New Vanguard Email

[Yegolev]

This message is to inform you that your Vanguard: Saga of Heroes account has been reactivated for a limited time*.  Between June 26, 2008 at 12:01AM and July 31, 2008 at 11:59PM your account will be re-activated and you will be able to log-in and experience all that Vanguard: Saga of Heroes has to offer.  Vanguard: Saga of Heroes has undergone many game changing updates and we are offering all former account holders a chance to play the game for FREE for a limited time.

I wonder if this will work using the beta client, because I haven't bought this game.  Nor do I plan to.

[Xerapis]

Oh, I'm pretty sure it won't work regardless of the client version.

 

[rk47]

sigh a friend got a full game for 20 bucks and asked me if i wanted a 10 day trial key.

'How big's the client'
'20 gb'
'..............................i rather get porn in that'

[Nerf]

If I can find my install DVD's im going to give it another shot, I want to see how it runs on my new PC.

[Tarami]

sigh a friend got a full game for 20 bucks and asked me if i wanted a 10 day trial key.

'How big's the client'
'20 gb'
'..............................i rather get porn in that'

20 gb really isn't a big deal anymore. Conan is about 25 and LotRO is 10, WoW I don't know anymore but I reckon up about 10 GB aswell. It was a big deal when it launched almost two years ago, but today? Nope. You get a 750 GB drive for something like $100, so it costs you a refundable $3 to have it installed. Your friend got the discs, right?

I tried it at launch and I'm still having an extra session a month with my therapist. I'm going to try it again now. Also, I didn't even have a real account, just a trial, and I still got the offer. That's... uh, generous.

[Wasted]

Hmm the last email I got from them was back in march.

I'm slightly offended I didn't get free time for a game I wouldn't have been arsed to reinstall again :/

[Signe]

I played the beta.  I hated it.  You couldn't pay me to pay for this game!

Well, okay, maybe if you paid me.

[Engels]

Performance wise, its probably not THAT bad anymore, now that people's hardware has caught up and there's few people left playing on the server.

[Nebu]

10 days is a perfect look.  The game had some interesting classes, a novel crafting scheme (diplomacy), and the open dungeons were fun to explore.  For those of you looking for something to mess with for a few days, it's worth a look. 

Long-term... not so much.

[rk47]

oh fine fine fine i'll do a short review. Maybe i meet him tomorrow to collect the DVD

[Nija]

For some reason I got this email as well.

I only ever played the beta.

[shiznitz]

The last time I dabbled in VG, the first 20 levels were actually fun (Ok, 18 levels. I didn't get to 20.)  Don't start on Thestra. Try the smaller continents, Qalia and <mindblank>. Quests are numerous. I enjoyed the gameplay but once you had to group, there was 1) not enough people and 2) lots of travel time to get together.

[Cadaverine]

I got the email, and for about 5 seconds thought about giving it a whirl for a day or three.  Then I realized that in the time it took me to re-install, and patch the beast, I could be playing any number of other games which would provide me 100x more fun in that same period of time as I would get out of Vanguard during the freebie period, assuming I could be arsed to play that shitheap for more than 2 days.

[Nebu]

The last time I dabbled in VG, the first 20 levels were actually fun (Ok, 18 levels. I didn't get to 20.)  Don't start on Thestra. Try the smaller continents, Qalia and <mindblank>. Quests are numerous. I enjoyed the gameplay but once you had to group, there was 1) not enough people and 2) lots of travel time to get together.

AMEN.  Lots to do and see to level 20.  After 20, gets old fast.  Like REALLY fast. 

[Tale]

The last time I dabbled in VG, the first 20 levels were actually fun (Ok, 18 levels. I didn't get to 20.)  Don't start on Thestra. Try the smaller continents, Qalia and <mindblank>. Quests are numerous. I enjoyed the gameplay but once you had to group, there was 1) not enough people and 2) lots of travel time to get together.

QFT. The other good area to start in (possibly the best of all) is called Kojan.

There's not as much travel time now though - they opened up a "riftway" system to everyone - you just go to a city, click on the riftway and select where in the world you want to teleport to. Lame, but working.

[Etwynn]

The last time I dabbled in VG, the first 20 levels were actually fun (Ok, 18 levels. I didn't get to 20.)  Don't start on Thestra. Try the smaller continents, Qalia and <mindblank>. Quests are numerous. I enjoyed the gameplay but once you had to group, there was 1) not enough people and 2) lots of travel time to get together.

AMEN.  Lots to do and see to level 20.  After 20, gets old fast.  Like REALLY fast. 

Actually there's a ton of content 20-50.  The problem is that questgivers don't tell you where you should go next like they do in WoW, so people just end up leaving assuming that there's nothing to do.  The riftway system somewhat resolved this by pointing you where to go by indicating level ranges of various rift locations. 

Edit: Also, when characters were still KoS to outposts your options were severely limited (you could easily remove KoS by grinding like 200 faction but people were too lazy to do it for the most part).  Imagine being able to do horde and alliance quests--that's basically what they did when they lowered the KoS a few months ago.

[Etwynn]

Hmm the last email I got from them was back in march.

I'm slightly offended I didn't get free time for a game I wouldn't have been arsed to reinstall again :/

You might want to check your SOE account.  It could be active even if you didnt get an email (you may have opted out of receiving emails).

[Etwynn]

For some reason I got this email as well.

I only ever played the beta.

Yeah a ton of SOE accounts that never bought the game are actually getting activated.  What's crazy is how many people are actually playing right now.  If you've considered coming back, now might be a good time.  Seradon is medium right now (in the middle of the day) and people have said it's been hitting High population during primetime. 

They haven't implemented the new character models yet but they're coming out in August I think.

[Signe]

I remember thinking that this game doesn't even do EQ as well as LOTRO did EQ2.  If that makes sense to you, I'm sorry!   

[Tarami]

Those fingernails are too long and plain scary.

On an unrelated note.

[Etwynn]

I remember thinking that this game doesn't even do EQ as well as LOTRO did EQ2.  If that makes sense to you, I'm sorry!   

It's beyond me why anyone would want to make an EQ2 clone.  Not that I think LOTRO is an EQ2 clone....

[Signe]

Actually, EQ2 kept me more motivated to log in and play than LOTRO, not that either kept me very long.  Vanguard couldn't even get me after beta, I disliked it so much.  I'd say more, but it would be confusing for me to suddenly understand what the hell I'm talking about. 

[Koyasha]

I never got Vanguard, despite having wanted to originally.  I liked old EQ where everything was hard and we walked uphill both ways in the snow to camp our week-long spawns, and I'm pretty much exactly the kind of player that it would have seemed the whole 'Vision' idea was good for.  The reason was simply how buggy I heard the game was at launch.

If they would come out with a free trial that I could sign up to some week when I'm feeling bored of other things, they'd probably wind up getting me to buy a box and pay for a few months, at least, assuming the majority of the bugs have been dealt with by now.  But after being turned off by the 'this game doesn't WORK' at launch, I'm not giving it a chance without a free trial.  It's a shame that they still don't offer one, because I would really like to try it out, honestly.

Same situation applies to Age of Conan, too.  My one play experience with the game was barely functional, so their golden client version that apparently was actually real this time means nothing to me unless I can play it before paying.  I think it's because there's finally enough games out there that I sort of like that I don't have to try every game that sounds like it might be fun, if I hear or experience that it's not working well.

[trias_e]

VG had awesome classes.  Disciple and Blood Mage were tons of fun.  Best classes I've ever played in an MMO.  Too bad everything else was 

[Etwynn]

If they would come out with a free trial that I could sign up to some week when I'm feeling bored of other things, they'd probably wind up getting me to buy a box and pay for a few months, at least, assuming the majority of the bugs have been dealt with by now.  But after being turned off by the 'this game doesn't WORK' at launch, I'm not giving it a chance without a free trial.  It's a shame that they still don't offer one, because I would really like to try it out, honestly.

They're coming out with a free trial sometime this summer.  It will only be like a 2-3gig download (and will consist of 1 newbie zone).

[Nerf]

Well, I tried, I just couldn't get into it, felt too lethargic on both my ranger and necro ):

I think conan ruined MMOs for me.

[Pendan]

I never had a real account only a beta account but was able to log into Vanguard this weekend. In the first minute of play I had the same first bug I reported in December of 2006 with first minute of beta. I continued to see old bug after old bug for next two hours including the very annoying having to use the /reload command because the map or another dialog would flash briefly at the wrong scale and then disappear. My 8th or so quest kept bugging out so that I could not complete it. The continent chat was full of people asking about quest bugs and possible solutions. Were no other quests I could find in the area (basically second newbie quest hub) and I was left wondering where to go. I ran to two places near by on the map. One was a city and other was labeled as level appropriate dungeon but could not find any more quests besides diplomacy and trade skill. I then took a ship to the big khal city.

Overall frame rate appeared better even though I was using the next higher default graphic setting than I did in beta (with same machine). Khal though was still unpleasant with quarter second pauses every 2 seconds. This was actually better than beta but maybe because were less players around. Chunk lines were a little faster but still had weird effects like by character would be place a foot or two above ground on zoning and fall back down.

Even Conan feels more polished than Vanguard a year half after release.

[Furiously]

I played for about 10 minutes then went off to sleep.

[Signe]

Sounds like a good alternative to Ambien.

[Hawkbit]

Sounds like a good alternative to Ambien.

It really is.  Last I played was in beta, but I gave it a shot the other day because it's free.  I damn near fell asleep 20 minutes after I started the game. 

It's a really beautiful world... but the design is simply uninspired.