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What does VG have that Wow doesn't have?
Fargol
Member UncommonPosts: 303
I know I'm basically putting up a troll magnet with this post, but what the heck.
I see a lot of people up here bashing the dickens out of WoW. Not sure exactly who these folks are, and it doesn't really matter.
I've been playing WoW pretty much since release, with a few months here and there where I quit but then ultimately came back. Bashing WoW seems kind of, well, stupid since it's the most dominant MMO out there, but I recognize the fact that WoW is essentially a simple game with simple mechanics.
I've also seen a lot of posts regarding VG which say VG is a grind-fest, that the quests are pretty much of the 'kill x of y' or 'take item x to person a' type quests, but I get VERY little idea of what exactly makes it so special compared to WoW. If WoW is described as a simple-minded game for carebears, then I have to assume VG is something way beyond that, yet I see little or no indication of that on these forums.
So, the title asks the question. Fire away, keeping in mind that graphics don't really mean a heck of a lot to me.
I see a lot of people up here bashing the dickens out of WoW. Not sure exactly who these folks are, and it doesn't really matter.
I've been playing WoW pretty much since release, with a few months here and there where I quit but then ultimately came back. Bashing WoW seems kind of, well, stupid since it's the most dominant MMO out there, but I recognize the fact that WoW is essentially a simple game with simple mechanics.
I've also seen a lot of posts regarding VG which say VG is a grind-fest, that the quests are pretty much of the 'kill x of y' or 'take item x to person a' type quests, but I get VERY little idea of what exactly makes it so special compared to WoW. If WoW is described as a simple-minded game for carebears, then I have to assume VG is something way beyond that, yet I see little or no indication of that on these forums.
So, the title asks the question. Fire away, keeping in mind that graphics don't really mean a heck of a lot to me.
Comments
Unplayability
Unrealistic system req
Game breaking bugs
No official forums < only tech forums which is full of complaints>
hmm yea vanguard definitly a next gen mmo then i see,,,
However, I meant what sort of elements does the game have that WoW doesn't? I know something about the crafting (could be interesting), and the diplomacy (doesn't sound interesting at all).
You won't get an real answers.
People hate WoW because it has become 'mainstream.' It's the big boy on the block.
Kind of like how cool it is to hate Americans in Europe. Anyone who posts, "Go play a kiddie game like WoW, n00b" is in some bizzare way trying to rep a 'street cred' in the form of mmorpg nerdiness.
In regards to your OP, I don't know anything about Vanguard other than what I've read here.
VG may be no different than WoW. What I mean is, it's different, just not markedly different where it counts.
it has different stuff than a lot of mmo's and it is a game for people whom like building and tweeking there puters, it is definatly a hardcore computer gamer type game that has some innovative features to its own right but brings back the origins of mmo's that were origonally made for computer type geeks and the genre when it was in its early days, i honestly dont think sigil really cares that the average store bought pc cant run this, i do indeed think he made this to the homage of the gamers whom have been ignored since wow turned most new mmo's to appeal to the masses and made them very simple to the casual gamer...is wow bad ...no...does it turn off the people whom like to build gaming rigs to test the boundries of game developers ...absolutly...
Wow is its own game it is simple it is mediocre it runs well on crap comps and caters to the medocrity of the society, this is not bad it gives these type of people an mmo, whom otherwise couldnt play an mmo.
Vanguard is as it seems to me a little more on the side of the old school computer geeks game...is this bad...no, it just caters to the old school whom like to test the boundries of the gaming mmo world via building gaming rigs and trying to take the game to the next extreme lvl.
And here lies the rift...those that are happy something very experimental has come along to test there rigs and test the boundries of developing a game and being happy about it as it is a hobby....and there are the other ones on the other side of the rift whom dont really care to experiment with a game, dont care to experiment with a gaming rig and just want a game that runs great in its simplistic form like wow does with little to no contest to anything new and expansive.
are either of these bad no, but the rift is there the gap is there and people start throwing stones between the gap to the other side.
i can go on with this little theory that is somewhat factual and somewhat guesswork but my fingers r getting tired lol.
playing eq2 and two worlds
But back to VG.
You say it appeals to those old schooler's who want to test their rigs. If this is true, if this is what the devs intended, then I, as a corporate executive who watches things like revenue and expenses, I would round up those devs and send them on a slow boat to a distant land.
But in truth, you didn't really answer my question. Other than VG is a harder game to get to run on today's machines, I still see no difference between WoW and VG, to the extent where, if they fixed VG so it runs well under the minimum specs, I would drop WoW.
Examples:
--In World of Warcraft, reaching max level is entirely possible solo with group content tucked away as optional along the way. Raid mobs are non-existent prior to maximum level or near-about. Once you are maximum level, there's incentive in replaying again with an alternate character given it's so accessible to do, or you can raid.
--In Vanguard, reaching max level is tedious to do if you don't approach it in a 'journey' kind of way. Group content exists in almost every city/outpost you'll cross providing quests, and even your solo content is mixed in with the group content here and there. Group content is optional, but it's much more abundant. You'll also see raid-worthy level mobs around your level here and there sometimes, rather than it being almost strictly high-level.
If you went into crafting, and any other thing you can think of to make miniscule comparisons; you'll find the above permeates all those little matters as well. World of Warcraft essentially banks on providing a good time through the replayability of multiple classes, or pouring your all into one character and progressing through end-game raid content or PvP. Vanguard places much more emphasis on the journey to maximum level, providing consistent content types and options towards them from level to level.
That's as neutral as I can be without being cynical towards either one, or offloading my own preferences. They're both two games from the same mold, they implement things like crafting differently, but neither has it right or wrong; just different to provide two different playstyles. Honestly, both are quite fun so long as you understand how the developers wanted you to enjoy the game, and not any way you chose to yourself.
In WoW you have a bunch of kids telling you to go die on the main chat.
In Vanguard you have the older, more mature audience telling you go back to WoW and die on the main chat.
WOOHOO!
It has quests, and mobs, and levelling, and group/solo content, just like WoW, except maybe in different ratios (I don't think I quite got the gist of the VG paragraph under Examples).
Maybe I can distill your reply into saying:
VG is harder, and is more group-oriented. This in itself wouldn't appeal to me too much if solo'ing becomes difficult or impossible in later levels (similar to DDO where solo'ing was impossible after level 2 or 3; they may have corrected that somewhat lately). And a game that's more group-oriented could have issues down the road if pops decrease and getting a group become difficult. Plus, at least in WoW, certain classes are far more desirable in groups, so playing an off-class makes for a lonely night (i.e. DDO. Man, some days I thought I was the only person on the server). Don't know if this is the case in VG. Probably too early to tell.
I find this thread pointless since everyone(including you)can easily browse some fan or not websites and check the VGs spec,features etc
So i assume your intentions here are more suspecious than a simple informative question.
Except that fact..if you are playing wow for almost 3 years now like you stated then propably in VG you will not find one of your favorite gamestyles.
My intent was exactly as stated. I've read the features, and nothing stands out as truly revolutionary, other than the visuals. My intent was to find out, from fans of VG, what makes it truly superior to WoW. I was looking for details; how do the quests differ from WoW; is the combat more interactive; are the mobs smarter than a bag of hammers; things like that.
From your response I suspect there is nothing in VG that would make me quit WoW and pony up $50.00. I suspect it's the same game, really, with a new coat of paint, assuming it gets to a state of relatively stable, relatively bug-free condition.
People are defending the game religiously; I was just hoping someone could tell me why, other than "it's not WoW".
If only i could find a troll with a tin foil hat. =(
My intent was exactly as stated. I've read the features, and nothing stands out as truly revolutionary, other than the visuals. My intent was to find out, from fans of VG, what makes it truly superior to WoW. I was looking for details; how do the quests differ from WoW; is the combat more interactive; are the mobs smarter than a bag of hammers; things like that.
From your response I suspect there is nothing in VG that would make me quit WoW and pony up $50.00. I suspect it's the same game, really, with a new coat of paint, assuming it gets to a state of relatively stable, relatively bug-free condition.
People are defending the game religiously; I was just hoping someone could tell me why, other than "it's not WoW".
You know what?
It would be my pleasure to give you my trial key and check by yourself the game but i'm prety sure that you aint gonna like it,and u'll propably come back after and post things like"omg this game is full of bugs,you ppl pay for a beta test etc WOW owns VG" and things like that.
Its not personal dude but i think if you stuck on WOW for almost 3 years there must be a nice reason for that.VG its not gonna impress you at all because seems that you like entirely dif things in mmos.Maybe if you were in EQ2 for 3 years instead of wow things would be different for you..at this point VG its not gonna "click" you..
"What does VG have that WoW doesn't have?" This is the easiest of questions to answer.
I could be here for days telling all the things Vanguard has that, that overrated game doesn't have. But I'll state a few.
It's not a cartoon game like WoW.
It has mounts that you can get almost right away where as WoW you have to wait almost til you finish the game to get one, then on top it doesn't cost an arm and two legs like woW does.
Has a vast amount of different mounts, including flying ones and you can go anywhere with them., again unlike WoW.
Has housing unlike WoW
Has boats you can own and steer unlike WoW.
Missions actually pay you unlike WoW which barely pays anything for its quests and when it does, it pays peanuts..er..I mean copper.
The list goes on and on and on.....
Well, like I said, I could be here for the longest of times telling what VG has that WoW doesn't but I'm sure you get the picture.
Plus the WOW fanbois love the Vanguard forums, they'll love to post here. And they say they dislike VG, yeah right!!!!
- The Vanguard soundtrack is much better and more sophisticated.
- The Vanguard World is pretty and seems endless. it is a real world. Although the OP may not see that as a benefit in a game, it is really breathtaking in Vanguard (with a good rig of course).
- You can get cheap mounts at level 10. You have to wait until level 40 in WoW and they cost a lot.
- intricate crafting system.
- Diplomacy
- Ability to purchase boats and sail in a real virtual ocean.
- Group-centric gameplay at early levels. This is a plus and minus however as you must have a group to level. However, playing in a group is a lot more fun than playing solo (IMO). Early grouping also allows the player to learn group dynamics early.
- Vanguard offers more sophisticated class dynamics with a real crowd control class.
- Housing.
1. Eh, sound isn't that big a deal to me. Sound affects are kind of important, but I could care less about a soundtrack.2. The WoW world is huge too. How do the two compare?
3. That's VERY nice. Level 10, excellent. How long does it take to get to level 10 compared to level 40 in WoW? Assuming you've played WoW, of course ...
4. It does sound appealing, but it also sounds like it could be tedious. Then again, most of the professions in WoW are tedious and barely useful too, other than maybe Alchemy .
5. I've read up on Diplomacy and it seems to be pointless and un-rewarding. I also hate diplomacy; I prefer to hit things with sharp objects!
6. That could be very cool assuming there's something out in the ocean to see and things to do. Are there islands than can only be accessed via boat or bird? Pirates? Sea critters?
7. The concept of forced grouping is appealing ONLY if the server population supports it, both in the maturity level of the players and their availability. I play at odd hours and the thought of standing around looking for a group will be far too much like my experience with DDO <shudder>. PUGs in WoW, by and large, bite. You really need to be in a good guild.
8. Could you elaborate? Not sure what you mean exactly. Are you saying that, like DDO, some classes are far more desirable for groups than others? SImilar to Priests in WoW and clerics in DDO? Some classes in WoW are ignored far more than others, and DDO had a similar problem.
9. Housing. Hmm. Not sure how this appeals to me. Does the dwelling you purchase have any practical value, such as a place to keep your toys? Can it be used in some way to generate income? Or is it just a gold sink, since I assume there are taxes and other expense.
Thanks for the reply. This is the first one that actually addressed the question!
It has quests, and mobs, and levelling, and group/solo content, just like WoW, except maybe in different ratios (I don't think I quite got the gist of the VG paragraph under Examples).
Maybe I can distill your reply into saying:
VG is harder, and is more group-oriented. This in itself wouldn't appeal to me too much if solo'ing becomes difficult or impossible in later levels (similar to DDO where solo'ing was impossible after level 2 or 3; they may have corrected that somewhat lately). And a game that's more group-oriented could have issues down the road if pops decrease and getting a group become difficult. Plus, at least in WoW, certain classes are far more desirable in groups, so playing an off-class makes for a lonely night (i.e. DDO. Man, some days I thought I was the only person on the server). Don't know if this is the case in VG. Probably too early to tell.
Well, let's see how I can put this...
Even though in WoW, solo content flows a lot more effectively; i.e. the move from Elwynn to Redridge to Menethiel and so on is all natural, I'd actually say there's more solo content and quests in Vanguard than there is in WoW.
That isn't to say the quality of content is the same, I'd give that to WoW, but in soloing in Vanguard, there's plenty more kill X loot Y bring to Z type quests to keep your exp bar moving.
Just, it lacks the whole 'tiered' experience WoW had with the aforementioned move from zone to zone. When you're journeying, there's never any facade ensuring you move exactly to the content you're supposed to. Example; from Elwynn to Redridge, even though you get a quest telling you to go along a road; there's only one bridge and one river that leads to Redridge. You can't climb the mountains to get there.
In Vanguard, you may get a quest telling you to go to the next outpost/city appropriate for you, and to follow a road...but it's entirely possible to get lost in some jungle, some mountain top, some cave, fall into the sea, etc...
So I wouldn't say Vanguard soloing is more difficult, or lacking in content, it's just more dangerous and requires a lot more quests. But the quests are there.
But ok, let's get into the tangibles.
--World of Warcraft doesn't have housing, if it's ever to have housing, it'll mostlikely come in the form of an expansion akin to Burning Crusades's Outlands where they'll zone off hospitable places akin to the way Dark Age of Camelot did it I'd guess.
--Vanguard does have housing, and there's no teleporting tricks akin to Dark Age of Camelot where you click your door and blink off somewhere. Your house is apart of your world. There's something to be admired in knowing there's no instance portal or zone wall inbetween you and your mug on a countertop no matter where you are in the world.
--Vanguard has seas, open oceans, and ships you can sail them with. You're able to create your own ships, use them for storage, and apparently there'll be ship vs. ship combat and PvE encounters eventually. But that's just something planned.
--World of Warcraft doesn't have any ships, and anyone who's swam to zone borders before in hopes of reaching that black swirl in the middle of your map knows there isn't much water out there. There is underwater content, much more than Vanguard that I've seen, but unless some sea zone is implemented to allow ships similar to how Outlands allowed flying mounts, I can't see ships as apart of WoW.
--Vanguard has flying mounts that function in every area of the game.
--World of Warcraft has flying mounts, but they're limited to outlands. Anyone who's managed to scale mountains in WoW knows invisible zone borders exist in the mainlands disallowing flying mounts there. No such zone barriers exist in Vanguard. The skies are truly open everywhere.
--Vanguard has diplomacy. Yes, I know this sounds a lot like questing in town, but it's actually quite fun to partake in. It's a legitimate way to enjoy the game and progress from city to city, get mounts, progress your gear and so on without so much as throwing a punch. It's cleverly done, and the stories behind your diplomatic missions are much much much better than the backstories to your kill X quests in Adventuring.
--World of Warcraft has no such functionality, but I won't penalize it for not having a system in place called 'Diplomacy'. But if you parallel it to content where you don't have to kill anything, WoW doesn't have any or very few quests that allow you to progress this way. And when you do progress, it's only one level track, the one towards your actual character class.
--Vanguard's crafting system is very complex. Maybe it's because I'm still new to it, but each recipe requires a lot of forethought, planning, specific resource gathering, and manual engagement in creating the item. Not only do you create each component to an item step by step, but you make decisions effecting the quality and magical statistics of the item every step of the way.
--In WoW, obviously the effort was to completely remove tedium from the process of crafting, and put anything difficult about it in the actual resource gathering. Crafting supplements your class levelling in WoW, while in Vanguard it can be done independently without swinging a single punch akin to Diplomacy, or you can use it to supplement your Adventuring.
Those are the biggest things I can think of. Lots of the same stuff, different execution; different tastes for different people.
I really hate the whole 'world vs. game' argument. But Vanguard is more of a 'world' in the sense that it uses no facades, no shortcuts to sooner take your towards your goals and consequent 'fun' or however else you extract your enjoyment. As such, I'd say it isn't as fun as WoW.
WoW makes sure your fun is accessible and comes in predictable spurts, but because you weren't hammering away at your keys the same way your avatar was hammering away at your forged weapon in-game, or you weren't travelling for an hour or two to reach a new content, immersiveness is kind of lost and it does feel more like a goal-oriented game instead of a world.
My intent was exactly as stated. I've read the features, and nothing stands out as truly revolutionary, other than the visuals. My intent was to find out, from fans of VG, what makes it truly superior to WoW. I was looking for details; how do the quests differ from WoW; is the combat more interactive; are the mobs smarter than a bag of hammers; things like that.
From your response I suspect there is nothing in VG that would make me quit WoW and pony up $50.00. I suspect it's the same game, really, with a new coat of paint, assuming it gets to a state of relatively stable, relatively bug-free condition.
People are defending the game religiously; I was just hoping someone could tell me why, other than "it's not WoW".
You know what?
It would be my pleasure to give you my trial key and check by yourself the game but i'm prety sure that you aint gonna like it,and u'll propably come back after and post things like"omg this game is full of bugs,you ppl pay for a beta test etc WOW owns VG" and things like that.
Its not personal dude but i think if you stuck on WOW for almost 3 years there must be a nice reason for that.VG its not gonna impress you at all because seems that you like entirely dif things in mmos.Maybe if you were in EQ2 for 3 years instead of wow things would be different for you..at this point VG its not gonna "click" you..
Every one of your assumptions is incorrect and frankly unworthy. I would love to try the game. I am not "stuck" on WoW. I play it because it's the best thing out there that I've seen. Do I love WoW? Hell no. I play it because I need my MMO fix and WoW, most of the time, delivers.EQ, EQ2, DAoC, DDO, Ryzom, SWG, FFX. I've tried them all. They all came up seriously short in the fun factor.
If your offer of the trial key was serious, I will take you up on it. Then I would just need to know where to get the client.
Thanks.
Secondly I don't hate WoW because it's 'mainstream'. I don't like WoW because it is a very simple form of gaming entertainment that doesn't really bring anything new to the genre. I also strongly disagree with their wave of bannings and the fact if they (Blizzard) ever make a mistake they just say "never happened" sweep it under the carpet and point and shout "look shiny thing!" Hmm seems the reasons I dislike the policies of the current (and some past) american govt and Blizzard are very similar.
I'll fix your post for you.
Idiots and immature teens hate WoW because it has become mainstream.
And FYI...I'm not from europe but my aversion to loud arrogant idiots is the same no matter which nationality they're from. And in my experience no nation is exempt from that.
My intent was exactly as stated. I've read the features, and nothing stands out as truly revolutionary, other than the visuals. My intent was to find out, from fans of VG, what makes it truly superior to WoW. I was looking for details; how do the quests differ from WoW; is the combat more interactive; are the mobs smarter than a bag of hammers; things like that.
From your response I suspect there is nothing in VG that would make me quit WoW and pony up $50.00. I suspect it's the same game, really, with a new coat of paint, assuming it gets to a state of relatively stable, relatively bug-free condition.
People are defending the game religiously; I was just hoping someone could tell me why, other than "it's not WoW".
You know what?
It would be my pleasure to give you my trial key and check by yourself the game but i'm prety sure that you aint gonna like it,and u'll propably come back after and post things like"omg this game is full of bugs,you ppl pay for a beta test etc WOW owns VG" and things like that.
Its not personal dude but i think if you stuck on WOW for almost 3 years there must be a nice reason for that.VG its not gonna impress you at all because seems that you like entirely dif things in mmos.Maybe if you were in EQ2 for 3 years instead of wow things would be different for you..at this point VG its not gonna "click" you..
i read the op's puter specs it seems it may be too low too run vsoh enjoyably.playing eq2 and two worlds
It has quests, and mobs, and levelling, and group/solo content, just like WoW, except maybe in different ratios (I don't think I quite got the gist of the VG paragraph under Examples).
Maybe I can distill your reply into saying:
VG is harder, and is more group-oriented. This in itself wouldn't appeal to me too much if solo'ing becomes difficult or impossible in later levels (similar to DDO where solo'ing was impossible after level 2 or 3; they may have corrected that somewhat lately). And a game that's more group-oriented could have issues down the road if pops decrease and getting a group become difficult. Plus, at least in WoW, certain classes are far more desirable in groups, so playing an off-class makes for a lonely night (i.e. DDO. Man, some days I thought I was the only person on the server). Don't know if this is the case in VG. Probably too early to tell.
Well, let's see how I can put this...
Even though in WoW, solo content flows a lot more effectively; i.e. the move from Elwynn to Redridge to Menethiel and so on is all natural, I'd actually say there's more solo content and quests in Vanguard than there is in WoW.
That isn't to say the quality of content is the same, I'd give that to WoW, but in soloing in Vanguard, there's plenty more kill X loot Y bring to Z type quests to keep your exp bar moving.
Just, it lacks the whole 'tiered' experience WoW had with the aforementioned move from zone to zone. When you're journeying, there's never any facade ensuring you move exactly to the content you're supposed to. Example; from Elwynn to Redridge, even though you get a quest telling you to go along a road; there's only one bridge and one river that leads to Redridge. You can't climb the mountains to get there.
In Vanguard, you may get a quest telling you to go to the next outpost/city appropriate for you, and to follow a road...but it's entirely possible to get lost in some jungle, some mountain top, some cave, fall into the sea, etc...
So I wouldn't say Vanguard soloing is more difficult, or lacking in content, it's just more dangerous and requires a lot more quests. But the quests are there.
But ok, let's get into the tangibles.
--World of Warcraft doesn't have housing, if it's ever to have housing, it'll mostlikely come in the form of an expansion akin to Burning Crusades's Outlands where they'll zone off hospitable places akin to the way Dark Age of Camelot did it I'd guess.
--Vanguard does have housing, and there's no teleporting tricks akin to Dark Age of Camelot where you click your door and blink off somewhere. Your house is apart of your world. There's something to be admired in knowing there's no instance portal or zone wall inbetween you and your mug on a countertop no matter where you are in the world.
--Vanguard has seas, open oceans, and ships you can sail them with. You're able to create your own ships, use them for storage, and apparently there'll be ship vs. ship combat and PvE encounters eventually. But that's just something planned.
--World of Warcraft doesn't have any ships, and anyone who's swam to zone borders before in hopes of reaching that black swirl in the middle of your map knows there isn't much water out there. There is underwater content, much more than Vanguard that I've seen, but unless some sea zone is implemented to allow ships similar to how Outlands allowed flying mounts, I can't see ships as apart of WoW.
--Vanguard has flying mounts that function in every area of the game.
--World of Warcraft has flying mounts, but they're limited to outlands. Anyone who's managed to scale mountains in WoW knows invisible zone borders exist in the mainlands disallowing flying mounts there. No such zone barriers exist in Vanguard. The skies are truly open everywhere.
--Vanguard has diplomacy. Yes, I know this sounds a lot like questing in town, but it's actually quite fun to partake in. It's a legitimate way to enjoy the game and progress from city to city, get mounts, progress your gear and so on without so much as throwing a punch. It's cleverly done, and the stories behind your diplomatic missions are much much much better than the backstories to your kill X quests in Adventuring.
--World of Warcraft has no such functionality, but I won't penalize it for not having a system in place called 'Diplomacy'. But if you parallel it to content where you don't have to kill anything, WoW doesn't have any or very few quests that allow you to progress this way. And when you do progress, it's only one level track, the one towards your actual character class.
--Vanguard's crafting system is very complex. Maybe it's because I'm still new to it, but each recipe requires a lot of forethought, planning, specific resource gathering, and manual engagement in creating the item. Not only do you create each component to an item step by step, but you make decisions effecting the quality and magical statistics of the item every step of the way.
--In WoW, obviously the effort was to completely remove tedium from the process of crafting, and put anything difficult about it in the actual resource gathering. Crafting supplements your class levelling in WoW, while in Vanguard it can be done independently without swinging a single punch akin to Diplomacy, or you can use it to supplement your Adventuring.
Those are the biggest things I can think of. Lots of the same stuff, different execution; different tastes for different people.
I really hate the whole 'world vs. game' argument. But Vanguard is more of a 'world' in the sense that it uses no facades, no shortcuts to sooner take your towards your goals and consequent 'fun' or however else you extract your enjoyment. As such, I'd say it isn't as fun as WoW.
WoW makes sure your fun is accessible and comes in predictable spurts, but because you weren't hammering away at your keys the same way your avatar was hammering away at your forged weapon in-game, or you weren't travelling for an hour or two to reach a new content, immersiveness is kind of lost and it does feel more like a goal-oriented game instead of a world. Excellent reply. Thanks for taking the time to reply in such detail
Hopefully I can get my grubby hands on a trial key and see if the game will even run on my system at medium detail levels at the least. I hate to pay $50 bucks for a game I'll need to run at the lowest settings
I've got a P4 2.53, 1 GIG RAM, GeForce 6800 GS card.
playing eq2 and two worlds
I would like to point out that it is impossible to be a self-sufficient crafter in Vanguard without having adventure levels. The reason being that once you get past level 5 or so, you WILL have to gather resources in dangerous areas and it will not be possible to gather those resources without getting aggro or having to fight your way to the nodes. So, while crafting has its own leveling system, it is very much dependent on the adventuring sphere in order to gather your resources. It is not like SWG, where you can create source gathering machines and place them in relatively safe spots without having to combat the local fauna. Sure, you can buy most of those resources from other people, but its a very hard road to follow as you cannot make good money off the low level free stuff you can gather at the beginning of the game. So good luck getting the capital and playing the market. That still won't net you the rare items that are no-drop and are required for the real money making and desirable items.
If you an start the game with a bunch of friends who will be willing to fund your efforts, then you won't have any problems, but you would still be a leach, even if a friendly one.
With PvE raiding, it has never been a question of being "good enough". I play games to have fun, not to be a simpering toady sitting through hour after hour of mind numbing boredom and fawning over a guild master in the hopes that he will condescend to reward me with shiny bits of loot. But in games where those people get the highest progression, anyone who doesn't do that will just be a moving target for them and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay money for the privilege. - Neanderthal
It may sound like new game, new player naivity, but trust me Vanguard's world is HUGE. Colossal, and it's completely seamless with no zoning/instancing. There are 'chunks', but often you can be in the same chunk for days if you aren't travelling. If you are travelling, you can cross as many as 4-5 in a playstation. The time it takes to 'chunk' depends largely on your RAM I think. With 1 gig of RAM, it'd take me like a full minute. With 2 and no other system changes, takes 2 seconds flat.
3. Level 10 is pretty easy. You can do it in your first play session akin to WoW. But, it's a bit deceptive in that the rest of your levelling is way slower than it is in WoW. A little disclaimer about the horse comment too; it isn't as great as being able to afford your first horse in UO where it's the same speed as anyone elses. It's pretty slow, often you'll be running on food next to people on horses, and it'll take them a really long time to get any decent stretch in front of you if you're running along the same road.
That said, it is faster than walking; your first horse that is. But don't expect WoW mount speeds until you reach WoW paralleled levels.
4. It's very tedious. You'll want to pull out your hair. When the game launched, crafting was very very easy. Then they patched it a few times since, now it's a lot more tedious. Whether they'll rubberband back to an in-between, I'm not sure, but it's one of the things suffering from early release. It doesn't seem like they know how difficult they want it to be yet. They did say reaching highest crafting level should take as long as it takes to reach highest adventuring level though...so that's kind of a hint that it's no weekend endeavor akin to WoW's crafting gains.
5. Diplomacy is completely non-violent as I described above; except on the ones you have certain NPCs assassinated and such. It's really wonderful, it'd surprised you I bet if you don't have any high expectations for it. But yeah, it involves no fighting.
6. Accessible only by boat? I'm not sure, because you can always decide to jump into the water and swim to another island. 'course it could take hours but it is possible to swim should no giant sea turtle kill you (as it has me wondering what Ceros Isles was...).
There's very little NPC provided transportation in game. So boats certainly have their place. The oceans and seas are very open, in fact its way more disproportionate than our own Earth, I'd say Telon is like 90% water. I might be exaggerating, and that isn't to take away from the landmasses, they're ridiculously large too.
7. Grouping isn't forced. You'll ALWAYS run into 'group' titled quests, but not doing them is as easy as abandoning them and moving on to the next area when the one you're in has nothing more to offer than group content.
That said, you almost always have enough solo quests, if not you have Missive Boards which are essentially quests in the form of repeatable kill tasks; all soloable.
Additionally, the climate for grouping is really good. Keep in mind, the server population isn't split between any warring races (besides default ill-factions), and there is no PvP to effect attitudes. There's no instancing to separate you from seeing another person you might've otherwise have happened upon, etc...so for a game with incentive on grouping, it has good grounds for it all things considered. Same ol' not-so-effective 'LFG' tools and tags though. So a guild probably is your best choice for finding groups.
8. He probably meant something exactly like what you meant by Priests in WoW, in that they can double as nukers with their shadow deal. Most classes, just like in WoW, have some form of limited healing, ranged ability, crowd control, so on and so on alongside their 'main' role.
Most have a quirk to them too that makes them really unique. Dread Knight's Dreadful Countenance, Druid's use of Wonders and Calamities...etc. it creates differences in the classes beyond their primary and secondary roles.
9. Yeah they can be used as storage, as guild halls, as a player for your vendor to sell your objects. I'm not sure if you can put crafting stations in them to save trips to town, but I know eventually player run cities are supposed to happen.