Originally posted by Teala

It's not so much that Vanguard imploded and killed harcore gaming, its that hardcore gaming imploded due to the nature of the beast.  It consumed so many unwarranted hours of tedious and monotonous game play(OK game play is not what I should say because grinding trees for a bazillion hours does not a game make) that it acted like a star going super nova and turned into this black hole of grind that devoured anything and everything that was meant to be fun in a game - a game - not work - a game.   We didn't know any better with games like EQ and AC, they were all we had really in the way of 3D MMORPG worlds at the time.  We players had no choice but to accept what was given and think...wow...this is fun.  Couple of years later we're like - WTF!   I wasted 2 years of my life whacking virtual moles and thought it was fun! 

We fooled ourselves into believing it was fun and hardcore.  LOL!  Hardcore...such a stupid word to use to describe a game and it's monotonous, tedious, repetetive boring arse poorly designed and implemented game play!   What we need is not hardcore...what we need is complex and challenging game play!   That's what we need.  Not this stupid ride for 40 minutes, wack 100 of the same MOB or chop down thousands of virtual trees in search of that ultra rare kind of lumber.   NO!  That is just lazy and unimaginative game design..there is nothing hardcore other then sitting on your ass for 6hrs at a stretch trying to acomplish one simple little task to get a bow made!  A stupid bow!  Do I feel rewarded for what I did for night after night after boring ass night trying to find the wood necessary to have the bow made?

NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In fact I feel cheated.  I feel as though the developer is sitting back and laughing his stupid ass off because some dumb gamer is willing to put up with his BS to keep said gamer subscribed and playing their game.   Well Mr. Developer you go right on thinking that and we'll see more and more of your pathetic attempts at making a game fall into the abyss of poorly made games.

So drop this "hardcore' and give us a well designed and thought out games that challenges us not only in game play, but with the complexity of what choices we're given to determine the fate of our characters by how we develop them and play them.  I've seen so many good games or potentially good games created only to see them become boring, monotonous, tedious unfun games because some developer or level designer said, "hmmm...lets see, I'll have them talk to this NPC here in city X.  The NPC will tell them to travel all the way across the world to find 120 small flowers that only bloom at night and only on these days.  Days derived from this algorithmic formula to spawn them at the right moment and only on these days at this time."   If that is challenging and fun to you - knock yourself out.

I'll take my chances on a fun, yet challenging, and complex game rather then a boring ass, poorly implemented, POS that is not even worthy of the title - a game. 

Originally posted by SpectralHunt

Originally posted by monoth

The problem with LOTRO is exactly why its so popular, its so easy that you will be done with the game within several months... I don't see any long term staying power with this game...   I think in the short term it will be a good success, but the long term seems iffy IMO.

Didn't people say the same thing about WoW?  If anything, WoW has increased in subs consistently since launch.  I think the idea of grinding to retain customers is an archaic concept.  Fun retains customers.  Grinds and time sinks do not.

It is my opinion that hardcore gamers are a niche community that cannot be relied upon by a major budget game.  It's like spending $30 million on roleplayers.  There just isn't enough return for the investment. 

I agree that hardcore gamers is a niche market, but lets be honest the ""Fun"" part of WoW and LOTRO runs out after about 4-5 months when you hit the level cap and do a few raids, afater that its all rinse and repeat.... The reason WoW is so popular is because its more of a social community then a gaming one...   I don't see LOTRO which is basicaly a clone is going to steel away WoW's community.... 

 If anything is going to take on WoW its going to have to be something nobody has seen before, something inventive that changes how we play MMO's...  Right now I don't see anything like that....   

Somebody made the comment that EQ1 had as poor of a launch as VG and that there really wasn't much of a difference in terms of bugs etc.

There is a tiny little difference: 8 years of development and about a 100 MMO launches in between. EQ1 was revolutionary and it having bugs was understandable especially considering it was the first game to require a 3D graphics card. VG on the other hand is just copying what others have done before + throw in a Magic the Gathering type card game. There is no excuse that 8 years down the road it should have had the bugs that it had/has.

Originally posted by Deathstiny

Somebody made the comment that EQ1 had as poor of a launch as VG and that there really wasn't much of a difference in terms of bugs etc.

There is a tiny little difference: 8 years of development and about a 100 MMO launches in between. EQ1 was revolutionary and it having bugs was understandable especially considering it was the first game to require a 3D graphics card. VG on the other hand is just copying what others have done before + throw in a Magic the Gathering type card game. There is no excuse that 8 years down the road it should have had the bugs that it had/has.

I completely agree.  8 years of watching the genre move forward and seeing the reactions of the players to the various games and still the game companies learn nothing.   It's as if they totally blow us off and then say screww the players(SOE does this continuely) we knw what is best for you.   The simple fact is you must not...we're not playing your games!   We'd love to play your game, but you force us to look elsewhere because you are to blinded by some kind of weird game designer philosphy that the people who play your games are inept and you in all your great wisdom can do no wrong.

Think again.   We the players are really on your side.  We cheer you on and say "yea!  great...but can you tweak this and fix that and maybe add this to make the game *fun* ", and what do you do...you totally ignore us and we get the same old same old time and time again.   Stop doing that!  We will play your games - we wish to play your games but not as long as you continue to push garbage, bug ridden, poorly implemented games on us.  Eventually it is going to implode and you're seeing it again in this game - Vanguard.   We're tired of it .

You know what the saddest part is...I really like this game Vanguard, but even I can see a sinking ship and unless SOE gets on the ball and fixes this game up and really quick...it'll be a DDO or a Matrix Online or god forbid an AC2.   I wish to see Vanguard succeed, really I do however there is some serious game issues that need worked out by SOE to get this game to shine.  Hope they can do it.

You know, I really liked this game, a ton me and my wife were just talking about it while playing EQ2 here.  I have alot of faith that SOE will bring this back to life and do what it did with eq 2.  But if they dont come out with an expansion I think this game is doomed.  That is the only thing that will give the players some sort of faith that they are trying to do something with it unlike Matrix Online.    Well see what happens, but unless they come out with some sort of preformance improvment /bug fix/dupe fix/server merger/too much of a dmned grid fix/ PREFORMANCE IMPROVMENT, its to the tubes.  But hell it was a good game. 

Originally posted by Teala

Originally posted by Deathstiny

Somebody made the comment that EQ1 had as poor of a launch as VG and that there really wasn't much of a difference in terms of bugs etc.

There is a tiny little difference: 8 years of development and about a 100 MMO launches in between. EQ1 was revolutionary and it having bugs was understandable especially considering it was the first game to require a 3D graphics card. VG on the other hand is just copying what others have done before + throw in a Magic the Gathering type card game. There is no excuse that 8 years down the road it should have had the bugs that it had/has.

I completely agree.  8 years of watching the genre move forward and seeing the reactions of the players to the various games and still the game companies learn nothing.   It's as if they totally blow us off and then say screww the players(SOE does this continuely) we knw what is best for you.   The simple fact is you must not...we're not playing your games!   We'd love to play your game, but you force us to look elsewhere because you are to blinded by some kind of weird game designer philosphy that the people who play your games are inept and you in all your great wisdom can do no wrong.

Think again.   We the players are really on your side.  We cheer you on and say "yea!  great...but can you tweak this and fix that and maybe add this to make the game *fun* ", and what do you do...you totally ignore us and we get the same old same old time and time again.   Stop doing that!  We will play your games - we wish to play your games but not as long as you continue to push garbage, bug ridden, poorly implemented games on us.  Eventually it is going to implode and you're seeing it again in this game - Vanguard.   We're tired of it .

 

You know what the saddest part is...I really like this game Vanguard, but even I can see a sinking ship and unless SOE gets on the ball and fixes this game up and really quick...it'll be a DDO or a Matrix Online or god forbid an AC2.   I wish to see Vanguard succeed, really I do however there is some serious game issues that need worked out by SOE to get this game to shine.  Hope they can do it.

Games are amazing. Like really amazingly amazing. And they're just getting started – thirty years is peanuts for a new medium. Gaming isn't even an infant yet. It's an embryo. It's a zygote. And here we all are,  players and ex-players, all here at the very beginning, the inception of something really exciting and really important. I mean, “How often do you get to be there at the start of an art form? Once every 100 years?”  So asuming that some people think 8 years is along time only proofs what i keep saying and that some people should really try and look beyond on type of genre and truly try and see where we actualy stand with games or its industrie, I keep hearing ignorant people saying, "We're tired of it" . This again shows people that  hardly are able to have a realistic view upon games but only seem to be able to view it from their view-point. Sorry no offens but i kinda getting tired of this(not even a Staff-Writter has the guts to truly stand for what he should re-present but only is scared to not be liked by the so-called "haters" which dominate sites like this) I keep hearing Vanguard is for the niche but somehow the "haters" fail to see that the whole mmorpg scene is still niche else we would have had more then 5 BILLION mmorpg players and maybe near or bit more then 13/14 million single player or other pc game players, funny its actualy the other way around so stop pretending that Vanguard is niche as the whole genre of mmorpg is still niche. Not saying WoW hasn't done a great job at bringing mmorpg more world wide know cause that it has, it has brought allot more people to this niche type of gameplay but still its the minority of gamers actualy playing mmorpg compared to the general gaming population.

Please try and play other type games people, see what kind of problems those games have or not have, see that most new released games are still games that can not be played by the mass population cause the mass-population still goes with low-mid range systems and the nichy gamers are the minority with the better mid-high and uber systems (sure some games can be played at low spec but most recent released games still do not look good at low and still there are no games that print actual system specs on their box that are realistic to be enjoying hte game both gamewise and visuals.

Originally posted by Reklaw

Games are amazing. Like really amazingly amazing. And they're just getting started – thirty years is peanuts for a new medium. Gaming isn't even an infant yet. It's an embryo. It's a zygote.

Originally posted by danbala

Wisdom too often never comes, and so one ought not to reject it merely because it comes late. With that in mind, let's face it: Vanguard marks the end of EQ style gaming. 

This isn't about fairness, this is about reality. Although I happen to like many of the ideas in the game,  I still recognize that Vanguard is a stillborn mess that could be the most public and epic failure of a AAA title in quite some time. It is the Waterworld of gaming. It's the kind of failure that resonates throughout an industry.

Worse yet, it is a failure that has happened right next door to the resounding success of Lord of the Rings Online. LotRo has been a wild overnight hit that has made a somewhat obscure gaming company, Turbine, into a developer in the same league with Blizzard. It is even on track to become of the most successful MMO games of all time. It may even end up one of the most successful PC games of all time.

I liked Vanguard before it died. But that really doesn't make make much of a difference. What is the lesson the industry is likely to draw from this? Fairly or not, Vanguard has been pegged as the "hardcore" game. A "harsh" death penalty, long travel, massive grinds and no instancing were supposed to be its selling points. Those points simply did not sell but instead flopped with a industry-wide thud.  And then its company imploded and its lead designer started talking about how much he wanted to cry.

 A car accident at the circus. Who couldn't stop and gawk?

Some people might argue that the failure was not due to the feature set but instead due to the performance issues. They may be right. (Performance issue are ultimately what drove me away). But ultimately it won't matter. These features and concepts are now tainted because no investor knows for sure what made the game so unattractive to consumers and no investor will want to take the chance that they repeat Vanguard's failure.

In direct contrast, LotRo's massive success rides on features like easy travel, immediate accessibility, swift leveling, clever use of instancing and practically no death penalty. Where do you honestly think the smart money will be played? Where would you place your bets?

As far as the future of Vanguard - it is not with the hardcore. Smed might give us lip service to keep us around, but we are no longer a demographically significant part of the marketplace. Over the past three years Sony has been forced to the sidelines while companies like Blizzard and Turbine raced right past them. At one point SOE was the 800 gorilla in MMOs. Now they are a marginal player fighting for the scraps at the table of the big two. Do you think that Sony is happy with that state of affairs?

The Sony corporation is still reeling for some seriously wrong-headed corporate decisions (PS3, HD format wars, PSP) and is hemorrhaging money. I'm fairly certain that they can not afford to have SOE sitting around catering to a fringe part of the market place. They need SOE to reassume its place as market leader - especially now that online gaming has become such a significant revue stream. Blizzard is now floating Vivendi's entertainment division. You can bet that Sony Entertainment is salivating for a piece of that action. You can also bet that whatever changes SOE makes to Vanguard it will be with an eye toward drawing it that gigantic contingent of players that SOE is not currently reaching with its EQ properties and derivative works.

I'm afraid the days of the hardcore have ended with Vanguard.

I am afraid that the industry "suits" will give up on the EQI style of gaming as well and view Vanguard as a failure because it was a hardcore game. What Vanguard offered wasn't the problem though. I still believe a hardcore game could make money , maybe not Blizzard money but significant cash just the same.

I think it's been very clear to anyone who looks around that VG suffered from much much more than a steep death penalty. Mismangement, bugs galore, horrible performance on most systems and numerous things that we're wrong thruout beta and on into release. If you are going to do a game that is harder to play and harder to get into then you at least want two things:

1) Smooth, enjoyable gameplay

2) Content to make you enjoy chasing that golden carrot.

Vanguard felt tedious because nothing worked right. Seldom could you tell if something was hard because it was supposed to be hard or hard because it was some bug the developers never addressed.

A hardcore game could suceed again. I wasn't exactly sitting around in 2000 saying "Gee, I think I am the type of player who wants to grind 20-30 hours a week" but EQI got me doing it. Somebody just has to take the reigns and say "We will build a superior hardcore game". Brad said this but what he released wasn't anything close. We will soon see an influx of WOW and LoTR clones but somewhere theres a genius who will one day release a sandbox world that is tough, deep, huge and scary without it being a bug infested broken mess. Sigil and Vanguard just prolonged that game by not taking Microsoft's 30 million and turning out that triple A titile that they promised everyone. Money will not be thrown around like that again unless someone can prove they can produce.

The real reason the game blew up was Brad McQuaid and his lack of attention to the game (despite the efforts of the people actually trying to make the game).  I think we all read the "Ex-Sigil" employee's interview and saw how he was never there to direct the way the game was going, he just got the money and went out to play.  He only wanted to make a WoW killer and had no real plans on how to do it.  That interview really opens your eyes to how bad he actually was and how bad he hated WoW for being a success and was in denial that he could make that WoW killer.  So if anyone is really responsible for the implosion of the "Hardcore" gameplay its Brad.  He BS'd everyone into believing what he said and his "Vision" but never delivered on it.  We all should have known when Microsoft dropped him and SoE picked him up.  I mean he is "Skipper" Smedly's little buddy, so who else would he run to, to bail him out?  He should never be allowed to even suggest anything related to game, much the same way, if a mother abuses her children they get taken away and she not allowed to have more.  Also, before this event, the hardcore gameplay style was slowly dying anyway (wasn't dead but on life support).  The reason WoW did so well was because it was easy to get into, you could go far in small game sessions (people don't have as much time to just sit for hours in front of the PC all the time), if you had larger amounts of times you could get much further, and the game is very forgiving of mistakes.  Thats why it did so well, and why hardcore playing has died off. 

Also as far as Turbine goes, didn't they have a hand in Dungeons and Dragons online?  I don't think that was a huge success, but maybe they learned with LoTRO?  I haven't tried it yet, but it sounds like they changed some ideas to a much more forgiving game play ideal.  Another thing, why does LoTRO have no trial (at least one that I can find anyway)?  I don't trust games anymore with no trial, i've been burnt once too often, having to shell out 50 bucks only to get a game I really can't stand.

Unfortunately the OP is probably right. Let's hope not though.

Vanguard failed not because it was hardcore and couldn't attract a large enough playerbase, it failed because it was incomplete and buggy. The fact that it has been tagged as a hardcore game though, may influence some developers to believe it's failure was due in part because of it.

There is good marketshare possible for a hardcore game and hopefully some developers will pursue it.

Why do people keep acting like hardcore means lots of grinding, or taking forever to level, or even a steep death penalty? People have gotten as caught up in the basic formula of game creation as developers have. A good game can be hard, and really take gaming skill to excel, but still be accessible to new players. There would have to be a system in the game that would allow you to start off taking it easy; maybe you could fight easier mobs, or take an easier death penalty, but gradually you would have to keep better.

I think something could work with more stratification in terms of this. Most games have two places. Usually it is levels 1-10, where everything is ridiculously easy, and this is good, because it gives players a chance to get familiar with the world, the game mechanics, the class, and everything about the game when they first get into it, but after that, things are pretty much how they will be for the rest of the game. Even WoW gets harder, though not really ever by much, as easy as it is. But if you had several tiers it could work better. No DP early on, a weak one later, and as you near the endgame a very steep one. You should be dying alot once you hit the top of the level cap. I think being the max level should indicate more than simply putting in X number of hours into the game. What it needs to show is that you know what the hell you are doing. I can't count the number of people I have seen in endgame instances in various games who didn't know how to play their class (and I'm not counting people that bought their account; you can tell those people right off). It's sad that it means nothing to be one of these high-level characters.

But then, I really would like to see a game sort of like Ryzom or EVE, with a skill system in place instead of levels, that was implemented with some degree of accessibility and...well, simple quality. With EVE it's still just about how long you've had the game, and with Ryzom it's just weird, though maybe it could be good if the game itself were any good. I think with a skill system you could do this sort of stratification much easier.

I guess what I am trying to say is that hardcore and casual shouldn't be mutually exclusive; a good developer who was willing to let go of the mold could create a world where they could coexist in peace. But then, like other people have said, this is really a new artform, and we as gamers have to be patient enough to let Picasso show up.

Originally posted by damian7

doesn't turbine make DDO?

and um, i pray to God that there are no more companies LIKE ccp.  maybe some indies that do well with their product, but, please God, not any more like ccp.

Originally posted by Teala

You know what the saddest part is...I really like this game Vanguard, but even I can see a sinking ship and unless SOE gets on the ball and fixes this game up and really quick...it'll be a DDO or a Matrix Online or god forbid an AC2.   I wish to see Vanguard succeed, really I do however there is some serious game issues that need worked out by SOE to get this game to shine.  Hope they can do it.

For what its worth, I agree with you about the games potential. But the sad part is that its really just too late. There are way too many things wrong with the basic coding of the game. To really get this game working SOE will need to focus on such root-level problems (like the way the graphics are loaded and the way the chunks communicate) that they will not have any time to address the other considerable problems (like the blandness of the content after level 20).

Ultimately, this game was doomed the moment that Brad pushed it out the door in a desperate bid to generate enough revenue to keep his shop open. It would have been much better for the game (and much fairer to the consumers) if we had such sold it to Sony back in January and let them beta it for another year.

Originally posted by xanklar
When Vanguard imploded it did NOT kill hardcore gaming.

Vanguard was touted as a "hardcore"game but it simply wasn't.  Ultimately it is a game with a claim to be many things it simply isn't.  If you have played Vanguard you would understand that there is nothing "hardcore"about it.  It is an unengaging simplistic grindfest that was poorly realised and poorly developed.

Originally posted by Abraxos

I am afraid that the industry "suits" will give up on the EQI style of gaming as well and view Vanguard as a failure because it was a hardcore game. What Vanguard offered wasn't the problem though. I still believe a hardcore game could make money , maybe not Blizzard money but significant cash just the same.

I think it's been very clear to anyone who looks around that VG suffered from much much more than a steep death penalty. Mismangement, bugs galore, horrible performance on most systems and numerous things that we're wrong thruout beta and on into release. If you are going to do a game that is harder to play and harder to get into then you at least want two things:

1) Smooth, enjoyable gameplay

2) Content to make you enjoy chasing that golden carrot.

Vanguard felt tedious because nothing worked right. Seldom could you tell if something was hard because it was supposed to be hard or hard because it was some bug the developers never addressed.

A hardcore game could suceed again. I wasn't exactly sitting around in 2000 saying "Gee, I think I am the type of player who wants to grind 20-30 hours a week" but EQI got me doing it. Somebody just has to take the reigns and say "We will build a superior hardcore game". Brad said this but what he released wasn't anything close. We will soon see an influx of WOW and LoTR clones but somewhere theres a genius who will one day release a sandbox world that is tough, deep, huge and scary without it being a bug infested broken mess. Sigil and Vanguard just prolonged that game by not taking Microsoft's 30 million and turning out that triple A titile that they promised everyone. Money will not be thrown around like that again unless someone can prove they can produce.

I really can't disagree with any of your points.

---

Originally posted by Deathstiny

Also, WAR just recently got a major funding boost that gave Mythic a few extra months of development time to "get it right" You know the exact opposite of SOE forcing VG out the door.
WAR will have an outstanding launch. Why? Because games that don't have good launches these days fail (see VG). Blizzard knew that, Turbine knew it and Mythic knows it too. Just because SOE doesn't have a clue doesn't mean noone else does.

---

While I agree on the Mystic/War release theories you have the whole "It's SoE's fault for pushing VG out the door" is crap. Sigil pushed that button NOT SoE. Brad is the sole reason that game is what it is today and trying to put the blame on someone that pulled their ass out of the fire is just BS.

I really find it funny how people like to blame the big bad SoE for the MMO problems. SWG... that was LA and VG was crap way before SoE had anything to do with it.