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Trying to decide on VG?
holcrum
Member Posts: 3
I played AC basically from its release until DAOC was released.
After playing on and off after TOA i've played EQ2 mainly but tried AO, EVE, Horizons... I've pretty much beta tested or tried them all... I'm an addict...
Also let me say that I've drug my girlfriend around from DAOC, to EQ2, to VG, to LOTRO, back to EQ2, and now to VG. God I love her,.. lol.I still play LOTRO here and there - I like the game and the lore.
So before you read on, you may want to know that this writing will mostly be positive...
I run a 8800gtx 640 with 2g of ram, and the woman runs a 6800 256 with 1g of memory.
I actually upgraded my PC for VG when it was released.
And I'll get it out of the way now - we played a month at release and because it was a buggy mess -we quit, despite our high tolerance. It was pretty bad as most reading this already have heard. What made it worse was we liked playing it! (when it worked)
Also let me get another thing out of the way;
I consider myself almost exclusively a mmo player, I hardly touch my xbox or anything else other than my psp when traveling. I play at least 10-15 hours a week, sometimes longer depending if I do one of those Sunday 10 hour deals.
Also;
I don't care about SOE, Blizzard, NGE, SWG, or any other emotion filled BS.
I don't feel SOE is an evil empire, and If it has made mistakes, I don't care - as long as I'm enjoying the product I currently pay them for. If I stop enjoying the game I find something else to do, as you can see from my gaming history. Half of people's discontent is boredom imo but that's another post. (about these games all being fundamentally the same.)
Ok - to get to the meat and taters;
My GF was about to kill me if I jumped games one more time, so I made a leap of faith.
I let her decide what game she liked best and wanted to play this winter...
She picked Vanguard!
I was shocked, to say the least. She really liked LOTRO too...
Does this mean she is a hardcore mmo'er?? Hmm I think not.
I think she wouldn't play anything at all if I didn't.
She said she liked the crafting and the game world - she felt "immersed".
So now we are almost lvl 20 and have duo'd most of the time.
I'm a DK, and she is a BM.
We harvest whatever we can - mostly skinning what we kill together.
She crafts when she plays alone or when I'm in Lotro.
We both like the Diplomacy when we wait for the other to shop/sell/travel.
Its not super game enhancing as far as its integration of other spheres of gameplay, but if people can sit around and enjoy a good game of solitare, diplomacy is right up their alley. 
The game is gorgeous other than the character models and animation, though the armor and weapons are awesome. The spell affects are subtle but detailed and effective. I find myself wanting to take more screenshots than in any other game I've played. Sony is working on the models as we speak so I'm thinking this year we'll see an upgrade.
I run 30-40 fps with most things maxed out - she runs just above medium/high settings and it looks great for her too. We do lag in cities but we always seem to lag at the same time - loading/swapping textures. The client doesn't handle recourses very well like going through chunk lines. Though Camelot/Quenos Harbor was the same...
/flush ftw
We solo'd our starting areas until we both were about lvl 10 and met in Leth.
After we got to Veskal's we always see people running around and spamming KE and anthill groups all the time. It's worth mentioning we play on Xeth.
The thing we also like is the way combat and grouping works. The skill variety of classes work well together and a well oiled group is truly a cool thing to be part of.
I remember in DAOC we grouped and lvled up without needing all kinds of quests because we enjoyed the game mechanics of grouping and fighting together. This also forged great friendships because we actually played together! I do agree that it is nice to be able to both solo and group and feel you are accomplishing something.
People that need to rush to endgame just don't get it in my eyes, though I can see why they do it. If you've done it once in any of these games it's just like watching a re-run doing it again in another.
You just want to get to the "good stuff". But this is a mirage. You should be in the "good stuff" all the time! At all levels.
That's why grouping and enjoying the "gameplay" is important - and the focus of VG imo.
This isn't about hardcore, or death penalties or traveling etc. Its about deciding if you enjoy the grind - not trying to avoid the grind. Its about avoiding burnout though interaction with people rather than accomplishment. If you log on and set there bored thinking you have nothing to do then you are losing the game. It's a social game. (massively multiplayer to be exact) I believe the player experience of these games highly depends on the people they surround themselves with. Much like life itself.
The old saying comes to mind - "If you're bored, then you're boring".
I digress.
Vanguard is a good game with lots of things to do. It has a little something for everyone.
It had a terrible launch and is trying to recover. Did I go on some crusade to destroy the rep of the game on forums because I felt let down? No - I'm a normal well adjusted person, I just played something else... I lurk the forums always trying to figure out my min/max alt-itus issues, and see what others are saying about the game. Though if I were a forum Mod I'd have a field day banning people.
Would I suggest the game to others? Sure!
I think waiting on the free trial might be the way I would go unless I could afford to gamble. But if you have a good gaming PC your prolly already the type to just go for it if you decide you want to give it a try.
I've played for two weeks now for many hours and I've only crashed once.
The woman hasn't had a single stability issue beyond /flush.
The people have been friendly and I haven't even turned off the general chat channel as I do in most other games. Sure there is always someone desperate for any attention they can get - good or bad, but most are helpful and chatty.
Some people like to say "wait till you get to x level and then we'll see how you feel".
Fair enough, but I won't be rushing to get there and that also will give time to add content to the game. Also I don't care if I run out of quests because as I stated before - if I like the gameplay of my toon, group mechanics, and socializing with people I like - I'm all good.
The utility for finding people, LFG, and guild recruiting is as good as it needs to be for anyone inclined to actively use it.
I cant comment on housing or boating, as i have not been involved with any of that yet, though its yet another exciting untapped potential for me.
The economy for low levels does seem to be a problem for me as there just aren't many affordable things for sale that's worth using before lvl 20. I do fing myself having to really manage my money and broker anything I can - but I've been far from broke.
We both have mostly quested items with some upgrade as well as mounts with upgrades.
I would also argue the economy should be more tight than lose in these games to keep people honest anyway. Its more "hardcore" j/k.
As far as I can tell pvp should be avoided considering the other options in the market.
Bottom line is I'm fine with whatever Sony plans to do in the future.
I'm not going to sit around and scream the sky is falling or presume I can predict the future. I'm just going to play the game until I don't enjoy it and then find something else to do.
One final thought;
The less you read forums the more you will enjoy your games! J
So go play, and then decide for yourself!
Disscusion was here;
http://forums.station.sony.com/vg/posts/list.m?topic_id=22239
Comments
Wonder if anyone else will actually have the patience to read it all as I have.
I would have to agree with you on just about everything you posted about. Just wish I could find a girl who would play the games I do. But being in the military and playing games means I am deployed for weeks, months, even a year away from my mmo's, so I guess that's a bad thing.
I just wanted to add something, with Vanguard, I don't feel like I am competing to "stay ahead". I don't feel the need to play 24/7 to "get somewhere". Everytime I log on, even for an hour or so, I have fun, wether grinding, questing, crafting, exploring.
But there is one thing I would like improved, which I read in an official Vanguard post on their website that they are "looking into". Is the ability to join up with my groups faster, i'm not to keen on traveling for 30 minutes on horseback to reach the dungeon and my group. I don't get much time to play as it is. I don't really want to spend a quarter of the time traveling with autorun.
Other than that, this game is absolutely amazing. It has come 100% since it's initial launch and I am proud to say that I play Vanguard. It only gets better from here.
- Patrick
Sorry to take this nice post off on a tangent, but I've recently re-subbed and have had a couple of crashes (actually a game "freeze") and performance still seems a bit hitchy...
What am I doing wrong?
I have a pretty powerful system (dual-core, 4GB of RAM, 8800 GTS) and am even running 64-bit (Vista). Hopefully it's not Vista related. I do have the most recent drivers.
Are there any specific graphics sliders I should be tweaking to make it run smoothly? What is this "/flush" command you speak of?
Thanks!
I'm running dual core 4g 7800gtoc and 64 bit vista as well. I have crashed 1 time in about 2 weeks of play. The /flush command is just that, it flushes your memory so it doesn't get overloaded and lag up your entire system. (or atleast that's the impression I get) I usually do it about once every few hours. What graphics setting do you play with? I could probably do it on maxed quality but I play on balanced mainly because of cities or large dungeons/groups. (Lots of spell effects) I have little or no issues. I've fallen through the world 1 time, and I probably deserved it, running around in the mountains where I probably should not have been, trying to take a short cut. Traveling UHG, see my last post.
Also want to add I play on balanced because of when I play my bard. Bards are the Flash Gordon of travel.
Thanks Karnage.
I'm currently running on a setting between balanced and the highest-end option (I'm at work, not at home right now, so can't check). I didn't tweak any other settings though - just used the defaults.
I tried it at the highest end graphics and it ran fine in some places, but then really hitched terribly in others. Then I had a couple of the aforementioned crashes and it recommended that I go back to default settings, so I tried that. No crashes since, but still a bit slow'ish at times.
Maybe my expectations just aren't fair (yet). I know they're working on performance issues all the time, but I was hoping I could play close to maxed out. I certainly can on the other games I play (namely TR, LotRO, HGL).
There are some hotfixes for issues with games under Vista, some of them release within 1-1½ month some in august. 4 hotfixes if I remember correct. If you don't have them already try them.
I'm not shure if they are added to MS update now as I installed XP awhile back. And sorry I am also to tired to help you find the files. Just mentioning that they exist.
I'm so broke. I can't even pay attention.
"You have the right not to be killed"
I totally agree, I wake up early every morning to play for an hour, and maybe get an hour or two when I get off of work, if I'm lucky. I usually play solo since I don't have enough time to sit and find a group, but I've been lucky, I'll run into people on some quests and join up with them if I have time.
Everyone is mature, and you'll even find a few that will role play a bit, which I didn't think I'd ever like (I've never done it before, or felt the need, and I've played a lot of MMOs) but I ended up playing along and kind of enjoying it. There are so many different races it really can make things enjoyable to "play your part" so to speak.
This game is so big that I didn't think I could just hop in for an hour and have fun, but I really find myself doing just that. This game is worth it.
Thanks Orphes.
I'll take a look around for those Vista fixes. I have installed every single Windows Update fix published for Vista, but if it's a non-standard hotfix not included in the auto-update then I'll need to poke around a bit.
I remember reading sometime back (think it was about two months ago, maybe three) that the game was having crashing issues with Vista users, but the game still has some stability problems so it may not be anything super unique to Vista. Worth checking into, however.
Top Ten Most Misused Words/Phrases in MMO Industry...
Jposavatz,
Not sure if I really answered your problems, but since we have similar computer set-ups (You have a better graphics card I think) I figured I would give it a shot. I generally put it on balanced and then I lower my rendering distances. That usually helps with lag and I found it to help with the memory dumping as well. I can't remember what exactly I set it to as for numbers, but it's not much, maybe 2/10ths of the bar. If I want to take a screen shot of the landscape i'll turn it up for a second, otherwise it's just eyecandy. Also 2 more things, I also don't play with sound either or a torch (I think it's default "k"). I find the torch light actually takes quite the toll on your memory and frames-per-second. Just turn your gamma up if you can't see. And the sound takes a rather large toll on your memory and when chunking or entering music changing areas such as cities etc, I just play my ipod or something along those lines for background noise.
Vanguards dead at the moment, it takes a country the size of America to fill 2 servers (probably Aussies and the like play on the US servers also)
the amount of players who play vanguard from Europe cant even fill 1 server
My guild was one of the most active on Vanguard, now you are lucky to see 1/40 (only reason there is 40 is because the officers havent logged in and so havent removed the inactives, because they are inactive)
The game looks like crap at the moment, the armor sets suck (t4 and t5 armor is the same art, some of the colors dont even match) and you cant even have visible helmets (why does this game need a super computer to run when Lord of the Rings Online looks 100 times better and yet can run on a lower end system?)
The crafting system sucks, too many restrictions on which crystals you can put on what. Especially for the likes of Leatherworker. There are 2 or 3 useful crystals thats it, "of pain" (crit hit), "of renewal" (energy regen, mostly useful to 1 class who can wear medium), "of health" (they remove all HPs off an item when you add a 2nd stat, then force you so use your 1st stats as health to put HPs back on), "of protection" and the creme-dela-creme "of recovery" (endurance regeneration, soon to be nerfed and made useless)
I am so glad i did crafting so i can continuosly make Flawless Cavaliers Jagged Item of Recovery/Health/Renewal (guess i should feel fortunate to have 3 choices on the resonating crystals)
I am also forced into putting 3 attributes on at t5, actually making the bonuses from stats like strength better at t4 than t5 (t4 you can put 2 attributes on, not like t5 where you put the 2 disirable attributes on then nerf them just to add a 3rd pointless attribute)
The Raid dungeon might give me something to do but it still wont change the fact that Vanguard is a half-assed attempt at a game and even 10months down the line its still not where it should have been at release (supposedly it was released 3 months early, so why its still not complete after 10 months is anyone guess, the fact they have reduced the size of the dev team to below half could have something to do with it, no wonder Cylus, one of the best devs quit, he knows when to abandon a sinking ship i guess)
Dont get me wrong i am all for Vanguard, but i am not a Vanbio whos dillusional about the state of the game. I am a realist and the game is in a bad way and needs alot of work even 10 months down the line. Already SOE are opening a forum asking what you would do if you were a developer of Vanguard, this is usually a tactic they use when a game is at the end of its lifespan, get ideas from the players, relieves what little devs left on the game of some of the burden (thinking up ideas) and knowing exactly what will keep those that are left subbing that extra month.
Try Vanguard if you want, just dont be under any illusions that its a good game, its ok, if you like getting a set of items, and then having to go get the bigger, shinier items, you will love vanguard (thats all there is to do, replace items in your sockets for the next big thing, for what i am not sure unless your on the only pvp server left).
Thanks again Karnage! I'll try what you've suggested to see if that improves things for me.
Oh, and by the way, to the OP who started this whole thread, I think that was a great post. I should have said that a long time ago. It seemed very unbiased, honest, and well thought out. I tend to agree on just about every point that you've made.
No problems running VG on Vista x64 bit with 8800gtx. The problems may occur but that's usually a problem of the drivers state for 8800gtx & Vista. Nothing to do with Vanguard.
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