Hi,

I've been playing the free trial over the last few days. I come from a Warcraft background, so that's likely to be the main influence my opinions, although I have played a number of other games in the past. I was also involved in a number of real life activities during the period, so my play time had to fit around them.

So far, my character is a level 8 Disciple and also a level 8 Diplomat. Overall my experience has been positive. The PvE gameplay seems to be good, and I've enjoyed playing. my Vanguard character seems to be a significantly more complex to play than characters at a similar level in other games - despite only having a small number of skills, the multiple power sources, conditional nature of some skills, and the presence of combos means the complexity feels similar to a level 30 character in warcraft. I presume the character will continue to become even more complex as it rises in level. It feels like I'm playing a game where a character's performance will scale exceptionally well with skill.

The diplomactic game has also been both fun and challenging. Stratagies need to be adapted according to your opponent, and it's interesting to see how the diplomatic plot interweaves with the adventuring plot, giving a different perspective on events that take place.

I've so far done very little harvesting (which looks fairly straigtforward), and during my brief look at crafting I didn't manage to properly figure it out. I'm sure I'll give it another go sometime soon.

During the next few days, I hope to try out a few other character classes, so I have a more rounded view of the game, and can perhaps form a better opinion of which role I'd prefer to play there (I've got a paladin, a rogue and a psionicist created and ready to start).

However, a number of things concern me about the game. Firstly, the population seems quite low. There's only one european server, and it is described on the introductory screen as being "Low population". When I look at the official server forum, only three threads have been updated over the entire weekend. The healer forum seems to have a similar level of activity. Third party sites seem to be even more moribund. For example, VGDisciples.com looks to be dead.

I get the impression that large numbers of people tried this game in the past, but most of them have now left, and only a hardcore remains. This seems odd - playing the trial feels like a high quality game. So why did these people leave? Was it due to bugs in the past that have now been completely fixed? Or are there serious issues remaining, which continue to drive people away once they have left the isle? Is there something I should be warned about?

From what I've read, I also understand it's a very group based game. That wouldn't normally be much of a problem for me - I enjoy playing in groups. But would the low population make groups difficult to find? And would there be much tolerance for a noobish first timer like me?

And would the current low population limit how much Sony can spend on maintaining and expanding the game?

Another possible issue is that diplomacy seems to be quite time consuming. I frequently have to adjust my strategy because particular colours aren't available, or because I've come accross a particularly tough opponent. And that takes time. Then I have to spend more time returing my deck to a more "generic" form for my next opponent. At the moment I'm finding it fun - but I can't help thinking that if it takes up this much time at level 8 - how much time would it take to level from 39 to 40? It does look like something that could become a serious grind.

I've also come accross a number of bugs during my short stay. Firstly I had to install a previous version of direct X - does that mean the game isn't being properly maintained? Last night it took me half an log in.

I'd initially intended to post this message to the official forums. But whilst I can currently see posts to the forums, as soon as I log in, those posts disappear and it looks like the forums are empty. Not sure what's going on with that.

well I hope you like the game ... I've had ADD when it comes to MMORPGs since EQ2 and WoW came out in 2004.  This is the only game that keeps my attention. 

For diplomacy ... get cards like overish overture and bitter truths that have a value of 3 but no cost and just spam them with /parley keys.  I have like4 of these cards.

OP, join a guild.

as I mentioned in another thread, nooberific and the platinum order seem to be supportive of new players.

Originally posted by Sovrath

OP, join a guild.

as I mentioned in another thread, nooberific and the platinum order seem to be supportive of new players.

Both of those guilds are on Seradon, which I believe is a US server. Some of the US servers seem to be considerably better populated than Halgar, the EU server.

Originally posted by Antipathy

Originally posted by Sovrath

OP, join a guild.

as I mentioned in another thread, nooberific and the platinum order seem to be supportive of new players.

 

Both of those guilds are on Seradon, which I believe is a US server. Some of the US servers seem to be considerably better populated than Halgar, the EU server.

oops, thanks.. forgot to mention the server

I now think I've discovered why I can't see the forums when I log in. Apparently trial users aren't allowed to post - which seems a little stupid to me - what would I do if I had a technical issue and couldn't get it answered in game. Just quit?

Originally posted by Antipathy

However, a number of things concern me about the game. Firstly, the population seems quite low. There's only one european server, and it is described on the introductory screen as being "Low population". When I look at the official server forum, only three threads have been updated over the entire weekend. The healer forum seems to have a similar level of activity. Third party sites seem to be even more moribund. For example, VGDisciples.com looks to be dead.

 

The EU servers aren't completely dead, but what activity there is seems to be tightly-knit guildie activity.  The US servers are pretty lively though.  Even though I play from the EU, at a non-peak time in the US, there are usally enough people around to team up with in the main game.

The low population is, imho, due simply to the game's lack of polish.  It's got the meat and potatoes of a Class AAA game, but it's not got the corresponding level of polish.  All the little glitchinesses, while not amounting to anything game-breaking, do sometimes break immersion, and spoil the potential the game has, somewhat, especially to the newcomer. 

The bottom line is, VG is highly recommended if you can put up with its little foibles, but if you can't be arsed screwing around trying to get things working smoothly, or if you are sensitive to the intrusion of occasionally amateurish sound and graphics, or if you dislike some of the gameplay quirks, then it will be a bit annoying too.  A bittersweet experience.

I've been continuing with the trial, and have now played 6 different classes to the level cap, and another 2 up to level 6. I've also levelled up both diplomacy and crafting on one of my characters.

During that time, I've seen a number of quite serious and obvious bugs. These include:

- Psionicist's time trick sometimes created bugged mobs, that were unkillable, but still chased and attacked players

- No graphics associated with a Druid's wolf form

- The druid's elemental is invisible

- When I selected the option to roll for items found, it seemed impossible for the party leader to select "need" for an item - I could only press greed.

- On a few occasions, the mini-boss that guarded the entrance to the temple seemed to become immune to damage for several seconds. When I looked at my combat log it showeed abilities hitting for zero (was this a bug, or an ability of the mob?).

- The end character for the diplomacy quest (Jenzu) was, for at least several hours, absent from his normal position in the temple, making the quest impossible to complete.

The community seemed ok, but nothing special. I managed to group for the end dungeon (the temple) with 4 of my 6 characters, and made several friends amongst my fellow refugees from games such as WoW and EQ2. However, I also had bad experiences when grouping with several Vanguard veterans.

Another problem became apparent when playing on the european server - there is no separate server for each language. So english speakers are lumped in with French, Germans, Italians and Spanish. It appears as if many guilds are set up according to nationality. I would imagine that the lack of a shared language, and the presence of several nationality specific cliques, is likely to make grouping even harder on what is already a low population server.

The alternative would be to play on an American server - but that would mean having to cope with huge time zone differences, as well as trans-atlantic lag.

Overall, the design of the game seems very good. It certainly appears to have the challenge that I'm missing in WoW. But it also has a "not quite finished" feel to it. Should I really commit myself, heart and soul, to a game when it's own publishers don't even appear to believe in it. If I played longer, would I end up spending huge amounts of time trying to find groups, would I run into further serious bugs, would I finally arrive at endgame to find there is very little to do apart from meaningless grinds?

This is frustrating - my heart wants to believe in this game - but my head is telling me that it will only end in tears.

My opinions of Vanguard in my 3 months of playing.......

The game is a blast to play. The world is huge. Each class is well done and useful. It is group oriented so the solo grind will not be there (although you can solo some quests). The community is pretty cool for the most part. With a good computer, the graphics are top notch.

The down points of the game are hitching in populated outpost areas, little bugs here and there, and the developers not fixing these little bugs in a timely manner. A good example would be some of our annimations dissapearing from the last patch. It`s been over 3 weeks but the problem hasn`t been fixed yet. Granted, this is not game breaking by no means, but I would like to see this problem corrected soon. The hitching problem that I mentioned clears up as soon as you leave a outpost. Maybe I wouldn`t have this problem if I didn`t run near max setting for eye candy though.

Overall, I`d have to say that Vanguard is one of the best MMO`s that I have played. Even with its bugs here and there, it still does so many things right. I probably wouldn`t be playing a MMO right now if not for Vanguard.

PS (Antipathy) - The Isle of Dawn is a great place, but you can`t see the true power of your class from the trial. My main is a Disciple also, and he can do some incredible things at 30 now. Leveling does take a long time in this game, but it`s not a grind.

The forums have been really slow lately and Xeth also pretty silent.

I've decided to take the plunge and subscribe.

After finding a game with genuine challenges, even at low levels, I just fealt emotionally that I couldn't go back to Warcraft. Hopefully Vanguard will work out for me, if not, there are always other games to try.

 i've tried the vanguard trial aswell seemed like a decent game tbh but  my opinion towards SoE is stopping me from commit to it. But no big loss tho since many nice games is coming in the short future.

Originally posted by Nagalium

 i've tried the vanguard trial aswell seemed like a decent game tbh but  my opinion towards SoE is stopping me from commit to it. But no big loss tho since many nice games is coming in the short future.

There are no nice games coming in the short future. People always expect something great is going to happen soon, but it never will.

The game is definitely a good game.  I have tried about 10 different one's in the past 3 months and this is the only MMORPG to keep my interest right now.  I quit in the first few weeks of release.  I played beta and release and the performance and bugs were unbelievable.  Everything seems much better now.  I hope more people continue to try out the game.

My advice m8 is to roll a character on the Seradon US server.  When I played, I played on Seradon and had no trouble finding groups etc.  In general I found the population better around UK peak times on Seradon than I did on Halgar (Disclaimer: This was in the last part of last year). Another bit of advice when you leave the newbie island don't go to Kojan, start of with either Threstra or Qalia (please excuse spelling) due to the population being better in these areas.

/agree - I've played numerous games over the past few months; AoC, WAR, LOTRO, DDO, WoW, Requiem, RoM, CoS, PWi, EQ2, ES, and  on and on.  Wow has worn me out, tired of being in a cave all the time in LOTRO, DDO is DDO, F2P didn't hold my attention very long, never really drove EQ2 long (no particular reason), AoC lost my interest due to lack of content (beautiful game btw), and WAR just never sparked for me .  Vanguard has been a breath of fresh air, something that atm captures my attention and imagination.

Don't let "...because its SOE..." get ya.  Could be read as "...beacuse its __________..." inserting any big game house.  I play MMOs to have fun, not bring corporate BS (get enought of that crap at work) into my leisure time.

Cheers and hope you enjoy the game as much as I do.