[VG]: Game update news, dev priorities, patch schedule + Shocking! Rest EXP

[Bobleclair]

Most peoples talking shit about VG or how EQ2 was so much better never played any of them at launch, or just logged in for a few days during their free month. I played both and i totally agree Nairbog.

[Draegan]

Did EQ2 get 30million bucks for development?

[kcxiv]

Originally Posted by Draegan

Did EQ2 get 30million bucks for development?

IT doesnt matter when the money wasn't used properly. could have had 70 million if you dont manage the money right. shit just wont work.

[Ravensign]

Originally Posted by kcxiv

IT doesnt matter when the money wasn't used properly. could have had 70 million if you dont manage the money right. shit just wont work.

If you basically make the game in 9 months after your money is pulled, it doesn't matter how much money that was before you started.

[I'm Rich Bitch]

Originally Posted by Bobleclair

Most peoples talking shit about VG or how EQ2 was so much better never played any of them at launch, or just logged in for a few days during their free month. I played both and i totally agree Nairbog.

I played both at launch and quit both after the first month. I stand by my comment that VG has many more problems than EQ2 had including some factors not in their control such as more competition in the marketplace and the worst word of mouth of any game that I can remember.

[Arbuste]

I played both at launch as well, and Vanguard was at the same time much less playable than EQ2, and more fun. EQ2 was boring from the beginning (when it was released) while I really had fun in VG for a while (until level 15, with a couple characters.)

[Dashal]

I played EQ2 from release for about 18 months. I played VG from release for about 4 months =/

I thought EQ2 was pretty fun, maybe the class I picked had something to do with it. I really had fun with a Berserker and felt very useful as a tank, Disciple kinda let me down and I felt like a wasted spot in my regular group.

[tad10]

Originally Posted by Dashal

I played EQ2 from release for about 18 months. I played VG from release for about 4 months =/

I thought EQ2 was pretty fun, maybe the class I picked had something to do with it. I really had fun with a Berserker and felt very useful as a tank, Disciple kinda let me down and I felt like a wasted spot in my regular group.

Disciple nerf was so over the top. From best class in the game at launch to worst. What the hell was Sigil thinking.

[Digits]

Not that it matters, but the main reason I was excited for Vanguard was because I played EQ2 at launch for around a month and was absolutely bored with the game. I could consistently log on Vanguard and enjoy myself, however bad the lag or performance. I saw that people couldn't heap on enough praise for EQ2 after it had enough polish, and I couldn't stop myself either after trying it (and quiting), and so I naturally assumed Vanguard would follow a similar path. Once I saw that they were doing a January release, however, I basically gave up on the game. I didn't care how nostalgic some dungeon romps were, it was plainly obvious that the game needed at least three months of bug fixing as opposed to thirty days.

EQ2 had the heavy weight of initial subscriptions and box sales for momentum, but anyone would tell you that Vanguard just wouldn't have anywhere near enough sales to justify the type of effort polishing the game would entail. The best case that fans of Vanguard can hope for is a stable game that performs decently and has enough people to flesh out groups and raids. Maybe it'll start gaining subscribers, but it will never pass 100k. I'd be amazed if it retained 50k, even.

[Big W Powah!]

When they fix the fucking Disciple Class, I'll play again.

Til then, they can fucking piss off.

[Big W Powah!]

Originally Posted by tad10

Disciple nerf was so over the top. From best class in the game at launch to worst. What the hell was Sigil thinking.

they nerfed the wrong fucking part, too...Disciple should have been hit hard on dps (they were about right post-nerf, and needed only a little increase).

they should have been given a LOT of options for endurance healing, given a LOT of utility through their bonds, and given a LOT of ability to add dps to the tank (or group member of their choice) with bonds.

[Nairbog]

Originally Posted by Digits

EQ2 had the heavy weight of initial subscriptions and box sales for momentum, but anyone would tell you that Vanguard just wouldn't have anywhere near enough sales to justify the type of effort polishing the game would entail. The best case that fans of Vanguard can hope for is a stable game that performs decently and has enough people to flesh out groups and raids. Maybe it'll start gaining subscribers, but it will never pass 100k. I'd be amazed if it retained 50k, even.

We will see. I don't think anyone can really say anything conclusively until we see what the first major update or two are like with the smaller team and new management. The trial island idea sounds great too, if they execute it well and advertise some of the game's more unique features (and make them available to lower level players) like open world housing, flying mounts, and boats I think they could reach 100k, possibly more.

This definitely shouldn't be rushed though, they need to fix the game for current players who are mostly 30+ now before they generate even worse word of mouth. Once they release some raid content, I think they would do well to focus on polishing the 1-20 experience. i.e. some artistic improvements for those areas that need it, directing players to the premiere dungeons better and making them more rewarding, and fixing all the broken quests that still exist for this level range.

Honestly though, give a man a basic boat and mount very early in the game and I think that alone could get players to not quit 30 minutes into the trial. There should also be a trial island quest where you get a temporary flying mount, they're just cool. I would like to suggest giving players a permanent one early in the game, but I can see how that would cause problems since it would make horses useless.

[Nairbog]

On an unrelated note, one thing to keep in mind is that posters on this board are not really a good gauge for the overall opinion of those who played the game and quit. I think performance problems, bugs and CTD's caused a much higher loss of subscribers than the game itself. (classes, combat, world, content, features)

edit because I just realized the official forums have a tracker. Some interesting tidbits:

Originally Posted by Hasium

We are working on getting a patch out this week to specifically to address some CTD issues.

Stay tunned...

Originally Posted by PhAtHoM

I understand where you guys are coming from and I can't really get into specifics but I can say that we hired every programmer that wanted to stay on with the project. We're now looking for more.

Have a great weekend btw!

and the best one...

Originally Posted by Stenk

Hello guys!

What you have been experiencing is .... exactly what you have thought. There is new garbage collection in place now. We added it because more than half of your total crashes were due to running out of memory errors. There aren't due to memory leaks, but rather that we weren't cleaning stuff up as rigorously as we ought to (we were only doing the garbage collection upon chunk-changes). Keep in mind, most of those annoying flashes and stutters would have previously been crashes 15 minutes down the line.

A bit of Good News:

Because of your good feedback, it was really easy to identify that the garbage collection was kicking in too early, and collecting too little trash. With the next patch, there will be an update to the garbage collection that should make this problem go away, or at least be way more infrequent. It's really only there to give your system back memory for stuff in the game that is really far away, which will prevent your computer from running out of memory. Expect this change in one of the next patches. It hasn't gone through testing yet.

Also! There is a significant reduction in memory usage that will go live once testing has had it's hands on it (In one of the next few live updates). That change should make these "hitching flashes" nearly a thing of the past, improve performance under previously memory intensive areas, and also give a nice boost for players with only 1GB of memory due to less paging to virtual memory. This is a *different* improvement than the one mentioned above, and also leads to far more significant memory savings.

Thanks for your descriptive feedback. It truly made identifying and fixing the problem much easier.



Shaun Showers

Programmer

SoE / Vanguard

[TheYanger]

I'll never understand the whining about how everyone looks the same in WoW and looked so different in EQ...Everyone in EQ had the same armor (Through most of Velious anyway) With different tints, WoW has TONS of armor graphics, the difference is WoW is instanced, with instancing of course everyone is going to accumulate gear in tandem, in EQ if it had been instanced it would have been exactly the same, and if woW weren't instanced most of us would still be struggling to get Karazhan loot and you'd most definitely notice the one guy on each server walking around with T5 loot.

[Aethn Anvel]

Originally Posted by Izuldan

Remember, this game was supposed to be the anti-WoW? All those awful features in a MMORPG-lite game like WoW was not to be found in a hard-core game like Vanguard? Anyone else remembers all that bullshit Brad used to spew?

No, I dont and I read every thread on VG probably post for post. I dont ever recall reading where anyone from Sigil said that, not even Brad. If it was said then it was from the playerbase and not from the company itself

Originally Posted by Izuldan

Now look.....slowly turning into another WoW clone, as far as player-friendly features are concerned. Maybe not a WoW clone, more like WoW v.0.5 clone. Sad times.

I dont think thats even a remotely close. If anything VG is becoming more like EQ2 but still 180 from WOW. I dont think the basic mechaincs and functions of the game would even allow them to code it to become closer to WOW.