Vanguard: Saga of Heroes

Use this to write your opinion of the game!

Well, what would be the first thing to point out about this game?

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UI?
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Has the be one of the least user friendly UI' that I have ever seen, at least since DAOC. The only reason why this became a little less of a problem, was due to the fact you can enter a layout manager. This then allows you to move every, and I mean every UI box. Problem solved you may think, but no. Along with target box, your box, group box and other basic things, it also makes you move around where your buffs should show, along with the enemies buffs/debuffs and so on. Again you may think "This doesn't sound so bad" but it really is, as the boxes supplied for the buffs/debuffs ect are rather large and never seem to look right.

Now moving away from the UI rant...*Really hate that UI* the game itself is quite choppy at parts, along with you moonwalker jumps. A thing to sty clear of is swimming, at the swamps in the start area I found myself swimming under the terrain.

Again, moving on from ranting about the bad parts. The game has a vast amount of customisation. Being the huge amount of races and class combinations. I myself chose a basic Human/Cleric set-up that I enjoyed very much. The balance between healing, casting and melee dps worked very well for the class. Also the buffs you get to aid yourself and your group come in handy.

Quest. Seemed to get from one to the other, never a time without a quest in my log. Also later on in the starter zone these quests basically forced you to group up with other people, due to them being so hard. Many a time had I had a goblin spawn on top of me, followed by another and another. But again this brings what Vanguard is all about. Its a PvE game, other than the low populated PvP server. This game is based around grouping together and taking down hordes of monsters. But at first glance, and hearing about the non instanced dungeons you may start to worry.

"what do I do if there are 5 other groups after the items my group is after?"

"What do I do if there are 5 groups, killing what I am after?"

Well, fear not! the items you pick up (Non monster dropped" are all static. Meaning they stay there and others can click them as well. And as for the killing quests? the monsters spawn quite quickly, so no need to worry.

Unfortunately the trial only allows you to level and quest on the starter Island, stopping you from exploring these massive open dungeons. And other aspects of the game such as boats and player housing. All in all I wish the trial lasted a little longer, to give players a full feel for the game.

So along with everything I have said, along with bits I have missed. I will rate this game a 6/10.

Thanks for reading. [b]

I'll start my review with the bad, move to the good, and end with a bang.


THE BAD

The UI is terrible, like Eel said. Its huge, nothing fits right, you can move things but it really doesn't help much.

Visuals are decent at best, nothing to write home about. The game is old, so that is to be expected- but it still doesn't make up for there not really being much "pretty" things to look at with all setting set to max.

Character models all share the same skeleton, which means its basically the same guy with a different head and regulations on size. I dislike this, as well as how the characters posture and fight animations seem robotic.

Water is ugly, and swimming shouldn't even be in the game it is so bad.

Jumping is more like being the first man on the moon, it just doesn't look normal and there is too much air time. My guy can seriously jump with his feet a few feet higher than his head?

CRAFTING AND DIPLOMACY ARE JUST STUPID AND CONFUSING. whoever came up with the plans for them really need to read a definition of "fun".

THE GOOD

Classes are diverse, and some are fun to play. Blood Mage for example is something new to me!

Plenty of quests

...it starts you with cool looking armor

THE BANG

Nothing caught my attention with this one, it really let me down. I was hoping for it to be this awesome gem of a game that I had missed out on but really just felt it was a watered down version of other games that do things better.

I'll give it a 5/10, possibly good for its time- but right now there are better choices.

"CRAFTING AND DIPLOMACY ARE JUST STUPID AND CONFUSING. whoever came up with the plans for them really need to read a definition of "fun"."

This.

But really, I think you are being overly critical on the UI. Hell, who even looks at the UI? I setup my hot keys and don't even glance at it again. Actually, all your negatives (other than what I quoted) are visual oriented. You have to add a point back on for that, this game is getting pretty aged now and still looks better than some newer games. But if your biggest complains are just a few visual issues, I don't think its worth kicking to the curb just yet.

-Drantik

My biggest issue with it was that after playing for 3 hours, I had no urge to continue playing. There was nothing that stood out as an "I can justify paying $20.00 to buy this, or $15.00 a month to play it."

It just felt like there was not a single memorable thing I could tell someone "Go check out Vanguard, at least it has a cool ______!"

Ya...

I was trying to think of an example and it just wasn't happening.

Darn.

See, that's how I felt. But from what I have read, there is ALOT more to discover in Vanguard. But thanks to the *Nooby island* block. We cant actually get out there!

I'd imagine it would be pretty fun in a few levels with a group of players to roll with.

I'd have to agree with the two guys who actually wrote about it. I feel like vanguard is simply EQ2 with some diplomacy minigame. and boats. The huge open world really interests me though, as i'm a fan of exploration. Other games dont really have this, or if they do, they put in so much instant travel options it doesnt really feel that big at all. wow, anyone?

The main gripes i have is that the noob island seems really boring, but all mmo's have that lame factor in the beginning. low levels just arent fun, if you ask me.

it seems like we have enough people interested in playing something that we can pick nearly any game out there and be able to do all the content. vanguard doesnt seem like the best option, simply because it doesnt have any kind of lasting draw besides its huge world, open dungeon ( which scares me a bit, but seeing as theres so few players i dont think it'd be a problem ) and boats.

boats seem awesome.

the ui isnt horrible, its just so damn resistant to customization that it makes me mad. i've played games with worse set ups though, ffxi for one. that control scheme is maddening.. as for graphics, try eq1. or daoc.. i cant base a game off of how it looks. i can tell the difference between a dwarf and a goblin, and thats pretty much all that matters to me..

rating scheme for me would be
graphics: 7/10
audio: 7/10 ( does anyone really care about this though?)
gameplay: 6/10 ( + 7 for no loading screens and lots of class choices, but -4 for lack of actual character customization, i believe all you do is level and train and level and get gear..)


if i was gonna rate this game, i'd get it a 6.5/10

tl:dr; basically a repeat of what everyone else already stated.

I used to play VG around a year and a half ago, got up to about level 30 with a bard and blood mage, so this is my experience.

The Good

The dungeons are a blast to run through with a group. This game has the best grouping dynamics of any MMO I've played aside from FFXI.

Some of the best and most creative class designs around. From bard song making, to blood mage healing via transfer of health, to necromancers harvesting corpses to outfit their ever-growing abomination pet.

Lots of group quest lines resulting in extremely good sets of gear. You can level up to 50 just doing these quest lines one after the other, about one line every 10 levels.

Maybe I'm just a furry at heart, but anthropomorphs! <3 creepy little fox creatures.

The Bad

Visually I find the game to be lackluster. It may have nice polygon counts, but the animations and art style leave a lot to be desired for me.

No alternate character advancement. You level up, buy new skills, and in the end every class at level 50 is exactly the same, excepting gear. This is helped slightly by being able to distribute a small amount of stat points every level up past 10, but it's not a very large difference.

The grind. This can be good or bad, depending on how you look at it. I tend to dislike the grind in VG, due to not having pretty shinies to oggle while I'm slaughtering critters, and the lack of variety of monsters to grind on.

Crafting and diplomacy. Diplomacy is a fun little mini-game once you get the hang of it, but it really is quite pointless, other than providing city-wide crafting buffs for a few hours. Crafting is really very useful, crafted gear is some of the best you can get your hands on, but the process of leveling it up and the sheer repetition of harvesting and producing items is enough to make a turtle impatient.

Last but not least, the general lack of polish. This is something that is hard to describe accurately, but things like monsters getting stuck in the ground, clipping issues, npc text that ends abruptly when it isn't supposed to, really detract from the fun factor of playing the game. This seems to have gotten much better since I last played, but it's most certainly still there.

For those of you that don't want to read my ramblings

I'll say that I was very bored with the new newbie island. It really is a very hastily put together, bland stretch of 10 levels. It showcases all of the bad sides of Vanguard, and few of the good, notably the large dungeons and epic group quest lines. It's not for everyone, and it can certainly get boring fast if you don't like it. I'd say if this many people are on the wall about it, scrap this one and move on to greener pastures.

I love Vanguard, I end up going back to get the game a few times a year, but its hard to stay, never find enough people to play with. Its not that easy to get into a guild and play with them.

The ui is not pretty, and takes some time to accept. The crafting is simply superb, I like it a lot, its different, and is hard work. It feels overwhelming and I'm not blaming anyone for not liking it, because its not easy to just pick up and do like most other mmorpgs.

The game gets little support too, the game deserves better, a bigger playerbase and more support. Its a diamond no doubt, but a very rough diamond, after so many years it still has silly bugs, and awkward animations\characters. Such a shame, if the unthinkable should happen and this game is what you end up playing, I with jump at the chance to play with someone, but I feel that the train has left the station this year for this game.

Diplomacy is also different and for people who "care" about a game and its lore, this is almost like a different game within the game. But I'm guessing most people wouldn't bother. So I would definitely not say its pointless, it just takes some special interest, nothing wrong with that.

It makes me really really sad.

The dungeons....they are WAST AND NUMEROUS! You can spend countless of hours sometimes dungeon crawling, getting lost, fighting named mobs(I LOVE THAT) sometimes finding a quest deep within a cave. I really wish another game would do this, make these countless, huge and different dungeons, and fill the world with "secret" places and named mobs.