Pan'Theon: Rise' of th'e Fal'Len - #1 Thread in MMO

tad10

Elisha Dushku
5,534
601
This entire post is ridiculous. 10 million to fix a nearly complete game? And, the graphic are "dated"? Dude, you have high standards. I hope you didn't think Pantheon would have the latest greatest graphics. Wasn't that one of the best selling points for WOW? Its graphics were toned down so no matter what computer you had, you could play the game. That comment is insane. Nothing wrong with Vanguards graphics.
You basically need to make a new game with a modern engine, with some kind of custom software to translate existing VG maps to the new engine. Then you will have to manually import and place the art assets and of course rewrite all the unique combat and crafting mechanics for the new engine etc and of course there's dip.
 

delirium_sl

shitlord
217
0
I think what made the axe fall was that COW update broke way too much stuff and SOE just said thats it. Yeah VG code is aweful. It ran like crap back then, but many comps today can brute force the crappy engine. Its just sad because again its the only decent mmo released since EQ. That really says something.
 

Flc_sl

shitlord
121
0
Brad's been posting on the Kotaku article about Pantheon, and some of it is pretty humorous. I like this quote from him, responding to someone calling him out for not ever being in the Sigil offices during Vanguard development:

"The 'months' before launch I was out constantly talking to investors, trying to get us enough money so that we could finish the game. 1/16/14 8:07pm"

That's accurate, if you replace "months" with "year+," "investors" with "drug dealers", "money" with "oxycotin" and "game" with "party."
 

Lysis

N00b
102
0
I'm not talking about turning VG into the next big thing. I don't think an RPG needs cutting edge graphics. I don't think the hitching is catastrophic. The fundamental mechanics exist to make an EQ-like experience with better graphics. Before the game was completely trivialized, level 40 through APW was a very EQ-like experience.

Vanguard has a lot of compelling content. It's a massive world with a lot of variety. A team of designers alone could transform it with better stories and tweaked gameplay.

But whatever. It's not like it's conceivable.
 

popsicledeath

Potato del Grande
7,547
11,831
Well this pretty much invalidates any good posts you've ever made.
I've made good posts?! Why thanks!

I'd have rather they just put higher res textures on existing models, but I don't think the Luclin models looked worse. Mostly just different, and everyone hated different. I didn't like the models that completely changed the vibe of the characters, like Troll or Ogre, but an elf's and elf and I didn't really give a shit.
 

Merlin_sl

shitlord
2,329
1
You basically need to make a new game with a modern engine,
I'm not a developer or any expert with back-end systems etc...but I do know I have played Vanguard on and off since beta and in fact my wife and I were playing it a few months ago and it ran. Servers were up, quests were working, characters seemed fine. Sure, still had the chunking, same ol' there but it we were having fun. If its running, I don't see the need for a "whole new game". But maybe your a developer with experience in large MMO's and server farms. Maybe your right.
 

Tol_sl

shitlord
759
0
I haven't played VG in a long time, but the vibe I remembered was that it turned so many people off because it was a 2007 release, yet everything about it felt hard to play. It wasn't well optimized, it chugged on a ton of systems, and just everything about it felt very patchwork. It's a shame, because I loved the world and class system, but it bled players so fast and gained such a bad rep that people never looked back. It seems like the sort of game where starting from scratch is a better idea than trying to rebuild it.
 

bayr_sl

shitlord
715
0
I'm not talking about turning VG into the next big thing. I don't think an RPG needs cutting edge graphics. I don't think the hitching is catastrophic. The fundamental mechanics exist to make an EQ-like experience with better graphics. Before the game was completely trivialized, level 40 through APW was a very EQ-like experience.

Vanguard has a lot of compelling content. It's a massive world with a lot of variety. A team of designers alone could transform it with better stories and tweaked gameplay.

But whatever. It's not like it's conceivable.
I said that really early on in this debacle. Fund a "Vanguard restoration project" or the "Turn Vanguard Around Foundation"

These guys will never build an entire MMO from scratch. They could have taken what is still a semi-recent traditional MMO and really polished it, fixed a lot of shitty things (I dont know what shitty things still exist) make it a little prettier and re-release it

There's certainly hurdles involved in that, but it's clear they aren't doing anything but pulling shit out of their asses on the fly here, they have nothing established at all.
 

Merlin_sl

shitlord
2,329
1
I haven't played VG in a long time, but the vibe I remembered was that it turned so many people off because it was a 2007 release, yet everything about it felt hard to play. It wasn't well optimized, it chugged on a ton of systems, and just everything about it felt very patchwork. It's a shame, because I loved the world and class system, but it bled players so fast and gained such a bad rep that people never looked back. It seems like the sort of game where starting from scratch is a better idea than trying to rebuild it.
Yea I agree. The name is forever ruined now.
 

Mr Creed

Too old for this shit
2,394
287
New KS to buy VG off SOE? If they accept the market value a_skeleton_03 can do it on his own even.
 

tad10

Elisha Dushku
5,534
601
I'm not a developer or any expert with back-end systems etc...but I do know I have played Vanguard on and off since beta and in fact my wife and I were playing it a few months ago and it ran. Servers were up, quests were working, characters seemed fine. Sure, still had the chunking, same ol' there but it we were having fun. If its running, I don't see the need for a "whole new game". But maybe your a developer with experience in large MMO's and server farms. Maybe your right.
I'm not a developer, but Vanguard as is and as was is not acceptable to the majority of players because of the engine. I played the hell out of that game but I put up with stuff that a lot of other gamers wouldn't, folks like you excepted.
 

bayr_sl

shitlord
715
0
I played vanguard in beta, I remember it being a 20gb download and that was such an absurd number to me at the time. I remember making a youtube video of a retarded looking wolf furry character punching something with the worst animations I've ever seen. It got like 3k viewers which is the most a youtube video of mine has ever made
 

Big Flex

Fitness Fascist
4,314
3,166
Vanguard would need like 10million to get restarted. New engine, many new art and animation assets, re itemization and all the post 50 stuff would have to go. It looks dated now.
Brad's been posting on the Kotaku article about Pantheon, and some of it is pretty humorous. I like this quote from him, responding to someone calling him out for not ever being in the Sigil offices during Vanguard development:

"The 'months' before launch I was out constantly talking to investors, trying to get us enough money so that we could finish the game. 1/16/14 8:07pm"

That's accurate, if you replace "months" with "year+," "investors" with "drug dealers", "money" with "oxycotin" and "game" with "party."
why fucking bother talking about that shit

edit: in ref to brad, not flc