SoE to publish Vanguard

[Utnayan]

Originally Posted by Vaclav

"Development" being from the paper and pen stage? Not really accurate...

From 2 1/2 years of programming?

3 and a half. You fail to realize that concept started before October 2001.

The majority of the game doesn't need to be there for the testers to TEST what needs to be TESTED?

Oh give me a break. The features aren't complete. I hope you aren't the same type of person saying that there is a secret server version of the game hiding some where ala Anarchy Online and Star Wars Galaxies.

They are there to TEST and make sure the game WORKS - when the primary developer of a product says that's the current goal and that "fun and depth" are not primary goals currently why would you think otherwise?

Then they should hire testers, not public players. Beta testing an MMORPG has to be fun for them to keep playing or you have what you have here. No one logging in. People breaking their NDA's to bash the shit out of it. A publisher that is dropping it after 4 years, which wouldn't happen if they saw it being a great product. 6 months from release. Be realistic. The last time we saw quality of this nature hit 6 months from release were were given retail releases of Anarchy Online, and Star Wars Galaxies. To think they are holding back features while testing others is foolish. Epsecially when no one is logging into the game. And let's be honest with each other for once, beta testers involved with testing games without being affiliated with any company, and just a member of the general gaming public who got lucky enough to enter a beta, are there to see what the game is like. If it isn't fun to play, they aren't going to play it. If it is fun, they will enter subsequent bug reports. This accounts for a good majority of beta testers whether you and I may be different than most.

MOST betas of products release a limited scope of the game for beta to allow people to make sure the fundamentals work - in fact in many genres they never break from this, have you ever seen a FPS beta with 1-3 maps? A Strategy beta with 1-2 maps? Did you ever say "Wow, where the hell is the rest of the game?" to those betas - MMO's is the only genre where it's often broken, and as WoW has shown - it can be VERY detrimental to do so.

Those aren't beta's. Those are demo's being called a beta because if it ends up sucking, they can hide behind the excuse that it was a beta, not an actual demo of the upcoming game.

It parallels EQ1 beta pretty much to a T from everything I've seen/heard compared to my Phase 2 EQ1 experience (and Phase 1 EQ1 was flat out pitiful) - online numbers, graphic card issues, and lack of depth included.

And they had an excuse. It was a new genre back then. With the experience they have now, there is no excuse for what is out there 6 months pre-release. No matter how many excuses you may want to make up for them.

Or you're just a sarcastic asshole who thinks he knows how the universe operates better than anyone else, yet if he was put in a similar spot he couldn't accomplish squat. And like always, you'll prognosticate the worst, and then when stuff turns out for the better you'll maybe snipe an occasional comment in - which anyone with a clue laughs off - but for the mostpart be mute.

Insult wasn't needed.

As for #1 and #2: #1 - you do realize there's many generations in the world, right? Sure, maybe it's not going to be a game for us late 20's, early 30's folk - not every game, or other entertainment media for that matter - is or should be designed for EVERYONE, you end up with something stale and watered down with no real substance when that happens. (American Idol anyone? When you focus on a specific demographic the quality goes up astronomically)

Then by that theory I would like to know where all the other generations are to take our place. How come EverQuest 2 hasn't even come close to reaching EQ1 numbers, but yet World of Warcraft still to this day maintains over 1 million in NA. You, and I'll admit myself, have no clue what the next generation will think of video games. Each generation is inherently different.

#2 - No one had ever seen chatrooms, NWN, Yserbius, FPS, or any of the other multitude of social internet "toys" had they? In fact, most of the people I knew in the early days of EQ1 all had used IRC and many of those other games to some extent - hardly glossy and new...

Oh bullshit. You are comparing chatrooms to a full fledged MMORPG 1st person perspective world? Get off it. NWN and Yserbius had a huge financial barrier to entry. $49.99 a month for 50 hours of TSN service. $9.95 for 5 hours of AOL at the time, and $3.95 an hour after. EQ1 was the first affordable MMORPG in a living breathing world. You comparing EQ to an IRC just shows how clueless you really are in reaching for something to hang on to to justify your opinion.

Until you get the stick out of your ass you're creating a self-fufilling prophecy.

I made valid points, and you know it. Go back to the vault boards with your fanboy drivel.

[Maxxius]

Originally Posted by Vaclav

"

Because you're a sarcastic asshole, you chose to make yourself miserable by focusin on unachievable heights - but you're forgetting the key that made things magical in the first place.... the fact that you let yourself get away from worrying about any of the bullshit details.

Until you get the stick out of your ass you're creating a self-fufilling prophecy.

You know Vaclav I would stop the hypocricy. If anyone is being a sarcastic asshole it is you. I'm sorry if it looks like VG will not be that one great masterpiece of a MMO. Brad sold MS a bill of goods, and when it had come time to put up or shut up, he leaves or gets dumped (or whatever) to SOE, who at least can slap it into their all access pass system. And Brad will make money since he now has partial publishing rights. So con a few hundred thousand suckers into buying the box and you gross 10 million.

As for me, if this game ever does go public I will wait several months before even considering playing it.

[Utnayan]

(In case anyone is an idiot and can't tell - it infuriates me when people think they know ANYTHING about proper beta testing - especially claiming beta testing should be fun... working fast food when I was a teen was funner than beta testing throughout my college years)

Let go of your old school back in the day bullshit.

As BirgittePovar mentioned, there is a big difference between being a paid beta tester within a company, and being a game player having no clue what beta testing implies. Public beta players are 1> Not paid. 2> Are there to play the game early. 3> If it isn't fun, won't play and will bash it. 4> If it is fun, will keep playing for the sake of having fun, possibly reporting bugs every now and then. And most of all 5> Not trained in quality assurance.

Welcome to 2006. Your cheese moved in 1993 when Spectrum Holobyte acquired Microprose. But yet you keep going back to that same corner looking for food.

Edit: I am not going to resort to flaming Vaclav in this round, but I wouldn't be too proud to talk about Falcon 3.0's beta testing if I were you. The game shipped with so many problems it was retarded. Terrible communication glitches, shitloads of AI bugs, keyboard response problems, tons of sound issues. And while 3.0a fixed some, the game wasn't really ready to be shipped in my opinion until 3.0c.

And I wouldn't focus on those unachievable heights, if developers weren't hyping them.

[findar]

Originally Posted by Vaclav

Actually that's just a user myth that's shown up recently with the generation of "open betas" now - it was not that way 10 years ago - just too many of you are too young to appreciate the terminology changing being entirely just a personal visualization.

actually blizzard set the bar for quality of an mmo at release/beta, and if i had to guess a company like microsoft expects the same standards. the whole industry was too stagnet, selling buggy/broken content and not caring. now that the 800lb gorilla is in the ring they cant afford to do that as easily.


ps: anyone have comments on a beta thats still 17gig, is far as optimization?

[Hachima]

I have yet to see a beta test where the game has made a complete U turn as far as the fundamental design of the game. I don't believe at all in the "it is still beta, it will be fixed for release" notion that some people seem to have. Until you actully see it change, don't assume its going to be fixed for release.

I'm not saying the game doesn't change durring alphas and betas at all though. Stuff does drastically change. For example I still remember choosing where to put stat points into my WoW character each level. Something that was completely scrapped early on. I think Brad cares a lot about Vanguard and is willing to listen to what players want which is important. He has said this on a thread on these boards when talking about no auction housees or maybe it was trivial loot code. I personally don't like the idea of a very limited/no auction house type system. Just log on to Guild Wars and watch the spam fly. It is a disaster waiting to happen. Anyway that subject is a whole other 50 page long thread.

Even if a lot of people aren't happy with Vanguard now there is still the time and potential for things to change. I hope this is a big part of why Brad went with SOE. I think it is and only hope the best for the future of Vanguard.

My MMO beta test experience for the most major tests

Meridian 59 by 3do (Beta) - 1996
Meridian 59 (Private dev server for testing potential changes) - 1997
Magestorm by engage games (beta 1997)
Diablo (Beta and stress) - 1998
Everquest (Beta 2,3,4 and stress) -1999
Asherons Call (Beta) - 1999
Diablo II (stress test) - 2001
Anarchy Online (stress test) - 2001
Dark Age of Camelot (Beta 3,4) - 2001
Earth and Beyond Closed Beta 2001
Meridian59 Re-release 2002
Star Wars Galaxies (phase 1 beta and on) 2002
Final Fantasy XI Japanese Version Private test (15 testers) - Feb 2003
Final Fantasy US Open Beta Test - July 2003
World of Warcraft (Alpha and Beta) 2003
Everquest 2 (Late beta) 2004
Guild Wars (Private Alpha) 2004
Guild Wars (Post release private Dev servers) 2005
Auto Assault (Early beta) 2005
RF Online (US localization Beta) 2006
Other betas and alphas that can't be mentioned due to NDAs

Of all of these betas/alphas the WoW and Guild Wars tests have impressed me the most. As a tester I felt like there was always something specific to work on. With WoW it wasn't as specific as GW but you had race/level restrictions to keep the testing population somewhat forced into a closer community/area within the game to test. Guild Wars would have exact zones to test at specific times. I think this type of focus had bade them the polished and quality games that they are.

[Designz]

The game being 17GB just proves that Brad was trying to do too much. Now you have a bunch of spaghetti code, textures, animations, effects, blah blah that will take forever to organize and fix.

[Vaclav]

Originally Posted by BirgittePovar

Public beta testing has to be fun on some level, or it will not buy you anything, except bad publicity. At this point, you failed the beta process.

Lastly, beta means different things to different companies Vaclav. Beta at the company I work for means the fundamentals are all there and we are at the polishing stage. This company has had this definition of beta for at least 20 years, so this company's definition of beta does not match yours, and never has.

For the first part precisely what you're stating is that beta testing isn't testing - it's marketting. And frankly Brad himself has stated that his definition for this phase meshes with mine - when the guy in head of development says "Hey guys, this is a TESTING phase not a marketting phase" (paraphrased of course) I think it lends credence to my version being what he follows.

And yes, Bridgette - I'm sure you work in a non-entertainment related field though.

My friends I still keep in touch with are in large part still testing for a freelance firm (that they founded with their severance from Microprose), and work with about 60-70% of the PC entertainment industry still (and a bit of the console market as well now) - and the definition still holds true for them today.

Hell, my brother in law who designs bill readers for Mars/M&M still uses the term BETA for readers while they're polishing the design to catch the forgery in question. It's a commonly used term - that has many different definitions across many fields.

[Vaclav]

Server was farting, clearly - repeated a billion times

[Vaclav]

!

[Nairbog]

Originally Posted by Designz

The game being 17GB just proves that Brad was trying to do too much. Now you have a bunch of spaghetti code, textures, animations, effects, blah blah that will take forever to organize and fix.

Only the FoH board could spin a 17GB install to be a bad thing. Just shows that the complaints about everything looking the same can't possibly be true, they obviously have ALOT of art assets. The world is larger than any MMO sans Dark and Light, art assets are going to be more spread out, but I'm in the camp who likes the longer distances, even if they aren't as content-packed as WoW. I come from AC1 originally, I really enjoyed the seamlessness and the large world, it added something, especially to the PvP game. That's not to say there isn't a pace for games like WoW/EQ, I enjoy both, I just think their world design may not be all bad, but instead coming down to personal preference.

[BirgittePovar]

Originally Posted by Vaclav

For the first part precisely what you're stating is that beta testing isn't testing - it's marketting. And frankly Brad himself has stated that his definition for this phase meshes with mine - when the guy in head of development says "Hey guys, this is a TESTING phase not a marketting phase" (paraphrased of course) I think it lends credence to my version being what he follows.

No. Public beta testing is not(well, does not have to be) marketting. You learn a shitload about letting people who aren't internal at your product.

What you, and apparently Brad himself, need to learn, is you can NOT foist the shitty part of beta testing off on people who are not paid.

Vanguard as it exists today is a perfect example of this. In house testers will grudgingly test things as incomplete as Vanguard is, because they are paid to do so.

The public will say "WTF? There's NOTHING here, and I'm not wasting my time with this crap".

This is precisely what has happened.

You are correct that I'm not in the entertainment part of software.

[Digits]

I decided to try my luck and start a new character and give myself a fresh view of the game. All I have to say is this...

If they can get off their asses and fix the fucking newbie areas maybe so many people won't be disenchanted with the game. I played for a week, a few hours a day, and I borderline hated the game because the starting area blew so god damn much. All I wanted to do was leave the place, because every dungeon was the same and the outdoor mob placement was abysmal ect ect. This isnt' even to mention how terrible the quests and story were in the area. Yet with all this said, the newbie area I started in yesterday gave me the complete opposite feel. The story was good, the direction was actually novel and ...present, and the combat mechanics weren't convuluted and pointless. The game seems to be really hit or miss so far, and before you bitch about it I give feedback or at least report bugs every day. I'm allowed my opinion, and maybe if I post it here they'll get some embered kindling in their britches and fix the problem. I don't post here to say "lol cool nda man game sux =)', but rather because I think alot of the testers who post on the boards are retards. I think you guys are retards too, but you don't have stacking mental deficiencies, and your second hand feedback is more useful.

PS. Stop being stupid fucks and saying beta = demo. While I am critical of the game, I am under no impression I am here as anything other than a tester. Betas exist for gameplay mechanic testing, bug reports and optimization.

[Utnayan]

Originally Posted by Digits

PS. Stop being stupid fucks and saying beta = demo. While I am critical of the game, I am under no impression I am here as anything other than a tester. Betas exist for gameplay mechanic testing, bug reports and optimization.

My beta = demo argument was purely driven by single player games or multiplayer games with limited levels let out via the internet about a month ahead of time. These are effectively Demo's, and named Beta's now so if the thing bombs, people are not disenfranchised with it purely because it was named, "A demo".

And while you may think differently in your role as a tester, the majority of people playing these games are doing it because they get a first look and play it if it is fun. You are in the small minority of gameplayers that actually may test mechanics and try to get things to crash. This isn't the majority. The majority want a fun game to play, and will report bugs every so often. They are there to play a game for free.

[Oloh]

Not going to speak about Vanguard or Sigil per se, but I'll just toss something out about the development process of a huge project like a MMOG.

"Content" in a mmog gets added in passes or phases. You dont go to one area, finish it from top to bottom, then move on to the next (generally). You might be able to do something like that for an expansion, when all tools are brought up to speed and everything is "live" but not during development.

Instead, what happens is the terrain team comes in and lays down the basic terrain and details, like trees, grass, major geographical features, etc. Part of a design team will come in and lay down basic overland stuff in a haphazard fashion, with the right level and type of mobs in the right area. Then a design team will come in and "quest" and "script" the area and make suggestions to get art details added to fit the theme of the area. Maybe some more points of interest are addded and the overland population guy decides to take it the area around the PoI a different direction. Beta testers say "meh this or that sucks" and the devs look into it and schedule more passes for it.

So, you have different teams doing different things and spending different amounts of time on an area.

If you happen to spend a lot of time in area X that has just had the basic overland mob pass, you are probably thinking "omg, this game sucks." If you start in an area that has a lot of passes, you are probably thinking "this is a good start."

So, part of the differences in opinions regarding Vanguard (or any other beta) may be attributable to what areas they look at. When folks post negative comments on the beta boards of Vanguard, my big response is generally "tell us your opionion on stuff, but, more importantly, tell us what exactly you did."

If you say the quest stuff sucks and its from an area that isnt scheduled for a big quest pass for 2 weeks, well that is one thing. If you ran through an area that was just completed from a quest standpoint and you say it sucks, well that is much more valuable.

Anyway, not trying to sell anything to anyone, or even address VG specfically, but that is how development works in a lot of companies.

[Utnayan]

Originally Posted by Oloh

Words

I completely understand your point. With that said, I have not seen an outcry like this with any other MMORPG developer since Anarchy Online and Star Wars Galaxies. No offense, but it sounds like, just as it actually was in the previous two games -- an excuse. And what happened was slowly but surely, people were hoping that there was some secret server with a magical fun game on it that those developers were planing on releasing.

With that said, I know you probably do not have a say on pricing, and I am pretty sure this isn't solid (at least I hope not) but $99.99 for the collectors edition of Vanguard. Does that come with a female wood elf hooker?

http://www.ebgames.com/product.asp?product%5Fid=646556