A noob asks; 'What actually is wrong with this game?'

hubertgrove · May 2007

I am that noob.

I used to play SOE's SWG and loved it for its open-ended quality, its social and economic complexity and its (relative) size. I played mostly PVE and my focus was on exploration and then crafting. The Star Wars aspects of the game were not so important to me - though I enjoyed the Jump to Lightspeed starship wars.

Now - from all I read about Vanguard, this is a game that ofers me the things I like. The screenshots I have seen are pretty good looking.

But... across every forum i have visited, this game is almost universally slated. Why? No-one seems to offer specific reasons. So, if you have played this game (I have not yet), can you just summarise whi this game seems to you to be a tremendous failure?

Hoobley_deleted · May 2007

I'm not willing to devote that amount of time to putting together a list of Vanguard's failings.

The reasons are out there if you sift through the threads.

I do think the recent turn of events show a glimmer of hope for the game though.

If SOE can fix it up and knock out a 2 week free trial it'll either make or break it.

My advice, wait for a trial.

Vrika · May 2007

The game is full of bugs.

Performance ranges from poor to abysmal.

The game is unfinished, many features are missing and the big gameworld lacks content.

And even if you ignore all the bugs, performance issues, and unfinished content, deep down there is only an average game with as many faults as it has good features.

Thamoris · May 2007

Originally posted by Vrika

The game is full of bugs.

Performance ranges from poor to abysmal.

The game is unfinished, many features are missing and the big gameworld lacks content.

And even if you ignore all the bugs, performance issues, and unfinished content, deep down there is only an average game with as many faults as it has good features.

This is the common misperception often posted by someone that has only played for the first month. Vanguard has had nearly 3 months of updates and fixes now. A solid 80% of the issues found at launch are now gone....thats right..gone. This is coming from someone who is actualy playing the game. Performance for low and mid end machines has nearly doubled , tons of new content has been put into game, and numerous balances / tweaks have taken place to improve gameplay.

I am playing Vanguard...having a great time...and the only issue I have come accross in the past month + is an occasional crash to desktop which is most likely an issue on my end...not on SoE's end.

Play Vanguard...the game that sucks less than the rest !

* edited ....to add that their are still issues with trying to find groups due mostly to sheer size of the world. Everyone gets really spread out..really fast. I don't group much so this is not an issue for me...though I can understand how it can be for other playstyles.

Omega3 · May 2007

We could ofc talk about performance and the numerous gameplay issues, but the main problem in VG is the dejà-vu feeling of a generic fantasy grind MMO coupled with a terrible and bugged game engine. This game doesnt bring anything new to the table: it's boring.

Thamoris · May 2007

Originally posted by hubertgrove

I am that noob.
I used to play SOE's SWG and loved it for its open-ended quality, its social and economic complexity and its (relative) size. I played mostly PVE and my focus was on exploration and then crafting. The Star Wars aspects of the game were not so important to me - though I enjoyed the Jump to Lightspeed starship wars.
Now - from all I read about Vanguard, this is a game that ofers me the things I like. The screenshots I have seen are pretty good looking.
But... across every forum i have visited, this game is almost universally slated. Why? No-one seems to offer specific reasons. So, if you have played this game (I have not yet), can you just summarise whi this game seems to you to be a tremendous failure?

People post crap about VG with information either simply parroted from other posts or from experiences had during the first few weeks after launch. It is my suspicion that a majority of these folks expect to be able to just start the game and play..much like an xbox title or something. Most are younger folks that got spanked by the fact VG is not a particularly " easy ' game..though personaly I have no trouble playing. Some of the resentment also has come from peoples ego's getting smashed when that killer rig grandmas just bought them got 20 fps at launch...whithout understand or having the patience to " tweak " their system for the game. Most mmorpg's that are trying to do something new and plan for the future often have issues early on.

I think also that the hype for VG pre-launch was too much..raising expectations way too high. I think also that many WoW players making their first transition from one mmorpg to another found it difficult to adjust. It can be tough for some to leave one mmorpg and start another particularly if one has played the first mmorpg for a long period of time. They want things different...but they want it the same too.

Another big issue transitioning from one mmorpg to another is getting used to going from maxed out character to a noob lv 1 character. It's a bigger transition than many expect. Those new to the mmorpg world..ie...2 years or less lets say get pissed when they die alot , but fail to understand that they can no longer just rush into a spawn and kill everything...they actualy have to be carefull or they will die.

There are a bunch of reasons whey VG is off to a rough start..those are just a few I propose for ya to chew on..BUT..I can safely tell ya..VG is going to be around for years to come AND will grow...only getting better with time as new content, continual fixes and people's hardware improves.

examples....

Horizons, Sega of Ryzom, Eq1, Eq2, Auto Assult...even the might WoW was riddled with bugs and issues for the first few months after launch. In fact...Blizzard gave out lots of free time early on to it's players because of extended server downtime. To be fair though..much of that was due to being overwhelmed by massive player pops..still though. All mmorpgs have issues at launch...it's not an exact science.

tnvnu2 · May 2007

i'm still playing vanguard and can criticise the game in a couple of ways but i still like the game and all of the issues will hopfully be ironed out as time goes on

lag is an issue i was heading through new targonor(probably my own fault for going into that nasty zone) last night and well getting to the harvesting instructor when u lag everystep u take is pretty hard also there are a lot of gold buyers which has obviously had effects on the economy which they are still trying to sort out as of the last patch it is now impossible to judge how much rare ores and the like to make gear are worth

crafting is a long dull grind but they are apparently working on that or so one of my guildies tells me

a lot of content isn't really in game yet like raid content although they are working on it classes change everypatch with new abilitys added and old abilitys changed i don't think my ranger has been nerfed yet which probably means theres one coming

people crash out of the game all of the time which usually results in them running forward into a bunch of mobs and getting ganked

but all these issues can and will be fixed the game is still relatively new and as many people have said all new mmorpgs have lots of bugs

at the end of the day it is playable and u can have fun which is more than can be said for some of the mmorpgs i've seen that are brand new

Thamoris · May 2007

Another thing to consider.....

Happy gamers are far less likely to post about their positive experiences....much like happy shoppers don't go announcing what a great store..such and such is.

People with complaints are far more likely to post about them...to at least vent and get their frustrations off their chests..

Then you get people like myself...who are big fans of a game..you will see them post too. We are often quickly flamed as fanbois or something...like that is a bad thing. I don't think it is however.

My point being..you can not judge a game by a majority of the posts made about it. Majority of posts are from people who don't like the game...one seldom hears from the people enjoying themselves.

Ask the question...how many times have you had a good experience and bothered to tell the world? be it at a store or a restaraunt..ect

and...how many times have you had a bad experience and made it known?

Chances are...you talked alot more about a bad experience than a good one. There are strong statistics out there to back this up. Had I the time right now..I would like em. If you doubt this info...google it and see for yourself.

Particularly in these forums as they have a much higher percentage of young folks lacking life experiences.

Hoobley_deleted · May 2007

Originally posted by Thamoris

Another thing to consider.....
Happy gamers are far less likely to post about their positive experiences....much like happy shoppers don't go announcing what a great store..such and such is.
People with complaints are far more likely to post about them...to at least vent and get their frustrations off their chests..
Then you get people like myself...who are big fans of a game..you will see them post too. We are often quickly flamed as fanbois or something...like that is a bad thing. I don't think it is however.
My point being..you can not judge a game by a majority of the posts made about it. Majority of posts are from people who don't like the game...one seldom hears from the people enjoying themselves.
Ask the question...how many times have you had a good experience and bothered to tell the world? be it at a store or a restaraunt..ect
and...how many times have you had a bad experience and made it known?
Chances are...you talked alot more about a bad experience than a good one. There are strong statistics out there to back this up. Had I the time right now..I would like em. If you doubt this info...google it and see for yourself.
Particularly in these forums as they have a much higher percentage of young folks lacking life experiences.

I see a lot of people making positive posts about Lord of the Rings Online.

Lughsan · May 2007

I will offer a counterpoint to all the positivism that has been spewed by the fans above.

This games one overarching problem?

Its supposed to be challenging. It supposed to be immersive. Its supposed to have all this wonderful innovation.

It isn't challenging. It isn't immersive ( played several toons to 35+ and NEVER got that hooked feeling ). Its isn't innovative either.

Sure diplomacy is in there. And the IDEA is innovative, however the implementation of it just sucks. Its a card game. You play the card game almost the same way every time against every NPC ad infinitum ...

Crafting was supposed to be all that. Sadly crafting was what real life work was like. An endless repitition of mindless tasks to acheive the next turn in to get that tiny pellet of a reward ...It had some extra annoyance added in but innovative ?? Not hardly.

You have this wonderful huge world. That for the most part is EMPTY. Getting places is time consuming, boring and well like a job.

The problem with this wonderful huge world? Simple, its also entirely empty of PLAYERS. Forming a group takes HOURS, not even necessarily because there aren't people willing to group, but rather there aren't people willing to group AND (this is a big one) travel ofr more than an Hour to get to you to do the dungeon crawl.

The "innovative" combat chains don't help to immerse you in the game play but rather to watch the little hotbar hoping the next little pellet dispenser lights up.

Healers are tuned around the most difficult encounters in the game and as such make anything else utterly trivial.

If you lost to an encounter ONCE it was a lot. And then a very simple tactical adjustment brings you to the winning side easily.

The bottom line is that the developers spent FAR too much time creating pretty environments and not enough time making the game play involving.

Tutu2 · May 2007

Originally posted by Omega3

We could ofc talk about performance and the numerous gameplay issues, but the main problem in VG is the dejà-vu feeling of a generic fantasy grind MMO coupled with a terrible and bugged game engine. This game doesnt bring anything new to the table: it's boring.

Totally agree. Add generic, boring, crappy quests and awful writing. I was falling asleep by level 13ish I couldn't push myself further the same old killing x no of creature quests and the odd deliver this piece of crap to this location quest. Exact same kind of quest each area you go to, just different monsters and different scenery. That's describes pretty much every other MMO including WoW, yeah, but see WoW at least made you feel you had a purpose. The presentation was fantastic. The game world is put together extremely well. I'm sick of WoW but it has amazing qualities to it. There's no real storyline in Vanguard, making the quests feel further pointless. You're like a nomad wondering from area to area with no real goal in sight just kill lots of monsters. That's the biggest problem; lack of imagination or fun. The excitement you might feel at the beginning of the game will wear out quickly. I felt excited at the beginning too. I thought wow this is pretty damn fun; feels alot like WoW but this looks like its has more depth in it. Too bad I was wrong sigh. The exploration to me is also boring because while the world is huge it lacks detail and anything interesting in it. Just seemingly miles of terrain of random trees and crap you can harvest. I suppose that sums up what is really wrong with Vanguard, performance issues aside. But you know what you should get a free trial and find out for yourself whether you'll like the game. Just wait for the free trial honestly (if there is gonna be one.)

Lughsan · May 2007

Originally posted by Itanius

To the OP: as was mentioned above, please take great caution in judging ANYTHING, let alone a computer game, based on the opinions of people online. The vast majority of people that post in forums are the ones looking for a place to vent their personal frustrations. When tens of thousands of those types of people get together in one website, like this one, then the results are exactly what you see: a vast majority of soured and slated individuals who give each other pats on the back for speaking negatively about the same object, while frowning upon the vast minority who speak positively about the same object.

Do yourself a favor. Go out and read the unbiased reviews of the game from other websites. Don't read forums. Then go out on a limb, spend the $39 for the game, and try it out for the first month (which is free, remember).

Come to your own conclusion; don't rely on a community that is riddled with bitter opinions to make up your mind for you.

Do yourself a favor and read the vast array of negative PROFESSIONAL reviews that have the game slated as about an average of 6.0 of 10

Markaj · May 2007

Thamoris has been the ridicule of these forums by his "realistic"(!) reviews, cinderella positivism and blind devotion. Man, the game has literally died with Brad confessing to failure, servers drastically emptyed, patches gone borg, Sigil being dissolved, 50 developers fired, etc. And yet, Thamoris continues the sing along his bs. as if nothing has happened.

To the OP, what is wrong with this game is like asking what is wrong in a funeral. The wrong thing in the funeral is of course the person being dead. Being dead is very wrong in itself, but there is something worse than that: Being born dead! VG was born dead with major bugs, crashes, unfilled promises, void hype, gross performance issues, undecided vision btw EQ and WoW, terribly generic world and entities, etc.

Everything since then, including patches, updates, etc. have been nothing but beating a dead horse. A handful of people are still optimistic about the game's future (yeah, /sigh*), but there is no other MMO which started so low and rose to heights later on in the gaming history. And Smed confirmed that they will not make big changes to the game. So it will go on the same way as it has come.

Hoobley_deleted · May 2007

Originally posted by Itanius

Do yourself a favor. Go out and read the unbiased reviews of the game from other websites. Don't read forums. Then go out on a limb, spend the $39 for the game, and try it out for the first month (which is free, remember).

Come to your own conclusion; don't rely on a community that is riddled with bitter opinions to make up your mind for you.

I agree that you should come to your own conclusion, but I do not agree with what Itanius suggests with regards to dropping 40 bucks on this game right now.

I am firmly of the opinion that SOE will try to revamp this game. When they feel that it's in a fit state they'll put a trial out there so that people can form their own opinion.

Vanguard is a rocky road, it'd be worth waiting for them to pave that road before traveling it.

If a trial is released I will be one of the first to jump on it with the hopes that it has become the game that I followed and had such high hopes for for so long.

deucallion · May 2007

Thamoris continues to claim that the only people criticising this game are either A) people who just troll for the fun of it and who have no actual experience with the game, or

people who only played the game for the first week or two. While i fully agree that there are undoubtably many folks here that just jumped on the VG-SUCKS!!! bandwagon, i continue to see a multitude of new posts from people who have just recently left the game in disgust. By recently i mean easily within the past month, many within the past week or two.

Now i don't mean to flame ya Tham, but do you mean to tell me that they're ALL lying? Every one of them?

xAlrythx · May 2007

Originally posted by Omega3

We could ofc talk about performance and the numerous gameplay issues, but the main problem in VG is the dejà-vu feeling of a generic fantasy grind MMO coupled with a terrible and bugged game engine. This game doesnt bring anything new to the table: it's boring.

That is pretty much the truth for most of us.

And Thamoris please show us the list of updates that actually added anything major to the gameplay of the game. You know those updates contained a few things that should have been in at launch, a whole bunch of class balance/un-balancing and a fair amount of performance/bug issues which isn't exactly a big achievement considering the list is proberly substantial.

I suggest to you what I say to everyone else, wait for a trial, do not purchase this game without first playing it. At first the game seems great, your blinded by the fact your in a new mmo with new places to see and new content, but after a few weeks you will proberly start to feel like you've been here before and done this before.

Not saying that's how it is, i'm just pointing out my experiances and trying to answer your question.

tnvnu2 · May 2007

the gameplay does get a little samey but so do all mmorpgs when they have ironed out all the bugs(well almost all anyways) and added more new content the game will be great i still enjoy playing it but there isn't alot of truly innovative stuff ingame

but traveling is not as bad as previously mentioned

since they added riftstones and most people have boats/fast mounts(atleast by the time they hit 35) it takes an hour max to get from one end of the continent to the other the problem with getting groups is that people tend to locate themselves in relativly small areas where they have everything they need to level craft or harvest

which means due to the server population believeing for some strange reason that going afk on a horse ontop of a mailbox or broker is a good idea trying to target either item is a 5 minute task in these areas but certainly no problem getting groups i actually find grouping a lot easier in vanguard than i did in wow atleast vanguard has the excuses that the server populations are low and the world is big whereas i once spent 3 hours on wow trying to get a group together only to have half the group leave as we were about to go in i have never spent longer than an hour getting a vanguard group together

oh and fyi that was not a flame at wow just an example of my gaming experiance using another game inthis case it happened to be wow i notice people on these forums get a tad touchy about wow so if for some reason my mentioning wow has bothered u in some way just pretend it says bobs mmorpg or something just thought i'dd better get that covered

metalcore · May 2007

Performance is the big issue with VG, it still needs work. Admittedly its pretty good these days but it could be better compare to other games.

Bugs wise there is very few, only think of one bug with my Shaman and thats wolf form disappearing when I zone. There is a combat bug which is rare but happens, when the mob is several feet away from what you see on screen.

Content wise, high levels 44th+ need some work but content has been promised and they are looking for raiders. 35-44th is not bad but could do with a touch up. 1-35th is pretty sorted now.

There is issues with Vista and Nvidia 8800 cards, my machine since I upgraded will crash occasionally but before on my 3 year old machine, it was pretty stable. (I upgraded cos I wanted to play VG on maximum) They will fix this soon enough and its a minor inconvience.

About as honest as I can get.

The big thing with this game, why people dont like it is its old school play style. Levelling is difficult, grouping can be very challenging, corpse runs, no instances. Some people just dont like that style of game.

haddock1 · May 2007

Originally posted by tnvnu2

the gameplay does get a little samey but so do all mmorpgs when they have ironed out all the bugs(well almost all anyways) and added more new content the game will be great i still enjoy playing it but there isn't alot of truly innovative stuff ingame
but traveling is not as bad as previously mentioned
since they added riftstones and most people have boats/fast mounts(atleast by the time they hit 35) it takes an hour max to get from one end of the continent to the other the problem with getting groups is that people tend to locate themselves in relativly small areas where they have everything they need to level craft or harvest
which means due to the server population believeing for some strange reason that going afk on a horse ontop of a mailbox or broker is a good idea trying to target either item is a 5 minute task in these areas but certainly no problem getting groups i actually find grouping a lot easier in vanguard than i did in wow atleast vanguard has the excuses that the server populations are low and the world is big whereas i once spent 3 hours on wow trying to get a group together only to have half the group leave as we were about to go in i have never spent longer than an hour getting a vanguard group together
oh and fyi that was not a flame at wow just an example of my gaming experiance using another game inthis case it happened to be wow i notice people on these forums get a tad touchy about wow so if for some reason my mentioning wow has bothered u in some way just pretend it says bobs mmorpg or something just thought i'dd better get that covered

Oh, God, please read this (http://www.arts.uottawa.ca/writcent/hypergrammar/punct.html) before you type anything else that contains more than ten words!

Hoobley_deleted · May 2007

Originally posted by Thamoris

Another thing to consider.....
Happy gamers are far less likely to post about their positive experiences....much like happy shoppers don't go announcing what a great store..such and such is.

I disagree with this statement so strongly that I have to link this thread.

lancebird · May 2007

Yes, there is a big world and you can spend a while exploring it. But the vast majority of the world is pretty dull and lifeless. Regardless.. after the week or two of exploration, you're left with a game with little ( if any ) meaningful content and truly mind-numbingly boring gameplay.

Acesquared · May 2007

I played VG for about 3 weeks mostly because some friends left eq1 and were playing and because i was growing tired of eq1 myself. (been playing eq1 for 3'ish years) After 3 weeks I went back to eq, not because the game was too 'old skool', or boring, or too buggy .... but b/c 1) i'm so used to boxing 2 or more toons (on one machine). 2) the economy is ALL MESSED UP due to gold duping via ppl crashing zones during trades (or something to that effect???) 3) low server populations

What i get abit confused at is when ppl comment that they don't like this game b/c of kill x number of mobs, deliver this item to over there and the like...

Seems like if ppl dont like all these aspects of the game, then they really just don't care for and/or are burned out on mmo's in general. /shrug

I for one know that the 3'ish week break from eq was a good thing for me and my attitude toward eq has improved.

Another thing that confuses me is the desire to jump from one game to the next, when i see ppl's massive list of games they have played i can't help but think that they are continually searching for "THE GAME". Maybe there is not and never will be a game that fills this emptiness you seek to fill. Maybe you need Jesus :~)

When I reached lvl 70 on my first toon on eq, i was quite disappointed in the pop up message i got. Congrats you have dinged lvl70, try RSS out for size. I expected more on the lines of CONGRATS YOU HAVE WON EQ, Well done and best of luck in your future endevours. But of course that does not fit well into $OE's business model. I enjoy eq b/c of the 1) friends i've made 2) sence of accomplishment (as artificial as it truely is) and 3) to be totally honest, it occupies my time and TV is even more of a waste of time than mmo's)

I'm looking for another mmo b/c every summer (i teach high school) i usually make a new set of alts, but .... i've got an alt army all ready and well ... i just want to try something different. I don't feel VG is boxable (which is prolly a good thing, lots of boxers are just plain bad at it) I'm thinking of maybe trying out EQ2 or LOTRO. Whatever i decide on, I hope i stick with it, realize "it is what it is" and make the best of it.

Peace,

Aces

MX13 · May 2007

As a SWG Vet myself, IMO Vanguard is a fun game with a few bugs & some serious performance issue... like SWG, lol...

I enjoy it greatly, although I'm questioning remaining due to the takeover by SOE.

NastyNitro · May 2007

Ya, only reason i quit is because not enough people on, not sure if its because they started with too many servers or because they released same time wow expansion did.... either way fun times and good pvp.

danbala · May 2007

Originally posted by hubertgrove

I am that noob.
I used to play SOE's SWG and loved it for its open-ended quality, its social and economic complexity and its (relative) size. I played mostly PVE and my focus was on exploration and then crafting. The Star Wars aspects of the game were not so important to me - though I enjoyed the Jump to Lightspeed starship wars.
Now - from all I read about Vanguard, this is a game that ofers me the things I like. The screenshots I have seen are pretty good looking.
But... across every forum i have visited, this game is almost universally slated. Why? No-one seems to offer specific reasons. So, if you have played this game (I have not yet), can you just summarise whi this game seems to you to be a tremendous failure?

Based on yor background and interests its quite possible that the game will appeal to you. Exploration and crafting are two main strengths of the game. The game world is huge and there is plenty to explore. So much in fact, that you'll really need to make alts to appreciate it all. The wierd part ofthe game is there is a HUGE amount of level 1-20 content spread out all over the world and comparatively less 20-50 content.

As far as crafting goes the system is intresting and robust and requires some thought along with the button pushing.

There are also significant downsides to the game. The first is that its not really compatible with all PC hardware and software. For example it doesn't work well with Vista nor does it work well with the latest nvidia cards and drivers. The game runs but there are frequent crashes to desktop. There are also signficant performance problems with some mid to lower end machines. The tech specs on the box are totally misleading which is a huge part of the ire you see online. There are also numerous bugs and glitchs in game which range from trivial to annoying. None of the bugs are game breaking but collectively they go beyond what you expect from a commerical product.

Finally, I have been told that there is a shortage of "end game" content. I don't know about this personally. My hope is that the content will be there by the time I level. But many power levelers are currently disenchanted.

Alienovrlord · May 2007

Unibody animations. Meaning every single race has the same animation. And the art style within the game is dead and lifeless, massive graphic requirements don't make a game look good, artistic talent does - though that's a matter of opinion of course.

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A noob asks; 'What actually is wrong with this game?'

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A noob asks; 'What actually is wrong with this game?'

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