I wouldn't go as far as to say that if you're a casual player, you shouldn't play Vanguard. But should you chose to do so, you should know that you are not the main audience, hence your conscerns willl not be of those resolved at the blink of an eye.

Lets face it. If you play a MMORPG you play along side thousands of other players. If you're a casual player you may be online 1-2 hours at the time or play once a week. A thriving online comunity never sleeps same as the real world. In the real world someone who is only available a small percentage of the time, don't get the chance to shape his / her surrounding as much as someone whos spends all his / her time influencing them. Demanding to have a say in every descision made but not being willing to make an effort to make things work is just a sad delusion.

Vanguard has (on paper at least) aspects that can cater to the casual player as well as aspets that cater to the hard core gamer. And lets face it, it's the hardcore gamer who helps build the community, not the casual player who logs in every once in a while to be entertained for a few hours. It's just a bonus that Vanguard sees that there are a player base who value real life above virtual reality but still likes the entertainment a game like vanguard can supply.

It's only natural that a MMORPG will cater more to the hard core gamers due to the fact that this player base are the ones who makes the world come alive. Imagine a world where you play with 10 thousand others you all play an average of 1 hour a day split across 24 hours. at any given time there are roughly 420 players online. You have one hour to find a group,  go adventuring and maybe even establish a community feeling only to ever see the same people maybe once a week. That will not make the game work in the long run.

Casual players can easily exist in games like vanguard, it may take them longer real time to level their charater(s), they may not contribute as much to the 'here and now' community, and they might not be able to raid - but given they aren't complete social rejects getting into a guild and having friends to party with for minor groups might not be all that difficult. 

Okay, so I've managed to make it through to page 5 before I started skipping posts and ultimately just hitting the reply button. Granted this thread is getting old and most of what can be said have been said, but I'm just gonna go ahead and post this for those who can't live without some more views on the whole SOE deal.

First of all. SOE have purchased/aquired publishing rights to Vanguard, meaning they have the rights to publish the game. Publishing a game/book/music or similar product of this magnitude is not something you can do without experience. There are some pretty heavy calculations and risks asociated with this business, and frankly I wouldn't let an art director or game developer handle my  taxes which would be the case if a gamedeveloper were to set off and publish their own game. It's all about knowhow. And in a world where knowledge of your market can mean the success or downfall of your product you have to turn to people with experience. In case of Sigil they turn to SOE for (as far as I see it) 2 apparent reasons.

1. They have prior experience with SOE having worked for them earlier.
2. The are 2 major players on the MMORPG market today SOE and Blizzard. Blizzard have their hands full with wow, and might be reluctant to take in an other game that might compete over the same player base.

SOE's reputation might not be what it once was (if ever the reputation was good) but lets face it publicity no matter how bad is still publicity! Yapping on about how bad swg/ec/ec2 became after SOE fooled around or how bad their customer support is will actually lead just  as many players towards SOE in order to see for themselves as the amount of people who left the game.

Okay so the whole SOE vs. MS is getting old. It's a business descision that had to be made, and as far as I read it, Sigil bought back the intellectual rights for Vanguard in order to avoid MS (and later any other publisher) from trying to make the game stir from "the vision".


SOE on support and game updates / patches.
It's been stated quite a few times that SOE have been responsible for releasing unfinished patches or that they fail to communicate with their customers. Give me one example of an MMORPG or any game for that matter where this is not true. It simply can't be done not if you exeed a player base of 10,000 players. You simply can't satisfy everyone, and the higher some people shout the more their oppinion is heard/seen and taken as the general view of things. People in general are very good at complaining but very bad at giving compliments. You don't applaud when things are done right because you expect that to be so, you pay for the service. But do you not wish your employer to give you a pat on the back (or even a bonus) when you've done something right - you're just doing your job why should he?


If you refrain from buying anything from SOE based on their prior actions I can surely understand this. But then you should refrain from buying anything from any major company all together as most of them are based off the same capitalistic ideas. Earn money please the share holders and give a damn about the little man.

I for one am looking forward to the release of Vanguard, granted I had a few second thougths about the game when I heard about the change in publisher, but I also frowned upon first seeing that MS where to publish the game. You can never be truly satisfied unless you do things yourself, but I'm willing to be somewhat satisfied and leave all the financial risks and technical issues in better capable hands.