I have played the game ...on and off(mostly off).When I was last at the forums I heard significant concern over the direction (possible dumbing down) of crafting. Any who can shed light on that ?
Originally posted by Gnarv To me it is also a jewel. But alas the masses have spoken and what they wanted, and time revealed it was not VG, was Theme parks.
If that was true themeparks wouldn't be crashing and burning harder than Vanguard, but they are.
Except for that fact that they aren't.
Where have you been the last 8 years?
STO, DCUO were both dead on arrival and went FTP just to stay afloat. Age of Conan and WAR crashed so hard they destroyed the companies that made them. Funcom had to dissolve two of their partner companies, and Mythic no longer exists. SWTOR did so poorly that it dropped EAs stocks, and they had to fire 2/3 of their development staff.
The last of the good mmorpg build styles, until it became pay to win. This was the last time I actually felt immersed in an mmorpg. I hope the new everquest will return to the original eq's style and not this 2 second monster battle crap that all mmo's have now.
Now I did not say that because You make a game based on a themepark design as a developer team You are hereby guaranteed infinite success and a happy ever after. Many other aspects in a MMO also has a great impact on its success. Graphics and animations, bugs to lack there of, if a well known story like Star Trek/ Wars, the ability of the dev team to capture and expand this universe, the character design, the UI and how things respond etc etc. There are many pits to fall in I would guess. It is easy just to refer to the behemoth of MMO's, a metaphor I actually think I copy from a statement made by Brad himself, as the prime example of success, meassured in profit, within the world of MMO's. They had a well known universe and a name within the world of gaming to expand on of cause, but they did indeed also have a game and a game players moved to, talked about and got a vast number of brand new people to play. If this game did not have very addictive elements in it, if it did not appeal to these people, I think it becomes hard to explain the success and logevity of said game.
Have the line today been crossed when it comes to instant gratification at the expense of the experience as a whole? To me the answer is certainly yes. Do i believe that the younger and less demanding gamer feels this Way? No. Furthermore this also goes for alot of MMO players that grew up and got responsabilities in real life - they want to experience the content within their timeframe. They are consumers and therefor profittable to seek out. Then everything gets watered down, it is the jack of all trades metaphor that kicks in - want to give everybody everything and as a result you loose the feel of uniqueness and individuality - for the players that really dive into these worlds, head first that is, and who demands more from them espcially. What is there to say really? Personally I think it is likely that a more challenging MMO could sustain itself. But Vanguard was'nt It. Perhaps this was only due to the, lets be fair, huge amounts of bugs and the server/zoning issues, but perhaps it is due to other reasons related to the IG theory.
Originally posted by Gnarv To me it is also a jewel. But alas the masses have spoken and what they wanted, and time revealed it was not VG, was Theme parks. They wanted easy, predictable, accessible, less time consuming design that in the end demands less of the gamer. The gameworlds themselves die, they loose their mystery, we know what is comming around next corner, and why should we care? Whatever we find will be something that we will be able to run over blindfolded, and if a miracle should happen and we die, then we respawn 5 yards away - and this time there is just no way you will make that huge a mistake.
Sorry but no. Vanguard had ALOT of bugs at launch, issues with the server and it was badly optimized and not even completed when SoE stopped support Sigil and layed them off. Vanguard still have alot of bugs, issues with server and is badly optimized, it's better now than it was at launch but sadly still have problems.
If SoE took all the great features of Vanguard and put it into a new IP with polished content to the max, that mmorpg would be one of the top 3 most popular mmorpgs, definitely.
I have given constructive posts on this forum and on the Vanguard forum how to fix the game, i'm not a game developer but i have given my ideas through all these years but SoE just doesn't give a single fuck. The game is dead.
Originally posted by Gnarv To me it is also a jewel. But alas the masses have spoken and what they wanted, and time revealed it was not VG, was Theme parks.
If that was true themeparks wouldn't be crashing and burning harder than Vanguard, but they are.
Except for that fact that they aren't.
Where have you been the last 8 years?
STO, DCUO were both dead on arrival and went FTP just to stay afloat. Age of Conan and WAR crashed so hard they destroyed the companies that made them. Funcom had to dissolve two of their partner companies, and Mythic no longer exists. SWTOR did so poorly that it dropped EAs stocks, and they had to fire 2/3 of their development staff.
Themepark design is just straight up flawed.
Unfortunately you couldn't have picked worse examples to prop up your, IMO, flawed position. STO: by far a larger population than Vanguard has now, moving towards release of their first big expansion. Though they run a single-shard server setup, the playerbase is healthy and the game shows none of the outward signs of decline and neglect afflicting VG. DCUO: Take your pick on which platform you prefer-- PS 3 or PC-- and the population there will be far larger than Vanguard's. They're up to DLC 7 now with "Origin Crisis" this week with their 5th tier of Raid Gear being introduced. SWTOR, even with all its troubles, has managed to stabilize its population and introduce an expansion, apparently making EA more money now than they were during the game's lowest point.
I never played past Tortuga in AoC nor installed WAR, so I can't say much about them. It could be that you're right regarding them compared to Vanguard. However, even if that were the case, the assessment that themeparks are crashing much harder than even Vanguard is simply untrue. In fact, the counter-argument might be more demonstrably true; that the game that truly was DOA, the debatably un-themepark VG, has failed to gain traction when thrown the F2P life-preserver, while the profoundly themeparky games on your list have instead found a second life and even thrived in many cases.
I play VG off and on. I find it a quirky, clunky, rich and interesting game. As much as I would like to devote more time to this title, I'm constantly struck by one sad realization. It's an open world, group-based game with far, far fewer players than it needs to give a semblance of healthy life. As long as the towns and countryside feel empty, and as long as trying to put together groups to run low-level dungeons appears to be more a question of blind chance than anything else the game stands no chance of making any sort of recovery.
Originally posted by Trueth Silius broke this game years ago when he was chasing the WoW model. Let Vangaurd go......it is a dead game
I too heard that VG was heavily WoWified prior to launch. The target audience has no interest in WoW's monty-haul game mechanics. Vanguard did so many things right, but did even more things wrong. Hopefully EQN leverages the good things from VG.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon. In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
Originally posted by compwitch I recently went back to Vanguard after a couple of years away, to see what changes there were, and utilising the free-to-play system. Two days later, I subbed again, having realised that for me, it's still the best game out there. I absolutely love the crafting and diplomacy systems, the gameplay is second to none, and my all time favourite activity, exploring, is still as much fun as ever. It's just a pity that so many of the basic bugs are still there, and that SOE won't spend some of its massive resources on improving the small irritations that spoil the game. In spite of these, I expect to keep playing indefinitely, as no other game gives me so much pleasure or sense of achievement.
SoE busted their asses to get VG remotely playable, why should they devote some of their 'massive resources' to an extremely low income game that they already lost a huge amount of money on partially fixing in the first place?
Vanguard was doomed from the start. There were some serious problems going on behind the scenes. What was miraculous was that they actually got SOE to outright buy Vanguard. SOE already had one flop-fest on their hands with SWG and it looked like the just bought another one. That, and the fact EQ2 was barely saved, really made SOE look bad.
They actually turned Vanguard into a solid game. Obviously that never translated into any tangible sales. This is the game people point to where you can say "you give a MMO a month or two and once people leave they do not come back". People usually came back to SWG because it was Star Wars. No one came back to Vanguard. It's dead Jim.
Vanguard was more similar to original EQ than any other MMO at that point. That was the whole point of the game, to go back to what original EQ did so well. Depending on groups. You could solo some (now you can solo up to the highest level) but back in the day you really had to group or it was slim pickens.
Vanguard had severe technical problems that rivaled SWG. Actually, those problems outdid SWGs problems because they actually fixed that game. They never really fixed Vanguard. They had to re-do some of the graphical meshes because they really messed up performance. The races sort of changed, it was not as customizable as it was on release.
But there were two problems that game had and still has today. The chunking problem (when you loaded different areas) was an eyesore as well as the object loadings in view. It was very small and things would just pop into view right in front of your eyes. The game does not hold up well today, unlike other MMOs of that era.
But if you could get past the technical glitches, you had an excellent game at its core. Three ways to level. Adventure, Craft or the totally unique (and awesome) Diplomacy. Sure, the crafting and diplomacy were not finished until much later but it was a lot of fun to be just a crafter or diplomat. Vanguard crafting is still one of the great crafting systems in any MMO. It is not on the level of SWG or EVE or Horizons, but its only one step lower.
But the true greatness of Vanguard was the class system. It had, and still has, some of the best classes and class mechanics of any MMO.
And the best was the healers. Up to that point, playing a healer was awful. Vanguard made healers fun. The Blood Mage was a squishy, cloth wearer who had unique heal/buff transfers. The Shaman was a wonderful class, alot like WOW's Druid/Shaman classes. The Cleric was the standard heavy armor wearing cleric but could actually tank a bit. And one of the great MMO classes of all time was the Disciple, a monk/healer hybrid.
No game since has had as good healer classes as Vanguard, not even close. The other classes were very well done, but the Healer classes were s stroke of genius.
Boats, three big continents, open world housing also were there but other games had those. You played Vanguard because you wanted to be challenged like you were in EQ.
Good post. I'm hoping McQuaid's upcoming Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen is exactly what it claims it will be. If so, I might find myself playing for half-days again in a dark cave, coming out only to shake out the dried-up food in my new beard.
Comments
Where have you been the last 8 years?
STO, DCUO were both dead on arrival and went FTP just to stay afloat. Age of Conan and WAR crashed so hard they destroyed the companies that made them. Funcom had to dissolve two of their partner companies, and Mythic no longer exists. SWTOR did so poorly that it dropped EAs stocks, and they had to fire 2/3 of their development staff.
Themepark design is just straight up flawed.
@Davsflight
Now I did not say that because You make a game based on a themepark design as a developer team You are hereby guaranteed infinite success and a happy ever after. Many other aspects in a MMO also has a great impact on its success. Graphics and animations, bugs to lack there of, if a well known story like Star Trek/ Wars, the ability of the dev team to capture and expand this universe, the character design, the UI and how things respond etc etc. There are many pits to fall in I would guess. It is easy just to refer to the behemoth of MMO's, a metaphor I actually think I copy from a statement made by Brad himself, as the prime example of success, meassured in profit, within the world of MMO's. They had a well known universe and a name within the world of gaming to expand on of cause, but they did indeed also have a game and a game players moved to, talked about and got a vast number of brand new people to play. If this game did not have very addictive elements in it, if it did not appeal to these people, I think it becomes hard to explain the success and logevity of said game.
Have the line today been crossed when it comes to instant gratification at the expense of the experience as a whole? To me the answer is certainly yes. Do i believe that the younger and less demanding gamer feels this Way? No. Furthermore this also goes for alot of MMO players that grew up and got responsabilities in real life - they want to experience the content within their timeframe. They are consumers and therefor profittable to seek out. Then everything gets watered down, it is the jack of all trades metaphor that kicks in - want to give everybody everything and as a result you loose the feel of uniqueness and individuality - for the players that really dive into these worlds, head first that is, and who demands more from them espcially. What is there to say really? Personally I think it is likely that a more challenging MMO could sustain itself. But Vanguard was'nt It. Perhaps this was only due to the, lets be fair, huge amounts of bugs and the server/zoning issues, but perhaps it is due to other reasons related to the IG theory.
Sorry but no. Vanguard had ALOT of bugs at launch, issues with the server and it was badly optimized and not even completed when SoE stopped support Sigil and layed them off. Vanguard still have alot of bugs, issues with server and is badly optimized, it's better now than it was at launch but sadly still have problems.
If SoE took all the great features of Vanguard and put it into a new IP with polished content to the max, that mmorpg would be one of the top 3 most popular mmorpgs, definitely.
I have given constructive posts on this forum and on the Vanguard forum how to fix the game, i'm not a game developer but i have given my ideas through all these years but SoE just doesn't give a single fuck. The game is dead.
Unfortunately you couldn't have picked worse examples to prop up your, IMO, flawed position. STO: by far a larger population than Vanguard has now, moving towards release of their first big expansion. Though they run a single-shard server setup, the playerbase is healthy and the game shows none of the outward signs of decline and neglect afflicting VG. DCUO: Take your pick on which platform you prefer-- PS 3 or PC-- and the population there will be far larger than Vanguard's. They're up to DLC 7 now with "Origin Crisis" this week with their 5th tier of Raid Gear being introduced. SWTOR, even with all its troubles, has managed to stabilize its population and introduce an expansion, apparently making EA more money now than they were during the game's lowest point.
I never played past Tortuga in AoC nor installed WAR, so I can't say much about them. It could be that you're right regarding them compared to Vanguard. However, even if that were the case, the assessment that themeparks are crashing much harder than even Vanguard is simply untrue. In fact, the counter-argument might be more demonstrably true; that the game that truly was DOA, the debatably un-themepark VG, has failed to gain traction when thrown the F2P life-preserver, while the profoundly themeparky games on your list have instead found a second life and even thrived in many cases.
I play VG off and on. I find it a quirky, clunky, rich and interesting game. As much as I would like to devote more time to this title, I'm constantly struck by one sad realization. It's an open world, group-based game with far, far fewer players than it needs to give a semblance of healthy life. As long as the towns and countryside feel empty, and as long as trying to put together groups to run low-level dungeons appears to be more a question of blind chance than anything else the game stands no chance of making any sort of recovery.
amen
I too heard that VG was heavily WoWified prior to launch. The target audience has no interest in WoW's monty-haul game mechanics. Vanguard did so many things right, but did even more things wrong. Hopefully EQN leverages the good things from VG.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
SoE busted their asses to get VG remotely playable, why should they devote some of their 'massive resources' to an extremely low income game that they already lost a huge amount of money on partially fixing in the first place?
Good post. I'm hoping McQuaid's upcoming Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen is exactly what it claims it will be. If so, I might find myself playing for half-days again in a dark cave, coming out only to shake out the dried-up food in my new beard.