There is a bit of meme going around that Vanguard has been a massive failure, Sigil is doomed, “the Vision” has failed, and so on and so forth. I have to admit, I don’t get the logic behind some of this.
I’d agree that Vanguard wasn’t a blockbuster WoW-killer. Frankly, I never expected it to be, myself, but that’s a somewhat different topic. There were several reasons why I personally think that ended up to be so…
- High technical requirements for the client (particularly video)
- Poor release timing (within a week of WoW’s first expansion?)
- Released too early/lack of “polish” (bugs, etc)
- Distinctive gameplay elements not emphasized early on
None of those was a deal-killer by itself, IMO. Each was a nail for the coffin, however, because they either failed to excite or literally discouraged people in that all-important first impressions category.
The part I don’t understand is the effort to translate that into a knock against “the Vision”. There is plenty of interesting game play in Vanguard, the game is not an Archlord (where the primary commentary I saw was “it’s so damn boring”) or the like. There is only one factor, which I did not list above, that I can see as having been related to Brad McQuaid’s “Vision” as I understood it.
- The game does not feel “casual-friendly”
Now, even this is somewhat off-base. Many innovations that were originally heralded as “casual-friendly” are included in Vanguard: quest NPC indicators floating over people’s heads, relatively short, step-by-step quest progressions, most mobs (at least early on) are on short timers (very little waiting), etc. Even the “death penalty” was pretty restrained, tho still a bit heavy in comparison to most recent titles.
Most of the commentary I see, however, rails against the tech requirements or bugs, and jumps directly to proclaiming that ”the Vision was wrong”. To me, there is a huge disconnect there. It actually starts to sound a little like some people haven’t gotten over certain episodes from EQ1, many many years ago…
That basic argument then gets spun in one of two ways: 1) this is bad for innovation, because it will scare off investors, or 2) this is good for innovation because it will prove that same-old, same-old is not a guarantee of success. If you forced me to choose, I’d pick #1 over #2, but frankly it’s a false choice, IMO. I don’t think most investors understand the industry to that depth, anyway.
The only conclusion I think can be drawn from Vanguard’s difficulties is that the first commandment of MMO production is very unforgiving.
- THOU SHALT NOT launch with a buggy, unfinished product.
Now I admit, I didn’t follow the in-depth Vanguard commentary over the years, so I might have missed something. However, I find it hard to see how that could be a knock against Mr. McQuaid’s vision of game design… or anyone else’s, for that matter.
Unless he said at some point “this game design is so awesome, I could release it all filled with bugs and glitchy, and you’ll still love it!” Then I guess people would have a point.
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April 28, 2007 at 7:01 am
Zubon
We’re part of that meme? Have any of the Rathunters tried Vanguard? I have yet to give the game much thought. I sort of mentally classified it as EQ3 and moved on.
April 28, 2007 at 7:19 am
damianov
I wanted to include a link to your post, because that’s largely where I picked up the links to the discussion. I prolly should have said something more like “which I stumbled across (yet again) via this post here”.
My apologies for being unclear about that.
April 28, 2007 at 8:34 am
Cameron Sorden
I think the problem isn’t so much a failure of Sigil to realize their vision– they know their own limitations, and they’re still chugging away to bring their vision to life in Vanguard. They simply ran out of money and had to release early. Poor planning I guess, but they had a number of issues.
Anyway, I think when people are talking about how “the Vision” has failed, it’s more about how what players were presented with wasn’t nearly as good as what we were promised. For a few years, there had been crazy hype for anyone following the progress of the game. People were told about features, shown design ideas, feedback was taken.
And even in the final months leading up to release, gorgeous and amazing gameplay videos were shown with people doing cool things in cool places.
Then the game came out… and it was like a verbal contract half-delivered on. It was buggy, it was incomplete, it choked systems, many of the mechanics felt odd, the graphics weren’t significantly better than EQ2, and the various systems were still being tweaked.
For me, that wasn’t what I envisioned. I was excited about Vanguard, and my experience was very “meh.” I’ll probably go back and check out in 6 months to a year, but for now, yeah. “Meh.”
April 28, 2007 at 1:00 pm
damianov
So, if I understand you correctly, elevated expectations created by Sigil are a part of what is driving the overall disappointment. (Let me know if I’m off base there.)
What I still don’t understand is how people are getting from there to “the vision has failed”. Even of the list of issues you presented, only one (the mechanics felt odd, which I agree with, I might add) could not be tied directly to simply releasing too early.
How are people getting from point A (laundry list of issues) to point B (the original design stunk)? Am I reading too much or too little into what people mean by “the Vision?” What am I missing here? That’s really all I’m asking… because it’s not an obvious connection, at least for me…
April 30, 2007 at 3:56 pm
JuJutsu
Well, to plagiarize Lum one aspect of the vision was to design ‘today’s game’ for ‘next year’s computer’. I just canceled this weekend because even at the lowest quality settings I got 12 frames/second at best. By the time I have a computer that can play it decently there will be lots of other shiney new games to suck me in…
April 30, 2007 at 4:13 pm
damianov
Ah… so, what people are working with is that “the vision” included the technical aspects which are creating the headaches. By contrast, I generally look at technical issues as separate from gameplay/game design issues.
The boundaries of each derives from the other, of course, but the details are usually where the problem lies.