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Vanguard
Zaeluce
Member UncommonPosts: 29
I write this thread in hopes that someone within soe would catch wind and maybe act on my advice(Trust me i have doughts because a polished Vanguard would hurt EQ2) I have played all mmo's out there and i have to say my favorite is Vanguard second to the old swg.
Im not looking to be an iconic figure from the get go i just want to be a class in a living and brething world and forge my way at my choosing im so sick of the neww mmo mentality we want u to be a heroic figure from level 1 lol please that gets boring fast well anyway back to my post Vanguard.
Vanguard is an open living and breathing world with no zones, and instances, You see something in the distance u ride or fly to it crafting by far the best system i ever used however Vanguard has been desimated by word of mouth and lack of funding do to a company that knows its real potential. the sad part is if soe would invest most people would probably play both EQ2 and vanguard, I did.
ok i propose this people talk about going free to play i think that is a little drastic what they should do is offer an extended trial like 21 instead of 14 days then on the subscription do a promotion like "Buy 1 month get 2 free by 3 months get 3 months free.
I think this will attract people to take a chance and see for themselves how promising vanguard is and soe gets some fundidng to expand there dev team and give vanguard the attention it needs
Comments
I love Vanguard but why cant you split that mass wall of text up,it hurts the eyes?
ok i tried lol
Personally, Ithink that Vanguard's current state has less to do with how good it is and more to do with SOE having its collective claws in to it.
My whole guild quit just because of that. Not because it was a bad game.
However, I most certainly am not still mad at SOE. It is simply that I have pledged to never give them another dime. I don't care if they make the next greatest game in the genre.
In the same way that I would not return to a resteraunt that gave me bad food or service. You only get one chance to make an impression, usually, and I actually gave SOE two chances.
Never again.
I cant say i disagree I too have issues with soe its just sad to see such a promising game fall by the waistside
@Zaeluce:
I played VG passionately from beta for over 2 years. But I gave up on it.
My conclusion was: VG doesn't exist for SOE. It is just 'added value' for their Station Pass. Nothing more.
I seriously doubt they will make it FTP as, IMO, their station pass games are just fading away whilst they make serious bucks on their new games. Which probably will all be FTP (read: micro-transaction based).
SWG, VG, even EQ2 are 'gamer's games'. They have depth, variety, interest. Free realms, The Agency etc are Developer games. They make money. Linear, unimaginative, slick, vanilla. They sell. I hate them, but they do sell.
No i agree not FTP but do what AOC has done let people try for a while longer than your typical trial period and then on the subcription fee give a discount that well u couldnt refuse for the first year and then take it from there
That game had so much potential. I will never understand why SOE didn't give it more support.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
The promise of Vanguard is gone. Gone. You know that every player has a permanent flying red nosed reindeer mount, right? It's basically Free Realms, but for $14.99 a month. The lead developer Silius really did a number on this game. He is pretty much the #1 reason for it being so terrible. He dropped his bombshell post in December and hasn't been heard from since.
Let Vanguard go away in peace and hope Mr. Grant never works on a game you enjoy again.
That is all.
Well, I recently tried it again and aside from the fact that it has not very many players it looked as if it had greatly improved in performance and user-friendliness. You don't have to walk for miles as a newbie, you can easily team up with far away people, it doesn't crash every 10 minutes and doesn't lag all the time.
What really makes me scratch my head is why they aren't pushing it marketingwise. As it is now I think a whole lot of people would give it a shot and love it. The same people who probably would have detested it when it launched as the tedious Everquest 3.0 behemoth it was in 2007. It's a running, stable and deep product that could yield a lot more money if people knew what it was.
M
@Meridion
I had the exact same feelings when I played Vangaurd for a couple of months earlier in the year. I left because of the fact that the game is seemingly unloved with little development by SOE and just makes up the numbers on the station pass. From reading about the history of SOE (being newish to MMO's) they make weird decisions, at one time owning the MMO market to today ignoring their roster of games with the exception of a 10 year old game and its successor, to butchering an original game, SWG, and realeasing games unfinished and buggy because of fear of another large developers game releasing at the same time, to going after the casual console market thus leaving the traditional PC MMO market behind, I'm really find that odd though if Free Realms and The Agency rake in the dollars then I'm wrong but I don't see them making Blizzard type cash. Vanguard is a fantastic game that deserves better.
Cal.
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
Yea, I never get SOEs decisions either.
Sometimes I think it's jzst because the wrong people, with absolutely no experience on gaming, make the decisions there.
But then again, Brad McQuaid, a very experienced gaming veteran, once (lead) developed Vanguard and miscalculated every bit of it, from the technology to the possible customer base.
So who knows, it's just a shame that such a rich and meaningful game is on life support.
M
I recently retried this game in December, played for about three weeks with a monk and a bard. Generally this game has all the features I like, diverse classes and races, great environmental graphics, great crafting, housing and free form flight.
However the game is lacking, what it's lacking I'm not sure, but it is definately missing something. I just did not feel any attachment to my characters or to the world. (Mind you I still think the character graphics and running animations are completely horrible so that may be partly why, I'm just kind of repulsed by them).
But every time I logged in I just found myself asking why am I doing this. Some games are loot driven, so there is a point to what you are doing. Other games have an overall story of goal (think horizons/Istaria where you are repelling the undead or getting your dragon for ancient mode, or building your plot/lair). Some games are fun for the novelty (City of heroes and fallen earth did this for me, different and interesting enough to keep me interested and looking).
There is nothing in Vanguard that makes me wonder or care what is going on, nothing to bother striving for that next level and so I just bored and quit again, no overall goal to achieve, nothing to inspire me.
Venge Sunsoar
I think that with Vanguard you have to make your own reasons for playing. You have to just enjoy exploring and seeing what adventures you get into.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I had the best and funist time in my game history in vangard. I stopt play for the lack of players and soe dident do anyting about it. But if soe start premote the game i will defently be back...I think wery many old players think the same..(sorry for my bad english)
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You're both probably right. I don't mind finding my own reasons to play or explore, however normally I like something to draw me into the world first.
Sometimes thats even something as simple as having lots of people to interact with, then when you're in and you are attached to the world and your characters you start doing other things.
Unfortunately this game didn't do that yet. I will probably try it again sometime in the future, however that announcement in December was ripe with gloom. We'll see.
Venge Sunsoar
I stand by this statement, and will defend it to death.
If SoE put the slightest effort forward to get people to play Vanguard, it would be the number 1 PvE game on the market. It's the best one, easily, but SoE doesn't want competition with EverQuest, so they're slowly smothering it with a pillow until it leaves them alone.
that is a silly statement, Vanguard cme out with the island and there were tons of people playing but the performance was still bad, recently they did something to improve the stability and hitching but they did it too late and the only waay for them to get people back is to have a 2 month trial or make it free to play with cash options like in D&D. But to say your whole guild quit because it was not a bad game is weird, you contradicted yourself about 3 times. Did Sony turn Brads game into a worse one I dont think so, his game was almost unplayable.
that is a silly statement, Vanguard cme out with the island and there were tons of people playing but the performance was still bad, recently they did something to improve the stability and hitching but they did it too late and the only waay for them to get people back is to have a 2 month trial or make it free to play with cash options like in D&D. But to say your whole guild quit because it was not a bad game is weird, you contradicted yourself about 3 times. Did Sony turn Brads game into a worse one I dont think so, his game was almost unplayable.
If we all said that SOE would never get another dime from us, so then we left when they took over so that they *wouldn't* get another dime from us, how is that a contradiction, exactly?
A contradiction would have been all of us staying even though SOE took over despite our pledge.
You do know what the term "contradiction" means?
that is a silly statement, Vanguard cme out with the island and there were tons of people playing but the performance was still bad
People can play on the island all they want, but the island has MORE bugs than the main game, and its a bad representation of what Vanguard is like. And just coming out with an island wasn't enough, because NO advertising came out of SoE when the island came out, none. For the past 3 years Vanguard hasn't even been mentioned at the SoE fanfaire. They are trying to kill the game, its obvious.
They can't make it F2P because micro-transaction wouldn't work for Vanguard.
And I agree, McQuaid mismanaged this game to death. He miscalculated about any major factor. Technology, content size, game mechanics, and worst of all, development time.
I think even as a non-insider you can say that the Vanguard could have been a really good game if someone with know-how and reason managed sigil back then.
Have you read McQuaids blog about what went wrong with Vanguard? It makes you facepalm every second line. This guy thought he could just take Everquest, make it big and with shiny graphics, and land one more smashhit. Two years after WoW impressively showed how to make money and keep customers -> Not so much content, but a quality product. Brad McQuaid could've known that but he was blind, he even admits this in his blog...
If you can't deliever 10 working, fun, stable and well-performing level 15 dungeons, then don't friggin design them...
M
So what you're saying is... no MMO companies should try to make a game that was similar to a game released in 1999 because it's too hard...
Jesus what is wrong with this industry? I agree, Brad mismanaged the product to all hell, but the product he got out the door, the project sitting there right now waiting for subscribers, is so far ahead of most games out there right now, that its a sin that it's not dominating other games right now. And that is solely because SoE doesn't want the competition with its mother titles, it has EQ3 to think about soon. (they are working on it as we speak)
As much as Brad failed, if he tried again to do the same thing I'd be behind him 100%, because why should the MMO industry be moving backwards? Why can't we have living virtual worlds anymore? How come devs could handle it in 1999, but not now? Hasn't technology gotten BETTER?
The mechanics of Vanguard works fine, that is not where the game failed. The real problem was that Brad hired in the worst programmers we ever seen (Brads beer buddies?).
Yes, There were many things that could have been done better in Vanguard but the same goes for any MMO. The game was unplayable for 2 years and that is it's problem, not that it is hard. Guildwars is also hard (anyone who actually played GW in hardmode are free to protest, the rest have no idea) and it sold over 6 million copies. GW 2 will also be hard and it will sell more.
Different difficulty in games is a good thing.
Old mechanics are in some things at least as good as the newer ones.There are many features of UO, Meridian and EQ that are really good. Others are really bad however.
I personally feel that the devs should go back and study pen and paper RPGs instead of just older MMOs to get to the core but remember that all the newer MMOs (except Guildwars) are based on Everquest, Meridian 59 or UO. If they havn't existed would the games be based on Neverwinter nights or Diablo, or made totally from scratch but the general mechanics are same in EQ, Wow and Aion.
Vanguard is actually a pretty good game, if just Brad would have had a good programmer as co designer it would be as large at LOTRO at least.
Let a great game die in peace. Remember the good times and celebrate them with people you know and love. Bye Vanguard...
that is a silly statement, Vanguard cme out with the island and there were tons of people playing but the performance was still bad, recently they did something to improve the stability and hitching but they did it too late and the only waay for them to get people back is to have a 2 month trial or make it free to play with cash options like in D&D. But to say your whole guild quit because it was not a bad game is weird, you contradicted yourself about 3 times. Did Sony turn Brads game into a worse one I dont think so, his game was almost unplayable.
If we all said that SOE would never get another dime from us, so then we left when they took over so that they *wouldn't* get another dime from us, how is that a contradiction, exactly?
A contradiction would have been all of us staying even though SOE took over despite our pledge.
You do know what the term "contradiction" means?
I just think its silly to quit a game that you liike because of Sony, I play a game for the game not for the developer or manufacturer. of course you are not going back to a restaurant if you get bad food, but your saying that vanguard gave you good food, who cares about the Matre dae when the food is great. Now you really dont explain why you quit , did your guild have a run in with sony?
The mechanics of Vanguard works fine, that is not where the game failed. The real problem was that Brad hired in the worst programmers we ever seen (Brads beer buddies?).
Yes, There were many things that could have been done better in Vanguard but the same goes for any MMO. The game was unplayable for 2 years and that is it's problem, not that it is hard. Guildwars is also hard (anyone who actually played GW in hardmode are free to protest, the rest have no idea) and it sold over 6 million copies. GW 2 will also be hard and it will sell more.
Different difficulty in games is a good thing.
Old mechanics are in some things at least as good as the newer ones.There are many features of UO, Meridian and EQ that are really good. Others are really bad however.
I personally feel that the devs should go back and study pen and paper RPGs instead of just older MMOs to get to the core but remember that all the newer MMOs (except Guildwars) are based on Everquest, Meridian 59 or UO. If they havn't existed would the games be based on Neverwinter nights or Diablo, or made totally from scratch but the general mechanics are same in EQ, Wow and Aion.
Vanguard is actually a pretty good game, if just Brad would have had a good programmer as co designer it would be as large at LOTRO at least.
Agree compleatly, they screwed up with the performance of thee game, although the performance has been much better these last few months but now it is to late. Guild wars is a very complicated game to play well in the PVP arenas