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thinking of trying or returning to vanguard? read this!
Swiftblade13
Member Posts: 638
I was a huge Vanguard fanboy pre-release. I spent tons of money just before release building a fairly high end machine (dual core pentium, 4 gig of RAM, and an 8800GTS, on win XP) that would run the game at top settings. This is a non-partisan review... it starts off bad but gets a bit better so read through...
THIS IS NOT A FLAME OR A RANT- just the facts
Getting Started:
I quit the game around February or March (mostly because all of my friends left), and last night I re-upped my subscription out of boredom.
Second time around, first impressions:
The first thing that hit me in the face when I got to the character select screen was the jaggies, they REALLY need to get full screen AA working. Once you play for a while you start to ignore them but they hurt the graphics a lot. The higher resolution you run the less you will notice this.
I selected my main character (level 25 Ranger) and logged in. The game world began loading, and just like in the past loaded in layers... first you'll see the basic contour of the land appear... then grass will appear on the contour.. then texture is applied to it... then the trees and buildings etc. appear. This only happens as you load into the game but it gives you the feeling you are in a beta right off the bat. Anytime someone has been at my house and watched me load into the game they ask "why did it do that?" It makes you immediately think either your computer is too slow for the game or the game is far from polished.
Once in the game world I was hit with really bad hitching as I began moving around. after a minute or two it went away and I was getting very good FPS (around 50).. but still noticeable hitching (where the FPS will freeze frame momentarily to 0).
I noticed I was wearing only my soulbound items so I went to the altar to get my gear. It turned out all my stuff was in escrow and I had to pay 1cp for each item to get it back.... with all my gear for adventuring, crafting, harvesting, and diplomacy this was a lot! I wound up having to run to the bank to get more money to get all my things out of escrow. The escrow window also caused me to freeze up for about 5 seconds probably 7 or 8 times during the process of buying back my gear. This is not a good way to welcome back a returning player!
The Game:
From this point on things got better. I did not crash at all during this play session which is a pretty big improvement. I started traveling around the world and found that although the world needs Anti Aliasing badly, it still looks pretty good (maybe not as good as I had hoped, but good). The zone lines in this so-called seamless MMO are still annoying, especially since its supposed to be seamless! The world was rather deserted but SOE is working on server merges to take care of that. I rented a flying mount (20sp for five minutes of flight time) and it worked well and was rather enjoyable. The landscape was fairly impressive from the birds eye view.
At one point I aggroed a mob and turned to fight it. I was pleased to find that the combat was as good as I remembered... really top notch. I love both my Ranger and my Disciple, and I've heard that many of the other classes are just as good. Vanguard's combat and classes should really be the new standard as they are the best I have experienced in 10 years of playing MMO's.
Vanguard also did very well with their non instanced dungeons. Aside from bugs and glitches the dungeons play very well. While not all of the dungeons are very big or fancy, some are and there are tons to choose from at least up until level 40.
In Conclusion:
If you are desperate for a game to hold you over until one of the upcoming titles is released, have a good high end computer, and can look past the unpolished feel of the game (you'll be playing a game that seems like a beta, with lots of little glitches and rough performance...) Vanguard might be something to do for a couple months. There is plenty to explore and do as you level up (if you level slowly). The combat is fun and the classes are great. There is no end-game to speak of and your Vanguard experience will most likely end with you stating that this game "sucks" and cancelling your account in a huff, but you might get some decent entertainment out of it before that happens.
Grymm
MMO addict in recovery!
EQ,SWG preCU,L2,EQ2,GW,CoH/CoV,V:SOH,
Aion,AoC,TR,WAR,EVE,BP,RIFT,WoW and others... no more!
Comments
Sorry to hear of your performance woes. I can surly let you know that your hitching and lag is not the norm since the last patch. Unfortunaly there are a couple of things that are actually hindering the performance greatly since the last patch and you have the two biggest offenders.
The 8800 vid card and more than 2GB of ram. People with these set ups are still having lag, hitching and CTD issues
That is interesting to know. I'll log into my account on my girlfriends machine and post a follow up.
Just to clarify in the meantime; there is no lag, only hitching. The hitching is not terribly bad, it just makes the game seem very unpolished.
Grymm
MMO addict in recovery!
EQ,SWG preCU,L2,EQ2,GW,CoH/CoV,V:SOH,
Aion,AoC,TR,WAR,EVE,BP,RIFT,WoW and others... no more!
Make sure to adjust her .ini file. In the last patch they accidently left a setting to false that should have been set to true.
I think the line the is
bUseefficienttextures=True
This will save about 20-30% memory usage
Useefficienttextures was set to True by default. I checked on both machines.
Minor hitching (mostly when houses etc. are appearing on screen) still occurs on both machines to approximately the same extent. This is a big improvement from what it was but it is still a minor annoyance that just makes the game feel unpolished. The hiccups I describe are only a fraction of a second (except when running into a town which can be considerably worse) but they should not be there at all. This is NOT a reason not to play Vanguard, just something that will annoy most people a bit, especially if you spent a lot of money on a computer that should run any game smoothly.
Test Machine #2-
AMD 3200XP
Nvidia Chipset MoBo
2 Gig RAM
ATI X1950 PRO with 256 RAM
Vanguard on medium/ low settings (changing settings does not affect hitching only FPS)
Test machine #1-
Intel C2D 6300
Gigabyte 965P-DS3 mobo
4 Gig RAM
Geforce 8800GTS with 660 RAM
Vanguard on medium/high settings (changing settings does not affect hitching only FPS)
Grymm
MMO addict in recovery!
EQ,SWG preCU,L2,EQ2,GW,CoH/CoV,V:SOH,
Aion,AoC,TR,WAR,EVE,BP,RIFT,WoW and others... no more!
Not sure if you have gotten to read the Game Milestones that SOE has been working on. Milestone #1 was just completed. You can read them on the SOE forums and on here too if you can dig and find em. Some finer points of Milestone #1 and the goals of Milestone #2 listed below
One point to the end game thing. SOE has finished most of the first raid area for the game and are trying to push out new content every 6 weeks...One inventive thing is putting rift stones in safe areas in the raiding dungeons. So you and you guild can raid down to that stone...everyone can then port out, camp whatever and then use a riftway to return to that same place in the dungeon to finish the raid at a later date. Hopefully that will help keep new material out there for you to check into for the next couple of months.
They have also began writing permanent flying mount quest which should hopefully be released in about 6 weeks. I know renting the Griffs and such is so much fun and I can't wait to quest one to have permantly.
On the money situation when you came back, When VG first released if vendor fodder sold for 20c it was GREAT cash loot. 2 patches ago SOE adjusted the rates for cash loots and you can make 1-2 gold on a good night of slaying the beasties of the world
The performance issues you had are BECAUSE of your high end system. Reccomend systems about a year old. Those are the configurations that the game is optimized for atm. There are about 50 threads here talking about how the 8800 is not properly supported. I"ve hitched and stuttered in every single mmorpg I've played. You will get some here and there...but you should know that if you have been playing mmo's for 10 years.
I think Vangaurd is a bit better than the OP described. Adventure and raiding are only about 20% of the game. There are tons of things to do that don't involved adventure. Think outside the box a bit and the options can be endless. If ya can only handle the adventure side and do end up maxing level .....just reroll a new toon. Each race / class combination has a vastly different experience in the game. Its not cookie cutter at all. It's not just 20 spells rehashed a dozen times to make it look like there is alot of variety. Vanguard has true variety between its races. Even between continents on the same sever you will find completely different atmoshperes....created by those who play on that continent. The game is so big that parts of the same server evlolve independently of eachother. I have over a 1000 hours in the game and have yet to leave the continent I started on. Mind ya...I do play slow...BUT...still...that's big..I explore alot too.
I think Vanguard is a great game and WAY better than a desparate " hold over " till the next big title is released. Vanguard IS the big title !
LOL I see your still there thammy. /wave (winterose)
I want Vanguard to be good.. I really do.
Yesterday I spent over an hour just exploring the dwarf city..... it's so sad to see it just sitting there in the mountains going to waste... I encountered only one other player in that hour of exloration..... its huge and empty.....
One thing that bothered me about VG was that even when the server population was good the cities seemed to feel deserted... they are so big that they spread all the players out... and you wind up with a city that doesnt feel like a city... it felt like visiting the main city of an MMO that has been out for 8 years and is mostly deceased.....
I hope the server merges make things better, and I hope SOE realizes the potential of the game, but until then I'll be looking elsewhere for my MMO fix =(.
Grymm
MMO addict in recovery!
EQ,SWG preCU,L2,EQ2,GW,CoH/CoV,V:SOH,
Aion,AoC,TR,WAR,EVE,BP,RIFT,WoW and others... no more!
I think for your first paragraph Thamoris you also need to say what a poor state of affairs this is. given Mr Mcquaids "when the game comes out current hardware will be cheaper" its not very clever to not have support for top of the range GPU's is it ? Every other game has pretty much managed this and solved issues with 8800 which were mostly minor in the first place. Since VG was deployed with little quality testing ( a fact admitted by Brad himself ) how can one use the latest hardware if its not been tested, tweaked and fixed. I wonder how much other hardware is not really beinig used to a great degree as VG fell so far behind development. They just got swept under the carpet. We'll never know but if we did I bet we'll be shocked.
No this just shows the mess Sigil was in when they released. Issues like the above were probably not even considered. They "released" and "prayed". Somewhat crude sounding but the truth.
As for the final words... I think VG is YOUR next thing. However commercially it is rather a stinker right now and will continue to be so and possibly conintinue to be so even with money / people thrown at it. As for the next "big thing".. sorry no.. mostly liekly never.
I think for your first paragraph Thamoris you also need to say what a poor state of affairs this is. given Mr Mcquaids "when the game comes out current hardware will be cheaper" its not very clever to not have support for top of the range GPU's is it ? Every other game has pretty much managed this and solved issues with 8800 which were mostly minor in the first place. Since VG was deployed with little quality testing ( a fact admitted by Brad himself ) how can one use the latest hardware if its not been tested, tweaked and fixed. I wonder how much other hardware is not really beinig used to a great degree as VG fell so far behind development. They just got swept under the carpet. We'll never know but if we did I bet we'll be shocked.
No this just shows the mess Sigil was in when they released. Issues like the above were probably not even considered. They "released" and "prayed". Somewhat crude sounding but the truth.
As for the final words... I think VG is YOUR next thing. However commercially it is rather a stinker right now and will continue to be so and possibly conintinue to be so even with money / people thrown at it. As for the next "big thing".. sorry no.. mostly liekly never.
Nvidia is actually doing most of the solving. Each driver update adresses issues with specific games.Although you still can't load chicken little if you're using an 8800.
Wish Darkfall would release.
I think for your first paragraph Thamoris you also need to say what a poor state of affairs this is. given Mr Mcquaids "when the game comes out current hardware will be cheaper" its not very clever to not have support for top of the range GPU's is it ? Every other game has pretty much managed this and solved issues with 8800 which were mostly minor in the first place. Since VG was deployed with little quality testing ( a fact admitted by Brad himself ) how can one use the latest hardware if its not been tested, tweaked and fixed. I wonder how much other hardware is not really beinig used to a great degree as VG fell so far behind development. They just got swept under the carpet. We'll never know but if we did I bet we'll be shocked.
No this just shows the mess Sigil was in when they released. Issues like the above were probably not even considered. They "released" and "prayed". Somewhat crude sounding but the truth.
As for the final words... I think VG is YOUR next thing. However commercially it is rather a stinker right now and will continue to be so and possibly conintinue to be so even with money / people thrown at it. As for the next "big thing".. sorry no.. mostly liekly never.
I can understand where Thamoris is coming from. This is the second (that i know of) underdog mmo he has invested himself in. I see alot of similarites between Horizons and Vanguard. Lots of Potential, lots of performance problems, Dwindling populations, sold by original developers, servers merged..etc All I can say is thank GOD that SOE isnt like EI Interactive. I really feel for what those guys In Istaria are going through. I dont think they have even heard from their devs in months. SOE at least will make an attempt to fix and maintain. Heck they still keep MXO going.So i can understand how Thamoris and others (myself) included need to try to keep themselves(and others) hyped up about a game that is secretly disappointing them. Its hard to invest yourself in a world and a game only to find that the world and game dont give you back what you put in. I wouldnt want to go through that again either Tham
Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
Lao-Tze
I think for your first paragraph Thamoris you also need to say what a poor state of affairs this is. given Mr Mcquaids "when the game comes out current hardware will be cheaper" its not very clever to not have support for top of the range GPU's is it ? Every other game has pretty much managed this and solved issues with 8800 which were mostly minor in the first place. Since VG was deployed with little quality testing ( a fact admitted by Brad himself ) how can one use the latest hardware if its not been tested, tweaked and fixed. I wonder how much other hardware is not really beinig used to a great degree as VG fell so far behind development. They just got swept under the carpet. We'll never know but if we did I bet we'll be shocked.
No this just shows the mess Sigil was in when they released. Issues like the above were probably not even considered. They "released" and "prayed". Somewhat crude sounding but the truth.
As for the final words... I think VG is YOUR next thing. However commercially it is rather a stinker right now and will continue to be so and possibly conintinue to be so even with money / people thrown at it. As for the next "big thing".. sorry no.. mostly liekly never.
My guild and my guild's alliances are waiting on age of conan. And Warhammer Online is shaping up very well as of now.
Gee, this is pure comedy gold. More please!
Yeah alright. Some of the problems with the 8800 have been lengthened by passing the prblem between game developer and NVIDIA. Though in most cases its NVIDIA who have provided the driver which fixed issues. Though one or two games have released patches citing the 8800 card.
Yeah alright. Some of the problems with the 8800 have been lengthened by passing the prblem between game developer and NVIDIA. Though in most cases its NVIDIA who have provided the driver which fixed issues. Though one or two games have released patches citing the 8800 card.
Its really baffling to me how Vanguard can be so utterly un-optimized for the 8800 when Sigil's former ruler Brad made that comment about people needing to upgrade to better hardware for VG to play correctly.
I have 8800gtx and I stopped playing VG back in March for a variety of reasons, not the least of which included but certainly not limited to: falling out of world, dying, losing XP and having GM say "sorry, too bad, nothing we can do", crashing to desktop on chunk line crossings then logging in to find out you died, etc.
I just saw that I never actually cancelled my subscription and considered, in a moment of temporary insanity, reinstalling a game over 3 times the size of anything else like it and actually logging for the first time in months just to check the state of affairs before finally pulling the plug....but after reading even the VG fans admit that the 8800 *still* has problems, even months after the former boss told people to go out and get it?
I'll pass...
I really don't see how this project even made it as far as it did considering the unending amount of issues but I guess thats what happens when a company blows millions hiring friends/family and not conducting even close to proper Q/A
Saying a MMO has "potential" is the same as saying The Washington Generals have "potential" to beat the Harlem Globetrotters.
Go Generals! You can do it!
i doubt theres much truth into this the moment you thought 1 cp was alot to recover all your gear :P come on now its one cp copper piece the first denomination of the cash system ffs just kill one freaken mob and loot it and you got more then 1 cp lol its a good thing you left the game doesnt need retards like you :P
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
Anyone remember what Smegley said when EQ2 needed top of the range highest end PC?. Well well well, I want you all with a very good PC (not top of the range needed) and try out EQ2 trial and see for yourself.
Cranky, Jittery, Shuddery little crappy game that used 1/3rd of the overall CPU.
Totally crap.
Grymm
MMO addict in recovery!
EQ,SWG preCU,L2,EQ2,GW,CoH/CoV,V:SOH,
Aion,AoC,TR,WAR,EVE,BP,RIFT,WoW and others... no more!