LF good endgame pve

ruttentud

So here's the run down. I played WoW for a little over a year. I found the PvE to be lacking, but enjoyed the gear progression. What I didn't like was that it was all cookie-cutter. If you didn't spec a certain way, you weren't effective.

I played AoC from release up until about a week ago. Was a cool idea, but ended up being horribly executed imo. Didn't like that gear was only ~10% of your characters strength.

 

Recently I've played the trial version of LotRO, EvE and EQ2. Got a lvl 10 in LotRO. It was alright, but not fast enough for me. Combat is a large part of mmorpgs and having slow paced combat is a killer for me.

I found EQ2 to be...honestly I don't know. It just didn't catch my attention. The way you move around, the combat, the world...it just didn't click.

I tested EvE on the account many people love it. I'm not into sci-fi but tried it anyway. It's a wonderful game, but not for me at all. I disliked most of the things eve had to offer.

 

I've been trying to find info on Vanguard and FFXI, but all i find are "OMG THIS RULEZ!" or "WOW THIS SUCKS LEWL!" The thing that draws me to FFXI is that you actually have to play a while to get to max level. Not like AoC where you can be max in 5 days /played.

 

Main concerns:

• Good crafting
• Interesting raids
• Gear progression
• Strong player base
• At least decent graphics
• Something that takes time/dedication

So...if anybody can help me I'd love you

 

lath456

Vanguard has  very time consuming crafting...  I've never bothered to really figure it all out... but I hear that the rewards from doing crafting in Vanguard make crafting worth it.  Crafting will take tons of time/dedication... then again so will leveling.

The community in Vanguard is small ... at least in my opinion.  The world is huge and IMO there aren't enough people to make it feel even remotely close to full.

Gear progression and end raids are something I don't know much about... There will be gear progression with your crafting 1-50... after 50?  I have no idea.  I believe, I may be mistaken, that there is currently only 1 raid zone...

As for FFXI... I played that game for 10 minutes and quit.

 

Vespers

Vanguard

1) has great graphics but the current character graphics and animationa are lacking. They are revamping the character craphics to bring them more in line with the AoC character graphics and these will be ingame in a month.

 

2) The world of Telon is perhaps the biggest MMO world out there. On top of all of that, there is not a single instance in the game. To get to where you want to go you can sail in a very small sloop, medium sized caravel or a huge galleon.(the first 2 are already in game and can be crafted by players. The galleon is also coming in a months time and will also be player made) You can also use the "Riftways" which are attuned to other "Riftways" around the world. Other modes of travelling include Unicorn mounts, Hellhound mounts, Camel mounts, Horse mounts, Battle scorpians, Blackwidow spiders, Rhinos, Panthers, Foxes, Warpigs, and on top of that you can also travel on flying mounts such as Wyvern, Griffon and Pegasus mounts. In fact, you can fly so high that sometimes you wont be able to see the ground.

 

3) Crafting in Vanguard is very detailed. I would say it is a mixture of SWG crafting and EQ2 crafting but is, in itself, more unique than these other 2 MMOs crafting technique. In crafting, you dont grind out 100000s of the same item to level up. You get Work Orders from Master Craftsmen npcs around the world. After you complete a work order(like make 5 "A" grade rocking chairs) you take the items to the npc that gave you the workorder and he will give you a chunk of experience as well as some cash.

 

4) There are something like 18 different races and like 13 or 14 different classes. Each class is different and none are cookie cutter of the other classes. For example the Bard. You get to develop you own songs. There is no default songs ingame so you either have to compose your own songs. Songs can greatly increase the groups DPS or make you run very fast or add mana regeneration. Another example is the Bloodmage. This class turns their damage to mobs into healing for groupmembers. They can also harvest organs from dead mobs and use them to create player buffs called Symbiotes which can increase players AC, add a damage shield or increase their DPS. All of the classes in vanguard are unique and all are exciting to play.

 

5) Does Vanguard have bugs? Yes, but the bugs are getting fixed day by day and most people find that the bugs are usually to small to make a difference in their game play. For some, however, it seems to disrupt their gameplay. Game performance? Vanguard used to be HORRIBLE to play due to all the hitching and lag but it has recently gone through a major overhaul and it runs very smoothly. If you can run AOC, LOTRO or EQ2 then you wont have a problem with Vanguard. If you can only run WoW decently then you will most likely need a better machine to run Vanguard.

 

6) The customer service for Vanguard is second to none. I would say that it is perhaps the best in the business. You dont need to take my word for it, just read about how the players(both old and new) feel about the CS team on the Vanguard forums.

 

7) The Vanguard player community is very mature and extremely helpful. Most of the recent new players are saying that they actually like seeing the chat channels because everyone is so helpful whereas in other games it seems to be a spam fest on who e-peen is bigger.

 

Now, this is all my point of view, you will of course need to make up your own mind if this game is what you are looking for. Some say the world is too big and they get overwhelmed or get lost. They also say that combat seems too slow or too fast. Some people say the game breaker is bad combat animations while others say there are too many quests.

My response to this is to play a few characters to 15+(which can be done in a week, easily) and see if this game is for you. If it is, you will love it. If it isnt then you are just out a week of your time and have eliminated yet another MMO that isnt your cup of tea.

 

My final note is this. ALOT of recent folks from AOC have decided to dump AOC and try out Vanguard and they are loving it. IMO, VG is what EQ2 should have been.

 

zethcarn

Vespers speaks the truth about Vanguard.  It's major drawback (IMO) is server lag and hitching.  My computer is only 1 year old and runs most games fine.  But on Vanguard I was lagging in a 3-man group.  But it's server lag.  It kind of put me off.