Vanguard is live.

[HaemishM]

A purchase of Vanguard is a vote for the TERRORISTS!

Good one.

Vanguard is what EQ2 would have been had Brad not left SOE. Only not as good, because he pulled all the worst devs off of the SOE train and left the people with talent, the ones who fixed EQ2 post-release. Brad has now polluted 3 games with his catass stench, and only one of those games is now worth playing thanks to the efforts of the live team.

That game isn't Vanguard.

[Joey]

Oh, come on now... 

If we DON'T play bug-riddled MMOs, then haven't the terrorists truly won?

[Falconeer]

You guys are silly.

If there's anyone who has the right to re-make the old diku/eq gameplay, that man is Brad McQuaid. I don't like him, but you can't fuck with him because he tries to best himself at the only thing he did good in his life. Blame the cloners, blame the market, don't blame him and his game this is NOT his 5th diku, it's just his second one, and should you ever make anything in your life that you are proud of, you'd probably do the same: try to make it again, but better. According to your OWN perspective.

This leads us to Vanguard...

This genre, as in 3d dikus, is less than 10 years old and you are SO fed up with it to the point of being scared it will eventually eat up your videogaming dream world? The MMO world will be corrupted because a few guys still like this pretty young kind of games? Oh, but where were you all when Stray and me said WoW is fucking Stepford meet invasion of the Body Snatchers? TEN FUCKING MILLION IDIOTS ARE PLAYING WORLD OF WARCRAFT AND YOU ARE HERE BUSTING BALLS ABOUT THE (supposed) 200k WHO WILL PLAY VANGUARD??

You are all talking about lessons to be learned, so which is the lesson to be learned here? "Polish your game"?
That's it?


EDIT: And by the way, this is not about Vanguard anymore. This is about you all being silly. Being jaded and cynical is one thing. Being obsessed is another.

[Miasma]

If we could hook the terrorists into playing MMOs then all of their hate would be burned up arguing about class imbalance issues and they would not have the energy to attack us.

[Nebu]

Well, this should fuel your bile then...  

I'm actually enjoying Vanguard for reasons that don't fit the stereotypes here.  I don't like to grind, I don't care about loot, and I'm not in any rush to get to the endgame.  The game is placed in a vast world where I'm free to explore and do as I please.  It's vastness is immersive to me and would be more so were it not for the lack of polish and significant number of bugs.  I like to just wander around and look at things or create little mini-adventures for myself.  The great expanse of things helps me feel the value of travelling across the world and it is like extra content to me.  If I want to do quests, there are more available to me than I can possibly do.  When I encounter creatures, they're social without telling me which will come on any given pull.  If killing creatures gets dull, crafting is mildly entertaining and Diplomacy is interesting enough to hold my attention for brief stints.  I can also solo enough that I don't feel my options are severly limited.  

I've played WoW on three different occasions (a month in beta, a month at release, and month after the release of BC) and find that I'm enjoying Vanguard more.  Perhaps it's the style, I'm not sure.  Now I'm not saying that Vanguard is a better game than WoW.  It certainly isn't.  Vanguard contains some elements that I felt were missing in CoH, EQ2, and WoW.  I guess that Vanguard seems more like a sim than a game to me and that's what appeals to my tastes.  That's what I also loved about ATitD.  I also don't have any delusions about playing this game long... but I think that's more a byproduct of having played so many mmogs than anything.

For all of the broken elements, I'm still wanting to log on to this niche game.  For it's faults, I'm glad that I have it as an option.  

[LC]

...

Did you really need ten lines to call yourself a carebear?

All you really did was send a message to developers: "Yes, I'll gladly buy your feces in a boobie covered carton!"

You continue funding this shit, and the rest of us suffer because of that. The money thrown away on these shitty games could be funding the next UO instead. (I don't mean a UO clone or sequel. I'm talking about a new and innovative game that can do as much for the genre as UO did.)

[Nebu]

You continue funding this shit, and the rest of us suffer because of that. The money thrown away on these shitty games could be funding the next UO instead. (I don't mean a UO clone or sequel. I'm talking about a new and innovative game that can do as much for the genre as UO did.)

I'm enjoying the game.  I'm upfront enough to voice my opinion when it's not "trendy".  I've payed to play significantly less fun games in the past. Why?  Because actually playing the game is the only way to make up my mind for myself.  If I bitch about the game for 2 years while continuing to subscribe the entire time, then you'll have a legitimate beef.   

I must admit the "carebear" bit was a nice touch.  I'll bet you're the rage over at VN. 

[Chenghiz]

...

Did you really need ten lines to call yourself a carebear?

All you really did was send a message to developers: "Yes, I'll gladly buy your feces in a boobie covered carton!"

You continue funding this shit, and the rest of us suffer because of that. The money thrown away on these shitty games could be funding the next UO instead. (I don't mean a UO clone or sequel. I'm talking about a new and innovative game that can do as much for the genre as UO did.)

I'm not about to defend VG here, but while buying and playing innovative games is certainly a lofty and beneficial goal, it is not a crime to play a game simply because you enjoy it. Don't be silly.

[Nija]

I must admit the "carebear" bit was a nice touch.  I'll bet you're the rage over at VN. 

VN is too ban-happy for our kind. They still won't revoke the bans put in place when I made fun of that "forum funeral" for some dipshit AC2 player who died.

[LC]

I'm enjoying the game.  I'm upfront enough to voice my opinion when it's not "trendy".  I've payed to play significantly less fun games in the past. Why?  Because actually playing the game is the only way to make up my mind for myself.  If I bitch about the game for 2 years while continuing to subscribe the entire time, then you'll have a legitimate beef.   

Your definitions of "fun" and "enjoy" must come from some alternative dictionary. I played Vancrap in beta, and there was nothing resembling either one.

[Ixxit]

Well, this should fuel your bile then...  

The game is placed in a vast world where I'm free to explore and do as I please.  It's vastness is immersive to me and would be more so were it not for the lack of polish and significant number of bugs.  I like to just wander around and look at things or create little mini-adventures for myself.  The great expanse of things helps me feel the value of travelling across the world and it is like extra content to me.  If I want to do quests, there are more available to me than I can possibly do.  When I encounter creatures, they're social without telling me which will come on any given pull.  If killing creatures gets dull, crafting is mildly entertaining and Diplomacy is interesting enough to hold my attention for brief stints.  I can also solo enough that I don't feel my options are severly limited.  

I have found this to be one of the reasons I like Vanguard as well.  I especially like the Varanjar (Barbarian) starting area and the wilderness around the town of Halgarad which has a distinctive 'viking' feel to it.  The world design is such that it conveys the feeling that it is inhabited, that people live there, something that WoW has never been able to achieve despite it's artistic merits and uniform style.  Every area has nice panoramic views with great use of elevation; if you are down in the valley looking up you can see numerous points of interest (like a town on a ridge, or a ruin)  and if you are are up on a plateau you can easy survey the world around you plotting out  interesting routes you might like to explore.

Questing is good, and for those those stating that there is no lore, are probably not reading the quest dialogue or skipping right to the part that tells you to "collect xxxx number of gizzards and yyy number of spleens".   I think WoW has conditioned people to do this because the questing system is like an unstoppable freight train that is really hard to get off at times and just breath.  There is one quest in the Varanjar starting area where you learn about the history and heroes of your ancestors by speaking with spirits in a cave.  Pretty cool.  

The crafting and diplomacy are interesting diversions that complement adventuring so that you can pretty much do what you like at your own pace without the feeling that you are falling behind others who are rabidly connecting the dots (quest exclamation point to question mark).

[Nebu]

Your definitions of "fun" and "enjoy" must come from some alternative dictionary. I played Vancrap in beta, and there was nothing resembling either one.

Congrats.  You just discovered that different people like different things.  That's why the marketplace can bear a wide array of products. 

Don't like it?  Don't play it.  Telling me what I should or shouldn't like just displays arrogance. 

[Ixxit]

All you really did was send a message to developers: "Yes, I'll gladly buy your feces in a boobie covered carton!"

You continue funding this shit, and the rest of us suffer because of that. The money thrown away on these shitty games could be funding the next UO instead. (I don't mean a UO clone or sequel. I'm talking about a new and innovative game that can do as much for the genre as UO did.)

Wow, you were born way too late and missed your calling:

[slog]

LC and Nija are well known exploiters from the days of Shadowbane so a Crusader is probably the wrong pic.

[Ixxit]

LC and Nija are well known exploiters from the days of Shadowbane so a Crusader is probably the wrong pic.

Very well then:

[Falconeer]

...

Did you really need ten lines to call yourself a carebear?

All you really did was send a message to developers: "Yes, I'll gladly buy your feces in a boobie covered carton!"

You continue funding this shit, and the rest of us suffer because of that. The money thrown away on these shitty games could be funding the next UO instead. (I don't mean a UO clone or sequel. I'm talking about a new and innovative game that can do as much for the genre as UO did.)

Here's one of the clowns I was mentioning before. What's this shit about funding and all?
Are you serious? Please go beg Vivend and Blizzard to invest 1% of their income or R&D of the next UO but stop the act about Vanguard as it is definitely NOT the problem. Are you blind or just biased beyond all recognition?

Next UO? I am all for it. I am with the highly unpopular Sinij/Slayerik(Nija?) party: post trammel UO is shit, pre trammel UO is the pinnacle of MMO history. I guess that makes me the opposite of a carebear. But those days are over and it's not because of Vanguard. Blame EverQuest, blame the people who chose EQ over UO, blame World of Warcraft.. blame the world.
But how in hell can you focus your attention on Vanguard with a carebear beast the size of World of Warcraft around is beyond me.

[LC]

But how in hell can you focus your attention on Vanguard with a carebear beast the size of World of Warcraft around is beyond me.

Because Vancrap is the newest addition to the long list of shitty MMOs. You can take everything I have posted to this thread, and substitute "World of Warcrap" for "Vancrap". It would still be true.

[Nija]

I am with the highly unpopular Sinij/Slayerik(Nija?) party: post trammel UO is shit, pre trammel UO is the pinnacle of MMO history.

...

But how in hell can you focus your attention on Vanguard with a carebear beast the size of World of Warcraft around is beyond me.

I'll paraphrase a good Zappa quote, "You're not necessarily wrong just because a few million people say you're wrong."

As for focusing attention on VG while ignoring World of Warcraft, I think L-C's direction with that comment is that buying and playing it now reminds developers that people will buy your steaming shit sandwiches. Not only will they buy them, but they'll form a line around the block to buy them.


I'll compare the state of WoW and VG at release to cars.

WoW is a '99 Toyota Corolla
VG is a '99 VW Jetta

Both have defects. One will have you replacing bulbs. The other will leave you with massive head injury.

[Surlyboi]

...

Did you really need ten lines to call yourself a carebear?

You only needed one to call yourself a tool. Unfortunately, we can't all be as succinct as you are.

Please, oh wise one. Enlighten us with your pearls of knowledge, tell us what a "better game" would consist of.

[Nebu]

I owe you guys.  This thread is providing endless entertainment at work today.  The comparison of liking a video game to severity in automotive defects was the icing on the cake. 

[Venkman]

WoW took the world by storm through making EQ more approachable, keeping the system requirements low, coming with a strong community playing derivative RTS games, and ensuring the game actually, like, worked. Heck, even the scores of millions of accounts in Maplestory are folks playing a diku spinoff.

So, yes, there's definitely room for derivative games. In fact, if you look at where the vast majority of paying accounts are and at the vast majority of games bought or downloaded across all genres, it's all derivative.

But most conversation isn't about derivative game play because it's all been discussed before. Unless that title attracted a whole bunch of new poeple.

Say what you will of EQ but my general feeling from a lot of the people on this board is that they spent a considerable amount of time in EQ despite its flaws, many to the point of addiction

EQ accounted for 20% of the games out at the time and well more than 50% of the people interested in this sort of experience. We stayed despite its flaws because we believed in the experience, and had no basis for comparison except the theorycraft of armchair designers on Whineplay. At that point we would rather play a crappy time sink than a boring offline game.

[Falconeer]

I'd agree with you all should Vanguard gather more than 500k subscription. At that point we could start an argument about this. And even in that case, it would be easy to demonstrate that Vanguard eventual "success" being a consequence of World of Warcraft success (and inevitable burnout on the long term). But that won't ever happen! Given the predictions on Vanguard subs, don't liking it is one thing, while giving it any kind of importance in MMO future development is simply ridiculous.

Didn't we all agree months ago that Vanguard won't be in any book of videogaming history?

This all "vote no to Vanguard" is like making a protest against the Sundance Film Festival claiming it kills true indie cinema while proudly attending the Oscar® Academy Award show.

[Nija]

Say what you will of EQ but my general feeling from a lot of the people on this board is that they spent a considerable amount of time in EQ despite its flaws, many to the point of addiction

I actually skipped EQ at the time, because I had so much fun in UO. My thinking at that time was if I couldn't kill a guy and steal his pants - or die and lose my shirt, it wasn't worth my time.

Since then I've had to drop that mantra, otherwise I would have played 0 mmorpgs between then and now.

[LC]

Please, oh wise one. Enlighten us with your pearls of knowledge, tell us what a "better game" would consist of.

Perhaps it would look something like that.

[HaemishM]

You guys are silly.

If there's anyone who has the right to re-make the old diku/eq gameplay, that man is Brad McQuaid.

Why? He had his shot, he pissed it away with "WORKING AS INTENDED!" and rigid ego trips about how to play the game. And from the looks of things, he's making the same damn game anyway, with some of the same damn bugs and flaws. Fuck him and his raging douchebag ego.

[Belce]

Saying you like Vanguard is a heresy against this forum's orthodoxy.  And for such a sin you shall be taunted.  

I am one of the many people having a great time playing Vanguard and that has been for over  a year now.  

Perhaps if I read this forum more, I will come upon an ephinay and see the light to true gaming joy.  I didn't know I liked crap until F13 showed me the errors in what I call fun.  

[Falconeer]

Please, oh wise one. Enlighten us with your pearls of knowledge, tell us what a "better game" would consist of.

Perhaps it would look something like that.

I agree. Wholeheartedly. Is Vanguard preventing that to happen?

[Nebu]

Perhaps if I read this forum more, I will come upon an ephinay and see the light to true gaming joy.  I didn't know I liked crap until F13 showed me the errors in what I call fun.  

The forum makes many valid points about Vanguard and most are based on solid gameplay experience.  I respect many of the thoughts and insights that I've read about Vanguard here especially since most are spot on.  However, people do tend to take it too far when they accost someone for liking something that the community thinks they shouldn't.  Seems more productive to use those disagreements as the jumping point for dialogue.  

I can't browbeat this too much as I'm guilty of similar behavior in the past myself.

[LC]

I agree. Wholeheartedly. Is Vanguard preventing that to happen?

Yes.

[Morat20]

You guys are silly.

If there's anyone who has the right to re-make the old diku/eq gameplay, that man is Brad McQuaid.

Why? He had his shot, he pissed it away with "WORKING AS INTENDED!" and rigid ego trips about how to play the game. And from the looks of things, he's making the same damn game anyway, with some of the same damn bugs and flaws. Fuck him and his raging douchebag ego.

Not to mention Vanguard isn't "EQ done right" by Brad's stated views. All the hard core cock-blocking and dick-grinding was removed --  and from the comments in Beta that started happening right about the time SOE had to step in to get it finished.

It's still more grindy and painful than WoW -- but it's not a damn thing like what he originally envisioned. It's also no surprise that it went from shit-hole to possibly one day fun when Brad's vision got shitcanned.

[HaemishM]

I owe you guys.  This thread is providing endless entertainment at work today.  The comparison of liking a video game to severity in automotive defects was the icing on the cake. 

I bet if more people died from shitty trainwreck MMOG's we'd stop getting so many shitty trainwreck MMOG's. I wrote an article about that once.

[HaemishM]

Saying you like Vanguard is a heresy against this forum's orthodoxy.  And for such a sin you shall be taunted.  

No orthodoxy to it. You'll be taunted for playing a game so derivative that residents of EQ2 could be knocked unconscious, drugged and plopped into Vanguard and they wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Play what you want and have fun with it. It doesn't mean you aren't playing a shitty, derivative game and it doesn't mean we won't tell you you are playing a shitty derivative game.

And when I get home, I'll likely play my shitty, deriviative version of FIFA 07 for the X-Box because I can. Ain't freedom fun?

[Falconeer]

I agree. Wholeheartedly. Is Vanguard preventing that to happen?

Yes.

You are a troll.

[Nebu]

I bet if more people died from shitty trainwreck MMOG's we'd stop getting so many shitty trainwreck MMOG's. I wrote an article about that once.

Vanguard is derivative, but I wouldn't say it's in the trainwreck category like other games I could mention.  Maybe history will prove me wrong.  Ultimately most mmo's are still the same turd.  Some are just more highly polished and perfumed than others.  

  

[Signe]

You are WRONG to have fun!