Vanguard: The Divider

Knightblast

The release of VG has been interesting, because it has shed some light on the divisions that exist in the current MMO community, and how volatile some of these can be.  In many ways, Vanguard is the divider, and it’s interesting to see how that plays out across the community, because it sheds light on the community as a whole as well as the subcultures within the community.

 

One thing that Vanguard has made clear is that there is a significant – if somewhat small – reactionary backlash element in the MMO community.  I mean the group of people who yearn for the “good old days” (mostly meaning either EQ or UO), and want developers to more or less turn back the clock to emulate the experiences that these early generation MMOs provided.  Vanguard has energized this subculture because it was designed by one of their number, and caters to their interests.

 

At the same time, Vanguard has revealed the extent of the sharp divide between this group of reactionary gamers, on the one hand, and a mirror subculture of “futurists”, who yearn for something new, different, outside the old models, for something that is ground-breaking and different.  This subculture is deeply disappointed with the existing supply of offerings, and found Vanguard to be largely repeating the old formulas of which they have grown tired, rather than experiencing it as the “next gen” MMORPG that it was claimed to be by its development team.   Vanguard has energized this group as well by refocusing its lamentation on what is, in its view, the fundamentally misguided approach of MMO developers and designers currently.

 

Between these subcultures lie a lot of MMO gamers who either don’t think about games that much, or are more easygoing and just try different things, or who are having fun playing a different game, or hyping one of 2007’s other expected offerings in the common quest of searching for the holy grail of MMOs.  Vanguard has had relatively little impact on this group other than to provide entertainment when observing the clashes between the two other subcultures described above, or between one of them and the “fanbois” of one of the other existing offerings, which both of the above subcultures essentially despise.

 

For me personally, I’ve found Vanguard very helpful, because in playing it for the last week it really has helped me crstallize my own views about MMO gaming.  First, I am no reactionary and no nostalgist.  I do not want game designers to use the same game designs and approaches that were used in the first generation of MMOs with new graphics.  I don’t find those mechanics all that fun, and I think we’ve moved on from them substantially – and rightfully – since then.  Second, I’ve found that the most important thing to me in these games is FPS – “fun per second”.  When my FPS is high, then I really tend to rate the game high.  When my FPS is low because I am spending a lot of time traveling, or I am repeatedly killing the same mobs, or I am not being engaged by a story or an idea or something else, then I do not tend to enjoy myself much and I do not rate a game high.  Third, while I like the idea of fundamental changes in paradigm, I’m enough of a cynic to realize that the economics of these games revolves around keeping players involved for a long time, and that fundamental time-sink game design elements are unlikely to be removed from MMOs on a grand scale anytime soon.

 

So overall, Vanguard has helped to clarify for me why I enjoy a game like World of Warcraft a heck of a lot more than Vanguard.  I’m an “FPS” person, not a lifer.  I don’t really want my game experience stretched out over the course of two years (although I have played WoW for 2 years+, that’s with very long breaks in there, and my total time playing it during those two years has been around 7-8 months), and I don’t have a lot of “FPS” in games that are designed to facilitate that.  I like my games to be accessible fun, and yet be in virtual worlds, which means that Blizzard’s game is almost perfect for me.  Sigil helped to clarify this for me, and this is a good thing.

Kryogenic

A very well written post... gratz!!

I agree with you on many points. However, WoW is really, REALLY repetitve to me. I still play it on occasion when I don't feel like playing something very demanding insofar as attention span and critical thinking. I love the combat in Vanguard. It's just really refreshing that you have to pay attention to the visuals and sounds in combat.

For instance, when playing my Monk... when I fight an enemy that's equal to or higher lvl then me I have to pay attention or I'll die. Sure you can run up and just auto attack and click skills, but if you don't pay attention and listen for the Yatzee sound signalling that a finisher or counter has opened up to you, you're not going to survive the fight.

In WoW, on the other hand, I've litterally sat watching TV and fought an entire fight without looking at my screen or keyboard. Granted I look at the screen for a second in between battles to make sure I'm not about to aggro somethijng that I can't handle, and to line up my next kill. I don't enjoy this at all. Not to mention there are some really rude people that play WoW.

 

Veiled_light

I love the ideas Vanguard tried to do but in the end the game is unpolished and unfun to play : Watching them animations just makes me sick and them saggy ugly bums make it all worse.



The vanbois will defend it but in the end the game just isn't good at all.

Kyleran

Originally posted by Veiled_light

I love the ideas Vanguard tried to do but in the end the game is unpolished and unfun to play : Watching them animations just makes me sick and them saggy ugly bums make it all worse.



The vanbois will defend it but in the end the game just isn't good at all.

Different strokes for different folks.  I played WOW for 2 years (and many other MMO's previously) and now I play Vanguard.  I'm finding the deeper I get into the game, the more fun to play it is.  Doesn't mean that some parts aren't painful, dying 5 times in a row trying to recover my corpse certainly is/was. 

But all in all, the game is fun for me.  Might not be for everyone, but there are others like be who seem to be enjoying the game.

To the OP...good post, you are the type of player that WOW targets itself towards, and you are in the majority. That doesn't make you a lesser game player, or nor is WOW any better or worse than others games..... it's just geared to a certain target audience for which it seems to hit the mark perfectly.

Thanks for giving Vanguard a try...maybe one day you'll give it another chance after they get some of the polish put back on it.

 

Veiled_light

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by Veiled_light

I love the ideas Vanguard tried to do but in the end the game is unpolished and unfun to play : Watching them animations just makes me sick and them saggy ugly bums make it all worse.



The vanbois will defend it but in the end the game just isn't good at all.

Different strokes for different folks.  I played WOW for 2 years (and many other MMO's previously) and now I play Vanguard.  I'm finding the deeper I get into the game, the more fun to play it is.  Doesn't mean that some parts aren't painful, dying 5 times in a row trying to recover my corpse certainly is/was. 

But all in all, the game is fun for me.  Might not be for everyone, but there are others like be who seem to be enjoying the game.

To the OP...good post, you are the type of player that WOW targets itself towards, and you are in the majority. That doesn't make you a lesser game player, or nor is WOW any better or worse than others games..... it's just geared to a certain target audience for which it seems to hit the mark perfectly.

Thanks for giving Vanguard a try...maybe one day you'll give it another chance after they get some of the polish put back on it.

 

They'd have to:



- Rework all animations (i bet they will never do this)

- Rework all the spell effects (they wont do this again)

- Redo all the starting areas (they wont do this)

- Redo all the character models (they wont do this)

Problem with all it's problems is they're tooo much for them to do in the release stage.

Lowdos

Succintly put, and I agree with pretty much everything you wrote.



Vanguard is a great game, but there's not a cat-in-hell's chance I'm gonna (nowadays) spend the neccessary time (hours) required to get anywhere in the game.

2hawks

Excellent post... sums up a lot of what I was thinking while writing my review...

 

an aisde.... 

Kyleran!!!! Is that you??? I remember you from UO. . . C8V on Siege .... how's Nik?

joereed1

Maybe I'm being superficial, but one of the joys of playing a game where you control a character fighting (especially in an inherently repetitive game like WOW or Vanguard) is the animation of the character as he/she pulls off each of the spells/abilities. Frankly on this front Vanguard needs some work, the animations are certainly nothing to write home about. For me this affects the FPS of Vanguard quite badly.

Zarraa

A well written post Novaseeker even if I disagree with 50% of it.

I'm playing Vanguard atm and while it's clearly an unfinished product I appreciate what SIGIL is trying to accomplish. That being said due to time constraints I'll probably not play it much.

More importantly though this has helped crystalize what I'm looking for as well.

There are a few aspects of Vanguard I loathe like travel times for instance. However there are aspects of games like WOW I loathe as well such as shallow gameplay.

My mind tells me that EQII is a happy medium but my heart says there's something missing there as well. I guess I'm looking for a game with depth that doesn't require 3 hours nightly to play but has a soul.

Guess I'll keep looking.

 

 

 

 

 

Torak

Nice,

Yeah, I wouldn't say I'm a "reactionary" by your definition but I am definately not interested in going back.  Vanguard was a disappoint to me mainly because it is (IMHO) a step back to design ideas I am pretty much tired of. Also, the game simply isn't done. The last 2 months of beta so much was patched in and changed there is no way it was tested and ready. And now it shows. Even the customization was stripped out, wtf???

What is the big waste in my eyes is the fact they created this huge beautiful world, great customization (in beta at least) and blew it with f*cking hollow dry as* kill task and grind spots. F**k that, I did enough of that sh*t in Lineage 2. If I wanted to grind like a zombie I would have just stayed in that game, it has a beautiful seemless world also. Big F**king deal. At least there, there is a point to the grind and that is the politics and siege, as far as I can tell, Vanguard has no such dynamic offering. Raids are it. Again, big f**king deal, all MMO's have raids. 

I'm no "lifer" either, I play games for fun and challenge not to live a weird alternate life. As far as MMOs go, I'm tired of games that demand disproportionate amounts of my time and offer NOTHING interesting aside from dull, repeatitive kill task and mindless time sinks. These games need to ENGAGE the player. If grinding was all that important, why the f**k isn't everyone playing Lineage II? The only thing MMOs have over other game genres is the community. Thats it. Soon that may change also as more and more gaming genres offer more versitale multiplayer and persistant qualities.

The game was a wasted effort in the "new generation" sense. Its a great game if you really believe the past was "better".

I am optimistic about a few games. I really like where Conan is going, LotR is pretty nice and Aion sounds promising. I'm watching Gods and Heroes but really, I can't take anything to serously that has SOE involved in it.