SOE to Publish Vanguard

[Trippy]

Am I the only one wondering at this point where the talented grpahics artists from original EQ went.
I mean, I saw SoL (and so on) and then EQ2 and figured "Hey, they must have gone to Sigil"

After those pics?
I'm beginning to suspect that Milo sold them into white slavery to buy some more upgrades for his Porsche or something.

No you aren't the only one. EQ may have had crude graphics even for its time but at least most of the zones had style. It was fun just travelling around the world seeing the sites and visiting all the cities (well except for maybe Grobb and Ogok, the Troll and Ogre cities :-D). WoW is the same way. EQ2, not at all (at least the small portion I saw during Beta) and Vanguard looks a lot like EQ2.

[HaemishM]

I think you people are wrong about "knowing what works". Brad is making a game for his peeps, and there are many of them. They are the long-haired or goateed Fan Faire attendees. The fat couples who roleplay elves. High fantasy AD&D and fantasy novel readers.

You may be right, but Brad's Peeps is a much smaller segment of gamers than you or he think.

[Morat20]

I think you people are wrong about "knowing what works". Brad is making a game for his peeps, and there are many of them. They are the long-haired or goateed Fan Faire attendees. The fat couples who roleplay elves. High fantasy AD&D and fantasy novel readers.

You may be right, but Brad's Peeps is a much smaller segment of gamers than you or he think.

What's Brad's background? How did he get his first job in the industry, where did he work before EQ? 'Cause I had the exact same bitch about Jeff Freeman -- the man wasn't designing for his players or the market, but designing "What I want to play". I felt it was an artifact of where Freeman came from (he got noticed doing UO grey shards -- in short, designing games for himself and his friends -- and never grew up as a designer).

Given the nature of the games industry, I wouldn't be surprised if this wasn't a common occurance -- some folks can make "The sort of game I want to play" and turn out a freakin' masterpiece that changes the industry, but mostly you get people turning out shit that adheres to some bizarre situational view of themselves and a few friends on "What's fun". It compounds it because, if you're working the game, you've got this idea of "Fun" and you've got the solid reality of "actually doable" and you end up making compromises that seem sensible to you (because you have the goal AND the roadblocks in mind) where players -- who don't give two shits about your coding problems -- would rather have just had something else that worked, rather than your half-assed compromise.

I don't know if it's just that guys like Will Wright and Sid Meiers have a better intuitive understanding of why people play games and why they find them fun, or if they're just lucky and happen to represent the mainstream, but most designers aren't that talented.

[schild]

It's arguable that Will Wright and Sid Meier don't understand the mainstream. Civ isn't near as big as geeks would like to think. The Sims is, but it was more of a phenomenon. Saying it was more fun than SimCity 2000 is a bit reaching. There's no doubt in my mind Will Wright makes the games he wants to play.

When I think of people who know what the REAL MAINSTREAM wants to play, I think of the people playing sports games, derivitive action games and games based on movie licenses.

Top console and handheld games of 2005:
1. Madden NFL 06 (PS2), Electronic Arts, over 2.9 million sold
2. Pokemon Emerald (GBA), Nintendo of America, over 1.7 million sold
3. Gran Turismo 4 (PS2), SCEA, over 1.5 million sold
4. Madden NFL 06 (Xbox), Electronic Arts, over 1.2 million sold
5. NCAA Football 06 (PS2), Electronic Arts, over 1.1 million sold
6. Star Wars: Battlefront II (PS2), LucasArts, over 1 million sold
7. MVP Baseball 2005 (PS2), Electronic Arts, over 970,000 sold
8. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (PS2), LucasArts, over 930,000 sold
9. NBA Live 06 (PS2), Electronic Arts, over 820,000 sold
10. LEGO Star Wars (PS2), Eidos, over 800,000 sold

That's 2005. I'm proud I'm not part of the mainstream.

[Morat20]

It's arguable that Will Wright and Sid Meier don't understand the mainstream. Civ isn't near as big as geeks would like to think. The Sims is, but it was more of a phenomenon. Saying it was more fun than SimCity 2000 is a bit reaching. There's no doubt in my mind Will Wright makes the games he wants to play.

When I think of people who know what the REAL MAINSTREAM wants to play, I think of the people playing sports games, derivitive action games and games based on movie licenses.

Top console and handheld games of 2005:
1. Madden NFL 06 (PS2), Electronic Arts, over 2.9 million sold
2. Pokemon Emerald (GBA), Nintendo of America, over 1.7 million sold
3. Gran Turismo 4 (PS2), SCEA, over 1.5 million sold
4. Madden NFL 06 (Xbox), Electronic Arts, over 1.2 million sold
5. NCAA Football 06 (PS2), Electronic Arts, over 1.1 million sold
6. Star Wars: Battlefront II (PS2), LucasArts, over 1 million sold
7. MVP Baseball 2005 (PS2), Electronic Arts, over 970,000 sold
8. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (PS2), LucasArts, over 930,000 sold
9. NBA Live 06 (PS2), Electronic Arts, over 820,000 sold
10. LEGO Star Wars (PS2), Eidos, over 800,000 sold

That's 2005. I'm proud I'm not part of the mainstream.

Remove console titles -- I'm of the mind that, still, console and PC titles are inherently different. Nonetheless, I see your point. Let me clarify: Will Wright and Sid Meiers have the ability to create the game THEY want to play that is, nonetheless, popular and sells well. They have another advantage -- single player games (or small multiplayer games) are not nearly as much of a risky investment as an MMORPG.

It's people like those two that invent genres and open up new gamespaces -- sometimes it's just Blizzardification (def: To create a high-quality version of a game in a genre that is often defined by low quality. Professional, in other words), and thus making a genre open to more investment, sometimes it's reaching into the depths of their brains and just making something utterly new.

I guess the best analogy I can come up with comes from Pen-and-paper games. You know that one asshole whose a total rule-lawyer and who min/maxes their character and basically just keeps the game from being anything but a chore? You know that one time you let him run a game, and he was a fucking serious dick that sucked any joy, life, or spontaneity out of it? (Not because he was new at it or hadn't had much experience, but because instead of letting you play the damn game, he really wanted to be running it AND playing all the characters too) That's Brad. He's that guy. And they made him a GM, and the game is going to suck because of it.

Sid Meiers and Will Wright -- who, like everyone else, are going to fail at making fun games from time -- will never be that guy.

I'm not the best GM for paper games -- but I end up doing it because, hell, no one else is willing. And I'll never be as good as this one GM we had -- the guy could make anyone understand the appeal of pen-and-paper games, just for the way he ran it and the stories he let you create -- but I learned a lot from him. The most important damn thing I learned, though, was that in the end what counted was whether the people you had playing enjoyed themselves -- which meant you needed to give them the game they wanted, and not force them to play the game you want.

[tkinnun0]

WoW is missing that. Unless you try very very hard, its almost impossible to fail. Sure, you can do the story on rails, and always succeed. But creating your own story, with highs and lows, requires designing a very gimpy character indeed.

If it was as easy as cranking a difficulty slider all the way to Very Very Hard, would you really do it, when everybody else around you has maxed it in the opposite direction?

[Trippy]

WoW is missing that. Unless you try very very hard, its almost impossible to fail. Sure, you can do the story on rails, and always succeed. But creating your own story, with highs and lows, requires designing a very gimpy character indeed.

If it was as easy as cranking a difficulty slider all the way to Very Very Hard, would you really do it, when everybody else around you has maxed it in the opposite direction?

You might if the rewards were better.

[Morat20]

WoW is missing that. Unless you try very very hard, its almost impossible to fail. Sure, you can do the story on rails, and always succeed. But creating your own story, with highs and lows, requires designing a very gimpy character indeed.

If it was as easy as cranking a difficulty slider all the way to Very Very Hard, would you really do it, when everybody else around you has maxed it in the opposite direction?

I know a lot of people with "gimped" specs in WoW. They tend to think the raiding guilds with the "You must be this spec" are a bunch of freakin' tards, and I suspect they have more fun with the game, since they're trying to enjoy it, not fight their way past the biggest cockblock in the game to get the shiniest sword that ever sparkled in the fuckin' land.

Of course, I say that as a level 60 BM Hunter who spends most of his time rezzing a dead pet -- although my guild priests have started helping out there, as Ghost has pulled more shit off their asses than the tanks. Now, if I could just convince priests in 5-man groups that if they're soul-stoned and go down to stay down, goddammit and let the wipe finish, and soulstone later, we'd be golden.

[Chenghiz]

You can make any game that's too easy harder just by limiting your options. Is Molten Core too easy? Try fighting Baron Geddon and Shazzrah at the same time. UBRS getting boring? Try 3-manning it. &c.

[Morat20]

You can make any game that's too easy harder just by limiting your options. Is Molten Core too easy? Try fighting Baron Geddon and Shazzrah at the same time. UBRS getting boring? Try 3-manning it. &c.

I often think the high-end guilds play in EZ Mode. :) The casuals PuG their way through content, whereas the catasses have a perfect mix of players in twinked gear, with tons of experience. You want hard mode, play the goddamn Horde A-team in WSG with a PuG that consists of 5 Hunters, two warriors, a rogue and a mage -- half of whom won't join a raid because it "cuts down on honor".

That's "hard mode". :)

[Merusk]

Am I the only one wondering at this point where the talented grpahics artists from original EQ went.
I mean, I saw SoL (and so on) and then EQ2 and figured "Hey, they must have gone to Sigil"

After those pics?
I'm beginning to suspect that Milo sold them into white slavery to buy some more upgrades for his Porsche or something.

No you aren't the only one. EQ may have had crude graphics even for its time but at least most of the zones had style. It was fun just travelling around the world seeing the sites and visiting all the cities (well except for maybe Grobb and Ogok, the Troll and Ogre cities :-D). WoW is the same way. EQ2, not at all (at least the small portion I saw during Beta) and Vanguard looks a lot like EQ2.

The answers I've seen said that those models are simply "humans with differerent heads" because of armor meshes.  They're doing the EQ2 thing and just using the same armor meshes for every race, scaled to the right size of the character.  Yes, it's a crappy shortcut. Yes, it looks like shit. No, nobody seems to care.

  It was one thing when EQ2 promised all this variety in armor models because they'd  be cutting the # of meshes to about an eighth.. but that extra memory seems to have gone elsewhere in that game.  VS hasn't even made that promise.

[Hellinar]

If it was as easy as cranking a difficulty slider all the way to Very Very Hard, would you really do it, when everybody else around you has maxed it in the opposite direction?

You might if the rewards were better.

tkinnun0, I've played less than optimal characters in WoW. If you take that too far, you are no longer playing a MMOG. It makes it too difficult to connect with other peoples characters. The world itself needs to be challenging.. and not in a grind sense.

Trippy. You may be missing my point. The reward for a story teller of a “harder” world is more interesting ways to fail, not better loot.

[Broughden]

This makes no sense. If these "high fantasy" people you speak of are looking for a "high fantasy" game they are going to go to LOTRO. You know....the one with the internationally recognized liscense and all those books of lore?

No, LOTRO is a WoW clone. Seen the E3 video? It's going for the movie mass market.

It still has more LORE and a recognized FANTASY setting then Brad's craptacular camp trees game. ie your argument is moot.

[Venkman]

Vanguard comes along, and much like the usual cycle of abuse in any relationship, its saying that this  time it'll be different.

That's nice and all, but we're beyond the Wild West here. VG cost a hell of a lot more to make than EQ, and has performance targets to hit. WoW proved there's bucketloads of people out there who want to play MMOGs but were consistently turned off by reports of useless boring time sinks and games that kept breaking. VG will probably work fine, but it's still got useless boring time sinks.

It's old school thinking in a new school age. Maybe Tale's right. Maybe there's enough grind seekers to ensure stability for VG. I personally doubt it though. People say they want a hard game. Most actually don't.

I mean, I saw SoL (and so on) and then EQ2 and figured "Hey, they must have gone to Sigil"

After those pics?

I've not been a fan of seamless zoneless worlds specifically because not a one that I've seen has been capable of maintaining the truly unique geography of EQ1. All devolved into bland sameness throughout. Someone could make the argument that WoW is an example of seamless that works, but that's mostly a hybrid solution since they control, quite effectively, exactly how people enter and leave zones. And, of course, their engine has less overhead.

VG doesn't look bad. It just looks bland. Not as bland as launch-day EQ2, but it's no masterpiece of creativity.

[Falconeer]

From STRATICS E3 AWARDS:

"Best of Show: Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
Developer: Sigil Games Online

A lot of people have speculated that the publishing rights to Vanguard: Saga of Heroes were not being sold by Microsoft Games Studio on good terms, but rather because the game was a failure. We can’t lay that theory to rest; however, we can tell you that the “failure” impressed us to no ends. Vanguard: Saga of Heroes features the most robust crafting, combat, and faction systems that we’ve seen to date. It also doesn’t hurt that the game is gorgeous, has great potential, and is being created by some of the industry’s most infamous developers."

[schild]

I can only assume that Stratics is going out of business and is trying to be controversial.

Either that or they're pandering and posturing in the hopes of being bought up by IGN or CNet.

[Tebonas]

One possible pitch I heard was that Microsoft wanted to make Vanguard Vista-exclusive. Makes sense when I think about all those Xbox-exclusive titles for no other reasons than to promote their hardware. Why not do the same with their new OS?

Not that Vanguard isn't shit, but that never stopped Microsoft before.

[Soukyan]

This makes no sense. If these "high fantasy" people you speak of are looking for a "high fantasy" game they are going to go to LOTRO. You know....the one with the internationally recognized liscense and all those books of lore?

No, LOTRO is a WoW clone. Seen the E3 video? It's going for the movie mass market.

It still has more LORE and a recognized FANTASY setting then Brad's craptacular camp trees game. ie your argument is moot.

It does have scads more lore than Vanguard will ever have thanks to Tolkien's writing, but my goodness have you seen the gameplay video? The interface is ripped straight from WoW. I know it's a good design and perhaps someone used it before WoW did, but damn Turbine. Even the animations smack of WoW. The hobbit or dwarf running animation looks like *shock* the gnome or dwarf running animation in WoW. Did Blizzard release an MMOG toolkit to developers? Actually, with the amount of WoW server emulation that has been going on since the game was in alpha testing, I wouldn't be surprised if there is more ripped from Blizzard than meets the eye.

[Falconeer]

Mmm. I can't believe this slipped unread, so Im sure it's elsewhere on this board, and Schild will point me to the right topic once more (I guess I am a natural born doubleposter, sigh), but still... this is from Lum's blog and his nicey naive-y E3 report:


"- I ran into Brad McQuaid at SOE’s booth, who very kindly did not try to garrote me but instead showed Vanguard off. Vanguard is easily the most improved MMO of the show; they’ve come a long way from the rough clients they’ve shown at previous E3s and save a few rough spots (mostly involving combat animations) it looks perilously close to coming out. The devs who showed it off clearly were all experienced EQ-style MMO players and showed off various subtle game systems and UI improvements that would only make sense if you were staring at a combat screen forever, such as pre-built combat macros for common tasks, inherent friendly- and enemy- target differentation and the like.There’s still some “NO COMPROMISES!” stuff in the game such as no instant travel (save combat evacs) and (under discussion) corpse retrieval runs but overall it should appeal to old-school Everquest fans who found World of Warcraft too simplistic."

Now, that's definitely not "hooray Vanguard!", but to me it sounds pretty far to "huge pile of crap" too...



.
P.S: Disgaea is the best... everything.. in the world.

[Broughden]

This makes no sense. If these "high fantasy" people you speak of are looking for a "high fantasy" game they are going to go to LOTRO. You know....the one with the internationally recognized liscense and all those books of lore?

No, LOTRO is a WoW clone. Seen the E3 video? It's going for the movie mass market.

It still has more LORE and a recognized FANTASY setting then Brad's craptacular camp trees game. ie your argument is moot.

It does have scads more lore than Vanguard will ever have thanks to Tolkien's writing, but my goodness have you seen the gameplay video? The interface is ripped straight from WoW. I know it's a good design and perhaps someone used it before WoW did, but damn Turbine. Even the animations smack of WoW. The hobbit or dwarf running animation looks like *shock* the gnome or dwarf running animation in WoW. Did Blizzard release an MMOG toolkit to developers? Actually, with the amount of WoW server emulation that has been going on since the game was in alpha testing, I wouldn't be surprised if there is more ripped from Blizzard than meets the eye.

Oh I agree! LOTRO is a ridiculous WOW rip off and with only 6 months of testing prior to release Im laying 10 to 1 odds its going to be a bugged out piece of festering shit. Like Syphillis stage 3 level shit.  My only point is that it had more "high fantasy" than Vanguard did.

Personally AoC is the only MMO Im presently looking at. Well Im looking at Seed now as well but only for the utter comedy value.

[Tale]

What's Brad's background? How did he get his first job in the industry, where did he work before EQ?

http://www.sigil.com/team/bradmcquaid.html

(edit - between the broken links and dirt bike pics, it looks like you could build a bigger picture via http://www.bradmcquaid.com/)

[HaemishM]

From STRATICS E3 AWARDS:

"Best of Show: Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
Developer: Sigil Games Online

A lot of people have speculated that the publishing rights to Vanguard: Saga of Heroes were not being sold by Microsoft Games Studio on good terms, but rather because the game was a failure. We can’t lay that theory to rest; however, we can tell you that the “failure” impressed us to no ends. Vanguard: Saga of Heroes features the most robust crafting, combat, and faction systems that we’ve seen to date. It also doesn’t hurt that the game is gorgeous, has great potential, and is being created by some of the industry’s most infamous developers."

Funny, when I read that, all I hear is:

MMMFFFHHHHMMHHFHF MMMM FFHHFFFFHHFMMMM FHMMMMMMMM

FAP FAP FAP

SLURP.

[Simond]

Wonder how many doughnuts Smed had to send to Stratics for that?

[sarius]

Wonder how many doughnuts Smed had to send to Stratics for that?

I would have bet on booth babes. 

[Driakos]

What's Brad's background? How did he get his first job in the industry, where did he work before EQ? 'Cause I had the exact same bitch about Jeff Freeman -- the man wasn't designing for his players or the market, but designing "What I want to play". I felt it was an artifact of where Freeman came from (he got noticed doing UO grey shards -- in short, designing games for himself and his friends -- and never grew up as a designer).

It was an awesome grey shard.

[Morat20]

What's Brad's background? How did he get his first job in the industry, where did he work before EQ? 'Cause I had the exact same bitch about Jeff Freeman -- the man wasn't designing for his players or the market, but designing "What I want to play". I felt it was an artifact of where Freeman came from (he got noticed doing UO grey shards -- in short, designing games for himself and his friends -- and never grew up as a designer).

It was an awesome grey shard.

It may have been an awesome grey shard, but that doesn't make him the sort of guy you want to design an entire game. Look, we got this genius coder at my work. No matter how fucking intractable the problem, this man can make it work like silk. In half the time of anyone else.

But you don't EVER let this guy loose. You've got to give him detailed requirements and explain everything to him -- he's just utterly incapable of seeing past his own tiny bit of the code. You can't EVER let this guy touch high-level design. He just can't scale it. He's really great in one tiny area -- but outside of that, he's lost.

I don't know how good Jeff Freeman was on his grey shard -- never played. But I saw SWG -- no sane or competent person would have sold the NGE on that timeframe. I'm guessing no sane man would on any time frame -- it was a clusterfuck waiting to happen. It's the fucking Peter principle.

[Reg]

Morat, you have absolutely no idea how much of the NGE's failings can be laid at Dundee's door. I realize that SOE touched you in a bad place and you're looking for someone to blame for it but you should think about letting it go sometime soon.

People are going to think you're an obsessed and bitter ex-fanboi and you don't want that do you?

[Endie]

I don't know how good Jeff Freeman was on his grey shard -- never played. But I saw SWG -- no sane or competent person would have sold the NGE on that timeframe. I'm guessing no sane man would on any time frame -- it was a clusterfuck waiting to happen. It's the fucking Peter principle.

Dundee didn't come up with the NGE, as I understand it.  He blogged about the process (then removed the post when the inevitable shitstorm hit), and it was another, more senior coder/designer that came up with the NGE kludge pretty much by himself, locked in his office for a while.  Dundee certainly bought in, big time - he made that clear - but anyone who's a developer has been caught up in that whole bandwagon of cool new stuff where a bunch of you talk each other into seeing how cool it is, and talk down the structural difficulties of implementation.

As I understand his post (which I have a sneaky copy of at home somewhere, having guessed which way the wind would blow on that one), he only then got made something like chief gameplay designer.

[Azazel]

DAoC's launch was probably bigger than EQ's launch, but then something strange happened; people started going back to EQ.

This is the strange and mysterious part about all this. Why did this happen? For all intents and purposes, DAoC was not as grindy. It had interesting features EQ lacked. It had tradeskills that made some sense and were not mcquaidistic. It had possibilities that EQ simply couldn't provide. Yet the inexorable migration back to EQ started only months after DAOC's launch.

My theory is that the original years of EQ created such a level of shared trauma that folks had to go back.

Speaking for mysef, at least:

I'd quit playing EQ several months before DAoC was released. A mate of mine (the first of our extended group to have found and gotten into EQ) was super-hyped about DAoC, and his infectious enthusiasm suck(er)ed me in. So I played a few different toons, I liked the nice graphics and spell effects, the nice scenery, and the fact that I could solo. I levelled up killing various foozles, and eventually attained 13th or 14th level, and the horses that I'd been bravely killing had gone green or grey or whatever the shit xp colour was in that game. I was enjoying myself decently enough.

So I moved to the next area, I had to take a horse there. Near some forest, and there was a tower that was the local bind-point, but the close monsters were just too tough for me. I headed back in the other direction, and there were goblins and horses there that were a tough fight but good xp. But when I died, the corpse run was a 5-minute job. After 2 deaths or so, I never logged in again. All before the 30-day boxed time had expired.

Then I went back to EQ. In EQ I could actually solo better and for more fun than in DAoC (druid main of 55 or so) and I had SOW, and a SK alt, who had just hit level 55. I left the start of the long grind (and I was never that interested in PvP, and especially not interested in being a waterboy so the big kids could play soldiers) to go back to the end of the long grind, where I could travel fast and kill stuff good. I also still had friends and such still in EQ1.

The friend who suckered me into DAoC also suckered me into Planetside. He also bought SWG, AC2, FFXI and god only knows what else on release.. He's more of a 6-month-on-release MMOGamer

[Engels]

So I moved to the next area, I had to take a horse there. Near some forest, and there was a tower that was the local bind-point, but the close monsters were just too tough for me. I headed back in the other direction, and there were goblins and horses there that were a tough fight but good xp. But when I died, the corpse run was a 5-minute job. After 2 deaths or so, I never logged in again. All before the 30-day boxed time had expired.

Now, sit back for a moment and compare that experience with your experience as a newb in EQ. I think you'd agree that life as a newb in EQ was at least equally daunting, if not moreso. Yet we endured with EQ simply because it was, originally, the only game out there. With DAoC we could return to EQ, where an old familiarity greeted us.

Both DAoC and EQ back then were a product that's no longer on the shelves; difficult and discouraging to the beginner, increasingly rewarding as time went on. As time went on, both these games adjusted their game play so that the newb suffered far far less.

That said, the memories of those incipient years in EQ has a stamp on the brain that no other game can replicate simply because it was both traumatically 'immersive' and because it was the first. That is the capital McQuaid is using.

[Morat20]

I don't know how good Jeff Freeman was on his grey shard -- never played. But I saw SWG -- no sane or competent person would have sold the NGE on that timeframe. I'm guessing no sane man would on any time frame -- it was a clusterfuck waiting to happen. It's the fucking Peter principle.

Dundee didn't come up with the NGE, as I understand it.  He blogged about the process (then removed the post when the inevitable shitstorm hit), and it was another, more senior coder/designer that came up with the NGE kludge pretty much by himself, locked in his office for a while.  Dundee certainly bought in, big time - he made that clear - but anyone who's a developer has been caught up in that whole bandwagon of cool new stuff where a bunch of you talk each other into seeing how cool it is, and talk down the structural difficulties of implementation.

As I understand his post (which I have a sneaky copy of at home somewhere, having guessed which way the wind would blow on that one), he only then got made something like chief gameplay designer.

His blog post seemed to take a lot more credit for it -- not that he created it, but that he sold it to upper management. (You're right -- I really wasn't clear on that)He pushed it pretty hard. Admittedly, I'm taking his blog post at face value. Now, you're right -- I have no idea if he was one of a dozen people pushing it hard, and maybe a tiny little unheard voice amongst a cacophany of more significant people. Nonetheless, he was enthusiastic and heavily pushing a game design choice that turned out to be the Suck, and got promoted to chief gameplay designer because of it. I don't think it's a giant  step to assume that a man vocally pushing a HUGE gameplay change who was then promoted to being in charge of gameplay design probably had a major role in the giant gameplay change.

It didn't require a genius to see that the SWG engine couldn't be converted to twitch in the time frame they had. It didn't take a genius to see that the underlying network code -- already laggy and problematic -- was going to cockblock them on it. It didn't take a genius to see that their current userbase wasn't going to be thrilled about it either.

Now, maybe the games industry works different -- but I know if I push a significant change that results in our customer cancelling half or more of his order, I don't get fucking promoted to "Lead Designer" because of it. I'd be damn lucky to keep my job. That's pretty much the sole reason I won't touch SOE: Austin's works with a ten-foot poll. No accountability. I'm not saying Freeman should have been fired, but I'm not comfortable buying products from a company that rewards such large mistakes.

[Azazel]

Now, sit back for a moment and compare that experience with your experience as a newb in EQ. I think you'd agree that life as a newb in EQ was at least equally daunting, if not moreso. Yet we endured with EQ simply because it was, originally, the only game out there. With DAoC we could return to EQ, where an old familiarity greeted us.

Both DAoC and EQ back then were a product that's no longer on the shelves; difficult and discouraging to the beginner, increasingly rewarding as time went on. As time went on, both these games adjusted their game play so that the newb suffered far far less.

That said, the memories of those incipient years in EQ has a stamp on the brain that no other game can replicate simply because it was both traumatically 'immersive' and because it was the first. That is the capital McQuaid is using.

Well, honestly, NO. EQ1 wasn't daunting, that's the thing. The first-time-round, the grind wasn't apparent, or should I say especially painful for a long time. I played 4 different characters through the initial bunch of levels. Rotating to a different character whenwver I got one a couple of levels. Get them to level 6, then all of them to 9 or 10, then all to 13, then 15, and on we went. When I got the druid to 19, and got my port spells was the time when I finally and suddenly had my "main". I could now fuckin' TELEPORT!!

Even back then, at those levels as a total n00b, you could get a level a day ingame up to the mid-high teens. That's not daunting. Not after the many PnP sessions that getting a level would take. A level in a day? Cake!

On top of that there were also 2, then 3, then 4 friends plus my brother playing. The first time through the first game, there's a real sense of awe for quite a long time. You know, a friend comes over and you've just got to show them this new game on the internet. It's basically a D&D game, just like the ones we've always played, only it's on the computer on the internet, and see there and there and there? Those are real people! No, THAT one's a monster.

Back then, at least to us, the raid game didn't exist. It was just a huge, massive online D&D experience that we could all play anytime we wanted to, instead of once a month if we were lucky to coordinate our schedules.

By the time DAoC came out, sure the grind had set into EQ, but then again, we were at the far side of the level grind. We were on the powerful side of the power curve, not what we'd now call "uber", but "high level". Starting again in DAoC meant hitting the reset button in a sense, starting fresh at the n00b end of the grind, only this time knowing what to expect. Did I want to go through that a third time? (2 EQ toons). No. No I did not.

It's not just the memories of EQ, as you seem to think. The first time through the grind took a long time to become visible, and by the time it did, we were already so used to it, that it didn't hurts us! Starting afresh, we knew what to expect, in DAoC, the grind was visible from the start, since we'd saw it was the same as the other one that we'd just been through.

[Venkman]

The devs who showed it off clearly were all experienced EQ-style MMO players and showed off various subtle game systems and UI improvements that would only make sense if you were staring at a combat screen forever, such as pre-built combat macros for common tasks, inherent friendly- and enemy- target differentation and the like

Now, that's definitely not "hooray Vanguard!", but to me it sounds pretty far to "huge pile of crap" too..

It's not crap. It's just not new either. For a few years, based entirely on the design philosophy behind it. I don't criticize the game for what it is. I do so because it's innovating the wrong things at the wrong time. It is truly yet-another diku-inspired group-required statistician's wet dream, after that ship has sailed. And honestly, this isn't good or bad per se. It just shows how philosophies change through experience and marketshare. Or how they don't.

[Morat20]

I think a lot of designers learned the wrong lessons from EQ. I suspect one of the reason's for WoW success is that they took a long hard look at EQ and everything that came after it, and tried for a fresh perspective on what players wanted -- without assuming EQ found some magical formula for success.

EQ was in the right spot, at the right time, with a working product. That's a lot. But it was only enough for EQ -- if you can't learn that, then you're doomed to the niche.

[Venkman]

EQ1 was the runaway hit against a handful of other titles that either looked less good or had more nichy elements about it. There were quite simply a lot fewer people playing these games.

The core concept was sound (obviously), but the iteration was something people accepted for a lack of truly compelling options more so than they wholeheartedly beloved. As evidenced by the genre five years later (and no, it's not about the graphics).