Vanguard:SoH shutting down :(

[Airdefier]

https://forums.station.sony.com/vg/index.php?threads/with-heavy-hearts-we-announce-the-sunset-for-vanguard.71211/

Ok you computer gurus know what to do.. I expect to see some one starting an emulator soon.

[Rec]

It's happening right when brad is having his kickstarter for a new game

conspiracies abound

[Millburn]

I wonder if all the people with year long subs will be repayed in some fashion, perhaps station cash? Otherwise that's super scumbag.

[Airdefier]

they are being transferred to the all access thingy i think

[Grubbz]

people still play vanguard? REALLLLLLY.............

O wait this does seem like a ploy to get vanguard players ready for EQnext, maybe EQ will be on the chopping block.

[citizen1080]

WTS 55 Dark Elf Bard Fully Raid Geared - PST!




WTB Emulator

[Grimfan]

That's sad, it was on my table to try that game for like the past three years, every time I sit down to do it I cannot get past level two, but I always wanted to.

[Psychok]

Sad.....

WTS 55 raid geared/epic'd Shaman...bard...warrior

SoE has been collecting micro transactions for a while most likely knowing they would probably be shutting down the game.

Shame on them.

[Rhambuk]

WTB Emulator

Gonna be great if an emu server gets a decent population.

[Grimfan]

They're not releasing the server code, but I suppose where there's a will...

[Auvdar]

WTS 55 Dark Elf Bard Fully Raid Geared - PST!




WTB Emulator

One was being worked on. Not sure on the status of it right now, but they still seem active.

http://vgoemulator.net/

[citizen1080]

Thanks for link sir. Def a long way off but I will be following it for sure.

[Swish]

Mhm I'll be following this too... jumped ship on Vanguard before I got to play it purely based off the criticism. If it comes back in emulator format I'll be there! :)

[Neach]

This is a damn shame. I played at launch, got max level, 2nd best bard in terms of end game raid geared (1st in skill which caused some serious nerfs because of the things I did solo), APW, guild hall.... I played this game into the ground.

I can honestly say with all the bugs during early and mid life of this game it was fucking amazing. Not many actually gave this game the attention or credit it deserved, by doing so missed a great mmo title for it's time.

[Auvdar]

Thanks for link sir. Def a long way off but I will be following it for sure.

Looks like just recently they started being more active. Could see maybe within the year?

[stormlord]

It's a damn shame a open world MMORPG - that's not a WoW-clone - I liked in many ways could only muster enough population to survive essentially on life support for about 6-7 years. What's wrong with people? If Vanguard can't survive, how the hell does Brad expect Pantheon to be any different, unless it's drastically casualized? Maybe he's convinced Vanguard failed for another reason, but I struggle to see it.

Does Brad want to make Pantheon into a sort of open world WoW-clone and his theory is if it's this way out the door and reasonably bug free then it'll be a success? I can't see any other possible way of doing it. I see zero ways for this game to succeed if it's not mostly bug free and not a WoW-clone. I think these're the two biggest things that killed Vanguard, DESPITE me liking the fact it was not a clone of WoW. See, the sad state of affairs is most gamers just do not share my likes and dislikes and it's a hard fact of life.

Honestly I'd rather see Pantheon be like classic WoW than to be a huge disaster. I pray - for the sake of all the backers, if this thing passes the initial kickstarter - Brad has the insight to be friendly towards casual players and somehow still instill in it a feeling of being old school. Can a game be friendly towards casuals and yet still give the impression it's hardcore or old school? I hope so because its success might hinge on this. And yet I'm reminded of how Vanguard was supposed to be a game for both casuals and hardcores and yet it failed. Brad has to revisit those days and wonder what went wrong and how it can be corrected.

Look what he says here:
http://gamestudies.org/0901/articles/interview_mcquaid_mcpherson
With Vanguard specifically, we’ve designed a game more along the lines of ‘traditional’ massively multiplayer games. Vanguard is about escapism, about being able to enter a virtual world and to leave the real world behind to a degree. To that end, we feel that one’s real world financial status should have no bearing on who they are or what they have access to in-game. Indeed, one of the core principles in games like Vanguard is that if you see someone and the items they’ve acquired, you should ideally be able to assume that the person earned them in-game. This way, it really doesn’t matter who you are in real life - your financial status, your race, your gender, your age, your location, etc. should all be irrelevant. And I think this is very important. Virtual worlds of this sort break down all sorts of prejudices and preconceptions that exist in the real world, and I think this is not only a good thing, but an exciting thing. Online relationships have proven to often be as real as traditional relationships.
He didn't mention time. What if someone doesn't have much time to play in real life? If you're going to say money and race and other things don't matter, shouldn't you also say time doesn't matter? Or what if someone has an on-call sort of life - like they have children, for example - and has to go AFK a lot?

By focusing your game on people who have lots of time, you necessarily limit it to certain people.

Note, oddly, how the questioner asks this next:
EH/EW: Did you expect that EverQuest would become such a total experience for some players (playing 60 hours a week, quitting work, and so on)? How does the attempt to design the game for different kinds of players (weekend, regular, hardcore) structure the game-world?

I know that's an old link, but I just was having fun googling.

[stormlord]

Nice read:
www.wolfsheadonline.com - Unintended Consequences of Quest Directed MMO’s... (http://www.wolfsheadonline.com/unintended-consequences-of-quest-directed-mmos/#53d10)

Makes me think the key to all this includes how Brad handles grouping in Pantheon. After all, if he watns to focus on it so badly then he better make sure it works for as many players as possible.

Figure out a way to make grouping easy and not a pain. Make it so we can AFK as easily as we do when we're soloing. Make it so we can get story while at the same time being pulled on by group members. Don't make it hard for people with different classes to group effectively. Make grouping easy and people like it. AT the end of the day, a group game has to make us feel like heroES and also not make soloing more attractive.

In my experience, grouping has a long ways to go. Soloing is so popular because of its convenience. You can play at your own pace which is crucial to not falling behind or not losing interest.

Can we have a group-based MMORPG without all of the negatives people attach to EQ and Vanguard? Can there be a casual group-based MMORPG that did what WoW did for MMORPGs?

I'll end with the concluding remarks by the commentary writer linked at the beginning of this post:
While it’s doubtful that in the near future we’ll see a return to open-ended sandbox games like EverQuest and Star Wars Galaxies, there has to be a way to put the power back in the hand of the players and give them control over how they experience the game world. New mechanics can and need to be created that inject a healthy dose of dynamism and immediacy back into virtual worlds. Players need to wrestle control over their avatar’s destiny from the clutches of micromanaging developers. Regrettably that will never happen until MMO companies find the courage to go beyond the WoW success formula. They need to start trusting their players with more freedom and tempered by mechanics that ensure in game accountability. We need to get beyond incentivized gameplay and move to a system that allows its participants to be more then just trained monkeys and let them take an active role in the virtual worlds they inhabit. - See more at: http://www.wolfsheadonline.com/unintended-consequences-of-quest-directed-mmos/#53d10

[Swish]

They're not releasing the server code, but I suppose where there's a will...

Surely there's gotta be a disgruntled programmer/dev that'll post it up?

[Rhambuk]

It's a damn shame a open world MMORPG - that's not a WoW-clone - I liked in many ways could only muster enough population to survive essentially on life support for about 6-7 years.

its a huge shame, too bad vanguard had such bad name on release. I didnt get to really play it until a year or 2 after so they had fixxed a lot of the issues but population was low. vanguard by far was one of my favorite mmo's based on design, loved the graphics and the class design its just too bad more people didnt give it a chance it could have been A + with a proper population

[Haynar]

I was in on beta for vanguard. It was just a mess. You could see the potential in what they were trying to do. Initial release was pretty bad. Had too often that I couldnt stay connected. Gave up on it pretty early on.

H

[Grimfan]

Surely there's gotta be a disgruntled programmer/dev that'll post it up?

Smed actually posted on twitter that there was no way an emulated version of Vanguard would exist without legal consequences so I don't actually know if it will be possible without someone getting sued. No idea how to get around this though.

[Airdefier]

They've prolly said the same thing about everquest I'm sure

[Shaakglith12194]

Unfortunately, if you try to make it so that players with little time can be at the same level as everyone else, you have to implement some way that they can buy what everyone else has. That trivializes everything about a game. Niche games are the only ones that flourish. EQ, Eve Online, EQ2, WoW (it hit a niche, and blew up), and so on. These games all did their particular brand of MMO well. Start adding microtransactions for gear/levels/loot boxes, you got problems. Appealing to the "casual" player is why so many MMOs fail (see: any WoW clone). Do something cool or original or just plain fun, people will pay. Brad has good vision. Also, I believe Vanguard got pushed into beta and released in the state it did because of a lack of funds, like SOE forced them to put it out way before it was done. And then there still wasn't enough money to keep developing/supporting it after release. I played a few months after it came out on the pvp server and had a GREAT time. I think I quit because it was too hard to find pvp and a lot of shit was broken/unfinished. Really sucked to go exploring and see all this cool shit and get to the front of a big ass temple and realize that the dungeon just hasn't been built yet.

[Swish]

Smed actually posted on twitter that there was no way an emulated version of Vanguard would exist without legal consequences so I don't actually know if it will be possible without someone getting sued. No idea how to get around this though.

LOL, they close down their own servers but threaten legal action on the players if they make their own one instead :mad:

http://chewthedirt.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/im-sorry-i-thought-this-was-america-randy-marsh-south-park.jpeg

[Sarajo]

Casual vs. Hardcore: Didn't Vanguard have the caravan system, where you'd form a permanent group and anyone offline but in the caravan would share the XP gained by the members online?

As for it shutting down, I'm deeply saddened but slightly less saddened than when I read about
1) How badly SOE botched the launch (I was there for the last month of beta and the first month of live)
2) The gold duping hack that wrecked the economy in the first year or two (this was after I left)

I always felt it was a better EQ2 than EQ2, even if it was in a different world with different lore. The Vanguard RP site was where I met some friends who I've been in a few other MMOs with, too, and I have Vanguard to thank for them. But mostly, I just liked all of the dozens of options. More-than-just-cats for the furries! Black and Asian humans! Healers who heal by punchin! So many good ideas, so little execution.

[nilbog]

r.i.p. nilbog the lvl 50 blood mage

[citizen1080]

r.i.p. nilbog the lvl 50 blood mage

Bloodmage was my favorite class after my bard =(

VG had the best classes in any MMO imo.

[Ahldagor]

that sucks. finally have a comp that could run it pretty well, so was going to give it a whirl again. i liked the necro part harvesting thing a lot.

[phacemeltar]

some of the posts in that original link are depressing.