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Vanguard, What a waste of my $50
Vistaakah
Member Posts: 176
I said i wasn't going to buy this game but as i was standing at the local Wal-mart eyeing WOW's The Burning Crusade and Vanguard i said what the heck.. I'm burned out on WOW and just maybe Vanguard would be that "something different" that i was looking for but, It sure wasn't. I can't remember a released game in so crappy condition unless i look way back to a game called Shadow bane. The only touted thing on this game that the rest of the games don't have is a zone less world. Guildwars took that to an extreme and zoned/instanced everything. Don't get me wrong i don't mind the open world its a great concept. Lets look at some issues.
1. Graphics are decent. Not awesome enough to warrant the load it puts on my racing machine of a PC. I ran at highest quality settings averaging 25-60FPS but this game is NOT that pretty. Spell effects and animations really stink horribly. EQ2 and Guild wars are far better looking graphical games in my gaming opinion. One thing i hated about GW is the instancing but i'm gonna be playing that in the meantime because its simply a better game then comparisons are made and the reason why its the top 2 popular MMORPS out there. I was really looking for something that made this game stand out over the competition and it really fails in every department. The novelty of adding politics to the game is a first.
2. Game play- crashes frequently, full of bugs.. Box says Windows Vista on it but it wont run unless you go through the trouble of finding a DX9 file to get the game to start. If it says it will run on Vista OS that means it will run on the DX 9 files that Vista does have. Vista is DX10 for all those wondering.
3.Community? What community. There is only one U.S. PVP server and 1 FFA US PVP server and i tried the PVP team server. Hardly ever see a single soul around . Game is only a month old so starter towns should be rocking but they aren't. You feel like your playing alone is what Vanguard feels like. If you do a server check most times its low to Medium across the board with exception of one EU server or the RP server.. I've seen those at high capacity.
I can go on and on but the truth of all things is that when you bring a new MMORPG to market it has to do several things. It has to feel polished. * Warhammer Online wont be released in this Alpha/Beta state Vanguard is in. DAOC when it was first released had some bugs but NOTHING near as bad as this game. Sigil pulled their message boards down in which i can only believe was due to negative press by the player base. This game doesn't offer as much or more then the games already on the market EQ2, WOW, GW. Heck the quest system reminds me of DAOC's when it first came out. Character animations are lame. A bunch of NPCs standing around sighing. At least in EQ2 the merchants asked me not to rob them and had facial expressions.
Oh i forgot to mention a 16 hour download out of the box just to play on a dial up. Next week a LARGE download is forecast with added content. FIX the game first lol.. I guess for me this means either playing GW or single player offline games till Warhammer Online is released which will be a real PVP players game. Good thing the first month is free. They got me for 50 bucks but thats all they will get me for. I expected quality, stability, state of the art graphics, a flourishing new community of PVP players, and well i didn't get any of those things. Sorry but i really don't have nothing good at all to say about this game and i wish i did.
Hail To MMORPG.Com you simply have the best player base forums on the webs hands down!
Comments
There is just so much misinformation in this post I really don't know where to start.
1) You got 60 fps on highest quality without tweaking the .ini file? What kind of system do you have, silicon graphics Onyx workstation??
2) Crashing is a gameplay issue? Anyway, sorry your crashing so frequently. I have crashed 4 times since release and 6 times in total. Really can't put myself in your shoes but I feel for you.
3) Community. I've never seen less than 40 players in ANY area of the team PVP server, it's always full.
4) Vanguard, like DAoC, planned on having no official forums long before release.
I enjoy Vanguard and I would probably quit my job if I got 60 fps on highest quality. The graphics are definitely state of the art, the world is huge and I haven't experienced a game breaking bug in my entire 5 months. Since the last patch I haven't experienced a bug period. Not a quest, not an animation, not a flappy texture; nothing.
Sorry you had such a bad experience, but have fun playing Guild Wars!
You bought the game so you might as well get some of your moneys worth using my tips.
As for bugs, I've only played for about 4-5 hours so far as I've been busy this last week but I haven't seen any of those either. I know they're out there, but again, just haven't seen them.
And oddly enough, the same thing goes for game crashes. I have yet to experience one of those.
I know there are issues with this game, but I've played a lot of MMOs and I have yet to see one that doesn't have growing pains early on. Anyone remember the WoW servers the first few months? You couldn't sign on during prime time without waiting 30-90 minutes.
1.I run and Intel C2D E6400 on a BFGtech 8800GTS with 2GB Corsair XMS2 DDR 667 Memory. Yes i get 25 FPS in town and 55+ out of town at highest quality settings not tweaking squat..
2. Read tech forums .. crashing is rampant in this game.. Sigil closed their forums why? I don't crash all the time but more then you should its a GAME problem. It causes instabiliy in operating systems. I don't have much faith after reading a TSR tell somebody to go screw around and disable prefetch in the registry as a memory fix *laughs*.
3. I've started in Dwarf, Human , Elf zones. I've never seen 40 people on period . In newbie zones if i see a single person its quite odd. I'm laid off from work atm so i'm i've tried all hours.
And last but not least how do you sell a game that doesn't do anything better or offer any more then is currently available? That was my deciding factor on purchase HOPING this game did something more interesting in better be it PVE or PVP and i haven't found nothing.
E8400@ 4.0Ghz ~ Saphire HD 4870 ~ 6GB DDR2@ 860MhZ
Vg isn't the only game you're going to have trouble running vista and an 8800 with. There are some interesting articles out about gaming and vista you may want to check out.
Silly questions, how big is your power supply? How is your towers cooling? I can tell a HUGE dif. when I run EQ2 and VG. The fan on my card kicks in emediately with VG and on occasion with EQ2 and I know the 8800 is gonna run much hotter then my 7950 does. This game takes a LOT of muscle and if your case is overheating it could be causing you to crash. I only say this because I have yet to crash in VG but I crash at least once a week in EQ2 and find it hard to believe that every time someone crashes it's the fault of game. How bout the harddrive? How big, is it full, when was the last time you defragged? After defraging mine I saw an incredible jump in performance with VG, but I'm using a 300gb hd with a little less then half of it filled and junk was scattered all over the place.
Get another gig of ram, vista is a memory hog and is MEANT to run off of 3 gigs, so the 2 could be causing you to have issues.
GTS is the low end 8800 right? Shoulda went with the 7950 and xp. 5% performance isn't worth the extra 200 dollars the 8800 cost. I'm getting the same performance as you at half the cost.
Vista uses open AL for sound. Are you using the X-fi sound card, it's the only one that I'm aware of that is Open AL compatable and this could also be causing you to crash if you're using something dif. You may want to do some searching. An emulator may be needed to solve the sound card problem, because vista doesn't support the old sound format anymore and only runs on Open AL requiring an emulator to fix the problem. Have you tried playing with the sound off? Big dif and not that big a deal in my opinion, the sounds in the game, outside of the music aren't that great.
The styling of VG is very specific to the artist that inspired the look of the game. Parkinson was also the lead designer I believe before he passed away. Take a look at some of the mans art and you might get an idea of why the game looks the way it does. Animations are missing, I thnk some of the lighting could be better, and apparently so do the devs as they are improving some areas in update #1. I have a feeling that some of the effects may not be complete as well so I can't really argue that with you. Style wise I think EQ2 did a better job with the character models, lighting and shading. Graphically though the world in VG has all else beat and I wish EQ2 could take some of the stuff from VG. Like the grass, world shadows, and tree details. They went a little overboard with the bump mapping and it seems like everything was meant to be viewed from a distance and doesn't really work as well when you look at some of the landscape up close, like the mapping on some of the rocks. VG is also using a LOT more polygons then EQ2 does, even with the character models. Some animations and better lighting and shadows on the characters and I think VG will blow EQ2 out of the water in every way.
You'll have to progress a little further in the game to find the things that are a little dif. PvE wise then most of the games out there.
The only starting area I've found to be 'dead' so far, has been Martok - nobody wants to play as the orcs yet, I imagine.
So I disagree re: the population of Vanguard. I'm having an easier time finding pickup groups in this game, than I have been able to find on the EQ2 Venekor server.
That being said, I do agree that the game has more than its share of bugs, and that the code needs to be optimized further still.
Nothing gamebreaking, however, imo.
Regards
Vg isn't the only game you're going to have trouble running vista and an 8800 with. There are some interesting articles out about gaming and vista you may want to check out.
Silly questions, how big is your power supply? How is your towers cooling? I can tell a HUGE dif. when I run EQ2 and VG. The fan on my card kicks in emediately with VG and on occasion with EQ2 and I know the 8800 is gonna run much hotter then my 7950 does. This game takes a LOT of muscle and if your case is overheating it could be causing you to crash. I only say this because I have yet to crash in VG but I crash at least once a week in EQ2 and find it hard to believe that every time someone crashes it's the fault of game. How bout the harddrive? How big, is it full, when was the last time you defragged? After defraging mine I saw an incredible jump in performance with VG, but I'm using a 300gb hd with a little less then half of it filled and junk was scattered all over the place.
Get another gig of ram, vista is a memory hog and is MEANT to run off of 3 gigs, so the 2 could be causing you to have issues.
GTS is the low end 8800 right? Shoulda went with the 7950 and xp. 5% performance isn't worth the extra 200 dollars the 8800 cost. I'm getting the same performance as you at half the cost.
Vista uses open AL for sound. Are you using the X-fi sound card, it's the only one that I'm aware of that is Open AL compatable and this could also be causing you to crash if you're using something dif. You may want to do some searching. An emulator may be needed to solve the sound card problem, because vista doesn't support the old sound format anymore and only runs on Open AL requiring an emulator to fix the problem. Have you tried playing with the sound off? Big dif and not that big a deal in my opinion, the sounds in the game, outside of the music aren't that great.
The styling of VG is very specific to the artist that inspired the look of the game. Parkinson was also the lead designer I believe before he passed away. Take a look at some of the mans art and you might get an idea of why the game looks the way it does. Animations are missing, I thnk some of the lighting could be better, and apparently so do the devs as they are improving some areas in update #1. I have a feeling that some of the effects may not be complete as well so I can't really argue that with you. Style wise I think EQ2 did a better job with the character models, lighting and shading. Graphically though the world in VG has all else beat and I wish EQ2 could take some of the stuff from VG. Like the grass, world shadows, and tree details. They went a little overboard with the bump mapping and it seems like everything was meant to be viewed from a distance and doesn't really work as well when you look at some of the landscape up close, like the mapping on some of the rocks. VG is also using a LOT more polygons then EQ2 does, even with the character models. Some animations and better lighting and shadows on the characters and I think VG will blow EQ2 out of the water in every way.
You'll have to progress a little further in the game to find the things that are a little dif. PvE wise then most of the games out there.
First of all i build PC's but fyi i build overkills on power and cooling.
C2D E6400 @ 2.13 non overlcocked- Cooling Zalman 9500 *way overkill for non OC system but cool is good*
BFGtech 8800GTSOCHP factory overclocked with awsome cooling- This is just under GTX specs not by much. GTX fastest card money can buy.. It ownz anything ATI has. 7950 is Direcx 9 and 8800 are Directx 10 cards no comparison performance wise
OCZ GameXStream 700 Watt PS SLI rated 120mm fan on it
4x 80mm Zalman case fans. CPU 28C Idle 39C under full load..
My HDD is game dedicated separate from OS.
Ok thats enough tech info get the point ?
Next.
Faulting application vgclient.exe, version 1.0.0.1758, time stamp 0x45dcb885, faulting module VGClient.dll, version 1.0.0.1758, time stamp 0x45dcb87c, exception code 0xc0000005, fault offset 0x000e0f63, process id 0xf70, application start time 0x01c75d186f23e206.
Faulting application vgclient.exe, version 1.0.0.1758, time stamp 0x45dcb885, faulting module d3dx9_31.dll, version 6.0.6000.16386, time stamp 0x4549bdc9, exception code 0xc0000135, fault offset 0x00008fc7, process id 0x9d0, application start time 0x01c75c2d395c7e53.
Faulting application vgclient.exe, version 1.0.0.1758, time stamp 0x45dcb885, faulting module VGClient.dll, version 1.0.0.1758, time stamp 0x45dcb87c, exception code 0xc0000005, fault offset 0x000e0f63, process id 0xf70, application start time 0x01c75d186f23e206.
Faulting application vgclient.exe, version 1.0.0.1758, time stamp 0x45dcb885, faulting module kernel32.dll, version 6.0.6000.16386, time stamp 0x4549bd80, exception code 0x00000000, fault offset 0x0001b09e, process id 0x7b0, application start time 0x01c75d0806f835ac.
Those are game faults that cause Vanguard to crash.. Nothing to do with heat or windows stability.
Audigy only runs in Open/AL software mode at the moment on there beta drivers. They put it on the backburner to X-Fi drivers.
Last but not least. Go cast a mage spell under full highest quality graphics in EQ2 and the same on a sorcorer in Vanguard. EQ2 spell graphics even GW spell animations are superior. I will give credit in environmental graphics area's.
Your first mistake was assuming that a game that is 98.7% PVE would be good for PVP.
If you want PVP, then go play a game designed for it.
I canceled my account yesterday for the same reasons as the original poster, plus PvP balance and a bunch of other things. I really did try to like it, but there was really nothing about it that made it worth playing over all the other MMOs, and plenty of things that made the other MMOs worth playing instead.
I always find it amusing when die-hard fanboys such as the ones in this thread attack someone for telling it how it is. It's suckers like you that SOE counts on to pay the bills when they put out unfinished dreck like Vanguard.
I just wanted to say thanks to Vistaakah and Fariic. Good with some technical information, that's always useful. I have a friend running Vista who has had very erratic performance in Vanguard where as the rest in the gaming group has had a good stable performance.
I actually think that these two people posting here have given at least as decent info as on the SOE tech support forums, which will often clutter up with things that hardly if ever matters.
Sad you didn't like the game, Vistaakah, but no game can cater to everybody. I don't agree with your comparison to other games but I recognize that once you feel fed up, you will always sound more negative, especially to people who can't recognize your feelings of the game. So good luck and so on.
Although in short, you should understand that Vanguard will due to it's design never be a useful PvP game. Look up the classes and their ideas, they're unbalanceable. And Sigil is quite open about saying they won't even [b]try[/b] to balance them, either.
SQUEAK.
--(The Death of Rats, Terry Pratchett, Soul Music)
Yeah your right... EQII and WoW diden't look anything like they did a couple of years ago. Plus they just recently added all the /dance and /silly emotes right?
/sarchasm