Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
More great resources to find out the TRUTH behind Vanguard
This discussion has been closed.
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Comments
What a load of BS that Vanguard looks better than EQ2.
Tell me why can I play EQ2 on extreme quality in 1650x1080 with 30 FPS and have to reduce Vanguard to 1024x900 extreme performance to be able to move around?
People forget to tell that minimum system requirements for Vanguard is 7900GTX SLI and E6600.
Beauty: EQ2 or Vanguard? Answer: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Me, think Vanguard pulls ahead in terms of immersion, while EQ2 pulls ahead in terms of character models. EQ2's individual attention to details in some areas floors me, but Vanguard's got big and epic covered better.
I will say this much about Vanguard. Whether or not you like the game is going to depend on two things:
1. If you've got a relatively up to date computer. I'm talking, HDR-capable video card (not for the HDR so much as the rendering power), 2+ GB of Ram, 40 free gigs of hard drive space. There's been some tweaking threads on this, I haven't messed with em' much.
2. If you're able to look past the bugs to find the game. Vanguard, in my opinion, isn't like many other games with the extra beta phase, the paid beta that follows release, because there's something that feels like it's worth playing there.
At its core, Vanguard is EverQuest. But then, so are most MMORPGs, even World of Warcraft. It's the implementation and the ability to promote innovative features that takes a MMORPG out of that rut. I think Vanguard delivers pretty well here.
about me... i have played around 8 or so mmo's so far and beta tested 5 of them i think.
most of them that i test sucked realy bad when that first came out. well know the true testing does not start till the game goes live.
Vanguard said it was going to be alot of things it was going to be the next big mmorpg.
well i can say it is big well over a 17 gig install. Now it is in beta test 5 and well the game still need very large fixes to be made. yes once the debug stuff is removed the FPS will get alot better. but it still will not make the game look any better and i have a very killer computer.
if a duel n8800 can not make the game look good not much will. i am not saing it looks bad. in fact it looks good at times. justs nothing that has not been around for a few years.
ok now game play so far. man it need work. most class fell like that they can not get out of there own way. i did like the blood mage that was cool. but a druid that can not heal whats up with that.
Most of the mmos i have played i try to solo i just like to see what i can do myself. thay say that there is solo stuff in this game i dont see it. if it is there they hide it well. there is a ton of mobs out there that can crush you in 1 sec. and where like to pop group mob in places that solo mobs should be. the only classes that could solo kinda well where the healers . the rest could solo kinda but is realy realy realy solo. there is a ton of group mobs out there if you like that kinda thing. in the groups i was in it went well. killed a lot named witch was well realy easy. they need to fix fear.
ok crafting. i love crafting in eq1 and eq2 before the revamp. i like crafting to be hard. but come on. this is nutts. how drunk where thay when that made that system. it is one monster of a system. that for people that do not have a brain will run in fear i will bet anything this alone will make people not play.
This game could realy be good. but man it need help. in all my years i have learned 1 think people are not very smart. and to play this game well you need to be. (and well i am not that smart). every mmo i have very played looked at read about has has some kind of hand holding for the first few lvl. all you get so far is a pop-up tip window that tells you well nothing.
One thing i really dont get is that size of the install over 17 gig and so far no voice overs. what could there be that needs that much data. and will that many lines of code thay will be debugging stuff for years.
we will all see if this game works or not in about 2 months i think when thay have a 80k 90k people "testing" the game will thay pay for it.
that all said, will i play the game when it comes out. if soe adds it to the station pass. maybe but for now i have 17+gig of free space on my computer
guess i will go be board and play eq2 or wow some more
p.s. if your going to flame me for this being my first post here i have MS and typing is not easy
Unfortunatly my PC can't really run it very well, it's older, so I didn't get a chance to test too much. But I can tell you as a beta forum troll that there is no malice in Brad's heart about the gaming community. You will be hard pressed to find a team of developers and a CEO more excited and more committed to the gaming community then Brad and Sigil. If you were to read the Everquest "classic server" thread which is around 20 pages long, you will see exactly a group of players disenfranchised from the game they loved so much, put so much time in only to have another expansion come along and wipe all their effort. Frankly SOE hasn't treated the community with very much repspect in some of their games.
But back in 2001-2 Brad wanted to make his dream game and what we see is the game many of us from Everquest dreamed of. A game which is lead by a vision(tm). A game where you can do whatever, not be put on rails and not be a quest/raid fest. A game that would grow and develop to meet the needs of gamers with wives and kids.
After Everquest 2 came out, and in Everquest 1 some of the huge problems were identified. As of yet no one has offered a game that would fix these problems. The major issues with EQ1 (a game we loved) was:
- Instancing - This would create huge community problems as the feel of having other players around were gone. Suddenly the dynamic feel of an MMORPG was gone. EQ2 only made this worse, and they have since reduced the amount of instancing.
- With the addition of the Luclin Spires and Plane of Power books suddenly travel was gone. The fun and challenge of getting places was gone, soon a level 1 could cross continents with ease. where before it was rare to see a dwarf in the human noob area, etc. The need need for cities were gone with a super tradeskill and meeting zone (POK) replaced them. The game felt MUCH MUCH smaller, although it has hundreds of zones.
- Rapid release of expansions - Expansions were not only released every three months, but each one canceled out the other. You just finished questing for a rare sword with great stats only to have the new expansion give everyone a sword that is better. Pretty soon it became so inflated and sad you couldn't be "properly" geared without buying equipment far, far above your level. This put the economy on all servers WAY out of whack!
- IGE and other bot/plat farmers destroyed any assemblance of a balanced economy, and helped to ruin the game.
- Powerleveling was out of control, and was the only way to play with most anyone because everyone was at cap.
- Basically the game was serious messed up and SOE kept making it worse and worse.
The problem was, when it came time to make EQ2, they only listened to the flamers and griefers on the forums who hated the challenge and wanted everything right away. And along came WoW, we won't go there!Before Vanguard there WAS no place for us to go. Brad was there, thinking the same thing and dreaming up a game with the technology of modern MMORPG, but the gameplay mechanics of Everquest.
You can say what you want about the game, but Brad and Sigil are heart and soul interested in bringing the Vision(tm) to a gamer base long forgotten, God bless em!
Johnhost
Played the beta best I could. I liked it well enough, but I got to say this. I could barely move. I am running a 3.2, 2 gigs ram, and a geforce 6800 xtreme 256mb and I was averaging 10 fps everywhere but the boonies in Qalia. Every town dropped me to 4 fps. Now I understand that this is a new game, but this game is geared for the uber puter systems. If you dont have one then Vanguard is not something you should even look at, unless you are going to significantly upgrade, because you won't be able to move.
Bottom line for me is I got to be able to move to enjoy a game. So, one might say I should kick out $300.00 for a new card or more for a mboard/vcard combo. Well some of us are on fixed budgets and cannot afford to do such things. Anyway, I digress. For gamers with up-to-date systems you will enjoy Vanguard. For those that don't have uber systems and want to play a new game or something other than WoW, I would suggest Lord of the Rings Online, as it has included lower systems in its makeup.
It is good that this game is not interested in obtaining the amount of subscriptions that WoW has, because it would have been hard.
Enjoy...:)
I'm glad you found this post Amathe. Vanguard fans might want to look again at the stuff Brad was promising them...
And I have to get this off my chest....I told you so.
And I wished that I and others like me hadn't been right. I really wished that Sigil and Brad had proved me wrong. Whenever a game with good potential goes down the tubes then the MMORPG market as a whole suffers. Of course developers can probably learn some lessons from this but failure kind of turns off investers. Go figure.
Never be afraid of choices. More choices are always good things.
I'm pretty conflicted. I mean, what's the census now on SoE?
Yeah, I know they trashed SWG, completely agree.
When they released EQ2, it was blech. However, it apparently has improved with time, right?
I mean, first impressions speak miles. Just because you fix an mmo doesn't mean you'll ever get those customers back. Server populations aside, can they actually "fix" a game?
Whats the chances that SoE's changes will bring about ver. 2 of SWG, VS ver. 2 of EQ2?
Does that make sense? *smiles*
I will always remember Vanguard as that game which sounded pretty interesting, but the moment I tried asking anything on their beta boards 1,000 vanbois ripped me apart and told me to "go back to WOW noob (TM)"
So hard not to gloat right now.
I don''t really know when Humankind will die out but i''m guessing about 6 years before WOW.
-BarCrow
Here's the situation, SOE has a bad reputation, deservedly so. They might have improved on EQ2 (I wouldn't know as I have never been interested in playing that), but they have screwed up on SWG, and made numerous promises that they never fulfilled or were lying when they stated them.
Conclusion: More people that were interested in playing Vanguard will likely sit things out and adopt a "wait and see" attitude. The key question here is if there are enough people willing to ignore SOE's reputation and keep a subscription going while hoping the game improves. Keep in mind that there are PLENTY of other fantasy MMORPG games on the market, with some much hyped new ones coming out shortly.
Prediction: SOE will pull the plug on Vanguard, if their agreement with Sigil allows them to. After they've squeezed out as much money as they can.
Edited... I did not realize this was a necro post..
I guess Brad should amend those sentences with the word... "yet"
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
FAR too funny.
And whats even funnier, is this guy , poor poor i need your money Brad, still has "fans" who think he's something other than inept at making an MMO.
The very day this guy, poor poor i need your money Brad, leaves the MMO industry a thousand angels will get their wings and millions of prospective MMO customers will get the best news they've ever gotten about the "industry".
Til than, prospective MMO customers will have to endure the vast amounts of utter crap this guy puts out, and console themselves by enjoying the vast amount of humor present in the best show of ineptness in action since the keystone cops.
But, make post after post on this crappy web site about Brad or Vanguard, but I'll tell you right now that there are plenty of people who play this game and are having a good time. Maybe you don't want to hear it, but the truth is out there. We are playing and Vanguard will thrive.
Throw around the insults, who cares, nothing good I say about Vanguard will change the minds of the monkeys on this board. It is beyond belief how some of you can't let go. Just let it go. Vanguard sucks in your eyes. Now move along and go do something constructive with your lives!
Lets Eat It!
Pablo, I don't know how long you have been playing MMOs, but in my time with and in them a small population (which Vanguard has) means there will be slow updates,many unfinished/buggy expansions pushed out (hardly a community to voice opinions) and all around ingame loss of time (due to it being hard to find a group).
Given enough time, the masses leaving the game world as big as it is will have a major impact even on your game play, these people are not just blowing smoke out their bottoms they are providing a fact that many (more have quit than playing) have seen.
I am reluctant to even address this post, and I may end-up blocking the poster. I do not want to block anyone, but I truthfully have no problem with it (whether I am blocked or block some one else). Nevertheless, I recently resubscribed to Vanguard to explore what changes (improvements) have and have not taken place.
It is a Small World Afterall (Or is It?)
First, "a small population (which Vanguard has)" is to me shockingly not the case. The community in Vanguard is possibly stronger than when I played at release. The servers are currently quite healthful, which surprised no person more than me (I assure you). I point this out to show that many Vanguard-haters have lost all reason and state things that are assumptions. In this specific case, the assumption is that "Vanguard has a small population" which is not the case. If it does, it has an active small population; but I see a lot of variance in activity in my friends' list as the game is solo and casual friendly.
Old Issues are Not Current Issues (In Many Cases)
Second, not only are you assuming you are speculating when you state "there will be [hell to pay later] ." You go on to mention updates and expansions and bugs and this and that and the moon and predict when the world will end (in this case, Vanguard's world). I must tell you I was a basher of Vanguard (at one of the first on other message boards) as a result of its early release. However, as you said "being hard to find a group" is not necessarily true now (today).
Rumors, Flaming, & Assumptions Undermine MMORPG, the Poster, and Reader
Lastly, many of you Vanguard-haters were justified (and I was with you) in bashing Vanguard as a result of its early release and early issues, bugs, and forced-grouping content. However, you continue to bash the game on the same bugs, issues, and problems. I understand you may not deliberately mean to, but you are deceiving this great community (and yourselves) with a continual focus on early release issues (some problems which have been eliminated, mitigated, and still exist).
What is Vanguard like Now (Not What It was Like at Release)
I intend to provide a full and objective, unbiased, and truthful analysis of Vanguard in its present state. My report will neither satisfy the Vanguard-hater nor the Vanguard-lover, I suspect, but they are not my audience. I seek to answer the question, "what improvements have been made if any - what is the game really like now?"
Fair and good question.
I am not sure; I only use MMORPG (and a few others) now.
However, if I were to make my decision based on these posts regarding Vanguard, I would think the game is entirely something different than what it currently is. I have found most posts regarding Vanguard have a release-analysis and bias to them. I believe that those who live in the past will die in the past. A lot of frustration and emotional vomiting via posting was justified, but it has been entertaining but now it is also deceptive when people make assumptions about the current state of the game and do not play. I firmly believe we need an honest analysis of the current state of Vanguard.
Fair and good question.
I am not sure; I only use MMORPG (and a few others) now.
However, if I were to make my decision based on these posts regarding Vanguard, I would think the game is entirely something different than what it currently is. I have found most posts regarding Vanguard have a release-analysis and bias to them. I believe that those who live in the past will die in the past. A lot of frustration and emotional vomiting via posting was justified, but it has been entertaining but now it is also deceptive when people make assumptions about the current state of the game and do not play. I firmly believe we need an honest analysis of the current state of Vanguard.
I too would be interested in reading some positive feedback regarding V:SoH. I can't say I was dazzled by what I was able to experience of the game in beta and quickly cancelled my preorder, but I personally didn't feel the game was even close to offering what had been promised. I got the impression people were sticking with the game for "what it could be" not for what it offered. As a consumer, there's just too much on the horizon for me to give V:SoH another shot out of blind faith. It'll just be interesting to see how they propose to turn this project around.
Excellent point.
I pointed out that,
Vanguard-haters view things retrospectively (to the past) and focus on issues/problems at release.
Vanguard-lovers view things prospectively (to the future) and focus on unfulfilled potential.
It is the reason why I want to create for this community an honest, unbiased, and objective analysis of Vanguard's present condition (whether the game has or has not improved and what it is like now).
Today, my impression is that the people I currently play with play because the game is currently fun for many and varied reasons.
just shows you how much he believed in the game back then and how it continues to show today (in his latest 'state of the game and soe' statement)
Here's to hoping Vanguard comes through. I know i'll be picking it up and trying it once i upgrade my computer. It deserves that at least. A chance.
Iwinbutton.com | Gaming / MMO Blog
Fair and good question.
I am not sure; I only use MMORPG (and a few others) now.
However, if I were to make my decision based on these posts regarding Vanguard, I would think the game is entirely something different than what it currently is. I have found most posts regarding Vanguard have a release-analysis and bias to them. I believe that those who live in the past will die in the past. A lot of frustration and emotional vomiting via posting was justified, but it has been entertaining but now it is also deceptive when people make assumptions about the current state of the game and do not play. I firmly believe we need an honest analysis of the current state of Vanguard.
I too would be interested in reading some positive feedback regarding V:SoH. I can't say I was dazzled by what I was able to experience of the game in beta and quickly cancelled my preorder, but I personally didn't feel the game was even close to offering what had been promised. I got the impression people were sticking with the game for "what it could be" not for what it offered. As a consumer, there's just too much on the horizon for me to give V:SoH another shot out of blind faith. It'll just be interesting to see how they propose to turn this project around.
I'm deployed right now so I can't play the game and give my opinion, but I read my guild website daily and it is a complete contradiction to what the majority of people post on these forums. I put no faith in the posts from people who claim they quit playing then continue to go on and on about how bad the current game is. The game was pretty much unplayable for me in Dec 05 but around Feb 06 they made many improvements that drastically improved my framerates. Since Feb 06-Dec 06 the game continued to improve but I did notice it slowly transforming into what many of us termed as a WoW clone. The UI is almost identical, the exp rates increased drastically, unlimited spell gems, little to no death penalties, and instant-porting.
The biggest savior for me is the lack of instancing which I think is only a matter of time before that changes with SOE at the helm. I completely understand that everyone wants to have the next greatest game and make as much money as they continue to do with WoW, but someone has to create something different. Having 10 games that play like WoW but have different graphics will not make you alot of money.
Sorry I got off topic there.
Like I was saying before, my guild loves the game although many of them are very concerned with the future knowing SOE is taking over. For me I am enjoying reading posts everyday showing screenshots of the guildhouse warming parties, boat cruises, server first Shadowhounds and Unicorns and how the guild is preparing for raiding events. I keep reading on here about how no one is playing Vanguard and everyone is bailing out but then I look at our guild roster and see almost 90 active main characters. Maybe my guild is the only one left in game...
The game is far from perfect and I can see SOE ruining it if they get full control, but from the people who I know that are playing the game, they are having a great time. There are alot of us though that have concerns about recent trends of making the game more for the WoW crowd. I honestly do not understand why someone would stop playing WoW to play something just like WoW. That makes no sense at all to me. Vanguard was different and alot of us loved it for that but it has been slowly transformed into something very similar.