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My vanguard review ( 4 what it's worth)
HellsWizard
Member Posts: 44
Hi all. I know there's alot of fanboys and VG haters, so i expect this thread to be undersiege shortly after posting, though i hope we can all be objective.
About me : I'm a gamer. I have no allegiance to any certain product or company, if a game sucks it sucks, if i enjoy it i enjoy it. In short i haven't followed VG for years, not really sure who this mythical and hated Brad guy is, and while i don't ' hate ' SOE, i was a SWG player for abit, up till the shadey NGE stuff.. Anyways my point is i'm going to be unbaised and just talk what i've experienced.
been playing VG for about 2 weeks now. So far only a couple hours here & there. 8'th level Dark elf Monk, and a level 2 Dwarf crafter.
My Computer : i have 2, 1 for gaming & 1 for internet mail, surfing, pron etc... The gaming Computer is locked, only i use it, and i use it only for gaming. In short it has no bloatware, no viruses, no this or that.. I keep it clean and used only for gaming. This is important because alot of people who claim they know about computers, really don't. They get tons of data miners, tons of bloatware, rune 20K proccesses in the background, and then don't understand why their computer runs like crap.
The Specs : Pentium D 930 dual core 3.0 ghz LGA 775 ( not a fancy Conroe-Core but dual core all the same,and fairly powerful )
ASRock 4core-dual PT-880 Ultra Mobo ( not top of the line but fairly good IMO, nice bus speeds etc. )
2 gigs DDR667 (5300) in dual channel ( A-Data brand ; would like to expand this later, but mobo only goes upto 2 gig)
VisionTek's X1300XGE video card ( X1300 Rv515-GPU @ 600 Mhz core clock, 512 megs DDR2 @ ;800-something Mhz)
HardDrive 1 : WD 40 gig SATA 1.5 / 7200 RPM 8 mg Cache ( this drive handles the O/S & page-file storage/usage )
HardDrive 2 : WD 160 gig SATA 3.0 / 7200 RPM 8 meg cache ( this is my gaming drive, it's pinned down to SATA 1.5 cause the mobo, this drive does nothing but run the games. no page File, no system restore, no indexing, no file compression etc.)
SoundBlaster Audigy SE sound card. ( recently bought this to replace my SBPCI-512 soundcard, which was/is a good sound card.. Bought it back in 95 heh, but she ran solid for over 10 years in a PCI slot. however she was bottle necking me on me games, since her processor speed was slow despite the functional abilities of it. perfect for movies/music though. So far the Audigy does the Job, and i realise that it is a SE edition, but hey im a gamer on a budget ok 
)
using onbaord LAN 10/100 ethernet , connected to a cable conection. 5 megs down, 3 megs up.
Windows XP-home edition. and just cause it's stylish i use an old CRT monitor @ 1024x768 @ 75 mhz refresh.
top of the line set up ? hardly.. But she's not too dated.. performance is solid game wise. I consider THIS setup up to be an " average gaming rig. "
Game settings : i run at a ' balanced ' setting with textures set to high. I average mid 20's to mid 40's on Frames per second depending on the area. in cities or crowded areas i do drop to mid teens to mid 20's true, however in the wild with people around i get about 30's. I do get some hitching as the shaders are compiled, and when i chunk. But my experience is the longer i play the smoother it becomes, after about 5 minutes in-game there's alot less hitching, and better frame rates. My load times are fairly short, maybe , maybe 20 secnds to go from character selection to in-game.
My biggest problem in performance is light sources, and particle effects. The x1300XGE handles textures and AA well due to the high clock speeds & high RAM , but performs poorly with shaders etc. due to only 4 pixel pipelines. Some day i'll get a better video-card but at the moment she does her job. So with light sources i limit to 4, and %30 light complexity.
So how does it look ? Game looks great, though i miss out on some eye-candy true.. I'm sure a full 250KM view would be beautiful but it makes my video-card cry.. I won't candy coat it, the graphical functions of the game alone ARE demanding, alittle too demanding IMO. I have Oblivion set to higher graphical settings and get better graphic performance, while entirely different engines etc. i don't think anyone can honestly say Oblivion isn't demanding. So when comparing the view & perfromance of the two, VG definatly has room for performance increases. The animations of the game are fairly decent, in my opinion of course. The monk class in combat is fun to watch, the moves seem well put together, in a aestetic sense. I guess it's debateble i've seen a few people comment they didn't like the animations. /shrug
the terrain is abit lacking though, which i conceed is prolly my Video settings not running full blast. It's nice, nothing awe inspiring though.. But i must point out here, i haven't really gotten too far in my explorations. I'm sure there's some absolutely lovely spots in-game, i just haven't gotten to them yet 
. Buildings and atmosphere are excellent though, NPC's look good, starter mobs are abit unoriginal i admit, but they do look ok.
How does she sound ? Well i have a crap sound card. So maybe thats the cause, but so far the sounds are rather dull, not that immersive IMO, and well.. lacking.. i mean it's there, and it's crisp, but it doesn't make me feel like im actually outside hearing crickets and frogs etc.. The combat sounds are also not that inspiring, NPC voices are short often repeated clips played over & over.. For a 20 gig install i would have expected ( and did ) alot more voices, NPCs talking to each other etc. the music shortly got annoying as well. i've heard mentioned that the sounds seem ripped straight from EQ2, but i never played the EQ's so i don't know. but in the sounds department VG does fall short.
Game play ? I won't lie and i find it suprising no one else has mentioned this yet, as far as i know anyways.. but playing VG is almost exactly like playing SWG. The combat strikes me the same, the crafting set ups as well.. best way to describe this is with a car analogy. If VG & SWG were cars, they'ed drive & handle almost exactly the same IMO. Infact it's like someone took pre-NGE SWG, stripped the starwars lore out and replaced it with High fantasy lore instead. I concur thats completly an opinion statement, but thats how it feels to me. Fist couple of days the game seemed familiar to me, finally it dawned on me, this plays aot like SWG did, again IMO.. Espicially after i learned of the in-game macro creation set-up.
I do like the combat setup. i like the use of selected powers, with tertiary powers that are usuable in specific situations. it makes slaying the same mobs over & over less grind like. It spices up combat abit & takes the " routine " out of it. For example, some mobs are not easy at all to defeat without those situational powers becoming active here & there, and makes the risk of dying alot more exciting. lets face it, usually killing mob camps is NOT that exciting, this combat system helps alleviate that alot. it also makes the PvP alot spicy'er as well. So on that aspect i think they did a decent job.
Cafting ? Well i won't lie, i'm not much for crafting. I was drawn to VG for the PvP aspects mainly, so i don't really have any experience with the crafting, but what i do know about it, is it's fairly complex. There's alot to know about it, so just as an off hand guess i'm sure they did as decent a job as they did with the combat.. Again i don't really know, when i get more experience with it i'll come back and update this abit more.
SandBox ? yes it is. And i for one like sand-box games. I like being able to carve out a niche on the map, i like the idea of guilds securing and holding ares of benefit on the map, it increases pvP and makes territory an actual important guild aspect.
PvP ? well like i said i've only gotten a few hours here and there over the last couple weeks, however the pvp setup seems very workable. the only complaints are so far, what you would find in any PvP MMO.. Spawn camping, cheesey tactics, and being attaked only when they out number you. I've seen it, and have experienced it, however it's not as bad as some people make it out to be. What i mean is, yes i've been ganked by 3 guys as i fight a mob, but thats not enheriently VG's problem. As a 5 year vet of ShadowBane's FFA, anytime anywhere by anymeans pvP, i've gotten used to it. However if playing on the FFA-PvP or team PvP servers i would definatly seek out a guild.
Population ? well i've only tried 2 servers so far. Tharridor the FFA-PvP server and FlameAxe non-pvp server. Tharridor's population is lacking, i won't lie. It's not a ghost town, however it's definately not the popular choice to play on. Which is a shame for me, cause i am into the pvp aspects of VG. Just haven't gotten that into it just yet. The flameaxe server seems to have a respectable population as does the RP server Floryndeil ( spelling ) and thunderhammer ( non-PvP ) also the EU servers seem fairly well populated. More so than the NA servers. And yes thats based off nothing scientific, just an eduacated assumption based of the server's report of population. Whats really hurting the game is low population IMO. PvP works best when targets are abundant, and PvE works best in a group-centric game when groups are easy to find. Unless you are after a PvP server, i'd suggest rolling characters only on the medium population servers. FlameAxe, Thunderhammer, and floreindyl seem good choices with those perogatives in mind. If you play late nights, or early morning an EU server might be a good choice, sans language problems of course.
Overall ? Purely an opinion topic here folks, but bare with me. Since i am lucky enough to not have alot of the technical problems people have been harping about, i've had decent game play. I admit and easily see though for the people having ahard time in a technical sense, that there would be little if any fun-factor. Honestly there's no fun in a game that doesn't run. And there's no fun in a game with no population. i think we all agree there, what everyone disagree's on is, what is fun ? I can't answer that for you, only for myself. There's ALOT, and i mean alot of things left that need tweaked, smoothed out, ( God forgive me for using the word) and " polished ", but over all it's an O.K. experience so far. Despite the negative things being said by the same people over and over i went ahead and gave VG a try.
Do i regret it ? no. Is VG blowing my socks off in a haze of excitement ? not really. And i think thats where the biggest issue with the game is, it's only O.K. over all. I am enjoying the game though thats true. But the game is missing something, i've heard it said that VG has everything, but soul. And in the end i agree, lots of good ideas, lots of exporation to be had, just no soul.
End summary, technicly the game has a long way to go. Population wise, it could do with a few servers less. Quests could be spiced up abit, i'm thinking DDO type quest set ups. While DDO has issues of it's own, the content and lore, and over all immersive factor of it's quests is something VG could sorely use. The PvP seems fairly balanced at lower levels, though i imagine it's another ball-game at higher levels, somethig i'll have to comment on later with more time. I think had the luanch gone alot smoother, the popular opinion of the game would be completly different, i think had Vigil stuck with M$, popular opinion would be different due to NOT having the SOE stigma attached. Sadly though those two issues deffinatly over-shadow the good of the game, the positive aspects of it.
Am i enjoying myself ? yes, as are those who are actually still playing. though i openly admit, VG is missing the soul of what maks a great MMO, and thats the community. What i mean is, the community in-game that i've stumbled across have all been mature and decent seeming people, i'm talking about an out-of-game community. for example as non-baised as i;ve tried to be so far in my review, i know i will get called a bradite, or possibly that i am brad, etc.. Thats the stuff that kills an MMO after a rough or bad luanch. people are entitled to their opinions, of course, it just seems some people have taken a personal vendetta against VG, or aginast having poorly spent $50 maybe ? I don't know, but i've given VG a fair shake, and i hope people recognize that.
how do i rate VG ? on a scale of 1-10, 10 being the best. I give VG a 6, potential can only take you so far, actual implementation is what makes a game great.
so over all, 6 possibly a 6.5 out of 10. Good game, yes ; An amazig game ? No. hopefully the future will be abit brighter, but at the moment it's not a $50 worthy purchase. however when the box price drops, i'd suggest giving her a try.
thanks for your time, and i hope you found the review helpful in picking a new MMO.
Comments
wow
an interesting and balanced review
not even any fodder for the the flamers
(well, that's probably too much to hope for)
almost makes me want to try the game out again - any free trials yet?
definitely not on the pvp server though - hate that, even though i play EQ II on one - weird yeah
maybe there will be a chance to try it out when/if the game is reintroduced
I don't know of any free trials, aside from the buddy-key that comes in every box.
I'm glad you found the review ' balanced ' thats what i was aiming for ; Ya i find it enjoyable, but no i'm not in love with it either though and thats exactly what i wanted to express, that it's not as bad as some people make it out, however it's not as awesome as the flip-side would state it.
Not a bad little review. As far as populations go however: keep in mind the sheer size of the game. Sometimes it may seem like a ghost town because you are hunting (by fluke) in a lower population zone. Having played 90% of the MMORPG's on the market I can say for certain that this is the largest (pre-expansion) game you can play. That said when you feel alone remember population per-square kilometer rules apply in an MMORPG setting.
As an aside; you spent a great deal of time writing your review. Next time toss it through your word processor before posting.
Keep up the good work! And keep playing! VG embodies potential.
FINBAR
-------------------------------------------
C
I don't want to mislead you, into thinking it's a SWG clone. Character creation, progression, and classes of the two games are completly different. SWG used a skill based, mix it up type of character system, VG uses a class based slightly strickter character system. What i meant, was game play and the way it works... I'm not the most articulate person, so really the car analogy was the best way i could describe it.
I quit EverQuest 2 to play VG with a friend, with the notion that I could finally leave the endless zoning behind and roam about in the world (which is true in VG for the most part), but I'm clearly seeing the lack of creativity in many of the quests and world that I almost took for granted in EQ2. Perhaps I am wrong in thinking this, but I just have yet to see lore/story aspects of VG that keep me interested.
And yes, the combat is great. I have to agree there.
The game needs more time and love put into it rather than promises and far fetched goals. It's got the basics down well, now they need to make it worth it in comparison to the other MMO's out there.
Spot on.
I bought the game at launch. Took a few months off to let it fester and am enjoying it the second time around.
My PC is a 2.6, 1 gig, with a 6600GT - aboslutly nothing special there and I've found some graphic tweakings that I can tolerate. The game looks decent, but I do have to overlook the hitching. Keep in mind I run a clean system with nothing in the back ground and constantly virus free. I think some teenagers out there can't figure out that you need to turn your computer off every once in awhile, and run a virus scanner here and there to keep it's performance at top speed. Probably where a lot of their problems come from.
I like the crafting. Grouping can be an issue for some of the quests but it really isn't that much worse that WoW currently is. I've spent 1.5 hours trying to get a mid-level World of Warcraft instance group going only to have it fall apart half way. In Vanguard there are no instances so meeting up with a group usually isn't as much as a problem. I've just wait around for a bit outside the dungeon and usually get picked up before too long. Yes, I've giving up at times but the same in any other MMORPG, including the "massivly populated" WoW.
The world is huge. Tons of starter cities which is cool. But also where I could see the development went astray. Might have gotten a bit over their heads making such a giant game. In the same sence this game is going to be around for awhile, and I beleive it has a good future after it patches up the holes. Hell, it isn't even that bad right now.
I play a Disciple (healing monk) and I too love the combat animations - even had other players commenting on them too. I chose the Bladestaff as main weapon because I just love the one-handed flick over right shoulder when she finishes up a fight
Music I agree on. I know it's a matter of taste but Nino's pan-pipe "mood" music doesnt do it for me. However I do love Ahgram's Theme..that tune just grows and grows on me. Still, overall not a patch on Bill Brown's L2 score, which not only is excellent by itself, it really fits the world of Aden.
Some of the general sound effects are very good - River Valley jungle for example does have the cricket chittering and bird-calling noises that can make you feel in the middle of an Attenborough Rain Forest documentary. I also love the Harvesting sound effects (and the animations) and in general find harvesting a very relaxing occupation that I can literally do for a couple of hours. But it is true that some effects have room for improvement, though at least they eliminated the beta problem of hearing other characters *ding* from 8 miles away. Gosh, that was annoying. I'm going to hope more ambient sound effects are going to be part of the polish in months ahead. The game certainly deserves them.
I never played SWG so can't comment on your comparison, however I do have a friend who played DAoC and he has found comparisons to that game that really helped him to feel at home in Telon.
I play on team PvP and have also found the game community to be very good. Population is spreading out now at later levels but my game type is Explorer so I can appreciate finding area's and having them almost to myself. The crafting area of my hometown (Hathor Zhi) is always bustling though - and full of sighs, grunts and coughs. I swear there is an NPC who loves farting too, though someone told me they are just clearing their throat. Yeah right.
Very, very nice review. Spot on!
I just started playing it again, and for some reason I'm enjoying myself. Oh well
.
In terms of the community, although I just resubscribed, Vanguard has the most mature and friendly community I have ever experienced in 8-years of playing MMORPGs. However, if you visit this web page, you begin to wonder if all of these Vanguard-haters, forgoing the pleasure of experiencing Vanguard's improvements, have enabled this vibrant in-game community to flourish. I believe all the trouble-makers have left Vanguard and come to post here, and I am extraordinarily grateful for this. My only hope is that they stay here (I hope the Vanguard-haters believe that Vanguard is not making incredible progress). I resubscribed to see if the game has (or has not) really improved - because I was suspicious what I was reading on MMORPG was not the truth. As it turns out, Vanguard has undergone remarkable improvements in every aspect from bugs to performance to content.
I appreciate your comments and the thoughtfulness of your post.
Thank you Healz.
I wanted to take a minute and make some updates on my review. I spent a good amount of time last night going over the aspects i didn't really touch on, in my review. Mainly crafting & diplomacy. Like i said previously, i was drawn to VG for the PvP aspects, and that is mainly my play style i guess you could say. i feel i owe it, to go ahead and test those aspects out abit, so i did.
First, i owe a GREAT BIG THANK YOU to a gentleman i met in game named Senhor. Seriously thank you.
I was having abit of trouble getting the crafting sphere going... Never beena crafter in any game before, and well i had no clue where to start. I know, read the book that came with the game right... Well anways, Senhor too me by the hand and walked me thru the crafting process. Now, i don't mean to go fanboy on you, but i was rather suprised i was actually enjoying the crafting. Yes, i enjoyed it, that might change when i sit down and do hour upon hours of it ; However my first real excursion into the sphere turned out pretty enjoyable.
To give you a brief idea how it works, i'm gonna refer back to the combat system. Remember i mentioned the selectable powers, and the secondary & tertiary powers that are situational that appear only after a specific event occured ? Well basicly they took the same system and applied it to the crafting. Of course the set up is slowed for crafting, but essentially the same. You have 3 steps in the basic process, each step requires certain crafting abilities to be used. You have choices in each step that either help to complete the item, or to help increase the quality of the item. When a step is completed you move on to the next step. Each phase requires tools and components for the process. Finally the item is finished and ' looted ' off the forge much like from a dead mob..
Lets use the basic first, tutorial item as an example. Especially since i have no other recipes at the moment to describe heh... the first thing i was to forge ( Dwarf blacksmith now level 3 ) was a metal hook. I'm going to try and be breif on this, just to give you an idea of the system..
You goto a forge and double click it.. then a recipe selection will appear with sub-catagories. So i selected the metal hook. Then comes up the forge stuff, the actuall guts of the crafting. Step 1 is to select the materials you need for the recipe, these were provided by the trainer of course. Then came step 2, which involved fueling the forge and heating the metal, both of which at my ability level provided 2 choices each. Agian 1 to help complete the other to improve quality. After both parts of step 2 were completed cam step 3, which is also in two parts, the actual forging of the metal and the finishing of the item.
Ok now here is where the system resembles the combat system, only slowed down. As you commit the various steps there are chances of things suddenly going wrong, instead of the helpful but random combat powers popping up, it's forge problems.. Now these range froma multitude of different misshaps, and require spending action points to solve them. Now just because you had a misshap while heating the metal, for example misshapen metal, it's not a bad thing. Of course it requires you to " solve " the problem to get back on track, but sometimes the solution will increase the item quality. And sometimes even though you solve a mishap, the quality might go down... I found myself suprisingly going about the crafting and not being bored, due to the reactional system they use. I was impressed cause, well i'm not into crafting and i was actually not annoyed by doing it.
So for a guy who wasn't interested in it, i will say the system is good enough to draw me into it that sphere. Now what i discussed here, is only the tip of the iceberg, there's item creation, and assembly.. Now lets say you want to make a dagger, to sell. You manufacture the seperate parts, the handle, blade, hilt etc. When those items are made, you take them to an assembly table to assemble the parts together. Now i myself haven't gotten that far yet, but i fully plan to later tonight when i get to log in.
Now, unfortunately i have no other game crafting-system to compare this too... So my review i feel might be half naked, so to speak.
Ok.. I feel cheesey admitting this, as we go into the diplomacy sphere, but heh it was fun.. I don't play card games, that don't involve money hehe. So again i wasn't real sure going into this shpere what my experience would be as the diplomacy phere plays out like a card game. I've heard it compared to magic the gathering, but i myself cannot make that comparison.
Now, again this is begainer info but after trying the crafting abit more, i went to this and spent the rest of the night doing the low level diplomacy quests, cause it was kinda fun. Ok so lets start... You have 5 cards you can " equip " at one time, and you cannot change cards once engaged in a parley. So being abit strategical in who you deal with and what cards to use are impportant. A bad card setup can actually leave you worse than you started the parely.
But essentially you play your card, with it's effects against the opponent of the parley and his card per round. With the objective being to move a scale from 14 ( start) to zero. The first person hitting zero wins the parley. Now there are5 emotional factors that change as cards are played, and provide the pool from which your " action points "( lack of a better term) are spent from. Each card has a resource cost to play. Now i'm not in full-understanding of the emotional states and how they work exactly, but was still able to engage and win a parley, so the ability to learn as you play is there. I plan to actually read the game manual on this to learn more, i suggest others do the same heh.
now for example, i engaged a parely with a dwarf woman who lost her husband in a bar fight ( trainer quest ). I open with " snipit of wisdom " which got no response from her, and lowered her slider scale from 14 to 12, mine went up to 16... Ouch bad start.. She plays her card which moved her from 12 to 8, and me to 18. I am losing, and losing badly so far.. So i played " forceful demand " and actually recoverd abit and went from 18 back to 14, and raised her from 8 back to 12... I'm still losing but gaining on her. now each card has an amount of turns it must sit idle before being used again, so once more a very deep strategy game ensues.
As you parley with someone, the actual conversation will continue along if your round was succesful. So while i play this card game against the dwarf widow, everytime i win a round i get more story conversation... For example she was unresponsive first round where i lost, but starts to tell me her grief when i won a round... Now i admit perhaps this is cheesey, but i honestly was getting a kick from this. Infact i spent the rest of the night, like i said running around doing diplomacy quests.
there's different card catagories, each requiring a certain amount from the appropriate pool. I think starter decks are based off racial selection, as my dwarf seems to be a very gruff and straight forward diplomat when looking at his card choices. I plan to test that theory tonight with a different race diplomat.
So after a second review of the other spheres, and the way they interact to one another, and the deepth they provide, i will shift my original assestment of 6 out of 10 to atleast a 7 out of 10.
Again, i hope everyone finds this objective, and concise. And while i did intend to keep the tone i had in my original post, i can;t help but be abit more positive in this review, as i did actually enjoy my time tinkering with those two spheres, even though i originaly thought i wouldn't. However, as much as i did enjoy them, they do not completly cancel out some of the techincal isues, and other negatives in VG that people have reservations about.
So while i do continue the stance of VG being a good game, but not an amazing game, i'm enjoying it more and more as i go on.
Good review.. balanced. I don't share the same opinion on everything, but it was very well thought out.
Just a few points.
1) I've played since pre-release and I like the game more today then I did when I began. It grows on you..... maybe because the game itself continues to improve with weekly patches but also because there is soooo much more to see and do when you get in to the 30s for level. It took over 3 months for me to get my first ride on a player made boat (that's some of the most fun I've ever had in a MMORPG). Now, the docks are full of player made boats... adds a lot to the experience.
2) Starting location has a big impact on initial perceptions. Kojan is desolate and there isn't much to do. I used to think Thestra was the 'happening' place. But Qailia is really the show-case continent for this game. It's also very well populated. Khal appears to be the center of the Telon universe.
3) Vanguard used to hate my Geforce 8800 GTX. Now they are in love. The last Nvidia driver update eliminated all the lighting issues I had and even bumped up the fps. For whatever reason, cranking all the lighting options on that particular card have no impact on fps... it's a sight to behold.
Where its similar is that your droped in a big world (SWG a big universe) and you can do pretty much anything you want to do (sandbox of sorts).... In that aspect its similar to SWG. Also like SWG, VG came out before it was done... I
As for crafting there nothing alike... I personaly prefered SWG crafting, you could make items with unique stats based on your materials, where as VG everything is Either A,B,C or D Quality... Not to mention VG is more of a click fest, all you do is put in your standard matierials and click away until your produt is done, in SWG you had decide where to put stats on the item, do you want more damage or range, do you want it to last longer or shoot faster? To this day nobody has matched the awesome crafting that SWG had, to bad the CU and to a greater degree the NGE screwed it up so badly...
These stat will be added by using the right powder for it.
Are there other possbilitys to change what the item will be, statwise, in the end. Colorwise I dont think there is a possibilty to change or are there?
I'm so broke. I can't even pay attention.
"You have the right not to be killed"
Vanguard also loves my GeForce 8800 gtx as well, but I am not familiar with uploading and posting pictures to show this. I think when I transfer pictures they become ... grainy. I am going to have to figure out how to fix this to share with this community the realities of the current state of Vanguard.
Edit: You are absolutely right. I am in my 30s, and the depth and quantity of content is extraordinary. I am shocked by the changes they have made since I played.
These stat will be added by using the right powder for it.
Are there other possbilitys to change what the item will be, statwise, in the end. Colorwise I dont think there is a possibilty to change or are there?
In SWG, based on what level crafter you were you had so many points to create a weapon, for example the weapon would have 4 different lines, Range, Damage, Speed and Condition, you would add points to each line depending on what type of weapon you wanted.. If you prefered a balance weapon you could add your points to all 4 stat lines, or if you just wanted a all out damage weapon you could point all your points in the damage line, this would allow you to custom make the weapon for the buyer depending on how they played the game, also materials played a huge part also, for example ore would spawn randomly with different stats, so if you harvested better ore your product would be better...
Another nice thing was once you made a schematic of the weapon you could put it in a factory and make anywhere from 2 to 1000 if you had the resoucrces to do so...
VG crafting system is not bad except for all the clicking you have to do.... It does add some customazation to crafting but nowhere near what we had in the old SWG..
I have to say during the beta I was worried but things are so much better now.
So many dungeons I havent seen with my main toon, looking forward to all the ones on Qalia with my alt and some I missed on Thestra.
Now playing: VG (after a long break from MMORPGS)
Played for more than a month: Darkfall online, Vanguard SOH, Everquest, Horizons, WoW, SWG, Everquest II, Eve
Absolutely!
However, there is an element here in the Vanguard forums that is passionate about perpetuating a lie in which bugs have not been fixed, performance improved, and content added. I resubscribed and saw for myself, as I was suspicious what a lot of Vanguard haters and viral marketers were stating on this forum.
If Vanguard did not improve performance, fix bugs, and add content and I resubscribed, I would be a very ardent Vanguard-basher.
I'll address this question as my opinion is very different from the OP's. I too enjoy VG. It is a good game. My character is only lvl 10 so my experiences might not be valid for later levels and different starting areas but ... I don't find it anything like early SWG.
What I loved about the sandbox of early SWG was the ability to go out and do so many different things. It felt very "free". I could, with a little caution, go almost anywhere. I could get little quests from NPC's out in the wilderness that put put my many different skills to use. I really felt like I was in the driver's seat.
In VG I started in a town in a valley surrounded by impassable mountains. My movement was, and still is, very much channelled in a particular direction with few opportunities (so far) to get out into wider spaces. My quests all come from a few npc's in a small area. The quests are highly level dependent and they lead me to the next area further down the valley. By then I have gained a level or two and the process begins again. This is all very linear and the farthest thing I can imagine from what early SWG offered. I did try visiting another island but none of the npc's there had anything for me to do. Clearly I was "off the track" so I went back to my proper place in the starting valley.
I haven't tried crafting yet but harvesting is very limited compared to SWG. There is a very short list of things to be harvested. I still enjoy it as it gives me an excuse to hunt and explore. I enjoy harvesting in every game that has it.
I'm still having fun playing VG but I don't see how people can call this a sandbox. It is as linear and as easy as LotRO so far. I'm hoping that changes at higher levels. Right now I just don't see any significant similarities between VG and early SWG.
I agree with you almost 100%
I have played since beta and the gaem has improved much over the last few months. AS LONG AS THEY KEEP IT UP with patches and fixes for known issues this will only get better.
I am in my upper 30's now and the game gets more indepth with its quest lines and lore. Provided you actually read the quest text
If you are into PVP, might I suggest rolling up a toon on Varking. It is team PVP as apposed to FFA. Makes things alittle less caotic. Teams being Shadow vs. Order. Shadow are races like Dark Elf, Orc, Goblin, etc. while Order mainly consists of the Humans, elves, dwarves, etc.
Probably the most fun I have had yet in the game came from the Dark Elf starting Diplomacy Quest line. Very interesting story of betrayal and deception.
Anyway, glad you are enjoying and nice post.
Thalos Vipav
Star Wars Galaxies: R.I.P.
Right on man, sorry you had that kind of an experience. I never stated the game was bug free, or not in need of technical improvement ; infact i experienced that falling thru the world bug when i first logged in my dwarf to do the crafting & diplomacy last night.
All i did was close vanguard, start it again, relogged him and it was fine. Was it annoying ? No, not the first time though if it does it repeatedly, heck ya it would be. Fortunately only once so far in my 2 weeks into the game.
Again, right on man glad you could state it wasn't for you, without delving to the level i've seen a few others post at. Can i ask you a couple questions though ? not to badger you, but to actually help me out abit, or maybe put me upto speed so to speak.
1) have you been playing since release ? or are you an after release buyer like myself ?
2) if you have been playing since release, did you see any improvements in game-play and technical areas ? I run an average gaming rig with a budget videocard & sound card and haven't had any real issues yet, and i just want to pin down if it's just hit & miss or if noticable improvements have been made ?
thanks for your time.
I'll address this question as my opinion is very different from the OP's. I too enjoy VG. It is a good game. My character is only lvl 10 so my experiences might not be valid for later levels and different starting areas but ... I don't find it anything like early SWG.
What I loved about the sandbox of early SWG was the ability to go out and do so many different things. It felt very "free". I could, with a little caution, go almost anywhere. I could get little quests from NPC's out in the wilderness that put put my many different skills to use. I really felt like I was in the driver's seat.
In VG I started in a town in a valley surrounded by impassable mountains. My movement was, and still is, very much channelled in a particular direction with few opportunities (so far) to get out into wider spaces. My quests all come from a few npc's in a small area. The quests are highly level dependent and they lead me to the next area further down the valley. By then I have gained a level or two and the process begins again. This is all very linear and the farthest thing I can imagine from what early SWG offered. I did try visiting another island but none of the npc's there had anything for me to do. Clearly I was "off the track" so I went back to my proper place in the starting valley.
I haven't tried crafting yet but harvesting is very limited compared to SWG. There is a very short list of things to be harvested. I still enjoy it as it gives me an excuse to hunt and explore. I enjoy harvesting in every game that has it.
I'm still having fun playing VG but I don't see how people can call this a sandbox. It is as linear and as easy as LotRO so far. I'm hoping that changes at higher levels. Right now I just don't see any significant similarities between VG and early SWG.
I don't think your memory is working right, In SWG you had to stay close to your starting city or your were going to make naked corpse runs, All the beginning quests were just given out on terminals to do errand missions or go to spot X and kill the mobs that spawn there... I guess the ability to travel between starting cities make it seem you had more freedom then in VG but travel to far away from the safty of the cities you were pretty much toast unless you have a good group with you... Once your skill was up then it didnt really matter...
Once you get to about lvl 15-20 in VG you can then choose where you want to do quests, weather it be on Thestra or if you want to try your luck in Qualia, or vice versa.... Nice thing is they give several places to do the various lvls, for eaxmple if your level 20, there is like 4-5 different places you can level from 20-25, which makes it nice because if you create a ALT you dont have to level him in the same places you leveled your 1st toon...
VG is definatly a sandbox similar to SWG, it just needs the rest of pieces such as Player Cities and Personal Venders among other things, which are on there way... Even SWG took 6 months to release player cities and mounts... Atleast VG has mounts, back when SWG came out you have to walk everywhere....