Vanguard Round 2 - Post Mortem

[slog]

I've been hearing about the "Death of the DIKU" since 1999.  I'm still waiting....

[HaemishM]

Rambling bullshit

I get it now. Brad McQuaid is HIRO, only he's present day Hiro who thinks he can save New York by traveling to the Vanguard of the future.

What a Raging Douchebag.

You were WRONG, Brad. Just say it. You were wrong about how many people would give a shit to play your game. You were wrong about WoW. You were wrong about computing power, you were wrong about art design, you were FUCKING WRONG. Just say it, then shut the fuck up and never darken computer gaming again.

Fuckhead.

[LK]

The second he says he failed in the most blatant terms is the second his career is over, and I don't think Brad is going to do that, because people who make lots of money just don't do that.

Edit: I backtracked through the thread and read Brad's long and boring analysis of Vanguard as it is right now and what they need to do to draw customers, and it turns out it's everything except making a game that can be played by a large variety of PCs that's fun to play.  But I eventually stopped reading when the point was "We've targeted a very small market segment that's still big even when you take keep subtracting the type of people that wouldn't play our game, and we're proud of that, and we have something to share.  Please play our game when you're not busy with WoW or LotRO or any of the other better MMOGs out there."

If someone's a hardcore game player, the type Brad wants, then I seriously doubt they are going to confuse Vanguard as EQ3.  I'd like to think that a hardcore gamer tends to be more educated on his gaming choices.

[Venkman]

I think people keep confusing DIKU style games with dice-roll combat mechanics. If there's going to be the death of anything, it's going to be the latter.

There's nothing wrong with core DIKU. It's carrot/stick modelling that appears in just about every RPG-like experience out there.

Nah, what's really dated is this separation between choice and action by dice. That shit's gotta stop. Look at every other genre where, by the way, most of the video game industry money goes. "Immersive" isn't graphic quality and photorealism. It's how connected a player feels to their character and the ingame world at all, through actions, through UI.

I never felt connected to the world of WoW. I had to read the books to deepen my immersion. But the game is on rails. When I'm focused on foozles, I don't care. When I get bored and leave though, it's for that exact reason. *I* don't bring anything to WoW except maybe PvP, itself a complete contrivance, another tech tree, with no persistent relevance. I don't mind that they're making it a sport. I just don't give a shit either though.

To me, UI makes all the difference. This is why I look so forward to Huxley and AoC. Big budget games with completely different UIs.

If AoC doesn't completely suck and Funcom doesn't bork the launch (it's been six years, I'm ready to give them another chance), then THAT is going to be the death of dice-roll-combat mechanics. Still DIKU and that's fine because it works. But a different UI, something more console-y, something borrowing from the metric fuckton of money THOSE things bring to "video games" as compared to the house that Brad built.

[squirrel]

I think people keep confusing DIKU style games with dice-roll combat mechanics. If there's going to be the death of anything, it's going to be the latter.

There's nothing wrong with core DIKU. It's carrot/stick modelling that appears in just about every RPG-like experience out there.

?? Um no. DIKU is the Class/Level method of progression and the interdependency of those classes (the holy trinity). Fallout was not DIKU in any sense of the term. Any. DIKU!=RPG. DIKU comes from DIKU MUD the base system that Everquest was inspired by. I don't know how you can say it appears in every RPG experience, that's completely false.

DIKU
DAoC
EQ/II
WoW
LOTRO
VG

NOT DIKU
Shadowbane
AC
UO

Are you suggesting the latter aren't RPG's (or at least less RPG than the former?)

EDIT: I agree with you by the way in regards to combat mechanisms. But I don't think DIKU means what you think it does. It's not an RPG reward convention at all. It's about the structure of character progression and forced interdependency. And I'm completely unconvinced that it's "good".

[Cheddar]

<words>

/snicker.  He is depending on Vista, worse piece of shit out there.

[Venkman]

<stuff about DIKU>

This is a good way to highlight a problem. There is what DIKU is, and there is how people use it. I suffer from the latter problem. Gven that DIKU itself was inspired by earlier systems, and that there's a lot of systems that have been inspired by it since, it's very hard to find clear definition of what DIKU "is". I have long interpreted it as mostly a character progression (what I called "carrot/stick") system only, with the other stuff (class/level, triniy and interdependency) coming from D&D. But I really wasn't paying attention to this stuff as it was evolving. My first "MUD" was Diablo 2 online :) So I definitely could be wrong, and invite correction.

But whether DIKU is more than just something strapped around D&D, I think it's been "good" in the sense that people seem to enjoy the system, with more coming every year due to how it has been wrapped experiencially.

What I think will be replaced in time is part of that wrapping, the combat system, with something more immersive, more immediate. I know this would risk losing a chunk of the base that is here now. So I'm thinking what'll happen is the genre will splinter between current WoW combat and something more along the lines of console-y type experiences (without the Jolt-required carpal tunnel inducing controller), kinda like the difference between virtual lifestyle-y things like Eve/SL and directed-play experiences like WoW/GW. I don't know which one will be more successful of course, but I foresee that much of a gap in relative playerbase.

[Merusk]

See, the problem with seeing DIKU as carrot-stick is that most MUDs didn't actually do that.  They had loot that was easily accessible and doable in much smaller groups than MMOs.  Hell, they were closer to CRPGS than todays MMOs, becuse you knew exactly what to kill to get what drop.  It was just a straight % chance on how often it dropped... and none of the MUDs I played ever did this asinine ".002% chance" thing that MMOs do to 'preserve the economy.' 

See, 'economy' in GAMES is dumb.  DIKU is a game, not a world, but most devs keep forgetting that, having some grander idea in place.

[Xanthippe]

See, 'economy' in GAMES is dumb.  DIKU is a game, not a world, but most devs keep forgetting that, having some grander idea in place.

I disagree completely.  I play these games for two reasons - exploration and economy.  Now, they aren't real world economic models, but these games do have economies of sorts.

If DIKU is not a world, then please define world.

[Nija]

it's very hard to find clear definition of what DIKU "is".

What? No it isn't.

ftp://ftp.game.org/pub/mud/diku/

Download the source code.

[Venkman]

Err, right. Source code = insights.

See, the problem with seeing DIKU as carrot-stick is that most MUDs didn't actually do that.  They had loot that was easily accessible and doable in much smaller groups than MMOs.  Hell, they were closer to CRPGS than todays MMOs, becuse you knew exactly what to kill to get what drop.  It was just a straight % chance on how often it dropped... and none of the MUDs I played ever did this asinine ".002% chance" thing that MMOs do to 'preserve the economy.' 

Not to quibble, but, well, I'm going to quibble :)

In essence, the only difference between "straight & chance" and ".002% chance" is the time it takes to win. You STILL know what to kill to get what drop and you STILL don't have a guaranteed chance to get it the first or 12th time you try. There's a world of difference experientially of course, just not at the system level.

So is it that MUDs felt different at the system level, or simply because it was easier to achieve the same character progression (XP, level, “skills”, gear) we’ve been achieving since EQ1 (or earlier)?

[Nija]

No, that's what DIKU is. It's like asking "where is France" and someone replying with map image, pointing at France. There's the answer. Take it or leave it.

You can high-brow about what it REALLY is with people like Raph, but you'll just end up with people laughing at you in the long run.

Since your first game was D2, you should compile the base DIKU source and see what it's all about. There's your insights.

[Venkman]

Oh, wait, I think I get it now. This is source code I could grab, compile, and play. Somehow I didn't get that from your first post, thinking you were expecting me to a) learn the language it was programmed in; and, b) get the picture of the forest from it.

So, yea, I'll actually be doing that. Thanks!

(and I'm used to the laughing part ;) )

[Merusk]

In essence, the only difference between "straight & chance" and ".002% chance" is the time it takes to win. You STILL know what to kill to get what drop and you STILL don't have a guaranteed chance to get it the first or 12th time you try. There's a world of difference experientially of course, just not at the system level.

So is it that MUDs felt different at the system level, or simply because it was easier to achieve the same character progression (XP, level, “skills”, gear) we’ve been achieving since EQ1 (or earlier)?

That's like saying the only difference between pong and video tennis is the graphics quality.   It's a HUGE difference, and you're trying to make the differences more subtle than they are.

Part of it was experiential, part of it was mechanics, part of it was simply people realized it was a game and didn't try to bring a lot more into it - even the 'worldly' ones.

   MUDS were free to the users, and even though people played them for huge chunks of time, it was about socializing more than loot grinding.  When I say mobs had a 'chance' to drop something, I mean a 25% chance if you were screwing around on a rarer mob. (at least on the ones I played.)  That meant you'd take an hour, tops, to get that 'sweet rare item.'  Bit of a difference there, hey?

Then the "economy" was laughable at best.  Most muds I played on had 'donation pits' near the starting point.  Look in the pit, find free equipement (quantity depended on playerbase size.)  Gold was used for restrings (Having an Immortal (dev) change the description on an item so it was unique for you.) repairs, food or whatever else the IMPs (implementors) put in.   Tradeskills, as such, didn't exsist because there was no point to it.  The closest thing you could get to tradeskills was to become a Builder, and create your own zones for players to mess around in.

Now, that's not to say ALL muds were like that, but that was my DIKU/ Circle/ ROM experience.  Raph had his own MUD which - as I understand - went more in the "world" direction, and implemented things like tradeskills and economies.  These muds weren't anywhere near as prevelant in my experience.   

All that's just the first layer, however.  Because the source code is freely available, plenty of folks added-in their own twists and flavors and coding such as you're NEVER going to see in a MMO, because they're for cash, as well as 3-d.  Can you imagine implementing a restring/ remodel feature in a modern MMO?  Or a MMO without tradeskills, where equipment was passed-around willy-nilly because it didn't matter, as that was the 4th time you'd gotten that "uber sword" in today's play session?

Really.. and I do mean REALLY.. before you toss DIKU around you need to play around on one.  Get zMud or check out Mudconnector.com and pop on a few to play a bit. 

[Alkiera]

Oh, wait, I think I get it now. This is source code I could grab, compile, and play. Somehow I didn't get that from your first post, thinking you were expecting me to a) learn the language it was programmed in; and, b) get the picture of the forest from it.

So, yea, I'll actually be doing that. Thanks!

(and I'm used to the laughing part ;) )

Alternatively, Go To MudConnector and do a search for dikumud.  Look for things that say dikumud, Merc, ROM, Circle, or Ember, and don't say too much about being customized or 'heavily modded'.  Then again, those claims generally only apply to the login screen, so heavily modified might work.  Saves having to build the source...

I agree that DIKU is an overall system thing, nothing to do with carrots or sticks.  Darniaq, you might say it's the D&D influence, or whatever.  It's classes with (lots of) levels, it's the classic 6 stats, level/classbased-hp/mana, with equipment that provides bonuses to both those stats, and to damage.  It's autoattack with specials.  It's the whole ding-grats model, which I was doing in 1996(well before EQ), and was certainly around before then.  It's static spawns, static areas, and static equipment drops.

Honestly, the only thing that is different between the DikuMUDs from the mid 90's and WoW are graphics, scale, and quality of world/area/mob/class design.  And perhaps the Diablo-esque random loot drops.

As far as your discussion of 'diceroll' mechanics going away, I doubt it.  I believe that autoattack mechanics may go away soon, and good riddance.  That was one of the things I liked most about CoX's combat... every swing mattered, because every swing was initiated by the user.

--
Alkiera

[Merusk]

See, 'economy' in GAMES is dumb.  DIKU is a game, not a world, but most devs keep forgetting that, having some grander idea in place.

I disagree completely.  I play these games for two reasons - exploration and economy.  Now, they aren't real world economic models, but these games do have economies of sorts.

If DIKU is not a world, then please define world.

A world is exactly that... a world.  It focuses itself on replicating or simulating 'real life' mechanics in some sort of setting.  How often something comes into the world matters, because it affects the game economy.  How often something enters a game doesn't matter economically as much as it does to the gameplay itself.  Worlds try to abstract certain things for the sake of replication - such as merchants and trade skills.  Games either don't generally bother, or do it in a manner that it's just a means to an end of other game features.

 Worlds tend to be a lot deeper than games as a result, but that depth comes at the price of fun for some segment.  Depth requires a top and a bottom, and it's generally no damn fun to be on the bottom.

[Etro]

checkz this out

Vanguard Newsletter Apr 07

note if you read the last part of it, they have banned over 1000 accounts already, so how many does that leave playing?

[Mesozoic]

Counting Brad? 

Or did he go back to WoW?

[shiznitz]

Once again I renewed my sub. A guildmate helped me get my quarrying up from 1 to 85 (it is all about finding the right place which, of course, involves traveling 15-20mins out of your way...) and I had minor UO mining flashbacks. I also witnessed how more than one person can harvest the same node and dramatically boost the number of resources as a result. The helper doesn't even need the skill, just the right tool. Instead of 12-15 per node, I was getting 32-35 per node with a helper. I also had no idea I had to buy books (not expensive, just inconvenient) to access the next tier.

[Lantyssa]

c 'locate object'

Even a 0.002% chance does not equate to grinding endlessly in a MUD.  If the object isn't loaded, there is no need to go after it.  Future iterations and other flavors may have changed this, but base DIKU gave items a chance to load with resets and each zone update, not upon creature death.

On the MUD I coded for I considered creating a random object drop, but that would have changed a lot of dynamics.  Additionally, if I had wanted to do it justice then we needed a loot system more akin to Diablo's, and that would be a pain to create and balance when the entire world was already designed around the current static items.

Edit: Spelling

[Merusk]

Y'know, I forgot all about "locate object."   Man, I've played so many MMOs I've forgotten some of the good, fun stuff that was out there.

(S)(I)(F)(L) *Merusk Leaves West

[shiznitz]

Back in Telon, a dupe bug is apparently quite widespread. VG gold on the site that will go unnamed is down to $20 for 1200 gold from $50 for about 75 gold a month ago. To put that in perspective, my mid-teens characters have yet to see 1g from adventuring and selling low tier harvestables. The forums of the usual affiliate websites are going nuts. That plus the unanswered rumors of Sigil getting folded into SOE is making things interesting.

[Nebu]

Back in Telon, a dupe bug is apparently quite widespread. VG gold on the site that will go unnamed is down to $20 for 1200 gold from $50 for about 75 gold a month ago.

Is the drop in price due to a dupe bug or the general lack of demand?  I'd be inclined to guess the latter having the greater effect.

[Morat20]

Back in Telon, a dupe bug is apparently quite widespread. VG gold on the site that will go unnamed is down to $20 for 1200 gold from $50 for about 75 gold a month ago.

Is the drop in price due to a dupe bug or the general lack of demand?  I'd be inclined to guess the latter having the greater effect.

Last I heard, there were at least three really easy dupe bugs floating around. Apparently including at least one of the old zone-exploit type that any modern MMORPG should ensure is impossible.

[shiznitz]

Back in Telon, a dupe bug is apparently quite widespread. VG gold on the site that will go unnamed is down to $20 for 1200 gold from $50 for about 75 gold a month ago.

Is the drop in price due to a dupe bug or the general lack of demand?  I'd be inclined to guess the latter having the greater effect.

I cannot know which impact is greater, although I suspect demand has always been more muted in VG than other games due to a rather intensive public effort by Sigil to stop RMT.

[Kageru]

It pretty much must be a dupe bug. The amounts being offered by these sellers would not make economic sense if they had to pay someone to actually earn it in game. 1200 gold represents a monstrous amount of time because the game is very stingy in how much coin drops and what merchants will pay for items.

[Engels]

Well, my guild just gave up on it wholesale. There's 3 or 4 people left playing Vanguard, after a heated debate on Ventrilo one night. The system crashes, the bugs and the grind all did my guild in. They're back in WoW after this week's 10 day pass to try out Burning Crusade. I joined them too for now, but I'm not sure I'll stay, in either game.

[Simond]

FYI, there's at least one widely-known dupe bug in VG - the old "X hands item to Y in zone A, Y moves to zone B, X crashes zone A" trick.

[Glazius]

Back in Telon, a dupe bug is apparently quite widespread. VG gold on the site that will go unnamed is down to $20 for 1200 gold from $50 for about 75 gold a month ago. To put that in perspective, my mid-teens characters have yet to see 1g from adventuring and selling low tier harvestables. The forums of the usual affiliate websites are going nuts. That plus the unanswered rumors of Sigil getting folded into SOE is making things interesting.

I thought I saw a dupe bug outlined somewhere which basically went:

Step 1: Mail someone an item.
Step 2:
Step 3: Profit!

where Step 2 is "sometimes, the mail gets sent twice".

--GF

[Lantyssa]

Can you mail yourself an item?

[schild]

Better! You can mail yourself 2!

[Cadaverine]

Back in Telon, a dupe bug is apparently quite widespread. VG gold on the site that will go unnamed is down to $20 for 1200 gold from $50 for about 75 gold a month ago. To put that in perspective, my mid-teens characters have yet to see 1g from adventuring and selling low tier harvestables. The forums of the usual affiliate websites are going nuts. That plus the unanswered rumors of Sigil getting folded into SOE is making things interesting.

I thought I saw a dupe bug outlined somewhere which basically went:

Step 1: Mail someone an item.
Step 2:
Step 3: Profit!

where Step 2 is "sometimes, the mail gets sent twice".


--GF

Hell, I reported that one back in beta 3.

You send the mail, chunk crashes, log back in with items/money intact, and recipient still receives the mail.

[Yegolev]

This game is retro all the way, even with bugs.

[Nebu]

I learned that Vanguard has an even better way to make money.  Their sub cancellation software is buggy. I cancelled my sub twice the first month and 3 months later I'm still being charged.  I called SOE and they said "Sorry Charlie". 

[Rithrin]

They did that to me, too. Tricksy, aren't they?