Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Why so much hostility?, September 29, 2007
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
Having read most of the 75 posted reviews to date, it is very clear this is a "Love It or Hate It" game and there's no in-between. But there's not been anything significant posted in several weeks, so I felt a need to update anyone considering this MMO. Most of these posts (sadly) do not do this outstanding game justice.
First of all, I played EQ1 since Kunark and have been searching for something to fill that addiction ever since. I've tried DAOC, EQ2, AC2, Guild Wars, WoW, SWG, and several others, but nothing (and I mean nothing) has been able to fill that EQ1 void like this does. I have an extensive MMO background to base my opinion upon.
Now, obviously, there are huge similarities between this and EQ1, being developed by the same minds. However, there are so many improvements, drawing from all of the above mentioned MMO's that it leaves one to wonder how can there be so much hostility towards this game??
I will be the first to admit that this is not a 3rd generation MMO. I don't believe such a thing exists yet. This does however (given the chance) draw the gamer into its environment and provide an immersive, fun gaming experience whether for hours on end, or just a short period.
Being a "mature" gamer (35+), I for one despise the WoW-kiddie environments and all the BS smacktalking and region spam that goes on in most MMO's. I think that in general VG provides a more mature community, and from what I have encountered over the last 8 months of playing VG, most of the people you ask questions of are more than willing to help you get the answer or explain why something is the way it is. Most of the hostile reviews that I have read are transparent enough to know that either they didn't give the game enough of a chance, or couldn't get the desired group within the first 5 minutes, so quit the game altogether. WTH? Give it a chance people.
My "main" currently is a level 38 Disciple. This class is a combination of a cleric & a monk, and can solo extremely well (as well as very desireable in a group). I can solo mobs up to 2-3 levels above me depending on the number of "dots". Anyone who says they can't beat same level mobs solo, doesn't know how to play their class. I've tried them all and all classes are self-sufficient, just in different ways.
This is not a game that you are going to "conquer" within the first 90 days. Nor is it meant to be. Buy this game only if you are looking for an open ended, fun, relationship-building experience that is going to last you several years. I read several times on these posts phrases like "waste of money" and "not worth the monthly fee". How much do you spend at the movies for a 2 hour joyride? I consider VG extremely cheap entertainment.
Here are the GOOD vs. the BAD in Vanguard:
(BAD)
- laggy at times (now made worse by the server merges)
- incessant gold-seller spamming (granted most to all MMO's have this)
- occasional crash-to-desktop issues
- some minor bugs still exist in quests
- lack of "raid" content (for now)
(GOOD)
- outstanding graphics (at any setting)
- challenging and fun quests/missives that reward experience accordingly
- a complex faction system requiring you to have to earn your player renown and status
- a HUGE (at least 10 times larger than WoW) expansive world to explore with multiple continents that have a distinctly different feel to each
- a new Diplomacy sphere which is fun and immersive
- excellent player crafted items making crafting a worthwhile endeavor
- a mature player base (for the most part)
- huge replayability factor, making alt characters almost a necessity in order to learn all the aspects of the various starting areas
- multiple mount options starting at level 10, several of which require very involved quests
Now I do have certain minor beefs with some of the recent changes to the game (such as making all gear "bind on equip"), but these pale in comparison to the overall abuse this game is taking from what seems like 70% of the reviews.
As you can see, the GOOD outweighs the BAD in Vanguard. Hopefully, this info will aid those with an open mind to give this worthy game a chance.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
So close...yet so far. Still a lot of promise., October 12, 2007
Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars
I got into this game during beta, I've been playing it since launch. I watched Sigil fall apart and SOE jump in. The game development is handled so poorly it's getting ridiculous.
Set yourself free is the slogan, the image is an adventurer soaring high in the sky wherever he wants to go. Not gonna happen for you in game. STILL, you can only fly on rentals for a couple minutes. They don't even work very well either, they will poof and cause you to fall to your death. Pretty annoying when you PAY for it, then have to run back and buy another one. Don't forget that you need to go find your corpse where it dropped you. Perhaps some day they can fix this and add in the quest for flying mounts. They already finished the quests on their end, but they haven't been added yet.
Guild halls were just barely added, but they require more work than anyone imagined. That's fine though, I appreciate the hard core side of it. WoW is pathetic, any step away from WoW is good. The problem is the over camped quest items you need that nobody can get without spawn camping on the hour. Not only do you have all the guilds from 4 different servers trying to get them (they had to have a server merge because the population is dying), you have the jerks camping them to sell them. It's not hardcore, it's lame. They admit this and are gonna fix it...it's fixed on their end. They've said it's been fixed on their end for a month now yet we still don;t have it live yet. See a trend?
They promised so many things and they couldn't deliver at launch. That was fine with me, you create a beast of a game you deserve a little slack and extra time in my book. Sigil tried to push updates in quickly and just broke the game further, now SOE takes forever to do ANYTHING. I'm still paying for this game because I enjoy my guild mates, but I don't know how much longer I can allow the poor development to drag it's feet and charge me money. I understand the mess they had to clean up and how much time is needed, but it's getting to be too much effort for the reward.
The 3 spheres don't work very well with each other. Adventuring and Crafting have the relationship you'd expect, but Diplomacy has been downright pointless since launch. They decided to make diplomacy finally worth it by making the guild hall construction require top tier diplomats. That just created a rush of mad grinders and players botting their way up. They are supposed to be needed in raiding whenever they actually add that. The diplo and craft grinds can really split up a guild if you are not careful.
This game still has a lot of promise and could be something some day but they need to start getting things done quicker. They are losing their fanbase the longer they take to get this to what it should have been at release. This game will eventually need PVP introduced to PVE servers, they talked about putting PVP on PVE servers but it's never happened thanks to the PVP being terrible on the PVP servers and everything else being a cluster-fudge.
I am very down on this game right now, but it has it's redeeming qualities still. It has unique classes and plenty of customization for now, most of my guild mates play their characters uniquely. I have had more fun with my Disciple than I have ever had playing another class in any other mmo. There are less complex classes like Sorcerer, but Rogues and Disciples are by far my favorite because of their complexity.
Plenty of quests, this game has a lot to do at most levels. I have seen official reviews bashing some of the quests because they were poorly written, but those have been re-worked. There was a lot of typos in the beginning. I have always enjoyed the quests, they even have some adult humor in the game that is not so obvious as other games. This game has a lack of lore behind it, but it has amazing lore buried down in the much ignored diplomacy quests. I thought the Kurashasa (cat race) initial diplomacy quests were great and as I traveled they still kept my interest.
They didn't want portals in this game, but they were forced to add them because of how buggy the game was. The boats would drop players in the water and the game would crash, they could not leave it like that with how large the world is. The game doesn't crash anymore, the boats don't drop you anymore, but the portals have stayed. They caved. That bothered me, but I can get over it. There is still plenty of hard core left in this game.
Crafting is respectable, it is very deep like SWG had. It is perhaps the longest grind in the game. It's complexity is GREAT! The rare items you need for great crafted items are GREAT! However, the way you level is by doing work orders for NPCs. Boooooooooooooooring. They needed to mix it up here, it's insane doing the amount of work orders needed. I know, I did them for 50 levels. They have introduced rest xp and lowered the xp curve so it's much easier now. I don't know exactly how it is now because they did this after I got to the top tier, but guildies have said it's better now.
Plenty of positives and negatives with this game, sadly the positives are overshadowed by things like no flying mounts, no helmets, no tails on animal races, no raiding, no decent pvp etc. The good news is that they have done a lot with the performance issues this game has had.
The community is better than WoW and EQ2, reminds me of the old SWG crowd. Sadly the majority is busy complaining, but when they are playing the game and focused they are great people.
I can't really recommend this game right now, but I hope you do come check it out. I don't see any other decent mmorpgs coming out. Most everything these days are WoW clones. This game was built with the right idea, huge world with tons of customization. Details, depth, freedom. SOE has been slow, but they have tried to stick with that original plan. I have hope still.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Better than most that I have played or reviewed, June 5, 2007
Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars
Ok - so I have only played 3 other MMOs - Lineage II for 2 years, Archlord for 4 months, and WoW for about 30 minutes. I have looked at other MMOs in stores, and read the reviews, but I have only purchased and played the ones mentioned.
I have just finished reading all 66 reviews currently posted. For those of you who purchased VG before or just after its release and did not like it, I suggest that you go back and give it another try. Many of the issues have been resolved.
There are now so many quests that your quest log book can not hold them all. Yes, there are only a few for the beginning areas - but there are tons of beginning areas. If you do not like the quests in your area - go to another one.
However, that is not typically necessary - as the beginning quests provide enough experience to get to higher levels and more quests.
Which brings us to what is often referred to as the "GRIND". Killing mobs over and over and over and over again to get to the next level. It is my understanding that all MMOs require experience to get to the next level and this is typically done by killing monsters. Now, I came from Lineage II where the grind is truly horrible. You kill mobs all day long and only gain a small percentage of your level.
VG is not like that at all. Yes, there is a grind, but in addition to the actual quests, there are also missives in the small towns and outposts which offer excellent experience when you consider the time it takes to complete them. And, as an added bonus, you can turn in 10 of these missives for the chance at a decent reward. As an exmample of the experience for these missives, my level 30 warrior was able to earn 40% of the experience needed for his next level in about 90 mins. This would be unheard of in Lineage II.
Death penalty? Of course there should be a death penalty. If you are stupid enough to put yourself in a situation where you will die - you deserve a penalty. I have died several times and do not consider the penalty particularly harsh. You lose some experience. Other MMOs - like Lineage II - you drop equipment - which anyone can pick up and keep. Never mind that said equipment took weeks or months to earn - unless you buy $$ from gold sellers.
Which brings me to the other part that previous reviews have missed. The economy of VG. While VG does have its gold sellers, they are not as prevelant as they are in WoW and Lineage II. Lineage II in particular was overrun with bots and sellers.
In VG, it is simply not necessary to spend real money to buy fake money to get the items you need. If you truely need a particular item, you always have the option of starting an alt (alternative character) and leveling his crafting ability to make the item you need. Or making it yourself. My warrior is also an armorsmith and can make his own armor. If he needs something other than armor, he can trade items he makes for items he needs.
Many people complained about the lag, things disappearing, and no one to group with.
As far as I can tell, these have all been addressed. Things no longer disappear (That was annoying) I play on the Hillsbury server, and there are always people willing to group up. I have never had a problem find a group when I needed one. The lag is non-existent for me - barring the times I move to a new "chunk" (region)
Overall, I have found VG to be an exceptional game which does indeed address many of the problems other games have. For those of you who gave up - give it another shot. For those of you who are considering it - I beleive it to be a good buy.
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