Vanguard really ramping up the excitment

[Gutboy Barrelhouse]

So you have a high profile MMO going live this year, you are less than 10 days before E3 and it's time to release 3 new screenshots (they release 3 screenshots a month). So what to show off in your exciting game........... TREES!

http://www.vanguardsoh.com/screenshots.php

[WindupAtheist]

I heard that when the game goes live, you'll have to stare at shrubs for six months before you earn the right to see trees.  It gives players a sense of accomplishment.

[Soln]

very nice

problem is, how many people are going to turn up the foliage FPS to render them amidst all the other stuff?

[Morat20]

I heard that when the game goes live, you'll have to stare at shrubs for six months before you earn the right to see trees.  It gives players a sense of accomplishment.

You only get shrubs after you grind up from seeds. You're given a newb seed, and you have to plant it, water, it, and grow a single blade of grass. Then, through a complex and challenging minigame, you then force that blade of grass to asexually reproduce -- after many hours of effort, you might have a small patch of lawn.

By growing each leaf -- rather than staring at a generic "ground pattern", it immerses the player in the game. It is estimated you will have grown the foliage and personally constructed the newbie area within several weeks of purchasing the game -- if you're willing to devote a reasonable amount of time (8 to 10 hours a day) to it, allowing hardcore players to start the game within days of purchase, whereas more casual players will be able to create their character no more than six months after purchase.

[dusematic]

If this game comes out this year, it will be sloppy.

[eldaec]

You only get shrubs after you grind up from seeds. You're given a newb seed, and you have to plant it, water, it, and grow a single blade of grass. Then, through a complex and challenging minigame, you then force that blade of grass to asexually reproduce -- after many hours of effort, you might have a small patch of lawn.

Someone already made that game. And it was better than Vanguard shows any sign of being.

If this game comes out this year, it will be sloppy.

Do I *really* need to fix that sentence for you?

[HaemishM]

Where is this forest you speak of?

[Toast]

In defense of the new screenshots, at least they weren't dominated by brown color palette.

Less trees and more good content, please. If you are going to Oblivion people's computers, then the game better be pretty damn good.

[Margalis]

No characters and no UI. This game doesn't seem even remotely close to done.

[Merusk]

In defense of the new screenshots, at least they weren't dominated by brown color palette.

This is the exact reason for the trees screenshot.  I was reading some FOH forum thread the other day, via a link from another site, and there were pages and pages and pages of people ripping on the game for being brown, dull and uninspired in terms of dungeon design. (None of which I'll disagree with.)

  If I recall, McQuaid even posted in the thread that there were other areas, they just hadden't released shots of them.  That these shots came out and are all about the trees tells me it's a response to that thread.

Edit:  The FOH Thread in question

[Soukyan]

In defense of the new screenshots, at least they weren't dominated by brown color palette.

Less trees and more good content, please. If you are going to Oblivion people's computers, then the game better be pretty damn good.

That's what I got out of those three screenshots. With the success of Oblivion and their concentration on selling up the foliage and the forests and the fact that they are dynamically generated, I suppose Vanguard wanted to grab that momentum and run with it a bit. The problems? Vanguards forests are not dynamically generated, they won't look as beautiful nor run as well, and lastly, those three screenshots are from an area that is level 60+ so it'll be months or more before you can catch an in-game glimpse of that gorgeous leafy action (this last statement was pure conjecture, but Nostradamus would be proud and so will you when it proves true).

[Margalis]

Vanguard and LOTR look to be having an interesting race for which can be worst and ship with the lowest completion level. Technology issues aside WoW was pretty well-baked when it was released, there have been some talent tweaks but not a lot of fundamental changes.

So of course LOTRO and Vanguard will be pushed out in horribly unfinished forms, proving once again that learning is incredibly difficult.

[stray]

People will buy them anyways.

[Mesozoic]

Yes, but not in the numbers expected.  And the suits will blame Blizzard.

[Broughden]

Vanguard and LOTR look to be having an interesting race for which can be worst and ship with the lowest completion level. Technology issues aside WoW was pretty well-baked when it was released, there have been some talent tweaks but not a lot of fundamental changes.

So of course LOTRO and Vanguard will be pushed out in horribly unfinished forms, proving once again that learning is incredibly difficult.

Thats why my sights are set on Conan and hoping to Crom they make something of that game.

[Glazius]

Can you climb up that tree and use it as a platform to jump over a wall?

'cause that's my MMO standard for trees, ever since I figured out how to work it in CoH.

--GF

[Xilren's Twin]

Can you climb up that tree and use it as a platform to jump over a wall?
'cause that's my MMO standard for trees, ever since I figured out how to work it in CoH.
--GF

It has been decided at the corporate level you don't deserve the 3rd dimension.

Xilren

[dusematic]

I wonder when this game started to fall off.  Back when I followed the game, Brad kept talking about how the huge media blitz was supposed to start llast month.  It never happened.  There's still so much shit they haven't even come close to nailing down, like exactly how many races there will be.  Although, I don't know what the fuss is about the graphics, I think they're pretty sweet.  Still not as sweet as Conan graphics though.

[El Gallo]

My impression from the pace of info and the various beta leaks I've heard is that the game is not as far along as they'd hoped and a lot of the mechanics were deemed un-fun and are bring redone.  It may be a while before we see a media blitz because it may be a very long while before we see the game.
/end speculation

[Merusk]

Debuffing a tree so you can harvest it then sitting on your ass while waiting on cooldowns wasn't fun!? Shock and awe!  Surely it was just the crafting system, then.  After all, the VS boys still insist sitting on your ass waiting for your shot on the rare drop of the the rarespawn was the best game mechanic ever!

[El Gallo]

That Potus thread was loltastic.  I've always loved that guy.

[Lt.Dan]

I don't get it, Vanguard are pfaffing around posting pictures of trees while Mythic have a couple of pretty cool trailers for WAR, some cool concept art, a nice website with dev video cams.  All that and WAR isn't due for release till 2007.  Vanguard just seems so ... amateur.

[schild]

Brad McQuaid has Everquest 1 and 3 expansions to his name. Some would argue that he still is amateur.

[Strazos]

I don't understand the allure or point to the FoH forums. WTF

[El Gallo]

I don't understand the allure or point to the FoH forums. WTF

It's almost exactly like this place except people there worship some sort of idealized version of what EQ should have been in their minds rather than some sort of idealized version of what UO should have been in their minds.

[Yegolev]

It's almost exactly like this place except people there worship some sort of idealized version of what EQ should have been in their minds rather than some sort of idealized version of what UO should have been in their minds.

There's an "About F13.net" nugget in there.

[Venkman]

That's why I find it so funny that some devs spend so much time there. It'd be like inviting your most dedicated fans, the ones who're willing to pay over double the monthly fee, to be your first testers on a sequel you're specifically looking to target casual players with. Oh, wait...

Of course, if your goal is to make a game that'll only be discussed by an almost statistically-unmeasurable sub-culture of super hardcore players, that's a place to start.

[Signe]

This game has devs?  Cool.

[Morat20]

That's why I find it so funny that some devs spend so much time there. It'd be like inviting your most dedicated fans, the ones who're willing to pay over double the monthly fee, to be your first testers on a sequel you're specifically looking to target casual players with. Oh, wait...

Of course, if your goal is to make a game that'll only be discussed by an almost statistically-unmeasurable sub-culture of super hardcore players, that's a place to start.

I have to agree. If I was developing a mass market MMORPG, I'd find out what the FOH people wanted and do the exact opposite. There are some nuggets of good ideas, but for the most part the FOH crowd are the sorts of players game developers need to learn to ignore more. Catering to them means delivering an utterly frustrating grindfest to everyone else.

[El Gallo]

Eh, Devs post here, which is much smaller and comprised of people whose opinions about any MMO can be summed up by any number of Linkin Park songs.  More importantly, WoW's first inroads into the consciousness of many EQ1 players was via the most popular EQ1 rantsite at the time, which was FoH.  That turned out pretty well.  Lots of people way, way, way more casual than FoH members read and post there, and there are a shitload of anti-timesinkers there (hell, Furor used to bitch about timesinks all the time).  The forums there are about as closely associated with the FoH guild as this place is with Bat Country.

There's also the "what other forum would Devs spend time at" question.  There's no forum to go to where you can interact with casual players, because casual players don't usually visit, much less post on, forums.

[Toast]

FOH forums are dominated by the culture of E-Peen. Being "uber" is still important over there. Given that achieving "uber" is simply a function of time spent grinding and raiding, the culture is all about grinding and timesinks.

[Malathor]

That's why I find it so funny that some devs spend so much time there. It'd be like inviting your most dedicated fans, the ones who're willing to pay over double the monthly fee, to be your first testers on a sequel you're specifically looking to target casual players with. Oh, wait...

Of course, if your goal is to make a game that'll only be discussed by an almost statistically-unmeasurable sub-culture of super hardcore players, that's a place to start.

I have to agree. If I was developing a mass market MMORPG, I'd find out what the FOH people wanted and do the exact opposite. There are some nuggets of good ideas, but for the most part the FOH crowd are the sorts of players game developers need to learn to ignore more. Catering to them means delivering an utterly frustrating grindfest to everyone else.

Why would you think that? Look at how WoW shamelessly pandered to the FoH crowd. During WoW's beta they managed to turn the FoH site into a full blown WoW fansite, hired Furor and Tigole as devs, actually got Furor to sign his name to goddamn WoW fanfic, and had Tigole posting promises to turn the top end of its game into a 40 man raid fest that would be like EQ's but better.

It didn't exactly scare off casual players, did it?

You see, there is a difference between timesinks and raiding, and very very few people, even the hardcore raiding crowd, really want timesinks at all.  WoW, at least to some extent, understands this. If you can play WoW for 3-4 hours 3 or 4 nights a week, you can fully participate in WoW's raiding, and be as "uber" as anyone in the game. Brad, however, seems to equate the two, and this is precisely Vanguard's problem. Ironically it's the word of mouth leaking from the FoH crowd in Vanguard's beta that has been killing its buzz.

[Morat20]

That's why I find it so funny that some devs spend so much time there. It'd be like inviting your most dedicated fans, the ones who're willing to pay over double the monthly fee, to be your first testers on a sequel you're specifically looking to target casual players with. Oh, wait...

Of course, if your goal is to make a game that'll only be discussed by an almost statistically-unmeasurable sub-culture of super hardcore players, that's a place to start.

I have to agree. If I was developing a mass market MMORPG, I'd find out what the FOH people wanted and do the exact opposite. There are some nuggets of good ideas, but for the most part the FOH crowd are the sorts of players game developers need to learn to ignore more. Catering to them means delivering an utterly frustrating grindfest to everyone else.

Why would you think that? Look at how WoW shamelessly pandered to the FoH crowd. During WoW's beta they managed to turn the FoH site into a full blown WoW fansite, hired Furor and Tigole as devs, actually got Furor to sign his name to goddamn WoW fanfic, and had Tigole posting promises to turn the top end of its game into a 40 man raid fest that would be like EQ's but better.

It didn't exactly scare off casual players, did it?

You see, there is a difference between timesinks and raiding, and very very few people, even the hardcore raiding crowd, really want timesinks at all.  WoW, at least to some extent, understands this. If you can play WoW for 3-4 hours 3 or 4 nights a week, you can fully participate in WoW's raiding, and be as "uber" as anyone in the game. Brad, however, seems to equate the two, and this is precisely Vanguard's problem. Ironically it's the word of mouth leaking from the FoH crowd in Vanguard's beta that has been killing its buzz.

But they didn't give the FOH exactly what they wanted -- they have raids ranging from casual to hardcore, and my read of FOH is they're a lot more about hardcore raiding. They don't want grindfests either, but WoW's raiding model is pretty casual -- there's a steady progression that encourages casuals to play and doesn't require one to block off 20 hours of time to get through it.

It's not that the FOH wants grindfests and timesinks, but that they're the sort of people who blow through ANY cotent in 1/3 the time of the average gamer and then bitch fucking endlessly about the lack of "endgame content". If you cater to them, you end up with a game that's 99% endgame shit for the uber-catasses who then bitch they've done all THAT so you spend all your time catering to the back end and ignoring the new players.

Blizzard jampacked WoW with content, content, and more content. If they can concentrate on raids now it's because they've given the 1 to 60s so much shit to do that they can fucking coast on early game. Which is how it SHOULD be -- but most companies don't offer enough content prior to the "endgame" because the catasses constantly (and vocally) bitch about the endgame.

The way I view it is if someone blows through your content 3 or 4 times faster than the average player, odds are he's not sticking around anyways when the new shiny comes. Don't balance the game for him.

[bhodi]

Sorry, but at last count about half the players on any given server are level 60.That means that you need level 60+ content (raiding and otherwise) not just for the catasses who finish stuff in 1/3 time, but so that you don't start losing too many people due to bordom. They're concentrating on raids becuase that is where their population is, not becuase they're catering to the catass.

[Morat20]

Sorry, but at last count about half the players on any given server are level 60.That means that you need level 60+ content (raiding and otherwise) not just for the catasses who finish stuff in 1/3 time, but so that you don't start losing too many people due to bordom. They're concentrating on raids becuase that is where their population is, not becuase they're catering to the catass.

How long has the game been out, dude? I was talking about people who blew to sixty in a month and who -- true to form -- spent months bitching about the lack of raid content. The raid content started expanding when the average player hit 60 -- in short, the smart way.

We're talking about initial game and game launch, not the game a year or more out from launch. People who listen too much to the catasses create a game where the only shit to do is raid, so everyone grinds (not plays, not has fun, but fucking grinds!) to max level and starts raiding. Blizzard ignored that shit, and put together a nice 1 to 59 game with minimal raiding content for the catasses, then phased in raiding content as players started hitting 60 in large numbers.