There are reasons things 'are looking grim' for Vanguard. The engine, while producing some nice vistas, is slow, buggy, and demands a top-end PC to use it at full resolution. It's a good thing you were flying in the video you made; you'll never fall through the world that way, something which happens frequently in VG. If you can put up with that, and the occasional crash to desktop, and you have a very high end PC, and you don't mind a lot of loading times as you wander through the world, maybe VG is your game.
VG is also very group focused. Without a group you can make slow progress in the game with some of the classes, but not all. With the lack of other players, and the large world, you will have problems finding groupmates. No way around it.
There is very little endgame content in VG. For years there was NO endgame content at all, but they have added one or two raid dungeons over the last year or 2. Compare this to any of the other PVE-focused titles out there of comparable age and VG comes up sorely lacking.
But, for all this you still get to pay top $ to play this game. Yes, despite the fact that SOE has a skeleton crew working the game, updates are infrequent, day 1 bugs still abound, and there is almost no new content being made, you still get to pay the same hefty monthly fee as EQ2, Wow, or any of the other top-end games in the genre. INHO, this game is a great candidate for the DDO model of micropayments, because with a little (well, maybe a LOT) of love from SOE, this could be a strong niche game in the genre. Maybe.
There's a rabid cadre of fanboys out here at MMORPG, and it amazes me how often I see messages posted about how someone 'went back to VG and I'm loving it!', yet the population continues to decline. People are leaving the game for a reason. Or maybe one of the several I've listed. I played VG at launch, played it again a year later, and recently went back and played the demo isle, and what I'm telling you is that the game hasn't changed dramatically from the day it was released. It's a slow-paced, lonely grind through a buggy and sometimes beautiful world. If that's your thing, you might like VG, and I'd recommend you check out the demo. Otherwise, I'd wait for a revamp of the engine and payment model before seriously considering this game.
I play Vanguard and I'm loving it.
I have never fallen through the world though I've heard other people say this. I'll ask in chat next time I"m on if others have experienced this.
There is a lot of content that is group but from what I understand one can solo to the top. I don't believe I will find it long as I've played Lineage 2 and compared to that leveling at higher levels, nothing is long. Probably some classes take longer than others. I know I got up to about 30 with no issues.
I do agree Vanguard has its bugs and what I consider it's creakiness but nothing of yet that is game breaking for me. It isn't as smooth as LOTRO as wow though I do get spans where I start wondering if it is. then I cross a particular chunk and it halts for a few seconds.
Your reasons not to play might be good for you but I'm pretty sure there are other people out there who don't care about rushing to level cap or some minior inconveniences. It's those people who will enjoy Vanguard.
The issue I see is where people will Join Vanguard expecting a WoW or LOTRO experience. They will be dissapointed as Vanguard just isn't as polished and doesn't get the same attention from the devs. But if people go into it as "it is what it is" then I think they will find a very rich and rewarding experience.
I fell throught the ground many times...during beta. I also had the falling respawn death bug and the stuck on a baot between chunks bug.
the game had it's shot in the market and doesn't deserve a second shot.
Lastly, I believe you are probably a newer gen type of WoW mmo gamer who believes everything has to be compared to WoW
This is an example of one of the main reasons Vanguard did so poorly. I followed this game every day for more than a year before it launched. I also beta tested it. Back in those days, the Vanguard boards were filled with self-styled hardcore posters who wanted Vanguard to be the anti-WoW. Anyone who didn't beat their chest and ask for the most draconian possible gameplay was instantly labeled a WoW kiddie and reviled. The boards were also filled with posts about how much WoW sucks. I can't tell you how many times people got interested in the game, came to the boards to be part of the pre-launch Vanguard community, and got so insulted by the leetism that they gave up and left. "Go back to WOW," they were told. So they did.
Brad allowed that to contnue, and even fostered it with some now infamous quotes, until the months leading up to launch. Then he belatedly realized the folly of what he had done because the game, as it was perceived then, would not be popular enough to cover their huge investment. In an effort to correct this, he went running around posting everywhere, including this website, about how casual players would enjoy Vanguard too. It was too little, too late, after years of selling people on the idea that unless you were a hardcore player, Vanguard was not for you.
Clearly the Vanguard community hasn't learned a damn thing. You tell people this is a fun game, and that people should try it, but the first expression of skepticism you encounter and out come the catcalls of "oh you must be one of those WoW players." That's fine. Enjoy your dieing game that grows more stagnant with every passing day. Look out over your empty world and know that a large part of why it is empty is the abuse the Vanguard community heaped on potential players for years, and evidently is quick to hand out still.
So please take this opportunity to tell an EQ1 Pre-Luclin player to "go back to WoW," because I was certainly told 50 times before Vanguard's launch to do just that. And you know what? I did.
I gotta agree with this post. Sigil and Soe really did not do anything to help the game but the playerbase is truly what killed the game.
<<removed a bunch of crap about how awesome and elite real mmos players of vanguard were>>
Vanguard was already down to 4 servers worth of players by the time SOE took over, which is about 40k players. Do you really think Sigil went out of business with 250,000 subscribers? Why spread misinformation?
Your elite uber awesome army of gamers that you think fell in love with this game were leaving by the tens of thousands. Soe didn't ruin the game, but they didn't do much to help ith either.
As someone else mentioned earlier, you are doing a fine job of displaying the exact attitude that pushed untold numbers of people away from this game. The engine for vanguard isn't so spectacular that any problem must be the fault of the users computer.
Vanguard is not a sleeping giant. It will never see its potential. It would be a more accurate description to attract people to the game "as is" and not try to make it seem like there is any chance for the game to turn around. The lead developer isn't even working on the game anymore. He is working on EQ2 right now. The person he replaced left his position without even saying goodbye. It is clear that soe has no intention of supporting the game.
There are some fun aspects in the game, but there are also serious problems. People come to the game with unrealistic expectations and that doesn't help retain players. Be honest about both sides of vanguard and perhaps enough people will join to give the game some more life.
"All it takes is word of mouth. While many people think, "Oh, Sony Online Entertainment isn't doing what they should to promote or develop (my add) the game" they have to keep in mind that money allocated to the game is determined by its income.
Gonna just take this point on...
You see, often the income of a game is also determined by the money allocated.
Without a sign of faith, in this case real meaningful investment, people just dont trust SOE to not shut VG down tommorow, and to a PvE social gamer thats the worst thing imaginable in their game.
If SOE showed publicaly that they cared about VG and were here for for the long stretch, by maybe putting out an expansion as a 'relaunch' or whatever, and offered a new free month of play with the purchase then people would flood back.
But, sadly, no investment = no trust = no pop.
I think this is closer to the truth. They have stated that money comes from how many subs they have. If they don't have a lot of subs they aren't putting the money in. That leaves players wary and most players won't play a game with an iffy future.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Lastly, I believe you are probably a newer gen type of WoW mmo gamer who believes everything has to be compared to WoW.. WoW is a game with horrible graphics, horrible textures, horrible kiddyland resolution, and belongs in 1998.. That game was purposely made to look like crapola so many people out there with their pew pew computers can run the game on it.. It's the most popular MMORPG now simply because of word of mouth and you literally can run it on a outdated 15 year old computer..
In conclusion, Vanguard was supposed to be a MMORPG for the true hardcore veteran MMO gamer.. It wasn't meant to be played by noobs, whiners, illiterate children, and those with, "the little engine that could" old dinosaur computers.. People like myself already knew we'd have to buy a decent computer to truly experience the glory and awesome world of Vanguard.. The true fans knew the game was going to be played similar to the original EQ, where it would be a group oriented game.. We knew this and couldn't wait to play it.. We literally thought it would be the new EQ experience.. Well, it was for a while then SOE took over and dumbed it down like WoW causing at least 250,000 people to leave between March 20th and April 1st of 2007,,,, myself included! SOE ruined the game by trying to make it playable for dumb moronis illiterate people! Which was yet another mistake on SOE's part! WELL DONE!
They fixed alot of the performance issues, but they changed the concept of the game which is the same thing as creating a new game within the previously existing game,,, just like they did with SWG, LOL!! It's kinda funny actually because those numnuts working for SOE just don't have a clue!!!! They all try copying off of Blizzard and each and every time they do this, the game gets destroyed because the true fans of that game see it getting turned into another WoW clone, and the people walk away with disgust!
Ever since SOE took over Vanguard, I had absolutely no desire to come back.. Getting rid of the item equipment system was ridiculous, which was literally one of the main reasons I left.. If SOE would have just focused on fixing bugs, glitches, and the performance issue without touching the gameplay mechanics, then I along with MANY MANY HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE wouldn't have left!
You are one of the reasons VG failed. I hope that you're happy with yourself and your dead game.
As far as the actual game goes, I played it a few times and it was decent enough but felt completely lifeless. I liked the dimplomacy system and the graphics were OK, I guess, but everything else felt stale and unimaginative.
There are reasons things 'are looking grim' for Vanguard. The engine, while producing some nice vistas, is slow, buggy, and demands a top-end PC to use it at full resolution. It's a good thing you were flying in the video you made; you'll never fall through the world that way, something which happens frequently in VG. If you can put up with that, and the occasional crash to desktop, and you have a very high end PC, and you don't mind a lot of loading times as you wander through the world, maybe VG is your game.
I haven't crashed, or dropped through the world since the second day of launch. My computer is 5 years old. Update your info The world is entirely seamless.
Lastly, I believe you are probably a newer gen type of WoW mmo gamer who believes everything has to be compared to WoW.. WoW is a game with horrible graphics, horrible textures, horrible kiddyland resolution, and belongs in 1998.. That game was purposely made to look like crapola so many people out there with their pew pew computers can run the game on it.. It's the most popular MMORPG now simply because of word of mouth and you literally can run it on a outdated 15 year old computer..
In conclusion, Vanguard was supposed to be a MMORPG for the true hardcore veteran MMO gamer.. It wasn't meant to be played by noobs, whiners, illiterate children, and those with, "the little engine that could" old dinosaur computers.. People like myself already knew we'd have to buy a decent computer to truly experience the glory and awesome world of Vanguard.. The true fans knew the game was going to be played similar to the original EQ, where it would be a group oriented game.. We knew this and couldn't wait to play it.. We literally thought it would be the new EQ experience.. Well, it was for a while then SOE took over and dumbed it down like WoW causing at least 250,000 people to leave between March 20th and April 1st of 2007,,,, myself included! SOE ruined the game by trying to make it playable for dumb moronis illiterate people! Which was yet another mistake on SOE's part! WELL DONE!
They fixed alot of the performance issues, but they changed the concept of the game which is the same thing as creating a new game within the previously existing game,,, just like they did with SWG, LOL!! It's kinda funny actually because those numnuts working for SOE just don't have a clue!!!! They all try copying off of Blizzard and each and every time they do this, the game gets destroyed because the true fans of that game see it getting turned into another WoW clone, and the people walk away with disgust!
Ever since SOE took over Vanguard, I had absolutely no desire to come back.. Getting rid of the item equipment system was ridiculous, which was literally one of the main reasons I left.. If SOE would have just focused on fixing bugs, glitches, and the performance issue without touching the gameplay mechanics, then I along with MANY MANY HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE wouldn't have left!
You are one of the reasons VG failed. I hope that you're happy with yourself and your dead game.
As far as the actual game goes, I played it a few times and it was decent enough but felt completely lifeless. I liked the dimplomacy system and the graphics were OK, I guess, but everything else felt stale and unimaginative.
Uhh.. how did it feel unimaginative? Vanguard actually did quite a bit of innovation, and tried new things, which is more than can be said for most modern MMOs. WoW hasn't ever innovated in its 5 year span.
Also, Vanguard didn't fail simply because he prefers oldschool deep MMOs to the casual WoW clones, it failed because of the performance, that's it.
Some reasons why I didn't play Vanguard past a month.
1) It feels like another quest grinder.
2) I felt a lack of motivation to explore the world.
3) Empty. Its very demoralizing to see a dungeon in front of me, and not be able to enter. During my one month period I tried to group, but it wasn't happening. Even joined a guild that had plenty of toons my level, but they were all interested in soloing. This is always the problem with solo quest grinding games.
4) Doesn't have an old school feel, or EQ feel. It has a disticnt quest grinder feel. Run off go fetch this, bring it back, go to the same place and fetch this - run back, go in the opposite direction and fetch this. That's not old school.
5) If I could stomach the solo quest grind what would I do once max level? No AAs. No development. Just a tiny amount of raid content, which I hate, anyways. They already announced in December the game was basically going to see zero development for people who are looking to play long term.
6) Very clunky UI. I just don't like the animations, or the feel of the UI. It appears to be very slow to respond.
Some reasons why I didn't play Vanguard past a month.
1) It feels like another quest grinder.
There are fewer quests of far higher quality than most quest grinders.
2) I felt a lack of motivation to explore the world.
Why? Exploration is one of the best parts about Vanguard. I've found so many dungeons and quests and NPCs and houses that some players hadn't even discovered yet in the entire lifespan of the game.
3) Empty. Its very demoralizing to see a dungeon in front of me, and not be able to enter. During my one month period I tried to group, but it wasn't happening. Even joined a guild that had plenty of toons my level, but they were all interested in soloing. This is always the problem with solo quest grinding games.
Not be able to enter? Why? No dungeons are instanced. Not having groups, yes that is a bad problem, which directly results from SoE not supporting the game. If you bring your own group of friends, its lessened somewhat.
4) Doesn't have an old school feel, or EQ feel. It has a disticnt quest grinder feel. Run off go fetch this, bring it back, go to the same place and fetch this - run back, go in the opposite direction and fetch this. That's not old school.
It has far more of the oldschool feel than any other MMO in recent memory, but when SoE took over from Sigil they removed many unique aspects and tried to WoW it up, its a shame. In beta though, I honest to god just tossed a group together, ran into a random direction, and farmed mobs while TALKING. It was so refreshing. THAT is the MMO experience I missed. Very difficult in modern Vanguard, and impossible in modern MMOs.
5) If I could stomach the solo quest grind what would I do once max level? No AAs. No development. Just a tiny amount of raid content, which I hate, anyways. They already announced in Decemember the game was basically going to see zero development for people who are looking to play long term.
Another problem with the lack of SoE support. There was supposed to be a GvG end game with territorial control and naval combat on the islands in between continents. But SoE gutted the game. The two raid zones are probably about as good as raids could possibly get, lore and layout wise.
6) Very clunky UI. I just don't like the animations, or the feel of the UI. It appears to be very slow to respond.
This is subjective so I can't comment, but the UI is entirely customizable. That doesn't change response time I bet though.
There are reasons things 'are looking grim' for Vanguard. The engine, while producing some nice vistas, is slow, buggy, and demands a top-end PC to use it at full resolution. It's a good thing you were flying in the video you made; you'll never fall through the world that way, something which happens frequently in VG. If you can put up with that, and the occasional crash to desktop, and you have a very high end PC, and you don't mind a lot of loading times as you wander through the world, maybe VG is your game.
OK just hold up there fella... I was just sitting here reading some comments while eating my pancakes and bacon with no intentions of commenting because I didn't want my food getting cold.. There's nothing worse than cold pancakes and bacon, but I just had to reply to this ridiculous comment.....
First of all, I'd really like to know how old your PC is... It must be an incredible piece of garbage.. My current PC was a mid level PC back in 2007 and I can honestly say I've never once crashed to desktop while playing Vanguard,,,, back in 2007 when the performance was considered baaaad.. I fell through the world just one time while riding my horse, but rebooting fixed it, *shrug* I have a AMD 64 AthlonX2, 4 gigs of ram, and a 8800 gts vid card.. It's still not bad, but far from the best machine in 2007..
Now, I do remember hitting crazy lagspikes while in heavily populated areas and dungeons like VT and Thel, but that happens in all the high end graphical MMORPG's.. I hit bad lagspikes like that in EQ, EQ2, and AoC as well, *shrug*
As for the loading times, I do remember hitting mini zones which took time to load, but most of the time It only took a few seconds for me, especially while zoning in the wilderness..
Lastly, I believe you are probably a newer gen type of WoW mmo gamer who believes everything has to be compared to WoW.. WoW is a game with horrible graphics, horrible textures, horrible kiddyland resolution, and belongs in 1998.. That game was purposely made to look like crapola so many people out there with their pew pew computers can run the game on it.. It's the most popular MMORPG now simply because of word of mouth and you literally can run it on a outdated 15 year old computer..
In conclusion, Vanguard was supposed to be a MMORPG for the true hardcore veteran MMO gamer.. It wasn't meant to be played by noobs, whiners, illiterate children, and those with, "the little engine that could" old dinosaur computers.. People like myself already knew we'd have to buy a decent computer to truly experience the glory and awesome world of Vanguard.. The true fans knew the game was going to be played similar to the original EQ, where it would be a group oriented game.. We knew this and couldn't wait to play it.. We literally thought it would be the new EQ experience.. Well, it was for a while then SOE took over and dumbed it down like WoW causing at least 250,000 people to leave between March 20th and April 1st of 2007,,,, myself included! SOE ruined the game by trying to make it playable for dumb moronis illiterate people! Which was yet another mistake on SOE's part! WELL DONE!
They fixed alot of the performance issues, but they changed the concept of the game which is the same thing as creating a new game within the previously existing game,,, just like they did with SWG, LOL!! It's kinda funny actually because those numnuts working for SOE just don't have a clue!!!! They all try copying off of Blizzard and each and every time they do this, the game gets destroyed because the true fans of that game see it getting turned into another WoW clone, and the people walk away with disgust!
Ever since SOE took over Vanguard, I had absolutely no desire to come back.. Getting rid of the item equipment system was ridiculous, which was literally one of the main reasons I left.. If SOE would have just focused on fixing bugs, glitches, and the performance issue without touching the gameplay mechanics, then I along with MANY MANY HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE wouldn't have left!
First of all Vanguard is a very good game, however it does and always had performance prob. When it first came out it wass practically unplayable a slideshow infact, sony has done a good job of fixing some of the performance issues,however combat is still laggy and their is still hitching, if you read the forums people say the only way to get an enjoyable experience is to buy a solid state hard drive because the code is corrupted. AOC runs like butter on my machine ( at first no but they did a fantastic job of improving the performance) EQ2 runs good with occasional hitching.
I really get a kick out of people who CRY when the developer changes something in game and vow never to come back and just cry on forums all day. It must be "The Nerd Experience"
Lastly, I believe you are probably a newer gen type of WoW mmo gamer who believes everything has to be compared to WoW.. WoW is a game with horrible graphics, horrible textures, horrible kiddyland resolution, and belongs in 1998.. That game was purposely made to look like crapola so many people out there with their pew pew computers can run the game on it.. It's the most popular MMORPG now simply because of word of mouth and you literally can run it on a outdated 15 year old computer..
In conclusion, Vanguard was supposed to be a MMORPG for the true hardcore veteran MMO gamer.. It wasn't meant to be played by noobs, whiners, illiterate children, and those with, "the little engine that could" old dinosaur computers.. People like myself already knew we'd have to buy a decent computer to truly experience the glory and awesome world of Vanguard.. The true fans knew the game was going to be played similar to the original EQ, where it would be a group oriented game.. We knew this and couldn't wait to play it.. We literally thought it would be the new EQ experience.. Well, it was for a while then SOE took over and dumbed it down like WoW causing at least 250,000 people to leave between March 20th and April 1st of 2007,,,, myself included! SOE ruined the game by trying to make it playable for dumb moronis illiterate people! Which was yet another mistake on SOE's part! WELL DONE!
They fixed alot of the performance issues, but they changed the concept of the game which is the same thing as creating a new game within the previously existing game,,, just like they did with SWG, LOL!! It's kinda funny actually because those numnuts working for SOE just don't have a clue!!!! They all try copying off of Blizzard and each and every time they do this, the game gets destroyed because the true fans of that game see it getting turned into another WoW clone, and the people walk away with disgust!
Ever since SOE took over Vanguard, I had absolutely no desire to come back.. Getting rid of the item equipment system was ridiculous, which was literally one of the main reasons I left.. If SOE would have just focused on fixing bugs, glitches, and the performance issue without touching the gameplay mechanics, then I along with MANY MANY HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE wouldn't have left!
You are one of the reasons VG failed. I hope that you're happy with yourself and your dead game.
As far as the actual game goes, I played it a few times and it was decent enough but felt completely lifeless. I liked the dimplomacy system and the graphics were OK, I guess, but everything else felt stale and unimaginative.
Uhh.. how did it feel unimaginative? Vanguard actually did quite a bit of innovation, and tried new things, which is more than can be said for most modern MMOs. WoW hasn't ever innovated in its 5 year span.
Also, Vanguard didn't fail simply because he prefers oldschool deep MMOs to the casual WoW clones, it failed because of the performance, that's it.
The game is boring and looks bland. What innovation did it have? The weather system? Yea, I guess that's sort of cute but what else? Diplomacy? I'll give you that one as it was an aspect I actually enjoyed. But everything else--the art, the animations, the quests, the combat--left much to be desired.
Besides the horrible performance and the bugs, one of the reasons the game failed was because potential customers were chased away by these so-called "hardcore" players. Potential customers were told to go to WoW, because they were deemed not "hardcore" enough by the fanbois.
As far as WoW not having innovatted in 5 years, how many MMOs use phasing?
Why even bring WoW into this anyway? You can't even compare the two games. WoW is an insanely profitable MMO with about 11 million subscribers and very few bugs. It has smooth animations and intuitive combat, fun and varied quests... Basically, it's like the polar opposite of VG.
Lastly, I believe you are probably a newer gen type of WoW mmo gamer who believes everything has to be compared to WoW
This is an example of one of the main reasons Vanguard did so poorly. I followed this game every day for more than a year before it launched. I also beta tested it. Back in those days, the Vanguard boards were filled with self-styled hardcore posters who wanted Vanguard to be the anti-WoW. Anyone who didn't beat their chest and ask for the most draconian possible gameplay was instantly labeled a WoW kiddie and reviled. The boards were also filled with posts about how much WoW sucks. I can't tell you how many times people got interested in the game, came to the boards to be part of the pre-launch Vanguard community, and got so insulted by the leetism that they gave up and left. "Go back to WOW," they were told. So they did.
"Go back to WOW." If you want a game that is like World of Warcraft, then play world of warcraft. I agree with your sentiment in a way. But I also agree with those that tells other people to go back to World of Warcraft.
The only thing one needs to do if to realise if one likes a game or not and then decide.
Go back to WoW can't make this impact on any game, they leave as the game is not what they want. Nobody was telling anyone that enjoyed the game to leave, they told those that did not like it and was frustrated. If they would have liked it better then WoW then it assumingly would not be any need for people to throw a fit and say WoW does this and WoW have that.
Played this game early on, and just loved it. Despite all the problems, it had some nice features, many classes and was fun. However my computer struggled with the larger cities back then, and I stopped playing.
I wish someone else than SOE had picked up the game, cause I have been close to re-subbing several times, but my distain for SOE has put me off
I have revisited Vanguard several times after playing it for a month at launch. I'll give the devs credit, they did clean it up alot and made the game playable and pretty enjoyable. I still experienced my share of bugs but most weren't too bad and were quickly handled by submitting a ticket. For me Vanguard still has the most immersive game world with Telon and I rather enjoyed the diplomacy mini games. With all that being said I can't bring myself to go back...personally I would rather spend $15/month on an mmo that is actively being developed than spend $15 on Vanguard which is working with a skeleton staff at best. I think they have done a commendable job with what SOE has given them to work with but for me the ship has pretty much sailed. My gut tells me that once Sony finishes their new games and adds them to the Station Pass...Vanguard will join Matrix Online in the sunset. I wonder if the price was lowered to say $5/month...how many people might bite and take it up as a secondary sub. That may be easier to work in than a micro transaction system and would be worth a shot imo before just giving up on it completely.
Actually Orphes, there was a time that anyone with even the smallest criticism for the game would get pounced upon by the vanguard fanboy mob. It didn't matter how valid the point being discussed was, it was always the fault of the person discussing the issue. Go back to wow almost never applied, because people were not asking for the game to be like wow. The criticisms were hardly ever that vanguard should be more like wow, but about very valid gamebreaking issues.
Like the example above, someone talks about performance and pounce, it is their fault and they should go back to wow. How stupid is that answer? Oakthornns response is reminiscent of the people who did this game massive harm by chasing away anyone not willing to turn a blind eye to the state of the game. Even Garvons response is of the same over the top nature.
There are still way to many issues for a game that is three years old or a game that demands premium pricing. The developers have scheduled half of this years development time devoted only to fixing bugs and that tells the whole truth. Telling people to leave has not been a winning formula in the past and it won't help now. I think we can all agree on that.
I was supporting VG since 2005.. I was a beta tester from phase two in July of 2006 until release of course.. So yes, I was there from the beginning.. I was also part of the beta tester "crew" who saw ALOT of noob, whinny, illiterate, FPS/MMO HYBRID WoW gamer, cookie cutting roller coaster type of gamers posting a bunch of hate threads stating Vanguard is to hard, and needs the following to survive: More solo content, solo dungeons, good pvp system, no death penalty, no corpse runs, etc etc etc... Basically, these retards wanted the game to be dumbed down enough to fit their ridiculous, retarded, handicapped, autistic playstyle! Why? Because more than half of the MMORPG community now consists of kids with IQ's barely higher than Turtles!! Most of the true hardcore intelligent testers basically shrugged, laughed, and told them If they don't like the features, then go back to a eeeezzzz mode rollercoaster cookie cutting game where they will find many people that share their playstyle,,,,,,,,, the only popular game to fit their criteria at the time was, WoW.... So yes, we told the moron's to go back to WoW. *shrug* And most did.....
The playerbase did not kill Vanguard.. I was fine with 250,000-500,000 people playing.. At least we knew what kind of people Vanguard attracted.. Most were either ex EQ, DAOC, SWG, and yes even some ex WoW players... The community I was part of consisted of very good intelligent gamers... One where you were proud of getting to know and grouping with... Not like how PUG's are in WoW, LOLOLOLOL.... Most pug's are disasters waiting to happen because the intellect level of puger's in WoW is well below retard level it's not even funny... Now, there were still some people who tried Vanguard that whinned, moaned, ranted, raved, and spammed general chat with nonstop complaints regarding how hard it was to find groups for the higher end dungeons, how hard it was to level, how stupid death penalties were, and most of these numnuts quit within a week because the game was just to hard for their small peon little brain to comprehend, lol. They wanted an easy free ticket to the top "now" and didn't want to work hard for it,,,,, just like the eeezzzz "hold me by the hand and wipe my nose for me" rollercoaster ride which is WoW!
The game utterly failed after implementing the ridiculous patch that took away the item equipment system and made every item have a required level to use and changing of ALL the blues/yellow rare items stats.. I mean, that was just absurd and wrong..
At the time, I was in a huge guild consisting of over 200 players... We were still going very strong before SOE took over. But as soon as this dumb patch was implemented, 85% of us left by the end of the week... Now, that wasn't the only issue.. We all were approaching level 40+ and well,,,, there was only a couple places you could go after Thel which leveled me to 40. The lack of content for 40-50 was lacking. The only place you could go to level was I believe Grestone and River Palace.. Everything was a mess there. Loot tables were screwed up, bosses werent dropping loot, exp was to low, and the hitching, mob warping was really bad too, I must admit, lol... But we would have dealt with it until it got fixed...
The true hardcore fans were driven away because of SOE... Anyone who followed the game since beta of 06 and who reached at least level 35 within 2 months after release know this to be true.. Everyone else who states otherwise are either ignorant illiterate jackasses that don't know what the heck their talking about, or you just happen to try the game waaaaaay after SOE took over and basically don't know what your talking about as well, lol.. Have a nice day
Rallithon Oakthornn (Retired Heirophant of the 60th season)
VG is a wonderful game, and has such a huge PvE potential. It had an horrible start though, and it seems that MMOG dont recover from such a start, especially when the company behind the game doesnt push it at all. The game is still very good as it is now (with a good PC). But unfortunately it doesnt reach the critical mass of population to attract and keep new players, it's actually the opposite, even people loving the game leave because of a too low population.
I was very unhappy with VG after spending too much time on Isle of Dawn, but I must say, I am having a great time now that I'm out in the main world. It feels good to be back in a game that encourages players to group and run dungeons together. I don't have a lot of faith in SOE, but even with the issues VG has it is still more fun than any other game I've played in the last year or more.
Vanguard has an unfinished feel to it, imho. I've played it and enjoyed it, but it got to a point where the lack of other people slowly killed it off for me. Ironically, I tend to go it alone in most MMOs, but I do like the activity of other people out and about.
Anyone who's played the game can probably come up with their own lists of areas where the game felt unfinished, but for me, it was the aesthetics. I think certain areas, particularly major cities, needed more sexing up in the form of clutter. Building interiors just seemed so bland and uninviting. Most were like rooms in a warehouse, bare and stark in feel. Taverns were horrible. No "homey" feel there; just a couple of tables and a sorry excuse for a bar in a corner. Very little in the way of decoration to give interest to the place. Flame me, sue me, stab me for this reference, but I point to WoW as an example of how to make interiors interesting. There, you'll find portraits on the walls, book cases, bear skin rugs, crackling fireplaces, beer kegs, plates, cups, and other stuff laid out in a fairly realistic and "lived-in"/"frequented" fashion. In Vanguard, walls are bare, floors are bare, and so on. It's like Sigil stopped short of making a final pass through the game to tweak the little details.
This may seem like a petty reason to leave the game, but part of what attracts me to and keeps me playing a good game is the ambiance. Ambiance increases immersion, and helps me engage the setting on an emotional level. When I don't have that, I don't see a reason to stay.
"You'll never win an argument with an idiot because he is too stupid to recognize his own defeat." ~Anonymous
The playerbase did not kill Vanguard.. I was fine with 250,000-500,000 people playing..
HAHAHAHAHA, Vanguard never had anywhere close to those numbers and was already dieing right after release.
Why do you think Sigil went out of business within 5 months of the game releasing? 500k!!!! Bwhahaha... Companies with half a million subscribers don't file for bankruptcy.
Comments
I fell throught the ground many times...during beta. I also had the falling respawn death bug and the stuck on a baot between chunks bug.
the game had it's shot in the market and doesn't deserve a second shot.
I am sorry but pretty gfx does not a good MMORPG make and that is all the video showed.
My gaming blog
I gotta agree with this post. Sigil and Soe really did not do anything to help the game but the playerbase is truly what killed the game.
Vanguard was already down to 4 servers worth of players by the time SOE took over, which is about 40k players. Do you really think Sigil went out of business with 250,000 subscribers? Why spread misinformation?
Your elite uber awesome army of gamers that you think fell in love with this game were leaving by the tens of thousands. Soe didn't ruin the game, but they didn't do much to help ith either.
As someone else mentioned earlier, you are doing a fine job of displaying the exact attitude that pushed untold numbers of people away from this game. The engine for vanguard isn't so spectacular that any problem must be the fault of the users computer.
@original topic
Vanguard is not a sleeping giant. It will never see its potential. It would be a more accurate description to attract people to the game "as is" and not try to make it seem like there is any chance for the game to turn around. The lead developer isn't even working on the game anymore. He is working on EQ2 right now. The person he replaced left his position without even saying goodbye. It is clear that soe has no intention of supporting the game.
There are some fun aspects in the game, but there are also serious problems. People come to the game with unrealistic expectations and that doesn't help retain players. Be honest about both sides of vanguard and perhaps enough people will join to give the game some more life.
I think this is closer to the truth. They have stated that money comes from how many subs they have. If they don't have a lot of subs they aren't putting the money in. That leaves players wary and most players won't play a game with an iffy future.
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
You are one of the reasons VG failed. I hope that you're happy with yourself and your dead game.
As far as the actual game goes, I played it a few times and it was decent enough but felt completely lifeless. I liked the dimplomacy system and the graphics were OK, I guess, but everything else felt stale and unimaginative.
Uhh.. how did it feel unimaginative? Vanguard actually did quite a bit of innovation, and tried new things, which is more than can be said for most modern MMOs. WoW hasn't ever innovated in its 5 year span.
Also, Vanguard didn't fail simply because he prefers oldschool deep MMOs to the casual WoW clones, it failed because of the performance, that's it.
Some reasons why I didn't play Vanguard past a month.
1) It feels like another quest grinder.
2) I felt a lack of motivation to explore the world.
3) Empty. Its very demoralizing to see a dungeon in front of me, and not be able to enter. During my one month period I tried to group, but it wasn't happening. Even joined a guild that had plenty of toons my level, but they were all interested in soloing. This is always the problem with solo quest grinding games.
4) Doesn't have an old school feel, or EQ feel. It has a disticnt quest grinder feel. Run off go fetch this, bring it back, go to the same place and fetch this - run back, go in the opposite direction and fetch this. That's not old school.
5) If I could stomach the solo quest grind what would I do once max level? No AAs. No development. Just a tiny amount of raid content, which I hate, anyways. They already announced in December the game was basically going to see zero development for people who are looking to play long term.
6) Very clunky UI. I just don't like the animations, or the feel of the UI. It appears to be very slow to respond.
Anyway, just my opinions.
First of all Vanguard is a very good game, however it does and always had performance prob. When it first came out it wass practically unplayable a slideshow infact, sony has done a good job of fixing some of the performance issues,however combat is still laggy and their is still hitching, if you read the forums people say the only way to get an enjoyable experience is to buy a solid state hard drive because the code is corrupted. AOC runs like butter on my machine ( at first no but they did a fantastic job of improving the performance) EQ2 runs good with occasional hitching.
I really get a kick out of people who CRY when the developer changes something in game and vow never to come back and just cry on forums all day. It must be "The Nerd Experience"
The game is boring and looks bland. What innovation did it have? The weather system? Yea, I guess that's sort of cute but what else? Diplomacy? I'll give you that one as it was an aspect I actually enjoyed. But everything else--the art, the animations, the quests, the combat--left much to be desired.
Besides the horrible performance and the bugs, one of the reasons the game failed was because potential customers were chased away by these so-called "hardcore" players. Potential customers were told to go to WoW, because they were deemed not "hardcore" enough by the fanbois.
As far as WoW not having innovatted in 5 years, how many MMOs use phasing?
Why even bring WoW into this anyway? You can't even compare the two games. WoW is an insanely profitable MMO with about 11 million subscribers and very few bugs. It has smooth animations and intuitive combat, fun and varied quests... Basically, it's like the polar opposite of VG.
"Go back to WOW." If you want a game that is like World of Warcraft, then play world of warcraft. I agree with your sentiment in a way. But I also agree with those that tells other people to go back to World of Warcraft.
The only thing one needs to do if to realise if one likes a game or not and then decide.
Go back to WoW can't make this impact on any game, they leave as the game is not what they want. Nobody was telling anyone that enjoyed the game to leave, they told those that did not like it and was frustrated. If they would have liked it better then WoW then it assumingly would not be any need for people to throw a fit and say WoW does this and WoW have that.
I'm so broke. I can't even pay attention.
"You have the right not to be killed"
Played this game early on, and just loved it. Despite all the problems, it had some nice features, many classes and was fun. However my computer struggled with the larger cities back then, and I stopped playing.
I wish someone else than SOE had picked up the game, cause I have been close to re-subbing several times, but my distain for SOE has put me off
I have revisited Vanguard several times after playing it for a month at launch. I'll give the devs credit, they did clean it up alot and made the game playable and pretty enjoyable. I still experienced my share of bugs but most weren't too bad and were quickly handled by submitting a ticket. For me Vanguard still has the most immersive game world with Telon and I rather enjoyed the diplomacy mini games. With all that being said I can't bring myself to go back...personally I would rather spend $15/month on an mmo that is actively being developed than spend $15 on Vanguard which is working with a skeleton staff at best. I think they have done a commendable job with what SOE has given them to work with but for me the ship has pretty much sailed. My gut tells me that once Sony finishes their new games and adds them to the Station Pass...Vanguard will join Matrix Online in the sunset. I wonder if the price was lowered to say $5/month...how many people might bite and take it up as a secondary sub. That may be easier to work in than a micro transaction system and would be worth a shot imo before just giving up on it completely.
Actually Orphes, there was a time that anyone with even the smallest criticism for the game would get pounced upon by the vanguard fanboy mob. It didn't matter how valid the point being discussed was, it was always the fault of the person discussing the issue. Go back to wow almost never applied, because people were not asking for the game to be like wow. The criticisms were hardly ever that vanguard should be more like wow, but about very valid gamebreaking issues.
Like the example above, someone talks about performance and pounce, it is their fault and they should go back to wow. How stupid is that answer? Oakthornns response is reminiscent of the people who did this game massive harm by chasing away anyone not willing to turn a blind eye to the state of the game. Even Garvons response is of the same over the top nature.
There are still way to many issues for a game that is three years old or a game that demands premium pricing. The developers have scheduled half of this years development time devoted only to fixing bugs and that tells the whole truth. Telling people to leave has not been a winning formula in the past and it won't help now. I think we can all agree on that.
Vanquard has one huge problem.
SOE
As long as the game is under their control it will be neglected and pretty much rot.
I was supporting VG since 2005.. I was a beta tester from phase two in July of 2006 until release of course.. So yes, I was there from the beginning.. I was also part of the beta tester "crew" who saw ALOT of noob, whinny, illiterate, FPS/MMO HYBRID WoW gamer, cookie cutting roller coaster type of gamers posting a bunch of hate threads stating Vanguard is to hard, and needs the following to survive: More solo content, solo dungeons, good pvp system, no death penalty, no corpse runs, etc etc etc... Basically, these retards wanted the game to be dumbed down enough to fit their ridiculous, retarded, handicapped, autistic playstyle! Why? Because more than half of the MMORPG community now consists of kids with IQ's barely higher than Turtles!! Most of the true hardcore intelligent testers basically shrugged, laughed, and told them If they don't like the features, then go back to a eeeezzzz mode rollercoaster cookie cutting game where they will find many people that share their playstyle,,,,,,,,, the only popular game to fit their criteria at the time was, WoW.... So yes, we told the moron's to go back to WoW. *shrug* And most did.....
The playerbase did not kill Vanguard.. I was fine with 250,000-500,000 people playing.. At least we knew what kind of people Vanguard attracted.. Most were either ex EQ, DAOC, SWG, and yes even some ex WoW players... The community I was part of consisted of very good intelligent gamers... One where you were proud of getting to know and grouping with... Not like how PUG's are in WoW, LOLOLOLOL.... Most pug's are disasters waiting to happen because the intellect level of puger's in WoW is well below retard level it's not even funny... Now, there were still some people who tried Vanguard that whinned, moaned, ranted, raved, and spammed general chat with nonstop complaints regarding how hard it was to find groups for the higher end dungeons, how hard it was to level, how stupid death penalties were, and most of these numnuts quit within a week because the game was just to hard for their small peon little brain to comprehend, lol. They wanted an easy free ticket to the top "now" and didn't want to work hard for it,,,,, just like the eeezzzz "hold me by the hand and wipe my nose for me" rollercoaster ride which is WoW!
The game utterly failed after implementing the ridiculous patch that took away the item equipment system and made every item have a required level to use and changing of ALL the blues/yellow rare items stats.. I mean, that was just absurd and wrong..
At the time, I was in a huge guild consisting of over 200 players... We were still going very strong before SOE took over. But as soon as this dumb patch was implemented, 85% of us left by the end of the week... Now, that wasn't the only issue.. We all were approaching level 40+ and well,,,, there was only a couple places you could go after Thel which leveled me to 40. The lack of content for 40-50 was lacking. The only place you could go to level was I believe Grestone and River Palace.. Everything was a mess there. Loot tables were screwed up, bosses werent dropping loot, exp was to low, and the hitching, mob warping was really bad too, I must admit, lol... But we would have dealt with it until it got fixed...
The true hardcore fans were driven away because of SOE... Anyone who followed the game since beta of 06 and who reached at least level 35 within 2 months after release know this to be true.. Everyone else who states otherwise are either ignorant illiterate jackasses that don't know what the heck their talking about, or you just happen to try the game waaaaaay after SOE took over and basically don't know what your talking about as well, lol.. Have a nice day
Rallithon Oakthornn
(Retired Heirophant of the 60th season)
VG is a wonderful game, and has such a huge PvE potential. It had an horrible start though, and it seems that MMOG dont recover from such a start, especially when the company behind the game doesnt push it at all. The game is still very good as it is now (with a good PC). But unfortunately it doesnt reach the critical mass of population to attract and keep new players, it's actually the opposite, even people loving the game leave because of a too low population.
Check my blog on mmorpg.com.
Vanguard is horrible, end of story.
I was very unhappy with VG after spending too much time on Isle of Dawn, but I must say, I am having a great time now that I'm out in the main world. It feels good to be back in a game that encourages players to group and run dungeons together. I don't have a lot of faith in SOE, but even with the issues VG has it is still more fun than any other game I've played in the last year or more.
Vanguard is amazing, far from the end of the story!
Vanguard has an unfinished feel to it, imho. I've played it and enjoyed it, but it got to a point where the lack of other people slowly killed it off for me. Ironically, I tend to go it alone in most MMOs, but I do like the activity of other people out and about.
Anyone who's played the game can probably come up with their own lists of areas where the game felt unfinished, but for me, it was the aesthetics. I think certain areas, particularly major cities, needed more sexing up in the form of clutter. Building interiors just seemed so bland and uninviting. Most were like rooms in a warehouse, bare and stark in feel. Taverns were horrible. No "homey" feel there; just a couple of tables and a sorry excuse for a bar in a corner. Very little in the way of decoration to give interest to the place. Flame me, sue me, stab me for this reference, but I point to WoW as an example of how to make interiors interesting. There, you'll find portraits on the walls, book cases, bear skin rugs, crackling fireplaces, beer kegs, plates, cups, and other stuff laid out in a fairly realistic and "lived-in"/"frequented" fashion. In Vanguard, walls are bare, floors are bare, and so on. It's like Sigil stopped short of making a final pass through the game to tweak the little details.
This may seem like a petty reason to leave the game, but part of what attracts me to and keeps me playing a good game is the ambiance. Ambiance increases immersion, and helps me engage the setting on an emotional level. When I don't have that, I don't see a reason to stay.
"You'll never win an argument with an idiot because he is too stupid to recognize his own defeat." ~Anonymous
If Vanguard was so amazing then more people would be playing it and it would have a thriving development schedule.
Currently it has neither of these things.
HAHAHAHAHA, Vanguard never had anywhere close to those numbers and was already dieing right after release.
Why do you think Sigil went out of business within 5 months of the game releasing? 500k!!!! Bwhahaha... Companies with half a million subscribers don't file for bankruptcy.
Do you really believe anything you write?