[Sergo]

But Silky Venom devtracker is now my home page. Add me to the list of people who are addicted to a game they haven't played yet.

Oloh's posts have induced me to throw my normal game-in-development reservations to the wind. The M:tG style combat will make Vanguard an order of magnitude better than second generation games. Now if they can just rip off A Tale in the Desert's community building projects (and make them mean something, unlike Horizons) we can dispense with third generation talk and go directly to fourth, do not pass Go, do not collect 200 dollars.

[Orlun]

Thats quite a statement and a good dream to have Sergo.

[Havelock]

But I really want to collect $200.

[Skarlath]

200$ is the Bael'Zharon.

The combat examples Oloh has divulged would have had the same effect on me, if I wasn't already at max-hype (but in an 'expectations fully managed' way, naturally). If Sigil's diplomacy and crafting systems are anywhere near as good then the game will destroy competition, Im sure.

I agree with you about the community building projects - so much potential there. Can't wait to find out more when the time comes for Sigil to thow us more sauce.

[Elrar (of Silky Venom)]

For those who've never played a tale in the desert, or Horizons, what is this community building project?

But, I agree, this hype is far too much to ignore, especially when the sauce keeps reaffirming it

[Karalin]

Hi,

I too really liked Oloh's write up on the Combat system, and I've spent a lot of time wondering how Bards are going to fit into it

Oh, must be my first post - hi everyone.

[Labyrrinth]

Hi Karalin!

Welcome to SV

[Elrar (of Silky Venom)]

Originally Posted by Karalin

Hi,

I too really liked Oloh's write up on the Combat system, and I've spent a lot of time wondering how Bards are going to fit into it

Oh, must be my first post - hi everyone.

Firstly, welcome!

And I too am a lover of bards

To help with confidence boosting however, Talisker, the person bestowed with the task of adventuring class development, played and loved being a bard back in EQ. He's expressed to me his love for the class, and his drive to do them justice in Vanguard.

We'll have to wait and see, but I think we're all in for something special

[Karalin]

Originally Posted by Elrar

Firstly, welcome!

And I too am a lover of bards

To help with confidence boosting however, Talisker, the person bestowed with the task of adventuring class development, played and loved being a bard back in EQ. He's expressed to me his love for the class, and his drive to do them justice in Vanguard.

We'll have to wait and see, but I think we're all in for something special

Please don't say any more, the waiting is bad enough as it is

But as someone that played a Bard from Kunark through to PoP, I don't bother if Bards are underpowered, as long as we're fun

[Havelock]

Hi Karalin!

[Skarlath]

Hey Karalin! Welcome to Silky Venom - Your one stop shop for all things Vanguard! Are you a new member to the Vanguard community as a whole, or just to SV? If it's the former: Delight yourself with the magical workings of the wiki! If the latter, I hope you'll be sticking around to discuss all the juicy titbits we've been getting recently.

Originally Posted by Elrar

For those who've never played a tale in the desert, or Horizons, what is this community building project?

Well have never spent much time in ATitD and have never tried Horizons, but this is what I know.

In ATitD the game can be won. You win by completing the challenge of building all of the monuments. Construction in ATitD takes the form of a variety of disciplines (of which I am not too clued up about). Different players will specialise in certain areas of crafting as they progress, and the construction of the monuments requires all different areas of crafting. The construction of monuments (and many of the larger building projects) is a huge task. It requires many many many players to take part. People chip in, gathering, crafting sub-components, components and finally it culminates in the finished product.

Lots of people play ATitD, and yet crafting is all there is. If you press these players for information they will cry out that they play for the love of the community. Everyone working together, helping each other progress towards a common goal.

In Horizons, you can build houses, and I believe some other buildings too. These can be fairly large projects. Not only do they require resources, but they also require a fair amount of a player's time. I'm not quite sure what the player has to actively do specifically to 'advance' the building project, but I know that it goes faster if multiple people are working on it at one time.

And so when people want to build a community, you will see them all helping each other out. Often people contract drifters in to help work on their house. Some people don't want to have to put in the time, and so they earn money and pay others to do some of the work for them.

Alas, housing in Horizons apparently isn't all that useful.

Now an interesting part of Horizon's construction are community projects, separate to housing. I can't list a whole range of these, but from what I hear they are more like events. I believe I once heard of an event where a new island was found off the coast. For one reason or another, to defeat the new evil on this new island, the players had to build some sort of bridge out to the island. So you had the whole community helping out - crafters setting to work on the bridge and more combat orientated characters fighting off the really tough new bad guys who were determined to see the project come to a halt.

Horizon players often become misty-eyed when they talked about community projects, so their devs must have some something right!

Horizons has a 14 day free trial on at the moment. I might give it a go whilst I wait for that magical yet elusive email - for quite a while I have wanted to try out the crafting system which many deem 'the best yet'.

Originally Posted by Elrar

But, I agree, this hype is far too much to ignore, especially when the sauce keeps reaffirming it

Did you hear the recent announcement from Sigil? They have had to lay off most of their community relations staff as expectations have just become impossible to manage in light of the fantastic dribbles of sauce we have been getting.

[Elrar (of Silky Venom)]

Originally Posted by Skarlath

Hey Karalin! Welcome to Silky Venom - Your one stop shop for all things Vanguard!...
...Did you hear the recent announcement from Sigil? They have had to lay off most of their community relations staff as expectations have just become impossible to manage in light of the fantastic dribbles of sauce we have been getting.

Thanks for explaining It does sound very interesting, and I may try that trial as I'm bored as well, and UT2k4 while entertaining, doesnt give me the same satisfaction or involvement an MMO can, regardless of how bad said MMO is

and as the CR team leaving thatd be terrible!

You cant get rid of Cindy and Glip theyll just ride the saucy river until it dries up...for now

[Skarlath]

For those interested, the Horizons site has a small amount to say on its construction:

Personal Property,Community Buildings, Artifacts and Emprire Structures.

In the empire structures section they actually mention the island bridge example that I had heard about.


I might download the client tomorrow, I have just been playing Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory to get my gaming fix. If you want we could have a go at it together (along with any other Silky Venomers who'd like to try it out). Often with games that are a little bit old is there isn't anyone to enjoy it with, so playing it together might be a good solution.


And I don't think it would even be possible to get rid of Glip and Cindy - they are just intrinsically 'Sigil' and are just way too cool.

[Orlun]

If I wasn't going to be gone the next week, I'd take you up on that. I played Horizions from release day for a month. It would be cool to see how they've changed it. If you do play, take note of the way the races start together. Yech!

[Elrar (of Silky Venom)]

well I'm downloading it now, cause I'm bored

Though I can wait till tomorrow to play, plenty of other things to do

[Skarlath]

Hehe, what time zone are you in?

[Elrar (of Silky Venom)]

Eastern

[Sergo]

Originally Posted by Orlun

Thats quite a statement and a good dream to have Sergo.

My expectations are recklessly unmanaged.

Horizons and Tale both had enormous community building projects which Skarlath described pretty well. Tale did it better on a couple of fronts. Both games involved scores of players in each massive construction.

In Horizons, there didn't feel like there was much payoff for the projects. Most single player buildings were nonfunctional back when I played, and the really mohunkin' huge projects often didn't feel to me like they were even worth doing. Some of them seemed to have no point (the island beyond the bridge was no big deal), and other times, devs weren't even ready with the content that the "wonder" (think Civ) was supposed to unlock. Players would finish something then have to wait a day or two for devs to flip a switch or do a patch or something. Killer for immersion and made the projects less exciting. Didn't feel like you were really changing the world.

Tale projects always unlocked some new technology or abilities that many people could take advantage of. I still remember successfully creating a very rare gem cut to donate to a serverwide project. It was a tradeskill that required player skill as well as time invested going through rough gems at the cutting table, and I was very proud of it.

In both games, though, projects were major community events. Leaders emerged who excelled in organizing people. Others became renowned for their contributions in a particular trade. And many many people did at least a little bit. Excitement built around the project. You made new friends and earned respect.

Vanguard doesn't NEED these kind of massive-scale projects to be a good game. But if they can nail it, they will blow people away.

[Orlun]

Epic Crafting comes to mind. Structures so big and recipes so complicated that they most likely need to be broken down into seperate steps, each taking teams of crafters.

/drool

[Elrar (of Silky Venom)]

Ok well, Horizons downloaded, installed, patched, and I play, I'm runnin around with my lil baby dragon, and It crashes, the game refuses to function, and it aint me

so I guess there goes the Horizons idea!

and btw Sergo, that sounds really awesome, I hate crafting, but thats really cool