It's not that far off such that it's useless. Take the Graystone Bladestaff as an example with a listed DPS of 71.38. The damage range is 186-279 with a 3.25 delay. Using the average damage, the theoretical DPS is 71.53. So you're talking a difference of less than a fifth of one point.

As for fast weapons, use Aluul's Claws with a 121-134 range and 1.85 delay. The listed DPS is 68.65 while the theoretical DPS is 68.91.

Close enough in my book, especially since one is nothing more than the theoretical average.

Personally, I think it depends.

I could see a case for level 50 hands performing better than say a level 50 or 51 rare and perhaps even with a 52 rare. At 53+, rares should definitely have an edge though and pull away as you go higher.

The real issue IMO is Heroics and Legendaries. For starters, there don't seem to be enough of them.

There's a mountain of evidence to support this so I'm fairly certain it's true.

On the one hand, it's very disappointing as a takeover like this is a telling sign of just how much of a failure VG has been. Having said that, SOE has the knowledge and resources to possibly turn the game around, much like EQ2. In the near term, I'm not expecting alot of changes, fixes, updates, etc though for at least a few weeks until the new team has a chance to familiarize themselves more with the design and gamecode. 

Speaking of EQ2, I saw where they recently announced the Kunark expansion. It's been 2 years since I played my monk on the Befallen server but I am absolutely looking forward to starting up again when that expansion is released. Of all the MMOs I've ever played dating back to UO in '97, Ruins of Kunark in EQ was probably my all-time favorite era of any of them. Velious would be a very, very, very close second.

Aren't hands upgraded every 10 levels?

So theoretically, hands will always be relatively strong versus content at levels 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 but with each new level, that relative power scales down until they get upgraded again. Of course that also means that at level 50, bare hands will be very strong in terms of DPS since there are only so many weapons that are of higher level.

Toys are always a plus.

I still remember quite a few great toys in EQ, even a few I never got but heard about. I still remember that BFG-like "jump gun" from original EQ. A couple people had them on my server but once word got out, they perma-removed one of the quest items from the game.

Good times.

I've followed your work for years going back to the EQ days. I always liked your style to begin with but watching it "blossom" the last couple of years or so was pretty cool. Amazing talent.

Interesting to look back on this pic from May 2003.



I know it's only a screenshot but I can't help but wonder, what have they been doing in the last 4 years besides update the old T.King interface? 

You're missing the point entirely. The point is that unless something drastic changes soon, the current trend of declining subs won't be enough to sustain the game for the full duration of that 12 month period. There is a break even point in subs that must be met in order to simply cover salaries, benefits, lease payments, and other business expenses.

I don't recall exactly what the number was but I do recall even Brad making comments as to the minimum number they need to keep afloat. At the time, it seemed preposterous to even consider that they would fail to sustain that mark but in the wake of the last several months, and the SOE rumor that still has yet to be denied by anyone at Sigil or Sony, either formally or informally, I'd say there's enough there to at least consider this to be a strong possibility.

Personally, I hope SOE does buy it and puts the right resources to fix it. I too would like to have the motivation one day to load up the game and continue leveling my monk in enjoyment.

As for others, I think it's great if you continue to enjoy playing. I hope I'm wrong, but I fear they need you to more than you may know.

Would you be suprised if you knew that Brad collaborated in the original design of EQ2?

Would you be equally suprised if you knew Brad was also involved (at least partially) in the design of Luclin?

And for the trifecta, would you be suprised if I said SOE was not only involved in Velious, they were involved with the original Everquest?

Here's the other side of that argument though.

Instead of changing their design in mid-stream to be more player-friendly (obviously in response to WoW), suppose they had stayed true to their initial design of more player interdependence? How many active subs could you then realistically have targetted?

What I mean is, if Brad stated they thought they could hit 350K subs under this model that some refer to as "WoW-ified", how many subs would be attainable for an even more niche product that caters almost exclusively to the hard core player that can afford to play 12-14 hours per day? 200K? 150K?

Now you're a potential investor listening to this guy named Brad sitting in front of you asking for investment funding, and telling you that while this other product is rattling off millions of subs, he's asking you to invest your money into a product that at it's peak, will reach a max of 150K subscribers.

Personally, I think even Brad wanted to create something a little more player friendly but even if he didn't, I'm willing to bet he would've been forced to by those holding the purse strings.

It's not as telling as you might think. The reason I'm still 33 is because I'm simply not motivated to play anymore. Monks may have issues but the fundamental problems with the game simply don't change because I'm playing my Shaman, Necro, Warrior or Psionicist.

If I had to name the biggest, most glaring concern I have with the game today, it certainly wouldn't be about class balance or having more solo or duo spots available. It wouldn't be about raiding or crafting or diplomacy either. Those are certainly issues worthy of mention and/or discussion, but it's not the fundamental problem, IMO.

In a nutshell, Vanguard is a mostly group-centric game that requires player interdependence and a strong community to flourish. They targeted 350-500K subs under this model.

Reports I've seen show they probably aren't much higher than 100K subs right now. Meaning, the biggest, most glaring concern with the game is that it currently lacks enough of a playerbase to adequately support those concepts.

And it's disappointing.

Here's the problem with that though. Every single project sees change from concept to implementation. That's the nature of project management. At the end of the day though, there has to be a solid base to fall back on.

The fundamental base for the "vision" is built around the idea of player interdependence and a strong community. Within the concept of that vision, I don't necessarily think Brad's early expectations of 350K subs were far off because I think that's definitely achievable with the right plan, full design and overall strategy. Admittedly, it's still relatively early in the product's life cycle but it would appear they had none of the above.

So perhaps that does answer my own previous question. It's not so much the philosophy that's at fault here. It's the way Sigil implemented it that's ultimateley causing it to fail.

My intent isn't to bash the game. In fact, it's far from that. The major underlying issues with the game are much bigger than just monk balance though. Yes, I've been as frustrated as any monk out there with the state of our class but that's not what truly concerns me right now.

What concerns me the most is the overall health of the game in its current state. It has major design flaws that will undoubtedly take quite a bit of time and energy to correct, and that's assuming someone at the top admits these mistakes and takes the corrective action to fix them.

If it were just the monk class, I would simply play one of my alts as a main until monks were fixed. But it's difficult to play new characters when there simply isn't enough new players coming in to group with.

They have no active campaign strategy in place at the moment to get new players. In fact, they never had one.

Brad targeted 350-500K subs at peak for VG and estimated it would take 12-18 months to reach that. They aren't even anywhere close to the pace to reach that mark. If anything, the trend is declining.

They thought a mostly group-centric game could still be very succesful. Now it still remains if their theory was wrong or if the implementation of their theory was incorrect, but either way, they missed the mark...badly.

The lack of strong organization and solid management is both suprising and disappointing. People with those resumes should not be making the kinds of mistakes they've made.

Gross mis-management of investment dollars. Enough said.

Lack of community. Great concept, but for whatever reason, it simply has not clicked on a mass level.

Lack of ANY high-end content (i.e., raiding). I've been stuck at lvl 33 for weeks but if there is one group of the playerbase who is probably the most dedicated to the game, it's the hard-core, high-end raiders. And while an argument can be made that these folks have no one to blame but themselves for now having nothing to raid, an equally valid argument can be made that it's Sigil's fault for not having even one high-end raiding chunk, area or target at release. Eventually, even the most dedicated followers will lose interest waiting.

It's also a major design flaw that arguably the sole reason for the lack of raiding to begin with is because of terrible performance.

Now the rumor is that SOE will announce sometime in the next week or so the purchase of Vanguard from Sigil. While this is purely rumor at this point, it says two things to me:

1. The state of the game is even worse than I thought. If this indeed does happen, then I venture it truly is because current subs aren't even high enough to sustain the game for the long term with it's current ownership.

2. There may just be hope for Vanguard after all. Like SOE or hate them, the reality is they have more experience successfully managing MMOs than anyone (yes, including Blizzard), and have proven they can turn things around even for ones like Vanguard that are floundering severely (such as EQ2).

This is primarily why I've not been playing much recently and have been stuck at 33. Even with all of these issues, the die-hard inside of me wants to tough it out with a wait-and-see approach. I know that every one of these MMOs goes through some tough times early on and that memorable times can be had on the other side once they get them straightened out.

Perhaps I'm just not the player I once was because a larger side of me simply says, why bother?

I believe the devs have good intentions for our class and for the good of the game. I just don't think the company is very well organized nor managed.

Making tweaks and minor changes post launch is acceptable to me. Making radical, sweeping changes that leave class balance all over the floor is not.

Revising the core definition of a particular class is fine. Spot-welding changes here and there with no real rhyme or logic to them tell me these devs lack both experience and direction.

There appears to be little logic to the changes they've made, other than for the sole purpose of "improving class balance". Unfortunately, the end result seems to suggest that we are still not improved nor balanced, thus missing the target altogether.

They've succeeded in alienating many players who gave the game a chance. They've also failed miserably at attracting new ones.

I don't claim to know all of the ins and outs of creating a successful MMO but I don't think it takes a genius to recognize that they've made some very serious design flaws and poor decisions with the game. The rationale even behind the launch itself demonstrates this.

I'm not predicting total doom and gloom for the future of Vanguard but as of today, it's very apparent to me that Sigil has some very serious problems to correct. It can be done with the right strategy and implementation. Unfortunately, they've shown me little in the last few months that suggests they can and will pull it off. At least not any time soon. And that ultimately WILL affect the future of this game.

It certainly has affected my place in it.

The way I've understood this to work is that AC is essentially your overall mitigation ability, which largely comes from the equipment you might be wearing combined with additional factors, such as the archetype you're in as a class, to come up with the displayed number you see on screen. I suspect other mods, like Physical Absorption, are also part of this number as well.

On the other hand, Defensive Rating should take into account other defensive-oriented characteristics, such as dodge, parry and block. To me that made sense because the system allows the devs to control mitigation and avoidance separately from each other such that changes to one don't necessarily upset the balance between the two archetypes (defensives vs offensives).

Much of this is mostly theory mind you, but this issue was a very real problem back in EQ so it would make sense for them to design any new system with some of these concepts in mind at least.