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Vanguard: Saga of Heroes: F2P Version Officially Launches
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Today marks the official launch of the Vanguard: Saga of Heroes hybrid subscription-free to play version. Players can now check out much of the game without any monthly subscription.
Find out more about the differences between the subscription and F2P versions by checking out the matrix on the Vanguard: Saga of Heroes site.
*The official site has an announcement that servers will be brought down at 8:00 am PDT for a hotfix.
Comments
No its not. But ive been playing in the last week and having a great time. So many new faces in the lower levels.
^^ HAVING A BLAST!
VG soft launched ftp last week as "sneak peek" but today is the official day
Our Sneak Peek at Free to Play. Your Way
http://forums.station.sony.com/vg/posts/list.m?topic_id=57985
In case you haven't seen the news, we've announced the official date for the Vanguard Saga of Heroes free-to-play launch: Tuesday, August 14, 2012!
We didn't want to keep you - our most loyal and dedicated Vanguard citizens - waiting any longer, so we've released all of the free-to-play features for you to experience FIRST!
EQ2 fan sites
I'm sure I'll be logging back in on all my old characters to give it a go . . . this game still has my favorite crafting system of all times!
Maybe when you lack content like GW2 does
Vanguard is HUGE easily 30 dungeons in the game between level 8 and 55 maybe more. Vanguard was truly the last MMO made that tried to make an epic world of this scale rift, swtor, gw2, tsw, tera all of them lack even a fraction of the size vanguard had at launch.
Also the F2P isn't very restrictive you can wear almost all blue items and any quest reward you get. If you decide to sub its only 7.50 a month if you pay yearly which is the best option in my opinion or its 14.99 a year if you get station access and have access to all SOE games. Also with any sub you get 500 station cash free per month.
GW2 has 8 dungeons with 3 different paths you can take, so its really 24 at launch and the promis of much more to come. I am not worried about a lack of content. I only play 1 MMO at a time so 15 bucks a month is still a rip off. If it was a flat fee of 4-7 bucks a month I would jump at playing Vanguard as I love the world and the classes but I refuse to play 15 bucks a month and I wont shell out for a year for any MMO, even one I am enjoying curently. To many quality MMOs coming out that have a much more appealing price point. GW2, NWN. People using a game like GW2 with a cash shop spend on average about 4-7 bucks a month. For me thats a fair price.
You obviously don't go out a lot. Going out to eat for dinner cost around 10$. A movie is 10$. A cup of starbucks is 5$... 4-7$ a month a month can beg for more money in 1 hour than that.
Its called market value, I make a cup of coffee at home for $0.20 but I am willing to goto a coffee shop for 2 bucks. I could afford 5-10 bucks for a cup of coffee every day but I am not willing to pay it. Why? Because I can get value for my money for 2-5 bucks at the local coffee shop. DDO and GW1 has proved they can make lots of money and make enough content to make customers happy with a average of 4-7 bucks a month from customers.
I have been playing GW2 and its as quality as an MMO can get. I am having bucks of fun in PvE and WvW. So why would I jump ship to play an older game and pay more? Market value of Vanguard is F2P but not as SoE has it set up. Make it really free to play or charge 4-6 bucks a month.
"I am not in a server with Gankers...THEY ARE IN A SERVER WITH ME!!!"
Deeper gameplay? More content? Larger world? Old-school difficulty? I'm not saying everyone is going to be placing those particular things at the top of their list in terms of what they value, but you asked for some reasons to jump to an older game, and those are a few.
Waiting on: The Repopulation
Deeper gameplay - GW2 has a new depth to MMOs no MMO has done
More Content - yup Vanguard does have that, but for a new MMO GW2 has lots
Larger World - yup Vanguard dose have that, but you dont need larger to have fun
Old-School difficulty - Ya I enjoyed playing an Enchanter in Vanguard and the completity of the team balance. Again GW2 has DPS, Mob Controle and Healing. Its just packaged different and its not easy. It takes skill.
SoE will need to do a lot more to win this. I get you are a Vanguard fan and in its day I loved it deeply to. But with new action MMO combat and new lands to explore. Dungeons to see in new MMOs, with fresh stories and lore. Why? Well I would come back to Vanguard if I saw a deal. Thats why I am posting. I am telling SoE what I think of their F2P model. They want my business, then get with the new market value. I would play for 4-7 bucks a month. Or I would play if it was really F2P with a cash shop like GW2 has. No pay to win. For that I would go back to playing my Enchanter.
You like GW2 ? Fine, go play it when it's released !
You like Vanguard ? Fine, go play it right now !
But I know one of those 2 will get a lot of content over time and a large population, the other is dying.
I'm playing Vanguard until GW2 is out. Don't care if it's F2P model sucks. I wont have time to find out...
Actually, I'm not a Vanguard fan per se, as I haven't been playing the game that long. I just wanted to point out some things about the game that are reasons why a person might be willing to pay for their content instead of paying box price for GW2's content.
Some people still do place a higher priority on things such as Deeper gameplay (despite your assertations, Vanguard does trump GW2 in this area), content, large world size, and old-school difficulty. Obviously most will prefer GW2, because Vanguard really will be a niche title at best due to its complexity and lack of PvP. But for me personally, in terms of PvE, I'll take Vanguard over GW2. I do realize that most won't, however.
You can start at the trial isle or one of several starter areas. You used to have a racial starter area but it seems that they've changed that a bit in order to condense new players into fewer areas.
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
I like how you see things....... know the value of hard earn money!
After I had played WoW for a couple years, the time i went to try Vanguard I felt that feeling you got when you fired up your first MMO, big world, so much things to do, you just want to explore and do all kind of things, crafting for a couple of days because it's pretty complex and fun! doing some dungeons that could take hours to complete, while having a nice and mature group, it really felt good. Don't know if I'll be playing that much though.
They fixed no bugs since ftli announcement,they actually addded a ton more. Performance is worse since ftli announcement. The matrix is still horrible. It truly is launch day part 2,just sit back and watch what new faces try it dwindle away.
Vg may have had more content (mostly broken) at release but to say this game has near what another 5 year old game has is ludicrous. Crafting and diplomacy have 2-3 questlines and the rest is grinding. 1-50 take less than a month casual play, and everbody does the same content 51-55. Aside from being able to level multiple chars 1-50 in different areas,content isnt a positive for this game.
As far as deeper gameplay,its no "deeper" than eq1,eq2,or even wow. 99% of the quests are kill,collect,or deliver. You have your hand held from quest hub to quest hub via rifts.
If $15 a month wasn't enough to notice falling out of your wallet, Vanguard would have had a much larger sub base. Simply put, they don't. Making the gear sub restricted is STUPID. Slot unlocks, class unlocks, these were expected, and encouraged. Bag unlocks, yep. But gear??
Worse, individual gear, not entire tier unlocks. LOTRO does it right. Aion has forever free done reallllly right (of course, they have GW2 coming out around the corner to pay for it, even if the cash shop doesn't).
Too many restrictions on f2p players kills it for them. Players like to play games with decent populations. Having a cash restriction on f2p even deeper than Korean grind f2p MMOs? Worse than rent-it-for-a-month Nexon?
Crafted items should never be in a cash shop. I don't care about the base sets available (level 11). High end carpenter house items?? NEVER. Making sure that much of the crafter gear cannot be used by f2p crowd? That's gimping the market for crafters- most of whom are paying a sub.