Why all the nerd rage against Vanguard?

[Witoubo]

Originally Posted by Aradune Mithara

1. What we have done with the Unreal 2.x engine is astounding -- major props to the programming team, etc. It *is* a fast engine and it was also relatively easily modified to add bump mapping, specular, per pixel lighting. And we were also able to make it seamless, although I wouldn't say that was easy.

2. The other engines you list I don't believe were available when we started production. We looked at a lot of engines before we started coding Vanguard in mid 2002 and Unreal 2.x was the best, hands down. (the Doom 3 engine might have been, but it wasn't designed to handle large outdoor spaces like an MMOG needs whether it's seamless or not).

I agree you picked the best engine for the time. I just think you tried to do too much with it.

[Lonin]

Adamar's LOTRO Screenshots

These are screenshots of a game that requires roughly half the computer specs that Vanguard does. Vanguard has it's pretty moments, but LOTRO just looks and feels far more organic, especially since you can run it at over 15fps.

[Twobit Whore]

Originally Posted by Miele

Just for reference (and I don't want to annoy you all with a scientific detailed explanation) there is no such thing as 20 FPS are ok, not even 30 FPS if for that.

The human eye reacts differently from person to person in front of the same screen, some see the screen flickering at 60 Hz on the old CRT monitors, some will never notice. Movies/tv use the "blur effect" (not doable for games) to achieve the fluid movement and they run at 25 fps.

Some players are able to play and easily tolerate 15 fps, others are having a hard time. My old PC ran wow at max setting with aax4 at 15-18 fps, I needed to scale it down a bit and take it to 20+ because for me it was disturbing, while a friend of mine had zero problems running it at 15 fps all the time.

Also when people are used at playing games at 50+ fps, going to 20 is a huge deal, not something really acceptable if they don't play for a while "getting used" to that.
The "motion sickness effect" some players experience, especially in FPS games, is amplified at low framerate values.

In conclusion, 20 fps is not fine, not for everyone at least. The human eye on average stops noticing differences in values that range from 80 up to 120 fps depending on the person.

As a side note, during VG beta I used to get massive headaches. I just thought it was from playing too much on the computer as I hadn't been in an MMO prior to that for several months. I just played single player games, surfed the net.. still used the computer a lot, but no headaches. But during VG I got massive headaches on a daily basis. Since I stopped playing and restarted WoW, I would say I have played more the last two months than I did during VG and I have zero problems.

And no, I am not saying that Vanguard gives you tumors, but having graphical issues like poor framerate and stuttering/hitching can have side effects. Really never even put it together until now, but I am 99% sure that was the cause.

[Duppin]

Originally Posted by Twobit Whore

And no, I am not saying that Vanguard gives you tumors

Why not? It'd be as credible as anything else you have to say.

[Cuppycake]

Originally Posted by Lonin

Adamar's LOTRO Screenshots

I must say...3/4 of those screenshots of LOTRO look better than anything I saw in VG, and better than any VG screenshot I've seen to date.

They are so uniform looking. They all look like they're out of the same game, they all are believable and smooth. I can't speak for the gameplay because I've never played LOTRO - but damn...those screenies are hot.

[kcxiv]

Originally Posted by Twobit Whore

Actually, those are hills, and in real life you don't see every single 6 inch bump on a mountain from a mile away. So omg its more realistic so that means it's better, right?

dunno, dont play that game. dont know how it works. I do know i am playing a game i do enjoy alot.

[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.

I've posted now several times that I wish we could have launch a bit later, but that it was out our hands. Fiancial realties, being what they were, made that decison for us.

[woqqqa]

Originally Posted by Aradune Mithara

I've posted now several times that I wish we could have launch a bit later, but that it was out our hands. Fiancial realties, being what they were, made that decison for us.

I think more people would like to know why the engine is in its current state. Not enough time to tweak it due to having to release early?

[Lonin]

Originally Posted by Aradune Mithara

I've posted now several times that I wish we could have launch a bit later, but that it was out our hands. Fiancial realties, being what they were, made that decison for us.

Only in the video game industry can a CEO of a company claim that the reason his product sucks is because the "financial realities" are out of his hands. If the financial responsibilities of a company don't rest in the hands of the CEO, who's hands do they rest in?

[woqqqa]

Originally Posted by Cuppycake

I must say...3/4 of those screenshots of LOTRO look better than anything I saw in VG, and better than any VG screenshot I've seen to date.

They are so uniform looking. They all look like they're out of the same game, they all are believable and smooth. I can't speak for the gameplay because I've never played LOTRO - but damn...those screenies are hot.

They're all pretty impressive, but this one's just stunning:

[Rayne]

Originally Posted by Witoubo

Project offset has been mentioned several times on this board and it shows some excellent examples of full screen motion blur. From both camera and object movement.

Offset - Main

Been following this for quite some time myself. I was turned onto it by a customer I did some work for about a year and a half ago, who actually knows a couple of the guys on the Offset team. Truly next gen stuff, and could quite possibly set the genre on its ear.

I hadn't visited the site in a while, and reading the big news about them getting publisher support was quite a surprise. But even bigger news was this tidbit from the site:

In other news, we now have a handful of licensees who are using our engine for their next gen projects. Further information will be available upon the official announcement of these games.

If that handful amounts to a mere three, the current gamespace is about to get a serious wake-up call.

[Twobit Whore]

Originally Posted by Lonin

Adamar's LOTRO Screenshots

These are screenshots of a game that requires roughly half the computer specs that Vanguard does. Vanguard has it's pretty moments, but LOTRO just looks and feels far more organic, especially since you can run it at over 15fps.

Thanks for posting some better ones heh. I lost all my screenshots except a couple and the others were at night. I knew if I posted those someone would say 'omgz its nite, you get more fps at nite!'. Can't win either way~

[woqqqa]

Originally Posted by Rayne

Been following this for quite some time myself. I was turned onto it by a customer I did some work for about a year and a half ago, who actually knows a couple of the guys on the Offset team. Truly next gen stuff, and could quite possibly set the genre on its ear.

I hadn't visited the site in a while, and reading the big news about them getting publisher support was quite a surprise. But even bigger news was this tidbit from the site:



If that handful amounts to a mere three, the current gamespace is about to get a serious wake-up call.

Assuming it lives up to its promises, that'll be one hell of a graphics leap. Then again, knowing the history behind these sorts of things, I believe it when I see it working. Here's hoping they pull it out...damn that looks nice.

[serrathen]

Originally Posted by kcxiv

I think that indicated he had both. So you dont have to tell him something he is already doing. duh.

What Brad designs cars? What a car that floats that isn't quite ready yet, and looks more like Fred Flinstone's car than a Delorian?

Brad lets be serious here for a moment without the spin. First you had 30 million dollars here to spend... and you wind up with this shitty game as your release product.

Now how did it come to this:

Lets harken back to the days of Sojourn (Toril) which I too played. What made that mud so fun, and last for years and years and years? The community. What community building tools does Vanguard have in its game? Very little, even back in beta we screamed for a LFG tool, things to get us together quicker (and there was only one continent at that time). Here lies Vanguards biggest problem. What little community you have now is made up of dire fanboi's, or seeming to me to be people just looking for something different than WoW for the time being. Not only did Sojourn have that but the gameplay was second to none imho. Not only was the spell system (circles) and the actual playstyle one that kept you on the edge of your seat (unless you had a bot going ), it was one that really required a decent amount of skill and practice to use effectively.

Secondly, simply stated Vanguard was a game that promised to be 3rd generation. Again spin aside tell me what elements (besides a card game of diplomacy) is third gen? Originally there was alot of thinking outside the box, the game did play very different from what I personally was used to. It involved a combat system much more like playing MTG and really did have something, yet the combat was way to slow. So instead of modifying and fixing it, you decided to try something different. Fair enough, and the modified system (esp when global refresh was .9 seconds) was really actually kinda fun. Then only a few months from release you change everything again. Class design after class design and still the classes suck.

Lastly and more importantly all the broken promises you made, especially this one: http://www.ascensionguild.com/lotro/images/vg.jpg. Fuck man you don't even have helms, what I am told due to resource issues (wtf man wasn't this why you went with a single model avatar anyway?).

What really gripes my ass is the way you spin shit it sounds like George W Bush. Come clean tell the truth, be honest with your community. From what I understand the game is gonna now be changed quite considerably. What next, make it even easier than before? Its sad truly sad what has happened with this game that had so much potential... so much more can be said but ive already wasted enough of my time in Vanguard...

Instead of this:


You give us this:


Oh forgot to add my sig:

Dink Dimbwinkle
Proud Member of Ascension
Will be playing LOTRO until Age of Conan.
Fuck Vanguards Free Experience Weekends... cause I just don't give a fuck.

[Zehn - Vhex]

You were hoping to hold out for another 3 years until computers required to run VG on 'fun' settings were even remotely commonplace? Well, VG might have been done by that point I guess.

haha, zing!

No really folks, you kids have a great night. Be sure to tip your waitress. I'm outta here!