Ahhh yes the never ending Vanguard posts. They just keep coming dont they. Year in year out. It's not that popular because it simply isn't that great. It's just an ok game that has a big open static world to wander around in. There are more interesting (and more modern) games to play......and most people are playing them instead of Vanguard. End of story
Np,go and enjoy your other games,it really isnt a big deal for us.Perhaps you don't know but the main reason why their have been many more Vanguard post is because it goes FTP this summer and the devs are finally working on the game again.
You really don't need to answer this post because you wont be playing and why should it matter to you.
You will answer though because you wont be able to help yourself.I know,you are going to tell us your opinions on Vanguard going FTP and how it wont matter,the game is dead,right?
Don't bother i saved you the trouble and said it for you.
I never said I hated the game. I said it is ok but it's not great. When it goes FTP it will be worth a look. I might download it again and have a doodle around with it until I get bored with it again. I expect more people will play it then as well. Currently though for most people it just isnt worth it
ps. Fixing those ugly character models would certainly make it more appealing for me
Knew you wouldn't be able to resist,typical lol.
Who said you hated the game,don't think i mentioned the word hate once in my thread.Going by your "end of story" finisher in your post i get the impression you are fed up about reading threads and post about Vanguard.Your attititude tells the story but again,you really don't have to post in this thread or doodle(is that some kind of instrument) around in Vanguard,plenty of modern games you can play,right?
Indeed. I dont have to post in this thread......but I felt like it.......so I did. Or am I only allowed to enter threads about games that I worship and adore?
But yeah you're right. Plenty of other games for me to play. However when I'm not playing those games I do other things. One of those things is to occasionally read this website and post whatever I like wherever I like. I'm sorry if that upsets you but you're just gonna have to put up with it I'm afraid.
No need for you to answer this post either........unless you choose to of course, in which case you have my permission.
Peace and love and all that bollocks.
You are certainly welcome to post like anyone else, but you are boarderline trolling now. You have no interest in the game, that's quite obvious, other people do...which seems to elude you, and that is what you're interrupting. "End of story".
Many people are excited about the future F2P, regardless if you feel it's a horrible game.
If you question any of this, just ask yourself...why has a thread about Vanguard suddenly become about you? "Because you feel like it."
Thank you for telling me that I have no interest in the game, despite the fact that I have subbed to it on multiple occasions in the past and got some enjoyment out of it each time. I also didn't realise that this was a thread where only absolute praise of the game was allowed. It's strange that you think me saying that Vanguard is an "ok game but not great" is somehow "interrupting" peoples interest for the game. How does that work exactly? We're not actually playing the game here. This is a forum where we are "talking" about it. I'm not interrupting anything.......and yes other people are interested in the game. Why do you think this has eluded me? You make so sense.
I wasn't actually aware that Vanguard was definately going F2P when I first posted. This is good news and is something that has been long overdue. I dont think it's a horrible game (although I do think the character models are......oh gosh! Am I troll for saying that now? Heaven forbid). Like I said I think it is an ok game but not a great one, which is part of the reason why it isn't very popular. It has some nice ideas but they were not implemented very well.
......oops! Sorry I forgot to add ".....in my opinion" onto the end of the previous sentence. Wouldn't want you jumping on me for that too.
Hmmm lets ask myself why this thread has become about me......ermmm......sorry could you explain to me why I need to ask this? I never thought it was. Ask yourself the same question
Thanks a lot guys, I didn't expect such a huge response, but it answered my questions quite well. I think once Vanguard becomes F2P I will pick it up and focus on becoming the most prolific crafters ever .
Vanguard is the best mmo to launch in the last 5-6 years, maybe more imo, it is just hard to overcome a bad launch. Sony said they were going to 're-launch' Vanguard after it had some work done on it like 3-4 years ago, but it never happend...Many thought it was due to maybe being in compeition with EQ2...But who knows...
It did seem like SoE was not to invested in VG, or decided it wasn't worth the trouble, it would of been nice to see a refocus and more attention years ago, but I hope it all works out, and people get to see what a nice game it is....I left before the Starter Island, so I have no idea what that is like...But I think you can bypass it also, atleast that was the plan long ago..
Vanguard actually has depth, something that seems to be missing in a lot of mmos now imo.
The reason it isn't more populated is because of the launch. When it died off a few months after the launch (the population I mean) people weren't coming back. The updates weren't coming quick enough, and they didn't fix any bugs fast enough. The game itself was very good just a buggy mess. Now that it's somewhat fixed up and a lot of people really like it, they all go back to it and see how low the population is and just leave. If everyone that left because of the population being so low went back it would have a really nice population. But it's in the paradox that is it's population is so low because of the population being so low. It won't get higher unless people go back and don't worry about the population.
Vanguard had possibly the worst launch in MMO history, with bugs, extremely high system requirements, and the whole SOE/Sigil fiasco. Had it not had these problems, I think it's a reasonable safe assumption that it could have carved out a decent niche market of fans of EQ1 and other early MMOs. As it stands now, people are just unwilling to give it another shot, either because they have bad memories of the launch, or because they don't want to try an MMO that is already several years old.
The one differing factor is that of all these games, VG is the least solo friendly and has unforgiving combat with lots of deaths and / or near deaths and I consider them too many to be fun. Even EQ Live is more casual friendly and as a result it still has decent numbers even before the change to F2P.
Vanguard is unforgiving but that's whats been lost with these current mmo,to much for to little and no risk.By the time to reach level 55 you will really know your class and be proud to have come through the hard knocks.
Here a tip,slow down and actually think about what you are doing,just like EQ had players do.Vanguard is not a mmo for everyone but that's the beauty of the game,work for what you want and keep what you kill.
I think it is a mix of both of these things. If the game was as good as those tht cheer for it think, then it would be much more popular. But its lack of popularity I think has partly also to do with its differences from "common" mmos. Those differences, though, are made worse by the low population. You can't have a group focused game with a low population. It will never attract new people. F2P will help this a lot I think.
I think that the absurd pc specs you needed to actually run this game at the beginning spelled doom right away.At the time VAN came out I had a pc that ran every game very very well and was a slideshow with VG.Heck the last time I tried to play this game less than a yr ago I hit a server boundry that felt like a 10 sec lag.
If you can get the game to run decently this game has some promise as it does have a very good crafting system among other things.Can't wait for the ftp as I will return and play this game here and there
hopefully they add some type of AA system or character customization. Cause as deep as everything else is in VG the char customization is horrible. Every ranger is a ranger, every bard a bard, the only way to make your char any different from someone else is through armor.
Originally posted by Myrdynn hopefully they add some type of AA system or character customization. Cause as deep as everything else is in VG the char customization is horrible. Every ranger is a ranger, every bard a bard, the only way to make your char any different from someone else is through armor.
I agree, AAs would be great for the game, preferably ones you were free to work on from an early level.
hopefully they add some type of AA system or character customization. Cause as deep as everything else is in VG the char customization is horrible. Every ranger is a ranger, every bard a bard, the only way to make your char any different from someone else is through armor.
I agree, AAs would be great for the game, preferably ones you were free to work on from an early level.
would be cool if they added sometype of system like EQ2, with all the named mobs in game, if you got AA exp for killing em, most fun I had in any game ever was named mob hunting in VG and EQ2, and it was nice to be rewarded
Vanguard is my ideal MMO; boasting a massively open world and robust crafting system, why isn't this game more popular? I've always wanted a game like vanguard; player housing, player ships, etc etc... So, why has Vanguard fallen flat?
The game had one of the worst launches in mmo history...unbalanced...you'd fall through the world and the devs couldn't get your toon back...so you'd have to reroll....game was mainly pve based...so pvpers had crap. Games that launch this bad will have a hard time bouncing back. They had an opportunity at launch...tons were there. Anothe SOE fail...best thing you can do is always avoid SOE games...they will screw you over...
As much as I love bashing SoE, they are not to blame for Vanguard. Sigil and Brad McQuaid are at fault. SoE just salvaged the game and made it remotely playable.
Actually, Microsoft would be more to blame than Sigil or Brad.
Microsoft was Vanguard's original publisher. Brad had his vision for Vanguard, and Microsoft had theirs. The two were not one and the same. Microsoft more or less gave Sigil an ultimatum: Make the game our way, or give us $2 million to buy out of your contract with us. Brad took the latter.
Sigil, and the game's development, were kind of floating in limbo for a while as the company searched for a new publisher. That, along with Microsoft's contract buy-out left Vanguard horribly horribly under budget. Ultimately, to the dismay of a lot of the game's hopeful customers (myself included at the time), Sigil accepted SoE's offer to continue funding Vanguard.
All the problems Sigil faced during production are where most (not all, but most) of the blame for the game's buggy, incomplete launch stem from. As I recall, there weren't even any helmets yet, and a few classes that were supposed to be in the game were omitted.
I played Vanguard for the first month at launch (Vulmane Dread Knight), and while it was great when it worked, there were a lot of performance issues and quest bugs. Not long after I left the game, I'd heard SoE gutted Sigil, firing everyone but Brad, keeping him on as nothing more than a figurehead for the fans. That was the last of Sigil.
Vanguard is my ideal MMO; boasting a massively open world and robust crafting system, why isn't this game more popular? I've always wanted a game like vanguard; player housing, player ships, etc etc... So, why has Vanguard fallen flat?
The game had one of the worst launches in mmo history...unbalanced...you'd fall through the world and the devs couldn't get your toon back...so you'd have to reroll....game was mainly pve based...so pvpers had crap. Games that launch this bad will have a hard time bouncing back. They had an opportunity at launch...tons were there. Anothe SOE fail...best thing you can do is always avoid SOE games...they will screw you over...
As much as I love bashing SoE, they are not to blame for Vanguard. Sigil and Brad McQuaid are at fault. SoE just salvaged the game and made it remotely playable.
Actually, Microsoft would be more to blame than Sigil or Brad.
Microsoft was Vanguard's original publisher. Brad had his vision for Vanguard, and Microsoft had theirs. The two were not one and the same. Microsoft more or less gave Sigil an ultimatum: Make the game our way, or give us $2 million to buy out of your contract with us. Brad took the latter.
Sigil, and the game's development, were kind of floating in limbo for a while as the company searched for a new publisher. That, along with Microsoft's contract buy-out left Vanguard horribly horribly under budget. Ultimately, to the dismay of a lot of the game's hopeful customers (myself included at the time), Sigil accepted SoE's offer to continue funding Vanguard.
All the problems Sigil faced during production are where most (not all, but most) of the blame for the game's buggy, incomplete launch stem from. As I recall, there weren't even any helmets yet, and a few classes that were supposed to be in the game were omitted.
I played Vanguard for the first month at launch (Vulmane Dread Knight), and while it was great when it worked, there were a lot of performance issues and quest bugs. Not long after I left the game, I'd heard SoE gutted Sigil, firing everyone but Brad, keeping him on as nothing more than a figurehead for the fans. That was the last of Sigil.
You can't blame Microsoft. After four years of development Sigil was way behind schedule with Vanguard. That's why Microsoft dropped the game and cut their loses.
Vanguard is my ideal MMO; boasting a massively open world and robust crafting system, why isn't this game more popular? I've always wanted a game like vanguard; player housing, player ships, etc etc... So, why has Vanguard fallen flat?
The game had one of the worst launches in mmo history...unbalanced...you'd fall through the world and the devs couldn't get your toon back...so you'd have to reroll....game was mainly pve based...so pvpers had crap. Games that launch this bad will have a hard time bouncing back. They had an opportunity at launch...tons were there. Anothe SOE fail...best thing you can do is always avoid SOE games...they will screw you over...
As much as I love bashing SoE, they are not to blame for Vanguard. Sigil and Brad McQuaid are at fault. SoE just salvaged the game and made it remotely playable.
Actually, Microsoft would be more to blame than Sigil or Brad.
Microsoft was Vanguard's original publisher. Brad had his vision for Vanguard, and Microsoft had theirs. The two were not one and the same. Microsoft more or less gave Sigil an ultimatum: Make the game our way, or give us $2 million to buy out of your contract with us. Brad took the latter.
Sigil, and the game's development, were kind of floating in limbo for a while as the company searched for a new publisher. That, along with Microsoft's contract buy-out left Vanguard horribly horribly under budget. Ultimately, to the dismay of a lot of the game's hopeful customers (myself included at the time), Sigil accepted SoE's offer to continue funding Vanguard.
All the problems Sigil faced during production are where most (not all, but most) of the blame for the game's buggy, incomplete launch stem from. As I recall, there weren't even any helmets yet, and a few classes that were supposed to be in the game were omitted.
I played Vanguard for the first month at launch (Vulmane Dread Knight), and while it was great when it worked, there were a lot of performance issues and quest bugs. Not long after I left the game, I'd heard SoE gutted Sigil, firing everyone but Brad, keeping him on as nothing more than a figurehead for the fans. That was the last of Sigil.
You can't blame Microsoft. After four years of development Sigil was way behind schedule with Vanguard. That's why Microsoft dropped the game and cut their loses.
You know i think about this often. Given the budget ( i belive was around 30mil orginally ) and the amount of content in game ( yes even at release ) they really were not that bad off...
The amount of content in vanguard is almost retardedly-huge... its nuts how many ways one can choose to go.. Makes you wonder if they just released 1 continent in 07 then released the others as expansions how things would have went...
Vanguard is my ideal MMO; boasting a massively open world and robust crafting system, why isn't this game more popular? I've always wanted a game like vanguard; player housing, player ships, etc etc... So, why has Vanguard fallen flat?
The game had one of the worst launches in mmo history...unbalanced...you'd fall through the world and the devs couldn't get your toon back...so you'd have to reroll....game was mainly pve based...so pvpers had crap. Games that launch this bad will have a hard time bouncing back. They had an opportunity at launch...tons were there. Anothe SOE fail...best thing you can do is always avoid SOE games...they will screw you over...
As much as I love bashing SoE, they are not to blame for Vanguard. Sigil and Brad McQuaid are at fault. SoE just salvaged the game and made it remotely playable.
Actually, Microsoft would be more to blame than Sigil or Brad.
Microsoft was Vanguard's original publisher. Brad had his vision for Vanguard, and Microsoft had theirs. The two were not one and the same. Microsoft more or less gave Sigil an ultimatum: Make the game our way, or give us $2 million to buy out of your contract with us. Brad took the latter.
Sigil, and the game's development, were kind of floating in limbo for a while as the company searched for a new publisher. That, along with Microsoft's contract buy-out left Vanguard horribly horribly under budget. Ultimately, to the dismay of a lot of the game's hopeful customers (myself included at the time), Sigil accepted SoE's offer to continue funding Vanguard.
All the problems Sigil faced during production are where most (not all, but most) of the blame for the game's buggy, incomplete launch stem from. As I recall, there weren't even any helmets yet, and a few classes that were supposed to be in the game were omitted.
I played Vanguard for the first month at launch (Vulmane Dread Knight), and while it was great when it worked, there were a lot of performance issues and quest bugs. Not long after I left the game, I'd heard SoE gutted Sigil, firing everyone but Brad, keeping him on as nothing more than a figurehead for the fans. That was the last of Sigil.
You can't blame Microsoft. After four years of development Sigil was way behind schedule with Vanguard. That's why Microsoft dropped the game and cut their loses.
You know i think about this often. Given the budget ( i belive was around 30mil orginally ) and the amount of content in game ( yes even at release ) they really were not that bad off...
The amount of content in vanguard is almost retardedly-huge... its nuts how many ways one can choose to go.. Makes you wonder if they just released 1 continent in 07 then released the others as expansions how things would have went...
But that was not really the orginal vision...
I remember watching/reading an interview with Brad where he mentions one of the mistakes they made was trying to push out too much content at once. Typically a game with the kind of scale they were going for (i.e. Everquest) only gets that big after several expansions have been released, not right off the bat. Not only does it give a company more time to work, but sub fees and expansion box costs will help fund it so that not everything is coming from the publisher.
Ahhh yes the never ending Vanguard posts. They just keep coming dont they. Year in year out.
Indeed. I dont have to post in this thread......but I felt like it.......so I did. Or am I only allowed to enter threads about games that I worship and adore?
You can post if you want to, but let other people make their posts or threads aswell... They are not only allowed to make threads for games that you play (and enjoy)?
I have thought about this a lot lately and think I have some reasonable answers.
1. The launch was horrible. It is very difficult for a game to recover, it can be done but it's difficult. Eve recovered after all. And no Wow wasn't a bad launch, there was a few bugs, loot lag and server ques, thats about it. Dark and light was worse yes but D&L is gone. VG did have a very bad launch. People today are not as forgiving of games as there were when EQ, UO, DAOC, AO, AC launched.
2. There are a great many good things in the game but it doesn't excel at very many of them
Grahics - environment - stunning. Really good here
- models - pretty ugly actually.
Races - pretty good there are a lot to choose from
Classes - not bad. Some unique, some not. And some unique twists to older classes, e.g bards making their own songs. Give them props for this one.
Housing - too limited. Yes you can make a house in the world. But there are very limited styles. Istaria does this better, even EQ2 with the ability to build the house by blocks and boards (although still instanced) is IMO better. The housing sounds nice but it is so limited it doesn't excite me. So if you join a game for housing this won't excite you.
Crafting - is just ok. Yes you can customize. But it's pretty grindy and other games do this better. Again Istaria has a more robust crafting system, Eve is pretty good, Ryzom is better, Atitd is way better. So if you join for crafting this system won't excite you.
Diplomacy - not much to say about this. I personally didn't like it but it's the only game with it so give them a plus for it.
Flight - it has them actually does a decent job of it. Flights are everywhere so props again.
Adv - about the same as other games. Good areas, bad areas, good quests, bad quests.
Quests - bout the same as modern games.
Dungeons - they are open which is often a plut. So
So overall VG is a good game. But it just doesn't have enough to diferentiate it from another game. And if someone is allready playing a game with good crafting or housing, VG doesn't offer enough to take them away.
example. I do play Istaria for the crafting, mutli-classing and housing. However I recently found out that EQ2 offers ways to build your house so you can literally build anything you want. This is as good as Istaria (althought still an instance) but the adventure side is better than Istaria. So I've switched, or rather play EQ2 as well as Istaria. Istaria still offers dragons, but EQ2 has it matched on crafting, and beat on adventuring.
So when I look at VG and think about playing again. It doesn't have anything to pull me from my current games, and I think a lot of other people feel that way as wel.. While it is good, it didn't have enough to pull them away.
But I keep checking because there are updates, because I have tried it several times, because I do have stationa access and games change. I thought EQ2 was boring on release, now especially with the housing it's pretty good.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
Comments
Thank you for telling me that I have no interest in the game, despite the fact that I have subbed to it on multiple occasions in the past and got some enjoyment out of it each time. I also didn't realise that this was a thread where only absolute praise of the game was allowed. It's strange that you think me saying that Vanguard is an "ok game but not great" is somehow "interrupting" peoples interest for the game. How does that work exactly? We're not actually playing the game here. This is a forum where we are "talking" about it. I'm not interrupting anything.......and yes other people are interested in the game. Why do you think this has eluded me? You make so sense.
I wasn't actually aware that Vanguard was definately going F2P when I first posted. This is good news and is something that has been long overdue. I dont think it's a horrible game (although I do think the character models are......oh gosh! Am I troll for saying that now? Heaven forbid). Like I said I think it is an ok game but not a great one, which is part of the reason why it isn't very popular. It has some nice ideas but they were not implemented very well.
......oops! Sorry I forgot to add ".....in my opinion" onto the end of the previous sentence. Wouldn't want you jumping on me for that too.
Hmmm lets ask myself why this thread has become about me......ermmm......sorry could you explain to me why I need to ask this? I never thought it was. Ask yourself the same question
Vanguard is the only game i always come back to. Its just sometimes frustrating but its just like going home everytime i log in
Thanks a lot guys, I didn't expect such a huge response, but it answered my questions quite well. I think once Vanguard becomes F2P I will pick it up and focus on becoming the most prolific crafters ever
.
Vanguard is the best mmo to launch in the last 5-6 years, maybe more imo, it is just hard to overcome a bad launch. Sony said they were going to 're-launch' Vanguard after it had some work done on it like 3-4 years ago, but it never happend...Many thought it was due to maybe being in compeition with EQ2...But who knows...
It did seem like SoE was not to invested in VG, or decided it wasn't worth the trouble, it would of been nice to see a refocus and more attention years ago, but I hope it all works out, and people get to see what a nice game it is....I left before the Starter Island, so I have no idea what that is like...But I think you can bypass it also, atleast that was the plan long ago..
Vanguard actually has depth, something that seems to be missing in a lot of mmos now imo.
The reason it isn't more populated is because of the launch. When it died off a few months after the launch (the population I mean) people weren't coming back. The updates weren't coming quick enough, and they didn't fix any bugs fast enough. The game itself was very good just a buggy mess. Now that it's somewhat fixed up and a lot of people really like it, they all go back to it and see how low the population is and just leave. If everyone that left because of the population being so low went back it would have a really nice population. But it's in the paradox that is it's population is so low because of the population being so low. It won't get higher unless people go back and don't worry about the population.
I think it is a mix of both of these things. If the game was as good as those tht cheer for it think, then it would be much more popular. But its lack of popularity I think has partly also to do with its differences from "common" mmos. Those differences, though, are made worse by the low population. You can't have a group focused game with a low population. It will never attract new people. F2P will help this a lot I think.
I think that the absurd pc specs you needed to actually run this game at the beginning spelled doom right away.At the time VAN came out I had a pc that ran every game very very well and was a slideshow with VG.Heck the last time I tried to play this game less than a yr ago I hit a server boundry that felt like a 10 sec lag.
If you can get the game to run decently this game has some promise as it does have a very good crafting system among other things.Can't wait for the ftp as I will return and play this game here and there
hopefully they add some type of AA system or character customization. Cause as deep as everything else is in VG the char customization is horrible. Every ranger is a ranger, every bard a bard, the only way to make your char any different from someone else is through armor.
I agree, AAs would be great for the game, preferably ones you were free to work on from an early level.
would be cool if they added sometype of system like EQ2, with all the named mobs in game, if you got AA exp for killing em, most fun I had in any game ever was named mob hunting in VG and EQ2, and it was nice to be rewarded
Actually, Microsoft would be more to blame than Sigil or Brad.
Microsoft was Vanguard's original publisher. Brad had his vision for Vanguard, and Microsoft had theirs. The two were not one and the same. Microsoft more or less gave Sigil an ultimatum: Make the game our way, or give us $2 million to buy out of your contract with us. Brad took the latter.
Sigil, and the game's development, were kind of floating in limbo for a while as the company searched for a new publisher. That, along with Microsoft's contract buy-out left Vanguard horribly horribly under budget. Ultimately, to the dismay of a lot of the game's hopeful customers (myself included at the time), Sigil accepted SoE's offer to continue funding Vanguard.
All the problems Sigil faced during production are where most (not all, but most) of the blame for the game's buggy, incomplete launch stem from. As I recall, there weren't even any helmets yet, and a few classes that were supposed to be in the game were omitted.
I played Vanguard for the first month at launch (Vulmane Dread Knight), and while it was great when it worked, there were a lot of performance issues and quest bugs. Not long after I left the game, I'd heard SoE gutted Sigil, firing everyone but Brad, keeping him on as nothing more than a figurehead for the fans. That was the last of Sigil.
You can't blame Microsoft. After four years of development Sigil was way behind schedule with Vanguard. That's why Microsoft dropped the game and cut their loses.
You know i think about this often. Given the budget ( i belive was around 30mil orginally ) and the amount of content in game ( yes even at release ) they really were not that bad off...
The amount of content in vanguard is almost retardedly-huge... its nuts how many ways one can choose to go.. Makes you wonder if they just released 1 continent in 07 then released the others as expansions how things would have went...
But that was not really the orginal vision...
I remember watching/reading an interview with Brad where he mentions one of the mistakes they made was trying to push out too much content at once. Typically a game with the kind of scale they were going for (i.e. Everquest) only gets that big after several expansions have been released, not right off the bat. Not only does it give a company more time to work, but sub fees and expansion box costs will help fund it so that not everything is coming from the publisher.
They tried to do too much at once.
You can post if you want to, but let other people make their posts or threads aswell... They are not only allowed to make threads for games that you play (and enjoy)?
I'm so broke. I can't even pay attention.
"You have the right not to be killed"
I have thought about this a lot lately and think I have some reasonable answers.
1. The launch was horrible. It is very difficult for a game to recover, it can be done but it's difficult. Eve recovered after all. And no Wow wasn't a bad launch, there was a few bugs, loot lag and server ques, thats about it. Dark and light was worse yes but D&L is gone. VG did have a very bad launch. People today are not as forgiving of games as there were when EQ, UO, DAOC, AO, AC launched.
2. There are a great many good things in the game but it doesn't excel at very many of them
Grahics - environment - stunning. Really good here
- models - pretty ugly actually.
Races - pretty good there are a lot to choose from
Classes - not bad. Some unique, some not. And some unique twists to older classes, e.g bards making their own songs. Give them props for this one.
Housing - too limited. Yes you can make a house in the world. But there are very limited styles. Istaria does this better, even EQ2 with the ability to build the house by blocks and boards (although still instanced) is IMO better. The housing sounds nice but it is so limited it doesn't excite me. So if you join a game for housing this won't excite you.
Crafting - is just ok. Yes you can customize. But it's pretty grindy and other games do this better. Again Istaria has a more robust crafting system, Eve is pretty good, Ryzom is better, Atitd is way better. So if you join for crafting this system won't excite you.
Diplomacy - not much to say about this. I personally didn't like it but it's the only game with it so give them a plus for it.
Flight - it has them actually does a decent job of it. Flights are everywhere so props again.
Adv - about the same as other games. Good areas, bad areas, good quests, bad quests.
Quests - bout the same as modern games.
Dungeons - they are open which is often a plut. So
So overall VG is a good game. But it just doesn't have enough to diferentiate it from another game. And if someone is allready playing a game with good crafting or housing, VG doesn't offer enough to take them away.
example. I do play Istaria for the crafting, mutli-classing and housing. However I recently found out that EQ2 offers ways to build your house so you can literally build anything you want. This is as good as Istaria (althought still an instance) but the adventure side is better than Istaria. So I've switched, or rather play EQ2 as well as Istaria. Istaria still offers dragons, but EQ2 has it matched on crafting, and beat on adventuring.
So when I look at VG and think about playing again. It doesn't have anything to pull me from my current games, and I think a lot of other people feel that way as wel.. While it is good, it didn't have enough to pull them away.
But I keep checking because there are updates, because I have tried it several times, because I do have stationa access and games change. I thought EQ2 was boring on release, now especially with the housing it's pretty good.