Nino...One of the upsides of VG.

[Broham]

Originally Posted by Twobit Whore

VG will appeal to former EQ players and that's about it.

I know I'm not getting the full context of your post, but I wanted to comment on this anyways, Twobit.

I've never played Everquest. At all. Yet strangely, this game appeals to me. I know I'm not the only one in this boat. I'm the guy that Brad referred to when he said that he wanted to get the people that had their first real taste of MMO's with WoW. I've grown tired of the game, I had fun with it for awhile, but I'm tired of it now. It's grown bland and simple. Vanguard offers a deeper experience. More dungeons to crawl, more items to craft, more world to explore, etc. Now obviously, there are problems with the game right now, and I think anybody would be a blithering idiot to try to claim otherwise. However, I'm still looking forward to this game.

I say looking forward to, because I KNOW the game is not finished. I still want to get a taste of what Sigil is trying to do here...but I know that if I tried to play it now, I'd end up breaking shit in frustration. That, and I don't have the $1500~$2000 computer to run it on.

So, when September rolls around, I'll give it a shot. Overage check comes in, Sigil's had ALL SUMMER to fix bugs and polish the game up...it'll be worth a month of play at the very least.

[Aradune Mithara]

Originally Posted by UnchainedAcolyte

I think certain concessions made actually were constructive. A variable death penalty and the addition of regional brokers were two of those. While it may have alienated the most masochistic of the hardcore players, it softened the blow for casual players and allowed those of us who don't mind the occasional corpse run to do so, not to mention simplifying buying and selling.

I wish leveling were slower, due to content issues. The major issues I've seen have not been a lack of interest in POI's/dungeons or frustration with leveling but the ability/willingness by players to actually hunt and find them. I've tried to direct players to areas with quests/dungeons that were level-appropriate and I think if that were done more, players would be less concerned about their level and grow to appreciate a content-based focus.

We also need to make sure there is great loot in the dungeons, that there is an altar nearby if you need to summon your corpse, make sure the penalty for summoning your corpse isn't too painful so people will take some risk and explore the depths of the larger dungeons, etc.

[Twobit Whore]

Since several people seem to have misunderstood, allow me to elaborate. VG will appeal to "mostly" ex-EQ players, as it was actually intended to do per the FAQ. My fault for not putting the 'mostly' qualifier in the original sentence. I know there will be non-EQ people playing it, but I feel they will be a very very tiny minority in the grand scheme of things.

[Aphextwin]

Originally Posted by Aradune Mithara

How did you first hear about Vanguard?

I was a member of Ascent and someone posted on our member forums that they had been invited to one of the early closed beta's, I'm pretty sure that was the first time I had heard of the game. At the time I was happy enough with WoW and didn't really pay much attention to it, however, as time moved on I began to see and hear more about VG while losing interest in WoW so I signed up for the VG beta.

[kcxiv]

Originally Posted by Aphextwin

I was a member of Ascent and someone posted on our member forums that they had been invited to one of the early closed beta's, I'm pretty sure that was the first time I had heard of the game. At the time I was happy enough with WoW and didn't really pay much attention to it, however, as time moved on I began to see and hear more about VG while losing interest in WoW so I signed up for the VG beta.

And that right there is what Brad is hoping for. He has stated that before. People will get tired of TBC, because well, there may not be another expansion fro WoW for another 2 years. Thats a long time.

[Broham]

Originally Posted by Twobit Whore

Since several people seem to have misunderstood, allow me to elaborate. VG will appeal to "mostly" ex-EQ players, as it was actually intended to do per the FAQ. My fault for not putting the 'mostly' qualifier in the original sentence. I know there will be non-EQ people playing it, but I feel they will be a very very tiny minority in the grand scheme of things.

I didn't misunderstand, I actually made sure to say that I didn't give you the full context in my quote. I do agree that it will appeal to mostly ex-EQers. How could it not? Brad made EQ, those players enjoyed their experiences there, it's only natural to follow him to this game...since it is similar in philosophy.

I think it's unfair to compare ANY MMO to WoW, since it's such a crazy phenomenon. WoW had an instant fan-base with followers of the Warcraft RTS games and the Battle.net kids, and the general lack of titles in the genre at that time only helped it along. For me, I was coming out of SWG just before the dreaded CU hit, and WoW was the only game people were talking about at the time. I'm not trying to put the game too much, it's a decent game, but it is rather shallow as far as MMO's go.

I know the raiding can be intense, but as far as the rest of the game goes, it's just...simple. VG is looking to give people more, and hopefully with a bit of time, they can do just that.

[woqqqa]

Originally Posted by kcxiv

And that right there is what Brad is hoping for. He has stated that before. People will get tired of TBC, because well, there may not be another expansion fro WoW for another 2 years. Thats a long time.

Blizzard claims another one is upcoming around January of next year. (if they deliver, I'll probably die of shock)

[Kasi]

Brad said before TBC came out that people would tire of WoW and come to VG. He's still saying it now 6 months later. Brad hasn't changed like Cuppy said, still the same old pr stuff.

[kcxiv]

Originally Posted by woqqqa

Blizzard claims another one is upcoming around January of next year. (if they deliver, I'll probably die of shock)

For hardcore guilds thats kind of a long time. I remember in EQ, people ran through expansions in 3-4 months. They eventually had to launch Expansion every 6 months to keep people raiding. Same will happen with WOW.

I dont know how through people are with TBC's raids. I am more then willing to be that are already halfway through the Raids they have there.

[kcxiv]

Originally Posted by Kasi

Brad said before TBC came out that people would tire of WoW and come to VG. He's still saying it now 6 months later. Brad hasn't changed like Cuppy said, still the same old pr stuff.

actually, i think he said that last month.

[woqqqa]

Originally Posted by Kasi

Brad said before TBC came out that people would tire of WoW and come to VG. He's still saying it now 6 months later. Brad hasn't changed like Cuppy said, still the same old pr stuff.

He's actually half right...people are getting tired of WoW, but they're buying the LOTRO preorder instead, if the /ooc chat in that game is any indication. (not that it's Barrens chat, but you hear most players mention their last game)

[kohl]

Originally Posted by Aradune Mithara

We also need to make sure there is great loot in the dungeons, that there is an altar nearby if you need to summon your corpse, make sure the penalty for summoning your corpse isn't too painful so people will take some risk and explore the depths of the larger dungeons, etc.

Did you guys ever discuss breaking the paradigm of the 'static world'? You run around a zone and you see camps of mobs. You go into a dungeon and mobs are deployed in little squads. You always know what to expect.

How about putting a dynamic spin on the world such that monsters or NPCs kinda do their own thing? It could be something simple such as you and your group of buddies in a hostle area, and 5 NPC thugs jump out and try to mug you. It could be something more complex like a faction of NPCs building an outpost that you could attack and destroy (destruction triggered by killing a boss, taking an item, killing X number of them, etc).
Finally, you could go the route of having NPCs send you to an area which begins a scripted event that would tie into your AES system.

What this touches on is the excitement of the unknown. People are used to knowing what to expect; its so controlled. There are zone maps online; even mob spawn placement guildes and maps. This is one aspect of PvP that appeals to people so much; the fact that you don't know what to expect. If you could apply that in some way to the world with regards to mobs, it might give that extra bit of incentive to go explore, because hey - you don't know what the heck you might find.

Edit: incidentally, I realize there is a place for static mob spawns. I just think its about time we had games where world was a bit more "alive"; that it wasn't like a big hand had come down from the sky and placed the creatures of the world in strategic locations.

[Twobit Whore]

Originally Posted by Kasi

Brad said before TBC came out that people would tire of WoW and come to VG. He's still saying it now 6 months later. Brad hasn't changed like Cuppy said, still the same old pr stuff.

You know, I'm a little tired of WoW. But if I were going to quit it and go to a new game, it wouldn't be VG. I'd go hit up LotRO for a couple months while Blizzard works the kinks out of the raiding content then come back and enjoy it.

[Seths]

Originally Posted by kcxiv

For hardcore guilds thats kind of a long time. I remember in EQ, people ran through expansions in 3-4 months. They eventually had to launch Expansion every 6 months to keep people raiding. Same will happen with WOW.

I dont know how through people are with TBC's raids. I am more then willing to be that are already halfway through the Raids they have there.

Reading the WoW raiding thread it looked like most guilds aren't really trying most raids more than to beat it once before repeating a handful of particular encounters because the itemization is so fucked up.

Man every game i've ever played seems like half the playerbase bitched about itemization be it EQ, WoW, VG, etc... I wonder how much a top notch itemizer would get paid if he could make the masses happy?

[Draegan]

I think most people who play WOW and want to move on will play LOTRO or WHO just because of the overall sameness with all those games. (Gameplay, UI, design etc.) This isn't a knock on VG but the two games garner to two different audiences.