APW
Moderator: Community Managers
Re: APW
You mean the irony of how they hired the game's creator who subtly disappeared, then a new "Community Manager" to speak of "a year of big things to come" followed by the release of a wing of Cavern of Wonders, followed by "the announcement" in about three weeks?
I figured it had been a commercial failure for years, and all they ever said was propaganda interspersed with a cash grab. Although I was actually grateful it was kept alive as long as it was.
Concerning the additional chunks, Nexus has the un-VG feature of an invisible fence, but I could live with that, looks like a sharded raid zone. HoSS, maybe same way, kinda horrifying to find a gnome boss. The "floating PotA" must be a test, I can't remember how the low level quest worked other than unblocking rocks in that same area, and it may have just been for the room at the top, not the whole dungeon, so could have been in the standard chunk. The gate ported you halfway downstairs so, from the ramp up, it was unused anyway.
I figured it had been a commercial failure for years, and all they ever said was propaganda interspersed with a cash grab. Although I was actually grateful it was kept alive as long as it was.
Concerning the additional chunks, Nexus has the un-VG feature of an invisible fence, but I could live with that, looks like a sharded raid zone. HoSS, maybe same way, kinda horrifying to find a gnome boss. The "floating PotA" must be a test, I can't remember how the low level quest worked other than unblocking rocks in that same area, and it may have just been for the room at the top, not the whole dungeon, so could have been in the standard chunk. The gate ported you halfway downstairs so, from the ramp up, it was unused anyway.
Last edited by Amnath on Mon Dec 07, 2015 6:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: APW
I think VG made enough money to keep it running dead in the water without devs. We lost all devs in 2010 and the game ran "just fine" (As well as VG can anyway). It was in April of 2012 or so that things really started going downhill. I feel like when they brought devs in to mess with the game, put it on cheaper servers/hardware, and get it ready for F2P that they messed it up so bad that they could not fix it without completely redoing everything from scratch.
After that April2012 change, the game was in very bad shape. The lag was horrible, the spiking made some raids nearly impossible. It was felt across the game, no matter how casual or hardcore, or which sphere you were doing. Everything they added made it that much worse. And it was at that point that VG was costing them more money than they were making, so they pulled the plug.
Smedley said it was running in the red for years, but I find it very hard to believe that they would keep vanguard running "just for the fans of the game" for years as it cost them money. I think VG pulled in enough money to keep the game alive AND have it as an extra game on their all access pass, which was their moneymaker.
That's my theory.
After that April2012 change, the game was in very bad shape. The lag was horrible, the spiking made some raids nearly impossible. It was felt across the game, no matter how casual or hardcore, or which sphere you were doing. Everything they added made it that much worse. And it was at that point that VG was costing them more money than they were making, so they pulled the plug.
Smedley said it was running in the red for years, but I find it very hard to believe that they would keep vanguard running "just for the fans of the game" for years as it cost them money. I think VG pulled in enough money to keep the game alive AND have it as an extra game on their all access pass, which was their moneymaker.
That's my theory.
Last edited by Jakkal on Mon Dec 07, 2015 7:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: APW
Sadly I never got to see nexus because I wasn't around on the last day. Looking forward to seeing it here.
I imagine that they closed the loss - making games to improve the company position in advance of the sale. As a company y, they might well have kept a loss - making game open because it was not a massive outflow, however, for sale of the company they would want to present it in the best light.
I imagine that they closed the loss - making games to improve the company position in advance of the sale. As a company y, they might well have kept a loss - making game open because it was not a massive outflow, however, for sale of the company they would want to present it in the best light.
Re: APW
Nexus couldn't have been much besides a functioning chunk they were showing off. Has Tanvu style architecture. I could see the MH raids each dropping a piece of a key that you assemble by some nightmarish process, and then some gate works for you to rift there. A few keyed gates are fine, as a few raid mobs in low level areas are fine. I just never personally heard any lore or plans about the place. But if it's there, we should use it--unlike the "future continent" for expanded levels that would make Thestra and Qalia look like Kojan, which is just an idea without any chunks.
Since Nexus is other-worldly, it could be connected to Kuras and Raki, but what it's not, is connected to anything. I couldn't even get on top of the wall. But you could run some snazzy raids there. It could be sharded, or host different bosses in different "times"...plenty of potential there.
The HoSS copies are not that many, and since PotA was not sharded, I wonder if that would have helped--it was always busy and I got lots of hitchy lag there. For all purposes, you could gate people into the "floating" copy since there was no physical exit. I know this wasn't done, because, on one of the trials where you have to target a specific mob, I had to macro the full name in quotes--trying to abbreviate it would actually target a different mob somewhere outside, 1200m away. Sharding is a reasonable compromise if needed for performance, and high level stuff seems more resource intensive than say Trengal Keep.
Since Nexus is other-worldly, it could be connected to Kuras and Raki, but what it's not, is connected to anything. I couldn't even get on top of the wall. But you could run some snazzy raids there. It could be sharded, or host different bosses in different "times"...plenty of potential there.
The HoSS copies are not that many, and since PotA was not sharded, I wonder if that would have helped--it was always busy and I got lots of hitchy lag there. For all purposes, you could gate people into the "floating" copy since there was no physical exit. I know this wasn't done, because, on one of the trials where you have to target a specific mob, I had to macro the full name in quotes--trying to abbreviate it would actually target a different mob somewhere outside, 1200m away. Sharding is a reasonable compromise if needed for performance, and high level stuff seems more resource intensive than say Trengal Keep.