I've not paid any attention to this game. Didn't even know it was so close to release.

Is it any good? I'm running a AMD 2700 Athlon with a 9800 Pro Radeon. Can I even run the thing?

How is it for quick spurts of play? Like WoW or like EQ?

Picture sliced bread. Vanguard is the greatest thing since that.

it pretty much owns, yes.

From aim this morning.

I believe that was taken slightly out of context

haha.. slightly.

It's really ok for people to play other games besides WoW. No, really it is.

I liked the beta - but my pc couldnt really handle it - so until I build/buy a new pc it's not in the works to play it. It handles wow/eve/etc fine so for now - I'm content

Going great, the zone i was in crashed one time and thats it. No problem / emergency patch / server crash etc...

lvl no but i need to go to work =(

Eh, it was ok... nothing new. I doubt i'll get involved. WoW/TBC is going really well and i'm more excited about AoC. So, hopefully i'll get into beta for AoC.

VG is a pretty cool game. To me, it just not anything I would leave what I was currently playing for (yet).

However, with what they have done over the passed couple of weeks, the next 3-6 months could do wonders for it.

Muli

How about a very diverse array of classes no other mmorpg i've played has... It makes me cringe at going back to play WoW and i was jsut getting into TBC and liking it a few days...So many classes with so many unique spells/buffs.... just the icing on the cake for me. If you say it has nothing to offer then other mmorpgs on the market then you haven't really looked to hard And that's not a bias or preferential statement~_^

That's the same argument people made with regards to Total Annihilation and Starcraft, "TA has waaay more units than Starcraft so it must be better."

If it can be shown in 6-12 months that the diverse array of classes are all well balanced and equally played (for the most part) than it will definitely be a positive attribute, otherwise I have to default to the opinion that they exist simply for the sake of existing.

_________________
Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

What the fuck are you smoking of course TA is better.

I believe you're in the minority with that statement.

_________________
Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

Ive heard it eats up computers for breakfast!

_________________
"Creating Havoc and Pie Since 2001!"
My Website: http://www.anthonyhays.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/cakvala

TA was 10x the game Starcraft was. SC was nothing but a zerg fest. TA you actually had to know how to play the game and what units did what. There was no strategy other than initial build order in SC, in TA you had to actually think about what you were doing.

ELITE- KHAN #1 on cases ladder for 8 months before I found EQ....

_________________

_____
"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." -Henry Louis Mencken
_____
VEGETARIAN -Noun (vej-i-tair-ee-uhn): Ancient tribal slang for the village idiot who can't hunt, fish or ride.

I miss Myth: The Fallen Lords.

That was a grand game.

* Greatest Game of All Time - GameSpot
* Number-one selling PC Game of 1998 - PC Data
* Walk of Game inductee. StarCraft received a star on the floor of the Metreon in San Francisco in early 2006.
* Game of the Year -- Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences (AIAS)
* Game of the Year -- Computer Gaming World
* Game of the Year -- European Consumer Trade Show Industry Award
* Game of the Year -- PC Powerplay
* Game of the Year -- Gamesmania
* Best Game of the Year -- PCFan
* Taiwan Gamer's Choice of Game of the Year. -- Chinese Edition of PC Gamer or PC Gamer (China)
* Hall of Fame -- Gamespy
* #7, Top 100 Games of All Time: 2005 Edition, and StarCraft placed #2 among PC games – IGN
* #7, Top 100 Games of All Time: 2003 Edition - IGN.
* #9, Top 100 Games of All Time - Entertainment Weekly/G4.tv

* Strategy Game of the Year -- Computer Games Strategy Plus
* Strategy Game of the Year -- Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences (AIAS )
* Real Time Strategy Game of The Year -- PC Gamer
* Strategy Game of the Year -- Gamespot
* Strategy Game of the Year -- Games Domain
* Strategy Game of the Year -- Gamesmania
* Best Real Time Strategy Game - Editor's Choice -- Gamezilla
* Best Real Time Strategy Game - Reader's Choice -- Gamezilla
* Best Real Time Strategy Game - Reader's Choice -- Gamecenter
* Best Real Time Strategy Game - Reader's Choice -- Duelist Magazine
* Best Real-Time Strategy Title -- PCFan

* Mulitplayer Game of The Year - 1999 Milia Awards
* Multiplayer Game of the Year -- Gamecenter
* Mulitplayer Game of The Year -- The Gamers Net
* Best Multiplayer Title -- PCFan
* Best New Multiplayer Online Game -- 1999 Codie Awards
* Best use of Online Multiplayer Gaming (Editor Award) -- HotGames.com

* Best Online Game - Reader's Choice -- Duelist Magazine
* Special Achievement Award - Best Story -- Gamespot
* Special Achievement Award - Best Multiplayer Game -- Gamespot
* Best use of Sound in a Computer Game (Reader Award) -- HotGames.com
* #1 Reader's Top 50 -- PC Gamer
* Best Depth -- PC Accelerator

* 5 out of 5 Stars Editor's Choice-- Computer Gaming World
* 5 out of 5 Gameworthy Rating -- C/NET Gamecenter
* 9.4 out of 10 -- Online Game Review
* 92% Editors Choice -- PC Gamer
* 4.5 out of 5 star rating - Computer games Strategy Plus
* 5 out of 5 star rating - Mac 3D Total Action
* 9.1 out of 10 rating -- Gamespot
* A+ -- Gameweek
* 4 out of 4 star rating - USA Today

I trust TA has a list of accolades nearly 10 times as long?

_________________
Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

haha. Owned.

Starcraft sucks though. So does Diablo.

I'll bet you guys didn't know that kuwen is a blizz fanboi, did you? DID YOU.

_________________

Fanboi or not, that was a pretty good post.

If you played VG at all you would already know the classes are well balanced especially for release and have great abilities that are different across the board for classes.... this is the best balance of classes i've seen in a mmorpg let alone the line-up they bring to the table. I don't need \6-12 months to show me what's here now.

You ALWAYS need 6-12 months. You have to see what players come up with that developers didn't think of. It happens in every game. Things always change.

God, one of the guys in my group of friends at high school in '98 LOVED TA. We used to tease him incessantly about it, but he'd always get this stone cold serious look on his face and let us know, in no uncertain terms, just how badly it kicked the shit out of Command & Conquer. Okay, Steve.

TA was a good game but it wasn't as influential as Starcraft.

Didn't play TA but Supreme Commander coming out on 2/20 looks amazing !!!

OP:
I picked up VG today and plan to play out the 30 days it comes with.

Logged in with a Vulmane (wolfy) DK (SK) on Hilsboro.
The game looks quite a bit more refined since I checked into beta a couple weeks ago.

Playing on balanced settings it runs ok with a hitch here and there, but I havent optimized anything.
Did notice my GPU temp spiked to 50C, where in EQ2 on "balanced" it doesnt go higher than 41C.

Most likely to VG balanced using a lot of lighting and shadows in comparison to EQ2 balanced.

Running an Opty 175 (dual core OC'd to 2.5Ghz), 2Gig RAM, and a 7900 GT video.

Will likely grab an 8800 GTS when they get close to $300.
Also grab Vista after its patched a bit to get Aero interface.

Yeah I was wondering the same thing about the quality. The screenshots on the website of the areas and the races seemed really Meh...but you guys are toting it as really good.

Wow has been boring the piss outta me lately, and I like that vanguard boasts massive char customization.

What do you mean by massive char customization? All of the characters look alike, with very little in the way of customization when creating them. Each race has like 4 faces to choose from and you can barely even notice a difference between them.

Not exactly true...but none the less I would not play VG simply based on its ability to design character features.

Great game, few major bugs that are annoying and very little fully finished 40+ content. But good news is that by the time anyone that is just starting reaches these areas I am fairly confident they will be finished and the bugs removed. I just hope enough people hang around until the game is finished.

Turb
Guild Leader of Exiled

I think you'll admit that the character customization is highly disappointing, right?

It could have easily been the next coming of Christ next to DAoC. It just needed more time.

I'm trying again in six months. Then it will be a solid product worthy of attention again. Just knowing that everyone working there wishes Brad would shut the fuck up and stop shitting up forums gives me hope for the future. Sadly tho, it will suffer the same fate Anarchy Online did. End up being a hell of a game, but plagued with the stereotype of a shitty launch that it will never be able to get rid of.

I guess as a whole, Brads Visionâ„¢ would have worked 2 or 3 years ago. But now, the market is for fast paced, instant action games. Not camps and grinds. Majority of people just will not, or do not, want to do that shit. WoW made people soft, or created gamers that would be appalled at having to camp a quest mob for hours on end only to have it tagged by a random passer by.

As far as char options go. Yes, its horrid. It makes world of warcrafts selection seem vast and amazing.

I've always thought this was one of the best features, personally. 4 faces, sure. But there are also 30 or 40 different aspects you can change, everything from ear length to body fat. I've seen some significantly different variations of each race running around.

Another thing regarding character individuality is the fact that you have 15 different classes, not a piddly 8, along with 16 different races(I didn't count the different human races) to choose from. That leaves plenty of room for uniqueness in terms of character customization.

From what I've seen 40+, every class has a definable role for the most part(some a bit less defined at this point, like monks - I have a feeling they'll play a vital role in raiding with FD like EQ did). These roles keep becoming more pronounced as people increasingly begin to figure out how to effectively use their abilities in groups. Blizzard was too scared of classes being undefined and some being weak when they only made 8, but that theory appears to be flat out false.

Do you want that stuff though? I struggle to think of Everquest elements that WoW lacks that would make it a better game.

_________________
Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

actual competition.

_________________

World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

i dunno. they're two types of camaraderie. one is a nice / nice friendly, one is a underdog / hateful kind.

So you believe that WoW would be a better game if none of the content was instanced?

_________________
Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

I don't know for him but yeah I do.

So six months ago how many guilds were killing Ragnaros and Nefarian, between both factions I'd peg the number at a good 15-20. If you all of the sudden remove the instances you're now left with content viewable to only 5% of what it once was. How does this appear to be a good idea in the slightest?

Success is measured by the actual quality of your guild and not by what time zone you happen to be in or what percentage of your membership is university students or basement dwellers.

_________________
Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

I think Blizzard could have done a little more with the few (non-instanced) World Dragons. Having them spawn at the same time every week was and is pretty damn stupid.

I never got the warm fuzzy feeling deep down inside in WoW when my guild took down content for the first time, because there was no one else there to give us any competition. There's no rivalry, friendly or otherwise between guilds. (at least there wasn't on my server)

I'm not saying don't instance things, I'm saying don't instance everything.

_________________

World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

No, I don't think WoW would be a better game if everything was non-instanced. Primarily because of the lack of fucking content. Like you said, only a small portion of guilds would have been able to down anything significant(assuming respawn timers remained the same).

In 40 levels I've only had to compete with a group once or twice. That's it. There are an absolute assload of dungeons to explore with named and everything. And any given dungeon has enough camps to provide for multiple groups. I can only assume that as more raid content is introduced they'll follow a similar policy - most if not all non-instanced, but with a ton of raid targets.

So no - it sucks for WoW, good for a game that has more than one raid area created every 6 months.

About a week ago me and group of guildies were invis'n around drake riders and killing named and farming stuff for armor quest. We went down to the safe spot right before the head of the place (lord and his pet dragon) and entered the room to engage. A wolf comes running in and goes to agro the named so I go run in guns a blazing and take agro and get a few good nukes in before I get taken down. The group reacts and combat rezzes me and the fight is on!

The wolf (a guild leader of a semi zerg recruitment type guild that houses some of the biggest jack asses on the server) starts talking shit and before the fight is over him and his guild come running in with a huge train of dragons. I saw it coming and go all out on the named and take him down right before the train hits. Half my group got out of the trains agro path and the trainers had to evac out before they died. So we got the loot and made them look like fucking fools. (apparently they said they were camping the named, 2hr spawner, even though i had killed him the last 5 spawns that day PLUS went and asked his group earlier which side of the area he wanted and he told me his group was leaving and we didnt see them on the way down).

It actually was fun, going against the odds and still coming out on top and also I talked with most the other high end guilds and the majority of us have "no grouping, rezzing etc" rules in place against this guild because they have been horrible about trying to steal named, training and just overall jack asses, sadly the GL of them is the worst.

But yes.....the damn game just needed alot more time under the microscope before being released and a "good" media blizt opposed to brad's shit. He might have crippled the population density enough to prevent VG from really realizing its potential because a game like this needs a very active and large community imo to truly bring out the great aspects of it.

I spent lvl 28-41 in the same fucking 2 zones and it took me all those levels to finish getting all the pieces and faction for my armor set and legendary weapon. Such large travel times and very limited grouping outside of guild only groups makes it hard on alot of peeps and they are going to give up sooner then later.

But to chime in on what venen said, the classes really do offer some variation and after 38-40+ tanks become needed hardcore. We were exploring and fighting some lvl 40 5/6 dots and they were killing me in 3 hits on my sorc but on the high hp ones i was doing a large % of our total damage of them so I really had to keep on my toes not to over agro etc (bumz can attest i usually don't give a shit and die alot!) Healers all play totally different, and there is a "good" balance between classes that server 1 purpose well vs classes that have more utility. Seldomly do I ever look at a class and think i don't want to bring them to a group even though i definitely have my perfect setup.

My bloodmage heal bot is 33 at the moment, im not rushing to far into 40's on the sorc until more shit gets put in and finished. I was one of the first working on the Celestial ward faction armor and wasted a fuckton of time that others didn't have to once they made changes to things so I learned my lesson about rushing to the very top.

hows the solo aspect of the game? Can you log in and quest at a casual pace or will you be lfg for hours on end?

Grouping is pretty much where the exp, loot, and fun is at. Yea you can do some soloing, but around the higher levels sometimes its simply worthwhile to call it if you can't find a group and play an alt or do something else. You can solo at pretty much any level, but the exp is incredibly slow without a group at higher levels. I've seen a few higher level solo quests, but most of the interesting quests are group-only.

On paper it sounds lame(as in, why not have both?), but after being able to do almost every quest and countless other things by myself in WoW I really find it rather refreshing.

Not 10X, but definitely more...

It received the same game of the year awards in 1997 when it came out that SC did in 98. Actually more, but hey, SC got a Star on the walk of fame!!! (in 2006!)

It was rated 9.3 by gamespot vs 9.1 for SC. http://uk.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/totalannihilation/index.html?q=TOtal%20Annihilation

And since you are so adamant about SC being the greatest, how come it came in #2... behind TA as the #1 RTS of all time... http://archive.gamespy.com/top10/february04/rts/index11.shtml


Here's a few more....

TOTAL ANNIHILATION'S MANY GAMING AWARDS

* Best Game of All Time, PC Games
* Gamer's Choice Award, Best Real-Time Strategy Game, PC Gamer
* 1998 Blister Award Winner, "Best Strategy Game of 1997", Electric Playground
* 1997 Game of the Year, GameSpot
* Best Strategy Game of 1997, GameSpot
* Best Multiplayer Game 1997, GameSpot
* Best Music 1997, GameSpot
* 1997 Game of the Year, GameSpot Reader's Choice Awards
* 1997 Best Strategy Game, GameSpot Reader's Choice Awards
* 1997 Best War Game, Happy Puppy's Golden Fire Hydrant Award
* 1997 Best Strategy Game, PC Guru Magazine, Hungary
* Best RTS Game, GAME.EXE Magazine, Russia 1998
* Best Game of the Year 1997, PC Soulces, France
* Silver Trophy Award, PC Magazine Loisirs, France
* Top Game Award for Five Consecutive Months, PC Jeux France
* Best RTS Game 1997, Reader's Choice Award, PC Gamer Online
* Best Real-Time Strategy Game 1997, Adrenaline Vault
* Best Strategy Game 1997, Reader's Award, Games Domain
* 1997 Game of the Year, CompuNews
* 1997 Best Sound/Music, GamePen
* Best Strategy Game of 1997, Gamezilla.com
* Game of the Year, Game Review Central
* Best Real-Time Strategy Game of 1997, Ultra Game Players Magazine
* CG Choice Award, Computer Gaming World, 1998
* Best of the Best A+ Award, PC Games 1998
* Family PC Tested-Recommended, Family PC 1998
* Stamp of Approval, Computer Games Strategy Plus
* Editor's Choice Award 1997, Online Gaming Review
* Special Achievement in Music 1997, Online Gaming Review
* Best Game of the Year 1997, Honorable Mention, Online Gaming Review
* Best Game of 1997, Reader's Knockout Poll Award, Games Domain Review
* Best PC Game of 1997, Video Games Palace
* Gaming Product of the Year 1997, MeccaWorld
* Best Strategy Game of 1997, Gamesmania
* Gold Player Top-Rated 5 Star Award, PC Games Germany
* Gold Award, PC Action Germany
* Top Rated 5 Star Award 1997, PC Gaming World UK
* Platin Award, PC Power
* Innovation in Gaming Award 1997, PC Review
* Editor's Choice Award, Game Worlds Network
* Editor's Choice Award, Gaming Age
* Editor's Choice Award 1997, All About Games
* Awesome! Award 1997, Game Briefs
* Killer Game Award 1997, The Cheater's Guild
* OGR Preferred Award, Online Gaming Review
* X-Picks Dazzler for 1997, Gamecenter
* Hot! 4 Star Award, GAMERZedge
* Hands-On Award, PC GamePro
* Editor's Pick Award 1997, GameSpot
* Buy Now! Award, San Francisco Guardian Plug & Play
* Star Player Award, Games Machine
* GamePower's 4-Lightning Bolt Award 1997
* GamePen's Best of E3 Award 1997
* Top 12 Games of Autumn, PC Games Europe
* Hot Property Award 1997, MeccaWorld

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"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." -Henry Louis Mencken
_____
VEGETARIAN -Noun (vej-i-tair-ee-uhn): Ancient tribal slang for the village idiot who can't hunt, fish or ride.

That's just an opinion list from Gamespy. It's not a statement of fact.

_________________

I think the only one fact that can be discerned from this is that RTS games are for faggots.

Note: I don't really think they're for faggots, I just hate RTS games.*

*Khan don't beat me up.

I'd pay money to watch you call Xkhanx a faggot to his face dude. You're writing checks your ass cant cash now.

You're right. He would destroy me IRL.

I'll revise my statement.

Well I think that settles it right there.

there is a huge difference between competition and ability to assemble your guild raid force before another guild can. however, what many people believe is that competition = east coast guild logging on before west coast guild and killing dragon that spawned at 3:45 pm est (12:45 pm pst) on a tuesday afternoon.

do i think there should be competition? absolutely. while i have always been a fan of instancing, i do agree that there are times when the rush/excitement of competition with another group/guild for a spawn makes for a more memorable and enjoyable gaming experience... regardless of whether you killed said spawn or not. but what i completely disagree with is an east coast guild claiming they are "top shelf quality" because their entire guild is high school/college students who can log in at 4:00 pm est and start slaying dragons/giants/etc while the working force/west coast high school kids are working and studying.

of course, the difficulty and challenge is to devise a scheme to provide racing/competition between guilds and have everything on a level playing field initially. i don't think anyone really knows that scheme that rewards competition and talent, while minimizing uncontrollable situations (i.e. time zone differences).

having guilds go through a series of instanced content/challenges to be able to have the opportunity at a non-instanced spawn is one thought. a reverse of what usually happened in everquest, but a thought. imagine coirnav, poearthb, fennin, and xegony all instanced... but potime uninstanced.

another thought is to have some sort of guild roster check done on guilds able to take on the challenge of a spawn. once each guild has, say, 40 players online... then dragon bob spawns. of course, that has many loopholes and flaws... but it is a brainstorm idea. /shrug

i guess being in a relatively west coast guild in everquest when i used to play, it was frustrating to log in and hear that all the dragons and giants were already dead to an east coast guild 2 hours earlier. to me, that is not competition... and we were penalized strictly due to location in the real world.

-cc

There goes Venen with the "WoW lacks content" argument again. Obviously, he's not playing the game this month, so it must suck again.

Nah, I'm not sure if I've mentinoned it as much on these boards before, but I've always felt that the game was lacking in content. I stopped playing the game after dinging 60 the first time because there was nothing much to do but grind. Very polished game - excellent gameplay overall, awesome PVP, beats the snot out of EQ - but lacking in overall content.

Oh crap I left out the highly coveted
"Awesome! Award 1997, Game Briefs"

I still say eq2 actually had it right when it came to raid content. They had a nice balance of instanced raid mobs/zones as well as competative world spawns.

_________________
-Rileigh (aka Golliwog)

Honestly, I'm not interested in the race anymore. I've blazed trails that countless people have walked down now. Nothing wrong with that style of game play. Now more gamers get to experience the type of game we were all brought up on, except they have a choice to go somewhere else if they don't like it. Something we never had.

I just got finished reading the majority of the Fallen Legacy EZBoards, and only one feeling comes over me in the end.

Tired.

Glad you pointed those out Venen.

By the way, you were what, 10 in 1997 and still watching Fraggle Rock in your Spiderman undies when this game came out? Did You ever get to play it online on MPlayer or Kali or TEN where literally thousands of people were playing it?

And yeah, Gamespy's opinion, just like all the rest of the reviews, awards and accolades given to both games. The thing is, TA still has just as big of player base as it did back then, along with 1000's of mods, packs and even complete re-building of the game.

Comparing SC to TA is like comparing WoW to EQ1. There just is no comparison. And just like WoW, SC was made for the simpletons who couldn't hack using their brain to come up with any kind of strategy.

_________________

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"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." -Henry Louis Mencken
_____
VEGETARIAN -Noun (vej-i-tair-ee-uhn): Ancient tribal slang for the village idiot who can't hunt, fish or ride.

Back on topic...

I'm having fun playing VG. Xkhan- 35 Kojani Monk on Shidreth.

There are still a bunch of bugs, but things are smoothing out with every patch it seems.

It should be pretty much at 99% this summer when I stop playing and should be super when I start playing again in November.

_________________

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"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." -Henry Louis Mencken
_____
VEGETARIAN -Noun (vej-i-tair-ee-uhn): Ancient tribal slang for the village idiot who can't hunt, fish or ride.

That is pretty much my, as well as the rest of Team Bros final analysis of the game.

November or there abouts, this game will kick ass.

Unfortunately, Huxley and Hellgate London will too.