The adventure text is lifeless because you are not following an adventure. . .youre just a lackey going about the world doing odd jobs for lewt and items. . there is no main story whatsoever, as soon as you are plunged into the world, you are not following anything. . .i think they took it too far when they said set yourself free. . .that should mean that I have the choice of whether or not to follow the main story. . .

Diplomacy was well written and seems to be the only way to get into the lore of the world. .

You get an "A" for interesting, that's for sure...

I may not feel the same way, but I can't say you're off track...

The generic NPC text is one of the first things that flashed a warning light for me when I first entered the game world. I expected less than perfect performance, but not such mundane and in some cases truly bad quest text. It's written like a cheap teen novel. I got to the point where I just ignored all but the summary at the bottom, but other factors about the game design that I thought were poorly implemented caught up with me so i threw in the towel.

It's a shame. I would love to have a chance to engage in world building, to create rich lore and exciting plots. MMOs have so much potential in this area, especially VANGUARD because its not restricted by any license and because its so ambitious. Also, there is a wealth of material one could use as inspiration from world folklore and history to books and movies.

I was particularly disappointed when I came across an NPC in Kojan named "Oda Nobunaga." For anyone who isn't into Japanese history, he was a samurai warlord and one of the men responsible for the eventual unification of the country into what became the Tokugawa Shogunate that lasted a couple hundred years. I was disappointed because the NPC with his name was just some generic quest-giving captain of the guard. There was no "wink wink nudge nudge" element to suggest anything other than some Sigil employee was grabbing random Asian names they found on the net. A good dev would have altered the name in a humorous way and given the NPC some title or quest related to the real figure. Blizzard had these kinds of in-jokes spread all over WOW, but never just randomly threw in exact names of famous people.

I wouldn't bother trying to convince anyone else of this, but for me I became convinced that the devs had put together a second-rate game, thinly masked as something better simply by the sheer size of it. It's lack of imagination and attention to detail that turns me off more than anything.

Originally posted by nethervoid

I think I figured out at least one piece of why the game feels so lifeless: the quest text.  I'm probably not the first one to notice, but most of the quest text is just lifeless and has no emotion to it or even hints at regional dialect or even slang.

Most quests seem like they're written by possibly non-native english speakers.  They're without colorful words to describe things and describe how hopeless the situation is, etc.  Most quest givers seem to speak with a pretty educated vocabulary and grammar.  It's hard to get the feeling the quest giver your talking to herds camels or whatever when he speaks so exacting and always seems to say 'I'm so glad someone of your caliber is here to fix the situation' instead of

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<NPC is waving his hands, etc, in excitement - More emotional animations>

"Oh praise 'Insert god name here (where are all the religious references??)'!  I'm so glad you're willing to help!  I thought I'd have to try and fight those ratmen myself, those damn pigs!  *so and so spits*  Hurry up and save, 'insert name of his daughter here'!  Every second that goes by is another second they might be beating her, or doin' something else even worse!

...

*eyes frightful and hurried*  Well what are you waiting for 'insert name of big bad hero here'!  Get to it!"
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That's at least one reason the game feels so lifeless.  Still, it's a decent game with a lot of different avenues of play.  Hopefully quest text gets more interesting later on?

Actually, I like the text written for the diplomancy stuff.  It's still doesn't have enough emotion, but it's a LOT better than the adventure quest text.

Originally posted by bebopdrums 
 

its because there are NO FLOWERS!!!!!!! where are the FLOWERS!????!!! doesnt ANybody else notice that??? just some FLOWERS would be enough to add life...just some flowers....

I think you're on to something, as opposed to on something, which would be insulting.

Anywho, I seriously find myself stopping in LOTRO to check out the flowers in the game, be it some little garden-type patch or an open field full of undulating wild flowers.  It's very pleasant.

Originally posted by gimpusmons

Originally posted by bebopdrums 
 

its because there are NO FLOWERS!!!!!!! where are the FLOWERS!????!!! doesnt ANybody else notice that??? just some FLOWERS would be enough to add life...just some flowers....

I think you're on to something, as opposed to on something, which would be insulting.

Anywho, I seriously find myself stopping in LOTRO to check out the flowers in the game, be it some little garden-type patch or an open field full of undulating wild flowers.  It's very pleasant.

Originally posted by roadwarriors
I don't even read the text I just hit accept and  move on. I would much rather they concentrate on other things right now than chaning Aye to Hoy'ye, or whatever type of dialect you want. Seriously, I never read text in any game, if I want to read a book I'll go buy one. A game should have all audio like diablo. That's what made taht game awsome, you enver had to read. I also don't read because I have a painful stigmatism in my eye, so even if I wanted too, i couldn't.

In my point of view the game feels lifeless due to many reasons. and the one you mention may be one of them..

Here is some other reasons

1. Rather dull and very lacking animations, usually an NPC's just stand there and does nothing, sometimes they even stand looking into a wall or tent fabric with eyes pointing in the very wrong direction...In EQ2 the NPC's face "you" at all times and a much more lifelike in any possible way, more emoting etc and even a "sort of " lip synk is available.

2 The absence of "real" voice overs, nut just a very generic "Hi or Hello"..The so called voice in Vanguard is absolutly dreadful for the most part and they seem to use the same voice actor/actress for an entire race( like the Vulmane)Again EQ2 has almost every NPC at voice overs.

3. Bad and small uninspired quest interface, atleast this goes for me, It feels like "You don't need to read this text...press Accept" and I do...I seldom or never read it, only when I want some general guideline i quickly browse trough the text...But not once have i been inspired to read more or finding it interessting, not once..

4 This takes me to your point, dull text..

5.Places doesnt feel like the places they are suppose to recreate, bars doesn't feel like bars etc..again people just stand there, no idle chit chat or drunken people at the tables etc-

/Thark

I am not trying to defend or excuse this lousy game in any way, but I thought I'd mention something that I happen to know for a fact ...

The MMOG industry is pretty small, and the number of people who are qualified and talented enough to write for them is pretty limited.  There are tons of people who think they are good enough, but -- well, play Vanguard to see how true that is.

To make things worse, a lot of companies, especially smaller ones, don't think the writing is important enough to spend a lot of money on, so they don't offer much in the way of compensation.  This means that the big, established companies are able to snatch up the good writers ... which explains why WoW's quests are generally better written than most other games'.

One of the reasons Mythic's Romans-in-space game (i forget the name) was canceled is because they couldn't find enough people to write decent quests for it.  There were many other reasons, but this is one of them.

Originally posted by Airspell
  Well LoTr is a static game, no housing, hence you can mold everything into a perfect eutopian vision. Also LoTr has so much pre-existing content that ou can't help but to make great sceneray just copying the books.

  Vanguard is a dynamic world and those ALWAYS looks worse.  It is hard to detail all the terain when you know someone might stick a house on top of it and makes it pointless. 

  As far as the text goes, there is absolutely no excuse for it. This is a big production and shame on them for doin a halfassed job on an integral part of the pve process.

Im kinda wondering how you think vanguard is dynamic, is housing makes the differnce between a static world and a dynamic world?

I am just wondering because i have never really seen anything dynamic while i played the game.

Originally posted by Ryakuen
Here's the answer to all your questions, doubts, and opinions: THE GAME BLOWS BALLS!!!!! Just summing it up for you guys. no thanx needed

Theres a quest to pick flowers, wallflowers to be precise, in the giants starting area.

Maybe thats why there are no flowers.

Anyway, its a boring quest in a dull game, but there are at least 10 flowers in it (if you're on that quest)