Rant: The Vanguard Debacle

Paragus1

In light of my last rant on unfishied MMOs, I thought I'd take some time and talk about what's become of Vanguard.



Rant:Unfinished MMOs  = http://sh110.surpasshosting.com/~gotspam/inq/showthread.php?t=650



Vanguard is the second most expensive MMO ever developed at a cost of 30 Million dollars, which falls second to only World of Warcraft. The game was originally being carried by Microsoft and was later "passed" off to Sony.



On a certain guild's website favored by Sigil (Vanguard Devs) and Brad McQuaid, head Dev and mastermind behind EQ1, that Microsoft smelled a this coming and dropped it like a deuce after a Taco Bell binge. A Microsoft insider revelaed that Sigil was failing at meeting progress benchmarks consistently and chose to distance themselves from the incoming trainwreck.



The game ran out of funding under Sony, and was released what Brad claims was 3-6 months too early. Riddles with massive bugs and performance issues, the game had a horrific launch. Brad decided to respond to questions regarding the poor performance, and told his players that it was their fault for using old hardware. Many of the players are running on systems that are at or above the recommended system requirements, and some are even using 8800 series Nvidia cards which are the best on the market, but ironically not fully supported.



One of their recent patches kicked off a host of new issues regarding sound cards, and as usual their tech support showed their true colors. Here is a transcript...



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Subject: Crashing to desktop since today's patch



Zozimus wrote:



I turned off the sound, and lo, managed to play for an hour without a crash. Maybe I just got lucky, maybe I'm daring to go further from Khal now I'm not getting killed in game having been thrown to windows.. but yes.. turning off sound appears to have eliminated the crashes.



Dune wrote:



Same issue, got an SB live as well, and my SB live is several lightyears better soundwise than what is onboard on my Asus MB. Gonna switch to the OB sound again and see if that fixes it for now. However, a fix would be appreciated.





TSR-GarethC wrote:

The issue is that Creative has not released newer drivers for your antiquated hardware; we are updating new technology, but we can't make it work on hardware that simply does not have the programming out to support the new technology.



Zozimus wrote:



Yes, but it worked up until yesterday's patch. Can't you put the old sound back in as a 'legacy mode' or something? LOL!!!!!!



TSR-JasonC



This has been reported to Quality Assurance for tracking.



Unfortunately, I don't have any idea of if/when the issue will be resolved.



In the meantime, you may want to investigate upgrading to a "value" SoundBlaster Audigy or similar audio device to work around this issue. ROFLAO!!



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Speaking of which, their newest patch targets perfomance...



CODING NOTES

- Some significant enhancements to graphics performance on the High and Highest Performance settings should be seen.



~The Vanguard Team



If you read between the lines you soon realize that highest performance = lowest graphics setting. Why are we trying to make the lowest setting run better 3 months after release?! Shouldn't they be trying to enable people to turn the graphics up?



The question: Are these patches saving the game?







This graph was taken from a fan site. We see spikes on the weekends, and a decline in peak active players in the last 30 days. We see it go from just over 80,000 to under 40,000, or roughly a 50% drop at peak times. By the time this game gets its act together, there will be real next gen games on the market.



Yesterday Lord of the Rings Online released with probably the best launch in MMO history. I am in no way advocating that game, but we are already seeing people moving on something new regardless of how good or bad it may be. A good release goes a long ways in this genre, and hopefully the idiots responsible for putting boxed poo on retail shelves are being held accountable.

Hexxeity

It boggles my mind that the second most expensive game in history is not even as well-designed or well-written as EQ1 was.



Thanks for the chart.  Hard facts speak louder than a thousand overly-optimistic fanbois and stealth marketers.

Kyleran

Very nice rant.... loved the charts and the response from support regarding sound cards causing crashes... has Sigil never heard of the concept of error trapping?  Guess not.....

anarchyart

Originally posted by Hexxeity

It boggles my mind that the second most expensive game in history is not even as well-designed or well-written as EQ1 was.



Thanks for the chart.  Hard facts speak louder than a thousand overly-optimistic fanbois and stealth marketers.

120 posts to your credit, how many of those were not trolling Vanguard? Love the troll high-five btw.

To the O.P., you misquoted B McQ. He did not say what you said he said. Totally wrong and show me the quote so I can show you how you misrepresented it.

Either way, Vanguard, even with it's problems, is still the most engaging MMO to be released in a long time. That is if it's your type of game, which it is not for every WoW fan to crawl into the genre.

Teala

Brad and Co. are more interested in class balance issues instead of fixing their game.   When basic quest that are some of the first a player encounters goes unfixed for 3 months (By Night, Rage Rubies, etc, etc) and instead you get balance tweaks in updates what does Sigil expect people to do?  There are so many poorly written and implemented quest in the game of Vanguard it is a wonder it made it as far as it has.  Then add on the performance issues many players are having (personally I don't have many - but my hubby's gaming rig is a whole other story - he no longer plays because he was tired of trying to get it to run smoothly on a top of the line gaming rig) and the poor CS in game and this game was heading to be a train wreck from the get go.

I still hold out hope though, but I'll not be holding my breath.

flood950

This is a little off-topic but I frequently posted in the technical forums on one of the fansites for a while right after launch.  The reason that I did this is that even from day one VG ran very very well on my system with fully maxed graphical settings.  I had every slider (except draw distance which had an issue, not sure if its still present) maxed or very close to it.



There were a lot of people posting on the site having significantly lower framerates than me and complaining of hitching that had better systems than mine.



Each and every time the one difference was the sound card being used.  It was the Creative Labs cards, including the X-Fi's.  People using onboard sound were for the most part ok, and people using cards from lesser known vendors seemed to be fine as well.  I have a Razer Barracuda AC-1.



This doesnt have much to do with the OP, but as the sound issues were mentioned and that one seems to be new as of a recent patch...I still believe that the game has long running issues with their sound system and CL cards.  It doesnt seem like they are all to open to resolving them either!

Panossian

Nice graph

DarkGriever

this game is a big disaster...........

Daffid011

That graph is NOT of concurrent users online.  It is of people who gained an adventuring level during a set time period or something like that.  (active = gaining character levels also not to be confused with crafting levels or diplomacy levels).  The author of the graph even mentions that no one has the total users online data except Sigil/SOE.  You might want to edit accordingly.





I make no claims of the games population, just that the graph is not of users online, but rather it is of people who gained a level over 4 days.

Nightshade44

Vanguard was pretty much doomed from day 1, all technical issues aside. You think the game's bugs and technical faults are the only thing that has made it unsuccessful? Think again. I knew this game would tank the first week I was in beta. Aside from the numerous technical issues that have been a constant since beta, the game mechanics in general are not that great. And as far as LotRO goes, I've been playing that game since Alpha 2, and when I originally started testing, yes... the game pretty much sucked except for 1 aspect (the story line quest series). But then when it entered closed beta, I was amazed at how far Turbine had taken the game since Alpha... And that game has a lot going for it. Kind of ironic, before I played either game, I was all hyped up about Vanguard and couldn't wait till it went live... and I wasn't that enthused about LotRO... but after getting into testing, and then release of both games... It's the other way around. But high-fantasy MMOs aren't really my thing, just sick and tired of them all tbh, so I don't even play LotRO.

Ciredric

Vanguard is going through growing pains.  Playing it right now is rather risky.  They either don't have or have a poor quality assurance team.

I had high hopes for this game, but gave up for now.  It has far too many problems at present.  I will revisit it in 6 months to see if they have ironed out the difficulties.

healz4u

Originally posted by Teala


Brad and Co. are more interested in class balance issues instead of fixing their game.  

Ironically, my class's multiple nerfs, and a friend's class, were major reasons why we quit.  I have said previously that they were "fixing" things that were not broken but ignoring the many and varied broken aspects of the game.







To the Original Poster, I purchased a NEW system with Vanguard (with the 8800 GTX video card) and my performance was, in a single word, poor. 

nomadian

30m dollars, how did they go so wrong with that amount of money.

Teleboas

I tried Vanguard during the beta, and couldn't stand the game.  One of the worst MMOs I have ever tried.

flood950

Originally posted by nomadian


30m dollars, how did they go so wrong with that amount of money.

This is a sign of MMO gaming really hitting the big business world.  Financial blunders happen frequently in almost all big business but this is probably the first real case of it we have seen in the online gaming world.



Companies and products can rebound from this however.  It happens.  But a poor launch of most products usually does not end well.



I never really followed this game that much during its development but didnt they keep rewriting elements of the game?  I thought even the combat system was totally redone at some point.  Things like that...are how you blow a lot of money really quickly.  Ever heard of Chinese Democracy?  (not I am not talking politics), how much money has been spend on that project and how many times has it been totally rewritten only to still end up with a product not taking well to the public?   Millions...and too many.

CleffyII

"Vanguard is the second most expensive MMO ever developed at a cost of 30 Million dollars"

Not true anymore.  Several games are breaking the 50 million mark and then some, but out of the other games that peaked this and released. They earned back the 50 million and then some.

Lucifrank

I'd have to echo what the last poster said. I think everything negative that could be said about V:SoH has been said. When I first started playing during the last stage of BETA, I didn't think V:SoH was a bad game by any means. But from my limited exposure to it, there was nothing extraordinary about it either--nothing that screamed "3rd gen" to me. I think much of the negative backlash they are receiving is rooted in the fact that they talked the talk but ultimately were not able to walk the walk. Maybe if they continue to hammer out the flaws they'll have an EQ2 caliber turn-around? I can sympathize with the developers and wish them the best, but as a consumer I just wasn't willing to fund an unfinished product (that's what investors and parent companies are for).

Elnator

All I have to say is:

Those of us who were in Beta warned everyone.  Those who chose not to listen have no right to complain.

paulscott

poor launch making a lost product is 10 times more likely in an MMO.

Hexxeity

Originally posted by anarchyart

Originally posted by Hexxeity

It boggles my mind that the second most expensive game in history is not even as well-designed or well-written as EQ1 was.



Thanks for the chart.  Hard facts speak louder than a thousand overly-optimistic fanbois and stealth marketers.

120 posts to your credit, how many of those were not trolling Vanguard? Love the troll high-five btw.

To the O.P., you misquoted B McQ. He did not say what you said he said. Totally wrong and show me the quote so I can show you how you misrepresented it.

Either way, Vanguard, even with it's problems, is still the most engaging MMO to be released in a long time. That is if it's your type of game, which it is not for every WoW fan to crawl into the genre.

Over 5K posts to your credit, and you still don't know the definition of "troll."  Impressive.



P.S.  I've been playing MMOs since UO, and I'm not exactly a WoW fan.  Vanguard is the least engaging game I've played since The Sims Online.

Nightshade44

gotta love the Vanguard fanbois, even after a terrible foreshadowing of doom beta, terrible release, and declining price, playerbase and reviews they still stand by "their game". Most engaging MMO you say? You must not have played many MMOs. Vanguard's questing / leveling process is probably the most boring, long, tedious and time-consuming thing I've ever seen in an MMO, especially with the steep death penalties... And this is coming from someone who's played Silk Road, admittedly a typical Korean grind fest, as well as grinded Jedi pre-NGE. I'd take any of the latter over Vanguard so I hardly see how you can call that game "engaging", try playing LOTRO... now there is a truly engaging quest line in that game, hands down.

Paragus1

Originally posted by CleffyII


"Vanguard is the second most expensive MMO ever developed at a cost of 30 Million dollars"
Not true anymore.  Several games are breaking the 50 million mark and then some, but out of the other games that peaked this and released. They earned back the 50 million and then some.

You have any data or names of games with budgets that high?  As someone who has studied business and is a business owner, I find it interesting to see how much money people are investing in certain idea and projects.

Fugnudz

Vanguard's main problems (from what I could see) were in putting graphics ahead of gameplay.  EQ2 did the same thing, though was much smoother at launch.

I think designers should get the content and the gameplay down, then pretty up the game as much as they can before launch.  The only bar they needed to pass, in terms of graphics, was WOW, and that's nothing.

 

gillvane1

The worst part is you can almost never recover from a bad launch, no matter how much you revamp and fix the game. If you completely fixed Vanguard 6 months from now, not just the tech issues and bugs, but revamped some of the game play mechanics so it was 10 x more fun, you still wouldn't get players.



After release, players tend to think of a game as "old" or sort of been there done that. You get an initial buzz on release, and if it's positive, you can build that momentum for years. The game grows, and people want to jump on the bandwagon. But if the buzz on release is bad, you can never overcome that initial impression. If you tell players later that the game has completely changed, and it's all fixed up and is the best thing ever now, they just kind of shrug and go "Well, maybe so, but I'd rather try something else."



On the other hand, I can totally see the investors side of the equation. You have a team that's spent all the money, and what they give you  is obviously a flop. They tell you they only need another month, 3 months, 6 months, which basically means another million, 3 million, 6 million dollars, and the investors are thinking, gee they spent all the money we gave them already, and made a  turd of a game, if we give them more money won't we just be buying a bigger turd? We really don't need a bigger turd, so maybe we should just take this little turd they've made for us already and cut our losses.







Absinthe Lovers

Meridion

/sign If you mess up the release, your game CAN not recover...

CaesarsGhost

Originally posted by Meridion

/sign If you mess up the release, your game CAN not recover...

AO recovered?



EVE seems to have apparently recovered...



I recall a slightly rocky launch for WoW.



That said, I don't believe VG will recover cause all of the previously mentioned titles created all their own technology inhouse... VG used anybody elses tech they could get their hands on.  That will make it harder to "fix".