EQ2 and Vanguard - Any differences?

Fuerchtegott

Recently I purchased Vanguard for a good price and wanted to give it a try, since I love the combat mechanics and graphics of AoC but the possibilities of character development are almost zero at this point. So, I was looking for something with more possibilities to individualize your char and make it belong more into the world than what my avatar carries on his body.

After having played EQ2 before AoC, I did not want to go back their, since the overall game seemed to be too “stiff”, and the world just too random. EQ2 for me was the mmo equivalent to the pen and paper AD&D Forgotten Realms and the German DSA. Putting in every possible Fantasy creature and race into a world makes that world less characteristic for me and more generic.

Anyway, before I astray too far, I logged in into Vanguard and instantly got the EQ2 feeling. Numerous races, numerous classes, almost all of which have the exact same equivalent in EQ2. Combat mechanics seem to be similar as well (I won’t complain about the difficulties of going back to auto-attack, I just accept it for now).

What struck me most, however, is the stiffness of animations. I know, that Sony is working on a character model update right now, but this will probably not influence character animations. I don’t know whether I have been spoiled by AoC in this regard, but it seems to me that even EQ2 had better animations.

Apart from that, what are the differences between EQ2 and Vanguard? And I am talking about more than the difference in textures or landscape graphics. I know about the diplomacy system in Vanguard, but is that all? And why would anyone care about a generic feeling world background?

tvalentine

the only thing i can think of is Naval battles, i havent played either game, but i'm pretty sure EQ2 doesnt have that.

Thunderous

I will say this, after playing AoC and experiencing a good combat system, it is going to be hard to ever play another MMO that uses turn-based auto-attack.  If AoC offered a redeeming quality it was the combat.  Vanguard combat is pretty poor, in my opinion.  The world is large though and they are supposedly revamping the avatars so you may like it.

The servers were pretty empty last time I played.  It still isn't a very smooth game.  It was always that game for me that could have been cool but just never achieved being worth the time and effort to play it.