Ok, now that I’ve got my über-esque gaming rig working again, I installed Vanguard a few days ago. I actually picked up Vanguard and Everquest 2 on the same day, but I’ll be honest: EQ2 is really struggling to hold my interest. I’m rather shocked that I am so far enjoying Vanguard so much, however. I didn’t expect to; I got it more out of morbid curiosity than anything else. I was aware of the game while it was in development (who wasn’t?) though I can’t say much of what little hype I actually read was appealing. Some was, some was not. I’ve never seen non-instanced content done right so I’m definitely interested in seeing how the (former) Sigil team decided to handle it. Of course, I’m quite well aware of how the game has been bashed over performance, crashes, and so forth. I’m obviously coming into the game post-Game Update 2, which claims to have improved performance a bit. Using both the in-game fps meter and Fraps, I’m getting anywhere from 25+ in cities to 40-50 in the wilderness and just experienced my first CTD which gave me the opportunity to write this.Now, as evidenced in my recent Bartle test, I’m a huge fan of exploration. The little I’ve seen of Telon so far has been a blast to explore and find new things. Telon, as with LOTRO’s Middle Earth, feels more natural. I grew up in the country and when I went hiking or exploring I didn’t run into mobs every 50 feet like we do in Azeroth, which gets aggravating. I’m also attempting to pay attention to the little bit of lore I’ve been exposed to so far.
While I don’t think Vanguard ended up as the “hardcore” game it was originally lauded as by used car salesman extraordinaire hype-master Brad McQuaid, there is a distinct lack of hand-holding in Vanguard. Even in areas where I didn’t even feel I was being hand-held in other games, Vanguard leaves me hanging to find my own way. Which is not a bad thing. Sometimes I’m given a direct location to go to, other times I’m pointed in the general direction, more or less. I can chalk that up to “exploration” as well, trying to find the NPC I need to find.
Without further ado, here is my Orc Dread Knight, Dolndruth! He just reached level 11 this morning, and is level 3 in Crafting (smithing) and level 4 in Diplomacy. Before I continue, I would like to add that I absolutely love that we get mounts at level 10! Developers of future games, pay attention here! The hardcore players begged for “meaningful travel” (I’ll have to write a post someday exploring just what the hell that means) and rallied when McQuaid promised just that, but of course the hardcore are only hardcore in forums. Once they actually had to deal with “meaningful travel” they changed their tune and asked for faster means of travel. But I digress. Making us run all over your landscapes does not make us appreciate your hard work any more or less. It does, however, annoy us when it takes too long to complete Fedex quests or worse, when players have to wait on each other to travel. Our enjoyment (and annoyance) is more “meaningful” than forcing us to walk for nearly an hour to talk to some NPC who sends us walking an hour right back to where we started.
Unlike WoW, which is the most recent MMORPG I played that let the player choose a faction, I have no clue what faction Dolndruth is a member of, if any. Is he “evil” or at least “bad” simply by virtue of being an orc like WoW would have us? Do I get to choose via repuation grinding which faction I am a member of? I have no idea what races Troy and Jaye have, but if I ever met them in-game can I group with them? I have no friggin clue. So perhaps either a little hand-holding could be in order, or at least have the NPC’s teach me in-game with some engaging dialogue because it would be a shame for newcomers like myself to enjoy working up a given character only to discover that character is unable to group, communicate with, or otherwise play the game with other players or friends. I think the character creation screen should definitely go into the background of the races you can choose as well as the nations. Orcs start on Kojan and I don’t recall at any time seeing any description of what it means to be a Kojan native. Some of the names and descriptions I’ve seen so far appear to have an Asian influence, but again Dolndruth is only 11 so he and I have not yet learned much about the part of Telon we’re adventuring in.
Crafting is interesting, if a bit confusing. It’s much more hands-on than your WoW or LOTRO style “set it and forget it” crafting. It’s not quite up to pre-CU Star Wars Galaxies crafting though (at least what I can remember of it). Dolndruth reached level 3 smithing this morning, but not without a few questions in the Kojan chat. He’s got three 3-slot tool belts. Off the top of my head, I’ve encountered situations where at least four tools are needed due to the actual crafting process plus dealing with complications. I bought every noob tool the vendor offered, they are in the tool belts but the game only pays attention to a single belt and does not let you change equipment while crafting. Some helpful players instructed me to use the Tool Belts button on the crafting frame rather than the character sheet and left click the tool belt I want to use (gotta remember which belt I stored which tool in…) to make that belt active (green check mark indication). Maybe that’s a “hardcore” aspect? It seems like a bit too much work to me. I’m getting the hang of it anyway and I’ve got all the tools I’ve used so far for smithing in two belts so I can quickly swap between the two but still… I guess technically I can only wear one belt so perhaps it’s just being realistic. But it was very confusing and I’m thankful that Vanguard players have been pretty helpful and encouraging of new players. Did the crafting tutorial cover changing belts? If it did, I completely missed it. In fact, I don’t even think I had multiple belts and tools when I did the tutorial.
Diplomacy is another interesting sphere of advancement. When I first read about how diplomacy would be a card game, I’ll admit I was beyond skeptical. After playing it a bit and giving it consideration, real-life diplomacy and negotiations is very much like a poker game. You have to know when to bluff, when to show your game-face, when to compromise or concede and when to go in for the kill. Or [Cheese Factor Alert!] as Kenny Rogers so aptly put it:
You got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em.
Know when to walk away, and know when to run.
You never count your money, when you’re sittin’ at the table.
There’ll be time enough for countin’, when the dealin’s done.
Once again, confusion has run rampant with diplomacy. Learning the cost of each card was the easiest step but I haven’t quite figured out if the diplomacy quest description is giving me hints which cards I should be taking aside from informing me which colors will be used, so don’t choose cards of a color that isn’t used in that negotiation. So often, though I’ll load up on card colors the description says I can spend but the NPC never plays cards which arms me with enough dots to spend my cards on. (Sorry, I haven’t quite learned the correct phraseology yet for the different aspects of diplomacy.) Which, I suppose, is ultimately how to win: if you’re able to spend your own cards without giving your opponent any quarter to spend his own. Like everything else so far, it’s very much a learning experience; trial and error are ruling the day in Vanguard.
Yes, Vanguard still has some issues, many of which I haven’t even seen yet. The major one is Vanguard has the worst map ever. Ever. In the history of humankind. Ever. Minor issues that lower my immersion are aesthetic in nature. Many textures are just… weird and jarring to look at. The Unreal engine tends to make things too shiny, which is all good and fine in Gears of War but when I’m looking at Dolndruth wearing his cloth diplomacy outfit, I should not be seeing cloth shine and glisten. I have volumetric clouds turned off to boost my framerate, but honestly didn’t see much difference with them. Telon only has a single sky, it’s always filled with the exact same high thinly broken cloud layer. When it rains (and it does quite often) I look up at the clouds and think “uh… it should not be raining.” But then Turbine takes top honors when it comes to crafting a believable virtual world. Their Middle Earth has all the various day cycles; various cloud cover; when it rains it might drizzle or downpour, complete with the occasional thunderstorm. We can see the clouds rolling in on a sunny day so we’ll know in advance when it’s going to rain and the clouds will darken if a storm comes in. But… Vanguard released way too early and Sigil admitted it. It’s still essentially in beta today. Someday it will be release-ready and perhaps they’ll add the extra “fluff” to make Telon a believable world. But in the meantime I’m still enjoying my experiences there and look forward to more!
Tags: MMO Gaming, Vanguard
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