Vanguard - Saga of Heroes Previewed 116
Labyrrinth writes "The media blitz for the upcoming release of the new MMOG, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
has begun with 2 independent previews at IGN
and Gamespot
. From the article at Gamespot 'In days of old when knights were bold, elves with pointy sticks would totally beat up on a bunch of skeletons. You may have seen online games that take place in high-fantasy worlds, but recently, these games have become much more lenient on players, so that exploring, fighting, and even falling in battle has relatively minor consequences. Not since EverQuest of 1999 (a game that was infamously punishing back then and was clearly one of the main reasons why newer games got easier) has a new massively multiplayer game tried to offer a well-thought-out, but purposely steep, challenge.'" Normally I don't think previews are noteworthy, but Vanguard has been practically a black hole of information since development began.
blah (Score:3, Insightful)
All the annoyances of Everquest, but more so (Score:4, Insightful)
Market Saturation (Score:2, Insightful)
I remember reading something by the guy who does the MMOG charts and him saying how the market for this type of game is somewhat saturated already. Sure, WoW has five million players now, but a lot of its "hardcore" crowd was cannibalized from EQ and other MMOs. I wish more companies would try and create truly *new* experiences in the massive genre, like what's going on in Korea. And yes, I do know that there are upcoming (and current) games that are "different".
Re:Market Saturation (Score:3, Insightful)
The 'radial' content model and large world is good.
The corpse runs and XP debt are bad.
The player housing and horse/saddlebags/flying mounts are good.
The lack of point-to-point transportation is bad.
The spell/counterspell/aspect-based attacks is good.
The level-based paradigm is bad (well, not bad, but yet another MMORG that's unable to break free from the old Chainmaelle wargaming system, circa 1977).
The player-owned properties, including inns and stores, is good.
It's like there's a set of sliders for current MMORGs, and in order to advance one set of features you need to pull back on another.
Another look. (Score:2, Insightful)
EQ vs. WoW (Score:4, Insightful)
EQ/Vanguard are not for people who enjoy playing mmorpgs, like they enjoy playing other games, or for people who play them like glorified IM clients. These games are for the people who actually enjoy the challenge, enjoy the fact that it might take hours to get a reward, and instead of hating the process, count it as an effort towards building a character they see value in.
This is like saying MGS 2 was too hard because you couldn't play it like Tetris or Solitaire, they are totally different types of games. In WoW, the actual work done by the player is minimal, with low risk, and even unskilled/casual players (which is a huge, HUGE market) can compete evenly with the hardcore players. They are actually different games, and the problem until now has been trying to expand the market with new unskilled players, while still keeping the hardcore tier-1 dragon-slayers with server-uniques which are critical to the game, like the old FoH and LoS guilds were to EQ, setting an inspiring ideal for the rest of the players to follow, part hero-worship, part social-hierarchy.
My point is they are different audiences completely. Trying to put them in the same game is difficult without either pissing off the casual players, or letting the hardcore players reach the "End". WoW tried, and got an assload of casual players, but most of the hardcore players I know have left, doing cameos whenever a new dragon comes out, and otherwise actually getting on with their lives. The only hardcore players in WoW now are the compulsive "Ok now I want armor X and horse Y so I look cooler" until the next patch comes out with new armor X and horse Y.
Basically, I miss EQ
Lots of whining, oh wait, it's /. (Score:2, Insightful)