[mmorpeegee]

Sorry to open up old wounds...

I got in to Vanguard Beta just after they had changed the combat system. For those who don't know the story, the original Vanguard combat system was slower paced and very tactical and almost completely different to how it was on release and now.

Because I never played it for myself, I only had a rough idea of how it worked but it sounded really interesting. But I just did some research in to it and found a post describing it in quite a lot of detail! Two posts infact, and both of them are on SV. Here is the main one, written by Fozzik:
http://www.silkyvenom.com/forums/showthread.php?t=559

Anyway, my questions are for anyone who knows and anyone who cares to comment:

1) Why did they change it? Did the early beta testers not enjoy it? I remember people complaining it was slow. But did they think it was slow because they never understood all the intricate decision making stuff happening in between hits? Or did they understand it but just not like it?

2) Would you personally like to play a game with a combat system like that sometime? I would! I'm a big fan of Magic The Gathering (as was Brad apparently), and this old system sounds like a real time, MMO equivalent of that. I would have loved to see it work...



p.s. If anyone can find a link to any old Beta 0 screenshots that are not dead links, please let me know! I couldn't find any that are still active.

[Fozzik]

Holy moly...that's some pretty simple questions with REALLY long, drawn out, complicated answers.

I don't want to write a novel (done that several times over already, hehe)...I guess the best way to sum things up is to say that the Vanguard I played in friends and family beta (really an early alpha state) was the best Vanguard that ever existed in my opinion. It really was shaping up to be the game described in the original FAQ. The problem was that it was WAY behind, the scope was out of control, and the management of the company was just beginning to fall apart at that time.

Yes, some of the early testers did complain quite a bit that the system was slow, and boring, and whatever. I didn't agree. It was very different, to be sure, and I think that was the heart of the problem. From even the earliest testing that Sigil did, people (even internally within Sigil) were calling for the game to be more WoW-like in just about every system and mechanic. There were STRONG voices within the company and the community (even some employees who were out campaigning against the game on public sites, won't name any names) who felt that the game was too unfamiliar, or too inaccessible to the casual masses...that you COULDN'T POSSIBLY create a successful MMORPG that was different from WoW, because the WoW formula was the clear bible on success.

It's pretty typical in any MMORPG testing for there to be a faction who calls for a more WoW-like accessible, easier, shallow formula...especially if you're setting out to make a spiritual successor to EQ. The question is how the developers react to it...and that's where Sigil fell apart. Due to being behind, the project being out of control, and due to bad management and interpersonal issues that developed (some totally unforeseen and terribly sad events contributed), the "make it more like WoW" faction started gaining traction. Instead of fixing issues and finishing the game, Sigil started pulling and replacing whole systems without really any overall sense of how each affected the game.

I was part of a group of voices calling endlessly for them to fix and finish the great game that we saw glimpses of in early alpha, instead of trying to change it at the last minute into something else. At the heart of the issue was Sigil's fear...they were seeing things fall apart internally, and beta tester retention rates were terrible. Most players that tried the game early on in beta left...and Sigil was scrambling to understand why. I felt that the bad reaction of a lot of beta testers was because of the highly unfinished, unpolished state of the game (people were expecting a typical MMO beta - which is really just a free trial or stress test), NOT because the game was different from WoW.

After all, the huge pre-launch community that had built up around Vanguard was largely all people who LIKED what the original FAQ said, and the contrast that it provided to the "norm" in the modern genre. Because of the internal strife and lack of leadership, the wrong folks stepped up and began pulling the game in multiple different directions. The loudest voices were the ones who said that the low tester retention was because they weren't making WoW 2... and the rest is history.

Anyway, I don't know if that answered your questions. I'll try and be more concise -
1) Yes, a lot of people enjoyed it, thought it had awesome potential, and argued tooth and nail for it to remain in the game (along with so many other systems that were changed).

2) Yes, I very much would have loved to play the Vanguard that Sigil spent 4-5 years on...not the game that they spent 1 year creating right at the end before release. If only...

[mmorpeegee]

Awesome reply, thanks a lot Fozzik Better than I even hoped for. I think it's a shame they didn't have the conviction in their idea. It could have really set the game apart from all the others. It's strange because when I was researching it on the internet, I saw lots of articles and people talking about it and there was so much interest. And on this site is a post by Oloh talking all about it, and it has 4 pages of replies from LOTS of people who all seem really excited. I can't help but wonder just how many people would have ended up loving Vanguard because it was different to everything else, and very tactical. But we will never know just how many people are out there who would have really wanted a system like that... A few hundred thousand bought Vanguard but that might have been a lot more if they stuck with the original system. And whats more, they might have actually stuck around too, unlike how it panned out with pretty much everyone quitting in the first few months.

It's a shame. It sounded right up my street. I love MTG but it's expensive to buy the cards regularly, and I always dreamt of them making an MMO version of it. They finally did recently but it's a total rip off. Vanguard would have been perfect though, a fun MMO world but with very thoughtful and tactical combat.

I wonder how long we will have to wait until we see another system like that again.. Some of the newer MMO's are actually pretty good I think, in terms of combat. It has come a long way since EQ, but still, the old Vanguard system sounded really unique, shame I couldn't play it! Thanks again.

[Fozzik]

Oh yeah, a complete shame. Not just about combat, though. There were tons of people really excited about the original concepts...Something like 250k people on the boards like 2 years before release. I'd never seen anything like it. Imagine that feeling you have about combat multiplied by about 10x with many other systems in the game getting pulled or revamped the same way...a lot of the most dedicated fans really started to go, "WTF is happening?!" We were arguing about each individual tree, and the forest was burning down.

Imagine if half the Sistine Chapel's ceiling was painted...and you got in and looked up and saw what it was going to be. Then a bunch of other people joined you looking up, and said "Good lord, look at all the gaps and missing figures, this sucks!" and left. Then the church themselves decided that people were leaving because the painting was bad, so they got all the kids in the congregation to draw over the whole thing with crayon. Somewhat of an exaggeration, but you get the idea.

Then the community started to go south because you had all those original fans, plus all the people showing up who felt the game had to be more like WoW to succeed, with panicking developers in the middle who couldn't figure out why retention was so low in beta (it never seemed to occur to them that players in this genre have certain expectations about the completeness and polish for a game in beta, and it had nothing at all to do with their game design).

To top it all off, once Brad completely fell apart, he came here and blamed the die-hard fans for ruining the community because we weren't accepting of the people who wanted Vanguard to be a different game. So it was our fault the game flopped. Crazy.

This is of course only my recollection of events, so take it as such.

[mmorpeegee]

Haha nice analogy, pretty accurate too, sadly!

It's all pretty much in line with what I remember too. I remember being on the official forum right after it was created and soon after people started getting in to friends & family, and some guy (can't remember who) got to play the game at a Fanguard and gave out some info. It sounded amazing.

But by the time I got in to beta (I think I got in Beta 3 or 4), it was an entirely different game to what I expected. I was never sure if I was mislead, over-estimated what it was going to be, or if the game was just changed, but I think it was all three of those things unfortunately. That and the fact that they ran out of time and money, so some stuff just didn't even make it in.

The combat is the thing that hurts me the most though because that was the number one thing that attracted me to the game in the first place. I remember in like 2003 or something when the game was first announced, someone (Brad maybe) described it and specifically mentioned MTG inspired combat, and I was like But it never turned out.

I actually remember big discussions on the forum about the combat, and people were picking apart a quote about rounds taking 6 seconds. I remember posting at the time something like, "Even for tactical combat, 6 seconds does seem rather long". In hindsight I wish I stfu.... but the strange thing is that I expected the devs to reply with something like, "Well it does sound long but in reality you have so much to think about and react to, it wont feel long". But instead the reply came back from one of the devs and it was basically, "". I remember thinking wtf? Stick up for yourselves!

Then shortly after that I got in to beta and there was a lot of talk of people saying, "Combat is much faster now!" and I wrongly assumed that it was still the same system, just tweaked to be a bit faster. I was really excited and thought it was going to be perfect. Sadly I played it and soon realised it was not the system they started with :/ Oh well!

It lives on in my memory I hope some devs somewhere remember it too and might resurrect it some day in a new game. The current combat is pretty good these days, but I would still like to see a reeeeally deep and tactical one. MTG has its faults but after finally playing that game for myself, I have finally realised that no other type of 'combat' can really compete to the depth. Even a watered down rip off of MTG would be far above most games.

[Loampounder]

Wow, that post was six and a half years ago, almost two complete years before release.

I joined beta either during that change or just after. I do remember the old Leth Nurea and the combat-for-harvesting. I had not gained enough levels to appreciate the complexity in the combat system before they began to make major changes.

One issue you need to understand was that it was not just the pace of combat but the group-focused mentality. Many people wanted to include soloers in the audience, not to get stuck LFG for hours just to do combat, or be forced into a certain class choice because a combat group needed variety for certain moves. The combat system that Sigil originally built used different people with different talents for maximum lethality in a community-driven game; some people felt that the group focus went contrary to the market too much. I think, as the expenses mounted, Sigil was drawn too much to the possibility of mass appeal.

[Fozzik]

Originally Posted by Loampounder

Wow, that post was six and a half years ago, almost two complete years before release.

I joined beta either during that change or just after. I do remember the old Leth Nurea and the combat-for-harvesting. I had not gained enough levels to appreciate the complexity in the combat system before they began to make major changes.

One issue you need to understand was that it was not just the pace of combat but the group-focused mentality. Many people wanted to include soloers in the audience, not to get stuck LFG for hours just to do combat, or be forced into a certain class choice because a combat group needed variety for certain moves. The combat system that Sigil originally built used different people with different talents for maximum lethality in a community-driven game; some people felt that the group focus went contrary to the market too much. I think, as the expenses mounted, Sigil was drawn too much to the possibility of mass appeal.

Some people *wink* suggested a more organic, simpler way to put groups together that was immersive and involved AI (this was well before things like dungeon finders turned easier groups into the assembly-line it is today). An NPC in cities and towns (probably a barkeep) would act as a matchmaker...players would head to the local tavern (in homage to all fantasy fiction ever), and would be grouped up with the right people just by talking to the barkeep and answering some preference questions. Level, class, etc. would all be taken into account.

I agree that Sigil was drawn too much to the conventional wisdom...but I think by changing out some of the more unique systems and shallowing / speeding up the game...they actually decreased their "mass appeal". I think they could have been a very solid success if they had stuck to their guns and really catered to the original target audience. I don't think there's a single formula or game style that attracts the masses (even though I know the conventional wisdom says there is), instead, I think providing real variety and high quality...and innovative and fun ideas like diplomacy, the original combat, et al...would promote much more successful games.

Also, selling out to SOE dramatically reduced their potential audience. I probably would have revisited Vanguard multiple times over the years if it weren't for my refusal to ever give SOE another red cent.

[mmorpeegee]

Yeah the group thing struck me as being important too, especially after reading a lot of that old Oloh stuff. It makes me wonder if a system like this might have fitted better in more of an MORPG rather than MMORPG maybe one where you just play offline and then logon specifically to join a party, kind of like Neverwinter Nights or something, or Guild Wars. Although I suppose when the population is as big and healthy as WoW/Rift, matchmaking achieves instant groups anyway, even in big open persistant worlds.

The tavern matchmaker thing would be so much better. That's one thing I hated with Rift... I'm not even a RP'er or anything, but that was just silly. A little icon on the UI which would find you either a group or a battleground, and it would summon you there directly from wherever you are. So at max level you could spend the rest of your life in the one main town and never leave... just getting summoned to and from the groups. Really lame.

Sad about the VG original combat though. It's interesting to wonder how it might have affected popularity. Hard to know what 'the masses' would have made of it but I definitely would have liked to give it a good thorough play. I reckon I would have loved it too. The thing with these modern MMO's that have very fast combat, it's nice to spice things up a bit, but they are starting to intrude on to FPS territory. Especially now that some of them have Capture The Flag modes. Personally if I want fast paced action, I think a good FPS would suit me more. If I want tactical combat, the only thing that comes close (besides card games etc) is an RPG/MMORPG. They can overlap of course, but VG could have been pretty much out there completely by itself with a unique tactical combat system that nothing else had/has.

[tdewey10]

I missed original combat as well - it looks very interesting. Vanguard the game that might have been in so many ways. It's going to be a long time until we see a game that's close to what it was or could have been

[mmorpeegee]

Indeed!

p.s. I notice that Richard Garriot guy is still itching to make something. He sounds totally insane too, lol. Maybe he can come up with something sometime, I hope someone funds him.

[tdewey10]

Originally Posted by mmorpeegee

Indeed!

p.s. I notice that Richard Garriot guy is still itching to make something. He sounds totally insane too, lol. Maybe he can come up with something sometime, I hope someone funds him.

I doubt we'll see anything for that generation of gamers or from current established firms (SOE, Blizz).

Only hope are longshots like ArcheAge, Goblinworks, etc.

[mmorpeegee]

Yeah. I would love for some small indie team to get a cheap but ok engine, and make a super old school mmo out of it. Kind of like what they are doing with Dawntide, only better :P But yeah ArcheAge / Goblinworks are promising too.

[dabble]

p.s. If anyone can find a link to any old Beta 0 screenshots that are not dead links, please let me know! I couldn't find any that are still active.[/quote]

Not sure if this is zero, I think it's beta one. Only shot I could find on my machine. Nice to see the water with reflections though.

[Fozzik]

I didn't notice your P.S. about screenshots...I have a metric ton of screenshots. I actually still have the beta 1 install of the game backed up...including all their documentation and stuff... plus the UI mods I did (sort of started the modding community myself ).

Here's a few from late 2005. You can see the UI and things developing...but I think this was still the old combat system.






Can you guys see those images with the gallery turned off?

[tdewey10]

Can't see them with gallery off

[mmorpeegee]

Yeah same lol I saw all kinds of promising ones but the gallery is no go.

[perfect]

Originally Posted by Fozzik

...I have a metric ton of screenshots...Can you guys see those images with the gallery turned off?

1) Does the resolution play into the weight of a particular SS or do they all weigh the same?

2) I can see them just fine.

[Fozzik]

I believe it's set up so that staff can see the gallery even when it's disabled.


I'll turn it back on and see if anything explodes.

[Fozzik]

Gallery is back, and those images above should show for everyone now (I moved them to a public gallery).

http://www.silkyvenom.com/forums/gallery/

[mmorpeegee]

WOOT thanks man that's awesome!