VeeshanVault

..but based on the information that came out during the fiery explosion of Sigil games, why would anyone play this game?

How balanced can the game actually be? How stable? How complete?

I mean, we've all played lots of MMOGs, and some of us have a reasonable idea of what goes into building one, releasing one, and supporting/tuning it post release. With information that's come out including:

* Brad was nowhere to be found for the last several months before release.
* There was a SINGLE QA tester for the game.
* A portion or at least some portion of the developers themselves knew that the game wasn't ready for release.
* The developers had no scripting tools available to them and weren't allowed to get any.

We've all been through bugs, class balance issues, and other assorted MMOG dev fuckups, so if you're playing this, why the hell are you? Are you just a glutton for punishment? Is the $50 box investment and whatever sub you paid for that hard to walk away from? It's kind of hard to 'believe in the Vanguard dream' when it's pretty much been crushed to bits. I'm not trying to flame anyone, etc. I'd really like to understand why anyone would still be playing this.

Why?
Because it's a fun game.
Because some people don't give a fuck about the behind-the-scenes politics and drama.

A portion or at least some portion of the developers themselves knew that the game wasn't ready for release.

More like everybody on the dev team, everybody at SOE and every playing the fucking game knew that the game wasn't ready for release. Unless you were living under a rock or knew nothing about the game, you would have known that Sigil ran out of money and were forced to release an unfinished product.

There was a SINGLE QA tester for the game.

Yea, there was probably no bias in that statement at all...
The amount of work that was done and changes made in the last few weeks of beta leads me to believe that statement was made by a disgruntled former Sigil employee that wasn't hired back to the team by SOE.

Brad was nowhere to be found for the last several months before release.

Another non-surprise.
He was running out of money...
His game is not living up to his Vision™
He was going to be forced to release it early and unfinished...

What could Brad have done in the last few months before release that could have turned Vanguard into the game he wanted it to be?
He's not a coder.
He's not an artist.
He's not a designer.
He's not a developer.

He's an idea guy... once the game got beyond the idea stage, he had little-to-no direct control over it.

The developers had no scripting tools available to them and weren't allowed to get any.

I'm gonna guess that most MMOG developers had to write their own scripting tools.
But who knows if the person who made those comments had ever worked on a MMOG before...

How balanced can the game actually be? How stable? How complete?

There has been a lot of class tweaks since release and as with every MMOG, class balance is a neverending job. Aside from Necros and Clerics (oops), the classes are pretty balanced.
The servers have been pretty fucking rock solid. Aside from one chunk (New Targonor), I can count the number of unexpected server/chunk crashes I've experienced on one hand.
The client could definitely use some more optimizations but for me, client crashes are few and far between. And that's on 2 completely different PCs. One with XP and a NVidia card and the other running Vista with ATI cards.

Are you just a glutton for punishment? Is the $50 box investment and whatever sub you paid for that hard to walk away from?

How is playing a game that I enjoy, punishment.
I understand that you don't really like Vanguard, but are you really that incapable of comprehending why someone else might enjoy it? I personally don't enjoy WOW but I can see why other people might.
Why the fuck would I even want to walk away from a game that I like?

It's kind of hard to 'believe in the Vanguard dream' when it's pretty much been crushed to bits.

Maybe it's because I don't buy into the MMOG hype machine.

When I try any MMOG, I do so with no preconceptions on how I personally expect the game to be.
I have no emotional investment in a dream.
I buy the game.
I play it for a while.
If I enjoy it, I keep playing.
If I don't, I throw it on the pile and try something else.

You misconstrue my intentions, but gave a great answer and I appreciate it.

It was more of a social question than a, "I hate VG so I'll come piss in the forum." That's the main reason I didn't make this post in the other thread. I also don't think I've said a bad word about the game other than, it wasn't for me. I think I even stated several times that if you liked EQ1, I thought VG was a really nice progression, and could see where other people would enjoy it.

I also think that in light of the information that's come out, your VG experience could be vastly different depending upon which class you're playing, which area you're playing in, etc. I also wondered if I'd have had a different (negative) opinion of the game had I played to a higher level where perhaps more of the games flaws would have become visible. Maybe there are no flaws, but it would seem to be highly unlikely given the information I read.

If you're enjoying it, that's great.

I totally agree that the 'insider' interview was likely biased... there was also likely some truth to it as well. Standard fare in that type of interview I'd guess.

I liked EQ1. But never had the slightest interest in Vanguard because of Brad. Maybe once (now?) he's gone the game will improve.

noel wrote: I also don't think I've said a bad word about the game other than, it wasn't for me. I think I even stated several times that if you liked EQ1, I thought VG was a really nice progression, and could see where other people would enjoy it.

I understand that.
I think the game is more of a progression from EQ2 than EQ.
There's no real level grind, lots of solo content and different types of character advancement outside of camping/killing mobs.

I also think that in light of the information that's come out, your VG experience could be vastly different depending upon which class you're playing, which area you're playing in, etc. I also wondered if I'd have had a different (negative) opinion of the game had I played to a higher level where perhaps more of the games flaws would have become visible. Maybe there are no flaws, but it would seem to be highly unlikely given the information I read.

I haven't encountered many (if any) glaring flaws in the game from 1-50.
The only real problem was the lack of content between 35-50.
I intentionally lagged behind the bleeding edge players because I knew there was no high end content and had no desire to grind unitemized content in unfinished zones.

Weeks before anyone hit level 50, I predicted that most of them would quit... sure enough, all but 1 or 2 people in PD in those top-end, static groups up and quit the game shortly after they hit level 50.
In the past 2 months, they have added a crapton of content in the 40-50 range. I imagine that if all the people who rushed to 50 and quit had only waited a month or two for content, they would still be playing and enjoying the game.



I'm not (by any far stretch of the imagination) saying that the game is flawless, but the bugs and flaws are minor enough that they aren't affecting my enjoyment of the game. I think a lot of people playing now share that opinion.

As someone who started playing about 3 weeks ago, I am also having a ton of fun with the game. There may be some class balance issues, but every class is viable. . .some are just more viable.

Game is fun. Graphics are great. There are not hordes of people to fight over spawns with. It works for me.