I think I figured out at least one piece of why the game feels so lifeless: the quest text. I'm probably not the first one to notice, but most of the quest text is just lifeless and has no emotion to it or even hints at regional dialect or even slang. Most quests seem like they're written by possibly non-native english speakers. They're without colorful words to describe things and describe how hopeless the situation is, etc. Most quest givers seem to speak with a pretty educated vocabulary and grammar. It's hard to get the feeling the quest giver your talking to herds camels or whatever when he speaks so exacting and always seems to say 'I'm so glad someone of your caliber is here to fix the situation' instead of ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
<NPC is waving his hands, etc, in excitement - More emotional animations> "Oh praise 'Insert god name here (where are all the religious references??)'! I'm so glad you're willing to help! I thought I'd have to try and fight those ratmen myself, those damn pigs! *so and so spits* Hurry up and save, 'insert name of his daughter here'! Every second that goes by is another second they might be beating her, or doin' something else even worse! ... *eyes frightful and hurried* Well what are you waiting for 'insert name of big bad hero here'! Get to it!"
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- That's at least one reason the game feels so lifeless. Still, it's a decent game with a lot of different avenues of play. Hopefully quest text gets more interesting later on? Actually, I like the text written for the diplomancy stuff. It's still doesn't have enough emotion, but it's a LOT better than the adventure quest text.
its because there are NO FLOWERS!!!!!!! where are the FLOWERS!????!!! doesnt ANybody else notice that??? just some FLOWERS would be enough to add life...just some flowers....
To funny. I was thinking the EXACT same thing. All that incredible grass and not single flower.
Not just that. Where is the ecology as a whole? Were is the see life, plants, fish, anything? Swimming underwater doesn't even feel like swimming underwater, but more like floating in the air.
Seems like they either forgot or just didn't have time to bring the world to life visually. I can hear the world, I can hear the birds chirping, but were are they? Not everything has to be a quest mob or resource mob.
Actually the game has a huge theme common throughout the whole game. Rampant liberal use of bump mapping. Turning off this feature really shows you how much they use it to disguise poor architecture on buildings etc. The only time all of this never bothered me was when it was raining and appeared to be wet.
Actually the game has a huge theme common throughout the whole game. Rampant liberal use of bump mapping. Turning off this feature really shows you how much they use it to disguise poor architecture on buildings etc. The only time all of this never bothered me was when it was raining and appeared to be wet.
Now if you were talking about the bump mapping on rocks I would agree with you, but I don't really see that much bump mapping on the buildings and the rain seems to make the bump mapping worse.
I think the poor bump mapping has somethign to do with the distance draw in the game. Everything seems to pull together better when viewed from a distance, but when you get up close to the bumped surface it looks pixelated; like they had to spread the bumped surface to make it look right from far away, otherwise it wouldn't be visable from a distance. I also contribute this to native resolutions. It seems like the game is meant to be played at a very high resolution. It's like taking a monitor ment with a native resolution of 1280x1024 and turning it down to 800x600, it just doesn't work. Something tells me the game was coded for the future when it will be common to run things in the 1600 ratios were some of that bump mapping is going to pull together a little better when you view it up close.
maybe this depends on where you start in the game. Personally though I've seen bumpmapping used horribly on stone walls for buildings and to give the roof of buildings a bit of detail since they don't look so flat.
What most people are complaining about in this thread all comes down to a common factor: polish. Vanguard is a game that lacks polish, much in the same way the post quoted above lacks content.
Love WoW or hate it, the fact is that Blizzard took great care with the look, feel and sound of the game. Zones are thematically consistent, both graphically and otherwise. NPC dialog is colorful and entertaining. Voice acting is, for the most part, an asset. You get the feeling that Blizzard spent a tremendous amount of time and effort on art direction, audio recording, writing and so forth.
Pretty much that is what Vanguard is lacking is polish but that comes with time just like with any other MMO. . .this is why anyone who does not already love what they see will usually leave a game for a while and then come back later. An experienced gamer would already know what they like and can make the call on whether they should play a game when it comes out or wait 6 mnths to a year. . .Vanguard blows right now, I love the game but the layout blows. . .I still have a great time with my guild and love getting new items and exploring in game but the problems and glitches still blow. As soon as the developers put more work into it then VG will coast along like every other game.
maybe this depends on where you start in the game. Personally though I've seen bumpmapping used horribly on stone walls for buildings and to give the roof of buildings a bit of detail since they don't look so flat.
I noticed that if you uncheck the simple terrian option the bump mapping looks better.
The adventure text is lifeless because you are not following an adventure. . .youre just a lackey going about the world doing odd jobs for lewt and items. . there is no main story whatsoever, as soon as you are plunged into the world, you are not following anything. . .i think they took it too far when they said set yourself free. . .that should mean that I have the choice of whether or not to follow the main story. . . Diplomacy was well written and seems to be the only way to get into the lore of the world. .
um...ya ! That's the whole point. They WANT people to play diplomacy....AND they wanted diplomacy to offer a different reward than just a few coins and some loot....SOO game lore IS that reward.
The quest offer lots of local lore as well. The main story line is told through diplomacy. I think it's a great aspect to the game.
I couldn't agree more. The quest text is plain awful; bland, generic and lacking flavour to the extreme. They desperately need a professional writer to fix that up.
Thamoris, I have to wonder if YOU'VE played the game. There is voice acting in every city, and it is universally terrible.
Also, giving each race its own look doesn't constitute a theme, at least not in the way he was talking about. Think back to Freshman English and you'll have a better idea what we're looking for here. Actually, that's probably a little too true -- all the lore in this game seems like it was written by a high school kid who thinks he's a good Dungeon Master.
For a game that was supposed to be for more mature gamers, it's hysterical to me that the world design and lore are so juvenile.
EDIT: I wonder how many Vanbois are also big fans of Eragon?
The game definitely lacks theme and a sense of inspiration/grandoise. I play the game and am currently having a blast, but everytime I logon I see something that can be made better. For example, all the text in the game is some generic font, like Times or Arial or something. You'd think it wouldn't take long to design a custom font or perhaps use another varied, more fantasy-like font (this is a fantasy game, after all) instead of settling for the default.
I agree about the animations, they are definitely lacking and at times seem jolty, but I haven't played since today's patch so my hopes are up.
I guess the main detriment is that the game DOES lack polish. But that can be added in over time so I'm not worried. I just wish there was some underlying, clear story to land that you get introduced to when you start your character. All of the Final Fantasies do this (and FFXI especially), and it really starts you off in the game feeling immersed and like you're really a part of the world.
One thing the game needs BADLY is videos. There are simply no story videos of any kind to get you into the game. Movies and scripted animations let you sit back and absorb the information that's being presented. When you're playing you're actually thinking where to go for your next quest, how much longer it'll be till you level, wondering what things to adjust to improve performance, deciding your next strategy for killing a mob, looking for a group to clear through a dungeon, etc. I haven't once found myself immersed in the lore/story behind the world itself, nor have I once felt a part of this world the devs are trying to create. I'm confident it will happen in time though, since all of these problems are characteristic of a game being released prematurely.
its because there are NO FLOWERS!!!!!!! where are the FLOWERS!????!!! doesnt ANybody else notice that??? just some FLOWERS would be enough to add life...just some flowers....
I think you're on to something, as opposed to on something, which would be insulting.
Anywho, I seriously find myself stopping in LOTRO to check out the flowers in the game, be it some little garden-type patch or an open field full of undulating wild flowers. It's very pleasant.
you 2 just stop that if you 2 play games to look at flowers you are both on something
You obviously haven't seen LOTRO's flower fields/hillsides/patches. It's quite impressive for being something so simple
I concur...the text in VG is pretty weak...but that really is one of the games lesser evils right now.... Hopefully future content will be of a higher quality (both the text and the game coding)
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Character design really sucks. Its nice and neat grahics but those designs couldn't be shittier. Landscape o.k, mobs and such good. But anything about the characters and whatever it wears or carries sucks it's unplayable. Any worse and might as well call it Wow 2
Love WoW or hate it, the fact is that Blizzard took great care with the look, feel and sound of the game. Zones are thematically consistent, both graphically and otherwise. NPC dialog is colorful and entertaining. Voice acting is, for the most part, an asset. You get the feeling that Blizzard spent a tremendous amount of time and effort on art direction, audio recording, writing and so forth.
Vanguard, on the other hand, has some striking graphics, but no strong themes, unless you travel from one continent to another. The NPC dialog is mostly uninspired and unmoving. The voice acting is laughably bad. Some of the quests are inventive, or at least, no less inventive than WoW or any other computer game, but they are presented so listlessly that they never really catch your imagination. I find myself skipping the quest dialog more often than not and only reading it later if I need a clue as to how to proceed. You get the feeling that the writing, sound recording, and particularly the voice acting were all cobbled together slap-dash towards the end of the development cycle.
Even more than the bugs and other glitches, it's this lack of polish that damages the play experience in Vanguard for me. Worst of all, it really hampers the sense of immersion. Even if there were a tightly-scripted backstory to explore, I suspect it would be presented so soullessly that most players wouldn't bother.
There's a lot of truth here.
What I'm really noticing, along with the generic, but passable, fantasy art is the laughable voice acting, and lack of immersion. And yes, the voice acting exists. I don't know how anyone could miss it unless they're just playing with the sound off, since every NPC says something when you right click on them. Of course, since most of the voice acting either sounds garbled or seems to make no sense in context, I can also understand if someone ignored it outright.
One of Blizzard's greatest strengths in World of Warcraft is that they created what feels like a living, breathing world. NPC's interact with each other, the voice acting is consistent-- merchants will offer you their goods, or talk up their shops, guards will ask how they can help or what you need, etc. And the NPC dialogue and their actions are consistent with who they are in the game world-- the Dwarves are a stout, friendly people, offering greetings, or even drinks , the Blood Elves are proud and jingoistic, yearning for their former glory and justice over what they see as the Alliance's betrayal, and the undead are a gloomy, emotionless lot who dearly want victory for their Queen.
Another thing is that as you're entering the game world for the first time, each area has its own starting video, giving a brief history of the race you're playing, their homeland, and your part in the game from a roleplay perspective. Even if you never RP your character, at least you know where you stand in the game's lore before you ever start playing. That helps with immersion, IMO.
Honestly, I've yet to have a sense of my character's place in the game in Vanguard. Maybe that will change over time, but without that feeling, I don't feel a sense of immersion, or even a pull to be in the world.
Comments
its because there are NO FLOWERS!!!!!!!
To funny. I was thinking the EXACT same thing. All that incredible grass and not single flower.
Not just that. Where is the ecology as a whole? Were is the see life, plants, fish, anything? Swimming underwater doesn't even feel like swimming underwater, but more like floating in the air.
Seems like they either forgot or just didn't have time to bring the world to life visually. I can hear the world, I can hear the birds chirping, but were are they? Not everything has to be a quest mob or resource mob.
Now if you were talking about the bump mapping on rocks I would agree with you, but I don't really see that much bump mapping on the buildings and the rain seems to make the bump mapping worse.
I think the poor bump mapping has somethign to do with the distance draw in the game. Everything seems to pull together better when viewed from a distance, but when you get up close to the bumped surface it looks pixelated; like they had to spread the bumped surface to make it look right from far away, otherwise it wouldn't be visable from a distance. I also contribute this to native resolutions. It seems like the game is meant to be played at a very high resolution. It's like taking a monitor ment with a native resolution of 1280x1024 and turning it down to 800x600, it just doesn't work. Something tells me the game was coded for the future when it will be common to run things in the 1600 ratios were some of that bump mapping is going to pull together a little better when you view it up close.
http://mentaltruancy.guildportal.com - Friendly Vanguard:Saga of Heroes Qalia based Guild.
um...ya ! That's the whole point. They WANT people to play diplomacy....AND they wanted diplomacy to offer a different reward than just a few coins and some loot....SOO game lore IS that reward.
The quest offer lots of local lore as well. The main story line is told through diplomacy. I think it's a great aspect to the game.
Think outside the box.
Thamoris, I have to wonder if YOU'VE played the game. There is voice acting in every city, and it is universally terrible.
Also, giving each race its own look doesn't constitute a theme, at least not in the way he was talking about. Think back to Freshman English and you'll have a better idea what we're looking for here. Actually, that's probably a little too true -- all the lore in this game seems like it was written by a high school kid who thinks he's a good Dungeon Master.
For a game that was supposed to be for more mature gamers, it's hysterical to me that the world design and lore are so juvenile.
EDIT: I wonder how many Vanbois are also big fans of Eragon?
I agree about the animations, they are definitely lacking and at times seem jolty, but I haven't played since today's patch so my hopes are up.
I guess the main detriment is that the game DOES lack polish. But that can be added in over time so I'm not worried. I just wish there was some underlying, clear story to land that you get introduced to when you start your character. All of the Final Fantasies do this (and FFXI especially), and it really starts you off in the game feeling immersed and like you're really a part of the world.
One thing the game needs BADLY is videos. There are simply no story videos of any kind to get you into the game. Movies and scripted animations let you sit back and absorb the information that's being presented. When you're playing you're actually thinking where to go for your next quest, how much longer it'll be till you level, wondering what things to adjust to improve performance, deciding your next strategy for killing a mob, looking for a group to clear through a dungeon, etc. I haven't once found myself immersed in the lore/story behind the world itself, nor have I once felt a part of this world the devs are trying to create. I'm confident it will happen in time though, since all of these problems are characteristic of a game being released prematurely.
I think you're on to something, as opposed to on something, which would be insulting.
Anywho, I seriously find myself stopping in LOTRO to check out the flowers in the game, be it some little garden-type patch or an open field full of undulating wild flowers. It's very pleasant.
You obviously haven't seen LOTRO's flower fields/hillsides/patches. It's quite impressive for being something so simple
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
What I'm really noticing, along with the generic, but passable, fantasy art is the laughable voice acting, and lack of immersion. And yes, the voice acting exists. I don't know how anyone could miss it unless they're just playing with the sound off, since every NPC says something when you right click on them. Of course, since most of the voice acting either sounds garbled or seems to make no sense in context, I can also understand if someone ignored it outright.
One of Blizzard's greatest strengths in World of Warcraft is that they created what feels like a living, breathing world. NPC's interact with each other, the voice acting is consistent-- merchants will offer you their goods, or talk up their shops, guards will ask how they can help or what you need, etc. And the NPC dialogue and their actions are consistent with who they are in the game world-- the Dwarves are a stout, friendly people, offering greetings, or even drinks
Another thing is that as you're entering the game world for the first time, each area has its own starting video, giving a brief history of the race you're playing, their homeland, and your part in the game from a roleplay perspective. Even if you never RP your character, at least you know where you stand in the game's lore before you ever start playing. That helps with immersion, IMO.
Honestly, I've yet to have a sense of my character's place in the game in Vanguard. Maybe that will change over time, but without that feeling, I don't feel a sense of immersion, or even a pull to be in the world.