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Vanguard: Saga of Heroes Review: Vanguard Re-Review - Edit
7.6
| Pros |
  
|
 Actively making visible improvements every month Complex crafting HUGE beautiful world Multiple routs of progression for players |
| Cons |
 Lack of end game raids Performance issues Poor launch makes it hard to look past Small community / player base |
Overview
It’s closing in on two years since Vanguard:SOH was released, and as most people probably remember it was an epic fail of a launch. There was unfinished content along with huge performance issues that ranged from graphic glitches to high system requirements. Very few good things were spoken about the game at the time. A lot can change in two years, especially when you have a team of dedicated developers working on it and a community that is willing to stand by no matter what happens.
Needless to say, Vanguard is not the game it once was at release. While it is certainly not perfect, countless issues have been addressed. Content has been added, bugs have been fixed. The community may have shrunk since the initial first few months, but the passion that everyone displays for ‘their’ game is astounding. Galleons and fishing have made their way into the game, something players have been clamoring about for quite some time now, as well as numerous other additions which I’ll get into more detail about further along.
Performance / Lag
Remember how you used to chug along across every invisible seam as you entered a new ‘chunk’ on the map? Well, that’s still there – with some fixes. Your lights won’t randomly flicker on or off as you cross. You won’t be dismounted; your flying mount won’t suddenly disappear. It’s become slightly more seamless. For those who don’t recall, Telon is a world without instances. I am able to play for long periods of time without crashing, though a few people still mention their systems have issues with the game. I am running an Intel® Core™2 CPU 6400@2.13 GHz with a NVIDIA 8800 GeForce GT. When you try to open doors there’s a very small amount of lag as it swings open but it’s not nearly the performance freezing monstrosity that used to occur.
Heading into the main cities of Telon does lower FPS slightly. New Targonor in Thestra is still famous as the winding roads take you below ground and tend to shoot you around corners a little quickly. Open areas are far better, and it’s still a visible improvement from launch.
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Graphics
You can’t debate the fact that Telon is absolutely beautiful. If you see something off in the distance there’s a way to get to it, no matter what it is. There are no invisible walls, you can climb, swim, walk, or fly all over the world. It’s one feature that I find fascinating since I love to explore. At release most of us became very familiar with the /flush command. It was a command that re-set the graphic engines as we played in order to fix things in the world that had gone horribly wrong, like trees with no leaves, fences with giant holes, that sort of thing. There are very few cases of needing to use it these days (thankfully). Every so often you will still get a graphic glitch where you are wielding no weapons in your hands as you attack things, and there are a few smaller bugs still hopping around. I don’t think it’s necessary for a game to be absolutely perfect, so long as there is constant work being done on it, and visible improvements.
Playing on balanced settings the game still looks beautiful, and it doesn’t look all that different from playing on any of the other settings available. There are many suggestions in the player forums about how to increase performance if you are having issues, such as turning off shadows, or turning off sounds.
A unique aspect to Vanguard is the weather systems that roll through the game. If you happen to be standing on a hill some where you can physically spot storm clouds off in the distance and watch as they approach. The skies will open up and you’ll be caught in it. Snow storms are also an occurrence in Telon, though there is a bug where people using vista are unable to see the weather. If you’re not one who particularly cares about these aspects of the game or they slow your system down you are able to customize your settings and turn them off.
Another key item to note in Vanguard is the amount of customization you have in the game. Character creation is an in depth process, though it has also gone through some revamps. When helmets were added to the game in March of 2008 some facial structures and options had to be reduced in order for it to be implemented properly. This left the community feeling a little neglected, as choice is always top of their concerns. Happily, a lot of these options have been brought back over time, allowing players to continue to create a character the way they want to create it. In September of 2008 character models were revamped to ‘bring sexy back’ after months of players complaining about ‘ugly’ characters. While they still don’t look like centerfolds, not everything has to.
Sound
Telon is a world that comes to life through its sounds. The crunch of a footstep as you walk over a sandy beach or the metallic ring as you run over a grate in the floor. Each city and town has a unique feel to it. Combat works much the same way, the pitches rising and falling depending on the battle. You can get caught up in the momentum and lose yourself as you battle whatever foe it is you need to conquer. Sound is not only for beauty either, there are indications during combat of when you need to use your reactive skills as you counter an attack. If you’re not looking for them you may miss them, but the ringing of the attack triggering is a good indication that you should use it. Handy for me when I’m caught up in the heat of battle and trying not to get squished by some giant creature.
User Interface
The interface works on a very friendly level, and is featured very much like your ‘typical’ MMO screen, simplistic. Vanguard also allows for a lot of customization in its UI. You can move things around in layout mode to your preferences, add extra hotbars if you want or take some away. A compass comes in handy since Telon is absolutely huge – but I still find the maps in Vanguard lacking. The majority of steady players I spoke to ended up downloading a mod that lays things out in a much more organized fashion. Major city hubs show up on the three continental maps, as well as flying mount stations, and riftways which are use to travel around.
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Game Play
Obviously the biggest changes to Vanguard have come in the form of game play. In September 2008 The Isle of Dawn was implemented, a new starting zone for characters. This is an amazing little island on the Kojan continent, with a background story about how the island separated from Kojan during the cataclysm. The village is filled with hardened humans, and a band of zealot hobgoblins, and players are lead from 1-10 in all three spheres of the game. I have always been a fan of alts so I left my 44 blood mage for a few days to play with a new cleric and adventure through the island. Each of the three spheres of the game (adventuring, diplomacy, crafting) is explained in a huge amount of detail, and each quest takes players through the more complex aspects of Vanguard. You may even spot ‘Slappy’ on the Isle of Dawn, dancing away (and causing everyone around him to dance too). There’s so much content on this little beginner island you can easily spend a few days here. The rewards of coin and gear (as well as items like diplomacy cards) far surpass the old starter towns so if you have the option to begin here, I’d certainly take it. It does make the older towns seem some what out dated, and I’m not sure if there’s any reason at all any more to have a choice in where you start unless you’d like to for roleplay reasons.
When you leave the Isle of Dawn you may feel slightly overwhelmed. You’re not given a huge amount of direction on where to go next but for some players that’s just fine. There are some indications on what to do next, riftways now have a number of NPC gathered around who will offer you quests to visit hubs that are around your level range. Each time you level up you can visit these NPC and pick up new quests for new locations to visit. While you may find that the game is very hack-and-slash, Telon has much to offer, and it’s not just based on the combat system.
Crafting and diplomacy are huge aspects of Vanguard, but you may find that diplomacy has very little use and is actually just a grind fest. There has been some work done to the sphere and it’s being incorporated a little better into the world of Telon. You’ll need diplomacy in the raid Ancient Port Warehouse, and it’s a nice casual way to spend some time when you’re not in the mood to do anything else. The rewards of coin and being able to change the buffs in particular cities to benefit those around are also nice. Crafting is hugely complex, requiring lots of faction, writs, sigils, and sub combines. You’re not required to craft by any means but those who do find it rewarding.
There has been so much content added, and so many things changed that it’s nearly impossible to cover it all in one single review. There has been end game content added – even if it’s not near enough for players, at least it is something. Racial mounts made it in game, galleons, fishing, and all sorts of other pass times to keep people occupied. On the test server the level cap has been raised to 55 along with a new set of spells for players to learn, and there is talk of plenty of free content being added in the next year.
Community / Customer Service
I stand by my opinion that the customer service in Vanguard:SOH is some of the best I have ever seen. Whether it is because support knows that it needs to hang onto the few people who have continued to play, or because that’s simply the way it is, I don’t know. Petitions have been met in a timely manor on each of my personal occasions dealing with them, and when they were not there was typically a message displayed as I logged into game about how they had an influx due to some random issue. At least the communication is there.
The game would be nothing without its community. Players are passionate about the game, you can find them everywhere. I would highly suggest hitting the official forums to make friends and find guilds, they are exceptionally active. On the Seradon server there were people constantly chattering in public channels, and joining the player made craft and diplomacy channel also added a lot of conversations. If you’re going to argue about why you dislike Vanguard in game, be prepared for some pretty hefty rebuttals from those who love the game, and you will certainly run into them.
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Conclusion
If you’ve never played before expect a few glitches, the game is far from perfect. If you used to play and gave up in a fit of frustration you may want to give things another shot. I don’t think that a casual gamer would enjoy the game because there is simply too much to do in Telon between the three spheres. If you’re looking for a game with an eager community, and multiple facets, look no further.
Again, there’s no way that this one article can cover everything within the game, nor all the changes that have occurred. There are (and will still be) bugs that are being worked on, and doesn’t run nearly as well as it should. If you’ve got the patience to deal with these things in order to sink your teeth into the meat of the game, you may be surprised at what you find.
For those wanting a PvE game i dont know that there is another game close to this. Like the re-rievew says theres improvements constantly.
In terms of PvE MMORPGs, there is nothing that surpasses Vanguard, the size of the world and the amount of content is mind boggling.
I just wish there was a bit more PvP.
How beautifully written. If all the articles on this site were of such high quality, then people might start to take mmorpg.com seriously again
I didn't know they'd finally added galleons at last. I'm surprised they didn't wave the flags for it, or maybe they did and I missed it.
I'm gonna install and fire up the game just to have a peek.
I've got very fond memories of Vanguard. I loved and played the game so much that I have a level 50 in each adventuring class, 2 tradeskill classes, and a diplomat, but after all that, there was precious little else to do if (like me) you don't like raiding.
I played Vanguard at release and although beautiful and showing lots of promise, it was way too buggy for my tastes.
A year later, my account was reactivated for free and I went back and played the game. A lot of problems had been fixed. I was amazed at how beautiful the game actually was and it played much more smoothly. Ultimately, however, I did not keep the account active.
Vanguard has a lot going for it. It's beautiful, there seems to be a lot to do, but it also feels like it is missing something. Some hook, that just didn't keep me in the game. I honestly, don't know what it is. Perhaps it is the low population of the servers? I always go back to WoW, most likely because of the friends I have in the game.
If my account was reactivated again, I would try it out again. If it inspired me, I could definitely end up staying. However, I feel it is just missing something, something I fail to pinpoint.
I ended up leaving Vanguard after complaining about some obvious bugs that weren't fixed on general chat, and got reemed for it. I think it's natural for a newish person to ask why this or that hasn't been fixed, but I guess the community didn't think so.
Either way, that's fine, because I really enjoy WoW and it's a much better game than Vanguard. It may not have a huge seemless world, boats and what not, but it has atmosphere and all the little things that matter more than boats. WoW certainly isn't a game I'd play for years, but it's definitely kept me entertained for 4 months so far.
Good luck with Vanguard you all. I liked the game, but the population was too small, and the community too agressive for my tastes.
Vanguard is stil my favorite game, I liked pretty much everything about the game except the bugs and technical errors of course. What made me leave in the end was the very very low playerbase on the PVP server.
Am I right that there is only one pvp server left and it's (hopefully) FFA pvp ? What are the current player numbers on there? Is it worth coming back to it?
The sum of 2 years is that the game plays smoother and not much else new. Odds are the 4 year re-review will be the exact same thing.
I really wish this game had more resources to expand the content, because it might just surprise the market with a decent comeback.
Really nice review! Two thumps up! Can't wait for the content to arrive in the game, gonns be great!
To all of you who complain about lack of end-game content, there's atleast 2(?) new raids dungeons coming up and a level cap increase to lvl 55, so I guess there's something big on the way.
There's a PvP-arena on the way.
I was in original beta and 3 months after launch. I came back 6 weeks ago and am having fun. Got my wife to join me. One of the particular strength of this game not emphasised enough is the very high quality player base.It's one of the real reqasons to play and stay.
"When you leave the Isle of Dawn you may feel slightly overwhelmed. You’re not given a huge amount of direction on where to go next but for some players that’s just fine."
Yep, that actually says it pretty well. Telon is a little too-wide open for my tastes. I prefer going from quest hub to quest hub with little nudges to move me around. I didn't find that in Vanguard and unfortunately that was the main deciding factor for me. If you don't have that sort of hangup, you can really enjoy the game now. The tutorial is very well put together and if the rest of the game was ever linked together like that I'd probably resub. It is most definitely NOT the same game as it was at launch and that's a good thing.
I like the game, but when I went back to the free time offered me after like 8 months of not playing, I found it to be worse technically. I wasn't having any lag or hitching problems at all 8 months ago on high settings, but now, I had an irritating amount of hitching at any video level.
I only quit it before because of time, and was tempted to start playing again, but unfortunately the renewed issues will keep me away. The problems were everywhere for me and not just the island.
For me, they somehow took a step backwards. Oh well. Hopefully not everyone will have the same problems because it is a good and fun game.
That is how I felt exactly as well. I don't know what they have done with the last update. But they have pretty much undone all the hard work on performance from the previous year.
About a year ago I was actually impressed in how good the performance was, but left because of very low population (wich is still an issue today and keeps hurting the game).
But now it is almost like I am back since launch when it comes to performance. So they really screwed up something with the last update. That is for sure.
There's a PvP-arena on the way.
Also there is a FFA pvp server, so I don't see why anyone could complain.
I have the graphics practically at max and the world really is beautiful. I would even venture, in some places, LOTRO beautiful. However, there are some, what I call, "EQ II" moments where you will see caves or architecture that just looked slapped together. Sort of like seeing a part of a cave that is much brighter than the surrounding material.
For players who want a more exploratory type game I highly recommend Vanguard. I have a sub just so I can wander around and do a few things. In some cases it is hard to get things accomplished as the travel distances can be quite far at times, but this is also a perk as you actually get to experience traveling over the land instead of just being ported from one spot to another without any sense of the world between your points.
And of course you can go just about everywhere. from my limited experience, nothing keeps you from going to an area and being slaughtered if that is what you want. Conversely, (and once again) in LOTRO I saw a door at the side of an area where there are orcs (the entrance to lothlorien) and when I clicked on it I got the "you do not have the coressponding quest" message.
This is just heart breaking as it really brings out the artificial nature of a game world. Vanguard doesn't seem to have that type of thing.
There are rift stones that care you great distances but all in all, it is an exploration game. As far as the lack of end game raids, that is a hard one. Does mythical end game really always need to be about raiding?
Vanguard = Today's Everquest. Excellent PvE game with a wide-open world that doesn't lead you completely around by the nose. The level of customization on characters is great, and the graphics/immersion factor is top notch (especially in revamped areas, including the trial).
The only thing I found lacking in Vanguard was a sense of story, which is why I currently choose LotRO for my monthly $15 payment.
I had played the game in beta and hated it; came back and tried it again a few months ago and found a very enjoyable game. I think it is worth giving the trial a shot, if nothing else.
Is the game UO silled based (you use a skill, you raise it), or WoW level based (earn xp to improve)?
What's the death penalty?
On the PvE servers, what will the PvP arenas be like? Will there be any type of rewards?
Curious, thanks.
The tragedy of Vanguard is the lack of dev resource. EQ2 gets a big fat expansion on a regular basis; if SoE just skipped one of those and sent a bunch of devs over to Vanguard for 6 months I'm sure they could really move it on. Plus, of course, they need to market it then in the same way as EQ2 to get the subscriber numbers up.
Fantastic game and a great 2 years for me. But once you've levelled 2 or more characters to level cap you start to think, do I really want to do that again with the same content?
I've not played V:SOH and don't plan to (I'm sure its a fine game, this is not a hater post) but the article pointed out something that really bugs me in general about the current state of the MMO industry: Companies release games in pitifully incomplete states and then expect us to pay sub fees while they complete development. It seems apparent this was the case here and I can tell you it is the case with AoC.
I'm not talking about bugs. I mean missing content, incomplete content, and barebones content put in as a place holder until they could put the final ver in. Of course take all of that and factor in that the devs are basically going to be finishing the game in a live environment and you can add an insane amout of often ridiculous bugs as well.
If this keeps on happening its going to become, if it hasn't already, an industry standard unless players decide to do something about it. Seems wrong that the players of the first year or two should pay full price to finance continued development of what should be a complete product.
Personally I won't play any more MMO's unless it comes with a free trial, and the client is free. If they can impress me with that, I'll pay sub fees forever.
For those having performance issues, be sure to have the recommended video driver installed. Here is a link to the VG recommended video driver.
http://help.station.sony.com/cgi-bin/soe.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=16732
While I think what you said is very accurate, I don't think soe bought this game to make it a success. They bought it so that it wouldn't crush EQ2 subs. I suspect if they put serious effort into Vanguard it could potentially drain/split populations from EQ2. For this to make good business sense for soe, they would have to offset the decline in one game plus the instability it would cause EQ2 with much higher sub numbers in Vanguard.
I'm a long time believer that games cannot overcome a bad launch, but somehow I still want to believe if any game could it would be this one. It just doesn't make a lot of sense for soe to try, but it sure has the best foundation of any game they have and I really wish they would at least have tried.
For Stratfords questions:
It's level based, with points to spend on attributes as you level. Obviously there are skills as well that raise through use, but it's primarily level based.
As for the death penalty, you leave a tombstone when you die along with items not soulbound to you. If you travel back to your tombstone and loot it, you get back your gear & the majority of the XP you lost on death. Otherwise, you can summon your tombsone from the altar you respawn at to reclaim your missing gear (if any) but no XP.
I'm not too familiar with the arenas yet, I popped in last night to look around and saw some NPCs, one of which offered rewards for various levels of victory in the arena. That's all I can really say about that yet, looks cool though and I'm hoping it turns out well.
Just wanted to add that as a casual player (around 6hours/wk) I love Vanguard. Initially picked it up to give me a break from deed grinding in LotRO and wound up playing it as my main. I love the fact that I can pretty much go wherever I want and I don't feel pressured to rush through everything. I actually found myself not playing too casually after the first couple weeks because I would get lost in what I was doing.
I still think that when it comes to PvE, there's not much of anything out there that can beat it. But that's just my opinion.
I left VG in utter disgust in feb 07. Didnt have anything to play last month and was really bored. I saw that they had reactivated old accounts and decided to give it try. I am so glad I did, this game is a great PVE game. Plenty of solo content but the true greatness of this game is the group quests and dungeons. It had been a long time since I got into some great dungeon crawls.
This game has so much content 10-40 its impossible to do it all. Thats nice for making alts....not sure about 40-50 as I havnt got there yet.
LOL More Content? Sure we need a little more Lvl 50 stuff but were about to get that and there is No way Im gana Belive that you have explored even half the Content on the way to 50 unless you got 10 alts... Its crazzy how mutch is in this game... and there are still empty areas to look around at.
Do we need more people? Sure but I really DONT want soe's retarted Eye casting its Gaze on Vanguard. I Would like a few more Devs tho :P
And Great review Op :)
this game seems cursed. For every step they take forward it ends up stumbling back 2 steps.
The guys at SOE need to replace Phathom and Silius the former doest really seems to care and is only seen/heard from about once every 6 months and the latter seems unable to get things done in a timely manner.
Performance has improved since release but has gotten worse than it was 6 months ago.
More and more quests and mobs become bugged daily and simple preventative server restarts are forgotten about or postponed for weeks at a time. A while back a mob difficulty pass was done which left many mobs doing "excessive over the top dmg" that was way out of line with what their level range and difficulty(dots) and these mobs are still this way. Example-- lvl 14 2 dot Kaon(part of a lower level armor quest) doing 400dmg a sec when most players around that level doing these quests(marked as solo content) have less than 1k hp.
Telon is a beautiful world. The classes are great their abilities fun. Groups are a blast; when they happen. I wish VG much luck and I hope to be greatly surprised by it in 2009
Vanguard:Saga Of Heroes, the best MMO out of the ones I have tried and played so far but it was
not an easy win, I had to try 2 buddy key trials before I actually bought and then was totally
absorbed bout it. I think EQII is the only MMO I would play if Vanguard was cancelled today.
Played: WOW, AoC, WAR, GW, Lotro, EQII.
This was just the article I was asking for about a week ago. Seems like some good information, but I dunno if it exactly resells me. I'm glad to see people still defending it over all.. I tried it at launch, about a year in, and am considering it now while I wait for a few releases since so many other releases have disappointed me.
We'll see if I agree.
Nice review well written, however it hasnt changed my thoughts about it. I been there twice now and I don't have to much for it. I guess all the issues were enough to say enough is enough and after 2 years one would hope something was fixed but not enough to bring me back!!
I'm hoping to jump right back into VG once I've had my fill of WotLK. It's a much improved game that seems to be sadly overlooked both by the community and SOE because of its bad launch.
I don't know what people are talking about when they refer to performance issues being worse, my fps is higher now then its ever been. The only thing that would make sense is that they are using a crappy gfx card, in which case I wouldn't know if the low end specs are crappy or not, and I'm not using a top end card, but I can run on all high settings.
I am a big fan of this game, but I will say my one big gripe is the lore. There are inconsistencies and stuff that is placed seemingly at random which kind of annoys me, but isn't game breaking.
The game is overall alot better then it was at release, although I don't understand raising the level cap to 55, when there isn't much content for 50, it seems kind of premature. I understand there is a small dev team now, but I think they'd be better off concentrating on fixing other issues and adding more level 50 content then trying to go beyond it and add more grinds. (For those who haven't played high end content, they have lots of stupidly crazy grinds to keep the player base busy, but most just aren't worth it imo.)
7.6? should be a higher score. there's alot to like that can't be found elsewhere.
its starting to look like darkfall's world might compete with it. i'm speaking purely of the world. not models, sounds, gameplay or anything else. they are 2 totally different games. just the world. in terms of size, immersiveness and handcrafted feeling.
personally i think both of their worlds are too big. i like dense populations. i like virtual worlds teeming with life (player life)
No weather effects with Vista. Am I the only one that this is semi-important to? I went back and played again, and it was so disheartening to hear the weather but not be able to actually see it. I dunno, to me at least, this is a major bug. I like to explore worlds and see the cool stuff in them. Not being able to see the weather was one of the main reasons I didn't resub.
Great review.
I have not played this game previous to my recent trial so I can't speak to the comparisons of launch to now.
I've played 2 seperate trials trying to play different classes to see how they played. Along the way I discovered how in depth the crafting and diplomacy was.
Wow.....I created a 2nd trial just to play all the content. 4 different classes with only 1 being level 10 in all spheres. Crafting quests were integrated into the over all story which I thought was awesome..Diplomacy moved the story (Haven't seen in depth dialog like that in an MMO before) and the adventuring quests were... well, normal adventuring quests.
The variety has sold me. After I convice a few friends to try it out i'll be activating an account.
The trial is worth it...one little area with so much to do. I hope the rest of the world delivers that much content!!
I played recently during a welcome back campaign and things are certainly better. Performance is leaps ahead of where it was last year. Combat in VG has always been good, no change there.
Problem is the things that drove me away are still there... xp loss, corpse runs, lack of direction, mob rating system, group oriented game with little to no low/mid level groups,smallish world.
I still have no idea why the word HUGE keeps coming up in reviews. My Raki Disciple had been to 100% of two of the islands by level 20. WoW landscape is huge, LotRO is good, EQ2 is good, VG is small but open.
But of all that, if SOE dropped the corpse runs, made it xp debt and made MOBs either solo/group with boss versions and not 1-6? dots plus classifiers I would be playing VG instead of LotRO.
always been slightly tempted by this game, the graphics look good and the fact that the world is seemless makes them so much more awesome. crafting ecconomies are also fun, but at the end of the day pvp and combat is what I do the most.
I have vista and I see storm coming in, surroundings getting darker, trees swinging more vigorously and then the rain starts to pour in.
Or at the Northern Border the snow flakes swinging down.
I've tried quite a few other games when they come out but I keep playing VG. The enourmous world and the amount of quests is just captivating.
I have lvl 50 BM/50 tailor, 45 mino, 47 druid --- all together 10 characters. And I find new content all the time with my alts.
Grouping is the strongest point of the game play, the multitude of dungeon runs, you just need to find them ;p
Crafting is meaningful and diplomacy gives you the best laughs.
Yes the latest batch took us backwards with performance. So hoping to see improvement on it again in next patch.
Just to inform you of upcoming things: more raid content (Pantheon and Nexus), appearance slots, more char customization with new hair styles.
I just hope folks would give this game a shot and leave their doubts behind -> SOE giving more devs.
But regardless I keep playing with our guild and alliance and have a good time e.g. getting our flying mount.
VG is a good game but still need to improve a lot of think like
1. Eliminate buggy quest. Too many buggy quest on low level that's give bad impression to starter. Also, on high level, quest quantity is not so important compare to quality.
2. Eliminate non-sense quest such as kill 12 monster while their spawn only 6-7 and you must wait for the next spawn to finish it (or may be 10+ spawn, such as the quest in Brighted land). Also a lot of quest that's take like 4-5 hours to find material or finish it (while reward is nothing special). The Unicorn quest line also have many no-fun-just-grind-it quest.
3. Reduce grinding and give more exp. VG is suck at launch on grinding (seem like the original concept is YOU MUST GRIND , GRIND and GRIND) but a lot better now. The Isle of Dawn is very good improvement. If they can reduce the level of grinding it's more fun to play. Just learn from the giant in MMORPG, that's why they got 10M+ player. Player need FUN from game, not more work (that's already too many in real life).
4. In instance, all monster HP is too high. It's take too long time to kill 1 monster, we must repeat every skill again and again for 1 trash mob. It's no point for fun and challenge. Instance need challenge, not grinding.
5. Group quest is too many. Since level 20+, it's seem like you begin hard to solo leveling because most quest are group. And you can imagine how hard to find group with low population in this game, so many player just stop playing soon. This can easily solved, just change group quest to small group quest and small group quest to solo quest.
6. Solve stucking problem. For player who alway jump when running like me, we alway found stucking spot. The unstuck command is bad because I alway found stuck point after long way of fighting to quest monster. Warp back to nearest binding mean I must fight back again. ( the same as corpse run which is very annoying if you dead in cave).
It's too big world and seems like there isn't many people there. It's good to have a big world and all but I think it's too big. The community there seems friendly and helpful. Although, I think they need a server merge or something.
Love the big seemless world, but the problem is its too big. Imo i think they need to add more outpost or random npc under a tree or something, that gives you weird or fun quest, just to make it more fun.
I don't disagree that the game doesn't have lots of content for 1-50. Even enough to keep it fresh for creating alts over and over.
Two years post release and the game is, content wise, essentially the same as it was at release with a small amount of new content being added. It is hard to recover and retain players when the game is essentially frozen in time.
I just wanted to say that even though I'm not planning on playing Vanguard even after this re-review, the review itself was extremely well written and I hope we get this kind of quality in reviews on other games in the future =D
Awww... Vanguard... kinda like a lost love or an ex. It has marvels and beauties, and yet it has so many things NOT right. Like the dull quests, or the totally soulless citites, like the world more feeling like a theatre stage than an actual world - esepcially BECAUSE it is so vast and can be explored everywhere, the contrast feels to sharp to me. I never felt so less of the world in a world.
And those quests! There is NO guideline, I can barely do one quest in Stormwatch area, then all I can do is over since no more solo quests and no more people in that area, and I have to travel ALL over Telon to some other place to make another quest. Its so damn tiresome. I really dont want the other extreme, the WAR quest tunnel, but its like a giant had a chest full of quest and he was drunk and dropped quests all over the world. There is little coherence and little to guide you and *gradually* open up with a set of stories, like in LOTRO for instance. (LOTRO still having the ideal system of quest guidance, not totally confined but not spread senselessly all over either.)
On the other hand the fact you can really visit the entire open world never gets old, and its something I definitely miss in most other MMOs. Also the variety of races and classes is awesome and kinda lacking in most MMOs. More is more!
All in all 7/10 seems ok.
I agree. I have installed an played the game three separate times. Though a bit buggy even now, I think the game is brilliant. But for some reason, I just am unwilling to sub for the long haul.
i remember at the time it was released people telling me in these forums that it was my pc to blame for the poor perfromace i was getting . the same pc thats played age of conan and plenty of new single player games without any real issues . i think that goes to show how many people think they know a lot more than they actually do about computers . even though they say they work in programming or i.t. . lets hope with the global financial crisis a lot of these incompetants end up doing what they are ment to i.e. sweeping streets or working in superrmarkets .i m sure some of them will
that aside the review of vanguard sounds like a fair assement of the state of the game . although i do still feel ripped off because i m one of the idiots that went out a brought it . not a mistake i ve made a second time . i think it did a lot of damage to mmos . the only way i would return is if they gave a free welcome back months play ( not the poorly advertised one they did a while back ) and maybe the first 3 months at half price . these things never happen though because mmo companys seam to be run by morons half the time and lets face it there bound to be some moron who ll say that its a bad idea to offer such incentives as a responce to this post . even though it proberbly would actually give people reason to try a dying game .
Another generic sales pitch by this website for how this disaster of a game is somehow wonderful now. My generic response, again, is "no".
You list lack of raiding content under your cons, but only mention the primary raid dungeon in the game in passing when discussing diplomacy???
Just because you are unaware of the raiding content doesn't mean it is not worth mentioning. Ancient Port Warehouse is a massive and masterfully put together raid dungeon, there are 11 additional raid encounters including several which have not yet been killed on any server. There is an end game dungeon, and three raid dungeons in the works over the next year.
Would I like more end game content? Sure, but to say that a lack of raiding content is a major flaw in Vanguard is a pretty ignorant statement. There are no less than 20 guilds whose primary focus is raiding on my server alone, many of whom have been raiding since December of last year.
With the exception of FFXI , Vanguard's raid encounters are some of the best I have seen in any game.
The word HUGE keeps coming up because the world IS huge. You have barely scratched the surface if you have only explored the starting area of the Raki. Dungeons are ENORMOUS. Try Khegars End, Ruins of Vol Tuniel, etc.
At the higher levels the Nusibe Necropolis is enormous... Ancient Port Warehouse (raid area) is probably the largest raid zone ever in ANY game.
Corpse Runs are no big deal. Experience loss is NOTHING if you recover your body (like 4 kills to replace your lost experience). The game has always been touted as a group based game.
to the person who wrote the review - well done. You covered a lot of thoughts that I have had over the last few months. I have really enjoyed VG over the last 6 months or so and I will continue to play.
It tickles me now and then to come back to Vanguard.
But then i know SOE is always good for messing with games and bad touch with the playerbase.
I just hope the skeletal crew will iron out the bugs and up the performance.
Rift was a *must* to bring the players together but after that they should have kept this game more like it was originaly planned.
just me humble opinion..cheers
(always thought this was a smiley with a beer..im focused on the wrong things in live :P)
VG Actually does have a free trial, and the client is free. You can create a trial acct, then convert it to a full sub w/o paying any additional fee beyond the monthly sub.
When Vanguard first came out, I bought it...and I loved it. No, let me explain. I loved what it could become, because it had the foundation to be a great rpg experience, one that the mmorpg world is lacking. Back when I was around at launch and even a few months after hoping for that magical quick fix, I noticed so much of the game was just out right MISSING. It felt as if the game was made up of place holders. And it was. The performance was horrible as well. I could barely play it, even with my rig that was well past the requirements.
Well I get an email over a year later saying, "hey we are making all former accounts active, free for a month or two". I was cautious, but I loaded up that massive game (over 20 gigs) i think... and patched it up. I logged in and was pleasantly surprised. IT RAN PERFECTLY. Much of the game has been improved, items put into place, world patched up, even classes were looking good. I noticed that the character models were changed, downgraded a bit, most likely to help performance. Much of the character customization was dumbed down, but theres still a lot of customizing that can be done. According to the forums, back when i tried it again, they had a new model coming out that would allow better customization again, and would change the look of the characters a bit. For better or worse, I havent seen it to say.
Anyways, I was very impressed with the game. I dropped my old character and started a new one. I loved it! So much fun. SOE did a great job with ressurecting the title, wish they could do the same with SWG. Now I know many of you hate SOE, but I dont. I feel that they are a good company but were under the wrong hand. By this I mean, SOE was run by movie execs...essentially they were part of the wrong department. Now I work in Hollywood and I can say...movie execs make stupid decisions all the time. They dont seem to understand that mmorpgs cannot be treated like movies and sequels. They constantly want to change things for greater profit, and often it will destroy a game...aka SWG. That said, Sony has been restructuring, SOE is now part of their gaming division and will be run appropriately this time.
That said, heres my beef with Vanguard. The community. Its tiny.... THis game is huge and suffers from a small community. Second, the community is full of carebares. Sadly, the PvP server i started my first character on doesnt exist anymore. PvP was originally part of the plans for Vanguard, but the carebares are the ones that stuck around longer. The classes are not balanced for competition and they have macros that would be a form of cheating in pvp, imo.
I loved the big world and rolled an alt on the pve server...it was fun, but I still want to feel a bit of competition, a sense of danger, not from simple computer AI, but human beings. So on the forums I brought up a suggestion about PvP, how to impliment it without taking away the carebare's style of play. Sadly, in return I was dubbed a violent person who needs to gtfo of "their" game. This small community really really hates pvp and will label you as violent evil people if you bring it up. They seem to want the game to suffer. Its like a club with a sign that says, "no X allowed".
Now, this shouldnt stop you all from joining this great game, because that community honestly needs to be taken over. There needs to be more voices added, asking the developers for these needed changes. They will listen if the community grows. Vanguard is bigger and has way more features than both AoC and WAR combined. Its really a great up to date game, that can move into dirx10 visuals. Its worth getting into. Its worth taking over the current small carebare community. There still are some pvpers fighting the good fight, but they need more of you.
The first and best pvp server that existed before they started merging servers was faction vs faction. The race you picked was either on one side or the other. I remember some great pvp moments. Mages running across water, jumping onto ships. Tanks charging in and causing havok. It was a lot of fun, and world is pratically set up for a great pvp experience. It just needs you.
If you are looking for a great mmorpg, one that has player housing and land, mounts and flying mounts, boats, a sandbox world with no instances, giant bosses that both fly and walk on land... it has crafting second to UO in terms of complexity, a card game and more... join up. Its really a hidden gem that people over look because of its forced early launch.
I hope that Vanguard devs will re-release the game with an expansion attached so that it can get more interested in it, this game really doesnt deserve to sink into Oblivion and its Devs are the most active I have ever seen in a mmorpg.
I dont know where I was going with this, but give it a try and lets put some pvp back into Vanguard.
I played Vanguard at launch. The game was unplayable so I cancelled immediately.
I came back twice for free trials. I cancelled both times for the same reason....
terrible combat animations
Even world of warcraft has better animations than vanguard did. I guess i was spoiled with star wars galaxies pre-nge.
Have they fixed them ? slash left and slash right was awful. In SWG I had spin moves, whirling, a cool move like a leg sweep, and more.
I have NO idea what you are talking about or what game you are playing. Characters lunge, swing both directions, spin, leap in the air and attack....
Again... not sure what game you were playing - or if you just tried to auto-attack your way through the game.
I have been playing Vanguard for a little more than six months and I highly approve of this review article. Job well done by the reviewer.
Vanguard is so incredibly huge that you can play many alts without ever doing the same quests. I have ten Alts and each class and race is well done and fun to play. All have some solo ability and some more than others, especially the healing classes.
The classes are unique in their abilities and what they bring to the game. I love playing a Disciple which is a martial artist healer because some of my hits heal me and my group. I love playing a Ranger because they have great utility and their attacks are outstanding.
Vanguard has:
I cannot say enough about the quests in this game. They are clever, give you tons of backstory and role playing opportunities and offer insight into the crazy devs that helped make this game.
When have you played a game that started you off as a bad guy and were ordered to kill villagers and monks?
When have you played a game where a major organization asks you to lead befuddled farmers to a grist mill to grind them into animal food to hide the evidence that something went wrong?
When have you played a game where you are giving an epic quest line that requires you to kill so many things that Hellhound-like Shadowhounds are attracted to you and eventually gives up one of their own to become your personal mount?
Ok, ok, as you can tell I'm a fan but I'm honest enough to admit that there are still problems. What is the worse one for me? It's a graphic bug that pops up frequently which I call the "Stripper bug". As you collect items pieces of your armor and even your weapons disappear. You can get them back by re-equipping them or by zoning, but there's something disturbing about a Kojan character running around with a tan loincloth that is the same color as your character's skin. However, my Halflings look pretty damn good when their breastplates disappear. (wink)
I have vista and I see storm coming in, surroundings getting darker, trees swinging more vigorously and then the rain starts to pour in.
Or at the Northern Border the snow flakes swinging down.
I couldn't see the weather either. Running Vista as well.
I loved Vanguard prior to Beta 4. What happened in Beta 4 and what it launched as was comparably awful.
I got into the beta either just before or just as Microsoft bailed and SOE became involved, and I thought it was fantastic at that time, bugs aside. Later in to the SOE era, they ironed out the worst of the bugs but meanwhile trashed just about everything I found appealing about the game: travelling, believable particle effects, broad-range character creation sliders, most of the hairstyles, the atmosphere of the best cities, several race/class combinations, and the fellowship system. Then Sigil closed and SOE swallowed the game whole. Stephen King couldn't have written this.
Still need to fix the ugly character models.
The one thing besides bugs and initial performance issues (which are mostly fixed i hear) that put me off everytime I launch the game is character animations. Running, walking is awful, and ruins (at least) my immersion factor. The rest is indeed very very good in most cases.
I think the models are quite good.
When they're scaled most of the way down and kept mostly naked.
The trouble is that clothing/armor doesn't properly adjust to certain features, meaning that even if you have a male character with a well-proportioned upper torso or a female with firm, high breasts, as soon as you equip clothing/armor they appear to be a steroid abuser or a botox-laden grandma with AoC-style sagging DD udders.
Acceptable for orcs. Ridiculous for elves and non-barbarian humans.
They are like dolls and lifeless with poor animations and the character creation sucks and doesn't really allow for much change. The faces just stare into space constantly and don't have that alive feeling. I also hate the way the bodies are made because they arn't sexy but more like place holder programmer art of someone who doesn't have a clue how to model the human body. Put on top of that the starter rags don't really do anything justice. The animal races are the worst because they are just human bodies with a different texture and no tails...... the face models are naff too. The models need more of an art direction and need to look full of life and something you can care about.
Like Lotro until they fix the character models I could never try the game again.
No game is perfect, are you looking for perfect? The animations are better than most games and quite beautifully drawn. If you are looking for something more realistic then you might need to wait for the next generation of games. They aren't sexy? Get a girlfriend.......oh my god!
So what game would you try? That will be an interesting answer.
I was bashing the game in a previous thread a few days ago and as a result of the banter I decided to give the game another go.
Hmmm......now I have a sheepish grin on my face as I have actually been finding it quite enjoyable. There are still certainly things that I really dislike about the game but I am able to overlook them as its good qualities just about counter the bad ones.
Firstly I really dont like the character models. They are certainly better than they used to be but they still look very strange to me. The list of sliders during character customisation is actually quite deceptive as a good portion of them dont really change much. I picked a dwarf as I have always been fond of the ale swigging fellows but also because they looked the least weird to me. However I just couldnt get much variety in the way he looked. Often in mmos its the hair style which makes you look different but unfortunately the available hairstyles in Vanguard are still extremely embarrassing to look at so I had little choice but to make him bald. Thankfully though I can hide his strangeness behind armour....well most of the time anyway.....and the armour I have found so far does look rather good. Plenty of detail. There are also 19 races and 15 classes to choose from so your quite spoilt for choice in this game. Unfortunately they all use the same model for the body which is a bit of a cop-out......and the anatomy of those models really needs some work. They really dont look right at all. The most obvious game that compares to this regarding the character models is EQ2. Vanguard has better graphics technically but the races in EQ2 look a hell of a lot better because each race has its own unique look and the anatomy is correct too. The art direction for the characters is just superior in EQ2.
However the landscapes in Vanguard more than make up for it. The lighting works very well although I still encounter a bug which turns the screen black whenever I turn tone-mapping on in the graphics options which is a shame. I was disapointed that the review mentioned a problem with Vista that prevents weather effects from working. So basicly I am not getting the full visual effects that I could? Bollocks! I want to get caught in rainstorms and blizzards! Thats a real shame because I am able to run the game on maximum settings and it doent lag much at all.
The graphics in Vanguard can be a bit hit or miss though. Someone else mentioned that certain parts of the gameworld actually dont look too great at all, like they have been slapped into the game in a hurry. There is quite a lot of this in the game which is a shame because it really detracts from the overall effect. I can be stood on a hill and have a marvelous view of the land and then I might look around and see log palisade that looks really bad or some very weak looking textures. I also find that the bad character models really clash with the landscape. In fact this is VERY noticeable. I get the impression that whoever worked on the landscapes of Vanguard were much more skilled than the guys that did the character models.
I totally agree with the reviewers appraisal of the diplomacy sphere. It really is quite daft actually because there is literally no decision making or diplomacy in it. All you do is read a bunch of text and then move onto the next npc and read some more. There is nothing to actually participate in. You cant choose optional dialogue or effect the flow of the story or anything. The card game is sort of interesting but it doesnt really serve any purpose other than to stop you from reading the text. If you lose the card game then you can just start it again immediately which makes me wonder why its even in the game. Civic diplomacy is a bit more interesting as you can cause buffs to appear which effect the people around you. Basicly if you want the game to be an online book and enjoy playing a card game that isnt all that deep then diplomacy will be the thing for you. Having said all that there is a kind of addictive quality to it. Basicly its nice that its there as an option at least. Afterall you dont HAVE to level up through diplomacy.
The other two spheres are more interesting. You still dont really get to make any noticeable choices about anything mind you but then thats the nature of these restricted story driven games unfortunately. Despite that I actually find the crafting quite involving and certainly much more intersting than other mmos.
The adventuring sphere is obviously the main meat of the game. Combat can seem a bit clunky and didnt seem right at first but it grew on me after a while. There seem to be plenty of variety in the loot that drops although the respawn rates can be a bit fast on occasion. Creatures often faded back into existence within a minute on many occasions.
There are indeed plenty of little glitches still in the game but nothing too drastic in my opinion....well not so afr anyway although I have heard of a number of bugs that are still causing some real hassles. I keep coming across odd little things, such as when I went to repair my stuff and it listed several items as costing 1869378336 copper to repair. Thankfully this was only a visual thing and it actually just cost a few copper (phew). Nothing game breaking for me so far though.
The community seems ok to me so far and are mostly quite helpful in the chat channels.....well.....sort of anyway considering that there dont actually seem to be that many people around (I'm on Halgar). Naming conventions unfortuantely have been thrown out the window. I know this doesnt really matter as you get people with stupid names in any mmo but it just seems a shame to me as it detracts from the gameworld in my opinion. Its a bit like walking into a beautiful garden and then stubbing your cigarette out on the grass.
The first players I saw when I logged into the game were called Flufffluff, Fluffyfluff and Fluffinette.......and yes they were were just as irritating and childish when I had the misfortune of speaking to them as well. Silly names along these lines seem to dominate the game from what I have seen so far. Also as with pretty much all PvE games I just havent had much incentive to play the game with anyone and just find myself doing it solo......but then its not surprising considering that PvE games are meant to be played against the computer anyway. PvE games like this are really just glorified stories and the players that keep running past me may as well not be there most of the time lol.
I am personally really looking forward to an mmo that allows me to have more direct involvement in the gameworld. There seems to be a lot of text telling me that things are happening and yet no opportunity for me to ACTUALLY do any of it myself. For example at the end of a quest an evil npc escaped by blasting some guards with some magic and the using some more magic to vanish. None of this actually really happened though......I just got a few paragraphs of text telling me it happened.
However although Vanguard is just another static PvE gameworld that is only capable of telling me a story, it does actually do it quite well and it is at least very nice to look at. It has some pretty good features in it too. I would love to see these features get implemented into a more advanced mmo where I can actually do things but for now Vanguard is keeping me occupied and I'm not too bored with it just yet. I'm gonna have to take back my previous statements about the game and admit that it actually does the PvE storytelling things better than its competition. It does lack polish though so its gonna have a hard job bringing in new players.
Oops.....wall of text hits for a zillion damage!
No game is perfect, are you looking for perfect? The animations are better than most games and quite beautifully drawn. If you are looking for something more realistic then you might need to wait for the next generation of games. They aren't sexy? Get a girlfriend.......oh my god!
So what game would you try? That will be an interesting answer.
Something that appeals to me.....
Starcraft
Warcraft
Diablo
Half-Life
GTA
I love this game but I still feel that I won't return until they spend some ad money to attract a new player base.
Re-subscribed for the second time this last Wednesday. Have to say its been a blast, rolled a new character, did the Isle of Dawn and joined a friendly guild.
Whilst it is a little daunting leaving the IoD, there are plenty of quest hubs to hit, Veskal's is a good place to go from IoD for example and it will lead you on to other quest hubs.
What has been the most fun is some good old fashioned dungeon crawling though. A small group of us hitting a dungeon and doing the quests related to it have shot us up through the levels and given hours of great fun. I forgot just how good VG's gameplay is and am sure I will stick with it for longer this time.
Good review.. I've played Vanguard for 2 years.. I don't think there is a better PvE MMO out there. And the community is second to none.
The only part of the review that I would disagree with is stating lack of end-game raid content. Unless someone is in an ultra-hard-core guild it's hard to imagine that anyone has finished all the raid content.
I loved the initial vision of Vanguard but that vision doesn't exist now. The new developers made drastic changes to the game that keeps me away. I just wanted bugs to be fixed, not change how hard the mobs were or the class design of some classes completely. Also they dumbed down travel and there are some serious lore breaking issues.
I did try the game around a year ago and I came upon a quest giver in a mountain. I accept the quest but keep thinking as I go to turn in that somehow I have gotten lost because I swore the NPC was in the wrong location. Come to find out they made multiple copies of the quest npc throughout the whole cave?!
It was the most absurd thing I have every seen in a rpg. I could literally see the same npc at one time in two instances at the same time... talk about immersion breaking. I quit right then, if this is some of the design solutions this dev team comes up with, I don't want a part of it. That wasn't a decision made to fit into the game, that was just sloppy to have the same npc in 4 - 6 different locations in the mountain. Who wants to play a game where the devs do not care if something they do fit in the world.
No game is perfect, are you looking for perfect? The animations are better than most games and quite beautifully drawn. If you are looking for something more realistic then you might need to wait for the next generation of games. They aren't sexy? Get a girlfriend.......oh my god!
So what game would you try? That will be an interesting answer.
Yeah no game is perfect....so....ermrm.....whats your point exactly? He never said that the game had to be perfect. Why are you bashing him for making an honest and critical observation of the game? Stop being so touchy and defensive. Sorry but your response is typical of the Vanguad community in general and ties in perfectly with what Stephanie said about it in her review. Fans of the game just cant accept a single bad word to be said about it even when its a true and constructive comment.
John Zoids post is absolutely spot on. The character models are one of the worst aspects of Vanguard. They completely clash with the rest of the game which looks rather good. In an mmo its important that the players avatar looks good as the player will be looking at it all the time. Nobody wants an ugly character but unfortunately thats what you get in Vanguard. In fact the models are one of the things which drives people away from playing the game. Its the first thing a new player sees when they log into the game and first impressions count for a lot.
SOE introduced the new soga models into Everquest 2. They were'nt just slightly altered versions of the previous ones. They were totally new versions and they looked fantastic. They REALLY need to do the same with Vanguard......more so in fact because Vanguards models are much worse than EQ2s original avatars. Unfortunately I doubt this is ever going to happen because I get the impression that it would mess around with the way armour looks when worn. Like John Zoid accurately pointed out, every player model in Vanguard is the same. The only thing that is different is the head. Humans, Goblins, Dwarves, Elves, Wolfmen, Orcs and so on should not have the same anatomy but in Vanguard they do. What makes this even worse is the fact that the anatomy of the duplicated models is totally wrong. Whoever made them really had no idea what they were doing. Compare this to EQ2 where every individual race looks unique and is anatomicly correct.
If SOE wants more people to come and play Vanguard then they need to totally change those ugly models. By leaving them as they are they are effectively shooting themselves in the foot. It would be really good if they could make each race look unique (as they should) but failing that they should at the very least fix the anatomy of the body. It really should not be that difficult considering there is effectively only ONE player avatar in the entire game! John Zoid was right about the animal races too. They really do look very stupid indeed. Compare them with the models in EQ2 if you disagree.
I am currently playing the game and quite liking it BUT those messed up character models are really getting to me. They are a glaring eye sore on what is otherwise a rather good looking game. I am putting effort into overlooking it but many people dont have the patience for it and will simply move on to games where they can create a character that they like.
Also the Vanguard community in general doesnt help much. It has a reputation for being extremely stuck up and many people refuse to play the game because of this. Its fine to like and support a game you are playing but its another thing to completely dismiss anyone who doesnt sing its praises. You have to accept the fact that Vanguard isnt a very popular game so its obvious that things still need to be improved. People ARE going to talk about these things so it really doesnt help when they get shot down in flames for doing so. In other words.....stop burying your head in the sand and smell the fresh air of reality! This doesnt apply to everyone of course as there are plenty of mature and helpful people in the game.
Conclusion = Totally replace the character models. Try and make each race look unique if possible. At the very least fix the messed up anatomy (yeah SOE that means employing someone who understands the human form....even if you are going to apply that "human form" to every race in the game) and improve their currently stiff animations. Combat animations are better than before but when they stand still they look stiff as a board (they look like they have a stick shoved up their arses!). Also the faces really need lots of improvement because as John Zoid said they look really plastic and vacant......no life in them at all. Also.......fix those god damn ugly hair styles! Sorry but they look atrocious! Finally the starter gear does look very poor but this isnt so important as you wont keep it for long.
Do this and more players will come. Ignore the player avatars and Vanguard will simply continue to stagnate.
Vanguard has a lot of features PVE wise that attract me..the problem is.....the frame rate. No matter what setting I use...my frame rate drags just enough it gives me a headache and makes my eyes bleed. A friend of mine can't even play the game. It lets her make characters but the moment she tries to load into the world she crashes to desktop.
Needless to say the game is still heavily incompatible (in my opinion) with random computers. I'd blame SOE but really the game was left in a POOR state by its original designers & developers thanks to Piss Poor Management. EQ2 is a gorgeous game and I never have those issues. If they threw out Vanguard's engine and used the EQ2 engine I'd subscribe in a heartbeat. Or if quite simply EQ2 had Vanguard's Options that'd be a match made in heaven.
Vanguard atleast game design wise is everything that EQ2 should of been. It just suffers from a crap graphics engine that randomly hates on computers regardless of power.
....Yes...the humans have muzzles, fur and tails and fuzzy pointed ears! They all look the same! ...seriously thats the most wacked out thing I've ever heard. The races dont' have enough variety I agree as in ..Fox People tend to look like all the Other Fox people since there isn't a huge choice in fur color / eye color. But its rather distinct whos' a fox, who's a human, and who's an orc.
Considering the game has performance issues and random crashes still due to the graphics engine adding MORE weight to it would just make it worse. Thats why they scaled back the models last year in the first place. The engine simply can't handle it.
My how time flys,already time for another of these "hey guys come back vanguard is the best pve game out there" posts. They finally have it in a somewhat playable state but it is far from the best out there. There are still so many broken quests/skills/abilities, etc it isnt funny.
All anyone really needs to know about vanguard is that it will never have the subs required to make it a worthwhile game. $oe will never invest more than is required to keep it on life support and most gamers wont settle for paying a full price sub for a subpar game. Vanguard will continue to limp along with its sad population and meager server count only as long as station pass remains viable for $oe.
Considering this game was the textbook definition of an over-hyped, trainwreck launch, it's impressive they're managing to keep it afloat. Personally I'm not interested in such a PvE game but it is good seeing developers providing their community with a playable game. Perhaps Vanguard might also become a textbook definition of how to save a game that endured incompetent management during development.
....Yes...the humans have muzzles, fur and tails and fuzzy pointed ears! They all look the same! ...seriously thats the most wacked out thing I've ever heard. The races dont' have enough variety I agree as in ..Fox People tend to look like all the Other Fox people since there isn't a huge choice in fur color / eye color. But its rather distinct whos' a fox, who's a human, and who's an orc.
Considering the game has performance issues and random crashes still due to the graphics engine adding MORE weight to it would just make it worse. Thats why they scaled back the models last year in the first place. The engine simply can't handle it.
As John Zoid and myself clearly explained, every avatar in Vanguard uses the exact same model for the BODY. No not the head.....but the body. Maybe you should do a bit of basic research on anatomy yourself because I'm pretty sure that the "muzzle" and "fuzzy pointed ears" (lovingly highlighted in red for your ease of reference) can be commonly found on a creatures head. As I pointed out it is only the head which is unique to each race. The body is identical for every race.
Fur. Thats a texture. SOE did of course use textures as best as they could to try and seperate the races. Thats a good thing of course but the underlying model and the messed up anatomy which comes with it still remain identical between each race.
Tails. Sorry to break this to you but none of the animal avatars have any tails so you are completely wrong. In fact none of the avatars have ANY additional features to set them apart. Normally people say this to me but now it is my turn to say it to someone else........here it comes........do you actually play the game?
So to recap.......all the models used for the BODIES of all avatars in Vanguard are identical. The only things which seperate the races are the textures and the heads.
But yes you are correct that you can tell what race someone is. However that fact was never in dispute. If it wasnt for the different heads then you would never be able to tell the difference. In other mmos you can tell at a glance what race someone is because their anatomy is different.
Regarding the performance issues and random crashes......well.....actually its pretty stable now. I think they should now focus their efforts on the avatars. Oh and fixing those models will NOT put more pressure on the servers. I agree that it might put more pressure on the servers if they made the anatomy of each model unique to each race but as I said in my previous post I dont think that would be neccessary (although it would be nice).
However as there is only ONE model that gets used for the BODY of every race then changing it would not put any extra stress on the servers as no additional models would be getting added. They would simply be changing the "universal body model" which actually should not require a huge amount of work.....as there is only one model to change afterall. As I stated before though none of this might even be possible in Vanguard as it might have been badly made from the beginning.....there may well be technical reasons that prevent them from changing the anatomy of the body models too much (eg armour & clothing graphics). They were able to drasticly improve the character models in EQ2 but then that game was probably built in a better way that allowed the changes to occur.
Yeah I agree it is actually quite impressive that this game is still alive considering its launch. I'm not a big fan of these limited story telling PvE games either so I'm not really all that bothered if the game is still running next year or not as I will (hopefully) be playing one of the newer mmos which finally (again hopefully) takes better advantage of the online aspect of gaming (eg meaningful pvp through factionsl warfare, meaningful crafting, city building etc). I'm finding it kind of interesting at the moment though and certainly hope the game continues to improve.
The ugly character models was one of the reasons I couldn't stick with the game before. Are they still rudementary? I thought they were specifically adding new models to the game?
Yeah no game is perfect....so....ermrm.....whats your point exactly? He never said that the game had to be perfect. Why are you bashing him for making an honest and critical observation of the game? Stop being so touchy and defensive. Sorry but your response is typical of the Vanguad community in general and ties in perfectly with what Stephanie said about it in her review. Fans of the game just cant accept a single bad word to be said about it even when its a true and constructive comment.
John Zoids post is absolutely spot on. The character models are one of the worst aspects of Vanguard. They completely clash with the rest of the game which looks rather good. In an mmo its important that the players avatar looks good as the player will be looking at it all the time. Nobody wants an ugly character but unfortunately thats what you get in Vanguard. In fact the models are one of the things which drives people away from playing the game. Its the first thing a new player sees when they log into the game and first impressions count for a lot.
SOE introduced the new soga models into Everquest 2. They were'nt just slightly altered versions of the previous ones. They were totally new versions and they looked fantastic. They REALLY need to do the same with Vanguard......more so in fact because Vanguards models are much worse than EQ2s original avatars. Unfortunately I doubt this is ever going to happen because I get the impression that it would mess around with the way armour looks when worn. Like John Zoid accurately pointed out, every player model in Vanguard is the same. The only thing that is different is the head. Humans, Goblins, Dwarves, Elves, Wolfmen, Orcs and so on should not have the same anatomy but in Vanguard they do. What makes this even worse is the fact that the anatomy of the duplicated models is totally wrong. Whoever made them really had no idea what they were doing. Compare this to EQ2 where every individual race looks unique and is anatomicly correct.
If SOE wants more people to come and play Vanguard then they need to totally change those ugly models. By leaving them as they are they are effectively shooting themselves in the foot. It would be really good if they could make each race look unique (as they should) but failing that they should at the very least fix the anatomy of the body. It really should not be that difficult considering there is effectively only ONE player avatar in the entire game! John Zoid was right about the animal races too. They really do look very stupid indeed. Compare them with the models in EQ2 if you disagree.
I am currently playing the game and quite liking it BUT those messed up character models are really getting to me. They are a glaring eye sore on what is otherwise a rather good looking game. I am putting effort into overlooking it but many people dont have the patience for it and will simply move on to games where they can create a character that they like.
Also the Vanguard community in general doesnt help much. It has a reputation for being extremely stuck up and many people refuse to play the game because of this. Its fine to like and support a game you are playing but its another thing to completely dismiss anyone who doesnt sing its praises. You have to accept the fact that Vanguard isnt a very popular game so its obvious that things still need to be improved. People ARE going to talk about these things so it really doesnt help when they get shot down in flames for doing so. In other words.....stop burying your head in the sand and smell the fresh air of reality! This doesnt apply to everyone of course as there are plenty of mature and helpful people in the game.
Conclusion = Totally replace the character models. Try and make each race look unique if possible. At the very least fix the messed up anatomy (yeah SOE that means employing someone who understands the human form....even if you are going to apply that "human form" to every race in the game) and improve their currently stiff animations. Combat animations are better than before but when they stand still they look stiff as a board (they look like they have a stick shoved up their arses!). Also the faces really need lots of improvement because as John Zoid said they look really plastic and vacant......no life in them at all. Also.......fix those god damn ugly hair styles! Sorry but they look atrocious! Finally the starter gear does look very poor but this isnt so important as you wont keep it for long.
Do this and more players will come. Ignore the player avatars and Vanguard will simply continue to stagnate.
Firstly it's interesting that you feel the need to defend him. Secondly I wasn't being touchy about the game. I enjoy it and play it for what it is. My response to his post was in fact the point that he made in regard to the character models. I was asking what games he's been playing that are in fact more realistic? His point seemed petty and yet all games are lacking in the department of what the characters look like. So as he was only pointing this out for Vanguard I decided to respond to it.
That is what a forum is for isn't it? We are allowed to disagree on points?
So people only care what avatars look like? Why then do they play LOTRO and WoW? They aren't any better.
Yeah no game is perfect....so....ermrm.....whats your point exactly? He never said that the game had to be perfect. Why are you bashing him for making an honest and critical observation of the game? Stop being so touchy and defensive. Sorry but your response is typical of the Vanguad community in general and ties in perfectly with what Stephanie said about it in her review. Fans of the game just cant accept a single bad word to be said about it even when its a true and constructive comment.
John Zoids post is absolutely spot on. The character models are one of the worst aspects of Vanguard. They completely clash with the rest of the game which looks rather good. In an mmo its important that the players avatar looks good as the player will be looking at it all the time. Nobody wants an ugly character but unfortunately thats what you get in Vanguard. In fact the models are one of the things which drives people away from playing the game. Its the first thing a new player sees when they log into the game and first impressions count for a lot.
SOE introduced the new soga models into Everquest 2. They were'nt just slightly altered versions of the previous ones. They were totally new versions and they looked fantastic. They REALLY need to do the same with Vanguard......more so in fact because Vanguards models are much worse than EQ2s original avatars. Unfortunately I doubt this is ever going to happen because I get the impression that it would mess around with the way armour looks when worn. Like John Zoid accurately pointed out, every player model in Vanguard is the same. The only thing that is different is the head. Humans, Goblins, Dwarves, Elves, Wolfmen, Orcs and so on should not have the same anatomy but in Vanguard they do. What makes this even worse is the fact that the anatomy of the duplicated models is totally wrong. Whoever made them really had no idea what they were doing. Compare this to EQ2 where every individual race looks unique and is anatomicly correct.
If SOE wants more people to come and play Vanguard then they need to totally change those ugly models. By leaving them as they are they are effectively shooting themselves in the foot. It would be really good if they could make each race look unique (as they should) but failing that they should at the very least fix the anatomy of the body. It really should not be that difficult considering there is effectively only ONE player avatar in the entire game! John Zoid was right about the animal races too. They really do look very stupid indeed. Compare them with the models in EQ2 if you disagree.
I am currently playing the game and quite liking it BUT those messed up character models are really getting to me. They are a glaring eye sore on what is otherwise a rather good looking game. I am putting effort into overlooking it but many people dont have the patience for it and will simply move on to games where they can create a character that they like.
Also the Vanguard community in general doesnt help much. It has a reputation for being extremely stuck up and many people refuse to play the game because of this. Its fine to like and support a game you are playing but its another thing to completely dismiss anyone who doesnt sing its praises. You have to accept the fact that Vanguard isnt a very popular game so its obvious that things still need to be improved. People ARE going to talk about these things so it really doesnt help when they get shot down in flames for doing so. In other words.....stop burying your head in the sand and smell the fresh air of reality! This doesnt apply to everyone of course as there are plenty of mature and helpful people in the game.
Conclusion = Totally replace the character models. Try and make each race look unique if possible. At the very least fix the messed up anatomy (yeah SOE that means employing someone who understands the human form....even if you are going to apply that "human form" to every race in the game) and improve their currently stiff animations. Combat animations are better than before but when they stand still they look stiff as a board (they look like they have a stick shoved up their arses!). Also the faces really need lots of improvement because as John Zoid said they look really plastic and vacant......no life in them at all. Also.......fix those god damn ugly hair styles! Sorry but they look atrocious! Finally the starter gear does look very poor but this isnt so important as you wont keep it for long.
Do this and more players will come. Ignore the player avatars and Vanguard will simply continue to stagnate.
Firstly it's interesting that you feel the need to defend him. Secondly I wasn't being touchy about the game. I enjoy it and play it for what it is. My response to his post was in fact the point that he made in regard to the character models. I was asking what games he's been playing that are in fact more realistic? His point seemed petty and yet all games are lacking in the department of what the characters look like. So as he was only pointing this out for Vanguard I decided to respond to it.
That is what a forum is for isn't it? We are allowed to disagree on points?
So people only care what avatars look like? Why then do they play LOTRO and WoW? They aren't any better.
Why is it interesting that I am defending John Zoids post? I'm defending his post because I totally agree with what he said. Yeah certainly we are allowed to disagree on things. These forums wouldnt be interesting otherwise. The thing is thats not quite what you were doing when you responded to John Zoids post. He was pointing out that the avatars in Vanguard are particularly bad and in response you tried dismissing it by saying that no game is perfect......as though you were trying to indicate that avatars in ALL mmos are equally bad......which isnt true. He was talking about avatars and you tried diverting the focus away from that by talking about the game in general......basicly by trying to sweep the games bad points under the carpet as though they dont exist. Yes Vanguard has its good points but unfortunately it is heavily let down by its dreadful avatars.
What games are more realistic you ask? Well again that isnt what was being discussed. John Zoid and myself were talking about the avatars. The landscapes and lighting are fine. Its those ugly character models which are the problem which many people are well aware of. Loads of people just dont like them and quite rightly. So......what games have better character models? EQ2, WoW, WAR, AoC, DAoC, Ryzom.....even LOTRO.....and plenty of others which I'm sure I have forgotten......all of them have much better character models than Vanguard.
WoW isnt any better? Sorry but thats not true. The character models in WoW are MUCH better. It uses less polygons and the graphics are inferior and yet it has proper art direction. Its cartoony graphics might not be to everyones liking but its creators have managed to inject life and personality into its avatars. Unfortunately this is totally lacking in Vanguard. They have no soul and look like lifeless dolls with blank vacant stares. SOE need to fix them.
The character models have been improved so they are certainly better than the hideous things you saw when the game launched. Unfortunately they did not add new models to the game but instead tweaked the old ones so they still look pretty weird. They still look stiff as a board and have the same blank lifeless look to them. I would recommend trying out the trial isle so you can see for yourself.
"EQ2, WoW, WAR, AoC, DAoC, Ryzom.....even LOTRO"
I have played all those games (except Ryzom) and I completely disagree with you. The models aren't better in those games at all. You must be playing a different version of those games than the ones I own.
You think that the character models in Vanguard are equal to in quality or better than all of the other mmos on the market? Then there is nothing more to be said. We will just have to agree to disagree.
If this re-review has you running to re-subscribe, cool your jets. The last patch has the game in the toilet. The lag, hitching and poor performance of days gone past are now back. A simple rollback of the patch would put things right I would geuss, but not only have they not done so, there is no communications from the company on their plans to fix the issue.
http://forums.station.sony.com/vg/posts/list.m?topic_id=44677
This Re-review looks strange to me because had a free month thx to SOE last december and found the game more bugged than 8 months before . (when I stopped the game, because of his small pop.)
Found an empty world (outside IOD), and a bugged tchat. (bugged as hell), lag etc. Had terrible pbs with my pet (as it was before GU2) Found a smaller pop than it was when I left it. All my contacts stopped the game 1 month after me, for War or AOC or TCOS.
I'm downloading the game once more (IOD/free trial) but I'm not sure to subscribe again.
So I'm giving VG a last chance (last one) ...
forums.station.sony.com/vg/posts/list.m
Not good...
- I have now a new Char on IOD '(necro), saw players in IOD/ Good
- Tchat seems to work fine again /Good
(it was a nightmare in december.)
- Quests are good in the IOD, interesting / Good
- My necro's pet is BUGGY. Buggy at it was before the GU2
. / Bad, very bad.
- some mobs disappears on the ground / bad (same old bugs :/ )
Nice review!
I've played Vanguard continuously for about 30 months now (since beta in fall of 2007). I actually think Vanguard is a great game for a casual player. Depending on class, you can solo content all the way to level 50 (though playing in a group is more interesting and you'll see the many cool dungeons). You can also pursue crafting, diplomacy, harvesting and fishing.
The review suggests that having too many choices is bad for the casual gamer, but I spent pretty much my whole first year just playing solo and had a lot of fun.
Anyway, I hope there are more reviews like this going forward. It's a really nice, balanced view of where the game is at today.
They are tacking on real life cash for virtual items on this subcription based game as well, buyer beware. These people are greedy and if you buy into this new practice of greed it will only spread to other games. SOE is known for their greed, let their games fall.
SOE takes development resources away from developing new expansions and additional included content/bug fixes and puts them to work on more ways to get your dollar such as card games for in game items, real life cash for virtual items, player to player selling of items etc. Don't be fooled this does hurt you as the consumer even if you don't buy the items. Stick with games that provide you all items in the game for your purchase of the game and subscription fee or play free to play games with cash for items .. .NOT BOTH.
for someone that hasnt played and talking about the content is laughable. for starters at launch the game had enough content. example swamp gear, lucent jewelry all at end game and at the time it wasnt easy to get because of timers and the shear amount of faction you had to obtain to even get the next quest or craft the item. if your complaining about AoC then you should do it on their forums because VG had content for every lvl.
the main issue everyone had with this game was the performance and lack off it at launch.
and to say the con about this game is apw or lack of raid content in the current state. is funny as well. the only instance in the game is apw and is still open to pvp "if your on the FFA server". another thing it happens to be the biggest dungeon in the whole game at the moment. not to mention all the raid mobs across the telon world. there is end game content and 3 spheres to grind out. there is time to be put into a char. plus your review you write that your only lvl 44. pfft you cant even start the quest to get into apw so how would you know about end game content.
the vg devs are a little slow with getting new end game content out we all know. i blame soe for the amount of focus they put in eq2. put the AA eq2 has, the amount of raid mobs at almost every tier eq2 has, and the pvp system eq2 has but still FFA. that would be the recipe for success.
i have 2 50s a lvl 37 crafter and 20 diplo
Crack,
There is no way this game can rate higher then AoC. Not in this lifetime.
After years of working on it, it still has major performance & technical issues, it's still missing large chunks of content, and it is still a relatively unfocused, dull fantasy grinder that has very little to offer aside from loads of "kill 10 rats". Most of the "content" is on the level of Lineage 2 style grind thats just hidden in a series of really dull uninspired kill this and that task. There is no really difficulty to the game, it is just a simple excersize in grind endurance.
This site continues to pour out the strangest reviews of any website / professional publication around. They aren't "contiversial", they are just inconsitant and wierd. They beat up one game for techicnal issues (that are minor in comparison) then ignore them in another. (at least where rating is concerned)
I've played both games extensively in the past and I'm sorry, although Vanguard may have the "potential" to be a great open world fantasy game, it missed the mark by miles. To add insult to injury, it's technical issues will do nothing but frustrate many new users and it's lack of direction and purpose will cause most to just drift away after a month or two.
But all in all, I think the games actual performance is pretty soundly reflected in it's player populations....empty in all but maybe 2 of its 4 servers.
i had such a bad experiance when this game was released it put me off of buying any mmo in its first months . ( i ll only buy now if i ve played the beta ) . I dont know what its like now i may load it and have a look under the free trial . The landscapes were nice if i recall but the character graphics were horrible .
Question; what single aspect of an MMO do you spend the most amount of time doing? COMBAT....Yet not a single mention of how the pysical act of combat is played in Vanguard and whether its fun. There is an entire section on customer service, yet in 10 years of MMO gaming I have never had to deal with customer service in any game.
Like many of you, I've given VG a number of solid chances. Each time, I have been wildly disappointed in the claims that the game has been “improved” in this way or that. Thanks to the OP’s re-review (and in part because I’m a glutton for punishment) I decided to give it yet another try. IMO nothing could be worse than bastardized, fisher-price, duplo-lego MMO experience that is “World of Worncraft” (Sorry blizzard fanbois, it’s my opinion so don’t get all uppity with me) .
This latest experience has been a VASTLY different one from all previous chances I’ve given this game. Quests seem fixed for the most part. Most game-stopping bugs (not all) have been patched and the changes to Diplomacy add a great dimension for those that like a bit of diversity in their gameplay.
The combat? It's fine. What else would you like to hear about it. If it was truly lacking in any way... I'm sure you'd have heard about it by now.
All of that said: there are still some subtle idiosyncrasies that may annoy a new player. Most of these issues aren’t inherent to Vanguard itself, rather they reflect the trend toward the need for instant gratification that players new to the genre (or hell, even some vets) now demand from their games. There is a lack of online resources. So if you’re a wowhead regular or can’t bear to play the game without “QuestHelper”, you are definitely out of luck in VG.
Freedom. While everyone claims they want it, when they’re given it, they cry about “lack of direction”. Vanguard is truly a HUGE open world. You have to explore. You have to talk to NPCs and actually <gasp> READ what they have to say. If you run through Vanguard blindly and randomly accepting various quests (ala WoW) during the leveling process, you’re going to miss a GIANT portion of what this game has to offer. So yes, the world will seem empty, lifeless and dull.
One last thing, for the “Hardcore PvP” poster with the propensity for violence (yes, I’m being facetious). Your battlecry to “take over the community” will likely fall on deaf ears. It’s never really truly been the vision of VG to provide the type of atmosphere you desire. The same “stuck-up” community you claim to despise is the fan base which VG developers are tailoring to. Just as a tip, you might want to check your own “stuck up” attitude at the door before you start pointing fingers. Your post reeked of exactly the type of pretentious self-righteousness you’re accusing the VG community of having. So yah, good luck with your crusade to “take over”, it would in the very least, be amusing to watch you try.
VG isn’t perfect. Nothing’s perfect. In its present state however it is a gratifying and unique experience for anyone that’s sick of their duplo-legos.
I tried it. Played as one of the wolf-type characters (forgot the name). Hated the bugs. Hated the "last-minute-before-beta-we-better-throw-this-thing-together-quickly" feel to it. Then couple that with the wolf chars all sounding like a bad impression of Cookie Monster, and I had to go away.
The night sky was beautiful! That's the only good thing I saw.
If the above has been fixed, I would give it another shot.