Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Ok, please give me a short rundown
berenim
Member UncommonPosts: 162
As stated in other parts of the boards I'm pondering looking for something new. Now I'm hopping from trial to trial, judging games which were recommended for my tastes and now I'm here at Vanguard. 
Right now I'm in the trial, I started a Bard and a Dread Knight and want to see what's different and what Vanguard hgas to offer that differs it from other MMOs. But since trial time usually isn't enough to get a real taste of a game I'm also researching a bit, even more since Vanguards trial is limited to level 10.
So first of all... What am I looking for? I'm looking for a mmoRPG first of all. An immersive world, that offers things to do besides the usual questing and mob slaying. I want to have some "side jobs" something to do when I do not have much time at hand. I also want a mMorpg, so multiplayer should be a part of it. All the silence takes away a bit, so there should be some population around. Not necessarily visible, but some activity, like a nice chat while exploring and wandering around, parties would be nice though at times. ^^ That brings me to the next one: I like to explore, I love to explore. I want to try things, see things. When I was in Ryzom some people were confused because sometimes I did nothing but wander around, avoiding agro mobs to marvel the landscape, like finding a waterfall and enjoying the view while hearing it rushing next to me (Did I mention I want immersion?).
I almost gave up on finding RPG in some games. So this would rather be some extra, the icing so to say but no KO criteria if missing.
I read people were disappointed, Vanguard would be running on life support and so on. I don't know what was promised, so I wont look up broken promises, but I want to know what is there. Also if it is still steadily develpoed and taken care of. In my short visit I already noticed bugs, like disappearing weapon and gear if I hover the curser over another piece of equip, or quest givers being nothing more than outlined blue shadows. So are (missing) features added and bugs taken care of, or is it "left on life support"? So far I had no problems with performance, running on max settings, so that was no issue for me.
I really hope to get some feedback. 
Comments
You are the archtypical VG player. Everything you want aligns very well with what VG delivers and as you have played the Trial you should have already seen this. VG is like 3.5 games in one. Adventuring, crafting, diplomacy, harvesting. So there is always a good variety of stuff to do. Each of these side games is deep and challenging. No single click combines and these side games are independently levelable and full games with their own quests, gear and rewards. You can be a lvl 1 adventurer and a lvl 50 crafter.
VG has amply solo, small group, and group content enabling you to always find the right challenge and if you want to group there are plenty of things that are group oriented that other people are gonna want to do as well. VG gives good group experience and has logs of good group quests and fantastic dungeon so there are always people wanting to group.
VG is a huge world full of interesting things to see. If you like exploration you can't find a better game. VG has a ton of dungeons to explore more then you can ever explore with a single character unless you turn off xp ever few levels to really absorb everything thats avaiable. With my bard I recently played I did this more then previous characters. I think from 20-30 I spent more time with XP off them with it on :P
Game stability is pretty good. The devs are constantly working on bugs and adding new stuff. Go check out the updates on vgplayers.com to get an idea.
btw mousing over stuff changes your appearance to show you what that item looks like. According to a dev on the forums they knew about a bug where sometimes the appearance would get confused and not update properly. The decided to push the patch before thanksgiving break with this minor issue so they could get new stuff out to players before the holidays. There is a new update coming soon the fixed this. They are scrambling right now to put together a xmas update with a bunch of new stuff.
---
Ethion
The game is making something of a (small) comeback, in part thanks to the trial island starting area, which is fun.
If you like to explore, the game is heaven, really. Probably the best exploration MMO available: the world is huge (truly huge compared to most all other MMOs) and varied, plenty of differing landscapes and areas to visit and explore. Also, as has been noted, you have the crafting game and the diplomacy game, which are full blown "spheres" of the game in their own right -- so you can mixup the non-exploration gameplay with varied elements in the game.
The game has been improved dramatically in the almost two years since it was released. In a game of its size, there will be bugs, of course, but the game in general plays well. The population is stable and growing a bit, but not "large" by any means, if that's important to you.
Just look at my bartle gamer psychology test to see what I like.
So I don't need a world where players stand on each other's toes and draw numbers to kill mobs, but it has to be noticable you are in an online multiplayer game, that's why I highlighted the second M only. I'm contend with that. Sure it ads to immersion if you come to a city and it bustles with activity, but as long as I find a group if I want to and don't feel like playing a single player game that for some reason has a chat line I'm fine, as long as the remaining community is fine and ok (don't like elitists and people shoving down their rules to newer players throats). I played Anarchy Online on the German server, so I'm used to small communities (so how is the EU com? ^^)
I know there will be bugs in a game like this (hey, played AO for several years, I know bugs and bneing stuck in geometry ^^). As long as they are still active on developing, fine tuning and fixing I can live with it, I just feared they could have put everything on hold after fixing the basic bugs/ making the game playable to return some money and if there would be a large enough player base restart working on it. As you say it seems they are still working on it.
Give it a good try then. They are working on the game, it plays like a true successor to EQ, and it can be fun. There are enough people playing to group, if you want to do that, and plenty else to do as well.
Halgar has a medium population. This rating is based on when you choose a server it lists whether it is Low, Medium or High. This is a great sign b/c earlier this year all servers were Low. Now all except the PvP server are Medium.
This game really fits when you posted. Enjoy.
Anyway, although it took me days to understand it, I've been really enjoying the Diplomacy sphere lately. Many of the parleys are more challenging than the combat, and you get a wealth of lore and story details you would otherwise miss if your main focus is Adventuring.
Crafting has also been interesting, as it is more complex than simply getting the recipe ingredients and clicking a button to execute. I've had my share of botched jobs -- but seem to have gotten the hang of it now.
Both of those spheres provide a good deal of immersion, imo, but I honestly haven't seen any role-playing going on. (I am on Xeth, though, so I really didn't expect any.)
Since Diplomacy and Crafting have taken up a good portion of my time, I'm not sure I will complete the Adventuring line before my trial is up in a couple days. But, at the moment, I expect I will continue on -- at least for another month or so.
Sounds like VG might be your cup of tea.
Exploration
3 main spheres
Plot lines/storys (diplomacy is good for this)
Massive (will need several toons to see all content)
My short run down.
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
Quick rundowns + trial let me make my decision...
Hello Halgar, I'm right there... Well, in about 5 hours that is, when my client has upgraded itself. *g* I hope the rest of the game/ com is as good as the Isle. It was the first time I since long ago I sighed when I wanted to play and the server was down instead of just shrugging and playing something else. I hope the "sense of wonder" and immersion continues through the game.
Now I just have to chose a main char... C ya on Halgar
Damned :P u made me want to give it another go myself aswell.
I played Vanguard at the release, and even though i Really really tried to love the game, the broken items/quests/dying and losing xp for no reason had put me off completely and i didnt resub again, (played until i was level 25). However I loved the game itself, and I've always been curious how it would be to give it another shot. Could u do me a favour and tell me once u reach 20+ levels how the server is ?
cause i think my chars are on that one aswell, and if ur still as excited bout the game as u are now i might resub again.
Vanguard was a good game with bad bugs and unfinished elements. I played for the first 3 months. I had fun even then and the only real reason I quit was because my guild / friends did. I have heard nothing but good things about the game ever since. I will have to give it a try again soon.
Join us at: https://www.maturemindedgamers.com
Come in and join us...
I really think this game is a gem for explorers and PvEers. Those who played in early days or rather many MMORPG-gamers (at least here in these forums) just want everything to be an instant classic. Either it's great from the start (which it only is if it will completely cater *their* gaming style) or it is a bomb and will never be good. MMOs don't go complete heal and *bling* everything is shiny. They rather behave like having a HoT on them (ok, later some seem more DoTed when older). Slowly they heal, get polished and better with every patch. We are more or less part of a journey of polishing and seeing a game become mature after the first babysteps and the stumblings with it.
I have it rather this way, than the other way round: A well polished instant classic we can watch decline with every step it takes, as something that is perfect can only become worse and MMOs live from evolving and being work in progress all the time, so you are never really finished and have new things to explore.
The com seemed pretty nice on Halgar and I really hope for more on the mainland later. A good community is a make or break for me. I already left games as I felt playing a single player game online. Noone to be seen, noone talks. But on the Isle of Dawn we had some nice chats though, so I hope there will be more of it on the mainland.
And now all log off, stop patching and make more room for my traffic. I want to play and still one hour to go. :P
Having thoroughly enjoyed my trial time on the Isle of Dawn [see post on previous page], I decided to continue my adventures into the rest of Telon.
I was very pleasantly surprised when, at the end of my trial period, I found that all I was being asked to pay was the monthly subscription. I did not have to buy the full game in order to download and install it. I know that is not the case with some (most?) other games, which charge you $20-$30 up front, in addition to the monthly fee.
The download took forever -- the full game tops out at about 20 gigs -- but everything looks good to go. I expect I'll be rifting to Qa Riverbank sometime this weekend.
Vanguard would be a suitable fit for your gaming tastes if it had a decent population on any server. Do not be fooled by the population on the trial isle, it is the only real populated area in the game until level 50. Since only you know how many people and how much interaction you require in a game to be worthwhile, I would suggest finding a guild early and seeing how it goes.
If you can find a group of 2-5 people that play at similar times VG has a lot to offer. Sadly most content goes unseen or unused because people flock to a small percentage of areas in order to have any chance at all to group.