Vanguard Round 2 - Post Mortem

[Merusk]

Your credit card company won't block the charge?  That would've been my first call after the first month cancellation didn't work.

[shiznitz]

Every month I subscribe and then cancel and then re-sub and immeditealy cancel again when my login fails due to lack of subscritpion. Never had an issue with SOE billing.

[Mesozoic]

You have to travel to the Sigil offices to cancel.  Its on another continent.  Bring a group of at least five.

[Nebu]

I actually found it less annoying to pay the $45 than to listen one more minute to the customer service guy on the other end of the phone.  What's wrong with this picture?

[HaemishM]

You have to travel to the Sigil offices to cancel.  Its on another continent.  Bring a group of at least five.

Well played, nerd. Well played.

[Trippy]

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". 

Yup, there's a 6 page thread on the FoH board bitching and moaning about being billed after cancelling Vanguard. I had to cancel my credit card to stop SOE from billing my *expired* CC for my EQ accounts.

[Tannhauser]

Wow if FoH leaves then the game is surely doomed.

Let me ask though.  Was Brad right?  Is there a market for a hardcore mmo out there?  I mean if Vanguard had turned out good, do you think they would be wearing money hats right now?  I just have to think someone will 'counterprogram' a mmo away from the current quest-centric, easy levelling ones.  This market is just begging for a revolutionary title.

[Nebu]

Let me ask though.  Was Brad right?  Is there a market for a hardcore mmo out there?  I mean if Vanguard had turned out good, do you think they would be wearing money hats right now?  I just have to think someone will 'counterprogram' a mmo away from the current quest-centric, easy levelling ones.  This market is just begging for a revolutionary title.

I think there is a small market for a hardcore MMO.  The problem is that "hardcore" doesn't mean "extreme grind" which is sadly what MMOs seem to be best at.  By "hardcore" I envision a game with encounters that a minority will succeed at.  These could be solo, group, or small raid based.  Since a game like this would cost a significant amount to make while attracting such a small audience, I doubt it would ever be made.  It's not smart business.

[Venkman]

There's already a market for hardcore MMOs. It's just that "hardcore" is a label to some, maybe there's even a psychographic profile worked up. It's a specific audience which, by that nature alone, means narrower. So being narrower, you have to be more specific in what you give them, which means a smaller experience. Which in turn means fewer players.

Eve is a good example of a successful hardcore game. And I expect one or three people to say "you can play Eve casually!11!", but Eve-casual and WoW casual are radically different things. And different people.

He is right only in the sense that such a market could exist for hardcore. But he was wrong is what he delivered to them. He can blame SOE, but he knew what he was signing on for when he went back to the place he left to make the spiritual successor to the game he created. If he didn't know they'd force him to launch in Jan, he maybe didn't ask the hard enough questions. And he could blame the size of the "hardcore" playerbase when in reality it's more that folks aren't willing to play unplayable buggy bloated clients in an age where other companies are capable of launching fully playable games. And he could blame Microsoft dumping the project, but then he'd have to explain the vision for the game he sold them on in the first place, which I'd bet is a fair departure from what he started saying right around last October about uber hardcore rar rar.

[Nija]

Here's the question phrased a bit differently. At least I'll try, it's late, I'm tired, but for some reason I can't fall asleep.

Could a 'hardcore' MMO work if done correctly? Is Vanguard to hardcore MMOs as Shadowbane is to PVP MMOs?

A lot of people said that PVP MMO games couldn't work, obviously, because look at how Shadowbane failed (When SB failed) - yet, I don't think it was the PVP part that failed. The problems were much deeper.

Is Vanguard the same way? Honestly I couldn't stomach the game long enough to figure out just how deep the troubles go.

[Margalis]

As I said before, FFXI is a hardcore MMO that does well enough and works.

Very few people have accomplished all there is to accomplish in FFXI. The majority have not beaten the Chains of Promethea expansion missions, which are an expansion pack behind. The best equipment is rare. FFXI has a bunch of the hallmarks of a "hardcore" MMO - long levelling times, gameplay that is not quest-centric, group-centric play, etc.

The hardcore aspect of it is appealing to some people but really it is the other things it does well which make it just as appealing if not more so:

There are a lot of classes to play.
There are a lot of different end-game activities.
The community is mature, friendly and helpful.
Good graphics, animations and models.
A great sense of world and zone design.

The problem with Vanguard is that it took all the negatives of the "hardcore" MMO, added a bunch of bugs, and neglected the traditional positives. The world is big but boring. There are no endgame activities. The zones are not interesting. The graphics, animation and models are bad.

It was a game designed for people who want a frustrating shitty experience. Oddly enough, there aren't many people looking for that.

[Engels]

I don't know why people keep saying VG is 'hardcore'. Nothing in my experience of VG suggests its anything but grindy at times. Nothing in it represents any sort of tactical challenge whatsoever. Content that is described as requireing full groups often only require 3 people. There's an inane amount of travelling, and genocidal numbers of mobs to kill for certain quests or advancements, but that's not really hardcore, that's just content stuffing.

[Falconeer]

I am now under the assumption that given the size of the hardcore potential market, the budget of your hardcore game MUST NOT be too big.
Plus, the hardcore audience by definition is not easily amused by visuals and FMV. You have to invest your money on gameplay and core mechanics, design!
That way you can focus on what your audience really care for without lingering on "teh shinies", which a hardcore gamer by definition is not too much interested in.

Vanguard did it all wrong when, trying to appeal to the hardcore gamers, went the way of the 25 mil. budget.

EVE is the usual example, great ideas, great mechanics, enough "braveness" without the need to spend billions.

Talent goes a long way, Brad. And you can't buy it. Even for 25 million dollars.

[Numtini]

Just a quick note, but I popped into EQ2 where I'm a member of two different guilds. Both of them have been devastated by Vanguard. The larger of the two lost over half our members to Vanguard. One of them had a large EQ1 chapter, which was also hit very hard by Vanguard.

But those people didn't like Vanguard. They liked the game, but the bugs and population got to them. But a good number if not a majority are not coming back to EQ1/2, after being refuseniks for years at this point, they're moving to WOW.

[ajax34i]

I think a hardcore MMO would be one where all the things that are supposed to make a MMO addictive are taken to the extreme.   Random drop chances requiring sustained effort to get, heavy competition, punishment for failure (death penalty).  Whereas a casual MMO aims to minimize these things by requiring little effort, giving consistent predictable rewards, and making things easy and accessbile.

Both types need to have good-looking graphics, be bug-free, have lots of content that's balanced, etc.  In a word, both need quality in order to bring in whatever number of players is interested in playing that type of game, hardcore or casual.

[Akkori]

It seems like a hardcore game would be at odd's with what many companies are doing currently, which is to code for the lowest common denominator of player. In it's own way, ATitD is a hardcore game too, but for crafters. I'd certainly play a game where there was a real challenge to it, and the kind of consequences that make you sit back in your chair and say "shit!" if you mess up (or get killed).

[SnakeCharmer]

I don't know why people keep saying VG is 'hardcore'. Nothing in my experience of VG suggests its anything but grindy at times. Nothing in it represents any sort of tactical challenge whatsoever. Content that is described as requireing full groups often only require 3 people. There's an inane amount of travelling, and genocidal numbers of mobs to kill for certain quests or advancements, but that's not really hardcore, that's just content stuffing.

I'd agree with that.

Only thing hardcore about it got was the time investment.  I wouldn't mind a time investment if there was something to do besides routine quests.  The problem I ran into (other than crappy performance) was that there was so little 'content' at my level +/- 2 dings.  Couldn't tell you how many times I dozed off playing Vanguard. 

[Morat20]

I don't know why people keep saying VG is 'hardcore'. Nothing in my experience of VG suggests its anything but grindy at times. Nothing in it represents any sort of tactical challenge whatsoever. Content that is described as requireing full groups often only require 3 people. There's an inane amount of travelling, and genocidal numbers of mobs to kill for certain quests or advancements, but that's not really hardcore, that's just content stuffing.

Probably because they spent the last year of beta removing most of the hard-core.

I mean, you should have read the shit they were actually planning. Brad's fucking "You'll need saddle bags to hold your spare gear so you have a fucking chance in hell at wading through ultra-fast respawns to get your good gear off your damn corpse" was the nice shit.

See, Brad's problem is that he's both too perceptive and too damn obtuse. He rightly realized that what his 'hardcore audience' wants is a fucking kick to the nuts. What he didn't realize is they wanted that nut kick to other people, with just a slight graze to themselves. :)

[Ixxit]

See, Brad's problem is that he's both too perceptive and too damn obtuse. He rightly realized that what his 'hardcore audience' wants is a fucking kick to the nuts. What he didn't realize is they wanted that nut kick to other people, with just a slight graze to themselves. :)

Heh, awesome.

[Engels]

Lets refine things a bit here.

I'm not in agreement with ajax4i when he states:

Random drop chances requiring sustained effort to get, heavy competition, punishment for failure (death penalty).

That's not the definition of hardcore for me.

On the other hand, he's spot on when he states:

Games need to have good-looking graphics, be bug-free, have lots of content that's balanced, etc. .

The success of VG was contingent on the latter, not the former. It wouldn't have mattered one iota if VG had retained the catassery you describe, Morat. A poorly performing game is a poorly performing game, no matter what.

That said, I think there are intelligent varieties of 'hardcore' games out there that I recognise as well developed and appealing to a certain audience, of which I'm not a part of. I'm thinking in particular of FFXI and EvE. Both require advanced understanding of tactics and group dynamics to accomplish higher end goals. I'm not the type of player who has either the time or the brain space for that type of game, but I respect the audience that wants that.

Its akin to a WWII fighter plane PVP MMO I once played. I played it for weeks, but then realised that the target audience was for, you know, actual pilots who knew how to fly, understood the subtle difference in engine torque and high elevation turn rates between a BF-109 and a Mustang. I dinked about, got shot down hundreds of times, scored one or two lack luster kills against a few fellow newbs, and then parted ways with the game with nothing but admiration for the company and the gamers it attracted. That was a hardcore game, designed for them.

Hardcore doesn't mean insane ononastic grinding, repetitive stress injuries or obsessive focus on a particular set of pixellated rewards. That's the excuse of the lazy coder taking advantage of the mentally infirm.

[Furiously]

EQ's death penalty made it hardcore. Lack of travel abilities for most classes. Needing 70 people to take out a mob. Slow leveling pace. HELL LEVELS! Rare drops on rare spawns. Needed a cleric, an enchanter and a warrior in every group.

[HaemishM]

Here's the question phrased a bit differently. At least I'll try, it's late, I'm tired, but for some reason I can't fall asleep.

Could a 'hardcore' MMO work if done correctly? Is Vanguard to hardcore MMOs as Shadowbane is to PVP MMOs?

Shadowbane did not fail because it was a PVP game. Indeed, it's original (first month) success showed me that PVP was popular and desired by a profitable segment of the population. Shadowbane's absolute piss poor quailty assurance, followed by some nasty "sting in the tail" design decisions is what made it a failure. The fact that it lasted long enough to make it to be a free game IN SPITE of how eye-gougingly bad the polish on the game shows that PVP wasn't what drove people away from SB, it was retarded shit like sb.exe.

Vanguard is much the same way. Despite my hatred of it, I can see where it would have attracted a profitable audience. It would never have gotten 500k no matter how good it was, but it could certainly have reached 150k. Instead, like Shadowbane, it was buggy, unfinished and with "sting in the tail" design decisions like insane travel times that have doomed it. Gamers don't like buggy, unfinished turds on their computer no matter how hardcore the gamer is.

[Morat20]

it was retarded shit like sb.exe.

Got to ask -- what's the story behind "sb.exe"? I wasn't really paying attention to Shadowbane at the time -- or, well, ever -- but I keep seeing this brought up. Is it just an established way of saying "the game's problem wasn't the idea, but the entire code and execution" or is there more to it?

[SnakeCharmer]

There's a shitmetricton of hate for sb.exe around here....

Always wondered why as well

[Slayerik]

SB.exe was basically when shadowbane would crash for no reason , other times because you had more than 10 people on your screen, usually...for no reason though. Some days were worse than others.


EDIT: So basically when your game is such shit that it does a General Protection Fault at SB.exe so often it is ingrained into anyone who played it.Ruined so many experiences that could have been VERY freaking cool....thats basically the source of the hatred, the 'what could have been"s.

[HaemishM]

sb.exe was the name of the executable for Shadowbane. It was also the name of the error you got when the program just up and shit itself. Now seeing it once was ok. You just log back into the game and keep going. But it was never just one time. It could happen at the drop of a hat, and happened most often when there were lots of people on screen (or about to be onscreen but really just offscreen). You know, like in sieges when you are trying to take down a city, or defend the city it took you 3 weeks to build to this level. It's even more infuriating when you are trying to lead a raid of some 60 odd people across 3 continents to siege some other asshole's city.

I had this happen to me one night... 15 fucking times. Needless to say, I become a raging fucking douchebag about sb.exe.

[tazelbain]

Shadowbane had severe problems beyond its technical issues.  But its hard talk about those problems when the core game play didn't function.

[Nija]

Shadowbane MIGHT have had core issues.

Nobody was able to play long enough (without crashing!) to actually find out!

[Slayerik]

This is me, shitting on Shadowbane.

[Numtini]

It would never have gotten 500k no matter how good it was

WOW has made people crazy. They've lost their minds. WOW isn't the leader in the MMPORPG industry. WoW is a bizarre phenomenon like Myst or The Sims. People need to forget it when thinking about how many people their game will attract. Go back to EQ being the market high point at 460k.

On Shadowbane, I'm still not convinced that the market is there for a PVP game. The market is there to sell such a game, but I'm not sure the market is there for its long term survival. The cries of the hardcore PVPers who found themselves on the short end of being played to crush and crying it was unfair certainly sounded like the stereotypes of weeping trammelite carebears as depicted by disaffected UO vets. And they reacted the same way we did: they quit.

[WayAbvPar]

I had this happen to me one night... 15 fucking times. Needless to say, I become a raging fucking douchebag about sb.exe.

I remember that night! I was torn between being annoyed/pissed for you and LMAO at your comments in between crashes.

The stability isn't what drove me away from SB- it was the absolute inability to come back from a defeat for a guild. If you lost a big city, you were proper fucked. The world was too small to hide somewhere and rebuild without your enemies coming back for a Number 6 dance at your tree.

[Rasix]

"Winning" sucked too. 

[Lightstalker]

The stability isn't what drove me away from SB- it was the absolute inability to come back from a defeat for a guild. If you lost a big city, you were proper fucked. The world was too small to hide somewhere and rebuild without your enemies coming back for a Number 6 dance at your tree.

Come now, it was a challenge that when you lost your city the game disbanded your guild and scattered your membership to random ruins across the world as they logged back in - thus eliminating any common channel of communication or location from which to rally. 

As one side got stronger it got easier for them to continue winning, having to defend less land did not convey any advantage over having to defend the entire map.  And the sb.exe error message popping up on your screen when the client crashed 5-20 times a night made sure you quit each night in frustration. 

The 'hardcore' aspect with PvP was that you could down anyone (i.e. your mates via friendly fire).  That was fun, if someone was being an ass you could kill them even if you were "on the same side."  That made for much fun, if you were into that sort of gameplay.   The insane portion of 'hardcore' was the need to sleep with your character logged in and the volume cranked high - to serve as a dead-man switch to catch the asshat(s) who decides it is fun to burn down your city at 4am.

[Signe]

Why did I think SB was fun?  It was nerve wracking.  The best part of the game was when Baka sunk it.

[WayAbvPar]

Why did I think SB was fun?  It was nerve wracking.  The best part of the game was when Baka sunk it.

What about the hats?