Vanguard Saga of Heroes - to be or not to be?

Discussion in 'General Gameplay Discussion' started by Sturmlocke, Aug 7, 2022.

  1. MightyMeaghan Well-Known Member

    I don't necessarily mean financially. Playtest, submit feedback, recruit your friends and guildmates to do the same. If you know C++ or LUA, donate your time in that regard. Script quests or help rebuild encounters.
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  2. AOE1 Well-Known Member

    I prefer to let others spend their time doing whatever they want to do and many people work, have families at home to tend to and still try to find time to relax and play a game. Personally, I prefer to do with my time what I enjoy which is not run around trying to beef up or help a game I am not interested in. That falls under the "to each their own" category. I do beta in this one. That is enough and more 'support, than many do.
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  3. Eshnee Member

    I am quite late in seeing this thread, not sure why as I usually noticed V:SoH stuff really quickly.

    I played EQ from 9/1999 until 12/2005. Once I and friend started noticing the buzz about V:SoH, I made a decision to devote my playtime to Telon and move my guild from EQ to there.

    I started VG in early play (January of 2006) and remained the whole seven years it ran. . .to the point that I was logged on with a collection of "die hards" when the servers were shut down for the final time. It broke my heart; so many friends gone, stories untold, etc. My goal for my guild (The Preferiti) was to be a true part of the community by hosting server events and various smaller pop up pay it forward events. All that said, as much love as I have for Telon, I would not want to see the game picked back up unless it is done so with great devotion. There was way too much potential for the game to not have it done correctly, another time. I do not play the emulator, but have friends who do and have contributed to the data collection aspect of recreating the content.

    I am extremely looking forward to Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen, as I feel that it has huge potential as well and hints that the game will have dynamics never before seen; those which make a table-top RPG player smile. If anyone ever wants to reminisce about Telon, my main was Aasha, who is the guild leader of The Preferit and Thalatth, who was my diplomat and the handle that I used as admin at VGTact. For now, I roam Norrath as Eshnee, most of the time. :)
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  4. Sturmlocke Linux enthusiast playing EQ2 via Proton.

    This is correct. As a father of two boys + wife + elderly grandfather and grandmother in the same household, I can confirm the fact that time is a luxury. That's the main reason I was so hesitant to start creating content for EQ2 on YT in the first place (EQ2 Relaxation series), because I knew that would mean less time to play. If I am recording and editing, I am not going to be able to play in a relaxed state of mind at all. It's only one or the other per opening. Totally worth it ofc, because I enjoy video editing and all the virtual exploration that comes with it, but I also understand that I can't do everything at the same time. Priorities must be set and met.

    That said:

    This is also true though. God knows I love community projects, which is one of the many reasons I use and advocate Linux and open source development. Nowdays I usually tend to just donate a couple of bucks to projects that I enjoy using, bc time is short, but that's exactly the point - everyone can contribute one way or the other. Take EQ2 for example, AOE1 likes to participate in Beta's and help find and report issues, while others enjoy creating YT content and help spread the word, and then you have ppl helping other players out in the game and on the forums etc. etc. Every single one of us can contribute to this virtual world in their own way.

    Thaaaat said x2:

    I also completely agree with this. If Vanguard or SWG officially get revived one day, it would be nice to see a collaboration with the existing emu communities that have kept the fire burning for so long. In other words, I would love to see DBG / DPG join forces with our SWG emu community and bring these games back better than ever + keep them alive and healthy for many more years to come. Restore what was once lost and take it from there.

    Just take SWG Legends for example:
    • beautiful (!) website, looks better than a lot of official websites
    • tremendous amount of effort on all channels: devs, customer service, website, community driven content, expacs and so much more
    • have not only restored the original game and all of its awesome content the way it was before its sunset, but have also gone the extramile and created even more content on top of it
    • highly populated with a wonderful community of ppl
    • super active on all fronts
    • fans of the swg vision
    • just to name a few things
    All in all, SWG Legends has done a superb job at pretty much everything. In fact, they are actually doing a better job at maintaining and upgrading the game than SOE did in the last one or two years before its sunset. That alone speaks volumes about how dedicated these ppl are and I love it.

    That said x3, I would still prefer an official server by an official ip holder like dbg / dpg. Why?
    • security. I don't know who's running the emulators, don't know what's going on in the background, don't know all the details of the updates that are being pushed to user clients and I assume there is no legal liability if anything goes wrong. Don't know and don't have the time to check each and every file or detail
    • security x2. Many ppl suggest downloading swg from "safe" online sources in order to join an emu server and actually feel safe when their antivirus reports everything is a-ok. There are lots of ways to hide malicious code that never gets detected by antivirus software, which is why I would rather stick to an official client from an official source (ip holder) or use a real physical and original copy of the game
    • data and privacy related concerns
    • server stability and connection around the world (latency, ping etc.)
    • greenlit officially, meaning no sudden strikes and server closures out of the blue. Granted, officially licensed games do get shutdown as seen with SWG and Vanguard, but a) they had a relatively "long" run and b) it didn't happen within 72 hours if you get what I mean
    • official servers, officially alive = you can officially create YT and Twitch content about it without having to fear a content ID claim just for making a video about your fav game
    • All Access was a monster of a sub, if you consider all the games that used to be included. Back in the old days, I had AA for many years and would swap between EQ2, Dcuo and SWG all the time
    Just to name a few ofc. Now, does that mean that I would want to see the community effort go to waste and shutdown? Hell no.

    Like said above, I would like to see all of that community effort combined with the power that official IP holders have (dbg / dpg) in order to relaunch both Vanguard and SWG on Steam and separately ofc. I agree with "Raph Koster" here (former SWG dev, watch the YT video on page 2), I am confident that if done right, SWG could once again be made great again and I also believe that Vanguard has the same potential. Sure, Pantheon looks great, but who knows when that'll come out and in what state. We have been through all of this before, many times actually. Btw, really enjoy Swtor, great game in its own respect, but like Nathan said in his last stream: It's so limited and on rails that you don't actually feel like you're in a huge SW universe filled with endless possibilities. Swg is just built different.



    Just three or four examples of Swtor vs. SWG:
    • In Swtor, the weather and even light conditions are fixed in place. Meaning: On Tatoonie it's day all the time and dark on other planets all the time
    • You can't swim in Swtor and the planets feel like they're meant to take you from point a to b and that's it - reducing overall depth
    • Space is on rails in Swtor and reminds me of old arcade shooters
    • Sandbox alias player and even ship housing is hands down vastly superior in SWG
    Again, just to name a few. These might not mean much to a lot of ppl, but to me and many others it does. All of these smaill but important details start to add up over time. I wanna feel like I just entered this huge and endless universe full of immersion. Watching Nathan enjoy all the little SWG details for the first time was a real joy.

    For example:

    Seeing him enjoy the beautiful crafted skybox in Tatoonie with a realtime day and night cycle and other random weather effects (sandstorms, rain etc.) was awesome to say the least. He literally stopped several times just to pay his respect to these small but important details. In fact, the guy had to force himself to stop playing by the end of the second stream, bc he actually wanted to just continue his journey. His eyes and overall facial reaction to the little stuff in SWG = like a child that's enjoying playing with his fav toy. He immediately noticed a resemblance with Ultime Online as well. And that's how thousands of other ppl feel in SWG. Not hundreds - - - thousands (if you count the ppl on all emus + the ppl that are willing to come back).

    Then he realised how much depth there's actually to player housing both planetary and in space. Wow, don't get me started on space, he was mindblown by what was possible in 2003. SWG was a behemoth, a technical marvel in 2003 and even a decade later for that matter. It was the Star Citizen of our generation. And now you have newgen mmos where adding swimming, day and night cycles or free roam space gameplay is too much of an effort. Our gen of engineers considered stuff like that to be a real challenge -> Resident Evil 2 on N64 <- and in the case of SWG, it was even crafted in a very short amount of time.

    Sure, you would have to enhance a few things here and there (animations, facial textures, fix the jerkiness of the gameplay, add better water shaders etc.), but those things are totally doable with a relaunch and some serious dedication.

    Okay, gotta stop myself here before it gets too long. All in all, this is how I feel, if you were to bring back Vanguard / Swg AND continue to make EQ2 shine = you'd have me hooked for the next decade considering how long it's taking me to see all the content in EQ2 alone. I'd most likely give up on single player games all together and just play online in these virtual worlds from time to time.
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  5. Sturmlocke Linux enthusiast playing EQ2 via Proton.

    Btw, I just mentioned this here, but I also want to put a note here just in case the powers that be read this.

    https://mmos.com/news/guild-wars-2-steam-launch-a-success-hits-over-8000-concurrent-players

    Guild Wars 2 just launched on Steam and even after all these years, it is already a huge success, especially when considering that this isn't a new mmo. IIRC, Final Fantasy 14 had a weaker start when it launched on Steam initially, and look at where it is now.

    https://steamcharts.com/app/1284210
    https://steamcharts.com/app/39210

    Imagine fixing up both SWG and Vanguard and giving both a noteworthy facelift here and there and then relaunching both on Steam. Surely both of these titles can at the very least compete with GW2 and the likes, especially since SWG already has thousands of players rn.
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  6. Sturmlocke Linux enthusiast playing EQ2 via Proton.

    Update, GW2 continues to grow and gain super positive reviews on Steam:

    [IMG]

    Hm. Thousands of new players, all very happy with it on Steam.
  7. Ixian Active Member

    Guild Wars 2 is also more modern than either of those games and has a payment model centered around their cash shop. If SWG was released on Steam, would those people currently playing SWG for free be willing to leave behind their current communities and would they spend enough money on the cash shop to fund the game's on-going maintenance?
  8. Sturmlocke Linux enthusiast playing EQ2 via Proton.

    Good question, not 100% sure, we would have to ask the SWGL and SWGE communities what it would take for them to migrate and support an official move like that. I'd honestly just reach out to them and ask, lol. Speaking for myself here, but yes, I would migrate to an official server, if certain requirements and visions were met.

    We could ask our former swg lead designer Raph Koster what he had in mind when he invisioned this idea, but I do think there are ways how this could be monetized in such a way that it is fair for everyone. GW2 might be newer than say Vanguard or SWG, but both Vanguard and SWG go so much deeper in so many ways. Never underestimate the diehard SW and Brad fans. I don't see these games doing 50k+ numbers like FF14 or GW2 right off the bat, but let's say they could both hold 3000 to 5000 players in total in a combined effort. The question that goes through my mind is, would a number like that suffice and justify the initial effort?

    Honestly, I wish Nathan would come on here and share his ideas. He has some very interesting points for Vanguard, which he has shared during his streams, and it would be an interesting discussion having Raph, us Youtubers, the Emu communities and DBG sit down and talk about the possibilities. No harm done in brainstorming stuff like this IMO.

    Edit:

    For example, one thing I can imagine that many could appreciate when moving from say SWGL / SWGE over to an official server, is being able to reactivate their old accounts when the game was sunset - or - maybe transfer over as much of the stuff they had on the emus, for example. All of the community created content, like Bespin for example, is also of high importance ofc. Another thing would be the creation of a live server (SWGL) and a classic server (SWGE) in order to cater to both parties of the group. Just thinking out loud here, nothing I have put much thought into rn.

    Edit 2:

    Btw, before I forget, SWGL is able to reach 1500 bucks on a monthly / regular basis in order to keep the servers going and lights on. It's all donations ofc. Seeing how a single SWGL server has about 2k players on a daily routine, that's basically one single buck per head every month. That more or less tells me that the communities are willing to pay for it, if they're happy with what they're seeing (?)
  9. ttobey Makes the Monsters Move

    It would be a legal nightmare trying to get SWG back. I think LucasArts held most of the rights to the game. From what I recall EA had purchased the rights to all online Star Wars games so that may have been the real nail in the coffin for it. I once joked to Smed that we could take all of our assets, un star wars them and re release in a white box with black type GENERIC SPACE GAME! haha
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  10. Sturmlocke Linux enthusiast playing EQ2 via Proton.

    Hey TT, thanks for taking the time dude. You rock.

    Taking a bath with my son rn, got shampoo in mAh eyes...

    Hm, so EA has all the rights now? Maybe we could get LA to do something magical if enough ppl petition for it? Wouldn't be the first time crazy things happen

    Oh Smed, heard that he's working for Amazon now. How's he doing?

    Would Vanguard be the same as swg in terms of licenses? If so, EQ Saga of Heroes rebranded spinoff anyone?
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  11. Sturmlocke Linux enthusiast playing EQ2 via Proton.

    Ok, back in action.

    Man, where is Smed and Raph when you need them. I wish those two could get behind an idea like this or at least throw in some suggestions on how SWG could be brought back home. @John and Raph, if you ever read this, come back and help your old team out a bit, will ya? Smed, use the force (Amazon) to overrule whatever EA has done! *usestheforcetotransmitthisthought*

    Anyway, open to any ideas anyone might have. I really wonder if LA could make an exception for SWG, seeing how they were part of the reason and took part in the decision making that lead to the great reset that came with the NGE.

    Still curious about Vanguard though. Let me guess, Microsoft or someone else holds the rights to that?

    Edit: Oh almost forgot, un star warsing swg would still lead to a good scifi mmo, but I really think a huge part of the magic is the sw theme attached to it. Just hearing the music from John Williams when logging in or in other interesting moments (sunset, sunrise, rain, thunderstorm etc.) just makes it so beautiful. It's a beautiful piece of art. Showed my swg relaxation videos to my wife today and she got goosebumps when the swg theme started to play and when Naboo faded into view. Quote: "we gotta go see Star Wars now." <- what she said.
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  12. ttobey Makes the Monsters Move

    Yeah my thoughts on Vanguard is why? I'm not sure who holds the rights to that but I don't think you would find a dev that would work on it. That game crushed too many peoples souls working on it.
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  13. Sturmlocke Linux enthusiast playing EQ2 via Proton.

    Hm, well bc a lot of ppl still love Vanguard, including Nathan and Elder Gamer Girl and many, many more:





    Oh I believe you, seeing how things played out with Vanguard, I bet some ppl are still trying to recover from that experience.

    You know, there are a few folks out there that cherrish the vision it had: seamless open world without loading times, open world dungeons, beautiful graphics and vistas, beautiful zones, superb lore, ship sailing, sandbox elements, interesting crafting and diplomacy features, beautiful music and so much more. It's a game with so much potential, what a shame to let that go to waste like that, especially since it crushed some ppl and cost millions to produce. Pantheon is trying to pick up where Vanguard left off, but that's still so far away, many years if my gut feeling is right.

    For example, our family had a tough time one or two years ago, and we held together and somehow came out stronger than ever. Even though the situation we were in nearly broke me in half, I literally broke down actually (heh), I still held on to what has been achieved thus far and used that to get back on the horse and step it up a level. Now we're doing great and my health is recovering just fine now.

    What I'm trying to say is, ppl paid with their soul and health to get Vanguard up and running and making that ship sail again would mean that we won't let all that effort, all that sweat and all those tears go to waste. The park is there in a usable state after all, it just needs little bit of fixing and dusting off.

    Imagine literally building a Jurassic Park and then due to the incidents that occured in the first iteration of said park, you shut it down even though the park could be fixed and reopened to receive visitors again.



    This is the vision, this is the dream. This goes for SWG and Vanguard and for EQ2 as well. Beautiful parks, built with pure life energy and determination. Ppl paid a high price for getting these worlds online, and I feel like we should respect that by keeping them alive as long as possible.
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  14. Xinux New Member


    From all the people over the years that I have talked to that worked on VG yes it did crush some souls but it mostly disappointed them on how things turned out but I have also talked to some that loved working on VG. I have worked on the project ever since they announced sunset for a few reasons one being I've always thought of VG as the successor to EQ1 it just had that feel to me along with the class design and the unique places to explore and I'm still finding new places I never knew about when it was live. I also did not want to see it fade away since it honestly had a great community of loyal/friendly players and I wanted to give them a place to come back to even if it was just to remember the times they had in the game. Vanguard has so much potential and I honestly think it would be going strong today if a few different decisions had been made.

    Xinux
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  15. MightyMeaghan Well-Known Member

    Did they ever have you do any animation on VG, or have you been strictly married to Norrath?
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  16. Sturmlocke Linux enthusiast playing EQ2 via Proton.

    It's interesting to see how many devs from the old days are still here, eh? :) And then some ppl like to say that there is no magic left anymore.

    It's crazy how TT was here during all of these events. Must have been hard for them watching all of these things occure and happen in realtime before their very eyes. If you watch the Postmortem video of SWG, or the Anarchy Online dev video that I posted in the EQ Remastered thread a while ago, you'll see how strongly leadership and devs are attached to these worlds and how much of it is missed by their former team or leads.

    I believe Xinux, the Vanguard EMU project leader, is trying to say a few words on here, but it hasn't gone through just yet. Will check later tonight or maybe even tomorrow to see how this discussion comes along. Gonna fokus the weekend on my family, so have fun chatting it out.

    Btw, not sure what Xinux is going to say, or if Nathan jumps in to say a few words, but maybe Xinux is that sole and single dev that might be willing to take the burden upon himself and accept this challenge in order to bring Vanguard back officially in some shape or form?
  17. Xinux New Member

    I would love to see them spin Vanguard back up and actually advertise the game but it's going to come down to can it make enough money for it to be worth the effort and also offset the costs associated with it.

    *The following is my opinion*

    Unlike their other games it actually has a higher licensing/operating cost because it's on Unreal Engine 2.5 which as far as I can tell is still under the old payment model of Epic Games along with, I'm pretty sure Microsoft is still involved in some way. Then you still need to account for server costs and support staff which now a day’s with current server specs I’m sure they could allocate more chunks per server then what they did have and cut that cost down and as for support staff I know a group of people that would be more then happy to help out on bugs/inconsistencies.
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  18. Sturmlocke Linux enthusiast playing EQ2 via Proton.

    On my phone rn, quick question: How much does Unreal 2.5 licensing cost? Advertisement is good, but I think Steam + a strong community supporting the game via YT and Steam would also suffice. Nathan said he'd be willing to cover Vanguard on a regular routine if they bring it back, and ppl like elder gamer girl, renfail, sparoh and many more are also covering it.

    Heck, I am planning on doing a few relaxation videos for Vanguard myself.

    If we come together as one force to be reckoned with, we are all the advertisement they need. This is what these gems lacked back then, a strong community defending it against the wolves trying to sabotage and bring them down.

    If Vanguard and SWG were to relaunch on Steam, we - everyone in this community that shares this passion - should be there right next to them to support it big time. Just my two cents on the subject, will comment later if I can.

    Keep the discussion alive, super interesting, especially what Xinux just said in his last post.

    Edit: Daybreak owns the super powerful Forgelight engine, right? We were discussing engine upgrades in another thread on here called EQ2 Remastered @Xinux. Another quick question: Just out of sheer curiosity, if you were to take Vanguard and swap engines for their in house Forgelight engine, how much manpower and cash would that cost? Is something like that even possible from a technical level?
  19. Xinux New Member

    Vanguard is basically using two different network protocols. Actor replication and movement is handled by unreal while everything else is handled by SOE custom network protocol. So you would have to rewrite all of the unreal replication but the main issue will be converting all the assets (maps, textures, animations etc etc). To me the smarter choice would be upgrade it to UE 4/5 instead regardless either would be a huge undertaking.
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  20. Sturmlocke Linux enthusiast playing EQ2 via Proton.

    Oh wow, what a coincidence, just logged in and there you are. Super!

    Is there anything that could help the conversion of said assets over from Unreal to say Forgelight? How did Funcom go from the ancient Anarchy Online DX7 engine to their DX10 Dreamworld engine, which is used in Age of Conan and Secret World? Asking out of pure curiosity how these things work. I know some folks have conversion tools, but I think that's used for transferring things inbetween the same engine, as you mentioned going from Unreal 2.5 to 3, 4 or even 5.

    IIRC, Funcom did this for AO because they wanted all of their games on the same engine, which in theory would make maintenance and future upgrades much easier. Seeing how DBG owns Forgelight, and were going to use it for their future EQN installment, wouldn't that give them more control, cash and freedom in the long run when doing these things for their games?

    Edit: NVM, just found this interesting info on their forums. Not sure how accurate it is as it's many, many years old, but this is what they said back then.

    https://forums-archive.anarchy-onli...y-u-tomorrow-for-a-new-GX-Engine-Today!/page2

    Seems like they didn't redo everything, but only a portion of it:


    Such an interesting and fascinating topic.