VSoH FALLOUT: WHAT KIND OF GAME WILL THIS BE?

Now that the transition has happened, and Brad McQuaid has ridden off into the sunset, the only thing to do, if you even still give a shit, is to look forward. What kind of game will SOE develop Vanguard into? Will we have a "hardcore" pre-kunark style EQ1, a "casual" pre lvl-60 style WoW, or a more balanced "core" type game, like EVE, where you can easily operate in any capacity.

you see, the trick is...these terms (hardcore, core, casual) mean completely different things to different people, as is obvious from the pages of this thread.

A randomDev_01 has a different definition than me, my understanding of hardcore is different from the next person, and so on. To someone who isn't a long-time gamer, the differences may be subtle, but we all know it's usually enough of a difference to keep the different types of gamers separate in terms of what they think is a good game.

Point being, the devs of any given game also have the same difficulty defining who their audience really is going to be, and what it is they wants, and only a few ever really nail it, or get lucky, or truly innovate in any way.

Vanguard didn't have much of a chance to "find itself" and develop into what it would have become, whatever that might have been.

Maybe it would have stayed closer to the circa 2000 EQ1 paradigm, (which i would call a NO-FRILLS MMO before i called it hardcore...there were real corpse runs and death penalties simply because no one had though of a better way yet). Maybe the market would have eventually forced Vanguard to be more like WoW. We'll never know, cause the project got FUBARED for various well known reasons, apparently sometime within the past year and a half.

SOE needs to step up and DEFINE what they want this game to be, define these terms that us gamers are intent on using. YOU tell US what hardcore means. Maybe in the process, you'll hit upon some game elements that transcend the very ideas of hardcore vs. casual, and this whole discussion will be rendered moot by some kickass gameplay feature that has yet to occur to anyone.

I would venture to say that EQ2 is what SOE is (and has been) putting up to compete directly with WoW. In that case, Vanguard stands a good chance of being developed along the lines of a more thoughtful and involved MMO. Just as good a chance of reaching Matrix Online status too.