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

[Ayeshala]

From: Vanguard – Saga of Heroes

Game Update News!

Hey Everybody,



It’s time for an update as I promised last week. I had hoped to get this posted up earlier but the patch gremlins had other ideas. Integration is moving along very well. We are getting Vanguard hooked into the various areas like QA (Yeah!) and forums.



I have heard from more than a few people expressing concern as to whether or not SOE is really committed to seeing Vanguard be the successful game we all know it can be. The team has had multiple resources thrown at it in an effort to get us up and running as quickly as possible from QA to marketing and PR. So put simply, they are.



Ok, let’s get to the meat of it.



Welcome to the new age of Vanguard! Otherwise known as “What is the Vanguard team working on because it sure doesn’t seem to be tails!”



In our continuing effort to develop a better rapport with the community, we will be posting our milestone goals as well as our game update patches going forward. The awesome apart of that is you, the community, will be able to see what the team is working on and offer feedback via polls and discussion threads. This works out great for both of us, you are no longer left wondering what on earth the Vanguard team is working on and we get some great directed feedback on upcoming priorities, features, and content.



Milestones

Going forward we will be posting on Vanguard – Saga of Heroes the teams current milestone goals and tasks. An individual milestone typically spans about 6 weeks in length. Please keep in mind that some tasks will spill over into several milestones. As the tasks are completed, they will assigned to a Game Update patch and be pushed out to the Test Server and then to the Live Servers.



Game Updates

We will also be moving to a more consistent patch schedule. Approximately every 6 weeks we will push a game update. This game update will be comprised of some percentage of new content, new features, and new art that was completed in the previous milestones. We will still be patching in the weeks in-between the game updates with bug fixes, performance upgrades, and everything else not covered.



We will get the milestone goals posted as soon as possible with the contents of the game update patch following a few days later. As always, feedback is appreciated.



Thank you for your support!

--Hasium



Vanguard’s Milestone 1 goals.



- Performance / optimization increases

- Fix bugs

- Raid content

- Finish features that were almost complete before the SOE acquisition occurred.



Here are some of the tasks the team is working that will help us achieve those goals.



Design



Bug Team

The bug team is, as one would imagine, working on bugs. Bugs being worked on range from big things like broken quests and abilities that are not working to minor things like typos and missing text. At the end of this milestone, players should be able to observe a noticeable reduction in bugs. High profile fixes will be mentioned in patch or update notes while the majority of other bugs fixed will go in quietly.



Content Team

The content team is busy working on one of the premiere raid dungeons for Vanguard. The Ancient Port Warehouse in Thestra is currently in the works. The team is currently planning population for group and raid content as well as itemization, and diplomacy population. The art for the dungeon has already been finished.



Diplomacy Team

The diplomacy team is currently in the beginning stages of converting the diplomacy system from a skill-based system to a level based system. There will be no huge diplomacy gameplay changes, the switch is more about representing the same information in a different (better) way. Aruspex will be posting the details in another thread.



The diplomacy team is also working on putting together some cool looking tier 4 clothing options as well as adding House quests.



Crafting Team

The crafting team is putting in the quests to allow crafters to learn how to create Guild Houses. Yes, that’s right; Guild houses are finally coming to Vanguard!



Programming (extra superfluous words have been removed)



- Fixing memory leaks

- Fixing bugs that cause CTD’s / client memory issues.

- Fix the last remaining bugs for Brotherhoods

- Raid UI and tools support

- A more intuitive LFG tool with better functionality

- Rest exp.

- Changing Diplomacy from skill based to level based.



Art



Environment Team

The team’s primary task this milestone is working what we’re calling the “trial island”. The island is being built using highly optimized existing assets in an effort to establish a new art content pipeline that is able to produce, in laymen’s terms – cool looking stuff that won’t make your computer explode – quicker than we’ve previously been able to do so.



The overall benefit for the trial island is that we are working on heavily optimizing existing assets. The knowledge learned through this will then be applied to existing art assets in the game therefore increasing performance. In addition we will be using the completed island (which will feature a couple dungeons as well as diplomacy and crafting content) as a free downloadable “Vanguard demo”.



Character Team

The character team is optimizing the humanoid NPC’s that are used in villages, cities, dungeons, etc. which will give a significant performance boost.



The character team is also working on new armor sets for use in an upcoming high end raid dungeon.

[Ayeshala]

Does'nt this read a lot like the first 6 months of the "Fixing EQ2 Saga"? Trial Island, figuring what computers in Present Time can take, etc.

[Dynalisia]

If it has the same effect then I'm all for it, because it's exactly what this game needs.

[Kodylan]

Er, did I miss the part about rest exp?

[Twobit Whore]

It's in there.

[Kodylan]

Ah yeah, I see it now - missed it at first glance. I don't really understand why rest exp was left out of the game, it's not like it detracts any from the game being "hardcore."

[kcxiv]

Well, i guess any step is a positive one now. off to log back in.

[Sinter1]

This seems all fine and dandy but who the hell is going to want to raid a zone called Ancient Port Warehouse? Please tell me they can't come up with a better name than that...

At least the effort is being made to fix it... won't help the game any however. Reason people went back to EQ2 is for the lore and nostalgia purposes. It already had an established fanbase of curious onlookers especially with people now getting bored/annoyed with WoW. Vanguard doesn't have that. They'll be lucky to break 100k subs again imo.

[Digits]

Hell, if they break 100k subs I'd call on SOE to bust out the champagne for the staff because they would have had to do an incredible job to turn the game around that much. Vanguard has no credit in the industry, and somehow SOE is the only way for it to stop bleeding and even hold its (miserable) amount of ground.

Not that I wouldn't mind a 'bug free' Vanguard that performs well and has a bit of polish on actual content. They do have some pretty great dungeons and classes, with a some hints of interesting lore.

[Kodylan]

Originally Posted by Sinter1

This seems all fine and dandy but who the hell is going to want to raid a zone called Ancient Port Warehouse? Please tell me they can't come up with a better name than that...

At least the effort is being made to fix it... won't help the game any however. Reason people went back to EQ2 is for the lore and nostalgia purposes. It already had an established fanbase of curious onlookers especially with people now getting bored/annoyed with WoW. Vanguard doesn't have that. They'll be lucky to break 100k subs again imo.

Yeah the name is kind of odd. Hopefully it's a placeholder development name.

[Grizzlebeard]

It all seems positive but I'm struggling to forget the fact they already acknowledged no matter how much they tweak it the game's performance is going to be shit until current high end tech becomes affordable to allow the average player to get above substandard performance in an area with four or more people.

[Ayeshala]

Originally Posted by Kodylan

Ah yeah, I see it now - missed it at first glance. I don't really understand why rest exp was left out of the game, it's not like it detracts any from the game being "hardcore."

It was left out of the game because Brad was against it iirc.

[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?

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.

[Mithrull]

The game was never "anti-WoW." Development began before anyone knew what WoW would be. No doubt it was intended to be quite a different game than WoW, but as WoW exploded even the Sigil guys understood they had to shift in a new direction. If they had WoW in mind at all it was to attempt some type of move towards it. Quest shields, in game maps, directional markers for all quest locations etc. The anti-WoW nonsense was almost purely a product of the insane Cult of the Stupidly Tedious that the game attracted and who bitched at every attempt to move things away from 1999 style MMO design.

[Lhon]

For any MMO, I think you can make a pretty good judgement on it by listing the reasons to play vs. the reasons not to play. It looks like SOE's strategy with Vanguard is to work on removing the reasons not to play. It's a pretty good strategy, since the reasons not to play Vanguard are legion (performance, bugs, levelling curve, empty servers, etc.).

It will be interesting to see what happens from here. The existing subscriber base is so small as to be irrelevant. I'm sure more people quit WoW every month than subscribe to Vanguard, probably by a factor of two or three. So if they want to target ex-WoW players, they won't mind alienating all existing subscribers if they figure they can capture 15-20% of disgruntled ex-WoW subscribers.