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Vanguard: Saga of Heroes..definition of an mmo !
delete5230
Member EpicPosts: 7,081
First, this topic is NOT intended to start an argument about a broken game. It's about a definition of what we used to call an mmo !!!!!
Sorry for the shock, Yes, Using the word Vanguard seems to shock everyone. However it's a perfect example for a clear cut definition.
Vanguard and all others before it were mmos. Many video gamers out there DIDENT LIKE MMO'S. This was ok, it was a style of video game. Just like First Person Shooters, Hack and Slash, Platform games, Card Games, Turn Based games, and add your own style. I hate Hack and Slash, I hate Platform games. You have styles you didn't like. What do you do ? ...Easy, you don't play them !
How most mmos work, REAL MMOS :
You have a starting area, quality mmos had several choices. This had a little hand holding. I'm sure everyone was ok with a little hand holding up to level 10 or so.
After this you were plopped into seriousness. You would be in your first real zone and the choice was yours. Do anything you want.....anything....pick a quest, check out the town, totally leave the area, check out crafting, join a Guild. Can you do this in todays games? Sure......You can do a little minor deviation......But just minor !....Understand, developers now have a strict plan for you. Play around a little, look at some stuff if you like but get ready to be told.
Sandbox? I don't know, I don't care !....Sandbox is just a word for people to fight about. mmos, are not your style of entertainment ? It used to be simple, Just overlook the game.
..........................................
After Vanguard, All developers changed the formula, they mixed it all together for a full target group...Money.
Did they ask you about the change ?.....No
Do people like the change ? .....It's obvious many do, but many don't. MANY HERE ASK FOR AT LEAST ONE MMO. Archage almost did it. That mmo was gaining momentum, but greed destroyed it's chances to give the real mmo player it's only chance.
.........................................
Vanguard Failed ( I'm not getting into that ). Instead of moving on, they changed the formula. That was the last one !
Old School ? That shouldn't be a word either. MMO's could have advanced, but instead they changed.
Comments
Story time :
Vanguard, I didn't play if for years, but sometime later with the new starting Island was my first.
I made a Rouge I think, not sure. But anyway for me at least it was instant hard. At level 4 you did a little non-instanced mini dungeon. Full of danger, it was scary. Dyeing several times I'm thinking I better wait for help. It didn't take long with everyone being like minded to party, I was soon in a party of about four. This helped. This was fun and exciting !....I quickly caught on that this dungeon was not to discourage, but to get you playing together. " Imagine that " work together from the get-go
.
I was in Love around level 4 !
Before leaving the starting area you had to figure out how to fly. This is because you have to fly to a Castle above some rocks. Even landing was hard, BUT VERY INTREGUING. I like intriguing stuff, not sure about you
....Here again you better group, because the castle was unforgiving.
Hand holding like newer games ? Yes. But now I totally understand, you better know how to group, you better know your class, and you better know how to fly freely, because your gonna be plopped into a vicious world soon.
On to my first real adventure around 11. I had a choice of three, I picked Vaskils Exchange or how ever you spell it. WoW was I in for an experience. Leave town and die ! But I learned quick to be careful and know my class. With this in mind, it was better.
I remember finding this cave. A spider cave. Not sure I had the quest for it, but it was a no brainer, I was going in !... Well just like that level 4 dungeon I got my butt handed to me. I guess I forgot my lesion, don't go alone, the starting area taught me that.....It didn't take long and again I was in a group with other like minded players
... We had fun, and now I'm really intrigued .
This is fun for me, MMO style fun !.....and it's only the beginning....I have Dungeon stories I'll never forget. And made a lot of friends along the way.
Anyway, time for a shower and work
Vanguard was made for the money too... Don´t kid your self anything else.
This have been a good conversation
Sure it was made for money.
But it was made for MY money.
Baldurs Gate 2, the best game I've ever played, was also made for money. But it was also made by gamers who wanted to create their dreamgame. Thats why it was so fun to play.
Unlike what else there is around right now in the MMO genre, which just isnt worth anything - time, money, whatever - to me.
I dont want the newest fluff and fashion and whatnot - I want a game I can play FOR YEARS. That means I want a rich game with tons and tons of complexity, and that means I want a traditional game with time tested concepts.
Guess what... Every MMO was made with SOMEONES money in mind.
LoL/Dota2 was made for the dota people
Neverwinter is made to the BG/NWN/DnD people
TSW is made for the mystery lovers
It hurts to no longer be the main target group.. but just because YOU are not the intended customers does not invalidate the passion or the drive of the developers who make games... Nor des it invalidate what genre the game belongs to.
Also not to be like that but i think Peter Molynuex is a very good example of what all vision and no "money" does to development...
You like to know a funny fact...
I knew a bunch of EQ1 people who said that Vanguard was not made for THEIR money...
Same attitude in my old UO guild... They saw it as way to restrictive...
Suck that the times have moved on from you... But that does not invalidate where we are today.
This have been a good conversation
Like every single mmorpg game ever made. Fact is Vanguard was the last of a dying breed.Don't be like Lola in Copacabana move on.Live other games. Lots out there.
The one thing I miss most in Vanguard was the community. The game itself was such a buggy mess I would have given it up a lot sooner if not for the people.
Still have pictures of my adobe.
Now I have pictures of other games.
I liked Vanguard and actually enjoyed my stay but as ALL SOE games,it had some downfalls that often had me wanting to logout.
Brad was the original EQ guy and all of the series just carries the same ideals,nothing changes ever.VG did add a few nice ideas including the politics mini game but all the little design systems were imo done badly or just wrong.I still saw the same design ideas in EQ2 so the team's way of thinking never went outside the box.
My perfect scenario would have been a cross between VG +FFXi.
99% of the game advertised on this site are not even worth my time to look at them,they are that bad.Almost every single game is NOT a MMORPG anymore,either browser cheapness,or Moba style game play,or grid maps or locked camera's or the ever popular Unfinished EARLY access games,just a pile of junk flooding the market.
It is really sad that VG although lacking in areas was still MILES better than most games i have seen crop up over several years.It deserved a better publisher and a better lead ,the game should still be around.IMO timing was it's major downfall,trying to barge in on the market that was occupied by Wow/EQ/EQ2/FFXi was VER Ydifficult because i simply could not see players leaving those games for VG,not that VG was not good enough,the players simply wanted something a tad different in the competition games.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Fix it for ya.-sigh-
Was hoping for some better replies in this thread, to be honest. Not sure if I should be surprised to find none, or not.
Instead... we have the usual case of people completely missing, or - more likely - simply ignoring the bigger point the OP is making because "they don't agree with it". So, instead they begin picking apart individual statements, completely ignoring the bigger point being made.
One example... the idea of "all mmo devs are in it for the money". That's an example of people disingenuously nit-picking on specific wording, rather than addressing the intended point. I know exactly what the OP meant by that statement, and I'm sure many others did, too. But it's not convenient to the narrative people want to follow, so they deliberately ignore the meaning of it, and pick it apart instead.
Yes... of course all MMO devs want to make money. It's how they get to keep making MMOs, at the very least. They're businesses, after all. The difference is... what is their prime motivation for wanting the money. There's two possibilities:
- They have a dream of making an awesome MMORPG, but to do so they need to make enough money.
- They want to make lots of money, and to do so they want to make MMOs.
Each of those starting points will tend to lead to very different types of games being made, with a very different focus:
This is what the OP was referring to. Again, I'm sure people understood that, but they can't acknowledge it, because clinging to their personal narratives and biases won't allow them to. They will never acknowledge any side but the one they favor.
Moving on...
I agree, OP. They don't - or at least very rarely do - try to make MMORPGs as huge, engaging worlds to get lost and adventure in. Now everything is a mindless routine of connect the dots, follow the deliberately placed arrows and !'s and ?'s to "win the game!".
First and foremost, the 'RPG' part has been all but eliminated from most of the genre anymore. The people calling the shots on most MMOs wouldn't know a RPG if it bit them. I'm sure they excel at reading "market data" and spreadsheets and "bottom lines", though..
Once, people welcomed getting lost in a fantasy world, because it led to unknown adventures, unexpected encounters, epic memory-making experiences, and gave players the agency to decide where they wanted to go... what they wanted to do.. and in the order that they chose, without any invisible "guide" pointing everything out to them.
Now? MMO developers go out of their way to guide players as much as they possibly can, because "getting lost in the world" is considered a bad thing, to be avoided at all costs! Why? Well, because it might require players to use some initiative, to figure something out on their own ("where do I go from here?") and, well... we don't want that now do we? What are they gonna do... rely on themselves?! Are you nuts?!
No no... That might prevent them from getting the rewards they want! After all, the rewards are all they're playing for!
Just tell them exactly where to go. Tell them exactly who to talk to. Tell/show them exactly where their quest objectives are. Show them exactly what they have to kill/collect. Show them exactly what their "most efficient path to the end" is. Show them exactly where an enemy's attack is going to go, so they can be sure to get out of the way. After all, it's circles and lines on the ground that matter, not the enemy itself, right?
In a genre designed around the concept of ever expanding games with no end screen... the entire point of playing... is to get to the end as fast as possible! Right? Of course it is!
Oh, and make sure they never ever have to read, or pay attention to what's going on around them. No no. Just show them where to go, so they don't have to, and let them at it. You can even replace the quest NPCs with trash cans. As long as it has a ! over it, they're good to go. There are shinies to be acquired, and the End Game is all that matters after all!
It's a sad, sad state of affairs for the genre. It's pretty much completely lost its identity at this point. There are some who want to argue it's "evolved". I have to chuckle at that. Who knew that reducing an entire genre of games from worlds for players to lose themselves adventuring in, to a series of fast-track, on-rails "follow the glowing brick road!" could be considered "evolution!".
I'd say MMOs have devolved to their current state. As the OP touches on, the genre is now designed around people who don't like MMORPGs, or anything they were about. MMOs are now designed for people who want to play a single player game, with other people around to show off their new shinies to...
Vanguard - warts and all - was definitely one of the last of a rare breed. It was a MMORPG in every sense.
While above is your opinion and you have every right to have it... It does not make it per se "right".
I could turn this around and say that games like Crowfall and Pantheon are even more intent on making money as they intentionally play on the nostalgia and blind dedication of a specific niche. Placeing their bet on this group being large enough to sustain the game but not so big as to drive operational costs to high... In short hitting the financial sweetspot. Is that not a much more cynical and coldly calculated move then to just follow the "trend". To bank on the higher than average number of "whales" and their desire to regain that what they can not have.
Are mainstream MMO´s more open with their agenda... Sure... But that is not the same as saying those games lack vision or that the devs did not have a dream..
Or just do what the indie-music muchnkins have done for decades... put on a pained face and act like it is the end of an era.
This have been a good conversation
vanguard had a lot of potential, that was the game i was anticipating more than any other at the time. but as everyone knows, that launch just destroyed it.
if that same exact game was developed the right way, it would have been a lot more successful IMO
+1 this.
Life is change...
Things that will not or can not change generally become extinct
*snip*
Your post helped me to think about and actually write out some of my thoughts on the MMO genre and what type of game(s) and systems are really needed in the MMO space:
http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/BadSpock/032015/26557_The-MMO-concept-gestating-in-my-head-for-the-last-few-years
actually he didnt, at first, they added them later trying to get more subscribers
I loved Vanguard. As is usual with me, I waited a couple of years before trying it. New MMO's are chock-full of bugs and problems, and I like to let them fully bake before playing. I also had a high-end machine with the game on a SSD drive. Open world heaven!
Interesting classes, nice world, good crafting, diplomacy game, it was fun. Until I got to 50 and started raiding. IT quickly became a grind. Just like DAOC was a blast, until ToA came out and it became a grind.
So I lost interest. I would still be playing it if it was running, though. It wasn't designed from the ground up as a cash extraction product. You paid your monthly fee, and had access to the whole game. Unlike modern MMO's that seem to have been designed around the monetization scheme.
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2024: 47 years on the Net.
Nah AC was actually better in a large number of ways.
Edit:
In fact its so dramatically better that its the only "First gen" game I would say that people should give an honest month's worth of play time in just to see how skewed their view of modern MMO is.
Its not perfect by a long shot, but the things it did and had working versus many modern MMOs attempting and failing while claiming these were "new" features is pretty ... well ... stark.
Vanguard, even if it had high production quality, was a horrible game. People didn't play it because it was buggy, people didn;t play it because the game was horrible.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
One of the best MMO's Ive ever played, class depth was unsurpassed to this day. Dungeons and gear progression better than any game I've played. A world so enormous I never saw it all in over 2 years of play. Crafting nothing has come close to it except perhaps SWG. It certainly was too much game for most. I understand that the simpler games are far more popular.
Instead of ripping this dude up you should instead understand some of the basic principles he is talking about ... even if he didn't quite recognize it himself. Many of you here cannot understand his view point or are unwilling too because your background in gaming deviates too wildly from his. Let me make a few points clear:
- We are talking about old school mmos here. If you were around to truly play those games at their height you were either very young and likely popped your multi-player, fantasy world cherry or older during the entry point of the internet and "group gaming" was sitting around a board game or playing D&D. Either way it was your first experience and expectations were set (sort of like your first girl/boyfriend ... if you haven't got past that yet). If you grew up on multi-player console and pc gaming you will have little understanding of this topic and many of your comments are unwarranted based on that source of ignorance.
- Corruption of mmorpgs through venture capitalism. Once again we must speak of perspectives through history. Old school mmos spawned the interest of venture capital. They were allowed to be created in a time where creative vision was the driving goal behind making the game (you cannot call bullshit on this because this is exactly what is currently happening behind many of today's kickstarer mmos). They created a unique product ... some of which took off with great success. Other genres had already started their way under the umbrella of large corporations such as first person shooters, racing games, etc ... but even today we still get all of these mostly like how they always were. Mmos deviated from this because of their complexity and persistent nature. EQ 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc couldn't simply be thrown out ever single year like a shooter could. Their only choice was to copy existing concepts and if it worked further streamline against growing development costs on the existing product ... this MUST happen for corporate business to ensure growth. This created the problem.
Old school mmorpg was a PERSISTENT WORLD. Persistent was more than up time and also meant the reality of the world (such as the physics which define our universe) did not so much change as the content which constantly was added to the game . World meant exactly what it means to us in real life. These games attempted to emulated this concept. Not all managed to do it without chopping it up due to technical limitations but it was their intent. This meant that the game never reset and never was remade into another concept each and every expansion. This was the original game creators intent just like it was for TSR when it made D&D: to make money by selling a game where an eternal world existed with endless possibilities for content. This model did not fit corporate management agendas. While console sports games could be popped out every year an mmo could only be turned into a complete different model that could morph and adjust to trends ... and so it did.
Old school mmos were never allowed to maintain their original model and this is why this thread was created. It would be like D&D changing it's edition each and every year. It did not because rewriting all of those books was impractical and therefore you get years and years of content additions with only minor game play tweaks along the way. Most new rpg editions simply updated the rules whilst maintaining the original concept ... just like an engine upgrade to an mmo. Mmorpgs COULD have gone that way and is entirely what the original designers and player base wanted. Big business had other plans and UA, EQ, AC, etc spawned a new business model instead of alternate worlds we could have explored through mmorpgs. Today there are few to no new worlds for us to explore but instead get new Disneyesque themepark versions happily marketable by big business. Can they be fun? Yes, but they are not the same ... they are different.
Small business is about profiting off of a niche market and sustaining it's existence. Big business is about tapping into broadband profit at all times. That pipeline changes and so does big business even at the cost of small business and therefore niche markets can vanish (even if proven profitable ... they simply weren't profitable enough). Success may get you rich but variety is the spice of life. This is why we now have so much indie development once again. The big pipe of cash has become plugged by too much corporate constipation and new hippy development has spawned (some to be swept up by big business and rinse, repeat).
The argument is about what something was, what it became and who was left out. The argument is real even if you lack the perspective to see it. It is hard to compare because there are few or no comparisons within the video game market and we are stuck within it's evolving history.
You stay sassy!
Vanguard had a really awesome concept, good classes, and interesting races.
If only it would have delivered on half of it's promises with more polish when it launched.
If it had, I'm sure we'd see more games like it being developed.
This. Diplomacy was awesome and I've not seen the likes since.