Last summer there was a lot of buzz about it on these forums, with many people stating their opinions that it was the best game, and I kind of thought that it may be going somewhere.  Around that time SOE was giving away free game time to vets.. it was good timing because the client had just been re-optimized, most of the hitching was gone, and they had clean up almost all the bugs that were around at launch.  A few months later they released the newbie island, another raid area, and then started pulling developers.

This is purely my opinion, but I believe that SOE put Vanguard on life support when it heard the community saying it was better than EQ2...   which around that time had a new expansion coming out. 

Re bad animations, make your own judgement: images.visions-of-glory.de/disciple_animation.wmv

(My lvl 34 disciple - the "white effect" is a debuff from that scary basilisk. ;) )

Ducki

heh, well what a lot of people fail to understand is the low poly and chunky animations are due to the engine limits, which is Unreal (the original).

That's also why you get so low fps in game with everything turned up at 1600+ res.  The game engine was just not made for that, period.  

If you can get past that, it's fun, complex, and exploration intensive. (not just the landscape, you have to dig to find out how to do some things because the game tips don't really cut it. But I like that too, as it makes you ask others for help, and builds the strong community there stronger. ... 'the ties that bind' and all that...)

For the people that drone on and on about "end game", what you really should be saying is, "I am a boring person and without something new to do that someone else creates, I grow too bored to play." Those of us who role play never seem to have that issue. We create our own "content". I know it sounds harsh, and is a generalization and not always true, but overall that is what I hear.

Cheddar, cheddar goes good with that....

Originally posted by lliberty

heh, well what a lot of people fail to understand is the low poly and chunky animations are due to the engine limits, which is Unreal (the original).

 

That's also why you get so low fps in game with everything turned up at 1600+ res.  The game engine was just not made for that, period.  

 

If you can get past that, it's fun, complex, and exploration intensive. (not just the landscape, you have to dig to find out how to do some things because the game tips don't really cut it. But I like that too, as it makes you ask others for help, and builds the strong community there stronger. ... 'the ties that bind' and all that...)

 

For the people that drone on and on about "end game", what you really should be saying is, "I am a boring person and without something new to do that someone else creates, I grow too bored to play." Those of us who role play never seem to have that issue. We create our own "content". I know it sounds harsh, and is a generalization and not always true, but overall that is what I hear.

Cheddar, cheddar goes good with that....

 

Too bad roleplaying is just about dead in MMOs these days. I've done my fair share. Its just not promoted these days anymore. End-game is brought up because 95% of the players encounter it. So its always a topic. It says nothing about folks being boring.

Originally posted by Elreic

We all complain about the dearth of good MMO's, so i just downloaded Vanguard for the 14 day free trial and tried it for a couple of days... Regarding populations, while it is ny no means a ghost town, it should be packed, it really is a worthy title, from what i have experienced so far. I rolled on Saradon and it seems to have a fair number of people in newb zone, I understand there are many more higher level characters, understandably.

Seriously, I cannot understand why a ton of people are  not playing it...is it because they had a rough launch a couple years ago?

1. A ton of interesting classes

2. A ton of interesting races

3. Missions have intersting dialog, PvE, so far seems very solid

4. World looks great and is massive

5. Mature community

6. Much more of a 'fantasy simulation'

7. Explore...this game does not pack mobs in, it is meant to be a bit more realistic, you can explore and really see some amazing scenes, i love that

8. Crafting and dilpomacy are real class choices and you can spend a tone of time in those areas

9. Lots and lots to do-

Here is a picture of the newb area. Check out the stormy sky.

The character models are just Ok, but play the game for 20 minutes and you will not care-

Anyway, my .02.

Your list is pretty good and shows some of VGs strengths.  However, all of them have been in the game since release (except the weather system).  It has always been there.

There are a lot of reasons more people do not play this game.  Performance was probably the biggest.

It struggled due to performance issues and honestly that is about all the game has resolved.  Vanguard is almost 3 years old and essentially it is almost the same exact game that it released as.  Very little new content and much of that is just revamped areas.

A game can only live on release content and a few strong points for so long and it is obvious the game will never get the support it needs.  People might list a lot of theories why more don't play, but the end result is that if the game was so awesome, word of mouth would attract more people to play.  A game doesn't need massive advertising to grow, it only needs solid gameplay.

My personal view is that vanguard is fun for a while, but it has never been a game with a real future and that plays through to players rather quickly.  It is just going to limp along on life support like several other soe titles. 

The sad part is this game could be bigger than any of the other soe games, because it has a much stronger base to build on.  It is a better game than anything soe has touched in the last 6 years and they just don't know what to do with it. 

Originally posted by Ponico

I play from Beta to 3 months in. The game was complete garbage back in those days. I'm glad you're enjoying it and perhaps, I'll give it a second spin later on.

Come on! seriously games do change you know. I think you are doing yourself an injustice in not at least downloading the free trail and seeing how much it has changed for yourself.

It's been nearly three years you know. :-)

I gave the trial a chance the other day based upon someone's advice on these forums. My problem with this game isn't that it doesn't do the things I want it to, it just doesn't look pleasing while I'm doing them.

I'm not sure which engine they used, but it looks Unreal-ish in that all of the geographical texturing reflects light in extremely unnatural ways. The pop-up quest text also looks very SoE, almost identical to SWG, which left a bad taste in my mouth. Character animations also leave alot to be desired: the first thing I did when I logged in was unsheath my characters weapon. There's literally no animation for this action. The sword jumped from the sheath on my characters back to his hand, instantly, at the push of a button. I'm not even mentioning here how disappointed I am by the character modeling at creation - I like the detail but most of the races are just flat-out ugly. I know it's picky, but that's all I could think about and the game never even had a chance to draw me into the world because of this.

There's so much that sounds interesting about this title. I've heard rumors that you can build your own boats and sail them around the world, or that  there are still multitudes of dungeons that haven't been fully explored or even discovered. Is there player housing? Because these three things alone might do much to help me ignore the graphical display (character modeling, animation, and the geographical "sheen"). I love the idea of playing in a world that's structured realistically, in that mob spawns aren't in every possible empty space available and that the world is large, open, and leaves much to be explored - it just doesn't look very pleasing.

Originally posted by Lawlmonster

I gave the trial a chance the other day based upon someone's advice on these forums. My problem with this game isn't that it doesn't do the things I want it to, it just doesn't look pleasing while I'm doing them.

 

I'm not sure which engine they used, but it looks Unreal-ish in that all of the geographical texturing reflects light in extremely unnatural ways. The pop-up quest text also looks very SoE, almost identical to SWG, which left a bad taste in my mouth. Character animations also leave alot to be desired: the first thing I did when I logged in was unsheath my characters weapon. There's literally no animation for this action. The sword jumped from the sheath on my characters back to his hand, instantly, at the push of a button. I'm not even mentioning here how disappointed I am by the character modeling at creation - I like the detail but most of the races are just flat-out ugly. I know it's picky, but that's all I could think about and the game never even had a chance to draw me into the world because of this.

 If I recall correctly, it does use a version of the Unreal Engine.  Some animations are "meh," others are pretty nice. :p I happen to like watching my Dread Knight fight...combat animations seem pretty good to me.  On the other hand, things like jumping and swimming can be cringe-worthy...but I'm more than willing to overlook it for the gameplay. ^^

There's so much that sounds interesting about this title. I've heard rumors that you can build your own boats and sail them around the world, or that  there are still multitudes of dungeons that haven't been fully explored or even discovered. Is there player housing? Because these three things alone might do much to help me ignore the graphical display (character modeling, animation, and the geographical "sheen"). I love the idea of playing in a world that's structured realistically, in that mob spawns aren't in every possible empty space available and that the world is large, open, and leaves much to be explored - it just doesn't look very pleasing.

Ships (3 tiers - Sloops, Caravels, and Galleons) are all player crafted, and yes you can sail them throughout the waters of the world.  I sail my Caravel around all the time, and prefer to use it to travel between continents rather than the riftways when I can.

So far as dungeons go, there are a great deal of them to discover.  Perhaps someone has made the effort to find them all...I don't know.  But they're out there.  Many probably don't offer "awesome" rewards, but if you're all about exploration and discovering new places to fight and see, you'll find plenty to reward you there.  The map doesn't have all the POI's listed...only a handful of "major/popular" ones...the rest are for you to discover. ^^

And yes, there is non-instanced player housing in all three continents, and each continent has its own style of housing.  You purchase a plot of land (price varies as does what you can build on them, and there's only one plot per account) and start construction.  You have to pay a weekly plot upkeep to retain ownership, but you can load up the plot upkeep account (tied to the house window) so that it has funds to automatically withdraw on "pay day."  There are 3 tiers of houses as well, and they are player crafted.  There are a few styles/layouts to choose from within each tier, ranging from a 1-room shack to a multi-level, multi-room house.  I have a plot purchased on one of the Kojani housing isles (all non-guild hall capable plots are 10g purchase price, with a 60s/week upkeep in Kojan) and am currently working on building a T5 2-story brown home.

Originally posted by lliberty

heh, well what a lot of people fail to understand is the low poly and chunky animations are due to the engine limits, which is Unreal (the original).

Vanguard uses a modified Unreal 2 engine; it's *not* built from the original. Just wanted to clear that up.