Vanguard: Round 1 - FIGHT!

[WindupAtheist]

Die, game, die!  MUAHAHAHAH!

[Falconeer]

There's a part of me that always wanted to play UO with WUA, fighting together and rocking Britannia. After all I spawned his avatar (he'll deny it), and I use to love his humour.
The other part of me can't wait to get him on a foggy night on Felucca to KICK HIS ASS!!!

[WindupAtheist]

Pfft, nobody goes to Felucca.  If you wanted to e-beat me, you'd have to find me in WoW.

Which reminds me, what do UO and WoW have in common?  They both have more paid subscriptions than Vanguard!  Buahahaha!

I reiterate:  DIE GAME!

[Simond]

Pfft, nobody goes to Felucca.  If you wanted to e-beat me, you'd have to find me in WoW.

Which reminds me, what do UO and WoW have in common?  They both have more paid subscriptions than Vanguard!  Buahahaha!

I reiterate:  DIE GAME!

As do EQ and its sequel...which is the real kicker. 

[Falconeer]

Pfft, nobody goes to Felucca.  If you wanted to e-beat me, you'd have to find me in WoW.

What's the point? There's no PvP in World of Warcraft, unless you carebears used to call Team Fortress and the like "pvp".

[Morfiend]

What's the point? There's no PvP in World of Warcraft, unless you carebears used to call Team Fortress and the like "pvp".

This would be a false statement.


It might not be h4rd0R3 PVP. But there is definitely PVP. World PVP and BGs.

[WindupAtheist]

WoW world PVP > Old-UO "crap I need to buy another six suits of armor today" PVP

WoW world PVP also > Modern-UO "crap I need to buy 200 million gp worth of gear to compete" PVP

[Falconeer]

What's your point man?

Battlefield 2 PvP > WoW PvP.

So?

[Venkman]

PvP in WoW is either "crap, I'm getting ganked on this turn in" or another way to grind for gear. Even the "world PvP". It's nice to have that extra 5% zone-wide buff to damage or XP gain, but otherwise it's about grinding something for faction, which in turn means gear.

UO was a different game, at a different time. But ultimately, in my time, people did PvP for kicks. You couldn't "own" the "land" you "conquered". The best you could do was grief your opponent so much they up and moved so you could "expand" your "town" there.

Shadowbane did it right.

In the idea phase anyway.

[WindupAtheist]

I'm not overly fond of the usual class/level diku mechanics, and I'd be pleased if something else miraculously began to replace them in future games.  But leaving that aside, I have to say that the success of WoW and the apparent failure of Vanguard make me feel good about the industry.

Vanguard was the last chance for the "old school" faction to rebut the crushing invalidation of it's ideas that WoW delivered, and it failed miserably.  You can get a few hundred hunchbacked degenerate catasses to blather on a forum about how corpse runs, and XP loss, and PVP looting, and twelve-hour mob camps, and stupid-long travel times gave meaning to their useless lives, but the market has spoken and it has told us that if you actually try to sell that shit to people, then you will be rejected.

All those people you see in places like the Vanguard forums, who bitch about WoW being easy-mode?  It's over, and they lose.  They can go sit in the corner and cry about how MMO gaming is too easy, and how their washing machine doesn't even kick them in the nuts, and how every ten-thousandth can of Spaghetti-O's should be poisoned in order to make eating more meaningful, but nobody will ever fucking listen to them again.  Ever.

Have fun trying to learn to read Korean, you fucking catasses.  I hear they have a lot of games that might suit your tastes.

[Margalis]

Travel times are funny, I saw a thread on it.

One side said that the travel was very long, prevented them from playing with friends, and that the wilderness areas were just really boring. As one person put it, the game is WOW with vast empty areas of filler thrown between points of interest.

The other side's point was "go back to WOW." That was it.

I enjoyed when one person asked this:

"How do travel spires ruin your gameplay? If you want to travel and explore can't you just choose not to use them?"

7 pages later, no answer.

[KallDrexx]

lol, gg vanguard.  Apparently the last patch put in a lot of unbelievable bugs.  I am talking to my friend who actively plays (and is pissed the hell off) right now about it.

Some of the goodies:
rollbacks when you log off and log on (my friend lost 20% of a level just by logging off).
lose crafting levels randomly (another person lost 18 crafting levels just by talking to an NPC).
Randomly die and have your corpse missing (my friend turned in a quest to level him, he crashed.  When he logged on he was dead and his corpse was missing).

And no, SOE won't refund hte xp.  They tried petitioning a few times (separately, not spamming) and their petition got deleted every time.  Another person got a response telling him it's a known issue and they will not give xp reimbursements.

[Margalis]

This game is obviously very poorly programmed. Some of the bugs I've read about are unbelievable and evidence of just incredibly sloppiness. Hotkeys firing the wrong action, trade interface not working, etc.

Non-engineers always seem to think that with more time you can iron out the problems. The truth is for something that is very poor sometimes only a full rewrite will fix problems, or the problems may be eventually fixed over the course of decades.

Catching a bug in development and fixing it (or just not writing it in the first place) is free. Catching a fixing a bug after you ship (or any late stage) is very costly in time and resources. SWG was the same way. Years later and still many bugs remain.

Vanguard did not need more time or more money. It needed more competence. It isn't too early to call the game an utter failure IMO. The main draw of the game is being part of the smug anti-WOW community.

People ask why SOE forced them to ship "early"? (On time) Because SOE is smart. SOE knew that 6 months or a year of extra development would not make a big difference and would not be recouped with enough new subs to make it worthwhile.

[Venkman]

And no, SOE won't refund hte xp.  They tried petitioning a few times (separately, not spamming) and their petition got deleted every time.  Another person got a response telling him it's a known issue and they will not give xp reimbursements.

Whoa. Even the EQ2 team has refunded XP, or at least accelerated it for a time. I gotta imagine that's more Sigil talking than SOE, because not refunding XP lost to retarded bugs smacks very much of Vision(tm), and even SOE has shed some of that arrogant crap over the years (particularly the EQ2 team).

No game is perfect, and you have to bend with the broke. Telling the only group you're ever going to get for your sucky game that they can't get their hard-won XP back because you fucked up your code does not make your game hard-core. It just makes you an ass.

I feel for the players. Let them all be in their first or second MMO and take to their third and fifth the hard-learned life lessons.

[palmer_eldritch]

Another bug -death on recall. You can recall back to your bind point once every so often (I think an hour). One time, recalling on full health (not in the middle of a fight or anything - I wasn't dotted) killed me. Nothing in combat text to give any hint why.

The game does also seem to delete your tombstone if you crash and somehow die offline. Which is annoying, as you crash to desktop quite a lot. The game seems to have a memory leak.

I should say in fairness that I'm still enjoying it.

[trias_e]

People ask why SOE forced them to ship "early"? (On time) Because SOE is smart.

Releasing that close to the WoW expansion is not smart by any reasoning.  I think they should have released at least 3 months after TBC came out, but hell, releasing 3 months before TBC would have still been better, even if it was (even more) buggy as hell at the least they could have got more box sales out of the deal.

2 weeks of gameplay in:


I have 20 hours played on my main character, probably 35 across characters (I got 5 different characters to level 6).  The game is still fun for me.  I haven't encountered any horrific bugs, fallen through the world, crashed to desktop, no lag whatsoever, etc.  Basically I've have had the best possible experience one can have with the game as far as I can tell.  Don't get me wrong, it's been buggy, but I would consider the bugs minor to medium in scope thus far.  The game runs decently (not as well as it should of course) on my system and is very pretty at moments.

Comparing it to my WoW experience, I would say the lack of polish brings it down, but the fundamental gameplay and the world itself is actually a bit more interesting, at least at low level.  The grind doesn't bother me yet, as I'm having fun and my character is pretty fun to play.  The death penalty is not bad yet. This may likely change.

And it's gonna get me paying through one month at least.  Maybe not after that.  The 'forced grouping' hasn't kicked in yet (13 monk), and as I said, I've had a pretty good experience so far that is probably above average (just out of pure luck).  I'm sure my experience will change, likely for the worse.  But till then...I'll give my cash to Brad.  (haemish winces)

[pants]

the apparent failure of Vanguard

I aint no Vanboi - but surely its a bit early to be calling Vanguard a failure isn't it?  McQuaid has been saying for years that its a long term niche game, multi year subscriptions etc etc.  Just coz it didn't sell a million copies in the first (rushed, buggy) launch - I dont see how that means its doomed to go the route of AC2 or E&B.  Unless I'm missing some awful sales figures, I thought it was doing ok but not spectacular for now...

[trias_e]

Initial sales of 100k are not good (because even if it's a niche game, it's not a low budge niche game, and they are looking for 300k subs at least I'm sure), and they are the highest estimates I've seen.

But I actually think this game might rise in subs though over time.  As someone else mentioned, it really depends on the competence of the live team.  The basis for an enjoyable experience seems to be there at this point, and they have a big world to fill with interesting stuff if they can pull it off.

[Margalis]

McQuaid never said it was going to be a niche game. That is the problem. He said it was focused on retention and the long haul, and did not expect WOW numbers. However they did expect 250k-500k subs.

[Lt.Dan]

Releasing that close to the WoW expansion is not smart by any reasoning.  I think they should have released at least 3 months after TBC came out, but hell, releasing 3 months before TBC would have still been better, even if it was (even more) buggy as hell at the least they could have got more box sales out of the deal.

2 weeks of gameplay in:


I have 20 hours played on my main character, probably 35 across characters (I got 5 different characters to level 6).  The game is still fun for me.  I haven't encountered any horrific bugs, fallen through the world, crashed to desktop, no lag whatsoever, etc.  Basically I've have had the best possible experience one can have with the game as far as I can tell.  Don't get me wrong, it's been buggy, but I would consider the bugs minor to medium in scope thus far.  The game runs decently (not as well as it should of course) on my system and is very pretty at moments.

Comparing it to my WoW experience, I would say the lack of polish brings it down, but the fundamental gameplay and the world itself is actually a bit more interesting, at least at low level.  The grind doesn't bother me yet, as I'm having fun and my character is pretty fun to play.  The death penalty is not bad yet. This may likely change.

And it's gonna get me paying through one month at least.  Maybe not after that.  The 'forced grouping' hasn't kicked in yet (13 monk), and as I said, I've had a pretty good experience so far that is probably above average (just out of pure luck).  I'm sure my experience will change, likely for the worse.  But till then...I'll give my cash to Brad.  (haemish winces)

I've had very similar experiences getting a Psionicist to 12.  Some bugs but no crashes nor any of the poor programming implementation mentioned elsewhere in this thread.  So far the worst issue I've come across is mobs aggroing through walls (which is a total bastard).  The death penalty (so far) is nothing to complain about and some of the gameplay is kind of fun (Diplomacy is fun, solo dungeons are fun, horse at 10 is nice).  Some of the starting areas are really well designed - one you start off as an officer in an imperial army beating and looting peasants, only to have realise it's the wrong path and be "reborn".  It's not the total clusterfuck the haters make it out to be, but it's not a AAA MMO either - maybe it would have been killer if it had been released pre-EQ2/WoW.  It was worth a look but probably not worth paying for an extra month - although my guild has finally decided to relocate to a single continent which might make things a bit more interesting.

[KallDrexx]

Whoa. Even the EQ2 team has refunded XP, or at least accelerated it for a time. I gotta imagine that's more Sigil talking than SOE, because not refunding XP lost to retarded bugs smacks very much of Vision(tm), and even SOE has shed some of that arrogant crap over the years (particularly the EQ2 team).

Is Sigil in charge of the customer service or is SOE.  I don't know how that works with games published by SOE.

[shiznitz]

Great new bug tonight: when a new member joins the group, the leader gets randomly re-assigned BUT that leader cannot change the looting rules.

[Margalis]

See...how do you even have a bug like that? The code must be a total mess for that sort of thing to happen.

[ajax34i]

EDIT: Nevermind, I don't really know.

[squirrel]

Great new bug tonight: when a new member joins the group, the leader gets randomly re-assigned BUT that leader cannot change the looting rules.

Muahahahahaha. Oh god the griefing/ninja'ing & squealing this could produce. That's a horrible bug, the kind that should never make it to production or be immediately hot-fixed if it does.

[Venkman]

Whoa. Even the EQ2 team has refunded XP, or at least accelerated it for a time. I gotta imagine that's more Sigil talking than SOE, because not refunding XP lost to retarded bugs smacks very much of Vision(tm), and even SOE has shed some of that arrogant crap over the years (particularly the EQ2 team).

Is Sigil in charge of the customer service or is SOE.  I don't know how that works with games published by SOE.

SOE's infrastructure is pretty vast and integrated from what I understand. I imagine they do maybe handle some CSR as part of their collective service. However, the deeper stuff (code, busted issues, etc) is probably all Sigil. They know the game.

But I don't really know. It could be that SOE has nothing to do with CSR and it's all Sigil.

[Calantus]

I'm late to the party so I'm quoting some old posts here, and I realise that.

You deluded cheaters who loved to to play R-Type ansd Xenon 2 in godmode don't impress me at all.
If you can't stand defeat, if you can't get a good chuckle over some digital hurdles, then it's time to get that Action Replay cartridge and save yourself the bad part of videogames, which is called "Game Over" in my book while "staples 'n eggs" in your.

Um... what? Difficult != Hardcore. You failed if you die. That should be enough of a motivator to not do it again. That should be enough of a kick in the balls to feel pissed off or annoyed. You don't need the game to kick you when you're down to drive home to the point that you failed. I play games on hard mode all the time, and difficulty is rarely a reason for me to call a game teh suck (unless the "difficulty" is just another word for random). I enjoy challenge and can cope with failing because I did not execute properly. That doesn't mean I want the game to kick me when I fail. A simple "YOU LOSE" and the screen fading to black is just fine. But I better not have to wait 5 minutes before I can play again, or have to replay the last 5 levels just to make it back to the boss. No, put me back at the beginning of the specific challenge I failed and I'll have another go.

I HATED dying in WoW, and that game doesn't do shit to you when you kick the bucket. In BGs if I die I simply spawn back in less than 30 seconds, but dying means somebody killed me. Somebody beat me. That's just not acceptable and I need to do better. I'm completely, utterly (privately) arrogant when I play games. I'm better than everyone I see by default. That means losing has a bit of weight behind it. I remember someone who I dismissed as just a trash talking idiot once responded to someone telling him to grow up that he only trash talked because it upped the anti and that otherwise BG games meant nothing to him. If he loses he's going to cop shit and lose a lot of face because of his tough words before the start. You can make your own death penalty, you don't need the game to do it for you. It's always been the failure part of dying that pisses me off at myself and motivates me to do better, kicking me when I fail just makes me pissed off at the game and motivates me to quit.

It's like hardcore/softcore in Diablo 2. I played many softcore characters where I would not die over the whole course of the game because I didn't want to die. Is a hardcore player playing a harder game? No, they're just playing one that punishes them when they die, the actual difficulty never changes. Infact, the softcore player is more likely to take risks that take skill to survive because they don't have such a huge penalty hanging over their neck. I don't see anything wrong with a hardcore mode for those that want the added risk, but if the whole of D2 was hardcore you can bet I'd label it as "suck" and never play it. I will say that it's kind of pointless though... you can just go ahead and delete your character on your own when they die.

I try not to address that stupid bullshit anymore, Haemmy. Besides, the grouptards won, most mmo is not worth soloing anymore. At least if you ever want decent drops, named mobs, or dungeons. I don't understand why soloers can't be happy as second-class citizens. I should break up with my girlfriend and sell my guitars so I can play more correctly.

There was a period of a few months where I was only working maybe 10 hours a week by choice because I was playing WoW very heavily. Even during those times when I had near infinite play time I hated being forced into groups. I personally love grouping, and some of my most favourite moments in gaming are with a group. But I like it on my terms, I do not want to be forced to group. Half the people in the world are stupid and/or dickheads (either in real life, or only when they go on the internet), perhaps even more than half. I don't want to have to pick up whatever chucklefucks I can grab of the right class because the game forces me to group. I only want to group when I have the right people ready to go and I want to do it because being with those people will enhance my experience.


That's 2 shots against VG for me, and is why I won't even try it.

[WindupAtheist]

I aint no Vanboi - but surely its a bit early to be calling Vanguard a failure isn't it?

What is it possibly going to do in order to reach the several hundred thousand subscriptions that McQuaid said it needed in order to be profitable?  Sell another 200k boxes and convert every single sale into a paying subscription, despite being a buggy unfinished grindy shitpile with prohibitive system requirements and negative buzz?

Are they going to patch out all the bugs, finish the content, and then have some sort of grassroots rise to success?  Fuck no.  In the entire history of buttfucked MMO releases, when has that ever happened?  I guess Eve had a shitty launch, but it also had the benefit of an uncontested market niche and a profile low enough that a lot of people didn't even hear about the game until after they had some time to clean things up.

But Vanguard is smack in the middle of the most heavily contested market in the industry, and it's already made a big ugly miserable splash.  I mean, people were still referring to UO as "that game with all the player-killers" for YEARS after they added Trammel.  First impressions really do stick hard.

[Trippy]

I aint no Vanboi - but surely its a bit early to be calling Vanguard a failure isn't it?

What is it possibly going to do in order to reach the several hundred thousand subscriptions that McQuaid said it needed in order to be profitable?  Sell another 200k boxes and convert every single sale into a paying subscription, despite being a buggy unfinished grindy shitpile with prohibitive system requirements and negative buzz?

Are they going to patch out all the bugs, finish the content, and then have some sort of grassroots rise to success?  Fuck no.  In the entire history of buttfucked MMO releases, when has that ever happened?

AO managed to do it and...that's about it.

[Falconeer]

Die, game, die!  MUAHAHAHAH!

Richard Garriott just said:

Richard Garriott: Let me back up and tell you how I feel about this whole genre, the MMO genre. First of all, any MMO that has ever in its life gotten over the 100,000-player mark is still here. All of them. You would think that competition and new games would ultimately peel away those players and somehow it does not.

So Vanguard is cursed to last ten years.

[Hound]

Die, game, die!  MUAHAHAHAH!

Richard Garriott just said:

Richard Garriott: Let me back up and tell you how I feel about this whole genre, the MMO genre. First of all, any MMO that has ever in its life gotten over the 100,000-player mark is still here. All of them. You would think that competition and new games would ultimately peel away those players and somehow it does not.

So Vanguard is cursed to last ten years.

you are assuming that (A) Garriot is a marketing guru just because he is/was a hell of a game designer and (B) Sigil/SOE really has 100k subscribers.
Vanguard isn't going anywhere though. SOE keeps Planetside, SWG and the Matrix on life support and they will do the same for Vanguard in the hope that someday ball peen hammer vasectomies will be the rage.

[Falconeer]

No, I was joking.

[Hound]

No, I was joking.

Did he really say that though?

[Falconeer]

Oh yes. (Although he didn't mention Vanguard)

[Simond]

AO had to go free-to-play with ingame adds to keep their playerbase at a viable level, so I'm not quite sure how viable they were.

Backtracking a little, the other reason why Vanguard wasn't delayed three months or so is that would put it head-to-head with LOTRO. Going up against TBC gave Sigil a bit of an excuse, in a way - Sigil can shrug, point at the hundreds of people queueing at three in the morning for an expansion pack and say "We were never going to be able to compete with that".

Going head-to-head with Turbine and still only getting ~100K subs, OTOH, is an entirely different kettle of fish.