Some random thoughts on Vanguard SOH
Posted on April 8, 2006
5 Comments
As mentioned previously, I recently received a beta invite to help beta test Vanguard - Saga of Heroes. What follows are just a few random thoughts. No big spoilers, screen shots or surprises. I haven’t actually read the T&C of the beta yet… so not going to push my luck.
The download and registration process was a bit overwhelming. I even had to refer back to the email a few times to make sure I was hitting the steps in the correct order. Two long keys to keep track of through the process: A “CD Key” and some sort of “Coupon Code”. Long story short, I got it all sorted, but was a bit mystified a few times. Not only did I get it working right, but somehow even got it associated with my MS Passport ID. Far out.
The almost 5GB download is brutal. Oh, and after it was installed, I had a 500+ MB patch. Yikes! The installation itself was simple. Not much for options to worry about, just click a few buttons and go have dinner. It’ll be done when you get back.
Character creation is a bit daunting. There’s a large number of races and a borderline insane amount of attributes you can tweak for your avatar. Nose height? Brow size? You name it, you can probably tweak it. Granted, not all of these options work quite yet… but when the came is actually released you’ll have to work pretty hard to have a character that isn’t unique.
For those that played Everquest: Remember that feeling you got the first time you logged in? There you were, most likely a wood-elf, lost in a new area (hell, your first death was probably falling out of Kelethin…) You tried poking around, but it was dark and confusing and you weren’t quite sure where to go or what to do. My first time in Vanguard recaptured that feeling quite nicely. Lol. I hope the sun comes out soon or I’m going to have to get radical with my gamma settings. I’m tired of being in the dark so much!
The newb experience is, currently (and remember, this is a beta) aimed at folks who don’t need hand-holding. ’cause there isn’t any. Figure it out, try OOC, but you’re not getting tossed into a tutorial with a bunch of quests spoon-fed. And really, that aspect is fine. No beefs here. I wish there were more/varied quests but I’m sure that will come in time. If you’re an attention-span challenged WoW addict, you won’t like Vanguard SOH at all the way it currently is. And to some extent, that makes me grin… That being said, even an old MMORPG curmedgeon looks forward to more shortcut keys working in somewhat expected fashions.
Performance doesn’t make me grin. This thing brings my old machine to its proverbial knees. This is a machine I built several years ago, so I shouldn’t be too surprised. Key aspects: AMD 2500+ Barton core CPU, 1GB RAM and a nVidia 6800 GT AGP video card. But dang, it ran EQ, EQ2 and WoW quite well. Vanguard cripples it. I have much tweaking to do as I’d like to be able to see a bit more detail but not have frames per second under 10. I can push 30fp at “low” settings, so we’ll see. CPU is pegged the entire time I’m in the game. With all details cranked, stuff is pretty dang nice looking. I just have to learn to love 10-15 fps. Which isn’t likely. Much OOC discussion with rumors of forthcoming performance improvements, so I’m not too stressed on this yet. And heck, as previously noted, it is beta.
Anyways, I’ll likely continue to dink around with it and see how it all pans out.
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5 Responses to “Some random thoughts on Vanguard SOH”
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(Deep Voice) This is the Vanguard t&c beta enforcement team. You have violated the c part of that and aren’t allowed to play any more. Send your beta packet to Rich G. for he is much more deserving of it than you. Seriously. We’re not kidding. Grrr….
So… you ever do the beta?
Not since June 9th
Wonder if my account is still valid…
I’m pretty sure Vanguard has been a flop. It was so hyped up before release, and now no one even talks about it. WoW will continue to dominate for another few years at the very least.