Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
How is update 2?
baalzeboul69
Member Posts: 3
I am just curious what you guys think of update 2. Is it everything SoE has promised or did they fall short again?
Comments
I was going to post the same thing, though without the SoE hate.
Hows the update? Did it break anything? Didi it improve performance noticably?
EE was removed and a few people mutter about it. No big deal.
Again a bit more performance. I cant confirm, because i had no time to check, but people say Khal has no lag. Chunking seems a bit faster too. Hard to tell for me. I had ok performance before update 2. I had no CDT before update and i had none after. The optimized models where part of the patch, but it is not confirmed if they are active.
Crafting is one of the big winners. Slightly flattened xp curve, additional resting xp and much higher faction gain per WO are the highlights. Crafting XP was recalculated and some gained 3 levels after log in. Crafting was not dumbed down, its just a bit better now. Faction grind was out of whack. Now you can get up to 12 faction per WO. But i think the fixed crafting animations show best how serious the devs are. Little details make a good game...
Now everyone is able to decon. Any adventurer can buy a cheap decon kit and decon his loot on his own. Everything now is BOE or BOP. DEVs hope to fix the economy to some degree. Only time will tell. Players seem to have accepted it in a positive way.
Update #2 is flawless so far. Not everyone got what he wanted, but what we got is quality imho.
But the real U#2 hype is about the merge. Devs promissed that we merge one week after U#2. Most of the players where waiting for weeks to finally merge. Me too
My feelings are pretty similar to eugam really.
Some people are winging about no EE - personally i think its for the best because it makes EVERY slot important.
The decon kits are easy to use and kinda fun to wonder whether youll get an awesome dust each time. I'm a 50 crafter and was absolutely sick to death of deconning items for dusts at stations. Imo the kits are a superior solution.
I have been plagued by CTD's since launch (8800 user) and **think** my issues haev been fixed this patch (no crashes in a 4 hour playsession today - but of course i cant say for sure yet).
No guild halls up yet but everyones having a lot of fun running around trying to get everything organized for them. The guild plots dont go on sale until the merge (supposed to happen in 1 week), and when they do it should be a lot of fun to see them go up. (They are massive beasts)
Some high level adventurers in my guild were telling me today that there are new quests in certain areas, but it wasnt mentioned in the patch notes. I guess some stealth content made it in too.
The new LFG tool is pretty cool, lots of detail about who wants what and what classes are needed in grps etc. After the merge this will become especially useful.
overall Im wrapped with GU2 - and looking forward to the merge
Not a good patch for the most part.
Crashes are way up. Lag is way up.
They removed EE which by itself is not a big deal but its symbolic of SOEs misguided attemps to simply game systems because they do not play their own games enough to understand them.
Among the other bad things:
Lowered the crafting curve to 50 by 35%. If it was not easy enough already. The problem with crafting was not that it was to slow but rather that it was to tedious. if they just added in more quests that would help break a lot of the monotony.
They added in rest experience. Experience which will make crafting even faster and if adventure expereince was not already super fast before now its even faster.
They added in BOE to all items and BOP to rare and above drops which is probably a good thing.
They added more information on item UI and it looks a lot better.
They added in Guild halls. Not tested.
They added in a greater LFG system. I have not looked at it.
They added in the brotherhood system which should be a great boon for many people.
While they added in some nice features this was like most patches we have seen from SOE more game simplification, easier gameplay and worse performance. We would be a lot better off if they just put the game back to the way it was in April. Performance was considerably better then with a lot more people playing.
While I enjoiy playing VG quite a lot this patch lowers my faith in SOE even more and makes me question the long term future of this Vanguard with SOE running the game.
Unfortunatly, I'd have to completely disagree with the above poster.
Performance is way up for me, and the changes made are good ones. I have yet to have any problems with the patch, no lag or CTD's. The game is actually running really smooth, and animations seem more fluid. Though I still get the usual stuttering when entering towns. I suppose each person has their own views, but from the view that is in front of me, I see only good things.
My only issue at first was the BoE or BoP items... but they implemented a way to view equipment before you equip, much like EQ2 or WoW's Dressing Room. Only difference is you actually see it on your character, not in a seperate window.
I also have to disagree with ZIppy.
Performance is superb now. You can fly (flying mounts rule) and not worry about falling while chunking and I havent had a CTD with GU2 since my return.
Explorer 73% Achiever 53% Socializer 53% Killer 20%
I've seen about a 30% increase in performance since the last big patch. The game is becoming increasingly stable for most, so yeah, it's getting better. I anticipate SOE will be re-releasing it in the next 6 months or so with a free trial when raids, flying mounts, the trial island, and a few other goodies are added.
Some things where changed like they took the EE system out of the game which angered a number of people. And, they changed it so that all the rare items that drop are Bind on Pickup which angered people. So, there were some things in the update that some people took issue with.... but, I am sure they will get over it eventually.
But, for the most part, the patch was an overall success and a testament to show that SoE is taking Vanguard very seriously. They are openly talking with the community and letting us know what they have planned, what they are currently doing, and so forth. This is about the most open the devs have been on any SoE game I have ever played which is one of the reasons I can over look the bugs and issues I run in to in the game because I know that SoE IS aware and IS working on it.
Loothur VonRichten
Wood Elven Ranger of the Florendyl RP Server
I resubscribed because of the fact that everyone is saying "hurray for the new patch" and what did I see the same minute I logged in to the game world? The Blue Screen! around Launch I could actually play the game (with huge amounts of lagg though) but not now
I think its a great patch. Its a big step forward in the right direction.
LFG system is much easier and much better, its very verbose and does its job alot better than other LFG systems I've seen
Performance is very good for me, no lag, no hitching, no CTD, very smooth now since Feb time frame
Many bugs fixed that "bugged" the hell out of me are fixed
I like the change to Equipment Expertise for the most part. It makes it much easier and concise on what is for your level not some convaluted algorithm.
I personally enjoy rested xp, though I would of them rather implement it better and in a more unique way then almost a direct copy of WOW. It took a decent amount of time to lvl, people that couldnt play as often need to have some sort of way as to keep up with the people who play all the time. Some call it dumbing it down, I call it appealing to a wide audience.
Alot of people have come back to vanguard on the server that left pre GU 2, so thats a good sign IMO. With the new patch I was able to find a group for Khegors End in 5 minutes and get a full balanced group to run it, which I was having a very hard time back in Feb when I last played.
I think that if your on the fence about coming back, once the merge happens in about a week or so, DO IT. Its a stable game (for me) and with the merge server pops should be a plenty.
Compared to other patches back in the sigil days, you can tell this game actually went into QA. Previous sigil patches pretty much went as follows. "Joe you have that new code in?" "Yup coded it 10 minutes ago" "Alright, put it on the test build, see if you can log in and and make sure the game loads and send it to patch server" "No QA?" "Naw we dont have time, we need to get this to the people asap!"
They atleast spent 2 weeks on QA. The problem with a short dev cycle is it doesnt QA for a good time. Plus they didn't have a test server.
I'm very pleased.
----------------------
Played (In order of favorite first to least): DAOC, EQ2, EVE, WOW, Vanguard, AC2, City of __, Guild Wars, LOTRO, EQ, Sword of New World, FFXI, Lineage 2, Second Life, DDO, Anarchy Online, RF Online, Archlord, Uru, Ragnarok Online, Shadowbane, Planetside, Auto Assault, Ryzom, Matrix Online, Horizons, Entropia, Sims, Runescape, Lineage 1, AC1, Dungeon Runners
If by stable you mean few client crashes then yes VG is somewhat stable.
But if by stable you mean no hitching and no jitters and smooth as silk game play then no this game has quite a while to go.
I have 4 gigs
A pentium D
and an ATI 1900 with 512 mb
and I get anywhere from 5-20 fps with all settings max
5-60 fps with medium
and 5-70 fps with low settings.
Notice that I get 5 fps no matter what setting at certain points. This is where the game hitche san dit happens 40 percent of the time.
I'm trying to objectify my experience and explain why I think vanguard is only 10 percent complete
The more I play vanguard the more i also realise why so many people play wow. Because its performance is consisten whehter your ina city or dungeon. If I want to go in a dungeon in vnaguard i have to turn clipping to 0 and my mahcine is not that old, I got it in the fall.
There is no doubt now that SOE is in 100% control of Vanguard, just look at all those "Exciting and Fun" exclamation points in the patch notes! <-----
I'm glad to hear the game has gotten a bit better for those that still play it, it still breaks my heart to think how gung ho I once was for this game, around this time last year.
All in all it sounds promising. I'm glad that SoE do seem to be keeping their word on resources and talent dedicated to fixing the game.
I wonder just how much they will be able to optimize the engine though, as Brad said something about the engine not being capable of what they intended. That would mean upgrading the engine, or simplifying what you want it to do.
They are doing well, but community communication is less than desired. The ONLY game that had an amazing amount of dev / community manager / player base interaction was DAOC. Camelot hearald was the greatest community site created imo.
----------------------
Played (In order of favorite first to least): DAOC, EQ2, EVE, WOW, Vanguard, AC2, City of __, Guild Wars, LOTRO, EQ, Sword of New World, FFXI, Lineage 2, Second Life, DDO, Anarchy Online, RF Online, Archlord, Uru, Ragnarok Online, Shadowbane, Planetside, Auto Assault, Ryzom, Matrix Online, Horizons, Entropia, Sims, Runescape, Lineage 1, AC1, Dungeon Runners
I wasn't trying to hate on SoE. I was pretty disapointed with the game when I purchased it (on release). I have high hopes for the game and def plan to return to it. It has alot of potential along with alot of really cool concepts. I am just mostly curious if the patch + upcoming server merge has made the game worth returning to sooner than I was planning. I was planning to wait until SoE re-released it with some sort of trial but if things are really getting fixed I would love to return sooner.
Thanks for comments on the update
They are doing well, but community communication is less than desired. The ONLY game that had an amazing amount of dev / community manager / player base interaction was DAOC. Camelot hearald was the greatest community site created imo.
In my gaming experience, CoX devs were the best at communication and interacting with the players in-game. Didn't stop them from nerfing the hell out of the game, but they still posted and took the abuse. Nowadays, they aren't as active as in the old days, but still pretty good.I don't even go to the SoE VG boards much. Do the devs post much? Or use board mods to communicate?
OT, just one week, if they are to be believed, until merger, yay!
They are doing well, but community communication is less than desired. The ONLY game that had an amazing amount of dev / community manager / player base interaction was DAOC. Camelot hearald was the greatest community site created imo.
In my gaming experience, CoX devs were the best at communication and interacting with the players in-game. Didn't stop them from nerfing the hell out of the game, but they still posted and took the abuse. Nowadays, they aren't as active as in the old days, but still pretty good.I don't even go to the SoE VG boards much. Do the devs post much? Or use board mods to communicate?
OT, just one week, if they are to be believed, until merger, yay!
In the most recent game patch threads, I have seen the devs post a fair ammount. Before this patch, I did not see to much communication, though the threads I were interested in may not have been all that pressing for a dev to be part of. Though from a dev, I suppose I'd like to him them work, and have the CSR's handle the community and relay it back to them.
Kind of how it works here in the print business, CSR's handle the customers, production handles the work. Occasionally production meets the customer, communicates on important issues, but otherwise production does what it does best, the work. Just my opinion.
ENGINE
- Performance should see a significant boost, especially for computers with less than 2GB of memory. The client will now use a great deal less memory from textures. This option will be enabled by default without requiring the user to wipe their vgclient.ini. It will be enabled for all configurations.
Wooo...
The game seems to be going in the right direction, I wish they hadn't released it when they did...
The game is still unfinished but it's MUCH better then launch
They are doing well, but community communication is less than desired. The ONLY game that had an amazing amount of dev / community manager / player base interaction was DAOC. Camelot hearald was the greatest community site created imo.
In my gaming experience, CoX devs were the best at communication and interacting with the players in-game. Didn't stop them from nerfing the hell out of the game, but they still posted and took the abuse. Nowadays, they aren't as active as in the old days, but still pretty good.I don't even go to the SoE VG boards much. Do the devs post much? Or use board mods to communicate?
OT, just one week, if they are to be believed, until merger, yay!
They still do pretty good Castle has a 360 page open discussion post in the blaster forum. And I have seen him randomly chime in on various threads quite a bit as well.Even statesmen chimed in on some thread about CoX not being super enough.
I logged in last night and it seemed like my performance was a little worse, but not so noticably worse that it bothered me (any more than the usual lag). I had no crashes or major issues, which is an improvement over a launch.
Diplomacy moved to a skill level basis, which is fine. The quest journal was updated but I'd rather have a higher quest number limit.
The key thing will be the server merges. If those go off properly, then things should start hopping. The game is much better than at launch.
That I like to hear!
I'll bet the eager guilds are hard at work learning what they need for Guild Houses. I read they are huge.
I hope they get there.
Well it is pretty nice to here tha they are making improvements on the game but to be frank, I won't be acrivating my two accounts anytime soon.
I think, after Warhammer hits next year will be my deciding factor, if I come back to Vanguard or not ,as the game made a lot of promises and never kept it no helmets,no Inquisitors,no flying mount quests,no end content,same old EQ1 and 2 sit/social emotes and the biggest no real good facial customization for my character.
See how relaunch goes and the likes , until then, I'll be reading on these boards on what haters and likers have to say.
I dunno though it sounds like they're dumbing down the game more than anything. I just want changes to the ugly character models and to work on classes and races and combat animations etc etc. To be honest they're the most important issues and they don't see to be adressing them.
-----------------------------
SWG - PrePub9 Jedi mastered all professions - June 26th 2003 > Nov 15th 2005
EVE Online - 24 million SP - May 6th 2003 > Early 2005
PlanetSide - BR20 CR5 - May 23rd 2003 > Sept 2003