The "Vanguard Sucks" Thread

[Harovan]

If an artist or a designer follows his visions, it can become a great creation.

If a businessman has visions, he'd better go see a doctor. (Not quite my statement, but very true)

McQuaid's dilemma was, that he was both.

[conmcb25]

Vanguard did not live up to its hype is the problem, it may survive as a money maker, but it will never rake in the dough like Brad had hoped.

[Harovan]

Well that's an undisputed fact, but isn't that a bit too generic? Just like Asher's "it sucks because it sucks, combat sucks, quests suck and it comes short in terms of fun", all of which are subjective judgements, which may be true for one and false for another person.

I'm just trying to be a bit more specific and objective.

I can tell a long story short if you wish so. Trying to attract new customers by pissing off the existing is a dangerous strategy.

[conmcb25]

Maybe it is SR but I believe there was a dedicated group of hardcore MMO'ers who were following this game.

Not delivering on all the hype is probably going to piss off that demographic more than anyone else.

Is it subjective on my part, sure, but I don't really think many people could honestly dispute it.

And I am not saying the game sucks, Im just saying it didn't deliver even close to what all the hype was about.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by conmcb25
Is it subjective on my part, sure, but I don't really think many people could honestly dispute it.

That's why I called it an undisputed fact. And with the term "subjective" I was referring to Ashers judgement, not yours. Just that IMO it's not enough to say "It's bad", or "It doesn't live up to the hype". Better is to elaborate, what is bad or what went wrong.

[Asher]

The problem with VG is knowing where to start when enumerating what went wrong.

[Harovan]

Oh, I would be content with a few examples. But please nothing just containing "it sucks", "it's bad" or "it's unfun". Much better would be "it sucks, because...", "it's bad, because..." or "it's unfun, because...". That still would be subjective (as are my statements too), but at least it demands some knowledge, which you undoubtly have. I'm sure you catch my drift. I'm even going as far as to promise to tolerate some of your usual insults, because they amuse me. Deal?

[Asher]

It sucks because the performance is terrible.
It sucks because the classes are unbalanced.
It sucks because it's incredibly buggy.
It sucks because at its heart it's like EQ to its core.
It sucks because it's simply not fun.

[Harovan]

Well that's a promising start. At least on the first and third statement we're in complete agreement.

The second is, well, irrelevant in a PvE or team-PvP environment. It suffices if the classes are able to play their role, which at the current state some are, and some not quite (rangers without track, wtf?). It would certainly help if you were a bit more specific what is imbalanced in your opinion. Granted of course, that this wasn't just a bold assertion.

The fourth and fifth are the usual subjective drivel, however.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Asher
The problem with VG is knowing where to start when enumerating what went wrong.

The list is so long it's not RE?

[Asher]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
Well that's a promising start. At least on the first and third statement we're in complete agreement.

The second is, well, irrelevant in a PvE or team-PvP environment. It suffices if the classes are able to play their role, which at the current state some are, and some not quite (rangers without track, wtf?). It would certainly help if you were a bit more specific what is imbalanced in your opinion. Granted of course, that this wasn't just a bold assertion.

The fourth and fifth are the usual subjective drivel, however.

Call it subjective if you want a cop out. Everything is subjective.

Vanguard runs great on a quad-core overclocked GeForce 8800 Ultra SLI system, I hear. Subjective performance problems.

A lot of people find fisting and forms of S&M fun. A lot of people find EQ fun. A lot of people will find VG fun also.

Subjective copouts suck.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
If you read the opening post carefully, this development comes at no surprise. And contrary of what a large part of the fanbase seems to believe (namely at some poisonous überguild's website), it was not SOE screwing this game up. The Vanguard you see today is a living proof of why perfectionists should not try to make software. They had ample time and ample money to make a good game, and some great ideas, yet they failed, because McQuaid may know a thing or two about designing games, but he certainly knows nothing about leading a project or running a company.

There were 2 things that struck me back in January, when the game was released at least 6 months prematurely. First the very fact that it was released ("Trust me, the game won't be released before it's ready, and it's ready when it's ready when it's ready when I say it's ready yada yada...") - this I was ready to accept through my nose because I saw the economical necessity. And second, that there were no official forums. And the second one was even more disturbing given the pretty good community work Sigil has done throughout development (compare this with SOE's lie and screw tactics). This fact was screaming "There's going to be a crapload of trouble and we're not ready to take it".

Being well aware of this, I nonetheless decided to give it a try, namely because I hadn't played the beta for 2 months straight (thanks to NWN2 and general MMOG sickness) and therefor didn't know exactly the state of the game. My first experience after about 2 weeks of playing and slowly crawling out of the newbie levels was, what the hell did happen to The Vision^TM? And no, it is not the altars and the pretty much dumbed down death penalty. What ruined the game for me (besides the bugs and crashes of course) was - shock! - instant intercontinental travel and double XP weekends. I will try to explain it.

The world is vast, there are three continents and each has a number of starting areas, which are channeled together at later levels. Each continent has different building styles, different weapon and armor looks, different continental bonuses, different quest lines etc. That is good, variety is always good. The game is designed around this. The quests are balanced, so that you can follow the quest line on one continent and enjoy the rewards before they become obsolete by your level. That was the idea behind slow levelling, remember? You should develop your character on one continent until it outgrows it and can afford either a player made ship (expensive!) or public intercontinental travels (again expensive, newbie beware!). Then you're teh cool.

Now comes the biggest sin (aside from releasing early): Too many servers and not enough people. The best way would have been the approach of other games, create a small number of servers and as soon as one is filled to 75-80% of planned capacity, begin discouraging new players from signing up and open a new server. Sigil and SOE (as server host) did the opposite - let's open lots of servers and pray that people will come. But they did not come, at least not in numbers. Where does this leave us?

Three sparsely populated continents with 3 quest lines, all with very desirable rewards. People complain that they can't get groups to do their quests. So let's introduce intercontinental travel, not for cheap but even for free! Now, peasants, enjoy your new freedom and go grouping! And people eagerly did. Just now they did not have one, but three quest lines to follow, which led to quite some unpleasantries. Too little allowance in the quest logs. ****ty looks as you mix styles. Outdated quest rewards, as you basically do 3 quests but can wear only 1 piece per slot. And as if that wasn't enough, ample double XP weekends, which even worsened this situation.

The last straw for me was the announcement, that 2-dot (solo content) and 3-dot (small group content) mobs are having their HP's reduced and yield more XP (yet more XP, shudder). XP is cool, mmkay, that should attract the WoW players, right? Sadly it did not. WoW players play WoW, or now LotRO. They don't care for an unfinished, buggy mess even if you throw buckets of XP at them. But this finally pissed off a large part of Vanguard's core playerbase. I left March 28th, and as I know now, I'm not the only one by a long shot who left around this time. People left in droves.

I certainly don't give a damn about the money I spent on it, I have made worse investments in my life and thankfully enough to fund my hobby. But I somewhat feel sorry for the time it has cost me, even though it was fun while it lasted. But with hindsight I don't regret my decision from March 28th, after my first non-free month was about to run out, to pull the plug for the time being, until better times come. And I salute to my principle to never -ever- subscribe to an online game, however hyped, other than on a monthly base.

I have absolutely no trust to whatever Smedley utters about the future of this game. Everything this man has ever said openly was a lie or at least an halftruth. Still I believe that Vanguard does have a future, otherwise SOE would not have taken it. I'm not saying I will never touch it again once SOE had it in its hands, that is more a thing for fanatics. But I will very carefully watch what Sony makes of it before I consider to play it again. Suffice to say, up to this day I never picked up again a MMOG that I had ditched before.

Well look on the bright side - there will always be the next 'saviour' of MMOs.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Asher
Call it subjective if you want a cop out. Everything is subjective.

Well no, not quite. That it's a buggy and crashing mess is a well established fact and not denied by anyone in his right mind, not even vanbois.

Vanguard runs great on a quad-core overclocked GeForce 8800 Ultra SLI system, I hear. Subjective performance problems.

Yes, it depends on the measurement. But if you base it on the average hardware of the potential playerbase, it also becomes an objective statement.

A lot of people find fisting and forms of S&M fun. A lot of people find EQ fun. A lot of people will find VG fun also.

Yes, that's what I mean with subjective. You have all right to say it sucks because it's like EQ (which btw it is not, at least not much), because you don't like EQ. Others who like EQ style games may like it for exactly this fact (if it were completely true).

[Asher]

But people who like EQ are certifiably ****ed up and tasteless. So that demographic is ignored.

[Harovan]

It was about time you came up with something like that. I already was worried you might be sick, or somebody hacked your account. Now I see it's still you.