So far as I can see, the pop hasn't changed a bit since I last played four or five months ago. I still spend most of the time I have available to play rounding up people for groups instead of actually playing the darned game.
Don't be fooled by all of the motivated self-starters with lots and lots of free time that come here ranting about how easy it is to find groups. The game-play experience is going to be completely different for most of us.
Every few months or so you have someone that comes and posts about how Vanguard's population is rising, or that it was a great time to come back. I'm not lying, anybody wanting to dig back pages of the forums will see it. Every few months, never fails, someone says population is going up and that it was the best time to start up again.
Of course every time it's still the same music, the low population ingame makes the game just not as fun as it should/could be. Lack of development makes people rethink the monthly price they are paying when other SOE games are getting developed *and* are either F2P already or going F2P. As for Smed, I remember the past couple of fan faires he hinted something to do with Vanguard and people got all excited. I believe he said something along the lines of we'll see about doing something. Years later, still nothing.
All I can say is I gotta hand it to the diehards. You guys find a way to have fun ingame even though you've been completely, utterly, ignored by the company.
Exactly
It has started to become an amusing hobby of mine to simply debunk them every time they pop up here.
I made those groups... EVERY one, if you expect to log on and see LFG all over the place you will be dissapointed..You have to put in the effort to get something out of vangaurd... and it is certainly worth it. I see folks in /ooc putting up a XX level lfg in ooc, sure that can work sometimes but how about this ?
I check what character i feel like playing, check the level range of that character... and the open the map ( suggest downloading infomap advanced as you can see many dungeons and their level ranges ) you will be overhwelmed by choices.
Then ? Ask in guild, I always get a response most of them are like this:
Hey yea, can i come on my level XX and peeps jump in, we stay together and have a blast... its good stuff but its not going to find you all the time, you ahve to do it yourself.
If we are not full, then its off to global chat for whatever continent i am on and we fill up, meet new people and do the grouping thing...
Why does VG feel so speical right now ? If you like the old school style and a world to immerse yourself in VG is all about that... something that most recent releases sorely lack in my opinion...
It is funny, I wrote VG off more than once in my time and surely with quite a bit of frustration and this not so polished and clunky at times game has now become a diamond in the rough for me and many others..
Now hopefully SOE doesn't do somehting silly with the news they keep talking about and blow it all to hell. lol
I was considering going back to VG since, as you say, there really isn't much out there now that is keeping me interested, and my two mainstays for years, Final Fantasy XI and Lineage 2 have both been ruined, for me, by their respective developers in order to satisfy the "casual crowd".
At least as far as Final Fantasy XI is concerned, I think that move actually hurt the game more than helped it. It had a pretty strong and consistent population prior to them making it faster/more streamlined, and has been continuously losing people since. When you consider that the game's first merge came over seven years into its life cycle (a damn long time when you consider many MMOs are doing their first merge within the first year), and only after they started making everything faster/easier, I think it paints a pretty clear picture. That they've had to do a second merge since then despite everything they're doing to make it more casual friendly to attract more people, I think, brings the picture into sharp focus. For all the time SE stayed the course, catered to their core playerbase and didn't jump on the "casualize it!" bandwagon, they were rewarded with a healthy and consistent playerbase. After they lost that focus and started trying to appeal to casual players, the population began to diminish. I'm sure it's not coincidence.
But I digress.
One thing that keeps me from coming back to VG is that I don't really trust SOE to not screw with the very things that make it appealing to its current playerbase; those who enjoy it for what it is and what it offers right now. In the effort to try and attract more people, along with going F2P, I wouldn't be surprised to see them neuter or otherwise dramatically trivialize a lot of the content and game world, to make it easy enough for the casuals who want to achieve everything they want to in a single 1 hour session, or they consider it "an unbearable grind".
I'll wait it out and see what SOE does to the game first. Then I'll consider going back more seriously.
I made those groups... EVERY one, if you expect to log on and see LFG all over the place you will be dissapointed..You have to put in the effort to get something out of vangaurd... and it is certainly worth it. I see folks in /ooc putting up a XX level lfg in ooc, sure that can work sometimes but how about this ?
I check what character i feel like playing, check the level range of that character... and the open the map ( suggest downloading infomap advanced as you can see many dungeons and their level ranges ) you will be overhwelmed by choices.
Then ? Ask in guild, I always get a response most of them are like this:
Hey yea, can i come on my level XX and peeps jump in, we stay together and have a blast... its good stuff but its not going to find you all the time, you ahve to do it yourself.
If we are not full, then its off to global chat for whatever continent i am on and we fill up, meet new people and do the grouping thing...
Why does VG feel so speical right now ? If you like the old school style and a world to immerse yourself in VG is all about that... something that most recent releases sorely lack in my opinion...
It is funny, I wrote VG off more than once in my time and surely with quite a bit of frustration and this not so polished and clunky at times game has now become a diamond in the rough for me and many others..
Now hopefully SOE doesn't do somehting silly with the news they keep talking about and blow it all to hell. lol
One thing that keeps me from coming back to VG is that I don't really trust SOE to not screw with the very things that make it appealing to its current playerbase; those who enjoy it for what it is and what it offers right now. In the effort to try and attract more people, along with going F2P, I wouldn't be surprised to see them neuter or otherwise dramatically trivialize a lot of the content and game world, to make it easy enough for the casuals who want to achieve everything they want to in a single 1 hour session, or they consider it "an unbearable grind".
I'll wait it out and see what SOE does to the game first. Then I'll consider going back more seriously.
In its current state VG has failed to attract more customers and like it or not but money is vital in development of a MMO. What makes you think that if they stick to their current version of VG it has any chance of somehow magically turning the tables in term of playerbase?
it is just such an illogical thign to blame everythign on casuals when game itself is outdated and suffers from severe lack of support. What you call 'trivializing content' i call it getting up to date.
The current playerbase isn't good enough to keep the game going..check for yourself how often this game gets updated.
Our guild ( tlast night was over 30 online, first time I have seen that since pre-syrim.
I have 4 characters I am actively leveling 30 psi / 32 disc / 21 ranger / 19 dk / 19 shaman and still going strong.
Vol Tuniel this weekend !
And for the record ( and in response to the negative responses )
1. I have made VG work because I make groups, i don't just sit around waiting for them to find me and I have not ONCE, not one time on each of the 4 characters above had a problem finding people. Additionaly, with the gear that is available now ( with relative ease i might add ) it is pretty common to be able to 3-5 man big dungeons. Most of the time my groups fill up fast but others we are content to run with less beacuse well, you can.
2. Population is starting to look like it was in november ( although we are not quite there yet ) so its really doing well. ( this statement along with my other statements around pop are in the context of vanguard, not comparing to other games ). In addition my recent excitement is in comparison to when skyrim was released and then TOR and VG was a graveyard.
3. A few mentioned that VG does not stand up to what is out there ... well for me personally there is northing worth my time other than DDO / Vanguard ... am i missing something ?
SWTOR - lol at linear "McMmo's" (tm)
RIFT - ?? rush to end game and raid, yay !
LOTRO -been there
WoW - been there
eq2 - been there
AOC - went back and tried it and just too themepark-y for me.
( All the future yet to be released MMos that promise something different and are not ? will wait and see what you guys think on those )
VG is different because the journey is the game and it smacks you in the face too, it is not for the fient of heart.
4. this and my other recent posts about VG had one purpose - to let people know there is fun to be had there ( yes still to this day ) and that it is a nice "throwback" experience to what MMos used to be i.e. not "Mc-MMos" (tm).
Look up Twighlyte Song in game we have a ton of new players and would love more !
4. this and my other recent posts about VG had one purpose - to let people know there is fun to be had there ( yes still to this day ) and that it is a nice "throwback" experience to what MMos used to be i.e. not "Mc-MMos" (tm).
Look up Twighlyte Song in game we have a ton of new players and would love more !
LOL Best word to describe 99% of MMO's out there. You should definately TM that!
Like I said in my first post here, I'm not trying to BS anyone by claiming the population is great. Allegria is telling the truth about Twighlyte recruitment however. We've gone from 10+ to 20+ people online most of the day in a few weeks.
Obviously I can't speak for all the other guilds in the game, but if the population hasn't increased at all, some guilds must really be losing members fast atm.
I just returned to the game before Christmas, and I have played one char to 55 since then and a couple of alts to the 30's, so the negative posts about not being able to find groups at all are simply BS. My 55 is a cleric, so not exactly the greatest solo class out there.. A cleric needs people to group with if you want fast leveling.
Ahhhh yes Vanguard, I was a member of the last great guild "After Hours" , I think we got up to 175 members and then people just faded away------ This is a game that should really be free to play because Sony gives it no love, there are still performance issues and I have never met anyone who built a boat-have you?. That being said it does have a very good crafting system and Diplomacy well many people find it boring is certainly different, the combat is challenging and the story line for quests is slighltly above average. The big problem is that the world is huge and feels totally empty. What is Sony waiting for-make this F2P right now! before this game really fades into oblivion, it really does not matter much any more to me as I have found the mmo which satisfies my needs for a great story and that of course is SWTOR
The "zealots" come out of the woodwork every so often to taught their dying games. Exclaiming the newness, revamped, "oh ya gotta come back", it's so awesome now" of their game of choice.
When in truth, it's not really that much better than it was before.
Don't get me wrong, I've always liked V:SoH and what it could of been, but honestly, it's really not that great as it stands now.
It's still a desolate wasteland with many bugs that have not even been corrected since release, along with many other issues to boot.
Like the game for what it could of been...
...but don't believe the hype the stragglers are putting out.
"It's dead Jim"...
I love when you like a game your a "zealot"..lol. Call me strange...I like games that dont have thousands of people running around the forests and every nook and cranny. Makes the wilderness actually feel like...well...wilderness. I am always debating a subscription to Vanguard. Its not the games fault I haven't subscribed..I like it a lot. The crafting system is by far the most original I've seen and the diplomacy system is fun and unique. Both systems should have been copied a thousand times over instead of the same old shite every MMO has now.I also have a weak attention span and too many distractions between all the mmo hopping and xbox 360 multiplayer game hopping. Maybe its a commitment issue..idk.
well i was playing vanguard recently and i didn't notice a humming community..it was as dead as always. What i do notice every now and again is someone making a thread telling us all to come back to vanguard because the population is growing.
My sentiments exactly. This has been a reoccuring vanguard topic for like 4-5 years. I've fallen for it a couple of times but never again, sorry.
Comments
Well, we dont have more players than in the past, but we DO seem to recover now from the hit in december thanks to SWTOR.
How is the PvP?
My gaming blog
consentual duels is all that's left
Exactly
It has started to become an amusing hobby of mine to simply debunk them every time they pop up here.
Got fooled twice earlier and ended up paying monthly fee just to play alone..sorry not falling for this again.
I was considering going back to VG since, as you say, there really isn't much out there now that is keeping me interested, and my two mainstays for years, Final Fantasy XI and Lineage 2 have both been ruined, for me, by their respective developers in order to satisfy the "casual crowd".
At least as far as Final Fantasy XI is concerned, I think that move actually hurt the game more than helped it. It had a pretty strong and consistent population prior to them making it faster/more streamlined, and has been continuously losing people since. When you consider that the game's first merge came over seven years into its life cycle (a damn long time when you consider many MMOs are doing their first merge within the first year), and only after they started making everything faster/easier, I think it paints a pretty clear picture. That they've had to do a second merge since then despite everything they're doing to make it more casual friendly to attract more people, I think, brings the picture into sharp focus. For all the time SE stayed the course, catered to their core playerbase and didn't jump on the "casualize it!" bandwagon, they were rewarded with a healthy and consistent playerbase. After they lost that focus and started trying to appeal to casual players, the population began to diminish. I'm sure it's not coincidence.
But I digress.
One thing that keeps me from coming back to VG is that I don't really trust SOE to not screw with the very things that make it appealing to its current playerbase; those who enjoy it for what it is and what it offers right now. In the effort to try and attract more people, along with going F2P, I wouldn't be surprised to see them neuter or otherwise dramatically trivialize a lot of the content and game world, to make it easy enough for the casuals who want to achieve everything they want to in a single 1 hour session, or they consider it "an unbearable grind".
I'll wait it out and see what SOE does to the game first. Then I'll consider going back more seriously.
In its current state VG has failed to attract more customers and like it or not but money is vital in development of a MMO. What makes you think that if they stick to their current version of VG it has any chance of somehow magically turning the tables in term of playerbase?
it is just such an illogical thign to blame everythign on casuals when game itself is outdated and suffers from severe lack of support. What you call 'trivializing content' i call it getting up to date.
The current playerbase isn't good enough to keep the game going..check for yourself how often this game gets updated.
Our guild ( tlast night was over 30 online, first time I have seen that since pre-syrim.
I have 4 characters I am actively leveling 30 psi / 32 disc / 21 ranger / 19 dk / 19 shaman and still going strong.
Vol Tuniel this weekend !
And for the record ( and in response to the negative responses )
1. I have made VG work because I make groups, i don't just sit around waiting for them to find me and I have not ONCE, not one time on each of the 4 characters above had a problem finding people. Additionaly, with the gear that is available now ( with relative ease i might add ) it is pretty common to be able to 3-5 man big dungeons. Most of the time my groups fill up fast but others we are content to run with less beacuse well, you can.
2. Population is starting to look like it was in november ( although we are not quite there yet ) so its really doing well. ( this statement along with my other statements around pop are in the context of vanguard, not comparing to other games ). In addition my recent excitement is in comparison to when skyrim was released and then TOR and VG was a graveyard.
3. A few mentioned that VG does not stand up to what is out there ... well for me personally there is northing worth my time other than DDO / Vanguard ... am i missing something ?
SWTOR - lol at linear "McMmo's" (tm)
RIFT - ?? rush to end game and raid, yay !
LOTRO -been there
WoW - been there
eq2 - been there
AOC - went back and tried it and just too themepark-y for me.
( All the future yet to be released MMos that promise something different and are not ? will wait and see what you guys think on those )
VG is different because the journey is the game and it smacks you in the face too, it is not for the fient of heart.
4. this and my other recent posts about VG had one purpose - to let people know there is fun to be had there ( yes still to this day ) and that it is a nice "throwback" experience to what MMos used to be i.e. not "Mc-MMos" (tm).
Look up Twighlyte Song in game we have a ton of new players and would love more !
LOL Best word to describe 99% of MMO's out there. You should definately TM that!
Like I said in my first post here, I'm not trying to BS anyone by claiming the population is great. Allegria is telling the truth about Twighlyte recruitment however. We've gone from 10+ to 20+ people online most of the day in a few weeks.
Obviously I can't speak for all the other guilds in the game, but if the population hasn't increased at all, some guilds must really be losing members fast atm.
I just returned to the game before Christmas, and I have played one char to 55 since then and a couple of alts to the 30's, so the negative posts about not being able to find groups at all are simply BS. My 55 is a cleric, so not exactly the greatest solo class out there.. A cleric needs people to group with if you want fast leveling.
Ahhhh yes Vanguard, I was a member of the last great guild "After Hours" , I think we got up to 175 members and then people just faded away------ This is a game that should really be free to play because Sony gives it no love, there are still performance issues and I have never met anyone who built a boat-have you?. That being said it does have a very good crafting system and Diplomacy well many people find it boring is certainly different, the combat is challenging and the story line for quests is slighltly above average. The big problem is that the world is huge and feels totally empty. What is Sony waiting for-make this F2P right now! before this game really fades into oblivion, it really does not matter much any more to me as I have found the mmo which satisfies my needs for a great story and that of course is SWTOR
I love when you like a game your a "zealot"..lol. Call me strange...I like games that dont have thousands of people running around the forests and every nook and cranny. Makes the wilderness actually feel like...well...wilderness. I am always debating a subscription to Vanguard. Its not the games fault I haven't subscribed..I like it a lot. The crafting system is by far the most original I've seen and the diplomacy system is fun and unique. Both systems should have been copied a thousand times over instead of the same old shite every MMO has now.I also have a weak attention span and too many distractions between all the mmo hopping and xbox 360 multiplayer game hopping. Maybe its a commitment issue..idk.
My sentiments exactly. This has been a reoccuring vanguard topic for like 4-5 years. I've fallen for it a couple of times but never again, sorry.