I have recently bought and tried EQ2, AoC, and LOTRO. For some reason I could barely get past the trial levels on each of them.

Vanguard is the only one that I actually look forward to going in to. I can't put my finger on exactly why.

I, like you, once thought I found a gem in Vanguard. I liked it for about three weeks....then I understood that many MMOs do it better.

Vanguard can lure you in. Here is how:

The word is huge. Heck, it is massive. Also I will say that the number classes to pick is impressive. I also did like the diplomacy mini game a little bit and the crafting is top notch. After that, it's all down hill.
 

Vanguard wins my award for one of the worst performance game engines for an MMO, second to Warhammer. Vanguard is the only game I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE where your framerate actually goes down when you visit a dungeon. I guess the developers were so obsessed with seamless that they forgot that you dont have to keep drawings of the earth above you. The engine just feels like it is chugging along. It has never felt like it fully supported dual core properly, and games like Crysis, Fallout 3, Bioshock, etc run much better.
 

The artwork in Vanguard is drab and dreary much like Everquest 2. This is tough to put a finger on. But I have always felt that the colors in these Sony games have a grey filter over them. It's hard to explain. Maybe I just dont like the artwork that the Sony puts out for these titles.
 

The world is massive, but EMPTY. Yes there are many areas to get quests and explore. But you will soon notice that A LOT of the landscape is empty. Go ahead, go for a hike. Climb some nice mountains. Think you are gonna find something cool? Maybe a temple? Maybe a small cave? Maybe a small grave site or something interesting? Nope.
 

There are still to this day textures and objects that flicker. Some doors are invisible and you can see the world behind it until you get up close, then the door appears.
 

If you try going for a swim, be careful when you get out or you will end up bugging out and be stuck inside the game world, underground.

 

Vanguard has always won my award for the most bugged mines of any game I have ever seen. If you enjoy mining in games, stay far away.
 

I will give you 30 days. If you are still playing I applaud you in finding a game that you like.

Originally posted by Trenchgun

I have recently bought and tried EQ2, AoC, and LOTRO. For some reason I could barely get past the trial levels on each of them.

Vanguard is the only one that I actually look forward to going in to. I can't put my finger on exactly why.

Riddle me this.

In your quote you mentioned that you RECENTLY bought and tried EQ2, AoC and LOTRO.

Yet here is a post in November of 2007 where you mentioned that you played LOTRO:
www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/1722754#1722754

November of 2007 is not recent at all.

Originally posted by donjn

I, like you, once thought I found a gem in Vanguard. I liked it for about three weeks....then I understood that many MMOs do it better.

Vanguard can lure you in. Here is how:

The word is huge. Heck, it is massive. Also I will say that the number classes to pick is impressive. (this is what got me too) I also did like the diplomacy mini game a little bit and the crafting is top notch. After that, it's all down hill.
 

Vanguard wins my award for one of the worst performance game engines for an MMO, ( I would have to agree) second to Warhammer (this I don't agree, I get great performance on Warhammer).
 

The artwork in Vanguard is drab and dreary much like Everquest 2. This is tough to put a finger on. But I have always felt that the colors in these Sony games have a grey filter over them. It's hard to explain. Maybe I just dont like the artwork that the Sony puts out for these titles. (my thought is that it is the colors they use. Vanguard has some amazing artwork. The interiors of Khal are incredible. And Leth Nurae is also incredible. But it does suffer from the EQ brown syndrome.)
 

The world is massive, but EMPTY. Yes there are many areas to get quests and explore. But you will soon notice that A LOT of the landscape is empty. Go ahead, go for a hike. Climb some nice mountains. Think you are gonna find something cool? Maybe a temple? Maybe a small cave? Maybe a small grave site or something interesting? Nope. (hmmm that's not true at all, I've been finding many cool things. It is why I decided to sub. Even if it is just a tower. What I really like is that the entire world isn't bogged down with something every 20 feet. So I suppose this is a matter of taste.)
 

There are still to this day textures and objects that flicker. Some doors are invisible and you can see the world behind it until you get up close, then the door appears. (that is true but if one is going to paly Vanguard they will have to just accept this. otherwise it will drive them nuts. It is better than it used to be. I used to see invisible doors and all sorts of crazing things. I have to admit I have not seen any invisible doors as of late but there is a mailbox in the bank of khal that turns invisible)
 

If you try going for a swim, be careful when you get out or you will end up bugging out and be stuck inside the game world, underground. This has never happend for me but I have gotten stuck in the landscape. I just use the unstuck feature and after a minute I'm good to go.

 

Vanguard has always won my award for the most bugged mines of any game I have ever seen. If you enjoy mining in games, stay far away. Yes, it is very buggy.
 

I will give you 30 days. If you are still playing I applaud you in finding a game that you like.

Well, I've been playing longer than 30 days. And even with it's faults, of which there are many I have found a game that has a world that really is about exploratioin. I have made the decision that as long as I can solo in the game I will keep my vanguard account. It really offers something that I have not seen much of in these games. A true sense of a vast world and one that begs to be explored. I have seen many games that look like they should be explored until I find that I can't open the door to that tower or I can't enter a cave unless I have the corresponding quest. Not so with Vanguard. However, one must be forgiving and patient otherwise it just won't be worth it.

Game runs fine for me. I've got everything maxed.

This wasn't a sony developed game. They only took control of it after the fact. The "drabness" would only be in the fact that the characters and armor aren't over the top fantasy and flashy, like EQ they take a realistic approach. The environments are certainly not drab, the art design is incredible and the vistas are unmatched for being completely open world. The spell effects are minimalist, but the animations are better than most other games with some really good motion capture for the monk's martial arts moves.

So far the world is pretty full. I'm not sure when it becomes empty.

I had textures flicker at one spot, and I've gotten stuck in a couple spots (but was teamed so my teammates roped me to safety) but none of it has been anywhere close to a dealbreaker.

Originally posted by donjn

Originally posted by Trenchgun

I have recently bought and tried EQ2, AoC, and LOTRO. For some reason I could barely get past the trial levels on each of them.

Vanguard is the only one that I actually look forward to going in to. I can't put my finger on exactly why.

Riddle me this.

In your quote you mentioned that you RECENTLY bought and tried EQ2, AoC and LOTRO.

Yet here is a post in November of 2007 where you mentioned that you played LOTRO:
www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/1722754#1722754

November of 2007 is not recent at all.

 

 

 

 

That's funny because I don't remember playing LOTRO at all. It must have been a trial I got bored of real quick and forgot about.

I already had Vanguard at that time. I played it for a month at release and only just now picked it up again. I also tried out all those other MMORPGs before deciding I should give it another try. Thus the point of the thread being that for some reason only Vanguard has captured my attention.

vanguard is a great game, with some of the best most fun classes, best crafting engine, great diplomacy addition, awesome looking huge world.

But, the characters annimations keep turning me off...it just doesn't feel naturall to me.

Vanguard could have been a decent game, not because of pot smoking Brad running the game into the ground, or because of SoE treating the game as another $ machine without support, but because there were some decent people working for Sigil.

On the other hand, Vanguard had too many clueless people too, especially in the graphics and community department, very unexperienced, this will haunt this game forever and nothing anyone says or does will change this. A game with a bad start doesn't seem to ever get back on it's feet.

Not enough players support the game, SoE doesn't support the game and they don't have a budget to do anything with the game. It's just there and will be remembered as something which might have been but never was.

Originally posted by Lord.Bachus

vanguard is a great game, with some of the best most fun classes, best crafting engine, great diplomacy addition, awesome looking huge world.

 

But, the characters annimations keep turning me off...it just doesn't feel naturall to me.

I have the same problem, I really hate the characters. I play EQ2 and Vanguard. If I could bring my characters over from EQ2, I would be in heaven.

The game had so much potential and SOE just let it sink.  Played VG, not worth it imo.  Just not enough players and hardly any dev support.

Originally posted by Wickedjelly

The game had so much potential and SOE just let it sink.  Played VG, not worth it imo.  Just not enough players and hardly any dev support.

But so many good ideas, that none of the other developers seems to notice...

Originally posted by Lord.Bachus 

But so many good ideas, that none of the other developers seems to notice...

The diplomacy was a very fun game. The first hours of the game I spent more time doing diplos than I spent leveling my character, it was very fun.

The dungeons are pretty decent too.

There's just no support for the game and things that should have been fixed long ago still aren't fixed, character models, animations, engine still runs terrible .. no support whatsoever.

The main thing that turned me off from EQ2 and LOTRO was the poor character animations which made it hard to get into. My VG monk looks and feels awesome with all his animations. Really good motion capture stuff, and it flows together well. Although some of the other classes may not be as interesting.

I play VG.  I will leave as soon as something more in depth rolls around though because of disappointments like these:

VG is huge, but the instant travel system makes it seem small.
You can take on epic quests for epic flying mounts, but anyone, at anytime, at any level can rent them for 25 copper.
There are many gorgeous port cities with signs pointing to which boat will take you where, but they forgot to add the boats.
You can craft and sell boats, but nobody uses them since they can just insta-warp via rifts.
You can sail your boat between continents, but you can also insta-warp between them and then just "summon" you boat.
There is a faction system, but for some reason none of the 19 races are hostile towards each other (except in the lore).
You can craft armor sets, but the pieces are different colors.
Good thing there are dyes though!, but unfortunately they don't work on crafted armor sets.
There are 14 starting locations all with their own quests and lore, but they're empty because everyone just goes through the trial island mainly for 1 item.
The community is very nice and helpful, certainly more mature then most, but the population is very low, and many of the players seem to be the type who's main interest is getting to max level with the least amount of effort and time, only doing the "best of level" quests for the best items and equipment possible.

The really horrible animation was a deal breaker.   And that big world...who cares about size when its empty.  What are you exploring anyway?  Any developer can artificially make their world huge if they don't even bother to fill it with anything.   The cool factor of running in one direction for a long time through these big landscapes got boring in the 90s.  If theres nothing to see, there no point.  

If you're basing poor animations off the first few levels then you just haven't seen what it has to offer. There are a ton of awesome motion capture melee attack animations, and not just for martial arts, but they are all incorporated into activated abilities; and you should have a good amount around level 15. It's auto-attack that looks lame, but auto-attack is an insigificant part of the game beyond the tutorial levels.

The riftway travel system also does not make the world feel any less massive, it just makes it manageable. You still have to travel kilometers around a particular area while taking in all the sites for quests, you just don't have to spend an hour going from one end of the world to another in order to group up. The reason you have rentable mounts is precisely because it can take so long to get to quest areas after rifting in, and an airborn view of the world will not take away your appreciation of it's scope. Personally I could live without the rented flying mounts, but it's hardly a dealbreaker.

The world is also populated with an immense amount of content, so much that you'll only be able to expierence a fraction of it as you level up a single character. You can easily wander around and come upon some quests or areas that most people don't know about, it has that sense of exploration.  

Originally posted by Wickedjelly

The game had so much potential and SOE just let it sink.  Played VG, not worth it imo.  Just not enough players and hardly any dev support.

     Lets not go blame SOE for Vanguard now..  Vanguard is and was a POS in my eyes well before SOE came into the picture..  As I recall Microsoft dropped Sigil (Vanguard) because it was not coming along to production.. Sigil tried to support itself after Microsoft pulled their money, however since Sigil was about to go under they pushed for an early release to get a cash flow.. The game was incomplete and full of bugs.. Sigil then worked out some wacko deal with SOE, for whatever reasons I have no clue to..  SOE should of just left Sigil alone and let Vanguard die

     Last report is that their isn't enough subscribers to fill the declining server numbers, so why should SOE dump money into a sinking ship.. As one poster pointed out, if you start off on a bad foot, it's almost impossible to recover.. Vanguard started off with both feet in the grave..

 I completely agree, VG has pulled me in big time lately. It is too bad it had such a poor release, and still has such a negative stigma associated with it, because it truly is the diamond in the rough. It is the only new(ish) MMO that feels both familiar and "next-gen" at the same time. For me heavy instancing and "quesst tunnels" really kill it for me, so VG is a breath of fresh (stale?) air in that regard.

The downsides are putting up with annoying bugs and graphical glitches, but the game itself runs fine for my mid-level machine.