Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
What exactly does it offer?
Gabby-air
Member UncommonPosts: 3,440
So ive heard quite alot about vanguard and since i didnt have anything to play i thought i would give the game another shot. Last time i did the trial, it was lagging real bad for me and wasnt playable so i didnt even manage to do one quest. But this time it went quite smooth and i did some quests but i was wondering what does the game offer that other don't? Im aware of the big world and crafting system but other than that im not exactly sure whats new, i heard the Pve was good but i like to play with others and seems like the player base is quite small and mostly everyone is at max lvl so might be a problem there. So yeh just wondering what this game offers?
Comments
I like to call vanguard the saddest story in MMO's. The game is truly amazing , but the fact is there is little in the way of people playing it. It has more bugs then your average 2 year old game but i dont think they distract too much from the beauty that is vanguard. What vanguard offers is the best crafting system, A fun mini game in diplomacy, Challenging PvE, wonderful graphics, a mature/helpful community, awsome classes, and a group friendly environment. What it doesnt off is high population and good pvp ( i never did any pvp but i dont think its what vanguard is known for)
playing: Dragon Age
Waiting: for FF14, Mass Effect
Want to try: Fallen Earth
The populations in VG arent as dire as most people make it out to be. Of course there are a lot of people at max level that are working on the PoA content (which no one has completed yet), but there is a sizable playerbase that is not at max level. I suggest you play on Seradon or Xeth during US prime-time (5pm-11pm central) if you want the best population pool to play with. Following those guidelines, the game really isnt that devoid of players. A great community, excellent customer service by SOE standards, and enough content to keep you busy for a very very long time.
Like the poster above me said, its population isnt nearly as crippling low as some make it out to be. My account and players are based on seradon. During the times ive reactivated my account to visit the community and region chats were always quite active. Plus there are alot of helpful players out there. Outside of its huge world the classes are great, the crafting system was quite nice, in my opinion at least. The diplomacy was different but was somethin nice to do on the side for a change of pace. PvE is certainly good in VG especially from what ive seen some of the major dungeons even a high lvl solo player would have trouble moving through on their own so groups are going to be essential. There seem to be many active guilds of all types as well. Two other strong points that i like in VG is the housing, both the setup and the process of building your own, and the second are the boats. Its truly a shame it never got the developer attention that say EQ2 has gotten. As fun as VG is in its current state it could/couldve been truly amazing
Waiting For: FF14,Guild Wars2
RIP: Tabula Rasa&Hellgate:London(online)
Playing:Fallen Earth&Guild Wars& Dragon Age
Vanguard was made by by SIGIL, all ex EQ creators, what else can you ask for?? I dont care what folks say but Vanguard is the next EQ until obviously "The next EQ actually does come out", it has everything the original does and MORE! I love the classes, I love the graphics, I love the dungeons, I love the FLYING! The game is incredible and i wish people would come back and see it how it is now, it is eons better than when it launched.
I am so good, I backstabbed your face!
Other than a few items (j-boots anyone?), the developers, and few hidden little lore snippets, there is no direct relationship between VG and EQ. But after you play it... even for just a few levels... there is no denying that it shares something with original EQ. Its the first thing that comes to mind when you sit down and play VG for the first time.
I understand what you guys are saying but i mean compared to other games what does it offer? I quested a bit more today and the combat is the typical button smashing, questing aswell, crafting was quite in depth but im not really much of a crafter, as for the world, i gotta be honest here in my opinion the graphics are quite outdated, alot of low resolution textures, blurry objects and quite few squary objects but one thing i really liked was the sky. So yeh what else is there beside the crafting and world? are there like big raids, DDO type dungeons where you solve puzzles and stuff, new style of pve? stuff like that.
If you are looking for something revolutionary then you are looking in the wrong place. Your best bet is something else. As far as the gameplay goes it's a standard MMO where you have your kill x amount of mobs or fetch this quests. What i personally like about VG over any other MMO is the fact support classes get a ton of buffs, something that seems to be missing in newer MMO's. With the introduction of mounts to the genre, travel speed buffs has also been killed off, something VG still has on top of having mounts. I also like the specialized classes since I'm not a fan of the current trend of making multi purpose hybrids all in the name of making every group setup viable. I'm a big fan of the old school healer tank dps setups and will always gravitate towards games that doesn't move away from that.
The non instanced dungeons is a big plus for me as well as i can enter places to see if any groups has an open spot, help with resurrections or corpse recovery or just for the social aspect. I firmly believe the introduction of instanced dungeons in games has helped kill an important social aspect of meeting new people. Case in point i joined a great guild in vanguard after meeting them in a dungeon. Many ingame bonds and friendships has been formed from helping others out that you couldn't have had the game been instanced.
What VG offers is a good old school experience in the spirit of games like EQ and far from games like WoW. The main thing that keeps this game floating for now is the crafting aspect and the crafting community. The game offers a more indepth crafting system than any other game. Without the crafting and the crafting community this game would have closed down long before Matrix Online did.
From what you said above it sounds like you just need to move on to something else as VG isn't for you. VG doesn't offer something "new" or "the latest fads and features" nor the latest graphix^^ ..It's an old school game with old school gameplay and features. If the game doesn't grab your attention imidiately, it won't do it for you later either. The game offer things that has become lost or sacrificed in games today in order to cater to a majority. Things such as corpse recovery, xp loss on death, trains of mobs that can attack you should another player pass you by with a thong of mobs on his tail, tons of buffs including travel speed buffs, no instances period, complex crafting, specialized classes the list goes on.
Features you don't see in other games such as housing you build with your own hands using crafting, boats and boat building using crafting. The game has 15 unique classes and 19 different races which not many other if any game can boast to have. WoW has 10 classes total and other newer MMO's even less. The game is so vast that even old vets still come across content years after they never saw before. Those are the features that imidiately comes to mind that makes VG so appealing to me.
I never appreciated this until I played VG. I am very much against instanced dungeons because of this now.
Fibsdk nails it on every point. Excellent post. The reasons he mentioned are what makes VG so appealing. Its true to old school MMO mechanics, feel, and gameplay with modern day graphics.
I think the vg combat system is miles better than any other. It has just the right amount of attack choices and complexity. And when all is said and done, isnt combat the core of any mmo?
Thanks Fib, that was exactly the kind of answer i wanted. I played a bit today aswell, mostly did diplomacy and exploring and had fun but ye i don't think this game suits my taste and going from the official forums it seems like there's only 3-4 developers and alot of grind at high lvls which i really hate so i guess ill keep searching for that dream MMO of mine. Thanks alot for answering my questions guys!
VG's graphics is not dated at all, there is only 1 MMO with superior graphics - Age of Conan.
What I love about VG is true sence of exploration and amount of lore put into the world. I made a new char and spend more then a week in Tursh village doing different quests, diplo and crafting missions, learning about local surroundings. Still not done there. And this place is just a small village, drop in the ocean of Telon.
Fibs post almost brought a tear to my eye, I didn't know that people still enjoyed the old-school appeal of MMO's. I met my closest online buddies while camping in Black Burrow on EQ, Vanguard does give that feeling and is the closest to a succesor of games like EQ we will ever get.
My only problem with Vanguard is not the population nor the bugs, it's the instant travel, knocks out the immersion of the game, wish they would delete those ports and get back to the flying mounts and boats.
19 races... seriously, between the 7 varations of humans, and animal classes only being human models with an animal head, it's less cool that it looks on paper
My addiction History:
>> EQ1 2000-2004 - Shaman/Bard/Wizard/Monk - nolife raid-whore
>> WoW 2004-2009 + Cataclysm for 2 months - hardcore casual
>> Current status : done with MMO, too old for that crap.
19 races... seriously, between the 7 varations of humans, and animal classes only being human models with an animal head, it's less cool that it looks on paper
To each their own