In our continuing effort to look at games that are considered to be 'aging' yet are still healthy and viable, MMORPG.com's Som Pourfarzaneh takes another look at Vanguard in our re-review. Som opines that Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is a 'gem of a game that could use a little developer love'. Check out Som's re-review and then let us know your thoughts in the comments.

We’re happy to report that most of the performance issues have been fixed, and a ton of content has been added since launch. In addition, while the community remains small and SOE hasn’t done much with the game for the past year and a half or so, the player population seems to be slowly growing and the developers have begun a new content and balancing push. We can’t say exactly how much support the game will be getting in the coming months, and will be basing our re-review on the game as it currently exists, but we can say that Vanguard is very much well-worth checking out and has the potential to become even better if SOE can continue improving on its strengths.

Read more of Som Pourfarzaneh's Vanguard: Our Re-Review - It's a Gem of a Game.

I love this game, but I wish it had better success

I was there at the start of this game, and while it as beautiful, huge and open, some things just didn't entertain me:

1. Dull character models and armour.

2. The world itself seemed unpopulated, sparse, and bereft of soul. NPCs would just stand around doing nothing - or in the case of dark elves, would do rediculous crap like stand around and fart or burp - or would just walk a dull, monotonous set path down a corridor and back again.

needs f2p and pvp server

They should make VG2, updated grpahics, do it right this time. Leave the same game mechanics and grow on them. Could be a huge hit. Id go back to VG now but lack of players and old school graphics.........

Originally posted by Lasterba
lol @ old school graphics

This guy probably considers Oblivion to be "old school"

 Yeah lol, meant to say older graphics :/ Old school came to mind from other forum readings.

My bad :P

Been thinking of returning myself... I am burnt on all the solo oriented MSORPGs that are coming out.

Massive

Solo Oriented

Online

Role

Playing

Games

Anyway hearing SOE is turning its attention back at it made me start think about giving it another go. I played it for 2 years thru all the bugs and still loved it. Not only for the game but for the community which I greatly miss.

Recently started playing again, enjoying it quite a bit. Good review.

Kinda burned out of Lineage II at the moment and looking around what other MMO to pick up (again). Vanguard has crossed my mind, but last time I was playing it (half a year ago), I got stuck around level 13, missing players to do group quests. Perhaps now is the time to give it an other go and hope that indeed the server is more active and I can actually do the party quests ;)

Tried this game 4 or 5 months ago.

1) Nobody was around. Nobody spoke. Nobody did anything. It was like playing a single player game.

2) After finishing the very first starting area and reaching a town i had just absolutely no clue what to do next. The minimap system in the game is awful and i found myself wandering around hoping to stumble across my objective. Instead i stumbled across a large group of strong enemies any one of which could probably have killed me by itself.

The game is lackluster, lonely, and uninteresting. It doesnt have what it takes to compete in the MMO market as it will be by the end of this year and i expect the game will fail at that time.

Currently the game does not have to be purchased to play. Simply download the 14 day trial and then subscribe!

also, the playerbase has been growing lately. i have played this game off and on for at least 3 years and i have never seen this many people on at one time on the US server. also, from what i understand many of the Oceanic and Euro players have moved to the US server, Telon.

there are three reasons i came back (again) recently, and in order of importance:

1. i always end up coming back no matter what else i try.

2. the promise of updates.

3. the drop in StationPass price.

i highly reccomend new players to do the Isle of Dawn and level up crafting and diplo while they are there if they have ANY inkling that they might want to do them later. the tutorials and rewards cannot be beat for starting off in those areas on the mainland.

also, find a good guild. Twilyghte Song regularly has 50 members or more on during the weekends, US time, though there are late night players.

I've been in the MMO duldroms for a couple years now. Tried Rift at release, got bored after a month. Last week I resubbed to WoW, played for a half hour and havn't touched it since, I'm sooo done with that game.

Really miss that immersion factor I use to get... a long time ago now.

Vanguard has the world and systems for that, but never had the population.

Really tempting to come back and giver her another go.

I played the trial and wasnt impressed. The gfx looked old, the adventuring was typical. Dumb AI, repetitive and slow action. It had some unique mechanics, but it just wasnt fun.

The game is great. The world is huge and feels very real and explorable. It is grouping oriented and has a harder edge to it, much like L2. While it is best played in group, the game is still mostly soloable and most classes can solo though some are faster at killing than others. Warriors and Rogues probably have the toughest time soloing. There are lots of unusual classes and lots of interesting races to explore. Diplomacy isn't simply a mini game added to the main but a whole different way of "attacking" the world.

My only complaint is that the game lacks people playing it though many have been coming into the game recently because of the new push of bugfix updates and the promise of content updates. I hate the idea of Vang going free to play but that may be the best way to boost the population back to a healthy level. This seems like the likely path though for Vang since SOE is big on the F2P now and they have recently show renewed interest in the game and have assigned developers to the project again.

For this reason I think Vanguard has a promising future as an F2P or nearF2P.

As for graphics, Vanguard was way ahead of its time on some things. Only now are the most current crop of games passing it. But some things are lacking. Textures and shadowing could do with some updates. Also the character animations are primitive and the models are blocky by curent standards.  Also the graphics could use some optimization for new hardware. Overall the graphics are still very good but could use some work in places.

"its clear SOE love this game" at that point I found it very very difficult to take your review as an objective one I am afraid.

SOE love EQ 2, beyond that, no.... they dont "love" their games, they are slowly slowly changing in attitudes towards their games but it is a very gradual change and they have yet to come up with anything but talk about Vanguard so a renaissance review is a little premature.

Still atleast it plays to the audience you have here, which is basically where the Vanguard fans come to nest.

I just wish to add a point to this very good review, aimed at those who may be interested in trying Vanguard.

As for the general levelling experience, I just want to point out that Vanguard is deeply different from more recent MMORPGs.

There is no endgame in the current meaning we got to know recently.

There's no such thing as rushing to the level cap in order to experience the "real" game (WoW, Rift), the levelling experience is the game.

The review didn't mention that the game features dozens of dungeons, and that the vast majority of them could take hours just to explore.

To give you an idea of the vastity of the group PVE content, I have maxed three characters to max level, and I have never repeated a single dungeon or haven't quested in the same zone twice (except from hunter's league, which gives a very nice armor set :P).

And all these dungeons are spread across all levels, because in Vanguard I think the goal is having fun while you play, and not play to have fun some day when you're all maxed out.

I'm currently playing with a dedicated group of friends and, I must say, we're all just having a lot of fun.

Diplomation always was great feature of the game.

Originally posted by Hyrim

I'm currently playing with a dedicated group of friends and, I must say, we're all just having a lot of fun.

From what I hear this is the best way, if not the only way to play this game anymore. It's tempting in this respect. If VG ever goes F2P with cash shop they probably could make more money off group oriented, friends leveling together types of things like summoning scrolls, group bonuses (dmg, exp, regen), group mobility (mounts or whatever), or anything else around this concept. It's still gotta be one of the best group-oriented games out there with EQ.