Vanguard - From Brad to the catasses

[HRose]

Brad posted some sort of manifesto for the game within a FoH thread that I find interesting and amusing in a number of ways and that is spanning already 6+ pages in less than a few hours.

Anyway, this is his stance:

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.

[schild]

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.

Holy shit. Where do I get a job where I can talk like an absolute loon and make assloads of cash? Here I can only talk like a loon.

Hi, we're a website full of hardcore gamers. Look at the success of WoW. Everything you just said makes you seem positively clueless.

But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt cuz I'm feeling generous. Give me a virtual world that's interesting and I shall live in it. Give me EQ1.1 and I'll make it my mission to drudge up every single one of your past press releases and interviews and point out where you went wrong.

[Merusk]

Start saving those releases to your hard drive.  I've said the whole time he's just releasing EQ1.01 with a newer, shinier wrapper and he just about said the same thing in that release.

   "Miss grinding, corpse runs, hours-long raids and sitting on your ass killing things over and over and over for that rare spawn to make it's rare drop? We think you do and we're here to provide that game for you!"

Vanguard is catering to the e-peen needing catass who is pissed they can't have uber equipment to wave in the face of the masses paying to keep their digital viagra perscription going.  I'm sure he'll hit his 250k number, though, because I know there's a lot of broken, lonely addicts out there.

I could go on for a page or more ranting about how sad it is, but really it's not worth my time.  I'll just continue to watch from afar, laugh every once in a while and wait to see how things go when it launches next year.

[Azazel]

   "Miss grinding, corpse runs, hours-long raids and sitting on your ass killing things over and over and over for that rare spawn to make it's rare drop? We think you do and we're here to provide that game for you!"

What a fucknut. If I wanted to continue doing that shit I'd still be playing EQ1..

Az

[Trippy]

Hi, we're a website full of hardcore gamers. Look at the success of WoW. Everything you just said makes you seem positively clueless.

WoW's success doesn't contradict what Brad is saying, it just means that WoW's formula has more mass appeal. I agree with Merusk that there are plenty of catasses out there that 250K is doable

[Soln]

I think these guys are pretty lucky to have MSFT as backers, because I think this guy is badly incorrect thinking that times and attitudes haven't changed.  Who wants to play a game that offers less rewards for more time?   He may get 205k catasses, but that's not a game I'd play.  And I imagine that many asshats together would cancel each other out after awhile.

[schild]

WoW's success doesn't contradict what Brad is saying, it just means that WoW's formula has more mass appeal. I agree with Merusk that there are plenty of catasses out there that 250K is doable

Is it? Would those people rather play City of Heroes or Guild Wars? I mean, the playing field has a lot more competitors than it used too, and a number of them a good.

[Merusk]

WoW's success doesn't contradict what Brad is saying, it just means that WoW's formula has more mass appeal. I agree with Merusk that there are plenty of catasses out there that 250K is doable

Is it? Would those people rather play City of Heroes or Guild Wars? I mean, the playing field has a lot more competitors than it used too, and a number of them a good.

You're talking about gamers who enjoy a good game.  I'm talking catasses who need an e-peen.  These are the asshats flocking to forums LIKE FoH.  While there they whine that CoH sucks because there's no loot, WoW sucks because while there's loot it's too accessible, and GW sucks because there's no PvE raids for uber, uber loot and you can't put a nice box around the game strategy.

  It's a niche strategy (one we've all said needs to happen for MMOs to evolve.) but even to hit that 250k number I'm suspecting a LOT of those accounts will be doubles, triples, quads so joe uber catass can level himself. (Or, like the folks I knew from EQ drooling over VS, so ubercatass and his wife can have a private group with their 6 accounts..)

[schild]

Actually I made the statement to purposefully exclude Everquest 2. Aren't they fighting over the same piece of rotten meat? And aren't there already less than 250,000 of them?

[Jamiko]

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.

Sweet, I can cross this game off my "watch" list. I know some people that would find that appealing, and I really feel sorry for the lifestyle they lead because of it. Spending 8 hours each and every day playing a video game is not my idea of fun. Sadly, there are plenty who think it is.

[HaemishM]

I disagree with what you said. Here's how:

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.

Only, there have only been 2 MMOG's since EQ to have 500k users that we know of, Final Fantasy Online (which had not only the benefit of release on PC AND console) and WoW. Final Fantasy used an existing brand that has a RABID fanbase. WoW used an existing brand with an equally rabid fanbase AND was targeted for the casual gamer.

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?

You try to hook the casual gamer for more than 6 months, you'll be developing forever. You need to keep him 6 months, keep the box on the shelves and try to get some new stuff out there for him 9-12 months from release.

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.

EQ1 WAS A FLUKE. You came at just the right time for that kind of game. First 3D MMOG at a time when 3D cards were just becoming standard on a gaming PC. UO was bleeding users who wanted nothing to do with PVP and you gave them a non-PVP game. The Internet was just reaching critical mass as a gaming device. YOU ONLY HAD ONE OTHER REAL COMPETITOR WHO WAS HAVING PR PROBLEMS AND WHOSE GAMEPLAY WAS FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT.

How much more perfect set of circumstances can you get?

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’.

Because there are about 50 billion EQ-alikes out there, each with a slightly different set of advantages and disadvantages.

But I don't buy it.

Good for you.

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.

Those people, US HARDCORE INCLUDED, are butterflies now. No game is going to hook us for years like that first game without asstons of new content being placed regularly and without bugs. And even then, you won't keep us.

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.

I hope it isn't your money you are betting. The genre in general is completely wrongheaded in thinking it could or SHOULD reach a large audience who will subscribe for years at a time. The subscription model is fundamentally flawed and is going to kill the genre.

[Tale]

I do miss corpse runs. I do not want my hand held. I want it to be possible to lose everything if I fail. I miss the shivering adrenaline of breaking Fear and Hate with everything at stake, the horror of failing and the hours of trying to recover. The only thing that has come close for me since was raid-scale PvP battles in the first year of SWG. WoW offers great entertainment but none of the fear. I was disappointed when SWG (shortly after launch) and WoW (during beta) both dumbed down their death penalties.

I left EQ because they raised the bar too high for me in Planes of Power (or perhaps Luclin) and because raids were designed to take even longer than before, so I don't think I'm a catass. But I also left because they dumbed EQ down. I hated suddenly being able to travel everywhere easily (I was a troll warrior) and I didn't like accumulating loot any more when I was no longer risking everything to get it.

Back in the day, a successful clearing of the Plane of Fear, a Vox kill, or even just a Fire Giant run, needed skill, teamwork and daring. WoW reduces it to just skill and teamwork. I want risk, fear and daring built into my MMOGs. I hope that's what Brad McQuaid is doing.

[HaemishM]

If you want fear, play the game with your testicles suspended over an aquarium full of pirahna.

[Soln]

these guys are owned by MSFT -- they are not risking their own money.  And they are the post-Mythica hail mary.  Arrogance and a cluelessness over general current trends in gaming indicate to me this guy can't see over the hill of money protecting his ass.  He is justifying his own prejudices, which is FAILURE#1 in product management (i.e. don't assume your tastes are the exact tastes of your customers; or more simply, don't think you're selling to yourself -- you can't buy that much)  

[Tale]

If you want fear, play the game with your testicles suspended over an aquarium full of pirahna.

If you want to complain about catasses, don't make 5034 posts at 11.599 per day.

I said I want piranhas beneath my in-game testicles, and the chance of them getting irreversably fed.

[schild]

If you want fear, play the game with your testicles suspended over an aquarium full of pirahna.

If you want to complain about catasses, don't make 5034 posts at 11.599 per day.

In the time it takes someone to make 12 posts, someone may have gotten 25% of a level during the mid-game of any given MMOG.

Don't be a non-sensical dick.

[WayAbvPar]

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.

I won't be buying it either.

[Azazel]

I do miss corpse runs. I do not want my hand held. I want it to be possible to lose everything if I fail. I miss the shivering adrenaline of breaking Fear and Hate with everything at stake, the horror of failing and the hours of trying to recover. The only thing that has come close for me since was raid-scale PvP battles in the first year of SWG. WoW offers great entertainment but none of the fear. I was disappointed when SWG (shortly after launch) and WoW (during beta) both dumbed down their death penalties.

I left EQ because they raised the bar too high for me in Planes of Power (or perhaps Luclin) and because raids were designed to take even longer than before, so I don't think I'm a catass. But I also left because they dumbed EQ down. I hated suddenly being able to travel everywhere easily (I was a troll warrior) and I didn't like accumulating loot any more when I was no longer risking everything to get it.

Back in the day, a successful clearing of the Plane of Fear, a Vox kill, or even just a Fire Giant run, needed skill, teamwork and daring. WoW reduces it to just skill and teamwork. I want risk, fear and daring built into my MMOGs. I hope that's what Brad McQuaid is doing.

Lovely, you're old school. ok. congrabulatons. golfclap even.

If you went back to EQ today, you'd find that raids, especially PoP and OOW, require a lot more tactics then Vox or Naggy did. No more bullshit like the buff-line, camp to chat, all log in and make your groups now, gogogo ah fuck we wiped. Nowadays you can do crazy shit like buff your groups without needing to log off to preserve them before the encounter, and the encounters (now) involve slightly more strategy then zerg for teh win.

Yeah risking everything made for a great fun time. Like a 6-hour Fear clearing that turned into a 12-hour enforced CR clusterfuck since if you didn't get your corpse out tonight with your guild you were truly fucked. Nuh-uh, never again.

Despite the mousewheel of mudflation that EQ is, the game has improved vastly since Luclin, which was until very recently considered the biggest POS SoE ever pushed out the door (until Gates of Discord), and especially since real competition knocked on the door and kicked their asses, aka WoW.

As for hating the PoK books. I hear this whine all the time, and quite frankly you can cry me a fucking river. if you want to spend 45minutes walking from the EC tunnel to Thurgadin so you can hunt giants, nobody's stopping you. Don't like the books? Don't fucking use them. Easy. Better not buy a horse either. those make travel too fast.


If you want to take it up the ass everytime you die in WoW, be a man and take the responsibility to do it yourself. Give 10% of your money to some random putz right after you rez, as your "additional durability penalty". if 10% of your existing cash is under, say, 1gp then bag one item you're wearing until you can pay the 1gp penalty. That's how we'd do it in "the good old days" the PNP days. If a rule didn;t exist for what we wanted, we'd make one up that made sense and use it. Death in WoW not harsh enough for you? Pull your fist out and make it more harsh for yourself instead of crying on the internet that the game is too easy.

Unless the problem that you think it's too easy, you want it to be harsher, but you want everyone else playing to hang their nuts over the pirahna tank with you, whether they like it or not? Looks like Clueless McQuaid, Vision 2.0 in tow will be glad to oblige you. I think you'd better bring your own lube though, 'cos they won't supply any.

Az

[HaemishM]

Corpse runs don't give you lube, suck it up like a MAN!

[Merusk]

Actually I made the statement to purposefully exclude Everquest 2. Aren't they fighting over the same piece of rotten meat? And aren't there already less than 250,000 of them?

EQ2 (according to press releases anway. Yes they suck, but they're all we've got besides Bruce's chart. Ha!) has hit the 250k number, though.  That's impressive considering it the CW is that the game sucks, and it has two very big strikes against it, which VS won't have.

 1) Years of SOE hate and broken promises.

It's amazing to see the Vanguard fanbois drool about this game, when they were the self same people bitching about EQ 4 years ago when it was run by the same man.  This is probably the biggest reason it facinates me so.  All that hate McQuad, Abashi and the rest of the Vanguard team generated was sloughed off effortlessly when they left the company.  Then they started pointing to their previous beast and shouting things like "that's not how it was supposed to be, man! What suckers you all are, come to us it'll be different!" The fuck?

 2) Catering to the fanbase of a game with low system reqs with a game of ginormous requirements (comparativly).

EQ2 was originally supposed to capture the folks who left EQ, then they fucked that up and decided they just wanted the current fanbase to migrate.  That's great an all for the hardcore and the gamers who forgo other things to upgrade their machines.  There's folks STILL pissed they can't play EQ1 on Win95, so I want to know what they were thinking when they pushed out such harsh specs for EQ2.  Lots and lots and lots of people don't upgrade PCs every *4* years, much less every two.  Those folks they wanted to capture went to WoW not only because it was touted as fun, but because it was the only game they could run.

Like I said, it'll be a niche game, and I expect that a lot of those 250k subs will be multiple accounts.  Folks like Tale here (and ElGallo, who was also drooling over VS at one point..) are looking for this game, and that's great for them.  So long as Sigil doesn't actually plan on hitting 500k (what a loon) in this day and market, I think the game will succeed. Aim higher and you're just looking to be shot down.

[Azazel]

I disagree with what you said. Here's how:

While I pretty much agree with almost everything you posted, I'm not sure Brad's reading your reply. Though I did see Scott Hartsman post a couple of times here, so who knows?

Only, there have only been 2 MMOG's since EQ to have 500k users that we know of, Final Fantasy Online (which had not only the benefit of release on PC AND console) and WoW. Final Fantasy used an existing brand that has a RABID fanbase. WoW used an existing brand with an equally rabid fanbase AND was targeted for the casual gamer.

Just to clarify, are you counting FFO's Japanese numbers there? Cos the game was out in Japan for a good year or so (on PS2) before the US release.
And doesn't Lineage 2 have a fuckton of subscribers? Albeit most of them are Koreans, but the NES (non-English-speaking) market is a major factor in MMOGs now. Remember the Guildwars Beta "select your region: 1: Korea 2: Everywhere Else in the World".

You try to hook the casual gamer for more than 6 months, you'll be developing forever. You need to keep him 6 months, keep the box on the shelves and try to get some new stuff out there for him 9-12 months from release.

It'll be interesting, I go back to study in 2 months, and I'll be hitting 60 probably a couple weeks before I do. I like the questing and mucking about right now, but if the game at 60 just evolves into instance farming for uberer loot, faction grinding and shitty PVP (when I want (fun) PVP, I'll play Battlefield) then they better comeout with something else interesting to do, or WoW will have been a fun 6 months...

EQ1 WAS A FLUKE. You came at just the right time for that kind of game. First 3D MMOG at a time when 3D cards were just becoming standard on a gaming PC. UO was bleeding users who wanted nothing to do with PVP and you gave them a non-PVP game. The Internet was just reaching critical mass as a gaming device. YOU ONLY HAD ONE OTHER REAL COMPETITOR WHO WAS HAVING PR PROBLEMS AND WHOSE GAMEPLAY WAS FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT.
How much more perfect set of circumstances can you get?

/applaud.

Seriously. How many of us would have been willing to sit, blind, looking at that fucking book for 35 levels if there was an alternative game that did basically the same things, only better? That's where we are now with WoW. It's EQ, before it became raid-to-live-live-to-raid, only refined for fun and maybe comparable to Kunark-Era as far as overall content goes. Vanguard must think they're in a time/space vaccum.

Az

[Azazel]

If you want fear, play the game with your testicles suspended over an aquarium full of pirahna.

If you want to complain about catasses, don't make 5034 posts at 11.599 per day.

I said I want piranhas beneath my in-game testicles, and the chance of them getting irreversably fed.

You could always go play Diablo 2 on that difficulty level where when you die, it's permanent. Nightmare, or assfuck. Or whatever it was called. That's irreversably for ya..

1) Years of SOE hate and broken promises.

I've wondered the same things about the SoE hater/Sigil Fanbois as long as I've heard of Sigil developing a game. I think too many people are wearing their rose-coloured glasses when they think of the original EQ. It was amazing because it was the first time (most of us) had done anything, played anything like that. Having someone watching over your shoulder while you jab at the screen with your finger explaining "see there? that's another player! that's another person".

The rose-coloured specs are made up largely of the sense of wonder we had the first time we played these things. The true newbie feeling when everything is discovery. Once you've done that once though, you don't get it back.


Az

[schild]

I disagree with what you said. Here's how:

While I pretty much agree with almost everything you posted, I'm not sure Brad's reading your reply. Though I did see Scott Hartsman post a couple of times here, so who knows?

I know and you'd be surprised.

Hardcore mode for your diablo 2 comments. And it rules.

[Tale]

Don't be a non-sensical dick.

Responding to Haemish's weak retort about piranhas with an equally weak retort makes more sense than a thread full of people imitating each other. This thread consisted of "I can slam Sigil better than the poster above", few new points made, until I had the piranha-endangered balls to differ.

I don't think Brad McQuaid was pandering to catasses. He reminds me of my old boss, long-time editor of a well-known magazine, who had grown up reading the magazine (no, not that kind of magazine). He was passionate about it and its readers, and his personal mission was to bring them more of what he had loved. He wrote in the same over-enthusiastic way about his plans, and people often doubted him. Nowadays his long-gone editorship is thought of as the golden era.

I don't see having a longer journey than WoW as necessarily a bad thing. Maybe they have a way to reward non-catasses (like the WoW XP bonus for not logging in), or put required achievements in your path that require co-ordination and skill rather than time. Maybe I'm wrong, and they don't - maybe it will just be another grind. But I agree with McQuaid that there has to be something more to do than WoW currently offers. It lacks risky challenges like Fear and Hate. Raids like Onyxia are just risk-free puzzles with pretty lights.

[Tale]

Yeah risking everything made for a great fun time. Like a 6-hour Fear clearing that turned into a 12-hour enforced CR clusterfuck since if you didn't get your corpse out tonight with your guild you were truly fucked. Nuh-uh, never again.

Despite the mousewheel of mudflation that EQ is, the game has improved vastly since Luclin, which was until very recently considered the biggest POS SoE ever pushed out the door (until Gates of Discord), and especially since real competition knocked on the door and kicked their asses, aka WoW.

As for hating the PoK books. I hear this whine all the time, and quite frankly you can cry me a fucking river. if you want to spend 45minutes walking from the EC tunnel to Thurgadin so you can hunt giants, nobody's stopping you. Don't like the books? Don't fucking use them. Easy. Better not buy a horse either. those make travel too fast.

We seem to come from different planets. I honestly did prefer that I couldn't get around that easily, it's not an attempt to sound oldschool. It felt like I was in a world. The PoK books made it feel like I was just in a game, and I hated that.

I hate grinds and I'm an employed professional with much less gaming time than people who can catass. But that's a different matter from wanting challenges that create opportunities for success AND tough penalties for failure, rather than just opportunities for success. So I think I'm one of the 250,000 losers who would play what you're all hating, and I don't think the other 249,999 are catasses. Gotta go to bed, it's 3:50am and I'm supposed to be driving a car at 7:30am.

[Azazel]

A longer journey than WoW isn't a bad thing. I honestly liked what EQ1 did with AAXP, which gave you an opportunity to slightly better your character while still staying on more or less an even playfield with your friends/guildmates/whoever. 5 expansions later or however many it's been since Luclin and the balance has gone out the window of course, but I'm sure with forethought and good planning something like this could be done.

WoW already has the Talent system in place, the key is to tweak it enough to on one hand give the casuals like me achievable carrots to keep us going while not overdoing it on the other end of the spectrum for people that will sit in one spot grinding for 12 hours a day.


And no, old-school Fear clearings sucked. Some were fun at the time, but you'd spend 6 hours there before the raid called it a night, skipping the Temple almost everytime. A bad wipe and you were suddenly committed to a minimum of 2 and as much as 6 hours of CR. One raid took us 12 hours counting the CR, Zone repop when we were almost done, CT agro and the whole zone rapes you so you have to find people late at night willing to to come help you break the zone and clear to your dead raid.

Sorry, that kind of shit is just unacceptable to me now. The fear wasn't of wiping, the fear was of after already epsnding 6 hours in the shithole of losing the remainder of the entire night and a large chunk of the AM on a shitty CR. That level of harshness is not enjoyable or playing the game, it's just a waste of my time and I no longer have that much time to waste on these games.

We seem to come from different planets. I honestly did prefer that I couldn't get around that easily, it's not an attempt to sound oldschool. It felt like I was in a world. The PoK books made it feel like I was just in a game, and I hated that.

See the thing is I'd already walked the width and breadth of Norrath for several years. I've waited for and caught all the buggy boats to everywhere and back. By the time the Velious Spires and later the PoK books came out, when I got on, I wanted to enjoy playing with my friends and guildies with my limited time. Not spend 30minutes just getting everyone to the same spot in the game so we could start making our way to someplace else to chat while we whacked imaginary monsters over the head. And like I said initially, no-one forces you to take the books. If you like walking, then walk. But don't complain because others don't enjoy playing exactly how you do. Ditto for the WoW-death penalty. If you want to make it harder for yourself, then make it harder for yourself. I don't see what's so hard about the concept.

See, to me what Bradley wrote about Vanguard sounds like a shitty game and a shit time. if you think it sounds like heaven on a stick and you go play it, my opinion is go knock yourself out, have the time of your life, I don't care. Just because I think it sounds crappy, doesn't mean you can't play it and enjoy it. if you want to take the PoK book and I think the PoK book concept sounds like crap, I don't have to use it.

see?

3:50am? Different planets? nah we're in the same country mate.

Az

[HaemishM]

But I agree with McQuaid that there has to be something more to do than WoW currently offers.

Sure there does. But what in the things you've heard from McQuaid or out of Sigil about Vanguard makes you think it will be anything other than what we've already seen in EQ1? We've SEEN raids. Just making them more punishing for failure is not what is missing, because it's been done. And WoW does it better than EQ1 in that it allows more people to enjoy the raids because it doesn't punish them when they fail.

There are only two ways to get the "fear" back into raiding in MMOG's: 1) Permadeath, 2) the game punches you squarely in the family jewels when you fail. What else is there more punishing than the EQ style? Unless you as a person are invested in the game and its items, there's not fuck else you could take away from a player than EQ1 during McQuaid's reign. And if he or anyone else is high enough to think that the mainstream audience who paid for WoW will want to pay to get punished, they are deluded.

WoW has succeeded for a number of reasons, while Vanguard is trying to pull in a subset of a subset of its users. And yet he expects it to get at least 250k, which baffles me. The hardcore people who are his fans make up about 1% of the entire playerbase of all MMOG's out there. His attitude is one of someone who HAS NOT RESEARCHED THE AUDIENCE.

[Shockeye]

His attitude is one of someone who HAS NOT RESEARCHED THE AUDIENCE.

I don't remember research being a part of "The Vision".

[Merusk]

I don't see having a longer journey than WoW as necessarily a bad thing. Maybe they have a way to reward non-catasses (like the WoW XP bonus for not logging in), or put required achievements in your path that require co-ordination and skill rather than time. Maybe I'm wrong, and they don't - maybe it will just be another grind. But I agree with McQuaid that there has to be something more to do than WoW currently offers. It lacks risky challenges like Fear and Hate. Raids like Onyxia are just risk-free puzzles with pretty lights.

It's been a while since I read the FAQ. The first time through nearly made me ill because it's not a gamestyle I consider fun or healthy, and I did it for a very short stint in EQ.  (Losing one's job over a Video game tends to wake you the fuck up.) Reading VS's FAQ he flat out says "Time in-game WILL matter." The game is being designed so that you must sink time into it to be uber.  Rare drops on rare spawns, 12 hour corpse runs, days of camping for a single quest mob. It'll all be there because that's what makes a good game to them.

It's spelled-out pretty clearly that no leg-up willl be given for the folks who 'aren't willing to put in the time.' AKA the casuals and the time-starved folks with kids, jobs, lives and homes they don't feel like abandoning for a few digital bits. It's digital crack being sold to addicts.  Maybe he can sleep well at night and look at himself in the mirror in the morning, but I couldn't, and it's not a lifestyle I want to go back to.

Games are entertainment, not a lifestyle to me.  If you want them to be your lifestlye, yeah, VS will be a great game for you.  I'd rather hold on to reality because I don't need some place to escape anymore, which is all catassing and turning a game into your life is about anyway.  With that in mind, Onyxia being 'just a puzzle' is fineto me. It's entertaining, and proving the size of my e-peen to a bunch of other digital addicts in a game that will be gone in 10 or so years leavnig me with nothing isn't my idea of an admirable goal in life.

[WayAbvPar]

^^^^^^^^

What he said.

[Azazel]

"sometimes it's fun to be the victim"
_{(EQ CS rep in response to player complaints, circa Halloween event 2000, when Faydedar appeared in the Lake of Ill Omen and proceeded to rape all the newbies until the level 60 Ubers came along and got to have fun killing the Dragon)}

Was that Abashi or Absor? Verant or SoE? During Brad or post-Brad? I forget.


Also, what the guy 2 posts up said...


edit - wait, 2000.. that's gotta be during Brad's reign..

[Soln]

^^^^^^^^

What he said.

Merusk, it's also easier to develop.  Content < Time.  It's easier to build a game where everything is harder/longer, since it saves you from putting out better design and content.

[HaemishM]

"sometimes it's fun to be the victim"
_{(EQ CS rep in response to player complaints, circa Halloween event 2000, when Faydedar appeared in the Lake of Ill Omen and proceeded to rape all the newbies until the level 60 Ubers came along and got to have fun killing the Dragon)}

Was that Abashi or Absor? Verant or SoE? During Brad or post-Brad? I forget.


Also, what the guy 2 posts up said...


edit - wait, 2000.. that's gotta be during Brad's reign..

It was, and the Mouthpiece of Sauron that said it was the King Cockgobbler Abashi.

[Simond]

The real question is will MS be happy with 1/5th the market share of WoW, or will it be a repeat of the the whole Verant->SOE thing?

[Shockeye]

The real question is will MS be happy with 1/5th the market share of WoW, or will it be a repeat of the the whole Verant->SOE thing?

I doubt Microsoft wants to limit the potential customers such as Brad is describing.