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Untouched Potential - A plea from a gamer to save Vanguard!
Haseno
Member Posts: 19
Hello my dearest MMORPG Generation, my name is Haseno. If you're wondering what this thread is about, then continue reading. I am going to try and inspire, and cover many of the known issues of Vanguard: SOH. First off, I would like to thank SoE for acting as the grinch. SoE has done this far to many times, and it's well documented by now. SoE's reputation on the MMO genre cannot be erased. I am what you would call a disgruntled SoE fanboy if you will. However, I also don't place a majority of the blame on SOE. I blame it amongst ourselves, the generation, the very same individuals required to make this gaming bliss a reality.
We are the life of this genre, and we are the consumer. We are customers, as well as creators. We are sponsors, as well as producers. Without us, this genre simply does exist. But I think we need to touch base again with what the MMO genre is about. In essence, the MMO genre is all about community. It's not about the PVP, the ease of leveling. Nor the ease of obtaining gear. Most of us who have come to like any of the harder MMO's and specifically Vanguard. Were raised on EverQuest, and ever since then we have sought after an MMO which gave us that same feeling of "home." Why did EQ offer this, when others simply fail over and over again? There are many reasons, and I am going to name the most vital - population.
What is an MMO without population? Does it really matter who owns the rights to the MMO? I'm afraid it truly doesn't, and you can continue to argue about this all you want, about SOE. But do you honestly believe they have no interest in the game? It's a corporation, and they simply can't afford to invest without reasonable promise, that it would be a wise investment. Who is to blame for Vanguards failing potential? You can sit here and blame SOE all you want, but we're the ones who bailed on Vanguard and it's future success. We weren't patient, we didn't care. We were simply to concerned about our simple $15/month. We've become self centered, and because of our impatience and lack of effort. The game is merely fading away, as well as any reputation it once had. However, those who do speak of it, can simply all agree that the potential isn't even being gently touched.
What can we do as MMO Gamers, to finally reach gaming bliss? Firstly, we'd have to organize. How do we do this? PROMOTION! We have the tools, power, and intelligence just as consumers. To help increase this games population by ourselves. Help me spread the word, this game isn't close to being dead. If anything, it's the only game with ANY potential to achieve that feeling in which EQ did for us many years ago. Secondly, we'd have to remember what's important in ourselves. The many days of play, and the many days of determination. To reach such levels as we did in EQ, or any other MMO. How can we be impatient now? Now that we're so lost on which game to choose in this genre. This genre simply can't afford to keep losing us to the "game that dare not be mentioned." The very essence and feeling of what was our home game is being lost, and taken from us. We're helping contribute by jumping MMO to MMO and not roughing it out with an MMO.
If you are an MMO player, and you are curious about Vanguard. It simply has everything beyond extensive PVP. If you are looking for PVP, then don't join. That's the brutal truth about vanguard. The game is about TEAM effort, and Community. Vanguard has a small community but their spirit is unbreakable. These are the types of gamers which make us love an MMO even more. Forget your past negative experiences, with vanguard or even SOE. The game needs population in order to achieve that potential, and this is where we failed Vanguard.
Forget Brad
Forget Sigil
Forget SOE
Forget the Poor Launch
Wake up and realize, this game is the closest thing we've ever had. To achieving that feeling of "home."
Spread the word.
I will be starting a friendly guild on Vanguard, with my expectations of trying to achieve 1,000 new subscribers within 3 months.
10,000 more subscribers within a year (or more).
If the population spikes as I hope it does. I will open a Donation Pool. To help contribute financially to Vanguard's further development.
Please! Try vanguard again, brave and tough the low population. Help me repopulate so we can change this negative about Vanguard into a positive ourselves. Help me repopulate it! We'll start our own community, and fix the low levels of population if we can bring them here ourselves.
We have to show SOE the game is truly worth it, to earn the future success and further development. Help me achieve this!
Comments
if it was as good as you claim you wouldnt have to beg people to play it. have a little dignitude!
and i love where you say "We failed Vanguard" lol thats classic.
Best of Luck
We did fail vanguard, look at the entire MMO Genre as it stands. We've become so highly selective and our expectations are so high.
Look at the effort and funding put into vanguard. They didn't want it to fail! Over $30,000,000 and still under budget.
The game needed us, and if we could of roughed it. The game would be standing strong.
The game is very good, the closest thing to EQ i've ever seen. Play it yourself, before your sarcastic answers are expelled from your mouth.
i have played it. I was in Beta and "stuck by it" for 2 years afterwards. through all the mergers, through LiveGamer, through broken promises and exodus after exodus of die hard players. There is something fundamentaly wrong with Vanguard. It has some good ideas and some great visuals but the game engine and lack of forward progress from the devs have overshadowed any goodness it had.
I understand your passion for the game but you cant expect the gaming community to give a "game with possibilty" unending chances or do overs when those possibilties will never be realised.
That sums it up for me.
I played beta, I preordered. I played at launch and supported it for as long as I could stand. Every single time I go back, I keep an open mind and try really hard to enjoy the game. But ultimately, there is something fundamentally wrong with the game. I wish this wasn't the case for me, but it is, no matter how many times I try
Vanguard isn't a bad game but I am playing EQ2 and have a pretty good char there. The games are too similar for me to change like that, and my buddies still play EQ2.
It is sad with Vanguard but I am not sure it survives 2011. It really needed a larger crew and possibly a re-release under a new name to get an acceptable population. You just can't release a game in that shape, most MMO players never forgot.
This is my favorite part! If the population grows bringing in more money to them, we can then donate to a game we pay to play so they can develop more content that we can pay for? Isn't that what the sub price is for in the first place? I have to say I really enjoyed your past but not for the reasons I think you'd hoped. It's nice how much you love Vanguard but what you're asking people to do is just silly.
more mmo's should have card games in them...
i loved VG's card game
Played: MCO - EQ/EQ2 - WoW - VG - WAR - AoC - LoTRO - DDO - GW/GW2 - Eve - Rift - FE - TSW - TSO - WS - ESO - AA - BD
Playing: Sims 3 & 4, Diablo3 and PoE
Waiting on: Lost Ark
Who's going to make a Cyberpunk MMO?
It's not passion for the game for me. It's passion for the survival of the MMO Genre. The entire genre is blinded and shallow. We all know there is something fundamentally wrong with Vanguard...it's going too...it has no development team. It's become a possible liability for SOE. MMO players need to forget the past negatives and focus on working towards a positive.
It's easy to sit there and point fingers, but us individuals aren't benefiting the game. It needs to be masses of aid, in order to be truly beneficial. We truly have no one to blame but ourselves, considering that if it wasn't for us the game would never be at this low point.
The frustrations of it would turn ANY individual off. This is why we need to unite and push.
Easier to Sit and Talk About Work Ethic.
Harder to Stand and do the Work.
I love Vanguard but I can see where people would have issue with it. Especially when there are a lot more games out there that have more polish and that seem more supported by their developing companys.
We tried to make an MMORPG.com guild for Vangaurd. There were quite a few people. Unfortunately I had to take 2 months off but I just came back and it seems that there are only a handful of those people left. I was told that the server merges really turned some people off.
I imagine there were other reasons.
Still I maintain a Vanguard account and log in when I can. I enjoy the game on my own terms.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
It's not silly, it shows my determination. The game of this amount of potential has a price to pay. Without the subscribers, we have to take up action ourselves.
1000 New Subscribers x One $10.00 Donation from each of us = $10,000.00
10000 New Subscribers x One $10.00 Donation from each of us = $100,000.00
Include the variables of people donating more or even less. We could raise a MASS amount of money. If the word got spread about our efforts, more would join. The more who contribute. SOE would end up investing into VG:SOH.
Investment = A better game
A better game = more players.
A game that achieves a resurrection such as what I'm talking about, would stir up a lot of new customers. The potential is achievable.
But not if you're going to sit there and just say "it's silly."
$15 for your subscription isn't a lot of money, and I don't find it necessary we should have to pay more. But I would gladly pay it for the greater good...which would happen if the numbers provoke SOE.p
lol
i give up the more the OP responds the more i think he is a thinly veiled troll.
not worth the effort to carry this any further. the thread and the game..
Plenty of people now understand that the game itself is viable as a fun game, but only for so long. There's the old story of "I would play if more people did" which is just an ongoing circle. The real problem is that for ever fan, and player on these forums working to promote the game, SOE is working just as hard to turn people away from it by declaring the game is dead (read: no more content).
The point being, even if the number of subs double, they probably won't pump any money back into the game, they will just take the extra profit and see it as a bonus. In order to get the game back into the mainstream, and get new content etc going, you would need to get a lot of people into the game long term, so that instead of there being a nice profit friendly spike on the rader, you get a sustained line, which becomes an issue when it starts to dip.
I would love the game to be saved and to be a viable community again, but unless the people running the game want it to happen, there's very little you/we can do about it.
www.noobwarfare.com - Marching to war against the morons of the world.
I'm not trolling...I wouldn't waste my time. I'm a mature individual, which is why I play games like EQ/VG.
Unlike 4chan of the Genre...the game that dare not be mentioned.
I would love to see VG get some love, but know it will never happen. SOE is too concerned with EQ/EQ2 expacs and EQ "Next" development. During FaiFaire Smedley stated that there are no more VG devs, just devs from other projects who fiddle with it in their free time. I sitll play VG and until I've completed the existing content it should prove to be a good time, I hope. Mid 30s and so far, so good.
OP you have my blessing. I used to promote Vanguard on these boards for a few years, but eventually gave up. It's a great game overall. It has one of the best combat systems, dungeons, housing system, crafting, and world design, and on top of it there's diplomacy, which is a whole new dimension to online gaming - and it's only a shame it didnt get the proper investment it deserved.
People throw $30mil numbers here and there, $30 mil is actually substandard in this genre. People keep saying Vanguard had huge sell numbers, which is again not true. Vanguard sold 120k boxes first month, which is in comparison to let's say WAR or even AoE a trivial number which both sold around a milion boxes first week. This game never had the attention.
REALITY CHECK
why dont you write a letter to Pres Obama and tell him how Vanguard is "to good to fail" and see if he'll fork over some stimulus money....
The whole idea or raising donations for Vanguard is laughable.
I've considered this many times. But in all reality....how can we confidently say that? The game simply isn't finished, and never will be without community action.
We are the customer, and SOE would gladly put developers back into this game if we could show them different.
I've also heard rumor of this EQ"Next." Can you provide a link to some interesting info on that?
Not a lot of info; they showed some screenies and gave vague info at Fan Faire.
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6272805.html
Supposedly they're trying to bring back the old school feel, to an extent. Between Rift and EQ "Next" I can only hope to get a modern/old school hybrid that's fun, yet challenging.
I know $30 mil is a trivial number in this genre. But it's still not that trivial. This industry is in the multi billions, I am not stranger to this market. I'm a shareholder actually.
This game simply was released in a time frame where people have lost touch of community and effort.
Is it just me, or does the world look like WoW with more brilliant colors and crispness?
I hope they pull it off right...I'm so sick of reinstalling MMO's just to be disappointed consistently.
The OP has a point in presenting Vanguard as a game with untapped potential. If I had the money and the skills needed to buy this property, add a little more development and re-launch with a clean slate I most definately would.
If you look at the game from this perspective, you have a solid platform for many expansions and I doubt you would have trouble building a larger community supporting the game.
Vanguard reached a point about a year ago where it was ready for a re-launch and SOE dropped the ball. With EQ2 I have to wonder if this was intentional, s they would be one of their own biggest competetors.
Yes its almost a crime to let a game that attempted so much and came close (after two years of bug fixing) fail. It has more content than most current MMO's and more than most being developed now. At this point however, unless SOE were willing to sell the property to a studio who could and was willing to give new life to the game, I think we're out of luck.
Visually there are some similarities, but I'm more concerned with gameplay.
Even if you get 10,000 new players in 1 year, it will not make a difference to soe. They simply do not have the staff, budget or talent to make a real effort at this game. 1.8 million dollars a year from your 10k new players is not going to turn the game around or stop the loss of players the game is already experiencing. Soe cut their staff by almost 10% over the last 12 or so months. Vanguard will not get new developers, even with 10k new players.
Soe will take that money and put it to use somewhere else, because they do not believe in the future of this game and they never have.
If vanguard was a car or a restaurant you wouldn't be here telling people its lack of success was our fault and that we should reward sub par products, poor service and mismanagement with our money. There are 100 other broken mmos that could have been "saved" if only people were willing to hand over money with the blind faith that somehow things would turn out successful.
It is up to soe to convince players that this game is worth investing in. It is not the responsibility of players to fund a failed project so that a company can make profits. A company is not entitled to customers or money and frankly the mindset you are preaching is exactly the mindset that empowers developers to prematurely release mmos. The theory that there are enough suckers to fund completion of the game for the first 12 months after release needs to die and go away.
I just cannot disagree with you strongly enough.
Yes, as am I...However, we see now after years of WoW's success. How disappointing the gameplay truly is in Blizzards game.
If Vanguard wants to refund me the box price that I paid when it launched and then wanted to give me 30 free days, I would possibly take the time to install it and check it out. Until that point, which will never come, I will not give even a penny to that game, ever.