My point about the game play score is that if it is the same as others, not better or worse, then give it 8 or 9 /10. Since 6/10 implies that it not as good as what you are used or what you expect. I am just saying that the score you gave is misleading, not what you wrote about the game play. Ok I get you. I can agree upon your arguments. Its worth at least 7/10 then "when compared" to the other mmo's out there
I can go with a 7. An 8 or a 9 is misleading in my opinion. If I see a 9, I expect something new and different -- not same ol' same ol'.
Now seriously, if you think the crowd that is playing VG right now waits for games like Warhammer or AoC to jump into, you should consider defragmentating your brain cells.
Hmmm....that's exactly what I'm doing at the moment. I'm passing time in VG until Conan comes out or until the VG devs update the game in such a way that it blows my socks off. Most likely, it'll be Conan though, since VG's dev resources have been cut.
Did you even notice the weaknesses system in combat? If you talk about Heroic Opportunities and not about weaknesses system. Actually I wasnt aware of the weakness system so I admitt that this is a mistake on my behalf. My mistake there. Ok lets say the combat system is equal to EQ2 then. Strange that I didnt know about it.. When do you use it in combat? Do you guess? Or read the combat chat spam? If its not noticable to players, then its pretty bad. Imagine I have played VG on and off without even noticing this system, and no group I have been in have used it. Thats weird if you ask me.
I heard this a lot when I played, and is the reason I mentioned it to begin with. The system as it is, is non-intrusive to an escalating battle. You could certainly argue that a system as powerful as the weakness system needs to be intrusive, and make you very aware that a weakness could be exploited. The subtlety has it's pros and cons obviously.
It is a great system and one that takes motivation to master. However, many (and I mean MANY) players are in your boat and never knew it existed. There are tweaks you can make to your chat log and UI to help you better take advantage of weaknesses while at the same time not having it be a distraction if your focus lies elsewhere.
Personally, I liked the system as it is. I prefer not to have my UI look like I just beat the high score on a pinball machine. I am afraid that SOE will have to change the system a bit to make it viable for all players though.
Interesting review but you only describe the dark side of vanguard. VG has also a bright side, craft, diplomacy, areas are really beautiful... you can make boats etc.... Even EQ2 doesn't propose these. I feel free, i mean, absolutely free in 2 games: Vanguard and Eve online. No more, no less. VG isn't an easy game. It's not a standard MMO with light craft or easy fighting. That's why VG is, IMO a MMORPG "only" for mature players, like Eve Online. Never forget EQ2 has been flamed 3 years ago...SOE made a nice work on it and now, EQ2 is a success. IMO, VG is EQ3, VG going to be the future of Everquest.
Same here.... Vanguard + Eve online is also a nice combo to play, while i'm training for my heavy assault ship, I play vanguard
Anyway, everyone should try vanguard, or atleast the 10 day trail. It should be better then WoW... If they could just work a little hard on the game!
You sure are full of yourself Truenorthbg. You ignore paragraph after paragraph of valid information by the orinigal poster and instead take a snippet of a sentence here or there and somehow extrapolate some carnal knowledge of his true intents. You are simply unbelievable as several have already pointed out.
I never called you any names and pressed you with the exact same fashion as you pressed the original poster. The difference is he backed up his words and discusses the topic. You simply cannot get past someone questioning your views and spin it into some sob story about being picked on. This makes you impossible to talk to since you won't face your mistakes.
Still waiting for your links about his dear diary post for LOTRO, EQ2, WoW, etc....
Somebody mentioned to try the 10 dat trial. As I understand it, you can only get into a trial by a referral. I'd appreciate anyone sending a key my way as I'm really dying to try out this game (thanks in advance):
Yes the review is always about you. Everything revolves around how people see you and post personal attacks about you. Of course none of this was brought up by you making up facts about the OP in an attempt to assassinate him. Everyone is out to get you!
How clever of you to see through all the game related experiences of the original poster to determine he can't handle the extreme difficulty of vanguard. We are blessed to have your insight. Pot, kettle is holding for you on line 2.
P.S. Still waiting for the links you claim started all this. Will you ever answer a question?
[I enjoy a following --albeit a small one-- that watches every post I write, including this one; I bet they are reading this right now. Believe me, if I make a single mistake, they will respond by either calling me: a 1) fanboy; 2) raising frivolous questions; or 3) accuse me of undermining freedom of expression.
You forgot to add; 4) Troll, a) Abusive, b) Off-topic
You're not undermining freedom of expression, but you certainly are being liberal with it.
Funny thing in Vanguard was the phrase "seamless world" where you were supposed to be able to walk around freely with now loading areas. Once you actually hit the seam, your game froze for a moment while it loaded the new area. Meanwhile you character kept running forwards and once the loading was complete suddenly you were back in the same spot and pulled mobs from miles away.
Don't even remember how many times I died because of that. That and the overall feel of the game being unfinished made the game really frustrating to play. Like you said Morgaur, it was like playing the beta. No matter how much I wanted to like the game, I gave up and stept to the background to watch the game slowly pass away.
Oh, forgot to mention: a really good review Morgaur. That's the way I feel about Vanguard too.
Im not even going to start with you Truenorthbg, your not worth the attention. However I would love your comments about the review I wrote
Dailybuzz I agree with you. The weakness system should be more noticeable than it is today, but not like the high score on a pinball machine lol. Loved the last part of that sentence hehe. Thanks Mortemia.
Damn, I made too much lasagna last night, oh well, lunch today is going to be nice weee. cheers!
First som backgrounds of my ventures into Vanguard SOH.
I didnt play the beta, but I kept myself updated on the progress and the promises of this game. I just couldnt wait to play it, so I bought it as a Direct Download when the game was released and played, died, played, died etc. After a time the totally unfinished product V:SOH got me and I collapsed, cancelling my account. Well, most of you remember how the game was after launch. Combine that with a 8800GTS card and you are set. Not sure if I had Vista 64 at that time aswell. Cant remember. The second time I actually played to level 28 on my Dark Elf Cleric and enjoyed the journey, until the problems began again. Falling throught the world, dying, loosing xp, and falling through again, even more xp debts, then dying trying to get the tombstone after falling through the world again. Well... you get the picture. After almost a whole day it slowly occured to me that this was not challenge, this was a pain in the ass, the product was still not good enough to pay for. I felt like I was beta testing the thing, and paying for it. So I quit, refusing to play it any more. Im now going to review this game from the time I started playing it, and uptil now recently. I will try to keep this fair and square, flame me if you want. I dont really care. Dont mind the typos either, english is not my native language.
Population 5/10
I remember after the launch. There were tons of people playing the game. Then the servers got lighter and lighter. Im not going to speculate why. Anyway it got to a point when you soloed alot, trying to find groups, that was the time I first quit the game. Then they decided to merge the servers, and I started playing again. Hopefully I started a Cleric. Teams was no problem to find and now the game was actually playable. I did all the hunters league quests and they were amazing. No problems finding teams as a cleric at least. Then I left the game again because of condition of the game. At this time servers were booming with people after the merge. Recently I joined the game again with my cleric. And again the server load is light. I have played several times at prime time europe (Halger) and again the server load is light and in the green. Well, I dont think it will rise again. The chat is filled with chit chat which is good. Thats because all people on a continent chat in the same channel. Had things been like EQ2 where you have a channel for level 1-10, then there would be NO people chatting. Thank god for some intuition and foresight. After creating a DK and levelling him to level 14 I found a few players running around here and there. Nothing much. Mostly people asking for TK and higher level places. The population is stable, but could sure need more people. The people are somewhat friendly if you dont complain about anything inside the game and generally helpful in the chat. I agree about the population. The population in VG is top heavy, not many people running about at the lower levels. I rolled a High Elf Cleric on the pvp server a couple of days ago and as I progressed to level 10, I only saw one other person in my level range and a couple of mid level range peeps passing through. The population on the US PvE servers is much better, during prime time they have a medium server load, but still suffers low population in certain newbie areas. SoE need to scrap the newbie island and just release a X amount of days trial now to get new blood into the game before AoC and WAR are released. Gameplay 7/10
The Gameplay in Vanguard is not more exciting than most of the mmos out there. Choose a target, pull with something, hit the standard buttons for hit for 40hp +12, stun, kick etc etc. V:SOH have finishers, counterattacks etc that can trigger sometimes but this is the standard overrated stuff. Its nothing new here. EQ2 had a more exciting system called Heroic Opportunities. You train at a trainer and get upgrades for the same spells xxx number of times, but some spells drop from mobs later, which is good Classes however feel varied and entertaining to play. Healers do damage and especially the Blood Mage is a fresh addition for the healier loving classes. However the Inquisitor and the Berserker classes haven't made it into the game yet, and probably never will at this speed. The game is designed around grouping, so prepare for it, even tho you can solo alot. The thrill I have to disagree. I find VG's combat system one of the better ones, sure it's still push button xyz, but if you compare it to WoW, EQ 2 and LOTRO it is way ahead. There's a more tactical feel to it. You have the weakness system, you have counterattack, rescue system, different stances. It gives you loads of skills/spells early on in your char's career. VG has done away with the healer standing at the back just healing. Most of the healer's have to damage the mob to get the most out of healing. Take the Bloodmage, you have to manage your blood union(BU) on the mob to increase healing effects which you receive by damaging the mob, so instead of only watching your groups HP bar and the aggro of heals you also have to increase BU, and take in account the aggro you get from the DPS whilst doing all the normal healer stuff. Take the Bard you have your normal melee skills plus your songs. Songs which you compose yourself. As you level you get song components and component slots which buff, heal, increase DPS, dot etc, and you can mix and match them to your own preference. Necromancer, the things these guy's can do with corpse's no other game I've played has touched on. These are some of the classes I've played and I know some classes need some loving (Monk). So yes I agree it's push button, but VG does it with style.
The World 8/10
Vanguard has a huge, huge, huge world. And the view some places are awesome to take in, and totally breath taking (If you have a decent graphic card). But again, some places feels incredibly unfinished. Ruins with no mobs, places barren. Its an unfinished world. If you want to take screenshots of the view, this game is definately for you Horses are essential to get around, also are rift ways to teleport you. In the beginning we spent alot of time travelling around for teams, which is not good. My second attempt at this game was ruined after falling throught the world a crazy number of times, and dying trying to recover my tomb stone, also remember someone ressurected me in mid air, which made me fall down and die again. Not much fun when you just want to play. My third attemt to play this game was also soured by world bugs like these, which brought painful memories back from my second attempt. Read this post for more on that: http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/157685 but dont mind the troll destroying my post. I like the world. I like to explore so it's nice to find places not brimming with mobs. I haven't experienced many problems since re-subbing (Re-subbed a month ago). I've fell through the world once, crashed a couple of times and haven't been stuck once. The problems are still there but not on the scale of VG's release. The only thing I've found is a few broken quests, a second of lag crossing chunks and the odd door causing me lag and sometimes my char dislikes going up stairs, have to jump up them.
Crafting
Not much of a crafter myself so I leave this part to others. The cool thing is that the best equipment in the game is player crafted, at least until the new raid instance comes (if it ever makes it live). Some say crafting in this game is very deep, and tedious. Not sure myself here, make up your own mind. Graphics 8/10
The graphics in this game is pretty fair. I have seen extremely beautiful places here, but also places that sucked. It goes from the 10 to 1 on the scale sometimes. Characters and their armor can seem very plastic sometimes. The characters are also lifeless. I would love some facial expressions sometimes. They are like plastic dolls standing there, just blinking and rolling their head now and then. The armor is detailed. However do not run this game on a low budget graphic card, it will totally ruin the game for you. This monster will empty your wallet if you want good performance I agree, but thankfully SoE are re-vamping the character models which will help perfomance and hopefully get rid of the barbie doll look when indoors. Also SoE have re-vamped Khal which has improved it's looks and increased performance, Nice Performance 5/10
Well well well. First time I played V:SOH I was in shock. Performance was terrible, crashes to desktop, game stopping up when crossing chunks, and some players still do. Its not the game engine either, the coding is terrible in this game. Actually you can play most other games at extreme performance, but when you launch this game your down on your knees. The last time I played performance had increased tenfold, no doubt this have been a priority at SOE. The game still need alot of work with performance. Try to open a door for instance, everything stops up, and starts again when the door is open. Crossing chunks can be damn annoying sometimes as your torch goes out (no biggie), you change directions (annoying when maneuvering areas with tight mobs). I also heard some rumours that buffs are getting dropped but I cannot confirm this.
Character creation 5/10
In the beginning when we created characters in this game, you ended up with something else than you original created. The hair changed color, clothes wasnt the ones you had choosen during creation etc etc. The game sport a creation tool where you can change height, width, nostril size, shape of your neck etc etc. Problem is that almost everyone looks the same from the neck and up. Each race have like 4 different faces, hair, facial hair. Actually due to all the problems in the beginning with the appearance, you can at any time change the appearance of your character, you can change your character totally at level 50... strange. I think it's great you can change your characters appearance when ever you want I hope SoE keep it in when they re-vamp the character models. I agree with the rest of what you stated. Music 7/10 Voiceovers 2/10
The music in this game is only "ok". The first time I heard the starting music in this game its was like a ever repeating damn annoying song that bombarded my eardrums. After a while when you travel around its quite ok. Nothing fancy really. Now to the worst thing, Voiceovers. This game probably have the worst, most horrible voiceovers in any game. I cant believe that they actually liked it as it is, or hmmm maybe its not finished, like 60% of this game. An example here is a small village outside Martok called Gaxton. There is a hall there called "Shanty of the Grand Hex", yeah thats right, the place that was severely bugged in the beginning. If you want to torture people, record the sound inside the house, pull a hood over a person head and tie them to a chair in a room with a slight echo. The next morning I can guarantee that he will tell you anything, all the way from his childhood and up. Incredibly bad voiceovers *brrr* I loved the music in this game, but agree about the voice over's. Some of the worse voice over's I heard. The Vulmane sound like bad Barry White impressionists. The Future of V:SOH
I simply cannot see that this game have a future, not at this rate. SOE have few people working on the game. Things take forever to fix, and people are getting restless, annoyed and the content is non existing at end level according to some. I read a very good comment somewhere. There was a guy who didn't want to spend hours upon hours on a product he felt had a very uncertain and I cant blame him. I know Im not going to play this game again. Its very sad, since I loved the original idea. But the let down was too much, and the trouble I experienced too much too handle. I get the feeling that the idea was to create a vision, hype it, then invest 50 million $, sellv the game to 200.000 people and harvest that money. MMORPG's have gone from visions to business, and business is good. Who cant resist creating a mmo, investing a minimum of cash and then harvest 400% of that, and then screw the audience. I really hope this is not the trend we are going to see in the future. God forbid! Phew, I think that was it! Now flame on whoever who want to do it. I dont fracking care. Im out, if you want to buy this game, please do. Its your money, not mine hehe I just want to apologize in front of those fanbois I might have offended. All I have been writing is a lie, go back to your plastic world now shoo-shoo I just want to thank those of you who defended my right to post my views without getting bashed in that other post. Thanks to Daffid011, Brostyn, Elikal, Excalaber2, Sevenwind, Phos, Lidane and the others Thumbs up I disagree with this. If SoE can pull there finger out with the free trial and get people playing I can see a future for VG. Once people are paying increase the dev size and get content out and carry on with the polish. The only way VG will die if SoE mess it up by lack of investment and they keep delaying the free trial, it will end up just another game for station pass holders.
Nice to get some normal comments Buccaneer, thanks
I would love that SOE fixed this game before it is too late. They should put a alot of development power into this game to get it in perfect condition. They should also start a marketing campaign going as right now this game is non excisting for tons of players. If they did this....
Just like to say! a very fair review of the game. And i am a VG lover btw ( by no means fanboy though ). I play VG every night and am having a blast at the min. strange thing is i found myself agreeing to an extent with everything you wrote, or at least nodding "fair comment"
I think you missing the weakness exploits is a big miss and would have maybe gave you a more tactical aproach to the game.
The chars looking plasticy is a strange one in the fact that outside they seem to look ok but inside buildings they look different and plasticy. not sure why that is. Agree with the faces having a real lack of features and would love to see more variety.
I can see what the guy talking about your 6 out of 10 for gameplay was saying. if you give it a 6 out of 10 but also say that it's pretty much the same as all games then really you should be scoring gameplay the same as you have scored other games. then again you might have scored your other games 6 out of 10 also. Not knocking you for that just adding a different look at it
Overall i think it was a fair review as you also pointed out a few good points about the game too.
I have to say I thought your review was fair. Probably a little bit too fair. I'm afriad my score would be much, lower. This of course is based on a few hours of beta play but quite frankly I know unfinished buggy games when I play them and VG is the king of bad rushed released. I am sure the game has been improved since then but it needs the years of development it was supposed to have not the 12 months of hacking away at code that the poor programmers were faced with doing after years of god knows what was going on.
Maybe with the upcoming trial I will change my mind and perhaps my rating of the game will reach yours, I doubt it will ever be high. Even though sometimes I would like to be wrong. Personally though as I have said here many many times VG is at a dead end. Unless SOE puts some serious effort into resurrecting it. At the moment the forums and the "drama" and the crazy fanboys are much more interesting. Its also jsut plain interesting to see how the game can proceed in any way and what SOE are doing with it ? (A testing ground for new programmers at the moment I guess?)
Anyways VG drama of heroes.. ... Potential yes.. odds ? One chance in a billion ?
Im not even going to start with you Truenorthbg, your not worth the attention. However I would love your comments about the review I wrote
It is difficult for me to critique your review because I think it is 1) biased, 2) lacking analysis and likely written in 3) haste and 4) frustration. Overall, my theory is that you do not have enough experience (evidence by "impressions" and lack of knowledge about combat and other features) to write a review that is 5) comprehensive, 6) fair, and 7) accurate.
Bias (comments indicate you dislike VG)
Lack of analysis (reads too much of an opinion)
Haste (time played, experience in the game)
Frustration (has a history of quitting games)
Incomprehensive (many game features are totally absent)
Unfair (see, e.g., comments on VG's future)
Inaccurate (see, e.g., comments on combat)
The above factors makes a critique particularly difficult for me.
Bias (comments indicate you dislike VG) Actually he has said many times he likes the gameplay. Straight from his post history you can see many examples of that and you claim to have read it. In fact he has tried to give the game a chance three times. I think that is pretty open minded of the original poster. Lack of analysis (reads too much of an opinion) Your "review" is just as much opinion and lacks even more details than this does. At least the OP talks about his experiences and cites game specific actions. In your review you talk about [a direct quote] "I have heard that crafting is deep but can at times feel tedious". You sound like you didn't even try crafting! You even go so far as to talk about how you prefer small groups and soloing as if that isn't your opinion? Haste (time played, experience in the game) The OP has at least one level 28 and another level 14 character. What level is your character? Really, what level does someone have to play to in order to not be dismissed as "quitting easy" or lacking experience as you say. I think playing over half of the game is enough to make a comment. How far have you played? Frustration (has a history of quitting games) I see from your review that you have quit EQ1, EQ2 and WoW. It looks like you are the OP both have played different game and quit them. What makes his actions scream frustration and yours not? Incomprehensive (many game features are totally absent) I find it funny that in your review of the game you don't mention on single specific game mechanic. You say you like combat, but nothing about how combat works or what you liked about it (save for how it made you feel). You never talk about what is in the actual game. Just that "you like it". Unfair (see, e.g., comments on VG's future) What on earth do you mean by unfair? There are many people who think SOE is not allocating enough resources to make this game go and it does have a long way to go. Your suggestions on how to improve the game in your review were pretty good (see I'm not all vinegar) and would be fun in a game. However there is already a huge honey-do list in VG and adding to it just stretches the already thin dev staff which has been slashed twice already. It all comes down to cost vs revenue. While your ideas were good and optomistic, they just are not likely to ever happen. Inaccurate (see, e.g., comments on combat) Lots of people don't know about the weakness system as reported by others in this thread. Funny that I didn't see you mention one single aspect of combat or any mechanics in your review.
The above factors makes a critique particularly difficult for me.
You can critique my review, which I think is, comparatively, refreshingly terse: www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/157317/page/1 If you are fair, I will be try to be (as I always am) as a) fair and b) honest as I can be of yours.
While you hold your review in high opinion for being brief it doesn't do much, especially in comparison. You talk about liking the game, but never really give any details of what makes it fun. You give more details in your "future section" about what the game is lacking than what made it worth playing. I find it odd to read more about what is missing in a game than what is in it and then seeing a rating of 8/10.
I think you have been anything but fair to the original poster.
This is not a proper thread to be discussing my review, although I would be happy to answer any questions and address any concerns regarding my review here: www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/157317
I am open and willing to address 1) questions, 2) comments, 3) concerns, 4) critiques, 5) praises, and 6) reviews of my review. I will read andreply to the posts, especially if they merit a reply.*
*Posts that merit neither reading nor replying: 1) "fanboy" word(s) or "mechanisms", 2) frivolous questions, and/or 3) comments that I am undermining freedom of expression.
----- WoW and fast food = commercial successes. I neither play WoW nor eat fast food.
I enjoyed Morgaur's review and feel that he has been more than fair to the game.
Vanguard has a lot of potential, but unfortunately it's already too late. I liked the openess of the world, but most of the time when I set off adventuring in the wild, I would run into huge sections of unoccupied space left open for housing. This was very frustrating at times because it meant another 40 to 50 minute ride to get back to something to kill. Not only that, but there are multitudes of places where if you take one wrong step you end up stuck somewhere you can't get out of. Many times while I was in the middle of a quest in the Infineium Sanctuary, I'd slip down the side of a ravine and end up irretrivably stuck, and when doing /stuck would be portaled all the way back to the rift shard. Someone standing directly above where I was couldn't get close enough to throw me a rope without getting stuck themselves.
The performance is dreadful, the graphics are humdrum, and the sounds are annoying at best.
The animations are lame, from running to a roundhouse axe slash. Like playing with unarticulated action figures, nothing bends the way it should.
I as well gave this game three tries, one of them being in beta, and at this point I don't care what they fix or change, I will never waste my money on it again.
I appreciate the fan's support of the game and applaud their loyalty. One thing possitive I can say about the game is that the population, though small, is generally very nice, and helpful.
I am not going to go derail your review thread with issues that belong here. Not only would it be off topic, but it wouldn't even be close to following the topics in this thread. Thus the whole concept of a thread if you will.
Frankly I didn't expect you to answer anyway and I wasn't dissapointed. You will always have some sort of excuse.
This isn't really going settle this once and for all but here goes anyways...
All this non sense about what is a biased and unbiased review has to stop because in the end you either love VG and are a very small minority (compared to beta/release) or your in the majority and you are not happy or not happy how it was handled at the very least. All reviews of this game are going to be biased in light of the stupid amount of McQuaid hype and fan drooling followed by the reality of a rushed release. (There is of course a lesson for developers and fans alike here.)
The only truth in VG is that the after the launch and general mess, its future is not looking great either in terms of getting many people back or making a profit for SOE compared to its other titles. Everything else is subjective and always going to be. Unless its got that hard cash or statistical numbers attached there no point in discussing the whole biased versus unbiased reviews of something which is fundamentally subjective.
I mean really if you loved the game so much you'd be playing it right ? Not trying to convince us ! And forgive those of us that sit on this forum criticising VG because those on here like this that are left, saw the potential and hope for something better more towards what we were led to expect.
2) frivolous questions, and/or 3) comments that I am undermining freedom of expression.
Ouch this is scary territory.
Just how do you define frivolous questions ? Is there a chart I can get somewhere that shows me what type of frivolous questions and there relative merit ? Let me answer that one. No ...there is not.
Personally, I dont think any question is frivolous. However labelling peoples questions are frivolous and thus ignoring them is a wonderful way to expose your own no go areas and control the conversation. Does it damage freedom of expression? Well maybe only your own. I must say the rest of us when we dont get an answer to something usually just assume the other person does not have one or at least a good one.
I mean come 'on this is the internet where every geek has an ego the size of Beowulf's( good movie by the way) and frivolous questions abound. Frivolous questions are not hard to answer. Try a frivolous answer ?
And just a final little frivolous question : so there are very much two "camps" for and against VG. What would you like to label them as for quick reference ?
hmm the game may be a dead end to you! in your opinion but not to everyone. the OP made fair reveiw which was just his opinion. your comments were ridiculous though. sorry but to say the game is a dead end when it has an active player base that are enjoying every min of it ( no matter how small that player base is ) is a silly comment.
By all means give an opinion but dont try to mislead people! the average person will see your posts for what they are. and please do me a favour....never come back even when there is a trial. we could really do without peple like you.
Oh ye call me a fanboy or whatever trendy name were called now. i really dont care ( not even sure if it's meant to be n insult or not )
Comments
Hmmm....that's exactly what I'm doing at the moment. I'm passing time in VG until Conan comes out or until the VG devs update the game in such a way that it blows my socks off. Most likely, it'll be Conan though, since VG's dev resources have been cut.
I heard this a lot when I played, and is the reason I mentioned it to begin with. The system as it is, is non-intrusive to an escalating battle. You could certainly argue that a system as powerful as the weakness system needs to be intrusive, and make you very aware that a weakness could be exploited. The subtlety has it's pros and cons obviously.
It is a great system and one that takes motivation to master. However, many (and I mean MANY) players are in your boat and never knew it existed. There are tweaks you can make to your chat log and UI to help you better take advantage of weaknesses while at the same time not having it be a distraction if your focus lies elsewhere.
Personally, I liked the system as it is. I prefer not to have my UI look like I just beat the high score on a pinball machine. I am afraid that SOE will have to change the system a bit to make it viable for all players though.
EDIT: traded an "of" for an "if"
Anyway, everyone should try vanguard, or atleast the 10 day trail. It should be better then WoW... If they could just work a little hard on the game!
Few - points:
Character looks
To many servers
+ points:
Nice PvP
Alot races and proffesions to choose from
Nice crafting system
You sure are full of yourself Truenorthbg. You ignore paragraph after paragraph of valid information by the orinigal poster and instead take a snippet of a sentence here or there and somehow extrapolate some carnal knowledge of his true intents. You are simply unbelievable as several have already pointed out.
I never called you any names and pressed you with the exact same fashion as you pressed the original poster. The difference is he backed up his words and discusses the topic. You simply cannot get past someone questioning your views and spin it into some sob story about being picked on. This makes you impossible to talk to since you won't face your mistakes.
Still waiting for your links about his dear diary post for LOTRO, EQ2, WoW, etc....
I've discovered another problem... My updating takes 10-18 hours.... I always knew the Station Launcher was crap! First it said 2 hours... now 18...
It ain't my firewall because i turned it off... Any suggestions?
Hello
Somebody mentioned to try the 10 dat trial. As I understand it, you can only get into a trial by a referral. I'd appreciate anyone sending a key my way as I'm really dying to try out this game (thanks in advance):
nirrub@gmail.com
Yes the review is always about you. Everything revolves around how people see you and post personal attacks about you. Of course none of this was brought up by you making up facts about the OP in an attempt to assassinate him. Everyone is out to get you!
How clever of you to see through all the game related experiences of the original poster to determine he can't handle the extreme difficulty of vanguard. We are blessed to have your insight. Pot, kettle is holding for you on line 2.
P.S. Still waiting for the links you claim started all this. Will you ever answer a question?
You're not undermining freedom of expression, but you certainly are being liberal with it.
Funny thing in Vanguard was the phrase "seamless world" where you were supposed to be able to walk around freely with now loading areas. Once you actually hit the seam, your game froze for a moment while it loaded the new area. Meanwhile you character kept running forwards and once the loading was complete suddenly you were back in the same spot and pulled mobs from miles away.
Don't even remember how many times I died because of that. That and the overall feel of the game being unfinished made the game really frustrating to play. Like you said Morgaur, it was like playing the beta. No matter how much I wanted to like the game, I gave up and stept to the background to watch the game slowly pass away.
Oh, forgot to mention: a really good review Morgaur. That's the way I feel about Vanguard too.
Dailybuzz I agree with you. The weakness system should be more noticeable than it is today, but not like the high score on a pinball machine lol. Loved the last part of that sentence hehe. Thanks Mortemia.
Damn, I made too much lasagna last night, oh well, lunch today is going to be nice weee. cheers!
It took me 20 minutes to download the same, about a month ago, and there has been no major patches since then!
Nice to get some normal
comments Buccaneer, thanks 
I would love that SOE fixed this game before it is too late. They should put a alot of development power into this game to get it in perfect condition. They should also start a marketing campaign going as right now this game is non excisting for tons of players. If they did this....
Then I would consider to start over again
Just like to say! a very fair review of the game. And i am a VG lover btw ( by no means fanboy though ). I play VG every night and am having a blast at the min. strange thing is i found myself agreeing to an extent with everything you wrote, or at least nodding "fair comment"
I think you missing the weakness exploits is a big miss and would have maybe gave you a more tactical aproach to the game.
The chars looking plasticy is a strange one in the fact that outside they seem to look ok but inside buildings they look different and plasticy. not sure why that is. Agree with the faces having a real lack of features and would love to see more variety.
I can see what the guy talking about your 6 out of 10 for gameplay was saying. if you give it a 6 out of 10 but also say that it's pretty much the same as all games then really you should be scoring gameplay the same as you have scored other games. then again you might have scored your other games 6 out of 10 also. Not knocking you for that just adding a different look at it
Overall i think it was a fair review as you also pointed out a few good points about the game too.
I have to say I thought your review was fair. Probably a little bit too fair. I'm afriad my score would be much, lower. This of course is based on a few hours of beta play but quite frankly I know unfinished buggy games when I play them and VG is the king of bad rushed released. I am sure the game has been improved since then but it needs the years of development it was supposed to have not the 12 months of hacking away at code that the poor programmers were faced with doing after years of god knows what was going on.
Maybe with the upcoming trial I will change my mind and perhaps my rating of the game will reach yours, I doubt it will ever be high. Even though sometimes I would like to be wrong. Personally though as I have said here many many times VG is at a dead end. Unless SOE puts some serious effort into resurrecting it. At the moment the forums and the "drama" and the crazy fanboys are much more interesting.
Its also jsut plain interesting to see how the game can proceed in any way and what SOE are doing with it ? (A testing ground for new programmers at the moment I guess?)
Anyways VG drama of heroes.. ... Potential yes.. odds ? One chance in a billion ?
It is difficult for me to critique your review because I think it is 1) biased, 2) lacking analysis and likely written in 3) haste and 4) frustration. Overall, my theory is that you do not have enough experience (evidence by "impressions" and lack of knowledge about combat and other features) to write a review that is 5) comprehensive, 6) fair, and 7) accurate.
The above factors makes a critique particularly difficult for me.
You can critique my review, which I think is, comparatively, refreshingly terse: www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/157317/page/1
If you are fair, I will be try to be (as I always am) as a) fair and b) honest as I can be of yours.
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WoW and fast food = commercial successes.
I neither play WoW nor eat fast food.
While you hold your review in high opinion for being brief it doesn't do much, especially in comparison. You talk about liking the game, but never really give any details of what makes it fun. You give more details in your "future section" about what the game is lacking than what made it worth playing. I find it odd to read more about what is missing in a game than what is in it and then seeing a rating of 8/10.
I think you have been anything but fair to the original poster.
This is not a proper thread to be discussing my review, although I would be happy to answer any questions and address any concerns regarding my review here: www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/157317
I am open and willing to address 1) questions, 2) comments, 3) concerns, 4) critiques, 5) praises, and 6) reviews of my review. I will read and reply to the posts, especially if they merit a reply.*
*Posts that merit neither reading nor replying: 1) "fanboy" word(s) or "mechanisms", 2) frivolous questions, and/or 3) comments that I am undermining freedom of expression.
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WoW and fast food = commercial successes.
I neither play WoW nor eat fast food.
I enjoyed Morgaur's review and feel that he has been more than fair to the game.
Vanguard has a lot of potential, but unfortunately it's already too late. I liked the openess of the world, but most of the time when I set off adventuring in the wild, I would run into huge sections of unoccupied space left open for housing. This was very frustrating at times because it meant another 40 to 50 minute ride to get back to something to kill. Not only that, but there are multitudes of places where if you take one wrong step you end up stuck somewhere you can't get out of. Many times while I was in the middle of a quest in the Infineium Sanctuary, I'd slip down the side of a ravine and end up irretrivably stuck, and when doing /stuck would be portaled all the way back to the rift shard. Someone standing directly above where I was couldn't get close enough to throw me a rope without getting stuck themselves.
The performance is dreadful, the graphics are humdrum, and the sounds are annoying at best.
The animations are lame, from running to a roundhouse axe slash. Like playing with unarticulated action figures, nothing bends the way it should.
I as well gave this game three tries, one of them being in beta, and at this point I don't care what they fix or change, I will never waste my money on it again.
I appreciate the fan's support of the game and applaud their loyalty. One thing possitive I can say about the game is that the population, though small, is generally very nice, and helpful.
I am not going to go derail your review thread with issues that belong here. Not only would it be off topic, but it wouldn't even be close to following the topics in this thread. Thus the whole concept of a thread if you will.
Frankly I didn't expect you to answer anyway and I wasn't dissapointed. You will always have some sort of excuse.
This isn't really going settle this once and for all but here goes anyways...
All this non sense about what is a biased and unbiased review has to stop because in the end you either love VG and are a very small minority (compared to beta/release) or your in the majority and you are not happy or not happy how it was handled at the very least. All reviews of this game are going to be biased in light of the stupid amount of McQuaid hype and fan drooling followed by the reality of a rushed release. (There is of course a lesson for developers and fans alike here.)
The only truth in VG is that the after the launch and general mess, its future is not looking great either in terms of getting many people back or making a profit for SOE compared to its other titles. Everything else is subjective and always going to be. Unless its got that hard cash or statistical numbers attached there no point in discussing the whole biased versus unbiased reviews of something which is fundamentally subjective.
I mean really if you loved the game so much you'd be playing it right ? Not trying to convince us ! And forgive those of us that sit on this forum criticising VG because those on here like this that are left, saw the potential and hope for something better more towards what we were led to expect.
Ouch this is scary territory.
Just how do you define frivolous questions ? Is there a chart I can get somewhere that shows me what type of frivolous questions and there relative merit ? Let me answer that one. No ...there is not.
Personally, I dont think any question is frivolous. However labelling peoples questions are frivolous and thus ignoring them is a wonderful way to expose your own no go areas and control the conversation. Does it damage freedom of expression? Well maybe only your own. I must say the rest of us when we dont get an answer to something usually just assume the other person does not have one or at least a good one.
I mean come 'on this is the internet where every geek has an ego the size of Beowulf's( good movie by the way) and frivolous questions abound. Frivolous questions are not hard to answer. Try a frivolous answer ?
And just a final little frivolous question : so there are very much two "camps" for and against VG. What would you like to label them as for quick reference ?
hmm the game may be a dead end to you! in your opinion but not to everyone. the OP made fair reveiw which was just his opinion. your comments were ridiculous though. sorry but to say the game is a dead end when it has an active player base that are enjoying every min of it ( no matter how small that player base is ) is a silly comment.
By all means give an opinion but dont try to mislead people! the average person will see your posts for what they are. and please do me a favour....never come back even when there is a trial. we could really do without peple like you.
Oh ye call me a fanboy or whatever trendy name were called now. i really dont care ( not even sure if it's meant to be n insult or not )