I just saw this thread and thought I'd say hello
I have been in Vanguard for about 12 months but haven't been able to tell anyone
I just bought it today
Its a brilliant game.. I actually went through lots of different opinions while playing it. I really disliked my first week or so. Level 1 to 10 its pretty pathetic really. Not a whole lot different to other MMORPGs to be fair... but still.... it was just not very impressive. I found myself basically finding a creature (mob), and casting the same spell just two or three times, and it was half dead before it reached me, and then only managed to get a few hits in before I killed it.
At about level 12, I ran out of quests in my home town area, and I got worried that the game lacked quests... It was only when someone basically said, "Travel.. you lazy git!" that I started travelling around, and I found literally hundreds of other quests. At level 12, my journal soon ended up full, and all the way through the teens, I had an endless supply of quests. Some of them where really good too. By about level 16, the combat had started getting really good... Instead of just a few spells, I now had a few whole banks of hotkeys, filled with spells. By about level 20, I had three nukes, half a dozen DoT (damage over time) spells, a couple of pets, and a bunch of interesting utility spells.
The combat just really started getting more interesting and challenging, and I found myself getting really hooked - a lot like early EverQuest.
My other concern that turned around, was fighting in a group. In my first month or so, I seemed to keep joining groups who only fought mobs with 1 or 2 dots. Occasionally we would fight a 3 dot mob. I didn't really understand how the dots worked back then, so I just felt peaved that combat was so fast, there was no challenge, and it was basically pretty mindless.
But then.... I found out about the dots. 1 + 2 dot mobs are for soloing
3 dot mobs are for small groups.... So when I was in a full group of 6 people and fighting 1-3 dot mobs, we where totally fighting the wrong stuff basically. 4 and 5 dot mobs are for full groups, and 6 dot mobs are for big raids.
So after a while I started joining better groups where we went to places with 4 and 5 dot mobs. It got MUCH better then. I had to concentrate hard, and it just got a lot more exciting and challenging, and everyone was using their characters to their full potential. Psionisists where charming stuff to make it fight others, I was putting stuff to sleep and everyone was fighting well basically, and it was a lot more fun.
I also made a couple of friends in the beta and the 3 of us did quests together. I found that to be a lot of fun, and was a really nice break from being in big groups.
Anyway Im rambling...
All I really wanted to say, was that the game is strange in a 3 ways. And if people dont realise this.. I dont think the game will do very well.
1) First off, it takes some time and effort to actually SEE the game itself. If I just mess about for a while, I still ended up level 10 or less, and its not really fun then. It only really got fun for me, once I got further into the teens. So they better hope that people have enough time and patience to play it for a while, or they might just give up in their first week.
2) The game changed SO much during beta. In the early days, it was so lacking in so many ways... But they just kept adding more things and more tweaking. It ended up really good, and then in this last month, they did a TON of work on it. A bunch of graphics have changed now. Spell effects are 10 times better than they where a month ago, and they are improving all the time. That rubbish red particle effect they used everywhere... is gone now
Also, there is a whole new sky in the game now. It gives it a much better look. A bunch of quests where added and a bunch where fixed. There was tons of balancing. And the frame rates really improved in the last few weeks.
3) Some things aren't explained... At around level 12, there was a LOT of people saying, "Why are there no more quests?!
". But if you go to a new area, and then keep travelling and exploring, you find hundreds of new quests. But if people dont realise that, they may think the game lacks quests. Its a shame they didn't just add a few quests in the starter areas, which send people further away, to introduce them to the next area. I went from Tursh to Veskal's Exchange at about 12, and went from having no quests in my journal... to having a completely full journal
And then there are tons of other areas to get even more quests too.
Overall I love it
My only other tip for other people though... is that if you dont have a really good computer... it totally ruins the experience. On my old computer... it looked like a really rubbish old game. Like a cheap copy of EverQuest or something.... On a really good computer, it just looks totally amazing. Its the best looking game I've played so far I think. I'm sure Crysis and Alan Wake etc.. will look better, but so far, its pretty much the king. Although ES4: Oblivion is better in some ways. But overall, I love the way Vanguard looked. It just requires a small fortune to be able to play it at good quality