It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Vanguard – A sort of review
by Elikal
Reviewing Vanguard (VG) honestly is like cutting off the head of a hydra: Just when you think you’re done, two new heads of peril pop up. The game has so many aspects and angles, it is quite a chore to explain someone Vanguard who has not yet played it. Vanguard – Saga of Heroes was a saga in it’s making in the truest meaning of the word, and most likely will remain so. One can not understand Vanguard fully, without digging a bit into it’s making.
Vanguard was designed by the folks of Sigil, who once left Sony (SOE) and the Everquest team to pursue their own “vision”. But, as ever so often with visions, it must stand against reality, and sometimes the reality check is a painful thing. Vanguard is essentially a game with great potential, and never has this phrase been truer. VG chief developer Brad McQuaid himself, in a sure to be appreciated move of honesty, admitted that the game was released about half a year too early, because they got out of funds. Now we have seen many solo RPGs rushed in the last years, and it is easy to see a premature launch can cause great damage to an otherwise good game. Whether or not this is the case for VG remains to be seen, but chances are about 50/50 for failure or success.
Vanguard has been in planning and making for about five years. Back then, a lot of players had Everquest I and Ultima Online as gamers background, and still recalled this time as their golden era of MMO gaming. But times have changed, and so has the average target audience of gaming. Back in EQ1 days MMOs were filled entirely by students and pupils; that was the niche of gaming. You just can't fill MMOs with them now. Back then we had DOS and Windows 3.1. People were USED to make many things by themselves, but we have 2007 and, well, computers and games have changed. I know, if life is easygoing school or student life, it may be hard to imagine that some have that 40+ hours week, coming home after fighting your boss and your colleagues, you just don’t want to die 20 times with corpse runs, because you already have a hardcore LIFE. That is what VG claimed to reanimate, largely supported by the quite aggressive vocal expression of the VG developers. The way they talked about VG as a hardcore game has attracted a vocal and aggressive minority of players, who hold the “old days” of gaming in their hearts as the best era and condemn all modernization that happened since then in gaming; people who find journals or ingame maps as a feature for weaklings and carebears.
The game that changed everything
Then World of Warcraft happened. The debates about how to judge this game have not ended after all the years, but definitely by the sheer number of discussions you can safely say it hit the MMO world like a comet. After WoW EVERYTHING about what a MMO could be was forever changed and re-defined. One of the developers of WoW, when asked what was their recipe for making such a successful game, he said: we checked all features and asked ourselves "is this fun to do?", and if the answer is No, its out. Not realism, not logic, only is it fun! Now you may like or hate the result, but when the day is over, all that counts in the end is: are the shareholders happy or not? And 8 million players surely made Blizzard stockholders quite happy. So asking, what makes the average gamer happy is likely on the top agenda here - or it should be, if the game does not want to vanish like Dark and Light or RF Online. Vanguard was an expensive development, is HAS to pay off big time, like it or not. It obviously took Sigil a lot of time to realize, that their “vision” did just not have the power to make their stockholders as happy as they could be, but the prestige had been set in stone: VG is a hardcore game. It took them a long time, as the painful beta 3 NDA breaches showed, to make VG from a hardcore chore of the “vision” to a game with a realistic degree of accessibility for any normal gamer. This is the core problem which plagues VG now. It has still a lot of reminiscences to the old hardcore “vision” and the demands of the market reality. And that is the one true reason VG is far behind schedule and has spent the money, forcing them now to publish a totally unfinished product.
VG is by and large an unfinished product. Many core features are not implemented at all, like the fellowship, who allows XP sharing, or the caravans, which are supposed to make the vast travel times easier. It is a strange twist that mostly those features are not in the game, who are supposed to make it easier accessible. I have seen my share of MMO launches, but the sheer amount of bugs, not implemented features, not tested quests and not balanced areas really exceeds anything I have ever seen. About one third of the entire world have not been tested in the last beta phase at all, and thus are in the game now totally untested. An average of 30% of all quests have bug stoppers, mobs that will not drop the appropriate loot or kills, which do not count. Now I am aware Sigil has made many patches, each with a long list of changes. But if you examined them from the last days of beta to the present, 90% of changes were class reworking and other secondary changes. The real substantial changes, like bug fixing, always made only a very small part of every patch. And surely we can not expect miracles. Bug fixing IS a lengthy and tiresome process. The cost and time of the last 5% of bugs in software as a rule are as high as the fixes for the other 95%, so it will take a LONG time until a majority of bugs will be eliminated. Strangely a great part of patches contain dozens of arbitrary changes like putting a ranger spell from level 4 to level 10, as if they did not have more important things to do.
The most beautiful world
What is definitely breathtaking and the biggest bonus is the world itself. It is without exaggeration the most beautiful and breathtaking world we have seen, likely in any computer game ever. The three existing continents have so many different, wonderful places, sights and designs, it would be worth the money alone for seeing all the sceneries. Vast cities like Aghram or New Torgonor, are easily the most wonderful cities I have ever seen in 20 years gaming. The dark side however is, they are also easily the most lifeless I have seen. If you enter Qeynos (EQ2) or Stormwind (WoW) or Mos Eisley (SWG), you feel the place is alive. People and critter, womp rats, rabbits or sea gulls fill the place with life. Children pass by and play, people get into an argument, THINGS happen around you to simulate life. Entering the cities of Vanguard is mostly like entering a museum. NPCs are nailed down where they stand and barely animated at all. The further away you get from the starter areas the more lifeless the cities become. People love to gather in the cities of WoW, SWG or EQ2, but I can hardly imagine people will gather in New Torgonor, which feels like a graveyard – however the most beautiful. We can only hope this will change, but with the many other more pressing things at hand it is one of the features we won’t see for a long time.
The 19 classes and 15 races are fun to play and mostly well designed. Animations have greatly improved and now and nice to look. Not breathtaking, but the upper quality in MMO terms. It’s the animations for NPCs, especially in social places, which sorely lack. NPCs stand everywhere like frozen, as if some giant had dropped them out of a box and they had been glued down where they fell. Adding the fact they have all quite similar haircuts and clothing and no voiceovers, it really takes a lot of life out of this game. It is hard to imagine people meet and socialize in any place in this game now. While the world is surely breathtaking, it lacks the kind of focus of places like Goldshire in WoW, where you know people can always meet and greet, basically because everyone can reach it, and it is strategically placed.
Another novelty is, player starter areas are distributed all over the world. There is not only a difficult and long journey, often impossible for anyone below level 30, if you chose a certain race, the quite complicated faction system forces people who want to form a common guild and want to do quests together to all either chose the same race or forget about grouping together for a VERY long time. I can not make people delusions about levelling here. To gain levels is much slower than in any present title. It takes about the same time as in the nefarious Asian grinder Lineage II. That is not so much of a problem in the first 15 levels, since there are many quests, many of which are interesting and well designed. Sure, you have the usual chore of kill X amount of Z, but many interesting and funny quests also, to spice things up. Quests reveal a decent amount of background lore about the world, but it is not too deep and thrilling. If you start the game in any of the newbie areas, you are more or less tossed into a world and supposed to find your place. It is rather sad to see, how less welcoming the starter areas are in terms of story and character development are. Thinking about the detailed background you are given in EQ2 and it’s starter isle, you feel more like tossed into this world and are supposed to see for yourself where you belong. The feel of an ongoing story arc, which covers the entire world and where you can select your role in, is entirely missing. There is no worldwide story whatsoever; maybe in much later levels, but it is a big missed opportunity, and the meagre intro text window can hardly replace this.
Back to old school
Expect that the overall difficulty is higher as in WoW or EQ2. You need groups much more often, you die much easier and it has the corpse run. If you die and no one is there to resurrect you, you revive at an altar. There you can either summon your belongings by paying a small amount of money, loosing some XP and the gear looses some quality which needs to be repaired OR you reach the place where you died. Naked. No, you have some clothing, but without any gear. If you do this corpse run however your gear is not much damaged and you keep most XP. This is essentially nothing but a timesink, and in can be most tiresome in some dungeons. It is not that hard as it sounds, especially when you have people to help you. But it surely is a totally NO-NO for every person who has work and a normal, grown up schedule. Getting quests with the best XP and the best gear usually leads into difficult dungeons. And they are BIG. So if your group gets wiped, you can easily forget doing the rest of your 2-3 hours evening spare time anything else than sneaking into that dungeon and retrieving your corpse. It takes time, and that is likely a big reason for every casual player not to buy VG. Sure, you CAN summon your belongings, but in any dangerous dungeon you die several times, and since money and loot drop is not really abundant, any such evening can easily turn out more as investment than gain, if you call your corpse a few times. The repair cost are soon much higher than the income from the dungeon run itself. Also taken into account, that many areas are barely tested and need weeks or rather months of balancing. The dungeons in the first 15 levels in the various starter areas are so breathtakingly different in difficulty, there is a LOT of work to do in balancing as well. While you can walk through the Kurashasa starter area blindfolded, the first dungeon around Tanvu can easily kill a full group of the most experienced MMO gamers.
A big problem is also the high respawn rate in many areas, especially dense forests and dungeons. Mobs respawn much faster than any average group is able to remove them. Often I was in a dungeon, and when we just killed the two mobs in front of us, those behind us had already respawned. While my groups were able to proceed, it was a 2 hours silent chore. If you entirely lack the time even to exchange a few word the entire reason to enter a MMO is killed. Group adventuring just lives from small talk and short comments, and in many places it is even impossible to type “go left” until the next mob as already started to attack. Since I love to talk to people and not just silently fight, this is one of the aspects I really disliked the most about VG. Due to the tedious nature this ultra-fast respawn causes, a lot of players rather grind a few levels and then do group quests solo instead of finding groups. It is a strange and ironic thing, since the difficulty initially was designed to encourage grouping. But now it has been raised THAT high, that people rather come back when they are strong and fight it out alone instead of the greater risk going through those places with a group.
One of the really good features is the music. The soundtrack is very good and supports the areas perfectly. It is a pleasure to listen to and it’s that kind of soundtrack you want to have on CD. The ambient sound and sound effects however are sub-standard and a rather crude mix of 1990ies sound files.
The User Interface (UI) is to a vast degree a WoW clone, down to every key and command. That is in itself neither bad nor good, but the WoW UI wasn’t really one of the most advanced and in my opinion one of the biggest gripes I had with WoW. It is simple, functional but that’s all. The journal has no option to sort quests by type, region or difficulty. The character has no biography people can read, which tended to be a good way to get in touch with people. The map is the most barren and simplified I have seen. many quests still do not have waypoints, and the directions in the texts often are vague and misleading. Finding your aim can be quite a chore. In this feature, as in so many, the split between the hardcore “vision” and the reality check becomes visible. The original idea was not to implement maps at all. As a result, VG would never have started on more than two servers right away, so they started to make a “compromise” for “casual” players – or what a hardcore guy THINKS is casual. The result is a map, which is far too much for the hardcore players and far too less for the normal players, and that is exactly the misery in which VG is stuck in so many things.
Vanguard could be a really good game, if Sigil would listen less to the vocal minority who – partially only for the teenage fun of boasting – demand always greater difficulty, players for whom only perma-death is hard enough. The downside already has paid: on some servers the community is more aggressive than in any MMO I have seen, and I have played a lot. Some servers are ok, but even there you can hardly play 15 minutes without someone who criticizes some features is instantly yelled down by some “fans” he should “shut up and go play WoW”. I have never seen such an aggressive and immature mix of players as in VG. Sure, they aren’t the majority by far, but they vocally dominate the chat channels in many servers and Sigil has so far only moved against the most gross, personal attacks. I would love to see VG succeed, and I am sure many who play it now feel the same about it. But Sigil has to face the real priorities and the REAL core gamer, not some arbitrary but aggressively vocal minority. It is well advised to reveal the roadmap of the next weeks and months and not to fall into the trap to keep their plans a secret. There are just too many questions about whether something is bugged, too complicated to understand or simply “working as intended” and I doubt many players have the endless patience to wait a year for unknown makes-all-good-patches.
SWG was the last game who equally tried to satisfy traditional “hardcore” gamers and also attract new players with much less tolerance to tedium and chore. The NGE, trying to create such a compromise, was the greatest disaster the MMO world has seen to date. The end of the story is, I see another crew of idealistic developers with “visions” and “dreams”, lacking the down to earth pragmatism and the courage to accept the logic of the market. It is the unavoidable logic of capitalism, the only stable and foolproof prophecy - despite Mr. McQuaid's claim there were no prophets - and that it the success of greed. Greed lies in numbers, and as a matter of fact the number of hardcore fans is *quite* anti-proportional to the loudness of their voice. When WOW was launched the definition of what a MMO is has changed forever. SWG has ruined itself trying to be both hardcory and still adapting WOW-elements. Every attempt to make niches within niches, making games too inaccessible will doom any MMO to a miniature niche in mid terms. Not all WOW did was perfect, not all must be 100% done as in WOW to succeed, but the core idea has set an entirely new standard: shortest possible non-fun-times until the fun starts. That is the only winning formula that has a future now. "The avalanche has already started; it is too late for the pebbles to vote."
Conclusion
Graphics: The world is breathtaking, however the civilization does not feel alive but more like a painted stage, therefore no maximum value. Some textures and places at not up to the high standard. 7/10
Sound: Great music but no voiceover and quite outdated sound effects. 7/10
Difficulty: Many modern features are missing. Features which Sigil had planned to make the “challenge” bearable like Fellowships or Caravans are not implemented at all. There is a great imbalance in the various starter areas in terms of difficulty. Also some classes are much easier to play then others. The complicated faction system and the lack of any fast travel options force people to group only with those playing the same race for a long time. 4/10
Fun Factor: The quests are mindful and interesting. Many are quite beyond the usual kill X of Y. Crafting and Diplomacy add some fun things to do, even though they seem to lack the focus at the moment. Since both need a long time to delve in, they do not play a central role besides a bit fun gaming for a few days right now. Some quests are really entertaining and thoughtfully designed. 8/10
Character Customization: It almost equals the great character customization of SWG. You really have a lot of sliders to create your own character. However, the races tend to look a bit cloned, since there are no textures and no aging slider. Also extreme deformations have been taken out prior to launch, so no fat or extreme thin characters can be made anymore. Since at this moment there are only 4 haircuts for each race, this is not fully implemented as it is supposed. Since hair is a big feature to really look different, the potential is highly cut. 6/10
Reviewer’s Tilt: I am split how to judge the game. It has the potential to be a real hit, but Sigil must get to the grip fast! Nowadays players do not have the years of patience people had back in the SWG era, waiting for years for promises and unspoken “somethings we are adding at some time”. There are awesome things in this game, especially if you seek for a richer and deeper world, but much work needs to be done and if you play Vanguard, be sure to have thick hide and good nerves. For the majority I can only advise to wait half a year. 7/10
Overall: 6.5
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Comments
But vice versa: you why comment on such a long text and then only referr to grammar?
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
My Review of your post:
Effort: 8/10
Reality: 2/10
Everyone deserves an opinion. ALL games have missing content that they just didn't have time to implement. The months to come will show if they intend to add it or not. This game has come a long way in a few weeks. It is a diamond in the ruff, but does that make it any less of a diamond? I think not.
I find it a great review and did not find any problems reading it (but again, english is neither my native language).
I would enjoy reading more reviews of the above quality.
It seems a fair review, I am from the 'older ex-hardcore' bracket and agree with many of the comments.
REALLY good work. Unbiased, honestly taking up both the good AND the bad with a new release and trying to explain in full your reaction to it. It is a darn shame you will get flamed by the Vanguard community for it, since it is not 100% positives.
Because that was a really good review, worthy of a sticky for people that want to know more about the game and how it works in this initial phase.
"This is not a game to be tossed aside lightly.
It should be thrown with great force"
Nonetheless, I thank you for your review. You seemed honest and gave real effort to be objective. And no matter what the "vanbois" say, your review was very well written, better than many native English speakers in my opinion.
~Synexis
This is a great review. It would be nice to see more reviews like this one . I agree in some parts , tottaly disagree in others but that not the point. What I totally disagree is your final conclusion about where MMOG's are heading , and the also your belief that all MMOG's should follow blizzard's example , and make similar minded games so to attract the new MMOG player that has evolved. In my personal opinion the WoW phenomenon is something that will not be able to be replicated . The way Harry Potter's books success, or Original Star Wars movie popularity in the past. Just making another science fiction movie , or a book about a teenage wizzard , doesnt mean they will enjoy the same level of succes. Why pop culture embraces periodically events like WoW , is really beyond me and it has nothing to do with how good or bad the game is, or how easy or difficult.
WoW numbers will probably be never replicated in the future by any other online game. (Just my opinion ind you). The future of MMO'S is not to try to duplicate WoW, but try to identify niche markets within the online gaming community and try to deliver a product that will satisfy that particular market. In my opinion Vanguard is trying to do just that. Its target audience was always not the average WoW player, but old school gamers (from UO, DAOC, EQ,SWG), plus new players that where introduced to the genre by WoW and now look for a more complicated , difficult and rewarding game, and are willing and able to devote more time to playing the game. You biggest mistake in part of the review is that you judged the game not by what it will delivers in relation to what sigil promised, but what it delivers in relation to WoW.
Right now the game for me is an 8. Depending on how it develops the next 6 months it will either be a 9 or a 7.
TBH, flames only amuse me, really. Its entertaining. I take every answer serious that is rational observation of facts and personal expression how a person feels about an experience. Anything else is of absolute zero interest to me. I just lack the patience for power-games with words. Here are no prices to win for the most witty remark. I state my business, say what I have to say and move on. Word-wars lead usually to nothing.
On Florendyl there was such angry debates all the time in OOC, but on Shidreth its still much more calm. Beta... was hell. Never seen so many ppl with a problem with anger managment, no joke.
You should see the raction of Silky-Venom if you want to see how some VG players are. Some are quite... aggressive. Check:
http://www.silkyvenom.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8028
No, really, I play Vg. Really, I enjoy many things. But that does not make me blind for the many issues and the REAL danger this game will face a BIG desaster if Sigil does not face reality. Oh and I have great respect for all who sincerly say, he feels its a 80% or whatever. If thats his/her impression and desire, that is fine with me. I think I wrote in detail why it is not for me, so everyone is free to conclude if thats of importance him. That is why is grew so long, lol. I just could have written 10 more pages to sum up so many other things, but you can not write a review containing EVERY detail in such a vast game. You select what you feel dominates your game experience. Thats all about it, really. A journalistic article isn't the proclamation of the Mosaic Laws.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Thank you for the review.I have wanted to find out more about this game and found your review unbiased and helpful.Even though some features may not be implemented yet , or the game is not a polished as it should be I feel I will still give it a serious go.
Constructive ,unbiased critisism is not always a bad thing.
Thanks
not a bad review, but curious about how you rated the game in your "difficulty" category. is this actually meaning "difficult" or "challenging"?
in either case, in your description it doesnt really jive with how you've scored it as a 4. unless these are challenges you dont want to see in the game. just an odd category and an odd score that doesnt make sense to me thats all. Not to mention this category alone dropped your overall impression of the game by a very large margin
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a robot foot stomping on a human face -- forever."
But to the op, I think the review works just fine. Of course, depending on reviewers, the game may do better or worse. I for one would give it around 70-75%. Some would probably give it much worse. I think you gave the game a fair chance and enjoy it yourself, or at least partially enjoy it. Hopefully the game will do well enough that we see some big improvements in the coming month.
Man is this not the world MOST IDIOTIC COMMENT ever!
OP just spilled his guts, with review worthy of best gaming magazines , and here goes very same agressive fanboy with such moronic comment ?!!
Anyway.
Thanks for the review. In my oppinion it sums most of the fears and suspicions i had about game mechanics (and one of the reasons why i didnt preorder the game)
As said before. There is many things that make Vanguard balance on edge of a blade. It can go either way...
It is largely up to developers to make it or break it.
But the same goes for the community... that to my taste , is bit on hostile side
"Before this battle is over all the world will know that few...stood against many." - King Leonidas
But to the op, I think the review works just fine. Of course, depending on reviewers, the game may do better or worse. I for one would give it around 70-75%. Some would probably give it much worse. I think you gave the game a fair chance and enjoy it yourself, or at least partially enjoy it. Hopefully the game will do well enough that we see some big improvements in the coming month.
I did give it a fair chance, i saw the animations and spell effects and thought crap. If it was upto me i'd say this....
Graphics: 4 - They look like 5 years old and the art is horrible.
Sound: 3 - It all sounded the same to me : Every mob i hit sounded the same too lol.
Difficulty: 10 - lol yeh it's very difficult to keep yourself playing.
Fun factor: 2 - Where was the fun? Log in and straight away kill quests and no tutorial to tell me what the hells going on.
Character creation: 5 - Wouldn't be sooo bad but theres like 3 hairstyles and the models look ugly.
Maybe you have too much time on yours hands but I'm glad you spent some of it putting so much effort into this review. I for one am no longer jumping head first into new releases and I'll wait to see how launch and the next few weeks go before deciding to commit or not. Well written personal opions like yours surely help.
I support Belgiums efforts to get noticed ... at all.
From everything i have heard about this i went ahead and pre-ordered this game, even after i read the forums and the opinions of everyone i thought, what the hell it doesnt cost much for the game and it gets free 30 days play so i will try it out, im not expecting it to be totally polished but as long as the basis is good and it gives me what i have been seeking (freedom of development like UO with playability of FFXI) im gonna be happy,
just remember not everything is gonna be everyone cup of tea and only you can decide if you will enjoy the game is by trying it first hand
imagine looking at a bowl of nice Chilli, one guy is tucking into it declaring it to be the best thing ever, another is sweating away and gulping water cos he hates chilli, do you eat teh chilli and try it for yourself or do you judge from teh appearence and reactions of everyone around the chilli?
i know which one im going for....
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/ab/Norsefire-logo.png
RIP Orc Choppa
Nice work, one of the better reviews I've seen posted.
I know its a fishy category. You could call it coherence, if you want. There are many things to add together which make my impression, like
- spells who are very vague on under what conditions you can use them, the spell description often does not reveal that
- many things you dont know if it is a change, a set concept or a bug; example: rangers got sneak, but many report they dont see their hide and sneak skill, now everyone wonder is ranger is just ISNT skill based or if its bugged
- or the entire reality debate: ppl tell it is realistic that a journey is dangerous; a friend of mine from Tanvu was killed by some lv 28 spider; fine, but the entire area is just so dense with spiders, every 20 meter one. If you walk through any real wild forests in USA or Canada, sure if you meet that bear, you're dead. But there aren't bears every 20- meters. Even without ranger skills you have a big chance to avoid being killed merely by geometry. So travelling is artificially high which is not realistic and hinder guildies to meet. I personally see no gain in that.
- I died dozens of times from bugs, like enemies attacking me through walls or warping away 50 - 400 m and still attack me
- many quests still have no map waypoint, some have for some players, for some its obviously bugged
- the entire faction thing is too complicated; ideally if you create a character you have to consult a long list who is KOS where. thats not bad as idea, but in practice too complicated; a game should be playable without external sources IMO and be self-explanatory
and so on, things of that caliber
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
first of all:
the op of this thread knows exactly what he is writing about, thanks a lot for your time and that review, it confirmed what I was already thinking about this game
2nd:
"Why put this much time into a piece of writing if you're not going to proofread it?"
what the hell is this? what kind of question is that? jesus, he took his time to write an excellent review and then you ask him such a dump question...
for me vanguard does not serve my requirements to a mmorpg, simply beause diversity, aesthetics and seperability are the main features I require from a mmorpg and I cant find key features or key elements like that in the current state of vanguard...
those features have been taken away from players like me with the first combat upgrade of Star Wars Galaxies...
and it's good to read that "one of us" has reviewed Vanguard, but that's something that those who criticise this review will never understand...
Keep the good work up Elikal, dont let those with an IQ of 75 take you down
SOE and NGE-Star Wars Galalaxies:
Raph Koster: "It's like dumping the girlfriend who has always been patient and loving to chase after the supermodel who probably won't love you back."
On the conclusion part, why not stick with the general standard categories like what is used on this site? So I can compare your conclusions to others? Multiple reviews where everyone stays in the same category make it easier for customers I think...
Also, several categories kind of meaningless as well.... For example, character customization... i'm thinking, I could care less about the flexibility of eyebrow angle.... how many choices of skills and playstyles do i get? Can I retrain easily to explore other playstyles? Are all players of class X essentially the same and vary only by level and items? Or is there some real gameplay customizations available that means I get to choose something that matters?
But still, all in all a good read... GJ....