SOE is welcoming back former Vanguard players by giving them some free game time to experience recent game improvements.

Those of you who have opted to receive newsletters and promotions from SOE may already be experiencing glee over the recent announcement that Vanguard is welcoming players back to the game, and letting them experience first-hand all the great changes and performance enhancements that have been made!

Vanguard has been experiencing some much-deserved positive buzz, which is not only the result of improvements to the game, but also a testament to our amazing community who certainly do their part to get the word out!

Here's our part! FREE game time! Those who had previously played Vanguard, but cancelled over 60 days ago for whatever reason, should find their accounts reactivated from June 26 th , 2008 until July 31 st 2008.

Read more here.

lol @ $OE, wooFREE game time only to previous players. This game seriously need free trial to ones that never played before.

No it can compete with anything out here now.

So more or less five weeks of free play. and you guys tell us at the start of the fifth week? 

 Why would I take a day to download and patch Vanguard to play it for 5 days?  If this was passed a long, oh I don't know, a month ago when it started, I might have done it.

 I was kind of curious as to how the game evolved with out the circus ring leader McQuaid around to show boat his wonderful dreams that, well, that remained dreams.

Originally posted by xxlilDevilxx

lol @ $OE, wooFREE game time only to previous players. This game seriously need free trial to ones that never played before.

From the link:

"Isle of Dawn, the smaller download version of Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, should be available at the end of the Summer"

Originally posted by Szark

SOE is welcoming back former Vanguard players by giving them some free game time to experience recent game improvements.

<snip>

should find their accounts reactivated from June 26 th , 2008 until July 31 st 2008.

Read more here.

So... wait a month, then post the announcement here? I guess there's  still a week left in that.

At this point Vanguard is BY FAR the best game going.

Never thought i'd say that a year ago.

Thought i'd say that 2 years ago..

Funny how things work.

Originally posted by xxlilDevilxx

lol @ $OE, wooFREE game time only to previous players. This game seriously need free trial to ones that never played before.

The free trial is on the test server as we speak. The main issue was making the trial small enough to justify downloading it to try it out, cause Vanguard is a BIG game.

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Originally posted by lordtwisted
So more or less five weeks of free play. and you guys tell us at the start of the fifth week? 
 Why would I take a day to download and patch Vanguard to play it for 5 days?  If this was passed a long, oh I don't know, a month ago when it started, I might have done it.
 I was kind of curious as to how the game evolved with out the circus ring leader McQuaid around to show boat his wonderful dreams that, well, that remained dreams.

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Take the day. Trust me. The game is SOOOO much better now that even with only a few days left you'll probably resub.

Month late and a free trial for new players short.

Originally posted by xxlilDevilxx

lol @ $OE, wooFREE game time only to previous players. This game seriously need free trial to ones that never played before.

I also find it very odd that they are offering a returning players type of deal but still have no free trial.

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Originally posted by Rollotamasi

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Originally posted by xxlilDevilxx

lol @ $OE, wooFREE game time only to previous players. This game seriously need free trial to ones that never played before.

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I also find it very odd that they are offering a returning players type of deal but still have no free trial.

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Makes perfect sense to me. The goal first should be to get back all those people who bought the game and are genuinely interested in playing it. That worked on me, i'll be resubbing for the first time. The conversion ratio for free trials to paying subs probably isn't that good in any game.

I think this also applies to users who were flagged for the beta but never purchased the game.  I had beta access but never bought the game or even logged into the beta.  Still, I got an email from them, downloaded the client and have been playing for free for almost a month.  Bottom line, even if you were a beta user who never bought the game, you may be able to take advantage of this.

More importantly, you should definitely try this game.  I had always thought about giving the game a try and had been hearing lately that it was content complete and most of the bugs have been fixed so I gave it a try.  I really love it.  I'm still playing the free month but I already bought the game (only $19.99) so I can continue to play uninterrupted when the free month is over.  If you're like me and have been waiting for the kinks to be ironed out, now is the time to give it a shot.  I was shocked when I started playing.  It's far better than I expected.

JohnnyRico

It pisses me off to no end that I am only just finding out about this now.. 6 days from when it ends. Simular happened with EQ2 but at least that ive had a good month of two to try it again and will be resubbing to that. I might as well download the game incase I ever switch to all access I guess.. it always did interest me, I bought this computer for the purpose of playing it.

The marketing ploy of releasing this information late is obvious. The game is still crap and has been dummied down by SOE but 6 days playtime won't be enough time to truly get your feet wet so they are hoping to sucker people for a one month subscription until they realize that the game is still unplayable.

Actually, I've enjoyed Vanguard more than AoC. I was a beta-only player, and got the free time thing newsletter before it started.

The game still has some bugs, but nothing horrible, and its fun. It is more of a grind than AoC, but that might not be a bad thing...

My biggest complaint is the lack of people. Since the game was designed during the "Vision" era, a vast majority of my quests at my level are group only (I'm only 18 on my highest, so I'm not exactly hard core player anymore). Its rare to see anyone at that level, so grouping is insanely hard.

If they had people in the game to help make those coming back level up a bit easier, the game would do very well. If they can't get enough people however....

I have to give SOE credi for the effort.  Brad McQuaid left such a wretched mess it seemed certain this game was doomed.   It looked like SOE managed to salvage something afterall.

Amazing what you can do when you don't have moronic windbags running a company, isn't it?

This makes me more hopeful for the DC Online game.   Perhaps SOE really is learning from their abject failures of the past. 

Seems that the Vanguard Free Trial will be released for the general public sometime in August. Also, it looks like SOE will also be releasing the new Character Models at the same time. Rumor has it that the Character Models will be almost on par with AOC character models. Don't know if I believe this about the new models but I would think that they would be pretty nice.

When Vanguard was released about a year and a half, the game was utter unplayable crap. The basic platform was great in theory but Sigil wasnt even close in pulling it off. It seems that since SOE stepped in they have slowly but surely been greatly improving the game. Vanguard is now to the point where it should have been at it's initial launch.

When I read the Vanguard Forums in the newbie sections all I am seeing is tons of new threads about new players(most from AOC and EQ2) stating how they never knew that this game was so great and why wasnt it out there advertising.

I dont know if Vanguard will be able recoup from its horrible launch but it seems like it is making a very decent push in the right dirrection.

  Still many bugs, not alot of players, no real free trial (newbie island trial is a joke,and not in yet) , gigantic grind !!! Best game ever material for sure.  Fanboi more, people.

out of interest is june the 26 th a typo .... do they mean july 26 - august for thier free months play ... if it is june the 26 th why tell us at the end of july .... does nt make a lot of sence to me