Darkfall launch memorable
The highly anticipated opening day for Darkfall provided for one of the most memorable launches in MMO history. Gamers eager to enter the the game flooded both the game servers and the forums in a vain attempt to logon to the game, and subsequently crashed both. Players had also been flooding the site in order to be among the few that could still purchase one of the limited quantities of the game still available (only 10,000 copies were available…a tiny number for a MMO). Stories of players opening multiple browsers and tabs in order to grab a last minute copy were rampant. On launch day, Darkfall servers were down, first because the development team said they were processing late pre-order purchases and then second because of a bug they found, which delayed the game for a number of hours again.
Launch was bittersweet for the Darkfall team who bragged about a flawless launch and repeatedly told players that the game had been ready to launch for months. Diehards took this as gospel even though the game had languished in development for close to a decade and claims that the game was launch ready had been made over a span of two years. Pundits cackled at the delicious irony citing that Darkfall was too hardcore even for itself.
As of this writing, Darkfall servers are running and players are presumably playing to their heart’s content. Darkfall is set to be a pure PvP game where players can be attacked anywhere and where the consequence for losing is not only the loss of all your equipment but also a fair measure of pride since the victor can taunt your body for up to a minute. Because of this, the development team have repeatedly stated that their game is not for the meek, and have curried favor among those players looking to set themselves apart as elite PvPers.
Scott Jennings of Broken Toys, a long time observer of Darkfall’s development, offered this advice to the Darkfall development team:
But now, it’s shipped. And as Tasos and the other Aventurine developers are about to discover, things change when you go live. The wolves have teeth, and they’re going to be looking for soft necks.
The game will now live or die by its own merits. Will the game live up to its lofty claims or will it disappoint? Some players have already pointed out Darkfall’s lack of content, missing promised features and bugs that were still present during game launch. Fans, however, are too busy playing after finally being let in.
A frustrated fan made a video commemorating the launch (it’s another subtitled version of Hitler’s Last Fall, but it’s well done):
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i just love this game. i play it all the time. this is so cool.