I recently picked up on Vanguard again after playing 3 months or so at launch. I rolled up a character on the PvP server..... It is a ghost town. Many times I am the only one in the zone for long periods of time. The players in the server chat channels say there are about 60-100 players there. The world is very nicely done,with good graphics etc, but my machine freezes quite often just running through unpopulated zones,something I would expect from an area that had a lot of players. My machine is decent,core2 duo E6600 2.6 Ghz,4 gb ram,8800GTS 320,SATA Hd, DSL, Win XpPro, so it is really frustrating to be experiencing the level of stuttering that I am. I guess I will try the PvE server to try and get in a group and see how the performance is before I sign on for another month.
"I'm very proud of my team," said Salim. "We've put our heart and soul into this game. We've managed to fix a lot of older bugs and yet managed to release content for free. In May, we released the Halls of the Pantheon and at the same time raised the level cap for adventurers and crafters to 55 with all related content for those levels." Salim compared the Halls of the Pantheon to the Temple of Solusek Ro in the original EverQuest. Players will find quests for their class armors and will be sent to the far reaches of Telon for these quests.
Proud? You shouldn't be. What producer raises the lvl cap without releasing a new adventuring zone with content to make the lvling from 50-55 an interesting, challenging, and exciting experience. Nope. Instead, you made the lvl 50-55 a horrendous grind that players are quiting over.
The game was released unfinished and it still is. Nothing has changed. Did you finish Kojan? Did you release the Bezerker and Inquisitor classes that were cut? Did you build upon the races and different factions to give them meaning? Did you expand upon PVP to make it an interesting game option for a player? Did you give boats any usefullness? etc. You have done nothing of consequence besides turning VG into a watered down version of EQ2.
14.99 monthly sub for a game that will never see an expansion or regular game updates is a real deal.
"I'm very proud of my team," said Salim. "We've put our heart and soul into this game. We've managed to fix a lot of older bugs and yet managed to release content for free. In May, we released the Halls of the Pantheon and at the same time raised the level cap for adventurers and crafters to 55 with all related content for those levels." Salim compared the Halls of the Pantheon to the Temple of Solusek Ro in the original EverQuest. Players will find quests for their class armors and will be sent to the far reaches of Telon for these quests.
Proud? You shouldn't be. What producer raises the lvl cap without releasing a new adventuring zone with content to make the lvling from 50-55 an interesting, challenging, and exciting experience. Nope. Instead, you made the lvl 50-55 a horrendous grind that players are quiting over. The game was released unfinished and it still is. Nothing has changed. Did you finish Kojan? Did you release the Bezerker and Inquisitor classes that were cut? Did you build upon the races and different factions to give them meaning? Did you expand upon PVP to make it an interesting game option for a player? Did you give boats any usefullness? etc. You have done nothing of consequence besides turning VG into a watered down version of EQ2. 14.99 monthly sub for a game that will never see an expansion or regular game updates is a real deal.
I don't mind a game not constantly changing and updating. I kind of like that actually. I really dislike the feeling the devs have that MMOs need to constantly change into something different. In Everquest for an example the first 2 expansions were a nice addition to the game. They didn't drastically change anything just added more of the same great design that was there in the beginning. With more and more expansions EQ turned into something away from it's original design, into a pile of garbage. World of Warcraft did the same but earlier and they constantly are changing thing worse than EQ did. It is horrible. Games need to stick to their vision.
Other than all that I agree, Vanguard was changed into a pile of garbage. They tried to change into WoW. Every game doesn't need to be that game. I quit with all the changes. Sony tried to change EQ2 into WoW also and now it is a clone with an item shop tack on. Avoiding that one like the plague.
If you have an Nvidea Card you can mitigate this. It will still happen but less frequently.
From another thread, see the bold: Originally posted by Margulis Originally posted by Nizur From what I've read, VG is harsh on hard drives, but you've got a pretty beefy one. Way beefier than mine and I'm rarely seeing hitching. I'm assuming you've defragged the drive? Also, you've got an nVidia card, so you've probably got the nVidia control panel. I nearly doubled my FPS again tonight despite turning on AA by adding VG under Manage 3D Settings. I'm not sure if you've got 1 or 2 displays. I have two and noticed that the default setting was Multiple Display Performance mode. I switched that to Single Display performance mode. I also switched Threaded optimization to On. Those settings are only for VG, not default settings. YMMV, but it's worth a try. I also messed around with LOD settings and LightComplexity in my vgclient.ini file some more. EDIT: BTW, what's your connection? Cable? DSL? Are you using a router? Firewall?
Hey hey! I seem to have made some progress here. Did some 3d setting modifications including the threaded optimization and single display performance and it is running MUCH better now. I'm still gettting some hitching when entering a new town or something but after the inital hitching it runs smooth, and out in the field hitching is pretty minimal. It's playable now at least so hooray! I'm on seradon with character Margulis by the way if anyone is interested in a new friend in game. Since you use Nvidia try increasing your max pre-rendered frames setting to 5 or 6 that should help to further smooth things out.
mm,ty for info ,but im not very good with computer does vanguard have an auto detect auto optimize like guild wars ,it would help me a lot because from what you write theres a lot of setting you mentioned i wouldnt even know where to look let alone play with those
that one issue i have with all game in general !
how come all game maker dont furnish an auto detect auto optimise button
hell even in guild wars i had to go in menu sub-menu gees i had to go so deep it take an engineering diploma in computer just to play a freaking game couldnt the pc game maker put an auto adjust button at the start before you go ingame or anything
i might buy a wii just for that reason ,pc game doesnt play out of the box and game maker expect you to understand what aa means or what directx is or where and all the whats not !
men im so not computer literate am i the only one that want simple plug and play game like the rest of my computer?
am i asking to much ?when i ask an auto -detect ,auto adjust buton, in a very obvious place not hidden where i got to ask microsoft teck support to help me find that setting or what it does
No it doesn't but no worries, it's not hard.
There is most likely (if you have the Nvidea software installed,) a little green Nvidea icon on the lower right of your task bar (lower right of your screen). click on it and you will see a list of options. One of them is Nvidia control panel. choose it.
The control panel comes up and you will see a list of options on the left. One of them is manage 3d settings. Choose it and you will see the window on the right with Manage 3d settings.
Select a program to customize and you should see vanguard.
Then scroll down and you will see the option "maximum pre-rendered frames. I set mine to 6.
Scroll down a bit further and you will see "threaded optimization" (this one helped the chunking over the chunk lines quite a bit though still not vanished completely). Set it to on.
Then see if that helps.
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I think this had the exact opposite effect for me. I felt like I was playing in a world as opposed a game where you can only enter certain areas if you were on the appropriate quest. But since this game is a bit of a throwback, people will either like it or hate it. I like being able to go to that hill and find a new leveling area. or find that I'm outmatched and have to run for my life. I had an experience where it was late at night (or more like 1:30 am) and I headed toward what I thought was a castle. Though I noticed things were a bit run down I didn't really pay enough attention, just walked my horse to the door and opened it. Suddenly I saw npc's running toward me and thought "hey, what a nice touch to have greeters at the castle". Then I realized they were zombie skeleton things and were more than 10 lvls above me. That's when i ran. I was completely, for lack of a better word, delighted at that mistake. The game feels very different from EQ2 and LOTRO. I have the EQ2 game up for comparison and though I could go on as to why EQ2 is a good game, it's also a rather goofy game. It has a bit too much of the whimsical for my taste. I would say that I have agreed with you about Vanguard's models but the more I play the more I sort of see the logic in them. I don't think they are any worse than LOTRO's models. Which also suffers from the beautiful world/odd avatar syndrome.
The thing is this isnt anything new and I didnt find it particularly awe inspiring. You can wander into high level areas in other mmos too and (shockingly enough) you will find yourself running away from mobs higher level than you. This has been happening in the earliest mmos. The only difference is that in VG the player is free to attempt most areas in the game at their leisure rather then being shepharded about like in most mmos.....except your still really being guided because the level restrictions are still actually there. Its still a themepark game afterall. Thats not a bad thing by the way......except for the fact that VG tries to enhance the illusion of it being a big open world by allowing the player to see for miles. For me personally all that really did was allow me to confirm that for miles and miles around me there was nothing to see as nothing was happening as its just a static gameworld that never changes. 3D landscape covered with lots of static (or nearly static) mobs waiting around in their pre-programmed areas for the players to come farm them.
Well, a few things.
Though this is not different from a lot of earlier mmo's, it is significanlty different for me. My first mmo was lineage 2 and I played it as my main game (only tring other games to see what they were like) for 4 years. The world for L2 is large but other than large areas for grinding, there is not a lot to really see.
I remember trying to enter a building and realized it was a prop. A lot of buildings in the countryside are props.
One can explore but there aren't a lot of subtle things to revel in. My biggest thrill was stumbling on the sea of spores. This is not to say there aren't great places but there aren't really a lot of hidden gems to be found.
As far as Vanguard's empty world, it depends on taste. I find all sorts of towers, caves and what have you. For me I just enjoy seeing what's inside. Sometimes I get quests.
Yes, Vanguard has a lot of mobs waiting to be killed but it is to be expected. It is a throwback game. A retro game. If you've alreayd been there and done that then of course I wouldn't suggest the game. But for people who have plaed games like L2 or even WoW... or heck, even EQ 2, it does have a differnet feel.
My playtime tonight was exceptionally fun. yesterday, I went to check out hilsbury manor but didn't have a lot of time. So today I went to see if I could find a quest for the place and instead found one where an ambassador's daughter was missing. I was sent to another quest giver and she told me where to look. I Spent a bit of time trying to find the place the daugher was noted to be. Found her locket or some such thing. Was then told that the spiders probably dragged her into a cave and I should go back and kill many too many spiders so I can take their fangs and the quest giver could make a saw. well, 20. Still I'm pretty immune to grinding from L2 so I did it. Was given the saw and found the cave.
Made my way back and rescued someone who was webbed up. Then found a dead person and then someone who begged to be killed but asked me to find his wife at the tower. I then find the girl, and fight my way back to the quest giver.
The tower is next to her and lo and behold the (now) dead person's wife. I turn in that quest and then the guard next to her sends me to the lower town because a mad princess witch (or whatever ) has taken stormwynd keep and is donig nasty things.
I return the girl, head down, take the keep's guards out, collect the princess's head and take out her small entourage and head back. I am then told that I need to go see a vampire slayer. Ok.. I have time...
I find him (south of hilsbury manor) and am told there is a monastary with some evil going on. I take the "kill her minions", collect the amulets, take the head matron's "head" quests and, er... "head there".
I then fight my way inside this monastery and have to spend time searching rooms for this head evil matron. I clear everything out and can't understand why I cant' find her. then I notice the stairs that lead into the cold dark ground. I make my way down winding marble steps but have to go into first person mode because of the tight quarters. I fight my way down and then find a large crypt like room with fog and all the signs that this is a group of vampires. I slay everyone, fight the matron, take her head (a lot of head taking in this game) and make my way back to the vampire killer. I am then given a quest to go into hilsbury manor and find someone who is hiding in there in a secret room. Hilsbury manor is filled with vampires and other baddies...
This is FAR different than the L2 "hey, let's just find a field and grind until our eyes bleed" scenario. It is also a bit different from my LOTRO play though I tend to just explore the LOTRO world and not worry too much what I do and don't do.
Point being, not one time tonight did I look at my xp bar or see if I was getting the most xp for my effort I just played the game. I got into the small stories behind the quests and it was very much a fun evening.
So for people who haven't experienced this type of thing, who haven't been in a game where you can stumble on things only to be given quests because of your exploration, then I highly recommend it.
You see, I don't see vanguard as an open empty world. I see it as a world. it takes time to get places. I'm not just being told to go to the next town over and though it is the next town over, it takes 2 minutes to do so. In Vanguard It takes a quite bit because it really is the next town over. There is a sense of a greater space. And as I'm heading to whereever I will then see a tower or cave or something that catches my attnetion... hmmm perhaps that town can wait... this is exactly why I started playing mmo's. I wanted the morrowind "I'm leaving Sedya Neen and what the heck is that door doing, sticking out of the rock in the distance "feeling. This is somethign I have not gotten from mmo's.
It takes some patience because of the small bugs and of course as I said, it's retro gameplay, but for those people who are tired of LOTRO or WoW or even asian grinders, and are willing to lose themselves within the stage that vanguard sets, then I think it is worth it.
erg.. that was a long post! sorry ; )
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Even with all of the bug fixes I still think it's one of the buggiest p2p mmos on the market, if not the buggiest. Just my opinion.
I agree. heck Even Silius the Game Director/lead developer agrees. He said many times that the code is fubar and the reason why many Long standing bugs cant and will never be fixed.
I played VG and stopped before they raised the levelcap. I simply couldnt see how they put out enough content for additional 5 levels. The game is awesome, I love it. If there would be good support I wouldnt have left. Its the only game I played so far where I had the feeling of some big badass open world where I can go and adventure like I want.
I started at VG launch some woodelf and I remember making screenshots like mad because it was beautiful, I cursed like mad because I got always lost in the damn trees. I put some effort into it to get the VG soundtrack as its the best until AoC released, leveled in some months to 44 where the game stopped existing content wise, left in disgust cursing McQuaid as I somehow felt getting ripped from something awesome. I came back 1 year later to find a lot better game with working endcontent, still too much bugs, way to few dev support, missing population (Halgar). The performance is still below average (extremly harddrive and cpu dependant) and anyone who thinks that running WoW with 80++fps will give him good fps in VG will be in for some bad surprise.
So I went to LotR and played there for a month. The game bored me. There is nothing wrong with the game, but it kinda lacks highlights. I found me always comparing something to VG and honestly I found the VG counterpart better. Every freaking (instanced) dungeon went like: someone invites some level 50 guy, which wipes out all the threats, get questupdates, done. A joke compared to VG dungeoncrawls at similar levels. But I dont want to bash LotR, its a good game, it was my expectations which were too high I guess. At least the game has good population and good dev support and you can make very beautiful screenshots. Performance is better too.
So I went to Aion China after some short intermezzo with L2 (what a horrible HORRIBLE game). And safe to say this will be THE 2009 mmorpg release for NA/EU. Insane polish, insane performance, insane audio, good graphics, good gameplay so far. It will blow some large hit to WAR, AoC and probably WoW populations and it deserves it. If the endcontent is not totally broken or missing it will be good.
Nonetheless... its basics are simple. Youre leveling like on rails until you reach the Abyss, where the 2 races clash in each other. The replayability is very low. The classes are pretty generic (compared to VG or LotR ones) but probably thats because to help balancing pvp wise. The landscape, which is so nice, feels small compared to VG, the visible range is way to short for my taste. Everything seems packed, every mob and location is needed, there is no way for me to say, fuck this, I now go... north! Simply north and look what I will find there. I dont have this option, I cant go and explore north.
So Im reading this thread here now and it makes me sad. VG an awesome game which will slowly wither away in time. Its like watching some ancient castle and admiring the buildings, the giant thick, sturdy walls and imaging people fighting on walls, rams trying to break through the wooden gate. Impressive but a thing of the past. Thats kinda like VG. An impressive game at launch, even nowadays, but its getting slowly old and Sonys lifesupport will make sure that the so much needed ressources wont be available. I wouldnt be surprised if windows 7 will be a big problem for VG and devs.
Anyway, VG is cheap to get now and its worth every cent.
Thank you for this article. I think for this type of gameplay, only VG is left, which is very sad given the fact that there are so many mmo out there...
I just hope there will be more outposts in this huge land, which is what i love, but abit too empty....
I think the biggest problem for Vanguard is the character models and sound. World graphics can’t be beat by anyone, period. But most MMOs get judged from the start and guess what is the first thing you do?
This game has had more than enough time to grow and be accepted. Relaunch is a waste. Vanguard is really behind the curve now in visuals, playability, and the population is too small to make any more effort. SOE needs to focus on it's moneymakers. EQ, EQ2, Free Realms. They just keep Vanguard as a Station Pass incentive anyways. Let VG go, concentrate on their current stable of good games, and their future titles that look very good actually. Say goodbye to VG as it is already dead.
I also believe these failing MMO's are failing even more by continueing to charge the standard $14.99 a month despite the fact that the game is not feature complete. Vanguard (which I bought at launch, played for a month, and cancelled) is selling at BestBuy for $10. How can they justify a $14.99/mo subscription on a game that costs less than that. If anything $4.99/mo would be more reasonable and would probably bring people back in droves.
There is only a handful of MMO's that I would consider at $14.99. Vanguard is definately not one of them. I loved the crafting (EQ2 style) but I was put off by purple rock textures among other problems.
Re-launch, more marketing or whatever they do will not likely result in revitalizing this game. I'm afraid that most people are not looking for another EverQuest rehash. Let alone dealing with yet another MMO with a grouping and raiding focus. People are learning from solo friendly games that socializing is just as popular in those games minus the headaches of forced grouping in games like EQ or Vanguard.
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 have not played VG in a while. I really love the way the world was designed. I would like to try it again. I am just worried that SOE will shut it down. I think this game still has potential. A ton of potential.
Vanguard is by far the best MMO around at the moment. The ONLY issue is the lack of population and lack of a faction-based PvP server (Not FFA). Although the population is to blame for not having a server of that type!
The game had a bad launch, but it's great in its current state. I prefer skill-based games to level-based but with Vanguard I don't really care because it's fun from level 1. As opposed to WoW, which isn't fun until level 40 or 50 or so (in my opinion)
MMOs played (In order of how much I've liked them): Star Wars Galaxies, World of Warcraft, Vanguard, City of Villains / Heroes, Guild Wars, Warhammer Online, Age of Conan, Tabula Rasa, Anarchy Online, Ryzom, Final Fantasy XI, Matrix Online, RF Online, Rappelz, Hero Online, Roma Victor
Vanguard is by far the best MMO around at the moment. The ONLY issue is the lack of population and lack of a faction-based PvP server (Not FFA). Although the population is to blame for not having a server of that type!
Hey, guy who doesn' know WTF he is talking about. All the PVP servers were merged into the FFA Server - The playerbase was not consulted. The playerbase did however ask that team pvp be kept, NOT FFA.
The reason SOE gave us FFA only is because it's the easiest form of PVP to maintain. There are no rules, and therefore its the perfect excuse to not actually have to do anything with it. Where as Team PVP would have issues with race/class restrictions leading to an OP side.
After two years of bug fixes, this game is more than just playable, it's fun!
I've been playing on and off since release (release was catastrophic) and have noticed positive changes since release. I still run into small or big graphical anomolies, but nothing that ultimately effects or hinders gameplay.
This game truly is centered around group play, which is the type of game I enjoy playing. I hate single-player MMOs. In the past few months I've noticed an increase in population, which allows the game to truly shine.
Honestly, this game can only get better, because it was released at its worse.
"Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure. We get very little wisdom from success, you know." William Saroyan
I've been following this game since the last beta they had. At launch I bought the game because I thought that "beta" really meant "beta". But no, they released a beta on disc, and I was really disappointed because of it. I played one month and cancelled right away.
After about a year I reactivated my account to see if the game was any good. They fixed a lot, but I'd still rather play Final Fantasy XI over Vanguard during that time. So I played one month, and cancelled again.
A half year later I reactivated my account yet again to see if the game went in the right direction. Again, lots of fixes, but still not up to my expectations for a game with a monthly subscription.
After that I still followed the game a little, and especially because of the upcoming character models update. As Silius (head developer team) said in an interview: "OMG, they look so awesome". My expectations for the new character models were a little too high I suppose... Eventually they released almost the very same models, with minimal adjustments. To be honest, it was REALLY hilarious! After that happened I didn't believed a word that came from Sony and their developers. They are complete jokes and can't be taken seriously. Not then, not now, not ever. For over two years these rediculous developers have been making promise after promise, and only a couple of them have been realised.
It's a real shame though, because the vision behind the game was fantastic. Too bad they were so dumb and almost destroyed it all. Over 30 million dollar down the drain, broken hearts, broken gameplay, broken promises, broken company... I really liked all the ideas, and some even were really nicely implemented into the game. But in the end it tried to please too many people on too many fronts, and that's were the game, and the companies behind it, have failed.
I'm not even going to play the game if they give me a lifetime subscription for free. It may be better than before, but I have far too many bad memories in my head that would still destroy the new experience. As they say in FFXI: [No Thanks]!
VG is a mistake SOE just seems to refuse to admit. It was billed as EQ 1.5 and being developped by Sigil, who was out of money... i.e. threat of cutting into their subs... zero. They should have let it die there and stayed fixed on EQ/EQ2 for their fanstasy MMOs. VG isn't terrible it just isn't as good as EQ2/LotRo/WAR/AoC/WoW in the fantasy genre. SOE has enough competition outside without worrying about internal competition.
You need to qualify such statements as being your personal opinion. I play VG and think it is everymuch as good as the games you list.
In my opinion WAR and WoW aren't games I ever intend to play again. AoC is the game I really really want them to get solid and LotRO and EQ2 are the games that compete for my fantasy dollar. Both don't compete with CoX though for group based fun. That's my opinion, the original post was popular opinion based on sales and retention.
Originally posted by Trueth Originally posted by shad0w99 Vanguard is by far the best MMO around at the moment. The ONLY issue is the lack of population and lack of a faction-based PvP server (Not FFA). Although the population is to blame for not having a server of that type!
Hey, guy who doesn' know WTF he is talking about. All the PVP servers were merged into the FFA Server - The playerbase was not consulted. The playerbase did however ask that team pvp be kept, NOT FFA. The reason SOE gave us FFA only is because it's the easiest form of PVP to maintain. There are no rules, and therefore its the perfect excuse to not actually have to do anything with it. Where as Team PVP would have issues with race/class restrictions leading to an OP side. Next time don't post. kthx.
Hey! Guy who can't comprehend written English!
I didn't say the playerbase was to blame for there only being a FFA server. I said the population is to blame. I'm well aware there used to be a team PvP server. The reason it disappeared, along with a couple of others, was because the population wasn't large enough to justify having multiple PvP servers. Had the population not declined there would still be a team PvP server. Thus, the population (or lack thereof) is to blame for having only one PvP server.
Next time read carefully
kthxbye.
MMOs played (In order of how much I've liked them): Star Wars Galaxies, World of Warcraft, Vanguard, City of Villains / Heroes, Guild Wars, Warhammer Online, Age of Conan, Tabula Rasa, Anarchy Online, Ryzom, Final Fantasy XI, Matrix Online, RF Online, Rappelz, Hero Online, Roma Victor
I didn't say the playerbase was to blame for there only being a FFA server. I said the population is to blame.
Had the population not declined there would still be a team PvP server.
I'll just quote you to accentuate how lost you really are.
Lemme guess, next you'll tell us the game is still buggy with poor performance because the population didn't support it properly, and had the players embraced the concept of viral marketing Vanguard would be a smash hit!
Vanguard is by far the best MMO around at the moment. The ONLY issue is the lack of population and lack of a faction-based PvP server (Not FFA). Although the population is to blame for not having a server of that type!
Hey, guy who doesn' know WTF he is talking about. All the PVP servers were merged into the FFA Server - The playerbase was not consulted. The playerbase did however ask that team pvp be kept, NOT FFA.
The reason SOE gave us FFA only is because it's the easiest form of PVP to maintain. There are no rules, and therefore its the perfect excuse to not actually have to do anything with it. Where as Team PVP would have issues with race/class restrictions leading to an OP side.
Next time don't post. kthx.
Hey! Guy who can't comprehend written English!
I didn't say the playerbase was to blame for there only being a FFA server. I said the population is to blame. I'm well aware there used to be a team PvP server. The reason it disappeared, along with a couple of others, was because the population wasn't large enough to justify having multiple PvP servers. Had the population not declined there would still be a team PvP server. Thus, the population (or lack thereof) is to blame for having only one PvP server.
Next time read carefully
kthxbye.
mm yep and its not just this p2p game almost all p2p game are slowly loosing player
i speak to my friend and they mostly tell me
hey mike why dont you come to m,d,y f2p game instead
its not just a trend f2p game are getting more player now because their game is on par with p2p and dont forget
one thing
if z player doesnt like either saga .and he would rater play twelves sky
he can wothout crying because he just shelled 50 $ at ebgame for a game that doesnt fit his flavor of the month
that is whats becoming the main factor
because in a year of play the cost for f2p and p2p is about the same
but the initial cost like the first day you play is a lot bigger in p2p then in f2p
thats why p2p model is slowly loosing ground
(only wow still does good the rest are trickleing out of p2p mmo)
I didn't say the playerbase was to blame for there only being a FFA server. I said the population is to blame.
Had the population not declined there would still be a team PvP server.
I'll just quote you to accentuate how lost you really are.
Lemme guess, next you'll tell us the game is still buggy with poor performance because the population didn't support it properly, and had the players embraced the concept of viral marketing Vanguard would be a smash hit!
Comments
I recently picked up on Vanguard again after playing 3 months or so at launch. I rolled up a character on the PvP server..... It is a ghost town. Many times I am the only one in the zone for long periods of time. The players in the server chat channels say there are about 60-100 players there.
The world is very nicely done,with good graphics etc, but my machine freezes quite often just running through unpopulated zones,something I would expect from an area that had a lot of players.
My machine is decent,core2 duo E6600 2.6 Ghz,4 gb ram,8800GTS 320,SATA Hd, DSL, Win XpPro, so it is really frustrating to be experiencing the level of stuttering that I am.
I guess I will try the PvE server to try and get in a group and see how the performance is before I sign on for another month.
"I'm very proud of my team," said Salim. "We've put our heart and soul into this game. We've managed to fix a lot of older bugs and yet managed to release content for free. In May, we released the Halls of the Pantheon and at the same time raised the level cap for adventurers and crafters to 55 with all related content for those levels." Salim compared the Halls of the Pantheon to the Temple of Solusek Ro in the original EverQuest. Players will find quests for their class armors and will be sent to the far reaches of Telon for these quests.
Proud? You shouldn't be. What producer raises the lvl cap without releasing a new adventuring zone with content to make the lvling from 50-55 an interesting, challenging, and exciting experience. Nope. Instead, you made the lvl 50-55 a horrendous grind that players are quiting over.
The game was released unfinished and it still is. Nothing has changed. Did you finish Kojan? Did you release the Bezerker and Inquisitor classes that were cut? Did you build upon the races and different factions to give them meaning? Did you expand upon PVP to make it an interesting game option for a player? Did you give boats any usefullness? etc. You have done nothing of consequence besides turning VG into a watered down version of EQ2.
14.99 monthly sub for a game that will never see an expansion or regular game updates is a real deal.
I don't mind a game not constantly changing and updating. I kind of like that actually. I really dislike the feeling the devs have that MMOs need to constantly change into something different. In Everquest for an example the first 2 expansions were a nice addition to the game. They didn't drastically change anything just added more of the same great design that was there in the beginning. With more and more expansions EQ turned into something away from it's original design, into a pile of garbage. World of Warcraft did the same but earlier and they constantly are changing thing worse than EQ did. It is horrible. Games need to stick to their vision.
Other than all that I agree, Vanguard was changed into a pile of garbage. They tried to change into WoW. Every game doesn't need to be that game. I quit with all the changes. Sony tried to change EQ2 into WoW also and now it is a clone with an item shop tack on. Avoiding that one like the plague.
mm,ty for info ,but im not very good with computer does vanguard have an auto detect auto optimize like guild wars ,it would help me a lot because from what you write theres a lot of setting you mentioned i wouldnt even know where to look let alone play with those
that one issue i have with all game in general !
how come all game maker dont furnish an auto detect auto optimise button
hell even in guild wars i had to go in menu sub-menu gees i had to go so deep it take an engineering diploma in computer just to play a freaking game couldnt the pc game maker put an auto adjust button at the start before you go ingame or anything
i might buy a wii just for that reason ,pc game doesnt play out of the box and game maker expect you to understand what aa means or what directx is or where and all the whats not !
men im so not computer literate am i the only one that want simple plug and play game like the rest of my computer?
am i asking to much ?when i ask an auto -detect ,auto adjust buton, in a very obvious place not hidden where i got to ask microsoft teck support to help me find that setting or what it does
No it doesn't but no worries, it's not hard.
There is most likely (if you have the Nvidea software installed,) a little green Nvidea icon on the lower right of your task bar (lower right of your screen). click on it and you will see a list of options. One of them is Nvidia control panel. choose it.
The control panel comes up and you will see a list of options on the left. One of them is manage 3d settings. Choose it and you will see the window on the right with Manage 3d settings.
Select a program to customize and you should see vanguard.
Then scroll down and you will see the option "maximum pre-rendered frames. I set mine to 6.
Scroll down a bit further and you will see "threaded optimization" (this one helped the chunking over the chunk lines quite a bit though still not vanished completely). Set it to on.
Then see if that helps.
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
The thing is this isnt anything new and I didnt find it particularly awe inspiring. You can wander into high level areas in other mmos too and (shockingly enough) you will find yourself running away from mobs higher level than you. This has been happening in the earliest mmos. The only difference is that in VG the player is free to attempt most areas in the game at their leisure rather then being shepharded about like in most mmos.....except your still really being guided because the level restrictions are still actually there. Its still a themepark game afterall. Thats not a bad thing by the way......except for the fact that VG tries to enhance the illusion of it being a big open world by allowing the player to see for miles. For me personally all that really did was allow me to confirm that for miles and miles around me there was nothing to see as nothing was happening as its just a static gameworld that never changes. 3D landscape covered with lots of static (or nearly static) mobs waiting around in their pre-programmed areas for the players to come farm them.
Well, a few things.
Though this is not different from a lot of earlier mmo's, it is significanlty different for me. My first mmo was lineage 2 and I played it as my main game (only tring other games to see what they were like) for 4 years. The world for L2 is large but other than large areas for grinding, there is not a lot to really see.
I remember trying to enter a building and realized it was a prop. A lot of buildings in the countryside are props.
One can explore but there aren't a lot of subtle things to revel in. My biggest thrill was stumbling on the sea of spores. This is not to say there aren't great places but there aren't really a lot of hidden gems to be found.
As far as Vanguard's empty world, it depends on taste. I find all sorts of towers, caves and what have you. For me I just enjoy seeing what's inside. Sometimes I get quests.
Yes, Vanguard has a lot of mobs waiting to be killed but it is to be expected. It is a throwback game. A retro game. If you've alreayd been there and done that then of course I wouldn't suggest the game. But for people who have plaed games like L2 or even WoW... or heck, even EQ 2, it does have a differnet feel.
My playtime tonight was exceptionally fun. yesterday, I went to check out hilsbury manor but didn't have a lot of time. So today I went to see if I could find a quest for the place and instead found one where an ambassador's daughter was missing. I was sent to another quest giver and she told me where to look. I Spent a bit of time trying to find the place the daugher was noted to be. Found her locket or some such thing. Was then told that the spiders probably dragged her into a cave and I should go back and kill many too many spiders so I can take their fangs and the quest giver could make a saw. well, 20. Still I'm pretty immune to grinding from L2 so I did it. Was given the saw and found the cave.
Made my way back and rescued someone who was webbed up. Then found a dead person and then someone who begged to be killed but asked me to find his wife at the tower. I then find the girl, and fight my way back to the quest giver.
The tower is next to her and lo and behold the (now) dead person's wife. I turn in that quest and then the guard next to her sends me to the lower town because a mad princess witch (or whatever ) has taken stormwynd keep and is donig nasty things.
I return the girl, head down, take the keep's guards out, collect the princess's head and take out her small entourage and head back. I am then told that I need to go see a vampire slayer. Ok.. I have time...
I find him (south of hilsbury manor) and am told there is a monastary with some evil going on. I take the "kill her minions", collect the amulets, take the head matron's "head" quests and, er... "head there".
I then fight my way inside this monastery and have to spend time searching rooms for this head evil matron. I clear everything out and can't understand why I cant' find her. then I notice the stairs that lead into the cold dark ground. I make my way down winding marble steps but have to go into first person mode because of the tight quarters. I fight my way down and then find a large crypt like room with fog and all the signs that this is a group of vampires. I slay everyone, fight the matron, take her head (a lot of head taking in this game) and make my way back to the vampire killer. I am then given a quest to go into hilsbury manor and find someone who is hiding in there in a secret room. Hilsbury manor is filled with vampires and other baddies...
This is FAR different than the L2 "hey, let's just find a field and grind until our eyes bleed" scenario. It is also a bit different from my LOTRO play though I tend to just explore the LOTRO world and not worry too much what I do and don't do.
Point being, not one time tonight did I look at my xp bar or see if I was getting the most xp for my effort I just played the game. I got into the small stories behind the quests and it was very much a fun evening.
So for people who haven't experienced this type of thing, who haven't been in a game where you can stumble on things only to be given quests because of your exploration, then I highly recommend it.
You see, I don't see vanguard as an open empty world. I see it as a world. it takes time to get places. I'm not just being told to go to the next town over and though it is the next town over, it takes 2 minutes to do so. In Vanguard It takes a quite bit because it really is the next town over. There is a sense of a greater space. And as I'm heading to whereever I will then see a tower or cave or something that catches my attnetion... hmmm perhaps that town can wait... this is exactly why I started playing mmo's. I wanted the morrowind "I'm leaving Sedya Neen and what the heck is that door doing, sticking out of the rock in the distance "feeling. This is somethign I have not gotten from mmo's.
It takes some patience because of the small bugs and of course as I said, it's retro gameplay, but for those people who are tired of LOTRO or WoW or even asian grinders, and are willing to lose themselves within the stage that vanguard sets, then I think it is worth it.
erg.. that was a long post! sorry ; )
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
Even with all of the bug fixes I still think it's one of the buggiest p2p mmos on the market, if not the buggiest. Just my opinion.
I agree. heck Even Silius the Game Director/lead developer agrees. He said many times that the code is fubar and the reason why many Long standing bugs cant and will never be fixed.
I played VG and stopped before they raised the levelcap. I simply couldnt see how they put out enough content for additional 5 levels. The game is awesome, I love it. If there would be good support I wouldnt have left. Its the only game I played so far where I had the feeling of some big badass open world where I can go and adventure like I want.
I started at VG launch some woodelf and I remember making screenshots like mad because it was beautiful, I cursed like mad because I got always lost in the damn trees. I put some effort into it to get the VG soundtrack as its the best until AoC released, leveled in some months to 44 where the game stopped existing content wise, left in disgust cursing McQuaid as I somehow felt getting ripped from something awesome. I came back 1 year later to find a lot better game with working endcontent, still too much bugs, way to few dev support, missing population (Halgar). The performance is still below average (extremly harddrive and cpu dependant) and anyone who thinks that running WoW with 80++fps will give him good fps in VG will be in for some bad surprise.
So I went to LotR and played there for a month. The game bored me. There is nothing wrong with the game, but it kinda lacks highlights. I found me always comparing something to VG and honestly I found the VG counterpart better. Every freaking (instanced) dungeon went like: someone invites some level 50 guy, which wipes out all the threats, get questupdates, done. A joke compared to VG dungeoncrawls at similar levels. But I dont want to bash LotR, its a good game, it was my expectations which were too high I guess. At least the game has good population and good dev support and you can make very beautiful screenshots. Performance is better too.
So I went to Aion China after some short intermezzo with L2 (what a horrible HORRIBLE game). And safe to say this will be THE 2009 mmorpg release for NA/EU. Insane polish, insane performance, insane audio, good graphics, good gameplay so far. It will blow some large hit to WAR, AoC and probably WoW populations and it deserves it. If the endcontent is not totally broken or missing it will be good.
Nonetheless... its basics are simple. Youre leveling like on rails until you reach the Abyss, where the 2 races clash in each other. The replayability is very low. The classes are pretty generic (compared to VG or LotR ones) but probably thats because to help balancing pvp wise. The landscape, which is so nice, feels small compared to VG, the visible range is way to short for my taste. Everything seems packed, every mob and location is needed, there is no way for me to say, fuck this, I now go... north! Simply north and look what I will find there. I dont have this option, I cant go and explore north.
So Im reading this thread here now and it makes me sad. VG an awesome game which will slowly wither away in time. Its like watching some ancient castle and admiring the buildings, the giant thick, sturdy walls and imaging people fighting on walls, rams trying to break through the wooden gate. Impressive but a thing of the past. Thats kinda like VG. An impressive game at launch, even nowadays, but its getting slowly old and Sonys lifesupport will make sure that the so much needed ressources wont be available. I wouldnt be surprised if windows 7 will be a big problem for VG and devs.
Anyway, VG is cheap to get now and its worth every cent.
Good to see such articles appear on the site. Maybe more people try this game, it deserves more attention
it won't this website is composed of people with an old man mindset, it sucked then therefor it must suck now kind of deal.
Thank you for this article. I think for this type of gameplay, only VG is left, which is very sad given the fact that there are so many mmo out there...
I just hope there will be more outposts in this huge land, which is what i love, but abit too empty....
Anyway, all the best to Sigil...
RIP Orc Choppa
I think the biggest problem for Vanguard is the character models and sound. World graphics can’t be beat by anyone, period. But most MMOs get judged from the start and guess what is the first thing you do?
Are you serious? hahaha!
....
HAHAHAHAHA!!!
"Good? Bad? I'm the guy with the gun."
I totally agree...
I also believe these failing MMO's are failing even more by continueing to charge the standard $14.99 a month despite the fact that the game is not feature complete. Vanguard (which I bought at launch, played for a month, and cancelled) is selling at BestBuy for $10. How can they justify a $14.99/mo subscription on a game that costs less than that. If anything $4.99/mo would be more reasonable and would probably bring people back in droves.
There is only a handful of MMO's that I would consider at $14.99. Vanguard is definately not one of them. I loved the crafting (EQ2 style) but I was put off by purple rock textures among other problems.
Re-launch, more marketing or whatever they do will not likely result in revitalizing this game. I'm afraid that most people are not looking for another EverQuest rehash. Let alone dealing with yet another MMO with a grouping and raiding focus. People are learning from solo friendly games that socializing is just as popular in those games minus the headaches of forced grouping in games like EQ or Vanguard.
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 have not played VG in a while. I really love the way the world was designed. I would like to try it again. I am just worried that SOE will shut it down. I think this game still has potential. A ton of potential.
Vanguard is by far the best MMO around at the moment. The ONLY issue is the lack of population and lack of a faction-based PvP server (Not FFA). Although the population is to blame for not having a server of that type!
The game had a bad launch, but it's great in its current state. I prefer skill-based games to level-based but with Vanguard I don't really care because it's fun from level 1. As opposed to WoW, which isn't fun until level 40 or 50 or so (in my opinion)
MMOs played (In order of how much I've liked them): Star Wars Galaxies, World of Warcraft, Vanguard, City of Villains / Heroes, Guild Wars, Warhammer Online, Age of Conan, Tabula Rasa, Anarchy Online, Ryzom, Final Fantasy XI, Matrix Online, RF Online, Rappelz, Hero Online, Roma Victor
Hey, guy who doesn' know WTF he is talking about. All the PVP servers were merged into the FFA Server - The playerbase was not consulted. The playerbase did however ask that team pvp be kept, NOT FFA.
The reason SOE gave us FFA only is because it's the easiest form of PVP to maintain. There are no rules, and therefore its the perfect excuse to not actually have to do anything with it. Where as Team PVP would have issues with race/class restrictions leading to an OP side.
Next time don't post. kthx.
After two years of bug fixes, this game is more than just playable, it's fun!
I've been playing on and off since release (release was catastrophic) and have noticed positive changes since release. I still run into small or big graphical anomolies, but nothing that ultimately effects or hinders gameplay.
This game truly is centered around group play, which is the type of game I enjoy playing. I hate single-player MMOs. In the past few months I've noticed an increase in population, which allows the game to truly shine.
Honestly, this game can only get better, because it was released at its worse.
"Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure. We get very little wisdom from success, you know." William Saroyan
I've been following this game since the last beta they had. At launch I bought the game because I thought that "beta" really meant "beta". But no, they released a beta on disc, and I was really disappointed because of it. I played one month and cancelled right away.
After about a year I reactivated my account to see if the game was any good. They fixed a lot, but I'd still rather play Final Fantasy XI over Vanguard during that time. So I played one month, and cancelled again.
A half year later I reactivated my account yet again to see if the game went in the right direction. Again, lots of fixes, but still not up to my expectations for a game with a monthly subscription.
After that I still followed the game a little, and especially because of the upcoming character models update. As Silius (head developer team) said in an interview: "OMG, they look so awesome". My expectations for the new character models were a little too high I suppose... Eventually they released almost the very same models, with minimal adjustments. To be honest, it was REALLY hilarious! After that happened I didn't believed a word that came from Sony and their developers. They are complete jokes and can't be taken seriously. Not then, not now, not ever. For over two years these rediculous developers have been making promise after promise, and only a couple of them have been realised.
It's a real shame though, because the vision behind the game was fantastic. Too bad they were so dumb and almost destroyed it all. Over 30 million dollar down the drain, broken hearts, broken gameplay, broken promises, broken company... I really liked all the ideas, and some even were really nicely implemented into the game. But in the end it tried to please too many people on too many fronts, and that's were the game, and the companies behind it, have failed.
I'm not even going to play the game if they give me a lifetime subscription for free. It may be better than before, but I have far too many bad memories in my head that would still destroy the new experience. As they say in FFXI: [No Thanks]!
You need to qualify such statements as being your personal opinion. I play VG and think it is everymuch as good as the games you list.
In my opinion WAR and WoW aren't games I ever intend to play again. AoC is the game I really really want them to get solid and LotRO and EQ2 are the games that compete for my fantasy dollar. Both don't compete with CoX though for group based fun. That's my opinion, the original post was popular opinion based on sales and retention.
Hey, guy who doesn' know WTF he is talking about. All the PVP servers were merged into the FFA Server - The playerbase was not consulted. The playerbase did however ask that team pvp be kept, NOT FFA.
The reason SOE gave us FFA only is because it's the easiest form of PVP to maintain. There are no rules, and therefore its the perfect excuse to not actually have to do anything with it. Where as Team PVP would have issues with race/class restrictions leading to an OP side.
Next time don't post. kthx.
Hey! Guy who can't comprehend written English!
I didn't say the playerbase was to blame for there only being a FFA server. I said the population is to blame. I'm well aware there used to be a team PvP server. The reason it disappeared, along with a couple of others, was because the population wasn't large enough to justify having multiple PvP servers. Had the population not declined there would still be a team PvP server. Thus, the population (or lack thereof) is to blame for having only one PvP server.
Next time read carefully
kthxbye.
MMOs played (In order of how much I've liked them): Star Wars Galaxies, World of Warcraft, Vanguard, City of Villains / Heroes, Guild Wars, Warhammer Online, Age of Conan, Tabula Rasa, Anarchy Online, Ryzom, Final Fantasy XI, Matrix Online, RF Online, Rappelz, Hero Online, Roma Victor
I didn't say the playerbase was to blame for there only being a FFA server. I said the population is to blame.
Had the population not declined there would still be a team PvP server.
I'll just quote you to accentuate how lost you really are.
Lemme guess, next you'll tell us the game is still buggy with poor performance because the population didn't support it properly, and had the players embraced the concept of viral marketing Vanguard would be a smash hit!
Try knowing something next time.
And before you get your Malibu Barbi panties all tangled up, try reading all 75 pages of /signed - Then you'll know.
Hey, guy who doesn' know WTF he is talking about. All the PVP servers were merged into the FFA Server - The playerbase was not consulted. The playerbase did however ask that team pvp be kept, NOT FFA.
The reason SOE gave us FFA only is because it's the easiest form of PVP to maintain. There are no rules, and therefore its the perfect excuse to not actually have to do anything with it. Where as Team PVP would have issues with race/class restrictions leading to an OP side.
Next time don't post. kthx.
Hey! Guy who can't comprehend written English!
I didn't say the playerbase was to blame for there only being a FFA server. I said the population is to blame. I'm well aware there used to be a team PvP server. The reason it disappeared, along with a couple of others, was because the population wasn't large enough to justify having multiple PvP servers. Had the population not declined there would still be a team PvP server. Thus, the population (or lack thereof) is to blame for having only one PvP server.
Next time read carefully
kthxbye.
mm yep and its not just this p2p game almost all p2p game are slowly loosing player
i speak to my friend and they mostly tell me
hey mike why dont you come to m,d,y f2p game instead
its not just a trend f2p game are getting more player now because their game is on par with p2p and dont forget
one thing
if z player doesnt like either saga .and he would rater play twelves sky
he can wothout crying because he just shelled 50 $ at ebgame for a game that doesnt fit his flavor of the month
that is whats becoming the main factor
because in a year of play the cost for f2p and p2p is about the same
but the initial cost like the first day you play is a lot bigger in p2p then in f2p
thats why p2p model is slowly loosing ground
(only wow still does good the rest are trickleing out of p2p mmo)
I didn't say the playerbase was to blame for there only being a FFA server. I said the population is to blame.
Had the population not declined there would still be a team PvP server.
I'll just quote you to accentuate how lost you really are.
Lemme guess, next you'll tell us the game is still buggy with poor performance because the population didn't support it properly, and had the players embraced the concept of viral marketing Vanguard would be a smash hit!
Try knowing something next time.
And before you get your Malibu Barbi panties all tangled up, try reading all 75 pages of /signed - Then you'll know.
I want to see those Malibu Barbie panties all tangled up.
Pics or it never happened!
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