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POLL: Has SOE Been Too Slow in Improving/Enhancing VG?
healz4u
Member Posts: 1,065
Hello, friends.
In the interest of full disclosure: I do not actively play Vanguard. Nevertheless, I do have an active subscription and look forward to some of this game's potential being fulfilled. The class system is enjoyable and sound with the right amount of variety. A player has a variety of choices regarding races with each having a starting area and unique abilities. The world is underutilized and underdeveloped for its size. The gameplay can range from fun to fascinating to tedious. The diplomacy system is fairly innovative but many do not use it. Crafting is deep but many describe it as tedious. The game has aspects, features that make it a good game and issues such as underdevelopment that make it an unfinished game of broken promises.
However, since the acquisition of Vanguard, progress has been made but not at the pace that I anticipated. Therefore, are current players confident that SOE will continue to make an earnest effort to improve and enhance Vanguard? It seems simple but I think it is important because at release expectations were not met. Repeatedly not meeting expectations can be doubly bad.
Comments
I've posted regarding my opinion of this before, but I will do so again since this thread is specifically for that topic.
I've played over 12+ mmorpgs and I can tell you that unfinished released games have weekly bug fixes and usually monthly content updates if there was a lack of content.
Therefore, I did expect SOE to have a weekly patch for this game and I also hoped that the bigger changes would come around once a month, not every six weeks. Six weeks is a long time to take on fixing a game with a declining population, that requires group play. Most people would agree that this past Update was a good one and people were satisfied, but the real problem other than performance for some people is getting groups formed at certain levels. We really need a merge and SOE is dragging their ass in doing it. I do want them to get it right the first time, but come on, you can't be that dumb to keep a population that is in a decline waiting for too long. We need a combined population for groups and playing the game until then is pointless, unless you really want to solo the majority of the time until you catch up to the average level range for the current population.
Now guilds hep offset this problem, but it can be hard to find a guild for newer people, because newer people still face the problem of not finding enough people around their own level. Granted, this does vary among servers and does depend on your race. The more attractive races will be more likely to attract the new players. That's always been the case in any MMO.
MMORPG's w/ Max level characters: DAoC, SWG, & WoW
Currently Playing: WAR
Preferred Playstyle: Roleplay/adventurous, in a sandbox game.
Why would you have anticipated anything different after the SOE acquisition? Afterall, SOE only acquired half of Sigil's staff, which means only half as many people are working on the game than there was before; with the exact same guy as before leading up the development team. How would that have ever equated to increased productivity? Especially with Smedley going on record to say SOE wouldn't intervene in what the original Vanguard team wanted to do with the game.
Half as many folks working on Vanguard is also a stark contrast to launch time when Sigil Games Online was over one hundred strong and still dependent upon borrowing additional employees from SOE.
If anything, I only expected development to slow, not miraculously increase just because a different name is printed on the same folks' paychecks. So yes, Vanguard is still changing much too slow.
Since SOE took over:
1. The staff has been cut in half.
2. Performance has gotten much worse for many people while any people report perfomance increases.
3. Almost no new content has been added. Compare that to Sigil which had been putting out an amazing amount of content since beta 3 last August with often patching in new content 2-3 times a week. It was well known that devs under SIgil were routinely working 80+ hrs week ands often sleeping in the office. This has pbviously stopped so not only is the staff much smaller but they likely work a lot less hours.
4. The dumbing down of the game has started, rest experience will be in next patch, crafting exp curve will be 35% easier before rest expereince, the games adventure leveling speed which is now just a tad slower than WoW's will speed up greatly with rest expereince.
5. Gold seller spam has increased by ten fold.
6. Soe appears to have no knowledge about the game or what effect their changes are making,
7. SOE appears to care very little about thios game but rather seems more concerned with driving away VG's player base in hopes they play EQ2.
8. In almost every decision SOE has made about Vanguard they have taken the simple easy way out. From sever merges in not addressing housing plot problems or differences ion server economies, to simplifying crafting decons, to lowering the crafting curve, to eliminating EE and putting in level limits. SOE said people do not understand EE and its confusing for them. I think that simply means EE is just to confusing for SOE. EE is a great little feature and it allows a lot of flexibilty in choosing your gear. Simply taking the time to write a nice EE tutorial quest would be not be hard for SOE but rather than take the time to do that they are scapping it in favor of a much simpler less unique and fun system. Taking the easy way out like this does not bode well for the games future.
Before you know it they will scrap vulnerabilities, rescues, counterspells and other unique features of the game because its to complicated for them. Where will it end?
On the positive side:
1. SOE has not engaged in outright lies to the playerbase like they have in other games.
2. Thier approach to fixing perfomance first is admireable.
3. Many people report perfomance increases while many people say perfomance has gotten much worse.
4. They seem to be mroe concerned with testing their patches and new features before releasing them than Sigil. This thoughtful go slow approach is IMO a much better long term philosphy.
Overall I am concerned that SOE has simply given up on the game and that their lack of understanding of Vanguard and MMO's in general will cause them to reach for even more quick simplificartion fixes.
Tbh why would you want it to be slower? All that means atm is more grinding and thats no fun :S Vanguard doesn't have the quests to backup the slow XP gain. Since you can lose XP anyways i think it's a much needed addition to the game and anyways if you play all the time you wont notice the difference.
Tbh why would you want it to be slower? All that means atm is more grinding and thats no fun :S Vanguard doesn't have the quests to backup the slow XP gain. Since you can lose XP anyways i think it's a much needed addition to the game and anyways if you play all the time you wont notice the difference.
I did not say I would want it slower but now that you mention it should be slower, presently one can get to lvl 50 in less than 10 days played when adding in rest expereince this could drop below 5 days played. Vanguard has an amazing amount of content, dungeons and quests, rather than just breeze thru or skip most of these areas they should encourage people to stay and level in these areas by drastically slowing down expereince. but first and formeost they need to tweak the games expereince. presently the game is a soloers dream and there is little encouragement to group. They need to greatly slow solo and 2-3 group expereince and in relation to that expereince make full group expereince better to encourage people to do all the dungeons. The opther problem is most dungeons and all the high end content can be done by 2-3 person gropups with the exception of lucent medal collection.
I don't know what to say about it.... The few patches that has been released has been great and they are at least doing SOMETHING to the game.
Well word out of the fan faire in Vegas is that Smedley's keynote speach made zero mention of Vanguard; yet he mentioned most of the other games in the SOE stable. I think that, along with the mysterious EQ2 voucher postcards with the free software and playtime may a sign that VG is either going out the window or they are scaling back via server mergers to see if there's anything to save.
This is the VG community's chance to stop posting all the negative comments and "I'm leaving" threads that are probably telling SOE the game is dead and post positive critique. If they keep seeing all the I'm leaving stuff they are going to assume it's a dead horse.
And on the SOE is going to slow, SOE ruined VG, they had nothing to do with it and are losing a fortune themselves. Remember, Sigil had control over it through nearly the first 4 1/2 months of live time. It should appear to anyone with a shred of an IQ that SOE had no clue and sat back and watched the horror unfold - hence jumping in to try to save a sinking ship. They were probably given the historic McQuaid rhetoric of "it's ready and it's awesome" jive so lay off SOE. They've lost a heck of alot more than any of us.
Personally if I was calling the shots at SOE, I'd pull the software from the shelves and let the remaining community stay on free to test updates and fixes until it's ready to go. A relaunch if it seems feasible down the road may have a good shot because the publicity all ready generated by this would grab people's attention. EQ2 almost met a similar fate, but it wasn't so much bugs as it was just a bit too heavy for people's machines at the time (sound famliar).
The devs have stated that they are going to do a re-launch at the end of the year so it isn't worth mentioning yet... I guess
OMG that's awesome! See?? Lol, and I hadn't heard that when I posted, so everyone must listen to me now lol..... j/k
Makes sense, so lets keep it positive people and there's a second chance! Why didn't Smed say anything tho?? Thanks for the update Aragoni!
The devs have stated that they are going to do a re-launch at the end of the year so it isn't worth mentioning yet... I guess
SOE has confirmed there will be no relaunch and their words were ill chosen rather the relaunch is essentially the merging of servers and the new trial island. Nothing more. No new publicity. no advertising campaign, and no attempt to portray Vanguard as a new changed product.
Oh no... well then everyone, don't listen to me! Um, so it seems then like it's going to either sink or swim and climb its way back up from where it's at or it's a write off?
The devs have stated that they are going to do a re-launch at the end of the year so it isn't worth mentioning yet... I guess
SOE has confirmed there will be no relaunch and their words were ill chosen rather the relaunch is essentially the merging of servers.
ok.................................
LOL! Aw c'mon.... you have to have people to prop up the game and keep it profitable or no one is going to have this game to play... there will still be challenges for the higher ups. If you're playing now, you have a head start and can stay ahead of the newbs and newb isle.
Yeah I watched Smed's Poscast and there was NO mention what soever of Vanguard. He talked about EQ , EQ2, SWG, The Agency(which looks spiffy I must say), Free Realms(Kids MMO) and Legends of Norrath (new cross MMO eq/eq2 card based strategy game. I was more than a little disappointed that VG didnt even get mentioned.
www.videonewswire.com/event.asp PODCAST LINK
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Watch your actions; they become habits.
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Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
Lao-Tze
Yeah, there'll be no grand re-launch. 'least nothing akin to what Brad spewed out during one of his last exit spiels. Hasium has said a re-launch will be the Trial Island as aforementioned, and in addition to that a "Win Back" campaign akin to what's used for EQ2.
Now, what's unfortunate about that is SOE jumping the gun and maneuvering ex-Vanguard players over to EQ2. Vanguard only sold some 200k odd boxes, so there isn't a whole lot of people to "Win Back" in the first place. From a business perspective, it makes sense that SOE wants to grab those limbo customers before another game company does, but it doesn't change the fact that the EQ2 migration attempts lessens the already small potential population pool Vanguard had to work with when it came to a "Win Back" campaign of its own.
The devs have stated that they are going to do a re-launch at the end of the year so it isn't worth mentioning yet... I guess
SOE has confirmed there will be no relaunch and their words were ill chosen rather the relaunch is essentially the merging of servers and the new trial island. Nothing more. No new publicity. no advertising campaign, and no attempt to portray Vanguard as a new changed product.
???
Its true that the trial island is in line with the relaunch but everything else you've said is utter crap
http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/9078
When SOE acquired Vanguard from Sigil Games Online back in May, Brad McQuaid (then CEO of Sigil) talked of a "relaunch" of sorts. SOE used the same terminology, with David "Hasium" Gilbertson (producer) having recently talked of what a relaunch would mean to the game. But what a relaunch actually involves has remained hazy for Vanguard fans. I asked Fisher if he could clarify.
"I think the word 'relaunch' gets misunderstood by a lot of people," he said. "It's actually [in line with] what we're looking at doing with the trial island. People are wondering if we're going to shut the game down and the answer is no, absolutely not. It's more of a marketing blitz, in all reality. 'Hey, come try Vanguard out again. We've fixed some of the issues we've had in the past, we've added new features that other games don't have--come give us a shot! We think you'll like it.'"
The devs have stated that they are going to do a re-launch at the end of the year so it isn't worth mentioning yet... I guess
So what do they mean re-launch? Is it players who have purchased a copy and have left already get a chance to come back afresh like they had just bought the game from the store? or will we have to go pay for the month again or have to go out and purchase teh game again? There is also the lets try and stop whats left of the community from leaving, and expect whats left of the player base to carry on paying for a game thats ment to be getting re-launched.... sorry i doubt that very much, that would upset whats left of the community because they would lose everything again.
Not a vanguard player, never have been but I suspect if SOE is being slow, it's out of deliberate design and testing -- they're trying to undo a harsh reputation of continuously releasing buggy code. OF course for them, I think it's damned if they do, damned if they don't situation -- people will find something to complain about for SOE.
To be realistic, I dont think we can seriously expect SOE to patch and change it faster, given the mess they got. I feel it is too little, too late and it might take a year to forge VG in a good game, which I am not realy willing to wait. So I guess they do what is possible under the circumstances, with VG now bringing little income they cant set 100+ devs on the bill for it. So while they do as good as is to be expected, from my view and for my interests its far too slow and far too little.
I really dont understand what SOE hoped for by acquiring VG. Its a no-win situation IMO for them. If they do it best, VG will stay mostly in a relatively low subscription range, and the SOE haters wont turn to SOE lovers just because they save VG from oblivion. In the worst case it will feed those who hate SOE. I really feel it was an ill move to buy VG for SOE.
The silence about VG speaks volumes. No need to report anything, until we have something to report. Alas, SOE is so famous for NOT telling where the train is headed to. I tried to get a direction out of SOE on SWG for over a year, always looking in and trying to find some long-term idea what SWG is supposed to be like, but nada. They just dont give "visions", and while I waited what SOE did with SWG over a year patiently, keeping an eye on SWG, I certainly wont wait and hope idly without ANY hard facts what's to come in long term AGAIN.
And with no grand re-launch I dont think VG can attract more than a really few number of die-hard fans. I checked the stores here in Germany, and I havent seen a single VG box in any of the big chain stores lastly. Also, dont you feel the VG forums are dying out as well? Thats prolly the worst. As long as there is controversy a game is being noticed. But now, all seem to move on mentally and the threads about VG reach a nadir everywhere.
The last one please shut down the lights, pls.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Considering the state of Vanguard when SOE took over, expecting anything more than what they've done so far is a bit unrealistic. There were just too many glaring issues for them to go any faster.
Just from looking at all the stuff they talked about adding and changing for VG at FanFaire, my guess is that it's going to take them at least 6-12 more months to both bring the game around to where it should have been at launch, and to incorporate all of the changes they're wanting to make. SOE's got a lot of work ahead of them, and it's not going to be a quick process.
During this time they also have been working on updating and getting tools for their work. That should make them more efficient and faster so comparing the speed as of now and later is a bit wrong.
I'm so broke. I can't even pay attention.
"You have the right not to be killed"
Well said -- I have one other thought for consideration: All may not be lost for SOE and VG. VG is such a technologically advanced game that even if they lose a year to bug squashing and refinement, a relaunch may actually come at just the right time where it really will be accessible to a larger player population. This goes under the assumption that, unlike wow who's minimal requirements contributed to its huge population, VG's high requirements automatically restricted who was going to play and even a large percentage of high end systems still can only play it with settings turned down.
I think the thing that dooms this game is time. Whatever SOE did ( and it doesn't seem great anyways) the game would need time to correct bugs, optimize and generally sort out new content. Programming wise this isnt going ot happen by doubling staff numbers and expecting the time to shorten by half.
Content wise creativity takes take and for the top notch shiny content this is going to take even longer.
So is SOE taking too long ? Who knows. I think the question should be : do they really care anymore ?
Out of curiosity, how can you come up with the question "do they really care anymore"? They just spent a chunk of cash to pick up a brand new game (even if it is flopping hard). If the game was going strong, I could see the acquisition as an attempt to reduce competition but they knew exactly what they were getting. It doesn't make sense to turn their back on it after the fact or use it to lure people to EQ2 which then leaves them facing the challenges of fixing the game which one would expect to be time consuming....
Short short answer. SOE dont seem to have flagship products. They have all there fingers in all the pies so to speak. They go for sheer number of running MMO's and use station pass over them all. In hopes that quantity will make up for a lack of a single quality "eggs in one basket" production. In many ways its a much safer game to play that having one. I think the strategy is to hope one of those MMO's becomes the next WoW subscription beater. In the end they want cash and want low risk and predictabilty.
When Sigil sold the Vanguard IP to SOE I bet it was for pittance. They were not exactly in a position to bargin with about to go bankrupt and such bad coverage in forums and press. SOE may have just bought it with the above strategy, Though possibly even VG is now too poor and too low numbers for SOE a station. Who knows.
But In the end their is a POSSIBILITY that SOE has no real burning plans for VG beyond break even off a bad investment. Certainly SOE must have major balls to beleive they can raise VG to any massive standard. Personally I think this trial island maybe a cheap way to get a month worth of subs and break the cost of running.
Hence the question : Do they really care ? Its pretty centeral.