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Vanguard: Saga of Heroes Review: It's a Gem of a Game - Edit
7.7
| Pros |
 Beautiful open world Much more polished than at launch Three deep spheres of game play |
| Cons |
 Hard to justify subscription fee Some archaic game systems Still some balancing issues |
I’ve said it before, and I’ll keep saying it: Vanguard is a gem of a game that could use a little developer love, some aggressive marketing, and a change in revenue model to achieve its potential. Sony Online Entertainment’s four-year old game is not perfect, but it has come a long way since launch and is definitely worth a try for anyone who relishes in extremely deep PvE content and a huge open world to explore.
If you’re not already familiar with the game, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is a high-fantasy themed MMORPG originally developed by Sigil Games Online and acquired by SOE. It was billed as a truly massive game experience, with a huge explorable game world and three “spheres” of gameplay, but as we mentioned in our original review and re-review, it didn’t initially live up to players’ expectations and had a pretty rocky launch. Its plethora of bugs, lack of polish and end-game content, and rapidly diminishing player base discouraged a lot of people from checking out what was considered to be an unfinished product.
We’re happy to report that most of the performance issues have been fixed, and a ton of content has been added since launch. In addition, while the community remains small and SOE hasn’t done much with the game for the past year and a half or so, the player population seems to be slowly growing and the developers have begun a new content and balancing push. We can’t say exactly how much support the game will be getting in the coming months, and will be basing our re-review on the game as it currently exists, but we can say that Vanguard is very much well-worth checking out and has the potential to become even better if SOE can continue improving on its strengths.
Gameplay 9/10
Vanguard’s gameplay is one of the deepest available of any MMORPG on the market. With the exception of games like Everquest, few MMOs provide the sheer amount of variety in character classes, races, and gameplay options as Vanguard. The game has 15 classes and 19 races to choose from, and a ton of character customization options. You can make your half-elven druid as short and squat as you like, or choose from a number of colors for your raki (fox-person) rogue’s fur. The best part about creating your character? You can change her/his look anytime from the character select screen, without having to deal with bothersome “phials of shifting nose hairs” or in-game stylists.
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Vanguard continues to be a beautiful game.
Most of the races have their own starting areas, which is great if you’re an alt-oholic like we are and like trying out different classes without having to run the same beginning quests. The game originally shipped with three huge continents, each having their own distinct style, ranging from the Western-themed forests of Thestra, to the Eastern islands of Kojan, and the desert sands of Qalia. Since launch, the Isle of Dawn newbie and 14-day trial starter area was added, which provides a much more streamlined tutorial experience for all races and classes, and is much appreciated for a game that can be overwhelming if you’re just starting out.
Vanguard has three “spheres” of gameplay: Adventuring, Diplomacy, and Crafting. Adventuring encompasses questing, combat, dungeons and basically everything you’d expect from most MMORPGs. The types of quests range from pretty standard kill and fetch quests to more interesting quest chains that have long, lore-driven story arcs. Combat is very standard MMO hotbar stuff, with a plethora of skills and abilities, and has some archaic skill progression components, like having to train in multiple versions of Skill X as you level, rather than having your abilities automatically progress with you.
Diplomacy is a kind of collectible card game that is completely distinct from the other two gameplay spheres, and has its own quests, rewards, outfits, and items. You have a deck of cards that you can choose from to build your “strategy,” and can engage in conversations with NPCs to achieve different quest goals and even affect city-wide attribute bonuses. If you’ve ever played any kind of CCG, you’ll instantly be able to see how the system works, as you have to collect different kinds of cards and strategize accordingly to out-diplomacize your NPC opponents. It’s very deep and addictive, and is a great way to learn more about Vanguard’s lore and intrigue between its different factions. We’re very happy to report that Diplomacy feels much more balanced since we last played.
The third gameplay sphere, Crafting, is also very complex and satisfying, letting you collect all your raw materials through your harvesting skill and complete different mini-games that affect the quality of your crafts. It’s an interesting take on traditional MMO crafting and also has its own quests, gear and rewards, but can feel tedious at times as the mini-games aren’t nearly as interesting as Adventuring or Diplomacy. The crafting rewards are pretty righteous though, as you can make your own houses, themed by whichever continent you’re on, and boats – seriously, your own boats! – alongside your standard arms and armor, items and so on.
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Diplomacy is fun, deep, and addictive.
It should be mentioned that as the three spheres are completely distinct, you can level your character to level 50 in Diplomacy without even shaking a fist at a monster or crafting a pair of shoelaces, although you might need some friends to help you get to high-level quest givers.
Vanguard has all of the trappings of a traditional MMO, with questing, classes, and the like, but has such huge, explorable continents that it’s easy to get lost and see the game’s more open world elements. If you’d like to run or ride your mount from one side of the continent to the other, you can, or rent/purchase your own flying mount and check out Telon’s topography. You can also use the “Riftway” system, which will teleport you to different locations in the world for a small fee. Exploring Telon is really fun and probably one of our favorite aspects of the game.
There are a fair amount of dungeons and raids in Vanguard, almost all of which are also open world, meaning that you won’t find any instanced content here. The most popular ones seem to be the Tomb of Lord Tsang at lower levels and the Ancient Port Warehouse and the Pantheon of the Ancients at higher levels. They each have very interesting designs and players are usually actively looking for groups to run them, and while some of the lower level dungeons can be completed with a couple of people, you’ll need a full group or raid to accomplish everything in the endgame dungeons. However, there isn’t nearly as much endgame content here as in other games of the same type, so if raiding is your thing, you may want to look elsewhere.
While Vanguard is an excellent PvE game, a fully featured PvP game it is not. There’s a dueling system that you can try out, and that’s pretty much it. If you’re a hardcore PvPer, there’s not much here for you in the way of battlegrounds or open world ganking.
We should also note that there’s a bunch of soloable content in the game, but some classes will fare much more easily than others due to the way balancing works. Classes with the ability to self-heal and some of the hybrid classes have a much easier time of adventuring by themselves than casters and rogues, for example. We’ve been told this might change with the upcoming balancing fixes, but as the game stands right now, your solo experience might be less or more challenging based on the class you choose.
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Combat is pretty standard, but has a lot of variety.
As deep as the gameplay already sounds, there are several other systems available that enhance the experience, such as Caravans, which allow groups to travel across the world together even if some players are offline, and Brotherhoods, which allow you to share experience that you gain with friends who are offline. And there’s fishing! Vanguard has some of the deepest gameplay experiences out there, and you can be sure that if you pick it up, you won’t be bored.
Innovation: 7/10
Vanguard innovates in a lot of ways, and shows its age in many others. On the one hand, having three fully detailed spheres of game systems is really refreshing in a genre that seems to promote cookie cutter gameplay. Combat may not feel like anything new to veteran MMORPG players, but Diplomacy is a lot of fun and Crafting is a new take on the MMO standard build-your-own chicken costume (we haven’t seen any chicken costumes yet, but who knows, they might be in there). At the same time, there are the archaic skill progression systems that we mentioned, and the game isn’t really driving the genre forward with its features.
The world of Telon itself is fantastically realized in ways that many other MMOs are not, but you really have to go looking for Vanguard’s lore to experience its depth. At first glance, the game looks like your standard Tolkien-inspired fantasy, but once you really get into meeting the different factions and playing a lot of diplomacy (we play a LOT of diplomacy), you start to get a feel for how creative Vanguard’s developers are at crafting the world. Still, the MMO genre is ever-evolving, and Vanguard hasn’t pushed any boundaries since its launch four years ago.
Polish 7/10
The best thing we can say about Vanguard’s polish is that the game works. This is probably great news for people who played it at or around launch, when the game felt like an unfinished product with all of its bugs and balance issues. Most all of the major bug issues have been fixed over time, with a lot of balancing, and the game feels much more cleaned up.
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The Isle of Dawn is an alternate newbie and 14-day trial area.
There are still a fair amount of small bugs and open-world jank in the game, like quest text repeating itself or objects clipping through the environment. And for the love of all that is good and wholesome about raki, can someone please do something about the pixilated monster and NPC name font?! It makes the game look really low-budget and has got to be easy to fix.
The user interface is pretty good looking and you can customize it easily. Likewise, the map and quest tracking work just fine, although we’d like to have a bit more detail in the map so we don’t keep getting lost in the major cities. Also, while the world is completely seamless, meaning that there is very little instancing in Vanguard, you can still tell when you’re entering a new zone, as the game will slow down to load all of the textures. It’s not a big deal, and better than it was at launch, but is definitely noticeable.
We appreciate that there are things like an appearance/outfit system and attribute points that you can earn and spend on your character, but more information on how to use them (or even that they’re there) would go a long way. Even with the Isle of Dawn starter area, there’s not a lot of in-game explanation for a lot of the different layers that Vanguard has, and you might find yourself overwhelmed with all of the options available.
I love this game, but I wish it had better success
I was there at the start of this game, and while it as beautiful, huge and open, some things just didn't entertain me:
1. Dull character models and armour.
2. The world itself seemed unpopulated, sparse, and bereft of soul. NPCs would just stand around doing nothing - or in the case of dark elves, would do rediculous crap like stand around and fart or burp - or would just walk a dull, monotonous set path down a corridor and back again.
needs f2p and pvp server
They should make VG2, updated grpahics, do it right this time. Leave the same game mechanics and grow on them. Could be a huge hit. Id go back to VG now but lack of players and old school graphics.........
This guy probably considers Oblivion to be "old school"
Yeah lol, meant to say older graphics :/ Old school came to mind from other forum readings.
My bad :P
Been thinking of returning myself... I am burnt on all the solo oriented MSORPGs that are coming out.
Massive
Solo Oriented
Online
Role
Playing
Games
Anyway hearing SOE is turning its attention back at it made me start think about giving it another go. I played it for 2 years thru all the bugs and still loved it. Not only for the game but for the community which I greatly miss.
Recently started playing again, enjoying it quite a bit. Good review.
Kinda burned out of Lineage II at the moment and looking around what other MMO to pick up (again). Vanguard has crossed my mind, but last time I was playing it (half a year ago), I got stuck around level 13, missing players to do group quests. Perhaps now is the time to give it an other go and hope that indeed the server is more active and I can actually do the party quests ;)
Tried this game 4 or 5 months ago.
1) Nobody was around. Nobody spoke. Nobody did anything. It was like playing a single player game.
2) After finishing the very first starting area and reaching a town i had just absolutely no clue what to do next. The minimap system in the game is awful and i found myself wandering around hoping to stumble across my objective. Instead i stumbled across a large group of strong enemies any one of which could probably have killed me by itself.
The game is lackluster, lonely, and uninteresting. It doesnt have what it takes to compete in the MMO market as it will be by the end of this year and i expect the game will fail at that time.
Currently the game does not have to be purchased to play. Simply download the 14 day trial and then subscribe!
also, the playerbase has been growing lately. i have played this game off and on for at least 3 years and i have never seen this many people on at one time on the US server. also, from what i understand many of the Oceanic and Euro players have moved to the US server, Telon.
there are three reasons i came back (again) recently, and in order of importance:
1. i always end up coming back no matter what else i try.
2. the promise of updates.
3. the drop in StationPass price.
i highly reccomend new players to do the Isle of Dawn and level up crafting and diplo while they are there if they have ANY inkling that they might want to do them later. the tutorials and rewards cannot be beat for starting off in those areas on the mainland.
also, find a good guild. Twilyghte Song regularly has 50 members or more on during the weekends, US time, though there are late night players.
I've been in the MMO duldroms for a couple years now. Tried Rift at release, got bored after a month. Last week I resubbed to WoW, played for a half hour and havn't touched it since, I'm sooo done with that game.
Really miss that immersion factor I use to get... a long time ago now.
Vanguard has the world and systems for that, but never had the population.
Really tempting to come back and giver her another go.
I played the trial and wasnt impressed. The gfx looked old, the adventuring was typical. Dumb AI, repetitive and slow action. It had some unique mechanics, but it just wasnt fun.
The game is great. The world is huge and feels very real and explorable. It is grouping oriented and has a harder edge to it, much like L2. While it is best played in group, the game is still mostly soloable and most classes can solo though some are faster at killing than others. Warriors and Rogues probably have the toughest time soloing. There are lots of unusual classes and lots of interesting races to explore. Diplomacy isn't simply a mini game added to the main but a whole different way of "attacking" the world.
My only complaint is that the game lacks people playing it though many have been coming into the game recently because of the new push of bugfix updates and the promise of content updates. I hate the idea of Vang going free to play but that may be the best way to boost the population back to a healthy level. This seems like the likely path though for Vang since SOE is big on the F2P now and they have recently show renewed interest in the game and have assigned developers to the project again.
For this reason I think Vanguard has a promising future as an F2P or nearF2P.
As for graphics, Vanguard was way ahead of its time on some things. Only now are the most current crop of games passing it. But some things are lacking. Textures and shadowing could do with some updates. Also the character animations are primitive and the models are blocky by curent standards. Also the graphics could use some optimization for new hardware. Overall the graphics are still very good but could use some work in places.
"its clear SOE love this game" at that point I found it very very difficult to take your review as an objective one I am afraid.
SOE love EQ 2, beyond that, no.... they dont "love" their games, they are slowly slowly changing in attitudes towards their games but it is a very gradual change and they have yet to come up with anything but talk about Vanguard so a renaissance review is a little premature.
Still atleast it plays to the audience you have here, which is basically where the Vanguard fans come to nest.
I just wish to add a point to this very good review, aimed at those who may be interested in trying Vanguard.
As for the general levelling experience, I just want to point out that Vanguard is deeply different from more recent MMORPGs.
There is no endgame in the current meaning we got to know recently.
There's no such thing as rushing to the level cap in order to experience the "real" game (WoW, Rift), the levelling experience is the game.
The review didn't mention that the game features dozens of dungeons, and that the vast majority of them could take hours just to explore.
To give you an idea of the vastity of the group PVE content, I have maxed three characters to max level, and I have never repeated a single dungeon or haven't quested in the same zone twice (except from hunter's league, which gives a very nice armor set :P).
And all these dungeons are spread across all levels, because in Vanguard I think the goal is having fun while you play, and not play to have fun some day when you're all maxed out.
I'm currently playing with a dedicated group of friends and, I must say, we're all just having a lot of fun.
Diplomation always was great feature of the game.
From what I hear this is the best way, if not the only way to play this game anymore. It's tempting in this respect. If VG ever goes F2P with cash shop they probably could make more money off group oriented, friends leveling together types of things like summoning scrolls, group bonuses (dmg, exp, regen), group mobility (mounts or whatever), or anything else around this concept. It's still gotta be one of the best group-oriented games out there with EQ.
I've tried this game as well and played it for a few months. I was pleasantly suprised. It is old-school in some ways, but has some character classes and mechanics that you just dont find anywhere else. It's nice to go into an oldschool type open world with flying mounts and non-zoned dungeons.
It should be noted that the 50+ game is completely different than the game 1-50. The 1-50 game shines with some great content and promise. The 50+ game is reportedly a complete grind fest. But there's no reason why you have to play 50+...
If you’re only interested in vertical progression, or taking your character to the level cap and then raiding or doing PvP, it’ll take you a good long while to reach level 55, but you won’t have much to do after that. As we’ve mentioned, there are several dungeons and raids, but not much to do for hardcore raiders and really nothing at all for PvPers.
The article is a good read, but I wanted to weigh in on a little of what you wrote up there. How can someone justify a 8/10 score with that comment following? Nothing to do for pvp is not good for longevity, what I got from that comment was, "You can grind until cap, then start a new character and grind until cap, because there is really no endgame content (and no one to do it with.)"
I gave Vanguard a month and 2 weeks of time to enthrall me and it had a real problem in keeping my interest. My problem wasn't the graphics, I can get over the fact it is really outdated. What I wasn't happy with was the outdated mechanics and the lacking of current MMORPG tools that are being built in to most of the newer games.
If I may recommend a better game that a person would get more of their moneys worth if they are looking for a Wow-like game with decent pve and pvp, would be Rift. Yes, Rft has its issues, but the game is more up to date than Vanguard, has the full support of the developers and warrants your subscription.
This is how I approach all games regardless of it being Vanguard, AOC, WOW, etc... Have fun while you play and don't worry about the end-game. I recently returned to an MMO that everyone says is only endgame focused and I am having a blast leveling. And by the way, this is where I think Mythic messed up with DAOC - all the focus was on the RVR endgame and they ignored the PVE leveling experience.
And any MMO is better when it is experienced with a group of friends. Vanguard moreso since so much does require a group.
I wish more people approached MMO's as you do.
for someone who gave it a month and a half it appears you never really came to understand the basis of the is *not* grind to cap then the game begins. while someone can do either with any game, Vanguard is terrific because it encourages slow, long play, enjoy while you play, not enjoy only once youre done grinding.
those kinds of games rule the market right now. which is fine, people seem to enjoy them.
and clearly no game w/o pvp can have longevity, i mean look at FFXI ... oh wait.
and i wholeheartedly support your reccomendation that folks looking for a WoW experience, look elsewhere, particularly at Rift. you'll find Rift to be a great game for you. and you'll stay away from crying about Vanguard not being what you were looking for ~ a grindtocapandthenthefunbegins kind of game.
i play Vanguard because my ideas of fun do not include waiting in queues to grind the same battlefield over and over, or pugging the same raid over and over, hoping to gahd someone doesn't act like a complete jerkoff and ruin the run. because if we kick them, we then have to wait even longer for someone to fill the whole they left.
as for the graphics the only thing i hear ingame is people being amazed. i dont know what youre settings were at or what youre standards are but seeing as most forums are mostly for complainers, i'm sure youll agree having played WoW and Rift as i have, its unusual that no one says this.
either there is a gfx hard/software issue going on here or what would be even more fascinating for me a psychological mindset that attributes certain turns of movement, or curves of features which alerts someone to say, OMG that sux! or OMG thats awesome!
and geez, maybe someday i'll learn how to type in proper English ... =)
I stopped reading when the reviewer said Vanguard wasn't as pretty as Rift, AoC, or LotRO. I mean, AoC is debatable, and Rift might have better lighting in some cases. LotRO though? lmao, this site really plugs that game.
Sad thing is that SOE never advertised it nor really finished the game...
It would have been the summum of hardcore MMO's if it ever could have been finished by the orriginal crew.
SoE DID 'finish' it. They put a tremendous amount of effort into the game, fixing it from the awful mess that sigil left it on to what it is today. It was ALL SoE. And all a gigantic money sink.
I second the posts above; VG could be a great small group/small guild game. If they took a drastic change in their operational model, I think they could breathe some life into the game, but SoE just doesn't appear to be willing to invest into the game. I hate to even write this, but perhaps sending the game to one of the larger F2P vendors to integrate a cash shop model would pay off.
you mean re-invest.
After the amount of money SoE lost (granted Im assuming this, but that 18 months of fairly heavy bug squashing, optimizing, and adding content could not have been cheap) why should they invest again?
Put yourself in SoE's shoes on this one. They read post after post after post of 'great potential, too many bugs and performance issues. Fix that and Ill come back'. So they fixed it and no one came back. They added the end game content people wanted. People didnt come back. Nothing that has been done has brought people back. If you are SoE, what makes this batch of 'people will come/come back' any different than any other? Why should you believe it this time?
+1 and then they wouldnt be talking about population issues **being low** and pvp makes everything better ...sortta like bacon
They had pvp FFA servers..
Trust me ,you don't want a Bard kiting your ass.
The lotro environment is about as photorealitic as you can get. The animations are horrible. The environment is probably the best you can get.
Lotro, photorealistic...? For me it looks rather like a cartoon, the scenery is unrealistic, not even close to VG landscape.
My response to Vanguard over the years has always been the same: Refund me the box price from buying it the day it launched and give me an entire month free and I might check it out. Since that is not going to happen, I will never set foot in that world again.
I played the day it launched and it was literally the worst launch I have ever seen. The world crashed every hour and reset the saved data (both character and the landmarks that were supposed to be marked forever by the first person to find them). There were bugs all over the place. And, even though it was brand new, there wasn't a big population which was likely due to people trying to log in, seeing the game crashing a couple times and saying the hell with it.
You can't do a launch like that and expect all of those people you burned on the box price to ever come back and give you another shot. Even Final Fantasy gets that and gave people months worth of free time for how awful and unfinished their game was. But Vanguard? No, they just took everyon'e money and didn't give out and compensation for the massive unfinished, bug filled, crashing mess they released.
When was the last time you looked at a photo of a real landscape? You should maybe go out and have a quick look, LotrO is far from beeing anything but an upgraded WoW.
They had a full world PvP server at launch. I played it for a little while. The rules were silly (you could be in town next to guards doing the mini-game crafting and someone could kill you with no response from the guards or anything else). They also didn't add any PvP goals and essentially said they didn't plan on supporting it or tweaking the system/rules for it.
Also, due to the rule system, the game bugs, and the crashing no one played it. After the first week or two it was empty (of course so were most of the other servers).
In other words, I don't think that readding the PvP server will bring people back.
Im confidant that anyone playing the game would see Im right.
Its funny how people had different experiances. I played from launch as well. Yes it was laggy at times. I remember crashing maybe 3 times in the first week or 2 of the game... The game did give me a few graphical anomalies as well which I would volunteerily restart my computer because of. Not sure what server you were on. Mine was the RP server. It apparently wasnt as bad there. Played from launch up untill 2 years out.
Yes they did Optimize it considerably, and improve performance drastically. I do remember one bug fix which did cause a major memory leak along the way which did cause nonstop crashing. That came later though. Took them about 2 or 3 weeks to track it down and fix it.
All this being said. The reviewer of the game did an excellent job though in his review. The game has come a long way. It also looks as if SOE IS starting to re invest in this game. Which might make it even more worth while. All the people on these forums claiming they are wanting something different, than just another WOW clone. They could benifit from this review. Sure they might have played it before, and turned there backs at what it was like. However its changed. If you hate the game that much, then you will not have to worry one bit about it anymore because most likely you will never play again. Thats your decision. There are MANY new MMOers around. This game might be the game for them as well.
However for all of you that have played WOW or any of the WOW clones out there, and claim to be looking for a new game. This game is different than what you may have ever experianced. It is more involved. It is more open. It is more challenging. The game was not designed to hand you things on a silver platter. It takes longer to make it to the top, but the trip there is as fun as getting there. Also it was meant to be played with a group. Can you solo? Sure you can. But your not going to get anywhere near the experiance by soloing.
For all those that say they will never come back, I can understand that. I feel the same way with WOW... The funny thing is I actually liked WOW. I played it for almost 2 years. However after years of WOW clones some that I actually liked better than WOW, and that also looked better than wow graphically WOW... Why would I want to go back to the it? Tired of the design of the game is really the reason.
to me, LotRO is somewhere in between the cartoony nature of WoW and the realism of Vanguard. Now I will say that there are a lot of areas in VG that look flat out unfinished and bad (seems to be a theme with the game), but I think if you were to compare some of the most impressive areas in each game, Vanguard will win hands down.
If you were to compare things like textures, lighting effects, and the like, Vanguard wins without quesiton. LotRO was designed to run on mid-range machines in 2007, so you won't see a lot of detailed texures. LotRO does a good job at tricking people into thinking the game is better looking than it is thanks to its impressive draw distance. Vanguard was designed with the future in mind (big mistake honestly) and it shows as most games still do not have the level of graphical complexity of that game, especially given that it's open world.
The environments sometimes look stunning sometimes look like a childs paintings but there are some lovely parts to find if you explore. I do like that part, however the characters are another matter all together, they might look ok in still screenshots but the animations are still clunky and feel unresponsive.
I think the real point that as missed was how he could make that statement and then still give the category an 8/10. If I were to write a review, which I have written a few. I would not give a game a category score of 80% (because thats how metacritic looks at those scores too) unless it was...really good.
I've seen this in a few threads today, I'll close it up with this: Its simply a matter of taste. Some people like pizza with anchovies, some hate it, some people like pizza with bacon and mushrooms, some don't. At the end of the day, it comes down to personal preference, taste and experience value.
Normally, I would take it as a challenge and reinstall the Vanguard software off my shelf, or download it. Reinstate my account and give it another month, writing my own review at the end of it. Right now I am in-between games until Skyrim. Anyone want to take me up on it?
I left the game right after I had built my own house and a boat. Which at the time was a huge investment in resources. Too bad I cannot get Sony to unlock my account after it was hacked, I would love to go back and see what has been improved.
too many quality F2P games out therenow. I liked vanguard played it for 5-6 months right around launch and survived all the bugs and problems, but no population kills a game with as huge a land mass as that one has. Only way to get bodies playing it is to go free to play in some way. While people think that kills games if done in a way that is hybrid it can work. EvE is basically free to play if you play enough. So somethinglike that where you can buy game time with in game money, points, whatever.
And the list of free games just keeps growing so while some peopel might go back and try it they dont usually all go back at once. So even having some free to play week or even month and have a massive campaign to see just how big numbers could be would be a start.
Good game but it needs a larger population than most because it is so big. Problem is the people just arent there.
Vanguard is an amazing game with lots of potential. I just could not justify investing my time and money in a game that had a questionable future.
I left after a developer news update a year (or more) ago that effectively cancelled a highly anticipated content update and stipulated that future updates would be limited to bug and balancing patches. They also made apologies for the lack of staff assigned to the game who had the potential to do little more than keep the lights on. This all sounded a lot like a "swan song" to me.
This games is so well regarded within the MMO community. If SOE showed even a modest interest in reviving Vanguard I am fairly confident their efforts would be well rewarded.
Vanguard is such a shame...
All the building blocks are there.
If I could be boss for a day (lol a year)
I would
A: rework the character models and animations
B: place the building plots in and around the towns and cities
C: create naval weapon's and naval content for the boat's (pirate ships and sea monsters that take multible ships to take down would be so cool)
D: make it F2P for 3 months and advertise the hell out of it
E: have an active suggestions forum, let the playerbase know what your working on, keep them informed, make them feel that it's as much their game as it is your's
If its so well regarded then how come no one plays it? And Im talking 18 months ago when it was in a very similar state to it is now,w ith the same positive aura, and SoE was doing regular content updates and basically completely turned the game from unplayable to what it is now.
Im sure if players showed a modest interest in playing the game their efforts would be rewarded. In fact, SoE is satrting to do bug squashes and such again for the game as reports are that numbers are on the rise.
And unlike many, I dont feel f2p is the way to go. What model could they possibly use? The flow of the game is too non linear to use the Turbine model. The EQ2 model was a failure. Plus, while f2p has worked better than expected in LOTRO and DDO, the type of player Vanguard attracts is less likely to be a f2per. vanguard is a deep, vast game and not for the impatient. The instant gratifcation factor just isnt as high.
Now if you want to say maybe make a 60 day trial period or something like that, perhaps they could do that, but thats an awfully big monetary risk for a game that really shows no signs that a big retention is likely.
hmm review and coments got me interested ... downloaded installer, then it asked for 18GB of free space. no thanks ... unless I find an offline installer this game is not for me.
I absolutely agree, loads of people saying they wished the population was higher but won't re-sub because it is too low... catch22. I have thought about the same thing and as soon as I get home I am going to re-sub and at least give it a chance.
Vanguard holds great promise but fails to deliver. The only way to change things would be the backing of a full developement team providing updates and improvements.
This isnt very likely for a 4 year old that hasnt been supported very much for years.
Its beyond me why Sony hasnt closed this down but then again they may just want to milk the cow to the last drop.
my apologies for misreading your intentions. this i think is a failure of the medium as i know far too many people this has happened to in the past.
so to rephrase; thank you for replying so maturely. i apologize that i went off harshly as the criticisms of this game vary from the predictable to the incomprehenisble. you *were* adding to the conversation, as i see now from your clarifications. thank you for that.
i do still struggle with what is meant by the graphics being subpar. i really feel i must get new glasses or something, yet i know that there are so many others who are seeing the game as i do, perfectly gorgeous, in a graphical sense only of course.
i think my point about FFXI and Vanguard, is that despite the promises, something we've all learned not to trust as of late, i don't believe FFA PvP was really in the developer's list of *must do*. this is clear because the PvE balance for the classes is almost entirely there, with the exception of Warrior and Rogue, and even then that may simply be a strategy issue as i have had great success with my rogue, i just have to think more before i act. the PvP servers however suffered from one major complaint over and over again, lack of balance. using Rift as a touchstone again, you can see this is something that Trion, with all its polish, has struggled with as well: how do you keep PvE and PvP aspects of a class balanced?
i do think Vanguard deserves a little more credit than having a 5 or 6 out 10 due to its depth of gameplay and graphics. and for whatever crazy reasons i may have buried in my subconscious, i don't believe this is simply a matter of opinion. i think someone can recognize great work while acknowledging that its not for them. to use a musical metaphor, i can hear the genius of Tom Waits, but can i bear listening to him? not really. same goes for John Cage, the composer.
this question of graphics is something which i brought up in my blog here if someone wanted to take a peek into this question along with me.
does Vanguard have its flaws? most decidedly. are they gamebreaking for me? at this point no. if you had asked me a year or more ago, i would have given a resounding, yes.
Chelan,
As for balance, its really hard to keep an even keel between PvE and PvP builds in a largescale MMO setting. Rift (of what I recall since last played) has descended into a min-max nightmare of flavor of the month builds that are either totally OP to survive in PvP or gimped. One of the reasons why I left that game, as pretty as I thought it was.
I believe a game needs to have some depth as well as polish. One of the problems (and strengths) of Vanguard was its crafting system. One of the most indepth crafting systems existing in MMORPG's, however, a solid crafting system needs a solid economy to make it worth crafting. Both buying supplies, parts or selling you wares, crafters need a market to work with or it just becomes a meaningless time and money sink. Thats the big part of the puzzle that was missing for me in VG.
FFA Loot system helps that type of economy, so does a having a thriving population. Both things that VG was (is?) lacking. I've written and read many things on how ingame economy is the secret glue that holds the communities together.
~Ink
Etiher you're remembering wrong, or you didn't actually start until a week or two into launch.
It wasn't ME crashing, it was their SERVERS CRASHING. Everyone booted, tons of information lost, almost every hour for the first day and every couple hours on the second day. You couldn't not be affected by it as it literally affected everyone playing and the data.
The death of VG for me was turning of the FFA pvp Server and just make it a pve game cause you cant say the lil arena is really pvp, now you only can grind to 55 then faction grind your a.. off raid POTA over and over or SOD cause the Overland Raid mobs and APW are outdatet and easy kills for a group of 55s. No bug fixes for over 1 year drove more ppl away.
i played VG for years from beta on and lvled like 10 chars to 50+ but since there is no more pvp im done with it. To bad SOE got it a good company could relaunch it and make some good money out of it, but SOE we all know what they did to good games like SWG.
I have played Vanguard since beta,i have 4 level 55 toons and many mid ranged toons. I have been everywhere in Telon and seen all of the enviroments. I also run an top of the range desktop with two gtx over clocked 580 gtx Sli cards as the crowning glory so i have played the game with everything maxed.
I also use the /setfog command in Vanguard.
Now saying that i have also been a lifetime sub member of lotro since release and been all over middle earth runing in dx11 and before that dx10.
lotro trumps Vanguard for enviroments and lighting,texture and the like.
Sorry but as much as i love Vanguard lotro enviroments are second to none IMO and the water is right up their with AOC water.
It did not have a lot of players. Subs were going down, not up. You say the developer is the supply and customers are the demand? There wasnt much demand.
Its obvious SoE was not in good shape at the time they stopped updating VG. They had to do several rounds of layoffs. They had 4 'major' MMOs. Two were somewhere around 150k and steady and big money makers. A thrid was somewhere around 50k with a small decline but still profitable.
The fourth was at best 20k, declining, and a money sink.
Which would you choose?
Some games will never get a second chance, also...very few have faith in SOE. They had a huge population at launch...but the game was soooo bad. SOE launched to count their dollors...this is a dev that doesn't care about its people and it shows in their games. I was a vanguard fanboy back in the day myself, but I'd be shocked if you'd ever seen the people in that game that were at launch..it was bad...maybe the worst launch ever next to Earthrise.
i agree with you about economy, though perhaps not about the solution, FFA PvP loot is what i believe you recommended. though its clear that you can't have an economy functioning w/o a population to sustain it.
i didn't used to think that about games until a few years back when AoC launched w/ no crafting system, though there was an auction house for looted items. it just wasn't enough to keep one's interest. and in fact its the only thing i truly ignore in Vanguard, the auction house that is.
so i think saying that all elements need to be balanced is true, however, there are some of us who believe pvp or ffa loot aren't necessities for a balanced game. SWGpreNGE had a thriving economy w/o full loot, but of course it made up for that in the quality of the harvesting and crafting minigame along with a population size to support it.
having said that, there have been several players who have asked if there were pvp ingame or not and after replying they have expressed serious disappointment, as they loved the game so far, but couldn't imagine one w/o pvp. i can, they can't, the world moves on.
its bothered me enough though that i've wondered if i should try and start up an old tradition from early in the game where they would have arena matches (there are several sites perfect for this). the matches would primarily be based on class, so clerics for instance fighting only clerics, etc.
i understand that this is not 'real' pvp, just dueling, however it could help players somewhat, perhaps.
i think ActionMMORPG is making a slightly different point than you have picked out of his post. however, i think he could explain it better than i could.
i will say, that the water in Vanguard used to be beautiful, however, they 'turned it off' as it were due to latency, drawing, and lag issues. when a whole seacoast is busy drawing gorgeous water in the manner that Vanguard does, it causes serious hitching.
this resolution is similar to the /setfog one. ingame they added an 'extra layer' of fog to the game. at the time it increased performance by preventing excessive drawing, however, today's cards can handle it w/ minimum trouble. i run with no fog whenever i play and my card is just a GeForce GT240, albeit backed up with 5gb of memory on the mobo.
so while i think Action is saying that both games represent 2 different methods of graphical representation, i will add that some of the issues you are referring to were purposefully done to make the VG graphics more machine friendly.
personally i find LotROs art and Vanguard's art, just as i find Rift's art, to be quite different in and of themselves. even if they were all using the same mechanism to push their graphics. LotRo is gorgeous, Rift is terrific, and i think the vistas and countryside of VG are fabulous. but they are all very different.
This is part fo the reason that SoE is so hated, because people LOVE to spread misinformation about SoE and blame them for every little thing.
When Vanguard launched, SoE was merely the publisher. After being dumped by their previous publisher, and given the condition the game was in, its HIGHLY unlikely anyone else would have published Vanguard.
The reason VG launched early is Sigil had no money. Not because SoE made them.
I feel that a working and viable market would be more of my recommendation. FFA didn't work for SOE that's maybe why they turned it off. From my recent tour of Mortal Online (same time frame, 30 days plus two weeks) the whole game centered around FFA. But there was no safe central marketplace to trade. Same situation as Darkfall had, ton of demand and no safe way to supply. Even crafting was a gamble in itself.
The lure of a FFA economy is that there is a constant demand for products, weapons, armor, housing, guild supplies etc. There is always someone losing a fight and losing all their stuff. Thats great for crafters, because (some of) the hardcore pvprs don't want to craft and just want to walk up to a market or trade and get back out there. Creating a society of unlimited wants.
Society is the operative word though. What I feel is the real recommendation is for SOE to invest some money into VG, create a winback or a new player campaign that someone layed out earlier. Graphical overhaul ( on some stuff ) and addition of a ton of new content would spark some interest. Lower the dang price. For heavens sake, something is only worth as much as someone will pay. If the community doesn't think VG is worth 15 bucks, then its not - Drop the price.
Unfortunately, SOE was very candid and verbal about not wanting to spend the resources on VG, thats where the growth ends and the downward cycle begins. Just take a look at the old Star Wars Galaxies, the community pleaded for them to make it free and they turned them down flat. Citing that it would take too many resources that they didn't want to focus on the game, so they would rather just sundown it and move those resources to something else. Shame, but thats how business suits think.
The real issue with Vanguard is really not with the game at all, its the company running it.
I just downloaded 14-day trial and started yesterday, I was pleasantly surprised by the game. Albiet the graphics are very dated and such, but what they have going in game is actually pretty cool, I think. I'm really liking the Diplomacy part it adds a nice relief when you want to just muck about rather then fight. I haven't delved into the Crafting yet but will definately be interested in seeing how that is too.
I also agree that if they were to make a VG2 with updated graphics and such it could be a nice relief to those of us burned out on other MMO's. I've been playing all sorts lately and am just washed out with them. Waiting for a few new ones to be released...ahh you know the ones =)
This game has definately given me some hope in the meantime that their are still games out there that have "something" to them. Wish I would have started playing it sooner, but glad I waited until now to give me a bit of joy between games. Don't know if I will sub to it or not after the 14 days, but if they came out with a newer version (VG2) I would definately be in line too be a part of it!!!
Why is Vanguard's skill progression system "archaic"? I like having to search out and buy new levels of skills in games.
This is my favourite game of all time but I stopped playing when I couldn't find people to play regularly with in the Australian time zone. If people returned to it I would be back on the boat!
Seriously the best MMO ever made. I doubt SOE will ever do anything worthwhile with it though.
I like people who post on here as if their opinion mattered to anyone that it actually needs to matter to.
I am downloading the game as we speak. I want to check this out again. I think everyone should!
Does anyone know if you had played it 3 years ago, if you can still get the trial?
That was me as well - the only game I ever pre-ordered without being in the beta first. I found myself fighitng the game as I played, trying to enjoy it even though the compass and chat window were nothing but blackness, and quest text overwrote itself. The final straw for me occurred when I walked into a bank for the first time... and felt this overwhelming need to stand in one place, on a rug was suspended in the middle of nothing. I could see thorugh the world.
Talk about a lesson learned the hard way.
I'd try it again if it was F2P (never did say that I'd come back if they fixed the big breaks). That's always been the key for me.
And we like people who read our comments and respond to them, even though nobody's opinion matters in the long run.
People are looking for a WoW replacement since Blizz decided to ignore the casual gamer.
Vanguard is the answer. I love the Diplomacy and crafting systems. They are incredible!
This game needs some attention from SoE and I hope they give it some, soon, as it has the ability to knock WoW clean out of the water.
If you had your account around december of 2010 you have 45 days of free play. Just a thought.
Anyway, just recently started playing and I am in love. The fighting system has a certain charm to it that I feel like many games have been lacking lately. The crafting system is very nice and in depth, probably one of the best I have seen in a while. Diplomacy is something that I haven't seen much of in an MMO and even though I dont really partake in it, it is still interesting to have.
Graphically the game is really on par with many other games at it's level. Terrain and World design are amazing! Quests arent really anything to go into detail about but I can really say that creature and world design are so good that each quest really does offer something new.
I know all about being burned on preorders and release dates but if you really liked the idea of what the game was suppose to be then I suggest you try it out again!
After reading the re-review i got really excited (curses that i read this while my workd day just began >.<). I have quit Rift after 2 months playing and haven't touched any MMORPG since. But hell i shall give the trail a try. I never been a raider nor a fast lvler so this sounds like just the game for me where the focus is on getting to the end lvl instead of end game content. Every MMORPG should include that.
There was nothing to lack of expectations,it was more player stupidity for the most part that gave the game a bad reputation.Yes there was a few bugs like getting stuck,that was quickly fixed using a command that i forget now and yes yo ucoudl fall thorugh the world[ annoying for sure].But that was about it,nothing else was game breaking and for the msot part was actuyall ya BETTER experience than the other games were offering.
I was there in game and got to watch chat everyday,it was pathetic as people with inferior machines talking about running lower graphic games and expecting to run VG just the same.VG was/is a VERY intensive graphic game that happens to use shaders as many games do not.it also has a much wider viewscape than pretty much every game on the market,so yes you better have a powerful machine to run it.My machine was not even around when Eq2 was made and i still can't run that game near max settings.
Sure it is possible to code these games better utilizing techniques and multi cores and better gpu use,but fact is NONE of the devs are doing it any better.It just so happens that the other lazy devs have lower poly games ,so they can get away with looking less incompetent when compared to Sigil.
The ONLY reason i did not stick it out in VG was because at the time i had already invested a lot of effort in a very similiar game in Eq2 and FFXI.FFXI really was my fave game and just did the important things a little better.Yes i like the faction ideas in both EQ2 and VG and yes i liked the card game in VG,heck i liked most of the game,but like i said it was a notch below what i wanted and was given in FFXI.
After i decided FFXI has been ruined forever and looked for anotehr game or one to rreturn ,i could have chosen VG but i went with EQ2.Either game would suffice for now,but i had already invested effort in EQ2 and it offered me a free to play server where i could utilize trio boxing with extra free accounts.Otherwise i would have chosen VG as my number 2 game behind FFXI,it really deos deserve credit at the top.
I was there at launch and played for about 6 months. VG had a ton of potential, and the best classes in any MMO to date period. There was quite a bit of content in the world, but much of it was hidden (off the beaten path) and since there was no giant sign pointing where to go...people didn't find it until it was too late.
Lack of raid content prior to that dragon/dock raid a year later killed it. Guilds were clearing the volcanic area with trash mobs 10x harder than the dragon boss (who dropped no loot I might add) =(
The game was not completely broken as many said; I leveled up to 50 and enjoyed my time without finding a million bugs. But we know how doom/gloom spreads throughout the community so fast. Much of the content was very well designed too.
The game ultimately got a bad wrap cuz folks had crap PC systems coming from WoW and other games trying to run the resource hog VG. Ran fine for me; 30-40fps and I had a decent PC nothing special. There was also no hand holding just like EQ1. You went out and found the content and actually explored. I dunno...I had no issues following questlines to different continents and using the map.
I loved Vanguard, but of all the issues people mention here, it was the GUI that drove me away. It was clunky, sluggish, nearly carved in stone. I always felt like I was wrestling with it - total immersion breaker. To win my heart they'd need to make the GUI far more flexible and customizable.
as a matter of fact, i just started playing VG today, but i am enjoying more than i ever did with all the F2Ps recently, and i hadn't had more fun start of a MMO since the Vanilla days,
yes, the graphics are not the best compared to games like LOTRO or AOC, but i think it's ok, the community is fun as far as i know, almost everyone i met at IoD was replying me back and it is actually pretty alive
now i know that it's the starting area and it's crowded than the rest of the world, and i can't say much as i am still in the IoD, but it's been giving me a decent start with what i seen so far
VG is dead? i'd say far from it, all we need is more players, and theres even a new content coming out at the end of the year
If this wan't an SOE game I think more people would be willing to give it another chance. Lets be honest here anyone who thinks that SOE is going to devote a ton of resources to this game 4-5 years after they came in to possession of it is fooling themsleves. You might get an update or two so you keep paying until they release one of their new MMO's but after that do you really believe VG has a bright future ahead of it?
It is such a shame SOE sacked this game off.
I dont disagree with you. I've said "it had so much potential" about a few SOE games. They just never follow through or worse yet they destroy the game. For VG to get the kind of love it deserves it would have to be sold to a company that actually cares about it's customers and it's reputation.
Agree entirely. Dam if your photo were not so hideous I'd be inviting you to the nearest Harvester.
LOL..umm..thanks..I think
Silius is still the main man responsible for breaking this once awesome game. GG silius, you still stink as a lead developer.
How is that update coming? When was the last time he posted on the VG boards? How is that test server? Taste the failure, Mr. Rudolph the reindeer that flys year round. Slappy dance - just a handful of his failures. Don't forget Gnomes with laser guns and robots!
when they make EQ NEXT i do hope that they do it in the same mould has vanguard and not the same has the usual trash thats come out of late..i dont blame sony for vanguard on release but its been their responsibility since they took over from sigil..bugs wise they have done a good job crushing them,but if they had taken the time to advertise,put more content amongst other stuff,i do think that vanguard would have been a small success.but instead they kept it down so that it would,nt compete with EQ2.that is their fault.and they deserve the bad press for doing that
When you neglect something and then have the cheek to ask people to pay for it ,you get what you deserve.and sony have got what they deserve.i do hope they learn big time from this,if not their mmo dept is finished.
Always loved Vanguard, but the game has no support. No new content, nothing.
As years go by. I still wonder if they would ever invest more talent, Seems Vanguards future is near its end.
Vanguard is Cinderella with SoE as a fairy godmother. No magic.
Yes
Vanguard is like Greg Oden and SOE is his knees. So much potential but no support.
I agree, I was in at the very start and had high hopes for this game - it just failed to live up to expectations, was buggy, lack of population etc. I left and although I tried again recently (about a month ago) I didn't notice that there were other players about and so I left again. Shame really, this had so much potential if only SOE had a brain to share amongst them they could have been more successful with other games too (SWG comes to mind).