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An ex-WoW player's review of Vanguard (comprehensive)
//\//\oo
Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 2,767
NOTICE!!!: While I respect a person's preferences, I don't respect his/her inclination to deem others inferior because of their preferences. So kindly ignore this post if you plan on criticizing me for my tastes, or for having enjoyed a game that millions of other people do.
Game source: Http://www.silkyvenom.com
Those sites will answer any specifics you have regarding adventuring, diplomacy and crafting, which I have omitted in my review.
My Background:
I come from an entirely different ballpark: My very first MMORPG was Anarchy Online, which I played circa a half year before trying EQ (which I despised so much that I couldn't even finish the free trial) and made me accustomed to a non-grind, quest-driven (per the random quest generator), solo-oriented, game with good character customization.
Please do not read further if you do not share similar interests:
1. Gameplay.
Imho, this is very well done, since almost every class in Vanguard (I've tried them all) has a load of instacasts and lots of interaction. There are even classes (i.e. Bloodmages, Monks, Disciples), which have a sort of combopoint system where you have to allocate a resource that is accrued during combat.
2. Questing
I think that this is one of the game's weakest points: The further you progress in the game the fewer the quests get; while there is a plethora of quests from lvls 1-20, the quests then become so thin that you must traverse the entire world if you wish to solo (while there is just barely enough group content if you don't grind at all).
3. PvP
This aspect is very important to me, since I'm a PvP fanatic (been PvPing since Diablo II). PvP is extremely unbalanced at the moment: There are classes (Sorcerers, Druids, Psis... maybe one or two others) that can reliably kill you in 1-2 shots even with the 50% damage reduction in PvP. Although some of these skills are on 10 minute cooldowns, it is very frustrating on a free for all PvP server where PvP death = coin loss + durability loss.
4. Ambiance
Believe it or not, but ambiance is very important to me: The sort of rollercoaster ride that one would find and expect in WoW is definitely not present in Vanguard; the way mobs and locations are distributed, it feels like a real world and not like a video game at times (reminds me of a fantasy version of AO), yet it retains the true 3d nature of the game (unlike EQ2 which feels like a giant plane imho) with mountains that you can scale and water that you can dive into.
I understand that this is very subjective, but it's just my humble opinion.
5. Graphics
I think this is (and was to an even greater degree before when I had first started playing) the biggest hindrance to enjoying Vanguard: The graphics you get relative to performance are absolutely horrid in comparison to games like WoW and LOTRO (although I didn't enjoy LOTRO much during the world tour gameplaywise). While they have improved the performance at launch by at least 30%, the game is still not playable (with good visuals) to the same degree as LOTRO and WoW are.
Another problem with the game is that it reads a lot of data from your HD when new material in your client pops up, which causes a lot of hitching and several second delays if you see new players (which can mean death in PvP).
Chunking, the instance technology used by Vanguard which partitions the realm into invisible pieces, causes your client to delay for at least 5 seconds (since it is sending data to another server and reloading some of the graphics) and can cause some frustration when the direction of your char isn't transferred correctly and forces you to spend a good 10+ seconds doing nothing but getting from one chunk to the other.
With all of that negative stuff having been said, the graphics still look very good if you can run them on a decent machine.
My machine's specs were:
2 gig ram
2 gig CPU
Nvidia 6800
I found the game to be somewhat playable with decent graphics (>= WoW) at 30-35 fps in the wild and 5-15 fps in crowded areas.
6. Crafting
This is another poor aspect of the game, since it essentially takes EQ2's crafting system and adds a ridiculous grind to it (it's slightly more indepth, but you can research it at the site I've given you); you can gain adventuring lvls at 3-4x the rate at which you can gain crafting levels. I've never been one to craft, but this trade in Vanguard requires a ridiculous amount of time with nothing new to offer in terms of mechanics.
7. Diplomacy
Diplomacy is a somewhat innovative card game, which involves a little strategy and planning. However, progression in diplomacy is also much slower than adventuring and has some tedious grinding to it once you've found all of the necessary strategies for victory.
8. Character customization and development
This is another weak point of Vanguard's, since you can only customize < 12 attributes with point caps at each lvl. In addition to the latter constraint, there are really only 3-4 useful stats for each character class, so that you're really only given a few options.
This obviously pales in comparison to WoW's talent trees, or the talent tree stat combination of AO, which is why I was somewhat disappointed with it.
There are a few classes that have different paths you can choose (i.e. the monk class which has three different styles to choose from, or the shaman which can choose different patrons), but other than that there is nothing else to really customize.
Character development speed in the adventuring sphere (killing monsters and doing quest) is about on par with EQ2 and WoW for the first 30 lvls, which constitute more than 50% of the game at this point. I've heard that the last 20 lvls are more demanding, but cannot verify those claims since I have never progressed past 30.
Synopsis:
Even with a lot of performance problems and the limitation of my play to the adventuring sphere (killing monsters and doing quests that don't involve diplomacy and crafting), I found the game to be quite engrossing for about a month until I hit my late 20's early 30's due to the interactive gameplay and immersive environment. This game has a lot of potential, but it might not be worth your money if you're looking for a game with a huge load of content.
This is a sequence of characters intended to produce some profound mental effect, but it has failed.
Comments
The game seems to have a wonderful framework in place, but it falls vastly short of fulfilling its potential. I agree with everything you said on your review but would like to add two significant points of my own.
There seems to be too few people for such a vast world. Grouping at lower lvlslvls is very limited, and can even be frustrating during prime time. I wonder if they forgot why instancing was added in the first placeMMORPG'sMMORPG'self)
Although my play experience is limited, there seems to be no opportunity for tactical play. Blast blast blast, repeat... It has some common elements such as crowd control, but there seems to be little importance to timing. The feel of combat seems even more artificial than other MMORPG's; which is saying a lot considering that MMORPG's have very pore combat immersion as is.
That was a very mature and well worded review, i salute you. I shall respond in a similar matter to proove that boards like this are not only dominated by zealous fanbois.
1. I agree here, the classes do feel unique and are fun to play.
2. There are tons of quest but they are not as packed together as in the first 20 levels. Also the higher level quest are VERY long and multy-tired. You have 2.5 continents to do Quests (Kojan is only half a continent). More than enough to get you leveling up fast with good rewards. It needs Adventuring, its not 'scripted' where you will have quests all along the way, you have to seek out those areas and find the quest NPC's and Outposts. In my book that is a good thing.
3. I am not a PvP player, can not comment on that.
4. Ambi*e*nce (sorry for the grammar nazi) or immersion or believability of the world. Vanguard is not a roller coaster ride. As you pointed out in [2] it gets very difficult to move on because you are not lead by the game anymore. You have to go out and *find* adventure. The world is very well designed and for some people, and sometimes for me, *too real*. It challanges you not with obvious tasks and guides it requires your iniative. That can be both rewarding and cumbersome. I am 50/50 on this, but i do tend to the way Vanguard did it.
5. This is a big issue, it is very demanding, i have by no means a powerfull PC (P4 3GHz HT, 2GB RAM, ATI 1950 PRO 512 MB) but i can play comfortably on my 32" Widescreen with 1280x786 resolution, why anyone needs 3000x2000 eludes me. I could give some links that explain why it is futile but you can find them yourself. On Balanced settings i get the occasional hitches in big towns or heated battle but it is very beautifull and playable.
6. It is EQ2, It is 3-4 times more time intensive than Adventuring, it is buggy as hell. It is still more fun than pressing a button saying craft all and watch the level counter go up. Not quite there yet but shows potential. (50/50)
7. While i give it credit as beeing an 'invention' it is quite boring at times and i think the intention was that it is not a 'full time job', it is alot of fun to do now and then. I would put this into the 'nice when you do not feel like grinding' category. A very welcome distraction and very well done.
8. While Customization is there, it is not very 'deep', i agree. You do most of your customization, or better re-phrase that, OPTIMIZATION with gear. There is not much way to the left or right but there is certainly way to improve on many levels. I have yet to see a game that does give me the character customization i want, Ryzom is very close as it is, basically, all open, no restrictions, you can learn all and everything. A bit overwhelming and makes the use of archetypes obsolete, but those Ryzom guys sure are on the right track.
Closing thoughts
It's not there yet, far from it. This world has to evolve and at the current rate of development it will take quite some time (talking 6-10 months here). Right now the focus is on adventuring and all the other aspects of the game do not get enough development time. Brad and his company are on the edge but they push forward and really try to make it work. It will be a long haul and if SONY does not drop the ball, unlikely as they have little cost and involvement it is part of the already raised station account, this could be a diamond around xmas.
Let's hope for the best.
Kindjal
EDIT: some spelling and punctuation (i bet there is more)
I agree on many of the points, but feel to some extent there are a few things i disagree with.
For one as far as quests are concerened (now I am only 30 so do not know beyond that), but I can find plenty of quests and there are alot more chunks for that level (and dungeons) than in a game like WoW or EQ2... certainly not quite on the same lv as soloability as WoW, but still possible. Also as far as content goes (again going from the 1-30ish game) I did not touch half the chunks I could of while leveling up and missed tons of dungeons (making alts just to see some of the places I didn't go to), though it is true you may have to travel to find places on thestra, kojan or qalia for your level.. there are alot of them.
As far as graphics go I will agree on most points, defiantly seems to be getting better, with a AMD duo core, 1.5gigs of RAM and a 7900 I run with graphics up a fair bit (look very good to me - grass and tree detail both way up) and only really have slow down in city type chunks and occasionaly other places.. still going to be problems for alot of people but it is getting better.
As far as combat though.. if you are actualy fighting stuff that is difficult (such as red con or yellows in dungeons) there is plenty to do atleast from the tanking perspective (the one class I have really played). From switching between offensive and defensive stances, using protects, stunning and kicking to interrupt and I feel this is more or atleast equal to tanking in any other mmo i have played (EQ was obvioously quite basic, EQ2 was kind of a button mash and WoW was very similar to vanguard in alot of ways imo although i found agro to be somewhat easy to hold) - have to try other classes but from alts i have played , there seem to atleast be some cool moves out there.
Most of your other points I agree with or have no room to say anything (like crafting or diplomacy) because.. well I havent done either.
Kalade
Just have to say Taus01 may have hit the points I was going for better than me
and some things i didnt even thinking of really saying, but are perfectly true. Anyways just thought I would add that thought.
Kalade
I found one point you mentioned very good aswell. The combat and i just realized it cause you mentioned it.
There is a distinct difference how you play Solo, in a Group or in a high level 'raid' or difficult quest. Against those high level opponents rarely used abilities like kicks to stun and interrupt are very usefull, opposed to a solo situation. It is subtle but if you are getting over level 30 you have a truckload of powerfull and 'tool' abilities that do make a difference in certain situations.
What i do miss is unexpected moves from the high level 'bosses' like grabbin the tank and throwing him half a mile away. Maybe i just have not seen it yet, but things like that are what make a difference for me.
EDIT: again some spelling and sentence structures.
Yeah I am trying to think of bosses do anything really unique and I think there was one that did something.. but I cant remeber
really havnet fought enough. But totaly your poitn about a difference between solo and group (and what you fight while grouped) is important.. soloing can get boring extremely fast especialy fighting things that dont push you to the edge (imo no more boring than EQ2 or WoW.. but both of which I have trouble doing for very long.. having quests help). But hopefuly some of the bosses will get cooler soon.. i swear there was atleast one cool boss fight i remeber.... (but hey cooler boss fights in WoW were at later levels so can hope).
Kalade
Very good to see a real discussion here without the usual flaming of WoW or VG or any other game for that matter. Kudos to the OP for a very good post.
re: Boss fights
I can't remember one either, while they are interesting and the long quest builds up to a finale (try the unicorn mount quest, takes you days to finish it's that long, but you get the mount
The engine and the people that work for Sigil, or whats left of it, do have the potential, but it will be long journey.
PS: i just re-installed SWG, i hear it is the phoenix coming out of the ashes. Kidding, just giving it another try
Ohh so the next game coming out will be Station Access too.. even tho I never really have enough time to play multiple MMO's i love having the option.. seems like getting the all acess thing will be even better soon. And yeah will have to try shadowhound or unicorn quest soon.. heard its 10g after quest still tho? is that true.. if so wil probably wait just cause im a bit low on cash atm. But certainly glad they made the quests long and even a cost afterwards wouldnt be bad.. atleast this way not everyone will be on one.
Kalade
Yes it is 10g, but it is a long and fun quest, you will need help along the way and the 100 flowers you don't need for yourself, a whole group can loot if one has the flowers. It is a group quest so everyone profits if you work together.
If you are on Thunderaxe by any chance let me know, we have a very mature and helpfull guild.
=== snippet from our forums about the quest ===
Don't be dismayed by the 100 flower thing, only one person needs to collect the flowers to trigger the named for an entire group, and each member can loot the wand. Jendar and Tymme both got 100 flowers last night, Tymme used her 100 to trigger the named and Jen didn't lose hers but was still able to loot the wand. My suggestion would be to get as many people as possible who are going to be seriously working on this together and Jen or someone else can come trigger the event and get a bunch of people past it at once.
=== thanks to Sharak ===
Thanks for the constructive feedback.
I agree with most of what has been posted except for the quests part: I found in WoW and EQ2 that there were always more than enough quests in one area, so that I always had the option to travel to another area to do quests. In Vanguard (post 20), there are relatively few quests in comparison, although there are just enough to get you by without having to do any grinding if you group. I definitely did my fair share of traveling from the far end of Thestra (hilsbury) to Qalia (CIS) when I was getting low on content.
I was more of a soloer, however, and found the group content as a DK to be somewhat of a bore. Even on WoW I couldn't stand raiding, so this is probably a characteristic that sets me apart from most WoWers.
Also.. I didn't misspell ambiance. I even put it in winword to be sure... yeah.. I'm pathetic lol
This is a sequence of characters intended to produce some profound mental effect, but it has failed.
No it won't, they need to cut costs.
You can see it with the patches that needed to fix the CTD's but only made them worse. Even people that never had CTD's before crash all the time now.
They don't even understand the logs people send them because their understanding of the unreal2 engine is too limited.
Can you imagine that?
Their amateurism and stupidity isn't fixable.
And there's no "potential" in VG, there's no potential in a company that doesn't even get the basics right.
Though the graphics/performance will improve as higher powered CPUs are introduced into the market, the game engine has still been stretched to the breaking point.
If you want to see an interesting game engine for the future, check out the one developed for the Crysis FPS. Personally, this is the graphic engine I believe games will be using as CPUs get more and more powerful. As Crysis is slated for a fall, 2007 release, Vanguard will become more dated.
Single player games or regular online games will always be supiriour towards MMO's, but you are right tech will eventualy catch up to similiar type of graphics. Even though i feel Crysis looks amazing i still feel we not there yet, as i said before in other topics, when we get games that play and look like some intro movies like for example Clive Barkers Jericho trailer "Overwelmed" http://media.pc.ign.com/media/843/843255/vids_1.html
Now if games would look ingame like that and move ingame like that i think we getting there
and think that will be called truly NEXT GEN!
And to be on topic, nice review enjoyed did not agree on everything but that can be possible due to the fact i'm not a pvp'r so experiance the game different. All in all good review
No it won't, they need to cut costs.
You can see it with the patches that needed to fix the CTD's but only made them worse. Even people that never had CTD's before crash all the time now.
They don't even understand the logs people send them because their understanding of the unreal2 engine is too limited.
Can you imagine that?
Their amateurism and stupidity isn't fixable.
And there's no "potential" in VG, there's no potential in a company that doesn't even get the basics right.
I originally would really take your intake on the game seriously but looking through your posts, it just appears that all your posts seem to bash the game.
Regardless of what you say, I'll stand by my statement. This game isn't very good right now, but it can end up being a pretty good one but Sigil has a lot of things to work on clearly.
On another note. To the OP:
Nice choice of font colour. Seriously. I think it works well. That type of green needs more lovin'.
(I mean this sincerely BTW)
I want more green in new media!
i couldn't get past this part.
just for reference, MILLIONS of people believed the world was flat and the emperor was a god for hundreds of years throughout many different regions. is the world flat and the emperor a god?
please do not respond if you do not share similar beliefs.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
Well, you responded despite the disclaimer and I will do the same: Who are you to judge anybody's preferences? Do you have a PhD in mathematics, physics and psychology? Are you some sort of Nobel Prize winner that has established some sort of connection between an individual's MMORPG preference and intelligence? Where is your data?
When I was playing WoW there were guilds devoted entirely to physicists and mathematicians and I had met various graduate students in both fields....
I'm sure you're a graduate student in a scientific interdisciplinary field too, right?
This is a sequence of characters intended to produce some profound mental effect, but it has failed.
No it won't, they need to cut costs.
You can see it with the patches that needed to fix the CTD's but only made them worse. Even people that never had CTD's before crash all the time now.
They don't even understand the logs people send them because their understanding of the unreal2 engine is too limited.
Can you imagine that?
Their amateurism and stupidity isn't fixable.
And there's no "potential" in VG, there's no potential in a company that doesn't even get the basics right.
I originally would really take your intake on the game seriously but looking through your posts, it just appears that all your posts seem to bash the game.
Regardless of what you say, I'll stand by my statement. This game isn't very good right now, but it can end up being a pretty good one but Sigil has a lot of things to work on clearly.
I bashed it like everyone else did, hell, people bashed it in beta because they were sick of the constant crashing.
They're out of money, they just blew 30 mill $ dollars or something on the game that can't even stop crashing, and you think they will get money to make expansions and to hire more people to fix the mess.....
you're delusional beyond belief, what's the bank gonna tell them when they go asking for another 10 mill $, what are they going to say?
macl
I will say however that there is alot of content to solo between 20 and 40. I've done quite abit of it and have many choices of what quests to do. They have added quite abit this last month or so. (Got my Unicorn the other day)
I came from Anarchy Online as well and I do miss the depth of toon custimization and twinking. I wish other games looked to AO for incite as to how to make this interesting. The quest generators were nice too. I hope that Funcoms Age Of Conan will adopt some of the ideas that were so cool in AO.
Again thanks for putting into words what many people havent been able too.
Currently Playing: Nothing (Looking for a new home)
Played: WoW, EQ1, EQ2, L2, RF Online, EVE, LOTRO
To the OP, great review, you avoided making wild, fantastical claims on either the positive or negative side, and clearly stated when things were clearly the result of your personal preferences and opinions.
Thanks to most of the folks here on this thread who have kept the discussions civil.....
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon