Phoenixs - Vanguard Beta and me + 356 screenshots.

Phoenixs

So Beta 5 is here, NDA is lifted, release is around the corner. So I thought I would share my impressions of the game, in a short post.

I recieved my beta key the 26 of August last year. So I have been in it for quite some time.

My initial experience was bad . The game wasn't very far at that stage and it kinda felt somewhat like the Dark & Light at that stage. A laggy open space with not much in it. My impressions where so bad that I removed the game from my hd to use the space for something better. And I did for quite some time.

Later when I was bored, found out that LOTRO wasn't much of a keeper, I decided to waste some space on Vanguard again And damn the game had gotten quite along way since I tried it last time. It actually made me feel good to finally see a beta again where something had happened since the last time. It actually felt more like a real game this time. A proper ui was in place. Although I didn't like it that much, reminded me to much about Wow. I like some orginality But Wow's ui works marvelous, so Sigil didn't do a bad choice with making a ui resembling it.They have also taken the way of introducing the players from Wow. You go to a area take the quests there and then you are sent on to a new area through quests. Initially it's quite „controlled“, later it's get's abit more free. Although you are still somewhat guided along. Atleast in the level ranges I got to, I didn't have that much time to invest in the beta. It's quite nice, but it doesn't make the game a open ended sandbox mmo, like some people may expect.

I quite liked the game from now on. It wasn't a dream game, but it wasn't a nightmare of a game either. A mix between EQ2 and Wow, with some new ideas. But very traditional and not a revolution. A good game.

Graphics:

Good. Intially reactions to the graphics where pretty bad. It just looked brown, brown and even more brown. With a dash of boring on top of that.

Now the graphics have grown on me. I like them better now.

Details: This game has a huge amount of detail. The landscape is massive, vegation is full and lush and most of the world has a very high polycount. This does result in some quite hefty system requirements. Abit to hefty for my taste.

P4 2.2 ghz

1 gb Ram

256 mb Ati Radeon 1650

That system was pretty much killed by Vanguard on balanced/low detail. I know it's a old system and I didn't expect 60 fps all the time. But I somewhat expected abit more then 5 fps in town, and < 20 outside of town. The big filesize also made computer completely stop at several places when large chunks of data was loaded. But it has improved abit over the course of beta, and some areas where better then others performance wise. But now I have ordered a new system and that one should run it better I hope, and I hope Sigil doesn't stop optimizing the code. I think there is still quite alot to pull out of the engine.

While the graphics are exellent in the amount of detail, the design somewhat fails at my end. It still looks abit bland and boring to me. Kinda like EQ2. Semi realistical graphical style. It tries to be realistical and fantasy at the same time. Resulting in some weird scenes sometimes. I don't quite like it. But again this boils down to personal taste. Armor design is quite nice, I specially like the heavier armor. It looks cool, and miles better than the crap EQ2 came up with. But why oh why do caster classes have to look so retarded in these semi realistical games? Why can't you make them look cool? I love playing casters but I'm always turned off by it when I see the armor they have in games that try to be semi realistic like Vanguard and EQ2. It just looks retarded. Weapons are also something I have issues with. I haven't seen a single really badass weapon in the game. They are all just boring. Often you walk up to some character looking quite cool in his shiny armor, but then he pulls his weapons and you start to laugh. The swords in his hands look like needles. Tiny pointy sticks in his hands. That kinda turns me off. I'm not interested in big retarded final fantasy swords, but they could atleast be somewhat more threathening and fierce.

The enviroments are good. Massive. But abit empty in some spaces. The only issue I have with them is that they kinda feel to artificial. In many places it doesn't feel logical, you can kinda see that some artist has made the world. Many things don't feel logical where they are. It feels like somebody just said „oh hey, let's put a demonic area right into this place“. Or you have a realistical area, surounded by pointy comical looking mountains. Makes it all feel abit to artificial. Even if Wow was very cartoony the world felt logical.

Gameplay:

1 word tradional. Besides a few new touches, there isn't much new stuff here. But it's quite good If you still like „traditional“.

I could write page up and page down about this, but I will keep it short for now. Like I said it's traditional. If you want to relive EQ1 or have something more challeging than Wow, but don't care much about revolution and innovation you will like this. I quite liked it and had fun. But you will maybe grow abit tired of it in the long run. I don't know, but this may be a drawback with the Vanguard gameplay. People may get tired of it , unless they really want to have a game like this.

Combat: It's ok. The old system all over again. Engage a mob and keep using your skill untill it's dead. Maybe abit harsh to put it like this, but that's kinda like it is. For many this will probably decided if they stay or not.

Crafting: I'm not much of a crafter myself, so I didn't try it to much. But judging that what I have tried, crafting fans will like it. It's certainly more advanced than Wow's system

Diplomacy: Didn't get to test this. But of what I have heard it's quite cool. And something abit more refreshing.

Overall the gameplay is good. Myself having a extremely demanding education to take care of atm, could only play it very casually. It works, but I think that the game will really be something for those who want to invest more time. The game and the world may be abit to big for casually players to feel welcome in. There is abit to much to cover to feel accomplishment. I think many casual players will feel like they are just floating aimlessly around in a boat outside a Island (the game). Atleast I felt abit like that. But alot of this could probably be fixed by joining a guild with like minded people.

Performance: I mentioned most regarding this in the graphics tab. Server, connection and lag wise it all seems ok. I haven't really had much trouble regarding this. SOE knows how to handle servers. So far the server population has only been around 900-2000 when I have been on. But we will soon see how they perform under big loads. I think they will do good.

Bugs and stuff like that: The game is pretty bug free. There are still issues around but it's in no way a buggy wreck like some people say. Sigil has done a good job here.

Those where my thoughts and notes from my period in the beta. Conclussion? Well I have preordered the game And will probably spend quite a number of nice hours in the game . But I fear that I maybe will grow tired of it, since it's not much new in the game. Atleast not for a casual player.

And here you will find quite a number of screenshots taken in the early levels of some characters. I haven't sorted them or anything like that. It's just the result of me wildly pressing the screenshot button A very accurate documentation of how the game really looks, not many „staged“ shots here.

home.online.no/~rudiger/Files/Vanguard/Screenshots/

Disclaimer:

These are just my personal opinions and thoughts after spending some quality time in the beta. So take it as that. It's also written at 01.31, so please forgive me for any spelling mistakes. Thank you

qwepoi

very nice review phoenixs, very honest. I agree with pretty much everything you said except that the design isn't done well, I think it's fantastic, have you been to leth nurae city? or the wood elf city?  those places are simply breathtaking and they are only a taste of the magnificant art direction vanguard has. As it is now vanguard is pretty buggy, but  playable, and it can only get better from here.

see you there!

gatheris

thanks for the review and all those screenshots

can't say i was happy to be able to notice the tiles that made up the ground in many of those screenshots

qwepoi

Originally posted by gatheris


thanks for the review and all those screenshots
can't say i was happy to be able to notice the tiles that made up the ground in many of those screenshots

as he said he has a pretty mid/low end machine, most of those shots look like they have been taken somewhere between balanced and highest performance(low quality). I'm not sure which tiles you meant but I wouldn't be surprised if they look better on higher settings.