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f13.net General Forums => MMOG Discussion => Topic started by: Falconeer on January 26, 2007, 09:28:58 AM



Title: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Falconeer on January 26, 2007, 09:28:58 AM
9.27 am PST and I can apparently log in and go for the final patch. Servers should be up for play in 15 minutes (EDIT: Live for people who preordered. Standard humans will be able to enter on Tuesday the 30th).

Here's the welcome message and the pre-launch patch notes. Scary as ever.


Quote
Vanguard Build 1716 Patch Notes 1/26/2007


Welcome to Vanguard: Saga of Heroes!
Congratulations! Your pre-order of Vanguard allows you to be one of the first to witness the exciting, dangerous, and ever-changing world of Telon. Telon is a living world, and like any world its early days is going to be fraught with turbulence. Expect us to have to "patch" any cracks as they appear for the first days.

We know you are excited to explore the world we created for you, and we are equally excited to have you here. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the landscape... enjoy the freedom... of Vanguard.


GAMEPLAY NOTES
- Many cases of "lost corpses" are now free for summoning at the altar. ("Free" meaning the experience that can be recovered by looting the corpse/tombstone will remain on it, and there will be no durability hit).
- Charmed NPC that are not a fixed duration have a significantly greater chance to break early. NPCs higher than the casters level still have an increased break chance.
- All ranged items should now be purchasable in stacks
- The non-damage resistance rate on high challenge level NPCs has been reduced.
- There will now be an error displayed at character create if you have not selected a server.
- You should now be able to get back to the race/class phase of character create from server select.

- Many activated racial abilities have had their effects tweaked and recast timers changed:
- Goblin - Cast time lowered to 15 minutes
- Orc - Damage healed is now 50% of damage done, duration lowered to 15 minutes
- Kojan Humans - Cast time lowered to 30 minutes - diminishing effects are now in place, preventing the same target from receiving more than 1 spirit of jin within a 10 minute period
- Half Elves - Ability has been fixed. The rune has become 15% spell damage, and duration raised to 60 seconds Recast time reduced to 30 minutes.
- Raki - Plane shifting is now activated once per 30 minutes, lasts 1 minute. The health drain has been removed, and the mitigation to spell damage has been increased to 50%.
- Wood Elves - The run speed buff has been increased. Recast time is 30 minutes. More changes likely to come with this.
- Qaliathari Human - This effect now works. 100% evasion for 10 seconds. Recast time reduced to 30 minutes.
- Varanthari - Melee mitigation has raised to 35%. The recast has changed to 30 minutes.
- Mordebi - Ancient curse now simply stuns the target for 8 seconds, and reduces the agro range to 0. The target will not assist/agro while stunned, and the effect does not generate any agro. Recast is now 30 minutes.
- Dark Elves - Blood elves now use the arcane caster version of the pet. The pet will now despawn whether it's in combat or not. Recast has changed to 30 minutes. The psionicists and necro pets will soon become minions. This change is not in effect yet.
- Gnomes - Level restrictions have been adjusted for the crystals. The descriptions for the crystals have been fixed.
- Kurashasa - The symbiotic infection is now a proc, which can be applied on spell cast, on hit, or by being hit. The regen has been removed and replaced with a 25 % all damage rune. The recast of the ability has changed to 30 minutes.
- Thestran Human - Recast time is now 0. More changes likely to come to this.
- Dwarves - Recast time has become 30 minutes. The damage mitigation is now 25%.
- Halflings - Halflings now have two abilities, based on class:
- Halfling warriors: Pride of the Vael: This ability will add a vast amount of hate to a single target, and apply a buff on the Halfling for 30 seconds. All attacks during this time period will count for double agro. - recast time is 15 minutes.
- All other classes: Shroud of the Vael: this ability will remove 99% of agro from a single target but keep the Halfling in combat. Additionally, for 30 seconds afterwards, any spell cast or attack made will have its agro reduced to 1% of normal as well.
- Lesser Giants - The effect has been fixed to only grant 50% additional hitpoints. However a regen component has been added as well, and the duration has been increased to 60 seconds. Recast time is now 30 minutes.
- Barbarians - The effect has changed to cut the cost of all endurance/energy spells by half, and the damage increase stays the same. Recast time is now 30 minutes.
- High Elves - Recast time is now 15 minutes.
- Vulmane - Recast time is now 15 minutes.
- A first iteration on PC passive abilities are in for crafting, harvesting, and adventuring attributes. It is likely there will be an additional adventuring ability for each race added shortly.

Adventuring Abilities:
- Qalian/Thestran Barbarians, Lesser Giants and Orcs: Large Race: 2% bonus to mitigation
- Raki, Vulmane, and Kurashasa: Animal Reflexes: 10% bonus to run speed.
- Dwarves, Halflings, Goblins, Gnome: Small Race: 2% bonus to evasion
- High Elves, Dark Elves, Wood Elves: Elven Wisdom: 2% reduction in mana cost
- Qalian/Thestran/Kojanese Humans, and half elves: Human Ingenuity + 10 bonus to all weapon skills, and dodge.

CRAFTING
Thestran - +10 Ingenuity
Dwarves - +10 Finesse
Halflings - +10 Reasoning
High Elf - +10 Reasoning
Vulmane - +10 Problem Solving
Varanjar - +10 Problem Solving
Lesser Giants - +10 Ingenuity
Kojani - +10 Ingenuity
Wood Elves - +10 Finesse
Orcs - +10 Problem Solving
Goblins - +10 Reasoning
Half Elf - +10 Finesse
Rakki - +10 Reasoning
Qaliarathia - +10 Ingenuity
Mordebi - +10 Finesse
Gnomes - +10 Problem Solving
Dark Elves - +10 Finesse
Kurasasha - +10 Reasoning
Valathari - +10 Problem Solving

HARVESTING
Thestran - +5 Lumberjacking
Dwarves - +5 Mining
Halflings - +5 Reaping
High Elf - +5 Reaping
Vulmane - +5 Skinning
Varanjar - +5 Quarrying
Lesser Giants - +5 Lumberjacking
Kojani - +5 Lumberjacking
Wood Elves - +5 Lumberjacking
Orcs - +5 Quarrying
Goblins - +5 Mining
Half Elf - +5 Skinning
Rakki - +5 Reaping
Qaliarathia - +5 Lumberjacking
Mordebi - +5 Reaping
Gnomes - +5 Mining
Dark Elves - +5 Skinning
Kurasasha - +5 Skinning
Valathari - +5 Quarrying

Known Issues:
- Orcs do not get a "Human Ingenuity" bonus as their description states. Instead, they get the "Large Race" bonus of 2% mitigation.
- Half Elves do not get a "Large Race" bonus as their description states. Instead, they get the "Human Ingenuity" bonus of +10 to all weapon skills and dodge.

ADVENTURING NOTES
- All Classes - Sprint now states that it is instant cast
- Bard - Hinder should now be working properly. Hinder should also display the hate added properly.
- Cleric - Removed Hallow from trainers until it functions properly
- Cleric - Power of Renewal II should now have a healing amount in line with the other Power of Renewals
- Cleric - Turn Undead no longer has an energy cost
- Cleric - Turn Undead should now be resisted less often.
- Disciple - Your attacks should now longer say that you "cast" them on yourself
- Disciple - Celestial Breeze no longer display text twice.
- Dread Knight - The mitigation boost from Armor of Darkness should be applied correctly now.
- Dread Knight - Added a 6 second refresh to Malice
- Druid - Taproot has been added at level 18
- Druid - Added Forage to level 10
- Paladin - Retort II, III, and IV should only last 60 seconds or 3 hits, whichever comes first.
- Paladin - Aura of Shielding should now add mitigation
- Paladin - Paladin Auras should now only affect the group the paladin is in.
- Paladin - Aura of Divine Power should now display correctly.
- Paladin - Hammer of Valus should now display the floating combat text
- Paladin - Blade of Vol Anari should now display text in your combat window
- Paladin - Divine Center and Stalwart Soul can no longer be cancelled by right clicking.
- Paladin - Upbraid now costs energy instead of endurance.
- Psionicist - Thought Thief now works correctly. It has been changed a little. Now only mental spells will sap mana. Other spells will not do damage, but will not return any either. The way they work has been streamlined and you no longer need to have the mana to cast the spell to cast it under Thought Thief.
- Monk - Feet of the Fire Dragon ability line now has floating numbers.
- Monk - Removed energy cost from Ignore Pain. This ability should now be usable again.
- Monk - Feet of the Fire Dragon should now correctly display the damage dealt.
- Necromancer - The Deathwalk effect display description has now been updated to display the correct number instead of 0.
- Ranger - Your attacks should now longer say that you "cast" them on yourself
- Ranger - Can now cast ferocity while stealthed
- Ranger - Slightly increased duration and damage of Ferocity
- Ranger - Increased the forage table with food and herb items
- Rogue - Blackjack can now only be used while out of combat.
- Rogue - Keen Eye now raises your chance to score a critical hit by 2%!
- Rogue - Ravage now requires you to be stealthed.
- Rogue - Backstab now requires a piercing weapon.
- Rogue - Stalking can no longer be cancelled by right clicking.
- Shaman - Display Description on Wings of Hayatet III now represents what the buff gives you 15% fire spell crit), instead of the misleading 8% fire spell crit
- Shaman - Rage of Tuurgin now upgrades on even levels instead of odd ones
- Shaman - Wings of Hayatet I now gives a resistance bug like stated
- Shaman - Adroitness of Rakurr is now group targeted
- Shaman - Tuurgin's Vigor now lowers Endurance costs by percentage rather than flat numbers
- Warrior - Strike Now, Form a Line, and Charge should now work without a defensive target. These are now cast on the warrior's group.
- Warrior - Smash should now do the appropriate amount of damage.
- Warrior - Myrmidon's Gift now lasts 3 seconds instead of 1 hit. It is clear in the description that it only affects special attacks.

CRAFTING NOTES
- More information has been added to crafting advisors and taskmasters.
- Station placement in major cities has been adjusted.
- More advanced work orders have been added.

DIPLOMACY NOTES
- New Targonor and Ahgram now have all city services: trainers, vendors, guards, exchange brokers, mailboxes, banks... and many intriguing characters whose stories you will learn through Diplomacy in the coming months.
- Tanvu now has Civic Diplomacy: Soldiers and Crafters (which means you can complete the Civic Diplomacy Tutorial).
- 'Settle the Debts' should no longer send you to parley with an angry Kurru.
- ‘A Ship to Sail by' can now be completed in response to a rare issue.
- Many more parley dialogues to enjoy in Civic Diplomacy.
- All NPC decks should now play against you in parley.
- Civic Diplomacy factions are being given correctly in all Civic Diplomacy areas. Yes, it is correct that Halgarad gives Leth Nurae Presence. It's an elf/barbarian thing.

WORLD POPULATION NOTES
- Kalendra the Dark Witch once again has a body. Rejoice!
- There are now trainers for all adventuring classes at the Wardship of the Sleeping Moon in the Marsh of Peril.
- There is now a full suite of adventuring trainers at Zarabadi Landing, northeast of Khal.
- Bordinar's Cleft - Horsebane Ticks within the stables of Bordinar's Cleft are no longer assisting one another via hard-locked encounter.
- Cliffs of Ghelgad - Parisa Nirumand in the Cliffs of Ghelgad should no longer chase and attack any KoS races who find themselves ported to the nearby altar upon death.
- Cliffs of Ghelgad - Alimir Surhami in the Cliffs of Ghelgad should no longer chase and attack any KoS races who find themselves ported to the nearby altar upon death.
- Khal - Redirected the overland population that would sometimes roam to the corpse altar location in Khal.
- Khal - Guard directions in Khal are now up to date and complete.
- Mekalia - The mailbox has been moved to a much more accessible location.
- Mekalia - A Qalian Marketplace Broker has setup shop within the city walls.
- Pankor Zhi - Pankor Zhi and the Queen's Roost above is now a functional 48+ group/multi group adventuring area. More quests and flavor text are soon to follow.
- Renton Keep - Mount of the Zihurr is, once again, inhabited by the Zihurr Arthropods rather than vicious mousemen!
- Renton Keep - The quest "Ants Underfoot" should no longer be spawning seemingly endless waves of the Zihurr.
- Rindol Field - Guard directions in Rindol Field are now up to date and complete.
- Shaman's Glade - Players should now be sent to the correct altar location when meeting their untimely demise
- Shaman's Glade - Shaman's Glade is now known as the Wardship of the Sleeping Moon.
- Temple of Dailuk - The dragon turtles are less cuddly with each other.
- Temple of Dailuk - Quest: Road to Dark Horse Downs is no longer repeatable.
- Temple of Dailuk - Quest: Evendusk Fortress: You no longer have to return to the questgiver to complete
- Tursh - Caretaker Hugh in Tursh should no longer chase and attack any KoS races who find themselves ported to the nearby altar upon death.
- Tursh - Guard directions in Tursh are now up to date and complete.

GUI NOTES
- Level will now be shown on your offensive target window instead of just in the tooltip.

CODING NOTES
- The crash reporting procedure will no longer use your email client. Those of you who were unable to send crash reports before due to email problems should no longer experience submission troubles, so please consider submitting your reports. Thanks!

ART NOTES
- Bug fix for the crazy clothes that were appearing briefly while logging in.


~The Vanguard Team











Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Azazel on January 26, 2007, 09:35:06 AM
Good luck. I hope you survive.



Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: geldonyetich on January 26, 2007, 09:35:39 AM
Patching up.  :)

I'll drop a "just how much an initial trainwreck the preorder release was" update in 2 1/2 hrs.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Afropuff on January 26, 2007, 09:36:05 AM
I'm glad this happened. We needed another Vanguard thread.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: WayAbvPar on January 26, 2007, 10:14:20 AM
(http://sdg.csail.mit.edu/6.894/images/trainWreck-edited.jpg)

Woohoo!


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: rk47 on January 26, 2007, 10:17:50 AM
That's harsh. :) But have fun. That's all it's there to it. ;) I'm having my own fun in WoW right now.  :-D


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Soln on January 26, 2007, 10:22:43 AM
needs more races

lawl


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: slog on January 26, 2007, 10:26:35 AM
how many Gigs is the first patch?


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Falconeer on January 26, 2007, 10:39:05 AM
Zero giga in the first patch. It's still 16.7 gigs total.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: rk47 on January 26, 2007, 10:47:27 AM
(http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m20/r3dknight/welcometovanguard.jpg)


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Yoru on January 26, 2007, 10:53:26 AM
Oh, Welcome to the NHK manga scanlations, what aren't you useful for? :)


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Miasma on January 26, 2007, 10:55:10 AM
I've heard the PvP servers are either locked or down, maybe they aren't going to turn them on today?  I'd go to the official boards to see an official response but whoops, they don't have official forums.  I'd go to the "unofficial official" forums but whoops, they have gone offline to upgrade their hardward because they were getting crushed even before the game launched.

Now I get to bounce around a bunch of shitty fansites trying to find one that has the answers I want, fucking idiots1 and their asinine decision not to have forums.

1I claim first to call them "fucking idiots" since it went live.

Edit: I had to go to the vault, now I need a shower.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Falconeer on January 26, 2007, 11:03:53 AM
The lack of official forums, I always forgot to comment, is plan and simple RIDICOLOUS. *sigh*


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Falconeer on January 26, 2007, 11:06:08 AM
VARKING, team PvP, is now Up.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Venkman on January 26, 2007, 11:15:03 AM
The lack of official forums, I always forgot to comment, is plan and simple RIDICOLOUS. *sigh*
You know why that is the case though ;) If they did it right now there'd be nothing but flame fests, guaranteed to turn away passersby.

I actually suspect they'll open up official forums sometime late summer though. They need to wait until the gotta-be-firsts filter out of the game they realize they don't like and be replaced by the starry-eyed newbs coming for an alternative to whatever. When they reach a good ratio, THEN they launch the official forums.

The patch notes would have included an XP nerf if there was one. Hence, there wasn't one. Score 1 point for correcting the mistakes of the past!


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Engels on January 26, 2007, 11:45:38 AM
Quote
Dark Elves - Blood elves now use the arcane caster version of the pet. The pet will now despawn whether it's in combat or not. Recast has changed to 30 minutes. The psionicists and necro pets will soon become minions. This change is not in effect yet.

woops.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: raydeen on January 26, 2007, 11:52:35 AM
Quote
Dark Elves - Blood elves now use the arcane caster version of the pet. The pet will now despawn whether it's in combat or not. Recast has changed to 30 minutes. The psionicists and necro pets will soon become minions. This change is not in effect yet.

woops.

It's just wishful thinking on their part.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Soln on January 26, 2007, 12:01:49 PM
Quote
Dark Elves - Blood elves now use the arcane caster version of the pet. The pet will now despawn whether it's in combat or not. Recast has changed to 30 minutes. The psionicists and necro pets will soon become minions. This change is not in effect yet.

woops.


Rang RANG!


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: geldonyetich on January 26, 2007, 12:32:56 PM
In their defense, I'll say Vanguard's Dark Elves are far bloodier than any race in WoW.

So...
Quote from: me
I'll drop a "just how much an initial trainwreck the preorder release was" update in 2 1/2 hrs.
Aside from the to-be-expected over hunting of newbie grounds, things have gone quite swimmingly on Targonor from the Kojan starting point.  My client crashed once, then I restored default settings and it didn't crash the remaining 2 hours I played it.  A far as I can tell, the servers have zones have been up and stable since the server was put up at approximately the scheduled time.  I've heard, "Things have really improved since beta" about a dozen times over the broadcast channels.

We'll see how chipper I am when the evening crew hits, but for the time being, train wreck averted.  Maybe the rails are a bit rusty and broken here and there, maybe some would consider it a Frankenstein monster of trains, but it's nonetheless forging ahead on schedule.  FFVIII depiction:

(http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/8466/doomtrain1se8.jpg)


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Surlyboi on January 26, 2007, 12:59:07 PM
Not a bad start. I'll take it over WoW.

Then again, I'd take a beaver shit taco over WoW so I may be biased.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Slayerik on January 26, 2007, 01:04:04 PM
Not a bad start. I'll take it over WoW.

Then again, I'd take a beaver shit taco over WoW so I may be biased.

Yeah, because WoW was so poorly done  :roll:


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Surlyboi on January 26, 2007, 01:08:18 PM
Fanboy much?

Has nothing to do with how poorly or well done it is. Has everything to do with my disdain for the lack of engaging quests, IMO.

You like it, you play it. I'll play this 'til I decide it sucks and then I'll play something else or I won't.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Valmorian on January 26, 2007, 01:17:23 PM
Fanboy much?

Has nothing to do with how poorly or well done it is. Has everything to do with my disdain for the lack of engaging quests, IMO.

You like it, you play it. I'll play this 'til I decide it sucks and then I'll play something else or I won't.

Psst.  What makes a quest "engaging" is purely subjective.  Are some quests in WoW boring and meaningless?  Sure.  But there's a lot of them in there with interesting storylines and neat bits. 

I have to ask, though, what exactly is so different about the quests in Vanguard?  Are there no "collect x" quests at all?  No "collect this bosses head" quests?




Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: stray on January 26, 2007, 01:26:05 PM
Allow me to say that both games suck equally in the "engaging story/quest" department.  8-)

MMO developers are pretty good in the lore department. Pretty poor as far as doing anything interesting with that lore.

Not sure why that is. Not money. Plenty of underfunded games can still tell a good story. Not even gameplay. Plenty of engaging rpg's, action titles, and adventure games with shitty game mechanics. Not even multiplayer and persistency -- Instancing makes many things possible, and yet, these games still suck.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Soukyan on January 26, 2007, 01:28:20 PM
"Engaging" is quite subjective.

I do agree that most MMOGs could be more engaging, however. How to accomplish that, I cannot answer... at least not without some monetary compensation. ;)


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Surlyboi on January 26, 2007, 01:31:25 PM
Psst... And here I was thinking my experience was the end-all-be-all of MMOness...  :roll:

Anyway, yeah, there are fedex quests in any and every MMO out there. Vanguard is no different. That said, the Kojani start series alone is more intriguing than most of the crap I did in my six month stint with the Horde.

I appreciate WoW for what it is, a highly polished, yet ultimately soulless experience. YMMV. Six months down the line, I may feel the same about Vanguard. Hell, six days down the line I may feel that way. I may just dig it now because there's a part of me that secretly digs watching trainwrecks and I just like rooting for the underdog and shit that people are just waiting to fail. Who knows? What I do know is that there are eight million threads out there singing the praises of WoW for many deserved reasons and just as many undeserved ones. Vanguard's getting shit on just because of who and where it came from. Does it deserve some of the scorn? Of course it does, does it deserve all of it? And more importantly to me, does it deserve my scorn? That's what I intend to find out.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Nebu on January 26, 2007, 01:39:59 PM
I'm not a fan of WoW, but it's easy to see the big things they've managed to accomplish:

1) Atmosphere.  I dislike the cartoonish graphics, but like them or not, they do generate a very tangible atmosphere.

2) Players feel powerful IMMEDIATELY.  None of that "I have to get to level X and then I'll start to kick ass" stuff.  

This is as far as CoH/CoV got... they do these first two well also.

3) Itemization to satisfy the loot whore in all of us.

4) Most of the content and progression is soloable while being even faster/more rewarding in a group.   Encourage grouping, don't DEMAND it (with the exception of small portions of the game). There's progression, but not a terribly obvious grind... especially to those new to the genre.

5) Linear gameplay.  Always a direction that always pushes you forward.  I think my biggest departure from the game may be here as I like things more open ended.  It certainly does seem to aid in the game's appeal.  

The quests are largely uninteresting and nothing we haven't seen before.  The game mechanics similarly so.  

I think these points are going to be expected in anything but niche games.  It will be interesting to see what Vanguard has adopted and how those departures will affect their retention.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Valmorian on January 26, 2007, 01:42:05 PM
That said, the Kojani start series alone is more intriguing than most of the crap I did in my six month stint with the Horde.

What does that quest series consist of?


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Surlyboi on January 26, 2007, 01:47:32 PM
Not to spoil it much, but you it's about redemption.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Ixxit on January 26, 2007, 01:53:57 PM
WoW's quests are good in that they lead you through the game world to the places that are ideal for your level and expose content at just the right time.   Quite the testament to the skill of Blizzard's designers and is one of the reasons that the game is enjoyed by millions.

That said, I personally found after a while that following the quest chains became a unpalatable grind.  It's hard to explain , but I felt I was playing the mmorpg version of your typical rail shooter,  where the game funnels you from point a to b not with physical barriers ala Dungeon Siege  but with quest dialogue.

While some might consider that a strength,  I am explorer by heart, and never felt particularily immersed in that world.


EQ2 had some really great quest lines that you just happened on as you explored your surroundings and rewarded your curiosity.  These were not necesserily initiated by clicking on an NPC with an icon floating above their, but often by some inanimate yet prominent object in the world, like a boat moored by a small lake.

While I haven't had enough experience with Vanguard to comment on the strengths of its quests  one thing I noticed is that expecially in the starting are there are  lots of points of interest you can see far  in the distance that practically beg you to explore them.



Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Nebu on January 26, 2007, 01:56:18 PM
EQ2 had some really great quest lines that you just happened on as you explored your surroundings and rewarded your curiosity.  These were not necesserily initiated by clicking on an NPC with an icon floating above their, but often by some inanimate yet prominent object in the world, like a boat moored by a small lake.

Yes.  That coupled to the ?, !, and page quests really made exploring and gathering a nice mini-game.  I liked many things that EQ2 introduced.  I just couldn't handle many many others. 


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Surlyboi on January 26, 2007, 02:11:07 PM
WoW's quests are good in that they lead you through the game world to the places that are ideal for your level and expose content at just the right time.   Quite the testament to the skill of Blizzard's designers and is one of the reasons that the game is enjoyed by millions.

That said, I personally found after a while that following the quest chains became a unpalatable grind.  It's hard to explain , but I felt I was playing the mmorpg version of your typical rail shooter,  where the game funnels you from point a to b not with physical barriers ala Dungeon Siege  but with quest dialogue.

While some might consider that a strength,  I am explorer by heart, and never felt particularily immersed in that world.

That's it exactly. I hated that feeling. That coupled with my general disdain for instant gratification in RPGs just sunk WoW for me. I wanted to like it, I really did, considering my ex was playing it at the time and I kinda wanted to share the experience with her, but it just sucked.

Quote
EQ2 had some really great quest lines that you just happened on as you explored your surroundings and rewarded your curiosity.  These were not necesserily initiated by clicking on an NPC with an icon floating above their, but often by some inanimate yet prominent object in the world, like a boat moored by a small lake.

That's what I liked and continue to like about EQ2. Quests can start almost anywhere.

Quote
While I haven't had enough experience with Vanguard to comment on the strengths of its quests  one thing I noticed is that expecially in the starting are there are  lots of points of interest you can see far  in the distance that practically beg you to explore them.

That's what may keep me long after the quests have bored me to tears. The fact that if I travel long enough, I can actually climb that mountain I see in the distance.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Valmorian on January 26, 2007, 02:19:08 PM
EQ2 had some really great quest lines that you just happened on as you explored your surroundings and rewarded your curiosity.  These were not necesserily initiated by clicking on an NPC with an icon floating above their, but often by some inanimate yet prominent object in the world, like a boat moored by a small lake.

Those quests exist in WoW as well, it's just that people are so used to the ! and ? that many don't bother to look for them.  One that I can think of starts with a scrap of paper at the bottom of the water under the Thandol Span.  The note leads you on a quest line that culminates in building a monument to honor those who died in the war that damaged the bridge in the first place. 

It's an obscure quest, most have never seen it, but it's there.  (Hell, I can think of a second one on the SAME bridge, in a hidden little nook that you have to jump to get to). 



Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Morat20 on January 26, 2007, 02:26:45 PM
EQ2 had some really great quest lines that you just happened on as you explored your surroundings and rewarded your curiosity.  These were not necesserily initiated by clicking on an NPC with an icon floating above their, but often by some inanimate yet prominent object in the world, like a boat moored by a small lake.

Those quests exist in WoW as well, it's just that people are so used to the ! and ? that many don't bother to look for them.  One that I can think of starts with a scrap of paper at the bottom of the water under the Thandol Span.  The note leads you on a quest line that culminates in building a monument to honor those who died in the war that damaged the bridge in the first place. 

It's an obscure quest, most have never seen it, but it's there.  (Hell, I can think of a second one on the SAME bridge, in a hidden little nook that you have to jump to get to). 

Where the hell is Thandol Span?


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: squirrel on January 26, 2007, 02:36:37 PM
EQ2 had some really great quest lines that you just happened on as you explored your surroundings and rewarded your curiosity.  These were not necesserily initiated by clicking on an NPC with an icon floating above their, but often by some inanimate yet prominent object in the world, like a boat moored by a small lake.

Those quests exist in WoW as well, it's just that people are so used to the ! and ? that many don't bother to look for them.  One that I can think of starts with a scrap of paper at the bottom of the water under the Thandol Span.  The note leads you on a quest line that culminates in building a monument to honor those who died in the war that damaged the bridge in the first place. 

It's an obscure quest, most have never seen it, but it's there.  (Hell, I can think of a second one on the SAME bridge, in a hidden little nook that you have to jump to get to). 

Where the hell is Thandol Span?

The bridgge that joins the wetlands and arathi highlands.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Morat20 on January 26, 2007, 02:53:26 PM
The bridgge that joins the wetlands and arathi highlands.
I vaguely recall being around there as I leveled -- I think I ended up shuffling between there and Duskwood, so I know I missed a lot of quests.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Venkman on January 26, 2007, 05:32:10 PM
Every MMOG has that wow-gee quest moments. WoW is replete with them, as is EQ2 and as was what I saw in my limited time with VG. I particularly liked the, err, Eastern-themed race (kojan?). Awesome beginning, great story, the sort I wish WoW had. They really don't. There's no big shockers in WoW except when you first see someone like Ragnaros in Molten Core. I don't think there's anyone I know who hasn't, upon first seeing him, gone "holy crap!". Half the time they do that in guild/raid chat :)

In any case, good for VG pushing so much of the creativity with quests and stories in the early levels. I think only the Human and Night Elves in WoW had anything even close to resembling fun/neat/twisted/unexpected elements in early quests (the fact that I can still remember the Buzzbox quest line in Auberdine from the first beta is telling). They did a bang-up job with both Draenei and Blood Elves (the two new expac races) this time around, particularly good for the Horde, which outside of Undead and in some moments Orcs, by and large sorta sucked for questing variety early on.

In WoW you can easily tell in which order the Races were introduced into the game. The same feeling exists in  :nda:. I didn't play every race in VG so don't know if it exists there too. I wouldn't be surprised though, given the number of races.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: geldonyetich on January 26, 2007, 07:32:11 PM
I agree with what you're saying DQ, although I think it's important to mention that those wow-gee moments will vary from person to person.  For example, I've been pretty mystified with the world in Vanguard, but there's people who can not see it.  Many people will tell you that features such as running across a giant gnome digging device in WoW are super cool and Vanguard has nothing like that, but I've seen those kinds of features in both games.  WoW is a bit more functionally stylized - they kept the poly count low and had the Warcraft style to make that work, while Vanguard's style is a bit more fully realized but at a cost of performance.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Threash on January 26, 2007, 08:25:39 PM
Every MMOG has that wow-gee quest moments. WoW is replete with them, as is EQ2 and as was what I saw in my limited time with VG. I particularly liked the, err, Eastern-themed race (kojan?). Awesome beginning, great story, the sort I wish WoW had. They really don't. There's no big shockers in WoW except when you first see someone like Ragnaros in Molten Core. I don't think there's anyone I know who hasn't, upon first seeing him, gone "holy crap!". Half the time they do that in guild/raid chat :)

Did you do the "battle of dwarrowshire" or "of love and family" quest lines? both definitely had pretty good holy shit moments.  So did the onyxia key quest actually... come on, that first time you saw Marshall Windsor marching through stormwind to confront onyxia was pretty fucking awesome.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: squirrel on January 26, 2007, 08:39:44 PM
Every MMOG has that wow-gee quest moments. WoW is replete with them, as is EQ2 and as was what I saw in my limited time with VG. I particularly liked the, err, Eastern-themed race (kojan?). Awesome beginning, great story, the sort I wish WoW had. They really don't. There's no big shockers in WoW except when you first see someone like Ragnaros in Molten Core. I don't think there's anyone I know who hasn't, upon first seeing him, gone "holy crap!". Half the time they do that in guild/raid chat :)

Did you do the "battle of dwarrowshire" or "of love and family" quest lines? both definitely had pretty good holy shit moments.  So did the onyxia key quest actually... come on, that first time you saw Marshall Windsor marching through stormwind to confront onyxia was pretty fucking awesome.

Yeah that fight in Stormwind is a pretty fucking cool scripted moment - one of the best I've seen in a MMORPG. I've done it several times and each time we ended up with a small audience of lowbie's watching. Cool quest that.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Kitsune on January 26, 2007, 09:08:13 PM
I'm somewhat disinclined to risk money on Vanguard, though if someone gets the collector's edition and should happen to slide me one of the ten-day passes, I'd be willing to give it a shot.  The fact that the all-access pass applies to it is helpful, I'd be much more inclined to pay for EQ2/Planetside/VG than VG alone.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Venkman on January 26, 2007, 09:47:49 PM
Definitely agree on Windsor/Onyxia. I also liked the Water Elemental one near Ratchet, this quest I just did in Hellfire with some bloke who got knifed (which you didn't know in the first part of the quest), Darrowshire to be sure, the 10-step series in Darkshire, and dozens of others I could recall if the stupid freakin' game would actually track your Completed quests too.

Aside: how the eff dumb is that? I've probably done close to 700 quests in WoW, and there's no way to look them up after the fact. I feel like the only one that cares though. I love looking at old quest achievements. It reminds me of so much.

Anyway, VG had those in the early levels, as did EQ2, and as does WoW in spotty areas.

To Geldon's point, it is subjective. But it is also there as proof of life beyond Kill/Deliver X for Y. All developers care. Some are more talented than others. Some have more money and time than others. Nobody sits back and says "today I will script the most boring waste of time ever to exist".


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Fordel on January 26, 2007, 10:46:09 PM
Yeah that fight in Stormwind is a pretty fucking cool scripted moment - one of the best I've seen in a MMORPG. I've done it several times and each time we ended up with a small audience of lowbie's watching. Cool quest that.


I bet a bunch of them aren't watching, just waiting for it to finish so they can hand in their newbie quest. I think the Windsor event highlights why it's hard to make a good engaging story in a MMO. The event was indeed cool the first time, even the second... the third was neat, the fourth so-so, the fifth was meh, the sixth time was just down right annoying. "yes yes, hero's blah, save the day blah, let them pass blah, will you just hurry it up so I can hand in my damn report from lakeshire  :x "


-edit- Spell Check can't help you if you use the wrong words    :?


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: pxib on January 26, 2007, 11:28:59 PM
I bet a bunch of them aren't watching, just waiting for it to finish so they can hand in their newbie quest. I think the Windsor event highlights why it's hard to make a good engaging story in a MMO. The even was indeed cool the first time, even the second... the third was neat, the fourth so-so, the fifth was meh, the sixth time was just down right annoying. "yes yes, hero's blah, save the day blah, let them pass blah, will you just hurry it up so I can hand in my damn report from lakeshire  :x "
I just had a not particularly brilliant idea.

The big problem with one-time scripted events is that not everybody can be there. Yes yes, it's very cool that some people get to experience something that nobody else will ever get to do again. "Why do I always miss the great moments?" World events avoid this by being spread out and generic (the scourge invasion)... but they lose their narrative power.

Then I remembered Ultima Online.

During... ga. I've forgotten the particular event. A bunch of mages NPC mages were running around killing people in Moonglow.  Usually it was just generic groups of enemies teleported in, but every once in a while there'd be a group of titled NPCs ("Theodora the Terrible" and the like) who would shout various scripted things. I assume they were scripted, they might have been played by staff. I was running Ignatz around enjoying the chaos a group of mages teleported in with one of these named NPCs,but I thought they were just going to stay where they stood (like they normally did) but she shouted "Oh look, a mortal. Kill him." and they all came chasing after me. I shit a brick. I escaped through a crowd who'd been killing these baddies for a while, but I have no idea what happened. I was so spooked I ran all the way to the moongate.

That's MY story. It wasn't some silly game event... it happened to ME. I wasn't the hero in the story... at all. It didn't matter. I was part of something big.

So games would be well served to make giant, temporary events with tiny random scriped bits to throw in when there are enough people around to appreciate it. The forces of evil don't spawn regularly or predictably, but they're everywhere. Then, every once in a while they lay seige to a small town... not for long, mind you, if they stick around players will gather and the moment will be ruined. "Everybody was part of it, but not me." Maybe the guards can handle them... but a few guards die trying. The guards have lines. So do the more powerful monsters. The attacks may mostly be the same, but the lines are different. Maybe the named monsters pick particular characters "Dwarves! Kill the earth diggers!" Everyone will know somebody who experienced it first hand, and the people who were actually there will talk about it for months. They'll remember it for years.

 Then... and here's my not particularly brilliant idea: Record them. Have "cameras" available in a few locations near where these scripted events can happen and watch how people react. Cull the boring reactions and save the good ones. Publish them on the website.

Now you have the ten o'clock news. Nothing happened to me during the Loma Prieta earthquake (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loma_Prieta_earthquake) in 89'... the house shook impressively and we all enjoyed it and laughed until somebody said "Uh. This is big. We should probably take shelter or something. Maybe we should go outside." By then it was over. I wasn't the hero in the story, but I was part of something big. I know it was something big because we were glued to the news for days.

Don't trust the players to record it. They may eventually have the forthought, but that just makes it "something that happened to that guy". Partway into the event release a "trailer" or two that chronicle the ongoing event. Give players specific events to remember, whether they were there or not. Then months later maybe they'll ask eachother "So what happened to you doing during the Scourge Invasion?" ...because even if not everybody has their own story, they'll tell about a friend of a friend because hey...

...it made the news.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Velorath on January 27, 2007, 01:44:17 AM
During... ga. I've forgotten the particular event. A bunch of mages NPC mages were running around killing people in Moonglow.  Usually it was just generic groups of enemies teleported in, but every once in a while there'd be a group of titled NPCs ("Theodora the Terrible" and the like) who would shout various scripted things. I assume they were scripted, they might have been played by staff. I was running Ignatz around enjoying the chaos a group of mages teleported in with one of these named NPCs,but I thought they were just going to stay where they stood (like they normally did) but she shouted "Oh look, a mortal. Kill him." and they all came chasing after me. I shit a brick. I escaped through a crowd who'd been killing these baddies for a while, but I have no idea what happened. I was so spooked I ran all the way to the moongate.

That's MY story. It wasn't some silly game event... it happened to ME. I wasn't the hero in the story... at all. It didn't matter. I was part of something big.

I'm sure at the time it was very exciting, given that it was new to you.  To the MMO audience these days though, it's just some mobs (one named) randomly spawning near you, spouting off a line of dialogue, and then you trained them into a crowd of other players as you ran away.  It's going to take a lot more than that to really get people to notice now.  The only difference between YOUR story, and the typical MMO encounter was the randomness of it, which doesn't necessarily make it a better story.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: pxib on January 27, 2007, 01:56:01 AM
I don't think it takes more, it just takes different. "Randomness" is what matters. Legendary events only a few people witness become just that: Legendary. Sophistication of presentation isn't nearly so important as implying what the player is witnessing is unique.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: CmdrSlack on January 27, 2007, 01:59:37 AM
Fuck Vanguard.

CoX is adding crafting in the next issue and it's double xp weekend.  Oh, and you feel powerful right away.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Surlyboi on January 27, 2007, 04:45:32 AM
Fuck Vanguard.

CoX is adding crafting in the next issue and it's double xp weekend.  Oh, and you feel powerful right away.

I didn't feel powerful right away in CoX. I had to get to my travel power before any sense of, "Ok, now I'm badass" kicked in.

Don't get me wrong. For CoX, the ability to feel powerful right away is cool if it hits you that way. Vanguard's a fantasy RPG, it's about building your toon. I dig that. YMMV.

That said, I'm totally torn between the "Get a jump on the crowd" weekend in VG and double XP in CoX. Fuck both companies for making me hop back and forth like a tweaker between two piles of meth.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Simond on January 27, 2007, 06:49:54 AM
Every MMOG has that wow-gee quest moments. WoW is replete with them, as is EQ2 and as was what I saw in my limited time with VG. I particularly liked the, err, Eastern-themed race (kojan?). Awesome beginning, great story, the sort I wish WoW had. They really don't. There's no big shockers in WoW except when you first see someone like Ragnaros in Molten Core. I don't think there's anyone I know who hasn't, upon first seeing him, gone "holy crap!". Half the time they do that in guild/raid chat :)
My newbie BE paladin found a necklace when levelling up in the Ghostlands. I turned it in to its owner, and got...this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipQBFDb_SFI&eurl=) as a reward.
(Not my video, btw - just the first fraps of it I could find on Youtube)


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Signe on January 27, 2007, 07:17:59 AM
You got dancing girls?


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Surlyboi on January 27, 2007, 07:40:23 AM
Update:

After bagging last night to go have dinner with the GF and her family and then coming home and being too drunk to play last night, went to bed.

I got up bright and early this morning and pushed the ranger up to 10. It was fun, my bridges and combos are kinda cool.

Needless to say, I feel a nerfbat hanging over my head as I type this...


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Engels on January 27, 2007, 08:22:26 AM
By the way, not that anyone will care too dramatically, but the new engine patching they did upgraded performance significantly for me. I can really not complain about the game's performance in good conscience any more.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Surlyboi on January 27, 2007, 08:59:20 AM
By the way, not that anyone will care too dramatically, but the new engine patching they did upgraded performance significantly for me. I can really not complain about the game's performance in good conscience any more.

Same here. Much smoother.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: geldonyetich on January 27, 2007, 10:14:48 AM
CoX is adding crafting in the next issue and it's double xp weekend.  Oh, and you feel powerful right away.
In all fairness, I'll point out that I do feel powerful pretty quickly in Vanguard.

My Disciple (a healer) could land hits that do over 200 points of damage by level 4.  (Fluttering Petal I + Critical.)  For scale, that's about the same as the damage done in ten rounds of just auto-attacking at that level.  A Scrapper critical + buildup = 400%, but I just landed a 1000%. 

My Disciple can also perform a three-hit combo that heals my target for 100% of its health (whether it's a level 1 player or a level 50 player) by level 4.  100% heals by level 4.  An empath Defender has to wait for what level to do that?

Perhaps the monster balance is where it's at?  Well, provided I'm playing well, I can take down up to three 2-dot targets that are on me at once.  I consider them "minions" in CoH balance.  I took down a three-dot target that was a level above me once.  Three-dots are intended for duos/trios, but like a "boss" in City of Heroes, some players just find them a challenging solo encounter.

Abandon all previous assumptions of EQ clone balance, ye who enter Vanguard.  Either that, or I'm overdue for a nerf.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: geldonyetich on January 27, 2007, 10:16:02 AM
By the way, not that anyone will care too dramatically, but the new engine patching they did upgraded performance significantly for me. I can really not complain about the game's performance in good conscience any more.
Same here. Much smoother.
Out of curiosity, are you both using NVIDIA cards?  I suspect the enhancements didn't influence ATI much.  Oh well, I did say I thought it was playable at 5 FPS.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Venkman on January 27, 2007, 10:33:53 AM
I don't think it takes more, it just takes different. "Randomness" is what matters. Legendary events only a few people witness become just that: Legendary. Sophistication of presentation isn't nearly so important as implying what the player is witnessing is unique.
Yes. WoW uses 'Invasion' series akin to the anecdotes from UO. They're triggered events that take on a life of their own, with the occasional surprise.

People by and large liked this in UO because the genre was different then and there were just fewer people. We were mostly the trendsetters. EVERYTHING was new. Nowadays though the genre has grown by the influx of achievement-based gamers. To them even the UO events would have been just a bunch of walking sources for gold and drops. There's still as many people who care about the uniqueness and lore, but they are a steadily-declining percentage of the overall playerbase in diku.

So it's really all point of view. I liked the Invasion events for what they brought to otherwise static zones AND because they were a good source of rewards (depending on event it was faction, money or drops). Others lean one way or the other, but I prefer the balance. I'm in WoW to continually grow, and like that. But when it has become work, I leave. Dynamic events or even dynamically triggered scripted events remind me of the uniqueness possible in these games.

And that's not just in WoW.

VG has this too of course. But that's today. A year from now when the newbie areas haven't been completely redesigned, it'll be like the dialog event before Rags pops in MC: the first time it's cool. The 12th time it's just a wasted 70 seconds :)


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Morat20 on January 27, 2007, 11:19:36 AM
Yes. WoW uses 'Invasion' series akin to the anecdotes from UO. They're triggered events that take on a life of their own, with the occasional surprise.
Bloodplague for the win. "Why are all these corpses he....ACCCK!"

That was awesome.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: SnakeCharmer on January 27, 2007, 12:55:05 PM
I actually had a good time in VG last night, surprisingly.  My preconceived notions were that I would hate it, but after about 5 hours of messing around with it, then hooking up with some old SWG buddies, I came away feeling pretty satisfied.

*Note - I will concede that hooking up with some old 'friends' may have influenced my perceived enjoyment of VG, and was willing to overlook the game itself.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Surlyboi on January 27, 2007, 01:08:31 PM
By the way, not that anyone will care too dramatically, but the new engine patching they did upgraded performance significantly for me. I can really not complain about the game's performance in good conscience any more.
Same here. Much smoother.
Out of curiosity, are you both using NVIDIA cards?  I suspect the enhancements didn't influence ATI much.  Oh well, I did say I thought it was playable at 5 FPS.

NVidia and a mobile Radeon x1600. (I loaded it up on my Macbook Pro for shits and giggles and found it still semi-playable even on 256megs of VRAM.)


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: geldonyetich on January 27, 2007, 03:39:35 PM
Here Targonor, Targonor... 
Unlock for Geldon. 
Oh dear, you are down again. 

Come on, be a good server
Like the other ones
Yes, Yes! Finally! Loading!

Oh, you locked again I see. 
Why do you taunt me?
Here Targonor, Targonor...

(http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m20/r3dknight/welcometovanguard.jpg)


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Ixxit on January 27, 2007, 04:04:49 PM
By the way, not that anyone will care too dramatically, but the new engine patching they did upgraded performance significantly for me. I can really not complain about the game's performance in good conscience any more.
Same here. Much smoother.
Out of curiosity, are you both using NVIDIA cards?  I suspect the enhancements didn't influence ATI much.  Oh well, I did say I thought it was playable at 5 FPS.

I have noticed a pretty big performance  increase as well. I am now running the game in my monitor's native res (1650 x 1080)  and it is pretty smooth.  The godawful caching seems to be gone which accounted for much of the choppiness .  I am using a NVidia card and have only a middling system.  Athlon 3200  socket A(400 fsb), 1.5 gigs of ram and a  BFG GT6600.




[Edit] Using the default high performance settings (second for the bottom) with the view distance at max, without any of the ini tweaks.  Game looks decent at these settings  and will do the job until I upgrade at the end of the summer.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Ixxit on January 27, 2007, 04:15:52 PM
I actually had a good time in VG last night, surprisingly.  My preconceived notions were that I would hate it, but after about 5 hours of messing around with it, then hooking up with some old SWG buddies, I came away feeling pretty satisfied.

*Note - I will concede that hooking up with some old 'friends' may have influenced my perceived enjoyment of VG, and was willing to overlook the game itself.

It's really starting to grow on me as well.  Personally the substandard performance and pretty glaring bugs at the beginning of the open beta were the reason I was a little hesitant to pick give the game a chance.   Now with those problems pretty much resolved some of the quite enjoyable gamplay elements are bubbling to the surface .  Tried some resource gathering tonight for the first time and I must say that Vanguard has the best lumberjacking ever.   :-)


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Venkman on January 27, 2007, 04:27:14 PM
Please. You guys just want your own sub-forum.  :evil:

*runs*


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: geldonyetich on January 27, 2007, 06:13:54 PM
In time, there will just be a Vanguard forum and a World of Warcraft forum.  The WoW forum will be barely used, but left open out of pity for the few players still playing WoW.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Velorath on January 27, 2007, 06:19:13 PM
In time, there will just be a Vanguard forum and a World of Warcraft forum.  The WoW forum will be barely used, but left open out of pity for the few players still playing WoW.

That's only because the Vanguard forum will also double as the Den.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: hal on January 27, 2007, 08:02:18 PM
Geld, its one thing to be in love. Nothing wrong with that. Enjoy, Sadly it won,t last. It is alltogether another thing to be in love and blind. Meditate on that sir and enjoy your self while knowing the world around you. after all "nothing is happening" is the net effect.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: geldonyetich on January 27, 2007, 10:11:39 PM
Well, there's two posters who don't understand green text is complete sarcasm.  Or was I mistaken about what green text meant?


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Velorath on January 27, 2007, 11:22:36 PM
Well, there's two posters who don't understand green text is complete sarcasm.  Or was I mistaken about what green text meant?

I understood.  I just don't think there's a color for "smart-ass reply to sarcastic comment".


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: geldonyetich on January 27, 2007, 11:29:00 PM
Vanguard will be a solid contender, but it won't displace all other games on the face of the planet.  Despite having a relatively smooth pre-order launch (servers have gone down for extended maintenance here and there) I'm still guesstimating Vanguard at about the 200k+ subscription point.  If it goes above 1M (something only three American-released MMORPGs have ever done and probably only one on American subscriptions alone) I'll be floored.

And now for something completely different.

I hear they had abandoned their ideas of going multi platform, so I wonder if I should make anything out of the contents of \Program Files\Sony\Vanguard\Skins.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Joey on January 28, 2007, 12:50:41 AM
After several hours of downloading, I finally got the game installed and patched, only to be met with an "All worlds are down" message.

After waiting another hour and a half, I finally got to pick a server (Florendyl) and create my character, but unfortunately, I can never actually get into the game.  It just hangs on the character select screen.  I tried numerous times, but it was to no avail.

After reading about the return of the "character select screen bug" over at MMORPG, I've decided to give up for the night.  Oy!




Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: schild on January 28, 2007, 01:01:27 AM
Started playing.

Done playing. Review in a few minutes.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Strazos on January 28, 2007, 03:05:29 AM
In all fairness, I'll point out that I do feel powerful pretty quickly in Vanguard.

My Disciple (a healer) could land hits that do over 200 points of damage by level 4.  (Fluttering Petal I + Critical.)  For scale, that's about the same as the damage done in ten rounds of just auto-attacking at that level.  A Scrapper critical + buildup = 400%, but I just landed a 1000%. 

It's all numbers. Do you get all excited in JRPGs when you do 9999 damage? But then feel weak when you swap over to something based on D20 or 3E cause you're only doing 20 damage a swing or something?

And nerfs? Please. Did you ever actually PLAY EQ? "Nerfs in the future" does not even begin to describe what's going to happen, especially since none of these changes have had any testing whatsoever.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Surlyboi on January 28, 2007, 03:54:06 AM
In all fairness, I'll point out that I do feel powerful pretty quickly in Vanguard.

My Disciple (a healer) could land hits that do over 200 points of damage by level 4.  (Fluttering Petal I + Critical.)  For scale, that's about the same as the damage done in ten rounds of just auto-attacking at that level.  A Scrapper critical + buildup = 400%, but I just landed a 1000%. 

It's all numbers. Do you get all excited in JRPGs when you do 9999 damage? But then feel weak when you swap over to something based on D20 or 3E cause you're only doing 20 damage a swing or something?

And nerfs? Please. Did you ever actually PLAY EQ? "Nerfs in the future" does not even begin to describe what's going to happen, especially since none of these changes have had any testing whatsoever.

Six years of EQ. All as a ranger. That's how I know this guy's way too powerful right now and the bat's gonna come hard and fast.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Calantus on January 28, 2007, 05:48:24 AM
That said, I personally found after a while that following the quest chains became a unpalatable grind.  It's hard to explain , but I felt I was playing the mmorpg version of your typical rail shooter,  where the game funnels you from point a to b not with physical barriers ala Dungeon Siege  but with quest dialogue.

While some might consider that a strength,  I am explorer by heart, and never felt particularily immersed in that world.

I agree and yet I disagree. Personally I love choices and few "bonus" quests that, while not necessarily hidden, you have to look for in order to get them. On the whole though I'll typically play a game the exact same way once I get into a quest groove. All the baldur's gates and similar games I will play through pretty-much the same way every time I replay them. Even Ultima 7 and Morrowind, games that are really open, I'll play the exact same way, doing the same quests in the same order always (except when forced not to of course). So while I do understand what you say, and would like a little more freedom, being forced into a groove isn't so bad to me since I'd just make up my own groove after a couple characters anyway.

What irritates me the most about WoW quests is where you'll hit a group only quest or a quest that you magically can't do until you get 1-2 more levels. That really shits me when I have to drop a quest line or miss out on a nice standalone quest just because of arbitrary borders. If only they weren't so strict on the level (my brother and I call +3 mobs the "magic level" because it's where you start missing like a mofo and getting mass partial resists/glancing blows, making such fights so not worth it) and group aspects when they come into play I probably would never get bored of that game, just leveling guys over and over through the quest grind and overcoming quests that I probably shouldn't be able to, but can if I really push myself and pull out all stops.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: tmp on January 28, 2007, 01:58:00 PM
In all fairness, I'll point out that I do feel powerful pretty quickly in Vanguard.

My Disciple (a healer) could land hits that do over 200 points of damage by level 4.  (Fluttering Petal I + Critical.)  For scale, that's about the same as the damage done in ten rounds of just auto-attacking at that level.  A Scrapper critical + buildup = 400%, but I just landed a 1000%. 

It's all numbers. Do you get all excited in JRPGs when you do 9999 damage? But then feel weak when you swap over to something based on D20 or 3E cause you're only doing 20 damage a swing or something?
He said the 200 hp attack is 10x regular auto thing, so he does "only 20 damage a swing" normally as it is. Am getting impression what he's talking about isn't "numbers" but relative sizes -- an attack worth 10 regular ones does feel like a powerful blow, no matter what actual numbers showing when you hit the foozle say.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: geldonyetich on January 28, 2007, 02:52:23 PM
When my Disciple was level 6, it was roughly like this: 

  • Auto-attack did 20ish damage.
    • Auto-attack damage is based off of weapon equipped, stats, and skills.
    • The weapon in this example is a mediocre newbie weapon.
  • My Ability-based attacks added about +8, +12 damage.
    • It says how much it adds on the skill itself.  Some are straight weapon + amount damage, others are a % modification.
    • Many ability-based attacks have secondary effects, like healing my defensive target.
    • You have an offensive and defensive target specified at all times.
  • Critical hits, which happen about 20% of the time for me, increase the damage done by about 25%-50%.
    • All attacks can crit, including the chain attack below.
    • Epic and Legendary critical hits are rare but can do massive amounts of damage.  A 20 pts attack may become 250 pts.
  • My chain attack, "Fluttering Petal I", does about 150-250 damage, about 50% of a two-dot mob's health.
    • Disciples chain attack is opened by performing a crit with an ability-based attack.
    • If you perform an attack out of sequence the opportunity to perform a chain attack is lost.
    • What triggers chain attacks will vary between classes.  Some classes may not get a chain attack.
    • There are other kinds of attacks such as reactive counterattacks and rescues.  Some classes don't get these.

Disciple damage is weaker than most because they're defensive casters.  Offensive casters or offensive fighters should do consistently more damage.  However, I suspect the Disciple might be one of the more interesting to play in terms of diversity.  It's hard to say, having not played terribly deep into the other classes.

That said, you might see how Vanguard's balance is different from many MMORPGs out there.  I can only recall player influence allowing mega-gobs of damage to happen to mobs in City of Heroes.  Usually it's just "hit kick button for an extra attack", which is a lot less interesting than "watch out for chain opportunities for 10x damage extra attack".  There's a few more aspects of consideration here that most MMORPGs don't bother to add, which puts Vanguard above being the average Diku in my mind.  You know, before Diplomacy and Crafting come along.

I said "roughly" on the first sentence of this message because I didn't have a pencil and paper out at the time, so I'm eyeballing a lot of this.  It's further complicated because abilities "age".  They start off fresh and potent, but in time you need to buy a more potent version off the trainer, and those are unlocked with character level.  My "Fluttering Petal I" did 50% of a two-dot mob's health at level 4, but at level 9 it's more like 25%-35%.  Eventually I'll get a "Fluttering Petal II" and it'll start over again.

(I'd be playing right now, but I told myself I'd not play Vanguard until I'm done working.  Curse my procrastination!  I aught to include F13 with that, but I'm apparently quite compulsive.)


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Kitsune on January 28, 2007, 05:20:02 PM
To the best of my knowledge, DAoC was the founder of the 'Attack B can be used if Attack A works/stuns/crits', FFXI ran with the ball for party-wide chain attacks, and EQ2 tried similar.  Nicer than 'auto attack + kick button every ten seconds', but not something of earth-shattering newness unless something else has been thrown into the pot.  Where previous games kinda failed is that FFXI made it essential to pull off chain attacks if the party wanted to succeed, and EQ2's chain attacks were nice but largely underwhelming.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Nebu on January 28, 2007, 05:43:55 PM
I've been playing yesterday and today.  All I can say is that any potential this game may have is overshadowed by it being a buggy, unpolished piece of shit. 

1) Loads of z-axis errors.

2) Character animations are TERRIBLE.  Swimming and ladders are pathetic.

3) Many interface glitches. 

4) Too many other examples to list... half the time I log on I don't even get the option to create a new character.  Booted to desktop only to have ALL of my preferences erased, etc.

I'm dumbfounded.
 



Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Azazel on January 28, 2007, 11:32:31 PM
Geld, its one thing to be in love. Nothing wrong with that. Enjoy, Sadly it won,t last. It is alltogether another thing to be in love and blind. Meditate on that sir and enjoy your self while knowing the world around you. after all "nothing is happening" is the net effect.

Im not in love
So dont forget it
Its just a silly phase Im going through
And just because
I call you up
Dont get me wrong, dont think youve got it made
Im not in love, no no, its because....

I like to see you
But then again
That doesnt mean you mean that much to me
So if I call you dont make a fuss
Dont tell you friends about the two of us
Im not in love, no no, its because....

I keep your picture
Upon the wall
It hides a nasty stain thats lying there
So dont you ask me
To give it back
I know you know it doesnt mean that much to me
Im not in love, no no, its because....

Ooh youll wait a long time for me
Ooh youll wait a long time
Ooh youll wait a long time for me
Ooh youll wait a long time

Im not in love
So dont forget it
Its just a silly phase Im going through
And just because I call you up
Dont get me wrong, dont think youve got it made
Im not in love
Im not in love


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Margalis on January 28, 2007, 11:56:03 PM
Why are people playing in the first week of release? Seriously do people just never learn?

Is the need to be first like on the SWG message boards really that compelling?


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Falconeer on January 29, 2007, 12:05:00 AM
Why are people playing in the first week of release? Seriously do people just never learn?

Is the need to be first like on the SWG message boards really that compelling?

There are two kind of jaded gamers.

The kind that is too old to bear paid betas and unpolished shit.
And the kind that is too old to be troubled by bugs and unpolished shit.

I play because I AM unpolished shit, and I am enjoying Vanguard. Maybe it won't last, maybe I am just bored. Maybe it's just because I have a guild of of good friends in there. Still, I had a hell of a weekend.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: pxib on January 29, 2007, 12:10:07 AM
They're so very, very bored. They've been playing the same games for months and need a little novelty. I can get my crappy-new-clone thrills from Signe's Asian betas... but some folks don't really feel like they're getting properly fucked if they're not paying for it.

Still, I had a hell of a weekend.

Whatever floats your boat, dude.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Miasma on January 29, 2007, 07:03:22 AM
I played it over the weekend and mostly enjoyed it, I wish my guild didn't want to play on the PvP server though.  The main reason I think I had fun was because I hooked up with old friends though, not due to the merit of the game.

If you ever played EQ this game will feel very nostalgic while being easier enough to make you forget about all the crap you had to go through in EQ.  I did a few corpse runs but they were optional, you can summon your corpse from where you rez, you can also bind items to yourself so that they stay with you even if you die.  The main pain in the ass right now is travel time, there is no easy way to move around and the world is just huge, this is mitigated somewhat by the fact that you can buy a cheap horse at level ten.  Eventually you get a flying mount but I doubt I'll make it that far, there is noticable grind even in your teens.

I was surprised at how stable the servers were, they only came down for patches.  There are plenty of bugs and annoyances but nothing game breaking (aside from one bug on the race war server).


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Ixxit on January 29, 2007, 07:25:59 AM
Quote
The main reason I think I had fun was because I hooked up with old friends though, not due to the merit of the game.

Quote
Maybe it won't last, maybe I am just bored. Maybe it's just because I have a guild of of good friends in there.

Aw come on....don't qualify your love.  :heartbreak:

It's almost as if Vanguard is like the fat girl you are secretly dating but too embarassed to say that you are infatuated with  :evil:

Admit it, Vanguard has legs....maybe a litte cellulite here and there but I'll sure be spreadin' them for a while.


(Yeah, I know bad analogy)



Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Falconeer on January 29, 2007, 07:57:25 AM
No Ixxit, you are wrong with me.

I said I enjoyed it all over the weekend. I "supported" it for a full month and basically tried to wipe away the hate since I joined F13. What else should I do?

First, I walk proud of all my fat girls. I just love 'em all.
Second, this is not the case. I am having fun with a game I am not in love with, yet. Maybe it's just a fling, maybe we'll end up married. Can't say yet.

I am not diminishing my good time in Vanguard at all. I am just bored at myself talking good about the game and trying to explain why. Explain why it doesn't suck, or at least why it doesn't suck one inch more then World of Warcraft (it's the fucking same old crap! Now 70% more unpolished but with 30% more calories!) . I am done talking so I will concede anyone interested a win. Vanguard sucks.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go back playing it and leveling my Thestran Paladin.
(Oh, by the way, in game I am a fat girl).


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: shiznitz on January 29, 2007, 07:58:56 AM
I was surprised at how stable the servers were, they only came down for patches.  There are plenty of bugs and annoyances but nothing game breaking (aside from one bug on the race war server).

They are stable but not crowded. I saw few players this weekend in the Vulmane starting town. I will continue to pop in to VG but it won't be pulling me from EQ2 full time. There is a lot of EQ2 I have yet to see at 65 and it is so much more polished. I will continue to level my VG character until I can try some serious grouping action. I need to experience the chains and counters before I make up my mind for good.

The good part of VG is that anyone can get at least a month's worth of casual entertainment out of this game by just taking one character of each race to level 7 or so.





Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Miasma on January 29, 2007, 07:59:17 AM
(Yeah, I know bad analogy)
No that's a good analogy, I'm somewhat ashamed that I had fun this weekend.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Engels on January 29, 2007, 08:21:16 AM
Well, its sorta a bad analogy, because Sigil isn't the fat girl, its the wife-beating husband you went back to, despite your girlfriends' warnings about leopards and spots. That's the sense of shame.

So far its all a nice honeymoon, and I'm enjoying myself, but I harbor no delusions that the other shoe may drop at any time and the beatings will commence in earnest as soon as Brad has a spreadsheet with leveling figures on it.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Ixxit on January 29, 2007, 08:25:07 AM
No Ixxit, you are wrong with me.

I said I enjoyed it all over the weekend. I "supported" it for a full month and basically tried to wipe away the hate since I joined F13. What else should I do?

First, I walk proud of all my fat girls. I just love 'em all.
Second, this is not the case. I am having fun with a game I am not in love with, yet. Maybe it's just a fling, maybe we'll end up married. Can't say yet.

I am not diminishing my good time in Vanguard at all. I am just bored at myself talking good about the game and trying to explain why. Explain why it doesn't suck, or at least why it doesn't suck one inch more then World of Warcraft (it's the fucking same old crap! Now 70% more unpolished but with 30% more calories!) . I am done talking so I will concede anyone interested a win. Vanguard sucks.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go back playing it and leveling my Thestran Paladin.
(Oh, by the way, in game I am a fat girl).

Yeah, I know you have been doing a great job bringing to light Vanguard's strengths.   I wasn't poking fun at you at all and only quoted you among others to try to stress the point that there really should be no shame in enjoying the game.   I remember when EQ II and WoW first came out and it was in vogue to bash those who preferred EQ II over WoW for whatever reason (at least at Quarter to Three where I usually hang out).   You couldn't really have a discussion about it without being assailed by a horde of slavering WoWites.  This has the same vibe to it.

Like EQII, Vanguard will continue to mature over time.  It definately has a distinctive new/old  style flavour and a 'worldy' feeling. Keep talking it up.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Falconeer on January 29, 2007, 08:39:21 AM
I wasn't poking fun at you at all

Never thought that :)
Just took the chance to explain once more (I am redundant, last girlfriend used to say that to me a lot) my current position about Vanguard.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Signe on January 29, 2007, 08:43:43 AM
Someone should smush up all these Vanguard threads and stick them up top.  There seems to be enough playing.  You could just score out UO and put them in there.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Slayerik on January 29, 2007, 08:51:49 AM
Someone should smush up all these Vanguard threads and stick them up top.  There seems to be enough playing.  You could just score out UO and put them in there.

Hey now! We have a discussion in there thats never been touched on before. Its about UO trammel and felucia, PVP, and carebears. Feel free to check it out for some insight! ;)


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Falconeer on January 29, 2007, 08:54:15 AM
Well, actually the amazing part is that no matter the title, all Vanguard threads become the same in a 3 posts timespan.
We could simply merge them all in a "Vanguard sucks" uberthread.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Signe on January 29, 2007, 09:43:00 AM
Someone should smush up all these Vanguard threads and stick them up top.  There seems to be enough playing.  You could just score out UO and put them in there.

Hey now! We have a discussion in there thats never been touched on before. Its about UO trammel and felucia, PVP, and carebears. Feel free to check it out for some insight! ;)

Oops.  Sorry.   :oops:  Maybe they could just tack Vanguard onto the end of that conversation?


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Venkman on January 29, 2007, 10:04:00 AM
I'd put it in the UO-today whatever-tomorrow one.  :evil:


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Surlyboi on January 29, 2007, 10:48:16 AM
Someone should smush up all these Vanguard threads and stick them up top.  There seems to be enough playing.  You could just score out UO and put them in there.

And risk the wrath of the Wind-up nutsack? Perish the thought! (Even if he is playing Saul the converted WoW fanboy at the moment.  :evil:)


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Signe on January 29, 2007, 10:52:05 AM
Yeah, but he's so cute when he's angry.  I'd risk it.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Soln on January 29, 2007, 12:18:48 PM
I've been playing yesterday and today.  All I can say is that any potential this game may have is overshadowed by it being a buggy, unpolished piece of shit. 

<intelligent observations>


I'm dumbfounded.
 


you mean this (http://news.softpedia.com/images/news2/Runestone-Announces-Final-Release-Date-for-Seed-2.jpg)  or this  (http://swg.oceanbreeze.net/images/logo.jpg)  or this (http://www.tothegame.com/res/game/3660/logo.jpg)  or  this (http://www.tothegame.com/res/game/109/logo.jpg)  or  this  (http://download.mmosite.com/upload/2006/01/16/1137422896.gif)

man that was tiring.  And I don't feel finished by half.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Nebu on January 29, 2007, 12:23:04 PM
Sadly, I enjoyed AC2 the most of all of them... but point made.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: damijin on January 29, 2007, 12:27:26 PM
My guild is playing Vanguard for lack of anything not-shitty. Apparently the FFA PvP server is cool with 15% money drops and decent death penalties.

As much as I'd love to go grief some noobs, I just can't bring myself to play a game where it would actually be MORE work to download the fucking thing than it would be to drive my ass to the store and buy a copy.

And it's 2007, my ass doesn't go to the store for jack shit.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Azazel on January 30, 2007, 12:34:13 AM
What about your Birch Beer?



Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Endie on January 30, 2007, 01:35:12 AM
...or  this  (http://download.mmosite.com/upload/2006/01/16/1137422896.gif)

Man, I never noticed that DnL had Pacman in it.  I gotta go give it another try.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Nebu on January 30, 2007, 08:34:04 AM
Things from last night's play session:

1. Heavy tanks appear unable to hold aggro.

2. Shaman pets are still bugged and occasionally will attack group members when healed by disciple spells

3. The level 15 shaman totem quest is bugged.  It allows you to get it at level 12, but if you take it then you don't get the reward at 15.

4. Mobs are still having warping, pathing, and z-axis problems.  I had several mobs hit me from underground.  Fighting on hilly terrain can produce comical results.

5. I fell through the world not once but twice last night.  What really made me laugh is that I fell 4k units vertically and about 6k units horizontally.  I ended up on a plain like 6k s of where I started.

6. Psionicist pets are buggy on terrain as well. 

I find a handful of things like this daily.  After 3 years of development and a lengthy period of beta testing, the lack of polish is pretty apalling. The EQ release had fewer glaring flaws than this... that's not saying much.   

Edit: I'm doing my best to be objective here.  So don't shoot the messenger.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Trippy on January 30, 2007, 08:39:53 AM
I had several mobs hit me from underground. 
Heh, just like EQ. It good to see that somethings never change :-D


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Nebu on January 30, 2007, 08:44:14 AM
Heh, just like EQ. It good to see that somethings never change :-D

I ran into an NPC named Haaden complaining about a lost earring.  Brad is definately trying to draw from the past.  I don't think this is going to end like he had hoped.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: shiznitz on January 30, 2007, 08:50:28 AM
Things from last night's play session:

1. Heavy tanks appear unable to hold aggro.

4. Mobs are still having warping, pathing, and z-axis problems.  I had several mobs hit me from underground.  Fighting on hilly terrain can produce comical results.

Guildmates confirm 1 every night in chat and I also witness 4 regularly. On the warping, mobs will often take several steps after my root spell visually hits. If they are walking toward a steep hill at the time, they will vanish into it like there is an illusionary wall. The root will then keep them there and I can blast them with spells until root breaks at which point they warp on top of me.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Signe on January 30, 2007, 08:50:44 AM
Heh, just like EQ. It good to see that somethings never change :-D

I ran into an NPC named Haaden complaining about a lost earring.  Brad is definately trying to draw from the past.  I don't think this is going to end like he had hoped.

No!  Please tell you're joking!


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Nebu on January 30, 2007, 08:54:02 AM
I also see mobs moonwalking (they walk backwards rather than turn around and walk on their path).  If they don't fix it soon, I'm going to rename this Michael Jackson online.  I just don't know how they could have overlooked these simple little things.  They're glaringly obvious to anyone after like 20 mins of playing. 



Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Nebu on January 30, 2007, 09:08:35 AM
No!  Please tell you're joking!

You did try to warn me.  You earn the right to liberally distribute "I told you so's".


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Trippy on January 30, 2007, 09:08:46 AM
I also see mobs moonwalking (they walk backwards rather than turn around and walk on their path).  If they don't fix it soon, I'm going to rename this Michael Jackson online.  I just don't know how they could have overlooked these simple little things.  They're glaringly obvious to anyone after like 20 mins of playing. 
They had so many bugs on their bug list and not nearly enough time to fix them all that I'm sure they just ignored all the cosmetic bugs (which that one sounds like) to try and fix the critical ones like server crashes and data corruption issues.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: HaemishM on January 30, 2007, 09:15:14 AM
I also see mobs moonwalking (they walk backwards rather than turn around and walk on their path).  If they don't fix it soon, I'm going to rename this Michael Jackson online.  I just don't know how they could have overlooked these simple little things.  They're glaringly obvious to anyone after like 20 mins of playing. 



It's a legacy bug. As in, the legacy of EQ1 and its development team that never could learn how to make mobs path worth a fuck. Dungeons like Mistmoore and Unrest were complete nightmares not so much because of the layout or the mobs themselves, but because the shitty shit shit shit pathing on mobs would cause trains that cleared the whole zone top to bottom every 15 minutes or so.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Sky on January 30, 2007, 09:20:34 AM
On tanks holding aggro...is it an issue with the nukers not being disciplined or folks learning how to work the aggro system? Part of EQ was always trying to avoid pulling aggro from the tank...


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Nebu on January 30, 2007, 09:27:39 AM
On tanks holding aggro...is it an issue with the nukers not being disciplined or folks learning how to work the aggro system? Part of EQ was always trying to avoid pulling aggro from the tank...

Oh... you're playing vanguard?


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Sky on January 30, 2007, 09:29:52 AM
Nope. My computer would probably cry.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Nebu on January 30, 2007, 09:33:06 AM
The aggro management is borked, that's why I snapped.  A warrior can take a mob to half health while taunting (and I'm not exaggerating about half being 50%) and a debuff can cause an aggro shift.  I've never seen anything like it.  What's the point in having debuffs if you can only apply them when the mob is at 20% health?


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Venkman on January 30, 2007, 10:08:14 AM
Kill it quicker.

*runs*


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: shiznitz on January 30, 2007, 10:11:36 AM
On tanks holding aggro...is it an issue with the nukers not being disciplined or folks learning how to work the aggro system? Part of EQ was always trying to avoid pulling aggro from the tank...

As Nebu said, no. Pet classes also have issues. The necro in my guild was bitching all night in vent that no matter how long he let his pet tank a mob, it would aggro the necro on the first debuff.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Cheddar on January 30, 2007, 10:30:31 AM
You guys have inspired me to get the Burning Crusade expansion for WoW.  Thank you for shedding bloody tears and saving me the agony of server launch!

/runs off to toy with a stable game


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Morat20 on January 30, 2007, 10:39:14 AM
You guys have inspired me to get the Burning Crusade expansion for WoW.  Thank you for shedding bloody tears and saving me the agony of server launch!

/runs off to toy with a stable game
Well, in all fairness WoW is having aggro issues too. Let's face it -- the fact that marksman specced hunter pets are generating more aggro because of AP scaling than Beastmaster specced hunters is like totally a game-breaking problem. :)


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Ixxit on January 30, 2007, 10:47:03 AM
On tanks holding aggro...is it an issue with the nukers not being disciplined or folks learning how to work the aggro system? Part of EQ was always trying to avoid pulling aggro from the tank...

As Nebu said, no. Pet classes also have issues. The necro in my guild was bitching all night in vent that no matter how long he let his pet tank a mob, it would aggro the necro on the first debuff.

Is your friend using the pet's taunt ability (forget the exact name)?  I have a lvl 6 necro, and once I send my pet in and use that ability I debuff --> dot --> direct damage(dd) -> dd (until dead).  Usually by the second dd spell the agro shifts and the mob starts running toward me, and it eithers dies en route or I it goes down after a goodnight kiss from my dagger.

[EDIT] As an aside, the first necro pet you get (the abomination) is really evil looking, kind of like a gangly Doom imp. Great animation.  The first time I saw one ingame, using an alt I though some poor bastard was being chased by some nasty demon.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Falconeer on January 30, 2007, 11:17:11 AM
Tanking is definitely an issue so far. I am a tank in VG and I am level 12, that means I already tanked a couple of dungeons for good, and dealt with my share of named and open dungeons mayhem (level 12 in Vg it's actually higher than a level 12 on similar recent games).
As everyone else said it's hard to keep aggro and is especially hard for the tank to re-take aggro, meaning if the rogue gets aggroed, as a tank you'll have a very hard time to get what's rightfully yours (aggro..). Still, a couple considerations:

1) Rescues are the key. With rescues I can do a proper job as a tank and I am learning to manage aggro better day after day. First rescue come at level 10 for the paladin, and I guess at level 14 for warriors. Before your first rescue you have close to no way to keep aggro.
2) While rescues are they key, regular "taunt" skills or threat booster combat arts seem perfectly useless. Some work is STRONGLY needed here.

and
3) I am still unsure about the whole thing. There are situations where I clearly feel like the aggro is borked, but while running some tests with friends we almost (*almost*) pinned down the whole thing. It's too soon to tell if we are right or wrong, but what I can safely say is that as long as some taunt skills are definitely underpowered (to say the least), the whole aggro mechanic is not "easy", on the contrary it is very complex. Getting first hit, disciplining and limiting DPS and especially POSITIONING are key. In other games things like this start to happen at higher levels while in VG it seems like they are in since level 1.

Bottom line: the Aggro/taunt system DEFINITELY need some tweaks, but it looks like they decided to make it a complex thing. There's no way a group can enter a dungeon and just unleash fury in slaughter mode. It has to be disciplined to the extreme and your group have to care about aggro exactly like the tank. That doesn't necessarily means fun, of course. And, as I said, I am not sure yet we got it right. But I am afraid the most of it is working as intended (at least on their part).


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Surlyboi on January 30, 2007, 12:32:38 PM
You guys have inspired me to get the Burning Crusade expansion for WoW.  Thank you for shedding bloody tears and saving me the agony of server launch!

/runs off to toy with a stable game

Fuck THAT noise, I'll just play more CoX or else call it a day 'til  :nda:.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Rithrin on January 30, 2007, 02:27:10 PM
One thing I will say about the VG aggro system is... I finally don't mind playing a Tank class. In other games, its always "We wiped. lrn2tank noob. /disband", but in VG the blame is usually on multiple people. And interestly enough, only two of the Defensive Fighter type classes seem to be made to tank. Dark Knight's rescues only force the mob to attack them for a couple of hits, which isn't even long enough for the global cooldown to refresh so you can hit the mob with an agrro ability.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Rithrin on January 30, 2007, 02:27:42 PM
Edit: How did I double post? ::boggle::


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Hound on January 30, 2007, 02:32:58 PM
wake me when this fucker is out of beta please. I have no doubt that one day this will be a great game, however that day is in the distant future it seems


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Nebu on January 30, 2007, 02:35:38 PM
wake me when this fucker is out of beta please. I have no doubt that one day this will be a great game, however that day is in the distant future it seems

Even when they fix the bugs, the pathing, the imbalances, crafting, etc. it still won't be a great game.  A slight twist on an old game, yes. 


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: palmer_eldritch on January 30, 2007, 04:51:21 PM
I bet I've got a new one - when I try to open an account (having bought the box from a store), I get told the game is still in closed beta . . .


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Hound on January 30, 2007, 04:57:00 PM
I bet I've got a new one - when I try to open an account (having bought the box from a store), I get told the game is still in closed beta . . .

I can top that one. I just logged in and made a character with my closed beta client, now if I could just motivate myself to play.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Rithrin on January 30, 2007, 05:02:33 PM
Seems everyone who was in beta still has their account open. I haven't gotten around to picking up my retail copy, but I was just playing about 5 minutes ago.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Hound on January 30, 2007, 05:10:03 PM
Seems everyone who was in beta still has their account open. I haven't gotten around to picking up my retail copy, but I was just playing about 5 minutes ago.

I am not in the industry so would accidentally giving all the beta testers accounts in the retail game constitute a major "oh fuck" or a minor "well shit".


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: pants on January 30, 2007, 05:34:44 PM
Seems everyone who was in beta still has their account open. I haven't gotten around to picking up my retail copy, but I was just playing about 5 minutes ago.

Well aint that a chuckle.  If I hadn't have deleted the client from my PC, I would create a char, log on, and sledge my ex guildies for paying for something I had for free. 


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Venkman on January 30, 2007, 05:56:37 PM
Actually, I thought they specifically said that everyone in the beta at the end could keep their character (or at least use their client) come launch. I imagine people would still need to at least enter a CD Key though. The very last people you want to GIVE the game away to are the folks most likely to drop cash on it :)


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Rithrin on January 30, 2007, 08:56:40 PM
Yeah I don't think its a mistake. Let me quote my account page for you:

Quote from: Vanguard Account Admin Page
Owning Station Account:       xxxxxxxx
Subscription Name:      Vanguard Subscription
Period:      1 Month
Enabled Features       
# In Game Item: Scroll (pre-order retail)
Account Status:      Exempt

Exempt? I'm liking the sound of that actually...  But really I think this is a good move. Their account/billing system is so fubar right now I can't actually register the key I just picked up from the store, so if it wasn't for this free account thing I wouldn't be able to play 'till whenever they fix it up. Of course, whether being able to play is a good thing is debatable at this point - my client seems to run about 10 FPS slower than usual right now and I didn't do anything other than log in.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Nebu on January 30, 2007, 09:17:27 PM
I could not even log on tonight as the character select screen can't seem to find my toons.  Also noticed that the direct log-to-character option sends you to character select and not into the game. 

I tried for 30 mins.  Since that's half the time I have to play, I'm a bit irritated.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Strazos on January 30, 2007, 10:30:28 PM
I just think it's pitiful how close to EQ this game is.

There's wood elves...and of course they have a city with a bunch of ramps up into the trees. I watched a buddy of mine for about an hour, and the game just felt like EQ.

I mean, why do you have the have all the same skills? Safe Fall?  Come on Brad, you could at least TRY here.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Falconeer on January 31, 2007, 12:01:13 AM
I just think it's pitiful how close to EQ this game is.

There's wood elves...and of course they have a city with a bunch of ramps up into the trees. I watched a buddy of mine for about an hour, and the game just felt like EQ.

I mean, why do you have the have all the same skills? Safe Fall?  Come on Brad, you could at least TRY here.

What you need to understand is that some people WANTED Brad to make EQ2, or EQ++, since the actual EQ2 doesn't feel like EQ at all.
Brad didn't even tried to do anything different as he wanted to re-possess EverQuest since forever. This is pretty clear in the Vanguard Lore, gameplay and even in the fonts.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Azazel on January 31, 2007, 02:36:25 AM
Yeah, you've really nailed the point that a lot of people here have missed. It really is and was designed to be the true sequel to (Brad-era) EQ. That's what Brad wanted, thats what the Vanbois wanted. Hard work, effort, grind, (equals "depth", apparently) and so forth.

Just with more shiney graphics. No instances, camps, harsh death penalties, hardcore on the grouping, huge world, slow travel, etc etc. The fact that some of those things have been backed-off to a lesser or greater extent is a reflection of the post-wow marketplace.



Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Miasma on January 31, 2007, 07:53:45 AM
What you need to understand is that some people WANTED Brad to make EQ2, or EQ++, since the actual EQ2 doesn't feel like EQ at all.
Yes this is true.  Say what you will of EQ but my general feeling from a lot of the people on this board is that they spent a considerable amount of time in EQ despite its flaws, many to the point of addiction.  For most of us it is one of the few, if not the only, MMO that kept us as active players for over a year.  Since then we just bounced around in all the other MMOs for a few months and left (with the huge exception of WoW).

I started playing MMOs with the horrific release of Anarchy Online, you'd think the experience would have turned me off of MMOs forever but something in the concept of playing with thousands of other people intrigued me.  Then I went to SWG... another failure which I left in the first month, then Earth and Beyond which I couldn't get into, then the same problem with DAoC.  So I thought I'd try that old looking game with the crappy graphics that has all those expansions with the stupid elf woman on the front, Everquest.  I rolled a halfling and ventured out into this terribly out of date zone called Misty Thicket, started playing and didn't stop for years.  After I left (only because I was ticked off at my guildleader) I bounced around from AC2, Eve, WoW and a dozen others but just couldn't live in any of those worlds.  I want a slightly more casual EQ without as much of the pain and suffering.  While I'm not optimistic about Vanguard it might be the last chance I get.

Not everything we enjoy has to be innovative and new, don't fix something if it already works.  Millions of people are enjoying the hell out of WoW and there is absolutely nothing new or innovative there, all they did was cherry pick the best ideas from other games and put out a fun, polished product.  I don't care about innovation, I just want to have fun.  I don't care if the core idea is something centuries old like chess or card games, so long as I'm having fun playing with other people, chatting with them, designing my own avatar and winning little trophies I will play it.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Nebu on January 31, 2007, 08:21:47 AM
Not everything we enjoy has to be innovative and new, don't fix something if it already works.  Millions of people are enjoying the hell out of WoW and there is absolutely nothing new or innovative there, all they did was cherry pick the best ideas from other games and put out a fun, polished product.  I don't care about innovation, I just want to have fun.  I don't care if the core idea is something centuries old like chess or card games, so long as I'm having fun playing with other people, chatting with them, designing my own avatar and winning little trophies I will play it.

There's a healthy market for derivative versions of Monopoly that has existed for years.  People don't necessarily want wholesale changes in their games.  Sometimes all it takes is a tweak or two.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: LC on January 31, 2007, 09:08:37 AM
Anyone that purchased Vancrap should have their hands cut off. It's like sending money to feed starving al-Qaeda members.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: HaemishM on January 31, 2007, 09:22:15 AM
A purchase of Vanguard is a vote for the TERRORISTS!

Good one.

Vanguard is what EQ2 would have been had Brad not left SOE. Only not as good, because he pulled all the worst devs off of the SOE train and left the people with talent, the ones who fixed EQ2 post-release. Brad has now polluted 3 games with his catass stench, and only one of those games is now worth playing thanks to the efforts of the live team.

That game isn't Vanguard.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Joey on January 31, 2007, 10:13:31 AM
Oh, come on now... 

If we DON'T play bug-riddled MMOs, then haven't the terrorists truly won?


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Falconeer on January 31, 2007, 10:20:50 AM
You guys are silly.

If there's anyone who has the right to re-make the old diku/eq gameplay, that man is Brad McQuaid. I don't like him, but you can't fuck with him because he tries to best himself at the only thing he did good in his life. Blame the cloners, blame the market, don't blame him and his game this is NOT his 5th diku, it's just his second one, and should you ever make anything in your life that you are proud of, you'd probably do the same: try to make it again, but better. According to your OWN perspective.

This leads us to Vanguard...

This genre, as in 3d dikus, is less than 10 years old and you are SO fed up with it to the point of being scared it will eventually eat up your videogaming dream world? The MMO world will be corrupted because a few guys still like this pretty young kind of games? Oh, but where were you all when Stray and me said WoW is fucking Stepford meet invasion of the Body Snatchers? TEN FUCKING MILLION IDIOTS ARE PLAYING WORLD OF WARCRAFT AND YOU ARE HERE BUSTING BALLS ABOUT THE (supposed) 200k WHO WILL PLAY VANGUARD??

You are all talking about lessons to be learned, so which is the lesson to be learned here? "Polish your game"?
That's it?


EDIT: And by the way, this is not about Vanguard anymore. This is about you all being silly. Being jaded and cynical is one thing. Being obsessed is another.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Miasma on January 31, 2007, 10:22:47 AM
If we could hook the terrorists into playing MMOs then all of their hate would be burned up arguing about class imbalance issues and they would not have the energy to attack us.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Nebu on January 31, 2007, 10:23:40 AM
Well, this should fuel your bile then...  

I'm actually enjoying Vanguard for reasons that don't fit the stereotypes here.  I don't like to grind, I don't care about loot, and I'm not in any rush to get to the endgame.  The game is placed in a vast world where I'm free to explore and do as I please.  It's vastness is immersive to me and would be more so were it not for the lack of polish and significant number of bugs.  I like to just wander around and look at things or create little mini-adventures for myself.  The great expanse of things helps me feel the value of travelling across the world and it is like extra content to me.  If I want to do quests, there are more available to me than I can possibly do.  When I encounter creatures, they're social without telling me which will come on any given pull.  If killing creatures gets dull, crafting is mildly entertaining and Diplomacy is interesting enough to hold my attention for brief stints.  I can also solo enough that I don't feel my options are severly limited.  

I've played WoW on three different occasions (a month in beta, a month at release, and month after the release of BC) and find that I'm enjoying Vanguard more.  Perhaps it's the style, I'm not sure.  Now I'm not saying that Vanguard is a better game than WoW.  It certainly isn't.  Vanguard contains some elements that I felt were missing in CoH, EQ2, and WoW.  I guess that Vanguard seems more like a sim than a game to me and that's what appeals to my tastes.  That's what I also loved about ATitD.  I also don't have any delusions about playing this game long... but I think that's more a byproduct of having played so many mmogs than anything.

For all of the broken elements, I'm still wanting to log on to this niche game.  For it's faults, I'm glad that I have it as an option.  


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: LC on January 31, 2007, 10:47:41 AM
...

Did you really need ten lines to call yourself a carebear?

All you really did was send a message to developers: "Yes, I'll gladly buy your feces in a boobie covered carton!"

You continue funding this shit, and the rest of us suffer because of that. The money thrown away on these shitty games could be funding the next UO instead. (I don't mean a UO clone or sequel. I'm talking about a new and innovative game that can do as much for the genre as UO did.)


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Nebu on January 31, 2007, 10:56:11 AM
You continue funding this shit, and the rest of us suffer because of that. The money thrown away on these shitty games could be funding the next UO instead. (I don't mean a UO clone or sequel. I'm talking about a new and innovative game that can do as much for the genre as UO did.)

I'm enjoying the game.  I'm upfront enough to voice my opinion when it's not "trendy".  I've payed to play significantly less fun games in the past. Why?  Because actually playing the game is the only way to make up my mind for myself.  If I bitch about the game for 2 years while continuing to subscribe the entire time, then you'll have a legitimate beef.   

I must admit the "carebear" bit was a nice touch.  I'll bet you're the rage over at VN. 


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Chenghiz on January 31, 2007, 11:00:45 AM
...

Did you really need ten lines to call yourself a carebear?

All you really did was send a message to developers: "Yes, I'll gladly buy your feces in a boobie covered carton!"

You continue funding this shit, and the rest of us suffer because of that. The money thrown away on these shitty games could be funding the next UO instead. (I don't mean a UO clone or sequel. I'm talking about a new and innovative game that can do as much for the genre as UO did.)

I'm not about to defend VG here, but while buying and playing innovative games is certainly a lofty and beneficial goal, it is not a crime to play a game simply because you enjoy it. Don't be silly.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Nija on January 31, 2007, 11:06:13 AM
I must admit the "carebear" bit was a nice touch.  I'll bet you're the rage over at VN. 

VN is too ban-happy for our kind. They still won't revoke the bans put in place when I made fun of that "forum funeral" for some dipshit AC2 player who died.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: LC on January 31, 2007, 11:18:13 AM
I'm enjoying the game.  I'm upfront enough to voice my opinion when it's not "trendy".  I've payed to play significantly less fun games in the past. Why?  Because actually playing the game is the only way to make up my mind for myself.  If I bitch about the game for 2 years while continuing to subscribe the entire time, then you'll have a legitimate beef.   

Your definitions of "fun" and "enjoy" must come from some alternative dictionary. I played Vancrap in beta, and there was nothing resembling either one.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Ixxit on January 31, 2007, 11:19:29 AM
Well, this should fuel your bile then...  

The game is placed in a vast world where I'm free to explore and do as I please.  It's vastness is immersive to me and would be more so were it not for the lack of polish and significant number of bugs.  I like to just wander around and look at things or create little mini-adventures for myself.  The great expanse of things helps me feel the value of travelling across the world and it is like extra content to me.  If I want to do quests, there are more available to me than I can possibly do.  When I encounter creatures, they're social without telling me which will come on any given pull.  If killing creatures gets dull, crafting is mildly entertaining and Diplomacy is interesting enough to hold my attention for brief stints.  I can also solo enough that I don't feel my options are severly limited.  

I have found this to be one of the reasons I like Vanguard as well.  I especially like the Varanjar (Barbarian) starting area and the wilderness around the town of Halgarad which has a distinctive 'viking' feel to it.  The world design is such that it conveys the feeling that it is inhabited, that people live there, something that WoW has never been able to achieve despite it's artistic merits and uniform style.  Every area has nice panoramic views with great use of elevation; if you are down in the valley looking up you can see numerous points of interest (like a town on a ridge, or a ruin)  and if you are are up on a plateau you can easy survey the world around you plotting out  interesting routes you might like to explore.

Questing is good, and for those those stating that there is no lore, are probably not reading the quest dialogue or skipping right to the part that tells you to "collect xxxx number of gizzards and yyy number of spleens".   I think WoW has conditioned people to do this because the questing system is like an unstoppable freight train that is really hard to get off at times and just breath.  There is one quest in the Varanjar starting area where you learn about the history and heroes of your ancestors by speaking with spirits in a cave.  Pretty cool.  

The crafting and diplomacy are interesting diversions that complement adventuring so that you can pretty much do what you like at your own pace without the feeling that you are falling behind others who are rabidly connecting the dots (quest exclamation point to question mark).









Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Nebu on January 31, 2007, 11:28:41 AM
Your definitions of "fun" and "enjoy" must come from some alternative dictionary. I played Vancrap in beta, and there was nothing resembling either one.

Congrats.  You just discovered that different people like different things.  That's why the marketplace can bear a wide array of products. 

Don't like it?  Don't play it.  Telling me what I should or shouldn't like just displays arrogance. 


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Ixxit on January 31, 2007, 11:29:20 AM
Quote
All you really did was send a message to developers: "Yes, I'll gladly buy your feces in a boobie covered carton!"

You continue funding this shit, and the rest of us suffer because of that. The money thrown away on these shitty games could be funding the next UO instead. (I don't mean a UO clone or sequel. I'm talking about a new and innovative game that can do as much for the genre as UO did.)

Wow, you were born way too late and missed your calling:

(http://www.37thtexas.org/image/crusades.jpg)



Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: slog on January 31, 2007, 11:31:24 AM
LC and Nija are well known exploiters from the days of Shadowbane so a Crusader is probably the wrong pic.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Ixxit on January 31, 2007, 11:34:06 AM
LC and Nija are well known exploiters from the days of Shadowbane so a Crusader is probably the wrong pic.

Very well then:

(http://www.spilth.org/images/deathknight.jpg)


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Falconeer on January 31, 2007, 11:38:09 AM
...

Did you really need ten lines to call yourself a carebear?

All you really did was send a message to developers: "Yes, I'll gladly buy your feces in a boobie covered carton!"

You continue funding this shit, and the rest of us suffer because of that. The money thrown away on these shitty games could be funding the next UO instead. (I don't mean a UO clone or sequel. I'm talking about a new and innovative game that can do as much for the genre as UO did.)

Here's one of the clowns I was mentioning before. What's this shit about funding and all?
Are you serious? Please go beg Vivend and Blizzard to invest 1% of their income or R&D of the next UO but stop the act about Vanguard as it is definitely NOT the problem. Are you blind or just biased beyond all recognition?

Next UO? I am all for it. I am with the highly unpopular Sinij/Slayerik(Nija?) party: post trammel UO is shit, pre trammel UO is the pinnacle of MMO history. I guess that makes me the opposite of a carebear. But those days are over and it's not because of Vanguard. Blame EverQuest, blame the people who chose EQ over UO, blame World of Warcraft.. blame the world.
But how in hell can you focus your attention on Vanguard with a carebear beast the size of World of Warcraft around is beyond me.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: LC on January 31, 2007, 11:46:34 AM
But how in hell can you focus your attention on Vanguard with a carebear beast the size of World of Warcraft around is beyond me.

Because Vancrap is the newest addition to the long list of shitty MMOs. You can take everything I have posted to this thread, and substitute "World of Warcrap" for "Vancrap". It would still be true.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Nija on January 31, 2007, 11:48:36 AM
I am with the highly unpopular Sinij/Slayerik(Nija?) party: post trammel UO is shit, pre trammel UO is the pinnacle of MMO history.

...

But how in hell can you focus your attention on Vanguard with a carebear beast the size of World of Warcraft around is beyond me.

I'll paraphrase a good Zappa quote, "You're not necessarily wrong just because a few million people say you're wrong."

As for focusing attention on VG while ignoring World of Warcraft, I think L-C's direction with that comment is that buying and playing it now reminds developers that people will buy your steaming shit sandwiches. Not only will they buy them, but they'll form a line around the block to buy them.


I'll compare the state of WoW and VG at release to cars.

WoW is a '99 Toyota Corolla (http://www.automallusa.net/1999/toyota/corolla/recalls.html)
VG is a '99 VW Jetta (http://www.automallusa.net/1999/volkswagen/jetta/recalls.html)

Both have defects. One will have you replacing bulbs. The other will leave you with massive head injury.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Surlyboi on January 31, 2007, 11:55:15 AM
...

Did you really need ten lines to call yourself a carebear?

You only needed one to call yourself a tool. Unfortunately, we can't all be as succinct as you are.

Please, oh wise one. Enlighten us with your pearls of knowledge, tell us what a "better game" would consist of.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Nebu on January 31, 2007, 12:00:20 PM
I owe you guys.  This thread is providing endless entertainment at work today.  The comparison of liking a video game to severity in automotive defects was the icing on the cake. 


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Venkman on January 31, 2007, 12:05:16 PM
WoW took the world by storm through making EQ more approachable, keeping the system requirements low, coming with a strong community playing derivative RTS games, and ensuring the game actually, like, worked. Heck, even the scores of millions of accounts in Maplestory are folks playing a diku spinoff.

So, yes, there's definitely room for derivative games. In fact, if you look at where the vast majority of paying accounts are and at the vast majority of games bought or downloaded across all genres, it's all derivative.

But most conversation isn't about derivative game play because it's all been discussed before. Unless that title attracted a whole bunch of new poeple.

Quote from: Miasma
Say what you will of EQ but my general feeling from a lot of the people on this board is that they spent a considerable amount of time in EQ despite its flaws, many to the point of addiction
EQ accounted for 20% of the games out at the time and well more than 50% of the people interested in this sort of experience. We stayed despite its flaws because we believed in the experience, and had no basis for comparison except the theorycraft of armchair designers on Whineplay. At that point we would rather play a crappy time sink than a boring offline game.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Falconeer on January 31, 2007, 12:07:10 PM
I'd agree with you all should Vanguard gather more than 500k subscription. At that point we could start an argument about this. And even in that case, it would be easy to demonstrate that Vanguard eventual "success" being a consequence of World of Warcraft success (and inevitable burnout on the long term). But that won't ever happen! Given the predictions on Vanguard subs, don't liking it is one thing, while giving it any kind of importance in MMO future development is simply ridiculous.

Didn't we all agree months ago that Vanguard won't be in any book of videogaming history?

This all "vote no to Vanguard" is like making a protest against the Sundance Film Festival claiming it kills true indie cinema while proudly attending the Oscar® Academy Award show.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Nija on January 31, 2007, 12:10:10 PM
Quote from: Miasma
Say what you will of EQ but my general feeling from a lot of the people on this board is that they spent a considerable amount of time in EQ despite its flaws, many to the point of addiction

I actually skipped EQ at the time, because I had so much fun in UO. My thinking at that time was if I couldn't kill a guy and steal his pants - or die and lose my shirt, it wasn't worth my time.

Since then I've had to drop that mantra, otherwise I would have played 0 mmorpgs between then and now.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: LC on January 31, 2007, 12:11:23 PM

Please, oh wise one. Enlighten us with your pearls of knowledge, tell us what a "better game" would consist of.


(http://www.exploiter.org/l-c/misc/formula.png)

Perhaps it would look something like that.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: HaemishM on January 31, 2007, 12:15:06 PM
You guys are silly.

If there's anyone who has the right to re-make the old diku/eq gameplay, that man is Brad McQuaid.

Why? He had his shot, he pissed it away with "WORKING AS INTENDED!" and rigid ego trips about how to play the game. And from the looks of things, he's making the same damn game anyway, with some of the same damn bugs and flaws. Fuck him and his raging douchebag ego.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Belce on January 31, 2007, 12:17:25 PM
Saying you like Vanguard is a heresy against this forum's orthodoxy.  And for such a sin you shall be taunted.  

I am one of the many people having a great time playing Vanguard and that has been for over  a year now.  

Perhaps if I read this forum more, I will come upon an ephinay and see the light to true gaming joy.  I didn't know I liked crap until F13 showed me the errors in what I call fun.  


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Falconeer on January 31, 2007, 12:23:51 PM

Please, oh wise one. Enlighten us with your pearls of knowledge, tell us what a "better game" would consist of.


(http://www.exploiter.org/l-c/misc/formula.png)

Perhaps it would look something like that.

I agree. Wholeheartedly. Is Vanguard preventing that to happen?



Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Nebu on January 31, 2007, 12:24:10 PM
Perhaps if I read this forum more, I will come upon an ephinay and see the light to true gaming joy.  I didn't know I liked crap until F13 showed me the errors in what I call fun.  

The forum makes many valid points about Vanguard and most are based on solid gameplay experience.  I respect many of the thoughts and insights that I've read about Vanguard here especially since most are spot on.  However, people do tend to take it too far when they accost someone for liking something that the community thinks they shouldn't.  Seems more productive to use those disagreements as the jumping point for dialogue.  

I can't browbeat this too much as I'm guilty of similar behavior in the past myself.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: LC on January 31, 2007, 12:26:12 PM

I agree. Wholeheartedly. Is Vanguard preventing that to happen?


Yes.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Morat20 on January 31, 2007, 12:32:21 PM
You guys are silly.

If there's anyone who has the right to re-make the old diku/eq gameplay, that man is Brad McQuaid.

Why? He had his shot, he pissed it away with "WORKING AS INTENDED!" and rigid ego trips about how to play the game. And from the looks of things, he's making the same damn game anyway, with some of the same damn bugs and flaws. Fuck him and his raging douchebag ego.
Not to mention Vanguard isn't "EQ done right" by Brad's stated views. All the hard core cock-blocking and dick-grinding was removed --  and from the comments in Beta that started happening right about the time SOE had to step in to get it finished.

It's still more grindy and painful than WoW -- but it's not a damn thing like what he originally envisioned. It's also no surprise that it went from shit-hole to possibly one day fun when Brad's vision got shitcanned.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: HaemishM on January 31, 2007, 12:38:14 PM
I owe you guys.  This thread is providing endless entertainment at work today.  The comparison of liking a video game to severity in automotive defects was the icing on the cake. 

I bet if more people died from shitty trainwreck MMOG's we'd stop getting so many shitty trainwreck MMOG's. I wrote an article about that once.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: HaemishM on January 31, 2007, 12:42:02 PM
Saying you like Vanguard is a heresy against this forum's orthodoxy.  And for such a sin you shall be taunted.  

No orthodoxy to it. You'll be taunted for playing a game so derivative that residents of EQ2 could be knocked unconscious, drugged and plopped into Vanguard and they wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Play what you want and have fun with it. It doesn't mean you aren't playing a shitty, derivative game and it doesn't mean we won't tell you you are playing a shitty derivative game.

And when I get home, I'll likely play my shitty, deriviative version of FIFA 07 for the X-Box because I can. Ain't freedom fun?


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Falconeer on January 31, 2007, 12:44:16 PM

I agree. Wholeheartedly. Is Vanguard preventing that to happen?


Yes.

You are a troll.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Nebu on January 31, 2007, 12:48:53 PM
I bet if more people died from shitty trainwreck MMOG's we'd stop getting so many shitty trainwreck MMOG's. I wrote an article about that once.

Vanguard is derivative, but I wouldn't say it's in the trainwreck category like other games I could mention.  Maybe history will prove me wrong.  Ultimately most mmo's are still the same turd.  Some are just more highly polished and perfumed than others.  

  



Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Signe on January 31, 2007, 12:54:02 PM
You are WRONG to have fun!


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Azazel on January 31, 2007, 01:02:15 PM
You guys are silly.

If there's anyone who has the right to re-make the old diku/eq gameplay, that man is Brad McQuaid. I don't like him, but you can't fuck with him because he tries to best himself at the only thing he did good in his life. Blame the cloners, blame the market, don't blame him and his game this is NOT his 5th diku, it's just his second one, and should you ever make anything in your life that you are proud of, you'd probably do the same: try to make it again, but better. According to your OWN perspective.

I don't think people are fucking with him because he's tried to remake something that worked. I think people are fucking with him because what's been released after countless manhours and dollars being poured into it is a buggy, unpolished piece of shit. To wit: excluding "fun", because that's a matter of taste: If the game worked properly, was not buggy, properly tested, and for example didn't have massive game-altering changes patched into it, you know, a week from release then I think people might well be saying things more akin to "that game sucks donkey balls, but I guess at least it works and seems to have no major problems".


Quote
This genre, as in 3d dikus, is less than 10 years old and you are SO fed up with it to the point of being scared it will eventually eat up your videogaming dream world? The MMO world will be corrupted because a few guys still like this pretty young kind of games? Oh, but where were you all when Stray and me said WoW is fucking Stepford meet invasion of the Body Snatchers? TEN FUCKING MILLION IDIOTS ARE PLAYING WORLD OF WARCRAFT AND YOU ARE HERE BUSTING BALLS ABOUT THE (supposed) 200k WHO WILL PLAY VANGUARD??

You are all talking about lessons to be learned, so which is the lesson to be learned here? "Polish your game"?
That's it?

A couple things:
Ever heard of dogpiling? Vanguard, due to Brad's bullshit and hyperbole, renowned embracing of old-skool eq1 difficulty levels++, drop from MS, forced release, and the mess it's in makes it a popular and easy target. Geldon's public love affair with it hasn't helped it either on this board.

WoW is simply EQ+ made better and polished and shiny and friendly. On release. Neither Vanguard and EQ2 on release are/were that. You may be enjoying VG, and that's fine. But it's not polished or friendly, and the framerate prevents it from being shiny, even if some of the scenic stills look pretty.


Quote
EDIT: And by the way, this is not about Vanguard anymore. This is about you all being silly. Being jaded and cynical is one thing. Being obsessed is another.

Why do you hate America? ;)




Why? He had his shot, he pissed it away with "WORKING AS INTENDED!" and rigid ego trips about how to play the game. And from the looks of things, he's making the same damn game anyway, with some of the same damn bugs and flaws. Fuck him and his raging douchebag ego.
Not to mention Vanguard isn't "EQ done right" by Brad's stated views. All the hard core cock-blocking and dick-grinding was removed --  and from the comments in Beta that started happening right about the time SOE had to step in to get it finished.

It's still more grindy and painful than WoW -- but it's not a damn thing like what he originally envisioned. It's also no surprise that it went from shit-hole to possibly one day fun when Brad's vision got shitcanned.

I just thought these two comments were worth reiterating. I mean, have fun whatever you're playing. I don't care, but fuck Brad.



Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Venkman on January 31, 2007, 01:03:33 PM
Quote from: Falconeer
You are a troll. (to LC)
Actually, whether he was trolling or believed it, it's a valid point.

Code:
UO + (eve Rules & Systems + SpreadSheets) + Mount&Blade Combat + Innovation = Fun

Big as UO was, it was big without serious competition until EQ came along and smashed it. Eve is never going to be huge. It's innovative and relevant due to that, but even SOE isn't scared, much less Blizzard. Mount&Blade combat is all sorts of fun but something only Funcom seems to be working for AoC (in the massive sense, I know there's multiplayer systems). That's simply a feature though, not a world unto itself.

The world described in that formula is a self-consistent experience nobody's willing to touch though. When John Smedley mentioned  "virtual worlds don't sell", it wasn't just that they comparatively are not nearly as successful as diku. It's that because they are not as successful it's hard to get VC and/or publishers interested in it. So they're either niche or doomed. I do believe they're niche because most gamers don't want that level of immersion, but the lack of comparable development budget helps keep them down too.

It's not VG that's solely preventing their emergence, but they are to blame as much. Yet another company with copious amounts of cash squandering it on an obviously derivative title already iterated a dozen times prior, going up against a few companies that have already proven almost exactly how to do it right. In building The Vision they doomed themselves to comparable mediocrity by going against companies with simply a lot more cash and reach.

The only surprise in VG is that SOE was willing to let it co-exist with EQ2 (some interesting conspiracy theories there from folks here though, many plausible). But they only got the ability to make that game because it was a derivative game very easy to explain simply by pointing at EQ1 and WoW.

So, the success of diku in aggregate prevents virtual lifestyles from emerging. Sigil is not blameless. Neither is Blizzard, Square Enix, Mythic and so on.

But that's only if you're looking to asfix blame at all. Personally, there's a few million people paying a few billion dollars proving what gamers want from this genre. Trying to hope for a collective epiphany that'll result in pre-Trammel UO emerging as the big title everyone talks about is folly.

There's enough here for everyone, but the above is important if you care about why so many people talk about X or Y game.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: LC on January 31, 2007, 01:05:59 PM

You are a troll.


You are on a journey to Money Town. At some point during this journey the path forks. The path to your right takes you through a safe valley filled with fruit trees and cute furry critters. The path on your left goes over a dangerous mountain filled with hungry mountain lions and steep cliffs. Realistically which path would you choose?  Everyone would pick the right path because there is no reason to go left. But what if there was an avalanche, and the right path would no longer take you to Money Town? 

It's the same for developers.  They will choose the safe path as long as you are willing to throw away your money.

If Vancrap makes any profit the drought will continue.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Nebu on January 31, 2007, 01:10:45 PM
The only surprise in VG is that SOE was willing to let it co-exist with EQ2 (some interesting conspiracy theories there from folks here though, many plausible). But they only got the ability to make that game because it was a derivative game very easy to explain simply by pointing at EQ1 and WoW.

I'm not totally surprised by this.  I think they attract a similar gamer and that fact alone will sell more boxes off the shelf.  I do see the issue you're getting at in that they will likely draw subscribers from eachother and that's where the real money in mmo's lies.  In my estimation putting VG on the station pass was probably the safest bet in getting back some return on investment.  If VG were standalone, I think their losses may have been considerable.  At least this way they will get revenue from box sales due to a willingness of station subscribers to dabble as well as perhaps aiding in retention of existing pass holders.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Slayerik on January 31, 2007, 01:11:31 PM
I am with the highly unpopular Sinij/Slayerik(Nija?) party

You sure Falc?

We have beer, azzrape t-shirts, are psychotic, and generally live in the past.

Its a rough life, but we are "pre-trammel UO 'pinnacle of MMO' d00ds". Fighting the good cause from now till we finally get out of our parent's basements!

On topic, if you like Vanguard, play Vanguard. If its a steaming pile of shit to you, don't play it. I think I'm tired of both sides of this argument.



Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Azazel on January 31, 2007, 01:16:22 PM
Did you really need ten lines to call yourself a carebear?

All you really did was send a message to developers: "Yes, I'll gladly buy your feces in a boobie covered carton!"

You continue funding this shit, and the rest of us suffer because of that. The money thrown away on these shitty games could be funding the next UO instead. (I don't mean a UO clone or sequel. I'm talking about a new and innovative game that can do as much for the genre as UO did.)

Carebear? What the fuck are you talkin' 'bout, Willis?

if these guys like Vanguard, more power to them. I mean, I'm still going to have fun poking Vanguard with a stick and all on this forum, but whatthefuck do I care if these guys enjoy the game? The rest of us suffer because of that? Go donate your income to a groundbreaking game R&D group, or STFU.


It's not VG that's solely preventing their emergence, but they are to blame as much. Yet another company with copious amounts of cash squandering it on an obviously derivative title already iterated a dozen times prior, going up against a few companies that have already proven almost exactly how to do it right. In building The Vision they doomed themselves to comparable mediocrity by going against companies with simply a lot more cash and reach.

The only surprise in VG is that SOE was willing to let it co-exist with EQ2 (some interesting conspiracy theories there from folks here though, many plausible). But they only got the ability to make that game because it was a derivative game very easy to explain simply by pointing at EQ1 and WoW.

So, the success of diku in aggregate prevents virtual lifestyles from emerging. Sigil is not blameless. Neither is Blizzard, Square Enix, Mythic and so on.

Well, let's be blunt. Blizzard don't give a fuck, because they are wearing gigantic money hats. SOE never gave a shit before, as they were the ones with the largest money hats.

Even Sigil, who don't appear to be wearing much of any kind of hat at all, started development when EQ1 was still big dog, and as fucked in the head Brad is, he was still upfront with and about what he wanted to make. Which was just EQ1+

Tell me about these conspiracy theories.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Azazel on January 31, 2007, 01:18:55 PM

I agree. Wholeheartedly. Is Vanguard preventing that to happen?


Yes.

You're a fuckwit.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Morat20 on January 31, 2007, 01:31:08 PM
Even Sigil, who don't appear to be wearing much of any kind of hat at all, started development when EQ1 was still big dog, and as fucked in the head Brad is, he was still upfront with and about what he wanted to make. Which was just EQ1+

Tell me about these conspiracy theories.
Offhand, I always thought the logic went like this:

1) SOE will lose EQ/EQ2 some subs to VG, even if it sucks. If it's good, they'll lose a lot.
2) If Vanguard is on Stationpass, then SOE isn't losing all that money. EQ/EQ2 players move to Vanguard, still pay SOE through Station Pass. At best, they decide they don't have to make a break with EQ/EQ2 and pay for access to both -- more money for SOE. So from SOE's view, they're limiting the number of people who permanently quit EQ/EQ2 to move to an entirely different game, AND getting at least some of the money from those who do totally move.

You can only play one station pass game at a time, so SOE's costs are relatively fixed. SOE now gets a cut of all Vanguard only subs, might lure a bunch of players to shell out a bit more per month just to access Vanguard, and hedges against potential losses if Vanguard has legs. It's a nice play.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Venkman on January 31, 2007, 01:32:45 PM
Quote from: Azazel
Tell me about these conspiracy theories.
Going by memory here, but the one I liked the most was the idea that if/when VG tanks, or falls below the revenue they need to support the team they have, resources can be shifted over to EQ2. I know Sigil is not part of SOE per se, but that really doesn't matter if the successful group wants to hire/steal from the unsuccessful one.

It's a win-win for SOE: bring people to Station Pass, as a result sell them to other experiences, particularly EQ2. It's a very close experience, but works much better, is way more content complete, has had two years of major game and tech tuning, and is not nearly as sadistic. People may claim they want sadomasochism in their gaming, but the changes in EQ2 and steep decline in EQ1 since WoW launched belies that there are many of them. There are more people checking out VG than just those who want the uber hardcore, and EQ2 sits there waiting for them.

And I wasn't really saying that Blizzard being a valid target for blame matters to Blizzard :) Just that if people want to understand why it's the diku experiences that get the cash, it is because of games like that which collect the cash. It's easy to point to success and explain how to replicate it.


@LC: VG is irrelevant to that continuation. It'll barely register a blip, which is fine as long as they can make a profit. It's just not a herald of things to come because all it does is continue the echo of the past.

It's about WoW not tanking right now, for the uncreative money seekers. Innovation can happen in games attempting to be a mass-hit (figuratively speaking). But it'll happen within games wrapped with diku overtones. On this side of things anyway. There's other sides though.

Innovation in general is coming, it's just coming for an audience not conditioned by Vox raids and corpse runs. There's derivation in the browser-based casual MMOs targeting tweens and teens too, but them not being for us is because they're for a larger audience.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: shiznitz on January 31, 2007, 01:38:38 PM
It's a niche play.


You forgot a letter. SOE is too conservative (or realistic?) to invest $50 million in anything so they are trying to fill a basket with pretty pebbles instead of building a barbican.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Valmorian on January 31, 2007, 01:40:50 PM
They will choose the safe path as long as you are willing to throw away your money.

If Vancrap makes any profit the drought will continue.

You seem to be unable to see that these people who are "throwing away their money" don't see it that way.  They are enjoying the game.  They're paying for something they want. 

Capitalism is a bitch sometimes, no?


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Azazel on January 31, 2007, 01:41:52 PM
Ah yes, I've heard (and espoused some of) those theories myself, especially on the Station Pass angle. Certainly right that Vanguard is a bigger threat to the EQ2 playerbase (even short-term) than to any other MMO, so they may as well own both sides of the cannibalisation.



You seem to be unable to see that these people who are "throwing away their money" don't see it that way.  They are enjoying the game.  They're paying for something they want. 

Apparently that's a hard concept for some.

When I am king, you will be first against the wall....



Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Belce on January 31, 2007, 02:18:15 PM
The game is derivative?  Isn't that really the case for any came, it developed from another?  American football is a crappy derivative of rugby? 

When I introduce people to wargames one of the things I use to start out with is "Its a wargame, like chess."  So regardless of effort to make your game not derivative you are going to have to derive part of the game experience from something else that a person could associate with fun.  Meaning that regardless of what you do, there will always be someone able to say that is derivative and look down their nose at you.

If you were ever to come up with something completely new and original, no one would like it because they wouldn't know why to like it. 


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: LC on January 31, 2007, 02:34:31 PM

You seem to be unable to see that these people who are "throwing away their money" don't see it that way.  They are enjoying the game.  They're paying for something they want. 


I realize that the world is full of worthless idiots.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: HaemishM on January 31, 2007, 02:45:39 PM
The game is derivative?  Isn't that really the case for any came, it developed from another?  American football is a crappy derivative of rugby?  

Belce, there's influenced by and completely derivative. They aren't the same thing. Someone trying to play (or watch) Rugby who has grown up on American football has trouble following it. I know I do.  It requires a bit of a learning curve. That's being influenced by rugby as opposed to just being a straight derivative of it. Someone who plays EQ1 would have so little trouble playing VG that they might as well be the same game. That's derivative. And unfortunately, for every DIKU game out there, a person who plays on DIKU can pick up another DIKU MMOG in no time.

I don't look down my nose at the people who play it, other than the catass Cult of Brad who likes having their nuts pinched to be hardcore. Those idiots deserve derision. I look down my nose at rockstar developers with fathead egos who call their retread of a 1st gen MMOG a 3rd generation MMOG like it's somehow the next coming of robot jesus.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Azazel on January 31, 2007, 02:55:27 PM
I realize that the world is full of worthless idiots.

I enjoy the irony you provide.

Seriously though, if you're going to post in this thread, please try to add some content besides insult-laden one-liners in an attempt to become one of the cool kids by beating up a defenceless opponent. The adults here are trying to have a discussion, profanity-laden as it may be.



Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Furiously on January 31, 2007, 03:28:21 PM
Ah yes, I've heard (and espoused some of) those theories myself, especially on the Station Pass angle. Certainly right that Vanguard is a bigger threat to the EQ2 playerbase (even short-term) than to any other MMO, so they may as well own both sides of the cannibalisation.

I can see it having an attaction to the same person.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Raph on January 31, 2007, 03:44:57 PM
Trying to hope for a collective epiphany that'll result in pre-Trammel UO emerging as the big title everyone talks about is folly.


Well, unless you recognize Runescape as being that game. Honestly, it's damn close.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Nebu on January 31, 2007, 04:02:42 PM
I realize that the world is full of worthless idiots.
I enjoy the irony you provide.

Seriously though, if you're going to post in this thread, please try to add some content besides insult-laden one-liners in an attempt to become one of the cool kids by beating up a defenceless opponent. The adults here are trying to have a discussion, profanity-laden as it may be.

If he finds me to be a worthless idiot because I'm having fun in a game, that's his option.  It's just one of the glorious benefits of being a part of the anonymous internet. 

I've not stated that Vanguard was a great game.  I've not stated that I think it's innovative.  I simply stated that some of the gameplay suits my preferences.  If that threatens people to the point that they need to make a personal attack, then they obviously don't have a more astute point to make. 


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Nija on January 31, 2007, 04:16:35 PM
2. Shaman pets are still bugged and occasionally will attack group members when healed by disciple spells

3. The level 15 shaman totem quest is bugged.  It allows you to get it at level 12, but if you take it then you don't get the reward at 15.

4. Mobs are still having warping, pathing, and z-axis problems.  I had several mobs hit me from underground.  Fighting on hilly terrain can produce comical results.

5. I fell through the world not once but twice last night.  What really made me laugh is that I fell 4k units vertically and about 6k units horizontally.  I ended up on a plain like 6k s of where I started.

People like different things. I've heard of people who enjoy having their balls stapled to their leg. Maybe you should try that out if you have some time to kill this weekend.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Azazel on January 31, 2007, 04:26:22 PM
Why would he need to do that? He's already playing Vanguard.  :rimshot:


But yeah, people like different things. There's no accounting for taste. In fact, if I could play Vanguard in godmode without any risk of death or aggro, and with a high-speed flying mount, I'd probably give it a go for a week or two, just to explore the much-vaunted scenery. I'd skip the diku, though I guess I'd be happy with the weapon selection from something like Far Cry.



Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Miasma on January 31, 2007, 04:28:51 PM
I think we can all agree that LC is some sort of demented sociopath but he's fun to laugh at.

As far as the imbecilic carebear "insult" I'd point out that Vanguard is one of the few games that has a free for all server where you can kill anyone, anytime over level six.  Duoing with someone and want to make sure you get that nice piece of loot that dropped?  Kill him.  Mommy didn't give you enough attention after she left your Dad for your Uncle?  Go gank newbies in their starting city since the guards don't even protect anyone.  Since they have put almost no effort into the PvP code it would be ripe for cheating by miserable little exploiters too.

And finally calling it "Vancrap" is weak, surely you can come up with something better, ideally that something would rhyme with Vanguard, like Van"tard".  See, and I didn't even bother putting more than two seconds of thought into that.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Merusk on January 31, 2007, 04:51:39 PM
Demented sociopaths don't whine like bitches because the industry they're following have decided their particular lineage of consumer isn't worth catering to, because it drives away other consumers the industry would rather serve.  Instead, they go into those other products and practice their manevolent little brand of glee, until they're booted or their mischef tools are taken away and then repeat the cycle anew.

No, he's a whiny bitch who's upset that his exact brand of PvP isn't being given.  Nevermind games like EvE or DAoC, or the stuff on the horizon.  Apparently that's all too carebear because there's safe zones and they can't find a shard and dominate. (Particularly not in EvE, where BoB will eat your lunch.)

"QQ" more, as they say. Your complaints about the industry give me a chuckle every time because they're self-inflicted.

As to Vanguard itself, things sounds like it's nearly exactly what was predicted.  A buggy, unfinished piece of crap that caters to people who fancy that games should punish you to force social behavior.  If it weren't so damned buggy, I'd have predicted they'd hit 150-200k easy (and I did somewhere once.)   As it is, I don't think enough people are willing to drop the $50 to suffer for Brad's art.  Perhaps in time, if things get finished or there's a free download. 


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Nebu on January 31, 2007, 05:28:28 PM
As to Vanguard itself, things sounds like it's nearly exactly what was predicted.  A buggy, unfinished piece of crap that caters to people who fancy that games should punish you to force social behavior. 

I'm guessing we have a very different approach to playing these games.  My free time is so limited that I don't waste it on something that I'm not having fun with.  Right now, I solo and have yet to feel a) pressured to group nor b) punished.  If I ever do, I'll leave for something else. 

I'm not hooked on the achiever mentality in games.  My life is already rich with it.   


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: LC on January 31, 2007, 06:24:47 PM
I think we can all agree that LC is some sort of demented sociopath but he's fun to laugh at.

That's funny coming from a lonely basement dweller willing to grind away years of his life in Vancrap.

As far as the imbecilic carebear "insult" I'd point out that Vanguard is one of the few games that has a free for all server where you can kill anyone, anytime over level six.  Duoing with someone and want to make sure you get that nice piece of loot that dropped?  Kill him.  Mommy didn't give you enough attention after she left your Dad for your Uncle?  Go gank newbies in their starting city since the guards don't even protect anyone.  Since they have put almost no effort into the PvP code it would be ripe for cheating by miserable little exploiters too.

PvP without death penalties (looting) is a waste of hardware and bandwidth. It's also not worth my time. In fact it shouldn't even count as pvp.

And finally calling it "Vancrap" is weak, surely you can come up with something better, ideally that something would rhyme with Vanguard, like Van"tard".  See, and I didn't even bother putting more than two seconds of thought into that.

Vantards would be (you) the players. How does Vangarbage sound?


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: rk47 on January 31, 2007, 07:45:30 PM
why don't you just play quake or counterstrike if u want to pvp ? you can take their guns and grenades after they die.  I'm sure it's not hard to pretend that money = exp and weapons = level ups :)


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Azazel on January 31, 2007, 07:56:22 PM
I have to agree with that. PVP in every MMOG I've played or even sampled has been overwhelmingly crap compared to any number of FPS games. "Looting" doesn't add any value to the shitty pvp in any of these games. If you want to PVP as a regular thing, do it because the PVP itself is good fun. "Death Penalties" in any form mean jack shit when the actual PVP mechanics are sorely lacking.

And mate, your "badass" insults are really subpar for this board. I know you doubtlessly "pwn the fucking VN boards" or some shit, but really, go back, work on your material, and then come back and try again. The best insults come from either having an interesting personality attatched or having content attatched. Or both. You're 0/2 right now.

Please, no "I know you are, but what am I?" responses.





Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Signe on January 31, 2007, 08:05:13 PM
Well, this thread has had a proper Baka bugger up.  Isn't it time to sink it?


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Nebu on January 31, 2007, 08:16:33 PM
I got pwnd for my opinion.  I'm basking in humiliation. 


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Signe on January 31, 2007, 08:35:17 PM
Just remember:  Fun is wrong.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Nebu on January 31, 2007, 08:37:25 PM
I'm still trying to get over the fact that I've ruined the mmog industry by getting a copy of Vanguard.  The shame is unbearable.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Azazel on January 31, 2007, 08:40:47 PM
So anyway, how's the server stability now? Has it improved much since release? Are they still patching daily? Any more mentions of Blood Elves?  :thumbs_up:



Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: LC on January 31, 2007, 09:02:50 PM

Please, no "I know you are, but what am I?" responses.


Do you receive brownie points for defending the Vantards?


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Azazel on January 31, 2007, 09:14:55 PM
In all seriousness, it appears that your endless set of one-liners are just trying to get this thread denned. I'd really prefer not to have that happen, as there are interesting facets to this thread's conversations, and we've already had one thread derailed into the Den. I'm going to ignore you from here on out, because you're not even entertaining to reply to, as Geldon is.

So please, stop trolling. Or perhaps could one of the mods just gut the last page's worth of bullshit posts into the Den and let this thread contue in a halfway-intelligent manner?



Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Cheddar on January 31, 2007, 09:51:08 PM
Next UO? I am all for it. I am with the highly unpopular Sinij/Slayerik(Nija?) party: post trammel UO is shit, pre trammel UO is the pinnacle of MMO history. I guess that makes me the opposite of a carebear. But those days are over and it's not because of Vanguard. Blame EverQuest, blame the people who chose EQ over UO, blame World of Warcraft.. blame the world.

I am also in that camp.  You get them, tiger!


PS.  I got your message.  The mocking bird flies south for the winter.  Send pretzels!


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: palmer_eldritch on February 01, 2007, 02:31:14 AM
Nothing could have prepared me for how ugly this game is. I'd got the impression that everyone more or less agreed that, whatever its failings, at least it looked nice on a high-powered PC.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Strazos on February 01, 2007, 02:32:24 AM
If you got it at Gamestop, try to return it and say it had a bad install disc or some shit. No need for you to pay for shit if you're not even going to play it.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Trippy on February 01, 2007, 02:47:41 AM
Nothing could have prepared me for how ugly this game is. I'd got the impression that everyone more or less agreed that, whatever its failings, at least it looked nice on a high-powered PC.
No, we didn't agree on that.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Arthur_Parker on February 01, 2007, 03:36:49 AM
A grindy PVE game with tacked on FFA PVP, within set level ranges and without a death penalty like looting, is carebear, it just is.  There's nothing wrong with a carebear playstyle and there's nothing wrong with enjoying Vanguard but trying to steal the meaning of the word, just because it's seen as a harsh insult, is silly.  In fact it's fast approaching the levels of stupidity of those who use "carebear" as an insult in the first place.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Miasma on February 01, 2007, 06:02:25 AM
It's not set level ranges, a level 50 can kill a level 7 with impunity.  He can kill him in his home town because the guards don't care, he can kill him while he is in the middle of crafting because there are no safe zones or times (yet).  If you are within 20% of the person's level you automatically loot 15% of their money, since there is no coin banking (yet) that is actually a pretty good way to make money.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Valmorian on February 01, 2007, 09:19:38 AM
I realize that the world is full of worthless idiots.

Why would people who enjoy a game you don't enjoy be worthless idiots?  Are you really that deluded with self-importance?


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: HaemishM on February 01, 2007, 10:11:51 AM
If you are within 20% of the person's level you automatically loot 15% of their money, since there is no coin banking (yet)

Wait, what? Is that just on the PVP server, or the whole game? The no coin banking thing, I mean.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Miasma on February 01, 2007, 10:24:16 AM
There is no coin banking anywhere, you keep it on your avatar, it does not have weight like in EQ though.  They are supposed to be adding coin banking to the PvP servers so that people don't have to mail it around.

And Arthur_Parker from your reference in the other thread about not getting into to it here I wasn't trying to defend what Vanguard has chosen to call FFA PvP, I was just trying to clarify their PvP ruleset.  I'm not a fan of PvP and I know Vanguard's is not at all well thought out, basically all they did was turn off the code which prevented you from hitting another player, it was a last-minute minimal effort.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Nebu on February 01, 2007, 10:29:04 AM
Wait, what? Is that just on the PVP server, or the whole game? The no coin banking thing, I mean.

The game is full of bugs and missing tons of key features not to mention the mob pathing issues and class imbalances due to lack of proper implementation.  You've been right about all of that.  The only part of the game really worth anything at the moment are questing, crafting, diplomacy, and exploring.  I've been doing mostly ATitD-style exploring and that has been entertaining enough to me.  If I even thought about everything wrong with the rest of the game, I'd likely be more disgusted.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Nija on February 01, 2007, 11:00:26 AM
Man, they spend years and years making this SUPER HARDCORE EXPERIENCE and then coins don't have weight. Banks - which exist to hold money - don't.

What the christ?

I'd love to see design docs.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: HaemishM on February 01, 2007, 11:04:20 AM
I'd love to see design docs.

Toilet paper doesn't hold the ink very well, so they are a bit hard to read.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: shiznitz on February 01, 2007, 01:55:09 PM
Unless you right with a shit pencil and let it dry nice and crusty.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Hutch on February 01, 2007, 01:56:42 PM
Man, they spend years and years making this SUPER HARDCORE EXPERIENCE and then coins don't have weight. Banks - which exist to hold money - don't.

What the christ?

I'd love to see design docs.

The patch notes are the design docs.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Morat20 on February 01, 2007, 02:06:41 PM
Man, they spend years and years making this SUPER HARDCORE EXPERIENCE and then coins don't have weight. Banks - which exist to hold money - don't.

What the christ?

I'd love to see design docs.
Reminder -- when Microsoft dropped them and SOE took over, someone started removing all the SUPER HARDCORE. This is the pussy version. Now, I have no idea whether it was the Beta that convinced them to remove the constant nut-kicks, or SOE forcing it on them, but Vanguard as it launched is utterly unlike what it was back when the Beta first opened. They scrapped a lot and replaced it with stock DIKU-- I'm shocked it even runs, to be honest.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Riggswolfe on February 01, 2007, 02:11:23 PM
Man, they spend years and years making this SUPER HARDCORE EXPERIENCE and then coins don't have weight. Banks - which exist to hold money - don't.

What the christ?

I'd love to see design docs.
Reminder -- when Microsoft dropped them and SOE took over, someone started removing all the SUPER HARDCORE. This is the pussy version. Now, I have no idea whether it was the Beta that convinced them to remove the constant nut-kicks, or SOE forcing it on them, but Vanguard as it launched is utterly unlike what it was back when the Beta first opened. They scrapped a lot and replaced it with stock DIKU-- I'm shocked it even runs, to be honest.

Isn't this comparable to what happened with SWG launch? It's been awhile but I seem to remember that SOE or LA told them they had to make some last minute changes. Hell, that game's history is so convoluted I can't be sure.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Morat20 on February 01, 2007, 02:33:12 PM
Isn't this comparable to what happened with SWG launch? It's been awhile but I seem to remember that SOE or LA told them they had to make some last minute changes. Hell, that game's history is so convoluted I can't be sure.
I vaguely recalling that about a year to a year and a half before launch, a giant chunk of the SWG engine and features was scrapped and redone. I've heard conflicting stories on whether it was a scrap of the initial Koster design, a scrap of the badly implemented Koster design for a simpler Koster design, Koster rescueing his design from incompetent designers, a graphics/db engine that couldn't hack it and had to be rewritten...

I vaguely recall there were complaints about the engine having to be rewritten, which meant that a ton of things got scrapped -- including a lot of skill interactions and testing.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Falconeer on February 01, 2007, 02:40:56 PM
Reminder -- when Microsoft dropped them and SOE took over, someone started removing all the SUPER HARDCORE. This is the pussy version. Now, I have no idea whether it was the Beta that convinced them to remove the constant nut-kicks, or SOE forcing it on them, but Vanguard as it launched is utterly unlike what it was back when the Beta first opened. They scrapped a lot and replaced it with stock DIKU-- I'm shocked it even runs, to be honest.

Yeah, they basically went NGE pre-launch this time. Well, better call than the SWG one anyway.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Arthur_Parker on February 01, 2007, 02:50:28 PM
And Arthur_Parker from your reference in the other thread about not getting into to it here I wasn't trying to defend what Vanguard has chosen to call FFA PvP, I was just trying to clarify their PvP ruleset.  I'm not a fan of PvP and I know Vanguard's is not at all well thought out, basically all they did was turn off the code which prevented you from hitting another player, it was a last-minute minimal effort.

Don't mind me, I'm suffering from a bad cold so just a bit grumpy today.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Arthur_Parker on February 01, 2007, 04:07:38 PM
link (http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=5480)

Quote from: Brownshoe
Vanguard population
I thought it made sense to insert a copy of one of my posts here, since I did calculations for the entire community across servers. I was interested in quantifying how many people might be playing, how many might be alts, and how many people had achieved what levels. You can look to server forums (including Woefeather) for information regarding class distributions, etc.

_________________

So, attempting to assess how many toons might be "alts," I queried all servers, different minimum adventure levels, and received the following results:

Total results/number of characters in Vanguard, all servers: 122,690
At/Above level 2 adventuring level: 79,064
At/Above level 3: 73,752
At/Above level 4: 67,976
At/Above level 5: 59,782
At/Above level 6: 51,324
At/Above level 7: 43,903
At/Above level 8: 37,595
At/Above level 9: 31,303
At/Above level 10: 26,224
At/Above level 11: 18,541
At/Above level 12: 13,560
At/Above level 13: 9,073
At/Above level 14: 6,364
At/Above level 15: 4,121
At/Above level 16: 2,720
At/Above level 17: 1,741
At/Above level 18: 1,226
At/Above level 19: 775
At/Above level 20: 545
At/Above level 21: 331
At/Above level 22: 221
At/Above level 23: 160
At/Above level 24: 133
At/Above level 25: 96
At/Agove level 26: 87
At/Above level 27: 73
At/Above level 28: 72
At/Above level 29: 72
At/Above level 30: 72

At this point, I suspect it's the case that the 71 characters that show up as being over level 28 are Sigil-created level 50 GM characters who are reserved on multiple servers. To check this, I looked at the individual names, and my suspicion was confirmed: For example, "Aughosx" is a level 50 Dread Knight on 7 different servers. "Gmahvir" is a level 50 Warrior on 10 different servers. Gmdaegarmo is a level 50 Paladin on 4 different servers, etc. I'd subtract these ~72 Sigil/"GM" toons from the search results.

SO, there are 43,626 level 1 toons right now, and it's probably fair to assume that a large number of them are alts, or people who have only logged in once. I'd say there are approximately 70,000-80,000 people who are playing this game now and have logged in more than once to do so, across all the servers.

Split into levels (by simply subtracting), I show, across all servers:

Level 2: 5,312
Level 3: 5,776
Level 4: 8,194
Level 5: 8,458
Level 6: 7,421
Level 7: 6,308
Level 8: 6,292
Level 9: 5,079
Level 10: 7,683
Level 11: 4,981
Level 12: 4,487
Level 13: 2,709
Level 14: 2,243
Level 15: 1,401
Level 16: 979
Level 17: 515
Level 18:451
Level 19: 451
Level 20: 214
Level 21: 110
Level 22: 61
Level 23: 27
Level 24: 37
Level 25: 9
Level 26: 14
Level 27: 1


It would appear congratulations are in order to Atrius, on Tharridon server, who has achieved the highest rank of all worlds as a Kojan Human level 27 Warrior (albeit level 1 crafter).

There are 14 level 26 characters, including Drake, a level 26 Bard, from Woefeather. Not suprisingly, many of these top players are from the same guild, including 6 from Florendyl's Halcyon Affinity,4 from Tharridon's "KOS" guild, and 4 from Gulgrethor's "Pain" guild.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: slog on February 01, 2007, 04:33:15 PM
80,000 box sales from 122,000 TOTAL CHARACTERS? 

Um, he's on Crack.  3 toons per account be more accurate I would think...


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Trippy on February 01, 2007, 05:03:13 PM
80,000 box sales from 122,000 TOTAL CHARACTERS? 

Um, he's on Crack.  3 toons per account be more accurate I would think...
The game just launched, though. Unless there's a need for mule accounts I don't see people making a ton of alts right off the bat.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Rodivar on February 01, 2007, 05:20:34 PM
Can't forget every box came with a free trial, CE's with 10.

Wow 18 months here and that was what I choose to post first, it's a sign


some people made alts to save names


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: pants on February 01, 2007, 05:38:11 PM

some people made alts to save names

yeah, I know a lot of lv1 alts which have been created to save names for people who don't have the game yet.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Trippy on February 01, 2007, 05:44:20 PM
some people made alts to save names
Good point.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Miasma on February 01, 2007, 06:55:56 PM
I seldom trust people like this who try to query a database through questionable workarounds.  Also note that he seemed to be exploiting the vgplayers site and that takes a while to be updated, it lagged my level by about 24 hours, since he only made this list yesterday I doubt he got all of the new characters that were made on release two days ago.

That said I've made all eight characters that I'm allowed to.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: HRose on February 01, 2007, 10:55:47 PM
Uhm, hello?

Quote
At 12PM PST tomorrow, 02/02/2007, all players will be required to have a valid retail key associated with their account in order to continue playing.

Vanguard has been "free for play" till now. I'm even willingly to consider station pass accounts as standard ones even if they aren't. But the number of characters on a game still in "open beta" mean jack shit.

And since they aren't going to wipe the DB tomorrow those number will always mean nothing.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Trippy on February 02, 2007, 12:19:37 AM
Uhm, hello?

Quote
At 12PM PST tomorrow, 02/02/2007, all players will be required to have a valid retail key associated with their account in order to continue playing.
Doh!


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Arthur_Parker on February 02, 2007, 02:51:08 AM
But the number of characters on a game still in "open beta" mean jack shit.

Except if you want to know the number of characters during the "open beta" stage, right?  Or if you need the open stage info to make more sense of the number of characters during live, providing they don't wipe the database?


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: eldaec on February 02, 2007, 03:29:19 AM
80,000 box sales from 122,000 TOTAL CHARACTERS? 

Um, he's on Crack.  3 toons per account be more accurate I would think...
The game just launched, though. Unless there's a need for mule accounts I don't see people making a ton of alts right off the bat.

True, but the assumption in those numbers is that there are no alts above level 1.

I reckon something like 50k would be a better guess at the number of subs.

Quote
But the number of characters on a game still in "open beta" mean jack shit.

Hardly. When the beta accounts without keys get killed, that isn't going to add to the number of accounts, so this gives us an upper bound on the number of paid installations to date.

50k is a lower number than I would have expected at this point.

I'd have expected around 100k now, topping out around 200k in the summer, falling off to 100k again around christmas, then it'll limp along for years in the sub-100k range.

VG is aimed at organised guild players, you'd have to expect a quick takeup amoungst the small group who intend to play, rather than a EQ/WoW sytle inexorable rise.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Falconeer on February 02, 2007, 04:49:20 AM
As inaccurate as these calculations can be, vgplayers.com keep statistics and rankings for every single action you do in game. For example, some of my alts have a best melee hit of 0 (zero) damage. That puts me in position 188408 of the global rankings.
It's hard to believe that I am the last one of that ranking but assuming me and all the other zero damage characters are on the bottom spot of that rankings, you could assume that there are at least 188408 characters created across all servers. And That is usually 36 hours old informations.

To make a comparions using the same rule of the thumb, looks like you are in position 1,815,743 if you have zero damage or anything similar in EQ2 (according to eq2players.com), so ten times the characters (not the players or the accounts) of Vanguard, but in a 26 months span. But keep in mind we are talking of created characters, not active ones. If you created 8 alts on launch day back in november 2004 and quit playing 2 weeks later to play WoW, those 8 chars still pile up in thar 1800k ranking.

Honestly, I think what I just described is a crappy method of getting figures. But it doesn't sound badder than the previously described one of querying servers. I'd say let's scrap both.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Ixxit on February 02, 2007, 06:38:44 AM
Concerning the post from 10 Ton Hammer, I believe he polled the numbers from the previous night (1st night of official launch).  There were some posts on the forums stating that people were still waiting from their vendors to receive the game (Amazon especially).  That night all servers were reporting 'medium' and 'low'.  There were also problems with the log in server for a period of time, so not everyone was able to register their boxes that night.

Last night all servers (except the EU ones) were reporting Med and High levels and the game seems nicely populated in the newbie  and surrounding lowbie areas.

Also, the people who bought by digital download are probably still waiting for their downloads to finish, which is about 40 gigs right Falconeer?   :-D





Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Rodivar on February 02, 2007, 06:40:37 AM
Quote
But the number of characters on a game still in "open beta" mean jack shit.

Quote
Hardly. When the beta accounts without keys get killed, that isn't going to add to the number of accounts, so this gives us an upper bound on the number of paid installations to date.

50k is a lower number than I would have expected at this point.


When beta accounts get killed we won't know much more than we did yesterday due to the fact that every CE box can spawn 10 unpaid buddy accounts for the next 10 days and every regular account spawns one buddy account.   


With these vaiables I don't how we can know much more post beta account drops than pre, until the 10 day buddy keys move through the system. 

This is one title you will really need the NPD sales numbers to draw any real conclusions.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Endie on February 02, 2007, 07:12:43 AM
Also, the people who bought by digital download are probably still waiting for their downloads to finish, which is about 40 gigs right Falconeer?   :-D

I heard it was 40 + 20GB


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Arthur_Parker on February 02, 2007, 07:18:37 AM
If the number of character is being accurately reported then you know the total number of characters at a certain point in time and hence the maximum possible number of subscribers.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Nebu on February 02, 2007, 07:53:44 AM
The digital DL was 5 total files that roughly total 6Gb.  (setup file was small.  2 files about 800 meg, 2 approaching 2 Gb)


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: eldaec on February 02, 2007, 08:23:44 AM
So smaller than, for instance, WoW.

Now there's a pointless metric you can use to suit any agenda.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: HaemishM on February 02, 2007, 09:18:52 AM
Color me completely unsurprised that some dodgy numbers confirm what I predicted: VG just isn't going to sell well.

Look, even if his numbers are so wildly inaccurate as to be half the true numbers (i.e. 160k subscribers instead of 80k), that's still not great numbers compared to what the Brad claimed they'd be. I'm quite sure they are numbers SOE won't be happy with. If those numbers don't improve dramatically, I'd say we can call it a failure from the subscriber numbers. Now whether it's profitable is the real test, and we'll never know.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Sky on February 02, 2007, 09:53:50 AM
Although I admit a bit of curiosity about the game as an explorer...I just read an interview saying they are targeting 20% of the game to solo players. That cured my weakness right quick. I'm sure it's just coincidence the game with 80% soloability has 7 million accounts.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Nebu on February 02, 2007, 10:03:00 AM
Color me completely unsurprised that some dodgy numbers confirm what I predicted: VG just isn't going to sell well.

Look, even if his numbers are so wildly inaccurate as to be half the true numbers (i.e. 160k subscribers instead of 80k), that's still not great numbers compared to what the Brad claimed they'd be. I'm quite sure they are numbers SOE won't be happy with. If those numbers don't improve dramatically, I'd say we can call it a failure from the subscriber numbers. Now whether it's profitable is the real test, and we'll never know.

I think this will give you the outcome you've been wanting as well; Brad should be unlikely to garner this type of financial support for another project in the future.  That is unless investors are too stupid to know better. 


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Hound on February 02, 2007, 10:29:18 AM
Color me completely unsurprised that some dodgy numbers confirm what I predicted: VG just isn't going to sell well.

Look, even if his numbers are so wildly inaccurate as to be half the true numbers (i.e. 160k subscribers instead of 80k), that's still not great numbers compared to what the Brad claimed they'd be. I'm quite sure they are numbers SOE won't be happy with. If those numbers don't improve dramatically, I'd say we can call it a failure from the subscriber numbers. Now whether it's profitable is the real test, and we'll never know.

I think this will give you the outcome you've been wanting as well; Brad should be unlikely to garner this type of financial support for another project in the future.  That is unless investors are too stupid to know better. 

never underestimate the stupity of people
http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/loadFeature/620 (http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/loadFeature/620)


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Murgos on February 02, 2007, 10:40:34 AM
I don't think 100-150 thousand players for the first week or so of launch is all that bad.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Nebu on February 02, 2007, 10:43:58 AM
I don't think 100-150 thousand players for the first week or so of launch is all that bad.

We'll know how many are real now that they need codes to log in.  I'm sure we won't get any straight numbers from the station pass, but box sales may say something. 


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: HaemishM on February 02, 2007, 11:23:41 AM
I don't think 100-150 thousand players for the first week or so of launch is all that bad.

It shouldn't be. It should be fantastic.

But this is SOE and Brad McQuaid. McQuaid predicted 400k and up, which we all knew was bullshit. I'm sure SOE didn't want to add another 150k subscription game unless they bought it for a song. The game's been through 2 publishers, cost a lot of money I'm sure, and probably won't make back that money quickly. SOE needs a hit after the SWG NGE fiasco, EQ2's lackluster numbers and EQ1's declining numbers.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Special J on February 02, 2007, 01:25:31 PM
That much?  Didn't EQ2 launch with around that many?  Did he honestly think his name carried more weight than SOE and EQ?


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Arthur_Parker on February 02, 2007, 01:28:20 PM
Nobody has said "2nd most expensive mmorpg ever" for quite a while.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: HRose on February 02, 2007, 01:52:36 PM
I think this will give you the outcome you've been wanting as well; Brad should be unlikely to garner this type of financial support for another project in the future.  That is unless investors are too stupid to know better. 
Investors ARE stupid.

Should I remember you how many licences Turbine got after Asheron's Call 2 failure? Should I remember you that Netdevil after the Auto Assault failure started to work on TWO new mmorpgs and got more founding?


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Nebu on February 02, 2007, 02:01:17 PM
Investors ARE stupid.

Should I remember you how many licences Turbine got after Asheron's Call 2 failure? Should I remember you that Netdevil after the Auto Assault failure started to work on TWO new mmorpgs and got more founding?

Maybe this is your incentive to create a design document.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: jpark on February 02, 2007, 02:05:31 PM
Although I admit a bit of curiosity about the game as an explorer...I just read an interview saying they are targeting 20% of the game to solo players. That cured my weakness right quick. I'm sure it's just coincidence the game with 80% soloability has 7 million accounts.

Hmm... is that 20% of the finished portions of the game? ;)


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Morat20 on February 02, 2007, 02:16:22 PM
Investors ARE stupid.

Should I remember you how many licences Turbine got after Asheron's Call 2 failure? Should I remember you that Netdevil after the Auto Assault failure started to work on TWO new mmorpgs and got more founding?

Maybe this is your incentive to create a design document.

"Hi. I'm Brad, creator of EQ and Vanguard, games just like World of Warcraft, which has 8 zillion players. Give me 60 million dollars, and I'll make another.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Trippy on February 02, 2007, 04:29:35 PM
I don't think 100-150 thousand players for the first week or so of launch is all that bad.
It shouldn't be. It should be fantastic.

But this is SOE and Brad McQuaid. McQuaid predicted 400k and up, which we all knew was bullshit. I'm sure SOE didn't want to add another 150k subscription game unless they bought it for a song. The game's been through 2 publishers, cost a lot of money I'm sure, and probably won't make back that money quickly. SOE needs a hit after the SWG NGE fiasco, EQ2's lackluster numbers and EQ1's declining numbers.
Brad didn't say he thought he could get 400K the first week.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Falconeer on February 02, 2007, 06:17:36 PM
9pm EST, friday night, out of 10 North American servers, 7 are medium load and 3 are high load.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Hound on February 02, 2007, 06:44:41 PM
from the MMORPG.com forum

Quote
just went over to the Vanguard Players site and did a search for players adv level 1-50 all servers, any class, any crafting/diplomacy rating and it came back with 177,230 players. Now how many are alts, and how many are on buddy key accounts. I usualy have 1 or 2 alts just to reserve names myself, and I think every box had one buddy key and some had ten. How many boxes were sold, I dunno but it was a heck of a lot less than 177,230.

 60,232 were lvl 1's

 43934 were between lvl 2 and 5

 46,946 were between 6 and 10

 25, 220 were between 11 and 20

the rest between 21 and 50

My guess is around 35,000 boxes sold plus or minus 5000. The lvl 1's are obviously alts to hold names, as are a lot of the lvl 2 - lvl 6 characters. You have to figure  at least 50% of the toons between lvl 6 and 50 are buddy keys, GM's etc.

edit Falconeer- high medium and low are arbitrary and they could have high set at 5000 players or 1500 players and we would never be the wiser so that really does not tell us much.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Ixxit on February 02, 2007, 07:41:50 PM
Well if that person on the mmorpg.com forums was playing the game he would realize that the data on the Vanguard players site is not updated in real time.  For example my main character that is level 9 is being reported on the site as still being level 7, which is two days ago

But hey everyone's a mmo pundit right?   


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: d4rkj3di on February 02, 2007, 08:05:28 PM
They stopped showing actual server numbers shortly before the open beta. One day there were around 3000-3500 on both the PvE's and 1800 on the PvP. The next day the PvE's showed as Medium and PvP was Light. My guess would be around 150k put down 5 or 10 bucks to get into Pre-Launch, and after this weekend 100k of those might actually purchase and play for the 30 days that come with the box. After 30 days, you can probably take another 50% off that number. But what do I know, I'm just some guy on the internet.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Azazel on February 02, 2007, 09:18:29 PM
Also, the people who bought by digital download are probably still waiting for their downloads to finish, which is about 40 gigs right Falconeer?   :-D

I heard it was 40 + 20GB

Remember the 20+20 thing came from Geldon...


Although I admit a bit of curiosity about the game as an explorer...I just read an interview saying they are targeting 20% of the game to solo players. That cured my weakness right quick. I'm sure it's just coincidence the game with 80% soloability has 7 million accounts.

Comparing Vanguard (or anything else) to WoW is unfair though. Especially if WoW's NA playerbase is like 2.5 million. Also, when working out numbers like this there's also a few hundred thousand Oceanic players who are on the NA servers, so I have no doubt that we get mixed into the "North American Players"

Not defending Vanguard so much, as pointing out that the 8m argument is a bit spurious when you're pointing out Western sub numbers. Which is why all the speculation about Warhammer hitting 4 million or 6 million etc is laughable. (And I'm a big fan of the IP).

I don't remember Brad or anyone else suggesting they'd hit 400k in the first week. Anyway, the interview quoted/linked here a week or so ago had those numbers revised down to 200k, which again isn't their hope for initial box sales, but as a stable subscriber base, which we won't start to see really for 6 months or so.





Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: HRose on February 03, 2007, 02:03:23 AM

Brad didn't say he thought he could get 400K the first week.

A side effect of an "hardcore" game is that it will age worse. The subscribers growth will fall sooner.

In WoW the solo friendly design helped the longevity a lot because the game is built so that you can have a good experience even if you aren't part of the initial "rush" on the server. The fun experience is well preserved.

Vanguard will probably have a much harder time to grow subscribers in the mid/long term as the grind when there aren't players around will feel much harsher. Being more "group friendly" makes the game vulnerable to lack of players, off-peaks and so on. The longer leveling curve will also build much bigger gaps and it will take ages for a new player to join his friends and play together.

These kinds of barriers are overlooked RIGHT NOW. But I'm sure they'll become a major factor later on.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Strazos on February 03, 2007, 02:52:33 AM
I agree with HRose. Whoda thunk it.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: schild on February 03, 2007, 03:18:28 AM
I disagree only because those barriers need to be looked at RIGHT NOW. I was playing at a peak hour and there were maybe 8 newbies in the area I was in. You could smell the suck. Every game could really learn something from newbie Isle in EQ2 (OR EVEN ATiTD).


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Azazel on February 03, 2007, 03:24:35 AM
I'll go with HRose now as well. It doesn't seem to me that he's saying that it doesn't need to be looked at, just that as the game gets older it will become a more and more glaring problem that people are overlooking right now, since people are (mostly) gathered around a similar set of levels. Of course the catasses will take off, but when Mr Average VanGuard gets to level, 30 or so, and his mates want to play too, then it will really him them all that they're schafted.



Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Simond on February 03, 2007, 03:44:27 AM
These kinds of barriers are overlooked RIGHT NOW. But I'm sure they'll become a major factor later on.
Also, it's going to be interesting to see what happens once the good:bad class breakdown stabilises and people start trying to reroll FOTM alts. Slow non-group advancement + twinking restrictions + limited server populations = Profit?


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Hound on February 03, 2007, 05:17:24 AM
Well if that person on the mmorpg.com forums was playing the game he would realize that the data on the Vanguard players site is not updated in real time.  For example my main character that is level 9 is being reported on the site as still being level 7, which is two days ago

But hey everyone's a mmo pundit right?   

They update that data base every 24 hours, so that data would have been good at whatever time Friday morning they updated the database. I just went and did the search myself and as of right now it listed 197, 665 total characters of which 65, 954 are level ones and 82, 404 are between lvl 6 and lvl 50. With one buddy key per regular box and 10 buddy keys per collectors box I would think it is very safe to assume that less than 50K boxes were sold.

the link to the players site http://vgplayers.station.sony.com/characterSearch.vm (http://vgplayers.station.sony.com/characterSearch.vm)


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: eldaec on February 03, 2007, 05:21:12 AM

Brad didn't say he thought he could get 400K the first week.

A side effect of an "hardcore" game is that it will age worse. The subscribers growth will fall sooner.

I certainly agree that growth will drop off sooner, but equally there will be less churn. Anyone still will VG in six months will likely stay a while because of guild links. Account numbers will drop to sub 100k next year, but will remain stable for a fairly long time.

See also: UO and EVE.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Hound on February 03, 2007, 06:17:59 AM

Brad didn't say he thought he could get 400K the first week.

A side effect of an "hardcore" game is that it will age worse. The subscribers growth will fall sooner.

I certainly agree that growth will drop off sooner, but equally there will be less churn. Anyone still will VG in six months will likely stay a while because of guild links. Account numbers will drop to sub 100k next year, but will remain stable for a fairly long time.

See also: UO and EVE.

the game will have to get a over a 100 K before it will drop to 100K.  I seriously doubt it will ever get above 75K myself, and that is allowing for a generous number of the buddy key players to roll into a full blown subscription. With other more polished and finished MMORPGs on the immediate horizon I would think Vanguard is doomed to an existence of being EQII's homely cousin.

edited because of a Freudian typo


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Rodivar on February 03, 2007, 06:42:22 AM
Vanguard history,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SUvL4MOQQw

I got this link from someone else on another forum,  I wish I had been the first to find this.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Miasma on February 03, 2007, 08:37:39 AM
Heh, nice video.

As far as I can tell they didn't do much advertising or PR before launch either.  That Warhammer press week thread is huge with dozens of interviews, videos, screenshots, previews and the game isn't even coming out for many months.  I wonder if they even tried to generate buzz.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: raydeen on February 03, 2007, 11:00:09 AM
Vanguard history,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SUvL4MOQQw

I got this link from someone else on another forum,  I wish I had been the first to find this.

That's friggin' brilliant. Kudos for bringing it here.  :-D

That being said, I do have some interest in Vanguard if only for the whole big as a whale world it seems to have. My favorite gaming moments come from the Elder Scrolls games (Arena and on up) and the fact that the vastness of it all really made you feel like it was real. I won't be trying it though until there's a free downloadable trial. I've reached the point where I'm reluctant to spend money on a box and CD with the knowledge that I may have just bought pretty cardboard and a drink coaster. All MMO clients should be free to download with the option to buy. As it is, I have EQ, CoX, PSU, and WoW on my gaming plate. I don't want to spend any more moolah than I have to if the game isn't fun or my cup o' tea.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Ixxit on February 03, 2007, 11:11:43 AM
Gamespot has a "hands on 1st week writeup" on Vanguard.  Does a great job summing up it's strengths and weakness.  Sorry to report  no univeral panning here.


http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/vanguard/news.html?sid=6165077&om_act=convert&om_clk=newlyadded


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: SnakeCharmer on February 03, 2007, 01:02:15 PM

I lasted a whole week in VG with the slideshow effect, and boring monotonous quests.  I can't help but start falling asleep when I play it.  It's just....Boring.

As someone who generally vehemently despises fantasy genre MMO's, the odd side effect of VG is that it's actually making me want to play WoW.

Go figure.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Morat20 on February 03, 2007, 01:46:48 PM
I certainly agree that growth will drop off sooner, but equally there will be less churn. Anyone still will VG in six months will likely stay a while because of guild links. Account numbers will drop to sub 100k next year, but will remain stable for a fairly long time.

See also: UO and EVE.
Hey! EVE's growing. :)


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: HRose on February 03, 2007, 03:28:58 PM
I certainly agree that growth will drop off sooner, but equally there will be less churn. Anyone still will VG in six months will likely stay a while because of guild links. Account numbers will drop to sub 100k next year, but will remain stable for a fairly long time.

See also: UO and EVE.
Both of these have relatively narrow gaps between noobs and veteran players. You can play together right away.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: shiznitz on February 05, 2007, 07:58:03 AM
Just to make it final. I backed up my VG folder yesterday to an external harddrive. 17Gb after launch patch.

I also put some more initial impressions in the Vanguard - FIGHT! thread.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: luckton on March 21, 2014, 01:12:48 PM
Free to play.  http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/03/21/vanguard-going-free-to-play-this-summer-beefs-up-dev-team/

See my forum avatar for my reaction to this news.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: HaemishM on March 21, 2014, 01:23:31 PM
That's only about 2 years too late.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: shiznitz on March 21, 2014, 01:29:49 PM
Closest thing to old EQ.  Great dungeon crawls, big time commitments, great class diversity.  I only made it level 21, though.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: UnSub on March 21, 2014, 06:19:05 PM
That's only about 2 years too late.

It was either go F2P or shut it down.

It will get a bunch of players in to look around - and the trial area is quite good - but I'm not sure many will stick around.

Also, it's good to know that "Vanguard-loving devs" exist, although I'm sure it is more of a case of "pay cheque-loving devs".


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Kageru on March 21, 2014, 06:57:07 PM
Should have happened years ago. Once theres only a handful of developers left on the title there's no expenses or forward progress to justify keeping it subscription only. You're not going to build traction or volume so the title just ages and shrinks.

Though I guess this is also part of their dreams of "Station Pass" being a sensible mechanism have faded.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: shiznitz on March 22, 2014, 07:22:14 AM
I see the December update relaxed the corpse run mechanic.  Cannot believe it took that long. Wow.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: luckton on March 22, 2014, 07:56:15 AM
I see the December update relaxed the corpse run mechanic.  Cannot believe it took that long. Wow.

It was a game that was supposed to keep "The Vision" alive and well into the 21st century.  I think we can safely say that "The Vision" is now dead.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Draegan on March 22, 2014, 08:15:40 AM
I always like playing this game for the free 10 levels or whatever the Trial Island is.  I still believe that to this day, this game has the best Trinity based class design in the industry.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Chimpy on March 22, 2014, 08:45:16 AM
It also had the most ridiculous band of "make your game just like vanguard and it will be a huge success" fanboys I have ever seen. The cognitive dissonance with them was appalling.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Pennilenko on March 22, 2014, 10:06:35 AM
The best thing for Vanguard is to just let it die. It deserves a peaceful death. Take it out back and bury it next to Brad McQuaid's vision.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: shiznitz on March 22, 2014, 10:17:41 AM
I always like playing this game for the free 10 levels or whatever the Trial Island is.  I still believe that to this day, this game has the best Trinity based class design in the industry.

I have to agree. My psionicist character was the most fun "crowd control" class iteration I have ever experienced. Great CC with decent dps to help when it was time to burn down the boss fast.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Draegan on March 22, 2014, 11:04:38 AM
If I was a Vanguard dev, first thing I'd do is change the basic font they use for everything to something else.

Worst font ever.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Rokal on March 22, 2014, 11:08:25 AM
The concept of a separate defensive target window was great too. It was such a simple change that opened up a lot of possibilities for classes with support abilities.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Pennilenko on March 22, 2014, 12:30:40 PM
Three words about best class design ever: Blood Mage, Disciple.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: ezrast on March 23, 2014, 12:28:39 AM
That's only about 2 years too late.
Yeah, they should have done that shit back in 2012.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: UnSub on March 23, 2014, 01:09:29 AM
Vanguard going F2P has apparently screwed up the time-space continuum.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: HaemishM on March 23, 2014, 09:29:25 AM
WITNESS THE REVENGE OF ARADUNE! PREPARE FOR YOU'RE DOOM!!!!


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Sky on March 23, 2014, 09:37:08 AM
Back in 2012 that would of concerned me.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Reg on March 23, 2014, 11:47:37 AM
It's hard to believe that back in 2012 "would of" was considered ungrammatical!


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Azazel on March 24, 2014, 02:48:00 PM
your


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Nonentity on March 27, 2012, 02:24:27 PM
Did this game ever become good servicable not terrible? I know it wasn't until December of last year that they removed corpse runs.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Tale on March 27, 2012, 02:57:56 PM
Did this game ever become good servicable not terrible? I know it wasn't until December of last year that they removed corpse runs.

I played it a bit last year. It runs better on today's machines, which turns it into a playable MMO where you can crank the settings up and see the world they were trying to make. The starting island is excellent, as people have said, and there are some sexy ideas, like the way bards work. Other than that, it's a too-big, empty, complex MMO that now feels old-fashioned. If you want to sink a lot of time into a deep, old, empty MMO it's probably the best choice. You can grind all the way up, build your SWG-style house and put your stuff in it, and take in the glorious vistas of a huge world. I just don't know anyone that would do that in an aged game, and there's your population problem.

To mix it up a little, I started in one of the traditional starting areas instead of the newbie island. Never saw anyone else and I never would have, due to the scale of the world. I only saw a couple of people on /who. I don't think F2P will fix that.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Kageru on March 27, 2012, 06:44:35 PM

Vanguard was the game that made me realise how important expansion is. If the game is effectively stagnant, no existing content will be fleshed out and little new content added, then the logic of leveling a character pretty much vanishes.

An MMO at best is a story told over time.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Tale on March 27, 2012, 10:34:39 PM
An MMO at best is a story told over time.

I like that and it should be in a sig.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Severian on March 28, 2012, 10:46:58 AM
"at best" or "at its best"?

The first is a dismissive comparison about something's limitations, the second a description of peak condition.

An MMO is at best a graphical chatroom laid on top of a badly-designed single player game.
An MMO at its best provides millions of people with the experience of a life worth living.  :grin:


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Ubvman on April 01, 2012, 11:43:06 PM
Since I am not too up to date on Vanguard.

Is it still a "forced to group to get anything done" game? Because if you are still forced to group to level up, I'm surprised that it managed to last this long. Everquest 1 could do it because by the time they ran out of new noob players, they could rely on their old addicts subscriber base to maintain the overhead costs of keeping the servers running.

Solo play advancement is WoW's breakthrough.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: shiznitz on April 02, 2012, 07:10:19 AM
You can solo in Vanguard up to a point.  That point used to be the low 20s.  I don't know what has changed post 2009, but it can only have gotten easier.  That said, the best part of Vanguard is the combat dynamics with a group.  The class design is excellent in this regard.  The few dungeons I explored were really fun.  You just needed at least 3 hours of uninterrupted play to really push down into them.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Draegan on April 13, 2012, 08:37:50 AM
I always thought the dungeon design was pretty shitty and simple, but then again I only did a few low level ones.  Some bugbear cave and some Tsang oriental palace thingy.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Kageru on April 13, 2012, 06:54:32 PM

I did some of the mid-level ones... they were half baked. Endless halls and caverns with a light sprinkling of mobs and what looked like interesting features or named but weren't. Leading up to a final boss area which was almost universally camped by some high level so you could just trudge on back. The lack of design meaning the challenge level was firmly stuck at "tedious".

I was always impressed at how many art assets were expended to support so little gameplay.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Engels on April 15, 2012, 10:22:28 AM
I loved Vanguard's art. I've never felt so lonely in a game tho. Not in a good, romantic ennui way that one would feel in older MMOs of yore, trekking around the rocks of Lavastorm among the wurms. More in a 'woah, there's a lot of entirely pointless landmass here I have to slog through'.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: luckton on April 15, 2012, 02:40:43 PM
In retrospect, I think about all the hype this game generated, the "return of the Vision", and the falling-flat-on-their-face launch and post-launch support.

I then compare all this to SWTOR.  While SWTOR seems to be fairing a bit better, I can't help but see the irony.  SWTOR is to WoW what Vanguard was to EQ; you can try to imitate, but unless you can exactly duplicate the same game as it stands at the launch of your game AND THEN offer stuff that goes above and beyond what the original hasn't/can't, while at the same time being able to support all of your customers with a well-tested client and good customer/technical support, you're gonna have a pretty steep hill/cliff-side to climb to success.  Pray that you can keep it together without loosing too many subscribers/team members, and you might just live to see the end.

Vanguard may still be here, and they reached the mountain top, but what do they have to show for it in regards to subscriber numbers and moving the genre forward?  Now ask the same of SWTOR.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Pennilenko on April 15, 2012, 02:43:06 PM
Vanguard is better than SWTOR. :grin:


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Rokal on April 15, 2012, 11:07:26 PM
In retrospect, I think about all the hype this game generated, the "return of the Vision", and the falling-flat-on-their-face launch and post-launch support.

I then compare all this to SWTOR.  While SWTOR seems to be fairing a bit better, I can't help but see the irony.  SWTOR is to WoW what Vanguard was to EQ; you can try to imitate, but unless you can exactly duplicate the same game as it stands at the launch of your game AND THEN offer stuff that goes above and beyond what the original hasn't/can't, while at the same time being able to support all of your customers with a well-tested client and good customer/technical support, you're gonna have a pretty steep hill/cliff-side to climb to success.  Pray that you can keep it together without loosing too many subscribers/team members, and you might just live to see the end.

Vanguard may still be here, and they reached the mountain top, but what do they have to show for it in regards to subscriber numbers and moving the genre forward?  Now ask the same of SWTOR.

How well Vanguard imitated EQ or what their design goals were is entirely meaningless because the game was an unplayable technical mess when it launched. They could have set out to make the friendliest, most accessible MMO ever with Vanguard and it still would have bombed.

I wouldn't say Vanguard 'reached the mountain top' either. The servers are a ghost town and the game is only playable at this point due to new consumer hardware making up for piss-poor optimization.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: HaemishM on April 16, 2012, 08:54:07 AM
Sp pretty much the successor to EQ1 in every single way.  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Mrbloodworth on April 16, 2012, 09:38:21 AM
It was pretty. It was also empty.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Engels on April 17, 2012, 11:03:03 AM
It was more than pretty. The tile work (not graphics tiling, actual tile art) on some of the buildings, by itself, was jawdroppingly intricate. I would often just sit there thinking of the sheer effort that must have been invested in creating the world, and I was filled with a mixture of happiness and grief that the whole thing wasn't going to work.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Kageru on April 17, 2012, 04:48:34 PM

I always assumed it was the art team basically giving up on the game design and mechanics sections of the company and filling their days building stuff to keep busy. The capital city was huge, intricate and a game-play desert.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: MahrinSkel on April 17, 2012, 09:29:02 PM
The art team that worked on Vanguard was truly first rate.  The design and content...I have absolutely nothing to say.

--Dave


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: UnSub on April 19, 2012, 09:15:48 PM
Pretty sure there is a Vangard post-mortem somewhere that talks about how long they spent in (half-) building a massive, intricate world, only to start scrambling to fill it with things that worked as launch day approached (and was delayed, then approached again, etc).


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: shiznitz on April 20, 2012, 06:45:09 AM
Vanguard landscapes were excellent, but I always thought they were always too close to the real world in basic geography and flora for a fantasy setting.  One of the human starting areas looked like 1700s England. Intent or accident?  EQ cities and landscapes always had some element of fantasy to them.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Mrbloodworth on April 20, 2012, 06:55:14 AM
EQ cities and landscapes always had some element of fantasy to them.

Yeah! Square, overly tiled, burly textures.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: shiznitz on April 20, 2012, 08:45:17 AM
Don't condemn the look due to technology limitations at the time.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Engels on April 20, 2012, 08:55:59 AM
To be honest, I think that was by design. I think they wanted a Game of Thrones level of fantasy feel, rather than an RA Salvatore/D&D level. Hence the thinly veiled cultures of Middle-Eastern, Asian and northern European origin.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: PalmTrees on July 03, 2012, 02:23:12 PM
They put up their ftp terms. http://vgplayers.station.sony.com/images/community/membershipinfo/vg_membership_page.jpg

Typically SOE. Seems similar to what they did with EQ2 iirc. Not all class/race available, 1/3 the bank size, reduced customer support, money and item limits. $15/month to get the full game. Such restrictive terms. Why do they bother? Must've worked out decently enough with EQ2 I guess.



Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: LK on July 03, 2012, 02:57:54 PM
Amazed this game is still around.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: UnSub on July 03, 2012, 06:02:08 PM
I've been writing a blog entry about Sigil Games and have been reading through old posts about Vanguard / comments made by McQuaid on FOH before Vanguard launched. Hilarious stuff in retrospect.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Pennilenko on July 03, 2012, 07:08:43 PM
I loved vanguard, it just didn't love me back. :heartbreak:

To this day I still feel that Vanguard's, Bloodmage, Bard and Disciple were the most awesome class designs ever. Also their take on a cleric was pretty awesome too.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: PalmTrees on July 03, 2012, 11:14:02 PM
Well cleric and disciple are among the free, the other two are filthy whores you gotta pay for.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Stormwaltz on July 05, 2012, 04:10:16 PM
"Good news, everyone!"

Brad McQuaid is back! (http://vgplayers.station.sony.com/newsArchive.vm?section=News&month=current&id=1425)


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Ingmar on July 05, 2012, 04:11:15 PM
 :uhrr:


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Minvaren on July 05, 2012, 04:16:17 PM
ObPennyArcade (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/05/10)


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Lucas on July 05, 2012, 04:49:01 PM
(http://smiliesftw.com/x/big_eek3.gif)


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Tearofsoul on July 05, 2012, 04:57:32 PM
Seriously, we need a "Welcome back! Brad!" thread! Please please  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: UnSub on July 05, 2012, 06:00:10 PM
McQuaid in 2005 about Vanguard vs WoW (http://www.fohguild.org/forums/mmorpg-general-discussion/14779-blizzard-failed-sigil-up-bat-5.html#post295712):

Quote
When we're looking at revenue forecasts as well as when we're designing the game we're looking at long term customer retention with the realization that the majority of money made from MMOGs is from subscriptions not box sales. 250,000 I think is conservative... 500,000 would be just fine... both look pretty good though when doing the math and planning on players playing months and even years.

If the 'core' gamer is running out of things to do now (and I say 'core', not hard core, because I'm not just reading posts and talking to people who are part of that minority of gamers who play like madmen), then how much longer will the 'casual' gamer be entertained?

I'm not here to criticize Blizzard's plan (nor am I even privy to it), but I can say what ours is, and it's to keep the average MMOG gamer around for a long time. And we realize this likely means we won't see sales in the millions. But we took EQ 1 up to 400,000+ for three years with very few cancellations, and I know the game continued with those numbers for quite a while after I left. And that's the kind of success we're looking for again with Vanguard.

I know the counter-argument, that those players won't tolerate another EQ 1 and its advancement pace -- that MMOGs have to be designed differently now, targeting the more casual gamer and also the gamer who allegedly has less time to play than he or she did in the past, or who just won’t tolerate anything even resembling a ‘grind’.

But I don't buy it. Sure, some people are burned out. But we also hear from a LOT of old school MMOG gamers who want that longer term game again... who want a home again. And if we combine those people with even a small percentage of new MMOG gamers, who were probably exposed to persistent worlds by games like WoW, then it's simply not that crazy to assume we can get the numbers I'm talking about for Vanguard.

Only time will tell, and I know people will disagree with me. But we really need to be right -- not just for Vanguard, but for the genre in general. We can't just give up, throw our hands into the air, and say EQ 1s were a fluke and that core gamers have somehow fundamentally changed since then such that they won't or can't subscribe for years ever again. Were that true, we'd never see the virtual worlds of the scope and scale we all dream about developed. Maybe we are old school, maybe past successes were a fluke, maybe we’re dinosaurs. But I’m betting not.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Redgiant on July 05, 2012, 06:40:53 PM
"Do you have any funny stories to tell everyone about working on Vanguard?"
<generic answer #1>

"Have players ever surprised you with using a strange tactic to defeat an encounter that you created?"
<generic answer #2>


Seriously, you can't think of something for this if you actually play the game? EQ would have a list of answers from anyone who's played it much.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Hutch on July 05, 2012, 06:55:06 PM
"Brad. It's been five years since you fled the industry. What have you been doing with yourself?"
"I did a bit of this, a bit of that. I watched some movies. Hey, you know who's a really good actor? Robert Downey, Jr. Man. That guy is, just, wow. Amazing. And what a life, you know? Rehab, prison. He's been a drug addict for basically his entire life. Did you ever see Less Than Zero? Robert Downey, Jr was in that movie. I once saw an interview where he basically said that the part of Julian was kind of like himself. I mean, he had a lot to draw on."

"So, you're a fan."
"Oh yeah. Sorry, I kind of got off on a tangent there. I do that. I sometimes lose focus. You might have noticed. What was the question, again?"


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Lantyssa on July 05, 2012, 07:44:50 PM
I'm guessing he wants to emulate the success parts of his hero, too?


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Hutch on July 05, 2012, 07:53:46 PM
Oh, please note. My previous post in this thread was, shall we say, pure fiction. Never happened. I made it up. For laughs.

Redgiant's post was the definitive summary of any interview you'll read from "Aradune"  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: UnSub on July 05, 2012, 11:45:42 PM
I like how in the SOE announcement he avoids mentioning Sigil at all. "I was at SOE, then I went away for a while, now I'm back! And on this game too!"


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: satael on July 06, 2012, 03:00:14 AM
Well, maybe after Curt Schilling's  shenanigans Brad thinks he doesn't look so bad anymore.  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Tearofsoul on July 06, 2012, 04:40:05 AM
Well, maybe after Curt Schilling's  shenanigans Brad thinks he doesn't look so bad anymore.  :why_so_serious:

Believe me or not, I think he really doesn't ... lol

Curt was like:"Check this out, Mr.Brad, this is how you fail. Yours was like banana."

Since then, Brad live happily ever after...


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: HaemishM on July 06, 2012, 09:01:18 AM
The price of meth must have gone up.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Sky on July 06, 2012, 11:40:10 AM
I like the part where he doesn't understand people put up with EQ's bullshit because there was only UO's bullshit as an alternative.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Shatter on July 06, 2012, 11:54:42 AM
I'm sure the break he took allowed him to dwell on...ahh fuck it what a tool


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Ingmar on July 06, 2012, 11:57:49 AM
I'm just blown away that they're having him work on the same game he already screwed up. Like the Detroit Lions bringing back Matt Millen.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: HaemishM on July 06, 2012, 12:16:24 PM
Surely there's no employees left from the original parking lot debacle, because he hasn't been shivved in the men's room yet.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Shatter on July 06, 2012, 12:43:28 PM
Surely there's no employees left from the original parking lot debacle, because he hasn't been shivved in the men's room yet.
Not a bathroom anymore, hookers and blow room


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: UnSub on July 06, 2012, 08:30:46 PM
I guess schild hasn't commented because, on seeing the news, he's now running to SOE headquarters, eyes soul-dead, with the aim of crash tackling Smedley through a plate glass window while screaming, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING? WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?".


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Severian on July 06, 2012, 08:36:54 PM
"Do you have any funny stories to tell everyone about working on Vanguard?"
<generic answer #1>

Ooooh, ooooh, ooooh!
I know, I know some!

(http://i.imgur.com/R7QKn.jpg)


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Simond on July 07, 2012, 06:06:53 AM
(http://i.imgur.com/DD5sn.jpg)


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Abelian75 on July 09, 2012, 08:12:17 PM
That is hilarious.  I never caught that reference. :)


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: schild on July 09, 2012, 10:29:23 PM
Sigh.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: El Gallo on July 09, 2012, 10:38:57 PM
Is it OK to feel bad for Aradune yet?


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Amaron on July 10, 2012, 07:17:36 AM
Brad can't code worth a shit so what position did they hire him for? Do they actually have design positions for games in maintenance mode?


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: shiznitz on July 10, 2012, 08:15:09 AM
The guy needed a job and SOE execs needed a laugh around the water cooler.  Brad is probably giving happy hour hand jobs to the coders.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Threash on July 10, 2012, 08:55:12 AM
That is hilarious.  I never caught that reference. :)

Splain?


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Nonentity on July 10, 2012, 11:04:04 AM
Oh man, how did I miss this? This. This is great.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Lantyssa on July 10, 2012, 12:18:47 PM
Looks like a WoW quest (http://www.wowhead.com/quest=25947/finders-keepers)

Still not sure what's funny about it.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Ingmar on July 10, 2012, 12:20:47 PM
Nothing.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: El Gallo on July 10, 2012, 03:33:16 PM
"This could really turn it around for Vanguard!" and its variations has been a catchphrase for every stupid thing Sigil/Sony has done to that game for years.  I think it originated on Fires of Heaven, but I've seen it on other MMO forums. 


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Abelian75 on July 10, 2012, 04:32:23 PM
Yeah, it was a thread title on Fires of Heaven, with an entirely genuine OP suggesting that a performance-improving patch a few months after release was going to be the thing to make it a success.  Somehow this birthed a catchphrase.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: Ginaz on August 13, 2012, 09:03:10 AM
So, I tried this out last night as f2p.  First thought was "My God, this looks bad."  I know its an older game and the character models were ok but the rest looked very dated, even with every graphics setting maxed out.  Maybe playing TSW with all its DX11 features slanted my view.  Combat seems to be slow and awkward.  Reminded me of LOTRO in that way.  Crafting is...interesting.  Its farily deep but theres way too many steps invloved.  I wanted to make a goblin necromancer but goblins are one of the races that are restricted up to lvl 20 for f2p players so I settled on some sort of human warrior.  Only certain classes and races are available for free, which is ok IMO since you can play all the restricted ones up to 20 to see if they're something you would want to spend some money on.  Theres an in game store that you can use soe donkey dollars to purchase races, classes, bags, mounts etc.  Not sure what each costs in real money since I couldn't be bothered to do the math.  Anyway, this might breath some life into the game but I don't think its going to bring in huge amounts of PAYING players.  Its too dated, both graphically and its game play.


Title: Re: Vanguard is live.
Post by: cmlancas on August 13, 2012, 09:58:03 AM
So, I tried this out last night as f2p.  First thought was "My God, this looks bad."  I know its an older game and the character models were ok but the rest looked very dated, even with every graphics setting maxed out.  Maybe playing TSW with all its DX11 features slanted my view.  Combat seems to be slow and awkward.  Reminded me of LOTRO in that way.  Crafting is...interesting.  Its farily deep but theres way too many steps invloved.  I wanted to make a goblin necromancer but goblins are one of the races that are restricted up to lvl 20 for f2p players so I settled on some sort of human warrior.  Only certain classes and races are available for free, which is ok IMO since you can play all the restricted ones up to 20 to see if they're something you would want to spend some money on.  Theres an in game store that you can use soe donkey dollars to purchase races, classes, bags, mounts etc.  Not sure what each costs in real money since I couldn't be bothered to do the math.  Anyway, this might breath some life into the game but I don't think its going to bring in huge amounts of PAYING players.  Its too dated, both graphically and its game play.

This review made me reread this thread to see if schild said something funny in it.

Must've been the other thread.

/endnostalgia