A Valid Point raised…

Quote from Silky Venom Forum  posted by Kurron Nye - Stop whining about making the game ‘easier’ Why?Because you folks who do not like the game changes to make access easier have a choice..they can choose to NOT use these features and functions.

You do not like the riftway? Then get on your mount and ride everywhere. You do not like the inter-continental teleporter? Then get a caravel and sail via the sea portals. You do not like corpse summon at altars? Then choose not to summon and instead do a CR every time.

You do not like Rest XP or the ease of XP gain? Then rack up twice as much XP debt so each level takes twice as long to complete.You want more challenging encounters? Then take on 4/5 dots with less than a full group, and do not use groups at all for 3-dots.

The point here is these ‘accesibility’ options are OPTIONAL, so if you are a person who truly believes in make the game harder, then yo would choose NOT to use them. However, I seriously doubt that any of the ‘anti-dumbing down’ crowd have boycotted these new features, and in fact use them in every play session. That to me says that part of the vocal minority has no legs to stand on..they are saying one thing while doing the opposite in practice.

They post about how ‘easy’ the game is while at the same time taking full advantage of the game’s ease. One could respect their arguments if they actually practiced what they preached and played this game in the manner they wish to force on everyone else. Thats also the rub…the methods of gameplay they want have NOT been taken away, but instead alternative forms of gameplay have ben offered. The ‘hardcore’ could choose to make their gameplay adhere to the standards they alledgedly support but do they? How can their arguments be taken seriously when they themselves will not play the game ‘hardcore’ when the ability is sitting right in front of them? (and there are gigabytes worth of posts over the years in the hardcore vs. casual debate which show what ‘hardcore’ MMO gamers seem to want)

To me, it proves that the core argument in favor of ‘hardcore’ gameplay is NOT to make their own gameplay harder, but to make everyone’s else’s game harder so they can appear superior in comparison.

Yea..wonderful eh? Rather than raise themselves up, they choose to lower everyone else. Sounds more like Communism than anything.

SO really hardcore folks, what is limiting you from playing ‘hardcore’ like yo claim to want on VG? I do not see how SOE has prevented you from playing the game the wa you want. You seem to simply advocate forcing everyone else to play the game the way *you* want.

P.S. Please bear in mind I am not against making games more challenging, the point is if challenging gameplay is so important to you, why do you not make the game more challenging for yourselves, rather than browbeat SOE and people who play differently than you? Why is it the game cannot be ‘fun’ for YOU unless everyone else if forced to conform to your worldview?

Do you REALLY want to group with people who are only with you because they HAVE to be there? Seems to me you would be trying to dungeon dive with people who would leave you to rot the first chance they got.

     I can’t say enough how glad I was to see this post on the Silky Venom forum.  Silky Venom has long been the top place for many people to post thier discontent about Vanguard.  Occasionally, posts or replies like these are made to add some perspective and balance to the norm.  I can certainly understand that some are genuinely discouraged and have had negative experiences in the game.   However, many of the posts at Silky Venom are blatant attacks on the game and employees at SOE ( both past and present ).  What I see on the forums is a lot of pissing and moaning from disgruntled individuals… The question most obvious to me would be, “So where are all the positive posts?”.   For me, rather than wasting my time posting on a forum in which I would most certainly dog piled upon, I choose to enjoy the game.  My positive outlet is through blogging.  Hopefully, the developement staff at SOE takes the forum posts with a grain of salt and realizes that these posts come from the “Vocal Minority”.

Fun Mode /on

     Early Wednesday morning, Gaellesepie finally realized his goal of reaching level 40.  I really feel like I have accomplished quite a bit, considering that it took me several months to hit 40 on my first character.  While it was fun, I do not expect I will ever want to level another character up in such a way again.  Now that I have finally reached my goal, I will be spending a lot more time crafting and looking to group with guildmates and little to no time soloing.  In the future, you can expect to see more colorful reports in my updates with pictures (my wife says my blog is boring).  Also, I expect to post a bit less frequently, but in the future, I hope to have a lot better quality and substance within them.  Don’t be surprised to see guides and tips for quests and classes as well.

For anyone who is interested, you can see Head GM Moonlite’s profile here.

Vanguard Predictions for 2008 (and 2009)

    What have you done for me lately? - At some point this year, I expect an announcement that the first Vanguard expansion will be released in 2009.  Many will argue that it is way too soon to consider an expansion for a game with so many existing bugs.  While that may or may not be true, I think that the development team should be happy with their progress and the game is finally becoming a much more stable and user friendly.  I think that SOE will soon realize that the only way they will be able to bring people back into the game is to offer a solid expansion, full of dynamic group and raid content.  Let’s face it… If SOE wants to retain current players, reclaim past players and expand its player base, Vanguard needs to give us all a good reason to do so.  Some features that will be included will be; instanced quest lines, more mount selection, rededication to lore and diplomacy and the debut of the Inquisitor and Berserker classes.

     Instancing – Instancing is going to become a reality, whatever SOE wants to call it.  Although people will complain about it, SOE knows from experience that when done correctly, instancing can do miracles in terms of adding dynamic game content that can offer an easier way for players to band together in more a central location.   Instancing will become a huge part of Vanguard and I think that this time, SOE will get the job done right.

     World Content – While I don’t expect to see much done here, I think we can expect some more content to become available in areas that currently are not well utilized and will mostly be made available to levels in the 40-50+ range.

     Increased Level Cap and Alternate Advancement – The biggest complaint that I normally hear from my fellow players is that there is nothing to do once they reach level 50.  Aside from raid content, that is a point I can’t really argue with.  That is why in addition to increasing the level cap, I expect some form of AA to be released in the next expansion.

     Return of Guild Mates Passed On – Most of your friends that have moved on from the game will be back to check out the changes.   Whether these mysterious people will stay in the game will depend on the quality of the expansion.

     Negativity – Whether or not I am right about my predictions, negativity will continue to surround Vanguard.  Reality is that some people just have to have something to complain about.   At least for the next year or two, it will continue to be fashionable to bash Vanguard and predict it’s impending doom, mostly by people that no longer play the game. 

    Success – Vanguard will never become as popular as WoW, but I do expect it to be just as popular as Everquest and Everquest II.  I think that there is a huge opportunity for SOE to make a move with Vanguard in the upcoming year, but only if they seize the opportunity.  I think that the people at SOE have plenty experience with the production of MMOs to recognize that fact as well as the ability to deliver.

      Shut Up, We’re Talking – After the release the increasingly hyped Warhammer and Conan, the entire cast will spend all of their time playing Vanguard after a hugely successful expansion.  In retaliation, Brent will change the name of the Podcast to “Shut up, We’re Talking About Vanguard”.  Karen and Troy will return to Vanguard, where Troy will two box a Monk named 55378008 (type it in a calculator and read it upside down) and a busty, blonde cleric named ILuvULngTiiiime MeezaHorneey.  Karen will play a Halfling Bard, whose armor will be dyed all the colors of the rainbow.

Instancing and Rewards

            Today, I was able to catch the latest episode of Equal Perspectives.   Troy and Karen were talking about epics and mentioned some ideas that Mighty Dar had about grouping.  This got me to thinking about what I would like to see in Vanguard or even another not too distant MMO.  I have fond memories from Everquest of Epic questing as well as some great reward based quests, such as DON.  I would really like to see the developers find a creative way to bring players back together and give them more reasons to group together.  I think the biggest problem, I have had with Vanguard is the fact that there is so much content and so many different things to work on in Vanguard, that the population is fractured, even among guild mates.   My idea is to offer a centralized reward system to players based upon quests they complete similar to the one used in the Dragons or Norrath expansion, but on a much grander scale.   The way the DoN system worked was that players banded together and would accept an instanced quest.  Upon completion of these quests, they were rewarded with either ebons or radiant crystals.   Once you have enough crystals, you could purchase equipment from vendors.   While these items weren’t top notch, they were good.   It was a great way to gear up my characters and I don’t recall ever having a problem finding a DoN group.

             What I would like to see in Vanguard would be the same type of system, but not limited to just one expansion.  Where they went wrong with DoN was that you could only get ebons and radiant crystals from DoN instances.  I would hope that Vanguard would not make that same mistake.  Instead of limiting the reward system to just one expansion, carry the concept throughout the game.  Instead of making a brand new system with every expansion, simply add more rewards available at a higher cost and offer new quests and instances.  This is one of the primary reasons that I ended up leaving Everquest.  Every time a new expansion came out, there was brand new system in place, that made any earlier expansions irrelevant.  By offering a universal system, players would be bettering themselves no matter which quest line they were working on.

            Speaking of epics, I could see how this concept could be integrated into the same system.  Each class could have its own series of tasks and storylines that would need to be completed.  If they were incorporated into this system, there would be plenty of incentive for other players to come along, as they would be receiving credit towards their rewards.   Perhaps you would even offer a bonus to players assisting in the quest by offering them with a higher reward rate.   Also, to avoid exploitation, these quests would only be available as a quest line series and not repeatable once completed.  Access quests to raid zones could be handled similarly. 

           And what about raid gear?  I firmly believe that raid gear should be noticeably better than quested and crafted gear, but not ridiculously so.  The way I would put it, is that better quested gear should be attainable by the average person and would be necessary to be able to visit the current raid zones.  Crafted gear and quested gear should be of similar value.  Raid gear should be much more difficult to get and require defeating much more challenging encounters. 

           Another idea that I really liked was evolving items from Everquest, I’m assuming Everquest II has something similar.  These items were always a lot of fun and give you more feeling of accomplishment.  I think that evolving items could even be used as epic type items, similar to what Karen and Troy were talking about.   The item could received fairly easily to begin with, but to reach full effectiveness, a line of quests would need to be completed.  I thought that was a most excellent idea.  Hopefully, game developers will take notice.

            All of these ideas require the use of instancing.  I know that that a lot of people strongly oppose instancing.  That is something that I never did understand.  The benefits to instancing is an environment that will be free of lag, no contested content and allow the group to progress at a reasonable rate.  The only reasons that I can think of that you wouldn’t like instancing would be poorly designed zones and lack of contested content.  Honestly, I don’t understand the desire for strongly contested content.  I prefer to have fun playing my games, not fighting with rude or greedy players that do not share or have respect for others.

            Anyway, I had to get that off my mind and perhaps someday we will see something like this in Vanguard or some other MMO game sometime soon.

Running down the pack, cont…

            I hadn’t intended to make another posting this week and had planned to pretty much put it off until I reached my immediate goal of reaching level 40.  I have been pounding out the levels fairly well over the last week, mostly because my wife came down with a cold and has been turning in early every night.  I’ve been very effectively catching up as I have reached level 35 and have been having fun doing it.  My only regret is flying past a lot of good content, but I know it will be worth it to be able to group with guild mates once again.  This week, I finished out River Valley and spent a lot of time in Cragwind Ridge, Seawatch Coast and Berenaid Hills.  I also had the privilege to group with Meja and Quilin this week.  I hope to cap off Level 40 by next week, so that I can once again enjoy content and grouping as well as crafting in the downtime.