Vanguard, Saga of Heroes.
I was amazed more people couldn't see how good it could be.
Exactly same boat here. I loved that game, but it was a weird love/hate relationship, and my time with the game was as troubled as the game itself. I played the beta and my first impressions were that it was a huge disappointment and that it would be for others too, because so many people had very high expectations, hoping for a modern and bigger budget version of EQ. In reality it was kind of more of the same, but with WoW style quest grinding which rubbed many of us the wrong way. But the classes were outstanding and the graphics were stunning, big world, lots of locations, lots to do. It was disappointing in many ways but I still loved to play it.
I liked the beta and then bought the game and talked my real life friends into getting it. To my surprise, they hated every minute of it. I couldn't believe that they complained about everything, constantly. Just constant whining, and dying, and failing, and more whining. We all played EQ together from release in 1999 and solidly for a good few years, so I thought they would be up for the challenge. But they had gone to WoW sometime around 2003 or whenever it came out, and I kept playing EQ on various early emulator servers. So Vanguard for me was an upgrade in most ways, but for them, it was buggy, gimpy, and they were not used to playing something that wasn't super slick and hand holdy. They couldn't believe a game could have so many bugs and performance problems, and they kept dying constantly by trying to run through the mobs instead of travelling cautiously. All it really took was weaving in and out of them, but my friends would just run straight through them and hope for the best, get beat down and die, and then get all depressed about having to run back to their tombstone and lose all that exp etc.. They both quit by about level 10, hardly seeing anything that the game had to offer. I kept playing by myself, later joined a guild, and was motivated by seeing the mid and higher levels, the flying mounts, the ships, and all the cool stuff I knew the game had and my friends never knew about. I also wanted to try all the cool classes.
But then a month or so later, the initial 150,000 players that tried it for the first month, were mostly gone. I felt like I was playing a ghost town game, and then they did a patch to the game which was terrible, it ruined the UI and some of the graphics, and it nerfed the one thing I liked about my class. I rage quit and didn't go back for years. I felt angry that I was one of the ones to stick with the game through all the other shit, but then they took it too far.
Over those few years while I was away, they tidied the game up a lot, and I kept going back to the game. They would do a free month and I'd play it for the month and then subscribe for another month or so after. But I hated soloing because the solo content was mostly boring as hell. Kill 20 blue monsters, then collect 20 skulls from the green snakes, then kill 40 of those weird lizards, etc. Some areas were terrible like that. I kept quitting but something kept dragging me back, I think it was just that the classes were so good and the combat was satisfying. A year or so later I had the brainwave to go back to the game and start multi boxing. It transformed the game. I played with a bard and shaman, paying for two subscriptions, but having some of the most fun I've ever had in a game. I could do any solo content easily and some group stuff as well. I later switched to a DK and Cleric and then again to DK and Druid, and that combo was so strong I could do most of the group content myself. I did Darguns Tomb questline all by myself with those 2 characters and loved every minute of it. Only the last fight was too hard for me to duo, but the community was awesome and someone came to help me do it. Then when the game went free to play, I started 6 boxing. By the end I had played every class to level 50 and done most of the quests in the game and seen everything up to level 50. I never went from 50+ because it sounded tedious, and for once I played an MMO on my own terms and loved it. I spent a fortune on Station Cash to buy things I wanted and to hopefully help support the game, and then those cunts shut the server down just a month later, taking all my money and gear with it. I would never forget and never forgive them for that, but they are gone now anyway.
p.s. In case you don't already know, the game will be back as an emulator:
http://vgoemulator.net/
But the progress is sloooooooow. I have been following it for a few years already and it is still a long way off. You can explore the world and auto attack stuff, but quests are only about 40% done and combat is about 5% done or something. I think we are looking at 2-3 more years until it is worth playing. But at least it will happen eventually.
