Vanguard: Round 1 - FIGHT!

[Calantus]

I'd also like to point out that just because a game is still going does not necessarily mean it was profitable as a whole. You don't just get back your investment when you collapse a game, it's just gone. If you're making a profit in the month-to-month then you have a reason to keep it open, even if it will never become profitable when venture capital is taken into account. Also, becoming profitable is not of relevance in and of itself. It has to beat out the other options that were available at the time of investment for the investment to pay off, and it has to beat them by a significant margin if those other options were less of a risk.

[trias_e]

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.

I suppose that might be fair.

But why not release it inbetween TBC and LOTRO releases however?  Late Jan for TBC, late April for LOTRO.  Why not release it early-mid march, when TBC buzz had died down and LOTRO was still over a month away? 

[Surlyboi]

Because releasing it unopposed would truly show how much it..."shines".

[Ixxit]

Gave this game an honest second week with a friend.  I'm out.  Game-breaking bugs + grind that would make a Lineage player cry = Not for me. 

Saw much of the world... that was enough.  I gave it my best and I'm sorry I gave them my money.  I feel dirty. 

I'm out too. Got my shaman to level 12 solo and really enjoyed it but then something hit me like a ton of bricks.  I started getting  solo quests that were just a little too hard for my level, which left me with no alternative but to grind easier mobs for a mere pixel of experience (which was adjusted significantly post launch).    I have no qualms against grouping, but family committments only allow this type of play once in a while.  While I appreciate that there is  stuff Vanguard that is group orientated like all mmos, at least EQ II and WoW give  interesting things to do on nights you may not have time to group .  The only option you have in Vanguard is play 'move the pixel' until you are strong enough to carry on with your solo quests.  The precipice is quite sudden and brutal.

Combine that with  bugs and  a clunky engine, and you pretty much come to the realization that you really need to make too many concessions as a player.

[EDIT] What attracted me to Vanguard initially was the virtual word feeling.  I think it caputred that quite well,  and I am realy disappointed that there is really nothing like it comming out in the near future. 

[shiznitz]

VG with an EQ2 levelling curve would be really great. VG's boats and housing are hidden behind the grind cockblock and that is too bad. The housing model is something that EQ2 and WoW cannot easily replicate since VG was designed to have plots in intersesting place. EQ2 and WoW would need a special zone to have actual physical housing. The grind in VG is so bad I don't even focus on the housing or boats. Those features might as well not be in the game for me since I am a year away from enjoying them.

[WindupAtheist]

So I'm on that VG forum linked to earlier in this thread, reading a generic "game sux, I quit" thread, when the discussion somehow turned to UO and I made a discovery that shouldn't have surprised me as much as it did:  Lots of Vanguard catasses miss old-timey Ultima Online.  (Being able to lock skills ruined the game!!1!)  The thread did generate one good quote though.

A quick question for anyone who thinks "Player justice" worked in UO,

Can you find me one verifiable post from 1997-1998, pre Trammel/Felucca, where a player says anything to the effect of:"I played UO because I wanted to gank noobs and miners, but I quit because every time I try, some anti-PK guild ganks me, and I can't find any unprotected innocents to kill anymore and I'm tired of being hunted down by other players everywhere I go because I've got such a bad rep. This game sucks!"

One person who verifably quit the game because "player justice" -- not game rule changes -- kept him from being a dickwad.

Just one.

/derail attempt

[Nebu]

I thought this was pretty spot on.

[WindupAtheist]

The housing and boats in Vanguard sounded nice in theory.  I'd like to see something like that done by someone competent, minus the hardcore catass factor that permeates VG.  Basically I'd like to see Blizzard do it, but then Blizzard only copies things that are successful.

[Margalis]

Vanguard has some nice ideas but unfortunatly is predicated on the worst idea: let's make a game for 16 year old MMORPG snobs that have nothing better to do than spend 6 hours a day playing.

[Rithrin]

I'm hoping that at least some good ideas come out of Vanguard.

Things VG had going for it (IMO):
Boats: They're fun. Cruising around through the ocean looking for remote isles is amazing. Just ditch the weeks worth of crafting grinding. Yes, weeks, just to get a "sloop", not to mention the fortune spent in crafting resources. Hell, I don't think anyone is even high enough to craft the next tier of ships yet.

Crafting: Solid, interesting crafting system. Just remove the levels. Why does crafting have both levels and skill points? But, crafted stuff was comparable to (sometimes better than) drops, which was a very very good thing.

Harvesting from nodes that are in places you'd expect them to be: Its fun chopping down trees in forests and looking in mines to find rocks and ore. More games need to do this, rather than having iron nodes popping up in the middle of grassy plains and whatnot.

Deep and large dungeons with real storylines: Nothing makes me want to crawl down to the bottom of a dungeon than a good background story and non-directed spelunking. Knowing that turning left or right at a split means I won't end up at the same end, but that I'll still find meaningful encounters and loot.

The separate wardrobe thing: Having different clothes for crafting, harvesting, and diplomacy is a good thing. Especially since it allows you to make mob drops more varied and interesting than "Magic Sword 1", "Magic Sword 2", etc. EQ2 did this with housing items, I thought it was a great idea, too. Taking a group into a haunted mansion and killing the vampire count who owns it to come out with a really cool armoire to put in my house as a trophy can be more rewarding than just another magic item drop.



Ultimately, I think the fall of VG was incompetence and grind. I haven't seen bugs like VG's since Shadowbane. I was willing to put my faith in their dev team for a couple months back then, but now (especially since WoW is around) I'm not willing to put up with game-breaking bugs. But honestly, remove the collossal bugs and the "just cause" grind, and I think VG would've done very well.

[Signe]

There were a lot of bugs in beta, but then... it was beta.  You report them and move on.  It almost seems as if there are MORE bugs now.  Some of the ones people are reporting are absolutely game breaking, in my opinion.  Random rollbacks when logging in and out?  Losing dozens of crafting levels after speaking to particular NPCs?  Come on.  Who plays a game that gives you that much of a headache?  Then there's the fact that many people with pretty high end computers have to run it using what I would consider to be unacceptable settings.  Some people defend it by saying it's a game made for "todays" technology.  I have a feeling it's more due to sloppiness.  I've seen the game using the highest settings and I didn't think it was anything special.  Using low settings, it's awful.  The animations are crappy no matter what you do.  No matter how much you tweak crap, it'll still be stinky.

[Damn Dirty Ape]

Come on.  Who plays a game that gives you that much of a headache?

a_vantard_001 says, "Whip me some more, Brad!"

[Azazel]

I'm hoping that at least some good ideas come out of Vanguard.

Harvesting from nodes that are in places you'd expect them to be: Its fun chopping down trees in forests and looking in mines to find rocks and ore. More games need to do this, rather than having iron nodes popping up in the middle of grassy plains and whatnot.

Deep and large dungeons with real storylines: Nothing makes me want to crawl down to the bottom of a dungeon than a good background story and non-directed spelunking. Knowing that turning left or right at a split means I won't end up at the same end, but that I'll still find meaningful encounters and loot.

WoW doesn't have wood, but you're aware that while you can fine ore in the open, there's much, much more of it in rocky/mountainous areas, and also inside mines, aren't you?

The dungeons thing sounds interesting, but again, it's something that WoW also has in some of it's instances. Sure, Deadmines is linear, but even exclusing the winged dungeons like Scarlet Monastery and Dire Maul, places like Stratholme and Blackrock Spire are filled with the gameworld's lore and offer multiple paths inside them which offer very different experiences, even when you don't count somewhere like Blackrock Depths as part of the "Blackrock Spire" experience (it's essentially a lower wing to the spire, as a seperate instance), BRD still offers a variety of different things to do in there, and runs will rarely "clear the dungeon".

Not saying that these things in Vanguard aren't good to have, but just that VG isn't the first one to come up with these ideas and concepts..

[Falconeer]

Yesterday I ventured deep into Khegor's End, a lev 15+ dungeon, and I really had some sort of Scarlet Monastery deja vu. It's just twice as large. In the last few days I was pretty bored at Vanguard, especially cause my guildees play for the most when I am soundly asleep. But yesterday cruise into Khegor's refreshed my enthusiasm (mildly), as the place is great and compelling. Dungeons are the strongest point of VG so far.

Once again I was able to have a great time. Not going so far as ships and houses go, I really like the active combat where tanking is a new form of art thanks to the rescue and the very hard to master aggro and where healers (I played a healer in WoW) have much more to do than just spam heals. The defensive target feature is the key and a very good idea, and the interface does a great job telling you who's aggroing the party but not always telling you (need a succesful tactics recognition roll) who's attacking who. Yes some dungeons are huge and there are so many that I am a biut overwhelmed, as I hate to skip stuff.

Unfortunately, reality hit hard two hours into the dungeon: we pulled a room and managed to take he three mobs well, when some other 4 attacked us from another room. The usual "aggro through walls" thing that always plagues poorly coded games since AO missions. So wipe.
And while it's easy to get your corpse and XP back when you are in the open, it's a different story when you are deep down in a dungeon full of 4dots linked mobs.
Add on that that I was at 99%xp, so I was PISSED. But still we managed to get down there half naked, invisibile and half equipped and we eventually get our bodies and 90% of our XP back.
So we decided to go for a few mobs more, we crawl a bit more and we tell our scout to be on her toes with the EVAC button. As soon as we get to a room with literally 30 mobs in it and we manage to pull about 10 of them with a single (bad) pull we scream for EVAC, she did... and find out that only 3 of us got evaced, while the other 3 crashed AT ONCE and died down there....

We called it a night and I get my 1% of XP needed to get level 19 killing foozles outside Renton Keep.

Once again I want to state how good Vanguard COULD be with more money, more time and more competence. It's not that I am a coder and I can judge other people competence. But I can't believe that there's no way to build a "stabler" game unless you have 60m budget or ten years or development. Wondering if Brad cared too much about a team of friends and not enough about a team of exceptional professionals. Hey, just wondering.

I am sticking with Vanguard for the lack of more interesting and fun MMORPG to play (but I keep my EVE account open), but everyone's patience is now thinner than a sheet of paper. Add to that that patches are now apparently once a week and they usually come with more bugs than fixes (see last week).

Right now I am so annoyed that if nothing good happens in Vanguard very soon I'll jump back in UO as soon as the new expansion and clients come out.
If I have to play an old school game that is SO old school to bring on the old school bugs, than I'll play my favourite one.

[Azazel]

It's a shame really. I wanted the game to be mildly successful, if only to keep the hardcore catasses away from me in other games. If now Falconeer is getting to the end of his rope, then I don't think there's any hope for it. I'd like to see what Geldon thinks at this stage, but it seems he was driven off by villagers with flaming brands and pitchforks. Or something.

[Falconeer]

A little more:

Yesterday I installed a custom UI known as CoreUI 2.0. It's wonderful, useful. It gives so much better information than the basic one that you can't avoid ending up asking yourself "why they didn't do it like this in the first place?".

Basic stuff like % of XP needed to get to the next level for example should be MANDATORY in every MMORPG. I am ok with leaving room for modders and keeping the UI to a clean and basic level as a default.
But not every player like to search for customs online, and often the UI can be what keeps you in or send you away.
The new UI is refreshing and among other things squashed the "move the pixel game" as now I know exactly how many xp out of a generic /2000 every mob gives. It's not a solution but it eases solo playing a bit.

And a last word on solo playing. I find solo playing in Vanguard and WoW almost IDENTICAL. Combat is similar, mechanics are similar, quests are similar. There's just ONE BIG difference: time.
With the same time I invested in solo playing at level 18 I would be level 36 in WoW. Meaning rewards take too much time to come by in VG while soloing. That's the only difference to me, although as I said a big one.

[Falconeer]

Geldon quit Vanguard 2 weeks ago.

About catasses, please remember what spawned the term: maybe Vanguard is the game that can ONLY be played if you are a catass, but at best it holds 100k catasses.
WoW on the other hand will probably entertains 5 millions casual/regular players/human beings, but you can stay assured that it retains a good amount of catasses that I would consider in the 3 millions range.
WoW made some of my "sane" friends into rabid catasses and made people buy new computers just to ruin their life on raiding Molten Core and beyond. Tyra made an episode in her talkshow about a major wow catass exactly as it used to happen back in the EQ days with people losing jobs to raid all day and Southpark's WoW episode is all about catassing, not the game.

So you could be happy that all the crazies are probably firmly in Vanguard's hands, but for the biggest amount of catasses, even statistically, you have to look at WoW. Should that ever collide (and it won't) there would be a MAJOR catass invasion in the online world.

[Simond]

Geldon quit Vanguard 2 weeks ago.

That's odd. I must have missed the "I was wrong about Vanguard and apologise for spamming up the board with replies about how great it's going to be" post by him.

[Trippy]

Geldon quit Vanguard 2 weeks ago.

That's odd. I must have missed the "I was wrong about Vanguard and apologise for spamming up the board with replies about how great it's going to be" post by him.

He can't post -- he self-banned himself.

[Falconeer]

Geldon is just another example of Vanguard-liker that chose to go the solo road.
It kills you.

Right now, the only way to enjoy Vanguard is being in a Guild (and that must be why I am still enjoying it). Exactly like it was in EQ1.
So mission accomplished for Brad.

[Simond]

Apart from the bit where it's got ~1/5th the subs that Brad wanted, yes? :)

[Calantus]

Mission Accomplished is such a dirty phrase now.

[Falconeer]

So mission accomplished for Brad. So mission accomplished for Brad.

Fixed it for myself.

[shiznitz]

Geldon is just another example of Vanguard-liker that chose to go the solo road.
It kills you.

Right now, the only way to enjoy Vanguard is being in a Guild (and that must be why I am still enjoying it). Exactly like it was in EQ1.
So mission accomplished for Brad.

I find VG actually needs a guild group with Vent/TS if you are going to dungeon crawl. The few times I have crawled with a PUG resulted in pain, largely because the old EQ1 discipline is gone. Sure, VG does not require CR like old school EQ1, but the exp hit from summoning your corpse is just crushing.

[Rithrin]

places like Stratholme and Blackrock Spire are filled with the gameworld's lore and offer multiple paths inside them which offer very different experiences, even when you don't count somewhere like Blackrock Depths as part of the "Blackrock Spire" experience (it's essentially a lower wing to the spire, as a seperate instance), BRD still offers a variety of different things to do in there, and runs will rarely "clear the dungeon".

Actually, those are the specific dungeons in WoW I'd compare most of VG's dungeons to. Khegor's End (The lvl 14 - 20 or so one) is an old abandoned dwarven mine taken over by dwarven rebels, of course. And in BRD you can go to different sections of the city for different bosses and different "ends". And imo, was my favorite dungeon in WoW. The only thing is that VG makes sure all its dungeons are like that, even the low level ones. I don't think I've been into one dungeon yet that was very linear at all, Zihurr Mound (Giant ant colony), Hillsbury Manor (Haunted mansion), The Infinium (Freaky time-cultist lair), Fallen Lycuem (Elven college post magic apocalypse). Each even has nice backstories to them and explanations of why they are there. Er, but yes VG isn't the first, its just refreshing to see these kinds of dungeons even at the lower levels.

And much like Falconeer's story of dungeon delving and bug wiping, I had a realization a couple days back that hit me in the face like a truck. I logged four hours into a dungeon (Early holiday morning, not much else to do), and I had gained something like 15% of lvl 18. Hah, I just have so much better stuff I could do with my time.

[Arthur_Parker]

Geldon quit Vanguard 2 weeks ago.

That's odd. I must have missed the "I was wrong about Vanguard and apologise for spamming up the board with replies about how great it's going to be" post by him.

He can't post -- he self-banned himself.

Can you reset his password to "iamanumptey" sometime in the next week or two?

[shiznitz]

Holy crap. This is another doozy:

http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=8475 

Where does one get the level 20 spell Silence...[it] is avaliable [not] on my two trainers.

Silence was removed

but those of us who already bought the spell still have it.

Silence prevents a mob (or player in PVP) from casting a spell for X seconds. This isn't even a bug. So, if you levelled to 20 fast, you now have a spell no other druid has or will have.

[El Gallo]

I was interested in VG only to see what kind of world McQuiad would come up with.  An oft-overlooked thing about EQ was that it really felt like you were going through a world that actual designers and artists handcrafted with love.  WoW is the only MMO I've played that comes close in that aspect.

I may look at it in a few months if they fix up the bugs and humanize the levelling curve a bit.  Some people in my old EQ guild are playing.  The problem with starting a game like VG late is that you'll be levelling mostly alone, which sucks in a game like that.

I remember back in EQ when I was Pling an alt in Guk.  This must have been early-PoP.  There was this level-appropriate, untwinked guy, I think a paladin, in there trying to solo.  We chatted a while and it turns out he was a bona fide new player, but had never grouped because there just weren't any players his age.   I PLd him a while with my twink, but he didn't really want to be PLd, he wanted to play.  But he just couldn't.  I don't want to be that guy.

I'm having fun in WoW anyway, so God knows why I wandered in here.

[Signe]

McQuaid sort of deviated from his initial "vision" although he tried to sound as if that was the plan all along.  I guess he thinks people won't remember what he said way back when or that just by saying something else will make people think it's true and that we remember wrong.  I remember my nephew, when he was little, hiding his eyes and believing no one could see him.  At least HE was adorable.  Anyway, I have little doubt that Sigil will continue to chip away the bits of Vanguard that make it less suited for solo play and more in line with WoW and what's selling now.  Just like EQ2.  Whether it'll be forced on them by SOE or simply by the lack of decent subscription numbers, who knows?  Who cares?  Maybe they'll end up with a better product. 

[tkinnun0]

he didn't really want to be PLd, he wanted to play.  But he just couldn't.  I don't want to be that guy.

I was that guy. I lasted about 4 days and was left wondering:

Has anyone actually tested any of this shit? and,
This is supposed to be the game with the interesting quests?

[Falconeer]

Maybe they'll end up with a better product. 

Yeah, that's what I repeat to myself everyday. As I said being in a guild with some friends and having the chance to explore dungeons and actually enjoy content I am not having a bad time (save for technical wipes). But I keep repeating to myself what Henry V said to Catherine of Valois:

But, in faith, Kate, the elder I wax, the better I shall appear: my comfort is, that old age, that ill layer up of beauty, can do no more, spoil upon my face: thou hast me, if thou hast me, at the worst; and thou shalt wear me, if thou wear me, better and better

Basically, Vanguard can only get better. And if I can play it now that it is at its worst, the future is probably not so bad. Conan, Warhammer and even Tabula Rasa are too far and Ultima Online's rebirth is the only actual contender for me to this.

[Morat20]

Maybe they'll end up with a better product. 

Yeah, that's what I repeat to myself everyday. As I said being in a guild with some friends and having the chance to explore dungeons and actually enjoy content I am not having a bad time (save for technical wipes). But I keep repeating to myself what Henry V said to Catherine of Valois:

But, in faith, Kate, the elder I wax, the better I shall appear: my comfort is, that old age, that ill layer up of beauty, can do no more, spoil upon my face: thou hast me, if thou hast me, at the worst; and thou shalt wear me, if thou wear me, better and better

Basically, Vanguard can only get better. And if I can play it now that it is at its worst, the future is probably not so bad. Conan, Warhammer and even Tabula Rasa are too far and Ultima Online's rebirth is the only actual contender for me to this.

This is SOE -- it can get worse. I put forth SWG as evidence.

[Falconeer]

Maybe they'll end up with a better product. 

Yeah, that's what I repeat to myself everyday. As I said being in a guild with some friends and having the chance to explore dungeons and actually enjoy content I am not having a bad time (save for technical wipes). But I keep repeating to myself what Henry V said to Catherine of Valois:

But, in faith, Kate, the elder I wax, the better I shall appear: my comfort is, that old age, that ill layer up of beauty, can do no more, spoil upon my face: thou hast me, if thou hast me, at the worst; and thou shalt wear me, if thou wear me, better and better

Basically, Vanguard can only get better. And if I can play it now that it is at its worst, the future is probably not so bad. Conan, Warhammer and even Tabula Rasa are too far and Ultima Online's rebirth is the only actual contender for me to this.

This is SOE -- it can get worse. I put forth SWG as evidence.

Aagh! You are right. I am sunk. DARN!

[Morat20]

This is SOE -- it can get worse. I put forth SWG as evidence.

Aagh! You are right. I am sunk. DARN!

If it makes you feel better, SOE greatly improved EQ2. Frankly, it seems like the less of Brad's "vision" the better the damn game. You want Vanguard to get better? Hope Brad gets fucking turfed out. They removed a lot of the gratituous nut-kicks in Beta. Hope the live team starts removing the rest.

[Simond]

Yeah, SOE needs to buy out Sigil, fire Brad, and dump the EQ2 Live Team onto Vanguard.
Then it might be a decent game a couple of years after that.