Vanguard Saga of Heroes
Sony Online Entertainment - Sony Online Entertainment
Windows XP
Release date: 2007-01-29
CD-ROM
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Vanguard Saga of Heroes
Date undefinedVanguard had a shaky start for sure, but since the launch almost two years ago it has improved constantly. The game is still not perfect, but the playerbase seems to be growing, and I have a blast every time I log in!
Vanguard Saga of Heroes
Date undefinedReturning player from launch. I was one of the many disappointed by Vanguard. I wanted to fall in love with it, but I couldn't. I always checked up to see how it was improving. Then I read impressions of the current state, so I had to check it out for myself. WOW!!! Vanguard is now truly an epic game. Flying mounts are in, ships are in, basically everything promised at release is now in game and then some. The team currently helping VG chug along has done a tremendous job. VG wil never see subscription numbers in the millions, but it will have a very tight knit community that love our game. I can finally call Telon my home for good.
Vanguard Saga of Heroes
Date undefinedI have played a dozen of MMO beginning with UOL and finishing with Age of Conan that I have just desinstalled fatre it occupied my HD for full whooping 8 days .
In my personnal ranking sofar I had :
EQ N°1 for immersion and the size of the world
LOTRO N°1 for graphics and a consistent story line/quest system
EQ2 N°1 for trade skills
After a friend's suggestion I had installed Vanguard 1 week ago .
Sofar it has been a very rewarding experience .
The overall feeling is clearly EQ like while many additionnal features were added .
The strong points I already noticed :
- a mature player basis . Many quilds require 18+ for membership and the players are accordingly rather helpfull and patient . That makes for a pleasant change after having suffered for 1 + year the WoW masses .
- a very good customer service . Friday evening I have made a /report about a quest that wouldn't update correctly . I expected that I would perhaps get a mail on Monday telling me that they were working on it . Instead after 10 minutes I got a tell from a GM who joined me immediately and solved the problem . He was very friendly and polite what also was a pleasant change after most of other MMOs .
- original and excellent diplomacy system . Especially the newbie diplomacy quests are interesting and make for a good introduction in the game (as a Gnome I have been incorporated in the counterintelligence department and charged with the investigation of strange disappearance of mages and inventors) .
- the trade skills are similar to EQ2 that I rank N°1 so , obviously , I am very satisfied with it
- the world is huge and non instanced what enhances the immersion feeling
- the classes are very complementary and balanced . On top of the classical EQ classes (with enchanters called psionists here) there are blood mages and disciples . Sofar I have tried only 3 (necromancer , bard and psionist) and they get all 3 a very different gaming feel .
- patience is needed and players don't get spoonfed with items , XP and gold by just running around 10 minutes . That has also the merit that it effectively eliminates most kids that want everything at once . The death penalty is a good thing in that respect too .
To the weaker points I'd mention :
- one doesn't see many players . My highest level is 12 and I have met players only in the big cities . Sofar it was easy to solo but I play MMORPGs mostly for the first MM . If I wanted to go solo , I would not buy an OL game . I also noticed that calls for groups were extremely rare and when it happened it was in the 30ies range . I have been told that :
a) the world is so huge that players are all over the place
b) the bad launch of the game has chased most of the players away but the population began to go again up since SOE took over , eliminated most of the bugs and implemented features that were not there at launch
c) a free trial is foreseen in september that would create an influx of new players
Well wait and see . It was precisely the huge player basis that had been an important element of the immersion feeling in EQ .
- the graphics and character customisation . While not bad it could be improved
- too fast day/night change . It is irritating . I'd scale it to something like 3 hours day and 1 hour night .
Definitely the strong and original points of this game largely outweigh the weaker points and there is still potential to improvement by future releases .
I'd even rank it overall a tad above LOTRO that was for me sofar the best "modern" MMORPG .
I recommend it to any mature player and certainly to all those who appreciated EQ .
