Vanguard E3 Coverage

[Aradune Mithara]

Originally Posted by Designz

Vanguard is going to flop. All this publicity stuff is to get as many boxsells as possible!

"If this sounds like a daunting enterprise, what till you hear this: Sigil has documented every addition to the game they want to make… for the next seven years. Every race, every town, every building, every item, and every beast of the world. In fact, Butler tells us that it very likely won't all fit into "Vanguard One." He went down a long, long list of continents and locations that might never make it in to the first installment. Land masses twice the size of the biggest one we'll see at launch. Entire continents populated by an unusual choice of denizen. One wonders how someone could possibly see it all within the proscribed level cap. Then Butler tells us that's the games mechanics are designed to scale to a theoretically unlimited character level."

Holy cow, what a bad case of trying to do too much! This was what they did for the first two years!

No, but the senior design staff did put a solid 2-3 months into planning the game as a whole, how we'd like to see it at launch, and then years after. We didn't know at the time how much we'd be able to accomplish by launch (this is back in april-aug of '02) because we didn't have tools or a display up until august (whereas we were able to form the team and had funding in April). We also were determined to plan out as much of the world and features and where we'd like to see an MMOG go, regardless of launch date, because with EQ, being surpised by its success and longevity, this level of initial long term planning wasn't done and we knew if we did it then, that we could put a lot of hooks into the game, artchitect it with the big picture in mind, write lore knowing the 'whole' story, etc. In other words, we wouldn't need to come up with an idea for the next expansion and then figure out how to shoe horn it into an existing world and game.

And since we had this time anyway, waiting for enough tech to start working on the actual game, I think this planning was well worth the time. Think of it perhaps like a good fantasy writer starts out when planning his world -- he outlines and creates in his mind and/or on paper enough detail for not just his first book, or even for his first series of books, but enough such that he has the foundation already there upon which if his series does well, he can also do additional series in the same world/universe and have an easier time with his later work because of the planning he did up front. Tolkien is a great example. Only fairly recently has his son I believe finished publishing all of his fathers notes, short stories, various versions of other pre-existing stories, etc. Or take Feist who is able to draw from the work he and others did in creating Midkemia and the other worlds in that universe and then keep putting out series that have more consistency and are built on a deeper foundation.

[Vaclav]

Originally Posted by Kirun

Notes!?! Did I say notes!?! Woops...I uh...meant e-mails, yeah...e-mails. I'm not out of my fucking mind guys, honest!

Well, there's also the scrawled messages in blood over his walls as well.

Out of ink.... angry at Brad.... must note this, where's a knife?

[Aradune Mithara]

Originally Posted by gilbertgbert

I wish we did... however we're stuck with that video that basically shows the laughable characterisation options and they think, I presume, that being able to change breast orientation is going to cover up the obvious design flaws here.

I already posted that I thought the 19 races was kinda pushing it... I would like Brad, seeing as he sees fit to respond to Ut posting like a crack-mad whore denied her fix, respond to my question that the boats stop on a dime; OR, that the combat seems sluggish, or that the general polish f the game seems much less than other games (ie Conan) that are at the same point in the dev cycle.

Yeah, but you work on polish like that last. I looked at Conan and while some of that polish was there, the content, features, and detail wasn't. Sometimes you need to put in polish in first to impress a publisher or funder because they don't know better, but it more often than not harms the game long term, because polish done before all of the depth and tech being there first usually means that you have to polish again and again. This cycle, in fact, has led to the demise of several MMOGs in fact.

You fine tune the combat animations towards the end of the dev cycle, you fine tune the physics as they relate to, using your example, boats, at the end of the dev cycle, etc.

[Tuco]

Originally Posted by Aradune Mithara

Yeah, but you work on polish like that last. I looked at Conan and while some of that polish was there, the content, features, and detail wasn't. Sometimes you need to put in polish in first to impress a publisher or funder because they don't know better, but it more often than not harms the game long term, because polish done before all of the depth and tech being there first usually means that you have to polish again and again. This cycle, in fact, has led to the demise of several MMOGs in fact.

You fine tune the combat animations towards the end of the dev cycle, you fine tune the physics as they relate to, using your example, boats, at the end of the dev cycle, etc.

Is a good combat system that is fun and challenging without resorting to massive click-fests polish or a core element that should be in beta at its early stages?

[Vaclav]

Originally Posted by Neric

Ok, let's try a different approach:

Question 1: Do you think that the game would gain from having unique character models for each race?

Question 2: Do you think that the game would gain from having outdoor dungeons like Crushbone, Unrest and Cazic Thule?

Question 3: Do you think that the game would be less boring if outdoor areas were populated by human designers instead of an algorithm?

If you answered questions 1-3 with yes, then we are fully in line and share the same goals. Now the only question left is how to realize our goals. Any suggestions?

There's a difference between "something to gain" and "horribly broken and unplayable", you applying for a position at FoxNews? Your spinning concept would have them quiver in anticipation I'd wager.

[Vaclav]

Originally Posted by Utnayan

2> Get some people in the company with experience in static world design, or hire back Capozzi and Burke - who have some of the best ideas and design implementations on record at the moment.

Pretty sure Capozzi decided he no longer wanted to work in PC games IIRC, contrary to the illusions you might have about the industry, it's a ton of work and not much fun on the inside to most people - it really is a JOB with horrendous hours, not just goofing around with some friends. [well, at least between projects for non-MMO programs the latter isn't entirely true - but for MMO's I'm pretty sure they don't get much downtime ever]

[Vaclav]

Originally Posted by Aradune Mithara

If you've seen the video and can't imagine how differently different characters within the same race will be able to look, or if the screenshots we've released don't show that same diversity, or enough diversity between the races themselves, then we need to get more shots out. Maybe it's because I've messed with the tool a lot in-house that I see how much difference there is.

Honestly Brad, from watching the video - I think it's probably something you'll rein in a bit more in time but right now the sliders seem to give a bit TOO much variety, to the point where you can create freakishly unnatural/hideous looking characters. (For example in the one video, the nose he leaves it on looks roughly like a Jacko style butchery)

If my opinion means much/anything, I think one neat little trick to create racial variety while still using the same core model would be to set those constraints quite disimilarly - which from the beta video seemed to only be the case on a few sliders, mostly the overall size one.

Because honestly, if you think about it, the beefiest high elf in my mind should never be more toned then the most out of shape dwarf - even the dwarf I'd expect to be a bit bigger from some flab at the least.

And the underclothes comment the ninja avatar guy gave plus the different background + some animation loops during race selection from Xhar, would both probably turn it from something that people are questioning the quality of into something absolutely top notch I'd bet.

Whether or not the resources/time are there to bother with it is of course in your ballpark, but I can definitely see some room to turn just a simple character creation fraps into something awe inspiring by putting some of that stuff through.

[PS - Bets that Utnayan has had a heart attack in shock from me putting forth something critical?]

[Aradune Mithara]

Originally Posted by Tuco

Is a good combat system that is fun and challenging without resorting to massive click-fests polish or a core element that should be in beta at its early stages?

it's a core element, but something deep enough that also needs time and feedback during the early phases of beta to make it fun, balanced, etc.

[Zefah]

With all of the Utnayan and Neric action in this thread, I believe it is a prime canditate for Retard Rickshaw Hall of Fame!

[Agraza]

In this video at 2old2play they mention that the wind will have an impact on how your boat handles. Will the currents have an effect? Do these winds have patterns that are more or less set, perhaps varying with the season and time of day? For example in the summer the north cape of Thestra experiences winds from the northwest in the morning, but from the north during the evening/night. Will your handling actually have an effect? Do you have to navigate obstacles to prevent collision damage to your boat? Will wind/current stresses inflict damage?

It would be nice if, eventually, your twitch skill, boat design, and group effort could help guide you through more severe conditions. It might even be a necessity for certain raids to reach some reef protected grotto to engage X mob. Members of the raid that lose their ships or have to stop to repair would slow down the effort and put it at risk, as there are constant threats in the journey as well. Moving on...

Previously in the interview they mentioned housing plots and player cities. They also barely mentioned possible politics and the effect of PvP servers on housing. Will we have the functionality to actually construct towns? I don't necessarily want to have the plot around my house be invalid. I might want three of my friends to build houses shoulder to shoulder with mine (should the terrain permit). Is this a possibility? How much of the land is being made available to housing, per continent? Can your character only own one house at a time? If yes, how do you change your house once you've already got one.

Then they go on to discuss auction houses a little. What is aggregating for the vendor system being developed toward? The responses from the Sigil rep indicated to me that this was in concept and would move toward development eventually. Obviously there is a lot of demand for there to be some centrallized search per area, and possibly a delayed delivery service. I'd like to know where this is going and whether it will mitigate the aspect of distinct regions and meaningful travel.

Originally Posted by The Warcry Network

While exploring one of the dungeons in the game, a Necromancer’s pet was stumbled across—a freakish looking abomination that changes based on body parts that the Necromancer pieces together from the corpses of other creatures, causing it to change forms. Different body parts unlock vastly different abilities for the creature to use as the Necromancer builds it up over time, switching out parts for new ones.

Awesome. Can you give your construct armor and weapons that it'll keep as well? Can you return and assemble the shattered pieces of this pet if it gets ganked? Like a corpse retrieval for your pet? If you're putting him together of grade A parts you don't want to just let those parts rot. Can you revolve which pet you want to animate for the situation and leave different sets of parts with your horse when you enter different dungeons?

[redjunkopera]

Obviously there is a lot of demand for there to be some centrallized search per area, and possibly a delayed delivery service.

There are no plans to have a centralized search feature that I've read about. It will be like SWG w/o the bazaar feature to search vendors.

I don't want a centralized search feature, I know a lot of folks would like to see a return to EC tunnel/face-to-face trading.

[Borzak]

The people that are stuck on "brown" and asking questions like will each race be a different height, and will wind effect the way the boat sails....are on question number 4,030,349 when people should be on questions 1-10.

Like, is the game even going to match the published vision? Will the game be FUN?

You can have all the purple stuff you want and the highest fidelity sailing simulation in the world but without those 2 being answered correctly it doesn't matter.

[Papillon]

About characterbodies, keep in mind that the less variety they have in a mmorpg, the easier it gets for the developers to make clothing and armor for them.

You can see the worst case in SWG. The character bodies could differ that much, that the devs barely finished a handfull of realy different looking sets of clothing in the game. It's simply way too much work to make them fitting all possible bodies and took way too long to make them.

If you ask me if I would like to have completely different looking bodys for each and every races or prefere having lots of different looking clothing in the game, I allways would favor the clothing. So I don't care much about the race bodys. Go with the simple solution and add a broad range of clothing and armor.

That's what creating MMORPGs is about. Everything comes with a price tag for invested dev time. You have only limited time to spend, so you need to decide where to put it in. Characterbodies is a killerfeature depending that. It makes so many things more difficult to handle in the game, that it's not worth all the hassle. At least not for me - I prefere having a cabinet full of different magician robes I found on my travels.

[Simas]

Figure its worth a shot...

With all the dejavu arguing going back and forth, the rumors and the recent changes it'd be awesome to get some real info. So yeah, Brad if youre still around, what would you say VG's current weakest point is? And what is its strongest?

Ive been following the game for a long time now and I'm pretty stoked for it but def getting a little worried. Still going to play at least the free month though, but I'm really hoping that the passes and polish will all come together at the end, that the main reason for the negative press is the decession to dev layer by layer and not in clumps. Its cool to read your posts and what not and I think I and many other poster's believe you. But after reading it all if it ships and turns out the posts werent so true (beyond, ya know, reasonable PR spin, which is to be expected) then I wont be playing another one of your games. Deliver.

Then as a bonus we can all PM Ut "Hey...fuck you" which will be some much nicer than the posts that will come from him if he was right.

[Papillon]

Depending Dungeons like Crushbone. What made Crushbone one of my all time favorite newbie zones was not only that it was an outdoor dungeon. That's just a small part of the story.

What made it realy great was that you meet the Orks already in your newbie experience - and you learned to hate those bastards that killed you all the time. You get closer to Crushbone and start taking revenge. And finaly grow in level enough to take the fight into their homezone.

The zone itself was small, had different ways you could fight and had relativly safe spots in the center where all players meet up. You could watch what others were doing and you could have a little talk and find groups.

Thats by far the best LFG tool I know of in MMORPGs. To not need any LFG tool at all, because the dungeon layout and your path around the world leads to places where players meet and group up anyway. Not saying you don't need something for LFG nowadays in MMORPGs, but that's the much more immersive way to handle it.

I realy hope for something in vanguard that matches up with the "crushbone experience" I had in my newbie levels in everquest. Not just runing around and killing random_mob_x or crawl_type_dungeon_spider_y or getting rinse repeat quests from town. Crushbone, the quests surrounding it, the dungeon layout, the path leading me there after my first couple of levels and the fun with meeting other players there are what makes the differences for me. Of course with a little more salt of modern MMORPG development. But overall old Crushbone and it's surroundings would still be great, even in "3rd gen MMOs".