Is it for me? Experienced gamer looking for some advice.

mahierl2005

OK, I played Vanguard when it first came out. Hated it, for all the same reasons everyone else did at the time. Now that some time has passed, I am starting to hear better things about it. So tell me, is it worth it? I know there are a lot of posts like this, but let me tell you how I game, and maybe that will be able to get me a les generalized response.

I'm not a huge quester. Lore means little to nothing to me, and I like my fluff. I grind out levels, I play a lot (I have 17.. yes, 17.. lvl 70 characters In WoW). I am a tech support supervisor so mostly i just grind between calls at work, then play later when I get home. I'm not a WoW fanboi, or a hater. I like Wow's little fluff stuff.. mini pets, collecting different mounts, etc. But Like many others, I have run out of things to do. I am in the Wrath of the lich king beta, but to be honest it appears to be more of the same, and it may be time to move on. WAR comes out in a few weeks so I am looking forward to that, but at the same time I dont want to put all my eggs into 1 basket. Do you guys think that this game would have enough fluff / gear / etc to keep my attention for any length of time? Or is it truely for a casual and I'm barking up the wrong tree? Thanks alot guys. Hey if its not for me, its not for me. We're all gamers and I can respect that. Just looking for some true gamer input.. not from fanbois or haters, but from people who actually play and have a constructive outlook on the game. Thanks again.

metalcore

VG is very soloable, you can play it casually (to max level) although levelling is not as easy as WoW so it will take some time.

Lots of quests but there are no "required" ones, just skip most quests and do grinding. Mount quest are obviously nice to do and quiet lengthy. Crafting has work orders to do, kind of like a quest, Diplomacy you can just grind civic if you want.

There is a massive amounts of mounts in the game and many pets. Some classes like Necro/Shaman/Druid have combat pets but there are also diplomacy pets, veteran reward pets etc available.

Apart from horses and camels (which you can buy), there are faction mounts, each race has a unique mount at 30th and 50th. Plus you can choose a different races mount if you like. Also 3 types of flying mounts solo, group and raid versions but all 3 require a lot of effort and keep you going at 50th for many hours to obtain.

Not to mention craftable player made boats, crafted housing plots, guild halls as well.

VG is full of stuff to do, if your a casual player it will last a very long time.

ethion

Fluff and stuff is an area that VG isn't strong on.  You can solo in the game quite well.  You can travel around the world collecting solo quests and level up somewhat like wow.  There is a mix of solo, small group, group quests in most areas.  You can solo small group quests reasonably ok if you have higher lvl and are careful or have a class that is really good at soloing.

Unlike wow you are not led through the questing area's as well.  You will need to explore more although the rift system makes that quite a bit easier there are still little quest areas all over to discover.  Get a map add on from vginterface.com and it will help.

You know what might actually be even more interesting if you like fluff and casual play would be eq2.  It is a pretty good game esp for solo and casual play.  It has a lot of fluff stuff with housing.  You can spends a lot of time messing with your house getting pets, decorations etc.  My house is a real collectors item.  I have pets from quests and furnature from quests. 

In VG one of the things you will discover is that it is very easy to get groups, easier then any other game includeing wow.  And even more significant the dungeons and group quests are both challenging and rewarding.  So while you can solo everywhere you will need a group to do any dungeon past lvl 15 or so.  Where in wow you can get groups for instances they almost always have a high lvl person runing you though... everyone has a high lvl alt.   So it isn't much fun.  In eq2 high lvls can mentor but they generally don't so again grouping can be hard at lower levels.  However if you get in a guild it is a lot easier to get a guld group since they will happily mentor you and that makes them your level for doing the dungeon which makes it challenging and therefore fun.   So if you do eq2 a guild is almost a must.

At high lvls eq2 and wow have more to do then VG.  However another benefit of VG is that there are a ton of classes and a ton of starting areas.  This means that playing alts is a lot of fun since they are all different areas.  Another thing about VG the world is huge.  This makes the world feel more empty.  However that is largely perception.  Saradon the most populous VG server typically has near or more players on then the average wow server.  So the people are there just spread out more.  With the rifts you can easily get around to join groups so lfg tool is your friend and so is ooc.  One more thing, Kojan is the smallest continent and many people leave it around lvl 15-20 so if you are on kojan there won't be as many high lvls helping in ooc since ooc is continental limited.  Head to qalia or thestra to pick up far more chatter.

Thats about as much info as I can give you.  Good luck!

bhuma

VG offers a wide spectrum of possible play styles. Although there are over 12,000 quests in the game, most of them are trivial kill x type quests and skippable. For someone like you I would recommend questing only for unusually good gear. Those quests require a substantial amount of grinding in tough dungeons, and that can be quite fun with a decent group, and the groups are not hard to come in those places.

While VG has some degree of fluff, such as pets that can be aquired and unique 'clicky' items that can be obtained, the primary fluff that the game offers is a vast game world that can be explored, with many hidden and out of the way dungeons, filled with named. Exploring and hunting named bosses does not require doing quests, and is my favorite activity in the game.

The VG end game is still a work in progress. There is a substantial raid zone already in place and more to come, and the flying mount quest is quite epic in duration and feel. The end game content that exists is of fairly good quality, but as far as quantity is concerned, it is nothing compared to WoW or EQ2, and given the size of the development team, it wont catch up to them anytime soon.

I suspect you would enjoy VG for what its worth. But its just a finite game, and like all such games, your enjoyment will only last for so long. 'How long?' is highly personal and depends upon the player. If you enjoy rolling alts, each of which has a unique and different feel, then your enjoyment could last for a very long time.

mahierl2005

Thank you very much veryone for your honext opinions. I'll have to look into this a little more and give it some thought. I am, as someone said, a little concerned about the size of the development team, and the rate at which I can get through content. I'm looking to play a game longer than 6 months, and I'm not sure if this game is going to be able to deliver that for me yet. However, you all provided some great information and it is greatly appreciated.

Cereo

Yeah and if you get into crafting and diplomacy, it can last a real long time. But my friends who play WoW don't like that there is so much to do and everything is spread out. They liked being waltz through the game, told what to do and where exactly to go, and they are not interesting in crafting or diplomacy because its different and they don't want to learn something new. So I mean its a great game if you take it for what it is and it will last a long time, but if you expect it just to be WoW, you'll be disappointed. You can get the game for like $15 on amazon and if you hate it, WAR is around the corner. What do you have to lose?

Shol

It will take like 3 weeks for you to get a char to max level. Than you can grind faction for all kinds of mounts. The MEST is sadly over since this month, so you cant grind anymore for this gnomish transformation device (so sad if our monk transforms to a cat and feigns... so sad). Than it will take weeks for you if you want to craft, same for diplomacy. If you want to raid, it takes months as I dont think there is a single guild on my server atm  which managed to kill the endboss. Than there should be soon the next big raid-dungeon coming out.

So Im sure youll have enough to do until WAR launches.

Not sure if VG can offer you enough content for 6 months... your content burnrate seems to be insane. You might want to check out EVE, but this game might be too time consuming for you (fleet battles can take easily several hours, same with small gang fights. And you cant leave your team in the middle of the fight).

If you really love hardcore grind than check out asia grinder. Lineage II (p2p) or Rohan (f2p) are hard grinder. Nearly every f2p game out transforms into some serious grinder sooner or later but offers not much pve wise. You might want to check out Perfect World (international version will soon launch) it also offers some nice territory wars (if I remember right its 90 vs 90 max).

Khilla

You wont like it, don't waste your time or money. Honestly I think you would find having to dedicate more time than what you would want to to keep you interested. Its a dedicated classic MMO'ers game (clean, dedicated, group oriented). As much as I love the game and play it regularly, I have to play devils advocate as to not mislead what time you will find having to dedicate to see and accomplish the cool stuff. Yes, it is soloable, but most boss mobs are not, as I stated above, it is group, raid or guild oriented.

Trying to be the realist for ya. I have played the game since pre release and an officer in a guild with over 50 active players and almost 200 toons. I raid in APW weekly  (6 day lockout timers on named boss mobs) and am currently finishing the griffin quest. I wish it was as easy as logging in for a half hour and feeling like I got something done, but honestly more like an EQ1 feel (more or less). I often miss the aspects of games such as GW's and CoH's where you can knock out a mission or two rather quick like. The quick quests in VG are more or less filler unless you want to work on a major quest line which usually requires a group.

I hope this helps.

Good luck and Peace!

Cereo

3 weeks to get maxed adventuring and 3 more for maxed crafting and diplomacy? Maybe if you are playing around 8 hours a day, everyday. Even at 17 WoW chars, that's 4 years I assume, so that's a maxed character every 4.25 months on average. And once you get the flow, things go progressively faster to get a max character in WoW or any game. 3 weeks is hardly likely in my opinion.

In any case, lets say a month, to be highly unrealistic. 1 month adventuring, 1 month diplomacy, 1 month crafting is 3 months for 1 character, playing 8 hours a day probably, 7 days a week. If you do that with TWO characters, that is 6 months right there. There's no way you'll run out of stuff in 6 months unless you ignore crafting and diplomacy, which most hardcore WoW players would probably do since its not stuff they had to really do in WoW, but in any case, this game isn't RUSH until the end to raid. If you're a person that cannot understand this game is about exploring, trying different things, and just having fun, you'll rush to raiding and realize there's not as much content as other raiding games.

declaredemer

One of the great joys I experienced in Vanguard were the challenging group dungeons, specifically ... now I cannot remember their names... but they are very fun.

 

 

I would often look for a full group or get a smaller group going and spend a few hours in these dungeons, which were almost always a good time:  (1)  challenging, (2) rewarding, and (3) fun. 

 

 

I somewhat miss Vanguard, but I am also waiting for the developers to implement more character abilities, customization features, and fluff.  More group and solo content is needed at max level as well for epic questing, gear questing, class development/customization questing, and just fun questing. 

aurick

I am like you:  I  have 5 level 70's in WoW.  I played Vanguard's beta about 3 months before launch.  Yuck on a stick.  Then I tried it again at launch.  Hated it so much I didn't even pass level 6.  But I decided to give it another try here after GU5 came out, and I was really surprised.  So was my best friend, whom I play with a lot and had previously hated it just as much as me.  We both have resubscribed, and we recruited other friends who are also enjoying the game. 

The development team has put a TON of effort in during the last 1 1/2 years with a focus on fixing bugs and other problems.  The game is really much, much more polished now, and thoroughly enjoyable.

We've been playing for about a month now.  It took us a solid two weeks (probably 60 hours) to get to level 20.  We then wound up rolling new characters so we could play with our friends when they joined, and it has again taken a couple weeks to get up to 20.  Along the way we've duplicated almost no content because there's just so much to do.  I believe it's possible to get a half dozen characters to level 30 without ever duplicating a single quest.  Not that you're into quests, but it's a measure of how much there is to do and how many places to see.

Part of the reason why we're not leveling fast is the additional spheres.  Crafting and Diplomacy are definitely things you should check out with the way you play.  The way they're structured, you can stop for a phone call or something and come back 10 minutes later without having died or lost your progress.  They're both challenging in different ways, and can be strangely addictive. 

Going forward, the devs intend to focus on lots of high level content.  They don't want players to get to level 50 and then feel like their options are now really limited.  Given how much they've pulled off in the last year, I think that this next year will be very, very interesting.