So is Vanguard Dead?

[wheresmybacon]

I haven't played the game yet, but I recall seeing numerous hype - then hate - threads about it around its release. Now, it's mostly *crickets*.

Do any of you who picked it up at release still play and enjoy it? If not, why not?

I'm very addicted to WoW and don't have plans to change games any time soon, but I do love the MMORPG genre in general and am curious to find out what has either made or broken this game in your opinion.

 

[smokeyjoe]

I've been playing since release and I still enjoy the game very much. I know I am in the minority as most ppl quit. I think a lot of people that are still playing are hoping the SOE takeover will fix all of the bugs. Even though most people dog SOE for whatever reason.. this is my first MMO with their involvement so guess I will see how it goes.

It has been about 3 weeks since the SOE takeover and the last patch. I, as are many people I am sure, am expecting the next patch to fix a lot of the issues. I'm sure SOE realizes this - let's hope they don't disappoint.

 

[Bateluer]

AT isn't the best place to find out which MMOs are doing well and which are not.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: Bateluer
AT isn't the best place to find out which MMOs are doing well and which are not.

Yeh, unbiased MMO statements (especially involving the Sony haters) here are as rare as a kind wendigo.

 

[Bradtechonline]

The talk around that game was huge leading up to its release. I don't think it is dead, it seems to take a lot to kill an MMO anymore. There are some MMO's still going that only have 10-100 people low/peak hours.

 

[SunnyD]

There will always be a sort of following. Vanguard was by no means finished when they released it. In fact, judging by some of the dev comments over the last couple months, it wasn't even started. Sigil, or rather Brad McQuaid pushed it out the door because he was running out of money. Once he got the payout from Sony, he took off because at that point he knew he had no more control on the project - better to pocket the cash and run I guess.

All I can say is that I was disappointed. Vanguard had some merits to it, but when you hear a lead dev saying things like, "We're really excited, the new vision that we have for Vanguard blah blah..." - um, excuse me... what about finishing the OLD vision first!

I wholly expect Vanguard to be merely adequate in probably 6-12 months from now. As it stands right now, it's not worth paying to beta test. It would be worth it to pay for an evolving world and game. But it's not evolving, it's just being finished.

 

[pontifex]

Originally posted by: Bateluer
AT isn't the best place to find out which MMOs are doing well and which are not.

good luck finding a place that is good for this. even sites like mmorpg.com are full of fanboys and biased.

 

[Hadsus]

The game has no character, no soul. It's a hardcore MMORPG modeled after EQ but it sure ain't EQ. I dumped it after a month. I played quite a bit of the LOTR beta and think it is far more immersive. Unfortunately both games are very generic as far as the mechanics are concerned.

 

[jdport]

I played it in Beta and had no desire to purchase the game... i'm not surprised it is doing so badly considering the state it was in at that time. I'm not saying that from an anti-SOE or anti anything bias either, I had really high hopes for the game and was really excited about it all through its development. Some of the things they wanted to do though that sounded awsome just simply didn't work out very well when put in a real game. Maybe someday things will progress to the point where you can make a game that fully envelops the vision they had... but not yet.

I'm enjoying LOTRO a lot, as simplistic (relative to Vanguard) as it may be. It has a good story line and fairly standard gameplay.. and doesn't require a NASA supercomputer to run it smoothly with nice graphics options

 

[brandonb]

I joined Vanguard Beta March of 2006. During Beta 2.0 or 2.5. At the end of Beta 2.5, after many months of people telling Brad (me being one of the main ones to stir up trouble), "This just isn't going to work as is. Its neither casual, hard-core, or pvp oriented. You won't get any crowd, and this game needs a following of some sort to succeed. There needs to be a catch, an interest, and a ton more immersion to keep people playing."

Brad finally came out at the end of 2.5 and said "We are gonna make it closer to WoW as possible, and try to steal their numbers, if you don't like it, tough, move onto the next game if you don't like it." Then everybody basically said "You lose already, this game can't compete with WoW."

They were right.

 

[Skacer]

They thought they could release it unfinished and people would just keep playing it like Everquest 1. But that didn't happen. I think somewhere down the road there will be a point where people will say "hey check out Vanguard now they've done this and this and it's actually pretty decent". But I highly doubt it will ever reach the potential people thought it had, which was the next real EQ.

 

[TheUnk]

lol don't think they even have graphics for helms yet

 

[KeithTalent]

I played the Beta for a while and stutter-stepped my way (literally) through a few areas. After about the 20th CTD in a week I just uninstalled it.

Very disappointing.

KT

 

[ayabe]

I can't recommend it either. I played for about a month on the urging of some friends and could never really get in to it.

The diplomacy mini game was interesting to a point and I put a lot of time into raising my skill. But having to repeat the same conversation over and over again with the same people to raise your skills gets old after a while.

 

[CloE]

I recommand the game, very very good graphic and storyline. That's where you could really use your expensive new computer to work! (C2D + 8800) I do get alot of crash to desktop, mainly due to vista and 8800 drivers so fresh to the game.. more people with winXP is doing fine and having fun.

just need to be patient for the drivers and game patch to mature and playable

 

[CKent]

As I understand it they have about 100k subscribers, not bad by any means, but it's never enough for Sony...

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: CloE
I recommand the game, very very good graphic and storyline. That's where you could really use your expensive new computer to work! (C2D + 8800) I do get alot of crash to desktop, mainly due to vista and 8800 drivers so fresh to the game.. more people with winXP is doing fine and having fun.

just need to be patient for the drivers and game patch to mature and playable

What storyline?!?! There is no story line, just a bunch of mishmash quests with no real purpose. The game is essentially "go find something to XP on..." The graphics are good, but not great. EQ2 on "OMG My Computer is going to EXPLODE" settings looks better. VG is like they took the detail of EQ2 and the cartoon of WoW and bastardized them together. Like I said, it's good, but definitely not GREAT.

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: CloE
I recommand the game, very very good graphic and storyline. That's where you could really use your expensive new computer to work! (C2D + 8800) I do get alot of crash to desktop, mainly due to vista and 8800 drivers so fresh to the game.. more people with winXP is doing fine and having fun.

just need to be patient for the drivers and game patch to mature and playable

What storyline?!?! There is no story line, just a bunch of mishmash quests with no real purpose. The game is essentially "go find something to XP on..." The graphics are good, but not great. EQ2 on "OMG My Computer is going to EXPLODE" settings looks better. VG is like they took the detail of EQ2 and the cartoon of WoW and bastardized them together. Like I said, it's good, but definitely not GREAT.

VG has a great deal of in game lore, though some races have it implemented better than others. The lore for my half elf monk and wood elf shaman was a little weak compared to my Varanthari warrior. The lore there was outstanding. More of the lore was in diplomacy quests, which although innovative and a lot of fun, only appealed to a small crowd because it takes time and you actually have to read whats on the screen. Not the type of feature to attract WoW -kiddies.

The latest patch for VG claims to have fixed a few hundred bugs though I cannot vouch for it, my sub ran out a few days ago.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: Bateluer

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: CloE
I recommand the game, very very good graphic and storyline. That's where you could really use your expensive new computer to work! (C2D + 8800) I do get alot of crash to desktop, mainly due to vista and 8800 drivers so fresh to the game.. more people with winXP is doing fine and having fun.

just need to be patient for the drivers and game patch to mature and playable

What storyline?!?! There is no story line, just a bunch of mishmash quests with no real purpose. The game is essentially "go find something to XP on..." The graphics are good, but not great. EQ2 on "OMG My Computer is going to EXPLODE" settings looks better. VG is like they took the detail of EQ2 and the cartoon of WoW and bastardized them together. Like I said, it's good, but definitely not GREAT.

VG has a great deal of in game lore, though some races have it implemented better than others. The lore for my half elf monk and wood elf shaman was a little weak compared to my Varanthari warrior. The lore there was outstanding. More of the lore was in diplomacy quests, which although innovative and a lot of fun, only appealed to a small crowd because it takes time and you actually have to read whats on the screen. Not the type of feature to attract WoW -kiddies.

The latest patch for VG claims to have fixed a few hundred bugs though I cannot vouch for it, my sub ran out a few days ago.

I agree it had lore, but definitely no storyline past the lore. You're definitely right on the Varanthari lore though - I started a goblin as my first character and it was by far the best backstory behind any of the races bar none. The problem is that lore only gets you so far (out of the noobie zone) until it fizzles out and then you're in a plain vanilla world just wandering around with random quests to do.

One of my major disappointments with Vanguard, housing was hyped up so much. I was looking forward to running around the world, finding a random scenic spot and plopping down and building a house there. Instead, they did pretty much the same thing as Dark Age of Camelot did when they implemented housing... canned lots that were simple gold sinks.

I will say this for them, they did make the scenery pretty nice. The mob and item models as well as most of the spell effects just plain sucked though.

 

[Skacer]

Originally posted by: Bateluer
Not the type of feature to attract WoW -kiddies.

Which, ironically enough, is a game chock full of lore.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: Skacer

Originally posted by: Bateluer
Not the type of feature to attract WoW -kiddies.

Which, ironically enough, is a game chock full of lore.

Lore that gets rewritten and history that gets changed when it is convenient for Blizzard

 

[Markbnj]

I've been playing since release and am within a hair of cancelling. The game has a lot to recommend it, but the population on my server (Varking) has been crashing, and even more critically, there are some key bugs that have remained unfixed since release. Some of these have significant gameplay consequences. I may hang until the next patch, but if it doesn't address all the serious gameplay issues that will be it for me.

 

[wheresmybacon]

It's a shame it was rushed out since I think there is room in the genre for a game like what VG was supposed to be. When someone takes the time and money to develop it is anyone's guess...

 

[Skacer]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
[Lore that gets rewritten and history that gets changed when it is convenient for Blizzard

I hardly think that is complaint worthy when discussing mmorpgs and actually having a story and lore. WoW goes above and beyond in that category. Rewrites have occured to allow for things such as the Draenei becoming a playable race. But that isn't a big deal compared to the stories such as Nathaniel Blightcaller in Eastern Plaguelands, VanCleef's story in the Deadmines, The Onyxia line, The entire Scarlet Crusader line (including going back to SC and being treated as a friendly) and other such series.

I find it completely ironic for someone to attempt to defend Vanguard by taking a jab at WoW's stories. If you want to take a jab at the immaturity of some kids playing (and yes, kids do play games) go for it but don't confuse the matter with a lack of what the developers have created.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: Skacer
I find it completely ironic for someone to attempt to defend Vanguard by taking a jab at WoW's stories.

I am not defending vanguard, I have never played (the final version) nor shall I ever play it for I disliked the beta and I am kicking myself for buying the preorder pack to get into it. I am a disgruntled exWoW roleplayer that feels let down by Blizzard. (Twisting Nether, lvl 60 priest)