Originally featured on the Warcry Network, February 27th 2007
In my previous article I spoke about the complicated the effects, pro's, and con's of Vanguard's initial release week (give or take) had on the gaming community and Sigil's reactions to their complaints - which at this point still seem to overshadow the praises of Vanguard sung by the few adventurers brave enough to jump off the flaming bandwagon and give credit where credit is due. This week I'd like to get a little more in depth about what exactly all of this means for us: What I think the consequences of Vanguard's premature release might entail, and what we all hopefully have to look forward to.
When one thinks of an MMO release date, one often remembers the disasters of the past: Days of variable server up-time mixed in with constant patches that require some of the most catastrophic patcher techniques known to man. Logging into other websites that merely mirror the original company's patch just so you can spend the next 3 days playing instead of pressing the space bar and enter key when your peer to peer transfer fails, locks up, or randomly disconnects - not to mention my personal favorite, Unable to Log into Server, you must be behind a Firewall.
The history of MMO's has seen its share of smooth releases, and failed launches. I'd have to say that in the area of releasing a game with available servers, minimal patch time, and great connection speed, Vanguard has stood with the best. I've never had a problem patching the game, connecting to a server, or being able find someone to play with because the population was too spread out amongst too many servers. But what does this say overall about the game? Unfortunately, not much. These days, anything going wrong with an MMO causes an almost instantaneous player response in the form of "Now that I'm paying ____", where the blank can be your favorite 4-letter word, maternal insult, or threat to cancel any account(s) you may be currently playing for free on, thanks to the one month trial.
Although premature; I think Sigil has done the best they could, and continues to do so. But now that I've said that, there are some general concerns that I'm sure any gamer would come to a giant question mark about when considering the future of this game. The first, amongst many, is why have there been so few patches?
Truth be told, last week's patch did include a formidable amount of updates: 2 memory leak fixes, a rogue re-vamp of sorts, some quest bugs, some crafting issues, and the lovely 'STUCK!' we now see whenever anything not player-controlled falls into the earth, or gets stuck in geometry. But regardless of the amount of information the 2 major patches - which thankfully only took a few seconds to download (there is a God after all) - its still only two patches of note that have really addressed anything of concern towards the player community. I'd really be interested to find out if I am the only one minding concern towards the future of Vanguard based on the lack of frequent patching - especially with a notoriously prematurely released and buggy game. I'm sure any crafter out there feels my pain. For the record: I'm sorry, but I don't know where your etching tool went either, I'm still looking for mine.
But moving past the crafting catastrophe and the hardware issues which seem to still be plaguing gamers everywhere, I really think that Vanguard is turning into something special. Regardless of how hard it is to 'come back' to an MMO, I find it hard to believe that players will be able to resist the appeal of Vanguard once the bugs have been squashed and the code re-vitalized, thanks to the God of Efficiency.
The community itself is diverse, and to the most part, helpful. You can't but help getting the feeling that people who play Vanguard actually want to be there - and thanks to the newly boosted (boosted is an understatement) quest experience, roping a few of your buddies along to smash through an area's quests now has appeal in the form of almost certain level gains when all is said and done. I think that for once, in boosting an MMO's experience gain by doing quests, someone did it right. Grinding is not only stupid, but petty and worthless. I personally play a Necromancer in the mid-20 range, running around dotting mobs who have no chance to kill me (because they are either too slow or too dead to catch me and do damage) shouldn't be that overly rewarding in terms of experience. Sure, you have the right to the items, but in terms of actual learning, what did you benefit from standing 25 yards away from something, casting three spells, and laughing as it hit's the ground before it gets to you? Probably not much. I realize this isn't nearly the case with all other classes - but I'm trying to make a point. Quest experience being buffed was the best thing that could have been done for the Vanguard community thus far. Not only has it set fourth goals with considerable results for the community to achieve, but its brought fourth a sense of achievement when you finish up a two-hour session and see that you've gained a decent amount of experience towards your next level.
However, I don't think this will last for long. If done right and with a little luck in spawns, a character can breeze through a towns quests early-on in the game and gain a staggering number of levels very quickly doing so, especially if grouped with a friend or two possessing the knowledge of having done the quests already with another character. Now, I'm not shouting "Lower Quest Experience!" by any means. What I'm trying to get at is quest experience should be rewarding - and it most definitely is. But maybe towards the earlier towns, it could be scaled down a bit. To clarify, I'd have to say that quest experience post level 15 or even level 20 is fine, and shouldn't be touched in any way. This will keep the community interested in gaining levels - while not feeling burnt out after only getting one or two levels a week.
In terms of everything else, I'd say that my "OK, PANIC!" sign has safely been tucked away in my desk and I don't plan on taking it out anytime soon. The player-base that has left Vanguard as prematurely as it was released will arrive in a few months to a game diverse in both efficient game play and stunning visuals. I for one am glad that I'm part of the community that stuck it out - and will continue to do so - so when things like Raiding, Fellowships, and maybe even Battlegrounds come into the equation, I'll have the familiarity and experience to be able to enjoy them as a player that was here from the beginning.
Looking out from the world of Vanguard, the grass may be greener - sure, there are better running games out there that look great, have huge communities, and epic battles, but none of them have a question mark on their destination. Those worlds are fixed. This world have so much opportunity that I'll hopefully never be able to say; 'Hey, the grass looks greener over there,' again.
