Vanguard - Brad posts about the dangers of promised features not making release

Braen · 07-21-2005, 05:41 AM

http://www.vanguardsoh.com/forums/sh...106#post374106

Here's what's not cool, obviously: promising things and then not delivering on them. If you guys are told something will be in at launch, and it's not, that's not cool.

That said, lots of things can happen in developing games this complicated. At Sigil we try very hard to manage expectations, but we will still fail at times (though not intentionally). If we do realize between now and launch that something's not going to make it in, I will do my best to let you guys know. I'd rather have some of you upset with me than not say anything.

There's a different issue that sometimes comes up, though, and it's somewhat related. One of the coolest things about MMOGs is the ability to patch and also to do expansions. Sometimes, to people who may not be as familiar with these games, when the developers talk about features that will occur after launch, in expansions, etc. the reaction can be negative. You see statements like 'well, why don't you have that in by launch? Aren't you delivering a finished game?'

The issue there is that these games are never finished. And honestly I think that's one of the coolest attributes of MMOGs. Seriously, who wants a game like these to be finished? There's always content and features that can be added later. There are always ideas that simply we never had time to get in but that we like and hope to see implemented post-launch. This also goes for extending features that are there at launch -- in other words, making systems even better, or more robust, or adding to them.

A good example for Vanguard would be city building. Right now, we plan on having the ability for players to create buildings... residential, commercial, industrial. In other words, places where you can store things, places where you can have offline vendors, and places that help in the crafting/assembly process.

But that's just the beginning. From there you can go onto player towns and the like. Now, there's nothing stopping players from forming their own towns. That's player-driven content. You see it in games like UO and SW:G. But we hope to add actual mechanics and features supporting player towns. Will we get some of these ideas in by launch? Maybe, but at this time, likely not. Do we have design docs and plans for a lot of cool features? You bet. And we're architecting the code so that it shouldn't be too hard to implement post-launch.

So I think as long as we are up front with you guys and manage expectations, we'll hopefully be ok. Will Vanguard be 'finished' when we launch it? Yes and no. Depends on how you look at it. Will it be a playable game with lots to do? You bet. Will it contain every bit of content and all of the features we'd like to see in the game? Definitely not. We will be patching in new content and features after launch, and then we will also have expansions.

As I've mentioned in other posts, we will have two teams (well, three if you count CS). One team is the live team. Their responsibility will be to add to the game regularly via patches. They'll add new things and they will also be tasked with keeping the 'old world' fresh -- in other words they'll revamp pre-existing areas to keep them fresh. This is very important to us because in the past we weren't able to do this nearly as often as we would have liked because we had to put most of our resources into expansions. When crafting our contract for Vanguard, we specifically set up two teams such that we shouldn't run into a situation where we have to rob Peter to pay Paul.

The expansion team will be working on major additions to the game, both in terms of content and features. We haven't set in stone how frequently these expansions will come out, but they will likely be in stores, cost additional money up front, etc. Our responsibilty will be to make sure these expansions are worth the extra money and also to make it such that the player doesn't have to buy them to keep playing the game.

Again, I think if done right, this will make for a better game and will benefit players on the whole. That said, some players will have a problem with it -- this we've seen from the past. But I think fewer and fewer will question this approach as the genre matures and more and more people understand the benefits ongoing MMOGs offer and how they are in many ways fundamentally different than single player games.

In the past we've mentioned that we already have rough plans for expansions and future content and features. Questions have been asked like 'why are you working on things that arent' going to be in the game at launch?'' This is a good quesiton. The main reason is that we want to avoid situations where we have to shoe-in, so to speak, new areas or functionality because it wasn't planned for earlier.

A good example would be adding levels to the game. If we don't architect our formulas and such to accomodate the future we'd have to hack it in, which often causes balance problems and the like. In the past, when we didn't realize how long these games could remain viable, looking that far into the future didn't seem to make sense. Now, knowing better, we're approaching things assuming the game will be a success and be around for a long while.

Hope that makes sense -- let me know if it doesn't.

Dynalisia · 07-21-2005, 05:48 AM

I hope they have a clear framework in place in which they can move the difficulty and rewards of revamped zones around in, so they dont upset the balance with other content of similar level req.

Itzena · 07-21-2005, 06:02 AM

Quote:

But we hope to add actual mechanics and features supporting player towns. Will we get some of these ideas in by launch? Maybe, but at this time, likely not. Do we have design docs and plans for a lot of cool features? You bet. And we're architecting the code so that it shouldn't be too hard to implement post-launch.

Whoa, EQ-beta flashbacks.

Merklyn · 07-21-2005, 06:07 AM

Meh, just communicate clearly, frequently, then deliver. This part is actually easy. Even if you slip or screwup as long as you're making progress, always forthcoming, and the general state of the game is good, the forgiveness will be quick.

Setup feedback channels that don't piss off your playerbase. Obviously much harder and more thankless but essentially managing the same expectations. Being in touch with player perception seems to be an important aspect that is often neglected.

My hopes are high but my expectations are low, especially the closer it is to release.

Cybsled · 07-21-2005, 06:27 AM

Player generated content is almost always the first thing to go, sadly.

You can piss on it if you like, but the city aspect of Shadowbane was pretty nice. Your vendors could generate nice items, certain cities became known for having certain things available that others did not. You had the ability to restrict trade, almost like a player-controlled faction system. Certain cities were near premium spots, thus giving the population a legup on obtaining those nice things.

It would be nice if Vanguard kind of took a page from that. There is alot to be said for player-generated content...it can add a whole new facet to a game.

Mkopec1 · 07-21-2005, 06:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Itzena

Whoa, EQ-beta flashbacks.

Funny I thought it was a WoW flashback myself.

Tuco · 07-21-2005, 06:40 AM

If I were a dev I wouldn't talk about unreleased content/features/zones much, because of all the dickheads like us who make opinions from but threads of assumptions. Granted, sometimes our fears are correct(all the PVP community I talked to said having lots of NPCs, no set way to fight with and against who you want to(organized) and no cross-server AV BGs would cripple it, and you might as well not even release it).

Since cybsled posted about a specific feature he wants, I'm allowed too =P Every MMO that comes out from now on really needs to borrow some of the basic functionality of Guild Wars. AV/Warsong is GW done incorrectly. They don't need all the advanced features of the arenas in GW, but they do need the ability to have GW style 8v8 / 10v10 etc. open/ffa pvp is more desirable for someone like I, but not expected. MMO's have evolved to the point that they need some arena/instance based PVP like this. It doesn't need to be complex, it just needs to be functional.

fuffalo · 07-21-2005, 09:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mkopec1

Funny I thought it was a WoW flashback myself.

Hmm I started playing WoW in 2003 and not once do I remember hearing them promise player made towns. I could be wrong though.

leane · 07-21-2005, 09:51 AM

Sounds kinda like a preemptive cop out to hack features to make a release date.... Hopefully I'm reading more into that than is there

Taggle · 07-21-2005, 10:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by leane

Sounds kinda like a preemptive cop out to hack features to make a release date.

Seriously, shut the fuck up. The president of a major development company gives you an honest answer, and you say retarded shit like this. Why in the hell would a pre-beta company need to set up, a year before release, a cop out for stuff that may not make it in gold?

Everyone says to keep the information flowing from the company to players, but retards like you are what makes doing so so difficult.

leane · 07-21-2005, 10:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Taggle

Seriously, shut the fuck up. The president of a major development company gives you an honest answer, and you say retarded shit like this. Why in the hell would a pre-beta company need to set up, a year before release, a cop out for stuff that may not make it in gold?

Everyone says to keep the information flowing from the company to players, but retards like you are what makes doing so so difficult.

Aww poor baby, I hurt your blind worship of vanguard.

Really now, you better start flaming everybody who posts on these forums or even dares post in a vanguard post because it might hurt communications.

Dyscord · 07-21-2005, 11:02 AM

*Ringringring* Warning bells.

Player cities... that means WIDE open spaces of nothing... zilch. nada. Trees and hills. No content. Already this bodes really bad from the discussion going on in the travel thread. If travel is going to be 'time consuming', that means we're going to have a massive world filled with... nothing. SWG's world sucked. Shadowbanes' world sucked.

Maybe sigil can pull it off... but from earlier attempts, it doesn't look good. You either have beautiful built worlds full of content and no room for player cities, or you have a massive boring world for room for player made cities. Don't mob me with 'You're stupid, Sigil will be able to make it work'. I'm just saying from previous attempts at creating a player made world have lead to some of the best MMO's concept wise, but some of the worst MMO's in practice.

Iannis · 07-21-2005, 11:07 AM

Brad really does like to say things in a longer way than he needed to.

Hopefully that means they'll have some DAoC-esque residential zones, but let you actually tie housing together into villages. DAoC just never allowed you to tie the little gathering of houses together. Guess it was more complex than they expected, since the way the housing was set up sure made it look like you were going to have PC villages.

Nobody would be silly enough to try AC2's empty "YOU build the city!" concept again. I'd hope. Considering how badly ac2 flopped because there wasn't anything in it. Or so I heard, I didn't buy it.

Jait · 07-21-2005, 11:28 AM

I think some of you just read Braens title and said "oooh, chance to flame!" Because it has very little to do with the actual post.

What Brad really seems to be saying is that they have abundant content, and they're going to use what works best, not what is necessarily promised. If he promises "The ability to create complex potions!" and everyone finds it tedious, and it sucks, they change it to pre-made potions to remove the PITA. That's the kind of stuff he seems to be talking about. Not, hey maybe we wont have any NPCs at release. The only company you can even remotely compare Sigil to, is Verant. Verant made a pretty damn cool game their first time around until SOE fudged around with it a bit too much.

And if you don't understand the difference between: "Games like these are never finished, that's what's cool about them." vs "We're too inept or incapable of creating new content that works." B.net is thataway --->

When the game hits Beta you'll either find me here telling you exactly what's wrong with it just as I tried to with WoW, or I'll be too busy having fun playing it. Until then the only reason to h8 is the irrational fear there can only be 1 MMOG for people to play. Skepticism is just fine however, I'm in the same boat.

Slagar · 07-21-2005, 11:31 AM

After reading that rather long-winded essay, all I see is Brad stating in plain terms Vanguard will follow suit with every other MMO as far as content on release, and methodology of patching.

Quote:

Seriously, shut the fuck up. The president of a major development company gives you an honest answer, and you say retarded shit like this. Why in the hell would a pre-beta company need to set up, a year before release, a cop out for stuff that may not make it in gold?

I got a laugh out of that. Oh shit, a major development company!!! *bows in reverance*

07-21-2005, 05:41 AM	#1 (permalink)
Braen Watches the Watchmen Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Dallas Posts: 3,808 -2 Internets	Vanguard - Brad posts about the dangers of promised features not making release http://www.vanguardsoh.com/forums/sh...106#post374106 Here's what's not cool, obviously: promising things and then not delivering on them. If you guys are told something will be in at launch, and it's not, that's not cool. That said, lots of things can happen in developing games this complicated. At Sigil we try very hard to manage expectations, but we will still fail at times (though not intentionally). If we do realize between now and launch that something's not going to make it in, I will do my best to let you guys know. I'd rather have some of you upset with me than not say anything. There's a different issue that sometimes comes up, though, and it's somewhat related. One of the coolest things about MMOGs is the ability to patch and also to do expansions. Sometimes, to people who may not be as familiar with these games, when the developers talk about features that will occur after launch, in expansions, etc. the reaction can be negative. You see statements like 'well, why don't you have that in by launch? Aren't you delivering a finished game?' The issue there is that these games are never finished. And honestly I think that's one of the coolest attributes of MMOGs. Seriously, who wants a game like these to be finished? There's always content and features that can be added later. There are always ideas that simply we never had time to get in but that we like and hope to see implemented post-launch. This also goes for extending features that are there at launch -- in other words, making systems even better, or more robust, or adding to them. A good example for Vanguard would be city building. Right now, we plan on having the ability for players to create buildings... residential, commercial, industrial. In other words, places where you can store things, places where you can have offline vendors, and places that help in the crafting/assembly process. But that's just the beginning. From there you can go onto player towns and the like. Now, there's nothing stopping players from forming their own towns. That's player-driven content. You see it in games like UO and SW:G. But we hope to add actual mechanics and features supporting player towns. Will we get some of these ideas in by launch? Maybe, but at this time, likely not. Do we have design docs and plans for a lot of cool features? You bet. And we're architecting the code so that it shouldn't be too hard to implement post-launch. So I think as long as we are up front with you guys and manage expectations, we'll hopefully be ok. Will Vanguard be 'finished' when we launch it? Yes and no. Depends on how you look at it. Will it be a playable game with lots to do? You bet. Will it contain every bit of content and all of the features we'd like to see in the game? Definitely not. We will be patching in new content and features after launch, and then we will also have expansions. As I've mentioned in other posts, we will have two teams (well, three if you count CS). One team is the live team. Their responsibility will be to add to the game regularly via patches. They'll add new things and they will also be tasked with keeping the 'old world' fresh -- in other words they'll revamp pre-existing areas to keep them fresh. This is very important to us because in the past we weren't able to do this nearly as often as we would have liked because we had to put most of our resources into expansions. When crafting our contract for Vanguard, we specifically set up two teams such that we shouldn't run into a situation where we have to rob Peter to pay Paul. The expansion team will be working on major additions to the game, both in terms of content and features. We haven't set in stone how frequently these expansions will come out, but they will likely be in stores, cost additional money up front, etc. Our responsibilty will be to make sure these expansions are worth the extra money and also to make it such that the player doesn't have to buy them to keep playing the game. Again, I think if done right, this will make for a better game and will benefit players on the whole. That said, some players will have a problem with it -- this we've seen from the past. But I think fewer and fewer will question this approach as the genre matures and more and more people understand the benefits ongoing MMOGs offer and how they are in many ways fundamentally different than single player games. In the past we've mentioned that we already have rough plans for expansions and future content and features. Questions have been asked like 'why are you working on things that arent' going to be in the game at launch?'' This is a good quesiton. The main reason is that we want to avoid situations where we have to shoe-in, so to speak, new areas or functionality because it wasn't planned for earlier. A good example would be adding levels to the game. If we don't architect our formulas and such to accomodate the future we'd have to hack it in, which often causes balance problems and the like. In the past, when we didn't realize how long these games could remain viable, looking that far into the future didn't seem to make sense. Now, knowing better, we're approaching things assuming the game will be a success and be around for a long while. Hope that makes sense -- let me know if it doesn't. __________________ Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn - In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming "That is not dead which can Eternal lie, and with strange Eons even death may die" - H. P. Lovecraft

07-21-2005, 06:27 AM	#5 (permalink)
Cybsled Registered User Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 9,017	Player generated content is almost always the first thing to go, sadly. You can piss on it if you like, but the city aspect of Shadowbane was pretty nice. Your vendors could generate nice items, certain cities became known for having certain things available that others did not. You had the ability to restrict trade, almost like a player-controlled faction system. Certain cities were near premium spots, thus giving the population a legup on obtaining those nice things. It would be nice if Vanguard kind of took a page from that. There is alot to be said for player-generated content...it can add a whole new facet to a game. __________________ Training the citizens of Norrath from 1999-2003!

07-21-2005, 06:40 AM	#7 (permalink)
Tuco Forum Janitor Join Date: May 2002 Location: Detroit Posts: 8,093 +14 Internets	If I were a dev I wouldn't talk about unreleased content/features/zones much, because of all the dickheads like us who make opinions from but threads of assumptions. Granted, sometimes our fears are correct(all the PVP community I talked to said having lots of NPCs, no set way to fight with and against who you want to(organized) and no cross-server AV BGs would cripple it, and you might as well not even release it). Since cybsled posted about a specific feature he wants, I'm allowed too =P Every MMO that comes out from now on really needs to borrow some of the basic functionality of Guild Wars. AV/Warsong is GW done incorrectly. They don't need all the advanced features of the arenas in GW, but they do need the ability to have GW style 8v8 / 10v10 etc. open/ffa pvp is more desirable for someone like I, but not expected. MMO's have evolved to the point that they need some arena/instance based PVP like this. It doesn't need to be complex, it just needs to be functional. __________________ Arthur's Hall: A Forum for men.

07-21-2005, 09:51 AM	#9 (permalink)
leane Noob Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: State of Confusion Posts: 848 +0 Internets	Sounds kinda like a preemptive cop out to hack features to make a release date.... Hopefully I'm reading more into that than is there __________________ Murder! meyhem! kitties!

07-21-2005, 11:07 AM	#13 (permalink)
Iannis Registered User Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Butt Hugging Moose Jockey Posts: 4,968 -1 Internets	Brad really does like to say things in a longer way than he needed to. Hopefully that means they'll have some DAoC-esque residential zones, but let you actually tie housing together into villages. DAoC just never allowed you to tie the little gathering of houses together. Guess it was more complex than they expected, since the way the housing was set up sure made it look like you were going to have PC villages. Nobody would be silly enough to try AC2's empty "YOU build the city!" concept again. I'd hope. Considering how badly ac2 flopped because there wasn't anything in it. Or so I heard, I didn't buy it. Last edited by Iannis : 07-21-2005 at 11:11 AM.

07-21-2005, 05:48 AM	#2 (permalink)
Dynalisia Registered User Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: The land of sunshine Posts: 1,479 -3 Internets	I hope they have a clear framework in place in which they can move the difficulty and rewards of revamped zones around in, so they dont upset the balance with other content of similar level req.

07-21-2005, 06:07 AM	#4 (permalink)
Merklyn Registered User Join Date: May 2005 Location: Dallas Posts: 94 +0 Internets	Meh, just communicate clearly, frequently, then deliver. This part is actually easy. Even if you slip or screwup as long as you're making progress, always forthcoming, and the general state of the game is good, the forgiveness will be quick. Setup feedback channels that don't piss off your playerbase. Obviously much harder and more thankless but essentially managing the same expectations. Being in touch with player perception seems to be an important aspect that is often neglected. My hopes are high but my expectations are low, especially the closer it is to release.

07-21-2005, 11:02 AM	#12 (permalink)
Dyscord Harvey Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: The Command Carrier Posts: 1,807 +6 Internets	Ringringring Warning bells. Player cities... that means WIDE open spaces of nothing... zilch. nada. Trees and hills. No content. Already this bodes really bad from the discussion going on in the travel thread. If travel is going to be 'time consuming', that means we're going to have a massive world filled with... nothing. SWG's world sucked. Shadowbanes' world sucked. Maybe sigil can pull it off... but from earlier attempts, it doesn't look good. You either have beautiful built worlds full of content and no room for player cities, or you have a massive boring world for room for player made cities. Don't mob me with 'You're stupid, Sigil will be able to make it work'. I'm just saying from previous attempts at creating a player made world have lead to some of the best MMO's concept wise, but some of the worst MMO's in practice.

07-21-2005, 11:28 AM	#14 (permalink)
Jait Irritable Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: :noitacoL Posts: 3,451	I think some of you just read Braens title and said "oooh, chance to flame!" Because it has very little to do with the actual post. What Brad really seems to be saying is that they have abundant content, and they're going to use what works best, not what is necessarily promised. If he promises "The ability to create complex potions!" and everyone finds it tedious, and it sucks, they change it to pre-made potions to remove the PITA. That's the kind of stuff he seems to be talking about. Not, hey maybe we wont have any NPCs at release. The only company you can even remotely compare Sigil to, is Verant. Verant made a pretty damn cool game their first time around until SOE fudged around with it a bit too much. And if you don't understand the difference between: "Games like these are never finished, that's what's cool about them." vs "We're too inept or incapable of creating new content that works." B.net is thataway ---> When the game hits Beta you'll either find me here telling you exactly what's wrong with it just as I tried to with WoW, or I'll be too busy having fun playing it. Until then the only reason to h8 is the irrational fear there can only be 1 MMOG for people to play. Skepticism is just fine however, I'm in the same boat.

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