Actually oddly enough my biggest problem in Vanguard is that they don't have chat bubbles. Putting player text in the spam down on the bottom left immediately breaks immersion, you have to look away from what you are watching / doing to read the text. Alternatively, if you don't read it, there is no community feeling.
Until they change that one basic feature, Vanguard will never be more than it is now for me. They have so many many options, but they missed the most basic thing in their desire to "push the limits".
UO had chat bubbles. And is still ticking along, 9 years later.
WoW has chat buttles that are 'very reminicent' of UO.
I doubt anyone would say that chat bubbles hurt WoW's sales any ...
Chat bubbles are lame and kill emersion. besides most people I know in VG use Ventrillo and dont type chat at all. Dont want to join a decent guild? Then why are you playing an MMO? It's a social expierience. I love vangaurd community spirit. each time they open their mouths another gamer saves 65$. Keep up the great work ! whoops , and 3 dollars extra to use a website , probably fees for costumer service to, though comstumer service is like a red headed step child , noone wants to claim responsibility.
Well here is what i think by the end of 2007 many good mmos will be on the market. PPL who never played vsoh will never try it just becuase there will be better ones out there to try with direct x 10 graphics and stuff. why will they even waste money and time with an mmo that claims to be a 3rd gen one when clearly it's 2nd gen at best. Even in a years time this game will still the same just with less bugs.
Good point but also think about this. Can you imagine someone new to the game coming into an empty world? You would have no one to play with plus you would have to deal with that torturous grind.
Hopefully, the companies that release the other games this year look at the Vanguard's failure. In reality they did everything wrong. Simply ask yourself if Vanguard did it then do the opposite. Mainly the following:
Make the game fun for regular people not just Geeks in a basement playing 20 hours/day.
Polish it. When it is polished, polish it some more.
Remove tedium.
Do not launch at the same time as Warhammer.
Do not set expectation too high. Boats and grifs my arse. Maybe in 4 years of grinding.
Learn from prior games. Do not bring back old concepts that were painful the first time.
Be innovative. Do not just repackage the same game with new graphics.
Allow people to play together whether or not they are level 10 or level 40 somehow.
Start small. Make it great and then release expansions.
Nicely put you made alot of good points let's hope the companies of those games read these forums
FFxi Retired Coh/Cov Retired Guild Wars/Retired WOW/(11-23-04/1-6-07) VSOH/ retired AOC/retired that was fast Waiting 4 DCUO ,and FFXIV
Chat bubbles are lame and kill emersion. besides most people I know in VG use Ventrillo and dont type chat at all. Dont want to join a decent guild? Then why are you playing an MMO? It's a social expierience.
And exactly how is someone supposed to find that decent guild if the members aren't even talking in the regular game world, but have instead isolated themselves from the rest of the players in the areaby using Ventrillo? That makes no sense.
And chat bubbles can actually add to the immersion if you do it right.
For example, in my CoH guild, when someone hits level 50, we have an honor guard for that person. Everyone dresses in the guild uniform, and we go back to the newbie area where it all started, speaking in local chat, with the chat bubbles praising said player for their accomplishment, and all of us ultimately saluting that person as they marched up to train their final level with the same trainer that they started with at Level 1. To give a visual of what I'm talking about, it looked kind of like the bottom frame from this page of a 3-D comic book one of our members made as an art experiment:
The chat bubbles in the game would give any and all players who'd gathered around wondering what was going on some clue about what we were doing. It also got them involved, since they could add their own comments, or otherwise interact with the whole scene. That kind of thing adds to the immersion of a game world.
The social aspect of an MMO is entirely what you make of it, but it also takes some sort of interaction on a guild's part to make themselves a part of that game world. Isolating yourself on Ventrillo then trying to call an MMO a social experience is a joke.
The social aspect of an MMO is entirely what you make of it, but it also takes some sort of interaction on a guild's part to make themselves a part of that game world. Isolating yourself on Ventrillo then trying to call an MMO a social experience is a joke. you get the MMO philosopher prize of 2007 . Very well put .
I admit, it is quite pointless to write this, because those who feel otherwise wont be persuaded and those in charge wont listen. But, it is an investment. In a year, it will give me quite a satisfaction to know I was right. And if by chance I will be wrong, I will rejoice because VG became a really good game against my own expectation. I follow the several forums, the Dev posts and the discussions since launch. While VG has some really good moments after playing it since launch I feel... tired. I cant say it otherwise. I feel spent somehow. Hovering over the Vanguard icon on my screen already feels as if I played Vanguard years. I know, many stick to VG hoping for the many things they add and the great content to come. Things to animate the lifeless NPCs in the cities, things to make more interesting quests. Things to make grouping easier. Call it a hunch, but tbh... I am coming to think most things will more or less stay as they are. VG is establishing its niche and more or less will stay there. It didnt start bad. But it didnt actually skyrocket either. And being part of Station they can run it endless with 5 Devs one day like SWG, and dont really have to admit if failure should become visible. I dont say that WILL happen. But it sure is a background where we wont see any earth-shattering changes. Like those lifeless NPCs in the cities, or the soulless feeling the game is filled with in so many ways. I dont want to elaborate; if you see it you know what I mean and if you dont, nothing I say will make you see it.
I think the main problem is IMVPO, the game Devs great success with EQ1 has made them arrogant. They have their vision and its down to take it or leave it. Lets take a look at what we have. Is VG really new in any aspect? Well, if we really honestly look at it, it is more of the same. (I exclude Diplomacy, because I find this little card game unbelievable primitive and boring. Nuff said.) It is quite the same kind of MMO as we have seen so often before. Only here is more of it in numbers. But there is that arrogance of those Sigil-EQ1-Veteran Devs who have their 1999 concepts in mind and a difficulty to adapt, a difficulty to understand what gaming is 2007. Take the caravan system. Brad McQuaid still claims it as the big solution to travelling and grouping. Back in 1999 in EQ1 communities were quite tight woven, back THEN it would have worked. The idea is nice, you logg off and when coming back to follow your friends. The point is, 2007 we dont HAVE such MMO communities as back then. Today, players are much more loosley connected that such a travel is meaningful. Once you log back next day, your caravan is likely disbanded and its members spread all over the world. Or take the Fellowship system: the idea is some hard working people give their meagerly incoming XP AWAY to lazy bums? You really think that will happen? No, what WILL happen is, grinders make Fellowships and casual will make theirs, and the impact is low to zero on the entire problem of people levelling apart. The game which really made a novelty in that area was CoH were you could mentor down or sidekick a friend up to your level to make some quests together. THAT was a novelty and cool! The entire VG vision is so full of ideas which sound very cool on the table, but proof to be quite a waste of time in reality. Like migrating mobs in Dark & Light. It SOUNDED cool when I heard of it, but in real, seeking mobs for DAYS for your quest because they migrated somewhere else was not as cool as it sounded. Many of those game devs just get into some frenzy over such cool ideas and make it more and more complex until it is just totally clumsy. It was cool to make a different bag for crafting. But making THREE different kind of bags for harvested goods, tools and crafting ingrediences, is just pointless making it complex for the sake of complexity. Instead of spending time on useful things, like a guild window where you can see some REAL info about your guild members. Or take crafting: The IDEA to prevent market spamming by introducing work orders was good. In reality it is quite lame, because now my level 9 artificer can craft exactly three things he can sell, arrows, bolts and staves. Not that I ever get XP after I made them once. Also, you have to level up quite far to make something useful for MUCH lower adventurer levels. Essentially, you dont craft things, you craft icons of things. And that entire click-orgy which is the crafting process... I have never seen something so dull and mind-numbing as that. Working in a 1930 car factory at an assembly line, pressing a red button ever 3 seconds must have been exciting compared to it. At least you could see some cars coming out of the factory somewhere. Here, its icons of lamps, icons of coffins, icons of daggers. Since its only icons, it doesnt really matter. They could have simplified the entire process by just making one work order rinse and repeat until lv 50. That would at least safe us the hassle to walk back to the work order NPC. The TRUTH is, Sigil is now lost in a maze of balancing spells and stats. 3 points here and -4 point there, that is what is catching their attention now. Sure, its not totally unimportant. They are fixated on small things they fell in love with. But ask yourself: in the end of an evening, does it really bother you that your groupmate X got more mitigation or more stealth that you? What bothers people in the long run is the "feeling" of a world, the "heart" in the city life and the "soul" you feel in the quests. Instead we get mind-numbing quests with the most shallow quest text, not spoken with sound, barely animated in cities where NPCs are nailed to the ground and stand still like nauseated. The TRUTH is, Telon is too big. Not in itself, but it was too much for Sigil to handle, too much to fill every city, village and quest hub with life, both with animations as with background stories and quest that give you a FEELING. I have no real faith we will see a fundamental change in that, that all overnight an update will make a deep, touching world out of a rather sterile one. Most of the Sigil Devs, reading interviews with them, are quite hardcorish folks, enjoying corpse runs in their underwear. They are the kind of gotten old students with the die hard, "look what gross hardships *I* can endure" bragging tone on them, and I dont see that folks making Telon into a world with "soul" and "magic". Look at their dungeons. That is what their dreamed of. Deadly HUGE caverns with 1000s of dangerous 4dot mobs to kill in a row. And if you manage to die down there, your bad luck. Instead of making SMALLER but more meaningful dungeons, dungeons with a FEELING, a background. One of my favorites was the Splitpaw Dungeon in EQ2, so if you knew that, you know what I mean. Somehow I feel believing that the bigger the better is something very American, like in the Discovery reports about the biggest machines or the biggest bridges. I can almost hear Tim Tailor from "Home Improvement" grunting "hor hor... look how BIG our game is... hor hor." What is NOT in that game, alas is quality. Fun is not the quantity of time spent on anything, its the quality. Well, at least for me. Nothing I hear or read from the Devs now gives me any sign to hope they really are couragous to make a change, to learn from issues. I see game devs, who stick to a vision rooted in 1999, fixated on ideas and solutions a decade old, or older, eagerly defended by their 30 fanbois/girls. What I see is the attitude "the game is great but those who feel not content just didnt understand how good our game is." And VG is not a bad game. But it is not a great one either. It is just another missed opportunity, and likely one of the best missed chances for a good game we will see for many years to come. The game coming to the shelves now are mediocre from the start. It will take years for another great game which really capture the players like I once was captured by SWG or EQ2. With is 100s of numbers and stats popping up, its overcomplicated way to approach everything, Vanguard is a very oldfashioned game in a shiny new engine and has NOTHING 3rd gen in it. It is not revolutionary, it is on the contrary quite retro. Surprise me. Show me that Devs are really willing to leave the old trails and think creative. I'd love to be proven wrong in the future, really. What I see however is a group of Devs anxiously close to tread paths of what was good and great 10 years ago.
All I got out of his huge post was that he doesn't like crafting because it isn't something you can hit the level cap in if you do it for two hours. You are complaining about work orders because you have to walk 25 feet or so? Why would anybody give you 1 work order that will level you to the crafting cap? You complained that you have to be a higher level to craft "cool" things? Well isn't it fitting that the player who crafts longer and is a higher crafter gets to craft cool things?
He doesn't like it because he thought it was going to be a game that changed MMO's as we know it. You complained because now they have to balance their game, but what MMORPG doesn't have balancing issues? All the good ones have patches and updates weekly because they have to conastantly redo things they did in previous patches and continue to balance.
Also, when you talk about caravan systems and the like you are comparing other game communitues to this one. This game hasn't even been out long and I feel as though you thought this was the MMO to end all MMOs and are now upset that the game isn't exactly how you wanted it.
you thought this was the MMO to end all MMOs and are now upset that the game isn't exactly how you wanted it. Your first line was spot on.
Hundreds of thousands where told by Mcquaid and company , this was the mmo we been waiting for. We have a right to be very pissed off that we waited 5 years for this pile . The next time a Dev does what Mcquaid did, he should be black listed from all internet outlets. imo
Exactly what he said, and you waited for it. He never said it was the greatest game of all time.
Games in general are all of opinion. You may love WoW while another may hate it. To him Vanguard may be amazing and they have things planned for it, but to others they think it is just another MMO.
"IGNPC: Will quests in this game differ from other MMOGs? For example, will it be simple random quests like kill monster X or retrieve item Y, or will there be a story and lore behind each quest that ties everything together?
Brad McQuaid: Quests will involve all sorts of ideas and stories. Some of the stories might be only of local import, or some might have some epic scope. It really all depends on the context, who you are, and what you're doing. Certainly the quests will not be random, nor limited to taking an item from point A to point B. Our quest design involves a sophisticated flag system where characters can be marked by an number of events (including, but far from being limited by, picking up or being handed an item). NPCs will then react to that character depending on what flags he has on or off.
One example of a quest we just put in the game involved retrieving a stained cloak from a half-giant that attacks you if you are on a certain quest. Once you retrieve the cloak, it allows you entry into a goblin mini-dungeon -- apparently the goblin's smell the scent on the cloak and choose not to attack you. This then allows you audience with the goblin chief -- you have a quick dialog with him, have another flag set, and continue onto the next segment of the greater quest. And, as long as you aren't dumb enough to remove the cloak, the goblins allow you to exit the dungeon and proceed.
Anyway, just a simple example, but you can see how the flag system works, and how it can optionally involve items and is very flexible and certainly something that can be story driven."
(this is real nice, XNA basically the microsoft console toolkit, so another words Microsoft wanted this on the 360 IMO)
"
IGNPC: Are you developing using the XNA standardized toolsets, and if so, in what capacity?
Brad McQuaid: We are using just about all of them as they become available. We are already experimenting with voice chat, different controllers, and also look forward to seeing how Microsoft plans on integrating Xbox Live in with PC games. Vanguard is very suited to XNA and the more the tools roll out, the more eager we are to start using them "
Game Spy 2004 (New appraoches)
"GameSpy: What's the basic premise of Vanguard? Where and when does it take place and what role will the players be playing?
McQuaid:Vanguard is very much a traditional high fantasy game with some new approaches as well, depending on where are you are in the world. People start playing in various continents depending on which race they select. Players will be involved in all sorts of activities related to character advancement, including a robust and exciting adventuring system as well as a more action-packed crafting experience."
GameSpy: You state that you're looking to target the hardcore MMO player by offering them a new challenge. Can you go into a little more detail on just what that means when somebody signs up with Vanguard?
McQuaid: Describing the target audience as hardcore might be too extreme, especially with so many perceptions as to what that really means. What we are trying to do is offer a compelling, challenging, and rewarding game. Some recent massively multiplayer efforts have tried to water down that experience a bit in order to attract a more casual audience. We actually feel that isn't necessary, and that both the core gamer and the more casual gamer can co-exist. For example, there are different areas in Vanguard specifically designated as casual, group, or raid.
These distinctions relate to the difficulty and rewards in the area, as well as how long of a play period we think most players will need to successfully commit to that region. What's pretty cool is that the more casual areas will not only appeal to players who always have less time to invest, but also to more core gamers who still want to be able to log in occasionally for shorter durations. In other words, they'll still be able to accomplish things and advance without necessarily a lot of preparation time or needing to gather their whole group or guild together"
(this is si much fun , IMO)
"GameSpy: What do think the biggest mistake most of the MMOs out there now are making when it comes to the design of their products?
McQuaid: Probably the idea that these games need to be watered down and made really easy in order to attract a wider audience. By reducing interdependence and community building, they're unintentionally removing the glue that keeps players coming back month after month, year after year."
you know I can just go on and on with the type of articles and interviews I read that got me so hyped for the game. We all read into this stuff like it was going to be the last real Fantasy mmo we would buy. I can't even add up how much eye usage was used to read all this crap over the last few years to lead me up to this point. Yah , you can say or hide behind all this
"Exactly what he said, and you waited for it. He never said it was the greatest game of all time."
Sooner or later someone will find where he said "greatest of all time" and it will be a hoot, IMO
9. Start small. Make it great and then release expansions.
Sure. So the people who will have grinded in 1 or 2 weeks to the end of their small world will be sitting there without anything else to do. So they will come back in masses to Vanguard's huge world which will have improved by then.
He didn't lie though, form the article you copied and pasted, the crafting has more action than that of FFXI and WoW just for examples. I will never understand the point of quitting a game, flaming it , and then hanging out on it's forums just to badmouth it. Its a video game bro, let it go.. lol. Shedding tears over a video game isn't good for anybody.
You do realise that any publicity for anything always = good publicity. Every time you post something in this topic or any topic of Vanguard it goes to the top of the MMORPG homepage and then people click it and start reading about this game. If anything you are helping them get attention and in the end your crying post will make more people read about the game than it will turn people away from it.
He didn't lie though, form the article you copied and pasted, the crafting has more action than that of FFXI and WoW just for examples. I will never understand the point of quitting a game, flaming it , and then hanging out on it's forums just to badmouth it. Its a video game bro, let it go.. lol. Shedding tears over a video game isn't good for anybody. You do realise that any publicity for anything always = good publicity. Every time you post something in this topic or any topic of Vanguard it goes to the top of the MMORPG homepage and then people click it and start reading about this game. If anything you are helping them get attention and in the end your crying post will make more people read about the game than it will turn people away from it.
Your right, he is just using a bend the light technic to say, our quest aren't innovative at all. OOO yeah "THEY SMELL THE CLOAK:" He is a great story teller , terrible game designer. Let me scan them and pick out the points I wanted to hint on...
Reverse phsycology , nice touch , I see they are trying to bring in real pros now ooo yeah HORRIBLE publicity is AWESOME in game community, ask the guy who made E.T. ,,,,
Brad is a horrible game designer? Wow, I would love to see what you could do!
OK right off the top of my head
Quest scenerio
The Blah Blah NPC iin Blah blah building has seen a great jewel in the hand of blah. When he looked at this beautiful piece of material he had to have it, he ask you to go KIDNAP so and so and bring him to you, for question.
1. you have to use cunning to sneak to a camp and capture the clown
2. you just cant stuff this fool into your Back pack , you have to lug his butt and depending on which guy you snag there is a weight difference that would effect the over stamina. You have to either rent a horse or mule for transportation our use your own to transport the kidnapped so and so , you can have interrogation of so and so maybe a mini game of it like the diplomacy, Really shouldn't there be tyrant side of that card game,...
3. AI sense some one is missing , blah bah
they come after you setting off an entire world of sequences for your character that interacts with all character inside the world , these quest could only be done by one person until completion and then it would reset, it could be days to complete, but you would build over 1000 + quests that each player can do.
Maybe this item is sought after different npcs and you could have multiple player going for it ,and you can incorporate the pvp into the quest so people can kill each other to get the jewel to the designated npc
That is the type of questing or content I THought vangaurd was going to be.
Brad is a horrible game designer? Wow, I would love to see what you could do!
OK right off the top of my head
Quest scenerio
The Blah Blah NPC iin Blah blah building has seen a great jewel in the hand of blah. When he looked at this beautiful piece of material he had to have it, he ask you to go KIDNAP so and so and bring him to you, for question.
1. you have to use cunning to sneak to a camp and capture the clown
2.you just cant stuff this fool into your pack pack , you have to lug his butt and depending on which huy you snag there is a weight difference that would effect the over stamina.
You have to either rent a hors or mule for transportation our use your own to transport the kidnapped so and so
3. AI sense some one is missing , blah bah they come after you setting off an entire world of sequences for your character that interacts with all character inside the world , these quest could only be done by one person until completion and then it would reset, it could be days to complete, but you would build over 1000 + scenerios that each player can do.
Maybe this item is sought after different npcs and you could have multiple player going for it ,and you can incorporate the pvp into the quest so people can kill each other to get the jewel to the designated npc's .
That is the type of questing or content I THought vangaurd was going to be.
That was probably your first mistake. Do you have any clue how hard it is to put something like that into an MMORPG? This isn't a console game, what would happen when there are multiple people trying to do this quest but you already triggered the event? You want them to just sit back and wait the entire time while this is going on?
Brad is a horrible game designer? Wow, I would love to see what you could do!
OK right off the top of my head
Quest scenerio
The Blah Blah NPC iin Blah blah building has seen a great jewel in the hand of blah. When he looked at this beautiful piece of material he had to have it, he ask you to go KIDNAP so and so and bring him to you, for question.
1. you have to use cunning to sneak to a camp and capture the clown
2.you just cant stuff this fool into your pack pack , you have to lug his butt and depending on which huy you snag there is a weight difference that would effect the over stamina.
You have to either rent a hors or mule for transportation our use your own to transport the kidnapped so and so
3. AI sense some one is missing , blah bah they come after you setting off an entire world of sequences for your character that interacts with all character inside the world , these quest could only be done by one person until completion and then it would reset, it could be days to complete, but you would build over 1000 + scenerios that each player can do.
Maybe this item is sought after different npcs and you could have multiple player going for it ,and you can incorporate the pvp into the quest so people can kill each other to get the jewel to the designated npc's .
That is the type of questing or content I THought vangaurd was going to be.
That was probably your first mistake. Do you have any clue how hard it is to put something like that into an MMORPG? This isn't a console game, what would happen when there are multiple people trying to do this quest but you already triggered the event? You want them to just sit back and wait the entire time while this is going on? The event is not triggered because it is written as part of the world , it is always on, you could have 20-100 npcs throughtout the world who want that item . Perfect pvp quest , find someone , hunting them down , asking other players have you seen sos. 5 years time ,it a long time to be writing go here and get me 10 eggs from a cows butt type stuff.
Brad is a horrible game designer? Wow, I would love to see what you could do!
OK right off the top of my head
Quest scenerio
The Blah Blah NPC iin Blah blah building has seen a great jewel in the hand of blah. When he looked at this beautiful piece of material he had to have it, he ask you to go KIDNAP so and so and bring him to you, for question.
1. you have to use cunning to sneak to a camp and capture the clown
2.you just cant stuff this fool into your pack pack , you have to lug his butt and depending on which huy you snag there is a weight difference that would effect the over stamina.
You have to either rent a hors or mule for transportation our use your own to transport the kidnapped so and so
3. AI sense some one is missing , blah bah they come after you setting off an entire world of sequences for your character that interacts with all character inside the world , these quest could only be done by one person until completion and then it would reset, it could be days to complete, but you would build over 1000 + scenerios that each player can do.
Maybe this item is sought after different npcs and you could have multiple player going for it ,and you can incorporate the pvp into the quest so people can kill each other to get the jewel to the designated npc's .
That is the type of questing or content I THought vangaurd was going to be.
That was probably your first mistake. Do you have any clue how hard it is to put something like that into an MMORPG? This isn't a console game, what would happen when there are multiple people trying to do this quest but you already triggered the event? You want them to just sit back and wait the entire time while this is going on?It's called instancing, I don't see why certain quests can't be instanced, to make things feel more dynamic and interesting.
Brad is a horrible game designer? Wow, I would love to see what you could do!
OK right off the top of my head
Quest scenerio
The Blah Blah NPC iin Blah blah building has seen a great jewel in the hand of blah. When he looked at this beautiful piece of material he had to have it, he ask you to go KIDNAP so and so and bring him to you, for question.
1. you have to use cunning to sneak to a camp and capture the clown
2.you just cant stuff this fool into your pack pack , you have to lug his butt and depending on which huy you snag there is a weight difference that would effect the over stamina.
You have to either rent a hors or mule for transportation our use your own to transport the kidnapped so and so
3. AI sense some one is missing , blah bah they come after you setting off an entire world of sequences for your character that interacts with all character inside the world , these quest could only be done by one person until completion and then it would reset, it could be days to complete, but you would build over 1000 + scenerios that each player can do.
Maybe this item is sought after different npcs and you could have multiple player going for it ,and you can incorporate the pvp into the quest so people can kill each other to get the jewel to the designated npc's .
That is the type of questing or content I THought vangaurd was going to be.
That was probably your first mistake. Do you have any clue how hard it is to put something like that into an MMORPG? This isn't a console game, what would happen when there are multiple people trying to do this quest but you already triggered the event? You want them to just sit back and wait the entire time while this is going on?It's called instancing, I don't see why certain quests can't be instanced, to make things feel more dynamic and interesting. It wouldnt have to be instance, cause once that npc gets the item, he may set it up into a display , and a thief player could steal it , or another npc somewhere might want it, Make it into a triangle (LOL) type of effect to keep the item in play , but only allowing the player to play throw it once.
I would add , if players have housing , items should have tracing capabilites to the point that an npc at random could call for a quest to break into someones house to steal a item.
With a open world that is Vanguard , the ideas should of been way more dynamic and way beyond innovative, they had the chance to make a staple in the mmo nich for fantasy and that momment has now passed.
Are you kidding me? Seriously can you honestly have just said " Nicely put you made alot of good points let's hope the companies of those games read these forums"
Are you actually Tnice? or are You just some Troll and use two accounts to make yourself look better? because everything that he just said is ******* retarded, want me to go through the list?
Make the game fun for regular people not just Geeks in a basement playing 20 hours/day.(ok lets see here, well I have a level 14 Dread Knight, and i only go on for a few hours a night go through a few dungeons, talk on Ventrillo, hang out, etc. and I seem to have leveled through it just fine, I also in the time I was getting to level 19: Went to a Ballgame, Slept with my girlfriend, Worked 4 days a week, Went to school, and watched new episodes of LOST on TV. Just to name the most important things not in that order.)
Polish it. When it is polished, polish it some more.(Honestly, ask yourself, do you really think Brad and everyone else wanted to send the game out in its current condition? Do you really? Yea cause im sure when you spend 5 years of your life doing something and working hard on it everyday, you just decide to half ass it, towards the end like a ******* high school project and say" **** this **** **** im ******* done! )
Remove tedium.(See this really ticks me off, Tedium? are you serious, Everything in life has some sort of work involved buddy, everything, when i wake up and go to work, thats tedium, but then at the end of the night i get to go home, chill, hang with girlfriends and friends, and relax. Now take that concept and think VANGUARD, yea I have to work my ass off in vanguard to gain a few levels, ill admit that, its tedious, work, it can be dull sometimes but for the most part its fun stuff. The extra levels i gain allow me to go back to that guy "Hogar" that ganked me earlier on in the week, and kill him. I also get to equip new gear, travel to new and interesting places, get new skills to kill bigger better monsters, etc. What the fuck else are you ever going to do in a MMO when you level up? What do you want to be able to do? tell me cause i really want to know.
Do not launch at the same time as Warhammer.(No comment here, seeing as anyone who looks at the front page can see that Warhammer is obviously not out.)
Do not set expectation too high. Boats and grifs my arse. Maybe in 4 years of grinding.(You can buy a boat at any level nuff said and what the **** did you mean griffon? )
Learn from prior games. Do not bring back old concepts that were painful the first time. (Listen I understand everquest is old, but you know whats funny, if Brad had not been removed from the game development people would probably still be playing it. So in turn he created vanguard, Yea its EQ2, the real EQ2, maybe people just think its supposed to be WoW 2 and when they play it and its not like WoW they are dissapointed or some *** **** like that.)
Be innovative. Do not just repackage the same game with new graphics. (The game has flying mounts anywhere in game, WoW does not have that, the only game that has real 3-d flying is Flyff, if you want Flyff go play it. The game aslo has boats, player housing, 16 races and 15 classes, Diplomacy, and a slew of other features.Just because the game lets you find these features on your own, does not mean it lacks inovation.)
Allow people to play together whether or not they are level 10 or level 40 somehow. (There is no way to do this in a level based game, I wish too that VG was all skill based but sadly it is levels, and I accept that, you want a skill based game go check out SWg...wait nope cant do that, Thank WoW for that one too)
Start small. Make it great and then release expansions. (How about instead they dont do that, seriously I cant even ******* comment on this huge puke of **** less ****, this makes me wanna puke ****)
Are you kidding me? Seriously can you honestly have just said " Nicely put you made alot of good points let's hope the companies of those games read these forums"
Are you actually Tnice? or are You just some Troll and use two accounts to make yourself look better? because everything that he just said is ******* retarded, want me to go through the list?
Make the game fun for regular people not just Geeks in a basement playing 20 hours/day.(ok lets see here, well I have a level 14 Dread Knight, and i only go on for a few hours a night go through a few dungeons, talk on Ventrillo, hang out, etc. and I seem to have leveled through it just fine, I also in the time I was getting to level 19: Went to a Ballgame, Slept with my girlfriend, Worked 4 days a week, Went to school, and watched new episodes of LOST on TV. Just to name the most important things not in that order.) Polish it. When it is polished, polish it some more.(Honestly, ask yourself, do you really think Brad and everyone else wanted to send the game out in its current condition? Do you really? Yea cause im sure when you spend 5 years of your life doing something and working hard on it everyday, you just decide to half ass it, towards the end like a ******* high school project and say" **** this **** **** im ******* done! ) Remove tedium.(See this really ticks me off, Tedium? are you serious, Everything in life has some sort of work involved buddy, everything, when i wake up and go to work, thats tedium, but then at the end of the night i get to go home, chill, hang with girlfriends and friends, and relax. Now take that concept and think VANGUARD, yea I have to work my ass off in vanguard to gain a few levels, ill admit that, its tedious, work, it can be dull sometimes but for the most part its fun stuff. The extra levels i gain allow me to go back to that guy "Hogar" that ganked me earlier on in the week, and kill him. I also get to equip new gear, travel to new and interesting places, get new skills to kill bigger better monsters, etc. What the fuck else are you ever going to do in a MMO when you level up? What do you want to be able to do? tell me cause i really want to know. Do not launch at the same time as Warhammer.(No comment here, seeing as anyone who looks at the front page can see that Warhammer is obviously not out.) Do not set expectation too high. Boats and grifs my arse. Maybe in 4 years of grinding.(You can buy a boat at any level nuff said and what the **** did you mean griffon? ) Learn from prior games. Do not bring back old concepts that were painful the first time. (Listen I understand everquest is old, but you know whats funny, if Brad had not been removed from the game development people would probably still be playing it. So in turn he created vanguard, Yea its EQ2, the real EQ2, maybe people just think its supposed to be WoW 2 and when they play it and its not like WoW they are dissapointed or some *** **** like that.) Be innovative. Do not just repackage the same game with new graphics. (The game has flying mounts anywhere in game, WoW does not have that, the only game that has real 3-d flying is Flyff, if you want Flyff go play it. The game aslo has boats, player housing, 16 races and 15 classes, Diplomacy, and a slew of other features.Just because the game lets you find these features on your own, does not mean it lacks inovation.) Allow people to play together whether or not they are level 10 or level 40 somehow. (There is no way to do this in a level based game, I wish too that VG was all skill based but sadly it is levels, and I accept that, you want a skill based game go check out SWg...wait nope cant do that, Thank WoW for that one too) Start small. Make it great and then release expansions. (How about instead they dont do that, seriously I cant even ******* comment on this huge puke of **** less ****, this makes me wanna puke ****)
-Jive
Do you work for Sigil? You sure sound like it. I don't care if Brad didn't want to release it now or some crap: as a customer I expect quality out of the box OK. It's just bullshit the game was released as it was. Secondly, the point is the game is not supposed to feel like work: its supposed to be fun - if doing unimaginative grinding all day is your idea of fun can't help you there. (You even admitted it feels tedious I guess you're payed for the box and the monthly fee and are in denial of its horridness, maybe, can't blame ya.) It's not the grinding itself; its how its presented and VG did a really bad job of it. Thirdly, WoW does have flying mounts you can purchase. Granted, it can only be used in Outlands but its there. 16 races do not hide the craptasticness of the game. The races don't feel unique to each other half of them are just humans with animal heads stuck on them with the exact same animations.
It is amazing how some things take so long time for some to realise.
Allready in open beta people realised Vanguard is one big failure. It delivered nothing it promised , and what it delivered was simply badly designed , uninteresting , often frustrating. And all this toped by horrendous performance and bugs...and lack of interesting content
I posted and posted on this forums , because I just couldnt belive people dont realise that....
And people called me hater and basher ...
And where are this people now , not even 2 months after .
This game is not even bashed anymore. It is lamented!
Hmm, strangely enough but I enjoyed Vanguard in beta MORE then I enjoy it now. I used to enjoy all 3 schools, combat, crafting and diplomacy. But after several "patches", crafting makes me wanna do throw stuff at the monitor (3 complications in a row at the end, 7 complications per session on EASY f***ing difficulty!) while diplomacy feels more like arguing with a retarded person, sometimes its way too easy, sometimes its way too hard. Vanguard used to be good, almost great. Now, its barely good. I still enjoy combat though, the last week crawling tsangs tomb has been a blast. But im afraid another patch will come one day and I would be canceling my subscription. I hope that day will not come. I hope the crafting (the FUN crafting) will come back. I hope diplomacy will be more balanced and meaningful.
What most people fell for was Brads vision and seemingly inhuman effort in Beta (remember the crazy last week with HUGE patches and content?). But shortly after that? Nothing great. Some tweaks, some patches, lots of nerfs, lots of broken promises. I still like Vanguard (generaly speaking) but I lost faith in Sigil, Brad and his vision.
Spot on bro! I even read your whole post, it really did reflect my feelings towards Vanguard. I wish people like you were the lead designers in Sigil who would realize where the priorities are.
*Kowtows* Thanks, I feel honored. ^^
I think such insight isnt very genuine, though. It is simple logic. IMO, what happens in ANY team, especially in a team of game designers is, they stay always with the same people, people they know for many years. They are all quite similar and in the end they all agree too much. It is a kind of mental incest. You always run in a circle of the same ideas in the long term, and programmers and game designers are very vain and proud in their ideas and cling to ideas they once had. In a way it is a human thing, but the game genre creates "queens", "divas", like Brad McQuaid. I understand it is difficult to emancipate yourself over your own ideas if you are such a hyped person like him. He is probably so caught in the vision of his grandeur that its difficult for him and many Sigil folks to really think in new lines. THAT is my main reason to be sceptic. They have a vision. I never was a friend of visions. I think the process of making games is something quite pragmatic, and what works are usually the simple things, a lot of things which are just proven and established and then adding one or two things which are REALLY new. Sigil has far too much vision, far too much a fixed mindset to learn and adapt. EQ2 adapted a lot, because they had no vision.
Weird, I feel like you about the beta time, heh. It felt great back then, and some days are really great still. I really hope they skip making visions and skip their 1990ies pride and accept they have to open their mind and re-learn and re-think some of their 20 year old concepts. I really do, and I really believe we all would benefit from that.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Brad is a horrible game designer? Wow, I would love to see what you could do!
OK right off the top of my head
Quest scenerio
The Blah Blah NPC iin Blah blah building has seen a great jewel in the hand of blah. When he looked at this beautiful piece of material he had to have it, he ask you to go KIDNAP so and so and bring him to you, for question.
1. you have to use cunning to sneak to a camp and capture the clown
2. you just cant stuff this fool into your Back pack , you have to lug his butt and depending on which guy you snag there is a weight difference that would effect the over stamina. You have to either rent a horse or mule for transportation our use your own to transport the kidnapped so and so , you can have interrogation of so and so maybe a mini game of it like the diplomacy, Really shouldn't there be tyrant side of that card game,...
3. AI sense some one is missing , blah bah
they come after you setting off an entire world of sequences for your character that interacts with all character inside the world , these quest could only be done by one person until completion and then it would reset, it could be days to complete, but you would build over 1000 + quests that each player can do.
Maybe this item is sought after different npcs and you could have multiple player going for it ,and you can incorporate the pvp into the quest so people can kill each other to get the jewel to the designated npc
That is the type of questing or content I THought vangaurd was going to be. Your idea for a unique quest sounds great. Now try to design 100,000 unique quests like this.
Are you kidding me? Seriously can you honestly have just said " Nicely put you made alot of good points let's hope the companies of those games read these forums"
Are you actually Tnice? or are You just some Troll and use two accounts to make yourself look better? because everything that he just said is ******* retarded, want me to go through the list?
Make the game fun for regular people not just Geeks in a basement playing 20 hours/day.(ok lets see here, well I have a level 14 Dread Knight, and i only go on for a few hours a night go through a few dungeons, talk on Ventrillo, hang out, etc. and I seem to have leveled through it just fine, I also in the time I was getting to level 19: Went to a Ballgame, Slept with my girlfriend, Worked 4 days a week, Went to school, and watched new episodes of LOST on TV. Just to name the most important things not in that order.) Polish it. When it is polished, polish it some more.(Honestly, ask yourself, do you really think Brad and everyone else wanted to send the game out in its current condition? Do you really? Yea cause im sure when you spend 5 years of your life doing something and working hard on it everyday, you just decide to half ass it, towards the end like a ******* high school project and say" **** this **** **** im ******* done! ) Remove tedium.(See this really ticks me off, Tedium? are you serious, Everything in life has some sort of work involved buddy, everything, when i wake up and go to work, thats tedium, but then at the end of the night i get to go home, chill, hang with girlfriends and friends, and relax. Now take that concept and think VANGUARD, yea I have to work my ass off in vanguard to gain a few levels, ill admit that, its tedious, work, it can be dull sometimes but for the most part its fun stuff. The extra levels i gain allow me to go back to that guy "Hogar" that ganked me earlier on in the week, and kill him. I also get to equip new gear, travel to new and interesting places, get new skills to kill bigger better monsters, etc. What the fuck else are you ever going to do in a MMO when you level up? What do you want to be able to do? tell me cause i really want to know. Do not launch at the same time as Warhammer.(No comment here, seeing as anyone who looks at the front page can see that Warhammer is obviously not out.) Do not set expectation too high. Boats and grifs my arse. Maybe in 4 years of grinding.(You can buy a boat at any level nuff said and what the **** did you mean griffon? ) Learn from prior games. Do not bring back old concepts that were painful the first time. (Listen I understand everquest is old, but you know whats funny, if Brad had not been removed from the game development people would probably still be playing it. So in turn he created vanguard, Yea its EQ2, the real EQ2, maybe people just think its supposed to be WoW 2 and when they play it and its not like WoW they are dissapointed or some *** **** like that.) Be innovative. Do not just repackage the same game with new graphics. (The game has flying mounts anywhere in game, WoW does not have that, the only game that has real 3-d flying is Flyff, if you want Flyff go play it. The game aslo has boats, player housing, 16 races and 15 classes, Diplomacy, and a slew of other features.Just because the game lets you find these features on your own, does not mean it lacks inovation.) Allow people to play together whether or not they are level 10 or level 40 somehow. (There is no way to do this in a level based game, I wish too that VG was all skill based but sadly it is levels, and I accept that, you want a skill based game go check out SWg...wait nope cant do that, Thank WoW for that one too) Start small. Make it great and then release expansions. (How about instead they dont do that, seriously I cant even ******* comment on this huge puke of **** less ****, this makes me wanna puke ****)
-Jive
1) I think 1 is inaccurate. No validity/purpose.
2) I agree. They shouldn't have re-vamped the game... what was it..... 3 times? This is their fault, and they should be accountable for it's pathetic performance.
3) Vanguard is the most tedious MMO I've ever played, in all honesty. A close second is Asheron's Call 2.
4) Not sure what he's talking about...Warhammer isn't out yet.
5) Boats don't work, flying mounts are meh. I agree with this; they bit off more than they could chew to try and impress people with flare, but fell far short of the bar.
6) I agree. This is 2007, let's get with the times.
7) This game has zero innovation. Boats are broken, Diplomacy was called "Magic the Gathering" a few years ago, flying mounts are present in other games, player housing is not a new feature by any means, 15 classes which have absolutely ZERO originality, the races are re-hashes of each other (multiple elf races, multiple human races, multiple barbarians, etc etc.) Don't give the game credit where it's not due.
8) You're actually wrong here jiveturkey. In FFXI, you could get this thing called a "Golden World Pass", which would give you and a friend a piece of equipment. You could activate it, and it would lower you to a certain level to play with your friend. In other words, let's say a 40 and a 10 wanted to play together; simply have the 40 activate his helmet, and he temporarily becomes level 10, and can exp with his friend.
9) I agree again. Overachieiving is always preferable to underachieving. Smaller, more complete games are much more preferred over large, empty, broken ones.
Waiting for something fresh to arrive on the MMO scene...
Comments
I like pie !
Good point but also think about this. Can you imagine someone new to the game coming into an empty world? You would have no one to play with plus you would have to deal with that torturous grind.
Hopefully, the companies that release the other games this year look at the Vanguard's failure. In reality they did everything wrong. Simply ask yourself if Vanguard did it then do the opposite. Mainly the following:
Nicely put
FFxi Retired
Coh/Cov Retired
Guild Wars/Retired
WOW/(11-23-04/1-6-07)
VSOH/ retired
AOC/retired that was fast
Waiting 4 DCUO ,and FFXIV
What a botched pos
they were calling them gurus of game design
what happened
I am not talking about the glitches they can be fixied im talking about the unfinished product
Its not worth 10$ retail and they should let you play for free while they hone their game making skills obviously this is a scam to make money
the game is a botched attempt
Houston we have a problem
DUNDERHAEDS
And chat bubbles can actually add to the immersion if you do it right.
For example, in my CoH guild, when someone hits level 50, we have an honor guard for that person. Everyone dresses in the guild uniform, and we go back to the newbie area where it all started, speaking in local chat, with the chat bubbles praising said player for their accomplishment, and all of us ultimately saluting that person as they marched up to train their final level with the same trainer that they started with at Level 1. To give a visual of what I'm talking about, it looked kind of like the bottom frame from this page of a 3-D comic book one of our members made as an art experiment:
www.lonestargamers.com/gallery/LightSpeedGallery/LoneSTAR_01_Page11
The chat bubbles in the game would give any and all players who'd gathered around wondering what was going on some clue about what we were doing. It also got them involved, since they could add their own comments, or otherwise interact with the whole scene. That kind of thing adds to the immersion of a game world.
The social aspect of an MMO is entirely what you make of it, but it also takes some sort of interaction on a guild's part to make themselves a part of that game world. Isolating yourself on Ventrillo then trying to call an MMO a social experience is a joke.
The social aspect of an MMO is entirely what you make of it, but it also takes some sort of interaction on a guild's part to make themselves a part of that game world. Isolating yourself on Ventrillo then trying to call an MMO a social experience is a joke. you get the MMO philosopher prize of 2007 . Very well put .
I like pie !
All I got out of his huge post was that he doesn't like crafting because it isn't something you can hit the level cap in if you do it for two hours. You are complaining about work orders because you have to walk 25 feet or so? Why would anybody give you 1 work order that will level you to the crafting cap? You complained that you have to be a higher level to craft "cool" things? Well isn't it fitting that the player who crafts longer and is a higher crafter gets to craft cool things?
He doesn't like it because he thought it was going to be a game that changed MMO's as we know it. You complained because now they have to balance their game, but what MMORPG doesn't have balancing issues? All the good ones have patches and updates weekly because they have to conastantly redo things they did in previous patches and continue to balance.
Also, when you talk about caravan systems and the like you are comparing other game communitues to this one. This game hasn't even been out long and I feel as though you thought this was the MMO to end all MMOs and are now upset that the game isn't exactly how you wanted it.
Your first line was spot on.
I like pie !
Exactly what he said, and you waited for it. He never said it was the greatest game of all time.
Games in general are all of opinion. You may love WoW while another may hate it. To him Vanguard may be amazing and they have things planned for it, but to others they think it is just another MMO.
"IGNPC: Will quests in this game differ from other MMOGs? For example, will it be simple random quests like kill monster X or retrieve item Y, or will there be a story and lore behind each quest that ties everything together?
Brad McQuaid: Quests will involve all sorts of ideas and stories. Some of the stories might be only of local import, or some might have some epic scope. It really all depends on the context, who you are, and what you're doing. Certainly the quests will not be random, nor limited to taking an item from point A to point B. Our quest design involves a sophisticated flag system where characters can be marked by an number of events (including, but far from being limited by, picking up or being handed an item). NPCs will then react to that character depending on what flags he has on or off.
One example of a quest we just put in the game involved retrieving a stained cloak from a half-giant that attacks you if you are on a certain quest. Once you retrieve the cloak, it allows you entry into a goblin mini-dungeon -- apparently the goblin's smell the scent on the cloak and choose not to attack you. This then allows you audience with the goblin chief -- you have a quick dialog with him, have another flag set, and continue onto the next segment of the greater quest. And, as long as you aren't dumb enough to remove the cloak, the goblins allow you to exit the dungeon and proceed.
Anyway, just a simple example, but you can see how the flag system works, and how it can optionally involve items and is very flexible and certainly something that can be story driven."
(this is real nice, XNA basically the microsoft console toolkit, so another words Microsoft wanted this on the 360 IMO)
"
IGNPC: Are you developing using the XNA standardized toolsets, and if so, in what capacity?
Brad McQuaid: We are using just about all of them as they become available. We are already experimenting with voice chat, different controllers, and also look forward to seeing how Microsoft plans on integrating Xbox Live in with PC games. Vanguard is very suited to XNA and the more the tools roll out, the more eager we are to start using them "
Game Spy 2004 (New appraoches)
"GameSpy: What's the basic premise of Vanguard? Where and when does it take place and what role will the players be playing? GameSpy: You state that you're looking to target the hardcore MMO player by offering them a new challenge. Can you go into a little more detail on just what that means when somebody signs up with Vanguard?
McQuaid: Describing the target audience as hardcore might be too extreme, especially with so many perceptions as to what that really means. What we are trying to do is offer a compelling, challenging, and rewarding game. Some recent massively multiplayer efforts have tried to water down that experience a bit in order to attract a more casual audience. We actually feel that isn't necessary, and that both the core gamer and the more casual gamer can co-exist. For example, there are different areas in Vanguard specifically designated as casual, group, or raid.
These distinctions relate to the difficulty and rewards in the area, as well as how long of a play period we think most players will need to successfully commit to that region. What's pretty cool is that the more casual areas will not only appeal to players who always have less time to invest, but also to more core gamers who still want to be able to log in occasionally for shorter durations. In other words, they'll still be able to accomplish things and advance without necessarily a lot of preparation time or needing to gather their whole group or guild together"
(this is si much fun , IMO)
"GameSpy: What do think the biggest mistake most of the MMOs out there now are making when it comes to the design of their products?
I like pie !
He didn't lie though, form the article you copied and pasted, the crafting has more action than that of FFXI and WoW just for examples. I will never understand the point of quitting a game, flaming it , and then hanging out on it's forums just to badmouth it. Its a video game bro, let it go.. lol. Shedding tears over a video game isn't good for anybody.
You do realise that any publicity for anything always = good publicity. Every time you post something in this topic or any topic of Vanguard it goes to the top of the MMORPG homepage and then people click it and start reading about this game. If anything you are helping them get attention and in the end your crying post will make more people read about the game than it will turn people away from it.
Reverse phsycology , nice touch , I see they are trying to bring in real pros now
I like pie !
Quest scenerio
The Blah Blah NPC iin Blah blah building has seen a great jewel in the hand of blah. When he looked at this beautiful piece of material he had to have it, he ask you to go KIDNAP so and so and bring him to you, for question.
1. you have to use cunning to sneak to a camp and capture the clown
2. you just cant stuff this fool into your Back pack , you have to lug his butt and depending on which guy you snag there is a weight difference that would effect the over stamina. You have to either rent a horse or mule for transportation our use your own to transport the kidnapped so and so , you can have interrogation of so and so maybe a mini game of it like the diplomacy, Really shouldn't there be tyrant side of that card game,...
3. AI sense some one is missing , blah bah
they come after you setting off an entire world of sequences for your character that interacts with all character inside the world , these quest could only be done by one person until completion and then it would reset, it could be days to complete, but you would build over 1000 + quests that each player can do.
Maybe this item is sought after different npcs and you could have multiple player going for it ,and you can incorporate the pvp into the quest so people can kill each other to get the jewel to the designated npc
That is the type of questing or content I THought vangaurd was going to be.
I like pie !
Quest scenerio
The Blah Blah NPC iin Blah blah building has seen a great jewel in the hand of blah. When he looked at this beautiful piece of material he had to have it, he ask you to go KIDNAP so and so and bring him to you, for question.
1. you have to use cunning to sneak to a camp and capture the clown
2.you just cant stuff this fool into your pack pack , you have to lug his butt and depending on which huy you snag there is a weight difference that would effect the over stamina.
You have to either rent a hors or mule for transportation our use your own to transport the kidnapped so and so
3. AI sense some one is missing , blah bah they come after you setting off an entire world of sequences for your character that interacts with all character inside the world , these quest could only be done by one person until completion and then it would reset, it could be days to complete, but you would build over 1000 + scenerios that each player can do.
Maybe this item is sought after different npcs and you could have multiple player going for it ,and you can incorporate the pvp into the quest so people can kill each other to get the jewel to the designated npc's .
That is the type of questing or content I THought vangaurd was going to be.
That was probably your first mistake. Do you have any clue how hard it is to put something like that into an MMORPG? This isn't a console game, what would happen when there are multiple people trying to do this quest but you already triggered the event? You want them to just sit back and wait the entire time while this is going on?
Quest scenerio
The Blah Blah NPC iin Blah blah building has seen a great jewel in the hand of blah. When he looked at this beautiful piece of material he had to have it, he ask you to go KIDNAP so and so and bring him to you, for question.
1. you have to use cunning to sneak to a camp and capture the clown
2.you just cant stuff this fool into your pack pack , you have to lug his butt and depending on which huy you snag there is a weight difference that would effect the over stamina.
You have to either rent a hors or mule for transportation our use your own to transport the kidnapped so and so
3. AI sense some one is missing , blah bah they come after you setting off an entire world of sequences for your character that interacts with all character inside the world , these quest could only be done by one person until completion and then it would reset, it could be days to complete, but you would build over 1000 + scenerios that each player can do.
Maybe this item is sought after different npcs and you could have multiple player going for it ,and you can incorporate the pvp into the quest so people can kill each other to get the jewel to the designated npc's .
That is the type of questing or content I THought vangaurd was going to be.
That was probably your first mistake. Do you have any clue how hard it is to put something like that into an MMORPG? This isn't a console game, what would happen when there are multiple people trying to do this quest but you already triggered the event? You want them to just sit back and wait the entire time while this is going on? The event is not triggered because it is written as part of the world , it is always on, you could have 20-100 npcs throughtout the world who want that item . Perfect pvp quest , find someone , hunting them down , asking other players have you seen sos. 5 years time ,it a long time to be writing go here and get me 10 eggs from a cows butt type stuff.
I like pie !
Quest scenerio
The Blah Blah NPC iin Blah blah building has seen a great jewel in the hand of blah. When he looked at this beautiful piece of material he had to have it, he ask you to go KIDNAP so and so and bring him to you, for question.
1. you have to use cunning to sneak to a camp and capture the clown
2.you just cant stuff this fool into your pack pack , you have to lug his butt and depending on which huy you snag there is a weight difference that would effect the over stamina.
You have to either rent a hors or mule for transportation our use your own to transport the kidnapped so and so
3. AI sense some one is missing , blah bah they come after you setting off an entire world of sequences for your character that interacts with all character inside the world , these quest could only be done by one person until completion and then it would reset, it could be days to complete, but you would build over 1000 + scenerios that each player can do.
Maybe this item is sought after different npcs and you could have multiple player going for it ,and you can incorporate the pvp into the quest so people can kill each other to get the jewel to the designated npc's .
That is the type of questing or content I THought vangaurd was going to be.
That was probably your first mistake. Do you have any clue how hard it is to put something like that into an MMORPG? This isn't a console game, what would happen when there are multiple people trying to do this quest but you already triggered the event? You want them to just sit back and wait the entire time while this is going on?It's called instancing, I don't see why certain quests can't be instanced, to make things feel more dynamic and interesting.
How often to MMOs revolutionize the industry? Not much changed from MMO to MMO.
Also, they said they weren't doing instances so that voids out that suggestion. Next?
Quest scenerio
The Blah Blah NPC iin Blah blah building has seen a great jewel in the hand of blah. When he looked at this beautiful piece of material he had to have it, he ask you to go KIDNAP so and so and bring him to you, for question.
1. you have to use cunning to sneak to a camp and capture the clown
2.you just cant stuff this fool into your pack pack , you have to lug his butt and depending on which huy you snag there is a weight difference that would effect the over stamina.
You have to either rent a hors or mule for transportation our use your own to transport the kidnapped so and so
3. AI sense some one is missing , blah bah they come after you setting off an entire world of sequences for your character that interacts with all character inside the world , these quest could only be done by one person until completion and then it would reset, it could be days to complete, but you would build over 1000 + scenerios that each player can do.
Maybe this item is sought after different npcs and you could have multiple player going for it ,and you can incorporate the pvp into the quest so people can kill each other to get the jewel to the designated npc's .
That is the type of questing or content I THought vangaurd was going to be.
That was probably your first mistake. Do you have any clue how hard it is to put something like that into an MMORPG? This isn't a console game, what would happen when there are multiple people trying to do this quest but you already triggered the event? You want them to just sit back and wait the entire time while this is going on?It's called instancing, I don't see why certain quests can't be instanced, to make things feel more dynamic and interesting. It wouldnt have to be instance, cause once that npc gets the item, he may set it up into a display , and a thief player could steal it , or another npc somewhere might want it, Make it into a triangle (LOL) type of effect to keep the item in play , but only allowing the player to play throw it once.
I would add , if players have housing , items should have tracing capabilites to the point that an npc at random could call for a quest to break into someones house to steal a item.
With a open world that is Vanguard , the ideas should of been way more dynamic and way beyond innovative, they had the chance to make a staple in the mmo nich for fantasy and that momment has now passed.
These ideas are free to use.
I like pie !
Are you actually Tnice? or are You just some Troll and use two accounts to make yourself look better? because everything that he just said is ******* retarded, want me to go through the list?
- Make the game fun for regular people not just Geeks in a basement playing 20 hours/day. (ok lets see here, well I have a level 14 Dread Knight, and i only go on for a few hours a night go through a few dungeons, talk on Ventrillo, hang out, etc. and I seem to have leveled through it just fine, I also in the time I was getting to level 19: Went to a Ballgame, Slept with my girlfriend, Worked 4 days a week, Went to school, and watched new episodes of LOST on TV. Just to name the most important things not in that order.)
- Polish it. When it is polished, polish it some more. (Honestly, ask yourself, do you really think Brad and everyone else wanted to send the game out in its current condition? Do you really? Yea cause im sure when you spend 5 years of your life doing something and working hard on it everyday, you just decide to half ass it, towards the end like a ******* high school project and say" **** this **** **** im ******* done! )
- Remove tedium. (See this really ticks me off, Tedium? are you serious, Everything in life has some sort of work involved buddy, everything, when i wake up and go to work, thats tedium, but then at the end of the night i get to go home, chill, hang with girlfriends and friends, and relax. Now take that concept and think VANGUARD, yea I have to work my ass off in vanguard to gain a few levels, ill admit that, its tedious, work, it can be dull sometimes but for the most part its fun stuff. The extra levels i gain allow me to go back to that guy "Hogar" that ganked me earlier on in the week, and kill him. I also get to equip new gear, travel to new and interesting places, get new skills to kill bigger better monsters, etc. What the fuck else are you ever going to do in a MMO when you level up? What do you want to be able to do? tell me cause i really want to know.
- Do not launch at the same time as Warhammer. (No comment here, seeing as anyone who looks at the front page can see that Warhammer is obviously not out.)
- Do not set expectation too high. Boats and grifs my arse. Maybe in 4 years of grinding. (You can buy a boat at any level nuff said and what the **** did you mean griffon? )
- Learn from prior games. Do not bring back old concepts that were painful the first time. (Listen I understand everquest is old, but you know whats funny, if Brad had not been removed from the game development people would probably still be playing it. So in turn he created vanguard, Yea its EQ2, the real EQ2, maybe people just think its supposed to be WoW 2 and when they play it and its not like WoW they are dissapointed or some *** **** like that.)
- Be innovative. Do not just repackage the same game with new graphics. (The game has flying mounts anywhere in game, WoW does not have that, the only game that has real 3-d flying is Flyff, if you want Flyff go play it. The game aslo has boats, player housing, 16 races and 15 classes, Diplomacy, and a slew of other features.Just because the game lets you find these features on your own, does not mean it lacks inovation.)
- Allow people to play together whether or not they are level 10 or level 40 somehow. (There is no way to do this in a level based game, I wish too that VG was all skill based but sadly it is levels, and I accept that, you want a skill based game go check out SWg...wait nope cant do that, Thank WoW for that one too)
- Start small. Make it great and then release expansions. (How about instead they dont do that, seriously I cant even ******* comment on this huge puke of **** less ****, this makes me wanna puke ****)
-JiveWhat most people fell for was Brads vision and seemingly inhuman effort in Beta (remember the crazy last week with HUGE patches and content?). But shortly after that? Nothing great. Some tweaks, some patches, lots of nerfs, lots of broken promises. I still like Vanguard (generaly speaking) but I lost faith in Sigil, Brad and his vision.
@OP:
Spot on bro! I even read your whole post, it really did reflect my feelings towards Vanguard. I wish people like you were the lead designers in Sigil who would realize where the priorities are.
*Kowtows* Thanks, I feel honored. ^^
I think such insight isnt very genuine, though. It is simple logic. IMO, what happens in ANY team, especially in a team of game designers is, they stay always with the same people, people they know for many years. They are all quite similar and in the end they all agree too much. It is a kind of mental incest. You always run in a circle of the same ideas in the long term, and programmers and game designers are very vain and proud in their ideas and cling to ideas they once had. In a way it is a human thing, but the game genre creates "queens", "divas", like Brad McQuaid. I understand it is difficult to emancipate yourself over your own ideas if you are such a hyped person like him. He is probably so caught in the vision of his grandeur that its difficult for him and many Sigil folks to really think in new lines. THAT is my main reason to be sceptic. They have a vision. I never was a friend of visions. I think the process of making games is something quite pragmatic, and what works are usually the simple things, a lot of things which are just proven and established and then adding one or two things which are REALLY new. Sigil has far too much vision, far too much a fixed mindset to learn and adapt. EQ2 adapted a lot, because they had no vision.
Weird, I feel like you about the beta time, heh. It felt great back then, and some days are really great still. I really hope they skip making visions and skip their 1990ies pride and accept they have to open their mind and re-learn and re-think some of their 20 year old concepts. I really do, and I really believe we all would benefit from that.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Quest scenerio
The Blah Blah NPC iin Blah blah building has seen a great jewel in the hand of blah. When he looked at this beautiful piece of material he had to have it, he ask you to go KIDNAP so and so and bring him to you, for question.
1. you have to use cunning to sneak to a camp and capture the clown
2. you just cant stuff this fool into your Back pack , you have to lug his butt and depending on which guy you snag there is a weight difference that would effect the over stamina. You have to either rent a horse or mule for transportation our use your own to transport the kidnapped so and so , you can have interrogation of so and so maybe a mini game of it like the diplomacy, Really shouldn't there be tyrant side of that card game,...
3. AI sense some one is missing , blah bah
they come after you setting off an entire world of sequences for your character that interacts with all character inside the world , these quest could only be done by one person until completion and then it would reset, it could be days to complete, but you would build over 1000 + quests that each player can do.
Maybe this item is sought after different npcs and you could have multiple player going for it ,and you can incorporate the pvp into the quest so people can kill each other to get the jewel to the designated npc
That is the type of questing or content I THought vangaurd was going to be. Your idea for a unique quest sounds great. Now try to design 100,000 unique quests like this.
I am the type of player where I like to do everything and anything from time to time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor - pre-WW2 genocide.
2) I agree. They shouldn't have re-vamped the game... what was it..... 3 times? This is their fault, and they should be accountable for it's pathetic performance.
3) Vanguard is the most tedious MMO I've ever played, in all honesty. A close second is Asheron's Call 2.
4) Not sure what he's talking about...Warhammer isn't out yet.
5) Boats don't work, flying mounts are meh. I agree with this; they bit off more than they could chew to try and impress people with flare, but fell far short of the bar.
6) I agree. This is 2007, let's get with the times.
7) This game has zero innovation. Boats are broken, Diplomacy was called "Magic the Gathering" a few years ago, flying mounts are present in other games, player housing is not a new feature by any means, 15 classes which have absolutely ZERO originality, the races are re-hashes of each other (multiple elf races, multiple human races, multiple barbarians, etc etc.) Don't give the game credit where it's not due.
8) You're actually wrong here jiveturkey. In FFXI, you could get this thing called a "Golden World Pass", which would give you and a friend a piece of equipment. You could activate it, and it would lower you to a certain level to play with your friend. In other words, let's say a 40 and a 10 wanted to play together; simply have the 40 activate his helmet, and he temporarily becomes level 10, and can exp with his friend.
9) I agree again. Overachieiving is always preferable to underachieving. Smaller, more complete games are much more preferred over large, empty, broken ones.
Waiting for something fresh to arrive on the MMO scene...