Why all the nerd rage against Vanguard

Alarion said:

Was the experience really that bad for you? I don"t find it hardcore, though, my main is all of level 18. So yeah - I have a ways to go still. But I have been able to solo/duo for the most part, with a very casual schedule. Maybe this changes at later levels, but so far, I have enjoyed being able to login and get some stuff done in a few hours (yes yes, it can actually be done).

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The hardcore remark is a response to xregg"s 6 word post, 3 of which were the word hardcore, on another thread.

And the entire MMO genre is a gigantic festering pile of shit right now so yeah the experience was bad, but no worse than playing any other MMO out there

I wanted to say a few things.

I play Vanguard everyday. I"m only level 32 still, because I"m still involved in EQ2. I play on Targonor.

I"ve found VG to be far more playable since the game update last week than it was previously. The game has problems for sure, but those problems seem to be consistently lessened each week.

The recent chronic CTD problem was almost a game ender for me. It had me crashing to desktop a few times each hour, and somehow always while I was invis with lev over high agro mobs.

But, the CTD problem has been completely fixed for me at least as of the last update - I can run high quality very smoothly now on my 8800GTX card with quad core processor no problem, and literally have not crashed one time since the update, even after 8+ hours of nonstop play per day.

I figured everyone sophisticated enough about MMOGs to know about the existence of this board would also be aware of the fact that VG was going to release early and with problems. Those who purchased and subscribed with that knowledge, in my view, agreed to buy an unfinished game. The issue as I see it now is not whether the game has problems or how many, but is the game at least playable, and is Sigil doing enough to resolve these problems and make the game stable enough to give me confidence in its future. Like I said, I"m finding the game very playable right now, and it seems to be getting better and better each week.

To those of us who"ve lived through past problems with EQ and EQ2, these problems seem par for the course. I expected problems like this when I subscribed. I subscribed anyway, despite the problems, because I feel this is an amazing game in so many ways, I haven"t felt an MMOG addiction like this since early Kunark in EQ.

I wanted to also comment on the discussion about death penalty in Vanguard. I think the current death penalty scheme is about right. The problem is when the penalty is too steep, most players don"t want to group in hard dungeons or go deep. That is where I like to play.

I think it"s mandatory in MMOGs now that players can at least get their corpse back with a stiff exp penalty after their group wipes at 3 A.M. There is nothing worse than trying to do a corpse run where everyone who was lucky enough to live through the evac mysteriously goes LD and leaves the naked players to recover their own corpses. So Vanguard offers a "safety net" for this - you can get your corpse back without a CR, but you"ll have to give back about a full hours exp if you do that. Sometimes it"s just worth the cost.

When the penalty for death is too harsh, I think most players just never use dungeons, and you end up with an game filled with bad players who never learn how to play. You all remember the type - the people in EQ who leveled up in the Overthere and other overland zones instead of in Chardok and Old Seb. People who level in dungeons are usually more highly skilled players than people who didn"t. When the death penalty is too steep, a great number of players will never take the risk of learning how to play in dungeons, and will suck at their class for the remainder of their time in that game. So I commend Sigil for giving players the incentive to suck less by having a reasonable death penalty.

Thanks.

Vaxxx said:

It"s really not that bad, I am 23 (almost 24) and have played what I would consider casually over the last 6 weeks or so. I have yet to do an actual grind session. 99% of my grouping exp is grouping with two other people.

I play for around 2-4 hours max 3-4 nights a week. I never even logged on this double EXP weekend and only got around 8 hours in the last one.

If you only want to do adventuring, and you want the best stuff expect to play more. If you like to do some diplomacy (I do) or crafting (I don"t) then that stuff can easily eat up time by yourself.

This game really isn"t hardcore like EQ was, there is ALWAYS something to do up to at least level 30.

if you enjoyed EQ but would like more content and more stuff to see and do then give it a shot. However don"t expect to have the best gear. of course you can become a crafter master, make tons of gold and then just buy all the best gear on the auction house.

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I see.

I don"t like WoW, and Vanguard seems to offer an EQ like experience with less of the pain of EQ. That"s why I"m interested.

Do you guys think they"ll have all the bugs worked out soon? It"s really, really hard for me to drop $50 on this game. Any idea when the price might drop?

Sithro said:

I see.

I don"t like WoW, and Vanguard seems to offer an EQ like experience with less of the pain of EQ. That"s why I"m interested.

Do you guys think they"ll have all the bugs worked out soon? It"s really, really hard for me to drop $50 on this game. Any idea when the price might drop?

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Most bugs really wont effect you. They gotten most of the big ones out of the game. The only ones i have is invis dropping while zoning over. I dont like to say chunk, its zoning until technology catches up .

Like i have said before, i run a amd 3400. ati1600 512 and 1 gig of ram, btw the ram is 2 different speeds and i run the game fine. I could use more ram though. Will get that soon.

I have a 7800GT, 2 gigs of RAM, and a 3700 AMD Processor. Since I bought this a while back, it"s outdated, but still plenty enough to play most modern games.

What do they still need to fix, though? I hear there"s still a lot of problems.

Sithro said:

It"s really, really hard for me to drop $50 on this game. Any idea when the price might drop?

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I don"t know what the future will bring for bug fixes. I think VG is pretty playable now, others disagree with me. In my view, it depends on your imperfection threshold. If you aren"t expecting perfection, and you are the type who can live with things working within reason, most of the time, I figure that now is as good a time as any.

I think one thing that limited the number of people who subscribed on release day was the $49 retail software cost. I believe they would have signed up far more on opening day at $29 or even $39. It isn"t a lot to me, but I was surprised when talking to friends how much the $49 software cost really acted as sticker shock to a lot of people. Had the cost been lower, I think a lot more people would have jumped in at the beginning - many took a wait and see attitude instead - and are still waiting as you are.

I think what VG needs, right now, is a large influx of players. It"s a great game, and I really believe that. I believe Sigil/SoE could spike new users with an immediate license fee reduction to $29 or even $39. There would be tremendous wailing and gnashing of teeth by those who"ve already paid the higher price, but since SoE is involved, most people would see that as par for the course.

Elleffgee said:

I don"t know what the future will bring for bug fixes. I think VG is pretty playable now, others disagree with me. In my view, it depends on your imperfection threshold. If you aren"t expecting perfection, and you are the type who can live with things working within reason, most of the time, I figure that now is as good a time as any.

I think one thing that limited the number of people who subscribed on release day was the $49 retail software cost. I believe they would have signed up far more on opening day at $29 or even $39. It isn"t a lot to me, but I was surprised when talking to friends how much the $49 software cost really acted as sticker shock to a lot of people. Had the cost been lower, I think a lot more people would have jumped in at the beginning - many took a wait and see attitude instead - and are still waiting as you are.

I think what VG needs, right now, is a large influx of players. It"s a great game, and I really believe that. I believe Sigil/SoE could spike new users with an immediate license fee reduction to $29 or even $39. There would be tremendous wailing and gnashing of teeth by those who"ve already paid the higher price, but since SoE is involved, most people would see that as par for the course.

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Yeah, it"s really turning me off, also. I look at it like this. I can buy WoW for $19.99, and EQII for $39.99. Both of them are very polished, and have a pretty big player base.

On the other hand, I can pay $49.99 for Vanguard in an unpolished state with a much smaller player base.

It just seems illogical at this point.

I"m really sad for Sigil and Brad, I"m honestly sad for them. I was a big fan of Sigil and Bard since day 1. Since the site was opened and we had no idea what they were going to make.

It"s a shame, it really is.

Sithro said:

I have a 7800GT, 2 gigs of RAM, and a 3700 AMD Processor. Since I bought this a while back, it"s outdated, but still plenty enough to play most modern games.

What do they still need to fix, though? I hear there"s still a lot of problems.

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imo, they need to fix the losing autorun/invis while chunking. Class Balance, but that more then likely wont ever get done. They constantly even tweak balance in EQ. Anyways, some memory leaks. Its gotten tons better lately. The dropping group bug. That only happens when your very far away from your group. Hasnt happend to me in a while though.


Thats really about it. I havent had anything horrible happen to me. I feel through the world a time or 2 in the first 2 weeks of launch. Other then that. It"s a very fun game. Dungeon designs are just awesome. Loved Patheon of the Ancient. Dungeon owned.

Sithro said:

Yeah, it"s really turning me off, also. I look at it like this. I can buy WoW for $19.99, and EQII for $39.99. Both of them are very polished, and have a pretty big player base.

On the other hand, I can pay $49.99 for Vanguard in an unpolished state with a much smaller player base.

It just seems illogical at this point.

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If you buy games based on player base and polish itisillogical. I don"t, personally.

It took years to build EQ"s polish and player base. The core and the fundamentals of the game were fun and that"s what kept me playing despite a clear lack of polish, and I could really care less about the player base as long as my server had players. Likewise, if EQ had tons of polish and a gigantic player base, but I didn"t like the core, fundamental game play, I wouldn"t play it.

In my mind, for an mmo, playerbase and polish are not anywhere near the top priorities for deciding if I want to drop $50 on a game that sounds interesting. They might be top criteria for some people, and I won"t shit on that- that"s cool for you.

But then, honestly, $50 every now and again for potential entertainment just isn"t that much if you ask me. I piss $50 in alcohol on any given night out with my friends, so I don"t usually sweat the occasional game purchases- especially ones that might lead to many hours of enjoyment.

Goliath said:

I"m really sad for Sigil and Brad, I"m honestly sad for them. I was a big fan of Sigil and Bard since day 1. Since the site was opened and we had no idea what they were going to make.

It"s a shame, it really is.

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Why do you feel sad ? The game is launched, there are people playing it, Brad still gets his paycheck and to drive his ferrari, the employees at Sigil still get to overdose on caffiene and decorate each others desks with cobwebs and silly string.

I really don"t see how either Brad or his company is suffering for producing "what they did" which goes a long way towards indicating why developers have little to no incentive to produce a high quality / polished product.

They get paid either way.

The Hiram Key said:

Why do you feel sad ? The game is launched, there are people playing it, Brad still gets his paycheck and to drive his ferrari, the employees at Sigil still get to overdose on caffiene and decorate each others desks with cobwebs and silly string.

I really don"t see how either Brad or his company is suffering for producing "what they did" which goes a long way towards indicating why developers have little to no incentive to produce a high quality / polished product.

They get paid either way.

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Surely they must be somewhat dissapointed. Nobody in game design is in it for the paycheck, if you think that you are vastly misinformed. They are in game design because they love it. And of course if you love making games, you are going to love it no matter what, but I"m sure it"s nice to feel very successful and have the majority "love" your product. And I imagine this dissapointment is even greater since the team does have the skills. They just got dealt too many bad hands and made a few bad mistakes as all humans do.

Arden said:

But then, honestly, $50 every now and again for potential entertainment just isn"t that much if you ask me. I piss $50 in alcohol on any given night out with my friends, so I don"t usually sweat the occasional game purchases- especially ones that might lead to many hours of enjoyment.

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/nod, I figure MMOs save me over $1k RL per month in strip club "donations", great value IMO.

Elleffgee said:

. . . .


I think it"s mandatory in MMOGs now that players can at least get their corpse back with a stiff exp penalty after their group wipes at 3 A.M. There is nothing worse than trying to do a corpse run where everyone who was lucky enough to live through the evac mysteriously goes LD and leaves the naked players to recover their own corpses. So Vanguard offers a "safety net" for this - you can get your corpse back without a CR, but you"ll have to give back about a full hours exp if you do that. Sometimes it"s just worth the cost. . . .

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Why should a stiff exp penalty be mandatory? I have never been a fan of death penalties. I always thought they were sadistic and actually deters people from fully exploring a game. I can live with the WOW type penalty since it is nothing more than a 10pct repair acceleration (a repair bill you can wind up paying even if you never died), but an exp loss penalty on top of that is just plain stupid. Always has been always will be. And if you try to argue that such penalties are minimal then why the hell even have them? To annoy people? To piss them off? To screw them when they go LD and come back dead? Aside from the sadistic game developer, I can"t imagine anyone jumping for joy anytime they lost exp through a death.

Goliath said:

Surely they must be somewhat dissapointed. Nobody in game design is in it for the paycheck, if you think that you are vastly misinformed. They are in game design because they love it. And of course if you love making games, you are going to love it no matter what, but I"m sure it"s nice to feel very successful and have the majority "love" your product. And I imagine this dissapointment is even greater since the team does have the skills. They just got dealt too many bad hands and made a few bad mistakes as all humans do.

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Not argueing that they don"t love what they do, but everyone is in it (no matter what "it" is) for the paycheck, don"t fool yourself.

I don"t work for free, and neither do you.

CANCELED

I really used to enjoy my class (shaman). After not having played a while, I logged back in to CiS where I was soloing last time before i logged (couldn"t find group with half the fucking server being a healer), and now it took way way longer to kill the same mobs, almost died twice in the process and it cost me all my mana.

The not being able to find a group, is something that"s annoying but at least I enjoyed my class while I played it before. I no longer do /wave

There is lots of talk about next generation games, but it seems to me that everyone seems to forget about the next generation of players.

The players are finally starting to notice that these MMOs are nothing but an endless hunt for upgrades in order to be able to hunt for even better upgrades which become worthless with the next expansion...and so on. The only thing that doesn"t make it a complete waste of time is that you can meet people like in a huge online chatroom. It"s like /gems with a social aspect to it.

So far none of the next generation games was able to come up with an alternative to levels and equipment, but just like in music, there is only a limited amount of times that you can cover a popular song, before people can"t hear it anymore.

Unless they come up with some really revolutinary concept where skill is more important than playing time, I predict that the genre will slowly fade away, regardless of their sales/subscription numbers at the moment.

Maybe it"s about time for a fantasy version of Counterstrike...

Tual said:

CANCELED

I really used to enjoy my class (shaman). After not having played a while, I logged back in to CiS where I was soloing last time before i logged (couldn"t find group with half the fucking server being a healer), and now it took way way longer to kill the same mobs, almost died twice in the process and it cost me all my mana.

The not being able to find a group, is something that"s annoying but at least I enjoyed my class while I played it before. I no longer do /wave

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Yea- half the servers are healers. The healers are well balanced (for the most part) and strong. IMHO they need to beef up tanks some as there aren"t enough. Make people want to play them more. I guarantee out all the people playing healers, for many this is the first time in an MMO a healer is their first char/main.

Yeah they made playing a dps fairly unappealing. The travel time and inability to get decent exp without lfg-ing also had something to do with it. In a year it"ll probably be fun. Right now I don"t have a full hour or two JUST to finding and getting to a group, I want to play when I get on. I"m canceling my station pass and going back to one game (eq1 atm)

I think the game has many great things, and if my online friends would play it i"d still be there. But people need to stop trying to work with the EQ formula, and try something new for a change.

Overall I think it"s the most fun i"ve had playing a shaman in a MMO, but running to the other side of the world, just to be greeted by 50 other healers and 2 tanks, is getting old.