SOE to Publish Vanguard

[MisterNoisy]

It makes sense to say, "Hey Stupid, just clone the successful formulas and make the bling - that's what it's all about!"  In fact, a goodly number of investors won't settle for anything less.  However, I don't think it's that easy.

For example, I'm under the opinion that one could make a game exactly like World of Warcraft, maybe even slightly better, and they will not manage to pull so much as 1% of the players Blizzard has.  The reason being that a great deal of World of Warcraft's appeal has to do with players jumping on the Blizzard brand-name bandwagon.  That, and I wager most MMORPG players have just about played out what appear a WoW formula would have for it.

Stop shooting for the bling, make the art and see if it stands on its own.  If not, at least you'll leave the gaming community something to remember you by.  An unfeasible plan for people who plan to feed themselves, but hey, that's the true artists for you.

While I agree with your 'make the art and see if it stands on its own' statement, I just can't bring myself to declare Brad's capital-V Vision 'art'.  EQ was fine until you got your surname - after that, it was beanbag-crushing life-stealing crap.  Reinventing it with extra suck for the tradeskillers (Debuff a fucking tree before chopping it down?  Are you fucking kidding?), tempered by a handful of bones thrown to the people that really would rather play a game than sign into another job hardly qualifies, imo.

I'd actually have more respect for the man if he stuck to his guns, but I won't play his game either way.

[Signe]

In the NDA forums? Crap. I suppose copy the funnier statements would violate the NDA?

It's a shame.  Some of it is good fun, too!

[Miasma]

So, the Vision (tm) caved to World of Warcraft subscriber lust?

His take seems to be that they have stayed true to The Vision and that everyone else misunderstood what The Vision was.

I agree with Merusk in that while I'd never play such a grindy game I do think that there are a surprising number of masochists out there who desperately want something that appeals to them.  This could have been a good niche to fill, they would have gotten all of the Americans/Europeans/Australians who wish they had been born Korean.

[Signe]

Also, I think a lot of people expected that their EQ nostalgia cravings would be sated with this game.  To be honest, it really looked as if it was heading in that direction.  I read interviews and statements from Brad McQuaid that made it seem he was making a beeline for that exact audience.  It's not surprising that those people would be disappointed.  Although they are probably a small minority of gamers, they are definitely the most vocal on quite a few forums... not just the Vanguard ones.

[geldonyetich]

I agree with Merusk in that while I'd never play such a grindy game I do think that there are a surprising number of masochists out there who desperately want something that appeals to them.

They're probably looking for something that'll be just difficult enough to scare away the kiddies.

So, here's a business model they could use: The first part of the game is a downloadable free portion where you undergo some tough kiddy-scaring hardships.  If you pass that, you can now go out and spend $50 for the rest of the game.

[Arthur_Parker]

What he should have said was that they would have different server rulesets, an old EQ style hammer the door against your private parts ruleset and a casual server ruleset.  Someday somebody is going to figure out that you can appeal to vastly different player markets with only minor coding differences between the servers.

[Trippy]

What he should have said was that they would have different server rulesets, an old EQ style hammer the door against your private parts ruleset and a casual server ruleset.  Someday somebody is going to figure out that you can appeal to vastly different player markets with only minor coding differences between the servers.

Perhaps it might be minor coding differences but it's massive amounts of additional testing.

[Arthur_Parker]

Yeah they should have a long beta or something. 

But seriously, why do you need massive amounts of additional testing if, for example, you had a different ruleset and the only changes you make are :-

Corpse runs on
Mob exp -70%
Quest exp -90%
grouping exp bonus per member 2.7%
rare mob spawn timer increased from 5 Min's to 4 hours.

The only new game system there is corpse run which I bet they have a system for already, the rest is just playing with numbers to given an entirely different play experience.  A horrible play experience in my opinion, but if there's a market for it and you just blew $40 million coding everything else, why not?

[Trippy]

Yeah they should have a long beta or something. 

But seriously, why do you need massive amounts of additional testing if, for example, you had a different ruleset and the only changes you make are :-

Corpse runs on
Mob exp -70%
Quest exp -90%
grouping exp bonus per member 2.7%

I don't know what you mean by "-70%" and "-90%".

rare mob spawn timer increased from 5 Min's to 4 hours.

Turning spawn timers into potential roadblocks will significantly change the "politics" on that server and griefing, kill stealing and all sorts of other nastiness will likely erupt leading to at a minimal CS headaches and at the extreme various game systems changes to minimize these problems which leads to more code forking.

[Arthur_Parker]

-70 and -90 % of exp gain for killing a mob or a quest completion, the intent to drastically to slow leveling and make a much more grindy game. 

In EQ rare mobs had to be camped, in WoW they respawn after a few minutes or are in separate instances. 

The fact that a simple timing change in the coding for rare spawns can recreate classic EQ customer support issues just goes to prove it's a simple change that gives a vastly different play experience.  I'm no expert on EQ but didn't some servers draw up mob timetables to address the obvious logic failing in not providing enough spawns to meet demand?  I seem to recall comments about camping a single mob for hours to see if he spawned for some item or other.  Yet years later, despite players having to invent mechanics like manually updated mob timetables and guild rotation systems for mob kills to address clear game design failings, people still talk about the good old days.  If extra time sinks and lots of waiting give a certain type of player greater satisfaction for obtaining a item, that's a valid playstyle you can attempt to attract with very little effort by have more than one server ruleset.

We are used to pvp and pve server rulesets to address the pro pvp and anti pvp players.  It's a logical extension to that system to have easy soloing casual servers and forced grouping grindy servers, vastly different play experiences for a tiny fraction of the cost of developing a new game.

Edit to add.
I'm going to list some different server rulesets, anyone can feel free to quote one of them that they are sure wasn't worth the development time spent on making it different from the normal server type.
AC1 Darktide
Uo Siege
Daoc PVP servers
Daoc Classic servers
EQ Progression (this is different?)
WoW PVP

[WindupAtheist]

I'm going to list some different server rulesets, anyone can feel free to quote one of them that they are sure wasn't worth the development time spent on making it different from the normal server type.

Since you invited...

Uo Siege

There's absolutely nobody on it, except for five or six douches, all of whom stomp around the Stratics boards crying for dev attention to whatever little horseshit Siege-specific probelm is annoying them this week.

[Arthur_Parker]

Yeah maybe so, maybe they did waste more money creating it than it's generated over the past 6 years or however long it's been open, maybe, but I wouldn't bet £100 on it.

However even if it was a mistake, a terrible mistake, that's one out of the six I listed (though I might well have missed some different rulesets).  If we don't add anymore to the list of six rulesets above,  I can't think of anything else mmorpg game devs have ever done right 5 times out of 6.

[Simond]

His take seems to be that they have stayed true to The Vision and that everyone else misunderstood what The Vision was.

And yet he was quite happy to let the 'STFU and go bak 2 WoW, kiddie!' crowd run roughshod over the Sigil forums for however many months.

I'm pondering whether this change in tone was internal from Sigil or something 'suggested' by SOE. If it were me, I'd listen to SOE if they said anything - after all, they've got experience at launching grindy, 'realistic' graphic-hog Diku-games with whack-a-mole crafting billed as 'the sucessor to Everquest'.

[Trippy]

-70 and -90 % of exp gain for killing a mob or a quest completion, the intent to drastically to slow leveling and make a much more grindy game.

Certainly a global change of this nature would (should) be easy to code up and test.

In EQ rare mobs had to be camped, in WoW they respawn after a few minutes or are in separate instances. 

[...]

If extra time sinks and lots of waiting give a certain type of player greater satisfaction for obtaining a item, that's a valid playstyle you can attempt to attract with very little effort by have more than one server ruleset.

If it's a global across the board change on spawn timers then like the global exp change it should be easy enough to do (ignoring all the CS issues). However let's say you only want to change the spawn timer on certain rare spawns, like the ones that drop special quest items. Now you have a problem of maintaining and testing two sets of mob data. Developers often have trouble keeping one set of data correct and now you are asking them to maintain two or more of these things.

[Arthur_Parker]

If it's a global across the board change on spawn timers then like the global exp change it should be easy enough to do (ignoring all the CS issues). However let's say you only want to change the spawn timer on certain rare spawns, like the ones that drop special quest items. Now you have a problem of maintaining and testing two sets of mob data. Developers often have trouble keeping one set of data correct and now you are asking them to maintain two or more of these things.

In my current role at work we support over 600 servers on with 4 different operating systems, we support over 200 custom applications in addition to the standard and have over 20,000 pc's of different models with 2 different operating systems.  There are hundreds of hotfixes that need to be applied to upgrade the operating systems and applications and we do it all remotely.  I guess I just see it differently, but I suspect in a next few years we will be seeing games launch with more and more server options as it strikes me as logical progression and effective use of resources.

Having said that, yes, I guess Vanguard might have been coded in such a way that making simple changes to spawn times for certain mobs might be a complete pain in the arse.  However if it ever becomes standard practice to have 4 or more different types of server at release, new games can plan for different rulesets at the design stage, which should make these types of changes fairly easy.

[Afropuff]

In our organization we make a distinction between design documents and requirements documents.  It sounds more like what you guys are talking about are requirements documents, but sometimes you're getting it conflated with design docs.

Requirements say WHAT features are supposed to exist.  Design says HOW it happens - object hierarchies, dependencies, interactions, etc (again, that's the language we use at my job).

For games I'd say requirements would be pretty much a necessity, since the designers have to communicate somehow to the devs what they want.  This is unless, of course, they are the same person.  Also, requirements are pretty important for QA people to write test cases from - if you have QA (which I hope you do).

Design docs for the UI are useful, since it's different to say "the player should be able to cast a spell" and "the player can press keyboard * to cast a spell".

Don't forget concept documents. Concepts generate requirements generate design, if I remember the terms right. Games need concept documents and requirements documents (to highlight dependencies and such), but I can see them doing rapid prototyping that becomes a template for the design document.

...so that's now three times the "required documents" for a game?

That's kind of my entire point :)

One can talk till they're blue in the face about intrisic virtues of development documentation. You can have all that shit stacked up from the desk to the ceiling (not that it would be smart to), but if nobody makes use of it, it might as well be the collected works of the Greek classics translated to Kanji. To have any value, the team has to live that stuff. That's the most critical component, and it was being glossed over and taken for granted in this part of the discussion you guys started here Friday. Retaining the value of documentation requires a cultural mindset - and it's a hard fucking sell. Getting someone to write down initially how they expect a project to be glued together is the smallest peice of the puzzle. 

Shocked as I am to hear Stephen imply that design documents and fun are mutually exclusive, he illustrates my point perfectly. He isn't interested in looking at ghey paperwork - he wants to jump right in and start coding BFG 99000 weapons damage.

I watched our software organization get to SEI CMM level 5 (now CMMI). It was a three year ordeal and the software developers had to be dragged kicking and screaming the whole way. It's worth mentioning that small organizations (150 or less) typically never get there. You at least want to be level 3ish or so, where you have an ingrained habit of writing important things down and following up on them consistently. Otherwise you'll squeeze out that paperwork and in a few months it will be totally obsolete as the product comes to life.

Claiming that you want a coherent product is easy to say.  Getting a shapshot down on paper is to some extent easy to do.  But getting a team to read, refresh, and work from that script of yours is by far the most important thing, and it's a pain in the ass to do.

[Sky]

All the people who want huge death penalties, no solo content, no maps, long regen and downtime basically just got told off by their idol.

Cool, I might have to check this game out now.

One of the worst impacts WoW has had on mmo is that now everyone thinks everything is done because of WoW. I saw a bit about the new EQ1 expansion, a screenshot of desert terrain, and it said 'looks just like a zone from that other game', an obvious WoW reference. Because EQ didn't have a desert zone in 1999. I get real goddamned tired of that shit.

Just because a game is casual-friendly doesn't mean it's copying WoW. It means that the majority of people aren't into 'hardcore' mmo design.

[Morat20]

Don't forget concept documents. Concepts generate requirements generate design, if I remember the terms right. Games need concept documents and requirements documents (to highlight dependencies and such), but I can see them doing rapid prototyping that becomes a template for the design document.

...so that's now three times the "required documents" for a game?

That's kind of my entire point :)

Nah -- it's like ISO certs. If you're going to do it at all, you pick the type that fits your design needs. My shop now? We have concept documents -- a few pages spelling out the major points of the product and tying those to what the customer was asking for -- it functions mostly as a checklist to make sure what we create does what the customer wants. For our most complex product -- which interfaces with other people's stuff and has some rather rigid QA requirements -- we have a pretty large design document that spells out the interfaces (it's updated as the product evolves) and dependencies. It's mostly used when changing core mechanisms, to make sure we don't break other people who use it.

Those are purely internal, and they're not that much more intensive than simply documenting your code. I'd think MMORPGs -- with the interlocking mechanisms and constant change even after delivery -- would absolutely require documentation like that. As a minimum. If you don't have that, how do you prevent constant fuckups where supposedly simple change X fucks up mechanism Y that was using X, but no one told the Y people you were fucking with X?

[Jayce]

stuff

I spun off this (interesting imo) discussion at the correct board: http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=8659.0

... though at 24 pages, we are rapidly approaching anything-goes land...

[Nija]

I don't even think I have access to the Vanguard beta forums...

I'm looking at http://www.vanguardsoh.com/forums/

and The options I have are..

Official Announcements (Read Only)
Beta Announcements

Art & Graphics
Game Play
Programming
Production
Archives

Community Announcements
Player Stories
Off Topic

Is this the right place? The posts don't read like a normal beta.

[Signe]

They should show up if you are in the beta and logged in.  Maybe you have become mysteriously logged out?

[Nija]

They should show up if you are in the beta and logged in.  Maybe you have become mysteriously logged out?

Nah I just logged out and logged back in, and I've been in the beta for who knows how long... Was I supposed to email someone for access?

[Falconeer]

They should show up if you are in the beta and logged in.  Maybe you have become mysteriously logged out?

Nah I just logged out and logged back in, and I've been in the beta for who knows how long... Was I supposed to email someone for access?

Defintely. You have to email me your account name and password. I am sure I can find what's going wrong for you...

[shiznitz]

I would do that but since it uses my Sony Station login, I thin not!

[Falconeer]

Seriously? Sony Station login already? Basically the same one you use to log in eq2, ps and such?
Damn, crap and some random prophanities! There's no way I'll ever get a friendly sampler pass if they stied the VG beta at your main Station account...
(I wouldn't give it away too, of course).

[shiznitz]

Seriously? Sony Station login already? Basically the same one you use to log in eq2, ps and such?

Seriously.

[geldonyetich]

Neat, I've a vanguard forum account and I didn't know it.  I shall now post several messages in hopes of attracting their beta selection method.  [Checks: Wait, the Vanguard forum has never heard of me.  Someone on the Internet lied to me.  Inconceivable!]

[Falconeer]

I am fed up of speculating.
I want a Vanguard beta account, now.
I pay with my body.

[geldonyetich]

Syllables, not words
Make the viable haiku.
Thanks for the excuse.

[HaemishM]

I am fed up of speculating.
I want a Vanguard beta account, now.

No, you really don't.

[Nebu]

I am fed up of speculating.
I want a Vanguard beta account swift blow to the head, now.
I pay with my body.

Fixed.

[Sky]

Falconeer's inner fanboi has nothing on the spore crowd. http://www.xspore.com/release_date.html

My favorite is the guy who said he wasn't going to post for a while, then started posting under another name...then busted himself by posting as the original guy on the second account. Some people just can't wait for things to be released in their damned sweet time. (I am a huge Spore fanboi, I was just searching for reassurance it wasn't a dx10-only title..).

[Falconeer]

I am not a fanboi. I just hate to be left out, and I know you all talk shit about Vanguard cause you actually saw it.
Me, I'm only nourished with Brad's cuts and bits and I hate that!
I want to put my hands on the thing, and then play the "Yeah, I really know it's dogshit, believe me" card as everyone else here.
As of now I can only trust you all, but can't really believe is that bad.

[Morat20]

Falconeer's inner fanboi has nothing on the spore crowd. http://www.xspore.com/release_date.html

My favorite is the guy who said he wasn't going to post for a while, then started posting under another name...then busted himself by posting as the original guy on the second account. Some people just can't wait for things to be released in their damned sweet time. (I am a huge Spore fanboi, I was just searching for reassurance it wasn't a dx10-only title..).

It's not, right? 'Cause I'm looking forward to Spore quite a bit.

[Sky]

I think it's going to be hybrid, supporting 9 & 10. Can't find any firm evidence either way. It's probably the one game that would have me buying Vista, though. Crysis looks awesome, but Spore has me exceedingly geeked-out. I'm really pretending it doesn't exist at this point...