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Game update News!
Orphes
Member UncommonPosts: 3,039
As from http://forums.station.sony.com/vg/posts/list.m?start=0&topic_id=11973𙠞
Hey Everybody,
It's time for an update as I promised last week. I had hoped to get this posted up earlier but the patch gremlins had other ideas. Integration is moving along very well. We are getting Vanguard hooked into the various areas like QA (Yeah!) and forums.
I have heard from more than a few people expressing concern as to whether or not SOE is really committed to seeing Vanguard be the successful game we all know it can be. The team has had multiple resources thrown at it in an effort to get us up and running as quickly as possible from QA to marketing and PR. So put simply, they are.
Ok, let's get to the meat of it.
Welcome to the new age of Vanguard! Otherwise known as "What is the Vanguard team working on because it sure doesn't seem to be tails!"
In our continuing effort to develop a better rapport with the community, we will be posting our milestone goals as well as our game update patches going forward. The awesome apart of that is you, the community, will be able to see what the team is working on and offer feedback via polls and discussion threads. This works out great for both of us, you are no longer left wondering what on earth the Vanguard team is working on and we get some great directed feedback on upcoming priorities, features, and content.
Milestones
Going forward we will be posting on www.VGplayers.com the teams current milestone goals and tasks. An individual milestone typically spans about 6 weeks in length. Please keep in mind that some tasks will spill over into several milestones. As the tasks are completed, they will assigned to a Game Update patch and be pushed out to the Test Server and then to the Live Servers.
Game Updates
We will also be moving to a more consistent patch schedule. Approximately every 6 weeks we will push a game update. This game update will be comprised of some percentage of new content, new features, and new art that was completed in the previous milestones. We will still be patching in the weeks in-between the game updates with bug fixes, performance upgrades, and everything else not covered.
We will get the milestone goals posted as soon as possible with the contents of the game update patch following a few days later. As always, feedback is appreciated.
Thank you for your support!
--Hasium
Vanguard's Milestone 1 goals.
- Performance / optimization increases
- Fix bugs
- Raid content
- Finish features that were almost complete before the SOE acquisition occurred.
Here are some of the tasks the team is working that will help us achieve those goals.Design
Bug Team
The bug team is, as one would imagine, working on bugs. Bugs being worked on range from big things like broken quests and abilities that are not working to minor things like typos and missing text. At the end of this milestone, players should be able to observe a noticeable reduction in bugs. High profile fixes will be mentioned in patch or update notes while the majority of other bugs fixed will go in quietly.
Content Team
The content team is busy working on one of the premiere raid dungeons for Vanguard. The Ancient Port Warehouse in Thestra is currently in the works. The team is currently planning population for group and raid content as well as itemization, and diplomacy population. The art for the dungeon has already been finished.
Diplomacy Team
The diplomacy team is currently in the beginning stages of converting the diplomacy system from a skill-based system to a level based system. There will be no huge diplomacy gameplay changes, the switch is more about representing the same information in a different (better) way. Aruspex will be posting the details in another thread.
The diplomacy team is also working on putting together some cool looking tier 4 clothing options as well as adding House quests.
Crafting Team
The crafting team is putting in the quests to allow crafters to learn how to create Guild Houses. Yes, that's right; Guild houses are finally coming to Vanguard!
Programming (extra superfluous words have been removed)
- Fixing memory leaks
- Fixing bugs that cause CTD's / client memory issues.
- Fix the last remaining bugs for Brotherhoods
- Raid UI and tools support
- A more intuitive LFG tool with better functionality
- Rest exp.
- Changing Diplomacy from skill based to level based.
Art
Environment Team
The team's primary task this milestone is working what we're calling the "trial island". The island is being built using highly optimized existing assets in an effort to establish a new art content pipeline that is able to produce, in laymen's terms - cool looking stuff that won't make your computer explode - quicker than we've previously been able to do so.
The overall benefit for the trial island is that we are working on heavily optimizing existing assets. The knowledge learned through this will then be applied to existing art assets in the game therefore increasing performance. In addition we will be using the completed island (which will feature a couple dungeons as well as diplomacy and crafting content) as a free downloadable "Vanguard demo".
Character Team
The character team is optimizing the humanoid NPC's that are used in villages, cities, dungeons, etc. which will give a significant performance boost.
The character team is also working on new armor sets for use in an upcoming high end raid dungeon.
I'm so broke. I can't even pay attention.
"You have the right not to be killed"
Comments
So they dusted off the notes from the end of beta, changed the date, and added a few small things no one really cares about.Whoopadeedoo. Same old BS, just from a new BSer.
Bite me, Turbine.
So they dusted off the notes from the end of beta, changed the date, and added a few small things no one really cares about.Whoopadeedoo. Same old BS, just from a new BSer. ^^BSer
eqnext.wikia.com
So far, it sounds pretty solid, and like they have an actual plan in place. That's more than can be said for Sigil just a few months ago.
However, the inclusion of rest experience caught my eye. I wonder how something that has been such a staple in World of Warcraft will go over with an audience that has tended to reject anything and everything that even sounds similar to WoW. I can't imagine that being very popular with the hardcore fans of VG.
At this point it sounds good but Brad Mcquaid made it sound good as well. The test will be if they actually deliver any of what they promise.
I really think things are broken at such a basic, fundamental level that it's going t otake 2 or 3 years to fix
Bite me, Turbine.
If SOE revamps a lot, if not all of the existing art assets in-game to less PC intensive stuff, that'll make trials periods a bit more impressive to those that don't have super PCs.
Here's the usual dose of cynicism though, I wouldn't put it above SOE releasing this "trial island" demo without totally revamping the entire game first. In that scenario, a person who experienced decent performance on the trial island would guarantee suffer a performance drop when and if they subscribed to the real game.
Sorry, I'm in a really condescending mood tonight
Waiting for something fresh to arrive on the MMO scene...
It's to test performance. From what i understand, this island will be a land to test art assets performance. WIth new and old art. They will use that island to optimize it.
Later on, when they feel the game have better performance on non NASA computers, they will release the island as a demo/trial
eqnext.wikia.com
Anyway, more than likely the system will be closer to EQ2's we should hope; in that it'll work for Crafting experience as well as Adventuring experience. And as we can see with Diplomacy, it's being converted to a leveling system itself, so hopefully rest experience will work for that when the time comes.
It's to test performance. From what i understand, this island will be a land to test art assets performance. WIth new and old art. They will use that island to optimize it.
Later on, when they feel the game have better performance on non NASA computers, they will release the island as a demo/trial
Yeah we should hope it'll be "later on". Sounds like the island might be ready to launch well before the entire game world is revamped though. Hopefully it's withheld until the rest of the game reflects any performance advantages.
It's to test performance. From what i understand, this island will be a land to test art assets performance. WIth new and old art. They will use that island to optimize it.
Later on, when they feel the game have better performance on non NASA computers, they will release the island as a demo/trial
One would hope that SOE has learned that bait and switch does not work as a long term strategy.
Customers who have been burned once do not take very kindly to being burned a second time and
the word of mouth and various blogs would stop any chance of the phoenix rising from the ashes.
To me, the island concept is brilliant. It gives the developers a sandbox in which to evaluate existing
and future concepts. It provides the tools to better understand the existing engine and to understand
the impacts and implications of migrating away from the current graphics engine.
It kills the need for buddy keys and also allows the developers to have a way to give a comfort factor
to trial users without having them download tens of gigabytes of data. In essence it says, if you can play
this demo well (well being defined by the end user as opposed to some fanboi whose ego and computer
are on steroids), then you have a very good idea of how the game will perform on your computer.
I fully expect that this island will also become the trial demo for the game. It could also be adapted to
other titles (using a common engine).
It would appear that the old dog has learned some new tricks and the BMQ way of doing things ie.
"throw it out there and see what sticks" has died. It would seem that a lot of lessons have been
learned from "VSoH - the debacle". Perhaps, SOE will not have to suffer the humiliation of being
rejected by a six to nine year old girl who wants to buy a set of ruby slippers and matching handbag
and has been told "NO" by her parents because she already spent her allowance on a saddle
for her lavender pony and burnt sienna vest for her iced grey poodle.