The changes are already happening, and they will continue to add more in over the next couple of months they said.

In the Works - Short Term
01/27/2009

The Vanguard Team is hard at work and here's a brief look at what's coming up!

Some of these goodies are slated for the next few updates that you'll see hit the live servers and some might be something that you'll see on your server a little bit further down the road. Stay tuned as we update this list and give you all the low down on what you can expect to see in Vanguard!

* Appearance Slots (Added already)
* Pantheon of the Ancients 6-man dungeon
* Level cap increase to 55 (Also added I believe as I have seen a few sigs with 55 listed)
* Halls of Blood Raid dungeon
* Garuzamut Encounter
* Alternate Advancement System
* Nexus 6-man dungeon
* Nexus Raid Dungeon

- The Vanguard Team

You can read the whole article here vgplayers.station.sony.com/inTheWorks.vm

AA= Alternate Advancement  extra abilities you can use to customize your characters, that enhance, add or improve existing abilities.

No clue on numbers, but on Seradon the trial/starter isle usually has 30-40 players most of the time, and the community is still very good with offering help and answering questions.

They have made some really good improvements with the engine, framerates, content and bugs. In addition to the new trial/starter Isle which gives very nice starting gear for level 10 in all 3 spheres of the game. If you want to try it out, and dont really knwo if you want to shell out the monthly sub, just get a trial key and setup a new account using it and give the Isle a whirl for your 14 days to test it out. Then if you are convinced to play again, you can just resub as an option.

If nothing else, I would say give it another try, they have made some really great improvements and are in the process of releasing a major content update, including a level cap increase and the addition of EQ/EQ2 type AAs, a couple of new high level zones and content, and adding enhancement slots to items.

No bottom line is if youre that worried about them taking your card and running then get a damn pre-paid card!! They sell them everywhere, even at Wal-Mart for gods sake. cant bill you if theres nothign on the card to pay with....

Hell anymore a pre-paid card to use for purchases online is the only sane thing to use, but with the big MMO companies there is very little issues.

And yes coming to these forums whining about a trial needing a CC# is pathetic, sorry to say it but it is..very pathetic and very EMOish. There are way too many other ways to get around it and running here like a little kid just to get the attention is sad. Whats next? Gonna post a youtube video of your next EMO whine fest?

Just when you thought Jar-Jar Binks couldnt get any stupider along comes his retarded brother..sheesh, learn to type right or forever be known as the retarded Jar-Jar.....as well as no one even bothering to read anythign you write ever again

Originally posted by ihatenoobs01

Julio Torres Producer's Letter - 11/02/2005

 

 My question is why are you dragging up a letter 3 years old just to whine and bitch??? Its not going to suddenly cause CU and NGE to go away and does nothing but cause yet more flame wars for a game thats damn near dead as is. I mean seriously, its been 3 years and no amount of whining, bitching and flaming on forums they dont even look at are going to change anything. They have already said they will NOT make a Pre-CU / NGE server so its time to stop living in the past and either play the game as it is or move on. But dragging out letters from 3 years ago just to whine and boost your post count is the very definition of LAME.

Actually it just sounds to me like the ramblings of an idiot seeking attention as you cant even compare a game that isnt even in open beta to any game currently out and being played, to do so is just wild speculation and stupidity. And I agree with the others that comparing the game companies and time in development is stupid and has no bearing on how good a game is or might be. Besides longer dev times means greater chances of less bugs, more content, better features as well as a more complete game if they took that time and used it well. So dont go ranting and being stupid about things you havent a clue about.

WoW never had 10 million subscribers at one time either. Like all MMOs when they put numbers out there like that they include all accounts, past, present and even Beta, active or not. Even Linden Labs of Secondlife fame boasts, 9-10 million on their website and yet there probably seldom more than 55-70k online. Those numbers are meaningless as such. Not debating that atm WoW might have the largest active subscriber base, paying fees for this month, but it is no where even close to 10 million and thinking otherwise is just deluding yourself.

And as for what Cryptic is doing, I think it is a nice change for a company to enable solo content for the larger component of the game, up to and including end-game content. Not everyone wants or cares to do those 40-70 person clusterf*** raids or even wants to group everytime they play a game. This is just an extra choice for those who dont want to raid or group all the time and as such should be commended, they are not saying you cant group or such, but recognizing the growing segment of gamers, the casual, "I have an hour or two to kill and want to play not LFG for an hour only to get a pick up group full of morons" type player.

Originally posted by Aguitha

Their protit is steadily decreasing according to there data....

Q1 2007 : 14.1 Million Profit

Q4 2007 : 10.2 Million Profit

Q1 2008 : 8.1 Million Profit.

It makes me woried in long term

Try reading the whole thing next time...they did a write off of a project that they didnt feel fit their goals which made the numbers look lower. Overall NCSoft is doing better than SOE anyway.

From the full report:

"In Q1 2008, NCsoft decided to take a one time write-off expense for the advanced development costs associated with the Spacetime Studios project, after determining the project did not fit into the company’s core development plan. That left a net profit decrease of 22% quarter over quarter and 43% year over year. However, excluding the write-off expenses, net profit would be KRW 15.2 billion (US $14.5 million) an increase of 48% quarter over quarter and 8% from the same quarter last year."

 Also, Tabula Rasa is not owned by NCSoft, they are the publisher. Destination Games owns Tabula Rasa still, where as the rest of the games listed are all owned by NCSoft so they keep all monies generated.

The CRs are right for the dragon, and the levels you can do it around around 8 to 10, being that VON was the orginial high end raid upon release, and you have to do VON 1-4 to get flagged for VON5-6 which is a 2 part dungeon , the first part to open the pathway to the last part which is the dragon. There are still alot of people running the VON series and killing the dragon and yes it is mostly one tank of some sort out beating on her with the clerics(or wizrds/sorcs if its a WF tank) spamming heals with others basically stand there or trying to get off shots now and then.

Some of the newer zones also have devils and demons you fight against as well as the giants you asked about. Overall DDO is a wide range of monsters you fight against, including a huge warforged titan in one raid. But if youre a person who likes to solo most of the time you will find DDO is not that much to your liking, as the dungeons can get pretty hard even if theyre several levels under yours, but it was designed and built around the group and the community, which is why everything is in one town and you dont have to run for hours (EQ anyone?) just to get to the dungeon youre after.

Overall, the best idea is to just get a trial and try it, theres a bit more of a steep learning curve to DDO over most MMOs because of the class system, but once you start to figure it out, its really quite fun to make characters totally suited to your playstyle.