Why all the nerd rage against Vanguard?

[Rayne]

Originally Posted by Schatze

Not to stop the e-wankering in here, but what is this about failing? Near as I can tell, this is not the case at all and rather in the past weeks has been shown to be quite wrong.

Originally Posted by Aradune Mithara

I believe I said it needed 200k-300k to be successful, and that I hoped to see 500k after the game was out 1 year, which would make it very profitable. So far we are in the mid 150s which is less than I would have hoped, but still good and still growing.

Yep. Quite wrong

If hes serious about making the changes he mentioned a few pages back (upping exp rates, adding teleporters, etc.), then perhaps i'd be more apt to believe what you claim. But they aren't in yet. Falling 25-50% below your target is a pretty serious blow to recover from. Damning reviews from cable tv and gaming mags doesn't make it any easier. Whether its easier or harder than WoW is largely immaterial. What is material, is it having enough players to sustain itself. But its still yet to reach its projections. According to Brad's own statement, it still has quite a ways to go.

350k gamers is a pretty big number to attract in 10 months. Especially considering the upcoming competition entering the gamespace in the coming months, with even more heading down the pike later this year. And if history tells us anything, its that its hard to recover from a problematic launch.

I wish Sigil luck. They're going to need it.

[Schatze]

"I know you are, but what am i!?!"
"You're a god damned retard, mate."

Pointing out the blatant, obvious lies/liars/story tellers is a lot easier and more constructive than making a post. Make a constructive post, easy to ignore. Keep pointing out all the blatant lies/tall tales people keep repeating, and calling em on it, and they actually take the fucking hint and shut the fuck up.

Also tends to make those idiots who will grab onto and repeat every dubious claim that fits their agenda pause for a moment.

Fuck, it's like everyone on this board who has some grasp of reality just fucking disappeared over the past little while, leaving a vast echo chamber where idiots like fucking utnayan get taken serious, even as they exhibit ever increasing signs of a nerd grudge inspired psychotic break. Fucking utnayan, when did he ever have any credibility? He's always frothed at the mouth, he's always been a fucking nutter, yet he gets taken seriously because his opinion aligns in principle with some people. Even as the syphilis transmitted to him via Brad's kind, prison loving begins to devour and eat his brain, people still strain through the gasps and gurgles searching for some nuggest of "vanguard sucks ahaha" to grasp onto.

Come on, the guy who has acted like he single handedly fucked SOE, and that his idiotic horse beating posts are the main driver of the gaming industry bringing feast or famine to video game producers everywhere is some of you tards fucking prophet. And that was BEFORE he went batshit.

edit: teleporters and XP changes are in, are live, are working properly (xp changes as of this friday). Changing this to address the HURR poster above, failing isn't 150k unless you redefine failing to fit your agenda. Perhaps some posters need to look up the word failing, as it seems even basic concepts take on new meaning to fit the agenda of the posters.

[Lonin]

I don't think it's very accurate to say that any game that doesn't follow WoW's ease of play is going to fail. It seems fairly obvious to me that even after it was made fairly clear that Vanguard was going to be a more "core player" game (which everyone took to mean harder, and Brad now tries to spin as a misunderstanding) it still had a huge following. A lot of people really wanted to get back to their EQ roots and play a difficult, even sometimes frustrating game. Then again, I think a lot of this stems from people thinking WoW is an easy game just because of it's quick leveling curve. Many of the raids in WoW are extremely difficult and the differences in PvP skill between players is quite obvious.

That being said, Vanguard didn't fail because it tried to be a "hard" game. I'd say the largest reason it's failing, by far, is the piss poor performance and the completely unfinished and unrefined state of the game. The other reasons are a little less obvious.

I was heavily involved in the VG beta from 2.5 onward since I was in the most active guild in the game. The core group of us in the guild got a lot of inside information about how development was going and we often got to see and test content that was either available to other testers or other testers just weren't high enough level for. In my opinion (and I can probably speak for a few other members in my guild who experienced the same things), these are the reasons Vanguard is failing/has failed.

1) Brad was disconnected from the game, almost entirely. I can't speak for pre-beta 2, but from then on Brad rarely spent long actually in-game. This became even more obvious when he would consistently misinform the public in his posts about beta, and even his posts in the beta forums. There was even an incident where someone in my guild asked Brad a question about a recently introduced mechanic into the game and he flat out had no clue what we were talking about. I can't recall what the mechanic was, but it was a fairly important game-changing one. As beta went on it became increasingly obvious, both in game and on the forums, that Brad had no fucking clue what he was talking about half the time. Now, that's understandable in my opinion. You can't expect a CEO of a company to know all the goings-on inside of it, but when it's a CEO like Brad who would constantly make long dissertations about game design and mechanics within Vanguard, it just stank of bullshit.

2) A lot of Sigil's team was completely fucking clueless on how to do game design. If you look through Sigil's employee page at the developers you'll be hard pressed to find many experienced people. I don't mean to bash the employees at Sigil, most were really cool people, but the staffing done at Sigil was atrocious. We had class and mechanic designers that had never worked on a video game before and who's best experience was playing D&D or EQ. I'm no master at design, and maybe this is standard practice in the MMO industry, but a lot of their decisions were just inane and seriously hurt the game. Why do you think most of the classes were being redesigned right up until release with some classes getting complete overhauls 3 and 4 times?

3) Brad's overhype of the game. Granted, some of this was due to the rabid Vanboi population that popped up and would cream their pants over every word Brad said, but a lot of the blame has to be laid at Brad's feet. He always falls back on this lame "well I didn't promise x" cop-out, but the fact remains when the CEO of a company mentions certain things enough times people begin to expect it. He should've known better.

4) The unfinished release, obviously. Like I posted earlier in this thread in response to Brad (which he never responded to), a CEO of a company claiming that the "financial realities" are out of his hands is just fucking hilarious. As the CEO the financial operation of your company is YOUR responsibility. Not to mention after stating, several times, that he would not allow this game to be released until it was ready, he deserves every inflammatory post aimed in his general direction.

5) Finally, and this goes back to the "core player" game design, the total flipflop the designers and Brad tried to pull at the very last minute to make this game more competitive. Once again, being in the position I was in I got to hear about a lot of this straight from the developers mouth. Just months before release every fucking day would bring word that Brad and some other designers were trying to push yet another WoW-clone mechanic into the game. Now I'm not some "UBER HARDCORE" masochist, I enjoyed WoW when I played, but it was obvious that Brad and Co. were scared shitless at the lack of involvement in the VG beta. The retention rate in beta was horrible and they were fucking scared. In an effort to stopgap this they started to jam all these mechanics that the game was obviously not built for into the game to try and court back the "casual" player. The result is what you see now, a half-assed unfinished pile of mediocrity that straddles the line between EQ and WoW and just ends up all the shittier because of it.

So there you have it, why Vanguard is failing/has failed, depending on your point of view. If you'll notice, a lot of the onus falls on Brad here, no surprise. I had a lot of respect for Brad when I went into Vanguard and now I have zero. Thankfully with this stinker of a game he probably won't be producing/designing another MMO ever again. At least we can all hope so.

P.S. A big FUCK YOU to Brad (and anyone else who was involved) for "letting go" of by far one of their best designers (the only one who actually played the game with real players for any significant amount of time). Apparently Brad doesn't like it when his designers express a difference of opinion about the direction of the game (and look who was right?). For that reason alone I sincerely hope you have to sell off all your cars and become of the laughing stock of the industry.

[Rayne]

Originally Posted by Schatze

edit: teleporters and XP changes are in, are live, are working properly (xp changes as of this friday). This last edit is the only thing being targeted at the poster above me though.

Cool. Now to fix that whole "missed target projection by a country mile thing". When do you think that patch will go live? oops....

[kcxiv]

Originally Posted by Rayne

Yep. Quite wrong

If hes serious about making the changes he mentioned a few pages back (upping exp rates, adding teleporters, etc.), then perhaps i'd be more apt to believe what you claim. But they aren't in yet. Falling 25-50% below your target is a pretty serious blow to recover from. Damning reviews from cable tv and gaming mags doesn't make it any easier. Whether its easier or harder than WoW is largely immaterial. What is material, is it having enough players to sustain itself. But its still yet to reach its projections. According to Brad's own statement, it still has quite a ways to go.

350k gamers is a pretty big number to attract in 10 months. Especially considering the upcoming competition entering the gamespace in the coming months, with even more heading down the pike later this year. And if history tells us anything, its that its hard to recover from a problematic launch.

I wish Sigil luck. They're going to need it.

The upping the EXP is already in, I been soloing 2 dots to test it out and its moving quite nicely now. Its not 15 kills for 1 percent anymore. So 1 change is in.

[Schatze]

yeah, quote people (in this case, brad) out of context and attribute meaning to their words that were never there! Misconstrue stuff to fit your agenda! Yes! Yes! That's it! That's right, oh yeah baby, yeah.

Even that tiny bit you quoted of Brad's in an attempt to argue your point disproves your damned point. And that's just not taking brad's word for the fact that 200-300k = success, but simply doing the mathematics of looking at box sales and profit stream will show that it's pretty apparent.

But no, him saying we'd like 500k by x point in time, and then saying HAHA YEAH RIGHT you've clearly shown VG is an utter failure by jumbling shit together, making incoherent points that do not synch with the predicates, definitions, etc., you sure burned him! Congratulations! May I suggest an intro to philosophy class so that you can construct a coherent argument without torpedo'ing it yourself?

[Rayne]

Originally Posted by kcxiv

The upping the EXP is already in, I been soloing 2 dots to test it out and its moving quite nicely now. Its not 15 kills for 1 percent anymore. So 1 change is in.

Nice. Hopefully by the time I can upgrade/replace my rig, lots more will have taken place. I spent over 3 years hyped up over this game. It'd be nice to actually be able to enjoy it.

[Rayne]

Originally Posted by Schatze

yeah, quote people (in this case, brad) out of context and attribute meaning to their words that were never there! Misconstrue stuff to fit your agenda! Yes! Yes! That's it! That's right, oh yeah baby, yeah.

LOL. I qouted him directly. 150k, 200-300k, and 500k by the end of the first year are HIS words. Not mine. Him admitting that 150kish wasn't what he'd hoped for, was ALL him. Oh, you mean where he said that in his opinion its improving nicely? Well, thats subjective, and remains to be seen.

[Twobit Whore]

Originally Posted by Lonin

P.S. A big FUCK YOU to Brad (and anyone else who was involved) for "letting go" of by far one of their best designers (the only one who actually played the game with real players for any significant amount of time). Apparently Brad doesn't like it when his designers express a difference of opinion about the direction of the game (and look who was right?). For that reason alone I sincerely hope you have to sell off all your cars and become of the laughing stock of the industry.

You mean Jerrith? He was 'let go' i.e. fired? Fucking ridiculus.

[woqqqa]

Originally Posted by Duppin

Does someone hold a gun to your head and force you to read mine?

Makes about as much sense when I ask it as when you do, huh.

But you're right, Utnayan would be perfectly sane and a great contributor to this board if it weren't for people like me.

No, he'd be a raving ass with some decent points to make on occasion. And I'm reading yours because I'd like to dispute your argument. How is he harming the boards? Either refute his arguments, call him a fucking jackass, or ignore him. Why is his being here a problem?

[Maxxius]

Originally Posted by Schatze

" . . .
edit: teleporters and XP changes are in, are live, are working properly (xp changes as of this friday). Changing this to address the HURR poster above, failing isn't 150k unless you redefine failing to fit your agenda. Perhaps some posters need to look up the word failing, as it seems even basic concepts take on new meaning to fit the agenda of the posters.

I sure hope you don't run a business. Spending between 30-40 million dollars on a game that generated under 150k subs is a failure in any businessman's mind. You really think you know better than MS? You think their walking away from that investment was done lightly? When you start running your own business on a profitable basis then come back and talk. And if you are at that stage (which would surprise me), then you would be saying quite different things here.

[Schatze]

No shit, then you drew all sorts of conclusions that do not stem from the predicate to show VG is a failure! In fact, you drew all sorts of conclusions that are contradictory to the premise! Wow!

Spin baby spin!

edit: under 150k subs? Where did that number come from? Oh shit Utnayan! How the fuck do I argue with that credibility there?

And yeah, I hope you don't fucking run a business without understanding the difference between sunk costs, profit stream, and returns. Oh shit, now reference Utnayan's mystery PM'r who "is a higher up in MS" who "knows why VG was a failure!" Oh fuck, why, god, why did you give Utnayan his own personal Deepthroat (heh heh) to whisper things in his ear outside of any verifiable source? That sort of credibility, combined with little birds whispering in his ears verifying everything he said, how do I contend with that?

Psst. You do know the difference between a developer, a publisher, venture capital, etc. is right? Right??? Oh fuck, wait, no you fucking don't as Utnayan obviously fucking didn't before spouting off about his mystery PM'r. You could have at least went by fucking wikipedia in an attempt to LOOK like you had a clue as is the typical thing to do on this here intarweb when attempting to look like you know something you don't.

[Wolfen]

Originally Posted by Lonin

There was even an incident where someone in my guild asked Brad a question about a recently introduced mechanic into the game and he flat out had no clue what we were talking about.

That reminds me of one of Brad's replies on this board, maybe this thread. Someone asked about crafting and he said he didn't know what the crafting teams plans were. How could he not know what was being put into his game?

[Twobit Whore]

Originally Posted by Schatze

edit: under 150k subs? Where did that number come from? Oh shit Utnayan! How the fuck do I argue with that credibility there?

It came from Brad. You should probably take your meds now. You make Utnayan sound sane.

[Rayne]

Originally Posted by Schatze

No shit, then you drew all sorts of conclusions that do not stem from the predicate to show VG is a failure! In fact, you drew all sorts of conclusions that are contradictory to the premise! Wow!

Spin baby spin!

edit: under 150k subs? Where did that number come from? Oh shit Utnayan! How the fuck do I argue with that credibility there?

And yeah, I hope you don't fucking run a business without understanding the difference between sunk costs, profit stream, and returns.

Where'd you get the "under 150k" from? And contradictory? They were BRAD'S NUMBERS. And do you REALLY think 30-50% below the projected target of 200-300k is a "stellar showing"?

These aren't "Utnayan" numbers man. They're numbers provided BY THE FUCKIN' SOURCE! Are you REALLY this easily confused?