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Re: Thoughts on Isle of Dawn

Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2015 11:58 pm
by Lamprey
I thought IoD was appropriate given the state that VG was in at the time (needing money via subs/marketplace, and a bigger population, especially low level). The quests were fun and enticing. They kept you entertained the entire way through lvl 1-10. It encouraged me to create a whole slew of alts. It brought returning players back to the game. It was a great way to interact with some cool, new gamers and content at the same time.

Re: Thoughts on Isle of Dawn

Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2015 12:18 am
by Koralith
The thing with that line of comment though (if there are no people, you should have Isle of Dawn because the rest of the game is so big) is disingenuous to the new players. It doesn't give them a real understanding of what the game is like.

Isle of Dawn was designed to capture mass market appeal. Mass market appeal killed Vanguard (and has killed pretty much every MMO trying to launch since World of Warcraft).

People would come to VG, play Isle of Dawn and see people. Then they're get to the 'real' game and realize it's wide, diverse, and spread out and not at all the kind of game that Isle of Dawn made it out to be. This is wrong.

I think it was Brad McQuaid who said it recently (I could be wrong) that any modern MMO wanting to survive needs to give up this idea of being something for everyone and appealing to the masses. If you want to survive in this market you need to find your niche and hold it. And Vanguard was designed with a niche in mind, but when SOE got a hold of it it changed that vision and tried to make it something to appeal to more people then it was intended for (amongst other horrible decisions of course).

Vanguard was designed from the get go to be a deep, lore impacted world with breadth. Isle of Dawn presents Vanguard as something that it isn't.

Here's a good example of this...

You start the game at launch you are given choices that indicate where you start in the world, allow you to pick your place. Once you land you then have options as to where you go. Each of the starting areas lead you to multiple options for leveling. Some of them just... Die. You don't get any more bread crumbs. You're left to figure out where you go and what to do next. And this can happen before level ten. You're not railroaded. While there are series of quests you aren't beholden to them; you can stop at any time.

Contrast this to Isle of Dawn. You start an Isle of Dawn character and no matter what you choose you are put on this path. You have to complete this path and it is perfectly guided to make sure you go to spot A, B, C, etc. You always have exactly the kind of gear you need to go through these areas. And even when you get to the temple, if you have been paying attention and have the gear up to that point you don't even need someone else to help you (unless you're an unfortunate class like Rogue or Warrior and can't solo paper bags). You aren't given choice.

And this is the core difference between design philosophies between Vanguard originally and what SOE mangled it into being.


I, for one, feel that if Vanguard had been given the time it originally needed to complete under Brad's vision (if not his management...) it would have been a successful game. It would have been successful without Isle of Dawn, restructuring of starting areas, without gear power creep through itemization redesigns. Would it have been wildly successful like World of Warcraft? No, of course not. But it would have gained a stable and loyal following because it would have served a niche that didn't exist.

A niche that I'd say still isn't really served.


Of course, I'll support this emulator project either way and encourage those who like Vanguard's style of game to play it. But I would like to see it's original vision restored, while including some of the better design decisions that were added over the years.

Re: Thoughts on Isle of Dawn

Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2015 5:48 am
by Moonshadowe
I started playing on the IoD during the three ten levels free trial. I really thought there was some interesting potential for the game but I didn't like the cattle chute feel of IoD. I liked the diplo quests there and the crafting. I found diplo in the real game to be hard to follow/ get started in. Thats something I would like to see changed by adding some custom quests. Crafting, I felt was done as well in the real game. Though I agree it could have used some additional crafting quests here and there.

Overall my feeling of IoD was one that I couldn't wait to ding 10 and get out of there. After a while I stopped making alts start there and just started on the mainland. Did I really need a Slappy that bad? Nope! The mainland start up areas were so well written and full of lore and made you feel part of a massive world waiting to be explored. I always thought IoD was the place to keep the freeby players from interacting with the paid players until they decided if they were going to stay or not. It never seemed to me that it even came close to reflecting the real game. I would skip it to be honest.

Re: Thoughts on Isle of Dawn

Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2015 5:54 am
by Moonshadowe
What if you just moved some of the IoD content to the mainlaind? Recycled some of the quests, possibility to get a Tenby pet or Slappy's whistle (anything that made it rewarding or fun). Seems that would be a best of both worlds solution. Strengthen the content of the mainland with good content and scrap the rest or reuse it for something new.

Re: Thoughts on Isle of Dawn

Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2015 12:01 pm
by Amnath
It's probably true that both IoD was needed at the time market-wise and, that it doesn't quite fit with the overall game; I would say it's a tutorial.

I never rolled any alts on it. My first was in Lomshir which, towards the end got raised to the 10s, and that ought to be a low level place.

Re: Thoughts on Isle of Dawn

Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2015 2:45 pm
by John Adams
[quote="Amnath"]My first was in Lomshir which, towards the end got raised to the 10s, and that ought to be a low level place.[/quote]
That is what this is:
[quote]
Original Home Town option:
- Restore original VG level for areas
- Rebuild original quests/missives/tasks[/quote]
By restoring the original levels to the surrounding newbie areas, the vacuum of the 20's will return (that SOE fixed by buffing the lowbie mobs) and that's where our Custom Content ideas came to light - to hopefully create fun, immersive areas to explore that feel like they belong there and not some forced progression path.

This IoD conversation really brings up some great points, on both sides. Thanks for continuing the discussion.

Re: Thoughts on Isle of Dawn

Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2015 4:22 pm
by Kinshi
I would think a simple means of proving some custom, filler content would be to expand upon Missives. (have more of them). That was a rather underutilized system in the Live game). Those are not exactly 'epic' content, but they are meaningful, useful things to do for a character in the absence of a full fledged quest.

Re: Thoughts on Isle of Dawn

Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2015 5:47 pm
by Koralith
Missives were definitely a nice idea though poorly implemented. It would be nice if the items rewarded from them were more likely to be towards your archetype (far too often as a Disciple I got plate rewards).

As far as filling the 20s void... There are a lot of little dungeons and areas that would make great filler spots if they were just given some life. Little holes in the ground with mobs but no quests or noticable drops. I always felt the repurposing of existing level 10 content to fill that space kinda missed the boat when they have areas all over the world that could be itemized and populated better instead of making progression changes.

Re: Thoughts on Isle of Dawn

Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2015 6:26 pm
by Xinux
Kinda of topic i hope someone got a collect of getting a missive and finishing it.

Re: Thoughts on Isle of Dawn

Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2015 7:07 pm
by Glenzig
[quote="Koralith"]Missives were definitely a nice idea though poorly implemented. It would be nice if the items rewarded from them were more likely to be towards your archetype (far too often as a Disciple I got plate rewards).

As far as filling the 20s void... There are a lot of little dungeons and areas that would make great filler spots if they were just given some life. Little holes in the ground with mobs but no quests or noticable drops. I always felt the repurposing of existing level 10 content to fill that space kinda missed the boat when they have areas all over the world that could be itemized and populated better instead of making progression changes.[/quote]

I personally thought Missives were a great concept. Like you said though, pretty poorly implemented. Having 5 or 6 missives that you keep repeating and repeating and repeating to get 10 statements and hope that you get a decent reward when you open the chest just got really boring, really quick. And, like you, I always seemed to get armor or weapons that my class couldn't use. It was like it was hard coded into the rewards system or something!

If there was a way to keep the quest portion of the missives a bit more interesting, I really think it would add a lot to the lower levels. I'm not sure how exactly to keep a system like that interesting and simple though. But, repeating the same missives over and over and over is not going to motivate people to take advantage of missives as a content filler.

There are a TON of smallish doungeons spread around Telon. The first one that pops into my head is Conlor Mines in the Shoreline Ruins chunk. Its always been populated with low 20's mobs, and a lot of named mobs. But, for some reason, never had any kind of quest content tied to it. That would be a really cool place to implement a chain quest that could fill a couple levels maybe.
Also River Palace. Im not sure if it ever had any quest content or not, but if it did, it obviously was either busted or wasnt very good. No one ever went there that I knew of. I dont think I had ever been there until I took a high level in there to explore. Cool little dungeonesque place.

I really dont think we will be lacking for content at any level if the devs decide to use the empty and underused caves and dungeons. There are so many of them spread all over the place. It would take quite some time just to search them out and explore them.