Nino...One of the upsides of VG.

[rangoth]

Originally Posted by kohl

Where is this magical potential everyone keeps talking about? I mean honestly - tell me what VG brings to the table that makes it this revolutionary game that offers what no other game can offer.

Is it the size of the game world? You can't seriously believe that is still a major plus.
Is it the crafting? That doesn't really score huge points.
Is it the Lore? rofl
Is it the graphics? Again, rofl.
Is it because it runs well on most computers? see above...

Brad's track record is that he developed a 3D MMO at a time when there were none. EQ was in the enviable situation of being new and having basically no competition. It couldn't have failed unless they actually unplugged the servers.

I think VG brought a few things to the table that should be copied/built-up in future MMO's...

1.) Being able to cast while moving, awesome. It slows your move speed down a bit but doesnt ditch the whole spell.
2.) Being able to loot and do other simple activities while casting.
3.) Classes. I think they definitly took a step forward in class design. Healers are fun and all classes seem to stack well(some minor issues). The classes in VG are, and I guess this is opinion, fun to play and unique without being dependant on a single class. I would give them a A in this aspect of the game.
4.) Diplomacy. I don't know much about the VG specific diplomacy as I only did the "newbie" quests for it, but the idea of using something other than a giant sword to defeat a mob is creative, fun and should be built upon in future MMORPG's.
5.) Attempt at a real seamless world. Ignore the problems particular to VG for a moment relating to chunking etc and this is an awesome idea. Unlike every other game(I have played) before it this is really a world. Moving weather patterns(are those actually in?), terrain that doesnt just change from jungle to snow in 10 meters, flying creatures that swoop down at you, and more. Did VG master this large world, I don't believe so. But I think games in the future should expand/perfect this idea/model.
6.)AES, sadly not in VG or in but only in small samples. This sounds like an amazing idea to instancing while keeping a balance. Again, perhaps the VG system is not perfect, but the idea behind AES are very very interesting and should also be expanded upon for any game choosing to not use instancing.
7.) Harvesting, I won't touch on this much as I have never it once done in VG. But the way I understand things harvesting as a team is BETTER than harvesting alone...no more competing for the resources(is this true?). I am also under the impression it can(will?) affect the terrain. Cutting down a tree means that the tree really falls, mining an area may cause a cave in preventing access to a cave. I'm not sure if this was all just bullshit media or if it is in game, or planned to be, whatever. The idea is again very cool.
8.) Ocean shit. Building your own ship and having battles sounds cool. Sadly again don't think this is in VG at the moment, but I've heard it talked about. And yes, I realize it's in EQ now.

The only point I am trying to make here is that VG can be a fun game to some, and it's not an absolute horror like made out to be. I also wasn't on the dev team for VG so whether it was false promises, mismanaged resources, being lazy or arrogrant, whatever. I don't know. I do believe however that VG did present an interesting take on the MMORPG worlds that we are familiar with.

I also admit they did reinsert tedium where other games have previously removed it. Such as travel, lfg system a few others. Combined with all the bugs its perfectly understandable to see how it would drive people away. But to say VG brought nothing to the table, in my opinion, is a naive and biased point of view. I hope they finally get in anything they said would be in game that's not and work out all the damn issues they are having, and even then it may be too little too late and never quite recover ala EQ2, though that is doing much better I hear it will never be as good as if it started on the proper foot.

[Mkopec1]

Originally Posted by Twobit Whore

You are a fucking moron. Do you even know when AC2 was released? November of 2002. I know you think you have a big point to make by saying people only care about Brad or SOE or Sigil, but you aren't making it very well. No one gave a fuck about AC2 because no one expected anything from it. It also released at a time that this board was in full-swing Furor mode with EQ.

Hell, for all you know there could have been a dozen threads on the game, but since the earliest post viewable on this site is from January of 2003, you can't even prove your own damn point.

Fuck AC2, thats not the point you blabbering homo. The point is that the negativity, the Captain America bullshit which spews from their (and your) mouth pertains to anything SOE, Brad or now Sigil.

He said it himself over and over that he is here to warn people and protect the unwashed masses from buying shitty products, yet the only products which he seems that are shitty only come from the above mentioned sources. which is totall bullshit. Because I would put other mmorpgs way below even VG based on gameplay, quality playablity and replayability.

There have been 4-5 mmorpgs which were shitty, maybe even more, which were released between 2002 and now, and again where were they then to warn us?


where was he when I bought shadowbane?

Where was he when I bought City Of Heroes?

Where was he when I bought Ryzome?

Where was he when Dark and Light released to warn us?

At leas be consistent if youre going for the title of paladin of mmorpgs.

How bout this, show me one fucking post By UT bashing any other game that is not related to SoE, Sigil or Mcquade.

[Kiroy]

Originally Posted by rangoth

5.) Attempt at a real seamless world.

8.) Ocean shit.

People who played UO 10 years ago may argue with you on these ones.

[Slick Willey]

Originally Posted by rangoth

I think VG brought a few things to the table that should be copied/built-up in future MMO's...
1.) Being able to cast while moving, awesome. It slows your move speed down a bit but doesnt ditch the whole spell.

Definitely.

[Zehn - Vhex]

Originally Posted by rangoth

I think VG brought a few things to the table that should be copied/built-up in future MMO's...

You may want to play the game before lauding it for any of that stuff. 8(

[Mkopec1]

Its not necessarily about VG being "revolutionary" to have potential. Its about being fun at its core to play. why does a game need to be revolutionary to have potential?

I see it as being fun, but the bugs/performance/etc. drown all that fun out of it right now. and its a shame.

The classes are pretty cool I and I like the settings, I like how everywhere you are there is a chance to spawn some named with set loot tables instead of just RNG. It really makes people wanna explore. I can count numerous times when I would be just grinding on 2 dots somewhere and all of a sudden a 3dot named would spawn. This happened consistently and it was a really cool feature, IMO.

And the dungeons, at least the few I saw were really cool, the only other game that I could compare them to would be the original EQ.

There is alot of redeeming qualities the game has, unfortunately its being drowned with negativity.

[rangoth]

Originally Posted by Zehn - Vhex

You may want to play the game before lauding it for any of that stuff. 8(

To above, sorry, didn't know that shit existed in UO, never played.

And yes, you may be right. That shit may absolutely suck in VG. But I am saying that I read or heard about all of that stuff in relation to VG at one point or another. My point wasn't that VG mastered it all, just that I don't think certain things it presented should be cast aside or mocked simply because VG failed with them.

I believe it was another thread where a very similiar discussion was taking place and someone brought up myspace, and the difference between an online game and world. It is my hope that as technology and practice improve the two will no longer be seperate. Want to just log in and have a myspace like chat room, or profile? Fine. Want to log on and kill the dragon and hang his head outside your tavern in town? Fine!

I think that the combination of all of these things, and the slow transition from a game into a world is going to be amazing and I hope I'm alive to see it. It's sad, but it would almost be better if there were some kind of monopoly in this regard(so long as said monopoly is so because it is the best, not just bought out). Whatever, I'm rambling now, but VG being a bad/shitty/poor game if that is your opinion shouldn't distract from some of the good things it at least attempted to present to us players.

[kohl]

Originally Posted by rangoth

I think VG brought a few things to the table that should be copied/built-up in future MMO's...

1.) Being able to cast while moving, awesome. It slows your move speed down a bit but doesnt ditch the whole spell.

Not sure how this is new. You can cast spells while moving in other games; ie instant cast spells in WoW, etc.

Originally Posted by rangoth

2.) Being able to loot and do other simple activities while casting.

Ok.

Originally Posted by rangoth

3.) Classes. I think they definitly took a step forward in class design. Healers are fun and all classes seem to stack well(some minor issues). The classes in VG are, and I guess this is opinion, fun to play and unique without being dependant on a single class. I would give them a A in this aspect of the game.

If they can get rid of the ol' "holy trinity" and do away with the min/max aspect of raiding (needed certain builds or certain healers) then kudos to them.

Originally Posted by rangoth

4.) Diplomacy. I don't know much about the VG specific diplomacy as I only did the "newbie" quests for it, but the idea of using something other than a giant sword to defeat a mob is creative, fun and should be built upon in future MMORPG's.

I agree. It's a pity they couldn't pull it off and stuck in a card game instead.

Originally Posted by rangoth

5.) Attempt at a real seamless world. Ignore the problems particular to VG for a moment relating to chunking etc and this is an awesome idea. Unlike every other game(I have played) before it this is really a world. Moving weather patterns(are those actually in?), terrain that doesnt just change from jungle to snow in 10 meters, flying creatures that swoop down at you, and more. Did VG master this large world, I don't believe so. But I think games in the future should expand/perfect this idea/model.

I suppose gamers have a short memory span, because UO actually did this, what 10 years ago? I'm pretty sure they have had weather effects (rain/snow). You can ride and sail across the entire world and there was no instancing.

Originally Posted by rangoth

6.)AES, sadly not in VG or in but only in small samples. This sounds like an amazing idea to instancing while keeping a balance. Again, perhaps the VG system is not perfect, but the idea behind AES are very very interesting and should also be expanded upon for any game choosing to not use instancing.

In all fairness, might as well leave it off the list.

Originally Posted by rangoth

7.) Harvesting, I won't touch on this much as I have never it once done in VG. But the way I understand things harvesting as a team is BETTER than harvesting alone...no more competing for the resources(is this true?). I am also under the impression it can(will?) affect the terrain. Cutting down a tree means that the tree really falls, mining an area may cause a cave in preventing access to a cave. I'm not sure if this was all just bullshit media or if it is in game, or planned to be, whatever. The idea is again very cool.

I think there is a lot of room for a game to explore new ways of resource gathering, but it has to be enjoyable.

Originally Posted by rangoth

8.) Ocean shit. Building your own ship and having battles sounds cool. Sadly again don't think this is in VG at the moment, but I've heard it talked about. And yes, I realize it's in EQ now.

UO also had ocean shit, although I don't think they went as far as letting you sink other peoples ships or anything like that. You could certainly buy your own boats.

Originally Posted by rangoth

The only point I am trying to make here is that VG can be a fun game to some, and it's not an absolute horror like made out to be. I also wasn't on the dev team for VG so whether it was false promises, mismanaged resources, being lazy or arrogrant, whatever. I don't know. I do believe however that VG did present an interesting take on the MMORPG worlds that we are familiar with.

I also admit they did reinsert tedium where other games have previously removed it. Such as travel, lfg system a few others. Combined with all the bugs its perfectly understandable to see how it would drive people away. But to say VG brought nothing to the table, in my opinion, is a naive and biased point of view. I hope they finally get in anything they said would be in game that's not and work out all the damn issues they are having, and even then it may be too little too late and never quite recover ala EQ2, though that is doing much better I hear it will never be as good as if it started on the proper foot.

I think this is a major beef people have with VG. Players who followed along with the development of the game heard Brad pine on and on about flying mounts, and ships and housing - but the actual implementation isn't up to snuff.

Not to go off on a tangent, but housing is something I've been following in game after game since UO. I think the reason it worked so well in UO was that people had a lot of ...stuff! For example, the PvP orientation of the game meant folks had 2-3 spare suits of armor in the bank and even more so stashed in their houses, and all this STUFF (furniture, armor, weapons, containers) took up space in the game world; it wasn't just intangible stuff represented with icons living in inventory slots.
For that reason, housing served a very real and crucial purpose of giving you a place to put all that shit. Since UO, items not taking up real estate that way means that housing is really there as kind of a roleplaying prop. I would love to see a game that had housing that served a real purpose like that again.

[Mkopec1]

I kinda agree on the housing issue with kohl. I see it being nothing more than a "thing to have" with no purpose really.

I think houses in mmorpgs should have a central puropse, like they had in Shadowbane. Anything else is just fluff.

But one question Kohl, why does a game have to be revolutionary to be fun?

[Hachima]

I think Vangaurd has a pretty amazing world to play in. They did a good job at making it seamless. I'm not talking about in a technical no 'loading/chunking' aspect. I mean there is always a natural transition in terrain that isn't noticeable to the user.

There are also so many interesting places to see. Tons of content and dungeons to explore. I don't remember playing a MMO with so many options in this aspect.

My problem is now that I approach level 50 I bet I've only gone to 1/3 of the dungeons available. In beta while I leveled up to lvl 30(cap at the time) I went to completely different dungeons that I never even touched at release. They were great dungeons too and still popular now. There are still more out there that I probably will never go to unless I make an alt some day.

What Vanguard could of really used was a class system like FFXI. Their class system gives you a reason to go back to lower level content in order to advance your main character. I guess the initial Vanguard design had you learning skills from specific areas. If this would of stayed in there would of been more reason to go to more areas, especially if you needed a lower rank version before geting the best version of a skill/spell. For now I think there is a large untapped potential in the ammount of content available in the game.

[Twobit Whore]

Originally Posted by Hachima

My problem is now that I approach level 50 I bet I've only gone to 1/3 of the dungeons available. In beta while I leveled up to lvl 30(cap at the time) I went to completely different dungeons that I never even touched at release. They were great dungeons too and still popular now. There are still more out there that I probably will never go to unless I make an alt some day.

This is one philosophy I don't understand. Why do people feel the need to see every low-mid level spot in the game on one character? You do have the option of going sight-seeing on your main, or playing an alt. I think one of the things they even got close to right was having enough content that people could level up in entirely different areas. So one day you can shoot the shit with someone and swap funny stories about a crazy pull or horrid wipe in totally different parts of the game.

I guess people like to talk about WoW and other games fostering a sense of entitlement, when to me this is even moreso.

[Mkopec1]

Originally Posted by Hachima

I think Vangaurd has a pretty amazing world to play in. They did a good job at making it seamless. I'm not talking about in a technical no 'loading/chunking' aspect. I mean there is always a natural transition in terrain that isn't noticeable to the user.

There are also so many interesting places to see. Tons of content and dungeons to explore. I don't remember playing a MMO with so many options in this aspect.

My problem is now that I approach level 50 I bet I've only gone to 1/3 of the dungeons available. In beta while I leveled up to lvl 30(cap at the time) I went to completely different dungeons that I never even touched at release. They were great dungeons too and still popular now. There are still more out there that I probably will never go to unless I make an alt some day.

What Vanguard could of really used was a class system like FFXI. Their class system gives you a reason to go back to lower level content in order to advance your main character. I guess the initial Vanguard design had you learning skills from specific areas. If this would of stayed in there would of been more reason to go to more areas, especially if you needed a lower rank version before geting the best version of a skill/spell. For now I think there is a large untapped potential in the ammount of content available in the game.

Yeah, but in reality the way the game was realized, all that content will be forgotten once people reach the cap. Unless you have altitis, I dont see the content being reused that much, especially when its so group centric to begin with. and todays mmorpg players tend to focus to the cap and what is there instead of all the content before it. shit look at WoW even today. Even some of the plre lv 68 dungeon content is not being used anymore.

I see this like I see EQ now. A game with over 350 zones but none of it really being played anymore. shit even back in the Kunark days, all the cool dungeons were ghost towns except for a couple of noob ones and a couple at the cap. anything else was just BYOG or empty save a few necro farmers.

The only real solution I see with this problem is a system of instancing which scales loot mobs etc to the level of your group. sort of what LDON was back in the day. Then no matter what level you are you can go ane enjoy ANY content at any time with loot and difficulty scaled to the "average" of the group.

[Samflam]

Originally Posted by Twobit Whore

This is one philosophy I don't understand. Why do people feel the need to see every low-mid level spot in the game on one character? You do have the option of going sight-seeing on your main, or playing an alt. I think one of the things they even got close to right was having enough content that people could level up in entirely different areas. So one day you can shoot the shit with someone and swap funny stories about a crazy pull or horrid wipe in totally different parts of the game.

On paper this sounds nice, but keep in mind there's always a tradeoff. Could they have afforded to cut down on the amount of mid-level dungeons, and instead invested some of that development cost/time in later level content? From what I am reading, it sounds like they could have.
It's nice to have a massive world where you will never find every POI in the game, but unless you have an unlimited amount of capital and time, then you can pretty much guarantee that other areas will suffer.

[Twobit Whore]

Originally Posted by Samflam

On paper this sounds nice, but keep in mind there's always a tradeoff. Could they have afforded to cut down on the amount of mid-level dungeons, and instead invested some of that development cost/time in later level content? From what I am reading, it sounds like they could have.
It's nice to have a massive world where you will never find every POI in the game, but unless you have an unlimited amount of capital and time, then you can pretty much guarantee that other areas will suffer.

It was Sigil's decision to make the world massive. The problem now is what to do with it. They can cut exp gain to 1/10 of what it is now and force people to either grind one place forever, or travel around and grind in many places for shorter periods or they can leave it like it is, put in just enough mid-level stuff to satisfy people (and if the supporters are right, there is plenty now - they are complaining about not levelling slow enough to see it all). They should be focusing on high level stuff now, because people are getting there and have nothing to do.. and if the supporters are right again, this is what they are doing.

But yeah, if you want to discuss what they should have done, it's quite obvious that smaller world + meaningful content that is working and polished > huge world with unfinished content.

[holydevil]

Originally Posted by kohl

Where is this magical potential everyone keeps talking about? I mean honestly - tell me what VG brings to the table that makes it this revolutionary game that offers what no other game can offer.

Is it the size of the game world? You can't seriously believe that is still a major plus.
Is it the crafting? That doesn't really score huge points.
Is it the Lore? rofl
Is it the graphics? Again, rofl.
Is it because it runs well on most computers? see above...

Brad's track record is that he developed a 3D MMO at a time when there were none. EQ was in the enviable situation of being new and having basically no competition. It couldn't have failed unless they actually unplugged the servers.

I never understood why Everquest was thought as so ground-breaking. I realize it was the first mmorpg that was 3-d but plenty of mmogs came out before it no? Meridian 59? Maybe I have simply forgot, I just don't know why everyone was on his nuts.

Btw meridian 59 > VG.