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Givin
Jan 24, 2008
Givin of the Internet Hates You
Brad writes all of Trumps campaign speeches is my first through after reading that.

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hayden.
Sep 11, 2007

here's a goat on a pig or something
haha Givin.

Cool to see they've made so much progress. I am not sure why they stick with concepts like having trainers. Maybe it's just part of "The Vision", but it's not really a fun gameplay element to have to run back to a city and talk to an NPC to allocate skill points or learn new stuff. Maybe it was novel 15 years ago, but now it's just a chore.

DeathSandwich
Apr 24, 2008

I fucking hate puzzles.
I kind of wish we didn't chase McQuaid out of the forums the first time around, if only because I was wanting to see if we could get some sort of Vanguard post-mortem from him. I want to see if he learned from the mistakes of that game or if he doubles down on The Vision Cannot Fail, It Can Only Be Failed. That alone would give me enough pause to give a new game from him a hopeful shot.

Everquest 1 Kunark/Velious had a lot of terrible design decisions in hindsight but man it had some charm for how bare-bones it was compared to modern MMOs and I still hold a lot of nostalgia for it today. Vanguard may have been a flaming shitshow that was on life support 3 months after release, but gently caress did it have some interesting, unique classes. Not sure how much of that was part of McQuaid's original design docs, but I give him (or at least the people under him) credit for that one aspect. If he can bring in some form of the Vanguard Blood Mage / Disciple / bard style class design into this new project I would at least give it a passing shot.

I think there is space for a EQ1 informed slower-paced-and-comparatively-difficult-but-with-modern-conveniences type of MMO. Vanguard was almost there after post-release patches fixed a lot of the terrible poo poo that the game launched with, but by that point no amount of hype or good word of mouth could bring people back. The question in my mind's eye is if I trust McQuaid to make that game.

Roflan
Nov 25, 2007

While he was here, I should've asked him if he remembered me from EQ's phase 4 beta when he passed me while I was nuking a rat stuck above the Qeynos gate and asked what I was doing.

Byolante
Mar 23, 2008

by Cyrano4747

DeathSandwich posted:

I kind of wish we didn't chase McQuaid out of the forums the first time around, if only because I was wanting to see if we could get some sort of Vanguard post-mortem from him. I want to see if he learned from the mistakes of that game or if he doubles down on The Vision Cannot Fail, It Can Only Be Failed. That alone would give me enough pause to give a new game from him a hopeful shot.

Everquest 1 Kunark/Velious had a lot of terrible design decisions in hindsight but man it had some charm for how bare-bones it was compared to modern MMOs and I still hold a lot of nostalgia for it today. Vanguard may have been a flaming shitshow that was on life support 3 months after release, but gently caress did it have some interesting, unique classes. Not sure how much of that was part of McQuaid's original design docs, but I give him (or at least the people under him) credit for that one aspect. If he can bring in some form of the Vanguard Blood Mage / Disciple / bard style class design into this new project I would at least give it a passing shot.

I think there is space for a EQ1 informed slower-paced-and-comparatively-difficult-but-with-modern-conveniences type of MMO. Vanguard was almost there after post-release patches fixed a lot of the terrible poo poo that the game launched with, but by that point no amount of hype or good word of mouth could bring people back. The question in my mind's eye is if I trust McQuaid to make that game.

By the time Vanguard was being made Brad had mentally checked out and was a addict. Nothing in that game can be realistically credited to him. There isn't space in the market for a updated EQ1 clone for the same reason there isn't room for a new full loot open world pvp mmo. The vast majority of people who played EQ didn't want EQ, they wanted something like WoW or FF14 but all there was was EQ. Anyone who wants something like EQ1 is still playing EQ1 and you have to try and get them to give up all their progress to start fresh.

hayden.
Sep 11, 2007

here's a goat on a pig or something
I think Vanguard would have been a smash hit if not for technical problems at launch that were also never really fully fixed. I think design and vision wise it was spot on. I remember going to Best Buy the day it came out to buy a copy (to avoid long download time I think) and even the random sales guy at Best Buy was like "I wouldn't buy that, it's buggy and slow and your computer won't run it". I told him I was playing the beta just fine.

Of course, these days I think there needs to be a lot of evolution for the same vision to remain relevant. From what I can see, there isn't much evolution, but I hope I am proved wrong.

DeathSandwich
Apr 24, 2008

I fucking hate puzzles.

hayden. posted:

I think Vanguard would have been a smash hit if not for technical problems at launch that were also never really fully fixed. I think design and vision wise it was spot on. I remember going to Best Buy the day it came out to buy a copy (to avoid long download time I think) and even the random sales guy at Best Buy was like "I wouldn't buy that, it's buggy and slow and your computer won't run it". I told him I was playing the beta just fine.

Of course, these days I think there needs to be a lot of evolution for the same vision to remain relevant. From what I can see, there isn't much evolution, but I hope I am proved wrong.

I mean, EQ Next seemed almost novel and quaint when they first announced it (didn't they announce something like 170 potential classes on top of things like procedural generated NPC interactions and NPC migrations?) until they stopped talking about it altogether and they forced landmark on everyone to make the players do design work for their world. The speed at which EQN went from "potentially interesting concept and mechanics" to "absolute and total vaporware" was shocking.

I don't know, maybe it's just MMO fatigue speaking for me, but it just seems that most MMOs out now are either old as gently caress, relatively recent but not as good as it once was (Guild Wars 2), an also-ran of WoW or other old as gently caress MMO (FF14, champions online, wildstar), Free to play microtransaction trash (Wildstar again, Neverwinter, Star trek online), or Korean grind MMOs made by perverts with questionable ideas about how armor and breasts work (Aion, Blade and Soul).

Vanguard was a dumpster fire at launch, but it was a dumpster fire that had some good ideas. I feel like I say this every post in this thread, but the class design was so good. Diplomacy was surprisingly cool and had tangible benefits to the game world. The crafting wasn't there like it needed to be, but they tried to make a system that was more interactive than what was available at the time. Once they got the metaphorical fires put out it was too late to save it. I feel like if they had a FF14 style re-release of the game to how it was before they canned it it actually could of had a decent following. That would of course require convincing one of the money men to put the funds into that, which wasn't going to happen considering that :soe: was bleeding money like a stuck pig at the time anyway and was probably trying to consolidate IPs for their sell/spin off into Daybreak Games.

Ra Ra Rasputin
Apr 2, 2011
From what I heard from Tell-Alls trying to piece together the story of how Vanguard failed so hard, the coding on it was just terrible and a nightmare for the devs to work with, they basically had to code the thing in MSpaint and at the top end you had the "Big Name Guy" who I forgot the name of who was a noshow and pretty much a drug addict by the end.

A lot of mismanagement and it can't be revived because the base code of the game is so bad as to make it nearly impossible.

The bloodmage healer was a great class though.

xZAOx
Sep 6, 2004
PORKCHOP SANDWICHES
They did relaunch for the free to play.

And immediately started having chunk errors and crashing all the time (crashes that would ruin your work orders), drove people right back away again.

Then they realized they couldn't fix it, so gently caress it, goodbye forever.

Byolante
Mar 23, 2008

by Cyrano4747

DeathSandwich posted:

I mean, EQ Next seemed almost novel and quaint when they first announced it (didn't they announce something like 170 potential classes on top of things like procedural generated NPC interactions and NPC migrations?) until they stopped talking about it altogether and they forced landmark on everyone to make the players do design work for their world. The speed at which EQN went from "potentially interesting concept and mechanics" to "absolute and total vaporware" was shocking.

I don't know, maybe it's just MMO fatigue speaking for me, but it just seems that most MMOs out now are either old as gently caress, relatively recent but not as good as it once was (Guild Wars 2), an also-ran of WoW or other old as gently caress MMO (FF14, champions online, wildstar), Free to play microtransaction trash (Wildstar again, Neverwinter, Star trek online), or Korean grind MMOs made by perverts with questionable ideas about how armor and breasts work (Aion, Blade and Soul).

Vanguard was a dumpster fire at launch, but it was a dumpster fire that had some good ideas. I feel like I say this every post in this thread, but the class design was so good. Diplomacy was surprisingly cool and had tangible benefits to the game world. The crafting wasn't there like it needed to be, but they tried to make a system that was more interactive than what was available at the time. Once they got the metaphorical fires put out it was too late to save it. I feel like if they had a FF14 style re-release of the game to how it was before they canned it it actually could of had a decent following. That would of course require convincing one of the money men to put the funds into that, which wasn't going to happen considering that :soe: was bleeding money like a stuck pig at the time anyway and was probably trying to consolidate IPs for their sell/spin off into Daybreak Games.

SOE wasn't bleeding money. DCUO and their lovely DayZ knockoff were keeping the entire company in the black on their own. Everything else was losing money hand over fist though.

Also the only reason FF14 relaunch wasn't a hilarious disaster and also why the money was there in the first place was the burning terror of producing a second horrific failure in a row with the name Final Fantasy. I am pretty sure if ff13 wasn't a flaming turd then FF14 would have been shuttered.

Pathos
Sep 8, 2000

Is Vanguard playable on any third party severs or anything yet? Or does no one care enough? I always wanted to try it but never did.

Pilsner
Nov 23, 2002

DeathSandwich posted:

I think there is space for a EQ1 informed slower-paced-and-comparatively-difficult-but-with-modern-conveniences type of MMO. Vanguard was almost there after post-release patches fixed a lot of the terrible poo poo that the game launched with, but by that point no amount of hype or good word of mouth could bring people back. The question in my mind's eye is if I trust McQuaid to make that game.
Frankly, there still is EQ for that, in its various permutations. There's P1999 for the super hardcore, prog servers for the semi-hardcore, and Live for those who prefer a more fast-paced modern EQ. Every time I think about how a new game could re-create EQ, I just end up thinking..... well, I'll just play the real EQ. Even Live EQ honestly contains a lot of the original EQ, in terms of zones, game mechanics, NPCs mechanics, etc., for good and for worse. Virtually all the nostalgia is there, the only (big) thing missing are the masses of players swarming the zones. Not much to do about that. I still like it and subscribe from time to time.

i am tim!
Jan 5, 2005

God damn it, where are my ant keys?! I'm gonna miss my flight!

Byolante posted:

SOE wasn't bleeding money. DCUO and their lovely DayZ knockoff were keeping the entire company in the black on their own. Everything else was losing money hand over fist though.

Also the only reason FF14 relaunch wasn't a hilarious disaster and also why the money was there in the first place was the burning terror of producing a second horrific failure in a row with the name Final Fantasy. I am pretty sure if ff13 wasn't a flaming turd then FF14 would have been shuttered.

Yeah, as of FFXIV 1.0's launch, the Final Fantasy brand, frankly one of the more valuable game brands around, was going up in flames. They either needed to do something to fix it or lose one of their biggest cash cows.

Also, was FFXIII a failure? I never really had an interest in it, but I got the impression it was still quite successful.

i am tim! fucked around with this message at 00:03 on Mar 5, 2016

xZAOx
Sep 6, 2004
PORKCHOP SANDWICHES

Pathos posted:

Is Vanguard playable on any third party severs or anything yet? Or does no one care enough? I always wanted to try it but never did.

It's being worked on: http://vgoemulator.net/

DeathSandwich
Apr 24, 2008

I fucking hate puzzles.

xZAOx posted:

It's being worked on: http://vgoemulator.net/

The last big push introduced looting mobs! Never mind that combat isn't really working and you need to gm command kill to loot.

It's not really playable at the moment and at the rate progress is coming along its going to be quite a while until it is.

ZixTheYeti
Jul 12, 2005

Hellarious!

DeathSandwich posted:

The last big push introduced looting mobs! Never mind that combat isn't really working and you need to gm command kill to loot.

It's not really playable at the moment and at the rate progress is coming along its going to be quite a while until it is.

The loot is jacked up last I saw (basically no individual loot tables, anything can drop from anything). It's still pretty fun to just run around and look at stuff since nothing is agro and you can use dev commands to clip into areas that were blocked off when it was live.

Node
May 20, 2001

KICKED IN THE COOTER
:dings:
Taco Defender
I wish Daybreak would just sell the god drat license so some company can give the game a few bandaids and launch a server for it. It isn't like they are going to do anything with the Vanguard IP. They can't even handle Everquest.

Gorelab
Dec 26, 2006

i am tim! posted:

Yeah, as of FFXIV 1.0's launch, the Final Fantasy brand, frankly one of the more valuable game brands around, was going up in flames. They either needed to do something to fix it or lose one of their biggest cash cows.

Also, was FFXIII a failure? I never really had an interest in it, but I got the impression it was still quite successful.

It had 2 direct sequels. It isn't my favorite Final Fantasy game, and the pacing was atrociously bad, but the core gameplay was actually semi-neat, and I'm pretty sure it did real well in Japan.

hayden.
Sep 11, 2007

here's a goat on a pig or something

xZAOx posted:

It's being worked on: http://vgoemulator.net/

I think it's silly that mostly a single guy can do so much in his spare time as a hobby but an established company with a budget of tens of millions of dollars makes an unmaintainable pile of garbage.

Mayor McCheese
Sep 20, 2004

Everyone is a mayor... Someday..
Lipstick Apathy

i am tim! posted:

Also, was FFXIII a failure? I never really had an interest in it, but I got the impression it was still quite successful.

FF13 did just fine but had a messy development. Regarding the game itself, it didn't really fit the Final Fantasy mold that most people were used to; mixing that in with a lot of fan feedback, FF14's failed launch, and this engine they spent far too much time on, they went back to the well to create the two follow-up 13 games.

Sir Vanderhosen
Feb 18, 2011
https://pantheonmmo.com/news/latest_news/

quote:

Visionary Realms to Play Pantheon LIVE on Twitch - Friday, March 11th

Posted date / 3.8.16

This Friday, the 11th of March, tune in to twitch.tv/visionaryrealms at 4pm Pacific Standard Time to catch Visionary Realms playing Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen LIVE! We'll be showing off new areas, new features and even combat. This is one stream you won't want to miss. Bookmark twitch.tv/visionaryrealms today!

We're going to see Pantheon before Everquest Next.

hayden.
Sep 11, 2007

here's a goat on a pig or something
Found some leaked footage from the build they'll be showing Friday:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXPyk1ARwgc

Some guy mistakenly uploaded to Youtube as Elder Scrolls Arena, just ignore the title.

Uziduke
Jul 2, 2015

A storm over Europe unleashed
Dawn of war a trail of destruction
The power of Rome won't prevail
See the Catholics shiver and shake

hayden. posted:

Found some leaked footage from the build they'll be showing Friday:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXPyk1ARwgc

Some guy mistakenly uploaded to Youtube as Elder Scrolls Arena, just ignore the title.

Not funny.

Node
May 20, 2001

KICKED IN THE COOTER
:dings:
Taco Defender

hayden. posted:

Found some leaked footage from the build they'll be showing Friday:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXPyk1ARwgc

Some guy mistakenly uploaded to Youtube as Elder Scrolls Arena, just ignore the title.

Some things are too holy to make fun of, Pantheon is one of those things. Shame on you.

Ramulack
Oct 12, 2009
I'm kind of interested to see this tonight. I have never tried Vanguard - is it safe to say that this game has more resemblance so far to EQ1 than Vanguard?

DeathSandwich
Apr 24, 2008

I fucking hate puzzles.

Ramulack posted:

I'm kind of interested to see this tonight. I have never tried Vanguard - is it safe to say that this game has more resemblance so far to EQ1 than Vanguard?

Nobody really knows because almost nobody has seen it in motion. Even today after seeing it in motion you have to keep in mind that the game probably isn't even 10% feature complete. A lot can change between now and when it's available to the public.

Alexander DeLarge
Dec 20, 2013
Correct me if I'm wrong but this has been in development since the failed Kickstarter campaign right? The best ETA we have to go on is the January 2017 date. Accounting for the usual delays with crowdfunded MMOs, we're looking at a late 2017 release correct? That would have given it 4 years of development time accounting for the time it took to create the prototype. Seems reasonable for a content-based MMO.

xZAOx
Sep 6, 2004
PORKCHOP SANDWICHES

Alexander DeLarge posted:

Correct me if I'm wrong but this has been in development since the failed Kickstarter campaign right? The best ETA we have to go on is the January 2017 date. Accounting for the usual delays with crowdfunded MMOs, we're looking at a late 2017 release correct? That would have given it 4 years of development time accounting for the time it took to create the prototype. Seems reasonable for a content-based MMO.

Everything about this "game" has been very not-the-norm.

They started it with ex-SOE people mostly who worked on it for a while for free (note that they only had like 1 or 2 actual loving developers, most were various iterations of "idea men"). Then they launched the KS, it failed, then they took donations on their site, it was mishandled, almost all (if not all) of the original team except for Brad left.

Then Brad started recruiting random volunteers. One dude who did some original EQ dungeons was helping too (no idea if he's still helping or not).

Then a group of people who did some Christian MMO all joined in.Everyone wins because her "art" was a loving joke. Enter fuzzy trolls. This was a golden era of drama and hilarity for Pantheon. After a while this blew up fantastically after the leader of the almost-cult-like group (turned out most if not all were family) kept posting pretty terrible poo poo on her public Facebook (anti-gay poo poo and what-not). Brad asked her to stop that poo poo, it didn't go well, the cult left.

Dev continues with random volunteers, then claims that they received some limited funding, and some people are reportedly getting paid now. For a while they released development update videos and screenshots pretty regularly, then February last year they release a video that said "Much more to come!" then went radio silent. They started hyping a big update for late last year - turns out it was a website overhaul. Whoopie.

And now we're to today. Maybe the team is still some volunteers, maybe it's all the original non-cult volunteers and they're not getting paid some, who knows. They're releasing a video and doing play sessions in the hopes to secure more funding.

I just took way too much :effort: to type this. I am sad.

Alexander DeLarge
Dec 20, 2013
I am infinitely more interested in this after reading your post. Thanks friend.

Ramulack
Oct 12, 2009
Pantheon has officially outlived EQ Next.

DeathSandwich
Apr 24, 2008

I fucking hate puzzles.

Ramulack posted:

Pantheon has officially outlived EQ Next.

Not yet, while technically EQ Next is officially dead, that game was in production hell way longer than Pantheon.

Edit: In terms of total time in development, mind.

i am tim!
Jan 5, 2005

God damn it, where are my ant keys?! I'm gonna miss my flight!
True, but I don't think anybody expected EQ Next to kick the bucket before Pantheon, even with the Brad's late start. Granted I don't think he will ever publicly say "it's over" even when it's obvious Pantheon is over. I'm blown away he's been hobbling along as much as has after the whole Christian Cult Game Developers thing.

jabro
Mar 25, 2003

July Mock Draft 2014

1st PLACE
RUNNER-UP
got the knowshon


i am tim! posted:

True, but I don't think anybody expected EQ Next to kick the bucket before Pantheon, even with the Brad's late start. Granted I don't think he will ever publicly say "it's over" even when it's obvious Pantheon is over. I'm blown away he's been hobbling along as much as has after the whole Christian Cult Game Developers thing.

Since nothing has been said about EQN since Pantheon was even mentioned as being a thing I don't see you can say that.

Orv
May 4, 2011
On the one hand, Next has been dead unofficially for at least a year. On the other hand, was Pantheon even ever an also ran?

i am tim!
Jan 5, 2005

God damn it, where are my ant keys?! I'm gonna miss my flight!
True, I shouldn't speak for everyone on that notion. Still, even when Daybreak bought EQN I figured it had more of a chance to see a release, but that comes from my lack of faith in Brad more than anything else.

i am tim!
Jan 5, 2005

God damn it, where are my ant keys?! I'm gonna miss my flight!
E: double post, dumb phone

Sir Vanderhosen
Feb 18, 2011
With EQN cancelled, my dream is for Daybreak to buy Pantheon, in whatever awful state it's in and we can repeat the Brad Mcquaid MMO cycle.

aparmenideanmonad
Jan 28, 2004
Balls to you and your way of mortal opinions - you don't exist anyway!
Fun Shoe
https://www.twitch.tv/visionaryrealms

Streaming now, everything is being compared to EQ1 nonstop, they know their audience at least.

Node
May 20, 2001

KICKED IN THE COOTER
:dings:
Taco Defender

Sir Vanderhosen posted:

With EQN cancelled, my dream is for Daybreak to buy Pantheon, in whatever awful state it's in and we can repeat the Brad Mcquaid MMO cycle.

Daybreak is seriously less competent than what Brad McQuaid has. They're absolutely horrible. I don't know how you could get worse. I say this as a current Everquest player.

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Orv
May 4, 2011

aparmenideanmonad posted:

https://www.twitch.tv/visionaryrealms

Streaming now, everything is being compared to EQ1 nonstop, they know their audience at least.

"This fireball VFX is really great!" he says in the most disinterested voice I've ever heard from a living being.

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