Haelufir vs. Crom?

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May 5th, 2008 - By Dalmarus

As any new game gets closer to release, especially if said game could be considered a potential rival, a number of players (I like to refer to them as the Doom & Gloom Patrol) are going to start talking about how badly the new comer will affect the current population. Unfortunately, even Vanguard: Saga of Heroes can not seem to escape this fate. Since I tend to bite my tongue a lot on various forums, let me take a bit of time to explain my views on the whole issue here.

In case any of my faithful readers (that means you, Mom) have been living under a rock for the last couple of months, the current challenger for the Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) crown is Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures (AoC). If you haven't been keeping up with the game and want to read more about it, feel free to go pester my old partner in crime, Machail, over at the Ten Ton Hammer AoC Site. Since this newsletter is about Vanguard though, I'm not going to go into great detail about AoC.

As is the case with so many games on the market today, I think comparing Vanguard and Age of Conan is a lot like comparing apples to oranges. Age of Conan is a game designed for players that love player versus player (PvP) combat. Vanguard, despite what an extremely vocal minority will try to convince you of, is not a PvP centric game. It never was, and I don't expect to ever see it go that way in the future. This doesn't mean I don't think there's a place for PvP in the game, especially on its own server such as Sartok, but it's not the main focus of the game. There - I said it. Sorry to those folks it may have offended, but that's how I see it.

The upcoming release of AoC may indeed have a large impact on the number of players that are currently playing Vanguard on the PvP server. For the few individuals I've heard making this argument, I think it's a completely valid hypothesis. It's the rest of the players I would beg to differ with on this particular issue, especially since it seems to come up every time someone even mentions another game. At this rate, I'm already expecting to hear cries of a mass exodus when the Hello Kitty Online game announces a new expansion.

For the player versus environment (PvE) servers though, I don't expect much change in population at all when AoC releases. At least any significant decrease that is. There will inevitably be a number of players that have to check it out. I'm an MMO junkie myself and at least test out every big name MMO that comes out. Despite what people may say, I seriously doubt I'm the only one out there. As such, a lot of people will check it out. There's nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all. Will it mean a drastic drop in Vanguard numbers? I don't think so. In fact, I have a different theory.

As crazy as some people may think this statement is, I actually think that the Age of Conan release will increase our numbers. Believe it or not, I'm not joking. A number of PvP loving players will most likely jump ship, so those players may be lost. It's the other players I expect to have come back. A number of players have stated they left because of Issue X and were waiting for Aoc to come out. I think a lot of those players will be unhappy with the game and come back to see what improvements have been made in Vanguard. It's as simple as that.

I use myself as a key example in all of this. I was a heavy Everquest player for a number of years. I'd quit a few times, but always kept going back to it. I played Dark Age of Camelot, Asheron's Call, Ultima Online, Anarchy Online, Shadowbane, Horizons, Star Wars Galaxies, Everquest 2, World of Warcraft, Dungeons & Dragons Online, etc, etc, etc.... You get the point. Since I myself had left a number of games, just to see what shiny new game was coming out, I expect the same to happen here. I always kept going back to Everquest though... until I found Vanguard. I haven't left once. That in and of itself says more about the quality of a game than any hype coming down the pipeline.


What do you think?

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