Was a bit shocked to read this:

"Taking WoW as an example, in most cases grouping up for quests makes sense, because if it is a 'kill x type mob' you're not going to be competing for the same spawns if you're grouped, and the quest reward itself is a really large percentage of the overall experience. "

at

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/263753/page/50

It naturally follows, then, that Vanguard was influenced heavily by WoW. My question is, was this always a part of VG or was it something SOE implemented upon taking it over? By "this" I mean the formula that the vast majority of xp comes from quests.

Originally posted by Arclan

Was a bit shocked to read this:

"Taking WoW as an example, in most cases grouping up for quests makes sense, because if it is a 'kill x type mob' you're not going to be competing for the same spawns if you're grouped, and the quest reward itself is a really large percentage of the overall experience. "

at

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/263753/page/50

It naturally follows, then, that Vanguard was influenced heavily by WoW. My question is, was this always a part of VG or was it something SOE implemented upon taking it over? By "this" I mean the formula that the vast majority of xp comes from quests.

I played beta but could not tell you the ratio of kills:xp vs. quest reward:xp then and after Sony took over.

In regards to the yellow above I think that's a bit of a general statement.  That would mean that all MMOs after WoW that have questing as part of your advancement are also heavily influenced by WoW.  I came back to VG because of how different it is that 99% of MMOs, especially WoW!

However on the subject of questing alone I think you are right in that it is like WoW as far as "kill x" and "collect x" quests go.  I would argue that if your alternative is to solo kill grind why not have a variety of mobs to whack with a storyline to follow?

One thing that might make you feel better after reading that linked article is that although you can solo quest in VG the best part about the game is coming across manors and fortresses of non soloable content.  The usual segments between solo content and group content are gone.  It feels more natural and more than once did I come up to a group area while killing and shoot at a mob before checking it's power rating.  Ah, good times.

EDIT:

I forgot you played before so you might know this stuff already.  If you want to play Vanguard again and enjoy it my advice is to really seek out others.  In the times I have come back to VG I always neglected getting "plugged" in to the community because I was just seeing if I wanted to come back.  That doomed VG for me every time.  VG is too vast for most to solo quest grind alone and be content.  As you know it gets empty fast.  Just my 2cp.

I made a new toon: 'Aeldon Barak' and I'm still on the Isle.  I usually play from 10pm-2am PST and like to group even if it is killing giant flies heh.  Hit me up.

Originally posted by Arclan

Was a bit shocked to read this:

"Taking WoW as an example, in most cases grouping up for quests makes sense, because if it is a 'kill x type mob' you're not going to be competing for the same spawns if you're grouped, and the quest reward itself is a really large percentage of the overall experience. "

at

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/263753/page/50

It naturally follows, then, that Vanguard was influenced heavily by WoW. My question is, was this always a part of VG or was it something SOE implemented upon taking it over? By "this" I mean the formula that the vast majority of xp comes from quests.

It's the other way around arclan vanguard is the creation of deveoplers from EQ which influenced WoW but we wont get into that.  as for you question alot of VG has been kept in tact since the release so quest and such havent changed.  Main thing SOE has done was fixing technical issues with tthe game so you can actually play it or prevent the exploits that plagued the game early. 

When I was playing Vanguard.

I found it quicker to take the group specific quests grab a few friends do the quests and then just keep grinding mobs. The quests in VG, don't really reward very much xp. I did them only if i was falling behind on gear. Grinding mobs with friends is way quicker.

Originally posted by Arclan

Was a bit shocked to read this:

"Taking WoW as an example, in most cases grouping up for quests makes sense, because if it is a 'kill x type mob' you're not going to be competing for the same spawns if you're grouped, and the quest reward itself is a really large percentage of the overall experience. "

at

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/263753/page/50

It naturally follows, then, that Vanguard was influenced heavily by WoW. My question is, was this always a part of VG or was it something SOE implemented upon taking it over? By "this" I mean the formula that the vast majority of xp comes from quests.

Vanguard was quite different in early beta.  It did it  change its emphasis to emulate Wow's quest directed design.  One can guess where this came from?  Microsoft or because of the pending Merger with SOE that year? It also had dramatic changes to combat and death penalties, harvesting, etc.  in 2006 they basically revamped the entire game to be more WoW friendly.  Many people from beta 1 and 2 still argue over the changes but most seem to agree it made it a better game.  The main problem with these changes is it took so much development time redoing the game.  Not to mention when they were done with the combat, questing, dungeon and harvesting changes they revamped and redid Thestra, added Qualia and Kojan plus  spent 6 months tweaking the combat system and classes. 

The downside to all fo this was they never had time to clean up the game.  They created a great foundation  with  a great deal of content but the game released unfinished and buggy.  In hindsight it could be argued that they should have not redone Threstra or introduced Kojan and simply released with Qualia and made the rest of the game more polishedd.  But I doubt it would have helped as their biggest problem was they misjudged advances in computer hardware.  They expected players would have a lot better hardware .  95% of players simply did not have the computer to play the game at release.  Consequently they crashed quite a bit. Having a new computer at release made the game stable and smooth for me.

I applaud Sigil for what they did releasing a game with such a great foundation rather than just trying to release a more polished product.  Unlike most companies they thought big and gambled on going big rather than playing it safe.  It is a shame they never got to finish the game.  If Microsoft had not called in their baloon Payment due in April 2007, forcing Sigil to sell to SOE, we might have seen a much different game.  The amount of content Sigil added in the first 2 months of release was amazing.  Arguably they added more content in those 2 months than SOE has added in total in the last 4+ years.

Originally posted by Zippy

Vanguard was quite different in early beta.  It did it  change its emphasis to emulate Wow's quest directed design.  One can guess where this came from?  Microsoft or because of the pending Merger with SOE that year? It also had dramatic changes to combat and death penalties, harvesting, etc.  in 2006 they basically revamped the entire game to be more WoW friendly.  Many people from beta 1 and 2 still argue over the changes but most seem to agree it made it a better game.  The main problem with these changes is it took so much development time redoing the game.  Not to mention when they were done with the combat, questing, dungeon and harvesting changes they revamped and redid Thestra, added Qualia and Kojan plus  spent 6 months tweaking the combat system and classes. 

The downside to all fo this was they never had time to clean up the game.  They created a great foundation  with  a great deal of content but the game released unfinished and buggy.  In hindsight it could be argued that they should have not redone Threstra or introduced Kojan and simply released with Qualia and made the rest of the game more polishedd.  But I doubt it would have helped as their biggest problem was they misjudged advances in computer hardware.  They expected players would have a lot better hardware .  95% of players simply did not have the computer to play the game at release.  Consequently they crashed quite a bit. Having a new computer at release made the game stable and smooth for me.

I applaud Sigil for what they did releasing a game with such a great foundation rather than just trying to release a more polished product.  Unlike most companies they thought big and gambled on going big rather than playing it safe.  It is a shame they never got to finish the game.  If Microsoft had not called in their baloon Payment due in April 2007, forcing Sigil to sell to SOE, we might have seen a much different game.  The amount of content Sigil added in the first 2 months of release was amazing.  Arguably they added more content in those 2 months than SOE has added in total in the last 4+ years.

Full ACK, Sigil improved the game massively in just two months.

They did have, at that time, ~200 developers working on the game, though.

Zippy, thank you so much for that info; it's interesting to know.

Deron_barak, yes I heard about that bunch of Blizzard devs who played a lot of EQ and eventually thought; "hey why can't we make something like that?"

Now I'm tempted to get into the topic of why Wow grew so large:

1. Blizzard's globally recognizeable brand name
2. Advertising pays; I've never seen a computer game advertised (TV, internet, etc) as much as WoW.
3. Huge launch in Asia with a LOT of players getting to practically pay for free
4. Viral growth caused European and American player count to swell too. Everyone wanted to see what "2 million" players were playing;

Admittedly, items 1 through 4, above, are my personal opinion.