I really enjoyed the starter island and the card game was random with seemingly cheating AI, but was still addicting.  When I got into the world, I explored and I believe was sent to a huge town with castles, etc.  The town was poorly graphically optimized with seemingly everything being rendered, whether you saw it or not.  I spent an hour running and trying to explore the endless corridors and buildings with tons of worthless NPCs.  It was just monotonous and led nowhere.  No direction.  Why make a huge castle town of nothingness?  Making something large with no content in it is simply poor design.  I figured if the game was this empty and poorly designed, what was the point in continuing?

What does everyone else think?

Firstly, turn on character occlusion in the options.

Second, you're describing New Targonor, which everyone agrees is just too f***ing big. The game was originally intended to have a lot more players than it ended up having, hence giant cities like Targonor or Ahgram. I have confidence that with the recent F2P relaunch you'll see more and more people popping up everywhere. I can attest personally that the population of the game has picked up tremendously in the past month.

Originally posted by Biskop
Did you explore the rest of the world? Judging a game of VG's size from one empty city, during a period when the server had like 300 players on a good day, seems kinda... short sighted. Just sayin'.

Well, the point was that I wasted an hour running through and getting lost in an overly complicated but contentless city... I didn't enjoy the prospect of running for another hour just to leave the city that didn't even give me a quest(or not easily found at least).  

Originally posted by shadow9d9
Fair enough that they expected more people.. but the passageways were endless and led nowhere.  Just wasted so much of my time going nowhere.

Oh yeah, I remember that. Walking from one corridor to an other take a left here, a right there and ...damn, I'm lost! But unlike you, I did enjoy this HUGE town/castle. I felt I could explore something, which I miss in a lot of (mordern) MMORPG's...

Anyway, I'm not playing VG because it's an $O€ title. Game itself is AWESOME, and if any other publisher would have brought it, I'd certainly play it, but with $O€ ...nah...

My biggest issue with Vanguard is that the end game is populated by 1 or 2 guilds that have epeen issues.

I left the game thinking "well have fun in your dead game".

And don't forget.... it's dead.

Originally posted by shadow9d9

I really enjoyed the starter island and the card game was random with seemingly cheating AI, but was still addicting.  When I got into the world, I explored and I believe was sent to a huge town with castles, etc.  The town was poorly graphically optimized with seemingly everything being rendered, whether you saw it or not.  I spent an hour running and trying to explore the endless corridors and buildings with tons of worthless NPCs.  It was just monotonous and led nowhere.  No direction.  Why make a huge castle town of nothingness?  Making something large with no content in it is simply poor design.  I figured if the game was this empty and poorly designed, what was the point in continuing?

What does everyone else think?

I have no idea why anyone would complain about MMORPG's offering larger cities to explore. The whole point is to explore those cities for your enjoyment. If you're not the type that likes to explore for exploration sake, then the point was lost on you. Just go quest grind somewhere else. A lot of Vanguard's charm comes from the vastness of the world and its cities, and it being such an explorable world.

Originally posted by Angier2758

And don't forget.... it's dead.

Naaaaaaaw cute. ^^

But remember if its dead then you have nothing to worry about :)

(and YES we have fun in our dead game)

*middle finger*

Originally posted by shadow9d9

 Making something large with no content in it is simply poor design. 

 

I completely disagree with this.  I think the reverse is true, which is the Rift Philosophy.  Make a small world but cram every inch of it full with things to do, then layer more content on top of it.

Originally posted by teakbois

Originally posted by shadow9d9

 Making something large with no content in it is simply poor design. 

 

I completely disagree with this.  I think the reverse is true, which is the Rift Philosophy.  Make a small world but cram every inch of it full with things to do, then layer more content on top of it.

So how is a large space with nothing in it, nothing to "find", and nothing to interact with, good design?  There is nothing there to do, nothing.

VG is one of those games I still have some respect for despite the FTP due to:

-Not dumbing down content or making leveling faster.

-Open World

-3 spheres that if you do all of them takes a long time to cap which is good.

-The need for groups and other players to accomplish certain things.

Originally posted by shadow9d9
Fair enough that they expected more people.. but the passageways were endless and led nowhere.  Just wasted so much of my time going nowhere.

One of the major negatives brought up about Vanguard after launch, in addition to the numerous bugs, was the fact that they actually made the world TOO big. and didn't populate it with enough mobs or other stuff.  Therefore, you didn't run into enough players during your exploration because it was just too wide open and spread out.  Add to this fact that the population was so tiny after the horrible launch and well...yeah, big empty world.  

My personal opinion is that I'd always prefer to have a big, explorable world over a small claustrophic one like Rift or SWTOR, even if it meant I running into less players while exploring.  If a game is fun enough, and has a good enough foundation, the population vs. world vastness issue can be remedied by finding yourself a good, active guild or a group of friends to play with.  But nothing can be done about poor world design, as you will be stuck with that forever (I'm looking at you, Bioware).  

Originally posted by nate1980

Originally posted by shadow9d9

I really enjoyed the starter island and the card game was random with seemingly cheating AI, but was still addicting.  When I got into the world, I explored and I believe was sent to a huge town with castles, etc.  The town was poorly graphically optimized with seemingly everything being rendered, whether you saw it or not.  I spent an hour running and trying to explore the endless corridors and buildings with tons of worthless NPCs.  It was just monotonous and led nowhere.  No direction.  Why make a huge castle town of nothingness?  Making something large with no content in it is simply poor design.  I figured if the game was this empty and poorly designed, what was the point in continuing?

What does everyone else think?

I have no idea why anyone would complain about MMORPG's offering larger cities to explore. The whole point is to explore those cities for your enjoyment. If you're not the type that likes to explore for exploration sake, then the point was lost on you. Just go quest grind somewhere else. A lot of Vanguard's charm comes from the vastness of the world and its cities, and it being such an explorable world.

The problem is, there was nothing there to find.  Also, the walking speed is ridiculously slow, which makes exploring monotonous.

In Asheron's Call, for example, had a ton of exploration, but your speed increased as you leveled and added to speed.  It made exploring a pleasure.

Originally posted by teakbois

Originally posted by shadow9d9

 Making something large with no content in it is simply poor design. 

 

I completely disagree with this.  I think the reverse is true, which is the Rift Philosophy.  Make a small world but cram every inch of it full with things to do, then layer more content on top of it.

Why does one have to exclude the other?

Originally posted by Torvaldr

Originally posted by teakbois

Originally posted by shadow9d9

 Making something large with no content in it is simply poor design. 

 

I completely disagree with this.  I think the reverse is true, which is the Rift Philosophy.  Make a small world but cram every inch of it full with things to do, then layer more content on top of it.

So how is a large space with nothing in it, nothing to "find", and nothing to interact with, good design?  There is nothing there to do, nothing.

Define "nothing to do."  Vanguard probably has the most content of any single MMO out right now.  The amount of open-world dungeons in this game is jaw-dropping.  Crafting and Diplomacy aren't just off-shoots of adventuring in this game, they ARE their own games, completely divorced from the adventuring/combat aspect.  And the world is huge and explorable.  There are people that have been playing this game for years and haven't seen all of the content it has to offer.  

I agree with Teakbois on this.  It's always better to have a big, open world, because getting involved with the community can alleviate much of that feeling of being out there alone.  But create a game with a tiny, close-off and linear world, and you can NEVER escape that no matter how much lobby content (ahem...Trion) gets added into the game to keep you interested.  

Originally posted by shadow9d9

Originally posted by Biskop
Did you explore the rest of the world? Judging a game of VG's size from one empty city, during a period when the server had like 300 players on a good day, seems kinda... short sighted. Just sayin'.

Well, the point was that I wasted an hour running through and getting lost in an overly complicated but contentless city... I didn't enjoy the prospect of running for another hour just to leave the city that didn't even give me a quest(or not easily found at least).  

If it took you an hour to leave one city then in dont think its the games fault. Something to be said about common sence.

Originally posted by shadow9d9

Originally posted by Biskop
Did you explore the rest of the world? Judging a game of VG's size from one empty city, during a period when the server had like 300 players on a good day, seems kinda... short sighted. Just sayin'.

Well, the point was that I wasted an hour running through and getting lost in an overly complicated but contentless city... I didn't enjoy the prospect of running for another hour just to leave the city that didn't even give me a quest(or not easily found at least).  

If you really took the time to do diplomacy you would find that their is a ton of lore in those cities.I will agree that such big cities should have more going on..ie like EQ2 with dungeons and sewers to explore but this did not happen because of the population.

If Vanguard would of been a bugless mmo at the start we would have had numerous expansions by now.I have done a hell of a lot in Vanguard and i'm now looking forward to EQNext and AA,in the meantime ill just kick around in GW2 which has some great cities.

Ill meet you half way and say: the cities of Vanguard could of been so much more,they are vast and just asking for more content.

I still think Vanguard is one of the best MMO ever made,especially for PVE and dungeon crawling.What the cities lack in content then the rest of the world makes up for it.