Vanguard: Round 1 - FIGHT!

[Belce]

I look at people that multi box characters in these games and think they are more along the lines of guys that like to customize their cars and show off on Sunday night at the main strip.  Its more of a "can I do this thing?" than a lack of fun in the game thing.   For them its the challenge, first with two then later more characters at once.  I have been on raids in EQ where people will ask if they can two box and its not because of a lack of people to play with since we have 72 coming to these things.  They want to see if they can do it man.

I don't understand this complusion, but its not place to tell people how to have fun.   If your boat is floating, its all golden.

[CassandraR]

I do really wish more MMOs would copy Guild Wars heroes. Rather enjoy it if I could snag a full group of npc characters to play WoW with. Not sure if it would be more fun to manage an entire group or just solo everything with one character though.

[HaemishM]

Until his 6-box one-man Borg Collective comes and takes my camp. THEN IT'S ON!

[Strazos]

think they are more along the lines of guys that like to customize their cars and show off on Sunday night at the main strip.  Its more of a "can I do this thing?" than a lack of fun in the game thing.

Just to nit pick, and nothing personal, but you say this as if 1) it's hard (it's not) and 2) they do it well (vast majority of these kids do not).

Sorry, but paying for a paint job, strapping on a couple of lights, and bolting this to the trunk lid of your Civic is neither hard nor attractive. I wish more of these stupid kids nowadays would listen.

[Azazel]

Trust me, most of you motherfuckers would never make it through rule 2.

You're overdoing the "angry young man" thing again, and drifting into "LC the insult-comic troll" territory.

Until his 6-box one-man Borg Collective comes and takes my camp. THEN IT'S ON!

That's better. I think 6-boxing is stupid too, but I don't give a rat's ass if some people want to do it. Good for them and all that.

[rk47]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2LwivUq3UI

a vanguard pvp video link. Turn off the music...I didn't like it either.
But the first impression I get from seeing it...'Is that WoW?'
No colliision with other PC...and just chasing the fella over n over is that moonfire nuking lol. Yellow floating numbers. :/

[Strazos]

Holy shit that looks...like...WoW. I can't even tell the difference, besides the fact that the players' names are teal, not blue and red.

[trias_e]

It looks more like DAOC (with yellow numbers floating overhead) than WoW.  Just saying.  But yeah, they are all similar.

[Falconeer]

But the first impression I get from seeing it...'Is that WoW?'

Holy shit that looks...like...WoW. I can't even tell the difference, besides the fact that the players' names are teal, not blue and red.

Oh now this is funny. So... is this good news or bad news for Vanguard?

[Simond]

Depends if you think "WoW but not as fun" is a selling point or not, I suppose.

[Strazos]

It's not really news at all.

[Falconeer]

Depends if you think "WoW but not as fun" is a selling point or not, I suppose.

Who said it's not fun?
Or better, who said WoW is fun?

[eldaec]

But the first impression I get from seeing it...'Is that WoW?'

Holy shit that looks...like...WoW. I can't even tell the difference, besides the fact that the players' names are teal, not blue and red.

Oh now this is funny. So... is this good news or bad news for Vanguard?

It's irrelevant news posted by fuckers who should know better than to post inane crap about how games in the same genre of mechanics and setting often look similar in crappy low resolution videos.

Nothing in that video bears any closer resemblence to WoW than to EQ, Daoc, GW, or SWG.

[Falconeer]

Point is WoW and Vanguard play VERY similar, given that you have decent framerate.
That can't be said about EQ2 for example, that plays very different from WoW.

[Merusk]

So I started browsing the VGplayers site looking for (once again) some nifty pics.  Looks like very very few players are availing themselves of this feature, because I couldn't find any.  Damnit, I want to see how equipment looks.   

I did stumble across the 'best of the best' leaderboards, and that was fairly nifty.  10,947 NPC kills is the worldwide high as of the last update.  That's a lot of foozles for only being level 29.  Then again 355 deaths is crazy for only being level 10. (Looks like they shouldn't play a Sorcerer.)

The thing that got me posting, however, is wanting to know if you can 'mail money' like you can in WoW.   There's a huge numer of Level 1 Humans on the 'most wealth' leaderboard.  In fact the top 15 positions are level 1 players.   If you can't then all I can assume is  a dual-box setup with one of the accounts having the mule.  I wouldn't trust the 3rd party transfer method on a PvP server, after all.

[Falconeer]

You can mail money, now you can even bank them (PvP issue fixed, whew).

[Miasma]

Yeah those top money makers were probably on the PvP servers, you get 15% of the person's money and since there was no coin banking a lot of people just wandered around with it on them.  The richer players who had a lot of money (probably gained from PvP) you would have been smart to mail it to an alt.

Now that there is coin banking that should stop happening.

[Merusk]

Now that there is coin banking that should stop happening.

Not unless there's a lot of banks out there, or mailoxes so you can send the cash off.  Even in Shadowbane there were tons of people carring WAYYYY too much cash around on them when PvEing. Hell I was even guilty of it a time or two.  You get into a good groove, and suddenly forget to put stuff away, it always ends in tears (for you)

Thanks for the info tho.

[Sky]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2LwivUq3UI

Wow, spastic and laggy.

[shiznitz]

Some more VG thoughts after getting my druid halfway into level 9:

1) Exp debt (without tombstone recovery) seems to be about 5% of level 9. The UI is broken in that the exp bar can only be one color apparently so if you die early in a new level, the bar actually changes from gold to red. If you die with an exp bar longer than the debt portion, you actually cannot see how big the debt portion is.

2) I did some more grouping, specifically warrior, another druid and a shaman. A single 3-dot mob (basically a group mob) of our level lasts maybe 5 seconds. This was not surprising since my druid can kite kill one of these in about 20 seconds. We did some triple mob encounters and did fine but aggro is still something everyone has to learn anew.  I should know better but when in a group I tend to unload all barrels as fast as possible and do get aggro. However, the mob was usually at 10% health at this point. A solo kill single, even con level 3-dot mob is about 2-3% of level 9. Quest exp is already noticeably dwindling on a per quest basis. Still plenty of quests - if you look. I can see the situation developing where it is more exp efficient to just kill that run around looking for a new quest, though.

3) Got lost a bit (5 minutes in the wrong direction from newbie town) and ran into a level 25*** that butchered me. Reminded me of EQ1.

4) The good news is that there has been no rat/snake/bat killing. I have been killing mobs of the same race as me. They are a rogue clan. They sparsely populate the areas between the vulmane and barbarian/lesser giant starting areas. I ran to this other area and all the quests involved fighting similar looking mobs, just with different naming conventions.

5) Crossed my first chunk line (invisible zone line) and it reminded me of the server lines in UO. I will aways remember the one by Cove and the orc fort. I thought the game had frozen for a few seconds.

6) The game as a whole just feels inelegantly done, though. I cannot really put my finger on it.  There are little things that detract: mobs don't actually fall down dead for a few seconds after they are dead.

7) The spell graphics/sounds are good. Excellent, in fact. I have 4 spells I use constantly and they haven't gotten boring yet.

8) Diplomacy is an interesting mini-game. Winning is not a given, not hard either. It is something you can do pretty much anywhere if grinding exp is getting to you.

9) Some mobs that look non-aggro at a distance (yellow name) can become aggro (name changes to red) if you get close. I like this. Makes the world seem dangerous. On the flip side, the outdoors is so huge that you can pretty much bypass anything you want to.

[shiznitz]

Also wanted to add something about exploring. Yes, Vanguard has geography that makes me think "How do I get up there?" Then I spend 15-20 minutes getting up there and I am kind of expecting an exploration ding a la EQ2 (conditioned that way now I guess) but there is nothing but a panorama.

[Engels]

9) Some mobs that look non-aggro at a distance (yellow name) can become aggro (name changes to red) if you get close. I like this. Makes the world seem dangerous. On the flip side, the outdoors is so huge that you can pretty much bypass anything you want to.

Honestly, I think this is simply because they threw in the faction adjustments at the very last moment. Nothing like getting a delivery quest from a stock newbie progression NPC to find that that recipient is a level 40 cleric that nukes you for 1k damage just as you approach her for delivery. She turned 'red' to me about 3 feet away from her. There is no listing or warning in game about factions yet, other than a progressive counter when you kill a mob that has a faction hit either way. Still, even then, the counters all start at 0, so even if you're KOS to High Elves but not KOS to Half Giants, both start at 0 faction for you.

Futhermore, the only way to get off the continent of Qalia is through a boat/teleporter in the city of Khal. Should you have been so poor a player as to chose the Dark Elf race, which is KOS in Khal, you have to kill around 500 faction hit mobs to be able to travel. Then of course, whatever your destination, you're KOS there too. So get back to grinding.

[trias_e]

Diplomacy is a very cool idea.  I've gotten myself up to 25 skill so far.  I could see this being quite a bit of fun in PvP as well.  We'll see if it gets boring though.  Right now there isn't much strategy, and it's generally too easy.  I could see this changing though, and hopefully it will become more challenging higher up.

The game is overwhelmingly buggy, but it certainly is playable.  I like what they have done with their classes.  The bard is cool, as you can make your own songs.  Monks and Shamans have three different forms they can choose from, which intruiges me quite a bit.  Druids have points that build up over time that allow them to perform natural 'wonders' at various degress of effectiveness given how long you've saved up.  I really enjoy that they just went overboard with their scope.  Even if it means that things will be unbalanced or buggy, it is at the least really more interesting than a WoW-type system where everything is streamlined but bland.

I got my first 'epic' hit also the other day.  That made me happy.

[Falconeer]

Diplomacy is a very cool idea.  I've gotten myself up to 25 skill so far.  I could see this being quite a bit of fun in PvP as well.  We'll see if it gets boring though.  Right now there isn't much strategy, and it's generally too easy.  I could see this changing though, and hopefully it will become more challenging higher up.

Sigh. It was a piece of cake until I had to do the "horse" quest and deliver a gift at Veskal's Exchange. That guy has MAD cards and a killer strategy. I thought the Diplomacy game was about to wear off its charm until I met that guy. Now I won't have peace until I teach him a verbal lesson.

[Merusk]

Futhermore, the only way to get off the continent of Qalia is through a boat/teleporter in the city of Khal. Should you have been so poor a player as to chose the Dark Elf race, which is KOS in Khal, you have to kill around 500 faction hit mobs to be able to travel. Then of course, whatever your destination, you're KOS there too. So get back to grinding.

Hard to remember back that far for most folks, but EQ was the same way.  As a Dark Elf/ Ogre/ Troll you were confined to the starting continent unless you were super sneaky.   Only the "H4rdk0r3" who wanted to play SK/ Necros as a non-human race or RP'ers rolled those races back then.

[Falconeer]

Hard to remember back that far for most folks, but EQ was the same way.  As a Dark Elf/ Ogre/ Troll you were confined to the starting continent unless you were super sneaky.   Only the "H4rdk0r3" who wanted to play SK/ Necros as a non-human race or RP'ers rolled those races back then.

To be fair, that could add some replayability, as you can go up to level 35 (actually all up to 50) on your own continent, and then roll an alt and play a totally different game on a different continent again up to level 35.
Still, some guys from my guild made the mistake to roll chars on the "wrong" continent. Took them a whole night of attempts (at level 6) and deaths to get on Thestra, but they finally did it and got some fresh warstories for the children out of it.

[Merusk]

The replayability is the wrong answer.

It was done for 'the stories' and 'the memories.'  I have plenty of memories much like your friends' level-6 cross-continent run for similar reasons.    The best is still being a noob dark elf, running through Kithikor at night without knowing 'the dangers' and living, only to get slaughtered once I hit High Hold keep.

[Glazius]

9) Some mobs that look non-aggro at a distance (yellow name) can become aggro (name changes to red) if you get close. I like this. Makes the world seem dangerous. On the flip side, the outdoors is so huge that you can pretty much bypass anything you want to.

Honestly, I think this is simply because they threw in the faction adjustments at the very last moment. Nothing like getting a delivery quest from a stock newbie progression NPC to find that that recipient is a level 40 cleric that nukes you for 1k damage just as you approach her for delivery. She turned 'red' to me about 3 feet away from her. There is no listing or warning in game about factions yet, other than a progressive counter when you kill a mob that has a faction hit either way. Still, even then, the counters all start at 0, so even if you're KOS to High Elves but not KOS to Half Giants, both start at 0 faction for you.

...well, that's... interesting. There can be situations where you're not KOS to the quest giver but are KOS to the quest recipient?

--GF

[Sky]

I liked the dark elf faction stuff in EQ1. Especially nuking dwarves while waiting for the boat. Ok, waiting for the boat sucked, but nuking dwarves was great!

However, having mobs switch from passive to aggressive when you get near them, with no forewarning? That just sucks. Happened to me the last day I played EQ1, almost cost me a level. Screw that crap.

[Miasma]

I'm guessing the passive to aggresive stuff is a bug, not a feature.

[Engels]

...well, that's... interesting. There can be situations where you're not KOS to the quest giver but are KOS to the quest recipient?

--GF

Yep, that's just what I described. The problem is that there aren't even EQ2 style cross-over quests where you get asked to kill mobs who's faction hit will raise the right one. Its all senseless killing, and it doesn't matter if you kill 500 level 5 bandits or level 15 bandits; its all the same, 1:1 per kill increase.

I went to the newbie cave outside of Khal to kill low level ratmen for faction, but I stopped because I was essentially hosing the actual newbies trying to do their newbie quests. I went back to my 'level appropriate' area and ground some more, with a wee bit of xp as I did it. 100 down, 400 to go. All this to get on a boat.

Some wiseass quipped when I asked on OOC if there was any other way that I should swim under the boat as it left the harbor, pressing the 'U' key madly. Ironic that EQ had a workaround 9 years ago Vanguard doesn't.

[shiznitz]

I'm guessing the passive to aggresive stuff is a bug, not a feature.

Supposedly not. It is part of VG's "awareness" system. Mobs (and players) make awareness checks and that can govern a change in attitude.   It is a potentially cool system at the margin but something people will have to get used to.  Mobs with sneak ability can literally pounce on you with no warning if you fail the check. Casters tend to have the stats that boost perception/awareness but it is also a skill that increases with use.  What I don't know is if a mob I see is immediately visible to everyone in my group or if the warrior ahead of my blithely runs by it unawares.

[Miasma]

It always freaks me out when I start seeing awareness skillups because I know there is something around me that I can't damn well see :).

* running alone in a field *
Your skill in awareness has increased to 92!
* stops *
* looks around and sees nothing *
Your skill in awareness has increased to 93!
* still nothing *
An Aekbold Assassin hits you for 120 damage!

[Belce]

You should understand now that those skillups are the same as the robot in Lost in Space shouting at the top its lungs, "Danger, Danger!!!11!!"

[Belce]

think they are more along the lines of guys that like to customize their cars and show off on Sunday night at the main strip.  Its more of a "can I do this thing?" than a lack of fun in the game thing.

Just to nit pick, and nothing personal, but you say this as if 1) it's hard (it's not) and 2) they do it well (vast majority of these kids do not).

Sorry, but paying for a paint job, strapping on a couple of lights, and bolting this to the trunk lid of your Civic is neither hard nor attractive. I wish more of these stupid kids nowadays would listen.

I'd get on those young whippersnappers myself, but I'm just too dog gone tired these days.