Vanguard, yet another double exp weekend

[Zehn - Vhex]

Originally Posted by Faltigoth

Some group bullshit, a few chat bugs, stuck in geometry a few times, fell through the world once when I was running around somewhere I shouldn't have been and managed to recall before I hit bottom. Stupid shit like stuff randomly unequipping when I loot a tombstone. A crash or two a night. Weird mob pathing.

See, that's the crux of the issue. It isn't the fact that there are minor bugs here and there. That's to be expected. It's the sheer volume of them and the fact that many people are experiencing them in significant quantities.

WoW has he problem too to a lesser degree. I've encountered no less then a dozen nodes in outlands that are un-harvestable because the geometry changed during beta and nobody bothered to update the z-axis on the node (hai2u floating mana thistle). It took nearly a month for them to finally fix the last of the quests. Mages can -still- blink through the barrier in Eye of the Storm and begin capping towers prior to the battleground actually starting, etc..etc...

The problem, and this isn't specific to WoW, EQ2, VG or any individual MMO, it applies to them all. They can get away with all these bugs because of the huge draw of the social aspect of these games. We play them because we can chat with our friends while we play. Bugs be damned if I can tell fart jokes and have people laugh at them.

And it should be unacceptable. If normal PC games shipped in the state that most MMO's do nobody would buy shit. Several great single player PC games have been crippled into obscurity due to bugs that would go excused in a second in any MMO.

We try to pawn it off as "Oh but MMO's are so much more vast and complex!" and to a degree that has merit. But bugs/broken content that persist for months are just unexcusable.

Anyways...more regurgitating of shit we all already know anyways. Post count ++

[holydevil]

Originally Posted by Muligan

It's good to see Aradune still making his rounds and keeping his sense of humor as well. That's one thing I always liked about Brad. However, I believe the nail was hit on the head earlier... VG is just nothing special and to be fair, none of the new games are very different. I believe WoW success can be accredited to it visual and gameplay difference. If nothing else, when you look at WoW after playing years of EQ, DAoC, whatever, the game appeared like something new.

After EQ2 and WoW, VG doesn't really supply anything visually different or through gameplay. I believe that is AoC is getting the attention it is getting because it's taking paths that no one has before. Successful or not, they are presenting their newest and best ideas.

I had a bad feeling when I read Brad's site discussing how if people were tired of WoW and wanting to go back to the fun we use to have, no matter how great it sounded, you cannot replicate those feelings. The reason EQ was great is it was uncharted territory, the game was small, and the community was tight knit. Games today are just making massive worlds based on the same ol'thing over and over again.

I believe VG provides some new ideas but they were never really pushed. Which made it seem unappealing to me initially.

Just my quick overview...

Hope you do well with this Brad and continue to fine tune your product.

I agree with this. I play vanguard, im a 30 ranger 22 outfitter, I only play the game because of friends, it pretty much blows. There is nothing new gameplay-wise and the animations aren't top notch. It's really frustrating to sit in a spot and pull mobs for a few hours just like the old EQ grind when this game was consistenly touted as "next-gen". Its EQ with flying mounts, housing, diplomacy, and player-made boats. Please don't mention chains it's not exactly ground breaking.

Crafting isn't well designed and is pretty frustrating, I think it's designed with the mindset that frustarting = challenge. So many useless clicks. When I create an item from crafting a WO I have to "loot it" who else is going to loot it? Just another extra click. Poor design it should go in my bag automatically. That's just one example, crafting is just pretty much poorly designed.

One thing vanguard has over most mmorpgs is community. They are proof that having no instances are better for a community, and they were completely right about that.


I'll continue to play because of friends and I'm sick of WOW. Not because vanguard is good. I think it might be a bit better in 6 months when a lot more bugs are fixed and gameplay is refined.

[Mkopec1]

Originally Posted by holydevil

I agree with this. I play vanguard, im a 30 ranger 22 outfitter, I only play the game because of friends, it pretty much blows. There is nothing new gameplay-wise and the animations aren't top notch. It's really frustrating to sit in a spot and pull mobs for a few hours just like the old EQ grind when this game was consistenly touted as "next-gen". Its EQ with flying mounts, housing, diplomacy, and player-made boats. Please don't mention chains it's not exactly ground breaking.

Crafting isn't well designed and is pretty frustrating, I think it's designed with the mindset that frustarting = challenge. So many useless clicks. When I create an item from crafting a WO I have to "loot it" who else is going to loot it? Just another extra click. Poor design it should go in my bag automatically. That's just one example, crafting is just pretty much poorly designed.

One thing vanguard has over most mmorpgs is community. They are proof that having no instances are better for a community, and they were completely right about that.


I'll continue to play because of friends and I'm sick of WOW. Not because vanguard is good. I think it might be a bit better in 6 months when a lot more bugs are fixed and gameplay is refined.

I will agree with this also and feel the same about the game so far. I just hope that by refining it more, I hope they dont dumb it down to be Sologuard to attract more customers, but If they do I can see why they do this from a business perspective.

I think for many of us this is more of an interim game. The one between WoW because its getting old, and the new ones coming out this year and next.

But I was not let down by this game in any way. I got baically what I expected, even more in some cases.

The only upsetting thing in this game for me so far has been the repeated nerfs upon nerfs. I cannot stand nerfs, especially such sweeping ones which basically effected everyone so far in abig way.

[holydevil]

I sound really negative in my post. Most of the reason for that is how vanguard was marketed as a next-gen so heavily. All this marketing crap. If they didnt talk so much shit about how awesome and revolutionary this game was going to be I don't think I would hate it as much(I'd hate it still, lets be real bugs and gameplay are horrid)

I'm just so sick of false promises that I can't help but be absolutely pissed about another let down in the MMORPG industry.

The UI is ugly and plain too, pretty sure I could make those wire frames myself...that's a small detail though.

[woqqqa]

Originally Posted by holydevil

I sound really negative in my post. Most of the reason for that is how vanguard was marketed as a next-gen so heavily. All this marketing crap. If they didnt talk so much shit about how awesome and revolutionary this game was going to be I don't think I would hate it as much(I'd hate it still, lets be real bugs and gameplay are horrid)

I'm just so sick of false promises that I can't help but be absolutely pissed about another let down in the MMORPG industry.

The UI is ugly and plain too, pretty sure I could make those wire frames myself...that's a small detail though.

Thankfully you can swap out the UI, and several people have come up with better ones - VgsohInterface.com

[Hachima]

Originally Posted by woqqqa

The graphics engine is very high-end and quite inefficient on top of it, which causes pauses or crashes when going from one part of the world to another (crossing a "chunk line"). The class balance at the moment is somewhat borked, leaving many classes quite unenjoyable to play. Half the art isn't in the game yet, resulting in no helmets and placeholder weapons and armor. Many quests are unfinished. There have been quite a few instances of people falling through the world, being stuck in the ground, etc. The game seems to have quite a few memory leaks still (although that's being worked on from what I've heard). Sometimes you log on to find you've lost a level.

Okay, there are a few of the issues with the game.

I use to crash after chunking on release. Since then the patches have helped a large amount and I've gone full days without crashing, and no one in my group crashing. Even when doing mass chunking there have been no crashes lately(could Ceros Isle be placed in any worse location? It is placed on 4 different chunks it seems like and you cross them all while taking the path to the top)

I've fallen through the world a few times but it is by far an exception. I usually like it because it means easier travel and a legit reason to /stuck, whichever is faster haha.

Unfinished quests? I've completed 468 quests now and so far only one has been bugged for me. I wouldn't say any line was unfinished though.
Missing quest hubs? Absolutely for lvl 40+, but I don't think that is what you were referring to though. Up till lvl 40 there are a lot of good quest lines to complete, and a lot of them good for solo/duo.

I think that was the biggest surprise to me was the amount of solo content/quest lines available. It's not the main focus of 1-50 content like WoW but there is a lot more available to do solo than EQ2 had to offer. This was a big gripe for me in early beta. I felt like I had nothing to do unless I had a group. I think there is a nice balance now though.

The death penalty solution is nice, this was another early concern for me. Early beta it set you back hours worth of time. Now it only sets you back just 5-20 min of exp time depending on if you CR/summon. You don't want to die a lot but even a few deaths aren't going to frustrate you and make you want to log.

Repairs seem fine for non tanks, so far it doesn't seem like you will have to farm mass gold just to play and keep repairs up. Tanks need some serious help in how their gear decays though.

I don't mind travel times, they don't seem to be too bad with the teleporting boat system. If/when the teleporters are removed it will be a bit frustrating though. The CoH system needs some work though, it doesn't work as intended for all dungeons and makes it a pain to replace members in some areas.

Overal most issues are pretty short term. Mainly 40+ content and getting disciple skills working.

The weakness system would be one thing I'd like to see improved for long term changes. It's not too interesting to play with, and doesn't seem all that important to use. I would like to see a system that requires multiple player combos that temp unlocks unique skills. The skills could be unlock for a time based period or number of uses based. No time to do that atm though probably with all the other stuff that needs worked on.

[Hatorade]

Yeah I seriously wish the call hero line spells get an overhaul. Finding groups is hard enough as it is.

I would like to see the range changed to 2k-2.5k range able to summon anywhere. At the very least inside a chunk.

I do understand the want/need to keep traveling meaningful right now it is and I love exploring etc. However it becomes frustrating getting a quick group together to complete some quests within an hour or so before realife rears its ugly head.

[Aradune Mithara]

Originally Posted by Zehn - Vhex

See, that's the crux of the issue. It isn't the fact that there are minor bugs here and there. That's to be expected. It's the sheer volume of them and the fact that many people are experiencing them in significant quantities.

WoW has he problem too to a lesser degree. I've encountered no less then a dozen nodes in outlands that are un-harvestable because the geometry changed during beta and nobody bothered to update the z-axis on the node (hai2u floating mana thistle). It took nearly a month for them to finally fix the last of the quests. Mages can -still- blink through the barrier in Eye of the Storm and begin capping towers prior to the battleground actually starting, etc..etc...

The problem, and this isn't specific to WoW, EQ2, VG or any individual MMO, it applies to them all. They can get away with all these bugs because of the huge draw of the social aspect of these games. We play them because we can chat with our friends while we play. Bugs be damned if I can tell fart jokes and have people laugh at them.

And it should be unacceptable. If normal PC games shipped in the state that most MMO's do nobody would buy shit. Several great single player PC games have been crippled into obscurity due to bugs that would go excused in a second in any MMO.

We try to pawn it off as "Oh but MMO's are so much more vast and complex!" and to a degree that has merit. But bugs/broken content that persist for months are just unexcusable.

Anyways...more regurgitating of shit we all already know anyways. Post count ++

I agree that MMOGs often launch with more issues and problems than single player games. And it is usually because MMOGs are that much more complex. Vanguard is also a very ambitious game. One could argue we could have made a simpler game and launched it either sooner and/or with less bugs and issues. But our philosophy, which goes back to EQ 1, is to go for it and be ambitious and try some crazy things. Yes, there is a downside to this (for example, performance issues because we used the latest tech and made a seamless world as opposed to going lower tech like WoW). But the upsides we feel outweigh the downsides, especially long term. As I've posted we have probably 5+ years of new game mechanics, lore, areas, dungeons, themes, features, etc. planned out for expansions and to be patched in over time by the live team. To that end we put a lot of hooks in the engine to make this doable without having to re-write as many things in the future. Also by using the latest tech, it will be MUCH easier to take advantage of future tech (new versions of shader languages, taking advantage of tech that is just now becoming available in graphics cards or tech that we know is coming but doesn't exist yet, DX10, physics cards, and much more).

One example are environment shadows. EQ 2 put them in but they take a huge performance hit and the environment art assets had to be made so the shadow tech they used would work right. I don't play a lot of EQ 2, and I'm certainly not trying to bash it by any means, but don't most people turn environment shadows off? You can turn them on to make a cool screenshot, but how many people actually play with them on?

Our plan for shadows, to keep using this example, is to wait for graphics cards that can do them in hardware so they don't slam the framerate and we also don't have to worry about building art assets that work with stencil shadows, etc.

[Aradune Mithara]

Originally Posted by Hachima

I use to crash after chunking on release. Since then the patches have helped a large amount and I've gone full days without crashing, and no one in my group crashing. Even when doing mass chunking there have been no crashes lately(could Ceros Isle be placed in any worse location? It is placed on 4 different chunks it seems like and you cross them all while taking the path to the top)

I've fallen through the world a few times but it is by far an exception. I usually like it because it means easier travel and a legit reason to /stuck, whichever is faster haha.

Unfinished quests? I've completed 468 quests now and so far only one has been bugged for me. I wouldn't say any line was unfinished though.
Missing quest hubs? Absolutely for lvl 40+, but I don't think that is what you were referring to though. Up till lvl 40 there are a lot of good quest lines to complete, and a lot of them good for solo/duo.

I think that was the biggest surprise to me was the amount of solo content/quest lines available. It's not the main focus of 1-50 content like WoW but there is a lot more available to do solo than EQ2 had to offer. This was a big gripe for me in early beta. I felt like I had nothing to do unless I had a group. I think there is a nice balance now though.

The death penalty solution is nice, this was another early concern for me. Early beta it set you back hours worth of time. Now it only sets you back just 5-20 min of exp time depending on if you CR/summon. You don't want to die a lot but even a few deaths aren't going to frustrate you and make you want to log.

Repairs seem fine for non tanks, so far it doesn't seem like you will have to farm mass gold just to play and keep repairs up. Tanks need some serious help in how their gear decays though.

I don't mind travel times, they don't seem to be too bad with the teleporting boat system. If/when the teleporters are removed it will be a bit frustrating though. The CoH system needs some work though, it doesn't work as intended for all dungeons and makes it a pain to replace members in some areas.

Overal most issues are pretty short term. Mainly 40+ content and getting disciple skills working.

The weakness system would be one thing I'd like to see improved for long term changes. It's not too interesting to play with, and doesn't seem all that important to use. I would like to see a system that requires multiple player combos that temp unlocks unique skills. The skills could be unlock for a time based period or number of uses based. No time to do that atm though probably with all the other stuff that needs worked on.

Well said. We do know that there are people who CTD, fall through the world, etc. and we are working on those issues. But it is also true that the majority of players are not experiencing these issues very often. My guild can play for hours and hours before running into a CTD. In fact, I don't think I've CTD'd in months (granted I have a pretty high end PC at home to play).

[Chaotic]

I don't mean to sound pessimistic because so far I really love vanguard but

double experience weekends make me not want to log in to play after them. The exp rate is just sooo slow.

Funny thing is, I find nothing wrong with that, and i'm one of the individuals that argued for a slower exp rate in WoW.

However, now that i'm truly playing casually, <2 hours a day on average if that, and I realize i bought the game @ launch and only have a lvl 22 / 12 / 5

I digress..

[Hachima]

Just had a level 42 player in my group get rolled back to level 40 =( It happened while crashing through a chunk. I hope he can get more help than some double exp pies they have been handing out heh=( It was Sypher on the Shindreth server, poor guy. A whole day of exp grinding gone.

[Dashal]

Originally Posted by Aradune Mithara

Well said. We do know that there are people who CTD, fall through the world, etc. and we are working on those issues. But it is also true that the majority of players are not experiencing these issues very often. My guild can play for hours and hours before running into a CTD. In fact, I don't think I've CTD'd in months (granted I have a pretty high end PC at home to play).

It's in certain zones. In Darguns tomb forget it... crashed a lot (a lot being 5-6 times over 5 hours) and fell through the world maybe 3 times, mostly from being summoned while FD. Very noticable memory leak in that place. Please fix =p

Other zones though, no problem at all and I can play all day and not even slow down.

[Quineloe]

Originally Posted by Hachima

Just had a level 42 player in my group get rolled back to level 40 =( It happened while crashing through a chunk. I hope he can get more help than some double exp pies they have been handing out heh=( It was Sypher on the Shindreth server, poor guy. A whole day of exp grinding gone.

How is Brad sleeping at night? I couldn't live with myself if I charged for such a game ;P

[Reggie]

Originally Posted by Hachima

Just had a level 42 player in my group get rolled back to level 40 =( It happened while crashing through a chunk. I hope he can get more help than some double exp pies they have been handing out heh=( It was Sypher on the Shindreth server, poor guy. A whole day of exp grinding gone.

That kind of shit needs the Batphone. Even if on a Sunday, someone should VPN/Drive in and roll him up.

Gotta be fucking kidding me right there.

[Reggie]

Originally Posted by Quineloe

How is Brad sleeping at night? I couldn't live with myself if I charged for such a game ;P

Cheap, limp wristed.