Succeeding a game that wasn't successful is not the wisest business model.
Well, any game that comes out now would literally have to "succeed" Vanguard since it comes out later.
succeed: to follow after another
But seriously, no one is or has ever suggested that Pantheon use Vanguard's failed coding. So really whats your point? Strawman much?
You are assuming that the only issue with Vanguard was coding, which it definitely was not. There were mistakes from a design perspective.
Can you be more specific about what parts of the game design you think was a mistake?
They had good classes, good xp system that balanced questing and sandbox, crafting that wasnt just a combine button but actually had tactics, diplomacy, group harvesting, multiple separate starting areas, factions, races that made enough of a difference that it was a real choice without making one race the only choice, player built houses and boats you could sail anywhere you wanted.
The only actual game design flaw I can think of was that bards were too powerful, but then that might have just been me.
No, the reason people left was definitely the flawed coding. People loved the game design.
Bugs were responsible for most people leaving early on, yes, but there were still many like myself on high end systems who left for other reasons.
I've discussed the issues I felt most responsible ad naseum here over the years. Very briefly, it was the the lack of risk versus reward. It was the fact that death had little to no consequence. The world was too accommodating, and the rewards were numerous and forgettable until late game.
This philosophy washed over into every aspect of the game. Ultimately they normalized the prestige that players sought and which kept them logging in. The respect a virtual world like EQ demanded - pushing the player to be cautious, to be efficient, to be sociable - were all scaled back leaving a much less compelling experience. At least in my opinion.
To be fair, lack of risk vs reward is something that occurred later in the testing phase, as did a fair few gear changes (instead of gear lvl reqs items took up a % allowing you to twink but the more powerful the item the higher % it took which limited other gear options). I think a lot of the later changes in the game deaign came due to change over to SOE as there was a suspocious amount of EQ2ification going on in the later test phases (death went from corpse runs and xp debt to no CR and insignificant debt and gear became standard lvl req and BoE).
Admittedly the game was a bit too free with loot overall - a fairly easily obtained set every few lvls via questlines.
I've discussed the issues I felt most responsible ad naseum here over the years. Very briefly, it was the the lack of risk versus reward. It was the fact that death had little to no consequence. The world was too accommodating, and the rewards were numerous and forgettable until late game.
Little consequence? You died, got xp debt and dropped quite a few items. I recall making my way through a spider cave that I was too low for and trying my best not to aggro anything so I could get my stuff.
Was a blast!
You could summon your equipment at any time, the debt was weak and repair cost were weak.
I've discussed the issues I felt most responsible ad naseum here over the years. Very briefly, it was the the lack of risk versus reward. It was the fact that death had little to no consequence. The world was too accommodating, and the rewards were numerous and forgettable until late game.
Little consequence? You died, got xp debt and dropped quite a few items. I recall making my way through a spider cave that I was too low for and trying my best not to aggro anything so I could get my stuff.
Was a blast!
You could summon your equipment at any time, the debt was weak and repair cost were weak.
I don't recall being able to summon one's equipment but perhaps that was a thing? Was that added later? Anyone?
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
I've discussed the issues I felt most responsible ad naseum here over the years. Very briefly, it was the the lack of risk versus reward. It was the fact that death had little to no consequence. The world was too accommodating, and the rewards were numerous and forgettable until late game.
Little consequence? You died, got xp debt and dropped quite a few items. I recall making my way through a spider cave that I was too low for and trying my best not to aggro anything so I could get my stuff.
Was a blast!
You could summon your equipment at any time, the debt was weak and repair cost were weak.
I don't recall being able to summon one's equipment but perhaps that was a thing? Was that added later? Anyone?
I've discussed the issues I felt most responsible ad naseum here over the years. Very briefly, it was the the lack of risk versus reward. It was the fact that death had little to no consequence. The world was too accommodating, and the rewards were numerous and forgettable until late game.
Little consequence? You died, got xp debt and dropped quite a few items. I recall making my way through a spider cave that I was too low for and trying my best not to aggro anything so I could get my stuff.
Was a blast!
You could summon your equipment at any time, the debt was weak and repair cost were weak.
I don't recall being able to summon one's equipment but perhaps that was a thing? Was that added later? Anyone?
Summon corpse - necro spell. All the gear was on the corpse.
Thats not what hes referencing ..
When you died you could go get your corpse or have someone drag it to you(or Necro) with just a small xp penalty and 0 durability lost on gear ..Or rez you from gravestone also all these at 8% xp loss
Or you could summon your corpse to you at graveyard , for full xp loss and extreme durability loss .. was costly to repair i recall ..
I've discussed the issues I felt most responsible ad naseum here over the years. Very briefly, it was the the lack of risk versus reward. It was the fact that death had little to no consequence. The world was too accommodating, and the rewards were numerous and forgettable until late game.
Little consequence? You died, got xp debt and dropped quite a few items. I recall making my way through a spider cave that I was too low for and trying my best not to aggro anything so I could get my stuff.
Was a blast!
You could summon your equipment at any time, the debt was weak and repair cost were weak.
I don't recall being able to summon one's equipment but perhaps that was a thing? Was that added later? Anyone?
Summon corpse - necro spell. All the gear was on the corpse.
Thats not what hes referencing ..
When you died you could go get your corpse or have someone drag it to you(or Necro) with just a small xp penalty and 0 durability lost on gear ..Or rez you from gravestone also all these at 8% xp loss
Or you could summon your corpse to you at graveyard , for full xp loss and extreme durability loss .. was costly to repair i recall ..
Oh right. As I remember it no one ever took the xp loss by using the graveyard summon. That just wasnt done.
I've discussed the issues I felt most responsible ad naseum here over the years. Very briefly, it was the the lack of risk versus reward. It was the fact that death had little to no consequence. The world was too accommodating, and the rewards were numerous and forgettable until late game.
Little consequence? You died, got xp debt and dropped quite a few items. I recall making my way through a spider cave that I was too low for and trying my best not to aggro anything so I could get my stuff.
Was a blast!
You could summon your equipment at any time, the debt was weak and repair cost were weak.
I don't recall being able to summon one's equipment but perhaps that was a thing? Was that added later? Anyone?
Summon corpse - necro spell. All the gear was on the corpse.
Thats not what hes referencing ..
When you died you could go get your corpse or have someone drag it to you(or Necro) with just a small xp penalty and 0 durability lost on gear ..Or rez you from gravestone also all these at 8% xp loss
Or you could summon your corpse to you at graveyard , for full xp loss and extreme durability loss .. was costly to repair i recall ..
Oh right. As I remember it no one ever took the xp loss by using the graveyard summon. That just wasnt done.
Yea , i played from day 1 to close , i think i used 2-3 times when i was really stuck and noone on to help , the XP penalty really sucked if you were going from 50-55 , those were tuff levels , and i actually remeber doing it and paying the repair cost , with a wtf thats costly .. Dont wanna do that again
I've discussed the issues I felt most responsible ad naseum here over the years. Very briefly, it was the the lack of risk versus reward. It was the fact that death had little to no consequence. The world was too accommodating, and the rewards were numerous and forgettable until late game.
Little consequence? You died, got xp debt and dropped quite a few items. I recall making my way through a spider cave that I was too low for and trying my best not to aggro anything so I could get my stuff.
Was a blast!
You could summon your equipment at any time, the debt was weak and repair cost were weak.
I don't recall being able to summon one's equipment but perhaps that was a thing? Was that added later? Anyone?
Summon corpse - necro spell. All the gear was on the corpse.
Thats not what hes referencing ..
When you died you could go get your corpse or have someone drag it to you(or Necro) with just a small xp penalty and 0 durability lost on gear ..Or rez you from gravestone also all these at 8% xp loss
Or you could summon your corpse to you at graveyard , for full xp loss and extreme durability loss .. was costly to repair i recall ..
Ok but that's still a penalty. You still have to take time to get your items or have someone get them for you.
I didn't know about the graveyard though!
edit: I should say still a decent enough penalty. And it opens up other game play that could include other players.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Succeeding a game that wasn't successful is not the wisest business model.
Well, any game that comes out now would literally have to "succeed" Vanguard since it comes out later.
succeed: to follow after another
But seriously, no one is or has ever suggested that Pantheon use Vanguard's failed coding. So really whats your point? Strawman much?
You are assuming that the only issue with Vanguard was coding, which it definitely was not. There were mistakes from a design perspective.
Can you be more specific about what parts of the game design you think was a mistake?
They had good classes, good xp system that balanced questing and sandbox, crafting that wasnt just a combine button but actually had tactics, diplomacy, group harvesting, multiple separate starting areas, factions, races that made enough of a difference that it was a real choice without making one race the only choice, player built houses and boats you could sail anywhere you wanted.
The only actual game design flaw I can think of was that bards were too powerful, but then that might have just been me.
No, the reason people left was definitely the flawed coding. People loved the game design.
Bugs were responsible for most people leaving early on, yes, but there were still many like myself on high end systems who left for other reasons.
I've discussed the issues I felt most responsible ad naseum here over the years. Very briefly, it was the the lack of risk versus reward. It was the fact that death had little to no consequence. The world was too accommodating, and the rewards were numerous and forgettable until late game.
This philosophy washed over into every aspect of the game. Ultimately they normalized the prestige that players sought and which kept them logging in. The respect a virtual world like EQ demanded - pushing the player to be cautious, to be efficient, to be sociable - were all scaled back leaving a much less compelling experience. At least in my opinion.
Since I believe it's veering off topic, I made a new one.
Now back to being more on-topic, I'd like to say the only reason Vanguard is deemed unsuccessful is because it expected hundreds of thousands of subs. It fell dramatically over the course of its first year from something like 200k to--I expect far--below 100k. It was an ambitious title with many millions of dollars poured into it. IF it had been a smaller scale project, the numbers of subs might have been considered a success.
I believe a big reason it lost so many people were the bugs and performance problems. More than anything, it may have also attracted the wrong people. WoW did a lot of damage--even in its first month--to player expectations. The core audience Brad expected would play Vanguard may have been smaller than he believed or not as available, and in attracting the wrong people, it may have given Brad false impressions.
I know myself, at the time, I was playing MUDS and obscure MMO's with older gameplay mechanics. I was playing EQ1 too, but busily arguing for a classic sever in the forums. I'd also played many player run UO servers with older code. What's been forgotten in the many years since is this situation hasn't changed. Many gamers are still playing old games or MMO's, including obscure indie ventures or works of love. The effect of this I believe is being underestimated. The result is any future commercial project has to downsize its expectations if it desires EQ1-like gameplay.
In conclusion, I believe Vanguard was trying to ride the wave inbetween the mainstream and the obscure outlying wilderness, but miscalculated the size of the wave. It's this miscalculation--accompanied by bugs and bad business--which doomed it to failure, not necessarily its gameplay--as you alluded to when you wrote: "Succeeding a game that wasn't successful is not the wisest business model."
Okay, maybe theres more Vanguard in Pantheon than I was thinking.
About Diplomacy, not a fan of that one anyway.
Though the worst was when they introduced fishing, copied from WoW of all sources. Compared to that, even Diplomacy was fun. Also, with my ping (european gamer on the last server, which was in the US) and the impossibility to reassign buttons I never stood a chance to win anything with fishing anyway.
Okay, maybe theres more Vanguard in Pantheon than I was thinking.
About Diplomacy, not a fan of that one anyway.
Though the worst was when they introduced fishing, copied from WoW of all sources. Compared to that, even Diplomacy was fun.
Wait, what? Fishing in VG was nothing like wow. Fishing in vg was an actual game with moves and combos. And it had the possibility of spawning an actual mob that would try to kill you. Fishing in wow was click once before its too late and you're done.
I liked VG more than EQ. I preferred it's more unique class system and spells / skills. The diplomacy mini game being integrated into the ecosystem and granting buffs to everyone in the area when a diplomacy quest was completed. I loved the ability to forage for arrows as a ranger and throwing out miracles and calamities as a druid. The disciple and blood mage were amazing. Being able to harvest body parts to upgrade my undead servant as a necromancer. Non-instanced housing and ships were a lot of fun. The world itself was beautiful and the dynamic weather breathtaking. The large number of reactionary and situational skills added a lot of spice to combat. I'm not even a crafter, but they had a system that I didn't find absolutely horrid and unrewarding.
Needless to say, I would be much happier if they pulled more from VG than the more boring and one dimensional gameplay of EQ. From what I've seen, this isn't going to be the case and I am quite disappointed.
I liked VG more than EQ. I preferred it's more unique class system and spells / skills. The diplomacy mini game being integrated into the ecosystem and granting buffs to everyone in the area when a diplomacy quest was completed. I loved the ability to forage for arrows as a ranger and throwing out miracles and calamities as a druid. The disciple and blood mage were amazing. Being able to harvest body parts to upgrade my undead servant as a necromancer. Non-instanced housing and ships were a lot of fun. The world itself was beautiful and the dynamic weather breathtaking. The large number of reactionary and situational skills added a lot of spice to combat. I'm not even a crafter, but they had a system that I didn't find absolutely horrid and unrewarding.
Needless to say, I would be much happier if they pulled more from VG than the more boring and one dimensional gameplay of EQ. From what I've seen, this isn't going to be the case and I am quite disappointed.
.. Yea , ive alwsy hoped that Pantheon ends up .. something like 65% Vanguard 35% EQ with better QOL /UI /Engine
Since we dont really know what Pantheon will be at release ...
but obviously:
- FOR STARTERS PANTHEON DOESNT HAVE BUTT UGLY GRAPHICS (I watched a WoW player recently and yeesh, no thanks)
- They dont split their playerbase in two (Horde vs whatever that other faction was)
- They dont make classes do-it-all's who can just respec to do a different group task
- housing, bards etc, all the good stuff WoW has left out since forever
P.s.: Oh, and you also mentioned UO .. not sure why you did, since UO is a one of a kind game that will never be repeated, a true sandbox game of unmatched complexity. Cant be compared to any other game.
Succeeding a game that wasn't successful is not the wisest business model.
Well, any game that comes out now would literally have to "succeed" Vanguard since it comes out later.
succeed: to follow after another
But seriously, no one is or has ever suggested that Pantheon use Vanguard's failed coding. So really whats your point? Strawman much?
You are assuming that the only issue with Vanguard was coding, which it definitely was not. There were mistakes from a design perspective.
Can you be more specific about what parts of the game design you think was a mistake?
They had good classes, good xp system that balanced questing and sandbox, crafting that wasnt just a combine button but actually had tactics, diplomacy, group harvesting, multiple separate starting areas, factions, races that made enough of a difference that it was a real choice without making one race the only choice, player built houses and boats you could sail anywhere you wanted.
The only actual game design flaw I can think of was that bards were too powerful, but then that might have just been me.
No, the reason people left was definitely the flawed coding. People loved the game design.
Bugs were responsible for most people leaving early on, yes, but there were still many like myself on high end systems who left for other reasons.
I've discussed the issues I felt most responsible ad naseum here over the years. Very briefly, it was the the lack of risk versus reward. It was the fact that death had little to no consequence. The world was too accommodating, and the rewards were numerous and forgettable until late game.
This philosophy washed over into every aspect of the game. Ultimately they normalized the prestige that players sought and which kept them logging in. The respect a virtual world like EQ demanded - pushing the player to be cautious, to be efficient, to be sociable - were all scaled back leaving a much less compelling experience. At least in my opinion.
So, they were ahead of their time. as that sounds like every modern MMO.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Since we dont really know what Pantheon will be at release ...
but obviously:
- FOR STARTERS PANTHEON DOESNT HAVE BUTT UGLY GRAPHICS (I watched a WoW player recently and yeesh, no thanks)
- They dont split their playerbase in two (Horde vs whatever that other faction was)
- They dont make classes do-it-all's who can just respec to do a different group task
- housing, bards etc, all the good stuff WoW has left out since forever
P.s.: Oh, and you also mentioned UO .. not sure why you did, since UO is a one of a kind game that will never be repeated, a true sandbox game of unmatched complexity. Cant be compared to any other game.
It was sarcasm because you can find similarities and differences in every game so to draw conclusions based solely on that is ridiculous. Hence the reason I used uo.
Vanguard bugs were all because of coding. All other bugs could have been squashed if they weren't busy fixing the coding.
However their were a few annoyance's: Dungeons would allow low levels to enter and be successful only for the difficulty to ramp very high as you pressed forward. Do you go in at low levels and no one completes them ?, or go high and treat the beginning like simple trash mobs ?.... I'm talking 10 levels higher.
The game was designed for groups all the time. As you progressed mid level during low population times, Most quest were designed for a full groups. It's like they were expecting full populations all the time and every zone.... This complaint is coming from a guy that LOVES to group.
Comments
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Admittedly the game was a bit too free with loot overall - a fairly easily obtained set every few lvls via questlines.
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
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
My original response is here:
https://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/475952/if-it-launches-the-incremental-changes-i-expect-to-see#latest
Since I believe it's veering off topic, I made a new one.
Now back to being more on-topic, I'd like to say the only reason Vanguard is deemed unsuccessful is because it expected hundreds of thousands of subs. It fell dramatically over the course of its first year from something like 200k to--I expect far--below 100k. It was an ambitious title with many millions of dollars poured into it. IF it had been a smaller scale project, the numbers of subs might have been considered a success.
I believe a big reason it lost so many people were the bugs and performance problems. More than anything, it may have also attracted the wrong people. WoW did a lot of damage--even in its first month--to player expectations. The core audience Brad expected would play Vanguard may have been smaller than he believed or not as available, and in attracting the wrong people, it may have given Brad false impressions.
I know myself, at the time, I was playing MUDS and obscure MMO's with older gameplay mechanics. I was playing EQ1 too, but busily arguing for a classic sever in the forums. I'd also played many player run UO servers with older code. What's been forgotten in the many years since is this situation hasn't changed. Many gamers are still playing old games or MMO's, including obscure indie ventures or works of love. The effect of this I believe is being underestimated. The result is any future commercial project has to downsize its expectations if it desires EQ1-like gameplay.
In conclusion, I believe Vanguard was trying to ride the wave inbetween the mainstream and the obscure outlying wilderness, but miscalculated the size of the wave. It's this miscalculation--accompanied by bugs and bad business--which doomed it to failure, not necessarily its gameplay--as you alluded to when you wrote: "Succeeding a game that wasn't successful is not the wisest business model."
Needless to say, I would be much happier if they pulled more from VG than the more boring and one dimensional gameplay of EQ. From what I've seen, this isn't going to be the case and I am quite disappointed.
...
exactly as I feared.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
However their were a few annoyance's:
Dungeons would allow low levels to enter and be successful only for the difficulty to ramp very high as you pressed forward. Do you go in at low levels and no one completes them ?, or go high and treat the beginning like simple trash mobs ?.... I'm talking 10 levels higher.
The game was designed for groups all the time. As you progressed mid level during low population times, Most quest were designed for a full groups. It's like they were expecting full populations all the time and every zone.... This complaint is coming from a guy that LOVES to group.
Still one of the best games ever.