Jerrith's Mini Vanguard Video Number 2

Ignore · 09-03-2006, 01:02 AM

Hot off the internet tubes tonight is another dose of video from Jerrith and Sigil Games. We, the community, cried foul at Jerrith's picking on grey-con mobs in the last video, so this time he has kicked it up a notch (or five).

Prepare for a bit more action in...

Silky Venom: Temple of Dailuk [DivX AVI, ~20MB]
VGTact: Temple of Dailuk [DivX AVI, ~20MB]
Brad McQuaid's site: Temple of Dailuk [DivX AVI, ~20MB]

While watching the video, keep these notes in mind:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aradune Mithara

Temple of Dailuk Mini-Video #2 9/2/06 – Live from Beta 3

Overall:

Note: the beta players involved have been notified and consented to be part of these videos. They are still under NDA and cannot talk about the videos at all, much less answer questions – if you figure out who somebody is, please do NOT hassle them. Thank you.

Note 2: Animations are not where we want them – they need to be polished and tweaked and added to. We continue to do this in Beta 3 and will likely continue to tweak and add to our animation technology well into Beta 4. Likewise, you may very well see other flaws – this is still beta 3 and we have a lot of polish yet to do.

Note 3: As before, these mini-videos do not take the place of the bigger Marketing/PR plan we are working on. These are for people who already know about Vanguard and want to get a glimpse of where we’re at and how Beta 3 is going in general. We’re still holding back on a lot of things for exclusive deals with various popular web sites and gaming publications.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aradune Mithara - Updated 09/03/2006

Running FRAPS is causing Jerrith to lose about 7-10 fps, so the framerate in these videos is much lower than would be were he just playing not recording a video and the animations much smoother and higher quality, because losing framerate means animation frames are being skipped.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jerrith

This is a random / pick up group of players that I (Jerrith) joined last night in the Temple of Dailuk. The group is made up of Morgh, an 18th level Dreadknight, Syrok, an 18th level Monk (using hand wraps), Malacki, a 16th level Monk (using a martial staff), Ladroj, a 20th level Sorcerer, Cir, a 17th level Psionicist, and myself, Jerrith, an 18th level Cleric. This was recorded on medium settings at 1280x800, on my home system, an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ (2.4 GHz) with 2 GB of RAM, and an EVGA NVIDIA 7800GTX w/256 MB. (This system is over 1 year old, with no upgrades.)

Also, regarding combat durations and damage dealt: We are currently working on fight durations with respect to NPC hit points and ability to deal damage. What you see in these videos will be changing significantly in the next beta update. This should be kept in mind, when evaluating these fights.

Finally, some notes about settings: I have turned floating damage number off for these videos, to keep them from obscuring the 3D world. This UI layout is not the default, it's my personal setup. I've also set the tooltips to not follow the mouse (which is default, but I had it on in the previous video).

This is a video from deep inside one portion of the Temple of Dailuk, where we’re fighting two sentries of Xarkrafi, as part of an encounter route to summon Xarkrafi himself. Morgh had left just before this fight started, and so the monks and I end up taking most of the damage. Cir keeps the second sentry under control with a variety of stuns, mezes, and at one point, a simulacrum (an illusion which the sentry disbelieves just a few seconds after it is cast).

Faelor · 09-03-2006, 01:05 AM

Sweet

Awesome video, shows an actual group encounter with quite some detail. You can see Jerrith executing a chain a few times also which is awesome. I can't wait to see more of these videos posted on other affiliates!

- Faelor

Nubaa · 09-03-2006, 01:23 AM

Why was the sorcerer melee'ing? That seems a bit odd...

Faelor · 09-03-2006, 02:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nubaa

Why was the sorcerer melee'ing? That seems a bit odd...

Gotta get that skill up

Tokyo1985 · 09-03-2006, 02:06 AM

Thats some good stuff...
Clerics look like fun!

Jerrith · 09-03-2006, 02:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nubaa

Why was the sorcerer melee'ing? That seems a bit odd...

Extra damage never hurts. While the sentry does have an AE, it's damage is relatively minor. Ladroj actually ran out of energy right as the video began (you can see two spell casts at the start).

Gwanogdab · 09-03-2006, 02:55 AM

Cir was freacking awesome IMO.
Was that the Psionicist's mind battle ability he was using btw?

Sicca · 09-03-2006, 03:28 AM

Thanks for the Video Jerrith, it looks very good

greymain · 09-03-2006, 05:22 AM

Nice Video, Liked the pace and the animation, weapon sounds need a bit of tweaking sounding a bit samey at this time. Mobs would have been improved by increasing their sound feed back cries of aggression and pain. Dont mean to be negative just trying to be constructive

Skarlath · 09-03-2006, 05:33 AM

Very cool, thanks Jerrith!

Lightpaw · 09-03-2006, 07:22 AM

Great video indeed. The only thing worrying me is what Jerrith said about changing fight duration. It seems great to me.. and i'd like it rather longer than shorter... killing everything in 15-20 seconds (think eq2) needs no skill... and doesn't give you any respect for the mobs either... just stick to your "less but meaningful" motto there too please

Zenya · 09-03-2006, 07:33 AM

Another cool video, thanks to all involved!

I really like the pace of the combat. I'm one of those people who liked the trainy places in EQ, mostly because of the constant stream of events. Watching the combat in this video gives me that same feel

.

The mobs look awesome, I think, but their animation seemed a little bit choppy still. But Aradune said in the quote that animations are being worked on, so I have faith.

Lastly, I'm wondering something. Would it be possible to add some sort of echo to the character sounds whenever they enter a huge hall like this? I think that would be great for immersion.

Giftmacher · 09-03-2006, 08:05 AM

Part of the main PR or not, these videos are a great idea. Everyone loves beta info and if a picture paints a thousand words a video writes a novel.

Gift.

thuvia · 09-03-2006, 10:01 AM

the vid looks good, of course, but what's with all the disappearing popup windows? they pop up and faster than i can read them they disappear. i don't know if that's a function of the vid (so that no sekret sauce is released) or if that's how the game actually plays. if it IS how the game plays, why? if it's an information box that lets you know what you could/should be doing, it's too fast for me to make any sense out of it. the only thing that those boxes will do is distract me.

Miron · 09-03-2006, 10:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lightpaw

It seems great to me.. and i'd like it rather longer than shorter... killing everything in 15-20 seconds (think eq2) needs no skill... and doesn't give you any respect for the mobs either... just stick to your "less but meaningful" motto there too please

I like the longer fight durations as well. I thought WoW was too fast. It was more of "LOL DAMAGE!!!11!" than orchestrating a fight.

Skarlath · 09-03-2006, 10:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thuvia

the vid looks good, of course, but what's with all the disappearing popup windows? they pop up and faster than i can read them they disappear. i don't know if that's a function of the vid (so that no sekret sauce is released) or if that's how the game actually plays. if it IS how the game plays, why? if it's an information box that lets you know what you could/should be doing, it's too fast for me to make any sense out of it. the only thing that those boxes will do is distract me.

Jerrith said on FOH that he had enabled a non-default setting that causes tooltips to display when he mouses-over his abilities. They are flashing up and then disappearing because he is only skimmning his mouse across them. I'm sure if you wanted to read them you could just hover over them for a while.

Otarin · 09-03-2006, 11:22 AM

Very cool video.

I love how Jerrith's cleric is actually participating in the fight instead of just watching health bars. That should help cut down on the rate of healer burnout that has been a problem in every MMO I've ever played. The attack that gives a chance at mana regen (kind of like the WoW paladin's judgement of wisdom) is great too, helping them fulfill their primary role by using their secondary abilities.

The simulacrum was awesome too. I'm not usually very interested in the robe-type classes (I generally stick to healers and tanks), but Vanguard's arcane casters are pretty appealing. I'd like to see a sorceror.

Cobalt Katze · 09-03-2006, 01:09 PM

Do I hear electric guitar?

Adam · 09-03-2006, 01:25 PM

I know lots of people who are very appreciative of your efforts to bring the mini-gameplay videos to the masses. Thank you to Silkyvenom for hosting and to Jerrith for putting the video together while keeping medium settings. Vanguard looks like it's headed in the right direction.

vitakorpen · 09-03-2006, 01:59 PM

very happy to see things coming along so nicely, my guild is really starting to get excited about the game these videos really help cheers jerrith!