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Many Returning Players: SOE&DEVs dont care about them or Vanguard
Goromhir
Member UncommonPosts: 463
It seems that it doesnt matter anymore how many new players are subscribing or returning to VG
in the last 4 month many new players signed or returned but absolutely nothing happend on the SOE front..
No bug fixing, no new content, no class optimizing or revamps absolutely nothing
NOT EVEN A SINLGE PATCH since February !
Great that so many new peoeple appear but they will quickly dissapear again when they found out that their game isnt supported anymore.
SOE wants this game to die , its only running because of people that payed the complete SOE bundle or whatever.
SOE doesnt show any interest in continued development of Vanguard
Fact is : Never mind how many players return or start , SOE doesnt bother..................................
Comments
No point in investing money into a sinking ship.
Apparently stating the truth in my sig is "trolling"
Sig typo fixed thanks to an observant stragen001.
I'm one of these people who returned lately to Vanguard.
At release, it interested me but had so many bugs that I finally left it. I returned only recently and was glad to see all the improvements done to the game since release.
Nearly each time I log, new players seem to pop in as well. I do not know what casued this or even what caused my return to the game. It just happened. But if indeed SOE doesn't keep improving this game, people will start leaving again. I was surprised to se how scare where the useful update.
I hope SOE will take the number of returning players into account in their near future developement policy, or as you say, the newly returning players will leave again....
I doubht more than half of those players that new and return stay very long alot of poeple jump mmo's more than they change there underwear. in my opininon that game is lucky that it gets updates at all.
I do not expect them to do anything untill the population stabilizes we being new or returning players have mostly rerolled and are expieriencing the lower level content. Patchs and bug fixes take time and since thier lead developer is reassigned to EQ2 at the moment, i am not expecting any patches.
Frankly if the population ratio is sustained or increases over the next 6 months then SOE (being a company will throw resources into the product) and maybe a year from now we will have new content and patches ... till then just relax and enjoy the game for what it is.
Artorus Giltanus - Ranger EQ1 Retired
Arturien - 90 Deathknight WoW
First, you aren't playing VG so why the hate? Last patch as per the launcher... April 7 2010 which brought among other things Magi Hold Chapter 3.
Seriously though, the game is rediculously large has way too many zones/dungeons for all level ranges as is. Yes I would have liked to see AA brought in and yes more end game content would be nice but content for the 1-50 no thanks. SOE should not and won't put dev money into VG until its a top heavy game.
To compare it to EQ2, EQ2 has had 6 years of adventure packs, content updates, expansions and its still tiny compared to what launched in VG. And other than the terrible launch that might be VG's biggest marketing failure. How do you add to a game thats already too big for the time its been out? How do you market it for come see weekends if on paper nothings changed?
Personally I had zero interest at launch, didn't stick with it a year later because of bugs, but now it has me by the balls and frankly I'm dropping quests left and right, have missed well over 15 dungeons in my level range, not seen much of any repeated mobs and I've got a great guild behind me.
And lets not confuse devs and coders. Devs write out plans, coders put then in, coders fix the bugs. That SOE has very little devs in VG isn't the same as saying SOE has no one working code or maintaining the server farm or working cs.
Now what VG needs most in my opinion is to keep POI on the map forever. Its a bloody big world, I find it overly hard to remember where that cool X spot was
On a side note.
OMG so many people are back to playing MassEffect 1 and Bioware hasn't released anything not a patch or content update nothing. They just don't care =P
Now, to be fair, ME having a naturally limited lifespan due to not being an MMO, th two aren't comparable. But, in keeping with the BioWare story telling mechanic, there is a big content patch coming out for ME1: http://www.gamepron.com/news/2010/05/24/mass-effect-to-invade-the-big-screen/ . I hear it is going to play a lot like their games
(j/k)
Interesting argument about devs vs coders though. I can only say that in my experience, every person I have worked with who has had a title with the word "Developer" in it, has been a product coder. Direction was often decided by a product specific team that looked at customer needs and emerging industry requirements. Maybe it's different in MMO development though...
-mklinic
"Do something right, no one remembers.
Do something wrong, no one forgets"
-from No One Remembers by In Strict Confidence
^^QFT
However, the statement that SOE doesn't show a LOT of interest in this game can be seen as fairly accurate. My questions would be how much that actually matters. Vanguard does have a LOT of content in place, and if new and returning players haven't experienced that content, then there isn't as demanding of a need for "new content" to be released. There's plenty to do in Telon to keep anyone busy right now, I'd say (especially when you consider you have 15 classes to choose from, so if you claim to have "done everything" on your Paladin, try doing some of it with a Bard or Druid).
I'll agree with the OP though that things will need to change eventually to pop this game out of its decline. A new influx of players could help to stabilize it (or perhaps it already has), but it might take more than just playing from the players and half-ass supporting from SOE to really get this game to where it needs to be.
Currently playing: LOTRO, Guild Wars 2.
Have played: EVE Online; Champions Online; Age of Conan; City of Heroes/Villains; Star Wars Galaxies (pre-CU, pre-NGE); World of Warcraft (Vanilla to Cataclysm); Hellgate: London; Warhammer Online; Lord of the Rings Online; Vanguard: Saga of Heroes; Star Wars: The Old Republic
Wishlist: Mass Effect Online
This is what happens when companies take on too many MMO projects under their roof. Too many issues that need to be resolved on too many fronts and not enough resources. If a company truely wants to dedicate themselves to the success of their MMOs, they have to limit themselves to 1 or 2 projects. SoE has 8 MMOs that are all trying to spilt $29.99 a month in revenue?
That would be a developer's nightmare. Right off the bat you have limited funds avaiable to handle testers, GMs, programmers, troubleshooting, content development and a host of other issues that players themselves expect from a MMO they subscribe to. Not only that but resources are going to be disproportioned between your flagship titles and ones that are not developed "in house" so to speak.
And that leaves a lot of players like the ones that play Vanguard starving for fixes, content and a company committed to the long term development of their game of choice.
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
I agree that many of the older players *those that have kept this game alive and I thank them* have been waiting a long time for bug fixes and class repairs. However, the OP was addressing the new player / returning player population.
I think that sony needs to eventually work on the bug fixes first then address the content but that is just me. Sadly most of the fixes would require an entire rewrite of the code, and Sony will not invest that in a product they deemed failed, if they did devote resources it would take from thier main product (eq 2). Which is always being pushed now and is following the World of Warcraft method (IE online store).
Artorus Giltanus - Ranger EQ1 Retired
Arturien - 90 Deathknight WoW
Couple of things. Sadly EQ is still SOE's big money maker with soon to be 15 full servers to EQ2 mostly empty save 3 servers. And SOE is a Sony company... they have money its not an issue. I guess the big problem is perception. If VG had launched with just Thestra it probably would have had a better launch for one and then Kojan and Qalia could have launched as expansions. Still be where we are but those wanting dev time would have gotten the impression that VG has delivered 2 expansions. WoW was launched in 04, has 3.... VG in 07 would have 2, sounds plausible.
As for the dev/coder thing. In large gaming companies, dev are idea people, coders are number crunchers. In business software yes coders are devs and devs are business analysts. All right there in your software engineering text
Last information I have read about VG was that they stop any patching and starting code reworking for an expansion. If thats true then VG can turn into much mroe popular game.
Where themepark games try to hide that they are copying WOW, games like Mortal Online and Darkfall make no attempt to hide their inspiration
______\m/_____
LordOfDarkDesire
Not sure where you read that but its wrong. They must have been smoking some really good stuff to get that high to think Vanguard would ever receive a expansion.
I doubt there's any expansions coming. Too bad, but honestly, I've be happy with mini-expansions every now and then. IE: Major patches that make it look like they give a shit if this game stays afloat.
At the moment, though, I'm more inclined to play the original EQ, 'cause at least that's getting regular attention, and still expansions on occasion ...
Lately as in this week, the devs have been responding to bug posts in the forums stating that they fixed bug such and such. Also adjusting stats on item directly responding to the communities forum post. Taking a step back, the overall game plan of the VG devs this year is the following.
1. Magi Hold Chapter 1 (Lvl 55 Solo/Small Group Content) - Done
2. Magi Hold Chapter 2 (Lvl 55 Solo to Group Content) - Done
3. Magi Hold Chapter 3 (Lvl 55 Solo to 24 man Raid Content) - Done
4. Anniversary Patch - Done
5. Shadow Hilsbury (Solo to 12 man Content) - Done
6. Focused Bug Fixing Patch Part 1 - In process
7. Focused Bug Fixing Patch Part 2 - Next
8. Diplomacy Sage Quest - Not started
9. Old Targonor Chapters 1-5 (More Level 55 Content)
Looks like there are devs working on VG to me.
Vanguard already has a ton of content, I would just be happy with them making the game polished and attempt to make it bug free. I know its impossible to kill all the bugs, but it would be great for them to reduce the number of visible bugs so people dont quit within the first week out of frustration.
I have been playing Vanguard since beta, i have never stopped playing. Having got 5 level 55 characters and a few ranging from 30-40ish i am thinking about leaving but i am in a progressive guild on my server. Many people have returned old and new but the devs are slow to respond.
Saying they are not actually working on it is a bit of a fib but the work is major slow .
Right now it's with the new EQ2 expansion coming out Vanguard is the last thing on SOE mind, anyone with any sense should know this, Vanguard comes last when it come between EQ1-2 and Vanguard, this is life so all anyone can do is stop moaning about it or move on.
This is not directed to you, i quoted you because you are right, the work is being done but it's slow.
Furious Fighters
http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/13trindx.htm
Portland!
Hey, buddy! I haven't seen you since you were trolling the City of Villains forum about how all the powers were broken and the game was completely unplayable. How'd that work out for you?
I'm a new Vanguard player, and the fact of the matter is that I find VG more interesting than all the newer games I've tried recently. There are a lot of players like me who are interested in a more "Old School" MMO, and some of them are willing to put up with a few bugs and hiccups and just enjoy what Vanguard has to offer.
Now, is the game thriving? No. Not by a long shot.
Has it improved since launch? Returning players say yes.
Will SOE dedicate more resources to it, just let it languish, or pull the plug altogether? How should I know? I'm a gamer, not frickin' Nostadamus.
For the time being, I'll enjoy Vanguard for the unique features it offers and encourage others to give the free trial a shot.
That is not the issue at all. They don't want Vanguard to eclipse EverQuest, when with very VERY little effort, it easily could. The problem is, the extra Vanguard players wouldn't come from simple mini game style MMOs like WoW, they'd come from EQ and EQII, so they'd just be paying extra money to gain more subscribers from themselves. That's not how a good monopoly works. Monopolies don't innovate because you only invalidate your own merchandise.
The ONLY reason Vanguard is currently a "sinking ship" is because there's no development team. The game itself is good enough.
Umm SOE is an MMO studio. They have lots of competing products. Thats ok because the hope is that you like one of their brands more than the EA or Activision ones. Its common practice to release competing products under different brands that are owned by the same company. Drug companies do it, auto makers do it, banks do it, utility providers do it...
Blizzard is quoted as saying they'll do it as well. The problem with growing VG is its already massive but not great at retaining players. Three years later the average level is still 10.
The joke is the people VG wanted, the EQ core player, wants VG to expand but cries to have EQ back to pre PoP days. Thats my take on why VG isn't catching, and why EQ fails to get new players too... they're just too huge. EQ2 is a small theme park with typically 1 group instance available per level range and a fairly repetitive end game. But those same faults make adding to it easy so you have appearance of a lot of growth. But even content patches, expansion and advanture packs later, its a small game even by vanilla WoW standards AND its performance is awful.
When you cap out in VG and you tire of running mentor runs and alts, then you can bitch about devs. People tend to leave VG around level 20 which means extra dev time wouldn't fix anything for the bulk of the people leaving VG.
I've been trying to find a game to hold my attention the way the older games did. Vangaurd has done that. I think a few articles have popped up recently saying much of the same thing, and people have listened. Whether that interest translates into subs, I don't know. I know the Isle is bustling with tourists and has been for a month. I honestly don't think that is enough time to attract SOE's attention. It probably doesn't look profitable by line graph just yet. Give it time.
On the other than the isle is doing it's job by filtering out those "get rich quick, instant gratification" people coming from those "other" mmo. Not a day goes by where someone impatient over crafting gets frustrated in isle chat because they can't figure out crafting procedures, as they tend to click through the tutorial without reading.
Yeah, this is definitely not a game to skip the tutorials in. The crafting & diplomacy are pretty in-depth as well they should be since they are spheres (which translates to games) all on their own. They're just as deep really, as leveling an adventurer (though in my opinion, there could definitely be a few more quest lines for both).
Regardless, if you're coming to Vanguard, definitely read through stuff. :P
Good enough for what though? IMO VG is fun and offers me something I cannot find anywhere else right now which is why I'm paying to play it. But in order for me to enjoy it, I have to endure more bugs, crashes, and lower performance than most other MMOs on the market.
I was reading somewhere last night (I think Brads blog) that most new players quit the game between lvl 2 and 3. What is it that players experience between those levels that make them stop logging on? Making level 10 in VG is about as fast as any other MMO I've played so I don't think its because of the grind. It takes longer to level up in Aion and more people play it than VG so again I dont think its the grind.
Every MMO I have played gives you very few skills in the first 20 levels, which makes me believe people are smart enough to realize that game play will be different towards the higher levels and are more tolerant of blah low level classes.
Now most people like to say graphics dont matter then we all spend tons of money buying the fastest/newest graphics cards and the biggest monitors we can fit on our desks. The biggest MMO on the market has some of the worst looking graphics IMO so I have a hard time believing people quit VG just because they dislike the graphics.
I know people like to use the small dev team excuse, but most people who try a game dont know the difference between a large dev team and a small one. And if someone was so concerned about the small dev team, would they waste their time downloading 20 gigs of game files, logon and instantly get depressed? I would think if you were so concerned about the dev team size, you would download a different game and just ignore VG.
So what is it that makes people quit VG so soon after logging on? In the last month I talked four sisters into leaving WoW and trying VG with me. Two of them had major problems getting the station launcher to work. One of them spent 3 days installing/removing/reinstalling the launcher before she was able to download the first game file. The second spent more than a week and was so aggravated with the install process that she's only played twice. She said she enjoyed what little she saw of the game, she was just so sick of dealing with the launcher everytime she wants to play that shes taking a short break.
Two of them were able to get the station launcher working without too much effort but they have both expressed their dislike for having to open/close it numerous times whenever they want to logon or getting stuck waiting 5 or more minutes while the launcher does it scan.
Now that everyone can play the game, they have all seen bugs like bouncing off the water, getting stuck in walls/rocks, falling thru the world, finding resource nodes that are unharvestable, our Druid friend casting her little rock pet and not seeing anything but a floating name.
All of these issues were seen on the Isle of Dawn so every new player gets to see the same problems. Some of us will tolerate these kind of bugs in a three year old game because we know theres nothing else out there that offers the same features that we enjoy in VG. Most players wont tolerate that many bugs when most other games have fewer bugs and make it much easier to download and start the game.
I don't think this is a situation where the game just needs more time. It is coming up on 4 years, so any momentum that was going to happen has already happened. A few hundred people joining isn't even enough to salary 1 developer nor come anywhere even close to the decline the game has had. It is hardly worth soe even taking notice of to be honest.
The only way vanguard has even a remote chance of a revival is for soe to commit to it with more resources and does so in a very public way. There are many things holding the game back, but the largest right now is that it is a game on living on borrowed time and for the most part that is correct.
Sad really, because of how great the game could be in the hands of someone that was truely interested in making a real effort with it.
you guys need to see the forest through the trees and enjoy vanguard despite them. Its not any buggier than early UO. hehe