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So, why is it so amazing?
Namica
Member Posts: 71
I've seldom heard anything bad about the game, but the only good I've heard, is that it's good.
So, why is vanguard so good?
Comments
er, well..
your just gona have to do the 14 day trial.
For me it was the graphics and the combat system, it was very fluid and feels correct. On top of that its massive, no instances, you can fly, use boats, fish, .. some people love the crafting and the harvest (harvesting is fun you can chop down trees)
you cant really identify one thing that makes it great.. its everything together, the feel of it.
Unfortunatly SOE are in the process of killing it, so worth playing it and experiencing it before they do.
Well...SOE is killing it now, but they did not exactly get a Game that was polished when they took it over...They did however decide once they got it that they would never put the effort into it that they put into EQII...And IMHO Vanguard is a better Game with MUCH more long range potential than EQII had it been handled properly...SOE did however clean up VG enough so that it is 100 times more playable then it was at launch...I give them credit for what they did, but it was never going to be enough...It's really unfortunate...I don't blame SOE much for this one because the made a Business decision...But had another Company picked up VG and ran with it who knows what it would be today...
To the OP I'd say Vanguard is a very good Game for some and not so much for others. There's no easy button that I know of in Vanguard...Especially if you plan on Soloing a lot...Like sadeyx said the combat is pretty cool, there's a good mix of Classes/Races, and the world is just huge...I think it's graphically stunning at times...Had the Game been stable from the beginning I think it would have carved out one heck of a decent niche...I think at this point it would have been MUCH bigger than EQII assuming it was able to grow over the past few years like other semi-successful Games have...Overall I think VG is one of the, if not the biggest opportunity missed in MMO history...It could have been one hell of a good Game...As it is it's still pretty cool...
it's the only real mmo out there right now. Instances are killing the massive and vanguards the last dying bastion. It's the greatest game that never had a chance because it was released just a little to early.
Ditto to what he said.
Say hello, To the things you've left behind. They are more a part of your life now that you can't touch them.
Unfortunately, the low pop does not help in any way. Like others said, alot of potential not fufilled.
If we fail to change the things of today, they will become the lucid nighmares of tommorrow.
The trial is free, the servers have been recently merged, is the best moment to try it.
When VG was launched, it was launched to half a million people. Most of them got burnt, including ppl like me, who happened to be on extended vacation and joined a dedicated crew, err, guild, who weather the beta and hope the bugs will go away eventually. The launch flopped royally, everybody pissed, only a handful stayed behind.
Now it is play by a few remaining loyalists, lovers, dedicated supporters, everyone else have moved on and never look back. Do you expect good reviews from the remaining players? Must be.
Is VG good for you? Try it out for yourself, nobody can tell.
At least a year and half too early, yes. I wouldn't call that a lil but I think everybody agrees, Vanguard was launched before it was ready. There was potential, people bought into the hype and potential as seen when 200k people purchased & played the game during the first 2 months. People put trust in Brad McQuaid and he pretty much failed us.
VG is so amazing because many people had high hopes for it. VG is still amazing to some people, but the game is left with the die hards that have sworn allegiance to the game no matter what. The upside to that is the people you bump into in the game are most likely people who thoroughly enjoy the game and will be glad to see you too. Graphics have always been an upside to this game, along with ingame music & open world design.
The downside is that the game has very little players, has very little developer support, SOE doesn't care about it and has pulled Vanguard from Fan Faire discussion panels, and there are no expansions or any future big things coming up for Vanguard. The game rignt now is kind of like a play it as-is kind of model, you take it or leave it.
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
There are a couple of reasons why Vanguard is a great game:
- wide open, huge world with no instancing
- large number of interesting classes and races
- good crafting and harvesting
- diplomacy (really, almost another whole game of quests)
- good quests -- there are a TON of quests, and areas. In fact, you could level two or three characters to max without ever duplicating any quests, and all in different areas
- housing, boats, fishing, flying mounts, etc, etc
- the best pet class of any game (Necro)
Vanguard is a great game, now. It launched poorly, but is now fully featured and stable. There are few developers, but it already has more content than most games. Heck, I bet just one or two quest lines have as much content as all of STO. Can you level two characters in STO without ever seeing the same landscape or doing the same quests? I thought not.
Give it a try.
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2024: 47 years on the Net.
I came back for the epicness of the world. I found this castle the other day and was struck by how little my character was compared to it. It is huge too. I spent a few hours just exploring this castle. The game has a real feel to it that I've never felt in any other game.
The world also feels massive and like other have said there are a ton of quests and things to do. If you get tired of grinding, go craft, explore, work on your house, or boat, or there is diplomacy which is like a game to itself.
Unfortunately it also suffers from the SWG sickness. Some people just can't get over things. Leave the past in the past and move on with your life already. It is nowhere near as bad as it was at launch and aside from occassional lag (which devs have said they are working on) runs pretty smooth. I couldn't get on for more than five minutes without a crash when it came out. Now I can play for 5+ hours no problems. The community is very helpful too and a lot more mature than most mmos because a lot of them stuck with this game when everyone else left. So a lot of them will do everything they can to help you get the most out of this game. The server merge also helped a lot with the population problem. Everywhere I go I run into someone be it in town or in a forest somewhere. Before the merge, even the cities were empty.
It can be a harsh game though. It is somewhat soloable but definitely not kind to you if you don't have patience. This is a game to be enjoyed SLOWLY, not rushed through which is also another problem because everyone is anxious to max level or get to end game asap these days. So VG is more of a niche game now. If you like old school mmos, or want something to just sit back, take in, and enjoy, you'd probably get more out of it than most other modern day mmos. If you don't have patience, or want your character to max out fast so you can do end game or pvp, you'll probably hate it.
On a final note I gave it another go because like other people said instances are killing games like this. VG is the last of a dying breed. So I'll just enjoy it as much as I can before it goes away and all we have left are cookie cutter, instanced, mmos to choose from.
They should merge all of the servers, but also introduce a fresh server along with a special 30 day free trial for everyone on the new server. That would be enough to get me to go back to the game.
Otherwise, to me, and probably others, starting from scratch on an established server several years old doesn't have the same attraction as who wants to be so far behind the rest of the world?
If you have to ask.....
Even though I retired after 3+ years of playing I must say it's the best PvE MMO available for many reasons. Classic, true-form MMO, no instancing, huge world, complex and challenging environment, fantastic graphics, best community size EQ1, etc. etc.
The down-side... Sony never got behind this game and development of new content was too slow.
I think the best thing are the classes, races and combat. It all meshes very well (and was one of the few things they'd gotten pretty much right at launch).
As mention, playing a necro in Vanguard was the most fun I've ever had with a pet class (even outdoing my beloved Ogre Beastlord from EQretro back in the day).
Vanguard has the most fun healer of any game ever in the blood mage (and by fun I mean complex and challenging and at times the most frustrating thing ever). Some fights I'd heal without a hitch. Some fights I'd be top damage in a group. Some fights a mob would reflect my group heal I accidently hit on instinct and the entire group would die instantly.... ahhhhh, goodtimes! I think the most fun was soloing (and winning sometimes!) the mobs marked as group or raid content for exp, loot or usually just to say I did... stuff where I had 2.5k hp and was being hit for 1k, talk about a rush!
People I talked to that always played tanks claimed their tanks in Vanguard were the most fun and engaging of any game. Cleric too (by far!). Shaman was great, could play as healer with a bit of casting or melee thrown in. I even knew some people who LOVED the druid (though it seemed one of the most ordinary/typical class to me). Every class I tried, and I at least tried them all up through the teens, was amazing and felt like nothing I'd seen/played before in a mmorpg.
And as an orc or goblin getting to escape from a slave ship as your noob experience was pretty funny.
For me, just to experience the classes (and the races were cool too, if not a bit isolated) is worth the price of admission. It was by far the most 'connected' I've ever felt to my class, character and other group members because the game is very interdependant if taking on challenging content and you actually play WITH your friends, not just happen to be zerging solo in the same group like in a few other games these days. And for a themepark game with levels and classes, there was more variety than many other mmorpgs in both equipment and playstyles (yet without the 'you're not specced right' mentality of WoW).
If Sony weren't involved I'd still be playing. If the game was released as a single player game with group/lan support, I'd be playing. Hell, if they released a single player version of the game I'd play it just to experience the classes and combat again. And of course if the game had been launched technically sound, I believe millions would still be playing.
According to a Facebook quiz, I'm a genius.
Personally i like the combat, and the "dot" system of the monsters. Unlike most mmo's these days, there is no real "button smashing" in this game. The combat is somewhat interactive, and as complex as i have found, other than fps style targetting games. You typically have a few basic moves you can do, but alot of your abilities will only be available after you trigger a prerequirement, and the time you have to use that ability is 1-2 seconds or so.
The monsters do have levels, but they also have dots indicating how tough they are..1 and 2 dots are mobs you can take down solo and with just a few hits. 3-4 dots are typically 2-4 person content. 5-6 dots are typically 4+ content. This will vary with the level of the monster and how many you fight at once. Some classes can solo 5 or 6 dots monsters around their same level.
The one thing the game is lacking right now is pvp. And i havent played in over a year and a half, i left due to the population on the pvp server. I'd consider myself a pvp'er, i play fps games on steam and have been playing DF for a year and a half, but the pve combat and the class compositions are soo great i will probably resub very soon.
This game most attracts oldschool EQ lovers. For them it is better than EQ2. It was supposed to be the 'real' EQ2 by word of mouth. It turned out being totally fun as expected but released too soon. At first there was so much lag and problems that it was barely playable but because of how fun the classes and stuff were you kept going and dealing with the problems. This game had a lot of potential. I am glad that I was there to get the most of it while it lasted.
I am not sure why people didn't keep playing on the PVE server as much as why they stopped on the PVP server . .. classes were totally imbalanced on the PVP side. So imbalanced that you had to reroll to get a lot of infamy in some cases. It took them what felt like a year to fix the fact that a level 25 druid could 2-shot anyone. I imagine that the classes that sucked on the PVP server would have been cool to play on the PVE server.
I will never forget how fun it is to run around with a bard . .. lol
Vanguard was good because of the following reasons:
- Open world with no instances. HUGE and beautiful world! If only the chunks loaded as fast as they do in Darkfall . .. many times they would crash me.
- Get stuck on a quest (that is bugged) and you can go onto another . .. on a different continents quest-chain.
- So many cool and fun races and classes to choose from.
- It had good sound, music, and emotes.
- Crafting was challenging and it was a big deal if you had it leveled. I liked that people would randomly kill me while crafting. lol good times I was jumped so much while crafting. Crafting with thousands of infamy can be tough . ..
- Diplomacy was a game of its own that was fun. From word of mouth I heard when I started playing that the game was rogue-like and that the end dungeons would change randomly depending on how people finished out their diplomacy quests which had an impact on NPCs. LOL that would have been cool . .. not sure why I had that idea in my head looking back.
- It had FFA PVP
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Vanguard is a good old style MMO with hard opponents, fun and complex classes, and an extremely large gameworld.
Graphically I just have to mention the extreme view distances. At least for me it was always a thrill to have them.
You need to open your ears....
Gonna say something that i think no one else mentioned.
Skip the hunt for end game and enjoy the journey ! This epic world is best served slow.
Makes me sick just listening to end game talkers. It is an experiance, not a grind that leads to an end (of more grind).
I think besides the graphics which other games can have in future is that the Community is one ot the best. They are helpful to others - no Hey go figure it out or look it up yourself. The PUGs are alot better than I was always told they would be in other MMOs as well. Have so many friends in the game and that and the rest of the community is why I love and stay with Vanguard.
The community definitley shines in this game. It's an old school community, mind you that's not relative to their age it's relative to their maturity and helpfullness.
Absolutely true that the community in Vanguard is by far one of the very best .The other that is good is LotRO which will soon be destroyed when they go f2p but for now it is still good.
Vanguard had a very smart and intelligent and helpful one and what I absolutely loved was the crafting channels. I enjoyed this game so very very much when I played it. What I found truly sad was that not much was being done about the game because the population was so low . It was a game going nowhere they were not developing stuff and had cut the stuff down drastically and it is this that made me quit it finally.
Thats SOE for you, too bad the company doesnt share the same fate as VG.
Just so you know, 'over-instancing' is what's killing mmos. But your in the minority if you are saying that instancing such as in WoW, is bad for mmos. WoW's instancing is perfect, it's only used for dungeons and raids, and without them the game would fail. WoW's instancing enables the game to host a huge world, plus many more dungeons than has been possible in mmos before. Also, since the large amount of guilds and pugs constantly doing dungeons in WoW, if there wasn't instancing no one would get their chance to progress. So remember, while instancing such as in Guild Wars, and DDO may be killing mmos, some instances, like in WoW, are crucial for enabling a mass amount of end game content without creating constant competition for those encounters.
Whats so great about Vanguard, FREEDOM. I can go anywhere in the world, and not realy hit a zone line ( instance or whatever you call it ) with the exception of a few High end Raid zones).
Content? or the lack of constantly bringing in new content? We have 2 continents full of quest that you will out level way before you even get a little bit of it done.. Take the urt quest which starts at level 12ish, you level to about 20 JUST doing that one quest line. But you go through 4 major area's of thestra to do it, FILLED with quest. Qalia ( the second largest continent ) is the same .
Graphics, I havent seen anything NEAR the quality of graphics that Vanguard has ( i run max quality, might only get 20 fps, but hey, i get to see what they actuall put in the game,, )
i could go on and on and on,, but as other said, just download the trial and see for yourself..
As for the launch, i dont know any game that has been released in the last 5-6 years that didnt have a bad launch, so, what made vanguard so diffrent than any others ??
I did not care for the diplomacy system(everything else seemed fine) and the low population does have a big effect on this game. I wish someone has the guts to actually make another sandbox mmo and make it great because the mmo genre needs a great sanbox in the worst way.