All Posts by markyturnip

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Originally posted by lilreap2k3

Throw in boats that you control, and being able to build your own houses and this game is like a dream come true.

Most of the performance issues are gone, the only problems you should have now is if you have an old computer. Which if that is the case maybe you should get a new one anyways?

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a) Have you been in a boat yet?
b) Have you built a house yet?
c) The only problem is if you have an old computer? hmm... so my computer explains the bugs?

I am going to give VG one last shot...

Here's the thing - I find that with High Performance settings (the second lowest graphics level) that performance is acceptible, and close up, the graphics are not too far off what I see when I stand still, and change settings to highest quality. (If I try to move at that level the lag kills me)

From time to time when travelling around, I like to change my setting so I can take a look at my surroundings as they were designed to be seen,.I think I have a sense of what the world would look like at highest settings.

So, to those who enjoy this game, I would love to hear: what on earth is it about the graphics that everyone is raving about? (let us leave performance and gameplay aside for a moment).

Personally, I find the trees and bushes and so forth quite attractive... so with you there. The mountains and hills leave me less than impressed; the textures seem bland and unconvincing. The water looks pretty dreadful; and underwater is a joke.

I find the buildings rather basic and clinical (there is not so much sense of them being 'lived in'). Some towns look nice - the wood elf capital, for example, is lovely; but other buildings are very drab, and could have been in a game ten years ago - to my eyes anyway.

I actually find the character models okay; as 'realistic' toons go they are not too bad.

But I find the mobs to be really not very nice at all; drab colours, oddly disconnected with the world. The combat animations seem a little uninspiring; then again, I only got to level 14. And there is of course the standing around like lemons issue.

So, to those people who always describe the graphics as great, are we really looking at the same thing? As I was playing Call of Duty 3 yesterday, wow - now THAT to me is good graphics; extraordinary immersion. When I first played Oblivion, the graphics blew me away. But VG? I don't get it.

Am I going to the wrong places?

Please someone tell me where I should go to see what everyone is raving about.

Originally posted by CaesarsGhost
MMOCenter is dead.

...take my word for it... it's dead...

Machines was canceled ages ago.  TC was canceled not too long ago.  Phylon can be fun, but most people don't think it's worth the monthly fee.

...yeah... that's it really.  Summed up.

Originally posted by CaesarsGhost

Originally posted by markyturnip

... you forgot The Chronicle, although to be fair it never seemed that game was ever 'ready to come out'

Want to see what happened to TC?

Go play Phylon.  Change the character models to something more fantasy.  And restrict it to the 1 open "plains" like zone.

Originally posted by busdriver

Originally posted by whitedelight

Originally posted by busdriver

Originally posted by whitedelight
Darkfall was probably the most hyped game for many people since 01. It was supposed to be the dream game. AoC isn't even the most hyped game on this site so I do not see your reference.

The difference is in numbers, AoC has MUCH bigger fanbase than Darkfall has, 8 unofficial fansites for example. Alot of that hype is based on those awesome graphics AoC offers, I'm little hyped about that myself. Same thing can happen with AoC that happened with Vanguard, people realise that their year old computer can't run it unless they tone everything down to minimum, in which case they don't get what they want. Of course Vanguard was coded badly, that's their biggest problem, but I've played quite enough of AO to not blindly trust Funcom either.

 Again, Age of Conan is using the Dreamfall engine which isn't as rough on your computer and if you can run Oblivion on your PC then you should be in the clear. They can not make it too powerful of a game otherwise it will not work on the 360.

The min RAM requirement to run Oblivion is 1GB, I'll bet you a million AoC will LOL at you if you try to run it with that. To get the top graphics in AoC, you'll need Vista/DX10 and to run both Vista (the latest system hog from M$) and AoC without too much hicups... well, you'll need a beast for that.

Originally posted by CaesarsGhost

Originally posted by strongaxe

Some people say its not gunna come out but they are far enough along it IS gunna come out, only question is when.  Anyways thats not the issue im talking about here.  So if/when the game comes out and if it is like they say its gunna be amazing.

For the record:

There's an INSANELY long list of games that were "ready to come out" because they "worked on it so long" and stuff, and none of them came out.  Go to FilePlanet and look up games like Mythica, Dragon Empires, Wish (less so Mourning and Dawn)... plenty of movies and whatnot still on file.

All those games were in far more public stages then Darkfall is currently.  Wish was just a few short weeks from release if I remember correctly.

I understand this desire ya'll seem to have for Darkfall.  It's got PvP more towards the sense that you want, so it will fill that need for you I guess.  But keep in mind it only takes 1 quick swish of a pen to cancel a game completely, so it's never a matter of "When" for a particular title.

Most importantly:
If the server layer does not work, the game will fail.  It doesn't matter what game it is, in a MMO, the server layer is the #1 most important component.  It's also the most complicated, complicated beyond mind boggling.

Great Ideas can come crashing to a halt in light of many factors.  Perhaps DFO should have a bake sale.

Why does no-one ever mention Pirates of the Burning Sea?

Don't get me wrong, I am as psyched about WAR and AoC as anyone (especially after the VG flop, and I am not sure I really can bear starting LoTR, despite the generally favourable comments).

But Pirates looks to be a real laugh - reminds me of the Monkey Island games, and the two spheres of fighting (avatar, and ship) is a big pull.

More so, the prospect of battling over ports for control seems a clever way to approach endgame. Everything I see about this game makes me suspect it could be a surprise hit.

Originally posted by Deathstiny

The typical Vanguard experience is a 7 step process:

Step 1: Try to find the game. EBGames, Futureshop, BestBuy don't even carry the game anymore in my area. You can special order it though..

Step 2: After installing the game it's straight to the troubleshooting and support forums to find a .ini file that will allow your rig to play the game half decently (this will involve many trial and error attempts).

Step 3: Create a character, log in, and turn down graphic setting to minimum (welcome to 1999), do a couple of broken quests, wander around aimlesly trying to find another soul in the vast and empty world. Get lagged to death, desktop crashes and log of frustrated.

Step 4: Cancel your account

Step 5: Call your bank and get them to block your credit card because SOE will keep billing you even after you cancelled.

Step 6: Come to these forums and join the "I hate VG bandwagon"

Step 7: Pre-order WAR

That's it in a nutshell

Unfortunately there is some truth to this, altough I found I could play on the second lowest graphics level, and I do not have a particularly good set-up.

I bought, tried to like this game, and got bored. Doesn't mean you will, but I seem to be in the majority on this forum at least.

I found

- graphics: the landcape was nice enough... but not great. Trees are pretty and sway. But then look at a mountain - a really dull simple greay texture carpeted over a large area... it simply does not look like a mountain. The buildings are really not very good.  They have no lived in feel, no character (think brand new 60s cheap prefab), and sometimes (and I often hit max settings just to have a look) they look five years old (in terms of graphics technology). You will also find yourself falling through the floor into black expanses, 

I cannot understand why this game is so hard to run... I have other games which look WAAAAAAY better and they run fine on my set up.

- The mobs do not really fit in the world, in the sense that they do not seem to connect with the environment (they fall trhough it when they die and so on), and they shuffle around like lemons. The animations are wooden; the orcs in Kojan (or whatever my Asian starting area was called) are like little black/brown statues, almost like they were drawn with pencil on the background of a painting..

I personally think WOW graphics were far far superior, and from the look of AoC and WAR, they will be much better too. Heck, I reckon Pirates of the Burning Sea graphics look much better also.

- grind: I am on one of the more populated servers (the FFA PVP) and find it hard to find groups (although I generally give up if I do not find one in 30-40 mins or so...). So unless you have a group of friends you will be soloing a lot, and that basically consists of a grind. A dull one at that. There is no xp for discovering things, which would be an alternative route (exploration)

- bugs... this has been explained endlessly; it sure is dull though, and ruins any sense of immersiveness

- just a general sense of bleh... there are so many good games out there why bother with this one. Ironically, the only part I really enjoyed was the diplomacy.. as it was fresh and gave the game some character. But I seem to have reached a temporary dead end on that.

- combat - same as every other MMO (at least so far; my highest level is only 14)

If you must have an MMO fix, go for it; you may be lucky and find people and have fun. I tried, and even wrote some positive early posts, but just wanted so much more from a game. Maybe I have been spoiled by recent FPS, RTS and offline RPGs like Oblivion, but I found WOW (which I have quit, as I level capped again and got bored) to be a much more satisfying experience while it lasted. Straight in there was a sense of a flavourful world.

In short, my VG experience was boring. I am sure I could get more out of it if I dedicated more time/effort to it, but the world did not suck me in in a way that made me want to.

All subjective, of course, but I would suggest you wait a bit for WAR/AoC./POBS

Why it is that some dead mobs seem to half lie on the ground, and half under the ground. I was killing ostras this am, and when they died they kind of plopped onto the ground (death animations need some work imo), and parts of their body just disappeared into it. So the dead mob was in fact half a dead mob, with bits missing.

 It really spoils the illusion for me... ie it reminds me I am in a computer game, rather than a real world. Why does this happen? How hard is it to fix?

Originally posted by whitedelight
So you think the second you enter the world the NPC shoudl hail you as king and ask you to do major jobs for them? No. You work your way up as a no name and the higher you go, the better you are, the better the quest. Nobody gets asked to kill a dragon when you have no proven you can kill 10 bears.

Well, thanks for the thoughts.

I just can't bring myself to play this anymore...

The quests are dull - my god.. I simply cannot take another kill x of this.
The landscape is.. um.. well in Kojan it just feels fake. The mountain side textures for example.. yeesh.
The  floors sometimes fall out the houses, and I stare into blackness... weird, and it breaks any sense of immersion .
The NPCs stand still like statues.
The combat says things like 'you have established ownership'. Really.. it could at least have said, you join battle or some such.
The world is pretty empty if you are used to the thriving community of WOW. Its hard to find quest partners.
Getting around takes forever.
The monsters do not seem to fit in...

Meh. For me, it's just too boring, time-consuming, and unpolished. It feels very very unfinished.  How can so much money and so many people have created something so bland?

Sad for me, as I did want to try this game, but bleh. Maybe I will come back in a few months.

Then again... bleh.

Originally posted by Kyntor

I think a lot of people are losing sight of just what constitutes a RPG.  RPGs have always been about character progression.  There really shouldn't be any instant gratification or cheat codes to make you godly.  They kind of the defeat the purpose of a RPG.

 It is the "boring parts" that give meaning to the rest of the game.  Consider down time.  Without it, efficiency would be meaningless.   Down time is the penalty for not being efficient.  If there is no down time, you just lost one of the dimensions of the game.

 I think the problems that most MMORPGs have is that they concentrate a little too much on end game.  They need to spend a little more time making the journey fun.  If the journey is fun, the players won't feel the grind.

Originally posted by boojiboy

You aren't into foreplay at all, are you?

I really do not understand why these games take so long to get to the epic-feeling adrenaline-pumping fun stuff... I can do boring stuff all day without turning on my pc; I don't want my game time to be boring too.

Do the majority of players really like this model, where you have to do hours of really boring stuff with limited powers to earn the right to do the cool stuff? I am sure some do, and I realise this game is geared to them, but I suspect the numbers of people who do are limited...

I so wish I could skip straight past the dull early level grind to the grand drama immediately. I want to buy a boat NOW! Not after six months of grinding. I want a shot at a flying mount after a few days of play. I want to be confronted with a scripted boss encounter NOW! Not in six weeks. I want to see giants come marauding from over the hills! I want to see a bad-ass evil wizard and his undead minions wreak havoc in elf-town, and watch as the NPC guards scurry to mount a defense. I want a dragon to start rampaging in the fields, and gather together a group of brave warriors to take him down. And hear him taunt us as we try to kill him. And then follow clues to the dragon's cave and find its cursed treasure... not get some random 'drop' that appears in my screen after I have 'established ownership'.

I don't know... bleh... this game has really made me lose faith in the current state of MMOs.

So looking forward to Warhammer/Age of Conan... and pray they avoid this yawn-fest.

Originally posted by BigMango

Originally posted by Aildrik

Originally posted by Tacola

This is 3rd gen? I am afraid not. It simply is not.

Talk about chopping wood;  In UO people used to make a living chopping wood, making it into bows or furniture, and selling it to players who would set it up in their housing.

Yep, and in Vanguard we can also craft bows, arrows, and so much more, ... , but we can also buy land plots and carpenters can build houses on them (this will grow to become player run cities), we can craft boats, they sell for some nice couple golds. Most of the furniture is not in game yet but coming soon.

And yes, crafters are making a living with their skills. Hell, crafting is even one of the 3 spheres so it can live on its own.

Want to buy some weak tanglewood logs off me?

Seriously though... maybe VG is "not for me", though as you can tell from my first post I want to like it, and am not giving up yet.

I may have had an unlucky first instance, or whatever you call this teleport set-up where someone is locked out after dying... but it was just the sense of "nothing new here" that prompted my second post.

I was promised 'Wow' moments from the get-go. I specifically read an interview which said I should be getting fun stuff very early on.  

Great I think, why should I have to do boring stuff for hours to get good stuff? I have better things to do with my life. and better games to play. Why can't I have good stuff, right form the beginning, but stuff that changes and advances all the way through? Again, maybe this means VG is not for me, but guess what - I buy a game, I want to have fun with it out of the box.

Lets take an analogy... real-time strategy. The real truth is, this genre is all rather similar in game mechanics. Collect resources, build, deploy, destroy.

But guess what, when I installed and started playing Company of Heroes I went WOW! Out of the box. Sure, my better units don't come till later, but right from moment one this was fun!

Similarly, non-MMO RPGs had also been rather similar for a while. But when I started playing Oblivion I was thrilled... RIGHT OUT THE BOX. First person shooters... I could go on. There are games which blow you away, because even though a riff on a familiar theme, they bring something new and exciting immediately... and leave plenty of room for growth and discovery at the same time.

Vanguard... I install, and think to myself.. hmm... okay, nice enough. The trees are swaying in the wind - nice... the wood elf city - very pretty. The mobs? Meh.. The NPCs? Hmm... The card game? Fresh, though I run around a lot on circles it seems.... And after a very few days I am thinking... hmm... when do I get my first - Holy *** What a cool sight/effect/experience/plot/feature

So I throw back the challenge. To those of you who love this game, when did you first get that feeling? Tell me, because I will go there and check it out myself. I paid for this game, I want to enjoy it!

PS - none of this is about bugs/performance; that will sort itself out. This is about content/gameplay

So... after a few more days (and I am not playing this particularly intensely - just an hour or two here and there) I can add a few more thoughts -

1) I love the fact you can get a cheap horse at level 10... a nice early landmark, a nice sense of achievement. I hate the fact that the second a mob aggros me the horse disappears. What's with that? Also, my horse's jump is competely stilted... it sort of jerks up in a 'jump position' and I rise. There is no fluidity.

2) Early grouping has left me thinking... gak - I have been here before! There is a quest called "tainted" something which seems to be the instance-style group quest of choice for level 10-15 characters, in Kojo (or whatever my zone is called). You are teleported to an area with 4 sub-areas (you are teleported to each of those also)... in each area, which is like a box surrounded by walls, you just have to clear all the mobs, twice (huh? I cleared, and now I have to clear again?), then kill a boss. This is in NO WAY epic. Seriously, what a bore.

The fact that I effectively have to do this - to comply with the grouping philosphy , and subsequent rewards, of this game - rather than go off exploring on my lonesome or in a pair - to discover this great world in interesting ways - is very uninspiring. Look, I love groups, but just clearing four confined areas twice each is in no way an interesting activity.

Even more boring, the tank died, at one point, and could not come back in. Ya wha? Something about a locked instance, What garbage. We had to start again for him to continue. All over again.

I was one of two druids, which are designed as dps spellcasters but have a couple of heals. Well, for whatever reason in this fight both of us were dpsing away, we had no other healer, we forget to toss in a heal at the right moment and the tank dies. Meh, well, so we should have been more alert but not the end of the world right? Dust off and continue? No way! We have to abandon the quest and start again... and recriminations fly.

Now, I am certainly not going to judge a game on one encounter, but what struck me is that because this is essentially - in adventuring at least - the SAME GAME as EVERY OTHER MMO - people immediately forgot they were exploring something new, and started behaving like bored min/max level cap players in their old game. How depressing. Yet, I confess feeling similar.. this being such a similar game in terms of play mechanics (so far, and it is early days, but it seems clear enough anyway), well.. I guess I also (while not saying anything, as it is not really a big deal) feel a little irritated by people messing up in obvious ways. I have been here before, in other words, many many times. It is boring.

3) So.. off I toddle after this joyous experience to some location where I have been sent - an asylum - where I wonder if I can play a little solo. Well, it turns out the mobs are too high for me, so no... no huge deal, except looking at the asylum - here are essentially a bunch of mobs just standing still waiting for me to pull them one by one, in order to collect the 7 whatchuma flips that the quest giver wants.

This is 3rd gen? I am afraid not. It simply is not.

This is 1st gen, with nicer graphics and a few more knobs and twiddles.

To me 2nd gen was WOW - scripted encounters, where interesting things happen, people crack jokes at you, things appear to transform, and mobs are wandering around doing interesting things.

In 3rd Gen I am looking for a substantial increase in immersion and gameplay... a significantly enhanced experience. Sad to say, the 'VISION' seems to have translated - from my experience so far - into a step backwards.

3) This has been said before, but everything is a little too... um.. clean. Where is the grit and detritus of a lived in active world. The big bridge in my starting zone is completely antisceptic. Not even a bird has ever pooped here. Clearly, when I am not looking, a gang of slaves is constantly scrubbing everthing to a spotless sheen. Wish I could see em .. that would be interesting. As of now, trouble is, I do not believe in this bridge. It has no history; it has no life. This world has almost no life.

4) I am chopping down trees, but for what? I don't really know.. no-one needs my wood; least, I have not met anyone who does. There should be a lumber yard where I can hand it in or something. Full of sneering lumberjacks drinking ale on their time off.

ALL THIS SAID>>>>

I will continue playing some more, because I DO like the prospect of exploring this generally pretty environment. I am hoping that things will become more interesting in terms of my toon's life plot.

But the fact that players 10 levels in are already acting out the same kind of frustrations as they did presumably on the 13th run through LBRS in WoW is a really, really worrying development . It speaks to me that this sense of 'wonder', the sense of 'hey - this is cool' is simply not there. I have not met anyone yet who said 'hey, this is cool. Or.. phew... that was fun!' So far, it seems, even combat in City of Heroes/Villains was much more dynamic intense and fun... At least the mobs there shouted insults at you. And did strange things that made them seem alive.

Bleh... so sad given how much money and effort they must have spent on this. I really wish them luck, and will play a little more for sure. But if nothing changes substantially, I will not be one of the golden converts to regular subscription. Argh! Now I have to wait for Age of Conan or Warhammer! Do I have to slake my MMO thirst in the meantime with LOTRO? ugh... no pvp.. choices choices