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Syn's Vanguard Mini-Review!
Synexis
Member Posts: 37
Vanguard Mini Review
By Synexis
First, a little about me! I am one of those players that started my MMO career with EQ1, which I played for roughly 6 years starting back in 1999. Since that time, I have tried numerous other MMOs including EvE, EQ2, WoW, Horizons, Auto Assault, FFXI and SWG.
Originally, when I heard about Vanguard, I was very much drawn to the “return to “old school” " hype that surrounded the game. As Vanguard got closer to release, I saw a lot of extreme opinions. Some people saw Vanguard as the Second Coming while others saw it as a huge disappointment. I decided that I really needed to try it for myself. So the last few days I have been playing Vanguard and here are just a few of my observations about the game.
Graphics:
My initial impression of the graphics were mixed. My system is mid-range. E6600 Core 2 Duo proc OC’d to 3.2GHz, 2 gigs of Crucial RAM, eVGA 680i Mobo, Asus GeFORCE 8800 GTX graphic card, 150GB 10K rpm Raptor SATA HD. I started with my settings on balanced and then moved them up. On balanced settings, the graphics were nice, but that is about all. At first, I would have given the graphics a 6 out of 10. They were good, but not great. After turning up my settings, I was more impressed though. Still, however, I would give an overall graphics edge to EQ2 over Vanguard. I felt EQ2’s graphics were very polished. Not that Vanguards are significantly worse or anything, but they just don’t seem quite as “crisp” to me. Nonetheless, this is just my opinion.
Now granted, with regard to the above, I am speaking specifically of the characters. The landscapes in Vanguard did really impress me. Walking around the Dark Elf starting area and seeing the HUGE walls and towers was awesome. The trees and grass and plant life were also wicked cool and VERY well done. I stood and looked at a tree for quite a while, just appreciating the detail. Vanguard has a beautiful world. While I didn’t feel that the characters had that “crisp” look to them, the same cannot be said for the landscapes. The landscapes are second to none. (Again, in my humble opinion.)
Syn’s Graphics Score: 7 out of 10 Characters
Syn’s Graphics Score: 9.5 out of 10 Landscapes
Preformance:
I am a little disappointed in the overall performance of Vanguard at this point. My character would randomly freeze and then it would throw me back into first person mode. Not a big deal, but annoying. I was also turned off by the number of mobs that suddenly appeared and ran by me only to disappear again. It was also very common for running mobs to appear to be falling through the ground and then popping back up as they went.
There were a lot of little things that annoyed me about the performance of Vanguard. When I killed a mob, after delivering the finishing blow, the mob would often stand there for several seconds before going into its death animation. I lost the ability to send tells for a while and had to log out to fix it. Also, my quest journal would sometimes list quests I had already completed as "active". On two occasions, a quest randomly kept appearing and then disappearing in my journal.
None of those things really hampered my play, mind you, but it gave me the impression of lack of polish.
Now, speaking of performance, I have read that you need a 50GHz supercomputer with 23234 GB of RAM and 16 GeFORCE 8800 GTX graphics cards in Super SLI just to run Vanguard at 20FPS. (Yes, I just used hyperbole for anyone who thought I was being literal). With my mid range system running at high settings, I am getting 50FPS unless there is quite a crowd around me. If I go down to balanced settings, I can hit 70FPS.
Make no mistake, Vanguard is taxing to your system, but it is very playable on mid range systems. I would be willing to bet you could make it work on smaller systems as well. You would just need to lower the settings. For me, the performance issue with regard to Vanguard comes down to lack of polish. This is good news, in my opinion, because polish is something that Sigil will undoubtedly work on. The performance issues I experienced were FAR from game breaking. They were annoying, mind you, but I was still having a good time. Nonetheless, don’t buy Vanguard and expect to log into a polished world, because at this point, it is rough around the edges, in my opinion.
Syn’s Performance Score: 6 out of 10
Game play:
Here is the real key, in my opinion, for any MMO. I can live with mediocre graphics and sound. I can live with annoying performance issues. Hell, I can live with a few bugs like broken quests and what not. However, if the game is not fun, I’m out.
Now here comes a bombshell. If you are a Vanboi, you might want to stop reading at this point or you are risking a possible heart attack, stoke or other potentially fatal ailment:
The game play in Vanguard reminds me a lot of World of Warcraft. After about 6 hours of playing, I reaction was: “Wow, this feels a lot like WoW!” Now mind you, I just heard the collective scream of rage from Vanbois everywhere. However, I am not sure why Vanguard feeling somewhat like WoW is a bad thing. I took it as a good thing. I enjoyed hunting. (Also, keep in mind I have not got into Crafting nor Diplomacy yet. I am ONLY talking about killing mobs here). Rest easy, Vanbois, I am not saying Vanguard = WoW. It doesn’t. However, Sigil clearly did their homework and has implemented some things in Vanguard that helped make WoW the single most successful MMO to date. Sigil has VASTLY improved on “WoWish” concepts, as I talk about below.
The combat was fast and exciting. When I got my first epic crit, I was like: “WOAH”! Playing a Dark Elf Dread Knight was a ton of fun. I felt like my debuffs really made a difference. The diversity of my skills also made me happy. I didn’t just get the same stupid abilities over and over again. That is one thing that I hated about WoW, it just seems that new spells and abilities were nothing more than the same thing you got last level but +1. In Vanguard, I felt like each new spell I got gave me more strategic options in combat.
Syn’s Game Play Score: 9 out of 10
Parting Thoughts
#1 Vanguard needs a lot of polish. There is just no denying it. To me, Vanguard is an uncut, unpolished diamond. There is HUGE potential there, but in its current form, it is very rough around the edges. Nonetheless, I do have faith that Sigil is working their rumps off on the polish issues. To those who said wait 6 months and then buy this game, I would say that was wise advice.
#2 The Game is Fun! I had a great time the last two days. The landscapes make travel interesting, which is a good thing because the friggen world is HUGE. My Dread Knight feels unique to me. I don’t feel like “just another plate class”. I can’t wait to try out other classes!
#3 The Game is HUGE. Not just in terms of sheer land mass, but your options with regard to game are amazing. You can kill stuff, then take a break and go crafting (which I have heard is very well done) and then take a break from that and work on the diplomacy. There is a LOT to do in this game.
#4 Vanguard, if Sigil continues with their discipline and focus, is going to be a first rate MMO. The whole funding thing does worry me, to be honest and I am one of those people that was happy when Sigil started working with SoE. Love them or hate them, SoE has the bank and that is what makes the MMO world go round. You don’t fund an MMO like this on a few hundred thousand dollars. Those people who are signed up now are indeed helping to make Vanguard a better game.
So those are my initial impressions.
Syn’s Overall Vanguard Score: 7.5 out of 10. It needs work, but has a bright future and is still pretty darn fun to play right now. And as always, this is just my opinion. 
~Synexis
Comments
A Little Dab'll Do Ya!
Another great review and one that I can mostly agree with. However, having a $500-600 cutting edge video card would push your system out of mid range in my neck of the woods. That's why you're getting 50-70 fps. Still, it is tax time, and if Uncle Sam is generous enough this year, maybe I can swing one. I would LOVE to see 50 fps!
thats what u call mid-range ?
interesting
I'd call them crazy, though.
Its about time Developers realized that by pushing the edge of the envelope graphically that they are limiting their potential market not everyone who is interested in a game wants to or can afford to upgrade or buy a new machine JUST to play a game.
#1 No SLI. SLI is just plain hardcore. The 8800 GTX is not weak by any means, but running two in SLI would be a HUGE upgrade to what I have.
#2 No RAID array. The raptor is a good HD with good spindle speed, but running two in RAID 0 should provide quite a boost, at least in theory.
#3 No Quad Core. My proc is, again, decent, but I just don't see it as high end. There are people who can OC well into the 4GHz range (probably even 5GHz with liquid cooler or Phase Change) that would provide a lot more horsepower than my system.
#4 2 Gigs of Ram. My RAM is not high preformance nor is it overclocked. I unlinked the FBS from memory timing when I OC'd the proc as I heared that the 680i has some issues with OC'd memory. Furthermore, I would imagine that 4 gigs of RAM would be even better, though I have heard arguments about that, so I am not 100% sure.
I was thinking the above systems would be "high end" and thus mine I knocked down to mid range. Nonetheless, I am going to try and get VG running on a smaller comp and see what happens.
~Synexis