Vanguard - Re-Review @ Ten Ton Hammer

Inauro

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Ten Ton Hammer heads back to Telon to see if anything has changed since SOE took over at the helm of Vanguard: Saga of Heroes.
My final analysis? If you dropped Vanguard early on due to performance issues and instability, or if you've never tried Vanguard before and your curiosity is getting the better of you, wait until SOE introduces Vanguard's free Trial Island (just follow the trail left by SOE's marketing campaign). The Trial Island should help SOE introduce even more optimizations and fixes in the live game, plus improve their developer's toolbox. I say give the game a shot. It may not prove to be the game for you, but you've got nothing to lose, and you may just find that you're one of those niche players, like me, who love this game despite itself.
More information.
 
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To be honest, Vanguard, at the time being, is the most appealing MMORPG for me, closely followed by a astonishingly polished and interesting EQII. I sincerely wish Sigil Games that they receive a constant inflow of new gamers so they can afford to continue working on Vanguard - it's the best thing since Ultima Online.
 
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I've got to agree, I had a blast playing Vanguard, it's got rushed masterpiece written all over it. :)
 
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Have they added any character customization options besides ability points and gear yet? That guy Brad Whatever said that was being worked on right before it was released. I can't/won't play any game without some sort of differentiation/character building options.
 
The problem is that most reviewers seem to be just plain stupid. Apart from the technical difficulties Vanguard always was a good game - its main problem is that it is not like WoW. And that's how a mmorpg has to be at least in the eyes of many "journalists". Instead of telling people what's great about the game the reviews constantly stressed how old-fashioned the game is - as if that is necessarily something bad. I read reviews where it was obvious that the guy who wrote the review played the game for like 5 minutes tops...
 
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Apart from the technical difficulties Vanguard always was a good game

You do realize this is purely your opinion? A large group of people were not swayed by biased or uninformed reviews and bought Vanguard and tried it. Many of those people decided to not continue their subscriptions. Yes, some people cancelled because it was not like WoW but is that really the primary reason the game is struggling?

To add an opinion of my own. A game can't have major technical issues and also be a good game at the same time. Monopoly sucks without dice.
 
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Reyla
"You do realize this is purely your opinion?"
"To add an opinion of my own."
I looks like to me your letting your opinion interfere with well known and accurate info Ionstormsucks is referring too. :)
Hell, many if not most reviewers even say in their reviews about comparisons to WoW.

You state it yourself, your opinion is "A game can't have major technical issues and also be a good game at the same time." which isn't accurate but certainly an acceptable opinion to have, because it's how you feel, accuracy doesn't matter. :)

Sigil was clearly trying to innovate and make the next great mmog and they were succeeding, but they ran out of money when m$ backed out of it's agreement to fund them unfettered.
 
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I will rephrase.

"Vanguard, Irth Online, Planetside, Auto Assault and other MMOs are suffering because they are not like WoW or because reviewers unfairly compared them to WoW." This statement is suspicious at best.

Guild Wars, Final Fantasy Online, Eve and other MMOs are wildly successful becuase they are like WoW and reviewers who have only ever played WoW liked them is also not true.

There is more to Vanguards lack of subscribers than not enough development money or unfair comparisons to WoW. I am not talking about the accuracy or legitamacy of opinions.

I just do not understand why people "pull" for developers that had millions of dollars to work with. They are not Mother Teresa and they are not misunderstood geniues whose genius is destined to be unrecognized in this century.

Sorry, just ranting because I was fooled by Brad's charisma and my hopes were let down by the reality.
 
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Just another reminder of this neat little button called 'Quote' that *really* would improve readability of your posts ...

You state it yourself, your opinion is "A game can't have major technical issues and also be a good game at the same time." which isn't accurate but certainly an acceptable opinion to have, because it's how you feel, accuracy doesn't matter. :)

Actually "A game can't have major technical issues and also be a good game at the same time" is pretty objectively a true statement about a game like it would be about any product. That doesn't mean it cannot be *fun* or *enjoyable* or have many redeeming qualities. Just as something with many cracks cannot be intact, that is a simple statement of the quality of the product.
 
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Reyla
"Sorry, just ranting because I was fooled by Brad's charisma and my hopes were let down by the reality."
Sorry, you feel fooled. :(
How much do you think it would cost to make the next greatest mmog, how many years and how many people?
That's 3 fair questions, right?

txa1265
It depends really.
Technically, there is a difference between complete and uncompleted, verses good or bad.
Bloodlines was good (great :) ) but it had major issues, Bioshock had major issues. ToEE was good with major issues, there are more (5am here to tired to remember anymore atm) so it can/does exist.
 
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I will rephrase.

"Vanguard, Irth Online, Planetside, Auto Assault and other MMOs are suffering because they are not like WoW or because reviewers unfairly compared them to WoW." This statement is suspicious at best.

Guild Wars, Final Fantasy Online, Eve and other MMOs are wildly successful becuase they are like WoW and reviewers who have only ever played WoW liked them is also not true.

There is more to Vanguards lack of subscribers than not enough development money or unfair comparisons to WoW. I am not talking about the accuracy or legitamacy of opinions.

I just do not understand why people "pull" for developers that had millions of dollars to work with. They are not Mother Teresa and they are not misunderstood geniues whose genius is destined to be unrecognized in this century.

Sorry, just ranting because I was fooled by Brad's charisma and my hopes were let down by the reality.

It's fairly hypocritical to accuse people of one thing and then do it yourself, mate. With all due respect, I'm not defending Sigil because of I'm some kind of butt kisser (that you can find in every community btw - first and foremost in WoW), but because I honestly like the game.

No doubt about it, from a technical point of view the game was crap. And I could have accepted criticism that aimed at the technical aspects of the game. Fact is however that the majority of reviews did not give bad scores because of the technical problems, but because the game was not what the reviewer anticipated. Hell, I read a German review (and I am not kidding you here) that criticised that you get a mount so late in the game. Truth is you get a mount at level 10... I don't know one other mmorpg where you get a mount that early. In another review the author claimed that the first mount in Vanguard is unaffordable at level 10. Truth is, there is a quest that gives you the mount for free as a reward. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Quests in Vanguard a repetitive - oh really... I take it in WoW every quest is compeltely different from the quest you did before or what - the quest in Vanguard and WoW are pretty much of the same sort. From many reviews it simply becomes clear that the reviewer tested the game for like 10 minutes and then simply gave up because it was not what he/she anticipated.

You know what the key to the success of LOTRO was? Because it was exactely like WoW. You logged in, and it was pretty much clear what you had to do. You did not even have to follow the explanations of NPCs - if you ever played a MMORPG before (or at least WoW) you knew exactely what to do. In Vanguard that's not quite so easy. Depending on the class you are playing you have to invest a bit of time in finding out how exactely it works. Bards for example can compose their own songs - yep, you can create your very own "spells" from different components - and it's such a cool feature, but did you read ever something like that in a review? I did not. There are many other really nice features to be found in Vanguard, but reviewers simply did not mention them. Either because they didn't play the game long enough or because they were biased and wanted to give it a bad score.

In the case of Vanguard the Press simply acted idiotic. Read for example the online review from PC Gamer. According to them Vanguard is a bad game because it does not follow the success pattern that was established with WoW.
It has repetitive questing and only a handful of monsters. And also repetitive textures. Do you honestly want to tell me that the guy who wrote this kind of shit ever played the game? I would be surprised if he ever installed it. Another argument that reviewers always mentioned that the game had virtually no end game content when it was released. How they figuered that out after one or two days of playing is not quite clear to me, but let's just forget that for a moment. Funny thing is however that LOTRO had no end game content when it was released (there was for example not a single raid) and I never read that in a review. But then again, most LOTRO reviews were surrounded on all sides with advertisments for LOTRO, so that might help to get a better score, I guess. Also great was the review that I read where the reviewer complained about the combat system. Too complicated - he couldn't figure out what all the dots were supposed to signify. Well, I mean... what can you say there? If people are too stupid or too lazy to look it up in the manual then it's like fighting against windmills.

It's also interesting that people are always "disappointed" when they talk about Vanguard. I'm seriously wondering what the hell they are disappointed about (apart from the Power Point-like framerate). The game was pretty much what Sigil always said it would be: A group oriented, challenging game, much like Everquest. They said that right from the beginning - just because some people couldn't or did not want to accept it does not change that.

I'm not saying you have to like Vanguard - I'm just saying it's not a bad game. It's certainly not a perfect game. There are many things that you could do better or differently, but that goes for Everquest 2, and WoW as well. People should try it out because some may find it not nearly as bad as some reviews described it.
 
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