HJ vs Vanguard

Huntn · September 2006

Do most members members consider these games roughly equals, despite Vanguard hitting the street first?
I figure in this forum Heros Journey will come out on top.

Anyhow, I'm looking for a solo friendly game and a minimum of instanced space. I'm very intrigued by HJ and I like the concept of individualized paths, but am wondering how those will turn out in actuality and how solo or small group friendly either game will be.

_Shadowmage · September 2006

Personally I would say apart from being high fantasy these games are nothing alike.

Instances
- HJ is using instances for missions / story telling
- Vanguard from what I have read doesnt have instances at all

Role-playing
- HJ to me is more about role playing. And I find it a lot easier to role-play in a group than solo.

Customization
- Both games seem to allow a lot of character customization.

Crafting
- Vanguard has a very strong crafting system, with crafting being a career path.
- Crafting in HJ is more customization of your gear using Wyr and anyone can do it.

Both games are class based
- HJ is a dual class system. This gives you more flexibility in designing a character to suit what you want.
- Vanguard is a single class system. They have lots of classes to choose from.

Mounts
- Vanguard has ships and horses and maybe after release flying mounts
- I cant recall if HJ will have riding or not.

Diplomacy
- Vanguard has diplomacy as a career path

Raids - missions for large groups of people
- Vanguard has raids available at various stages and catering to various levels.
- I dont think HJ has raids as such.

Grouping
- HJ from what I have read they have some sort of scaling system in place so high and low level characters can adventure together.
- Vanguard - a lot of the content is designed towards groups

Soloing
- From what I read 20% of Vanguard content is designed for solo play.
- HJ - not sure. But the game is about your Heroic Journey so no reason you cant solo the non instanced areas. Of course some class combinations will be more durable than others.

Death Penalty
- Vanguard has a death penalty and higher penalties balanced against higher rewards depending on what you are doing.
- HJ - I havent read anything about this - doesnt mean there isnt one.

World Size
- Vanguard has two large continents, and some island archipelagos.
- HJ is a world broken up into various shards. Not sure on size.

Travel
- Vanguard has no instant travel, but travelling between locations on the same continent should only take 30 minutes tops. If you avoid encounters. They also have a caravan system so you can travel whilst logged out.
- HJ has instant travel using some sort of way point system. But you still have to travel to the closest waypoint.

Huntn · September 2006

ShadowMage, great info. Thanks! I need a mostly solo or small group game. I guess it remains to be seen.

DeserttFoxx · September 2006

HJ and vangaurd arent equal.

Id elaborate but i would violate some NDA. But i will say, if HJ comes out remotely resembling Vanguard i wont play it.

Foxeye · September 2006

Nice list Shadowmage! Another thing I'd add is that HJ will have teleportation (I think), whereas Vanguard will be overland travel by foot, mount, or ship.

I'd venture to say that VAnguard might be more gritty "low fantasy" while HJ will be more high fantasy. More about being "the hero", and less about just being a bloke making their way. Because of diplomacy and crafting, Vanguard will have paths to follow other than hack-hack-hack-the-beast. But yet...HJ will probably have cooler storylines and more interesting quests. I suppose whether there is non combat content depends on the GMs!

Techleo · September 2006

HJ reminds me alot of CoH. In CoH you have mostly instanced content that drives the story ahead. Your choices determine which instances you can take. Wide story arcs are available. Ive yet to play the same series of story arcs on CoH in 8 Alias. In HJ it takes it up a notch allowing for more then one way to finish a mission. Essentially it makes it feel like your writing your own story. Well anycase I dont see many similiarities between the two games.

watto112 · September 2006

What about the EQ II' esque grafix of Vanguard? Where are the dense forrest for example, all I've seen so far are some trees dotted around the landscape 5-10 yards apart. No real mystery there .

I will prolly give it a try though, since it will be released about half a year earlier than HJ.

Morneblade · September 2006

Not touching VSoH with a 10 foot pole

Amathe · September 2006

There are few games whose design philosophies and gameplay are more radically different than Vanguard and Hero's Journey.

In Hero's Journey, more fun, less tedium.

In Vanguard, tedium is fun.

EliasThorne · September 2006

There you go - both games share almost all the same words in their philosophy

Techleo · September 2006

Frankly I like what VSoH offers. I dont care who is making it realy. I also dont care if its Group or solo centric anymore. I used to. Now that im playing CoH I get why people like to group. It can be fun if its done right. I was realy impressed when I heard how they balanced Bards in VSoH. Not to mention the crafting and various other elements. Mind you Id need to be in the mood for a more serious game to start VSoH and ill prolly wait a few months after release before I join in. In the end I try all games.

fansede · September 2006

From what i have been reading Vanguard is going to be intense and demanding. Solo content and combat is there but doesn't appear to break any ground. I think because they are not emphasizing it. Where VG wants to shine is group combat. This is where all the "choices" in combat pop up. All the various mini events and message pop up as dynamic battle conditions change.

So VG is not bot friendly. So it will make you think and play. Hence is "Tedium is fun" sort of mind set.

Its been awhile since th HJ devs popped in to MMORPG.com. Anyone know the State of the Game?

Amathe · September 2006

Originally posted by fansede

VG is not bot friendly. So it will make you think and play. Hence is "Tedium is fun" sort of mind set.

There is absolutely no reason to believe that Vanguard will require any more, or less, thought to play than HJ. Nor is there any reason to believe that HJ will feature botting to any greater or lesser degree than Vanguard.

Techleo · September 2006

Depends on how much player interaction is necessary and if theres randomnicty in the action timings. You can make a game nearly impossible to bot. Seen it done more then once. Hrmm I do agree though. I think HJ will require as much thought as Vang.

DeserttFoxx · September 2006

Originally posted by Techleo
Depends on how much player interaction is necessary and if theres randomnicty in the action timings. You can make a game nearly impossible to bot. Seen it done more then once. Hrmm I do agree though. I think HJ will require as much thought as Vang.

The word your looking for is spontaneity, since randomnicty is a word that does not exsist in the english langauge.

And to be honest, vangaurd isnt a contender for Hero's Journey, if they follow through with their promises, vangaurd wont even be an after thought.

Agent_X7 · September 2006

Originally posted by DeserttFoxx

Originally posted by Techleo
Depends on how much player interaction is necessary and if theres randomnicty in the action timings. You can make a game nearly impossible to bot. Seen it done more then once. Hrmm I do agree though. I think HJ will require as much thought as Vang.

The word your looking for is spontaneity, since randomnicty is a word that does not exsist in the english langauge.

And to be honest, vangaurd isnt a contender for Hero's Journey, if they follow through with their promises, vangaurd wont even be an after thought.

Just a friendly word of advice: Never correct someone and then make a blatant mistake in the next sentence you type. It doesn't look good.

baphamet · September 2006

Originally posted by DeserttFoxx
And to be honest, vangaurd isnt a contender for Hero's Journey, if they follow through with their promises, vangaurd wont even be an after thought.

haha okay buddy, as far as i can see there is alot bigger fan following as well as vanguard being alot farther in development. i think HJ looks like a game with potential but from what i can tell vanguard will be out for quite some time before HJ releases.

so that being said i think it will be really ruff for HJ to pull the people away that are already hooked onto vanguard (assuming vanguard has a successful launch ofcource).

yeah HJ has their fanbase and will do just fine I'm sure..... but to say vanguard will be a afterthought because of HJ being launched a considerable amount of time after vanguard does..... it is laughable at best. ::::12::

Adela · September 2006

I don't think the kind of people who are wanting to play Vanguard would be interested in HJ and vice versa. HJ is going to be an RP centric, solo friendly game. Very few soloers are going to play Vanguard, at least for long.

It's a good thing Vanguard will be out first. By the time HJ makes the scene, all those disgruntled casuals suffering through Vanguard will be ripe for the picking.

Note that I'm not slamming Vanguard...it will be a very good game...but it will also be very different.

Stellos · September 2006

I'm not so sure that with what VSoH has released that it is the big group game that everyone is saying it is. Grouping is necessary for dungeons ect... but Sigil has said that the main emphasis is not going to be item-centric. Meaning, to play solo would be accepted in many if not most cases. VSoH does not appear to be a game that you will be forced to group all the time, just if you want to go into dungeons or what not.

Anofalye · September 2006

Originally posted by Adela

I don't think the kind of people who are wanting to play Vanguard would be interested in HJ and vice versa. HJ is going to be an RP centric, solo friendly game. Very few soloers are going to play Vanguard, at least for long.

Well, if it was not for the raiding enforcement in Vanguard, I would actually be looking forward the release of both games. I agree that I belong to a minority of players however. However, I am also quite sure many Vanguard folks are looking forward to try HJ, especially in their staff, the fact the engine is used by BioWare must seriously hitch quite a few devs, although for PR reasons they would not talk openly. Devs who love to play games want to play games that they didn't built, to relax and enjoy...and vanguard as a roleplaying server, even if they pretty much fail to deliver a strong roleplaying, the interest and motivation is there.

Would I prefer a non-raiding server in Vanguard or HJ? That would be a very hard question for someone as me to answer, I understand that both game are extremely different and yes, Vanguard is a "tedium" game for many players. However, if I could just get completely rid of raiding, I would be very ambiguous as to which game I would prefer and would have to try both...As of now, Vanguard has no interest in a non-raiding server, which result in not even been on my "to try list".

I will admit that beside the game balancing stuff, I never read anything that displease me from HJ and the way it is built, they are nearly perfect, at least in theory. I am looking forward to try HJ.

eric_w66 · September 2006

Truer words never spoken...

The Vision says, "If you're having fun, you must not be playing a game built around the Vision!"

Foxeye · October 2006

Originally posted by Adela
I don't think the kind of people who are wanting to play Vanguard would be interested in HJ and vice versa. HJ is going to be an RP centric, solo friendly game. Very few soloers are going to play Vanguard, at least for long.

Am I the exception that proves the rule then? Because I'm definitely interested in both, and consider myself well-informed about both (short of actually playing either, which I haven't).
Even though I like the ability to solo and duo, my favorite game was one where groups and raiders had the advantage. Something about the overall community and world. So fwiw, I don't think I can predict at this time which game would be more fulfilling for my playstyle.

scribe9 · October 2006

she will cheat on jerry

Lord_Paladin · October 2006

I'm not even remotely interested in playing Vanguard. That said, i have
several friends who decided it looked awesome and went into the beta.

If you played EQ, you've played Vanguard. Its the same game but in a
new place with updated graphics. Personally, i dont want to grind that
much to get into high level raids while everyone tries to get the
specific X weapon of uberness.

HJ is all about being unique, customizable, and being the hero. The
Journey system, the nemesis system, the wyr system... the GMs updating
the game LIVE (no large patches to download). Constant content coming
out on a regular basis, GM events...

Vandguard has none of that, only HJ.

Not to mention HJ has -the- most powerful character generator in any game, bar none.

Rattrap · October 2006

Originally posted by Huntn
ShadowMage, great info. Thanks! I need a mostly solo or small group game. I guess it remains to be seen.

I am sure both HJ and VsoH will be very good MMOs , much better than the current favorites Connan and especially Warhammer

eric_w66 · October 2006

Originally posted by Anofalye

Originally posted by Adela

I don't think the kind of people who are wanting to play Vanguard would be interested in HJ and vice versa. HJ is going to be an RP centric, solo friendly game. Very few soloers are going to play Vanguard, at least for long.

Well, if it was not for the raiding enforcement in Vanguard, I would actually be looking forward the release of both games. I agree that I belong to a minority of players however. However, I am also quite sure many Vanguard folks are looking forward to try HJ, especially in their staff, the fact the engine is used by BioWare must seriously hitch quite a few devs, although for PR reasons they would not talk openly. Devs who love to play games want to play games that they didn't built, to relax and enjoy...and vanguard as a roleplaying server, even if they pretty much fail to deliver a strong roleplaying, the interest and motivation is there.

Would I prefer a non-raiding server in Vanguard or HJ? That would be a very hard question for someone as me to answer, I understand that both game are extremely different and yes, Vanguard is a "tedium" game for many players. However, if I could just get completely rid of raiding, I would be very ambiguous as to which game I would prefer and would have to try both...As of now, Vanguard has no interest in a non-raiding server, which result in not even been on my "to try list".

I will admit that beside the game balancing stuff, I never read anything that displease me from HJ and the way it is built, they are nearly perfect, at least in theory. I am looking forward to try HJ.

What I've read on the forums of VSOH is that the game is extremely item centric. Everything in the game revolves around your gear and your level. That's what EQ was, that's what VSOH will be. This is the Vision. They want you to grind for 3 years to get that sword that does 0.000512 more damage per second.

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