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Vanguard: Saga of Heroes: Can We Save Vanguard?
MikeB
Community ManagerAdministrator RarePosts: 6,555
Justin Vincent examines the likelihood of saving Vanguard from inevitable demise in this latest article.
If you need a refresher on the disastrous launch and history of Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, you need only look as far as your favorite forum. However, among the anguish and bitterness of Vanguard’s befouled history are the small (but growing, perhaps?) glimmers of hope for the game that many gamers "wish would have succeeded."
In my last article I discussed briefly how the technical state of Vanguard today is nowhere near the instability of launch. While it is sounder today from a coding and content standpoint, it is in a potentially perilous position when it comes to the future of the game. 2010 may very well be the make-or-break year for Vanguard, as we have seen the adoptive parent company, SOE, seem to have virtually abandoned the game as far as marketing, development, and support are concerned. Some have said that Vanguard is “circling the drain”, and though the sentiment doesn’t do justice to the positive aspects of the game, they aren’t completely wrong to think so.
Comments
We as gamers could save Vanguard its as easy as everyone resubbing back to the 200k status it had at launch. Thing is Vanguard isn't worth saving anymore. It has to many negative things about it and it still isn't fixed in the bug department. And unless its been fixed as of recently I remember some of the abilities not working correctly too. Keep dreaming Vanbois/gurls but Let this game go away please. For the love of everything that is MMO, Sigil burned us by not commiting to the game, SoE burned us because they wanted to make money on it to early instead of waiting, and if we keep allowing these companies to burn us each time its our fault not theres. Let them pay, Kill the good game that is Vanguard, And stop letting Publishers and Developers get away with Robbery as they did on this game. Everyone deserved a refund on launch day, Everyone.
Just let it die already...Sony doesn't care about it, have they ever!? More than likely they're developing Everquest III currently and the only reason they bought Vanguard was so that nobody else could have it and be a serious contender with their Everquest franchise.
Had someone else with the resources and care gotten their hands on Vanguard and given it the much needed attention it deserved it would have rivaled EQ & EQ II. In someways it already does and that scares Sony, why ya think it been put in whatever is worse than maintenance mode....heh
My answer to your question has to be no. Your article hits several points that have been repeated for several games in the soe station pass and changed nothing with them. Considering those were games that soe seemed to at least care about I don't see the same efforts here somehow finding success where they did not previously.
Vanguard is what it is and nothing is going to change that. Soe has their sights set on several upcoming games and just doesn't have the manpower or talent to spare to a game with no viable future. Even if they did care enough to take interest in the games long term future, which they do not.
The lead developer/lead producer is coming close to a year where he has been assigned to work on other mmos at the company if that tells you anything about how soe views this game. He is all but a developer for EQ2 now, but hasn't officially left the Vg team. The last producer before him did not even say goodbye to the players when he left for another project.
In all honesty Vanguard should have died and never been released. The morbid life it has suffered through only serves to scare developers away from making games of this depth, size or style of play.
I wouldn't walk across the street to piss on an SOE game if it was on fire in order to save it. If I pissed gas and 'accidently' forgot that I did so, I might try.
But in this day and age with an MMO coming out every month, we as consumers have an easier choice about who we support. Vanguard may be the most amazing game ever, but without a huge upturn in numbers, SOE isn't going to bother so why should I?
And even if the game did recover, who's to say it would get SOE's attention again? The natural response by a company that does nothing but gets a huge revenue boost is to continue doing nothing. Take that money and laugh at the users. Or possibly reinvest it into a game they think will have a LOT more subscribers, like their new clone wars mmo.
I honestly think switching to F2P would be best for Vanguard at this point. Like with DDO, once people are playing, they'll see the best qualities of the game and that will translate into money if done correctly.
Gee so much positive responses to the post and Vanguard Im overwhelmed with emotion......not !!!
I love Vanguard and will continue to pay my subscription until the game go's under
Good idea's Justin ...I'll support any initiative to increase support for the game ,lets see what people suggest
"after the time of dice came the day of mice "
I agree with dreamscaper, if any MMO is ripe for the F2P model, its Vanguard.
Strip away the restriction on potential population sizes imposed by the P2P model and let the game speak for itself in terms of what it can give to the player. Without having to pay per month, the game might actually generate more interest than it does now.
SOE has nothing to lose by switching VG to F2P. Although the switch would benefit from a little marketing by SOE on various sites, such as this.
Top 10 Most Misused Words in MMO's
It can be saved,its just that SOE isnt even trying to. If SOE can sell it to someone that want to make Vanguard the best mmorpg ever it can be saved,but i really dotn think so.
I am sorry but Vanguard's website is not doing the game any favors. I was thinking of doing the free trial last week, went onto the website to get information on the game, and found nothing useful. And when I say 'useful' what I mean is the following:
Videos
Class Listing, if no classes, skill listing
Races
Is there pvp?
There is not even a FAQ
Under "Characters" it shows me a character of the day. Nothing on the potential how to make my own character. The guilds section gives me a list of guilds. Really, the website is nothing more than a community center, which is fine for the established players, but does nothing to entice me. It gives me no idea of what the game is, what I can do, and what I should look forward to.
Needless to say, I am not going to waste time jumping into a game if it cant give me some basic idea of what I could potentially do there.
I really liked the crafting in Vanguard, just did like the lagg i allways seemed to get from the game
For me , if there was much less lagg and more players then i would be happy to sub again.
But as SOE seem to have washed there hands with it, whats the point
http://www.speedtest.net/result/502097918.png
It's still broke...for me at least.
Lets be realistic here,VG was a great game, it still is But evem with a top of the line computer the game still has alot of room for improvements.
We cant even really blame investors forcing an early release, after all 4 years in development when it was still property of Microsoft.. who 1) didnt bother to put time, money ,tallent nor crew into it, infact, good ol brad the vision managed to show the same results for FOUR YEARS under while under Microsoft ownership.
Save to say SOE did save the game, at release they did put in more.. capeble dev's on the job to try to save the game. But unfortunately the damage was already done, players where already leaving. They did try.
But now we are getting to the point where it IS debateble to keep trying, people arent looking to try an old game, people are more intersted in something new. So yes people are right, SOE could try to put more work in it to TRY to get more life into the game, but the chance on success on that is slim. Its probebly better ,easier and cheaper to move on to who knows.. eq3 or vg2.
I never saw the big appeal to crafting in VG. the system itself was fine, the leveling process was absolutely horrid though. And not being able to get exp from making items just seemed a bit odd.All they have to do is make it some kind of flavour of F2P. I strongly suspect that the internal politics is the only thing keeping that from happening. There are people who don't want that kind of game in the future of MMO's. They want simpler dumbed-down WoW style directed play, they don't want open big sand-boxy worlds. And they don't want anything threatening EQ2 for instance. A F2P Vanguard could potentially take away subscriptions from EQ2 (even though the old-style box and subscription model is doomed anyway in the near future). WIsh it would happen, but don't see any hope that it will. They really want it to die, but will suck every drop of blood out till it does (It's $oE! Was there any doubt?!).
Next to that....
With some of the most fun classes to play, the clumsy character annimations kill it for me.
I'd add some good character annimations and try new fresh types of servers. for example: I'd love to see the things that make Eve rock added to this game. It would make for a whole different kind of game, the world is huge enough for it...
But then there is no class ballance.... if i remember correctly.
All it proves is that without a true active development team there is no future for any MMO. Just look at other disastrous releases like AoC and WAR, with a lot of effort those games keep improving.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
i Seem to get on fine with the crafting, i really cant remember to what lvl i got to but i was able to build my first boat
i do agree the leveling process was horrid, i.e very slow and very long
but if you had the time to give it you could slowly level up
These are just my thoughts
http://www.speedtest.net/result/502097918.png
To save Vanguard Sony needs to invest in Vanguard. Unless people can see assurances that Vanguard will develop grow at a reasonable rate they won't return.
Of course unless Sony sees an increase in players it will not invest. So catch 22, but its in Sony's ballpark if they want players to return they need to give us a reason to. A reason which is a bit more substantial than empty promises and potential.
Just my 2 cents
Gadareth
No offense but its subscribers like you that keep telling publishers/developers that they can release anything and someone will pay for it. This game warranted a damn BOYCOTT of all SoE games, thats how horrid this game was at launch and yes you might be having fun and loving the game but sometimes you need to take a step back and let it go for the community.
Why anyone would even WANT to save a game that gets absolutely zero support from the company that gets your money is beyond me.
Vanguard was fun and appealed to me longer than any other game ou there....but I'm a man of principal.
SOE charging full price for a game that gets no support is unethical, and therefor, they will get nothing from me.
I've been in the same guild for over 10 years now, when Vanguard was released, a big population of my guild went and played since the MMO we were playing at the time was on it's last leg ( now shut down). I knew from following the development of Vanguard the developers were full of crap and the fanbots were on full alert. I went ahead and bought a copy of Vanguard at release to be with my guild only because I knew that I would get my cash back on my credit card if the game did not match what the developers said. I did get my cash back after a couple of weeks along with a good number of my guildmates who got their cash back. I really think all MMO gamers should purchase MMO's using a credit card as we live in a time of lying, BS artist, thief game developers.
Here are some things about Vanguard that I had the pleasure of being a part of.
1. Watching SONY take a back seat as the Vanguard developers lied, cheated and jacked MMO gamers to pawn off their VERY, VERY, VERY unfinished MMO, well the ones that did not use a credit card.
2. The Vanguard forums... lol, watching gamers being verbally attacked by the people running the game who had real issues and posted them in a very nice way.
3. I'm sure lots of you people had all the massive bugs and so on. Aside from all the massive unbearable bugs, I lost levels at seperate times, falling through the game world on sepertae times and having to downgrade my system at the time just to play. I got no help from the customer support, the game was nothing but a head stomp from in game to out of game.
I know some people will now step in and defend Vanguard but here is the deal, A couple of guildmates of mine of over 10 years still play Vanguard and tell me that the game is a mess. I will never EVER buy another MMO by the Vanguard developers OR SONY or any MMO with the SONY tag. I heard lots and lots of bad things over the years about SONY, It is a shame my first time dealing with them was pure hell.
As for saving Vanguard.... NO, flush the turd already.
No offense but its subscribers like you that keep telling publishers/developers that they can release anything and someone will pay for it. This game warranted a damn BOYCOTT of all SoE games, thats how horrid this game was at launch and yes you might be having fun and loving the game but sometimes you need to take a step back and let it go for the community.
You do realize that Vanguard was not a SoE game right? Microsoft dumped Sigil who developed it and SoE just published it. Does seem pointless that SoE saved VG, which probably would have never been released otherwise, only to neglect it afterward though.Vanguard is going to continue to "circle the drain". I doubt we'll see SOE invest much into the game, at least not any more than what they have.
A few things to note:
1. The old subscription based revenue model is on the decline. Turbine, SOE, and even Blizzard are seeing success from their virtual stores. I imagine we'll see more and more games go the hybrid route that Turbine has taken (pay a monthly fee for VIP status or play for free and pay for content ala carte).
2. I imagine any SOE game in development is being prepped for such models (new casual SW mmo, PlanetSide next, EQ Next).
3. Converting Vanguard to any sort of F2P model would require some development efforts and considering Vanguard would just be another competitor to EQ2 and EQNext - I doubt they see it as a viable route. That and even after such a conversion, Vanguard may still stagnate.
Why do people think SOE saved Vanguard?
SOE bought it so nobody else would.
SOE bought it and let it rot.
They bought it to insure that it would be right where it is now. Nowhere.
They made some changes (pretty much all bad) to the game but never EVER put any effort into actually adding to and developing the game.
Publishers have never been about retooling old properties. They are just like us, the consumers, in that all they care about is the next big thing. SOE should be commended for even going so far as to pick up Vangaurd which by all accounts was no more than a mangy dog limping down the side of a road when they found it. I don't think any other major publisher would have even considered pouring money into a broken failing title such as it was.
Best to let it die and refocus resources on something new and innovative.