So far I've been playing for 16 days.  I started on the Isle of Dawn as a Disciple on Seradon.

I must say that it was instant love. The Isle on Dawn was well populated, and lots to do for the first 10 levels. I found that crafting is very deep, quest are well done and the island has two dungeons, one for around level 5 and another around level 8. Finding groups were easy, and I waisted no time in learning how to LFG as I do with all my mmo's.  I even made a friend that showed me things in the game that I would have missed. Vanguard is much deeper than meets the eye.

At level 10 I was able to leave the Island, and realized that the real test of the game was about to unfold. And yes it did !  Using the Rift way to leave the island I found myself in Qa Riverbank for around levels10-14. Still I found that the population was high but kept to my self for most of this area, as it was new to me.

At level 15 or so I found myself ready to find a group for some good old fashion dungeon crawling. So I decided to right click on some names that were looking for more in chat and found a group going to "Khegor's End". 

Getting their was exciting, using the rift, then renting a gaff to fly and meet my group.  Being a Disciple it was my job to heal and found this dungeon to be a lot of fun. About half way in, one of my group called me on my methods of playing my class.  He asked me why I was not fighting ?  My response was that I was the healer.  Well it turns out that Disciples are to heal and fight at the same time.  NOW THIS IS NEW, and with a little help from my group I found that I can heal and fight.  This new revelation changed my entire out look of Vanguard in a good way. 

I spent the next 3 days playing solo rearranging my action bars to play for both groups and solo.  Vanguard just gets better and better.

All is going well, but I am getting concerned about the population as I get higher in level, I'm only level 18 and I do see the population getting smaller. I'm also finding at level 18 that most quest are group orientated and very few solo quest in each of the small towns and villages.  I joined a very good and helpful guild that uses Ventrilo chat, but most everyone are level 50. 

Over the weekend I did some dungeon research. and worked hard to get groups, only for most to just fall apart as everyone was new. I have a feeling that the population is just their because of the free play time for the month of June and everyone will be gone.  People say that Vanguard population is for 1-10 or 50, I'm just a little concerned.

I just need to add

Using the advanced search, for levels 16-22.  During prim times on weekends, I see only 41 players on at this level range. So it's not because the world is large.  The overall population is low at mid ranges.

There's a definite drop in the number of of lvl 20-40s. Lots of lower and higher levels. That's not really anything new to MMOs once a game's been around for a while. It doesn't matter if they have 11 million or 11k subs.

That said, you should move around the different continents. Thestra has quite a few places with soloable content in the high teens/twenties. I'm only level 23, so I'm not sure how thin the soloable content gets or when it starts to thin out exactly. Most of my adventuring has been in Thestra with a few exploratory jaunts into Qalia and Kojan.

In your high teens and twenties head to TK trengel keep, you should have no problem finding groups wanting to go in there.. Vanguard is a great game... really the population is not that bad.. the world search for players never works right. never has and really has not been fixed.

Uuuuh ... I'm really puzzled how one can possibly play a Disciple without hitting the mob.

If nothing else, you need that Jin from the special attacks for half of your healing spells, dont you ??

Its really only possible to miss that if you never actually start reading the descriptions of your abilities.

FYI, its no different with the other three healer classes. In Vanguard, healers have to be active ... and they are the best solist classes, too. Only tanks (other than Warrior, anyway) and Necromancer can get close to the soloing power of Healers.

Paladins fare quite well solo too

Originally posted by cybertrucker

In your high teens and twenties head to TK trengel keep, you should have no problem finding groups wanting to go in there.. Vanguard is a great game... really the population is not that bad.. the world search for players never works right. never has and really has not been fixed.

Well, the population could be a lot better. My advice to the OP is to try to find a IRL friend that is interested to try the game, it makes things more fun and the game do need more players.

I am not sure what SOE should do to get more into it, the game is rather fun actually. Maybe they should do as Turbine with DDO and make it F2P or revamp and re-release it. The population seems to be getting up a little now but very slowly.

I do play it from time to time, have a station account...

Vanguard seems to have a lot to do, but can't do a lot.

Each zone seems to have a lot of caves and interesting areas that I would love to explore, However most mobs are 3 and 4 dot's and is un-excessable when playing solo. I'm sure these cool area's are the group quest that I'm finding in all areas, because the quest I'm taking are just to kill x amount of mobs.  Yet each of the zone's are empty of people and are un- able to do the cool stuff.  Often I make it a point to try and recruit any player I see to do some group orientated quest, most don't answer or just can't at the time.  This is typical of all mmo's,  and that is why you need a very large population. I've even tried to use /ooc chat asking if anyone needs help, but not working so far.

The way I see it, their are 4 ways to find groups for dungeons and group quest:

1) LFG panel- never seems to work in any game, I don't know why as this is a good feature in any game.

2) Spam in /ooc- sometimes works, at least you can only pick up one or two more at the most. ( I wish Vanguard would make /ooc work for the entire world, as it stands it's only for the one of the three island's your on ).

3) Spam everyone using the advanced search- I find this is the best way as I always fill my groups, however as I say the population seems to be low in mid levels as far as viewing the advanced search.

4) Guilds- My guild in Vanguard are all 50's.  I really like my guild, very mature and helpful, but never the less they are 50's so they can't help. I may have to find another guild anyway.

I know this sounds negative, and I will work as hard as I can to work this out, because Vanguard is such a good game, I would hate to leave. My next step will to add people to my friend's list.  Kind of like making my own personal guild. 

The only way to avoid the all L50 guild thing, which is especially annoying right now when they arnt playing alts due to grinding to 55, is to start a new guild for newbs imo.

Me and the GF would be definitly up for it :)

Originally posted by Galadourn

Paladins fare quite well solo too

Err ?!? Yes, thats what I wrote ?

Paladin, Dread Knight, Necromancer, and all healers can stand in front of the mob and hit it (the Necromancer with his summon, of course). Which means they are the best classes for soloing, as they need no special conditions to solo.

Other classes, such as Rangers and Sorcerers, have to kite the mob.

And then there is this trio of "losers" who cannot heal themselves (or, in case of the Necromancer, the summon) and cannot kite: Warrior, Monk, and Rogue (though some Rogues claim they can kite, while others claim they cant - as I'm not playing that class at all, I have no clue).

Originally posted by Adamantine

Other classes, such as Rangers and Sorcerers, have to kite the mob.

Yes.  But I have observed Rangers kiting five mobs at once.  

Being in a 50th guild wasn't an issue til recently, as most 50ths played ALTs. The new level cap means everyone is playing there 50ths.

This should calm down in months ahead.

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Originally posted by vesavius
The only way to avoid the all L50 guild thing, which is especially annoying right now when they arnt playing alts due to grinding to 55, is to start a new guild for newbs imo.
Me and the GF would be definitly up for it :)

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There's already a noob-friendly guild on Seradon called Nooberific. I'm really tempted to join since I'm starting to get more group quests than solo ones now.

Originally posted by Nizur

 

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Originally posted by vesavius
The only way to avoid the all L50 guild thing, which is especially annoying right now when they arnt playing alts due to grinding to 55, is to start a new guild for newbs imo.
Me and the GF would be definitly up for it :)

---

 

There's already a noob-friendly guild on Seradon called Nooberific. I'm really tempted to join since I'm starting to get more group quests than solo ones now.

I was just about to recommend this guild to the OP I'm not in this guild but have grouped with members from it a couple times, It seems they are always keeping busy.

I'm playing an Orc Shaman right now on Seradon named Dethkor, Lvl 24,  add me to friends or hit me up ingame if you want I'm usually looking to do some group content.

Soloing in vanguard is, imho, very easy. At least if leveling up is your goal. I soloed my rogue to lvl 39 without any problems. The downside is that you miss out on a lot of fun. Grouping is the fun part in vanguard. Especially tanking is lots of fun, imho. I love the rescue moves and all the other stuff a fighter can do when grouped (although I abandoned my fighter when the devs decided fighters need to dual wield or miss out on their good stuff *mutters*).

Originally posted by Adamantine  

Originally posted by Galadourn

Paladins fare quite well solo too

Err ?!? Yes, thats what I wrote ?

Indeed it is, but I had not read your post when posting mine

Originally posted by declaredemer

Originally posted by Adamantine

Other classes, such as Rangers and Sorcerers, have to kite the mob.

 

Yes.  But I have observed Rangers kiting five mobs at once.  

If all you care for is xp / time, then theres no better class than Sorcerer.

But for me: 

good solist ::== can go the most places without fear of ever dying, doesnt need to fear adds, doesnt need special conditions, can handle any mob.

And thats Pal/DK/all Healers/Necromancer

(Each of them still can have trouble with specific mobs, which are handled better by others. For example, a healer will have big trouble against mobs with silence or stun. A necromancer will have big trouble with mobs that hit too hard and cannot be fear kited. Etc).

Not had time to read all the posts as off to work but if its not been mentioned, the Hunters league quests in mid to late twenties are very popular and theres always a few wanting to group. Always liked Skrillen point and Skawlra rock. Excellent quest rewards too. Halgar seems reasonably well populated and occasionally have had to wait to get stuck into some mobs that were being camped, lol, didnt expect that. ( road to Southwatch.)

HAY thanks Nizur for telling us about Nooberific guild, that was the answer i was looking for.  I just joined it, and their are lots of low and mid level players, and they are very active :)

Nooberific is a great guild. I joined it myself 4 days ago but haven't gotten a chance to group up with anybody yet. There are a few tools but overall a good guild

Did they ever fix the diplomacy citylevers on IoD?

Originally posted by someforumguy

Did they ever fix the diplomacy citylevers on IoD?

not sure what problem you are refering to but they seem to work fine today.

Originally posted by someforumguy

Did they ever fix the diplomacy citylevers on IoD?

Saw a post from Silius that they would be fixed.  But I haven't been there since then.

Originally posted by ethion

Originally posted by someforumguy

Did they ever fix the diplomacy citylevers on IoD?

 

not sure what problem you are refering to but they seem to work fine today.

 

You use civic parley to move the citylevers. If they reach a certain level, a buff will appear. You probably have seen these kind of buffs in cities on the mainland.

Anyway, those citylevers were broken on IoD when I came back to VG. You could move the numbers all you wanted, but the buff would never appear. None of them. I wonder if they are fixed now, because they were broken for months already when I came back.

When searching for patchnotes for this, I noticed how slow the game was being patched. Also a lot of the fansite links in the official boards' sticky didnt work anymore (I wonder if they cleaned these up). For me this was a sign that the game had too few players, and I moved on.

EDIT: Just checked and found a post (Dragore 6/17/2009) concerning this in The Newbie Yard section. Its still broken :/

Originally posted by someforumguy

You use civic parley to move the citylevers. If they reach a certain level, a buff will appear. You probably have seen these kind of buffs in cities on the mainland.

Anyway, those citylevers were broken on IoD when I came back to VG. You could move the numbers all you wanted, but the buff would never appear. None of them. I wonder if they are fixed now, because they were broken for months already when I came back.

When searching for patchnotes for this, I noticed how slow the game was being patched. Also a lot of the fansite links in the official boards' sticky didnt work anymore (I wonder if they cleaned these up). For me this was a sign that the game had too few players, and I moved on.

EDIT: Just checked and found a post (Dragore 6/17/2009) concerning this in The Newbie Yard section. Its still broken :/

The game will never pick up in numbers again. When a game fails hard it stays that way