Look at SWG ... it is still floating and around ...
Till SWTOR is released. Vanguard is doomed regardless unless it goes to a F2P system anyways. No one wants to pay the 15 bucks to play this damn game anymore. Yes the Isle is packed but its packed with Non Subbed people that once they finish the isle they are poof no where to be found. I made the mistake several times listening to all you VanBois n VanGurls that say oh pops up pops doing this and so what because i like fantasy mmo's and yet everytime its a barren landscape and no one is grouping like these vanbois/gurls would like you to believe. I like vanguard but it screwed to many people to many times and it will never get played by those players again unless they can play it for free.
SWTOR is shaping to be more of a Single Player MMO style from what i have been reading.
Vanguard is a game that i am enjoying ove rmost of the crap out there ... so no biggy there. VG did screw people over ... well CEO of Sigil Games ... failed to make a delivery date for a game he was developing over 4 years ... Perfectionist not best thing suited in some lines of work ... Due to that failure it was purchased by Sony, pushed to launch and left to die due to the fact that sony's other product (eq 2) was VGs direct competition. So as things stand VG is now a Niche game for Niche players ... i doubt that the game will last another 3 years (EQ Next is 2012 and i hope it is PC only) and so EQ 1 and VG will probably die about the same time when EQ next is going full.
I don't think that the single-server model is as bad for games as everyone seems to think. Granted, since the majority of MMO players happen to be WoW players, and thus are used to the "OMG look at the number of servers WTFPWN win!" mentality, personally I enjoy games with one server much more than I enjoy other games. This could primarily be because if you know anyone in the world (or at least your continent) who plays the game, then you are in the same world as them. Too often have I met someone in RL and learned they played a certain game that I play, only to say: "Awww shucks we're on different servers, looks like we'll never be able to play together unless we re-roll (can be tedious) or pay for server transfer (and lose my house and guild)."
Take EVE, for example, arguably one of the more impressive MMOs in existence. 1 server. 1 massive game universe. 40,000 (average) people on it at any given time.
Cryptic (aside from the actual mediocrity of their titles) does a similar thing with multiple instances of the same zones, but in one consistent "server-world". Hell, I was in the STO beta and had friends from my Champions Online character chatting me...and they were playing Champions while I was playing STO.
Ever since I started back up playing Vanguard, I've been hoping for a server merge, simply because the existing players of Vanguard are so spread out that there's no reason to divide us by artificial walls. The world of Telon is big enough to hold all the current players of Vanguard on a single server, and still have room for 5 times that amount.
So to the folks on Seradon (like the After Hours guild), as well as Halgarad and Sartok: Looking forward to seeing you all!
Currently playing: LOTRO, Guild Wars 2. Have played: EVE Online; Champions Online; Age of Conan; City of Heroes/Villains; Star Wars Galaxies (pre-CU, pre-NGE); World of Warcraft (Vanilla to Cataclysm); Hellgate: London; Warhammer Online; Lord of the Rings Online; Vanguard: Saga of Heroes; Star Wars: The Old Republic Wishlist: Mass Effect Online
I agree, we need to have a positive outlook on this ... and I think 1 server for the game will be fantastic and with the reduction of cost and hopefull new equipment for the server things will be moving in a positive manner to fix the classes that still need fixing (you bards and warriors) and finish the bug refixes then eventually if the population continues to grow ... add the features they dropped and other goodies
I must say I'm stuck between a rock and a hard space. I'm living in Germany for the month of July. So I would be playing off hours for my time zone, and coming back to the states around the first week of August, and will not have a chance to play until I settle back in to normal living.
So were looking at the end of August before I can Really play with the mass in flux of players, so it kind of stinks for me
I must say I'm stuck between a rock and a hard space. I'm living in Germany for the month of July. So I would be playing off hours for my time zone, and coming back to the states around the first week of August, and will not have a chance to play until I settle back in to normal living.
So were looking at the end of August before I can Really play with the mass in flux of players, so it kind of stinks for me
You should check out after hours on seradon, we have a pretty sizable EU playerbase
I must say I'm stuck between a rock and a hard space. I'm living in Germany for the month of July. So I would be playing off hours for my time zone, and coming back to the states around the first week of August, and will not have a chance to play until I settle back in to normal living.
So were looking at the end of August before I can Really play with the mass in flux of players, so it kind of stinks for me
But everyone else playing VG in Europe is in the same boat. And I do believe the After Hours guild (from these forums) has a fair amount of EU folks also. Not to mention that US folks have some pretty weird hours too. For example on weekends I usually end up playing more during the day and not so much in the evening or at night, so I overlap with the EU folks who are playing in their evening.
Having a game on a single server (if the game is low-pop to begin with, which Vanguard absolutely is) really won't make a huge difference as far as how many people are on when your play time is--except to increase it possibly, for better or worse (sounds to me like that'd be on the BETTER side when VG is concerned).
While we should not kid ourselves about the realistic perils Vanguard faces, nor should we excite ourselves to think that a server merge is a huge doomsday armaggeddon for the game. If anything, Vanguard going to single server (which assumedly makes it less expensive for SOE to maintain?) could make it less of a liability for SOE on their "let's stop paying to host this game" list...which would buy us some time in playing it. And who knows, maybe even buy it the time it needs to see a possible turn-around from either the players or SOE?
Currently playing: LOTRO, Guild Wars 2. Have played: EVE Online; Champions Online; Age of Conan; City of Heroes/Villains; Star Wars Galaxies (pre-CU, pre-NGE); World of Warcraft (Vanilla to Cataclysm); Hellgate: London; Warhammer Online; Lord of the Rings Online; Vanguard: Saga of Heroes; Star Wars: The Old Republic Wishlist: Mass Effect Online
Everquest 2 challenger succesfully sabotaged omg Brad what have you done. I'd rather see this game shut down before in the hands of Sony its so sad can't stress that enough.
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play." "Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
Server merge is great news! Since the world is just so huge it makes perfectly sense.
In addition a lot of EU players already play on US server Seradon since it's the most populated and it shouldn't be a problem finding folks to group with at all times (as an EU player I never encountered any issues grouping at low levels in the past months on Seradon, and that was even before the guild "After Hours" was created).
We all know where Vanguard is coming from and for the players enjoying the game it's great that SOE is keeping it alive, even with a p2p model (paying a game sub is still one of the cheapest hobbies I've ever seen).
We all know where Vanguard is coming from and for the players enjoying the game it's great that SOE is keeping it alive, even with a p2p model (paying a game sub is still one of the cheapest hobbies I've ever seen).
True that. Game sub << golf club membership...seriously don't understand those folks. Yay my little white ball ($) with my expensive sticks ($$$) in my designer bag ($$) wearing my designer clothes ($$)went further down the most expensive lawn in town! Now to hop in my motorized cart ($$$$)....
Our hobby is cheaper, more entertaining, and we get just as much exercise.
Currently playing: LOTRO, Guild Wars 2. Have played: EVE Online; Champions Online; Age of Conan; City of Heroes/Villains; Star Wars Galaxies (pre-CU, pre-NGE); World of Warcraft (Vanilla to Cataclysm); Hellgate: London; Warhammer Online; Lord of the Rings Online; Vanguard: Saga of Heroes; Star Wars: The Old Republic Wishlist: Mass Effect Online
This'll have some degree of positive effect on those still playing; small or large.
What Vanguard could immediately use after both merges is a simultaneous WinBack campaign (re-opened accounts for old subscribers), and something like changing the 14 day Isle of Dawn trial to an unlimited deal similar to what WAR and AoC have done.
Obviously Isle of Dawn and WinBack campaigns didn't change Vanguard's fate before, since its dwindling to 1 server rather than adding a 5th, but at least now any marketing push towards new and returning players wouldn't result in a 1 in 4 crap shoot of a chance to not end up on total ghost towns for those that don't consult boards first about where to start.
So hopefully something else will coincide this, otherwise this only merges two or three ghost towns into a somewhat active server.
I just resubbed and was having a decent time, and they decide to actually pull the plug...
Irritating as hell, considering I suffered through 12 months post launch, and then finally, when I heard they'd fixed 90% of the issues I quit over, I come back, and they try to fleece me for a monthly rate...
F you Sony... Seriously... I've finally had enough.
Thank god they're not running the SW:TOR MMO
I cancelled my sub about a month ago after 3 years have having a blast in Vanguard. The server merge is a very good idea. The world and land mass is simply to big for the number of players. Server merges can be a pain, but this will provide a better play experience.
I see the guilds from the different servers already discussing competing for raid mobs.... looks like good cooperation already.
Hope for the best with the merge. And hopefully alot of you will not resub becuse you are really seeing all gloom and doom. Nothing that SOE is doing is good for you. With a merge you will hopefully have more players to interact with. That is good isnt it?
Ofc this game will die. As long as we are bashing everything that soe is doing for this game nothing will change.
I must say I'm stuck between a rock and a hard space. I'm living in Germany for the month of July. So I would be playing off hours for my time zone, and coming back to the states around the first week of August, and will not have a chance to play until I settle back in to normal living.
So were looking at the end of August before I can Really play with the mass in flux of players, so it kind of stinks for me
But everyone else playing VG in Europe is in the same boat. And I do believe the After Hours guild (from these forums) has a fair amount of EU folks also. Not to mention that US folks have some pretty weird hours too. For example on weekends I usually end up playing more during the day and not so much in the evening or at night, so I overlap with the EU folks who are playing in their evening.
Having a game on a single server (if the game is low-pop to begin with, which Vanguard absolutely is) really won't make a huge difference as far as how many people are on when your play time is--except to increase it possibly, for better or worse (sounds to me like that'd be on the BETTER side when VG is concerned).
While we should not kid ourselves about the realistic perils Vanguard faces, nor should we excite ourselves to think that a server merge is a huge doomsday armaggeddon for the game. If anything, Vanguard going to single server (which assumedly makes it less expensive for SOE to maintain?) could make it less of a liability for SOE on their "let's stop paying to host this game" list...which would buy us some time in playing it. And who knows, maybe even buy it the time it needs to see a possible turn-around from either the players or SOE?
Good point Zeletor,
I'll take you up on that Idea
It's almost to the point that Vanguard is the only good mmo for me as of now !
IMO, with a world so big as VG, it should have been a single server in the first place.
What let VG down badly, is the maximum number of people logged in on each server.
Now playing: VG (after a long break from MMORPGS) Played for more than a month: Darkfall online, Vanguard SOH, Everquest, Horizons, WoW, SWG, Everquest II, Eve
I was going to give VG a try but now I understand there will be no-PvP at all after this server merge. No PvP = game put in dust bin of history as far as I am concerned. If I only wanted to play against computer opponents I wouldn't be connected to the internet. Pity.
I just resubbed and was having a decent time, and they decide to actually pull the plug...
Irritating as hell, considering I suffered through 12 months post launch, and then finally, when I heard they'd fixed 90% of the issues I quit over, I come back, and they try to fleece me for a monthly rate...
F you Sony... Seriously... I've finally had enough.
Thank god they're not running the SW:TOR MMO
How is a server merge pulling the plug?
Going down to one server tends to be a BAD sign. Given the context, and the fact that SOE keeps cutting resources to the game makes it even worse. Its too damn bad, as this game could have been good if it had been handled properly. There is more than enough blame to go around for everyone for its failure.
Well, being from europe, this finally kills Vanguard for me.
I am not going to accept the bad ping of an US server.
Our guild has many Euro players. Ping was never an issue, it was raid times etc. We ended up doing 10am raids on weekends that worked good for both US and Euro players.
In fact, a UK friend and I both played the same class. We spent a lot of time duoing mobs to hone our skills, share intel and compare damage parses. Ping was something we looked at and on average he was 20-50ms higher than me.
Well, being from europe, this finally kills Vanguard for me.
I am not going to accept the bad ping of an US server.
Our guild has many Euro players. Ping was never an issue, it was raid times etc. We ended up doing 10am raids on weekends that worked good for both US and Euro players.
In fact, a UK friend and I both played the same class. We spent a lot of time duoing mobs to hone our skills, share intel and compare damage parses. Ping was something we looked at and on average he was 20-50ms higher than me.
I'm happy for the UK friend, but unfortunately my latency was always noticeably worse on the US servers. So I do believe this will be an issue for at least some players.
Server merges are a good thing. The game is way too big anyways for the few that are left. Server merges might give the game the critical stability it needs.
LOL. Aion is going down to 4 and it was just released and supposed to be the true holy savior. All games are suffering...there is a drudge of crap.
Or you have an impossibly large audience who is buying anything and everything in order to get something new and as soon as they find out it's not what they want they go elsewhere.
Had NC Soft been more forthcoming with what Aion was there would have been a lot fewer people, far less of a need to add so many servers and less of a need to merge down.
There is a giant playerbase who inhabit/formerly inhabied wow and they are looking for another game but it's going to have to compare to wow and that is just too hard to do for them.
For as decent as Final Fantasy looks it's not going to satisfy them. the Bioware Star Wars game "may" do it but I think that EA and Bioware are very conscious of the fact that they are going to have to deliver.
As far as games go, many games lose servers over the years. EVE is the exception. Of course all of its playerbase can share a world but I believe EVE doesn't try to be anything other than what it is and that has worked for them.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Comments
I wonder how this could be a bad thing? Yes I understand the name and housing thingy issue, but what else?
SWTOR is shaping to be more of a Single Player MMO style from what i have been reading.
Vanguard is a game that i am enjoying ove rmost of the crap out there ... so no biggy there. VG did screw people over ... well CEO of Sigil Games ... failed to make a delivery date for a game he was developing over 4 years ... Perfectionist not best thing suited in some lines of work ... Due to that failure it was purchased by Sony, pushed to launch and left to die due to the fact that sony's other product (eq 2) was VGs direct competition. So as things stand VG is now a Niche game for Niche players ... i doubt that the game will last another 3 years (EQ Next is 2012 and i hope it is PC only) and so EQ 1 and VG will probably die about the same time when EQ next is going full.
Artorus Giltanus - Ranger EQ1 Retired
Arturien - 90 Deathknight WoW
I don't think that the single-server model is as bad for games as everyone seems to think. Granted, since the majority of MMO players happen to be WoW players, and thus are used to the "OMG look at the number of servers WTFPWN win!" mentality, personally I enjoy games with one server much more than I enjoy other games. This could primarily be because if you know anyone in the world (or at least your continent) who plays the game, then you are in the same world as them. Too often have I met someone in RL and learned they played a certain game that I play, only to say: "Awww shucks we're on different servers, looks like we'll never be able to play together unless we re-roll (can be tedious) or pay for server transfer (and lose my house and guild)."
Take EVE, for example, arguably one of the more impressive MMOs in existence. 1 server. 1 massive game universe. 40,000 (average) people on it at any given time.
Cryptic (aside from the actual mediocrity of their titles) does a similar thing with multiple instances of the same zones, but in one consistent "server-world". Hell, I was in the STO beta and had friends from my Champions Online character chatting me...and they were playing Champions while I was playing STO.
Ever since I started back up playing Vanguard, I've been hoping for a server merge, simply because the existing players of Vanguard are so spread out that there's no reason to divide us by artificial walls. The world of Telon is big enough to hold all the current players of Vanguard on a single server, and still have room for 5 times that amount.
So to the folks on Seradon (like the After Hours guild), as well as Halgarad and Sartok: Looking forward to seeing you all!
Currently playing: LOTRO, Guild Wars 2.
Have played: EVE Online; Champions Online; Age of Conan; City of Heroes/Villains; Star Wars Galaxies (pre-CU, pre-NGE); World of Warcraft (Vanilla to Cataclysm); Hellgate: London; Warhammer Online; Lord of the Rings Online; Vanguard: Saga of Heroes; Star Wars: The Old Republic
Wishlist: Mass Effect Online
I agree, we need to have a positive outlook on this ... and I think 1 server for the game will be fantastic and with the reduction of cost and hopefull new equipment for the server things will be moving in a positive manner to fix the classes that still need fixing (you bards and warriors) and finish the bug refixes then eventually if the population continues to grow ... add the features they dropped and other goodies
Artorus Giltanus - Ranger EQ1 Retired
Arturien - 90 Deathknight WoW
I must say I'm stuck between a rock and a hard space. I'm living in Germany for the month of July. So I would be playing off hours for my time zone, and coming back to the states around the first week of August, and will not have a chance to play until I settle back in to normal living.
So were looking at the end of August before I can Really play with the mass in flux of players, so it kind of stinks for me
You should check out after hours on seradon, we have a pretty sizable EU playerbase
But everyone else playing VG in Europe is in the same boat.
And I do believe the After Hours guild (from these forums) has a fair amount of EU folks also. Not to mention that US folks have some pretty weird hours too. For example on weekends I usually end up playing more during the day and not so much in the evening or at night, so I overlap with the EU folks who are playing in their evening.
Having a game on a single server (if the game is low-pop to begin with, which Vanguard absolutely is) really won't make a huge difference as far as how many people are on when your play time is--except to increase it possibly, for better or worse (sounds to me like that'd be on the BETTER side when VG is concerned).
While we should not kid ourselves about the realistic perils Vanguard faces, nor should we excite ourselves to think that a server merge is a huge doomsday armaggeddon for the game. If anything, Vanguard going to single server (which assumedly makes it less expensive for SOE to maintain?) could make it less of a liability for SOE on their "let's stop paying to host this game" list...which would buy us some time in playing it. And who knows, maybe even buy it the time it needs to see a possible turn-around from either the players or SOE?
Currently playing: LOTRO, Guild Wars 2.
Have played: EVE Online; Champions Online; Age of Conan; City of Heroes/Villains; Star Wars Galaxies (pre-CU, pre-NGE); World of Warcraft (Vanilla to Cataclysm); Hellgate: London; Warhammer Online; Lord of the Rings Online; Vanguard: Saga of Heroes; Star Wars: The Old Republic
Wishlist: Mass Effect Online
Everquest 2 challenger succesfully sabotaged omg Brad what have you done. I'd rather see this game shut down before in the hands of Sony its so sad can't stress that enough.
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play."
"Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
Server merge is great news! Since the world is just so huge it makes perfectly sense.
In addition a lot of EU players already play on US server Seradon since it's the most populated and it shouldn't be a problem finding folks to group with at all times (as an EU player I never encountered any issues grouping at low levels in the past months on Seradon, and that was even before the guild "After Hours" was created).
We all know where Vanguard is coming from and for the players enjoying the game it's great that SOE is keeping it alive, even with a p2p model (paying a game sub is still one of the cheapest hobbies I've ever seen).
True that. Game sub << golf club membership...seriously don't understand those folks. Yay my little white ball ($) with my expensive sticks ($$$) in my designer bag ($$) wearing my designer clothes ($$)went further down the most expensive lawn in town! Now to hop in my motorized cart ($$$$)....
Our hobby is cheaper, more entertaining, and we get just as much exercise.
Currently playing: LOTRO, Guild Wars 2.
Have played: EVE Online; Champions Online; Age of Conan; City of Heroes/Villains; Star Wars Galaxies (pre-CU, pre-NGE); World of Warcraft (Vanilla to Cataclysm); Hellgate: London; Warhammer Online; Lord of the Rings Online; Vanguard: Saga of Heroes; Star Wars: The Old Republic
Wishlist: Mass Effect Online
This'll have some degree of positive effect on those still playing; small or large.
What Vanguard could immediately use after both merges is a simultaneous WinBack campaign (re-opened accounts for old subscribers), and something like changing the 14 day Isle of Dawn trial to an unlimited deal similar to what WAR and AoC have done.
Obviously Isle of Dawn and WinBack campaigns didn't change Vanguard's fate before, since its dwindling to 1 server rather than adding a 5th, but at least now any marketing push towards new and returning players wouldn't result in a 1 in 4 crap shoot of a chance to not end up on total ghost towns for those that don't consult boards first about where to start.
So hopefully something else will coincide this, otherwise this only merges two or three ghost towns into a somewhat active server.
I cancelled my sub about a month ago after 3 years have having a blast in Vanguard. The server merge is a very good idea. The world and land mass is simply to big for the number of players. Server merges can be a pain, but this will provide a better play experience.
I see the guilds from the different servers already discussing competing for raid mobs.... looks like good cooperation already.
Hope for the best with the merge. And hopefully alot of you will not resub becuse you are really seeing all gloom and doom. Nothing that SOE is doing is good for you. With a merge you will hopefully have more players to interact with. That is good isnt it?
Ofc this game will die. As long as we are bashing everything that soe is doing for this game nothing will change.
I7@4ghz, 5970@ 1 ghz/5ghz, water cooled||Former setups Byggblogg||Byggblogg 2|| Msi Wind u100
Good point Zeletor,
I'll take you up on that Idea
It's almost to the point that Vanguard is the only good mmo for me as of now !
IMO, with a world so big as VG, it should have been a single server in the first place.
What let VG down badly, is the maximum number of people logged in on each server.
Now playing: VG (after a long break from MMORPGS)
Played for more than a month: Darkfall online, Vanguard SOH, Everquest, Horizons, WoW, SWG, Everquest II, Eve
This is a good thing for its playerbase no matter how much some whine about overland raid bosses.
And Halgar players should not worry, As a European I played mostly on Seradon recently, and the ping was very playable.
REALITY CHECK
Well, being from europe, this finally kills Vanguard for me.
I am not going to accept the bad ping of an US server.
have ya actually played on a US server? it really isn't that bad
Clicky for Rift trial
I was going to give VG a try but now I understand there will be no-PvP at all after this server merge. No PvP = game put in dust bin of history as far as I am concerned. If I only wanted to play against computer opponents I wouldn't be connected to the internet. Pity.
Going down to one server tends to be a BAD sign. Given the context, and the fact that SOE keeps cutting resources to the game makes it even worse. Its too damn bad, as this game could have been good if it had been handled properly. There is more than enough blame to go around for everyone for its failure.
LOL. Aion is going down to 4 and it was just released and supposed to be the true holy savior. All games are suffering...there is a drudge of crap.
Our guild has many Euro players. Ping was never an issue, it was raid times etc. We ended up doing 10am raids on weekends that worked good for both US and Euro players.
In fact, a UK friend and I both played the same class. We spent a lot of time duoing mobs to hone our skills, share intel and compare damage parses. Ping was something we looked at and on average he was 20-50ms higher than me.
I'm happy for the UK friend, but unfortunately my latency was always noticeably worse on the US servers. So I do believe this will be an issue for at least some players.
Server merges are a good thing. The game is way too big anyways for the few that are left. Server merges might give the game the critical stability it needs.
M
Or you have an impossibly large audience who is buying anything and everything in order to get something new and as soon as they find out it's not what they want they go elsewhere.
Had NC Soft been more forthcoming with what Aion was there would have been a lot fewer people, far less of a need to add so many servers and less of a need to merge down.
There is a giant playerbase who inhabit/formerly inhabied wow and they are looking for another game but it's going to have to compare to wow and that is just too hard to do for them.
For as decent as Final Fantasy looks it's not going to satisfy them. the Bioware Star Wars game "may" do it but I think that EA and Bioware are very conscious of the fact that they are going to have to deliver.
As far as games go, many games lose servers over the years. EVE is the exception. Of course all of its playerbase can share a world but I believe EVE doesn't try to be anything other than what it is and that has worked for them.
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