[Raolinx Aeromancer]

Gotcha.

Also More changes to the faq. 1.4.1.1

Brad:
Actually, I *was* the Creative Director and Executive Producer on EQ 2, as well as the author of the first EQ 2 design doc, from 1999 (its inception) to October 2001 when I left SOE. I was also the Producer on EQ 1 for its full development period, co-author of its design document, and also either Producer or Executive Producer on Kunark, Velious, Planetside, Sovereign, and SW:G.
Also, several other key people at Sigil were also on the EQ 2 team in varying capacities, some up to the April 2002 time frame or so.

Our goal at the time (1999-2001) was to make a true sequel for EQ and to improve upon it.

Obviously, after I left, the game went through several more executive producers and managers and designers and doesn't resemble very much in its final form what it was designed to be early on. The game evolved, design changed, goals and target audience changed, etc. (note, this is not a criticism in anyway, but merely what naturally occurs when the reigns of a project are handed over to other people during the development cycle of a project, as well as the natural result of changing goals (for example, I believe SOE has since made it very clear that later EQ 2 was *not* designed to be a true sequel to EQ 1 but more of a complementary game, designed to appeal to other types of gamers, and to co-exist with EQ 1, *not* replace it)). In other words, I am *not* commenting on how EQ 2 turned out or changed in terms of whether I agreed with those changes – truly, that’s not my business, but SOE’s.

But there are undoubtedly some obvious similarities because of the people involved during both the origin of both games. That said, Vanguard's design was created after we left SOE and was written from scratch, without any reference to EQ 2 (those designs, afte all, did not belong to us) and the core game, many of its goals, and its target audience are very different, especially if you dig a bit below the surface.

Some people have called Vanguard the spiritual successor, or at least a spiritual successor, to EQ 1, and while that’s not technically true, I can understand people’s reasoning. At the time, I and others were tasked to create a worthy sequel to EQ, and while again the Vanguard design was written both later and separately and by not only me but many other people, some of whom were at SOE and some of whom were not, and some of whom were involved with EQ 2 and EQ 1 to some degree, while others not, it was not meant to be a sequel at all, but truly its own game. An analogy might be that a music album was made, and then the group broke up, and some went on to make a new band, while others stayed and re-formed the original band, and then they both went and made new albums.

With Vanguard, though, we took a step back and did not explicitly design a game to be the sequel to EQ (whereas with EQ 2, that was our task and goal). Rather, our goal was to design a next generation fantasy MMOG based on a totally different world, along with old ideas that trace back before EQ to the MUDs we played, as well as with the goal of building new systems on top of proven foundations (for example, Diplomacy). So, similarities, yes – that’s natural, given that we're talking about some of the same people. But built on our original design for EQ 2? Absolutely not. We started anew, looking back at EQ 1 again, other games we'd worked on, and then back to the MUDs we'd enjoyed so much previously to working on EQ 1.

EQ 1 in many ways was a an attempt at translating mechanics and ideas we'd examined in detail while playing those MUDs from a non-commercial text based medium into a commercially viable 3D world. With Vanguard, we went back again to those core MUD fundamentals and, taking what we'd learned since then, and also considering both the successes and mistakes we'd make in that first 'translation', approaching the core foundation of the game again, trying to do an even better job this time. And then, as mentioned, building upon that foundation other, newer, more untested ideas like Diplomacy, or reactive combat systems, Perception, meaningful travel, a seamless world, etc. In other words, ideas that occurred to us after we'd formed Sigil as ways to grow the genre and move it forward into the 'third' generation of MMOGs. But again we built these newer systems on top of our latest attempt at capturing what made MUDs tick, such that were one of new ideas to fail, we'd still have that proven foundation to fall back upon.

So instead of Vanguard descending from EQ 2, which did descend from EQ 1, which did descend from MUDs (mostly of the DIKU variety, which were our favorites), instead we went back to the source, and built the MUD foundation again, and then took all of our experiences and lessoned learned, and built further from there. So more accurately Vanguard descends from MUDs directly, with these new ideas built on top and then our experiences building EQ 1 as well as being involved in the genesis of games like EQ 2, EQoA, SW:G, and several other MMOGs being referenced as learning experiences, helping guide us to hopefully do a better job at both making a commercial and graphical MUD as well as bringing the genre forward with new ideas built upon a solid, proven foundation.

Anyway, I thought this was a good opportunity to talk about this, although I've made similar posts in the past, because people do note some similarities between Vanguard and both EQ 1 and EQ 2 (and other MMOGs), and so questions and observations are made. But when you dig deeper, you find many of those similarities superficial and actually dissimilar more than similar when you look even deeper, below the surface, examining our actual approach, philosophy, and, most importantly, implementation.

Ultimately, Vanguard is not meant, nor was built, to be a better or different EQ 2, nor an EQ 3, but its own game. Rather, it was built to be a better commercial graphical MUD than what has been built to-date (and when I say better, I mean better for our target audience, not better period). Superficial or 'skin deep' similarities exist because many of us worked on all or some of those games to varying degrees and at different times, and because we are always determined to learn from the strengths and weaknesses of other, previous MMOGs, as we'd be fools not to.

Lastly, in one sense WoW too is very similar to EQ, as is DAoC and other similar games. That is because those developers too wanted to make a similar type of game (a graphical, commercial MMOG built on solid MUD principles). Other online games, say Tabula Rasa or D&D Online, have clearly not been built similarly, but with very different goals and approaches (see another post I made about the different types of MMOGs and the varying approaches and motivations behind them). The difference with Vanguard is, unlike, say WoW or DAoC, Sigil employs key people who actually worked on EQ, EQ 2, etc. whereas these other developers did not, or at least did so to a much lesser degree

and

+ 1.4.4 How do you intend to improve on EQ1 and others?

From the Official Faq:
What exactly is going to separate Vanguard again?I hear you, and I realize that you are concerned that by using exp debt or loss as opposed to just exp loss you think Vanguard will therefore be a much less challenging and therefore less rewarding game. That said, I do have to respectfully disagree. I’ve posted a lot in recent days about why we chose to use debt. Others are likewise concerns that by using the travel journal to locate your corpse, or by including limited in-game mapping systems, etc. that we are retreating too far away from what made EQ 1 such a great game. I do think, however, that we can use some of these different approaches, aids, etc. to help reduce some unnecessary tedium that did exist in some of the earlier MMOGs but at the same time retain what made them more challenging and therefore rewarding in ways that are also not unnecessarily tedious and will hopefully make community building, finding groups, etc. easier and less frustrating.

We made some mistakes with EQ 1, despite what a great game I will always consider it to be, and despite how proud I am of how popular it was and how long it remained popular. Relying on others to bind yourself I think did more harm than good. Staring at a spellbook while medding, while more realistic, turned out to be ‘going too far’. Long, boring ship rides were *not* the best way to keep the world epic and travel meaningful. Super long downtimes between battles, where people were finished Robert Jordan novels, were simply unnecessary – while downtime is important such that player have a chance to socialize, or plan for that next battle, or to use the restroom or grab a coke, they really didn’t need to be *that* long nor become longer and longer just because the player was leveling up. The possibility of permanent losing a corpse was also taking things a bit too far, creating more fear of death than is really necessary. Likewise, losing levels and skills by dying we don’t think is necessary to make dying truly sting and something to be avoided. Death should hurt so that people respect the environment and play carefully and develop tactics, but it shouldn’t be so severe that many or most players are afraid to brave the depths of dungeons.

So while we are indeed proud of our heritage, and are also very determined to make a challenging game, and while we strongly believe there are a lot of ‘core’ gamers out there who have missing such a game, we also think many of these older mechanics could use some tweaking in order to remove needless frustration at the same time.

more on this theme...

Well, there are quite a few reasons, but one of the big ones is this: some of Vanguard’s features and mechanics, when we've announced them but not always taken the time or been able to elaborate on exactly how they work, have often been immediately compared to a system from EQ 2 or another game that the person didn't care for and the assumption is therefore made that the system we've announced or are talking about will also therefore turn out with the same problems or weaknesses or results.

Some examples:

We chose to use more advanced graphics technology, just like we did with EQ 1 (it was one of the first hardware only games, for example), in order to take advantage of this technology in order to create a more immersive world. Some people initially reacted poorly to this, however, fearing that our game would look overly plasticy or contain other problems other games who have used advanced shader technology like specular lighting and bump mapping have encountered. Now, as our tech has matured and our screenshots improved, I think a lot of this has gone away, but it still remains a concern out there in places.

Also, our job system, where in order to avoid the specialist vs. generalist problem seen in EQ 1 and elsewhere… it’s been compared to the archetype system used in EQ 2, where many feel the result was that the classes ended up feeling too much the same. We've stressed that our job system, while indeed making sure that a healer, regardless of class, can perform his fundamental job as well as any other healer, will also involve lots of features and abilities that truly make you feel like you are playing a very distinctive class -- for example, playing a shaman does *not* feel like you are playing a cleric, even though they both ultimately heal just as well, albeit manifested in different ways.

Our more involved reaction based combat system… When people saw early screenshots showing parts of this system in Vanguards UI, many people immediately assumed it would be exactly like EQ 2's system, which some have asserted doesn't really add anything to combat that's meaningful and is just about more button mashing. So we've gone out of our way to explain in detail how our system involves abilities that are in trees and that selecting which bridge or finish really is different in result depending on the encounter and context. That reactions like rescuing or countering spells really does add a lot of tactics to gameplay and the need to learn parts of the game first, to become familiar with a mobs abilities, because whether you finish a chain, or counter an ability, or instead rescue another player -- that decision, depending upon the situation, can lead to either victory or utter defeat.

I could go on and on, but our heritage and involvement in these previous games is both a blessing and a curse. Most certainly it's been a tremendous advantage for Sigil that we employ many of the people who were intimately involved in previous games that a lot of players enjoyed. As a start-up, we’ve avoided many of the pitfalls other start-ups have to over come – for example, we already have over 40,000 people signed up on our message boards without any formal marketing being done yet. Why? Because people recognize my name and other involved with Vanguard.

But at the same time, because of these inevitable similarities, many of which are only superficial and skin deep, people who didn't enjoy some of those games automatically assume that anything even remotely similar in Vanguard will therefore be unappealing to them just like it was in that ‘other game’. Likewise, while many people are drawn to Sigil and Vanguard because of the ‘vision’, other people sometimes assume that the Vision not only means sticking to a plan and caring about the long term health of the game and being willing to make hard decisions that were sometimes unpopular but usually were best for the game as a whole, especially long term, but also that it automatically includes an unwavering commitment to unwarranted and tedious downtime, or frustrating binding, or hell levels, or rampant nerfing, etc.

So I've made an attempt from the beginning to not hide our heritage and previous accomplishments, and to be clear that we are very proud of them. But I've also made a very real effort to make it clear that Vanguard is its own game and while it may share some of the same goals as other games, the way we are going about achieving those goals is more often than not very different and also hopefully something you will likely enjoy. That the Vision is indeed alive an well, but that we are at the same time more than willing to admit mistakes of the past, and that while we are stubborn at times, and while we won’t sway in the wind, being tempted to alter our game fundamentally just because another game comes out that is both different an popular, the Vision is also not so set in stone that its completely static and unable to improve and be refined and polished. (This answer is courtesy of Silky Venom)

+ 1.4.5 Timesinks! Why even have them?

I want to state that I've never run across an MMOG designer that put a 'time sink' into an MMOG to keep a player playing longer purely for financial gain or reasons. Time sinks are used as penalties to make the game challenging and accomplishment meaningful. If they are too extreme, players are driven away. If they are too lax, players typically do not get a sense of accomplishment sufficient for them to feel that they truly achieved something and the pride and satisfaction that goes with it. The degree to which time sinks 'sting' or how high or low they are varies in MMOGs and the tolerance level for the individual MMOG player varies as well. So what penalized one player but still encouraged him to go back and try that encounter again to finally achieve the reward could, for another player, frustrate him sufficiently that he would lose interest in the game. And this is normal, that such variances would exist, because everyone is different... personality-wise, how much time they are able to commit to a game, how many MMOGs they have already played in the past, etc. And as I've said many times, now that the MMOG gamespace is growing, designs are maturing (although I'd argue we are still very much in the genre's infancy), there are more and more choices so players with differing tastes hopefully have the opportunity to play the MMOG that suits them the most as opposed to having to play the best game available, yet one that still doesn't disagree with them on every level they theoretically could. And, of course, in the future, assuming more and more MMOGs are developed and a sufficient percentage of them are successful, the genre will grow and we'll see more and more types of games, not just in terms of theme or style, but also in terms of 'challenge' level, time necessary to commit, etc. And again, this is a good thing(TM). Choices = good. Options = good.

Since the primary advancement mechanism of MMOG is time invested (there are others -- player knowledge, tactics, even 'twitch' to some degree, depending on the game), it's logical that the primary means by which to penalize the player for error, bad planning, whatever, is for them to therefore 'lose time'. There may be other MMOGs that come out in the future that don't use time investment as their primary advancement mechanism, but one hasn't popped up yet. Eventually, one very well may appear, creating quite a paradigm shift, although I suspect we'll see more variations on the existing theme first (games with time invested still as the primary advancement mechanism, but with more stress and therefore importance placed on other secondary means by which to advance, be it twitch, or knowledge, or tactics, or strategy, or ways to advance based on outside means (games where purchasing items for real money is part of the design), etc.

In any case, I can assure you that the motivation behind MMOG designers for putting in time-based penalties is not based primarily on getting people to subscribe longer for financial reasons... or, at least, that's not the primary reason. Rather, it's really a natural by-product. What MMOG designers *are* trying to do is create risk vs. reward scenarios such that as players advance their characters (either by level/exp, skills, item acquisition, popularity/recognition, ownership of in-game property (player housing, vehicles, etc.) they take pride in their accomplishments because said advancement was a challenge.

Keep in mind that MMOGs, or at least EQ/WoW/etc. style MMOGs, are descendents of text based MUDs that have existed for decades and that these MUDs also used time as both the primary advancement mechanism as well as, conversely, a way to penalize a player when they've messed up. When you take that into consideration, combined with the fact that the majority of text based MUDs pre-date commercial and/or graphical MMOGs, you can pretty accurately conclude that the motive behind these designs, whether in a new MMOG, or one of the first MMOGs, or one of the first free MUDs going back to the 1980s, was not to make money per se, but to make a compelling game world that kept people playing month after month, year after year. With a commercial game, this is of course a good thing for the developer and publisher who need profit in order to continue to pay for the costs incurred by making these games. No one is denying that. But the primary reason is simply to keep the game healthy, attractive, and compelling, and that is something all MMOG and MUD developers want, whether they are working on a free MUD or on a commercial MMOG.

Character advancement, community building (encouraging interdependence via mechanics such that new friendships and relationships are formed in-game), player recognition (leaving a mark on the world), player ownership of virtual entities (houses, vehicles, etc.), and then the reward of exploration (seeing new sights (or reading their descriptions in text MUDs), encountering new mobs, etc.) are all the keys to what makes these games tick.

The problem, as mentioned above, is that people have varying tastes and tolerances in terms of how severe these time penalties are. Additionally, the eternal challenge of the MMOG and MUD designer is to make it such that character advancement is not only challenging and thereby rewarding, but also fun at the same time. Because MMOG and MUDs have an issue with 'ground hog' day, with the world resetting and content repeatable (something that can be avoided in a single player game meant to entertain for a few weeks or a month or so and then be finished), consuming the content in MMOGs to advance your character can be and is boring at times. This is where words like 'grind' come into play, where you are repeating gameplay in order to advance, but the repetition makes the entertainment value of these activities diminish the more times you experience the same content or similar content. To minimize this propensity for MMOGs to feel like a grind, many new ideas have been introduced (of which, unfortunately, many have failed). Also, the sheer amount of content has been increased so that there is less obvious repetition, more rewarding exploration, etc. And then lastly, the speed at which characters advance has been tweaked so that those who are more sensitive to the inevitable grind experience a more minimized grind or potential for grind because you move through the content more quickly and therefore encounter new content and challenges and places to explore and experience at a faster rate. The challenge there, of course, is how does one create so much content and keep it compelling and different enough and hand-crafted enough. Some ways to deal with that have been introduced in the last several years, including algorithmically created content, but then it seems to never be nearly as compelling as hand-crafted content. Also, Instancing has been used to combat the ‘grind’ to some degree, although it creates other problems too (see my long missive on Instancing I posted a couple months back). Ultimately, it unfortunately often simply comes back to budget, where the more money the developer has to spend to build a team to produce as much content as possible, the less of a grind the game feels like. (This answer is courtesy of Silky Venom)

+ 1.4.6 Some MMO's abruptly change their focus or systems after release to cater to what's popular at the moment. You have your Vision – are you going to stick to it?

As for the Vision(TM), love it or hate it, love me or hate me, it is what it is. We do listen. It does change when it needs to. But what it doesn't do is radically transform into another vision. It adapts. It expands. But the core is the core. In other words, to be more blunt, we're not going to suddenly decide we're taking on WoW directly and making a WoW clone, nor a D&D clone, nor an EQ 2 clone (although many have pointed out the obvious related heritage). Vanguard is its own game, built on the vision, which comes from both EQ and from the MUDs we played before that. To that extent it is very consistent.

We have identified our target audience, the core gamer. Please look up previous posts where I've said alot about who I feel that is. Then we are also going to try to attract more casual and more raid people. People on both sides. But never putting the core gamer at risk. And then we are going to branch out almost from a genre-standpoint. We are doing things like very involved harvesting/crafting, diplomacy which touches, eventually even on RTS elements, and more. We're taking combat really far. Good luck on two-boxing. You need to pay attention in this game. Every once in a while somebody sees a level one in Vanguard and is concerned the game pace is to slow. I promise you, you want the general 'round' to be that long, because even at mid levels there is THAT much going on. You need to be aware of who is doing what, what NPC is on who, what abiliity they are about to use, if you have a counter. You could be using a combat starter and a bridge could pop up that forks. Which related ability do you want to use? Make your choice. You don't have much time. Oh wait! While you were thinking, in those brief seconds, another icon popped up. A counter ability/spell. Now you need to decide whether to finish your chained attack (and which bridge to take), or to counter that ability. What do you now about that abiility? Is it critical enough to counter no mattter what or can you let it slide? But wait, while you're pondering all of this, two more icons pop up giving you the opportunity (and letting you know) that your secondary defensive target, say your cleric, was just aggroed. You have the option of rescuing him.

So you can finish you attack, counter, or rescue. Add to that our emphasis on multiple mob encounters (hard to seperate a group), and you get more chaos. Add in situational awareness. Is my cleric ok (I'm RPing a warrior here). Is my sorc ok? Did either the sorc or the ranger just do so much damage they may draw aggro? Or do they have some abilitiy to mask that....

It goes on and on, but hopefully you get my point. I could go on and on about the other spheres, and I and others have already. Lots of revolutionary stuff, IMHO, built on that solid foundation which I know now, at least as a level 30 Warrior playing the game daily, is damn fun in a group situation outdoors and in the depths of a dungeon. So new stuff, but sticking to the vision, the core.

Why won't we suddenly change and try to mimic ?

Couple of reasons.

First of all, we don't want to. We love this game. This is what we want to make, not a clone or mimic.

Second, we are confident that our target audience, while likely not as large as WoWs, is plenty big to make the game successful, make MSFT happy, make Sigil happy, and support us in our future endeavors. I know people debate this. It's niche! Well, does niche = 500k because WoW has 4 million? If so, I like niche. If it's 100k, well, that would be sub-optimal, but I'm not too worried

Third, and this is the one you can take to heart if you don't have that Sigil-Faith We couldn't change the game right now to mimic something else if we wanted. The momentum is there. We're in beta. Yes, I know games have changed late in beta before, even after launch. I don't know of any success stories, there, especially with MMOGs. If you can name one, please do. So to change I'd have to be ignoring what's happened to other games who've tried to change their vision (assuming they started with one) and their target audience this late. Financially, bad move. Then I'd have to make catastrophic changes to Sigil, the team, the structure, the schedule, and more and more. Honestly, I doubt MSFT would want to pay for the ramifications, and nor would they appeal to Sigil.

So, being wordy today, there are my reasons why you can have faith that the Vision(TM) shall remain what it is, love it, hate it, whatever.

Lastly, nor do I expect any major overhauls of systems post-launch. With no disrespect to any other projects or teams, my guys are simply that good. Not just good, but they have the experience few others do. They know how to make a solid system. Sure, it will need tweaks. No, it won't be perfect. But throwing out a combat sytem entirely, or changing the advancement rate of the game across the board or something crazy like that just won't be necessary. My team and the external beta testers and MSFT wont' let that happen.

What you should expect is that many of the newer systems appearing in the game, in various phases (I won't say stages, because each phase will be complete in and of itself, just not fullly realized according to our wild dreams), to be elaborated on. Expanded. Brought to the next step, the next phase. I can't spill any sekret sauce, but when you have basic city building and a RTS like tech tree, where would you go next? There are many such systems that will be fully realized over the years post launch. I can't wait!

I also agree there is a danger is trying to fix issues in older MMOGs by creating more complex systems that end up doing more harm than good. By trying to impede or eradicate a certain behavior, say, the result is that the game feels too restrictive for everyone -- you end up doing far more harm than good, assuming the system even did fix the original problem.

I want to assure you that we are keenly aware of this. We can react two ways: 1. just leave old problems alone to make absolutely sure we don't end up making the situation worse or 2. experimenting with mechanics that may address some of these issues in beta and then assessing to what degree they are (or are not) effective. If they do more harm than good, we yank them.

We obviously prefer #2 most of the time. We talk about the vision, and others joke about it, either admiring that we stick to our guns or lamenting mistakes we've made in the past because we were too stubborn. I think we've learned a lot, and while the core of the game is built indeed on a strong vision, a strong foundation, many of these other ideas (whether they are a feature or a system to address a problem found in earlier MMOGs) are NOT sacred cows. And I think we've been pretty clear about those areas we're very committed to (say no instancing, and having CRs) vs. areas we want to work with (say, TLC).

We've even said that if we can't make travel meaningful, we will put in some sort of teleportation. At this point in Beta 1, I still think we'll not need them, but the fallback plan IS there. (This answer is courtesy of Silky Venom)

+ 1.4.7 Are you promising / attempting too much for Vanguard?

There have been many promises out there, and it's harder and harder (and more expensive and requiring larger teams) to make these premiere MMOGs. Because of this I've been trying very hard to get people excited about the game but also manage expectations (and this is no easy task, I assure you). That's why I'm willing to be straight up, even in this email for example, and say "I don't know to what extent player run cities will manifest themselves by launch". Another example would be flying mounts and going anywhere you want (as opposed to, say, griffons on rails). Our engine can do this already. And we want to implement flying mounts. But we're not sure if we'll have time to get them in properly by launch. So they may be part of an expansion.

So while I think Vanguard offers a lot of new ideas, mechanics, technology, and ways to immerse yourself in an MMOG, I also am keenly aware of the dangers of over promising. No, not advertising something to trick people -- we're just not that kind of company. But it's still tempting to talk about something we want to see ourselves one day, or that MIGHT make it in by launch. We want to talk about it because it's exciting. But we still have to hold back.

I think with what we've revealed already, plus what we'll be coming out in the marketing campaign that will be starting in the next couple of months, that there will be more than enough to attract old school EQ fans, new MMOG players wanting more of a challenge, etc. I think we have some revolutionary ideas, but that we're building them on an evolutionary, solid foundation. So if one of them doesn't work out, we can yank it without harming the rest of the game. As we become more and more confident about certain mechanics or features, we'll reveal them. Also, when it comes to something controversial like TLC, I'll bring them up to get feedback to help guide us.

I think they key is to also manage your own expectations. Sure, be excited about Vanguard -- we are, and we want you to be. By no means am I advocating that you set your expectations low. But at the same time realize that there's no way it can be all things for all people, nor, especially at launch, have every cool feature or mechanic that we all want.

I do this with movies I'm excited about -- I don't let myself get too crazy imagining that it will be the best movie of all time, because then, no matter how good the movie actually turns out to be, I end up feeling let down to some degree (currently doing this with Narnia btw -- but man, after watching those trailers, it's hard not to explode with excitement and anticipation). (This answer is courtesy of Silky Venom)

Theres more but I'm not gonna print them all here. Go to Offical FAQ page and read em. (Links at the top of the page in blue.)

Rao