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Why Vanguard Sets a Bad Precedent for MMOGs
The ever-enjoyable Gamers with Jobs has up a fascinating look at the recently released MMOG Vanguard . The article's author, Elysium, takes pains to point out that it's not a review. He didn't play the title long enough to get a firm grasp of the game; he just didn't care enough to spend the time. He outlines what makes Vanguard a bad game, and then points out that the game's creator Brad McQuaid himself has as much as admitted it was released too early. Sony Online Entertainment saved the game from bankruptcy, and released it when the schedule said to and not a moment later. In Elysium's mind, this sets up a really, really bad precedent: "Now that the game has released in its incomplete state, in a state that McQuaid himself describes as requiring patches, bug fixes and new feature implementation on par with a beta product, Sigil essentially comes to the consumer as the third investor in the process of the development cycle, and that is not just a terrible way of doing business, but an irresponsible step in the wrong direction for complicit consumers. Let me put it bluntly, if a game is not ready for retail when the money runs out find another investor or shut the doors. We are customers, and the retail end of the industry is bad enough about not supporting incomplete or inoperable products without developers and publishers assuming we are investors in the development process. Your job as the industry is to create product, and then, and only then, we buy it."
Vanguard combines what I believed to be the best of EQ1 and WoW, my two favorite MMORPGs to date. I have only two problems with it, or three if you count sub-problems. One, it is Windows only (and Wine GLSL doesnt handle it well, yet!). Two, it is buggy, but improving at a rapid rate. And three, one of the biggest bugs affects framerate causing the game to be unplayable on older hardware and less than desirably configurable on new hardware.
That said, I expect to play this game for at least a few months once I can, longer if my friends still play by then.
Anybody who investigated the game online knew that the game was rushed (or they did a poor job investigating). I was among those on internet forums talking about major game-wide changes being made in the final month of production. They changed how XP was awarded, they implemented item durability, and they put in flying mounts within the last 4 weeks of Beta.
Of course there were still the die-hards who dismissed these with their standard "Go back to WoW" line, but everybody knew it was true. The die-hards often commented that they knew they were going to be funding a retail Beta, but didn't care because they "believed in the vision"
So I don't think it's setting a bad precedent - the precedent was there long before Vanguard. Asheron's Call 2, Dungeons and Dragons Online, The Matrix Online, Star Wars Galaxies... all beta'd by me, and all forced out the door too soon. It's no coincidence that they're all doing poorly, with one (AC2) dead.
World of Warcraft was not forced out the door, and in fact slipped over 2 years from its initial announced release date of Winter 2002. I beta'd WoW, and while there were still a few small bugs (and their servers were underprepared for the launch) it was polished and it shows in its subscriber numbers.
The only way we can change the precedent is by being informed customers and not buying crap when we know it's crap. The only way a company like SOE will stop rushing release dates is when they see long-term dissatisfaction outweighing short-term development costs. If they threw another $2 million into development and pushed Vanguard back a few months it would have made a world of difference, giving them subscribers for years to come. Blizzard understood this.
So let me get this straight. The game is buggy and you're unable to play it, but you're excited about it and believe it will be great once you do get to play it.
There have been several cases where an eagerly anticipated game ran out of capital before it was "finished" and so it simply got canned. That sucks too. I would rather have a buggy release where I *can* buy it and as such hopefully fund some future patches, eventually resulting in a complete game. Worst case scenario at least there is a possibility that the community can come up with an unofficial patch.
So no, it's not really a very bad precedent at all as far as I'm concerned.
Random and weird software I've written.
"Hello, Game master. I can't zone out of the starter area, and the mobs are mocking me."
God spoke to me.
In Elysium's mind, this sets up a really, really bad precedent:
The precedent has already been set. Microsoft, Sony (and I'm thinking EQ expansions here more than PS3), whoever released NWN2...I'm sure there's more but I don't want to bother google searching for this junk. Only company that bothers to release stuff as best they can is Valve I think.
The whole plan is 'release now, patch later.' Patches are too ingrained in the norm these days. Heck, people practically EXPECT patches. If a company didn't release patches, people would begin to think they're leaving their product unsecure or something. Catch-22. Blame the public for accepting patches.
Every Vanguard preview indicates that it's the same old stuff we've seen for years - high fantasy, level grinding, questing. The screenshots look dull and uninspired. The plastic player models convey zero personality. In other words, the game will have a small fanbase but it's not going anywhere. And no, I haven't played the game because nothing about it sounds compelling. Why should I settle for a second-rate product when I have WoW, GW, or even EQII to choose from in the "fantasy/MMORPG/questing" genre? And frankly, you need a damn good product to sway people away from WoW or whatever. You're asking them to give up their time investment and spend hundreds of hours in your gaming world. Or you could innovate and create an MMO for people like me who hate the current crop of MMOs :P
I read Vanguard's forums since early development and the devs had some awesome ideas. They just failed miserably in the execution.
As my friend said when I showed him some Vanguard screenshots/previews: "Don't they already have 5 games just like this?"
Close, but no cigar. It is buggy and I am unable to play it on my own computer in my OS of choice. I have already played it plenty and know that I like it.
One MMO that came out around the same time WoW did was Everquest 2. At the time, it had its own issues, but it had time to mature, it had a few big expansions, and a couple mini adventure packs (which are worth the $5 or so for the time having fun playing them.)
I took up EQ2 a couple months ago (after just burning out of WoW), and have been extremely pleased with the UI, the playing style, the graphics, pretty much everything in the game. I almost say that EQ2 is EQ2.5, because of all the major positive work that has been done to it since it launched. For those that are not into WoW, its worth a look.
MMOs are games that are designed to be patched, content added, stuff modified, and old stuff overhauled every so often, so don't judge Vanguard for goot yet. Give it a thumbs up/thumbs down after six months or a year, after it had a major content patch or an expansion. Its common (but foolish) for players to hop on a MMO either in its public beta phase or at launch, scream about its faults and move back to their old MMOs. Just consider it a "gamma" release until the game is about a year old.
I admit I've never played any MMOG at the high levels (aside from UO, arguably), but it's always seemed to me that EverQuest spawned a line of games -- Dark Age of Camelot, Anarchy Online, etc -- that had essentially the same gameplay as EQ, with some tweaks and maybe a few additional features. WoW strikes me as the best of that genre, a highly-polished EverQuest. I'm trying, but I can't think of any positive features of EQ (aside from nostalgia) that are absent in WoW.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
After the way SOE butchered SWG, I'll pass.
Sony does seem to have a problem with releasing products too soon and not finished enough...
From one perspective, unfinished content or wonky mechanics might be considered acceptable: no plan survives contact with the enemy, and only long-term exposure to players will reveal flaws that need correcting. Unfortunately, timelines for fixes and adding content rarely survive contact with the players either-- dedicated groups of players are notorious for blazing through content at staggering speeds, and just as notorious for raising six kinds of Hell when they find the equivalent of an animated 'under construction' gif in place of their endgame content.
Save the Music; Save the World at http://www.TuneTriever.com (Our latest Android game)
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
Difficulty? WoW is made for casual gamers. I've gotten an alt to level sixty (pre BoC) in less than 96 hours played time.
Community? In EQ, you were forced to group, unless you played one of a handful of classes. Being forced to interact with other people built up a sense of community. All I saw in WoW were random names that happened to be going the same places I was.
Competition? The prevalence of instancing in WoW basically destroyed the idea of competition. All that you have is who is first to beat new content. There's no more racing for big named mobs, which was part of the fun of EQ, imo.
Who was it who said "Release Early and Often"? Oh yes, Eric S Raymond, in the seminal The Cathedral and the Bazaar.
Not to mention the plethora of literature about product development in other, non-software environments. All major product companies nowadays release products as fast as they can and let the customers do the "paying beta". Once the features are ironed out, they release a more polished mass-market product that has benefited from all the customer feedback.
Game development has been totally ass-backwards in terms of its development approach since forever. Games are effectively developed in giant waterfall projects which either crash and burn or do extremely well - but you only find out at the end. Unlike the poster of the original article I think it's great to see the games development processes maturing in this way towards what is the de-facto model of choice for product development in the real world. Well done Vanguard!
The results that can be expected from this shift of approach are:
- People who are keen to try stuff early can do so
- The costs of development of a game will be reduced (and hopefully the sales price too)
- The risks of developing a game will be reduced (since you'll know earlier whether the game is viable)
- Game quality will simply become better! Customer feedback will play a bigger part in shaping the game from much earlier on.
- More development shops will open as the hurdle to entry lowers
- Games which are fundamentally shit will be canned earlier
- More risk can be taken by trying something different if you're only going to invest 3 months of dev time rather than 3 years! Plus you get immediate customer feedback so you can quickly find out whether your new idea is brilliant or a dog.
There are many others... ultimately this is an extremely good move for the industry and we should be very glad of it. Perhaps with this the games industry will finally move towards the "software as a service/continuously updated product" model that is spreading far and wide in the rest of the software and meatspace industry.Daniel
Carpe Diem
How does this set any kind of precedent? It's certainly not the first MMO to ship before it's bug-free, or even feature-complete. Sony has a long history of releasing EQ expansions when they're ~50% complete, banking on it taking players N months to get to that point. This Anarchy Online review shows that it too fell victim to being pushed out the door well before its time. The only MMO game I've seen that was significantly complete at almost every step of the way has been WoW.
rooooar
It's kind of sad to me, and a few others I know because this didn't have to happen. Sigil spent a LOT of money on Vanguard, not WoW money, but more than pretty much any other MMO out at the moment besides EQ2. Not only that, but they had lot's of time too, something like 5 years of development time. Unfortunately, they pissed it all away. They just made mistake after mistake that eventually lead to the current state. I was part of the most active guild in beta for a long time and most of us left about 4 months prior to launch even after putting in months of playtime on characters we knew would be deleted. It just became obvious to us, people who had big plans, tons of time and resources invested and really wanted to enjoy the game, that it was just going downhill fast. I really feel sorry for some of the developers and other Sigil employees that we got to know. Most of them joined Sigil because they expected greatness from McQuaid, he was one of the creators of Everquest after all, but instead they got screwed just like everyone else, but more so. It became pretty plain that even the devs were losing hope and enthusiasm for the project, and when that happens the game is doomed. As for Vanguard settings bad precedent, I agree, but not for the same reasons. Like someone else mentioned, MMO's releasing before they finished is nothing new and if anything Vanguard lack of success is going to further show new developers that to release an unfinished MMO these days is essentially suicide. Where I think the bad precedent comes from is that Vanguard was originally being built as the last crack at a "hardcore" MMO. Now that Vanguard is essentially a failure investors will be far less likely to put their money on another "hardcore" style MMO which is really a shame since the style of the game was not why it's failing. I don't know if we'll ever see a mainstream Everquest style MMO again, but I'm sure we're going to see a long line of WoW clones hoping to ride the coattails. Whether you like one style of game or another it's always nice to have more choices. Finally, another important thing to gather from the Vanguard release is that it will most likely be Brad McQuaid's last. He used up every ounce of fanboyism and nostalgia that he gained from Everquest and totally wasted it. He made a lot of big claims and hard-nosed statements concerning Vanguard and didn't deliver on any of them. He's truly eating his words right now as he's basically become a MMO pariah. And frankly, after seeing what he did (and didn't do) with such a promising "Vision" of Vanguard, I say good riddance.
-Woad
This game was much better 25 years ago when Atari released it.
Back in the day of MUDs, most up and coming games would have an open beta period. This would draw a small number of players who liked the concept, wanted to help build a world, and/or wanted to get favors out of existing staff (or become staff themselves.)
Open betas would never draw a 'normal' crowd - because, either a player wipe would happen before the game officially opened (why bother playing yet then?) or in the case of deranged admins, you'd be playing with people who had overpowered, ill-gotten items (sets a tone for what'll happen later, hey?)...
Come opening day, shit would hit the fan no matter how much testing would done. Because suddenly you'd have a lot more people putting a lot more stress on your game. As the game would grow in popularity, this would repeat.
With MUDs, we're talking an average of 40-50 people during the golden age, with some of the larger names pulling in a few hundred.
What's an MMOG like?
How do you possibly test a game in a real world environment when the real world environment requires thousands if not tens of thousands of players?
There's no way. Unless, of course, you want to start hiring people. In which case, you want to see a company run out of funds before a game is ready for launch? That's the way to do it.
At the end of the day, MMOGs are nothing more than MUDs with graphics slapped on top of them. As such, they're eternally in beta.
Difficulty? WoW is made for casual gamers. I've gotten an alt to level sixty (pre BoC) in less than 96 hours played time.
Community? In EQ, you were forced to group, unless you played one of a handful of classes. Being forced to interact with other people built up a sense of community. All I saw in WoW were random names that happened to be going the same places I was.
Competition? The prevalence of instancing in WoW basically destroyed the idea of competition. All that you have is who is first to beat new content. There's no more racing for big named mobs, which was part of the fun of EQ, imo.
To you, that was what was right about EQ. To me that was what was wrong about EQ. I want to decide when to play my games. I don't want it decided for me. For EQ for all the high level mobs and being first ect.. dictates you sink all free time into it. It's not even all that compelling or fun. The socialization was cool but sometimes you want just log in, finish a few quest and do some fishing ect.. without the necessity to grou into a 40 man raid to find your fishing hole. But to each their own. I prefer WOW mostly. Wow is not made for casual players. it's made for medium hardcore ones while EQ is made for heavy hardcore ones.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Difficulty? WoW is made for casual gamers. I've gotten an alt to level sixty (pre BoC) in less than 96 hours played time.
The time to level isn't difficulty, I've played through games that take one hour to finish and are MUCH harder than any MMO I've ever seen and likewise I've played through games that took 40 hours or more but were as easy as a walk in the park (discounting the dog shit you have to dodge all the time on a real walk). Are the fights in Vanguard really more difficult to pull off than the fights in WoW?
Competition? The prevalence of instancing in WoW basically destroyed the idea of competition. All that you have is who is first to beat new content. There's no more racing for big named mobs, which was part of the fun of EQ, imo.
Most people probably didn't like how many more options that gave to griefers and farmers to annoy people.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Hell, that's describing half of all software released these days.
One has to boggle at the thought of whoever is in charge of calling the shots on when these MMOs are released. Just how many MMOs in a row do they have to rush to market and have fail miserably, before they learn that the short-term money savings just does not at all justify pushing out a beta product? SWG suffered from bad bug-testing methods, incomplete content, and being pushed to market months too early. It's death spiral took longer than usual because of the extreme power of the Starwars name, but any beta tester could tell you it was inevitable from that early week in June when the game was announced "Gold." I can't comment on if EQ2 was rushed to market or not, however from a graphics standpoint it should have also had them learn the lesson that extreme eyecandy in MMOs just doesn't work. It looks nice for screenshots, but having a game that only runs for a small fraction of high-end PCs, and even then only at low-end settings, doesn't make for a subscription base. So now we have Vanguard from SOE -- again released far too soon, and with graphics well above what even high-end machines can handle. (I believe the full install is around 20GB+) SOE isn't just taking a pistol and shooting themselves in the foot -- they've graduated to taking an RPG and firing it straight down...
Sony not learning from past mistakes? I would never imagine that the company that brought us betamax, minidisc, memory sticks, and blu ray would repeatedly release products with the same glaring design flaws.
I never said I was smart, I just said I was smarter than you
Competition? The prevalence of instancing in WoW basically destroyed the idea of competition. All that you have is who is first to beat new content. There's no more racing for big named mobs, which was part of the fun of EQ, imo.
Yes, because there's just loads of fun competing against a team of people who take turns keeping specific mobs on farm status over and over again so I could never get my JBoots.
WoW removed the "competition" of having to be the first one to a specific mob in the once-in-24 hours that it spawns so you can get the ultra-rare item. Which, basically was over half the asshattery in EQ.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
... EverQuest spawned a line of games ...
..."
It's more like "... DikuMUD spawned a line of games
The simplest objection some have about WoW is that it is too simple. This is about taste and cannot really be argued.
One of the things is about how death is handled. SWG at one time handled it so bad that players commited suicide as a way to quickly travel back to base. This is not a good thing for a game. There should be at least some suspension of disbelief and everyone in your party jumping into a lavastream after the big fight saying, "see you later" just doesn't do it.
WoW requires you to go back to your body in an invulnerable form from a fixed point and then respawn in the immidiate area of your body. If you don't you suffer a severe hit to your stats for a period of time.
The "punishement" aspects here are obvious. Going back to your corpse is boring, if in a party it requires everyone to wait, and you better hope they wait because what ever killed you will still be there + fresh respawns.
Some people think this is too though while others think it is too weak. Both are right.
If I remember correctly (I haven't played any MMO in months and they tend to blur together) in EQ2 the punishements are slightly more severe, you respawned alive and well similar to were your ghosts spawns in WoW but with a severe hit to your stats and XP. You could lighten the punishement by recovering your "shard" from your place of death.
Think for a second about the difference between WoW and EQ2 right there. In WoW you travel back to your corpse in order to continue meaningfull play in invulenrable mode, it is nothing but a time waster. You died so you don't get to play for a few minutes. Don't die again.
In EQ2 you are back in the game again from the moment you die BUT severely reduced and now faced with the same journey as a WoW player except you are very vulnerable and now got to fight everything between you and your bleeding mangled corpse.
That is not all, your group has not only now lost a valuable member of your party (or a piece of dead weight) but now faces the choice of making their way back to the entrance to pick you up and escort you to your corpse OR going on in reduced state.
A common sight in EQ2 was to see players hitching a ride into a dungeon with later groups to get back to their group waiting inside.
Obviously therefore death is something far more severe in EQ2 then in WoW. Some people like this.
Yeah it can be seen as a waste of time but it can also be seen as a way of getting better players who actively take care of each other. Having played both of them I have noted that EQ2 groups tend to work better together then WoW. In EQ2 EVERYONE in the group shared in your XP penalty. Can you imagine WoW players trying to deal with this? (The shared XP hit was removed from EQ2, as were shard runs apparently)
There is however yet another way of doing death. SWG had an amazing concept that I think was unique. Not all enemies killed you. You had three bars, if one was reduced to zero you were knocked out. It was then up to the enemy to deliver a finishing blow. Not all critters would do that (depending on species) and even if they wanted too it was possible for them to be distracted by your team mates. This added a whole new element to the game. Now there was still the tactical option of "saving" a teammate because a lesser class of healer could recover them on the field then a death character. Any medic could revive a knocked out character while death was only reversible by a highlevel doctor.
This made it actually important to have a few points in medic as a fighter as it allowed you to recover your true medic when they got knocked out. (because of SWG design were actions causes health bar loss a hardworking medic could put themselves in a vulnerable state were a single hit could knock them out)
Needlessly complex OR intresting gameplay? It is a matter of taste. (That is to say nothing of the difference between having a dedicated action/mana bar from wich you perform your actions and having to pay for your actions with your
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Sony have what they call Station Access (http://station-access.station.sony.com/), for $24.99 a user gets a subscription to Vanguard, EQ1, EQ2, Matrix Online, SWG, Planetside and a few others. Sony do not need Vanguard to be a smash hit runaway success, what they need is for a supply of extra games added to the pass so that:
a) people buy the boxed game ("Hey I'm already paying for the pass so why not give Vanguard a go")
b) people subscribed to one Sony MMO pay the $10 extra for the pass to get the extra value (certainly when I was playing EQ2 heavily I found it worth the extra money for Planetside)
c) the stream of new games locks people in to Sony, you are effectively already paying for vanguard and as long as you keep that pass your old EQ1 character stays live in case you want to drop in and play again.
Y'know? Betamax is actually a superior technology to VHS. There's a reason it's what TV stations and recording studios have been using until they went digital.... It records better picture quality, and better sound. VHS won out because of marketing.
The rest of that stuff... can't really argue against it. It's all overpriced and mediocre. But I'd like to point out that SOE probably learned from Everquest (the first)... Millions of subscribers paying $13 US/month to beta test it makes a pretty compelling argument in favour of this kind of business model.
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
As the President of a relatively successful independent MMO developer, and despite wishing to remain nameless, I feel compelled to leap in and pat you on the back for being able to see the wood amongst the trees. Good post my friend.
Let's not forget that World of Warcraft also had its problems: the queue, the general issues in the beginning, etc. It's par for the course with games these days.
I'm a little more concerned about console games needing patches: wasn't the whole idea with console was that they were different from PCs? The same "push it early, then patch" mentality seems to be affecting consoles, too.
Vincent J. Murphy
Spandex Justice
I play Vanguard, it's not bad really, in fact I do like it. It was released too soon, but really, we can say the same thing about 99% of the games out there. The problem with Vanguard, interestingly enough, is that its developers listened to the players too much. Because of user input they kept changing core aspects of the game. Whole classes were redone even 3 days before release date (so much for testing them). With so many changes, they ran out of money and time. Graphically it's awesome, you do need at least 2GB RAM to play it (and let's not forget 21GB free in your hard drive to install it), so this is not your Bejeweled 2. It's a deep and complex game unlike, say, WoW which is its direct competitor. Playing each class (and there are 15 of them) is a different experience. You can solo all the time but for obvious reasons, grouping is better.
You've stated the bad, and that's what I usually look for in a review when I want a new game. (I've been considering Vanguard for a while.) But I find that nobody is stating the good, which is disconcerting. Can you tell me what you -do- like about the game? In particular, can you tell me how good/bad the combat, magic, crafting, and quest systems are?
Thanks
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
One of the problem with the games that folded before release is that everyone involved can play "what release would have been like" with impunity. Too many developers promise the world and then get crushed trying to deliver it. Some suffer feature creep as the go along forever not finishing the game as intended simply because they cannot stay focues.
Its probably best they do not release, if the developer cannot be realistic before release how can we expect them to be so after? I have been in games where bugs went unchecked for a long time because the developer kept adding features. Instead of fixing what was there they got caught in the trap of new stuff is fun, who wants to work on old code.
There have a been a few games which I think were just tossed out there to see what response would be. Its easy to throw together a bunch of mock ups, its even easier to put up a webpage of things your game will have, getting it all delivered is a whole 'nuther story.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
And four:
"Combines the best [worst?] of EQ1 and WoW"
Really, this says it all. It's a terribly derivative product with little or no thought behind what might actually propel the industry forward. Then again, who was expecting anything more from Brad?
"Only company that bothers to release stuff as best they can is Valve I think."
When Duke Nukem Forever comes out, it will be so perfect that it will require negative patches to scale back the brilliance.
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
A buggy system can be very frustrating but I've found a couple of games that had premises good enough to outshine the technical difficulties. Considering your review I think this fits the profile, I'll get it and take a look.
And about Publishers pushing Developers, have this guys ever heard of contracts? It's a nice concept we adopted in software development a while back, you should google it, it would make your development cycle much easier.
Being released early sets a precedent? ...in PC games? ...in MMOG's?
*blinks*
Did this guy wake up from a 20 year coma as of last month?
On that note, does anyone know of any ROM based muds that are still alive? (i.e. 15+ non-afk players online?)
I've played Vanguard since its "retail" release, having quit WoW in December (exams). In my opinion the combat is much more involved than in WoW. You always have a variety of abilities to use and some are more appropriate to different situations. Plus, the chained abilities are a lot of fun. My Dreadknight is really fun to solo, where in WoW my warrior would just sit back and sunder away with some rends and overpowers thrown in.
And don't forget the eye candy. When I crit with Malice and hit Wrack with a greatsword, it just looks cool. In WoW I spent more time looking at the action/status bars.
This was not a review of the game, more a review of Sigil and SOE's policies. I was very much looking forward to Vanguard, as an old UO player I am still looking for a similar experience but with a bit more gloss. I was very active in the forums for over a year (under a different name) but when it came time to buy my pre-ordered collector's edition I didn't have to think twice, Vanguard, in it's current condition is not worth the price of a standard edition. I still have high hopes for the game but, as many of us believed, when SOE stepped in there was going to be a high price to pay and this is it. But, to be clear, Vanguard is not the first MMOG to trip over the first step. Many of the MMOGs I played and tested have had horrible launches, I believe Anarchy Online and World War II Online are tied for the worst launch. In fact I can only think of one game, Dark Ages of Camelot, that had a fairly good launch, although some higher level elements were patched in (I have not played EQ2 or FFXI). If Vanguard had followed Half Life 2 Ep:2 and Spore and pushed back launch until Q3 2007 I believe it would have been more than what I expected.
- Battlegrounds
- Raid Instances/Regular Instances missing (MC was the only raid instance we had, and it was poorly implemented compared to modern raids in WoW).
- Hero classes, never introduced
- No important PvP system
- Balance Issues (Most games have this, period, though)
The problem is that WoW shows that even with many problems, it has gone on to be arguably the most financially successful video game of our time. It has what, 8 million subscribers now (minus 1, I quit over a year and a half ago...).There's no question about it -- WoW sets a much worse precedence than V:SOH.
I don't know what server you played on, but on Xegony, Time was effectively blocked by about 3 guilds that had access to it, for over a year. They killed every mob needed for planar advancement as soon as it spawned. The only way you had a chance was a random server restart that they couldn't mobilize fast enough for, and then you had to race another group of guilds/alliances that were trying to do the same thing you were. There were several times that we were almost to full raid force to take out a mob, and an uber raid guild would run right past our assemblage and take out the mob, because they heard it was up, or they knew its spawn time.
Lack on instanced content meant that one guild or a few guilds could effectively block others from content. So, I pay the same amount of money, but other players can cut me out of the top end content, just so they can keep it to themselves? No thanks!
Lack of instanced content is going to be a problem for V:SoH, if they set things up in a similar fashion. Once the tightest guilds figure out they can block high end content (and therefore, the better loot) to themselves, it will happen.
Instanced content, even for the highest end stuff, means that no one guild/group can keep others from getting to it. Uber Guild A can raid that mob its allotted once a week, and every other casual guild can hit it just as often, or as few times as they want. What's wrong with that?
Oh, yeah, you wanted to brag. Well, if you want to brag, play on a PvP server, where competition is the norm.
When you read the guy's actual review, most of the things he's complaining about are gameplay design decisions, not code defects. He's not complaining about rendering problems or bad collision detection. He's complaining about the plot and dialog being lame, and the terrain and characters being boring.
That's not a "released too early" issue. That's a bad screenplay issue.
Of course, most of the people releasing early are still being idiots. You don't release a buggy product. You release something working but minimal.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
The act of releasing rushed and unfinished product on to the marketplace is as ancient as commerce itself.
It doesn't hurt the industry as much as it helps those who have a high standard of production.
The onus is on us, the consumers, to identify and asess quality prior to purchase -- as it has been for millennia.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
I agree with the parent post and disagree strongly with the article. I think it's a great way to release games. There are likely hundreds of games that had amazing potential, but ran out of money. I don't think applying this standard to boxed single-player games will work very well, as replayability is minimal already. One buggy run-through and you won't care if the next patch makes the game any better...you've played it.
MMOs are different - the experience changes every time. So I think that putting out something playable but not perfect (this is important...you can't put out complete crap) and use the subscriptions to continue your bankroll. Let the market decide if your game is good enough to stay afloat.
This guy openly admits this is not a review, so I can't bash him for obvious bias. With that said, the guy obviously does not like the game, so I really cannot see why he'd take this much time to say so. He slames the game for needed a hefty hardware requirements (even though its a brand new game, therefore may not run on 3 year old hardware, duh), he slames it for having a corpse run penalty, and he finds both combat and the card game (diplomacy) boring. He never looks at crafting.
With all that said, I play vanguard and I will admit now it does lag a bit but then I don't really have an amazing video card. The environments look beautiful to me, much better then EQ2, which I did not care for. One cannot compare it to wow as they are completely different, one goes for realism the other looks kind of cartoony (it still looks awesome though).
The combat is ok. Nothing special but then I wouldn't say it was bad either. The diplomacy is actually a great deal of fun. I thought the story was pretty interesting that was being told in the Wood Elves capital. It did take me a little bit to figure out that the names of the cards ment absolutely nothing but once I "learned" how to play, it was a great deal of fun.
This guy also mentions the complexity of understanding how strong a mob is. Personally, I love it. Once again, he complains about having to "learn" how something works and seems generally annoyed that it doesn't work like EQ or wow.
I haven't tried crafting either but from what I have read it seems fairly complex and likely requiring a little learning. Not a bad thing in my book.
Another thing the guy mentions is the buggyness of the game. Playing right now, I have noticed a couple of bugs, but nothing even remotely resembling a game breaking bug. If anything it hurt the immersion a little bit but thats about it. Also, comparing it to wows release, while wow was a pretty stable game (possibly the most stable) they completely fell flat on their face with server hardware. It took Blizzard well over a year from release to finally get the hardware done right. It took them another year to finally start trying to stop having freaken maintainence every single Tuesday morning, first only being 4 hours, then going to 6. And that was planned downtime, and had nothing to do with unexpected downtime (though blizzard did give free play time so that was cool). Vanguard has always been up and running for me and isn't that laggy. I was even on a UK server from california and was still playing just fine. UK to Cali lag was less in vanguard then Cali to East coast play in wow, and its a brand new game that just hit the market. Wow still couldn't say that.
This game has a slight learning curve but that should keep out some of the riff raff anyway. Overall I like this game and find it a very nice change from wow, which really was EQ lite. It was fun and I enjoyed it, but it was definitely easy mode MMO (why else do you think it has 7 million players).
Not to mention the plethora of literature about product development in other, non-software environments. All major product companies nowadays release products as fast as they can and let the customers do the "paying beta". Once the features are ironed out, they release a more polished mass-market product that has benefited from all the customer feedback.
Game development has been totally ass-backwards in terms of its development approach since forever. Games are effectively developed in giant waterfall projects which either crash and burn or do extremely well - but you only find out at the end. Unlike the poster of the original article I think it's great to see the games development processes maturing in this way towards what is the de-facto model of choice for product development in the real world. Well done Vanguard!
Well, maybe because that's how people play games too? In every single player game, and most of the "small world" games like FPS and such, people play it, then lose interest and move on to the next game. The idea that players will stay on continously requiring new releases (beyond bugfixes and expansion packs) is rather new. I've played a few games in beta, and more often than not I'm sick and tired of the bugs and gameplay issues and balance issues and whatnot long before it hits release. Particularly if it's of the type "Your character was foobar'd by a bug fixed in the current beta, but you're screwed. Start over." Or you find some way to win too easily, or you're stuck in some impossible battle. I'm sorry, but that just isn't fun.
With work projects, it's typically about getting something *done*. Sure as hell you're willing to help out to make it easier on yourself, and sooner is better. With games, it's about *how* you're getting there, and if I'm busy meddling with bugs instead of enjoying the game, well screw this. This is the future? If so, count me out.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
First of all, C&B doesn't say to release buggy half implimented shit early. It says to release small, incrimental amounts of working functionality early and often. Building small components into a big system. Games are releasing the entire big system, but every part of it is buggy, broken, and poorly thought out. This doesn't help anyone.
And second, C&B is not seminal, its not even important. Its just more of ESR's pompous, self-aggrandizing bullshit. Neither of the models he describes are common in the real world, and a bazaar model doesn't represent open source at all. Almost all open source porjects (especially successful ones) have a small group of core developers who decide what is good, what is not, do most of the work, etc. There's no bazaar involved.
Third, the release early, release often model doesn't work for many types of products. Games are one such product. Nobody wants to play "log in and chat" until the "you can walk around now" part is done, until the "we added running" part is done, etc, etc. Games need strong development and design staff to ensure a quality product is produced and then released. You can't have a shit team and then rely on your users to do your work for you as ESR and friends suggest.
I downloaded Vanguard when it was released and to me it's a very well done MMORPG. I haven't experenced issues with the playability of the game and the graphics are better than any other RPG that I've played (mainly EQ2, NWN 1&2, with some WoW). The addition of Diplomacy has been a fun angle to the RPG side of the game that allows folks who want to have a sideline other than adventuring do something other than crafting. I'm playing it on a high end machine that I built up this summer for playing games (AMD 64x2, SLI 7900's, 2 GB RAM, etc.) and I realize that this may mask many of the issues that folk are having but I have little to no complaints about it and think the game it's release state was very playable and very fun. I'm eager to find out what the rest of the gaming world of Vanguard has to offer. Also I strongly agree, this is not a new situation. I think the good thing about PC games is that they can be fixed/ehnanced/modified over time to give more value than the typical console approach. When I think about one of my favorite PC games to come out in the last few years Half-Life 2, folks complained at the lack of Half-Life style multiplayer vs. Counter Strike Source. It was added shortly after release and folks stopped complaining. Folks complained about the number of maps for CS, more came later. Valve continued to add to the core HL2 platform with technologies highlighted by the Lost Coast demo. The good PC game companies continue to fix and enhance their products over time and I think Sigil has already demonstrated that they are on the same path that others have followed.
What MMORPG doesn't take this view point, though? All MMORPGs that I've seen consistently release patches to fix issues and add new content. Successful ones put out expansions to add a whole lot of new content to maintain interest in the product. I think the problem here is that if your initial product is not working, then don't release it yet. If you have major scope creep occuring on your game project, then move a bunch of features to "Phase 2" and release an overall solid and working but lesser product as "Phase 1".
I think somebody hit the nail on the head here earlier - Game developers seem to be all about adding new things, and less about fixing and refining the existing code. If your existing code needs a lot of QA, debugging, and patching, then focus on that for a while and shut off the new feature floodgate until you can get your head above water.
And as I explained, the games tend to run together. Frankly I couldn't recall if that item damage was in WoW or if I recalled it from another game.
Anyway, it was pretty trivial, if you die that much (was it about 10% damange meaning you had to die 10 times before it affects you) you are in the wrong group. The repair costs were pretty low so the only effect was that it punished you if you were dying an extreme amount. In my experience it was only an effect on players who didn't just repair after a session and found themselves going into a raid with badly damaged equipment. Then again, this is an MMO staple.
But no I didn't play the game too much. Not because of WoW itself but I just don't play much during the summer. RPG's are for the long winter nights.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I lol'd.
Post of the day.
Swi
"Let me put it bluntly, if a game is not ready for retail when the money runs out find another investor or shut the doors."
And I bet you'd find lots of willing investors on this premise! Your pitch could go something like this....
"Ya I'm making the world's greatest MMORPG, but I need $20-$40 million or more to do it, and it may take 3 years or more, and if it isn't perfect by then I could need another year or two, or longer, and another $20-$40 million or more, and if you don't give it to me I'll try to find another investor, but if I can't we'll just shut the whole thing down and take our losses."
Who could turn down an offer like that?
If you can't afford to fund the development yourself, you're going to have to work within time constraints, just like every other business. Very few game developers have the kind of money it takes to make a good MMORPG, so they typically rely on publishers and outside investors, who, quite naturally, set conditions. I doubt this will change anytime soon, unless games suddenly get a whole lot cheaper to make.
Dave
http://internetgames.about.com
Look at SWG, 3.5 years later it's still not complete.
I'd like to know what about this article hasn't been said countless times already since every prior MMO (both before and after the coining of that term) that has come before.
Seriously, we need new rants, and VG is not rant-worthy. Nobody expected more of it than it delivered, and anyone who was following the development knew it was being designed for the other type of player that quit EQ1, the type that didn't think the game was hard enough .
VG does not set a bad precedent because it was never going to have any lasting effect on the genre. The entire concept of it was niche. And they were forced to launch at the absolute worst time to launch a non-IP-based MMO without a really big following. I don't think they were destined for failure. I'm hoping they have enough accounts to stay profitable. But I also don't think VG is going to change how anyone does anything in this genre because at it's heart, it's a five year old design.
I think this can work with an extended open beta phase.
The typical open source project can be downloaded and tried out for free, games developers that expect their customers to do their testing for them should do the same. And you still have to release something playable, otherwise people will get frustrated enough to quit even if it is free.
In practice, some development shops do this. I got into the Auto Assault beta, played the game for a few months and helped to find the bugs. While I did finally NOT buy the game as the gameplay was too shallow for my taste, I think it was reasonably mature on the technical side when released. Well done, NetDevil.
Other companies think they can get away with charging for a beta product, and the makers of Vanguard seem to fall in this category. I don't have much symphaty for that.
C - the footgun of programming languages
DAoC had a pretty bad launch in my eyes. They didn't have quite as many bugs as other games, but they WERE infested with a huge amount of memory leaks for a while there. (It all depended what card you were using and what OS you were on... Quite random.)
The biggest issue with DAoC, however, was the sheer amount of placeholder graphics they used. They model-swapped like DEMONS for a long time, so--artistically speaking--the game was tremendously boring.
The game I think will have the best launch and launch in the most complete state right now is LotR:O (certainly it's been the best and most complete game I've ever seen in beta), though I think it sports the issues "what makes it different in ANY meaningful way from WoW?" and "lack of content." Hopefully the type of gamer who would go there as opposed to WoW will make it a different environment (more RP-friendly, perhaps?), but... I'd still like to see ANY glimpse of developer future direction and design to know where they want to head. (Whether or not they get there.)
Amen. The original article is a load of rubbish. As was noted, it's hardly Sigil/Vanguard that started this; I dare say this has been going on in every industry that sells a product since buying and selling.
Too, and more importantly IMO, in our (somewhat) free-market, if you don't like it, don't buy it. It's not your RIGHT to demand bug free software, it's your RESPONSIBILITY to reward the companies that give you what you want and punish those that don't. Demanding a company do this or that before they release (or implying that those that don't have done it somehow "wrong" or are "bad") puts the power in the company's hands; our economic system is based on the power goes to the consumer.
Before you design for reuse, make sure to design it for use.
TV stations used Betacam, not Betamax. The formats are somewhat related, but incompatible.
Oh, and VHS won because they came out with bigger tapes sooner. Betamax launched with 1 hour recordable tapes.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
I'm assuming a Dreadknight follows the EQ Shadowknight model, ie a mix of Warrior and Necro - or it may be a type of anti-paladin. Either way it's not a fair comparison to a warrior, which is by the far the dullest character to play in WOW.
Considering the game doesn't start until max level, how is this even relevant?
Community? In EQ, you were forced to group, unless you played one of a handful of classes. Being forced to interact with other people built up a sense of community. All I saw in WoW were random names that happened to be going the same places I was.
There is plenty of content in WoW that can't be solo'ed. Is there a reason not to have ANY content that can be soloed? Supporting group play is good. Forcing group play is bad.
Competition? The prevalence of instancing in WoW basically destroyed the idea of competition. All that you have is who is first to beat new content. There's no more racing for big named mobs, which was part of the fun of EQ, imo. My roommate used to be in a hardcore raiding guild in EQ1 as a cleric. He was telling me how he would be woken up at 3am to log in because a boss spawned. Perhaps I'm just not hardcore enough, but I don't see that as fun. At all.
LotR:O ... by Turbine
I think I've said enough...
Waiting for Warhammer Online.
Considering the game doesn't start until max level, how is this even relevant? This is one of the dumbest concepts that's hammered by WoW players is this. I'm pretty sick of that perspective, really. There are dozens of things to do until lvl60 (or, rather, 70), and I for one don't want to level my brand spanking new Blood Elf Paladin to 70 only to find out I have zero experience tanking/healing and will therefore suck worse than a $5 hooker. There's tons of content to explore before the elder game, and grinding past it as if it were absent is really a waste.
I'm assuming a Dreadknight follows the EQ Shadowknight model, ie a mix of Warrior and Necro...
And you would be wrong. A Dreadknight is a defensive fighter meant to hold aggro whilst others DPS, just like a Warrior. The hate generating abilities, stunning abilities and different stances are very similar to those of a Warrior.
The cancel button is your friend. Do not hesitate to use it.
Difficulty: You are kind of right. Leveling is much easier than in other MMORPGs. End game raid content is where the challenge is. But with a 40 man raid, a lot of people didn't have to do much. The new 25 man limit changes this. It does take skill so the difficulty improves.
Comunity: WoW has more players then any other game...you don't think it has a community? It doesn't sound like you joined a guild or did any end game content (or ran instances at all). Being forced to group in order to accomplish anything in a game does let you get to know more people..no doubt. But it is what turns off tons of people who don't want to sit for hours trying to find a group. If you didn't run instances as you levelled, didn't bother participating in a guild...then you are going to miss out on community. But it is your concious choice to do so.
Competition: Competition is stupid. You have a bunch of people all hanging around trying to tap a mob before someone else does. Ok everyone, log in at 5 EST because we have to get monster xyz spawn. Instancing is brilliant because it allows the challenge to be something everyone that can take part in. Not just people who have counters and spawn points on every mob in the game.
I can understand how one type of game can appeal to certain people...but I don't think you actually played WoW. You just got to 60 and thought that was it. 60 is where the game begins (well, 70 now).
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
Let me clarify. In the context of 'hardcore end-game raiding' the levelling is simply an obstruction. Making the levelling process take longer does not make it hard, it makes it tedious.
Your comments don't comment on the difficulty of the levelling process, but on the content that is available while you do it. You may get the same XP questing as you do killing 1000 basement rats. But the questing is far less tedious, and to many people that equates to easier.
What is boils down to is that some people think that levelling in WoW doesn't suck enough. If you're not suffering through your levels then the game is too easy. screw that. But again, the people who want it to be hard are the same people who see end-game as 'real' game, and with that being the case, who gives a rats ass how long it takes to get to max level?
I don't know that MMO's have ever had a clear direction. Everquest had all the same issues with content and gameplay that the current crop of knockoffs have now. No one is even trying to come up with a better mousetrap, they're just trying to throw shiny rims on that same old copper and wood one we've had for 10 years now. Hell, Oblivion has better MMO like content a than the current crop of MMOs. That and the gameplay is more fun and challenging, capturing that spirit of exploration that MMOs have completely lacked in recent incarnations.
I've played pretty much every MMO out there from Underlight, EQ, UO ... to the Current set of Vanguard, WoW, D&D Online and tons in between... I'm not saying i'm an expert, but here is my opinions of Vanguard as a whole
First off, Brad himself said many times in the forums that this game was NOT ment to replace WoW and hopefully would NOT bring in the crowds from WoW. This was intended to be a "Mature Crowd" game where you didn't have a bunch of really obnoxious people running around just annoying people the whole time. This was done VERY well, and i can say that i haven't had this much fun interacting with random people in quite a while. The crowd that plays really is rather fun to get along with.
How does game play work? Honestly, there really are some glitches. Some are just annoying like the screen views changing from 3rd person to first as you change the invisible "zone lines". The game really was released early, but i can say rather confidently that this is no where NEAR the worst release... All things considered, i think that this release was rather... Decent.
The Game play on the other hand is really nice. TONS of quests (which i personally honestly detracts a little bit at times from the over all game play) ... BUT makes it really convenient for people with limited time to play. The difference between this game and others... is that the diplomacy option makes it actually really fun to read the HUGE amount of game lore that exists. Some people beat on this because "it's a card game". There is some chance involved, but there is actual logic involved in playing it too. Makes it rather fun in my personal opinion. And the Key behind this one? My WIFE is playing vanguard with me now. She played only WoW before.. and not for more than 2 months because she said herself that it was kind of boring... she hated grouping with people because most were so annoying. But she actually looks for groups in VG:SOH AND loves to log in and do diplomacy stuff because it's really fun to find all these gossip / background stories to all the cities and towns.
All in all, the game was released early.. But it has HUGE potential. It will never replace WoW, and believe me when many people i played with said that they liked it that way. As the game is worked on more, i can see many more people joining up and having fun in the game... there is TONS to do. Easy enough so that my wife with little gaming experience can get into it and have lots of fun.... but hard enough, so that folks like me who thought that WoW really was too "spoon feeding"-like can have fun also. Eventually all the bugs will be smoothed out and more and more GREAT features will be released to make the game an overall fun experience. Right now, it still is more like an "open beta". Give it a little more time, let it get out of this "open beta" phase... and give it a try in a few months. I doubt you'll be disappointed!
Not only is it buggy, it's not finished. Many skills don't work. This is fraud, IMO. It's too bad, because from the descriptions, Vanguard was going to be the rightful successor to Everquest. Turns out, it's a scam.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
With the release of BC, there is now even more hardcore content. Arena PVP is looking to turn out some very serious CS-like tournaments, and the instances in heroic mode are giving even the top guilds a very hard time. I don't think there is any guild that is even close to being able to do Mount Hyjal yet.
Abaddon: An Xbox 360 Indie game
I don't think this is the first MMORPG that totally sucks...
...the game is working quite well now. Oh, and I'm selling tin horseshoes for 4.99 silver, get 'em hot off the anvil!
"I stomp in clown shoes where daemons fear to tread."
I am amazed this "review" got linked to Slashdot. This has lowered my estimation of Slashdot that they think a WoW fan rant is news. It wasn't a review but an uninformed rant. They guy admitted he didn't know much about the game because he had not played very long.
His list of criticisms included the fact that the mobs seemed to be just standing around waiting to be harvested. I have played most of the MMOs on the market, and I can verify that the mobs in Vanguard act exactly like the mobs in all of the other games, including WoW.
He also complained that the colors weren't bright, and the whole world didn't look color coordinated, well, that's about what you would expect from someone who spent the last two years inside a WoW induced coma where everything is painted in garish colors and the entire world looks like a cartoon set.
He criticised the quest system, the death system, the Diplomacy and crafting systems. If I didn't know that he played WoW, I would think he didn't like MMORPGs at all. Why is this WoW fan rant newsworthy?