f13.net

3) The druid is an offensive caster (DDs and DoTs) with root (40% chance to break if target is damaged), damage shield (1 hour duration), a weak heal and eventually SoW and levitate.

7) I find the UI crude coming from EQ2 but it is functional. I have a chat box and a combat box. The target box is too bulky and the mob's level is a tiny number. So far, the only color coding on the mobs is yellow = nonaggro, red = aggro. I have seen no evidence of green-blue-white-yellow-orange a la EQ2/EQ.

2. Nothing on leveling speed.  If a game is actually enjoyable to play, then it shouldn't matter how long it takes to hit 50.  Reaching 50 in one day is pointless if the game is sheer torture.

1. Core mechanics.  The game is level-based, but has a hefty number of skills.  Is this the same as EQ/WoW's 'you have skills but they don't actually do much of anything and level is all that matters' system, or something actually approximating a skill-based game like UO/Oblivion?  Do the stats have a significant impact on a character, or are they more or less ignorable?

2. Races.  Are they unique and compelling?  Examples of uniqueness are stats that are noticeably different from the other races; EverQuest's 'High Elves get +5 intelligence!' is an example of a difference that doesn't count for crap.  Examples of compelling details for a race are EverQuest's different flavors of low-light vision (EQ2's ugly and useless low-light vision modes don't count), a unique and interesting home city, and lots of quests and lore about each race to give them a place in the world.  Going back to EQ, the VahShir's newbie citizenship quest was a very good way to immerse players in the race; on the flip side of that coin, however, EQ did a shitty job of making the other players care about that race, "Um, there's, like, a moon, and cat people live on it." was about the extent of things.  Good game lore should familiarize players of every race with what's going on with every other race.  High Elven players should be intimately familiar with every misdeed performed by the Dark Elves and why they are hated so, while the Dark Elves should know that the High Elves are all just prissy racists trying to keep the black man down.

3. Classes.  As with the races, are the classes distinct from each other?  The original vision of EQ2 is a prime example of a game that completely failed at compelling and distinct classes; one healer was much the same as another.  Ideally, each class should have mechanics that sets it completely unique from the others; WoW did a very handy job of this.  Nobody could ever confuse a totem-dropping Shaman with a soul-stealing Warlock, even if both of them were performing a similar role of standing back and zapping monsters.  On the other hand, each class needs to be broad enough to find a place in a party, in much the way that a WoW party seeking DPS can easily accept a Rogue or Mage to perform the role.  Also, as with races, there should be ample quests available to acquaint everyone with their own class and what to expect from the other classes.  Hopefully enough to prevent any more 'SoW plz' to the clerics.

3a. Classes in combat.  Vanguard uses the 'auto-attack plus specials' of EQ and all of its progeny.  Are the spells and attacks unique and interesting?  Early WoW feral druids are an example of attacks that were not at all interesting.  Run up to monster, claw, claw, claw, claw, claw, rip, repeat until monster dead, repeat on next monster.  Just as bad as EverQuest's old 'hit attack and sit back to watch the fight, hitting the Kick button now and then'.

3b. AI in combat.  How intelligently do the NPCs fight?  Is it a simple threat model, or do they display any more advanced behavior?

4. Tradeskills.  Do they create items of worth, or are they a money/time sink?  Low-level tradeskills often create decent items for their level, while high-end tradeskills usually create trash for their level.  If nobody has gotten to see the upper levels of crafted items, nobody may be able to answer this one.

5. Diplomacy.  Okay, they took Oblivion's persuasion minigame and made it into a card game.  What does it do?  What benefits are gained from getting chummy with NPCs?  Can it actually make a big difference, to the tune of being able to talk your way through a KOS city or avoiding fights with monsters?

6. The World.  Do NPCs have any life to them, or are they still standing in the same spot 24/7 like they did in EQ, unmoving and unspeaking?  Do events of complexity occur, such as a quest 'spawning' near a player with scripted NPCs (a caravan appears on the road, the owner is distraught because his daughter is missing), or is the wilderness just a giant monster-spawning field?  Is anything actually going on like a war or invasion or something that will bring change from month to month, or is the world more or less static, with Fippy making his eternal charge for Qeynos every five minutes?

6a. Exploration bait.  Are there interesting things to find?  Caves, temples, tombs, monuments, villages, out of the way NPCs and quests?

7. Convenience.  Customizable user interface, easy means for players to find groups, well-written quest logs for keeping track of things, not having to sit and stare at a spellbook for five minutes after every fight, stuff along those lines that show polish and forethought in the game-playing experience.

6) I have seen little of the world, but there are a lot of "frozen" NPCs in the vulmane town. Some guards wander a bit. There is no "life" in that sense.  Too early to comment on exploration potential. One of my guildmates crossed the Thestra continent on his level 10 horse. It took 45 minutes and he didn't remark on anything special in Ventrilo while he was doing it.

I'm not sure how you can say WoW's skills don't matter, there are whole sites dedicated to arguing about the best way to build your character, whether to go Disc/Holy/Shadow type stuff, Vanguard has no such skill allocation system. It has a lot of skills but they are in the EQ style of just getting skill ups as you use something so that you are more successful at said skill. You can spend attribute points to increase your str/int/wis etc once you hit level ten, you get a handful every third of a level or so.

Dude, you could be rght. But I can't help saying: "4th Vanguard thread? WTF!!"

I'm not sure how you can say WoW's skills don't matter, there are whole sites dedicated to arguing about the best way to build your character, whether to go Disc/Holy/Shadow type stuff, Vanguard has no such skill allocation system.  It has a lot of skills but they are in the EQ style of just getting skill ups as you use something so that you are more successful at said skill.  You can spend attribute points to increase your str/int/wis etc once you hit level ten, you get a handful every third of a level or so.

I have some questions to ask, although I'm not sure if I should put them into this thread...

I would like to know a couple things before I pick this sucker up and check out the trainwreck:


1)  Is the client stable? Semi-Frequent Crashes to Desktop are not acceptable.

2)  Is the server stable?

3)  How is the population?  Totally overcrowded?  Ghost Town?

4)  How is the performance?  I have a 3700+ and a decent video card, 2 gigs of ram.  Will I be frustrated with performance while playing more than 5% of the time?

5)  How are the classes?  Distinct?  Unfinished?  Totally unbalanced? 

1)  Is the client stable? Semi-Frequent Crashes to Desktop are not acceptable.

2)  Is the server stable?

3)  How is the population?  Totally overcrowded?  Ghost Town?

4)  How is the performance?  I have a 3700+ and a decent video card, 2 gigs of ram.  Will I be frustrated with performance while playing more than 5% of the time?

5)  How are the classes?  Distinct?  Unfinished?  Totally unbalanced? 

1)  Is the client stable? Semi-Frequent Crashes to Desktop are not acceptable.

2)  Is the server stable?

3)  How is the population?  Totally overcrowded?  Ghost Town?

4)  How is the performance?  I have a 3700+ and a decent video card, 2 gigs of ram.  Will I be frustrated with performance while playing more than 5% of the time?

5)  How are the classes?  Distinct?  Unfinished?  Totally unbalanced? 

1. Nothing on performance/stability

1)  Is the client stable? Semi-Frequent Crashes to Desktop are not acceptable.

2)  Is the server stable?

3)  How is the population?  Totally overcrowded?  Ghost Town?

4)  How is the performance?  I have a 3700+ and a decent video card, 2 gigs of ram.  Will I be frustrated with performance while playing more than 5% of the time?

5)  How are the classes?  Distinct?  Unfinished?  Totally unbalanced? 

Why not? Its not like they are breaking any new grounds with design that they have an excuse of not having stability at release.

Because just about every MMOG ever made broke like a matchstick on release day.  EQ did it.  WoW did it.  AO definitely did it.  And despite all of those unstable releases, they inevitably managed to get things back up and running smoothly within a month.

Because just about every MMOG ever made broke like a matchstick on release day.  EQ did it.  WoW did it.  AO definitely did it.  And despite all of those unstable releases, they inevitably managed to get things back up and running smoothly within a month.

Wouldn't you agree that there are degrees of instability?  I think AO tried to format your hard drive at one point in time.

Thanks. I am an experienced MMOG but when I play a new game I let it lead me by the nose. There is nothing in game that explains this mechanic to a new player.

www.vgplayers.com (http://www.vgplayers.com)

Better than what SOE does for EQ2players.com. This site somehow actually took a screenshot of my character and put it there. Moderately innovative, anyway.

Holy crap you're right luckily I wasn't saying anything. (http://vgplayers.station.sony.com/media/media_full_view.vm?imageId=4092180&imageCategory=General&characterId=85899350560)  Really cool feature, once they close a couple holes.

Edit: Bah, the site went down for maintenance once I hit the preview button.

Well, there is an auction house and lots of gathering/crafting.  You have to get a house built for you by crafters and then purchase the plot of land and place it.  Crafters can also make and sell boats so that you can head out to sea.  I'm not sure what you mean by dynamic world spawns, there are quests where monsters/NPCs only spawn if you use an item.  The only landscape changing I can think of is the housing, and I suppose leaving your tombstones all over.

But whenever someone says "virtual world" my eyes sort of glaze over so I don't think I've bothered to read the latest of the shifting definitions for it so I can't tell you if Vanguard would qualify.  I doubt it.

There was someone that posted on this forum that they would consider playing this game if they could do so in god mode with a flying mount and the weapon selection from Farcry.  I think another way of seeing tis is, I would be willing to play a game if it could be done on easy mode.

Its an rpg and without tedious stuff to lay the groundwork for our success it just becomes 'I play in godmode'.

I generally 6 box in EQ2

I generally 6 box in EQ2

Seek some fucking help. FOR THE CHILDREN!

Nothing wrong with multi boxing. 

Just a different way to play the game. 

Actually, yes there is something wrong with multiboxing. It's called Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.


Yes, it's called EASY MODE. Now, I can certainly understand not wanting to group with the unwashed retard masses of an MMOG community, but paying for more than 1 subscription, let alone 6? You are enabling the continued shittiness of the MMOG medium.

EDIT: I would tell you never to breed, but I'm sure the massive amounts of radiation from all those monitors in close proximity will eventually render your testicles or ovaries inert anyway.

Mutli boxing in a PvE game doesn't matter.  In a PvP game it does, since games are not balanced for it.

I generally 6 box in EQ2 and the casters can't attack something they can't see and obviously a melee can't.

As a multi boxer I hate the /follow command.  The second character will follow reasonably well but their point of view rotates so they are looking behind themselves as the run.  Will make multi boxing very difficult.  I generally 6 box in EQ2 and the casters can't attack something they can't see and obviously a melee can't.  So you would have to adjust each character so they are turned to the mob you are attacking.  Mob is 1/4 dead by the time I can rotate my second character to attack.

In a Diku, if you find yourself needing to multi-box...maybe the game just isn't that good.

Haem, aren't you one of the ones that keep saying people shouldn't have to play games a certain way (the way the developers want them to, specifically)?

Why do you then turn around and bash on someone that plays a game the way they want?

Haem, aren't you one of the ones that keep saying people shouldn't have to play games a certain way (the way the developers want them to, specifically)?

I tell people they can drink however they want, right up until they get so liquored up they are starting fights, crashing into trees and being general douchebags.

I never said he COULDN'T do such a thing. But the consequences of that type of obsessive compulsive behaviour are something he will have to deal with. One of those consequences is he will earn my continued, justified derision for being a fucktard. Another is that he will be paying a company X times (where X=6 in his case) the amount of money for a subscription just to keep the suck out of his game. That doesn't cause developers to remove the suck of things like forced grouping, it encourages them to put MORE of that stupid shit in the game. See, he wants to play a game where he can solo, but the developers make that nigh impossible. Instead of being a healthy mammal and telling the developers "Screw you guys, I'm going home," he pays them more money to remove the suck.

I shouldn't have to explain how buying 6 subscriptions is a fucktarded thing to do. I don't even like 2-boxing, but I can accept where it might be not so bad. But 6-boxing? That's just too much.

think they are more along the lines of guys that like to customize their cars and show off on Sunday night at the main strip.  Its more of a "can I do this thing?" than a lack of fun in the game thing.

Trust me, most of you motherfuckers would never make it through rule 2.

Until his 6-box one-man Borg Collective comes and takes my camp. THEN IT'S ON!

But the first impression I get from seeing it...'Is that WoW?'

Holy shit that looks...like...WoW. I can't even tell the difference, besides the fact that the players' names are teal, not blue and red.

Depends if you think "WoW but not as fun" is a selling point or not, I suppose.

Oh now this is funny. So... is this good news or bad news for Vanguard?

Now that there is coin banking that should stop happening.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2LwivUq3UI

9) Some mobs that look non-aggro at a distance (yellow name) can become aggro (name changes to red) if you get close. I like this. Makes the world seem dangerous. On the flip side, the outdoors is so huge that you can pretty much bypass anything you want to.

Diplomacy is a very cool idea.  I've gotten myself up to 25 skill so far.  I could see this being quite a bit of fun in PvP as well.  We'll see if it gets boring though.  Right now there isn't much strategy, and it's generally too easy.  I could see this changing though, and hopefully it will become more challenging higher up.

Futhermore, the only way to get off the continent of Qalia is through a boat/teleporter in the city of Khal. Should you have been so poor a player as to chose the Dark Elf race, which is KOS in Khal, you have to kill around 500 faction hit mobs to be able to travel. Then of course, whatever your destination, you're KOS there too. So get back to grinding.

Hard to remember back that far for most folks, but EQ was the same way.  As a Dark Elf/ Ogre/ Troll you were confined to the starting continent unless you were super sneaky.   Only the "H4rdk0r3" who wanted to play SK/ Necros as a non-human race or RP'ers rolled those races back then.

Honestly, I think this is simply because they threw in the faction adjustments at the very last moment. Nothing like getting a delivery quest from a stock newbie progression NPC to find that that recipient is a level 40 cleric that nukes you for 1k damage just as you approach her for delivery. She turned 'red' to me about 3 feet away from her. There is no listing or warning in game about factions yet, other than a progressive counter when you kill a mob that has a faction hit either way. Still, even then, the counters all start at 0, so even if you're KOS to High Elves but not KOS to Half Giants, both start at 0 faction for you.

...well, that's... interesting. There can be situations where you're not KOS to the quest giver but are KOS to the quest recipient?

--GF

I'm guessing the passive to aggresive stuff is a bug, not a feature.

Just to nit pick, and nothing personal, but you say this as if 1) it's hard (it's not) and 2) they do it well (vast majority of these kids do not).

Sorry, but paying for a paint job, strapping on a couple of lights, and bolting this to the trunk lid of your Civic is neither hard nor attractive. I wish more of these stupid kids nowadays would listen.

(http://www.mrbodykit.com/images/wings/allwings/Bomz%20Racing%20Type%20V%20Aluminum%203D%20Gt%20Spoiler%20Wing%20Silver.jpg)

Mobs with sneak ability can literally pounce on you with no warning if you fail the check

It always freaks me out when I start seeing awareness skillups because I know there is something around me that I can't damn well see :).

* running alone in a field *
Your skill in awareness has increased to 92!
* stops *
* looks around and sees nothing *
Your skill in awareness has increased to 93!
* still nothing *
An Aekbold Assassin hits you for 120 damage!

Neither myself or Miasma criticized surprise encounters. Seems like you think someone did. It is a nice new twist.

You should understand now that those skillups are the same as the robot in Lost in Space shouting at the top its lungs, "Danger, Danger!!!11!!"

Just as I was sort of tiring of Vanguard, I had the best night yet. The starting city is VERY important to sucking you in. I moved my wolf druid to Halagarad, the barbarian town. There were some different kinds of quests that were fun.

One quest line:

1) Visit an outpost and discover it is overrun with gnolls. Return.
2) Go kill some gnolls and collect their paws. Return.
3) Take this bag of gnoll paws that you collected and drop it in the middle of the gnoll camp to "send a message". Have to fight your way into camp and then right-click the bag in your inventory to drop it.

Yes, the mechanics are generic but it took about 20 minutes to complete the line and you learned some lore.

Um, you realize there are tons of quests in WoW every MMO made in the past 5 years that are JUST like this, right?  I'm not sure why that's a big deal..

Fixed that for you.

If the guy is having fun, who cares? 

You're correct Val, it's not.  I guess I just had a knee-jerk reaction to the WoW comment since WoW hasn't really revolutionized anything either.  

Revolutionized, no.. I'm trying to think of an MMO that has pulled off scripted quests as well as WoW has though.  The only other MMO I've played that even really HAD quests where there were scripted actions was DaoC.  Granted I missed out on the Final Fantasy MMO, so it likely had that sort of thing too. 

I've had more "Huh, that's really neat" things happen to me in WoW than any other MMO. 

I've yet to group.  Obviously, this will be big a focus of the game, so how the game is with grouping is going to be essential.  The LFG window seems nice at the least.

Valmorian: It's not a big deal, but since it looks like WoW is great and Vanguard sucks, while some are trying to explain since a long time that they play very similar, I guess Shiznitz one's a good example.

If Vanguard and WoW are so similar, why play the less polished one?

If Vanguard and WoW are so similar, why play the less polished one?

One of the interesting bits in the game is that you can learn things from mobs you ffight, you will get a message that you have begun to understand ability x and then after a while you will understand that you have mastered it and it will be in your combat ability book. 

- Vanguard world is larger. So much larger. It's a pleasure to explore it. And I can fly over it and pilot boats over it. Wanguard is a world, while WoW zones are very well painted and connected room. Or "zones", if you prefer.

- Vanguard crafting is better.

- I hate instances. Vanguard dungeons are shared. WoW ones aren't.

- Vanguard has Diplomacy. Diplomacy minigame is nice, Diplomacy quests are great.

- Vanguard has houses.

- Vanguard has more races and especially more classes.

- Vanguard combat is more engaging TO ME. It keeps me on my toes as it's a little more unpredictable than WoW one (so far). Finishers, counter and epic hits are nice. Weaknesses could be huge, I still have to grasp the thing.

- It has meaningful death penalties. I like the risk vs. reward concept.

Um, you realize there are tons of quests in WoW that are JUST like this, right?  I'm not sure why that's a big deal..

I have not returned to this game following the repeated crashes at the moment I load the DVDs to install.

Below is a well known, old warrior site.  It is intersting to see that the Vanguard section seems to quite active - more active than WoW - and there is no sign of EQ2.  The site is of EQ origin - not indicative of a broader player base today - but I was surprised.

http://www.thesteelwarrior.org/forum/index.php?s=2713dd06e640adacc24b080302ef0f4c

Not that I'm complaining too bitterly, mind you, since for me teh big was never something that I considered a way to make things better. But off hand, EQ, AO, DAoC and WoW have far larger and more varied landscapes than Vanguard does.

The old EQ class sites started before everyone knew how to find spoilers and really exploded in popularity when they shut down whineplay.  Some of them tried to get WoW sections going, but I don't think any of them reached critical mass (except maybe Graffe's) because WoW has official boards which draw so much attention.  Vanguard does not have official boards because McQuaid thinks private class sites are cooler. 

I don't see why surprise encounters are a bad thing in these games, we allow it both ways in pen and paper versions of these games and we are allowed to surprise what we fight in the game otherwise as well too.   I really like the idea myself. 

I never played WoW, not that you would know that.

edit: it is in my sig now.

To be honest, I'm not that convinced about this Vanguard Vastness, myself. It took me approximately 45 minutes to travel from New Targonor to Halgarad, a full cross-continent trip, on a newbie horse. Nothing particularly of interest along the way. Token mobs here and there. This was not an 'as the crow flies' trip, either. I took winding roads to get there.

Not that I'm complaining too bitterly, mind you, since for me teh big was never something that I considered a way to make things better. But off hand, EQ, AO, DAoC and WoW have far larger and more varied landscapes than Vanguard does.

After you tire of Vanguard, it would be interesting to hear your impressions of playing WoW if you're willing to try it then. Until then, you're just a curiosity, because nothing you say about Vanguard is even in context.

Does anyone have a map of Vanguard's world so I can get an idea of what this 45 minute trip was? And I like maps.

edit I ran across this while looking for something else- Oh how soon we forget
http://www.thecomputershow.com/computershow/reviews/everquestkunark.htm (http://www.thecomputershow.com/computershow/reviews/everquestkunark.htm)

The question is not how big of a world they have, the question is how much content is there. Farlan used to love to brag on how big the landmass was in Dark and Light, yet it did not get them very far now did it? Not saying that Vanguard is DnL quality, but if you make a large play ground you better have some swings and slides there for the kids to use, otherwise it is just a empty field.

Caravans are already in the game. I tested it out the other night, but it didn't work exactly the way I thought it might. After I joined a leader's caravan I had to camp within 10 minutes or I was going to get booted from the caravan.

After you camp, I think you have to wait a couple of hours before you log in and you can choose to show up either where you camped at or where your caravan leader is or camped at. Don't remember whcih it was. This will be useful later on, if you're in some zone that the rest of your group is planning on continuing on with but you need to jet and then want to join them all at a later point in time, but not so useful for any kind of speedy travel.

Ok, so it's "large".  Asheron's Call had a HUGE world space, but how much of it is interesting?  How much of it is unique?  (I honestly don't know, so this is a real question here.)  If it's acre after acre of open unused area, I'll pass on that for the "smaller" WoW, where there are interesting things to see all over the place.

edit I ran across this while looking for something else- Oh how soon we forget
http://www.thecomputershow.com/computershow/reviews/everquestkunark.htm (http://www.thecomputershow.com/computershow/reviews/everquestkunark.htm)

Did you actually read what I wrote?

“Originally we thought that if we did EverQuest in three years we could do this game in three years, but that was naïve both because of how ambitious our design was and how other games raised the bar,” he said. “Twenty-three guys and three years wasn’t going to cut it anymore. Now we have 110 people on one project. Figuring out how to set that up with different levels of managers and teams was quite a learning experience, and it cost us a lot of time and money.”

“I’d love to be a billionaire and fund it all myself and take more time, but all I can do is make the best game I can at launch and get the message out that it isn’t as polished as WOW but it also has a lot more depth and a lot more freedom.”

According to Nino over at the FoH boards (sorry, no link to the post - I'm at work), Sigil has scrapped fellowships because the week or so of testing they had on them just prior to launch showed the concept was fundamentally broken with respect to VG's design. (Read: They were being used for powerlevelling...which anyone with at least two functional neurons remaining in their skull could have pointed out was what would happen).

Sigil are planning on using mentoring/reverse mentoring instead.

That's a terrible idea, I think. I've got many friends who would love to play VG with me, but I play in the early mornings and they play late at night (Not to mention some of them having MMO-loyalty issues). The Fellowship system was pretty much all we had going in that dream that we'd finally MMO together. Oh well...

Edit: Relevance being that I'm sure there were a lot of people in similar situations.

Didn't AC have some type of pyramid xp scheme in which the guy at the top got xp from all the people in the tree below him?  Is that system still in game?

I can't think of any other MMO going over 30millions beside WoW (which was 60 millions IIRC, adveritising included, right?).
Which other ones are you thinking about?

He says he’s going after “players who are looking for something deeper, more like a home.” He adds, “I don’t expect to get six or seven million players, but if we have 500,000 by the end of the year and keep growing after that, I’ll be happy.”

As the years passed and the price tag neared $20 million, Microsoft began to lose patience with Mr. McQuaid, who insisted on adding more virtual landscape and other features to the game. By 2005 Microsoft was focused on introducing the Xbox 360 console and was looking for someone to take Vanguard off its hands. (Microsoft representatives declined to discuss the matter in detail.)

In the end he may have good cause to be upbeat. “In some ways this is just the beginning of a long journey,” Mr. McQuaid said. “People ask me, ‘Are you launching a finished game?’ And the answer is no, we’re launching a game that is good enough to launch, but it’s not finished. And that’s why I love these games: because they should never be finished.”

My definition of finished and Brad's definition of finished seem to wildly differ.  For this, and this alone, I want to smack him upside the head.

The only reason they are a bad thing is because of the death penalties. If death didn't hurt, surprise me all day. If I've the potential to lose a level from some attack I never see, it's an assraping.

Right. You lose XP when you die but you get it back (fully, so far) when you succesfully perform the Corpse Run.
If you lose more XP than you can afford, meaning that you woul de-level, then you get debt instead of the loss of a level.

My buddy, who has been a Vanguard fanboi from the very beginning, has quit in disgust.

Not only we get them SO mad at us, but I died two times and from 97% into level 15 I fell back to 83%. At that point I summoned my corpses, took the durability hit, cried for my lost XP and called it a night.

Was it fun? Hell no! I was so pissed and my keyboard suffered major bashing. My cat hide under the bed.
Is it fun now, remembering it? Yes.

What were his reasons?

[silly imges]

You deluded cheaters who loved to to play R-Type ansd Xenon 2 in godmode don't impress me at all.
If you can't stand defeat, if you can't get a good chuckle over some digital hurdles, then it's time to get that Action Replay cartridge (http://www.retrogames.it/news/..%5Cimmagini%5Cfoto%5Cmegadrive%5CMDactionreplay.jpg) and save yourself the bad part of videogames, which is called "Game Over" in my book while "staples 'n eggs" in your.

I will remind you of this when the loss of 14% exp to the next level equals not a few lost hours of gametime, but a week or two at level 30 (40,50, whatever)

What's so hard to understand about the fact that while I won't negate that MMORPGs are about progression, get to the next level, see new places and mobs, get new gears... most can still enjoy the horizontalities provided by the social layer?

Actually, I believe the point is that he will remind you when you quit VG in {insert form of disgust here}  :evil:

Nothing's hard about understanding that because it's why we're all here. But it is hard to understand how a game with far less people because it is relatively punitive in all things can be deemed more social than games with twice to twenty times the number of players. Does the game mechanic of WoW compel socialization? Not directly, no. But you know what? There are so many freaking people there that they find ways to socialize horiztonally anyway.

None of this is surprising. We all knew VG was retro, specificially targeting folks who looked upon elements of the old days through rose-colored glasses.

It's not anymore about Vanguard. And it's not about the XP loss per se.
You should try to explain me WHY in the world losing some XP should be considered a waste of time! Especially in a social-oriented environment, unless you clearly chase just the vertical aspect of the game and consider the horizontal one like a joyful and less important decoration of the whole experience. AGAIN, I am not saying that games with loss of XP foster better socialization, I just fail to see the big deal about it. So you have to take back your corpse or accept the fact that you lost some XP (but not the money, the loot and especially NOT the fun you got while doing that). So?

This is NOT a confrontation between Vanguard and different approaches to death, like recent EQ2 for example. It's just that I don't get you all guys who just want to play with auto-save permanently enabled. This games aren't story driven to the point that you have to repeat the same identical steps of the plot every time you die. On the contrary, the only plots and stories you will ever have will come from your human friends and human enemies. So what's so bad in losing some XP? What's so bad in having to wait a little longer to hear the ding? The game won't change. You aren't longing for the next cutscene, for the big fight with Jecht, for the return of of the Jedi or for good ole Godot. You are just whacking and whacking and whacking and whacking just to hear fucking DING and some different textured colours on your avatar. This is why MMORPG are shitty games. Cause they don't provide the meat single player RPGs can offer, they are basically just watered down RPGs.
What's the trade in? The people. And the stories people can tell, of course in the successful raid against Onyxia, Daratathar or Lady Vox AND in the big and dramatic wipes.
I don't wear ANY kind of rose colored glasses, and once again I am not talking about Vanguard. I just can't see what it's so compelling about just getting to the next level, what's with all the hurry. What's so bad in losing a life sometimes and having to get back at the last checkpoint?

I was in a Bugbear cave of some sort and with a full group we grinded XP and quests (we kept sharing a repeatable one that didn't even need to be turned in, so basically an exploit, whatever...) and I reached 97% of level 15.

AGAIN, I am not saying that games with loss of XP foster better socialization, I just fail to see the big deal about it.

I never said Vanguard is "more social"...

I just tried to explain why I am not bothered by the occasional loss of XP and why I fail to see that like a punishment.

You should try to explain me WHY in the world losing some XP should be considered a waste of time!

I suppose you may be right. For whatever reason, though, I've always viewed it as "Meh, I'll just whack a few more foozles and be done with it". Its money loss that kills me, probably because its where I struggle the most in MMOs. Just seems like XP is everywhere (Wherever there's a mob... everywhere) and money is in select places like high level raids and non soloable stuff. The XP is easily returned, the money is not.

If the point of the game is to gain levels then delaying your progress is much more palatable than stopping it or worst yet reversing it.

I don't know if you played the original release version of EQ, but losing a level due to xp loss on death was not a generally a matter of wacking a few more foozles.  It could take days to regain your level, especially if you insisted on trying to solo a warrior up.  I quit EQ about 6 months after release and I still sometimes catch myself thinking " better kill a few more to lock in the level" after one of my WOW tunes levels up.  If the point of the game is to gain levels then delaying your progress is much more palatable than stopping it or worst yet reversing it.

Heh I played EQ1 for a very long time, for better or for worse. Yes losing your level was certainly an issue, but it wasn't by any means as bad as you make it out to me. In the 50's (I admit, I didn't play when they upped the level cap past that) dying was usually a couple days of casual grouping XP. In WoW, though, I once had to spend about four/five hours just grinding to get back the money I lost repairing items during the course of a bad instance run, though, and purchasing food. Not several days of time, but still. With losing XP I'm backpedaling as far as progress goes, but if I run out of money progress grinds to a halt.

I think that he was pointing out that, while an extreme case, WoW contains time sinks as well.

Heh I played EQ1 for a very long time, for better or for worse. Yes losing your level was certainly an issue, but it wasn't by any means as bad as you make it out to me. In the 50's (I admit, I didn't play when they upped the level cap past that) dying was usually a couple days of casual grouping XP.

Yes losing your level was certainly an issue, but it wasn't by any means as bad as you make it out to me. In the 50's (I admit, I didn't play when they upped the level cap past that) dying was usually a couple days of casual grouping XP.

Point of the game is not just gain levels. Otherwise the game would end as soon as you hit top level.

Loot distribution
- The group leader can set the distribution. Most common is cash split with rolls for greens or better.
- When someone in the group loots a corpse with a magic item, they click "start roll". Everyone in the group then gets a pop-up window.
- If the item is class-appropriate for you, then you will see a Need button. Everyone sees a Greed button and a Pass button. If you are the only one who clicks need, you win. If more than one clicks need, then there is an auto-roll (1-100). If you don't actually need it (and you are honest) then click Greed. The game then auto-rolls for everyone in the Greed pool.
- This is the best group loot mechanic yet.

Actually, each death in EQ1 did cause me to lose weeks of experience. My necro was level 54, and I don't have a lot of time to play. One day I died a couple times and lost almost all of level 54 which had taken me several months to work through. Levels 1-51 took a year, levels 52-54 took another year, mostly due to the death penalty and retardedly slow advancement (which would have been more acceptable except for the aforementioned penalty). Sure, I could've had a cleric around, but there's another timesink (in finding one every night I play or at least every time I die). There's no good reason imo to base so much of the core gameplay around timesinks!

Now Planetside, with mere tactical setbacks as a death penalty? Golden. You can have medics revive you, set up mobile spawn points. It's mmo done right. And so many more memorable moments packed into the game play.

Of course, my position is that death penalties themselves are stupid? Why do you need to be punished for playing a game? No other games are set up like that. Yet for mmo, god forbid you question penalizations! Whip me, beat me, call me sally.

Here we see a bald face EQ exp loss lie.  I played this game as a warrior, only able to gain exp in groups and as a warrior did suffer death a few times, but never was the consequence as poor as you say, not once.  There was exp loss greater for solo players that could not find a rez and if this applies to you, it is due to a game play choice you made and not a valid complaint against the game itself.  You decided to play that way and had other options at hand.  Your bad experience with exp loss in EQ was due to a game choice you made and there was another choice to make it better, much better. 

Either way, you're weak and deserved everything that EQ1's pre-clickstick and search for a cleric game threw at you.

Oh yeah, on Vanguard specifically.

I can't believe they took Fellowships out after what? Two weeks of going live? Did those morons even fucking playtest that shit in the last year? They didn't realise it was a powerleveller's dream or yet they did and let it go live or what the fuck? It might not be a big deal, but seriously, if you're going to tout your fucking game's features then try fucking playtesting them rather then stripping them out less than a month after going live. I can't believe how stupid the VG devs are sometimes.

2-dot vs 3-dot vs 4-dot mobs
- The VG con system uses level and "dots." The first are soloable, the second are soloable for some classes but will gove good exp for small groups, the last if for full 6 person groups.
- 3 people fighting 3-dots get about the same exp as 6 fighting 4-dots but the 6 will get much better loot tables.
- The two dungeons I have seen have a mix of 2 and 3 with a rare 4 as a named.

Here we see a bald face EQ exp loss lie.  I played this game as a warrior, only able to gain exp in groups and as a warrior did suffer death a few times, but never was the consequence as poor as you say, not once.  There was exp loss greater for solo players that could not find a rez and if this applies to you, it is due to a game play choice you made and not a valid complaint against the game itself.  You decided to play that way and had other options at hand.  Your bad experience with exp loss in EQ was due to a game choice you made and there was another choice to make it better, much better. 

Sometimes?

They were disabled before the pre-order early live period, if not before.

Take a look at some druid spells (not all, just the solo friendly ones):
Level 4(?): Ensnare
Level 14: SoW

I try not to address that stupid bullshit anymore, Haemmy. Besides, the grouptards won, most mmo is not worth soloing anymore. At least if you ever want decent drops, named mobs, or dungeons. I don't understand why soloers can't be happy as second-class citizens. I should break up with my girlfriend and sell my guitars so I can play more correctly.

Did they just go ahead and call the damn spell "Spirit of Wolf" again?

But from afar, it really does seem like Brad felt he owned the whole IP enough to go off and effectively make the sequel in everything but name.

Are you talking about dedicated social-circle based groups (possible in any MMO) or general pickup groups (indicative of the general playerbase)?

Is that to me? All I am saying is that the conventional wisdom that progressing in VG requires 6-man grouping does not match my experience so far. Everyone should be able to find one or two people where the schedules match, and thus enjoy more than the 20% Sigil says is for soloers.

I fully intend on checking out BC...when it's not the price of a full game for an expansion.

We (Sigil & SOE) are doing our best with marketing, but the reality is that we launched close enough to Burning Crusade that it has been very hard to get the presence, point of purchase materials, etc. displayed. And I certainly don't blame the stores for that. This is the price that has to be paid, at least short term, for launching so close to the WoW expansion. Wasn't our desire, but as I've said, at some point, financial realities are just that: reality.

That said, by no means has the marketing campaign ended and we have months ahead of us to re-gain ground. That, and viral marketing will help, as existing players tell others they are enjoying the game.

Player cities will allow group ownership of property, guild houses, intersphere dependence, and an RTS element where after the city starts building, you will need to build certain buildings first to unlock others. Also, the owners of the city will likely need the business of other players to continue to advance so that the cities are of use to all players and not just a few.

Indeed. Many of our core ideas when planning player housing and then player cities came from SWG. We do plan on taking the player city aspect of it a lot farther than SWG did, and we have zoning and some other mechanics in there to avoid some of the SWG problems.

If fact, you could go farther than that. While Vanguard is a diku/EQ/etc style game at it's core, we did our best to incorporate new ideas (like Diplomacy) as well as to take the best from previous games and integrate them into Vanguard. While the guys behind SWG and UO I don't always agree with, or their approach (usually make a broader game and then a deeper game, where I think you need to go deeper first and then broad), and while they are friends of mine, we did put a lot of effort into crafting, player housing, player customization, user controlled boats (not really seen since UO, a tile based game), etc. to reach out to those players who like that aspect of a virtual world and, quite frankly, because we think they are cool and should be included in any modern MMOG.

Brad says:
It has been a struggle getting such a large company working together, but we've accomplished that in beta 4 (really before that, but I'd say we've been a more well oiled machine since the beginning of beta 5). It has taken longer than we'd hoped to get content in, but it's going in fast now. I take full responsibility here and it's nobody's fault at Sigil -- the team are working their asses off and being efficient at it now. I can only humbly ask that you guys have some patience and stick with us. We are quashing bugs, getting more content in, tweaking and balancing, etc. The latest patch, while it introduced some issues which we will jump right on, I think was full of content and fixes overall.

Brad says:
The game continues to sell well so there will be a lot more people coming online. Also, we kept the server population down at first until players dispersed more (leveled up, moved out of the starting areas). Now, however, we can allow the servers to build up with more players because this is beginning to happen. The sucky part is the transition, now that people are moving about and leveling up, we need to wait for server populations to increase. I totally understand the frustration (I've experienced it myself personally), but it will resolve itself. Thank you for your patience.

Fellowships are very important to us and we're very excited about them. We implemented them in beta 4/5, but there were exploits associated with them, so some of the system has to be revamped. I don't have a solid ETA (I apologize) but it is a high priority as I think it's a very important component of the game.

So is anyone really playing? I just went over to the Vangaurd Players  site and played with the database a bit and there are only 27K players level 15 to level 50. Considering that a portion of those are on the free buddy keys that does not seem like a hell of a lot for a game that is been out for over two weeks unless leveling is really snails pace above 10 which is the highest I ever went in beta. Dropping back to 10 - 50 the numbers jump to around 90K but how many of those are alts?

VGplayers is a mess, but free pass or not it says there are 360k characters created so far. Meaning at worst (I mean, dividing the whole thing by 8 character slots), there are  about 45k single accounts. I would go the middle roads dividing it by 4 and saying there are 90k single accounts. I wouldn't consider trial accounts as there are very few collector edition players apparently (they are easiliy recognizable by the cloak, as the only cloak in game so far is the collector edition one) so maybe not so many collector-spawned accounts.
How many already stopped playing? Can't tell.

Varking is definitely an healthy server so far, at least in the Thestra continent. But it's the only Team PvP one, so maybe that's why.

Is that to me? All I am saying is that the conventional wisdom that progressing in VG requires 6-man grouping does not match my experience so far. Everyone should be able to find one or two people where the schedules match, and thus enjoy more than the 20% Sigil says is for soloers.

so you are saying only one in three players have a character up to level 15? With 27K lvl 15 and above that would be about what it works out to be. That is some slow ass leveling considering in beta 3 I could hit 10 in about 4 to 6 hours of play and the box has been out 2 weeks now.

You'd think that if you look at credit-card information and who owns the account, transfers to a mule would become visibly different than giving gold to strangers.  And by looking at who's in the same guild as the character, a guild bank's transactions would be different than a gold seller's.

You'd think that if you look at credit-card information and who owns the account, transfers to a mule would become visibly different than giving gold to strangers.  And by looking at who's in the same guild as the character, a guild bank's transactions would be different than a gold seller's.

The game continues to sell well so there will be a lot more people coming online. Also, we kept the server population down at first until players dispersed more (leveled up, moved out of the starting areas). Now, however, we can allow the servers to build up with more players because this is beginning to happen. The sucky part is the transition, now that people are moving about and leveling up, we need to wait for server populations to increase. I totally understand the frustration (I've experienced it myself personally), but it will resolve itself. Thank you for your patience.

Sounds like he's talking about logon queues, and servers being at capacity because the playerbase just got too big.  He probably had the code and limitations in place; question is did the playerbase get big enough to even approach those limitations.  Was there ever a login queue, a la WoW?

They slowed it down 3 days into release, as they stealth nerfed XP by one third, apparently to slow down powerlevelers that was about level 35 already and the content for those levels is still locked.

Never heard about queues in Vg. Lost accounts, yes, and other login technical issues, but no queues.
I think he is making up things. Pathetic..

. . . yes leveling is THAT slow.
They slowed it down 3 days into release, as they stealth nerfed XP by one third, apparently to slow down powerlevelers that was about level 35 already and the content for those levels is still locked. Boards are still screaming for that (http://www.silkyvenom.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8720).

Yea, it was to you, as I was wondering about the player society. Are they generally receptive to PUGs and therefore less asshat-ism? What's the general playerbase like compared to other titles? Same? Different?

(as an aside, I generally don't run into jerks in WoW. They're either all playing somewhere else or I've got Charisma++)

They slowed it down 3 days into release, as they stealth nerfed XP by one third, apparently to slow down powerlevelers that was about level 35 already and the content for those levels is still locked.

They slowed it down 3 days into release, as they stealth nerfed XP by one third, apparently to slow down powerlevelers that was about level 35 already and the content for those levels is still locked. Boards are still screaming for that (http://www.silkyvenom.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8720).

*I* disagree with you. I felt I was leveling too fast. And relying far too much on quests to get me through levels, now that I think about it. Yeah.

The outpost near my hunting ground - Veskal's, a major quest hub for 10-15 - has neither mailboxes nor broker/AH NPC.

Veskal's Exchange? There's definitely a mailbox there. Forgive me if you are talking about a different place, but there is a mailbox in Veskal's (Exchange). It's just by the stairs to Veskal's Palace (Main Building). I used it to send away my money as lots of PvP happens there.

Holy codfuckers. From the first reply to that thread:


/boggle

Relying on quests to get through levels was BAD. How the fuck do you even have a mindset like that? Are you saying that you PREFER camping? WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?

VG is hovering around 100k subs. LOLERS.

The irony is that this is Vanguard's own doing. If their banking system had actually been implimented correctly, and after implementation hadn't been buggy as crap, people wouldn't be forced to transfer their coin to placeholder toons.

Also, the sum of 7 gold isn't that high. A crafter guildmate of mine, who, admittedly is grinding like a starved peasant in an internet cafe, has made 3 gold on his own in the last 2 weeks. Considering Vanguard catered to catasses in organized uberguilds specifically 7 gold is a meaningless sum.

Personally, I want Sigil to design a hardware interface for my personal testicle electrocuter so every time I level, I am sharply reminded of how bad and wicked of me it is to do so.

Dong-gratz

*Brad never specified whether it was 100K subs, or 100K box sales.

What would the difference be at this stage? Digital downloads?  Surely in the first month box sales = subs (since you have to provide a CC number to activate your account).

Over on FoH, Nino clarifies. (http://www.fohguild.org/forums/mmorpg-general-discussion/27034-vg-sales-numbers-40.html#post669034) Over 100K box sales, no word on subs.

You'd think so, but MMOGs always have more box sales than subscriptions.

Lots of people buy it, play it, never sub. You get that "free month" after all.

That was my DAOC experience too. Though as noted, you do need to put in a CC number. Because, you know, BUYING their fucking games isn't a good enough reason to let you play....

Yup, companies like to take advantage of the "inertia factor" in human nature by making customers do extra work to opt-out of things knowing that many people won't or will delay doing doing it for a myriad of reasons. With paid subscriptions companies couch this as a "convenience" to users so that their service is "uninterrupted" but really they are just interested in sponging that extra money off of people who don't cancel in time.

Reading through the thread reminded me to cancel before I got billed for the first month.  After I clicked the cancel sub button, it brought me to a screen that required me to put in my place of birth to cancel my subscription.  I'm just glad that I had actually entered the correct city at some point, rather than gibberish, or I'd still be trying to get my sub canceled in 2010.

Tinfoil much?  You're buying a service, why make life harder than you need to?  It's not like you're giving your details to some shonky provider - they've done this a few hundred thousand times....

I routinely give every online service the wrong birthdate. (Right year, right month, wrong day). I just always use the same one. That was something of a problem when my yahoo account got phished, as apparently I'd given them the wrong city and it took me weeks to figure out the answer to me "secret question". (Here's a hint -- if you use an oblique reference to a family pet, it helps to remember WHEN you got the account. Turns out the account was at least two years older than I thought, and I was referring to my mother's dog -- not one of mine).

So I assume Nino is Brad or a Sigil employee?

Yup, companies like to take advantage of the "inertia factor" in human nature by making customers do extra work to opt-out of things knowing that many people won't or will delay doing doing it for a myriad of reasons. With paid subscriptions companies couch this as a "convenience" to users so that their service is "uninterrupted" but really they are just interested in sponging that extra money off of people who don't cancel in time.

Pfft, nobody goes to Felucca.  If you wanted to e-beat me, you'd have to find me in WoW.

Which reminds me, what do UO and WoW have in common?  They both have more paid subscriptions than Vanguard!  Buahahaha!

I reiterate:  DIE GAME!

Pfft, nobody goes to Felucca.  If you wanted to e-beat me, you'd have to find me in WoW.

What's the point? There's no PvP in World of Warcraft, unless you carebears used to call Team Fortress and the like "pvp".

And no, SOE won't refund hte xp.  They tried petitioning a few times (separately, not spamming) and their petition got deleted every time.  Another person got a response telling him it's a known issue and they will not give xp reimbursements.

People ask why SOE forced them to ship "early"? (On time) Because SOE is smart.

the apparent failure of Vanguard

Releasing that close to the WoW expansion is not smart by any reasoning.  I think they should have released at least 3 months after TBC came out, but hell, releasing 3 months before TBC would have still been better, even if it was (even more) buggy as hell at the least they could have got more box sales out of the deal.

2 weeks of gameplay in:


I have 20 hours played on my main character, probably 35 across characters (I got 5 different characters to level 6).  The game is still fun for me.  I haven't encountered any horrific bugs, fallen through the world, crashed to desktop, no lag whatsoever, etc.  Basically I've have had the best possible experience one can have with the game as far as I can tell.  Don't get me wrong, it's been buggy, but I would consider the bugs minor to medium in scope thus far.  The game runs decently (not as well as it should of course) on my system and is very pretty at moments.

Comparing it to my WoW experience, I would say the lack of polish brings it down, but the fundamental gameplay and the world itself is actually a bit more interesting, at least at low level.  The grind doesn't bother me yet, as I'm having fun and my character is pretty fun to play.  The death penalty is not bad yet. This may likely change.

And it's gonna get me paying through one month at least.  Maybe not after that.  The 'forced grouping' hasn't kicked in yet (13 monk), and as I said, I've had a pretty good experience so far that is probably above average (just out of pure luck).  I'm sure my experience will change, likely for the worse.  But till then...I'll give my cash to Brad.  (haemish winces)

Whoa. Even the EQ2 team has refunded XP, or at least accelerated it for a time. I gotta imagine that's more Sigil talking than SOE, because not refunding XP lost to retarded bugs smacks very much of Vision(tm), and even SOE has shed some of that arrogant crap over the years (particularly the EQ2 team).

Great new bug tonight: when a new member joins the group, the leader gets randomly re-assigned BUT that leader cannot change the looting rules.

Is Sigil in charge of the customer service or is SOE.  I don't know how that works with games published by SOE.

You deluded cheaters who loved to to play R-Type ansd Xenon 2 in godmode don't impress me at all.
If you can't stand defeat, if you can't get a good chuckle over some digital hurdles, then it's time to get that Action Replay cartridge (http://www.retrogames.it/news/..%5Cimmagini%5Cfoto%5Cmegadrive%5CMDactionreplay.jpg) and save yourself the bad part of videogames, which is called "Game Over" in my book while "staples 'n eggs" in your.

I try not to address that stupid bullshit anymore, Haemmy. Besides, the grouptards won, most mmo is not worth soloing anymore. At least if you ever want decent drops, named mobs, or dungeons. I don't understand why soloers can't be happy as second-class citizens. I should break up with my girlfriend and sell my guitars so I can play more correctly.

I aint no Vanboi - but surely its a bit early to be calling Vanguard a failure isn't it?

What is it possibly going to do in order to reach the several hundred thousand subscriptions that McQuaid said it needed in order to be profitable?  Sell another 200k boxes and convert every single sale into a paying subscription, despite being a buggy unfinished grindy shitpile with prohibitive system requirements and negative buzz?

Are they going to patch out all the bugs, finish the content, and then have some sort of grassroots rise to success?  Fuck no.  In the entire history of buttfucked MMO releases, when has that ever happened?

Die, game, die!  MUAHAHAHAH!

Richard Garriott: Let me back up and tell you how I feel about this whole genre, the MMO genre. First of all, any MMO that has ever in its life gotten over the 100,000-player mark is still here. All of them. You would think that competition and new games would ultimately peel away those players and somehow it does not.

Richard Garriott just said:


So Vanguard is cursed to last ten years.

No, I was joking.

Backtracking a little, the other reason why Vanguard wasn't delayed three months or so is that would put it head-to-head with LOTRO. Going up against TBC gave Sigil a bit of an excuse, in a way - Sigil can shrug, point at the hundreds of people queueing at three in the morning for an expansion pack and say "We were never going to be able to compete with that".

Going head-to-head with Turbine and still only getting ~100K subs, OTOH, is an entirely different kettle of fish.

Gave this game an honest second week with a friend.  I'm out.  Game-breaking bugs + grind that would make a Lineage player cry = Not for me. 

Saw much of the world... that was enough.  I gave it my best and I'm sorry I gave them my money.  I feel dirty. 

Come on.  Who plays a game that gives you that much of a headache?

I'm hoping that at least some good ideas come out of Vanguard.

Harvesting from nodes that are in places you'd expect them to be: Its fun chopping down trees in forests and looking in mines to find rocks and ore. More games need to do this, rather than having iron nodes popping up in the middle of grassy plains and whatnot.

Deep and large dungeons with real storylines: Nothing makes me want to crawl down to the bottom of a dungeon than a good background story and non-directed spelunking. Knowing that turning left or right at a split means I won't end up at the same end, but that I'll still find meaningful encounters and loot.

Geldon quit Vanguard 2 weeks ago.

That's odd. I must have missed the "I was wrong about Vanguard and apologise for spamming up the board with replies about how great it's going to be" post by him.

So mission accomplished for Brad.  So mission accomplished for Brad.

Geldon is just another example of Vanguard-liker that chose to go the solo road.
It kills you.

Right now, the only way to enjoy Vanguard is being in a Guild (and that must be why I am still enjoying it). Exactly like it was in EQ1.
So mission accomplished for Brad.

places like Stratholme and Blackrock Spire are filled with the gameworld's lore and offer multiple paths inside them which offer very different experiences, even when you don't count somewhere like Blackrock Depths as part of the "Blackrock Spire" experience (it's essentially a lower wing to the spire, as a seperate instance), BRD still offers a variety of different things to do in there, and runs will rarely "clear the dungeon".

He can't post -- he self-banned himself.

Where does one get the level 20 spell Silence...[it] is avaliable [not] on my two trainers.

Silence was removed

but those of us who already bought the spell still have it.

he didn't really want to be PLd, he wanted to play.  But he just couldn't.  I don't want to be that guy.

Maybe they'll end up with a better product. 

Yeah, that's what I repeat to myself everyday. As I said being in a guild with some friends and having the chance to explore dungeons and actually enjoy content I am not having a bad time (save for technical wipes). But I keep repeating to myself what Henry V said to Catherine of Valois:

But, in faith, Kate, the elder I wax, the better I shall appear: my comfort is, that old age, that ill layer up of beauty, can do no more, spoil upon my face: thou hast me, if thou hast me, at the worst; and thou shalt wear me, if thou wear me, better and better

Basically, Vanguard can only get better. And if I can play it now that it is at its worst, the future is probably not so bad. Conan, Warhammer and even Tabula Rasa are too far and Ultima Online's rebirth is the only actual contender for me to this.

This is SOE -- it can get worse. I put forth SWG as evidence.

Aagh! You are right. I am sunk. DARN!

I remember back in EQ when I was Pling an alt in Guk.  This must have been early-PoP.  There was this level-appropriate, untwinked guy, I think a paladin, in there trying to solo.  We chatted a while and it turns out he was a bona fide new player, but had never grouped because there just weren't any players his age.   I PLd him a while with my twink, but he didn't really want to be PLd, he wanted to play.  But he just couldn't.  I don't want to be that guy.

That's kinda how I felt this weekend in EQ2. I was trying to do some quests in blackburrow, and kept getting slaughtered. But I kept on, trying different tactics, hoping maybe at some point I'd figure out a way to overcome the game's anti-solo bias. I mean...there has to be some class that can take on ^^^ Heroics, right?

Guess not.

Geldon is just another example of Vanguard-liker that chose to go the solo road.
It kills you.

Right now, the only way to enjoy Vanguard is being in a Guild (and that must be why I am still enjoying it). Exactly like it was in EQ1.
So mission accomplished for Brad.

That's kinda how I felt this weekend in EQ2. I was trying to do some quests in blackburrow, and kept getting slaughtered. But I kept on, trying different tactics, hoping maybe at some point I'd figure out a way to overcome the game's anti-solo bias. I mean...there has to be some class that can take on ^^^ Heroics, right?

Guess not.

Meanwhile, the place was a ghost town (and that's ok in my book, if it weren't for the anti-solo code) except for a few twinked-to-hell alts. And I don't mind twinking a bit, I think it makes the game more fun when you've already been through it all once. But I simply couldn't compete. Finally had to give up.

I can understand wanting players to work together, social retention and whatnot. But turning away players? That seems crazy. I'd have played WoW a lot longer if it hadn't been for their anti-solo dungeons. Playing an rpg with dungeons but only seeing one ever pretty much sucked.

I don't know how WoW can have an anti-solo bias when it has so much solo content. Even EQ 2 has a lot of solo content. It sounds as if you are complaining that the game has any group content at all. As a serious question, how could this be dealt with in a perfect world? Make content which is both suitable for groups and suitable for soloists at the same time? I don't think it would be possible.

I don't know how WoW can have an anti-solo bias when it has so much solo content. Even EQ 2 has a lot of solo content. It sounds as if you are complaining that the game has any group content at all. As a serious question, how could this be dealt with in a perfect world? Make content which is both suitable for groups and suitable for soloists at the same time? I don't think it would be possible.

Geldon quit Vanguard 2 weeks ago.

About catasses, please remember what spawned the term: maybe Vanguard is the game that can ONLY be played if you are a catass, but at best it holds 100k catasses.
WoW on the other hand will probably entertains 5 millions casual/regular players/human beings, but you can stay assured that it retains a good amount of catasses that I would consider in the 3 millions range.
WoW made some of my "sane" friends into rabid catasses and made people buy new computers just to ruin their life on raiding Molten Core and beyond. Tyra made an episode in her talkshow about a major wow catass exactly as it used to happen back in the EQ days with people losing jobs to raid all day and Southpark's WoW episode is all about catassing, not the game.

So you could be happy that all the crazies are probably firmly in Vanguard's hands, but for the biggest amount of catasses, even statistically, you have to look at WoW. Should that ever collide (and it won't) there would be a MAJOR catass invasion in the online world.

Actually, those are the specific dungeons in WoW I'd compare most of VG's dungeons to.
<snip>
Er, but yes VG isn't the first, its just refreshing to see these kinds of dungeons even at the lower levels.

And much like Falconeer's story of dungeon delving and bug wiping, I had a realization a couple days back that hit me in the face like a truck. I logged four hours into a dungeon (Early holiday morning, not much else to do), and I had gained something like 15% of lvl 18. Hah, I just have so much better stuff I could do with my time.

Silence prevents a mob (or player in PVP) from casting a spell for X seconds. This isn't even a bug. So, if you levelled to 20 fast, you now have a spell no other druid has or will have.

I was interested in VG only to see what kind of world McQuiad would come up with.  An oft-overlooked thing about EQ was that it really felt like you were going through a world that actual designers and artists handcrafted with love.  WoW is the only MMO I've played that comes close in that aspect.

There was this level-appropriate, untwinked guy, I think a paladin, in there trying to solo.  We chatted a while and it turns out he was a bona fide new player, but had never grouped because there just weren't any players his age.   I PLd him a while with my twink, but he didn't really want to be PLd, he wanted to play.  But he just couldn't.  I don't want to be that guy.

another issue with Vanguard I think - if the supply of newbies dries up, it will be really horrible to play for the rare newbie that does join.

Build 1758 February / 22 / 2007

Vanguard Build 1758 Patch Notes 2/22/2007



GAMEPLAY NOTES
- Player chance to sneak past even level NPCs without detection has been significantly increased.
- Infineum Affliction is no longer quite so debilitating.
- NPCs - NPC’s with “Timemage” abilities are now immune to charm.
- NPCs - Overland and Dungeon bosses are now more resistant to various status afflicting spells such as charm, fear, clone, stun and mesmerize.
- NPCs - NPC Heal-over-time spells have had their duration significantly reduced.
- NPCs - Additional NPCs now see invis throughout the world, beware
- Quests - Experience rewards from quests have been increased by a fairly large amount
- Players should no longer get stuck at 251 skill in Spell Identification or Tactic Recognition.
- Fix for charm "wars". You should no longer be able to start wars between npcs by charming them allowing charm to break, and then leashing them.
- The bug causing mobs to disappear during combat has been fixed.


ADVENTURING NOTES
- Protective Fighters – Rescues are now usable out of combat.
- Bard - Tynen's Chant of Chains is now a verse.
- Bard - Illestine's Epic Substitution should now increase Cold Resistance in addition to Fire.
- Bard – Mellarian’s Melody of War now correctly stacks with the Paladin’s Aura of Divine Power.
- Bard – Greatly reducing the energy cost of Calming Lullaby.
- Bard - Suann's Entrancing Trill now has a 2 second cast time.
- Bard - Suann's Call of Slumber now has a 2 second refresh time.
- Bard – Fence now has a 10 second refresh timer, down from 20.
- Bard – Hinder now has the proper amount of upgrades.
- Bard – The lyric, Hazoc's Magical Aria is now available at level 25.  It was inadvertently left off trainers.
- Bard – Striking the Mountain now exploits armor chink.
- Bard - Cleave the Mountain I, II, III, and IV have been added to the trainer lists, and are available (at levels 22, 30, 38, and 46).
- Bard - Humming Blade - Would turn off after 72 minutes, this is fixed.
- Blood Mage – Quickening Symbiote now requires 1 Vial of Blood, 1 Still Beating Heart and 1 Quivering Brain to create. On the brighter side, these symbiotes can actually be created now.
- Blood Mage – Organs for creating symbiotes now stack
- Blood Mage – The assembly for Controlling Symbiote now correctly states you are making a controlling symbiote and not an animation symbiote
- Blood Mage – Vitalizing Symbiote now requires 3 Vials of Blood and no other components. These symbiotes can be created once again.
- Dread Knight - Armor of Darkness should now increase mitigation as intended.
- Dread Knight – Scourge will no longer get resisted as often.
- Disciple - Gift Of Vitae now adds endurance instead of subtracting.
- Disciple - Gift Of Vitae should no longer spam the caster.
- Monk - North Wind Breaks the Trunk should now cause the target to hurt itself upon attacking rather than healing itself.
- Monk - Form of the Spirit Dragon has been renamed Aspect of the Spirit Dragon.
- Monk - Aspect of the Spirit Dragon now grants invisibility.
- Monk - Soaring Leap should now actually cause you to leap.
- Necromancer – Fixed a bug with Ravaging Claw II, putting it inline with the rest of the claws.
- Necromancer - The wraith version of the plague bringer will now cast “Soul Vex” instead of “Soul Blight”. This should be considerably less confusing.
- Psionicist – NPCs now consider Time Stop to be a mez and not a stun.
- Ranger - Windsong now costs 10 endurance.
- Ranger – Your Talismans should no longer wear off after 4320 seconds of continuous playing.
- Ranger – Your Tiger Talisman now correctly gives a bonus to your auto attacks as well as your special attacks.
- Rogue – Relentless Thrust is now attainable at level 10 and has no refresh.
- Rogue – Drub has been increased in effectiveness
- Rogue – Drub now costs 10 endurance, down from 17
- Rogue – The Drub line of abilities has had some level changes.  This gives it a more gradual hate reduction progression.  New levels are 12, 20, 28, 36, 44
- Rogue – Clout now lasts for 6 seconds or 5 hits, up from 3 hits.
- Rogue – The Backstab line of attacks has had some level adjustments.  New levels are 4, 12, 20, 28, 36, 44
- Rogue – The Shank line of finishing attacks has had some level adjustments.  New levels are 12, 22, 32, 42.
- Rogue – The advanced version of shank are now actually upgrades.
- Rogue – The Wicked Strike line of attacks has had some level adjustments.  New levels are 1, 8, 16, 24, 32, 40, 48.
- Rogue – The Last Ditch Strike line of attacks now deals increased damage, costs no endurance and does not incur global recovery.
- Rogue – Lacerate once again exploits Armor Chink.
- Rogue – Slightly increased the damage of the Lacerate line of attacks.
- Rogue – Note: There is a bug that is causing the damage display of lacerate and hemorrhage to show as much smaller than the actual damage done.  The debuff tooltip (the one beneath the target’s display) is correct.  This will be addressed soon.
- Rogue – The damage of Death Whirl has been increased.
- Rogue – Death Whirl now exploits staggered.
- Rogue – Slightly increased the damage of Ravage.
- Rogue – Ravage will now stun for 3 seconds on a critical hit.
- Rogue – Relentless Thrust have been renamed to Vicious Strike.
- Rogue – Vicious Strike (the attack formerly know as Relentless Strike) now deals additional damage on a critical hit.
- Rogue – Deadly Strike has been added to trainers starting at level 26.
- Rogue – Impale has been added to trainers starting at level 18.
- Rogue – Shiv has been added to trainers starting at level 22.
- Rogue – Knee Break has been added to trainers starting at level 4.
- Rogue – Revenge has been added to trainers starting at level 6.
- Rogue – Dazzling Flechette II and Advanced Dazzling Flechette II no longer function.
- Rogue – Dazzling Flechette I and Advanced Dazzling Flechette I now have a different function and have been moved to level 15.
- Warrior - Devastating Blow now correctly displays that it roots the target for 3 seconds.
- Warrior – Roar of Fury now states the correct amount of hate it adds instead of stating it increases hate by 0.


CRAFTING NOTES
- The Learning Apprentice Shingles quest can now be completed.
- Higher level blacksmith recipes have been added to most blacksmith instructors in Kojan.
- More advanced work orders are available in Leth Nurae, Lomshir, Martok, Mekalia, Tanvu, and Tursh.
- Quests added: “Best Artisan Ever”, “Grodek’s New Hammer”.
- Experience rewards for amateur tier quests have been increased.
- Experience rewards for apprentice tier quests have been increased.
- Experience rewards for initiate tier quests have been increased.
- Experience rewards for journeyman tier quests have been increased.
- The warring crafting factions of New Targonor now have more work orders available.
- Thestran Blacksmith lower level great axe recipes are now available.
- The quest “Gregan’s Demand” now asks for a grip instead of a shaft.
- Fixed a lot of work orders that were giving out wrong recipes and items.
- Crafted shields should now be recognized as shields by abilities.
- Deconstruction tables have been updated and fixed. Please report any instances of empty deconstructed parts.
- You can no longer deconstruct legendary or ultra rare items.
- Fixed issues with armor-smith work orders being mislabeled.
- Updated robes with continental effects. Tooltip still does not display attached effect.
- Shield proc effects should work properly now.
- Work orders for the crafting organizations in New Targonor should give faction for the appropriate group and remove it from the opposing factions.
- Ballista parts work order in Shaletooth Tower has had its rewards changed.
- The quest “The Swordsmiths Apprentice: Craftsmanship” should now ask for the proper resources to complete the recipe.
- Additional higher level secondary recipe have been added to certain Kojan trainers.
- Fixed an issue with the “The Swordsmith’s Apprentice: Craftsmanship” quest that may cause you to get the wrong recipe or get no recipe at all when accepting the quest.
- Upped drop rate of upgrade recipes a smidgen
- Fixed bug that was showing two tooltypes on some etching knives
- Added slot amount to description of all saddlebags
- Fixed issue causing tier 4 barding to have same stats as tier 3
- Fixed issue causing some rare armors to give the improper reward when deconstructed
- Increased chance to get orb from deconstruction across the board
- Fixed description of loose clamp to display effectiveness penalty.
- Some work orders were repeatable when they were not intended to be. This has been fixed.
- Fixed display name of attuning powder of energy
- Gwartak Clan recipes now provide more weapon/armor options sooner.
- Adjusted duration of rune of force to what the description said
- Fixed rarity of all crafted expendables
- Adjusted required level of crafted expendables to look at adventuring level
- Reduced required level of martial sword recipes
- Increased level of crafted martial swords (this change is retroactive)
- The crafting advisor now talks about titles. If you are missing crafting titles, talk to any crafting advisor about titles in the dialogue tree and he or she should fill in any titles you are missing.
- An artificer refining table has been added to the barn in the Renton Keep area.
- Fixed a lot of recipe descriptions that listed unusable refined items as acceptable.
- Harvesting – Amateur tier rare harvesting tools have been increased in power.
- Harvesting - Greenback Spiders are no longer harvestable.
- Harvesting - Harvestable Treants in the Marsh of Peril will now despawn properly.


DIPLOMACY NOTES
- Glendryl Owlskeen is now a Soldier in Ca’ail Brael.
- Negotiating the Point now correctly gives only one copy of the card “Poetic Truths.”
- New Targonor - The repeatable quest “Monk for Hire” is available now at the New Targonor docks for diplomats of at least 201 skill to build faction with New Targonor
- New Targonor - The repeatable quests “See to Our Guests” and “Unruly Adventurers” are available in the Remniol District of New Targonor for diplomats of at least 301 skill to build faction with House Remniol.
- New Targonor - The repeatable quest “Out of Towners” is available in the Heartsworn District of New Targonor for diplomats of at least 301 skill to build faction with House Heartsworn.
- New Targonor - The repeatable quest “Improving Standards of Dress” is available in the Hilthorn District of New Targonor for diplomats of at least 301 skill to build faction with House Hilthorn.
- New Targonor - The repeatable quest “Deliveries for Caberton” is available in the Heartsworn District of New Targonor for diplomats of at least 301 skill to build faction with House Heartsworn.
- New Targonor - The repeatable quest “Ghost-ese” is available in the Hilthorn District of New Targonor for diplomats of at least 301 skill to build faction with House Hilthorn.
- New Targonor - The quest “Cleaning Out The House” has been added in Wharf Rat Downs in New Targonor. Seek out Dockhand Nash for more information.
- Tanvu - Tanvu’s Clergy and Academic levers are now operational.
- Tawar Galan - The quest “Smuggler’s Delight” is now available from Raisoor the Navigator on the sky bridge between Ca’ail Brael and Tawar Galan. It requires 50 Diplomacy skill and very low Presence.
- Tawar Galan - The follow-up quest “Secret is in the Sauce” is also available from Raisoor the Navigator for those who have completed “Smuggler’s Delight.” It features two alternate endings (“Stop the Smugglers” and “Secret is in the Sauce”) and will affect various factions accordingly. The reward for this quest series includes a belt that stores stacks of Information.
- Tawar Galan - Contraband-sniffing tigers added to Tawar Galan.
- Tursh - Merchant Civic Diplomacy Levers have been removed from Tursh.
- Veskal’s Exchange - Maret Djash is now willing to give out “Foreign Affairs” in Veskal’s Exchange.


WORLD POPULATION NOTES
- Ceros Isle - Added a mailbox and a shaman trainer to Hauyen’s Outpost on Ceros Isle (a level 40-44 area north of Tanvu)
- Craigwind Ridge - All overland camps in Cragwind Ridge have undergone an itemization pass
- Dahknarg – The quest “Specialized Training” is now not available until level 2. (when you can actually train)
- Dahknarg – various grammar/spelling errors have been fixed in many Dahknarg quests
- Karrus Hakrel - Hrukstraz is now more difficult and will respawn less often.
- Loot - World cash drops have been added/tweaked; all valid races should now drop cash loot if they weren’t before
- Marsh of Peril - Quest rewards in the Marsh of Peril have been tuned
- Martok - Fleet Commander MagUthor will now drop his head for players on the quest: Crippling the Fleet
- Northern Highlands - A group of Treants now inhabits a secluded valley in the Northern Highlands of Thestra
- Pantheon of the Ancients – Victims of Ghalnn will no longer fight back, but rather cower in fear during the trial “By the Shieldmaiden”.
- Tar Janashir - There is a new delivery quest in Tar Janashir.
- Tar Janashir - There is a new quest line available in Tar Janashir for players around level 36. Speak to Farra Djengh by the water in Tar Janashir and take the quest “Swiftfoot Shanty” to get started.
- Temple of Dailuk - Not all of the overland creatures are bloodthirsty anymore, only certain ones want to see you dead.
- Qalia - Much of the blue Qalian world loot has been tuned, more to come.
- Quests - Directions have been corrected for the quest, “Spoilcrawlers of Zoth Uluus.”
- Quests - The number of troll kills required for the quest, “Tolls for Trolls” has been increased.
- Quests - Agent Under Cover: You are no longer required to have the shadowhound illusion activated upon you in order to get the waypoint updates.
- Quests - Agent Under Cover: Azara Shahab will now give you another ring if you lost the first one she gave you.
- Quests - Crush The Defenses: Fixed bug where Xarkrafil Flarehounds were not giving quest bits.
- Quests - In the quest “Invoking Ghalnn’s Will”, the Enraged Ghostfang Okami should once again attack the Tanvu Prisoners.
- Quests - Fix to A Light So Bright - this should solve the issue of players not being able to click on the offering stone.
- Quests - The quest “The End of Innocence” has been marked more appropriately as ‘Small Group.’
- Quests - The Captain event in the Infineum quest line should be more playable
- Quests - The Bounty Hunter quests in the River Palace and Seawatch Coast areas will now properly reward quest completion with badges that can be redeemed for rewards. Additionally, any players who already completed these quests should seek out Marius Steelwind in Strandan. He will reimburse badges that should have been awarded by bounty hunt quests already completed.
- Quests - Invoking Ghalnn’s Will – Quest should now be able to be completed, and there should no longer be a barn full of panicked Tanvu Settlers being chased around by an angry wolf (comical as is was to see).  This quest is still, however, limited to one player at a time.
- Riftseeker’s Torrent - Altered the location at which characters teleport into the ‘Utaalk’ portal of The Temporal Fortress of the Riftseekers (Riftseeker’s Torrent). This should fix the problem where players were sometimes being teleported out of the dungeon.
- Riftseeker’s Torrent - Replaced the Monk/Disciple specific drops from Riftseeker’s Torrent with more Thestran friendly attire. If you have already obtained the old Monk/Disciple specific items, fear not as they have not been removed from game.
- Silverlake - Zar should now only spawn as a male, never as a female.
- Skawla Rock - Fixed the statistics on the heavy item rewards for the Skawlra Rock quest lines.
- Tanvu - A Cleric trainer has taken up residence in Tanvu.
- Trengal Keep - Interior population of a section of the Ruins of Trengal Keep has been modified
- Thelaseen Dungeon - True Blood Caretakers will no longer flee when low on health.
- Thelaseen Dungeon - Yalsyl Vonalys is no longer immune to auto-attack and will no longer flee when low on health.
- Veskal’s Exchange - Spinthra should be a bit less common
- Vol Tuniel - Players above the adventuring level of 34 can now teleport into the Lair of the Vi’Rak (Vol Tuniel) via the vortex found inside the Vi’Rak poisoned pit in Marsh of Peril.
- Vol Tuniel - Lesser named in the Thelaseen and Vol Tuniel dungeons now have a chance to drop a higher quality armor rune.
- Vol Tuniel - Ancient tome overland spawns are now correctly spread across both the Thelaseen and Vol Tuniel regions.
- Vol Tuniel - The ancient tome spawn rates and total spawns have also been very slightly increased.
- Vol Tuniel - Increased the power of a sub boss to a boss in the ruins of Vol Tuniel, his loot has also been adjusted upwards
- Vol Tuniel - If a named in the Thelaseen or Vol Tuniel regions can drop an armor quest rune, it will now drop a rune 100% of the time.
- Vol Tuniel - Adjusted the location at which players teleport to when using the Vortex to the Lair of Vi’Rak in order to prevent players from falling through the terrain.
- Zaraj Arena - High end rewards for the Zaraj Arena have been tuned


Items
- Living Rune Of Flame is now soulbound
- The effect on Yanvil, Shock of Ages, has been tuned
- The effect on the Infineum Rod and Staff has been tuned
- Infineum crafting items now require an immunity to Infineum in order to be equipped


GUI NOTES
- The work order window will no longer always say "You currently have no work orders."
- Negative coin values will now appear correctly in the UI. This mainly affected the Building Infomation window and Upkeep values.


CODING NOTES
- Fixed a memory leak in the rendering of markup strings.
- Players will no longer die again if they chunk while dead. This commonly happened on boats but could also happen when dieing right at a chunk border.
- Players will no longer die again if the region they are in goes down while they have they release dialog up.
- If you chunk while dead, your time remaining to release will reset to 10 minutes.
- Fixed a bug that would sometimes cause unequipped items to go into limbo until you relogged.
- Titles will now display properly after changing regions.
- Players that are missing harvesting titles should get them automatically the next harvesting skill up they get.
- In some cases, players doing diplomacy would have to log out and back in to see their new titles. This should no longer be the case.


~The Vanguard Team

I don't know how WoW can have an anti-solo bias when it has so much solo content. Even EQ 2 has a lot of solo content. It sounds as if you are complaining that the game has any group content at all. As a serious question, how could this be dealt with in a perfect world? Make content which is both suitable for groups and suitable for soloists at the same time? I don't think it would be possible.

If a game puts in lots of solo stuff and also puts in lots of group stuff, and says "here is the group stuff, see it says "elite" or three up arrows, that means group" and you go and seek out the group stuff to try to kill it solo, it's kind of unfair on the developers:)

I guess one issue is loot - in WoW you might solo up to 70 but you wouldn't get the cool stuff from the dungeons. Maybe solo mobs could drop loot which is as good as the stuff that comes from the group mobs. But even a dedicated soloist would find that a bit odd if they ever grouped up for a change and took on the dragon of uber-groupwiping only to come away with something that could get solo, even in a very difficult solo fight, I think.

Edit: If you are only really talking about locations - how about having some cool, dangerous, interesting dungeons for soloists instead of making them only do exterior areas - then I see your point.

The 1-70 game is soloable.

Well, I've often said this is where EQ1 got it right, at least in the pre-kunark era. I'm not asking to solo Nagafen or Vox or the Planes. But most of the rest of the game, with effort, was fairly soloable. At the very least, it wasn't put out of reach of solo players by virtue of a hard-coded anti-solo system that seems to be the way of all mmo these days.

Well, I've often said this is where EQ1 got it right, at least in the pre-kunark era. I'm not asking to solo Nagafen or Vox or the Planes. But most of the rest of the game, with effort, was fairly soloable. At the very least, it wasn't put out of reach of solo players by virtue of a hard-coded anti-solo system that seems to be the way of all mmo these days.

Well, maybe not top to bottom solo the entire dungeon. But invis in and solo a room, sure.

Well, maybe not top to bottom solo the entire dungeon. But invis in and solo a room, sure. We used to do it all the time, I don't think I did SolB, though. I liked lower guk. Guys like the frenzied ghoul and the sage (was he the one with the robe? That was the room I was camped in when I quit playing) were tough, but do-able. Don't think I ever quite pulled off the Lord's room solo.

I played a necromancer. Sometimes I'd duo with a wizard, before the eqholic moved away. My gear sucked for the most part, despite grouping a lot more in EQ1, because I seemed to always group with lootwhores or have bad dice rolls.

I'm suggesting I can't do that in any modern mmo, but I could in EQ. Hell, I'd give the pet the executioner's axe when I was soloing that whole area waiting for other camps to open up.

But these were blues (before there were 'light blues'). Maybe it's that I was a hunter? Shoulda played a pally, newb? I dunno.

Also, more effective how? Surely not in loot?

But these were blues (before there were 'light blues'). Maybe it's that I was a hunter? Shoulda played a pally, newb? I dunno.

Well, maybe not top to bottom solo the entire dungeon. But invis in and solo a room, sure. We used to do it all the time, I don't think I did SolB, though. I liked lower guk. Guys like the frenzied ghoul and the sage (was he the one with the robe? That was the room I was camped in when I quit playing) were tough, but do-able. Don't think I ever quite pulled off the Lord's room solo.

There are good quest items that rival the loot from instances, at least while you are levelling up.  At 60, not so much.

Also, that as a necro you were one of the ultimate solo classes.

Characters created are now at 420k according to VGplayers.com

Just a number, not saying much. But I am keeping track of that number out of curiousity.

In WoW? Pre-BC, I take it you mean? Because in BC the outdoor quest stuff (at least up to 70) very effing good. Not to mention random green drops 60-70 (or 58-70).

With all of those caveats in place, I'd suggest you're really after a single player game. Perhaps a SP game with integrated MSN-style chat. Ot alt-tab between them.

One thing I've thought I'd really like to see is where the game defaults to solo, but you can bring friends along if you like. If you're solo there are X mobs with Y abilities, and those numbers and abilities scale upward as you add extra players, as do the drops. That to me would be perfect. I like the interaction in MMOGs, even though it often puts me in direct contact with total morons, but I don't like the forced grouping. MMOs are different from lobby games in that you can run into people while out in the world. A lobby game could also have forced grouping and it would still just be a lobby game.

Aside from the models in Diablo (solo-based, lobby but you can group) and GW (group-based, lobby but you can go in with bots), nearly everything in WoW bar the instances fits that description.

I don't have a problem with the current balance really. I'd like some instances tuned for duos or three people moreso than pure solo.

It depends on your class makeup a lot, but now that you mention it I do remember three of us crawling slowly through the east wing of SM, with my Pally as healer (and tank) to two mages' DPS. No way we could have done (completed) the Abbey though.

When BC isn't the price of a full game, I'll jump in and play another character up through the ranks, most likely. I should mention, in playing WoW 1-58 (with a few alts up to maybe 20s), my hunter got a single blue drop from some random basilisk in Stranglethorn. That was it for blue drops. One.

With all of those caveats in place, I'd suggest you're really after a single player game. Perhaps a SP game with integrated MSN-style chat. Ot alt-tab between them.

City of Heroes does that. In fact, people exploit it by bringing a bunch of friends, zoning into the instance, then having their friends bail. As long as they don't leave, the mission is set for X number of players -- a lot more XP, if you can handle the mission.

Latest news: now all quests, including simple collect ones, give something around 5% XP.

Looks like leveling went from horribly slow to ridiculously fast.

Some are happy, some aren't. (http://www.silkyvenom.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11966)

Not to start an argument or anything, but to be honest Sky, I don't know why you play mmog's.  You don't like to chat.  You have no desire to group.  You're too casual to be competitive with other people.  You don't seem to care for the world thing. 

What keeps attracting you to mmog's? You seem against all the major reasons to play them and without those features, I think we can all agree mmog's are inferior as games.

I hate this game, and the guy who made it.  I hate the players and I hate their fun.  I hope they either lower the XP to 1% of what it is now, or raise it by 6000%.  I hope they add a bug that deletes characters.  I hope some catass shoots himself over the game, and dies in a pile of his own feces.  I just want to watch a train-wreck.

I think in general people put too much emphasis on raw  leveling speed as opposed to what they are doing while they are gaining levels.   I think a well designed modern mmo will give  a nice balance of questing, exloration and other activities which will ultimately lead to moving on to new areas in the game (towns, dungeons, outposts etc.)  This gives a nice flow to the game and the player feels that they are making progress whether or not they are gain 1 level per  gaming session or three levels per gaming session.  Is it WoW's fast leveling speed that  gives it pretty much universal appeal  or is it the fact that the player is constantly moving through the gameword doing meaningful stuff?

In mmos, problems start to arise though when the player is forced  into grinding mobs just to gain a level or two so they are able to continue the activities mentioned above.  WoW and EQ II do a great job  of managing this flow.  The first 12 levels or so of Vanguard also do a great job; but then you find yourself looking over a grand canyon filled with trash mobs that you have to fight through just to continue with the 'fun stuff' on the other side.

This would make me try the game.

But I am wondering, I could change my Planetside  subscription to the station pass thingy.

Would I still have to buy an account key for vanguard ? Or could I just download it and start grinding playing ?

This would make me try the game.

But I am wondering, I could change my Planetside  subscription to the station pass thingy.

Would I still have to buy an account key for vanguard ? Or could I just download it and start grinding playing ?

Cheer up. We still have SWG to kick around.

I think in general people put too much emphasis on raw  leveling speed as opposed to what they are doing while they are gaining levels.   I think a well designed modern mmo will give  a nice balance of questing, exloration and other activities which will ultimately lead to moving on to new areas in the game (towns, dungeons, outposts etc.)  This gives a nice flow to the game and the player feels that they are making progress whether or not they are gain 1 level per  gaming session or three levels per gaming session.  Is it WoW's fast leveling speed that  gives it pretty much universal appeal  or is it the fact that the player is constantly moving through the gameword doing meaningful stuff?

You have to buy the game. The Station pass saves you te monthly fee but no matter the game (EQ1, EQ2, Matrix Online, Vanguard) you still have to own a key to start playing.

Guys I wanted to pop in here and say a few things about the quest exp reward tweaks.

We were simply over zealous and didn't test enough internally before turning that live.

I sincerely appologize to everyone that feels like they were cheated because they saw others advance at a much faster rate - when they had worked very hard to attain their levels. To those of you that experienced the increased experience, well, consider it a gift

The quest reward numbers were tuned down yesterday when we finally got a chance to look into the issues. After further review today, the values were reduced slightly again - this change will go live this weekend. The values are still higher than the original experience values - but they should no longer be obscene.

~Tagad

I'd suggest you stifle that fucking shit, Edith.

This is a quote from a post on Silky Venom forums made by Tagad, a sigil employee:



I knew it was too good to be true when I thought to myself that it was actually viable to solo now..


About the vgplayers numbers; I myself have 7 alts with 1 at lvl16 and the rest are 8-14. I see lots and lots of alts being made so I think that the only number worth paying any attention to is the one for lvls 15+. That was around 40k atm?

que? I was being somewhat serious, based on the "I want everything in my MMO to be soloable" criteria you laid down.
If you're making threats over the intarwebs, then I suggest you get real, homegirl.

Not to start an argument or anything, but to be honest Sky, I don't know why you play mmog's.  You don't like to chat.  You have no desire to group.  You're too casual to be competitive with other people.  You don't seem to care for the world thing. 

What keeps attracting you to mmog's? You seem against all the major reasons to play them and without those features, I think we can all agree mmog's are inferior as games.

Guys I wanted to pop in here and say a few things about the quest exp reward tweaks.

We were simply over zealous and didn't test enough internally before turning that live.

~Tagad

I sincerely appologize to everyone that feels like they were cheated because they saw others advance at a much faster rate

This is not the sort of thing they should be worried about. They should actually be trying to figure out how to make the game more fun so it attracts more players.

Latest news: now all quests, including simple collect ones, give something around 5% XP.

Looks like leveling went from horribly slow to ridiculously fast.

Some are happy, some aren't. (http://www.silkyvenom.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11966)

"Unnacceptable.  My guildy leveled 2 levels in 8 hours and was disgusted and quit the game".

 Seriously.

What. The.  Fuck.  Is.  Wrong.  With.  These.  People?

As I have said many times, most MMOPRG players are passive-aggressive brats. It is one big competition for a lot of people. That's why they get upset at things like this.

Sigil is trying to focus on making things slow because their plan was always have fewer subs for longer. Problem is that entire strategy is flawed. WOW has a ton of subs and is still going strong. Vanguard has people getting fed up and quitting daily (from the boards I have been reading) and the sub numbers are a lot lower than they thought. It looks like they might not even have a quarter of the subs they were counting on.

Damm.

Well, I found an advertising on the station homepage that spoke of some kind of compliation. The ad said gave the impression that all Station games would be included, but I could not find it in the "store". Since I am mildly interested in the other games I am tempted to buy this. If I could find it.

"Unnacceptable.  My guildy leveled 2 levels in 8 hours and was disgusted and quit the game".

Seriously.

What. The.  Fuck.  Is.  Wrong.  With.  These.  People?

I wasn't making threats. I was just issuing a general stfu because it's a tired old reply that every solo-oriented mmo player is more than tired of hearing trotted out.

And that my most common "group" is duoing with my wife, followed by her + 2 other friends.

Vanguard - The Anti-Review
Elysium – Thu, 02/22/2007 – 7:38pm
Perspectives
"We will have a lot of work to do post-launch and the first couple of months post-launch will be just as busy as beta 5 with lots of patches, bug fixes, new feathres[sic], etc." – Brad McQuaid on beta concerns for Vanguard: Saga of Heroes performance

Honestly, you've got to respect the man's candor. Many criticisms may be laid at the feet of former Everquest Vision™ junkee and current Sigil Games Vision™ proselytizer Brad McQuaid but indirectness is not one of them. To be fair, I've poached a single sentence from one of a million forum posts by the guy, taken it out of context and placed it in italics to give it a weight beyond the scope of the original statement, so let's not pretend that this is some kind of mission statement on releasing the game. The thing is, having played Vanguard: Saga of Heroes whenever I could muster the fortitude over the past two weeks, Brad's post is a pretty salient commentary on the state of the game's release.

When in early February, a Vanguard review key wandered into my grasp I, as something of a Massively Multiplayer gaming addict, set out immediately with the intent of investing dozens of hours into its three-tiered gameplay structure to construct a fair and well-informed review of the title. I even joined with a colleague in what we termed a "blood oath" to achieve at the very least level 20 so that we had a clear impression of both the solo and grouping content of the game. What happened instead is that I kept finding excuses not to play a game that was mediocre at its best and flatly annoying most of the rest of the time.

My goal was to inform myself to a complete enough degree to write a review. This is not that review. That review will never exist, because I am simply not willing to force myself to play long enough to construct a fully realized impression of Norrath. No, wait. Norrath was Everquest. What's this place called again? Let me look it up, and I'll get back to you …

… Telon! Right, that's the place I've been avoiding.

Now, I'm going to stop fans of Vanguard right here, because I don't care about your vehement and impassioned emails. I honestly don't. First of all, as I mentioned this isn't a review, and I'm not pawning this off as a complete examination of the entire game, but more importantly I'm under no obligation to like Vanguard, and I'm not going to trot out the tired old conventions of picking out small and often insignificant things that don't suck to balance out against the overwhelming majority of things that do suck.

So, what's wrong with Vanguard? How long you got?

The engine seems tailor made for a Sony Online game – despite Sigil's years of work with Microsoft only to be unceremoniously, and maybe not mysteriously, dumped in 2006 – in that it:

1) Makes everything appear to be made of shiny plastic and,

2) Doesn't work

The landscapes feel lifeless, designed either as great open spaces where oddly shaped creatures wait to be slaughtered and harvested at the whim of the local constabulary, or equally often as tightly confined valleys between vertical cliffs of ridiculous proportions that look exactly like what I'd make with Maya if I wanted to try my hand at cliff making. Also, between these cliffs of insanity, are the same oddly shaped creatures, the slaughtering, and lazy constables. The quests come verbatim from The Big Book of MMOG Quests, and every phase of character development feels awkward. On any given swing of a sword a character might gain familiar skill increases for usual offensive and defensive attributes, but along with those one might receive upgrades in tactic recognition, spell recognition, perception, detection, light fandango tripping and smoothie making. Every conflict fills my chat bar with information that I don't really understand, and ultimately don't care about.

Much of Vanguard seems intentionally obtuse and as counter-intuitive as possible while at the same time wrapping itself in tired trappings that have been done far better. Judging an enemy's relative difficulty is itself a multi-layered exploration in cryptography. For example, a level 5 – 2 dot creature is actually less difficult than a level 4 – 3 dot creature. Do you know what that means? Well neither did I for about nine levels, and let me tell you it makes more than a marginal difference! Would it surprise you to know that, where at level 1 you hit creatures for the traditional handful of hit points, by level 6 you might have a critical hit for several hundred damage? Would it further surprise you to find that those hundreds of points of damage against a newbie mob won't do much serious damage, you know unless it's a level 6 – 1 dot. Obviously I'm talking about a level 4 – 4 dot or level 5 – 3 dot, which are clearly far more difficult that some 6-1!

Death is a fact of life for the early adventurer, and not just the kind of death that comes from hyper-fast respawns and wandering creatures several levels higher than you, but the really annoying death that can only be achieved by not understanding what the holy hell is going on. Fortunately characters are not "eligible" for death penalty for the first few levels. I put eligible in quotes because I was always struck on my many young deaths by not being eligible to be penalized by a game. I wondered if there were people at level 5 running around anxiously anticipating that glorious day when they, like their fathers before them, would be "eligible" for in-game punishment.

But, of course, adventuring, such as it's called, is only one of the spheres of Vanguard's three-sphere gameplay model. There is also Crafting and Diplomacy in which, theoretically, one could invest themselves entirely without paying much attention to improving their Bleeding From Puncture Wounds skill. Of the two spheres, Diplomacy most intrigued me with its collectible card style play.

In Diplomacy parleys you and your mob opponent both start with a pool of points. The first person to get rid of all their points wins the conversation. There is a marker that is moved by playing cards, and at the end of each turn whichever side of the board the marker is on gets rid of one of their points. If you, as the player, remove a point from your own pool then the conversation progresses.

Here are the problems:

1) Despite having names like Forceful Demand, Complimentary Comment or Obfuscating And Slightly Suggestive Imperative, the cards themselves do nothing to altar the static flow of conversations. Even as you play Angry Non-Sequiter, your side of the conversation may end up being conciliatory and diplomatic.

2) Card Gameplay gets redundant. It's one thing to hit the millionth local bandit with a sword, but grinding a card game is a whole new level of hardcore that I'm just not prepared to explore.

3) Vanguard doesn't do a great job of drawing you into the stories. Names of places and people seem so equally unfamiliar as to be interchangeable, and proper nouns suffer from more apostrophes than an all-night marathon viewing of Conjunction Junction. I can only care for so long that the Jaa'bba'lly of F'za'nnnjj province want Kwagzatz of the Hoohanie dead, which is why they are hiring Zv'ii'tz of the K's'tt''ll clan to concoct a slow acting poison to be applied to Kwagzatz's F'oo'd', and it's your job to convince nine different people to give you the nine different components of the poison.

4) There's no real sense of advancement. Occasionally you get a new card, or some new piece of diplomatic clothing that grants you an extra green dot at the beginning of each parlay, but who cares?

Diplomacy is a clever idea that's not nearly engaging enough at lower levels to encourage the player to move forward. The Diplomacy game lacks the levels of nuance and strategy that make CCG games so addicting, and the actions of parley seems only barely related to what's transpiring in the game. It would be like giving your character all kinds of interesting combat skills, but every time you activate those skills you just swing your sword the same way.

But, so what? Right? Tired and redundant gameplay, barely interesting story, artificial environments populated with lame quests and an over population of sword fodder; I could be talking about any MMO on the market. The whole damn genre has run off the rails and become a parody of itself. Click the button and a gamer-treat rolls occasionally down the little pipe activating neurotransmitters in the brain that beg endlessly for more tiny little gamer-treats. So why pick on the little guy?

Fine, you want to know what really pisses me off about Vanguard; what voices me with the attitude that Sigil stole my lunch money? Vanguard sets a bad precedent for development and product release. In the months to launch Brad McQuaid made it very clear that regardless of whether Vanguard was actually ready for launch Sony, which had saved the game from cancellation following Microsoft's parting of ways, had set a firm timetable for retail, and come hell or high water the game only had enough money and time to reach that date. So, now that the game has released in its incomplete state, in a state that McQuaid himself describes as requiring patches, bug fixes and new feature implementation on par with a beta product, Sigil essentially comes to the consumer as the third investor in the process of the development cycle, and that is not just a terrible way of doing business, but an irresponsible step in the wrong direction for complicit consumers.

Let me put it bluntly, if a game is not ready for retail when the money runs out find another investor or shut the doors. We are customers, and the retail end of the industry is bad enough about not supporting incomplete or inoperable products without developers and publishers assuming we are investors in the development process. Your job as the industry is to create product, and then, and only then, we buy it.

So, what to say in capping off my thoughts on Vanguard. First, to you Vanguard faithful who, even now, are anxious to point out all the little things that make Vanguard great on which I completely missed the boat possibly because I'm just some World of Warcraft lamer who can't handle a man's MMO, go suck a sock. I don't care about the stuff I missed because the larger picture, the game itself that's supposed to facilitate my giving a crap about the exploration was barely functional, obtuse and uninspiring. To the guys who made Vanguard and for whatever reason maybe put themselves through reading this, I'm sorry to kick your baby down the stairs, but too many game writers these days are so busy tap dancing around offending someone in the industry that they've lost sight of telling consumers not to buy mediocre games. And, finally, to the reader who is wondering if Vanguard is worth playing, had I to do it all over again I sure wouldn't, and my copy was free.

- Elysium

Let me put it bluntly, if a game is not ready for retail when the money runs out find another investor or shut the doors.

But, so what? Right? Tired and redundant gameplay, barely interesting story, artificial environments populated with lame quests and an over population of sword fodder; I could be talking about any MMO on the market.

As far as the money bit, I think it's past time consumers stop rewarding game companies for mediocrity. They'll keep putting out inferior/buggy products if we keep buying them.

But if the best risk-reward ratio is in solo questing to level up, no one will want to group, including people like myself.

Groups can do 'solo' content, but group content is excluded to solo players. So it's not hypocritical whatsoever. The reason I don't do dungeons 20 levels lower is clearly laid out by Darniaq. With the good stuff BoP and 20 levels beneath my character, why would I bother? Meanwhile a group can tear through level-appropriate, even far over-level solo content.

Name a single industry that this isn't the case for.  Have you looked at the games on the console shelf, the number of shitty movies, or even the crap being released as music? 

It's a ubiquitous phenomenon. 

With the good stuff BoP and 20 levels beneath my character, why would I bother?

Um, they probably don't WANT to "tear through" it.  I think the whole point of group content is that it is a challenge for a group.

I don't see a difference, as both of these preferences are obviously directly tied into risk/reward/timespent ratios.

From the rewards aspect, I understand groups don't want to 'tear through' solo content. But they can, and gain good rewards for doing so with low risk. Maybe not as fun, but it can be done. However, as a solo player, I can't hit a dungeon until it's ridiculously below my level, it's still very risky, and the rewards are nil.

It seems obvious to me that something which takes a team of six to take down is probably going to be carrying a more powerful magic doodah than something which one person can take down. But only if you expect some small level of consistency in the world.

If you want the exact same reward for grouping and soloing, you still would need to take into account group overhead/organizational difficulty.  Due to that, groups would get more per content clearance than soloers would, because soloers could clear it faster with less problems.

Ideally, to me, the time to get a group+run the dungeon should be less than the time to run the dungeon once solo, unless there's just no one willing to group. 

Vanguard - The Anti-Review
Elysium – Thu, 02/22/2007 – 7:38pm
Perspectives
"We will have a lot of work to do post-launch and the first couple of months post-launch will be just as busy as beta 5 with lots of patches, bug fixes, new feathres[sic], etc." – Brad McQuaid on beta concerns for Vanguard: Saga of Heroes performance ..............................

blah BLAH blah BLAH

(sniped some)

The principle of your statement is fine, but once you quantify it, people might argue against it.

Here's what really irritates me.  Who cares if the solo guy can get exactly the same gear as the group person? 

The people looking to form a group care.  Often, one look at someone's gear can tell you how well that person is in a group situation.  If said person could acquire MC gear or BWL gear solo, then you wouldn't be able to tell if he's an asshole or a ninja or what.  If said person could acquire MC or BWL - quality gear (same stats, different name) solo, via quests or whatever, then this person wouldn't be invited to groups because he obviously hasn't grouped before, and will behave like an idiot.

You either look at the guy's gear (and the group gear is obviously different than the solo gear), or you need his resume, where he grouped and with whom and how it went.

The people looking to form a group care.  Often, one look at someone's gear can tell you how well that person is in a group situation.  If said person could acquire MC gear or BWL gear solo, then you wouldn't be able to tell if he's an asshole or a ninja or what.  If said person could acquire MC or BWL - quality gear (same stats, different name) solo, via quests or whatever, then this person wouldn't be invited to groups because he obviously hasn't grouped before, and will behave like an idiot.

You either look at the guy's gear (and the group gear is obviously different than the solo gear), or you need his resume, where he grouped and with whom and how it went.

because with 5 people you have much greater room for error.

Raidtards are often the WORST people in a 5 man

Um, they probably don't WANT to "tear through" it. I think the whole point of group content is that it is a challenge for a group.

Something to the effect of making at least 1-2 classes that are solo only and/or have altered abilities upon grouping

Otherwise, I do actually agree that groups should get better gear than soloers. Soloers don't need the bestest gear if they're not going to go to places that require it. And e-peen waving isn't enough. But games should strive to soften the differences. In WoW I was never going to Naxxramas. Ever. It was three tiers beyond me and I'd wager at least 50% of the playerbase. So all that content made for that place and events surrounding is only for a small-ish subset of players. That seems wasteful.

Almost all of the difficult content I've seen playing dikus requires a combination of tanking, damage dealing, and healing. I personally can't come up with a way to make a difficult encounter where any one of these is variable from non-existant to being the only ability the player has.

Someone call up the CoH devs.  Best character balance EVER, eventually.  Groups of scrappers are good.  Groups of defenders are good.  Groups of tankers are good.  It's all good.

--
Alkiera

If there's no PvP, why do people even care what gear other people have?