I'm waiting until summer when I can buy the game for 9.99, and they actually have a decent amount of quests and content..
Sure, a handful will play 24x7 and level, but I wouldn't be part of that group again anyways.
Vanguard Live. Beginning thoughts.
Moderator: Dictators in Training
I got it over the weekend and all i did so far was make a bard, log in, do a quest where I kill undead farmers, then log off. Going to play again thursday night with a buddy to try to get more of a hang of it.
It pisses me off though at level one my guy hits for 20s and it takes about 6 hits to kill a monster. I should be hitting for 4 dangit, and monsters should have 20hp. That's why I hate high end EQ now is that you hit for 1000s and monsters hit for 6000s. It's dumb.
It pisses me off though at level one my guy hits for 20s and it takes about 6 hits to kill a monster. I should be hitting for 4 dangit, and monsters should have 20hp. That's why I hate high end EQ now is that you hit for 1000s and monsters hit for 6000s. It's dumb.
everyone could solo, and everyone learned retarded chimp style bad habits, and never really figured out how to be a good player
This is not entirely true. Just like in EQ, where it was possible to solo outdoors til you hit Karnors, some people still leveled up in dungeons and groups, and you could tell the difference. These kind of peopl eexist in WOW as well, and are nearly inevitably the types tha end up in the uberguilds.
That's one aspect I like about the BC expansion; the Heroic versions of instances are seriously, seriously hard, and non-skilled groups are going to bounce, hard. One I did had a 7 mob pull, 5 of them elite. Elites hit for 2-4000hp per hit on plate tanks, non-crit, each, depending, and a tank probably won't have more than about 12,000 hp (so certainly can't tank all the mobs at once, and will need frequent large heals). One of the elites must be killed first, or he summons clones of the other mobs that die. This is a 5-man dungeon, so your ability to CC is minimal. We got past that pull OK, and finally bounced on a sub-bos that hit plate for 4500, and AOE feared, and we had no way to stop the fear from landing. So, tank gets feared, mob runs over to priest and 1 shots him. So yeah, if you're looking for hard-core single group experiences, BC expansion has given them to us in spades.
Anyway, lest I be accused of trolling, I am glad to see Vanguard actually made it out the door in an acceptible state. I'm surprised, certainly, but mmore power too them. I will not be playing the game, however, since the way SOE handled EQ back in the day annoyed me to the point where I, as a consumer, decided that I would not give that company any more of my money. If they were still with Microsoft, I might try it out, but not SOE.
-Arlos
Yes, actually. While I certainly decry some of their business practices, I know for a fact that they go out of their way to treat their employees well and try and keep them happy. Sure their stuff can be buggy, but that's the world of software for you. If I know a product is buggy, I simply won't buy it til it's fixed. (see: waiting for SP 1).
SOE completelky mismanaged EQ into the ground. From their policies with pushing out expansions come hell or high water, their utter lack of anything approaching customer service, their inability to balance the game, the way they treated some of their employees, to business practices that lead to the way, say, Vex Thal was handled, to their outright lying to customers, etc... No, I simply had had enough. They have lost at least 1 customer, permanently. I force my personal stance on no one else, however, if you wish to play and pay the, more power to you, have fun.
-Arlos
SOE completelky mismanaged EQ into the ground. From their policies with pushing out expansions come hell or high water, their utter lack of anything approaching customer service, their inability to balance the game, the way they treated some of their employees, to business practices that lead to the way, say, Vex Thal was handled, to their outright lying to customers, etc... No, I simply had had enough. They have lost at least 1 customer, permanently. I force my personal stance on no one else, however, if you wish to play and pay the, more power to you, have fun.
-Arlos
That's one aspect I like about the BC expansion; the Heroic versions of instances are seriously, seriously hard, and non-skilled groups are going to bounce, hard. One I did had a 7 mob pull, 5 of them elite. Elites hit for 2-4000hp per hit on plate tanks, non-crit, each, depending, and a tank probably won't have more than about 12,000 hp (so certainly can't tank all the mobs at once, and will need frequent large heals). One of the elites must be killed first, or he summons clones of the other mobs that die. This is a 5-man dungeon, so your ability to CC is minimal. We got past that pull OK, and finally bounced on a sub-bos that hit plate for 4500, and AOE feared, and we had no way to stop the fear from landing. So, tank gets feared, mob runs over to priest and 1 shots him. So yeah, if you're looking for hard-core single group experiences, BC expansion has given them to us in spades.
Since I've hit level 70 I've been tanking in quite a few instances, and noticed that the margin for error in certain spots is much, much less than in old world WOW.
I've rolled through Shattered Halls a few times, but with a mediocre group, the pit area with an assload of mobs will just annihilate my group. With my normal group, it seems like it's not nearly as risky a proposition.
Yes, actually. While I certainly decry some of their business practices, I know for a fact that they go out of their way to treat their employees well and try and keep them happy.
What a horrible argument for supporting a company.
"They are evil incarnate, but they give damn good benefits!"
Give me Sony any day over Microsoft. It's funny someone who's in California would be so lackluster about them, given the hundreds of thousands of jobs MS has cost the IT industry.
What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step.
– C. S. Lewis
– C. S. Lewis
It was Heroic shattered halls I was talking about there, Lyion. All those multi-mob pulls are still there, it's just now they hit for 3-4k on someone with about 57-58% mitigation. Where we bounced was the guy in charge of the fire arrows. He hit me for 4500+, did his AOE fear, I didn't resist, he turned and 1-shotted the priest, and that was all she wrote. Just getting to him through that hall was hell, all those non-elites in there still hit for 700-800 on plate, and you get a constant 2-spawn of them every so many seconds, and as soon as they start running for you, you're in combat. So, yeah, this was a pure Afterlife group, with all good people, and we bounced halfway throughte instance on heroic. To be fair, the instance itself is a pure-L70 instance, and this is the HEROIC version, so it's about as vicious as it gets for 5-mans, but it makes me laugh to think what would happen to a PUG there.
As for MS... Well, I'm pretty much of the opinion, after having spent as many years in the corporate world as I have (including at the occasional giant, like Oracle) that 95% of corporations are incarnations of evil anyway, most of them wouldn't hesitate to stomp on other people or companies to get ahead, destroy the environment to save a few tenths of a percent on a quarterly statement, etc. MS is just more obvious about it than most. Plus, the legion of companies that treat their employees like dirt is large, and growing larger. Companies with an actual soul or conscience are few and far between. So, picking between one evil entity that has personally offended me, and one that may be Evil Personified, but at least has 1 or 2 redeeming qualities about them isn't as difficult as you might think.
-Arlos
As for MS... Well, I'm pretty much of the opinion, after having spent as many years in the corporate world as I have (including at the occasional giant, like Oracle) that 95% of corporations are incarnations of evil anyway, most of them wouldn't hesitate to stomp on other people or companies to get ahead, destroy the environment to save a few tenths of a percent on a quarterly statement, etc. MS is just more obvious about it than most. Plus, the legion of companies that treat their employees like dirt is large, and growing larger. Companies with an actual soul or conscience are few and far between. So, picking between one evil entity that has personally offended me, and one that may be Evil Personified, but at least has 1 or 2 redeeming qualities about them isn't as difficult as you might think.
-Arlos
Well I'm up to level 5 on my bard. The world is beautiful, even on high performance settings, but I'm still not 100% sold on the questing. I feel like a mouse chasing the cheese just going from one quest giver to the next. Plus now I'm already hitting for 150 damage with my newbie longsword. I guess I just have to shift my paradigm on the whole damage output issue.
The song modding is pretty nice, and it's still taking me time getting used to the WoW style UI and location of all my stuff. Nothing at all has been difficult so far though, so I hope that picks up in a few levels.
The song modding is pretty nice, and it's still taking me time getting used to the WoW style UI and location of all my stuff. Nothing at all has been difficult so far though, so I hope that picks up in a few levels.
Reynaldo wrote:Well I'm up to level 5 on my bard. The world is beautiful, even on high performance settings, but I'm still not 100% sold on the questing. I feel like a mouse chasing the cheese just going from one quest giver to the next. Plus now I'm already hitting for 150 damage with my newbie longsword. I guess I just have to shift my paradigm on the whole damage output issue.
The song modding is pretty nice, and it's still taking me time getting used to the WoW style UI and location of all my stuff. Nothing at all has been difficult so far though, so I hope that picks up in a few levels.
I don't think I died once until I hit lvl 10 or so. Once you start going on group quests and hitting up dungeons, the difficulty level ramps up substantially.
The patch yesterday did something to the engine that makes it unplayable on my laptop now. Framerate is really jerky, graphics flashing in and out, lagging out, etc. It didn't seem near as bad on my home continent of Martok but I travelled to Thestra and it was a dramatic difference.
