SOE to Publish Vanguard

[El Gallo]

The one thing I was sure this game would get right is an interesting, handcrafted world with all kinds of cool nooks and crannies, since that is the thing EQ did better than any other MMO (except, arguably, WoW).  If it turns out that they can't even pull that off, yikes.

Koster might actually beat McQuaid in round two.

[HaemishM]

Anyway, I think it could be interesting if every building leads to a single owned house. It's nothing new and nothing fancy if they are multi-instanced a la EQ2.

No instancing.
Urban sprawl and strong IGE housing market inc!

You have to have players playing for there to be any market. All indications are there just won't be that many of them.

[Simond]

I'm assuming SOE is as active with Vanguard as it was with EQ2 regarding underutilisation of server hardware i.e. they'll merge them.
Maybe Vanguard can claim that they're in competition with CCP by having an unsharded world?

[Big Gulp]

Maybe Vanguard can claim that they're in competition with CCP by having an unsharded world?

Vanguard:  Because offline skill gains are for pussies.

Oh, and corpse runs are fun!

[Righ]

I see this as a good thing. What does SOE have more experience doing than any other company? Setting up massively multiplayer game servers.

Nope. That would be NCsoft. But these things are just fucking badly coded, unoptimised databases anyhow, so you might as well speak to any dipshit hosting company, as their experience would be just as relevant.

What SOE has more experience of than any other company is making a midden out of online customer service.

[Tale]

What SOE has more experience of than any other company is making a midden out of online customer service.

I'd say they have more experience at redesigning existing games than any other company. Their record on that is mixed: several absolute disasters, and several moderate recoveries. Now that they have an interest in Vanguard, maybe watch for the SOE revamp veteran sent in as a "great new addition to the team" (AKA design auditor).

I'd still like to see Brad and Jeff given an opportunity to finish their Vision, just like I wish Koster had been given another 6-12 months to finish SWG. Who knows, it may come together in an EverQuest kind of way ... worrying beta, into a successful product.

[Azazel]

..of course, EQ1 had no real competition at the time for it's game type.

The same game type, incendently, that Vanguard wants to try and attract..

[Falconeer]

From IGN Preview

"And whichever building you erect, it has its own plot of land near which nothing else can be built. No ugly sprawl or obscured view as other homes pop up around yours, ever. It looks like Sigil has a plan."

I know we have to hate the game, but I am a sucker for housing done right.

[Trippy]

From IGN Preview

"And whichever building you erect, it has its own plot of land near which nothing else can be built. No ugly sprawl or obscured view as other homes pop up around yours, ever. It looks like Sigil has a plan."

I know we have to hate the game, but I am a sucker for housing done right.

I'm not sure how you can call that housing done right. Reducing housing density does not decrease sprawl it *increases* it, unless of course Sigil only allows housing to built in very restricted areas in which case we're back to some form of grind2housing. And saying there's no obscured view is just silly. Sure you won't get something like:

Code:

X X X
X X X
X X X

but instead you'll get something like:

Code:

X   X   X

X   X   X

X   X   X

and your view will still be obscured, just not as much.

[Falconeer]

Mmm what I have in mind is like: very limited amount of houses available.
Then yes, it could mean "grind2housing" that sounds in line with their stubbornly out of this world hardcore leveling idea.
But I don't care. Looks to me that you can just have 3 ways to do it:

1) Instanced, so everyone can get a house, and I don't like it.
2) Not instanced, but with lots of buildable spots, so everyone can get a house. And that leads to sprawl
3) Not instanced, but with very limited buildable spots. That leads to housing done right, in my opinion, with the only drawback that not everyone will get a house.

I choose #3.

[Falconeer]

Sure you won't get something like:

Code:

X X X
X X X
X X X

but instead you'll get something like:

Code:

X   X   X

X   X   X

X   X   X

and your view will still be obscured, just not as much.

Now we are just assuming things here. What if they decided that houses can only be built in say 1 mile from each other?

[Trippy]

Sure you won't get something like:

Code:

X X X
X X X
X X X

but instead you'll get something like:

Code:

X   X   X

X   X   X

X   X   X

and your view will still be obscured, just not as much.

Now we are just assuming things here. What if they decided that houses can only be built in say 1 mile from each other?

Then that's grind2housing unless the world is like 20,000 square miles in size (and you can build all over the world).

[Reg]

I could live with only the most advanced catasses being able to have houses so long as they aren't anything more than a status symbol and something to play doll house with. If storage is at a premium in thie game and houses give you more then everyone is going to demand one and the whining won't stop until they do something about it.

Personally, I think the best way to handle it is to provide an instanced  apartment to everyone that gives the same benefits of an above ground house and just have a few thousand housing spots that the achievers can fight over and sell to IGE.

[Simond]

Sigil thinks instancing is the work of the Behorned Lord of Darkness, so...no instanced apartments.

I bet IGE cannot wait for Vanguard to go live - slow levelling + mob camps for phat lewt + limited supply housing zones = $$$
Assuming, of course, that more than three people play the game.

[bignatz]

from Potus on eqnecro.net:

I laugh at games like Vanguard calling themselves "next generation" mmorpgs. There hasn't been a "next generation" mmorpg ever, since they all revolve around leveling treadmills and the endless pursuit of new loot until you eBay out of boredom. The real hillarity in this game is just how blatant the leveling treadmill/timesinks are.

There's 3 Leveling treadmills in the game, and all of them are equal in lack of fun.

Combat
You'd think this is fun but it really isn't. They talked up a huge game about how Vanguard's combat involves more than just hitting Auto-Attack and hoping the monster runs out of Hitpoints before you do. You get to see a monsters attack ahead of time, and simply choose whatever button is flashing to deflect it. That's it, that's their huge "next generation" improvement to the boredom of playing a melee: waiting for icons to flash and then click on them hoping the server lag doesn't cause the spells to timeout.

Solo'ing is non-existant. You can solo for hours and you won't come near the exp you get if you wait around for a group. Solo'ing is immensely boring, since every tactic involves spamming your direct damage spell while tanking. Deaths are harsh, you lose exp, you're naked, and you have to run back to your corpse. Usually you'll die on the way since monsters hit you from far away with their extendo arms of death. There's also this hillarious bug right now where the guards assist the monster its fighting and will kill you.

Tradeskills

I've only tried tradeskilling once, and was amazed at the time involvement. According to the forums, it takes just as long as combat leveling to level while tradeskilling. Apparently its like EQ2, you sit there and some bars go up and down and you have to mash flashing buttons until you "finish" a product. Apparently some guy did this for days and days and is level five and makes "Grade D table legs".

Harvesting takes for fucking ever. You have to group with other harvesters and you fight trees like you would a monster. Thats right, you need to get certain harvesting classes too, like "gleaners" and "refiners" in your group, and you sit around wacking some tree until the tree dies and then you get some loot. You then have to rest, since you get "tired" while wacking trees all day.

Want to solo while harvesting? Oh no you can't, because solo'ing doesn't exist at all in this game, if you solo it will A) take forever B) not get you anything meaningful C) you'll fail alot.

Parley..or the worst thing ever invented and is made fun of constantly on the beta forums

This is the best new "feature" of this great "next generation mmorpg". You have to parley with the npcs to get your quests. This is yet another ridiculous time sink. Thats right, when you want to talk to a npc about a quest, it opens a parley window where you fight the npc like a monster using arguments. You have the "dirty joke" spell, which lowers his liking of you, so then you have to reply with a "nice compliment" which then makes him like you more but then you have to keep the conversation interesting so you attack using a "interesting story"...I'm not making this shit up, you basically hammer keys until the conversation bar reaches the end(without other bars getting too low, its exactly like EQ2's crafting system) and you win the "parley".

Here's what is so great about it. EVERY SINGLE NPC makes you parley with him to get quest info. What is funny about it is that 95% of them have no quests or interesting info to give you, so you go from npc to npc parleying, mashing keys, until you "win" the "encounter" and you get nothing from it.

Overall

This game just fucking blows. There's nothing positive I can say about it, it is that bad. I've beta'ed alot of video games and this one is fundamentally fucked. I don't think I could come up with a worse video game if I tried. I'm amazed the login screen doesn't have some sort of time sink or if I want to customize my UI I don't have to parley it with "witty jokes". LONG LIVE EVERQUEST BEFORE LUCLIN!!

[El Gallo]

Man, I wish Potus posted here.  I used to read the EQNecro boards back when I played just for his posts even though I wasn't a necro.  He's up there with Fansy the Famous Bard, Sam "THE MAN" Deathwalker and Furor "Jimmy" Planedefiler on my "most entertaining EQ people I never actually met in game" list.

[Trippy]

Parley..or the worst thing ever invented and is made fun of constantly on the beta forums

This is the best new "feature" of this great "next generation mmorpg". You have to parley with the npcs to get your quests. This is yet another ridiculous time sink. Thats right, when you want to talk to a npc about a quest, it opens a parley window where you fight the npc like a monster using arguments. You have the "dirty joke" spell, which lowers his liking of you, so then you have to reply with a "nice compliment" which then makes him like you more but then you have to keep the conversation interesting so you attack using a "interesting story"...I'm not making this shit up, you basically hammer keys until the conversation bar reaches the end(without other bars getting too low, its exactly like EQ2's crafting system) and you win the "parley".

Here's what is so great about it. EVERY SINGLE NPC makes you parley with him to get quest info. What is funny about it is that 95% of them have no quests or interesting info to give you, so you go from npc to npc parleying, mashing keys, until you "win" the "encounter" and you get nothing from it.

Wow that is just...amazing. I understand now why Microsoft was so willing to give up the Vanguard IP -- its worth is currently somewhere between jack and shit.

[Righ]

Parley minigame. LOL.

(for Tale)

[sarius]

Parley..or the worst thing ever invented and is made fun of constantly on the beta forums

This is the best new "feature" of this great "next generation mmorpg". You have to parley with the npcs to get your quests. This is yet another ridiculous time sink. Thats right, when you want to talk to a npc about a quest, it opens a parley window where you fight the npc like a monster using arguments. You have the "dirty joke" spell, which lowers his liking of you, so then you have to reply with a "nice compliment" which then makes him like you more but then you have to keep the conversation interesting so you attack using a "interesting story"...I'm not making this shit up, you basically hammer keys until the conversation bar reaches the end(without other bars getting too low, its exactly like EQ2's crafting system) and you win the "parley".

Here's what is so great about it. EVERY SINGLE NPC makes you parley with him to get quest info. What is funny about it is that 95% of them have no quests or interesting info to give you, so you go from npc to npc parleying, mashing keys, until you "win" the "encounter" and you get nothing from it.

Wow that is just...amazing. I understand now why Microsoft was so willing to give up the Vanguard IP -- its worth is currently somewhere between jack and shit.

Gag.  I have guildmates who've been waiting a while for this game.  I'd bet they're gonna by an XBox now because MMOG's now appear freaking dead.

[Merusk]

It really does send a guiltfully delicious thrill through my heart to begin to see things playing out as had been predicted.  Of course they've been ignoring the innovations of the last few years, Brad flat-out said he disagreed with most of them. 

What they've done is taken EQ at Velious era and applied it to a new game with a few extra iterations.  That's it.  Now, as predicted, people are remembering exactly how shit that gameplay was, and they don't like it.  Wow, you mean these guys were  remembering EQ through rose-colored glasses? Big surprise there.

 I expect further bitching when the game DOES release and their now-5-years-older asses are locked out of content by younger versions of themselves. Boy, that'll be rich.

[Mesozoic]

Holy crap, thats horrible.  When is this due out?  I can't wait.

[AcidCat]

I expect further bitching when the game DOES release and their now-5-years-older asses are locked out of content by younger versions of themselves. Boy, that'll be rich.

Hehe, I hadn't thought of it that way, but that's a good point.  :-D

[Engels]

The time-honored mantra echoed time and time again by Brad and others who follow the 'hard core' school of MMO is that to give a player a sense of immersion and acomplishment, things have to be 'hard'. What I think they always overlooked, particularly during the nascent days of EQ, was that the 'hard' was out of the player's control. A player fought a continous battle against the game to get his next doodad/level, and the respect other players gave another player for his accomplisment was simply an acknowledgement that that player had more stamina than they did to put up with unfathomable time sinks.

[Simond]

Holy crap, thats horrible.  When is this due out?  I can't wait.

'This winter', apparently.

[WayAbvPar]

Holy crap, thats horrible.  When is this due out?  I can't wait.

'This winter', apparently.

The winter of discontent, methinks. It is gonna be a fun trainwreck to watch!

[Miasma]

In the Vanguard thread dealing with the switch to SoE he made an off-hand comment like "SoE really needs a game like this in 2007" so it might not even be out this year.

[Venkman]

SOE needs another fantasy themed arduous exclusionary time sink? How exactly is this going to do the very thing they really need: a massive influx of new people to discontinue their intra-library cannabalization?

Vanguard = EQ1 Velious is about exactly right from what I saw and played (and read). It's a hit for Brad, but a miss for the genre. Just another example of people not learning the right lessons.

[Morat20]

SOE needs another fantasy themed arduous exclusionary time sink? How exactly is this going to do the very thing they really need: a massive influx of new people to discontinue their intra-library cannabalization?

Vanguard = EQ1 Velious is about exactly right from what I saw and played (and read). It's a hit for Brad, but a miss for the genre. Just another example of people not learning the right lessons.

Maybe this is part of a ploy by SOE to get SWG to look better. I mean, SWG sucks donkey balls, but I'd rather play that than Vanguard. (Assuming, of course, that what's leaking out is accurate).

[Toast]

This is the classic marketing technique used in gift sets / package deals.

Take a bunch of mediocre products and throw them together and sell the bag o crap at a significant DISCOUNT OFF RETAIL!

But wait, there's more!

If you get a station pass now and tell 3 of your friends, you can get free beta access to Legends of Arse!

[Simond]

In the Vanguard thread dealing with the switch to SoE he made an off-hand comment like "SoE really needs a game like this in 2007" so it might not even be out this year.

Jan/Feb 2007 still counts as 'this winter' though, and a February launch would be the sanest thing to do - just to avoid the Xmas rush of the other games.

[HaemishM]

Sigil thinks instancing is the work of the Behorned Lord of Darkness, so...no instanced apartments.

I bet IGE cannot wait for Vanguard to go live - slow levelling + mob camps for phat lewt + limited supply housing zones = $$$
Assuming, of course, that more than three people play the game.

Why do you think they bought up just about every combination of Vanguard-compatible domain names over a year ago?

[Venkman]

I do so love how they gushed over their goal of a 100% non-instanced game (both indoor and outdoor areas to be covered). What is this, 2004? It's been at least that long since zoning was even a feature worth discussing. Nowadays, it's just a great way to create years of performance issues and bland content. The textures and models looked ok, but there was nothing I saw that screamed "pretty".

[Tale]

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.

Sure, WoW works, but there are hundreds of thousands of MMORPG players who do not want anything like WoW. They do not want EQ2, DAoC, City of Heroes or Korean MMOGs.

Because they're not gamers. They're the fantasy crowd. They loved the stories and immersiveness of EverQuest, not the DPS tables. When they pulled mobs underwater in Kedge Keep, wearing their earring of water breathing, they were living the part of the elven ranger Aeliacio and his companion Grudskin the gnome wizard. Because it was a live action digital version of the atmosphere of AD&D, or high fantasy novels. They might join the whines about class balance and nerfs, but that's all secondary to the experience of being in a fantasy.

It's like the Star Wars nerds who stuck with SWG in their tens of thousands. They were living Star Wars. The game was unbalanced and bugged, but they were part of Alpha Company 201st Stormtrooper Division, patrolling Tatooine day after day, for years. Brad's peeps are the fantasy nerds and they will grind diplomacy. They will craft table legs so they can build a house. They are about as far removed from a game like WoW as they are from Super Mario Brothers. There's really nothing in the current new MMOG market for them, because everyone is going "oh look, WoW!".

So I don't think "what works", in terms of current mass market MMOG appeal, is the focus here. The potential bonus is that the mass market may get interested if the hardcore fantasy nerds do, after VG launches when all the fuss about grinds and game systems dies down. That is what happened with EQ1. But in terms of Brad's peeps, it could still work.

[Engels]

They loved the stories and immersiveness of EverQuest, not the DPS tables. When they pulled mobs underwater in Kedge Keep, wearing their earring of water breathing, they were living the part of the elven ranger Aeliacio and his companion Grudskin the gnome wizard.Because it was a live action digital version of the atmosphere of AD&D, or high fantasy novels. They might join the whines about class balance and nerfs, but that's all secondary to the experience of being in a fantasy.

I'm afraid you are severely misguided if you think that's what the 'hard core' EQ crowd looked like. Sure, there were some in EQ's huge uberguilds that had a propensity to enjoy the story line, and you are right that EQ did have insanely deep lore by comparison to, say, WoW, but that is not the Brad Rules! crowd.

The Vanguard crowd are the people who stayed up for 8 hours in a row, weekend after weekend, chatting away in /gu while their raid leader bellowed commands at them.  They formed friendships and may even have vicariously enjoyed some immersion, supplied by the 1 or 2 RPer friends who were sort of dragged along to all this senseless raiding.

But don't fool yourself for a moment that the hardcore RPers were the hardcore EQ players that now want Vanguard to repeat the experience.

[Fabricated]

I always thought people were kind of joking about Vanguard being the mother of all grinds, and I couldn't really comprehend it since I had never played EQ. Yeah, that's right, I never played EQ. Ever. Not once.

This sounds like a fucking nightmare conjured forth from the firey anus of Satan himself. How the hell could that be fun? Are hardcore grinders really masochistic?