OK, I finally bought the game, even if only to try it out for the free month. Downloading for another five hours now.
Why I decided to try it out:
There has been lots of talk recently that it's recovered from its shaky launch and is shaping up to be a unique and engaging mmo. I was always interested in the game, even before launch, but was put off by the overwhelmingly negative reviews.
It does lack a decent pvp ruleset and pvp in general is more of an afterthought it seems, but I don't really ever attack other people in pvp-enabled mmo-s anyway, though it is sometimes fun to fend off attacks and be on the edge all the time. I guess I'm too empathic and feel bad for them, even when they were the ones trying to gank me (carebear, I know). Therefore I consider myself a pve player.
I also play Age of Conan but I find something lacking. It feels like playing a single player game, such as Gothic 3. There is no need ever to group and when I do it's a hassle of getting all the people into the same instance. I will be closely watching AoC's development but I doubt it's going to be the mmo for me (everyone has to have one, right? ).
I am a bit concerned about the choppy animations in Vanguard as I think it's a very important aspect of any graphic RPG, but I can overlook it if the game is otherwise very good. My first impression based on reviews and videos is positive. Massive landscapes, great immersion, decent community - even this forum is more civilised than most -, and hopefully good gameplay aswell.
So, is Vanguard going to be the game for me? I hope so. Looking forward to seeing you in the game.
I am a bit concerned about the choppy animations in Vanguard as I think it's a very important aspect of any graphic RPG, but I can overlook it if the game is otherwise very good. My first impression based on reviews and videos is positive. Massive landscapes, great immersion, decent community - even this forum is more civilised than most -, and hopefully good gameplay aswell. So, is Vanguard going to be the game for me? I hope so. Looking forward to seeing you in the game.
I believe animations and some other graphical problems will be addressed in GU6. Although most animations admittedly are bad, there are some which are nice.
I came to VG about half a year ago from EQ2. Eq2 seemed to be polished and nice, but something was missing. It just was not that much fun for me. Recently I tried AoC. Was in EA and made it to mid 20s eventually, but it made me appreciate VG that much more. Since AoC was the most recent game i tried, I'll use it for comparison.
First of all, one of the major concerns for many is performance. I know that I held off buying it, because i did not know if i could run it. Well I could run it on my laptop (Nvidia 7600GT) on med to low settings. It was choppy, at times, but definitely playable and not ugly. On my desktop (8600GT) I could run it on med - high settings ok. Now that I recently upgraded to 8800GT, I run it with all the graphics maxed out and the game is beautiful. Gfx compared to AoC: VG's world is prettier and more realistic looking but AoC has better character models.
Pros:
- World is huge. No instancing. Huge dungeons. Stunningly beautiful cities. It looks and feels real.
- Races and classes. They all look different and there is huge variety in gameplay and options you get . One caster class plays completely different form another. Abilities and spells are very inventive and fun. As you level, some of your spells get simply upgraded, but you get a lot of new and really cool abilities that show a real imagination on the dev's part. In other words, you don't simply become stronger as you lvl, but you constantly discover new tactics.
- Pets. Necro pets are very customizable as you can add bodyparts that you salvage from corpses, and these grafts provide various abilities to the pet.
- Lots of pets As a level 34 necro I am hauling around my own privite army of 3 different pets that i can use at the same time.
- Player housing. It's not instanced, it's customizable, and there is plenty of player made addons.
- Mounts. There is a lot of different ones, including flying ones. And you don't need to wait til lvl 40 to get ones. You also can add various accesories (like saddles and bardings) which look good and affect your mount's abilities.
- Crafting. Very deep and complex system. No cookie-cutter recipies. You really have to think about which components you're going to put together, and the possibilities as far as the end product are endless.
- Diplomacy. It's a game within a game on it's own.
- Content. It's the first game where I did not want to level because I saw that there is so much more stuff to explore and do at my current level. This adds a lot to replayability, where if you roll another class you can for the most part do completely different quests from your first char.
Cons:
- Performance is still behind the curve. While having comparable gfx, AoC ran smoother than VG on my machine.
- No PvP, but then it was never meant to be a PvP game.
- Some problems with itemization. It's balance between looted gear and crafted gear, and they went overboard with all the bind on pick up stuff, but they are currently asking player input for rebalancing it.
- Small budget. SOE said once, that it's quite content with having a bunch of mediocre games with some profit, than having one huge bestseller. I think that's what they are doing with VG. Dev team has done a lot of improvements since launch but this, already a very good game, could have become one of the greatest ever, had there been more resources available.
- No free trial. This is mainly because they can't get the trial client down to anything less than 17-20GB, but still a lot of ppl are not willing to pay without trying for a game with a bad rep.
So to summ it up, I do think that VG is one of the best if not the best non-PVP fantasy MMOs today. It's suffering from a bad rep, but today it's production quality. Had it been like this at release, it would have been huge now. So, if you have a machine to play it and like a completely open, do what you want world, give it a shot. It's worth whatever they are charging for it these days.
is it any good and all that ? and if no, what game should i play instead ?
It depend entirely what you like. If you are old school player who is looking for freedom in game play (sandbox/UO or EQ1) then I think VG is for you. If you like EQ2/WoW VG still have something to offer but thats not the hearth of the game. I personally think that VG is great game - if not perfect at least the best currently on the market. Its just the question of personal taste.
Where themepark games try to hide that they are copying WOW, games like Mortal Online and Darkfall make no attempt to hide their inspiration ______\m/_____ LordOfDarkDesire
Comments
OK, I finally bought the game, even if only to try it out for the free month. Downloading for another five hours now.
Why I decided to try it out:
There has been lots of talk recently that it's recovered from its shaky launch and is shaping up to be a unique and engaging mmo. I was always interested in the game, even before launch, but was put off by the overwhelmingly negative reviews.
It does lack a decent pvp ruleset and pvp in general is more of an afterthought it seems, but I don't really ever attack other people in pvp-enabled mmo-s anyway, though it is sometimes fun to fend off attacks and be on the edge all the time. I guess I'm too empathic and feel bad for them, even when they were the ones trying to gank me (carebear, I know). Therefore I consider myself a pve player.
I also play Age of Conan but I find something lacking. It feels like playing a single player game, such as Gothic 3. There is no need ever to group and when I do it's a hassle of getting all the people into the same instance. I will be closely watching AoC's development but I doubt it's going to be the mmo for me (everyone has to have one, right?
).
I am a bit concerned about the choppy animations in Vanguard as I think it's a very important aspect of any graphic RPG, but I can overlook it if the game is otherwise very good. My first impression based on reviews and videos is positive. Massive landscapes, great immersion, decent community - even this forum is more civilised than most -, and hopefully good gameplay aswell.
So, is Vanguard going to be the game for me? I hope so. Looking forward to seeing you in the game.
i have allso just ordred the game, so im going to try it out too
<333
i hope its gonna be good.
first few levels are boring but once you get 10+ the game is awsome
but does it takes long time to get to the higher lvls ?
I believe animations and some other graphical problems will be addressed in GU6. Although most animations admittedly are bad, there are some which are nice.
Here's my experience.
As a level 34 necro I am hauling around my own privite army of 3 different pets that i can use at the same time.
I came to VG about half a year ago from EQ2. Eq2 seemed to be polished and nice, but something was missing. It just was not that much fun for me. Recently I tried AoC. Was in EA and made it to mid 20s eventually, but it made me appreciate VG that much more. Since AoC was the most recent game i tried, I'll use it for comparison.
First of all, one of the major concerns for many is performance. I know that I held off buying it, because i did not know if i could run it. Well I could run it on my laptop (Nvidia 7600GT) on med to low settings. It was choppy, at times, but definitely playable and not ugly. On my desktop (8600GT) I could run it on med - high settings ok. Now that I recently upgraded to 8800GT, I run it with all the graphics maxed out and the game is beautiful. Gfx compared to AoC: VG's world is prettier and more realistic looking but AoC has better character models.
Pros:
- World is huge. No instancing. Huge dungeons. Stunningly beautiful cities. It looks and feels real.
- Races and classes. They all look different and there is huge variety in gameplay and options you get . One caster class plays completely different form another. Abilities and spells are very inventive and fun. As you level, some of your spells get simply upgraded, but you get a lot of new and really cool abilities that show a real imagination on the dev's part. In other words, you don't simply become stronger as you lvl, but you constantly discover new tactics.
- Pets. Necro pets are very customizable as you can add bodyparts that you salvage from corpses, and these grafts provide various abilities to the pet.
- Lots of pets
- Player housing. It's not instanced, it's customizable, and there is plenty of player made addons.
- Mounts. There is a lot of different ones, including flying ones. And you don't need to wait til lvl 40 to get ones. You also can add various accesories (like saddles and bardings) which look good and affect your mount's abilities.
- Crafting. Very deep and complex system. No cookie-cutter recipies. You really have to think about which components you're going to put together, and the possibilities as far as the end product are endless.
- Diplomacy. It's a game within a game on it's own.
- Content. It's the first game where I did not want to level because I saw that there is so much more stuff to explore and do at my current level. This adds a lot to replayability, where if you roll another class you can for the most part do completely different quests from your first char.
Cons:
- Performance is still behind the curve. While having comparable gfx, AoC ran smoother than VG on my machine.
- No PvP, but then it was never meant to be a PvP game.
- Some problems with itemization. It's balance between looted gear and crafted gear, and they went overboard with all the bind on pick up stuff, but they are currently asking player input for rebalancing it.
- Small budget. SOE said once, that it's quite content with having a bunch of mediocre games with some profit, than having one huge bestseller. I think that's what they are doing with VG. Dev team has done a lot of improvements since launch but this, already a very good game, could have become one of the greatest ever, had there been more resources available.
- No free trial. This is mainly because they can't get the trial client down to anything less than 17-20GB, but still a lot of ppl are not willing to pay without trying for a game with a bad rep.
So to summ it up, I do think that VG is one of the best if not the best non-PVP fantasy MMOs today. It's suffering from a bad rep, but today it's production quality. Had it been like this at release, it would have been huge now. So, if you have a machine to play it and like a completely open, do what you want world, give it a shot. It's worth whatever they are charging for it these days.
thanks for the replying, i have allready ordred it, so i will give it a shot for sure.
It depend entirely what you like. If you are old school player who is looking for freedom in game play (sandbox/UO or EQ1) then I think VG is for you. If you like EQ2/WoW VG still have something to offer but thats not the hearth of the game. I personally think that VG is great game - if not perfect at least the best currently on the market. Its just the question of personal taste.
Where themepark games try to hide that they are copying WOW, games like Mortal Online and Darkfall make no attempt to hide their inspiration
______\m/_____
LordOfDarkDesire
it sounds really good
im for sure gonna try it out (: