I find this thread pointless since everyone(including you)can easily browse some fan or not websites and check the VGs spec,features etc
The problem is that a lot of what those site SAY is in the game, is not. And I don't think we should be comparing what VG might have 2 months or 2 years from to what is currently in other games says much for VG.
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'm no hardware expert, but I can give you my opinions on what make the biggest difference for me in playing Vanguard.
I started with a Pentium 4 3.0, GeForce 6600, 1 gig of RAM. I could play it on Balanced when I was away from cities and such; and this way back during beta before a lot of the performance tweaks that have made it in today existed.
'Chunking', moving from one chunk to another however took like a minute or two to do sometimes, and this was the biggest annoyance I had.
So I upgraded to a 7950GT, I could run the game on higher settings away from cities, but 'chunking' and lag in cities didn't get any better.
Then I upgraded to 2 gigs of RAM, and WoW, chunking takes like 2-3 seconds. Sometimes I'll chunk, not sure if I did, and walk backwards to purposefully chunk again to make sure that's what it was. I can run around in cities without changing my graphics settings either.
Maybe someone can elaborate better, but I think 2 gigs of RAM is the biggest key to consistent, decent performance regardless of your graphics card and consequent graphics settings.
So from my own personal opinion, if you're able to squeeze out an upgrade ever, do get the extra gig of RAM first. But do inquire into others opinions first, they might be more knowledge as to what'd help you best.
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'm no hardware expert, but I can give you my opinions on what make the biggest difference for me in playing Vanguard.
I started with a Pentium 4 3.0, GeForce 6600, 1 gig of RAM. I could play it on Balanced when I was away from cities and such; and this way back during beta before a lot of the performance tweaks that have made it in today existed.
'Chunking', moving from one chunk to another however took like a minute or two to do sometimes, and this was the biggest annoyance I had.
So I upgraded to a 7950GT, I could run the game on higher settings away from cities, but 'chunking' and lag in cities didn't get any better.
Then I upgraded to 2 gigs of RAM, and WoW, chunking takes like 2-3 seconds. Sometimes I'll chunk, not sure if I did, and walk backwards to purposefully chunk again to make sure that's what it was. I can run around in cities without changing my graphics settings either.
Maybe someone can elaborate better, but I think 2 gigs of RAM is the biggest key to consistent, decent performance regardless of your graphics card and consequent graphics settings.
So from my own personal opinion, if you're able to squeeze out an upgrade ever, do get the extra gig of RAM first. But do inquire into others opinions first, they might be more knowledge as to what'd help you best. Memory likely is the best place to start. In WoW when I had a half gig, lag in the cities was horrendous. After upgrading to 1 gig, the lag went away.
I think WoW is a good beginner mmo. If you played mmo's before WoW, chances are you arent going to love it the way people who have never played anything but wow love it.
There isnt much original content in WoW. Everything i encountered i had seen before.
I quit playing WoW , because it got extremely boring. Im not a sheep, i have no interest in following a zerg leader and doing the same boring instance over and over to get the gear i need to compete in some poorly implemented pvp.
Also dont get too excited about how many subscribers WoW has, since most of them are chinese gold farmers.
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.
You mean pointless like 99.9% of the other threads?
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..
You keep saying that if he played WoW for three years, that he won't like Vanguard. BUT YOU WON'T SAY WHY!!!!!!
To put it plainly without going into detail; they encourage two different incentives and playstyles, for the single player and masses.
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.
That was a very good reply, thank you, but it doesn't really tell me how VG is better which so many claim it is. It sounds different, and harder, but not "better" in the sense it introduces revolutionary new elements.
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.
Well, you honestly won't get any straight answers from trolls that have never tried the game, or just bash it because it has so much hype to it. "Vanboi's", as they're called may try to over hype it, and that opens the floodgates for trolls like above. I've been playing for a couple weeks, and here's the story.
1. Very well done and indepth crafting. The crafting is quite a bit more indepth than WoW. You can build anything in the game. Furniture, weapons, armor, houses, keeps, jewelery, knick knacks for the house (like even a chess set), and barding for your mount. If it is in the game, you can make it through crafting. The items you make are very essential for the environment. It is absolutely imperative to have crafters as many elements of the game only come to life through crafting. This is good to keep the viability of crafting, unlike WoW where if nobody crafted it wouldn't make any difference.
Problems: It is very slow to learn and the tutorial is very bad. Once you get going, it's great, but you'll have to have some patience at this point to get started. Very steep learning curve.
2. Adventuring is more of the same. No matter what all the hype says, at this point, adventuring is adventuring, period. Go out, find some friends (you can solo, but it is very tedious and hard after 10th level), and go beat up some bad guys, or good guys, or livestock, whatever. You could even attack your own trainer if you're not careful. Keep in mind though, there are factions. If you pick on a bunch of mobs that belong to a faction, then everyone in that faction in the world will hate you, and it's harder to gain faction than lose it, so don't get yourself thrown out of town because the shopkeeper ripped you off and you kicked his behind.
Problems: They tried instituting a combat mechanic that was more intuitive where you could react off of different moves from the enemy and others in the group to get different results, but at this point, it's poorly, and in some cases non-existant, implemented. Maybe it'll get perfected in the future, but at this time, there are bigger fish to fry. It's the same as WoW right now for combat, hopefully it will get better. Leveling is slow, so don't expect 10 levels a day like WoW. There's plenty to do, and there is no real hurry to level, but some people "feel the need" to level every time they play. It's called instant gratification, and is why games like WoW, and soon EQ2, are known "kiddy" games. No depth, just a level fest. Vanguard is trying to alleviate the level fest by giving you plenty things to do throughout all levels.
3. Diplomacy adds a third sphere in the game. It is absolutely brilliant in my opinion. You can delve into the lore of the game through diplomacy, and maybe even talk your way out of a fight, or into a fight. It's like a card game where the cards represent different statements and questions you query to your audience and they respond. If you "out talk" them, you'll finish a quest, get something interesting, or find out something you can use later. It really gives another angle on MMO gaming that gives you a chance to not just beat everyone up and become a hero, but you can even become a hero through diplomacy.
Problems: It starts out easy enough, and has a lot of starter quests to get you going, but after a while, it really gets difficult. If you're a good poker player, you'll probably love it, but if you suck at cards, you'll probably suck at this. Just keep in mind there are clues to how to be good at diplomacy, but you'll just have to pick it up on your own for now. There aren't any trainers on the web yet, and the trainers in the game only teach you the basics.
The implementation of this game was not good. It's not nearly as bad as when WoW first came out, that was a complete fiasco, but the developer even admitted the game was opened a couple months too soon. SOE is hosting their servers and forced them out of beta too soon so there are lots of problems. Every day they patch and fix bugs and performance and they are actually doing a good job of it. They might be able to get it ready in one month instead of two through sheer tenacity. It's just that a lot of people don't like to "pay for beta" so they complain about it at length. I can understand that, but as of yet, NO MMO has ever opened bug free, and you will always have to deal with glitches in a game like this. Plus the fact that this game opened 10 times larger in scope than WoW currently is after 2.5 years and ONE expansion, there is a lot for them to do.
A couple complaints, besides slow leveling (if that's your bag), is the death penalty and the travel. Death penalty is where you leave a corpse behind where you died WITH ALL YOUR STUFF. You can pay a price to get it back, but if you don't get your corpse, you'll lose your stuff. In the current shape of things with MMO's, I agree, this is a bit stiff, and I hope they change it soon. The WoW death penalty doesn't bother me at all. Travel is slow because at lower levels, you don't have many choices for traveling (just your feet) and it takes time to get around in a really huge world. You are able to get horses pretty early, and there are MANY more choices for travel in Vanguard than WoW. You build your transport needs, or have someone make you something, or travel with friends. You can even travel while offline. Horses, ships (that you can actually build yourself), dragons, whatever you work towards, you can do. Your group of friends can join a caravan and travel to distant lands even while offline, so you don't have to "catch up" with friends when you log in.
Absolutely great ideas, and the systems are there to do it all, it's just a matter of implementation at this point. The game does require a robust system, but everything in my computer is like 2 years old and I run fine in balanced mode. So I guess if you're a dinosaur with an older system, and still living in the 90's, then it may not be productive to get it until you upgrade. It is the 21st century after all.
"Granted thinking for yourself could be considered a timesink of shorter or longer duration depending on how smart..or how dumb you are."
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,,,
Yeah., I get that impression.
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).
Yes, crafting, diplomacy, housing and that you have to learn the combat system. The more you level, the more combat takes another dimension. I also feel that, this is my opinion, that VG is more epic then WoW.
Nothing against WoW, but i'll use the GameOn podcast line. It's the fast food MMO.
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.
Or, you can play an mmo like it is supposed to. With people. So as a crafter in a guild, you guildmate can collect you the stuff you need and you can make them UBER items. In VG, crafting items have a nice spot.
It sounds like a great game and definately a step up from WoW. My main problem with WoW is immersion. The world feels like a video game and doesn't really draw you into the world. All these features like a massive world, dipolmacy, etc. really seem to lend well to immersion. Unfortunately, by what you guys have said, it has been released too early.
In any case, I will continue to watch this game through-out the year to see how it shapes up (or down, if that is the case). My only other hope in the mmorpg world is AoC, but then again Funcom doesn't have too great a record.
seems like the WoW players are more into simplicity and more primitive game, they cant really comprehend diplomacy or and ideal crafting system, they would rather just hit stuff for a month. (about as long as it takes to max level)
Great posts, guys. It sounds like a great game and definately a step up from WoW. My main problem with WoW is immersion. The world feels like a video game and doesn't really draw you into the world. All these features like a massive world, dipolmacy, etc. really seem to lend well to immersion. Unfortunately, by what you guys have said, it has been released too early. In any case, I will continue to watch this game through-out the year to see how it shapes up (or down, if that is the case). My only other hope in the mmorpg world is AoC, but then again Funcom doesn't have too great a record.
Sure, i'll give all the haters that point. It was released in a buggy state.
BUT, and yes it's a big one. If you can look beyond the bug, it's an awesome game. The most dramatic things you see here seems to be the less then 10% kinda repro thing... You have to be really unlucky if you end up on one of those.
I suggest you give the game a try right now. Yes, you might blow 50$, but you will have a clear idea and a free month to try it out. Nothing beats the feeling of being part of building a game.
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,,,
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.
Or, you can play an mmo like it is supposed to. With people. So as a crafter in a guild, you guildmate can collect you the stuff you need and you can make them UBER items. In VG, crafting items have a nice spot.
You can reach maximum level/skill of every sphere (Adventuring, Crafting, Diplomacy) without touching any of the others. But you'll certainly benefit better if you use two of the three, and even better if you use all three.
Crafting doesn't depend on harvested items, you can do Work Orders all the way to 50 if you want. But as aforementioned, certainly harvesting will help, especially if you want to create items for yourself or others to use towards Adventuring. Still though, you're able to buy raw resources off of market brokers.
So while you may be a lot more efficient using adventuring and harvesting, you aren't crippled into disuse as a crafter.
Housing, flying mounts who are not crippeled, no instancing, non-disney graphics, diplomacy. That's about what I can come up with.
$OE lies list http://www.rlmmo.com/viewtopic.php?t=424&start=0 " And I don't want to hear anything about "I don't believe in vampires" because *I* don't believe in vampires, but I believe in my own two eyes, and what *I* saw is ******* vampires! "
WOW worked even at day one and mostly bug free = VG hitches, stutters, crashes and mostly buggy.
WOW is fun = VG is not
WOW has hook = VG doesn't
WOW has art and artistic direction (ya, cartoon in that) = VG is a messy mixture, undecided btw barbie doll characters, high fantasy settings, space age structures and realistic nature.
WOW has animations = VG has attempts (!) in that direction.
WOW has quests disguising grinding = VG has no intention to cover grinding
WOW has instances and has always been honest about it = VG said no instances and changed the term to "chunks" instead (!)
WOW has inspiring environments = VG is bland, lobotomized npcs, uninspired locations, empty cities.
CONTRIBUTE INTO THE GAMING INDUSTRY! STOP PAYING FOR BORING COPYCATS, UNFINISHED BUGFESTS AND CRANKY JUNKWARE. BE A RESPONSIBLE GAMER!
Other then obvious bugs, some embarassing animations and everything, VG has a much better race and class diversity and character customization (which still needs more work) I want to leave WoW behind permernantly because I'm getting so sick of it but I just can't find anything actually better for me at the moment.
For me the difference is fairly simple, WoW at all levels can be played whilst also on the phone and watching a movie. I wouldn't want to do that in a dungeon in VG & team tactics get progressively more important as you level. That suits some people, and doesn't suit others.
I don't care how polished a WoW type game is, if I don't ever feel stretched or challenged, I simply won't be playing for long, if at all - I'll just turn off and go read a book or do something useful like some DiY.
EQ & UO have changed far too much and besides are... done for want of a better term for me, Shadowbane is in largely the same bracket, it's too empty and there's not enough large scale PvP going on anymore, and alot of the bugs/hacks/dupes that were always a turn off are still there. EQ2 whilst a bit more engaging than WoW just feels like EQ-lite with dumbed down mechanics and simplified classes, moving from an EQ1 bard to a EQ2 bard just isn't remotely a possibility for me.
Lots of people love to point at blizzard's BS marketing speak inflated "figures" (3-4 mill sounds alot more realistic worldwide even including the chinese Inet cafe bulk 1$ subs) and say surely all games should be like this, but for some gamers it doesn't matter how popular that is, it's not an experience we enjoy for long or would want to repeat. WoW or a even simpler clone of it like LOTRO is less attractive than not gaming at all, either there is a VG type game I want to play on the MMO market, or the MMO market doesn't receive any £ from this gamer.
A game catering to VG's market demographic was way overdue, and even VG has suffered from people trying to force it into the WoW mold somewhat to it's detriment, but it's still the best option out there for some people.
I wish everyone the very best with whatever game type suits their preference, but I'm very happy to finally have mine catered to with a new release, so I'm in for the longhaul, irrespective of release bugs (still better than queuing for several hours a day to even get into your server before getting crashed to queue again), I'm in game, playing fine, leveling fine, having a blast and all on a old machine Nvidia6600 AMD3200 etc which I won't get around to replacing till vista & DX10 are more settled.
It's your free time, enjoy what you want to, but don't make the mistake that every consumer dollar should only be spent on your preferences though.
I think WoW is a good beginner mmo. If you played mmo's before WoW, chances are you arent going to love it the way people who have never played anything but wow love it.
There isnt much original content in WoW. Everything i encountered i had seen before.
I quit playing WoW , because it got extremely boring. Im not a sheep, i have no interest in following a zerg leader and doing the same boring instance over and over to get the gear i need to compete in some poorly implemented pvp.
Also dont get too excited about how many subscribers WoW has, since most of them are chinese gold farmers.
Does anyone else find it funny that people who dislike World of Warcraft have a tendency to use slang that Blizzard pretty much invented? Not trying to flame, just observing.
Also, I'd like to thank all the participants of this thread. I've been thinking about whether or not to try Vanguard, and this is probably the post that's put me most in the 'yes' direction, because I AM tired of all of the quick-fix MMO games and would like to try something more... in-depth. I'm going to need a RAM upgrade first, though... heh.
--------
"Give a man a fire, and he is warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he is warm for the rest of his life."
The World VG world might be huge but its 80% ocean and barren terrain, only 20% of the world is worth visiting ATM. I dont see vangurd world being bigger than wow (not inc outlands) when you remove the barran deserts and undeveloped portions of the world. In WoW there are things to see everywhere you go, its a developed world full of cities/vilages/outposts etc.
Graphics is as much about style and concept as it about poly count and effects, WoW has style, a constant theme throughout with very different enviroments that all look fantasic, VG is a system hog and the graphics it outputs are bland & boring, its obvious that some areas have been worked on more than others and it all looks very thrown together. Player models feel like dolls with poor animation, WoW players are very solid and flow like butta... far far easier on the eyes. IMHO
You will get the "WoW fanastic" moments in VG world when you enter a new city or area just as you get the first time you enter Stormwind or Thunderbluff playing WoW, but that will pass.
As to level cap there are already a handfull lvl 40+ players (max cap 50) playing VG right now 2 weeks after release so just like in WoW some 1 who just wants to max cap ASAP can do that in a few weeks, a new WoW player who wants to experince the world will take upwards to 4-5 months to get to 60 and another 1-2 months to 70.
My first WoW toon took 38 days played ( 912 hours ) to get 60, and I dinged 70 a few days ago ( 100 hours played), theres alot of bull crap that floats around about WoW saying you can max cap in 2 weeks.
Ships and housing, this has a place in VG becuase the world is large, in WoW they would be usless, what use is a house in wow? a guild hall would be nice and Im sure they will come soon, (theres a large portal in Stormwind city thats said to be where guild halls will be accessable). A house does not make a poor MMO good, its just means more grinding.
Dipolomacy is just a fancy way to grind rep with a faction without picking up a sword, a nice change but not ground breaking.
Crafting, VG crafting is more deep, but i think after a while it will become annoying, you spent day farming mats for an item only for it to fail during crafting, In WoW if you spent the time gathering mats you know that item you've worked for is now yours.
PvP WoW is far more advanced in PvP than VG, as you might expect. Many bash WoW PvP but I think its the best PvP out there. You cant loot money from opponents but PvP is fast and fun.
Classes VG sports 15 class (i think) but these are just variations on the typical, Tank,Healer,DPS classes. WoW has 8 classes. I cant speak for VG in classes but in WoW a Priest can be a healer or DPS, a druid can be a Healer or DPS or Tank etc. The old set roles for classes in WoW have changed to offer more options.
Mount The original WoW world (azeroth) was never desiged for flying mounts, unlike VG which was, as to getting a mount at lvl 10 in VG and 40 in WoW, it comes down to the size of the world in WoW you can get around fast using griffons/bat or boats/zeplins, in VG to get from city 1 to vilage 2 you need to travel for 10mins through a barren desert so you get a mount early on for that purpose.
End game Cant realy say about VG right now but WoW endgame you have a few choices, PvP, with the new arena PvP system you can join an Arena team and compete against other teams on a ladder to win the sessions, Raiding, you can raid the dungeons for loot and have fun with your guild.. well thats it but thats end game for all MMO's. But the fact is once your bored with an MMO move on.
VG has no real PvP so all i can see is 1 choice and that raiding for gear.
WOW worked even at day one and mostly bug free = VG hitches, stutters, crashes and mostly buggy. WOW is fun = VG is not WOW has hook = VG doesn't WOW has art and artistic direction (ya, cartoon in that) = VG is a messy mixture, undecided btw barbie doll characters, high fantasy settings, space age structures and realistic nature. WOW has animations = VG has attempts (!) in that direction. WOW has quests disguising grinding = VG has no intention to cover grinding WOW has instances and has always been honest about it = VG said no instances and changed the term to "chunks" instead (!) WOW has inspiring environments = VG is bland, lobotomized npcs, uninspired locations, empty cities.
You don´t really know what you are talking about, do you?
I mean alone the walking animation in WoW looks ridiculously stupid and unnatural.
Plus, chunks don´t have the slightest thing to do with instances.
WOW worked even at day one and mostly bug free = VG hitches, stutters, crashes and mostly buggy.
ok hold it, were you there on the first few days, YOU KNOW HOW MANY SERVER ISSUES there was during the first few days and how we all got extra days on our account due to it.
In short since i dont feel like getting into it WoW is superior.
WoW is shorter(while i dont mind a longer grind, really i dont mind how long it is at all if its fun)
Vanguard quests suck, for example they all are prty much WoW quests cept since its takes longer to lvl there more so its prty much , Kill 10 bears, collect 9 bear eyers, find 15 bear livers, kill 5 more bears,collect 2 bear heads, ect. Its just alot of the same thing to kill just getting different things from them.
As for Crafting in both games i hated it, in Vanguard its annoying to craft cause of the mini game and work orders, wow it sucks cause its pointless.
THE LAG , now i know wow had lag for the first few days, but correct me if im wrong its been atleast a few weeks and it still HUGE LAG WALLS were time stops, then starts again.
Now i dont know what the hell this game wants but for w/e reason it runs like crap as far as FPS rate goes, and im running on a decent rig and still problems, i tried to quit vanguard and twice i went into safe mode.
Diplomacy seems prty boring for what iv dont so far with it, i havnt really understood the game, but iv won every time so w/e im doing is right. All it does it maybe allow access to another quest or something not that big.
i was fairly unimpressed with the game from what i played of it, to me WoW is better, but i dont want to go back to WoW since its killed my fun i could have in it.
Comments
I started with a Pentium 4 3.0, GeForce 6600, 1 gig of RAM. I could play it on Balanced when I was away from cities and such; and this way back during beta before a lot of the performance tweaks that have made it in today existed.
'Chunking', moving from one chunk to another however took like a minute or two to do sometimes, and this was the biggest annoyance I had.
So I upgraded to a 7950GT, I could run the game on higher settings away from cities, but 'chunking' and lag in cities didn't get any better.
Then I upgraded to 2 gigs of RAM, and WoW, chunking takes like 2-3 seconds. Sometimes I'll chunk, not sure if I did, and walk backwards to purposefully chunk again to make sure that's what it was. I can run around in cities without changing my graphics settings either.
Maybe someone can elaborate better, but I think 2 gigs of RAM is the biggest key to consistent, decent performance regardless of your graphics card and consequent graphics settings.
So from my own personal opinion, if you're able to squeeze out an upgrade ever, do get the extra gig of RAM first. But do inquire into others opinions first, they might be more knowledge as to what'd help you best.
I started with a Pentium 4 3.0, GeForce 6600, 1 gig of RAM. I could play it on Balanced when I was away from cities and such; and this way back during beta before a lot of the performance tweaks that have made it in today existed.
'Chunking', moving from one chunk to another however took like a minute or two to do sometimes, and this was the biggest annoyance I had.
So I upgraded to a 7950GT, I could run the game on higher settings away from cities, but 'chunking' and lag in cities didn't get any better.
Then I upgraded to 2 gigs of RAM, and WoW, chunking takes like 2-3 seconds. Sometimes I'll chunk, not sure if I did, and walk backwards to purposefully chunk again to make sure that's what it was. I can run around in cities without changing my graphics settings either.
Maybe someone can elaborate better, but I think 2 gigs of RAM is the biggest key to consistent, decent performance regardless of your graphics card and consequent graphics settings.
So from my own personal opinion, if you're able to squeeze out an upgrade ever, do get the extra gig of RAM first. But do inquire into others opinions first, they might be more knowledge as to what'd help you best. Memory likely is the best place to start. In WoW when I had a half gig, lag in the cities was horrendous. After upgrading to 1 gig, the lag went away.
Thanks.
There isnt much original content in WoW. Everything i encountered i had seen before.
I quit playing WoW , because it got extremely boring. Im not a sheep, i have no interest in following a zerg leader and doing the same boring instance over and over to get the gear i need to compete in some poorly implemented pvp.
Also dont get too excited about how many subscribers WoW has, since most of them are chinese gold farmers.
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..
You keep saying that if he played WoW for three years, that he won't like Vanguard. BUT YOU WON'T SAY WHY!!!!!!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.
Fantastic post!!
Now this was very helpful and informative.
Thanks!
Well, you honestly won't get any straight answers from trolls that have never tried the game, or just bash it because it has so much hype to it. "Vanboi's", as they're called may try to over hype it, and that opens the floodgates for trolls like above. I've been playing for a couple weeks, and here's the story.
1. Very well done and indepth crafting. The crafting is quite a bit more indepth than WoW. You can build anything in the game. Furniture, weapons, armor, houses, keeps, jewelery, knick knacks for the house (like even a chess set), and barding for your mount. If it is in the game, you can make it through crafting. The items you make are very essential for the environment. It is absolutely imperative to have crafters as many elements of the game only come to life through crafting. This is good to keep the viability of crafting, unlike WoW where if nobody crafted it wouldn't make any difference.
Problems: It is very slow to learn and the tutorial is very bad. Once you get going, it's great, but you'll have to have some patience at this point to get started. Very steep learning curve.
2. Adventuring is more of the same. No matter what all the hype says, at this point, adventuring is adventuring, period. Go out, find some friends (you can solo, but it is very tedious and hard after 10th level), and go beat up some bad guys, or good guys, or livestock, whatever. You could even attack your own trainer if you're not careful.
Keep in mind though, there are factions. If you pick on a bunch of mobs that belong to a faction, then everyone in that faction in the world will hate you, and it's harder to gain faction than lose it, so don't get yourself thrown out of town because the shopkeeper ripped you off and you kicked his behind.
Problems: They tried instituting a combat mechanic that was more intuitive where you could react off of different moves from the enemy and others in the group to get different results, but at this point, it's poorly, and in some cases non-existant, implemented. Maybe it'll get perfected in the future, but at this time, there are bigger fish to fry. It's the same as WoW right now for combat, hopefully it will get better. Leveling is slow, so don't expect 10 levels a day like WoW. There's plenty to do, and there is no real hurry to level, but some people "feel the need" to level every time they play. It's called instant gratification, and is why games like WoW, and soon EQ2, are known "kiddy" games. No depth, just a level fest. Vanguard is trying to alleviate the level fest by giving you plenty things to do throughout all levels.
3. Diplomacy adds a third sphere in the game. It is absolutely brilliant in my opinion. You can delve into the lore of the game through diplomacy, and maybe even talk your way out of a fight, or into a fight.
It's like a card game where the cards represent different statements and questions you query to your audience and they respond. If you "out talk" them, you'll finish a quest, get something interesting, or find out something you can use later. It really gives another angle on MMO gaming that gives you a chance to not just beat everyone up and become a hero, but you can even become a hero through diplomacy.
Problems: It starts out easy enough, and has a lot of starter quests to get you going, but after a while, it really gets difficult. If you're a good poker player, you'll probably love it, but if you suck at cards, you'll probably suck at this. Just keep in mind there are clues to how to be good at diplomacy, but you'll just have to pick it up on your own for now. There aren't any trainers on the web yet, and the trainers in the game only teach you the basics.
The implementation of this game was not good. It's not nearly as bad as when WoW first came out, that was a complete fiasco, but the developer even admitted the game was opened a couple months too soon. SOE is hosting their servers and forced them out of beta too soon so there are lots of problems. Every day they patch and fix bugs and performance and they are actually doing a good job of it. They might be able to get it ready in one month instead of two through sheer tenacity. It's just that a lot of people don't like to "pay for beta" so they complain about it at length. I can understand that, but as of yet, NO MMO has ever opened bug free, and you will always have to deal with glitches in a game like this. Plus the fact that this game opened 10 times larger in scope than WoW currently is after 2.5 years and ONE expansion, there is a lot for them to do.
A couple complaints, besides slow leveling (if that's your bag), is the death penalty and the travel. Death penalty is where you leave a corpse behind where you died WITH ALL YOUR STUFF. You can pay a price to get it back, but if you don't get your corpse, you'll lose your stuff. In the current shape of things with MMO's, I agree, this is a bit stiff, and I hope they change it soon. The WoW death penalty doesn't bother me at all. Travel is slow because at lower levels, you don't have many choices for traveling (just your feet) and it takes time to get around in a really huge world. You are able to get horses pretty early, and there are MANY more choices for travel in Vanguard than WoW. You build your transport needs, or have someone make you something, or travel with friends. You can even travel while offline. Horses, ships (that you can actually build yourself), dragons, whatever you work towards, you can do. Your group of friends can join a caravan and travel to distant lands even while offline, so you don't have to "catch up" with friends when you log in.
Absolutely great ideas, and the systems are there to do it all, it's just a matter of implementation at this point. The game does require a robust system, but everything in my computer is like 2 years old and I run fine in balanced mode. So I guess if you're a dinosaur with an older system, and still living in the 90's, then it may not be productive to get it until you upgrade. It is the 21st century after all.
"Granted thinking for yourself could be considered a timesink of shorter or longer duration depending on how smart..or how dumb you are."
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).
Yes, crafting, diplomacy, housing and that you have to learn the combat system. The more you level, the more combat takes another dimension. I also feel that, this is my opinion, that VG is more epic then WoW.
Nothing against WoW, but i'll use the GameOn podcast line. It's the fast food MMO.
eqnext.wikia.com
eqnext.wikia.com
Great posts, guys.
It sounds like a great game and definately a step up from WoW. My main problem with WoW is immersion. The world feels like a video game and doesn't really draw you into the world. All these features like a massive world, dipolmacy, etc. really seem to lend well to immersion. Unfortunately, by what you guys have said, it has been released too early.
In any case, I will continue to watch this game through-out the year to see how it shapes up (or down, if that is the case). My only other hope in the mmorpg world is AoC, but then again Funcom doesn't have too great a record.
BUT, and yes it's a big one. If you can look beyond the bug, it's an awesome game. The most dramatic things you see here seems to be the less then 10% kinda repro thing... You have to be really unlucky if you end up on one of those.
I suggest you give the game a try right now. Yes, you might blow 50$, but you will have a clear idea and a free month to try it out. Nothing beats the feeling of being part of building a game.
eqnext.wikia.com
-More involving combat.
-A group oriented game.
-Meaningful crafting that is fun and rewarding.
-Meaningful harvesting that one can making money doing.
-Diplomacy.
-Player interdependence.
-A huge seamless world without zones or instances.
-Boats.
-Housing.
-Mounts for everyone at level 10.
-Modern graphics with realism as the focus.
-More classes, being unique and well balanced.
-Less kiddies and l337 d3wds.
You can reach maximum level/skill of every sphere (Adventuring, Crafting, Diplomacy) without touching any of the others. But you'll certainly benefit better if you use two of the three, and even better if you use all three.
Crafting doesn't depend on harvested items, you can do Work Orders all the way to 50 if you want. But as aforementioned, certainly harvesting will help, especially if you want to create items for yourself or others to use towards Adventuring. Still though, you're able to buy raw resources off of market brokers.
So while you may be a lot more efficient using adventuring and harvesting, you aren't crippled into disuse as a crafter.
I don't like VG but it beats WoW anyday IMO.
Housing, flying mounts who are not crippeled, no instancing, non-disney graphics, diplomacy. That's about what I can come up with.
$OE lies list
http://www.rlmmo.com/viewtopic.php?t=424&start=0
"
And I don't want to hear anything about "I don't believe in vampires" because *I* don't believe in vampires, but I believe in my own two eyes, and what *I* saw is ******* vampires! "
WOW worked even at day one and mostly bug free = VG hitches, stutters, crashes and mostly buggy.
WOW is fun = VG is not
WOW has hook = VG doesn't
WOW has art and artistic direction (ya, cartoon in that) = VG is a messy mixture, undecided btw barbie doll characters, high fantasy settings, space age structures and realistic nature.
WOW has animations = VG has attempts (!) in that direction.
WOW has quests disguising grinding = VG has no intention to cover grinding
WOW has instances and has always been honest about it = VG said no instances and changed the term to "chunks" instead (!)
WOW has inspiring environments = VG is bland, lobotomized npcs, uninspired locations, empty cities.
CONTRIBUTE INTO THE GAMING INDUSTRY! STOP PAYING FOR BORING COPYCATS, UNFINISHED BUGFESTS AND CRANKY JUNKWARE. BE A RESPONSIBLE GAMER!
I knew that type of statement would have to pop up here eventually.
In fact, more and more I am thinking that it is just the opposite.
That Sigil is giving SOE a bad name...
Other then obvious bugs, some embarassing animations and everything, VG has a much better race and class diversity and character customization (which still needs more work) I want to leave WoW behind permernantly because I'm getting so sick of it but I just can't find anything actually better for me at the moment.
I don't care how polished a WoW type game is, if I don't ever feel stretched or challenged, I simply won't be playing for long, if at all - I'll just turn off and go read a book or do something useful like some DiY.
EQ & UO have changed far too much and besides are... done for want of a better term for me, Shadowbane is in largely the same bracket, it's too empty and there's not enough large scale PvP going on anymore, and alot of the bugs/hacks/dupes that were always a turn off are still there. EQ2 whilst a bit more engaging than WoW just feels like EQ-lite with dumbed down mechanics and simplified classes, moving from an EQ1 bard to a EQ2 bard just isn't remotely a possibility for me.
Lots of people love to point at blizzard's BS marketing speak inflated "figures" (3-4 mill sounds alot more realistic worldwide even including the chinese Inet cafe bulk 1$ subs) and say surely all games should be like this, but for some gamers it doesn't matter how popular that is, it's not an experience we enjoy for long or would want to repeat. WoW or a even simpler clone of it like LOTRO is less attractive than not gaming at all, either there is a VG type game I want to play on the MMO market, or the MMO market doesn't receive any £ from this gamer.
A game catering to VG's market demographic was way overdue, and even VG has suffered from people trying to force it into the WoW mold somewhat to it's detriment, but it's still the best option out there for some people.
I wish everyone the very best with whatever game type suits their preference, but I'm very happy to finally have mine catered to with a new release, so I'm in for the longhaul, irrespective of release bugs (still better than queuing for several hours a day to even get into your server before getting crashed to queue again), I'm in game, playing fine, leveling fine, having a blast and all on a old machine Nvidia6600 AMD3200 etc which I won't get around to replacing till vista & DX10 are more settled.
It's your free time, enjoy what you want to, but don't make the mistake that every consumer dollar should only be spent on your preferences though.
Also, I'd like to thank all the participants of this thread. I've been thinking about whether or not to try Vanguard, and this is probably the post that's put me most in the 'yes' direction, because I AM tired of all of the quick-fix MMO games and would like to try something more... in-depth. I'm going to need a RAM upgrade first, though... heh.
--------
"Give a man a fire, and he is warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he is warm for the rest of his life."
Graphics is as much about style and concept as it about poly count and effects, WoW has style, a constant theme throughout with very different enviroments that all look fantasic, VG is a system hog and the graphics it outputs are bland & boring, its obvious that some areas have been worked on more than others and it all looks very thrown together. Player models feel like dolls with poor animation, WoW players are very solid and flow like butta... far far easier on the eyes. IMHO
You will get the "WoW fanastic" moments in VG world when you enter a new city or area just as you get the first time you enter Stormwind or Thunderbluff playing WoW, but that will pass.
As to level cap there are already a handfull lvl 40+ players (max cap 50) playing VG right now 2 weeks after release so just like in WoW some 1 who just wants to max cap ASAP can do that in a few weeks, a new WoW player who wants to experince the world will take upwards to 4-5 months to get to 60 and another 1-2 months to 70.
My first WoW toon took 38 days played ( 912 hours ) to get 60, and I dinged 70 a few days ago ( 100 hours played), theres alot of bull crap that floats around about WoW saying you can max cap in 2 weeks.
Ships and housing, this has a place in VG becuase the world is large, in WoW they would be usless, what use is a house in wow? a guild hall would be nice and Im sure they will come soon, (theres a large portal in Stormwind city thats said to be where guild halls will be accessable). A house does not make a poor MMO good, its just means more grinding.
Dipolomacy is just a fancy way to grind rep with a faction without picking up a sword, a nice change but not ground breaking.
Crafting, VG crafting is more deep, but i think after a while it will become annoying, you spent day farming mats for an item only for it to fail during crafting, In WoW if you spent the time gathering mats you know that item you've worked for is now yours.
PvP WoW is far more advanced in PvP than VG, as you might expect. Many bash WoW PvP but I think its the best PvP out there. You cant loot money from opponents but PvP is fast and fun.
Classes VG sports 15 class (i think) but these are just variations on the typical, Tank,Healer,DPS classes. WoW has 8 classes. I cant speak for VG in classes but in WoW a Priest can be a healer or DPS, a druid can be a Healer or DPS or Tank etc. The old set roles for classes in WoW have changed to offer more options.
Mount The original WoW world (azeroth) was never desiged for flying mounts, unlike VG which was, as to getting a mount at lvl 10 in VG and 40 in WoW, it comes down to the size of the world in WoW you can get around fast using griffons/bat or boats/zeplins, in VG to get from city 1 to vilage 2 you need to travel for 10mins through a barren desert so you get a mount early on for that purpose.
End game Cant realy say about VG right now but WoW endgame you have a few choices, PvP, with the new arena PvP system you can join an Arena team and compete against other teams on a ladder to win the sessions, Raiding, you can raid the dungeons for loot and have fun with your guild.. well thats it but thats end game for all MMO's. But the fact is once your bored with an MMO move on.
VG has no real PvP so all i can see is 1 choice and that raiding for gear.
I mean alone the walking animation in WoW looks ridiculously stupid and unnatural.
Plus, chunks don´t have the slightest thing to do with instances.
In short since i dont feel like getting into it WoW is superior.
WoW is shorter(while i dont mind a longer grind, really i dont mind how long it is at all if its fun)
Vanguard quests suck, for example they all are prty much WoW quests cept since its takes longer to lvl there more so its prty much , Kill 10 bears, collect 9 bear eyers, find 15 bear livers, kill 5 more bears,collect 2 bear heads, ect. Its just alot of the same thing to kill just getting different things from them.
As for Crafting in both games i hated it, in Vanguard its annoying to craft cause of the mini game and work orders, wow it sucks cause its pointless.
THE LAG , now i know wow had lag for the first few days, but correct me if im wrong its been atleast a few weeks and it still HUGE LAG WALLS were time stops, then starts again.
Now i dont know what the hell this game wants but for w/e reason it runs like crap as far as FPS rate goes, and im running on a decent rig and still problems, i tried to quit vanguard and twice i went into safe mode.
Diplomacy seems prty boring for what iv dont so far with it, i havnt really understood the game, but iv won every time so w/e im doing is right. All it does it maybe allow access to another quest or something not that big.
i was fairly unimpressed with the game from what i played of it, to me WoW is better, but i dont want to go back to WoW since its killed my fun i could have in it.