Leaving Vanguard.

ayanel

I’m sad to say that after two weeks of trying to get into this game I’ve finally accepted that it was not the game I hoped it would be and that it is time to move on.  It is not the bugs, although there are a lot of them, that finally drove me away but the games seemingly complete failure to achieve what the designers promised.

 

What made me try Vangurd, despite the worrying beta reports, was the promise of a vast, epic world full of wonders to behold and secrets to unlock, a world where you feel like a hero.  Well the world is vast, that much they got right, but the rest is sadly lacking.

 

The very first thing I noticed with my starting character, a sorcerer, was how bland and uninspired the spell effects and casting animations are.  Minimalist would be a kind way to put it, placeholder is a more accurate description.  I really hoped that was just the first rank of spells (a terrible design decision for reasons I will touch on below, but one many MMOs make none-the-less.) however after getting several new spell and upgrades I see no improvement.

 

The world too feels unfinished and lacking.  Sure it *is* big, but every time I venture over a hill just to see what is on the other side all I find is more grass (or desert depending on the continent) populated by spiders.  Where are the grand vistas?  Absolutely nothing I have seen feels epic.  Even the capital cities, which again are large, come off as poorly designed and missing seemingly elementary details.  For example in the Asian themed human city I stumbled upon the emperor standing in a nearly empty room, his model and surroundings no different from the vendors or trainers.  I guess the door was flanked by a couple of “imperial guards” but that was it. And why are there at least three ranged weapon vendors, two of which are accessible from the street, at least three bankers, and yet only one melee weapon vendor shoved in a closet in the building with all the trainers?

 

I hear Vanguard has a lot of lore, but for some reason they’ve decided to lock almost all of it behind a card game which for the life of me I cannot get into.

 

Now I know people are going to post that the game does not really begin until some arbitrary level and that I need to work to see anything worth seeing.  And to this I have to reply why?  A basic, and very well understood, principle of human psychology is that first impressions matter, a lot.  The first 10 or so hours in a game is your chance to hook your audience and draw them into the world, to show them what your engine and design team are capable of.

 

Make your starting areas breathtaking and I’ll search the world over for other sites.  If  your first quests are compelling and meaningful I’ll believe others will be as well.  Give me the first half of an engaging story and I’ll spend hours trying to piece together the rest.

 

But I’m not seeing any of that in Vanguard and I refuse to spend hundreds of hours grinding in the hope that someday I may.

P.S.  And  put up an official form, with the number of bugs and the amount of rebalancing this game is going through there *needs* to be *one* place the player base can go to look for answers. and raise issues.

mxmissile

Originally posted by Vivasvan


Its a game for people who like to play slow and enjoy immersiveness.
 

Most of us have RL for that.

ayanel

Originally posted by Vivasvan


took you two weeks to explore this vast huge game? im not even out of the starting city yet.. notice a difference? 
Its a game for people who like to play slow and enjoy immersiveness.
 
bye!.

Clearly you did not read my post.  I did not explore this “huge world” in two weeks, because I have found nothing in the game during that time that makes me believe it is worth exploring.

 

The quests are straight out of any other MMO.  The world graphics are ok but seem very poorly used.  The spell effects are awful.  You have to grind to see any of the lore.  The animations are substandard.  After picking your class and race there is little to no way to customize your character.  If you think you can find depth in that more power to you.

Gorilla

Originally posted by Vivasvan


took you two weeks to explore this vast huge game? im not even out of the starting city yet.. notice a difference? 
Its a game for people who like to play slow and enjoy immersiveness.
 
bye!.

Well if you stay there for another 6 months they might finish designing some of the adjacent areas!!



 I think you missed the guys point - it's not immersive - its big but feels empty. Guess you'll find out once you move outside the starter areas.  Sounds reminisant of Dark & Light actually. Maybe thats unfair but D&L epitomises big for the sake of big (mind you they hoped there servers would hold 100k players).  The point is the larger the world the huger the task in filling it with PoI's etc.

MaeEye

Originally posted by ayanel

Originally posted by Vivasvan


took you two weeks to explore this vast huge game? im not even out of the starting city yet.. notice a difference? 
Its a game for people who like to play slow and enjoy immersiveness.
 
bye!.

Clearly you did not read my post.  I did not explore this “huge world” in two weeks, because I have found nothing in the game during that time that makes me believe it is worth exploring.

 

The quests are straight out of any other MMO.  The world graphics are ok but seem very poorly used.  The spell effects are awful.  You have to grind to see any of the lore.  The animations are substandard.  After picking your class and race there is little to no way to customize your character.  If you think you can find depth in that more power to you.

Ayanel, i know exactly what your talking about.  Although, in my experience in vanguard I did come across a FEW little things.  But they were no reason to wet my pants about.  it's sad, I know.  I really wanted to get into this game.  But it's just not inspiring.



I do think the only real fond memory I had about Vanguard was the 3rd day head start that I played.  I remember walking down a hill and looking over an ocean that had a few boats in them.  That, was amazing.  Honestly.  But I'm afraid they are going to need more than a long draw distance and a few boats in the water to keep alot of people in the game. 

Vhaln

Originally posted by ayanel


Now I know people are going to post that the game does not really begin until some arbitrary level and that I need to work to see anything worth seeing.  And to this I have to reply why?  A basic, and very well understood, principle of human psychology is that first impressions matter, a lot.  The first 10 or so hours in a game is your chance to hook your audience and draw them into the world, to show them what your engine and design team are capable of.
Make your starting areas breathtaking and I’ll search the world over for other sites.  If  your first quests are compelling and meaningful I’ll believe others will be as well.  Give me the first half of an engaging story and I’ll spend hours trying to piece together the rest.
But I’m not seeing any of that in Vanguard and I refuse to spend hundreds of hours grinding in the hope that someday I may.

Definately.  I still wonder, does the game get better, or is that just what people tell eachother (and themselves?)  Because if so, it was a horrible design decision- with so many MMOs on the market, players need to be hooked right away, and reviewers need to see what the game has to offer, within a reasonable time frame.  Expecting a few hundred thousand loyal fans who'll be more persistant?  I don't think so...

OTOH, and if the game doesn't actually get better, more epic, impressive, etc, well, that's just sad.

RudedawgCDN

 

I agree with the poster, I have played many mmo's (including EQ1 for 4 yrs) and I kept looking for all the "innovation" the "vistas" the 3rd gen game, the challenge that people were raving about.

and I can't find it.

I love to explore dungeons, Vanguard dungeons boring!!!!! Cities - boring!!!!! Landscape - boring!!!! Yes, big - but big doesn't mean better - and in Vanguards case it misses the mark.

I know there's people who love the game, and I ask why??? It's new - a new game to play, that's it.

But innovative? different? sorry - it's "just" another game, and that is where it falls flat on it's face.

Sorry Vanguard, "is just another game".

 

Fargol

Originally posted by ayanel


I’m sad to say that after two weeks of trying to get into this game I’ve finally accepted that it was not the game I hoped it would be and that it is time to move on.  It is not the bugs, although there are a lot of them, that finally drove me away but the games seemingly complete failure to achieve what the designers promised.
 
What made me try Vangurd, despite the worrying beta reports, was the promise of a vast, epic world full of wonders to behold and secrets to unlock, a world where you feel like a hero.  Well the world is vast, that much they got right, but the rest is sadly lacking.
 
The very first thing I noticed with my starting character, a sorcerer, was how bland and uninspired the spell effects and casting animations are.  Minimalist would be a kind way to put it, placeholder is a more accurate description.  I really hoped that was just the first rank of spells (a terrible design decision for reasons I will touch on below, but one many MMOs make none-the-less.) however after getting several new spell and upgrades I see no improvement.
 
The world too feels unfinished and lacking.  Sure it *is* big, but every time I venture over a hill just to see what is on the other side all I find is more grass (or desert depending on the continent) populated by spiders.  Where are the grand vistas?  Absolutely nothing I have seen feels epic.  Even the capital cities, which again are large, come off as poorly designed and missing seemingly elementary details.  For example in the Asian themed human city I stumbled upon the emperor standing in a nearly empty room, his model and surroundings no different from the vendors or trainers.  I guess the door was flanked by a couple of “imperial guards” but that was it. And why are there at least three ranged weapon vendors, two of which are accessible from the street, at least three bankers, and yet only one melee weapon vendor shoved in a closet in the building with all the trainers?
 
I hear Vanguard has a lot of lore, but for some reason they’ve decided to lock almost all of it behind a card game which for the life of me I cannot get into.
 
Now I know people are going to post that the game does not really begin until some arbitrary level and that I need to work to see anything worth seeing.  And to this I have to reply why?  A basic, and very well understood, principle of human psychology is that first impressions matter, a lot.  The first 10 or so hours in a game is your chance to hook your audience and draw them into the world, to show them what your engine and design team are capable of.
 
Make your starting areas breathtaking and I’ll search the world over for other sites.  If  your first quests are compelling and meaningful I’ll believe others will be as well.  Give me the first half of an engaging story and I’ll spend hours trying to piece together the rest.
 
But I’m not seeing any of that in Vanguard and I refuse to spend hundreds of hours grinding in the hope that someday I may.


P.S.  And  put up an official form, with the number of bugs and the amount of rebalancing this game is going through there *needs* to be *one* place the player base can go to look for answers. and raise issues.

I basically agree with your assessment as I too just cancelled and purged VG from my hard disk. In particular, I found the larger population centers haphazardly designed with NPC's seemingly dropped randomly from the sky.



The one thing I will say about it is that the graphics, when set at least on Balanced (which I could rarely do because of horrible lag), were quite nice and immersive. Much more so than WoW.



But in the words of Horn and Hardart (anyone remember them?):



"You can't eat atmosphere."

Amathe

I read the OP with great interest. You see, as an early beta tester I felt exactly the same way. I posted on the beta boards that look, it's fine to save the best content until the end, but you can't short sheet the content along the way. Every level should have an "omg this is cool, I wonder what's next" feel to it. In response, I was flamed to hell on the beta boards for being a noob, and told that at level 25 or 30 or whatever I would experience the cool stuff. I said many people aren't going to wait that long. Brad posted that they were focused on the end game atm, and basically "they could always go back and add more to the newbie yard." So hey Brad, if you're reading this, now do you see what I was talking about?

dreamer05

As much as it kills me to say it the OP is exactly right.  I wanted this game to work so badly, but it just isn't fun.  For mostly the reasons the OP posted I guess, but its just not fun at all.

monoth

I agree the game world feels a bit empty.   And there's really no story arc's or anything....  Just a bunch of mini quests for each section of the map (although WOW felt the same way to me).  The game definitely feels like it was rushed out (although that's pretty much typical of all MMO's)... 

Combat is OK, I would like to see some better animations tho, one thing would be nice would be custom finishing moves for each class.  Like maybe when the NPC's life gets low enough you can try a finishing move and if it works you would see something like a Monk grabbing the NPC's head and twisting it until it snaps.  Or maybe a warrior that decapitates the head off his enemy (Think Motral Kombat finishing moves) small things like this would add a little style to the ho hum combat...

I do like the fact that crafting actually means something in this game and not a novelty like WOW.  And being able to own and decorate your home is a cool feature (like SWG).   Although I was skeptical about the Diplomacy Sphere, but it turned out to actually be kind of fun, something to do when you need a break from combat.   Also the ability of owning your own boat (with the promise of future navel battles) is definitely a plus.

Although I think the big open spaces were probably done on purpose in order to make room for future expansions...  I wouldn't be surprised to see some new towns pop up on the map with Story Arc's in future patches with bigger ones coming from expansion packs....

Of all the MMO's I've played, you could easily say about each one that the game seems boring at the beginning.. weather it be SWG, WOW, or EQ2, plus throw in the fact that this game is only building on its predecessors which gives it the feel of been there done that and I can understand why someone might say the game is boring...  But like all MMO's your not going to get to the meat and potatoes until you played for couple months..  Show me one MMO that is different.

But like the OP, i was tempted to quit after a few weeks, but I decided to stick it out and joined a guild, and I'm starting to have a lot of fun with the game... 

eccoton

Originally posted by ayanel


I’m sad to say that after two weeks of trying to get into this game I’ve finally accepted that it was not the game I hoped it would be and that it is time to move on.  It is not the bugs, although there are a lot of them, that finally drove me away but the games seemingly complete failure to achieve what the designers promised.
 
What made me try Vangurd, despite the worrying beta reports, was the promise of a vast, epic world full of wonders to behold and secrets to unlock, a world where you feel like a hero.  Well the world is vast, that much they got right, but the rest is sadly lacking.
 
The very first thing I noticed with my starting character, a sorcerer, was how bland and uninspired the spell effects and casting animations are.  Minimalist would be a kind way to put it, placeholder is a more accurate description.  I really hoped that was just the first rank of spells (a terrible design decision for reasons I will touch on below, but one many MMOs make none-the-less.) however after getting several new spell and upgrades I see no improvement.
 
The world too feels unfinished and lacking.  Sure it *is* big, but every time I venture over a hill just to see what is on the other side all I find is more grass (or desert depending on the continent) populated by spiders.  Where are the grand vistas?  Absolutely nothing I have seen feels epic.  Even the capital cities, which again are large, come off as poorly designed and missing seemingly elementary details.  For example in the Asian themed human city I stumbled upon the emperor standing in a nearly empty room, his model and surroundings no different from the vendors or trainers.  I guess the door was flanked by a couple of “imperial guards” but that was it. And why are there at least three ranged weapon vendors, two of which are accessible from the street, at least three bankers, and yet only one melee weapon vendor shoved in a closet in the building with all the trainers?
 
I hear Vanguard has a lot of lore, but for some reason they’ve decided to lock almost all of it behind a card game which for the life of me I cannot get into.
 
Now I know people are going to post that the game does not really begin until some arbitrary level and that I need to work to see anything worth seeing.  And to this I have to reply why?  A basic, and very well understood, principle of human psychology is that first impressions matter, a lot.  The first 10 or so hours in a game is your chance to hook your audience and draw them into the world, to show them what your engine and design team are capable of.
 
Make your starting areas breathtaking and I’ll search the world over for other sites.  If  your first quests are compelling and meaningful I’ll believe others will be as well.  Give me the first half of an engaging story and I’ll spend hours trying to piece together the rest.
 
But I’m not seeing any of that in Vanguard and I refuse to spend hundreds of hours grinding in the hope that someday I may.


P.S.  And  put up an official form, with the number of bugs and the amount of rebalancing this game is going through there *needs* to be *one* place the player base can go to look for answers. and raise issues.

Well said, you summed up my feelings about Vanguard. I really wanted to like it but your post describes my feeling exactly.

ozomatli

I agree entirely with Ayanel.  In my opinion the graphics have some high res textures and fancy lighting but at the end of the day are let down by poor design. The result is bland, uninspiring environments that look as though they were designed under huge time restrictions. The character models and animation are also pretty poor ( I have seen better animations in Second Life!) The game failed to hold my attention at all  from the start, and for me anyway the gameplay was tiresome and dull. I like to have a laugh when playing online games but there doesn't seem to be any sense of humour here.

I know people will say i'm just bashing the game for the hell of it, but I'm really not. I just feel let down by it. One month ago I was extremely excited about the prospect of Vanguard, but now I'm struggling to find any reason why I would want to spend $15 a month on it.

Anyway, thats it, I wont disrespect the game anymore!

Lhex

I agree with everything you said.  I also played for about  2-3 weeks and realized I had wasted my time.



It doesn't take months to figure this out only about 5 min.

Invidious

The one thing I would strongly disagree with here is that VG doesn't have grand vistas. If this game doesn't have them, no game ever has. My God where could you be looking if you haven't seen them? Do you know what a vista is? Go stand on the rocks about the hive near Khal and look out on the Qa river and tell me if that isn't a grand vista. You're nuts.

Kinslayer5

Agree with poster... the world is boring... it's all boring.  Quests, combat, crafting, diplomacy, grouping, exploring, boring boring boring.  Me and the 3 friends that decided this game was going to be unstoppably awesome canceled our accounts yesterday.

Invidious

Originally posted by Amathe

I read the OP with great interest. You see, as an early beta tester I felt exactly the same way. I posted on the beta boards that look, it's fine to save the best content until the end, but you can't short sheet the content along the way. Every level should have an "omg this is cool, I wonder what's next" feel to it. In response, I was flamed to hell on the beta boards for being a noob, and told that at level 25 or 30 or whatever I would experience the cool stuff. I said many people aren't going to wait that long. Brad posted that they were focused on the end game atm, and basically "they could always go back and add more to the newbie yard." So hey Brad, if you're reading this, now do you see what I was talking about?

 

Oh gimme a break. I'd love to see this "quote" from Brad and wonder when it was made. Perhaps it was made during a time when they were focuing on the end game? Your implication is that that's where there focus has been ALL ALONG which is patently false. They devoted far more time to the beginning and mid-levels in beta than anything else. For phuck's sake in beta you'd walk into high level zones and see NOTHING but landscap.

Invidious

Originally posted by Kinslayer5

Agree with poster... the world is boring... it's all boring.  Quests, combat, crafting, diplomacy, grouping, exploring, boring boring boring.  Me and the 3 friends that decided this game was going to be unstoppably awesome canceled our accounts yesterday.

Haha yeah right.

Vhaln

Originally posted by Invidious

The one thing I would strongly disagree with here is that VG doesn't have grand vistas. If this game doesn't have them, no game ever has. My God where could you be looking if you haven't seen them? Do you know what a vista is? Go stand on the rocks about the hive near Khal and look out on the Qa river and tell me if that isn't a grand vista. You're nuts.

Just being able to see far isn't enough.  One of the first things I noticed about Vanguard's "grand vistas" is that they look all computer generated and blah.  Poor landscape design, bad lighting, textures which don't work well from a distance, and an almost complete absence of environmental effects make Vanguard's scenery less than scenic.

kalade

It is kind of sad to say.. but honestly the game does pick up the further in levels you get.  Starting as a dwarf I got to see my first real dungeon in my teens (not just a cave or little mini dungeon), but Khegor's End which turned out to be fairly vast (still have not explored the entire thing) and overall pretty cool area.  Since than I have gotten just to 21 because of time limits on playing.. but on top of exploring the mine more I also have visited Hilsbury Manor (a very cool dungeon that has some secret doors and is quite fast.. only saw parts of it so far because well I was fairly low lv for the place when i grouped there) and a little bit of Trengal Keep which looks quite exciting.  On top of those three I spent a limited ammount of time on qalia in a dungeon (didnt get far. and forgot the exact name) and another dungeon in Kaon's Rush that had a cool event (the floating Elf magic place).  Getting to see these dungeons (atleast at the appropriate level) is very similar to EQ.. it requires grouping.  But the one thing i have failed to see in any other mmorpg i have layed since EQ was exciting and cool dungeons to explore.  EQ2 had some fun ones (permafrost) but most seemed somewhat straightforward.. than WoW had instances most of which were too straight forward and kind of boring (some like BRD was fairly cool tho or parts).. DAOC didnt do a whole lot with dungeons that i saw from my time up until lv35.. nothing that made the dungeons stand out atleast... So really if you start grouping i feel Vanguard improves vastly in the teens (depending on where you start and what dungeons are open) and probably even moreso later on, because of what i have seen of the dungeons for lv20's.. they look quite exciting and I can't wait to explore them.. To each his own, but I personally miss the dungeons of EQ and hope to find something as vast and exciting and Velktor's labrynth or Sebellisk or a number of the other EQ dungeons.



Kalade

Hilsbury Server 21 Warrior

anarchyart

Originally posted by ayanel


I’m sad to say that after two weeks of trying to get into this game I’ve finally accepted that it was not the game I hoped it would be and that it is time to move on.  It is not the bugs, although there are a lot of them, that finally drove me away but the games seemingly complete failure to achieve what the designers promised.
Sad you didn't like it, but there are plenty of other games out there for you.
What made me try Vangurd, despite the worrying beta reports, was the promise of a vast, epic world full of wonders to behold and secrets to unlock, a world where you feel like a hero.  Well the world is vast, that much they got right, but the rest is sadly lacking.
The very first thing I noticed with my starting character, a sorcerer, was how bland and uninspired the spell effects and casting animations are.  Minimalist would be a kind way to put it, placeholder is a more accurate description.  I really hoped that was just the first rank of spells (a terrible design decision for reasons I will touch on below, but one many MMOs make none-the-less.) however after getting several new spell and upgrades I see no improvement.
I really like the spell effects, sad that this is one of the reasons for you to leave.
The world too feels unfinished and lacking.  Sure it *is* big, but every time I venture over a hill just to see what is on the other side all I find is more grass (or desert depending on the continent) populated by spiders.  Where are the grand vistas?

 Absolutely nothing I have seen feels epic.  Even the capital cities, which again are large, come off as poorly designed and missing seemingly elementary details.  For example in the Asian themed human city I stumbled upon the emperor standing in a nearly empty room, his model and surroundings no different from the vendors or trainers.  I guess the door was flanked by a couple of “imperial guards” but that was it. And why are there at least three ranged weapon vendors, two of which are accessible from the street, at least three bankers, and yet only one melee weapon vendor shoved in a closet in the building with all the trainers?
 Sounds like you really didn't do a lot of exploring, blameless as it is very dangerous to do so. You need to be a decent level to explore the world of Telon, which you can't really achieve in 2 weeks.
I hear Vanguard has a lot of lore, but for some reason they’ve decided to lock almost all of it behind a card game which for the life of me I cannot get into.
 I found it very addicting!
Now I know people are going to post that the game does not really begin until some arbitrary level and that I need to work to see anything worth seeing.  And to this I have to reply why?  A basic, and very well understood, principle of human psychology is that first impressions matter, a lot.  The first 10 or so hours in a game is your chance to hook your audience and draw them into the world, to show them what your engine and design team are capable of.
 The game is huge and not intended to please those without patience. It's a difficult game and you have to put in some effort to get any reward. Those with shorter attention spans likely won't be sucked in ever, much less the first 45 minutes.
Make your starting areas breathtaking and I’ll search the world over for other sites.  If  your first quests are compelling and meaningful I’ll believe others will be as well.  Give me the first half of an engaging story and I’ll spend hours trying to piece together the rest.
 I know it sounds crazy, but they made the first quests easy and they get harder and more complicated as you level up.
But I’m not seeing any of that in Vanguard and I refuse to spend hundreds of hours grinding in the hope that someday I may.
Perfectly understandable. The game simply isn't for you.



P.S.  And  put up an official form, with the number of bugs and the amount of rebalancing this game is going through there *needs* to be *one* place the player base can go to look for answers. and raise issues.
No official boards for this game, lots of enthusiast sites though. Have to do some searching. None of my post was intended to be sarcastic and some people are going to think it was. Vanguard simply isn't for everyone, and the lack of polish really doesn't help in this regard. I truly hope you find a game you adore though as much as I like Vanguard. Take care!

gervaise1

^^^^^^^

There have been lots of posts about post-20 quests simply drying up and being reduced to grinding to progress; any plans to follow up?  Basically the suggestion is that Sigil never got to the high end either! 

kalade

From my brief experience past 20... the quests don't really dry up (though they may at higher lvs /shrug) but alot more of them required duoing or grouping it would seem.  Though there are still quests to be found that are soloable (which can depend on your class whether they are soloable or not).  I know there are some armor quests and whatnot for around high 20's low 30's too, but are very group oriented from what i hear.





Kalade

Kinslayer5

Originally posted by Invidious

Originally posted by Kinslayer5

Agree with poster... the world is boring... it's all boring.  Quests, combat, crafting, diplomacy, grouping, exploring, boring boring boring.  Me and the 3 friends that decided this game was going to be unstoppably awesome canceled our accounts yesterday.

Haha yeah right.

What don't you believe about that?

dendea

Vanguard looks great but it seems to lack a true soul. It just doesnt feel alive, i know there are people walking around and creatures in the dungeons but you just get the feeling that the whole place is dead. Im not sure why i feel this, maybe its due to it being such a  hugh world that you dont see many other players, or that most of the NPC's just sit there and grunt once in a while. What ever it is, it just seems eerie how empty the game seemed to me.

Avanah

Originally posted by mxmissile

Originally posted by Vivasvan


Its a game for people who like to play slow and enjoy immersiveness.
 

Most of us have RL for that.

Then why are you here?