Darkfall Developer Responds to Eurogamer Review

Darkfall developer writes-
When we read the hostile review by Ed Zitron, one thing became apparent: he had not played the game at all. Eurogamer readers and Darkfall players are posting bullet lists of factual errors in the story. The reviewer hadn't even figured out the very basics of the game before he wrote about it. 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.

[- Ghost of Sparta -]

Eurogamer strikes again!

They do this with most of the games they review actually, hence why they're always so misleadingly inaccurate and full of sh*t.

[SRU9600]

Not cool.

[SL1M DADDY]

And still there are folks that read and trust that shizzle site. Pathetic pile of dog poo.

[Gun_Senshi]

Its old school MMO like Ultima Online, how they should be.

Eurogamer, example how gaming journalism is broken.

Wait Wiat, remember Eurogamer said Resistance MP is broken due to a weapon that is not in MP? hailstorm in MP makes mp unbalanced - PHAIL

They also started the RE5 racial controversy by describing how a white woman was dragged away by several black men...when it's a white woman dragged away by a single white dude PROOF that its white woman dragged by single white guy http://www.youtube.com/watc...

Blog of Ed complaining about KZ2 reviewers and Edge, he says 50 Cent 2 > KZ 2 http://www.blog.edzitron.co...

Eurogamer the same publication that was ranting about the online play in the Wii version of Shaun Palmer? Which didn't have online play?

Ed gives 2 score to Guitar Hero 2 http://www.snackbar-games.c...

He even have errors in WoW: WoltK review http://www.computerandvideo...

I can rip on Eurogamer and this clown all day :D

[Odion]

Whoa Whoa whoa, UO was a good game for its time but WoW is better

[Gun_Senshi]

WoW is dumped down version of Utlima Online and Everquest for kids, that annoyingly lowered the quality of MMOs when made them mainstream.

zOMG EPIX ROX! Not, I prefer I kill you to loot you, and have balance, something WoW definitly is missing due to epix.

[Odion]

EQ is a POS that rewarded people for sitting waiting for something to spawn for 10 hours.

Now thats FAIL

Just because UO and EQ where harder doesn't make them better, it makes their designs poor

[Gun_Senshi]

I guess you are a WoW fan that thinks WoW is the best thing ever! while in reality its quite bad mmo.

Whats next gonna say EvE suck too?

[MK_Red]

I'm not a MMO expert and haven't played EQ but I do kinda agree that UO had a charm that WOW lacks. It may be because of my hate for the whole WOW craze but who knows.

Back to topic, woooow. That Ed dude has really bad record. Thanks for the info :)

[Cheeseknight28]

Interesting how you didn't even respond directly to what Odion posted, but rather chose to accuse him of being a fanboy.

How typical.

[johnnywit]

I will agree with you about old school UO. That's how an MMO should be. When you died your sh!t stayed on your body and was a free for all to loot. If you sucked, better not leave town because someones waiting to PK you. I remember just purchasing a vendor and I was carrying it to my house when someone swiped it out of my backpack. lol. I learned my lesson the hard way. UO would punish you if you were not good. I loved that. But EA killed it and now it's super easy. I might check out this game if you say it's like old school UO.

[akiraburn]

I'm definitely with you on the topic of UO. Surprised to actually hear that other people around here remember UO. In fact, If you haven't already looked into it, I suggest checking out some of the free shards out there. Honestly, a lot of them are better than OSI (the original paying servers that EA own). Some of them are geared towards actual roleplaying in-character, and they're generally pretty amazing and fun as well. Especially due to the fact that any person who runs a free-shard can completely emulate everything that's in OSI and alter it in amazing and different ways. You can make unbelievable revisions to what the original shard was, like custom maps, revisions to the coding so the wildlife can interact, custom items, hues, capabilities, original leveling and skilling systems, and a slew of options I could list off for hours.

Regardless of all that, UO was classic and a lot of fun. I enjoy WoW, but also I recognize that it's not as in-depth of a game, because they wanted it to appeal to a wider audience. I enjoy them both, though I find I could spend a lot more time with UO and tend to get more engrossed in it personally. And hopping back on topic, Gun_Senshi, you mentioned that this (Darkfall Online) holds much of the same appeal that UO does, so you've officially sparked my interest in this game and I will definitely be checking it out.

I enjoy a lot of (somewhat) oldschool games (mainly mid to late 90's era) and I would like to see more developers reflecting on the games from even just 10 years ago (specifically some of the key PC games), and what they can do to kind of re-capture that same spirit. Such as the Wing Commander series pinnacled near there, Deus Ex followed (perhaps my favorite game), TES: Morrowind came along, UO, EQ, SW:G and several other small MMOs popped up or were gaining momentum, Max Payne, Shogo:MAD, Septerra Core, and many others really caught the spotlight, and in general there were a lot of really amazing games coming from all different angles and genres. I really hope to see this return, both on consoles and on PC.

And on point with the article, if this is all true (which I would assume since it's coming directly from the developer), this is really pathetic on behalf of Eurogamer, and shines a really bad light on their company as a whole. For someone to honestly review a game based on such little effort, he might as well have never even opened the package and reviewed it simply off box-art. And as you mentioned, this is not the first time it's happened. Really this is uncalled for, especially since this seems to be developed from a smaller company that deserves at least a bit of praise for all the work they have put in. For ANY smaller developer to get an MMO off the ground, they deserve a pat on the back, even if it isn't perfect.

[Llama]

I agree with Gun_Senshi about old school uo :)

Almost every single MMO I've played over the years is a variation of Everquest. I wish more Uo clones were released and than at least one of them would be more fun than the original.

Odion said:
"Just because UO and EQ where harder doesn't make them better, it makes their designs poor"

UO wasn't necessarily harder, it was different than todays average EQ clone mmo, sure. I'd say a lot better, more freedom, more options but definitely not harder.
I'd personally rather GM pretty much any skill in Ultima than grind npcs to level 80 (or whatever the cap is) in WOW. Also harder does not equal bad design. That makes no sense.

As far as I know UO is still being played, and its been, what, 13 years since release?

[Unicron]

But but but... Eurogamer is so trustworthy! They just score harsh!

Once again, does ANYONE understand why I think the game media/journalism/blogging world is a joke, and people's reliance on things as absurd as Metacritic is just plain... well, stupid?

STOP LETTING THESE PEOPLE TELL YOU WHAT TO ENJOY!

[Polluted]

Lol. Busted!

Seriously, it's usually kind of petty to call out a reviewer because you're not happy with a review, but if what they're saying is true, then yeah, Eurogamer screwed up. Good on these guys for speaking up about it.

[Raider69]

this was indeed a bad move from eurogamer reviewing a huge game like this from 2 hours of gameplay !DARKFALL devs have every right to be mad by this childish review made on the game.but mind as all gamers that this kind of situations are beginning to happen more and more every day simply by the fact that some gaming magazines and gaming sites are trusting the reviews to people that dont know nothing about games,or simply are reviewing a game gender they dont like!money talks higher than whats right to tell in some cases. this so call reviewers just won't there pay check at the end of the month and dont have no love for there job!

[patterson]

Eurogamer review = poop

Something we've all known for a long time.

[TheIneffableBob]

That is ridiculous. At least sites like GameSpot actually put some time into their games, even MMOs. I believe the reviewer for Age of Conan spent something like 80 hours on it, which is a pretty large amount for a review.

[sunnygrg]

All they want is a big bag of cookies and the free swag bags.

[Obama]

lol free swag bag, is that a jab towards halo3? In any case I agree with you here.

[Aclay]

What that Darkfall game developer did reminds me of something David Jaffe would do, lol.... but if it was Jaffe he'd put them on blast BIG TIME.

But seriously, this is just SAD. The fact that the reviewer on Eurogamer got busted sure does question a lot of their other reviews where they could have been OVERLY biased towards a game and gave it a high mark after hardly playing the game at all, or in this case just too plain harsh.

This definantly isn't a good look for their the image of Eurogamer... GameTrailers got busted with the PS3/360 Video Comparision controversy, but when the integrity of your reviews are at stake, that's a whole different story.

[MK_Red]

Holy ****. This is a really big ef up on Eurogamer's part. This reminds me of their horrible original Neverwinter Nights 2 review (Which they removed, rereviewed and gave a higher score).

[Gun_Senshi]

MK_Red! Where you been!! We missed you.

Check my comment above :P

[MK_Red]

Hey, how you doing? Thanks :)
Same here.

[BYE]

Reviews like this make me avoid Eurogamer at all cost.

[Magna Farta]

Because it's pretty apparent he's a freelance gaming reviewer, spreading his venom to any rag site that'll post it.

I know guys like him, they're bitter husks of people and utter failures of human beings that somehow write something and get paid for it nonetheless. Normally I find it unprofessional for a gaming company to respond to a bad review but I find this completely justified considering the circumstances.

I'm willing to bet Ed Zitron was getting behind on his deadline and just started up the game to write some horrible review and hoped the community would buy it. I hope this destroys his career so he can go back to being a bitter embarrassment to journalism.

[REALgamer]

If the server logs are correct, that is very inconsiderate of Eurogamer to publish that review without verifying the reviewer (especially being a contributor instead of one of the staff) had given it a fair chance and followed their reviewing criteria.

Eurogamer is too large a site to make mistakes like this.

[MathiasT-s]

That is some of the worst crap I've ever heard. Lowered the quality for MMO's? are you insane? you are just jumping on the bandwagon here.

WoW has the biggest game world ever created, sh|tloads of content compared to any other MMO, unrivaled and fresh graphics at highest settings,competetive communities,brilliantly designed PVE ( ignore wotlk naxx ) it actually KEEPS you playing. Always cool hating on the big guy huh?

I can assure you, everyone that tries to move away from WoW because it's "unbalanced" always comes right back. Do you know why? because even if it is unbalanced it is still the most balanced MMO out there. You don't see anyone hating on WAR's balance do you? it is an unbalanced mess.

No GAME and I mean NO GAME can give you so much fun, friends, memories and laughter. WoW is the best game ever made, there is a reason it has 11 million subscribers. Maybe it has been dumbed down a little, but it had to. If you are saying this game was casual pre-TBC you are full of sh|t, the game was cattering to the masses so it wouldn't forexample work with the old PVP rank system.

[HorrorStyle]

At any rate, it's unfair to smash a game so badly. There aren't 'good' or 'bad' games but rather more or less mainstream games. Video games are no different than any other arts and everything depends on personal liking- and marketing.
P.S. It looks like the freelance reviewer will have to find another hobby

[Perjoss]

If I was reviewing a game and my conclusion came to 2/10 I would make damn sure that I was certain about my score as my career might depend on it, from what I've read here it looks like this guy could not be bothered to play the game properly and should have passed the review on to someone else.

I dont give a crap about the game itself but any game should get a fair review.

[Th3 Chr0nic]

LMAO @ eurogamer....credibility level is at 0% now. what a joke they are now and forever will be.

[likedamaster]

Serves you right for not actually playing the game.