Why all the nerd rage against Vanguard

Twobit Whore said:

While OpenGL may or may not be the answer, it is pretty much a certainty that the Unreal engine was not designed to do what they are trying to do. It has been tweaked and gutted and twisted so much that they really could have done better by writing their own.

Click to expand...

Well we can say that now cant we? But back then it appeared to be the right decision. Bulding a Game Engine from the ground up is a fucking long ass process, which would probably have pushed the games budget up even more.

Its easy to second guess now that we see the outcome but back then how could they know really?

Besides on a decent computer you can run the game at decent settings. On a semi High end PC you can go Max Quality like Im doing.

Jedite said:

Well that P4 processor is ur main problem. Anything starting with P4 is a total and complete piece of junk, sorry to say but it is. Apart from that a few questions.. Onboard Sound? Latest Nvidia Drivers? Did you use Driver Cleaner to remove previous Nividia Drivers?

but really, seriously spend a few bucks and get atleast a new Motherboard/CPU you desperatly need it. That P4 is dragging your system HUGE, besides its a Power hungry/Overheating mofo.

Click to expand...

Yeah, if you go p4 I would do a minimum of a 2.8ghz,and preferably a 3.0 aor 3.2. And make sure the motherboard is pci-express.

First of all, I have a 4 yr old computer. P4 3.2 2 gig ram and a 9800 pro. And I run this game perfectly fine. I have a hard time believing this game cannot be ran on a system like mine or bogs. Maybe you set your expectations of your computer too high? I have the settings set on the one next to the lowest settings. Maybe Bog thinks he can plug his 4 yr old comp on high quality and get 50fps??

I really dont understand. My bro has one just like mine (I built them both) but his has an AMD 64 3800 with a 6800GT and he runs fine. I find this totally unbelievalble that you cannot play the game on basically the same system like ours. ITs totally playable, totally scalable to any system within the last 4-5 yrs.

Its a fucking fallacy and shame to spred lies like this.

This game may be buggy as hell, released early, lacking 35+ content, some might not like it, whatever. And all of this is true. But to say that you cannot play this game on a system like Bog pointed out is totally false and a flat out lie. Unless, like I said, he was trying to run this game on the highest settings.

gremlinz273 said:

Also, would like to see the changelogs where you are getting this info on just how much of the original Unreal code base was altered.

Click to expand...

Just the many dozens of dev posts during beta stating the fact.

gremlinz273 said:

You think so eh?

All they had to do was hire John Carmack, yep, obviously.

Also, would like to see the changelogs where you are getting this info on just how much of the original Unreal code base was altered.

Click to expand...

hehe that sounds so simple doesnt it? Just hire good ol John =p.

Anyways back in the old beta boards, it was common knowledge that the Unreal Engine was tweaked heavily and they have been using some Unreal 3.0 code aswell on the 2.0 code base.

kohl said:

I really think Sigil gambled and lost with regards to the tech in Vanguard. I don"t understand why Brad had such a hard-on for that specific engine but the end result is that too much emphasis was put on bells and whistles versus tangible fun gameplay. I can understand wanting to future-proof your game to some extent, but you don"t need the bleeding edge engine of tomorrow for an MMORPG, I"m sorry... especially if doing so actually hinders the product.

Click to expand...

The funny thing is they aren"t using a bleeding edge engine. It"s Unreal Engine 2, hacked up massively but still the same graphics core that has been around since 2003 and runs Lineage 2.

The Doom 3 Engine
CryEngine 2
Unreal Engine 3
Source

Those can be bleeding edge if you get into all of their features.

One problem is what they are trying to get UE2 to do. You can prop it up with a high end PC but in the end a different engine could get similar results with much less hardware. Another problem is their art assets, quite frankly, stink. There is way too much geometry, texture selection is poor, and bump mapping is massively overused. I am guessing their concept renders look fantastic but whatever process they have to convert those into actual game assets must be extremely weak.

I think this is where the complaints of "my PC can run everything else fine, why is vanguard such a hog?" come from.

Mkopec1 said:

First of all, I have a 4 yr old computer. P4 3.2 2 gig ram and a 9800 pro. And I run this game perfectly fine.

I really dont understand. My bro has one just like mine (I built them both) but his has an AMD 64 3800 with a 6800GT and he runs fine.

Click to expand...

Fine is subjective. I have seen people saying that they get 15fps and it"s "fine". Some people won"t accept that as "fine". Maybe you could give some numbers, instead of adjectives.

imo, if they atleast had shadows/lighting in this game, it would look much better . All the screenshots ive seen so far have none. Is this an art choice or is the engine running vanguard unable to do shadows?

Twobit Whore said:

Fine is subjective. I have seen people saying that they get 15fps and it"s "fine". Some people won"t accept that as "fine". Maybe you could give some numbers, instead of adjectives.

Click to expand...

High Performance I get 35+ sometimes even 40+ in the wilderness.(Where 80% of your time is spent) 15-25 in cities with alot of people around. And I find this perfectly acceptible with my aging hulk of a beast. I thinkI could even get those numbers higher If I invested in a sound card. I have on board Audio as of now.

Mkopec1 said:

High Performance I get 35+ sometimes even 40+ in the wilderness. 15-25 in cities with alot of people around.

Click to expand...

Well I hardly think that"s a point in your favor, then. Most people running Vanguard want something that looks like the screenshots they"ve seen. High performance looks pretty bad, imho.

woqqqa said:

Well I hardly think that"s a point in your favor, then. Most people running Vanguard want something that looks like the screenshots they"ve seen. High performance looks pretty bad, imho.

Click to expand...

I think the game looks fine they way I play it. If you dont, by all means dont buy.

Dont expect tis game to run on max with a 4 yr old computer. What bog basically said it is unplayable, which is total bullshit. The game scales rather well. I honestly thought I could not even play it with my aging hulk.

Steamrice said:

imo, if they atleast had shadows/lighting in this game, it would look much better . All the screenshots ive seen so far have none. Is this an art choice or is the engine running vanguard unable to do shadows?

Click to expand...

You"re kidding, right?

This isn"t even a good picture... but it shows shadows at least.

kohl said:

I never recall FPS issues in EQ, even going back to beta (I was in beta4). I recall the default configuration had the first-person perspective viewpoint as a smaller window in the upper left above the chat window; ie - it wasn"t the "fullscreen" UI that exists today.

So please don"t even try to make the comparison.

Click to expand...

With all due respect, I absolutely remember issues. Until the Voodoo 2 came out, there was a lot of complaining. Until the Voodoo 2 SLI and Voodoo 3 came out there was some complaining. Different people like to run at different resolutions and also have different thresholds in terms of how much FPS they need to enjoy a game. For an MMOG, for me, 15fps is fine. For an shooter, I need 30fps. But I know people who want 30fps on an MMOG and 60fps+ on a shooter.

Personally, I"d rather run at a 1920x1200 at 15fps average to get more screen realestate than 1280x1024 and have less room for my UI but get 20-30fps.

r.gun said:

You"re kidding, right?

This isn"t even a good picture... but it shows shadows at least.

Click to expand...

What"s missing are environment shadows -- character shadows are there, although they need some tweaks. We are waiting on a hardware solution for environment shadows which should happen in the next couple of generation of cards. So right now you have character soft shadows unless there are too many chars on the screen, and you have some shadows with the trees. Given the complexity of our world, we wil have to wait for a hardware solution before we add the rest.

Witoubo said:

The funny thing is they aren"t using a bleeding edge engine. It"s Unreal Engine 2, hacked up massively but still the same graphics core that has been around since 2003 and runs Lineage 2.

The Doom 3 Engine
CryEngine 2
Unreal Engine 3
Source

Those can be bleeding edge if you get into all of their features.

One problem is what they are trying to get UE2 to do. You can prop it up with a high end PC but in the end a different engine could get similar results with much less hardware. Another problem is their art assets, quite frankly, stink. There is way too much geometry, texture selection is poor, and bump mapping is massively overused. I am guessing their concept renders look fantastic but whatever process they have to convert those into actual game assets must be extremely weak.

I think this is where the complaints of "my PC can run everything else fine, why is vanguard such a hog?" come from.

Click to expand...

1. What we have done with the Unreal 2.x engine is astounding -- major props to the programming team, etc. It *is* a fast engine and it was also relatively easily modified to add bump mapping, specular, per pixel lighting. And we were also able to make it seamless, although I wouldn"t say that was easy.

2. The other engines you list I don"t believe were available when we started production. We looked at a lot of engines before we started coding Vanguard in mid 2002 and Unreal 2.x was the best, hands down. (the Doom 3 engine might have been, but it wasn"t designed to handle large outdoor spaces like an MMOG needs whether it"s seamless or not).

Mkopec1 said:

I think the game looks fine they way I play it. If you dont, by all means dont buy.

Dont expect tis game to run on max with a 4 yr old computer. What bog basically said it is unplayable, which is total bullshit. The game scales rather well. I honestly thought I could not even play it with my aging hulk.

Click to expand...

I didn"t. I had a friend who was a VG fan, so I got a trial key, played for a while and decided to buy City of Heroes/Villians when I heard about the combo pack. Actually, Vanguard runs fine on my rig, but I have a pretty powerful PC I use for 3D work and video editing, both hobbies of mine. To expect the average user to have a powerful PC or accept settings which look little or nothing like the game screenshots being advertised isn"t likely to win you a lot of customers.

Aradune Mithara said:

What"s missing are environment shadows -- character shadows are there, although they need some tweaks. We are waiting on a hardware solution for environment shadows which should happen in the next couple of generation of cards.

Click to expand...

How is it possible you watched EQ2 launch with hardware specs to high for its time and followed right behind it and made the exact same mistake?

VG will be a good game there is no doubt about that from me. I just don?t understand the decision to release a game before the hardware to support it is readily available.


PS Crafting complication are not fun, it?s just more clicking. Tell me you have a plan B.

woqqqa said:

I didn"t. I had a friend who was a VG fan, so I got a trial key, played for a while and decided to buy City of Heroes/Villians when I heard about the combo pack. Actually, Vanguard runs fine on my rig, but I have a pretty powerful PC I use for 3D work and video editing, both hobbies of mine. To expect the average user to have a powerful PC or accept settings which look little or nothing like the game screenshots being advertised isn"t likely to win you a lot of customers.

Click to expand...

To be clear, we don"t expect everyone to upgrade because a lot of people don"t need/require running on the highest settings, or at 30fps, or at 1920x1200 resolutions.

The specs I listed, which while not inexpensive, they are also not crazy expensive either, are for systems that will run the game with everything on at high resolutions.

Aradune Mithara said:

What"s missing are environment shadows -- character shadows are there, although they need some tweaks. We are waiting on a hardware solution for environment shadows which should happen in the next couple of generation of cards. So right now you have character soft shadows unless there are too many chars on the screen, and you have some shadows with the trees. Given the complexity of our world, we wil have to wait for a hardware solution before we add the rest.

Click to expand...

LOL, let hardware makers do the work for you. Good plan!