Profile: bluemagi
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• • My Vanguard: Saga of Heroes Review

  • Hello my fellow gamers and MMORPG addicts. Before I begin, I want to state that this review is solely based on my personal experiences with MMOs. I have been playing mmos since Ultima Online to the dawn of World of Warcraft. I have been playing MMOs for a total of 11 years now. (Yep I don’t have a life). Before flaming any begins, I just want to make it clear that no, I am not one of those gamers who try a game for a few levels then scream bloody mary. All the games that I have played, I try to see every nook and cranny (or at least whatever my mortality limits me to) of a game before I dump it to my uninstall trash bin. Now for the review of my recent craze: Vanguard Saga of Heroes.

    Computer Specs:
    3GHZ Dual Core
    4 Gig Ram
    1TB SATA HD
    8800 GT NVIDIA video card
    55-80 fps
    0 game freezes so far.

    Class & Level: Sorcerer level 17 Crafter level 15
    Server: Sartok OPEN PVP BABY

    ---------------------------Vanguard Saga of Heroes-------------------------
    I know that there is no such thing as a perfect MMO. If there was, the world would collapse because (insert philosophical jargon here about something perfect cannot exist in a perfect world blah blah blah). I have recently quit Age of Conan because the idiots @ thou shall not be named keep making more bugs at every game update at a much faster rate than mosquitoes breeding on a summer night. I played WoW and it just wasn’t for me (let this sentence end before any WoW fan bois attack me). I love playing MMOs for the sake of actually “escaping” reality or immersing myself into uncharted lands or engorging a game’s lore as if I were really living in that world. MMOS for me are living, breathing worlds. With the recent surge of MMOS, I feel that this feeling is lost….until I found Vanguard Saga of Heroes.

    Isle of Dawn
    Vanguard is one of those games that I would consider gems hidden under tons and tons of bad evil Sony marketing. At first, I wasn’t recently expecting much due to all the bad things people have already said about the game, but WOW was I mistaken. The detail that the creators put into the world is nothing short of amazing. I was really impressed by how huge the game is; until I realized that “OH HELL!” I was only at the starter island. Isle of Dawn is a very good place to learn the basics and expose yourself to the beauty Vanguard really has to offer. The island is reminiscent of EQ2’s Island of Mara, except you can actually do things here. Pegasus even offered to give me a ride around town. But before this whole review becomes just about the trial island (wait for it in a few weeks, this stand alone trial island will out soon so you can all enjoy the goodies for yourself), I’m going to move ahead with my review.

    Art Work 8/10
    The detail that went into the environmental art work is just fantastic. The world has 3 continents (4 including the trial island) and each one showcases different art work for all the different regions. They are Kojani, Thestra, and Qalia. All three continents have different architectures and different “costumes” (will talk about this later when I talk about crafting). Each continent is divided into different cities. There is NO instancing in the game. Traveling makes you feel like you are embarking on an adventure. Each city also looks different. For example, in Kojani, I started in a city that’s actually embedded in a tree only to find myself venturing forth on a boat to another city that is run by wolf men in little nipa huts. I only gave the artwork an 8/10 because they need serious remodeling on some of their character models. My dark elf is having a serious bad hair day, let’s leave it at that (there are no super cuts in the game, thank goodness for hats). *Side note: You can change your appearance anytime via creation screen even after your character has already been created.

    Music 10/10
    Each map that I have been to so far had music appropriate to whatever city I was in. I haven’t had any huge problems with MMOS when it came to music (as long as they had one and they weren’t running music from Disney on Crack).

    Animation 7/10
    Animation for me was so so. The spell effects so far don’t really impress me. There are definitely some innovative things like when you craft, you actually work with the machine instead of rubbing your hands like you were trying to make meatballs (LOTRO and WoW anyone?). I haven’t really experienced end game content yet so I will mostly likely comeback and give this an appropriate score.

    Gameplay 10/10
    The game just has so much to offer. You can solo if you want, group with your friends, craft, or charm a few npc gals or guys (whatever you are into) through their diplomacy system. It’s not necessarily a sandbox game where you can do whatever you want like in Saga of Ryzom or Eve Online, but it sure damn gets close to it. The game doesn’t allow a true sandbox game because of the lore but it’s not really something that I would count against the game. The AI is pretty good but nothing extra ordinary so far. I guess I’m spoiled by Ryzom because the natural wild life there actually felt real. The animals would go near you and smell you to see if you are safe. It just felt real. In Vanguard, the npcs would farm, etc. but it doesn’t come quite as close as how immersive Ryzom was. Something just made them feel fake(probably because they are).

    Crafting 10/10
    There is no game out there that can match the intricacy of the crafting system in Vanguard. To iterate, it’s not like WoW or LOTRO where you click a button and your character rolls up a ball and VOILA your item is made. One thing I definitely would like to point out is that there are various crafting stations throughout the world of Telon and each one is different. My first crafting station was located in a tree city and the one I’m currently in is near the beach (what can I say, I’m a California boy, I need the water bruddah!). Aside from having separate armors for each sphere (diplomacy, adventure, or craft) that gives bonuses to each respective sphere, you must also have the right tools and the right state of mind (trust me, you’ll need it). Crafting is a lot like chess because you have a limited amount of moves you can make or your craft fails. So only a true craftsman can make the most fabulous items that can be found in the game.

    PVP ?/10
    Questionable. The PVP is fun where you can kill anyone you want (like in the real world, cept you’d go to prison here, but in Telon there are no consequences), but having no consequences really ruin immersion. I’m standing right by the guard and someone killed me and the guard just stood there. Maybe I should have bribed the guard or flirted with him or something but ya, he stood there like a bum. I haven’t fully experienced PVP in the server so far, but I know I’ll like it because I’m playing the game for the whole content, not just pvp.

    So there you have it, that’s my review so far. I might edit this later. I just felt like I should share this with the community so that if anyone is wondering if they want to play this game, hopefully my experience will help you out. Try the game out, you won’t regret it. If anything wait for the free trial to see if this game is for your not ;).
     

  • Posted: 9/18/08 3:12 AM
    Vanguard: Saga of Heroes