Vanguard Producer Wants Second Chance for First Impression

Allakhazam is featuring an interview with Vanguard producer Thom Terrazas where he addresses some of the early issues that made Vanguard so slow out of the gates. "Performance; Optimization; High System Requirements. Everyone may have a different name for it but at the end of the day, optimization challenges were the biggest hurdle faced at launch. We lost too many customers at launch due to the inability to run the game smoothly and we have been making huge improvements in this area in every update since. I can speak to this first hand actually: When I started playing at launch, I experienced some horrible "hitching" while moving from one area to another on what I consider an average gamers' computer. When I began to play more extensively a couple months later, I noticed some considerable improvements to my frame rate. Today, it is night and day superior than it was at launch. Optimizing the game has been one of our top priorities and in the last six months, we have made some considerable strides in improving the player's experience. If you haven't logged in recently or if you gave us a look in the beginning and haven't been back since, check it out now - I'll even flag your account for free for a period of time if you want to go in and prove me wrong."

Comments

In other Sony Online Entertainment news...

[elrous0]

A company spokesperson is also promising fixes for the multitude of problems in "Star Wars Galaxies" that have plagued the MMORPG for the last five years. "This time you can trust us," said SOE director Constance Phuckup, citing the company's extensive experience in dealing with glitchey, poorly implmented, unbalanced MMORPG's.

Open Week

[everphilski]

Run an open week. I don't want to have to go out and purchase the game to "prove you wrong." I played the beta and was active in several forums, I was really hoping this was the game that could put my EverQuest addiction to rest. But sadly it was not. I still play EverQuest a few nights a week, and I'd like to move on but I haven't found a MMO that satisfies.

Vanguard made lots of promises but never really fulfilled them, and it's sad because on paper it really looked like a great game. Maybe they do now, but if you really want to prove it, have an open week where people can download the client and play for free, like an open beta. Yeah, there's a few logistical issues to work out but I'm sure Sony can take the load if prepared (I'm not being sarcastic...). If you want to bring us in, give us something to chew on. Everquest still gives out free month trials... the Trial of the Isle, which is essentially a month playing with the first three expansions on designated servers. The whole game, uncrippled. Something like that might help you prove your point.

Re:Open Week

[MeanderingMind]

I think you, naturally, haven't been keeping up on WoW. That probably shows you're an intelligent individual, unlike myself.

It's been months since it was more efficient to grind than quest, and while each class has its nemesis and victim there isn't a single class that gets a free ride in PvP, or has it overly difficult. If you're referencing Arenas, it's certain class combinations that are overpowered rather than specific classes.

Just a friendly update.

Re:Easier said than done

[0123456]

Often you don't know where the problems will be until you put it under load. That wasn't Vanguard's problem: the problem was that the content was barely half-complete at launch, with much of the content for one of the three islands simply missing.

The game at launch was actually great fun up to the teen levels, but then I pretty much hit a brick wall in terms of power relative to the mobs in the game, and the lack of content in the island I started on made progression difficult, to say the least.

The game should have been developed for at least another six months before release; sure, it would have cost SoE more money, but in the long run they'd have far more players than they do today.

I did actually give it a try in the 'free month' they gave to old players last year, but I didn't see much difference and they'd merged servers and renamed most of my characters, so that left me with little incentive to resubscribe.

Game Update 5

[LordKazan]

I type this while harvesting on my 50 ranger/45 carpenter in vanguard.

Game Update 5 is due soon and I have played around with it on the test server - it delivers a fairly large burst of optimizations and visual improvements. The games original problem is one man essentially: Brad McQuaid doesn't know how to manage his way out of a wet paper bag.

They have been working toward a relaunch since the moment Sony bought out Sigil and thus far have done a good job.

Anyone who liked the game but got driven away by bugs and performance issues should come around once Game Update 5 or Game Update 6 are pushed