Originally posted by Greymoor

The upscaling in quality and having to build up different mats seems quiet interesting though, hopefully they'll add a more indepth one like mortal online with combining rare ores etc

Hopefully it's involved and complex.  It would be great if ArcheAge ends up with crafting as good, or close to Vanguard's crafting.

I see the opposite.  I certainly see a transformation in the landscape of the MMO genre, but it's not a shift that I like.  What I see is death of the truly epic, deep and community based MMO.  I doubt we'll ever see anything as great as EQ1 or Vanguard again and that the amusement park, linear MMO will become the norm :(

Why?  Because it's more profitable. 

See the picture below?  That was after our Vanguard guild built our guild hall after several weeks of combined effort through adventuring, diplomacy and crafting.  It was/is an epic game that has the best community I've ever seen in an MMO.

Originally posted by SuperXero89

I logged in today to check out the new quest hub.  Got ate alive by single mob pulls in both my ranged and melee specs.

Logged out.

 

Anyone else have a more positive experience?

I thought it was great to actually have a more challenging area to adventure in.  Rift up until Ember Isle is on extreme easy-mode.  I think Ember Isle is the best looking part of rift as well.  My disappointment that all the content is consumed after just a couple days of play.  It was pretty depressing on how quickly the quest-line went.

I guess that is par for the course with a linear theme-park MMO.  Dang, I sure miss Vanguard.

Originally posted by pierth

Welcome to popular themepark MMO design. It brings in more players overall (cha-ching), while at the same time completely undermining/removing why traditional players play MMORPGs in the first place. Until this changes or I find a game that suits what I'm looking for in a MMORPG I've stopped paying for any of them.

Exactly.  Rift has put me into an MMO depression.  I loved EQ1 and Vanguard, but I'm beginning to think that the days of epic, traditional, community-based MMOs is now a thing of the past.

Well, I'm probably in the old-timer category.  My first love was EQ1, played it for 6 years.  My second love was Vanguard, which felt a lot like EQ1 and I played that for over 3 years.  Nothing else has come close to those two games in my opinion and I started to develop high expectations for SWTOR.

I tried the beta this past weekend and was sorely disappointed.  The game felt cookie-cutter, linear and heavily solo based.... basically all the things I dislike about the vast majority of MMOs. 

After reading some of the posts in this thread, I still might try to play the game as it seems that perhaps the gameplay gets more interesting after level 10. 

I played VG for 3 years.  It's the best MMO I've every played.. by far.  I'll be back if the content updates come true.

I started crashing once a day since the 1.3 patch.  A lot of guild mates are crashing too.

Originally posted by baritone3k

I just reupped a few days ago and I noticed that yesterday after the patch the game seems to be prettier and smoother.

The game is gorgeous right now - the plate armor is top notch.

 

It also seems that the ugly highlight thing isn't constantly on my target unless I have the mouse scrolled over it.

 

Has anyone else noticed any unannounced improvements?

 I've played continuously since release.  I've noticed no visual improvements with 1.3.  I've also started crashing once a day since the new patch :(

I loved houses and the guild hall in Vanguard.  The world was huge, crafting was incredible and the world, houses and guildhalls were all non-instanced that enviroment.  Building our guild hall was a great acheivement.

But I just don't see any of those things in Rift and therefore, houses and guild-halls would probably just be blah like the rest of the game.

I'm still playing Rift, but do agree the community is awful for the most part.  Luckily, my guild came in together and have added a few great folks since launch.  But doing anything outside the guild is a crap-shoot because of the poor community.  I came from Vanguard and have to say that is the best community I've ever seen in an MMO.  Unfortunately, I'd have to rank Rift's community as the worst.

Originally posted by page

Vanguard has 5x more content than 90% of all other mmo's. I can't stress enough how bad I hate SOE, you would think they would only charge like $5 just to keep the servers running.

BUT it's still a great game ( I consider it the best, but that's an opinion ).  Better than any other crap that's out there.

 This is very true.  You could jump into Vanguard with a guild and have a couple years of content ahead of you.  Vanguard probably has more like 10x the content of a MMO such as Rift.  So if SoE wants veteran players back, yes, they'd have to offer something new... like finishing Stirhaad as the next APW-style raid zone.  But  for a new player there is more content than you can imagine.

Originally posted by sazabi

well ok... not exactly kills it, but it definitely puts archage at the bottom of my list.

and that is... the whole setting and world. i couldnt even find info about what could be actually interesting about it.

stylistically and visually this looks just like another asian grindfest.

 

most of the features and gameplay decisions are great, but immersion is important for me...

 

anyone thinking the same thing?

 I'm playing Rift currently and played Vanguard prior.  Rift is small and confined where you never really feel like you are adventuring.  Vanguard was huge, open and beautiful and was an absolutely blast to explore solo or with a party.

To me, the Archeage world sounds like the Vanguard world and I'm 100% on board with that and looking forward to it.

Originally posted by Myrdynn

someone told you wrong, they are going ot allow server transfers, which will eliminate the need to merge.  

Server transfers are nice, but mergers are absolutely, positively needed and needed bad. 

Rift's launch was a massive event and they marketed it brilliantly.  This led to a HUGE number of people for pre-release and release and Trion added many servers to accomodate that load.  But the fact remains, Rift does not have anywhere near as many active players as the days after launch and there a many empty servers now.  There was simply just a huge fall off of active players about 3 weeks after launch.

I have been frustrated with the lack of players on my server and was very surprised to hear that is it considered 'active' because it has a 'medium' status during prime time.

Vanguard is a truly asweome game and I miss it immensely, our whole guild misses it.  But the fact is, after 3 years the game did run out of content.  So for the veterans who would love to come back SoE would simply have to invest in developing some sort of expansion and I'm sorry to say, I don't think they will do that.

Originally posted by Solude

Playing any SOE MMO until EQ:Next launches is silly.  They are all broken empty worlds.  Vanguard was great, but frankly we all moved to Rift so... see you there =)

Rift is what makes so many people miss Vanguard.  Vanguard is a superior game to Rift in nearly every aspect.  The big difference is that SoE stopped all development on Vanguard and for those of us that played it for a number of years, there just wasn't a future left in it.  At least with Rift, we can wait for 1.3 this summer and hope there is something to do.

Our whole guild moved to Rift when it launched and we are already bored to tears.  We would go back to Vanguard, but there is nothing new coming and because there is nothing new coming people don't want to invest their time in the game.

Vanguard is just in the hands of the wrong company.  Man, I had fun in VG.

That said, the OP does have good points.  It's not broken at all and if a guild wanted to jump in and play the game all the way through they would have a helluva good time.  If a individual jumps in to play, they'll need to find an active guild to join, because playing VG with a good group of people opens up a much larger portion of the game.

As far as graphics went, I liked VG's realistic look.  You also have to remember that everything you saw in VG was actually there and you could go to it.  Throw in dynamic weather, a 'real' seamless world and the incredible detail, VG nailed it went it came to graphics.  Yes, the requirements are high, but the world and things in it are gorgeous.  Compare that to Rift where everything is kind of bland and where the background is a back-drop where you can't go or explore.

I've played Rift since launch and it's graphics don't measure up at all to VG. 

I would also add that 'medium' doesn't necessarily mean a healthy population.  I'm on a server that is 'perceived' as having a good popluation because it often shows at medium.  But medium feels like low population when you venture around the world because invasions go un-checked (not enough people), LFG takes a long time, Warfronts can be up to an hour wait, etc.

So Medium could be just 100 players are so scattered throughout the world.

They definitely need to merge.

Originally posted by syrusmag3

Anyone Think the player base is steady?

The player base has seen significant declines since launch.  The new factor has worn off and a lot of player left, or play much less frequently.  They will allow character transfers soon, which will allow players to move off dead servers which will help.

Server mergers are much needed as well.

There are a couple of popular servers that people are rerollling on so they can play with a high population.  A good population is important so that invasions can be defeated.  It's kind of depressing to have zone invasions and no one around to fight them.

Originally posted by ormstunga

Considering the special conditions for vanguard, what is endgame like?

What happens when you "max out"?

If you still stay in the game for social reasons or you just think its the most bitching game ever, what exactly do you fill your time with?

No trolling intended, sincerely curious =)

Well, the most fun I've ever had in an MMO was gearing up and getting our guild ready for tackling Ancient Port Warehouse (APW).  APW was by far the most fun raiding experience I've had.  For a non-hardcore guild attempting APW when it was release it was a very difficult but rewarding journey.  Loved everything about APW.

After APW came Pantheon of the Ancients.  The trials were fun, but the faction grinding got pretty boring.  After three years of playing Vanguard our guild finally grew tired grinding PotA faction etc.

We were once very hopeful for an APW replacement such as Stirhaad etc..... but that never happened. 

I love Vanguard, our entire guild loved Vanguard and played for over 3 years.  It is the best PvE MMO on the market in my opinion.  For us, we just ran out of content and didn't like the end game grind that it had become.

We'd all be back in a flash if there was some sort of investment in the game by Sony and some new content.  We moved to Rift and already find ourselves pretty bored and longing for the old Vanguard days.

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by boojiboy

Originally posted by Aquazen

I would like to come back with my brother, are dungeons possible with only two, don't know too much about the game besides the intro island?

 No, raiding and dungeons would be out of your reach.  However, you could still find a ton of content to enjoy duo'ing to max level.

pretty much this.

though truth be told I've encountered dungeons that would have been group based while I was at high level and was able to slowly make my way through them.

So you can experience some of them as you get higher in level. There are dungeons where a solo player, though perhaps more lower level dungeons, can make their way through if they are careful.

There is a spider dungeon that also connects to an old abandoned tower which can be done with solo or two people while being careful. LOVE this. of course there is a quest for this but I discovered it by accidentlaly find a secret door. That's right, I was exploring and for some reason I thought there should have been another entrance and lo and behold I clicked on a part of a wall and it swung away.

This is why Vanguard rocks.

 Some of the most fun I had in Vanguard was going back to Nusibe with my max level, well equipped Psionicist and seeing how far I could solo in....  I don't remember if I was after something in particular or just wanted to see if I could do it.  Either way, it was a heart-pounding, exciting experience where I had to use every ounce of my skill as I worked my way through the dungeon.  Immense fun!