I just re-subscribed last night to see what has changed, and I'm liking it alot so far!

One of the things that griped me the most when I tried playing at release (I played a little of the beta, and only a couple of days of release).   I'm not sure if it was lag or what, but it had to do with the timing of spell impacts.  You would cast a "fireball" it would fly to the target, and hit.  Then about 1.5 seconds later, you might see the numbers pop up.  All the spells were like that. 

Another thing I disliked was the amount of quests and quest mobs.  There weren't enough quests to level you up for the next set of quests in the starter areas.  And that was even if you COULD find the quest mobs, as there just didn't seem to be enough of them to go around.  Hours wasted hoping to find that Forager, or something similar. 

Of course, performance was a bit lacking then too.  But I didn't have a huge problem with it, as I'm running a decent machine. 

ALL of those things have been fixed, as far as I can tell.   I leveled up a necro to 7, in about 2 hours of play last night.  A TON more low level quests have been added.  NEW mobs have been added.  Lots more quest mobs (of course, that might be due to them not being camped by everyone, but it was alot easier to finish quests). 

Now, I'm not one of the "Vanguard Haters" that you see running around.  I bought the collectors edition, because I felt from playing the beta, that it had HUGE potential to be one of the great games.  I hoped it was only a matter of time before the kinks were ironed out.  I think that time is now.  So, if you've been considering returning, you should.   

In a very short while, they'll be opening up the trial isle.  With that, I'm absolutely sure that the populations on the servers will multiply, as more and more people will return to the game that everyone had high hopes for, but had a horrible release.  They will quickly learn that it is now they game they are looking for. 

i hope you are right, I got a new PC in january specifically for VG and i was really bummed out when it turned out so badly.  I hope it's good now (as it does have the potential to be good) but after that launch FUBAR, i'll wait till i can try the free trial before i fork over anymore money to go back.

I will likely see y'all on the isle

Itchmon

Is there a planned date for the Trial?

No official date as yet - but the rumor mill seems to center around Q1 08, which seems a reasonable estimate to me.

I wont be trying VG again until the trial is released, Q1 08 sounds about right. By then it should be far better than back when I played it.

I was looking for something to play whilst waiting for AoC.

If the trial is set for Q1 '08 that's too late and I don't really want to shell out the cash for this without seeing for myself what improvements have been made since release.

Having said that, they could easily make the trial smooth as silk and the rest of the game could still be poor... hmm.....

I would be willing to bet that the trial will be significantly smoother and more polished than the main game, given that it will be on a separate island with no connection to the main continents. Of course if they went too far customers would have an awful reaction when trial accounts went live and people would venomously bash the game (again) in the forums. Remember the trial is going to be linked with a relaunch of the game, which involves lots of advertising - and I imagine SOE would want word of mouth to reinforce the perceived quality of the game rather than detract from it (this time around).

It'll be like a first date:  the game will be on its best behaviour, but it will still be 'the game'.

They have also said that they are using the trial isle to test coding that can be implemented into the normal game. So the tril isle should come out much better than the normal game to start, but that should be good news for those who play the game as the coding will then be implemented into the main game. At the moment my pc can only handle medium settings, even if im out in the open areas high settings still jerk for me. but if the new coding just improves medium performance ill be happy. Medium settings still look better than anything else out there to date. just when im in a city i have to stand and circle a few times to get rid of the glitching.

but if the game keeps improving at the same rate as Soe have started then ill be happy. forget content fix the framerate first please! oh ye and give Rangers track :)

Does anyone know if we're getting Queen's Colony or Oupost of the Overlord?