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A Realistic Review of Vanguard
Thamoris
Member UncommonPosts: 686
I am posting my review of Vanguard from the perspective of a gamer dad with moderate mmorpg experience. I started playing online in Horizons..3 years played. Played Guild Wars since it's launch and did some beta play in WoW and SoR. Though relatively inexperienced in the mmo genre...I have been deeply involved and very active during my brief 3 years playing online. I base my review of Vanguard on two months of daily play...beta 5 to current.
I score with 10 being the best and 1 being the worst.
Chacter models / creation ~ 9
They look great. There are dozens upon dozen of options from adjusting the " tilt " of your ears to the angle of the tip of your nose. Oddly enough though...only 4-5 hair styles to choose from. In ones home town there is a sense that everyone looks the same. This lessens alot though as you level up and travel around to various other areas. A bit of a disappointment overall though. I hate seeing another avatar that looks just like my own. The massive variety of other ways to customize one avatar is the reason for the 9 otherwise it would be an 8. The incredible amount of races and schools available help keep the score up as well. Each race is very unique in its style of play..each has a very unique look and racial abilities.
Starting Areas ~ 9
The starting areas in Thestra actualy get a score of 10. Starting areas in Kojan get a 8. Starting areas in Qalia get a 9. This score is based on my experience on each continent. I think the way the quests are lined up and the way they introduce you to various aspects of gameplay are well done....the scores reflect which areas are better to start in. The leveling is fast early on and the pace is quick. Plenty of lore is provided though one has to pay attention to avoid getting lost. I learned the hard way that skimming through npc dialog is ill adivised...read it all or you will get confused easily.
Game Performance ~ 8
This score has come up alot for me. A few weeks ago I would have scored it a 6. Memory leaks have been fixed. Mobs no longer disapear while engaged. Stutter has been greatly reduced. My fps has increased from 15-20 to 25-30 with no adjustment on my end. For perspective sake...rig is a 3500 amd, Nvid 6600 gpu, 1 gig of ram...graphics set to high performance though I can play on balanced with a 5-10 fps hit on my cpu. Since graphics aren't a major priority for me..I play on high performance instead..game still looks plenty good to me.
I lose connections with the social server fairly often and the chunk crossing remain to be an issue. Those are my two biggiest complaints. Losing the social server connection forces a relog to fix and the chunk crossings can sometimes crash me to desktop and always involve about a 10 second pause while the new chunk loads. I think my 1 gig of ram has alot to do with that though. I will be upgrading ram soon...2-3 gigs is highly reccomended.
* UPDATE~ I have now upgraded to 3 gb of ram. Stutter is non-existant. Social server has not crashed once in days. Chunk crossings are barely noticeable now !!! I still play on high performance..BUT...I have view distance maxed, animation distance maxed, detail level doubled, lighting details doubled...with grass and fancy clouds turned off.
*EDIT ~ There are some ISOLATED accounts that have had some game breaking..can't log in or play issues. Out of 100 people in my guild..this has been an issue with about 3-5 that I am aware of. so.. I have had no such issues.
Warning..3-5% of the player base will have game breaking issues.
Combat ~ 10
I love the combat. I love the difference in combat between schools. I love the variety of skills and how positon is important. I love the fact that I have to use every skill I have in different ways depending on which mob I am engaged with. The particle effects are supurb. The combat animations vary greatly with lots of variety. A few weeks ago I would have scored a 9 here..but recent fixes have made combat a blast ! No cookie cutter abilities carried from one school to another. Each school is indeed...completely unique and requires different tactics to be successful. I will eventualy play them all...I'm in danger of too many alts simply because they are all so fun to play. One has to pay attention. This is no click and watch combat. Do that and you will die often. One actualy has to quickly learn a mobs strengths and weakness. One has to fully understand their own strengths and weaknesses. Not all schools solo the same and group the same. If you solo..pick a healing type school. You can solo well with other schools..but it's harder. I have had no difficulty leveling my Paladin solo. Mage types and light armor types is more challenging..but still possible. I reccomend rolling a Paladin or Cleric as a first character...expand to other schools once you become more familiar with gameplay.
Crafting ~ 8
I dinged crafting because it is still too buggy. Too many complications and too much of a grind. Despite the grind and complications it still gets an 8 from the sheer potential. It's a very engaging process where actual talent comes into play. I really feel like I'm making something. I get a good sense that I need to understand how to make something in order to make it well. Making it well is important. Their is a big difference from a grade A item and a grade B one. Harvesting is its own little mini game that is independant from the crafting process.
Harvesting is actually a 4th element of gameplay to go along with the craft, adventure and diplomacy aspescts.
Diplomacy ~ 9
To be fair..I have not explored this aspect of gameplay much at all. What little I have done I have enjoyed. There is simply to much to do. I have been too busy and having too much fun with the other aspects of gameplay to spend much time in diplomacy. Based on what my guildmates have done and what I've seen in game...it loosk fun and has great potential. Its an aspect of gameplay that has dynamic impact on everyone. Civic diplomacy can grant entire areas various buffs to adventure and craft that everyone in that area for a long period of time can enjoy.
Graphics ~ 10
Simply put...fantastic! I do not have a single complaint in the graphics department. They do require a high end machine. Any gaming rid bought today though for about $2000 ( not store bought ones )..custom online ones can play this game at max settings with acceptable fps of 30-40 range. The colors, lighting, view distance, animations, water....everything..gorgeous ! Don't listen to the nay sayers....most of them just got their egos crushed when their " killer rig " they bought a year go won't get the 60+fps they are used too. You will find most of them are under the age of 20 yrs and have their egos tied up in their rigs like one would have their egos tied up in there hot rod cars too. A year from now your standard $1500 cpu will run this game great with the price of technology coming down fast and the game continueing to optimize.
Community ~ 10
On the Thunderaxe server..I have found the community to be awesome. Lots and lots of older...vetern gamers that know how to handle themselves well. I don't advise anyone to come in from WoW thinking they all uber and great..trash talking anyone though. They will get jumped on pretty fast....and rightly so imo. Credits earned gaming in WoW are invalid as my 7 year old max level in that game. My biggest issue with the players on my server is they are TOO QUICK TO TRY AND HELP ! That's right...everyone is so eager to help you it is actualy annoying at times. A problem I can live with though.
This game is so big..and so deep..I could almost go on forever. It is a fantastic experience for those players who value the journey more than the destination. Its a great game for those that appreciate the fact that the sweet aint so sweet without some bitter.
Overall score is a very solid ~ 9
I think this score will be a 10 a year from now. I think Vanguard is going to be a major success. I would predict over 500k in subs a year from now ...with over a million subs within two years. I think this may even be conservative. Six months from now...once the remaining few bugs are ironed out...people will be coming to Vanguard to play in droves. I'm enduring a few the bugs now so that I will be set up real nice when this game explodes in population. I have no doubt at all it will. Its infamous status now is actualy helping things. Vanguard is nearly a household name as it is.
Vanguard is the game that sucks less than the rest !
Flamers ..flame on.
Jackdog....Godpuppet and all you other Vanguard trolls...have a blast and pick apart my review.
I rest my case
Comments
In other words, anyone who dissagrees with the review is either a troll or wants to flame, now how can you rebuke that
Otherwise, passionate and biased review from someone who obviously enjoys the game, nothing wrong with that and great to see. Hope you stay and have a great time for a long time.
I don't agree with much but that's all I'll say, god knows we can't have anyone dissagree with you here.
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then it might get 10 but for now, 8.5.
Performance is well...I still get some stuttering and crashes, and i have OK rig, (2.4 C2D, 8800gtx, 4 gigs of ram)
Community is ok, there are some "OMFG THIS GAME LAGS LOLOL I QUIT" people, but overall most are helpfull and friendly.
Cant say much about crafting, im not much of a crafter myself, but from what people from my guild have said, some like it, and some hate it. Its a matter of taste.
Diplomacy is cool, i really enjoyed it. The more minigames there are inside an MMORPG the better.
Combat...Well i think its the same as in other MMORPG's.
I really liked starting areas, a lot of em. And each faction has different style (there is 1 desert themed, 1 represents Asian culture, and one is pretty much European (atleast i think so, haven't played that one much)
The Exp comes pretty slowly (for some good thing, for some bad thing), And as far as i have noticed a lot of quests are for groups (small minus for me, i'm kinda soloer, i hate looking for groups, its cool if i just randomly run in one, but i hate sitting in one place and yelling LFG's.
So, how exactly is this glowing review realistic? Since when is 25 to 30 FPS been considered good enough to justify a 9 out of 10 score? I still think the character animations are atrocious. Arms clipping through shields and weapons that are mounted on the back. Stiff, cobb up the butt, style running. Torsos that refuse to bend or move naturally. I see you mentioned starting areas, but what about well beyond that? I've been beyond and monster densities drop dramatically, so do the points of interest. I ran for over an hour in some of the higher level wilds and saw maybe 3 rock trolls and a couple of flying drakes, the rest was beautiful, but empty space. Combat is okay, but I couldn't in all honesty give any game, let alone Vanguard an actual 10 for combat, talk about not being realistic.
I despise crafting and have only done a little bit to see what there's is like. Its not much different than what I've tried before, only add the frustration of senseless stretches, yawns and callistenics as part of their difficulty system. Diplomacy is a nice change of pace from tedious grinding, which is quite abundant in this game even at level 10, but to give it a 9 as well is a sign to me that you are not being realistic at all. Its fun for the first few levels, but it gets old fast, just like any mini game gets old after an hour of it. The fact that they've turned it into a seperate tree of advancement makes me wonder what sort of crack they were smoking.
Yes, the world graphics are pretty, but they still lack all of the small touches that you would expect in a 3rd generation game. Houses lack all of the small details you would expect to see if it were lived in. Where are all of the ambient wildlife, flowering bushes and trees, picket fences and all of the other touches that games like World of Warcraft remembered to include with their inferior graphics engine? And yet again, you would give it a 10?
There is very little about your reveiew that I would consider realistic and while they have certainly been trying to fix techinical and content bugs, they have a very long way to go. There are many and I mean many people who still crash to desktop regualarly, every 30 minutes up to 2 hours. There are tons of bugged quests and the graphics are still far too choppy even on top end systems. I would give the game an overall solid 6 or 7 with lots of unrealized potential.
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
So this game scores an average of 9.5 out of 10! Wow, that's about as high if not higher than most any other MMO I have seen ever seen released. So according to your balanced and reasonable review this is pretty much the best game that has ever come out. Impressive!
Good score if 1 is the best and 10 is the worst.
A completely neutral and unbiased view of this review would dictate that the scores do not match your comments.
You comment on poor performance, but playable and give it an 8? Nothing is lower than an 8, even if the flaws outweigh the positives IN YOUR COMMMENTS.
You give a ton of negativity in the comments, but none of that is reflected in the scores. When half of what you say is negative, usually it gets a bigger hit than 1 or 2 points out of 10.
I read the first three parts of the review and then discovered the scores don't match your comments, so I quit.
Yea, that's because Vanguard isn't a 3rd generation game.
My review is realistic from my perspective. That is...by definition ...what an opinion means. It does not mean being realistic from your perspective.
Obviously I am going to give high scores because I am having alot of fun playing Vanguard. The problems I talked about are not influencing my time in game enought to justify a big ding in my score. I simply put them in there because..the are what they are. They will get fixed...the game is great as is.
The extreme cases of crashings and poor in game performance are largely a result in user error. People that don't know how to keep their rigs clean from malware or log in through crappy browsers with poor connections to begin with.
Ambience is abundance...from watching a griffon attack a snake to birds flying...lighting effects. Heck..you can see every single leaf on every single tree move and reflect light as the sun hits em from different angles.
Vanguard is a great game..only going to get better!
Had you titled this "A Fanboi's review of Vanguard" then your review could be taken in consideration
But calling it realistic, with so many high scores that it exceeds every other MMORPG on this site shows your lack of understanding of the word....
I've played Vanguard a bunch....enjoyed some of it...hated other parts... my scores would range more like from 3-8 in most cases...with an average of 6 or 7 overall.
"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
Thamoris, give me a break!
Even the leafs in Lord of the rings Beta looks better then in Vanguard
Nice review, I agree with most of it. Not sure how I play other popular games and see the graphics here better or at least the same and some others trash them, and I play on balanced not even max graphics. It is just it is a matter of opinion.
I did however rate it abit lower 7.8, but it is still easily one of the best games I have everyplayed, and that is coming in just under a month.
and of course
, for the haters. ROFL, people everywhere in game but people try to play the it is failing card, I would counter with saying they are on a Slippery Slope 
Chacter models / creation ~ 9
Starting Areas ~ 9 (why is this separate? it shouldnt have a separe score since its not a major game feature)
Game Performance ~ 6
Combat ~ 9
Crafting ~ 8
Diplomacy ~ 9
Graphics ~ 10
Community ~ 9
I would also add another item to the list:
Customer service ~ 3
Fun level ~ 7
Overall score: 7.9
I am the type of player where I like to do everything and anything from time to time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor - pre-WW2 genocide.
The scores, with the possible exception of combat and graphics, are a little generous imo but the content is realistic from the perspective of a player who doesnt let the occasional bug get in the way of his/her game enjoyment. Also I feel the types of "reviews" that make you believe this game is unplayable are biased to the point of ficticious, so its great to hear the more positive experiences of other players.
It seems to me that like "newb" the term "fanboi" is being bastardised to slate anyone who enjoys a game despite the bugs, instead of its original purpose of slating a game fan who denies the bugs exist. Oh well, count me in as another fan
His definition of realistic isn't the same as yours. He is right in saying it's a realistic review because he defined realistic a different way.
Just because your definition of realistic isn't the same doesn't mean this isn't a realistic review. It IS a realistic review of Vanguard. Read what he explained realistic to be, which is a valid definition of the word.
Well ...duh !!!
All reviews are baised ones OPINION ....same review with a more negative bias would turn out with equally biased negative results. That statement is completely irrational...
of course my review is biased high ! duh! because I really like the game ! Would it makes sense to give it a low score and then state that I really like the game? nooooo.......moron
Well ...duh !!!
All reviews are baised ones OPINION ....same review with a more negative bias would turn out with equally biased negative results. That statement is completely irrational...
of course my review is biased high ! duh! because I really like the game ! Would it makes sense to give it a low score and then state that I really like the game? nooooo.......moron
Well said. I always give my opinion as well, to compliment OP's opinion. As long as the facts are truthfull any opinion is valid.I am the type of player where I like to do everything and anything from time to time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor - pre-WW2 genocide.
Fanboi..good grief..be original man. That is the most overused word on these boards. Everyone is a fan of something. I am a fan of Vanguard...so what are you a fan of? Is that a crime ? Where is the crime in posting a good review of what I think is a good game , based on hundreds of hours of gameplay? I am a grown man of sound mind not some emotional teenager that changes their opinions from day to day. Vanguard isn't perfect..my scores reflect that. I do not think it's flaws outweigh its strengths by a long shot.
The game is deep. The game is fun. The game is well funded and supportive. The customer service has proven to me to be above standard. Turnaround on support tickets is less than 48 hours. People with game stopping issues are getting comp time. Special xp event is being held to reward those that have endured the inconviences.
I expect the flames..welcome them even. These boards are trash anyways...I only come here to troll for trolls and I am never disappointed ..yall so easily played. I find it amusing.
Regards
You are wrong ... dictionary state ~
Transitive verb ..." to give an opinion about something " ....oops
moving on
Actually this does meet the requirements for a critical evaluation. He stated his premise (read opinion or point of view), listed his reasons for that premise, then offered a conclusion based on those reasons, which supports his premises. Thus it is a critical evaluation having all the elements of a reasoned argument.
The only question is whether you accept the reasons, or feel that his reasons support his conclusion. But they are there so it is a review.
Venge Sunsoar
Well ...duh !!!
All reviews are baised ones OPINION ....same review with a more negative bias would turn out with equally biased negative results. That statement is completely irrational...
of course my review is biased high ! duh! because I really like the game ! Would it makes sense to give it a low score and then state that I really like the game? nooooo.......moron
hey take it easy, im playing the game my self and enjoy it alot but if your gonna state it as "realistic review" then try to leave the favoritism out.I lose connections with the social server fairly often and the chunk crossing remain to be an issue. Those are my two biggiest complaints. Losing the social server connection forces a relog to fix and the chunk crossings can sometimes crash me to desktop and always involve about a 10 second pause while the new chunk loads. I think my 1 gig of ram has alot to do with that though. I will be upgrading ram soon...2-3 gigs is highly reccomended.
That is utter bullshit my friend. there is no way at ALL that u are playing this game on high with 1 gig of ram at 15 - 30 fps. sorry.