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11_05_07 Newsletter
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A Matter of
Perspective
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November
12, 2007 - By Dalmarus
Perspective is an interesting thing
in the fact that two
people can see and hear the exact same thing and come to two completely
different conclusions about it. One person thinks it’s the
greatest thing to
happen since sliced bread, while the other believes this marks the end
of the
Golden Age and the game as we know it has come to an end.
With Thom’s
style="font-weight: bold;"
href="http://forums.station.sony.com/vg/posts/list.m?topic_id=21665">Producer
Letter, he stirred up more than a few
hornet nests. I think this was actually a good move, as it got more
community
response than anything else I had seen in quite some time. It was a
good sign
to find so many people so very passionate about the game we play. Even
amongst
all the ranting and raving, it brought a smile to my face. People were
finally
ready to make a stand.
So many people spoke out about one
particular part of that
letter, that Thom even made a
href="http://forums.station.sony.com/vg/posts/list.m?start=630&topic_id=21665𻦀">follow-up
post a couple of days later in an
attempt to clarify his statements further. What single thing within a
Producer’s Letter could drag lurkers into the forums to post
in droves? The
possibility of removing the xp penalty for dying. Within a matter of
hours, the
thread was filling up with cries of disdain.
Although I didn’t post my
thoughts on the topic in the
thread, let me state them here. Personally, I’m with the camp
of individuals
that do not want the death penalty removed. Am I one of those hardcore
players
that think pain is everything in a game? Absolutely not. I barely spend
a
fraction of the time I would like to playing the game. That puts me
square in the
“Casual Player” camp without a doubt. So why would
I want something to remain
in the game that has the potential to make me lose an entire
week’s worth of
playing time? The excitement it brings to the game itself,
that’s what.
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Try to remember
you're not on
your main character before attacking a 4-dot mob!
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As a player that truly loves to go exploring, there is a
distinct thrill in the knowledge that I have to keep my wits about me,
or the
game will make me pay for just prancing into an area I have no business
being
in at any particular level. While some may cry that this is nothing but
cruel
and unusual punishment, let me explain why I feel this way.
There is a certain other game that
shall go unnamed within
this newsletter that is generally referred to as the 800-pound gorilla
of
MMOG’s. I played the game for about 3-4 months, and found
some things
reasonably enjoyable. One thing that drove me insane about the game
though was
the fact that I never cared if I died. Ever.
Why not? Because I never lost
anything from it. There was
never any incentive for me to make sure I kept my character alive,
aside from a
small amount of coin, which was easily obtainable.
Some people may say that’s
not such a bad thing. I think it
is. Removing the death penalty would remove a certain edge to the game
that I
think is one of Vanguard’s core concepts.
While there is no arguing at all that
the 800-pound gorilla
obviously has to be doing something right, that doesn’t mean
it’s right for
Vanguard. It certainly doesn’t mean that it’s right
for the players that
gravitate towards Vanguard in the first place.
“But it’s a
business,” you say. I won’t argue that fact at
all. SOE will do whatever they feel is right to get the most money they
can,
and more power to them. Taking away fundamental aspects of the Vanguard
experience and changing them out to be more like the 800-pound gorilla
is no
guarantee that they’ll make more money.
Those that are happy playing games
other than Vanguard will
continue to play those other games as long as they are happy. If
they’re not
happy, the last thing they would want to play is a clone. Rather than
gaining
more subs this way, I think they would actually lose subs as the core
crowd
grows despaired and leaves. Vanguard has a very passionate and distinct
player
base not unlike another SOE game that went through an unwelcome change
to its
core game as well some time ago.
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Without a death
penalty,
exploration loses much of its thrill.
src="http://media.tentonhammer.com/vanguard/gallery/albums/Vanguard-Item-Pics/Death.jpg">
I’m not trying to say that
a game needs to punish players
horrifically for making mistakes, but I do feel there needs to be a
certain
amount of sting to death. Not enough to make people leave, but enough
to keep
that edge of excitement while you’re out hunting about.
Without it, there is no
tangible thrill of success when you arise victorious by the skin of
your teeth
from a particularly grueling battle.
Not
only does a
moderate death penalty promote concentration and focus while
you’re playing, it
also discourages random “Leroy Jenkins” moments as
well. That’s something I’m
truly grateful for within Vanguard. I don’t want to play a
game where people
run full bore ahead without any real worry of potential consequences.
On top of everything else, the death
penalty as it stands
within the game is not very harsh at all. With careful hunting,
you’ll rarely
die. While hunting areas a bit more ambitious, you may die, but
you’ll be
cognizant of your location and attempt to die in an area
you’ll be able to
retrieve your corpse from. In either of these cases, after you recover
your
corpse (and with equipment all being bound these days, that
isn’t very
difficult), it only takes several kills to recover any xp loss.
The death penalty only truly hurts
when you’ve died at the
bottom of a dungeon and have no way to get your corpse back. Maybe the
party
you were hunting with has to leave, or perhaps you need to run out and
head off
to work yourself. The question then becomes do you continue hunting as
normal,
until you can eventually get a group that can go down with you, or do
you
decide that you won’t be back down there for quite a while
and use the altar to
summon your corpse and absorb that xp loss?
It’s the feelings about
your character and the choices like
these that make the death penalty a good thing. If there was no death
penalty
(and to me, a bit of coin to fix your equipment doesn’t
count), then it lessens
the thrill of accomplishment in the game.
If the death penalty were ever
removed, my thought every
time I died would be, “Eh.” That’s not a
feeling I ever want to have in
Vanguard. What about you?
Leave a comment href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=20923">HERE!
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