Are you comparing it to SWG due to SOE having a hand in it or for a different reason??
I am PROBABLY picking up that game as soon as I can. Im interested to see what it looks like.
taken from the FAQ and what a lot of people are interested in it becasue of:
As for the Vision(TM), love it or hate it, love me or hate me, it is what it is. We do listen. It does change when it needs to. But what it doesn't do is radically transform into another vision. It adapts. It expands. But the core is the core. In other words, to be more blunt, we're not going to suddenly decide we're taking on WoW directly and making a WoW clone, nor a D&D clone, nor an EQ 2 clone (although many have pointed out the obvious related heritage). Vanguard is its own game, built on the vision, which comes from both EQ and from the MUDs we played before that. To that extent it is very consistent.
We have identified our target audience, the core gamer. Please look up previous posts where I've said alot about who I feel that is. Then we are also going to try to attract more casual and more raid people. People on both sides. But never putting the core gamer at risk. And then we are going to branch out almost from a genre-standpoint. We are doing things like very involved harvesting/crafting, diplomacy which touches, eventually even on RTS elements, and more. We're taking combat really far. Good luck on two-boxing. You need to pay attention in this game. Every once in a while somebody sees a level one in Vanguard and is concerned the game pace is to slow. I promise you, you want the general 'round' to be that long, because even at mid levels there is THAT much going on. You need to be aware of who is doing what, what NPC is on who, what abiliity they are about to use, if you have a counter. You could be using a combat starter and a bridge could pop up that forks. Which related ability do you want to use? Make your choice. You don't have much time. Oh wait! While you were thinking, in those brief seconds, another icon popped up. A counter ability/spell. Now you need to decide whether to finish your chained attack (and which bridge to take), or to counter that ability. What do you now about that abiility? Is it critical enough to counter no mattter what or can you let it slide? But wait, while you're pondering all of this, two more icons pop up giving you the opportunity (and letting you know) that your secondary defensive target, say your cleric, was just aggroed. You have the option of rescuing him.
So you can finish you attack, counter, or rescue. Add to that our emphasis on multiple mob encounters (hard to seperate a group), and you get more chaos. Add in situational awareness. Is my cleric ok (I'm RPing a warrior here). Is my sorc ok? Did either the sorc or the ranger just do so much damage they may draw aggro? Or do they have some abilitiy to mask that....
It goes on and on, but hopefully you get my point. I could go on and on about the other spheres, and I and others have already. Lots of revolutionary stuff, IMHO, built on that solid foundation which I know now, at least as a level 30 Warrior playing the game daily, is damn fun in a group situation outdoors and in the depths of a dungeon. So new stuff, but sticking to the vision, the core.
Why won't we suddenly change and try to mimic ?
Couple of reasons.
First of all, we don't want to. We love this game. This is what we want to make, not a clone or mimic.
Second, we are confident that our target audience, while likely not as large as WoWs, is plenty big to make the game successful, make MSFT happy, make Sigil happy, and support us in our future endeavors. I know people debate this. It's niche! Well, does niche = 500k because WoW has 4 million? If so, I like niche. If it's 100k, well, that would be sub-optimal, but I'm not too worried
