The Darkfall Chronicles

A lesson in manners, rudeness, and the improper way of things

1:30 AM…1:31 AM…1:32 AM… 1:33 AM…

Hitting the F5 key on my Zboard for what I can only imagine to be the seven thousand, four hundred and sixty ninth time; I let forth a sigh of raw depression as the page begins to load once more, revealing yet again the same lifeless pane as it had every other time I had done so these past eighteen hours.

1:37 AM… 1:38 AM… 1:39 AM … 1:40 AM…

In an attempt to escape the monotony I entered once more into the forums, an infinite abyss of human deprivation and indecency; a place where deformed versions of the English language ran rampant amongst a race of creatures that were oblivious to their very existence. Wading through the unforgiving trenches in the search of information, I quickly came to my senses, and escaped back to the entrance. I hit the F5 key again.

1:48 AM… 1:49 AM… 1:50AM… 1:51 AM…

Thinking back to a message I read a day earlier—containing the second last piece to my unfinished puzzle—I decided to read it once more in the hope that I may have missed an important detail, or read something different to how it had been intended. I noticed the words “We will keep you updated on our progress throughout the day”, and not unlike the startled reaction one receives when snuck up upon while lost in their imagination, I found the answer to my question, the solution to my problem, and the final piece of my puzzle.

You see, I had always assumed that the emptiness I felt was created by my want for the thing I could not have. I had been in the same situation a hundred times before, and although it had always felt different, I hadn’t made the connection until right then. It was the same feeling I had the first time someone ignored me and meant to; the same feeling I had the first time my girlfriend hung up on me without reason; the same feeling I had the first time someone told me something, and I knew that it wasn’t the truth. It was the feeling we are given when we are on the receiving end of another person being rude, and it was this—not the desire to play Darkfall—that had left me feeling this way.   

On Rudeness

‘Rudeness (also called impudence or effrontery) is the disrespect and failure to behave within the context of a society or a group of people's social laws or etiquette.’ – Wikipedia

Now if you’re thinking “Yeah! We were told we could get early access if we pre-ordered”, or “I couldn’t even pre-order because the page wouldn’t load”; or even “Those idiots couldn’t even update their website”—then don’t, because you’ve missed my point entirely, and you’re insulting yourself with the thought. I am not here to complain about the many things that went wrong during the weeks leading up to the release of Darkfall. For the most part, these complications were out of the developers’ hands, and thus unavoidable. Instead, I wish to comment on the manner in which they were handled, the severe lack of tact applied, and the arrogant demeanor I noticed throughout.

Preparing to Pre-order

Firstly, I would like to touch upon the limited and often delayed information provided during the pre-order phase. The complications that arose during this phase were admittedly unavoidable—too many people tried to connect at once, and the servers couldn’t handle them. The problem however, was that this process spanned several days, and the vague information released during such time was few and far apart, causing many people to stay awake for days on end, waiting for a chance to pre-order.

Normally, this wouldn’t be much of a problem; however in this case, the pre-orders were limited forcing players that wanted any chance of securing their copy to suck it up and wait for a reply. Over several days, many players had begun to lose patience. The useless information provided did little to ease the pain; however we were assured that once the problem has been resolved, we would be allowed to finally pre-order our copy of the game.

Upon resolving the issue, this is what we received:

‘It's back up, we ran a small test, everything looks good so we took it back down until tomorrow. It's too late in Europe.’ – Tasos Flambouras

I’m sorry, what? It’s too late in Europe? It was too late in America, and Australia, and the rest of the world at some point during the last 48 hours—that didn’t seem to bother Tasos too much though. Sure, this was a European release. I get that. No really, I do. But by allowing the world to participate, and by informing us that we could pre-order (but had to be quick because it was limited), we were forced to wait for days by our computers, forced to miss work and ignore friends if we wanted any chance to play from the beginning, and “It’s too late in Europe” just isn’t fucking good enough.

Of course, once the pre-orders were eventually made available (however due to the capacity, many people were unable to navigate the pages), much of the world was back at work, and upon returning home found that they had missed the 6 hours window, and were now unable to pre-order. A close friend of mine was a victim of this exact scenario—and his monitor paid the price. His copy of Darkfall just went up by around $300…

See what I mean? The problem was unavoidable, sure, I get that. However the tact employed during the phase, the vague and infrequent replies, and the total lack of informative information—was nothing short of rude and left thousands of players feeling cheated.

Launch Day Blues

Unfortunately, things only begun to get worse after the pre-order phase and on launch day thousands of fans were once again kept in the dark through a series of poorly handled problems.

Eagerly awaiting the slightest morsel of information, our first slice of information was received the night before launch day, and read:

We’ll open up sales tomorrow Feb. 25 evening European time.

The game servers will also open up sometime in the evening. We’ll keep you updated throughout the day tomorrow. — 12:53 AM 24/02 (GMT +2 Athens)

“Okay.” I thought. “Fair enough.” I said.

I would obviously have preferred a much earlier release considering the many statements made months before announcing that Darkfall was already ready for release. But no harm, no foul. By tomorrow evening we would have our accounts, and be playing the game. Of course, like the pre-orders, it was a limited release, so patiently waiting was out of the question. We were to spam the F5 key once more; praying to our gods that we were of the lucky few that would secure a copy.

1:00 PM 25/02 – It’s launch day; It’s after lunch, and we’ve yet to hear a word. Those that managed to pre-order (myself included, by some miracle) feeling okay, those that didn’t beginning to worry.

5:00 PM 25/02 – It’s now officially evening. The servers haven’t opened, the forums have begun to crash frequently; but more importantly, we’ve received no information at all about the release of the game on launch day to this point. Let me run something by you once more:

‘We’ll keep you updated throughout the day tomorrow.’

And once again, for effect:

‘We’ll keep you updated throughout the day tomorrow.’

No matter the problems, no matter the complications, no matter the difficulties encountered—no word by this point was an insult to each and every fan individually, and should never be thought of as anything different. It was rude, and an unacceptable way to run a business. We ‘fans’; were also customers; or potential customers if you will, and we deserved better.

11:21 PM 25/02 – We receive our first piece on information. Let me remind you that this is the launch day and once again, that we were told we would be kept updated throughout the day. We received this information in the very last hour of the 24 hour day, thus for those of us in Australia (like myself), the morning of the 26^th:

‘We’ve been waiting for the pre-orders to process through billing and it has been moving along but not fast enough. We’re almost done with this. Many of you will be getting notifications of this during this process. As soon as this is concluded we’ll process the accounts and open up the servers for the pre-orders. This will be done tonight; the game has been ready and waiting.

Unfortunately we’re running behind schedule as far as opening up the extra sales which we hoped to do tonight as well. We’ll do this tomorrow as early as possible, likely sometime around noon GMT time, around the time of our first scheduled maintenance. At this time we will also process the problematic accounts which had 0 euro problems, no charges, no balance, but received a successful pre-order message. We are also looking into the few cases that have pre-ordered but have not received a confirmation email and we will resolve all these issues. Most of these problems were due to a combination of lag, multiple sessions, and multiple charge attempts.

We want to thank you for your patience again, and we would like to let you know that we’re adding a couple more days to the free month of play making them 33 for everyone that pre-ordered and that will buy the game tomorrow. This is to make up for any bad experience with the account management, the lag and the delays you’ve had to face with purchasing.

The traffic volume we’ve been experiencing has been unbelievably high because of the initial rush and was compounded by users hammering the system with multiple sessions. You should also know that we have been doing everything necessary to resolve all these issues as soon as possible.

We’ll post again as soon as the server is open.’

Short version: Sweet fuck all. They’re having problems, and won’t be launching for a while. Oh, and you won’t be able to buy the game yet, either. Once again, as unimaginably horrific as the process was, it’s not the problem. The manner, demeanor, and tact that were used was. We were kept in the dark until the final hour of the day; the latest possible point that they could reply without looking too bad and it wasn’t even mentioned. The problems were mentioned, and apologized for, but what about the manner in which they were dealt? Does treating people like dogshit not deserve apology? Apparently no, as we received nothing. Nada. Zip. And Ziltch.

In the end, the servers launched on the 26/02, and were brought down again shortly after without word. Later that day we were told that there was a bug, and later still, things finally started to level out. But what about the people that didn’t get a pre-order? Nearly forgot about those poor buggers for a second there, didn’t ya’ Tasos? An announcement was later made that they would be able to purchase their account on the 27^th—after they sorted out the issues with the pre-orders.

The entire process was a mess. It was poorly planned, poorly executed; but most of all, it was poorly handled. The issues that arose could have been avoided—I’m sure—if they were better planned and thought out. But I am no developer, and thus have no right to comment on the fact. I am however, a human being. And I do have the right to comment on the manner in which we were treated.   

It was pathetic; to say the least; and it was downright insulting to say a touch more. If nothing else, I hope that this writing—The Darkfall Chronicles—serves as a guide to future developers as the exact and precise way not to launch a game. Plan better, and tell more. Keep your fans—whether they are one or one million—up to date with the situation. Adventurine; and Tasos; did not. And what’s worse, they lied. Repeatedly. And kept us in the dark.

I could go on; I could discuss how the promised open beta was cancelled; or how many of the promised features were simply forgotten and left without mention. Or how the website still lists these features as part of the game; or how in the many interviews leading up to the release stated on more than one occasion how the game was ready for release—when it clearly wasn’t. All of these are lies. And all of these are blatant and obvious acts of rudeness. But I fear we’ve talked too long already, and with any luck, we’ll all be playing Darkfall with a coke and a smile before the day is out. But it is important that we remember the acts of rudeness committed against us; and that we never forget the horrible processes that we were forced to endure.