Let me review vanguard for 2011...
"I log in to the world and I'm alone. I play for 10 hours and I'm still alone. I see a person and I run to greet them, but they've already logged out and I weep because I'm alone. I go back to playing Skyrim because it's a better single player game."

Vanguard is but a place holder for EQ3 now imho. It seems EQ3 rumoured to be sandbox theme park hybrid, so I'm pretty sure they'll be using all the areas that work well in VG in the approach to EQ3 development. That's not a bad thing as SOE's new engine is taking the next tech step and focus is open world.

Originally posted by Shadus

Let me review vanguard for 2011...
"I log in to the world and I'm alone. I play for 10 hours and I'm still alone. I see a person and I run to greet them, but they've already logged out and I weep because I'm alone. I go back to playing Skyrim because it's a better single player game."

Actually.. Vanguard is a better single player game.

Originally posted by sgel

Originally posted by Shadus

Let me review vanguard for 2011...
"I log in to the world and I'm alone. I play for 10 hours and I'm still alone. I see a person and I run to greet them, but they've already logged out and I weep because I'm alone. I go back to playing Skyrim because it's a better single player game."

Actually.. Vanguard is a better single player game.

Well, the combat system is much better, the game world is much larger, crafting is much superior, but quest quality is NOT better, unless you can get a group - and the whole game really only is fun if you have an active guild and get groups, and once you're at maxlevel, you'll want raiding too, as it is the strong point of Vanguard.

Originally posted by IAmMMO

 

Vanguard is but a place holder for EQ3 now imho. It seems EQ3 rumoured to be sandbox theme park hybrid, so I'm pretty sure they'll be using all the areas that work well in VG in the approach to EQ3 development. That's not a bad thing as SOE's new engine is taking the next tech step and focus is open world.

Interesting point, I played shards of dalaya that was a good "placeholder" for eq3.... but it's actually eq1.

Anyways, I was googling for info about brad mcquiad and came across this site. What people talk about his new hybrid project he's working on... what exactly do they mean? I read it may be more into social media. I don't know, maybe I'm a diehard romantic, but I look forward to a true successor to EverQuest.

Vanguard really was a pretty awesome game.  I played and had tons of fun despite the bugs and danger of falling through the world.  The FFA PVP server was an absolute blast.  The class skills were really cool and the pvp fights were very exciting.    I can't even really explain why the pvp was so fun in this game.  I still remember the time my Dread Knight was almost dead being chased by a sorcerer and teleported behind the chaser delivering a deathblow.   The graphics were awesome too.  The only reason i left the game was when all the gold duping started and SOE or Sigil, can't remember who was in charge then, decided NOT to wipe all the duped gold.  The economy was irreversibly destroyed for me and I lost my motivation to play.  I did end up going back to check it out early this year, the population was too low to really have fun doing world pvp.  With such a small community it was rare to see anyone else out in the massive world which made the game much less exciting.  The game really can't expand much as it isn't very obvious how to even get a hold of it.  Without at least minimum effort in promoting the game, new players will not join and it will die.  If it was re - released I would be there. (as long as they had the FFA PVP server)

Vanguard was beyond amazing when it was first released, and for a couple years.. but SOE had limited support for it even then. Thus, the game went downhill from there.

Even the originality of VG is somewhat broken now. I went back to it and did another stint when "Silius" was the dev lead, and I have to say... most everything he did completely sucked the soul out of that game. People were really excited about the Ancient Port Warehouse raid area, but aside from that... 

They gutted the "civilization" system, removed the concept of racial cities and "I hate you" factions like original EQ. Then they added a widespread teleport system. So people stopped exploring cities, because it was virtually meaningless. Then they stopped using boats, because you could just teleport, so why bother? 

Then they added in the Trial Island, and the whole concept of "growing in your own piece of the world" was gone. 

It's sad, there was so much potential. Out of every game I've played over the years, Vanguard was the best "explorer's world". Kojan was amazing. Even more amazing was when I eventually left Kojan, abandoned my roots and went to Thestra, and eventually Qalia. Going into Qalia was... well I'll never forget it.  There was absolutely nothing, nothing better than getting in a sloop and sailing through a continent with a friend. Sailing into Skrillian Point to see the sky dotted with flying creatures, finding out it's a hollowed out volcano... Running into the hills to suddenly come across a civilization carved in the rocks, the gnome city.

How could someone abandon this game...

Originally posted by centkin

Vanguard was FAR better back in beta than it was at release. 

If they stayed true to the game as it was a full year before it was released, it would have taken the world by storm.

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If they had the budget for 3 months that they had during development you could see some really big changes even as it is now, but you will never see that.

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I loved vanguard in the early betas.   It was VERY different than it ended up at release and beyond.

one could only imagine what the gameing industry would look like today had VG been the game it should have been. even today i compare every game that comes out to VG from advent to crafting. and im still chaseing VGs crafting. i look for it in every game i pick up. this is just one of those things you say " thats just a shame" to.

if VG were to ever get relaunched and taken care of they way it should have been, id be playing it right now. problem is SOE. i equate them with M Night Shamadickhead. had 2 good movies. ( sitxth sence and unbreakable ) and you continue to watch/buy his movies to see if there goin to be that good again. but there complete garbage. he fooled you yet again and got your money.

thats how i feel about SOE. they have a few great titles, one they completely destroyed. and we keep buying into there crap and getting let down. and i will be there for EQnext. might as well right. hell who knows. perhaps theyll get this one right. a perfect marriage of EQ and VG. wouldent that be just the greatest game? but we might end up with something like The Last Air Bender movie from M Night. Just a horrid piece of shit.

I agree, VG v2 would be great.

For me it was ahead of its time, if only they held out and tweaked for another 6months to a year it would have been a massive success.

Have been back several times, but hte only thing missing is the thriving population.

Actually the crafting in Vanguard ... well ... I have a full set of 6 tier 5 crafters, but it has been an insane pain to get them and I definitely wouldnt want to repeat this experience a second time.

So today I really dont like this way of doing crafting. I think I would prefer it if it was a bit more like this:

- Your crafter level is limited by your adventurer level.

- You have to do SOME crafting (like you do in Vanguard for hours and days until your eyes and fingers bleed), but only during special crafting quests (like learning your crafter class, or climbing to a higher tier).

- You need to get the actual recipes to craft things through adventuring and raiding, i.e. you cant get them unless you put some work into it.

- Your number of recipes per tier is limited, so you have to make a choice what you want to learn and what you will depend upon from others.

Thus to be a good crafter, you have to be a good adventurer, too.