Bugs aside Vanguard had one of the most expansive worlds that really felt like a massive landscape you could get lost in until the next chunk dropped you down. I did love exploring the vast world of Vanguard the Saga of Heroes.
The bugs and server connections alone render it imperfect, but it was quite good.
I definitely consider it seamless, because the seams were irrelevant; a seam at the door to a tower is irrelevant as a seam. A seam between continents is irrelevant because you'd take an absurdly long boat trip anyway. EverQuest zone lines are examples of seams that matter.
A seam that takes you several minutes to cross and sometimes fails entirely is hardly irrelevant.
First, the longest load time I ever experienced was well under 30 seconds, and I spent a lot of time zepplining back and forth between continents, using a mediocre computer.
Second, notice I said irrelevant as a seam. You're right that it took time, and occasionally failed, etc. But in the sense that it divided up the game world, or broke immersion, or introduced fakey effects at the seam, it fails to be relevant. It is basically equivalent to the loading screen on game start.
in this sense, the fact that an instance is an instance, that it allows only X people, has more egregious effects on immersion, mechanics, or flow than the instance barrier itself.
Thus I view the game as seamless, in all the ways that matter.
The bugs and server connections alone render it imperfect, but it was quite good.
I definitely consider it seamless, because the seams were irrelevant; a seam at the door to a tower is irrelevant as a seam. A seam between continents is irrelevant because you'd take an absurdly long boat trip anyway. EverQuest zone lines are examples of seams that matter.
A seam that takes you several minutes to cross and sometimes fails entirely is hardly irrelevant.
First, the longest load time I ever experienced was well under 30 seconds, and I spent a lot of time zepplining back and forth between continents, using a mediocre computer.
Second, notice I said irrelevant as a seam. You're right that it took time, and occasionally failed, etc. But in the sense that it divided up the game world, or broke immersion, or introduced fakey effects at the seam, it fails to be relevant. It is basically equivalent to the loading screen on game start.
in this sense, the fact that an instance is an instance, that it allows only X people, has more egregious effects on immersion, mechanics, or flow than the instance barrier itself.
Thus I view the game as seamless, in all the ways that matter.
I view vanilla wow as seamless as well.
Instanced dungeons and raids were needed for a reason....therefore the game was seamless.
Once you hit L50 there was only 10-man Strath and the never-ending hours-long BRD The PVP events/content consisted of open-world Hillsbrad Foothills and Booty Bay, no BGs or Arenas Loot lag Very long server queues Very frequent server outages Trying to put dungeon groups together when everyone congregated at capital cities, but you had to be at the dungeon meeting stone to actually get into the dungeon, and ~everyone~ was too lazy to run The cesspool of Barrens chat, and the septic tank of Trade chat Class specs that were horribly unbalanced, not fleshed out, or just flat out didn't work Saving every penny I ever earned to buy my first mount and Carrot on a Stick being a big deal Whelps
All that being said, I do have fond memories of it, but would I do it all over again? Nah, the first time was enough. It was cool and all, and I'm glad I was there on Day 1, but it wasn't everything that everyone seems to remember it was. There was ~a lot~ of suck that we just put up with because there wasn't anything any better.
Vanilla/Burning Crusade were very good! So much so that my wife banned me from playing it. Just one week before WOTLK. I ended up selling my Blood Elf (PVP)hunter Maidden(Voted best PVPer and Open World Pvper on Dalvengyr by both horde and alliance) for 1200 dollars and a 12 of Dos Equis! I was offered over 2000 dollars for that hunter.. Just from the rep alone :-/.. WHAT!! Cannot say how many times my hunters pet ravager "Studmuffin"(Which I stole from poor noobie alliance guy when he opened the cage for his ravager quest) would do a killing blow in a fight! Best spam in the world! "Studmuffin just killed xXLEETXx with a killing blow of 546 damage"... Fun stuff!
My favorite character was a pink haired gnome warrior named Ironballs. He was one of a multitude of twinks. Wish there was a mmo as good as WOW was back then! Instead I am stuck playing ARPGs, and CCGs! Nothing out compares!
A HUGE seamless world. More options than any mmo ever made. Themes are never duplicated for verity. A TOTAL social environment. Memories for players is so many respects, from predicament's the players get themselves into to playing with that guy from Germany for weeks on end. Lets not forget about Dungeons and Raids.....This would require it's own topic.
What happened to mmo's ?......By now we should have at least five games that expanded on this idea, yet we have none.
"More options than any MMO ever made" ? Wait... what? Considering it felt one dimensional (no options but run boring quests 90% of the time) it felt extremely limiting coming from a game like SWG back in 05, i find this an odd statement to make.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
A HUGE seamless world. More options than any mmo ever made. Themes are never duplicated for verity. A TOTAL social environment. Memories for players is so many respects, from predicament's the players get themselves into to playing with that guy from Germany for weeks on end. Lets not forget about Dungeons and Raids.....This would require it's own topic.
What happened to mmo's ?......By now we should have at least five games that expanded on this idea, yet we have none.
"More options than any MMO ever made" ? Wait... what? Considering it felt one dimensional (no options but run boring quests 90% of the time) it felt extremely limiting coming from a game like SWG back in 05, i find this an odd statement to make.
A HUGE seamless world. More options than any mmo ever made. Themes are never duplicated for verity. A TOTAL social environment. Memories for players is so many respects, from predicament's the players get themselves into to playing with that guy from Germany for weeks on end. Lets not forget about Dungeons and Raids.....This would require it's own topic.
What happened to mmo's ?......By now we should have at least five games that expanded on this idea, yet we have none.
"More options than any MMO ever made" ? Wait... what? Considering it felt one dimensional (no options but run boring quests 90% of the time) it felt extremely limiting coming from a game like SWG back in 05, i find this an odd statement to make.
They probably never played SWG.
Don't miss what you don't know
Well, maybe SWG had more options and things to do, didn't know that.
However, my larger goal was to prove older mmos were made with long run quality that lasted instead of fast gimmicks.....SO, if SWG had more things to do then great.
idk why people always talk about v-wow as if it was the best ever thing ever. You must didnt play the same vanilla i did, because vanilla i played (as others also itt have mentioned) was tedious and annoying as hell. The only good thing I can say was the community felt a tad bit together but those were the early days.. every game has that early days community, but it does not equal amazing game. This is even more true when its your first entry into MMOs.
Hell I have fond memories of wow, swtor, ESO, and others.. all mmos I was there for on launch, v-wow being my first entry point.
WoW today as a GAME is ten fold better than Vanilla..not even questionable. i think what has changed most is the community. That is gone forever.
"Beliefs don't change facts. Facts, if you're reasonable, should change your beliefs."
"The Society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools."
Currently: Games Audio Engineer, you didn't hear what I heard, you heard what I wanted you to hear.
A HUGE seamless world. More options than any mmo ever made. Themes are never duplicated for verity. A TOTAL social environment. Memories for players is so many respects, from predicament's the players get themselves into to playing with that guy from Germany for weeks on end. Lets not forget about Dungeons and Raids.....This would require it's own topic.
What happened to mmo's ?......By now we should have at least five games that expanded on this idea, yet we have none.
"More options than any MMO ever made" ? Wait... what? Considering it felt one dimensional (no options but run boring quests 90% of the time) it felt extremely limiting coming from a game like SWG back in 05, i find this an odd statement to make.
They probably never played SWG.
Don't miss what you don't know
Played both to end game like many others , and Yes SWG gave far more to do than Wow , but UO gives far more than SWG imo ...... As far as player activities Wow fell way short of UO or SWG
I played 'vanilla' World of Warcraft. By the time I got to level 30 I was completely bored. I stuck it out to about level 42 but by the time I'd bought the first available mount at level 40 I had lost all interest in the game.
Then again my previous MMORPG was Asheron's Call. I had gotten used to not having my hand held. I had gotten used to actually having to pay attention to the quest story. I had gotten used to not having NPCs with big yellow exclamation marks hovering over their head. I had gotten used to having to know what type of attack a mob was vulnerable to. Used to dungeons that were often confusing in layout and didn't have an obvious path to the goal.
World of Warcraft was, and is, a big snore fest. World of Warcraft was, and is, easysauce.
"I used to think the worst thing in life was to be all alone. It's not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel all alone." Robin Williams
I look back at vanilla, and remember how fun it was, especially in hillsbrad. So much PvP fun. But I still feel like its nostalgia for me. I get the same feeling thinking of how much fun I had in FFXI.
Comments
Second, notice I said irrelevant as a seam. You're right that it took time, and occasionally failed, etc. But in the sense that it divided up the game world, or broke immersion, or introduced fakey effects at the seam, it fails to be relevant. It is basically equivalent to the loading screen on game start.
in this sense, the fact that an instance is an instance, that it allows only X people, has more egregious effects on immersion, mechanics, or flow than the instance barrier itself.
Thus I view the game as seamless, in all the ways that matter.
I view vanilla wow as seamless as well.
Instanced dungeons and raids were needed for a reason....therefore the game was seamless.
Once you hit L50 there was only 10-man Strath and the never-ending hours-long BRD
The PVP events/content consisted of open-world Hillsbrad Foothills and Booty Bay, no BGs or Arenas
Loot lag
Very long server queues
Very frequent server outages
Trying to put dungeon groups together when everyone congregated at capital cities, but you had to be at the dungeon meeting stone to actually get into the dungeon, and ~everyone~ was too lazy to run
The cesspool of Barrens chat, and the septic tank of Trade chat
Class specs that were horribly unbalanced, not fleshed out, or just flat out didn't work
Saving every penny I ever earned to buy my first mount and Carrot on a Stick being a big deal
Whelps
All that being said, I do have fond memories of it, but would I do it all over again? Nah, the first time was enough. It was cool and all, and I'm glad I was there on Day 1, but it wasn't everything that everyone seems to remember it was. There was ~a lot~ of suck that we just put up with because there wasn't anything any better.
My favorite character was a pink haired gnome warrior named Ironballs. He was one of a multitude of twinks. Wish there was a mmo as good as WOW was back then! Instead I am stuck playing ARPGs, and CCGs! Nothing out compares!
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Don't miss what you don't know
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
Well, maybe SWG had more options and things to do, didn't know that.
However, my larger goal was to prove older mmos were made with long run quality that lasted instead of fast gimmicks.....SO, if SWG had more things to do then great.
Hell I have fond memories of wow, swtor, ESO, and others.. all mmos I was there for on launch, v-wow being my first entry point.
WoW today as a GAME is ten fold better than Vanilla..not even questionable. i think what has changed most is the community. That is gone forever.
"The Society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools."
Currently: Games Audio Engineer, you didn't hear what I heard, you heard what I wanted you to hear.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Then again my previous MMORPG was Asheron's Call. I had gotten used to not having my hand held. I had gotten used to actually having to pay attention to the quest story. I had gotten used to not having NPCs with big yellow exclamation marks hovering over their head. I had gotten used to having to know what type of attack a mob was vulnerable to. Used to dungeons that were often confusing in layout and didn't have an obvious path to the goal.
World of Warcraft was, and is, a big snore fest. World of Warcraft was, and is, easysauce.
Any mmo worth its salt should be like a good prostitute when it comes to its game world- One hell of a faker, and a damn good shaker!