Vanguard: Round 1 - FIGHT!

[Kitsune]

Given that every other Vanguard thread seems to be 'Vanguard sux!'  'Nuh uh!  Vanguard rulez!'  'Nuh uh!', I'd like to get something a bit more informative out of people who've played the game.  To that end, I want to lay down some suggestions and the questions that I'd like answered.  Anyone with further ideas, feel free to tack them on.  These are the questions I'd ask of any MMOG, more or less.

Suggestions

1. Nothing on performance/stability.  Those issues plague almost all MMOGs at launch, that sort of problem will eventually be worked out and is a transient issue compared to the game's content.

2. Nothing on leveling speed.  If a game is actually enjoyable to play, then it shouldn't matter how long it takes to hit 50.  Reaching 50 in one day is pointless if the game is sheer torture.

3. Try to note whether a feature is incomplete.  A class full of placeholder spells is more likely to undergo significant changes than a class that seems to be polished.


Questions

1. Core mechanics.  The game is level-based, but has a hefty number of skills.  Is this the same as EQ/WoW's 'you have skills but they don't actually do much of anything and level is all that matters' system, or something actually approximating a skill-based game like UO/Oblivion?  Do the stats have a significant impact on a character, or are they more or less ignorable?

2. Races.  Are they unique and compelling?  Examples of uniqueness are stats that are noticeably different from the other races; EverQuest's 'High Elves get +5 intelligence!' is an example of a difference that doesn't count for crap.  Examples of compelling details for a race are EverQuest's different flavors of low-light vision (EQ2's ugly and useless low-light vision modes don't count), a unique and interesting home city, and lots of quests and lore about each race to give them a place in the world.  Going back to EQ, the VahShir's newbie citizenship quest was a very good way to immerse players in the race; on the flip side of that coin, however, EQ did a shitty job of making the other players care about that race, "Um, there's, like, a moon, and cat people live on it." was about the extent of things.  Good game lore should familiarize players of every race with what's going on with every other race.  High Elven players should be intimately familiar with every misdeed performed by the Dark Elves and why they are hated so, while the Dark Elves should know that the High Elves are all just prissy racists trying to keep the black man down.

3. Classes.  As with the races, are the classes distinct from each other?  The original vision of EQ2 is a prime example of a game that completely failed at compelling and distinct classes; one healer was much the same as another.  Ideally, each class should have mechanics that sets it completely unique from the others; WoW did a very handy job of this.  Nobody could ever confuse a totem-dropping Shaman with a soul-stealing Warlock, even if both of them were performing a similar role of standing back and zapping monsters.  On the other hand, each class needs to be broad enough to find a place in a party, in much the way that a WoW party seeking DPS can easily accept a Rogue or Mage to perform the role.  Also, as with races, there should be ample quests available to acquaint everyone with their own class and what to expect from the other classes.  Hopefully enough to prevent any more 'SoW plz' to the clerics.

3a. Classes in combat.  Vanguard uses the 'auto-attack plus specials' of EQ and all of its progeny.  Are the spells and attacks unique and interesting?  Early WoW feral druids are an example of attacks that were not at all interesting.  Run up to monster, claw, claw, claw, claw, claw, rip, repeat until monster dead, repeat on next monster.  Just as bad as EverQuest's old 'hit attack and sit back to watch the fight, hitting the Kick button now and then'.

3b. AI in combat.  How intelligently do the NPCs fight?  Is it a simple threat model, or do they display any more advanced behavior?

4. Tradeskills.  Do they create items of worth, or are they a money/time sink?  Low-level tradeskills often create decent items for their level, while high-end tradeskills usually create trash for their level.  If nobody has gotten to see the upper levels of crafted items, nobody may be able to answer this one.

5. Diplomacy.  Okay, they took Oblivion's persuasion minigame and made it into a card game.  What does it do?  What benefits are gained from getting chummy with NPCs?  Can it actually make a big difference, to the tune of being able to talk your way through a KOS city or avoiding fights with monsters?

6. The World.  Do NPCs have any life to them, or are they still standing in the same spot 24/7 like they did in EQ, unmoving and unspeaking?  Do events of complexity occur, such as a quest 'spawning' near a player with scripted NPCs (a caravan appears on the road, the owner is distraught because his daughter is missing), or is the wilderness just a giant monster-spawning field?  Is anything actually going on like a war or invasion or something that will bring change from month to month, or is the world more or less static, with Fippy making his eternal charge for Qeynos every five minutes?

6a. Exploration bait.  Are there interesting things to find?  Caves, temples, tombs, monuments, villages, out of the way NPCs and quests?

7. Convenience.  Customizable user interface, easy means for players to find groups, well-written quest logs for keeping track of things, not having to sit and stare at a spellbook for five minutes after every fight, stuff along those lines that show polish and forethought in the game-playing experience.

[Falconeer]

Dude, you could be rght. But I can't help saying: "4th Vanguard thread? WTF!!"

[shiznitz]

Yes, there are four threads but three have been polluted beyond all coherent discussion.

So, abiding by the rules above (for the most part) here are my impressions after about 5 hours of play over 3 days. My characters:

7 vulmane druid
3 halfling ranger
1 lesser giant dk (exists but no played time)

All characters are on the Thestra continent, Hilsbury server. I am only going to comment on what I have experienced myself or heard through my guildmates (guild invites are buggy as shit right now, btw.)

1) Too early to tell about skills. After level 10 you get to allocate stats manually and everyone tells me to pick 3 and ignore the rest. Vanguard is clearly a game above specialization.

2) The Vulmane are cool. They are the dog/wolf-like race. I usually go human or half-elf in MMOs so I am going against type here. The starting area evokes Native Ameican culture and anecdotally is one of the best (i.e. fully fleshed-out and least buggy) starting areas, the other being the Varanjar/Lesser Giant areas. My vulmane has 7 open quests at level 7.

3) The druid is an offensive caster (DDs and DoTs) with root (40% chance to break if target is damaged), damage shield (1 hour duration), a weak heal and eventually SoW and levitate. The spell progression is exactly like WoW: Lightning Strike I became Lightning Strike II. All my spells are I or II right now. You can cast on the run.  I am still not bored of the Lightning Strike graphic. I little cloud appears over the target and dual, narrow lightning bands strike down. I also have a dumb earth elemental pet. It attacks my target but cannot be commanded. It vanishes 10 seconds after combat ends or is killed. The poison DoT is just a green cloud.

3b) Nothing special about the AI. If a mob has a ranged attack, they use it when rooted. If a mob spawns or wanders by a mob I have rooted, it aggros.

5) Diplomacy. I didn't read the tutorial and tried to wing it. I am stuck on the third step of the introductory Diplomacy questline because I get beaten badly. Will have to revivist this or just blow it off for now.

6) I have seen little of the world, but there are a lot of "frozen" NPCs in the vulmane town. Some guards wander a bit. There is no "life" in that sense.  Too early to comment on exploration potential. One of my guildmates crossed the Thestra continent on his level 10 horse. It took 45 minutes and he didn't remark on anything special in Ventrilo while he was doing it.

7) I find the UI crude coming from EQ2 but it is functional. I have a chat box and a combat box. The target box is too bulky and the mob's level is a tiny number. So far, the only color coding on the mobs is yellow = nonaggro, red = aggro. I have seen no evidence of green-blue-white-yellow-orange a la EQ2/EQ.

[Trippy]

3) The druid is an offensive caster (DDs and DoTs) with root (40% chance to break if target is damaged), damage shield (1 hour duration), a weak heal and eventually SoW and levitate.

sow plz

Sorry I couldn't resist :-D

[Nebu]

7) I find the UI crude coming from EQ2 but it is functional. I have a chat box and a combat box. The target box is too bulky and the mob's level is a tiny number. So far, the only color coding on the mobs is yellow = nonaggro, red = aggro. I have seen no evidence of green-blue-white-yellow-orange a la EQ2/EQ.

There's a crude dot system of conning things when you target a mob.  When you look at the circle of the target window, you'll see a number of colored dots that will display con (color) and difficulty (number of dots denote a mob that should be handled by a group or can be handled solo).  

I'll try to post something more here later... I have work that has to get done in the next hour or so.

[Miasma]

2. Nothing on leveling speed.  If a game is actually enjoyable to play, then it shouldn't matter how long it takes to hit 50.  Reaching 50 in one day is pointless if the game is sheer torture.

That would be really important, the only people who could enjoy the leveling in this game are either masochists or that very small percentage of people who can play a game and honestly ignore their level.  I've tried to do the whole "It's not the destination but the journey" thing in MMOs before by enjoying all the lower level content but I always break down and start staring at the xp bar... then I grind out a level or two, then I don't stop grinding until I despise the game.

1. Core mechanics.  The game is level-based, but has a hefty number of skills.  Is this the same as EQ/WoW's 'you have skills but they don't actually do much of anything and level is all that matters' system, or something actually approximating a skill-based game like UO/Oblivion?  Do the stats have a significant impact on a character, or are they more or less ignorable?

I'm not sure how you can say WoW's skills don't matter, there are whole sites dedicated to arguing about the best way to build your character, whether to go Disc/Holy/Shadow type stuff, Vanguard has no such skill allocation system.  It has a lot of skills but they are in the EQ style of just getting skill ups as you use something so that you are more successful at said skill.  You can spend attribute points to increase your str/int/wis etc once you hit level ten, you get a handful every third of a level or so.

2. Races.  Are they unique and compelling?  Examples of uniqueness are stats that are noticeably different from the other races; EverQuest's 'High Elves get +5 intelligence!' is an example of a difference that doesn't count for crap.  Examples of compelling details for a race are EverQuest's different flavors of low-light vision (EQ2's ugly and useless low-light vision modes don't count), a unique and interesting home city, and lots of quests and lore about each race to give them a place in the world.  Going back to EQ, the VahShir's newbie citizenship quest was a very good way to immerse players in the race; on the flip side of that coin, however, EQ did a shitty job of making the other players care about that race, "Um, there's, like, a moon, and cat people live on it." was about the extent of things.  Good game lore should familiarize players of every race with what's going on with every other race.  High Elven players should be intimately familiar with every misdeed performed by the Dark Elves and why they are hated so, while the Dark Elves should know that the High Elves are all just prissy racists trying to keep the black man down.

They use the same body models for all races (just changing height/girth) and then just stick a different head on and change the skin texture so physically they aren't unique at all.  The stats are like in EQ, high elves get more wisdom every level than others, it can add up though.  Each race has a special ability, some of which are very useful (immune to damage for ten seconds) and groups of races get small bonuses in run speed, mana etc.  There are many, many starting areas and they are all somewhat different.  Lore wise I think they are doing a terrible job, you aren't introduced to your race at all.  You don't know why you're here, who you hate, who your enemies are and there is almost no history given at all.

3. Classes.  As with the races, are the classes distinct from each other?  The original vision of EQ2 is a prime example of a game that completely failed at compelling and distinct classes; one healer was much the same as another.  Ideally, each class should have mechanics that sets it completely unique from the others; WoW did a very handy job of this.  Nobody could ever confuse a totem-dropping Shaman with a soul-stealing Warlock, even if both of them were performing a similar role of standing back and zapping monsters.  On the other hand, each class needs to be broad enough to find a place in a party, in much the way that a WoW party seeking DPS can easily accept a Rogue or Mage to perform the role.  Also, as with races, there should be ample quests available to acquaint everyone with their own class and what to expect from the other classes.  Hopefully enough to prevent any more 'SoW plz' to the clerics.

The are a lot of classes so there are definitely differences but they are lumped into four groups (tanks,melee dps, caster dps, healer).  There are no quests to acquaint yourself with the other races, I'm a cleric so I wear heavy armour and wield a mace and I had people from WoW trying to give me cloth and staffs.

3a. Classes in combat.  Vanguard uses the 'auto-attack plus specials' of EQ and all of its progeny.  Are the spells and attacks unique and interesting?  Early WoW feral druids are an example of attacks that were not at all interesting.  Run up to monster, claw, claw, claw, claw, claw, rip, repeat until monster dead, repeat on next monster.  Just as bad as EverQuest's old 'hit attack and sit back to watch the fight, hitting the Kick button now and then'.

You mash the same buttons for the most part, there is a system similar to EQ2's where the group can chain special attacks.

3b. AI in combat.  How intelligently do the NPCs fight?  Is it a simple threat model, or do they display any more advanced behavior?

Very simple EQ style.

4. Tradeskills.  Do they create items of worth, or are they a money/time sink?  Low-level tradeskills often create decent items for their level, while high-end tradeskills usually create trash for their level.  If nobody has gotten to see the upper levels of crafted items, nobody may be able to answer this one.

Like you said there are some useful low level items but I don't know about the high end, I don't think they have all the recipes written.  If it is like EQ (and I'm sure it will be) then there will important end crafter items.  Some professions will also be very important in the high end to build your house and boats.

5. Diplomacy.  Okay, they took Oblivion's persuasion minigame and made it into a card game.  What does it do?  What benefits are gained from getting chummy with NPCs?  Can it actually make a big difference, to the tune of being able to talk your way through a KOS city or avoiding fights with monsters?

It's not much like Oblivion's system at all, this is more complicated and can be somewhat difficult.  Reward wise I can't say too much because I just started but you can do stuff like improve the morale of your city's soldiers and that can give a plus attack buff to everyone in the city.  Apparently some high end quests won't work without diplomacy, as in to fight giant_raid_foozle48 someone in your guild might need to convince an NPC to let them attack.  It can be a fun little game and as you get better it becomes more difficult with different types of cards being added to your deck.

6. The World.  Do NPCs have any life to them, or are they still standing in the same spot 24/7 like they did in EQ, unmoving and unspeaking?  Do events of complexity occur, such as a quest 'spawning' near a player with scripted NPCs (a caravan appears on the road, the owner is distraught because his daughter is missing), or is the wilderness just a giant monster-spawning field?  Is anything actually going on like a war or invasion or something that will bring change from month to month, or is the world more or less static, with Fippy making his eternal charge for Qeynos every five minutes?

It's like EQ, the most I have seen NPCs do is walk in a set path.  Some quests will only spawn monsters after events or when you perform an action.  There are several areas where NPCs are fighting each other but it is painful to watch because they just respawn and attack the same person over and over.

6a. Exploration bait.  Are there interesting things to find?  Caves, temples, tombs, monuments, villages, out of the way NPCs and quests?

Yes there is a lot to find but the world is so large you might have trouble finding it, some of the areas are also very boring to walk through, like the plains.  Other areas are very interesting and pleasant though.

7. Convenience.  Customizable user interface, easy means for players to find groups, well-written quest logs for keeping track of things, not having to sit and stare at a spellbook for five minutes after every fight, stuff along those lines that show polish and forethought in the game-playing experience.

The interface is only customizable in so far as EQ was, you can change colours, locations, shapes but there is nothing like the WoW system of being able to actually script stuff.  The quest log is decent, it keeps the original text, has a synopsis of what to do and has locations to choose from.  You don't have to stare at a spellbook.  There is only one world map, the mini map is just a one inch portion of the world map that is zoomed in somewhat.  You don't get a map of your city or a dungeon, just a dot on the world map.  The game is far from polished.

[Trippy]

6) I have seen little of the world, but there are a lot of "frozen" NPCs in the vulmane town. Some guards wander a bit. There is no "life" in that sense.  Too early to comment on exploration potential. One of my guildmates crossed the Thestra continent on his level 10 horse. It took 45 minutes and he didn't remark on anything special in Ventrilo while he was doing it.

Frozen as in not moving but still animated (head turning, arms moving, etc.) or frozen like a statue?

[shiznitz]

They all have some head/arm animation and some have rudimentary voice commentary.  There is no sense of an active community, though.

[Venkman]

1. Core mechanics. The game is level-based, but has a hefty number of skills. Is this the same as EQ/WoW's 'you have skills but they don't actually do much of anything and level is all that matters' system, or something actually approximating a skill-based game like UO/Oblivion? Do the stats have a significant impact on a character, or are they more or less ignorable?

I'm not sure how you can say WoW's skills don't matter, there are whole sites dedicated to arguing about the best way to build your character, whether to go Disc/Holy/Shadow type stuff, Vanguard has no such skill allocation system. It has a lot of skills but they are in the EQ style of just getting skill ups as you use something so that you are more successful at said skill. You can spend attribute points to increase your str/int/wis etc once you hit level ten, you get a handful every third of a level or so.

Was he talking about Skills and you're talking about Talents? Definitely agree that Talents make or break characters, but Skills I always felt were a bit like EQ1: a foregone conclusion. If you needed it, you grinded it if you didn't max it out per level along the way. This is partly because as a Mage, it doesn't matter what proficiency I have in 1H Swords, Daggers, or Staves. I don't fight with those things, I just use them for stats. For Skills on these to matter, the amount of stat boost you receive would be based on your proficiency in that weapon. But then, if that becomes the case, I just go grind it :)

[Falconeer]

What WoW did with Talents they plan to make with AA when you hit max level or something. I raise my eyebrow to that, but that's what I heard.
There was some talking about talent-like stuff, but I guess it went lost in the early-launch madness.

Allocating stat-points every level (actually every 33% of a level) it's fun. Mildly, and not enough character customizing at all, but fun. It should be in every MMORPG.

[Kitsune]

Dude, you could be rght. But I can't help saying: "4th Vanguard thread? WTF!!"

As mentioned, the other threads have turned into people fighting with cats duct-taped to their hands; nobody's getting useful information out of them.

I'm not sure how you can say WoW's skills don't matter, there are whole sites dedicated to arguing about the best way to build your character, whether to go Disc/Holy/Shadow type stuff, Vanguard has no such skill allocation system.  It has a lot of skills but they are in the EQ style of just getting skill ups as you use something so that you are more successful at said skill.  You can spend attribute points to increase your str/int/wis etc once you hit level ten, you get a handful every third of a level or so.

I'm talking about skills, not talents.  Talents matter a whole lot and are a good system, whereas skills don't really matter.  A mage with 300 defense is going to get torn up by a monster only slightly slower than a mage with 1 defense.

Thanks to all for the informative replies, they helped shed a lot more light on things.

[trias_e]

I have some questions to ask, although I'm not sure if I should put them into this thread...

I would like to know a couple things before I pick this sucker up and check out the trainwreck:


1)  Is the client stable? Semi-Frequent Crashes to Desktop are not acceptable.

2)  Is the server stable?

3)  How is the population?  Totally overcrowded?  Ghost Town?

4)  How is the performance?  I have a 3700+ and a decent video card, 2 gigs of ram.  Will I be frustrated with performance while playing more than 5% of the time?

5)  How are the classes?  Distinct?  Unfinished?  Totally unbalanced? 



I'm not interested in polish.  I don't really care about animations, aesthetic errors, or slightly annoying bugs.  Polish is great for selling lots of copies, but it doesn't matter too much to me if the core mechanics are good (which I would like to find out by playing, but I won't go through hell to do so).

[shiznitz]

I have some questions to ask, although I'm not sure if I should put them into this thread...

I would like to know a couple things before I pick this sucker up and check out the trainwreck:


1)  Is the client stable? Semi-Frequent Crashes to Desktop are not acceptable.

2)  Is the server stable?

3)  How is the population?  Totally overcrowded?  Ghost Town?

4)  How is the performance?  I have a 3700+ and a decent video card, 2 gigs of ram.  Will I be frustrated with performance while playing more than 5% of the time?

5)  How are the classes?  Distinct?  Unfinished?  Totally unbalanced? 

1) No crashes for me so far after a few several hour stints. I did start to get some graphics blotches at one point but /flush fixed it instantly.
2) Hilsbury us.
3) Low, but not empty.
4) I have a similar system to yours and the game is easily playable on Balanced at 1280x1024. There is some frame stutter around towns but it is completely tolerable (better than Qeynos Harbor in EQ2.)
5) Distinct. Unfinished? Too early to tell. Unbalanced? The consensus is that rangers and necros are overpowered.

[Nebu]

1)  Is the client stable? Semi-Frequent Crashes to Desktop are not acceptable.

2)  Is the server stable?

3)  How is the population?  Totally overcrowded?  Ghost Town?

4)  How is the performance?  I have a 3700+ and a decent video card, 2 gigs of ram.  Will I be frustrated with performance while playing more than 5% of the time?

5)  How are the classes?  Distinct?  Unfinished?  Totally unbalanced? 

My opinions after playing this weekend.  

1) I've only had one crash in many hours of play.  While that may be unacceptable to some, I can't consider that catastrophic for a pre-launch launch.

2) The servers are pretty stable but they've been taking them down A LOT for small patches.  I don't think they'll be running full time for at least a couple of weeks.

3) Population is highly server and starting zone dependent.  Most are light to medium, so it's not a madhouse.  I envision it will be worse on Tuesday, but that could be optimistic.

4) I have a good machine and the performance is only good outside of cities.  When I go to a major hub, I get tons of lag and terrible framerates even on the highest performance settings.  I have an NVidia 6800 and 2 GB ram and it chugs in the hubs with all the glitz turned off.  I expect this to also get worse before it gets better.

5) This one surprised me.  I've played a few classes to level 10 and many seemed overpowered from a classic EQ standpoint.  There are still many classes that seem unfinished (warriors can't seem to hold aggro, rogues are VERY incomplete) and balance is a serious issue.  I love PvP but wouldn't consider it in this game.  The class imbalances are pretty severe.  

Hope that helps a little.  

[SnakeCharmer]

1)  Is the client stable? Semi-Frequent Crashes to Desktop are not acceptable.

one crash in 18-20ish hours of playing since Friday

2)  Is the server stable?

Other than them taking it offline primetime Saturday night, no server crashes since launch that I know of.

3)  How is the population?  Totally overcrowded?  Ghost Town?

A bit of a personal preference questions.  Some people like it with 100's of other players immediately around them, others prefer it on the empty side.  For me, it was just right; meaning I saw wanderers running/riding by about every couple minutes no matter where I was.

4)  How is the performance?  I have a 3700+ and a decent video card, 2 gigs of ram.  Will I be frustrated with performance while playing more than 5% of the time?

You should be fine.

5)  How are the classes?  Distinct?  Unfinished?  Totally unbalanced? 

About the same as every other fantasy diku

[sinij]

1. Nothing on performance/stability

Why not? Its not like they are breaking any new grounds with design that they have an excuse of not having stability at release.

[Falconeer]

1)  Is the client stable? Semi-Frequent Crashes to Desktop are not acceptable.

2)  Is the server stable?

3)  How is the population?  Totally overcrowded?  Ghost Town?

4)  How is the performance?  I have a 3700+ and a decent video card, 2 gigs of ram.  Will I be frustrated with performance while playing more than 5% of the time?

5)  How are the classes?  Distinct?  Unfinished?  Totally unbalanced? 

1) No client crash so far for me. About 20 hours /played

2) As everyone else stated it's pretty stable.

3) I'd say that population is high on Varking, but that must be cause it's the only Team PvP one. Plus this is only the preorder players. Since tomorrow the game will be on shelves everywhere so you can expect high population on a bunch of servers.

4) "Decent videocard" doesn't say much. We have same chip and RAM but videocard could be the tiebreaker. I have a 7800gtx 512 and it runs more then fine.

5) Classes are definitely distinct. They fall in 4 archetypes but they are very different anyway. Unbalanced? I could understand that from a PvP point of view (and you bet they are unbalanced in PvP) but I can't grasp the concept from a PvE perspective.

[Kitsune]

1. Nothing on performance/stability

Why not? Its not like they are breaking any new grounds with design that they have an excuse of not having stability at release.

Because just about every MMOG ever made broke like a matchstick on release day.  EQ did it.  WoW did it.  AO definitely did it.  And despite all of those unstable releases, they inevitably managed to get things back up and running smoothly within a month.

[Zane0]

Wouldn't you agree that there are degrees of instability?  I think AO tried to format your hard drive at one point in time.

[Kitsune]

Well yes, making your computer burst into flames isn't so excusable.

[Venkman]

Because just about every MMOG ever made broke like a matchstick on release day.  EQ did it.  WoW did it.  AO definitely did it.  And despite all of those unstable releases, they inevitably managed to get things back up and running smoothly within a month.

Not sure if I was playing different servers, but in every game after SWG, anything I played on launch day worked fine. The only big problems were either game related (like the hugh XP nerf in PS) or came later (like WoW's server issues a month and a half after launch). Prior, CoH and DAoC worked fine, though SB and AC2 seemed disasterous (wasn't there for day 1 in SB, but was there for AC2). I think SWG comes closest to AO in terms of fiasco, but at least it was playable on day two.

Of course, we're sorta unique for putting up with this stuff. The last two years have been darned good for launches, for the games that matter. We're finally achieving what other genres had long since established.

[squirrel]

1. Nothing on performance/stability

Why not? Its not like they are breaking any new grounds with design that they have an excuse of not having stability at release.

Because just about every MMOG ever made broke like a matchstick on release day.  EQ did it.  WoW did it.  AO definitely did it.  And despite all of those unstable releases, they inevitably managed to get things back up and running smoothly within a month.

Hrm, I'd agree that the majority of MMOG's are broken day one - but WoW was fine for me on launch day and for several days after. Additionally DAoC was rock solid launch day and pretty much all the time after. Not that VG is having issues, I have no idea, but citing WoW launch in the same paragraph as AO is pretty unrealistic.

[pants]

Wouldn't you agree that there are degrees of instability?  I think AO tried to format your hard drive at one point in time.

Not quite.  There were situations where it borked your Windows install, requiring a reinstall.  Now THAT was a bad launch!

[shiznitz]

Dinged level 7 last night, becoming susceptible to the death penalty. Then died repeatedly over the next hour or so. The actual machanics are not communicated in the game at all.

1) You die and a box appears saying your spirit will release in 10 minutes and then starts counting down. There is a button to release immediately.

2) Releasing drops me at the altar just outside my newbie town. I have no idea how to change this manually or if the game uses the closest one.  You appear naked - well not naked but in your initial clothes.

3) The four times I died, I was maybe a 1 minute run from my gravestone/corpse so I just ran back and clicked it. I got 390 exp back each time and my gear seemed undamaged from the death, although it has wear from regular use. Thankfully all your gear goes where it should with a single click. No gear is under 80% durability yet so I haven't tried repairing.  According to a guildmate's frustrated spam, there is no "repair all" option.

4) Apparently you can summon your corpse to the altar and take a 20% durability hit to all your gear and some exp debt/loss. However, the amount of debt is invisible since the exp bar remains the brownish-gold color. So while  it is clear from the exp message received on corpse recovery that there is debt of some kind, I cannot comment what fraction of a level it is.

[Nebu]

General merchants in town sell bind stones for like 50c a stack of 10.  If you right click the stone it will turn to an "!" that allows you to soul bind a piece of equipment.  Once a piece of gear is soulbound, it will come with you when you release to the bind stone.  I usually buy a stack of these soulbind stones every time I go to town and soulbind all of the gear I find worth keeping.  This keeps you outfitted well enough to fight anything near your corpse after death. 

[shiznitz]

Thanks. I am an experienced MMOG but when I play a new game I let it lead me by the nose. There is nothing in game that explains this mechanic to a new player.

[Nebu]

Thanks. I am an experienced MMOG but when I play a new game I let it lead me by the nose. There is nothing in game that explains this mechanic to a new player.

I found out just buy looking at all the stuff the general merchants sold... I did this while laughing about the fact that there is no "Repair All" option. 

If I were to write a review, I'd advise people don't go near this game for at least 6 months if at all.  By then not only should some of this be addressed, but you should be able to get the game for $5 out o fthe bargain bin.

[shiznitz]

www.vgplayers.com

Better than what SOE does for EQ2players.com. This site somehow actually took a screenshot of my character and put it there. Moderately innovative, anyway.

[Miasma]

Yeah there isn't much documentation, maybe if you allow that annoying pop-up tutorial box to remain it would tell you something when you die but nobody leaves those turned on.

When you die you go to the nearest alter (unless you get a rez in those 10 minutes), you also have a bind point but that is only where you recall.  It's similar to hearthing and graveyards in WoW.  As Nebu said you can buy a 30 copper item from general merchants which have ten charges and will make items soulbound so that they travel with you after death.  The downside is that once you soulbind an item it can not be sold or given to other players.

As in EQ you can also give people permission to drag your tombstone to you, this lets a stealth or class with invis fish them out of dungeons if you really don't want to simply summon it.

Tombstones can also be targeted and resurrected, it basically teleports you to your tombstone so you can loot it.

[Morat20]

www.vgplayers.com

Better than what SOE does for EQ2players.com. This site somehow actually took a screenshot of my character and put it there. Moderately innovative, anyway.

Is that the Vanguard's auto "Chronicling your character" thing? FOH had a thread where that was mentioned -- it turns out the auto-screenshot feature grabs chat displays too -- including private tells. One of the VG devs had a "Oh shit, I'll see if I can get that fixed" moment when someone mentioned it.

[Miasma]

Holy crap you're right luckily I wasn't saying anything.  Really cool feature, once they close a couple holes.

Edit: Bah, the site went down for maintenance once I hit the preview button.

[Morat20]

Holy crap you're right luckily I wasn't saying anything.  Really cool feature, once they close a couple holes.

Edit: Bah, the site went down for maintenance once I hit the preview button.

Both Smed and another guy I'm fairly sure is a VG dev commented about it, so at least it's a known issue. I do admit it's a cool idea.

[Falconeer]

Dinged level 12 and I have to say that it plays scarily similar to WoW for me (don't flame. Very similar gameplay with a TON of polish less.. let's make it TWO tons). Besides the slowest XP curve and the lack of a guiding hand, there is an impressive number of questlines from level 1 up to 12 and beyond (that's all I could find so far) that:

a) let you explore and move to better suited zones for your level
b) dress you up for real. Good stuff, seriously
c) have pretty interesting and compelling dialogues. Many mentioned the Kojani startin quest, and I added the brownie revolution one. I found a few more and I am pretty satisfied with quest progression and rewards.

What's the problem? No one for me, but LOTS are complaining that there are no clear directions to such quests and questlines, so many are missing it.
I'd say that there's no lack of content at all, on the contrary, there is plenty. And the whole thing is very rewarding (much closer to WoW than EQ2 item-wise. No really , you had to sweat your Class Armour in EQ2, while some significant quest rewards here are obtained surprisingly easy). But that content is not in your face. You have to look for it, ask around, explore... cause there are definitely no "Mobs here" or "Compelling questlines there" signs.

Apparently, this whole attitude is the dealbreaker. Some are loving while the majority is hating it.

[Nebu]

I'm finding no lack of content and actually enjoy not being led by the hand.  The problems for me at this stage are all in polish and implementation. 

[shiznitz]

True onthe quests. I stumbled on a level 4 quest last night that I had missed before because I didn't explore every nook and cranny for quest NPCs. When you arrive in a new city, it pays to explore thoroughly. This isn't a bad thing.