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[General Article] Vanguard: Saga of Heroes: Vanguards History to Now
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Vanguard has reached a venerated age of "seasoned MMORPG". In a new retrospective article, we take a look at the history of Vanguard: Saga of Heroes from its earliest days to today. Check it out!
Proclaimed as the prodigal step-son of EverQuest, Vanguard crashed into life, slinked into adolescence, and has now finally taken steps towards maturity as an MMORPG. From being the darling of every Norrath-dweller pre-2001, the fate that this game has suffered was not expected. Assembled by an all star cast and crew, funded by the might of Microsoft, and helmed by the online demigod himself, Brad McQuaid, we are here to sift through fact, fiction, and rumour, and ask "what in the hell happened?"
Read more of Adam Tingle's Vanguard's History to Now.
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Comments
"...Glitches, bugs, and broken mechanics mired the experience..."
Thanks to the undying love of a few the game will probably live forever.
But the continued glitches, bugs and broken mechanics still make it the worst mmo experience I've ever had.
Its time has passed, the star are no longer in alignment, the Gods no longer smile upon it..Its imo time to let it die with a little dignitude.
Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
Lao-Tze
Agree totally,seems people talk a good one about wanting an old school pve game but don't want to give Vanguard another chance.
Thery would rather moan about DF2 not havinbg a pve server lol.
I had to laugh at this "Fixing, patching up, and making "the vision" playable". Playable, uhmm no. I logged in after the free to play, the massive lag that we had when Vangaurd luanched was still in the game.
I have to say reached it's maturity, I don't think so. Vangaurd will always be the game tha was. It should have been so much better but SOE just about killed it off. I really don't see this game getting any better.
Vanguard is a heck of a lot of fun to play, between vanguard and TSW I really get my mmo fix, and Vanguard feels a heck of a lot more mmo like than GW2. I love the f2p, I can come in and casually play without worrying about a monthly sub. That being said they still need to fix the hitching and lag, you swing a sword and 3 seconds later it hits LOL, it is annoying, I have gotten used to it but I can see how others might quit because of it. The good news is when you get off the Island the lag gets a little better unless you go into the cities where it actually gets worse. Still with the gliches it is a better mmo than most
All die, so die well.
<aref="http://www.enjin.com/"; alt="rift guild hosting"><img src="http://sigs.enjin.com/sig-rift/14060_d62c0a5a4ba0df2e.png"></a>;
Performance is exactly the same for me now, as it was way back then.
It's just bad and there is no excuse for it, especially when the hardware I have these days exceeds the recommend requirements by a ridiculous margin.
"Barely playable" seems more accurate, imho.
performance has actually got worse since it went f2p..I'm not sure what they did but its just like it was at release. go to any town or have more than 10 people in one chunk and its 10yrs ago all over again and the graphics by todays standards aren't with poor performance.Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
Lao-Tze
What we do in life, echoes in eternity.
Agreed VG was too big and felt empty. VG is a social failure, not a technical failure. Game mechanics made it so players neither had time nor reason to interact. Hindsight is 20/20. In theory, lots of button mashing and lack of downtime sounds cool; in the implementation it was impersonal.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
It should also be noted that Silius, aka Siliem Grant (or whatever), was largely responsible for the failure that is/was Vanguard. He completely borked gameplay and rather then simply fixing the game - he pursured the WoW model.
Silius was the lead developer, fyi.
"At this point, I feel it important to note that while Vanguard was a failure in terms of both management and development, this wasn't the desired end result."
Silius still is the lead dev, and we are glad that they moved him out of eq2 because he was screwing up our itemization of weapons and armor so bad. The guy is totaly clueless how to do anything original, he is all about copying somebody the work somebody else did. Now that he is back in vangaurd he is their problem now, good luck with that.
This article keeps bringing up 'The Vision'. That isn't anywhere to be seen in the current Vanguard. VG was Brad's Fight against WoW, and included XP loss, corpse runs and other 'old school' PITA gameplay. He thought WoW was too easy on players and Vanguard was to return to early EQ's punishment formula and forced grouping. NONE of that remains.
The XP loss was mitigated, the corpse runs eliminated, the forced grouping relaxed. Faction grinding eased. In short, it basically took all that noise that people keep making in the MMO forums about difficult games, put it to the test, and it FAILED.
Bugs, glitches, and broken mechanics aside, if there was a market for punishment based PITA gameplay like old EQ, then people would have stuck it out throught the bugs and supported it. As it is, it didn't get popular until after all that nonsense was removed or seriously curtailed.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire:
Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.