In a not so surprising story, it seems that Eurogamer put up a review of Darkfall that was not so flattering:
Sadly, every little thing Darkfall does is tragic, but without a personality that might make you feel sorry for its developers, Aventurine. From the grubby textures and grammatically incorrect quest text to the anarchic control system, any attempt to glean joy from this torrid husk of an entertainment product is met with disdain. It’s almost as if Darkfall doesn’t want you to play. But nevertheless, a job is a job, and play I must.
…but that is not the problem. I think we all agree that if a game deserves a bad review, then it should get one, but only after the reviewer actually spends the time to play the game. At the very least, in order for the reader to get some context, the reviewer should let the reader know how much time was spent in game. Turns out, this review did neither according to Aventurine’s own server logs:
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.
….oops. Kind of puts a dark smudge on Eurogamer as well as game “journalism”. If true, and I certainly tend to believe Aventurine on this one, then this review is completely bad form and should be brought down immediately and a retraction made. No re-review because Eurogamer obviously cannot to those correctly or ethically. Heck Aventurine, I’ll review it for you and I’ll also include the number of times I kick Syncaine’s ass in-game 
/blows kiss to Syncaine
In other news, looks like Garriott feels the need to sue NCSoft for $24 million under a “Torts – Property – Other Fraud” classification…and that’s all we seem to know at the moment. This kind of made me scratch my head considering how much money this man spent on the astounding success that was TR. Considering Garriott wanted to pursue “other interests” that just happened to be yet another game, winning this suit would at least fund a quarter of the price-tag for him.
D out.
Entries (RSS)
May 6th, 2009 at 8:37 am
[...] time making new characters and running around the starting city. Darren of Common Sense Gamer gives the broad overview of the debate. Syncaine has the news of the review and the reviewer’s response. MBP of Mind Bending Puzzles [...]
May 6th, 2009 at 8:41 am
You need to hurry though, the clock is ticking remember? Only a month or so until server shutdown. (get me on SUWT so I can point this out to you in a month:)
May 6th, 2009 at 9:16 am
I personally wouldn’t rely on Aventurine’s Server Logs too much …if the game is half as bad as the review states I doubt their server code is much better than the client code and its probably not updating the logs all the time the reviewer spent in the game.
Having said that…I think for most MMOs you need at least 20 hours playtime before doing a FULL review and need to schedule a re-review 6-12 months after release.
May 6th, 2009 at 11:34 am
@Syncaine: heh…already part way there since Keen has already jumped ship
May 6th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
Yea no one saw that coming…
I still demand air time when your DF clock strikes 12 and the server(s) are still going strong.
May 6th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
@Dathmar: Maybe the game is twice as good as the reviewer states but the server logs are only half as reliable as we think. Etc Etc. The point is the reviewer got every detail of the game wrong. He didn’t know how to swap out weapons or armour using the hotbars. His review was from someone who has definitely not played for more than a ten or twenty minutes and that’s really bad form when these reviews hold such weight with the buying public. Darkfall isn’t perfect by a long shot but it deserves a fair trial and a little more support from a gaming community that’s always complaing about WOW clones.
May 7th, 2009 at 9:31 am
[...] By shadowwar 0 Comments Categories: General Gaming Tags: Drama Well, everyone and their sister is talking about the fiasco between Aventurine and [...]
May 7th, 2009 at 10:28 am
@Syncaine: never said the servers would “disappear” or “blow-up”. Don’t make stuff up now:
http://commonsensegamer.com/?p=1202
May 7th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
Ah indeed, you said “None of you who are playing now will be playing this game in 3 months”, so the clock is still ticking on that. But very true, you did not say it would be shut down.
Granted in the comments we have this:
“None of you who are playing now will be playing this game in 3 months” …now. Tell me why I’m wrong.
And then this:
@Maess:
“Because you are literally saying that NONE ZIP ZERO NAUGHT of the people who read this post who are currently playing Darkfall will be doing so in three months, that’s hardly common sense.”
…since when am I to be taken literally?
But since when do comments count!