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Originally posted by Elikal

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Well, I think a vast majority of people does want to be told the same stories over and over again, maybe only with a little change here and there. Basically, since Homers Ilias and Odysee all possible human stories were told! Everything afterwards is only retelling the same in a different way. And thats what 99% of games, movies, TV soaps and (gasp) books do. If you want novelty, next time reincarnate in a different species. Maybe that sentient Ocean of Lem has different tales to tell.

Just that you prefer (maybe) Sci-Fi doesnt mean its more original, really. Most really original stories were so strange and exentric that only a very small minority enjoyed them, which would be quite an elitaristic thing.

Stories are always references to the known with a small change and surprise.

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Originally posted by Mrbloodworth
Every diplomat has a series of "cards" that represent a variety of conversational gambits. "Snippet of Wisdom," for example, is a "Reason" card, while "Aggressive Statement" generates "Demand" when players enter into a conversation (called a "parley"), a table appears on screen consisting of a player's point totals, four meters representing various conversational "power levels" and a "conversational flow meter" set at zero. The basic game consists of using various cards to fill up these power meters and pull the flow meter toward the player's side of the table. Each round that the meter is on their side, that player loses a point and sees another line of conversational dialogue. First one to get to zero wins the conversation and finishes another chapter in a story that can range from simple quests to bring a woman's husband home from a bar, to a continent-wide tale of betrayal and murder.

I’m sorry, but that’s lame. I guess branching Dialog and "oblivion" (or most other RPGs) like responses were to much....

I still reserve final judgment until i play it, but im really disappointed by this.

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Originally posted by ishomishu
I seen the screen shots and they are nothing different than any other game out there. In fact almost all the screen shots have been scenery with a massive wall or mountain in the background. There goes the free world aspect. This game has stiff competition from other creators and honestly it has not shown me anything that is different or enticing enough to buy it. PLease tell me why you would even consider this game.

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I agree with the better closed in and deatailed, but remember in EQ1 zones like The lake of Ill omen, or Butcherblock (there are many more but i cant remember) EQ is also a zone based game but for some reason EQ2 feels different. Im not trying to bash the game, I do still play a lot =).

I have been playing EQ2 for about 3 months, on and off, great game :) fun and great looking. The only thing that I Have felt was lack of open space. I feel to closed in, i dunno its kinda hard to explain. Don't get me wrong some of the zones are big but most of them have a boxed in feeling, maybe i am not much of a zone person, anyways just wanted to share how i felt

Jak

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Originally posted by lordtwisted

Good answer on the world size.

 I am not as incline to look up information, but I can tell you that leveling will not be fast. Of course you will have that hand full of power gamers that will get up there faster then the rest, but don't count on it takeing 10 days of play time.

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For your question about how long it will take to level, they really havnt said much so i dont want to say any false info, but for your question for how big the world is, i pulled this out of the Official FAQ for Vanguard :)

We feel world size should be determined by how much compelling content we can create in the development time we have. Content should drive world size and not really much else. If a world can support 3,000 or 6,000 or 20,000 people simultaneously and the community works, people can find each other, and there's stuff to do for all levels, then it's all good.

It's crazy big. Big enough that, to be honest with you, I'm concerned (though only a little) about how many people will be needed on any given shard to have the critical mass a shard needs. So while you may be worried about it being too small, we're working hard to make sure it's not too big, has the mechanics necessary to keep friends and groups together, that travel is meaningful, that there are enough points of interest, that vehicles, caravans, outposts, etc. work such that the negatives of a huge, seamless world are mitigated and the positives shine through.

Hrm. Took me easily 45 minutes running from Three Rivers to the Vulmane village, taking the easy route, and running from mobs as opposed to fighting them all. That's about, I dunno, half of Thestra in width.

The world is BIG, believe me.

First this site has all the info you will need :)  http://silkyvenom.com/pages/faq.php

but one thing that will make Vanguard different than EQ2 is that Vanguard has no zones, its massive and seemless (and i mean MASSIVE). Diplomacy Classes (http://silkyvenom.com/pages/faq.php?faqid=332&expand=814#faq814 for more info on that)....boats, flying mounts (you can pretty much fly where ever you want, so you want to fly over the city, go for it!, owned houses (i know EQ2 has that but Vanguard has more options to interact with your home) you can open up a shop in your home, close it at a certain time so no more traverlers come in, and im pretty sure that none of these houses are instance, its all IN the world. There is so much more i could say, but i am sure more people will respond :)

CHeers

Jak

I am so excited :) I can only imagine

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Originally posted by Amathe

In Vanguard's advertisements, they are emphasizing the word "freedom" to market the game. I can sort of understand how they came up with this. There are a lot of professions and classes. It is a zoneless world. But most importantly a lot of the "rules" some people complained of in EQ2 are absent in Vanguard. So it's not complete crap.

But as all things with this game, they cannot stick to truths and have to resort to half truths that become outright lies. The ads go on to say how you  can fly on a dragon (and similar examples). Now technically this is true. But what the ad doesn't say is you can do these things if, and only if, you spend a zillion hours playing the game and are among the elite few ever to be able to do that.

It is wrong to characterize that as freedom.  It's like saying you can go to Washington DC and have dinner with the President. Yes, you can, if you are a governor or a congressman or if you donate $50,000 to a political party. So in a technical sense you have the freedom to do this but in any ordinary sense you do not. These things are flat out untrue from the point of view of the average player who purchases the product in reliance on those ads and thinks they will ever really get to do these things. Dragon mounts are for the self styled elite few, and everyone else is just suppoed to keep paying a subscription fee for the privilege of admiring people who have one lol. That's the Vision (tm).

This is just another example of my biggest problem with Vanguard. I don't really care how they make the game. Their choices all become considerations for whether I will play it or not, in this case, not. But here we have a game that is one thing that is being marketed as another thing because the first thing isn't very popular. I put these guys in the same category as Mourning. Not that the game is vaporware, because it isn't, but because they have no scruples in what they say about it to get people to buy it.

Why don't they just tell the truth? If the game is as good as some of the posters in this forum believe it is, what harm could come to the game from telling the truth about it? I propose that they ad a disclaimer to the box:

This game is intended to be enjoyed by people who devote 5 or more hours a day to playing videogames. If you are not such a person you can still play this game, but you will have a very weak character who will only be able to experience a fraction of the game content and will never be able to enjoy many of the game rewards.

So I ask you, why run from the truth if the game is so good? Why put out ads touting freedom that is 95% illusory? Unless by freedom they mean in a Janice Joplin sense, where "freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."

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First...please read the FAQ and read about the game- http://www.silkyvenom.com/pages/faq.php

If you dont want to look i brought up a few quotes from the FAQ :)

"To bring back to the genre a challenging and rewarding environment -- removing tedium and frustration (which we certainly aim to do) does not mean a game necessarily has to be easy."

"One of our big goals is bring back the challenge we feel is being abandoned in MMOGs as of late, but without the tedium. We want travel to be fun. We want exploration to be key and for you feel compelled and then rewarded for exploring and traveling"

       "We will have areas that are more geared for one of these categories: casual, group, and raid. The casual areas will require less of a contiguous time commitment and you won't need a full group. The grouping areas, well, require you to group. Think classic, old school grouping. Then the raid areas, well that's pretty obvious"

"Both risk and reward will be present, however, so one shouldn't expect to see as much of a reward in casual areas vs. group areas. It's something to do when you have less time, and it should be fun, but you're not going to get the fiery scimitar of ultimate doom in a casual region."

"Basically, we want to remove as much tedium and barriers to entry as possible. But, and this is key, we strongly feel this is NOT mutually exclusive with making a darn hard and challenging game. Battles will be tough. NPC AI will be smart. Lots of group tactics will be used, with even more collaboration then you've probably seen before, and an even more visceral feel."

"Anyway, tough, yes. Rewarding, yes. Challenging, yes. Tedious, hopefully no. Camping, minimized the best we can. Travel, fun and dangerous in and of itself. Needing to group and work with others to really advance optimally and get the phat lewtz, yes."

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I agree with what your saying, but i mean most people that are into mmorpgs probably go onto the internet and research about it. There are people who do just see the ad and go out and buy it b/c it looks so great. Yea they may be dissapointed but usually you would do your research about the game before you buy it.

~Jak

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Originally posted by Nitsu62

  I got to hand it to you guys, this is the funnest time i've ever had waiting for a game to be released ever.   It may even be funner  (I said funner LOL)  for it to not be released sense this fun bashing and flamboyant praising is a blast to participate in!  I bet i will have more fun participating in the controversial kick your face in style forum topics then I ever will in Vanguard (its already funner than any other MMO i've played.. aside from WWIIOnline of course... yes that is funner than WoW even).

I'd just like to thank everyone participating for creating such a fun, violent environment for me to play in. 

Cheers to Vanguard for creating some of the best forum experiances ever!

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"Don't worry about a thing, every little thing is gonna be alright" -Bob Marley

Cheers

~Jak

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Originally posted by WizGamer
If you guys are here to provide unconstructive criticism then get out. I mean literally, are we in third grade? People make this game and whether or not it is good, they should be respected. Provide ways to make it better, don't bash it. If you don't have any nice or at least constructive to say, then don't say it. I am sick of these forums and their stupid posters who have never played the game and still bash it. Vanguard is 6 months away from release and is just halfway through beta. That is a hell of a lot of time to polish out the rouch edges.

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Originally posted by Amathe

This is the only game on the market, of the hundreds in development, where the lead Dev has to write an essay to convince people that contrary to what they have heard (from years of posts on Sigil's own boards), the game really is for them and not just for 133t dudes. That in itself speaks volumes.

The fact of the matter is, Brad can say this and write this and take out advertisements about this but it doesn't change his core belief, and his Vision (tm), that Vanguard is meant to be enjoyed by people who play video games 10+ hours a day, and everyone else is just there to pay the bills and admire the "elite." The "bleeding edge", he calls them.

I don't fault Sigil for making a game for people who play every day 24/7. That's fine. I do blame Sigil for trying to dupe people into believing that's not what the game is about.

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Unless you have played the game first hand, your comment means nothing, just and angry attempt to try and bring down the game. ;)

Good day