Starting a new thread because i might ramble on a bit!
My decision to hold off on Vanguard wasn't made with a great deal of personal experience with it. I logged on during the last few weeks of beta and it was sluggish on my system. Slow enough that I didn't care to go beyond level 3. Video lag in the newbie are is just not acceptable. I think Brad has great goals with the look of his game, but it's just unbelievable that something 1 week from release would have choppy audio playback at the character CREATION screens.
While I didn't play the beta all that much, I've kept up with some forums that tend to be more critical of Brad, and every other new game, but the forum crowd is something that should be used as a guideline more than something used as a final arbitor on a purchasing decision. FoH is one of those communities that has been around for years, and is filled with posters that cross the spectrum of gaming, from jaded EQ beta types who learned to love/hate Brad in 1999, to the relatively new group that got into the market because of SWG/WoW and now Vanguard. The general tone of the threads there is usually mature and honest criticism, but the modern gaming/internet world is filled with people (or pseudo people) that have an agenda behind their words. It's good to read just to get an idea of what to look out for as you play, especially from a non-company source.
I have conflicting emotions about Brad and what he's done in EQ (and EQ2 to a lesser extent), and what he thinks about this sort of game. I'm sure we all remember "The Vision" and how it's a great thing in press releases and web site blurbs, but how unfun it is to live under it in a virtual world. When most of us started playing EQ, we were not trailblazers who consumed content at breakneck speed. I started in March 2001, three months after Velious hit the market. The journey from level 1 was fun, and most of us didn't care all that much about levelling as fast as possible, because the guild connection and a relatively plentiful server population made the slow level curve bearable. We played in blissful ignorance not knowing that much of the high end raid content in Velious wasn't ready for players.
A great thing about these games is that the definition of 'beginning' and 'end' are left entirely to the player. For the most part, someone can start years later and each game is new and fresh. I've repeatedly read that Vanguard eventually takes away the ability to progress without grouping, and I think that's a tragic miscalculation based on what I saw happen in EQ. Sometime in Luclin, EQ added the soulbinders in the original starting towns because they were mostly abandoned as people relocated to the moon. With Luclin self contained, nobody had much reason to visit the old towns besides the North Freeport market, and what was killed off with the bazaar. My point about this is that over 5 years ago, EQ was forced to put features into the game to accomodate the new player, and that forced interdependence (getting a caster class to travel out of their way to the West Freeport gate to give a level 5 a bind) just isn't viable on a long term basis. It's a lofty goal, but as we move forward in gaming, it just doesn't hold up. Populations shift, newbie areas initially overrun with hundreds of people are empty, leaving the true newbie frustrated that they can't progress. The average gamer is not some teenager with the free time to stand around sending tells to random strangers in order to beg for help.
Vanguard's initial design and early beta had all of the worst that EQ had to offer. Key highlights were corpse runs, lack of solo or small group options for tangible advancement, lengthy travel, and did I mention corpse runs?! I think Brad's ideas make for great copy, but fail to translate into an environment where people go to escape difficulty, and to be 'heroic' for a time. There is nothing heroic in mechanisms that frustrate the player. Corpse runs might have some rewarding factor, but I think it's a mechanic that should stay in our collective pasts, where EQ players can remind the new punks about their 'wasted' hours on Saturday afternoons rebreaking the Plane of Hate because some fool went too close to the north wall of the entry room.
Whoa, be glad I had to go visit someone in the hospital, or this might have been much longer!
Ultimately, players have demonstrated a willingness to tolerate some seriously flawed releases from Brad in the past. My brief flirtation with beta was enough to tell me that he was going to do more fixing with subscription revenues rather than deliver a more polished product. I understand that these online games are never done, but with 4 years of development, the people who pre-ordered the game shouldn't be getting screwed with server bugs and daily restarts. What a great benefit for the early access they were given before the official 1/30 release date.
I'd wager that Vanguard will only get better as it ages, and might replace EQ2 as the best game of the genre that I'll never play.
My decision to hold off on Vanguard wasn't made with a great deal of personal experience with it. I logged on during the last few weeks of beta and it was sluggish on my system. Slow enough that I didn't care to go beyond level 3. Video lag in the newbie are is just not acceptable. I think Brad has great goals with the look of his game, but it's just unbelievable that something 1 week from release would have choppy audio playback at the character CREATION screens.
While I didn't play the beta all that much, I've kept up with some forums that tend to be more critical of Brad, and every other new game, but the forum crowd is something that should be used as a guideline more than something used as a final arbitor on a purchasing decision. FoH is one of those communities that has been around for years, and is filled with posters that cross the spectrum of gaming, from jaded EQ beta types who learned to love/hate Brad in 1999, to the relatively new group that got into the market because of SWG/WoW and now Vanguard. The general tone of the threads there is usually mature and honest criticism, but the modern gaming/internet world is filled with people (or pseudo people) that have an agenda behind their words. It's good to read just to get an idea of what to look out for as you play, especially from a non-company source.
I have conflicting emotions about Brad and what he's done in EQ (and EQ2 to a lesser extent), and what he thinks about this sort of game. I'm sure we all remember "The Vision" and how it's a great thing in press releases and web site blurbs, but how unfun it is to live under it in a virtual world. When most of us started playing EQ, we were not trailblazers who consumed content at breakneck speed. I started in March 2001, three months after Velious hit the market. The journey from level 1 was fun, and most of us didn't care all that much about levelling as fast as possible, because the guild connection and a relatively plentiful server population made the slow level curve bearable. We played in blissful ignorance not knowing that much of the high end raid content in Velious wasn't ready for players.
A great thing about these games is that the definition of 'beginning' and 'end' are left entirely to the player. For the most part, someone can start years later and each game is new and fresh. I've repeatedly read that Vanguard eventually takes away the ability to progress without grouping, and I think that's a tragic miscalculation based on what I saw happen in EQ. Sometime in Luclin, EQ added the soulbinders in the original starting towns because they were mostly abandoned as people relocated to the moon. With Luclin self contained, nobody had much reason to visit the old towns besides the North Freeport market, and what was killed off with the bazaar. My point about this is that over 5 years ago, EQ was forced to put features into the game to accomodate the new player, and that forced interdependence (getting a caster class to travel out of their way to the West Freeport gate to give a level 5 a bind) just isn't viable on a long term basis. It's a lofty goal, but as we move forward in gaming, it just doesn't hold up. Populations shift, newbie areas initially overrun with hundreds of people are empty, leaving the true newbie frustrated that they can't progress. The average gamer is not some teenager with the free time to stand around sending tells to random strangers in order to beg for help.
Vanguard's initial design and early beta had all of the worst that EQ had to offer. Key highlights were corpse runs, lack of solo or small group options for tangible advancement, lengthy travel, and did I mention corpse runs?! I think Brad's ideas make for great copy, but fail to translate into an environment where people go to escape difficulty, and to be 'heroic' for a time. There is nothing heroic in mechanisms that frustrate the player. Corpse runs might have some rewarding factor, but I think it's a mechanic that should stay in our collective pasts, where EQ players can remind the new punks about their 'wasted' hours on Saturday afternoons rebreaking the Plane of Hate because some fool went too close to the north wall of the entry room.
Whoa, be glad I had to go visit someone in the hospital, or this might have been much longer!
Ultimately, players have demonstrated a willingness to tolerate some seriously flawed releases from Brad in the past. My brief flirtation with beta was enough to tell me that he was going to do more fixing with subscription revenues rather than deliver a more polished product. I understand that these online games are never done, but with 4 years of development, the people who pre-ordered the game shouldn't be getting screwed with server bugs and daily restarts. What a great benefit for the early access they were given before the official 1/30 release date.
I'd wager that Vanguard will only get better as it ages, and might replace EQ2 as the best game of the genre that I'll never play.
