Vanguard May Beta Newsletter

[Zefah]

I dunno The Hiram Key kind of has a point. I read that newsletter and the screenshot thing irked me the most.

When the publicity for the game at this point is so abyssmal they go and make it public in these "newsletters" that they are taking in screenshots for their game. Thats fine I think, but asking people to turn settings on max at a high resolution and not to submit pictures of dark things (which according to the NDA breakers is a hard act to accomplish) is pretty arrogant in my opinion.

I doubt most of the beta testers run the game at max settings in 1600x1200 resolution normally and if they are forced to do this just to take a screenshot of a world that they can't normally see there probably aren't going to be a lot of submissions.

If they get a bunch of dark and ugly screenshots then maybe they should get a clue and make the world not look so fucking bad. I really like it in games like EQ1 and WoW where pretty much everyone is seeing the same world and graphics. You can take a screenshot without being afraid of not represting the "real beauty" of the world.

Games like EQ2 and now Vanguard that require multi-thousand dollar optimized gaming beasts to run at max settings just aren't very appealing to me. I'd rather play a game that doesn't look like shit on a normal computer then play a game that can potentially look spectacular in a screenshot!

[Magnum PI]

Originally Posted by Zefah

Games like EQ2 and now Vanguard that require multi-thousand dollar optimized gaming beasts to run at max settings just aren't very appealing to me. I'd rather play a game that doesn't look like shit on a normal computer then play a game that can potentially look spectacular in a screenshot!

^^This is becoming almost a dead horse trend. I wonder why the developers aren't comprehending that we would like to see dynamic gameplay rather then superbly rendered models that can only be played to their intended effect on only the most robust of desktops?

Brad do it like we did in the Navy with KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid. Also please remove all your public forums, castrate your beta forums and release the rabid zealots and then get a core group of 20 to 40 really dedicated beta testers and have a virtual round table with them, ask them to take notes and sit down with you and your team and in a calm fashion discuss YOUR vision and get their take if that's even possible, and if it is, are they seeing that. Good luck.

[Designz]

Too late now, open beta in three months tops!

[Freki]

Originally Posted by Ayeshala

Have fun.
We very much appreciate the support and kind words everyone here has offered us through the past few weeks, regarding both the SOE switch and our showing at E3.

stop taking drugs...

[Oloh]

Originally Posted by The Hiram Key

Can you imagine what the SS forums on FOH would look like if that was the requirements for posting them was ?

This made me LOL.

[Lenardo]

i'd Love to take screenshots to send them there are some Awesome screenies to be had in vanguard

problem is..while my Videocard can do 1600x1200 my MONITOR cannot (Dell 20" widescreen) and i'm not gonna change it to DO screenshots...i'm still taking screenshots though...

other than that i see this next month as a transition month, get That finished and , then the next big push for missing classes(including the ones i wanna try out) & content.

[Utnayan]

Originally Posted by Zefah

I dunno The Hiram Key kind of has a point. I read that newsletter and the screenshot thing irked me the most.

When the publicity for the game at this point is so abyssmal they go and make it public in these "newsletters" that they are taking in screenshots for their game. Thats fine I think, but asking people to turn settings on max at a high resolution and not to submit pictures of dark things (which according to the NDA breakers is a hard act to accomplish) is pretty arrogant in my opinion.

I doubt most of the beta testers run the game at max settings in 1600x1200 resolution normally and if they are forced to do this just to take a screenshot of a world that they can't normally see there probably aren't going to be a lot of submissions.

If they get a bunch of dark and ugly screenshots then maybe they should get a clue and make the world not look so fucking bad. I really like it in games like EQ1 and WoW where pretty much everyone is seeing the same world and graphics. You can take a screenshot without being afraid of not represting the "real beauty" of the world.

Games like EQ2 and now Vanguard that require multi-thousand dollar optimized gaming beasts to run at max settings just aren't very appealing to me. I'd rather play a game that doesn't look like shit on a normal computer then play a game that can potentially look spectacular in a screenshot!

I agree exactly with your thought process on making a game playable across a wide selection of computers.

Maybe someone can answer this for me, because I will admit I know nothing about programming. If Oblivion, which runs fantastic on my setup at the moment which is a 3200+, 1 gb ram, 6800 GT OC, at 1680X1050 on my Dell 20" widescreen with pretty high settings and HDR (A game which has a huge AI strain and rag doll physics - I tune down the shadows and draw distance a tad), why does a game like EQ2 or Vanguard, which subjectively for me has worse graphics even at full settings, run so shitty?

[Anyen]

Because it's 6+ months from released?

[Vorph]

Originally Posted by Utnayan

Maybe someone can answer this for me, because I will admit I know nothing about programming. If Oblivion, which runs fantastic on my setup at the moment which is a 3200+, 1 gb ram, 6800 GT OC, at 1680X1050 on my Dell 20" widescreen with pretty high settings and HDR (A game which has a huge AI strain and rag doll physics - I tune down the shadows and draw distance a tad), why does a game like EQ2 or Vanguard, which subjectively for me has worse graphics even at full settings, run so shitty?

I have a pretty similar system and the answer is that your video card is underpowered for the native resolution of your monitor and you only have 1GB of RAM. I don't recommend that anyone should buy a new video card (at least not an expensive one) this close to the release of DX10 hardware, but buying 2GB of RAM is a no-brainer. You can get a set of OCZ 2-3-2-5 2x1GB DIMMs for about $140 (after rebate) from newegg now.

I can't agree that Oblivion's graphics are better, at least not across-the-board better. They have a huge draw distance, but people call the terrain outside of the grids adjacent to you "pea soup" for a reason. You can mod in some larger textures to make the ugly effect mostly go away, but you'll take a large performance hit with only 1GB of RAM in that game then too.

[Angrier]

Good programming, bad programming. Compare Quake 3 to EQ (both came out in 99). Blows the mind; or used to, when I'd play EQ and get laggy with shitty ass square characters vs no lag in Q3 with shaders up the ass. Being a programmer myself (not proffesional, no) it always pissed me off that EQ could get away with such horrible coding (and not just graphics).

[Utnayan]

Originally Posted by Vorph

I have a pretty similar system and the answer is that your video card is underpowered for the native resolution of your monitor and you only have 1GB of RAM. I don't recommend that anyone should buy a new video card (at least not an expensive one) this close to the release of DX10 hardware, but buying 2GB of RAM is a no-brainer. You can get a set of OCZ 2-3-2-5 2x1GB DIMMs for about $140 (after rebate) from newegg now.

I can't agree that Oblivion's graphics are better, at least not across-the-board better. They have a huge draw distance, but people call the terrain outside of the grids adjacent to you "pea soup" for a reason. You can mod in some larger textures to make the ugly effect mostly go away, but you'll take a large performance hit with only 1GB of RAM in that game then too.

10-4.

It seems to run everything else pretty good in that resolution at decent settings, but you are right on the far textures - I forgot about that. I didn't know that 2 gigs of ram right now would make a huge performance difference over a gig.

[Cad]

Originally Posted by Utnayan

10-4.

It seems to run everything else pretty good in that resolution at decent settings, but you are right on the far textures - I forgot about that. I didn't know that 2 gigs of ram right now would make a huge performance difference over a gig.

Hell I even notice a difference in WoW with 2 gigs over 1 gig. Running through ironforge is quite a bit more pleasant.

[Soygen]

Yeah, adding another gig of ram is probably the best bang for buck performance increase you can do, if you are at 1 gig.

[Samus Aran]

Originally Posted by The Hiram Key

Can you imagine what the SS forums on FOH would look like if that was the requirements for posting them was ?

There might be some screenshots in that there forum!

[Utnayan]

Ok I am sold.

I am going to throw in an extra Gig.