VeeshanVault

Nino was the composer for Vanguard, yeah. I'm going to assume his part of the game wasn't complete shit Tagad, also an FoH'er, was lead design in the end it looks like. He was also a dev in EQ, Temple of Veeshan was his thing.

I remember seeing Dregor and Nino duo-ing coldain dwarves in Velious!

have you heard the Vanguard music Dre?

the music is god awful. especially the "asian themed" dreck.

the entire game is pretty much a massive embarrassment, right down to the 20+ gig client that has worse textures than WoW.

Kwonryu DragonFist wrote:I remember seeing Dregor and Nino duo-ing coldain dwarves in Velious!

have you heard the Vanguard music Dre?

I haven't, no :/ As it is, it doesn't look like I ever will unless I pick up a station pass. Man, coldain... been so long! I remember exploring that Grimling dungeon in Luclin with Nino and Daahoud, we lived in that place for awhile there!

kyoukan wrote:the music is god awful. especially the "asian themed" dreck.

the entire game is pretty much a massive embarrassment, right down to the 20+ gig client that has worse textures than WoW.

The music really isn't that terrible.
I usually turn off the music in these games right off the bat, but I still have the background music on in Vanguard (but at low volume)... there's a good variety in and it really adds to the atmosphere in the different areas.


To even compare the texture art to WOW is hillarious. I think it's pretty obvious that you either played the game with all graphic settings at -1 or you haven't played the game at all.

kyoukan wrote:furor works for blizzard does he not? I remember playing wow in beta and basically every quest in the game had a reference to his limp ass eq characters.

ROFL

Rumor was he left Blizzard late last year and did contract work for Sigil

Dregor Thule wrote:

Kwonryu DragonFist wrote:I remember seeing Dregor and Nino duo-ing coldain dwarves in Velious!

have you heard the Vanguard music Dre?

I haven't, no :/ As it is, it doesn't look like I ever will unless I pick up a station pass. Man, coldain... been so long! I remember exploring that Grimling dungeon in Luclin with Nino and Daahoud, we lived in that place for awhile there!

Daahoud rocked, where is he these days?

Nino is a very close friend, so I am biased, but I heard most of the music from the early beginnings through the time when it went to the orchestra and I thought it was very good.

It was a pretty amazing thing to see someone you know so well get to go and have his music done by a professional orchestra. He does great work and is one of the nicest people I know.

miir wrote:

kyoukan wrote:the music is god awful. especially the "asian themed" dreck.

the entire game is pretty much a massive embarrassment, right down to the 20+ gig client that has worse textures than WoW.

The music really isn't that terrible.
I usually turn off the music in these games right off the bat, but I still have the background music on in Vanguard (but at low volume)... there's a good variety in and it really adds to the atmosphere in the different areas.


To even compare the texture art to WOW is hillarious. I think it's pretty obvious that you either played the game with all graphic settings at -1 or you haven't played the game at all.

I have a nice setup and the game is beautiful at med-high settings. Frankly, how a game looks is usually not a big deal to me, but it is the best looking game I have ever played, online or otherwise.

I always enjoyed the music in the game. I also thought it looked great. I don't think it was the best looking game I ever played, but it was very good looking with max settings.

I just didn't care for the gameplay.

Hayley wrote:

kyoukan wrote:furor works for blizzard does he not? I remember playing wow in beta and basically every quest in the game had a reference to his limp ass eq characters.

ROFL

Rumor was he left Blizzard late last year and did contract work for Sigil

False. We didnt have any contract employees.

Adelrune Argenti wrote:Yes there are some problems with the client. I never touched that nor had any input on how that performs other than saying "Holy Shit, we can't ship a 20GB+ client. Are you nuts?"

My job was concerned with the server infrastructure, specifying hardware for the db, configuring the O/S and building all the processes and procedures to support Vanguard operationally. That's it. Feel free to heap on whatever you want where it is due. There were mistakes made in places and I expect that from any message board, especially ones which jump at any chance to start some shit. I completed my tasks successfully and most of what I did is hidden from the end user.

Sorry to hear about this. I really enjoyed talking to you and Nino at length at Vegas, but it seemed obvious, even then, that there were problems behind the scenes. It was much easier to be optimistic and get drunk, at the time, however. In hindsight, the fact that one of the guys doing the hiring only had prior experience as a middle manager for pen and paper RPGs kind of raised an eyebrow.

Situation with Bill Fischer does not shock me in the least. He has always been very stubborn and arrogant, to the point of vindictiveness if people criticise or disagree with him, dating back to EQ1 days when he would blow up in guild whenever I would bitch about how buggy the boats were. It showed at Vegas too, with him surrounding himself with his personal fnord and not talking to anyone else. Pretty much every other Sigil person was friendly, outside of him. The fact that nepotism ran so rampant does not suprise me at all, given his prior actions. They guy had some great design ideas, but really needed someone of authority over him to keep his ego in check. Its a shame that out of all the talent and money they squandered, that he is one of the people who came out ahead in this situation. Here is a clue: You don't talk about buying a new house with your stock options when everyone else is getting canned. I never liked the guy, personally, because I feel he is/was a hypocrite; he would bitch about violating the spirit of the game on one hand, but give out mob information to his guild on the other, among other things. If that interview has any truth to it, it does not suprise me at all that a lot of people are laying blame at his feet.

The real shame in this is that your shit worked well, but no one is going to give a rats ass about it. It may land you a job, though, given what a train wreck everything else was while you managed to be a rock in an ocean of shit. I hope you land on your feet man. Watching you run yourself into the ground getting the vegas demo setup ready made it pretty clear how hard you were working and how serious you were about the shit, especially while all of your peers were off boozing it up. I am also glad Nino found his footing. He was the only other person at Vegas that gave straight answers about what he was working on at the workshops. Contrary to what some others have said, I liked a lot of his composition work. It was pleasant and not distracting. You two guys really delivered.

The upper level mucky mucks, did not deliver. Sadly, this failure will probably hurt the creativity of the industry as a whole. No one will want to invest real money in anything that is not assured of making money, which will greatly hurt the scope and inventiveness of future games. Instead, everything will be rehashed shit ala EA games.

You don't sound very entheusiastic about World of Madden.

masteen wrote:You don't sound very entheusiastic about World of Madden.

OMG you take you and your group of Rookies and find a Quest to get an Agent!

Jice Virago wrote:No one will want to invest real money in anything that is not assured of making money, which will greatly hurt the scope and inventiveness of future games. Instead, everything will be rehashed shit ala EA games.

Interesting you say that since Vanguard's original design doc was centered around being rehashed shit. And so far EA has been the only developer/publisher on the market that has attempted to produce subscription based MMO's that aren't just Everquest in a different setting. This is despite the fact that it's obvious the best selling ones are always rehashed shit.

kyoukan wrote:

Jice Virago wrote:No one will want to invest real money in anything that is not assured of making money, which will greatly hurt the scope and inventiveness of future games. Instead, everything will be rehashed shit ala EA games.

Interesting you say that since Vanguard's original design doc was centered around being rehashed shit. And so far EA has been the only developer/publisher on the market that has attempted to produce subscription based MMO's that aren't just Everquest in a different setting. This is despite the fact that it's obvious the best selling ones are always rehashed shit.

Good point

kyoukan wrote:the music is god awful. especially the "asian themed" dreck.

the entire game is pretty much a massive embarrassment, right down to the 20+ gig client that has worse textures than WoW.

Hmm, that doesn't sound too promising

noel wrote:I always enjoyed the music in the game. I also thought it looked great. I don't think it was the best looking game I ever played, but it was very good looking with max settings.

I just didn't care for the gameplay.

What game was the best looking one?

kyoukan wrote:

Jice Virago wrote:No one will want to invest real money in anything that is not assured of making money, which will greatly hurt the scope and inventiveness of future games. Instead, everything will be rehashed shit ala EA games.

Interesting you say that since Vanguard's original design doc was centered around being rehashed shit. And so far EA has been the only developer/publisher on the market that has attempted to produce subscription based MMO's that aren't just Everquest in a different setting. This is despite the fact that it's obvious the best selling ones are always rehashed shit.

Your point is valid, but I was speaking in more general terms and making (and admittedly flawed) analogy. Because Brad pissed away 30 mil hiring his pals and having Vegas parties, instead of doing actual work, no one is going to want to even remotely take a risk on a newcommer with some fresh ideas. The real tragedy (beyond some good people who were not related to Brad or his posse getting canned) is not the 30mil wasted, its the fact that a lot of more modestly budgeted but unique games won't even get a chance now.

You'd think that the with the colossal success of wow that companies wouldn't even bother trying to compete and instead go after a different market with a different type of game.

Good point again.

Seems like everyone thinks that only a fantasy game can succeed.

Product Differentiation is EASY in video gmaes, but none of the devs seem to get it.

Just pick a new genre, one not yet done. Do some unique stuff and the business model is proven.

We will see.

I guess the problem is people like that kind of game. I look at niche genre titles from EA and NCSoft and none of them are massive hits. EA's haven't even been profitable. Titles like City of Heroes and the like are probably sustainable but they aren't going to be getting rich off them.

It seemed to me that the primary demographic Vanguard was aiming at was people who were sick of or had already quit WoW. It's kind of stupid to build a business model around that.

Jice Virago wrote: Situation with Bill Fischer does not shock me in the least. He has always been very stubborn and arrogant, to the point of vindictiveness if people criticise or disagree with him, dating back to EQ1 days when he would blow up in guild whenever I would bitch about how buggy the boats were. It showed at Vegas too, with him surrounding himself with his personal fnord and not talking to anyone else. Pretty much every other Sigil person was friendly, outside of him.

I second that. I met him a couple times at EQ Fan Faires early on and he was never very friendly and only talked about game stuff, especially if he had a little crowd around him. I even commented to Eric that he seemed like a pompous prick. The interviewee repeatedly refers to him and another guy as "arrogant" and that is probably the one perfect word to describe him, imo.

His brother on the other hand was a really nice, cool guy. Complete opposite.

Avestan wrote:Seems like everyone thinks that only a fantasy game can succeed.

Product Differentiation is EASY in video gmaes, but none of the devs seem to get it.

Just pick a new genre, one not yet done. Do some unique stuff and the business model is proven.

We will see.

There have been several non-fantasy games released.. AO, CoH, MxO, etc. They all did shitty.

And not make anymore because of the success of WoW? That's like saying not make anymore because of the success of EQ.

Not many people realize it, but 75% of "major" MMORPG have been profitible endeavors. This includes many of the smaller budget games you just mentioned. If successful = profitable, many of these did just fine. If our only measuring stick is WoW, Microsoft and Google might be considered moderate success stories.


edit: some were bombs too

Siji wrote:There have been several non-fantasy games released.. AO, CoH, MxO, etc. They all did shitty.

AO and COH did not do shitty.

AO was designed as a small scale (niche) MMOG and succeeded at its goal. It's had countless expansions and the community is very healthy.
I believe it's been holding steaty between 15-25k subs since 6 months after release. There is also thousands of 'froob' accounts generating monthly advertising revenue for Funcom.

I can't even believe that you think COH did shitty.
I reactivate my COH account every 4-6 months just to putz around and the game is as popular now as it was on release. I'd hardly say that 150-200k subs is shitty.

MxO is the only one you listed that you could actually say was a failure.... even at that it still did a fuckload better than the biggest non-fantasy MMOG failure: Auto Assault.


Eve and SWG are/were 2 very successful non fantasy MMOGs.

WOW is an anomaly, not the benchmark for MMOGs.
Any game that is made to be the next WOW or a WOW killer will be destined to fail.

I have Auto Assault and played it on and off for about 2 months after release. It does indeed blow. If NCSoft would get it's head out of it's ass, have a station pass-type account where I could play CoH and AA and a few others for 10-15 bucks a month, I would play it however.

Seperately however, CoH and AA for the full monthly fee aren't anywhere near worth it.

Animalor wrote:I have Auto Assault and played it on and off for about 2 months after release. It does indeed blow. If NCSoft would get it's head out of it's ass, have a station pass-type account where I could play CoH and AA and a few others for 10-15 bucks a month, I would play it however.

Seperately however, CoH and AA for the full monthly fee aren't anywhere near worth it.

That goes against the NCSoft business model tho. Push an MMO out, hype it initially, reap the rewards of the box sales and first few months of subs, then move on to the next MMO. AA even failed that for them, I'm surprised it hasn't been completely shut down yet.

I know everybody hates SOE to death because they've fucked up a few games, but not every single game can be a WoW killer, or even contend with that behemoth...

I'm actually really optimistic about SoH's future with SOE in the mix. SOE knows how to turn out a good product, they just haven't had the best luck in terms of development. I feel like SOE actually works a great deal towards polishing the game and making it into something you want to log into when you come home - something Vanguard desperately needs. The framework is there, probably stronger than i've ever seen any other game to date - all they need is a company that knows how to grow on that and create a strong fanbase with a product that people can genuinely enjoy. Without a doubt, SOE is going to pickup where Sigil left off and do things they couldn't dream of without major financing and a large team. Who knows how far raid content (and even helmet graphics!) could have been off with only Sigil working on the game? I think it's about time to start playing Vanguard again

Dregor Thule wrote:That goes against the NCSoft business model tho. Push an MMO out, hype it initially, reap the rewards of the box sales and first few months of subs, then move on to the next MMO. AA even failed that for them, I'm surprised it hasn't been completely shut down yet.

That doesn't really sound like NC Soft's business model at all, given that City of Heroes is on it's 9th mini expansion, and Lineage 2 is on like it's sixth. Guild Wars is on it's 4th expansion. The only other games they've released have been free downloads with premium features you subscribe for.

Not to mention it would just be an overall bad business model considering the investment in server hardware required in an mmorpg.

I don't think SOE will do a particularly bad job. And I don't even really hate them.

The biggest problem I had with SOE's handling of EQ was the constant expansions every 6 months without fixing the problems introduced with the previous expansion. They simply didn't seem to care. If there's one thing that soured me on EQ that would be it.

I agree with you Aslanna, they did drop the ball with some of those major fixes, but in my eyes there was so much new content that it made up for it tenfold.

tenfold?

kyoukan wrote:

Dregor Thule wrote:That goes against the NCSoft business model tho. Push an MMO out, hype it initially, reap the rewards of the box sales and first few months of subs, then move on to the next MMO. AA even failed that for them, I'm surprised it hasn't been completely shut down yet.

That doesn't really sound like NC Soft's business model at all, given that City of Heroes is on it's 9th mini expansion, and Lineage 2 is on like it's sixth. Guild Wars is on it's 4th expansion. The only other games they've released have been free downloads with premium features you subscribe for.

Not to mention it would just be an overall bad business model considering the investment in server hardware required in an mmorpg.

Auto Assault is the only dog in NCSoft's lineup.
All the other games you mentioned are doing very well for them.

kyoukan wrote:tenfold?

TENFOLD!

Oh shi-