Aradune Returns to EQlive

[Clark]

Originally Posted by SirAlvarex [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Having played both EQ2 and Vanguard at launch, Vanguard was so horribly broken it was insane. Boring combat, no end game, crashing zones/servers, no sense of direction all claimed a game that had some beautiful vistas and some nice promise. But the character models and execution was flawed.

EQ2 was much more interesting at release, albeit I had a halfway decent computer at the time. The raiding scene was boring, since it was basically hitting up the same instances each week for barely upgraded loot.

Combat was subpar up until GU13, but that happened after like 3 months of release. That's when they changed it so that soloing was possible.

I just think that the consensus of Vanguard gets clouded because it's always "the game we all thought we could have." It's easy to create an ideal. But they failed to execute it. And SOE actually did try to save Vanguard. They get too much of a bad wrap for "destroying vanguard and everquest" when they always owned Everquest and put money into Vanguard to make it actually playable.

that makes me glad I never tried it

[Bodeanicus]

Originally Posted by Visual [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

That game was so bad

No, it was unfinished.

[webrunner5]

Unfinished true. But the graphics were just first rate.

[RelivingNorrath]

Originally Posted by Bodeanicus [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

No, it was unfinished.

^^

I agree. The game is bad =/= the game was unfinished. It's interesting how many people can't seem to appreciate the difference.

I will say though, the decisions they made concerning the character models (identical human bodies w/ animal heads, universal animations for every race, etc.) was a mistake that I'm not sure they could have recovered from. So much of the game's character and potential was lost to that one horrible design decision.

Just my personal opinion.

[SCB]

http://i.imgur.com/h5P6RLS.gif

This just made that thread for me.

[Deverell]

I also think he really does share responsibility for why EQ classic was the way it was

While true, it also has to be said that he basically copy-pasted almost every EQ concept from a MUD called Sojourn where he played and got the inspiration for EQ. The races and classes are basically identical, the world is very similar, the types of gameplay are the same, and the spell and skill system was pretty similar as well. The only thing that was truly unique and innovative about EQ was actually the concept of aggro and tanking. Sojourn just had mobs periodically switch targets at random and then the tank had to use a skill called rescue to get the mob back. Everquest made the process much more dynamic and organic, and it came to be the foundation of combat gameplay.

[aresprophet]

Originally Posted by Yinikren [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I loved Vanguard, bugs and all, it was simple a fantastic adventure and a visually appealing game. I am sure you could run about and explore in smaller time sessions, there are those porting stones now for travel but the world is still huge.

It was a fantastic 80% of a game

Pretty much everything was 80% of the way there. Plenty of content up through 40, little after. Tons of interesting crafting stuff, but not enough crafting quests to shake up the grind. Unique classes that were fun to play, but not enough balancing. Interesting stats with lots of potential, but not enough variety on gear. Ridiculously fun Diplomacy minigame, but its impact on crafting/adventuring was minimal. Cool player housing, but housing areas felt like they were hastily thrown in. Awesome flying mounts and player-helmed ships, but the world was just too spread out even with them. Gorgeously-detailed world, but a lot of empty areas. And so on, and so on

Another 12-18 months in development before launch and it would have been a different story. It had some awesome ideas, and was a great game for about 80% of the time you played it.

[Anesthia]

Brad got off drugs 10 years too late and the "Vision" is out of his control. Best wishes, but I hope his ranger gets camped on red. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Danth]

"Cool player housing"

I have to disagree on this point; Vanguard's player houses were little more than virtual dollhouses. If you want to see interesting player houses, check out Runescape.

I liked Vanguard for what it was and considered myself to have had my money's worth from it. That being said, the game should have been much more than it was. Of all the many failed MMOG's out there, Vanguard probably stings the most since it was one of the last online role-playing games designed as a world, not as a theme park.

Melee combat was pretty good in beta before Sigil listened to the Warcraft-Whiners (ie, those people who complain about anything that isn't exactly the same as it is in WoW) and doubled the key spam rate. After that it became way too spammy and contributed to why I unsubscribed about 6 months after launch; my fingers just couldn't tolerate the key spam anymore.

I don't think of Everquest as a masterpiece of design; instead I figure it was a lucky accident. I don't think the folks running it really knew what made it a success. I figure that's why it got worse over time instead of better.

Danth

[Xiki101]

Originally Posted by Pend [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Lot of opinions, and conspiracy theories about VG, and everyone has their own take on it. Here's mine as the technical lead behind VG's most [in]famous, visited, and extensive fansite during the game's production.

Microsoft pulled the plug not only on Vanguard, but other internal-to-Microsoft MMO projects that were late stage as well as a result of some restructuring and consolidation that they initiated in their games division early 2006. Up until then, the MS producer handling Vanguard was committing to see the project through to polished completion, funding wise, where Sigil was controlling the reigns. But yes, VG was pushing the bounds of acceptability a bit, pushing the release out and over-budget. The scale of the game was massive, though.

A credit to the Sigil team that created the foundation, many of the ambitions for VG were, in my mind, ultimately largely achieved, which almost no other MMO even today has achieved:

1. Totally free-flying mounts that didn't create undue advantage vs. game design (game was designed with them in mind).
2. Very distinct adventuring classes, where the play action/style is very different.
3. A crafting system that rivaled the adventuring system in sophistication.
4. Even a third complete game play system (diplomacy) that rivaled crafting or adventuring.
5. Completely seamless world--no "zoning" (even going indoor<->outdoor) anywhere, except when teleporting.
6. Functioning player-made/controlled boats.
7. Player-made housing and guild structures.
8. Music system that gradually changed the music as you traveled to new areas rather than abrupt changes.
9. Almost entirely hand-crafted custom content. Hard-pressed to find "copy/paste" content in the art design, except where necessary (things like trees, etc.).
10. No "fake doors". Every door visible was openable. Every window was "see through" from both interior and exterior. Every building was enterable.
11. etc.

But the MS restructuring was an incidental business decision that had nothing directly to do with VG. VG ended up on the chopping block.

It's all but public knowledge that McQuaid and Smedley are friends. If you've got a company with 150 employees and spent 4 years on a game with a year (or two) left to go and suddenly lose funding, what would you do? McQuaid went to Smedley for a bailout and a bailout is what he got, but with strings attached. SOE and Sigil signed a deal to co-publish the game, McQuaid having just bought the rights to it from Microsoft.

The last year of the game's development is where, I think most would agree, you saw the most fleshing out of the game's features/content/technologies, etc. There's a reason for that, a result of some shuffling that occurred in the roles and responsibilities within the Producer org inside Sigil.

But yeah, one year wasn't enough time to finish it off from that point. SOE is not as committed as Microsoft was to see the game to a polished state before release. SOE, which is their infamous modus operandi on all of their games to date, stood rigidly firm on the expected launch date, game readiness be damned. And launch they did, just under a year later on Jan 2007.

A mere three months after launch, SOE deemed the project a failure and yanked funding. Sigil went bankrupt (don't think they got as far as Chap 11), so, McQuaid and Butler sold their company and its assets to SOE wholly. SOE fired half the Sigil staff on the spot, moved much of the remaining staff to other projects, and left VG floundering. They put very little if anything into fixing the game or marketing it at first (and put almost nothing comparatively into marketing the game at or pre-launch, IMO).

So here's where I agree/disagree with some of the above posters. VG did have management problems (IMO) up until the SOE co-publishing deal--variety of reasons which I won't get into. I think most of the current implementation of the game was done in the last year of its development. But a large share of the problem in its launch state also comes from MS backing out abruptly, and SOE coming in. Smedley is a business guy through and through, and I think he quickly felt that he'd been handed a raw deal and treated VG that way when what it really needed was additional investment for, say, another 6 months (they eventually did, but not until much later) BEFORE launching it. But as I said, SOE's M.O. is launch first, ask questions later.

I was relatively close to the Sigil development team during the game's production and that's the way I remember it playing out.

Sigil was founded in Jan 2002. That means from founding the company to launch, it was a 5 year project. But you don't start out with 150 employees overnight. Sigil didn't have funding until May '02 when they signed with Microsoft. So let's give them the first year as a new company to sort things out. That means VG was a 4 year project, and still managed to produce all of those revolutions in MMO game design (albeit buggy). Not bad, IMO.

Well said sir. Myself was a true Vanguard raider and played hardcore up until free to play. This game was buggy as can be but a few hundred of us saw past that and truly believed in the vision of Vanguard. Although working on a small crew with lack of funding, They did manage to give out what I feel was the best raid content I ever played. It took months to defeat every major boss and gear out your guildies. During this time I also raided in W.o.W which was a joke(except their first expansion was decent raid content). after their first raid dungeon, Raid progression kind of took a wierd turn giving us only overland raid bosses instead of raid dungeons.

I left Vanguard during free to play not because I was upset it was going free to play, but because I simply played Vanguard till I couldnt play no more. I am happy to see that free to play community is loving the game compared to when this game launched the communtiy wanted heads to roll and they did.