It's one month since I returned and my sub is due in two days....

Hoobley

Will I re-sub?

 

Let's see...

 

After a full month of play (I have high play time) here's the score for me;

 

I'm a returning player, but I didn't give it much of a chance first time round for the same reasons most others shunned it. I got a couple of characters into thier 30's, my guild wasn't very active and I didn't feel that the game was going anywhere.

 

Well this time I see people around almost everywhere I go. I don't want to give the impression that it's crowded and there are always 5 groups running each quest or dungeon at the same time, it's not like that, the world is just too large for a start in my opinion and there's just so much to do!

 

After I'd got maybe 5 or 6 characters to level 10+ through the Isle, I finally settled on a Sorcerer, I find it to be a lot of fun.

 

I've just completed the Hunter's League quest line and my adventuring level is 23, I started the epic quest line to get a Unicorn mount and I've done the first quest in the long chain at CIS. I've made some friends and we're going to farm some Plat for faction gear over the next few days. I'm leveling this sphere steadily and there's been no grinding, the quests are pretty interesting and I've met some good people along the way. Vanguard has the best community I've come across in any MMO I've played.

 

I'm fortunate in that I made a reasonable amount of gold in my last stint in the game from crafting which I really enjoy in Vanguard, in other MMOs I don't really bother with it.

 

What makes it fun for me is balancing my stat gains and losses as I craft, questing for new gear to make me better at crafting, doing my tier quests and style quests for each continent and so far it hasn't felt like a grind at all, in fact sometimes I feel that I'm going a bit too fast. Having said that, I'm only level 22 crafting, an Outfitter (Tailoring) and I understand that it becomes quite a grind after about 30 repeating work orders so we'll see how that goes.

 

Diplomacy, now at level 21... I think this is an interesting little side game, I did some research into it, found a decent fansite dedicated to it and built myself a nice little strategy and found out where I should go to parley to get some levels. It's going fairly quickly compared to how it was a year ago and it's something that I go off and do when I want some non stressful interaction. I can't say that it's totally amazing, but it does get quite addictive like many card games do.

 

I recently got my first house! Now this is something that's really got me hooked, I loved my house in SWG, decorating it and whatever. I find the Vanguard housing similar, but not as good as in SWG. You can place everything in your house in Vanguard, but not everything has a graphic, in which case it looks like a little barrel... I would adore it if I could have crafting stations at my house. Maybe they'll add it one day. I find my house a little bit small though I have to say, that's one draw back, but I guess I'll have to be a bit more creative in my home deco to make it feel spacious.

 

The icing on the cake has got to be the world itself, I'm lucky that I can play on the highest settings and get good performance. Performance will drop when I enter a heavily populated area or a densely built up area, but the game doesn't freeze up or anything, my FPS is about halved and I get the occasional brief hitch, but I get that in many other MMOs too, it's not a unique problem to Vanguard.

 

So yeah, about the world, it literally takes my breath away. It's vast, I can see for miles and it's a bit like a living oil painting. I feel like an adventurer in this world and even though where I play is dictated by the level of the mobs there and the quests I can do I don't feel at all restricted. If I can see it, I can go there.

 

I feel that I should have written more negative things to balance this out so it doesn't seem like just another fan boy rant. I think I listed a fair number of downsides above, but honestly I'm just that busy and almost overwhelmed with the amount of things that I can spend my in game time doing and the variety of those things that I just don't seem to be noticing too many downsides to the whole deal.

 

So, the answer is definitely a YES, to the question of continuing my sub, I'm hooked and I'm here to stay.

boojiboy

Originally posted by Joppari


Will I re-sub?
 
Let's see...
 
After a full month of play (I have high play time) here's the score for me;
 
I'm a returning player, but I didn't give it much of a chance first time round for the same reasons most others shunned it. I got a couple of characters into thier 30's, my guild wasn't very active and I didn't feel that the game was going anywhere.
 
Well this time I see people around almost everywhere I go. I don't want to give the impression that it's crowded and there are always 5 groups running each quest or dungeon at the same time, it's not like that, the world is just too large for a start in my opinion and there's just so much to do!
 
After I'd got maybe 5 or 6 characters to level 10+ through the Isle, I finally settled on a Sorcerer, I find it to be a lot of fun.
 
I've just completed the Hunter's League quest line and my adventuring level is 23, I started the epic quest line to get a Unicorn mount and I've done the first quest in the long chain at CIS. I've made some friends and we're going to farm some Plat for faction gear over the next few days. I'm leveling this sphere steadily and there's been no grinding, the quests are pretty interesting and I've met some good people along the way. Vanguard has the best community I've come across in any MMO I've played.
 
I'm fortunate in that I made a reasonable amount of gold in my last stint in the game from crafting which I really enjoy in Vanguard, in other MMOs I don't really bother with it.
 
What makes it fun for me is balancing my stat gains and losses as I craft, questing for new gear to make me better at crafting, doing my tier quests and style quests for each continent and so far it hasn't felt like a grind at all, in fact sometimes I feel that I'm going a bit too fast. Having said that, I'm only level 22 crafting, an Outfitter (Tailoring) and I understand that it becomes quite a grind after about 30 repeating work orders so we'll see how that goes.
 
Diplomacy, now at level 21... I think this is an interesting little side game, I did some research into it, found a decent fansite dedicated to it and built myself a nice little strategy and found out where I should go to parley to get some levels. It's going fairly quickly compared to how it was a year ago and it's something that I go off and do when I want some non stressful interaction. I can't say that it's totally amazing, but it does get quite addictive like many card games do.
 
I recently got my first house! Now this is something that's really got me hooked, I loved my house in SWG, decorating it and whatever. I find the Vanguard housing similar, but not as good as in SWG. You can place everything in your house in Vanguard, but not everything has a graphic, in which case it looks like a little barrel... I would adore it if I could have crafting stations at my house. Maybe they'll add it one day. I find my house a little bit small though I have to say, that's one draw back, but I guess I'll have to be a bit more creative in my home deco to make it feel spacious.
 
The icing on the cake has got to be the world itself, I'm lucky that I can play on the highest settings and get good performance. Performance will drop when I enter a heavily populated area or a densely built up area, but the game doesn't freeze up or anything, my FPS is about halved and I get the occasional brief hitch, but I get that in many other MMOs too, it's not a unique problem to Vanguard.
 
So yeah, about the world, it literally takes my breath away. It's vast, I can see for miles and it's a bit like a living oil painting. I feel like an adventurer in this world and even though where I play is dictated by the level of the mobs there and the quests I can do I don't feel at all restricted. If I can see it, I can go there.
 
I feel that I should have written more negative things to balance this out so it doesn't seem like just another fan boy rant. I think I listed a fair number of downsides above, but honestly I'm just that busy and almost overwhelmed with the amount of things that I can spend my in game time doing and the variety of those things that I just don't seem to be noticing too many downsides to the whole deal.
 
So, the answer is definitely a YES, to the question of continuing my sub, I'm hooked and I'm here to stay.

 

Good run down, sounds like you gave all 3 spheres a good shake.  Glad you are enjoying it!

cybertrucker

Kudos to the OP for a great post and review. Vangaurd is absolutely a great game. One of the best I have played myself even though currently I reside elsewhere...(WAR) which i am also finding enjoyable. even though the PVE in WAR is lackluster.

I can add a flaw though to vanguard to even things out. While the world does indeed look amazing in so many ways. Many of the character graphics and archatectural graphics are pretty lame. The world appears dull and drab. Many will argue that the its like that to be realistic, but i would argue go take a look at Age of Conan for a realistic world that seems alive graphically with attention to detail. This is one flaw Vanguard definately does have. Its like 50/50 half the time your like wow the world looks great. then the other half your like boy tthis is a dull looking town or citie or castle. or wish I didnt look like every other (insert class)  out here.

 

Game play though Vanguard is one of hte most balanced best thought out games around.

Hoobley

Originally posted by cybertrucker



 The world appears dull and drab.

 

Yes I'll agree that some areas do look this way.

 

The proof in that was how long it took me to find a plot to build my house on, there were many areas where I just looked and said to myself 'I wouldn't live here...', and the reason being that it was dull and drab.

 

Having said that, it's a desert.

boojiboy

Originally posted by Joppari

Originally posted by cybertrucker



 The world appears dull and drab.

 

Yes I'll agree that some areas do look this way.

 

The proof in that was how long it took me to find a plot to build my house on, there were many areas where I just looked and said to myself 'I wouldn't live here...', and the reason being that it was dull and drab.

 

Having said that, it's a desert.

 

There are some parts of Thestra, and large desert areas that are muted   However, Kojan is a very vibrant continent.  It realy varies a lot by the part of the world you are in.

objeff

Good post - Good to see other going through what I'm going through..

I started a few months ago and find myself drowning in quests, diplo, crafting, faction, etc etc.... Main goal when I play is to stay focused on what I'm working on..  Very easy to get side tracked on the bijillion other things I have on my characters plate.

Also to take my time... I have no desire to rush through anything.. just taking it slow and enjoy what i'm doing... kind of refreshing.

 

Hoobley

Originally posted by objeff


Good post - Good to see other going through what I'm going through..
I started a few months ago and find myself drowning in quests, diplo, crafting, faction, etc etc.... Main goal when I play is to stay focused on what I'm working on..  Very easy to get side tracked on the bijillion other things I have on my characters plate.
Also to take my time... I have no desire to rush through anything.. just taking it slow and enjoy what i'm doing... kind of refreshing.
 

 

Exactly! You summed it up perfectly.

Galadourn

I'm also thinking of resubing...been playing on and off since last summer, got a Paladin up to mid 39...time to start getting those crafted armor sets.

 

VG needs some love with regard to certain animations and structure graphics, but is otherwise a very decent game. Hope they keep adding things to make it more interesting,

ethion

Arg posts like this make me want to go back to VG full time.... But alas my wife is a hard core eq2 player and probably will want to play eq2 forever.  Whenever I stray she is like log into eq2 I got a group doing expic xxx and we need you.  

Hoobley

Originally posted by ethion


Arg posts like this make me want to go back to VG full time.... But alas my wife is a hard core eq2 player and probably will want to play eq2 forever.  Whenever I stray she is like log into eq2 I got a group doing expic xxx and we need you.  

 

I shamelessly left my wife in another game lol

 

I tried to get her over to Vanguard, but she has her friends and whatever over there.

ethion

Originally posted by Joppari

Originally posted by ethion


Arg posts like this make me want to go back to VG full time.... But alas my wife is a hard core eq2 player and probably will want to play eq2 forever.  Whenever I stray she is like log into eq2 I got a group doing expic xxx and we need you.  

 

I shamelessly left my wife in another game lol

 

I tried to get her over to Vanguard, but she has her friends and whatever over there.

 

I guess wives are universally more tied to that social thing... Mine is the same, I know everyone and don't want to start in a new game....

boojiboy

My wife attempted to kill me today... too much Vanguard......