Well I tried Vanguard, I really did, but I have not logged on in probably two weeks. I just couldn't bring myself to do it. It is a beautiful game, diplomacy kicks ass, their use of a defensive target is near game changing as a healer, and the amount of race/class combos provides a fantastic amount of options to a new player.
Now that I have the praise out of the way, on to the complaints. The client crashes more often on my machine now than it did at release(it never crashed for me at release, now it happens at least once a play session). As I said in my previous post, I just cannot stand the UI "look and feel", I honestly feel like I'm looking at the world's most beautiful landscapes through a viewfinder. Not to mention the default font used just looks pre-EverQuest, even my roommate commented how terrible the font looked against the environments. Anyways, I quickly grew tired of my lonely cleric running about post Hathor-Zhi, and rolled a Halfling Bard. Which to my disappointment was a lot less fun than I was expecting, also a bit confusing, there is little at all in the way of informing the user how to actually create songs and us the different abilities to make powerful songs. I spent far too much time dicking around with the same ol' junk before I figured out I really needed to do something about it. When of course the game crashed and I lost serious interest in returning. Not to mention that there were very few people in the newbie area to help out, so I ended up getting my arse whooped by a bunch of brownies repeatedly in an attempt to complete a few quests. And while in Everquest this was a regular occurence, I just couldn't swallow it and go on.
I'm not saying I'm done with Vanguard, there is as everyone says a lot there. It just isn't in order quite yet. There is a rumored relaunch occurring in a few months maybe I'll give it a shot then when they get the new models, and more has been done. But for now I just have to let it go. Which leads me to another topic, what to do now? But that is for another time.
--
Cheston
Showing posts with label vanguard. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vanguard. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Oh the Holidaze.
What a long week it has been! Since I've come home for the holidays I've been chopping ice, shopping, visiting relatives, and being just sick as a dog. Oh the fun of the holidays.
Unfortunately I have not had nearly as much time for Vanguard as I would have liked. I've created a cute Halfling Bard on Shidreth, haven't gotten him above level 10. I've been having a pretty good time, as everyone else has already stated the world is huge, the skylines are incredible, and diplomacy is neat. I did however remember what turned me off about the game(aside from the bugs). The default UI theme, the widgets, the look and feel of the interface just feels so plastic fantasy, it seriously turns me off from the game. Not to mention the target font is ugly as sin, and in every screen shot it is exactly the same, big, and blocky. So my next big thing is to try out some of the UI mods over at VGInterface. I've had the client crash on me a few times, which is strange because at launch I actually had no problems with client stability, unlike most people.
In other news, for Christmas my Mother was so adept at present getting, she picked me up Call of Duty 4, and Guitar Hero 3. Now I've been having a great time with CoD4, I beat the campaign on Normal, and have now advanced on to Veteran(omg hard), and have had a damn good time of it. Though short, the campaign is high on quality, and wow does it look amazing in HD. GH3 however I've been having my troubles with. Basically watching me play GH3 is sort of like watching a 90 year old taking a typing test, I fail horribly on anything but easy. So I am trying to hone my skills and get to a respectable level before I ever play it in front of anyone. CoD4 multiplayer is a ton of fun, and if anyone reading this is on XBox Live, my username is Chestone. It is very interesting, CoD4 multi-player has added a few common RPG elements, including level based advancement, context based rewards, and even a mild quest system. For example, if you assist in a kill you get 2 exp, while a normal kill is worth 10, and a kill after death is worth 20. Your character can also gain bonus exp from calling in air support when available, your position on your team, and winning games. Big exp bonuses come from completing "Challenges", which are essentially quests with "Get X Kill with X Weapon", or some variation there of. All in all it is a great game, with a a class based system akin to Team Fortress, with the ability, when of appropriate level to create a custom class, and with each level advancement diversify your custom classes weapon selection. All of this talk about the game just has me ready to go, so I will bid you all adieu, have a great holiday!
--
Cheston
Unfortunately I have not had nearly as much time for Vanguard as I would have liked. I've created a cute Halfling Bard on Shidreth, haven't gotten him above level 10. I've been having a pretty good time, as everyone else has already stated the world is huge, the skylines are incredible, and diplomacy is neat. I did however remember what turned me off about the game(aside from the bugs). The default UI theme, the widgets, the look and feel of the interface just feels so plastic fantasy, it seriously turns me off from the game. Not to mention the target font is ugly as sin, and in every screen shot it is exactly the same, big, and blocky. So my next big thing is to try out some of the UI mods over at VGInterface. I've had the client crash on me a few times, which is strange because at launch I actually had no problems with client stability, unlike most people.
In other news, for Christmas my Mother was so adept at present getting, she picked me up Call of Duty 4, and Guitar Hero 3. Now I've been having a great time with CoD4, I beat the campaign on Normal, and have now advanced on to Veteran(omg hard), and have had a damn good time of it. Though short, the campaign is high on quality, and wow does it look amazing in HD. GH3 however I've been having my troubles with. Basically watching me play GH3 is sort of like watching a 90 year old taking a typing test, I fail horribly on anything but easy. So I am trying to hone my skills and get to a respectable level before I ever play it in front of anyone. CoD4 multiplayer is a ton of fun, and if anyone reading this is on XBox Live, my username is Chestone. It is very interesting, CoD4 multi-player has added a few common RPG elements, including level based advancement, context based rewards, and even a mild quest system. For example, if you assist in a kill you get 2 exp, while a normal kill is worth 10, and a kill after death is worth 20. Your character can also gain bonus exp from calling in air support when available, your position on your team, and winning games. Big exp bonuses come from completing "Challenges", which are essentially quests with "Get X Kill with X Weapon", or some variation there of. All in all it is a great game, with a a class based system akin to Team Fortress, with the ability, when of appropriate level to create a custom class, and with each level advancement diversify your custom classes weapon selection. All of this talk about the game just has me ready to go, so I will bid you all adieu, have a great holiday!
--
Cheston
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Vanguard: Someday I'll be playing you.
Well I had been planning on some hot Vanguarding this evening. But as the patcher says I still have three hours left, it is 9pm EST, and I have a presentation along with a test tomorrow... perhaps not. But hey bonus, there was a patch today, and look what came along just in time for __insert_holiday__!
Hotfix Notes December / 19 / 2007
GAMEPLAY
GENERAL
- All three spheres have been given a 50% experience bonus during the holidays. The bonus experience will last from Wednesday, December 19th at 5:00am PST to Thursday, January 3rd at 5:00am PST. Enjoy!
Well that will certainly make things a little bit more enjoyable in the weeks to come. Also I wanted to ask, where is everyone playing? I'd love to find some friends in game to group up with, start a guild or throw down diplomatically, the possibilities are endless!
--
Cheston
Hotfix Notes December / 19 / 2007
GAMEPLAY
GENERAL
- All three spheres have been given a 50% experience bonus during the holidays. The bonus experience will last from Wednesday, December 19th at 5:00am PST to Thursday, January 3rd at 5:00am PST. Enjoy!
Well that will certainly make things a little bit more enjoyable in the weeks to come. Also I wanted to ask, where is everyone playing? I'd love to find some friends in game to group up with, start a guild or throw down diplomatically, the possibilities are endless!
--
Cheston
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Return to Vanguard(Cancelled Account Free Reactivation)
So I was listening to the SOE Official Podcast #27, and somewhere in there was a mention that all Vanguard accounts that have been closed for over 60 days will be reactivated on December 18th, and staying open until January 3rd! Now there wasn't much mention of this on the official forums that I could tell, but I've seen a smidgen of posts here and there. This is very exciting as GU3 has just completed its three phase roll out, including their first raid dungeon entitled "Ancient Port Warehouse". So get ready with this great forum guide if you are of able level.
This is fantastic timing as I will have the Christmas vacation to really pour over the changes that have been made to the game. I have not played the game since release, and at that time it really ran like crap on my Macbook Pro. So I will be looking forward to performance improvements most of all, as I am sure many people will be doing as well. Now if only they could push a free trial out could I get my friends involved, as they are quite weary of becoming involved with such a notorious game. I've always felt Vanguard had the big "P" word(potential), but was squandered by a polarizing figure at the helm, and a schedule that was impossible given the technical problems during beta. Anyways I'll be very excited to see what they have done with the place when I return, and I hope to see you all there!
--
Cheston
This is fantastic timing as I will have the Christmas vacation to really pour over the changes that have been made to the game. I have not played the game since release, and at that time it really ran like crap on my Macbook Pro. So I will be looking forward to performance improvements most of all, as I am sure many people will be doing as well. Now if only they could push a free trial out could I get my friends involved, as they are quite weary of becoming involved with such a notorious game. I've always felt Vanguard had the big "P" word(potential), but was squandered by a polarizing figure at the helm, and a schedule that was impossible given the technical problems during beta. Anyways I'll be very excited to see what they have done with the place when I return, and I hope to see you all there!
--
Cheston
Friday, August 10, 2007
FanFaire Recap!
Yes, its true, though limited I did make an FanFaire appearance!
Proof:
I have to say I only attended for one day, and half a day at that(curse you Vegas hangovers). But I was impressed, there was a much larger crowd than I was anticipating, and the setup SOE had was pretty snazzy, especially for the cost of admission which wasn't all that much for the event and panel list. So I only attended a few panels, they were held in very tiny rooms with chairs for about thirty people. It was a very personal experience, unlike DefCon whose talks were given in huge lecture rooms fit to hold hundreds. I wasn't able to hang around as much as I wanted to, mostly because of the hangover, but I chilled out in the vendor/game/etc.. area for a bit and wrote blog posts meeting a few people along the way.
The crowd was certainly a mix bag, spanning all ages and professions, with a few costumed folks running around. The panels though were great, very informative, and the speakers were very open to answering any questions. I really enjoyed the level of detail some of the questions received it really gave me an idea of how things happen behind the scenes and the relationship different departments have with each other. All in all, coming out of FanFaire I have a very positive view of SOE and their upcoming releases and cannot wait until next year(hopefully it will not conflict with DefCon as it did this year) where I will be able to attend without having to split my time, because although I did get quite a lot out of FanFaire, I feel like I really missed out on some good times and good people.
P.S. Sorry Cuppy for not getting in touch, my phone battery died the second day in Vegas and I forgot my charger at home(note to all travelers, don't leave your charger behind it will plague you throughout your vacation) .
--
Cheston
Proof:
I have to say I only attended for one day, and half a day at that(curse you Vegas hangovers). But I was impressed, there was a much larger crowd than I was anticipating, and the setup SOE had was pretty snazzy, especially for the cost of admission which wasn't all that much for the event and panel list. So I only attended a few panels, they were held in very tiny rooms with chairs for about thirty people. It was a very personal experience, unlike DefCon whose talks were given in huge lecture rooms fit to hold hundreds. I wasn't able to hang around as much as I wanted to, mostly because of the hangover, but I chilled out in the vendor/game/etc.. area for a bit and wrote blog posts meeting a few people along the way.
The crowd was certainly a mix bag, spanning all ages and professions, with a few costumed folks running around. The panels though were great, very informative, and the speakers were very open to answering any questions. I really enjoyed the level of detail some of the questions received it really gave me an idea of how things happen behind the scenes and the relationship different departments have with each other. All in all, coming out of FanFaire I have a very positive view of SOE and their upcoming releases and cannot wait until next year(hopefully it will not conflict with DefCon as it did this year) where I will be able to attend without having to split my time, because although I did get quite a lot out of FanFaire, I feel like I really missed out on some good times and good people.
P.S. Sorry Cuppy for not getting in touch, my phone battery died the second day in Vegas and I forgot my charger at home(note to all travelers, don't leave your charger behind it will plague you throughout your vacation) .
--
Cheston
Thursday, August 9, 2007
YAFFP(Yet Another FanFaire Post): Vanguard
Note: This was after my limited appearance at this years FanFaire, just some notes I took and thoughts after the "Game Design" panel for Vanguard. I have to say I am really excited about all of the new developments in VG. Anyways I'll post my FF recap tomorrow, so as not to inundate you guys with posts.
Well I just got out of the Vanguard "Game Design" panel, it was very interesting. There are a ton of updates coming with regard to diplomacy that frankly make me want to reinstall. They are introducing diplomacy bosses who have incredibly long dialogs going up to 50 lines, the first diplomacy boss Eldor will have a huge loot table and be repeatable which will be interesting. There are many other diplo bosses in the works as well.
One thing I found particularly interesting is "Animacy" the future feature that will allow players to resurrect recently killed NPCs and engage in diplomacy with them. This sounds incredibly bad ass and the crowd seemed impressed, also mentioned is the possibility of newbies to follow around other groups and perform Animacy on their recently killed mobs, it will be interesting to see how they handle this and what possibilities it will present.
A quest designer went through basically the anatomy of a quest, and how from start to finish quests are designed, using the Unicorn mount quest as an example. This was quite interesting to see, but not wholly surprising in any way.
One of the reward(loot) creators was also demoing some new tier 5 weapons with new tints and other cool stuff. There were some awesome new items and armor sets that will be introduced in future updates, including a new direction w/ armor including "warcrafty" like pauldrens, though they don't get too nuts as WoW has.
I have to say if this game continues to improve as it has I can easily see switching as soon as I can get a beastly machine to play it on. What I see as a large part of the problem is that there is a lot of legacy material that the devs are working with, often the original designer no longer works there and they are having to deal with their problems and their design. I can see this being a huge problem for the first year for VG, and as EQ2 has seen, can plauge them in the future. But once this hurdle is mostly cleared I can see VG becoming a real feature complete, straight up awesome game. And I for one can't wait for it.
--
Cheston
Well I just got out of the Vanguard "Game Design" panel, it was very interesting. There are a ton of updates coming with regard to diplomacy that frankly make me want to reinstall. They are introducing diplomacy bosses who have incredibly long dialogs going up to 50 lines, the first diplomacy boss Eldor will have a huge loot table and be repeatable which will be interesting. There are many other diplo bosses in the works as well.
One thing I found particularly interesting is "Animacy" the future feature that will allow players to resurrect recently killed NPCs and engage in diplomacy with them. This sounds incredibly bad ass and the crowd seemed impressed, also mentioned is the possibility of newbies to follow around other groups and perform Animacy on their recently killed mobs, it will be interesting to see how they handle this and what possibilities it will present.
A quest designer went through basically the anatomy of a quest, and how from start to finish quests are designed, using the Unicorn mount quest as an example. This was quite interesting to see, but not wholly surprising in any way.
One of the reward(loot) creators was also demoing some new tier 5 weapons with new tints and other cool stuff. There were some awesome new items and armor sets that will be introduced in future updates, including a new direction w/ armor including "warcrafty" like pauldrens, though they don't get too nuts as WoW has.
I have to say if this game continues to improve as it has I can easily see switching as soon as I can get a beastly machine to play it on. What I see as a large part of the problem is that there is a lot of legacy material that the devs are working with, often the original designer no longer works there and they are having to deal with their problems and their design. I can see this being a huge problem for the first year for VG, and as EQ2 has seen, can plauge them in the future. But once this hurdle is mostly cleared I can see VG becoming a real feature complete, straight up awesome game. And I for one can't wait for it.
--
Cheston
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
