Thinking Of rejoining, how has it changed?

Blackhawk242

I've played VG around the time it came out and thought it had some bugs needed to be worked out, so I quit and started playing other MMO's for a while (WoW, AoC, CoX, TR, and Many Others) but wasnt satisfied.

Im currently playing AoC but feel like its missing somethings (Mostly Players) and want to know if I should come back to VG, i looked at SystemRequirementsLab and i can run it at the top speed, but was wondering how is it? Playerwise, Economy, and Gameplay

ethion

It has come a long ways since release.  Gameplay is great.  On Seradon there are plenty of people to get groups with and the population is reasonably well distributed.  The economy seems ok to me.  Crafted stuff tends to be really great but expensive.  The less rare crafted stuff is pretty close to quest rewards so it is kinda well balanced in my opinion.  Money is pretty good but not good enough that you can just load up with all the best crafted gear unless you are an alt.  The best way to get crafted gear is to hire a crafter to make it per order.  Crafters can really customize stuff  they make so that way you can get amazing stuff that is exactly what you want.

As far as I can see all the big bugs are gone and performance is way better then release.  There are still some quest bugs and in fact there seem like their might be more of these then at release.  Someone in game told me a lot of these bugs appeared in the last major update so hopefully it is something that the next update will largely fix.  In spite of that the GMs are great about advancing you when you get stuck.  Just put in a request for help and in an hour or two they help or you will find you have been bumped past the sticking point in the morning.  i've been really impressed with how helpful the GMs are.

 

aurick

You would be surprised how many AoC refugees have found happy homes in Vanguard.

I was a VG hater at launch.  Man, it sucked.  AoC at least manages to be fun up to about 55, but Vanguard was unpleasant right out of the gate. 

VG today, however, is like night and day compared to launch.  Just about everyone who gives it a try these days agrees on that point.  It performs a lot better.  I can run it with max settings and have 50-70 fps in the non-city areas.  Of course, I'm also running a GTX 280.  But my friends have more standard rigs and they average 30+ fps, which is easily playable.

Classes have been polished a lot, and are continuing to get love.  I've found that every class is distinctly different.  Out of the eight I've tried so far, the only one I hated was the bard, but I also know a ton of people love their bards to death.  It's a personal preference thing, rather than a game shortcoming.  Because Vanguard isn't designed for PvP, the devs didn't have to worry about class balance.  Instead, they could focus on making each class fun, and providing ways for them to each bring something different to a group.  I think it works.

There is no end of content.  You'll be shocked by how many quests you have to delete because they've gone gray before you can get to them.  On top of the adventuring content, you have diplomacy and crafting which are both meaningful and provide entirely different gameplay.  That means that you can find something to do regardless of mood.

Quality of Life is also something that has been given a lot of attention.  Brotherhoods are way cool:  if you have friends that you constantly play with, form a brotherhood so that you share adventuring XP.  That way, if one of you happens to be unable to play at a given time, the others can continue adventuring without outpacing the one who's offline.  Alternatively, you can use the Zero XP Gain "buff" to play content without outleveling it or your friends.  (The stories in some places are really, really cool.  It's nice to be able to freeze your character's progress if you get caught up in a story and want to complete it without trivializing it.)  Other examples include things like the /rope command for when one of your groupmates gets stuck in the geometry somehow.  You can pull him out.  Or the way that harvesting is cooperative with everyone in the group being able to join in even if only one of them has the skill to harvest the node.  The more people helping out, the more it gives and the beter the chances of rare drops.  Very cool.

You can check the game out for cheap at this point.  Amazon, for example, has really inexpensive copies available.  Or you can wait for the trial island to come out, then check the game out for free.  That's coming soon. 

I really do recommend giving it a chance at this point.  Every one of my friends that I've talked into trying it here since my return has wound up subscribing.

 

bcrankshaw

You can't go wrong with Vanguard

It's not a PVP game but for an immersive PVE experience the game is superlative

Hundreds of quests and this vast world to explore

As mentioned the game is vastly more stable due to the efforts of the Devs

Give it a try