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Vanguard NDA lifted: trolls/haters were WRONG!
anarchyart
Member Posts: 5,378
Yes the Vanguard NDA is officially lifted. I have been in beta for months biting my tongue not able to fire back at all the trolls and haters and let me say now you were WRONG!!!!
The graphics and artwork are so stunning as to be quite unbelievable. Combat is ball bustingly awesome and quests up the ying yang. Such a huge world and so much to do you will never be bored. The UI looks like WoW and the graphics are out of this world good. You can solo all you want but for some quests and dungeons you will really need a group. You can afford a horse at like level 8 (12 silver) and you can recall to your bind point once an hour.
Lots of good drops and upgrades all the time, uber ones are less frequent, but as you level up you will keep getting drops that are upgrades. The armors and weapons are soooo kewl looking and so are the spell effects.
Having an up to date rig will be a blessing, but there are several tweak threads on the beta performance forum that will help tremendously.
My system:
2 gigs 333 ram
Radeon X800 pro 256mb card
AMD athlon 1.93 ghz CPU
With this system and with "Morts game tweaks" thread, I can play Vanguard on highest quality!!!! It looks freaking amazing and I get about 30 fps in the wilderness and 15 fps in town. I cannot express how beautiful the world of telon is, you really have to see it for yourself!!!!
Good luck all, see you in game! 
Comments
Saw the forums and its 5.0 so i guess they have :S Weird when the devs said it wasnt going open beta today or tomoz.
Umm, that's MY system and I run it on HIGHEST QUALITY. Visit Morts Game Tweaks thread under the performance section for the tweaks. They are basic Unreal engine tweaks and yes, I play on highest quality and it looks sooooo sweeeeeeet.
Weird i have:
1100mhz ddr2 corsair ram
x1950xtx 512mb
core 2 duo 6700
I can run on highest quality but its very stuttery and only about 40-50FPS and person on vanguard forums said he had a 8800gtx and got 30
I too was in beta, I uninstalled the game after a few days because the frame rate was unacceptable, seriously. I can play anything out there without problems, I ran EQ2 with a decent FPS and had the graphics settings up pretty high. Aside from that, here are my thoughts:
- Graphics: For the resources it takes up I'm really disappointed in this regard, it doesn't look that good, and it's artistically uninspired IMO... the world looks generic most of the time.
- Gameplay: Nothing new, been there, done that a hundred times before... only it was more fun in those other games.I really don't need to say anything else. Obviously I didn't get to experience the high end content but if they can't even make the first few levels interesting I wouldn't have high hopes for "end game" content.
PvP: Laughable. A few weeks back they plopped up a PvP beta server and Vanguard PvP was born. It's mindless ganking with absolutely no point to it at all, so if you like PvP with even less purpose than WOW then this is your game.
The one thing I did like is how bards can "compose"(well kinda) their own songs.
thanks!
Just thought I'd throw in my experiences with performance.
I tried the beta out a while back when I had my old PC (amd 2400xp, 1gig ram, geforce 6800GT OC). I despised the game, and the way it ran, even on the lowest settings. Granted the PC was old, it could still run the latest games, even Oblivion, well enough to play and have them look great. The way the game ran, completely turned me off. Or so I thought.....
Recently I built a new PC. Core 2 Duo 6600 oc'd to 2.9ghz, 2gig ram, geforce 7950gx2, and a fatal1ty x-fi sound card. I am now able to run Vanguard with MAX settings, and get an average of 50fps outdoors, and 25-35 in cities (Khal being the only one I've been to yet).
As far as I understand it, the game is STILL being optomized to run on lower systems. The fixes should go a long way to make it playable on older PC's, but I would recommend that you expect the performance your system is rated for. If you have a 3 year old PC, and you're trying to play the latest games, then you're just asking for problems.
I also just wanted to add....the game looks INCREDIBLE! It's on par with EQ2 for graphics. You can actually get a sense of vertigo when looking over some cliffs. I haven't played enough of the game yet to give an opinion of gameplay, but as far as graphics and performance are concerned, I'm completely satisfied. Now, character models......that's an entirely different story lol.
*edit* --- I did not do any of the Mort's tweaks with my new system, and haven't touched the .ini file.
The official forums seem to be down at the moment. However, I pasted the thread and sent it to a few people the other day, so when I get home, I will post Morts Game Tweaks in full in the Vanguard section of this site!
Check there in a couple of hourse and it will be there, I promise.
Awesome.
I've been in closed beta for a while, and my specs are:
... and it's happily running on a 'balanced' setting, which looks absolutely amazing. The only times I encounter lag is in populated towns, which right now is the Vulmane town. I've also been told that many diagnostic processes are run whilst playing in beta, which is a big contributing factor to in-game performance.
I'll be playing it for sure.
No longer visiting MMORPG.com.
You need to do some game tweaks. Tweaking the .ini file really helps. I gained about 12 fps, changing the game from unplayable to downright amazing. I know how it was without them, very laggy and frustrating. Check the Vanguard section in a few hours and I am going to post Morts Game Tweaks thread there. Oh you uninstalled? That's a shame.
The game now run ok, no major issue but i don't like the art of graphism, but i didn't like eq 2 graphics either so that may explain it, i had this feeling of empty big place with the usual camp of mob here and there or dungeon entrance here and there, animation is weird to me and i have this feeling of playing a game in motion capture from 90's, overall moves and special moves aren't that bad but it, well feel not natural, and i never had this feeling of being immersed into this world, i would say its not looking alive.
Everything or well most part of the game feel outdated already, gfx, sound, quest, ui, i find more quality and modernity in the today eq 2 than Vanguard, there is some innovation tho like the politician part of the game, but it get odd after a while.
My final guess is the concept of Vanguard has already been used before, used nowday and sadly will be used again in the future, i just seen enough of Eq clone, let it die already. amen to our old beloved Everquest but this stygmata of Everquest have to stop one day.
Vanguard offer nothing new, but that being said it should have some quality anyway for people wanting to play something else, i think i am just (as well of many others) completely tired of this genre.
Everquest as been cloned yet again, have fun.
All lies!
My views on the game, played since beta 3;
- Logged in
- character creation was poor and characters looked ugly + Women butts r saggy and so are their tits.
- Starting area was boring so went to another race and was boring, in beta4 tried out all the races and their starting areas were all boring.
- diplomacy is repetitive and seems too much of a gimmicky mini game.
- Harvesting and crafting trainers were bugged for me so cudnt do that
- many of the starting quests were bugged
- Quests were pretty boring and unispired
- Animations were poor and the graphics were bland and had bad performance, my system ^
- Sounds were pretty poor and overused, like sound of hitting metal armor was the same as hitting a rock.
- Armor all looks the same for you level, specially on the quests.
- maps were crap and the game doesnt give u much info on whats what.
- I equiped a weapon but was just shwoing as my hand hitting
I dunno all in all i had a bad unfun buggy time and will not be buying at release.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis
my friends in closed beta and he says its pretty much EQ1 with prettier graphics. Its SoE's attempt at perfecting an old game, and most people aren't buying it...
Still waiting for AoC
WHAT they're attempting im not sure based on reports that are surfacing now that nda has been lifted. will be trying open beta myself but my expectations are very low at this point.
Confirmation it has indeed lifted.
Anyway, good to hear some positive impressions after so many negative leaks. Amazed the NDA has been dropped now, sounds like it can't be far from a planned release.
Been in the beta for 4 months and I love this game.
Sure it has bugs, sure beta 5 came a bit to soon but it will do just fine.
Now playing: VG (after a long break from MMORPGS)
Played for more than a month: Darkfall online, Vanguard SOH, Everquest, Horizons, WoW, SWG, Everquest II, Eve
• Some Freedoms you have in Vanguard and what we mean by Freedom
o Huge visually seamless world
o Ships not seen in this manner since UO
o Flying Mounts
o Mounts in general, with some variety and equipment that affects them
o Housing
o Ability to craft your own ships, houses, and a myriad of other items
o Ability to solo, play in a group, or raid
o Ability to adventure, craft, or experience diplomacy
• We are NOT selling: I am free to do whatever I want. I am free to
ruin the economy, I am free to ruin someone else's play experience, we
are not a giant sandbox for the player to do whatever they wish to
anyone they wish.
• We put limitations in the game to protect the game – we are the
stewards of this game – the long term health of the game is more
important than the short term happiness of the player.
• We are in beta and constantly trying things out. We respectfully
remind you that what you see in the game is not the final shipped
product. We reserve the right to modify the game at any point in time
– and it will be much more common in beta.
• Please try to be understanding of this; in fact, we think that the
ability to evolve and modify a game post launch is one of the most
appealing things about massively multiplayer games.
MINI MAP
• The purpose of our mini map is:
o To help facilitate tracking of NPCs, harvesting resources etc
o To help make the process of using the travel journal more
streamlined and easy to use.
• We do not plan to support mini-maps in dungeons, though we may allow
players to attach their own maps to those at some point in the future
• You are free to toggle the mini map off if you do not desire to use it.
• There will be spoiler sites no matter what we at Sigil do – that is
also your choice to use them. We don't want to alienate the average
player however.
• We are not putting a mini map in to destroy exploration in the game world.
• There are additional tweaks that need to be made to our current mini
map and we will continue to work with it in beta.
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
• A more in depth character customization system that is unique to
Vanguard will be implemented shortly after launch. We chose to push
this post ship because we want to give it the attention it deserves.
• We currently have an attribute allocation system, some people like
this system, others dislike it. It is unlikely to change dramatically
at this point in time. If you have suggestions for /tweaks/ to the
current system, please post them.
• As we continue to tweak the classes we will introduce more of the
unique dropped / learned in the world abilities. Please keep in mind
that as we are in flux with classes, creating content around abilities
that are changing is not time efficient.
TLC
• We will be experimenting with some twists on TLC in the near future.
At least one post has outlined the possible system we will test in the
near future.
• TLC has /always/ been a part of the Vision of Vanguard – anyone
claiming that we "lied" about TLC needs to reassess the situation
TAGGING OF MOBS
• Mob tagging is simply a way of assessing kill credit for the NPC we
do not LOCK the NPC like other games do
o We have several issues to fix with mob tagging and Amanda Tarr has
made several posts describing those fixes that will be made in the
near future
• Everyone has to understand that mob tagging does not "defeat kill
stealing". It does move the problem around a bit. We feel that with
the tuning knobs we now have in place that we can get our tagging
solution to a point where we at Sigil are happy with its final
implementation.
BOE / No Drop
• BOE and No Drop will both exist in Vanguard to varying degrees
o Both of these help keep certain items from entering, or re-entering
the economy and helps slow mudflation. It has always been our goal to
help slow the rate of mudflation in this game because of our emphasis
on longevity and the sense of "home".
o Please keep in mind that many of us at Sigil do not like these
mechanics as /players/ but we are the stewards of the game's long term
health.
o We have discussed a few ideas internally that may help us lessen the
restrictions of BOE and No Drop. Some of these ideas may or may not
make it in by launch. We are committed to making the best game we
possibly can and if other solutions take more time to implement they
will be put in after launch.
• Several key item sinks are currently missing from the game:
Disassembly and the Altar Sacrifice system
o Once these systems are in place we must re-evaluate the amount of
BOE and No Drop gear in the game
• Certain types of items are entering the world at a far greater rate
than we desire to ship with. This will take time, but we are confident
that we can have a workable system in place prior to launch. We need
your feedback and data to help us make the best drop rate system
possible.
DUNGEONS
• Caves, Caves, Caves
o Many of the "caves" in the game are mini dungeons, not what we
consider premier experiences.
? There will be caves in Vanguard, but there are also more unique
locations such as: The Flower Palace, Temple of Kronus, Pantheon of
the Ancients, Vol Tuniel, Skawlra Rock, Ksaravi Gulch, Temporal
Fortress of the Riftseekers, Magi Hold, Tilraki, Ruins of Trengal
Keep, Falgarholm, Dargun's Tomb, Old Targonor, Ancient Port Warehouse,
The City of Brass, Stiirhad, Ninja School, Citadel of the Vanquished,
The Lost Mordebi Empire, Tricksters Haven, Serpent of Sihari, Fortress
Gulgethor, Gardens of Nirashuri, Ulvari, Khenvor, The Lair of Wonders,
The Tomb of Lord Tsang, Fallen Lyceum of Ingolas, Redcap Storehouse,
Hillsbury Manor and The Lair of the Drake Riders – there are others,
but those do contain some elements of "caves or natural areas", so I
wont list those. (Some of the names above are working in house titles,
not what they will be called on release)
• Please end the "Camp Vs Crawl" Debates
o There is nothing stopping anyone from camping in a location in a
dungeon right now if they so choose, sure some named NPCs might spawn
in different locations, but nothing is stopping you from doing it.
There is also nothing stopping you from crawling through a dungeon at
the moment.
o Certain quests require you to crawl to a location in a dungeon – if
you do not want to do those quests, don't crawl. There are some
encounter routes / adventures that require you to crawl. If you are
not interested in experiencing that content, don't crawl.
• Respawn Rates
o Respawn rates in some dungeons are certainly too high, we need to
evaluate these areas and tweak things. Unfortunately as with
everything this takes time. The design team is crunching trying to get
more content in the game. A thread regarding respawn rates in
dungeons, specific examples and feedback would be VERY helpful in this
process.
• Not Enough Named in Dungeons
o I'm wondering if part of the problem is that not everyone knows
where all the named NPCs spawn yet – and people are not exploring and
finding them because…
o I just counted the number of named NPCs in Trengal Keep – what we
consider a "premier" area – there are 32
o Ksaravi Gulch has 37
o Temple of Dailuk has around 18
o A small location like the Hive, which is more of a side stop from a
designers perspective has 8 different named NPCs
• Not Enough Events or "Life" to the dungeons
o We would love to spend more time on each individual dungeon making
it more special and more gimmicky – however there is the reality of a
massive world to fill with content and a limited number of people to
do it. There are events in some of the dungeons, not all of them, it
is not very time efficient to add a "super special event" to a level
10 mini dungeon that people do not spend all that much time in. We
must constantly balance between quality and quantity. It is a hard
line to walk – and sometimes we step on the wrong side of the line.
THE HOOK
• We read lots of different posts about "The Hook" but no one ever
nails it. The hook is different for all players, one solution doesn't
fit everyone. For some people it's challenging combat, for another
person its interesting storylines, for another its having meeting
places where they can chat with friends.
o Do we want to improve in these areas that people complain about?
Yes, obviously. However please be understanding, we have limited time
and we cannot please everyone. It feels as though people treat this
game as the messiah, and if it does not live up to their over inflated
expectations then they post that it is "doomed to failure and not
fun".
o We do have plans to help bring some more of these "hook" elements
into the game, polish, carrots, and more things to do. Excitement at
the early levels is high on our radar, but remember, it takes time and
we need good solid feedback – not generalizations. Some of these
"sticky" elements may even come after ship – remember we do want to
have a game that keeps you playing for years, not months.
DEATH PENALTY / ALTARS
• Altars are not going away stop asking for that "system" to be scrapped
o We have additional plans to use the altars for our sacrifice system,
they are not going to be removed
• There is another death penalty test that may be implemented in the
near future, if not, we will continue to tweak the penalty we have
right now until we are happy with it.
REGEN AND DOWNTIME
• Regen and Downtime is not where we want it right now – this is a known issue
o This is a complex issue and there is no "quick fix" to it. Ability
Costing, Combat Difficulty, and a host of other factors need to be
straightened out in order to get a good grasp on downtime. We need to
assign an internal resource or set of resources to getting this where
we want it to be.
o This will be adjusted prior to launch – we will not launch the game
with our current regeneration rates.
o We need very specific feedback on downtime at different levels for
different classes. We will have a focus test and post regarding this
in the near future.
QUESTS
• Quests, Tasks, Call them What you Will
o Quite simply put, if you are not a fan of the quests put into
Vangaurd do not do them. At the low levels quests are certainly a huge
boost in exp, but as you increase in level their ratio of reward drops
off.
o We will not be removing quests from the game as that sort of content
does support a huge portion of the player base.
o Do we desire to have more complex in depth quests? Absolutely, we do
– but players often overlook two huge factors in quest design: Time
and Limitations. Right now we are focusing on "bang for your buck"
quests that help guide players to certain locations in the world.
Honestly I cannot say when we will have time to focus on some more in
depth ultra elaborate quests – those take a LOT of time to create and
implement. There are a few examples of more in depth quests in the
game right now, but the world is not brimming with them. By launch,
and after launch, there will be more quests than there are right now.
MARKET SYSTEM
• We will have continental or regional markets in the game fairly soon.
o We wish to help facilitate player trade. Having a system similar to
this is somewhat of a standard in MMO's today. While many of us
enjoyed standing in North Freeport or the Commons shouting about our
wares over and over, those times are mostly gone.
o A regional economy is still an important part of our vision. Tools
like the market are not intended to remove regional economy or player
to player trade. As time permits we will continue to add more flavored
and regionalized loot. Our world loot system is currently continental
based – but we would like to make things even further regionalized in
the future. Some changes to this will likely come after launch.
MEANINGFUL LOOT / DROP RATES
• We need to evaluate our current world loot drop rates and make adjustments
o There is nothing else to really say about this, our drop rates are
not where we want them to be by launch, world loot appears to be far
to prevalent. As with many other things in this post, it takes time,
we are in the process of identifying the internal resources to assign
to fixing the problems we currently have.
• Magical Vs Non Magical Gear at low levels
o This is something we are having a few discussions about internally,
but please understand, just because an item has statistics doesn't
mean its "good". Just giving out mundane items for the first ten
levels doesn't do much of anything for non melee classes. That said, I
reiterate, we are discussing some changes internally.
• Item Stats
o Vanguard has its own number scale. Please get used to it. Those of
you that played EQ are used to EQ's number scale, the WoW players the
WoW scale, and everyone else that plays another game that scale.
o As for stats having an effect on combat, they do have effects, its
something we can look at yet again, but statistics do matter – they
matter more so than statistic do in some other games, including
EverQuest when we were working on it.
o We need to investigate how players are reaching the soft caps (if
they even are) and make adjustments to the loot types given out by
what we designers consider LIE, SUB, and BOS mobs. Risk Vs Reward /
Time Vs Reward is pretty hard to balance with the number of designers
we have working concurrently. We will strive to make things more
consistent and in line.
• Living in the Past
o We are not making EQ1, please do not expect itemization exactly like
EQ1. That game has already been made and is still out there. We have
posted before that having 10 or 20 level gaps where there are no item
upgrades it not acceptable for Vanguard.
COMBAT DIFFICULTY AND CHALLENGE, TACTICS
• Tactics exist within the classes now. We are continuing to add the
NPC side of things, and will continue to. We have a list and a level
breakdown, and need to get more of this into the game. Suffice it to
say, we are aware of some of the issues that are within our control to
modify and are working to address them.
• It would be helpful if you posted specific tactics comparisons from
other games, examples of tactics with similar classes or experiences
would be useful in these discussions. Are some of you comparing level
50+ combat in other MMOs to a level 10 experience in Vanguard? Solo
tactics and group tactics are also two separate things.
• How would YOU the player like a combat to play out differently? What
are you comparing us to? Please be very specific.
SOLO VS GROUP AND DIFFICULTY OF SOLO COMBAT TO EASY
• We will continue to tweak the solo and group experiences. That said,
we are allowing every class to solo if they choose – again its one of
their freedoms. There is a tier of mobs dedicated to it and most of
the outside world allows for soloing. It will receive tweaks, but keep
in mind that very different classes such as the Cleric, the Warrior,
and the Sorcerer, need to be able to solo. The reward scheme between
solo and group needs to be reevaluated and tweaked as well.
• We feel that we need to up the difficulty of solo gameplay and make
it more meaningful at low levels. Everyone I have talked to recently
that is playing through the new Martok etc are simply annihilating the
monsters and the game is feeling like a grind to them. That is not our
intent. Without some sense of risk, everything you do has no sense of
accomplishment. We are working to correct this, but yes, you guessed
it, it will take time to get right.
• We feel that we do not currently address the transition between solo
play and group play well enough. We will be working to address duoing
and small groups in the future.
CLASS DIFFERENTIATION
• The classes in Vanguard continue to be tweaked and modified to make
them even more different. Please keep in mind, we have a very large
number of classes, and some will be similar in some respects. That
said, we feel that in a number of cases that it is player /perception/
because we said "Archetype" at one point in time that all classes that
fill a role play the same
• When we log in and talk to players that play various classes in the
same archetype, they tell us that the classes play differently
o Please avoid "jumping on the bandwagon" of something when you are
not educated regarding it
LORE
• Lore – Yes, we want to have more apparent lore for the players to experience
o With that said, please stop over exaggerating the amount of lore in
games you have played in the past. Some of us wrote lore for other
games, most of the "lore" was held by the player base, not expressed
by the NPCs in the game world. Keep in mind that Vanguard has also
been built from the ground up and cannot draw from a huge stockpile of
pre-existing peripheral lore.
o There are things we need to do to help make some of the storylines
come to life – getting faction where it needs to be helps implicitly
tell a story, but expecting "epic quests per chunk" is an unrealistic
expectation.
o If there are things you would like to see better explained or
expressed, please let us know and we'll see where we can add the
flavor that makes up lore in games.
AES / CAMPING VS CRAWLING
• AES was over hyped prior to its internal implementation – that's
being up front
o It takes a lot longer to implement some of the things we talked
about in the past than we realized and some of these plans have been
scaled back
o We will continue to endeavor to get more dynamic content into our
dungeons and play areas, but I feel that this has been over promised,
and I admit we are under delivering right now – however, it is our
intent to continue to add content to the world with team members
assigned to live team tasks.
o We will continue to improve our tools allowing us to create this
type of content faster. Also keep in mind that the longer designers
use the tools available to them the more efficient they become. As
time passes, more and more of this type of content will exist – it
will not appear overnight.
THIRD GENERATION
• We have said time and again that Third Generation has to do with
time period. Do a search on these very forums or our FAQ.
o The time period means that we have the ability to look at all
competing products since MUDs, UO, EQ, WoW, EQ2, and a myriad of other
games in order to refine Vanguard.
o Some features that are not available in other games are available in
Vanguard, such as diplomacy. Not every feature will be completely new
and different. We will not be different for the sake of being
different.
o We are evolutionary not revolutionary at our core and have stated
that for years.
o We have and are trying some additional revolutionary things on top
of a very core solid base. We will continue to add additional features
up until launch and well beyond (such as RTS style city
building/upgrading, which we hope to implement post launch in an
expansion.).
• We are not afraid to take out or revamp features that we feel are
not working out, based on our own play experience as well as tester
feedback.
This is the end of our first set of responses. We will create
additional threads for the discussion of the above issues and
responses, as well as future threads to discuss other large issues.
~
Brad "Aradune Mithara" McQuaid – CEO, Sigil Games Online, Inc.
Bill "Tagad" Fisher, Senior Game Designer
Darrin "Talisker" McPherson, Senior Game Designer
Salim "Silius" Grant, Senior Game Designer
So far looking at the videos, It looks like the appeal is immersion to a certain extent. In other words, there are plenty of varieties and monsters. To be more accurate, I'm talking about exploration and knowledge here, where players can enjoy experiencing and learning about the vast land and variety of monsters/creatures...
Other games have done this too, and imo better animation too, but maybe not to the scale/size of Vanguard's world...
The people, who says certain aspects are fun, haven't really explained why or what makes it so... So that's the only appeal I really see so far...
Do not get your hopes up for this game. You may like it despite my opinion of the game but if you go in expecting this game to be amazing I think 99% of you will be disappointed. Anyone that has been a tester since the summer or so will be able to confirm that the game had a very hard time keeping beta testers. They simply could not keep enough players interested to stock the beta server. If that isn't a horrible sign I don't know what is. Here is a chance to test out one of the most hyped games and people can't be bothered? It was common to see a hundred of fewer players online at any time. Yes that happens in beta's sometimes but the forums were a mess with complaints about the game. I have been in many beta's and I have never seen a game that turned out to be a great success get smashed like this was.
They would invite round after round of new beta players who would try it out and leave. It got to the point they mailed us all with a mass questionaire on ways to fix it because every sign was pointing to this game being a complete failure.
Now...
Did they improve it and fix some stuff? Yes. Was part of the problem the steep system requirements, unoptimized engine, etc? Yes. But are some of the biggest complaints still being sounded by many in the beta test? Yes.
Constant complaints include:
-The steep system requirements remain and the engine is far from optimized
-Remains very buggy
-Boring combat
-Graphics are nice but the art is boring, bland, doesn't pull you in etc.
-Quests are the same old WoW/EQ2 style quests
-All races still have the same "body" making for very ugly models sometimes
-The world doesn't draw you in
-The early levels are just not "fun" and many players quit during this period
-The game offers nothing new (other than the weak diplomacy system)
Well I could go on and on but I can't remember all the complaints nor do I care much anymore. I had high hopes for this game but even with the improvements it just isn't fun nor is it interesting/immersive. Naturally the two biggest comparisons to this game will be to WOW and EQ1/EQ2. Wow was more on the fun side but lacked the depth/ interest of EQ. EQ on the other hand was immersive, pulled at you to continue playing and explore but wasn't really "fun" most of the time. This game on the other hand fails to do either very well and is little more than something for ex-EQ players to do while they wait for something better.
Some players will clearly love it but I think most will be disappointed.
I won't be playing Vanguard either, but I wouldn't say Anarchyart is lying.
He start speaking chinese about the need to open some files and then do some tweaking in order to make the game playable...eh, I am a player, not a programmer, if you want to take 5 minutes to explain it, I would understand how to unzip, but that is pretty much the limit, opening some files and tweaking...yeah right.
Also, I will repeat it. Gameplay is the reason I am not buying Vanguard atm. GAMEPLAY, not graphics, not performance, not Brad's manhood or the sweet Cindy or Susan charming personalities. Nope, GAMEPLAY. Confining my playing experience to be with FoH & friends...err...no thank once, no thanks twice, no thanks triple! Awarded, player out! I want to group, I want the game to resolve around GROUPING and to be 100% free of FoH and avoid them. 20% today, 40% tomorrow! In it current form I would maybe be free of raiding a month, two at most, then I would be missing only the raiding components and guess what, it involve interacting with donkeys! Raiding can't get anything that grouping doesn't IMO, otherwise you HAVE to cope with peoples that awaken the Sleepers and are proud of it. The reason I hate raiding is partly because of raiding itself (I honestly dislike the gameplay behind been more than 8 persons doing 1 thing), but it is mostly because of the community it attract. Grouping all the way, to the Abyss with FoH and their offsprings. And no matter how much tweaking you do to raiding, you can't tweak the players, and morons are always going to be morons. Enforced grouping is arguable, since I see some positive even if I think it doesn't have to be enforced, could be done in a more positive way...enforced raiding = donkeys on the loose! Haha, having to deal with THESE players? Come on, why not making a diner and sitting Bush just beside Osama and 20 persons that can't stand each other, and no dessert if you can't work along...some peoples are not meant to group together, yet in grouping it can be avoided and other groups are possible, with raiding, you have 2 or 3 guilds and they are already cringing with peoples that don't bear each other, yet they have to accept other peoples they can't bear if they want to progress... GAMEPLAY, grouping must triumph!
EDIT: And to anyone that suggest I play up to the point I stop liking the game...well, psychology 101. If I leave because I am exhausted and did my best, I am happy. If I leave because "I win", I am happier than you can even consider and yes and I would be stalking random peoples for expansions and the like (aka, see how I behave toward BioWare). If I leave because the gameplay CHANGE and suddenly can't progress while doing it anymore...I am EXTREMELY pissed. Raiding can't give any grouping benefit that grouping isn't giving; period.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
so far from various forums im reading really mixed reviews.
but there is a method. the bad reviews are people who played beta long ago, or just recently and didnt last past lvl 10.
the good reviews are people who played it recently and extended period of time.
this is in general, and im one of the latter and i really enjoy the game. i got in the day after i got into lotro beta, and lotro beta blew it away with first impression so much that i played that for 3 straight weeks without logging back into vanguard.
problem was, in 3 weeks i saw the entire lotro world available. twice. so i gave vanguard another shot, kind of iffy for the first 5-10 lvl's and made quite a few chars. finaly stuck with one. checked out alot of the world. got into the crafting and diplomacy. actualy grouped(gasp!). and it won me over. in the time it took me to see the entire lotro game, or get to 60 in WoW and realize im bored as hell yet again..im just cracking the surface of this game.
this is a good thing for me, but not the company. it will drive alot of people away but i expect alot of the people most of us would rather play with are going to stick around awhile.
I won't be playing Vanguard either, but I wouldn't say Anarchyart is lying.
He start speaking chinese about the need to open some files and then do some tweaking in order to make the game playable...eh, I am a player, not a programmer, if you want to take 5 minutes to explain it, I would understand how to unzip, but that is pretty much the limit, opening some files and tweaking...yeah right.
Ok buddy, I reposted Morts Game Tweaks in the Vanguard forums on this site. It doesn't take a programmer. They are VERY easy to do and will make a HUGE impact on performance.
I have read many people in this post and all I can say is, try morts tweaks! You will be BLOWN AWAY.
Here they are! <CLICKY
Not the game for me, but not the worst thing i've ever seen either.
To me it simply felt too much like I'd played it before... very EQ'ish IMO.
The graphics are fantastic though, as has been said, with tweaking. There are lots of quests and the world is large.
As I said... not horrible, but not fo rme. I need someting that feels newer.
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Malianea