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Eurogamer 10 level review
Shol
Member Posts: 361
Was posted on the SoE forum.
A site is doing some knockout competition (?) of 8 mmorpgs which arent the big players in the mmorpg market (anymore). Rules can ge found here.
First review was Everquest II vs Vanguard Soh and the test is here.
To my surprise VG scored a pretty good result.
Its a good read, I liked his writing style.
Comments
Not really surprising. EQ2s trial island is kinda blah. Pretty average all the way through.
Vanguard gives you a good story and quest progression in not 1 but 3 areas.
That's a good read. I played EQ2 and play Vanguard and that 'closed in' feeling of EQ2 was one of several reasons I left it. For Vanguard, it is the complexity of the game and the immersion factor that have kept me hooked.
Our guild has folks in both games. A few play both, some go back and forth and some only play one exclusively now. But whenever some one pops over from EQ2 we immediately try to take them under our wing and help them get up to speed on a the game.
A raider from EQ2 recently returned to VG. He had a level 49 cleric in Vanguard that he started up after over a year of inactivity. We got him access to APW via the key-quest and took him raiding. He had a blast, but we heard over and over how much more complex VG was, how much more he needed to do, what all the various stats did, healing effectiveness.. on and on and on. The game can be daunting at times
This is a very nice comparison of EQ2 and Vanguard.
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Ethion
Good post. After that read I am wondering whether I am up to the challenge of Vanguard since I have not really ventured beyond lvl 5 as I was waiting on my box to arrive. Definitly not a beginners game.
I miss DAoC
I felt the same way as the author of that piece with guilds in EQII. I played back in Dec '08 for 1 month and I too was greeted by and invited into a huge guild within minutes all of whom were very friendly. Then after introductions it did turn into a {yay, grats, congratulations, way to go fest} every few min or less due to every little thing u accomplished was plastered across guild chat.
Even low level quests that rewarded you a fabled item for killing 10 X was broadcast to the guild. The items were mostly useless but sure enough I kept getting spammed by 'grats'. It did get very boring and for the most part I never saw the guild for most of the time I played, of which I lasted until late 50s.
I finally gave up when I kept asking the guild for help with lower stuff that I wanted to do because I wanted to read the story bits involved, but in return I kept getting, "just skip it and lvl to end-game where all the fun starts" responses. I wanted to get immersed in the story I was on right there, not rush to end-game and skip interesting things or not be helped by them.
I also recently tried Vanguard a week ago, and it was rather fun. The environments are incredible and even that swamp at the beginning of the Isle of Dawn 'at first' had me all turned around and I got disoriented getting back out. Those warnings from the NPCs before heading in on keeping the bridges in sight so you don't get lost were accurate...heh
I still have yet to decide which MMO to play here soon as I'm once again bored to tears with LOTRO and thinking about either Vanguard or WoW.
I got the trial after reading the review. Never thought twice about the game before, but I had a lot of fun. I actually just subscribed and I'm downloading the full game now. I had traditional fantasy MMOs but... I dunno. I think the game's a definite step up from the competition. I loved LotRO to death, but I f**king hate Moria and refuse to wander around that dark maze any more.