SOE presents… : Another Funnel !! (Vanguard)

Telon and Halgar are being merged. Sheesh. Usual disregard for EU players, usual besotment with trying to get everyone breathing everyone else’s digital armpit. People just love seeing a ton of other people’s spam about the latest single hair they grew in chat, it makes it look more alive (would be better if it just *was* more alive)  yada yada yada….Ho hum. Merged server with New Improved Lag no doubt.

https://www.vanguardthegame.com/news/article.vm?month=032013&id=1568

Regarding the ‘more alive’ – it’s a great game and it’s not the players’ fault that it doesn’t have a heaving population, it would be more alive if SOE ceased with the stop/start developing and put their backs into making something of it rather than removing the perfectly good and extremely interesting racial starting zones in order to create a funnelled start experience to go with their funnelled servers.

Squishing players together for an illusion of popularity fools nobody. Even worse, judging by some of the comments over at Massively, some people  read “about to close down this game” into server mergers.

New content Lomsir (Vanguard SOH)

Some work is still being done on Vanguard, though the angst of the playerbase comes through very strongly when you read the forums. They are extremely alert to any signs of being abandoned again, and who can blame them. Yesterday new content was added to Lomsir. I was under the impression that this was for lvl12 ish.

I do have a tank in Lomsir at lvl 10 as it happens. Was trying to get to the Kurashasa starting zone but the portal don’t work so I was doing the other local quest line and now all what were her quests are purple (16) and the local wildlife kills her dead because it’s been buffed and she suffers from squishy tank syndrome which is an old fashioned leftover from days of yore when tanks were nobut walking gear.

So far haven’t seen any new quests to replace the purple ones anywhere either (I might be too young)… will write if I/when I do.

PS : I don’t mind my tank squishy just now because her fighting cat-squawks are so funny. It will be different when the death penalty kicks in… maybe… hahahaha!

Update: Week is over, and now I’m just playing. Yay !! I found some wildlife squishier than me and made it to lvl 11 – found one quest and got a server first for completing it (!), but no follow on. I think I already did the follow on quests to be honest… I don’t really know though.  So think I’m just going to grind on to lvl 12 – it’s very pleasant. There’s grinding and there’s grinding – I like that I can wander about and explore as I level up even if not questing. I got a “Shandrel’s Enchanted Blade” doing that too, which is a yellow  item but a shuriken which I can’t use but can maybe trade with someone in the family who can – not sure – but nice to see a yellow (some sort of yellowish colour) drop anyway . I’m wondering if I already did the “new” content. My tank has been in the area for some while already, couple of months or so.

It used up time while I waited for someone not to “phone back” as they said they would. I hate playing phone patty. It doesn’t make me believe a person is important or busy when they do this - I mentally paste “Pratt” on them.  Phone Pratty Patties today, no. 3 in todo list, wot (waste of time). I do ‘em all at the same time, then at least it’s only one morning a week spent drooling next to the phone. I do ‘em on Fridays, then email them on Mondays. Sooner or later it crosses their tiny minds that I’m not playing along and they make bliddy time to speak.

Or write.

More update: Ground to 12, and found another quest, got another server first (on a chest). I think having already done the quests that were already there is aiding me some though, the new ones stand out. I got another first on some pauldrons too handing in an old quest I discovered I’d finished, and that Shandrel person, well I got a lot of his or her stuffs. Which it looks like needs to be deconstructed. I’ll read up. And plenty of leather. With my new gear my tank (“nobut walking gear”) can terrorise a better class of wildlife so I’m nearly at 13. At some point me and the game will synch I thynch but in the meanwhile I’m having a lot of fun in a rather nice not-on-rails way grinding between the quests until I catch up with the lvl 16 ones I already have. I can already nibble at those, if the wind is in the right direction and things chain and crits are big I can very sometimes take something down that’s a lot too tough for 12, but mostly I doi. I think that’s part of the fun of the class though. Dreadknights. Feeble as hamsters when bread and buttering, but now and again fortune smiles…

I will take time out to do some crafting and use up some of that leather, while nibbling at the 16 stuff very occasionally – and grinding wildlife as I explore. (Sometimes the scenery really is spectacular.) Sorry no screenies for this post. Today…once the phone calls were done, I just played. Been a long week, tired, bit terse. The tension will ease, weekend now. Relax…

Small Frozen Fruit Salad wrapped in Fog (2013)(Vanguard, EQ2, Wurm)

Over here we saw some sun already this year but the trees are still asleep, their buds barely visible – they knew we were in for another cold spell. I’m supposed to be out and about today but happens I have a choice in the matter and I’m not stupid. So home I am, with work to do and warm, and sensible it is too plus good for the environment. Outiside is freezing fog. This won’t take long. The fallout from January continues, albeit at a slower rate and I’ve been busy with real things. I’ve played but 3 games plus Frog Fractions which I still haven’t finished even though it’s quite short.

Vanguard continues to fascinate, I’m delighted to say. It’s the game I played most. I now just about have one of everything and have managed to see Pankhor Zhi (it’s empty), and sent a Kurashasa homeward, but the Kurashasa zone is already shut off, so too late. Quite nice plinking around nearby though where there are the starter quests for another race to be had (I forget which). A little Raki made it all the way to the wood-elf starting zone, but the pics are on my zapped external hdd, and a lesser giant made it to Halgarad (hope I spelled it right). I really like the old starter zones. I don’t care about the gear, I like the variety. This is a fabulous game to solo in by the way. Nothing is too easy, which makes it all quite gripping. Slowly I’m meeting people too and it all feels very natural. I do have the secret weapon of course, I can always get a family member to group with me and tackle anything unsoloable, but so far haven’t needed to.

Phew

Everquest 2 yay, played this second most much and I neglect writing about it I know. So far it’s been a total voyage of discovery and I’ve now discovered too much to catch up on is the problem. I will make a new alt and write about all the bits as I come across them is probably the best way to tackle it. And I do want to because this is a massive game with a huge amount of good stuff in it. It’s also (oddly for an MMORPG) a game in which one of the alts has a “life” of her own (the big girl). The Big Girl is a story – mostly my alts have the (soon to be devalued) clothes they stand in and a few kills, very thin, but the Big Girl is more complex and more fun. I think she has her own take on the male gaze for one thing. Hahaha!

Poor old Wurm has made it to the household chores list, the real one. At the bottom. Well…  I log in, do chores, log out and not much to say really except it’s working. Nothing has crumbled to dust and my skills are going up. I also get to chat to friends if they’re around. I don’t have the time for this game. I’m wriggling and squirming to fit it in but it’s like trying to keep an octopus in a fish tank. I’ll do this ‘improve year’, review in June and most likely go dormant in December – with real regret. I’d like to keep playing, but there’s far too much maintenance. The whole point of a virtual world is that it should exist independent of me, and I’m afraid that bargain has to include my stuff has to exist independent of me because I don’t have the time to sustain it.  So, yeah, guess decay did for me in the end. I think the decision is made really. I can’t see “dormant” lasting long either since the trader would still be needing fed. Too many, way too many chores. Sill, I’m there for this year.

Footnote: If you want to see what’s left of the starting zones in Vanguard – I found this guide helpful:

http://vanguard.wikia.com/wiki/Old_Starter_Towns_Guide

Theres just one problem…

There’s a shark in here somewhere

It’s Friday! Here’s an idyllic place to go. But I’m deeply scared of this quest to kill Matu Makas (Vanguard SOH) – the fear is PRIMAL. I just can’t do it!! (halp!). I’ve tried all week but I just can’t swim in that water… Well kids are home from school soon – I’m hoping one of them, brave souls, will do it for me.  I can live with the teasing, just don’t make me do the quest!

The weird thing is I’ve swum and dived in very real shark-infested waters and seen sharks often enough – off Singapore in the Straits, in Malaysia, on the Wild Coast in S.A. Or is that why I’m scared? I know exactly what might be out there…how big it might be… how it would behave. But I don’t because this is digital. I don’t trust the game to give me a big, scary but fairly predictable shark that I can stay well out of it’s way tyvm. Oh this is v. odd. Sharks can be very huge indeed. The ones I’ve come across were not huge-huge, but quite big enough to make being in another place a better idea if they got interested. What if the one out there is one of those huge jobbies the size of my living room like they used to keep in the Durban aquarium long ago (maybe they still do)…. ooooo I can’t do it….

Hats off for immersion on this one!

Off The Rails as soon as possible! (Vanguard Saga of Heroes)

The 4 funnelled starting zones in Vanguard are fine really, I don’t mind them. I am still trying out the various classes though and have now seen quite a lot of them. Also I see the dreaded “revamp” word being used regarding the original racial starting areas. Why? I don’t care if it’s boring and there is no room for personal glory in just fixing the bugs, evening out the quest flow and letting things be – not liking just fixing things, well that’s some dev’s personal problem. I’m just a player here, dev aspirations are not my concern, and I don’t like streamlined pablum, new for the sake of new.

Exploration is of time as well as area, you know. The deathknell of WoW-and-my long-standing relationship rang out exactly when they stripped out old content and replaced it with a thin, on-rails boring overfast trivial experience, which you only wanted to play once and never again and which outlevelled the zone. No more pleasant times with Thottbott tracking down obscure items or strange npcs or places I came across. I didn’t much care if things were broken here and there either. It was discovery, pure and simple, and exploration, and it was good. If things don’t work so well in old places and you don’t feel inclined to fix them, just put “Here Be Bugs” on the map and let people still be able to see what past devs made. Layers of time provide richness.

We can make far snazzier pyramids nowadays, but people still go to Egypt.

So starting on a rainy moonlit Qalian evening… (get comfy, snuggle down, I will tell a tale….)

So far my ventures into this world had been pleasant but bland, only the classes and their sheer dazzling depth had gripped me – but one must not judge a whole game world by the very startiest starty places and thankfully this dark elf was ready to go to the secondpartystarty starty place in Khal, as soon as the sun rose. Scorpions on leashes eh, she mused, well…. ok. Being trained by rats, no… rat people. Giggle! Anyway, soon time to find the path down the cliff and see what lay ahead. This did:

Wow.

I was not to know it right then, but that was to be the start of a marathon gaming session, the like of which I have not been tempted into since my very early days of instance soloing on World of Warcraft, before I got involved in guilds and raids and all the other things they push down your throat – and hence had no time for such delights.

Usually I do ignore the lore in games, I confess it. I find it badly constructed which soon annoys me. Whole chunks don’t fit together and the layers don’t relate. Things get undue importance then trail to nothing. But the lore here is slowly seeping in. Down the hill I had more doings with the ratpeople, the Ksaravi, and my doings weren’t as clear-cut as I expected. The quest flow in this area is nice, with little side trails that provide some interesting diversions from the main trail to the starter dungeon… One thing led to another as the secondpartystarty starty area of Khal unfolded it’s tale. I duly entered the Ksaravi Hollow cave.

I am something of a dungeon bunny, I like to solo them, I like to explore them, and I thought I was in one of the usual kind, which would have been good enough for me. But it was nicer than that really, not like any dungeon I’ve been in before. For one thing, eventually I fought my way to this:

(I had to come back later and take the screenshot on another alt)

By this time, it was past my bedtime in the game called Real but fortunately I was not due anywhere early next day … I mean what self-respecting dungeon bunny could resist???

Hehe – no more screenshots of the ratpalace – go see for yourself! It’s quite fun in there. I was there until near morning and got to the end boss, which I apparently killed. But I doid, and didn’t know .

And that settled that! Vanguard is an amazing game. It really is and I intend to carry on playing it.

Next though, the vexed business of “retooling starter zones”. I haven’t the time to race to see these areas before they destroy them in the name of progress and I have already missed one…. Mekalia? I think it’s called. How dismaying. How…. errr … oh well. Anyway my dark elf finished the dungeon properly the next day and! Off to find the Dark Elf starting zone isn’t it.

I’ll leave it there, but just to say I arrived safely – (having fun, wish you were here!)

Vanguard Saga of Heroes, a second look (2012)

Under the Wire

With GW2 about to release, August the 14th is not a very clever time to choose to re-launch Vanguard in its f2p incarnation – if you want to make money that is. I don’t think Sony want to make money on this one for some reason, looking from outside of the box. Tax reasons? Need a quick loss on some column of figures? Who knows. Anyway, the timing is off. It’s a much-loved older game, with many people looking to return – doldrums is when it should be launched. Sometime when not a lot else is going on, ie Feb/March/April, and a Feb/March/April when nobody else is doing a big hype. It’ll be Panapokkiwow second-next so waiting out the GW2 wave won’t do much good.

There is too much else going on in the game world just now, what with SWTOR going f2p and Secret World, if I read aright, trembling on the brink, never mind the big launches I already mentioned.

And as well as that they used a false launch date, so probably a lot of people don’t know it’s already up and running. Or could just be they haven’t upgraded the servers very much and are trying to lighten the load via all this. That bodes well doesn’t it. (sarcasm).

The good news is:

The good news is it runs better now. If I ever find the document in which I’m doing my “It Runs On This Laptop” matrix, I’ll update the entry on Vanguard. It is still quite sluggish on medium settings, and not much better on low. But much improved – I can play without the controls annoying me. Which means I’ve been playing it properly and not just dipping in, hence this post. I daresay combat isn’t going to be my strong point.

A while back, before the Alaplayer thing happened, I had a Station Access pass and made a Vanguard account as part of that exploration. I dropped the All Access sub because of that (Alaplayer) business and a for good few other reasons. I’m not a happy SOE customer. So I do have an old Vanguard account. Last time I played, I quite enjoyed looking at the scenery and doing some beginner stuff but the controls were very, very spongy. Couldn’t stand more than ohh – 15 minutes I’d say.

I’m not using that account just now though. I want to see their f2p in its full glory. I made a new account. I know, by the way, quite a few people who are planning to return to Vanguard, but not for quite a while and though they have sub money ready, they too plan to try it out first on an f2p account, and see what they think and how populated it is.

The bad news

I don’t know that I want to make a blanket covering statement – there are quite a few things. The f2p stands out somewhat ummm, well actually it’s an extended free trial, and they should call it that. So another slightly dodgy move there (it mounts up – really there are some things you can’t get away with on the internet).

So… a free trial tacked on to a subscription model is what we have. This will work fine if server costs are low and some money dribbles in from the cash shop. I mentally file away the possibility that that is what they are aiming at. Revenue neutral. (Unless of course it somehow becomes wildly popular). Would I buy shares in SOE? Golf Club Guy says No.

Who is Golf Club Guy

He is an imaginary figment I use to think outside the box. One of the imaginary figments I have. Golf Club Guy is old and rich and hangs in Golf Clubs with his buddies. They sit on boards. They move on shares in a pack and share information in the kind of male hierarchy we are all familiar with. Top dogs get the most information and the sidekicks get the rumours and can watch and ape their betters. Anyway when the Golf Club Guys move out of a company’s shares it’s curtains. They have no loyalty – you can be their best buddy but they won’t hold shares in your company if they get a whiff of something better. And they always move before anyone else. I repeat this is all an imaginary backstory. (And way off topic.) It works this way – I have a chat with Golf Club Guy (in my head you understand) and he tells me what he thinks of this or that company. Neither of us is interested if he’s right or wrong. He’s imaginary and I don’t buy shares. I just find his views entertaining. Some weird stuff happens in my head u know.

By compartmentalising a small tiny part of my brain through imagining Golf Club Guy, I can allow him to come up with things I don’t know I noticed, and shuffle them into patterns I normally wouldn’t see. OK, glad that’s out of the way. So… back to Vanguard.

I haven’t wandered around their cash shop, but from what I read it’s heavy on the nickle-and-diming (quel surprise) and tries to carrot and stick people into buying things. That is a one-dimensional and non-functional strategy. Speaking as someone who worked long enough in marketing, that sort of approach is…. sub-optimal. Mechanical customers never existed, yet the myth persists.

People buy digital leisure products because they want to:

I like it and I want one!

is what you aim for. End of. No amount of sticks or carrots will mechanically induce sales. Only desire….. wooo/ fan, fan fan… anyway.

So does Vanguard induce any desire in me to go spend money in their cash shop? Or become a subscriber?

Download, check, Install, check, Launch, done fine so far and…..

Nag button. Well that won’t keep me around or induce euphoric love leading me to a sub. The opposite. I feel my heels digging in further as I sit here. Creating an artificial need isn’t going to work in this situation. I’d like a nice uncluttered ui, but I’m not going to pay any money a month for it. Did these guys learn marketing in the 70s or something?

The Gameplay 

Jolly good on with the show. I’m just in the starter zone, so not a lot to cover, only generalities. I will probably make many more avatars and jump about here for a while before I go on. I am glad I can try out anything. That will keep me playing for a while. When I get to 20 on something I like, well, if I’ve enjoyed my time ingame I’ll be checking out the price on that unlock and if it is reasonable, I’ll pay. I’m a… a… half, no, dark elf um Necrosomething, you know, summon horrors, that kind of thing. I started on teh starter island for this one, and I’m enjoying the play. The necrosomething isn’t standing out for any reason – there are a 100 variants on her allover the game world, but it is early days. Once again, the scenery is beautiful, so is the music. The quests follow eachother as easily as dewdrops plopping off a leaf, there is no jarring discord or annoyance. Only one or two people here - same as last time I played (eu). It’s a couple of days before the official launch though.

When you create your character you’d be forgiven for thinking you were going to be SOE’s gold-standard ugly (as in EQ, EQ2), but ingame the avatars look fine apart from most peculiar legs. The starter zone is pretty much a starter zone, and well done as such. You learn to fight, to use the ui, to move around etc. You kill ten, put goo on ten. The game is old, it feels quaint. But it’s not so much in the past that it feels alien or awkward – there are enough common points of reference here to be able to play very comfortably. Sound effects really are good – even just the combat. I found it easy to relax, take pictures, listen, enjoy – starter zones aren’t the height of excitement so it’s I just let the newness reign. It’s always in the starter zones that I remember that a lot of people put their time and maybe their hearts into making these beautiful artefacts, games. To choosing that sky, or skin, or scratching it up from nothing. And Vanguard is a particularly beautiful game.

…could big it up and fall right into that sky.

I’m taking notes as I go, and if things continue to go well, of course, I’ll post again So far, so good, Vanguard.

Wahhey!

January was a spitty spotty month for gaming, too much background noise to settle to anything plus so many new things to try. It is like being in a fruit salad.

On the gorgeous one terabyte hard drive (yum yum) for having a look at, currently – Anarchy Online, Star Trek Online, Eden Eternal, Kerbal Space Program. I also treated myself to an All Access pass from Sony this month so EQ the original, Free Realms & Vanguard are there. My goto games are there – EQ2 (promoted! hahaha – aww I love EQ2), Guild Wars, Wurm Online, WoW.  Dropped: Skyrim. It runs badly on my machine but so does Vanguard, that’s not it. I’m not playing it because the internal spaces are too small. It gets on my nerves *hugely* when I cant move about freely inside buildings. Champions Online is there. Just looking… yep that’s it.

Still plenty of room. Minecraft would be there if it had a free trial. I tried Minecraft Classic but found it hard to figure out the controls and I have better things to do than search for Classic help, if such a thing even exists.  I would like to try it – but I’m not forking out an upfront fee for Minecraft until I like it. Rift… maybe if I run out of things will put their trial on. LoTro, ran like a hog on 3 legs last time I tried (year or two ago), not in a hurry to try again. I will soon download Pirates of the Burning Sea.

Although I dipped in and out of games last month between all the palaver of a January, rather than played any one with any consistency a  few things do stand out:

Vanguard is achingly beautiful, I don’t care if it runs badly for me really – I like it. It will stay on my drive for a visit now and again. Can’t comment too much because I’m such a noob, but it seems satisfyingly complex and challenging. I’m soloing of course. Actually – in two week’s scrappy play at my starter area (not the island) I haven’t seen a soul, which is fine by me – it adds to the immersion of this strange and lovely world. There are people somewhere, I know it, one day I will meet them unexpectedly… works perfectly for me. I love the modelling of the monsters – I died a good few times getting a closer look at things I have no business tangling with. I have an alt on the starter island as well and have to say those hobgoblins in the swamp are stunning to look at, and their spells are very pretty… I have just started the crafting tutorial and have very little experience of diplomacy, so no comments about those. But most of all I love that you don’t level too fast. I have always been dismally unimpressed by endgames right since I started playing anything – I’m in no rush.

Star Trek Online is a total blast. I have found my place in life – I was destined to fly a spaceship! Again I’m the noobest of the noob here but managed to make my way to level 5 on both alts and get the Anniversary Ship. I am sure my skill choices would make a veteran player scream & run away, but tell you this – I’m not leaving. Most liked thing so far: the sheer Star Trekkiness of it. I do things just to hear the little sound effects – I’m probably a menace. But I like a lot of things about this game. The missions are fun and lighthearted, the controls for space flight and combat are suprisingly easy to use. The NPCs are well developed and as Tesh pointed out in her comment to a previous post, you can be rid of the NPCs without drama if your friend turns up unexpectedly. There’s stuff to learn & do and make, plenty of depth. Yep, it’s a keeper.

February, lot to do in real life but I’ll keep exploring and download anything else I hear about that takes my fancy.

Wurm Online  is still unplayable very sadly – I just about limp through the farming I need to do. Very depressing. Someone is looking into it though. Fingers crossed. I’m beginning plan disbands – not only is everything merrily decaying (ugh) but I can’t do a thing about it either, which has had the good side of making me realise how little I miss fixing things, and paying to fix things. Disband & let the lot rot – I shall make one item at a time & improve it to the point where decay is not so noticeable? This could be how it all ends up – assuming I get to play again. I could sail my ship, stay with my friend or just keep one postage stamp deed over ore… The chopping starts on the 29th of Feb and will continue whenever upkeep runs out. I’m by no means ready to leave, but the fact is - I can’t play it.

Free Realms – amg. A.M.G. what is that? The cash shop is more than in your face, oh my oh my oh my. The “game” is just a vehicle for the all pervasive Cash Shop - unbelievable! Heaps of scorn… and then I found myself sneaking back to play it some more…. heh heh (blush)