Vanguard Round 2 - Post Mortem

[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.

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

I'm sorry, I was waiting for someone to tell me how I was wrong.

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.

But that's my point really. Hitting max level in a diku MMOG = Work in my book. It's a series of repetitive acts for a common goal. And I don't just mean repetitive like games of Street Fighter. I mean repetitive like every single skin in the game can be swapped and the EXP can be fucked with and icons can be switched between skills and you'd still be doing the exact same thing. That's Work to me. Hence, maxing out, well, that makes you hardcore in my book.

[Venkman]

We agree. I do think it's a question of motivation (are you there to hit 70, or do you hit 70 as the result of a long series of quests), but asking that is purely theoretical. No MMORPG has done what RPGs were known for: advancement as a result of storyline and decisions made throughout. Maybe LoTRO will be that at some point. They've certainly done a bang-up job with the early levels. But it's going to take years of free and for-pay content expansions before they flesh out every level to the cap with storylines as interesting as what is there pre mid-game. And that assumes they don't into the EQ1 trap of always having to focus on keeping the late/end-gamers occupied.

So yea, at present, hitting that level cap is eventually going to be work. And yea, therefore maybe by and large the people that hit it are comparatively "hardcore".

[Azazel]

The problem with arguing with you, schild, on pretty much any topic, is that you basically refuse to listen to any opposing viewpoint and simply do the "lalalalalalala I'mnotlisteningIamrightandyouarewrong lalalalalalalalala" thing.

So I'll reply in kind.

You don't know what you're talking about. Other people play differently to the way you imagine they must. And you are, simply, wrong.

[schild]

Hey man, all I'm saying is that even if you are uber casual by uberguild standards, when you cap out in an MMOG, it means you've spent more time with it that any other game in that same time period. And it means you've been paying the same amount each months for probably more months than it took one of the labeled "Hardcore" folks to max out. I'm not contesting the fun or playstyle at all so much as the label.

[Azazel]

wrote a long post, fucking board shit itself when I submitted.

short version:

My wife plays more guitar hero than wow, took 8-10 months to get to 60, plays a couple hours per week, hasnt played in 3-4 weeks now. She will hit 70, continue to play exclusively with me and will still be causal by any thinking person's definition.

I am 70, play a few hours per week atm. I dont raid, I much around with tradeskills and my mates and slowly work my way through the quests. That's pretty casual as well.

[schild]

Right, but the point is, you made it to 70. You paid $15 a month, and while it took you longer, you still got there. Having only maxed out in a few MMOGs but having beaten more games than most folks beat in their lifetime, I see maxing out as hardcore. Being able to put up with the bullshit, and negative changes, and monthly fee in the face of countless other interesting games coming out a year, let alone the absolute flood we end up with during the early summer/fourth quarter - ignoring them or even playing them in addition to WoW or any MMOG and making it to 70 just seems pretty fucking hardcore.

I think the definition of hardcore - because of how many people play Bejeweled and such exclusively just needs to change. Yea, sure, there's the fanatical end of the spectrum where people are uberguild competing raider types. But what about the other end. Real People (as in adults, not college kids on summer break of high schoolers) have only X amount of hours to play each day. Now, say, you take 3 of those days a week and play WoW with friends. Those other 2 days of the week (yes, I'm purposefully throwing out weekends), you play new releases or a backlog of Whatever Else Is On The Shelf. Now, when that backlog keeps building up because you're spending 3 hours a day doing the same senseless bullshit in an online game with no end in sight - doesn't that cross into hardcore territory?

I'm sure someone snappier than I could have made a simple bit of math to explain that, but it pretty much sums up why I dropped out of MMORPGs. If I so much as spent 1 or 2 nights in an MMOG, the Other Game backlog simply got too big to deal with - and more often than not, those other games are about 900x more bang for the buck. Now, that parts just me, but the label of hardcore I'm having a pretty big "issue" with.

[Azazel]

See, it's all in the way you play. I play WoW as essentially, a social single-player game. I group with people in the guild from time to time, and the main reason I play at all is because it's something I can do socially with my wife, and that couple of RL friends. So the whole class nerfs/whinefest/nerf/buff thing washes over me because simply put, I don't give enough of a fuck.

I did for a time play quite a lot, but that hasn't been for quite some time. The point you make about all the other good games that don't get played is a good one, but I'm one of those people with game ADD anyway, I can afford to buy way more games than I will ever sit down and fully play. It's possibly a trickle-down effect from back when I was an amiga-playing kid and games were "free" /cough. I've always had more than I can play, and even now that I've been buying the things for years and years, it's just the same. That's why I lack any tolerance (now, especially) for any single-player game that wants to waste my fucking time with backstory and long-winded bullshit before letting me play. Hence my comments several months ago about Red Steel and Zelda for the Wii.

But the fact is, I start playing something, then more often than not, lose interest and never get around to (or anywhere near) finishing them. I even play games on easy mode so I can play through them and see what the game has to offer and actually finish them and move onto the next. I've got a pile of never-installed, unplayed shooters in my bookshelf behind me thats probably 2foot high, so fuck "hard mode" and being the h4rdc0r3 fragger.

The attraction of MMOs for me has been that I've played RPGs in some form since I was 5 (sure, it was my brother storytelling me through a made-up-as-he-went-along adventure, but I was rolling dice, and I thought I was playing "real" D&D). I've always been into the genre, and the Warhammer stuff has the same kind of origin from those games of "D&D with miniatures). I've also always liked being able to save my game. And of course, we all enjoy playing with our friends. if my wife wasn't also playing WoW, I doubt I would be anymore.

At any given time, I tend to be playing one MMO, one PC FPS/3PS, and one "other" PC game, and bounce between the three during my game times. Maybe with a side order of one console game and muck-abouts (Guitar Hero/Mario Party/Wii anything). If I'm particularly enjoying any one of the three at any time, I tend to play that one a lot more than the other two. I try to finish the shooters. but the "other game" tends to fluctuate as my attention level decides.

As far as time goes, I wrote this bit up in the post that got eaten, but I log on a few nights per week, but I very rarely spend 3 hours on in one sitting. The closest is when my RL friends suck me into a group or instance etc, but I tend to log off right afterwards, so even then it's a shorter session than that. Weeknights I tend to play sessions lasting between 20 minutes and 90 minutes. I don't usually get on at all on after work (I'm on call atm, usually working 3 days a week). I actually spend (way) more time on f13 than in WoW. As for weekends, they follow my weekdays-when-I'm-not-at-work schedule. Sunday I didnt play at all. Saturday I played for about 2 hours.

As for the money thing, you kind of have a point, but aside from my tight-assery in other aspects of life, we both make enough so that 2x WoW game cards every 2 months is insignificant.


But really, it's just how you choose to spend your time. Watching TV, playing console games, MMOs, PC games. It's easy to label any of those as hardcore.

[pants]

countless other interesting games coming out a year, let alone the absolute flood we end up with during the early summer/fourth quarter

Pretty serious derail, but where are these countless other interesting games if you're PC-only?  I'm just hitting the bored-with-WoW stage, and looking around for other PC games appears pretty thin on the ground.  The pursestrings don't allow me to stump up for a console, but non-MMO PC gaming seems a bit scanty these days.  Hell, I may have to spend time with my wife and child!  Thats crazy talk!

[schild]

I was PC Only for a few years.

Seems... futile.

[Venkman]

While I'm not a big fan of Vista just yet, the looming integration with Xbox Live is going to open up a lot of possibilities. I very much want to check out Shadowrun, pWn the console ubers with my slacker PC mouse/keyboard. But really, just being able to have that cross-platform experience is going to be quite enough for some time. I like the Xbox 360. I have no intention of buying one myself. Just no point with my PC.

Azazel, please don't take this the wrong way, but it sounds more like you're justifying your enjoyment of MMOs than countering schild's assertion. To me, everything you said boils down to something I think many of us accepted long ago: MMOGs are not "games" per se, but rather, hobbies.

To play them to the endgame is "hardcore" in the sense that we are more into our hobby than others are. That's not something to be proud nor ashamed of. Some people just care more than others, and/or are in a position to be more dedicated than others. And some do so to the exclusion of other things. So? "MMOGs" span everything from Webkinz (close enough) to Eve (as massive as they come). I may be missing out on some uber physics tweak in a new Basketball game, but even without MMOGs, I didn't care about organized sports anyway.

I personally find every console game a good temporary experience. No single console game has ever come close to capturing me as any MMO has. It took the entire aggregate of features that is Xbox Live to even make me take notice. And that's not a slight on Xbox nor fans of consoles. It's just how I'm wired.

Long ago I stopped calling myself a gamer. I'm a hobbiest and fine with that.

[Falconeer]

Out of boredom (waiting for a Dark Wind race to start) I checked latest patch notes for Vanguard. They are still patching like mad, still massively re-balancing (nerfing) classes and items and still putting out illogic patch messages, but hey.. they finally put in chat bubbles!

[Azazel]

countless other interesting games coming out a year, let alone the absolute flood we end up with during the early summer/fourth quarter

Pretty serious derail, but where are these countless other interesting games if you're PC-only?  I'm just hitting the bored-with-WoW stage, and looking around for other PC games appears pretty thin on the ground.  The pursestrings don't allow me to stump up for a console, but non-MMO PC gaming seems a bit scanty these days.  Hell, I may have to spend time with my wife and child!  Thats crazy talk!

What genre(s) are you interested in, and have you played much of the stuff from the last few years?

Nothing bad about playing games that are a year or three old, as long as they're good.

Azazel, please don't take this the wrong way, but it sounds more like you're justifying your enjoyment of MMOs than countering schild's assertion. To me, everything you said boils down to something I think many of us accepted long ago: MMOGs are not "games" per se, but rather, hobbies.
Long ago I stopped calling myself a gamer. I'm a hobbiest and fine with that.

Gamier, Hobbyist, whatever label you want to use doesn't matter since everyone has their own pet definition anyway. Justifying my enjoyment? Nah, just explaining that other perspectives are out there, and correcting several of Schildy's assumptions that are, you know. Incorrect.

Aside from the details about my own gaming habits and playtime, anyone who would call my wife "hardcore" because she hit 60 in WoW when it was the cap and didn't quit seriously needs to touch base with reality. Other games she didn't play in that time, and $15/month is an insignificant amount of money to her. Yes, it's an extreme example, but it still proves the point.

[shiznitz]

It is a page old by now, but I wanted to chirp in my VG/EQ2 visuals impressions: A level 15 melee in VG looks badass. Melees in EQ2 look like they are wearing clay molds. I have one EQ2 character, a 70 zerk, and while he looks fine his armor is motley - some blue, some grey, some brown. He is wearing a treasured BP, legendary arms (class set) and fabled legs. EQ2 weapons have a distinct and interesting fantasy style to them. VG weapons look like weapons. I have my VG settings so that the PCs look good but the world - not so much. In EQ2, I have it so up to 6 PCs have high detail (there is a slider for this) and the worlds looks good.

[WindupAtheist]

Those other 2 days of the week (yes, I'm purposefully throwing out weekends), you play new releases or a backlog of Whatever Else Is On The Shelf. Now, when that backlog keeps building up because you're spending 3 hours a day doing the same senseless bullshit in an online game with no end in sight - doesn't that cross into hardcore territory?

You do realize, Schild, that not everyone out there goes around compulsively buying every single video game in the universe?  That not everyone has a "backlog" of games that MUST be played or else it will "build up" under the next load of compulsive purchases until it fills the room and drowns them?

"You guys who spend two hours a night watching television series are fucking hardcore man.  I wish I had the time to waste watching the same characters over and over again, but it interferes with my habit of BUYING AND WATCHING EVERY SINGLE MOVIE RELEASED EVERYWHERE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD.  OMFG BACKLOG."

[Venkman]

Different type of hardcore. Hardcore experience seeker, hardcore trend watcher, hardcore sports fanatic, who cares?

The only time people get in trouble is when they use labels about things of which they have no understanding. That is not the case here, but is the biggest problem in general. Often there lacks that common frame of reference. For example, to me, anyone who can rattle off RBIs is a hardcore Baseball fan. But that's just from my point of view of not knowing a damned thing about it.

I'm not proud of that, nor ashamed of it, nor really in any way care. And that's what I wish would happen more often. If you (not WUA, the general "you") don't care about something, or don't care about it anymore, shut the f up about it. You have not moved on. You have not evolved. You have not transcended to some higher level of understanding. You simply changed, without any valuation. Be happy about it while you dive into the new/experience experience and leave the rest of the folks that didn't come with you to their happiness.

Life would be much easier :)

[Engels]

Interesting discovery about Vanguard's performance today.

In a last ditch effort to see if VG was going to be salvageable, I installed VG on my laptop. I thought it would be a complete waste of time, since my laptop has a very low hertz CPU and an even lower end GPU. But it ran comparably! Here's a comparison between my desktop system and my laptop.

Desktop:

3 gigs of DDR ram with tweaked timings for high end Corsair ram. 2.3.3.4 I think it is. (200 bus speed)
2.6 gig dual core AMD 64 FX San Diego CPU (1 MB L2 cach)
Gforce 7950 GX2 video card

Laptop:

2 gig DDR2-667 (333 bus speed)
1.7 gig Centrino Mobile Pentium M (2 MB L2 cache)
Gforce Go 6200 (!!!) GPU

The laptop worked poorly, but only slightly less poorly than on my desktop PC. They were equivalent in performance at low graphical settings.

What this seems to tell me is that more than CPU gigs, more than GPU pixel pipelines, more than anything else, what matters for Vanguard is memory type and speed and the effective clock speed of the memory bus, which in both systems are just about the same.

This explains why my girlfriend's DELL XPS Dual Core 3.2 Pentium D absolutely smokes my machine playing Vanguard, despite having a 7200 graphics card.

[Ixxit]

What this seems to tell me is that more than CPU gigs, more than GPU pixel pipelines, more than anything else, what matters for Vanguard is memory type and speed and the effective clock speed of the memory bus, which in both systems are just about the same.

I think your findings confirm what Brad was saying  is his last long post (the one where he hints at the 'new' relationship between SOE and Sigi)l.

[Engels]

True enough, but I didn't realise the extent to which it was the case. We're talking an early version of the 6000 series GPU keeping pace with the last of the 7000 series GPUs.

I'm wondering if future games will also follow this formula, or if this type of game programing focus on bus speeds is unique to Vanguard.

[shiznitz]

And this is not a good thing for VG. PLayers who want to improve their FPS are going to add RAM and a new GPU but all that really matters is bus speed which generally only gets improved with a new system (or mobo/cpu replacement if one is able).

[Morat20]

What this seems to tell me is that more than CPU gigs, more than GPU pixel pipelines, more than anything else, what matters for Vanguard is memory type and speed and the effective clock speed of the memory bus, which in both systems are just about the same.

I think your findings confirm what Brad was saying  is his last long post (the one where he hints at the 'new' relationship between SOE and Sigi)l.

What the fuck are they doing to get that bound to the bus? Shouldn't that little issue have come up damn early in prototyping? Did they just not care? That's a very inflexible bottleneck for most PCs -- people will buy more RAM, upgrade a videocard, but popping out for a new MB and processor is a much bigger step and means "A whole new computer" to most folks, rather than a upgrade -- and it should have been caught and dealt with.

I know Brad had that whole "Computers will catch up" shit going on, but that's not a real excuse -- just because high-end machines can brute force past the problem doesn't mean the problem isn't there. Lazy-ass fucks.

[Engels]

Well, that's the question; is it bad coding, or a 'feature' that requires high bus speeds? I've heard it mentioned somewhere that Brad was very insistent about his world using no tiles, and that every little pixel was unique. That requires a lot of stuff that can't be preloaded and has to be done on the fly between hard drive, ram, cpu and gpu. It explains the bloated ram 'memory leaks', since there has to be a high turnover of information within ram. Windows has never been particularly good with ram management, and having an application constantly shuffling stuff in and out of it has to cause a performance hit. The slower that bandwidth, the worse the game's performance. In my case, Vanguard crashes every 6th chunk travelled through due to memory congestion/leak.

[Morat20]

Well, that's the question; is it bad coding, or a 'feature' that requires high bus speeds? I've heard it mentioned somewhere that Brad was very insistent about his world using no tiles, and that every little pixel was unique. That requires a lot of stuff that can't be preloaded and has to be done on the fly between hard drive, ram, cpu and gpu. It explains the bloated ram 'memory leaks', since there has to be a high turnover of information within ram. Windows has never been particularly good with ram management, and having an application constantly shuffling stuff in and out of it has to cause a performance hit. The slower that bandwidth, the worse the game's performance. In my case, Vanguard crashes every 6th chunk travelled through due to memory congestion/leak.

I suspect it wasn't exactly possible for the engine and architecture guys to sit Brad down and introduce him to "Mister Reality". If that's what Brad wanted, he shouldn't have licensed an engine -- but paid out the nose to have one developed from scratch. If he was really fighting against tiling -- with that huge a world, his seamless zone philosophy (the chunks) -- you have to design from the ground up to support that. You can't really expect to alter an existing engine to support it.

[schild]

Can this thread die now?

[Lantyssa]

If we strike it down, it shall become more powerful than we ever imagined.

[Venkman]

Bah, the article should link to this thread. Does VG deserve two?

Also, I feel bad for the Sigil folks who hung around. I gotta imagine most saw the writing on the wall though, so hopefully they were all prepared.

And no, I doubt this'll kill the thread. Quite the opposite in fact :)

[schild]

I'm tempted to lock this thread because of the other one actually. So uhm, yes, deserves it.

[Engels]

As one of the 2 or 3 active Vanguard players on f13, I consent to have this thread put down. Its a sad thread. Posters see it every day and look away, averting their eyes, a bit ashamed at their own lack of pity for the babling homeless person this thread has become.

[tazelbain]

So Sigil is owned SOE but SOE didn't fire them.  So they must fired themselves.

[schild]

Did you read the post? Sigil is NOT owned by SOE.

The game itself is though.

[schild]

Hey, Rasix, that's a good stealth edit. Well played.

[Azazel]

At this point, they should just merge VG's world and art assets into EQ2. 

[Simond]

At this point, they should just merge VG's world and art assets into EQ2. 

Hell no - EQ2 is just starting to get decent art in it and run well on modern machines.

[Endie]

Is this the thread where we sit in a circle and get to tell Schild what we really think about him without getting banned?


Edit: pronouns add something to a sentence.

[shiznitz]

This thread was originally for people playing VG to talk about it so those that aren't playing it can keep up. Don't lock it because people derailed it a dozen times. It always came back. Maybe on the bitching about it will move to the news thread now and this thread can remain an occasionally updated gameplay discussion.

[Kageru]

Sigil deflating is just an event, and an inevitable one at that.... There's still lots of entertainment left in watching the wreckage settle.

Heck, look how durable the SWG thread has been.