Vanguard: Round 1 - FIGHT!

[Ixxit]

Mobs with sneak ability can literally pounce on you with no warning if you fail the check

Yeah,  when I was just starting out in the Halgarad newbie areas, I was constantly being bushwacked the the gnoll lookouts and sneakers.  The first time it happened, I though it might be server lag until I realized that I was failing my perception checks.

Pretty cool system.

[shiznitz]

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!

The first pure vanguard meme!

[Falconeer]

As weird as this may sound, I really think the AWFUL fonts are seriously hurting Vanguard.

[Belce]

I don't see why surprise encounters are a bad thing in these games, we allow it both ways in pen and paper versions of these games and we are allowed to surprise what we fight in the game otherwise as well too.   I really like the idea myself. 

[shiznitz]

Neither myself or Miasma criticized surprise encounters. Seems like you think someone did. It is a nice new twist.

[Sky]

Depends on the surprise. Surprise in that one dungeon in EQ (Luclin iirc) where invisible mobs pop out of the ether to wipe your party...not so much fun.

[lamaros]

Neither myself or Miasma criticized surprise encounters. Seems like you think someone did. It is a nice new twist.

New is the wrong word to use here. So it twist.

[Azazel]

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!!"

Spider-Sense Tingling!!

[shiznitz]

Just as I was sort of tiring of Vanguard, I had the best night yet. The starting city is VERY important to sucking you in. I moved my wolf druid to Halagarad, the barbarian town. There were some different kinds of quests that were fun.

One quest line:

1) Visit an outpost and discover it is overrun with gnolls. Return.
2) Go kill some gnolls and collect their paws. Return.
3) Take this bag of gnoll paws that you collected and drop it in the middle of the gnoll camp to "send a message". Have to fight your way into camp and then right-click the bag in your inventory to drop it.

Yes, the mechanics are generic but it took about 20 minutes to complete the line and you learned some lore.

The other cool thing about this particular area outside Halgarad is that it plays up the awareness mechanic we discussed yesterday. Half the gnolls wandering around have stealth abilities so your awareness and detection skills are constantly spamming, revealing gnolls out of thin air.

I dinged 10, bought my newbie horse and hit the road. At the next outpost there were some more interesting quests:

1) Go collect 8 baby griffons (paired with kill 10 adults). The babies are running around these large nests and you "harvest" them to pick them up. Return.
2) Take the bag o' griffons and drop it in the middle of the nearby gnoll camp so they will grow up and harass the gnolls.

Hey wait. I just did this!

At level 10, I got my first chain and counterspell icons. The chain is hardly a chain, though. If I get a spell crit, it lights up and I can cast a special spell (5 min timer). The counterspell icon is similar. If a mob starts casting and I make my spell detection check (INT-based I think) the counterspell flashes and I can disrupt the mob's spell.  I can just imagine how this mechanic will be used against players later in the game.

Lastly, at 10 you get to start allocating attribute (stat) points. Non-human races get 10 points per level to allocate and 4 that get automatically allocated. Humans get 15 with no automatic allocation. You can only allocate 4 points per level per stat (humans might get 5 max), but this is on top of racial bonuses. For example, my vulmane gets +1 str, +1 dex, +2 wis so I can allocate 4 more to wis per level if I want, meaning that a vulmane druid can have significantly more wis than a human. I don't want to get into what all the stats do, but they are VERY well-balanced in that even casters will want some dex (evasion) and con (resists, hps).

Unfortunately, but clearly done for the "mini-ding" effect, I get these stat points over the course of the level: 2 at ding, 2 more at 25%, 4 at 50% and I imagine 2 more at 75%. Since levelling is going to take days, if not weeks at higher levels, you have NEED a plan in place or you are going to forget where you allocated points that last time. For example, for my druid I am doing +4 INT, +3 WIS (since I get +2 already from racial) and then +3 VIT (mana regen, run speed boost) on even levels and +3 DEX on odd levels. For now anyway. Who knows if there are caps at some point.

[Valmorian]

Just as I was sort of tiring of Vanguard, I had the best night yet. The starting city is VERY important to sucking you in. I moved my wolf druid to Halagarad, the barbarian town. There were some different kinds of quests that were fun.

One quest line:

1) Visit an outpost and discover it is overrun with gnolls. Return.
2) Go kill some gnolls and collect their paws. Return.
3) Take this bag of gnoll paws that you collected and drop it in the middle of the gnoll camp to "send a message". Have to fight your way into camp and then right-click the bag in your inventory to drop it.

Yes, the mechanics are generic but it took about 20 minutes to complete the line and you learned some lore.

Um, you realize there are tons of quests in WoW that are JUST like this, right?  I'm not sure why that's a big deal..

[Nebu]

Um, you realize there are tons of quests in WoW every MMO made in the past 5 years that are JUST like this, right?  I'm not sure why that's a big deal..

Fixed that for you.

If the guy is having fun, who cares? 

[Falconeer]

Nice writeup Shiznitz, it actually sums up pretty well most of those little nice things in Vanguard that aren't immediately clear upon logging in. Partly because of general player lazyness and spoiled attitude typical of the post-WoW era, and GREATLY because of developers' fault, or lack of money's fault, either way you got the point.

I am glad you are still mildly enjoying it, sadly it won't last. XP curve starts to slow and hit you in the face at level 12, so if you are not in a group where you share stories, fun, dungeons and stuff you can't avoid the boredom.

As I told Nebu the other night, I strongly suggest anyone still guildless and interested in exploring this game a little more to reroll on my server, Varking, and join our guild that comes straight from EQ2. We are 30+ members already and the highest level is just 17 so definitely no powerleveling.

Back to the "features" part, very few players know about the weaknesses and the exploits yet. Basically, some of your attacks inflict a particular weakness (out of a lot) on the enemy mob. That weakness doesn't do anything on its own but it opens a spot for another skill you or another player can use on that mob (until the weakness is up.. that is usually a matter of seconds) that actually exploits that "hole" you just opened.

Example: Your "Holy Strike" skill has two little icons in description. One is the weakness it inflicts while the other one is the weakness it exploits. When I use "Holy strike" I inflict the mob the weakness listed in description that is "Blinded". It shows up under mob health for a short while. Now if me or another player have any skill that lists "Blinded" as the exploit, it can use it for additional and sometimes exceptional effects.
"Armor Chink" is another nice one I can chain up with some other classes, where they open an "armor chink" in a mob (inflicting it such weakness) and I exploit it with my "Guardian's Assault" that is usually just a shield taunt, and reduce target mitigation by 10%.

The catch here is that you can time attacks with your group to actually exploit weaknesses after weaknesses and play the combat in a very original and different way, especially cause there are lots of skill which inflict weaknesses you can't exploit alone and that requires a group.


Valmorian: It's not a big deal, but since it looks like WoW is great and Vanguard sucks, while some are trying to explain since a long time that they play very similar, I guess Shiznitz one's a good example.

[Engels]

Well, not only is the game unfinished, apparently they (Sony? Sigil?) aren't content with my $50 and a month free. Last night the client said my account was inactive. To fix this 'bug' I had to go and actually subscribe to the game's monthly payments for my account to be flagged active.

Ok, so one could talk about an oversight, and be somewhat forgiving if you insist on it, but here's the kicker; to get to the SOE account page, you can't do it through Vanguard's website. I urge you to give it a shot, if you have an old SOE account. Go to www.vanguardsoh. com, then click on 'My account'. Of all things, this will bring you to EQ2's account summary page. From the menu at the top of this EQ2 page, select the 'games' menu, and notice that Vanguard isn't even listed.

If you go to the Station main page, and try to sign in from there, the log-in times out and doesn't get you anywhere. The only way to resolve this is to piddle about on any of the Sony MMO pages till you find a button for 'my subscriptioins'. There, if you have the same bug as I do, you will see a fully paid for Vanguard game listed under your subscriptions, but under 'status', you will see it listed as 'Initial'. It won't change to 'active' until you've pledged, NPR-style, your $14.95 a month.

[jpark]

I have not returned to this game following the repeated crashes at the moment I load the DVDs to install.

Below is a well known, old warrior site.  It is intersting to see that the Vanguard section seems to quite active - more active than WoW - and there is no sign of EQ2.  The site is of EQ origin - not indicative of a broader player base today - but I was surprised.

http://www.thesteelwarrior.org/forum/index.php?s=2713dd06e640adacc24b080302ef0f4c

[Valmorian]

Um, you realize there are tons of quests in WoW every MMO made in the past 5 years that are JUST like this, right?  I'm not sure why that's a big deal..

Fixed that for you.

If the guy is having fun, who cares? 

I'm just trying to figure out what that is so notable.  He mentions it like it's some sort of breakthrough in MMO quests.

[MistrOrnge]

Glad folks are having fun out there.  I have been enjoying it but don't see it stopping me from going back to EQ2.  Though it will be nice to see some old friends from EQ2 that are no longer playing.
The diplomacy is something I recently discovered as well.  Its enjoyable but as others have said it gets very difficult when you get into the 40s or so since the NPC have access to some seriously nice cards we don't have.  Hopefully they will make their cards more level dependent or give us more access to cards.
Six boxing is entertaining for me since its a bit more taxing.  As was said I started by adding one more account after another until I found myself with 6.  Nothing beats taking down an epic encounter solo after hours of work getting to him.  
And definately no OCD here.  Very much a type B personality.  Not real interested in arguing over something as unarguable as how differently a person enjoys a game.
So keep out there guys and keep up a good discussion about what you like about Vanguard.  Its interesting stuff.

[Nebu]

You're correct Val, it's not.  I guess I just had a knee-jerk reaction to the WoW comment since WoW hasn't really revolutionized anything either.  

[trias_e]

This game is good, at least early on.  I've leveled up 5 different characters to level 6.  I think I'll stick with my Kojani Psionicist or Wood Elf Druid.  Or my monk.  Or bard.  Too hard to choose!

I'm sure the grind will push me away eventually, but at early levels it is really very cool.  Quests are a good mix of interesting/exploration/story, and kill x foozle level up type quests.   The last patch helped performance on my system as well.

I've yet to group.  Obviously, this will be big a focus of the game, so how the game is with grouping is going to be essential.  The LFG window seems nice at the least.

[Valmorian]

You're correct Val, it's not.  I guess I just had a knee-jerk reaction to the WoW comment since WoW hasn't really revolutionized anything either.  

Revolutionized, no.. I'm trying to think of an MMO that has pulled off scripted quests as well as WoW has though.  The only other MMO I've played that even really HAD quests where there were scripted actions was DaoC.  Granted I missed out on the Final Fantasy MMO, so it likely had that sort of thing too. 

I've had more "Huh, that's really neat" things happen to me in WoW than any other MMO. 

[Nebu]

Revolutionized, no.. I'm trying to think of an MMO that has pulled off scripted quests as well as WoW has though.  The only other MMO I've played that even really HAD quests where there were scripted actions was DaoC.  Granted I missed out on the Final Fantasy MMO, so it likely had that sort of thing too. 

I've had more "Huh, that's really neat" things happen to me in WoW than any other MMO. 

Good point.  I think this goes back to the whole "polish" thing.  WoW is full of "That's cool" moments even after completing what I'd consider trivial quests.  DAoC had a few, but they were shrouded in the darkness that was their PvE game.  EQ2 has a few as well, but they seem to lack the depth that WoW provides.  WoW is a good example of a game making the quests we've seen for years in other mmogs come to life.  I did appreciate the Heritage quests in EQ2 though... there were a few others that I'd say were pretty well done as well.

[Ixxit]

I've yet to group.  Obviously, this will be big a focus of the game, so how the game is with grouping is going to be essential.  The LFG window seems nice at the least.

Got my  barb shaman to 10 last night and got my first horse (wheeee) and  although I have only grouped once for a short time to finish up a quest  line,  the fact that there is no encounter locking system and the fact  you can drive-by heal, rez and buff fosters   a good community atmosphere.  My first grouping experience resulted from a drive by res, where a warrior was overcome by an add and went down.    I think he was a little suprised to reappear at his corpse instead of  of the bind stone, but he sure appreciated it.  I hated the locking system of EQ2 and the group onlyl nature of  some of the heals and buffs.

As Falconeer said in a post in another thread, that the need for grouping will hit soon, but because the game encourages social interacation  I am not to worried about it.   I try to drop by Darogar's Post (newb area) at least once a night to to hand out sows and other buffs.   

As an aside, it is interesting to note that because the crafting and diplomacey mini games are engaging it is really hard to decide what to do in any given play session.  For once in a MMO it don't feel compelled to race to some arbitrary level  cap of greatness or mindlessly grind to obtain  the the elusive 'glowing knee pads of upward mobility +5'.   Sure my toon looks a little funny in his  medium armour tunic, leather knickers and peter pan magic shoes, but hey, for now I'll take what I can get.

Combine that with interesting quests and a world that rewards curiosity, I'd have to say that Vanguard is greater that the sum of its parts. Even the bad ones like client performance and bugs.

[Valmorian]

Valmorian: It's not a big deal, but since it looks like WoW is great and Vanguard sucks, while some are trying to explain since a long time that they play very similar, I guess Shiznitz one's a good example.

What makes WoW "great" isn't so much that it does the same sort of things that other MMO's have done, it's the fact that it does them SO WELL.  It's polished to a point that makes all previous games look like someting written by amateur C++ programmers. 

If Vanguard and WoW are so similar, why play the less polished one?

[Nebu]

If Vanguard and WoW are so similar, why play the less polished one?

1) New world to explore (I'm a sucker for the clean slate new games provide)

2) New systems to try (diplomacy, crafting, etc.)

3) More races/classes

4) Different visual look

5) New quests/story

6) Nostalgia

7) Others.

[Falconeer]

If Vanguard and WoW are so similar, why play the less polished one?

You don't want me to start on that.
I'll just list (to make it short and painless) the first things that come to my mind. I'll avoid the things where the two games are equal to me:

- Vanguard world is larger. So much larger. It's a pleasure to explore it. And I can fly over it and pilot boats over it. Wanguard is a world, while WoW zones are very well painted and connected room. Or "zones", if you prefer.
- Vanguard crafting is better.
- I hate instances. Vanguard dungeons are shared. WoW ones aren't.
- Vanguard has Diplomacy. Diplomacy minigame is nice, Diplomacy quests are great.
- Vanguard has houses.
- Vanguard has more races and especially more classes.
- Vanguard combat is more engaging TO ME. It keeps me on my toes as it's a little more unpredictable than WoW one (so far). Finishers, counter and epic hits are nice. Weaknesses could be huge, I still have to grasp the thing.
- It has meaningful death penalties. I like the risk vs. reward concept.

It's not that Vanguard is better (come on), it's just that the things I listed are dealbreakers for me. Performance are very good on my comp, and WoW graphics never impressed me so much.

Why should I play the one with less features?

[Belce]

One of the interesting bits in the game is that you can learn things from mobs you ffight, you will get a message that you have begun to understand ability x and then after a while you will understand that you have mastered it and it will be in your combat ability book. 

[Falconeer]

One of the interesting bits in the game is that you can learn things from mobs you ffight, you will get a message that you have begun to understand ability x and then after a while you will understand that you have mastered it and it will be in your combat ability book. 

This is NEW even for me! Are you sure? Did it happened to you? Sounds very cool, but I steel have to see it happen.

[Valmorian]

- Vanguard world is larger. So much larger. It's a pleasure to explore it. And I can fly over it and pilot boats over it. Wanguard is a world, while WoW zones are very well painted and connected room. Or "zones", if you prefer.

Ok, so it's "large".  Asheron's Call had a HUGE world space, but how much of it is interesting?  How much of it is unique?  (I honestly don't know, so this is a real question here.)  If it's acre after acre of open unused area, I'll pass on that for the "smaller" WoW, where there are interesting things to see all over the place.

- Vanguard crafting is better.

Better how?  In what way?  What makes it better?

- I hate instances. Vanguard dungeons are shared. WoW ones aren't.

Hm, personal preference there I suppose, but I prefer to be going through a dungeon with my group, not with the entire planet in an assembly line fashion.  I still laugh at what happened to the dungeons in EQ.

- Vanguard has Diplomacy. Diplomacy minigame is nice, Diplomacy quests are great.

Ok, I don't get this.  There's a minigame to play about diplomacy, that's nice, but what the heck is a diplomacy quest?  How does that differ from faction quests in any other game?

- Vanguard has houses.

Again, personal preference, more power to you.

- Vanguard has more races and especially more classes.

DaoC had TONS of classes, but that didn't make them any more interesting.  Why is "more classes" better anyway? 

- Vanguard combat is more engaging TO ME. It keeps me on my toes as it's a little more unpredictable than WoW one (so far). Finishers, counter and epic hits are nice. Weaknesses could be huge, I still have to grasp the thing.

That's a good idea, but I'm not convinced it'll be pulled off well. 

- It has meaningful death penalties. I like the risk vs. reward concept.

There's nothing "meaningful" about death penalties.  There's penalties that cause you to perform more busywork before you can "play" and penalties that don't. 


To be honest, there's only a few reasons why I won't play Vanguard:

1. The system requirements -  I want to play with my friends.  They're not going to upgrade their computers to play this, and to be honest, neither would I.
2. The "hardcore" reputation it has - Why would I want to spend time doing the busywork that is "meaningful death penalties" to play?
3. The "it's buggy" reputation - I'm spoiled by how well done WoW is.  I simply won't put up with buggy MMO's anymore. 

3 is a BIG point for me now.  The only other MMO I play anymore is City of Heroes/Villains, and even they are skirting the edge at times.

[shiznitz]

Just as I was sort of tiring of Vanguard, I had the best night yet. The starting city is VERY important to sucking you in. I moved my wolf druid to Halagarad, the barbarian town. There were some different kinds of quests that were fun.

One quest line:

1) Visit an outpost and discover it is overrun with gnolls. Return.
2) Go kill some gnolls and collect their paws. Return.
3) Take this bag of gnoll paws that you collected and drop it in the middle of the gnoll camp to "send a message". Have to fight your way into camp and then right-click the bag in your inventory to drop it.

Yes, the mechanics are generic but it took about 20 minutes to complete the line and you learned some lore.

Um, you realize there are tons of quests in WoW that are JUST like this, right?  I'm not sure why that's a big deal..

I never played WoW, not that you would know that.

edit: it is in my sig now.

[El Gallo]

I have not returned to this game following the repeated crashes at the moment I load the DVDs to install.

Below is a well known, old warrior site.  It is intersting to see that the Vanguard section seems to quite active - more active than WoW - and there is no sign of EQ2.  The site is of EQ origin - not indicative of a broader player base today - but I was surprised.

http://www.thesteelwarrior.org/forum/index.php?s=2713dd06e640adacc24b080302ef0f4c

The old EQ class sites started before everyone knew how to find spoilers and really exploded in popularity when they shut down whineplay.  Some of them tried to get WoW sections going, but I don't think any of them reached critical mass (except maybe Graffe's) because WoW has official boards which draw so much attention.  Vanguard does not have official boards because McQuaid thinks private class sites are cooler. 

Having spent way too many hours at the Shaman's Crucible and way too many milliseconds on the WoW Official Forums, I think he is right about that one.

[Engels]

To be honest, I'm not that convinced about this Vanguard Vastness, myself. It took me approximately 45 minutes to travel from New Targonor to Halgarad, a full cross-continent trip, on a newbie horse. Nothing particularly of interest along the way. Token mobs here and there. This was not an 'as the crow flies' trip, either. I took winding roads to get there.

Not that I'm complaining too bitterly, mind you, since for me teh big was never something that I considered a way to make things better. But off hand, EQ, AO, DAoC and WoW have far larger and more varied landscapes than Vanguard does.

[shiznitz]

Not that I'm complaining too bitterly, mind you, since for me teh big was never something that I considered a way to make things better. But off hand, EQ, AO, DAoC and WoW have far larger and more varied landscapes than Vanguard does.

I have remarked on this too. When you enter the game, you see things in the distance you want to explore. But when you get there, it is just more scenery and now you have to run back to where the exp is.  This game is in desperate need of explore exp like EQ2.

The old EQ class sites started before everyone knew how to find spoilers and really exploded in popularity when they shut down whineplay.  Some of them tried to get WoW sections going, but I don't think any of them reached critical mass (except maybe Graffe's) because WoW has official boards which draw so much attention.  Vanguard does not have official boards because McQuaid thinks private class sites are cooler. 

I am using the Ten Ton Hammer forums right now. They are not that busy and sane for the most part.

[HaemishM]

I don't see why surprise encounters are a bad thing in these games, we allow it both ways in pen and paper versions of these games and we are allowed to surprise what we fight in the game otherwise as well too.   I really like the idea myself. 

The only reason they are a bad thing is because of the death penalties. If death didn't hurt, surprise me all day. If I've the potential to lose a level from some attack I never see, it's an assraping.

[Tale]

I never played WoW, not that you would know that.

edit: it is in my sig now.

After you tire of Vanguard, it would be interesting to hear your impressions of playing WoW if you're willing to try it then. Until then, you're just a curiosity, because nothing you say about Vanguard is even in context.

[Falconeer]

To be honest, I'm not that convinced about this Vanguard Vastness, myself. It took me approximately 45 minutes to travel from New Targonor to Halgarad, a full cross-continent trip, on a newbie horse. Nothing particularly of interest along the way. Token mobs here and there. This was not an 'as the crow flies' trip, either. I took winding roads to get there.

Not that I'm complaining too bitterly, mind you, since for me teh big was never something that I considered a way to make things better. But off hand, EQ, AO, DAoC and WoW have far larger and more varied landscapes than Vanguard does.

Well, I disagree. 45 minutes to run from side to side of a (one) continent? Keep in mind that:

1) There are 3 continents.
2) You ran from point a to point b... from east to west but in Vanguard you can go from coast to coast 10 miles northern of the path you just ran.. and see different things. While in "zoned" games you can go just from Los Angeles to New York along one or two paths, here you can go from LA to Miami, or from La to Boston, or from Seattle to whichever place you want to reach on the east coast, following millions of different roads.
It took you 45 minutes to go from one side to the other, put would took you days to actuall do the "coast to coast" thing following different paths. EDIT: It's an OPEN world, you can cross basically everything you see on the poetic map. There are no "zone connections" that create bottlenecks and artificial checkpoints to go from town a to town b. Multiple it all by 3 (continents), and add to that the Dungeons, that are more than WoW ones and larger (for the most part) than WoW ones.
3) If you feel that there's not so much to see when you reach that point on the horizon I can't do much to convince you of the contrary. It feels like a real world to me and I think it's filled with point of interest. There are no rainbow castles to look for, but whichever trip I took, I found lots of points of interests. Can't say much more. The world look everything but empty to me.

[Hound]

It's nice that people are enjoying the game, however I will not be playing it anytime soon due to one thing. The whole damn thing felt half finished. The textures, the animations, everything just looked and felt cheap. The landscapes were nice but fuck man, if I want to look at a nice landscape I will take the bike and do a ride up the coast. When playing a game I want to have something to do besides admire the pixilated trees. Sorry but it typical SOE release - half finished and half ass. I will admit it does have a few nice touches but it still feels like a Kmart blue light special of a game, definitely not top shelf.

edit I ran across this while looking for something else- Oh how soon we forget
http://www.thecomputershow.com/computershow/reviews/everquestkunark.htm