Vanguard Saga Of Heroes - Player made screenshots released

[Harovan]

Originally posted by DrSpike
As I said it isn't really the numbers of raids that's important though - it whether or not your guild runs out of content. As long as there are new encounters to learn, and ways to progress my character, I will happily play. Many people feel the same way.

Are the encounters differently every time? Do I understand that right?

You have to admit that your earlier statements such as......

"Core players beat it (= reach the end game) very quickly and most then move on to other games. Communities do not last very long under these circumstances, at least not with the same (active)members"

.....were off the mark and based on misunderstanding or rumour. It just isn't true.

All I can do for you is to consider your opinion with the same weight as the opinion of others with similar experience. As I said in my corrected statement, opinions widely vary.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph

Forced grouping (well, let's call it rewarded grouping as you won't be forced by any means) and slow levelling are community building features. The former gets them together and the latter makes sure they don't drift too far apart with temporarily different schedules or a vacation trip. It has to be compensated with a lot of content, to avoid that it feels like a grind - including raiding at all level ranges!

Well with endgame raiding there is no chance that your guild will move on too far when you go on vacation, because no one is levelling at all.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph


Are the encounters differently every time? Do I understand that right?

No, the encounters are the same each time. However, each encounter has its own intricacies to learn, so you aren't learning the same thing over and over, and you always have a new encounter to learn. Most of the BWL bosses (which my guild is learning now) are impressively designed and fun to learn.

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
All I can do for you is to consider your opinion with the same weight as the opinion of others with similar experience. As I said in my corrected statement, opinions widely vary.

Well I think you should ask those people whether they believe that 6 million plus people are always new players. Wouldn't they have run out of people by now? Plus you can check the stats on the forums about how many people have killed each main raid boss. You can bet that people who have killed Ragnaros (this is a surprisingly high proportion) have spent 6 months plus playing. For Nefarian a few more months. Anything past that in AQ likely even longer still.

You can also check the amount of players in raiding guilds, which is also quite high. Sure people drift in and out (this happens in any MMO of course) but overall my strong impression is that WoW has succeeded not just in getting in casuals but also has a large core playerbase of more serious players who raid for long periods of time with the same guild.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Well with endgame raiding there is no chance that your guild will move on too far when you go on vacation, because no one is levelling at all.

Ah yes, the joys of the level cap. It's sad that the game is so short until you reach it.

Well I think you should ask those people whether they believe that 6 million plus people are always new players. Wouldn't they have run out of people by now?

A vast part of these 6 million are casual players, who solo their 10-20 hours per month and probably will never see the endgame, let alone raid. WoW is their game, being very solo friendly.

The sentence you criticized was talking about core players, however. I seriously doubt, that a big portion of subscribers consists of these core players (remember, an average of 4-5 hours at 4-5 days per week). Without being able to prove it, I seriously doubt, that WoW has more than, say, 500k core subscribers, if even that. So not 6 million would have to be "always new", but merely a few hundred thousands, which would be quite possible.

And do you really want to say, that a majority of players, who reach the level cap, actually raid? Because if that is not the case, the sentence "Core players beat it (= reach the end game) very quickly and most then move on to other games. Communities do not last very long under these circumstances, at least not with the same (active)members." is absolutely correct even in it's community part (it would be a fallacy to put player community equal to raiding community).

Besides, the mere thought, that 6 or 7 million of people would be competing for 7 x N raiding mobs (N being the number of servers) makes me shudder.

[Skanky Burns]

Some people, when they reach the level cap prefer to start a new character and level them up to 60. It still keeps them playing the game.

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by DrSpike
As I said it isn't really the numbers of raids that's important though - it whether or not your guild runs out of content. As long as there are new encounters to learn, and ways to progress my character, I will happily play. Many people feel the same way. You have to admit that your earlier statements such as......

"Core players beat it (= reach the end game) very quickly and most then move on to other games. Communities do not last very long under these circumstances, at least not with the same (active)members"

.....were off the mark and based on misunderstanding or rumour. It just isn't true.

Its always dangerous jumping in to a confrontation like this, but I'd like to say that you are both right, but talking about different user communities.

Some players found the levelling up insufficiently challenging or interesting and left.

A lot of players joined and thoroughly enjoyed the easy, uncomplicated levelling that meant they could reach the level cap in their own time with relatively few occasions where they were forced to group up with optimum class combinations to complete an instance.

On reaching the level cap, this playerbase splits again. Some PvP, some are content to raid regularly for a chance at getting better rare equipment and those who wanted the endgame to be anything remotely like the level 1-60 experience reroll an alt or two then become disillusioned and quit.

Of the friendly, casual guild I joined in WoW I would estimate 10% quit before 60, 20% stayed primarily for the raiding/loot endgame and moved to raiding guilds to facilitate that, 10% stayed purely for the PvP and moved to guilds interested primarily in that and 60% quit after a couple of rerolls because they didnt like the endgame options and had done everything else.

Naturally guilds that start with different ambitions will experience higher retention rates for their preferred gameplay approach, but in the context of modern MMOs a retention rate of 60% for 4 months and 30% for 6+ months is very healthy as long as you are attracting new players too.

[Harovan]

I think that is a pretty solid analysis. By the way, what there is between Spikie and me is not a confrontation. It's been discussed ad nauseam, it is more like reiterating old stuff, because both of us are stubborn enough to do this, again and again.

He doesn't like me to call WoW easy and each time calls me on it, refuting that with the argument, that endgame raiding is hard. I think it comes down to what one calls "the game".

Spikies focus from the beginning was raiding. For him the way from 1-60 was some kind of tutorial, where he learned the game and to play his class. Tutorials are easy per definition (what else would make them different from the game itself?), so he doesn't mind that. 1-60 was just the way, for him the destination (raiding) was much more important. Remember his statement, that the game just begins at 60? Hence for him raiding is "the game".

For me "the game" is all the way up. This is pretty much the classical way in MMOGs, before games like WoW and GW showed up. For me the leveling up part, where I get to explore 2 continents and some islands is "the game" and the endgame just what it says, the end of that way, where one can decide to raid, PvP, reroll (good point Skanky!) or quit. I would call a game poor, where all the exploring, questing and fighting I have done are just a necessary evil to reach the main part, i.e. the concentration of all energy on just a couple of contested raid mobs.

Don't get me wrong, I like raiding too. But for me it is never the main purpose to play. It is a welcome addition, no less and no more. And when a game offers nothing challenging besides raiding (and/or PvP), I'd call it poor by my standards, but the mileage of others may vary by a long stretch and usually does.

When I call "the game" easy, I mean the part I understand under this term. This insults him, because he applies my statement to what he understands as "the game". If I would concede his point, that raiding in WoW is challenging (which I am inclined to believe him for the lack of own experience) and he would concede my point, that the way from 1-60 is hardly a challenge in terms of risk vs reward, the whole discussion would collapse like a house of cards.

But we're probably far from that.

Because we're stubborn. Aren't we, Spikie?

[DrSpike]

You sure are.

And yeah, it doesn't bother me that the pre 60 game is so short, since to me the raiding endgame is the game. It bothers Ralph, for the reasons he has outlined.

Basically we do agree quite a lot on what makes good MMO gameplay. However, my optimal solution would be even faster levelling and make the game solely about endgame raiding. Ralph's is very slow levelling with a constant mix of solo, group and raid content, with mostly group/raid stuff, at least if you want nice loot.

Both achieve a challenging game, and predominantly group based.

[DrSpike]

Btw my worry with Ralph's (ie VG's) approach is that slow levelling becomes grinding, as it has in every single game with slow levelling that has ever been released. WoW's raiding endgame rarely feels like a grind, because the encounters are so interesting. 40-60 on the other hand felt like an awful grind, even though it was only just over 100 hours of play.

Also, having everyone doing raid content at the same level has many major advantages. I think VG's approach will start to look a little less saviourish when the playerbase is spread out across the levels, and they don't know at which levels to add the content. More pie for everyone at every stage just doesn't look likely to me.

I also think history contains lessons. EQ fulfils the bulk of Ralph's criteria for a good game. It was always about slow levelling, and challenging. In the end it became about the raiding endgame, because that's just the most efficient way of spending developer time offering new content that keeps hardcore gamers playing.

You mark my words.

[snoopy369]

Hence why there are more than one MMOG

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph

And do you really want to say, that a majority of players, who reach the level cap, actually raid? Because if that is not the case, the sentence "Core players beat it (= reach the end game) very quickly and most then move on to other games. Communities do not last very long under these circumstances, at least not with the same (active)members." is absolutely correct even in it's community part (it would be a fallacy to put player community equal to raiding community).

If you look on the forums there are constant wars between the hardcore raiders and the casuals over loot/effort ratios etc. In these (often amusing) discussions some developer sanctioned figures usually appear. The proportion of 60s that have killed Ragnaros (for a new guild 3 months+ raiding) is immensely high, something like 75% (from memory). Figures for Nefarian (another few months raiding) are also high.

[snoopy369]

The main reason for MMOG becoming 'all about the end game' is that 'old' MMOGs tend to get very few new members comparitively, especially now that there are always newer, 'better' MMOs coming out. EQ perhaps held that off for the longest - both because it was very early on (and had less 'newer' competition), and because it was the 'best' at first, at least most popular, and thus got more new members for longer.

But ultimately, you have two choices... more early content for new players, or more endgame content for old players. Early on, you obviously do the former; but each game has a 'break even' point where it's equal to do either, and after that, you lose more players (and thus more money) by making early content as compared to late content, so you of course make late content.

We'll see if GW breaks that mold, though it ultimately will lose out to technology (unless they release a major upgrade that changes the technology the game runs every so often, which would be VERY expensive). GW has the best shot, simply because of the fact that GW has the most 'optional' early game; you can play the early GW game if you want for quite a long while, or you can just play to 20 and then hit the books with GvG play.

Most MMOs, though, probably should aim for being a Sir Ralph game to begin with, with the understanding that ultimately the game will be developed into a DrSpike game. The challenge is to make the endgame interesting enough at start for the DrSpikes of the world to join the game during that initial period ...

[conmcb25]

I was watching Vanguard on and off but when I saw SOE was going to have something to do with it, even if its just publishing, I was turned off. For various reasons of my own.

I hope its the game you guys want, but I will no longer give any of my cash to SOE.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
When I call "the game" easy, I mean the part I understand under this term. This insults him, because he applies my statement to what he understands as "the game". If I would concede his point, that raiding in WoW is challenging (which I am inclined to believe him for the lack of own experience) and he would concede my point, that the way from 1-60 is hardly a challenge in terms of risk vs reward, the whole discussion would collapse like a house of cards.

But we're probably far from that.

Because we're stubborn. Aren't we, Spikie?

Actually I think we have already agreed to the above, essentially. This time the 'confrontation' was sparked by your inaccurate comments about the community.

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by conmcb25
I was watching Vanguard on and off but when I saw SOE was going to have something to do with it, even if its just publishing, I was turned off. For various reasons of my own.

I hope its the game you guys want, but I will no longer give any of my cash to SOE.

Because it is published by a particular company is a pretty stupid reason to boycott a product. Especially a product that took this particular route so as to avoid SOE-style debacles where the publisher also had control over the direction of the project and at what point the product would be released.

Sigil had a number of alternatives to using SOE as publisher. They could have remained with MS in control, meaning Microsoft could have demanded the game be released two weeks from now in its almost playable state. They could have chosen another publisher that is either too small to handle the expected load and hence increase downtime for the players, or too inept at publishing to keep their servers up.

As a publisher, SOE is good. As a game designer, not so much. Since they are in this deal only in a publishing capacity, we the players get the good without the bad.

While I respect the fact that the decision is yours to make regarding boycotting this game, I feel that the message you are sending Sigil is actually contrary to the one you think you are sending. By boycotting you are telling Sigil that you feel a publisher (just like SOE or Microsoft) should have control over when the game is ready to be released rather than having the people actually making the game make that decision. Ironic.