Ive been in the VG beta for a while now and id have to say im very impressed with the game thusfar, it has alot of similarities to SWG which is a good and bad thing. The combat is solid and over all the game is just enjoyable for me. Over the years i have tried alot of MMO's (FFXI, Lineage 1 and 2, WoW, EVE online, Guild Wars, SWG. EQ 1 and 2, Knight Online, Planetside, and others i dont remember) and i have yet to find a MMO to call my home, all the MMO's i listed were just overall boring and repetitive for me and just had no depth to most of them, and in VG i see the qualities im looking for and if Sigil plays its cards right i see it side by side with WoW.
Comments
I dissagree.......
In a perfect world this game would be head an shoulders above WOW in popularity but the cold hard fact is MMO players for the most part are lazy now. They have gotten used to being spoonfed content and goals to the point that they dont want options anymore. Options means you have to think instead of blindly plowing through the linear content that the devs have lined up so that every player has exactly the same safe familliar gaming experience.
Sheep thought I......
Critical thinking is a desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to consider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and hatred for every kind of imposture.
No it definitely won't be side by side with WoW. It does not have that kind of appeal, nor was it intended to.
Its fan-base will mostly consist of veterans of past MMOs (excluding WoW). I don't see this as the type of game that will bring new people to the MMO market, which gives it no chance of competing with WoW.
I personally beta'd the game, and am a fan of MMOs as most anyone who has ever spent there time in a MMO forum, yet I still will not be purchasing this game. I don't think it’s a bad game, it's actually become a quite good game in the past few weeks, but it's still in need of better quality, and something that will increase the fun factor (for me it least).
I might give Vanguard a chance in 3-6 months. I think the dev team could possibly do a lot with the base they've set down in that period of time. However, I'll more likely have moved on to some other game that has caught my fancy.
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However, in saying you think Vanguard will go "side-by-side with WoW", you've not a full appreciation of how much of an incredible fluke WoW is. 8 million current subscribers is about 3 million more than Lineage 1 or Lineage 2 ever managed. Lineage 1 or 2 managed about 4 million more than any other MMORPG. The most popular MMORPGs after WoW, Lineage 1, and Lineage 2 weigh in at about 700k subscribers.
Then you go down to about 300k, and that's where I'm getting "well enough" - this is where EQ2, EQ, ect live. I think Vanguard can do about this well.
Even if there were a game made to play exactly like WoW, even a little better, it won't pull World of Warcraft numbers. That's because WoW had a lot of Blizzard hype going for it.
Condescending and highly inaccurate posts like these are more than enough to dissuade fence-sitters on Vanguard if they know they will have to meet some kind of pseudo-elitist spouting platitudes about how "challenging" Vanguard is or how deep the content is.
What, exactly, is non-linear about a player running up to an NPC with a shield hanging over their head, being told where to go and what to do while simultaneously having the conversation and its salient points recorded FOR THEM in their "journal" and having a red mark appear on a compass on the screen to lead them to the general area of their goal?
Where is the challenge you are referring to here? How, exactly, is that different than other current MMOs?
If you enjoy the game, state why; don't try to give it attributes that it lacks and then lace it with backhanded insults. Telling people they are simple-minded definitely won't endear anyone to the game.
Abbatoir / Abbatoir Cinq
Adnihilo
Beorn Judge's Edge
Somnulus
Perfect Black
----------------------
Asheron's Call / Asheron's Call 2
Everquest / Everquest 2
Anarchy Online
Shadowbane
Dark Age of Camelot
Star Wars Galaxies
Matrix Online
World of Warcraft
Guild Wars
City of Heroes
I don't think it will become a juggernaut. I'm playing open beta and I'm enjoying it. There is enough content here to keep me busy at least until the next MMO candidate comes along. I see possibilities for some really advanced gameplaying, for example in the interaction of the adventuring and diplomatic spheres, but I don't know if they will materialize. I expect that Vanguard will be moderately successful. I believe there are enough folks who prefer its features to the alternatives to make a viable customer base.
I do believe the game is being released too early. There are some quality issues that should not be present this close to release. Some of these may actually be the result of frantic patching, which often creates new bugs as unintended side effects of fixing old ones. Release generally does not improve the rate of bug fixing. Some of the problems appear to be engine-related rather than content-related. I believe that the engine-related bugs are more serious: they are harder to fix and are more likely to generate side-effect bugs. Content bugs will always crop up as new content is added, and will seldom have global effects on play.
With PvE raiding, it has never been a question of being "good enough". I play games to have fun, not to be a simpering toady sitting through hour after hour of mind numbing boredom and fawning over a guild master in the hopes that he will condescend to reward me with shiny bits of loot. But in games where those people get the highest progression, anyone who doesn't do that will just be a moving target for them and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay money for the privilege. - Neanderthal
Condescending and highly inaccurate posts like these are more than enough to dissuade fence-sitters on Vanguard if they know they will have to meet some kind of pseudo-elitist spouting platitudes about how "challenging" Vanguard is or how deep the content is.
What, exactly, is non-linear about a player running up to an NPC with a shield hanging over their head, being told where to go and what to do while simultaneously having the conversation and its salient points recorded FOR THEM in their "journal" and having a red mark appear on a compass on the screen to lead them to the general area of their goal?
Where is the challenge you are referring to here? How, exactly, is that different than other current MMOs?
If you enjoy the game, state why; don't try to give it attributes that it lacks and then lace it with backhanded insults. Telling people they are simple-minded definitely won't endear anyone to the game.
You know you have an extremely good point Somnulus. Though i both agree and disagree with you. I definitely did NOT fall in love with VG for its combat. Nor did i for its quests. Since it would take me a week to tell why i do like VG i won't, if you're that interested as to why i have plenty of other posts stating why i do.The combat in VG is definitely not the high point though it has some nice points to it. But concerning the quests, since i have never played Wow (well actually i played beta for like 1 one day, therein throwing it away for SWG) i can't accurately tell you the difference, or which is better, nor have i gotten higher than level 10 in beta so far so i can't tell you the more intricate quests, though neither can you unless you have reached endgame in VG beta. If you have traveled have traveled far and wide and have talked and done quests for each faction, race, and class, so for my own personal trolling please stop making retarded conclusions about the depth of quests for levels under 10, unless you have reached endgame than by all means prove me wrong.
I see you have played SWG, Pre CU I presume (and hope), than i imagine you didn't play SWG for the quests, since i don't remember doing any at all. There was depth beyond any MMO in SWG, and i hope to discover that uniqueness in VG. If you think VG is how it is now and forever will be this way, than you are dearly mistaken. Soon we will see the true face of Vanguard, and in time we will see what Sigil has in store to add to VG.
[EDIT] Also VG will most definitely not be a juggernaut in the way of a player base. I think VG will be a juggernaut in it's own respect, as SWG was.
I miss DAoC
What exactly are you trying to say here?
Because on the one hand, you state that you have no idea what levels I have achieved in Vanguard (I will disregard your "endgame" statement, since no MMORPG actually has an endgame unless it never has a single content update in its lifetime) and then it appears as though you go on to assume I haven't made it past level ten.
Then you call my conclusions retarded, thereby inferring that I am retarded, as though I cannot observe and relate what I have seen.
So, were any of my previous statements inaccurate? No.
1. You speak to the quest giver who is easily identified.
2. They give you a quest.
3. They give you the general area.
4. It is logged into your journal.
5. A red blip on your compass is there to steer you in the proper direction.
This basic mechanic doesn't change throughout the game.
I have no need to prove you wrong. If you have played Vanguard, then you already know you are wrong.
I made no statement about the future of Vanguard. I referred directly to its current state, the quest mechanics, their linearity and their clear comparison to other MMOs. They could potentially have gobs of interactive content ready for release. That has nothing to do with the currently existing mechanics and content.
I am not criticising the quest system. lore or mechanics in Vanguard. I was stating simply to the poster I replied to that there is nothing evidenced by the system currently in beta that could possibly cause them to insult players of other MMOs or to, in any way, make them superior because they were choosing to play Vanguard. The quest mechanics are clearly the same basic quest mechanics used in a multitude of MMORPGs.
As I pointed out before; if it is the original quoted poster's goal to dissuade prospective players of Vanguard, by all means; continue to insult the players of other MMOs by calling them sheep, lazy, etc.
Abbatoir / Abbatoir Cinq
Adnihilo
Beorn Judge's Edge
Somnulus
Perfect Black
----------------------
Asheron's Call / Asheron's Call 2
Everquest / Everquest 2
Anarchy Online
Shadowbane
Dark Age of Camelot
Star Wars Galaxies
Matrix Online
World of Warcraft
Guild Wars
City of Heroes
As far as non-linear content, I think you would have to look at the other spheres.
Granted the adventuring sphere is kinda linear, though you can choose which paths you go down simply by going to a different location and starting quest lines there.
Diplomacy however is much less linear. There's quest lines and such, but at some point the diplomacy system kinda 'kicks you out' to go do Civic diplomacy on your own. This leads you to tracking your own path and not just hopping through the hoops. You could stay and do diplomacy in the town you're in, and hope that some new quests open up, or you could go to another city, and do diplomacy there, influence the town or try and get a storyline going. Perhaps you go out into the desert and find a lone npc who you can parley with and find out secrets about this or that.
Personally I'd say it adds a sort of "treasure hunt" feeling to the system. Instead of just looking for the Shield above someone's head, you have to go digging and looking for content to open up.
"Because it's easier to nitpick something than to be constructive." -roach5000
Future juggernauts: WAR, because of huge fanbase and hype or AoC if it goes to xbox360.