Vanguard Newsletter: The Here and Now

Dalmarus

Quote:

Astuun

I've been not terribly subtle with my views on this topic, moreso on the official SOE forums than here. Actually just yesterday I had to bite my tounge when a new player said "I'm rolling a DK becuz it can hits me 50s in noz times!11!"

Ok, I'm exaggerating. A little.

It's hard to remind myself "to each his own", because the forums and general chat are filled with spam about how this game sucks because it lacks content.

My favorite response to them is asking them why it is that in a game that was 25GB to install, they only care about the final 2Gb of information there. Give me a break. If you exploited to level, will only play a DK, Cleric, Shaman, or Ranger (sorry folks, but just about anyone can solo all the way to 50 with these classes), and refuse to explore the world, or the other spheres of the game, then I don't care if you're bored personally!

Now the only thing I am willing to give a little one is exploring hte other spheres. As interesting and unique as diplomacy is, with the exception of adding some attractive buffs, though hardly game-breaking, there is absolutely nothing that diplomacy has to offer right now. And not everyone can get into crafting, that's fine. It is quite overwhelming at first and is pretty gear-dependant with quest rewards (at early levels anyway, and that's just my opinion) all over the world. BUT, it is an aspect of THIS GAME, so if you refuse to accept it and use it, then it's NOT THE GAME'S FAULT that you won't use the content the game offered you.

I'm rambling. THe point is, I couldnt' agree with you more Dal. The 800-lbs Gorilla taught me that playing a game didn't start until you were at level-cap, which always bummed me out because I wanted to hit up all the lower level dungeons and do the group quests all the time, but there was little support for something like that there. So I'm in love with my progression, and my guild's progression, throgh Telon so far...though I am bummed abotu missing a lot of dungeons, I know I will have an alt dedicated to hitting the dungeons that are un-noticed by most.

Shayalyn

There are always going to be people who are intent on hitting the level cap as quickly as possible, no matter how thin the content pickings are when they reach those heights; it's just the nature of the gaming beast.

That said, I've heard level 50 players express regret that they didn't take their time to discover all Vanguard has to offer. It's a huge game, and there's a lot to see. I feel as though, if you burn yourself out grinding your first character to level 50, you'll be less inclined to make an alt and spend time enjoying the rest of the game.

But for some folks, "beating the game" is what it's all about. To a degree, I can understand that competitive mentality--I'm competitive myself. But as I've mellowed as a gamer, I realize that satisfaction doesn't come so much in reaching the destination, but in the journey.

Machail

The journey in this game is tremendous fun. There's lots to see and do, and one thing no one will say about Vanguard is that it lacks content (except at end game).

The reality of it though, is that the game is almost a year old now. It was expected that a large mass of people would be hitting 50 by now; and you can see that, even with the more casual guilds. The fact is that the real hard-core-power-gamers were able to get to 50 in a matter of a month or two. So they've been the ones sitting on little to no content for many months now.

I don't classify myself as an extreme power gamer, but I do play a lot and because of that, I've been 50 for about 5 or 6 months now. It was a bit ahead of the curve, and even when we got there, the swamp armor sets weren't in yet, and were just being added in stages, and there wasn't a heck of a lot to do.

We didn't mind so much though. We knew it was a bit ahead of the majority, so it was expected. And we've still had fun with alts, or showing friends some content.

But there really is a LOT of people at the end game now, and SOE is pushing more and more people there with xp bonuses and rested xp and what have you.

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm really interested to see what kind of content comes out after APW, as in a couple more months the mass of numbers at the end content are going to be even larger than they are now and it just doesn't make sense to have the casual gamers and the extreme power gamers competing against the same content.

Bhagpuss

I really think you are exaggerating the amount of content at the sub-50 level.

My girlfriend and I played Vanguard in atypical fashion: instead of our usual half a dozen characters levelled simultaneously, we both stuck to one main character each. It took us about four months to get to 46th as a duo, at which point we beached up on lack of further non-repeatable quests.

We travelled across Telon constantly, moving from continent to continent almost daily to find the next suitable outpost. We had seen virtually every inch of the overland territories by the low 40s, along with a very fair selection of the dungeons.

When we started over, playing various other races and classes, we found they all began to hit content we had already done at around level 10. Now, I am not complaining because I think the content is reasonable for a newly launched game with no expansions yet, and I think the replayability value of most of it is very high. Compared to several other MMOs I have played at the same stage of development, however, I don't think the amount of content is particularly extensive, and after level 45 it dries up completely unless you like doing the same thing over and over and over again, which I don't.