All Posts by ethion

I know I get inf by doing PQs and doing RvR but I don't know how renoun works or if there is a way to see your inf progress.   There is a renoun bar but getting inf doesn't seem to move it.  I've been doing pq and I notice I'm renoun 2 and 72% to 3.  But having been farming inf in a pq i'm not seeing any movement in this bar.  Also the rally vendor shows prizes and I know inf unlocks them but again is there a bar somewhere that shows my progress towards elite?

If there is a good explaination on the web somewhere just send me to a link I've looked for something specific but haven't found anything.

Originally posted by crunchyblack

How can i be derogatory about a game ive never played? if anything i was derogatory about the trial.  I wouldnt mind a 20gig download for an EQ style trial, hell they could even do it like lotro and have you download as needed, theres plenty of ways to get around downloading the whole game, so i dont buy that.  I just feel like a very limited island and level cap isnt going to give me much of a taste of what the game has to offer, that is all.  With lots of other games out there, and plenty that offer trials that actually let you try the game out and see what kind of content it has to offer, its just another reason for people avoid this game, many of them have never even really heard about this game to begin with.

Honestly doing an eq style trial or lotro style, they could have save a lot of time and money developing the trial island and mabey put the resources to expanding content or polishing the game.  I also dont like the sound of isolating trial members from paying members, now they really have no way of previewing what the community is like, or have an ability to ask questions regarding higher level content.  Just seems like a very odd way to go about letting potential customers preview the game.

Well I guess the devs and you just disagree....  Maybe you can find a buddy key or just buy the game on ebay it is really pretty cheap.  Or if nothing works for you just more to anohter game there are plenty out there.

Hey I just saw this and through it might help....

From VG forums

There is a bug with shadows that is causing some people to crash alot. It may even prevent you from logging in. We are aware of it and have a fix that we are testing that will be published first thing next week.

The Work Around:
- If you can get in game and have crashed previously and you think it is shadow related. Turn off shadows until we give the all clear.
- Set shadows to off at Character Select before logging into the game.
- Set ShadowDetail=0 in your VGClient.ini if you crash when logging in.
 

Originally posted by crunchyblack

Well just about everything the OP complained about has been addressed by mythic.
Better graphic options are coming, they patched the mob bugs so you dont get rubber banding effect or target unavailable.

I really hate it when people chracterize comments I've made as complaints.  What I'm giving are my feedback and opinions on what I'm seeing in the game.  I'm also asking if things get better or change as I level or if people in some other beta know that these issues no longer exist.

Also the patch to fix the mob bugs isn't working.  Late last night I was still having the problem.  Examples I played a white lion class and my pet would sometimes not even be facing the right way or even standing by the mob and it would be attacking.  Sometimes the pet and mob would be fighting and I'd go behind the mob to use a positional attack and get the message you can not attack the mob from this direction or something like that.  So I saw the patch notes but they were unsuccessful.  Maybe today they are better I haven't logged in yet...

Animations, well not much to say about them, they could be flashier, but at the expense for smooth game play, i usually turn off others animations during rvr so i get the fastest frame rates possible.

My computer has no performance issues.  It isn't a big deal I just would like the animations to be better.  I do /wave and my character makes some motion but it isn't very well done in my opinion.  This is subjective or course but I'd expect it to be better.  Again it isn't that big a deal but it would be nice....

PQ treasures are always the same for that chapter, once you get all your pq loot...move on to the next chapter and get your better equipment...your not suppose to grind pq's past getting the best loot...move on and try the next chapter.

I got this... Someone told me they were supposed to give you a choice of several items and there would be different bags.  But everything I get is exactly the same.  I think having some variety in the list or rewards would be a better thing.

There is no linear part of leveling... You can pve, you can group and do PQ's you can RvR scenario, you can open field RvR....from level 1 yes you can do either and have no detriment to your character. I really cont believe you said that...how much did you even play the game?

PvE feels to me like the main way to level and is also the main set of lore.  I did some RvR and it gives xp but it really is a grind to do that to level.  PQs also are fun along the way for sure but I can't really see grinding them to level up again the xp from PQs is minimal.  In this game leveling is really about doing the PvE quests which is also fun because of the lore.  So leveling is linear.  Although being able to switch between the 3 regions does help with that a lot esp since they give different loot.  Thanks to the person that cleared that up for me.

Crafting seems weak, i agree, but when has crafting been super beneficial at low levels? Crafting is always like this, even in EQ, you start off and its kind of worthless until you skill it more.

Again it's my opinion and I think it could be a lot better.... I found it hard to get anything I could do with anything but apothecary.  The talisman just never had anything I could make and cultivation was really boring and tedious.  It does look like they are still working on it.  Crafting in most any modern game is useful and interesting.  LoTR, Vanguard, Wow, EQ2 all have useful crafting systems.  EQ is not a good reference it is ancient and the crafting system is pretty primative by todays standards :)

Customization of characters, it could always be better in any game imo. Sure you can dye your equips to stand out...but standing out in a game like this isnt always a good thing. Especially if the enemy decides your decent and goes for you first.

Someone said earlier that you get more stuff later that allows you to be more unique looking.  Standing out vs not being a class/level clone are two completely different issues.  Right now after you are familiar with the game you can look at players and go ah that guy is a lvl 8 white lion, she is lvl 8 witch elf and she is a war priest....  I'm not sure you would want to stand out like that ;) 

 

But the OP sounds like he didn’t have fun and didnt like the game too much...this game isn’t going to be for everyone, it sounds like its just isnt your cup of tea. Lucky for you DF and Aion should be coming out soon, maybe you will like one of those better. This games really more for the RvR enthusiasts
 

I was not going to buy this game.  I was going to stay with Vanguard and just ignore it.  Then I got into open beta and I was still not going to buy it having been burned not to long ago with AoC.  So anyway, here I am, I've now decided I care about the game and actually went and preordered it.  So my actions in no way reflect the actions of someone that doesn't like the game....

That said I do have opinions about things that I think could be better or that I hope are better at higher lvls...

Yes I have played the game some.... I've played every starting area in the game to at least lvl 6 and my highest is lvl 9.  I've also played every archtype of the charcter classes and some multiple types.  I've done PVE quests, PQs, and RVR scenarios and Open RVR areas.  I've also gone to the inevitable city and spent a couple hours running around there.  So no I'm not completely ignorant.

Also some people have suggested I need to up my settings in the game.  I have everything maxed and I'm played at 1980x1200 or something like that.  So I don't think there are higher settings and maybe my high resolution just makes the low res models the game uses to render distant objects look worse.

BTW this thread has been good.  I've read a few things that have been helpful tips here which I want to thank people for.

Originally posted by Galadourn

I never had experienced any issues with VG in my old PC...but it was struggling to run the game performance-wise, so the gameplay experience lacked in that field.

So here I am now, with my brand new high-end machine thinking I could at last experience the game the way it was meant to be played; a grave mistake on my part. The game runs perfect from the FPS perspective...but crashes every 10 min. I'm not exaggerating: every 10 min it will either crash to desktop, or worse make a forced PC reboot.

 

Needless to say I have tried everything, have the latest video and sound drivers but, alas, nothing will fix this. I'm really disappointed because I thought Windows XP Pro SP3 were a stable platform. Apparently I was wrong (and VG is a very poorly coded program), and this combination is detrimental.

No idea what to say... Maybe head to the SOE tech support forums.  You can also look at the log files in the VG install directory, or maybe in the bin directory.  It might give you some idea what is causing the crashes.  Also run a full scan maybe you got a bad file?

I'm playing it and in the past couple months that I've been playing fairly regularly I've never crashed.  I can play for 8 hours and never crash and I'm not exactly the best configuration for stability...  I've never tweaked anything other then to max out all the graphics settings and to download and install the Drox UI with a few tweaks from the VG forums to get it to work with the latest GUs.

I'm running windows Vista 64, on a Quad intel cpu, 4g ram, and an 8800GTX.

Oh I've also run it for several hours trouble free on my wifes computer. 

Windows XP sp3, AMD 5200, 4G ram, ati 3750.  My daughter used to play on this computer and would play for 2-3 hours without any problems.

Originally posted by crunchyblack

Originally posted by cloudaulter

Yes crunchy-the game is 100% spam skills.  Sorry that SOE did not accomodate you with a free year of play that you may know fully the extent of the spamming involved.  I personally would be highly upset as well if a game only offered me a free glimpse into their project without even so much as a consideration to the free loaders in the world that have earned the right to have the entire pie and not just a slice. 

 

I "lol'ed" at the free year thing.  I really wasnt being critical of the game so im not sure why the flame post.

I was just asking about that the trial entails.

I do find the trial kind of silly.  I mean EQ2 at least let me run around and check out the world before subscribing.  Also i got to check out how various characters played above level 10.  It really showed me what i could expect, and it wasnt a year free.  7-14 days with no limits is enough for me.  Hell even a 3 day free trial, where i would be able to check out some of the content would be nice.

This trial island cant offer more than how the game runs/looks on my system and letting me spam a few skills (that wasnt an isult). 

I dunno, you would think that SOE would offer a similar trial as they did with EQ.

I like how you call people free loaders who want to try the game before buying it....like im going to continually make new trial accounts so i can can keep playing the same crap again...kind of ignorant.  From what i can understand about VG is that they need all the players they can get.  But thanks for the flame post, ill probably be avoiding the game, there is plenty of games comming out soon anyway.  Thanks for the flame post though, it gave me a glimps of what to expect from the community in game.

In case you still have the question they didn't do the eq thing for several reasons.

1. To make the world available it would be a 20g download, they wanted something small like 1-2 gb.

2. They wanted to control spammers and abusers by preventing them from impacting the real game world.  You are sorta isolated on trial island so you can't spam the real game world so free accounts are of limited utility for abuse.

those are the main reasons for a trial island approach.

The trial does give you the ability to play any class to lvl 10.  It also gives you diplomacy and crafting to level 10.  It has a complete game experience with two dungeon areas and a very nice story line for the quests that gives you some lore that ties into the main game.  It is a starting area even regular players can start in so some guilds are setting up people there to help new players.

So it is going to give you a good feel for the character, classes, diplomacy, crafting and adventuring parts of the game.  Most classes even as early as lvl 10 have some flavor of how they will be and a few chains and special abilities.  If you don't like the trial you won't like the game.  If you do like the trial then the main game is more of the same but bigger and better in many ways.  The only thing that the trial doesn't give you is a good group experience which is something that some people will find missing but isn't missing from the main game at all and in fact is one of my favorite aspects.

Anyway try the trial and come back and let us know if you still think it is not representative and a complete waste of time.  I've done it a few times and think it is a great intro to the game and a lot of fun.

Originally posted by cloudaulter

just one reply here to this thread: level 35 in a week?!?  Give me a break, Im sure you did find the game too easy if thats true.  Ive been playing for 4 months and am only level 31.  Evidently you hit every easy quest available and kept the grind pedal on the whole way.  No way could you have done the unicorn questline, wolfhound questline, Hunters league questline, bounty hunter questline, wardship armor questline, CIS, Trengal keep, countless other dungeons, or crafting, harvesting, diplomacy, housing etc etc etc.  This one statement of yours completely discredits the rest of the entire post.  You sir missed out on the core of what Vanguard is.  Associating that to SOE's fault or lack of commitment, content, yadda yadda yadda is simply a huge false claim on your part. 

I understand your not flaming vanguard-and Im not trying to flame your post either, but the game play style taken and the post interpretation and association to SOE gives others who may have an interest in the game a huge false impression of what the game really is.  Vanguard isnt going anywhere I assure you-correction to that-the only place vanguard is going is up in sub base from here on out.  Sub base=interest=greater sub base=more attention $ wise from SOE.  Theyve have already taken and made huge leaps forward thus far, in no way do they plan on letting up.

I don't think 35 in a week is impossible.  It is sad but not impossible.  I mean you can get levels really fast if you are in a good solid group doing dungeons.  I think 35 in 3-4 days played time isn't unlikely.  It does slow down quite a bit in the 30s so you wont get to 50 in 5 days played.  But a power gamer could probably get to 50 in 2-3 weeks....

However it is sad cause you would blow by so much great stuff doing that.  I'm doing HL, TK  and CIS on my run through this time so I'm spending a fair amount of time with my xp turned off.   But there are many other neat areas to explore.  Just go get a dungeon list from the web and there are many places more off the beaten path that would be great adventure ares.  Over the past I've done a lot of these areas and some are quite cool.  Like the gnome dungeon where you have low gravity and have to worry about a sniper that sneaks around and one shots people in your group till you have a rogue find him and one shot him :P  Or a dungeon where if you do something wrong or something the boss tosses up out the window high into the air only to land in the water, or on dungeon where you get a power suit and rocket launchers :P

Originally posted by madstoog

Originally posted by PapaLazarou

Originally posted by grimal

Originally posted by Zayne3145

Originally posted by madstoog

You forgot to mention this is beta?

Do you know what beta is?

You can't review a game from a beta really.. come on.

 

Less than a week until release. It's a Beta in name only now.

 

QFT

 

I hate when people say "its in beta" as a defense I mean yeah small problems a year from launch are fine because they'll be fixed but bad design issues even a year from release can;t be changed because thats the back bone for the game. So if you do not like the way the zones work or how the character models are or the combat then you wont ever like the game because these are things that wont ever be changed.

Also saying it's beta like a week from release :\ You do know the game has to be put to disc and boxed and sent to stores and this process doesn't just happen over night lol.

Really what ever, i just think it's funny how people constantly whine and moan on here, i would think most people playing war are kids not getting what they want and doing stupid complaints about it.

The OP is complaining about character design (faces)? what the fuck? does he sit there and stare as his characters face 2 hours a day, i barely look at my characters face (designs seem fine to me) i was to busy fighting really but guess some people take mmo's into another prospect (think its a bit to real get into the game to much?).. there are people like that.

Fan of the game and someone who enjoys it (like me) really don't care about minor things like face designs.. such a pathetic thing to bring up. 

Mythic are going to be constantly improving the game after launch, just remember that.

Hmm maybe I didn't explain my comment clearly enough or maybe you didn't read it well enough.  I think the facial customizations are near pointless.  Like you said who looks at faces...

What I'm talking about are character customizations.  Body size, body shape, head shape, armor types and variety, etc.  Things that make one avatar look unique.  So you don't look and go ah thats a lvl 18 witch elf.

Being a fan doesn't mean you are ignorant and blind to the good and the bad.  It means you care about the game and want to make people aware of the good and the bad and you maybe want to do this to give the devs feedback and let others know what you think.  My post has things I like and things I don't.  I started by saying I'm a fan enough to buy the game even though I don't think I should.

Originally posted by madstoog

Originally posted by ethion

Well I done did it and this will probably ruin the game.  I preordered it which so far has been like the harbinger of doom....

Anyway concerns I have so far are

1. bugs in combat, mobs are not where they seem, causes all sort of problems for attacking and positional attacks.  Didn't see the issue in pvp but I didn't do a lot.  If it exists in pvp it is a major issue.

2. Animations are pretty lacking and not very good. 

3. Customization of characters is really poor.  There are lots ot facial tweaks but it isn't enough.  Everyone looks the same.  It is even worse at least for the first 9 levels in that there is almost no variety in equipment.

4. Graphics on the highest settings looks bad frequently for anything that is a stones through away.  Close up stuff looks great but anything a bit further away turns into a blob.  In the DE public quest when you fight the dragon if you look at him from the entrance he looks like a brownish dragon shape made of mud or something.  Their low rez versions of things really needs to be better.

5. Quests, I'm not sure I can put my finger on it but the quests in each of the areas somehow feel the same.  They aren't identical and there are some changes but enough of them are the same that it feels kinda dejavu.

6. Linearity, upto lvl 10 the game is extremely linear.  There is virtually know alternate tracks and you are on a pretty set lvling path.

7. PQ treasure rewards are always the same.  After you have done it once you are just grinding inf for the vender reward.

8. Crafting system seems rather weak.

Good things are

1. classes seem like they have good variety and each class has distinct roles.  PvP will be more group oriented and less individual.

2. PQs are fun and pretty rewarding even if you can't do them all the way you can still get stuff from the rally vendor.

3. 6 different starting areas that look like they progress pretty much in parallel.  This kinda combats the issue in item 6 since you can at lvl 8-9 switch to other areas.  Not sure this will work out as they might be itemized for their racial areas.  So a human in the elf area might not get any equipment he can use.

4. Nice environments that feel alive

5. The main city is amazing!

 

You forgot to mention this is beta?

Do you know what beta is?

You can't review a game from a beta really.. come on.

Hmm I thought everyone knew it was beta.... Didn't really see a need to mention that.  I guess since it's beta in your mind we shouldn't comment on the game issues or ask questions?!

Originally posted by Jixx

Why do you think you need a huge variety of low level content?  Doesn't really make sense to have tons of content in a MMO that won't be played through in a year.

Look at DAoC and WoW.  About 10% of the content is played by a large portion of the playerbase.

Really makes sense to have smaller grinding areas.  Makes the grind faster and makes it easier to find people. 

 

Well I agree with that which is kinda why I was asking how it looked at higher tiers.... is there more content is it less linear??  Are there more armor sets.

I'll admit it I played AoC and was very happy with lvl 1-20 and thougth it was gonna be great but unlike what you are suggesting in AoC the content from 1-20 was much better and more dense and more in quantity then the rest of the game....

Not to say war is like aoc but I can't help but be sensitive...

Originally posted by crunchyblack

So this "trial" ofers nothing more than a peep on what the world kinda looks like, i wont be able to try any of the real in game content/areas?  I hope they dont require you to download the full 20gigs for this trial island.  I was really hoping to actually preview the game that i may of maynot subscribe too.  This trial island seems like is only offering you to try the gapelay for a tiny bit, im looking to see what the actuall game has to offer content wise not to see if i like the gameplay, we all know what the gameplay is like (spam skills)

The trial is a small download which was one of the specific goals so that people interested in the game could download something manageable.

It is a full implementation of the game from lvl 1-10 although with separate content (so you don't have to download 20gb) and you are isolated some to prevent abuse of the normal world.

Game play from 1-10 in all spheres is going to give you a good idea what the gameplay is like.  The trial island also includes two dungeon areas.  One is tiny the other one is still smallish compared to some of hte dungeons in live and the dungeons are scaled so they are mostly soloable.  The only thing you are not going to get from the trial is a good group experience or the experience of a premier dungeon.  So there are some things in the release that will be even better then what you see in the trial.

Back the the original topic instead of plugging VG which isn't my intent....

Are there fixes for these issues?  Does anyone know if Mythic is going to address these before launch and do some of them become non issues at higher lvls.  Will a group of lvl 40 white lions for example still look the same or will they have all different equipment and different looks?

Will you be able to pick an individual our of a group by his appearance? 

Do higher lvl areas have more diversity in quests or do they stay linear?

I agree that the game feels too easy.  I find that I play with XP turned off a lot cause I like to keep areas I'm questing in challenging and hate outleveling them.  Will be interesting to see how the game feels as they finish rebalancing combat in the coming update.  With this update there were a number of adjustments but I'm not seeing a large change.

Solo content isn't to hard but group content can be challenging especially in some of the dungeons.

I think that for the past year and a half they have been working on getting the game upto production/release quality and building tools etc.  It will be interesting to see what happens now as the game is in a pretty good state where it is fully release quality.  I'm suspecting we will see a shift of focus more from bug fixing and polishing to content.  Certainly they have said they have plenty of things in the works. 

Pantheon revamp, dungeon & raid

Nexus dungeon? 

The volcano raid area in qalia forget the name.

And Silias talked about some giant island and a bunch of content associated with that.   He kinda said they have been staying focused on fixing things but are looking forward to working on content but fixes have been the priority.

So I think they next 6 months will be interesting.  With Trial island we will see an increase in subs or not.  If we don't then this game will probably stagnate and that will be the end.  If the subs go up then they will add content and we could see a slow ramp up like Eve did.  But time will tell.

I think that Trial Island is pretty normal compared to starting areas.  It is probably the best and has the best diplomacy for sure.  But all the areas are comparable to some degree.  The biggest thing that Trial Island probably has is more initial people.  Course who knows what kinda people since some could be playing for free and just be there to be disruptive but who knows.

I would give ToD an A compared to other starting areas, but I enjoy most all the areas and think they are all pretty good. 

VG has gotten constant little revamps that go unmentioned.  Seems to me that after not playing for a year I'm constantly running into things that work a bit differently or look different.  Generally in a good way.  You can't compare the game to what it was at launch.  I was playing a couple days ago right after the launch killing infinium golums or whatever they were and they had changed.  They used to be rock monsters but now they are infinium rock monsters they look like they are made from infinium ore and not just plain rocks.  Thats a good example of one of the steath changes.

Originally posted by ghettobooste

Originally posted by ethion

Well I done did it and this will probably ruin the game.  I preordered it which so far has been like the harbinger of doom....

Anyway concerns I have so far are

1. bugs in combat, mobs are not where they seem, causes all sort of problems for attacking and positional attacks.  Didn't see the issue in pvp but I didn't do a lot.  If it exists in pvp it is a major issue.

2. Animations are pretty lacking and not very good. 

3. Customization of characters is really poor.  There are lots ot facial tweaks but it isn't enough.  Everyone looks the same.  It is even worse at least for the first 9 levels in that there is almost no variety in equipment.

4. Graphics on the highest settings looks bad frequently for anything that is a stones through away.  Close up stuff looks great but anything a bit further away turns into a blob.  In the DE public quest when you fight the dragon if you look at him from the entrance he looks like a brownish dragon shape made of mud or something.  Their low rez versions of things really needs to be better.

5. Quests, I'm not sure I can put my finger on it but the quests in each of the areas somehow feel the same.  They aren't identical and there are some changes but enough of them are the same that it feels kinda dejavu.

6. Linearity, upto lvl 10 the game is extremely linear.  There is virtually know alternate tracks and you are on a pretty set lvling path.

7. PQ treasure rewards are always the same.  After you have done it once you are just grinding inf for the vender reward.

8. Crafting system seems rather weak.