VGOEmulator.net

First, I do want to thank all of you for coming on and testing, we really appreciate it. You save us a lot of time where you can play the different classes and test the content so we can work on more content for you!

But some people seem to think that Vanguard is a game that can be played right now, and that's pretty far from the truth. Vanguard is in what we consider an early alpha state. We do not currently have all the functionality we need to get everything up and running like it was on Live. While, yes, you may be able to do a lot of quests and have a lot of your attacks - that doesn't mean we can set them all up exactly as they were in Live. When I, as a content designer, run into an issue where I can't set up something, I ask the devs for the functionality. This is the way we've been proceeding.

I've seen people comment that "certain classes are garbage" and "there's so many bugs", when in reality the class abilities can't be scripted yet or the content hasn't been cleaned up/finalized/scripted. These are not bugs, this is stuff we either can't get to yet, or haven't gotten to yet. And nothing is more demoralizing than seeing people call your hard work 'garbage' because it doesn't behave exactly like they remember it.

Also, as a side note, giving me an attitude because you don't understand something is not going to make me go into Customer Support mode. I'm not here to take bullshit, I am here to rebuild the game. (Sorry, this has actually happened to me a couple of times from people that, I guess, don't understand that the game is still being rebuilt).

But we do get frequent bug reports for things that aren't bugs, and reports for things that aren't helpful if they are bugs.

#1. Remember that Vanguard was not a game that handholds or coddles the player. We get a lot of bug reports because people don't read quest text and don't try different things. Not all questgivers are the turn-in NPC. They will not always tell you who the turn in NPC is. You have to intuit it. Read quest text carefully and keep an eye on your environment. That's often all that's needed to complete quests.

#2. Be specific in your bug reports. The more we have to 'try to figure out what people are talking about', the more time we waste trying to track down a bug, the less time we have for content. What might seem obvious to you might not seem obvious to me.

#3. Before you send in a bug report, try it several times first. If a GM is on and reloading scripts, it can interrupt your gameplay. It can make it seem like NPCs can't be hailed, or quests can't be turned in, or items can't be used. Sometimes these bug reports are coming in when we're working and when we attempt to recreate the bug, it doesn't happen for us.

#4. If mobs are stacked on top of each other, especially in dungeons, it means we haven't gotten to clean it up yet. If you see one or two mobs stacked in an area that has no other mobs anywhere else like that, then you can bug report it. But if you see consistant mobs stacked up - we haven't cleaned up yet. We do cleanup dead last, and even longer for dungeons. We have to be very considerate and careful about mob placement and movement. We can spend an entire week just doing dungeon cleanup - and that's when we have the time. So don't report that a dungeon 'Has too many mobs" or "mobs are stacked on top of each other" if it's a common occurrence. We know it needs cleanup. We know it interrupts your play. This is part of the reality of you playing on the test/development server.

#5. I don't want to bitch at you guys but seriously, if you do a thing and it says it's not implemented yet, you don't bug report that. The whole reason we have the note that it's not implemented yet is to let you know: IT IS NOT IMPLEMENTED YET. We have gotten a surprising number of bug reports from people letting us know that class abilities "aren't working" and "seem to be giving a message that it's not implemented yet". We have tried to make this simpler for you by putting "Please do not bug report" on it, but people are still bug reporting it. Don't do that!

#6. The random loot that drops from mobs is exactly that, random loot. The loot table has just a bunch of crap on it and it drops based on the mob's level and dots. That's it. There's nothing else special about it. Most named mobs have not been given a loot table. Yes, we know it's irritating that there are so many unique bows dropping. We have not, at all, implemented specific mob drops yet other than quest needed items - unless otherwise stated. You do not need to bug report about the random mob loot. When you're testing a quest that has mob loot drops, just make sure that the items you NEED are dropping. Anything else is fluff that we haven't gotten to yet.

That's all I can think of for now. Please keep in mind that we're doing our best to try to keep the game true to live, but fixing some of the issues that crop up. But we're not going to put in hints and help in quest text or, set up abilities that can't be set up properly yet, or clean up when we're not ready for it. You are on a test/development server. VG is not in a state you can just sit down and play yet.

Just want to say thanks for all that you guys are doing to bring the game back. I've been playing it a lot over the past several weeks and despite, it's unfinished state, it's been one of the most rewarding and fun gaming experiences I've had in some time. I have tons of questions I'd love to ask but I know you all have more pressing things to do so I'll ask just these two things, if you have a moment....

1. How often are new skills being implemented and is there some way for us to know when one is. If a skill wasn't previously working and gets added, I'd like to know so I can go back and add it to my hotbar and test it.

2. I struggle with knowing which combat stats/mechanics are currently working (i.e. is Armor Class working? Character sheet still shows a 0 for Armor or is this a display issue?, Does Intelligence impact spell damage? That sort of thing.

Again, really appreciate everyone's effort here.

Thanks for the kind words.

urgatorb8 wrote: ↑Wed Dec 27, 2017 8:19 am 1. How often are new skills being implemented and is there some way for us to know when one is. If a skill wasn't previously working and gets added, I'd like to know so I can go back and add it to my hotbar and test it.

I can't really answer for Faux on these questions, but I can give you a little of what's going on behind the scenes in regards to class stuff. The class scripting is, to me, the hardest thing to script. It's a lot of math. It's A LOT OF MATH. You really need to know your stuff scripting wise to get it right. This is not something I've been able to figure out myself (Otherwise they'd be done by now). We've had a few people pick it up, but then they just disappear without a trace. So we'll get one or two new spells and then, that's it. I don't know if they lose interest, lose the time, lose internet access or realize that the job is bigger and uglier than they thought. Either way we need class scripters and we can't seem to get any.

When they are scripted/created/added, the designer is supposed to post about it in the Content Designer forums for class scripting: https://www.vgoemulator.net/phpBB3/viewforum.php?f=66

urgatorb8 wrote: ↑Wed Dec 27, 2017 8:19 am 2. I struggle with knowing which combat stats/mechanics are currently working (i.e. is Armor Class working? Character sheet still shows a 0 for Armor or is this a display issue?, Does Intelligence impact spell damage? That sort of thing.

Again, I can't answer for Faux for this one. I know he's been working on it recently. But the way it works in VGO is that we don't have access to edit anything client side. The display on your character sheet is client side. So what the developers have to do is figure out how to trigger things to show up on the client as they should. This has been a huge challenge and a major undertaking for them. It's basically like poking a sleeping bear with a stick to see how it reacts to you. This also becomes a problem where, for example, SOE removed the strength bonus from paladins. So no matter what we do, that shows no bonus. We could set it up so they get a bonus, but we wouldn't be able to get it to show up on the character sheet. We've had many discussions about this in the past about how we should handle it.

Right now, I think Strength is the only one that's actually doing anything towards attacks, but I don't know for sure.