They weren't at the time I posted that, which was a day past the scheduled release, the servers hadn't come up yet. They are down again. We still can't purchase it. It's now 2 1/2 days past scheduled release.
I've read several of your posts in this forum over the past few days and I think you had unrealistic expectations for the DF launch. Before I continue, though, I would ask you to provide two examples of a flawless MMO launch. I'll list some of my MMO launch experiences:
- I know that when UO:Third Dawn was released there were terrible connection issues for days.
- I know that when Trammel was opened up for housing it was one of the laggiest online gaming experiences I've ever had, with countless disconnects as well.
- I know that when Star Wars Galaxies released not a single person could get online during the first 24hrs of the game's launch, and there were numerous server problems after that.
- I know that Vanguard had a rocky launch with numerous server crashes, disconnects, and bugs.
- I know that when Tabula Rasa released it had so many bugs that a large number of players abandoned the game soon after launch. The game is now canceled.
- I know that Age of Conan released with so many bugs it suffered the same type of player desertion as TR. The game isn't even a year old and the price has already dropped to $19.99 on the company's own web site.
- I know that when Blizzard released Patch 3.0.2 there were so many crashing, lag, and disconnect issues that they had to start handing out free server transfers like candy. I remember there were several days where I couldn't connect to my server at all, and if I did manage to connect I had to wait in queue for an hour to do so.
Do you see a trend there? Every one of those MMOs had the funding of a big box publisher behind it - EA, SOE, NCSoft, Funcom, Blizzard. If all of those games - released by experienced and professional game developers/publishers - had rocky launches,
how in the world can you expect a first-time developer/publisher to have a smooth launch? I say again - your expectations were quite unrealistic.
How bout you go build a car from scratch and tell us how nicely it runs when you first start it up? You've driven a car all your life and you may have even done repair work/upgrades to your vehicle yourself, but that sure as hell doesn't mean you'll put together a flawless vehicle the first time you try.
I beta tested Darkfall, and I plan on playing it even before it's released in North America, but I've purposely decided to wait a bit before I even try to buy the game. I knew the launch was going to be rocky, and I knew a bunch of forum complainers were going to cream their pants over the opportunity to pancake about a "failed launch". Tasos stated that they would open up sales of the game in waves, so that they could upgrade their server capacity in as controlled a manner as possible. People are in the game playing right now. Don't be all pissy just because you're not one of them yet. The game will still be there when you get your copy.
No company launches MMOs perfectly, especially on the first try. Once you realize that you can start deciding whether or not Darkfall is the game for you.