[Rourke]

I had just got into Beta, and i remember thinking how lucky i was just before Xmas and all to get a sneak peek a the next great MMO. Fast foward to now.....and yeah.

I'm thinking of coming back in to see what's going on, and how the pops are, but is it worth it?

I mean.....really? Is anyone really still playing, what are the current pops, and how many servers are left up?

I tried to play EQ2 again, but that lasted me about 2 weeks before i realized why I left to begin with, lol.

COD4 is my only game atm I play, and i can't kill people forever.

Waiting for Darkfall is a long one.......so...lemme know guys.....how's it looking?

[Mreynolds]

4 servers. Halgar and Sartok both ghost towns. Xeth and Seradon are both low pop during day and medium at night. Although Seradon does hit the occasional high. With the ping issues and such I would say wait a bit longer. Khal looks just like something out of EQ2 now though.

[peppy13]

Originally Posted by Rourke

I had just got into Beta, and i remember thinking how lucky i was just before Xmas and all to get a sneak peek a the next great MMO. Fast foward to now.....and yeah.

I'm thinking of coming back in to see what's going on, and how the pops are, but is it worth it?

I mean.....really? Is anyone really still playing, what are the current pops, and how many servers are left up?

I tried to play EQ2 again, but that lasted me about 2 weeks before i realized why I left to begin with, lol.

COD4 is my only game atm I play, and i can't kill people forever.

Waiting for Darkfall is a long one.......so...lemme know guys.....how's it looking?

Do yourself a favor and stick with COD4.

[tdewey10]

Originally Posted by Rourke

I had just got into Beta, and i remember thinking how lucky i was just before Xmas and all to get a sneak peek a the next great MMO. Fast foward to now.....and yeah.

I'm thinking of coming back in to see what's going on, and how the pops are, but is it worth it?

I mean.....really? Is anyone really still playing, what are the current pops, and how many servers are left up?

I tried to play EQ2 again, but that lasted me about 2 weeks before i realized why I left to begin with, lol.

COD4 is my only game atm I play, and i can't kill people forever.

Waiting for Darkfall is a long one.......so...lemme know guys.....how's it looking?

If you bought it and played in live there is a free trial starting the 18th.

It's quite fun these days. APW is a blast.

[Choctaw]

Wow...haven't seen you in a while Rourke. Best of luck in whatever game you try.

[anagain]

Originally Posted by tdewey10

If you bought it and played in live there is a free trial starting the 18th.

It's quite fun these days. APW is a blast.

Sorry to be negative again, but no game should rely on end game raiding emphasis to become a hit. I know they all do seem to these days but perhaps that is a sign that MMOs are in decline.

We are at the end on days and waiting for a messiah to bring back the fabled code...

[Brikk]

Originally Posted by anagain

Sorry to be negative again, but no game should rely on end game raiding emphasis to become a hit. I know they all do seem to these days but perhaps that is a sign that MMOs are in decline.

We are at the end on days and waiting for a messiah to bring back the fabled code...

It depends what you want.. The end game raiding is the only reason I play these types of games. If I wanted to solo or just party my way up I would play a single or multiplayer game. Oblivion for example is a kick ass fun game... however once I run through it one time I'm over it... it's the same with MMO's. When I max the level then I'm ready for something else which usually entails some sort of raiding.

[Kurron Nye]

This time last year I was neck deep in the VG-beta , having started playing when Beta 3 opened up (September or something?), at that time I though VG was the 'mostest awsomest', and I still held Brad McQuaid in high esteem.

I recall Test 1 server getting over 8,000 people on at the same time, and the Test 2 server was close behind with around 7,000+, and the Test PvP server was around 4,000. (Recall the test servers actually were giving population information on the server select screen at that time).

Now its one year later and those numbers seem to sum up the total # of active VG players left in the game :-( I wonder if the same people who were in beta are the ones who make up the bulk of the remaining population? That is I would be curious to know what is the higher number of active VG players..is it people who played since beta 3 or earlier or is it people who started playing on Launch Day?


Well at least we dont have stuff from beta still, like the whole chunk crashes every 10 minutes..it was sorta cool tho seeing people in chat all saying at the same time.."server crash coming"..hehe guess the node that ran the chunk would crash but the chat servers would still be alive, at least until you
got punted back to character select.

And lag...recall what is was like the first time the devs handed out griffons during beta?..in Khal no less..every d00d in the game crammed into Khal, bringing EVERYONE's frame rate down to like 2 fps, then the chunk would crash lol.

Then of course there was the random character appearances..oh wait that made it live..DOH!

Tho I do recall the last night of beta..sailing my sloop around Qalia, listening to Brad McQuaid's in-game speech rolling across GM chat with the hope that the game would be so much better on January 31st.....

Well we know how that worked out don't we?

sigh...

[AsheMan]

Originally Posted by tdewey10

If you bought it and played in live there is a free trial starting the 18th.

It's quite fun these days. APW is a blast.

Today is the 18th. Is the trial available?

[Joodah]

Originally Posted by AsheMan

Today is the 18th. Is the trial available?

Some accounts are available today, rest will be tommorow:

Everything is going as planned. Right now the accounts are in the process of being activated by an automated process that does them in batches. It may take a bit more than a day for everyone's accounts to be activated, but they are not losing time because the timer starts from the moment the returning player activates. So everyone wins, it's just a matter of letting the system get them all in!

Sorry that we didn't reply on this earlier. Ellyra is out for the holiday and I wanted to overly validate the details before I posted them and added any confusion. Hopefully I didn't!

Update:
Scratch that information. The team flipping the switches hit a snag they didn't expect and we are changing our plans to adapt and best serve the returning players. The accounts will be reactivated tomorrow, and we are going to keep them open until the 17th of January (200 as a means of making sure everyone gets a chance to get in. Sorry for the confusion and fast change of plans, but we want to make sure everyone gets to come back to Vanguard, and ensure that the snag does not cut anyone's time short!

-Grimwell

[Mreynolds]

Originally Posted by AsheMan

Today is the 18th. Is the trial available?

Just another thing they cant seem to get right. It is what it is I suppose. Everything with this game hits a snag or new ones keep getting created and rarely do they ever have answers as to why. Only the we will get back to you responses

[Treesong]

I don't get it, is this a free trial or just a reactivation of old accounts? That is something quit different. Not that I will try it, just wondering why they are so hesitant to promote their game through a Free Trial.

Maybe only re-subscribers will be able to appreciate the progress to whatever it is now, since they knew the game in *abysmal* state. I guess it is still not good enough to show to the world again.

[kcxiv]

Originally Posted by Treesong

I don't get it, is this a free trial or just a reactivation of old accounts? That is something quit different. Not that I will try it, just wondering why they are so hesitant to promote their game through a Free Trial.

Maybe only re-subscribers will be able to appreciate the progress to whatever it is now, since they knew the game in *abysmal* state. I guess it is still not good enough to show to the world again.

Its just reactivating all the accounts for the xmas holidays. Nothing more, nothing less.

[tdewey10]

Originally Posted by Treesong

I don't get it, is this a free trial or just a reactivation of old accounts? That is something quit different. Not that I will try it, just wondering why they are so hesitant to promote their game through a Free Trial.

Maybe only re-subscribers will be able to appreciate the progress to whatever it is now, since they knew the game in *abysmal* state. I guess it is still not good enough to show to the world again.

They won't offer a free trial until at a minimum the newbie island is done.

[Treesong]

Originally Posted by tdewey10

They won't offer a free trial until at a minimum the newbie island is done.

Ah ok, that makes sense. I am not a fan at all of newbie islands but I can understand they postpone the trial until that is ready.

I guess the whole newbie island concept is hard to avoid. Where do you funnel your new players or re-rollers to once your game has matured? I hear in WoW everyone is leveling up in the Burning Crusade expansion though I guess you still have to start in your hometown if you want to play a non-TBC race.

Will it ever be possible to keep a population going in your original starter areas? I remember Sigil saying that cities never would be deserted, but not sure if that worked out, also because newbies in Vanguard do not really start in the cities (which was fine by me). How do you keep starter areas populated? Oh well, something for another thread, another forum, another MMO in the making......

[acrobat]

Originally Posted by Treesong

I remember Sigil saying that cities never would be deserted, but not sure if that worked out,

It's probably hard to tell considering their entire game is deserted =P

Originally Posted by Treesong

How do you keep starter areas populated? Oh well, something for another thread, another forum, another MMO in the making......

I think they did as good as is possible without going crazy really. I had to go back to the city every 2 levels, to learn my new spells and to buy and sell my virtual crap. And everyone who was a crafter or diplomat hung out in the cities too. So that alone made them much more bustling than something like EQ.

I think they did a good job in that respect. Just a shame about the rest of the game ;P

[Kurron Nye]

Originally Posted by Treesong

Ah ok, that makes sense. I am not a fan at all of newbie islands but I can understand they postpone the trial until that is ready.

I guess the whole newbie island concept is hard to avoid. Where do you funnel your new players or re-rollers to once your game has matured? I hear in WoW everyone is leveling up in the Burning Crusade expansion though I guess you still have to start in your hometown if you want to play a non-TBC race.

Will it ever be possible to keep a population going in your original starter areas? I remember Sigil saying that cities never would be deserted, but not sure if that worked out, also because newbies in Vanguard do not really start in the cities (which was fine by me). How do you keep starter areas populated? Oh well, something for another thread, another forum, another MMO in the making......

When Sigil was saying how the starting cities were never going to be empty, they were talking out of their asses considering how their design decisions seemly negated the value of those cites. It seems they thought civic diplomacy was going to be THE thing that made people come to the cities.

Well as it turned out, few people relative to the overall playerbase actually play diplomacy, making the buff you want available only on a spotty basis, and the adventurers did not care about the buffs, especially early on when it meant wasting half the buff duration trekking from the city to your adventure area...whose bright idea was that? Then the buffs themselves were not all that interesting to players (mainly adventurers).

THen the outposts come equipped with EVERYTHING you need, crafting tables, taskmasters, banks, mailboxes, brokersand the outposts are closer to the mainstream housing plots, so again, why go back to the big cities?..especially since there are riftways CLOSER to the outposts!!

So it seems cities are only relevant to diplomacy play and utterly irrelevant to adventure play, and only of moderate interest to crafting. Does not bode well for a city's usefullness does it?

This was easy to see early on..I saw it in beta as the surge of players migrated out of their starting areas on seemingly fixed paths and you could see over time how the outflow tapered off..few were coming back to their starting areas and even fewer were entering the game, making those areas dead zones. Even in 'hub' cities like Khal the numbers were low since the crafters hate the lag and are motivated move out.

Anyway, there are major holes in Sigil's implementation, and it seems very little was put in to prevent the starting areas from becoming useless.

As it stand now, cities are only of use to diplomats (people who want guild halls), and the APW is really the only place that matters overall now. Everything else is just filler it seems.

[Caldis]

Yeah it's too bad about the cities, they put in a lot of artwork and some nice design so the places look nice. Too bad there's no reason to go to them.

Bordinar's Cleft is amazing, Leth Nurae is pretty cool, New Targonor was massive, and Aghram was really nice if you flew in over top of it. Unfortunately like I said there was no reason to be in them, nothing to do in them so why bother being there.

[Treesong]

Originally Posted by Kurron Nye

When Sigil was saying how the starting cities were never going to be empty, they were talking out of their asses considering how their design decisions seemly negated the value of those cites. It seems they thought civic diplomacy was going to be THE thing that made people come to the cities.

Well as it turned out, few people relative to the overall playerbase actually play diplomacy, making the buff you want available only on a spotty basis, and the adventurers did not care about the buffs, especially early on when it meant wasting half the buff duration trekking from the city to your adventure area...whose bright idea was that? Then the buffs themselves were not all that interesting to players (mainly adventurers).

THen the outposts come equipped with EVERYTHING you need, crafting tables, taskmasters, banks, mailboxes, brokersand the outposts are closer to the mainstream housing plots, so again, why go back to the big cities?..especially since there are riftways CLOSER to the outposts!!

So it seems cities are only relevant to diplomacy play and utterly irrelevant to adventure play, and only of moderate interest to crafting. Does not bode well for a city's usefullness does it?

This was easy to see early on..I saw it in beta as the surge of players migrated out of their starting areas on seemingly fixed paths and you could see over time how the outflow tapered off..few were coming back to their starting areas and even fewer were entering the game, making those areas dead zones. Even in 'hub' cities like Khal the numbers were low since the crafters hate the lag and are motivated move out.

Anyway, there are major holes in Sigil's implementation, and it seems very little was put in to prevent the starting areas from becoming useless.

As it stand now, cities are only of use to diplomats (people who want guild halls), and the APW is really the only place that matters overall now. Everything else is just filler it seems.

I once called VG a disconnected jumble of features and I think your post illustrates the lack of coherence of the world they were building. I remember those Diplo buffs when I was in BC (during beta) and thought they were a kinda cool idea. Even then I was wondering if those buffs were strong and long-duration enough to make people go back to the cities.

I also thought New Targonor was a very well conceived city although I could only explore while it was not populated with NPC's yet. Its location on a cliff with the underground harbor in the cave and the small harbor at the cliff was ultra-cool. I remember fantasizing about how cool that place would be once they had implemented NPC's with scripts and possibly some aquaducts and other cool hidden places.

Then I log in a few weeks later and NT is gone: now I only see barren wasteland littered with "housing" signs. I think they relocated the city but was it ever populated? Or did they make a hunting ground out of it? Anyway, I was flabbergasted how they had managed to take out the one thing that actually had me in awe. I mean Leth Nurae, the Hobbittown and BC are very, very boring places, very 2D in their design, no matter how many "majestic" buildings you litter around the area. BC was so simple in its layout that I could not believe there was not more to it.

But NT was something that reminded me a little of the complexity of the old EQ cities, and even better in several ways. More epic, better graphics though it lacked the hidden areas/sewers still. And then it was gone.

Following VG for so many years has been a ride riddled with disappointment after disappointment and even now I can get upset about things like taking racial KoS out. And I don't even play it.
I guess VG just made it clear that the MMO genre is going in a direction where I do not want to follow.

Oh well.

[acrobat]

I feel the exact same way Treesong.