What caused so many "bugs" in Vanguard? I never seen a game with so many bugs in my entire life.
Was it just programming errors, incompetence, a lack of leadership, all of the above? Anyone with a computer science background have an explanation or theory why there were so many bugs? I know McQuaid said the game was "incomplete" or "near completion," but the amount of bugs seemed much worse than mere incompletion. What or who was responsible for the half-ass programming, essentially?
If I were to guess for the massive amount of bugs, it would probably be because of the complexity of the game. Games in general are one of the most complex programs to date, and to build this game onto a completely huge open world with many other benefits; I couldn't imagine how complex it would've been to code it. Simple and innovating ideas will always win in the game genre, and I believe he just wasn't experienced enough to see that his ego was outweighing the resources available.
In other words, you don't build a space sim MMORPG to be a space, ground, economic, twitch, PvP, PvE, spaceship boarding, huge open galaxy, hundreds of planets to explore, and etc. to be successful. Try documenting reverse engineering design of some games like Mario, Zelda, and WoW; then try it with Vanguard. You'll be incredibly surprised at the results.
What caused so many "bugs" in Vanguard? I never seen a game with so many bugs in my entire life.
Was it just programming errors, incompetence, a lack of leadership, all of the above? Anyone with a computer science background have an explanation or theory why there were so many bugs? I know McQuaid said the game was "incomplete" or "near completion," but the amount of bugs seemed much worse than mere incompletion. What or who was responsible for the half-ass programming, essentially?
Any theories or explanations on that?
The biggest revelation post-launch as far as the bugs are concerned was the fact that Sigil only had one Quality Assurance person. One. Not a QA team, just a guy.
There were other cited problems too like a low retention of beta players.
Then there's the host of other miscallenous problems..their attempt to re-write a majority of the Unreal 2 engine. The fundamental gameplay changes between Beta 2 and Beta 3. The rapid friends and family hiring practices. So on and so forth.
The interviews over at f13.net chronicled a checklist of issues that could be attributed towards the sloppy design and development.
Except that the vast, overwhelming majority of initial Vanguard players hated it due to performance issues and bugs. Second would be lack of high end content. The never complained about existing content, just that there wasn't enough of it. The fewest complaints around Vanguard centered on the design of the game. You can't rewrite history, the posts are here. Count the ones complaining about performance and put it next to the complaints about these supposed inherent flaws in the design.
Well think about what you're saying. Performance issues and bugs were the foremost complaint. Arent those prevalent across ALL players? Yet some stayed and endured, because they found the game fun enough despite the issues, no? If a game is fun enough, performance issues don't become a reason to quit. Evident through WoW. Compare the hitching of Vanguard vs. freezing in a knelt position while trying to loot during WoW; and being forced to slide around everywhere waiting to crash. 'course WoW's problems, albeit more severe, disappeared much faster than Vanguard's did. Which brinsg me to my next point. How many times have we heard..."It needs 3 more months". Every single patch that came out, performance was claimed to have improved by bounds and leaps. But even if performance had improved just a little, shouldn't "just a little" more players have stuck around after every patch? No, populations continued to drop and server mergers ensued. With a few of the big patches afterwards, including the most recent which was after the anti-hitching fix, all box-buyers were invited back to play. Did they stay or bother to try it out? Did they remember Vanguard to be a fun game, if only it weren't for the performance issues that were now fixed? Of course not, not even one new server has opened, and the four existing suffer population problems. So exactly what do you call Vanguard's problem if performance issues have been fixed and re-fixed? It doesn't matter if they've been totally wiped out, it matters that no performance fixes have ever had a proportional effect on retaining population, or attracting more. The downward spiral of Vanguard's subscriber count has been as stagnant as it's design...connection? I understand everyone's gotten used to the thought of Vanguard being worth as many subscribers as WoW if only it didn't have the performance problems that it did, but that was never its only problem. It's boring for a lot of people. Interesting. I see your logic, but I think there is one more thing to consider. Looking at the anecdotal evidence in posts; my theory is that VG's poor performance at launch differs from EQ and WoW in one dramatic way. I remember seeing post after post with basically this theme, "Enough is enough. We put up with EQ's launch, AO's launch, WoW's launch etc. etc. We will no longer except unfinished products upon release". What this says to me, is that while the performance issues in prior games was tolerated, it never went unoticed and thus, eventually it would not matter how good the game underneath was, the community simply wouldn't tolerate 'paying for beta' again. This was similarly repeated in the AoC mass exodus. In addition, the performance problems were, imo, so bad at launch in VG that you really couldn't see the game underneath unless you had a much better than average rig. While the loot bug in WoW brought the game to a dead stop, in VG it was the more pervasive hitching, lag, geometry issues which never left you. They were ever present, ever mucking up your immersion and ability to see how the game was suppose to run. At least in WoW you'd get long periods without problems, so you could judge the game as it were suppose to run.
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Except that all of that customization has returned. (Or more accurately is on the test server right now).
Yet the graphical fidelity vs. the original models remain disputed. Agree here in part. But they have actually continued to polish the models on the test server. The current incarnation is very difficult to distinguish from the quality at launch, except sharper features and more 'muscle'. So we essentially have now what we had at launch with a new skeleton underneath that isnt a raid performance hog.
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AoC was condemned, in part to the vast amount of instancing and the lack of the feel of a 'persistant world'. However, the 'map' construction nearly mirrors the construction of EQ2 completely. However, popular opinion has never decried EQ2 for their instancing. Yes, yes, it is a complaint, but certainly not as prominent a complaint as AoC received due to its duplicate layout. Vanguard has recently received a shot in the arm from hundreds of disenfranchised AoC players simply due to the fact that they like Vanguard's pervasive world. In fact, even in the beginning, when you could find relatively few compliments about the game, the one you would come across was 'i like the big open world'. Incidently, this being one of Vanguard's greatests strengths, your petty complaint about the micro second of hitch at a chunkline seems pretty laughable compared to the complaints about the zoning in AoC. But I digress.....the point is, I believe it will be more and more difficult for mmo's to make instanced-heavy world construction. Vanguard showed that it was absolutely possible to technologically make a pervasive world for an mmo, even if their execution was less than perfect. The pervasive world will absolutely has become envied and will be copied. I would even be willing to suggest that it will become the industry standard. Now I'm sure, if this is true, you will find a rationale for how this isn't the case, at the same time mmo companies are scrambling to figure out how to make their next mmo a pervasive world like Vanguards.
What we know about Vanguard and Age of Conan: Age of Conan has sold at least 800k boxes, shipped more than a million.
Vanguard sold at least 200k boxes. Age of Conan at one point had at least 400k subscribers.
Vanguard at one point had at least 90k sbuscribers. If Funcom went belly-up today and pulled the plug on Age of Conan; it was already four times as popular as Vanguard ever was in the two respects that matter. Point being, Vanguard did nothing to prove MMO gamers desire a world full of chunk zoning vs. more content packed areas separated by load screens and divided into instances. Age of Conan though isn't the best example to use against Vanguard. I'd start with Guild Wars; criticized for being free but takes 100-200 dollars to leap into with all of its content. Yet it has over 5 million registered users. Besides WoW, CoH and DAoC, there hasn't been an MMO since UO I can say I bought enough expansions of or paid enough subscriber fees to top what I put into GW. Though even if you do choose to discredit Guild Wars as proof of most players not caring about instancing and zoning; there's the guiding truth of World of Warcraft which I suppose should be considered the happy medium between classic open world and instancing and zoning. Vanguard though? Nothing open world about it to me with all the chunking. I imagine it's the same for others who played and quit. Doesn't matter how big a world is on a map, or in one's mind, if the real-time result is a chunk line every minutes while travelling. So really, I doubt "chunking" will ever make it into another game, as it was a bad design idea. And there's nothing but success stories towards even the most instance-heavy of games, whereas Vanguard will be the first and only death of an MMO attempting "chunking", which was little more than setting up loading-without-screens on the border of every zone and making 'em frequent. Point taken. I guess I should reiterate that I was making a prediction based on my opinion. You are right that by shear numbers instancing hasn't proved a financial loss to any game in any real way. But, on the other hand; game devs told us it wasn't possible, perhaps the community has just accepted zoning as reality. VG showed us pervasive worlds are possible in mmo's. And a very vocal minority in AoC EXPECTED a more pervasive world, where previously you hadn't heard those complaints, such as with EQ2. Of course, it is one of the major gripes with Guild Wars, and although they have millions in active subsribers, I wonder how many more there would be in a totally optimized chunk world. Which brings me to my this point. VG isn't optimized with its chunking yet, or maybe ever. But it most certainly has proven that it is possible to do. Or are you truly saying that with the right development team and the right funding and support no one would ever ever be able to make chunking seemless? That seems as ludicrous as saying 'if god meant man to fly he would have given him wings'. VG absolutely has showed us it is possible. What they haven't done is perfect the system - which as I stated is one of the greatest flaws of the McQuaid history. Again, this was just me throwing out a prediction that the future will bring more and more pervasive worlds - and whether they do it by perfecting VG's tech or by trying to reach the same effect with a different technology - VG put it out there; You can have an mmo without instances.
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Definately he became a myth, but most myths start with some substance. I do not claim Brad McQuaid the greatest game maker by any stretch. The brilliance in this guy is his ability to show us what is technilogically possible in games and to often do it first. The great deficiency in him is his inability to polish the product before it is out the door. People have stated precisely to you 1000 times why Vanguard is ground breaking. You simply do not agree. Watch, I'll show you: Vanguard is ground breaking because it was the first in the industry to extensively use a non-instanced world, when previously game developers thought this to be technologically impossible. Do you agree? No? And what is your reason? "I get a little hiccup when I cross a chunk line - I have been cheated to and lied to, this world is not pervasive!!!!!!"
Define "ground-breaking", and define "technologically impossible". Here's my go in reverse order: "Technologically impossible" would mean it's impossible to execute in a fashion that wouldn't involve gimmicks like chunking that would come with a whole host of problems of its own. Looks like someone badly designed such a thing though, and caused all sorts of problems; everything from a delayed ability to compete with Burning Crusades in the area of flying mounts; which was a marketing point of the day for both games, to breaking common MMO expectations like being able to keep a pet active, to larger more inherent issues like losing a host of features in the engine the game was based on in order to neuter it for this bad design decision. But that's all bad execution, not bad design. Like I was saying above, just because VG's chunking isn't fully optimized doesn't mean that it can't be. Heck, most of the problems you are mentioning have been solved with chunking. There are flying mounts working correctly, you keep your pet active now, etc. Which actually proves my point, the tech design wasn't bad the execution was bad.The problems you mentioned were solved and have gone away, meaning it was an optimization issue rather than a design issue. Now as to these 'inherent' issues.....what features of the Unreal Engine were lost exactly and prove to me that those features were neutered directly related to the chunking design. Back this up with a reliable reference please. "Ground-breaking" would be something so well-received, that industry figures would mimic it and players would be attracted to it. No evidence of either points with Vanguard. Hmm. I disagree. Someone can do something 'ground-breaking' and get relatively little notice for it. It only takes one person to notice the genious and refine it into a paradigm changing technology. The best example is the Tucker automobile. It was the first automobile to come standard with seat belts. The Tucker auto's sold horribly, the business folded, but every time you drive a car, something about it can be traced back to the Tucker. Ground-breaking while not being well received. Disagreeing with those two points aside, I disagree with the whole premise. I don't believe designers avoid "open worlds" because it's technologically impossible, but because they feel they can create better games with the use of instancing and zoning. Well we disagree. The only people who could answer that would be developers and the companies they work for. I certainly see it being asked for more and more by players, and if I know the free market, I can guess the direction we are heading. The technology is perceived as GOOD by most of the industry; proven by the millions of dollars put into it by developers and paid to the developers by customers. From CoH's task forces, WoW's scripted raid events and even AoC's Tortage which most would agree is it's shining point; its only possible through the technology of instancing. It's a feature, not a compromise or inadequancy, it enables much while making sure players were always on the same vector really only enables all the problems of old like overcamping and training. Nothin' ground-breaking about first-gen problems and a lack of second-gen features. Oh c'mon, so now chunking isn't even a 3rd generation feature? I suppose the flying mounts aren't either.....you know it is ok to say 'its 3rd generation done badly', you don't have to take the 3rd generation part out completely. Just because it was executed poorly, you can surely maturely admit to what was 'new' in VG. But it sounds more like you want to justify your bias by saying it isn't even 3rd generation. Phooey - It's impossible to have an intelligent conversation with someone that is so wrapped in their own bias. I admit that Brad McQuaid had a ground breaking idea to use chunking. Objectively, I say that it was poorly optimized and implemented. You can't see passed your bias enough to even admit that - apparently you were hurt pretty deeply by Brad, and its a pain you can't get over. Because your argument only has one theme, 'Brad McQuaid is 100% bad." think about it. Can you be objective and say one nice thing about his contributions? No. In fact your entire point is that Brad McQuaid has done NOTHING to contribute to the mmo market. You know what you are when you deal in absolutes, right?
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See.....you can be presented with clear stated facts and refuse to see the forest for the trees.
Because the only green that matters is money. Or at least its the only mediating factor we can use for evidence towards one opinion or another. Brad's design decisions burned up tens of millions of it, but the consumers who were supposed to pay for what he spent tens of millions of dollars on, didn't. Why's the fact that most of the people that bought the box, which were a paltry sum in comparison to the industry at large anyway, not matter to you when they repeatedly ignore the game? For free even, at months at a time. But they haven't ignored the game....seriously, every example you have given are open beta to game update 2 problems. We are getting ready for game update 6 now. It's pretty obvious to me that you don't really have a real grasp on the state of the game at all.
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And by the way. Do you consider Ford, Einstein, Edison, Newton, Copernicus, etc. to all be idiots and hacks? You must, seeing as how all of their major contributions were built out of others previous work and ideas, just like McQuaids.
If Brad's brilliant design of chunking becomes as apart of MMOs as the Model T's use of the steering wheel on the left; you have a point. Good, then I have a point. Time will tell if pervasive worlds become the standard, but, we can say that WoW, EQ2, LOTRO, in fact every mmo has copied the EQ core design, a design put forth by Brad McQuaid. But I'm confused, are you saying Brad has made NO contributions ever, or just made NO contributions when it comes to VG? Or are you saying that because of VG, his prior contributions are negated? And if that's so, would you say Teddy Roosevelt made no contributions to US history, because although he changed the american landscape while president, later he lost another presidential bid running for the Bull-Moose party. Sometimes I think you are saying that because Brad failed with VG, all of his prior contributions are null and void. If Diplomacy, something seriously poised as capable of rendering PvE optional, becomes a printed feature in as many MMO manuals as details of Einstein's theory of relativity in science journals, you have a point. =P I never even mentioned Diplomacy as an innovation, and I wouldn't. My only point was the pervasive world. And time will tell if it becomes industry standard, I very well could be wrong, but get back to me in the next 5 to 10 years. So on and so forth for other inventors who actually left a lasting impact. I wouldn't even equate Brad to the guy who thought up the pet rock, because I'm sure at least one company attempted that again. I take it back, you obviously have a level head on your shoulders and are looking at this objectively. Are you really really saying that Brad McQuaid didn't change the nature of the mmo world forever with EQ?
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The Beatles hacked folk and put it to a rock beat. Led Zeppelin directly ripped of traditional blues and put distortion on it. Brad McQuaid took MUDs and laid 3D graphics on top of it. Get a clue man, there is nothing new under the sun and we are a species of beggars and theives. It is how we have 'advanced' our technology and knowledge from the beginning of time.
It's about EQ now? No its about Brad McQuaid's contributions to the mmo world - and that would include EQ. It's your premise, not mine. Unfortunately, you included EQ by your base assertion: that nothing in the mmo world could be contributed as an innovation by Brad McQuaid. That leaves all his games open for debate. Like I've said and like you've said, there's a large amount of myth to Brad, and I'd agree that there has to be some substance. What that substance is exactly though, no one can know. Well, so what are you thinking? There is some other game developer who was behind the curtain pulling the strings to put EQ out the door? Do you think he is deformed or otherwise unpresentable and that's why McQuaid was paraded around by SOE, journalists and other developers as a ruse to throw us off the tracks of the real hero? I think the burden of proof is on you. If it wasn't Brad behind the genious of EQ, who was it? Who do you attribute the contributions to and why? And even if Brad was incompetant and useless through the whole development of VG. It was still his idea, the money he had raised. VG certainly would not exist if it weren't for McQuaid, but then again, that would probably suit you just fine. So claiming he was the sole brainchild of believing it'd be cool to see 3D Graphics with MUD mechanics is part of what contributes to his myth. No, what contributes to it is that he was the one who actually did it and did it first. Ford wasn't the first to think of assembly line factories for cars, but he did it first. There are hundreds of other people who were trying to invent the airplane at the exact same time the Wright Bros. were, and we remember none of them. The big deal wasn't that he thought of it alone, but that he thought of it and made it happen. The problem is he is sloppy and less than perfect is good enough for McQuaid. Richard Garriott, Starr Long, Raph Koster, all of 'em go down as contributors towards Ultima Online. I believe people like Smedley and whomever else bare mentioning when it comes to Everquest, because all it does is add more substance and legitimacy to Brad, rather than the poising of him on a pedestal of his own which just makes him a myth. Well, we certainly agree that he is a relentless self promoter and has used his 'contribution' to the industry to full effect. He is arrogant and oportunistic. He is hasty and sloppy when it comes putting out products. He is also an innovator. But you want to take the 'innovator' out of the equation because of the arrogance, opportunism, sloppiness and hastiness. You can still hate Brad McQuaid while still recognizing his contributions.
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**Tangent comment: concerning riftways, consider this scenario:
Initial vision contains 'meaningful travel' to combat long distances to be covered.
Idea never implemented.
Result: vast stretches of boring distance to cover
Really now? The "meaningful" was never implemented, so Brad's idea of meaningful travel as a whole was never implemented, and thus he's excluded from being blamed for a large, bland wasteland? Good God no. He is totally to blame for the huge wasteland. I never said that 'meaningful travel' is one of his contributions. That is one of his ultimate failures. I was addressing the point you made that 'riftways' were a symbol of the dumbing down of the vision, so I was just providing a more practical explination. It wasn't to make the game easier, but rather to bypass a whole development project they didn't have the time, money or team for. And why not? Brad's fault. Doesn't mean that the pervasive world isn't innovative. Thats craziness. What Brad DESIGNED was that world you wander around; you'd actually rank that, which is of substance, beneath a Vision? Therein lies the trouble with crediting Brad for anything; his ideas are poised above what he actually DESIGNS as a DESIGN. See you totally misunderstood. I separated that 'riftway' argument and called it 'tangent'. Tangent to my central point. The only point I was making at all, in any way, is that VG did have an innovation, which was the pervasive world. Good God, your reading comprehension is attrotious. I rank the pervasive world as the innovation. If it is a pervasive world with too few monsters, that is not a pervasive world issue, its a content issue. I never once claimed that VG was innovative in the amount of content in the game. NEVER. The world is innovative. The lack of content was a failure. I ever said riftways were innovative. I never said 'meaningful travel' was one of McQuaid's important contributions. I re-read that passage and it was absolutely clear. You are so blinded though you see an argument where one doesn't exist. I mean really.....are you so wrapped up in Brad hatred that you can't even tell that I've blasted him more than I've praised him? Well, I can say this; if you aren't going to have an adult conversation about this topic and rather just want to pat yourself on the back for feeling Brad has been 0% effective in mmo's then this discussion is over. But more to the point, is your assertion here 'because some parts of the design are shit, the entire design is shit". You don't like the empty world, diplomacy, bugs and performance issues and so therefore the pervasive world is a bad idea. Is that your philosophy because it is narrow-minded and short sighted. I should know better, anytime someone argues in absolutes, the discussion can only go in reverse.
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One last thing. when was the last time you logged in and played VG Sepher? Because if we are having a discussion about VG today or VG when you were playing open beta, it changes everything. You are talking like you are 100% in the know, but I'm starting to realize that you are rehashing problems from launch rather than the problems of today. My evidence is that 'chunking' is still a game breaker for you. And if you haven't played since pre-GU2 - we are talking apples and oranges. If you truly still have issues with chunking, as it is today in the game, then I reiterate - any contiuation of this discussion would be futile.
Interesting. I see your logic, but I think there is one more thing to consider. Looking at the anecdotal evidence in posts; my theory is that VG's poor performance at launch differs from EQ and WoW in one dramatic way.
I remember seeing post after post with basically this theme, "Enough is enough. We put up with EQ's launch, AO's launch, WoW's launch etc. etc. We will no longer except unfinished products upon release". What this says to me, is that while the performance issues in prior games was tolerated, it never went unoticed and thus, eventually it would not matter how good the game underneath was, the community simply wouldn't tolerate 'paying for beta' again. This was similarly repeated in the AoC mass exodus.
In addition, the performance problems were, imo, so bad at launch in VG that you really couldn't see the game underneath unless you had a much better than average rig. While the loot bug in WoW brought the game to a dead stop, in VG it was the more pervasive hitching, lag, geometry issues which never left you. They were ever present, ever mucking up your immersion and ability to see how the game was suppose to run. At least in WoW you'd get long periods without problems, so you could judge the game as it were suppose to run.
Funny you should mention EQ's performance at launch and necessary hardware, since that was one of Brad's talking points when it came to his design intentions for Vanguard. EQ was worth playing, so would-be players bought 3D graphics cards for it. Brad hoped for the same for Vanguard.
Basically though, you believe performance issues is a completely separate line of reasoning that supercedes whether a game is "fun" or "boring", rather than being a quality that leans a game one way or another.
I believe performance is a quality; just as sure as WoW is more fun due to it's accessibility and relatively low performance problems, Vanguard was made more boring by the lagging and hitch-storm.
There's a lot of good and bad a game can have, but let one issue or quality stand-out in particular and it'll become the most cited. That said, I believe performance was complained about because it was the first and foremost problem that Vanguard had. I don't believe though that a perfectly fun game was beneath.
Vanguard was designed for the Crysis treatment. It was intentionally designed for hardware that really didn't even exist even though the graphics quality didn't warrant it. The hardware industry made sport of Crysis and consumers used it as a measuring stick. In short, it was received well because the game beneath it was good.
That didn't happen for Vanguard, because there were no qualities that stood out above the performance issues that made the performance issues worth enduring and overcoming; even if it meant waiting on future hardware which Brad INTENTIONALLY wanted us to do.
I mean it's not like there's a shortage of games to release with nigh-insurmountable performance heights and problems that went down with critical acclaim anyway. It's just that there's a difference between 110 degree weather on a beach and in a desert. Vanguard came off as the latter.
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Agree here in part. But they have actually continued to polish the models on the test server. The current incarnation is very difficult to distinguish from the quality at launch, except sharper features and more 'muscle'. So we essentially have now what we had at launch with a new skeleton underneath that isnt a raid performance hog.
They won't return 100%. Personally I wouldn't care if they returned with 10% of the customization. My point is, all the performance issues that came with the initial models were of Brad's own design.
I'd say it was a lack of optimization, which I'm sure it partly was, if all SOE did was re-implement the models with the exact same amount and range of customization sliders and still saw a performance increase, but that's not what they're doing. Things were removed that will never return, but so be it, it's a better design.
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Point taken. I guess I should reiterate that I was making a prediction based on my opinion. You are right that by shear numbers instancing hasn't proved a financial loss to any game in any real way. But, on the other hand; game devs told us it wasn't possible, perhaps the community has just accepted zoning as reality. VG showed us pervasive worlds are possible in mmo's. And a very vocal minority in AoC EXPECTED a more pervasive world, where previously you hadn't heard those complaints, such as with EQ2. Of course, it is one of the major gripes with Guild Wars, and although they have millions in active subsribers, I wonder how many more there would be in a totally optimized chunk world. Which brings me to my this point. VG isn't optimized with its chunking yet, or maybe ever. But it most certainly has proven that it is possible to do. Or are you truly saying that with the right development team and the right funding and support no one would ever ever be able to make chunking seemless? That seems as ludicrous as saying 'if god meant man to fly he would have given him wings'. VG absolutely has showed us it is possible. What they haven't done is perfect the system - which as I stated is one of the greatest flaws of the McQuaid history. Again, this was just me throwing out a prediction that the future will bring more and more pervasive worlds - and whether they do it by perfecting VG's tech or by trying to reach the same effect with a different technology - VG put it out there; You can have an mmo without instances.
There are "zones" in Vanguard. The whole world is a bunch of square zones. Just because Sigil pitched it under the word "chunking" doesn't mean it's technically any different. You're loading assets off of your harddrive that're then rendered. All Sigil did was remove the courtesy of a load screen.
You could argue the few-seconds chunk time doesn't warrant a load screen. How long can you travel in a straight line on a flying mount though without chunking in Vanguard? Compare it to how long you can fly around WoW's Burning Crusades without chunking.
Point being, they could cut chunk zoning times down in half by making the chunks half as small, and chunking more frequent, but it'd still be little more than a backwards move compared to other developers who try to keep loading as infrequent as possible, even if you wait awhile, so that you play as uninterrupted as possible with the best performance possible.
As far as Vanguard not being "optimized" yet with it's chunking..yeah no, it never will be. Brad's original design was that chunking wouldn't be noticeable at ALL, not a millisecond of noticeable loading. What we have though and will always have are giant zone lines that're everything but seamless. The world's a patchwork blanket where all the seams are visible and always present in mind.
As for what the right development team with the right amount of money can do with "chunking"; again it's just loading...it always has to happen at some time. What you'd like is a world that loads to memory all at once; all of its graphics, textures, models and sounds. This isn't what chunking accomplishes. Nor does it take a proper step towards it considering all chunking does is drastically increase the amount of zone lines and thus frequent asset loading there is in a game.
And..as far as instanced games being better, even bigger successes if they were open worlds. Nah, I don't think that they'd be better, because again, instancing isn't a flaw, it's a feature. Instancing enables most notable all the scripted, tailored events that can occur in World of Warcraft and Guild Wars, thatre impossible in Vanguard even with the yet-another failed design of Brad's Advanced Encounter System.
Speaking of the AES; Brad himself KNEW there were 1st-gen pitfalls like training, the inability to predict the accessibility of content and provide scripted events. That's why he he dreamed of AES; which if even it saw the light of day proper, would pale in comparison to what instancing offers.
So no, really, I don't believe those 5 million Guild Wars players would enjoy the game more if everything they love about it was removed in lieu of a Charr infested empty wasteland.
Instancing provides great gameplay, the lack of it allows people to imagine "freedom". I perfectly understand the want for an open world, but instancing isn't an affront to it, nor is instancing merely a compromise. It has merits, there's gameplay that can be designed upon it whereas the merits of an open world are largely dependent on whether or not players can find appreciation within themselves. It's best just to design a game than a canvas for imagination.
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But that's all bad execution, not bad design. Like I was saying above, just because VG's chunking isn't fully optimized doesn't mean that it can't be. Heck, most of the problems you are mentioning have been solved with chunking. There are flying mounts working correctly, you keep your pet active now, etc. Which actually proves my point, the tech design wasn't bad the execution was bad.The problems you mentioned were solved and have gone away, meaning it was an optimization issue rather than a design issue. Now as to these 'inherent' issues.....what features of the Unreal Engine were lost exactly and prove to me that those features were neutered directly related to the chunking design. Back this up with a reliable reference please.
All good designs meet function. They have to, because without proper function then it's just an idea that anyone could've thought of. What good is a design that's impossible to function as...designed? Does Vanguard function as designed?
The ifs, ands and buts of more money and a better development team are a week argument in justifying Brad's design, since we know the game cost a good 30 million, has seen the support of two of the biggest publishers around, employed over a hundred employees at a point and had a good 5-6 years of development time. No excuses for bad design.
As far as "features" missing from the Unreal Engine; you could compare Vanguard to other games based on the Unreal 2.5 engine. Ones with better materials whereas Vanguard has a bad rep of everything looking "plastic", ones with proper shadowing, ones with things like reflective water.
Then on the development side there were the complaints in the f13 employee interview of a lack of proper tools. Doesn't sound to me like something that'd be complained about if the engine was left in tack enough for the Unreal Editor and other suite of tools to work as they were supposed to.
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Hmm. I disagree. Someone can do something 'ground-breaking' and get relatively little notice for it. It only takes one person to notice the genious and refine it into a paradigm changing technology. The best example is the Tucker automobile. It was the first automobile to come standard with seat belts. The Tucker auto's sold horribly, the business folded, but every time you drive a car, something about it can be traced back to the Tucker. Ground-breaking while not being well received.
Yeah, the seat-belt was groundbreaking. Diplomacy so far isn't.
So the point remains the same, there's nothing ground-breaking about Vanguard. There's nothing even SOE's upcoming MMOs are taking from it.
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Well we disagree. The only people who could answer that would be developers and the companies they work for. I certainly see it being asked for more and more by players, and if I know the free market, I can guess the direction we are heading.
You wait on it. The whole open world vs. everything else deal is a whole 'nother topic all-together. My only argument was that Brad designed the anti-thesis in creating a record amount of zone lines and loading.
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Oh c'mon, so now chunking isn't even a 3rd generation feature? I suppose the flying mounts aren't either.....you know it is ok to say 'its 3rd generation done badly', you don't have to take the 3rd generation part out completely. Just because it was executed poorly, you can surely maturely admit to what was 'new' in VG. But it sounds more like you want to justify your bias by saying it isn't even 3rd generation. Phooey - It's impossible to have an intelligent conversation with someone that is so wrapped in their own bias. I admit that Brad McQuaid had a ground breaking idea to use chunking. Objectively, I say that it was poorly optimized and implemented. You can't see passed your bias enough to even admit that - apparently you were hurt pretty deeply by Brad, and its a pain you can't get over. Because your argument only has one theme, 'Brad McQuaid is 100% bad." think about it. Can you be objective and say one nice thing about his contributions? No. In fact your entire point is that Brad McQuaid has done NOTHING to contribute to the mmo market. You know what you are when you deal in absolutes, right?
Considering chunking didn't improve upon first-generation problems, which generational leaps should do first and foremost, and then paled in comparison pros wise to second-generation features like instancing which DID improve upon first generation problems; exactly why would I consider "chunking", i.e. zoning, a third-gen feature?
All it did was bring back dungeon training, camp spawning and tank-and-spank encounters due to being able to script say; the Charr chase in the first Campaign of Guild Wars, or lava eruptions of Onyxia in WoW.
Even if chunking succeeded in pulling off the illusion of a world in one piece, which it failed at given while travelling, you're no less conscious of where the seams are and when loading will take place than you would be approaching an AoC wagonmaster, chunking's biggest fault is the lack of AES which was meant to kill it's first-gen cons and employ the pros of instancing.
It didn't happen, so "chunking" failed as an implementation of its own, and was failed by other bad design meant to prevent its negatives and enable its positive.
As far as bias against Brad, I'm only saying his designs in Vanguard have done nothing to contribute to the MMO market. I haven't played a single second of Everquest I or II. Thus I don't have an opinion on it or Brad's contributions towards 'em.
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But they haven't ignored the game....seriously, every example you have given are open beta to game update 2 problems. We are getting ready for game update 6 now. It's pretty obvious to me that you don't really have a real grasp on the state of the game at all.
Of course they ignored the game. If they hadn't, don't you think at least one new server would've opened up? That the flocking to Seradon for some semblance of life would've ended even?
There were enough players at launch to decently populate the few servers I attempted. If those box-buyers and trial players had returned or stuck around in any double-digit percentile part, we wouldn't still have four servers; with population issues of their own not unlike pre-merge conditions.
And you can't patch the problem of people not playing, so I don't know what that open beta to beta 2 reference pertains to.
P.S. I'm arguing that the game's chief problem is that it's boring, due to uninspired and bad design. No bug or performance problem in particular can be fixed to remedy that problem; and if the game were fun enough, the performance and bug issues would be overlooked anyway.
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Good, then I have a point. Time will tell if pervasive worlds become the standard, but, we can say that WoW, EQ2, LOTRO, in fact every mmo has copied the EQ core design, a design put forth by Brad McQuaid. But I'm confused, are you saying Brad has made NO contributions ever, or just made NO contributions when it comes to VG? Or are you saying that because of VG, his prior contributions are negated? And if that's so, would you say Teddy Roosevelt made no contributions to US history, because although he changed the american landscape while president, later he lost another presidential bid running for the Bull-Moose party. Sometimes I think you are saying that because Brad failed with VG, all of his prior contributions are null and void.
No contributions when it comes to VG. I've never played EQ. Nor Asheron's Call, or Anarchy Online. Any of the MMOs that would be considered first-gen except UO and DAoC; so I only know what those two have contributed.
It's not like I believe Brad was given the chances he was given by Microsoft and SOE for no reason at all. I'm sure he had enough merits going into Sigil to warrant the attention and money he was given; it's just everything he did afterwards that I'm aware of and feel was dumb on almost every point.
If you need me to not pick on him a moment: UO goes down as my favorite game of all time, but there's little I like about Garriott's design towards Tabula Rasa, and I don't feel the much postured "cloning deal will make it into future MMOs any more than chunking will.
I'm only speaking of what I know of, I haven't attacked anything he did or did not with EQ, or what WoW copied from it. Just that everything Vanguard in turn attempted to be copied from WoW, and Brad tacked on with his own personal design, was half-baked.
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=P I never even mentioned Diplomacy as an innovation, and I wouldn't. My only point was the pervasive world. And time will tell if it becomes industry standard, I very well could be wrong, but get back to me in the next 5 to 10 years.
Don't need to wait that long. The industry has long since figured out that putting up load screens when loading occurs, even if the loading only takes 2 seconds, has aesthetic qualities. That's the sum total chunking can be innovative towards the industry; everyone stop using notable zoning spots and instead surround players cubes surrounded on all four sides with large zone lines and only partially loaded props on the other sides.
Chunking is more myth than it is anything different from what's already out there. Take City of Heroes for example; it similarly has square zones. Theres giant walls and blue force-fields that prevent crossing into neighboring zones, where you can clearly see the buildings and roads. The way you get to 'em is to take a highway out and a couple second load time.
If those blue force fields and walls were removed and instead invisible walls were erected, set to trigger zoning on touch, and without the courtesy of a load screen, there you'd have chunking. But you'd also have a crappier gameplay experience.
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No its about Brad McQuaid's contributions to the mmo world - and that would include EQ. It's your premise, not mine. Unfortunately, you included EQ by your base assertion: that nothing in the mmo world could be contributed as an innovation by Brad McQuaid. That leaves all his games open for debate.
Call 'em a genius for EQ then, I have no input. All his Vanguard ideas and designs though were duds.
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Well, so what are you thinking? There is some other game developer who was behind the curtain pulling the strings to put EQ out the door? Do you think he is deformed or otherwise unpresentable and that's why McQuaid was paraded around by SOE, journalists and other developers as a ruse to throw us off the tracks of the real hero?
I think the burden of proof is on you. If it wasn't Brad behind the genious of EQ, who was it? Who do you attribute the contributions to and why? And even if Brad was incompetant and useless through the whole development of VG. It was still his idea, the money he had raised. VG certainly would not exist if it weren't for McQuaid, but then again, that would probably suit you just fine.
Who do YOU attribute the individual contibutions to? Like I said, it's impossible to without having been apart of the innards. We know Brad did something, we know Smedley did something; we don't know exactly which did what. Making a MUD a 3D game though; is essentially 100% of what EQ is, so it's too generalizing a contribution to merit any single person for.
It's similar to Garriott and Koster when it comes to UO, Garriott kind of goes down as THE guy behind it, even though Koster apparently played a large part.
I could really care less who was responsible for what, just that none of 'em are messiah to the industry. Brad's mistake is that he fully took up the mantle offered to him as such, and even had a cult following with the whole "Vision" debacle. He urged it on and faceplanted because the myth was voided by Vanguard.
So again to clarify, I'm not saying there's isn't any substance beneath the myth, just that when you or anyone else go as far as to posture Brad as the father of EQ, and thus father of MMOs period, you've then built a mythological person who could surely guide the industry any way he pleases, and in ways best for the players. Brad was given exactly that shot, and failed. Even if I play into the myth you'd give him, I now call 'em a dead titan in the wake of new gods.
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But more to the point, is your assertion here 'because some parts of the design are shit, the entire design is shit".
Basically, yes. Cohesion isn't optional; especially in an MMO.
Fundamental difference between you and I is that you believe Brad shouldn't be judged based on how FUNCTIONAL his designs were when implemented.
You'd first fault the development team for not implementing his design correctly, before faulting Brad's design for being above what's capable of functioning when implemented.
The only way design and function ever meet, is when a middle ground is struck. Designs are made practical enough that they can be implemented in completion and work perfectly for what they were.
I mean if you'd call development shitty for not equating to enough, at what point do you call design shitty for being too much? There's a billion dollars of new ideas posted by creative and imaginative people on MMORPG.com every day, but that doesn't make 'em good designs.
Would you treasure a blueprint of a building that reaches the moon over the tallest skyscraper in existence now? What you're effectively doing is crediting the guy who was given money to build a skyscraper, but he decided it needed to go to the moon, and now you're blamin' the developers rather than calling the architect on bad design.
That said, I'd be sympathetic towards Brad if he had reasonable ideas, and just the money and time came up short. But you have to measure the money and time that went into Vanguard vs. other MMOs and other games. It was labelled the "second most expensive MMO ever", and had a 5-6 year development time; supported by two of the biggest game publishers out there and again, with over a hundred employees.
Really, at what point would you call Brad's designs shitty if they weren't properly implemented under those circumstances?
I don't believe in championing people for their ideas alone. There's a reason you can't copyright ideas; everyone can have 'em but they're worthless unless they can function.
Brad was given a golden opportunity, the most perfect scenario possible. CEO, Chairman, Executive Producer, tens of millions of dollars; the brand recognition of two of the biggest publishers in the arena, and all the free publicity of being labelled a legend, and even a small religion called "Vision". All he was expected to do, was design something good, and well he failed. Utterly and completely.
The guy's not a good designer. Back to my original gripe of him being labelled an "idea man", but not a good business man...what? Business is the only thing he succeeded at. Publishing deals from both Microsoft and SOE, tens of millions of dollars of investments? All those employees in employ and six years of development time. Would you really call his business sense a pitfall before ushering Diplomacy out as an alternative to PvE; in addition to a plethora of other dumb design ideas put into Vanguard? I wouldn't.
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One last thing. when was the last time you logged in and played VG Sepher? Because if we are having a discussion about VG today or VG when you were playing open beta, it changes everything. You are talking like you are 100% in the know, but I'm starting to realize that you are rehashing problems from launch rather than the problems of today. My evidence is that 'chunking' is still a game breaker for you. And if you haven't played since pre-GU2 - we are talking apples and oranges. If you truly still have issues with chunking, as it is today in the game, then I reiterate - any contiuation of this discussion would be futile.
Like a week ago. And no, chunking isn't game breaking; forever an annoying bad design of Vanguard's yes, but not game breaking. Boredom's the game breaker.
"Ground-breaking" would be something so well-received, that industry figures would mimic it and players would be attracted to it. No evidence of either points with Vanguard. Alright, here it is: 'defensive' and 'offensive' targets, a feature innovated by Vanguard, and now has been mimicked by Warhammer. A major, major AAA mmo has now copied a feature from VG. It is no small thing, because, when you have a defensive target, it becomes part of the definition of how abilities and skills work, i.e. skills/abilities/spells which have an effect on offensive targets or defensive targets or both. Let me repeat, Warhammer's entire ability/skill/power construction would be IMPOSSIBLE without mimicking a feature from VG. So... here is a direct example which fits directly into your own definition of a 'ground-breaking' feature put forth by Brad McQuaid. ---------------------------------
"Ground-breaking" would be something so well-received, that industry figures would mimic it and players would be attracted to it. No evidence of either points with Vanguard. Alright, here it is: 'defensive' and 'offensive' targets, a feature innovated by Vanguard, and now has been mimicked by Warhammer. A major, major AAA mmo has now copied a feature from VG. It is no small thing, because, when you have a defensive target, it becomes part of the definition of how abilities and skills work, i.e. skills/abilities/spells which have an effect on offensive targets or defensive targets or both. Let me repeat, Warhammer's entire ability/skill/power construction would be IMPOSSIBLE without mimicking a feature from VG. So... here is a direct example which fits directly into your own definition of a 'ground-breaking' feature put forth by Brad McQuaid. ---------------------------------
Wow, you sure did go back a couple of months to resurrect this.
Sorry to burst your bubble though, but City of Heroes has the same thing. When the Tanker in my group runs off, I have 'em selected to both heal/apply buffs, AND to apply controls and damage to the target he's attacking without changing targets. Defensive and offensive targets.
"Ground-breaking" would be something so well-received, that industry figures would mimic it and players would be attracted to it. No evidence of either points with Vanguard. Alright, here it is: 'defensive' and 'offensive' targets, a feature innovated by Vanguard, and now has been mimicked by Warhammer. A major, major AAA mmo has now copied a feature from VG. It is no small thing, because, when you have a defensive target, it becomes part of the definition of how abilities and skills work, i.e. skills/abilities/spells which have an effect on offensive targets or defensive targets or both. Let me repeat, Warhammer's entire ability/skill/power construction would be IMPOSSIBLE without mimicking a feature from VG. So... here is a direct example which fits directly into your own definition of a 'ground-breaking' feature put forth by Brad McQuaid. ---------------------------------
Wow, you sure did go back a couple of months to resurrect this.
Sorry to burst your bubble though, but City of Heroes has the same thing. When the Tanker in my group runs off, I have 'em selected to both heal/apply buffs, AND to apply controls and damage to the target he's attacking without changing targets. Defensive and offensive targets.
'tis true - CoH/CoV has a similar system but not exactly the same. CoH/CoV is more like a target auto-assist rather than an offensive/defensive target system.
In VG and in WAR, first you actually have two different targets. If I were to have a mob selected, plus another player character selected, my selected mob can be completely different than the player character defensive target's. This is not possible in CoH/CoV.
Plus, CoH/CoV has a much less complex power system. In VG/WAR's system, powers can not only cause damage to your offensive target but throw added effects to your defensive target like buffs and cures. CoH/CoV doesn't build its entire power set structure on this philosophy, as VG/WAR's system does.
I'm willing to admit that the auto-assist system was innovative in its own right, and may have well influenced the VG system, however, it isn't really the same system.
However, WAR is a near carbon copy of VG's system; minor differences at the most. That was the premise of what you say in the segment I quoted.
But, yeah, I admit its pretty sad that I remembered this discussion. But when I realized it was a VG-lifted system, I couldn't help but think about this thread.
"Ground-breaking" would be something so well-received, that industry figures would mimic it and players would be attracted to it. No evidence of either points with Vanguard. Alright, here it is: 'defensive' and 'offensive' targets, a feature innovated by Vanguard, and now has been mimicked by Warhammer. A major, major AAA mmo has now copied a feature from VG. It is no small thing, because, when you have a defensive target, it becomes part of the definition of how abilities and skills work, i.e. skills/abilities/spells which have an effect on offensive targets or defensive targets or both. Let me repeat, Warhammer's entire ability/skill/power construction would be IMPOSSIBLE without mimicking a feature from VG. So... here is a direct example which fits directly into your own definition of a 'ground-breaking' feature put forth by Brad McQuaid. ---------------------------------
Wow, you sure did go back a couple of months to resurrect this.
Sorry to burst your bubble though, but City of Heroes has the same thing. When the Tanker in my group runs off, I have 'em selected to both heal/apply buffs, AND to apply controls and damage to the target he's attacking without changing targets. Defensive and offensive targets.
'tis true - CoH/CoV has a similar system but not exactly the same. CoH/CoV is more like a target auto-assist rather than an offensive/defensive target system.
In VG and in WAR, first you actually have two different targets. If I were to have a mob selected, plus another player character selected, my selected mob can be completely different than the player character defensive target's. This is not possible in CoH/CoV.
Plus, CoH/CoV has a much less complex power system. In VG/WAR's system, powers can not only cause damage to your offensive target but throw added effects to your defensive target like buffs and cures. CoH/CoV doesn't build its entire power set structure on this philosophy, as VG/WAR's system does.
I'm willing to admit that the auto-assist system was innovative in its own right, and may have well influenced the VG system, however, it isn't really the same system.
However, WAR is a near carbon copy of VG's system; minor differences at the most. That was the premise of what you say in the segment I quoted.
But, yeah, I admit its pretty sad that I remembered this discussion. But when I realized it was a VG-lifted system, I couldn't help but think about this thread.
No two systems in any MMOs are completely the same, and minor differences are often the most you're ever going to get nitpickin' anyway.
In City of Heroes, a player can't even target their avatar, and most heals and buffs are PBAOE in nature.
There's 'anchors', there's resurrections that damage surrounding enemies, and etc. Calling its power system 'less complex' really regards it only in a light of "what if Vanguard's targeting system was thrown ontop of it?" It wouldn't make CoH better.
City of Heroes targeting works the way it has to. You wouldn't call clicking targets separately ground-breaking anymore than you would call City of Heroes lack of being able to target one's own character a devolution; both were made tailored to their particular game.
Really now, its just targeting. It's nothin' to be printed on the front of boxes.
Vanguard wasn't the first MMO to allow selecting multiple targets at once, defensive and offensively; even Guild Wars uses it. (I'm on a grand tour of NCSoft's MMO Halloween events at the moment).
WAR absolutely is using a system they lifted from VG. Absolutely. No one in their right mind could say any differently.
That was the entire criteria for what you considered ground-breaking.
You are now back peddling. Back-peddling hard.
I have played CoH. I have played Guild Wars. I have played WAR. GW and CoH are simply not the same system as VG and WAR and you know it. You are just grasping at straws to say differently.
I am now convinced that even if I had an affidavit from several developers saying what inspired and influenced them from Brad McQuaid/VG you would still find a way to wiggle out of your own statements, simply because you are too wrapped up in your own hate.
For you, Brad either has to be a God or the Devil and there is no in between. You have picked your side, he is the devil and there's no turning back now.
Don't worry, I won't resurrect this thread again, as having a discussion with you is futile. You are obviously a grown-up, yet you are immovable as a child, even when proven wrong.
I will restate: Brad McQuaid is an innovator with fatal flaws, this is the majority opinion throughout the mmo media. You can accept it or not. Because I recognize both his strengths and weaknesses, it shows objectivity. You simply are not capable of doing the same.
Brad was renowned for being the vision guy. I think if you look at VG in that perspective you can see that it's an amazing game. Unfortunately while the vision is critically important so is execution. I think that execution is where Brad got in over his head. Honestly though there is nothing atypical about Brads fate in this activity. 8 or 9 out of 10 businesses fail for the exact same reason. Businesses are started by guys with ideas. They are passionate, they have a vision and articulate it well and people believe in them. But then they are faced with running an organization to create or execute the business to create that vision. This is where many businesses die. A Vision guy is not a management guy and the two personality types are actually not compatable. This is where ego comes in to play a vision guy can certainly be smart and can get the business started but the problem is he will hate it and will eventually loose interest and the business will drift and fail. Having worked in management for years the issues Brad had are very common. The smart move would have been to find a really good business person and have turned over running the company to that person and put your self in the position of chief visionary or something like that. I worked for a guy like that ones who did just that and things worked very well till the business guy tried to take control and the vision guy left. After a few years the company died.. You see it takes both types to really grow and make a company successful. Brad is very articulate and passionate and he did have a great vision. If I were in this business I'd hire him in a second and build a product around him. I don't think ANYONE can deny that the visiion and potential behind vanguard are like an order of magnetude greater then any other game today. If he had a good management team and either implemented VG in parts it would have been very successful. Now we have soe fixing the game and they are doing a good job. They have many good people that were part of sigil but honestly they are refining the vision and it is hard to say if they have a vision or what the end product will look like. I would love to know that Brad was hard at work somewhere on a new game or even in a back room in soe providing passion and vision to teams. But I'm afraid that he probably isn't. He did have quite an ego and the whole failure with VG I'm sure hit him really hard. Rumors of drugs and things could mean he destroyed himself which is a loss to us all.
Agree with this. I'm currently falling in love with Vanguard, which, for all its flaws, has a unified, immersive feel to it, and a certain gameplay panache, that I can only think must be Brad's doing. I gather he was a terrible manager, as you say, and it's a real shame he didn't do as you recommend, because this game could have been the greatest MMO today if the stars had been right.
Ok I give up. WAR absolutely is using a system they lifted from VG. Absolutely. No one in their right mind could say any differently. That was the entire criteria for what you considered ground-breaking. You are now back peddling. Back-peddling hard. I have played CoH. I have played Guild Wars. I have played WAR. GW and CoH are simply not the same system as VG and WAR and you know it. You are just grasping at straws to say differently. I am now convinced that even if I had an affidavit from several developers saying what inspired and influenced them from Brad McQuaid/VG you would still find a way to wiggle out of your own statements, simply because you are too wrapped up in your own hate. For you, Brad either has to be a God or the Devil and there is no in between. You have picked your side, he is the devil and there's no turning back now. Don't worry, I won't resurrect this thread again, as having a discussion with you is futile. You are obviously a grown-up, yet you are immovable as a child, even when proven wrong. I will restate: Brad McQuaid is an innovator with fatal flaws, this is the majority opinion throughout the mmo media. You can accept it or not. Because I recognize both his strengths and weaknesses, it shows objectivity. You simply are not capable of doing the same.
I just think Brad failed in every imaginable way possible. I mean, he sank his company, and made a game that the market didn't want to play; or else they would've. Even of those that tried it, the majority quit. It's that simple.
The only difference between you and I is that you extend to him "buts", substantive only of your own personal beliefs. That's cool, but don't buck facts and general consensus in order to do so.
If you think I'm not being moderate, and I'm off on a far end of judging him, then do name an example of someone who has failed as disproportionate as Brad when it comes to the amount of free reign (CEO & Executive Producer), resources (30 million dollars, 100 employees, some formerly of SOE) and gestation (4-5 years?) allotted to a chance to be 'innovative'?
And what's a fair way to judge 'innovation'? I admit, there's nothing I see innovative about Vanguard at all. But I wouldn't be preachin' as I do if the game had hundreds of thousands of subscribers, because then I'd be bucking general consensus.
Ok I give up. WAR absolutely is using a system they lifted from VG. Absolutely. No one in their right mind could say any differently. That was the entire criteria for what you considered ground-breaking. You are now back peddling. Back-peddling hard. I have played CoH. I have played Guild Wars. I have played WAR. GW and CoH are simply not the same system as VG and WAR and you know it. You are just grasping at straws to say differently. I am now convinced that even if I had an affidavit from several developers saying what inspired and influenced them from Brad McQuaid/VG you would still find a way to wiggle out of your own statements, simply because you are too wrapped up in your own hate. For you, Brad either has to be a God or the Devil and there is no in between. You have picked your side, he is the devil and there's no turning back now. Don't worry, I won't resurrect this thread again, as having a discussion with you is futile. You are obviously a grown-up, yet you are immovable as a child, even when proven wrong. I will restate: Brad McQuaid is an innovator with fatal flaws, this is the majority opinion throughout the mmo media. You can accept it or not. Because I recognize both his strengths and weaknesses, it shows objectivity. You simply are not capable of doing the same.
I just think Brad failed in every imaginable way possible. I mean, he sank his company, and made a game that the market didn't want to play; or else they would've. Even of those that tried it, the majority quit. It's that simple.
The only difference between you and I is that you extend to him "buts", substantive only of your own personal beliefs. That's cool, but don't buck facts and general consensus in order to do so.
If you think I'm not being moderate, and I'm off on a far end of judging him, then do name an example of someone who has failed as disproportionate as Brad when it comes to the amount of free reign (CEO & Executive Producer), resources (30 million dollars, 100 employees, some formerly of SOE) and gestation (4-5 years?) allotted to a chance to be 'innovative'?
And what's a fair way to judge 'innovation'? I admit, there's nothing I see innovative about Vanguard at all. But I wouldn't be preachin' as I do if the game had hundreds of thousands of subscribers, because then I'd be bucking general consensus.
I would say Richard Garriot has failed just as bad and he had similar resources at his disposal. Actually he probably failed worse since he made a tiny game with very little to do, while VG is at leasta huge game with things to do.
As far as innovation, well a few games that do not have hundreds of thousands of subs were innovative, TR, DDO and VG all have things that are innovative and all three have smallish subscription bases.
I guess he is happy enough working for SOE currently. As an ideas man/game direction, Brad had many good ideas. As an business man, I think he should never apply again.
Brad is an excellent game designer, his problem is that he is a bad manager and a disaster bussinesman.
Vanguard failed because he could not manage his staff and the game developement went at snail pace...........until they run out of money and they had to released it half made and with many bugs.
Brad works well with a Boss above him.
In fact VG in terms of design is miles better than AoC or Tabula Rasa (made by another great of the game industry).
Dunno about the guy from AoC, I don't rate him the same level as Mcquaid.
Comments
What caused so many "bugs" in Vanguard? I never seen a game with so many bugs in my entire life.
Was it just programming errors, incompetence, a lack of leadership, all of the above? Anyone with a computer science background have an explanation or theory why there were so many bugs? I know McQuaid said the game was "incomplete" or "near completion," but the amount of bugs seemed much worse than mere incompletion. What or who was responsible for the half-ass programming, essentially?
Any theories or explanations on that?
If I were to guess for the massive amount of bugs, it would probably be because of the complexity of the game. Games in general are one of the most complex programs to date, and to build this game onto a completely huge open world with many other benefits; I couldn't imagine how complex it would've been to code it. Simple and innovating ideas will always win in the game genre, and I believe he just wasn't experienced enough to see that his ego was outweighing the resources available.
In other words, you don't build a space sim MMORPG to be a space, ground, economic, twitch, PvP, PvE, spaceship boarding, huge open galaxy, hundreds of planets to explore, and etc. to be successful. Try documenting reverse engineering design of some games like Mario, Zelda, and WoW; then try it with Vanguard. You'll be incredibly surprised at the results.
It's a beginning developer's wet dream.
The biggest revelation post-launch as far as the bugs are concerned was the fact that Sigil only had one Quality Assurance person. One. Not a QA team, just a guy.
There were other cited problems too like a low retention of beta players.
Then there's the host of other miscallenous problems..their attempt to re-write a majority of the Unreal 2 engine. The fundamental gameplay changes between Beta 2 and Beta 3. The rapid friends and family hiring practices. So on and so forth.
The interviews over at f13.net chronicled a checklist of issues that could be attributed towards the sloppy design and development.
One last thing. when was the last time you logged in and played VG Sepher? Because if we are having a discussion about VG today or VG when you were playing open beta, it changes everything. You are talking like you are 100% in the know, but I'm starting to realize that you are rehashing problems from launch rather than the problems of today. My evidence is that 'chunking' is still a game breaker for you. And if you haven't played since pre-GU2 - we are talking apples and oranges. If you truly still have issues with chunking, as it is today in the game, then I reiterate - any contiuation of this discussion would be futile.
Originally posted by Zorgo
Interesting. I see your logic, but I think there is one more thing to consider. Looking at the anecdotal evidence in posts; my theory is that VG's poor performance at launch differs from EQ and WoW in one dramatic way.
I remember seeing post after post with basically this theme, "Enough is enough. We put up with EQ's launch, AO's launch, WoW's launch etc. etc. We will no longer except unfinished products upon release". What this says to me, is that while the performance issues in prior games was tolerated, it never went unoticed and thus, eventually it would not matter how good the game underneath was, the community simply wouldn't tolerate 'paying for beta' again. This was similarly repeated in the AoC mass exodus.
In addition, the performance problems were, imo, so bad at launch in VG that you really couldn't see the game underneath unless you had a much better than average rig. While the loot bug in WoW brought the game to a dead stop, in VG it was the more pervasive hitching, lag, geometry issues which never left you. They were ever present, ever mucking up your immersion and ability to see how the game was suppose to run. At least in WoW you'd get long periods without problems, so you could judge the game as it were suppose to run.
Funny you should mention EQ's performance at launch and necessary hardware, since that was one of Brad's talking points when it came to his design intentions for Vanguard. EQ was worth playing, so would-be players bought 3D graphics cards for it. Brad hoped for the same for Vanguard.
Basically though, you believe performance issues is a completely separate line of reasoning that supercedes whether a game is "fun" or "boring", rather than being a quality that leans a game one way or another.
I believe performance is a quality; just as sure as WoW is more fun due to it's accessibility and relatively low performance problems, Vanguard was made more boring by the lagging and hitch-storm.
There's a lot of good and bad a game can have, but let one issue or quality stand-out in particular and it'll become the most cited. That said, I believe performance was complained about because it was the first and foremost problem that Vanguard had. I don't believe though that a perfectly fun game was beneath.
Vanguard was designed for the Crysis treatment. It was intentionally designed for hardware that really didn't even exist even though the graphics quality didn't warrant it. The hardware industry made sport of Crysis and consumers used it as a measuring stick. In short, it was received well because the game beneath it was good.
That didn't happen for Vanguard, because there were no qualities that stood out above the performance issues that made the performance issues worth enduring and overcoming; even if it meant waiting on future hardware which Brad INTENTIONALLY wanted us to do.
I mean it's not like there's a shortage of games to release with nigh-insurmountable performance heights and problems that went down with critical acclaim anyway. It's just that there's a difference between 110 degree weather on a beach and in a desert. Vanguard came off as the latter.
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Agree here in part. But they have actually continued to polish the models on the test server. The current incarnation is very difficult to distinguish from the quality at launch, except sharper features and more 'muscle'. So we essentially have now what we had at launch with a new skeleton underneath that isnt a raid performance hog.
They won't return 100%. Personally I wouldn't care if they returned with 10% of the customization. My point is, all the performance issues that came with the initial models were of Brad's own design.
I'd say it was a lack of optimization, which I'm sure it partly was, if all SOE did was re-implement the models with the exact same amount and range of customization sliders and still saw a performance increase, but that's not what they're doing. Things were removed that will never return, but so be it, it's a better design.
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Point taken. I guess I should reiterate that I was making a prediction based on my opinion. You are right that by shear numbers instancing hasn't proved a financial loss to any game in any real way. But, on the other hand; game devs told us it wasn't possible, perhaps the community has just accepted zoning as reality. VG showed us pervasive worlds are possible in mmo's. And a very vocal minority in AoC EXPECTED a more pervasive world, where previously you hadn't heard those complaints, such as with EQ2. Of course, it is one of the major gripes with Guild Wars, and although they have millions in active subsribers, I wonder how many more there would be in a totally optimized chunk world. Which brings me to my this point. VG isn't optimized with its chunking yet, or maybe ever. But it most certainly has proven that it is possible to do. Or are you truly saying that with the right development team and the right funding and support no one would ever ever be able to make chunking seemless? That seems as ludicrous as saying 'if god meant man to fly he would have given him wings'. VG absolutely has showed us it is possible. What they haven't done is perfect the system - which as I stated is one of the greatest flaws of the McQuaid history. Again, this was just me throwing out a prediction that the future will bring more and more pervasive worlds - and whether they do it by perfecting VG's tech or by trying to reach the same effect with a different technology - VG put it out there; You can have an mmo without instances.
There are "zones" in Vanguard. The whole world is a bunch of square zones. Just because Sigil pitched it under the word "chunking" doesn't mean it's technically any different. You're loading assets off of your harddrive that're then rendered. All Sigil did was remove the courtesy of a load screen.
You could argue the few-seconds chunk time doesn't warrant a load screen. How long can you travel in a straight line on a flying mount though without chunking in Vanguard? Compare it to how long you can fly around WoW's Burning Crusades without chunking.
Point being, they could cut chunk zoning times down in half by making the chunks half as small, and chunking more frequent, but it'd still be little more than a backwards move compared to other developers who try to keep loading as infrequent as possible, even if you wait awhile, so that you play as uninterrupted as possible with the best performance possible.
As far as Vanguard not being "optimized" yet with it's chunking..yeah no, it never will be. Brad's original design was that chunking wouldn't be noticeable at ALL, not a millisecond of noticeable loading. What we have though and will always have are giant zone lines that're everything but seamless. The world's a patchwork blanket where all the seams are visible and always present in mind.
As for what the right development team with the right amount of money can do with "chunking"; again it's just loading...it always has to happen at some time. What you'd like is a world that loads to memory all at once; all of its graphics, textures, models and sounds. This isn't what chunking accomplishes. Nor does it take a proper step towards it considering all chunking does is drastically increase the amount of zone lines and thus frequent asset loading there is in a game.
And..as far as instanced games being better, even bigger successes if they were open worlds. Nah, I don't think that they'd be better, because again, instancing isn't a flaw, it's a feature. Instancing enables most notable all the scripted, tailored events that can occur in World of Warcraft and Guild Wars, thatre impossible in Vanguard even with the yet-another failed design of Brad's Advanced Encounter System.
Speaking of the AES; Brad himself KNEW there were 1st-gen pitfalls like training, the inability to predict the accessibility of content and provide scripted events. That's why he he dreamed of AES; which if even it saw the light of day proper, would pale in comparison to what instancing offers.
So no, really, I don't believe those 5 million Guild Wars players would enjoy the game more if everything they love about it was removed in lieu of a Charr infested empty wasteland.
Instancing provides great gameplay, the lack of it allows people to imagine "freedom". I perfectly understand the want for an open world, but instancing isn't an affront to it, nor is instancing merely a compromise. It has merits, there's gameplay that can be designed upon it whereas the merits of an open world are largely dependent on whether or not players can find appreciation within themselves. It's best just to design a game than a canvas for imagination.
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But that's all bad execution, not bad design. Like I was saying above, just because VG's chunking isn't fully optimized doesn't mean that it can't be. Heck, most of the problems you are mentioning have been solved with chunking. There are flying mounts working correctly, you keep your pet active now, etc. Which actually proves my point, the tech design wasn't bad the execution was bad.The problems you mentioned were solved and have gone away, meaning it was an optimization issue rather than a design issue. Now as to these 'inherent' issues.....what features of the Unreal Engine were lost exactly and prove to me that those features were neutered directly related to the chunking design. Back this up with a reliable reference please.
All good designs meet function. They have to, because without proper function then it's just an idea that anyone could've thought of. What good is a design that's impossible to function as...designed? Does Vanguard function as designed?
The ifs, ands and buts of more money and a better development team are a week argument in justifying Brad's design, since we know the game cost a good 30 million, has seen the support of two of the biggest publishers around, employed over a hundred employees at a point and had a good 5-6 years of development time. No excuses for bad design.
As far as "features" missing from the Unreal Engine; you could compare Vanguard to other games based on the Unreal 2.5 engine. Ones with better materials whereas Vanguard has a bad rep of everything looking "plastic", ones with proper shadowing, ones with things like reflective water.
Then on the development side there were the complaints in the f13 employee interview of a lack of proper tools. Doesn't sound to me like something that'd be complained about if the engine was left in tack enough for the Unreal Editor and other suite of tools to work as they were supposed to.
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Hmm. I disagree. Someone can do something 'ground-breaking' and get relatively little notice for it. It only takes one person to notice the genious and refine it into a paradigm changing technology. The best example is the Tucker automobile. It was the first automobile to come standard with seat belts. The Tucker auto's sold horribly, the business folded, but every time you drive a car, something about it can be traced back to the Tucker. Ground-breaking while not being well received.
Yeah, the seat-belt was groundbreaking. Diplomacy so far isn't.
So the point remains the same, there's nothing ground-breaking about Vanguard. There's nothing even SOE's upcoming MMOs are taking from it.
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Well we disagree. The only people who could answer that would be developers and the companies they work for. I certainly see it being asked for more and more by players, and if I know the free market, I can guess the direction we are heading.
You wait on it. The whole open world vs. everything else deal is a whole 'nother topic all-together. My only argument was that Brad designed the anti-thesis in creating a record amount of zone lines and loading.
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Oh c'mon, so now chunking isn't even a 3rd generation feature? I suppose the flying mounts aren't either.....you know it is ok to say 'its 3rd generation done badly', you don't have to take the 3rd generation part out completely. Just because it was executed poorly, you can surely maturely admit to what was 'new' in VG. But it sounds more like you want to justify your bias by saying it isn't even 3rd generation. Phooey - It's impossible to have an intelligent conversation with someone that is so wrapped in their own bias. I admit that Brad McQuaid had a ground breaking idea to use chunking. Objectively, I say that it was poorly optimized and implemented. You can't see passed your bias enough to even admit that - apparently you were hurt pretty deeply by Brad, and its a pain you can't get over. Because your argument only has one theme, 'Brad McQuaid is 100% bad." think about it. Can you be objective and say one nice thing about his contributions? No. In fact your entire point is that Brad McQuaid has done NOTHING to contribute to the mmo market. You know what you are when you deal in absolutes, right?
Considering chunking didn't improve upon first-generation problems, which generational leaps should do first and foremost, and then paled in comparison pros wise to second-generation features like instancing which DID improve upon first generation problems; exactly why would I consider "chunking", i.e. zoning, a third-gen feature?
All it did was bring back dungeon training, camp spawning and tank-and-spank encounters due to being able to script say; the Charr chase in the first Campaign of Guild Wars, or lava eruptions of Onyxia in WoW.
Even if chunking succeeded in pulling off the illusion of a world in one piece, which it failed at given while travelling, you're no less conscious of where the seams are and when loading will take place than you would be approaching an AoC wagonmaster, chunking's biggest fault is the lack of AES which was meant to kill it's first-gen cons and employ the pros of instancing.
It didn't happen, so "chunking" failed as an implementation of its own, and was failed by other bad design meant to prevent its negatives and enable its positive.
As far as bias against Brad, I'm only saying his designs in Vanguard have done nothing to contribute to the MMO market. I haven't played a single second of Everquest I or II. Thus I don't have an opinion on it or Brad's contributions towards 'em.
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But they haven't ignored the game....seriously, every example you have given are open beta to game update 2 problems. We are getting ready for game update 6 now. It's pretty obvious to me that you don't really have a real grasp on the state of the game at all.
Of course they ignored the game. If they hadn't, don't you think at least one new server would've opened up? That the flocking to Seradon for some semblance of life would've ended even?
There were enough players at launch to decently populate the few servers I attempted. If those box-buyers and trial players had returned or stuck around in any double-digit percentile part, we wouldn't still have four servers; with population issues of their own not unlike pre-merge conditions.
And you can't patch the problem of people not playing, so I don't know what that open beta to beta 2 reference pertains to.
P.S. I'm arguing that the game's chief problem is that it's boring, due to uninspired and bad design. No bug or performance problem in particular can be fixed to remedy that problem; and if the game were fun enough, the performance and bug issues would be overlooked anyway.
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Good, then I have a point. Time will tell if pervasive worlds become the standard, but, we can say that WoW, EQ2, LOTRO, in fact every mmo has copied the EQ core design, a design put forth by Brad McQuaid. But I'm confused, are you saying Brad has made NO contributions ever, or just made NO contributions when it comes to VG? Or are you saying that because of VG, his prior contributions are negated? And if that's so, would you say Teddy Roosevelt made no contributions to US history, because although he changed the american landscape while president, later he lost another presidential bid running for the Bull-Moose party. Sometimes I think you are saying that because Brad failed with VG, all of his prior contributions are null and void.
No contributions when it comes to VG. I've never played EQ. Nor Asheron's Call, or Anarchy Online. Any of the MMOs that would be considered first-gen except UO and DAoC; so I only know what those two have contributed.
It's not like I believe Brad was given the chances he was given by Microsoft and SOE for no reason at all. I'm sure he had enough merits going into Sigil to warrant the attention and money he was given; it's just everything he did afterwards that I'm aware of and feel was dumb on almost every point.
If you need me to not pick on him a moment: UO goes down as my favorite game of all time, but there's little I like about Garriott's design towards Tabula Rasa, and I don't feel the much postured "cloning deal will make it into future MMOs any more than chunking will.
I'm only speaking of what I know of, I haven't attacked anything he did or did not with EQ, or what WoW copied from it. Just that everything Vanguard in turn attempted to be copied from WoW, and Brad tacked on with his own personal design, was half-baked.
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=P I never even mentioned Diplomacy as an innovation, and I wouldn't. My only point was the pervasive world. And time will tell if it becomes industry standard, I very well could be wrong, but get back to me in the next 5 to 10 years.
Don't need to wait that long. The industry has long since figured out that putting up load screens when loading occurs, even if the loading only takes 2 seconds, has aesthetic qualities. That's the sum total chunking can be innovative towards the industry; everyone stop using notable zoning spots and instead surround players cubes surrounded on all four sides with large zone lines and only partially loaded props on the other sides.
Chunking is more myth than it is anything different from what's already out there. Take City of Heroes for example; it similarly has square zones. Theres giant walls and blue force-fields that prevent crossing into neighboring zones, where you can clearly see the buildings and roads. The way you get to 'em is to take a highway out and a couple second load time.
If those blue force fields and walls were removed and instead invisible walls were erected, set to trigger zoning on touch, and without the courtesy of a load screen, there you'd have chunking. But you'd also have a crappier gameplay experience.
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No its about Brad McQuaid's contributions to the mmo world - and that would include EQ. It's your premise, not mine. Unfortunately, you included EQ by your base assertion: that nothing in the mmo world could be contributed as an innovation by Brad McQuaid. That leaves all his games open for debate.
Call 'em a genius for EQ then, I have no input. All his Vanguard ideas and designs though were duds.
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Well, so what are you thinking? There is some other game developer who was behind the curtain pulling the strings to put EQ out the door? Do you think he is deformed or otherwise unpresentable and that's why McQuaid was paraded around by SOE, journalists and other developers as a ruse to throw us off the tracks of the real hero?
I think the burden of proof is on you. If it wasn't Brad behind the genious of EQ, who was it? Who do you attribute the contributions to and why? And even if Brad was incompetant and useless through the whole development of VG. It was still his idea, the money he had raised. VG certainly would not exist if it weren't for McQuaid, but then again, that would probably suit you just fine.
Who do YOU attribute the individual contibutions to? Like I said, it's impossible to without having been apart of the innards. We know Brad did something, we know Smedley did something; we don't know exactly which did what. Making a MUD a 3D game though; is essentially 100% of what EQ is, so it's too generalizing a contribution to merit any single person for.
It's similar to Garriott and Koster when it comes to UO, Garriott kind of goes down as THE guy behind it, even though Koster apparently played a large part.
I could really care less who was responsible for what, just that none of 'em are messiah to the industry. Brad's mistake is that he fully took up the mantle offered to him as such, and even had a cult following with the whole "Vision" debacle. He urged it on and faceplanted because the myth was voided by Vanguard.
So again to clarify, I'm not saying there's isn't any substance beneath the myth, just that when you or anyone else go as far as to posture Brad as the father of EQ, and thus father of MMOs period, you've then built a mythological person who could surely guide the industry any way he pleases, and in ways best for the players. Brad was given exactly that shot, and failed. Even if I play into the myth you'd give him, I now call 'em a dead titan in the wake of new gods.
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But more to the point, is your assertion here 'because some parts of the design are shit, the entire design is shit".
Basically, yes. Cohesion isn't optional; especially in an MMO.
Fundamental difference between you and I is that you believe Brad shouldn't be judged based on how FUNCTIONAL his designs were when implemented.
You'd first fault the development team for not implementing his design correctly, before faulting Brad's design for being above what's capable of functioning when implemented.
The only way design and function ever meet, is when a middle ground is struck. Designs are made practical enough that they can be implemented in completion and work perfectly for what they were.
I mean if you'd call development shitty for not equating to enough, at what point do you call design shitty for being too much? There's a billion dollars of new ideas posted by creative and imaginative people on MMORPG.com every day, but that doesn't make 'em good designs.
Would you treasure a blueprint of a building that reaches the moon over the tallest skyscraper in existence now? What you're effectively doing is crediting the guy who was given money to build a skyscraper, but he decided it needed to go to the moon, and now you're blamin' the developers rather than calling the architect on bad design.
That said, I'd be sympathetic towards Brad if he had reasonable ideas, and just the money and time came up short. But you have to measure the money and time that went into Vanguard vs. other MMOs and other games. It was labelled the "second most expensive MMO ever", and had a 5-6 year development time; supported by two of the biggest game publishers out there and again, with over a hundred employees.
Really, at what point would you call Brad's designs shitty if they weren't properly implemented under those circumstances?
I don't believe in championing people for their ideas alone. There's a reason you can't copyright ideas; everyone can have 'em but they're worthless unless they can function.
Brad was given a golden opportunity, the most perfect scenario possible. CEO, Chairman, Executive Producer, tens of millions of dollars; the brand recognition of two of the biggest publishers in the arena, and all the free publicity of being labelled a legend, and even a small religion called "Vision". All he was expected to do, was design something good, and well he failed. Utterly and completely.
The guy's not a good designer. Back to my original gripe of him being labelled an "idea man", but not a good business man...what? Business is the only thing he succeeded at. Publishing deals from both Microsoft and SOE, tens of millions of dollars of investments? All those employees in employ and six years of development time. Would you really call his business sense a pitfall before ushering Diplomacy out as an alternative to PvE; in addition to a plethora of other dumb design ideas put into Vanguard? I wouldn't.
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One last thing. when was the last time you logged in and played VG Sepher? Because if we are having a discussion about VG today or VG when you were playing open beta, it changes everything. You are talking like you are 100% in the know, but I'm starting to realize that you are rehashing problems from launch rather than the problems of today. My evidence is that 'chunking' is still a game breaker for you. And if you haven't played since pre-GU2 - we are talking apples and oranges. If you truly still have issues with chunking, as it is today in the game, then I reiterate - any contiuation of this discussion would be futile.
Like a week ago. And no, chunking isn't game breaking; forever an annoying bad design of Vanguard's yes, but not game breaking. Boredom's the game breaker.
Omg i paused for 1 second well i was chunking in vanguard, think all go cry .
Wow, you sure did go back a couple of months to resurrect this.
Sorry to burst your bubble though, but City of Heroes has the same thing. When the Tanker in my group runs off, I have 'em selected to both heal/apply buffs, AND to apply controls and damage to the target he's attacking without changing targets. Defensive and offensive targets.
Wow, you sure did go back a couple of months to resurrect this.
Sorry to burst your bubble though, but City of Heroes has the same thing. When the Tanker in my group runs off, I have 'em selected to both heal/apply buffs, AND to apply controls and damage to the target he's attacking without changing targets. Defensive and offensive targets.
'tis true - CoH/CoV has a similar system but not exactly the same. CoH/CoV is more like a target auto-assist rather than an offensive/defensive target system.
In VG and in WAR, first you actually have two different targets. If I were to have a mob selected, plus another player character selected, my selected mob can be completely different than the player character defensive target's. This is not possible in CoH/CoV.
Plus, CoH/CoV has a much less complex power system. In VG/WAR's system, powers can not only cause damage to your offensive target but throw added effects to your defensive target like buffs and cures. CoH/CoV doesn't build its entire power set structure on this philosophy, as VG/WAR's system does.
I'm willing to admit that the auto-assist system was innovative in its own right, and may have well influenced the VG system, however, it isn't really the same system.
However, WAR is a near carbon copy of VG's system; minor differences at the most. That was the premise of what you say in the segment I quoted.
But, yeah, I admit its pretty sad that I remembered this discussion. But when I realized it was a VG-lifted system, I couldn't help but think about this thread.
Wow, you sure did go back a couple of months to resurrect this.
Sorry to burst your bubble though, but City of Heroes has the same thing. When the Tanker in my group runs off, I have 'em selected to both heal/apply buffs, AND to apply controls and damage to the target he's attacking without changing targets. Defensive and offensive targets.
'tis true - CoH/CoV has a similar system but not exactly the same. CoH/CoV is more like a target auto-assist rather than an offensive/defensive target system.
In VG and in WAR, first you actually have two different targets. If I were to have a mob selected, plus another player character selected, my selected mob can be completely different than the player character defensive target's. This is not possible in CoH/CoV.
Plus, CoH/CoV has a much less complex power system. In VG/WAR's system, powers can not only cause damage to your offensive target but throw added effects to your defensive target like buffs and cures. CoH/CoV doesn't build its entire power set structure on this philosophy, as VG/WAR's system does.
I'm willing to admit that the auto-assist system was innovative in its own right, and may have well influenced the VG system, however, it isn't really the same system.
However, WAR is a near carbon copy of VG's system; minor differences at the most. That was the premise of what you say in the segment I quoted.
But, yeah, I admit its pretty sad that I remembered this discussion. But when I realized it was a VG-lifted system, I couldn't help but think about this thread.
No two systems in any MMOs are completely the same, and minor differences are often the most you're ever going to get nitpickin' anyway.
In City of Heroes, a player can't even target their avatar, and most heals and buffs are PBAOE in nature.
There's 'anchors', there's resurrections that damage surrounding enemies, and etc. Calling its power system 'less complex' really regards it only in a light of "what if Vanguard's targeting system was thrown ontop of it?" It wouldn't make CoH better.
City of Heroes targeting works the way it has to. You wouldn't call clicking targets separately ground-breaking anymore than you would call City of Heroes lack of being able to target one's own character a devolution; both were made tailored to their particular game.
Really now, its just targeting. It's nothin' to be printed on the front of boxes.
Vanguard wasn't the first MMO to allow selecting multiple targets at once, defensive and offensively; even Guild Wars uses it. (I'm on a grand tour of NCSoft's MMO Halloween events at the moment).
It's just a convenience more than anything else.
Ok I give up.
WAR absolutely is using a system they lifted from VG. Absolutely. No one in their right mind could say any differently.
That was the entire criteria for what you considered ground-breaking.
You are now back peddling. Back-peddling hard.
I have played CoH. I have played Guild Wars. I have played WAR. GW and CoH are simply not the same system as VG and WAR and you know it. You are just grasping at straws to say differently.
I am now convinced that even if I had an affidavit from several developers saying what inspired and influenced them from Brad McQuaid/VG you would still find a way to wiggle out of your own statements, simply because you are too wrapped up in your own hate.
For you, Brad either has to be a God or the Devil and there is no in between. You have picked your side, he is the devil and there's no turning back now.
Don't worry, I won't resurrect this thread again, as having a discussion with you is futile. You are obviously a grown-up, yet you are immovable as a child, even when proven wrong.
I will restate: Brad McQuaid is an innovator with fatal flaws, this is the majority opinion throughout the mmo media. You can accept it or not. Because I recognize both his strengths and weaknesses, it shows objectivity. You simply are not capable of doing the same.
Allright you internet tough guys, I DARE you to go down to the local Popeyes chicken and talk this trash to Brads face.
Ok thanks!! That was a 10 for the morning. ROFL.
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Ethion
Agree with this. I'm currently falling in love with Vanguard, which, for all its flaws, has a unified, immersive feel to it, and a certain gameplay panache, that I can only think must be Brad's doing. I gather he was a terrible manager, as you say, and it's a real shame he didn't do as you recommend, because this game could have been the greatest MMO today if the stars had been right.
I just think Brad failed in every imaginable way possible. I mean, he sank his company, and made a game that the market didn't want to play; or else they would've. Even of those that tried it, the majority quit. It's that simple.
The only difference between you and I is that you extend to him "buts", substantive only of your own personal beliefs. That's cool, but don't buck facts and general consensus in order to do so.
If you think I'm not being moderate, and I'm off on a far end of judging him, then do name an example of someone who has failed as disproportionate as Brad when it comes to the amount of free reign (CEO & Executive Producer), resources (30 million dollars, 100 employees, some formerly of SOE) and gestation (4-5 years?) allotted to a chance to be 'innovative'?
And what's a fair way to judge 'innovation'? I admit, there's nothing I see innovative about Vanguard at all. But I wouldn't be preachin' as I do if the game had hundreds of thousands of subscribers, because then I'd be bucking general consensus.
I just think Brad failed in every imaginable way possible. I mean, he sank his company, and made a game that the market didn't want to play; or else they would've. Even of those that tried it, the majority quit. It's that simple.
The only difference between you and I is that you extend to him "buts", substantive only of your own personal beliefs. That's cool, but don't buck facts and general consensus in order to do so.
If you think I'm not being moderate, and I'm off on a far end of judging him, then do name an example of someone who has failed as disproportionate as Brad when it comes to the amount of free reign (CEO & Executive Producer), resources (30 million dollars, 100 employees, some formerly of SOE) and gestation (4-5 years?) allotted to a chance to be 'innovative'?
And what's a fair way to judge 'innovation'? I admit, there's nothing I see innovative about Vanguard at all. But I wouldn't be preachin' as I do if the game had hundreds of thousands of subscribers, because then I'd be bucking general consensus.
I would say Richard Garriot has failed just as bad and he had similar resources at his disposal. Actually he probably failed worse since he made a tiny game with very little to do, while VG is at leasta huge game with things to do.
As far as innovation, well a few games that do not have hundreds of thousands of subs were innovative, TR, DDO and VG all have things that are innovative and all three have smallish subscription bases.
Brad is an excellent game designer, his problem is that he is a bad manager and a disaster bussinesman.
Vanguard failed because he could not manage his staff and the game developement went at snail pace...........until they run out of money and they had to released it half made and with many bugs.
Brad works well with a Boss above him.
In fact VG in terms of design is miles better than AoC or Tabula Rasa (made by another great of the game industry).
Dunno about the guy from AoC, I don't rate him the same level as Mcquaid.