Vanguard Beta

[Simond]

Look who just reappeared....
NB: Vanguard boards are dying on their arse right now, so don't expect the link to work the first few times. So...quotes!

Hi guys,

Wanted to apologize for not being on the boards for a while. With the holidays and now with us entering the final stretch, things have been hectic. Also, there has been a huge influx of posts on both the beta and general boards -- we upgraded our message and web server system significantly and the boards are still slow do the increased traffic. A problem, but a good problem to have in one sense

I will monitor this thread and try to answer any questions you have, but I simply don't have the time right now to jump all over the message boards. Please keep your questions concise and try not to ask the same question if someone else has.

thanks all,

***

I can't announce the launch date yet, but the dates that are floating around are pretty close.

Yes, I know we could use more time. Any MMORPG could But at some point you have to launch. Keep in mind that we will be keeping a solid Live Team on board and keep working on the game post-launch. And this team is seperate from the expansion team, and the expansion team will be helping the live team at *least* 2 months after launch.

***

 Originally Posted by foxninja
"Could you explain why it was recently announced none of the animal races will have tails? Many people had been under the impression they were coming eventually, and the animal races feel incomplete without them. It's like a Dwarf without a beard or an Elf with round ears."

I'd like to see tails, but they will be post-launch.

***

 Originally Posted by Jessup
"When can we expect to see the rest of the closed chunks opened up for testing?"

Inquisitor still slated for post-release patch or will we get a glimpse of them before Beta ends?
Inquistor is still post launch. The remaining chunks will open first with up to level 35 on Thestra hopefully some time next week and then the 35+ chunks slowly but surely after that, with as many ready as we can by launch, and then us continuing to work our butts off after launch.

***

 Originally Posted by Huntir
"The game looks extraordinary! The world is massive and breathtaking, great job with that aspect. The game play however is subpar and the armor is boring, especially on casters. The lore/background is visually there and some of the early quest give minimal history, but overall the game is lacking here to.


3 Questions

I heard we lost the "Vision" somewhere in Vegas? Has anyone found it? If so, do we get a reward?, like maybe the game you sold us on a while back?


Will we get more then the 3-4 hair, face, color selctions from the slider bars we have atm on the creation page before launch?


Will we still get Beserkers after launch?or are they now set for an expansion class?

Huntir"
The vision is safe here in Carlsbad

We will have more character customization in by launch and you'll see them appear in Beta 5.

Berserkers are still post-launch, like the Inquisitor.

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 Originally Posted by ebric  View Post
"Why live corpse runs?

As much as I do not like WoW for feeling like the bunnyhill all the way to lvl 50, ghost corpse runs IMO would open up a much larger market to VG. I just do not see any way someone that is a fan of WoW would jump to a game with live corpse runs.

I do not understand why you would want to go live so close to the WoW expantion also. Again I think that will hurt popularity in the long run."
We've gone through a lot of corpse run variations and are pretty happy with what we have now. The game *is* supposed to be a more challenging one.

As for launching, yes it may be fairly close to the WoW expansion, but that's not something we can control. SOE has given us financing that has gotten us a lot further than our previous publisher, but at some point you have to launch a game. If we could have a couple more months of development, sure, that would be great. If we could have another year, we could do a lot more too. But again, the game has to launch at some point and we know when that is. I'm pretty proud of how much funding, marketing, etc. we've received to-date. We have over 100 people workiing on this game. That said, we're not Blizzard either (yet). So the polish, time, and budet they had isn't what we've had, although we probably come in second. The game is also different -- Vanguard is more about freedom, attracting people who want a more challenging long term home, providing a game for old school EQ players and also WoW players looking for either/both something new and/or something more free and immersive. That means Vanguard is going to offer features and an evironment that is different and better IMHO than WoW, but also be a very different game than WoW, where we are focussed on different things and have different priorities.

***

FakeEdit: Sod the rest of that thread, NDA is dropped.  time.

[Falconeer]

Post launch tails?

I snorted all my life into my diet coke.

[Falconeer]

I waited so long for the NDA to lift that I don't even know where to start. I am lost..!

Anyway, reading Simond's quoted.. this looks possibly like the MOST INCOMPLETE LAUNCH of the history of MMOs.

Inquisitor still slated for post-release patch or will we get a glimpse of them before Beta ends?
Inquistor is still post launch. The remaining chunks will open first with up to level 35 on Thestra hopefully some time next week and then the 35+ chunks slowly but surely after that, with as many ready as we can by launch, and then us continuing to work our butts off after launch.

Berserkers are still post-launch, like the Inquisitor.

Crap, can't believe what I read. Sounds like a joke, can't be true...

[Raging Turtle]

Launching at almost the same time as WoW: BC? 

Insane. 

NDA is down, someone dish the dirt.

[Falconeer]

No seriously, I am still speechless...

I like the game (flamesuit ON!), but is FAR from finished. To the pont that NO you can't release it, Brad!
What's missing? Guess it? POLISH!

I'd say this is a suicide if it wasn't Brad himself to say they were out of money and forced to launch (so no suicide, 'cause they were dying anyway).

Well, about the game? It's good. It's a great Diku, and has a lot of interesting features, including some new stuff. And no it doesn't run so bad as you may have heard. And the graphics are better than you can imagine by the screenshots. Sadly, it's VERY unpolished.
Whoever buy this at launch is DEFINITELY paying for a beta.

[Arthur_Parker]

Somebody who cares about this game, please start a new thread mentioning the nda has gone in the title.  I got into the beta a few days ago and my client is still patching, I want to see just how bad it is.

[Nebu]

Sadly, it's VERY unpolished.

This sounds like little more than a generic rant.  Unpolished how?  What's wrong?  What is desperate for change?  Tell me something with some substance beyond it's pretty and a nice diku experience... that sounds like a Horizons statement.

[Falconeer]

Ok, on with the new topic...

[Signe]

Tomorrow?
So I'll start my write-up and ready my fireproof suit right now.

I'm genuinely interested, particularly in how much they have backed off from The Vision in favour of The Money.

LOTS.

[Venkman]

Inquistor is still post launch. The remaining chunks will open first with up to level 35 on Thestra hopefully some time next week and then the 35+ chunks slowly but surely after that, with as many ready as we can by launch, and then us continuing to work our butts off after launch.

You've made the classic blunder! It's like fighting a land war in Asia! You never bet a Sicilian when death is on the line! You never patch in 1/3 of your content three weeks before launch!

(I'm sure the expectation is that there'll be {some amount of time} before people even see the 35+ stuff anyway, so therefore they'll have enough time to patch it in before people get there en masse. I'm as sure as that as I am of {some amount of time} being incorrect by a factor of two).

[Kenrick]

Hmmm how can I put my opinion into words...

Graphically, I think it has potential to be an okay looking game, but right now everything about it is very unpolished.

Here's my big gripe with this game so far, though.  Look, I think I have a decent rig.  I can run games like WoW and HL2 in high resolutions with the graphics settings on high quality.  But, in Vanguard, even on "high performance" mode, my framerate leaves much to be desired.  And of course, setting it on high performance or ultra high performance makes the world and models look like shit anyway.  (Think EQ2, maybe even worse).

The gameplay itself seems like it could really be enjoyable, but I think I speak for most people when I say I'm not going to even consider buying a game that doesn't run well on my PC.  That's one reason I still enjoy playing WoW... smooth 60.0 FPS in all environments.

In summary:  So far, slightly more enjoyable than LoTRO, and far less enjoyable than EQ2.

[LK]

Keep in mind that we will be keeping a solid Live Team on board and keep working on the game post-launch. And this team is seperate from the expansion team, and the expansion team will be helping the live team at *least* 2 months after launch.

Well I'm glad they are already planning to get an expansion out.  Maybe they should finish the damn game first though.

[Lantyssa]

Putting the cart before the horse is fairly typical of the MMO mentality.