December 2007

Adventures through Telon – Day3

stargrace December 21, 2007 4Comments

Today went much much smoother then the previous two days of playing – even with the four hour down time (which occurs again today, at least things are getting fixed). I did CTD (crash to desktop) once randomly while crafting in some lag, but for the most part everything ran smoothly. I grabbed Randolph the reindeer and decided to pick up those rift points. There are a lot of them. I finished off the Kojan ones, and the Qalia ones, I still have the third continent to go adventure through. I grabbed them on Satia (the 23 blood mage) and it took about two hours. I haven’t decided if I’m going to get them on my alts as well while Randolph is around for use.

I also spent quite a bit of time crafting, and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. Since EQII’s gone the rout of “KISS” I’ve taken little to no pride in any crafting, anyone can do it now, and it doesn’t take any skill or finesse. However, I find Vanguard crafting really complicated. That can be good and bad. My blood mage had no gear on her, so I made her a full set of level 6 gear, grade A. I was exceptionally happy. She also managed to level from 3 to 9, almost 10. At level 8 she was able to learn a recipe to make bags, which are a huge plus in my book, not to mention a little source of income, as bags (on my server at least) are REALLY expensive. We’re talking 50s for a 14 slot bag. I’ve been pricing mine at 25s, because they don’t require a whole lot to make, and they’re pretty simple.

I’ll have to stock up on some for myself / my alts / any friends who want any (if you want some made just let me know MrrX!) but it’s been really fun so far. Granted, I feel a little under geared, as my level 23 is wearing level 6 gear, but hey it’s better then running around naked.

One thing I noticed is that they’ve changed the death penalty slightly. You used to have to buy crystals to bind your gear to yourself, so that when you die, the gear comes with you and you don’t just end up running back to your corpse naked. While I love having to do corpse retrievals, doing them with no gear was not fun. Now it seems they’ve implemented the same system most mmo’s have, which is a BoE (bind on equip) and so when you die, your gear will still be on you. Of course you’ll still want to go get your corpse, for experience loss reasons and all those items you had in your inventory (or you can summon your corpse, for a loss of experience etc).

I’m very glad that the game doesn’t seem too dumbed down. Yes, there’s another 4 hour patch today. Fine by me. They’ve made significant progress from what I can see. I love how smooth things run. I was getting around 56 FPS flying Randolph around above the land, 25 FPS in the cities, which is a huge improvement from the 3 FPS I got at release. I really did have a blast harvesting and crafting last night. I’ve decided since Satia is already my outfitter and has reaping and skinning as her crafts, I’ve picked up Armorer on Arysh, with mining and Quarrying, and I’ll pick a third one for Ishbel (maybe, I haven’t decided). It’s nice to be able to make my own gear and make some lowbie gear at that.

Anyhow, if you’re in VG let me know so I can get some brotherhoods or adventure groups going! I’ve got my level 23 blood mage, but also have a level 9 warrior I’m quite partial to. With the bonus experience covering all three spheres, it’s going nicely.

Screen Shot Issue?

stargrace December 20, 2007 5Comments

Wondering if anyone else playing Vanguard is having an issue with their screen shots. I’ve taken quite a few now, but only have a handful of them actually saving as screen shots it seems.. I know for sure I took at least 10 this morning, and yet when I look in the folder, only two are there….. anyone else experiencing this? It’s annoying.

Wandering around Telon – Day2

stargrace December 20, 2007 2Comments

If you’re looking for a miracle in the way that Vanguard has progressed, you’re going to be sorely disappointed. I spent most of yesterday playing (and attempting to play) – and while there has been buckets of progress, well. It’s still far away from being even reasonably acceptable (in my opinion). I had one hard crash to desktop as I flew Randolph around Telon, which was far better then the typical crashes I had when Vanguard released. So. Here’s what I noticed – and please remember, Vanguard is experiencing a heavier amount of traffic with all of the new players returning to check things out, and they also just implemented a patch that broke a lot of stuff (which is what today’s patch of 6 hours is supposed to fix).

1. Graphics. Yes, it does run slightly smoother on my machine, but I still hitch, still lag, I still have graphic glitches. I still have to /flush and /flush all. Yesterday trees (small shrub height) refused to render their branches and just looked like twigs. Tips and pop ups would be a mesh of graphic goo and I’d be unable to read them until I flushed. My character’s armor had a huge hole in the back of her shirt every time she ran. Just little stuff like that. As far as computers go, I know I don’t have the best top of the line, I run a intel core 2 cpu 6400 with 2.1GHz, 2 gigs of ram, and I have a NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT, I play at 1680 x 1050. Now, I don’t actually know what any of that means because I’m honestly not a computer person. I just know how to run directX diagnostic tools.

2. Quests. I’m not sure if it’s server lag, or the npc’s are not responding to me or what, but twice yesterday I had to delete and go get newbie quests because the npc’s were unresponsive when I tried to turn them in / progress them. That’s a new one for me, I’ve never had npc’s just not update my quest when I spoke to them.

I’m of course going to continue playing. I do enjoy the game, despite the flaws it still has. Why? Well, because right now it’s free. I’m not sinking any money into it, just spare time that I’d have no matter what. I don’t mind sending off bug reports or trying out things in the mean time. I still think the game is by far one of the most beautiful games I’ve ever seen. I still enjoy the “hardness” of it. I love the spheres of adventuring / crafting / diplomacy. I think it’s wonderful in all those regards. I still don’t think it will ever cater to a huge crowd of players (there are only four servers right now) but I do think they can tap into a niche of players and keep them playing.

3. Customer service. They’re under staffed right now, which is why things are moving slow — but. SoE’s customer service has always been very good to me, and in Vanguard it’s no different. Before I left the game previously, I deleted my level 23 blood mage. I petitioned early yesterday to see about getting her returned to me, and a TSR responded and said it would take some time, but that they’d to it. I was grateful of course. The problem is, once she was returned, it’s as though she’s not really there. She can’t petition herself. She can’t send mail. She can’t add anyone to her friends list, nor can anyone add her. Slightly annoying. So I relogged over to another character to send off another petition. It took roughly 12 hours to have the first one answered. I know they’re experiencing a lot of traffic though, and they’re still helpful.

So if you’ve got the free month active, why not install it and give things a whirl anyhow. I’m playing on the Seradon server, and actually bumped (almost literally) into MrrX who was giving things a second glance as well. He was asking how to take screen shots and I replied in a tell (not knowing it was him). Talk about a small world. I have the utmost respect for those players who’ve stuck through with VG through all of it’s bugs and issues for the past year. Here’s hoping a few more people are swayed that way. Even if it’s just to get station access and peek in every so often.

Since the game is down for 6 hours today, I’ll post tomorrow about more experiences. Hopefully this patch will fix my blood mage, and whatever else they broke.

Giving Vanguard another Try – PartI

stargrace December 19, 2007 8Comments

I’m sorry to all my very loyal EQII readers, but since I’ve decided to test out Vanguard for a little bit, you’ll have to deal with some posts in that category. No worries though, anything WoW related is moved to a completely different blog *grins*. Alright. So, yesterday as I was reading the blogs that I read every day, I learned about the free re-activation SoE was giving to Vanguard accounts that had been closed for more then three months. The initial dates were December 18th until January 3rd. Just after the new year. As I waited and checked http://www.vanguardplayers.com forums, I was not surprised to learn that they’d rolled into some issues.

• Some people were told the announcement had come a day too early, and it was actually the 19th when the promotion started.
• Some people were told the date was wrong and it would begin on the 22nd.
• Some people were told their accounts would be ready within a few hours.
• Some people were told there was a critical error and SWG was released for their free trial instead of Vanguard (which others claimed could be true, except their SWG accounts were activated a few days prior to all of this.

Now, this does seem like a horrible way to set off their promotion, and if the 15 pages of posts is any indication, I was not alone in thinking so. There was a huge line of newly returning Vanguard players who wanted to get in on this promotion. Is it because it’s free? Of course. There was also news of people re-activating no matter that it was free, for a month, to test the water after all of the new changes they’ve heard about.

See, I never hated Vanguard, actually I loved a lot about it. I think it catered to a more ‘hard core’ niche, and it won’t ever rack in the numbers like WoW, or even EQII, but it’s a difficult game to play with many facets, and if you’re looking for something like that, with that level of difficulty, you’ll like Vanguard. Not to mention the artwork has always been amazing.

After waiting most of the day for some news about the activations, I got ahold of tech support. Twice. One person told me the date was wrong, and to wait until the 19th, the other person told me they’d move my request to a T2 support person, and it would be activated in 3-4 hours. At around 9pm EST I was able to log in and patch. I was expecting hours and hours of patching – but I was pleasantly surprised. I did buy the DVD Discs to install the game (which is still huge, but it seems to have been cut down some) and patched for 1 hour (which was smooth sailing). Found myself in game right away. SoE has also graciously extended the time that this promotion is active for.

New Dates: December 18th/19th – January 20th

So they’re giving a whole free month of play time here for people to check things out fully. Can’t go wrong with that I think.

The land is still gorgeous, and there are players, everywhere, right now. There’s so many newly returning people come to see how things fare. Now, I didn’t have too many issues with lag the first time I played Vanguard, so I wasn’t expecting too much now either. I did move my settings down from balanced to the one below it, and ditched shadows. They always seem to cause me a lot of lag and I don’t need shadows to be immersed in the game. It took me an hour to set up the keys the way I wanted them, and the UI, and there’s still a lot of commands that I forget and have to figure out. I did have one graphic glitch where the leaves on the trees wouldn’t render and instead my landscape was filled with sticks and branches, but that was fairly minor.

I didn’t get to play a whole lot yet, as it was late last night when I finished patching, and servers are now down this morning for a re-start. No doubt that with the sudden influx of players, they’re also going to have issues with populations and what not. Don’t let this cloud your judgment of the game though. If others are going to give it a shot, let me know so I can come play too. Right now I’m on the … I forget.. the server where the Rp server merged to. Starts with an S. I’m there, with my Paladin Ishbel at the moment. I’ll probably make multiple characters as always. I deleted my old bloodmage, but I’m trying to see about getting her back (a post on customer relations at a later date).

Some things I’ve always loved about Vanguard (if it were not for the bugs):

• When it gets dark outside, you have to actually turn on your torch, or you can’t see. Most games you never have to do that, lighting is never an issue
• The landscape, you can see forever. And you can reach everything you see some how. So if you see a small plateau with ruins on the top of them, you can get there. The land goes on forever, it’s beautiful, and feels like a HUGE world, as opposed to tiny zones cut up and smushed together.
• Crafting, Diplomacy, and Adventuring (at least in the past) there were always three ways to level up your character, making it quite diverse (not sure how these are today, I haven’t gotten to any of that yet really).
• The difficulty of learning a new game, playing a hard game. I find WoW very easy. There’s nothing complex about it (no offense to you WoW players, this is my personal opinion). It’s great if you want an easy game where you don’t have to think at all. EQII is some what difficult, but no where near the “hardness” of EQI, and with every patch they seem to dumb it down a little bit more. I think Vanguard can cater to the niche of people who are looking for this sort of game.

More information to follow of course as I explore a new world for a little bit! If you’ve never tried Vanguard before, and are getting interested (which I of course hope you are) they are going to be re-launching the game (with free trials, like the island ones from EQII) in 2008, so hang in there and give it a shot then! For everyone who left ages ago, I suggest you try out the free month, what could it hurt eh?

Vanguard Update

stargrace December 18, 2007 1Comment

As a brief update, I contacted support, was told by one person that it would be at 12am PDT before the free trials would be turned on, and then was told by another that they’d make it happen in 4 hours. Took a peek, and my account is now active for 30 days. I’m patching away, and hopefully will get to play a little bit before bed. If not, well, at least it’s active, we’ll see how it goes.

I’m not leaving EQ2 by any means, but I do like to poke around at the other games, and I did really enjoy VG while I played it. I just disliked the bugs, a huge amount. So this free trial is a great idea to get older members back for a short time at least, to experience the changes. I’m sure I’ll post my opinions on it here.