Vanguard Round 2 - Post Mortem

[Slayerik]

The best thing about Shadowbane for me was eBay sales.... Traveller runes for 50 a pop, Commander for 75-100, more common ones around 20 bucks. I probably made 2500 bucks tax free off it... Anyone that could summon me to other areas at the times I needed I had on the payroll :)

My most memorable PVP moment was at a commander rune spawn. Basically for those that don't know the game, it was THE spawn. It was on like an 18 hour spawn, was ALWAYS camped, usually thieves were there and could steal the rune and be gone before the fight was done. One time I got a summon over to that area, and checked it out. There was a lone R5 warrior there, and I was an R5 barbarian. He happened to be at war with my guild at the time, but they were a large ARAC (all race, all classes) guild called Denied and didn't realize our diplomatic situation. I start up a conversation with him, with my plan being to avoid conflict due to there being others in the area.

BAM, the spawn pops. The warrior decides to immediately attack it. First mistake. I just wait, smiling, for the mob to get to about half health before I pounce on the guy. The funny part was, right before attacking the warrior called out "Morals" as if asking a giant, warred, minotaur Barbarian to show mercy or morals in this situation is going to work. A few swings of my 2 handed hammer and a few specials later, I had my rune, got the hell outta dodge, and listed my rune for 100 bucks :) I almost felt bad after the guy sent me a tell saying he'd been camping it for like 14 hours. Almost.   

[Margalis]

"Hardcore" is really a poor term. It means too many things.

A "hardcore" game like EQ actually had a bunch of disparate components:

Content blocks.
Difficulty.
Group-centric play.

All of these are grouped into the "hardcore" term but they are all different. When Brad talked about "hardcore" he meant #1 - content blocks. Imposed difficulty, not in the encounters or battles but in the systems themselves - travel time, death penalties, lack of item space, etc.

[Venkman]

Didn't we once settle on separating the player by "dedicated" versus "casually interested" or something along those lines?

Hardcore is not grind. Grind just sucks all around, and only serves to separate those who are interested in investing more time than others. Time here equates achievement with some skill whereas in other genres it's achievement plus a great deal of skill. Your clan won't win top brackets just because you successfully logged in and didn't screw up three times a week for two hours at a time.

Dedicated is the real separation, something that spans all genres. Some just care all around more than others. Can the game adequately provide for them? There are some that can. Can a game adequately provide for them AND others? Some can.

In my mind, a perfectly functioning Shadowbane would have proven the size of the PvP++ crowd. It would not have been that much. I'd guess no more than what Eve has today. It's not really about skill or time or sb.exe though. Those are just all results of the core tenet of dedication. SB is about as immersive as they come, in ways that most gamers don't not want to be immersed. Losing that much effort is not universally appealing, even to the winners because eventually either there's no one to fight or they themselves have lost.

[Margalis]

Are WOW players really not dedicated though?

[Rithrin]

I'd wager that the majority is not dedicated. I play on an RP PVP server, so my perspective on WoW as a whole is a little off, but I'm sure you'll find that on all servers the ratio of people who have even been to the top dungeons to those who have not is pretty darn low.

Edit: And really, is there anything else than the top instances that requires dedication?

[Signe]

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?

I have to admit that I do miss the hats.  Le sigh.   

[slog]

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.

I don't think it could.  I believe the Hardcore demand just as much content as everyone else.   It might not have to have as much as WoW but it's gotta be in the same Ballpark.

This would require more investment than the resulting hardcore playerbase could ever support.

[Margalis]

"Hardcore" MMOs already work. FFXI has 500k users and was released 5 years ago. It also has as much if not more content than WOW and a huge variety of end game activities.

One reason FFXI has done well is that it is played in the US, Japan and Europe. I'm not sure what the exact numbers are but without the Japanese market it would probably be only half the size.

[schild]

The Japanese market accounts for 250,000 users? Unless people are still connecting with the PS2 (or 360... lol), I find that hard to believe.

[SnakeCharmer]

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.

Coming back to this, once I saw it on page 14...

I always wonder if the lessons learned from SWG are 'sandbox skill set based games don't sell' rather than 'poorly done sandbox-ish skill set games don't sell'.
Same thing for Vanguard:  'hardcore MMOs don't sell' rather than 'poorly done hardcore MMOs don't sell'.

[Margalis]

The Japanese market accounts for 250,000 users? Unless people are still connecting with the PS2 (or 360... lol), I find that hard to believe.

Nobody in Japan uses PCs for gamings. Nearly every Japanese player is on a PS2. Remember that it came out first in Japan as well. I'm not sure what the exact breakdown is but the Japanese market is a very large part of the player base. The Japanese are also the first to accomplish everything major in-game.

[Azazel]

Erm, yes. FF. PS2. Japan.

It's not exactly a stretch, after all.

[Numtini]

FFXI is also a hard one to gauge because if it had been westernized with a little less grind, US servers to cater to the xenophobic US population, and a standard MMPORPG interface, it probably would have done much better in the west.

I'd guess 2/3rds Japanese on the population.

[HaemishM]

I always wonder if the lessons learned from SWG are 'sandbox skill set based games don't sell' rather than 'poorly done sandbox-ish skill set games don't sell'.
Same thing for Vanguard:  'hardcore MMOs don't sell' rather than 'poorly done hardcore MMOs don't sell'.

Those are the lessons the money people learned. They are of course, the WRONG lessons. WoW just happens to teach that polish and content matter more than innovation.

[Sky]

Those are the lessons the money people learned. They are of course, the WRONG lessons. WoW just happens to teach that polish and content matter more than innovation.

Casual-friendly gameplay. Unfortunately, you could probably take the lesson that once you hook people socially into casual gameplay, you can push them into raid engame stuff, and they'll lap it up just to keep playing their characters after they're 'done' with the game.

[ajax34i]

... for a while.

[HaemishM]

... for a while.

If "a while" = a 6-month subscription, as a business that's really what you want anyway. Everything after that is gravy, if your business plan is right.

[Engels]

When VG is your proof that something else sucks your logic fails.  I dont care what your trying to prove.

is an example of how I don't think Vanguard is too bad in the art department.

I take umbrage at folks criticizing Vanguard, or any other game for that matter, by making comparisons to WoW. In the end, its all in the eye of the beholder, but making blanket statements about Vanguard, simply because its the whipping boy du jour, is feeble and just adds you to the 'me too!' crowd.

Don't get me wrong; Vanguard is insanely bad for any number of other reasons, including the performance of said graphics on a middle of the line gaming rig. But there's bad coding, and there's bad artwork. Vanguard suffers from the former, not the latter.

And I'm playing WoW at the moment, and the Vanguard account will be cancelled shortly.

[Margalis]

I don't know, the character models qualify as "bad artwork" and character/enemy models are probably the most important graphical element of a MMORPG.

[Trippy]

When VG is your proof that something else sucks your logic fails.  I dont care what your trying to prove.

is an example of how I don't think Vanguard is too bad in the art department.

Well that screenshot it too dark to see much of anything. The bridge looks kind of cool, ignoring the fact that the radius of the arches looks wrong. However the grass looks like crap and your horse's shadow or the light source is on the wrong side -- your right side of your head is lit but your horse's shadow is on the right side as well. Or maybe that's not a shadow and just a splotch on the ground.

[Rithrin]

Gosh, the art in VG is very random. There are some areas that are just amazing, and there are some areas that have zero life. I've noticed their swampy/marsh/bog areas have great art, but their mountain top pine tree forest areas are a prime example of bump mapping gone wrong. Desert areas complete with palms and joshua trees look very nice, but the sandy desert islands look like snowy islands with succulents awkwardly sticking out of it. And so forth.

To say its all completely bad is a stretch, though.

[Venkman]

I think EQ2 looks way better at max settings personally (including flora and water displacement), but that too has some of the randomness of VG. Like, the textures for the rocks are amateurish and the ground is inconsistent. And this is from the latest expansion, so technically looks "the best" (I was traveling for the remainder of my 7-day Play the Fae trial, so didn't get to Qeynos).

I always wonder if the lessons learned from SWG are 'sandbox skill set based games don't sell' rather than 'poorly done sandbox-ish skill set games don't sell'..

The true lesson learned for all is that sandbox skill-based games are harder to do right. So don't strap upon it a license that cedes critical points of control to an non-expert external partner, and don't try and build one for a company that doesn't get it in the first place.

[schild]

I'd like to point out that the level of dedication needed to be hardcore in WoW less less than pretty much any other game. Sure, there's tiers to the hardcoreness (what with scheduled raids) - but I think the moment you hit 70 and don't quit, you really should be considered hardcore.

[Murgos]

I agree with Darniaq here, I've recently been swapping around from MMO to MMO in an effort to find anything engaging at all and EQ2 is certainly the best looking one out there at the moment.  They are doing a lot with dynamic lighting and shadows and textures in the new areas that I haven't really seen anywhere else.

Extreme quality graphics still makes my x1600 Pro cry but I can get most of the bells and whistles and still be at a solid 25-30 fps with several players and mobs and spells and crap going on.  The Blood Elf areas in WoW looked like amateur hour in comparison to the newbie Fae areas.

[Numtini]

EQ2/EOF has what I think are probably the nicest visuals in any game and from the type of effects and what they do to my system, I'd say it has the best engine. It's a shame they didn't do more with it until EOF. I can't wait to see neon colored Neriak in it's full glory.

Vanguard seemed really mediocre compared to almost anything else.

[Nija]

is an example of how I don't think Vanguard is too bad in the art department.

FPS: 9

[Kitsune]

EQ2/EOF has what I think are probably the nicest visuals in any game and from the type of effects and what they do to my system, I'd say it has the best engine. It's a shame they didn't do more with it until EOF. I can't wait to see neon colored Neriak in it's full glory.

Vanguard seemed really mediocre compared to almost anything else.

Neriak still has a few recognizable landmarks.

[Engels]

is an example of how I don't think Vanguard is too bad in the art department.

FPS: 9

The FPS is really cruddy in that screenshot because its a dual monitor set up, one 7950 GPU each per monitor, in windowed mode. Also, I have a 939 AMD 64 chip, which doesn't help. However, that's not to come to the defense of Vanguard; Even EQ2 would run like a dream with a dual monitor set up and the system I currently have. Vanguard, not so much.

The point is that art and performance have little to do with each other. I can simultaneously dislike WoW's artistic style yet acknowledge that for what it is, its well executed, and well optimised. I play WoW.

I can adore Vanguard's take on art, from its detailed Moorish cities to the fine attention to weapon hilt inlays yet find the game's overall performance pitiable, which I do.

[Venkman]

One thing I remember from my time through VG was that interior textures looked good, particularly the tooled ones for buildings. They have that over EQ2, in which I found even the EOF textures wanting.

LoTRO should not be discounted either, at max settings (though they should score points for making the game look good on lower end systems than EQ2 and VG would). I don't find the lighting all that great, but most objects and textures look awesome. And the water... oh, the water. Sure EQ2 has that geometry collision detection thing going. But aesthetically, LoTRO water wins by miles unmeasurable. Not sure how it looks at below-max settings.

I only play on one 20.1" widescreen with a single nVidia 8800 on a C2D 6600, but there's nothing I haven't set in LoTRO nor EQ2 that does anything to the FPS. I did the dual monitor thing a long time ago. Today I just run two PCs.

[Engels]

Ya, to be honest, LoTR has the best recent graphics and art solutions. It runs well on mid range systems, even at higher settings, has a good attention to toon detail, and has fair animations for its toons. You've gotta tip your hat to Turbine for this one.

I'd love to see the comparative staffing and art development salaries between Turbine and Sigil. I have a sneaking suspicion that Sigil art devs are overpayed and arrogant in their dismissal of useablility criticisms, whereas Turbine art devs probably have a healthy relationship with the implimentation devs.

You industry folks probably know the right terms for the positions I'm describing, but you get the idea.

[Hutch]

The FPS is really cruddy in that screenshot because its a dual monitor set up, one 7950 GPU each per monitor, in windowed mode.

I was wondering how you got that resolution, i.e. very wide compared to the height.

That ss looks fine to me. I have to admit that I started reaching for my mouse so I could spin the camera, to take a better look at that bridge ;)

[Azazel]

I'd like to point out that the level of dedication needed to be hardcore in WoW less less than pretty much any other game. Sure, there's tiers to the hardcoreness (what with scheduled raids) - but I think the moment you hit 70 and don't quit, you really should be considered hardcore.

Of course, you never got to 70, so you don't really know what you're talking about....

[Ironwood]

And that stops Schild....when ?

[Venkman]

You don't need to hit the last level to know what lies beyond it. Raids and BGs if you want to continue improving your gear, gold if you craft, cash if you RMT. It's not rocket scientry :)

But I disagree hitting 70 (or 60 before it) and not quiting means you're hardcore. Hardcore is a state of mind, something that someone is throughout all levels of play. The way I look at, if a person has a playstyle that others would perceive as "work", they're pretty hardcore. But that implies there's something casual here too, and I think that also needs differentiation. "MMO Casual" and "Bejeweled Casual" are very different things.

[Azazel]

And that stops Schild....when ?

Touche'