Why all the nerd rage against Vanguard

teneran said:

Also, just how long do you think you"ll be able to not upgrade a PC like that to keep up with current games?

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If the PC Market was filled with stellar gaming titles that make $600 8800 gtx"s worth buying, then we honestly wouldn"t have this problem.

But the fact, it"s not.

People upgrade during high peaks in PC gaming, when A+ gaming titles lead the way, and can benefit from high end hardware. Note, NOT BENEFIT FROM HIGH END HARDWARE TO BE A+.

Most people are sitting on Ge6"s and Ge7"s, because back in 2004-2005 or so, there were a ton of great PC games that made. There was Half-life 2, Battlefield 2, UT2004, Farcry, Civ 4, Call of Duty 2, etc... There was enough titles to justify the overhead cost in a new vid card/new rig.

We are still in a PC gaming recession, at least through 2006. I don"t think 2007 will deliver. It"s kinda sad when I walk into Gamestop and instead of looking for great PC titles with kick ass 90%+ reviews... I have to ask myself "Well, I need to justify buying an 8800gtx back in Novemeber, is there ANYTHING I can play with it?" I originally bought it because 7800gt"s in SLI ran Battlefield 2142 like shit, but there hasn"t been anything else to play with it. Company of Heroes, that"s about it.

Anyways, back to VG. VG released in a PC gaming recession demanding high hardware. It"s fucked. Should PC gaming kick back into full swing with Crysis/UT2007 and a bunch of other hype titles by November, then sure... MAYBE people will go back and pick up VG since it"ll be quite playable.

Will the # of people incoming > # of people leaving?

I predict... no.

Honestly,
The only games I play on my PC are MMOs. I don"t play single player games at all really... and if I do.. well I am heading to the mall at lunch today to buy a Wii.
My computer is a peice of shit, I will admit that, but it does what I need it to.
As much as I hate to admit it, I fall into the demographic that made WoW so successful, which incidentally is a demographic that every MMO dev on the planet has a hard on for. They are not going to sell me on a game that I need to spend additional money beyond the cost of the box and monthly subs.

teneran said:

if you literally need to spend $2000 to get VG to run decently, that means your current gaming box is such a peice of shit that i hardly doubt you could run WoW or EQ2 without some performance issues.
Yes i think Sigil needs to continue to address performance issues, should be a top priority, but let"s not exaggerate the problem.

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Nah I had no real problem running wow in raids etc, even with some eyecandy. Here"s hoping Nvidia release some drivers with optimisation for it soon, last release was Nov 2006 (wtf?).

Well Brad, seeing as you"re reading this thread, what"s the policy on deleted characters? Your fans over on the Silky Venom boards would like to know...but since you don"t drop by there too often, I"m linking the post for them to try and get your attention:

Dear Sigil GIVE SWALDO HIS CHARACTER BACK - Silky Venom

Seriously, unless you find evidence of hacking, I"d suggest getting the guy his character back...it"s good PR.

Daelos said:

I don"t remember EQ1 as having "reasonable framerates" at all. I remember staring into walls to be able to cast my spells.

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I never recall FPS issues in EQ, even going back to beta (I was in beta4). I recall the default configuration had the first-person perspective viewpoint as a smaller window in the upper left above the chat window; ie - it wasn"t the "fullscreen" UI that exists today.

So please don"t even try to make the comparison.

teneran said:

if you literally need to spend $2000 to get VG to run decently, that means your current gaming box is such a peice of shit that i hardly doubt you could run WoW or EQ2 without some performance issues. And forget running any of the other single person games coming out that are performance oriented. Also, just how long do you think you"ll be able to not upgrade a PC like that to keep up with current games?

Yes i think Sigil needs to continue to address performance issues, should be a top priority, but let"s not exaggerate the problem.

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Can you elaborate? It"s not like you can just pry out the processor and cram in something faster. A new processor generally involves a new chipset and motherboard, new RAM, and if you are talking about a beefy vid card, you are most likely looking at a new power supply.

So....
Unless you happen to be running an already almost-top-of-the-line system and happen to ONLY be upgrading, say, your video card then I could see only spending a few hundred.
Past that, the numbers add up extremely quickly and most people at that point generally spring for top of the line vs. dropping money on band-aid upgrades.

What i like is that whoever it was told me that I was a bad reviewer because I tried to use a 2004 machine to play a 2007 game. Here is an answer that articulates a lot of what I think:

Samflam said:

Why the fuck would any sane person shell out 2 grand+ to experience a mediocre, horrendously incomplete game on barely acceptable settings? Especially considering the alternatives in the (saturated) MMO market.
And you"re off your rocker if you think you could convince half a million people to essentially buy a 2 thousand dollar video game.

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Basically, I can play EVERY OTHER GAME OUT THERE. I can play anything else. Why the fuck should I upgrade for it, and only it?

What are you, paid by Sigil? I review games and give people an idea of whether they should buy them. I have an average system. It can run basically anything. It is a good average of what people will have, and guess what? If I can play Guild Wars, WoW, and EQ2 at reasonably good settings, and play them smoothly, why should I pay ?300+ to upgrade my 3D card/?100 for new ram, etc. to play Vanguard? Give over.

And fuck this "band-aid" philosophy. It is not "okay" to say to people "psh upgrade your 3D card to play this game at anything approaching playable." If we were bitching about it being not so great but playable, then that"d be another thing entirely. This is something else.

And I haven"t even got into how boring and empty the game feels, or how pointless it feels, or anything like that.

kohl said:

I never recall FPS issues in EQ, even going back to beta (I was in beta4). I recall the default configuration had the first-person perspective viewpoint as a smaller window in the upper left above the chat window; ie - it wasn"t the "fullscreen" UI that exists today.

So please don"t even try to make the comparison.

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Are you contending that my statement that I had to stare into walls to cast spells in EQ1 is false, or are you comparing our two different experiences and using your own as the only valid experience?

The Bog said:

What i like is that whoever it was told me that I was a bad reviewer because I tried to use a 2004 machine to play a 2007 game. Here is an answer that articulates a lot of what I think:

Basically, I can play EVERY OTHER GAME OUT THERE. I can play anything else. Why the fuck should I upgrade for it, and only it?

What are you, paid by Sigil? I review games and give people an idea of whether they should buy them. I have an average system. It can run basically anything. It is a good average of what people will have, and guess what? If I can play Guild Wars, WoW, and EQ2 at reasonably good settings, and play them smoothly, why should I pay ?300+ to upgrade my 3D card/?100 for new ram, etc. to play Vanguard? Give over.

And fuck this "band-aid" philosophy. It is not "okay" to say to people "psh upgrade your 3D card to play this game at anything approaching playable." If we were bitching about it being not so great but playable, then that"d be another thing entirely. This is something else.

And I haven"t even got into how boring and empty the game feels, or how pointless it feels, or anything like that.

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YOu shouldnt have to upgrade anything for anyone. If your computer can handle vanguard and you enjoy it, by all means play it. If it cannot handle it, you got 2 choices.

I play on a PoS computer, and i do fine right now. Would i like a better computer? damn straight i would. I was going to upgrade soon with or without Vanguard.

Brad made his choice on how the game should be ran. If people wanna upgrade, then by all means. if they dont, then its simple dont play it.

Samflam said:

They are not going to sell me on a game that I need to spend additional money beyond the cost of the box and monthly subs.

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I really think Sigil gambled and lost with regards to the tech in Vanguard. I don"t understand why Brad had such a hard-on for that specific engine but the end result is that too much emphasis was put on bells and whistles versus tangible fun gameplay. I can understand wanting to future-proof your game to some extent, but you don"t need the bleeding edge engine of tomorrow for an MMORPG, I"m sorry... especially if doing so actually hinders the product.

Daelos said:

Are you contending that my statement that I had to stare into walls to cast spells in EQ1 is false, or are you comparing our two different experiences and using your own as the only valid experience?

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I"m saying in most cases the FPS in EQ1 from release was fine. If you are talking about *specific* instances, such as raiding, then you should say "I had to stare into walls while in a raid to cast my spells". Otherwise, you give the impression that in order to cast spells _at all_ hindered your performance, and I simply don"t ever recall people saying "man I like EQ, but god it runs like such a dog".

kcxiv said:

I play on a PoS computer, and i do fine right now. Would i like a better computer? damn straight i would. I was going to upgrade soon with or without Vanguard.

Brad made his choice on how the game should be ran. If people wanna upgrade, then by all means. if they dont, then its simple dont play it.

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Guys, from now on whenever someone makes an allusion to Brad making his choice and that Vanguard isn"t "for" you, can we refer to it as McQuaid"s Fallacy?

Also: Define PoS. Because my "PoS" was jerking like all hell. I had to reload every half an hour or it became unplayable.

The Bog said:

Guys, from now on whenever someone makes an allusion to Brad making his choice and that Vanguard isn"t "for" you, can we refer to it as McQuaid"s Fallacy?

Also: Define PoS. Because my "PoS" was jerking like all hell. I had to reload every half an hour or it became unplayable.

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Yes, yes we can.

Consoles ought to be the future of gaming, it"s a lot harder to make this sort of mistake if you"re writing for one basic spec.

woqqqa said:

Consoles ought to be the future of gaming, it"s a lot harder to make this sort of mistake if you"re writing for one basic spec.

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At least with consoles, people aren"t saying "Hey this console that I bought 5 years ago isn"t running these brand new gamesthat are made for the newest console"

I just hope this fiasco serves as a lesson to developers of the many up and coming games. Because if this type of design philosophy becomes the norm, the MMO gamespace is about to take a giant step backwards.

Why the fuck should I upgrade for it, and only it?

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Masameiko, Hufen, Dindain, Pahraith, Brexx, BotS, me, and a growing list of people. Come on, upgrade and play with us man. It"s a better game than it was two months ago and it"s just getting better. I know, we shouldn"t have to put up with this early adopter shit, but it"s still fun.

woqqqa said:

Yes, yes we can.

Consoles ought to be the future of gaming, it"s a lot harder to make this sort of mistake if you"re writing for one basic spec.

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What scares me about modern consoles though is their push for internet connectivity and gaming(good thing) but also as a means to patch and update(can be good thing)....

But as we have seen become common with MMO"s if you can patch, you can release 50%/80%/99% done and leave the rest for a later date. You are more inclined to leave bugs etc

I know it"s only one angle of looking at things, but I see it as possible, plus it comes with a move to subscription, which I"m convinced I will be paying for everything by subscription in the future, everything; which sucks.

I never once said Vangaurd isnt for you. I just said if you cant run Vangaurd and you dont wanna upgrade, then you know the final answer.

I dont ever think i said this game isnt for someone. What i do know is i like the game and it is for me. I have not had as much fun in a MMO since probalby the PoP days in EQ.

I don"t get this powergamer having good pc"s deal. I"m a powergamer and i wish i could upgrade every 2 years, but that"ll never happen. I guess he means a avg poewrgamer or powergamer=people with money ><


PS please donate to Nattack powergamer foundation kthx <3

rangoth said:

What scares me about modern consoles though is their push for internet connectivity and gaming(good thing) but also as a means to patch and update(can be good thing)....

But as we have seen become common with MMO"s if you can patch, you can release 50%/80%/99% done and leave the rest for a later date. You are more inclined to leave bugs etc

I know it"s only one angle of looking at things, but I see it as possible, plus it comes with a move to subscription, which I"m convinced I will be paying for everything by subscription in the future, everything; which sucks.

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Good point. Hard to say. Somehow I don"t think the average console gamer would move to a subscription-only system for all content, but I could be wrong. Personally, I actually would if it gave me something like "pay x amount of cash and download x number of games". I don"t play games for too long (with MMOs being the exception) so the system would work for me. I understand why a lot of people would hate it, though.