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Vanguard Beta In Trouble?
Heartless Gamer writes to mention a blog post exploring potential problems with the Vanguard Beta. The hardcore MMOG in development by Sigil has had some rocky times of late, and it sounds like the beta testers are right up at the top of the list of problems. From the article: "To the detriment of Vanguard, they (Vanguard's community) will protest any implementation that even remotely resembles a mechanic within World of Warcraft. Good or bad, it doesn't matter. If it's something within WoW, they want it O-U-T. Likewise, if you are from WoW, they want YOU out, too. They've already succeeded in driving out many of those testers. They're long gone and I can't say I blame them." Read on for other sites' commentary on this issue.
But quite frankly its really stupid to hate mechanics from WoW cause some of them are REALLY very good. Worse most come from Everquest it's self, which a LOT of the hardcores hold as sacred, WoW just improved on this.
My take. Just get rid of the bad element of beta testers. Or better yet just ignore them when you know they are making a rediculous suggestion. It's their place to find the bugs, not dictate the design of the game.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
"To the detriment of Vanguard, they (Vanguard's community) will protest any implementation that even remotely resembles a mechanic within World of Warcraft. Good or bad, it doesn't matter. If it's something within WoW, they want it O-U-T."
Even though WoW is fun (and addicting), if I was playing another game it would be rather annoying to see WoW with just another game engine slapped over it. If you want to play WoW, then it is already there and waiting for you.
For those who want to play something different... Well... It would be nice to have sometehing other than the old "kill things over and over to level up to kill bigger things over and over again to level up to kill bigger things over and over again" because that is pretty much the same formula of WoW, EQ 1/2, and every other MMOG known the man these days. (SWG and UO rest in peace)
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
vanguard was to be the saving grace for the worst of the community that left EQ looking for "the vision". shame they realized way too late that the "vision" is still locked away in 1999 and the vast majority of MMORPG gamers to do not want that sort of carrot on a stick type of grind.
... because they think slow grinding and slow traveling is fun.
Shocking, we are hearing reports of them struggling.
ChozSun
ChozSun.com
Way to RTFA.
It's not developers that are doing this, it's the hardcore, epeen waving, fanbois that have the WoW hate-on.
Enter the "IT SUCKS BECAUSE IT'S POPULAR" crowd. Less than a dozen comments in this thread thus far and half of them are people who hate WoW because it's "dumbed down."
Listen up, guys, WoW has 5.5 million+ subscribers because what it's doing is good, not bad. It's not dumbed down, and if - like me - you spent hardcore-style hours raiding to get the best stuff, you'd know that.
But no, like the guys at Vanguard, you can't get past appearance. If it's popular, it must be bad.
ACs are modded -6. I don't read you, I don't mod you, I don't see you. Don't like it? Don't be a coward.
And the same "I am Jack's Ass" crowd is full of people with an over inflated sense of self importantce who believe that being invited to join a beta test and asked for some constructive feedback makes their voices more important than those of people who have been developing the game for years, and they regularly hold public roasts of any member of the development team who still cares enough to attempt to communicate with them?
I would be shocked and appalled if it weren't for the fact that this is exactly what has happened with every single game relased this century. The same arrogant twits infest every forum, loudly proclaiming that they now own the game and that those pinhead developers had better start doing things their way or else they're going to leave and take all six billion of their friends with them to whatever the next unreleased game is. The only thing that's surprising about this is that the writer says that Brad McQuaid is still trying to give them what they claim they want.
People often wonder just why it is that game developers often don't participate in their fora or talk directly to the players, and why they are often secretive about what they are working on. This kind of thing is exactly why they do that. Having to deal with this kind of abuse on a daily basis will turn anybody into a recluse.
The articles author is dead on. Take your average rabid Apply fanboy x10 and you've got the nut balls who make up the Vanguard community. These players have been pushed from mmorpg to mmorpg as developers quickly realize the kind of game play they worship is not what 95% of players out there want. If you even attempt to suggest changes to the way the envision the game you're in for all sorts of abuse and scorn. They see this as their "last hope" and will do anything to make sure stays that way. Alas, the result is the game supposedly sucks, badly, from what i've heard from beta testers. MS dumping it back to SOE is a sure sign they are struggling. My prediction is the game will not make it to market in it's current form.
*Fortitudo, aequitas, fidelitas.*
Yeah, I think EVE is the best at battling the grind. There are still grinds that can be done. Grind for money. Grind for standing.
/commercialover
I've played many of the larger MMORPG's out there (UO, EQ1/2, SWG, WoW, and EVE). EVE is truely unique. CCP has bucked the trend in a lot of areas and almost all of them work. 1 server. Letting you know the population (which continues to go up all the time). Skills train over time, even when offline. No way to speed up the process (except learning skills that aid in the processes).
Roleplay is a little difficult because there really isn't an Avatar running around. You are essentially your ship. But other than that, the game has a lot to offer. I jumped in late(Jan 06), years after release. However, the way everything is layed out, you don't feel completely useless unless you grind to the top. Because there is no top. You just keep learning skills.
There seems to be some hatred against WoW players. I can only imagine that this is the same hatred that Counterstrike players get. I was in a beta for a couple of more realistic shooters and we had good reasons to loathe CS players. They would get their beta key and instantly demand the game be turned into a CS clone.
If you get a post like "they should do X like they it in CS" or "this game sucks because I am good at X in CS and I suck at it in this game" then there really isn't much you can do.
So the players who like the game as it is fight the players who want to change the game. This nothing new. Just try following a debate on language reform.
The example of a corpse run is mentioned. Corpse run is a penalty for dying. Everquest 2 for instance punishes you with an experience debt unless you go back to where you died and reassorb your ghost. Other games leave your equipment lying out in the wild forcing you to go back to get your loot.
It makes the game more of a challenge forcing you to think about a battle. Not just wether you can handle that boss you need for a quest but wether you will make it back out again.
Without a corspe run you run the risk of players just using dying to get back to the city to sell their loot. Ask Star Wars Galaxies with the Trials of Obi-wan expansion. For that matter it existed before where people would kill themselves to get rid of a doctor buff that was about to run out so they could get a new one.
Kinda ruins the atmo when you got people begging to be wiped out. "Hey you want to go hunt rancors tonight" "Sure, let me just kill myself before we head out okay?" "Eh, right".
WoW for all its success is not everyones cup of tea and it can be disappointing to see every game try to emulate it. Again, look at SWG. It tried to WoW people and is near dead because of it.
So yes forum discusssions can become very heated BUT there is always two sides to a story. The person comments we read in the main article claim that the hardcore resisted attempts to add WoW elements to the game. Eheh, meaning he wanted to make the game into WoW. Is he basically upset because he didn't get to mold the game into his vision?
MMORPG's are very hard games to produce and if the designer doesn't 100% believe in what he wants to do there is the risk that he could start to believe that the tiny vocal minority on the forums somehow represents the majority. On the other hand if he ignores them he risks that they are infact the majority.
You can't please everyone but you sure as hell can upset everyone.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
... it attracts your average housewife gamer (like my wife) your average high school gamer (like my brother) your average college gamer who doesn't have a lot of time(like my other brother) and people who just can't stand the thought of dying and losing XP. It is a softcore MMO. They are catering to the masses, not to the MMO purists (enter me).
Vanguard is going to be a hardcore MMO. This news article is music to my ears. The core dev team has its roots in EQ. This game will be challenging and give you a run for its money. Carrot on a stick? Hell yes.
But no, like the guys at Vanguard, you can't get past appearance. If it's popular, it must be bad.
My guess based on articles I've read is that Vanguard will be similar to EQ. Very open ended. WoW's problem is that the engame converges. Everyone, and I mean everyone is doing those stupid instances at level 60 or raiding a few dungeons. And once you are 60 all that is left to do is get gear. Whereas in Everquest the landmass is so huge and the design is so open-ended, you have a lot to do. (you can also keep grinding, dumping XP into abilities, but I don't know for sure Vanguard will have a system like that). Vanguard should be that open ended, and it is a roleplayer's wet dream.
Vanguard has been advertised as a hardcore-only game since it's inception. I actually like hell levels, grinding and slow travel. It gives me the feel that I'm actually in the world and not just playing a game. I want immersion in an MMORPG, not another game.
There is something to be said for having to wait for 30 minutes for a boat ride from Freeport to Butcherblock with islands to visit on the way. It keeps people more inclined to explore their current environment instead of looking for the fastest way to level up and going to the appropriate zone to do that.
I do hope the game lives up to what it is being advertised to be.
And I'll say it one more time: THEY HAVE BEEN ADVERTISING THAT THEY DON'T WANT THE "WOW" CROWD FOR YEARS. That alone has driven up their popularity with the hardcore MMORPG gamers because honestly, very few hardcore people even PLAY WoW to begin with.
They are aiming at the hardcore gamer from day 1. No suprises there.
Instancing is a Good Thing on busy servers. I agree. However I think they are some of the more creative minds creating games right now and I'm excited to see the alternatives they are implementing. Non-instanced housing I think will be amazing, for example. Seeing housing that belongs to players in a city just makes the world that much more real and identifiable.
SOE is the 10,000 ton boat anchor around their necks. I have two reasons to never trust a MMO that is associated with SOE in any way:
Star Wars Galaxies Combat Upgrade
Star Wars Galaxies New Game Experience
It's so bad that mmorpg.com has posted a stickied "Official SOE hate thread" in the forum of every SOE game.
Corporatism != Free Market
Roleplay is a little difficult because there really isn't an Avatar running around.
Actually, I'd be inclined to disagree. In Eve, roleplay takes it's form in Corporation Management. So you can't pretend to be a dancing catgirl. Instead, you take a leadership role that requires the player to act the part. Be responsible, smart, and decisive. Or you can choose to be a pirate, ruthless and coldblooded. So you just wiped out someone's work for a month in thirty seconds. He should have payed the ransom.
Interpersonal politics make a huge part of the Eve experience. From forming alliances to elbowing out rivals, the role playing element of Eve isn't dictated by the cute and fuzzy animated cartoon, but by the results your actions bring. The hand-off approach from the creators really pays off when your corp takes over a new zone to bring it's own brand of order. You *can't* script that.
We have a tremendous amount of respect for World of Warcraft, its success, the expansion of the gaming audience for MMOGs, and many of the elements that they incorporated or improved upon from those games that came before them. They've done this industry a great service by increasing awareness and setting a new bar for quality. As EverQuest did, as World of Warcraft did, as every game that has come out in this genre has done, we will iterate on the things that we feel were done correctly, fix the things we think were done incorrectly, and then innovate where we feel necessary -- this is a largely intuitive process, but one where our experience continues to lead us appropriately. Beta Testers are an extremely valuable resource for feedback, but they do not dictate the design of the game that we are building. That design came from Brad & Jeff and the team long ago (the much and oft touted Vision) and will be tuned and reevaluated by the team as feedback comes in -- but the game design is not, has never been, and will not be dictated by anyone other than the developer. Our Beta testers can be passionate about their opinions and they air them when appropriate, as has been requested of them. However, much like here, you take everything with a grain of salt, carefully evaluate, discard the opinions that are inflammatory or without merit, and then weigh the remainder carefully against your own understanding. The Beta is not in trouble, and the community is not the source of all negativity -- rather, they provide us a resource that is absolutely fundamental to ongoing evaluation of the content and systems we are implementing. And frankly, our daily interaction with the game provides us the most accurate perspective in evaluating the status of the game, its trajectory for launch, and its eventual likelihood of success. We're going to be fine. :)
We welcome the conversation.
Zack K.
Director, Business Development
Sigil Games Online
These are games.
Actually, MMORPGs are hobbies. Or part-time jobs. They have characteristics of both.
But they're not just "games" these days.
"Why does everything have to have 5 million customers and be a "WoW clone" to be successful?"
... they made a simple game, no wonder it is popular, simple minds, simple games!"
I didn't say successful. I said 'huge' - your terminology. To me, 'huge' means large number of players. I would consider WoW to be 'huge'.
'Successful' is a much more subjective word. If their goal is to make a game and sell it, they can easily 'succeed.' If their goal is to make enough money to sustain itself, but not be a major phenomenon, then they might succeed at that as well. The latter goal isn't a rare thing these days.
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"WoW is a watered down MMO. Levels are easy, the endgame converges on 3 instances, the raiding content is sparse, there is very little to do once you are 60
Your opinion makes it sound like you've played it quite a bit. If it was so horrible, why did you keep playing it?
If you didn't play it all that much, then you've got a fairly un-informed opinion.
In either case, that's just your opinion. You hate WoW, and that's fine. Mocking the people who do play it just makes you sound petty.
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"I don't care if I am close minded. There are a lot of us waiting for a game that is hardcore, that has strict rules, that doesn't hand you levels and gear on a silver platter."
All you're describing is changing the difficulty level, not 'removing anything WoWish.'
Exactly what is it that is unique only to WoW that you hate so much?
There have been other games before WoW that were fairly similar in difficulty level. Yet WoW seems to be made out to be some kind of abomination, that no one who claims to be 'hardcore' could ever enjoy, unlike every other game that came out in the history of MMOs.
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"People two years ago were ready to pre-order this game as soon as it was a possibility. It is rare that a game is so well-received."
That doesn't mean they're going to like the final product. Most MMOs go through a lot of changes during their lifetime; just look at SWG. So people were willing to buy a game they hadn't seen. That doesn't mean it's going to be any good.
/sig
Bullshit.
WoW for case in point.
No you can't sell something that people have zero interest in, but the game is not what it is marketed as or purported to be by the company that created it.
The game was very carefully designed to suck you in, and require just enough of your time, to get you hooked and keep you paying that monthly fee...these decisions were absolutely NOT made by a group of people sitting around going, what is the BEST rpg we can put together given this IP. A large number of the mechanics and balancing in there are PURELY designed to optimize the funds they suck out of their customers wallets.
Charging FULL PRICE for the boxed game, which is useless without adding on monthly fees, holy shit it's one of the most expensive games EVER PRODUCED. Yeah, and that's purely a function of what it took to produce the perfect game for it's costomers. Wrong. That's what it took to produce the perfect game for it's shareholders.
There are games that are purely designed to make the best game possible. There are games that are purely designed to generate revenue. And there are a lot in the middle.
I don't know about you, but the very best games I've ever played fall in the first category. WoW ain't one of em, by a LONG shot.
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