Another lead designer leaves sigil.

[Zehn - Vhex]

Originally Posted by Brash

Easily confused? Duh, I just want ta smash one button all day george. Why don’t you go promote IGE some more! You love the rang rang's don't ya?

As for the discussion Vanguard is great. Some people just have a tough time noticing great potential in and unfinished game. Sadly they got a beta invite anyway. Clearly, these people needed to be chosen for beta 4 not 2. Have faith.

Shllurrrrrppp

[Darph]

Originally Posted by GrobbeeTrull

I hope Darph/TBH gets ahold of me too. And gives me a fucking medal for having the balls to stand up and say something sucks, despite being told not to.

Your wish is my command (check your sig after next post.)

note:

[Soygen]

Originally Posted by Doc

Not to be rude but what on earth do you know about this event and why would releaseing these devs be good?

While I'm a bit late responding to this, have you ever heard the saying: It can't get any worse?

[Dabamf]

Originally Posted by GrobbeeTrull

I beta tested to find bugs.

I found so many, I stopped logging on. I was genuinely disgusted with the state of the game. I'd go to the forums, and find that each bug I found also had an accompanying 20 page thread. So I'd petition the unique bugs (that didn't have a huge thread attached) and continue trying to play.

In a group friendly game, with a beta environment of ~100 people at peak times, finding a group to level up to experience more than Brennan's Stead was a pain in the ass, took forever, and was nigh impossible on my Druid since catastrophe points were bugged and not regenerating over the course of a REAL LIFE WEEK. Also had a big thread. Um ok.

When the state of the game is generally buggy, unpolished, and it takes you one real life week of near-constant play to find a fucking group to get past the point where everyone has petitioned and bugged the crap out of them, you get a bit frustrated.

I hope Darph/TBH gets ahold of me too. And gives me a fucking medal for having the balls to stand up and say something sucks, despite being told not to.

What I wanted was to play a game that was fun, engaging, refreshing, and find some bugs, and make a difference. What I got was a pile of steaming shit that was barely innovative and slow enough to turn me a "core" gamer away from wanting to play it.

Sure it might get better. I hope it does. But like all the people above - vanguard beta killed my faith in vanguard.

Your entire complaint emphasizes nothing but bugs/annoyances. You base your opinion of the game, according to your post, solely on stupid shit that will get flushed out in beta. You made 0 references to general gameplay issues that would make the game not good once released.

In short, you're an idiot.

[Soygen]

This thread is all fucked up. I find myself agreeing with the opinions of people I almost never agree with. Something strange is afoot at the Circle K.

[Soygen]

We’ve no intention to launch a game before it’s ready.

This is all I want of Vanguard.

[elrich]

Okay, so Brad flaming Ut was quite possibly the high point of my week. That was flat out amazing and well deserved.

[Bizanich]

Nice flame, Brad. /clap

As to the haters, can we at least wait until the game is in open beta before ripping it apart? I'd like some well thought out arguments from both sides....this kind of sucks when most of us can't debate you and is uninteresting.

That's my only real gripe.

[Porky]

Brad, can you hire me as a janitor at Sigil for min wage? no rly, I'm serious.

[Zehn - Vhex]

Originally Posted by Bizanich

Nice flame, Brad. /clap

As to the haters, can we at least wait until the game is in open beta before ripping it apart? I'd like some well thought out arguments from both sides....this kind of sucks when most of us can't debate you and is uninteresting.

That's my only real gripe.

Not exactly the best of ideas. Although Dev's keep crying, "It's not finished yet!" as some kind of holy war cry to keep the "Your shit is bugged." people at bay, the earlier we bitch, the better off we are.

Imagine if instead of 99% of the community going, "Just wait...they're holding stuff back for release!!" had said, "Hey Blizzard, your shit is broke." I myself was guilty of this actually.

Don't get me wrong, there are some things not worth griping about. I think I found a dozen+ money exploits throughout the entire EQ2 beta. But that kinda shit you /bug and move on and then bitch about if they make it to live.

However, I think the player base has a right to know if a game just simply sucks. Periodic NDA leaks are a good thing, because it lets the player base respond to the direction a game is moving. It's not like beta testers are golden gods of knowing what the fuck makes a good game. I was one of probably only a few that kept saying, "Your tradeskill system fucking sucks" in EQ2 and now finally a year later they realize that it does, in fact, suck.

[Utnayan]

Originally Posted by Oloh

First and foremost, all the posts above by beta testers break the NDA. I know because I wrote it.

Good for you.

Aside from the legal aspect, I strongly advise that you consider the effects of your actions on your reputation. The gaming industry, and the MMOG industry in particular, is quite small. As a general rule, if you can't keep your mouth shut, you will quickly find yourself without information and without a forum in which to speak. In short, don't be a jackass or it will come back to haunt you, in more than one way.

I never signed an NDA. I'm not in beta. So here is what I was told by people in the beta who did sign, and were in.

The game as it was in beta sucked ass, no one was playing, is still getting features cut in lieu of bad design calls, and will be banking on subscription revenue to finish what was already hyped. I call that an NDA not protecting the secrets of the game, but an NDA protecting false misleading hype so that more suckers get lured into buying a misrepresented product. A practice that has been, for whatever God knows reason, justified by you as an acceptable business practice.

From here on out, how about you put out an NDA on people working at Sigil to not hype any features until they meet milestone on those features, or a very simple statement stating that these features may or may not make release. A nice little "*" next to every feature you have not made milestone on yet would be nice eh? Of course I will expect that to happen around the same time Molyneux ships a game with 65% of his hyped features actually making it into the game.

I would normally just let this slide, but I have seen a few pot shots like this and want to unofficially represent the players that would like to speak up but can't.

Then grow a pair of balls and lift the NDA that is only protecting your hype machine at this point so we can hear from all of them. Afraid of what they will say? You're damn fucking right you are.

Vanguard has bugs. I have seen them myself. Most are petty annoyances. The gamebreaking ones get fixed very quickly and the annoying ones get fixed with regularly scheduled patches. This is common stuff that anyone that has tested a MMOG before should know.

Bugs are one thing. Allocating resources to tackle fundamental game design while hyped features that you know full damn well will sell the game, being put on the back burner without telling anyone under the guise of an NDA, is another. I'll shit my pants if you actually post something on the official home page of the features that will NOT make release of Vanguard a month before retail. Which is why that precious NDA of yours will stick until the day of release. As well as God only knows how many review restrictions.

The game has not radically changed. I have been playing it since day one and it just hasn't. Things like the March Newsletter that scream "re-design" should be ignored for the most part for those not playing because they can't put it in proper context.

Oh ok. Please tell me what the legal term is then for a redesign.

I will give you an example of what can seem like a complete redesign on paper, but really was not a big deal.... (Words) Sounds like a lot of work, but it isn't.

That's called editing a spreadsheet. Not adjusting combat mechanics and revamping combat classes.

(It took NCSoft a few months of solid dev time to get English word wrapping to work in their Korean-based chat box.)

Sounds like they need to hire someone who has passed remedial programming.

I see this a lot, but when you know how MMOGs are made, the "cutting" of features start to make more sense. Basically, a good company will take the first several years of dev time and schedule what all needs to be done in rough form. As you finish with stuff, you fill in details about the next thing. As you start allocate resources to something, it gets fleshed out into final form, and completed.

Or in most cases, cut, even though it is hyped, while people like you stand by and watch people buy it anyway knowing you can charge 6 months of subscriptions to finish something a lot of people may have thought was already in the game. But, hell, you're a legal guru. Let the buyer beware right? Or maybe you can tell me how powerful that EULA you have people agree to in the game will actually hold up in court once someone finally gets off their ass and starts a class action against companies that pull this type of nonsense.

The day after the game is released...well, the whole team is coming back into the office, picking up that exact same schedule you were working on the day before release, and tackling the next thing on the "to do" list.

That isn't a problem as long as things on the "to do" list aren't features that were hyped to be in the game completely leading the customer to buy the package, only to see that nothing was said about the cuts of those features because of an NDA and now they get stuck paying the bill for something they already thought was going to be a feature.

So when you hear things getting "cut," in a MMOG you are really hearing an estimation of what the company thinks it can do and can do right, before the release date.

No problem. Just make sure people know, other than beta testers, what features are being cut so your consumers can make an informed decision on whether or not they would like to purchase said game. And don't hide under the veil of an NDA to make sure nothing slips out because it may hurt sales.

[Frax]

Even if the game is finished, people in both EQ and WoW still bitterly cry "Why am I paying to beta test this game!" to this very day. They can't win because these games are never really 'done'.

[Darph]

Originally Posted by Utnayan

Then grow a pair of balls and lift the NDA that is only protecting your hype machine at this point so we can hear from all of them. Afraid of what they will say? You're damn fucking right you are.

NDAs exist to keep dumb asses like you from talking shit about a game that isn't finished. See, when you post on a forum, the people who don't realize how stupid you are might actually believe you, turning potential customers off before they ever get a chance to check into it for themselves.

Seriously, do we have to listen to your self-righteous, stupid, ass fart out nonsense every time a Dev comes to the forums?

This shit got old last time, do you need us to lock a special little retard tag as your avatar so that everyone knows you ride the short bus?

Son, it's time to wake up.

[Utnayan]

Originally Posted by Aradune Mithara

Boats, player owned ships, pirates, ever increasing AI complexity, etc. are all going in right now or have been in.

Perfect! So I can expect that when the game goes live. Last I had heard as of 6 weeks ago, talk was that these features were not going to make release.

Right now we're adjusting wind speeds, tweaking travel time between Thestra and Qalia, fixing a few bugs when ships travel between server regions, etc. Tweaking and smashing bugs, not implementing core systems.

How about advanced housing?

I've watched beta testers sail up and down the river outside of Tursh. I've seen the AI using water pathing to move an NPC driven boat (e.g. pirates) displayed to me by the programmer working on it. Under no circumstances are they going anywhere but into this game by launch (and not just by launch, but people will be sailing them between continents and through archipelagos in the next phase of beta).

Great! I expect to see it in launch.

Lastly, flying mounts are something we plan to do for sure after launch, but may possibly get in before launch, but no promises. I have been crystal clear about managing these expectations on our message boards and elsewhere.

Can you point me in the direction of where that was stated other then right here and now, and not on a beta board?

You exhibit a fundamental misunderstanding here between implementing a system and then later tweaking it based on feedback from beta and completely starting from scratch and throwing out everything that existed before.

I completely understand the differences. When I hear you have maybe 100 people tops out of roughly 3,000 people actually caring to log in, then you hear the word combat/class revamp, with beta forums being a complete and utter complaint fest, just what do you think anyone with the IQ over 50 will think?

It seems as if there is no in-between for you, that a system is either implemented perfectly the first time or if that fails, a completely new system must be created from scratch to replace the old. This is patently false.

When you have to take people off task for God knows how long to work on poor design decisions, while your lawyer already came in to talk about cut features of which no one has a concrete number because it will hurt future sales, threatening "immature" gamers for breaking an NDA in which most everyone that is doing it has really said nothing positive about the game, and that being scapegoated by saying the "Mature" NDA abiding players understand (which one look at your beta forums will tell you otherwise), it's just a flat out shitty thing to do. Then take that with two of the most valuable designers you had gone like a fart in the wind, one of which was responsible for the coolest quest EQ ever had, another for some of the best zones and storyline content ever created, one can only wonder what in the fuck is going on.

MMOGs are so complex, with so many variables interacting with each other, that until you have at least hundreds of people using multiple systems at the same time, you cannot simulate much of the feedback you really need (despite attempts to use automation, bots, etc. to help with some of these issues). Others still require thousands and a full server/world/shard.

I completely understand that point. My posting does not dispute that either. Scan my history and I will be saying the same exact thing about not being able to simulate a live server load.

Did it in EQ, and doing it in Vanguard.

Yeah. That worked well.

We’ve no intention to launch a game before it’s ready.

Too bad you didn't hold that same mindset with the Velious expansion and an unfinished Sleeper's tomb combined with a completely unfinished Plane of Mischief. Finishing that on customer dollars 6 months later and purposely breaking content to do so (In this case the 4th warder buff)

Will that mean that the game is ‘done’? It depends on how you look at it.

How about you promise your customers this. Tell them the content in the game will be finished on release, so when they get there, they are not stalled out with some cockblock. Solidify the zone design, mob population, zone access, etc., and when the game ships, honestly be able to say that you will be fixing bugs, and adding content. Instead of finishing a half assed zone that wasn't complete on release.

The beauty of MMORPG's is that it is a living breathing world filled with room for growth and continued added content and changes. Just remember this time, unlike last time with EQ, it doesn't give you the right to release unfinished shit in a box because you have a live patching process and a long leveling curve which will give your designers an extra 3 months to finish an expansion banking on players not reaching the content before anyone knows it was never in to begin with.

The key, however, is that we never promised player driven flying mounts as a component of Vanguard that would be available by launch. So an MMOG is not only done when there is enough content and features and balance to make a compelling and fun game for your target audience at launch, but also when you’ve done your best to manage expectations… have done your best to make sure the features you felt were truly necessary are indeed there at launch and that while you’ve talked about future features or content, that if you are unsure as to when they’ll realistically be ready, that you are up front with your future playerbase about those items well before launching the game.

As long as that happens, I am fine with it. What I would suggest is an actual page listing some of the most important and awaited features in the game, and stuff that has been hyped for quite some time, and let the players know flat out, a month before release, if those features will make it into the game so they can know for sure. Either that, or lift the NDA 2 months before retail.

This shit got old last time, do you need us to lock a special little retard tag as your avatar so that everyone knows you ride the short bus?

And the last time you PM'd me to make sure I settled down because you said people here were busy kissing ass to get a job and those people were getting worried that the FOH boards would lose exposure. Let me clue you in, if you think that these people who design games and post here are going to quit because they feel threatened by me, and it will hurt people's chances who are busy kissing ass to get hired in the gaming industry, you need help.

My advice is quit kissing ass and speak your mind.

[Zehn - Vhex]

Not being "done" because you're adding new content is a good thing. Not being "done" because you're still fixing broken stuff 3 months after release is bull. Dev's like to use the former to justify the latter alot unfortunately with statements like, "Well...you're never truely really done..."

That statement is nearly as bad as "We're happy with how things are going but as always there's room for improvement" line.