Newsletter: Choices

Dalmarus

Quote:

Regnak1969

I am a fairly casual gamer and have way too many alts than is healthy for most people, so my hignest toon is currently mid 30's so I may not be overly qualified to speak on this topic (sue me!).

although a good idea and one that I would think will add depth to the present game I don't think adding an AA system will pull back players who have maxed out their levels and are either thinking of leaving or who have left. What they need is more contant and quickly. Oh yes and helmets...we need helmets!

Astuun

The more and more I hear about these "end-game ailments" the more exasperated I become.

First, I understand completely that there have been those who have stuck it out through beta, the early Sigil days, and are now reaping the rewards by being 50 (IN MULTIPLE SPHERES) totally geared out, and ready to raid.

However, I am completely convinced that no less than 80% of the people whining and crying about lack of "content" rushed to 50 in a month or two, because they are too interested in an end-result and don't care about REAL content.

Again, I am NOT a "hardcore" EQ gamer...never stepped foot in the game. I'm a recovering WoW-addict, and yeah I still like that game for what it had to offer me.

That being said, I can not believe that people HAVE to see the big-numbers "I'm the biggest and baddest" in order to have any fun. There are so many dungeons available it saddens me knowing that as things are I'm already going to outlevel them on my own. There are two special mount quests out there, the lesser one requiring no less than 12 hours to complete! There is HUGE world of Telon to explore, albeit not all of it has interesting things in it, but there's stuff out there.

And there is crafting and diplomacy. Ok, that may not be your cup of tea, and I can respect that. But respect that those are two spheres that this game offers, therefore is a part of VANGUARD'S CONTENT! Dip has issues in that it lacks something...mainly for me it lacks a means to the end.

But don't run around in general chat, on various forums/blogs, and tell me how VG is going down because a lack of content, unless you have been here since Beta and have explored all the aspects of the game.

Last night someone asked about the unicorn quest, a couple people responded then a tool put his $0.02 about unicorn being worthless, might as well buy the fast mount at 40 for 50G. That tells me plenty about this guy.

1) There is little time difference between dinging 30 and dinging 40 (unicorn is ridable at 30, btw)...if all goes well it will take me weeks or months to make that progression, because I will still enjoy what the game has to offer me.
2) He was saying 50G was a joke of cash. He either buys his gold, or he exploits the exchange to people that do buy gold.
3) He does not care at all what the game has to offer, he just wants his raiding so he can have DA UBER LOOTS.

In response to his "Unicorn is a waste of time, look at all those quests" in general, I replied "You're right, and to think I could have used that time to rush to 50 and miss the content so I could....do....that thing you're doing...oh nothing".

This warranted the rest of my evening plagued by his chanting I'm just a level 29 noob, yadda yadda.

This wasn't directed towards the author specifically, more towards the general playerbase of VG.

Dragorian

KK, I will just take the contraposition.

For me a MMO starts at the maximum level. The way to the maximum level is to learn the basics of your class, nothing more.

I want to push my toon to the limit in challenging raid and group content. I want to grind 100s of AAs and I want to refine my toons with the best raid gear available.

So VG better implements some more high end content fast before all ambitious players leave the game like I see it in my guild already.

Live and let live. You casual players can just enjoy the endless variety of casual content that is already in the game.

But don't start the bitching when the target audience of VG asks for the implementation of some high end content.

Dalmarus

I can see both sides, but I definitely fall in the "enjoy the trip" side of things. I've been playing since release and my main is level 39 right now. You know what? That's fine. I've done a ton of exploring, I've gotten my Shadowhound mount, and I love the fact that almost a year after launch there are still a ton of places I have yet to see. That to me is simply awesome.

For the ones that rushed to 50, or have to be on top, it's not my style at all, but that's why I think adding an AA system into the game would relieve multiple stress points for people. The 50's would have something to do, the rest of us would have something to look forward to and also be able to continually think about which AA's we would choose. Because face it, those that are casual players (like myself) are going to get far fewer AA's than the hardcore, so we'd really have to pick and choose what we want.

I think that would be awesome for both sides

Bhagpuss

On the issue of the death penalty, I'd love to see it removed. It adds no interest or value for me and I am absolutely certain that it is a significant offputting factor to those who currently aren't playing Vanguard. It's paramountly obvious that the current playerbase doesn't have a problem with the death penalty, but the current player base is tiny.

We have four servers, and when I made a new character two weeks ago, at peak time on a weekend, two of the server showed "Light" load and two "Medium". I am very well aware that we have had a good influx of new players recently, but the overall numbers are still very small for a "major" MMO. If those numbers don't grow, there will be little new content developed for VG.

On the matter of high-levels and boredom, I played Vanguard and only Vanguard from release until mid-Summer, over 6 months straight. After a couple of false starts, I played only one character and I played in excess of 40 hours every week. At the end of that I had a 46 Disciple/24 Leatherworker.
For my money, that's too slow, not too fast.

I like to play a lot of characters. It was painful for me to concentrate on just one character, but it was obvious that if I didn't I would take a year or more to get into the 40s with any character, even playing as heavily as I do. While I certainly don't want to be able to get to 50 in a couple of weeks, I do think the levelling speed could be significantly increased.

The argument about "missing out" on content by levelling too fast is a nonsense to me. It would only make sense if we were given but one character slot. I try to use all my character slots in every game I play for any significant length of time. Equally, the idea that the game "starts at max level" is an anathaema to me; in fact, for any given character that I play, the game sometimes actually stops at max level, as that's when that character gets mothballed as my focus switches to another, at least until there's a level cap increase.

I'm currently playing EQ2, where the excellent Rise of Kunark expansion has just launched, but that's not because I prefer it to Vanguard - in fact in many respects I like Vanguard better. It's becaue it offers a huge amount of new content, much of which is immediately accessible. I will certainly be continuing to visit Vanguard for as long as there are servers to play it on, but the addition of more high end and/or raiding content is not going to pull me back to play it as my main game, and I very much doubt it will draw in significant numbers of new players either. Any attention on that part of the game can only really serve to hold on to the current playerbase, and that's a recipe for stasis at best.