Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Vanguard has MASSIVELY improved!! I'd try it again
spitfire1525
Member Posts: 3
If anyone bought Vanguard a while back and left for legit reasons (it was a piece of shit)... I would come back and try it out. They have made so many changes and improvements, the game is awesome to play. The game was always fun to play, it was just those obstacles of performance and bugs that killed it
since launch:
- 1000's of bug fixes
- 50-60% performance increase
- ALOT of class improvements, balancing. etc
- New player models!! teh sexay is back! improved performance with new models
- Lots of new content for 50's (Shores of darkness, Bridge of destiny, APW, etc).
- New raid zone , Pantheon of ancients is being deployed to test this week! Goes live real real soon!
If you're new. 14 day free trial here - http://vanguard.station.sony.com/isleofdawn/
Not to mention, Vanguard is best looking MMORPG on the market (yes > AoC). See the screenshot below if you think otherwise.
Comments
Sounds cool, i will have ot try again someday soon, but Pantheon is an old zone lol. It was really the only thing to do at high level. It wasnt 100% complete and had bugs glad they are finnally fixing it
With them introducing that new item mall thing into the game I will never play it. P2p with cash shop is a stupid scam.
When real money markets in a game show results like that, it just tells me that the game was utterly failing before the implementation of said markets. Which means the market will only keep it afloat for so long. This is not surprising to me, considering this is an SOE game.
An unintended result of the real money markets is a mass amount of potential players refuse to play it if it's not a F2P game.
I am part of that unintended result.
I'm not someone who refuses to give SOE my money on principle. If they released a GOOD game, didn't ruin it for at least 2 years, and kept it free of desperate attempts for more cash, I would consider it. But this ain't the one.
The last several years, all I have seen from SOE is a desperate attempt to keep subscribers for 1 more month (or to sucker in new meat for a month or two). The bare minimum to keep subscribers for just one more month is NOT what I want to see from the developer of ANY game I might play. I believe that the second their bottom line shows a loss, they're going to be shutting their doors on those games, which could ultimately happen at any moment at this point.
The addition of the RMM into their games and the recent massive server consolidations of their games only screams to me that this time is drawing nearer by the quarter.
I really hope that *insert game name here* will be the first game to ever live up to all of its pre-release promises, maintain a manageable hype level and have a clean release. Just don't expect me to hold my breath.
I was tricked by people who said Vanguard has improved last year. I don't want to make the same mistake again since the most systemic problem in Vanguard is the utterly dull gameplay.
So I heard you can have ships in game. Is this true? Ships were my favorite part of UO back in the day.
Yes you can craft ships (sloop,galleon and something else) and pilot them. Last I remember they added a fishing minigame to give capped players something to do other than twiddle their thumbs. Too bad the fish you catch serve no purpose.
By the way OP... that screenshot looks HORRIBLE compared to an AoC screen. Just thought you should know.
- Theguruofreason
"Freedom is just another name for nothing left to lose" - Janis Joplin
.jpg)
I played it for like 3 weeks and having a blast. However, even on the most populated server, the player population is just too low for me and with the real money market, I can say for sure I won't be touching that game ever again.
"Freedom is just another name for nothing left to lose" - Janis Joplin
.jpg)
I've been on the lookout for a new MMO home since cancelling my EQ2 account a while ago due to the Station Cash fiasco. I recently decided I would go back and try either AoC or Vanguard. Having pre-ordered and been in the early access to both of them, I also found they were both huge letdowns at launch and had cancelled my accounts to both within a few months of playing.
Luckily I decided to pay the Vanguard forums a visit and found out about this Livegamer RMT store thing, looks like SOE are determined to try and introduce MicroTransactions+RMT+Monthly subs all together. Of course this made my decision much easier and I resubbed to AoC last weekend. Must say that so far I'm happy with my decision, I'm guessing I won't be touching any SOE games for quite some time. Shame really as I'd never been one to jump on the whole 'SOE is the devil' bandwagon, and maybe I'm just an old fashioned MMO player, but I like a set monthly subscription which gives me access to everything the game has to offer without having to worry about pimping out my toon via cash stores etc.
Not only has it not improved, but SOE added RMT. Whoever pays the most wins.
Never played Vanguard in the first place first it was published by a nonfamiliar MMO producer then givin "Microsoft" logo.. Was a hate for me. Then the Bugs and whining and flaming started... so the game died, or atleast so I thought. Still a free trial is a free trial, cant hurt to see wether its good or bad
Played at release, and it was garbage.
Went on a 4 year WoW streak, and came back to VG in Dec 2008, and I must admit, I was very pleasently surprised.
The world is beautiful, the classes are awesome, and the lore is pretty deep as well. I enjoyed that it wasn't just a "round up 10 mobs" and solo them all down type of game, and that if you ran into the wrong tunnel or dungeon, and you managed to get 3 big hairy spiders on you, you were pretty much done.
However, you hardly ever see another player. This is partly due to low and falling subscriptions, but it's mainly due to what is, in my opinion, the one glaring weakness of VGSoH. The world is just WAY too BIG. The cities are unnaturally huge, and needlessly complex. It's immersive to have 500 miles of trees and field stretch out before you, but it suddenly becomes a little less so when you find out you have to ride across it on your glue-factory quality level 10 horse to turn in a quest, just to have the quest giver tell you to ride all the way back. You've heard my opinions on other topics about this. It's not a CHALLENGE. It's a TIME SINK.
Overall, I enjoyed coming back to VG though, and I played for about 3 or 4 months, but in the end, despite little gems like Diplomacy and the better than average crafting system, it was really just another MMO following the proven, but tired theory.
1. Level up
2. Re-Spec to one of a handful of cardboard cutout specs designed for raid content
3. Gear up
4. Raid
If you enjoy it though, more power to you.
Science flies people to the moon. Religion flies people into buildings.
played for an hour or so.. my comp is low/mid so the graphics were horrible, landscapes dry and so on.. but thats not my biggest concern, I find the system, the npcs... it doesnt have any feeling. Cant put my hands on exactly what.. it just doesnt feel right, maybe its the empty starter areas, the lack of music.. no, this game was not for me.
So SOE isn't experimenting with vanguard having completely F2P servers on vanguard yet?
I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.
You just have to love how predictable the soe viral marketing is.
I'm sorry OP but Vanguard just doesn't run right on my system.
I can play WAR on medium settings but Vanguard stutters like a bitch and looks like ass at my monitors resolution.
I'll take your word for it.
Playing: EvE, Ryzom
VG is an excellent PVE game more so if you have a good guild or friend to play with.
I find the lack of class customisation a bit of a put off. There are some sliders, Int, Str, Wis, Dex etc but nothing concrete to make your class a bit different to others of the same class.
Ok the viral marketing is meking it really useless to even read forums nowadays... There is no real discussion about MMOs anywhere, its just pure viral marketers against those that don't believe them.
Just look at DF forum. Its not for the ongoing evolution of MMOs... its one long commersial, and those that thinks truth is better than sales pitches. This is exactly the same. No reason to even point out the obvious lies... If you in ANY way critizise a viral marketer... you are by forum rules.. banned for being negative. The marketers have the right.. the members are wrong.
"This is not a game to be tossed aside lightly.
It should be thrown with great force"
Vanguard has the most seamless, open and beatiful world in MMOs in my opinion. The endless vistas, deserts, storms gathering in the distance... if that was a PvP game with siegeing, taking over cities, player guilds ruling over lands, that'd be the best game in the universe.
And the irony is it looks like a game that could pull it off.
Unfortunately it's a PvE game that lets You feel really transported into a different world but You soon feel let down by repetitive gameplay and boredom. Not to mention lack of other players...
I don't believe SOE's business model will ever include F2P. They seem to be content with gouging the player with a subscription on top of micro transactions. Take it as you will, but I despise this company and I take it no more seriously than Sims Online or Toon Town Online. Filled with a bunch of money grubbing, masochistic (game designing) developers and financiers.
With PvE raiding, it has never been a question of being "good enough". I play games to have fun, not to be a simpering toady sitting through hour after hour of mind numbing boredom and fawning over a guild master in the hopes that he will condescend to reward me with shiny bits of loot. But in games where those people get the highest progression, anyone who doesn't do that will just be a moving target for them and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay money for the privilege. - Neanderthal
I came back to VG for the first time about 8 months ago and I was pleasantly surprised on how much the performance was improved compared to release. I left a couple of months later to play a different game.
A week ago I came back for a second time because a friend of mine was interested in playing VG. I dont know what they changed, but its as if the performance was made worse again. My settings didnt perform well anymore (same client, never uninstalled it) and I had to turn down quality settings.
They also managed to break the diplomacy city levers on the starter Island, which still worked when I came back the first time.
Its that my friend wants to try VG for a bit longer, but I think itll be the last time I try Vanguard. Too bad though. Its an awesome game, but badly executed.
The OP isn't off.
Vanguard is a very good game provided you are willing to accept certain things.
I have the graphics at practically all max and I always marvel at some of the incredible graphics. Having said that, it's not consistent and sometimes you get bland areas or textures.
The world is huge. And this is precisely why I am playing it. You can travel a long time and still not see all there is to see. In my opinion this is how a world should be.
However, because this is an explorer's game, you need to be of the correct mindset.
If you want/need to sign in and get right into the action, Vanguard might not be for you. This of course could be mitigated by joining a guild, but you can literally spend 30 minutes just getting somewhere in order to see if there is anything to do in that area. Because I play "part time" and because I want to explore, this is perfect for me. But to most gamers who want to be very social, grouping up all the time or just spending their time in a more active role, the game might not work for them.
The game is also glitchy and junky at times.
Completely playable but you don't get the sense of polish that you get with WoW or LOTRO. So if one has a bit of patience then it's no big deal. If you don't then stay away, nothing to see here.
The game doesn't really hold your hand. The new Trial Island is fun but it condenses a bit in order to teach you the game. Once you leave you are basically in a huge world. Not to everyone's liking.
I posted this before, but one game session was just finding a city where I could buy a horse. I ended up falling into a fountain of sorts and was whisked away to a bowl held by a large statue on the side of a mountain. I could easily see that this wasn't meant to happen and lucked out by forcing myself (after many, many tries) to go over the flowing stream and land a long way down. Then I had to figure out how to get back and buy my horse.
The reason I play it is because I used to play morrowind and always marvelled at discovering new things. I joined MMO's in order to get the same feeling but with real people. Unfortunatley I never really got that with any mmo, as some of them just didn't have enough to reward the explorer and in other games, the areas are sometimes gated if you are not on the appropriate quest (LOTRO for instance).
If you like exploring, have patience, and don't mind long game play sessions that are not always filled with action, then Vangaurd could be for you.
There are many races and classes. The character customizaton is "ok". You have a few face options and then you can alter things. Unfortunatley this game suffers from EQ 2 customization where everyone looks related, just with slightly different features. Not like the upcoming Aion for instance where you can practically make any face.
To that point, the interface for customization is hit or miss. Everything is done by sliders. Sliders are great when you want to controll gradations of somthing. They are clunky if you are picking 1 of 4 faces or hairstyles. A simple series of < and > buttons for moving through the optioins would have been better. sometimes I marvel at designers.
Also, the color choices are glitchy and you might be aiming for a color of hair or clothing only to have a hard time getting what you want. They flicker while you move the slider and it's problematic. This does't happen with skin color.
you also get to pick from a few clothign options but this seems pointless as you are usually wearing your gear.
One amazing thing that they do include (and somethng that a game such as Aion (surprisingly) doesn't have, is the ability to save a customized character as a template in case you want to make another one with your own personal touches. I don't even think EQ 2 has this.
In conclusion, if you are a fickle games, don't have patience, need to be grouping every minute and thus need a huge amount of people around, don't like traveling and need a game that offers more rails then Vanguard is NOT for you.
If you like/need exploration, are patient, can make your own entertainment and enjoy a huge world (and have a decent computer, doesn't have to be top of the line but very good) then Vangaurd can be very rewarding.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
However, it still sucks, just like every other SOE game.