Why all the nerd rage against Vanguard

Why They Rage

Frontline investigates... Nerd Rage

Lyrical said:

Title says it all. There has been so much vitriol against Vanguard. It is like when some products get launched with a ton of hype, but the opposite. I have never seen an MMO launched with so much negative-hype. Lately many people on these boards have stated that they hate VG because they want it to bring them back to the glory days. I am not sure if that comparison will ever make sense. Eq1 was my first game, and while I have fond memories of being in a virtual world for the first time, I have since then played just about every MMO launched, and have become a jaded gamer. The n00b sense of wonder is never going to come back, so why look for it? Its like the song by Sade called "It"s Never as Good as the First Time." But it seems like many want it to be like that Madonna song called "Touched for the Very First Time." That"s not going to happen again.

This game is nowhere near as bad as many people on this board are saying. To me, it has a very Velious like feel to it. Alot of the old mechanics in Eq1 (like kiting but with more risk) are back in VG. The gameplay seems a bit more free than we are getting in other MMO"s (like Eq2). The classes are fresh, and we are either seeing new classes or new takes on classes.

The only two things I don"t like about this game are TLC and performance. TLC is self-explanatory. As far as performance goes, it was so bad in beta that I deleted my VG off of my hard drive. With a medium level comp (3200 Athlon, ATI 9950 graphics card and 1 gig ram) I was only getting a pathetic 5 fps. However, since launch, I decided to give VG a second try. I added a gig of ram and put an NVIDIA 7800 GS OC, and am getting 25 to 30 fps with the graphics reso on the highest setting and the display set to balanced (and this is while fighting in the city). My new rig is hardly state of the art, but is running VG fine. I played for four hours last night with no probs until midnight where the server started glitching. Assuming they fix this, I think VG will be fine.

I started playing VG with very low expectations for it, other than I could add it to my Station Access and play it with Eq2 (and I planned on adding the DC MMO and other upcoming MMOs for a flat fee). The posters on this board lowered my expectations on the game with their rants on how VG sucked. I am finding this game to be much better than they said, and am wondering how many others of you think that VG has been better than the poor word of mouth it received throughout beta.

Click to expand...

Well said and a great question and certainly one we think about. I think there are misconceptions out there about the game and our intent. Our heritage making EQ 1 makes it so a lot of people automatically assume the game is only for the hardcore. I posted here and elsewhere (on other boards and our own message boards) for months before release talking about how the game is for casual, core, and hardcore players and our belief they can all co-exist in the same game. Unfortunately, a lot of people didn"t read those posts and assume Vanguard is more hard core because EQ 1 was. I think I failed in reaching out to a lot of people and spreading the word that this game is NOT hard core like the original EQ 1. I probably spent more time talking about the game to those already interested in it than reaching out to those who were not. Ah well, hindsight is 20/20.

A lot of people wanted a new game that was like EQ 1 up to the Velious period and I and others described Vanguard thusly. The good part of that is we got those people excited about the game. The bad part was that people who didn"t follow the game as closely didn"t hear the complete message, that being that the game also has lots of content for casual and core gamers -- it was like when I posted, I was just preaching to the choir. People who didn"t follow the message boards and only heard that Vanguard was made by the original EQ guys made assumptions that Vanguard would be just like EQ and require tons of time to play, that you had to raid, that you had to group constantly, etc.

Like I said, that message resonated with a lot of people in a positive way, but it also did harm in that those people who don"t want another EQ 1 were turned off when they heard about Vanguard but not all of the details behind the game. There were and are also a lot of "Vanbois" who spread the word that this game was not for WoW players and that people who like a more casual game like WoW were not welcome in Vanguard. In that sense, the messaging backfired and many people aren"t even giving the game a chance.

I think we could have reached out to those people on other boards in a better way and made sure people knew that casual gamers are indeed welcome in Vanguard. I also think that after level 12ish people are feeling that they have to group, and that is something we need to address. We also need better LFG tools so that people can find groups. We were over-worried that the newbie areas would be over crowded and now we face some under population as people level up and spread out over the large world that is Telon. That is why we are working on making the LFG tools better, looking into adding some overland teleportation, etc. Under population is actually worse than over population because it can be difficult to find people to play with and this hurts community building.

We also need to change our messaging in ads, both online and in print, and attempt to dispel the assumption some people are making that Vanguard is only hardcore. In reality we very much understand that the gamespace has grown and evolved. People who had a lot of time on their hands and played a ton of EQ have grown up, got jobs, families, etc. Even those who played EQ a ton of hours and had a blast for years playing that game now are in situations where while they had fun with EQ want a different game that requires less overall time invested and especially less amounts of contiguous time and the ability to play more casually. Like I said, I think we need to make some changes to the game (nothing fundamental, but some tweaks here and there), but the even bigger problem is that many people aren"t even trying the game out because they"ve already made up their minds that Vanguard = EQ 1.

Some of this will be addressed through viral marketing. As those who are playing the game enjoy Vanguard, they will tell their friends that this game is not as hard core and nearly as tedious as EQ 1. This will help, but I also think we need to be more proactive in spreading the word about what Vanguard is really like. Heck, even people who are giving the game a chance have misconceptions. I was grouped around level 10 and we got into a situation where we were in the floating cities above Jalen"s Crossing and died a few times and just couldn"t get back to our corpses to do a CR. We ending up dying several times. I said forget it, and went to the altar and just summoned my corpse to me (something you could NOT do in EQ 1). I advised the others in my pick-up group to do the same and they didn"t know you could do that! They thought you HAD to CR, just like EQ 1. Man, that was an eye-opener. I think there are people who truly believe you either have to CR or that the penalties for summoning your corpse to the altar are so bad that you never want to do it. And it some cases, at higher levels, and depending on what mob you die to, the penalties *are* too severe, and we need to make some changes. But just as importantly, perhaps even more importantly, we need to get the word out that you don"t have to CR in the vast majority of cases, and that also in the vast majority of cases summoning your corpse to the altar where you pop up when you die does NOT include a heinous penalty; rather, that"s why we put that functionality in there. Having to CR in Vanguard is the exception, not the rule -- only in fighting extremely difficult mobs where you and your party knowingly accept the risk vs. reward of fighting specific boss mobs likely in the depths of dungeons do you take the risk of having to CR (or get your corpse dragged out) assuming you totally wipe and don"t have someone who survives on hand to resurrect you. And I think that"s just one powerful example of false assumptions that are being made about the game, either by people playing it (who may get frustrated when they actually don"t have to) or by people who have heard about the game and figure, again, that it"s hardcore and an old school MMOG with updated graphics. Ah! This is frustrating, but we will get the message out.

No, we"re not talking about changing the game to be a lot more similar to WoW. We"re not trying to make a WoW clone. The game is more challenging, and it does take longer to level up, but not a lot longer really -- we"ve timed it. And the additional challenge is optional -- you don"t have to play Vanguard the way you had to play earlier MMOGs unless you want to. So as long as we can make leveling up less tedious, make sure there are ways to advance even if you only have a little time that day to play, etc. I think we"ll be in good shape.

There are a lot of emotions out there. Strong ones. You have people, like I mentioned, that while they enjoyed EQ 1 back in the day, want a game that has the good parts of EQ 1 but not the tedious nature of it, or the necessity to play crazy hours, or to raid constantly. Those people I think, or at least most of them, will enjoy Vanguard if they give it a chance. But first we need to penetrate these assumptions and perceptions.

Then there"s the whole WoW vs Vanguard issue where many people think that if they enjoy WoW they won"t like Vanguard or vice versa. This is in part again to those pre-conceptions, but also our fan base has contributed to this stereotype. (sorry Vanguard fans, I don"t mean to generalize here, but there has been a negative vibe, a polarizing vibe, even with me and others posting that this game is inclusive not exclusive).

Then there"s the issue that Vanguard is a different game and won"t appeal to everyone. Some people like that, and some people don"t. It was always our desire to make a game where casual, core, and hard core players could co-exist and you can certainly solo or play casually in Vanguard and have a great time. But then there are also people who simply don"t want to group. We need to make sure as many of those people can and will still have fun in Vanguard. Again, the game isn"t designed to appeal to everyone and some casual players won"t like Vanguard no matter what. And that"s ok -- we didn"t set out to make a game that is all things to all people. But I think quite a few people who have inaccurate preconceptions about the game actually will enjoy the game if they give it a chance. In fact, I know quite a few. The challenge is to get them to try it.

Then there are some of the controversial aspects of Vanguard -- a huge world with hopefully meaningful travel, no instancing, etc. When some people hear about these aspects of Vanguard that seem "retro" they automatically assume the game isn"t for them, that it"s old school and that we decided to ignore modern MMOGs and were stuck blindly in the past when designing this game. We need to reach out to those people and explain where we embraced modern MMOG ideas and concepts but also why we chose to build on "older" foundations, not because we"re stubbornly set in our ways, but more so because Vanguard needs to be something different, and a combination of new, revolutionary ideas combined with an evolutionary and proven foundation. And the "vision" can and does change and learn -- as we"ve mentioned, we are seriously considering some overland teleportation to take some of the tediousness out of travel. We can and will adapt, and we can do so without making a game that is a clone of another game -- the MMOG gamespace is certainly large and mature enough to support games with their own identity and also large enough where people deserve choices. So overall I think a lot of people will end up enjoying the game once they give it a chance.

In a sense the more controversial aspects of Vanguard have been a blessing and a curse. The game is selling very well, but it could do even better if we could get this message out, that more casual people can and are enjoying the game -- that soloing or playing in small groups is a viable and fun way to play the game. Yes, you can get more rewards out of grouping and Vanguard is a game mostly targeted at the core gamer who enjoys grouping. But again, that"s not mutually exclusive with casual gamers having fun too.

We also included features that appeal to more casual players and players with different tastes. We have a robust and fun crafting and harvesting system. We have diplomacy which is enjoyable and is done soloing. We put in housing and the ability to own mounts and ships because we wanted to get the UO/SWG player to enjoy the game as well, and not just the EQ 1 player. But again, getting that message out to those who didn"t frequent our official boards before release has been a challenge.

We made it clear how Vanguard differs from other more modern MMOGs. I think this has had both positive and negative effects. It attracted many people who wanted a modern MMOG that is still built on the tried and true foundation of older MMOGs and MUDs. But then it also created controversy and assumptions that Vanguard was just another EQ 1 with updated graphics. In reality, while the game does build on the past, it"s also different and takes into account that the gamespace has evolved and that many players don"t want a total re-hash of the past. So again, this appealed to those who followed the game closely before launch, but at the same time created misconceptions amongst those who didn"t follow the game as closely.

Sometimes controversy is good, and sometimes it"s bad. Again, I think better messaging and viral marketing will help here. But to answer your question, I think that"s why there"s been such polarizing opinions out there -- the Vanguard lovers and haters. EQ 1 created so many emotions, both positive and negative. In fact, I don"t know if there"s been another game where people have become so emotional both while playing and after they"d finished playing. I still run into people and when they find out my involvement with EQ I tense up a little bit, not knowing if they"ll get all excited and tell me about all the great times they had, all the people they met and are still friends with, or how they met their spouse in-game, thanking me profusely for producing the game... or if they"ll look at me in a not so friendly way and make sure I know how they dropped out of college, or how the game, in their opinion, caused friction between them and their loved ones, etc. So we need to reach out to the "haters" because I know a lot of them would love Vanguard if they gave it a chance -- Vanguard is truly a game where we learned from the past and we know people have changed. I know people who were burned out years ago with EQ 1 style games but who love Vanguard, so I know this is doable. It"s just easier said than done.

Then there"s the issue of us releasing a bit early because of us having to release when we did due to financial issues. And then there"s the fact that we released so close to the WoW expansion. That didn"t help either, at least short term. I am confident though that as people finish up with the expansion, that many WoW gamers will migrate to Vanguard. People want something new in their lives, and that includes MMOGs. WoW is a fantastic game, but Vanguard is designed with additional polish but also additional depth and freedom to experience more from a virtual world.

So while the game continues to sell well and churn is low, I think we could have done even better had we more effectively addressed what you mentioned and what I talked about above. I"m not worried -- I know Vanguard is a great game and getting better every patch. But at the same time, I"m not as happy as I could be about the negativity and controversy surrounding the game, when we launched the game, etc. We will recover and get the message out, of that I am certain. And in a sense, we did know some of this would happen -- again, there are those drawn to Vanguard because of our EQ heritage, but we also knew that there would be those who would be turned off by that same heritage. The answer is like I said to get better messaging out there, to reach out to those people, to have those who did buy the game and who are enjoying it spread the word to the more cautious or cynical MMOG gamers.

I think we have three groups of people we want to target with this game.

1. People who look back at EQ fondly and want a new game that is built on the foundation and heritage we have. Those people are primarily the ones buying the game and playing it like crazy.

2. People who look back at EQ and either never enjoyed it or enjoyed it immensely but whose lives have changed and don"t want to play an updated EQ 1. I think a great number of those people can be reached and will end up playing the game and enjoying it. We learned a lot over the years, from our triumphs and mistakes. Challenge doesn"t have to equal tedium. Advancement doesn"t have to mean tons of contiguous hours played, families and jobs ignored, etc. Some people within this group are simply done with games like Vanguard period, but I think a lot of them aren"t and won"t be when they find out that Vanguard is different than EQ 1 in the ways that are no longer compatible with their lifestyle. I also think the more UO-esque elements of Vanguard that were not present in EQ 1 will help make the game more appealing to old school MMOG players who were more interested in a broad rather than deep game. There is a lot more to do in Vanguard than there ever was to do in EQ 1 -- a lot more sandbox, broad, etc. activities like building houses, sailing ships, etc. And when we get full city building in, players will be able to run vendors, enjoy an RTS element, and much more. Lastly in this group are the PvPers and I think as we continue to make our PvP servers better and more varied that more PvP players will be attracted to the game.

3. New gamers or gamers for whom WoW was their first MMOG. Reaching out to them is also a challenge. Many still enjoy WoW, which is fine, and especially are enjoying it now that Burning Crusade is out. As I"ve posted for months, perhaps years, I am confident that some percentage of WoW players will end up looking for a deeper game like Vanguard, where there is a lot more to do and experience. And as I"ve posted in the past, it doesn"t have to be a huge percentage of WoW players for us to reach 500,000+ subscribers in the first year or so. But, of course, launching so close to the WoW expansion hurt us in this area short term. But they will come

Lastly, there"s the art style, being more like EQ 2, using more modern technology -- shaders, bump mapping, specularity, etc. Some people when they look at screenshots of Vanguard assume it is a game much more like EQ 2 than WoW. Here again I am confident that our decision to use newer technology will allow us to keep the game current for years to come. But in the short term, people who stayed with EQ 1 or moved to WoW because they didn"t like the looks of EQ 2, or are having performance issues, or who assume Vanguard plays just like EQ 2 -- these people need to be reached as well, because Vanguard is its own game and plays differently and is not an EQ 2 clone any more than it is a WoW clone -- it"s a different experience and will become even more so as the game continues to evolve. People will be buying better machines, and we will continue to optimize, and as other games (not just MMOGs) come out that use newer technology (FPS games, etc.), people won"t assume as much that Vanguard = EQ 2 just because they use similar tech; rather they"ll simply see a modern game with an incredibly immersive world and setting.

So, anyway, that"s what I think. We have some hurdles to over come, but I"m confident we can and are overcoming them. The word is getting out. The game is controversial. Our heritage in being involved with EQ 1 is controversial -- a blessing and a curse. But as more and more positive reviews of the game come out, as we continue to optimize and fix bugs, as we continue to add polish, and as people who are playing and enjoying the game tell their friends about it, the game will grow and become that much more popular. It"s hard to compete in the gamespace now with WoW being such a giant. But then it can also be very advantageous to offer an alternative to the "mainstream". Look at DAoC back in the EQ days -- that game was never as popular as EQ, but was still a great game and found a solid niche and did very well. And now they"ve been bought by EA and have some tremendous opportunities ahead of them. I think the same is true for Vanguard -- the Vanguard lovers will mellow and enjoy the game and spread the word, and the Vanguard haters will relax and the more they hear about the game and that it"s not more of the same, or too retro, or too hard core, they"ll give the game a chance too.

In the meantime we"ll continue to make the game better, fix bugs, make tweaks, add some very cool features. And we"ll make sure people know that you don"t have to grind unless you want to, that you can play casually, that you have multiple advancement paths and don"t have to fight all of the time. We"ll make sure people know that you don"t have to CR -- that you can summon your corpse at the altar. We"ll make sure that skipping CRs isn"t as painful as it is. We"ll add some teleporters. We"ll make sure that while grouping remains the focus, that we make better LFG and even matchmaking functionality. The word about how fun harvesting and crafting is will spread. The newness of diplomacy where you don"t have to fight to advance, where you can find out the lore and storyline without having to hack and slash all of the time will get out there -- there"s already been some very positive reviews where people are very excited about this third sphere of gameplay. The community will grow. The controversy and love-hate feelings will subside and having more options when it comes to MMOGs will appeal to more and more people. After all, people like choices.

Anyway, those are my thoughts as to "why they rage", the controversy, and all the emotions surrounding this game. Thanks for listening

*bow*

Excellent post Brad, and I am very very thankful for you posting this.

I want to ask a very specific question though, which you may or may not want to answer. Originally, in the earlier Vanguard betas, Sigil"s stance on solo advancement and how hard a game should be was completely different.

I think you and your designers decided to take a good honest look at WoW"s success and decided that people DID want to have the ability to solo meaningfully, and the game got made a lot more solo friendly and in my view improved a lot. It takes a lot of courage to go back and change your design, and in my opinion, this change was very needed and very well done.

Then there"s the whole WoW vs Vanguard issue where many people think that if they enjoy WoW they won"t like Vanguard or vice versa. This is in part again to those pre-conceptions, but also our fan base has contributed to this stereotype. (sorry Vanguard fans, I don"t mean to generalize here, but there has been a negative vibe, a polarizing vibe, even with me and others posting that this game is inclusive not exclusive).

Then there"s the issue that Vanguard is a different game and won"t appeal to everyone. Some people like that, and some people don"t.

Click to expand...

The reason this issue cropped up, is that ORIGINALLY vanguard was targetted to be a lot more hardcore and a lot less friendly towards casuals, and a lot of the original people who signed up for the beta were people who were fans of this gamestyle. When you guys did some absolutely fantastic changes, you ended up with a very loud bunch of people who signed up to play a game that was different to what Vanguard is now, and that left a very polarizing atmosphere.

Hindsight is of course 20/20, but don"t you feel that a lot of the problems that you faced with the image that Vanguard portrarys were due to the way you portrayed yourself in the beginning?

jeesus fucking christ stevie wonder at the podium

Aradune Mithara said:

Brad?s version of War and Peace.

Click to expand...

Holy cow Brad, that?s quite the novel. Been keeping things bottled up have we?

Anyhow the game is going to be fine, ya just should not have released it so soon.
I have a bet running with UT you have till the 24 of April to tweak this thing to solid or I lose.

Don"t let me down.

Aradune Mithara said:

stuff

Click to expand...

This is why all the nerd rage against vanguard, this post. I know its all the rage to bag against vanguard, and Brad himself and I"ll say I dont play VG or any MMORPG atm.

But these type of fluff posts piss me off because they dont say anything. Whats the point of this? Its all a shill speak, while it might be interesting to read for some people but most people will tune it out and say eff you. I, and I would assume most people would rather read a post by Nino or Tagad because they get to the point and have substance in what they say without a lot of fluff.

You knew the world was going to be huge, and people level up and move on and unless you"re adding 100k+ players a month the newbie levels area"s will always be under populated. Yes it sucks to have overcrowded newbie area"s but those people will move on and then you have alot of space without alot of players and then it is discouraging to not find any new friends to level up with. You should have few newbie area"s(very polished and fun), tons of mid level to upper level content because thats where most players traditionally end up, and then alot but maybe not as much of max level and high end raiding content.

You need portals with a huge world, even something as simple as the 4 Luclin spires with maybe a little quest to activate each one or something. Mounts and flying mounts shouldnt be "this is how you"re gonna travel from one end to another" as mounts should be used for small distance travel imo. As for the altars maybe you should have newbie quests that revolve around an altar in that area to explain (even if it is somewhat vague to protect "the mystery") what they do like some single player games do.

You need to drop your expansion team for the moment and fix all the bugs that piss people off. That should be your absolute first priority, not class balance, not adding city building and that other stuff. Get your game as bug free as its going to get now and then worry about the other stuff. As other people have said, they could deal with their class getting nerfed if they didnt have to deal with CTD"s or other annoying bugs. I understand that you can only put so many people on a project but this should be your absolute #1 priority and the more people you have working on finding, classifying, and fixing bugs the better.

We also need to change our messaging in ads, both online and in print, and attempt to dispel the assumption some people are making that Vanguard is only hardcore. In reality we very much understand that the gamespace has grown and evolved. People who had a lot of time on their hands and played a ton of EQ have grown up, got jobs, families, etc. Even those who played EQ a ton of hours and had a blast for years playing that game now are in situations where while they had fun with EQ want a different game that requires less overall time invested and especially less amounts of contiguous time and the ability to play more casually. Like I said, I think we need to make some changes to the game (nothing fundamental, but some tweaks here and there), but the even bigger problem is that many people aren"t even trying the game out because they"ve already made up their minds that Vanguard = EQ 1.

Click to expand...

That quote has always bothered me and I see it on occasion but there are always going to be new players to a genre that do not have those time constraints. This board started out along time ago and its members have aged and come across new responsibilities that do not include camping 30 hours for Raster or Quillmane, but there are tons of new players that are HS/younger college age that dont have those time constraints. If companies are only courting those older EQ generation type of players then this industry will fizzle out in time. As a company you can not count on recycling the "old guard" without courting a new generation of gamers, they are out there as we all where back in 99-2000. This is one thing that Blizzard understands and is one of the reasons for their success.

Gnome Eater said:

Hindsight is of course 20/20, but don"t you feel that a lot of the problems that you faced with the image that Vanguard portrarys were due to the way you portrayed yourself in the beginning?

Click to expand...

I second this. Aradune was quite emphatic in the beginning that Vanguard would be a "deeper" game than WoW, and that their main target audience would be "core" gamers (but that the game would also have content for casuals and hardcores) and so on. The perceptions about Vanguard right now are exactly what SGO cultivated from the start, and those perceptions have a lot of momentum.

biiig post! I don"t have time to read it, but it"s awesome that he"d post here.

Eomer said:

I second this.

Click to expand...

And I"ll third it. Expectations were not managed one iota during development and beta. People sat on the general forums dreaming of candy canes and gumdrops, speaking with "authority" about exactly how the game would be based on the FAQ.. and Sigil let it run rampant. When the game turned out to be absolutely nothing like people envisioned, we got nothing but spin and double-speak.

Sigil could have nipped it in the bud by addressing the posts, thoughts and opinions that were extremely widespread, but instead they let people think whatever was popular and generating buzz on the forums. It was all under the guise of "sekrit sauce" and not wanting to spill the beans, but in reality I think it was due to not having a clue on what to do next and everything that was tried was a bust.

Perhaps VG isn"t foryou...

uh, or maybe it is now...

Who knows!

Aradune Mithara said:

In the meantime we"ll continue to make the game better, fix bugs, make tweaks, add some very cool features. And we"ll make sure people know that you don"t have to grind unless you want to, that you can play casually, that you have multiple advancement paths and don"t have to fight all of the time. We"ll make sure people know that you don"t have to CR -- that you can summon your corpse at the altar. We"ll make sure that skipping CRs isn"t as painful as it is. We"ll add some teleporters. We"ll make sure that while grouping remains the focus, that we make better LFG and even matchmaking functionality.

Click to expand...

Tell, you what. When you get all that in game and fixed, and kick in some fun, maybe I"ll give it a retry. When you can take the tedium out of having to travel for 45 minutes to meet up with your group, maybe I"ll give it a retry. Actually, when you take the tedium out, period, maybe I"ll retry. As a beta 2 tester, I tried to get that message to you and the rest of the Dev"s, and what I got back was, "Maybe this game isn"t for you." And now you"re trying to tell me, "whoops, uh, actually it is..."? Which is it?

You want to cover solo and grouping play? Take a look at EQ2 today and see how they do it. Make it so the goal of the game is to have fun, not work and be punished for failing.

Aradune Mithara said:

The word about how fun harvesting and crafting is will spread.

Click to expand...

Good luck with that one.

And while you"re rethinking some decisions, you might want to rethink that not having official boards one. You"re a big proponent of building a community, and yet the first thing you do is cut off access to those that play the game and want to give back feedback. Not to mention that it makes it frustrating to those who might be interest in buying the game and checking it out.

Actually, cutting the community forums was a great idea, since it became pretty much an echo chamber of people frustrated that Vanguard didn"t conform to their vision, and you seem to be unhappy you cannot be on their boards bitching up a storm.

Negativity breeds negativity, and loudmouthed whiners will squash out any positive discussions.

One of my biggest complaints was that the only way of getting feedbacks to the developers during beta was through batphone usage, since any constructive thread about a specific aspect of the game got hijacked by whiners who tried to use it as a soapbox to whine about general unhappyness.

I don"t think the problem at any point was the game, I think that just due to the initial early advertisement and a poor choice of selection of beta-players, the people who were the loudest fanboys of Vanguard were absolutely atrocious at giving out useful feedback.

Aradune Mithara said:

Some of this will be addressed through viral marketing. As those who are playing the game enjoy Vanguard, they will tell their friends that this game is not as hard core and nearly as tedious as EQ 1. This will help, but I also think we need to be more proactive in spreading the word about what Vanguard is really like. Heck, even people who are giving the game a chance have misconceptions. I was grouped around level 10 and we got into a situation where we were in the floating cities above Jalen"s Crossing and died a few times and just couldn"t get back to our corpses to do a CR. We ending up dying several times. I said forget it, and went to the altar and just summoned my corpse to me (something you could NOT do in EQ 1). I advised the others in my pick-up group to do the same and they didn"t know you could do that! They thought you HAD to CR, just like EQ 1. Man, that was an eye-opener. I think there are people who truly believe you either have to CR or that the penalties for summoning your corpse to the altar are so bad that you never want to do it. And it some cases, at higher levels, and depending on what mob you die to, the penalties *are* too severe, and we need to make some changes. But just as importantly, perhaps even more importantly, we need to get the word out that you don"t have to CR in the vast majority of cases, and that also in the vast majority of cases summoning your corpse to the altar where you pop up when you die does NOT include a heinous penalty; rather, that"s why we put that functionality in there. Having to CR in Vanguard is the exception, not the rule -- only in fighting extremely difficult mobs where you and your party knowingly accept the risk vs. reward of fighting specific boss mobs likely in the depths of dungeons do you take the risk of having to CR (or get your corpse dragged out) assuming you totally wipe and don"t have someone who survives on hand to resurrect you. And I think that"s just one powerful example of false assumptions that are being made about the game, either by people playing it (who may get frustrated when they actually don"t have to) or by people who have heard about the game and figure, again, that it"s hardcore and an old school MMOG with updated graphics. Ah! This is frustrating, but we will get the message out.

Click to expand...

One TINY suggestion here as well. Change the location of the point on the altar that needs to be clicked to summon. In some cases its rather hard to reach and also contributes in a small way to people not realizing its even there.

That article is good stuff;P

Fury said:

And while you"re rethinking some decisions, you might want to rethink that not having official boards one. You"re a big proponent of building a community, and yet the first thing you do is cut off access to those that play the game and want to give back feedback. Not to mention that it makes it frustrating to those who might be interest in buying the game and checking it out.

Click to expand...

Hell no. I love the lack of an official forum. They just need to impliment a central tracker that shows all the dev posts across all the community sites.

Mithrull said:

One TINY suggestion here as well. Change the location of the point on the altar that needs to be clicked to summon. In some cases its rather hard to reach and also contributes in a small way to people not realizing its even there.

Click to expand...

Totally agreed -- this is in the works.

Am I the only one experiencing deja vu after reading this?

Hey Brad....thx for stopping by /wave. - Silky Venom

Brad = Tigole; Vanguard = WoW???

Am I the only one experiencing deja vu after reading this?

Click to expand...

What I love is the misconception that even 2% of the posters here are actually FOH members. Right there on the first page they mention "thousands of FOH members" which is hilarious.

hay guyz, I"m in FOH! I"m uber!