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Why are you doing this?

Posted: Sat Apr 19, 2014 9:31 pm
by John Adams
No, really. Why ARE you doing this? Yes, SOE is taking down the game, but there are lots of games. Why are YOU here, helping - or waiting - for VGOEmulator?

I'll tell you why I am here. Primarily, because I can help make a world from nothing. Building an emulator from the ground up is a challenge, and I like challenges. I usually surround myself with extremely talented people and together, we make it happen. Unless you've done it, that might not make sense, how thrilling it was the first time I stepped (a virtual) foot inside New Telon. My pride soared through the roof; these guys kick ass, and so does everyone here who is lending a hand.

So why else am I here? I haven't played VG:SOH since late 2008. At first, I thought it was just the above; a challenge, to see if we can do it. Then SOE made their announcement, and it became a bloodlust to ensure it happened. Now that I KNOW it's going to happen, I can sit back and remember some of the most fascinating game moments in my 10-years of MMO experiences.


As my bio says, I started out playing Everquest in 2000 with a friend. To this day, that was "the" game for me; almost 6 years of my life, not hard-core, just a casual RPer who dreamed of Raiding but never did. In 2007, a co-worker of mine (aka Jordaan Quickblayde) told me about Brad's next "EQ" - called Vanguard. He said he was "getting the band back together" for it, which meant Triune was taking another run at a new MMO. These guys were hard-core. One of the top 5 raiding guilds on Morell-Thule. I always wanted to raid, but was too gimpy.

Jordaan and I made toons around Feb 2007 or so, and I remember how clunky and laggy and awful the experience was. But we struggled forward. With about 20 old-school Triunee's in game, we started the guild and began the grind. Picking up new members was a snap, and before you know it our guild was 60+ strong... and we were level 10

The point:
I am standing right now, in our EMULATED Vanguard World, in the spot where my most vivid memories of Triune, of Mok and Moline, Jordaan and Pesk, Matsunaga, Eveningsong, Queenya, Ajrarn (RIP), Velathir, Cyfo and a dozen others from EQ/Triune; our groups in Southwatch where we must have spent a month.
ScreenShot_00104.JPG
Just Before that it was Renton Keep and Three Rivers, and I just visited all the places we used to hang out. The lakefront property run by those bandits at the end of the trail - you know the one. I bashed their skulls in many a night until we were able to move on. Leveling was slowwwww... I guess "pain" was part of the Original EQ experience.
ScreenShot_00105.JPG
From Southwatch, my band of would-be Raiders made our way to Flordiel where we spent months farming stuff for our Itchy gear or whatever... Somewhere around the time we all hit the mid 40's, APW arrived. The guild leader whipped us daily to get that gear and levels so we could start farming APW. The Ancient Port Warehouse was utter chaos. Between the CTD's and lag, and the Encounters that seemed unbeatable, that is where we lived our last year until late 2008 or so when everyone started losing hope.

We whacked some Overland bosses too, just to keep the faith. But APW.... I know there are "strats", but these were seasoned raiders and that dungeon wiped the floor with us almost every night. Finally, after about 3-4 mos, we found the magic sauce and were able to start kicking the crap out APW - but by this time, the lack of content, crashes, and dumbing down of the game took it's toll... and some of my favorite people were gone. I had gotten super busy with EQ2Emulator around that time, so it was all good for me; my days of Gaming were officially over.


So that is why I am here. For the challenge... and that was it, up until tonight, running the same paths I ran with some of the best gamers I've ever known and remembering how awesome my last MMO experience was.


The point of my story is to hear YOUR story... Why are you doing this? Why are you here? What is so amazing about VG:SOH that you want it to live on forever in emulation? I'd love to hear what brings you here.


Edit: Oh, let's not forget my other reason for loving Emulators... throwing myself off high places:

Always wanted to do that

Re: Why are you doing this?

Posted: Sat Apr 19, 2014 10:28 pm
by Xen
My reasons are very similar to yours John. The main reason is so that Vanguard can live on. It bugs me that when they shut the game down, none of those people that love the game will ever be able to play it again*** .....unless an emulator is built.

The second reason is the challenge. The main reason I became a programmer as my profession is for the challenge and because I like to solve problems. There's nothing more satisfying than the feeling you get when you solve a really hard problem. MMO design presents really hard problems. As players we don't have to worry about how things work, they just do. Once you dig down into *how* it works, you have a great deal of respect for the people that make it happen.


*** I wish that when companies shutdown a game, they would allow the game to go open source. I know there are various reasons they probably can't (exposing network code, possible IP, etc), but if the game is just going to "sit on the shelf", you might as well let people enjoy it.

Re: Why are you doing this?

Posted: Sat Apr 26, 2014 11:21 pm
by Nicodemus
My journey into online games began with UO, then EQ when it came out, though I still played UO regularly, and then DAoC followed by EQ2. I have enjoyed all of these games for many years, and have tried at least half a dozen others. My largest chunk of time was spent in EQ, but my favorite has always been UO. Some might find that silly, I know. Maybe it was because it was my first. But when they began development of Vanguard, I followed it longingly for what seemed like forever until they finally began beta and I got to experience and participate in what would become one of the greatest online games ever created. But the game had so many problems and shortcomings that it seemed people lost interest in it and stayed with games like WoW.
Vanguard has had a rough life from the very beginning, but we can see that it has immeasurable potential. All of these games have emulators created for them that have done very well, and provided folks with a lot of enjoyment. They may some day eventually fade away over time, but cannot now just die suddenly. In my opinion, Vanguard is a game that deserves to have an emulated server, and to live on for a long time. It is sad that it will be dropped and eventually forgotten by $ony, and even sadder that there are so few here that have an interest in keeping it alive. That's why I'm here. I want to be able to run through Telon anytime I feel like it. I don't possess the skills that some of you do, but if the very least that I can do is to log on and collect small bits of data, then I will do it. And I will appreciate what everyone here is able to do to bring life to this project. We all share a similar goal, and I'm glad to contribute even a small part of it.

Re: Why are you doing this?

Posted: Sun Apr 27, 2014 1:08 am
by Ily
I always had meant to give Vanguard a try, was put off by the initial release reviews and then just never seemed to have time to fit it in to my gaming time.

Recently I just subscribed to Planetside II (Planetside I is far better game IMHO and coming back for free!) and saw that Vanguard was going to be included in their all access pass on April 1. So noting that, I just decided to give the game a try prior to my all access pass kicking in. All of this transpired about 2.5 weeks ago.

So I picked a Bloodmage and was plopped down on IoD with no clue what to do. My initial thoughts were, the view distance is amazing, atmosphere distortion slider needed lots of fiddling to make the game feel more 3D like (surreal), the quest log and compass director to quests locations is poorly executed on many levels, character and monster animations are smooth and nice, particle effects for spells (yes, always thought they were the best looking option), diplomacy what int he hell is this, diplomacy wow this is actually kind of cool but what is the point of it later in the game?

After a day or two of playing I saw the announcement for the sunsetting, full well knowing that I rarely ever saw or got to group with anyone (I did use LFG and /who all count).

Loving the classes, the engine, speedtree, emphasis on grouping (Brad and the EQ team), loads of dungeon slogging content, open world, Unreal Engine (highly documented / great tools) I wondered if someone was or had started an emulator to save this great game? Surely SOE might can it because it costs so much to keep the launcher and security up to date but the emulator community would pick up a gem of a chassis to build upon. All of this lead to finding this site.

Experiencing the great design that went into this game (I feel it is a game made by gamers) it inspired me to think about the mods that I created in Quake C and hopefully apply that to something in this project. AI always is lacking in these types of games, one direction of interest to go with but also dungeon design (I know how to use Unreal ED quite well) and scripted events are very intriguing to me.

So what gets me really excited about this project is that it is a good chassis to build upon (Unreal Engine (documentation, available toolset) the core game design) that other no other emulated MMORPG has. It is modern but not too modern which also lends itself to having mass appeal due to the fact you don't need a very powerful computer to play it. All in all there are many strengths that Vanguard has that SOE could only find as being a weakness.

Re: Why are you doing this?

Posted: Sun Apr 27, 2014 6:32 pm
by snom
The answer to why I like Vanguard is mostly that it is very open world, and not very dumbed down. Many of the systems, like crafting, are very complex and almost a game of their own. Most importantly though, in my eyes, is that it is one of the few games to get archers/rangers right.

The answer to why am I doing this is that while I haven't been actively playing, and my total time spent over the last decade isn't all that much compared to many, Vanguard is a game that I often come back to. I just hate to think that a company can take that option away. I also spent a lot of time playing SWG, and more recently, the SWGEmu, which I am so thankful that it exists, so when I heard about the VGOEmu project, I was happy to hear there was a way I could contribute

Re: Why are you doing this?

Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2014 8:07 pm
by John Adams
I was just in New Telon and (old) Telon together, verifying content, when this breathtaking scene came before me. One of the many reasons I choose to try and save this game; the seemingly realistic effects like smoke, fire, even the water in some cases.

This is a shot from the Live game, Renton Keep, Tharridon's Scar:
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I just love how I can run in from broad daylight and sunny skies, not crossing a single zone boundary and the entire atmosphere changes to this dull, spooky, sinister looking pocket of the Keep.


Same shot from inside VGOEmulator:
ScreenShot_00146.JPG
The tone is a tad bit lighter, but we also are not controlling daylight yet. Still, the smoke plumes when I first walked into this Scar were small, just rising... within 5 minutes of watching them, they reach towards the heavens.

Just brilliantly beautiful. Really revs my engine

Re: Why are you doing this?

Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2014 12:16 am
by Kilsin
I started playing VG as my first ever true MMORPG and fell in love with everything it stood for, I made so many friends and had some of the best experiences ever in the VG virtual world, memories that live on even after 7+ years of playing from the very first closed beta and to this day, I still log in and play with friends/guildies/raid (although due to real life I have taken 2 break for a few months each time, but I always came back).

Now that SOE is closing the game down, I couldn't bare the thought of never being able to login to the VG world again, so I decided to help this project with anything that I could bring to the table, to see it succeed and live on, long past the sunset SOE intended for such a great game.

I am also very bitter toward SOE for the treatment of the game over the years, so to see fresh new dedicated talent that is excited by the opportunity to work with this game, makes me smile, this is what VG deserved over the last 7+ years and hopefully, with such great people working on it and with all of our help, it will finally get that love that it deserves.

That's why i'm here!

Re: Why are you doing this?

Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2014 11:15 am
by Ily
I guess I really love computer games and game design, is why I devoted so much time to this project. So many MMORPGs are just not getting it right from my perspective.

What really excites me about this project.

1) New Artificial Intelligence and the ability to set that to different levels
2) Great engine that I have knowledge about that anyone could create dungeons for. Brush based editors are easy to learn and pretty easy for anyone to pick up and make content for. These type of games (and FPS) thrive on content (also see point one for adding challenge to that content).
3) To make design changes that are evolutionary (copy others ideas, tweak them, refine them) and revolutionary (the harder ones).
4) To make a game that actually brings back grouping, crowd control, group synergy dynamics, fear of death, and a sense of community. Last game that had this for me was EQ.
5) To make a map or two again, been a long time for me.

Re: Why are you doing this?

Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2014 3:19 pm
by Jave
Image

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And my favoite pic haha
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Ahhh the memories............

Re: Why are you doing this?

Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2014 8:28 am
by ArtofWar
Vanguard is just one of those once in a lifetime games. I have been MMOing since Ultima and meridian, and love that old sense of wonder and exploration I used to feel. And it wasn't until Vanguard came along (Bugs, crashing, drowning on solid land) that I had that feeling reignited. I loved the game, the ideas it had and implemented (Experience XP, Flying, See it go to it world) and just the passion that oozed from every corner of the world, even the incomplete areas and content were beautiful. I have been with VG since Before Live, and stayed with it thick and thin, even with what sony has done to the game to streamline and hollow out the experience (although they did add some actual content at some points). Even now, collecting data, I'm coming across things I never knew about, or had not gotten around to seeing or doing in all my years playing. For a game to hold surprises after that long says something. And the community, we were and are bar none one of the best, most helpful communities that is around. I have made friendships that have endured even when they left the game for other things.
Im glad we can continue forward in our New Telon, and excited to see where we go from here.