Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Why I quit before my 30 day free month was over.
Manmadegod
Member Posts: 501
I am not going to go into a long winded post about it.. Just wanted to give info to anyone else to help them make their own educated decision...
Character Customization: Complete lack of being able to make a unique character really is meh...
Character Models: Simply put I have a very high end computer with a 8800GTX card - everything cranked - Only lagging slightly when opening doors in certain areas... The character models are complete garbage.. They are too rigid and not life like at ALL... For the realistic look that they went with - the characters look completely awful...
Animation: Combat animation is unrealistic, rigid, and just downright bad.
PvP: The classes are so out of whack for a pvp server that I dont even know why they have them at all... You can't hope to play on one of those server as a melee toon ever. And yes, I understand that the game is PvE but it should be able to at least resemble balance a little in pvp.
Grind: While I do realize that this game was going to have a grind - You know it's bad when the company releases the game and then realizes that the EQ grind is TOO harsh (AkA getting like 1xp per mob at level 10 and needing 50k xp (NOT EXACT numbers but close.) that they went a little overboard here.
Crafting: I really thought this was going to be a selling point of the game but leveling up my orc shaman as a crafter and seeing it in action.. It's kinda like ultima online with sub combines... It's not really innovative in anyway. =/
Movement: I guess this goes kinda in animation but I do not feel as though My character is moving... He feels more like he is sliding across the land... In World of Warcraft (Not to say it's the best it has PLENTY of faults too) I felt as though I was actually moving while touching the ground.. They did a nice job in WOW of making you feel like you were making contact with the world.
That's about all I can think of... I ain't trying to sway people to my point of view... Just posting this to help them make their own decision based on a little information from my perspective. Basically I expect more polish than this game will probably ever have unless it goes through some SERIOUS changes like EQ2 went through.
Character Customization: Complete lack of being able to make a unique character really is meh...
Character Models: Simply put I have a very high end computer with a 8800GTX card - everything cranked - Only lagging slightly when opening doors in certain areas... The character models are complete garbage.. They are too rigid and not life like at ALL... For the realistic look that they went with - the characters look completely awful...
Animation: Combat animation is unrealistic, rigid, and just downright bad.
PvP: The classes are so out of whack for a pvp server that I dont even know why they have them at all... You can't hope to play on one of those server as a melee toon ever. And yes, I understand that the game is PvE but it should be able to at least resemble balance a little in pvp.
Grind: While I do realize that this game was going to have a grind - You know it's bad when the company releases the game and then realizes that the EQ grind is TOO harsh (AkA getting like 1xp per mob at level 10 and needing 50k xp (NOT EXACT numbers but close.) that they went a little overboard here.
Crafting: I really thought this was going to be a selling point of the game but leveling up my orc shaman as a crafter and seeing it in action.. It's kinda like ultima online with sub combines... It's not really innovative in anyway. =/
Movement: I guess this goes kinda in animation but I do not feel as though My character is moving... He feels more like he is sliding across the land... In World of Warcraft (Not to say it's the best it has PLENTY of faults too) I felt as though I was actually moving while touching the ground.. They did a nice job in WOW of making you feel like you were making contact with the world.
That's about all I can think of... I ain't trying to sway people to my point of view... Just posting this to help them make their own decision based on a little information from my perspective. Basically I expect more polish than this game will probably ever have unless it goes through some SERIOUS changes like EQ2 went through.
Comments
People who have to create conspiracy and hate threads to further a cause lacks in intellectual comprehension of diversity.
Good post, Enigma.
Just one problem with the buddy passes
lots of people on websites asking for tehm and shame is a lot of them are RMT looking to get s foothold or use char for whatever reason in this game
this results in people not giving out the buddy passes unless they know the person they are giving it too,
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/ab/Norsefire-logo.png
I'm just really curious about one thing. How am I to take the whole "stand up for what we believe in... Not touching SOE products" statement you made in the Gods and Heroes forum in relation with your statement you bought, played, but didn't like Vanguard?
(From Gods and Heroes forum - not Vanguard)
Anyways long story short - free to me... RL friend got it - so yeah, I installed it and quit in 2 days. heh..
Good catch tho, I don' mean that assly either... Glad you called me on it... I did try it Vanguard for free... but I had no intention of buying it.. Only way I woulda even considered to keep playing it was if it had BLOWN my mind..
"I will never touch anything they touch ever again..."
&
" At least we have a spine to stand up for what we believe in and stay true to our word.. AKA: Not touching SOE products."
Only apply if the game stinks? But if the game rocks, then it's just forum "banter"?
My #1 complaint about Vanguard is what I call "the visual FX". I lump together into this group both the special effects (blasts of spells etc) and the physical character animations (punches, kicks, dodges, etc). Both of these are, in a word, lame. The spell effects are like something out of UO circa 1999. And the physical animations look like something out of NWN, which wasn't bad for 2001-2, but this is 2007.
I am not sure they will ever really improve these things. I sure hope they do, but I have the feeling that the other big issue with the game that you touched on -- performance -- goes hand in hand with it. In other words, if they up the quality of the animations (by adding keyframes to what they have) or FX (by adding more particles, etc) there's no question but that we will take a performance hit.
As I say, so far I am sticking with it, but it's pretty much a foregone conclusion that if they don't do something about the visuals in the next few months I'm probably going to take off also. It's not game-breaking yet, but it will be after a while.
They are still in beta (by their own admission) and I have seen other games with "place holder" animations in beta that then right before launch upgrade to something really wonderful, so I have a vague (admittedly unrealistic) hope that these will improve (and the SFX). But if the game gets to the "we're now out of beta and happy with it" stage from the devs, and the animations/FX are still this bad, I won't stay past that point.
So far people have made claims that the animation will or won't be getting better but outside the dev team nobody knows. I'm enjoying the rest of the game enough to hang with it for now, but as I say, that will not last forever.
C
So I won't argue to point that I tried it - guilty...
The level of good it would have had to have been - would've had to blow me away in such a way to wipe the trangressions from the past SOE game debacles clean.... My friend knew that this was true but he honestly thought it would... To be honest he is a die hard Vanguard fanboi... Bought 3 pre-orders for his son, wife, and of course himself... So sure he was that I would love it - He bought me the game.. Didn't give me a buddy key of which he had plenty...
As for forum banter... Not really, you can tell by my post count - I don't troll on the boards too much... Just toss out a thread here or there...
For me to purchase anything SOE again - they would have to change their business perspective to a more stand up business model... That almost certainly won't ever happen... Anyways this thread's gone off issue here... It's not like I eluded your question in my previous post - I tried Vanguard... I didn't buy it or purchase subscription to it...
I happened to come across the post you made in the G&H forums and it threw up some red flags in my mind. So, I put out the info for all to see. You gave your explanation for the perceived inconsistencies. So there it is.
However, in your OP in this thread you said:
"I ain't trying to sway people to my point of view... Just posting this to help them make their own decision based on a little information from my perspective."
You admittedly have a higher standard for SOE "touched" games. So, I just thought in the fairness of full disclosure that the readers who came to read your post should know where you were coming from.
I have previously played for extended periods of time... Ultima Online, Dark Age of Camelot, Everquest 1, Everquest 2, Star Wars Galaxies, Asherons Call, Ragnarok Online, World of Warcraft, Roma Victor (Awful)
So far my two favorite games were Ultima Online and SWG... Both due to the skill systems and the freedom of uniqueness... Crafting being major in both of those well they used to be anyways...
I quit SWG as soon as my main character a Bio-Engineering, Creature Handler, Pikeman was removed from the game completely... By that I mean I have not logged in to even patch the NGE since then...
I left Ultima Online when they split Tram and Felucca...
The best company I have paid to play a game has been Mythic.. They stick to their lore and balance their game fairly well for a level based game.
I agree that the skill system was great, and I hope that another MMO will try that model again.
Edit: Thought I would add: I think that the beginning of the end for SWG was the day the holocrons were announced and the whole Jedi grind-fest began.
I agree that the skill system was great, and I hope that another MMO will try that model again.
Edit: Thought I would add: I think that the beginning of the end for SWG was the day the holocrons were announced and the whole Jedi grind-fest began. I concur with the jedi grind-fest.. Should have been left out of the game imo... Anytime something Alpha is in - of course everyone is going to pass up the rest of the game and options to get it.
I know it's not unheard of. However, we also haven't heard any indications that they even recognize how crappy their spell FX and combat animations are. So that makes me a bit concerned.
C
Quote from Manmadegod: Anyways long story short - free to me... RL friend got it - so yeah, I installed it and quit in 2 days. heh
It's hard to accept a review from someone who only played for 2 days.... Not sure how you could give a complete review of adventuring and crafting within that time frame... So that left 1 day for adventuring and 1 day for crafting?
Sounds to me you created a review based on what other people have written....
Play the game for 30 days then write your review.... As it is, you hardly spent enough time to get out of the noob area...
Do the fundamentals of crafting suddenly change around that time as well?
Is it not safe to assume any grind experienced at low levels, is only going to magnify with the experience/leveling curve later on?
For all that he said, you really only need two days to come to those conclusions. It barely takes two hours to get out of a 'noob area', it definitely doesn't take two days.
I quit the game this week (and after droping the $$ for CE too) for various reasons, but the main reason is due to the crafting system. I am a crafter, that's what I enjoy doing, making things that I cna use myself, give to friends, or sell. I am also a casual gammer due to my scehdule. This game is not designed for casual crafter-lovers.
Upon embarking in the world of Vanguard I knew that I probably couldn't make "good" crafting items at the low levels and woul dhave to work my way up. But god damn I didn't expect the grind that it would take to be able to make any "good" items. In the time I played, which is about 2 hrs a day or every other day, and longer on weekends, I made it to level...21 artificer.
With all the problems in the crafting system, and everyone knows that there were problems, lots and lots and lots of problems, crafting was fun, at first. After lvl 11, you start to realize, "damn its gonna take X hrs to get on the next level. What do you do for those X hours, you sit infront of the same benching, mindlessly clicking on the various actions, getting extreemly pissed off with the complications, doing work orders. Do the work orders do anything?? not really, yes they give you a nice little xp boost when you turn them in, but as said before, its the "carrot" to make you grind till your fingers hurt.
Work orders are pointless, you make nothing usefull so you can get a little xp and gain a level for the chance that you can make something useful and fun. This turned out to be ever so boring and not worth the effort in grinding.
But wait, there's more to this system. Besides forcing you to grind, and you do grind, Vanguard added an incentive to NOT make any player items. You get no xp, well for making it the frist time, for making a real player-useable item. So as an artificer, I can make jewelry but get no xp. So now your time is divied between making player items for money adn doing worthless wo's so you can grind. At level 21, I could make 10 enchanted rings in 45 minutes. The built in delays and combos necessary take up so much time that after making the real player-tiems you don't want to grind any more. This is a real bummer, crafting was not fun but a chore.
And the final kick-da-nutz by Vanguard to crafters invovles the subcomponents needed ot make a real player item. At a low level in any particular tier you would get this cool recepie for a jewelry, or a maul. You wanta make it but guess what, you need a subcomponoent, wooden handle, and you don't have the recepie. That's right, you would not get the recepie for the required subcomponent to make this coolass maul until you were 2-3 levels higher crafter. This really is the ultimate "carrot" to get you to craft. Bascially you get a Vanguard salesman which tells you at lvl 11 "Congradulations, for making lvl 11, its a real accomplishment and to reward you we give you this recepie for this maul, which you can make and use or sell. We are giving this to you just for reaching lvl 11." But once the salesman leaves you find out that hidden in the small print that while you may have the reward, you must still grind in order to make the subcomponent to make this wonderous maul. Total shit. But meh, I was lucky enough to have a character that actually could learn the subcomponent recepie. Many artificer's characters became "patched" and were not able to learn the recepies so they couldn't make the sub components.
Well there's my rant, and my main reason for leaving vanguard. Will it give it another chance in 8 months (when it should have come out) NO. I am moving on to lotro or aoc. Vanguard is a great lesson for everyone: launching an unfinished game too soon in order to start collecting money while promissing (carrot to keep playing and paying) "in the works" is the best way to ensure an utter failure. I think the press the game has receieved so far is proof of the game's poor prospects.
But I sincerely hope the game can find a stable base and live on, even if it doesn't become a great game. I left a bunch of very old guildies that I love, and they love the game and are willing to stick with it. So I do hope for their sakes that the game can survive in one form or another.