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Vanguard: the next Dark and Light flop?
Elikal
Member UncommonPosts: 7,912
I was following Vanguard and dark and Light both since they were announced. Dark and Light was once very hyped as the next big thing, and most who played Settlers of Ganareth, as those who have the "privilege" to play it now, are very sceptical, to say the least. I always have a deep distrust to hypes, and I really can't understand why Vanguard get so high credits by so many game previews.
Sure, if you are what is called a very hardcore player, wanting great risks and high obstacles, thats fine for you. But previews and game journalists should be oblieged to a wider audience, and clearly speak of the quite critical issues. I only bring a few as examples.
1) the famous corpse run: most people I know who played Everquest I told me they hated it. Whatever you personally think about this, how easy or complicated these corpse runs yet remains to be seen. With bad luck community-wise and bad spawning system this might as well work out as a player hell. It depends on many factors, some of which Sigil hardly can control, like how the community will evolve on each server. If a server gathers a ver immaure and unfriendly community, it can be very difficult to get the needed help. Besides, no player who started playing any of the bigger games (SWG, EQ2, WOW, GW, CoH and so on) knows a corpse run, so this rollback in a past age will likely confuse quite a large audience and maybe rethink bying it.
2) Sigil has repeatedly stated to make quests that need sppecial professions to be made. I can not see the logic in that decision. I enjoy quests or tasks which allow multiple approaches, that is what I feel is the special thing about an RPG, otherwise it is only an adventure, where you play an exact plot. Online RPGs, compared to solo RPGs already lack the choices in the way a quest can be solved, and I would expect new games to widen the possibilities, not narrow them down MORE, as Vaguard seems to aim. In EQ2 so many quests have many, complicated steps, which makes it often quite difficult to find enough people to make your next quest step. This is a difficulty I rarely had in WOW, because they made their quests less complicated and this easier to find people. Vanguard sounds like a science, quests whose every step I have to study in internet walkthroughs before even thinking to undertake them. The way quests, crafting and many other things are very dependent on each other, sound very difficult and could quickly kill the fun for those who are not already gifted with unemployment.
3) The long travelling is also a possible great fun killer. Whats the aim in going the same long path again and again by foot, especially in such a big world?
I can't go into detail, but overall some features in Vanguard sound like great time sinks to me, and I don't like the idea of time sinks at all. My lifetime is really too precious to me for them. The mix Vanguard tries to establish sounds more like a receipe to be the next big dissapointment then a big hit.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Comments
Simply put, if you are looking for a game that you can play on E-Z Mode, Vanguard will not be it.
You should probably seek elsewhere.
Respectfully yours....
~ Ancient Membership ~
Eikal - Even though SpiritofGame was nasty and patronizing in his response, he is right on one point. . . Vanguard probably isn't the game for you. It probably isn't the game for even people who like nasty, hardcore rule-sets unless it gets a lot of work (You can read several review threads on this forum from people who saw it at E3. Responses are mixed, but extremely negative reviews are abundant).
So, don't play it because it's inaccessible or don't play it because it's trash. Also, as Spirit points out, the game is going to be filled with hardcore players who think that effort and drudgery = skill. If you suggest changes to the game because you hate a feature that is boring, tedious, or frustrating, the band of hardcore masochists will call you a noob carebear.
I saw all the games at E3, and I tend to agree with MMORPG that Gods & Heroes is going to be the next big thing (It won MMORPG's Best of Show award E3 2006 - as well as many, many other awards from various sites - more Best of Show awards than any other MMO). Other games to look at that also looked awesome at the show are Age of Conan, Tabula Rasa, and Warharmmer Online (though it won't be out until Christmas 2008, so you'll want to play one of those other before then).
But don't take my word for it. Simply look those games up on their sites and check out their videos, dev posts, etc. The Age of Conan website isn't up-to-speed yet (and Age of Conan was definitely in ealry beta at the show. . . I think it will be a March 2007 release or later) - but Gods & Heroes and Tabula Rasa are both coming together nicely.
Maybe you should spend more time hanging about in the Gods & Heroes forum? What always amazes me with you guys is you always try to come across as impartial, and you exercise that impartiality by trolling the forums of games you dislike. The fact is gamers in this forum do not have some perverse love for vanguard we merely enjoy what the game promises, but instead of general disscusion about the game every thread gets swamped in a sea of negativity, because of strange nightmarish creatures who seem to have a more than unhealthy dislike of vanguard.
Your calm facade of "merely stating facts", and i'm not criticising the game but.....means little because of the transparency of the writing and also the abundance of the posts, although the trolls are getting more clever of late not even a vague mention of Soe, the real reason behind the whining, as that would deem your posts in the wrong place.
P.s This is of course not solely aimed at you for you are many.
SWG had corpse runs back at launch. Without mounts or bikes, it was a real pain to get back to your body. And the corpse half the time was bugged. I probably lost 5 backpacks full of stuff because it wouldnt let me pick it up for some reason.
Vanguard has previously geared this game for the hardcore types. However, I wont be suprised if this changes. SOE is involved now and they care only about profits (see SWG). I thought Sigil was the anti-SOE of the game world the way Brad talked about not caring about appealing to large broad player base. Then he goes and signs up with the devil.
DnL center a LOT around a very few innovations.
Vanguard has a different approach on innovations. I think Vanguard will fail, but for different reasons. I also think Vanguard get an exagerated cover up online, due to old raiding fans with many accounts and the fact raiders are overepresented in online forums. I hope I am wrong and Vanguard is a brilliant success, but I have very little faith for them. I said it once, I will repeat it...Vanguard is a garage league.
DnL, beside promises and drama (even in production with the guy who got the 'MAIN' feature idea for the game), I think it is unfair to compare them to the nice folks at Sigil...I have many disagreements and I even call them 'Garage League'...but they have proven, in the past, that they CAN do something. DnL chat a lot, but they didn't prove much more than me or you!
Raiding is to Brad what the 'Holy Grail' was to King Arthur, he will lose everything about this and when he abandon it(Arthur didn't use it and bring it back, once he 'found it', he resume Real stuff and abandon all silly stuff), his bastard son, Mordred of WoW (Or BioWare eventually niak niak niak) might already be victorious. I wish Brad would keep dreaming for the greater purpose and arms himself responsiblies...rather than hold to raiding like Arthur keep sending his knights for the Holy Grail! Actually, maybe Brad is Lancelot and Arthur would be Johny...I dunno...Arthur didn't win in all versions of the story...but it would seem that they are re-united, what happen from here...we will see...soon enough.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Hm, thats all interesting info some post.
Well, I don't have a real problem with the fact not all games are for everyone. But the position, Vanguard is not for you, move on, is just a bit oversimplified. Vanguard has many good things, but it has also a hand full of very "problematic" things, some I just think the devs of Vanguard - and many fans - haven't really thought about.
I hear repeatedly the inventor of Vanguard loves raids. Well, since many Vanguard fans seem to be hating WOW so deeply they may be surprised, but WOW has developed a great Raid fondness quite as well. Thats what more and more WOW players have started to complain about. I always respect people's personal tastes, raid, group or solo, it doesn't matter. I did them all, liked them all, BUT I do not like to be dictated what is a "good" play style and what a "bad" one. I want them to be equal in result and difficulty, so at each time I, the player and paying customer can choose what I want to do today. And currenly in most MMO the company decides for me, and I simply think that is not a very customer friendly thing to do.
Honestly, I think many things fan defend now will only be so good a while and in their imagination. (Like that LOONG travel times. Doesn't sound quite exciting to me. When in EQ2 or WOW I was flying that Griffons for the first time, I was in awe. But I assure you, after the 500s time you simply want to click a teleport button and not watch the same scene AGAIN. Everything gets old after some time.)
A thing that really surprised me was the way the Vanguard forum evolved. I do not hate or love games or gamers of whatever game. The very idea to regard a simple hobby with such emotions, or even a person who likes a game, sounds like something utterly childish to me. But here you are, scanning the Vanguard forum, and the fans are grinding every critics to tiny pieces! I rarely have seen such a hive of aggro-kids a long time. Everyone suggesting simple features like auto-map or channels is ferociously attacked. I like difficult games too, and my 20 years computer gaming history surely tells about that, but there is a huge difference between boring or tedious and difficult.
Travelling for hours reaching your quest spot, wasting hours for corpse retrieval, getting lost because of no map or spending hours to find a group because of no channel, sorry that doesn't sound difficult, it merely sounds very, very boring. I took part in the RF Online beta, and it showed, that 90% of the time you spend there is the most mindless grind of the ever the same creatures. The fans defended that as "difficult". I never understood what's so difficult in grinding. Difficult is beating Kasparov in Check, or the Brazil Soccer team, difficult is educating George Bush in world politics or the Pope of Rome in tolerance. But mindless grind, click click click click click - a four year old child can do that.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
1. Nothing about my post was impartial. I've been following Vanguard for a LONG time, and after seeing it at E3, I'm incredibly disappointed. Feel free to disagree with my opinions, but don't discount them by trying to label my opinion as a worthless facade. I'm not being half-assed in my opinion. It is VERY clear where I stand.
2. This response was appropriate to the thread. The Original Poster trying to make an informed decision about Vanguard and they dislike inaccessability - which is what Vanguard is ALL ABOUT. It's a game for hardcore people, so someone who hates hardcore inaccessabile stuff should probably go play another game that they might enjoy.
3. There are a ton of negative posts about Vanguard for a reason. It's not a conspiracy. Believe it or not, I might simply care more about games for game's sake than I care about any individual title. I hate crap and love good stuff. You are going to hate me if you are a fanboy of crap, because I will call it crap.
But I'm hopeful, if not optimistic. I want Vanguard to rock. Honestly. We don't need another blah piece of crap MMO. We need games that show enough promise to give WoW a run for it's money (Gods & Heroes, Warhammer, Age of Conan - though none of these will probably be as successful as WoW - they might get a million subscribers and start taking WoW's churn) and games that broaden the genre while also being quality titles like CoH/CoV and Guild Wars did, and like Tabula Rasa probably will.
Vanguard has always looked at being niche. . . they are the hardcore nostalgia game for EQ masochists - that's a losing model to start with as you only have a million or so people that are indoctrinated into the EQ raid, long travel, corpse runs, item drop, bleh mentality in the first place and my guess is that most of them are not nostalgic of those mechanics as most of them have probably played WoW which is so popular in part because they threw out those lousy first-gen MMO timesink mechanics.
However, this small minority of hardcore gamers are fiercely loyal, and they could pull off a profit from them with a game that caters to their desires, and the political and crafting systems, if they are pulled off well, could pull in other people who will endure the hardcore game mechanics just to try out something new. . . but not if the animations look like ass, the graphics look old compared to older MMOs, and the world is a featureless empty shell with more wasteland than content. Hopefully, the deal with SOE will give them time to get the game working.
Still, working or not, someone who hates inacessability won't enjoy a game designed for nostalgic masochists.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
All this talk of corpse runs.............brings back some yucky memories.
I gotta put my 2 cents in on this one. I played AC back in the days when there where only like 3 or 4 MMO's on the market and it was FULL of people. Now in AC you have to do corpse runs. I think its the only game I've ever played played with corpse runs (not on purpose, simply because no one has really has that game mechanic) And for good reason. Corpse runs suck. Its not "hard core" its a pain the arse.
Appearing at the Lifestone about naked was no fun. Although we (the players) eventually found ways around the items drops using "death items" you did drop alot of stuff and about half of any cash you had on you. Which means if you didn't get a chance to convert to bank notes you where spilling a good chunk of change.
On top of it, you usually lost your best stuff. (your equipped gear) and not to many people had or could afford 2 sets of equal quality gear as they leveled up. This usually led to ............more corpses at the first corpse. You see in AC you could leave lots and lots of corpses in a spot. The night of the "acid pit"...what a nightmare. It usually took the help of your patron or guildies to get you out of the jam which just interupted more peoples play.
A corpse run in a tough spot could tie you up for an evening. It could require the help of several players...if you left your corpse you where loosing usually your best or most valuable stuff. If you had enough death items, didn't have them anymore.
I'll take an XP hit anyday over corpse runs. Its not "hard core" its a sucky mechanic.
DnL problems are it is buggy,poor server performance and missing quite a lot of features promised.
If vanguard comes out in this state it deserves to fail too as does any other game .
DnL and Vanguard are two different games. DnL never had a chance as it was being made by inexpereinced developers with a very small budget. Games like DnL that have a budget of $1-10 millon dollars simply cannot compete with games like WoW, Vanguard, and EQ2 in terms of gameplay and amount of content when the big games have budgets between $50 and $75 millon. The lack of money is one of the main reasons that games like DnL rely mainly on user created content like pvp because they simply do not have the budget to compete to create enough consumeable content.
Now because Vanguard has a large budget and expereinced developers does not mean it will succeed. Look at games like SWG, AC2 and DDO (which spent $65 millon in development) which all had large budgets and failed miserably. But Vanguards budget gives it a chance and puts it in the small handfull of games being developed that actually has a chance of being a good quality game with a decent amopunt of content. Most likely all these games will fail to reach expectations but Vanguard, Conan, LOTR, STO, Warhammer and a few others are essentially the only games being developed that have much of a chance of being any good.
If Vanguard fails it will have nothing to do with DnL. DnL should be compared to other low budget games like Irth Online, Wish, Mourning, Darkfall, Chronicle and so on. It never had a chance of competing with the big boys.
Zippy - Don't invent numbers to support your points. You are so far off from what actual game development costs are that it is ridiculous. Even the game industry's biggest boondoggles have not cost more than $20 million. The average current gen game costs between 1 and 3 million dollars to make with AAA games costing up to 10 million. Next-gen games will cost between 2 and 5 million, with AAA games costing up to 20 million. Go read Gamasutra, Evil Avatar, or Gamedev.net, etc. if the game industry information interests you. . . but don't INVENT it.
You could have made your point and not looked like an idiot if you had just said that you feel that Vanguard has a better chance of being a good game than Dark and Light because it has a more experienced development team and has more money behind it. Your point about having experienced development teams and funding not always leading to a good game is also good.
Meh...
You guys do realize that WoW had corpse runs too...right?
And any game where you die and go to some sort of grave yard or bind point, is essentially a geared corpse run, so long as you are trying to get back to the dungeon where you started.
But for whatever reason, you hear the phrase "Corpse Run" and you think Grueling Tedium. WoW's corpse run system was hardly tedius, and you barely even noticed it unless you died on the far side of the Badlands -_- What you all have to realize is that there are different ways of doing corpse runs, and nobody that posts here on these forums has any idea of how Vanguard will do their's specifically...so for all we know, they aren't so bad.
What we do know about V:SOH Corpse Runs:
1. There are Outposts near every dungeon.
2. You Bind at outposts and will spawn there when you die.
3. You will be geared and have a mount when running back to your corpse
Already it doesn't sound like a "hardcore" corpse run, and definately doesn't sound like an EQ corpse run. The premise for them is very simple though. It offers a dynamic death penalty.
What do I mean by dynamic? If you die outside a starting city or outpost, it'll take you about 3 seconds to get your corpse back. If you die in the depths of a dungeon, where there are more rewards for your risk it'll take you a little time to get your corpse back. Sounds brilliant to me.
Now. I know someone mentioned earlier that there are people who think Time Consuming/Tedius = Skill. I don't think that is the common place idea of the subject. I think what most people who think is that Time Consuming/Tedus BREEDS skill.
When you have negligible death penalties like in WoW, people are more apt to goof off and won't bother watching their agro or pulling extra mobs...because if they die, it'll only cost them some silver and a 2 minute non-agroed run. Death is no big deal. Now when you have something in place that is more time consuming and has some pang. Like XP loss/debt, longer travel times, and corpse retrieval....the common place player will thing "Crap, I don't want to do that again" and then they'll actully TRY. It brings out the best in players and lets you know who actually has skill....and if someone doesn't, they'll soon learn skill because they don't want to die.
Zippy - Don't invent numbers to support your points. You are so far off from what actual game development costs are that it is ridiculous. Even the game industry's biggest boondoggles have not cost more than $20 million. The average current gen game costs between 1 and 3 million dollars to make with AAA games costing up to 10 million. Next-gen games will cost between 2 and 5 million, with AAA games costing up to 20 million. Go read Gamasutra, Evil Avatar, or Gamedev.net, etc. if the game industry information interests you. . . but don't INVENT it.
You could have made your point and not looked like an idiot if you had just said that you feel that Vanguard has a better chance of being a good game than Dark and Light because it has a more experienced development team and has more money behind it. Your point about having experienced development teams and funding not always leading to a good game is also good.
I don't appreaciate the personal attack Especially when you have no idea what your talking aboput. You might want to do a little research first. AC2 cost $25 millon to develop. Turbine admitted they spent $65 millon on DDO. WoW $75 millon. If you don't believe listen to Brad McQuaid in the followjbng interview he talks about how much it costs to make a MMO. He specifically states WoW cost $75 millon to develop. If you do even a little research you can find the costs of other games. Go flame someone else. There are lots of people who post thiongs that have no factual basis or cannot back up what they say. I am not one of those people.
http://www.mmorpg.com/gameon.cfm
Edit: They copied over the podcats link to the interview. I emailed them asking for a copy of the transcript to the interview or a link to the mcQuaid interview. You can download the orginal interview from this link. Look undert the April 1st interview.
http://www.podzinger.com/results.jsp?s=PZSID_pods_pod4_5_8_0005&sname=Game%2FOn&start=0&num=10&col=en-all-pod-ep&filter=0
Just wait until the release and then make up your mind. I hope Vanguard will rock my socks off, but I don't know that and I will wait and see if it is for me or not.
One thing that worries me is that Vanguard, in my opinion, may be the last real MMORPG out there, if vanguard fails......then we will see a lot of WoW clones
I dont think Vanguard will fail. I think they have a good chance of grabbing about 250K steady subscribers if they stick with their vision and deliver a quality product. That amount of subscriptions should be enough to make them profitable and keep them going. If Sigil would be happy with those numbers, then they are on track from all that I have gathered.
However, I think they could have a much larger market share if they (1) dropped the part where all your items stay on your corpse, and (2) created much more solo-able content than the 20% they are currently planning. In my opinion, sticking to the vision on these 2 points will prevent Vanguard from becoming a mega hit.
-eosa-
Insert generic anime quote/My Chemical Romance lyrics here.
/agreed
WoW's death mechanics are probably my #2 on my "WoW is broken, here is why" list.
Insert generic anime quote/My Chemical Romance lyrics here.
. We don't need another blah piece of crap MMO. We need games that show enough promise to give WoW a run for it's money (Gods & Heroes, Warhammer, Age of Conan - though none of these will probably be as successful as WoW - they might get a million subscribers and start taking WoW's churn) and games that broaden the genre while also being quality titles like CoH/CoV and Guild Wars did, and like Tabula Rasa probably will.
Vanguard has always looked at being niche. . . they are the hardcore nostalgia game for EQ masochists - that's a losing model to start with as you only have a million or so people that are indoctrinated into the EQ raid, long travel, corpse runs, item drop, bleh mentality in the first place and my guess is that most of them are not nostalgic of those mechanics as most of them have probably played WoW which is so popular in part because they threw out those lousy first-gen MMO timesink mechanics.
However, this small minority of hardcore gamers are fiercely loyal, and they could pull off a profit from them with a game that caters to their desires, and the political and crafting systems, if they are pulled off well, could pull in other people who will endure the hardcore game mechanics just to try out something new. . . but not if the animations look like ass, the graphics look old compared to older MMOs, and the world is a featureless empty shell with more wasteland than content. Hopefully, the deal with SOE will give them time to get the game working.
Still, working or not, someone who hates inacessability won't enjoy a game designed for nostalgic masochists.
masochist
n : someone who obtains pleasure from receiving punishment
Let's define "punishment". One form of punishment in an MMO can easily be the Grind. Every MMO out there has grind, WoW included. Nobody sane actually likes grind, so therefore every sane MMO player is a masochist by your definetion.
Vanguard is going to indeed be hardcore, but hardcore is subjective and you shouldn't generalize all hardcore players the way you do. They are not all elitist who think TIME = SKILL. Many just want a gratifying challenge from a game that doesn't f***ing spoonfeed you everything and a game that a 5 yr old can pick up on in 2 hours. (WoW)
It will be interesting to see how many of you masochists plead for more accessability after actually playing the game. . . and how many will just quit in frustration (after breaking their keyboards) when a corpse run turns sour 4 times in a row and you go down a level just trying to get your stuff back.
/Agree with all of those. I would have to add a close watch on Aion also.