In the news item below, Bayerithe indicated that Brad McQuade had posted a brief message that he was working on a larger post to explain what was going on with SOE/Sigil.

The post is now up , but it doesn't really go into too much detail.

One thing he does talk about, however, is the problem of system requirements for Vanguard. He says:



It's true. Vanguard's system requirements are too high. WAY too high, and apparently at a pretty fundamental level. These days, I very rarely get a chance to use my desktop PC. Most of my computer time is spent on my laptop, and while my laptop is plenty powerful to run WoW, LOtR (Played the Beta), and many other games (most not even at diminished settings) it doesn't support Vertex Shader 2.0, so Vanguard won't even load.

Even my desktop PC, which is a Dual Core with 2gb RAM and a PCI-E Nvidia 7600 card (a system which, under Vista 64-bit runs Oblivion smooth as butter) stutters and lags far too often in Vanguard. I just put the system together, and I'm certainly not going to upgrade it again any time soon.

My wife's PC is lower specs than mine (AGP ATI 850 and 1gb RAM) and she can hardly play Vanguard at all. So even if I could play she really can't, so we have a tough time playing together, which means I play a game she can play too.

Unfortunately (for the future of Vanguard, I believe) Brad's message seems to indicate that instead of reconsidering and reworking some of their tech to perform better on lower-end systems (and hell, on some higher end systems!) they are simply going to play "Wait for people to buy better PCs".

And while ultimately, people will buy better PCs, by the time the average gamer has a PC that will run Vanguard well, I think one (or all) of the following will be true:

• Vanguard will go the way of Horizons and be abandoned/shut down.
• World of Warcraft's second expansion will be out and people will be playing that instead of jumping to Vanguard as Brad seems to be hoping.
• Other companies will release more accessable MMORPGs that fill the space between LOtR (not complex, but runs well) and Vanguard (Deep and rich, but unrunnalbe) somewhere in between.

Finally, lets face it... not many people are going to be pleased to hear about a higher level of SOE involvement in Vanguard. When the original publishing deal was announced, Sigil made a big deal of the fact that SOE wasn't going to be involved in game design, etc. It looks like that is exactly what is coming down the line, and what everyone feared in the first place. Let the Copy-and-Paste begin! (The control-c and control-v keys MUST have been worn out on the keyboards of the EQ2 designers...)

Hopefully I'm wrong, but only time will tell. While Sigil Online Entertainment waits for the world to upgrade their PCs I think the world will be moving on to other games... or keep playing WoW...

Well, i'm not bailing on the game because i'm actually having fun playing it. As far as LOTRO goes, it's not gonna happen for me because I consider it a step down from this game. Fuck WOW with a spoon. I'm not going back to those kiddieland graphics and 5 year old easymode gameplay. The sound sucks too. I'm going to stay with this game until they pull the plug. This is not loyalty or dedication, I just love playing this game.

As far as system reqs go, I'm able to play the game on a lapotop with an Ati mobility x1600, which is much less powerful than the laptop i gave away with a geforce go 7600, it is also noticably slower than my old Ati X800XT video card, and I know this because I played WOW on all 3 systems. Dunno what's worng with your systems Sek, I honestly believe they're powerful enough to play Vanguard.

My concern is not for the future of the game, it's for the future of our guild, for obvious reasons. If Bay is ready to leave too, then we have the same problem that killed us in EQ. I would like to keep the guild going because we're good friends and we're having fun.

Well said.

I have no intention of leaving the game either.

It's discouraging to hear of the level of SOE's involvement, but frankly I knew when I signed up it was a SOE product.

I am willing to do what it takes to stick it out and play with my friends again.

I'm certainly not going to let Sony or anyone else ruin my good time with my friends.

*edit* WoW is a cash cow with so many easy buttons it's not even a joke. I don't consider that any form of challenge even at the highest levels.

Im surprised you guys even gave it this long. Throes you give the game way too much credit.

I'm not going anywhere, the game is a blast.

I am disappointed that SOE will take more involvement. Vanguard doesn't need the typical designs of the latter half of EQ and EQ2.

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MMO free since Nov '09

Give the game way too much credit? I love it and it's fun. I bought a boat and sailing around in it is a blast. Can't do that in WOW. Am I gonna stop enjoying it because you tell me it's not fun? Nope.

Loving the solo game and the grouping game. Love diplomacy. I can buff whole cities, and I can do multiple crafting buffs, multiple adventuring buffs, and even buff all the diplomats in the city. There are dungeons with diplomat only teleports, and diplomats can disable traps, not just one at a time, but all in a whole area. Oh, and diplomats will soon be able to give out quests.

I'm also a sorceror and I'm fucking awesome. I can mes, heal myself, levitate and even run speed buff myself. My best nuke is the most awesome nuke in the history of MMO's. Super fun. I damage myself when I cast it, it's damage increases exponentially every time I cast it, but it also damages me more. It even has a chance of critting on me. I can't even count how many times I've crit myself to death when I don't have a healer, but goddamn it's fun to cast. The spell effects are awesome and the graphics are awesome.

I'm getting charged as I type this, sorry, gotta go play again.

Don't get me wrong... I like Vanguard and would like to continue playing. I do give Sigil a lot of credit for planning a game that could be amazingly deep and involving.

And I haven't cancelled my account yet in the hopes that I'll be able to play.

But the point of my post above is that I think they are taking the wrong approach to the system requirements problem. If they just wait for gamers to catch up, I think there is a real possibility that they won't exist by the time that happens.

They already have a number of black eyes (launched too early, big areas of unfinished content, etc) and I think they should consider taking another look at their rendering system with an eye towards a mode that might drop some of the graphical bells and whistles in favor of compatability and performance.

yes, performance sucks on machines where it shouldn't .
I agree that by not improving performance they are leaving the game inaccessible to people.

But its fun, and i have fun every night when i log in and i don't plan on stopping to play anytime soon.

I'm the wife. It's all my fault :P

I want to play Vanguard, but can't carve out the time to play. When I do get on, it is a time sink to get anything going, even soloing. Then I get somewhere and it's laggy and I crash while "zoning." Hell, I might as well play EQ circa 1999!

But I'm still rooting for it.

I don't know what you guys have against WoW other than it's old news and apparently not uber anymore. I don't hold it against people when they make buckets of money with an accessible product.

It's a competitive marketplace and Vanguard is still wrestling with a lot of the problems it had prior to launch. They've really screwed themselves over by insisting on being so tweaky. I guess I'm just not as patient as I was when there was no other real competition .

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The Harmonium
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Well I never even played WoW but I can tell you it sucks playing Vanguard on a hitch factory machine. Since I have upgraded my stuff it has been better, but it shouldn't cost people a grand to play a new game thats just insane, and the only way I found to reduce the performance degredation was by building with a large QDR FSB in mind.

I am pumping a C2D at 3.2 (3200) 1600mhz FSB into 800mhz RAM at a full 400Mhz bandwidth per double data rate rail all @ 4-4-4-12 2T.

That's the best your going to get in a normal setup right now. And I am getting CAS 3 with this MB because of some timing reference synchronization tech.

I just can't expect people are going to be willing to pay to experience that kind of game right now.

When Vanguard is ready, whoever is publishing it or developing it, they will get my money.