Fighting Words: EQ2 vs Vanguard Pt. 1
Last week's World of Warcraft vs Lord of the Rings Online was a hit in Adam Tingle's new column, Fighting Words. This week, Adam pits two Sony Online Entertainment heavy-hitters against one another: Everquest 2 and Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. Adam's comparison of areas such as Player Characters, Community and "Everquest-ness" is so extensive that we've divided the fight into two rounds. Read Round One today and come back in a few days for Round Two of Everquest II vs Vanguard: Saga of Heroes.
Column By Adam Tingle on August 31, 2010
Can you count suckers? I say, the future is ours… If you can count! Now look what we have here before us. We got the WoW’ers sitting next to the Lord of the Rings Street Boys. We’ve got the EverQuest Runners right by the Warhammer Online Rangers…nobody is wasting nobody. That….is a miracle…Caaaan yooouu diiigg itttttttt?
Today, dear reader, the very contents of this article will force me to go into hiding after its publication. Just which Sony Online Entertainment game is better? Just which makes use of Brad McQuaid’s imagination best? Perhaps it is the golden child EverQuest 2? Or maybe it is the slightly scruffy and under supported Vanguard? Place your hand by your mouth in preparation and I will reveal the answers you crave. Remember to leave your knives and guns at the door, and as always, don’t go for the faces. Get ready for the SOE Bloodbath!
In the red corner
If only the tinkers at SOE were intelligent enough to create a time machine and destroy the creators of WoW as children, then we would be looking at a different MMORPG landscape right now. Released in 2004, EverQuest 2 you might say is the rightful heir to the online role-playing throne. Boasting some of the nicest visuals of any game available now and the largest selection of expansions known to man (or you know, quite a few), EQ2 is a solid and entertaining romp. While it has divided fans of the original EverQuest, it is safe to say that this offering of Norrath goodness is one of the greatest games on the market at the moment. Is it the best MMORPG that SOE has to offer? Many certainly believe so. Going to toe-to-toe with this goliath of the genre is no easy task.
In the blue corner
The unwanted bastard child of Brad McQuiad and SOE causes mixed emotions. With some stunning visuals, an impressive scope and ambitions up the wazoo, Vanguard could very well be one the greatest games of all time- if it wasn’t for some very difficult growing pains. Vanguard has suffered the kind of tragedy only an orphaned child could speak of; with its original development studio folding, its lead developer heading for the hills and its mean step-father SOE forcing it to live in a metaphorical cupboard, Vanguard has had a tough time. For all that has passed however, Vanguard is still an amazingly detailed and exciting game. Does it pose challenge enough for EverQuest 2? I believe this is a game that would give any MMORPG a run for its money.
Both games will be scored out of ten in a number of categories. The highest scoring will be deemed the winner. Remember to read in a brightly lit room and to take fifteen minute breaks if you begin to feel nauseas and dizzy.
Visual Thwoar
Starting off like the cheap graphic tarts that we all are, EverQuest 2 is undoubtedly a beautiful game. While some claim that the game has a quality of plastic about it, I feel that EQ2 has some of the best graphics of any game currently available. Zones and dungeons look amazing, certain areas will reduce you to jaw dropping awe and overall, this game just looks absolutely excellent. The only negative to this is that even today most PC’s struggle to handle the full graphical capabilities and this is not a game you can play on a cheap laptop or desktop, EverQuest 2 requires a nice cash investment to enjoy. Overall, the graphics can reduce one to tears, orgasm or both. 9/10
For me personally, Vanguard garners mixed feelings of its graphical prowess. At times areas look fantastic and vibrant with color; other times textures can look stale and rushed. Vanguard’s graphical power somewhat reflects the game as a whole- it has moments of greatness and ugliness. Thankfully for the most part however, Telon is as fantastical as its setting and, like EQ2, if you have the machine to run it, Vanguard will please the eye. One problem with Vanguard I do have however, is the overall theme of the game seems a little mismatched; this is of course due to multiple developers but it does detract from the games overall identity. In short, pretty most of the time, Vanguard is still a looker. 7/10
EverQuest-ness
Being that we are discussing a sequel and spiritual successor to EverQuest, it is only right that both games are marked on their similarity to said game. EverQuest 2, although a direct sequel, takes place in a kind of alternate universe to its original whereby the world has been torn asunder for some apparent reason. EQ2 offers a lot of the bells and whistles that its predecessor did but for some reason the developers of the game failed to capture that core EverQuest experience. The game world as said is broken and never delivers that sense of fantasy immersion and one of the most outstanding and annoying features is the game’s difficulty. While it is true that most MMORPGs are easy these days, EQ2 takes the prize here. The game comes equipped with a stop XP button that is needed to keep up with achievements; I don’t understand why the developers couldn’t make the game a little more difficult and avoid this. For a game that purports to be a sequel of one of the most difficult games ever, this feels like sacrilege. Points for the sheer number of classes, races, zones, cities and all other bells and whistles, however, points detracted for a broken game world and awful leveling- a Real game breaker. 4/10
Being that Vanguard and EverQuest were both created by Brad McQuaid, it is no shocker that they have a passing resemblance. Recently, I found myself awake in the early hours of the morning starring at the glow of my monitor. I was within a dark catacomb with a group of like-minded explorers; we had found untold wealth, a number of shiny weapons and also garnered tales of heroics within this place. Why was I awake until the early hours of the morning though? Because our journey had started, we had found loot and now we had to get ‘the hell of out of dodge’. Never since playing EverQuest have I felt fear like it; crawling through passage ways; hoping that that god damn arrogant Rogue doesn’t do anything too hasty; clutching at my sword and loot with hope in my heart; just waiting for that final tunnel filled with light. This game perfectly succeeds EverQuest in the way a game by Mr.McQuaid only could. If you want old school adventure and immersion for immersion’s sake, Vanguard is your game. EverQuest’ness? This game is EverQuest 2 by all rights. It’s just a shame that it couldn’t use Norrath. 9/10
Game World
The world of Norrath was a place where I first found my true online-gaming love. With a rich lore and history to it, the developers of this game really had to go to major lengths to ruin its greatness. Set five hundred years after its predecessor, EverQuest 2 takes place within ‘The Shattered Lands,’ a series of island zones connected by bells that instantly transport the player to the next. Since its release, SOE has spent the majority of their expansion content putting the game world to how it should have been in the first place. Continents such as Faydwer and Kunark have been restored and transport elements such as boats have been put in place. My own views upon the world of EverQuest 2 are somewhat biased as a devoted veteran of its predecessor, however, I do feel that the world of this game is fundamentally broken and inconsistent. Rather than feel like an actual world, Norrath now just feels like a number of themed levels connected by portals rather than a massive expansive landmass. Zones are gorgeous and richly detailed but the game drops all immersion when faced with a line of zone teleport buttons. Stunning sights are abundant but ultimately, the world feels like a set of zones rather than an actual world. 4/10
Coming directly from the imagination of Brad McQuaid is Vanguard’s world of Telon. Spanning three continents and several climates, Telon is massively expansive, detailed and delivers everything that an MMORPG world should be. The landscape is littered with towns, villages and cities and exploring throughout Vanguard feels exactly like it should. Vanguard captures that old school sense of wonderment and excitement, something that newer games fail at with their funneling and linear paths. Some of the sights are spectacular and immersion factors high with various modes of transports not opting to fast track players to their destination. Telon only loses points on its game world however for its inclusion of teleport stones which bypass the essence of the game. While only included to help a dwindling population get to one another without spending hours travelling, they do ruin the immersion and excitement built up by the game world. 7/10
Don't care about these games. Just wanted to say, nice "Warriors" reference.
I think the OP is dead on.
The only thing I disagree on is graphics. The autohor didn't factor in character models. And no offense, but Vanguard has some of the worst looking models out there. EQ's are pretty and different, and at times stunning.
Look at Vanguard is best what old school MMO could ofer all rolled in one hugamonguos game.
Unfortunately this game was abandoned after the shaky launch. It literaly has team of 2 developers working on it. Ever since it was taken by SOE.
Which is crazy.
EQ2 on other hand is ugly ugly joke. The game is so bad , people are not interested in playing it even as free version.
It was just a frankenstein monster cooked up to combat WOW. In which it laughably failed.
But SOE keeps and keeps investing all its resources in it ...
Crazy. ... But thats SOE
it's a real shame what happened to Vanguard, it was a great game minus all the bugs at launch. I really wish I had the money to buy it off of soe and give it the support it deserves.
In this day and age there is no reason to go back and start playing an MMO that is more than 3 years old unless you have a bunch of friends in there wooing you. So in other words, this discussion is in the category of "nobody cares" unless the purpose is to potentially upset those who are currently playing one of them.
I played both and can tell you that both "were" amazing games. However, now they are old. I do miss the bg music for EQ2 though.
I disagree with you, older mmo's are whats good, I just recently started playing EQ1 again, still playing UO, am an alpha/beta tester for EVE and would still be playing it if I didn't get perma-banned. New mmo's suck imo
I am sure you have social reasons for going back to EQ1 - there is no way you can convince me that it's because it is the best MMO to play these days.
actually no I don't, I am on a private emulated server....I just missed the nostalgia of EQ that much, graphics come last to me unlike every new mmo player these days.
MMORPG.com is a neat place. It truly is. I get to read all about these older games - a good thing IMO because development moves on and new and updated content and bugfixes aren't always in the news. However, reading about these games makes me want to play them. Not an entirely bad thing, but time can only be divided so many ways and still be useful. So anyway, good article, now I'm off to distract myself as I wait patiently for LoTRO F2P.
insanex
Well, I am an old mmo player and graphics/sound extremely important to me, so to each his own I guess. My standards have been raised as the technology as improved over the last 15 years. While EQ graphics were immersive in 1999 they now appear paper-dollish and shallow. Also, requiring 2 minutes of auto-attack and spamming kick and bash to kill 1 level 2 rat just doesn't cut it for me anymore.
There is alot more to EQ1 then just that, it's the experience which is what the article was talking about when describing vanguard.
Vanguard has quality design choices from huge open world, massive dungeons, distinctive classes, real housing, real boats and the list just goes on and on. It may lack the quantity of expansions and employees that eq2 has, but it is a superior game design despite the poor performance.
EQ2 has nice visuals and quantity of content, classes and races, but it really lacks in the quality of its execution and design goals. Even with more years, money and development manpower it is still a subpar game all things considered.
Brad may not be able to run a company to save his life, but it is clear he understands game design and players better than those who have been recycling EQ nostalgia for the last 6 years.
I played and liked both Games for almost a year each...But if I had to choose between the 2 it would be Vanguard all the way...I know this article is not finished, but already a couple areas the author gave a slight edge to EQII (graphics and character models) I prefer Vanguard. I really think it's always going to be one of the biggest shames in MMO history what happened with Vanguard. If it had the financial backing and support EQII did it would be an absolutely amazing game...It's still pretty good, and that's saying something considering it was never really finished...ever...
always felt that Vanguard was the real EQ2.. but would i play it again.. no.. i did try it and it was just as bad as i remembered, but, at least for me, it wasnt as bad as EQ2.. i do wonder though what would have happened if SOE had given up on EQ2 and concentrated on Vanguard more, but as EQ2 was their own cash cow (XPACS'R'US) i guess that just wasnt on the cards, so instead we have 2 games, neither of which is going anywhere.
I am doing the trial now for VG and will be subscribing at the end of the trial. While I agree some of the animations are a little rough around the edges, visually it's really good. Not AOC good, but good none the less. I love that there is more than just adventuring to do. Crafting and diplomacy are a full feature by themselves and quite honestly I love the no instancing in the game especially after doing Tortage in AOC.
I tried EQ2 again a couple of months ago, but just couldn't get into it.
I really wish SOE would put just 4 devs on Vanguard for 12 months and see what happens at that point.
OP has a horrible sense what constitutes beautiful in terms of graphics. I think he is either blind or...well...he's just blind. To say this is one of the most beautiful games out is to stretch credulity beyond the normal limits of our physical universe.
I'm sorry but I felt the graphics were probably closer to each other than that, as Vanguard tends to have much better "feel" to it yet is bogged down by the engine and same with EQ2 pre spell effect nerf. So I would have given both an 8 on graphics.
Character however is the BIGGEST draw to Vanguard for me and CRUSHES EQ2 in terms of sheer starting areas, UNIQUEness in each class wether fully developed or not(matter of opinion on that I think). I made one of each character when I played VG and not once did I come across a class that made me think of another class.
Not so for EQ2. I made a monk and bruiser...felt the same. made a conjurer and necro...felt the same. So on and So on..so for this part EQ2 gets a 1 and Vanguard a 10.
The rest of the points I agree with so far.
I am totally surprised that vanguard is still up and running. If anything vanguard needs the free to play treatment not eq2.
To be honest I only know 2 folks who are still playing vanguard. I know I gave it up a long time ago for many reasons.
There is nothing anybody could say that would make me even compare vanguard to eq2 other than they are both hosted by soe.
I will end this by saying this. I would sooner play lotro before I would play vangaurd, and if any of you have ever seen my posts about lotro you know how bad I hate turbine. So that says something.
I think for the most part this article is spot on for the most part. Graphics is a highly opinionated topic of course.
As far as EQ-ness...VG ranks either a 9 or a 10 out of 10 on my scale. I have played every MMO to date and VG was the only one that hooked me in that "way" and gave me the nostalgic feeling.
Grammar and content correction police here...
The game world as said is broken and never delivers that sense of fantasy immersion and one of the most outstanding and annoying features is the game’s difficulty.
Less "and"s please, more commas/periods. I also marvel at the comment saying that EQ II is difficult.
Will you role a Dwarf, Gnome, Troll, Froglok, Elf, Dark Elf, Human….the list goes on and on.
I am going to be nice(er) and assume you mean "roleplay".
EverQuest 2’s newbie experience, for me, is almost perfect. The game offers a choice of a beginner isle
You must not have been playing EQ II for the past few months. The (second...everyone misses the original) beginner isle was removed from play when the New Halas expansion came out.
EQ2 still has more of a healthy population then most paid mmorpg.the free version is to attract new players similar to what lotro did,mind you i agree they did keep way too much restriction on the free version though.
I am truly amazed either of these games got a ranking higher then a 5 or 6 in any given category.
I've always looked at these two games as examples of how not to make an MMO.
Currently playing VG and I am having a blast. Finally reached Raid lvl and there is so much to do, to me it does feel like the old school EQ. I have tried to get into EQ2 but like many others it just didnt grab me like VG does. 2cents.
I am subbed to both and find VG to be a better game in all aspects. Better, non-repetitive classes. Better graphics and visuals. Better dungeons. Better world with more immersion. Definitely not zoned. Better starting area(s). Not sure how EQII is winning any of these categories, unless you are counting number of develoeprs. EQII's visuals and graphics fall somewhere between the cartoon-nature of WOW and realism of Vanguard.
You should have started this post with the words, "In my opinion...", but then you would have realized how silly the rest of your "facts" are, and wouldn't have bothered to post it. BRAVO!
On topic: I've played both, and enjoyed both immensely. The reason I never got past my mid-30s in Vanguard was simple: I knew the game was never going to get support / expansions / Alternate Advancement, and it seemed like a waste of time to invest in my character knowing full well as soon as I hit cap and raided for a couple of months there would be absolutely nothing new.
Apologies for missing that they have done away with the Beginner Isle, I must admit I haven't spent much time with the game since earlier this year.
EDIT: This is an opinion piece so you don't have to agree in the slightest; personally, I adore EQ2's look, however, you may not.
I don't know of any game that after you hit lvl cap and spend a couple of months there it isnt going to end. No MMO is ever guaranteed expansions andor and ever-lasting life. Even WOW will end at some point. I understand the time frame is different as Vanguard has been suffering ever since Sigil dropped the ball.
My point is that lots of people say they like the game but aren't playing because 1) the population is low; a Catch-22 arguement. If they joined more poeple would join. 2) no support; another Catch-22 as SOE would support a game that had more people playing it (EQII for example) and the list goes on.
EQ2 with the proper hardware has graphics that rival recently released mmo's in terms of detail and precision. If you're referring to the mobs that look like stickmen from a distance, there's a graphical setting which fixes that.
VG has good graphics as well. If you fail to see those FACTS when comparing them to other modern mmo's that came out in the same timeframe, then I think you have unrealistic expectations of mmo's that can run on a wide range of hardware and still be future-proofed. Just because an mmo doesn't look like Crysis doesn't mean it has bad graphics.
There really isn't a catch 22 here. Either soe feels confident enough to invest in a game to attract players or they don't. Players themselves cannot affect how much money soe will spend or developers they will commit to a game.
For example, players will avoid a game they think is going to die or not going to get enough support like has happened with vanguard.
However there is no guarentee that if more players joined or spent more money that any of those resources would be reinvested back into the game like eq2.
Any additional funds would most likely be siphoned off to one of soes other projects. That is pretty much all they have been doing for a while now.
The article exposes something I've long felt about EQ2. EQ2 gets it's biggest criticism not for what it is, which is a fun, pretty 2nd generation MMO, but what it isn't, i.e. a direct port of Everquest with new graphics.
This despite SOE saying at length that they weren't trying to do that. So many EQ1 vets claim that they are looking for a game like that, but that's what Vanguard was supposed to be. It failed miserably and had to be rescued by SOE. Those boring tedious games like EQ1 are in the past and will stay there, thank goodness.
You're wrong with your history & facts. SOE was the one trying to sell EQ1 players that EQ2 was going to be an updated EQ1 with newer engine, newer graphics, but EQ1 gameplay. As a result, many EQ1 players (myself included) flooded into EQ2 on november 2004. We went, we saw, we played, and we went w t f. EQ2 turned out to be nothing like EQ1, it played nothing like EQ1, and it even didn't feel like EQ1. Hello EQ2 freeport, you aren't what I remembered, and I personally don't like zoning 5x just to get through a darn city.
So those of us disappointed with EQ2 either went back to EQ1, or went on to play WoW, which ironically, was a game more like EQ1 at launch than EQ2 was. But that shouldn't surprise anybody, WoW was developed by ex-EQ1 players. Vanilla WoW had everything EQ1 had, minus some changes to the tedious parts such as death penalty & exp loss. EQ2 lost out big time, they lost EQ1 players' support, and they failed to attract the newer generation playerbase.
EQ2 as a game went through 2 years of revamps, changes, tweaks, and engine performance improvements before Smed finally came out and said, yeah, we probably should've called this a different name, because EQ2 is nothing like EQ1. By the way, EQ1 remained to be a higher populated game than EQ2 up until recently about a year and half ago. Please don't use Vanguard as a benchmark when comparing games like EQ1. EQ1 is a success story all around, the game that was #1 on the market for 4 years, the game that jump started the 3D MMO genre. Vanguard....failure all around, from beginning to the end, everything about Vanguard was a failure.
Vanguard failed to live up to its hype, mainly because Brad McQuaid couldn't manage $30 million budget. He spent 5 years developing a game and couldn't deliver, he went over budget and the game launched in a poor state. Most of us that beta'ed and played Vanguard agree it was at LEAST 2 years from being finished. Heck the game released without visible player helmets, no raid interface, and a very very unoptimized engine. How in the world could you release a game in 2007 in such a bad state? People like to bash SOE for their lack of support for Vanguard. If I ran SOE, I would've never bought Vanguard, I would've told Brad to fail and not try to ever run a company again. The guy has creative ideas, but the guy doesn't know how to manage a company for crap.
Please for people trying to use Vanguard's failure as a way to bash EQ1 or old school gameplay, you aren't being fair and you know it. Vanguard was a failure all around, inside out, from beginning to the end. Why are people still talking about Vanguard when it has soon to be 1 server with SOE admitting that the game has no full time developers working on it, I just don't know. Let Vanguard rest in peace, the game needs to die so maybe someone else out there can make a new Vanguard with a better game engine, a finished game at launch, and a company that doesn't bankrupt within 3 months of launch.
It's how I feel about it. I used to be a VG fanboy, spent a year and lots of money & time playing it. But it does tick me off when people try to use Vanguard's failures to say why a new EQ1 would fail. Yeah, so are we to say newer games based on newer generation games should always succeed? Hello Warhammer Online (aka WoW-wanna be), hello AoC, hello overhyped STO, hello all the other new overhyped games that released but don't deliver. Failed games are failed games, they have nothing to do with older games. They are failed games of their own, they failed for many different reasons. Vanguard didn't fail because it was built to be like EQ1, Vanguard failed because it was released as a broken game, with broken promises, and a very badly managed company that went bankrupt within 3 months of launch.
Amen brotha, UO (Pre-Trammel), EQ1 (Pre-SOL), EVE (Pre-Exodus), AC1 still remain the best mmo's ever created.
I have played both these games, not a lot, but I have played them. I played EQ2 for 5 months and Vanguard for 9 months (spread over 3 seperate terms).
I have to say that I preferred Vanguard in almost every way. The sheer scale of Vanguard is impressive and I have to disagree with the OP on the graphics. Excluding the terrible human character graphics (the other races look great) Vanguard blows EQ2 out of the water graphically. Again, the sheer scale and scope of some of the vistas in Vanguard has to be seen to be believed. EQ2 didn't really impress me at all graphically, then again I don't really like the artstyle so that puts me off quite a bit.
For me, crafting is also better in Vanguard than in EQ2, as are most of the dungeons. Its hard to explain, but I love the general atmosphere and immersion that I feel in the huge world of Telon.
As I said I think I prefer Vanguard in almost every way. With some love and attention from SOE (which it will never get) Vanguard could be the best fantasy PvE themepark MMO on the market. The problem is that there are still glaring bugs and performance issues that have riddled the game since launch. This, along with no possibility of any decent new content is what kills the game.
To sum up, I wouldn't play or reccomend either of these games. EQ2 I personally find really 'meh', while Vanguard could be a great PvE game (never a great PvP game though), but it will never reach its potential due to lack of funding and support from SOE.
Love both games and am currently playing EQ2 extended and would play Vanguard again if they did the same.
BTW, was it just me or did the red and blue writing go 3D just to keep up with current trends )))
I completely agree with Daffid011. Not playing to cap and raiding because I know there are no developers working on the game isn't a Catch-22. It's being realistic and knowing that regardless of how much *I* am willing to invest in Vanguard, I know SOE is not willing to invest anything at all in it.
As much as I enjoy Vanguard it's, SADLY, a dead end.
I have to say I agree. And I'm s subscriber. I had to take a few months off but I kept my sub going because I believe that the game needs to be supported.
Having said that, Sony seems to gather up these games and put them on life support. Instead of gathering up games like the matrix or Vanguard and investing a lot in order to make them superb, they just throw them on the station exchange.
And as you say, if a company doesn't look like they are 100% behind the game then the players will stay awa.
I'll still continue to keep my sub as I don't require the same thing that other players require. I just like to log in, explore, take it easy. But I don't see Sony investing heavily in Vanguard with their upcoming games on the horizon.
Maelstrom -
Your point is fine. Your reasons for not playing are OK with me too. Daffodils commentary on why the lack of support from SOE is not a catch-22 I can buy into as well. His point(s) are well taken.
However, taking out my original comment to why you left at mid-30s level and using the second part of my reasoning isn't valid. I didn't use my catch-22 arguement about the amount of players to try and refute your reason for leaving the game. I pointed out that at some point in time all games will stop getting expansions and stop being supported, so that depending on your view of an acceptable timeframe, any game can succumb to your agruement and therefore not be worth playing.
Their upcoming games will fail...I jus thave a good feeling about it. People will try EQnext but I guarantee it'll be like wow.
I think that's because the player character was a separate subject.
Mardy, your revisionist history aside, SOE stated multiple times that EQ2 is not EQ1 with prettier graphics. Any thoughts to the contrary are in your fevered imagination.
Making a sequel to a game as succesful as EverQuest was and then doing something completely different is a dumb move though. People expected a sequel and they got a spin-off. I think its fair rating the game on EverQuest-ness simply because it bares the same name.
"Vanguard is your game. EverQuest’ness? This game is EverQuest 2 by all rights."
QFT^
Ive always felt that Vanguard was the REAL Everquest 2
This, if you thought that then well its your own fault.
heavy-hitters?
I can see that applying to EQ2, but unless Vanguard has picked up steam since I played it I wouldn't put it in that category.
I played Vanguard on three different occasions (About a year after release, 6 mo. or so after that, and then a year after the second try) and every time I would put in a solid 4-5 hours of play and I never saw more than three other characters on screen at the same time. I ended up quitting because despite mountains of potential, the game had no real single player draw - and that's what I felt like I was playing, a poorly designed single player fantasy tromp.
A quick search is only showing me two servers for Vanguard? Is that correct? If so, opinions of the author aside, I think pocket books have already decided the outcome here. If I'm wrong and the whittling away of servers has improved the Vanguard experience (it's certainly possible, it worked for both Warhammer and Conan) I'd certainly give it a go again.
EQ2 is the narrow sighted game that SOE didn't have much passion in. Vanguard is the sequel to EQ from the original master mind of EQ.
EQ2 was released before WoW, and included many features WoW didn't adopt until later. Having played both from each's respective beta, I'd put my money on early WoW taking the early MMO crown largely due to the far FAR easier system requirements. In the years since WoW has proven itself and brought many things to the MMO table, but it had extremely little that was "unique" at launch.
This is what we call being closed minded.
Agreed, DAOC is still the most enjoyable game on the market for my play style. The only game that has ever come close was Vanguard when it actually had a pvp server with a decent population.
As you can see by my signature, me playing a 9 year old game is not from lack of trying new games, iv tried every major mmo to release since DAOC and still nothing compares in my book. Also this is not because of old friends wooing me back, all of my best mmo friends have gone on to new games or quit MMO's all together.
Some people just get too caught up in the whole "newer is better" ideology. Well, it isn't true for wine, music, or video games. Vanguard probably will never be surpassed in scope again. WoW ensured that new games would be simpler and more accessible. And that probably fits with the super-fast gotta-have-it-now need bright shinies and a naked hug every five minutes to enjoy my time sort of mentality that gamers have adopted. It just means that the time for imaginative, grandiose mmoRPG adventures is over. But really, it's better for us older folks this way anyhow. I don't have the 8 hours a day to spend MUDing on pay-per-minute dial up anymore anyway.
I have to give the ole who cares shrug on this one, I have played both games, not a fan of either or SOE.. /shrug :)
Soe moved the release date up in response to blizzards release date, just so they could release EQ2 2 weeks before wow. It isn't like eq2 was on the market for so long that wow emulated many of the games features. Just look at what game went through combat revamps, crafting revamps, questing revamps, etc.
Most of the features that eq2 released with were quickly removed if that says anything. I played on the eq2 test server for the first year after release and for every massive design change that eq2 went through, there were several others that were considered and tested before that one. The devs were litterally all over the map with the direction they were trying to take the game. One day the game would force grouping on players and the next it would be so dumbed down easy nearly anything could be soloed.
If wow took the crown due to performance, then soe would have spent the first few years of eq2 redesigning the engine and making the game run smooth. Soe spent those first few years redesigning the gameplay, because that was the biggest problem the game had.
I completely agree with you, lets put it like this...when it comes to metal...namely the Death Metal genre....most bands old material is waaaaay better then the stuff thats coming out today....Morbid Angel, Suffocation, Impaled, Cannibal Corpse, etc... all those bands first few releases are by far their best material....I think older is better imo
Hes talking about before release...and hes right! i was there myself :) all we heard while it was in development was that it was going to be an updated EQ! newer graphics and such! not trying to argue here but that was how they started out, they only backtracked and said it was not EQs successor when players left in thier thousands.
Us vets remember clearly unfortunately! thats why we still look for that EQ feel again. But im not saying eq2 isnt a good game in its own right, it is!
I have tried both games a couple of times each and Vanguard wins hands down. EQII just didn't have the feel that either EQ or Vanguard has. It maybe prettier (I don't really agree) then Vanguard but I could never get past a month of play on EQII. Very dull without any hooks for me to strive for. Vanguard I resubbed to a couple of months ago, and while it still has some lag and bugs, is a superior game. I too have found myself jerking away from the monitor going...oh damn I have to get to sleep for work in the morning! It is more immersive then any other game out there including EQ. With all the changes to EQ I just don't even find the original EQ as compelling as it was. I find myself when gathering in Vanguard panning around to look at the landscape. Some areas are average other areas are stunning. Character creation is better then many mmo's. Combat is standard but that is a plus to me. I don't want to have to think too much how do I win this fight. I just want the tools necessary to have a decent chance to win. If it were a PVP game that would be different, then I'd want as many tools as I could get to maximize the chance to win. Being PVE I really don't care as much, while fighting is important it's not the hook for me.
I think one of the major reasons Vanguard appeals to me over any other game right now is the community. It's mature, speaks fully, (no trash talking) mostly without any antagonizm to new players, amazingly helpful to each other and strangers. I've grouped up easily, something difficult in most other games if you're not known to them. The community are very upset about SOE's part time developers with Vanguard and understandably so. This game could have been at the top of the lists with a little TLC.
I did try this game at launch and stuck with it for 4 months, even after friends moved on to other games. Finally I couldn't take the extreme lag and bugs and left. I was also a bit ticked off about the failure of the McQuaid/Butler team to hang tough with this game and SOE's failure to move this game to the forefront it where it should have been.
I am very happy I've tried it again.
I kind of sort of find it funny that were comparing Vangaurd to EQ2.
Vangaurd has about 50-80K subs on one server. EQ2 has about 250k-300k subs spread out across mutltiple servers.
So saying Vangaurd is ahead of eq2, I have to really laugh at that.
Oh well. It worth a chuckle to point that out.
Personally I like Vanguard far better than EQ2. I just do not see what the people playing EQ2 see in that game. To each his own, but it certainly could not get my interest. I like big worlds, the reason for my preference for Vanguard.
Nothing wrong with old games, I have gone back and played AC1 even with the weak graphics. Probably one of the better MMO's today because your character is not pin holed into a restrictive class.
As to history, UO was the first MMO as far as I am concerned, mainly because Meridian 59 was pretty much invisible to most of us. It never appeared in stores and the net was still in it's infancy so finding games on it was a bit problematic. EQ took over that mantle because it had the social tools that UO lacked.
As to EQ2, SOE rushed it out as a sordid buggy mess, just to beat Blizzard out the door. It took SOE over a year to make it playable. It would not run well on most of the computers out there at the time. Vanguard was also far from finished when released, but Brad was clueless when it came to how to run a development studio and misspent millions. It also did not run well on most computers when released.
The OP failed to mention Vanguards unique diplomacy system which I have not seen in any other game and found to be challenging and fun.
Maybe he also missed the point of the landscape of EQ2 being broken. It is supposed to be! The world was shattered by the angry gods for all the raiding of their planes done in EQ1.
Maybe they could have done something different to allow travel between the various land masses like maybe a boat ride where you get n the boat and it takes off, zones and then you are landing at your destination.
That was just SOE's way of coming up with an excuse for small ass un-inspiring zones.
First I would like to say excellent write up and comparison. Sadly I have never played Vanguard but have on two different occasions did a trial of EQ 2. I played EQ for five long years and would totally agree it is not a game for one who does not learn quickly.
I will agree that from the little bit I expierenced in my trails of EQ 2 the graphics were really nice and yes there was population. I can't say that they were friendly or helpful from my expierence but they were there. It is somewhat different from EQ in many aspects yet the same as well. But my little 6 levels that took no time to get but left me the having to purchase it to find out what the rest was going to be just wasn't enough to make me want to go that far.
I haven't ever seen a trail for Vanguard so I have never tried it but with the exception of a small population it really sounds like a game I could enjoy overall.
Again great article and will be looking to see the next part.
I think you're overly harsh on EQ2 in the world / difficulty sense. Don't get me wrong, I agree that EQ2 is not very immersive, compared to something like LoTRO, but if you look at the way the game launched (and played for the first couple of years), most adventurers did have to run everywhere, they couldn't afford the bells and getting to faraway lands required long access quests and travel on ships.
Over the years, these things have been taken away in order to let new players progress through the game without major roadblocks - this is done mainly because with the game being old and most players beying of higher level, new players no longer have the benefit of large population / grouping pool as they level up, so keeping the zones at same difficulty becomes excessively difficult.
You also did not mention that Vanguard did something very similar when they completely destroyed all the amazing race-specific starting areas and started to funnel everyone though the exact same generic experience. It was a terrible move, but it was necessary for the population.
If you were to compare the first 2 years of EQ2 to the first 2 years of Vanguard, the "Everquest'ness" factor would be a lot closer. The only reason vanguard hasn't changed is that SOE hasn't bothered to put in the money.
Like I said, I always hold up EQ2 as an example of how NOT to create an immersive world, but I think the points you made specifically are missing some key information.
"Soe moved the release date up in response to blizzards release date, just so they could release EQ2 2 weeks before wow. It isn't like eq2 was on the market for so long that wow emulated many of the games features. Just look at what game went through combat revamps, crafting revamps, questing revamps, etc."
Which is completely irrelevant to the claim that EQ2 was "cooked up to combat WoW," and in fact further disputes the claim, so thanks for the back up.
"Most of the features that eq2 released with were quickly removed if that says anything. I played on the eq2 test server for the first year after release and for every massive design change that eq2 went through, there were several others that were considered and tested before that one. The devs were litterally all over the map with the direction they were trying to take the game. One day the game would force grouping on players and the next it would be so dumbed down easy nearly anything could be soloed. "
EQ2 remains my longest played MMO and that is grossly exaggerated, feel free to provide a link citing how "MOST" of the features were removed. Regardless, it's still irrelevant to the claim that EQ2 was created to combat WoW, both games were in development simultaneously. I'd also point out that WoW has undergone far, FAR, more massive design changes than EQ2 has - to include dumbing down. Once Cataclysm hits the servers, any comparison between EQ2 and WoW design changes will be even more laughable.
If wow took the crown due to performance, then soe would have spent the first few years of eq2 redesigning the engine and making the game run smooth. Soe spent those first few years redesigning the gameplay, because that was the biggest problem the game had.
EQ2 ran perfectly smooth for me, but my gaming system usually run ahead of the bell curve. It sounds like you are implying WoW had no gameplay issues, but yet here we are years later with so many changes that the early game is considered a separate entity all together and people run clandestine "vanilla" servers on the side. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy both games and currently log more time on WoW - but any claim that a game was specifically created to combat another game that wasn't even released and was being developed concurrently yet is almost impossible, and if you have truly played both games then you realize how ludicrous that is as they are night and day different games. If EQ2's goal was to mimic WoW, they would have done it by now and play similar to Aion/RoM/Allods.
WoW copied AC2, just to end that argument.
And stole there character/world design cues from the Warhammer universe. If we are opening cans of worms, we may as well go all out with the factuals. ;)
Which was copied from LOTR
Not so much the character design (i.e. visuals) as Tolkiens original stories weren't illustrated (well, he did do sketches but nothing akin to Warhammer's look). The Warhammer fantasy setting was inspired by several great fantasy worlds to include Howard's Conan and even D&D's Greyhawk as well as Tolkien. You make a solid point on the hierarchy of fantasy inspiration.
I was more specifically referring to the outcry that Warhammer Online was copying the character design of World of Warcraft, when Warhammer has been using that flavor of characters since the mid-80's at least... and the Warcraft universe began (Orcs & Humans) as a tech demo Blizzard created for Games Workshop in order to try to coax them into allowing Blizzard to create a Warhammer game.
Again, great point though OoMpAlOmPaZ, almost all modern fantasy can trace it's roots back to the grandfathers of the genre.
Heh it's the morning and I got a massive headache and I didn't read that part of your post, well I did but it didn't comprehend in my head haha
Blizzard did indeed rip-off warhammer.
That reminds me... I need to get on some coffee :)
I am making some vanilla/hazlenut coffee right now :) and playing EQ1 lol
After getting the only two decent mmo's on the market in WOW vs. LOTRO for the first article I should have no we could oly go downhill from there but I would have hoped they would have atleast went with EVE vs STO/SWG before busting out this matchup of has beens.
I would have to add Planetside and City of Heroes to that list. They were excellent MMO's when they were at their peak.
lots of lulz here.
eq2 good graphics? since when. did i miss something?
imho I love EQ2, its is an awesome game however, Vanguard out shines it in every way. The only problem is that SoE don't see it that way......
[1]
I read the comment by lobotomist as referencing the post release frankenstein the EQ2 became as it tried to compete with wow after each game released. Once the dust settled, EQ2 did get carved up like a monster from a horror movie. I guess it just depends on how you read the statement. No I don't think EQ2 was originally designed to compete with wow, but most think that is how it ended up.
You claim EQ2 released with many features that wow emulated. I'm curious which those would be.
[2]
Ok, I admit I exaggerated and I try hard not to, but I'm not claiming eq2 was conceived to combat wow. However, eq2 started making some pretty big changes in response to how it was doing in the market compared to what wow was doing and thus started the frankenstein changes to the game. You can see the changes in the patch notes. I don't think any change in wow compares to the combat revamp, just for example. Several classes were completely altered. Not enhanced or updated, but altered to become drastically different than what they were and the revamp still didn't solve the imbalance in the games classes.
Looking at its history it is hard to tell if eq2 is trying to be a solo game, a group game and a raid game, because it changes focus so much. Combine that with the flipflopping of pvp being added and then abandonded. Then look at its long difficult struggle with being a subscription game or a microtransaction game and now both combined in more ways than one.
The game has lacked direction for a long time and is on its fourth of fifth lead producer/designer now? What changes in wow really compare to that?
[3]
Nothing I said comes even close to hinting that wow had no issues at release. Sure all games including wow & eq2 change, but I don't hear people saying wow has been eq2ified, but you hear plenty of people saying eq2 has been wowified.
What is this guys smoking?
1) EQ2's graphics are 1/2 of what vanguards are.
2) EQ2 NO LONGER has a starting isle ( hasnt since the launch of New Halas in feb) so that rules that one out,, I mean come on,, you can go from level 1 to level 20+ in less than a day in EQ2.
I have a sub to station and have both games on this computer, so yea,, i can tell you vanguard is a better game all around than EasyQuest 2 is..
IMO the author of the article needs to step away from the pipe for a while.
While I disagree with your opinions on which is the better game, I do agree I'm not overly impressed with the comparisons the author has been making. What's next? Runes of Magic vs. Age of Conan?
Whats Vanguard's subs numbers lookiing like? Is the world more populated than Everquest?
Vanguard only has 10k-20k subs...they are only down to two servers.
EQ has more subs I think.
Me and a friend played both games and we used to say that vanguard was a sort of EQ2 on steroids :P the "core game" of vanguard is imo way better than EQ2 but EQ2 obviously have more to offer in terms of content (expecially as the orphan status of vanguard and SOE unwilling to spend money on it)
i disagree with the OP both abouth the graphic and characters.
i always tought that graphic in vanguard is quite beautifull (expecially for its age) i agree that some areas are not that "pretty" but the quality of some areas are amazing, another pro of vanguard in this reguard is its open world approach and there you can really climb on top of a mountain and look around to see rivers, plains, forests and so on... something not really possible to do with EQ2 that have smaller and tematic areas, even if generally they are more developed. I think the games are kinda equal in this reguard, if vanguard had still the old character models (that where veeeery good) it was an easy win but after they chose to replace the beautifull models with ugly ones i'll go for the tie (better char EQ2, better settings VG)
Characters... this is a no contest imo and vanguard wins hands down... EQ2 characters are extremely one dimensional while VG ones are more varied as many of them can cover 2 roles. Is not even true about the no difference about races, as racials powers have quite a big impact, expecially for some classes so, even speaking about races i think Vanguard is a bit better. About the underdevelopement it was kinda true but i found the same in EQ2, i used to play SK there and the class was not balanced at all in reguard of other tanks... well it was lot of time ago and hopefully they fixed that but still... :P
I haven't played either but I loved the writing style. Keep em comin !!!
Waiting for GW2 and playing...kinda...Aion which has virtualy no storyline or lore and some of the most broken PVP I have ever experienced. I was an Aion defender for a long time but I just can't do it any more.
if they put more effort on VG instead of EQ2, I am pretty sure VG will get a healthy population.
Is like come on !!!! VG has every MMORPG fans wanted: Housing, Raids, Guilds PvP, Flying Mount, Ships, yada... yada..yada.....
not to mention having a unique crafting system + a diplomacy mini games.
Oh my my .... shame on SOE.
This makes me excited to think that someone is smoking a finer green leaf than I am! lolol..
EQ2 graphics are the shityest graphics ever known, while parts of vanguard arnt amazing generally it beats most mmo's hands down.
On this point and this point alone I dismiss this entire review, nothing nearly as awesome as the lotro vs wow article.
Bad, very bad indeed. Why not try and convince us that World War 1 was a peacfull time for mankind eh?
Agree a hell of a lot... if the effort they put into improving (debateable though) EQ2 had been spent on Vanguard, which, imo has far more potential than EQ2, then its possible that SOE might have a AAA title on their hands, personally i think their pinning too many hopes on DCUO ... without good reason, half the problem with SOE is that, they get a decent game, and either poorly utilize it.. or ballz it up completely (they've managed both though).. half the time i think their still stuck in the EQ1 mindset.. i think Vanguard is probably always going to be one of those games, that will be remembered for the fact it should have been a lot better.
Cooked up to beat WoW??? It was released "Before wow"... And with the production time to make MMO's being 3+ years. When they started working on EQ2 initially, the existance of WoW wasn't even known of by ANYONE besides blizzard.
When EQ2 was first released, it was undesputably the most technically/graphically advanced MMORPG in existance... One of the prime factors that attributed it's failure was the fact that people couldn't run it properly on the machines of that day. Hell most people couldn't run it properly till late 07 early 08.
You can argue about the artistic direction EQ2 took all you want, but that is purely subjective...
Have you ever heard the saying "beauty is in the eye of the beholder?" Graphics is largely subjective. The author doesn't use anything factual like polygon counts or texture comparisons - basically resorting to a grading scale of "I think this one is prettier." You are doing the same thing with your rebuttal by using "shittyest ever known" (how many MMO's have you played?) and "amazing."
How does that other saying go? "Opinions are like..."
I guess all I'm saying is this is another thing I'm not liking about the article, but I'm not sure it's worth dismissing the entire thing just because his opinion on graphics differs from yours. It's a short read and he gives a lot of props to Vanguard, you may find other things you like.
SOE is not getting another nickel out of me no matter how pretty a picture you want to paint of its games. The company hates its customers and destroys good games.
Vanguard was going to be the game that I finally left Everquest II. I remember getting so hyped up and excited about the game, but in the end, the game was an absolute mess and to some degree, still is.
Underneath the massive pile of bugs, there's a really great game with a totally unique gameworld, but the population simply isn't large enough to support it. Even if the game had a population the size of EQ2, the world is simply too massive for its own good. The server population of VG would most likely have had to rival the population of a WoW server to fill out all the various quest locations.
I was waiting for the SWG defense. :)
In my opinion that was the only game they really "destroyed." Vanguard doesn't really count since SOE didn't start taking control until way late in development (completing the coupe after release), more of the blame lies with Sigil I think. Everquest 1 is still going strong. :shrug:
The thing is, I like it that way. Which of course seems bad for business.
what I absolutely hate about these games is that the game worlds try to make it so that every area has people. That feels very artifical to me.
OF course, I'm probably one of those people who wants more of a world feel than a game feel.
Last night I was looking down this coastline, no players in site though I knew there were a few on the Island I was on, and it felt right. It felt like I was on a remote island.
I think where the game fails is that the cities seem so hard to navigate around that they draw less people. I noticed that the busiest city seems to be the on in Qual (or howerver that is spelled) because everything that one needs is easily findable.
This game really is a niche game. Unfortunatley the bugs and issues are such that it never truly feels polished and just won't draw in people who aren't patient with its issues.
er.. how about Matrix Online and Planetside. admittedly i thought the matrix game was a bit dire.. but Planetside was awesome.. until they messed it up with bfr's and the caves.. SOE have made some daft choices in the past.. and their present isnt exactly covered in glory either.
After reading this the first time I went and try both games...again. For me it is EQ2 for its game play in similar area's as the writer mentions. I would only add tha EQ2 is easier on the eyes for us that over the age of...older.
Just FYI, you can actually play EQ2 on a cheap computer. I played EQ2 on a cheap ass computer for years with no problems and minimal lag.
Also, PROOF READING, it matters!
I thought most, if not all of the development for MxO was Monolith? And I never considered Planetside an MMO, though admittedly I took for granted that you were referring only to SOE's mainstream MMO's as opposed to all the games they have had a hand in. If we are looking at the big picture of "destroyed good games" though, then Activision and Electronic Arts should also not be getting any of your nickels. :)
Of course, you can even play Crysis on an old PC... it just won't look as nice.
That would be NO!!! They are down to one server in Vanguard a total of possibly 100k at max if even that.
EQ2 has a ton of servers You take the top 3 and you easily beet vanguard's numbers. That is why when I looked saw the title and them giving vanguard the win I rofl.
Oh and vanguards is down to one dev. just one as they fired the other one a couple of months back.
100k? lol...probably closer to 20k.
when talking about everquest 2 graphics - please mention its outstanding 3D Vision support.
You might be right, the last time I played vanguard was about 6 months ago before the server merges, and that was for one of those come back free for 15 day things.
I can say that I played for about a total of 50 hours there abouts. I only saw 5 other players the entire time, and noticed about the same 10 players in chat.
Folks going vanguard is better than eq2, when eq2 has already pulled it off station pass as well as potbs, that is usually a sign they are fixing to give them the axe, as both use to be part of station exchange.
The only 3 remaining station exchange ones are eq1, eq2, and swg. eq1 looks like it might take over as the cash cow now since eq2 has shot itself in the foot with this 2 separate game thing.
Does it matter that one game has only 1 dead server and the other has about a dozen servers with 3 on high population?
Well I think it does, when your writing an article and going this game with maybe 1/10th of the player base that another game has and then going oh look they win. If they won and vangaurd is such a good game it should be the other way around.
Yes you have to go, wow what was the op thinking.
Vanguard for sure is the Better MMO, the dungeons are cooler, the risk and danger is more real, the diversity of classes, is more interesting. where EQ2 beats Vanguard IMO is the character models, the chicks in vanguard look like clunky EQ1 models that are wearing depends diapers.
Its sad that such an incredible game also has a "life support" staff whereas the silver spoon child (EQ2) keeps getting money poured into it, though really its a very easy to play, shallow experience
If only Vanguard was given a full staff, an expansion, a year to fix the glaring problems and support of a relaunch. I think they could revive it but that will never happen.
I played EQ1 for 6 years since pre kunark then gave EQ2, FF11 and VG a try for about a year each. I also tried WoW and AoC but wasn't hooked. VG was a much much better game compared to EQ2, "IMO". Raids and some quest encounters in VG were a lot more challenging even with decent gears, esepcially early on when the game was newly launched and before the devs decided to dumb everything down. VG combat was very fast-paced, almost like an action RPG. Low ping can actually cause dps to drop by quite a lot that some of the Asian guilds were having problems clearing some of the encounters that required high dps. My guild ended up quiting VG after we cleared APW because the population was dying down and the contents that came out after that were mostly craps. It was a very very very enjoyable experience while it lasted but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone now because SOE bascially shelved it and the population is too low for anyone to enjoy the game.
I started my fantasy MMO gaming with EQ2 and never had seen EQ1 all my life. And tbh, I never missed it. EQ1 always remained that Neandethal MMO gaming with hardships and teeth grinding, a sort of gaming I NEVER wanted. I don't understand why anyone would be so fixated on this UO/EQ1 era MMO gaming. I tried these early MMOs out, since I am a gamer for 25 years, but I really hated the style of MMOs back then. Too much frustration and pain.
So for me, EQ2 was and remains the opening of a new, positive MMO era, an era when MMO gaming was finally for more than MMO hardcore nerds. It was the beginning of the Golden Era of MMOs. Alas, EQ2 was bogged down with too many EQ1 mechanics, like the endless wait for boss mobs and other things. On the contrary to some EQ1 vets, I feel EQ1 overshadowed EQ2 WAAAY too much to be good. They should have been more daring, and todays Big Elephant wouldn't be WOW but EQ2. Alas, it was up to Blizzard to make the right choices and push MMO gaming into the alround fun it should be. Insofar Vanguard, while having some really cool things, was a totally wrong step, trying to go back to the past of MMO gaming. They tried to make a new hardcore game for those handful of MMO old skool guys.
EQ2 wins hands down and remains one of the best MMOs of those released to this day. How anyone can even THINK Vanguard to be an equal is totally beyond me.
On a personal note, I find it hilarious that people quit EQ1, went to EQ2 and then bemoan it is different. Well, what do you expect? You divorce yourself from your wife, then date a new girl and bemoan she isn't like your first wife? HELLOOOO? Sense??
Why would people think Vanguard is a better game than EQ2?
Vanguard is easily my most enjoyed MMO after Ultima Online.
It's just a shame that SOE isn't treating it like they do with EQ2. If VG was cared for and updated like EQ2 was, it would probably be as popular as WoW.
The game is great, it's just not polished enough, things like, weapon skins and animations dissapearing randomly during combat and characters that run lik they got a stick upp their a** just makes the game harder to enjoy. The Open World and non instancing is what makes the game so great though!
Looking forward to pt2.
How anyone in clear mind could say that EQ2's graphics is better then VG's? Its not even close. Anyway, only things where EQ2 is superior to VG are: 1. amount of content and things to do, 2. developers quantity. VG has better lore, visuals, sound, world design, combat and everything else
I played eq2 for 2 years...left 1 month ago because of all the new changes. It's way too easy, theres ports everywhere, they added mounts like blue tigers and flying saucer type things. So i very much agree they have ruined the immersion.
I tried Vanguard this last month and I was very impressed with their graphics and being able to immerse myself in the game. I loved it there except for all the bugs...after 3 of my 4 weeks I gave up because of the frustration of quests not working and all the lag. Their character creation actually had more variations than eq2 offered and my toon didn't have to run around with size DD breasts. LOL I loved the diplomacy quests! Their crafting looked more real and was funny at times compared to eq2's big crafting window covering everything up. I hope somebody buys it from SOE and fixes it, then I'll give it another try :)
Vanguard was crap when Microsoft cut it loose, it was crap when SOE unwisely decided to fund this boring POS. Sorry all of the models looked alike besides skinning which made for the popluation looking barbie dolls and not people. The models looked dead, since they had no idle animations.
Everquest II was concieved before anyone had any real idea of what WoW would turn out to be. The original design was to be a hard core MMO along the lines of the original EQ, but with better graphics and the classes balanced better. Then Blizzard started the Beta of WoW and news of how good the game was and now players actually prefered the gaming experience leaked out. Suddenly SOE had to make a decision to keep EQ2 as a hard core grinding MMO or to do some things that would keep the attention of the casual players. By that time Beta had opened up and it was becoming clear that WoW was going to do HUGE numbers. SOE scrambled to try to make their game as fun to play as WoW, but they didn't really have the Design chops to fix things in time. So they pushed their launch to a month before WoW's hoping that if people tried EQ2 first they would be tempted to stay with the game after WoW's launch. EQ2 had a huge launch and people seemed to love the game. The launch numbers were so big that they had to double the number of servers in the first couple of weeks to keep the game playable. WoW launched in less than a month their population shrunk to less half what it was at launch and kept shrinking.
Within 6-8 months EQ2 had to merge those servers they had just split. The game did get better with a graphical update (beyond the asian models) to keep frame rates higher, crafting was made less of a grind with less subcombines, combat changed multiple times to make things more fun and differentiate the classes better. By then it was too late.
For me, a huge EQ1 fan I hated the way that they just HAD to change the way all of the races looked. You bad the Barbarian women going from supermodels to male bodybuilders in Drag. Plastic Hair and faces. 2 home cities and crappy hovels for the non humans. They took the best parts of the game and flushed down the toilet.
Here's hoping that EQ3(AKA EQ Next) will be a modern MMO with little to no zoning (ie none between zones on the same continent), A fun crafting system, Fun classes that leave the door open for adding more classes in expansions.
Tasha
I've been interested to see how both games are these days. The review was somewhat amusing, althought it DEFINITELY did not warrant all the hype and buildup, which was just silly. No title fight here.
Even the first installment (wow vs lotr) was relatively tame compared to the flame wars that have been waged in the forums for years. Most of those involve lots of juvenile antics, assumptions, comparisons, accusations, falsifications, outrageous and ridiculous opinions. I'd say there has yet to be an epic fight from fans of one game towards another. If there has been one, please point it out to me I'd love to see it.
What would be even better than this article would be Developers of these games making the case for their game being superior to others, then a developer from the other games making rebuttals. We'd get all sorts of juicy insider details most people don't know or ever hear about. And they'd have well thought out reasons, something mostly lacking in current game vs game fights. Seriously, game vs game fights these days boil down to "It's a wow clone!" "No it isn't STFU" it would be a nice change of pace to go deeper, and to a degree this series of articles does that.
I did play the EQ2 demo years ago, Trial of the Isle it was called, cute huh? I bet they were so pleased with themselves for coming up with that, having a rhyme and all. I picked a rat rogue, and proceeded to stab things. The combat wasn't really doing it for me, maybe it got better later on, but initial impression was "meh..." The crafting and gathering on the other hand was quite fun for me, sort of a game within a game. You see a branch or log on the ground? Gather some wood. See some herbs? Scoop them up. Put together multiple ingredients and see what you can make. Maybe I'll go for their 14 day trial and see how it is these days.
Both games fail but in different ways. Eq2 is relatively bug free and polished but lacks a "soul". Its classes are bland,graphics are meh, dungeons are cookie cutter. There is nothing immersive or "addicting" about the game, imo its just a cookie cutter unimaginative pile. It fails to draw you in on any level, aside from the aa system it offers nothing of interest.
Vanguard on the other hand fails for entirely different reasons. Due to the horrible mismanagement by brad and sigil it was released a steaming pile. Soe thought they could fix some bugs, improve performance and all would be good. Well they only half finished that part, the game is still overrun with bugs and poor performance. Add to that the mismashed hack job trying to piece it together with different teams and different priorities and it ends up a bug riddled unpolished beacon of unrealized potential.
SOE likes too take over games especially potential competitors too their eq legacy and drop them on there heads by downsizing its dev team. pretty much what happened too matix online not the best game out there but it was a great game before wb gave it over too soe. Im just starten too see a trend i fear pirates of a burning sea and vanguard are the next ones for the chopping blocks. Hopefully not you dont need a huge player base too make em great but you do need content and devs.
vanguard bugs have been pretty much wiped out and the poor performance too so you obviously one of the people who tried it in the bad early stages and havnt picked it up recently you would be surprised on how much it has been cleaned up.
Ummm no the bugs havent been close to wiped out. From class skill/spell bugs to ui bugs to graphic,pathing,mobs,set bonuses,quest,craft,harvest,diplo, there simply is no part of vg that isnt affected by rampant bugs. Performance is in the same boat due to lack of resources/devs, hardware that easily runs eq1 to eq2 to newer games like aion,fallen earth,War,etc struggles.
Better than launch? Sure. Comparable to similar games with the same or higher reqs? No.
I think the whole premise for this debate is a bit out of place, and misleading to the value of these two games. Why judge either for being the master EQ1 successor? Despite what people said at the beginning… and I was there, they always stayed true to the fact that they were not stopping EQ, this was a DIFFERENT game for a slightly Different audience, offering a Different game play. This has been proven as EQ has had as many expansions as EQ2 and both games thrive. I think with any major sequel (Star Trek Nex Gen or Star Wars 1 vs. 4, or you name it) there’s always going to be the comparison of it just wasn’t as good. No one’s first MMO is ever going to compare to anything else, no more than your first love… nostalgia is a vicious and deceptive beast. As noted very few posters are EQ1 players that extensively played both VG and EQ2. EQ1 has gone through extensive graphic upgrades over the years despite the aging graphics machine they use, and through technology both eq1 and eq2 have evolved a great deal in performance and visuals, with much more to continue.
All that being said it’s still comparing apples to oranges. I don’t believe any game should be a clone of another game but with better updated graphics without just a reload like UO had done, there’s no point in it, and it’s confusing to your customer base which is bad economics. Would EQ2 be a better game if it was a re-wrapped EQ1? It might make all the Beast Master’s happy but it would have just killed the original EQ, and that would be like the SWG pre NGA tragedy.
Personally I played EQ since Vellious, and hopped over to EQ2 during beta. I never had performance issues like many claim EQ2 is so demanding (simply not so even on slow DSL – maybe you can’t raid at exceptional graphics setting yet, but that’s our countries internet providers fault not SOE). I have also played VG since beta and that era was painful, but slightly past – still buggy when you zoom in and see floating eyeballs etc. But the VG is very playable on a moderate machine, and extremely enjoyable.
ZONES: EQ1 was bad for zones, (AOC is actually the WORST I’ve seen) anyone saying EQ1 had bigger zones vs. EQ2 is still looking through rose colored glasses. Yeah EQ2 does have zones, that is simply why you see such awesome looking environments. Personally I would love to see EQ2 Norrath seamless like you do in VG, but I still think that would be way too taxing given the amount detail in any given zone – what do you want? – WoW graphics or nice detail? You must figure in the detail of npc’s and mobs that populate the lands – look at npc’s in LoTRO = total joke. EQ2 still has all of the boats and good stuff hardcore players would force themselves to go through. Having 6 kids myself, I can’t play a game that makes you wait 20 minutes to wait for the boat then another 30 to sail somewhere. RoK in EQ2 was the best expansion to date and the zones were massive (Can’t wait for the next!).
Vanguard simply shines here. It has the most realistic environment and seamless world that I’ve seen. Only LOTRO comes close in truly inspiring land mass visuals, but not even comparable to VG. I remember getting a holiday flying mount in VG and flying from one end of a continent to the other and over an hour getting there. Amazing! Not to mention flying up to floating islands hovering above the continents, this was at least 2 years before WoW even introduced flying mounts. Plus you have the ability to get boats and sail all over the world. The game world idea was light years beyond anything out there in VG, and potentially one of their early downfalls, from a technical aspect. I truly enjoy the SWG feeling that you can build houses in real world zones that people can find and visit and you have a mark on the planet. In a severally major MMO like WoW or EQ2 this would simply not be possible. Even in UO running through a “residential” area would lead to massive lag not to mention trying to make space for 100k people per server etc.. So again, another give and take. All in all, growing up in North Western US no game has really put me into what is “real” compared to VG’s environment with its far reaching horizons, openness and sprawling cities.
WORLD: VG has a much more real feeling world in so many ways despite lack of development. The original dev team obviously had a clear goal in mind… but they are all gone, and that so sucks for the game. I truly enjoy zones where there’s not 50 wandering mobs with no logical “home or purpose” within a 100 yard radius. This does brings in immersion. EQ2 may have some pretty gigantic zones, but if you think about it, and want a real “realistic” fantasy world, then they fail there. If you want to escape and kill junk easily then you’re good to go. If EQ2 could ever in some way become less zone centric, it would rival anything out there or come for the next 10 years. As a world VG feels more real but seems to lack a driving story line IMO. In EQ2 you see very few villages or farms or those strange little nuances that feed a planet.
HOUSING: I’ve always been a fan of housing in MMO’s… it just makes sense. I like how you can build gigantic guild halls and different kinds of houses in VG and SWG. No housing system has ever touched UO’s though where you could actually build it basically brick by brick or just get the premades – that was awesome! But w/ EQ2 vs. VG I’m a bit torn here. If you’re not a major crafter w/ several alts or in a big guild, housing is tedious as it takes several different types of materials and lots of money to get the required materials etc. EQ2 housing is much more accessible, and from the interior way more attractive than any other housing system in existence. The cool part is that there are so many trophies you can accumulate through your careers and place them throughout your residence … it really brings back the memories.
GRAPHICS: Vanguard has amazing graphics in all respects, with environment as their dominating factor for them. EQ2 smokes everything else. Even in environment EQ2 takes the cake with the exception of “distance” but that again is a separate preference with regards to immersion and preference of game play vs. technical technology abilities. This is true especially in dungeons and spell effects, and the new “growing” spell effects is unlike anything out there. VG has more races – barely- but the EQ2 races are more distinct, customizable and attractive. No other game out there can compare to what the different classes look like in EQ2 along with the crazy customization abilities…. NONE, name it and your WRONG! The closest would be AoC but with only being humans it’s hard to compare the two. WoW has nothing but a couple dozen cookie cutter looks, and I can guarantee after years of playing EQ2, you will never find the same appearance (except those who buy station cash armor) or abilities.
CLASSES: VG has fewer yet more diverse classes; true. EQ2 has double the classes, and some of them appear very similar at the beginning of game. This is called balance. If you actually play your character (no power leveling), use soloing and grouping etc… you will see how diverse your character can become after around lvl 20/30. The variety in alternate advancement can be just crazy depending on your play style and veteran advice. Once you LEARN your character, (and not just in PVE - because PVP will teach you so much more) which is one of the complaints people are posting w/out understanding - you can have so much fun.
MOUNTS: Another difficult decision here which will probably be annihilated with the next EQ2 expansion in Feb. VG has had probably the most varied types of mounts from any game I’ve seen. They were the first MMO to introduce flying mounts, and they have really cool race specific mounts you can earn through extensive questing. EQ2 has really come an amazing distance in introducing new mounts over the last couple years, but the status and abilities of the mounts have outweighed the “customization” of your role playing character. VG does have a lot and I mean a lot, everything from spiders to reindeer, but they are all stiffly animated. EQ2 has a lot of mounts aurpassing VG mostly because of variety of the same types and variety and in magical stuff. The ability to actually equip your mount with bags / armor and stuff in VG is simply the deal breaker in this tangent. If any game was able to make mounts as fluid as in “Shadow of the Colossus” then I would reconsider this even if for only a couple mount types.
LEVELLING: Yeah within the last year and a half it’s become way easier to level in EQ2, nearly comparable to WoW. Is this good or bad? Realistically; from a fun aspect and business model think about it... People come to MMO’s because of communities and friends. It’s their friends who are all jacked up and excited about the game. EQ1 was a total PITA to get up in level to your friends, no rewards on either end… it sucked. No Sony game has ever been good about advertising to new players since the release of EQ2 with their cinematics and all that junk in theaters. SOE sucks at advertising and retail boxes, it always has for every game except FreeRealms on Disney channel or Nick.. Any Vet to any MMO can level pretty decently in any game. It’s just understanding the mechanics. Quick leveling comes at a price though – understanding is the biggest thing, but it’s a price most people are willing to pay to get with their community. Level locking and Chrono maging in EQ2 allows people to go back explore lower content they missed and be challenged and gain the needed AA’s they should have. There’s no other game that lets that happen, which is smart with so much content out there after so many expansions, and so much richness. The PvP servers get this aspect and you will see how they lock and gain more AA’s and are usually the dominating toons in most BG’s.
PVP: Well this is almost a non-combantant issue since the recent server merges in VG. PVP was always my biggest gripe in EQ or EQ2. This is where WoW always shined to a point. I never was able to get into pvp in on VG, because I was so wrapped up in WoW pvp at the time. EQ2 failed so bad on so many respects back then. Today PvP is ripe and awesome in EQ2. They’ve done so many really good things to the game, allowing for so much potential. Where EQ2 really hurts is where games like WoW were much smarter. Every zone in EQ2 has its own faction singularly dependant of the story arc faction, not the good vs. evil. Even in the largest areas, with only a couple zone-in’s, real world pvp is ridiculous, since there is only “neutral” and not your faction based sanctuary (this has been tweaked slightly on the two pvp servers). WoW did the best job at this out there. Despite that pvp in EQ2 has picked up a serious fever over the last few months and hopefully will continue to do so…. The pvp server’s are alive and active. If only they could get some realm vs. realm goodness even on the pve server. What is the consequence for choosing one faction over the other if you all go and guild/group and raid together etc? This does need to be addressed in EQ2 in a big way not only from a game play aspect, but it takes so much away from the story line. But maybe according to the current story line it’s all about fighting the “greater evil”, which in my opinion is unrealistic from any roll play perspective, and just isn’t the way things are ever….
QUESTS: This is almost not fair, even comparing against EQ1 (or even my personal runner up LoTRO), and where VG starts feeling a bit disjointed. Though VG’s quests are often awesome, and beyond EQ1… EQ2 simply dominates any quest system that’s ever been present, and it will be a massive challenge for any future game to try to compare-- simple fact. EQ2 has its fair share of kill 10 rats etc, but not only are there literally thousands upon thousands of quests to do; there are multiple types of quests on so many levels its stunning. Okay, they don’t have diplomacy in EQ2 like they do in VG which is a really cool aspect and very creative… but they have crafting quests (even heroic and fabled + group ones, dungeons even) they have regular quests, heritage quests, hallmark quests, key quests, golden path quests, pvp quests, city faction quests, collection quests (where we pick up little ?s to eventually turn into a collector for a varied amount of rewards) and the list goes on, but my favorite are the Lore and Legend quests where you eventually gather information and knowledge from a certain monster type to get rewarded with trophy to put in your house, a book explaining the monster, and a spell ability per class that does extra harm against that specific monster type…. How cool is that? Many quests give you trophies to put in your house – a nice milestone marker to remember your past accomplishments. Guilds who defeat major Raid monsters can mount their head in halls permanently… not just for a few hours inside the entrance of Gorowin.
COMMUNITY: A lot of people don’t think too hard about this point when playing a game. Being a parent I am biased so take it for what it is. VG has had an amazing community. It may be small, but they are simply honest and cool. All the guilds and players I’ve known have just been genuine. Beyond anything I’ve seen anywhere else in a dozen other MMO’s – I’ve never heard one Chuck Norris joke, or someone begging for gold. VG kinda reminds me of visiting my parents when I was younger, this isn’t bad just what it reminds me of –it’s a good feeling, safe and stable, while a bit mellow. EQ2: slightly different…not like the immature WoW audience at all but there are touches of this, but only slightly. EQ2 offers a variety of server types from F2P / PVP/ RP/ PVE or open and public legal cash servers, all of which seems to filter this to your play style. My experience from about the last 5 years has been both a really mature audience, to a family grouping. All the young kids play because of their parents, they’re in their guilds that their parents are in… it’s quite crazy, and super cool. They seem a bit more “old school” than any wow or most F2P kids because they just seem to know their parents will hear about it and kick their arssse. Communities in EQ2 are very diverse. There are either extreme Raid guilds, Active guilds at a lower level or smaller family guilds. Truly seems like a place for everyone. For the most part it’s not hard to get groups, or advice or help. I’ve seen so many people go out of their way to help folks out, or just take them in its pretty awesome. I think VG would be the same way perhaps in even a bigger way, but again, no commercial support, small population.
BREAKDOWN: VG is an amazing game that could have so much potential. There was a glimmer of hope when the free newbie island came out, but SOE dropped the ball again and didn’t do any support outside the internal community, supper sad.
VG: 7 outta 10 overall. Strengths are a huge world, immersive environment, and probably the most hardcore game play than any game out there. Weakness being the original development team biting off more than they could chew, leaving an amazing potential to fall instead of starting a bit smaller and growing. SOE’s buyout was a last ditch effort to save some potentially very cool stuff, but little follow through is disappointing their customers.
EQ2: 9 outta 10 overall… making it the best MMO game out there bar none, I’m very particular, no game I’ve seen deserves a 10 as of yet. Strengths are a super huge world - though divided in chunks… community is richly active and mature, development team is very creative and proactive. The game simply wins because it is FUN! It’s easy to get to know real people make REAL friends have fun and just get out of our stuck up reality. Your character development really sucks you in and you feel a connection after a certain point. And this is what a game is all about.
CONCLUSION: SOE has a bad rap… yeah I get that and it’s easy to see. But in fact the games that SOE provides are all extremely top-notch bottom to top. Any SOE game could be more populated if they had a real Marketing department. SOE is not the devil people say, everyone there is extremely passionate about what they do and do it to the best of their ability. Any game is a game, and you just need to find your own niche. No game will probably ever compare to your “first” and it shouldn’t, just find something to have fun with and enjoy life… we have enough real crap going on everywhere as it is. SOE’s problem has simply been marketing. EQ2 should honestly have a player base much larger, as well as SWG (the world’s largest intellectual propriety, and Vanguard and FreeRealms, Pirates etc) You would think Sony (one of the world’s largest companies) would get this. Either Smedley is a complete fruitcake with an amazing ability to con his superiors or a complete genius… I believe the first or the amazing games they put out would have a multitude more subs that they deservedly do. It’s all simply marketing… and marketing is cheap in comparison to the revenue it brings in. I wish they focus more on getting more subs for income vs. their present business model of trying to get more money out of the ones playing. Despite all I’ve said I play a PVE server Ranger on EQ2 as well as Vanguard. EQ2, UO, WoW, LoTR, and VG, etc etc...and other MMO’s have captured my imagination and passion in so many other ways I felt compelled to RANT!!!! To me both games are fun.
Some advice:
Make sure the font you post in is of at least avearge size. Do not use red, it is not easy to read. What you said was well put but make it easy to read.
Wow expansion that introduced flying mounts was released jan 16 2007, vg was released jan 30 2007.
You are right the VG Flying mount quest did not gett added to the game until march or April of 2008. Long after WoW added flying mounts.
I do think VG had the holiday flying mount that lasted 30 some minutes in Dec 2007, but I could be wrong.
I do stand corrected! It just seemed like VG came out before Burning crusade... time flies! It was built into their original game concept early on in development I think and the seamlessness of the world appears designed to take advantage of such a feature fully.
Well I'm off to see if there's any cool free crap i can get off the LoTRO store....
If Vanguard had the amount of investment it needed and a dedicated team behind it, there is no doubt in my mind that it would be one of the greatest games ever made. However it didn't get the investment and attention it needed and it's pointless to speculate on what could of been since most of us are not interested in playing what is a potentially great game, we are only interested in the game in front of us.
In it's present state VG feels unfinnished, inconsistant with some aspects of the world needing fleshing out. The graphics sums up the state of the game perfectly. There are times when you are flying on your mount and the views simply takes your breath away but there are times when it looks and feels bland and empty.
Dispite all it's flaws I still think Vangaurd is one of the better MMO's available and would recomend anyone to at least try it since it offers something different from the disney themepark MMO's. However, I feel as if SOE are content to let it die slowly.
Despite it's flaws, in some ways Vanguard is a superior game to EQ2. It is certainly more immersive, engaging, challenging and interesting experience than EQ2. However, EQ2 is more accessible, polished and complete. However, EQ2 never really felt like Everquest. With it's themed zone and easy to master gameplay it resembles Warcraft more than it does the original Everquest. Why the developers chose to go down that route I have no idea. If I wanted to play a game that was like WoW I would play WoW, not a expensive immitation.
This isn't to say that EQ2 is a bad game. It can be fairly good and some of the higher level dungeons are fun and challenging. However, the Norrath of EQ2 has never engaged me the way the Norrath of EQ1 has. If I were to sum up the difference between Vanguard and EQ2 in a sentence I would say that when I'm playing Vanguard I can forget I'm playing a computer game, but when I'm playing EQ2 I never forget that it's a game. That reason more than any makes Vanguard the spiritual successor to Everquest.
Well done OP, though I almost thought the Everquest 2 newbie experience has been carebeared compared to Everquest 1. Vanguard's IoD has been a Soe idea wasn't in the original Vision (tm).
I think the #1 reason for Vanguard being the real Everquest 1 is dungeon crawling. Instances, zones are lazy game design if you need a proof for that just look at Everquest 2.
Vanguard just needed one more year and another publisher its a shame that this game has been infiltrated by Soe. It is the best MMORPG outthere just not in the right hands I remember some community discussions about "shutting it down instead of handing it over to Soe - fully agree with this.
Everquest 2 on the other hand is the prime example of how to piss off your former corebase by trying to cater to a crowd you'll never ever get -> wowplayers.