I have been playing mmos since launch of UO.  UO two years and was hookd, EQ1 2years loved it, DAoC 2years loved it, WoW on and off since launch, loved it but burned out and will most likely never play again.   Tried AoC, got a toon to 80, it is much better than at launch but to me feels like a console game, EQ2, extremely disappointed, WAR....meh,.  Have tried others as well don't feel strongly enough about them to comment one way or the other.

I mention the above to give you an idea of my taste in games.

I tried VG on a buddy pass last year and bought the game but never installed it.  Seemed good but got into doing something else.  Last week I gave the free trial a whirl and ended up installing my copy and subscribing.

Other than WoW, VG is hands down the best mmo on the market right now!  If you like the old school, deep mmo experience harkening back to EQ1, you have to try this game.

I am completely blown away by how beautiful the game world is and how deep the game play is.  There is so much to see and so many areas it is just unreal.  Crafting system is the best I have seen in any game.  The classes are some of most varied and interesting I have seen in any game ( I cannot decide what to play or where to start...you can start on the trial island, but every race gets there own starting area like in EQ1, which I love).

A couple of notes, even though VG is a couple of years old, it is resource intensive.  It is not a game where you can set everything to max and expect 40+ fps everywhere you go.  The game really likes mhz...the faster the clock rating on your cpu, the better the experience you will have.  I overclocked my processor and saw a massive jump in fps. After playing around I have the game looking and running great.  You need to play with your settings, but once you get them balanced between eye candy and fps it is really something.

Population is small, but I have had no problems getting groups at all.  I would wager the pop on my server is about the same on Cimmeria, one of AoC's busiest servers.  This is not entirely a guess, because I have spent a lot of time with the search function in both AoC and VG.  A larger pop would be nice though because the world is so damn enormous, people can be much more spread out than in a game like AoC. 

Community is excellent....best I have been a part of in a loooong time.

TLDR version....have played most of the major mmos out there, VG is the best mmo on the market right now, (excluding WoW).  Give it a good try and you will fall in love with the game.

I just cancelled my sub this morning.  It ran fine on xp, but now that I am using win 7 the performance is horrid.  Other games run better, I.E. LotRo.  Oh well, enjoy...wish I could find that recovery CD of mine......

it's a new game to you come back in 2 weeks and the bugs will drive you nuts.

 I have an e8500 and an ati 4870 and the game runs poorly by that I mean hitching-you will be running one way and all of a sudden everything freezes and then you are running the other way LOL,  its a good game but still with some major performance issues, I guess if you played diplomacy all day and did not move much it would not be so bad but dont go near a city.

I have a 2.66 quad and run the game at everything maxed out with good FPS. The GPU is as important as the processor and my 280 GTS is enough to compensate for the processor...

Originally posted by eddieg50

 I have an e8500 and an ati 4870 and the game runs poorly by that I mean hitching-you will be running one way and all of a sudden everything freezes and then you are running the other way LOL,  its a good game but still with some major performance issues, I guess if you played diplomacy all day and did not move much it would not be so bad but dont go near a city.

Hmm, could it be a ATI issue? My Nvidia card runs it fine.... Could be that it is not optimized for ATI. Of course my GFX card runs somewhat faster than yours (source: Toms hardware) but it shouldn't be enough to make that difference.

Maybe your computer is clogged up with programs in the background?

Pretty iffy game. I  have a Dell XPS 630i with a nVidia Geforce 8800 GT and the game locks up solid as soon as I  move my character. BSOD like clockwork. I've updated my graphics drivers, disabled my virus protection, the full litany of things you would normally do to try and eliminate what could be causing the crashes - no good. My wife's PC has a slightly slower Core 2 Duo chip but otherwise is the exact same PC as mine. Hers doesn't have a single problem running Vanguard.

When I  have to work at trying to keep a game running on a PC that's had absolutely NO problem whatsoever with any other single player or MMO game, I  don't bother.

I'm running an AMD 6000 (dual 3.1ghz), 4gb DDR2 1066, with a nv 9800gtx and the game hitches and stutters on me quite a bit. I get pretty good fps, there is just a lot of stuttering - which seems to be dependent on population and/or time of day. Yesterday I logged into Seradon IoD and it was pretty bad, I logged back in last night at about 12:30am (US Pacific) and there was almost no stuttering.

It's nothing that huge but considering everything else it's enough to play into me deciding not to resub. I really love the ideas behind VG (especially crafting and diplomacy which I totally love) but between me not really having the time to play any MMO (let alone one a deep RPG like VG) and the crappy performance I probably won't resub.

If I had the extra money laying around I might resub just to support the project, but then we have the SOE factor - I am not keen at all on giving them my money - just because. I was surprised I even left the station launcher on my comp after abandoning it when I was faced with those wretched pink flying ewoks in SWG in February. Not only did I dislike those floating pink teddy bears, I found their very existence in the game offensive.

Vanguard is an excellent game, though. If SOE sold it to someone else and that someone else gave it the love it deserves I wouldn't even think twice about supporting it (even if I can't play as much as I'd like).

 As you can see many others have hitching prob as well, I have very few programs running in background, I may try a different driver and see how that does but i think the game has problems.  I read a post recently on the VG official forums and this person had written a Tweek guide which was praised by many, the poster said he was quittiing because VG had not solved the hitching problem.

There's definitely a hitching problem still. While moving from one chunk to another, my toon ended up running a completely different direction than what he was initially. Kind of annoying.

It seems to be worse in Kojan for me than other places. Not sure why. Before Kojan, I could count on one hand how many times I had hitching problems.

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Originally posted by eolse
it's a new game to you come back in 2 weeks and the bugs will drive you nuts.

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Bugs? Yes there are a few but nothing that EQ1 didn't have or any other MMORPG on the market.

Originally posted by metalcore

 

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Originally posted by eolse
it's a new game to you come back in 2 weeks and the bugs will drive you nuts.

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Bugs? Yes there are a few but nothing that EQ1 didn't have or any other MMORPG on the market.

 EQ1 had bugs, but they addressed them quickly. Sadly VG didnt.. I love VG, but I feel like nobody ruined this game more then SOE. They have paid little to no mind to it & have let a great game fail. VG was released way to early & way ahead of its time. I strongly feel that if they would have lowered the needed specs to play VG & waited to release it - The game would have been huge. SOE sucks.. Its amazing that they were involved with the greatest game ever made and since have made abominations like EQ2... Then they go ruin the 2nd best game they ever made. Its sad .. VG is a great game that was never handled right.

I'm sold, I'll download the trial shortly. I was always interested in this game and veered away after several unimpressed reviews after launch.

I love deep immersion and it sounds like it could bring it. I've been playing Lotro and I enjoy the game too, but I'm very casual (15 hours in nearly a month).

Originally posted by iceberge

Originally posted by metalcore

 

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Originally posted by eolse
it's a new game to you come back in 2 weeks and the bugs will drive you nuts.

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Bugs? Yes there are a few but nothing that EQ1 didn't have or any other MMORPG on the market.

 EQ1 had bugs, but they addressed them quickly. Sadly VG didnt.. I love VG, but I feel like nobody ruined this game more then SOE. They have paid little to no mind to it & have let a great game fail. VG was released way to early & way ahead of its time. I strongly feel that if they would have lowered the needed specs to play VG & waited to release it - The game would have been huge. SOE sucks.. Its amazing that they were involved with the greatest game ever made and since have made abominations like EQ2... Then they go ruin the 2nd best game they ever made. Its sad .. VG is a great game that was never handled right.

SOE did not ruin VG, Sigil and Brad M. did that all by themselves.

Maybe you are mad that SOE didn't bother to toss more money at the game, but that's their choice, and I'm thinking they were tired of throwing good money after bad.

You're BOTH wrong. Neither Sigil nor SOE ruined Vanguard - Salim Grant aka Silius the lead developer gets the title of "most contrubuted to ruining Vanguard".

It is interesting that this person finds VG to be the best game out there,,funny thing is i agree sort of.I would say it is "Arguably the best"there are of course areas of concern that vary differently amongst players.

One thing people still do NOT understand is PC's ,graphics and the games.

You can have the best GPU on the market it means nothing,because not one game fully utilizes the GPU,the games run on the weakest link,witch is usually the cpu.People also need to realize that a game runs smooth,because the graphics are NOT that good[ahem AION],and they run rough,because the graphics are pushing your machine.VG loads large zones,IMO they try to load more than DX9 can handle,so it will ALWAYS have some problems with hitching,but if you can overcome it,you WILL have the best looking game on the market.

Many PC's ship with VERY cheap ram,the slowest high end ram possible.Duo/quad core means nothing,for these games,you are fast as your CPU speed,such as 3.1 ghz or whatever.Vista or higher eats up a lot of ram,so you should have 4mb of quality ram.Depending on the different makers,your GPU  may have configurations that do not favor your best setup,so you may need to setup your card properly.Sometimes older Bios can have a large effect,as many machines ship with very old /outdated Bios.

Anyhoot,none of it matters,the FACT is that some people have very little problems running VG,i had very little problems and i played it on a very average machine,i have owned a new PC since then,for about 2 years,so that machine was tech from about 4/5 years ago.I can tell you i have run games with VERY good hardware and yet have frame rates FAR less than friends of mine running inferior machines,there is a lot that goes on in PC's that can make large differences.

VG is still arguably at the top of the heap,but that does not mean the game lacks in any other area,it is full of content and has a large world,the ONLY thing the gamne has ever lacked is .....PEOPLE.

Anything can arguably be the best. North Korea is arguably a leader in civil rights, just like Vanguard is arguably the best mmo around.

Originally posted by Wizardry

It is interesting that this person finds VG to be the best game out there,,funny thing is i agree sort of.I would say it is "Arguably the best"there are of course areas of concern that vary differently amongst players.

One thing people still do NOT understand is PC's ,graphics and the games.

You can have the best GPU on the market it means nothing,because not one game fully utilizes the GPU,the games run on the weakest link,witch is usually the cpu.People also need to realize that a game runs smooth,because the graphics are NOT that good[ahem AION],and they run rough,because the graphics are pushing your machine.VG loads large zones,IMO they try to load more than DX9 can handle,so it will ALWAYS have some problems with hitching,but if you can overcome it,you WILL have the best looking game on the market.

Many PC's ship with VERY cheap ram,the slowest high end ram possible.Duo/quad core means nothing,for these games,you are fast as your CPU speed,such as 3.1 ghz or whatever.Vista or higher eats up a lot of ram,so you should have 4mb of quality ram.Depending on the different makers,your GPU  may have configurations that do not favor your best setup,so you may need to setup your card properly.Sometimes older Bios can have a large effect,as many machines ship with very old /outdated Bios.

Anyhoot,none of it matters,the FACT is that some people have very little problems running VG,i had very little problems and i played it on a very average machine,i have owned a new PC since then,for about 2 years,so that machine was tech from about 4/5 years ago.I can tell you i have run games with VERY good hardware and yet have frame rates FAR less than friends of mine running inferior machines,there is a lot that goes on in PC's that can make large differences.

VG is still arguably at the top of the heap,but that does not mean the game lacks in any other area,it is full of content and has a large world,the ONLY thing the gamne has ever lacked is .....PEOPLE.

    I get excellent frame rates but alot of hitching and when i say alot the game is not unplayable but annoying and this hitching is not evident in any other mmo or game that i play with the exceptin of Gothic 3,  there is really no argueing this as hundreds of people have the same hitching, sorry but that is not the way to make an mmo That is the biggest reason why there are not more people playing.

There are a lot of insightful comments in this thread.  The game runs very well on my system but I'm not saying that means that others can't have problems with it on their machine. 

I have found turning down settings helps...the game looks awesome on balanced settings.  I have my particle effects on full but the rest of my settings are pretty close to balanced.  The world does load chunks when you move from one large geograhical area to another, its almost like zoning in EQ1 except there is no LOADING....PLEASE WAIT message and on my box it only takes 2-3 seconds, but it is noticeable. 

With these settings I am able to get a smooth 45-60 fps (vsync on) everywhere, maybe dropping into mid 30s in the big cities with people around.  HItching has not been a problem for me at all except when I first load the game up.  I have a 2.66 ghz dual core oc'ed to 3.4 ghz, 4gb ram, 260 gtx video card and a 10,000 rpm harddrive.  

If you have an older/slower machine, the game still looks really good on high performance settings..you lose a bit of detail on armor and such...but it is totally accpetable.

VG has some rough edges..my main complaints are no rain effects in vista (solved this by dual booting xp), a little graphic glitch where a caster's weapon will flicker while they are casting spells that have a long cast time.  (trying to figure out a fix for this) And lastly, the attack animations while having a spear equipped look retarded.

On balance, and as I stated originally, these complaints are balanced aginst the deepest and most compelling game play I have enjoyed in a very long time.  For depth of play, really well developed classes, (do your self a favor anc check out  the spell and ability lists in the class guides at ten ton hammer) and immersive world, there is nothing out there that touches VG.

There seems to be a trend toward shallow game play in mmo's...VG is old school.

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Originally posted by iceberge

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Originally posted by metalcore

 

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Originally posted by eolse
it's a new game to you come back in 2 weeks and the bugs will drive you nuts.

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Bugs? Yes there are a few but nothing that EQ1 didn't have or any other MMORPG on the market.

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 EQ1 had bugs, but they addressed them quickly. Sadly VG didnt.. I love VG, but I feel like nobody ruined this game more then SOE. They have paid little to no mind to it & have let a great game fail. VG was released way to early & way ahead of its time. I strongly feel that if they would have lowered the needed specs to play VG & waited to release it - The game would have been huge. SOE sucks.. Its amazing that they were involved with the greatest game ever made and since have made abominations like EQ2... Then they go ruin the 2nd best game they ever made. Its sad .. VG is a great game that was never handled right.

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Sorry I disagree, EQ1 had lots of bugs, especially with line of sight both mobs and bows for many years unresolved.

I played for 3 years and before I left there was still a lot of bugs in the game.

Originally posted by Kyleran

 

SOE did not ruin VG, Sigil and Brad M. did that all by themselves.

Maybe you are mad that SOE didn't bother to toss more money at the game, but that's their choice, and I'm thinking they were tired of throwing good money after bad.

 

Yet $OE continues to throw money at SWG...I think that classifies as throwing money after bad.

Throwing more money at VG would be a good thing for $OE...then they would have an actual decent game on their line-up of mediocre/poor games.

Originally posted by metalcore

 

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Originally posted by iceberge

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Originally posted by metalcore

 

 
 

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Originally posted by eolse
it's a new game to you come back in 2 weeks and the bugs will drive you nuts.

---

 
Bugs? Yes there are a few but nothing that EQ1 didn't have or any other MMORPG on the market.

---

 

 EQ1 had bugs, but they addressed them quickly. Sadly VG didnt.. I love VG, but I feel like nobody ruined this game more then SOE. They have paid little to no mind to it & have let a great game fail. VG was released way to early & way ahead of its time. I strongly feel that if they would have lowered the needed specs to play VG & waited to release it - The game would have been huge. SOE sucks.. Its amazing that they were involved with the greatest game ever made and since have made abominations like EQ2... Then they go ruin the 2nd best game they ever made. Its sad .. VG is a great game that was never handled right.

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Sorry I disagree, EQ1 had lots of bugs, especially with line of sight both mobs and bows for many years unresolved.

I played for 3 years and before I left there was still a lot of bugs in the game.
 

I loved EQ, it was hard to log off :)  That's the type of experience I enjoy with Vanguard.  However EQ1 was buggy, but it was the only game in town and because people were so thrilled to be playing EQ we were very tolerant of crashing and bugs.  I played for almost 6 years and it did take them a very long time to fix some.

Originally posted by talismen351

Originally posted by Kyleran

 

SOE did not ruin VG, Sigil and Brad M. did that all by themselves.

Maybe you are mad that SOE didn't bother to toss more money at the game, but that's their choice, and I'm thinking they were tired of throwing good money after bad.

 

 

Yet $OE continues to throw money at SWG...I think that classifies as throwing money after bad.

Throwing more money at VG would be a good thing for $OE...then they would have an actual decent game on their line-up of mediocre/poor games.

I agree.  SOE isn't at fault for the condition that vanguard released in, but they sure did everything they possibly could to ensure the game wouldn't do very well.  Not to imply that Brad didn't screw up with just about everything he could while running the business, but in the end the game has a great foundation.  Smedley came right out and said they cut funding so they could see a return on their investment which anyone who has ever played an mmo would know the vanguard was going to crash and burn.  

Cutting the staff to a skeleton crew might be justifiable if it were the only thing they did.  Their first action was to remove the best developers and put them on other soe projects.  Then they tried to attract all the vanguard players to EQ2 with free copies and free game time.  Almost everything they have done shows they are not serious about this project which is a damn shame.

Vanguard has a better foundation for an mmo than anything soe offers on the station pass.  It is just to bad that two giant egos have ruined the potential of this game.

The same love/hate relationship with SOE, it's really comical imo.  I went through the same, and still am.  I swore to never play EQ1 again a long time ago, swore to not touch another SOE game since leaving VG, but now I am playing EQ1 and having a great time.

SOE was not the cause or reason why Vanguard was released in such poor state, and SOE has nothing to do with Sigil mismanaging $30mil and ran the company into the ground.  But...

SOE is the only reason the game is alive today, SOE is also the reason Vanguard is going to be getting microtransactions such as Livegamer and probably soon station cash stuff. 

So you can hate SOE on one hand, but if you play their games, you have to like SOE on the other.  My take on the small skeleton dev crew for Vanguard is that a game with such a small population as VG is the main reason why the dev team is so small, and why the game does not have plans for an expansion yet.  It's hard to blame SOE for this because you can't justify keeping 50-100 people dev team for a game that is smaller than most MMO's out there.

Since SOE is running a business, they have to cut the team members, or distribute them to other games.  Blaming SOE for why Vanguard never reached potential is getting old.  I played VG hardcore for 1 full year, saw the dev team go from 100 people to less than 10.  I watched how the game progressed, and while they made improvements, they just didn't do it fast enough even back when they had 100 people on the dev team.  The game is the way it is today not because of SOE this or SOE that, it is because Sigil failed to deliver, and they lied on too many occasions about what features were to be in the game, what they had planned, what their visions were, etc...  

Vanguard was never to reach its potential since the failed launch, only people who can't see that are those still in love with the game and don't want to see the game end.    Which is understandable really, who wants to admit the game they like to play isn't doing well?  There's absolutely no guarantee that if SOE throws money at VG that Vanguard would become popular.  You see there's a thing with games, where if it's shiny and new, there's a chance to attract players no matter what.  But Vanguard is 2.5 years old, I know hard to believe, but it is.  Trying to re-sell a game when the game never had a large fan base to begin with is hard.  As much as Sigil tried to make Vanguard like EQ, VG is not EQ.  It doesn't have the fan base like EQ.  There are lots of players returning to EQ1 despite SOE's effort to push EQ2 down everybody's throats (as mentioned above, SOE advertises EQ2 to all their fanbase).  VG just doesn't have that pull, and it took me awhile to realize that back when I played.

So blame SOE all you want, but the population ingame does not justify more resources or money.  Vanguard has 4 servers, one of them is a PvP server sporting 100-150 players during primetime, while the rest of the 3 have less than 1000 players during primetime.  From a business standpoint, you simply can't justify giving a game more resources with that kind of numbers.  If this was your game and you are forking out the money, you would say the same thing too.

(all this is my opinion)

I loved my disciple character I created last year, good game I do like it, but I just prefer LOTRO over it.  I would consider LOTRO and VG equal in terms of "best MMO" aside from WOW in my book, but both feel the same in a way so maybe that's why.