[MUD-Dev2] [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants

[Mike Rozak]

Sean Howard wrote:

> Again, you are holding the genre against a genre game. But, I will say
> that the diplomacy quests change that quite a bit.

I plan to try diplomacy some more, but as soon as I went through the 
tutorial I came up with better ways Vanguard could have integrated the 
diplomacy game into the larger experience, which is what frustrated me. 
(More later.)

And yes, I am holding the genre against a genre game, which is why I said 
that perhaps I'm not the right player for Vanguard. Vanguard is a 
quintessential MMORPG, and I dislike it for that. It doesn't seem to strive 
for anything more (except, perhaps, diplomacy).

Side comment with oblique reference to Raph Koster's comment about 
extinction: Part of the reason that Adventure games are a nearly-dead genre 
is because they're stuck in the genre defined by Myst (puzzles in a pretty 
first-person world) and Kings Quest (sometimes-unintuitive tasks that must 
be completed in a third-person world). Evolve or become extinct. To greatly 
oversimply things, Vanguard is just EQ1 with a higher polygon count.


> Start a different character. The middle eastern guys start on top of a
> mountain overlooking a port city by the sea.

I'll have to try one of them then. However, I still see this as a design 
flaw, although I suspect you disagree. :-) If there are large variations in 
the starting experience of races and classes (which there should be), the 
race/class selection dialog should say, "Hey! This race is good for people 
who like X, Y, and Z." As I recall, the race selection just showed a lot of 
numbers and skills for each race.


> What class did you play? It matters. Plus, I should also point out that
> you are a level 1 character in a newbie area. Your options aren't exactly
> overflowing. I just can't shake the feeling that you don't like the genre.

I suppose my POV is that the purpose of the newbie area is to teach me the 
basics of playing the game. A game doesn't need to start characters out as 
an impoverished wimps just to hold up genre norms.

> I really think you should stick witht he diplomacy stuff. The card game
> remains simple, but the lore/interactions become more complex and
> interesting. As much as you seem to rag on Vanguard for being traditional,
> when it actually does something new and interesting, you don't seem too
> willing to try it out.

Again, I'll try diplomacy some more, when I'm given the opportunity. While 
my hours-old halfling character has encountered lots of foozles to kill, he 
has only encountered one diplomacy tutrorial NPC.

I think that as one of the brand-new features, (as opposed to combat, which 
is a well-known feature) diplomacy should have been introduced and 
emphasized early on. Again, the genre says that combat is the 
meat-and-potatoes of MMORPGs and that your first quest should be to kill 10 
rats, on a dark and stormy night.


> I don't know. Flying mounts were a huge selling point of WoW's expansion,
> but if you start from level 1, you still won't be seeing them for a while.
> Flying mounts and ships are but two of a great many selling points, the
> rest of which you can experience within the first 30 minutes. Gotta have
> something to look forward to.

Another genre disagreement. I payed my $50 for the game. I don't want to 
wait. I want a flying mount as soon as I can get one. It might just be a 
helium baloon, but that's a start. (The same goes for housing, etc. Give me 
a cardbord box to start with, and let me slowly upgrade that to a castle.)


>> And while hobbit holes with round doors are expected, they're a little
>> bit cliche, as well as the elven "city" being in giant tree from the
>> first character.
>
> Man, you know what I hate? Elves! And swords! Why can't they make games
> with, I don't know, space ships and laser guns? Again, you are critiquing
> a genre, not Vanguard.

I don't think so. I think I'm critiquing cliches. If you haven't read it, 
you might find the Eberron campaign book interesting. It's a D&D supplement 
that gets away from many D&D/Tolkien cliches. (Of course, I expect hobbitton 
and lothlorien to be in LOTRO, but that's because LOTR started the cliches.)


>> 6) NPCs should be signficiantly improved, as per Oblivion.
>
> Not reasonable in an online game. There is, perhaps, a really lengthy and
> interesting discussion as to why, but I'll just say that what you are
> asking for is ultimately unimportant and not worth the effort. Remember,
> you aren't alone. There are thousands of other players online with you.
> NPCs need only be predictable and reliable, not realistic.

I disagree here too, perhaps because I've implimented more interesting NPCs 
and I think they'll work in a multiplayer scenario. I even implimented 
something that's a distant cousin to Vanguard's diplomacy (long before 
seeing or knowing about Vanguard's feature).

Which is another reason why the diplomacy tutorial disappointed me. IMHO, 
the next step in MMORPGs is that "NPCs are the game". Diplomacy is one step 
towards that goal, except that Vanguard only made a half-hearted attempt 
when they could have done so much more. Oblivion had a better go, which is 
most of  the reason why I liked it. NWN2's attempt at "NPCs are the game" is 
the only reason I played that game as long as I did.

And as for other players... That's another flaw in Vanguard (and all 
MMORPGs) which I didn't go into. While Vanguard forces you to group, it 
doesn't make it easy to find people that you'd like to group with. There's 
no way to tell Vanguard, "I'm a casual player who plays Tuesdays from 8-10. 
I don't like smokers or immature (teenage) players. Explorers preferred."

IMHO, part of the reason to give players the option of race and clothing is 
that race and clothing say something about the player's personality. In the 
MMORPG genre definition, however, race and clothing (aka: armor) is about 
abilities and numbers.