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Vanguard: Saga of Heroes: 2010 Roadmap Reveals Major Setbacks
MikeB
Community ManagerAdministrator RarePosts: 6,555
The 2010 content roadmap for Vanguard was revealed in an announcement on the Vanguard official forums, and it's not all good news. Some of the additions players may have expected in 2010 are being shelved indefinitely due to limited resources, which is unfortunate.
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However, on the plus side, this will allow the development team to release smaller, more frequent updates to the game, solving the longstanding issue of major gaps between updates.
Below is a list of the features to be shelved:
• Alternate Advancement
• Halls of Shattered Souls
• Stiirhaad Mountains
• Pankor Zhi
• Nexus
So with the above features out, what is the team going to be working on in 2010? One of the main goals for the Vanguard team in 2010 is executing a server merge to consolidate the community, though they do caution that this is not set in stone.
With the adjustment to the release schedule, the team is also looking to release a chunk of content every month, with the focus being on content for groups ranging from small to normal in size, with the possibility of some raid content tied in.
For more details on what's coming to Vanguard in 2010, you can read the full roadmap announcement here.
Comments
Wow that was a depressing read, if you read the "roadmap" they almost sound like this is the end of the line, no?
I play all ghame
I don't know, the fact that SOE rescued the game in the first place says that they have an interest in making it work.
They don't take the risk they need with the title in order to make it work. They needed to funnel money & a team into the game when they acquired it to bring it where it needed to be in order to be successful. I feel like they turned it around with their small team, but they hindered it at the same time by not taking the risk. They bought an in-development title that was not even near completion, and they should have treated it as such when they got it. Ontop of all of that they don't market their game at all. It just sort of exists.
Why they don't make the PVP server like EQ2's rule set I do not understand. I loved Vanguard so much, but the FFA killed it for me. At least put level ranges, teams aren't necessary.
nah..they bought it cause, at the time, it was considered an eq2 killer. they won't do anything with this awesome game now.
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IMO they bought it so they could own the IP and make sure it wasnt going to be sold elsewhere to compete with EQ2, and to try and make a bit of the money they invested back.
Quite depressive. But not a surprise. VG will IMVPO never recover anyways, even if SOE would do some major investment. That chance has passed long ago, but its a shame nontheless.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
To make this work, SOE would have to do some advertising, which they don't even do for their EQ Titles as it should have been. Vanguard will simply be forgotten some day which is a shame.
This game died on the table when Microsoft dropped it in 06. After that, they sold the distributing rights to SOE, launched early to avoid it becoming vaporware, and then had to sell the whole show to SOE when Sigil went belly up. Its a shame, as it was a game with potential, but after the launch they had there just wasn't the population in the massive world they made to support a group-centric game like this. New players came on board, wandered around, did some soloing and crafting, then they generally leave. No matter what anyone does now this game is toast.
Brad McQuaid should have done less interveiws and more work on this title. I blame him and Sigil for what happened here, SOE picked it up for a song and then set about fixing some bugs and generally maintaining the game as it is. Safe investment for them, easy money. To say they bought it to avoid it killing EQ2 is nonsense, no one wanted Vanguard in the shape it was in when Sigil went under. It couldn't compete with a facebook app at that point.
I would have liked to see it get some dev love, but I think its just going to stagnant. I just don't think this game will ever get the population to make any company want to put extra monies into it. Now its getting dated and there is a lot more competition for the gamer's $$.
I have played Vanguard and I don't see how it is better then EQ2. They are different games anyhow. I enjoy EQ2 much more then Vanguard. Vanguard was very hard for me to figure out when I first played it which was my first frustration although I am not a hardcore gamer so maybe it was above my head. It was very buggy at first also which made me not stick around and I had a very good PC system at the time and still do. I kept my SOE $30 subscription for a while just so I can see if they fixed the game but now it has been so long that I really have little interest in playing the game. Just no population anymore. The thing that I think kills MMOs is not enough casual friendly content. Everything has to be END GANE END GAME. I make pretty good money and have a secure job at the moment but do people really have lives that are all about END GAME all the time? Sorry guys. You have to be rich and have all the time in the world, a loser and do nothing else in life or steal time at the job playing these games on company computers. It is you guys the devs keep trying to please which kills games. And don't tell me about games I've played enough. Making the casual gamers happy also will help save games. I think we are the bigger populous. Happy Holidays.
Very disappointing, I still play it and I still believe it's the best game around. It's certainly the only game that pulls me back time and time again. I think pouring money into advancements and into marketing would certainly make a difference but whether or not it would make a big enough difference is impossible to say. I hope the game continues anyway and that more people come back to it. A server merge indicates that things are getting worse but I see more people playing all the time.
I don't know, the fact that SOE rescued the game in the first place says that they have an interest in making it work.
I wonder how many MXO players said the same thing......
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
I have to agree with others on this, they (SOE) never intended to kill EQ2 with this one, though it is superior in every way. What a shame to waste this gem of a game. In my opinion this is the best PVE game out now. What a sad turn of events....
I have to say that after the SWG turn of events i was one that would say "get over it" evern though i played through it all. After this i think im totally done with them however. I just dont know how they can manage to ef up everything they touch like this. I know they rescued this game from Sigil but then they just molested it from there.
Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.
George Washington
I think SOE needs to look at the free to play option. I really feel that it may have saved Matrix Online and would do wonders for SWG. Watch and see if AoC and warhammer don't jump on board with f2p in 2010.
Ive played vanguard since launch and have followed the game before launch and after seeing bout everything there is as far as game play and player styles ect , i can honestly say this is the very best thing thats ever to happen to vanguard since launch no pressure no dilema just go back sqaure one fix the "BUGS" meaning in vanguard the word bug has a very wide interpetation.
they have tried every angle every method to proceed tried to full fill every playstyle wim n whimper with resources dwindling the economy way it is it wasnt going anywhere fast, and yet it was slowing down to a crawl. so this is great news to the game i seemed to have developed a a love- hate relationship with. i'm re activating my sub for for soe game pass because i wanna be part of this ive talked the talked in the pass good or bad but now its time step up to the plate and walk the walk .
man this is great news its like someone opened the door and whole lot of fresh cool air came gushing in
I don't know, the fact that SOE rescued the game in the first place says that they have an interest in making it work.
I wonder how many MXO players said the same thing......
I wonder how many MXO players realise that without the SOE life support system, that crapfest would have piled in long before they finally pulled the plug. When MXO went dead, it had something like 2k active subs. I don't think SOE had a interest in making MXO work, and I think vanguard is a a point where they are investing less and less to keep it rolling. Thats life, once the subs<the cost of moving foward=dead game.
Vanguard, RIP.
What more needs to be said? A game with such potential essentially died on the vine due to lack of developement and a lead dev with his head so firmly implanted in his tukkus that he had no idea how the game might be improved.
The old guard who stuck with the game after release has nearly all disapeared, and sure, there is a new generation of fanboi supporting Vanguard, but it's incomplete as a game and, thanks to SOE's lack of vision (not THE Vision), one of the biggest failures ever released.
Vanguard probably had the most potential of any game released in the last 2-3 years (it's late, I'm not doin' math) and I'm sure there will be those that post "what an awesome game it is" but really, after leaving the game 6 months or so ago, it remains what it is: the best example of unrealized potential, of unsupported development, of truly horrible support from an understaffed, unqualified development team that has ever been allowed to remain "live."
Let it die already SOE, it's existence is a mockery of both what it could have been, and of EQ2, its original competitor in the genre.
Vanguard really reminds me of folks that keep a dog around long after it should have been put down– lame, half-blind, and a creature that, while deserving of sympathy, should just be put out of its misery.
So with the above features out, what is the team going to be working on in 2010?
Their resumes, apparently
To be honest I am hoping more companies are looking at offering a lifetime deal like Turbine does with LoTRO.
Pretty much how I feel about it. Up until that point this game was going to be the game for me. The game I would be subscribed to for 10+ years. Then Microsoft bailed and SOE stepped in. That was the beginning of the end for me, and no doubt countless others. I remember a thread on their forums before they canned them after this happened where some VP from SOE I think, may have been Sigil, was on the boards argung how much of a good thing it was to have SOE stepping in. I was arguing for a promise in stone that the likes of what happened with SWG and the NGE wouldn't happen and why should I take your word for it.
Looking back at that moment I bet he knew at that point that this game wasn't going to be anywhere close to the commercial success it should have been. I bet he knew that slapping that SOE tag on it would prevent tons of folks from ever trying the game, much less sticking with it long term.
Sure, some folks like VG. That's fine. I just wonder how it would have done if it didn't have the SOE stigma attached to it.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
Looks like the beginning of the end for VG, the community won't grow now, the community is now left with a skeleton crew dev team to push out medicore fex x, kill x craft x, and talk to x content to them each month.
Some rich MMO fan should buy the rights to this game from SoE and give it a relaunch and full support it deserves. I know I would if I had the money.
Pretty much how I feel about it. Up until that point this game was going to be the game for me. The game I would be subscribed to for 10+ years. Then Microsoft bailed and SOE stepped in. That was the beginning of the end for me, and no doubt countless others.
Amen.
I was in the beta from early in Phase 2, when it was still under Microsoft, and I thought it was a brilliant game. The EVE Online of fantasy. Under SOE, Sigil canned most of the features that made it great to me by Phase 3 and it seemed like the design philosophy did a 180°, or leastwise a 90°.
I'd rather it have died before release than release as it did, because not only did it turn out to be a very different game than it was in the early beta, but it also erroneously ruined the reputations of everyone who had poured their lives into it up to that point to make it something very different and highly needed.
Oh just kill it already SOE.
Without SOE this game would have been long gone. Thats for sure.
And I can understand that soe don't want to pour to many money into a game that will newer fully recover.
What we can hope is that SOE will use the awsome engine vanguard is build in, can be put to good use in some other game in the future.
What I really loved about vanguard was the really really huge world with so many things to do. I would love to see a sandbox game in this world, with a rule system ala the old precu SWG. That would be awsome.
And the few times I went back to vanguard I loved it. The problem is.. there is no others to play with. And it saddens me that the only pvp there is, is ffa. I liked it when it was 3 factions. That was awsome.