John Smedley hired by Amazon to produce MMOs

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Faux

Faux

Lord Nagafen Raider
218
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Grim1 said:
Lol. You really are butthurt about this. All I said is that it was minimal for me, and not even game breaking. Why does that fact make you taste piss in your cheerios? Too funny.

You just can't accept that some people had a great time in Vanguard. Sucks to be you.
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I was one of those people that had a great time in Vanguard. I was in beta 2 when new players started in Brennan's Stead and found it boring as hell. But I started live with the 3-day head start and had a blast playing the game. I didn't have an SSD but I always found chunking to be kind of a non-issue. I'd cross a chunk line and freeze for a few seconds (really early on, it was 10 seconds or so, but that got a lot better). And keep going. I very, very rarely had issues like falling through the world or crashing. I don't think my system was even that beefy. Maybe a $1k build shortly before VG released?

Even today, I find other mmo classes to be supremely boring in comparison to Vanguard's classes. I'd still be playing if it hadn't been sunsetted.
 
Flobee

Flobee

Vyemm Raider
2,691
3,094
I really enjoyed VG at release when the servers were running properly. I seem to recall a massive amount of server instability in the first month or so of release. I had more fun on my later stints in the game once those sorts of issues were resolved but before the player-base disappeared. In fact, my only real complaints about the game were bugs and empty content areas. So much of the world was empty and so many reproducible bugs remained in the game for its entire lifespan.

I walked three different GM's at three different times through a reproducible bug that would cause you to run in place client side while you character would continue running off a cliff and into the water server side. You could hear the sound effects of it happening and everything. All three confirmed that it was happening to them too, problem was never resolved and it was always treated as a new issue when I reported it. VG's main issues were all technical and process oriented. Making games has gotten much easier since then, so maybe McQuaid can pull a rabbit out of his hat.

Smed seems to have a solid crew here so I imagine whatever they make will be technically sound at the very least.
 
Flipmode

Flipmode

EQOA Refugee
2,093
312
Grim1 said:
Lol. You really are butthurt about this. All I said is that it was minimal for me, and not even game breaking. Why does that fact make you taste piss in your cheerios? Too funny.

You just can't accept that some people had a great time in Vanguard. Sucks to be you.
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Not butthurt in the slightest. I like VG just fine. Had tons of fun in it. You can like it and admit it’s flaws without making shit up. That’s all. No need to lie about it’s performance issues. That doesn’t invalidate the game or concepts therein.

It’s like some of you nerds can’t admit you like the game unless you liked everything and don’t cop to any of its mistakes or flaws. Don’t blame me for calling out your bullshit. Like I said, keep it 100.
 
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Foler

Asshat Foler

2024 FoH Asshat
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Can we address the fact that smedley is now in luxury knitwear? Has anyone tried his stuff out?
 
KCXIV

KCXIV

Molten Core Raider
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Flipmode said:
Not butthurt in the slightest. I like VG just fine. Had tons of fun in it. You can like it and admit it’s flaws without making shit up. That’s all. No need to lie about it’s performance issues. That doesn’t invalidate the game or concepts therein.

It’s like some of you nerds can’t admit you like the game unless you liked everything and don’t cop to any of its mistakes or flaws. Don’t blame me for calling out your bullshit. Like I said, keep it 100.
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i had alot of fun in that game as well. Outside of the performance issues, it imo was well done.

And like my boy Max Kellerman says, never keep it 100, keep it 90, i need 10 percent for wiggle room! lol
 
Grim1

Grim1

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
4,907
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Flipmode said:
Not butthurt in the slightest. I like VG just fine. Had tons of fun in it. You can like it and admit it’s flaws without making shit up. That’s all. No need to lie about it’s performance issues. That doesn’t invalidate the game or concepts therein.

It’s like some of you nerds can’t admit you like the game unless you liked everything and don’t cop to any of its mistakes or flaws. Don’t blame me for calling out your bullshit. Like I said, keep it 100.
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And what "bullshit" are you supposedly calling me out on? My first post that you responded to talked about the problems of Vanguard also. Me thinks you are backtracking big time.
 
Q

qwertyqweqwertwqert

<Banned>
1,678
149
Grim1 said:
VG was a fucking great game. But you needed a monster machine. I had just built a new mini cray when VG came out so never had any issues.

Unfortunately when Sony took over, they assigned 2nd rate devs to the game and fucked it into the ground trying to fix it. VG definitely needed fixing so that people on welfare could play it. Sony wasn't the company to do that though since VG was a direct competitor to EQ2.
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That is the only issue I had. I had no performance worries or stability, but when they started changing the game it became too easy. The gear sets they added were just way too powerful, I did Hunters League and some others and it ruined the group gameplay because nobody ever died and it was just so mindless and easy. I had fun soloing and boxing though.

Flipmode said:
Stop the BS. You experienced chunking like everyone else. Your new computer didn’t make you immune to engine limitations. Keep it real.
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You mean hitching? Chunking was just zoning but way better. Unlike EQ the zones were massive, and zoning took 10 seconds the most, often just a few seconds. The hitching was a different story but that went completely after a few years if you had good enough hardware.

BoozeCube said:
It is amazing that people to this day will argue how awesome Vanguard was. If it was so fucking great why did the pull the plug on it?
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That's a dumb argument. Lots of good things got the plug pulled. Ever heard of Concorde? There is more to the popularity of a game than the quality of the gameplay... Vanguard needed a relaunch and some extra content and various other things, and it got nothing good from SOE. They improved bugs and performance but everything else they did to the game was bad. The pay to win cash shop, the overpowered gear they added, etc.
 
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Palum

Palum

what Suineg set it to
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I'm one of those people who misremembers Vanguard as being an amazing time but it was actually a pile of dogshit that is only made palatable by the comparisons to contemporary disasters in MMO releases and the fact that it had Blood Mage.
 
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E

Elidroth

Trakanon Raider
539
1,246
VG was built on an engine that never should have been. It was Unreal 2, that then got modified to hell and back. It was not an MMO engine. Right before it was shut down, I installed it just to run around and look at some of what I'd put into the game, and it still had performance issues 7 years after it launched. Had we built the game in BigWorld or another engine designed for MMO use, it might have run a lot better IMO.
 
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Tmac

Tmac

Adventurer
<Aristocrat╭ರ_•́>
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Elidroth said:
VG was built on an engine that never should have been. It was Unreal 2, that then got modified to hell and back. It was not an MMO engine. Right before it was shut down, I installed it just to run around and look at some of what I'd put into the game, and it still had performance issues 7 years after it launched. Had we built the game in BigWorld or another engine designed for MMO use, it might have run a lot better IMO.
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Serious question. How do you build a game on such a bad foundation? Who makes that kind of decision?
 
Q

qwertyqweqwertwqert

<Banned>
1,678
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EQ was built with Unreal engine, so using Unreal2 for Vanguard was a fair decision. Also BigWorld wasn't available at that point, Vanguard development started in 2002. People make a bigger deal out of Vanguard's problems than they should. You could sink an amazing ship by cutting one hole in it. It might seem like a terrible catastrophe and total failure but if that hole was fixed, it would have been seen as a success. Vanguard is not much different to that. The game simply wasn't finished. They needed 6 months more of content development to flesh out some of the levels, maybe another few more months to rework some of the stuff that was rushed in, and a similar amount of time to optimize the engine. Most games miss goals and need more time, EQ missed several targets but was still seen through to release. Vanguard didn't get that, so the released game was unfinished. But a few years later of SOE's skeleton crew tinkering on it, and better hardware, and it ran well which is proof that it could have run like that at release, if they had more time.

Also there was a lot more going for it than just the Blood Mage. And there was a lot more going against it than just technical problems. This forum gets it all wrong.
 
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Ridas

Ridas

Pay to play forum
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I played VG until they announced the shutdown and I enjoyed it a lot. But to say they just needed a bit more time is retarded. The games engine was such a shitshow from the start, that they constantly introduced new bugs and some issues never got fixed. I don't blame soe for not investing much into it and was rather surprised they kept it going for so long. Let's just hope the Emu releases soon.
 
Skanda

Skanda

I'm Amod too!
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intelligentleman said:
You could sink an amazing ship by cutting one hole in it. It might seem like a terrible catastrophe and total failure but if that hole was fixed, it would have been seen as a success.
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Vanguard was more like a cheese grater than a boat with one small hole, you moron.
 
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Abefroman

Abefroman

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LachiusTZ

LachiusTZ

Rogue Deathwalker Box
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I don't get the failing upward thing either. Got a close friend that has pulled it off for like 12 years now.

Got a job at a bank, went to a conference, got so shit faced he broke into a car (thinking it was his) smashed the SHIT out of it because it wouldn't start, then stole a purse out of it. Woke up, saw the purse, figured he got laid, so ran the woman down at another hotel thinking "MORE SEX" and the cops arrested him. When he got back, he was fired. 6 wks later, he had a job paying double.

Got fired from that job for smoking weed at work. Got a new job, paying 150% or more of his prior salary, and called me after his first week to tell me he had no idea WTF he was even supposed to do. Got fired from that job b/c he had no idea what was going on or how to do the job he got hired for.

Welp, 2 weeks later he got a job paying 3x what the prior job did.

I have no fucking clue how he pulls that shit off. Dude has a charmed life.
 
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