Why all the nerd rage against Vanguard?

[kohl]

Originally Posted by Aradune Mithara

With all due respect, I absolutely remember issues. Until the Voodoo 2 came out, there was a lot of complaining. Until the Voodoo 2 SLI and Voodoo 3 came out there was some complaining. Different people like to run at different resolutions and also have different thresholds in terms of how much FPS they need to enjoy a game. For an MMOG, for me, 15fps is fine. For an shooter, I need 30fps. But I know people who want 30fps on an MMOG and 60fps+ on a shooter.

Personally, I'd rather run at a 1920x1200 at 15fps average to get more screen realestate than 1280x1024 and have less room for my UI but get 20-30fps.

Brad, the original Voodoo card came out in 1996. The Voodoo2 was released in 1998. Everquest was released in early 1999. I'm not sure why you are using language like "...until the Voodoo2 was released".

I am not trying to nit-pick dates here. I am simply saying I remember back in those days (of 800x600 3D glory mind you) that when EQ came out and I installed it, my first impression was that it looked like Wizardry. I never recall thinking anything along the lines of "man I can't wait until next years computer comes out".

[Aradune Mithara]

Originally Posted by Greyform

How is it possible you watched EQ2 launch with hardware specs to high for its time and followed right behind it and made the exact same mistake?

VG will be a good game there is no doubt about that from me. I just don’t understand the decision to release a game before the hardware to support it is readily available.


PS Crafting complication are not fun, it’s just more clicking. Tell me you have a plan B.

I don't think either the EQ 1 or EQ 2 launch suffered significantly from their hardware specs and the tech level they used. Many people want a more immersive and technically advanced engine, especially when it comes to virtural worlds. Does this mean these games won't achieve WoW numbers as quickly? Most likely. But the idea was to make a certain type of game for a certain group(s) of players. WoW is great and it's different and their lower system spec requirements have allowed them to penetrate Asia and also the very casual player who doesn't keep or care about his system specs.

But if you look at the more core FPS or MMOG or even RTS gamer, they want games that take advantage of their gamer machines. I know I just bought Supreme Commander and was glad I could turn all the settings up -- same when I bought Oblivion.

And I'll still be adamant and say that a game designed architectually like Vanguard's will have a LOT easier time still looking good and appealing months and years from now than games who went for a lower spec.

As for crafting, I'd have to leave that question to the designers on the crafting/harvesting team as I don't know in detail what their plans are going forward. You may want to ask on SV for Salim or one of the other designers to answer your question.

[Nattac]

Originally Posted by Aradune Mithara

With all due respect, I absolutely remember issues. Until the Voodoo 2 came out, there was a lot of complaining. Until the Voodoo 2 SLI and Voodoo 3 came out there was some complaining. Different people like to run at different resolutions and also have different thresholds in terms of how much FPS they need to enjoy a game. For an MMOG, for me, 15fps is fine. For an shooter, I need 30fps. But I know people who want 30fps on an MMOG and 60fps+ on a shooter.

Personally, I'd rather run at a 1920x1200 at 15fps average to get more screen realestate than 1280x1024 and have less room for my UI but get 20-30fps.

30 fps for a shooter? pfft screw that >< Back in my cs days i bitch about 3-5 ms.."constant of course" but i was a Caleague boy >< QQ about most stuff =p

[Aradune Mithara]

Originally Posted by kohl

Brad, the original Voodoo card came out in 1996. The Voodoo2 was released in 1998. Everquest was released in early 1999.

How do you mean "until the Voodoo2 was released"?

I should have said was mainstream, my bad. When EQ 1 was released most people didn't have a Voodoo 1 because a. not many games took advantage of it and 2. price point. Both issues, however, resolved themselves.

And many good cards for Vanguard have been available since late 2005/early 2006 too. I run Vanguard fine on my 3.2 pentium 4 with 2 gigs and an X850. Does it scream? No, but it's very playable. Do I run it at a crazy resolution or with all the settings on high? No, but it still plays fine and looks good. I use it as my second machine when people come over to play Vanguard -- it sits right next to my dual xeon uber box.

[The Bog]

Hey Brad, what about what I said.

[Nairbog]

The Bog sounds like an attention whore to me. I'm going to repost a post I made in the end-game content thread that, not surprisingly, none of the people who constantly lie about lack of content (up to 40+, where it seems there is a genuine lack of it) in Vanguard responded to. The Bog, I would really love more details on why you think Vanguard has a lack of content/lore. Where did you start, what levels did you play to, what dungeons/questlines did you do during that time? Anyway, here's the post:

It really irks me when I see posts like this that try to tell people VG has little content, because it's incredibly misleading. As far as I know, Vanguard released with more *quality* content than any other MMO before it. Yes it was lacking good endgame content, but the sheer number of "Premiere" dungeons is astounding. At any given level I could probably be leveling in 5+ different premiere dungeons. The premiere dungeons are very cool too: gigantic and varied, with boatloads of nameds and loots. (though they weren't spawning enough until a recent patch that increased spawn rates for many of the premiere dungeons) As others have said, most of these places are a blast to explore. I'd be happy to go more in depth if anyone still questions this.

Alot of the outdoor content is very high quality as well: Ruins of Trengal Keep, Ra'Jin Stronghold, Elven Magic School are places I have seen personally that blow away any outdoor dungeons I've seen in other MMO's by far with their sheer size, and they all have events/quests tied to them which are often very creative. For example, in Ra'Jin stronghold, you have to enter a secret room from the rooftops for a quest, where the gravity is lower and you can float from rooftop to rooftop crouching tiger hidden dragon style. I thought it was very cool, though frustrating to those with bad machines.

Then there's the cities, which definitely count as content in my book. Vanguard's cities are spectacular imo, some of my best experiences in VG have just been exploring a city for the first time. Caial Brael, Tanvu, New Targonor, Mekalia, and Pankhor Zhi blow away any cities I've seen in other MMO's artistically and they're all fleshed out with lore and diplomatic content. Some people hate diplomacy, but for those who love to explore cities and talk to NPC's to find out lore anyway, it's awesome. I love the fact that you can enter every building in most cities, and that they actually have working doors. A small detail for some, but most recent MMO's are missing this in their cities which was one of my pet peeves. Sorry to be so longwinded, but I wanted to give specifics for the doubters. One problem Vanguard does NOT have is a shortage of content (up until 45+ apparently, though I'm confident the team will be pumping this stuff out shortly, possibly as soon as tommorow).

I just picked up the game a few days ago (I played in beta and knew I would eventually, but I wanted to wait a month to lessen the impact of bugs/server issues) and am a level 12 disciple at the moment. I have so many options right now for dungeons: it's ridiculous. I think the main problem actually is server population, I'd love to explore magi hold but there's usually not enough people in the area wanting to explore it to get a solid group, atleast on Tharridon (FFA server). Today I explored Riftseeker's Torrent near Tursh and was very impressed. The atmosphere is great from the start, you have to enter a secret password to portal in, which you hear by standing back and watching a student utter the password. There are quests that send you to every part of the dungeon and the way these are executed is interesting and fun. (you communicate with the questgivers through magic candles so the quest is dynamic, offering different objectives as you progress). There were plenty of nameds along the way unrelated to quests as well which kept things interesting. The place was absolutely humongous for a low level dungeon with lots of quality artwork and tons of different types of mobs. My favorite were the gigantic mutant plants that camoflouge themselves as a small rock. I'm going to go more off topic here and say the equipment expertise system is awesome and very innovative, I love the fact that I'm wielding level 18 weapons at level 12. I play fairly casually these days, and am very excited about the future of VG. By the time I hit the end game I'm sure there will be tons of options. My main complaint right now is with performance and invis in low level pvp (ugh) ...

[r.gun]

Used Fraps to take some shots showing the different quality settings and my FPS. The program is kind of weird as it usually lowered my FPS by quite a bit every time I took the screenshot. so I had to set it to take a shot every 1 second until I told it to stop.

I purposely made it so there was water, lots of tress, two buildings, and a couple NPC's in the shot. Also, notice the detail on the armor as the graphics settings go up.

Anyways, my system is as follows

AMD Athlon 4200+ x2
Seagate 7200RPM HDD
BFG nVidia 7900 GTO
2 Gigs Corsair XMS2 Ram
X-Fi Music
Running in Vista 64

The system is not by any means some kind of super system, and I think the results show that playing on Balanced is actually pretty realistic. And... high performance doesn't look all that bad, tbh.


From top to bottom -

Highest Performance
High Performance
Balanced
High Quality
Highest Quality

Edit - sorry forgot to add the resolution is at 1280x1024, and I resized the pics to 800x640 to make it easier for people to view.

[keflex]

Originally Posted by Aradune Mithara

But if you look at the more core FPS or MMOG or even RTS gamer, they want games that take advantage of their gamer machines. I know I just bought Supreme Commander and was glad I could turn all the settings up -- same when I bought Oblivion.

Actually...

If you look at two of the most popular (and competitive) FPS and RTS games, you'll find they both have a very low barrier of entry (CS 1.6 and Warcraft III).

[Twobit Whore]

Compared to something like this, at maximum settings with all the bells and whistles on with AA + AF enabled, shadows, etc. etc. etc. I just don't see how the graphics justify the demands.

Oh and this is on a machine identical to Bog's. A "4 year old heap" or whatever it was called by someone. AMD 3500+ 6800GT 1GB ram.

[Lyenae]

Someone pm a buddy key, I wanna do fps tests.

[woqqqa]

Originally Posted by Aradune Mithara

I don't think either the EQ 1 or EQ 2 launch suffered significantly from their hardware specs and the tech level they used. Many people want a more immersive and technically advanced engine, especially when it comes to virtural worlds. Does this mean these games won't achieve WoW numbers as quickly? Most likely. But the idea was to make a certain type of game for a certain group(s) of players. WoW is great and it's different and their lower system spec requirements have allowed them to penetrate Asia and also the very casual player who doesn't keep or care about his system specs.

What do you mean when you say immersive? What makes an engine immersive? What about EQ2 do you believe made it more immersive than WoW?(if anything, I'd say the opposite due to greater environmental interaction in WoW, along with a larger armor selection...the details made a difference in my case)

[Nairbog]

Twobit, you are in an empty field, with no trees around you. The trees you are rendering are far off and blurred. The "mountains" (and I say this because I really hope these are not supposed to be mountains, they're pretty puny in terms of height) have very poor textures IMO, not much detail and almost look a bit blurry, kind of like what happens when you set normal mapping to 0% in Vanguard. (which can net a huge FPS boost and give you similar textures to those seen above) The thing about Vanguard is there is much more tree density, and world objects than the screenshot pictured above which seems very bland. I'm sure you could get similar fps out in an empty field in Vanguard too.

[Mkopec1]

Originally Posted by woqqqa

What do you mean when you say immersive? What makes an engine immersive? What about EQ2 do you believe made it more immersive than WoW?(if anything, I'd say the opposite due to greater environmental interaction in WoW, along with a larger armor selection...the details made a difference in my case)

I disagree. WoW to me felt very linear, little to explore, and a pretty much cookie cutter world. I mean why go exploring if you dont get shit for it? And this got worse and worse the more chaacters you leveled.

[Twobit Whore]

Immersion has nothing to do with graphics. Realism != immersion. People like to say how immersive those text muds were, how techincally advanced were those graphics? Having ascii characters in 16 colors was about it.

[Aradune Mithara]

Originally Posted by Nairbog

The Bog sounds like an attention whore to me. I'm going to repost a post I made in the end-game content thread that, not surprisingly, none of the people who constantly lie about lack of content (up to 40+, where it seems there is a genuine lack of it) in Vanguard. The Bog, I would really love more details on why you think Vanguard has a lack of content/lore. Where did you start, what levels did you play to, what dungeons/questlines did you do during that time? Anyway, here's the post:

It really irks me when I see posts like this that try to tell people VG has little content, because it's incredibly misleading. As far as I know, Vanguard released with more *quality* content than any other MMO before it. Yes it was lacking good endgame content, but the sheer number of "Premiere" dungeons is astounding. At any given level I could probably be leveling in 5+ different premiere dungeons. The premiere dungeons are very cool too: gigantic and varied, with boatloads of nameds and loots. (though they weren't spawning enough until a recent patch that increased spawn rates for many of the premiere dungeons) As others have said, most of these places are a blast to explore. I'd be happy to go more in depth if anyone still questions this.

Alot of the outdoor content is very high quality as well: Ruins of Trengal Keep, Ra'Jin Stronghold, Elven Magic School are places I have seen personally that blow away any outdoor dungeons I've seen in other MMO's by far with their sheer size, and they all have events/quests tied to them which are often very creative. For example, in Ra'Jin stronghold, you have to enter a secret room from the rooftops for a quest, where the gravity is lower and you can float from rooftop to rooftop crouching tiger hidden dragon style. I thought it was very cool, though frustrating to those with bad machines.

Then there's the cities, which definitely count as content in my book. Vanguard's cities are spectacular imo, some of my best experiences in VG have just been exploring a city for the first time. Caial Brael, Tanvu, New Targonor, Mekalia, and Pankhor Zhi blow away any cities I've seen in other MMO's artistically and they're all fleshed out with lore and diplomatic content. Some people hate diplomacy, but for those who love to explore cities and talk to NPC's to find out lore anyway, it's awesome. I love the fact that you can enter every building in most cities, and that they actually have working doors. A small detail for some, but most recent MMO's are missing this in their cities which was one of my pet peeves. Sorry to be so longwinded, but I wanted to give specifics for the doubters. One problem Vanguard does NOT have is a shortage of content (up until 45+ apparently, though I'm confident the team will be pumping this stuff out shortly, possibly as soon as tommorow).

I just picked up the game a few days ago (I played in beta and knew I would eventually, but I wanted to wait a month to lessen the impact of bugs/server issues) and am a level 12 disciple at the moment. I have so many options right now for dungeons: it's ridiculous. I think the main problem actually is server population, I'd love to explore magi hold but there's usually not enough people in the area wanting to explore it to get a solid group, atleast on Tharridon (FFA server). Today I explored Riftseeker's Torrent near Tursh and was very impressed. The atmosphere is great from the start, you have to enter a secret password to portal in, which you hear by standing back and watching a student utter the password. There are quests that send you to every part of the dungeon and the way these are executed is interesting and fun. (you communicate with the questgivers through magic candles so the quest is dynamic, offering different objectives as you progress). There were plenty of nameds along the way unrelated to quests as well which kept things interesting. The place was absolutely humongous for a low level dungeon with lots of quality artwork and tons of different types of mobs. My favorite were the gigantic mutant plants that camoflouge themselves as a small rock. I'm going to go more off topic here and say the equipment expertise system is awesome and very innovative, I love the fact that I'm wielding level 18 weapons at level 12. I play fairly casually these days, and am very excited about the future of VG. By the time I hit the end game I'm sure there will be tons of options. My main complaint right now is with performance and invis in low level pvp (ugh) ...

Thanks for addressing the Bog

And I agree with you -- some of our biggest problems are LFG, performance, some PvP tweaks, and low server pop. We messed up, as I've said before, and were so worried that noob areas would be over crowded, that we should have launched with fewer anyway and people would have spread out naturally.