All Posts by etwynn

Originally posted by Spoofis

Vanguard will be enjoyed by LOTRO players and EQ2 types.

WoW players will find VG's combat system simple and boring.

I've played a lot of WoW and a lot of Vanguard and I can honestly say that Vanguard's classes and combat are much more interesting that WoW's.  Vanguard's combat system itself is nearly identical to WoWs (except vanguard has defensive targeting, rescues, and finishers) but Vanguard's selection of abilities for each class just makes combat much more exciting and involved than WoW's.

Vanguard's classes are also nice because you're not forced into a role by your selection of a talent tree. Vanguard has no talent trees and the classes are therefore more versatile and it's more about how you want to play your class at any given moment (rather than which subclass you choose).  Vanguard does have subclasses for some classes, but even a subclass can play different roles.

Most classes in vanguard are given a variety of abilites as well as a few crucial stances that will allow them a lot of versatility.

http://targonor.net/vg/pmwiki.php?n=Main.DungeonLvlGuide  (check out the other tabs on the top horizontal bar)

http://www.dungeonguru.net

http://wiki.silkyvenom.com/index.php/Main_Page

Originally posted by Letsinod

Funny how no one ever mentions the swath of empty and unpopulated chunks in this game.  There are literally TONS of empty areas in the game.  I played this game for a long time both on release and again this last spring and you can never get over the empty feeling the world has.  Its lifeless and dead.  You can run just south of Ahgram and run through literally three zones of desert with not a single creature.  When you get down to cross the big bridge you get to another HUGe island that is absolutely desolit. 

At this point there are only a few unpopulated chunks in western thestra.  Granted, there's some high-level content which hasn't been itemized yet (bridge of destiney and stiirhad come to mind) but it's not like we can even easily kill those mobs yet anyway.

Well there are a few level 50 group dungeons, and they just added a new area this week.  There's also a huge raid dungeon (that people have been working on for months) and about 10 overland mobs too.  New raid and group content coming soon, too. So yeah, plenty to do at endgame.

Plus there are a lot of dungeons from levels 10-49, meaning you can play several characters to 50 and do different dungeons if you want.

I'm a veteran vanguard player who quit a few months ago and just came back.  Things are really looking promising with the Isle of the Dawn and new level 50 content coming in.  I'm having a great time and I just made a new character.  Maldiv, currently a 10 pally, on seradon.

EQ2 uses multiple cores now I think, but vanguard doesn't.

Try disabling your audio in vanguard in audio settings then just play some music or something.  That should boost your performance.

Originally posted by Calintz333

First of all Hi,

 

I am a BIG FFXI fan. I have level 75 DRG 75 WAR 75 WHM 65 DRK 60 BST

 

I have been playing FFXI for 3 1/2 years now.

 

I am tired of FFXI now. I want to move on but have yet to find a good game to do this to.

 

Is vanguard like FFXI?

Haven't played FFXI

 

How is grind?

From what I hear, less than FFXI.  Vanguard is low on grinding in that you have a lot of places to explore so you don't have to kill the same stuff over and over.

 

How is story?

There are a lot of substories which you can get into, especially if you do diplomacy.

 

Game party based or solo?

Both

Crafting, good bad matter or dont matter?

 Crafting system is great.  You can make a variety of items nearly as good as adventuring drops (which are much harder to get).  You can also make boats, houses, furniture, bags, ammo, etc.  Fishing is coming soon.

Economy stable?

They just changed the brokers from three separate brokers to a single one.  In my opinion it makes buying items a lot easier.

 

company helpful good updates?

Best GM/support team in any game I've ever played.  Also, the devs are relatively active on the boards.

 

Community large small?

Small but very friendly, helpful.

Cinematics in story ?

No

 

Expansions & updates how often big major update?

 Major "game updates" ever 1-2 months, smaller ones inbetween (today we got a "minor" update including a very large new group area for level 50 players). 

Subscription fee?

 15 dollars a month. (less in bulk)

Reason most players left this game (I know it had a bad start but plz detail)?

 Poor performance, buggy.  It's much better now.

Thanks hope I get reply soon

Enjoy!

Check out the trial! www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/201119

Now is a good time to start playing again.  The trial island means that there's new low level content and the Forgotten Isle which was released today means that there's new level 50 group content. 

There are a lot of rumors going around because the devs have been rather secretive about the of the bunch of updates that are upcoming. They said they're releasing something tomorrow, probably new level 50 group content.

They also said they'd allow people to COPY their characters to the PvP server.  I haven't heard anything about rvr or anything else pvp related.

Originally posted by Roxianna

With 97% of all teenagers now playing [video?] games

I call bullshit. 

Originally posted by John.A.Zoid

Originally posted by etwynn

Originally posted by tarkin1980

 Vanguard didn't turn out very well.

 

I beg to differ.  When was the last time you played it?  I suggest you check out the trial.  If you haven't played in a while, your account might even be active.

 

People keep saying its changed yet I came back to play it one one of them come back things the other month and it's still a boring generic barren world with ugly character models.

Have you seen the new character models?

Originally posted by tarkin1980

 Vanguard didn't turn out very well.

I beg to differ.  When was the last time you played it?  I suggest you check out the trial.  If you haven't played in a while, your account might even be active.

Originally posted by KillerEwok

This game sounds pretty good, especially the part where I google "scripts for x" and just copy+paste, then go eat a sandwich and come back at the highest level.

It wouldn't be all about which scripts you use.  For example, you could go borrow someone's script for an NPC to mine ore from a mine, but what happens if he gets attacked while mining? What happens when his inventory is full?  Does he walk it balk to your town or does he put it on a cart and fill that up? Or what happens when your city accumulates more ore than your crafters can use? Do you keep mining or invest your labor in something else?

You'd need to pay close attention to what's happening so you can tailor your scripts to your specific circumstances.  You wouldn't be able to get all the scripts you need online because your settlement would have its own circumstances that need to be taken into account.  Basic scripts like telling your crafter to make swords would easily be borrowed from google, but more complex behavior would need to be either changed directly by you or scripted by you.

Well a nation builder would spend a lot of time writing/observing/adjusting scripts for trade, farming, armies, etc.  But an adventurer would spend more time just playing the game.  An adventurer would be able to make his single character more powerful than the scripted characters of the nation-builder (through player skill, item/power accumulation, and a good choice of abilities) so there would be incentive to actually play the game in the more "traditional" sense.  A scripted character could not clear a dungeon.  A single player with his scripted alts/mercenaries might be able to. But this wouldn't be much different from multiboxing and a good multiboxer wouldn't rely on static scripts but rather opt to exert more realtime control over his alts' abilities by selecting short scripts for other characters as the battle plays out (rather than just telling your healer to spam "greater heal" the entire fight).  The choice would be up to you--the scripting system would just provide the opportunity for players to accomplish things otherwise impossible in the traditional MMO format.

The script system would have to be well designed so it's not tedious (I'm thinking highly hotkeyable, ie. dropdown menus with hotkeys rather typing the scripts).

Plus, how cool would it be to order your army to attack and pillage a neighboring city from your cell phone while sitting on the bus.

Originally posted by Iceman32

I don't know if that's the future of MMORPG games, but it sounds awesome. It also sounds like Magic of the Gods.

For example, I already created a new kingdom on MotG called the Kingdom of Radnaria. Now I'm trying to fight off ogres on my borders and see about annexing land from the dwarf kingdom of Stondaria that borders me. I'm trying to recruit players to be in my army. That's part of what you're talking about with control of territory like an RTS game, right? But this is an MMORPG. Also, I do have resources in my territory. There's a good fishing ground at least.

If you try magic of the gods, come join the kingdom of Radnaria!

Bah, it's too bad that game doesn't have 24hr servers.  It looks interesting.

Originally posted by FischerBlack

I remember busting ass grinding WOs on my Carpenter in May 07 because I thought Galleons were just around the corner and I wanted to be in on the big plat splurge that would come when they went live... and here we are 18 months later...

I'm pretty sure the reason that they haven't implemented the galleons yet is that they want to put in some sort of content to actually make them useful. 

You can't be a master fighter without spending time fighting.  Similarly, you can't be an expert crafter if you don't invest time in practice.  As more gamers become interested in "realism" in their MMOs, we still call for a reduction of "grind."  People want to be able to accomplish great things in their realistic online game worlds without actually having to play for hours each day.  I have a potential solution.

Our characters should exist whether we're online or not.  They eat, sleep, and function according to our commands.  A game like this would be less about twitch gaming.  A player controlled character would be able to beat a scripted player or even another player controlled character based on his use of abilities, but the emphasis would be on which abilities you use in what circumstances and a well scripted character would be able to hold his own.  Don't tell me their would be no skill involved--it would take skill to script a character well for combat, crafting, farming, or even adventuring. And the more time you spend actually playing the game, the better scripts you would produce for when you're not playing.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about basic scripts like "go kill stuff."  Imagine the scripts like macros with conditional statements.  Scripts could contain subscripts (independent scripts which you use a lot so you just link to them instead of remaking them each time)

Let me give you an example, you could make a different fight script based on whether you're facing an opponent with ranged damage or strictly melee damage.

A rogue could make a script to stun, backstab, poison (dot), then dissappear.  You could include conditional statements to sprint away if any of these actions fail. 

Combat scripts would be best used for defending property like a house, farm, or keep (which are persistent and can be ransacked even when you're offline), or for defending yourself while on a predetermined travel route (which means you can go make a sandwhich IRL while traveling between cities). Sending your character out to kill wolves would not be a good idea because your script is still going to suck compared to a real character who might decide to kill you and steal all of your stuff.  It makes sense to risk dying to defend things you already have (by guarding your property) but it doesn't make sense to risk dying just farming resources or grinding mobs (unless you're really ballsy about your script and player power).

You'd also be able to hire NPCs which you can set a script for.  The only difference is that NPCs cost money and the more skilled they are, the more money they're going to cost.

You number of characters per account should be relatively limited--say 3-4 and they should all be able to be logged on at once.  You could group with yourself, or they could be in completely different parts of the world.  You could have one of your characters tending your farm with some NPC mercanaries/laborers while another character transports your wheat to the nearest town with some more NPC mercenaries while you're actually out controlling two more of your characters exploring a dungeon somewhere. 

Switching between characters quickly should be easy and you should be able to set up ingame alerts, email alerts, or even cell phone alerts if you're getting attacked, if you get an item you've been farming, or anything you want to be notified about happens.  Maybe game developers could even design a stripped down version of the game for a cell phone (smart phones like the iphone or android)  where you can view  your characters status , chat, and give your characters new tasks (change their scripts).

A game like this would really depend on an excellent tutorial, an easy to use but very indepth scripting system, and a user-interface that flawlessly unites macros/commands with scripts.  Their should be scripts to change your scripts, your alternate characters scripts, and even your NPC scripts at a push of the button.

This might seem like having the computer "playing the game for you," but just think of the game as a real-time strategy game where the objective is collective power rather than increasing the power of a single character at a time.

This format would allow for characters to build their own kingdoms complete with farmers, crafters, merchants, trade, city guards, and armies.  Other players could choose to "work" for kingdoms by doing player created "quests" or could just go to cities/kingdoms to sell their goods, buy food, and meet characters.

Originally posted by Raav

Digitally you don't have to pay anything except the subscription.  You may download the Free Trial and then upgrade to a full subscription without paying for the game.  All you pay is the monthly subscription.

5-10 bucks is still pretty cheap for this massive game.

He's talking about the fact that SOE charges something outrageous (like 40 dollars) for the digital download purchase.

Originally posted by eldanloco

Originally posted by Briansho

The only game I wouldn't steal at all from is Darkfall. You can't steal air vapors.

 

Ohs nos you didn't!!  It isn't vaporware!!  It's umm...   in development!  Yeah... beta is TBD!

You guys are fucking clueless.  Have you seen the 20 minute gameplay video? Have you seen the video of people playing the game at a gaming convention last week?  Get with the times.  Calling Darkfall vaporware is almost as played as the "turn it around for vanguard" joke.

Originally posted by Forcan

Some sandbox titles that are being pushed out in the near future seems interesting, but the "world simulation" part will have to be observed upon to see if that has taken place.

 

TBH I haven't seen anything promising.  If a game had even a feeble real world simulation system, they'd be advertising the game's dynamic nature up the ass, which no upcoming games are doing.  I guess my point is that sandbox games are only as dynamic as the game's design allows and upcoming games seem to focus primarily on combat and crafting--certainly not all the factors to create a truly dynamic and balanced game.