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Topic: Vanguard chatter (Read 139562 times)
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Draegan
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10043
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d the UI from Bard's Tale and gameplay from SojournMUD. The only thing "origonal" about this brain child was the fact it was all 3D.
Did he rip off the 8 spell gems limit? I always thought that brought a useful level of tactics to your gaming, in terms of what spells you would have 'loaded' - especially since these days mmorpgs allow you to have multiple hotbars with every single spell/special attack thingy you want ready to go at the drop of a hat. [/quote] Yup. It comes from SojournMUD pretty much. Every 6 levels you recieved a new "circle" of spells which means that every new circle you got a bunch of spells that where associated with that circle number. Every level you got a new "slot" for multiple circles where you memorize a spell into. Of course this wasn't original as I was in many table top games.
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shiznitz
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4268
the plural of mangina
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anyone remember what "Brads" version of EQ1 looked like? It was the worst UI I had ever seen:  Brad just ripped the UI from Bard's Tale and gameplay from SojournMUD. The only thing "origonal" about this brain child was the fact it was all 3D. That's a little snarky. The zone design in EQ was excellent, from Kelethin (yes newbies died but it was cool) to Solusek to Kedge Keep to Plane of Sky. There were lots of interesting environments to adventure in.
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I have never played WoW.
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Nebu
Terracotta Army
Posts: 17613
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Loved the environments. Staring at a spell book while medding... not so much.
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"Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other."
- Mark Twain
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HaemishM
Staff Emeritus
Posts: 42666
the Confederate flag underneath the stone in my class ring
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There were fantastic environments and if you looked hard enough, a lot of lore on the EQ world in EQ1. It was a pretty well-fleshed out world narratively, probably because so much of it was cribbed from so many other places like D&D. The UI was shit, even when they upgraded the UI with the Velious expansion.
Most of us played EQ because of the potential that it had, and the fact there was nothing else like it.
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Draegan
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10043
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I never said the environments weren't well done. They were for the time. C'mon that chessboard area was straight out of CircleMUD Stock zones, pure gold.
The game was good for it's time. But I cringe whenever people mention a broken game and it's potential. Vanguard did that to me.
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HaemishM
Staff Emeritus
Posts: 42666
the Confederate flag underneath the stone in my class ring
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Oh yes, EQ's potential was totally pissed away on The Vision (TM) and design for the catass 101.
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shiznitz
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4268
the plural of mangina
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If EQ1 had 3x faster levelling, it would have been fucking huge. Yes, it could have used lots of other things to make it better in hindsight, but that one simple change didn't require anything the game lacked. While a modern diku quest system would have been nice, I think that was well beyond the abilities of the team at that time.
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I have never played WoW.
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Ratman_tf
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3818
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I broke my "It has potential!" cherry on UO. None of these games have potential. They just have their respective fates.
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 "What I'm saying is you should make friends with a few catasses, they smell funny but they're very helpful." -Calantus makes the best of a smelly situation.
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UnSub
Contributor
Posts: 8064
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I broke my "It has potential!" cherry on UO.
UO told all his friends in the locker room how easy you were. That's why all the other MMOs keep calling you, promising to give you a good time if only you'll go out with them for a 'trial'. 
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Tale
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8567
sıɥʇ ǝʞıן sʞןɐʇ
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On a random visit to FoH or something, I have learned that all VG accounts are to be reactivated free Dec 18 to Jan 3. And, um, Randolph the Reindeer is a 140 speed flying mount you can get in any major city that will last at least those weeks. This information posted for the benefit of someone out there with an actual retail VG account and an urge to explore, or at least entertain us with screenshots of your furry avatar riding Randolph. Cough.
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Draegan
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10043
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I was one of the idiots who chose to ignore all the bad press and word of mouth and bought a box. I didn't mind wasting the cash, and I was expecting anything really, but I wanted to see what all the frothing fanboi vs. rational gamers was all about. It didn't disappoint at all. Ha Ha. Maybe I'll go back and fly around on my reindeer while crashing to my desktop.
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shiznitz
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4268
the plural of mangina
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After playing two characters to 20ish, I have seen about 50% of the world and have no desire to see the rest.
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I have never played WoW.
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Draegan
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10043
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Well if you ever had a sub, its now free to play until the 18th of January. I played a little tonight and i'm actually impressed* with the improvements. If this game had come out in the next few months it would not of been such a laughing stock.
*Impressed on a scale however. Compared to what this game used to be as it is now, I'm very impressed.
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Abelian75
Terracotta Army
Posts: 678
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Well if you ever had a sub, its now free to play until the 18th of January. I played a little tonight and i'm actually impressed* with the improvements. If this game had come out in the next few months it would not of been such a laughing stock.
*Impressed on a scale however. Compared to what this game used to be as it is now, I'm very impressed.
Eh, I dunno man. I agree that it has improved (particularly performance-wise), and it did manage to hide the fact that it's pretty much a hackjob for a good 30 minutes to an hour for me, but once I hit the second quest hub on my Black Guy rogue (whatever the race is called), the one at the bottom of the big ol' hill right by Khal, I was immediately confronted with four questgivers with a total of 11 quests. That's ridiculously excessive to begin with, but even worse, it was clear from the quest text that there were supposed to be quest chains, but the chaining hadn't been set up yet so they were all just one big mass of quests. One of the quests would send you to cave X and another would tell you to "return" to cave X, but both were immediately available, for instance. This was like ten to fifteen quests into the game. I can't really agree that it's anything but crap until you can at least play without seeing unfinished quests/quest hubs for like a few hours at least. At least get the newbie quest lines done such that the player is guided to their main city smoothly. Geesh.
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Draegan
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10043
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I never played in that area. But I agree those things were always awful with the game. But I played a few levels of noobdom again on Kojan, I was struck by some decide graphics and combat animation which surprised me since I don't remember it that way. It's the details of this game that make it shoddy.
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Nerf
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2421
The Presence of Your Vehicle Has Been Documented
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Wow, thanks for reminding about one of the things I really despised on vanguard, 15 quests on 4 different mobs.
I would've enjoyed it much more had they condensed many of them into one large "kill shit in the zone quest", instead of 5-9 'kill 5 rabbits/snakes/monkeys/etc', along with a nice arc that had you go deeper and deeper into the area with SOME fucking story. It's easy to ignore the text on one quest, you start giving a shit when it's a 6 quest chain to go into the beehive and retreive a fucking daffodil. A magical daffodil, that summons unicorns with rainbows flying out of its ass, I would've stayed subbed for that.
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dusematic
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2250
Diablo 3's Number One Fan
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I hate myself for buying this game and playing it. I think I always will.
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CharlieMopps
Terracotta Army
Posts: 837
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They need to make this game FREE to install but with a normal sub. Their idiots for wants $29.99 for a digital download.
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Count Nerfedalot
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1041
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I can't really agree that it's anything but crap until you can at least play without seeing unfinished quests/quest hubs for like a few hours at least. At least get the newbie quest lines done such that the player is guided to their main city smoothly. Geesh.
That is pure Vision TM right there. Classic Brad/EQ team crap. I think fully half of the quests/quest chains in EQ at release were either broken or unfinished, and only a fraction of them were ever touched again, much less polished up. In a genre where content is king you'd THINK they would put at least a little effort into polishing up what little content they release with? Or perhaps I'm blaming the wrong folks. SWG had the exact same issue, so maybe it's SOE's upper management? But the pattern doesn't fit EQ2. I don't know what the status of EQ2's content was at release, but at least now it's debugged, complete (at least to the extent that quest chains that have a beginning actually have endings rather than dropping you in the middle of nowhere with no resolution) and even polished. On the other hand, I'm REALLY tired of quest chains that have me running back and forth between the quest giver and the quest destination, first to kill a bunch of flunkies, then back to kill a bunch of sergeants, then back again to kill a several lieutenants, then back yet again to kill a few captains, then back another time to kill a couple of colonels, and oh wait, one more time (10 levels later when everything else there is grey) let's reuse the place one more time, go back there and kill the general! Bleaaarrggh!!!!
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Yes, I know I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
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Venkman
Terracotta Army
Posts: 11536
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EQ2 at release had a buttload of quests (on Qeynos side anyway, never played Freeport), so many in fact that what chains did exist were hard to discern. You had such a good chance of outleveling quests that you could abandom a quest that was a chain, while not missing it because there were so many others. But I didn't then (nor now) consider that a bad thing. Not everything needs to be spoon-fed, and the type of audience EQ2 was designed for sometimes don't miss it that much. And EQ2's audience was so very not the WoW audience. SOE's idea of casual was EQ1 players who didn't hit the cap. And EQ2 evolved to incorporate the thinking of their earlier testers, who, btw, were predominantly the folks who paid $39.99/mo to play on Stormhammer. "Skewed" doesn't begin to cover it  So content delivered by firehose, contrived isolationist/stupid combat locking, nowadays-hardcore regen rates, and only pretty for adults who had the cash to buy the newest rig they could get, specifically for the purposes of not playing FPS games. Nowadays things are much better. But it's still not as flashy, fast and immediate (tactileness, UI response, rewards, travel, etc) as WoW. So I contend it's still for a different audience (which isn't really a stretch I guess, three years later...)
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Engels
Terracotta Army
Posts: 9029
inflicts shingles.
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I downloaded this thing night before last and figured I'd give it a spin on my new rig.
My new rig is pretty much cutting edge, and at the time of VG's release, bleeding edge. So I thought that maybe this time, the world would be fluid. Well, it ain't. Its not quite as choppy as it was on my old AMD 64 dual core 939 processor & 7950 vid card, but you'd think with a 6750 C2D and a 8800 GT you'd see vast improvement, such as I've seen in any number of games released in the last 6 months. But nooo. Walking into the gates of Khal still drops my frame rate down to zilch while the textures cache. I have 4 striped drives! Its not as if I have a serious bottleneck anywhere.
I was also naively hoping that perhaps a gallop across the plains would now be something a bit more liberating than the stuttering stagger across a on-demand graphics data load, but that wasn't there either. Slightly better than my old system, but still, what should be a liberating gallop of an adventurer thundering across the plain on her steed is still on up there with WWII online shutterframe motion.
Furthermore, they've done something funky with character movements during combat. The one thing VG did have going for it was a fluidity of human movements during combat that was, for lack of a better term, immersive. Now, that's been nerfed, probably in the interest of performance. The solid whacks and full spins my SK did with her 2h sword that felt so satisfying to complete in a chain now feel entirely disconnected from the physics of combat.
In other words, the whole concept behind VG that machines would eventually catch up to the software and then we'd be plunged into a world of excitement are hard to believe. I don't think there will be a machine in the next five years that will make VG a seamless world. Nothing short of a sold state drive, anyway.
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I should get back to nature, too. You know, like going to a shop for groceries instead of the computer. Maybe a condo in the woods that doesn't even have a health club or restaurant attached. Buy a car with only two cup holders or something. -Signe
I LIKE being bounced around by Tonkors. - Lantyssa
Babies shooting themselves in the head is the state bird of West Virginia. - schild
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Draegan
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10043
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Funny, my computer specs are like your old one, and playing last night for an hour or so, I noticed no graphic hitching and sputtering and the combat animations were pretty good.
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Abelian75
Terracotta Army
Posts: 678
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Furthermore, they've done something funky with character movements during combat. The one thing VG did have going for it was a fluidity of human movements during combat that was, for lack of a better term, immersive. Now, that's been nerfed, probably in the interest of performance. The solid whacks and full spins my SK did with her 2h sword that felt so satisfying to complete in a chain now feel entirely disconnected from the physics of combat.
Huh, I should try a SK again. I know exactly the spinning move you're speaking of... I hated it. It's exactly the move I bring up when talking about what NOT to do for a combat animation in a real-time combat system. My theory was that a lot of those animations were left over from when they had the pseduo-turn-based combat system, where it wasn't important to make the animations feel responsive, rather it was important to make them look dramatic and powerful. IMHO any combat animation in a real-time combat system should have the blade hitting the target ~0.5 seconds from when you hit the button to attack. VG violated that with tons and tons of animations. Not the rogue, though, which is why that was by far the most tolerable class for me. Anyway, I would be interested to see if they've changed that. And not ripping on your tastes or anything. I don't actually think the animations didn't look ok (well, for the most part. The jump animation is terrible, especially mounted), I just didn't think they suited that type of gameplay very well.
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Engels
Terracotta Army
Posts: 9029
inflicts shingles.
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Funny, my computer specs are like your old one, and playing last night for an hour or so, I noticed no graphic hitching and sputtering and the combat animations were pretty good.
You know what, it just occured to me that I didn't add VG.exe as a low-risk process on my McAfee On-Demand scan. I really should do that before passing judgement. That said, the combat animations were changed, regardless. While I can understand Abelain's complaint, I don't mind that triggering a combat action isn't an immediate hit, and that you're actually initiating a series of motions that will end with a hit. Much like when you cast a powerful spell, there's a wind up before the result. That's not a function of a turn-based system, but just an attempt at 'realism' in combat.
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I should get back to nature, too. You know, like going to a shop for groceries instead of the computer. Maybe a condo in the woods that doesn't even have a health club or restaurant attached. Buy a car with only two cup holders or something. -Signe
I LIKE being bounced around by Tonkors. - Lantyssa
Babies shooting themselves in the head is the state bird of West Virginia. - schild
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Nebu
Terracotta Army
Posts: 17613
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After playing two characters to 20ish, I have seen about 50% of the world and have no desire to see the rest.
That's exactly how I felt. I'm not sorry that I blew the $50. It was moderately entertaining for a month. The Good: I liked a few of the class concepts (i.e. healers that were effective in combat). I liked running around the world. I like the crafting and the diplomacy until the grind set in. The Bad: No instances, repetitive quests, weak storyline, painful grind after about 20, others. The Ugly: No instancing? You have got to be kidding me. When 250 people of the same level all want to do the same 8 quests in the same single dungeon, you're going to lose subscriptions. I'd think that this would be common sense by now.
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"Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other."
- Mark Twain
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Simond
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6742
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Instancing isn't immersive, or something. 
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"You're really a good person, aren't you? So, there's no path for you to take here. Go home. This isn't a place for someone like you."
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Count Nerfedalot
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1041
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Instancing isn't immersive, or something.  but standing in line to whack the foozle is?  (I know, it's not your opinion. I'm not ragging you, I'm ragging the devs who spout that tripe)
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Yes, I know I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
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Engels
Terracotta Army
Posts: 9029
inflicts shingles.
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There aren't enough people in VG to stand in line for anything. Place was deserted.
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I should get back to nature, too. You know, like going to a shop for groceries instead of the computer. Maybe a condo in the woods that doesn't even have a health club or restaurant attached. Buy a car with only two cup holders or something. -Signe
I LIKE being bounced around by Tonkors. - Lantyssa
Babies shooting themselves in the head is the state bird of West Virginia. - schild
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Nebu
Terracotta Army
Posts: 17613
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There aren't enough people in VG to stand in line for anything. Place was deserted.
See, I told you they'd leave!
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"Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other."
- Mark Twain
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Engels
Terracotta Army
Posts: 9029
inflicts shingles.
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Ok, I must retract my prior statement about the game play; I fixed my technical issue with my anti-virus, and the game plays relatively smoothly on my rig. Its not WoW, or LoTR, or even Hellgate London in terms of graphics performance, but its playable. Now, I have no idea how much that has to do with my new hardware, or wether they really have optimised it that much more, but in terms of actual graphical smoothness, its vastly improved since my last experience.
That said, why oh why can't they fixed the 'jump up and down in the water' animation while swimming? That's just basic stuff that every MMO EVER has managed to provide some solution to.
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I should get back to nature, too. You know, like going to a shop for groceries instead of the computer. Maybe a condo in the woods that doesn't even have a health club or restaurant attached. Buy a car with only two cup holders or something. -Signe
I LIKE being bounced around by Tonkors. - Lantyssa
Babies shooting themselves in the head is the state bird of West Virginia. - schild
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Tale
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8567
sıɥʇ ǝʞıן sʞןɐʇ
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Edit - Here is a larger piccy of the original UI
[EQ1 UI picture]
It has to be said, while this UI does suck and only gives you about 60% of the screen actually viewable, there always was an option to go 'fullscreen' which would remove a lot of that crap. Of course, it was surprising the number of people who played for literally years without knowing about the fullscreen option...
RPGs in 1999 looked like that. It was a controversial decision for EQ1 to even be developed in 3D with no software mode, because many RPG players only had 2D cards. Also in those days, the accepted API was Glide (3Dfx). Direct3D was new and Verant had to add support. There were still games being released without any 3D. Most people's screen resolutions were still low - running in 1024x768 was relatively high-end. At launch, EQ1's 3D accelerated fullscreen mode was a revelation. The reason some people never found out about fullscreen mode was you only expected that in shooters like Quake, not RPGs. The MMO genre did not properly exist (not as we see it in retrospect today). Nobody talked about UIs. Matter of fact, web messageboard software was in its infancy (mailing lists were still used instead) so there were no ignorant wankers posting their opinions about EQ1's UI. The market consisted of UO and EQ1, with some dying niches like Meridian 59 and The Realm. EQ1's longevity owed a lot to the 3D decision. That's why the same team tried it again with Vanguard, guessing in 2003-05 what the emerging mainstream technologies of 2006-07 would be able to handle. Hence the enormous draw distances and the apparent lack of concern about low framerates in beta. The market at launch was going to have access to Core 2 Duo and 8800. Except that this time, the team didn't work so well, their backers got cold feet and a mess was released.
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Draegan
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10043
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This was posted over on FOH from one of the designers of VG. I don't know the guy or if this guy actually had a hand in the game, but it was an amusing rant to say the least. http://www.fohguild.org/forums/mmorpg-general-discussion/31593-vg-producers-letter-49.html#post945201You know, as much as I hate having to carefully craft (AKA, lie through my teeth) an answer to "What was Vanguard's biggest failing?" in job interviews, I realized after reading that rather disappointing article how proud I am of it. Know why? Because I can honestly say with 100% validity: I'm a big reason for Vanguard's failure. Not Brad Mcquaid - not Microsoft. Me. And Guess what? I'm really kind of proud of it. Brad Mcquaid didn't do shit. (News Flash?) He's had an opiate addiction for years now, which only got progressively worse as the project failed. His cumulative face time with sigil designers in the most crucial final years of development? Approx: 15 minutes. And some of the time was spent begging for legitimately acquired narcotics (Or in times of desperation, jacking them from people's desk). The lead designers didn't do shit. (News Flash?) Sigil fired all of their golden-boy, EQ-Genius designers (Save One) who this board once speculated simply "left." It wasn't even secretive. It all happened on the same day. Sony didn't do shit. The extent of sony's help was 2 designers who ended up writing some diplomacy quests in Tanvu and some adventuring quests in Tursh. I think there was an artist that came in 2 days a week or something for about a month also. Thom Terrasas (sp?) is the only Sony employee that ever directly affected the direction of that game. The only part Sony really played in Vanguard's destiny was to let its life unnaturally and undeserving-ly continue. And apparently, it's simply because they were naive enough to think this project was worth their cash. Hah! Even the staff at sigil was left wondering why the hell Sony would buy us. Dozens of lunch hours were spent trying to figure out why. "What profitable web of intrigue and mystery was big'ol Smed spinning with this crazy move(  ?)," we'd often cry It was pretty shocking (and just lame) to hear John Smedly actually get angry and complain to people after the layoff's that he, "didn't know what he was buying." He even expressed anger at Jeff and Brad for bamboozlin' him. Poor guy. Maybe next time tough-guy Smed decides to spend several million dollars on something he'll expend some brain power figuring out what it is first. Dave Gilbertson DID do some shit. (News Flash!) But this guy? Man, so much stuff I could say about this guy. He was truly unbelievable. Even when you thought his insanely unprofessional antics couldn't get any more outrageous, he'd go and do something like tell everyone they're getting a raise (to keep crunching) and then one by one call people into his office who WERE actually getting raises (but would never actually get them), how much they were going to get (VERY, soon). Unfortunately he would move through desk rows one by one and simply skip over the unlucky ones. It took a whole 5 minutes for the office to see through his brilliantly laid out scheme. He used the same plan for the lay-offs too. Classy huh? He's literally never played a video game in his life, yet when Brad died off and Dave inherited the position of Vanguard Jesus, he decided he must be the final call on every design decision. I guess if you ride dirt bikes with a gamer god, his genius just wears off on you. Fortunately, sometime this would result in getting played like a fiddle by whoever happened to be lovingly pulling the strings that day. But more often than not, this just meant people had to go around him to get something in, only without the help of (Place whatever department here) that was necessary for a game feature to actually turn out right. Imagine for a second people at Sigil actually knew how to do something right? (Believe it or not, we did on occasion) this guy would become the bottleneck to prevent that from happening. If there was a ceremony for the Gamespy award, Dave would be accepting. For the sake of all our future video game consumer habits, let's hope this guy goes back to the only thing he's qualified to do, whatever that might be. Anyway, enough of my blabbering. The most shocking reality that I don't think anyone really ever understood is that Vanguard was made (exclusively the design staff, I should say) COMPLETELY by amateurs. People who had been hired less than a week with 0 prior experience were tasked with designing entire newbie areas that shipped. People who had never produced a game in their life were asked to fix a 40 million dollar fuck up. People with no experience were asked to fix the item, diplomacy, ability, content, quest and pretty much every system in the game. The game that exists now was designed in a single year by people with 0 experience. If that sounds too vague think of it like this: about 1 year from release we had 0 quests in the DB because the tool didn't exist yet. When I decided to split the team there was over 30,000 quest object entries. Yeah, explains a lot doesn't it? What a huge let down indeed. Oddly enough, the whole situation was probably a bigger let down to the designers than the consumers. I accepted a position thinking I was going to work with a bunch of experts - Masters of their craft - and really learn the ropes of game design. Instead, my fellow design associates and I were unwittingly tasked with trying to fix a failed video game that had literally been canceled twice before any of us were even hired. So in retrospect, despite everything, I guess I'm still pretty proud of vanguard. Every team member should be proud in spite of a truly pitiful and pathetic waste.
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Jerrith
Developers
Posts: 145
Trion
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This was posted over on FOH from one of the designers of VG. I don't know the guy or if this guy actually had a hand in the game, but it was an amusing rant to say the least.
He worked on Vanguard. Nice guy, a bit of a rant, but understandable. If that sounds too vague think of it like this: about 1 year from release we had 0 quests in the DB because the tool didn't exist yet. When I decided to split the team there was over 30,000 quest object entries. Yeah, explains a lot doesn't it?
This is an interesting point to bring up. There were quests, but they were more like the EQ-style, non-obvious quests and were relatively hard to create with the tools available. The actual quest system, which made the creation of quests much, much, easier with the unified quest object wasn't in until around then. All the old quest content was either converted or removed.
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shiznitz
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4268
the plural of mangina
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So I noticed that VG patched in raiding last month. I have no idea how it is going though. I only log into to patch, never to play.
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I have never played WoW.
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Falconeer
Terracotta Army
Posts: 11127
a polyamorous pansexual genderqueer born and living in the wrong country
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If nothing else, this game has incredible meta-lore. I love it.
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