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bartillo
02-23-2010, 03:32 AM
I mean a game that has a amazing feature list.. but it has no advertisement at all.. sites like massively and mmorpg.com im sure would love to do a interview etc with the devs to help advertise the game.

They want you to preorder also without any kind of beta.. (something i regret doing from another game currently in beta)

How do we know this is real?

the forums are empty, theres no hype.

And its releasing in 2 months! that sounds insane.

I hope this isnt just another flop like roma victor was.. promising amazing things and just failing.. though roma victor 2 is coming out later this year i believe.

Xsyon
02-23-2010, 05:30 AM
Hello!

To answer your points:

About advertisement, we've sent all of our information to many online sites, but only a few have listed us so far. Mmorpg.com has told us that they would be creating a spot for us and have had our logos and screenshots since mid January.

If there are any sites you think we should be listed on, please post them here in this thread and feel free to message the administrators of these sites to list us. A bit of a push would help.

About the beta: We do have a beta, it's just not a publicly open beta for the reasons I gave in the other thread.

About the forums: We just launched them yesterday. Give a bit of time to fill up!

About hype: We didn't want to hype the game until it was actually ready. I didn't want to announce any features in development. I've been in the game business long enough to expect 'unexpected' delays. We've had a few of those.

So rather than hype the game and have too many people anxiously waiting, I decided to announce the game as a surprise. We'll be doing the same with many game features that are planned. It's a different approach and we'll see how it goes.

We are looking for a small but tight initial community for the Prelude. Once we've laid the foundations of the world we plan to advertise a lot more.

For those that want to wait and see, that's alright. In a few weeks we'll be resetting the world and launching it from the main server for more beta and pre-order players to explore. I'm sure those players will be posting here to tell you more about the game experience.

bartillo
02-23-2010, 01:52 PM
well launching a mmorpg.com forum and letting them do a q&a with a dev would prob be a big thing to get people here.

Also i did send a tip to massively.com about this game.

I really hope we get a video soon as was seen in the last thread.

For people that preorder will there be a NDA?
hopefully someone will be the guinea pig and then give us all info :p

Virtus
02-23-2010, 01:56 PM
There will be no NDA. We want everyone to know what the game is like

Kaldor
02-23-2010, 04:26 PM
It is funny, I was thinking the same thing.

There are alot of us that float around looking for game like this, and I think myself to be one that thought I knew all that was out there.

I come here (From a random post found on MO forums) and the first thing I see is Preview for pre-orders.

I wont lie the idea set looks promising.
Looks like I have something else to keep my eye on. I hope soonish there is some kind of preview avail. I don't mind throwing $$ at unknown games, I just want to see it first hand lol.

Darkfunk
02-23-2010, 04:46 PM
I was thinking exactly the same thing also (hello all by the way!) , but you know what? I think i'm gonna pre-order... This did sound too good to be true but the devs/admins raise a good point about keeping things under wraps until its complete - look at the immense dissapointment about Darkfall beta and even MO beta to some degree. So yeah, i'm gonna be trusting for a change and pre-order(just gonna have to wait til payday now :laugh: )

Simsu
02-23-2010, 07:36 PM
Going on what is shown so far this game has a lot of promise. Almost to the point of the feature list being so good that its unbelievable. (To be fair it makes sense to build a game without over hyping it from day 1 and only putting out the info when there is something real.)

That being said I'm very much looking forward to seeing what new info is put out on Xsyon. I actually recently posted my ideas, over on another site, on what I thought the next big MMO would look like and a lot of those ideas are the same as whats listed here. Good stuff.

Orphen
02-23-2010, 08:04 PM
Without an open beta how do you plan on properly stress testing the servers before launch? I would really rather not have frequent server crashes more than usual for a MMO launch (Of course there usually are crashes with new launches, which is fair of course).

May I ask, How do you plan to stress test the servers before launch?

Baldur
02-23-2010, 11:45 PM
I'm still a bit tender from the tall promises of my last game... I'm sure Jooky is too.
Hopefully it was a learning experience. It's going to be hard to put together a sandbox of this scope, but hopefully it's done right this time.
Videos, more info, and then I'd be more inclined to preorder.

Virtus
02-23-2010, 11:47 PM
hey balder! I thought it was you :) and yes I here you on that one. Stop by Xsyon IRC, its just next door to that other games.

Xsyon
02-24-2010, 05:24 AM
Orphen wrote:

May I ask, How do you plan to stress test the servers before launch?

They've been stress tested and should support the size of community we expect without problems.

If the initial community is larger than expected we will split the world onto two servers.

Beyond that we will temporarily stop taking orders until we can expand the world (the actual terrain onto different servers) to accomodate more players. I don't expect that to happen, but we are prepared in any case.

Xsyon
02-24-2010, 05:30 AM
Baldur wrote:


Hopefully it was a learning experience.

A very painful and frustrating one. You don't know how many times the first notice I got of a promised game feature that apparently I was currently developing, was when I saw it publicly posted on the website.

I'm not going going to announce any features that aren't already at least 80% done. There are quite a few interesting things I left off the features list for this reason.

Cradlejoe
02-24-2010, 07:55 AM
Xsyon wrote:

Baldur wrote:


Hopefully it was a learning experience.

A very painful and frustrating one. You don't know how many times the first notice I got of a promised game feature that apparently I was currently developing, was when I saw it publicly posted on the website.

I'm not going going to announce any features that aren't already at least 80% done. There are quite a few interesting things I left off the features list for this reason.

Hehe, if only Peter Molyneux could learn to do that :)

Baldur
02-24-2010, 09:10 AM
Sounds great. Really looking forward to seeing this come to life B)

Bumbin
02-25-2010, 08:02 PM
This reminds me of an online browser game I played where once a day you would do one task (chop wood, hunt, sell, etc.) This also reminds me of The Realm where success will depend largely on community based activities.

This game seems very interesting, to see who will come together not to progress their character so much, but to build a community and expand.

Virtus
02-25-2010, 09:57 PM
Bumbin wrote:

This reminds me of an online browser game I played where once a day you would do one task (chop wood, hunt, sell, etc.) This also reminds me of The Realm where success will depend largely on community based activities.

This game seems very interesting, to see who will come together not to progress their character so much, but to build a community and expand.

It also means you have to have a smart and generous crowd. If half the people in the game are only thinking about themselves the game will go nowhere.

bartillo
02-25-2010, 10:11 PM
I'm still pretty unsure about this game.

I mean no beta is what worries me the most.. they say they stress tested already and i assume that means with AI (virtually) however it could be way different with players...
Could be server crashes galore.
And plenty of bugs.

Virtus
02-25-2010, 10:25 PM
They have been developing the game for 2-3 years, that is, when the coding was first laid down. Since then they have been building and testing as they go.

For some of the closed beta coming up (I don't know if pre-orders will be allowed in, but a select group will) they will turn off the features and one by one turn them all one. This way they know that each feature is fin before moving onto the next. If a feature breaks after another feature is implemented then you know there is a feature interaction problem.

Redus
02-26-2010, 03:50 AM
Virtus wrote:

For some of the closed beta coming up (I don't know if pre-orders will be allowed in, but a select group will) they will turn off the features and one by one turn them all one. This way they know that each feature is fin before moving onto the next. If a feature breaks after another feature is implemented then you know there is a feature interaction problem.

I wish it was as easy as you made it sound. Pretty often try to use this approach myself and pretty often when you fix the thing, you break something else....well at least I do :P

Daed
02-26-2010, 03:09 PM
Baldur wrote:

I'm still a bit tender from the tall promises of my last game... I'm sure Jooky is too.
Hopefully it was a learning experience. It's going to be hard to put together a sandbox of this scope, but hopefully it's done right this time.
Videos, more info, and then I'd be more inclined to preorder.

which game was that?

Gimpel
02-26-2010, 03:25 PM
I will wait for a trial or a test version. I don't buy any mmorpg, before I tested it since AoC ;) ^^

Screenshots may look great and vidoes awesome, but the playing of a game can be totally different.

Redus
02-26-2010, 03:57 PM
Gimpel wrote:

I will wait for a trial or a test version. I don't buy any mmorpg, before I tested it since AoC ;) ^^

Screenshots may look great and vidoes awesome, but the playing of a game can be totally different.

You would think I would have learned this lesson by now....so many game I preordered and hardly played when they gone retail.

lildeath16
02-27-2010, 08:35 PM
Xsyon wrote:

In a few weeks we'll be resetting the world and launching it from the main server for more beta and pre-order players to explore. I'm sure those players will be posting here to tell you more about the game experience.

Will we have to pre-order to be in beta?

Virtus
02-27-2010, 09:21 PM
lildeath16 wrote:

Xsyon wrote:

In a few weeks we'll be resetting the world and launching it from the main server for more beta and pre-order players to explore. I'm sure those players will be posting here to tell you more about the game experience.

Will we have to pre-order to be in beta?

Yes. It is a beta/pre-release

Uzik
02-27-2010, 10:49 PM
I'm actually pretty happy about the concept of not having the site and forums up until the game is almost ready.

After following Darkfall for 8 years only to have it fail I've realized community hype can suck.

aurickle
02-28-2010, 12:23 AM
If I understand things correctly, pre-ordering gets you into Prelude and (room permitting) a bit of closed beta before that. But Prelude itself is for all intents and purposes an open beta of the game.

Now to be honest I am normally vehemently opposed to paying for beta access. However, Xsyon is a rather different beast. Free open betas cost a lot of money for an MMO. That's something that would only be practical with a major publisher. However, publishers tend to like games that are sure-fire hits. Innovate too much and they start seeing lots of risk, which leads them to look for other companies to invest in. Xsyon's feature list is extremely innovative, which probably scared the pants off the publishers.

So it really comes down to a Catch-22 in this case. Someone has to be willing to put up the money necessary to break the mold -- something that is desperately needed in the MMO world today! So Xsyon has forced me to change my stance a bit: I vehemently oppose paying to beta test a so-called AAA title, but if it's a small company that is truly trying to innovate I'm right there with you.

If the game flops, well it's only $40. That's still cheaper than most games today. If it's a success, I'm getting two free months of play plus the game itself. That's a good deal.

Virtus
02-28-2010, 12:32 AM
aurickle wrote:

If I understand things correctly, pre-ordering gets you into Prelude and (room permitting) a bit of closed beta before that. But Prelude itself is for all intents and purposes an open beta of the game.


No, Prelude is the beginning chapter of Xsyon. It will be the time where people come together to form tribes, build towns and explore the world before all the other events start to occur. It is a time where you will not have to worry too much about what might happen to you or your village while you are away.

aurickle wrote:


Now to be honest I am normally vehemently opposed to paying for beta access.


You are not paying for beta access. You are, however, pre-ordering for the game which comes with 2 free months, and a free in game item of your choosing.

Because you are pre-ordering, as thanks, we are allowing pre-orders into the server early, first come first serve basis.

aurickle
02-28-2010, 12:34 AM
Thanks for the clarification. Both ways, I still think it's a bargain!

Kush
02-28-2010, 07:59 AM
Being that there is no NDA, are there any beta testers that can attest to all these features. Like many I'm tempted to preorder.

Virtus
02-28-2010, 08:05 AM
Kush wrote:

Being that there is no NDA, are there any beta testers that can attest to all these features. Like many I'm tempted to preorder.

Currently, no, all testing is done in house. There should be some going in around mid march though.

Daed
02-28-2010, 08:27 AM
yeah it's odd that the site launched with no actual gameplay videos or in-game screen shots with the ui..

Cradlejoe
02-28-2010, 09:15 AM
Daed wrote:

yeah it's odd that the site launched with no actual gameplay videos or in-game screen shots with the ui..

It is?
I've known other games where gameplay vids haven't come for ages. And having no UI in the screenshots doesn't really mean anything.

Daed
02-28-2010, 09:35 AM
Cradlejoe wrote:

Daed wrote:

yeah it's odd that the site launched with no actual gameplay videos or in-game screen shots with the ui..

It is?
I've known other games where gameplay vids haven't come for ages. And having no UI in the screenshots doesn't really mean anything.

yeah but most games don't launch a month and a half after they are announced..

Cradlejoe
02-28-2010, 09:40 AM
The old site had been up for a very long time but they deliberately downplayed their existance.
This is just a new site, not the initial announcement.

Xsyon
02-28-2010, 09:46 AM
Kush wrote:

Being that there is no NDA, are there any beta testers that can attest to all these features. Like many I'm tempted to preorder.

There is an NDA in place.

There will be no NDA for preorder players that are let in before the launch.

Daed
02-28-2010, 09:47 AM
Cradlejoe wrote:

The old site had been up for a very long time but they deliberately downplayed their existance.
This is just a new site, not the initial announcement.

still doesn't change the fact that the game is launching in a month and a half and there are no game play videos and no in game screen shots with the ui. and unless i missed them, i don't see any first person combat screen shots with a weapon out.

kdalts
06-05-2010, 02:06 AM
Hate to bring this up again.... but I've been palying for a couple of weeks and still all I can do is cut trees and dig mud huts. There have been several wipes, I get continual client crashes and the teraforming is bugged where the scenes join.

I hope I am wrong but the lack of noise both in game and on the forums from the Devs does worry me.

Paradox
06-05-2010, 06:18 AM
kdalts wrote:

Hate to bring this up again.... but I've been palying for a couple of weeks and still all I can do is cut trees and dig mud huts. There have been several wipes, I get continual client crashes and the teraforming is bugged where the scenes join.

I hope I am wrong but the lack of noise both in game and on the forums from the Devs does worry me.


We are still doing the scam rumor?

I guess it would be fair to complain about the rate of progress but with everyone in the early access (or beta… whatever) now I don’t see any reason to keep this thread alive. They say that they have mostly been working on the server lately which seems reasonable considering the changes in server stability over the last few weeks. Features in game are not the only measure of progress. Go back and reread the link of continuous updates we are getting from Xsyon and then tell me we are suffering from “lack of noise” from the Devs. I say we are getting more info than most Dev teams give.


May be you are just upset over the lack of stuff to do in game right now, if so I am with you there. But I am hopeful we will have more toys in the sandbox very soon:)



Xsyon wrote:

Update June 4:

Just a short update today.

The new servers are almost set up, we're busy testing major changes with the server and lots of details are being worked on from checking added skills to finishing many requested improvements.

It will definitely be at least a few more days until the next update is ready.

We'll keep cranking on everything through the weekend.

If the server is lagging a lot or having problems due to extreme terraforming, let me know and I can reset the database for those messing around in game over the weekend.

http://www.xsyon.com/forums/30-prelude-talk/13607-xsyon-updates?limit=10&start=50

pid73
06-05-2010, 09:22 AM
necrothreader should be banned

zasdman
06-05-2010, 09:50 AM
kdalts...

stop fishing...

celestial_fury
06-05-2010, 09:54 AM
Hi

I just read this info from mmorpg forums:


Features listed = 121



Done=48



Not Done=73

Gamefreak
06-05-2010, 10:30 AM
Was there really a point in brining this thread back to life?

Clearly this game is not a scam. We are seeing features being added as planned by the developers. This is also one of the few games I have seen where the developers actually respond directly to people, which deserves an incredible amount of respect in itself.

cbowsin
06-05-2010, 11:01 AM
I expect this to come up often because in a sense Notorious is going about a different way to build customer confidence than traditional MMOs.

The Features list is not really what is in the Beta but more like what they plan on having in the release. So it is not a scam but more like a roadmap.

Basically NG want to go the route of building a small playersbase that enjoy a fully fuctional game prior to actually marketing the product to rake in players. Unlike many MMOs that market first and worry about fixing second.

What it comes down to is Pre-ordering is an investment. It could turn out to be a bad investment or a great investment and it is up to the player to decide if they want to take that chance.

zephar123
06-05-2010, 11:05 AM
cbowsin wrote:

I expect this to come up often because in a sense Notorious is going about a different way to build customer confidence than traditional MMOs.

The Features list is not really what is in the Beta but more like what they plan on having in the release. So it is not a scam but more like a roadmap.

Basically NG want to go the route of building a small playersbase that enjoy a fully fuctional game prior to actually marketing the product to rake in players. Unlike many MMOs that market first and worry about fixing second.

What it comes down to is Pre-ordering is an investment. It could turn out to be a bad investment or a great investment and it is up to the player to decide if they want to take that chance.

/signed

what he said