Apparently, there have been a number of minor Vanguard beta leaks over the past couple of weeks, all of them devastatingly negative. The gist is that Vanguard, in its current beta stage, is not fun, or, as one NDA breaker put it, “a pile of steaming shit”. Normally, I would simply ignore such chatter, considering that Vanguard is still beta and all. What I find troubling, though, is that some of the criticism is directed against core game mechanics, some of which I always suspected to be bad ideas, and thus reinforcing some of my own initial doubts about the game.
Ever since Reichspropagandaminister Oloh’s unintentionally hilarious combat system write-up I have had my doubts. The whole thing sounds too much like “playing the UI”. Having played healers for the largest part of my MMORPG life, I am certainly no stranger to gameplay based on the concept of reacting to user interface state changes and I learned to hate it. Having the player interact mainly with the UI makes for shitty gameplay and I was a bit shocked to find out that Sigil decided this to be the foundation of the combat system. I find it more than just a little disturbing that Vanguard’s combat system sounds eerily similar to EQ2’s insufferable crafting system.
There has been some recent developer talk about making combat “more proactive”. I take that as an acknowledgement that the basic concept stinks. Reacting to perception icons popping up in the UI by pressing a hotkey apparently isn’t fun. Duh. I wonder why it took them so long to come to that realization. I could have told them that 5 months ago, without ever playing the game. The question is whether they can fix a conceptually bad combat system by introducing proactive elements. We’ll see.
Similar to EQ2, Vanguard allegedly shares the same core mechanics across all three gameplay spheres (Combat, Diplomacy, Crafting). EQ2, of course, doesn’t have diplomacy but if you’ve ever tried crafting in EQ2, you’ll get the idea. In pratice, this probably means that crafting in Vanguard consists of pressing hotkeys in accordance to whatever icon the UI decides to flash in front of you. Diplomacy likely works like combat, just with diplomacy skills instead of combat skills. Fighting with words instead of swords.
When diplomacy was first mentioned, I wondered how they’d pull it off. It seemed like a rather complex idea that is very demanding in terms of content design. Now, if diplomacy is basically combat dressed differently then things suddenly become a whole hell of a lot clearer. Instead of attacking a NPC with “Mighty Strike” until its HP bar is depleted, you attack it with “Dirty Joke” until its diplomacy bar has filled up. That way, Sigil don’t really have to hand-tailor content for diplomacy. Makes sense but it’s also kind of pointless. I’m suspecting that diplomacy will be little more than a pointless novelty gimmick but I’d be glad to be proven wrong.
Leveling your crafting class supposedly takes as long as leveling your adventuring class and producing worthwhile items requires cooperation between interdependent crafter classes. This is another idea I think won’t work out very well in reality, for a number of reasons. The crafting issue is a complex one and I may write up something more in-depth in the near future but for now, let’s just say that I am not convinced anymore that there is room for complex, time-consuming crafting systems in adventuring-driven games.
Vanguard used to be my personal Great White Hope of the MMORPG genre but my faith in McQuaid’s game design genius has seriously faltered during the past six months. The stream of negativity from beta testers is only part of it. The more details on the game mechanics are revealed, the uneasier I’m feeling about the game. I just don’t think that some of the most basic design tenets of Vanguard are particularly good. Games are supposed to evolve away from highly UI-dependent gameplay and not revert back towards it. That’s not the kind of “3rd generation” gameplay I envision. I still kind of hope that I’m merely being overly pessimistic but my 7 years of MMORPG experience have left me with pretty dependable gut feeling on all things MMO and right now, my gut feeling tells me that there is a good chance that Vanguard’s “sekret sauce” may in fact be diarrhea.
1-26-2007 @ 16:07
BTW, this game is truly epic and awesome. It’s not fully realized, but it doesn’t feel that way. They have enough in the game to make it a full game, and they are only going to make it better.