I've also given Vangard several tries, but sadly the aesthetics of the game always kill it for me. The character models and animations are utterly atrocious, nameplates look like like they were created by a single developer who had no idea what they were doing, and everything moves like somebody hit the fast-forward button (2x).
It could have been great, but sadly it's just another game destined for the chopping block.
I loved Vanguard when it launched, but left after a few months because there was a lack of server activity. I prefer group-oriented games rather than games that cater primarily to solo players, so when the community died, the game died for me.
Just restarted it this past weekend and I'm having a blast so far. Diplomacy and crafting are great, as is the world design and opportunity for exploration. My biggest concern, however, is that i looted a copy of these copper chest things that said you need a skeleton key to open. I figured if I signed up for a paid account that I would be able to open those, but it turns out you actually have to buy skeleton keys with station cash to open them? Am I understanding this right? If so, that's going to be enough to get me to quit playing. I don't want to play any game that requires me to pony up cash to open an item I looted. I'm fine paying a monthly subscription, but that type of mechanic just reeks of money grubbing.
Everytime you sub you recieve station cash. But there are other alternatives. You can save up money in game and buy the keys in the Exchange for roughly 15-25g each. You dont have to spend real cash to purchase the keys.
I loved Vanguard when it launched, but left after a few months because there was a lack of server activity. I prefer group-oriented games rather than games that cater primarily to solo players, so when the community died, the game died for me.
Just restarted it this past weekend and I'm having a blast so far. Diplomacy and crafting are great, as is the world design and opportunity for exploration. My biggest concern, however, is that i looted a copy of these copper chest things that said you need a skeleton key to open. I figured if I signed up for a paid account that I would be able to open those, but it turns out you actually have to buy skeleton keys with station cash to open them? Am I understanding this right? If so, that's going to be enough to get me to quit playing. I don't want to play any game that requires me to pony up cash to open an item I looted. I'm fine paying a monthly subscription, but that type of mechanic just reeks of money grubbing.
Everytime you sub you recieve station cash. But there are other alternatives. You can save up money in game and buy the keys in the Exchange for roughly 15-25g each. You dont have to spend real cash to purchase the keys.
Ah, cool. Didn't know you could buy them with in-game cash. Fantastic, thanks.
Originally posted by Tindale111 Vanguard is over 6 years old now ,and was probarly one of the worst marketed mmos ever .on top of that when it came out had so many bugs and wouldn't run well on most machines .I remember having great fun on their tho and only stopped playing because servers were dead .just gave it another shot and was pleasantly surprised ,it still looks good ok character creation tho good looks a bit pants but costumes ,weapons etc look good .there were /are a lot of innovations in this game as well the way you can combine spells ,crafting is one of the best ive seen and diplomacy that I haven't seen in any other game .the combat is solid and looks good and pretty certain all the bugs have long gone. anyway if your just looking for a filler before the next big mmo why not give it a try its free to dl and play does have a cashshop which I had a quicjk browse through dosnt seem too intrusive tho it looks like keys for lockboxes on their .on a final note the servers seem to be buzzing again so shouldn't be any problems finding groups .
Allow me to add some non bias rationale` to this thread.
Reasons not to play Vanguard:
-Brad McQuaid himself found this game unfixable when attempting a return a few months back
-Game is on autopilot with very few significant updates that don't center around the cash shop
-Still has more bugs then Fear Factor
-Game was clearly made for grouping but sony turned it into a pointless solo grind with many wasted dungeons
-at least 33% of the quests are bugged in some way
-Most of the world is empty or without purpose
-Clay Fighter graphics, dull looking world, half the armor/weapons look very awkward
-Vanguard employees have insanely high turnover rates, so you're always stuck with devs that don't really care about their job.
-The game will never see a single expansion, so you quickly come to the realization that it's a poor use of your time
-Almost no endgame
-Very laggy server, terrible pings 80% of the time
-No pvp or roleplay server in a game that could easily have both
-Zones are divided into chucks that hitch/lag and crash every time you walk over them. Possibly the worst area loading design ever conceived.
Reasons to play Vangaurd:
-Close knit, helpful community
-You're about to abandon MMO's cuz they've all been terrible for 10 years and you have nothing left to lose(try project 1999 as well)
-Open world, No instances
-Group content doesn't have as much hand holding and feels D&Dish at times
-Class design is excellent
-Decent roleplaying atmosphere, every race has it's own city
Vanguard had the potential to be this, but failed when $OE insisted that key WoW gameplay elements be added in. $OE effectively killed this game while very publicly being heralded as saving it.
No, it failed when it did what players asked for, but weren't willing to play. They made an old-school EQ game with harsh death penalties and long downtime and lots and lots of punishments and boredom.
It failed. Nobody stuck with it. Because there are only so many MMO masochists out there willing to put their money where their mouth is regardless of the droves of them that lie that they would pay for it.
Nobody listens to the MMO masochists anymore. Which is the best lesson VG ever gave us.
The current VG is orders of magnitude more fun than McQuaid's house of schadenfreude.
But don't despair self-flagellating members of the MMO fringe, you'll be able to punish yourselves into salvation because...
"On September 9, 2013, Brad announced to the world that he left SOE but is still working closely with them, and that Smedley is even excited about this. This news coupled with the string of hints dropped throughout Twitter and various board leads the community to believe that Brad is now working on a true spiritual successor to EverQuest and Vanguard."
Enjoy it until the (obvious) lesson is re-learned.
This is very inaccurate. It did fail, but you assume the reason for it was its punishing playstyle. Not at all. At release it was virtually unplayable on most rigs. Sigil banked on players willingness to upgrade to play the game, but other alternatives in the market coupled with a buggy release meant people didn't stick around.
I am confident that if the game had launched correctly, it will still be holding onto subs.
Besides, what's wrong with a niche MMO that is challenging? If you don't like that kind of game there are dozens of other options.
The problem with Vanguard is that it needed a large population to work, which it just doesn't have. Everything is designed for groups and working in teams (crafting). I am not complaining about that, I play MMOs to group, the problem being that it is pretty hard to consistently get groups in Vanguard, meaning you will solo a lot in the long grind to max level, which is pretty boring as the game was not designed for that.
Its a catch 22 that the game cannot fix without cheapening what makes the game great. If Vanguard released today with upgraded graphics, animations and performance - it would be my new home.
This is very inaccurate. It did fail, but you assume the reason for it was its punishing playstyle. Not at all. At release it was virtually unplayable on most rigs. Sigil banked on players willingness to upgrade to play the game, but other alternatives in the market coupled with a buggy release meant people didn't stick around.
I am confident that if the game had launched correctly, it will still be holding onto subs.
Besides, what's wrong with a niche MMO that is challenging? If you don't like that kind of game there are dozens of other options.
I had a top of the line computer back then and it still ran like crap. Even today on my beastly rig by todays standards the performance is still terrible (after multiple performance updates too). The game infrastructure is just bad, no rig will ever play it flawlessly, which is the main reason it failed.
This is very inaccurate. It did fail, but you assume the reason for it was its punishing playstyle. Not at all. At release it was virtually unplayable on most rigs. Sigil banked on players willingness to upgrade to play the game, but other alternatives in the market coupled with a buggy release meant people didn't stick around.
I am confident that if the game had launched correctly, it will still be holding onto subs.
Besides, what's wrong with a niche MMO that is challenging? If you don't like that kind of game there are dozens of other options.
I had a top of the line computer back then and it still ran like crap. Even today on my beastly rig by todays standards the performance is still terrible (after multiple performance updates too). The game infrastructure is just bad, no rig will ever play it flawlessly, which is the main reason it failed.
Agreed. It was a snowball for a game like Vanguard. Horrid performance out of the gate meant people left in droves, but the game was built to work with a healthy population (lots of grouping, huge world, huge cities). Once it became a ghost town, there was even less reason to visit it, even as technology began to catch up.
Comments
I've also given Vangard several tries, but sadly the aesthetics of the game always kill it for me. The character models and animations are utterly atrocious, nameplates look like like they were created by a single developer who had no idea what they were doing, and everything moves like somebody hit the fast-forward button (2x).
It could have been great, but sadly it's just another game destined for the chopping block.
Everytime you sub you recieve station cash. But there are other alternatives. You can save up money in game and buy the keys in the Exchange for roughly 15-25g each. You dont have to spend real cash to purchase the keys.
Ah, cool. Didn't know you could buy them with in-game cash. Fantastic, thanks.
Allow me to add some non bias rationale` to this thread.
Reasons not to play Vanguard:
-Brad McQuaid himself found this game unfixable when attempting a return a few months back
-Game is on autopilot with very few significant updates that don't center around the cash shop
-Still has more bugs then Fear Factor
-Game was clearly made for grouping but sony turned it into a pointless solo grind with many wasted dungeons
-at least 33% of the quests are bugged in some way
-Most of the world is empty or without purpose
-Clay Fighter graphics, dull looking world, half the armor/weapons look very awkward
-Vanguard employees have insanely high turnover rates, so you're always stuck with devs that don't really care about their job.
-The game will never see a single expansion, so you quickly come to the realization that it's a poor use of your time
-Almost no endgame
-Very laggy server, terrible pings 80% of the time
-No pvp or roleplay server in a game that could easily have both
-Zones are divided into chucks that hitch/lag and crash every time you walk over them. Possibly the worst area loading design ever conceived.
Reasons to play Vangaurd:
-Close knit, helpful community
-You're about to abandon MMO's cuz they've all been terrible for 10 years and you have nothing left to lose(try project 1999 as well)
-Open world, No instances
-Group content doesn't have as much hand holding and feels D&Dish at times
-Class design is excellent
-Decent roleplaying atmosphere, every race has it's own city
This is very inaccurate. It did fail, but you assume the reason for it was its punishing playstyle. Not at all. At release it was virtually unplayable on most rigs. Sigil banked on players willingness to upgrade to play the game, but other alternatives in the market coupled with a buggy release meant people didn't stick around.
I am confident that if the game had launched correctly, it will still be holding onto subs.
Besides, what's wrong with a niche MMO that is challenging? If you don't like that kind of game there are dozens of other options.
The problem with Vanguard is that it needed a large population to work, which it just doesn't have. Everything is designed for groups and working in teams (crafting). I am not complaining about that, I play MMOs to group, the problem being that it is pretty hard to consistently get groups in Vanguard, meaning you will solo a lot in the long grind to max level, which is pretty boring as the game was not designed for that.
Its a catch 22 that the game cannot fix without cheapening what makes the game great. If Vanguard released today with upgraded graphics, animations and performance - it would be my new home.
I had a top of the line computer back then and it still ran like crap. Even today on my beastly rig by todays standards the performance is still terrible (after multiple performance updates too). The game infrastructure is just bad, no rig will ever play it flawlessly, which is the main reason it failed.
Agreed. It was a snowball for a game like Vanguard. Horrid performance out of the gate meant people left in droves, but the game was built to work with a healthy population (lots of grouping, huge world, huge cities). Once it became a ghost town, there was even less reason to visit it, even as technology began to catch up.
Not gonna say VG doesn't have its issues, but I'd hardly call this non-biased, even if you did keep in a short list of positives.