All Posts by Arioc

In fact the only thing I consider memmorable was the Dark elf noobie experience. Because the noobie area was a liniar progression and had a coheisive story of fighting back rebels, I felt like it had a good feel. The music in the game was good too and that area really had a cool feel. Once I got out of the canyon into the Beacon it all fell apart and I immediatly got a quest sending me to 4 other quest hubs before I ever did 1 quest for the beacon. So that's where it all fell apart for me.

Excelent post, you bring up alot of good points I hadnt' even considered. Bravo!

I believe what you're asking for is Utopia and World Peace.

I went in and maxed everything out. Set anti-aliasing to 4x. Trust me it'd take alot more then lack of anti-aliasing to fix what I was refering to.

I set the game to extreme performance and it looks better then with the normal maps on. That annoying coverage map makes the world feel like it's wrapped in aluminum foil. Grass should not cast hard shadows from a mile away. Sand does not look like cracked rock from a mile away. With everything off it kinda feels like a higher polygon Asherons call. Plus the fact that it now loads super fast and zones fast is nice. It performance as well as any other MMO on highest performance. If I even raise it to balanced it chugs. I have a High end system. One of <A HREF="http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/xpsdt_710h2c?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs">THESE</A> rigs. Top end components and the game runs a ton worse then anything else.

Arioc

I can't put my finger on it, but maybe it's the pallet. For me the world had a certain flat feeling to it. Things just lacked a feeling of texture. I think it's the way everything is a bit blurred in the texture to help it blend. I was running on ultra high settings everything maxed and sometimes the shots were nice, but not breathtaking. I honestly think that's the pallet, the bland yellow in everything. The greey is a green with a yellow hue, the ruins are yellow, the ambient is a strong yellow. The terrain felt flat due to lack of radial flora, some areas had patches of swaying fields of flowers and it was awsome, but then the majority of the area was the flat grass texture on low-poly looking terrain. I saw alot of polygon edges when it came to the terrain.

THe water looked great, but I dunno, the fernel was so subtle that I didn't feel like it was animated at all. I can't put my finger on it but something about the LOTR graphics gets to me. THe pallet and blurryness, the subtlety of it all, the fact that some tree's have imposters while other fade in as you crest a hill. The lack of radial flora making the terrain feel very flat. And above all the non-discript,generic,doll looking characters and their textures.

I've never liked turbines character art, and it's the same here. Most armor is plastered to the body-frame and dosn't feel like an object. THe texture lacks shadows to make it feel layered. It's rendered with a very poor flat quality. Ontop of that the faces are generic, rather 1 face per race/sex with some tweaks to hair and eye color to diferentiate it. At 5 feet away the face mips out to a blurry blob. Try and roll yer camera away from your character and look at the face you'll see what I mean.

Ultimatly the approach to everything is "so subtle" that it's lost from a distance. I enjoyed LORT for a day but then the art got to me, and the constant loading screens every time I wanted to walk into a house. It felt more like a PSP game then a MMO. It reminded me of oblivion a bit, but not as smooth.

Plus I'm concerned that from level 1-15 I never saw people talk or interact, most people were running tons of task quests and had no time to interact. That and the fact that you can never fight sauron, you can never fight the witch king, you can never really engage the key characters from the story line due to their demise already having been written in the books. we're forced to deal with any number of generic sub-bosses turbine can come up with for us to face. It was great in AC to face Bal'Zharon, The Hopeslayer himself ultimatly. And see him and Asheron fight. In Everquest you eventually faught the gods themselves. In Warcraft you face Illiadin and Nefarion as well. It just seems restrictive and I worry that, that ultimatly, will be the demise of the worlds feel.

NOTE: Sorry for the rant, I kinda went off on a tangent. :) You're welcome to dispute these but they're just opinions, no more valid then anyone who posts with "X game is the best game ever! Discuss..."

Arioc

Let me nip this flame-fest in the bud. This post was made by Nolaquen of the SilkyVenom web site, which is a fansite. Do not quote this link and accuse Sigil/SOE of posting it. I can quote some l33t speek from some fan-site a fan posted, (hell something on this site) and put the name Vangaurd or SOE sux in the title and everyone will jump on the ol flame bandwagon going as far as to nitpick sony's spelling of the word "pwned you noobs".

In short, click the link before you assume this is a Sigil/SOE post. It was made by a gamer, not the game deves or publishers.

Arioc

I played VG when it first came out for a month but gave up in frustration and tears. Gave it a month more and tried it again recently. When it comes down to it, the thing that kills the game for me is the performance. I have a top end Dell XPS system with a GeForce 7900 with a gig of VideoRam (I know, crazy!) THe new dual core top end stuff. The problem is, even on the lowest graphic settings (which is really the only way to get a semi-decent framerate) the game still crashes alot for me, causing death which means more time spent recovering. On several occasions I had to travel between the Continents. Woe unto me, I crashed 4 times and every other step was chuggy and pausing alot as assets streamed in. I play EQ2, Lotr Online, Oblivion, all with max everything and do not chug. As much as I want to enjoy the game I can't tollerate all the performance issues hindering my ability to have a consistant fun play session.

I have to agree somewhat. I've only played the game for a few hours today, got my character to level 10 but I think I've got a decent idea of the feel of the game. Clearly they looked heavily to Warcraft and based alot of their game elements on it. They also looked at their previous works, namely Asherons Call 2, and tried to take some of those concepts and improve on them in this title.

Pros:

1. Plentiful idle animations for NPC use (widdling, resting, fishing, etc..)
2. Well scripted instances to make the newbie experience interesting, lots of lore and name dropping. Brush with key characters.
3. Fast respawn for noobie experience
4. Variety of helms and detailed armor right off the bat.
5. Nice player made music system
6. Group based tallents that benefit the entire party.
7. Horse based taxi system.
8. Rendered cut-scenes with narratives using in-game engine.
9. Using a skill so many times rewards you with a skill bonus to that ability.

Cons:

1. No stats, advancment is only through item upgrades and leveling up to buy new skills. In some way the perks of reusing a skill function as advancment upgrades but these are long term goals through grinding if you make it an active goal.
2. Lack of definable facial features, everyone pretty much looks alike sans the armor. One face with subtle elements to change it make hair style the only really definable feature.
3. Most body textures conform to a bloby player body, no deffinition of hips or arms. Player looks like he's made of clay. This is where Turbine always drops the ball for me. Their player character always have too much detail in the textures implying depth but it's plastered to the body-suite of the base model. It gives the characters a strange poser look, and the lack of detail makes everyone look like mr generic elf male, or mr generic elf female.
4. Busy UI, so much fillitry and design in the UI that I can't tell icons from borders without looking hard. At first glance at the UI I had to take inventory to figure out where the buttons were, the UI is just a bit too busy, and while this might not be an issue later as I grow accustomed to it, I dislike the lack in consistancy in what icons represent tabs. Example being the deeds window using 8 unique icons up top colored for the areas in the game while the player character sheet uses tabs of another sort. Etc.
5. Collection quests galore, this might be a pro but I feel like giving me 1000 collection quests so early forces me to feel like I have too many goals too early and am overwhelmed. Most of these are just rewarded with titles while others abilities. I could not easily discern which was which. The deeds tab seems to function like a collection quest teasing you with a reward of +1 something if you do all the quests or find all the Points of Interest in a zone. I was overwhelmed with so many diverse goals. I needed more structure so early in the game.
6. No clear lead to the NPC you need to find. Thankfuly the zones are fairly small and boxed in nicely but being told to find a NPC with a fantasy name and given little to go on as to where heis had me running around alot looking for the ring icon on my map.
7. Ass-tastic terrain textures in the snow, which is a big portion of the game. I gotta say Tubine did a good job on the forest/fields but the snow was worse then the snow in AC2.
8. Title driven collection quests. I could care less if I'm Arioc the Just, Arioc the Flirty or Arioc the Whimsical I need to feel like my character is developing and a pallet of titles just dosn't interest me. Especilly since it's a fuff thing that dosn't give me much variety.
9. Delicate details in the enviornment and characters. I know not everyone likes WoW or Oblivions art style but things read well from a distance, while in this game I often felt things were busy, flat or too dull till I was right upon them. There was very little radial flora in some areas with a very flat looking grass texture, while others had it in abundence. Clearly the enviornment artists put alot of time into some areas and left others bland and untouched. Unfortunatly those bland and untouched ares were some I saw very early in the game and along the roads. For all the bells and whistles the terrain looked kinda low polygone with all the hard edges I saw. The terrain looked over-optomized (poly-wise), exposing alot of flat surfaces and such.

This is not to say the game is bad, simply that I am a jaded SOB who can't help but notice these things having played so many RPG's and MMO's and being a dev myself. THe typical user will probably never notice some of the art stuff I pointed out and be far more accepting. Overall I was a bit sad, half of me loved alot of the details like the npc emotes, they really made the world feel alive. But the other half of me hated all the fascade houses I couldn't walk into, the lack of interiors without it being a zone line. I wanna walk into a doorway, not zone into a 1 room house.

I feel this game is too "video-game"ey for me. More exposed game mechanics, more score-boards, more like a console game and less like an immursive world which is what I personaly crave from an MMO. Preferances vary greatly on this among us MMO players so I am in no way saying this game is bad, nor great. Just that is isn't my taste in what I want at this time. After playing WoW for so many years I'm looking for a more immursive world like Oblivion then a video game with a score-board.

-Arioc

I also dislike any game where I can't jump. Jumping isn't required, but it does make you feel like you're in heavy gravity. I dunno, I guess I just see the ability to lift off the ground as a sense of freedom. If I use it or not, I like to know I can jump off the cliff rather then glide down the sheer sloap magneticly locked to the ground. I like the sense of 3D that jumping gives you, otherwise the game feels 2D.

Originally posted by thosewhoharp
Seriously, what's the point of making vanguard flame posts over and over and over? Is it because you spent too much time playing eq1 instead of living a real life? I dunno making friends, getting some, etc?

If you're gonna complain about a game you dont even play, why not do it in the general forum so that people who actually enjoy playing the game can have constructive conversations without the risk of some loser hijacking the thread.

 "Lawlz!! Vanguard sucks! Deal with it! LOTRO is the new black nUbZ." = older than your grandma's teats only less interesting.

And yeah I find your grandma's nip-nips interesting.

Originally posted by Miroudias
...Pox Nora.

Can anyone name a game like Pox Nora? I am starting to get into the turn-based strategy "card" games.

If you don't know; Pox Nora is a Free-to-play game where, after signing up, you get "sample rune decks" to toy around w/ and see if you like the game. If you like the game you can then support it by buying "rune packs". (I.e. booster packs.) (The best value being 100 Runes for $30.)

Can anyone name another game like this?

-Jason.

P.s. Pox Nora is also browser based.

#3 - no bugs... uhm seriously I have not run into one bug, snag, glitch or disconnect.

What else can I say here.  While this seems refreshing and 'extra special'  it really is what we, as consumers of this form of entertainment, should expect to see in general - well thought out and tested code.  SOE should really take note with this one (considering they had 5 years and 100 people working)

The only reason I mention SOE is because my current frame of reference for judging games is Vanguard and WOW (although I have played lots more all the way back to early UO).

As to lag, I have not really experienced much other than my own system limitations and desire to run the graphics at a setting that one more GB of ram would help to smooth out.

Turbine did a great job coding and testing this game as far as I can report so far.

I agree with almost all your points, as an artist myself I am very pleased to see someone point out things like lighting rather then blanket it as "art direction". Indeed lighting, texel density, cool vs warm pallets, saturated vs desaturated, and all those things really set the mood.

One comment I have is that SOE did not make Vangaurd, Sigil did. Although I believe every company should take a tip from a game which is very stable and lacking bugs even in closed beta :) I just am not a fan of Sigil flying low on the radar for their work on Vanguard while SOE takes the flack for their poor art/code. Woe unto us if Sigil makes another product and we forget about Vanguard thinking SOE made it.

-Arioc

Yeah I've been reading MMORPG for a while now and enjoyed the mix of emotional daydream posts, idealist posts and sometimes a well written well thought out post identifying feelings the poster has about a topic or game that I find myself sharing. But amid the gems there's alot of random crap, and threads where people just join the hate bandwagon. X game is broken, queue the long line of frustrated gamers willing to share their hate stories and bash X game into infamy.

It's safe to say allot of people come to forums to vent, and just like at work if you're always venting people tend to not want to hang out with you because you're such a negative guy you bring them down. That's kind of what I feel is going on here. You see so many people venting, without reason and targeting whoever is big for their frustrations, problems, or conflicting design philosophy in X game. And it compounds. Anger breeds more anger and ultimately you've got allot of posts with people bashing, ranting, venting, gnashing and gnawing at X company.

It seems no one can do right, at least not for too long before someone nay-says them and predicts their doom. Often it's due to hearsay, misinformation or speculation. It's just easier to generalize and lash out without thinking about the details, was Joe mad because Joe’s boss didn't give him the raise? Joe hates his boss and thinks his boss is an idiot, can't manage, can't run the business. Vents, hates, and lashes out. But later learns that Joes boss had to cut back on raises or else he'd have to fire people, and joe would be on that list of people fired.

Sure that's a cheery analogy but it holds true here as well. We lash out at companies choices without knowing the facts and build up the furor of frustrated posters trying to mob the company and slander it's reputation. But hey that's humanity. Even blizzard, lionized for delivering a stable and fun game a few years ago is now being tar and feathered by people as publishing a "dumb" game for "simpletons" where you need an IQ of 4 to play. Never mind that those same people probably played the game for well over a year and enjoyed it for some time.

We're all hypocrites and reactionary rebel rousers. I don't see that changing any time soon. But I am glad every now and then amid the barking and naying of the wild animals on this site there are some people who pause and question the generalizations.

-Arioc Murkwood

Yeah I'm looking at this game and on the fence. Part of me wants to love it but part of me is concerned about the limited ammount of innovation they can create in an IP. I mean it's not like they can have new races or a floating city of dragons. They're kinda forced to conform to the tolken lore and while I love tolken lore, I just dunno if it's diverse enough to entice me in a mmo world. Plus the rather flat character faces. I've played Asherons Call, Asherons Call 2, DDO and have always felt turbine needs some better character artists. I've never been a fan of their joe-everybody racial looks. They just don't pop sillouhette enough to give people diversity.

Now that being said I know tolken fantasy is not as high fantasy as say everywhere where it's more a D&D sytle world with orcs/elves/dragonkin/dark elves all as player races. We're grounded in a very basic pallet of races here in order for the rest of the world to feel supernatural and high fantasy by contrast. I'm just concerned that turbines previous titles left me rather unimpressed with my avatar and that my avatar will simmilarly evoke an unhappy feeling in me whenever I log in. The world is very pretty but the photo-referaned flat textures that relly on the games lighting engine to give them 3d depth (ala Everquest 2) make me worry also that as soon as an object isn't 5 feet in front of me it's shadows/specular will drop and it will appear totally flat. (Heck the terrain textures in LOTR:O are re-used from Asherons call 2. Remember that orange rock for the hillsides?) Just leery to invest in another turbine game after how much I got burned in AC2 and DDO. Plus I haven't seen any epic armor, weapons, or battles which thrill me. Things seem kinda vanilla to me. Very grounded in realism. And since that is sorta the world designed by tolken, I worry if that vibe won't keep the game from feeling epic for me.

Originally posted by xpowderx
I think what you guys are failing to realize is the majority of Sigil employees for this game were ex-verant,SOE developers. SOE gave Sigil a marketing plan to follow. Sigil just like the other companies before it didnt keep up to there deal. As with Microsoft. There is a pattern.


Regardless if you like SOE or not it all comes down to the same strategy they have employed for the past 5 years. And that strategy is not working!

Try this. I tried Asheron Call a couple days back to see what it was like these days. There are actually more people playing Asherons Call than EQ and perhaps EQII. Weird huh? Its not that SOE is a bad company. It is the strategy they use for mmos and marketing that is bad.
If I were a guy for SOE I would do my best to change the current ideology. It fails. Example:Vanguard. Vanguard is the 3rd installment of a plan gone awry.

I expect Vanguards first expansion within 3 months. Since the game is not up to par. We will see. Personally I am done with SOE as a whole.

So because some sigil employee's were ex-SOE employee's sigils failure is SOE's fault. Holy crap! Talk about "blame the parents". Appairently if you work for SOE even for a month and go kill someone after you quit, SOE killed that person.

Again, I am not a SOE fanboi I've posted my fair share of flames, but what I don't like is seeing people blame someone else for Sigil's mistakes. I refuse to start a mob and lynch a bystandard for someone elses crime. But I'm an idealist and forums are not known to breed rational or even founded statments. Not to say your statments are false or lacking merit, but I keep an eye on these forums and see alot of pure BS spouted by people claiming it as gospel. My favorite is "This games graphics are better then this game, it's undenyable, you cannot disagree with me! My word is law! My opinion is fact!" stuff like that.

Originally posted by AZAlex86

Originally posted by Sicarim


as for the devs not being devoted.. i think that employees working on a video game tend to have more devotion then those working on a film. For one they are probably passionate gamers, and have an idea, and also want to see it through. whereas on a film, the people may just be there to get a paycheck.

Yeah, just depends on what you're comparing to.

Indie games -> indie movies, I'd consider the same devotion to the product.

It's not so much the dev's fault. It's the corporation they work for. They want things fast, easy, and most importantly NOW. They must come out now to beat the other competition in order to turn a profit. So gameplay suffers because of it. That's why they pay such obscene amounts. Kinda like the US govt....$60,000 for a toilet seat kinda deal.

Ah well...money screws up gaming experiences! Imagine where we'd be if companies ONLY released well developed, polished products...we can only dream...of course most of the companies probably wouldn't exist long enough to develop the games, because no parent company would pay them a steady salary to actually work at their own pace.

Originally posted by Sicarim

Originally posted by AZAlex86

Originally posted by Sicarim
...
yes, it does.

sorry, phrased that incorrectly..


they shouldn't cost that much. Much like movies. Indies tend to have better gameplay and design when coming from a dedicated team as opposed to people who don't give a shit about their product

as for the devs not being devoted.. i think that employees working on a video game tend to have more devotion then those working on a film. For one they are probably passionate gamers, and have an idea, and also want to see it through. whereas on a film, the people may just be there to get a paycheck.

Two words man:

TIN-FOIL HELMET!

Helps keep the from putting keyloggers in your brain and planting worms in your phone!