5.0.1 What sort of customization will be available at Character Creation?
After you choose your character's race, you will have a variety of choices as to the appearance of both your character's face and body. At this point, we know of no other MMOG that offers the degree of customization that Vanguard does.
5.0.2 What about my character’s appearance and clothing – will I be able to make my character appear unique?
When making an item acquisition-centric game, the appearance of those items when worn or wielded is extremely important. You ought to be able to look at someone and say 'Wow, she's got an Iron Crown of the Fire Giant Warlords on!! I’ve never seen one – only heard stories! Where did she get that?' Our character engine and technology is the most advanced yet seen in an MMOG and while still aren't at a point technologically where every item you find will make your in-game appearance different, our new technology brings us much closer to that goal than any other MMOG to-date.
5.0.3 A question that some people have been interested in is the realism of the character models to be used in the game. In most past MMOGs characters have tended to be on the perfect side of dimensions. What are your views on this?
Our characters are just like the rest of our art. We start from a base of realism, and then bend and exaggerate certain aspects. In addition to that, we also intend to give players the option of choosing how much to exaggerate certain areas. With in reason of course. But I certainly hope to see a beer bellied warrior at some point. *laughs* -- David Gilbertson @ Vanguard Gate
5.0.4 How many characters will I be allowed per ‘shard’?
This is really one of those controversial issues where there's no point in us taking sides. There are lots of reasons why one character per server is good and also bad. We think the answer is to have this functionality part of the ruleset associated with the server, not the game.
Some team members prefer to play in a single character per server world for a variety of reasons (most especially so that you could have different factions/races/nationalities without players easily being able to play different sides, although a second account still gets around this).
But for others, that’s not true – some are willing to give up the flexibility of trying out all sorts of character combinations because they tend to fixate on one character. Others here at Sigil, however, LOVE to have multiple characters in the same world, to play one of them one day, then dabble with another combination the next. If you told them they had to do that on different worlds for each character, well, they'd not respond kindly.
So there's really no 'right' or 'wrong'... this is a preference, and preferences can generally be accomodated by varying the non-core rules on different servers.
5.0.5 What about Character Statistics – will players know what they mean?
We will better document the various character statistics and what they do. We will also strive to make their application more consistent and meaningful.
5.0.6 Will there be character emotes? Character animations?
Yes. There will be many done via the text interface, and hopefully a large subset of them visible via character animations.
5.0.7 Will there be character animations?
Yes.
5.0.8 How much work is being put into the animations of the character models themselves? Will we see realistic motions for such things as movement? Has any use of motion capture been made?
Most animations for monsters will be hand generated (the trolls weren’t cooperating for the mo-cap.) For bi-pedal monsters and player characters, we will be using mo-cap data. Our animation rig allows for the animator to further add special touches on top of the mo-cap data to further set it apart. – David Gilbertson @ Vanguard Gate
5.0.9 Have you decided to move beyond the process of one size fits all with differing motions to fit different spells instead of one motion to represent all of casting? The same goes for fighting as well.
We are certainly making every effort to have as much diversity as possible with animations. Different walks for different races. Different fighting animations for different styles. The same with spell casting and crafting. However, since programming isn’t going to give the art department infinite animations, we will have to careful where we spend them. – David Gilbertson @ Vanguard Gate
5.0.10 Will characters react to the environment? For example, sit on a chair or lay on a bed?
Our current focus is more on interacting with the environment in ways directly relating to gameplay.
5.0.11 Will characters age?
No.
5.0.12 Will characters need to eat and drink?
No, although we hope to include consumables that affect gameplay (for example, a potion that provides a temporary stat bonus, etc.)
5.0.13 Will I need to use outside tools like parsing in order to effectively play my character?
Some players will choose to do this regardless, but we hope to provide the most meaningful, useful tools in-game.
5.0.14 Will there be different pathways to improve my character?
Definitely.
5.0.15 Will you allow server transfers?
This is undecided at this point. If we do, you will likely have to transfer your character without his or her items so as not to disrupt the economy of the server you are transfering to.
5.0.16 Will you allow players to buy pre-made characters?
Not from us, no, and we will discourage out-of-game auctioning of players and items to the best of our ability.
5.0.17 How much should a solitary player be able to affect the world? How should this change if he teams up with other players in social groups?
We’re a huge proponent of players being able to impact their environment--to a reasonable degreethrough their actions; there are several qualifiers to that statement though.
The way players impact the world cannot greatly restrict the gameplay of others. For example, one cannot be allowed to raze a newbie village where the bootstrapping content for new customers is found. Making a lasting alteration to the population of a portion of the world. Working your way into an organization that causes the world's inhabitants to treat you differently, or liberating a piece of the world from an adversary are just a few examples of what we feel can be compelling ways to impact the world. The extra effort that goes into this kind of thing usually makes more sense to be spent on content that large numbers of people can enjoy, but we have no 'design principal' that would prevent us from implementing some crazy event that a single player could complete
5.0.18 Is the only goal to reach max level?
Not necessarily, IMHO. One of the strengths behind MMOGs in general is that you can still achieve things through persistence, even if you don’t have a ton of time to play with the more hard core players, or perhaps if you lack the skill to be an effective player in the more difficult areas of the game and thus aren’t given the opportunity to be part of a guild focused heavily on achievement.
In most MMOGs, even if you lack the skill, knowledge, ability to socialize, the time, or whatever it takes to achieve everything, obtain every item, see very location, if you are tenacious you can still eventually reach the maximum level. It may take you a lot longer, and again, you may not have all of the items nor have seen all of the cool places, but your tenacity is still rewarded to some degree because you stuck with it.
I think this is a good thing. More casual players and/or less skilled players (and no, I’m not saying they are the same) can still achieve some of the rewards and experience some of the accomplishments that others with more time and/or skill can. Even if you can’t devote long periods of time to go raiding, you can usually still advance by grouping or even soloing. Even if you don’t obtain the best items or if you lack social skills and therefore aren’t invited to go along into the more elite areas of the world, you can still slowly but surely earn experience and eventually hit max_level.
The more core gamer or even hard core gamer will likely see max_level first. He will also likely experience areas of the game this other player won’t be able to. He will also likely obtain better items along the way. In Vanguard in particular, since there are skills that you can only obtain by playing in certain dungeons (e.g. they don’t all come from your trainer after you level), the more hard core gamer might even have abilities the other guy doesn’t have when he eventually reaches max_level too.
So you have a mixture of rewards. Experience gain and therefore level gain can be accomplished by the casual, core, and hard core player – it’s not exclusive to any of those groups (although, as mentioned, one group may obtain that experience more quickly than the other). Other rewards (seeing certain areas, obtaining certain items and skills/abilities) may not be obtainable by the more casual and/or less skilled player regardless of his tenacity. To some players, this may be fine – they may be unable or unwilling to do what it takes to see it all or obtain it all, but still plenty happy with finally achieving max_level. To other players, this may not be fine, and a more challenging game like Vanguard may simply not be for them. To even other players, they may be in the middle, where they often don’t have the time or opportunity to participate in the more ‘leet’ aspects of the game, but then every once in a while they do. So when they have less time, they can at least still level up, albeit at their own slower pace. And then when they do have the time, they can participate in the more difficult aspects of the game and go on the occasional raid into the depths of some crazy dungeon. In summary, I think this mixture of being rewarded for both tenacity as well as skill or dedication or time is one of the great strengths of MMOGs and is why they can appeal to so many different types of players, and why those very different types of players can co-exist in the same game world.
It’s not a race for everyone. Some people want to be the first to level 50, while others are more than happy to obtain it months later, at their own pace, knowing that regardless, their tenacity will prevail in the end and they too will achieve what others did, even though the others did it more quickly.
many think achieving max_level and achieving it quickly is the only and/or ultimate reward in Vanguard. But it isn’t. It’s but one of many, and it’s also a reward that is given after a long period of time. There are all sorts of rewards in Vanguard – rewards for the Achiever, the Socializer, the Explorer, etc. There are not merely levels to gain, but skills, abilities, spells, items, as well. And then there are all sorts of sights and sounds, exotic places, cool and creepy mobs, etc. to encounter. Essentially, there’s the entire game that lies between level 1 and max_level – the journey itself.
And it’s certainly our goal, our mandate even, that we make that journey one heck of a good time. One of our tenets is “The path of least resistance shall also be the path to the most fun.” In other words, we don’t want players compelled to level as quickly as they can because the ‘real’ fun only begins at the ‘end game’. The journey to the ‘end game’ needs to be a blast too. And then, as the game expands, and likely the level cap is increased, new legs of that journey are opened up and made accessible to players and that ‘end game’ is moved out again, and again. New content is always added, through patching, expansions, and possibly in other ways as well.
And for that player who is struggling with the game for whatever reason and incurring a lot of debt and therefore advancing more slowly than many or most other players – he or she is also likely missing out on a lot of the game too. If they don’t know how to play very well and keep dying, they will be considered a liability by many groups and not invited to see many of the cool places in the game world and therefore also not be rewarded with many or most of the cool items and abilities players are rewarded with when they conquer these cool places. Sure, if left alone and assuming he or she is still having a good enough time that he or she doesn’t quit, they will eventually hit the level cap. But they’ll have missed out on an awful lot of gameplay and fun along the way. This is where I hope to see a lot of Good Samaritans step in and help that player, to give or lend him items, to invite him on groups as opposed to ostracize him. To give them a helping hand and to help them understand how to play more effectively so they too can reap the rewards that exist outside of mere experience gain. And then, hopefully, assuming he or she isn’t simply totally incapable of figuring out how to play, they will eventually improve as a player and become more of an asset and less of a liability, joining the rest of the community. And if through debt as opposed to exp loss, this window of time in which they have a chance to be helped and to improve is bigger and less frustrating, then all the better.
In the meantime other players, those who aren’t the type to help the struggling player, continue doing what they enjoy doing: achieving, socializing, and exploring. The fact that this struggling player is advancing slowly as opposed to not at all shouldn’t interfere with them. They shouldn’t be bothered by this player even a tiny bit; it’s likely, in fact, that they’ll rarely even encounter him. I suppose there could be a scenario where he is part of a Good Samaritan group in the same area as they are, and he does something stupid, and causes a train or something, that he could cause some grief. But such a scenario would be relatively rare, a small price to pay, and I’d also argue that it would happen whether or not the game had loss or debt – he’d still be there, in that dungeon, being helped along by others… that is, unless he’s already quit because he’d already been too frustrated by the game. And so if we can create an environment where struggling players have a better opportunity to improve and turn into ‘core’ gamers, or skilled casual gamers, or whatever label we want to apply to this person who was given the opportunity to improve, then that is something that should be one of Vanguard’s goals.
And so by allowing them some advancement while they hopefully figure out the game and/or are helped out by others, the core gamers’ experience isn’t harmed in any way that I think could be argued as substantial or legitimate. Vanguard then becomes more inclusionary, not exclusionary, while at the same time avoiding being ‘dumbed down’ or made less challenging. Ultimately, while Vanguard simply won’t be a game for some players, those who are attracted to it and wish they were ‘core gamers’ are then hopefully given more of an opportunity to do just that. Likewise, the more casual gamer, assuming he doesn’t demand to achieve everything at the same rate or to the same degree as the more core gamer, has an opportunity to enjoy Vanguard as well. (This answer is courtesy of Silky Venom)
5.0.19 Will the classes be balanced?
Balance is very important to us, and always has been.
But we're also VERY aware of two important things:
1. you can never achieve true balance (we're just human, balance is somewhat subjective to the playerbase, these games evolve and change (moving target), etc and
2. While fun and relative balance often go hand in hand, if you have a situation where one has to 'win', we will choose fun. The 'fitting classes into jobs' is much the same. Our primary goal isn’t to create a perfect, balanced class system; indeed, by choosing a class system for Vanguard, we knew going in that no matter what, some players would perceive (right or wrongly -- doesn't matter) that one class was inferior to another. We know there will be complaints like this, and we know that sometimes we won't be able to address those complaints. Likewise, when we do enhance or nerf a class, even if it turns out to be the right decision long term (and lets hope that doesn't happen often, and that we are usually right) that such decisions will piss some people off, no matter what.
Balance is obviously very important. but balance can mean different things. to me, making sure each class is wanted in groups and fun to play it more important than making sure, numbers-wise and running logs, etc. that they are truly balanced from a power standpoint. The latter is important but hard, and also requiring constant maintenance as other changes in the game can affect all of the classes or a subset of them. - The idea is that all members of a Job will perform that job with roughly equal proficiency. All Tanks will mitigate roughly the same. All healers will have roughly the same healing power. Each class, within its job is balanced by the tenants of the job.
That is where we stop looking at balance as critically. We have taken great care (and a bunch of time) to ensure that the gameplay is different from tank to tank, from healer to healer. Adding these differences creates classes that may or may not appeal to your playstyle, but functionally is not at a deficit when compared to others. When you are looking for a Tank to fill your group, any tank can perform the duty of damage mitigation, but each will bring a bunch of other things to the table as well. You will probably have favorites, but that prejudice will not be based on tanking ability. There will certainly be times when a Warrior works a little better than a Dread Knight for X encounter, but that is not generally the case.
Honestly, that is the most alluring thing about the job system to me. I want to play a Protective Fighter The choice is mine and has not been dictated to me by the creator of the game. I can choose any of the four and I know that I will always be needed anyplace that loot-carrying mobs hit players.
PvE Balance
Heh, this is a fun one. We set off deciding that all classes should be able to solo with roughly the same ability. We are not living in a dream world and we know that this goal will not be attained as perfectly as we might like. Certainly within a job it will be easier to enforce this, but will a Warrior be able to solo as well as a Sorcerer? Probably not. We are trying our best to close the gaps between the classes that has existed in most other games.
PvP Balance
Thankfully (for my sanity), Vanguard is focused on PvE, so we are less concerned about this. We will have some things in place to help balance out the traditional pitfalls that a PvE game has in this regard, but we realize that without a completely new game (and years to make it) a Warrior vs. Sorcerer wont always be balanced just right. (This answer is courtesy of Silky Venom)
5.0.20 Can I buff people outside my group?
Likely you can buff just about anyone, but that your buff will be scaled in efficacy relative to the level of your target. We want you to be able to help people, but at the same time curb egregious power leveling. (This answer is courtesy of Silky Venom)