General Discussion

MMORPG.com Writer Carolyn Koh attended this year's, modified, E3. Now that she's back, she's filing this report on her conversation with the SOE team now working on Vanguard: Saga of Heroes and catching up on what's going on now that SOE has control.

At the Barker Hanger in E3 this year, I found Bill Fisher, Senior Game Designer and Adventuring Content Lead at a single lonesome demo station. Bill Fisher came to Vanguard from EQ, has been with Vanguard since day one and stayed with Vanguard. I simply asked him to tell me what was happening at Vanguard.

"We are improving and polishing the game," he said, telling me about the optimizing that has taken and is still taking place. "Players have reported as much as a 20% improvement in frame rate." He went on to list the things they had done. Increasing dedicated Quality Assurance staff, to be sure nothing falls through at patches, and a dedicated Bug Team were two. "We fixed 1,200 bugs in the first 1 ½ weeks after SoE took over the game. Game updates are scheduled for approximately every six weeks, and the ability to construct Guild Halls will come on live very soon."

Read the whole report here.

I would have loved to see a Vanguard: Saga of Heroes E3 update. Game designers often brag about graphics and FPS, like "All of this is running at 60 frames per second" or "This game runs at 60 FPS ".

I wonder what Sony would say.

"Yes folks, its true. This game is running at 21 Frames per second"

So kudos to the team for getting their act together six months after release?

Sorry, but it's just too late.  It would be easier to start from scratch and create an entirely new game than to fix everything that's wrong with Vanguard.

Originally posted by Hexxeity

So kudos to the team for getting their act together six months after release?

Sorry, but it's just too late.  It would be easier to start from scratch and create an entirely new game than to fix everything that's wrong with Vanguard.

LoL know your facts, sony has not owned it six months and has been terrific with it since they owned it.. and no, your totally wrong w/ the easier part, why do you think sony buys these games..

I don't know if it was the writer's tone or what, but this article made me feel sad for these poor bastards.

Basically, six months into release, these guys are still stuck cleaning up other people's messes. This game has been on shelves for half a year and all they've got to talk about are improving frame rates? Imagine being stuck at a booth at E3 with all this exciting gaming stuff going on and you have to be the guy to tell people, "We've almost gotten the disastrous game I work for to a subpar level." And hey, we have a new Lore Master so we can develop some semblence of a believable world and storyline to go along with this bit mapped mess.

I think it's great that SONY is bothering with V:SoH, but man, what a bummer. It's not SOE's fault, or the current team burdened with this title, but it's just too little too late for most of us.

At least these guys were among the 50% who got hired at SOE once Sigil axed everybody. At least there's one bright spot here.

The folks at SOE need to learn that it's virtually impossible to fix a game after launch.  I would have thought SWG would have driven that point home.  Apparently not.  I feel sorry for the boobs who are left with the job of fixing the mess.  Post-release fixes take ten times as long to fix as they would pre-release, because the developers are forced into reacting to the criticisms of the playerbase rather than working to a logical plan.

Originally posted by Beery

The folks at SOE need to learn that it's virtually impossible to fix a game after launch.  I would have thought SWG would have driven that point home.  Apparently not.  I feel sorry for the boobs who are left with the job of fixing Sony's mess.  Post-release fixes take ten times as long to fix as they would pre-release, because the developers are reacting to the criticisms of the playerbase rather than working to a logical plan.

SWG was actually a very good game at one point, especially community-wise. SOE just had no faith in the game and so they changed it to the NGE. That was when SWG turned sour.

Sigil were the same in many ways. They had a definite plan sometime back (since Vanguards announcement really). That plan was a harder game that challenged its players and did something new in the world of MMOs. They went back on that plan by forgetting the challenge in favour of subs. They got neither in the end because the game was (and is) such a mis-match of styles. There are games that do just one thing and are so much better, so people play them. Why play Vanguard when there are a number of other games that do the thing you want well and don't try to do everything else (badly)?

I had to laugh reading the article. Bill Fisher said that if players offered constructive criticism they would listen. 'Tell us what is wrong and we will fix it' he added. I've been doing that since they gave up the path Vanguard was always meant to take. Many other people have been saying the same things. They never listened to us.

They asked how people would like to see a teleportal system implemented and many, many people said they would like to see it class based, a la EQs druid. They then made the Riftway (or whatever it is called).

They asked the RP server if they would like to be merged and the majority said no. Now they merge it.

People said that double experience weekends were not necessary because experience was fast enough as it was. They announced another double experience weekend and pushed the levelling curve even farther beyond a reasonable level.

That's listening is it? Sigil had a gameplan they wanted, as do SOE now.  They know what they want to do and as many customers as possible could argue that the game should do this, or that, and they will listen little. That's the problem Beeny. Vanguard could be fixed if they put in all the stuff they chucked out before beta 2.5. By my understanding it was a good game back then.

Well, when I cancelled my subscription, I bought one 30 day game time card and stuck it in my desk drawer.  If and when they finish their server merge, I plan to fire it up and see what real changes new management and 4-6 months have made.

I hope for the best, as the game was a lot of fun to play, even with the many(!) bugs and the huge empty cities which should have been full of players.  However, if it never materializes, I can probably use that 30 day credit for Pirates of the Burning Sea, which now has SOE's claws embedded in its underbelly.