All Posts by boojiboy

I would say, if you like raiding, then Vanguard has a fantastic end-game.  There is nothing out there that touches the Ancient Port Warehouse.  If you don't like raiding, then yes, you may find yourself looking for more at level 50 if you only participate in the adventuring sphere.  More high-end quests, introduction of AAs, etc. would be great additions.

I enjoy it a lot.  I've played since release and the game has improved dramatically since that time.

Yep, it's a screen shot from the swamp caves.  The lighting turned out great and it gives perspective on how massive the dungeon is.  A lot of my gear is APW gear.... but I am constantly teased about the helm... otherwise know as the Pope Hat.

http://www.massively.com/2008/05/22/player-vs-everything-singing-the-praises-of-vanguard/

Yes, the Bear pet is a pretty powerful tank.  However, from what I've seen, the necro pet looks far and away more interesting because you can equiip them with graft, different abilities, pet drops etc.

I could run VG on medium with an ancient rig.  With my new Alienware, I run it in 1600x1200 in ultra high settings and get over 100 fps outdoors and 30-60 indoors.

The BIGGEST difference seemed to be the Core duo processor. 

The second biggest difference is how well the game has been optimized in the past several months. 

Well, the proof will be in the pudding as they say.   I'll be watching my guild to see who leaves to play AoC or who elects to play both.  We've grown quite large recently and probably have 50 unique and active members.  So far 1 has said they were going to try it (a PVPer at heart).  Several were in beta and decided it's not for them.

Did you notice the one on my left (picture right) is Paris Hilton?

Originally posted by sma00711

Hitching is still in, but it has been greatly improved, and only really occurs when walking into new areas or cities. It lasts only as long as your hardware requires to load the new surroundings.  In my opinion it is a fair substitute to loading screens and zone lines.

And yes, I'd rather have the initial hitch that loading screens.  After playing this game and never seeing a loading screen, it would be hard to go back to any game that did.

Originally posted by foulu625

I played through all of beta, few months of release until they nerfed the whole game. Less mob HP, more DPS, less damage taken, all that.

 

Has the game improved at all? Not just confined to difficulty either. Have they added in enough content? I loved the game until they nerfed it, and that was the final straw. I'm rebuilding a pc soon and am thinking about trying it out again (along with AoC). If Vanguard is still fun, I plan on playing both if I enjoy it.

Improvements ranked - My opinion.

1)  Performance.  The game runs much, much better than it did at launch and it continues to improve.  The improvements are noticed the most on low to mid end machines.

2)  Stability.  Many of the crashing bugs, memory leaks are fixed now.  A lot of alt-tabbing still causes me to crash, but other than that, it's nearing a crash-free status.

3)  Bugs.  A huge number of bugs have been fixed.  However, there are some annoying bugs still left in the game.  I believe the VG folks are going to hammer out the rest of their performance and stability issues and then come back to the remaining bugs.  For example, they are SOOO focused on reducing hitching in GU5 and the new environmental shading (which looks incredible BTW) that they haven't resolved some of the GU4 bugs.  They need to come back and clean those up.

4)  Content.  New questing areas have been added, APW has been added (relative to when you first quit) diplomacy sphere updates, Flying Mount quest, etc.  But this is where some 50s are getting frustrated... they want a new raid zone, AAs, new armor quest lines....

It seems that VG is turning the corner on performance and stability improvements now.  It seems that new content is going to get a lot of resources as they wrap up Game Update 5 and close in on Game Update 6.  Sillius recently posted that they have hired even more designers to work on the new stuff which sounds very exciting.

Me at a Guild Hall warming party.  As you can see, the babes dig me....  Sorry it's a little dark, new guild hall and not too many light fixtures installed yet.

Excellent!  Makes me want to turn off my map :)

Originally posted by dannydarko

Just a quick information about my background. I've played about a dozen F2P and P2P mmo's out there and I come from about 4.5 years of FFXI on and off which I thoroughly enjoyed and I want to try something new. The best thing about FFXI for me was the grouping aspect and the close community. Would this be a recommened game for grouping (grinding exp - I don't want to be forced into quests, I want some ala eq / ffxi style grinding, get to camp, or roam and slaughter mobs)? Also, I enjoy a good story line, one that can help bring out the immersion factor. Any ideas? I'm getting sick of massive online single player role playing games.

 

 

You'd probably enjoy the Vanguard approach then.  Sounds like what you are looking for.

Originally posted by Orphes

 

Originally posted by boojiboy

Originally posted by Stellos

Most VSoH players are in love with bad ass graphics, as VSoH has them.  And because of this you have really high-end machines that can run VSoH and probably even AoC.  Will you be trying AoC since you have a computer that can actually run the game smoothly?

I try almost every MMO.  But I'm pretty sure I'll pass on AoC.

 

I try and buy alot of MMO's aswell. I don't do it with the intention to replace the one I am playing but to see if I think it will be fun. If it's not well, meh.

I'm going to play AoC and see how fun it is in the end. I found out about Vanguard when searching for more information about Age of Conan, so I have actually been looking forward along time to see what kind of game they will make out of Conan.

Same approach, I would never stop playing Vanguard, but if there is another good game out there worth trying I'd definitely like to try it.  I just don''t think AoC is even worth a try.

Originally posted by Stellos

Most VSoH players are in love with bad ass graphics, as VSoH has them.  And because of this you have really high-end machines that can run VSoH and probably even AoC.  Will you be trying AoC since you have a computer that can actually run the game smoothly?

I try almost every MMO.  But I'm pretty sure I'll pass on AoC.

Originally posted by Morgaur

Vanguard does not support Antialiasing. Sorry dude

It works, but needs to be forced from the video card settings.  I don't have an ATI, so I don't know how to force it from that video card.  You should find info in the tech forum to help you.

Well, this game is not WoW.  1200 is nice and lively for one server and it's undoubtably on the rise.  Someone had done a count a month after the server merge and was getting 600ish at that time, so as long as it keeps moving in the right direction who cares if it compares to WoW?

The PvP server is as low as it gets... I'm not a PvP'er, but I've heard Vanguard doesn't do well with PvP.

The highest pop PvE server is Seradon.  Peak hours... a guess would be 1200ish.

This count was done on Seradon a month or so ago.... my gut feel is that it looks about right based on what I've seen.

Class Name, Number of lvl 50's, total players of the class

Bards - 121 (3,282)
Bloodmage - 80 (2,887)
Cleric - 164 (3,740 )
Disc - 52 (2,254)
DK's - 92 (4,036)
Druids - 59 (3,056)
Monks - 59 (3,136)
Necro - 82 (4,352)
Paladin - 94 (3,092)
Psi - 82 (3,075)
Ranger - 140 (5,607)
Rogue - 47 (3,365)
Shaman - 114 (3,301)
Sorcerer - 123 (4,050 )
Warrior - 111 (4,239)

Total lvl 50s on Seradon = 1420
Total number of characters on Seradon = 53,488