I suggest Lidane you write reviews for all MMO's,because the only way you will find honest and fair reviews are by people who have no agenda to adhere too, such as yourself.
I have just read the review of Vanguard in the biggest selling games magazine in France and it gave Vanguard 18 out of 20 and included information which is just untrue. Such as flying mounts and caravans being in the game NOW? Amazing that someone can review a game without playing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Writing an intelligent and detailed review should be encouraged.
I have no agenda, but to review something, especially something as complex as a MMO without having played it (as this person would seem to have done) is wrong. This is the biggest game magazine in France and the FACTS?it represents to its readers is untrue. Only an honest review such has been started by the OP can give fair opinions.
Not only are the respawns quick, but in most cases (though I have seen exceptions), the other mobs nearby are either blind, deaf, dumb, or some combination of all three, because I can sit there and beat on their friend, and they'll just walk on by, or act like it isn't even happening. Where's the fun in that?
Only yellow mobs won't aggro, which are either wildlife or very low level n00b quest type mobs. Anything higher, everything aggro's and will add. Also, you didn't answer what I asked about combat.
Wow this thread took a while to read but I agree with you compltely Lidane. I'm an Environment Artist at a game company and most of my rants to my girlfriend while I played were art related. The lack of life, the sense of world, the strange feeling that everything was a giant childrens toy, things lacked depth because they lacked shadows in the textures. Following the EQ2 route everything leaves shadows up to the engine to render, yet the engine dosn't render shadows efficantly enough, and in some cases not at all. So thing tend to look like a novices model in Maya/Max with a tiling texture on it. Not something rounded and rendered in 3D with light and shadow information.
The animations (lack of) also killed it for me, as well as the really bad voice acting. All in all the world felt huge, overblown and overgrown. There'd be a massive tree every 20 meters like clockwork and only tiny tree's between them. It really felt proceedurly generated. Why? Because nothing was tilted, when I worked on the WoW zones we learned alot of lessions on how to make the environment look real and have a sense of history. One of them is to never drop a tree down perfectly vertical (except he ashenvale goliaths). Everything had some lean or some tilt to give it a sense of growing twards the light. (I suppose Matt had no choice in Dun Morough but the bare tree's leaned).
Anyways, art talk aside. I really enjoyed your well written diary and share simmilar views and desires for a game where environment, characters and everything lends itself twards immursion and not just as a prop placed by someone who needs "Random monster camp #223" for a quest target.
Not only are the respawns quick, but in most cases (though I have seen exceptions), the other mobs nearby are either blind, deaf, dumb, or some combination of all three, because I can sit there and beat on their friend, and they'll just walk on by, or act like it isn't even happening. Where's the fun in that?
Only yellow mobs won't aggro, which are either wildlife or very low level n00b quest type mobs. Anything higher, everything aggro's and will add. Also, you didn't answer what I asked about combat.
Actually, I did answer you.
I like fast paced combat that ramps up the adds, and which keeps me on the edge of my seat, forcing me to think on my feet. I like mobs that will get pissed off when I'm beating up on their buddy, and which will attack. I like the challenge of being in an area where I have to be aware of my surroundings at all times because of a wandering mob that might get into range and attack. Those kinds of things add to immersion for me.
Example-- in City of Heroes, if my level 1 hero walks by a group of level 1 thugs, they will draw their guns and attack me. If one guy decides to run, and I step too close to another thug during my chase, that new guy is going to get pissed and start hitting me too. Why? Because I got in his range, and I'm the enemy. And I'm hitting his friends. That's fun for me.
Even in the Dark Elf area, with the very first quest to kill the feeble elves, I mowed down the same guy 8-10 times in a row, all while his three friends standing near him just stared off into space like statues. WTF? How does that offer any sort of challenge, or anything immersive? You'd think his fellow feeble elves would at least try to come to his defense, or try and stop me from killing him, but no. They were zombies. Actually, scratch that. I've fought zombies in games, and they will come to the aid of other zombies that are being hit. These feeble elves couldn't even manage that much. That kind of thing is boring, and just kills my momentum.
Quest mobs should always offer some sort of challenge. Standing there while their buddy gets repeatedly beaten and slaughtered, even if it IS by a n00b, is just silly. I don't care that it's a low level, or newbie area. How else are you supposed to learn about managing aggro, or about tactics if the mobs in the near vicinity won't even look at you, and won't react when their friends are getting killed? That makes no sense.
Thanks to the OP for sharing her views and insights. It was both entertaining and enlightning. Quite a pleasure to read and I like you pragmatic and down to earth approach. I wish Devs would read posts like yours.
I too played a lot of CoH/CoV, so I perfectly see where you are coming from and I basically feel all the same about VG than you do. Very good analysis. ^^
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I agree with the above poster. This is a "must" read diary, highly articulate, quite objective and very detailed. Because of its ongoing nature, it is much more valuable and informative than reviews. Highly recommended to those who are considering to try this game. I only wish it was stickied.
CONTRIBUTE INTO THE GAMING INDUSTRY! STOP PAYING FOR BORING COPYCATS, UNFINISHED BUGFESTS AND CRANKY JUNKWARE. BE A RESPONSIBLE GAMER!
Thank you again for your detailed diaries. I especially am grateful for your emphasis on the performance issues which seem to be plaguing Vanguard at the moment. Because of your level-headed and clear-eyed observations, I have decided to hold off on buying Vanguard for at least another 3-6 months.
Hopefully, the game will have improved by then. Hopefully, the game will still be around by then If not, well, there will always be more fish in the MMORPG sea, I guess!
Try making a copy of your vgclient.ini file in the /bin subdirectory, then edit the original with notepad or something similar.
Try setting in game to high quality then exit and mke some edits to the vgclient.ini
The big changes are these
TextureDetailWorld=4 (or higher. This is the biggest impact on performance and can range from 0-7, 0 being the most detailed textures to 7 being lowest texture detail)
RenderQuality=5 (Setting this to 5 sets the game into "very high" mode but coupled with a higher TextureDetailWorld setting, it will give you the special effects of very high with the texture & memory requirements/stuttering of a low or medium settings)
The lesser changes to try are probably these
GlobalHardwareSkinning=True (gave me a noticable bump 2-5FPS-ish)
AnisotropicFiltering=0 (yes, zero, which supposedly works for NVidia folks VERY well) I'm not sure how much of an impact on quality/performance this has as my systems a bit ancient to properly test the higher end opptions.
UseJoystick=False (I don't know why but this did give me an extra fewFPS)
UsePrecaching=True (For NVidia folks and some ATI folks, this is the holy grail)
UseTrilinear=False (For some folks this was an incredible boost)
UseCubemaps=False (I only noticed an ugly load screen, the game still looks fine to me)
ReduceMouseLag=False (this has worked for a few folks as well)
Different effects based on differnt cards it seems.
UseTripleBuffering=True (This is a tricky one, some people work better with it and Vsync off some with it on, it will produce a little staggering of the image doing fast pans if off, as it won't draw one entire top to bottom frame at one go, however that was worth the FPS gain on my system)orUseTripleBuffering=False
UseVSync=True (see the above explanation, either vsync true & tripleB true or both false) or UseVSync=False
(NOTE: Changing the in-game drop-down graphics settings to Medium or High (or whatever you change it to) changes BOTH RenderQuality and TextureDetailWorld to their default settings. The trick is to adjust all the in-game settings FIRST, THEN mess with the .ini settings for these two and don't flip between low/med at all in-game since that would reset this change)
What kind of software company requires you to make changes like that just to get acceptable performace? This is software you paid $50 to buy and then a monthly premiumum mind you. Hello, RED FLAG people!!!
Exactly. The fact that one needs to manually alter any settings file (you can't access these options in game from what I understand) just plain wrong and is part of why I returned the game to the store before opening. I have updated my computer and according to http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/referrer/srtest I'm just below the recommended (don't have 2 gigs of ram, just one but I max out all the other sections (picked up a ATI X1950 GT card to replace my GeForce 5200). I've considered getting the game again but then I rethink about having to mess with the settings this way and that stops me. One SHOULD NOT HAVE TO DO THIS IF YOU MEET THE REQUIREMENTS AND/OR RECOMMENDED specs. There should be enough option settings in game.
I'm an Environment Artist at a game company and most of my rants to my girlfriend while I played were art related. The lack of life, the sense of world, the strange feeling that everything was a giant childrens toy, things lacked depth because they lacked shadows in the textures. Following the EQ2 route everything leaves shadows up to the engine to render, yet the engine dosn't render shadows efficantly enough, and in some cases not at all. So thing tend to look like a novices model in Maya/Max with a tiling texture on it. Not something rounded and rendered in 3D with light and shadow information.
Sigil's answer to the lack of environmental shadows, was that the current 3D cards still don't handle them. So you need to software render all the shadows and this is a huge performance hit. When you software render the shadows a lot of work also needs to be done to adapt the textures for this.
The game still was not finished at release, Sigil also didn't have the time/resources to put in software shadows. They want to let the gfx cards do this. Hardware shadows will be available in game as soon the gfx cards support them.
My understanding is that this will happen when the game moves to the dx10 engine with the dx10 cards ?
Brad also said that most of the people, as he also does, always disable environmental shadows, so that this wasn't really an issue.
Well, I agree with you Arioc. I also always enable environmental shadows; this blows immersion for me.
Excellent write up, your time in VG seems to pretty much mimic my own experiences and unfortunately we've arrived at the same conclusion. My biggest gripe with the game, is its engine, quite simply, it's awful. While i appreciate the sentiment of using an engine that will still look good in four to five years time, the problem VG has, even on highest settings, it looks average at best. I realise not everyone likes WoW's visuals, but at least it has good art direction, VG on the other hand has none, which is strange as a lot of the concept art is really rather good. All this I could put up with if the game ran well but as has been reported everywhere, it doesn't. I recently tried the LotR beta, not only does it look far nicer than VG, it also runs a damn sight better. Unfortunately, as I'm sure is the case with many people who wanted VG to be their next MMO of choice, LotR is catering to a different market, however that's a completely different topic of discussion... The game really would have benefited from a better licenced engine or better still, using an in house one. I genuinely wonder if it can be vastly improved or whether it will just be a case of in a years time, hardware will have progressed to a state where even mediocre components will be capable of running the game smoothly.
My other big concern with the game is just the general lack of polish, while there has been regular patches addressing various issues, the world they've created is so sterile, I just wonder how long it will take before they get round to addressing it. Dodgy voice acting, static NPCs, poorly written dialogue, boring landscapes, it almost feels like 50% of the game is just a place holder until the final version is ready to be instated.
However, with that all said, there is still potential, my main reason for wanting to try VG was the allure of open PvP, player housing and the omission of any instancing. Reading the devs posting on their vision for the game, it's almost possible to over look all the problems that exist in the game, but ten minutes of actually playing soon bring you back to reality.
I was fully expecting the bugs and quirks prior to buying VG, but I hadn't counted on it being so rough around the edges like it is, when people say it's still a beta product, they aren't lying. I won't be playing past my free trial, but I'm certainly intending to give it another go in a few months to see just much it has improved.
I think some mentionned it before but you should have sticked with one char. Would have showed you a bit more of the combat aspects.
Yes, this game is hungry. It needs a somewhat big machine. But i can still enjoy it with my c2d 6300, X1300 2go 667 DDR2.
Not great, but good. For me, graphics are not what i'm looking for in those type of games. But i kinda like what they pulled out. Graphic glitch, i can live with that. Don't you guys hate clipping on console games? Glitch are in all games.
I'm playing on Varking (team pvp) and it's great. Our little guild of about 30 members is having a blast.
It's not for everyone, i agree. Some will really dig it and the others will despite it. I'm not even sure if there is a middle ground for this game.
Reading some replies, and i think someone needs to clear things up. The engine is not the problem , or I should state the core/stock , that they used. It is the modifications that Sigil made to the engine is what makes it all funky.
This has to be Epics worst nightmare , because now they have to reprove that their engine is a solid piece of software. I bet Cliffy would like to say some kind words to Sigil right now as well .
Don't BLAME the ENGINE ! Blame the person who thought it wasn't good enough and made modifications to it. Lineage 2 develeopers had No problem using the Unreal 1 engine. It is all about game concept and design.
I think some mentionned it before but you should have sticked with one char. Would have showed you a bit more of the combat aspects.
I suspect that's true, but I think the biggest problem for me overall, performance issues aside, was that after a few levels, I'd get tired of the static NPC's, awful voiceovers, and lifeless (well, by my standards, anyhow) areas I was in. I would get to the point where I'd *have* to create a new character just to shake off the boredom I was feeling.
Eventually, it's why I gave up leveling the Raki and just starting going to the places that i'd had problems with in beta.
Vanguard has the potential to be a great game down the line. The shell is there for what could be a great MMO. But the sterility of the world only magnified all of the other issues for me until I just couldn't bring myself to play anymore. I'm sure I'll check up on it from time to time, and if they ever offer a free trial again in six months or a year, I may well go through it all again, just to see if anything has improved.
Reading some replies, and i think someone needs to clear things up. The engine is not the problem , or I should state the core/stock , that they used. It is the modifications that Sigil made to the engine is what makes it all funky.
This has to be Epics worst nightmare , because now they have to reprove that their engine is a solid piece of software. I bet Cliffy would like to say some kind words to Sigil right now as well .
Don't BLAME the ENGINE ! Blame the person who thought it wasn't good enough and made modifications to it. Lineage 2 develeopers had No problem using the Unreal 1 engine. It is all about game concept and design.
Oh, I agree. The Unreal engine itself isn't the problem at all.
The problem stems from the fact that it wasn't originally designed with an MMO in mind, so Sigil had to heavily modify and tweak it in order to shoehorn an MMO into it, and it's those tweaks that I would guess are at the heart of most of the performance issues in this game.
Ragnarok Online 2 will be using Unreal 2.5, so one possibility is to test that game whenever they offer an international open beta, and see how their performance with that engine holds up compared to Vanguard's. Another is to test both Huxley and Stargate Worlds, since they're both going to use Unreal 3, just to see how a game holds up with a more current version of Unreal at its core.
Reading some replies, and i think someone needs to clear things up. The engine is not the problem , or I should state the core/stock , that they used. It is the modifications that Sigil made to the engine is what makes it all funky.
This has to be Epics worst nightmare , because now they have to reprove that their engine is a solid piece of software. I bet Cliffy would like to say some kind words to Sigil right now as well .
Don't BLAME the ENGINE ! Blame the person who thought it wasn't good enough and made modifications to it. Lineage 2 develeopers had No problem using the Unreal 1 engine. It is all about game concept and design.
Geez guys, stop making assumptions out of thin air.
VG is based on the unreal 2.5 engine + parts of the unreal 3 engine + heavily patched + speedtree. (the game will completely move to the unreal engine 3 (they will patch it in progressively) and also use dx10 in the future)
Actually, one of Sigil's devs working on the engine is a former Epic employee. He is still in good terms with Epic and has spent a lot of time working together with Epic, often on location at Epic's offices to improve and optimize the engine.
These advantages have allowed Sigil to get access to some unreleased parts of the unreal 3 engine and some personalized fine tuning with Epic's help.
So no, I don't think Epic is feeling bad about Vanguard
Now show me an unreal engine 3 game and tell me how it works on your older hardware. All of the games currently in development using the unreal 3 engine are known to be performance hogs. The engine is not coded for older hardware, nothing wrong there.
What is slowing the game down so much is the use of the unreal 3 engine parts with all the improvements that go with it and the amount of polygons and objects the game is drawing on the screen. That's pretty obvious and there's nothing to wonder about here. It runs even worse on lower end systems as this higher level engine was just not made to run well on them (to run well on slower hardware you need to code specifically for it). That said I'm sure it could use some more optimization and bug fixing.
Edit: As for Lineage 2, it is using the unreal 2.5 engine, which was released in 2005 (unreal 2 engine was 2003).
Oh, I agree. The Unreal engine itself isn't the problem at all.
The problem stems from the fact that it wasn't originally designed with an MMO in mind, so Sigil had to heavily modify and tweak it in order to shoehorn an MMO into it, and it's those tweaks that I would guess are at the heart of most of the performance issues in this game.
Ragnarok Online 2 will be using Unreal 2.5, so one possibility is to test that game whenever they offer an international open beta, and see how their performance with that engine holds up compared to Vanguard's. Another is to test both Huxley and Stargate Worlds, since they're both going to use Unreal 3, just to see how a game holds up with a more current version of Unreal at its core.
Yes "designed for an MMO" is also one of the reasons.
You can try out Lineage 2 if you want to see how the plain unreal engine 2.5 works; 14 days trial is (was?) available. You will see that its very bland with flat textures, low polygons, static objects and a *very* short viewing distance. If you try to compare them keep in mind that L2 only draws about 10% of what VG draws on the screen.
I think some mentionned it before but you should have sticked with one char. Would have showed you a bit more of the combat aspects.
I suspect that's true, but I think the biggest problem for me overall, performance issues aside, was that after a few levels, I'd get tired of the static NPC's, awful voiceovers, and lifeless (well, by my standards, anyhow) areas I was in. I would get to the point where I'd *have* to create a new character just to shake off the boredom I was feeling.
Eventually, it's why I gave up leveling the Raki and just starting going to the places that i'd had problems with in beta.
Vanguard has the potential to be a great game down the line. The shell is there for what could be a great MMO. But the sterility of the world only magnified all of the other issues for me until I just couldn't bring myself to play anymore. I'm sure I'll check up on it from time to time, and if they ever offer a free trial again in six months or a year, I may well go through it all again, just to see if anything has improved.
The landscape does feels empty. But that is because mobs are more in packs then spreaded around the map. It also ease the travel because you will travel a lot.
I think this is "as designed". It's also easier for PCs to run this game that way. Imagine if we had to dock 100's of mobs in every chunk! It would be way to laggy... and we would die WAY more.
Or did you raid at level 10 in EQ? Did you skillchain by level 15 in FFXI? Did you siege castles at level 15 in Lineage?
In EQ, no. But I played EQ at release. There was no such thing as a raid then. Not that it wasn't in that game's future ...
EQ2 did indeed plan on its first raid encounterd by L10-12 however. I did try them.
In FFXI. Why yes, I did skillchain by L15, on pretty much every job except BST (and that was only b/c I was checking out its solo capabilities).
L1 & 2 - you didn't specify, I haven't played either.
I'm not sure you made this point well. Every game should open up more content as you progress. However, giving players a taste early is good. If I like the taste, I am more likely to put in the hours required to open the rest of the content. But, why should I spend hours of my time grinding (aka plowing through sub-interesting content) just to see *if* I like the content later? In VGs case this is even more disturbing, since its unclear how much of thier "high end", "end game" and challenging content is finished. And I mean finished not polished. Reference dev quotes on any tracker about raid tools, raid content and itemization and population of many dungeons that are in now. Then look at a map and note the areas of landmass that are "unavailable".
People are capable of delayed gratification, but it helps to know the goodie you're working for is something you will enjoy. Because if it ends up not being fun, then its delayed masochism and that makes people angy.
Reading some replies, and i think someone needs to clear things up. The engine is not the problem , or I should state the core/stock , that they used. It is the modifications that Sigil made to the engine is what makes it all funky.
This has to be Epics worst nightmare , because now they have to reprove that their engine is a solid piece of software. I bet Cliffy would like to say some kind words to Sigil right now as well .
Don't BLAME the ENGINE ! Blame the person who thought it wasn't good enough and made modifications to it. Lineage 2 develeopers had No problem using the Unreal 1 engine. It is all about game concept and design.
Geez guys, stop making assumptions out of thin air.
VG is based on the unreal 2.5 engine + parts of the unreal 3 engine + heavily patched + speedtree. (the game will completely move to the unreal engine 3 (they will patch it in progressively) and also use dx10 in the future)
Actually, one of Sigil's devs working on the engine is a former Epic employee. He is still in good terms with Epic and has spent a lot of time working together with Epic, often on location at Epic's offices to improve and optimize the engine.
These advantages have allowed Sigil to get access to some unreleased parts of the unreal 3 engine and some personalized fine tuning with Epic's help.
So no, I don't think Epic is feeling bad about Vanguard
Now show me an unreal engine 3 game and tell me how it works on your older hardware. All of the games currently in development using the unreal 3 engine are known to be performance hogs. The engine is not coded for older hardware, nothing wrong there.
What is slowing the game down so much is the use of the unreal 3 engine parts with all the improvements that go with it and the amount of polygons and objects the game is drawing on the screen. That's pretty obvious and there's nothing to wonder about here. It runs even worse on lower end systems as this higher level engine was just not made to run well on them (to run well on slower hardware you need to code specifically for it). That said I'm sure it could use some more optimization and bug fixing.
Edit: As for Lineage 2, it is using the unreal 2.5 engine, which was released in 2005 (unreal 2 engine was 2003).
Well for such a glowing post on the state of the engine, and that its progressing to the Unreal 3 engine and dx10, I would expect much better graphics and performance. Come on, the graphics use a littel pixel shading here an there. Wow thats really revolutionary. Ok and since the engine has aspects of the unreal 3 engine, maby we could compare the graphics to say Gears of War... Oh wait, I suppose a mmo must be so diffrent in design that you can still mess up the engine and get away with it.
Originally posted by Drachonis Well for such a glowing post on the state of the engine, and that its progressing to the Unreal 3 engine and dx10, I would expect much better graphics and performance.
So, if I follow your logic, a game running the unreal engine 2 will run faster on the same hardware than a game using the unreal engine 1 ?
And don't forget that, compared to other mmos, it draws 10x more polygons and objects on the screen.
Adding insult to injury, the combat is uninspiring and dull.
First of all you have a very professional, albeit calculatedly verbose, writing style. It's nice to read a post that is spelled correctly with grammar that won't lower my IQ.
That having been said, could you be more specific about the combat? How does it differ from other MMO's you have played? I hear the words uninspiring and dull used a lot in derogatory posts about all games, and I think personally they are a cop out from objectivity.
I find Vanguard's combat engaging and exciting compared to other MMO's of my recent memory such as CoV, WoW, Guild Wars and LotRO. I find Vanguard's combat extremely vital compared to these games where you really don't have to play close attention when soloing, at the very least in consideration of their death penalties.
Just speaking as a warrior, the plethora combat moves coupled with finishers and rescues make things very interesting. An easy fight can turn into a corpse run if you aren't making the most out of your attacks and the circumstances that you fall into during the fight.
Anyway looking forward to hearing some specifics, thanks for your time and posts.
For me, it's a matter of the challenge involved.
If all I have to do in order to finish a quest is find one spawn of a particular mob, then just kill him over and over and over because he respawns as soon as I loot the previous body, that's boring. The spawns in this game are largely static, and re-pop about as fast as you can mow through them. There's no challenge in that, and no reason to care about tactics as a result. It just becomes a matter of brute strength, and maybe a well placed spell or two.
Not only are the respawns quick, but in most cases (though I have seen exceptions), the other mobs nearby are either blind, deaf, dumb, or some combination of all three, because I can sit there and beat on their friend, and they'll just walk on by, or act like it isn't even happening. Where's the fun in that?
With a game like World of Warcraft (especially along the Dead Scar and in Deatholme in the Blood Elf starting area, both of which are fantastic for this), the potential for multiple adds, and for chaos is always there. And for me, it's an adrenaline rush. I *like* fighting in a place where I'm surrounded by wandering mobs that will aggro if they get in range, because it keeps me on my toes and it keeps me from getting lazy.
Even CoH/CoV has this potential, particularly on Mayhem/Safeguard missions, Task Forces, and on mission maps spawned in large groups at higher difficulty levels. I can be fighting one group, and have another aggro because of a runner, or because a teammate wandered too closely to the rest, or some other thing. That sort of edge-of-my-seat stuff, where I'm fighting mobs from all sides, and having to work wtih my team so that all of us stay alive is great fun.
I never got the sense of any of that from my time in Vanguard. Nothing gave me that kind of feeling. It all felt rote, like all I had to do was cast that one spell over and over and over, or just shoot arrows at that one spawn until he died 8-10 times in a row. It got very dull very quickly. And when you're fighting things that just abruptly fall over like cardboard standees that have been tipped over, any satisfaction at their death is short lived.
I'm spoiled by CoH/CoV, really. I like being able to send someone flying over a ledge, or knocking them stupid so they wander around dazed, and I like that sort of fast-paced action and chaos that can often ensue. Maybe that stuff exists in Vanguard, but if I have to slog through 30+ boring levels before seeing it, it's not worth it, IMO.
I absolutely agree with your analysis of "flat" combat. It does get slightly better in some dungeons that have mobs that SLIGHTLY wander (nothing like the patrols of WoW mobs in instances or wandering mobs in EQ2 and EQOA.).
The spawn rates for mobs does get a bit longer as you level by the way.
Comments
I suggest Lidane you write reviews for all MMO's,because the only way you will find honest and fair reviews are by people who have no agenda to adhere too, such as yourself.
I have just read the review of Vanguard in the biggest selling games magazine in France and it gave Vanguard 18 out of 20 and included information which is just untrue. Such as flying mounts and caravans being in the game NOW? Amazing that someone can review a game without playing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Writing an intelligent and detailed review should be encouraged.
Only yellow mobs won't aggro, which are either wildlife or very low level n00b quest type mobs. Anything higher, everything aggro's and will add. Also, you didn't answer what I asked about combat.
Wow this thread took a while to read but I agree with you compltely Lidane. I'm an Environment Artist at a game company and most of my rants to my girlfriend while I played were art related. The lack of life, the sense of world, the strange feeling that everything was a giant childrens toy, things lacked depth because they lacked shadows in the textures. Following the EQ2 route everything leaves shadows up to the engine to render, yet the engine dosn't render shadows efficantly enough, and in some cases not at all. So thing tend to look like a novices model in Maya/Max with a tiling texture on it. Not something rounded and rendered in 3D with light and shadow information.
The animations (lack of) also killed it for me, as well as the really bad voice acting. All in all the world felt huge, overblown and overgrown. There'd be a massive tree every 20 meters like clockwork and only tiny tree's between them. It really felt proceedurly generated. Why? Because nothing was tilted, when I worked on the WoW zones we learned alot of lessions on how to make the environment look real and have a sense of history. One of them is to never drop a tree down perfectly vertical (except he ashenvale goliaths). Everything had some lean or some tilt to give it a sense of growing twards the light. (I suppose Matt had no choice in Dun Morough but the bare tree's leaned).
Anyways, art talk aside. I really enjoyed your well written diary and share simmilar views and desires for a game where environment, characters and everything lends itself twards immursion and not just as a prop placed by someone who needs "Random monster camp #223" for a quest target.
Arioc Murkwood
Arioc Murkwood
Environment Artist
Sad but true.
Only yellow mobs won't aggro, which are either wildlife or very low level n00b quest type mobs. Anything higher, everything aggro's and will add. Also, you didn't answer what I asked about combat.
Actually, I did answer you.
I like fast paced combat that ramps up the adds, and which keeps me on the edge of my seat, forcing me to think on my feet. I like mobs that will get pissed off when I'm beating up on their buddy, and which will attack. I like the challenge of being in an area where I have to be aware of my surroundings at all times because of a wandering mob that might get into range and attack. Those kinds of things add to immersion for me.
Example-- in City of Heroes, if my level 1 hero walks by a group of level 1 thugs, they will draw their guns and attack me. If one guy decides to run, and I step too close to another thug during my chase, that new guy is going to get pissed and start hitting me too. Why? Because I got in his range, and I'm the enemy. And I'm hitting his friends. That's fun for me.
Even in the Dark Elf area, with the very first quest to kill the feeble elves, I mowed down the same guy 8-10 times in a row, all while his three friends standing near him just stared off into space like statues. WTF? How does that offer any sort of challenge, or anything immersive? You'd think his fellow feeble elves would at least try to come to his defense, or try and stop me from killing him, but no. They were zombies. Actually, scratch that. I've fought zombies in games, and they will come to the aid of other zombies that are being hit. These feeble elves couldn't even manage that much. That kind of thing is boring, and just kills my momentum.
Quest mobs should always offer some sort of challenge. Standing there while their buddy gets repeatedly beaten and slaughtered, even if it IS by a n00b, is just silly. I don't care that it's a low level, or newbie area. How else are you supposed to learn about managing aggro, or about tactics if the mobs in the near vicinity won't even look at you, and won't react when their friends are getting killed? That makes no sense.
Thanks to the OP for sharing her views and insights. It was both entertaining and enlightning. Quite a pleasure to read and I like you pragmatic and down to earth approach. I wish Devs would read posts like yours.
I too played a lot of CoH/CoV, so I perfectly see where you are coming from and I basically feel all the same about VG than you do. Very good analysis. ^^
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I agree with the above poster. This is a "must" read diary, highly articulate, quite objective and very detailed. Because of its ongoing nature, it is much more valuable and informative than reviews. Highly recommended to those who are considering to try this game. I only wish it was stickied.
CONTRIBUTE INTO THE GAMING INDUSTRY! STOP PAYING FOR BORING COPYCATS, UNFINISHED BUGFESTS AND CRANKY JUNKWARE. BE A RESPONSIBLE GAMER!
To the OP:
Thank you again for your detailed diaries. I especially am grateful for your emphasis on the performance issues which seem to be plaguing Vanguard at the moment. Because of your level-headed and clear-eyed observations, I have decided to hold off on buying Vanguard for at least another 3-6 months.
Hopefully, the game will have improved by then. Hopefully, the game will still be around by then
If not, well, there will always be more fish in the MMORPG sea, I guess!
What kind of software company requires you to make changes like that just to get acceptable performace? This is software you paid $50 to buy and then a monthly premiumum mind you. Hello, RED FLAG people!!!
Exactly. The fact that one needs to manually alter any settings file (you can't access these options in game from what I understand) just plain wrong and is part of why I returned the game to the store before opening. I have updated my computer and according to http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/referrer/srtest I'm just below the recommended (don't have 2 gigs of ram, just one but I max out all the other sections (picked up a ATI X1950 GT card to replace my GeForce 5200). I've considered getting the game again but then I rethink about having to mess with the settings this way and that stops me. One SHOULD NOT HAVE TO DO THIS IF YOU MEET THE REQUIREMENTS AND/OR RECOMMENDED specs. There should be enough option settings in game.
The game still was not finished at release, Sigil also didn't have the time/resources to put in software shadows. They want to let the gfx cards do this. Hardware shadows will be available in game as soon the gfx cards support them.
My understanding is that this will happen when the game moves to the dx10 engine with the dx10 cards ?
Brad also said that most of the people, as he also does, always disable environmental shadows, so that this wasn't really an issue.
Well, I agree with you Arioc. I also always enable environmental shadows; this blows immersion for me.
My other big concern with the game is just the general lack of polish, while there has been regular patches addressing various issues, the world they've created is so sterile, I just wonder how long it will take before they get round to addressing it. Dodgy voice acting, static NPCs, poorly written dialogue, boring landscapes, it almost feels like 50% of the game is just a place holder until the final version is ready to be instated.
However, with that all said, there is still potential, my main reason for wanting to try VG was the allure of open PvP, player housing and the omission of any instancing. Reading the devs posting on their vision for the game, it's almost possible to over look all the problems that exist in the game, but ten minutes of actually playing soon bring you back to reality.
I was fully expecting the bugs and quirks prior to buying VG, but I hadn't counted on it being so rough around the edges like it is, when people say it's still a beta product, they aren't lying. I won't be playing past my free trial, but I'm certainly intending to give it another go in a few months to see just much it has improved.
I think some mentionned it before but you should have sticked with one char. Would have showed you a bit more of the combat aspects.
Yes, this game is hungry. It needs a somewhat big machine. But i can still enjoy it with my c2d 6300, X1300 2go 667 DDR2.
Not great, but good. For me, graphics are not what i'm looking for in those type of games. But i kinda like what they pulled out. Graphic glitch, i can live with that. Don't you guys hate clipping on console games? Glitch are in all games.
I'm playing on Varking (team pvp) and it's great. Our little guild of about 30 members is having a blast.
It's not for everyone, i agree. Some will really dig it and the others will despite it. I'm not even sure if there is a middle ground for this game.
eqnext.wikia.com
This has to be Epics worst nightmare , because now they have to reprove that their engine is a solid piece of software. I bet Cliffy would like to say some kind words to Sigil right now as well .
Don't BLAME the ENGINE ! Blame the person who thought it wasn't good enough and made modifications to it. Lineage 2 develeopers had No problem using the Unreal 1 engine. It is all about game concept and design.
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Eventually, it's why I gave up leveling the Raki and just starting going to the places that i'd had problems with in beta.
Vanguard has the potential to be a great game down the line. The shell is there for what could be a great MMO. But the sterility of the world only magnified all of the other issues for me until I just couldn't bring myself to play anymore. I'm sure I'll check up on it from time to time, and if they ever offer a free trial again in six months or a year, I may well go through it all again, just to see if anything has improved.
The problem stems from the fact that it wasn't originally designed with an MMO in mind, so Sigil had to heavily modify and tweak it in order to shoehorn an MMO into it, and it's those tweaks that I would guess are at the heart of most of the performance issues in this game.
Ragnarok Online 2 will be using Unreal 2.5, so one possibility is to test that game whenever they offer an international open beta, and see how their performance with that engine holds up compared to Vanguard's. Another is to test both Huxley and Stargate Worlds, since they're both going to use Unreal 3, just to see how a game holds up with a more current version of Unreal at its core.
VG is based on the unreal 2.5 engine + parts of the unreal 3 engine + heavily patched + speedtree. (the game will completely move to the unreal engine 3 (they will patch it in progressively) and also use dx10 in the future)
Actually, one of Sigil's devs working on the engine is a former Epic employee. He is still in good terms with Epic and has spent a lot of time working together with Epic, often on location at Epic's offices to improve and optimize the engine.
These advantages have allowed Sigil to get access to some unreleased parts of the unreal 3 engine and some personalized fine tuning with Epic's help.
So no, I don't think Epic is feeling bad about Vanguard
Now show me an unreal engine 3 game and tell me how it works on your older hardware. All of the games currently in development using the unreal 3 engine are known to be performance hogs. The engine is not coded for older hardware, nothing wrong there.
What is slowing the game down so much is the use of the unreal 3 engine parts with all the improvements that go with it and the amount of polygons and objects the game is drawing on the screen. That's pretty obvious and there's nothing to wonder about here. It runs even worse on lower end systems as this higher level engine was just not made to run well on them (to run well on slower hardware you need to code specifically for it). That said I'm sure it could use some more optimization and bug fixing.
Edit: As for Lineage 2, it is using the unreal 2.5 engine, which was released in 2005 (unreal 2 engine was 2003).
You can try out Lineage 2 if you want to see how the plain unreal engine 2.5 works; 14 days trial is (was?) available. You will see that its very bland with flat textures, low polygons, static objects and a *very* short viewing distance. If you try to compare them keep in mind that L2 only draws about 10% of what VG draws on the screen.
Eventually, it's why I gave up leveling the Raki and just starting going to the places that i'd had problems with in beta.
Vanguard has the potential to be a great game down the line. The shell is there for what could be a great MMO. But the sterility of the world only magnified all of the other issues for me until I just couldn't bring myself to play anymore. I'm sure I'll check up on it from time to time, and if they ever offer a free trial again in six months or a year, I may well go through it all again, just to see if anything has improved.
The landscape does feels empty. But that is because mobs are more in packs then spreaded around the map. It also ease the travel because you will travel a lot.
I think this is "as designed". It's also easier for PCs to run this game that way. Imagine if we had to dock 100's of mobs in every chunk! It would be way to laggy... and we would die WAY more.
eqnext.wikia.com
EQ2 did indeed plan on its first raid encounterd by L10-12 however. I did try them.
In FFXI. Why yes, I did skillchain by L15, on pretty much every job except BST (and that was only b/c I was checking out its solo capabilities).
L1 & 2 - you didn't specify, I haven't played either.
I'm not sure you made this point well. Every game should open up more content as you progress. However, giving players a taste early is good. If I like the taste, I am more likely to put in the hours required to open the rest of the content. But, why should I spend hours of my time grinding (aka plowing through sub-interesting content) just to see *if* I like the content later? In VGs case this is even more disturbing, since its unclear how much of thier "high end", "end game" and challenging content is finished. And I mean finished not polished. Reference dev quotes on any tracker about raid tools, raid content and itemization and population of many dungeons that are in now. Then look at a map and note the areas of landmass that are "unavailable".
People are capable of delayed gratification, but it helps to know the goodie you're working for is something you will enjoy. Because if it ends up not being fun, then its delayed masochism and that makes people angy.
VG is based on the unreal 2.5 engine + parts of the unreal 3 engine + heavily patched + speedtree. (the game will completely move to the unreal engine 3 (they will patch it in progressively) and also use dx10 in the future)
Actually, one of Sigil's devs working on the engine is a former Epic employee. He is still in good terms with Epic and has spent a lot of time working together with Epic, often on location at Epic's offices to improve and optimize the engine.
These advantages have allowed Sigil to get access to some unreleased parts of the unreal 3 engine and some personalized fine tuning with Epic's help.
So no, I don't think Epic is feeling bad about Vanguard
Now show me an unreal engine 3 game and tell me how it works on your older hardware. All of the games currently in development using the unreal 3 engine are known to be performance hogs. The engine is not coded for older hardware, nothing wrong there.
What is slowing the game down so much is the use of the unreal 3 engine parts with all the improvements that go with it and the amount of polygons and objects the game is drawing on the screen. That's pretty obvious and there's nothing to wonder about here. It runs even worse on lower end systems as this higher level engine was just not made to run well on them (to run well on slower hardware you need to code specifically for it). That said I'm sure it could use some more optimization and bug fixing.
Edit: As for Lineage 2, it is using the unreal 2.5 engine, which was released in 2005 (unreal 2 engine was 2003).
Well for such a glowing post on the state of the engine, and that its progressing to the Unreal 3 engine and dx10, I would expect much better graphics and performance. Come on, the graphics use a littel pixel shading here an there. Wow thats really revolutionary. Ok and since the engine has aspects of the unreal 3 engine, maby we could compare the graphics to say Gears of War... Oh wait, I suppose a mmo must be so diffrent in design that you can still mess up the engine and get away with it.
And don't forget that, compared to other mmos, it draws 10x more polygons and objects on the screen.
First of all you have a very professional, albeit calculatedly verbose, writing style. It's nice to read a post that is spelled correctly with grammar that won't lower my IQ.
That having been said, could you be more specific about the combat? How does it differ from other MMO's you have played? I hear the words uninspiring and dull used a lot in derogatory posts about all games, and I think personally they are a cop out from objectivity.
I find Vanguard's combat engaging and exciting compared to other MMO's of my recent memory such as CoV, WoW, Guild Wars and LotRO. I find Vanguard's combat extremely vital compared to these games where you really don't have to play close attention when soloing, at the very least in consideration of their death penalties.
Just speaking as a warrior, the plethora combat moves coupled with finishers and rescues make things very interesting. An easy fight can turn into a corpse run if you aren't making the most out of your attacks and the circumstances that you fall into during the fight.
Anyway looking forward to hearing some specifics, thanks for your time and posts.
For me, it's a matter of the challenge involved.
If all I have to do in order to finish a quest is find one spawn of a particular mob, then just kill him over and over and over because he respawns as soon as I loot the previous body, that's boring. The spawns in this game are largely static, and re-pop about as fast as you can mow through them. There's no challenge in that, and no reason to care about tactics as a result. It just becomes a matter of brute strength, and maybe a well placed spell or two.
Not only are the respawns quick, but in most cases (though I have seen exceptions), the other mobs nearby are either blind, deaf, dumb, or some combination of all three, because I can sit there and beat on their friend, and they'll just walk on by, or act like it isn't even happening. Where's the fun in that?
With a game like World of Warcraft (especially along the Dead Scar and in Deatholme in the Blood Elf starting area, both of which are fantastic for this), the potential for multiple adds, and for chaos is always there. And for me, it's an adrenaline rush. I *like* fighting in a place where I'm surrounded by wandering mobs that will aggro if they get in range, because it keeps me on my toes and it keeps me from getting lazy.
Even CoH/CoV has this potential, particularly on Mayhem/Safeguard missions, Task Forces, and on mission maps spawned in large groups at higher difficulty levels. I can be fighting one group, and have another aggro because of a runner, or because a teammate wandered too closely to the rest, or some other thing. That sort of edge-of-my-seat stuff, where I'm fighting mobs from all sides, and having to work wtih my team so that all of us stay alive is great fun.
I never got the sense of any of that from my time in Vanguard. Nothing gave me that kind of feeling. It all felt rote, like all I had to do was cast that one spell over and over and over, or just shoot arrows at that one spawn until he died 8-10 times in a row. It got very dull very quickly. And when you're fighting things that just abruptly fall over like cardboard standees that have been tipped over, any satisfaction at their death is short lived.
I'm spoiled by CoH/CoV, really. I like being able to send someone flying over a ledge, or knocking them stupid so they wander around dazed, and I like that sort of fast-paced action and chaos that can often ensue. Maybe that stuff exists in Vanguard, but if I have to slog through 30+ boring levels before seeing it, it's not worth it, IMO.
I absolutely agree with your analysis of "flat" combat. It does get slightly better in some dungeons that have mobs that SLIGHTLY wander (nothing like the patrols of WoW mobs in instances or wandering mobs in EQ2 and EQOA.).
The spawn rates for mobs does get a bit longer as you level by the way.
Teak
http://www.unrealtechnology.com/html/powered/released.shtml
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