Vanguard - I don't give a fuck if it's dead, It's still brown as fuck (Download link in 1st post)

Denaut_sl said:

I was.

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So did you guys not realize the engine was complete garbage? I mean no disrespect by that I am just wondering why another one wasn't chosen.

I beta'd Vanguard with the last guild I was ever really an active member of. We were going to move to VG from EQ2. We were all so disappointed. I think it lasted a month before the guild dissolved. Vanguard killed my guild, and I'll never forgive anyone that was involved.

Fuck it, I'm bored. Downloading now.

Troll_sl said:

I beta'd Vanguard with the last guild I was ever really an active member of. We were going to move to VG from EQ2. We were all so disappointed. I think it lasted a month before the guild dissolved. Vanguard killed my guild, and I'll never forgive anyone that was involved.

Fuck it, I'm bored. Downloading now.

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If you have not done it, now is a great time. ( before spring releases take players away )... population is really good right now.

Still not "great," but certainly not the MMO shitstain it used to be. They really did kind of turn it around. Not horrible, for a F2P game. Will be giving it a go for a while.

calla_sl said:

there are still a few HA people around, kc

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i seen fingurs, but i dont know if it was actually him and the character was AFK. I didnt see anyone else i knew though.

KCXIV_sl said:

i seen fingurs, but i dont know if it was actually him and the character was AFK. I didnt see anyone else i knew though.

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Remember seeing you around back in the day. Brother, and I ran around as Hall and Oates. Our guild was dead within 4 months though.

Flipmode_sl said:

So did you guys not realize the engine was complete garbage? I mean no disrespect by that I am just wondering why another one wasn't chosen.

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Well, not really a simple answer to that. The engine is a heavily modified Unreal 2-2.5, which isn't in and of itself bad. The problem mostly stems from how it was used by an uncompromising design even in the face of severe technical limitations. Basically, making a huge seamless world of hundreds of stitched together large Unreal maps caused, by far, the largest number of issues and sucked up far too much code time that could have been better spent in other areas. I don't think anyone really was all that surprised by that.

In the end, especially back then, there was no available engine that could do it reasonably. The proper reaction is to adjust your design to accommodate for technical limitations as best you can, which wasn't done on Vanguard. The efforts of the coders to get it working as well as it did was damn near heroic.

I would like to point out though I have gone on to work on several AAA MMO projects since then (plus smaller ones as well), and the Vanguard back end is better than for designers than any other I've worked on. Believe me, I was more shocked than you. The general state of design tools in the industry is abysmal. I do think it is getting much better now though.

This game holds a soar spot for me... I wanted it so badly to be the next big thing. I shelled out an insane amount of money for an over the top computer that I built specifically for this game. Having never been a crafter before I decided to start my crafting career first and adventure once done. This was a "dark" part of my life so I played 12-16 hours a day doing nothing but leveling Tailor. Another player Julie (If I recall right) who was on my server was neck and neck with me on achieving world first Tailor. She slacked off near the end for whatever reason and I achieved my first and only world first ever.

With my crafting finally completed I jumped into adventuring hardcore and was loving it but by then the game was starting to begin its decline and by the time I joined a raiding guild it was just stale... So much time wasted for nothing. Oh well you live and you learn I guess...

...Ugh downloading now.

Has a guild been formed yet?! A friend and I just started playing a few days ago. I've played before (50 Rogue and several others across the levels). Leveling up a Cleric/Ranger.

The saddest part of running around Vanguard now is seeing that it's a good game but still has some rough edges and knowing it never has or will have the resources it needs to make it a great game. If SOE had put enough resources into fixing the engine issues and some usability issues early instead of leaving them with a skeleton crew the game could be pretty amazing now. I know, it's hard to keep throwing money at a game like this but letting it sit there...

The revolving door on that team doesn't help much either. It seems like Vanguard is the team to spend time on while they are waiting to move you to another project.

If you want just any old tag for a guild hit me up in game and I'll invite you to Ethereal Realms, It's just me, my buddy who has like 6 55's and another board member right now. I'm open to making it bigger though and recruiting. We have a guild hall and everything already.

Don't bother playing. It's better, but it's still shit. And I'm convinced that the only people still playing it are ass burgers. No one talks. At all. I'm already uninstalling it.

Troll_sl said:

Don't bother playing. It's better, but it's still shit. And I'm convinced that the only people still playing it are ass burgers. No one talks. At all. I'm already uninstalling it.

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It's definitely rough and not casual friendly, but my experience is the complete opposite. I've run two dungeons and done the Isle twice, once just rushing through, and a second time concentrating on crafting and diplomacy in the last week. People are fairly friendly and groups are not too tough to come by.

If you are missing the Barrens chat, then yeah, it's lacking, but it has something of community. It's not bad for a free to play game and I'm hoping at 20+ there are still groups.

I'll definitely be playing it off and on for a while, trying to level up my Shaman and Warrior. I doubt I'll be max level anytime soon as I'm working on crafting and diplomacy too on my Shammie.

They need to just release the tools to develop content to the players. Then let the players vote on the best stuff every so often and implement it. Could it work technically? I don't know probably not, but it would be free content for the devs. Most of the stuff created would probably be junk and obviously never get voted in, but I bet there would be a handful of really talented people who could create some awesome stuff. I suppose I can dream...

darkko_sl said:

They need to just release the tools to develop content to the players. Then let the players vote on the best stuff every so often and implement it. Could it work technically? I don't know probably not, but it would be free content for the devs. Most of the stuff created would probably be junk and obviously never get voted in, but I bet there would be a handful of really talented people who could create some awesome stuff. I suppose I can dream...

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Probably not feasible for Vanguard. But if it could be done in some form then it would be a huge draw to any game that did this.

I had that experience before F2P - asking for groups in general chat, or pestering people in advanced lfg yielded *crickets*. Since F2P, it isn't a beehive of activity with people spamming general chat with [spell name here] + random sexual reference, but it is getting better all the time. I think the old timers are burned out on helping people by answering questions just to have them quit the game. Find a guild to join, and make the chat channels lively by being lively. I am far from having aspergers, and I think I have a higher tolerance for bugs and lack of polish after burning out on WoW clones, and seeing what is coming down the pipe (which doesn't look promising, Hi2U Defiance, utter crap).

When most of the guilds raid on those Times, Global can be brutally quiet FYI otherwise normally the raiders on alot of their alts stuff leveling, crafting etc.

People are super helpful too, I was grouping up with a few people in Qalia on my Bloodmage twink and totally forgot about the HL quest that they were doing. Everyone caught me up and got me through the helm quest, super nice peeps.

KCXIV_sl said:

i seen fingurs, but i dont know if it was actually him and the character was AFK. I didnt see anyone else i knew though.

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iamme is still around, limric now plays a dk. sadly 326 quit recently. the last guild leader for ha (i'm blanking on his name, de cleric) was around randomly but i don't know if he's playing

If anyone needs jewelry look up my crafter. Zariya of twilyte song