Got to love Troll posts like Micona's. Vanguard is so SOE it is not even funny. When you accept their money, you are locked into their methods forever. Pretty easy to give you the difference, Vangaurd is still Alpha code, it is getting close to first beta. The game has tremendous upsides if you can put up with all the bugs and performance issues. EQ II is also a pretty good game, but it never really attracted a big playerbase. As the above poster mentioned it is upper level heavy, they are not attracting alot of new players.
So, you're saying Brad himself is the troll? I won't argue with you about that. Personally, I hold him responsible, but the fact remains he has very publicly blamed SoE for the current failure of Vanguard.
What Brad has said is that SOE bought them more then half a year of development time they would not have had otherwise. How you get from here to claiming he is saying SOE forced them to launch early I have no idea. Just how long do you expect SOE to finance the development of a property they don't even own?
So, you're saying Brad himself is the troll? I won't argue with you about that. Personally, I hold him responsible, but the fact remains he has very publicly blamed SoE for the current failure of Vanguard.
What Brad has said is that SOE bought them more then half a year of development time they would not have had otherwise. How you get from here to claiming he is saying SOE forced them to launch early I have no idea. Just how long do you expect SOE to finance the development of a property they don't even own?
Well, I do a lot of reading, perhaps that explains your whole "no idea" problem. Do a google search, hell.. read a few threads at the Fires of Heaven website. It's not that hard to find several references.
As for expectations of SoE, I have none. Had a great time while I played Everquest and moved on. I do think they've made many foolish decisions (buying Vanguard after MS dropped it?)., but it's their money.
Well, I do a lot of reading, perhaps that explains your whole "no idea" problem. Do a google search, hell.. read a few threads at the Fires of Heaven website. It's not that hard to find several references. As for expectations of SoE, I have none. Had a great time while I played Everquest and moved on. I do think they've made many foolish decisions (buying Vanguard after MS dropped it?)., but it's their money.
You know if you are going to make a lciam like Brad says its SOEs fault Vanguard launched early its up to you to do the research to back that claim up. Until you have some evidence on the table I dont have to lift a finger.
In this case, though its pretty clear you were trying to make a claim the evidence just doesnt back up your claim. Since quotes simply wouldnt back up your statements I guess I can understand why you would want to dodge them.
What I cant understand is why you would make such claims if you couldnt hope to back them up. Were you just hopeing no one would call you on them or that you could bluff your way though if they did?
Brad has been clear and consistent in his statements on the matter. He is happy with both the funding and time he received, Vanguard is the second most expensive MMO ever developed and although he would have liked to have more time to polish Vanguard the financial reality was they had spent all the money they had been supplied with.
So I'm not upset in anyway with SOE or Microsoft -- again, what they did give us in terms of funding and support is unprecedented. The vast majority of developers would kill for such a budget as we received. It's just a financial reality that is hurting us short term a bit, but something I know we can and are recovering from. Also, launching around the same time as Burning Crusade wasn't optimal either, but again, nothing we can't recover from.
2. Are you happy with your decision to go with SoE as publisher? Have they been fair with you? Have they provided you with the resources/time necessary to realize "the vision"?
Yes. They've given us as much time as they were able to. As I said, I wish we had more, but financial realities are just that. Vanguard is the most expensive game to-date other than WoW and I am very appreciative of how much funding and time (essentially the same thing) that we have been given. One can always wish for more time with an MMOG, but at the same time these games are not 'fire and forget' -- they continue to grow and improve after launch and we are dedicated to keep going and make this great game even greater.
As for launching, yes it may be fairly close to the WoW expansion, but that's not something we can control. SOE has given us financing that has gotten us a lot further than our previous publisher, but at some point you have to launch a game. If we could have a couple more months of development, sure, that would be great. If we could have another year, we could do a lot more too. But again, the game has to launch at some point and we know when that is. I'm pretty proud of how much funding, marketing, etc. we've received to-date. We have over 100 people workiing on this game. That said, we're not Blizzard either (yet). So the polish, time, and budet they had isn't what we've had, although we probably come in second.
Again there was no shortage of money or time given the Vanguard team, they simply used it all. They actually used it all twice, as they ran out of time with Microsoft even before they were picked up by SOE. The only thing SOE is guilty of is not giving Vanguard a blank check to spend as much money as they wanted, but business just doesnt work that way.
Under populated servers. Almost empty. Can not get groups.
Questionable PvP combat (Even more underpopulated PvP servers)
Zoning. Get zoning screen while zoning.
Too much instancing.
Death does not mean anything.
Vanguard
Bugs, bugs, and more bugs. Plus bugs and even bigger bugs. If you miss those then you will get more bugs.
Terrible performance.
Incomplete feel. Absolutely no polish.
Under populated servers. Almost empty. Can not get groups.
Extreme travel times.
No meaningful solo content. You can solo but it will be very boring.
Too much contested content. No instancing.
Extreme hardcore grind to level up.
Not casual friendly. Many time sinks.
Strange looking character models and animations.
Terrible UI.
Not fun except when grouped in the adventure sphere.
Hard to compare a game that has been around for 2 years to one that is still in a beta state. Vanguard may be a totally different game in a year or two. For now it needs at least a year to be finished. You can play EQ2 now. By the time Vanguard is ready to be released (again) EQ2 will probably be down to a handful of servers and on it's way out. Vanguard should be coming on strong then.
Hard to compare a game that has been around for 2 years to one that is still in a beta state. Vanguard may be a totally different game in a year or two. For now it needs at least a year to be finished. You can play EQ2 now.
For me that is really a nice succinct summary of the whole thing. Why pay for a beta? In 4-6 months Vanguard might be worth checking out. For now it's really no contest, EQ II is a much better bet if you're hell bent on playing one or the other.
I don't want to write this, and you don't want to read it. But now it's too late for both of us.
For me I just couldn't get into EQ2. Granted I didn't start playing EQ2 until after many had left but it was still had a decent population but it just couldn't hook me. I've been in Vanguard since beta 5 and its still rough but each patch has improved the performance in my case anyway. I like the open feel of Vanguard, EQ2 is very instanced and that closed in feeling may have been what killed it for me. I'm a SWG refuge and that may play a part in my preference, the only game that has had instanced zones I have really like was City of Hero's which I still actively play but it feels right in City of Hero's and just felt out of place in EQ2.
Heres the Pro and Cons from my perspective as I played EQ2 for a couple months and have played Vanguard for a couple months:
Pros of Vanguard
Open world feel that leaves a lot of room for improvement and the ability for player communities to dot the landscape.
Great graphics if you have a big system to handle the requirements (side note when I'm running the game its only using 2 percent of my cpu as the game sits in your video card/memory/and virtual memory) I expect that to change as they optimize the game for performance which should take some strain off of the vid cards and remove a lot of the problems people have, just my opinion.
Great group play, each class brings something to the table that is desirable which is cool, and the game rewards the group coming up with strategies for encounters which is a lot of fun.
Crafted items are just as desirable if not more than looted ones which I think is going to lead to a great economy, especially since you can run vendors out of your house like SWG
Cons
Game is still very rough around the edges and performance, even on top systems, can be rough (though I get a solid 25 to 70 fps depending where I am)
Bugs are still a issue and don't expect it to go away for awhile as the world is just to big to fix everything overnight
Classes are still being balanced which irks some people, so if you don't like to adjust to changes wait 6 months til they get the classes balanced
The game can be slow lvling if you don't find groups and since its pretty group-centric from 15 on up if you can't find a team it can be tough to make progress.
EQ2 Pro
The game has had multiple years to refine the system and improve performance which has led to a stable game with a lot of content
The classes have been tweaked already leading to a more stable experience with the class you pick
You can probably get a pack that has the game and the expansions all in one since its been around for awhile
Cons
I'm personally not a fan of the graphics, many compare them to Vanguard but the art style in EQ2 is lacking imo
Smaller community than what I would like and the new games are likely going to steal some of the games thunder
Instanced zones which is a pet peeve for me but thats just a personal thing
Crafted items don't seem as desirable as looted ones
Starter zones aren't as packed as a newer game since much of the user base has already passed those areas by
I think a lot of it comes down to personal taste and what type of game you like. I like a open world with more of a sandbox feel which Vanguard has. The combat feels similar to me so I'd call that a draw, sound is good in both but I like the score in Vanguard. Crafting would go to Vanguard for depth and usefulness though they need to back off the grind of crafting. I'd say get a buddy key for Vanguard and get a trial for EQ2 and try both, some people try EQ2 and hate it and some people try Vanguard and hate it as well.
Comments
Read above post.
Knowledge is the heart of wisdom.
dude just get both of em and sighn em up for station pass, get the both of both worlds
playing eq2 and two worlds
Well, I do a lot of reading, perhaps that explains your whole "no idea" problem. Do a google search, hell.. read a few threads at the Fires of Heaven website. It's not that hard to find several references.
As for expectations of SoE, I have none. Had a great time while I played Everquest and moved on. I do think they've made many foolish decisions (buying Vanguard after MS dropped it?)., but it's their money.
You know if you are going to make a lciam like Brad says its SOEs fault Vanguard launched early its up to you to do the research to back that claim up. Until you have some evidence on the table I dont have to lift a finger.
In this case, though its pretty clear you were trying to make a claim the evidence just doesnt back up your claim. Since quotes simply wouldnt back up your statements I guess I can understand why you would want to dodge them.
What I cant understand is why you would make such claims if you couldnt hope to back them up. Were you just hopeing no one would call you on them or that you could bluff your way though if they did?
Brad has been clear and consistent in his statements on the matter. He is happy with both the funding and time he received, Vanguard is the second most expensive MMO ever developed and although he would have liked to have more time to polish Vanguard the financial reality was they had spent all the money they had been supplied with.
Again there was no shortage of money or time given the Vanguard team, they simply used it all. They actually used it all twice, as they ran out of time with Microsoft even before they were picked up by SOE. The only thing SOE is guilty of is not giving Vanguard a blank check to spend as much money as they wanted, but business just doesnt work that way.
Pros
EQ2
Vanguard
Cons
EQ2
Vanguard
Hard to compare a game that has been around for 2 years to one that is still in a beta state. Vanguard may be a totally different game in a year or two. For now it needs at least a year to be finished. You can play EQ2 now. By the time Vanguard is ready to be released (again) EQ2 will probably be down to a handful of servers and on it's way out. Vanguard should be coming on strong then.
I don't want to write this, and you don't want to read it. But now it's too late for both of us.
Heres the Pro and Cons from my perspective as I played EQ2 for a couple months and have played Vanguard for a couple months:
Pros of Vanguard
Open world feel that leaves a lot of room for improvement and the ability for player communities to dot the landscape.
Great graphics if you have a big system to handle the requirements (side note when I'm running the game its only using 2 percent of my cpu as the game sits in your video card/memory/and virtual memory) I expect that to change as they optimize the game for performance which should take some strain off of the vid cards and remove a lot of the problems people have, just my opinion.
Great group play, each class brings something to the table that is desirable which is cool, and the game rewards the group coming up with strategies for encounters which is a lot of fun.
Crafted items are just as desirable if not more than looted ones which I think is going to lead to a great economy, especially since you can run vendors out of your house like SWG
Cons
Game is still very rough around the edges and performance, even on top systems, can be rough (though I get a solid 25 to 70 fps depending where I am)
Bugs are still a issue and don't expect it to go away for awhile as the world is just to big to fix everything overnight
Classes are still being balanced which irks some people, so if you don't like to adjust to changes wait 6 months til they get the classes balanced
The game can be slow lvling if you don't find groups and since its pretty group-centric from 15 on up if you can't find a team it can be tough to make progress.
EQ2 Pro
The game has had multiple years to refine the system and improve performance which has led to a stable game with a lot of content
The classes have been tweaked already leading to a more stable experience with the class you pick
You can probably get a pack that has the game and the expansions all in one since its been around for awhile
Cons
I'm personally not a fan of the graphics, many compare them to Vanguard but the art style in EQ2 is lacking imo
Smaller community than what I would like and the new games are likely going to steal some of the games thunder
Instanced zones which is a pet peeve for me but thats just a personal thing
Crafted items don't seem as desirable as looted ones
Starter zones aren't as packed as a newer game since much of the user base has already passed those areas by
I think a lot of it comes down to personal taste and what type of game you like. I like a open world with more of a sandbox feel which Vanguard has. The combat feels similar to me so I'd call that a draw, sound is good in both but I like the score in Vanguard. Crafting would go to Vanguard for depth and usefulness though they need to back off the grind of crafting. I'd say get a buddy key for Vanguard and get a trial for EQ2 and try both, some people try EQ2 and hate it and some people try Vanguard and hate it as well.
Just my thoughts
Peace