keep doing them, and be ready to call in sick a couple days when it pops.

I'm going to predict March 2013. The beta might last the whole time. They seem to attach significance to certain dates.

I'm sure nobody will be surprised that I agree with Cheerio above. The new game still looks sick. Just carry on with whatever was occupying you before until they release.

My take was "OMG we actually got on Steam" , so they managed to convince their financiers to extend them more time using the plausible argument that a better launch on Steam will generate far more revenue than a crappier launch without.

Being on Steam gives them a shot at a real playerbase of new players, ones who will likely be far less forgiving of game breaking flaws than us old skool MMOers. Makes sense that they dont want to screw it up.

Don't want to screw it up...again.

DFO was still the worst-launch-game of my gaming history, (including all the SOE titles I've played, and SB with it's initial 5-minute lag-pauses, etc.) DFO was so buggy and unrefined when it launched that I thought it was a joke (other than the $$$ I put out for it.)

That aside, my main question mirrors Morlander's: is this a head-start, or a Beta that's going to get wiped? If DFUW is even close to the grind that DFO was, then I don't even want to touch it until release. (Burn-out factor = high.)

P.S. - Tasos is a complete tool, and I can't believe any of you are defending him. Defend the game, and the general team working on it, but never, ever that incompetent, arse.

the grind is advertised to be a lot less
(i dont plan to character build in a beta)
and as foir tasos the game is his vision ...
simply put i have yet to see any other developer come up with a game that compares
fact is hes the force behind this game and if you have any
respect for the game you should realize that his place is key

Most visionaries throughout history are douchebags from a likability stand point.

I agree with the sentiment above regarding beta. I probably will hold out for the actual release because I don't see how they can allow all these players into the beta and then have any credibility with the steam players without a wipe.

Fast grind or no... I'm not doing it twice.

i will get into the beta and report back to y'all

Has to be a wipe. We can gather lots of information.

can we make a private google doc or something to record our findings? and another one to input coords of monster spawns etc?