Trouble in Telon (Vanguard)

May 24, 2006 on 8:05 pm | In MMO (Upcoming)

Both over at Grimwell Online and F13, one of the many conversations involves Vanguard. The conversation at GO was started by Heartless posting some "leaked" info an anonymous beta tester posted in his comments thread. 

Basically, all is not well on Telon. While I am not surprised, the discussion at GO has mostly involved the reaction of both the old and new Vanguard Forum posting community to the state of the game and it's relevance to the ever changing conditions of the genre.

The discussions about VG seem to be more intense than the usual game though. Numtini offered up one hypothesis:

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MMO audiences self select around the game as presented and will ruthlessly defend their turf from all comers.What is interesting here is that Vanguard's audience seemed to self select very early based mostly developer statements and PR. Not entirely new but apparently much stronger here then we've seen before.

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Personally, I feel the reasons run deeper than that.

1. There are people who truly loved Everquest. They loved the separation between Haves and Have Nots, and really don't like the casualness that has happened. Mostly, I've wondered if these were the Haves of EQ. But there's other groups too, like folks who are really worried that easier games (ones with faster advancement and consumption of content) mean less social ties and those who simply don't like too many other people on screen at the same time. It has long been felt by some that downtime is the root of socializing in these games. At the same time though, don't ever say that to a gamer. "Downtime" is an 8-letter curse word.
2. SOE is the enemy. Unfortunately, they have huge image problems. Their actions over the years have not endeared fans to them. This is particularly pronounced by the near-idolization Blizzard receives. SOE is perceived as "The Man". Brad leaving meant leaving EQ to the "The Man". All the changes that came to EQ1 after he left were done by "The Man", for a game the old guard felt had devolved into something adrift as a result. And Everquest 2 coming in the form it did (much improved though it is), did nothing to help them. Then they got Matrix Online, a game so few like. Then a bunch of other little things happened, culminating in the Star Wars Galaxies: New Player Experience fiasco. Unlike NC Soft, everything SOE does affects everything SOE has. Sure nobody really openly likes Microsoft either. But few gamers in this genre actively hate them too. They accepted MS as required to deliver VG. So Brad was seen as a sort of independent anti-establishment ship-when-ready type person. When that changed back to "The Man", the volume of complaints started to really skyrocket. I personally imagine this is because the average gamer both doesn't really know anything about how the video game business works, and aren't really interested in learning about it. Their judgements become rooted in emotions, like "hating" SOE and "loving" Blizzard, such feelings completely lost on the profit centers these and all respective entities have as their primary purpose. They deliver games as a business.
3. The strongest fans of a game are generally the folks entering the genre for the first time through it or longtime genre veterans who see it as giving them what they think they want. A good way to notice this is to compare the dynamics of conversations about Auto Assault, World of Warcraft and Vanguard.

1. For AA, many largely didn't like it enough to pay a fee for it, but it wasn't generally accompanied by flame-infested forum troll idiot-spew.
2. WoW was much more dynamic, but the game actually achieved very broad appeal by hitting all the right hot-button issues. Of course, since then, some of the more vitriolic discussions have started, as people for whom the endgame wasn't designed actually hit the endgame.
3. VG is the most dynamic, I think, because it is talking to exactly one type of player. This is at a time when there's so many players in the genre, many more than that one type of player wants to like the game simply because it's new and interesting. So as community members struggle to decide whether the game is for them, they encounter the people for whom it is specifically designed, who want it to be the way it is with no compromise. And the worst part is, a good percentage of the posters aren't even in the beta, so they cast judgement on year-old statements and someone's interpretation of the written word. Emotionally.

The general impression of VG has, in my opinion, plummeted quite publicly in recent months. I attribute part of that to them going back to SOE. But there's also the ever-increasing amount of beta leaks, tied to them inviting more people at all, and then the very public playable demos at E3. PR is a tricky business. Some comment on how Sigil has started posting more in defense of the game. They have every right to defend it of course, as this is their lifeblood. But I do think though their messaging may need to be more obvious. This game is so not for everyone that people really need to be turned away from it before they hit the forums.

I feel VG is struggling for identity right now, and I wish them well in the coming months. The game is not for me, but that means nothing in a genre with so many. There's room for all of the games, as long as they have identified a critical mass of subscribers. For talk about Trouble on Telon, head on over here. But also feel free to join this and this discussion as well.