Chain Reaction
Reading this online?
You could get it in your inbox! Subscribe here.
Last week, I issued my
personal review for Vanguard
and asked the community to contribute to the overall site review.
I think a lot of people were shocked that I gave Vanguard only 2/5 hammers. Between
that and my
blaming an overly competitive MMOG community on first person shooter
(FPS) fans, I stirred up some hornets' nests last week. As Jaye
Wizziefingers (author of Journeys with Jaye) notes,
"I don't understand the timing of this."
Timing
My timing for talking about Halo
and the influence of FPS players on MMOGs last week is obvious: the
launch of Halo 3 is just
around the corner. The timing of the Vanguard
review...well, I had multiple motives. I could summarize quickly by
just saying I wanted to start a chain reaction, but I'll give several
reasons anyway.
He could have
just said "chain reaction," but nooo, he likes to see himself type.
Reason #1: It Really Was Time
When Vanguard first launched,
Shayalyn and I agreed not to review it for three very good reasons.
First, we don't think it's fair to review any MMOG just a couple of
weeks after it's on the shelf. Second, the stability was so poor that
we wanted to give Sigil time to fix it. We felt sorry for them because
they ran out of development capital and had to launch earlier than
expected. Finally, we were busy pumping out content and trying to
support a database that eventually failed because Sigil allowed one
site to reverse engineer their beta client while telling the rest of us
we could not. In the end, that site ended up with a nice database and
ours died.
Just when a review came to mind again (late March or early April), we
had caught wind of the SOE buyout of Vanguard.
Ten Ton Hammer was and remains excited about the Sony Online
Entertainment ownership of this game, and we felt confident SOE would
make some positive changes from the moment we heard the rumor. We again
decided to delay the review in order to give SOE a chance to fix the
problems that would bring out the most negative aspects of our review.
After several weeks of SOE control, we got word that Game Update #2
would be a huge update for performance issues. This, Shay and I
decided, was worth waiting on before our review. Before I knew it, Shay
was gone from the Vanguard Ten Ton Hammer site, GU#2 was live, and
there STILL was no review of the game. It was finally time to get it
done.
Reason #2: Polling the Masses
As the guilty feeling of not having reviewed Vanguard after several months
lingered in my head, it attached itself to another "should" that was
surfacing: polls. Off and on, we have tried to poll the community, our
readers--the people who make it worth all the work we put into the
site--to find out how it feels about hot topics.
In my observations, Vanguard
communities on the web were dying out. Some of it was because of the
official forums eating all the posts. Some of it was because site
admins lost interest in the game. But a lot it, or so I felt, was
because the player base had dwindled and the subscribers were losing
interest in the game.
My observations let me know that the timing was right for a review
combined with a poll. Though I like Vanguard
and it is the only MMOG I play right now, I knew my review would be of
the "would not recommend" variety. It was my hope that the die hards
who have stuck with the game for so long could offer some good counters
to my negativity. I knew that many people were going to be checking in
on the game again with news of the server merges. I wanted to be honest
about the game (which is why I reviewed PvP and Raid Content, two
things that I could care less about), but I also hoped that some of the
people who really enjoy the game could say the magic phrases to bring
in new players.
And all of that might bring in new readers for all of the content we
bust our butts to write for this site. It was a gamble, but I was
willing to try.
Reason #3: I Feel the Cold Metal of the Hook
Remember how I said above the communities devoted to Vanguard had been shrinking? Ours
is no different. Last report I heard, more people are coming to Ten Ton
Hammer to read about EverQuest 2
than Vanguard. In fact, I
think some of the Vanguard
players have jumped back to EQ2.
With our traffic numbers plummeting so steeply, I can't imagine it
makes sense for the Ten Ton network to continue to pay me to spearhead
a game that the readers don't care about. I started to feel the cold
metal of the hook they might use to pull me off of this site and onto a
new one for some upcoming game.
Now, don't fear. I don't know
anything. And I feel confident in saying that our Vanguard coverage is not stopping
any time soon. But when I try to look at the financial pictures that I
know my bosses must attend to, it just doesn't make much sense to pay
three people (Ralsu, Machail, & Dalmarus) to work on a site that
isn't being read very much. Of the three, I'd be the first to be
reassigned.
Feeling my time short, I wanted to get out that Vanguard review while I still
could. Honestly, with the amount of work I have put into the site, I
felt I deserved it. Shay, Zinn, and Smoothbrain, and I worked more than
overtime around launch to put out the essential content and try to fill
up the database. And by turning the final review into a poll, I was
trying to give Zinn and Smoothbrain their chances to review as well.
The Results?
Well, our informal poll closed with 90 votes. Over 50% of you feel Vanguard is a 4/5 game. The full
composite review will be posted tomorrow, incorporating comments and
scores from those who took the time to review the same categories that
we Community Managers did. Regardless of the final score, I'll continue
to play Vanguard for as long
as I can find the time to do so. I Told You So.
Comments? Thoughts? Criticisms? Share them here.
HOT NEW CONTENT
Poll: How Would You Rate Vanguard?
Quest
Guides
Class Content
- Look for
something new coming soon!
Armor & Monster Projects
Weekly Forum Roundup
|
|
)