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A few Questions.
the_nackster
Member Posts: 23
Ive been considering Vanguard as my next mmo for a while but I need the following questions answered first.
1. What is the player housing really like? Is it anything like the Ultima Online system?
2. Ships, what are their purpose? Are they on predefined paths or do you have the freedom to go sailing wherever you want?
3. And Finally How fun is crafting? Is it more than just add X to X and click make?
Comments
1) Nowhere near UO. There are many different blueprints and racial appeariances of houses. But they are just there to have them. Well, you can place storage chests into them. There is furniture and crafters are able to make rugs and tables and stuff.
2) The ships have no purpose. There are islands far offshore and i guess the plan was to need boats to do the dungeons on those islands. But the dungeons didnt make it into release. The DEVs are holding back the galleons until there is a purpose for them. There are no rails. There is a system of wind direction but since launch there is always wind from the west. If the wind would change you would need to cruise. The small sloops cant go into waters that are deeper the 250m. Else there are no restrictions.
3) If it is fun is in the eye of the beholder. It is quite some effort. Its not click-make. It requires as much time to level up as adventuring. There are also crafter quests and you need, like adventurers, equipment like cloths, jewels, bags and tools to be a successful crafter. You have to replace them like a adventuerer his armor and weapons while leveling up. There are racial crafter quests, there are proffession quests and tier quests. It is as almost as much efford as leveling up a adventuer class. Thats why some probably wouldnt call it fun.
Hmm you dont sound very satisfied. What is the reason I should play? These were the main features I was interested in but you just kind of killed them :X
Well houses are just...houses. There are noninstanced plots throughout the world, you buy your plot and have a very wide variety in terms of what your house can look like. Then you can fill it with whatever your heart desires. Its much like DAoC housing. There are also guild halls, a huge investment.
Ships are about to get some purposes added to them. As of now, you can go anywhere you want with ships, sometimes making it much easier to get around, but mostly now they are fluff. As with many features, the islands that needed boats don't really have much purpose yet. However, as of last month or so, galleons (ship equivilent to guild halls) that hold massive amounts of people, are done. They're being held back for a little bit long so that ships have a purpose. When they release there will come with fishing, and a greater "purpose" that the devs are cruely keeping quiet for a surprise.
Crafting is a major deal in Vanguard. It is an entire sphere all in itself. Its not just a side thing to do while you wait for your group to rest. There are 50 levels and it is difficult to get through them. There is a vast assortment of things necessary for crafting and harvesting. I don't dabble in it too much, but its sort of a game in itself. Its probably the deepest/most well made crafting system since SWG.
Darkfall Travelogues!
houses are good and nice to have
you build a lot and start to build it with bricks and stuff you purchase from other players... there is also a good amount of furniture to chose from, here a good selection
http://vghome.sector-5.de/
there are also different tiers of houses (from the small hut to 2 floor houses) and they come in different styles depending on the continent you build them
most of the lots are in "housing areas" and they come with different prices and upkeep, generally lots near to big town and to high level areas have higher price than "remote ones".
main actual benefit of the houses is that they give you additional storage and you get a recall spell to your house.
you cant put your soulbound items inside houses (even if i heard it was going to change) and you can't drop "any item" and make it appear in your house (as in SWG), thes 2 issues are kina a limit (at least for people who like SWG housing :P) but also as you see there are plenty of items to fournish your hose (have a guildi who made a nice "gnome cave" theme house for example
)
boats are nice, but have a problem... they are kinda slow and expensive (as they are playermade) so they lost their use when griffon renters and rifts (teleports) where introduced, these are way faster way of travel so they are prefered by most of the players.
still this doesnt mean that you cant go around exploring with your boat or even travel with them, if you dont like to use rented flying mounts then boats are a viable way to travel... you can even use some of them to travel from a continent to another, even here there are some different ship styles and colors.
devs are also implementing pc galeons (actually npc ones are alredy in game and travel from a continent to another) so it was alredy stated that there will be more content for them in the future
(crossing fingers :P)
ah all boats can carry other players too
crafting is nice and i agree that after SWG it is probably the best one around, is not as near as complex as the old SWG system (that was awesome) but is solid... then you have to like crafting... i have a friend that really like it, other that stay away from it.
the only big cons here is that, for some crafting classes and in some tiers, is a bit difficult to sell stuff as "recently" looted drops where boosted by a good margin making crafting ones less appealing than they used to be (but as said it depends by class)
He didn't say he was or wasn't satisfied with the game at all, he just answered your question with no fanboi hype attached to it.
Housing is non-instanced somewhat similar to SWG but on plots in designated areas. Housing is just something to have if you like that sort of thing in VG. You can put stuff in it, use it for storage, set it as a guild meeting point or put some crafting tables in it. Whatever you want. Its better then most but not fully realized IMHO either.
Boats are free roaming but as of yet, no there is nothing to do with them other then sail around for the heck of it. I imagine they are going to add something down the road for the ships but no news yet. There is a nice selection by race / continent but right now its just eye candy.
Crafting - I hate crafting but I always give it a try. If you are looking for a crafting system that is a full character profession in a game, VG has it. It is probably one of the best developed that I have run across. Is it perfect? nope. It doesn't help that the game does NOT have the population to support an actual crafter based economy and loot overshadows the rich and complex system they took the trouble of designing.
Its not a perfect game by a long shot but what are your alternitives if you like this style of MMO, WAR?...NOT
VG has some other things to offer outside of that but since its already "killed" for you, no point in writing about it.
On boats they are going to be adding fishing to the game at some point not to far off. This is intended to give boats more purpose and to be an alternative fun activity. Thats when they will be turning on Galleons. I'm guessing fishing will have something to do with water depth making the larger ships more useful.
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Ethion
Thank you everyone for you input. Im going to take the risk and give it a try. I dont do the whole "trial" thing, so im going to buy the actual game.
Haha, no. I am playing since launch. I just answered your questions. There is no way to have a shop in your house or other funtions available in UO. Many players ask for a garden in front of their house, but the DEV team is small and has other problems. Still, if you like to build one on a sunny island and like to furniture it you can do. But they have no purpose in terms of game mechanics. Same for boats. I still use mine to travel. But again no purpose in terms of game mechanics.
Only the guild castles have a purpose. They offer storage and there are a few items you can put in which give a buff to the whole guild.
I am rather casual and i am satisfied. The game offers many "timesinks". Crafting is deep, diplomacy is sometimes very interessting. I rarely use spoiler sites and the game is still able to suprise me. Just a few days a go i found a hut in the thestran mountains with a blind quest giver inside. The game offers as much non-comabt gamerplay as combat gameplay. This is why i like the game. I dont feel pressure to do something. I log on and decide what would be fun today. Crafting or harvesting or adventuring or diplomacy or just casting cloudwalk and try to climb a huge mountain ?
Haha, no. I am playing since launch. I just answered your questions. There is no way to have a shop in your house or other funtions available in UO. Many players ask for a garden in front of their house, but the DEV team is small and has other problems. Still, if you like to build one on a sunny island and like to furniture it you can do. But they have no purpose in terms of game mechanics. Same for boats. I still use mine to travel. But again no purpose in terms of game mechanics.
Only the guild castles have a purpose. They offer storage and there are a few items you can put in which give a buff to the whole guild.
I am rather casual and i am satisfied. The game offers many "timesinks". Crafting is deep, diplomacy is sometimes very interessting. I rarely use spoiler sites and the game is still able to suprise me. Just a few days a go i found a hut in the thestran mountains with a blind quest giver inside. The game offers as much non-comabt gamerplay as combat gameplay. This is why i like the game. I dont feel pressure to do something. I log on and decide what would be fun today. Crafting or harvesting or adventuring or diplomacy or just casting cloudwalk and try to climb a huge mountain ?
I play Vanguard and UO and they are both very different games to a certain degree.
For me to describe Vanguard and why you should play it these are the following factors that make it the best PVE game on the market
1. Hundreds of unique places to explore with there own lore ...really exciting if you like adventuring.From the Minotaurs of Zanaj to the island kingdoms of the amphibious Xenn horrors the game is massive .
2.Excellent and exciting quests and many of them .From your average grind and "get an apple " to detailed quests that have ten parts ...like the Earing Quest in Vol Tuniel or the challenging Griffin Quest
3. Freedom to travel and fly where ever you want
4.Certain parts of the game you really need to plan and organize a good group to be able to succeed ..like Greystone Keep
5.The character class I enjoy and the vast race choice gives you many options in deciding what suits you
6.Finally the community is really helpful and I've met some brilliant people who I adventure with .Makes a difference
"after the time of dice came the day of mice "