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Vanguard: Saga of Heroes - Renew subscription on May 15
xDBKx
Member Posts: 5
Anyone who has played, and enjoyed Vanguard: Saga of Heroes should renew their subscription for just ONE month ($14.99) on May 15. Why May 15? That is the anniversary SOE aquired Sigil and rights to Vanguard.
Most MMORPGers know a basic background of Vanguard. Currently, SOE is showing no support (last update was over a year ago - even though they continue to make a pay to play) or communication (no response from any SOE employers on the forums). I would still love to see this game succeed, now that most computers can run it properly. SOE and the mmorpg community could benefit greatly if Vanguard was given the necessary development any mmorpg needs. Please consider doing this, as it may be the only way of enlightening SOE how great of a game this can be.
PLUS, think how great it would be if even say 10,000-20,000 people resubscribed for one month, put the server population on high (or dare I say, maxed it out and a new server had to open).... There would be groups running for all leveling areas 24/7. DON'T FORGET TO SPREAD THE WORD/THREAD 
Here is Smedley's statement the day SOE aquired VG:
"Today I would like to formally announce that SOE has acquired the assets of Sigil Games Online, including Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. As a part of this acquisition, we are bringing on approx 50 people from Sigil in order to insure that Vanguard continues to grow. SOE is dedicated to making sure that Vanguard is well taken care of and that we provide the same level of service we do for our other titles. In the near future we will come out with a publishing plan that will largely be driven by the strong player community that Vanguard has already built up. We plan on supporting Vanguard for many years to come, and you can expect many content updates as part of your subscription. Down the line we will of course be coming out with new expansion packs, but right now the focus is on making sure Vanguard is running the way it should be.
We are also officially opening up forums. In the past, our deal with Sigil didn't allow for this, but as with our other games we fill this is an important part of communicating with the playerbase. You can expect a strong presence from our community team as well as the development team members. While we realize that Sigil had said they wouldn't open up general forums, at SOE we fill this hampers our efforts to communicate effectively with the players. We will continue to support the fansites in a big way, and will be contacting many of them directly to discuss what this change means. By no means do we want to lose the strong fansite support by making this change, but we do think it's important to have a forum for players to communicate directly with SOE.
A few other items I wanted to mention
1. Brad McQuaid will be consultant to SOE as a creative advisor for Vanguard. Dave Gilbertson will be the person directly responsible for the day-to-day management of both the Sigil Carlsbad office as well as Vanguard.
2. We do not plan on making any major changes to Vanguard. Any changes are going to come from the team itself. We aren't mandating any big changes to the game. We've learned a thing or two with our experiences with the NGE and don't plan on repeating mistakes from the past and not listening to the players.
3. We do plan on spending a lot of time cleaning up legacy issues with Vanguard and making sure the game's performance improves.
By way of comparison, this team is approx. the same size as the EQ2 team and I feel like that team has done an amazing job improving EQ2 since it's launch. We intend to do the same thing for Vanguard and it is our hope that the players feel like we're doing right by them.
- John Smedley, President, Sony Online Entertainment"
Comments
Not making promises, but I'll make it a note in my agenda ;-)
voted NO...why.....well...i have played it and its one of the best games out there imho.
But the community is so thin its impossible to do lower lvl dungeons.
I have tryd it in beta and when launched.....i try'd again 6 months ago but its a solo game.
Dont get me wrong....i want nothing more then this game to still be successfull but i am not paying 15 bucks for a game that is not even supported by their owner anymore.
AIltough i do want to say that it has one of the best community i have seen in many years.
I kinda made my piece with it that the game is dieyng slowly
like many people I am going to have to go with the answer no. for 2 reasons, 1, as you said yourself the game hasnt seen a content/patch update for over a year. what that means is that they have no real development team working on improving or adding to the existing game, they only have a skeleton crew. 2, the game still has issues plaguing since launch, mind you alot of them have improved, but they are still there. So why would I fork over $15 to a game that has no real future?? The game may be running but its not flourishing nor will it ever, and you can't really blame people for not wanting to support a game financially that was developed so badly. Gamers dont forget, and they don't always forgive easily. Too much competiton out there to choose from.
oh yeah and whoever in the community that is left still playing, are already max level and there aren't many of them left on the 2 servers left. so good luck on making a new character and doing anything remotely fun group wise.
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Paying SOE stock owners another 15$ does not make the game more succesfull.
Voted no.
The game is done. Throwing more money at a game that has had zero development support for a considerable amount of time now is an exercise in futility. SOE has been more than happy to continue taking the money of current subscribers and are laughing all the way to the bank because Vanguard players have shown that they are more than happy to pay money each month and get nothing 'extra' in return.
You would be better of giving the $14.99 to a hobo because either way, giving the money to a hobo or SOE, it is going to get pissed down the drain.
Sadly, this was the experience for most players who tried Vanguard... It was a cycle of lower than average population, which lead to all new players no being able to find groups/parties and then leaving shortly after the trial or purchase.
I'm not trying to pursude you from your decision, because it's yours and you're free to make it (not to mention it is your money).
BUT, if everyone who knew about this approached it the same way as you - "that I would be paying 14.99 just to play a solo game for a month" - then it would most likely be one.
However, come May 15th, if all those people took a chance to experience it one more time. You would be grouping with the other thousands or millions of players who have tried this game over it's (almost) 4 years and couldn't find a group during their first month subscription.
5,000 * $15 = $75,000
10000 * $15 = $100,000
......
25,000 * $15 = $375,000
Say for one month Vanguard's revenue increased by $375,000 and went back down (or stayed constant/grew depending on who kept playing, 25,000 is a lot of new characters on one server so I'd hope most would keep playing due to being able to find groups). Do you think someone high up in SOE might notice?
Yeah, they might notice that they have some more money to spend on Everquest Next or DCUO. It won't be spent on Vanguard.
They all need to go back and get their bachelor's degrees in economics
Why? They would be spending it on developing games that will actually have the potential to make them more money. Vanguard is a money pit. If it wasn't then it would have a development budget and people would be happily playing the game instead of trying to beg or coerce others into supporting their dead/dying game.
It wouldn't surprise me to find out that the bulk of the money made from Vanguard's current subscribers goes to funding other SOE products, because it sure as hell isn't funding much beyond keeping Vanguard's servers running.
I wouldn't play it even if you paid my gametime.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Because a bachelors degree in economics would make them dumber
They'd go back for their degrees but, like everyone else in college, not actually learn anything that couldnt be learned in 1 month of live training.
"I did it mom! I graduated with my Masters in Reading!"
Yes... that is a real Master's degree...
If being a developer means being quiet, mature, well-spoken, and disconnected from the community, then by all means do me a favor and believe I'm not one.
For Vanguard to have server costs, it needs servers.
The 1 vanguard server left is probably run on the same computer as a EQ server, and costs them 5 Large Fries per day to pay the maintenance guy.
If he asks for a raise (1 additional Big Mac) they will close down Vanguard.
Vanguard with its very low subscriber base probably has extremely minUte costs compared to its incredibly high revenue (relative to the cost). The costs of Vanguard is probably null since the entire game can be consolidated under the cost of SOE's $30/month get-em-all club. Yet I guarantee Vanguard brings in a hefty sum of revenue.
If being a developer means being quiet, mature, well-spoken, and disconnected from the community, then by all means do me a favor and believe I'm not one.
i voted no cause SOE sucks!
but it really is too bad they are letting such a great game die...
Uhm,, NO. I would not re-sub for any time UNLESS they could guarantee that the money would go to Vanguard instead of the station crap they tend to want to spend money on. I have the Station acess thing ( pay 30 a month for it, so i can play all the games listed by SOE). and what i see is this.
1. Smed is still in charge over there, so the MAJORITY of all Subs seems to be going for NEW and Improved STATION CASH ITEMS.
2. All their games are MEH,, Half assed done, Rushed and full of bugs. Even after 6+ years of EQ2, they dont seem to have a clue where they want that game headed.. Every expansion, seems there re-doing the classes, the Stats, or something in the game. With the exeption of the GAME ENGINE itself.
In all aspects, im just biding my time until GW2 launches, then, as many before me have done. I will stop giving SOE any and all money, Format my computer to get ride of anything that even looks like SOE had a hand in it, and starting with a fresh NEW game..
Just my 2 cents
Oh, and btw, i was there when VG launched, i spent the 32 hours downloading the thing, I spent months trying to get others to play and actually SEE what VG was about. Which is Months MORE than SOE has done since they aquired the game..
SOE hasn't "noticed" Vanguard since the day they bought it.
SOE does not deserve money from ANYONE for Vanguard.
I voted no as well. I have also tried Vanguard several times, the last time just a few months ago. On the surface Vanguard seems like it would be great, lots of classes, housing, flight, great environmental graphics. And the trial of the isle actually was pretty fun.
But the rest of the game was just meh. Character graphics and animations still bug me, the quests are pretty dull, the crafting while detailed is very boring, the housing is very limited. Flight was nice though. The game just has nothing to pull me away from my current games, it just seemed ok on everything and not good on anything.
Venge
I voted NO.
Why, well you have said it yourself, SoE have dropped this game themselves and have not updated or taken part of the forums in over a year, why should i pay for a month and give them money for a game that was a complete failure at launch and also not much had changed with the comeback and check us out offer they did at its 1st birthday.
I was very dissapointed in both tries and yes i have never been back since then, but tell me, why we should do that now when they no longer support the game. Its like your trying to hold off on something that has long been overdue in the hopes it may work (but it wont).
If you have actually studied economics you'd realize it isn't stupid. It's actually quite funny, because you can almost pinpoint when the economy is going to crash. History has it's lessons
SoE wants this game to die. First, with their several changes making it more similar to WoW that angered the player base, now with the lack of support.
If this game became a success, where would the subs most likely come from? EQ and EQ2. It's a conflict of interests and SoE would just be losing money. So, they let it die, knowing it outshines their two main games.
I voted yes, despite most people wanting a game to die (wouldn't know why someone would want to see a game die, but guess same people who want to see a car crash in a NASCAR race)
VG is only good OPEN WORLD (note, I didn't say sandbox) PvE game...almost every other sandbox/open world game is PvP based...and I really dislike PvP
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If the game was 'ever' really that great, then more people would be still playing it. The only time Vanguard was ever great was on paper. Great concept, with shitty execution and Sigil had the audacity to try and charge top dollar per month for a game that they knew very well was incredibly flawed and broken at launch. People may have been more forgiving if they had charged $9.99/month, but to charge AAA prices for a DDD- product was a bit beyond a joke.
If SOE wanted people to play Vanguard, they could drop the price to $4.99/month, and continue with its campaign of non-development. I am sure there are a lot of people that would be willing or able to overlook Vanguard's glaring problems if it was only costing them $5. But I doubt SOE ever will as it seems that they have enough suckers willing to throw more money at them while still getting nothing new in return.
That was SOE charing top dollar. SOE bought Vanguard before it launched, they named the price not Sigil. When Vanguard launched it was a white hot mess, it needed more testing and more bug squashing. Now it actually is a rather good game, just empty. I'd rather pay $15 a month for Vanguard than WoW. Personal preference yes, but it is the truth.
True enough, this is easily the best PvE game on the market, and other than Darkfall, the MMO with the most potential to expand, but it needs developers for that.
I adore this game. But, I can not willing give money when the game has no developers, or at a mininum 1. Where is my money going to? Certainly not to new content. If SOE shows some forward movement with Vanguard then so will i.