my Rant to Sigil or whoever cares.

[Caestus]

Originally Posted by Shinto

While trying not to go into a rant myself, I'd like to say that this statement seems to indicate somewhat of a lack of understanding of what goes into a program this massive. Even if you minimize cyclomatic complexity, the number of program states is high enough that "infinite" almost describes it. It is provably impossible that they would have found every flaw even if they had waited six months more to release.

To be honest, I'm not sure what you are wanting. There are already characters about to hit max level, and it is trivial to level up. There are bugs, yes, but they are being fixed as we speak. The macro system is simple, but it is useful. Adding to it just makes botting easier. I don't see any suggested change that benefits the game, other than the suggestion that they fix bugs.

fair enough in terms of glitches. due to the fact that they are fixing them will allow me to leave it at this.

reguardles of the macro system or you saying it would allow players to bot easier i'm not so sure of this. there WILL be botting reguardles of the macro system. hell, 1 month after the game released there is botting already......

you should rephrase and say "I don't see any suggested change in my point of view would benefit the game." because in all acctuallity if they added more versatility to this and found a way to change Memlocks as often as they could they could easily prevent botting. (Memlocks are what allows botting to ocure)

so due to the fact that botting can, will and already does occure as does with any other Online game, why not make a broader range of options availible for game play?'

yes there are characters almost ready to hit max level, in terms of exp gain the game is fine, to a sense. but they should allow the leveling up process to be easier. use a better macro system that the came can incorperate. i think that my suggestion earlier would allow this to happen.

i am just a single person expressing my opinions please work with them.

[SwordMage]

I think some of the reason your ideas are not being received as warmly as you had hoped is that we have known for a very long time that Vanguard's game play would be the way it turned out to be. We knew it was going to be the heir to the EQ vision (as opposed to the EQ2 direction, which is aimed at a different audience). The developers have been very up-front about where the game was going and the kind of audience it was aimed at.

What you are suggesting sounds, to some of us, as a rejection of the vision which we have so long waited to be realized.

What we have been saying, not always clearly, is that there is room in the MMO universe for games with different design philosophies. Questions of how powerful the macro system is, or how fast leveling is, or how many levels are what game designers struggle with and, fortunately, not every designer comes up with the same answers.

I don't think that anyone is saying that what you want out of a game is wrong or bad. However, some of us would use criteria, such as you express, as a measure in selecting the game we want to devote our time to, rather than as a mold to reshape our selected game.

[Ysharros]

Originally Posted by Caestus

i also would like to keep this in a debate. no personal attacks plz strictly debate.

Then don't call people morons, even if they baited you first.


While it may not be everyone's cup of gaming tea, The Vision (TM) has been around and available for perusing for years. Sure, there have been some deviations, and while some parts of it are open to interpretation (and ultimately it's Sigil's interpretation that matters), in all fairness I have to admit I think Sigil have stuck pretty closely to it.

What they've delivered may not be as polished as it could be, but it's certainly very close to what I was expecting from having followed the game for a while. I'm sure being in beta for months gave me an edge in that respect, but even coming into beta the "feel" of the game was in line with what I'd read about it beforehand.

I also understand that some people get hit really hard with bugs while others get almost none, so I'm not one of those who says "Bugs? What bugs? You're imagining things just so you can whine!" I *do* say that whining is pretty pointless unless you're either i) venting or ii) have something constructive to offer. If you're just venting, then I don't feel compelled to offer anything except sympathy, if I can be bothered.

That Vanguard didn't meet your expectations is one thing. Using your disappointment to claim as fact that "it sucks" is another. I don't care how many reviews support some of all of your opinions -- they're still reviews, which in themselves are nothing more than opinion. I've written one of my own, but I certainly don't go around quoting it as fact.

[Hedrif]

Originally Posted by Calren

What a boring whiney load of crap.

Grrrhhhhhh .... enough!

I haven't been here in eons. I'm making final rounds on all the boards to see what people are saying, and I don't much like it. I'm so tired of people beating on other people because they don't like the game. Sorry to pick on you, Calren, but your post is emblematic ....

Originally Posted by Calren

I keep seeing all these posts about crashes, about not finding groups, about roll-backs and all sorts of junk. You know what? Stop trying to run the game on highest settings with your adware ridden 486, tweak your system, keep it clean and happy and you won't crash nearly as much.

Well, then how do you explain why the brand new, uncluttered system I built expressly to exceed Vanguard's recommended system specs experienced lock-ups, black-screens, bsods and all manner of failure consistently when playing the game to the point that it just wasn't worth playing?

Originally Posted by Calren

Can't find a group? Join a guild, get involved, stop jumping in to crappy PUGs with all the other clueless idiots.

That's the spirit ... let's call people with whom we disagree "clueless idiots." I agree with your essential point, but could you be any more debasing in making it? Maybe call the poster a pig-f***er?

Originally Posted by Calren

The leveling thing, anyone that focuses too much on how long it's taking them to level is missing the point, turn your experience bar off and start taking some interest in the game instead of just the numbers associated with your character. If you can't do that then go and play something else, this game is about the journey as much as it is about end-game, infact I'd say at this point it's more about the journey.

The journey? THE JOURNEY?

I'm all about journey, my friend. I'm the kind of player who likes to wander, stop and help a fellow player, roleplay a bit, spend a night in the tavern, another in the company of a group so fun I couldn't care whether we finished a single quest. I consistently end up being the laggard in any guild I join because I view achievement precisely as a byproduct of playing the game, not its primary purpose, and that achievement doesn't always register in the kill count.

After I discovered Vanguard and read its wonderful lore a year ago now, I started pounding at Sigil's doors a year ago to let me in. I had a character, I had a storyline. I had plans, man.

What happened?

I couldn't make a character look like I wanted my character to look. So I had to settle on a guy who looked like an oily-faced Jesus wannabe.

I was unceremoniously dumped into a generic starter town facing a random NPC who stood their blankly staring at me until I tapped his shoulder and he told me brusquely to go kill some rats or something. There was precious little lore and history of the world told in the quest dialogues. That was all reserverd for Vanguard's precious card game (how is it that a playing a card game to argue with other people goes along with the sandbox, living world feel, anyhow?)

Everywhere I went, the world felt lifeless and cold. It kind of like a supermodel — stunningly beautiful after a fashion, but obviously artificial, unorganic, and oh so vacant. There were no frogs hopping in the marshes, no birds in the sky, no flowers. Ambient sounds, when present at all, abruptly turned on and off.

I was cold, I was lonely, I was bored and I couldn't even sit down and ponder my fate.

The journey? Some journeys just aren't worth taking. This was one of them.

Originally Posted by Calren

Quests are boring? Do you read them? Do you take an interest in the story behind each quest, the lore in that area? Probably not. Granted sometimes it's nothing special, but more than often the quest progession is quite interesting, if you let it interest you that is.

See above, but "nothing special" is a great way to describe the quest lines in this game. I don't know if the other poster read them or not, but I did, and they were insipid, for the most part, no better than the mission generators of SWG that would spit out random kill quests. And yes, I'd love to have known more about the lore, thank you, but that was all locked away for people who enjoyed that confounded card game.

Vanguard could, should, have been much more than it is. While I dispute there's a significant demand for a high-commitment slow-leveling game in the current market, I think at least a portion of players such as myself who gave up on the game after a month or two would have learned to live with it had we felt there was enough there to keep us hooked. I never found it, and I'm clearly not alone.

I don't doubt that many of you genuinely like Vanguard, warts and all, and I'm happy for you.

But I have to say that a lot of what I read in posts such as these sounds a bit like people who don't want to admit to themselves that the game they dreamed of for years has let them down.

[Aredhel]

Please note:

You just responded to a thread that died over a month ago, until today. So much has happened since then, and we're sorry if you don't like what is going on in game, but this is old content, so...good luck, and locking the thread!