<
>

Profile: godpuppet
Send PM  Forum Posts  Forum Topics 

Usernamegodpuppet
Rank: 1/100Rank: 1/100Rank: 1/100Rank: 1/100Rank: 1/100
Real NameRawr McRoffelcaeks
RankNovice Member
JoinedDecember 6, 2005
GenderMale
Age20
LocationNottingham, United Kingdom
Last VisitSeptember 20, 2008
Post Count1360
Biography

Currently playing: Nothing.

Cant wait to play: WAR, Spore.

 
Quote

Listing MMOs/Chars/Lvls does not make your post any more relevant. It just adds more crap to ignore.

 

2 Most Recent Threads by godpuppet [more...]

Latest Blog Entry - Vanguard better, but still belongs to SoE.
From my blog Another MMO Junkies' Blog [godpuppet]

This slogan really irritates me, the only limits are your own, wtf? reminds me of zombo.com

 

In the light of AoC's abysmal effort, and the recent flood of Vanguard fanboi threads, I decided to give this dieing donkey another go. I unfortunately graced this game a year ago and as a result I felt the effects of its initial failure. I remember distinctly its main problem was performance, requiring you to have a beast of a machine to run on medium settings with no lagg and it was Brad's furvent belief that bad performance wasnt down to any fault of the game, but everyone elses computers, so I quit.

A year on however and im pleasantly surprised.

Upon initial login im faced with a near perfect frame rate, "fantastic" im thinking, SoE are actually LISTENING for once! But then it dawns on me, that in the years time since I last played it, ive upgraded my graphics card and memory. I would be interested to see just how much of an FPS the new client has over the old client on the same older hardware.

At any rate, I tweaked the game up to ultra settings, minor hitching, but thats becuase of my shit memory. Visually the game is how I remember it, bland and boring. The Animation is hitchy and in some places amusing (goblins flip staffs around like its a circus trick), gameplay wise, I find myself falling asleep. However I will praise Brad's design choice of having three gameplay archetypes, when you get bored of combat, you can go do some crafting or diplomacy, it does add a level of grind distraction.

I noticed the old EU server is now an international server (there is no EU server), whether this was becuase of low pop im not sure. Also they've reduced the options in character creation, whereas before you could edit players faces, now you have a selection or 3-4 standard faces and you can modify parts of the body + hair.

It wasnt long before I hit my first bug. I think its around 3 hours into the game and its a pretty annoying one as it effects a key quest line. Players in local were polite and suggested I send a petition, so I did, then I waited 3 hours for a response, nothing came, went to bed, got up the next day and a GM contacted me around noon. No qualms the GM fixed my problem, but the fact all GM's are in the US (im EU) is slightly annoying, I have to check times so I can work out when I need to be online to get a GM response.

Since then ive found numerous bugged quests, from the mug quest in the docks, to crafting and diplomacy bugs. They are far and few between to be honest, but they do exist. When you arrive at the docks you notice the NPC's that have fallen through the floor (and have been that way since beta). Simple things like this really should have been fixed months ago, but then I think to myself, its SoE, what do you expect?

One feature I really liked was the Rift system, its a teleportation system, like griffons. You talk to an NPC, choose the location, pay a sum and you teleport. It makes getting from A - B in the game much easier.

Over all, ive tried to enjoy this game but it just isnt fun. Most of the gameplay is solo as there are very few players around, and when there are players around they dont seem to be able to communicate. I seem to recall most group quests are at 20+, however I dont think ill make it that far as im bored already.

Ive reached level 15 with my character (in all three archetypes), Ive mildly enjoyed the game. Its just a shame the game wasnt this playable back when it released. But I cant play this game anymore. The gameplay is boring, theres very little player interaction and the bugs and glitches make it frustrating at times.

More then anything, I think its the fact that SoE is running this game that drives me away from it. Every flaw, problem and mistake is amplified in my own mind, reminding me of their previous errors in prior games which eventually led to even worse decisions. It eventually brings me to the conclusion that, if SoE do become successfull with Vanguard, it will be patched slowly, new content will only come out on yearly expansions and they will only seek to milk it for as long as they can. And thats if it goes well, if it doesnt go well, it will either get shelved with a minimal dev team or have some horror like patch called NGE unleashed onto it.

SoE just make me think, meh...

Sorry Brad, but I cant pay for your game, and its becuase of this bloke.

Read more from my blog [godpuppet]

Latest User Gallery Images [more...]

godpuppet has not uploaded any photos or screenshots yet

Recent Forum Posts [more...]

    • Disappointing GM conversation.

    • So you think that GM having a debate about the actions of other GM's is time best spent? Honestly, I dont blame this guy for cutting the conversation short, hes just trying to do his job. You shouldnt petition this shit, it clogs up the petition queue and makes people with genuine problems wait longer.

      Dont agree with the name policy? Make a thread on the official forums, maybe enough people will reply to garner interest from Funcom supervisors.

      Which is besides the point really, if you give your name a unique and completely unoffensive name, you dont have to worry about this shit.

    • Posted: 8/27/08 5:46 PM
      Age of Conan
    • EU and US server split why?

    • I agree.

      The whole point of playing on the internet is to interact with people from different places.

      They say its due to new Billing/Tax laws. But all they need to do for that is have two departments.

      They say its due to lagg. Ive played US servers for 4 years, I never had serious lagg.

      They say its to help people find guilds in their timezones. Which they should letus be the judge of that.

      On the whole, I think its taking MMO's backwards.

    • Posted: 7/09/08 7:52 AM
      Age of Conan
    • Do you Really Hate? What is Your Definition? Thanks Donjn

    • My hate for SoE is something that has built up over successive MMO's and experiences with SoE. Ive played all their titles, EQ, EQ2, Planetside, Star Wars Galaxies, The Matrix Online and Vanguard, so I have a wealth of experience dealing with them. Infact EQ was my first MMO, I loved it, and SoE went from being my favorite MMO company to my most loathed.

      What contributes to this has been small things that have added up to a penultimate conclusion, that SoE dont care about their customers opinions/thoughts, but only about their money.

      I'll start with a timeline for each game and incident.

      My first MMO was Everquest, back before the Shadows of Luclin expansion, as far as I remember it, the game was laggy, it had slow zoning times and it didnt even have sound. But thats was fine becuase it was my first MMO and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It set in stone my favor for SoE and my love for MMO's. However I started to dislike their design choices in the game, new content came only in the form of expansions, and at the rate they released them I was forking out alot of dosh just to keep up. In the end I started to dislike the gamepaly changes and I moved onto other games.

      The second SoE MMO was Planetside, great game, really enjoyed it. But its suffered since its release. Very recently SoE has put it ont he back burner, with a skeleton development crew. There is virtually no development on this and game what there is, uses non-implimented beta content to cut down the work. I hate the way SoE milk games.

      The third was SWG, I wasnt a big player in this game, I played several times coming and going. I amassed a small wealthy, a house, I played as a master architect. But ever since this games launch is has had problems. It hit the shelves incomplete and buggy and there are bugs that existed from beta right up to NGE. There were problems (bounty hunter fix etc) that could have been fixed instead of developing the CU & NGE and players would have been content. Their customer support was horrendous, anyone remember the teleporting to space incident? I had a friend who's city hall vanished, he couldnt build a new one so SoE told him to build a new town somewhere else! I quit well before the CU, but I heard stories and came back to see the foul ups. The bugs that were never fixed. The class balances that were promised but never occured. The forum censorships. What topped it for me was not the NGE, but how they implimented it immediately after people ordered the expansion pack. I also forget to mention how the first expansion, jump to light speed was incomplete and didnt offer all the content they originally promised. This game was a scandal before NGE and its a scandal after. SoE's complete disregard for their customers has lead me to the conclusion that they arent worthy of my cash.

      SWG really caused me to think twice abuot SoE. I remember distinctly that SoE were always after more subscriptions throughout the game. I remember the Smedly banter before WoW released, how he was going to get more subs. I came to the conclusion that every change, CU, NGE, was not for the improvement of current subscribers, but in an attempt to get more outside subscribers. The ironic thing is, they now have less.

      The next title was EQ2, yet another game to release buggy and incomplete, its taken 1-2 years to get it to an enjoyable standard and even during that they released an expansion. Another thing that cuases me to loath SoE, where other games now offer content for no added cost, for new content in EQ2 you have to pay for it. I didnt like EQ2, but I tried it on multiple occasions, I had a customer support issue regarding billing, paid them but didnt get my time, which was never resolved.

      Matrix Online, I played at release, it wasnt a great game, made by a different company to SoE. I dont blame SoE for the state of the game, I blame SoE for milking it. Like Planetside they've got a skeletal development team doing bug fixes and implimenting very little new content. With this in mind, its very difficult to play a game in the knowledge that it will never expand or improve.

      Vanguard, again not SoE's fault, my perspective has actually improved with this game. they appear to be listening to their players, fixing issues that are high on everyones mind. The games improved immensely. Their customer support is noteworthy. But I find myself struggling to subscribe for this game in the knowledge of what SoE's done in SWG, of SoE's customer support, of SoE's habit of making you pay for all new content in its yearly expansions, its habit of releasing buggy and incomplete content. If SoE has truely turned a corner, I find it depressing that its taken 6 years to do so.

      I can only blame SoE's management for these problems, as its employee's get moved around often and ive heard rumors of entire development teams getting replaced on a yearly basis. More then anything, I constitute these problems to the person they've had in management since EQ, Smedly.

      And thats why I hate SoE.

      I dont wage hate campaigns against them, I dont put in bomb threats into their HQ, I just refuse to buy their games. I dont want to get burned again.

    • Posted: 7/09/08 7:39 AM
      General Discussion

Special Offers

MMORPG.COM Polls

Would you rather see a game release pushed back a year or have the game release with a few bugs that will be fixed?

Release
Delay

(login to vote)

View all polls