Year 2007 just begins , new mmo dawns on us. Developed 6 years by creators of original MMO superhit. It is called Vanguard.
This is first of long awaited MMOs to break horrible year of 2006. When numbers of mmo players searched for new home but found nothing at all.
Vanguard...
It makes you think. What happened ?
Why are MMO developers constantly insisting on making games that are completely opposite of what playerbase wants ?
Vanguard...
Let me start with this.
The return of classic MMO. The return of EQ days. Many players craved for it. Especially old hardened MMO veterans.
And Sigil delivers a decent game based on "old school" principles. Everything is fine except for one thing.
Vanguard has beutiful graphic ( lets not argue about it, since it is mather of taste - but let soppose so )
Graphic that stands shoulder to shoulder with games like FEAR , OBLIVION and any other Eye candy out there.
But there is a problem
You will need most up to date gaming computer to run it. ... Is this bad. Not at all.
Except one thing. Ask any MMO player this question : " What is more important - Graphic or Gameplay ? "
Answer would surely be " I dont care about graphic if gameplay is good " (check mmorpg.com polls)
So why they targeted Vanguard at audience with top PC. Audience that clearly looks for graphic over gameplay?
When majority of MMO players , are working class people - that have nor time or money to keep up the PC arms race?
Well lets go to the next game
D&D Online
I am avid D&D player. I have played it ever since original D&D came out. All way to AD&D and D20.
I dare to say , i am D&D geek. And just put label D&D on something , and i will buy it
Turbine got a chance of a lifetime. A chance from gods (well wizards) to make every geeks wet dream
Dungeons and Dragons online !!!
They took this gift. And figured something like this.
People like WOW! But lets make it even better! Lets make it faster combat! Twitch based ! How about that!
And lets get away with tedium of travel! Let just make instanced dungeons, and nothing else!
And yes, roleplaying is a bore! WOW player never roleplays...we will get away with it!
Hmm...How come this guys forgot they are making a game for D&D player and not WOW player, its beyond me?
So they take a game that is all about ROLEPLAY, TRAVEL, STRATEGY and make a game that is all about ACTION,INSTANCE,REFLEXES
Where they lost the link..i dont know?
Should i go on ?
Lord of the Rings online
I am speculating , but something tells me i am wrong.
What is LOTR community about? ROLEPLAYING - Big big nerdy roleplay
What is LOTRO - copy of WOW
WOW and roleplay ?
Why something tells me that LOTRO would be aimed at roleplayer as DDO was aimed at D&D player ?
Well I can go on and on and on
But the fact is. All this MMOs fail to reach they potentials because developers , were incopetent - and probably didnt have no idea
what their targeted audience really wants.
On the end i would just say - that few MMOs that had feeling for their community are todays top games
EVE - for concetrating on strategy, and not on graphic eye candy and twitch combat
WOW - for being simpleton funhouse
COH/COV - for being fancy beat them up dressed in costumes
"Before this battle is over all the world will know that few...stood against many." - King Leonidas
Comments
Check out Pirates of the Burning Sea, I got a chance to play it at Gencon and it rocked out. They are taking there time with it and getting it right.
Join us at: https://www.maturemindedgamers.com
Ultimately, control over what type of MMOs we see rests with the control over our wallets. They cannot ignore feedback punctuated with a "$".
Guild Wars is still an MMO.
Problem is, not many are good with a combination of the above, but everyone likes thier own ideas best, and story-telling is the easy part. No need to hire anyone for that. See where that goes wrong?
Funny what you say about D&DO, it's too true. They had a target audience served to them on a silver platter, but ignored them, to make the game they wanted to make for whatever personal reasons they had, instead. Their choice, they had the money. To throw away however they wanted. Nothing new there, but as these games cost more and more to make, the problem gets more and more glaring.
People with money just don't want to admit they aren't the ones with good ideas - but they're the ones controlling that bottom line, regardless.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.
Don't be terrorized! You're more likely to die of a car accident, drowning, fire, or murder! More people die every year from prescription drugs than terrorism LOL!
Hoping that also in 2007 there is no need to tune up my PC.^^
Ya I agree with the OP for the most part. The culprit behind all the terrible MMO's is high end GRAPHICS and ART. People have to understand that there are only so many resources available, you cant have everything.
What these newer games ar doing is sticking all there resources into Graphics and Art. When 90% of the project teams are involved in graphics you know the game wont have enough staff left to have good gameplay. Even after a game is released instead of adding additionally creative ideas like UO had, Crafting, Fishing, Treasurehunting, Taming .... These games are putting out Graphical content patches, that change the way your sword looks, adds more details to the flowers or changes character facial designs .....
There is just too much emphasis on eye candy. If these MMO devs ever made a car they would make a nice brand new shiny Ferrari, Leather seats, Awesome paint job, with a lawn mower engine, no amenities like cruise control or power windowsl, no stereo ..... They focus so much on graphics they lose concept of the overall game.
Whats worse to me, is I will be in a game and some guy will say "OMG this sword looks sooooo cool". It doesnt do anything, and basically sucks to PVP or PVE with, but geez its sooooo cool looking I have to have it. When they announce expansions that will have graphics updates for weapons and armor, these people are just salivating.
They make games for the top end systems when a game is released. In 2-3 years from now, lots and lots more people will have new systems that will chew up the graphics in vanguard, easily. So all the developer is doing is planning ahead for years down the road, thinking their game will survive. It's shortsighted to make a game today with crappy graphics that a pre-2000 computer will run. There's no money in games like that. Graphics are something, I do agree gameplay is worth more. A game does have to have nice graphics to compete, it's actually common sense. Phrasing it such as the OP did, just sounds like sour milk no matter how you couch it.
I agree thats what the Devs are thinking. But for MMO's the logic seems to be flawed IMO. Games that are on the lower end of the graphics are doing better then the games at the high end. Perfect examples UO and WoW. Neither were cutting edge technology on release, yet they all did extremely well for the long haul. UO did not take top of the line computers to play. Neither did Wow. I never played Runescape but isnt that lacking graphics also?
These failing game developers likely have most of thier management coming from the Arts / Graphics departments. They feel that as long as they can make the game super hot graphically that it will create a buzz around the product. What they dont realize is that only a few small group of people is constantly keeping thier computer top of the line and playing games the moment they come out.
Just take a look at the mmorpgchart.com. Almost every single MMO gains most of its customers long after its release. These devs are so cought up in there own game with people telling them how hot it looks. They forget about how many people out there are just sheep. Given enough time and good word of mouth a game can become popular. Eve is probably a good example of that.
The problem is... they managed to screw up across the board. It wasn't just targeting it at a much to high of a level of system. My system EATS oblivion for dinner, my systems chews up fear, and I get 22fps in vanguard.... wuhah? Vanguard graphically is no FEAR or OBLIVION... it's nice compared to most MMO, but it's not as good or even CLOSE to many single player/non-mmo multiplayer games.
This is a butcher job of the first order. I liked turbine as a general rule, AC1 was a killer fun game, even if the graphics were on par with something from 1992. How they managed to butcher a game like DDO that more or a less leaps from paper to an MMO format... I'll never understand regardless of what justifications they give. That game SUCKS, I think the instancing is what really killed it though. It's guildwars... but less fun... and with a monthly fee. *twitch* Biggest loss of great IP ever.
The problem with focusing on "roleplay" is that... it doesn't work. The community makes up roleplay, EQ1 had a ton and it was no more friendly to it than WOW. If the community is interested in roleplay it will be there regardless of if the game developer wanted it or not. That being said... it doesn't give a good excuse for lack of innovation.
True and not true. They only have the feedback of the community before hand and the people playing the beta to build off of. If they get a bunch of non-roleplayers in the beta... it's NOT going to be roleplay focused or have things conducive to roleplay functionality.
The entire mmo industry is terrfied of flopping so much they're unwilling to innovate on any level... its far safer to copy cat in thier mind... unfortunetely most people just feel like... well if you're going to copy wow and do nothing on your own... I might as well play wow (eq1/eq2/guildwars/etc...)
Shadus
Absolutely true, however... EQ2 has good graphics, AC2 had good graphics, LOTRO has good graphics, etc... Vanguard is not leaps and bounds above any of those... incremental at best. Vanguard DOESN'T look as good as Oblivion... and they can't manage to get even half of the frame rate of oblivion running similar settings. The engine is the problem not the quality of the graphics. They need to do some serious work optimizing the engine. It would be silly to design for a system 6 years old... but the current mainstream system isn't 6 years old, it's about 2-3... and even designing for TODAYS midrange system would have been a good choice... instead they design for better than todays top end system. That is just damn stupid... especially since the quality of the graphics don't reflect the engines requirements.
Shadus
Absolutely true, however... EQ2 has good graphics, AC2 had good graphics, LOTRO has good graphics, etc... Vanguard is not leaps and bounds above any of those... incremental at best. Vanguard DOESN'T look as good as Oblivion... and they can't manage to get even half of the frame rate of oblivion running similar settings. The engine is the problem not the quality of the graphics. They need to do some serious work optimizing the engine. It would be silly to design for a system 6 years old... but the current mainstream system isn't 6 years old, it's about 2-3... and even designing for TODAYS midrange system would have been a good choice... instead they design for better than todays top end system. That is just damn stupid... especially since the quality of the graphics don't reflect the engines requirements.
The same talks where all over when EQ2 came out. People where frustrated everywhere that they couldn't play the game on their "mainstream" systems; there was no one who could play the game at max settings. At that time it was said every where that EQ2 was designed to run on the hardware of the future.
When I finally joined EQ2 (end of summer 2006) I invested 2000 bucks just to play this game with decent graphics and build myself a new rig for this game with 2Gb ram and a top of the line gfx card. In 2006 these were the first systems that could play the game with all the settings maxed out, and even then the FPS was low (with anisotropic &AA) ..... Wasn't the game released in 2004 ? So here we were 2 YEARS later
So today in 2007 you start again from the bottom up...
Same talks, nothing new to see here, move along.
So do yourself a favor a get your facts straight first. And regarding Vangard not having better graphics than LOTR ? Please do yourself a favor again and go look at the screenshots on the LOTR site, this is technologically about the same as WOW, but with a nice design, I agree.
Now, let me just say this: I play Vangard (which is still not optimized, still has debugging code running, as we still have not seen a final version) on the same box I used to play EQ2. Vangard is running very well at max settings (+ maxed out) with anisotropic 16X, and its getting better every day with each new patch. A real beauty (still missing AA, but the devs said yesterday it was a matter of a few hours to get it in).
So bottom line, and this was said previously: this is a new game, designed for the years to come. Get yourself a computer to run it, or play games designed for what you have today, there are plenty around.
imperialreign.20.forumer.com
They listen to the playerbase
I have the facts straight I've been playing MMOs and building and upgrading my system every year since 1989 (well the building/upgrading part-- The mmo's didn't start until I was playing Legends of Kesmai...) Vanguard's requirements for quality of graphics are abysmal, you can delude yourself however you like, it's no skin off my back. Yah, my 7800GTX is so out of date. 2GB of ram, what was I thinking, I should have at least 8-16gb. Oh and I shouldn't have this normal processor, I should go get the extreme edition instead... *rolls eyes*. Oh wait, I know what I should do, get a second graphics card so I can run SLI! Nevermind that *EVERY* other game runs GREAT, even games that looks significantly better... that's not bad programming on Sigils part thats just me not having a good enough system. Sure thing there Champ. You know it brother-- speak the gospel of Sigil. All hail Brad.
Shadus
Yes you are right. As I said, it's exactly the same discussion we had every where in the past with EQ2. That time I (as well as so many others) was as frustrated with EQ2 as you are today with VG. My 6800 was handling Oblivion nicely, but this was far from enough to play EQ2 with a decent quality.
But there's 1 thing that surprises me: your system, with 2Gb and a 7800GTX should run VG nicely. You should be at high to super high settings (with anisotropic disabled) with an acceptable frame rate. Compared to other player's experiences, the 7800gtx should definitely be enough.
Yes you are right. As I said, it's exactly the same discussion we had every where in the past with EQ2. That time I (as well as so many others) was as frustrated with EQ2 as you are today with VG. My 6800 was handling Oblivion nicely, but this was far from enough to play EQ2 with a decent quality.
But there's 1 thing that surprises me: your system, with 2Gb and a 7800GTX should run VG nicely. You should be at high to super high settings (with anisotropic disabled) with an acceptable frame rate. Compared to other player's experiences, the 7800gtx should definitely be enough.
I run Vanguard pretty well on my machine, which is 1.5 gigs of ram, an AMD 2.2Mhz processor, and a Radeon 9600. True story.
I agree that graphics aren't the key. At the same time, I quit AO because the graphics and interface were horrific.
If we don't ever push graphics, they don't ever get better. I still prefer the WoW style of graphics over the EQ 2, but I understand that at some point, the baseline will improve, and I'll drag my PC up to the new low-end....
Who am I?
@Lorechaser on CoH
Badjuju, Splinterhoof, Plainsrunner on WoW (Moonrunner)
Shyy'rissk on SWG (Flurry)
ClockworkSoldier, HE Pierce, Letnev on Planetside
Gyshe, Crucible, Terrakal on DDO
And many more.
Lorechaser wrote "I agree that graphics aren't the key. At the same time, I quit AO because the graphics and interface were horrific."
You are so very right there, its a ballance they have to find. I want good graphics at least with a great game to keep my intrest. I have played EQ(still a favorite, but was aging), EQ2(was a good game but too many WoW-like changes now), WoW(I can play it, but cant "get into it" very simple) and now Vanguard (has my intrest). I can tell you all that I have liked from each one, and what i didnt like but I guess thats why they have different ones. Right now I like Vanguard, its not unplayable for me but I am updating my computer for it, and I am seeing many others doing the same, so they (devs) must be on to something to get me and others to spend the extra money to play. I feel that once the servers go live and the bugging code in the background is dropped it will be better, guess thats why they call it beta.
But I say that EQ2 Devs lost my favor because of the constant changes to get everyone to play (trying to compete with WoW) I understand that they are after a market, but if I wanted to play WoW I would, not a game that is trying to be WoW. If these game swould stick to the basics, I feel they would generate the fanbase they are seeking.
my 2cp
I think graphics are like 98% artistic talent, 2% technological. A lot of games just use way more polygons than necessary, trying to compensate for thier lack of good artists. Especially MMOs, which require such big art teams. They might have one or two skilled artists, and a handfull of borderline passable artists.
End result is a game that hogs a ridiculous amount of resources, without even looking like anything special.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Like who? You mean EQ2 or VG? Those games go for realistic visuals like real flame, shadows and lighting. Compare those things to WoW and you'll laugh at the difference. They don't use a high end engine because they have "poor artist" they do so because the game has more realistic features.
WoW has some really nice fantasy artistic flare for sure but their engine leaves a lot to be desired. I'd love to see WoW on a Unreal 3 engine. The wailing and gnashing of teeth if they did that from all the guys that still run a 5 year old PC would be interesting to watch.
http://www.greycouncil.org/
I feel my brain cells dying every time a game player makes a comment like this. Not focusing on whether the stats allow them to destroy their opponent, but rather if they look good in their tuxedo....
sigh....
"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
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"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
Most MMO devs just dont have a clue. They take badly worded polls like "do you like MMO's with good graphics" most people will answer this yes, while a few will say no only because they know there will be a cost. Of course people are going to say yes to better graphics. Thats like asking someone if they want all thier fingers and toes. The real question needs to be at what cost.
Do you want cutting edge graphics if:
If these MMO companies just cut back on thier graphics team by like 10 or 15% they could probably have more then enough staff to do all of the above. Graphics design is just so time consuming. Spending days of art design making blades of grass 3 to 10 color samples instead of just 1 color of green is an absolute waste of resources, yet these MMO's are doing it.
Soon as I hear a game has a huge amount of graphics, then its pretty much automatic for me to pass on that game. Because I know its going to suck. If you find an mmo dev team that says they are going to spend 20+ million developing an MMO and it wont have the best graphics out. Then you can pretty much gaurantee that game is going to be pretty smooth. Because with all that extra money they have to spend it somewhere.
If MMO companies would just listen to their forums and see what is posted, they might have a clue. I always got the feeling with the devs in SWG that they never actually played their own game. They just listened to a focus group, which seemed to always be against what the player base wanted. IMO this is nothing new. It will continue on and on, but hopefully one day their will be a company that has the balls to say "yea, we screwed up." "we'll change it to the way you guys want it, not how we want it" I swear I would crap my pants..