Originally posted by morpin

Originally posted by gibspider2

teh game is terrible on like 5 different levels

 

Nice first post... welcome to MMORPG.com.  You will fit in real well here.

This made me snicker.

To the point at hand....I tried the 14 day free trial and found that it was ok.  At the time, my computer was pretty crappy and had to lower many of the video options, so the game kinda looked crappy.  (not saying that it looks crappy, I just had the setting REALLY low)  I have since bought a new high end PC, I may have to give this another try.

One of the very best PvE games on the market right now.

To the OP, I play this game currently and I also did the free trial island. I agree the game is great but I just want to make you aware of one thing that may trouble you a little. The framerates that you said are great on that free trial will probably take a dip once you leave the island and unfortunately you will have to pay to leave the island to find out. I noticed it, but it's only in the city or town type areas where other players are that brings the fps down. Once you venture away from these towns your framerates will be good once again. If you can live with this you'll enjoy the game just like I have. Actually I think most MMO's have this framerate drop in city areas when there's other players around so it's not just this game that has the problem.

Glad to hear you are enjoying the game.

I love to play games and today for the PvE oriented player today it is either EQ2, Vanguard, or LoTR.  All the new games that are coming out are all pvp oriented.   Of those games I think Vanguard has the most open and deep gameplay.  We just need more players and for SoE to reward VG with more devs as they get more players.

Originally posted by MidniteHowl

To the OP, I play this game currently and I also did the free trial island. I agree the game is great but I just want to make you aware of one thing that may trouble you a little. The framerates that you said are great on that free trial will probably take a dip once you leave the island and unfortunately you will have to pay to leave the island to find out. I noticed it, but it's only in the city or town type areas where other players are that brings the fps down. Once you venture away from these towns your framerates will be good once again. If you can live with this you'll enjoy the game just like I have. Actually I think most MMO's have this framerate drop in city areas when there's other players around so it's not just this game that has the problem.

                        I agree, in the trial Vanguard really  optimized the island, once you leave and get anywhre close to a city the lag and hitching will drive you crazy, other games do have dropping frame rates in cities but not like Vangurad.  When this game came out is was a nightmare for people with really good computers, since then they have worked on it and now it is just a bad dream, it still needs plenty of work.  If you can live with the horrible lag there is a good game,  but be preparedd to have incredible patience

Originally posted by banard

I never intended to write an unbiased review, I not even could as my progress is far too little. All I did was writing about my first hours of experience in this mmo, with an added suggestion to try out the free trial. What's the problem? I never understood why people are roaming forums of games they don't like just to write one-sentence-bash-posts like a five year old.

Don't worry about it.  The trolls automatically attack any positive post about VG, yours included.  They either don't play the game,  haven't for 2+ years, or are somehow personally threatened by Vanguard's increasing popularity.

Good write up, glad you are enjoying the game.

Originally posted by eddieg50

Originally posted by MidniteHowl

To the OP, I play this game currently and I also did the free trial island. I agree the game is great but I just want to make you aware of one thing that may trouble you a little. The framerates that you said are great on that free trial will probably take a dip once you leave the island and unfortunately you will have to pay to leave the island to find out. I noticed it, but it's only in the city or town type areas where other players are that brings the fps down. Once you venture away from these towns your framerates will be good once again. If you can live with this you'll enjoy the game just like I have. Actually I think most MMO's have this framerate drop in city areas when there's other players around so it's not just this game that has the problem.

                        I agree, in the trial Vanguard really  optimized the island, once you leave and get anywhre close to a city the lag and hitching will drive you crazy, other games do have dropping frame rates in cities but not like Vangurad.  When this game came out is was a nightmare for people with really good computers, since then they have worked on it and now it is just a bad dream, it still needs plenty of work.  If you can live with the horrible lag there is a good game,  but be preparedd to have incredible patience

There is a whole other post on this.  Performance is WORSE on the island, and better in the rest of Telon.  Worse to the tune of about 10 fps.  The reason for this is two-fold.  One, there is often times 100+ people just in IoD alone and that's a performance hit.  Two, they've loaded everything (crafting, diplomacy, harvesting, adventuring, burning villages, a decent size dungeon, a huge amount of NPCs)... all that in such a small spot is also a performance hit.

I've got a toon on IoD and I see the performance hit clearly on IoD compared to where my other toons might be.  I tell new folks that if they get acceptable performance in IoD they will be set fine for the rest of the world.  However, it is true that some large cities will cause a lot of 'initial' lagging when you enter them as the textures load (New Targonor is the worse).  It's a massive city and every building has a real interior that you can go into for quests, exploration, what have you.  But once the initial loading is done, it becomes pretty smooth.  Tanvu can be bad when it's loaded up with 40+ players.  Khal is actually very smooth after they revamped the textures (which they'd do that for NT and Tanvu).  BC and LN are virtually lag free.  Martok is OK and Agram is as bad as NT.  All the other cities are pretty smooth.

That said, the design work in IoD is excellent, the developers did a very nice job and every thing looks great.  They've said that this will be the new standard all future content will be held to.

Originally posted by eddieg50

Originally posted by MidniteHowl

To the OP, I play this game currently and I also did the free trial island. I agree the game is great but I just want to make you aware of one thing that may trouble you a little. The framerates that you said are great on that free trial will probably take a dip once you leave the island and unfortunately you will have to pay to leave the island to find out. I noticed it, but it's only in the city or town type areas where other players are that brings the fps down. Once you venture away from these towns your framerates will be good once again. If you can live with this you'll enjoy the game just like I have. Actually I think most MMO's have this framerate drop in city areas when there's other players around so it's not just this game that has the problem.

                        I agree, in the trial Vanguard really  optimized the island, once you leave and get anywhre close to a city the lag and hitching will drive you crazy, other games do have dropping frame rates in cities but not like Vangurad.  When this game came out is was a nightmare for people with really good computers, since then they have worked on it and now it is just a bad dream, it still needs plenty of work.  If you can live with the horrible lag there is a good game,  but be preparedd to have incredible patience

huh?

Originally posted by eddieg50

Originally posted by MidniteHowl

To the OP, I play this game currently and I also did the free trial island. I agree the game is great but I just want to make you aware of one thing that may trouble you a little. The framerates that you said are great on that free trial will probably take a dip once you leave the island and unfortunately you will have to pay to leave the island to find out. I noticed it, but it's only in the city or town type areas where other players are that brings the fps down. Once you venture away from these towns your framerates will be good once again. If you can live with this you'll enjoy the game just like I have. Actually I think most MMO's have this framerate drop in city areas when there's other players around so it's not just this game that has the problem.

                        I agree, in the trial Vanguard really  optimized the island, once you leave and get anywhre close to a city the lag and hitching will drive you crazy, other games do have dropping frame rates in cities but not like Vangurad.  When this game came out is was a nightmare for people with really good computers, since then they have worked on it and now it is just a bad dream, it still needs plenty of work.  If you can live with the horrible lag there is a good game,  but be preparedd to have incredible patience

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KuHNvUafLw

That video is made on a ATI 1950 512MB card, AMD X2 5200+ (2.6GHz).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qK-Wf9Bp7so

That video is recent. Done with a ATI HD 4890 1GB, AMD 720 (2.8GHz).

Videos was recorded with the standard Fraps FPS, 25 or 29fps. So the performance on those occasation hit the cap given by fraps. And for me the videos is fluid enough?

Hey Orphes, I had a video card set-up similar to that first you tube video when I first played Vanguard and had many problems like that video showed. I quit playing shortly after launch for those reasons.  Now with a new computer and recently re-trying Vanguard after hearing how's it's been getting better, I'm happy and can handle the little hitching I get in cities. I also noticed the first video is over a year old so I would like to see how the same computer configuration would run the game today after SOE has done many updates and patches since then.

Originally posted by Joppari

Originally posted by eddieg50

Originally posted by MidniteHowl

To the OP, I play this game currently and I also did the free trial island. I agree the game is great but I just want to make you aware of one thing that may trouble you a little. The framerates that you said are great on that free trial will probably take a dip once you leave the island and unfortunately you will have to pay to leave the island to find out. I noticed it, but it's only in the city or town type areas where other players are that brings the fps down. Once you venture away from these towns your framerates will be good once again. If you can live with this you'll enjoy the game just like I have. Actually I think most MMO's have this framerate drop in city areas when there's other players around so it's not just this game that has the problem.

                        I agree, in the trial Vanguard really  optimized the island, once you leave and get anywhre close to a city the lag and hitching will drive you crazy, other games do have dropping frame rates in cities but not like Vangurad.  When this game came out is was a nightmare for people with really good computers, since then they have worked on it and now it is just a bad dream, it still needs plenty of work.  If you can live with the horrible lag there is a good game,  but be preparedd to have incredible patience

 

huh?

O.K. I'll fall for it...what part of our posts didn't you understand. If your going to say something like "huh?" at least explain what you didn't understand.
 

Also Boojiboy, I'm not sure why you would think the island ran worse than the rest of the game. I have not found one person that said it ran horribly on the island. Matter of fact, most were like me and were somewhat disappointed to find out there was a considerable amount lag and framerate issues after subscribing to leave the island. Is your system kinda old? I'm just curious because your the first I heard say that.

Vanguard is actualy a good game if you have someone to play with. But if your going solo it gets a bit boring lol

I've visited Khal (wow) and Veskal's Exchange so far, both were a bit laggy, but it was not that bad. However, I was alone in Khal and there were not many people around in Veskal's Exchange ... which is kinda sad. Are there starting zones where most people are heading to?

Originally posted by MidniteHowl

Hey Orphes, I had a video card set-up similar to that first you tube video when I first played Vanguard and had many problems like that video showed. I quit playing shortly after launch for those reasons.  Now with a new computer and recently re-trying Vanguard after hearing how's it's been getting better, I'm happy and can handle the little hitching I get in cities. I also noticed the first video is over a year old so I would like to see how the same computer configuration would run the game today after SOE has done many updates and patches since then.

It's a long time since I did that Video. And changed to a 3870 card a few months after that one and that card not being so much better than the 1950. (In my opinion 1900 ATI cards sometimes feel like it was a gold issue.) There was not so much fps increasing done, but more fluent, less hitching, the initial hitching duration was lowered.

But what it feels for me you would have the same general performance, not counting fps, today with your "similar 1950 card as you have with your new card. If I compare, in my case, to the 3870 and 4890 card.

(I almost thinking of throwing in my 1950 card for comparison, still have it somewhere.)

Originally posted by banard

I've visited Khal (wow) and Veskal's Exchange so far, both were a bit laggy, but it was not that bad. However, I was alone in Khal and there were not many people around in Veskal's Exchange ... which is kinda sad. Are there starting zones where most people are heading to?

There are some other sweet spots aswell :D

QA Riverbank for instance.

Do a / in chat to see how many people there are in your chunk. Also browse through the guild list, but guess you're looking into that. Otherwise, there is a constant move of characters beetween places and chances are pretty big that you'll find some roaming party to join. Don't be afraid to ask for a "group up" most are open and welcome to other players.

Thanks, I found a nice player in VE, we will try Riverbank tomorrow.

I have been playing this for a month now.  I have to say I was pleasantly surprised.  It's a very large world and the players in the game seem very friendly.  I play on the Seradon server and joined up with a great guild.  I pay no heed to when people say this and that about a game, I like to experience it for myself.  I'm glad I tried it.  I plan on playing this for a while.

Originally posted by Joppari

Originally posted by eddieg50

Originally posted by MidniteHowl

To the OP, I play this game currently and I also did the free trial island. I agree the game is great but I just want to make you aware of one thing that may trouble you a little. The framerates that you said are great on that free trial will probably take a dip once you leave the island and unfortunately you will have to pay to leave the island to find out. I noticed it, but it's only in the city or town type areas where other players are that brings the fps down. Once you venture away from these towns your framerates will be good once again. If you can live with this you'll enjoy the game just like I have. Actually I think most MMO's have this framerate drop in city areas when there's other players around so it's not just this game that has the problem.

                        I agree, in the trial Vanguard really  optimized the island, once you leave and get anywhre close to a city the lag and hitching will drive you crazy, other games do have dropping frame rates in cities but not like Vangurad.  When this game came out is was a nightmare for people with really good computers, since then they have worked on it and now it is just a bad dream, it still needs plenty of work.  If you can live with the horrible lag there is a good game,  but be preparedd to have incredible patience

 

huh?

    huh?= LOL

                  Sorry but i had a much better experience on the island performance wise and fun wise to 

Originally posted by MidniteHowl

Originally posted by Joppari

Originally posted by eddieg50

  I agree, in the trial Vanguard really  optimized the island, once you leave and get anywhre close to a city the lag and hitching will drive you crazy, other games do have dropping frame rates in cities but not like Vangurad.  When this game came out is was a nightmare for people with really good computers, since then they have worked on it and now it is just a bad dream, it still needs plenty of work.  If you can live with the horrible lag there is a good game,  but be preparedd to have incredible patience

 

huh?

O.K. I'll fall for it...what part of our posts didn't you understand. If your going to say something like "huh?" at least explain what you didn't understand.

Oh I do apologize, that wasn't actually directed at your reasonably written post regarding FPS loss in cities and major populated areas. It does dip slightly for me too, but as you rightly say, this happens in most if not all MMOs out there today.

It was for eddieg50 who clearly isn't playing the same game as I am or has a x486... I've highlighted the things that baffled me so greatly as to be lost for words and thus only able to post the one word response.

The coding is far from perfect in Vanguard, I'm not trying to pretend that it is, but what I experience whilst playing does not warrant 'incredible patience', there is no 'horrible lag' that I've ever seen, it's not a 'bad dream' and it does not 'drive me crazy'.

See why I was confused?

Originally posted by eddieg50

  huh?= LOL

Yes, after I got over my initial confusion I have to say that I did laugh a little.

I was thinking about trying this game, but i am wondering about the population... I like to play on pvp servers ( Sullon Zek ).

I want to know if the population for all lvls is good or am i gonna be by myself when i get of this island i hear of, How hard is it to get groups to lvl with since i figure this is a group oriented game and most the content while lvling is for groups and not solo able, or is it.

Also how is the economy on the populated pvp servers, is it hard for a new person to come across gold and is it gonna cost me an arm and a leg for good lvling/pvp gear.

And i know this info is probley out there i just didnt look for it, but what is the crafting/gathering system like, and is crafted gear comparable to looted?
Also did vanguard put areanas in or is it just world pvp, and what are the penilties for dieing pve and pvp.

Thanks for taking the time to read and answer my questions for those that do

Originally posted by Joppari

Originally posted by MidniteHowl

Originally posted by Joppari

Originally posted by eddieg50

  I agree, in the trial Vanguard really  optimized the island, once you leave and get anywhre close to a city the lag and hitching will drive you crazy, other games do have dropping frame rates in cities but not like Vangurad.  When this game came out is was a nightmare for people with really good computers, since then they have worked on it and now it is just a bad dream, it still needs plenty of work.  If you can live with the horrible lag there is a good game,  but be preparedd to have incredible patience

 

huh?

O.K. I'll fall for it...what part of our posts didn't you understand. If your going to say something like "huh?" at least explain what you didn't understand.

 

Oh I do apologize, that wasn't actually directed at your reasonably written post regarding FPS loss in cities and major populated areas. It does dip slightly for me too, but as you rightly say, this happens in most if not all MMOs out there today.

 

It was for eddieg50 who clearly isn't playing the same game as I am or has a x486... I've highlighted the things that baffled me so greatly as to be lost for words and thus only able to post the one word response.

 

The coding is far from perfect in Vanguard, I'm not trying to pretend that it is, but what I experience whilst playing does not warrant 'incredible patience', there is no 'horrible lag' that I've ever seen, it's not a 'bad dream' and it does not 'drive me crazy'.

 

See why I was confused?

O.K yeah I can kinda see what your talking about now. Thanks for clearing it up! Your right, I wouldn't say "horrible lag" at all. Compared to it's launch this game is running much better. It just was a little dissappointing when I left an awesome running free trial island and landed at Veskals Exchange (one of the worst areas for lag and framerates from what I'm told) and experienced these lag issues. This being the first thing I see after giving my credit card info to start paying. But yes your right Joppari, it's easily tolerable.

Originally posted by Darksunrise

I was thinking about trying this game, but i am wondering about the population... I like to play on pvp servers ( Sullon Zek ).

I want to know if the population for all lvls is good or am i gonna be by myself when i get of this island i hear of, How hard is it to get groups to lvl with since i figure this is a group oriented game and most the content while lvling is for groups and not solo able, or is it.

Also how is the economy on the populated pvp servers, is it hard for a new person to come across gold and is it gonna cost me an arm and a leg for good lvling/pvp gear.

And i know this info is probley out there i just didnt look for it, but what is the crafting/gathering system like, and is crafted gear comparable to looted?
Also did vanguard put areanas in or is it just world pvp, and what are the penilties for dieing pve and pvp.

Thanks for taking the time to read and answer my questions for those that do

I have never set foot on the PvP server, but by all accounts it's dead.

Vanguard is a PvE game primarily and PvP is less than an afterthought.

Originally posted by Darksunrise

I was thinking about trying this game, but i am wondering about the population... I like to play on pvp servers ( Sullon Zek ).

I want to know if the population for all lvls is good or am i gonna be by myself when i get of this island i hear of, How hard is it to get groups to lvl with since i figure this is a group oriented game and most the content while lvling is for groups and not solo able, or is it.

Also how is the economy on the populated pvp servers, is it hard for a new person to come across gold and is it gonna cost me an arm and a leg for good lvling/pvp gear.

And i know this info is probley out there i just didnt look for it, but what is the crafting/gathering system like, and is crafted gear comparable to looted?
Also did vanguard put areanas in or is it just world pvp, and what are the penilties for dieing pve and pvp.

Thanks for taking the time to read and answer my questions for those that do

I believe there are very few players left on the PvP server.  Vanguard is very much a PvE orientated game.  So if you like PvP Vanguard is probably not going to be the right game for you.

On the PvE servers, the population is very good on Seradon, I've heard Xeth is good and Halgar (Euro) is steady.  The population on Seradon has a weird distibution.  There are usually 200 under level 10 (many of these folks are on IoD and just starting out).  Other 300 between 11 and 30.  Thins out between 31 and 49 with around 200.  And then many folks at level 50, usually around 300ish.   So if you like to group, you should be set.  The game is over 2 years old, so it is top heavy with maxed characters... the level cap increase is Coming Soon (tm).

The economy is currently hot on Seradon.  Items sell fast.  There are so many items on the market, that it drives the cost of newbie gear down to a very reasonable level.  It's very much supply and demand driven.  I used to sell schematics for 15g and be the lowest price.  Now with a ton of other diplomats in Ancient Port Warehouse, I sell them for 3 gold.  And if I don't adjust my price daily, I become the high cost supplier over-night. 

For almost any level, crafted can be on par with the best available dropped gear.  Since the best gear in the game is no-drop, crafters still have a very good market.  If you are into crafting and harvesting, then it can be a great money maker for you.  I make my money as a diplomat and being a slum lord with my land deeds.  Others craft and/or harvest.  Even low end crafting can make good money if you do custom orders.  High end crafting can totally corner the market if you have the only recipe on the server for something (which is currently the case on Seradon where someone as a unique recipe from SoD).

Try out IoD.  It's free and has adventuring, crafting, diplomacy and harvesting and the quests intertwine so you can see how they all connect to one another.

Originally posted by Joppari

Originally posted by MidniteHowl

Originally posted by Joppari

Originally posted by eddieg50

  I agree, in the trial Vanguard really  optimized the island, once you leave and get anywhre close to a city the lag and hitching will drive you crazy, other games do have dropping frame rates in cities but not like Vangurad.  When this game came out is was a nightmare for people with really good computers, since then they have worked on it and now it is just a bad dream, it still needs plenty of work.  If you can live with the horrible lag there is a good game,  but be preparedd to have incredible patience

 

huh?

O.K. I'll fall for it...what part of our posts didn't you understand. If your going to say something like "huh?" at least explain what you didn't understand.

 

Oh I do apologize, that wasn't actually directed at your reasonably written post regarding FPS loss in cities and major populated areas. It does dip slightly for me too, but as you rightly say, this happens in most if not all MMOs out there today.

 

It was for eddieg50 who clearly isn't playing the same game as I am or has a x486... I've highlighted the things that baffled me so greatly as to be lost for words and thus only able to post the one word response.

 

The coding is far from perfect in Vanguard, I'm not trying to pretend that it is, but what I experience whilst playing does not warrant 'incredible patience', there is no 'horrible lag' that I've ever seen, it's not a 'bad dream' and it does not 'drive me crazy'.

 

See why I was confused?

     Unfortunately I cant remember the name of the city I was in when all the lag hit but it was pretty bad, once I was out of the city except for a bit of hitching it was good not great,  I think most people will agree that in comparison to other mmo's Vanguard has more hitching and lag,   my specs are dual core e8500,  ati 4870 , 4 gigs of ram and window xp .