While the senior developer does come off a bit arrogant, this is seen in every industry. I know at my current job (test engineer), when I first started working I wondered why things were done a specific way, and I would always get so much shit from the senior testers/developers when I questioned their methods. But most of their "methods" seemed to be just "we always did it this way, so we're going to keep doing it this way". And now that I've been working there for two and a half years I'm catching myself defending obviously wrong methods and ideas, just because I've been there longer so I should know better, or sometimes I think its better to just let something slide. Fresh minds should always be welcome, and their ideas should always be considered. I know I'm going to try my best to respect their ideas after reading the arrogance in the discussion and being reminded of my own job.
"They essentially want to say 'Correlation proves Causation' when it's just not true." - Sovrath
I don't know how many people here have actually followed the development/plan for Vanguard. At a guess I think this is an attempt to sell the game due to the amount of resistance they have generated from a good portion of the MMO community. Simply put, despite the style, what this article seems to be trying to say is "Trust me, we've put a lot of thought and debate into this, it's what you want despite what you might think".
According to Vanguard's site, this entire game is designed to be "Old School". It is intended to basically emulate EQ 1 with new technology in terms of content (long, very hard quests with little payoff, etc...) and to ultimatly favor uber-raiders who can put a "lifestyle" type committment into the game.
This is compared to the "new school" that put games like WoW on top of the charts, where even the most casual player could login for half an hour and usually feel like they accomplished something.
WoW succeeded because Blizzard seemed to understand that the majority of people out there have lives, and that MMOs (due to the money involved) have more or less replaced true single-player CRPGS (games like Oblivion are far and few between, the days of Wizardry, Ultima, and Might and Magic are more or less gone). Thus the best way to go is to make an MMO that allows both solitary and group type play.
Of course an industry criticism of WoW is that due to Blizzard's way of programming it *DID* turn into an Uber-raider game in a way because people blew through the first 60 levels of content pretty quickly. This lead to the development of more and more 'old school' type raiding time sinks (along with week-long reset timers in many cases) to keep people occupied. The problem with the "New School" is that it requires a level of content production that the primary innovator (Blizzard) was unable to meet, and ultimatly to be maintained is going to make less money due to production compared to a game that can be just left there to sit and generate cash.
Indeed it's argued by many that within 6 months of release "Burning Crusade" will be exhausted, and many of the people currently involved in the 'endgame' just aren't going to tolerate the way things are now while waiting for the next expansion and move on. As it is, the "Carrot On The Stick" is what has kept a lot of people (and even guilds) going.
That said, even with the raid Zones Blizzard put a lot of effort into making sure it was possible for someone who plays alone to get gear comperable to what can be pulled out of most raid instances without having to actually deal with another person. It's theoretically possible to get BWL equivilent gear through PVP (and you don't have to use pre-made groups, although it is easier), and a lot of the CC gear from "Medals" and faction grinding is equivilent to what can be pulled out of an endgame zone.
At any rate, what your typical MMO player wants is a game like WoW, except with enough content to keep it going with that level of pacing, without having to rely on 39 other people, or your online social abillity. This is now what Vanguard is though.
The Vanguard concept seems to be highly competitive, and designed around the idea of servers where less than 1% of the population will totally dominate and will be worshipped by their lesser peers (OMG! Where did you get that item!) these people being utterly hard core. We've seen it in EQ all the time. For this to work however it requires a lot of casual gamers to come in and effectively make up the peasantry, something that you find less and less people willing to do. Your average guy does not want to sit around in say Mithaniel Marr and talk about how cool "Afterlife" is. They want to be able to do the same things as opposed to being locked out from going forward because they have to work 8-10 hours a day, or do homework.
It's also known that when MMO players committ to a game, they tend to spend time whining and 'naysaying' and don't usually leave a game. Indeed to an extent all the crying, footstomping is part of what makes the guys on top feel special about themself (as odd as that might sound).
The point here is that this is a carefully premeditated sales pitch. Vanguard looks like the best game out there in a lot of respects (graphics, some of the game play concept), but it's the overall theory of it's development that has sparked this kind of advertisement/article to begin with.
Basically Vanguard seems to be being developed by a bunch of guys who want to recapture the old days when EQ 1 was pretty much the only MMO option, and a handfull of people at the top got to hold court/be worshipped in places like the North Freeport Bazaar, or Qeynos (before Luclin came out that is where people gathered to trade and were the social hubs of the game, depending on the server). As a result even the "new guy" seems to subtly lean in this direction, and the "old guy" is much wiser and such.
All this rambling aside, my point is that if your not familiar with Vanguard you should check out their site and some of the things that have been said there over the many months of it's existance. If your in any way casual Vanguard probably isn't the game for you. If your hard core, you probably won't get what your looking for in Vanguard since I don't think "the peasantry" is going to be there anymore. Reading their site is probably the best way to understand what I'm talking about (and why they are advertising this way).
EQ1 and it's concepts of advancement/dominance and such are antiquidated. A dinosaur ridden by cavemen so to speak, and Vanguard is trying to play "Jurassic Park".
>>>-----Therumancer--->
Mage Speaker: Kamahi Immotum (Shadow Council Server, WoW)
(Yes, I'm an experienced Endgame raider in multiple games despite everything I said)
Comments
"They essentially want to say 'Correlation proves Causation' when it's just not true." - Sovrath
I don't know how many people here have actually followed the development/plan for Vanguard. At a guess I think this is an attempt to sell the game due to the amount of resistance they have generated from a good portion of the MMO community. Simply put, despite the style, what this article seems to be trying to say is "Trust me, we've put a lot of thought and debate into this, it's what you want despite what you might think".
According to Vanguard's site, this entire game is designed to be "Old School". It is intended to basically emulate EQ 1 with new technology in terms of content (long, very hard quests with little payoff, etc...) and to ultimatly favor uber-raiders who can put a "lifestyle" type committment into the game.
This is compared to the "new school" that put games like WoW on top of the charts, where even the most casual player could login for half an hour and usually feel like they accomplished something.
WoW succeeded because Blizzard seemed to understand that the majority of people out there have lives, and that MMOs (due to the money involved) have more or less replaced true single-player CRPGS (games like Oblivion are far and few between, the days of Wizardry, Ultima, and Might and Magic are more or less gone). Thus the best way to go is to make an MMO that allows both solitary and group type play.
Of course an industry criticism of WoW is that due to Blizzard's way of programming it *DID* turn into an Uber-raider game in a way because people blew through the first 60 levels of content pretty quickly. This lead to the development of more and more 'old school' type raiding time sinks (along with week-long reset timers in many cases) to keep people occupied. The problem with the "New School" is that it requires a level of content production that the primary innovator (Blizzard) was unable to meet, and ultimatly to be maintained is going to make less money due to production compared to a game that can be just left there to sit and generate cash.
Indeed it's argued by many that within 6 months of release "Burning Crusade" will be exhausted, and many of the people currently involved in the 'endgame' just aren't going to tolerate the way things are now while waiting for the next expansion and move on. As it is, the "Carrot On The Stick" is what has kept a lot of people (and even guilds) going.
That said, even with the raid Zones Blizzard put a lot of effort into making sure it was possible for someone who plays alone to get gear comperable to what can be pulled out of most raid instances without having to actually deal with another person. It's theoretically possible to get BWL equivilent gear through PVP (and you don't have to use pre-made groups, although it is easier), and a lot of the CC gear from "Medals" and faction grinding is equivilent to what can be pulled out of an endgame zone.
At any rate, what your typical MMO player wants is a game like WoW, except with enough content to keep it going with that level of pacing, without having to rely on 39 other people, or your online social abillity. This is now what Vanguard is though.
The Vanguard concept seems to be highly competitive, and designed around the idea of servers where less than 1% of the population will totally dominate and will be worshipped by their lesser peers (OMG! Where did you get that item!) these people being utterly hard core. We've seen it in EQ all the time. For this to work however it requires a lot of casual gamers to come in and effectively make up the peasantry, something that you find less and less people willing to do. Your average guy does not want to sit around in say Mithaniel Marr and talk about how cool "Afterlife" is. They want to be able to do the same things as opposed to being locked out from going forward because they have to work 8-10 hours a day, or do homework.
It's also known that when MMO players committ to a game, they tend to spend time whining and 'naysaying' and don't usually leave a game. Indeed to an extent all the crying, footstomping is part of what makes the guys on top feel special about themself (as odd as that might sound).
The point here is that this is a carefully premeditated sales pitch. Vanguard looks like the best game out there in a lot of respects (graphics, some of the game play concept), but it's the overall theory of it's development that has sparked this kind of advertisement/article to begin with.
Basically Vanguard seems to be being developed by a bunch of guys who want to recapture the old days when EQ 1 was pretty much the only MMO option, and a handfull of people at the top got to hold court/be worshipped in places like the North Freeport Bazaar, or Qeynos (before Luclin came out that is where people gathered to trade and were the social hubs of the game, depending on the server). As a result even the "new guy" seems to subtly lean in this direction, and the "old guy" is much wiser and such.
All this rambling aside, my point is that if your not familiar with Vanguard you should check out their site and some of the things that have been said there over the many months of it's existance. If your in any way casual Vanguard probably isn't the game for you. If your hard core, you probably won't get what your looking for in Vanguard since I don't think "the peasantry" is going to be there anymore. Reading their site is probably the best way to understand what I'm talking about (and why they are advertising this way).
EQ1 and it's concepts of advancement/dominance and such are antiquidated. A dinosaur ridden by cavemen so to speak, and Vanguard is trying to play "Jurassic Park".
>>>-----Therumancer--->
Mage Speaker: Kamahi Immotum (Shadow Council Server, WoW)
(Yes, I'm an experienced Endgame raider in multiple games despite everything I said)