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Vanguard: Saga of Heroes: AGC: Jeff Butler
Dana
Member Posts: 2,415
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is one of the most anticipated games on our list. At AGC, Staff Writer Laura Genender interviewed President and Exec. Producer Jeff Butler and Senior Marketing and PR Manager April Jones. They concentrated primarily on diplomacy and crafting.
;) On Thursday I met with Sigils President/Executive Producer Jeff Butler and Senior Manager of Marketing/PR April Jones to talk about the highly anticipating upcoming MMORPG, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes.
I took this opportunity to talk to Butler and Jones about one of Vanguards unique features: the presence of an in-depth diplomacy system. According to Butler, this system is complete and is being integrated into Beta 3. All that is left between now and launch - which should be some time this winter is for designers to flesh out the depth of the system. As much as I fear getting my hopes up, if the diplomacy system is as complex and engaging as Butler described, Vanguard might be the game to bridge the gap between social gamers (There, The Sims, etc.) and combat types. The diplomacy system, paired with crafting, should provide more than enough content for players seeking a non-combat experience. |
The rest of the article is here.
Dana Massey
Formerly of MMORPG.com
Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
Comments
I am the type of player where I like to do everything and anything from time to time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor - pre-WW2 genocide.
Sooo...diplomacy sound more or less as: Vanguard: The Gathering?
Might be fun, Magic is an extremely successfull game, a few twists in it are definitely an option, especially with the crowd that are my age or younger. However, I have that weird feeling that again, someone took an example that is way beyond them. Maybe I am wrong, but many try to reproduce The Gathering feeling, few succeed.
See, the risk in taking a successful formulae is that you have to beat the initial, reproducing it or been less is not going to stick...peoples know Magic, they play it...if you bring less, then it would just not be enought. Taking Magic: The Gathering as an example is certainly putting the bar quite high, I am interested in knowing if they really mean it and have what it take to back it up, or if they try to swallow more than they can.
I also wonder...in a Real Time game such as Vanguard, how having a GBT card game going to be good, unless you put a timer on the player? In which case you pretty much ruin the feeling of the initial game and the reason behind it...anyway, worth a try and in doubt, give the runner the benefit of the doubts! (I am still not going to play a must raiding game, even if raiding is "merely 20% and merely a part of the final reward")
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Laura "Taera" Genender
Community Manager
MMORPG.com
Crafting is completely stand alone. Any items gained through adventuring that can be used by crafting can be traded, and thus bought. BUT, there are some recipes that can only be gained by diplomacy.
You can chose not to craft those recipes, but knowing most crafters (and being one myself) we like to catch 'em all. So no, we don't have to be diplomats, but it helps?
Laura "Taera" Genender
Community Manager
MMORPG.com
I'd like to hear more about this diplomacy system.
I do hope the errands are only at the very beginning.The diplomacy card system sounds interesting, but the errands part sounds like the lame little faction quests we are all already used to.
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"MMOs, for people that like think chatting is like a skill or something, rotflol"
http://purepwnage.com
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"Far away across the field, the tolling of the iron bell, calls the faithful to their knees. To hear the softly spoken magic spell" Pink Floyd-Dark Side of the Moon
In the past I have been quite critical of MMOPRG.coms poor and biased coverage of Vanguard. But this time I have to say nice job and very well done. The article was not only informative and very well written but the interviewer actually appeared to know what he was talking about. A nice refreshing change from the people at MMOPRG.com. Hopefully they can keep this kind of quality coverage in their future articles.
I'm a she, and you hated my E3 review
contrary to popular beliefs, though, I am looking foward to Vanguard (somewhat cautiously as, like Razorback, I've done this too many times). I am glad you liked this article, though, and I hope that future ones meet your standards as well!
Laura
Laura "Taera" Genender
Community Manager
MMORPG.com
I'm a she, and you hated my E3 review
contrary to popular beliefs, though, I am looking foward to Vanguard (somewhat cautiously as, like Razorback, I've done this too many times). I am glad you liked this article, though, and I hope that future ones meet your standards as well!
Laura
My apologies about the he reference, it was not intentional.
I hope my and the many other criticisms you recieved for your E3 review helped motivate you to do a better job this time. This article is much better written. This time you show actual knowledge and provide us with more than standard bolierplate and you don't use the article to bash the game like you did last time. But in all fairness you probably had more time to think, organize, research and write this article than you did during the hectic atmosphere of E3.
As far as looking forward to Vanguard cautiously. I agree with you 100%. Its rare a game ever meets expectations. I have many douts about the game as well. I hope it does well like but I wonder if they are just simply trying to do to much and being to innovative. Its not just diplomacy, but their crafting sytem, city building, boat building, endgane not centered around raiding, dyanmic death penalty system and so much more. In almost every part of the game they are trying to be innovative and push the enevelope. To me it seems like simply to much and its doomed to fail. But we can hope.
Again, nice article. No offense meant in regards to the first article. I simply thought like most mmorpg.com articles it was very poorly done and if you re-read the posts from that article you will see many other people felt the same way. In fact there was an entire post on the official forums dedicated to talking about how poorly written the article was. I am sorry there I go again. I better be quiet and simply say I thought your present article was very well written and I enjoyed it very much. Best wishes in the future.
RE: Diplomacy System
Anyone play Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion??
The Diplomacy sytem in Vanguard actually reminds me a little bit on the Persuasion Mini game for NPCs in that game. When you talk to an NPC in Oblivion they will give you a persuasion level, between 0 and 100. You can raise their persuasion by working around the 4-5 wedges. The trick is to find an easy NPC; human, that will give you exact facial features when you highlight a wedge. Lets see if I can remember the wedges:
Joke.... crap I cant remember. Ok loading game LOL
Admire; Joke; Boast; Coerce. Okay so if you are at a human NPC you can see the facial features really well. When you highlight Joke lets say they may have a medium smile When you highlight Admire they may have a huge smile, when you highlight Boast they may frown some and when you highlight Coerce they may have a HUGE frown.
The key here is to have a high wedge with the happiest face to give you the better points. When your persuasion is 45 and you have a huge wedge piece in the Admire section and they have a huge happy face you're gonna gain more points, possibly gaining 20pts + but when you highlight your coerce with a medium wedge you will lose persuasion. You have to do all 4 wedges to complete the persusaion mini game. Again if you do it just right (by having small wedges with the frowns and large wedges with the happy faces) you can actually gain persuasion points. You can do this persuasion as many times as you want but again you may lose some points. Also with Oblivion comes a Bribe option (which I doubt that Vanguard has) but with Oblivion you may have to dish out 200gp for a +7 Modifier and as you go up in persuasion you have to pay a higher price until they are maxed at that level.
And again when you start a new round to gain persuasion they may change: the Admire may be a medium happy face; the Joke could be a massive happy face; the coerce will be a small frown and the boast may be a large frown. Each time you do the persuasion game each of the 4 will have a different outcome. So in theory if you have a large wedge under a large frown you will lose massive persuasion points.
Anyways
So
perhaps this Vanguard Diplomacy is similiar to Oblivion, those that played ES 4 will make it easy those that didnt will take a few tries to understand the game.
Laura "Taera" Genender
Community Manager
MMORPG.com
It's better be hated for who you are, than loved for who you aren't.
"One day all will die, surely you but never I." Wheel of Time
Crafting will be min-game style as well, a bit like EverQuest 2, but more simple and fun.
More simple indeed, what does that mean, wow crafting or what ? Eq2 crafting was not that difficult now was it ?
The diplomacy sphere is one of these things that looks good on paper. I applaud the inclusion of more non-combat content, and I respect the attempt to enliven cities by putting more to do in them. It's a great idea.
But when you more past concepts into implementation, as described in the article, this system could hardly be more lame.
Press funny joke
Press funnier joke
Press scowl
Press funny joke again
Give me a break. That is boring as hell. So while the concept is good the system sucks.
There are better ways to do this. Take, for example, the diplomacy system in the Civilization series. You have interactive dialogue and the outcome of your negotiations depends not only on your choice of dialogue but your other actions and conduct in the game (past, present and future). So, for example, if you are in a strong position a diplomat will be more conciliatory and if you are in a weak position less so. If you have a history of breaking promises a diplomat will be less likely to believe you will honor future pledges. A diplomat with an agenda will act in accordance with that agenda and your diplomacy only goes so far. Plus you can invole other nation's diplomats in the negotiations, at least indirectly (e.g., your favor with a second nation is something the diplomat has to take into account). That is a lot better system than spamming "funny joke."
What they could have done is that all of the NPCs in a town would have personalities, allegiances, plots and schemes, needs, ambitions, fears, etc., and you achieve objectives by trading/ interacting/helping/manipulating back and forth with a number of them, by conduct in and out of the city. So, for example, there could be an NPC who is politically in favor with a King. If you want to be in favior with the King you have to somehow ingratiate yourself to this NPC, or at least be useful to him. There would be many ways to go about doing that, and many ways that could mess that up or cause him to change his mind or even betray you. Maybe there is a female NPC in town the diplomat favors, and helping him get in her good graces would help you get in his favor and thus help you with the King. Or maybe your efforts to play matchmaker will backfire instead. In other words, there would be complex social/political/personal decision trees to work through. What would get the girl to like the ambassador? Well, she has her own needs and you will have to discover what they are, which may lead into other people's needs.
A system like that would also tell a story. Clicking funny joke at the right time and in the right sequence doesn't tell a story. It's just grinding.
Even more interesting, if your conduct outside the city, in terms of the choices you have made, your faction, quests you have done or not done, people you have met or not met, etc., etc. all factored into your diplomatic success, the story would be different for everyone because what works for you doesn't work for the next guy because no two people have made exactly the same choices. It would be very dynamic. So for example, suppose you had defeated a particular enemy of the NPC you are trying to influence. That may cause him to fear or respect you, which opens up another avenue for you to influence him that someone who had not done that would lack (thus they would have to go the matchmaker route or some other way). For every NPC there would be a variety of ways you could please or displease them (many of which would be hidden or would require figuring out a strategy), and lots of factors would affect your success or failure. And you would be developing a storyline as you go, making it more interesting.
But instead you will be spamming funny joke.
Sigil will never have any dynamic systems like I described because all they understand is moving a bar, advancing in rank, spamming buttons, and getting more stuff. It's an institutionalized mindset that nobody in that company can escape from. If it's not the same, tired, hierarchical bullshit grind and acquire it's not their thing. What a shame.
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