PVP:Yes | Distribution:Download,Retail | Retail Price:$09.97 | Pay Type:Subscription
Desktop Client | System Req:
| ESRB:T
Vanguard: E3 Update
MMORPG.com Writer Carolyn Koh attended this year's, modified, E3. Now that she's back, she's filing this report on her conversation with the SOE team now working on Vanguard: Saga of Heroes and catching up on what's going on now that SOE has control.
At the Barker Hanger in E3 this year, I found Bill Fisher, Senior Game Designer and Adventuring Content Lead at a single lonesome demo station. Bill Fisher came to Vanguard from EQ, has been with Vanguard since day one and stayed with Vanguard. I simply asked him to tell me what was happening at Vanguard.
;)
"We are improving and polishing the game," he said, telling me about the optimizing that has taken and is still taking place. "Players have reported as much as a 20% improvement in frame rate." He went on to list the things they had done. Increasing dedicated Quality Assurance staff, to be sure nothing falls through at patches, and a dedicated Bug Team were two. "We fixed 1,200 bugs in the first 1 ½ weeks after SoE took over the game. Game updates are scheduled for approximately every six weeks, and the ability to construct Guild Halls will come on live very soon."
Bill had recently seen the bill of materials required to construct a Guild Hall and marveled at the sheer volume of work that would be required to undertake such a task. I had to chuckle. Well, it's a huge structure meant to house many people. In the real world, that bill of materials would be much larger and longer. Players have been waiting for that for a long time, I mentioned. "I can't believe the amount of resources it's going to take!" exclaimed Bill, "but it's going to be very neat as it involves all three spheres of gameplay in Vanguard. Diplomats, Crafters as well as Adventurers have to be involved to create a Guild hall."
I was informed that John Hegner was recently also designated "Lore Master", and his task is to straighten out the many stories that are in Vanguard and mesh them into a cohesive whole. As Bill tells me, John has also been with Vanguard since day one, and is an avid table-top gamer. "The stories in Vanguard were disconnected. John's task is to bring them all together and also lead us into future story arcs."
;)
"We are also finalizing the Brotherhood system. This will allow you and your Brotherhood members to share XP, even when your characters are offline." Bill explained that it was a device to keep friends together. This will remove the security issues of sharing passwords, two-boxing, etc. as friends try not to outstrip each other in leveling or wish to help level each other. There can be six members in a Brotherhood - as much as a regular group, and characters have to be within five levels of each other - the Brotherhood system is not meant for power leveling. "Of course if someone never logs in, and doesn't pull his weight, you can kick him."
As for what else is coming in the near future, Bill summoned his Griffin mount - and what a gorgeous model it was. "Flying mounts are in production, and this Quest line is complete," he said, "and other Quest lines are in the work."
We ran through the Ancient Port Warehouse. A new level 50, 12 person raid dungeon recently announced in Vanguard's Milestones 2. This is not an instanced dungeon, but a huge physical structure with five different wings that is able to support several raids and groups at a time.
"We've really integrated all three spheres of gameplay in this zone," said Bill. "Your Diplomats will be able to parley with the NPC gnomes in there, and maybe you can get some special buffs for your party." As for the crafters, there will be new materials and recipes to be found.
;)
We saw the massive constructs that the ancient Cartheons employed gnomes to build and visited the airship room several times just to marvel at the artwork. "No, no player controlled airships are in the works." Oh come, on... I cajoled. You can tell me. If the art work is in, if there are flying mounts, why not airships? What if I seed this as an idea for the future?
As part and parcel of the optimization of the game, the Vanguard team is also working on a new level 1 - 10 "trial" island. Partly a marketing tool since that will allow new players to try the game for free through level 10, the artists and designers are using the same engine to build this area as the rest of Vanguard. Once tweaked and optimized, the same techniques will be applied throughout the game.
"What do you want the fans, the critics and the readers to know about what's happening with and at Vanguard?" I asked.
;)
"Vanguard has a dedicated team," Bill responded. By that, he meant that the members were dedicated to producing a great game and dedicated to Vanguard's success. Not that there was a team dedicated to the project. The live team currently consists of 50 - 52 programmers, led by David Gilbertson, the current producer of Vanguard. Dave was the Lead Artist and also has been with Vanguard since day one.
"Any changes come from the team in discussion with Dave, from direction of the players and from members of the team playing the game," said Bill. "Criticism is fine, but what we are really looking for is constructive criticism. Tell us what you feel is wrong and how you would like it fixed," Bill requests. "We're people too. We need actual constructive feedback. Comments such as 'This sucks' help no one."
So, there you have it. Since the take over from Sigil, the Vanguard team has been energized with clear direction and dedication to create the best game they can.
Now THIS is a great idea! Neat new take on a way of keeping friends together in a MMORPG. It will be interesting to see if they can make this mechanic work.
As part and parcel of the optimization of the game, the Vanguard team is also working on a new level 1 - 10 "trial" island. Partly a marketing tool since that will allow new players to try the game for free through level 10, the artists and designers are using the same engine to build this area as the rest of Vanguard.
Free trial, also nice. After reading this article I might just try a trial of the game to finally see what it's like. This has been one of the first interviews regarding this game I have ever read where rational comments were coming from the developers as opposed to outlandish hype that made me feel like I was listening to snake-oil salesmen.
But the main reason to convince me to try a trial of the game, nowhere in that article, not anywhere, was Brad McQuaid quoted, referenced, or even mentioned
Maybe Vanguard has a chance afterall.
I would have loved to see a Vanguard: Saga of Heroes E3 update. Game designers often brag about graphics and FPS, like "All of this is running at 60 frames per second" or "This game runs at 60 FPS ".
I wonder what Sony would say.
"Yes folks, its true. This game is running at 21 Frames per second"
So kudos to the team for getting their act together six months after release?
Sorry, but it's just too late. It would be easier to start from scratch and create an entirely new game than to fix everything that's wrong with Vanguard.
LoL know your facts, sony has not owned it six months and has been terrific with it since they owned it.. and no, your totally wrong w/ the easier part, why do you think sony buys these games..
I don't know if it was the writer's tone or what, but this article made me feel sad for these poor bastards.
Basically, six months into release, these guys are still stuck cleaning up other people's messes. This game has been on shelves for half a year and all they've got to talk about are improving frame rates? Imagine being stuck at a booth at E3 with all this exciting gaming stuff going on and you have to be the guy to tell people, "We've almost gotten the disastrous game I work for to a subpar level." And hey, we have a new Lore Master so we can develop some semblence of a believable world and storyline to go along with this bit mapped mess.
I think it's great that SONY is bothering with V:SoH, but man, what a bummer. It's not SOE's fault, or the current team burdened with this title, but it's just too little too late for most of us.
At least these guys were among the 50% who got hired at SOE once Sigil axed everybody. At least there's one bright spot here.
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 the mess. Post-release fixes take ten times as long to fix as they would pre-release, because the developers are forced into 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.
Well, when I cancelled my subscription, I bought one 30 day game time card and stuck it in my desk drawer. If and when they finish their server merge, I plan to fire it up and see what real changes new management and 4-6 months have made.
I hope for the best, as the game was a lot of fun to play, even with the many(!) bugs and the huge empty cities which should have been full of players. However, if it never materializes, I can probably use that 30 day credit for Pirates of the Burning Sea, which now has SOE's claws embedded in its underbelly.
This is a very old idea thought up by Sigil and was called the Fellowship system. I don't remember Sigil implementing it but they still deserve credit for thinking of it.
They're doing a great job with this.
I hope Vanguard can be fixed. Despite all the negativity, I still want to play it.
I'm just waiting for the polish.
If Sigil thought it up, why didn't they implement it?
I can say I thought up the idea for anti-gravity boots. That doesn't mean I should get credit for them if someone else makes a working pair.
Talk is cheap. Getting an idea to work is what makes one deserving of credit. Of course, the SOE people sitll have to show they can implement the idea successfully.
Man.... none of you people get it do you? You totally missed the one thing in the review that points out the that speaks volumes about the ludicrous ideology that not only killed this game, but will still kill whatever is left of this game....
OK, lets all get one thing straight here...Vanguard is leaking monthly subscriptions faster than the Titanic.... SOE doesnt have time to act cute with this game, and thats exactly what they are doing- once again showing how moronic they are as a company.
Did you guys not hear what the review said? Both the reviewer AND Bill Fischer made remarks about the overwhelming amount of resources needed to complete a guild hall. So what is SOE's solution to that ideology? Nothing....Bill Fischer just shrugs it off and use references like "Well, if it was real life....." WAKE UP YOU MORONS! This is not real life, and your game is notoiously labeled as 'Vangrind' for a reason! You think people are going to come back to a game famously known for being a monotonous torture-chamber-Korean-like grindfest when you sit here and marvel, in a national review on a prominent MMO site, about how players almost need to quit their jobs due to the sheer amount of work it takes to own something actually cool in this god forsaken game?? Yeah Bill, thats REALLY going to pull your playerbase back and make them shake with joy!
I mean seriously, you guys have got to be kidding me with this review....Bill makes it sound like its not a big deal, and that its a fun thing that players have to grind for 6 months just to obtain the necessary resources to build a guild hall....my lord....If I didnt know what Vanguard was before and I read this review, I darn sure wouldnt want anything to do with it now. If nothing else, it proves there is still the same inflexible, grind worshipping, basless philosophy Mcquaid developed this game on in the first place- and is the exact reason why SOE cannot pay people to pick it off the shelves.
1,200 bugs is alot, but are you actually going to sit here and tell me you still think players left your game due to to the bugs? Whoever still thinks that needs to get a grip, because bugs were not the the key issue of why this game has failed....Its always funny to me that bugs in good games are minor nuisances at best, but in SOE's point of view, bugs are what sent the players away screaming in agony and totally destroyed every fabric of their community. If you believe this, you're falling under SOE's Jedi mind tricks people...
If this was actually a fun game, you wouldnt hear half of what you do about all the 'bugz OMG' problems. Bugs dont kill games, because they are always eventually worked out for the most part...bad games and bad ideology kill games...that simple. If Sigil put together an MMO that was actually fun to play and not a carbon copy grindfest version of EQ2, they wouldnt be in this situation at all.
Bugs are the thing SOE wants you to think killed Vanguard...but in reality, the bad gameplay design like combat, idiotic death penalties and slow travel, unimaginative quests and monster AI, overall grind nature, slow cashflow and overpriced land plots and minatenance fees, and bad philosophy like "overwhelming amounts of materials, manpower and labor' to complete one stinkin guild hall- all have much more of a major role of why Vanguard is the POS it is today.....
If Bill actually stood up and said they lowered the land costs, maintenance fees, and materials needed to build player cities in game , THAT would be something to get excited about...but not this terrible PR review that basically laughs at the amount of work needed to own a fun feature in the game, and not the 'brotherhood' system that was supposed to be in at beta for crying out loud (better known as the Fellowship system Brad always boasted about)
Most of you people commending this review are why we have sub par MMO's out on the market right now....
Valant this is jsut the first batch of changes being made to the game to fix its 'Basic' problems. Timeenough later for the more higher level problems like land costs and grinding to be fixed.
I personally like theh idea of a free trial island so soon i may actually try it and see if this game will be for me.
I think you missed my point....
I dont care if this is the first or the last changes made to this pitiful game. If SOE continues the same ideology that killed Vanguard in the first place, you wont even have a little 'trial island' to experiment on.
I thought Bill made it pretty clear they dont care about the grind problem when he just shrugged off the fact that players need to make Vanguard their second job before being able to own a guild hall (which WAS one of the few interesting features VG had going for it...I guess not anymore). Theres something very fundamentally wrong with that.
Did anyone else miss the fact that the interviewer went up to the only vanguard developer at E3 who was in one booth with one machine and....had all the freaken time at E3 to talk at length about the game. Lol I get teh distinct impression that the interviewer was probalby the only person wanting to know whats going on with vanguard. The sad truth is that the game sunk and eventually all the rats will flee, come on only 4 freaken servers left after the server mege. Only one of the 4 is a EU server, which is also a pvp server. Games dead, completely dead in the EU market and teh most famous RP server had to be merged becasue it had no player base.
After November, what willc ome out, I can count 5 promising games and WAR early next year, how many people still playing vanguard (and i bet most because there is nothing else out there right now) will continue to hold hope to this game?
This is only true as long as players believe it to be true. We create the business reality for the games no matter what we want to think. If it becomes a better game and people are willing to try it, it could be become a great success. But it is only possible if people are willing to let it be. MMOs last a long time. People spend more hours in them than probably any other genre. If you are willing to give it a go it could be awesome. I was thinking about buying it anyway, but I will wait for the free trial, and if it is good, I'll jump on it. I am craving a hard to play game. I tire of games where it is to easy to win. I also tire of too-easy 14-hour dungeons where I have to play with 600 other players. It's just too much. 12 people is a good raid size. I can handle that.
I'm going to play the devil's advocate here. I'm not going to comment on the the state of the game, but rather the statement made.
They said the amount of resources to make a guild hall is HUGE. You think players would have to grind months and months to build one. However, at what scale? What I mean is the list may be huge for a guild of 20-30 players, but what if the guild had hundreds of people? The larger guild....the less of an impact the resource list is. With servers merges, having large guilds is quite possible. When I was playing, there were guilds that had 400-500 people. My old guild still has over 150 people.
Without true comparison of how large the list is compared to guild size, it's hard to really state the impact of what it would take to build a guild hall.
Sounds to me like you're trying to convince yourself of something.....
Your reasoning throws up flags....what you should be asking yourself is- what happens when you dont have a guild size of 150? The rest of the guilds are screwed and it will indeed take them months upon months to gather the resources necessary to build a guild hall? Hell, we havent even gotten into the maintenance costs that they will need to endlessly grind for as well....
Keep in mind- we're talking about a game that is notoriously known throughout the MMO community as a tortorous grind of monotony...Now when you get devs supporting a game like this laughing at the 'sheer amount of resources it takes to build a guild hall', and its time to put down the pipe and start walking away, because you know its going to be absurb-this is Vanguard and SOE afterall.
Also- I find it very hard to believe any current guild in that game has over 120+ active players....Sure, there might be a couple, but every guild I was in touch with at launch on our server has less than 20 active players still in this horrible game, and we had one of the highest server populations at launch.
I'm not trying to convince myself of anything. I was just stating an observation.
You made my point clear. What happens when you don't have a guild size of 150? That is where the interview was not clear on. It was stated that the list is HUGE. However, it didn't give any type of comparison on if the list is huge for a small guild or a large guild. That was my only point I was trying to make. That's all..... If the list was decribed as being large for a guild of around 50 or so people, then we can say it will be extremely hard for a guild of like 20 people to ever get a guild hall. Of course, if the guild had 150 people it will not be near as bad.
I'm still great friends with my old guild leader. Since subscriptions started dropping, a few of the remaining smaller guilds banned together on the server. They have quite the large active guild now. Large guilds are still there. There's not many, but they are still there.
I am a guild leader of a guild on VG and to be honest if you look at the active members you will notice that most of the guild do not have more than 50 active members even the large guilds. When the servers merge I will disband my guild due to the drop in numbers and will cancel my account. This is because the game has not improved enough for me and I have been there since day one, I have defended this game through thick and thin but I have run out of steam.
There is no FUN factor in this game anymore, everything is to slow and tedious. Ok there has been an improvment in performance but I do not believe the claim of 20% is true. Once the server merge is completed I will leave the game.
Bandit.
I stopped playing because I'm just tired of all the fantasy MMO's. I'm more a sci-fi type of guy.
In my opinion, Vanguard is still in beta, and when its actually finished in a couple months, I'll give it another go. And by another go, I mean I'll download the free trial and see if it doesn't suck as bad.
I'd be furious if I was one of the people that pre-ordered/bought VG when this is really just public beta 5.
edit: Oh yeah, and Valant, GREAT post. They need to rework the core, the bugs are definitely NOT the problem they should be focusing on. And really, after they fix the largest performance issues [as they have begun too already], they need to seriously think about updating the combat. I doubt they will, but for God's sake, the grind is rediculous. At least make the combat better. I was Olid in the pre-release version of your guild btw, up until I played Vanguard in beta, which ended any desperate hope I might have had about enjoying this game.
so does this mean that SOE is going to ignore the 'big names' that make the game... so they can actually have one?
Anyone see some irony here?
SOE made sweeping changes with SWG against the wishes of the (most) player-base, and they ended up getting burned for it.
Now it seems that many players *want SOE to make sweeping changes to the core of VSoH, but it doesn't sound like they'll do it.
I wonder if Vanguard would already be a dramatically different animal if SOE hadn't recently gone through the NGE fiasco.
Don't think Sigil promised it at release, and I recall something about making sure it wasn't exploitable.
Just logged off the game myself. Ended up playing for about 4 hours. Haven't done that in a while.
The concept was supposed to be incorporated into this game prior to it's release. You wont be able to confirm it since Sigil shut down their Official forums ( not to be mistaken with the Sony VGSOH Forums ) But I do recall that being one of its promised features.
There's been tab in the social interface since release for it.
This used to be called fellowship in Vanguard. The name was changed due to confusion brought by LOTRO groups being called the same thing.
Fellowships were implemented near the end of beta 5, but the system was bugged and caused people to level up to 5 times faster then intended. Fellowships were removed after less then one day, and have not been put back in since.
This feature was one of the features I was most looking forward to in Vanguard... I hope they get it working, and I hope that other MMO's borrow the idea! I play with a group of about 7 other friends and family members,and keeping everyone near the same level in a new MMO is always impossible.
I would be willing to invest my money in Vanguard and give it a shot, but the performance reviews by players have held me off so far. I have an Intel DuoCore Processor with 3.0 Ghz of speed. 1gig of RAM and a Nvidia Geforce 7300 LE graphics card. According to the performance testing third party website, I am inbetween Recommended and Minimum, but according to actual players the game wouldn't be playable on my system. I'm not quite ready to invest in another gig of ram and another graphics card when I just bought this one a year ago. Maybe others are in the same boat as I am, which is one of the real reasons why this game hasn't grown.
I have to disagree about performance increasing since SOE took over.
Since SOE took over:
1. Performance is noticably worse. Each patch has resulted in mroe crashes and more lag.
2, Gold seller spam is up ten fold.
3. The rate of new content beiong introducded is almost non-existant.
Why are things so much worse since SOE took over? is it because they have only half the staff Sigil had or is it because they don't care. My guess is the latter.
wow! cursing AND shouting... impressive!
so, why shouldn't a GUILD hall require a GUILD effort to build it....?
Brotherhood system? That is a useless feature. Vanguard is a pitiful, pathetic, mess of a game. Just shoot it like a horse with a broken leg. Take it out of it's misery.
I am sure the VG Devs would rather work on SOE's "The Agency" instead of that mess.
OMG crafting was the biggest grind in the entire game! once you got past lvl 25-30 crafter you had to spend hours and hours grinding work orders or making crap you wouldnt use just to gain a slither of %!
I played from bout beta 3.5 / 4 onwards and never got to see the real "vision" that was apparently beta 2, but what was worse was all the promises they broke over essential gameplay mechanics, such as the fellowships, and game not having item decay as it is now,
But did any of you guys read the interviews some guy did with a fired member of the team and Brad?
Some of the stuff they were coming out with was amazing!
i am going back to the game this weekend without a doubt. i feel i have to due to all the haters of this game, wierd but they are actually making me want to try it again.
all the rubbish that i have read in this post from players that dont like the game makes me feel sad for our community. i mean come on, why hate it so much? lets face it there are much worse games out there, granted there are better too. but the fact is the game is huge and has a lot of problems, but even with all these problems it is still up there in as far as gameplay goes. and talk about grind? have you ever played a mmorg before? go to many other sites and the more mature players realise that these styles of games need to be a gring to last. EQ is still fondly remembered as being the classic mmorg. i played it for 7 years and it was a hell of a grind. but what an enjoyable grind it was. ok some of you like other things in games, so why the hell you here still trying to put us of playing it?
give me a proper reason, i really want to hear your clever replys to this. call me a vanboiy if you want i dont care. and i am not gonna try to convince you people to play it. i would rather you didn't to be honest. leave the game for us who enjoy it and you guys go and complain about games on a forum somewhere. even VG if you want, just do us all a favour and either complain construcively or go elsewhere.
sorry to blow of a bit some of what i read was pathetic to the extreme.
Which is more pathetic? One who smiles with kindness that took your moneys in false pretense on a unready unfinished buggy cranky game?.
OR
SOE staff/developers posted on public forum pretending to be some new kid on the block in disguise by pointing out how great Vanguard is under SOE?.
You dont fool me.
I must admit that after playing many mmos for nearly a decade I decided to give Vanguard a go and am quite enjoying it at the moment. Trying to locate npcs in elven tree city is a pain, and learning to craft is not for the feint hearted.
It can be a bit lonely after say LOTRO but it sure has more depth.
Chrim
sorry i am a game player, the politics of it all dont bother me at all.
what does bother me is that people who are obviously not going to play the game again, for some stupid reason seem to have such an interest on these forums? if the game is that bad and uninteresting to you all, then go away..please.
i am not trying to convince anyone to play the game. i dont want most of you to play it, i think that would ruin any chance of a decent mature community. i just dont wish you to try to convince me and others to leave. i wish you would let sleeping dogs lie and let us that want to play or try the game to do just that.
Sad to see a game fall that hard, that fast. I hope they can pick it up off the floor. Not for SOE's sake, but for the sake of all the smaller devs/artists/writers who contributed their lives for several years, and the hundreds of fans who faithfully followed its progress.
Good luck Vanguard!
agreed, I have found that there are more folks on these forums bashing games and trying to discourage people from playing them. This site can be a very misleading source if your trying to find out the quality of a game and what it has to offer.
Hm, nothing really specific. I just marveld about two things:
"Bill had recently seen the bill of materials required to construct a Guild Hall and marveled at the sheer volume of work that would be required to undertake such a task. I had to chuckle. Well, it's a huge structure meant to house many people. In the real world, that bill of materials would be much larger and longer. Players have been waiting for that for a long time, I mentioned. "I can't believe the amount of resources it's going to take!" exclaimed Bill, "but it's going to be very neat as it involves all three spheres of gameplay in Vanguard. Diplomats, Crafters as well as Adventurers have to be involved to create a Guild hall."
They STILL dont GET IT. Housing the building ships is a nice feature. but for making things which are 99% useless and merely fancy they are FAR too complicated and involve far too many people to make. Its not everyone that knows 30 different people willing to work for him! I played SWG many years and housing or starships later with the addon were not easy to get either. But you didnt need to know an entire guild of crafters! You got the money and one crafter made you the stuff, end of the story. And damn are those VG houses TINY! I mean, the biggest version I have ever seen is barely the size of the smallest SWG house. Those tier 1 houses have roughly the size of a prison cell - and the charm of it. And all the big work and money for THAT? Sorry, but not with me. I dont think that will attract more than very hardcorish ppl once more. Its just they dont get the damn message what the problem of VG is.
"I was informed that John Hegner was recently also designated "Lore Master", and his task is to straighten out the many stories that are in Vanguard and mesh them into a cohesive whole. As Bill tells me, John has also been with Vanguard since day one, and is an avid table-top gamer. "The stories in Vanguard were disconnected. John's task is to bring them all together and also lead us into future story arcs."
Thats good to know. Much of the quest and lore stuff need an overhaul. I am from a pen and paper background too, so this sounds promising at least. Lets hope there are players left until they are ready. Time seems to be running out.
Great! I really wondered I was the only one to think so. Good to see someone with intelligence here. ^^
After NGE I guess SOE is too afraid now for real changes, and thats an irony, because if VG falls it will be because they didnt dare to make deep enough changes. What a wonderful irony indeed.
At this moment in time i doubt i will go back to VG, i still feel ripped off for purchasing the game in the 1st place with all teh bugs and problems, not to mention letting most of the free months play die to 1. problems with the game 2. finding bugged quest after bugged quest after loads of other bugs. The game was just plainly not very playable. I am in early beta for a game right now, and that is playing 100% better (although they have yet to add loads of content).
Unless Sony do something significant to pull us x-vanguard players back and take a new look at it, because that is what it is going to take to get alot of old players back. Right now, as far as i am concerning, the game has cancer and should be put down, end of!
What is meant by 'flying mounts are in production'? We were using flying mounts as early as Beta 3, and their bugs were ironed out by Beta 4. Did I miss something? Were they removed at release?
Yep, they were
I honestly really enjoyed myself playing Vanguard, and dont understand all the venom it gets.
My only beef with the game is how it ran on my computer, it was choppy as hell.
I'm very glad to hear that its running better. I hope to return to the game and see it running smooth and they'll have me as a loyal customer. Keep up the good work guys!
SOE is trying to compensate people who were ripped off by Vanguard by giving them a couple of free EQ2 expansions and free EQ2 playtime.
Hm not a bad move. Play EQ2 while we fix VG. Not bad.
Just one thing: WHAT has a semi-nude women to do with fantasy gaming? I mean ok, generally the female gender's beauty is not what I am into anyways, so my question goes more to the straights: do you really think its appropriate the depict boobs on every damn game? I mean, its just as silly as those seminude girls in those car-shows. I mean, even if they would use semi nude men, I would just laugh, because WTH has that to do with a funny fantasy game? I mean, maybe I am too old fashioned with my Tolkien-standarts. I guess is Tolkien would have been first published in 2007 we'd see the big boobs of Galadriel on the cover. Seriously, this is so "simple catch straight males attention" aka Nerd-trap, imagining dozens of pimples nerd teens who dont see boobs otherwise. Tsk. Just for a second imagine instead of swollen boob-girls swollen crotch-boy on every 2nd game pack today. So silly. I had many good games but the teen-style package often made me grab it only with a really long fork mumbling something to the salesmen "its for my teenage nephew"... Like Two worlds.... *Shudder* I am really not prude, but erotic to erotic mags and gaming to games and dont mix it.
It's posts like these that have been confusing me since Vanguard came out. People saying they're enjoying the game or that it runs fine for them.
The game had over a 1,000 bugs at launch (and those were just the ones SOE found in the first week and a half after they took over - who knows how many Sigil found themselves - oh wait, it must have been about a dozen or so)
How the HECK can anyone play a game with 1,000+ bugs and claim to enjoy it or that it even ran well which many others have claimed??
At least now we know who should have been believed during all these months - everyone who tried to warn off others about the unplayable, bug-fest that was Vanguard at launch. Everyone that has been spouting all that venom that the game earned for itself.
But the SOE interview wasn't a 5 page long,rambling rant spouting nonsense about some 'Vision' so I'm willing to give a free trial a try. If only to see if this game is really as casual friendly as the pre-Sigil-implosion hype claimed or if that's just more BS spouted out by a Vanbois on the Forum.
What universe are you living in? That's like asking why they have women wearing tight T-shirts in beer commercials. What does a well-developed bust have to do with a beer's taste or alcoholic properties? As much as it has anything to do with a fantasy game.
(Though in truth, thanks to artists like Boris Vallejo and Luis Royo you could argue that scantily clad women have MORE to do with a fantasy game than any beverage)
But there is one cold, solid fact that no one can ignore - it sells product. And as long as it does (in other words as long as there are straight guys with money) then they will continue to be used to sell product, whether its games, beer or lawn chairs.
As to whether it's an appropriate form of advertising, there's a rather large faction of the relgious right who would be more than willing to see this kind of advertising censored and then go on to tell us what else is appropriate for us to see, hear, eat and think. Fortunately these people aren't allowed to do that and gaming companies are allowed the freedom to use the kind of ads that they want and the kinds of ads that catch their customer's attention.
Is it silly? You're talking about an ad for a game where a virtual, pixelated cartoon character runs around a make-believe world. And people are PAYING for it. We're well past the line of silly at this point. And that's probably what helps to make it fun. Start censoring silly and things would probably be a lot less fun.
Sigil FAILED miserably from the head guy in charge(Brad) down to the mid-level developers now matter which way you slice it, the game was barely half complete at release and was no better off when they handed it over to SOE(ran for their life). Sigil's Vanguard had no life and although they attempted to change the direction of MMO's back to community driven, you can't do that with a crappy game.
Since SOE took over there has been nothing but improvements in performance as well as bug fixes and they're adding content here shortly. SOE may never be able to turn this into a widely popular game but I'm fairly confident that they can make this one enjoyable still. People who still hate SOE because of the SWG NGE(including myself) should be able to tell the difference in what is happening here vice what happened with SWG. There is no comparison..
Things that Vanguard needs:
Things that it doesn't need:
The game doesn't need a large nipple on it to make a solid game even at this point, the '1000' bugs or so take awhile to be fixed and SOE just basically got their hands on it so they're doing fine with what they were given.
If you're not going to take my word for it, I would think that the thousands upon thousands of people leaving, the multiple server mergers, the fallout out at Sigil, the refusal of MicroSoft to come anywhere near promoting/distributing this game, and the laughable reviews like this would be enough to tell you a thing or two about the quality of Vanguard....
Alas, some folks choose to be naive and ignore every piece of solid evidence (and theres a ton of it for Vanguard) that points to a game being an absolute waste of money.
Wow I hear alot of uninformed posts lately. People that play the game and are hurt by SOE taking over or by sigils reign of terror. Such big words from such small people. I play Vanguard, most of the "bugs" they are referring to are quests you may never touch for 6 months, things not dropping appropriatly or some off the wall small glitch that doesn't effect the majority of players. Sure bugs are irritating, but I have played through countless beta's and releases of so many games it's sick, and guess what? They all do this, some worse some better but they all do it it's called "making a game" Vanguard has 3 tree's of things you can do Adventuring, diplomacy and crafting. The adventuring I don't find boring at all I look forward to new skills and going to new places I also enjoy toying with the stats on my character to make him my way and not some carbon copy clone from a template like so many other games.
You don't have to like the game, but I run a very sub par machine with 1 gig of ram and guess what, I average 50fps+ it's called not being an idiot, if you go into many new games crank the settings to max and then run through a mob zone on your old ass rig you will get the same effect as in Vanguard you hitch, you lose framerates like mad and you die. Grow up quit slamming a game that most people haven't even played, if you don't want to play don't, it will save our so called "small community" from ignorance and general flaming. Most of the people leaving due to server merge is because they are losing the RP tag, I play on Florendyl and they feel "betrayed" somehow by SOE but the truth is, this isn't OUR game it's theirs and if we don't like it we can leave.
As for me I will continue playing and having fun doing hundreds of quests with great stories, new places and sailing my boat around, and at the end of the day I will relax in my humble log cabin and put my feet up by the fire and listen to the whiners in OOC chat about how hard or unfair something is.
I about died laughing when I read this vanboi tripe! Dude give us all a break! Most of us that played the game know the truth and are telling it the way it is and was for months. And because we have been telling the truth the rabid vanboi's have been name calling and trying to disinform the public about this game.
Let's look at the facts shall we.
First of all the framerate "claim" Go here and see for yourself the amount of peeps having big time problems.
http://forums.station.sony.com/vg/forums/show.m?forum_id=8
I don't think a duocore 6700 , 4 gigs 1.2 gig ram and an 8800gtx card is an "old ass rid" so get it right. Also look at MMORPG's own vanguard forums about people posting how horible the framerates have been. Also if framerate are NOT a problem then why is SOE been sooo busy trying to improve them?
second fact: over 150,000 people have left the game! Why? because they were all "haters"? NOPE! cause the game is bad!
third fact: New well polished games DON't have server merges 6 months out!
Fourth fact: The game STILL hitches, lags and crashes. How do we know? Because the devs SAY IT DOES and that is why they are WORKING on it. I don't think they would be saying they are working on something that doesn't exist.
Fifth fact: Brad himself has said the game was NOT ready for release! and has said he was sorry for it but they ran out of money!. This HAS been posted on these forums and on other forums as well. So LOOK it up!
Sixth fact: Sigil (Brad) has lied about this product all along! This has been proven as well on F13's site! Once again look it up! Microsoft knew it as well and after spending 30mil on the project dumped it.
There are so many more but.. I digress cause I understand that zealous vanboi's are not thinking with their brains but with their "feelings" and no matter how much bad news or how many people tell the truth about the game they will continue on with religious fevor, evangelistically praising a game that is STILL in beta as shown in this interview but was a complete rip off to many.
Why do we so called "haters" keep telling the truth about this game? Cause we feel we were ripped off and we don't want others to be ripped off because of rose colored reviews by vanboi's.
BTW the NGE was NOT wanted by players. SOE should've figured that out when people left in protest after the CU! get your facts straight. Just like people didn't want to lose the RP server and the Team PVP server but we all know SOE and when they get an idea in their heads they will do it no matter what! AFTER they told us their plans the RP server and the team PVP server started to die off as been stated on SOE's forums!! by Hasium himself! Once again LOOK IT UP!
And for those of you that stated that SOE is NOT to blame for the release? SOE was the publisher of this tittle NOT Sigil! Sigil did ask for more time and money to finish the game and SOE and SMED said NO!! This is also a documented FACT! So it is SOE's fault for releasing the game in beta form and they knew it WAS NOT READY! So yeah it IS their fault!
I love how nubs post without knowing their facts.
Honestly I like vanguard despite the bugs.
What killed it for me is I couldn't convince my friends to play and without a group of people to play with, it wasn't much fun. I didn't really enjoy being guilded with strangers that much, especially since everyone was stuck in the "we are going to make teh first ub3r guild!!!1one" mode.
Tnice
sorry but i aint heard or seen any such thing like that, and yes, i did play EQ2. However i stopped playing EQ2 on vanguards release, i have not gone back to that either.
I have however had a dvd through the post to go check out Wow-burning crusade for 10 days, i am just waiting to hear from a friend if he has had the offer and then maybe we will take those 10 days up.
The point we are both making is to each his own. I'm going to take my own word for it and allow others to make their own decisions. My wife and I have been playing Vanguard since release and have enjoyed it even with the performance issues. We both have gaming rigs so we can play the game on above average settings. We are in a good guild so we have folks to play with even though the server pops are low. We respect the fact that SOE recognizes the performance issues and bugs and are doing the best they can with what sigil left them. The game has been showing steady improvement since SOE has been involved. We like what the game has to offer and its potential for the future, so we are going to stick with it and see what happens. I'm not naive or ignorant as I have played many mmo's to know what I like best. I guess I must be a fanboi of my own opinion. So this must mean I'm not wasting my money.
Favorable criticism...here is some for you:
Raid-free server, where all you do is add an alternative way to raiding, so all groupers can get this raiding gear in another, "easier", way. Be it on merchant, in the loot table of some mobs, whatever...
See, how many games out there are not ending in PvP or in Raiding? Only 1, and it is CoX. And guess what...it is the LEADING non-fantasy MMO; despite a long history of nerfing (and this is extremely bad to nerfs players who are PROGRESSING...but that would be another topic in itself).
You have data, go check EQ and EQ2... pick any moment of the day you prefer, whichever. Look at the % of players currently in a raid serverwide. This is a minority among the minority of players who remains/play these games. Catering to them at the expense of the majority is non-sense. I can understand that devs remove the unlimited levels which were catering to players like me, but to replace it by something worser? All the games out there, they either cater to this minority...or they are PvP.
valant6 what are you talking about? it's a game! saying people are bnot loonking at the evidence? come on grow up friend. you may be a follower but me...i can make my own mind up.
i simply have to play the game. there you go evidence of my own. that is all the evidence i need. if i dobnt like the game then fair enough. if i do then that's fine too.
in short will you do me a favour please...dont play VG please i beg you go away and play something else or try to convince someone else not to play a game on another site because your getting really boring now. at first you became amusing but now your just boring. you are not gonna convinve me to change my mind and i wont try to change yours....so leave it now.
What are you babbbling about? All the fantasy based game needs end game content. Hence it is the reason why soe, blizzard needs high end raiding guild's help to shape, test contents for all fantasy based games. Without a high end guild helping QA contents there wouldnt be any quality raiding content in any mmo games. Did I mention WOW is still #1 mmo market. It has raids, so why arient those 8 million subscribers quit then? Believe it or not, People raid for gears. Its called progression of characters. You say people dont want to raid, but data in wow clearly shows there are raids going on in Wow or another fantasy mmorpg. Vangaurd is a unpolished piece of trash, they dont even know how to code the game engine well. It's a dead game, and im ashamed to even purchase guild edition of vanguard for it. Vanguard is trash.
Vanguard for me has been enjoyable, I like all aspects of it. I honestly think that it can be resurrected to be a great game now that Sony has control over it. I don't think that Sigil had the resources to complete this project, it was just to ambtious. The main issue I have with it is server population. It can be hard at times to find a non guild xp group although for the most part you can find a group to do the major quest lines. One of the biggest problems that Vanguard faced was that it was a resource hog. It needed an above average machine to run it smoothly. When I firts started I had a AMD 2900+ Socket A chip and a ATI 800x card. I had to run it at low settings but I could still struggle through it.
One things I think that could possible help is revamp the grind from 1-30. Make it more solo friendly a bit more crafting xp would be nice also. However, if Sony does that they risk the anger of players who want the game harder. (I find it funny that Valent of whatever his name is wants to make the game easier but so many players are complaining that Sigil made it to easy) I am a 27 Weaponsmith right now, I get a little less that 1% xp per item made in a work order. I get abotu 3-4% for a batch work order. when I am adventuring I get about 1% xp per kill. However I get significant xp for completing quests. If I recall I was getting about .3% xp per kill at level 59 When I was playing EQ2. So if they were trying to slow down xp then they accomplished that. However one thing they forgot, is that no matter what yoru vision of the game is, you still need people to play. Yes you will have the people who enjoy the "hardcoreness" of the game btu they are not enough to succesfully run the game. So now Sony has a critical decision to make. revamp the game to make it appeal to more players or alienate some of the current vanguard crowd. Its a tough decision to make.
What I can't stand is that some people who have not played the game since beta or release keep slamming this game. They make false statements about performance and what not. A month ago I upgraded to a E6600 2 gigs ram 8800 GTS card. I run this game at high settings at about 35 FPS. The game is one of the most beautiful I have playered. So yes performace is an issue if you have a sub standard rig. But since mine is no longer I really enjoy it.
Now this is not to say that Vanguard is not without problems right now. There are some. World population, empty areas, bugs, etc I would advise people to wait a couple more months, give Sony about 3 months or so to fix and change some things and give the free trial a shot. Make your own decision, don't listen to people who obviosuly hate the game for whatever reason. I have yet to find a MMO that I haven't given it a second third or fourth try. If I don't like it I will wait and see what they change 6 months or a year down the road and try it again, especially if it is free! After all, what do you have to loose but a few hours of your time.
But WoW has seen that large-man raids are not as popular as they first thought. The BC Expansion abolished 40-man raids and there are much more 5-man end-game dungeons. There are still 20-man raids of course and it's likely raids will always be a MMORPG mechanic but there was that infamous statement from Blizzard where they revealed the number of raids that occur on a typical weekend on the US servers at the first Blizzcon and the number was about 10% of the total US server population.
It's a minority who raid but they are the hardcore audience that will always be a part of MMORPGs so raids will be as well. But don't be surprised if future games take the same turn as WoW and lessen large-scale raid content. We're already seeing that with the upcoming batch of games, I don't remember hearing about a single one that is touting large-scale raids as a major feature (though they still might be a part of the games).
As for the thread topic, I find myself doubting the statements of ANYONE claiming the game run wells for them. And if they're claiming that they're 'ignoring' bugs I counter that if they want to pay a company to produce a buggy-game then that's their problem and it's just convincing companies that they can produce trash and people will buy it.
When they have the free trial, I will give the game a try and then I'll make up my own mind but I have to say the 'haters' have a lot more backing them up in terms of hard, solid FACTS than ANY of the Vanbois.
Some people just don't understand the difference between fact and opinion and I'm not going to say that Vanguard is a Magnum Opus or anything, because it simply isn't but I get tired of trash talkers and people who insist that their personal insight, backed by whatever fact is supposed to be enough to for anyone to just give up or say, yeah, "you're absolutely right.. I must be a total moron not to see the world exactly as you do." That's called a lack of respect and consideration. At that point it isn't about who's right or wrong. We all like what we like.
100000 people could tell me that the concept and mechanics suck but that's still opinion. The only fact is that 100000 people said it and I'm not those people. I don't like Monster Energy Drink.. It tastes like bad cough syrup to me but someone likes it because they're still selling it. Does that make it a bad drink? No.. its just my opinion.
That's the way it seems.
Here's my opinion:
Vanguard could have been better.. It could have been tons better in content and polish. However, I like the concept and I like the mechanics. I like most of the classes. I still haven't found an MMO where I enjoy every single class combination they have. I like the concept they used for crafting and diplomacy.. its still lacking but I don't think there's a single MMO that could live up to what I think those two SHOULD be. So, I putter away playing EQ2 and Vanguard casually with friends while I beta and watch the MMO scene. I've trialed or been in Beta for most MMOs and I, of all people, should know what I enjoy.
My machine ran vanguard alright in Beta and after my most recent upgrade it runs it at max settings between 24 and 45 fps, dipping its lowest, usually in cities. People had video problems and still do.. I just happen to not have suffered from much of it. There were all kinds of bugs: Buffs that canceled when hitting a chunk line, instadeath on crossing chunk lines, stuck in the world, stuck on objects, guildinvites that wouldn't work across chunks, social server crashes, bugged groups, bugged chat, broken quests, classes that needed revamped... there were tons of things that couldn't be put in because it was simply released too early with too little testing and too little funding.
I like Vanguard for the most part and it may die or it may not but don't posture and lecture me or treat me like I'm stupid because I like SoBe instead of Monster.
Well said, sums up my feeling atm. Despite the negativity, I had fun for quite a few months in VG and hope they can improve the game more so I can continue to play it.
Now this is just another reason I think VG will fail to get out of the niche it is now. It all sounds cool in theory. Like migrating mobs in D&L sounded cool.
But in fact, its just another not really thought through concept like SO MANY from the "vision".
What does it do?
It makes those who play sacrifice a part of their XP to those that dont. WTH? Why should someone, anyone give away his hard earned XP (especially since XP doesnt come cheap in VG anyway) to a person who is either lazy or has no time. I mean, its up to everyone how much he plays or not, I really dont care. But why should I give them XP presents?
And the other way around. I log out with my lv 15 char, because I have some holiday or journey, and when I come back he is 25 and I missed all the 15-25 level quests? WTF?
Sorry, this is totally BS IMO. Why not make some SIMPLE pragmatic, old fashioned mentoring? And add some side-kicking as in CoH. problem solved.
Its the typical example of those high nosed Sigil devs, who wanted to re-invent the wheel, and better, just to satisfy their egos and show novelty just for the sake of novelty. Mentoring was good, so why change a running system? I dont the heck want to give XP for nothing nor receive XP for nothing. The enitre idea was bad from start, like many, and was innovation merely for the sake of innovation. Why SOE still works on it under a new name but same system is beyond me. Its CRAP like so many of those "visions". Bah.
The above poster has some valid points, except for the fact that A) You don't have to be in a fellowship and B) You probably don't play with other people. My whole crew was waiting for this feature to come into play before we quit months ago. Why? Because some of us worked and some of us had time off so we could help eachother get through the levels. Not everyone plays a game for PvE content... Not that it isn't cool, but playing on the PvP server means that PvE is second and PvP is first, so leveling as fast as possible is definitely a good thing. Missing out on the quests means nothing in that situation. *EDIT* Isn't this supposed to be an MMO? You're playing by yourself if you're complaining the way that you are I'm very sure. Learn to socialize and compose a group of individuals with likeminded goals and stop being so greedy, thinking that your precious XP is going to be "stolen". Your entire philosophy of the subject has so many holes that it looks like swiss cheese.
Also, some people don't like going through the same exact quests every time they reroll a character. Believe me, if you want to bring up the argument of, "but not every race/class gets the same quests d00d!", then let me excuse my previous statement and say that upwards of 95-98% of the quests you do will be ones that you had already done. Woohoo, so fun to read the lore every single time you level a character to 40+, which by the way takes very little time even by going through quests. If you care, you can accept the quest and read its dialogue on the way to your quest monsters or areas... It saves time.
Well I feel swiss cheese is really great, but thats not the point. ^^
My point is, as the word is "the way is the goal". I dont play to "get this and that level", I play to enjoy the game itself, so I dont see the point in giving XP for free. Its a contradiction to all I feel makes a MMO: that you WORKED for what you get. It doesnt mean you cant get help, mentoring can help. But its not giving things for nothing. If you lack the time to level, well you bad luck, but I dont have 3 dozens of friends who carry me all along while I play with myself rather than the game and then get an uber level char for nothing. I have to work every single XP point and the idea others get XP for nothing sucks. Simple as that. I prefer PVE yes, but in PVP it would suck EVEN MORE, to be nuked down by someone who has a max level char who were online just a few days because he has generous friends. Or pays them to XP for him. No thanks, I dont like this feature at all. As I said, its a matter of philosophy for me that people have to work for what they get, and that I know, when I look at some char, what he is and has is the result of that person's work.
You are somehow half correct. There are tons of people that have the motivation to raid for gears. Again its called "Motivation" to advance your character . Nobody forces you to raid.
And there are women who sell their body to earn money. This is called honest working in your book maybe?
I am MOTIVATED, a LOT more then any raider. But I won't raid.
And since I won't be the best grouper if I don't raid, the game indeed force me to raid.
WoW success has nothing to do with it raid component. WoW is successfull despite it raid hindrance, which is hurting, slowing, and eventually will cause it downfall.
Raiding is not wanted by the overwhelming majority of players. I come to terms with the fact they don't want unlimited levels, maybe it is your turn to come to term with the fact they don't want a FOREIGN gameplay to infrige on grouping.
The data in WoW clearly shows that raiders are a minority, that most players don't want to raid. Now, consider this...is there more players who quit WoW or more players raiding and enjoying it? Bashing Vanguard won't suddenly makes raiding a good decision, it is the worst decision Blizzard ever took, and they will pay the price in the next release...million copy sold...not going to happen again.
Raiding is a form of timesink to keep players subscribed that is why all the mmo fantasy rpg have them. It's there to give people who max out their level incentive to do. Vaguard's raiding system is trash, hence the dropout rate of vanguard guildes are high. Ask any level 50 vanguard players if there are any end game content, vanguard at level 50 have nothing to do in adventuring sphere.
This game will never be what they wanted it to be. There will always be people out there that give their money away no matter how bad it is or getting. I mean you could have proof that SOE doesnt care about the game and will never change it and they will still pay every month saying "oh I love this game its one of the best out there. Nothing looks as beautiful as this game". But I think this game needs a good year or two and if SOE listens to its players and keeps at it. Then it will have a chance.
I do get a kick out of most vanbois still raiding these forums that spout off about facts and opinions, and which carries the most weight...
Get it straight- Im not trying to convince anyone NOT to play this game or TO play it, for the last poster that went on a severly long diatribe about my trying to influence him- look dude- Im not trying to convince anyone of anything- the facts are already out there about the horrible game that Vanguard is.
The only thing Im trying to make clear is that, you people who are backing this piece of trash up are the MINORITY. Perhaps you havent played a good game before to know what a real game that is not carbon copied from another looks like....perhaps you havent played an MMO that doesnt have a cookie cutter boring combat system....or perhaps your views just suck in general- whatever the case may be- the MAJORITY of the MMO market has spoken very clearly- Vanguard is trash, and its dying on a limb and now suffering from horrible and laughable reviews like this one.
Since you guys are so caught up in facts and opinions, I would think that the 100,000+ people leaving this community and cancelling their accounts would be a pretty clear cut fact that a game sucks. Thats no opinion, and only one other MMO on the market could argue that it lost such a massive consumer base quicker (Dark and Light). TO me, thats the most prominenet FACT of all.
Vanboi opinionaters or not, you cant cover up the fact that you like a dying game that the majority of the MMO community thinks is a terrible waste of money and time.
I like how angry you get over a game. You can be offended all you like...over a game, but you will notice my response time was slow? This is not because I'm thinking up something witty to say or calling people "nubs" and how many "facts" they don't know. I was busy playing a game and not forum blasting other people on their dare I say opinion? You really do spend most of your days thinking up terms to use against people in derogatory ways and slamming actually players while you sit on the forums.
You don't have to like the game, or anything in it, you can quote as many sites as you like and do as much research on why this game sucks or lacks to perform in ways you want it too. But the truth is you spend so much time slamming, quoting and forum flaming that you forget one important thing. The real players are playing. Have fun. I know I will and won't get your response for a few more weeks atleast.
Ok, so they are fixing the game engine. They are fixing the Lore. . . .Throw in a new map and we've got a completely new game.
Seriously folks.