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Problem is 100% SOE, not Vanguard or EQ2 !
delete5230
Member EpicPosts: 7,081
I feel slightly embarrassed because I had just made a stink on the EQ2 boards. But I'm extremely mad so I don't care.
I've played most all pay mmo's in the last few years. I must admit most are crap, and most of you people know it also. For me in came down to the wire that very few are good. WoW, Vanguard, EQ2, and Lotro. Understand that this is my list as all of you have your own short list. I'm really really trying my hardest not to go back to WoW because of the in mature community, and Lotro is a little to solo and boring for my taste.
As I'm waiting for months for SOE to do something with Vanguard, I found that EQ2 gave a free 23 days to previous players. So taking advantage of my level 36 Bruiser and my 13 Templar both on different populated servers. I've found that the game is very top heavy with everyone being 80's or alts. I'm extremely social, love dungeons and grouping ( I play well with others ). After several guilds that clam to help new players and chatting in game. I learned that no one will really give you the time of day, other than answering your questions and being nice in chat.
New players are STARTING and QUITING this game at an equal speed. No new players ever stay. I've been seeing this happen for years. I would like to blame the players, but no it's SOE's fault. They can take measures to unite the new players to make their experience more enjoyable. I used my resources to find that EQ2 really has only 3 semi- populated servers. Now thats not a lot for millions of copies sold and an established game, so this is a REAL PROBLEM. New people are waisting their money by the boat loads with their paid expansions making them think time and again they are getting something new, fresh, and exciting only to be let down by guilds that promise to help the new player.
How does this relate to Vanguard ?
It relates a lot.........I put my finger on the problem.......SOE does not look back, only ahead. If you put time into EQ2 you would realize that SOE has never done anything to evolve their old content. They have Marketing managers using their skills to sell boxes or expansions to make their cash. They don't give a rats ass about retention, in fact I would guess that they would not like to pay expensive server time to handle the populations. Marketing would use cost and payback charts to analyze information such as this, only to find that box sales are more profitable than retention. This is how it has to be because their not stupid, they just don't care about people. I see time after time on message boards of people saying they hate SOE, but not sure why. Well I figured it out.
Vanguard is a very large game. As for now, SOE can't justify their expansion trick with Vanguard so they let it sit. I'll give them credit with making the trial isle but thats about it. And that was only because they had to do something with it after taking it over. And I'll be willing to bet they tried everything in their power before investing that money.
SOE is a nasty company. They never evolve to meet the players needs, spot problem areas and repair them, such as what Blizzard does with WoW, and Turbine does with Lotro, and D&D Online.
Unless they sell Vanguard, I don't think you will ever see anything come of a great game like Vanguard !
Comments
Didn't Smed make this game from start to finish? And if he did as I'm fairly certain it's kind of hard to seperate the two Smedley runs SOE which is the only reason SOE bailed out Vanguard in the first place. As long as the circumstances I listed are true there again is a serious problem with your logic and that is that the person most responsible for SOE being the way it is is also the person most responsible for Vanguard. While I would love to agree with you I just can't Smed is the problem top to bottom and his fingerprints are on everything you mention to the point that none of those products even exist without him.
Basically since Smed made them all they will continue to be bad unless somehow you got rid of him too and I don't know how good that would work either because just about every other game he touched/broke that they tried to fix didn't work either.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
I agree 100% with your post title!!
This was the best PvE mmo imho out right now.
Sad, i think they fixed enough that a expansion, if only a small one, would have brought lots of peeps in. I guess its over now
Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.
George Washington
This post is akin to a mother and father in an argument blaming each other for the fact that they made an ugly baby together.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
You know, when I look back at Vanguards release, when it was hailed and hated for being incomplete, for being buggy, laggy or whatnot... we really didnt know much back then of what was yet to come.
Vanguard had a BOATLOAD of content at release. I was one of the anti-Vanguard people too up until I tried it, and found it alright, but really, if I and many others I guess had known what a mess the coming years would be, we wouldnt have given Vanguard such a hard time at all.
We had not yet seen Tabula Rasa, WAR, Age of Conan, the Lich Kings dumbing down of a solid game, the Mines of Moria and its 6-month-tolerated exploits, Aions contentlessness....
Frankly, looking back, Vanguard was a better game, but we were all still high coming from half a decade of great, full-sized, lavish games, and had not yet tasted the post-WoW MMO world.
Looking back Vanguard was a better game, but make no mistake -- Silius did his share of dumbing down too. He followed the WoW Wagon and for many people ruined Vanguard's core gameplay. You can say SOE is dirt and Smed is the Devil, but Vg's lead developer will definately burn in hell for his part in the massacre.
TO be honest, I have no idea how in the hell he got to be lead designer of this game, he was the crafting dev for crying out loud (and we know how f@#$d up crafting was/is). I am hearing rumors that the game will release the content they were working on but it will be damn near 2011 when and if this does happen.
This post is akin to a mother and father in an argument blaming each other for the fact that they made an ugly baby together.
I guess this game has a face only a mother could love.
Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.
George Washington
Vanguard is a great game... however the business and technology killed it.
If the game would have been built solid it might have been a successful game over all.
SOE is making expansions for games like EverQuest... the first one... a game that has been out over 10 years now... so why is SOE shunning VG and EQ II (EQ1 has more development than both VG and EQII combined) ? Because of the subscription numbers.. Those that are playing EQ1 still are pretty much lifetime customers... so SOE is giving more time and content to those that will continue to pay..
I think there are dedicated players playing VG...Some that will continue to pay for a long time.. however I don't think it has the numbers of EQ or even EQII.... so I think SOE will put it on a minimum expense budget and let it ride until it becomes a total expense..Then they'll pull the plug.. It's a shame.. more time and money up front could have saved this game... I know SOE sunk a ton of money into the game to save it.. but when they forced the release of the game because it was too costly to keep in production....well.... they might was well flushed all that money they put into the game down the drain.... I just don't understand why someone would spend millions to save a product.. then shove it out the door knowing it would fail.. I would have spent more and get the game mechanics polished... then the game would have most likely retained at least 150k - 175k of the original 200k subscribers and then gained more as time went on... The money could have been made back.. and we could have seen a good game...
https://www.youtube.com/user/NemsGaming
I disagree that Everquest II isn't getting support and development. The game's sixth expansion (full expansion, not including Adventure packs) releases next month, and the game will be six years old this November. That's one expansion per year (technically two in 2006 with a break in 2009) of life, which is holding steady with the Everquest staple.
As for Vanguard, there's not much I can add to the game that was voted "Biggest disappointment of 2007"
Wow, didn't realize that many expansions were released. I thought most was free updates.. Good for EQ2 then.
Poor Vanguard..
https://www.youtube.com/user/NemsGaming
When you're 100% blaming the restaurant for people not liking two menu items that you yourself thoroughly enjoy, it's probably time to realize the meal is possibly just crappy to the majority of eaters. All the restaurant can do is expose the menu items to millions of people, and when hundreds of thousands buy or taste test and spit the food out...then its probably meal.
In short, its only 100% SOE's problem if you're blaming them for making and supporting games that the majority of MMO players don't find appealing.
Hmm,
SOE are no longer a serious contender in the online entertainment business. Free Realms is struggling and no longer free ("its what our customers wanted"- yeah right.) The rest of their stuff is old... old... old. A new EQ2 expansion will hold the die hards for awhile but the future is bleak. Shame about Vanguard, as others have posted, now we see what the future held i.e. dumbed down and boring, maybe Vanguard was an unpolished jewel.
I'm not sure how much soe sank into vanguard, but I doubt it was vast amounts of money.
Also, I doubt it was to "save" vanguard or cut due to being to expensive.
Soe had enough money to buy sigil, including the property, so they were not cash strapped.
It was very clear to any developer than a rushed release will cripple and kill an mmo. Soe especially should know this from first hand knowledge.
Soe has the means to continue development on Vanguard. They had the knowledge to know it would not end well for vanguard by cutting funds. To me this shows that soe knew what the outcome would be and found it acceptable.
Why support 3 fantasy mmos that all compete for the same market and split the revenue of the third with another company when you can just watch it fail and buy the assets for pennies afterward. Good move for soe, bad move for mmo players and the mmo market.
It is a real bummer things ended up this way. I would really have liked to seen what vanguard could do to the market if it was in prime shape at release or had soe put real effort into reviving it.
I'm not sure how much soe sank into vanguard, but I doubt it was vast amounts of money.
Also, I doubt it was to "save" vanguard or cut due to being to expensive.
Soe had enough money to buy sigil, including the property, so they were not cash strapped.
It was very clear to any developer than a rushed release will cripple and kill an mmo. Soe especially should know this from first hand knowledge.
Soe has the means to continue development on Vanguard. They had the knowledge to know it would not end well for vanguard by cutting funds. To me this shows that soe knew what the outcome would be and found it acceptable.
Why support 3 fantasy mmos that all compete for the same market and split the revenue of the third with another company when you can just watch it fail and buy the assets for pennies afterward. Good move for soe, bad move for mmo players and the mmo market.
It is a real bummer things ended up this way. I would really have liked to seen what vanguard could do to the market if it was in prime shape at release or had soe put real effort into reviving it.
That's pretty much how I see it...
SOE is well aware of the potential Vanguard has. Only reason for SOE buying Vanguard was competition. SOE is aware of what would happen to EQ2 if another competitor gets his hands over Vanguard and plans to tap the full potential of this game. The only thing SOE actually does is keeping the last few customers busy with the smallest possible budget. The result (as you can see with the latest content) is a ridiculous grindfest with no real way around it. But due to the same kind of playerbase, Vanguard players planning to quit will most likely join EQ2 anyway, so no real big deal for SOE.
Vanguard is suffering a slow and painful death. And it unfortunately never got its chance since SOE did a good job by keeping this gem hidden, making it the most underrated MMO out there.
quote: Vanguard is a great game...
WHAT? Ok, seriously it's time people quit confusing Vanguard the concept with Vanguard the product that was sold to the public. Vanguard was a great concept, but what was released then and still sold now can in no way be called great (unless your idea of a great meal is mac & cheese, uncooked, hold the cheese).
I played the beta, didn't have half the issues most people complained about but knew it wasn't great, and I've downloaded and tried it a half dozen times since release because in concept it was great and I keep hoping they get closer to that but they don't. And they won't. SOE bought this title to bury it. They released it because they knew it would sell enough to pay for this move, but they were just selling tickets to a funeral.
For the people who say they love it, is it real love for a brilliant game or is it because everything else out there is just as bad or worse? Being the tallest hill on the prairie doesn't make you a mountain.
Bringing this back to the original topic, I'd say it's 50-50 SOE and the original Vanguard team. But the alternative would be 100 Vanguard and a never released game. If you like Vanguard you have to at least thank SOE because without them it would be just another never released game. SOE will no more turn it into what it should have been than BP will help develop a hundred mile per gallon car, there's no profit in it.
Great concept? Like forced grouping? Like three tank classes competing for one tank slot in the group and Warriors again are unable to solo? Necromancer overpowered....AGAIN? No instancing so lifeless dweebs get all the raid targets dead before people that have jobs even get home from work? How 1999 of you Brad, no one wants that crap again!
If you have any questions please ask. I have moved on to WoW from eq and no longer have any desire to play a dead game. Thank you. (posted by another selling his account in EQ1)
We are in the year 2010, box sales must make 750k or the game doesn't manage to get a full dev team, expansions, and everything people want.
If you have any questions please ask. I have moved on to WoW from eq and no longer have any desire to play a dead game. Thank you. (posted by another selling his account in EQ1)
i was playing eq2 for more then 4 years , i ve been one of the first beta testers , and now i know why sony continously fails ...
cause they don t understand, that makeing another expansion didn t solve all the other problems , every year an 1 year developed expansions ist outdatet and another continent arrives , the old content ist shit ... sony does this too much!!!
soe needs a bit more sandbox style , perhaps a game with no levels , a bit of eve skill system and yes we there is a sense too kill some rare mobs in antonica or everfrost .. old school > all
Retired : Daoc , Warhammer , WoW , Lotro , Tabula Rasa
, Everquest 2 , Aion, Eve , AoC , SW:Tor ( failwars ), Planetside 2
Waiting : Star Citizen
Playing : Star Citizen
FPS : Overwatch
Yt chan : https://www.youtube.com/user/raine187
I think you are comparing what Vanguard delivered and not what it could have been.
Vanguard was unbalanced when released and did not even have the raid system done. I have no idea what had to get cut from the original concept, but what was delivered was surely rushed just to get content done.
Having more than 1 class that can tank is good in my opinion. Nothing wrong with that, especially if the tanks can shift priorities and fill another roll if someone else is tanking.
The concepts of what vanguard set out to do were pretty awesome. Diplomacy, advanced encounter dynamics, large open world, expanded crafting, housing, boats, big dungeons and plenty of them, etc.
What actually made it to release doesn't exactly measure up to all of those goals.
SoE is a strange company. They start out grand with games and then run them into the ground. Eq2 was actually a fun game when introduced but in true sony fashion has evolved into a ball of frustration.
One thing that soe loves to do is develop games for pc technology that doesn't exist. I remember when they were designing eq2 that they predicted what pc's would operate like in a two year period, telling people that noone would be able to operate the game at full graphics, only to find that the engine isn't as friendly with those pc's some years later. Sure they have made tweaks but the game still runs like crap in comparison to games with better graphics.
Vanguard was pretty much in the same boat. Honestly, when they realized that the chunk system was crap and people's pc's just couldn't hack it they should have rebuilt the engine from the ground up.
In terms of vision and gameplay, vg isn't a bad game, but in its current keepers hands it is doomed for mediocrity.
I still stand firmly planted in my stance that John Smedly is a tool and should be banished from the mmo industry.
hm never found eq2 running anything less than smooth...except at release of new content, somehow they always get suprised ppl would want to go see the new thing....spell out LAG....but they fix these things relative fast. reason I call SOE a proffesional company. doing no less than they expect is needed, but absolutely no more either.
wtf they were thinking in the last expansion is beyond me....turned ppl into some selfcentric £$#@!, with their nothing to do but gear your toons...
for VGs part....well found it a great game for the few Id played it during the last year...abit cluncky combat, but in end could just be my low lvl and used to something else, but else... the most of a "real" MMO Ive played...
Sad to see that they shelf it...but do see it as more of a them giving up, on the idea, that alot of ppl would start to play it...low population = SOE will give it low attention....proffesionel....
But Sony didn't design Vanguard, so the only game that I can see where they design for tech that doesn't exist is EQ2? Unless they did the same with original EQ?
However, I agreee with your first statement which is that they start out strong and then go down hill.
The problem that Sony has is that they are truly designed to be a business and to get products out there.
And "yes" I believe that business have to be business and to make hard decisions. But there is a difference between a business that makes games and believes in what they do and a business who has chosen to make games but would also just be happy making anything else that sells well.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
who does this? When you start talking about rebuilding an engine for a game that just came out you should be talking about why the hell you bought the game in the first place. You don't overhaul a new game its a waste of time and money because players don't come back no matter what.
Brad McQuaid is the real bad guy here so don't talk about smed like he had something to do with VG. If you think VG was anythign but unsaveable you are incorrect. Every single aspect of the game was bugged to hell and back and the base idea behind it didn't work. All of this is a result of Brad never being there, Being overly restrictive on what tools developers could use and basically shutting out ideas that would have solved some of the problems the game had. By the time Brad was shown for the terrible developer that he is the game was beyond saving and should have just been shut down regardless of what it has now become.
Oh and PS. The last paragraph isn't defending smed its supposed to be aiming you in the right direction for finger pointing cause you are way off as it is.
I agree with the OP
EQ2 has awesome low level dungeons and zones, all gone to waste simply because they are not updated with quests and loot which might appeal new players.
SOE wanted to turn EQ2 in WoW, but they forgot to add interesting content and decent loot.
The only thing they did is to speed up the leveling curve , but they hardly touched all the old zones which could add lot of value to the game
I have to agree with OP's opinion on how SOE only looks forward, and not back. SOE management just does not seem to "get it". They rush these expansions out, they go for quantity not quality, and they milk all the money they could from players. Meanwhile people like us who are paying subscribers keep telling them to fix what's broken, keep telling them what we like and what we want to see more of.
Blizzard is going to launch an expansion that will revamp their classic zones, zones that were released when the game first launched in 2004. Can you imagine if SOE did that for their games? If SOE launched an expansion that revamped old content to bring them up to par, to upgrade them, to make them look better and feel better. To revamp the engine so flying mounts can work in classic zones. To add higher end zones adjacent to the old classic zones, making people go back to them and play more? If SOE did this to EQ1, it would undoubtly become a top 3 US MMO for at least awhile. If SOE did this to EQ2, they could actually make the game more appealing to more players than their lil 100k-150k subscriber base.
People can hate Blizzard/WoW all they want, but they do the right things, they are making the right decisions. They know the importance of giving players incentives to reroll alts or attract ex-players back to their games. They know the key to keep new players coming is to make sure there's even a population during the first half of the levels, where in most SOE games like EQ1, EQ2, and Vanguard are vastly empty these days.
In my opinion, SOE needs to learn from quality gaming companies like Blizzard. Go for quality rather than quantity. Don't forget about new players and returning players, because they are important to a game's longevity. Don't forget to cater to all sorts of playstyles because forced grouping, raid-or-die mentality worked 10 years ago, but they don't work today.
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO