Expectations of Vanguard
I have been out of it for about a week and a half, nothing like a quick deployment to make you appreciate how good we have it back at home. When I left I sensed some excitement about Vanguard that I couldn’t exactly place. Perhaps it is Fanguard which starts tomorrow. Maybe it was the release of the first beta-zero screenshots over at Silky Venom. Maybe it was something else entirely, but I came back to something I never anticipated seeing in the way I have.
The high expectations placed on Sigil is no surprise. Most of us reading this are intimately familiar with Brad’s history with MMORPGs. Moreover, the people Brad has assembled on his team are equally as talented and dedicated to the game as he is. For many of us this gives us some idea, some inkling, of what Vanguard is all about. We feel like Brad and Company think like we think, feel like we feel, and want to create a world just like we would. May I submit for the record nothing could be further from the truth.
Vanguard and Telon belong to Brad and Sigil. Thankfully, they have created a medium for us to give inputs to the staff at Sigil as they go about the tedious work of creating a humongous world. We have been fortunate along the way to not only give these inputs, but also have some great two-way interaction with the art team, production staff, and programming crew. This has had a huge impact in terms of respect for the Vanguard development team to those of us who have closely followed Vanguard since it was the “Sigil Forums” and not the “Vanguard Forums”. So what has happened in the week and a half that I was gone?
So, What Happened?
After catching up on the forums, not just the official ones, it sort of, well it slapped me in the face. People are beginning to realize this is not the MMORPG they envisioned, or better stated, created. And you know what, these people are right! I will document some of the things I read in a little bit, but the point I want to stress is that this is Brad and Sigil’s vision not ours. We have been lucky to see some of the development along the way in a fashion pretty much unheard of from other development houses. Let us not for get this.
The new screenshots to me are simply, amazing; if you like the realistic look. I talked to some World of Warcraft (WoW) friends who were not all that impressed. This led to a conversation comparing Vanguard against World of Warcraft. It turns out they like the cartoonish feel of WoW. I think that this is wonderful. Have any of us really sat back and thought about what Blizzard and WoW has done for the MMORPG genre? Their contribution has been immense. EQ’s then was huge? That’s debatable. None the less I learned a whole heck of a lot from my WoW friends.
We went on to talk about so many subjects ranging from lag to hardware. I learned that they really like the feel of their guilds being able to open up an instance and be able to access content, for the most part, on demand. They went on and on to the point where I finally realized what was going on with Vanguard. It all comes back to “The Vision™”,
The Vision™
Vanguard is Brad’s vision. He is the conductor of this train and he has been nice enough to stop along the way and pick us up for the ride. Sit back and think, how often do you get emails from presidents of companies? Not often right? Well I have (eating crow I am) and it’s amazingly satisfying. I can give inputs along the way that may or may not effect “The Vision™” but ultimately increase my feeling of belonging and pride in the game. Its awesome. Look at this screen shot from “Back in the day”.
When we all first saw this, most of us were excited, some were like “looks good and needs some work” while others were pessimistic. I am at a loss for why some people feel the need to express views that are not only negative, but also unconstructive. Constructive feedback is key to making a product that will be successful. The point here was at the time of its release, this screenshot was incredible. The detail and such were amazing. We knew then that we were in for something fantastic.
Now lets fast forward to this week and a recent screen shot curtesy of the folks over at
GUcomics.
Can anyone not see The Vision™ or how far Vanguard has come? The game looks great and is being tweaked regularly to get it ready for beta one. Sure some shading is not right and some of the necks look out of the ordinary; however, may I submit that these models look more realistic than anything to date. Maybe you aren’t a fan of the realistic look. That’s fine. However, progression has been shown and Vanguard will continue to progress as we journey through beta and onto production.
My expectations for the game are very high. However, I do not plan to try and force Vanguard into what I feel is the perfect MMORPG at the expense of what Sigil wants. My vision is a game that runs at 32 to 40 frames per second (FPS) without lag. Heck, I usually never run with sound on (unless I am hunting HGs in Rathe Mountains at which time I run it through my home theater). I am sure my vision is very different from yours, or for that matter, Brad and Sigil’s and that’s GOOD as long as everyone realizes that Sigils mission is to provide a game that addresses as many visions as possible without straying too far from the vision that got it all started.
In Conclusion
The game looks promising and I am excited. My expectations are high and I am sure most if not all will be filled. In the meantime I realize that this is beta zero and we have a ways to go so lets sit back and continue to enjoy the ride. Its been 2 years since we first heard of a game called Vanguard, I think we can be patient another 8 months. It is just 8 months, right?
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