Vanguard: Saga of Heroes F2P Aug 14

[Data4]

Details here: http://vgplayers.station.sony.com/newsArchive.vm?section=News&month=current&id=1437

Extra news: Brad McQuaid is working on it again. http://vgplayers.station.sony.com/newsArchive.vm?section=News&month=current&id=1425

 

[Zed]

Will it be free to play - pay to win?

 

[Berekän]

Will it be worth it the download?

 

[Terpsichore]

Vanguard is a stillborn titan, forget about it.

 

[Data4]

Vanguard is a decent game. It's relatively hard core in terms of death penalties, though this may change with F2P. The biggest problem is a lack of players, which is caused by the equally big problem of extreme bugginess. However, since the announcement last spring about going F2P, they've bulked up the dev team somewhat and have been making serious progress on bug squashing and content updates. It's got a huge world, player housing, alternate leveling paths (crafting and diplomacy both being viable), player ships, flying mounts, and one of the better weather engines I've ever seen in an MMO. It desperately needs character model and animation updates, but it's still playable. I take it in one or two month chunks at a time, but lose interest because of the lack of other players. I haven't played in a couple of months now, but my understanding is that the population is slowly increasing, and there should be a burst come Aug 14.

I think it'll be worth checking out if you've never played it. If you have and you're pretty well set on not liking it, I don't think any of the changes will matter much to you.

 

[Zed]

I will definitely try it as long as it's not pay to win. I can't find anything about it on the website.

 

[Terpsichore]

I think it'll be worth checking out if you've never played it. If you have and you're pretty well set on not liking it, I don't think any of the changes will matter much to you.

I -do- like it, the concepts and ideas behind.

All of that was abandoned and the game released too soon, nothing great will come with the F2P model either, except imminent dumbing down and wrecked itemization.

 

[Fens]

played the trial some time ago... wasn't too impressed, but might give it another try if the f2p model is closer to STO than LOTRO

is there an overview of the f2p limitations somewhere ?

 

[Data4]

played the trial some time ago... wasn't too impressed, but might give it another try if the f2p model is closer to STO than LOTRO

is there an overview of the f2p limitations somewhere ?

I'm thinking it'll be similar to EQ2Free. I'm sure it's somewhere on the VG site I linked in the OP.

 

[Suicidal]

What's the pvp system like?

 

[thesheeep]

I played it right when it came out.
Damn, that was a letdown. I can't remember anything but being really, really disappointed by everything from the graphics to the gameplay.

 

[Fens]

played the trial some time ago... wasn't too impressed, but might give it another try if the f2p model is closer to STO than LOTRO

is there an overview of the f2p limitations somewhere ?

I'm thinking it'll be similar to EQ2Free. I'm sure it's somewhere on the VG site I linked in the OP.

i tried looking at "New Website: Our official website has received a major facelift and has a new URL - http://www.vanguardthegame.com " ... and all i get there is "We're undergoing a scheduled maintenance" 24/7

SOE at its finest

 

[J1M]

I went to the game's website. I can search a database of all the items but not see a screenshot or a gameplay video/description? LOL this explains why I've never heard of it.

 

[Data4]

Hard to believe you've never heard of it, unless you don't really follow MMOs. It was one of the most highly anticipated games of 2007, with a promise to be the true successor to Everquest 1. Then it had one of the most spectacular failures of a launch. Underneath the bugs, glitches, lack of development and piss-poor management lies a fairly good game that a very small and devoted fanbase has helped keep afloat. Now it's going F2P.

A bit about dungeons:

 

[thesheeep]

Wow. This looks nothing like WoW at all!

 

[Data4]

SOE has decided to "soft launch" F2P now. I guess the official launch is still set for the 14th, but as of now, you can download and play it.

 

[Metro]

I'm surprised this game is actually still around let alone hasn't gone F2P already.

 

[Zed]

Uh. What's the website for the game? Like, where you download the client and stuff. Google won't find anything.

If it's the links in the OP then their server is borked.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

It blows my fucking mind that Brad Mcquaid and his Bowel movement managed to pocket 30 million dollars of investment from MS before they pulled out.

 

[Data4]

Uh. What's the website for the game? Like, where you download the client and stuff. Google won't find anything.

If it's the links in the OP then their server is borked.

http://www.vanguardthegame.com/

It blows my fucking mind that Brad Mcquaid and his Bowel movement managed to pocket 30 million dollars of investment from MS before they pulled out.

If that blows your mind, would knowing Brad McQuaid is back in the team make you shit bricks?

 

[fizzelopeguss]

Smedley must have a hard-on for him.

Pretty sure there was well over a hundred people working on this shit at some point.

 

[Data4]

Smedley must have a hard-on for him.

Pretty sure there was well over a hundred people working on this shit at some point.

Oh, most definitely. I watched the development pretty intently and really looked forward to it. I bought it on day 1. When I finally got it installed and got in the game, it only took a half hour before I wrote an email demanding a refund (which they gave me, to my surprise). I'll admit it-- I was one butthurt motherfucker. Since then, I've played it a bit here and there, and it's okayish. I like the diplomacy game, because that's where all the lore is, and I'm a story/lorefag. The exploration is nice too. I just hated being only one of about a dozen people on at any given time.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Disappointments aside, I still think it was one of the last decent-ish MMOs to come out, which is mostly a testament to the quality of this particular genre. It had lots of problems, but for me the good outweighed the bad. Prior to playing Vanguard I had been playing WoW for 3 years and was glad to come back to a MMO with more class variety and more stuff to do than just grind levels so I can raid. I spent many, many days just hanging about; exploring the places and dungeons, doing PvP with my friend, talking with guildies and crafting. Lack of players wasn't such an issue for me since I was playing on a PvP server and even with the low pop shit could get pretty hot at times. I played 24/7 with a good IRL friend though so if you were running solo I can see it being kind of boring and empty. All in all I mostly agree with everything Data4 says. Lots of good ideas, almost nothing well implemented. Yet, even then I still found it more entertaining than WoW. Maybe it was because they masked the game with tons of vanity gloss, but damnit I missed that vanity. Little things that break the tedium of level grind in MMOs are great.

 

[Kane]

MMOs that aren't sandboxes fucking blow. Ultima forever! Uh, oh.. wait... no! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Someone has to stop them before it is too late! Let Trammel not been in vein!

 

[Zed]

Played 20 mins. Now I kind of remember why I never played it past beta.
It feels incredibly unpolished, even now after several years.
Everything has a short delay (looting, talking to NPCs, etc), even when playing on medium pop server.
It's also ugly as hell considering it doesn't exactly run flawlessly.

But then again I feel it's impossible to play and enjoy an MMORPG unless I know I will be spending at least a month on it. I knew I would shelve this after a night. I'll just wait for Guild Wars 2.

 

[Hoaxmetal]

But then again I feel it's impossible to play and enjoy an MMORPG unless I know I will be spending at least a month on it. I knew I would shelve this after a night. I'll just wait for Guild Wars 2.

Same here, didn't see anything that'd make me stay.

 

[Data4]

A lot of the gameplay-gimping restrictions have just been lifted on the F2P model. I'm once again at that point where I'm looking at my shelf and thinking about what to dust off. I might start a new character and just romp til the boredom sets in again. I did take a look on one of my old characters the other day, and the population looks pretty lively.