SOE didn't see it as a good MMO to spend much money trying to spruce it up, and they really did inherit a "smoking" pile and sometimes when software is too bad, there's just no undoing the mess,you just stick bandaids on it and string it along.

Originally posted by delete5230

snip

  For me this is the last straw.  I could never go back now.  I never even attempted to download this F2P crap.  F2P games are short lived last attempts for any mmo.  After all who plays them ?....only F2P band wagon jumpers.  They get what they can for free, then gone when the next one comes out.

Whats wrong with SOE ?.......I would love to drop a microphone in one of there business meetings to find out the real story because I would really like to know what makes them tick, but I can only guess.

 

So here is a poll, Please take your best guess.

LOTRO raises its hand and disagrees with you about f2p being the death knell for a game.

Originally posted by Kyleran

SOE didn't see it as a good MMO to spend much money trying to spruce it up, and they really did inherit a "smoking" pile and sometimes when software is too bad, there's just no undoing the mess,you just stick bandaids on it and string it along.

 

i dont agree with this..when soe took the game off sigil it was not fit for release,but sigil wanted it released.so it was released.it was in a worse state than it is now thats for sure.soe went like crazy trying to fix this mess. but while doing that it was bleeding subs badly.i think the end came when the population just dramatically dropped so much it was not worth investment..soe put a lot of money into trying to fix this game,but it was so badly coded that even til today its still not right..its playable.nothing gamebreaking but sigil were the problem not soe..if they had waited then released who knows.it could have turned out a lot more popular than it is..

Originally posted by kevjards

Originally posted by Kyleran

SOE didn't see it as a good MMO to spend much money trying to spruce it up, and they really did inherit a "smoking" pile and sometimes when software is too bad, there's just no undoing the mess,you just stick bandaids on it and string it along.

 

i dont agree with this..when soe took the game off sigil it was not fit for release,but sigil wanted it released.so it was released.it was in a worse state than it is now thats for sure.soe went like crazy trying to fix this mess. but while doing that it was bleeding subs badly.i think the end came when the population just dramatically dropped so much it was not worth investment..soe put a lot of money into trying to fix this game,but it was so badly coded that even til today its still not right..its playable.nothing gamebreaking but sigil were the problem not soe..if they had waited then released who knows.it could have turned out a lot more popular than it is..

Sigil was not the culprit for the early release.  Microsoft was the funding partner at the time iirc and they were the driving force to get something released after all of the funding invested.

One thing I noticed that after SOE made the Trial Island, lots of players cycled through the game.  Many loved it and paid for a month only to find no population.

BUT NEVER AT THE SAME TIME. It would be SOE responsibility to Rally players all at the same time, but they failed to do that. This would be crappy marketing....SOE sucks !

It's like this :

-500 base players all the time.

-first month 100 more but no population so they stop.

-second month 100 more players no population so they stop.

- same month after month.

- So doing the math, 500 base players always.

No marketing tatics at all.

Honestly, I think SoE tried to keep it going. But from a business stand point they were never able to pump the assets into the game. I'm sure they made some money on it over the years or at least broke even. But its a huge gamble investing in an MMO period, let alone an MMO who's reputation was already destroyed by its previous owner.

I do agree though, that they should have just closed the servers and fixed it. Then released it brand new a fresh.

At the outset, I want to state plainly and clearly that I really do not have time for video games. But I wanted to return to Vanguard with the F2P and then ultimately resub to support the game.

The F2P model was such a disappointment, that I barely follow the game anymore.

SOE missed another opportunity. I simply will never trust SOE.

Originally posted by Fendel84M

Honestly, I think SoE tried to keep it going. But from a business stand point they were never able to pump the assets into the game. I'm sure they made some money on it over the years or at least broke even. But its a huge gamble investing in an MMO period, let alone an MMO who's reputation was already destroyed by its previous owner.

I do agree though, that they should have just closed the servers and fixed it. Then released it brand new a fresh.

Well I think they never cared about Vanguard or it's players. In business and in all aspects of America there are a lot of un seen politics that we will never know.  Ranging from how much they paid for the game, financial favors, marketing for there pay one price for all our games, the list of back round situations could be endless....This stuff you will never know !

On our side, the players we could only guess.....Many decisions for us never made sense. We could scratch our heads as to why.  Some people here can go into great deal about the sale of Vanguard to SOE and the history of developers.  But at the end of the day and when the sun goes down, ITS STILL A GUESS, NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU COULD READ ON THE INTERNET.

The only thing that we have know for sure is the game itself.  We had always seen a cheap marketing mess of a game that was a half done GOOD mmo........ Back round politics ruled this game from the beginning.

ONE THING FOR SURE, IS THAT SOE DOES NOT CARE ABOUT THE PLAYERS. No compassion for us ever !  Vanguard forums had always screamed of the same topics over and over of " please do something ". This went un-answered.

SOE always stayed clueless of what is going on. Hay, I'll even prove it :

*** Who in there right mind would try and re-release F2P between Guild Wars 2 and World of Warcraft expansion release !!!!! ***

This is either stupidity or something to do with un-seen politics.  I would guess un-seen politics....Nothing for it's players, we are trash to SOE.

Last thing, and I'll leave you with this : 

  Any game that goes F2P is a kick in the pants to it's players. It's like kicking them to the side to market to a different group of players....This in my onion is the bottom line !!!

No

Games are a recreational hobby for me and not a lifestyle

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Originally posted by Sylvarii
So you love Vanguard but you haven't logged into the FTP model but you are sure it's the final nail in the coffin.

The poll couple probably have been worded a little differently. Something like:

 

RAWR RAGE I HATE DIFFERENT RAWR $OE TALKING POINTS?

1. I am completely irrational.
2. I am making some of this up.
3. All of the above.

 

 

LOL, yep.  It's okay though, NC is trying really hard to steal the MMO "Evil Empire" title after pulling CoX out from under fans.

On topic VG would not even be going had SoE not given over a year of it's resources to make it playable.  Did they do it justice after that? IMO no as it was a head to head contender with EQ2 (which was my vote in this poll) but conflicted interest aside they gave a playable version to fans to take or leave.  Of course they didn't update it for a year and a half but see the sentence before.

This topic is a year too late since there are about five more people working on it now than there was then.