From my perspective it's going to take one primary thing for MMOs to change. Development teams need to stick to the courage of their convictions.

I've seen it all before. I played SWG and there was a huge amount about that game that I liked. Then EQ2 came out and numbers dwindled a little bit, or maybe they never had the numbers that Lucas Arts wanted in the first place. the resultw as a radical change of face for the game. Out went the inpsired classes and the social structure, and in came the simplification and standard MMO classes. They did add FPS-style gameplay which isn't exactly the norm, but the truth is they didn't go with their convictions. They could have just fixed the small problems the game had (and not had so many Jedi) and things may well have been better.

Then along came a game called Vanguard. I followed Vanguard from near enough the minute it appeared on the radar. Okay, so maybe they were never going to do anything genre changing, but they were going to make a game to stand out in its own particular niche. The end result was it didn't. It was a buggy piece of same old, same old and it never got the subs it needed to be a huge sucess. It was fun but in this world MMOs need numbers to stand out.

Warhammer Online had similar problems. They had great ideas but they just didn't click. They had tried and tested RvR on DAoc but they threw that out to get something newer and it wasn't the same.

 

I only look at the dev teams though. Maybe they aren't entirely to blame. Maybe we are to blame. Some of us want something new but does the majority. If these dev teams didn't get harassed to make games a certain way (normally for the sake of ease - because gamers are scared of difficulty) would they then include the innovative instead of sticking with the rpeated formula to make money.

Then there's the backers. They put money into a title and they want more money back, so is it them telling the dev teams to go with the known and not risk the innovative?

I also have to ask myself how much new is needed? Do we need to get rid of quests of hotbars? Do we need to get rid of classes? I just want to see a title that emerges day one with a vision and maintains that vision. They'll get complaints chucked at them and people will ask for things to be removed or toned down, but they need to do what they think is right.

I also want to see dev teams and finance teams not come out of the starter blocks trying to be the next WoW. Part of the reason WAR failed is because everyone expected it to be the next WoW. They set their server requirements around that premise and the result was the game was never going to have the numbers of WoW because it was more intelligent than WoW. I believe WAR lost a lot of numbers in teh early days because of too many servers and too widely spread a population. It was why I left.

I'll play a great game that has just one server, if that one server has a population to make it work. I might have said that Vanguard didn't have the population it needed, but it would have if it had had less servers. It still has too many servers to this day. I've just started playing EQ2 again and I think that has too many servers still.

 

I'm looking very keenly at Earthrise. It's a small, new dev team making their first MMO and if they have the courage of their convictions then I think they can make it the game I want to play. Not the game I want to play to pass a few months but the game I want to play like I played EQ...for years.

 

It don't need to be a WoW beater though. That is one ideal we all need to get away from. Let WoW be WoW and move away from it.

Originally posted by Shreddi

yea I get frustrated when a game is so hyped and they dont bother to take the time to keep their news up to date.  Its bad PR thats for sure, especially when its getting closer to release.  Only the computer gaming industry is that lazy that I know of.   Company I worked for would post who farted the second they did as an excuse to keep people checking them out.   Lets the consumer know company is excited about their stuff, Reminds them they are still alive and on top of everything.

 

Well sometimes there may be no new news to report, so why report stuff? I'd actually prefer that companies keep tight-lipped and do not report everything about their game. I only need to know the general features a game has to offer to know whether it could be for me or not.

I've been burnt by so many game sbecause devs post features they hope to include and that never see the light of day.

If the dev team were out of action then you'd know because the website would disappear.

Unfortunately that media library doesn't seem to be accessible with Amazon UK. I've looked everywhere I can think of.

 

I may have to contact Amazon or I just assume I don't get a code in the UK.

Originally posted by Nadia

Originally posted by holifeet

I preordered WAR (standard edition) from Amazon UK and just wondered if I am eligible for a headstart?

yes, you need to goto your Amazon media library download section for your codes

herald.warhammeronline.com/warherald/NewsArticle.war

Thank you so much Nadia. I had looked around but couldn't find anything applicable.

Now I know.

I preordered WAR (standard edition) from Amazon UK and just wondered if I am eligible for a headstart?

I have recieved no 'headstart code' and don't know if I'll even get one. I did order after open beta had started as I haven't been folowing WAR all that closely but just got some info from a VG friend on the game. I want to play a game with enough people to make it a fun atmosphere, i.e. VG is failing me there.

 

Can anyone clue me in on whether I am eligible for the headstart and whether I am due a code of some sort from Amazon?

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.

One of the things that concerns me the most about VG was bought up plain and clear by the reviewer. She said that one of Vanguard's biggest problems is that it fails to be the game that it was supposed to have been. I mean let's take grouping for example. From day 1 Sigil said how grouping was going to be the main focus in VG and that players would be expected to group to accomplish things. I mean this is a Massively Multiplayer Online game for starters.

So you get into the game and how much grouping is there really (and I mean outside tightly knit guild confines)? The reviewer even states that she was able to solo effectively, and, from her words, suggests that this is possible into the 20s and 30s. Why is a game that ultimately leads to soloing being classed as Massively Multiplayer? That's a huge problem for me. It totally goes againstw hat they always said the game was going to be.

That is a big reason for the shrinkage in player base. I know players who have excitedly followed this game since 2004 and 2005 that didn't even play because so many of the great ideas that were bounded around prior to launch were dropped in favour of simplification and appeasing the WoW crowd. Then the WoW-type players left because the game tried to do things the 'new' way and failed miserably because it still wanted to be a hardcore title.

To sum up in one sentence; Vanguards biggest problem is it tries to be too much. You could even encompass that Sigil went for too big a scope than they were able to handle; but bad management is as a big a reason for that as is incompetency.

 

I'm also glad that the reviewer mentioned the lore. From the game's size and scope the game would be assumed to have amples and oodles of lore. It was another reason I followed this game so intently since 2004. There were to be Gods, stories, famous characters. I got into game and found a little bit of present story lore in the newbie diplomacy quests, but outside of that it was all so vague; passing comments here and there. You never were able to choose a God to worship and after all Sigil's hype about the complexity of Vanguard that was a huge failing point for me.

 

I have been playing EQ2 lately and that game is how lore should be. Everyday I find half a dozen new pieces of lore to read and I am loving it. I have just chosen Tunare as my God and learnt about the history of the Dwarven Ringmail Tunic and then I find a bookseller with the history of all the races. EQ2 could be a terrible, terrible game in most aspects but still rivet me with its lore content. Thing is it is actually a rather good game in all other aspects.

 

 

Given time then SOE can probably turn VG around and make it a good game. Problem is I don't think I will play again because I know they will always be trying to do too many different things to keep too many types of gamers happy. Sigil wowed people like me with promises of difficult, challenging and engrossing content. With ideas of ship travel and contrasting player controlled economies. Of having to to explore to find quests and to think about what you were going to do within challenging and tactical combat. Sigil gave up on the players that picked up Vanguard when it was just a child and followed it with glee. We hyped it to the unbelievers and told everyone what a great and original game it was going to be. Then they said to us, 'sod you', in favour of pleasing the casual crowd.

 

Vanguard is not the game it ever promised to be. They tried to please too many people and pleased relatively few.

The SOE takeover is not the reason for Vanguard having a low population; the reason is because the game is crap...

It was released to early;
Sigil gave up too much of the promised content to keep those wanting an easier game happy;
The development team was badly managed....etc

Though I honestly can't see this being the end of IGE and the gold selling scum that damage our games I applaud this lone person for having the balls to go out and do what the mega-bucks earning game companies can't do.

Perhaps, just perhaps, this could be the start of something big. Could Blizzard possibly jump on the band wagon? Could this lone person have more cash than we might imagine? Could he really prove a major thorn in IGE's side? I hope so.

The day that the gold selling, cheating scum leave MMOs will be a grand day.

IGE earn their money out of someone elses work; the hard work of the developers that make these games for us to enjoy. Every penny that they earn degrades the game just that little bit more for the honest gamer. They are theives as the currency they sell is not theirs to sell. It's the same as if you just wrote a book that had taken 3 years; you sent it to the publisher and he published that book with himself as the author. He gets the credit, you did the work. It's wrong; it's stealing.

Originally posted by Netspook

Originally posted by holifeet

Originally posted by mcharj11
Look at this LOL http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B000JXNT24/ref=pd_bbs_sr_olp_1/026-5367273-4498803?ie=UTF8&s=gateway&qid=1179069811&sr=8-1

Yeah, and strange as it may seem, I am not paying £99 for a copy. :)

£99??

£39.95 is the price now.

Well it was. It was either another seller or the seller realised it was never going to sell. I still won't pay £40.

Originally posted by Laiina

Originally posted by holifeet

Originally posted by mcharj11
Look at this LOL http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B000JXNT24/ref=pd_bbs_sr_olp_1/026-5367273-4498803?ie=UTF8&s=gateway&qid=1179069811&sr=8-1

Yeah, and strange as it may seem, I am not paying £99 for a copy. :)

That has to be a bug or something in Amazon.UK

You could order from the US Amazon for like 40 pounds including shipping http://www.amazon.com/Everquest-II-Echoes-of-Faydwer/dp/B000H229BE/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-9331703-9886412?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1179120959&sr=8-1

 

They won't ship to the UK...well not games anyway. :(

Originally posted by mcharj11
I think it's probably best to wait for The Rise of Kunark to come out as it is supposed to include the origional game and all other expansions.

If I had to wait until November then I just wouldn't bother. The fact that I have played EQII, and given up, once before is still in my mind if I was honest. It is a big step for me to go back to a game I have played and given up once before.

A friend just started playing the game and he seems to like it and reading up on present changes just gave me a feeling of nostalgia from the past in EQ.

If I am going to give EQII a go again then it has to be now. Maybe I'll do the trial.

Originally posted by Delameko

Originally posted by holifeet
It sounds to me like SOE could have a big success (much bigger than the dodgy Vanguard - but I won't get into that game here) on their hands here. Surely that warrants more copies in the UK.

In the end its down to the distributor, which is Koch in Europe and not SOE.  Obviously they didn't produce enough copies, hopefully they'll produce more copies of the next expansion, Rise Of Kunark (which will, incidently, includes all previous expansions as well, including EoF).

You can buy a EoF retail key from Onlinecdkey.com.  Then you can download everything through the patcher.

Both the French and German Amazon's seem to still have copies, so you could order from them.  They tend to be set out the same as the UK Amazon, so you can use the UK version as a translation device.  The game will still be in English when you play.

Is that Onlinedkey.com idea truly legal? Not too sure I like that idea anyway.

I'll try the French and German Amazons.

Looked a little harder and the HMV website says it has copies on order. Not too sure if that is reliable but I'll have to phone and see.

Originally posted by mcharj11
Look at this LOL http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B000JXNT24/ref=pd_bbs_sr_olp_1/026-5367273-4498803?ie=UTF8&s=gateway&qid=1179069811&sr=8-1

Yeah, and strange as it may seem, I am not paying £99 for a copy. :)

I played EQII when it first came out but gave up after 3 months. I have been hearing a lot of great reviews of this game of late and really am thinking about giving it another go, which, considering I have already run once before, says that the reviews EQII is getting must be good. I want to buy Echoes of Faydwer to catch up on the expansions, and I already have the original.

Thing is can I find this game anywhere in the UK? The answer is no. I have tried all the big online sellers and I have rung local game stores but no luck.

It sounds to me like SOE could have a big success (much bigger than the dodgy Vanguard - but I won't get into that game here) on their hands here. Surely that warrants more copies in the UK.

Does anyone have any ideas where to go to get this? I am tentative to digitally download and delivery from the States would take far too long.  Is there a European distributer I can contact to kick their arses back in to gear?


(I'm posting here because I don't believe I can  post on the EQII forums without an active account.)

Originally posted by goemoe

 

---

Maybe I don't need to say this but I cancelled my account the day they announced riftways were in. They'd only tested them for 3 days max on the test servers; why even test them?

---

Lol, you didn't test them, but you complain. The riftways are no easy point to point hopping. You will very well run, ride and fly to reach the one which will take you where your group or target is waiting. The world is just too big for all but 24/7 players to play more than to travel. You might have to cross a full continent to get to the one you need, but hey, just complain, you know it all, do you?

The riftways are a good addition. You will have to travel hours and hours before you even can use all of them.

I didn't need to test them. It is pretty obvious what they are.

I liked the travel. It could get a little tedious when quests would have me running back and forth from city to city (crafting quests did that in an abundance) but that was more of a problem with the quest design than a flaw with the mechanics. I enjoyed travel. It was immersive. I had to get somewhere to do something. The game was not all about the end result anymore.

Saying that the world is too big for players to get together is a moot argument because Sigil did little to help foster community by any other means. They saw a problem, saw players whining that they had to run for 10 minutes and, because they can't manage their finances, decided on the quick and easy solution to keep everyone happy and playing.

The Riftway is unimaginative and bland. The fact that you have to travel to the stones to use them the first time isn't really a facet that needs pointed out. You know you won't have to travel there the second time.

Sigil never explored the problem of grouping fully enough. They started with a pathetic LFG tool, coupled with a game that was solo friendly, and wondered why people weren't getting together. There are bigger problems that travel in Vanguard. The Riftway Stones, in themself, won't solve the group problems because the origibal hold backs are still in place. The Riftway Stones just become easy travel for the guild groups that are already grouping together.

Originally posted by Dave08

This sounds like a welcome change.   The world is huge, travel shouldn't be such a chore.   It's not challenging sitting on a horse, it's tedious.   Challenge should be real challenge, not unending patience.   Kudos to Sigil for keeping up with updates and trying to make things better.  

There is so much potential with V.  I hope they keep adding to it.  I'd like to go back someday to a much improved game. 

All they ahd to do was make travel meaningful and expand lfg tools. They never even managed to make grouping much more worthwhile than soloing. Soloing in Vanguard hands everything the players needs to them on a plate.

They might also have done something to give those groups of players, who move through games together,  a reason to split up and group with others. Much of Vanguard's grouping fiasco has been that guilds stick together and much of EQs great grouping rate was because people didn't have those set groups. There could have been incentives introduced to make people feel grouping with new people was worthwhile. They didn't even consider that I believe.

They could also have done more to aid what I first said; making travel fun and interesting by adding trials and 'occurances' along the way. Pre-beta there was always talk of giant sea creatures andf bands of roving goblins that would attack travellers and give parties a reason to stick together. Sigil always said their usual 'that is definitely something we would like to see' but did it ever materialise? No.

 

They only had themselves to blame and now they have taken the easy way out by going for the PoK option. They have chickened out of challennge and immersion and have gone for convenience and boredom.

 

Maybe I don't need to say this but I cancelled my account the day they announced riftways were in. They'd only tested them for 3 days max on the test servers; why even test them?

 

I saw the quest system and I sighed. A little disappointment was evident with me.

I saw the broker and I began to think Vanguard is truly not the game Brad hyped.

I saw the riftway network and I knew all my hopes for a real game were over.

 

Vanguard shjould have been the best game ever and that makes me sad.

Originally posted by Jackdog
LOL 14 posts all but 2 negative yet the poll shows 32 votes with 62% positive, looks like th efanbois are busy with their alt logins LOL

Well if many of the doubters are like me then they are doubters because they expected something more than what Vanguard is. For that reason they may still be trying to find some lasting appeal and so are undecided. The poll has no 'undecided' option.

It's the gameplay that is uninspiring, as opposed to the performance. The performance is, in many ways, to be expected. The gameplay is just dull and uninspiring. The quest system is borrowed from EQ2 and WoW. The brokers are borrowed from EQ2 and EQs bazaar (the worst thing about EQ). The combat is too fast and lacking in options. The game starts to slowly and too easily; I got to level 13 in beta and was thoroughly bored of doing the same thing over and over. I got to 30 before that feeling hit me in EQ2.

Vanguard is not the game we were promised and expected to see. The whole expereince is linear and uninspriring. It all lends itself to being a game rather than a world to get lost in. EQ was the last time we will see a world to get lost in.

Yes, some of you may recognise my name. I have been following Vanguard a long time and that is the main reason I am so disapointed with the game. I've stuck up for Sigil numerous times, but now I realise they went back on their plans for an immersive game and just joined the modern idea of MMO's rollercoaster that started with WoW.

We were promised a comprehensive diplomacy sphere that made one part of the world about them and incorporating a quest system of massive proportions and scope. What we got was half of that. Diplomacy is nice, I'll admit, but it is still half of what it could have been. I felt like I was playing the same game over and over when I tried it, ie there wasn't a huge scope for variation of tactics. The quest system is apalling. The graphics plonked above quests givers lends the game the approach of being a guided demo for a solo RP game; go here, speak to him, kill x llama's and y rabbits and return to here...when done move on to the next area. One of Sigil's earlier beta guides actually asked players if they felt zone progressionw as easy enough to follow, ie did the game accurately help you to follow the progression from chunk A to chunk B and on to chunk C.

We were promised combat that was slow and tactical. There supposed to be pauses were you had to decide what move you wanted to play next. If you chose the wrong move you might change the whole course of the encounter in the enemies favour. Choose correctly and a whole path of glorious options open up for you. What we actually have is button spamming. At each level you gain spells you are able to work out, within 5 battles, the tactic you will use until your next spell level. It is, more often than not, pull with nuke, begin melee, cast your specials when they become available, melee to conserve mana and stamina (whatever the bars were), finish mob of with a blast of nuke. Rinse and repeat.

We were promised convoluted and extrvagant regional economies. We now have a regional broker in city banks. Who will ever use player vendors to sell stuff when they can run to the bank and quickly place their items down with the minimum of effort?

Just three examples. I'm so unimpressed and unsatisfied based on my assumptions. It's like Sigil took the easy way out when they had an option of interesting and intruiging or same old, same old WoW route of games that reward too easy. Quick rewards and fixes are not the only method. Sigil seemed to understand that once upon a time and they were making a game that explored the opposite. They were...

Will I buy the game? I dunno to be very honest. I am trying to get into it, and have been trying to get into it since I joined beta in beta 3. I left for a while and hoped to come back to a much more inspriring game in beta 5. Hasn't shown itself to me yet. Maybe I can find more fun when the game is crowded and there is a community. I'm seriously put off by Vanguard's quest dependency and the new use of regional broker/bazaar/markets. Brad once said that having a bazaar like system is negative to the game...how quickly and surprisingly a person's ideals can change it seems.

I don't hate the game. It looks nice and there is a deeply hidden promise and hope that future changes will bring back what was promised. I just find it uninspiring and I miss what was promised.

If I play I can't see the fun lasting much longer than a few months so maybe I should ask myself, 'why bother?'.

It makes me sad to look at the route things took. I feel like I lost a good friend.

Thank you Xauss. It still does sound interesting. The Roman part, as I say, is a huge draw for me.

My concerns are:

1) I'm not a big fan of instancing. I don't often feel it is appropriate and I prefer community over exclusivity to mobs.

2) I was actually hoping for a more detailed economy without the use of Auction Houses and item searches.

3) The lack of crafting is a problem for me. Of course if the combat is amazing, which it sounds like in G+H, then that may not be a problem.

4) I'm always concerned about the challenge level. So far the only MMO that ever kept me occupied was EQ. I am sick of quests so if G+H has a quest emphasis then I'd probably be long gone before they found me .


I have to agree with your timescale assessment. I'll agree I don't know a huge amount about G+H but, from what I do see and hear, I think Vanguard will be the only big MMO out early 2007.

I'm concerned I might never find an MMO, again, that meets my needs. Darkfall seemed close but the PvP might eb an issue. I know, I am difficult to please.