[VG] Producer's Letter

[Jabberwhacky]

What's the closest thing to thottbot for VG? Me and a friend are leveling up on the PVP server and want to do some dungeons or quests to get some gear going, but I can't find shit. I was perusing Curse VG Database and 95% of the "Source" of items is...wait for it...bag. Talk about useful.

Some sort of leveling guide might be nice too. There seems to be an awful lot of content in VG, but it never fucking points it out to you. Case in point: my friend and I started orcs (his choice) and nearly the whole time up until level 10 was doing 1 quest which led to 1 quest which led to 1 quest. It slowly branched out, only to die again around lvl 13. The one exception was the 6 or 7 quests for the Garden area, but we couldn't do that since we had shit gear and were even leveled. Long story short, I am running around trying to do my Bear Totem quest, and I come across an outpost in the Blighted Lands (I think...eastern part of southern Kojan) and 3 frickin' guards there give out over 20 quests. What. The. Fuck. I just spent an hour in Khenvu doing one measly quest line and then I find this place that is literally drowning in quests.

[Grumpy Old Fart]

So I canceled VG a week or so ago, but I thought to try a couple of other classes before it expires. So far, the Halfling warrior has been the most fun by far. Other than the mind-numbingly retarded hotkey system (the good old "THONK!" noise and "You cannot do that yet" crap, rather than a hotkey queuing system or anything at least modestly elegant), this class seems pretty decently designed. The animations on the Halfling are excellent and the best I've seen so far and make me wonder why they weren't copied for Goblins, which are so horrible you won't even want to play the race.

I think if you're going to play this game for any extended period of time, you have to come to grips with the fact that this isn't a "professional" product and just try to eek as much fun out of it as you can. As mentioned countless times before, the voice-acting is pure trash (obviously just some in-office staff doing "temporary" voice place-holders that never got re-done professionally), the graphics engine is a disgrace (there are *FREE* plug-ins for Oblivion that handle graphics detail and memory usage better than this shit they've had dozens of professionals working for five years on), the quest writing is borderline ToEE level (i.e., so bad you break out laughing), etc.

It's pretty obvious that the current crew is just marking time and happy that they still have jobs. Anybody that shows such an appallingly low sense of pride in their work (NPCs/mobs inside terrain all over the place, broken quests, still using place-holder voice and sound everywhere, etc.) can't be thinking very long term for this game. Letting this "Avair" re-design all of the classes a year after release doesn't inspire much confidence, either. This guy is obviously some under-25 kid (he lets the retard-speak slip out once in a while) that's a newbie to MMORPGs - exactly the solo dev you want fucking around with some class you've spent hundreds of hours playing to level 50.

Why haven't I un-installed this thing yet (and 27gb is a nice chunk to free up on my 150gb Raptor drive)? There's still lots of real estate to explore, for one thing, and the free flying mount will disappear soon. Maybe it's a bit of schadenfreude, too. You know, that icy liquid that runs in the "haters" veins around here. Hearing people in VG in-game chat praising the game in the highest terms is pretty darn entertaining. Gotta love newbies.

[jayrebb]

Originally Posted by Grumpy Old Fart

Letting this "Avair" re-design all of the classes a year after release doesn't inspire much confidence, either. This guy is obviously some under-25 kid (he lets the retard-speak slip out once in a while) that's a newbie to MMORPGs - exactly the solo dev you want fucking around with some class you've spent hundreds of hours playing to level 50.

Yeah this guy was first exposed during the bloodmage nerf debacle. I personally bitch slapped him off the bloodmage forums and sent him packing.

Avair is a registered idiot. Glad to see some people are figuring it out. Your description is spot on. Its just one guy making a science experiment lab out of the game. The crew is 16 people total, with just 1 guy with no other input remolding classes to whatever he thinks they should be. This could turn it around for Vanguard.

He may be a close relative of the PhAthOm id imagine. Both of these young tools tend to let their tard-speak dribble out occasionally. They may be cousins or male partners.

[Arrr]

It's pretty obvious that the current crew is just marking time and happy that they still have jobs. Anybody that shows such an appallingly low sense of pride in their work (NPCs/mobs inside terrain all over the place, broken quests, still using place-holder voice and sound everywhere, etc.) can't be thinking very long term for this game. Letting this "Avair" re-design all of the classes a year after release doesn't inspire much confidence, either. This guy is obviously some under-25 kid (he lets the retard-speak slip out once in a while) that's a newbie to MMORPGs - exactly the solo dev you want fucking around with some class you've spent hundreds of hours playing to level 50.

I'm not quoting all of what you said, but did you REALLY come into Vanguard looking for polish? I think that's why you're disappointed. Vanguard is fun if you're looking for a different take on the basic EQ1 formula. But you're bitching about bad quest text, graphics, animations, etc, etc. Why did you even expect that stuff to be there in the first place? Didn't you read the 80 threads when the game first came out?

to be honest, for how shitty the game was at release, this is pretty damn good. It was a complete turd, now it's a below-average game with some diamond-in-the-rough charm.

imo, it's a low blow to talk shit about the current dev team. This isn't their mess, but they're cleaning it up. and they're doing a good job of it with a skeleton crew.

and Avair isn't that bad...he made the rogue class worth playing again. and bloodmages, for being nerfed, are pretty fucking uber. They're squishy, but they're borderline overpowered in some respects. so what if he's a shitty typist?

[jayrebb]

Originally Posted by Arrr

and Avair isn't that bad...he made the rogue class worth playing again. and bloodmages, for being nerfed, are pretty fucking uber. They're squishy, but they're borderline overpowered in some respects. so what if he's a shitty typist?

At Blizzard, when you come to the forums and discuss making class changes with fake numbers, you lose your job or have to "move on" suddenly. See examples of all the CMs that disappeared after making posts demonstrating their lack of knowledge on the class.

At SOE, you can take a class defining highly resistant heal spell line, quadruple the mana cost with no reasoning, then release the changes to the public. This was up there with the WoW CM saying warriors can "pop enrage". People aren't going to easily forget the short-bus rider with the 12 button hand calculator.

And rogues are playable 1 year after release? Any one of us could have made some temporary tweaks and got rogues up to par in Beta 4. Just a few seconds of spreadsheet database entry could have bandaid fixed them. Where was the urgency back at launch?

Disciples, rogues, and warriors were sidelined. Where were the developer ethics?

[Wolfen]

I played Vanguard during beta, but not during release. I actually liked it, but of course, none of my friends would follow me there.

I have decided to start playing it again. I have ordered a beefier PC to play it and other things on. For those of you who are playing, what server are you on?

[Menion]

The game really isn't as horrible as it used to be when I last played it in beta. I have been playing it for the last couple days on a buddy key that I got from Vatoreus and for the most part the game honestly plays like a game that is in mid to early beta.

Things that I have noticed in the last couple days of play.

1. The game needs a queue system for combat arts. That thunk thunk thunk bullshit is annoying as fuck. Putting in a combat queue system much like EQ2 has would be a huge improvement.

2. The voice acting sucks complete ass it's so damn amateurish that it's not even funny.

3. There are still a lot of graphical glitches. My shield and sword randomly disappear from my character. There are a lot of mobs running around with no bodies. I fought bandits in a camp last night that were just heads wielding two swords.

4. I don't know what the fuck Brad was thinking by making such a huge ass world at launch. I flew around for a couple hours today on Randolph the reindeer and my God the world is huge. How the hell did he ever expect to fill this world with content? There are tons of places that are just empty with no content in them at all.

5. Chunks still stop you dead in your tracks when you cross the chunk lines.

6. The game seriously needs level channels like EQ2. Dumping you into a global chat is all well and good but when you have players level 1-50 all in the same channel it gets very confusing for new players when everyone is LFG and chatting in the same channel.

[Adam12]

Originally Posted by Menion

The game really isn't as horrible as it used to be when I last played it in beta. I have been playing it for the last couple days on a buddy key that I got from Vatoreus and for the most part the game honestly plays like a game that is in mid to early beta.

Things that I have noticed in the last couple days of play.

1. The game needs a queue system for combat arts. That thunk thunk thunk bullshit is annoying as fuck. Putting in a combat queue system much like EQ2 has would be a huge improvement.

2. The voice acting sucks complete ass it's so damn amateurish that it's not even funny.

3. There are still a lot of graphical glitches. My shield and sword randomly disappear from my character. There are a lot of mobs running around with no bodies. I fought bandits in a camp last night that were just heads wielding two swords.

4. I don't know what the fuck Brad was thinking by making such a huge ass world at launch. I flew around for a couple hours today on Randolph the reindeer and my God the world is huge. How the hell did he ever expect to fill this world with content? There are tons of places that are just empty with no content in them at all.

5. Chunks still stop you dead in your tracks when you cross the chunk lines.

6. The game seriously needs level channels like EQ2. Dumping you into a global chat is all well and good but when you have players level 1-50 all in the same channel it gets very confusing for new players when everyone is LFG and chatting in the same channel.

Yep x6.

I started playing a couple of days ago, and it's not bad. I'm on S something server as Montezuma (cleric) and Lielani (sorc).

[Grumpy Old Fart]

Originally Posted by jayrebb

The crew is 16 people total

I'm seriously curious what the fuck sixteen people are doing on this game. I hadn't touched Vanguard until a couple of weeks ago (so I'm pulling the comparison straight out of my ass, of course), but I'm quite sure just Arrr and I could have made more improvements to this game in the past year than these sixteen people.

After I'd taught Arrr to stop being a smart-mouthed, young whipper-snapper and respect his elders, I'm sure we could have figured out how to make code changes, design zones, move NPC spawns out from under rocks and trees, replace the shitty voices/sounds, etc. We'd certainly be much more educated on what makes MMORPGS, classes, races, etc. *FUN* than these sixteen idiots have done. We'd also actually know what "Safehouse" means, read the commentary there, balance their usually-overpowering wishes with some practicality, and fix our fucking rogue class to be the best in the industry. Then apply this theory to all of the rest of the classes.

And I'd take the salary from twelve of the fired sixteen and hire the best damned programmer in the industry to fix this shit up. You get what you pay for.

[Mitch the Blonde]

Originally Posted by Rezz

No kidding, what's in your machine exactly that it ran you 4k? I built a machine in late feb for 1700 that ran VG at max settings with 1-3 second chunk times, maybe 5 when I entered a chunk I hadn't ever been to before. And it runs it slightly better now, though chunk times remain the same.

Been back playing a few days new and have noticed a lot of 'little' changes, things like some of my buffs being made 'group' instead of 'solo' targets (sensibly), the repair all button for damaged gear etc etc, little things but collectively they really help. Thing i noticed most of all though is the stability and performance have increased beyond belief. One crash in 4 days and where i got 15-20 fps on my old intel 7900gtx sli rig with 2 gb mem I now get..90 fps !! on my new 6600 with 8800 gt sli with 4 gb ram, now sure i upgraded the pc but its isnt exactly top of the range. I got a steady 30-40 fps tonight in APW with 16 other people and every setting in the game on ultra or as high as it would go.

My 'chunk' load times are 1-2 seconds.

Population is definately improving too, lots of my guildies have come back in the last few weeks and the guild is officially closed to new recruits for nearly all classes.

On the negative i cannot say i was overly impressed with the design of APW (the little i have seen), it doesnt give me the wow factor that places like PoF, Seblis, VP or ToV/Kael did in EQ1 and i really wanted to be wowed by it, maybe i'm just jaded but i think they missed a chance on the design of both the mobs and the area.

[Arrr]

After I'd taught Arrr to stop being a smart-mouthed, young whipper-snapper and respect his elders

you be like this if you were still stuck in michigan too =/

[Grumpy Old Fart]

Originally Posted by Arrr

you be like this if you were still stuck in michigan too =/

I lived in Michigan over 30 of my years. I never recovered from the intensive "asshole" training. Spicing it up with a bit of Boston area culture certainly helped. Then, 20 years of working with mortgage brokers, bankers, judges, and divorce attorneys created a true masterpiece of total jerkitude.

Anyways, we need to get busy recording our little sisters' and brothers' voices for when we replace every piece of shit voice-over in Vanguard after Smed gives us the call. A little collusion on salary requirements via PM also, please.

[Grumpy Old Fart]

I know we glossed over the graphics before, and I'd compared VG to Oblivion (my current fave). I realize Oblivion doesn't have the multi-player overhead of something like VG, but when you're talking similar budgets and vastly different levels of talent, it's an easy comparison to make. Eye candy sells (and please, no WoW comparisons - different subject).

My current character in Oblivion as compared to about the best-looking Half Elf chick I could make in Vanguard. This leaves out the fact that Oblivion runs a million times better, at twice the FPS of VG. SoE needs to fire those 16 people and raid Bethesda for some talent (and the addon authors that made these face, hair, weapon, armor, etc. textures/meshes):

[kcxiv]

Originally Posted by jayrebb

Yeah this guy was first exposed during the bloodmage nerf debacle. I personally bitch slapped him off the bloodmage forums and sent him packing.

Avair is a registered idiot. Glad to see some people are figuring it out. Your description is spot on. Its just one guy making a science experiment lab out of the game. The crew is 16 people total, with just 1 guy with no other input remolding classes to whatever he thinks they should be. This could turn it around for Vanguard.

He may be a close relative of the PhAthOm id imagine. Both of these young tools tend to let their tard-speak dribble out occasionally. They may be cousins or male partners.

The DK fixes are coming soon. I am very happy with how my class is going to be very very soon. DK are now going to excel at tanking with 2handers. Warriors are already DW, and Pally will be going sword and board.

When they introduced the raids alot of the same mechanics got fucked up so there was going to be alot of classes getting tweaks.

Alot of the tweaks that are incoming are bcuase of the class leads. They do have quitea bit of imput from what i can see.

[tad10]

Originally Posted by Wolfen

I played Vanguard during beta, but not during release. I actually liked it, but of course, none of my friends would follow me there.

I have decided to start playing it again. I have ordered a beefier PC to play it and other things on. For those of you who are playing, what server are you on?

Marjority are on Seradon. A few on Xeth.