All Posts by Praxus

Too bad you didn't like it. But thanks for starting another thread for the resident trolls to jump on like flys on sh*t and paste their usual bs.

What a joke..yet another stupid  thread for twits with nothing better to do than bash a game they don't play.  Its like troll flypaper.

Hmm maybe I should go start bashing threads in the Horizons or SWG forum? Yay what fun!  Pathetic.

Being so easy, with basically no death penalty makes the game pretty boring imho. No challenges, no suspense...but that seems like the way they want to go. Maybe there is challenge at high levels? But I sure didn't see it in beta.

Wow how many frickin times do you see posts like this? I mean I understand where you're coming from; but this point has already been made 10 billion times, why start a new thread on it?

Vanguard is definitely the first game that 'brought the magic' of Velious era EQ back.

Despite some bugs, its a great game.

I played for a few hours but found it pretty boring. Its really easy, there's too much instancing, all gear is soulbound, and the UI is pretty sucky.

I like the graphics though...the landscapes at least.

I think the game is really fun...but the OP has a couple of points. Firstly the XP is a bit too slow. But they have fixed that with today's patch.
Secondly, I agree the world is too spread out. They should have launched with 2 continents, not three. It does make finding groups somewhat harder. But they will address that with the change to allow two people to summon another.

Vanguard Build 1789 Patch Notes 3/22/2007 – TEST SERVER

GAMEPLAY NOTES

- Experience rates for killing NPCs have had a significant increase.

The experience changes start as a small amount at low levels and scale up to a large amount in the early twenties. From then on the increase remains fixed. This increase should be very noticeable for players 15+. This change is in response to actual player leveling times not meeting our original target times within many different subsets of the player population. This increase will bring us much closer to our goal without exceeding it.
- The cost to repair items with high rarities has been reduced.
- Amplifying abilities are now capped at 10 times original strength.
- Amplifying abilities no longer works for all abilities in the ability line. Diminishing returns still applies to everything in the ability line.
- If an ability is taken to full amplification strength it will now experience an extended refresh time.
- Lull type abilities now state that they have a chance to aggro on resist rather than leaving that information to be a surprise.
- All lull type abilities now have the same chance to be resisted.
- Player Housing: All existing housing permissions have been wiped to support new permission functionality.
- Player Housing: The information you receive from inspecting a plot, building, and construction site has changed. All information is now included in one UI window with tabs for each section. All players will now be able to get basic information about what they are inspecting even if they are not the owner of the plot or building.
- Player Housing: Permissions are now set for a plot instead of for a building. You can now specify various permissions for plots through check boxes. Mouse over the check boxes in the Create Permission window to get an over view of what the permission allows.
- Player Housing: Players can now give guild access via guild ranks to their plots and buildings.
- Player Housing: The permission system will continue to expand as more features are added to player housing.
- Player Housing: You now have the ability to recall to your house. Check your ability book under the general section for the new ability.
- Player Housing: You can now preview the required construction materials for a building type by clicking the "Building Details" button on the construction tab.
- Player Housing: Plot prices will now update dynamically. You upkeep price will no longer be locked in when the plot in purchased.
- Player Housing: Coin for upkeep is no longer entered as copper. A coin bar is now present with the proper denominations.

ADVENTURING NOTES
- Bard – Fox Overtakes Hare has had its damage increased, now roots the target for 6 seconds, has had its refresh timer dropped to 20 seconds and will crit much more often.
- Paladin – Vanquish is now more likely to critical.
- Rogue – Fatal Stroke will now open attack chains on critical.
- Warrior – Adjusted the level progression of Stinging Cut. Levels are now 14, 22, 30, 38, 46
- Warrior – Stinging Cut V has been added to trainers.
- Warrior - Adjusted the level progression of Blade’s Bite. Levels are now 30, 38, 46
- Warrior – Blade’s Bite III has been added to trainers.
- Warrior – Both Stinging Cut and Blade’s Bite now add an initial chunk of hate and some hate over time. The hate is now applied over 15 seconds, instead of 30.
- Warrior – Commands have changed. Single target commands and group commands no longer share a common refresh timer. You can perform a single target command followed immediately by a group command with no delay. All group commands continue to share a common refresh timer. All single target commands continue to share a common refresh timer.
- Warrior – Group commands now have a refresh timer of 30 seconds, down from 45.
- Warrior – Strike Now has a refresh timer of 45 seconds, down from 60
- Warrior – Commands no longer incur global refresh
- Warrior – Defensive type commands now last for 8 seconds instead of 6.
- Warrior – Killing Blow has had its damage greatly increased, its endurance cost drastically reduced and it can now open chains on crits…which should happen often.
- Warrior – Increased the hate reduction on Withdraw and made it consistent across all upgrades.
- Warrior – Removed the mitigation penalty from enrage.
- Warrior – Battle cries are no longer tied to the same refresh timers. Each can be performed individually.
- Warrior – Shout of Fury IV is now available at level 36 and Shout of Fury V is available at level 48.
- Warrior – Shout of Fury now lasts for a flat 12 seconds across all levels
- Warrior – Roar of Rage has a slightly different level progression to make for a more smooth progression of hate. The new levels are: 22, 32, 42, 50
- Warrior – Roar of Rage IV is now available on trainers at level 50

CRAFTING NOTES
- You will now see crafting and assembly recipes in the trainer list even if you do not meet the faction or flag requirements.
- Splitting a stack of crafted items will no longer cause the maker's mark to be lost on the new stack. You will also now be able to restack the items.
- Corrected a travel journal entry for the Understanding Nyi quest.
- Fixed some pieces of crafting gear that were set to the wrong rarity level.
- Rotten Material should no longer have an invisible AP penalty
- Gwartak Clan Shortsword should now raise shortsword skill instead of longsword skill
- Current furniture recipes are now available on outpost trainers as well.
- An addition has been made to crafting advisors that should now let you see the tutorial restart option if you are still level 1 or 2 in crafting and still did not see the restart option. This should solve all issues relating to players unable to continue the crafting training.
- Work Orders - Fixed issue with tier 5 work order tables that was causing cash items rewards to be replaced with the infamous “Ghostbuster” item.

DIPLOMACY NOTES
- Tursh Academics now give appropriate rewards for Incite parleys.
- Thestra tier 3 Diplomacy waist items now correctly equip to the waist slot and are no longer masquerading as shoulder items.
- Thestra tier 3 Diplomacy ring items now correctly display ring icons

WORLD POPULATION NOTES
- Jathred’s Twist - Morr the Mighty, Sharram and Zahn at the Minotaur camps in Jathred’s Twist should now drop the correct loot.
- Quests – Weapon rewards for the quest The Purification of Graystone have been adjusted.
- Quests - A martial staff and a focus item are now available as rewards for the quest The Purification of Graystone. Any players who have already completed the quest and selected either the martial sword or the staff will be able to exchange them at the Spirit of Valor for their respective alternatives.
- Quests - Kill count updates for the quests offered by the Spirits of Vengeance will no longer occur at many times their intended rate.

Items
- Low level Qalian Bows have had their appearances fixed/updated.
- Some mid-level Thestran crossbows were found to be hiding about 50 meters away from their owners. The crossbows have been confiscated and replaced with more timid models until such a time that they decide to play nice.
- Some Graystone and Beranid Downs items have had their restriction flags updated; this will result in the Heroic items becoming Soulbound and the rest becoming non-Soulbound if they were previously

GUI NOTES
- Added item compare to the UI, which activates by pressing Shift while examining an item. Alternatively, you can enable the new "Always Show Item Compare" setting for 24-hour pants comparison coverage.
- You will now see faction and flag requirements you do not meet listed in the crafting recipe description on recipe trainers.
- Items on merchants and in the loot window will now show as fully charged
- The stack number and charges of items being randomed for will now be visible.
- Escrow merchants will now correctly show stack and charge counts on items.
- Item examine tooltips should now show charges for all charged items, not just those that activate an ability.
- Items in the merchant window will now show charges.
- Trivial work orders will no longer be displayed as downright impossible

CODING NOTES
- When the "Tooltips Require Alt" setting is enabled, hotkeyed items will no longer show their item examine info unless you are holding Alt.
- Fix for some instances of NPCs showing a small amount of health after dying.
- Responsiveness should be improved when targeting something with many buffs/debuffs. This was particularly noticeable when targeting another player in PVP.
- Fixed a bug that caused stacks of loot to be converted to a single item when auto-looted after a random roll. This was most obvious when randoming for harvesting loot.
- Updated our version of OpenAL to a much newer version. This should now properly enumerate your sound devices and allow you to choose your native device (such as an X-Fi sound card) instead of just using the generic hardware or software devices (which are still available). Remember that you will need to completely quit out of the game and restart it after changing your sound device (found in the Audio tab of our Settings window) for the game to start using that new device. We recommend that you make sure you have the latest drivers for your sound card before selecting a device other than "Generic Hardware" or "Generic Software" and that you switch back to your previous sound device if you experience sound problems with the new device. You may want to compare sound quality and frame rate with each device to determine the best choice for you. If for some reason the game will not run after you have selected a new sound device, you can edit your VGClient.ini (found in your Vanguard\bin directory) and change the line that starts with "OpenALDeviceName=" to read "OpenALDeviceName=Generic Software" then save that file and try Vanguard again.
- Added new command, "/unlockcorpse", which unlocks the NPC corpse to the anyone in the world. You must be the corpse owner to use this command.
- Added new command, "/unlockcorpsetoplayer", which unlocks the NPC corpse to a specific player. If no first name is supplied, the defensive target is used.
- Added new command, “/decaytime”, which shows you the time left before an NPC corpse decays.

ART
- PC/NPC names are now opaque again.

36. No instancing
37. No TLC in effect unless you're competing for a mob
38. No attunement / bind on equip of most items
39. No EQ2 style encounter locking

Lol had a look at the last two pages of this topic and regret it already. They should change the title to Official Whiners Thread.

And sorry, SOE didn't screw up SWG with that patch. It sucked from the very beginning. The grind made vanguard look like a walk n the park.

On Shidreth, at 21 it seems like getting groups is easier than ever.  So haven't noticed any population issues.

Vanguard is definitely buggier than EQ2. Still, the only bugs I typically get are UI issues with quest, map etc screens not appearing properly a lot when in full screen mode. Sometimes you have to try a couple of times to get them to display right.  But haven't died to any in- game bugs, and in fact have only crashed twice since release.

Meanwhile EQ2 had less bugs but the gameplay was much weaker. There was minimal solo content; and most loot that would drop in dungeons was unusable due to it having a level limit higher than people fighting in the dungeon typically were.  Not to mention, killing boss mobs in instances for no reward. Anyways I could go on about EQ2's lame gameplay but won't.

If memory serves me right, EQ2's servers were down WAY more than has happened with Vanguard. Server downages are very rare.

Bugs and all I think Vanguard is much more fun at release.

People on extreme ends (want it to be just like eq, or just like wow) aren't gonna be happy. But in the end, I think they've done a damn good job balancing the best of EQ with some aspects from WoW....and this 'old school' EQer is having lots of fun.

- summoning your corpse cost a huge chunk in XP. At 20 I think I've summoned twice so far. Except for one group I was in, everyone has done corpse runs. No one wants to take such a huge xp hit. But at least the option is there if for whatever reason its really necessary.
If they removed altars, they would at least  have to give some class a corpse summon spell. But I think its fine the way it is. Its really just a last resort.

- regarding your points on quests to solo...I think this is great. I can group or solo depending on my mood or real life schedule.
I love how much solo content there is, including quests and dungeons. But I love grouping too. In Vanguard, I can do either effectively...though of course I need to group to get at the harder content and better loot. Just the way it should be...

Found this new player video, its actually quite good

www.youtube.com/watch

Hmm you admitted combat was fun but gave it as score of 6 because of bugs, like "Mobs lagging out on you, completely dissappearing. getting stuck."

Its interesting that I got to level 20 so far and have never seen one of the above bugs, ever.

Also giving a combined score for graphics and performance isn't right. They are seperate issues. Most people acknowlege that the graphics are quite good to very good.

Performance - I agree it needs work. But still, I play it fine at medium settings on my 2 1/2 year old pc. Any decent 'gamer' system built with the last 2-3 years should give adequate performance. If you're running a run of the mill pc, of course it won't be acceptable. But then what do you expect...pc gamers have always  needed good 3d cards to play cutting edge 3d games every since the voodoo card came out.
I would say that having more than a gig of ram makes a big difference. I saw a lot less hitching when I threw in an extra 512 meg ram.

Sounds like you gave it a fair shot and its not for you (currently). 

I love Vanguard, but am definitely looking forward to trying Gods and Heroes and Age of Conan as well.
While Vanguard is the best mmorpg since EQ for me, its basically an improved EQ. Should these new games
offer something really unique and fun, I can see switching over.

Can't go wrong with more options. I'd say right now I have high hopes for AoC...but we'll see.

Its much simpler than that - they just post because they died to a level 2 mob, or left a corpse at level 7 and couldn't handle retrieving it.

This is tough for them compared to their experience in WoW, where if you die Blizzard sends you a glass of warm milk and a hug from your mom.

Some cons to consider, especially compared to Vanguard -

- constant 'loading' screens when zoning
- over use of instances hurts community and get boring,especially  when they just put different mobs in the same zone and call it a different 'zone'
- timers on instances suck, especially when getting a group together
- killing boss mobs and getting wooden chests of crap loot.  yay!
- locked encounters detracts from community
- attunement...bleh
- TLC...suckage
- people idling in their instanced housing also detracts from community
- no player ships or flying mounts that the player controls

I played the first year then quit , after just about every single person I had ever met in game also quit.
Its stable now, with its fans...who knows you might like it.

If you're looking for a game that's the 'real' successor to EQ then give Vanguard a shot. If you want a game like WoW then you'd probably prefer LOTR Online.

Maybe...I really don't care. Putting in stupid gameplay restrictions to offset what some people may do, just ruins games.
EQ2 is a good example of a game built to satisfy every whiner in the book...so they have locked encounters, TLC, attunement, etc.
Vanguard is mean to offer more freedom in gameplay with less silly contrived mechanics. Makes the world more immersive and a stronger sense of community.

There's always some bad apples around.  You don't restrict everyone's gameplay just to prevent the odd bad behaviour.  /Petition is there for  a reason.