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Vanguard 8, EQ2 5
delete5230
Member EpicPosts: 7,081
Good news for Vanguard !
Vanguard is fixed for the most part, even last year I could play it well on my laptop, with very few problems. To this day EQ2 can give me problems because of its coding, even on my powerful home pc.
Comparing graphics between EQ2 and Vanguard, I would say they are close, even to the point you could call Vanguard EQ3, they are that close. HOWEVER Vanugard draw distance is way better, as you can see in the distance to an amazing degree. Also with Vanguard has more vibrant trees and grass. But the draw back of both EQ2 and Vanguard is that shore lines are liner and squared off ( looks like their with a straight edge ). Rocks seem as if they float above the ground at times, and some buildings don't quit look 3D. But Vanguard plays better, and don't let anyone tell you different.
The learning curve, and getting around the world EQ2 is much harder than Vanguard for the new player. It's an older game I'll give them that, but their is not a game manual, web site or message board that will help you with the questions you would need to know to play EQ2, so you have to rely on the in game chat. Now this can be hard, as the community is tired of helping the new player in this game, because most new players don't stay and the community seemed to have given up helping the new player. Guilds will let you in but your still on your own. They will answer some of your questions but don't as too many. The Vanguard community can be somewhat the same, but not as bad. BUT Vanguard has a much much easer learning curve, so if you have MMO experience you can figure things out easily. And getting around is a snap.
I only have two complaints with Vanguard, and in a way they are the same :
Low populations, and quest after level 20 turn out to be group quest ( made to play with 3 or more players ) yet the world is very low populated for this. Their are solo quest, but the by far better ones are group. You would find that their are lots to do in the world, and you would find a lot of caves, keeps, even holes in the ground, but these require groups, and you find your self doing the kill 10 rats quest, with no one else around. Something that really blows my mind is that no one ever brings this point up on the Vanguard forums, as everyone new in game was constantly complaining about the group quest.
WHATS THE GOOD NEWS ABOUT VANGUARD ?
Server merge July 7th..........This will increase the population, and in turn will draw many new and old players back. Add to the fact that their is nothing else in the short term future. So July 7th should be a good time to play.
So I'll see a lot of you in Vanguard on July 7th 
Comments
Talk about "viral marketing" lol.. There's another thread about Vanguard already in the pub, not sure if we need another. But if you want to tell people to play a game, at least tell them the truth about how the game is on skeleton support. You can count the number of devs working on Vanguard on one hand.
It hasn't had an expansion and probably never will. Content releases are very slow, everything about the game is slow. SOE has no interest in making it better or improve it by any way. So it's one thing to suggest a game, it's quite another to suggest a dead-end game.
There's a free trial for anybody looking to try the game out. But don't believe the hype about how the game is going to get a surge in players. It's the same players, if not less, and that's not saying much. We've heard about these "population is on the rise" claims every 3-6 months from players. Truth is the population has been on a steady decline. When a company decides to merge all 4 remaining servers into one, that should say enough by itself.
So sure, try the game out, there has been a free trial out there for quite some time now. But know that SOE doesn't really put much dev resources into the game, so don't expect miracles.
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
Vanguard plays better? That's why it gave me my first BSOD in a over a year. In a week of play I got two more. EQ2 gave me none (in about 3 months of play). I'd say the graphics on EQ2 were better too, the character models were far better. Sure, draw distance may be higher in Vanguard, but that's about the only advantage it has over EQ2's.
I didn't notice a learning curve in EQ2 or Vanguard. If anything Vanguard is more difficult simply for the fact the UI is way outdated. Seriously, just copy WoW's UI. Health bars wouldn't report probably in Vanguard (when someone in my party died there was a chance their health bar would stick at full, making it near impossible to tell when they needed to be healed). In a week of play on EQ2 I knew all the mechanics I needed to know, in Vanguard I still felt lost, like how to do diplomacy and various crafts because there isn't any decent tutorial explaining it. If I were in charge of Vanguard the first thing I would do would be to update the UI and make it more new player friendly.
Vanguard has more freedom than EQ2. That's about it's only plus. It's not instanced at all. You can go wherever you want in the world. Sadly, this made the world feel pretty empty, especially with it's small population. However, in Vanguard I actually wrote a list of bugs I encountered (some minor, most major) and having encountered 20+ in the first week I'd decided that I simply cannot get into a game this shoddily designed with it's content kinda thrown around all over the place and far less to do than EQ2, WoW, even AoC... etc.
Quick edit: Since when were server merges ever good news? It's just a sign the game is losing population. Considering Vanguard had only 3 servers last I remember, this is far from good news. If that population dwindles anymore Sony is going to can the game.
The entire Vanguard population is out trying to save Vanguard it looks like.
.
All eight of them.
Well shave my back and call me an elf! -- Oghren
In many ways VG does look and act a lot like Eq2 for good reason,it is the same guys who worked on both.The difference is the Sigil team was aiming to take what EQ2 had and make it better,and imo they did just that.Graphics arre slighhtly better,view distance is obvious,instancing is a huge difference,and that is jus ttouching on a few ideas.The card game was a unique idea that many liked as a mini side game,there is a heck of a lot more to gaming than just grabbing levels.
As far as staff working on the game,you don't really need a huge staff if the game is already superior to the largest populated game out there...WOW.What the game needs is no question,more players,a developer cannot force people to play,they can only make a superior product and hope /pray people will play it.
As far as being able to play the game,i played VG with VERY little problem on my second pc,i am sure it would play smoothly if i tried it on my newer PC.I actually found EQ2 to be a hog,such an old game yet it eats up a ton of ram.In comparison between the giants,WOW will NEVER look good,EQ2 eats up too many resources to look good and VG actually DOES look good on my PC so take that for what it is worth.
I like the idea of all these EQ/Wow/VG clones ,but the problem where they all fail is in their core design.People were and are still and becoming utterly bored with games that FORCE us to do useless boring quests.I know there is still a ton of players out there,who think attaining a level is all that matters from MMO gaining,those really don't care about design quality of a game,but to the rest of us,we are searching for gaming,not boring quests.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
EQ2 engine is terrible and only looks good up close. VG engine is the Unreal 2.5 engine, the engine used for Bioshock among other things, not terrible. That said EQ2 high quality models are better overall in look but not poly count. VG models with a few exceptions just look odd but are high poly and the armour detail is better than EQ2.
If you are BSOD in VG I'd wonder if you have anything, primarily GPU, overclocked.
Where VG gets whooped is in polish as it is still quite buggy from a terrain and quest point of view. Leveling in EQ2 is much faster and more forgiving but VG is easier in that its very easy to stay geared. Community wise its a no contest, EQ2 is about end game top tier raiding toon where VG is about running groups at any level. Very normal to have 55s helping 30s for fun, not something you can get in EQ2 day in day out.
Is this what you call "Good News"? Vanguard getting pulled from having even a discussion panel at SOE fan faire? It sure looks like SOE wanting to get rid of VG to me, when the company won't even advertise their own game AT their own fan faires.
http://forums.station.sony.com/vg/posts/list.m?&topic_id=53118
Quote:
We wanted to take a moment to address the questions regarding Vanguard: Saga of Heroes not being listed as a Featured Game at Fan Faire 2010.
When planning an event such as Fan Faire, we must take into consideration both the audience in attendance as well as the resources and event costs dedicated to ensure that audience finds the experience of value.
Due to low attendance numbers of Vanguard players at past Fan Faires and extremely low Vanguard registrations for Fan Faire 2010, we will not be offering Vanguard specific panels at this year’s event.
As always, we welcome our Vanguard players to attend the event if they choose to so they can participate in other panels, parties, banquets, etc. We will have a Vanguard Live Quest prepared for those players that do attend and wish to participate.
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To be fair, only SOE deved MMOs are being featured. If SOE is the publisher but not the original dev, its not at SOE Fan Faire. In other news Call of Duty won't be at BlizzCon omg =P
Not sure what you're talking about, perhaps you aren't familiar with how there had been Vanguard discussion panels at SOE fan faire all the years before. This is the first time they're dropping Vanguard. And at the same time, citing the lack of playerbase interest, Planetside will have discussion panels even though they have even less fan faire signups.
Yeah, not really sure where you're going with your comment, but things aren't going well for Vanguard.
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Wow. I never really felt SOE was unnecessarily lowballing Vanguard before, but damn, I'm pretty sure the logistics of a panel is still just a table somewhere for the most part.
Kind of puts things in perspective when it comes to any curiousity towards whether SOE will or if SOE won't ever invest in Vanguard when it comes to things like new developers or marketing campaigns.
Just an FYI. I went to Fanfaire the first year after VG came out. We barely had any panels though the Develpoers from Sigil tried really hard and did do the best they could with what they were given. The real writing on the wall was that when it came to the last night of Fanfaire and they have the big banquet and they have tables all set aside for the different games and stuff. There were no tables set aside for VG. Us VG players and the VG devs went into the banquet room and stole tables from the EQ2 players section and hastily made our own Sign out of cardboard. We had to set guards at our tables and stuff and then deal with heckling from the players of other games. We were fierce and it was a lot of fun. The devs that came from Sigil were awesome people. I sure miss them working on that game.
More that I'm not an alarmist. The other MMOs under SOE aren't getting a panel either. Are you suggesting they are tanking the rest of them too? The point of a media event is to fill rooms and pump the hype machine on your terms. PlanetSide has competition now in its MMO space and SOE probably wants to turn the hype machine on to snag players who left GA.
I am loving Vanguard. It's the best MMO out there (I like EQ2 the second best.)
I will play Vanguard as long as I am having fun. It would be a travesty if it didn't get more players and support, but I can see it will be difficult (chicken and egg thing.)
Nevertheless, I am having fun NOW, and that's all I need. :P
Same here. I'm having a ton of fun in Vanguard too. I just re-subscribed two weeks ago and I'm very glad I came back.
(I also like EQ2. Will probably get a station access pass some day when I get the money so I can play both).
My wife and I loved Vanguard, but we were on the PvP server and it had zero support and they basically stated they were going to give it zero support, till they had PVE all fixed (which is a never ending thing in all games, basically). So the PvP server population went away. We did everything though, crafting, diplomacy, PVE, harvesting, PVP, and raids.
The game performed a 1000 times better last time I was in it, than it did early on. If the game had been released anywhere near its current state, it would of been a huge hit imo. Its sad that Sony seemingly doesn't end the game, but doesn't support it either. The plus side is that they do come up with content for the game, and it is free.
We really like the game though, devoted a ton of time to it, but we were a little stung by the giving up on the server we played on, and lack of support. I thought of going back, but I have a hard time doing so, when Sony isn't really supporting it. I do recommend it for a new player though, its a good game, and lots of land and things to do. It would be fun, if your in between games.
If Sony ever did give it attention, I would consider coming back full time. We were sad to leave the game, but it got to where 40-50 people would be around on the PVP server, then 20-25...Can't blame them with that was said and we didn't like the idea of moving servers at the time.
I hope the population does turn around though, its a good game.
Servers are merging into one on July 7... then we'll be bitching that we're getting spawn ksed
wow wow wow you need to get your facts right because theres a lot more than eight.... theres about 16 pshh thats double cmon give them the credit they deserve lol
Make sure you have your sound options turned onto Generic Software. Anything else will make you BSOD. I had the same problem.
I always liked VG better than EQ2 in almost every category. In the end, VG also ran better than EQ2 while looking better at the same time.
I've retired from VG after 3 years of great times, and I really miss it.