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Vanguard Beta - Another Bad Review
jonaku
Member Posts: 281
From the public Vanguard forum:
http://www.vanguardsoh.com/forums/showthread.php?t=63506
Vanguard beta=bad?
I made an account just to post this and get some honest responses here. My old EQ guild has a website.forum obviously and there are a few beta testers there. They've told me that they had all the things they hated about EQ1 in Vanguard and Vanguard didn't have any things they loved about EQ1.
I'm going to be completely honest here. I was intrigued by this game, was looking forward to it emmensely. But I've heard some really bad reviews from beta testing friends. I myself have a half ass computer-and according to the FaQ on the official website, that shouldn't matter. But I've been told it does. A friend of mine has one of the best computers you can buy in stores( major gamer) and he said it's still a bit choppy. I know it's only beta, but can it be this bad?=(
"I am playing Vanguard Beta... it is another healer centric, impossable to play without a group, same old crap made famous from EQ.
The game sucks. It has all the bad things that we hated about EQ with none of the things we loved about it.
Forget raids every night. You will have to get everyone on the move the day before and if someone logs on late... forget it. Travel is just too cumbersome. You can do nothing solo. If you can't find a group... you are screwed. It takes hours to find a group. This might change when they add more players to beta, but in the long run, the inability to do anything solo (including travel) sucks.
You better have one bad ass system. I have an AMD dual core 4800+ with 2 Gigs of RAM and a gForce 7800 PCI-E video card with a 3Ware IDE raid running two 10K RPM drives in a RAID 0 configuration, and the game crawls. The game is very slow and the graphics are lacking. But, of course, it is beta.
All in all, the game blows. "
That was posted on some of the guild forums..please don't let this be true, WoW is starting to suck, I need something to look forward to.
I'm going to be completely honest here. I was intrigued by this game, was looking forward to it emmensely. But I've heard some really bad reviews from beta testing friends. I myself have a half ass computer-and according to the FaQ on the official website, that shouldn't matter. But I've been told it does. A friend of mine has one of the best computers you can buy in stores( major gamer) and he said it's still a bit choppy. I know it's only beta, but can it be this bad?=(
"I am playing Vanguard Beta... it is another healer centric, impossable to play without a group, same old crap made famous from EQ.
The game sucks. It has all the bad things that we hated about EQ with none of the things we loved about it.
Forget raids every night. You will have to get everyone on the move the day before and if someone logs on late... forget it. Travel is just too cumbersome. You can do nothing solo. If you can't find a group... you are screwed. It takes hours to find a group. This might change when they add more players to beta, but in the long run, the inability to do anything solo (including travel) sucks.
You better have one bad ass system. I have an AMD dual core 4800+ with 2 Gigs of RAM and a gForce 7800 PCI-E video card with a 3Ware IDE raid running two 10K RPM drives in a RAID 0 configuration, and the game crawls. The game is very slow and the graphics are lacking. But, of course, it is beta.
All in all, the game blows. "
That was posted on some of the guild forums..please don't let this be true, WoW is starting to suck, I need something to look forward to.
Comments
another person who doesn't like "the vision" and or the current state of beta. the true test is going to be when they invite 10-20k people in the next couple weeks to beta3.
where supposedly the game will be optimized to where lesser machines can run the client, so the FPS should improve alot.
alot of people, will never like this game no matter what because of the mechanics (the vision) witch is never going to change enough for those people to ever want to play.
therefor, even though some of the problems the NDA breakers are claiming is more than likely true in its current state of beta...you are always going to get those people that will bash the game simply because they don't like the mechanics, much like this post.
It's another one of those "I'm going to break the NDA because I don't like the game" type threads. I read it and commented on it as well.
To me, these kind of reviews where they break the NDA come from the WoW playerbase to be honest. They are pointless to alot of us.
If people would read the devs comments they would know that the focus of beta has not been on solo play yet. The focus has been on tweaking and perfecting group combat. Brad has said once they are happy with that they will start adding solo mobs and start working on content for other play styles than group play.
If one paid attention they would also know that beta 3 is suppsoed to have an optimized client where they hope mid range computers will be able to run the game not just high end machines. I guess this poster never heard of the caravan system in regards to travel. Its pretty obvious whoever wrote the article has no idea what he is talking about, has not followed the game and has no idea what is going in the games development, or what is being planned. It is also appears he has no patience or desire to play a game that involves group play. Vanguard is certainly not for everyone but what cinstantly amazes me is all the criticisms of the game have no idea what they are talking about. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to critize vanguard and be worried about itys development. But the critics never bring up these reasons rather all they do is give us uninformed rants, ipatient kiddie rants or flat out lies or misinformation.
The alleged leaker just appears to be another kiddie without the patience or desire to actually learn how to play cooperative game.Most likley he is not even a beta leaker but a hater just making things up. Given his lack of knowledge, lack of patience and what appears to be lack of expereince playying mmorpgs its hard to take anything said here seriously.
On the way to the level cap, I solo'd well over 3/5ths of the time. If anything, VG is a lot easier to solo than EQ was, at least up until I quit at the end of PoP. While VG has always been labeled as a group-orientated game, the abillity to solo has always been there, even for melee classes.
Apparently that person is/was ignorant of the caravan system. Granted, it's a big world but that's what mounts and caravans are for.
I believe I got into beta last September and, until I build a desktop in Oct, I have and will continue to play the game on a laptop that I bought at the end of '04. It was fairly top of the line at the time for a laptop but not close to what I could have gotten in a desktop. Point being, the game is currently playable on less-than-top-tier systems and will continue to be optimized as beta progresses. Of course, FPS kiddies won't be thrilled that they are getting less than 60-100fps in beta...so sad
Laggy forums are the suck
Some of us have been waiting quite a while to have the chance to test Vanguard, but have had no luck yet in being invited. It's frustrating because I really want to test the game, alot of others just want to play it.
Some of us have been waiting quite a while to have the chance to test Vanguard, but have had no luck yet in being invited. It's frustrating because I really want to test the game, alot of others just want to play it.
Indeed.
There are allot of people that hate vanguard and love it. But in my opinion, if Vanguard is release ANY SOONER then september of 2007. Vanguard will suck big time. It's NOWHERE near finish. And he was right about one thing at least, vanguard is is very choppy, if you thought you got bad lag running EQ2 on high settings, wait until you try out vanguard on low settings! it's worse. If they take there time testing vanguard and fixing lag and glitches etc. Vanguard will end up being the next best MMORPG. But like i said, they have a LONG way to go and i think they plan on releasing it this year which = failure ,
I disagree about grouping, since there is only 100 people online in vanguard at peek hours, no wonder its hard to get a group. When they invite more , getting groups will be easier.
They don't plan on releasing it this year. Brad recently said they will be trying their best to get the game out between january and March but he cannot promise anythinge xcept that they will not release it until its ready. His words make one think its highly unlikley this game will release by March of next year. Bet on summer of 2007.
I agree with the rest of your statements about the game being raw. From everything we have read it sound slike its quite early in development.
My currently most Hyped Titles(other than Vanguard):
1. Hero's Journey
2. Darkfall
... and hot really hyped about much else ATM.
This is interesting. Here's someone who LIKE vanguard and is confirming that:
(1) beta has only 100 players (very disturbing that average simultaneous players is so low after 3,000 to 10,000 invites)
(2) beta is insanely laggy/choppy even with a high end system
(3) beta has many inherent problems with it, so many, in fact, that he recommend they continue beta for AT LEAST another 6 months to have any chance of launching a competent product.
Hmmmm... seems like beta aint' going so well...
This is interesting. Here's someone who LIKE vanguard and is confirming that:
(1) beta has only 100 players (very disturbing that average simultaneous players is so low after 3,000 to 10,000 invites)
(2) beta is insanely laggy/choppy even with a high end system
(3) beta has many inherent problems with it, so many, in fact, that he recommend they continue beta for AT LEAST another 6 months to have any chance of launching a competent product.
Hmmmm... seems like beta aint' going so well...
Hmmm... Sounds like every beta I've ever been apart of. So it sounds bassically normal. Well except #1. 2 and 3 are command problems with beta tests and you know it.
Siehst du mich
Erkennst du mich
Ganz tief in meinem Herz
ist noch ein Platz f?r dich
Ich suche dich
Ich sehne mich
nach dem was ich geliebt hab
doch ich find es nicht
This is interesting. Here's someone who LIKE vanguard and is confirming that:
(1) beta has only 100 players (very disturbing that average simultaneous players is so low after 3,000 to 3,500 invites)
(2) beta is insanely laggy/choppy even with a high end system
(3) beta has many inherent problems with it, so many, in fact, that he recommend they continue beta for AT LEAST another 6 months to have any chance of launching a competent product.
Hmmmm... seems like beta aint' going so well...
Fixed =P
Even though 3,000 - 3,500 falls within 3,000 - 10,000, your estimate is extremely misleading. It's also important to note that these invites were sent out over an 8 month period of time and not all at once
But other than that....the other two are either kinda "No duh" or is already sorta figured into the expected release date
Reviewing a early beta of a product is like giving a review on a 2010 ford mustang today.
Beta testing= full debug mode on, load balancing monitors engaged, severs setup for a testing enviroment, NOT production. every single logging tool for both code AND the servers is turned on, Clients all are also sending back a stream of data so that yoru developers can see what the code is doing in the "wild."
Come on, give them a break this is an early Beta, for a game that is at least 6 months out. IF this was 4 weeks from release date THEN there woudl be a reason to be concern.
Vanguard has been in beta 13 months now. Sigil announced the start ofBeta 0 at the end of July last year. Beta 1 started in October which might be why you are saying 10 months. Many MMORPG game companies do in house betas with paid testers before openning beta to the public. Vanguard chose not to go with an inhouse beta or aplha with paid testers as they said they needed a much larger base to test their innovations to the core systems of combat, diplomacy and crafting and because of the size of the world. From the dev comments essentially the focus of the beta testing has been the corse systems so far with the biggest emphasis on making group combat work. So while the game has been in beta for 13 months its not unexpected that it still has 7-12 months of testing left.
I actually posted in these forums in July, 2005 and I stated there was no way beta would be less than a year but rather people should expect an 18 month or so long beta. I got called a lot of names mostly by fanboys. But I was right and if people looked at what they were actually trying to do in Vanguard from the size of the world and the innovations and complexity of the systems they were trying to implement it wouldnot be a suprise that beta will last 18-24 months.
I don't understand why people are evaluating the game when it's only just starting beta phase 3. I think it looks fantastic and the features from what I've seen are very nice. I'm looking forward to it very much.
Most of the people that i work with on a daily basis (programmers, net admins, dba) do not look at the timeline as you do.
Sorry my bad, to them this would still be early beta code, generally you do not see the all nighters, working on the weekend, forgetting who you are married to this far out from a luanch date unless there is serious issues on a fundemental level to the code.
This is that stage where generally the staff does not take off friday for golf games, or what ever.
If you think this will be a good game have faith, If you are sure this is going to bomb then you are goign to think that no matter what. I prefer to wait and see, but it is annoying to watch people scream about how laggy and how the full feature set is not in place on a beta test.
Beta testing is generally at each phase testing and intergrating code to the main base, somethimes this new code does things unexpected in the "wild" that is why all the logging is going on. They are also if smart doiign a hella of alot of regression testing too. then working on the gotchas and unexpected results of add the new code to the main production code and the "wow, they did what in the beta?" debugging.
It seems that the gaming community has morphed to a point where they expect a beta in any from should and must be a pre-release load testing version of the game. Take a breath, read a book, wait for the release code and THEN judge if this game is worth your money, judging it on a beta that is 6 month or more out is unrealistic. Saying the theather is on fire because the game is at x point in the beta and you expected to be at y, is frankly unfair to the coders, you are not there, you do not attend the staff meetings talking about issues that have been raise and prioritized by the programmign managers. For all we know they have not addressed why yoru spell of uberness is not working correctly because they are chasing down a memory leak that woudl be fatal if sent to production.
Most of the people that i work with on a daily basis (programmers, net admins, dba) do not look at the timeline as you do.
Sorry my bad, to them this would still be early beta code, generally you do not see the all nighters, working on the weekend, forgetting who you are married to this far out from a luanch date unless there is serious issues on a fundemental level to the code.
This is that stage where generally the staff does not take off friday for golf games, or what ever.
If you think this will be a good game have faith, If you are sure this is going to bomb then you are goign to think that no matter what. I prefer to wait and see, but it is annoying to watch people scream about how laggy and how the full feature set is not in place on a beta test.
Beta testing is generally at each phase testing and intergrating code to the main base, somethimes this new code does things unexpected in the "wild" that is why all the logging is going on. They are also if smart doiign a hella of alot of regression testing too. then working on the gotchas and unexpected results of add the new code to the main production code and the "wow, they did what in the beta?" debugging.
It seems that the gaming community has morphed to a point where they expect a beta in any from should and must be a pre-release load testing version of the game. Take a breath, read a book, wait for the release code and THEN judge if this game is worth your money, judging it on a beta that is 6 month or more out is unrealistic. Saying the theather is on fire because the game is at x point in the beta and you expected to be at y, is frankly unfair to the coders, you are not there, you do not attend the staff meetings talking about issues that have been raise and prioritized by the programmign managers. For all we know they have not addressed why yoru spell of uberness is not working correctly because they are chasing down a memory leak that woudl be fatal if sent to production.
You're missing the point. The beta complaint is not really focused on bugs and lags. It's focused on the game mechanics not being fun: keeping the unfun stuff from EQ and tossing the fun parts of EQ.
No amount of debugging can fix an unfun game.
Not directed at anyone in particular, but if the cap fits...
Fun is in the eye of the buyer Jonaku, and you are missing the major point, this is a beta! they are testing and inserting things, this is NOT a complete game. This is like you saying you hate a monet when all you see are the dots of colour he used, or the lower left 1/16th of it.
And frankly how in the heck can anyone say what the final game will be like? Beta of a SWG was like pulling teeth as alot of the things that later became fun in the relase were not working as hoped for, Beta of an Rise of Nations had one camera view that the testers hate so much that it was change.
Putting a stake in the game pre-release because of how it is not complete seems too quick to judge for me, I will save all my stakes, slings, and arrows for SoE (grin).
Considering they just released brand new information about death mechanics that nobody in the community had any idea about, and that nobody in the Beta Community has experienced...well....if a GAME PLAY altering mechanic such as this is just now implimented, you can rest assured that any "reviews" thusfar have been inaccurate.
This is not simply a debug beta. This is not simply a stress test beta. This is not simply a tweak beta.
This is an IMPLIMENTATION and EXPERIMENTATION beta on top of those listed above. Meaning of course, that they are implimenting new game play elements, experimenting with them and tweaking them to make them fun while debugging the code. What makes the difference between fun and not fun could be as simple as changing numbers or as complex as re-drafting an entire system. Either way, they don't really even plan to have the final continent turned on for at least another 4 months or so.
Wait and see 'fore the bile spilleth over.
Feels like they are getting cold feet on corpse runs.