Personally I was going to give VSOH a second month, that was untill the "fix" they implemented on 15-feb-07. The fix means that I can no longer run the game alongside Teamspeak on my Vista X64 based system, the game just crashes within seconds.
What I'll probably do is come back to the game in a few months, fingers crossed that they'll have fixed the major bugs and compatibility problems. Okay, the game wasnt the next-gen MMORPG that I was expecting certainly not living up to the pre-release hype. I think I've only ever seen such a messy game once before, that was when the developers of Asherons Call 2 went bonkers with massive changes in gameplay appearing (and being reset) allmost daily. I really really want to like this game, its just at the moment Im sympathising with the chap in the internet video (I'm sure you've all seen it), where the guy in a work cubicle trashes his PC infront of his workmates.
I may just have a hunt around for another fantasy MMORPG to play in the meantime...
Personally I was going to give VSOH a second month, that was untill the "fix" they implemented on 15-feb-07. The fix means that I can no longer run the game alongside Teamspeak on my Vista X64 based system, the game just crashes within seconds. What I'll probably do is come back to the game in a few months, fingers crossed that they'll have fixed the major bugs and compatibility problems. Okay, the game wasnt the next-gen MMORPG that I was expecting certainly not living up to the pre-release hype. I think I've only ever seen such a messy game once before, that was when the developers of Asherons Call 2 went bonkers with massive changes in gameplay appearing (and being reset) allmost daily. I really really want to like this game, its just at the moment Im sympathising with the chap in the internet video (I'm sure you've all seen it), where the guy in a work cubicle trashes his PC infront of his workmates. I may just have a hunt around for another fantasy MMORPG to play in the meantime... Crimliar
I have not problem with vent. Maybe you should consider switching.
I'm still on the fence. There are plenty of things that I like, such as the diplomacy sphere and what little lore I've seen as a newbie in Tursh. But oh, the bugs...
Truthfully, Vanguard isn't all that it was hyped up to be, and the sundry bugs and shoddy release are annoying. That being said, I do admire the complexity and depth of the game, and, for me, there really isn't anything else on the mmo horizon atm. As I have the station pass and still play EQ2, I'll stick with Vanguard. At least, for the time being.
I cancelled but I will watch the patch notes and keep up with the game. If they can figure out a way to make the game more convenient to the non-hardcore (meaning not a lot of free time), I will re-subscribe.
Other games do it by adding:
Instances
LFG tool.
Porting and teleports.
Easier death penalty (I will not do corpse runs again! Been there done that.)
Soloability (For when I don't have time to LFG)
The Vanguard community does not want these in their game. I am not saying that Vanguard needs to add these things but if they can "think outside the box" and find a way to make the game more accessible to the non-hardcore I will gladly play again. I am not worried about the bugs and performance. I also am not worried about the leveling time. I don't mind spending a year or more to reach max level. The bugs and performance problems will go away shortly but the gameplay, character models, animations, and other misc timesinks just kill it for me.
If they keep on the same track then cool. It is good to have a game that give us a choice from WoW and WoW-type gameplay. I think it will be a great game for those will large amounts of spare time. If I were not married with a family I might even give it a longer term shot. I can see the potential and the vision for the game and it looks good.
In the meantime, I am a N00b that will "go back to WoW". Maybe I will keep my subscription just to see the beautiful world and help support Brad and Sigil. It is like a animated work of art.
I just cancelled a few minutes ago, and I'm gutted.
This had, and maybe still has, the makings of being a great game. I have been up and down about it.
Regardless of what anyone else thinks, for me it just isn't holding my interest. Watching classes being changed/nerfed , while there are stacks of bugs, showstopping bugs at times, and feeling disconnected from the community due to a lack of a forum (and yes I know about all the 'affiliate sites' just leaves me feeling disappointed.
I'll probably keep an eye on the patch notes as well, but for me, the missing element I suppose is fun. I don't want to be spoon fed xp, I don't want easy mode, but just making kills worth minute amounts of xp, and spending ages running around, that is not hard, it is simply the most tedious grind.
I hope it picks up, and good luck and have a great time all those who persevere with it.
Plans? hmm, I dunno that I am going to bother with mmo's for a while.
looks like just over a quarter of players who use this site are going to stay with it . thats pretty bad considering this is proberbly not representative of the public at large . if its a sinking ship its the titanic of mmorpgs .
Vanguard will be alright. I think one of the developers could have been quoted before as saying something along the lines that it needs 200k subscribers to be profitable, 500k they'd be happy with. Anyone back me up on that?
Regardless, a lot of MMOs like UO and such have stayed afloat without any threatened cancellations with 100k-200k subscribers. 'course Vanguard is much newer and probably demands more funding, but you certainly don't need a million or several million subscribers to stay afloat.
Ultimately, I see a niche few people inheriting Vanguard, if for no reason other than Sigil right now is failing and seeming quite amateurish at appealing to the masses. They might aswell buckle down and make the game the best it can be for the likes of the people that do play it. I don't mean that in a bad way, but in the way that City of Heroes/Villains continues to thrive off it's niche audience, Eve Online too...etc. Poise it as it's own game, not a potential competitor to WoW or inheritor of EQ's spirit or any third-gen standard decider nonsense.
It depends in part on the cost. Thinks like UO, EQ and DAoC were done with a tiny staff. There was also a lot of reworking of the artwork done as well - see beta reviews - which will all have added to the cost. Brad suggested in a discussion that games should be able to run with c. 100k subscribers. Based on what we know that sounds to be an OK number for running the game. To paying off the development costs of VSoH needs far more.
I don't believe that VSoH has 100k potential subscribers yet. Accounts yes as per Brad's statement but I think we have to assume tha they include the keys. Even if it is 150k accounts if only 50% stick around (let alone 25%) then it simply isn't going to see the 100k mark. If it was just this site that had posts and polls on then maybe folks are just venting. But it is the case on all sites I have visited.
Now either these polls / posts are representative because the general public visit OR they don't include the general public. The problem with declaring them unrepresentative however is that other people are claiming that the public shouldn't be disappointed about the game because they all visited the forums before making their purchases. Hmmm ... which is it to be. Didn't - in which case unsuspecting members of the public have bought a game off the shelf with no idea how bad it is OR the poll is a good indication. Either way you play that it doesn't look good imo.
Cancelled... to bad I can't return the game. What's worse (and embarrassing) is I should have known how I'd feel, I played in beta.
The game is nothing at all like we envisioned it would be a year ago. Brad's obsession with Blizzard hating and his inability to unhook himself from his belief that Everquest was a "perfect" game, has essentially doomed Vanguard. They've managed to take what could have been a fantastic and challenging game and turn it into an example of monotony and timesinks taken to the level of absurdity.
Vanguard testament is a to the Sigil team's philosophy of using timesinks and grinding out levels in order to hide the lack of content (and poor content it is.)
I have no sympathy for Brad and team. They we're told what would happen if they listened to the vocal minority and now they need to live with it. Whatever hope they had of retaining a smidgen of subscribers who are unsatisfied with WoW will be lost when LOTRO comes out in a couple months (not to mention pre-order subscribers).
As for me I'm pretty pissed that they bastardized the promise the game had into the poorly executed and shoddy example of a game it is today.
Cancelled. Bugs are annoying, but not the main issue for me. I can't muster the time or interest to play VANGUARD beyond the first month. I don't want to have to spend 20-40 hours a week to keep up with the majority of core/hardcore players that this game is attracting. And certain things that have been discussed at length on the forums just feel wrong to me, like the animations, discordant art direction and Sigil's odd handling of patches and customer service. It seems like a cool game that I might have gotten into ten years ago when I was younger and more aggressive about gaming. But now i just want to kick back and have some fun in a game, without feeling pressure to perform in order to be a part of the community. LOTRO here I come!
The funny thing is it's not attracting the "core" players that Brad thought he was appealing to (and very mistaken he was). About the only ones it appeals to are the obsessed players who crave a game that allows them to lead in levels simply by nature of time spent.
Talk to members of the old time top Everquest guilds (FoH, Afterlife, Conquest, etc) and you'll find NONE of them are moving to Vanguard. Why? Because contrary to what Brad and team hoped, what made Everquest great (or kept people playing) wasn't the timesinks, grinding for exp or the lack of any user friendly features. What kept people playing EQ was the lack of any alternatives and decent raiding content (when it worked).
Why do you think EVERY top guild left EQ and flocked to WoW....
Yep, too bad Brad won't figure that out until too late.
gonna keep playing. I only crashed once, and im pretty sure it was my vidoe card overheating. only had 2 quests bug out on me. the game just offers somuch for my play style right now.
Cancelled... to bad I can't return the game. What's worse (and embarrassing) is I should have known how I'd feel, I played in beta.
The game is nothing at all like we envisioned it would be a year ago. Brad's obsession with Blizzard hating and his inability to unhook himself from his belief that Everquest was a "perfect" game, has essentially doomed Vanguard. They've managed to take what could have been a fantastic and challenging game and turn it into an example of monotony and timesinks taken to the level of absurdity.
Ok now we are wondering how vanguard is any different in monotony and timesinks then say .... Eq2, Wow, FF(whatever number), Horizons, Lineage II, AC,AO,UO or any of these games which are based on the same principle? Do they all require experience? Do they all require killing things to advance?
Vanguard testament is a to the Sigil team's philosophy of using timesinks and grinding out levels in order to hide the lack of content (and poor content it is.)
Why is it poor content? One started quest required me to gather stuff for a guard, he made a potion out of it and told me to drink the poison to impress him ... A simple little quest but I have never experienced anything like it ... The dark elf victims actually cried for mercy as i was killing them ... A quest in vanguards spider cave that had me get infected with spider eggs .. Wow ... It actually burst out ... I was floored. Poor? And what game does not use timesinks? Wow? What game does not use grinding? Wow? Come on now ... get real.
I have no sympathy for Brad and team. They we're told what would happen if they listened to the vocal minority and now they need to live with it. Whatever hope they had of retaining a smidgen of subscribers who are unsatisfied with WoW will be lost when LOTRO comes out in a couple months (not to mention pre-order subscribers).
As for me I'm pretty pissed that they bastardized the promise the game had into the poorly executed and shoddy example of a game it is today.
Personally I was going to give VSOH a second month, that was untill the "fix" they implemented on 15-feb-07. The fix means that I can no longer run the game alongside Teamspeak on my Vista X64 based system, the game just crashes within seconds. Probably a VISTA problem. I have been having Skype problems ever since I put damn Vista on my system. (as well as wireless probelms.) Perhaps you should check that out before blaming it on the game. Yes, for some reason vanguard sucks up alot of RAM but my Voice programs die regardless. What I'll probably do is come back to the game in a few months, fingers crossed that they'll have fixed the major bugs and compatibility problems. Okay, the game wasnt the next-gen MMORPG that I was expecting certainly not living up to the pre-release hype. I think I've only ever seen such a messy game once before, that was when the developers of Asherons Call 2 went bonkers with massive changes in gameplay appearing (and being reset) allmost daily. I really really want to like this game, its just at the moment Im sympathising with the chap in the internet video (I'm sure you've all seen it), where the guy in a work cubicle trashes his PC infront of his workmates. I may just have a hunt around for another fantasy MMORPG to play in the meantime... Crimliar
I have not problem with vent. Maybe you should consider switching.
Yes Im gonna stay put loading it on my new comp right now. Great game made me update my comp. 6400 Core 2 duo, Gigabyte 965- ds3 board, Patriot ddr2-800, 2 Maxtor Sata in raid 200 gb, and a 1900 xtx. Aint gtonna log on until I get to use that one. The old AMD Winnie and 6800 gt agp has served me well but this game deserves a machine that will do it justice. Bored with every other game out there and this one gets me excited again. YES I think its done see u in game!!!
Cancelled... to bad I can't return the game. What's worse (and embarrassing) is I should have known how I'd feel, I played in beta.
The game is nothing at all like we envisioned it would be a year ago. Brad's obsession with Blizzard hating and his inability to unhook himself from his belief that Everquest was a "perfect" game, has essentially doomed Vanguard. They've managed to take what could have been a fantastic and challenging game and turn it into an example of monotony and timesinks taken to the level of absurdity.
Vanguard testament is a to the Sigil team's philosophy of using timesinks and grinding out levels in order to hide the lack of content (and poor content it is.)
I have no sympathy for Brad and team. They we're told what would happen if they listened to the vocal minority and now they need to live with it. Whatever hope they had of retaining a smidgen of subscribers who are unsatisfied with WoW will be lost when LOTRO comes out in a couple months (not to mention pre-order subscribers).
As for me I'm pretty pissed that they bastardized the promise the game had into the poorly executed and shoddy example of a game it is today.
Vanguard, good riddance.
LOL ta ta then WoW has a very distinct and independant style. And tbh what did you expect from the guy who created EQ ?? A WoW Clone ?? Of course not. EQ isn't just the style that Brad emulates, EQ IS Brad. Thus you will get a similar style in Vanguard.
Which tbh, I have no problem with. (No I never played EQ, but I dallied with EQ2 for a short while,) I've been in since beta stage 3 and Im loving it. The graphics are fantastic, the gameplay is fun, and even though it released early there are fewer bugs than in SWG a year after its release. (And I played that for 2 years.....and its still bug ridden)
As for timesinks......are your utterly insane ? Have you tried grinding in Lineage 2 ? Or faction grinding in WoW ? Vanguards so called timesinks are easy compared to many other games. Especially the faction grinding. Evidentally you were expecting some WoW clone, and should now just go cry back back to middle school because to be quite honest....Vanguard is for the big boys and girls, and we are loving it.
As for timesinks......are your utterly insane ? Have you tried grinding in Lineage 2 ? Or faction grinding in WoW ? Vanguards so called timesinks are easy compared to many other games. Especially the faction grinding. Evidentally you were expecting some WoW clone, and should now just go cry back back to middle school because to be quite honest....Vanguard is for the big boys and girls, and we are loving it.
I usually don't make comments like this but...
What a wonderful way to represent the "mature" community of Vanguard... If the so called big boys and girls in VG are like this, then there's no hope for the game.
Cancelled... to bad I can't return the game. What's worse (and embarrassing) is I should have known how I'd feel, I played in beta.
The game is nothing at all like we envisioned it would be a year ago. Brad's obsession with Blizzard hating and his inability to unhook himself from his belief that Everquest was a "perfect" game, has essentially doomed Vanguard. They've managed to take what could have been a fantastic and challenging game and turn it into an example of monotony and timesinks taken to the level of absurdity.
Vanguard testament is a to the Sigil team's philosophy of using timesinks and grinding out levels in order to hide the lack of content (and poor content it is.)
I have no sympathy for Brad and team. They we're told what would happen if they listened to the vocal minority and now they need to live with it. Whatever hope they had of retaining a smidgen of subscribers who are unsatisfied with WoW will be lost when LOTRO comes out in a couple months (not to mention pre-order subscribers).
As for me I'm pretty pissed that they bastardized the promise the game had into the poorly executed and shoddy example of a game it is today.
Vanguard, good riddance.
Your feelings are a lot like mine.
I was on the VG forums ever since the first day, and was really anticipating the game. I guess you could say I was one of the original Vangurls.
But gradually, especially in the last year or so, we started getting more hype and less beef. For a while Brad would come on the VG forums almost daily to post screenshots and tell us what was "going" to be in the game. But none of that ever seemed to quite actually make into the game...
IMO, the main thing that made VG such a mess was that Brad refused to look at reality, and got all his input from the diehard "EQ died with Velious (or whatever expansion people hated)" fanatics. And then the "I need PVP" screamers started, so they changed direction yet again.
And early EQ was FAR from a perfect game - it had numerous flaws, and had tons of deliberate time sinks that were for the sole purpose of slowing players down - and he carried that same flawed "Vision" to Vanguard.
Despite all the attention the bugs are getting, the bugs are not my issues. It is the content. And the content is mediocre at best.
And of course, one question that is still not answered is - Did the world REALLY need yet another Elf/Dwarf fantasy game ?
Cancelled... to bad I can't return the game. What's worse (and embarrassing) is I should have known how I'd feel, I played in beta.
The game is nothing at all like we envisioned it would be a year ago. Brad's obsession with Blizzard hating and his inability to unhook himself from his belief that Everquest was a "perfect" game, has essentially doomed Vanguard. They've managed to take what could have been a fantastic and challenging game and turn it into an example of monotony and timesinks taken to the level of absurdity.
Ok now we are wondering how vanguard is any different in monotony and timesinks then say .... Eq2, Wow, FF(whatever number), Horizons, Lineage II, AC,AO,UO or any of these games which are based on the same principle? Do they all require experience? Do they all require killing things to advance?
Vanguard testament is a to the Sigil team's philosophy of using timesinks and grinding out levels in order to hide the lack of content (and poor content it is.) Why is it poor content? One started quest required me to gather stuff for a guard, he made a potion out of it and told me to drink the poison to impress him ... A simple little quest but I have never experienced anything like it ... The dark elf victims actually cried for mercy as i was killing them ... A quest in vanguards spider cave that had me get infected with spider eggs .. Wow ... It actually burst out ... I was floored. Poor? And what game does not use timesinks? Wow? What game does not use grinding? Wow? Come on now ... get real.
I have no sympathy for Brad and team. They we're told what would happen if they listened to the vocal minority and now they need to live with it. Whatever hope they had of retaining a smidgen of subscribers who are unsatisfied with WoW will be lost when LOTRO comes out in a couple months (not to mention pre-order subscribers).
As for me I'm pretty pissed that they bastardized the promise the game had into the poorly executed and shoddy example of a game it is today.
Vanguard, good riddance.
Takaris7,
The potion quest you are referring to is an exact replica of a WoW newby Horde quest. The WoW twist on the potion was that you had to give it to a dog. I think his name was Stanley or something.
The Dark Elf MOBs responding to your carnage of them is a replica of what the EQ2 Split Paw Gnolls say in their instances.
The infected spider eggs are an exact replica from a WoW quest in the Stoneaton Mountains.
Those are exact copies of EQ2 and WoW. The only conclusion you can draw from that is the Devs play EQ2 and/or WoW.
Your feelings are a lot like mine. I was on the VG forums ever since the first day, and was really anticipating the game. I guess you could say I was one of the original Vangurls. But gradually, especially in the last year or so, we started getting more hype and less beef. For a while Brad would come on the VG forums almost daily to post screenshots and tell us what was "going" to be in the game. But none of that ever seemed to quite actually make into the game... IMO, the main thing that made VG such a mess was that Brad refused to look at reality, and got all his input from the diehard "EQ died with Velious (or whatever expansion people hated)" fanatics. And then the "I need PVP" screamers started, so they changed direction yet again. And early EQ was FAR from a perfect game - it had numerous flaws, and had tons of deliberate time sinks that were for the sole purpose of slowing players down - and he carried that same flawed "Vision" to Vanguard. Despite all the attention the bugs are getting, the bugs are not my issues. It is the content. And the content is mediocre at best.
I agree as well. I was going to give VG a couple of months but logging in is becoming a chore. The game just isn't fun anymore. And it's not the bugs (well some is) but the failure for me to have fun in this game. So yeah, chalk me up as another disappointed customer who will not be paying for the subscription.
Cancelled... to bad I can't return the game. What's worse (and embarrassing) is I should have known how I'd feel, I played in beta.
The game is nothing at all like we envisioned it would be a year ago. Brad's obsession with Blizzard hating and his inability to unhook himself from his belief that Everquest was a "perfect" game, has essentially doomed Vanguard. They've managed to take what could have been a fantastic and challenging game and turn it into an example of monotony and timesinks taken to the level of absurdity.
Vanguard testament is a to the Sigil team's philosophy of using timesinks and grinding out levels in order to hide the lack of content (and poor content it is.)
I have no sympathy for Brad and team. They we're told what would happen if they listened to the vocal minority and now they need to live with it. Whatever hope they had of retaining a smidgen of subscribers who are unsatisfied with WoW will be lost when LOTRO comes out in a couple months (not to mention pre-order subscribers).
As for me I'm pretty pissed that they bastardized the promise the game had into the poorly executed and shoddy example of a game it is today.
Vanguard, good riddance.
Your feelings are a lot like mine.
I was on the VG forums ever since the first day, and was really anticipating the game. I guess you could say I was one of the original Vangurls.
But gradually, especially in the last year or so, we started getting more hype and less beef. For a while Brad would come on the VG forums almost daily to post screenshots and tell us what was "going" to be in the game. But none of that ever seemed to quite actually make into the game...
IMO, the main thing that made VG such a mess was that Brad refused to look at reality, and got all his input from the diehard "EQ died with Velious (or whatever expansion people hated)" fanatics. And then the "I need PVP" screamers started, so they changed direction yet again.
And early EQ was FAR from a perfect game - it had numerous flaws, and had tons of deliberate time sinks that were for the sole purpose of slowing players down - and he carried that same flawed "Vision" to Vanguard.
Despite all the attention the bugs are getting, the bugs are not my issues. It is the content. And the content is mediocre at best.
I think what the original poster was trying to say was .... What were you expecting? .... Lots of people have tons of expert opinions...and are let down because of the expert expectations.
content. mediocre content is a good word but what are you saying? Are you saying the wire led content of Wow is better? Story line bad? The X quests are just like every other MMo on the market? Are you saying Housing is bad? Ships are bad? Are you saying the massive seamless world is bad? Free mounts are bad? (not flying mounts stuck in one zone) What are you saying? Factions are bad? Waiting for spawns? (Is that in any other game?) Crafting Bad? (Isnt that content?) Diplomacy, an idea like no other game, is bad?
How is the content any different then any other game? Please explain.
Cancelled... to bad I can't return the game. What's worse (and embarrassing) is I should have known how I'd feel, I played in beta.
The game is nothing at all like we envisioned it would be a year ago. Brad's obsession with Blizzard hating and his inability to unhook himself from his belief that Everquest was a "perfect" game, has essentially doomed Vanguard. They've managed to take what could have been a fantastic and challenging game and turn it into an example of monotony and timesinks taken to the level of absurdity.
Ok now we are wondering how vanguard is any different in monotony and timesinks then say .... Eq2, Wow, FF(whatever number), Horizons, Lineage II, AC,AO,UO or any of these games which are based on the same principle? Do they all require experience? Do they all require killing things to advance?
Vanguard testament is a to the Sigil team's philosophy of using timesinks and grinding out levels in order to hide the lack of content (and poor content it is.) Why is it poor content? One started quest required me to gather stuff for a guard, he made a potion out of it and told me to drink the poison to impress him ... A simple little quest but I have never experienced anything like it ... The dark elf victims actually cried for mercy as i was killing them ... A quest in vanguards spider cave that had me get infected with spider eggs .. Wow ... It actually burst out ... I was floored. Poor? And what game does not use timesinks? Wow? What game does not use grinding? Wow? Come on now ... get real.
I have no sympathy for Brad and team. They we're told what would happen if they listened to the vocal minority and now they need to live with it. Whatever hope they had of retaining a smidgen of subscribers who are unsatisfied with WoW will be lost when LOTRO comes out in a couple months (not to mention pre-order subscribers).
As for me I'm pretty pissed that they bastardized the promise the game had into the poorly executed and shoddy example of a game it is today.
Vanguard, good riddance.
Takaris7,
The potion quest you are referring to is an exact replica of a WoW newby Horde quest. The WoW twist on the potion was that you had to give it to a dog. I think his name was Stanley or something.
The Dark Elf MOBs responding to your carnage of them is a replica of what the EQ2 Split Paw Gnolls say in their instances.
The infected spider eggs are an exact replica from a WoW quest in the Stoneaton Mountains.
Those are exact copies of EQ2 and WoW. The only conclusion you can draw from that is the Devs play EQ2 and/or WoW.
I can agree with you on that one. It is possible that the Dev's ganked stuff from other games. True. So that means only vanguard did it bad? Just because vanguard did its version of the quest it was horrible? Im sure they took alot of ideas from both games and more. (I would have.) Everyone stole from EQ1 and they stole from other games and books. its not poor content...re-thought perhaps...but not bad.
I said in another post there really isnt alot of innovation MMO's can peform with the Quest system....unless something revolutionary happens...and i have not seen it in any game. I liked the way the quest line was done in vanguard ... and yes you did bring back some memories of sort of similar quests ... the screaming ... ah the screaming.
As for timesinks......are your utterly insane ? Have you tried grinding in Lineage 2 ? Or faction grinding in WoW ? Vanguards so called timesinks are easy compared to many other games. Especially the faction grinding. Evidentally you were expecting some WoW clone, and should now just go cry back back to middle school because to be quite honest....Vanguard is for the big boys and girls, and we are loving it.
I usually don't make comments like this but...
What a wonderful way to represent the "mature" community of Vanguard... If the so called big boys and girls in VG are like this, then there's no hope for the game.
haha.. so true.
And one of the reasons that VG is turning off a lot of people is comments like that. I am sick of hearing about WOW, and the flaws and grind in VG being justified by pointing to other games. This game was SUPPOSED to be different - but it is not.
There is almost nothing original in it, the quests are nearly all "kill-a-rat" missions, the NPC dialogue is so bad I turned it off, and it is full of artificial time sinks, such as the long travel times.
One thing I thought was kind of funny on the VG official site is that they say something about a huge world to explore. But that world all looks the same, and if you really DO try to explore it, you end up with tons of XP debt
I have a station account, so cancelling is a moot point for me, but at most I will drop in once or twice a week to see if anything has gotten any better.
It is possible that the Dev's ganked stuff from other games. True. So that means only vanguard did it bad? Just because vanguard did its version of the quest it was horrible? Im sure they took alot of ideas from both games and more. (I would have.) Everyone stole from EQ1 and they stole from other games and books. its not poor content...re-thought perhaps...but not bad. I said in another post there really isnt alot of innovation MMO's can peform with the Quest system....unless something revolutionary happens...and i have not seen it in any game. I liked the way the quest line was done in vanguard ... and yes you did bring back some memories of sort of similar quests ... the screaming ... ah the screaming.
The whole point is, Brad/Vg hyped us for months, even years, about how VG was going to be the 3rd generation, and would be full of new stuff. I don't see any new stuff, all I see is old stuff repackaged.
And quests CAN be innovative - EQ2 has quite a few, and so do the more recent expansions of EQ1.
Comments
Personally I was going to give VSOH a second month, that was untill the "fix" they implemented on 15-feb-07. The fix means that I can no longer run the game alongside Teamspeak on my Vista X64 based system, the game just crashes within seconds.
What I'll probably do is come back to the game in a few months, fingers crossed that they'll have fixed the major bugs and compatibility problems. Okay, the game wasnt the next-gen MMORPG that I was expecting certainly not living up to the pre-release hype. I think I've only ever seen such a messy game once before, that was when the developers of Asherons Call 2 went bonkers with massive changes in gameplay appearing (and being reset) allmost daily. I really really want to like this game, its just at the moment Im sympathising with the chap in the internet video (I'm sure you've all seen it), where the guy in a work cubicle trashes his PC infront of his workmates.
I may just have a hunt around for another fantasy MMORPG to play in the meantime...
Crimliar
eqnext.wikia.com
Cancelled........but I will continue to watch game growth and content.
I cancelled but I will watch the patch notes and keep up with the game. If they can figure out a way to make the game more convenient to the non-hardcore (meaning not a lot of free time), I will re-subscribe.
Other games do it by adding:
The Vanguard community does not want these in their game. I am not saying that Vanguard needs to add these things but if they can "think outside the box" and find a way to make the game more accessible to the non-hardcore I will gladly play again. I am not worried about the bugs and performance. I also am not worried about the leveling time. I don't mind spending a year or more to reach max level. The bugs and performance problems will go away shortly but the gameplay, character models, animations, and other misc timesinks just kill it for me.
If they keep on the same track then cool. It is good to have a game that give us a choice from WoW and WoW-type gameplay. I think it will be a great game for those will large amounts of spare time. If I were not married with a family I might even give it a longer term shot. I can see the potential and the vision for the game and it looks good.
In the meantime, I am a N00b that will "go back to WoW". Maybe I will keep my subscription just to see the beautiful world and help support Brad and Sigil. It is like a animated work of art.
Quit but keep playing ..... you realise that only encourages companies to carry on shafting the consumers.
Pick up GW or something if you don't already have it; or try a month of CoH - whatever.
I just cancelled a few minutes ago, and I'm gutted.
This had, and maybe still has, the makings of being a great game. I have been up and down about it.
Regardless of what anyone else thinks, for me it just isn't holding my interest. Watching classes being changed/nerfed , while there are stacks of bugs, showstopping bugs at times, and feeling disconnected from the community due to a lack of a forum (and yes I know about all the 'affiliate sites' just leaves me feeling disappointed.
I'll probably keep an eye on the patch notes as well, but for me, the missing element I suppose is fun. I don't want to be spoon fed xp, I don't want easy mode, but just making kills worth minute amounts of xp, and spending ages running around, that is not hard, it is simply the most tedious grind.
I hope it picks up, and good luck and have a great time all those who persevere with it.
Plans? hmm, I dunno that I am going to bother with mmo's for a while.
I've just put in a request to SOE to have my VSOH free trial period suspended untill the game is in a more stable state.
Crimliar
Regardless, a lot of MMOs like UO and such have stayed afloat without any threatened cancellations with 100k-200k subscribers. 'course Vanguard is much newer and probably demands more funding, but you certainly don't need a million or several million subscribers to stay afloat.
Ultimately, I see a niche few people inheriting Vanguard, if for no reason other than Sigil right now is failing and seeming quite amateurish at appealing to the masses. They might aswell buckle down and make the game the best it can be for the likes of the people that do play it. I don't mean that in a bad way, but in the way that City of Heroes/Villains continues to thrive off it's niche audience, Eve Online too...etc. Poise it as it's own game, not a potential competitor to WoW or inheritor of EQ's spirit or any third-gen standard decider nonsense.
It depends in part on the cost. Thinks like UO, EQ and DAoC were done with a tiny staff. There was also a lot of reworking of the artwork done as well - see beta reviews - which will all have added to the cost. Brad suggested in a discussion that games should be able to run with c. 100k subscribers. Based on what we know that sounds to be an OK number for running the game. To paying off the development costs of VSoH needs far more.
I don't believe that VSoH has 100k potential subscribers yet. Accounts yes as per Brad's statement but I think we have to assume tha they include the keys. Even if it is 150k accounts if only 50% stick around (let alone 25%) then it simply isn't going to see the 100k mark. If it was just this site that had posts and polls on then maybe folks are just venting. But it is the case on all sites I have visited.
Now either these polls / posts are representative because the general public visit OR they don't include the general public. The problem with declaring them unrepresentative however is that other people are claiming that the public shouldn't be disappointed about the game because they all visited the forums before making their purchases. Hmmm ... which is it to be. Didn't - in which case unsuspecting members of the public have bought a game off the shelf with no idea how bad it is OR the poll is a good indication. Either way you play that it doesn't look good imo.
The game is nothing at all like we envisioned it would be a year ago. Brad's obsession with Blizzard hating and his inability to unhook himself from his belief that Everquest was a "perfect" game, has essentially doomed Vanguard. They've managed to take what could have been a fantastic and challenging game and turn it into an example of monotony and timesinks taken to the level of absurdity.
Vanguard testament is a to the Sigil team's philosophy of using timesinks and grinding out levels in order to hide the lack of content (and poor content it is.)
I have no sympathy for Brad and team. They we're told what would happen if they listened to the vocal minority and now they need to live with it. Whatever hope they had of retaining a smidgen of subscribers who are unsatisfied with WoW will be lost when LOTRO comes out in a couple months (not to mention pre-order subscribers).
As for me I'm pretty pissed that they bastardized the promise the game had into the poorly executed and shoddy example of a game it is today.
Vanguard, good riddance.
Talk to members of the old time top Everquest guilds (FoH, Afterlife, Conquest, etc) and you'll find NONE of them are moving to Vanguard. Why? Because contrary to what Brad and team hoped, what made Everquest great (or kept people playing) wasn't the timesinks, grinding for exp or the lack of any user friendly features. What kept people playing EQ was the lack of any alternatives and decent raiding content (when it worked).
Why do you think EVERY top guild left EQ and flocked to WoW....
Yep, too bad Brad won't figure that out until too late.
LOL ta ta then
WoW has a very distinct and independant style. And tbh what did you expect from the guy who created EQ ?? A WoW Clone ?? Of course not. EQ isn't just the style that Brad emulates, EQ IS Brad. Thus you will get a similar style in Vanguard.
Which tbh, I have no problem with. (No I never played EQ, but I dallied with EQ2 for a short while,) I've been in since beta stage 3 and Im loving it. The graphics are fantastic, the gameplay is fun, and even though it released early there are fewer bugs than in SWG a year after its release. (And I played that for 2 years.....and its still bug ridden)
As for timesinks......are your utterly insane ? Have you tried grinding in Lineage 2 ? Or faction grinding in WoW ? Vanguards so called timesinks are easy compared to many other games. Especially the faction grinding. Evidentally you were expecting some WoW clone, and should now just go cry back back to middle school because to be quite honest....Vanguard is for the big boys and girls, and we are loving it.
What a wonderful way to represent the "mature" community of Vanguard... If the so called big boys and girls in VG are like this, then there's no hope for the game.
Your feelings are a lot like mine.
I was on the VG forums ever since the first day, and was really anticipating the game. I guess you could say I was one of the original Vangurls.
But gradually, especially in the last year or so, we started getting more hype and less beef. For a while Brad would come on the VG forums almost daily to post screenshots and tell us what was "going" to be in the game. But none of that ever seemed to quite actually make into the game...
IMO, the main thing that made VG such a mess was that Brad refused to look at reality, and got all his input from the diehard "EQ died with Velious (or whatever expansion people hated)" fanatics. And then the "I need PVP" screamers started, so they changed direction yet again.
And early EQ was FAR from a perfect game - it had numerous flaws, and had tons of deliberate time sinks that were for the sole purpose of slowing players down - and he carried that same flawed "Vision" to Vanguard.
Despite all the attention the bugs are getting, the bugs are not my issues. It is the content. And the content is mediocre at best.
And of course, one question that is still not answered is - Did the world REALLY need yet another Elf/Dwarf fantasy game ?
Takaris7,
The potion quest you are referring to is an exact replica of a WoW newby Horde quest. The WoW twist on the potion was that you had to give it to a dog. I think his name was Stanley or something.
The Dark Elf MOBs responding to your carnage of them is a replica of what the EQ2 Split Paw Gnolls say in their instances.
The infected spider eggs are an exact replica from a WoW quest in the Stoneaton Mountains.
Those are exact copies of EQ2 and WoW. The only conclusion you can draw from that is the Devs play EQ2 and/or WoW.
Your feelings are a lot like mine.
I was on the VG forums ever since the first day, and was really anticipating the game. I guess you could say I was one of the original Vangurls.
But gradually, especially in the last year or so, we started getting more hype and less beef. For a while Brad would come on the VG forums almost daily to post screenshots and tell us what was "going" to be in the game. But none of that ever seemed to quite actually make into the game...
IMO, the main thing that made VG such a mess was that Brad refused to look at reality, and got all his input from the diehard "EQ died with Velious (or whatever expansion people hated)" fanatics. And then the "I need PVP" screamers started, so they changed direction yet again.
And early EQ was FAR from a perfect game - it had numerous flaws, and had tons of deliberate time sinks that were for the sole purpose of slowing players down - and he carried that same flawed "Vision" to Vanguard.
Despite all the attention the bugs are getting, the bugs are not my issues. It is the content. And the content is mediocre at best.
I think what the original poster was trying to say was .... What were you expecting? .... Lots of people have tons of expert opinions...and are let down because of the expert expectations.
content. mediocre content is a good word but what are you saying? Are you saying the wire led content of Wow is better? Story line bad? The X quests are just like every other MMo on the market? Are you saying Housing is bad? Ships are bad? Are you saying the massive seamless world is bad? Free mounts are bad? (not flying mounts stuck in one zone) What are you saying? Factions are bad? Waiting for spawns? (Is that in any other game?) Crafting Bad? (Isnt that content?) Diplomacy, an idea like no other game, is bad?
How is the content any different then any other game? Please explain.
Takaris7,
The potion quest you are referring to is an exact replica of a WoW newby Horde quest. The WoW twist on the potion was that you had to give it to a dog. I think his name was Stanley or something.
The Dark Elf MOBs responding to your carnage of them is a replica of what the EQ2 Split Paw Gnolls say in their instances.
The infected spider eggs are an exact replica from a WoW quest in the Stoneaton Mountains.
Those are exact copies of EQ2 and WoW. The only conclusion you can draw from that is the Devs play EQ2 and/or WoW.
I can agree with you on that one. It is possible that the Dev's ganked stuff from other games. True. So that means only vanguard did it bad? Just because vanguard did its version of the quest it was horrible? Im sure they took alot of ideas from both games and more. (I would have.) Everyone stole from EQ1 and they stole from other games and books. its not poor content...re-thought perhaps...but not bad.
I said in another post there really isnt alot of innovation MMO's can peform with the Quest system....unless something revolutionary happens...and i have not seen it in any game. I liked the way the quest line was done in vanguard ... and yes you did bring back some memories of sort of similar quests ... the screaming ... ah the screaming.
What a wonderful way to represent the "mature" community of Vanguard... If the so called big boys and girls in VG are like this, then there's no hope for the game.
haha.. so true.
And one of the reasons that VG is turning off a lot of people is comments like that. I am sick of hearing about WOW, and the flaws and grind in VG being justified by pointing to other games. This game was SUPPOSED to be different - but it is not.
There is almost nothing original in it, the quests are nearly all "kill-a-rat" missions, the NPC dialogue is so bad I turned it off, and it is full of artificial time sinks, such as the long travel times.
One thing I thought was kind of funny on the VG official site is that they say something about a huge world to explore. But that world all looks the same, and if you really DO try to explore it, you end up with tons of XP debt
I have a station account, so cancelling is a moot point for me, but at most I will drop in once or twice a week to see if anything has gotten any better.
The whole point is, Brad/Vg hyped us for months, even years, about how VG was going to be the 3rd generation, and would be full of new stuff. I don't see any new stuff, all I see is old stuff repackaged.
And quests CAN be innovative - EQ2 has quite a few, and so do the more recent expansions of EQ1.