Why all the nerd rage against Vanguard

No nerd rage against Vanguard here, I am glad that it turned itself around at the 11th hour. Been a few months since I played in the beta, and I thought it was the second coming of Jesus except for the fact that the performance blew ass on my computer, to the point of me giving up in frustration.

Now people are saying that the performance on average machines is a shit-ton better, and that was really the only shitty thing about it for me. Can"t wait to get in there myself and sink some ungodly amounts of time into it once my new addiction to Guild Wars runs its course.

I think people hate on VG because its both SOE related now (remember, hell, this board gained popularity for creative SOE hate) and its the spiritual successor to old school EQ; plus, of course, it isn"t possible to have TWO great games on the market at once, its only WoW or Vanguard and not both, amirite? Shit, its my opinion that WoW is the greatest MMO we will see for some time and is poised for many years as king of the hill; but that certainly doesn"t mean that Vanguard won"t kick ass, especially for people like me who still trust in the Vision and shit. You don"t have to hate one to like the other, you know?

In any case, researching Vanguard rage and its roots would make for a damn good psych paper if I was still in college, heh.

Quineloe said:

do you honestly believe anyone will become rich on a 200k sub game?

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As opposed to 3 years ago when having a 100k sub. game was considered an amazing success?

I needed to quote this for one of the best of the worst things I"ve ever seen written here. THIS is what most of the Vanguard haters are like. They take the most obscure shit about Vanguard and hang their hate on it like they are getting paid to do so.

To be fair though, the Vanbois take ANYTHING in Vanguard and herald it as the second coming of Robo-gaming-christ (other then Tad10 who is pretty down to earth.)

The two factions kinda even each other out, but man is it entertaining.

No one making a profit from200k sub.games. That kills me.

Or you said rich. Sorry to call your backdoor out of one of the most ignorant things I"ve read on this board. "I didn"t say they wouldn"t make aprofit,I said they wouldn"t be rich. Big Difference!"

I think it"s better to look at this in general terms: people for some reason tend to like to "pile on" when something "sucks." You can see this in pretty much every segment of popular culture. I don"t think that the amount of hate towards Vanguard is any different than what you see directed at the following:

360/PS3/Wii
EA vs 2k sports
Halo vs anything
GTA vs anything
GT vs anything
LOTR movies vs books
Linkin Park
Nickelback
Nike vs. Adidas
Ipod vs competitors
Republican vs Democrat
pretty much any popular consumer product

Like it or not, some people for some unknown reason invest a huge amount of their own time and identity into a certain product, whether negatively or positively (hater vs fan boy). And then for their own personal validation and gratification, spend inordinate amounts of time standing on a soap box screaming about it.

This is honestly something a psychologist or maybe even a sociologist should be doing research on, because with the advent of the internet and worldwide, anonymous, instantaneous forms of communication like blogs and message boards, this has become a HUGE part of popular culture.

Unfortunately, the only ones who seem to be clued into this are the scourge upon humanity we all know as marketers and advertisers.

edit: Something else also occurred to me. This is especially true in political debates, but this phenomenon is apparent in debates about pretty much anything online: you have to pick a side. It seems like 90% of the population these days is much happier living in a world of black and white, right and wrong. It"s much simpler that way. Instead of shades of grey, where my god someone with a different viewpoint than you might also NOT be wrong. I have no idea why this is. But Faltigoth mentioned it: maybe it"s possible that both WoW and VG are good games in their own right. Or maybe they BOTH suck. One being good doesn"t instantly preclude the other from being good as well. You can observe this in both positive and negative posts regarding VG, they"re almost always accompanied by comments about what it does better/worse than WoW.

Most VG haters started out as vanbois. Heck I was on the Sigil forums everyday prior to and during early beta. Unfulfilled potential can drive people nuts. Wtf did they do with their time and money for years before like three months to release?!

I picked the game up yesterday. My opinion of the game was originally neutral.

I was happy with WoW and did not bother looking into the game. Things changed. I plunked down the cash to get a new much needed computer and I wanted to test it out. So I bought Vanguard. People here were going on and on about performance so I thought it was a good benchmark.

From all the bitching I"ve read on here in the passed few months (and I enjoyed all the back and forth, it made for some entertaining reading). I don"t see where it came from. The game runs very well on setting between high quality and quality. The gameplay is standard MMO gameplay. Nothing new there, though atleast it"s not as twichy as EQ2 (yet), thankfully. The graphics are amazing. The modded UI""s make things better. I don"t miss WOW after a few days of not really playing it.

I did not to expect to like this game. But I do. The one thing that GOT me are the classes. The only thing that is really different, significantly IMO, from MMO to MMO in a fantasy genre are their classes and how they intereact. They did a good job making them all work differently together from what I"ve seen so far. I"m very eager to see what the rest of the game offers.

I"ve forgotten what it"s like not playing around 12 year olds.

Draegan said:

I"ve forgotten what it"s like not playing around 12 year olds.

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so true. back in beta i remember how the community was a bit more mature. there were still chuck norris jokes going around, but not every fucking minute. and i hate the new murloc movie bullshit going on in wow

Performance was extremely poor even a few weeks ago and was highly dependent on what your hardware was. Then it became a matter of doing the tweaks a couple of weeks ago and most people were finding it hugely better.

You also just bought a new puter.. It should run decent.

The game a month ago was scary in how bad it was going to crash at release. The game of a month ago isn"t there anymore, it was like some kind of magical switcharoo.

I think alot of the "vitriol" is a result of vanguard players victimizing the game. With no other game have I heard such fucking babies cry and whine when people say they don"t like the game/think it sucks.

You can pat it on the back all you want for going from a completely miserable experience to play to a somewhat mediocre one in the span of only 3 months all you want, but the game has had a hilarious history of being touted as the next gen supreme MMO of all time when it couldn"t have been any further from that.

It"s just a theory but I wouldn"t be surprised if SOE wrestled all creative control away from Brad for the months after their aquired publishing rights/possibly the IP. In those 3 years or however long he was developing this game it was a complete and utter fucking mess. It was awful. I wanted to like it when I got in beta, but I much like every other person there, couldn"t.

So at this point it"s either in the hands of that proven failure, or it"s in the hands of SOE, and either way I"m none too interested in playing it or entrusting them with my monthly sub in the hopes that they make the game better.

Is that okay with you sandy vag VG players? Or do we have to hear you guys whining about how we are conspiring to ruin this beautiful game before it sheds its cocoon and flaps its pretty butterfly wings for all the internet to see, and it has nothing to do with the fact that maybe we just don"t like it very much.

You know what else I don"t really like? TBC. It"s fucking boring and so much more of the same I"ve already cancelled my wow account for the nth time. I bet I won"t have to hear 47 threads of people telling me I"m just trying to ruin the game, or threatening to go buy wow and play it to spite me like I"ve heard VG players say.

And the game I do like and intend to play is LOTRO. That game is so far under anyones radar no one even talks about it here. There"s tons people can say about it or Turbine and I"d probably agree. I still enjoyed it in the stress test and I"m not going to bawl my eyes out every time someone speaks ill of it.

I"m really tired of the bullshit. Yeah at first it was entertaining, now it"s annoying.

I only jumped on board regarding the issue after I got tired of reading Brad"s constant "used carsalesman" whoring on the boards. Doesn"t impact me if VG succeeds or fails, so I have no rooting interest either way. I just don"t like the bullshit.

chaos said:

I"m really tired of the bullshit. Yeah at first it was entertaining, now it"s annoying.

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Heh, while it can be annoying, you may as well enjoy the ride. With people as passionate as they are about Vanguard on both sides of the fence (the haters and fans,) this isn"t going to let up for a long, long time.

Vanguard gets decent subs and decent reviews? The haters come in and knock it down as a failure no matter what the numbers are (using WoW as their measuring tool, of course. )

Vanguard flops in terms of reviews and subs? The fans come in here and blindly defend the game as a success in it"s own right (using Asheron"s Call as their measuring tool, of course.)

When either side comes in, the other side jumps in the thread and drama ensues. I should really stop peaking in the threads, but God help me, Vanguard threads are the car crashes of the FoH message board world and I just....can"t...look...away.

Wildstone said:

Because people say crap like this, and it just eggs on the Vanguard haters.

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If you can"t see the potential VG has over WoW I think you"re the one talking crap.

It"s too brown.

Seriously?

My hunch for the longest time has been that Vanguard appeals more to to the "serious" or "hardcore" roleplaying types whereas WoW appeals more to the gamer types. There just happens to be more of the latter category than the former.

I dunno. My view of Brad has always been of that one dude you always knew in high school who wore the Metallica t-shirts/shirts with a huge fucken dragon and played D&D and had Green River killer eyes. People who take their gaming way too seriously and really immerse themselves into the game and have their fun that way.

WoW just serves as an endorphin farm and is more about "hack and slash" than actual roleplaying.

I"m not trying to say that Vanguard is a game *just* for LARPers or hardcore RP types or whatever, it"s just that it seems the game is designed with that sort of approach in mind. The differences between VG and WoW are more than just mechanics and graphics, in other words.

There"s that, and the fact that a lot of people don"t forget the bullshit that was forcefed to them in the "glory days" of EQ. You beat a dog with a stick enough times, and it"ll come to fucking hate your guts.

Simple. People are tired of being fed hype only to have the game they became excited for turn out to be a complete disappointment.

Now, if you rage against a game and it turns out to be successful you end up being pleasantly surprised.

Weritech said:

The only positives you hit on weren"t exactly positive, just...

1.) It"s better than beta.
2.) It runs decently.
3.) It"s like EQ

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There really are a lot of true positives, and most of them have been touched on in the various threads.

1) Non-combat advancement. True character development via crafting and diplomacy. If there"s anything that sets Vanguard apart, that"s it. Many people have been wanting something like this for a long time. Depending on higher level interrelation, crafting may not work out well, but Diplomacy advancement seems to scale well.

2) More advanced combat. While only a step up from WoW/EQ2, it"s not quite the mindless button mashing. Detailed knowledge of your abilities and exploiting temporary weaknesses on NPCs make you actually pay attention. Yeah, it"s a bit twitchy and you"re watching for icons, if it becomes a "visual clue" on the actual NPC like the FAQs claimed, that would be a huge improvement.

3) It"s non-linear. Ok, you still level up and follow quest lines, but it"s not the WoW/EQ2 model where at level 6 you go to this part of the zone, then levels 10-15 are in the next zone... the quests hold your hand the whole way. It"s much more EQ"ish where you"re dropped in and have minimal guidance about where to go. You branch out very quickly.

So the OP may not have made great positive points, but there are some great things. Not fully fleshed out or "ready for release," but saying "It"s good, and has a ton of potential" is pretty damn accurate.

spentmotiff said:

As opposed to 3 years ago when having a 100k sub. game was considered an amazing success?

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1. No, in 2004 a hundred k wouldn"t have been "an amazing success"

2. Success doesn"t mean people become rich on it. Certainly not the developers.

I"m not trying to say that Vanguard is a game *just* for LARPers or hardcore RP types or whatever, it"s just that it seems the game is designed with that sort of approach in mind. The differences between VG and WoW are more than just mechanics and graphics, in other words.

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You ARE trying to say that there will be serious roleplaying in Vanguard, right? If so: lol

Its much like the development of Aliens 3, followup to two beloved wickedly awesome and very different movies. The movie had a budget squandered by numerous rewrites, sets being made and torn down, and going through various directors until they finally wound up making a low-budget film with a big movie price tag.

VG"s lack of sold foundation at ANY point of its development has made the end result less than the sum of what went into creating it. The various features that came and went in those remakes were mourned by those who didn"t get to see how poorly they worked out once implemented.

Anyway, something to do if/when I get tired of TBC I guess.

Nice, a thread discussing why there"s fanboys bagging on or exalting about a video game, has turned into a thread with fanboys bagging on or exalting their pet game.

spentmotiff said:

Heh, while it can be annoying, you may as well enjoy the ride. With people as passionate as they are about Vanguard on both sides of the fence (the haters and fans,) this isn"t going to let up for a long, long time.

Vanguard gets decent subs and decent reviews? The haters come in and knock it down as a failure no matter what the numbers are (using WoW as their measuring tool, of course. )

Vanguard flops in terms of reviews and subs? The fans come in here and blindly defend the game as a success in it"s own right (using Asheron"s Call as their measuring tool, of course.)

When either side comes in, the other side jumps in the thread and drama ensues. I should really stop peaking in the threads, but God help me, Vanguard threads are the car crashes of the FoH message board world and I just....can"t...look...away.

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Passionate is fine, that"s actually good and speaks to the game"s good qualities, even if it"s directed in a negative way. But seriously, every single VG thread has to be ruined by this stuff. I just read it at this point to see what kind of cool features they have added, like when Tad10 mentioned the weapon quests, that is a really cool feature and I"ll bet most people don"t know about it due to the fighting on the board.

Grown men and women, mindlessly identifying with corporate properties over which they have no control, so much so that real discussion cannot be had. I don"t know, maybe I just don"t care as much as these guys do. I mean I like WoW and I"m having fun playing it but I feel no need to go defend the honor of Blizzard in every VG thread.