All Posts by someforumguy

Im one of those new players I guess. I really like the game and it saddens me that no other newer MMORPG has managed to adopt some of the SWG gamefeatures (housing/city system, crafting etc. ).
I dont play SWG at the moment however for two reasons. I dont find the current playerbase I've encountered to be much helpfull (being ignored in Mos Eisley all the time is incredibily annoying) and the chatchannel browser is a mess. So I simply wait a while and check back later (playing a different MMO atm anyway) to see how it develops. I know however that Im part of the problem of low populated servers because of that :p (thats why i didnt give low populated servers as reason).

I was going to vote for free beer, untill I realised that it wouldnt be free if I have to buy VG for it.

Originally posted by vesavius

Ok, first off, before all the sensitive types jump in screaming 'troll! troll!', this is just a POV, not an attempt to flame. Just because someone sees something differently and wants to discuss it dosent mean they are trolling ok?

Right...

All I really wanna know is why is this game so highly rated?

The environment graphics are just ok... pretty standard for these days, and nowhere near as pretty as EQ2 or VG. The character models are really downright crude, though I admit not as fugly as VG's efforts... TBH, even Guild Wars and CoX are better overall graphically, to be *really* honest even DDO is actually better looking taken as a whole. EQ2's soga character models make LotR look like amateur time, which is amazing consiering that game's age now. I know graphics dont make a game, but lets be honest, they are frickin important... Otherwise we would all still be playing 'Lords of Midnight', right?

So, if it's not the graphics, which are 'ok' at best, what is it?

The game play is just cookie cutter fantasy MMO. If you wanna play this style of game, why not, again, play EQ2, which has such a depth of content and activities it makes LotR look pretty vacuous and soley relying on the thin veil of a well known IP for it's substance. Nothing new here, just the standard blah blah blah of EQ lite. The lack of classes, races, and starting locations, bland quests (fetch 10 of this, kill 10 of that... meh), and hand holding directionals that guide you throughgout make this a shallow experience at best. Why do you LotR OL fans rate this game more highly then EQ2? At least VG reached for the stars, even if it did fail, to create something epic and great. LotR OL dosent even want to seem to get out of bed...

So, if it's not the game play, which is bland and formulaic at best, what is it?

I am genuinely interested why people rate this game so highly, 'cause to be honest, I just don't see it... Is it just shiny new game syndrome?? Is it the recognised IP?? Is it follow the leader??

I compare it a lot to EQ2 here mainly because that's the game it is closest to in so many ways, without being as good in any of them... Seriously, if a LotR OL fan can help me out with what makes this game rank above EQ2, I would be very interested in reading your opinions.

btw, I was in the game for approx 40 mins before I saw my first 'Frodoesque' named hobbit... it made me shudder.... Just to think of all those Legolis, Gandelf, Grimli, Fredo, or whatever just waiting for me makes me wanna cry...

 

Originally posted by rob1101
you know what i mean. have the quote button quote only response made by the user who's button you are pressing ( if that makes any sense) and have the multi quote ( new option ), quote the entire message, regardless of how many previous quotes are there.

it would just make life easier.

Actually when I get back to these forums, I always make the mistake in assuming that the reply button in someone's post also quotes the message.  But the buttons react weird in my browser anyway. If i click the reply button at the bottom of the page, it opens a 'new topic' function.

First, it doesnt make sense to me that when I want to 'reply' to a specific post in a thread and click the to me seemingly appropiate button, that nothing gets quoted. That button seems misplaced to me and should be put at the bottom of the page. And yes, multiple quote is very practical. Otherwise you get this weird double post, delete and edit kind of thing going on, if you want to quote different posters in one message.

Apart from the obvious reasons that the game has a crappy gameclient and the work in progress state of the game (taken to far this time imo), you have a lot of players who take every change in a mmo personally. There is this weird thing going on, where players start acting as if they made personally a deal with the devs about how the game should turn out to be. This is not only with Vanguard, it is very common among most gameforums of this website.
You'll see (potential) players  with very different opinions about how the game should be and they dont realise that this fact itself should make them doubt their own opinions about the so called 'true vision'. I mean, why are there dozens of different 'true visions' about one game? Next thing they ban the devs for being heritics.

Doesnt this strike you as something familiar ?

I never played SWG during preN..ehm..something. I read about the changes though and can understand that those players felt seriously stabbed in the back. I mean a nerf is one thing, but completely overhaul the system and make your progress useless is something different.  And for that I can understand that several of those players are simply done with SWG and SOE.

However, I have a blast playing current SWG. It is one of the few MMORPG's left where you have some freedom in chosing what to do. The housing/city system is still more advanced then in any other current MMO. The crafting sphere is truly amazing in the way you can craft such a large amount of different items. And to be able to place crafting stations in your house and factories near it, simply rocks! Also the only current MMO where harvesting resources truly means something. The main reason why I stayed is the legacy quest chain. It is nice to be able to fall back to an interesting storyline when you are done with terminal missions for the moment.

I have a lvl37 Smuggler and a lvl 34 Architect at the moment and just started my first space quests :) It is nice to see a famous franchise being turned into a decent game for once. LOTRO is nice too (mainly for the epic storyline quests), but for the rest it is just one of those watered down run of the mill MMO's if it comes to gamefeatures. The only other current MMO at this moment that could compete in gamefeatures or promises with SWG is Vanguard. But with the crappy gameclient and the slow content/feature adding it is no serious option for me now.

I seriously hope that that the current succes of LOTRO and WoW wont turn the future MMO's in the same generic simplistic games. STO is already heading that way, lets hope that others wont.

Classic Always one who comes around to say "I told you so". Sorry OP that we doubted you. You are absolutely right! I never read your original review though, I hope you dont mind. I'm also still playing the game and are a bit ashamed that I have fun doing so. But for the rest Im really glad that you warned us in advance! Thank you, thank you /bow .

Kk, time for a shower. Phew!

I started playing SWG myself recently. Ive played mainly smuggler missions and legacy quests with my smuggler. Untill now they are quite solofriendly, but it might be dependant on the class that you pick. Smuggler has a selfheal with a medium cooldown and Ive used it several times to save my butt. On the other hand, ive been grouping with several legacy quests too. You keep bumping into other players on those quests and it is a lot more fun to whipe an outpost or cave with a group of people :)

The terminal quests are perfectly soloable on the other hand and ideal to do when you are logged in at the slow hours.

My trader alt has never grouped untill now. I keep finding questions about the crafting though, so Im planning to join a guild this weekend with the two characters. Will be a lot more fun to help building a player city, then only craft for the bazaar.

Thanks for all the replies. It is no biggie if I cant pack the camp up, I made it with low quality materials in the first place, because I was very curious how it looks. As for the questions ingame etc, Ive been checking the official forums for SWG and are thinking about applying at one of the guilds on my server this weekend. Sounds a lot more interesting anyway to be able to craft constructions for guildmates.

Looking at the way you can build in SWG, I wonder how it is possible that no other game has picked this up yet. It is the only (current) game that actually lets you craft usefull items. The whole playercity idea rocks. Im really curious how much room is going to be created with the whiping of structures from vet players that wont pay their upkeep or pack them up the coming time.

Hi,

Just recently I started to play SWG. Didn't encounter many problems with my main character who chose Smuggler as profession. With my Trader alt I sometimes encounter problems however.

I tried to make sense of the channel browser ingame, but to me it is a chaotic mess. With loads of channels that are completely abandoned. So I walked into Mos Eisley for some help, remembering that I sometimes saw players with the 'HELPER' tag.  Asking my questions in chat didnt even make one player react. Not one!! There were quite a lot of players in the city, either duelling, roleplaying or entertaining in the cantina. No matter if I was polite, obnoxious, no one seems to care!

The question was about my crafted elite camp. Wanting to see how it looked I deployed it close to Mos Eisley. But I couldnt pack it up again. With a basic camp I crafted before it didnt pose a problem, but with the elite camp I cant find an interaction point that gives me that option.

O, my galaxy is Chimaera -Europe. If someone please could answer this question, I would be very gratefull.

Just came back to find the download complete. Well, at least according to the Fileplanet downloadmanager. It's a zip file and at first it seemed to be a corrupt archive. Untill I discovered that you can only unpack it with Fileplanet's provided downloadmanager So for a backup I either have to archive it myself again after unpacking or keep using their software!
Still I think that EU players should have the option to make use of the bittorrent link that US players could use. Really, never make Fileplanet the only option. Ive sent an email to the customer service of Codemasters about this. But I highly doubt that they care. LOTRO is popular enough for most players to look beyond evil Fileplanet anyway. Maybe, I am to harsh about them, but I hate their way of trying to sell you a subscription and their artificial 'waiting cueue's' for people without subscription. The downloadmanager they force upon you with their non-standard archive made it completely wrong imo.

But hey, I have LOTRO now! See you all (well the EU players at least) in Middle Earth on 14 april!

O well, I started the download. And my suspicions were right. Even the downloadmanager offers you to go for the paid subscription or Fileplanet with their 'Skip the line!' button .  I wonder if there has been anyone who didnt need to be 'in the line' with a free download on Fileplanet.

Anyway, I dont understand why I cant make use of the same bittorrent that the US players can use. It would only make the bittorrent more efficient if more ppl would be able to use it.
Hmpf, my anger is settling down. If you happen to see a newb acting odd, like bashing some orc's skull while rambling something like 'Halfling coming through! Skipping the line! *thwack!* ' then its probably me

I just visited the US website. Is it possible for EU players to use the client that is provided with the bittorrent link on the US website?

When I chose to download it comes with the downloadmanager, If I cancel that ( I already have a downloadmanager installer) it also cancels the download. You dont even get a choice!

But anyway, Im already sick of the crapload of registrations I had to make to even get to the download. Three! Three new subscriptions for one gameclient! Another three times 'very important login information that I need to put away in a safe place and make sure I dont lose'.

Maybe you think its a great website, well I dont agree. It makes me sick to my stomach how I always have to wait 25-30 minutes for a download to start, while it shows a button 'Don't Wait! Subscribe now!' for a paid subscription. I didnt pay a LOTRO preorder for this crap! I hate their selling style the same way as those selling companies that call me when Im ready to sit down and eat my dinner .

Edit: I bet even their downloadmanager shows a subscription button for a paid subscription. They are evil!

I preordered the game at codemasters and got through an email redirected to Fileplanet for the download. I hate that website! It not only tries to lure you into getting a paid subscription, but also makes you install their downloadmanager! It is the only website that I know of that forces its own software down your throat and this only to download a client to be able to participate in a game i paid the preorder already for! I only want the LOTRO gameclient, not a subscription at a website that has nothing to do with the game!

If anyone of you know an alternative website to download from, please let me know. I refuse to have anything to do with Gamespy or Fileplanet crap! I already had to create two seperate accounts at codemasters, one for their normal site and another gameaccount for the codemasters online website. That is enough!

Just cancelled a so called 3rd generation MMORPG. The gamemechanics are interesting. It has nice exploring oppurtunities and the crafting process is the best Ive seen yet. The crafted items are also very usefull for a change. But soon I realised that the great crafting process is used to grind your level with doing what is called 'workorders'. They actually managed to simulate a reallife job. And a boring one for that matter.
Adventuring has mainly kill 'x' mobs quests. The questchains that are available end up in a dungeon ending with a oldschool boss camping game because nothing is instanced. If someone mentions that they should put the endfight boss in a little instance to avoid the camping, all those players go completely hysterical over it. Apparently they crave tedium. I wont even get into the simplistic mob behaviour in most open world mmorpgs (Saga of Ryzom excluded). All the humanoid mobs in those games seem to have suffered some serious braindamage it seems.

I really dont understand it. Those developers are capable to make great gamemechanics, but still fall back to oldschool repitition if it comes to developing your character. Does anyone know a modern MMORPG with great questlines in a persistant world? Quality similar to missions and quests in the last chapter of Guild Wars? Or are they only able to do this in instanced games?

Why cant they script quest encounters so that the npcs only spawn if the group/player that has the quest comes nearby? Getting at the end of a great questline only to find other groups killing that boss over and over because they like the dropped loot, breaks all immersion for me.
All those mmorpgs seem to make the whole levelling your character the main incentive to play that game. The lore is only there as fluf. I noticed that many players dont even read the quest descriptions. That also explains all the 'where can I find x?' even though the location is mentioned in the questdescription they got.

1. Discworld Online (only under watch of Terry Pratchett himself of course)

2. Babylon 5 during the war against the shadows. Not the lame season 5.

3. Warhammer 40k.

4. Deus Ex

5. Blade Runner

I preordered Vanguard and knew I was going to play a far from finished game. But right at start I also noticed that it already has a lot to offer. A lot more depth then most other MMORPGS. Especially in the crafting and diplomacy sphere. I have sent many bugreports and saw many bugs being fixed with each patch. Untill I noticed the dev love was primarily for adventuring.

Recently they changed the crafting quests that need special crafted items (you get temp recipes for that). Specialisation quests for example. They changed it so that you now need a certain quality or you get destroyed material. Amazingly that change went live with all the related quests bugged from that point on. Crafting one of those special recipes for those crafting quests only resulted into destroyed materials, even at 100% grade A. Where I dont mind bugreporting, I do mind reporting bugs on newly introduced bugs. Especially if it is in this case so obvious that the update wasnt tested. Even two patches later there are still several crafting quests bugged because of that update (The Herbalist's Equipment in Halgard; see for yourself). And there arent many crafting quests to begin with!

So as far as MMORPG's go, they have this great crafting process that grows more complex with every tier and manage to turn it into the next Korean MMO treadmill grind where you do nothing but workorders all the time. The few crafting quests that can break that tedium are now broken because of an update that is supposed to make them more challenging.

So with mainly adventuring (which of all 3 spheres is the least innovative) barely finished, borked crafting and diplomacy sphere still to short in development Ill give this game a pass for the coming months. Might return in a while if a different game doesnt take its place. Please send the devs on a short vacation first before they continue patching. Nothing worse then bugged fixes because obvious sloppy internal testing.

I agree with the comment that Vanguard is a work in progress and probably could grow into a great playing experience. But  saying that other MMORPG's also launched full of bugs and/or unfinished cant be used as an excuse for Vanguard's current state. I see people using that comment to often. Its as if they are accepting that companies launch their games to early.

I dont mind most bugs in Vanguard myself. But some of them are really very bad. The issues with grouping and looting for example. But most of all the strange performance issues. If technical support starts advising to edit vgclient.ini instead of changing ingame options to improve performance, then there is something seriously wrong. You dont have to be a wizzkid to wonder why those advised changes for the ini file arent in the game as option in the first place.

At the moment I cant play with sound turned on. The framerate in cities will drop from 20+ to around 5fps if I turn the sound on. This is the case with the onboard audio and the Creative Audigy (newest drivers of course).  You cant even chose which channels to turn on (only change volume)..its all or nothing.