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MMOs need Vanguard-sized worlds...
Dauzqul
Member RarePosts: 1,982
Why don't modern MMOs have Vanguard-sized worlds?
For some nostalgic reason, I installed Vanguard. After being so used to games like Star Trek Online, Warhammer, Age of Conan, Aion, Tera, and SWTOR, I was overwhelmed with Vanguard's world size.
There was this mountain. I decided to climb. I expected to not be able to make it past the base or run some invisible wall. However, I made it to the top. On the other side of the mountain was an expansion of land that went further than I could see. I felt absorbed. It was great. I just wish the game wasn't so old.
Comments
Vanguard is a wonderful game, irrespective of it's age. Honestly, I played around a bit on f2p, but I'd have to re-sub to get back into it, and I've got GW2 and Tera at the moment keeping me going.
But I still very much feel that sandbox mmo's are where my heart is. I love a very open world. But this is why my hype meter has been lying on ArcheAge of some time. Not that I haven't put investments into other games before that bit me in the butt. (Dark and Light, Warhammer Online, Horizons/Istaria)
Kinda nice though, when you take away the invisible boundaries and the neatly sectioned off areas where they orient you to questing, eh?
Yeah it's big but no where near the scale of Vanguard,it's just a bigger game all round.
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
~Albert Einstein
Because most players don't play MMO to walk around?
A empty big world is not fun to me.
Dark&Light was vast,biggest MMO yet but it was a buggy mess,still played the game till FTP went down.
http://www.darkandlight.com/en/
But Vanguard is not a big emty world,it has a vast amount of content.Y ou don't have to walk,you can fly or use run buff from bard or shammy or land mount.
Also you can use riftways that take you part way.
Oh,did i mention you can sail if you have a ship.
Bingo! I swear every now and then we get some Vanguard love posts in here. I don't get it. The world was huge, but mostly empty. The graphical style was much like EQ2 in that the colors had a muddy tone. And because a lot of caves and some dungeons had no loading zones, sometimes your framerate would be worse underground then it would be outside, because the engine continued to draw the outside world too.
It was buggy, doors would appear and dissapear, minning nodes were bugged, etc.. And this is when In tried it out a couple years ago, long after release..
Vanguard had it's time. It was failure and always will be.
Vanguards world is not empty. Its packed with more content than any one character could get through. The even put a spell in the game that halts XP for that exact reason.
People are STILL finding dungeons that have been hidden since launch. It's a game world all MMOs should aspire to.
No instances either, which is another thing MMOs need to get back to doing. The age of the small, phased, linear, instanced WoW clone is hopefully at an end with the success of GW2.
Vanguard is still the best PvE MMO on the market today. Let's hope another company can live up to the designers behind VG.
Some dungeon lol,Vanguard has no instances at all,and the world is far from empty,it's realistic.
We are talking about world seize not graphics,if you want to discuss graphics start another thread.
I've played the game for 3 years on 5 different systems and never experienced what you're describing. I guess there are still some people that just love to make things up.
But oh yeah, totally muddy colors
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0p6TrEPSr50
It's a real shame that they couldn't reorient and turn the game around. Between the world, the theme and even the pvp (dropping into combat like a paratropper for pvp/pve looked pretty friggin cool), that was the first time I learned not to over-anticipated a game.
As an aside, not necessarily directed at anyone. As far as Vanguard is concerned, I don't see how it could be, or many other mmo's, can be called a failure. Many mmo's are niche, and focus on a very specific group of players. They'll try mass appeal but then find their community. There's room for more than two games on the marketplace. And the games, while may not be appealing to you, will be the best thing since sliced bread to your neighbour.
It's all in the eye of the beholder.
Oh please. Because it is divided in zones everything feels compact and nothing like the OP described. You people should stop spouting nonsence about GW2.
Another game with massive worlds (not much to do though) was SWG.
I actually think they design games these days where there has to be something to do every 20 meters. GW2 is like that. Fallout NV also. I don't mind walking for 5 minutes without discovering something. If you discover to much it all makes it seem meaningless.
I want to feel like an adventurer; when I discovered a structure with a quest in SWG after 10 minutes going in a random direction on my speederbike (probably more distance travelled then from east to west on the whole GW2 map) I felt like I really discovered something no one else had.
I think SWG had to litte to discover for the size of the world but there is a middle ground somewhere.
Don't bother, the delusional trolls have already arrived and they'll spout nonsense despite probably never even playing the game or walking beyond the place they logged in at.
"It's not leading my by the nose, I'm so confused, where's the content, waagh!"
I tend to disagree with the big world thing. You can have a game that has awesome landscapes, but still be close to other players. Rift wasn't huge, but it still has some vast landscapes that were great to look at. And yes, I really do appreciate those things. In GW2 I have captured every vista I've seen (and actually watch the cinematic).
However, I've never been in a game and said to myself, "I sure wish I could spend more time running across huge, empty landscapes". I think Vanguard is beautiful, and I like the world, but if it had been smaller, with denser content, I would not have complained.
http://f.cl.ly/items/3n15423i0G2i111y3c2b/computer.gif
Yes it looks muddy to me.
I agree, much as I'm enjoying GW2, I also enjoy large, open worlds, and it does not fit the bill. Luckily, I don't pay a sub for GW2, so I can go back and forth quite happily between it and games that have things it lacks.
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
~Albert Einstein
I'll agree that the zones in GW2 are fairly large but the big big hitch there is that they are all instanced zones. Meaning in order to get into the zone you have to either take a waypoint or walk through a portal deal. To truly get the feeling and scope of the land mass to me its impairative to be able to go from zone to zone without interruption. I played early early game Vanguard so I can't comment but if its anything like WoW then that provides you with legit sense of the scope of the land mass. GW2 they could just provide a book of the zones and call it good. Granted the world map view is more pleasing but for simpicity sakes they could have just done a book as well (not that that would be a good idea but it could work in the game).
You're right. It should've been much more narrow linear like all the smash hits, e.g., Age of Conan, Warhammer, SWTOR, etc...
grey and muddy...and the whole game looks like this...i hate this style...
No where did I mention that it failed because it was non-linear.
Wow, assume much?
The Sony fanbois are on patrol!
Indeed. GW2 is not perfect and if it had a sub I probably wouldn't play longer then a month or two. Discovering events and a camp with NPC's (it doesn't have loot spread around like Fallout NV) will get old after a while. But I can always pop back in, t hat's the beauty of it.
The game you are looking for is Archeage. It is the game that we all wanted Vanguard to be.
http://i410.photobucket.com/albums/pp183/Wizardcomputers/ScreenShot0030.jpg
And more, if they live up to expectations.