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difficulty of playing
s1fu71
Member Posts: 220
just a few questions:
1) Is the game easy to get started? Is it fairly easy to figure out what to do? Decent tutorial?
2) How's the population and grouping? Are groups easy to get into?
3) while waiting on grouping, or for short sessions, how's solo play. (I like being able to solo while waiting on a group.)
4) How's crafting? In general how useful is it? I ask because often I'm used to games giving decent quest rewards. So I find myself asking, "why craft at all?" Is crafting interesting?
5) What's diplomacy about? What does it do for you character? (sorry, I'm not used to that feature in a game.)
6) I started my MMO experience with the launch of EQ. It's still going, much to my surprise. Does this game look like it might have longevity?
Thanks in advance for your answers.
It's not about fighting, it's about balance. It's not about enlightenment, it's about balance. It's not about balance.
Comments
ad 1) it does have good tutorial on isle of dawn, but even that one will only teach you the basics in everything, not the "deeper" stuff. tutorials on main land starting areas are not so good, but lore and feel is better
ad 2) population is low, groups, well, that depends a lot on if you are in the guild, if you have luck, what time of day it is, how activly you are looking for the group ...... overall i would say it is more work to get group then in other mmorpgs (since population is low)
ad 3) well you can either do some easier quests, kill some easy mobs (neither of which will give you much rewards) or you can work on crafting/harvesting/diplomacy, which is nice
ad 4) i would say crafting is useful, especially since you can do it solo and if you know crafting it gives you better eq then normal quests. you can also craft things like boats, materials for building houses etc.
ad 5) diplomacy is a card game which can award you with items, buffs etc. but it is also a ingenious way of controling quest dialogs - since each "damage point" you do to your enemy is tied to 1 part of dialog, you see whole quest text (and can finish diplomacy quest) only when you "kill" all of your enemy's "hps".
ad 6) well i am afraid noone can answer that (besides the fact that it is already running for 5 year) - population is really low, so SOE can pull the plug any time, on the other hand, they stated not so long ago that they dont plan to do that any time soon
Getting started in the game can go 2 ways. The starter island which is just what it sounds like, it gets you up to level 10 in adventuring, crafting and diplomacy with nice gear. Many say it is a must for the sake of 10/10/10 and the gear/perks it provides.
The other route is starting in your racial starting area which is not as "starter friendly" nor does it yield the same 10/10/10 and nice beginning gear as easily. I feel immersion is greater in the racial starting areas but you can always run the starter island and then head to the racial starting area.
Population and grouping are the games sticking point. If you are starting out I would suggest joining the guild Twighlyte Song, they seem to always have about 10+ on around the clock on varying levels. That will make grouping much easier.
I personally loved playing solo in VG, I ran from the beginning up to the mid 40's basically solo on the ffa pvp server before they merged. It is class dependent though, the success/ease of soloing.
VG has the best crafting I have seen in an MMO (SWG was right up there also though) as far as the process and enjoyment of it. It is a minigame with gear and stats and specialization within its own sphere. Endgame the gear is lacking compared to raid gear. You can craft houses, boats, saddle bags, packs and some useful items though. Hopefully end-game crafting will be expanded on with the upcoming conent/updates.
Diplomacy is a card game. It is once again a different sphere with stats, gear and rewards. You acquire the cards a number of different ways and can tweak the cards in your deck as you go. It actually plays a big role in raiding as you can gain powerful buffs for anyone that enters the city/area where you have earned the buffs via winning the card games with npcs.
As for longevity....its still going. If they were going to pull the plug I think they would have by now. It limped along on life support for quite some time and now SOE has announced adding devs (doubling the number) and has begun adding content and upgrades once again.
Interesting points. Thanks for the answers.
As to solo play. Are there classes you would recommend that can solo decently, but when I do find a group, are also beneficial to group play.
I don't want to choose a class that does solo well, but isn't very useful to a group.
I only solo when I'm not on a game long, or while I'm waiting on a group. For me, being able to solo is nice to cut out the down time and not just sit around.
It's not about fighting, it's about balance. It's not about enlightenment, it's about balance. It's not about balance.
as for soloing, there are many threads here in vanguard forum, try e.g. this thread
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/339844/Soloing-in-Vanguard-New-to-game.html
Thanks for the link. It was a great help.
Thanks for the answers.
It's not about fighting, it's about balance. It's not about enlightenment, it's about balance. It's not about balance.