Nino...One of the upsides of VG.

[rangoth]

Originally Posted by Drtyrm

Of course it "sounds cool". That has fuck all to do with the state of VG and where it will be in the future. Brad makes a mountainous post, is totally on point, but still comes out with what amounts to daydreams. He doesn't understand that talking about vapor like that is throwing chum in the waters for the VG haters.

Of course it has to do with the current state of the game and it's future. We are talking about what the current problems are if and how they can be fixed and what will go in to continue advancing the game, again if anything.

We all fucking get the current state of things, "chum in the water" is irrelevant. Now even Brad has come here saying that shit, for all his reasons read his post, wasn't exactly perfect. Can we all finally fucking agree on that now and move on?

I want to know what will be the fixes, or what are the ideas for the fixes if nothing is set in stone and what is their timeline if possible to postulate. I would also like to hear more about the additions they have planned for the future. Don't we like dicussing that kind of shit on this board?

[rangoth]

Originally Posted by Camerous

And you have in WoW?

I was just going to post that exact fucking thing.

[Neric]

Originally Posted by Drtyrm

Neric, if you log into WoW real fast, you may still have time to craft your Tinfoil Hat.

You have a problem with "likely" and "unlikely" and you should really look up "Ockham's Razor" in Wikipedia. It's certainly unlikely that two products that require a few man-years to finish get finished at the exact same time. If they get released at the same time, it's more likely that one side has a reason for it. Doesn't have to be like that, but it probably is.

If someone raises you in Poker he could have aces. Usually he doesn't, but sometimes he does. Still it's much more likely that he doesn't. In fact it's around 220:1.

[Kendrick]

Neric, your analogy is too...brown.

[rinthea]

Originally Posted by Aradune Mithara

2. Underpopulated servers. The reason we are enhancing the LFG system (other than it's always a good idea in general) is because it's too hard to find a group. One of the biggest reasons it's too hard to find a group is that we were overly worried the newbie yards would be over populated the first couple of weeks post-launch that we opened with too many servers. That's why we are working on better LFG tools, having to seriously consider overland teleports, etc. If a world at peak hours had 4-5k people on it, this wouldn't be nearly the problem it is.

A bigger problem and a related one is

1. No feasible solo content to supplement adventurers while they wait for a group.
2. No central group hub.

I bet this is hurting retention numbers.

[Neric]

Originally Posted by Kendrick

Neric, your analogy is too...brown.

So every Vanguard fanboi must love it!

[kohl]

And you have in WoW?

Originally Posted by rangoth

I was just going to post that exact fucking thing.

Please tell me where the fuck I ever said it was original to WoW. I'm responding to the people who keep citing the most mundane stuff as being innovative features of VG.

I've always contended that if anything, WoW took previous ideas and did them right, and did them with quality (which in and of itself, compared to previous MMOs is practically groundbreaking).

[Dashal]

Originally Posted by kohl

Please tell me where the fuck I ever said it was original to WoW. I'm responding to the people who keep citing the most mundane stuff as being innovative features of VG.

I've always contended that if anything, WoW took previous ideas and did them right, and did them with quality (which in and of itself, compared to previous MMOs is practically groundbreaking).

Someone asked if boss mobs had any abilities and that was answered. You took it upon yourself to warp that into claims of innovative features.

Then you went on to say WoW isnt innovative either, but they "did it right". Perhaps VG did it right too for some players... whatever that means.

[Faelor]

Originally Posted by Malakie Torsade

Also, at 50, are the dungeons full of mostly identical trash or do they have different abilities? In other words, are the hard dungeons difficult because of mob abilities or mostly from sheer volume due to respawns/pathers?

More high-end dungeons are being pushed down the pipe so there are a few at the moment. One being Rahz Inkur which can be harsh if you're group goes in with the wrong mentality. I honestly do not think pick up groups are going to survive in that place. Why? Because none of the mobs (expect for scarabs, which are two places and in groups of 4) can be mezed, charmed, snared, rooted, or anything in terms of crowd control. You get an add? Better have a tank nab it and maintain aggro otherwise you're going to die. And there are tons and tons of wanderers, which I enjoy rather being in a huge dungeon with nothing moving (or living).

After being in the place for about 3 weeks we're still finding mobs to kill, finishing a quest line (got the worldwide on the Heroic helms in the quest line, huzzah), and finding some difficulty in it. It isn't the hardest place I've ran in to in a MMO, but it sure hasn't trivialized just because we know where to go and we've all upgraded our a gear a bunch. Just because we've upgraded a lot of our armor from level 30-40 pieces (anywhere from uncommon drops to heroic quest line drops like Celestine Ward BP/Legs/Shoulders) and upgrading it to level 52-53 rare and heroic gear doesn't make the place trivial. It is too common in games that once you know the "strat" or get a few good armor upgrades the place becomes easy as hell. Not here, we can get an add from our flank and our Psionicist can die in two hits. We'll get the message "Psionicist has died" at the same time we hear in Vent "Damnit, add". Last night we had two guild groups in there clearing the "Palace" area, and just because there were a lot of us doesn't mean people didn't die. Yeah, perhaps we got ahead of ourselves sometimes, but man those 6dot mobs do not play around.

Tagad and his team made Rahz Inkur, and while it may not be revolutionary it is damn entertaining and something I've wanted for a while in a MMO since I've taken MMOs lightly since I retired from EQ and EQ2 in Jan of 2006. I just hope we can finish the quest line tonight and get our Legendary helms (which have amazing clicky effects. Yes, I said clicky items). Heck, perhaps the quest line continues (or perhaps it will when the raid area in RI opens up). Like a lot of folks have said, from fan to dev a like, the game has amazing potential and denying that makes you... Well, I wouldn't be the most positive person here if I said something so crude (I thought that was funny darnit). If you want an example, look at all the bashing EQ2 got early on, and look at all the good reviews it is getting now. Scott and his team really turned that game around.

Oh, and nice post Aradune.

* Anyone who was able to read my entire post and suffer through the horrible writing gets a cookie.

[Kreugen]

Wait, did someone say WoW encounters aren't giant fucking leaps of awesome over what EQ had? Because I find it hard to believe that anyone would even try to say that. Even Camerous.

You'd have to be a raving hater psycopath to not agree that WoW has the best scripting of any current MMO.

[Samflam]

Originally Posted by rangoth

You realize in EQ you could stun/mez/push most mobs to stop casting, right?

Oh I know, actually we're in agreement on this. I guess I came off looking like a WoW fanboy... that wasn't my intention.
Here's the post I was responding to:

Considering in Vanguard you can actually counterspell their healing

To me that implied that this was unique to VG, which of course it isn't.

[rangoth]

WoW does have encounters that are leaps ahead of what EQ had...but not all of them. And while I cannot vouge for EQ raiding today, I'm under the impression alot of it is heavy with scripting and interesting tricks, maybe it's caught up/evolved along side of WoW?

The point is that settings aside all our personal views about which game has what and we will all start to realize they are near fucking identical when it comes to technical capabilities at the moment. Sure each game may have an edge here or there but none of them are so fucking impressive they squash the competition.

The things killing one game more than another is more design or completeness. Bugs, imbalance, poor itemization, fast respawns, all this shit exists in all these games.

The posts I liked are the ones where people really want something new, a cave collapsing and closing off a dungeon for a week until harvesters(or whomever) clears the rubble. People killing so many goblins other monsters take over their caves(preliminary version implimented in that zone in Luclin for EQ by the way), people NOT killing goblins in the nearby cave so they grow strong and mount an attack on the city.

All these cool high tech things arnt in any of these fucking games we all play. We keep bitching over the same nuiances over and over. EQ, VG, WoW, EQ2 all have similiar levels of scripting and variations to their encounters, you can stop casters from casting in all of them, can CC in all of them. I just want us all to stop fighting over the same mundane crap.

Pick the game you like for personal reasons, it can be more than one, and lets join/start a discussion whos goal is to asses what can be improved currently, and how within that game. And what can be done in the future and what's the best way to do it. Enough with the my dad is better than your dad shit.

[tad10]

Originally Posted by Kreugen

Wait, did someone say WoW encounters aren't giant fucking leaps of awesome over what EQ had? Because I find it hard to believe that anyone would even try to say that. Even Camerous.

You'd have to be a raving hater psycopath to not agree that WoW has the best scripting of any current MMO.

I honestly have no idea what the state of the high end raid game is in WoW these days so I'll have to take your word for it. FWIW, VG 1-42 has been far more amusing to me than WoW 1-59 (Didn't really enjoy WoW until I hit 60 -- and no I'm not a masochist I only continued playing at the urging of friends who insisted that it got better at 60 -- which it did/does).

In particular I've found the dungeons I've been through up to this point so far to be a lot better than their WoW equivalents. I like walking through a small mercenary outpost to find that the downstairs is a dungeon half the size of a chunk with a room reminescent of that alien place in Total Recall or noting that above the waterfall in a small otherwise empty underground room is a small hole that opens up into another huge crystal world that you'd never know was there.

So WoW may have the better scripting but VG has more cool places to explore ;p

[Lhon]

Originally Posted by Aradune Mithara

2. Underpopulated servers. The reason we are enhancing the LFG system (other than it's always a good idea in general) is because it's too hard to find a group. One of the biggest reasons it's too hard to find a group is that we were overly worried the newbie yards would be over populated the first couple of weeks post-launch that we opened with too many servers. That's why we are working on better LFG tools, having to seriously consider overland teleports, etc. If a world at peak hours had 4-5k people on it, this wouldn't be nearly the problem it is.

This is the interesting one to me. I've mentioned before that during beta I'd assumed you were only planning on launching with one or two servers since the world was so massive. When you say you were worried the newbie areas would be "over populated" it's pretty clear you're talking about performance, not content. It's a valid worry since you don't want someone's first 10 minutes in game to be a slideshow because there are 15 other players nearby. The problem is VG is a massively multiplayer online game. One of the big draws of a MMOG is having lots of players nearby. If your game can't support it, then you have fundamentally failed. Without that foundation the game will always struggle and fail to live up to its potential.

[stevemcqueen]

Originally Posted by Aradune Mithara

4. Marketing. There are two groups of ex-EQ 1, UO, DAoC, etc. players out there: the ones that look back fondly on the years they put into EQ 1 and those who don't -- either they're upset or, more often, they simply have had their lives change and they don't have the time to play another EQ 1. So when they heard about Vanguard and all of the EQ 1 people working on it they didn't even give it a chance -- they simply assumed Vanguard would be as hard core as EQ 1 (when it absolutely isn't). We totally underestimated that second group, and I think if we had got the message out that Vanguard was not just another EQ with all of its time sinks, tedium, leveling times, necessary raiding, need for contiguous time commitments, and somehow got that message clearly and strongly through to that second group we would have launched more strongly. This is another issue, however, we will survive, not just by changing the marketing message, but mainly through viral marketing. Those ex-EQ 1 players who *do* buy Vanguard, and enjoy it, *will* slowly but surely let that second group of people know that Vanguard does *not* equal EQ 1 with better graphics in the ways some people look back, sigh, and mutter 'never again', but that it *does* have the elements in it that made EQ 1 a great game (as well as many of the cooler UO/SWG elements, new systems like Diplomacy, greater immersion, etc.)

I am part of THAT group of players who enjoyed EQ1 and wanted an upgrade with less timesink and grinding.
I am also part of THAT group who supported you, and your company from day 1, defending the game throughout all of the shit people was throwing at it.
WE made the viral marketing for you, putting Vanguard on the map while people was dismissing it like an EQ1 clone.
We created the hype who attracted so many people who wouldn't give a second look at Vanguard because you were making it (the father of "grinding").
I am part of THAT group who wanted your "VISION" to become true, I didn't want it to be twisted along the way just to accomodate everyone and their dog.
And I am also part of THAT group that still has an active subscription (just).
Because I am part of THAT group, I have to say that your latests posts broadcasted all over the web are starting to upset me.

It is true that you are now taking full responsability for the lack of subscribers (as you should), but from you posts it traspires that you blame quite a lot the first group of players you mentioned, more privately than in public, for putting the masses off Vanguard.

Really you should stop that.
This is absolutely non sense.
Vanguard failure has nothing to do with the bad word of mouth from EQ hardcore fans, but with the quality of the game itself, mate (as you admitted).
The blame is again on you, as your mis-marketing compaign aimed to attract the Casual players, backfired spectacularly.

The Casual players destroyed Vanguard chances (and who can blame them?), when they finally played the Beta and realised that Vanguard wasn't that Casual Heaven you promised with your un-skilled marketing abilities.

People who study marketing at University do it for a reason. A programmer is not going to cut it, and your keep apologising in public isn't helping the cause, it looks more like begging than else, and it s going to backfire once again, like all of your previous marketing attempts.
Have you ever heard Bill Gates apologising for the million bugs or security issues of Windows? Me neither.
Just keep working with dignity and if the game become good, the word of mouth will do the job for you.
People like winners not losers, and at the moment you are giving the impression to be weak.
Weak commander = Weak Army
Apologies are good, but not one every week, it looks like you didn't have a clue on how to make a MMORPG and that doesn't look good for the future of the game either.

Personally I enjoyed the game at launch.
I think you achieved what I expected from the game more or less (in gameplay terms), although it didn't really blow me away.

BUT, I will cancel my Station account for 3 reason.

1)For me the game is good as it is, but I simply cannot play it with my computer, and I am not gonna upgrade it for Vanguard (after I did it for EQ2 1 year ago)

2) Your whinging.

3)Last but not least.
I heard that now leveling is going to be faster........I am sorry but I saw that before and I am not falling for it anymore.
I saw the same thing happening in EQ1, SWG and EQ2.
Yes I am talking abut SoE trademark of "dumbing down" games in order to appeal to a wider player base (AKA marketing research rules!!!!).
This is the first signal but I believe there is much more to come.
Simply I am not going to invest few years of my life creating a character, for then SoE deciding to dumb down the game in order to inject a new wave of players (and yes SOE has the power to do whatever they want with Vanguard, just as I always said in MMORPG.com forums).

My last thought is the following.
If I have to play casual games, I am gonna play proper ones like WoW and WAR, created for the Casual players therefore able to meet expectations.
I am a Core player who appreciate good Casual games when they are well made.
Certainly I am not gonna play a Core game like Vanguard outstripped of all the challenge and best features and raped in the name of the mass market.

PS: I really hope other developers learnt the lesson from Vanguard.
Never develope a game that can run only on 10% of the computers (well that's if you want to make money out of it).