Vanguard: Saga of Buggyness

Giganike · February 2007

Hello,

Let me start by saying I am experienced in UO, Eve-Online, DAoC, GW and WoW; I am also not going to make an immature posting with regards to V:SOH; however, I do want to ‘say my piece’ in a constructive manner.

I pre-ordered Vanguard based on several promising features of the game and playing on a friends beta account for several days. Vanguard is, conceptually, a great game and has potential to pull in a lot of mmorpg players bored of WoW, GW etc.

I have never seen such a bad launch week. Not only is the game full of bugs and ‘missing’ elements but the obscure public relations is not helping the situation.

There seems to be some ignorant / arrogant assumption by the support staff (on community forums, via e-mail support) that problems are generally client side. NO.

I’m Sigil, sorry but your game code is not ready for retail. The numerous crashes, ludicrous FPS, failing logins, missing items, memory leaks etc. are your fault and should have been dealt with before launch.

People can say ‘its just launched give it time’, but a retailing product that you pay £30 for should be playable; the game in its current state is not. Personally I crash every 10 minutes regardless of the operating system and settings. Two of my friends who play BOTH can’t even enter the game world! These aren’t isolated incidents Sigil, they are widespread regardless of OS, hardware and settings.

Sigil I hope you wake up, listen to your community (which is dwindling) and deal with major playability issues before Vanguard becomes just another mediocre mmorpg.

I suggest compensating players with at least an extra week of game time, possibly scraping the monthly subscription for now and asking players to help ‘beta’ the code. You should also publicly admit that the game is not ready and ask the community to be patient.

Mrbloodworth · February 2007

The numerous crashes, ludicrous FPS, failing logins, missing items, memory leaks etc. are your fault and should have been dealt with before launch.

Yeah, all that was in beta also... but people are having fun.

KombatJesus · February 2007

Originally posted by Giganike

Hello,
Let me start by saying I am experienced in UO, Eve-Online, DAoC, GW and WoW; I am also not going to make an immature posting with regards to V:SOH; however, I do want to ‘say my piece’ in a constructive manner.
I pre-ordered Vanguard based on several promising features of the game and playing on a friends beta account for several days. Vanguard is, conceptually, a great game and has potential to pull in a lot of mmorpg players bored of WoW, GW etc.
I have never seen such a bad launch week. Not only is the game full of bugs and ‘missing’ elements but the obscure public relations is not helping the situation.
There seems to be some ignorant / arrogant assumption by the support staff (on community forums, via e-mail support) that problems are generally client side. NO.
I’m Sigil, sorry but your game code is not ready for retail. The numerous crashes, ludicrous FPS, failing logins, missing items, memory leaks etc. are your fault and should have been dealt with before launch.

People can say ‘its just launched give it time’, but a retailing product that you pay £30 for should be playable; the game in its current state is not. Personally I crash every 10 minutes regardless of the operating system and settings. Two of my friends who play BOTH can’t even enter the game world! These aren’t isolated incidents Sigil, they are widespread regardless of OS, hardware and settings.
Sigil I hope you wake up, listen to your community (which is dwindling) and deal with major playability issues before Vanguard becomes just another mediocre mmorpg.
I suggest compensating players with at least an extra week of game time, possibly scraping the monthly subscription for now and asking players to help ‘beta’ the code. You should also publicly admit that the game is not ready and ask the community to be patient.

Your post is a good indication that out of all of those games listed you have never seen a launch before.

With MMOs and with the rest of games in general that are being released now. . it has become a "Give it time" Kinda thing, there are numerous games on the PC, 360, PS3 are releasing screwed up. . .we have reached the end of an era in receiving a decent product. . .as long as there is an internet connection and a hard drive to make the changes to the developers of all games will consider them as in beta and never launch until they run out of their last red cent. . .

You will either be one of the people who quits the game or never buys it until later on when you would actually consider that time your launch week or you will be one of the people who enjoys playing the game. . .I myself had my first crash for the first time. If you are crashing to the desktop and both of these people are your friends whose computers you are playing on it is feasible to say they have done something foolish.. . . You could come to my house and I will make you pancakes while we play vanguard. . lmao

freako969 · February 2007

if you actually bother to head over to Sigil's site it tells you that the game was MEANT to be released December 2007. Only Sony being Sony forced them to release it this early as they have been running off bank loans for the past 5 years and have literally run out of money, so they needed to release.

On the other hand they are making DAILY patches which contain more changes then most of warcraft's content patches, everything is getting fixed and everything is being added etc etc so they are fufilling their promise to us. The only thing that is bugging me about it is when a monster just magically dissapears offa the screen when your in the middle of a fight. Apart from that learn to role with the punches eh?

Phyluxia · February 2007

Originally posted by freako969

if you actually bother to head over to Sigil's site it tells you that the game was MEANT to be released December 2007. Only Sony being Sony forced them to release it this early as they have been running off bank loans for the past 5 years and have literally run out of money, so they needed to release.

Wrong.

Lanmoragon · February 2007

Performance is pretty smooth on my end. I havent crashed once (but ive only been in game for about 7 hours total). I have had some weird graphical errors which in turn caused my FPS to drop until I rebooted, but this has only happened twice that I can remember. FPS wise, on my end at least, the game runs great. I have the resolution at 1280x1024 and the settings on balanced with things like draw distance, volumetric clouds, and tree/environment details turned up and I get about 30-40 FPS average in the wild.

Most of the bugs I have encountered that still exist in my starting area are cosmetic, such as being able to buy an ability twice, or a quest reward which is shown twice in the same window.

combustion8 · February 2007

runs great on my end and I dont even have a dual core proc (amd64), running at 1600x1200 (geforce7800gt) also... just tweak your settings and find what works best for you, and if you have to update your vid card and ram.

Trenker · February 2007

Yes, the game is bug infested. Take grouping for instance:

Sometimes players cannot be invited with err msg.
Some invites result in no grp icon for the new member.
Some members hp bars get stuck.
Sometimes the grp chat channel does not work.
Sometimes you get your old grp chat channel.
Grp memebrs go invis sometimes for no reason.

And these are all very basic features that are needed to play the game! Very annoying, poorly coded game that I.. just... gotta... play...

CylusSigil · February 2007

Originally posted by Trenker

Yes, the game is bug infested. Take grouping for instance:

Sometimes players cannot be invited with err msg.
Some invites result in no grp icon for the new member.
Some members hp bars get stuck.
Sometimes the grp chat channel does not work.
Sometimes you get your old grp chat channel.
Grp memebrs go invis sometimes for no reason.

And these are all very basic features that are needed to play the game! Very annoying, poorly coded game that I.. just... gotta... play...

Yea, the Social Server's problems are causing the majority of that; we're completely aware and very annoyed, being gamers ourselves when we have time. That server is definately the highest on our priority list.

vylo · February 2007

I am assuming that you are actually from Sigil. I have questions for you.

1. Are we going to see new and improved animations, and cities with more NPC movement and life?

2. Are there any plans to improve the appearance of water, names the horrific appearance of water as it touches the shore in a boxy, polygonish way?

3. Speaking of water, any plans for underwater plant life to spruce it up? I can get more life leaving a glass of water on a the counter overnight.

4. Any plans to changing and/or expanding character creation options to make characters look more unique?

5. Clipping plane. It doesn't seem to go anywhere about 900 meters even though the slider bars goes further, will this change in the future? What about how objects and creatures don't appear until ~50 meters, I hear it is going to be fixed. Is this true, and if so, how much improvement can we expect?

6. If yes to any of the above, can you give us an idea of their priority?

CylusSigil · February 2007

Originally posted by vylo

I am assuming that you are actually from Sigil. I have questions for you.
1. Are we going to see new and improved animations, and cities with more NPC movement and life?
Agreed that NPCs need more life/movement in the cities; biggest issue right now is performance. I've had ambient scripts and triggers completed for months that'd initiate random animations and conversations between passing NPCs but all of that takes a toll on the server. Add in a high player pop and that said city will go to hell. It's ready to go in when possible, tho As for animations, that's the art department and I honestly have no idea what their plans are.
2. Are there any plans to improve the appearance of water, names the horrific appearance of water as it touches the shore in a boxy, polygonish way?
We really need some sort of particle effect similiar to our rivers that bridges the water and land; trust me, I've complained about it as a beta tester well before I was hired
3. Speaking of water, any plans for underwater plant life to spruce it up? I can get more life leaving a glass of water on a the counter overnight.
It's pretty easy on our side to add plant life under the water, just a matter of the time it takes to get it in. We obviously have a priority list of stuff that needs to get done and marine life isn't at the top of it
4. Any plans to changing and/or expanding character creation options to make characters look more unique?
No idea...again, is an art thing. They're just as busy these days as us designers so I wouldn't put it past them to continue tweaking art-related things such as customization.
5. Clipping plane. It doesn't seem to go anywhere about 900 meters even though the slider bars goes further, will this change in the future? What about how objects and creatures don't appear until ~50 meters, I hear it is going to be fixed. Is this true, and if so, how much improvement can we expect?
The 50m things bugs me as well, even more so when I was a Sorc and our ranged spell was 50m...hard to nuke something if ya can't see it. I haven't pinged Gebron about this in a while so not exactly sure what our plans are atm. A higher clipping plane for those that could take advantage of it and a slider for object population would be money. I'm not a coder though, so no idea on how involved it is; am assuming that it's fairly difficult with our engine since it hasn't happened already, to the disappointment of all.

We obviously have a long "to-do" list and priorities will change accordingly. Please try to keep in mind that we're all gamers just like y'all and both the little and big stuff annoys and pisses us off just as much as y'all.

vylo · February 2007

Thanks for the reply!

another thing. I noticed that tapestry, like flags are stiff and don't move, I don't suppose you know about those either?

And lastly, if I'm allowed to ask this, why was the game release so early in its current state? The incompleteness of the game is tangible and is turning off many people.

roadwarriors · February 2007

R u rilly from sigil?

sipus · February 2007

Maybe abit off topic but I am just amazed how people not that just accept but acctualy defend a product that hit the shelfs unfinished.

I am not sayn' Vanguard is not a good game, or a bad one, certainly it have potantial.BUt from a customer point of view, would you buy a car wich "sound to be cool'" but the salemans will fgive it to you without wheels?"We will deliver the super turbo wheels included in the next month sir"..

Come on people get real and have a little respect for the money you spend on something as customer at least..The game market made such a habit to sell unfinished products in ther past years that it become a rule.

Soon they will "patch" our grocery too lol

Mithraw · February 2007

The most annoying bug I encounter the whole day through is the mobs disappearing during fight. It sucks especially when you deliver a deathblow and there's no corpse for you to loot.

slay13 · February 2007

Vanguard= Yawn.......ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzZZZzZZzzzzzz.....

vylo · February 2007

Originally posted by sipus

Maybe abit off topic but I am just amazed how people not that just accept but acctualy defend a product that hit the shelfs unfinished.
I am not sayn' Vanguard is not a good game, or a bad one, certainly it have potantial.BUt from a customer point of view, would you buy a car wich "sound to be cool'" but the salemans will fgive it to you without wheels?"We will deliver the super turbo wheels included in the next month sir"..
Come on people get real and have a little respect for the money you spend on something as customer at least..The game market made such a habit to sell unfinished products in ther past years that it become a rule.
Soon they will "patch" our grocery too lol

Because it has "wheels". Just a lot of dents, etc.

I won't defend it to the point where I won't admit it has flaws, because it has glaring ones.

I play this because it is the MMO I am interested in. WoW is higher quality, but I'm bored with it. The expansion didn't do much at all to wet my appitite either.

EQ is past its prime.

Tried EQ2, but I can't get into it. Instancing drives me away from MMOs.

Tried Eve, definitely not my style.

Shadowbane had an awesome skill system that more MMOs should "borrow", but beyond that was a hollow shell and completely devoid of anything even remotely resembling balance.

Horizons...... lol.... enough said.

Asheron's call - see EQ, and it wasn't that great to begin with.

Ashreon's call 2 - train wreck of a game.

DDO - again with the instancing. I could just play regular D&D.

LOTRO - was in beta. Wasn't very impressed, Controls were at a super nintendo level of physical realism, and that is coming from a man who loved to jump in a circle backwards on his mount in WoW.

So here I am.

The pro- I got this game earlier then I expected.

The horrible, horrible con - it isn't actually done yet.

Fightz · February 2007

hi there,

Ehm, am i the only one that is having some problems with mobs disappering in combat and some times im not eable to form groups.

Teres also the "lost connection to your group" bug

Had hoped that they would have fixed these anoing bugs before going out of beta.

However i still love the game

Coldmeat · February 2007

Clearly their priority should be on bringing the Gnome area up to snuff relative to the other races starting areas. I think it shows a great deal of disrespect for what is obviously an inherently superior Gnomish way of life.

Some more cowbell wouldn't hurt, either.

jimmyman99 · February 2007

I agree with OP with everything except this: this is game is NOT unplayable. It is very much playable. There are lots of bugs there, but very few ones make the game unplayable. Even the fall-through-the-world bug is not game-breaking since ucan just "/stuck yes" it and problem solved. Of course this all depends on your toleration levels, you might consider those bugs very bad, i might consider very light.

Jackdog · February 2007

even though I could be considered one Vanguards bigger critics, the game is far from unplayable. It has a lot of warts that need to be removed and a lot of makeup needs to be added however as of the last of beta I would rate it somewhere along the lines of Horizons quality, Unlike Artifact Entertainment however SOE has enough cash to sink into it so eventually it will be fixed up. The question at the moment though is how fast, there are some very polished games coming out in the next six months which complicate things tremendously as far as subscriptions go. Another thing that needs to be taken into consideration is will SOE force Sigil into a SWG NGE situation and force a complete redesign.

Rihahn · February 2007

Having "MMO'd" for so long, I can take a lot and still call something playable... But in a game where every 30 seconds something 'odd' happens, it's tough.

I really think Sigil is getting more heat because the game has the potential to be so immersive, so that when a quest giver doesn't 'rez in' for a good 30 seconds, or a MOB up and vanishes, or the game turns into a slide-show for no apparent reason, it's more apparent that something is wrong.

So, yes, while there are no "Blocker bugs" for the most part and the game is technically 'playable', I don't concider it enough for the monthly fee.

To use the oft-used car analogy; it's much like paying monthly for a car that, while both beautiful and technically driveable, has no heat, the driver's side windows won't roll down, and occasionally the engine just turns off on it's own.

Sharkypal · February 2007

Originally posted by Jackdog

even though I could be considered one Vanguards bigger critics, the game is far from unplayable. It has a lot of warts that need to be removed and a lot of makeup needs to be added however as of the last of beta I would rate it somewhere along the lines of Horizons quality, Unlike Artifact Entertainment however SOE has enough cash to sink into it so eventually it will be fixed up. The question at he moment though isd how fast, there are some very polished games coming out in the next six months which complicate things tremendously as far as subscriptions go.

How do YOU know they will be polished? More of your "LOTRO is the 2nd coming" Mantra no doubt. I wish there wasn't an NDA so I could blast that game all over the place. All I can say is that I know exactly what kind of MMO player Jackdog is and why he can't deal with a game like Vanguard, it's a little bit too complicated for him. Don't worry bud, your instant grat, carebear MMOs aren't far off. Hopefully, that's the last we'll see of you

Jackdog · February 2007

Originally posted by Sharkypal

Originally posted by Jackdog

even though I could be considered one Vanguards bigger critics, the game is far from unplayable. It has a lot of warts that need to be removed and a lot of makeup needs to be added however as of the last of beta I would rate it somewhere along the lines of Horizons quality, Unlike Artifact Entertainment however SOE has enough cash to sink into it so eventually it will be fixed up. The question at he moment though isd how fast, there are some very polished games coming out in the next six months which complicate things tremendously as far as subscriptions go.

How do YOU know they will be polished? More of your "LOTRO is the 2nd coming" Mantra no doubt. I wish there wasn't an NDA so I could blast that game all over the place. All I can say is that I know exactly what kind of MMO player Jackdog is and why he can't deal with a game like Vanguard, it's a little bit too complicated for him. Don't worry bud, your instant grat, carebear MMOs aren't far off. Hopefully, that's the last we'll see of you

Sharkey I am in two betas art the moment. I respect NDAs so I will not say which ones specifically, however both are in better shape as of now than Vanguard was on release day. Now can you actually contribute to the thread or is your purpose on this forum just to make personal attacks against me?

Sharkypal · February 2007

Originally posted by Jackdog

Originally posted by Sharkypal

Originally posted by Jackdog

even though I could be considered one Vanguards bigger critics, the game is far from unplayable. It has a lot of warts that need to be removed and a lot of makeup needs to be added however as of the last of beta I would rate it somewhere along the lines of Horizons quality, Unlike Artifact Entertainment however SOE has enough cash to sink into it so eventually it will be fixed up. The question at he moment though isd how fast, there are some very polished games coming out in the next six months which complicate things tremendously as far as subscriptions go.

How do YOU know they will be polished? More of your "LOTRO is the 2nd coming" Mantra no doubt. I wish there wasn't an NDA so I could blast that game all over the place. All I can say is that I know exactly what kind of MMO player Jackdog is and why he can't deal with a game like Vanguard, it's a little bit too complicated for him. Don't worry bud, your instant grat, carebear MMOs aren't far off. Hopefully, that's the last we'll see of you

Sharkey I am in two betas art the moment. I respect NDAs so I will not say which ones specifically, however both are in better shape as of now than Vanguard was on release day. Now can you actually contribute to the thread or is your purpose on this forum just to make personal attacks against me?

Constructive? You? When? You are NEVER constructive and I don't attack you. I merely point out that you dont bring anything constructive to the table. You start threads like "Vanguard can only survive via the station pass" etc. Maybe you think you are constructive but what you actually are is A : Negative and B : A fanboy of other games (which are in Beta).

Deathstrike2 · February 2007

Originally posted by Sharkypal

Originally posted by Jackdog

Originally posted by Sharkypal

Originally posted by Jackdog

even though I could be considered one Vanguards bigger critics, the game is far from unplayable. It has a lot of warts that need to be removed and a lot of makeup needs to be added however as of the last of beta I would rate it somewhere along the lines of Horizons quality, Unlike Artifact Entertainment however SOE has enough cash to sink into it so eventually it will be fixed up. The question at he moment though isd how fast, there are some very polished games coming out in the next six months which complicate things tremendously as far as subscriptions go.

How do YOU know they will be polished? More of your "LOTRO is the 2nd coming" Mantra no doubt. I wish there wasn't an NDA so I could blast that game all over the place. All I can say is that I know exactly what kind of MMO player Jackdog is and why he can't deal with a game like Vanguard, it's a little bit too complicated for him. Don't worry bud, your instant grat, carebear MMOs aren't far off. Hopefully, that's the last we'll see of you

Sharkey I am in two betas art the moment. I respect NDAs so I will not say which ones specifically, however both are in better shape as of now than Vanguard was on release day. Now can you actually contribute to the thread or is your purpose on this forum just to make personal attacks against me?

Constructive? You? When? You are NEVER constructive and I don't attack you. I merely point out that you dont bring anything constructive to the table. You start threads like "Vanguard can only survive via the station pass" etc. Maybe you think you are constructive but what you actually are is A : Negative and B : A fanboy of other games (which are in Beta).

Wow, you are actually going to say that you don't attack him when just a few posts up, you obviously did? Instead of focusing on what kind of person that Jackdog is, how about telling us why you believe what he's saying is wrong? He's brought up some good points, but all I'm hearing is that Jackdog has an agenda, or Jackdog is a hater, or whatever. I still haven't heard why Jack's wrong.

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