So I'm giving Vanguard a chance, got some questions though :)

Neverdyne

Hey everyone, so I thought I'd give Vanguard a chance; simply got fed up with Rift and its glaring similarities with WoW. Nothing against them, it's just that after 6 years things get boring. Anyways, I have a few questions that would love someone to help me clarify:

 

• 
  I'm usually a hack'n'slash kind of guy, and I also like to viable at soloing. What class do you guys recommend? 
• 
  How is crafting in this game? Is it effective? Or will anything that I make simply get replaced by drops? 
• 
  Can I craft my own armor and weapons? Do I need other crafters to do so or can I be self sufficient? I'm just worried that since I know the population is low it'll be hell to try craft anything if you depend on others. 
• 
  What's end game like? Are there dungeons and raids? Or something else maybe?

Thanks to anyone who responds!

shinobi234

the crafting in game is fun >.> end game yes  its fun but there disc class are fun hardly die :O also dread knight is fun also. but vanguard can be fun and hated so try it out for your self man there alot of haters out there .

DoomsDay01

I will say that I really like the game. If you are going to play, there are a few things to keep in mind. The game has not been updated in a few years and as far as I know, there are no plans on updating it in the future. Crafting requires you to work with other crafters to get parts of your components in order to make your stuff. Keep that in mind also. many classes can solo effectively. If you want one of the most challenging experiences of your life, try playing a blood mage. I don't know if they have dumbed them down or not, but early on, a well played blood mage was a force to be reckoned with. Necros solo great, basically fear kite. Hunters are good, also can be a lot of kiting involved. In some ways, this is what eq2 really should have been like. The dungeons are both awesome to see and annoying to play in.

The dungeons are basically broken up into level areas so you might fight one part of the dungeon, come back in 5 levels and fight the next part of it and so on. However, the annoying part is having to fight through that crap that you were beating up those 5 levels before hand.

Anyways, hope that helps some.

Ardwulf

Glad to see more new folks coming in!  In answer to your questions:

1)  Dread Knights and Paladins are good soloers, as are Rangers if you don't mind kiting.  Blood Mages are said to be extremely strong, but I've never gotten one high enough to say from personal experience.  far as soloing in general goes, while there is plenty of solo content and a huge world to explore, generally speaking, Vanguard is at its best in dungeons.  A few of these are soloable, but most are tuned to small or full groups, and are next to impossible to solo at anything like level.  ALL are open-world.

The population is fairly low, so you'll need to be proactive when looking for groups, but it's trivial to get one together if you use the social tool and send out tells.  Unlike many MMOs the population in Vanguard is not massively topheavy at the level cap - there will be plenty of people on in your level range, whatever it is.



2)  Crafting is useful.  Crafting is a viable progression path all on its own in Vanguard.  You will make stuff that is as good as anything you can get aside from dungeon and raid stuff. It's way more complicated than, say, WoW crafting, if you're used to that, but also much more flexible; you can, up to a point, design your own items.  The professions are somewhat interdependent, but you should certainly be able to do weapons and armor.

3)   The number of dungeons is huge.  As I pointed out in another thread, even the small group mini-dungeon at the end of the Isle of Dawn (the newish starter area) is comparable in size, complexity and depth to most WoW dungeons, and a popular midlevel dungeon like Trengal Keep (levels 22-30) dwarfs that place.  There are raids for the level 50-55 characters.  Two, but Vanguard raids are humongous, many-winged affairs, and even now most guilds have yet to finish all the content.

Progression is pretty slow, but I find that appealing, and the population is supportive of play all across the level range, not just at the top.  There's years and years fo content to play through.

RabbiFang

I've also decided to give it a try. I just don't want to log in to a totally dead world.

Ardwulf

It's not.  Like I said, the population is small, and the world is huge so it can appear empty, but there are plenty of people around.  Use the social tool and you will find groups, and there are a number of very strong, large, active guilds.

rounner

You can solo every class except rogue. Some of them have flat spots where you are waiting to learn a new spell or something. I recommend checking each of them out. Some take until around level 20 to flourish though, I dont know what to tell you in a few lines without listing them all. You will level much more slowly than rift.

Crafted gear is viable for the entire game including end game. You dont particularily need to collaborate but sometimes do. Keeping up your crafting to match your pve level isnt likely. Its not like wow or rift, you will take many months of solid crafting to get to high level.

People still playing are keen to be sociable due to the low pop. If you join a guild, you will be able to run end game raids I'm sure.There is a lot of end game content before you get up to raiding which can be done in small groups.

F2Pelerin118

I'm coming back to Vanguard, I haven't played since 2008-ish. It was my first real foray into an MMORPG and I've missed it, I fired up my old account and I'll start playing tomorrow - It was nice to see I got the free 45 days.

This will give me a good chance to get involved again, it's nice to see people interested in playing/coming back to VG.

Slapshot1188

I hopped back in casually with the free 45 days.  The game has been pretty fun.  A few friends and I decided to start from scratch so we have leveled characters into the high teens now (I'm just about o hit 20 and get my Chaos Volley spell).  Vanguard has a "Brotherhood" function which has let the 5 of us share XP even when some are offline, so no one has fallen behind.  This is a neat feature which probably doesn't make sense from an RPG perspective but has certainly let all of us stay close in level and thus have incentive to login.

 

Also, there is a large newbie friendly guild (though the have more vets than new players) called Twighlyte Song.  Look them up in the Social Tab and send a tell to one of the listed recruiters.  Freindly folks willing to help explain things.  At night when I play there are around 25-35 members online.

Bladestrom

HI, I joined game last week and enjoying it.  As per other posts, my tips for beginers would be:

1. Go on american server even if you are in euro.

2.  Do the isle of Dawn starting area, and get the Bracelet, nice motivation.

3 Join the guild mentioned above, good to have a community to log on with.

4. When you get to the mainland, tak your time and enjoy the exploration experience and dont try and power level or ven watch xp too much, the games greatest asset is it's huge world.