Weekly Newsletter 02_25_08: More Game Update #4 Rumblings

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Updated Fri, Jan 02, 2009 by Dalmarus

More Game Update #4 Rumblings

February 25th, 2008 - By Dalmarus

Before I get too far into this week's newsletter, I wanted to let everyone know that the Ten Ton Hammer guild was created on the Xeth server this weekend. Thanks to all the players that showed up for the initial creation and the players that all wanted an invite. If you've got a thirst for dungeon crawling and exploration is more important to you than leveling quickly, post an "Invite Me" message here to be part of the fun.

Now on with the newsletter!

Game Update #4 went to the Test Server this past week and as a result, the Doom & Gloom Crew has come back into the community like a bat out of hell. The number one culprits that have gotten the community wound up this time are the upcoming changes in character customization, a new visible DoT system, the indication of named mobs by all capital letters, and needing to be in a raiding guild to get a wyvern flying mount.

Before I go into my own personal rant about this topic (and others), let's get a few things out in the open right off the bat.

The current character customization changes are an interim measure while the team continues to essentially redesign the character models. In order to get helmets to the player base sooner rather than later, they simplified all character head models. See the post by Silius explaining this further here.

The visible mob dot system is an option that can be turned off. No one is going to force you to play with it on.

If you really want to play on a "hardcore server", prove it by showing your support of this thread taken from MCP's suggestion. Silius has stated that he fully endorses the idea as well. Don't get overly excited too early though. As Silius has tried to explain repeatedly in the thread, without the numbers to justify the time and cost an endeavor like this would require, it's not going to happen. The more people that show interest, the better your chances are though, so get moving! As a quick side note, this is a project I would also support with at least one character.

As has been stated time and time again and yet for some reason still has not gotten through the heads of a number of players, per the Vanguard development team themselves, Sony (and thus Mr. Smedley) has remained hands off in all game play decisions. MCP has stated this yet again in this thread where he also explains about having to make certain decisions "for now" and that not everything is written in stone. He also takes some time to explain various ways to make the game "hardcore" for yourself and states he has great fun doing this, so you might want to give it a try.

Ten Ton Hammer Guild Creation Crew

Now that some of the basic information is out, let me talk about some specifics that have been bugging me through all this.

I've stated in the past that I love the passion of the Vanguard community. That hasn't changed at all and I really do believe it's still one of the most involved groups of players out there in a gaming community. That being said though, I do wish it tended to be a bit less reactionary on such a regular basis. How many times do we have to go through this before we begin to realize that maybe the developers not only have a pretty good idea of what they're doing, but that we're also not privy to all the information available?.

The character customization "virtual riot" is a great example. While it would have been nice to understand that this was merely an interim step as they continue working on the character models, it wasn't the end of the world like the forum boards alluded to.

Or what about "The Sky Is Falling" discussions we all had to put up with when they made the decision to move away from the Equipment Expertise system in favor of the Bind-on-Equip/Bind-on-Pickup system instead? Yes, the EE system had some interesting concepts, but when it was all said and done was it really even remotely as a big a deal as many of the player base made it out to be?

These are the things I wish the player base, as a whole, would take a little bit longer to think about before going off on a rant in the forums.

Another point of contention with Game Update #4 appears to be the concept of being able to get a slower griffon with solo/group content, but having to kill Kosaroth at the end of the Ancient Port Warehouse to get a wyvern. As a dark elf necromancer that chose the lich form, I'll admit that it's a little disappointing that I won't have a wyvern mount as I envisioned, but this is not an unfair situation.

An earlier poll we ran showed the wyvern appeared to be far more desirable than a griffon to many players. As such, why not make it something that people would really say, "Wow" when they saw a character on one. I like to think of it in the same light we saw players with their epic weapons back in the early days of Everquest. Why shouldn't the players that take the time and effort to complete the Ancient Port Warehouse be rewarded with something that is easily recognizable?

Having the reasonable ability to get a flying mount is all that I wanted. I never said I have to have the fastest flying mount, nor the coolest looking. Yes, I really wanted a wyvern for character reasons, but it's certainly not the end of the world. Since I (along with countless other players) will be able to obtain a griffon with strictly solo/group content, that is perfectly acceptable to me. Besides, maybe now I actually have a reason to want to try my hand at eventually raiding the APW now. I doubt I'll have the time, but again, I have no problems with that. Vanguard was never meant to be about having everything handed to you and that's the way I like it.

What do you think?