Post by Pamela CarltonPost by FaeandarPost by GeoffI have been given Vanguard as a present and was wondering if it is worth
playing. I have been playing everquest for a number of years and have
been
Post by FaeandarPost by Geoffenjoying it but lately have felt like i need a rest from it. so i was
wondering if i should give Vanguard a go and if anyone could tell me
something about it.
It depends on what you like. If you like killing bozos then nothing
beats EQ still.
If you think you may be interested in crafting, VG beats EQ hands
down. it also has things like harvesting (my personal second favorite
after killing bozos) and diplomacy. harvesting is akin to bone chip
collecting for necros but on a much grander scale. All crafters need
raw materials, which are supplied by harvesters. Wood, metal, stone,
skins, and plants. You get to pick a primary and secondary, not all
of them.
Actually you don't get to pick all of crafting either. One area of
focus, thats it. For example, I'm an artificer and cannot be a
blacksmith. But as an artificer I can do carpentry and stonework as
sub-skills.
VG promotes alot of cooperation, partiulcaly in crafting. For
instance, to make a boat you need the skills of a carpenter,
blacksmith, and tailor for the boat and mast(s), rigging and
fasteners, and the sails. It's quite a production in some cases but
in the end it's a sense of accomplishment.
The performance still leaves alot to be desired unless you have a high
end machine. At 2.8GHz HT, 1GB RAM, and an 8x AGP ATI card (old I
realize but the top end AGP I could get) it drops to 3-4 FPS in some
places. Usually high particle effect and multiple mob areas but still
brutal.
Supposedly there is a fix on some broken spells that recapture about
15 FPS in those instances so we'll see.
The world is huge and very cool to look at, but high end content is
supposedly lacking. Personally it's not an issue as my highest toon
is 31 Adventuring so I've not had an issue finding fun places with
bozos in them.
I would not have left EQ for VG if not for my guild, all RL friends.
Now that I'm there I like it and have adapted to new aspects of play.
I still like EQ and will always feel that it was the greatest computer
game ever made, but that's how I am.
~F
I have levelled to 70 in EQ2 and 49.3 in VG.
I enjoyed both but I prefer VG over EQ2 even with the issues it has.
I like the non-instanced stuff.
I like being able to buff people out of group.
I love our guildhall ;)
http://youtu.be/W9xsIZRJ2b4 (gratuitous plug)
Alot of people say there isn't any content at the end as raiding is not in
yet (within the next month).
There is still plenty to do, I think the majority of the claims are from
those who powered through the content and didn't enjoy it.
Crafting is fun, different from EQ2 in that you can get up to get a coffee
and come back to where you were.
You're given complications which hamper your progress and can be downright
annoying sometimes.
I really enjoy diplomacy too, the bunch of people in channel are really
helpful and you learn alot of lore from doing the quests and parleys.
I think to get the most out of the game you need to find a good bunch of
people to hang with or guild with.
It's worth reading the forums to make sure you pick a server you'll be happy
on and take it from there.
Don't forget the system requirements are minimum, and there are known issues
with some of the 8800gts cards I think it was, as well as Vista.
Still, a free month is a free month, give it a whirl!
- Floriana / Foxglove Serandon :)
I wanted to like it. I wanted to love it really but I just couldn't play it
due to the system requirements. This same machine can run most any other
game with settings turned up at least somewhat but with VG I had to run with
them all down so much it looked awful and still lagged so badly as to be
unplayable. I have nothing against creating scalable graphics but either
that is some very badly optimized code or it is just overly ambitious for
the average PC gamer's hardware right now, today. They needed to ship
something that could run decent right then, when it shipped. Not when people
bought new systems, etc. The greatest problem they had at launch was so many
people willing to play it found it ran so badly for them they could not
begin to enjoy it and that killed the launch numbers and the game still
suffers for that bad decision. As a software development project, VG was
very poorly managed and that is no secret today. It's too bad because I am
inclined to think that as a game itself it is probably very good and more
akin to the original EverQuest than EQ2 ever was other than pirated lore.
That said, SOE did a remarkable job in fixing many issues in EQ2 to a point
where many regard it as a very good game today and I hope they can manage
this with Vanguard which as a game deserved better software development than
it got at least up to its ill fated launch.
For what it is worth, this is my gaming PC which I readily acknowlege is
midrange at best by today's standards but again, this computer runs
EverQuest, ran WoW, and all shooters preceding DX10 just fine with settings
up. It ran EQ2 pretty well also on balanced settings. Vanguard often
crawled in single digits fps regardless of how I fiddled with settings.
Intel 3.2 HT (dual core)
ASUS Motherboard
2 Gigs RAM
BFG Nvidia 7600 OC with 256 MB ram (yes I know this is lame for VG)
Soundblaster Audigy 2 into a stereo system with Bose Speakers
Windows XP SP2 with all current patches applied. DirectX 9.0c
* NOTHING else in memory I might add, no utilities, nothing when I am
gaming.
I am approaching time to upgrade but for now, the games I play run great. I
could not see buying a new computer for a game I haven't played long enough
to know I love enough to justify that expense. There would be no other
reason for me to spend the money today as all else I use/play works great.