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Copeland
Member Posts: 1,955
Over the last 6 months i've read some posts by people hinting they were in beta. Being in beta i knew they either weren't in beta or were very new to the game. I would send them questions asking about specific aspects of the game. Mind you these were people that were totally trashing the game leading people to think they had been playing since beta 1 and knew everything. I'd ask about threads on the beta board to which i would get "i don't have beta board access yet" This means they either A) weren't in beta or 
had only been in beta for a day. Then there were those that were in beta played for an hour and removed the game because the game was laggy. Apparently in that 1 hour where their pc was so laggy they couldn't hardly move they experienced everything in the game and everything sucked so bad they just had to come here and bash the game.
Let me say the Vanguard beta to this point has been very very small. Until beta 4 there was never more than 1000 people on the server. Even in beta 4 i never saw it over 1000 but they did open the pvp server which was usually around 300 while the pve server was at 900. So much for PVP being what the people want. There were probably 5 regulars on this board that were in the beta as long as me. I can't recall any of them bashing the game and the early days were pretty bad. Actually i was the closest to breaking the NDA to defend the game from the haters who have no clue. I did receive a warning or two LOL.
This game is not done. It's not polished yet. It will be within the month. Polish is easy. Animation is easy. Class revamps, area building and mechanic installation is the hard part. I have every confidence you will see a nicely polished game come Jan 31st.
Comments
So we agree it will either be polished enough to play when it hits the shelves, or maybe have a few hiccups, and be polished a little more with patches after release.
But do you think it's a fun game?
I think the community is what makes a game fun ultimately so it remains to be seen.
I think it has the potential to be fun. Everything you need to have fun is there. It's up to the community to make it a good place to be though. I will say this. Alot of the oldschool L33T kiddies got pissed off when the game shifted to a more casual friendly atmosphere so there's hope. The initial community this game drew was horrid. Lately though it's pretty good. I can't wait for this game to go live. I miss playing 12 hour sessions on the weekend. I just won't do that in beta because ultimately it's a waste of time just to watch your toon get erased.
I had the most fun playing a goblin necro. The starting area was nice and immersive. The goblin lore is very well written. I'll probably make a goblin roleplay guild on day one.
Personally i have fun with it.
Make a difference!
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I agree. I got into Beta 4 so I don't have nearly as much time in game ase Copeland. However there is a strong base here. Polish is needed but hopefully this is something they already have planned out and will be implementing before launch. Honestly the server lag and performance issues are roughly the same as other games I have beta tested so I expect to see that pickup you get with the real servers and final release client. I do expect that this will not be a clean launch though. They have evidently been running on their own servers and will (or just have) switched over to SOE servers. Chances are this plan will have some problems when it comes into contact with the enemy.
They really set the beta up to get good feedback. Every quest had a survey pop up with a number of different ways to rate it and a fill in the blank comment section. Even the bug reporting tool has many catagories to direct the bug report to the right place.
The base of this game is very strong. The promised systems (diplomacy, crafting stc.) are in place and working. Many times these are the things that get put in after launch and it always winds up with balance issues. I would rather see content and polish added after launch then see actual game systems added. The chance for disaster is much lower. At launch the game world needs to work roughly how it will work for the life of the game with all major systems in place. Better to add in tails, animations, etc. later than change the fundamental gameplay (SWG).
All in all this is not the MMO messiah. It is not the major innovative game of the third generation. It is what the devs claimed it would be the next logical step in traditional MMO gameplay. It integrates many popular features from MMOs that have not been seen together before.
It is in better shape than DDO was even a few months after launch (lag aside, although you have to have a certain number of players to have lag I guess), and I consider DDO to be the first third generation MMO and the first of the innovators. For major, change how we thing about MMOs, changes you will have to wait for WAR or AoC or try DDO as they improve it. This is in the classic DikuMUD school. If you like that type of game (EQ, EQ2, WoW) this will be the most sophisticated iteration on that theme yet. If you don't like that type of game...well you already hated VG anyway.
Agreed, the community is a large part of any MMOs shelf life. Though, the community I've seen so far doesn't seem to be the one they were aiming for. It would seem that Anarchy was right, there sure seemed to be alot of people from WoW there. And not a damned one knew how to read, judging by how often they asked where to find this or that quest npc, despite the quest text all but giving them a /loc.
Despite the claims that the difficulty of the game would drive off the idiots, I've still run into several. My new personal favorite quote I caught this morning was "I can't wait to run trains into guilds while they're raiding". Normally, this would be the point where the "I told you so" would go, but I figure having to play with asshats like that is punishment enough.
Is it fun? 50/50 for me. It has it's bright moments, and it's not so bright. Mostly due to the diku style gameplay. I'm a big proponent of skill based systems. Levels, and classes work ok in a PnP setting, but tend to not work so well in MMOs, due to balance issues, and so on.
It will be interesting to see how much they can cram into the next few weeks. Whether I buy it or not will depend largely on how things progress in the next few weeks. Unlike some, I don't feel a particular need for an MMO fix these days. Despite the amazing amount of potential the genre has, so far all we've been given is mediocrity.
P.S. The 2nd Manifestation of Jin wanders the beach, for crying out loud.
Copeland you said "Vanguard beta to this point has been very very small. Until beta 4 there was never more than 1000 people on the server."
sorry i have to pick you up on that.
beta 3 i was seeing player numbers of 1200+ at my peek times, before beta4 (the couple of weeks it lasted) the testing had droped by dramatic numbers to 250ish at the same playtime. now i can't justify the reason for this, only speculate (which considering the rabidness of some posters i wont bother) as to the cause of so many testers leaving.
yes i tested the game for a while (quit on the open beta influx) because i like reporting found errors and helping to improve a game. doing this i leveled 4 avitars to 20+ testing questlines and exploring shard chunks for errors in the world/mob placement.
why did i keep testing a game i didn't like? because even tho it wasn't my cup of tea (i found it bland and lifeless) other people may like it, and as a beta tester its my task to help make the game better running for those people.
either you will like Vanguard or you wont, people can tell you what they thought of a game but it doesn't matter. everyone has different tastes.
this game is not for me.
1200+ at peak time is still very very small. I have heard numbers like that but i'm only stating the numbers that i saw with my own eyes.
Make a difference!
What sucks is that I type up Goblin Roleplay on google to find out how Goblins talk differently from Orcs, and this is the second or third link on the list. It sucks that this is an old thread, and yes, I did just necro it. But what sucks even worse is that I bought them game when it came out and these people couldn't have been more wrong. Animations and polish were still not a part of the game when I left and this guy who accused others of being wrong, was completely in the wrong! I
irony...
Woho ! Thread necomancy for the win !?
Well since we are on the subject, it's really easy to find out who was in beta and not by doing a search to the old Sigil forums and looking for names. I was in beta 3 of the game and I can tell you, it was unplayeable for me due to my rig and vid card straining to hiccup one frame.
The same bugs that was recently fixed was rampant as hell and they did have problems with NDA leaks through guild forums and on this site to (mostly about how the game sucked and was not ready for launch).
Brad would jump on to do his lil spin about how Vanguard would demolish WOW (think he was tapping that vein and stroking his needle while typing) and Silius was sitting on the 10 inche monkey finger, thinking of ways to drive people crazy with the whack ass crafting dynamic.
Well anyways, this trip down memory lane was fun and I have to give Arkane +1 for bringing it back up or Adamantine.
Hey Copeland, I got a jar of authentic Brad McQuaid fart bubbles you can chew on, maybe people will buy into them being good like you said this game would be.
LOL, those were the good old days. When people believed VG was one or two good patches from being "finished" and there was hope in the land.
Shame it all got crushed and blown away. But fun to read these old threads and compare predictions about the future with the reality.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Than Brad, the state of the game or a meteor hitting earth ever could.
I kept a file of some of their posts just to train people.. as to some things that would get them fired from where I work.
*tries to harvest this thread for a graft...*
HAHAHA LoL my good laugh to get my morning going