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Good, bad, and ugly
vylo
Member Posts: 149
Vanguard is a game that a lot of us have been waiting for, for a long time. If you aren't familiar with it, or are trying to decide when or whether or not to get it, perhaps my experience so far can help you.
The Good:
Graphics on the whole are amazing, much higher then I have seen from any other game.
The classes are well designed, and I haven't heard any complaints about any of them being irritating to play.
The world is freaking gigantic, and has a lot of content, and they plan on adding more.
Diplomacy and crafting spheres are well designed. My friend won't stop friggin doing diplomacy.
The game isn't a hand holder. It makes heavy use of groups, and the difficulty level of many encounters is pretty rough. The death penalty is more severe then most current MMOs. (if you are into this, like me)
The bad:
This is effectively beta 6. Don't give me any crap about "its new". I've played new MMOs with plenty less bugs then this.
You need a high end machine to run the graphics well.
The game isn't a hand-holder. It makes heavy use of groups, and the difficulty level of many encounters is pretty rough. The death penatly is more severe then in most current MMOS (if you don't like things to be that rough, its a turn off).
The ugly:
The world feels alive, but the towns feel dead. They need to work on that big time. Most NPCs feel like statues, while the outside world has critters crawling around all over the place.
Water hitting the shore. I never see people comment on this. While the water itself is very pretty, the way it connects to the shorelines is polygon-like and ugly.
Should I buy Vandguard?
If you don't have a computer that can run it well (at LEAST recommended specs) , don't buy it yet. Let computer costs come down, and the bugs get fixed at the same time.
If you are a very casual gamer, I would probably stay away from this game.
If you like more hardcore games, and were a big fan of old EQ, this game is a must. If you have a high end machine go for it. Otherwise wait it out a bit.
Comments
Just to clarify, I do dearly enjoy this game, but I'm not blind to its faults. The game has huge potential, and will (provided SOE keeps its grubby hands off it) be one of the best MMOs out there within a few weeks/months. I'm having a blast in the game, but I'm getting ample usage of the /bug command.
I know a lot of people are "watching and waiting", and i can't blame them for not wanting to drudge through the opening problems. I just like being one of the first to look into things like this.
Speaking of first, SOE actually made something worthwile, and that is station players for vanguard. You can look up characters and it actually has an automatically produced blog with screenshots and highlights of that character (such as it has a screenshot of me being the first to discover an area of the world). This is a really cool feature.
Ive done some trixing and fixing to get the game to run well on my machine.
-Pentium 4 2.40B, overclocked to 2.80Ghz
-2 GB Ram
-ATI 1950 Pro 256mb
So, I exceed recommended on 2, and required on processor only by overclocking.
Ive managed now to get a pretty decent frame rate, enough to enjoy the game. Although...If Im using my headseat to play (Logitec USB) I have to run sound as "Generic Software" and that costs me 5-8 FPS, if I run through my speakers I gain 5-8 FPS, if I turn off sound I gain about 5-8 aswell. So basically if Im running Vent to speak with guildies I run with no sound, and that sucks.
My machine is simply not up to snuff enough. The graphics in this game are very good and very demanding, thankfully though you can mitigate the impact a bit at the cost of eye-candy. The engine really could use more optimizing, but Im doubtful that that will happen before I just break down and build a new machine. Im actually stuck with a bit of a dilema, I just bought a new vid card, AGP for my current MB, then noticed that AGP has been obsolete for about a year */slapsforehead*. Long and short of it is that in order to get a value out of my new card I need to use it for about a year ...hehe... so Id love some more optimizing on the engine heh.
Having said that Im so impressed by the rest of the game that Im staying. And I want to make it perfectly clear, *most* of the time I have perfectly acceptable framerates on my system, but it does bog down from time to time.
I also get the feeling that the client DOES have a memory leak somewhere, Im not alone in this, but every say...40 minutes or so the client bogs down and is relieved by a "tab out". That should really be addressed by Sigil.
-Gooney
Yeah, I should also add I'm on a new machine. A quad core with 2 gig of ram and a 8800 GTX. My old computer was so far behind, vanguard gave me a convenient excuse to upgrade.
Thus you can see why I'm impressed with the graphics.....I can actually see them :P.
My friend on a 4600+ AMD X2 with a 7950 GT can run an highest quality, but the best balance for him his high quality. So if your computer is around that range, you will do well.
WoW is about the only game I can say had virtually no bugs. All other games I have played, EQ1, SWG, EQ2, Horizons have been much more buggy than this game and ten times more frustrating with client crashes and performance.
No offense to the OP but people expect amazing graphics that are completely smooth and run really well on their ZX81 machine or their Spectrum calculator.
Just doesn't happen.
Now playing: VG (after a long break from MMORPGS)
Played for more than a month: Darkfall online, Vanguard SOH, Everquest, Horizons, WoW, SWG, Everquest II, Eve
And diplomacy is a fun way for people who want a break from combat to spend their time or for RPers who don't want a pvp oriented character. If you don't like these features it doesn't make them bad.
Is true, I don't think I will be doing any Diplomacy (may change my mind) as its just something I don't like, I think the system is pretty neat but I would rather kill stuff.
Now playing: VG (after a long break from MMORPGS)
Played for more than a month: Darkfall online, Vanguard SOH, Everquest, Horizons, WoW, SWG, Everquest II, Eve
You wan't to see a really Great Graphics engine then head on over to Gothic 3 it make Vanguard look like UO , But considering Vanguard is based on a 5 year old engine I think Sigil have done an amazing job ..
Theres a pic of a large univeresed graphics engine from 5 years ago like you said SOMEHOW i think theres 5 years worth of technilogical improvment in Vanguard. I'm by no means a fanboi but i KNOW the graphics are at least good. You must be playing it on a commodore 64 or something
WoW is about the only game I can say had virtually no bugs. All other games I have played, EQ1, SWG, EQ2, Horizons have been much more buggy than this game and ten times more frustrating with client crashes and performance.
No offense to the OP but people expect amazing graphics that are completely smooth and run really well on their ZX81 machine or their Spectrum calculator.
Just doesn't happen.
As I said before I'm running on a good machine (quad core with GTX 8800). The water just doesn't connect well to land.
Wow had plent of bugs, but mainly mechanics, I can't recall many if any crashing bugs. WoW was indeed though a pretty bug free release.
If you're a casual gamer you;re pretty used to taking things are your own pace and don't get all het up because other people maxed out, so it really isn't an issue.
In fact in total opposition to this there are two things that will attract the causal gamer - the fellowship system (when its back online again and I wish they'd hurry as I may be moving house soon and may not be able to play for a couple of months
Currently Playing: GW2
Currently Following: Elder Scrolls Online
Games in my wake: Anarchy Online, Archlord (beta), Asherons Call, Asherons Call 2, City of Heroes, Dark Age of Camelot (SI to Catacombs), DDO, EVE Online, EverQuest II (beta), Guild Wars, Horizons, Lineage II,LORTO, Rift, RF Online (beta), RYL, Saga of Ryzon, Shadowbane, Star Wars Galaxies, Vanguard, WAR, WoW
Currently Playing: GW2
Currently Following: Elder Scrolls Online
Games in my wake: Anarchy Online, Archlord (beta), Asherons Call, Asherons Call 2, City of Heroes, Dark Age of Camelot (SI to Catacombs), DDO, EVE Online, EverQuest II (beta), Guild Wars, Horizons, Lineage II,LORTO, Rift, RF Online (beta), RYL, Saga of Ryzon, Shadowbane, Star Wars Galaxies, Vanguard, WAR, WoW
While your post is well thought out and your points stay on focus I've got to disagree on a few of them. The fact that the game is geared more towards groups should not be a surprise to someone who has been following it so close for so long. It's been stated over and over that it's the main focus of Vanguard. So to me it should not be listed as a minus to the game, but rather stated to thoughs who hate grouping to look for something different.
The graphics are really nice. The environment and the characters. When I play I love looking at the details of my armor and weapons.
The big issue for a lot of people, and a false one at that, is you need a mega PC in order to play. It's simply not true. As long as you meet the min reqs set forth by Sigil you can play and have a good time. Will it look the very best it can? On a lower end machine the answer would be no. I'm running on what I deem a middle of the line PC and can run pretty much 100% of the time on the highest quality setting. If I enter an area where there are a ton of people and my frames slow down it takes me all of 15 seconds to notch the setting down.
For me it's not a big deal. I'm 98% of the time out doing quests and hunting where it's not uncommon for me to encounter a other human players for quite some time. People just expect the word to be custome made for them. They expect that just because they pay for something it should act exactly as they would have it and if this doesnt happen, well... no need to go into all that. I'm sure you all have read plenty of hater posts here.
plus;
Bad :
Spell fxs wow(2004) < vanguard (2007) < EQ2 ( 2004)
Ugly:
All animations and physic sux too much. running/left right speed/cross running/casting while running/jumping/swimmg....