VG

Wandering around Telon – Day2

stargrace December 20, 2007 2 Comments

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 8 Comments

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 1 Comment

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.

Giving Vanguard another Try?

stargrace December 18, 2007 5 Comments

Is anyone else trying out Vanguard since they’ve re-opened accounts from December 18th to January 3rd? At least that’s what I’ve heard . I’m reinstalling as we speak. I always did love the look of the game, and the classes, I just couldn’t handle the bugs. So I figure I’ll give it a whirl. If anyone else is going to give this a shot, let me know so I can move servers! I’ll be on uh..no idea. Some server!

** As of 12:30 EST so far the ‘free activation’ isn’t working or implemented or whatever. If anyone has more details let me know! Oh, and EQ2 world wide channels are borked. Woot. A guildie mentioned that SoE is trying an “Anti-Fun” tactic. It seems to be working.

*** As of 4:06pm EST I found this thread with some issues that are going on activating people and their accounts. Remember you have to have been canceled for three months for this to work. The problem is, yes, I’ve been canceled for more then three months — but I can’t post on their forums asking what’s going on without an active subscription… anyone else manage to get in?

**** I need to read better. As of 4:15pm EST, I found this thread in the newbie forums (where you don’t need a subscription to post) saying that it’s been delayed until Thursday. Oh wells.

…. Ok… 4:29 EST and this quote which is COMPLETELY different then the quote someone else got.

I’ve just used the Live Chat feature to try and get clarification on this and was told something different  . Make of it what you will.

TSR Robin C.:Hi, my name is TSR Robin C.. One moment please, while I read your question.
TSR Robin C.: Please give me the station name.
You: xxxxxxxxxxxx
TSR Robin C.: I am escalating your issue to Tier 2 TSR to grant you the day on the account.
TSR Robin C.: You will be able to login with in 3 to 4 hours.
TSR Robin C.: Is there anything else I can assist you with today?
You: um ok. so i’ll get the 3 weeks free trial?
TSR Robin C.: You will be able to play till January 3rd.
You: ok that’s great. thanks for your help.