WarCry Column: One Week Gone: A Look at Vanguard's Potential

One Week Gone: A Look at Vanguard's Potential
By Splarf

Vanguard is one of the most eagerly-anticipated releases to the MMORPG genre in years for a reason: it rocks. Not since the release of World of Warcraft has the market seen this kind of attention to detail. What World of Warcraft did for the genre is now looking to have been just a template by which newer, better games will be judged.

Vanguard, originally a project licensed by Microsoft, is a credit to the mere 100-employee-strong Sigil Games. There will be headaches, as there are with all new releases. There is no playing this game on a 1 GHz machine and a gig of ram is bare minimum. The server performance leaves a little something to be desired and there are definitely bugs in the game, but people who started World of Warcraft on release will remember the extreme headaches and the more minor annoyances (like the looting bug) that were the butt of video jokes online for months. If these initial problems are any sign of what's to come, things could be a lot worse. Rumors indicate that Sigil was not ready to release the game and that Sony pushed for the release about three months early.

There will be players in the WoW universe who will not even look at Vanguard. That, I say, is a real shame. After all, when the bugs are out and the performance is where it should be, there will be little contest as to which is the better game. Vanguard is just destined to be THAT DAMN GOOD. Of course, that determination will be largely made by the player making the comparison. Vanguard is bound to see a more mature audience flocking to its world as this is a game of patience. No one is leveling to the cap in a week while progressing in crafting in the same period. Indeed, Vanguard is the kind of game where one will be challenged to work on the different aspects, from crafting, to adventuring to diplomacy, in a more balanced way. It seems it will be more beneficial, if one wants to create a "complete" character, to do a little bit of each, as needed to maintain that balance.

The crafting, alone, is a good reason to enjoy this game (details will be included in my crafting article). This is the only game I've seen where a player can take on work orders and be provided the materials to complete them so as to level their crafting skill and turn in their completed works for some copper, some items, maybe even a shot at a rare item. The taskmasters give the players gear that improves their crafting while at it! I know two other players who were leveling by doing actual crafting of materials they harvested, themselves. When I told them my level in crafting, from doing the work orders, they responded that they had missed the boat (and we haven't even built a boat yet) and immediately set off to collecting work orders. The fact that I had five times their amount of money played largely in their decision.

The value of a game is not just in its originality or its bells and whistles; a publisher's ability to make it play smoothly and squash the bugs is ultimately the deciding factor in determining its number of subscribers. As a way of comparison, I played World of Warcraft from beta until the week Vanguard was released. I had 4 60+ characters. When I logged onto Vanguard for the first time, we were mere weeks into the Burning Crusade expansion. One day after I played Vanguard, I canceled my World of Warcraft account and I haven't looked back. Sometimes you have to see something with awesome potential to appreciate how you've been settling for less. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed Warcraft immensely for a long time, but Vanguard's rich graphics and all the bells and whistles made me willing to tolerate bugs or performance issues for a while. It took only a gander at the crafting and diplomacy systems to convince me it was time for a change. One thing I am sure of is that millions more will follow. When they see the diplomacy system, how they can buff themselves and other players in a township with it, how they can reap rewards with the in-game games that are crafting and diplomacy, they will see the true value in this title.

In my coming articles, I will be pondering the aspects that make Vanguard a truly "new" game and sharing them with the Vanguard Warcry's ever-faithful readership. I plan on covering information about crafting, the battle system, the quest system, the interface, and the previously unheard of Diplomacy system that distinguishes Vanguard from the wanna-be's. Since housing and the ability to build (and later, battle with) boats is going to make Vanguard a long-term investment of players' time (and money), I will also be covering those topics. I am always open to discussion or ideas about topics, different ideas, or responses to my articles. Feel free to drop me a line at splarfster@gmail.com. I try to answer all emails!

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I couldn't agree with you more. I am having a blast in Vanguard. I couldn't get into World of Warcraft due to my love for realistic fantasy, but I've known many people who have came from EQ2 and WoW to experience Vanguard. For those that are still curious about the game, feel free to send me a PM. I have 4 Buddy Keys that I am ready to toss out to those that are really wanting to see this game in action on their computer.

The only thing that I ask for is a few things: what is your name, what do you do in life, and what kind of characters do you play and why?

I will edit this post when I've distributed all 4 Keys.

Hey, it's a buddy key right. I feel like I should know you a -little-! Haha.

Take Care,
-Ethanael

This post is soooo far gone fanboy that you really have no chance of objectively approaching the game. Vanguard offers nothing new... it just disguises a new form of grinding with lack luster performance and a graphics engine that could choke a donkey.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion Heartless. But there is no reason to be rude about it. Listen I agree as well that right now the game does have lackluster performance, but please refrain from tossing the "fanboy" word arround. We really don't want any of our threads turning into a useless flame war.

To be honest I love the game, but I do kind of side with you on the grinding and performance. But lets stay civil shall we? Afterall I do believe in the end the problems me and you both have will be fixed once Sigil gets things patched up the way they should be.

I hear people say all the time they see nothing new in Vanguard. One of the biggest things Vanguard offers that is new is not new feature, but instead a new depth to things we have already seen. The other 'new' thing Vanguard gives us is many feature combined into one game. For years many of us have wandered the gaming universe saying "Gee I love this game I just wish it has blabla like game XYZ" Vanguard gives us many of these features we have been wishing would all be in one game.

So much for unbiased journalism.

The author is sugarcoating the realities of Vanguard so much, it literally made me angry to read this, and I was hot under the collar waiting for the forum registration email to come so i could respond.

Frist of all, to come out and make a statement like "there is little question as to which will be the better game" is absolutely asinine. The games are both MMOs, but that's pretty much where the similarities end. WoW is a game. It is a fun game, in the true sense of the word. Vanguard on the other hand is more of a sandbox, where the developers "try" to not control so much presentation as they do in WoW. These are very different approaches, and while the games will always be compared because of their genre, they are very different.

WoW players in general will despise Vanguard. The reason being is because for most WoW players, WoW is their first and only MMO. They don't come from the "old school" EQ1 where most of the over-zealous reviewers like th OP come from.

1) The game is not "fun" - combat in un-interesting and un-inspired.

2) The graphics are terrible - there is no art direction whatsoever. The lighting is flat, the textures are terrible and improperly scaled for most objects

3) The performance is hideous - you need a very very powerful system all the way around (CPU, graphics, RAM) to be able to play this game even on "balanced" mode. And you lose so much when playing in balanced, it makes the game look awful.

4) The performance is still hideous - no matter how low you tune your settings, the graphics look like crap of course, but the game itself still "hitches" terrible. A hitch is an awful stutter someteimes perceived as a lag-spike and most of the time when transferring chunks but it happens all over. This is such a core problem with their infrastructure, I don't believe they will be able to ever address it.

The bottom line just to re-iterate: If you like WoW, don't even bother trying Vanguard. It's a different game, and a poor implementation that was released far too soon (despite being in beta for over a year) buggier than any software currently available (and WAY WAY worse than WoW was at release).

And just to qualify myself, I was in Vanguard beta for over a year, and have been playing WoW since release. So I have ample experience in both.

My god, I just read it again.

Do you honestly believe "millions more will follow"?

Dude, you have blinders on - you have no idea what makes WoW fun and popular.... people aren't going to leave that for this utter steaming pile of dog crap. Brad himself said there were 100k subs so far. We are likely to never get accurate numbers again. But I would say if they EVER have even 200k I would be amazed.

Again, I respect everyones views Machineman. For the future though please think about what you say. For example, you say his blinders were on. Well what exactly is one to draw from you saying:

"And just to qualify myself, I was in Vanguard beta for over a year, and have been playing WoW since release. So I have ample experience in both."

Seems to me it's not fair to compare WoW with Vangaurd Beta. I could be wrong and I am sure you will say I am, and thats ok. All I ask is that if your going to "debate" or even "argue" make sure you word your own arguments in a way that benefits yourself :)

Also when people make lists (ie 1,2,3,4) they will usually make sure #3 is not the same thing as #4. Another good idea is to never bring "opinion" into a statement. Saying the game is not "fun" is simply not a valid point. Maybe for you it is not fun, but for others it may be. Next time try "the game is not fun for me"

I think if you listen to my advice people will be more open to what you have to say. Honestly I think you did have some good points, you just got alittle "out there"

RisenZealot:
Seems to me it's not fair to compare WoW with Vangaurd Beta. I could be wrong and I am sure you will say I am, and thats ok. All I ask is that if your going to "debate" or even "argue" make sure you word your own arguments in a way that benefits yourself :)

Hmm. To be 100% honest, I am not trying to argue nor even discuss this. I wanted a non-biased post up here to save potentially hundreds of WoW players their money from being utterly disappointed. The article above has nothing to do with journalism and reviewing anything - its fanboy material period. Warcry lost a lot of credibility with it, wether it was true or not.

Also when people make lists (ie 1,2,3,4) they will usually make sure #3 is not the same thing as #4.

Except when point #3 is SO STRONG it deserves another mention.

Another good idea is to never bring "opinion" into a statement. Saying the game is not "fun" is simply not a valid point.

Did you share this concern with your author? Many statemens in their article are as matter-of-fact as you can be considering, like you say, it's all relative to the player. "There is little contest as to which is the better game" he said. Did you tell him to edit that and say "for me"?

I think if you listen to my advice people will be more open to what you have to say. Honestly I think you did have some good points, you just got alittle "out there"

I am out there, because as mentioned I was in the beta for over one year. The author of this article seemingly never played the game until release. So I am able to give a perspective of not only the current state of the game, but I knew what it took to get there. SO MANY of these bugs and problems persisted as long as I was in beta, despite hundres of bug reports and heated beta forum discussions. Yet the developers did nothing, apparently sitting on their thumbs the whole time.

The only time things started to change, was a few weeks prior to release, they really started patching stuff, almost every day. The game made HUGE leaps and bounds during that time, but it was SO far off from what a release should be, including delivering on the promises originally made, that even with all those improvements, it was still unsellable. But they did it anyway. And lo and behold, the patches have slowed to a trickle now that the game is out. Hmm, coincidence?

They don't have official forums for a reason, and I believe this was part of the reason. It's very strategic.

And to further qualify myself. I am STILL a current Vanguard subscriber, so my statements are based on the current release. I am keeping it because I WANT to like Vanguard and I am interested in the technology of MMOs and the systems and design behind them. But to play it? Not for fun. Only to see what kind of mechanics exist, etc.

As I said I really cannot dispute anything you say because I share allot of the same concerns. I just think there is "implying" on your part that no one can be sure of. For example I know of the "heated debates" and yes it seems as if there are some bugs the developers did nothing to fix so far. But do you not think it kind of sounds like you are saying they want the game to fail?

Listen everyone here (including the people who run the site) appreciate, value, respect and WANT your ability to provide perspectives that we may not be able to provide. I mean that only serves to better this site as a whole. I simply did not want you to think it was ok to openly "bash" someone. If you disagreed that is completely ok, just please state why by only using your perspective. There is no need for you to use the term "fanboy" in a demeaning way. It's obvious you have things to contribute here, so just focus on those and not the "negative".

Well, in the interest of keeping everyone informed, here is another review to check out that is non-biased.

http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/30435

While it is nice to see that there are people that like Vanguard, I must say that the game really feels quite uninspiring (to me...). Bad animation, mostly ugly and boring character models and at least for the quests I started with, too much "kill x mobs" without any really compelling storyline. I really liked the diplomacy part, but that was not enough to keep me in game. The game might get better in a number of months - EQ2 is an example of a game that really improved muich since release.

Most of the people I have seen that like Vanguard are former EQ and EQ2 players, I suppose there is something besides the origin of the developers that attract those people.
Never played EQ and while I used to play EQ2 and liked that one after a while, I find it a bit difficult to understand the attraction of Vanguard in its current state.

And no, I don't play WoW. Used to play it, but got tired of it long ago and have no desire to return there.

I dunno Machineman but that article seems pretty damn biased to me actually about bad as it gets.

Souljah-:
I dunno Machineman but that article seems pretty damn biased to me actually about bad as it gets.

Just because an article is negative, or positive, doesn't mean it's biased one way or another. In either case it can be based on factual experiences and observation from an impartial standpoint.

The review on the top of this page unfortunately is biased, because it isn't written in an objective tone and manner. Imagine watching the news where they would tell you that even though there was a shooting at the local Wal-Mart, how great it is because of their low prices. The review above does exactly that.

I suppose. I just think the guy plays wow he thinks its great and shits on vanguard alot. Sure its buggy but most games are at the start. I know the game was released to early i have had my frustrations with it but i have also played both games Vanguard seems to be the better game overall. I dont know how anyone that has played both could choose wow over vanguard even with the bugs it has being released to early. Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about but it seems that way to me.

The only argument I cannot stand is "People who like Vangaurd came from EQ and EQ2" I love Vangaurd but I never played either one of those games.

WoW and EvE were the only MMO's I had played. Well SWG for a month but that was terrible :( I love Star Wars and that game butchers it in my opinion.

RisenZealot:
The only argument I cannot stand is "People who like Vangaurd came from EQ and EQ2" I love Vangaurd but I never played either one of those games.

Not sure if you are referring to my comment, because that is not what I wrote. I am sure there are plenty of people who never played EQ or EQ2 that likes Vanguard and there are people that have played EQ and EQ2 that do not like Vanguard.
Still, a number of people with background in Norrath are happy to continue with Telon and I assume there must be some more to it than star status of Brad McQuaid for them.

The column did not help much in actually pointing out good points about the game, since it was a bit too f-word flavoured.