It may come as a bit of a surprise, but I don’t actually play games based on their populations. If I enjoy a game I enjoy a game and honestly I spend 80% of the time doing my own thing to begin with. I have other means of social interaction and I value my quiet space. This is one of the reasons that it is so easy for me to fall back into playing Vanguard on a steady basis, especially because there is just so much to do. I don’t begrudge anyone else the game they play and I would expect others to do the same. That being said – Vanguard is NOT dead. There is a very tight community there and yes, it’s quite small but it is active. No, Vanguard isn’t being worked on development wise and players have known this for quite some time now – but honestly, there is so much to do that it doesn’t bug me. When I play Vanguard I just have to keep my mind open to the possibility that the game may not be around next year. Personally, I feel that it will be here for at least 1 year more, but I don’t like to predict any further. I’m playing it because I absolutely love every aspect of it. Adventuring, Crafting, and Diplomacy give me such a sense of achievement. Even though the game has been out years now the graphics and views still sweep me away. I feel that my characters are unique, blood mages are a LOT of fun as are disciples and they’re completely different then shaman and clerics – even though all four I just listed are healers.
Always the nomadic gamer, I spent most of yesterday between EQ and VG (and logged into Rift to claim the free goodies bag while I had the chance). In Vanguard I played my 31 shaman along with a 31 Deathknight that a friend was leveling up. I run a guild there (called, you guessed it) Nomadic Gamers, and I have my personal home in game set as the guild hall. We explored Craigwind Ridge for hours, and managed to ding 32 and most of the way in when we finally turned in all of our quests. Personally I’m really looking forward to moving on to a new area, Qalia was never my favorite continent. I’m trying to get my harvesting caught up with my adventure level but as I learned yesterday two very important vanguard sites have been taking down, vgcrafters and vgtact (diplomacy site) and this left me wandering around trying to search for the zone I was supposed to be in to harvest.
When it comes to gaming, remember. You’re allowed to enjoy whatever game you want, for whatever reasons you want. If you’re not having fun from the moment you log into game until the moment you log out – then why are you playing.
Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!
The problem is I don’t particularly LOVE levelling, even in VG, to justify playing it, particularly since it’s a means towards an end(game) that is very limited and will never, at current rates, improve.
It’s so sad. I really wish they’d do something about VG. Hell, I wish I won the lottery so I could invest it into VG; I’d only really need 1/10th of it to live comfortably anyway. Alas, they won’t, and I can’t live with myself giving them money despite knowing that none of it will go to VG. That’s the worst part. I hope you enjoy yourself, Star, I really do. And I hope VG gets some competent, passion rather than greed-driven owners.
Again the problem with that @Thac0 is that they have to actually *care* first about the game in order to want to fix anything wrong with it. They simply don’t care and are content to let it run automatically because it takes 0 manpower 0 teams.
I’d just like to day like the others I would totally be in Vanguard playing often if it were F2P. No game could use it more and i honestly think they would see more players and maybe even be able to do some minor RMT. I wonder how we could get someone to take that idea seriously?
I just never “got” VG, I suppose. I was in the beta and played a Disciple mostly. During my time on the Station Pass I popped into VG a few times. Actually really liked the Paladin, and tried out several race/class combos. Druid was pretty fun, didn’t care for the monk, etc. Still.. never got any character past about level 14 or so. Just didn’t “do it” for me. No idea why. It seems to have all the right elements.
I’d love to revisit vg but can’t afford it, really needs to go f2p one if my fav games of all time :-)
I agree, and I think it’s one of the major things holding back VG from expanding. However. In order to change it to a F2P game that would mean SOE actually *cares* enough about the game to do so and to dedicate someone to making the switch. As it is the game is just on auto run until it’s no longer feasible for them to keep the two servers open. If they do have some sort of closure date in mind, I’d love to see them make the last year of gameplay free for everyone – just to see what sort of numbers they could pull in. Maybe it would change their minds.
I always agonizze over VG. It’s in my top 5 games of all time, but right now I don’t have the cash to return. I would love love love love love for it to go F2P! Seriously love. Even more then I want STO to follow Champs Online into F2P territory XD