Vanguard: Saga of Heroes open beta

just before they shut down the beta forums a dev posted and said that he had it up and running on most cards that you'd want to use AA on and that they'd be testing it shortly for problems. So i'm hoping the next big patch has it. Either way its not far off.

 

Was at Best Buy today picking up GTR2 to include in my benchmarking for a new CPU review (also grabbed the Flyboys DVD) and saw the Vanguard collector's edition for $90. I don't know what came over me but I was sooo close to buying the game it wasn't funny. I'm trying to hold off for Lord of the Rings Online instead, but a lot of people describe Vanguard as EQ2.5, which would certainly appeal to me.

 

I'd say it's closer to EQ1.5 in terms of game play feel. Graphically of course it's closer to EQ2.5

I like the game and have been playing it for a little over a year. Play on the PvP server (FFA) and get into a guild there. Definitely some fun to be had.

-BFC

 

I'd only recommend LOTRO if your a big WoW fan, you'll find it's pretty much the same thing rehashed in a new world with almost no magic.

 

Breaking the closed beta NDA, or repeating what someone else told you?

 

For those who've followed it even a bit hasn't this information been fairly known? What I've heard basically of it is that the developers simply wanted to recreate WoW and not do anything new..... at all.

 

Disney-style magic or DND-style magic? I was never terribly impressed with Asheron's Call, so I'm not holding out much hope for LOTRO.

Vanguard continues to impress me, however. It is the smoothest launch I've seen for a MMO (no doubt helped by the fact that there aren't 50,000 people playing yet). Must... order... new... computer...

 

Launch difficulty depending greatly on number of people playing is probably extremely true. If there's not even 50,000 people playing yet then I would have hopped they reached near that in the beta at least so server stress testing and other issues would already be handled with that limited amount of players.

 

The game may be challenging but all for the wrong reasons:
- bugs
- instabilities (I CTD every 45 minutes or so, which usually means death)
- bad combat design (DPS-wise it's like WoW on amphetamine)
- too fast respawn rate in many areas
- retarded world design with mobs laid out like a sensor grid
- the fact that it takes frigging forever to go anywhere and do anything
- insufficient escape mechanics for most classes
- warping mobs
- mobs going aggro the microsecond they spawn
- many mobs with "I win!" skills like 15s silence, long lasting stuns, OMGWTFBBQ DoTs or 45s 40% dmg debuff
- almost useless counterspell mechanics
- god damn grey mobs 15 levels lower than you knocking you off your horse making cross-country travel impossible
- shit aggroing through walls
- numerous mobs that aren't leashed and follow you forever

One more thing... if you're still clowning around in the newbie progression zones, don't voice your opinions: they're worthless. Oh, and diplomacy... wait for the tutorial quest kindergarten to end and you get to experience the full glory of civic diplomacy, which involves spending hours hailing NPCs just to see if they're of the right skill level for you. And whoever enjoys the endless, carpal-tunnel inducing grind of the crafting system prolly also enjoys having his fingers smashed with a hammer by Russian mobsters and being sodomized with a splintering nightstick.

~A very frustrated level 19 Blood Mage on Gelenia, who's only playing because he's sooo done with WoW.

 

Vanguard has well more than 50,000 players active right now, but certainly not 50,000 per server. They are certainly not without server stability issues, too-long lag issues between the occasional soft-zone border, and nightly patching. The only game that seems smooth enough to really buck the launch trend of launch issues is LotR:O (which was almost unreasonably smooth and fleshed-out in Beta 1), but as previously stated, it needs to do more to distinguish itself among the competition.

...by not letting you fall asleep on your keyboard and wake up level 60 with Epic gear?

Not an MMO with bugs! NOOOOO!!! (If you had your druthers, you'd stay away from any MMO for a good 6-12 months. But where's the fun in that?)

You might want to tinker around a bit, because if I'm unlucky I crash to desktop once a night. One of my friends has only desktopped once since launch. Another has an older, fruitier PC and might crash once in a three or four hour period. And amusingly, none of us have died to a CTD yet--just zone kicks. ^_^;;

And by that you mean "I have never fought three-dot or four-dot difficulty mobs, or even decided to hunt anything much over my level"? You swing the scale from anywhere between "three hits, you're dead!" to "how can something take minutes for a full party to kill?!" and that is NOT on actual raids. (Instanced dungeon equivalents, I suppose. "Place filled with Elite mobs." Heh... Just of, it seems, a bigger sway and mixture.)

Or were you thinking of a different drug? Heh. Point is, though, you can hunt your playstyle and it doesn't actually seem to force you along one line. (Mobs that take a minute to kill being only worth twice as much as one that takes 5 seconds, for instance.) I'm not in that stage of analysis yet, though, as right now I'm mainly following the quests and exploring new areas.

(Also, before you reply to this section, peek down to my final comments for more context.)

True. But this is not a bad thing. All mobs should spawn in at the same rate? All this means is you need to push it faster, wait a few levels, or bring in another group member.

I mainly grow annoyed when simple quest mobs (of your level) that you need to "get a random drop off of" spawn too slowly.

It's almost like you haven't played an MMO before! Or wait, it's just that you ascribe too much amazingness to WoW's design while ignoring their same exact elements? I daresay you didn't play high level Vanguard, so if you're comparing it to specifically designed high-level zones, raids, and encounters in WoW, you're beating the wrong drum. The layout is EXACTLY THE SAME as WoW up to the 40's. (Which is the point most of my friends and I grew tired.)

I still can't wrap my head around your earlier comments about world design, but barring a few nifty imaginative places (like, say, the thunder lizard gorge near Ogrimmar), WoW is designed much the same. Mulgore is a big flat grassy plain surrounded by mountains with a nifty city tossed in. (All cities are nifty in most games, excepting Khal in Vanguard which is mainly nifty from overhead. Heh...) The Barrens is a big flat--well--barrens surrounded by mountains with stuff spread around (be it "town filled with good people" or "town filled with bad people" or "huts filled with mobs").

And you know what? Mobs are laid out in specific "grid-like" areas where they wander, and to find them you wander between them to find them, then wander to the other area to find the OTHER mobs you need. Any mob that is spread liberally around is almost universally useless, excepting perhaps for skinning. Anything that actually has a divergent level range and difficulty has--GASP!--a specific name, specific quest triggers, and hey! Guess what? Specific areas they roam!

Or is it mentally acceptable when zones have specific mapped borders with odd shapes so it doesn't feel like a grid?

This is a valid complaint, but not necessarily a bad thing. True it doesn't fit most players' gamestyles right now, but... whatever. It actually means you EXPLORE your world some. Meanwhile, you get a mount early and cheaply, and later on you'll be breezing over it even more. (Essentially, when you stop moving from step to step across continents, you'll likely have a flying mount. )

Also, that is a timesink complaint, and has no relation to "difficulty" unless you mean in the "dodging mob aggro" way.

"Escape mechanics" ARE A HUGE REASON things are so easy in WoW. "An add? I'll just use Ability X to take care of it." They give up after almost no chasing. You don't pay a price for hunting in a challenging area, and you don't pay a price for mistakes.

Meanwhile, most classes in Vanguard still have a form of escape, but they have to judge the situation earlier and maneuver more carefully. Sometimes, btw, that "escape mechanic" is actually NOT turning and running, but turning to deal with your opponent. If you're in an area with especially dangerous mobs you can't kill, well... In that case, what do you expect?

For groups, there are the same mechanics as usual, what with evacuate abilities. (And rezzes and rez-stones, if you want to get technical about getting up and out from partial wipes.)

Now THIS is indeed annoying, but doesn't add much difficulty. A stupid-ass bug, but warping mobs don't actually aggro the world like they did in EQ, can still frequently get hit (as it's just their visual image that is warping), and usually pop back in quickly if you step back. Not a "difficulty" trait that factors in.

Also very annoying, and likely will get the kibosh soon. You can count it under the same kind of category as mobs that spawn in quickly, I suppose, but you need to give the players time to react. At the very least they should take that away from overland mobs while leaving it intact in "dungeon"-type areas.

Chain stunning is the only "I win!" ability I've seen so far. Silencing only affects some of your abilities, and either they toned it and said DoT/debuffs down or took it away from most mobs, as I've never seen anything that matters. Maybe in soloing, but unless you're pretty balls-deep you're not taking on 4-dots that are levels above you. And those haven't been using such ability.

One mob with stun is annoying, but fine. A little spice. But two mobs on you with stun tend to activate and keep you perminantly fried, which they have to do something about. Mobs that would be a cakewalk even if you got six of them frenzying on your party end up killing you pretty quick instead. Stuns shouldn't overlap and should give you some immunity respite between them, essentially. (Though any other side-effects could still apply.)

...which makes me know you haven't used counterspelling. That can make a HUGE difference in fighting. Even if it's not a matter of life and death, it can still be a matter of "easy versus hard" or just speeding up the kill. It's not the most fun mechanic in the universe, but I think it will have a bigger effect the higher you go and give small, balanced groups advantages over others in the same areas.

A) Roads are always 95% clear, which is what--you know--roads are about. Safe and easy travel, even if it doesn't V-line.
B) Mobs five or six levels under me have substantially-reduced range and area easy to dodge, even in mass. They also only knock me off my horse half the time. (Might be different for cloth casters, though.) I can't imagine how small 15-belows would be.
C) Grey mobs are meaningless, meaning you can turn and kill it in two seconds and be back on your way, losing barely any time. Or you can run it out and hop back on your horse when it gives up, meaning you just slowed down a bit for perhaps ten seconds. Or you can, you know, pay attention to where you're going.
D) You can buy items that specifically work against such knockings-off.
E) This is also not a "difficulty" matter, but that of minor inconvenience and in the "timesink" category if anything.
F) There is no mountain here. There is molehill. (Anthill, actually.)

Definitely annoying, but not amazingly so as long as they don't path like idiots. You would likely know if you friend was getting beat up in the hall while you're at your computer, right? I have not run across aggroing through cave walls or long walls with no nearby passthrough (though it probably happens, too); it's been mainly "thin building wall with a door nearby." And even then, not often unless you're wedged almost butt-up against the wall.

All mobs are leashed, to my knowledge. Anything that isn't is likely one of those bugs. (As is "still being in combat or on a mob's hatred list through an Evac.") I have had no mobs that follow me "forever," unless you're just using that in a sarcastic manner to say they're tenacious. Which indeed they are. ^_^ Which adds to the difficulty, but it not by nature a "bad thing."

I've played up to level 14 with each of the class types and on each of the continents (no, not meaning four on EACH... Just covering all the bases.) to get a good handle on the feel of the game. My main is a 17th level Dread Knight and I've had encounters up through 20th level 4-dots so far, as far as difficulty goes. I don't think our experiences differ all that much, excepting I'm grouping up more often? I'm almost always hunting in pairs, and quite often fours.

Hunting solo is rather depressing as a Dread Knight. Heh...

I concur with your diplomacy comments right now, though. I was excited by being in the middle of my main chain, but until I continue the "plotline quests" again in New Targonor or pick them up from other locations (I'm not sure how much of that you can do, since they do seem to be aimed at particular races and "young ones" rather than outsiders) I've found that Civic Diplomacy doesn't do nearly as much, and slows down quite a lot. I do think the game is well-designed and fun, but you need easier access to new cards, and they do need to do more work to fill in the gaps.

Crafting I haven't done yet, but will be soon. This is coming from a 250-jewelcrafter, 200-potter, 200-tailor, 150-in-basically-everything-else-an-Enchanter-could-do... BEFORE the crafting changes in EQ1, so... You can't scare me with clicking effort! ^_^ The point to making a better crafting system, though, is to make it more unique and interesting, which I think Vanguard has done pretty well so far. If it requires a few more clicks and drives the lazier sort away... so be it. I can't vouch for it entirely, but I HAVE been wanting a crafting system that aims at getting more skill and spending more time with one item, rather than rapid-crafting chaff until you can rapid-craft more chaff until you can rapid-craft more chaff until MAYBE you start getting one or two things people want. The extra effort should be spent on quality, not quantity, and Vanguard goes many steps in that direction.

Thankfully the crafting quests can enable you to skill up while making some money and also not be bound to harvesting (or purchasing hunted harvesting supplies on the market). If you just want to learn to CRAFT, that's all you have to do. But when you start wanting quality...

I think it looks like it will have a good payoff at the end, despite possible hand numbness. (I'll vouch on that later, btw. To my knowledge you can get around a lot of tediousness by just having a proper setup. Meanwhile, you get Carpal just from playing MMO's in general. Heh...)

Perhaps I misread some of your earlier WoW comments then, as they seemed to be being needlessly gracious and glowing. Needless to say, I'm ambivilant about all games (though do tend to get more excited by new and interesting ones) and try to be as even-handed as I can when comparing them. WoW, while it gets major props for its own style, is still taking a style developed over a decade and playing it up. Certain areas they do really well are making their forests look and feel good even when staring closely at any single tree makes you want to hurl, graphically. -_- But there is an awful lot of boring to WoW, and an awful lot of that EQ1 design of "this zone looks like this!" though their areas tend to hold together better and be more imaginative. (1000 Needles is a fun place. ^_^ But Tanaris is boring boring, Desolace is boring, Stonetalon less so...)

I can't comment on much of Vanguard yet (I'm mainly well-travelled around Khal and Hathor Zhi, between Tursh and Leth Nurae, and Martok. Much less on Kojan than anywhere else, for some reason.) but I think they put enough effort into things, there are minor details all over the place to enjoy (even in boring ol' monotone Khal), and plenty of "oops, this is different!" locations around. I also very much enjoy the flowing feel to the landscape and easier transitions between environments rather than acknowledging that "I'm in Desolace now!" or getting on a wyvern, going away from my keyboard for five minutes, and "waking up" somewhere else entirely.

Meanwhile, if you want to take a walk in an excellent forest, might I suggest creating a high elf for a time? Everything's so GREEEEEN...!

The models and architecture have plenty of variation without being cartoonishly exaggerated, the armor and weapons are quite diverse even at launch (though I wish you could dye/tint them and try them on for looks), and the textures are a refreshing change from most MMOs.

It will have different appeals to different people, but even my friends who adore WoW to pieces and are giving Vanguard a shot don't have anywhere NEAR that kind of reaction. The game--quite simply--looks good.

Video card depending, of course... Hehe.

 

Im enjoying it so far, not very far as i only picked up the game a day or so ago. I need to get a better graphics card to enjoy the visuals.

epic

 

I was surprised to stress an 8800GTX so quickly.

Here's to waiting on the R600!

What server are you on, btw? A batch of friends and I are on Woefeather, if you're looking for random company.

 

Hehe, im killing my x300.

Yep, i got my money ready for it too.

Im on Woefeather too. Names Apophis on it.

epic

 

i think theres alot of performance still locked in the 8800 cards, its the NV40 all over again in terms of driver maturity.

 

Funny thing is, if the R600 proves to be a substantial upgrade, I already have a deal worked out with a friend where I buy it and he buys my GTX to go SLI. (I got the same exact model as him because of that consideration. I would have gone in a slightly different direction at a later point without that agreement.)

An X300? Dude... -_- Have you just been playing Civ and Tetris up until now?

I'm on one of a number of characters: Morah, Ranqr, Dhentil, or Lenoar right now. Chances are on my Dread Knight Morah, though. I'm'a give a hail to you if I catch you on. ^_^ (As previously mentioned, we're in the Khal roundabouts right now. At least we know where lots of the quests are. Hehe...)

Should we find JVD and drag him in, do you think? I think he'd appreciate the game. ^_^

Quite possibly, and I don't expect anything less right now, or anything more out of the R600 when it launches, really. I'll ride that wave out.

For now, though, it lets me pretty much max everything and force 4x/12x without worrying about it. (Vanguard's lag mainly comes from the network, so even though I don't get super frames right now, they're pretty solid when I'm not hunting in a populated area. I turn it down to not get so much chunk at soft-zone borders and in cities.)

 

I can ping him if you'd like, see if he's interested in the game. I'm tempted to try it, but I keep thinking I should instead wait for LOTRO.

 

My friends and I have been waiting so long for LotR:O that it seems almost a heresy to NOT buy the game and play it.

But as much as we love Middle Earth, it seems to game is doing little to distinguish itself, so other than wanting to "play a WoW that is not a WoW" with some subtle differences (probably at the end game), I'm not sure what to expect.

The game in Beta 1 was one of the more polished MMO's I've run across even counting months after LAUNCH, but I just have no idea what it will do that is... different. My HOPE is that they actually do what other MMO's pretty much do not and "start plot, advance plot, change world," as they already have the guidelines. But... they haven't let any inklings be known yet.

I do like the funky preorder options, though. ^_^ (I can't quite tell if it smacks of desperation or not. But I hope others carry the prescedent forth. Being able to play quite early and KEEP your character would kick ass.)

As buggy as Vanguard is and as difficult as it can be, it also smacks of a lot more complexity, interest, and future prospects. LotR:O seems like it's trying to be a WoW for people who want to escape the WoW atmosphere. (Any way you design a game would attract the Tolkien buffs, meanwhile. )

Between my friends and I, we have 10-day passes to hand out, though, so if you want to dive in and see how it's going right now, I can hook any of you up. You need a good chuck of hard drive space free, though. Hehe...

 

I have a friend who was working in Turbine (but not on LOTRO). He didn't have high hopes for it simply because what he'd hear around the company was to the effect of, "well maybe will be sick of WoW by the time we ship".

 

just canceled my subscription. i had stopped playing 2 weeks ago, but just now decided to stop completely. Might jump back in a year or so. Hope they polish the game, and improve the graphics.

epic

 

Do you actually mean "improve the graphics" or more a "improve the graphics performance?"