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Vanguard: Saga of Heroes: Review
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
MMORPG.com Community Manager, Laura Genender, takes a look at the world of Telon in her review of Vanguard: Saga of Heroes.
Explaining Vanguard inevitably leads to explaining Vanguard's community. So, let's just start with it: yes, the game and the forums/fansites that support it are plagued with 'Fanbois' vs 'Haters' - the most heated faction warfare I have ever witnessed. Here, though, the rule of 'vocal minority' is in effect, and if you stay off of the forums and out of general chat, the majority of players are quiet and friendly (if you're not on a PvP server!).
According to unconfirmed sources like MMOGData.com, the Vanguard community is shrinking: what at launch had featured around 200k subscribers was down below 50k by May of '07. The PvP and Roleplay server populations are still rather steady, but the "normal servers" are practically ghost towns. When I created a character to explore one of those servers, I ran into another newbie who boldly stated "you're the 3rd person I've seen so far!"
;)
Read the whole review here.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
From reading this the CONS outweigh the PROS. I agree with this Review. I will never play this game.
Very....politic.....
Nice review, however, can we get a second opinion, I feel there is a vested interest in this reviewer views.
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"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
Second opinion? Man this game had soooo many bad reviews, how else do you want people to put it? The game unfortunatly, just doesn't cut it. I wish it did, such a shame.
in reality, the last week of me playing, 'ive seen an influx of former wow players.. odd...
It ain't dead yet ma..
Play it then decide, i'm having the mmo experience of my life, and i've played them all. .yes their are bugs.. but man it's an awesome game...
I feel this review was slanted, and pruned of the compleate truth.
I want someone who dosnt care in any direction, and not biased to review the game.
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"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
He said he was able to solo well...did he play any of his characters past 20-25? That's where it stopped dead for me. Has something changed or did he not try to solo anything beyond level 25.
and high end content translates to raiding?
why?
It seems quite ironic that this 'hardcore' game is recommended by the reviewer to casuals and further more he warns hardcore players off. I'm confused....but obviously not as confused as the jolly green ranger. I do wonder if the reviewer has another agenda (get people to play the game he seems to be enjoying before it goes down the pan).
I feel this review was slanted, and pruned of the compleate truth.
I want someone who dosnt care in any direction, and not biased to review the game.
this is curioushow do you think the review was slanted?
and why/how was it pruned?
i don't currently play VG but i am still hoping that SOE can pull it together and i really do want to give the noobie island a shot
I feel this review was slanted, and pruned of the compleate truth.
I want someone who dosnt care in any direction, and not biased to review the game.
What complete truth do you feel was "pruned"? I don't think the reviewer glossed over anything negative about the game. She seemed balanced in terms of pointing out both strengths and weaknesses. Though she is complimentary of the game's strong points, the review is far from favorable. It wouldn't make me want to give V:SoH another chance.
in reality, the last week of me playing, 'ive seen an influx of former wow players.. odd...
It ain't dead yet ma..
Your right vanguard isnt dieing..... its WoW that is dieing!!!!!OMG! I better go warn SoE they are about to have over 8 million people about to join there game since WoW is over!
Vanguard =
If only i could find a troll with a tin foil hat. =(
in reality, the last week of me playing, 'ive seen an influx of former wow players.. odd...
It ain't dead yet ma..
I agree with you on this crafting system should have definitely been a pro, he did leave out quite a bit. Plus the game is been steadily improving on the tech issues. So that as a con should not be carved in stone. If you scroll back through the reviews for Vanguard they show steady improvement minus a hater here and there. If you look at the Lotro reviews you can see that the pretty little bug free world doesnt not have the substance to sustain veteran gamers for very long. Granted I am cautiously sticking with Vanguard based on how EQ2 was turned around. Bottom line, people need to ignore me and everyone else's opinion and play the game for themselves. To each his own!
The Blood Mage was really fun to play. to bad the rest of the game was so boring and ran like crap.
someone earlier commented on how deep they thought the crafting is in this game and I have to completely disagree.
The crafting system here is a HUGE humongous time sink with little reward I couldn't stand it.
I really like what they did with the blood mage though... maybe next year if Sony sells it I may try it again
Edit:
People should not be paying to play this game in it's current state.
Crafting really can be a Con or Pro, they tried something new and fun when you first start. But after crafting for any long period of time it just isnt the same. Crafting slowly becomes less and less fun, almost to the point of being mind numbing.
If only i could find a troll with a tin foil hat. =(
If you think this review is slanted I can only laugh. I think this review is generous. Vanguard is the posterboy game for unfinished MMOs. It is one of the fastest sinking MMOs in history regardless of how it ends up. The sign of a good MMO is when the devs are fired in the parking lot, the sold to cut the losses, and the playerbase down to about 30% of what it sold after a few months. And don't give us the..."Oh you haven't played it" garbage, there are plenty of us who have played it and are willing to hold bad developers and spin doctors accountable for deliberately putting a game on a retail shelf knowing that it is only 70% complete. Its bad business practice and bad ethics.
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I think people are misunderstanding me, the slant is in its generosity. Consider the source of the review.
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"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
So the reviewer had a good RP experience with other players (NOT part of the game design) and found one decent quest arc amid the HUNDREDS of terrible ones, and decided this made the game acceptable?
I see mmorpg.com is not immune to the plague of embarrassingly low standards so common among game sites that are desperate to garner the goodwill of software publishers. At least it wasn't a disingenuously glowing review, I'll hand them that.
As a former Vanguard player, i think it was a reasonably fair review. There are aspects ofthe game that are fun -- such as the classes. In particular, the way the did the healing classes was pretty satisfying.
On the other hand, the reveiw doesn't properly emphasize that the content starts to markedly decreasing both in terms of volume and quality after level 30.
Also, why include screeshots of things that are not actually in the game (like flying mounts). Isn't that a bit deceptive?
A fair review in my opinion.
I think I got my character to level 26 or 27. I saw a lot of promise in the game, a lot of potential unrealized.
I have a nice gaming rig, but performance seemed very poor and inconsistent. There were times out in the wilderness away from everyone else that the game performed adequately, albeit with annoying and often frustrating periods of lag while crossing chunk lines or as the reviewer noted, opening doors. Also, whenever I joined a group of more than a few people, the game would lag horribly, the sound would loop, and abilities would delay sometimes entire seconds after I had activated them. Now for a game that wants to be group centric, this is just unacceptable.
Graphics were a mixed bag. In some instances the game is really beautiful and inspiring just to behold; in other instances it is very lacking. For example, the water in a few areas looked great, but in most places I saw there was something wrong with it: it just didn't look right. Viewing distance was very good though, and helped create the illusion of being in a large world.
With regards to character generation, my avatar is beautiful. I love her appearance. However, there were not enough hairstyles to choose from and the sliders didn't seem to give the range of possibilites that I was expecting based on the pregame hype.
The community in game seemed really nice and helpful. I don't think I had a single bad experience in game. Outside the game though, some people defend the game's shortcomings a bit too vigorously. If you say the game has poor performance, they say it's because your rig's hardware is subpar, and if you don't like aspects of gameplay, then you're a wow fanboi and go back to where you came. It's become a tired refrain.
The truth hurt...
Lag, bad optimization, I don't like the gameplay either, I have the impression the environnement is very poor, trees looks like the same...
That's my opinion, I didn't play the game too and I don't plan too after reading bad comments
This review conclude what I was thinking of this game before.
Just a question. Why would you want to play an MMO that has these CONS?
PerformanceUnfinished Gameplay Aspects
Empty Servers
No High End Content
I agree with the review.
The author was fair and accurate. The game is fun but does have some problems. I am confident that SOE will address those issues. Moreover, the author is right about the serious lack of end-game content. All we know is that SOE is developing some raid content.
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WoW and fast food = commercial successes.
I neither play WoW nor eat fast food.
Personally I would have waited to review the game until SoE has at least been given a chance to show the direction they're taking the game. I mean, it's a couple weeks away right?