All Posts by Adamantine

Originally posted by kakarotrage 

don't be naive...it's obvious they reactivated their wow account after they told you that.

ROTFL

Ok, that one WAS funny

About difficulty, I personally miss challenge in the game. Raids are very hard, and thats great, as is the Griffon Quest (but I hate that I'm force fed a Griffon when I want a Wyven or Pegasus instead, and those are not available through a questline - Wyven you get through raids, and Pegasus you get through that masochistic racial mount grind which gives you KoS all over in a multitude of towns).

But otherwise, the game feels too easy to me, or more specifically, I wished the opponents outside of raids would be more varied and would have unique abilities you have to take into consideration when fighting them.

As it is now, outside of these special areas you have to vary your strategies only little. Once you know how your character works, all you have to think about is maybe that your current opponent is a healer, and such little details.

Originally posted by Vallador

Originally posted by Adamantine

Originally posted by Thillian

What the ~F~ are you talking about? I said you can get to level 50 crafter without leaving your starting town. Which is true.

Which, if you would have bothered to read my posting, is false.

One can reach level 50 in crafting only by doing work orders. I do not see any fun or sens in that but it is possible.

Reading my posting seems to be somehow an impossible task, eh ?

Originally posted by eugam

Huh ??? Which starter town offers workorders up to 50 ? And how do you do your tier quests without leaving town ?

That and much more was described in my posting. Only an idiot would stay in the same town, and even then he cant reach more than level 35. At that level, even gray WOs will be gone.

That model is ugly btw.

"Weak WoW clone" ?? LOL

Vanguard is no WoW clone. It was long in development when WoW was released, and the designers didnt cared about WoW at all until it turned out to be such a success, which was a big surprise to them. Still they havent changed anything about Vanguard though, to "appeal" more to the WoW crowd. So Vanguard is ZERO WoW clone. It is an EQ clone like WoW, though. It was designed by people who also helped designing EQ.

And Vanguard is different in many crucial points. Like the seamless world, the huge gameworld as is, the many more races and classes, the fixed design of classes (unlike WoW where Druid seems to be able to fulfill EACH AND EVERY ROLE if you only have the gold to reskill them), the harvest (though WoW seems to contain something like that as well), the diplomacy, the crafting, and most importantly (at least to me) the much more complex, dynamic and interesting classes.

There are currently many new players entering (and old players re-entering, thanks to the free month) the game, so maybe Sartok will come back to life too.

You get 8 slots total on your account, so you could create one character on Sartok and another on one of the PvE servers. If the PvP one doesnt get to life, you still can play PvE.

For the PvP server, well I havent played there, but I have read the PvP forums and I heard there:

I would strongly suggest to choose Qalian Human as Race. They get a racial ability which gives you practially an immunity against damage for 10 seconds. Thats simply IMBA for PvP (and btw very useful in many other situations, such as raids, as well). Note that all Humans (and Halfelves) get 10% melee damage, so making a melee class gets an additional bonus if you choose Qalian Human.

Class suggestions are not that easy. Healers are super strong in Vanguard PvP, because healing isnt penetralized in PvP, while damage is. Dread Knights and Monks can "jump" at opponents, which makes them very dangerous especially for mages. Rangers get strong bow attacks and can attack from distances where other classes cant.

The last life sign I heard from PvP servers was that Bear Shaman was reported to be completely overpowered. Qalian Human cant be Shaman, though.

Yes. Still no anti-aliasing support. Can be forced without problems through the driver now, though.

Originally posted by pimpdizzle

[...] more people need to try vanguard, they need to release a trial or something, srsly

Thats what I'm always saying.

In fact they should try the investment, give Vanguard a 200 peeps dev team, and do a huge relaunch of the game. If Vanguard gets the 200k or so subscribers it deserves and really needs, it will pay off.

Originally posted by StinkyPest

PS. To the eventual, "Every class is needed/wanted the same"... I mean no disrespect but I'm sure that isn't correct as I've seen in so many other games, and have already felt in VG after seeing so many healer classes in the LFG windows.

Its true in VG, though. There might be a lot wrong with Solo PvE and all PvP in Vanguard. But Group PvE is as good as it could possibly be; every class adds to a group.

Healers are popular to play in Vanguard since this is finally a game where healers are strong solists. So if you see a lot of Healer LFG its not because healers arent wanted in group. Its because so many play them.

About raids:

1. Need at least 3 tanks. Of course, 1 is enough in many instances, but at quite a lot of places you absolutely need 2 or 3.
2. Need at least maybe 3, 4 healers. Ideally maybe 6. Preferably of different types.
3. At least one necromancer is absolutely required. The necromeat buff is essential for tanks.
4. Having a monk for pulling is a big improvement. They are also good dps, so if there are multiple, its ok.
5. Sorcerers are needed for enchantment stripping. I have no clue who else can strip enchantments, though. Probably Druids and/or Psios ?!?
6. Rangers are needed for stance kicking. Monks and Disciples can do that, too, but arent as good.
7. Shamans and Necromancers are needed for getting rid of curses. This is essential for some mobs.
8. Psionicists and as a weaker replacement maybe Bards are needed for their ability to mezz mobs. Sorcerers and Druids have likewise abilities.
9. Typically there are too many Clerics. I had raids where the only healers where Clerics.
10. Ideally, one needs 3 bards, one for each group, for their insane dps increase and their extras to the tank group.
11. Need all kinds of classes for their buffs; Paladin, Ranger, Cleric, Shaman, Disciple, Blood Mage, Sorcerer, Druid, Psionicist and Necromancer each are able to buff other people; Bards can buff their group dynamically.

So its really not that easy. Your best bet for raids is again tank, healer, and bard. But theres a lot of other classes needed as well. The extra HP of the Necromeat buff of Necromancer is definitely a huge issue.

All of them. Pick what you want to play yourself. For a list:

- Warrior - ok, not the FOTM tank. Currently has bad aggro. Might change soon though. And still - its a tank. Having any tank is still much better than having no tank. One of the three worst solists, the other two are Rogue and Monk. Can use almost any weapon except daggers and all monk ones. Uses two weapon style.

- Paladin - Current FOTM tank, as they benefit from the melee bug that will be fixed with GU6. Good solist as well. Can do a bit of healing and buffing and even raise dead once they hit level 40. Probably the forever favorite tank for Rangers, too, since they get special buff to lower melee aggro. Overall most "tankish" tank with lowest dps and lowest weapon selection. Uses Shield and Weapon.

- Dread Knight - Over the time of the whole game, the best tank of all of them. Also had its problems, of course, but having both self healing and being able to dish out some damage definitely is no bad combination. Personally I would strongly suggest to pick DK over Pal and War, if you're unsure. Uses Twohanded weapons.

- Ranger - Best ranged damage, twoweapon specialist. Ok, ok - ranged damage sucks and in melee, the Ranger has an aggro problem. Still one of the best solists classes, can kill anything with ranged, can craft the best arrows of the game, and absolutely wanted in raids since they are the best stance kickers (the other two are monk and disciple).

- Rogue - highest melee dps class at the moment, which currently means: highest dps class of all. Will change after GU6 when Rogue is expected to fall a tiny bit behind Sorcerer. Also Stealth specialist and has some "Posion magic" which, for example, gives him an Evac. Uses daggers and twohanded style, often with something like a hammer in the offhand.

- Monk - second best melee dps after Rogue, Fake Death Specialist (useful for wipes, pulling mobs in places where all other CC doesnt work anymore, etc), also Stance kicker. Great to have in any highlevel group, and even better in raids.

- Bard - absolutely required for any top group. DPS increase for groups is just insane. Also many other tools, like fear, snare, extreme runspeed, reliable invis or invis vs undead, etc.

- Cleric - Tankish healer. Suffers from a certain Mana problem and has quite low healing. But has best HoTs of all healers and good general buffs, more on the melee side, though. In group, they can raise the dps enough to compensate for their own otherwise really low dps. Comes in 5 flavors with additional special skills.

- Shaman - "Nature" healer, comes in 3 flavors. Bear is best melee buffer (even better than Cleric), Wolf is something in between and the only healer with Stealth, and Phoenix is second best mage buffer (best is Psio). Can use shield, and are the only class that is able to do this that doesnt also wear heavy armor.

- Disciple - monk healer. Also gets Fake Death, and can heal manaless with "Jin", the special unit Monks and Disciples get from special attacks. Probably best single target healer, which makes him also one of the greatest solists.

- Blood Mage - mage healer, and future (GU6) top dps healer. Gets a ton of tricks as well, can do a lifetap for others (i.e. deals damage and heals an ally with it), and redirect damage (can take away damage from a single target, to get it dealt on the BM instead, can heal himself from the damage the party deals, etc).

- Sorcerer - top mage dps, and future (GU6) top dps class. Many instant spellcasting spells, strongest area damage spells. Can also dispel and reflect spells cast by opponents, can buff invis, and has some resistance buffs which are interesting for raids.

- Druid - second top mage dps, has runspeed, warrior(!) type buffs, snare, DoTs, and quite some healing. Also gets nice extras, such as making mobs forget their aggro, which can be used for pulling just like monks (much more dangerous though and I think they also have a long recast time).

- Psionicist - "mental" mage, got a lot of CC and the best mage buffs of the game (energy regen and time trick, which lowers the cooldown of abilities). Can buff others with Invisibility.

- Necromancer - summon mage, best DoT mage, and lifetap / HP to MP / Fear / Snare etc. Also got a Fake Death, though the weakest version (has casting time, while Monk/ Disc get instant version) only really useable during group or raid wipes. Can buff group with Invis vs Undead, and IIRC gets strongest Int buff. Absolutely essential and unavoidable for ANY raid, because of their meat buff.

Choose your pick. If you want to get into groups most easily, best choices are tanks, healers, bards, and maybe monks and psionicist for their nice extras (pulling with FD, CC, buffing).

I dont care that much about the most upgraded graphics.

I want the game to be stable, complex and challenging to play, and have enough content.

Vanguard has many beautiful places, and the viewing distances are amazing. Thats more important to me than shadows, lightning that should be different, and these "bad animations" that everyone mentions whenever he wants to complain about a game he doesnt like.

For thats a keyword: bad animations. I really cant remember the last game where I havent heard complains about "bad animations" from at least one person. Its a common complaint about ANY game. And you then never get only a line "this game has bad animations" - you always get this is wrong, that is wrong, and that, and that, oh, and of course - the whole thing also has bad animations anyway ! And: Vanguard has good animations, for all I can say. Motion captured and everything.

And I can live without "towns with life". Oblivion had that, and the game was still boring. "Towns with life", thats texture. Nice to have, sure - but not essential for having fun in the game.

The player base and therefore also the dev team is small enough as it is. I dont want them to concentrate on remaking the whole gameworld. I want them to bugfix, to fine balance, to get new content out, to make the game more interesting to play, and to attract new players so both the player base and the dev team can grow and we could finally get to the point of enough devs so theres enough new content added to the game. New continent, more raid dungeons, new classes (Berserker), maybe also new races etc.

And was any of the stuff the OP mentioned ever mentioned anywhere as being planned ? Aside from what McQuaid wrote long ago.

Doesnt WoW do something like that as well already ?

I faintly remember reading about it somewhere. Something about some kind of crystal mount which was super expensive, and super expensive in REAL money.

Originally posted by xenogias

Originally posted by Adamantine

Originally posted by Wolfenpride

People hate it because its the best.

Just have to quote this. All stupidity of the arguments of WoW fanboys in just one single sentence. That makes no sense whatsoever: if it would be the best - why hate it instead of playing it ?

Nice way to cut out the rest of what he said.

Nice way to complain about the presentation if you are out of other arguments ?

Originally posted by Wolfenpride

People hate it because its the best.

I can understand if one doesnt want to play it, but the hate for it is ridiculous if you were to ask me. I don't play it, I never got past 40+ when I did play, but I still think its darn good mmo.

There. Full posting. Same meaning as before.

Originally posted by bufford

 First of all. Vanguard? Even Smedley admitted to screwing up on this game [...]

And ? Still its in a good state now.

First thought you where talking about McQuaid, but then realized you are talking about the current big boss. I agree that guy is a bit clueless.

Why should Blizzard do anything creative when they have found the one formula that always works ?

1. Low hardware requirements
2. Simple gameplay
3. Beginner friendly
4. Massive advertisement

And tada, the new Starcraft/Diablo/Warcraft/whatever is ready.

Originally posted by lightblade

I see Guild Wars is not on there.  Does that means it wins?

Yes, your beloved GW is a definite success. Such is LotRO, by the way, too.

Uuuh, I utterly fail to see anything really funny in that picture, though. Thats because it has hardly anything to do with reality. I strongly doubt any failure in any of these games listed had anything to do with WoW at all.

I have played Vanguard from its release and I have heard all kinds of reasons why people leave. Leaving for AoC or EVE, getting bored, too many bugs, too low population, busy in reallife, starting egoshooters instead, ... but not ONE of them left to play WoW.

Well, some people are like that, in every game.

In Vanguard, for example, there are four different healer classes. ALL of them are full featured main healers. There are many differences, but the skill and equipment of the player will always play a greater role than the class.

Yet there are still people who ask "for a Cleric" instead of just for a healer.

Have to say while the gameplay is maybe not revolutionary, more like a solid improvement, the combat system of Vanguard is really great. You have an ambundance of abilities (ok - some classes a bit more, some classes a bit less), you have to react to dynamic events (scored a critical hit, detected an opponent spell, managed to parry an attack etc, again depending upon class), theres finisher sequences (you score a critical and get one or two more special attacks off), and theres conditions on the opponents (in a group, players perform special attacks that can cause certain weaknesses. If you have a skill that exploits that weakness and use it in that moment, your attack will deal more damage).