Vanguard:SOH personal impressions

[Korruptor]

I don't often see threads on Vanguard in general so I will share my experience with the game as it is now.

I've heard how much of a debacle the launch for this game was and that is truly unfortunate. The game has been out for a while and recieved a great deal of rework (some of which has upset some). I signed up for the trial under two of my old station accounts and for the trial it's only a 2.3GB foot print on my system.

As much as I despise SOE I have to say this is the game I've wanted since I've left EQ (Yes, yes, it was developed to be the true successor to Everquest by the original EQ developer Sigil). My opinion is that this game as it is, for me at least, is the modern EQ. The classes and the game-play really brings me back to the old EQ days that I long for.

I am currently only dual boxing this (due to the high resources required) and having a great time on the Xeth server. I will play it out for the full 14 days and try every class to see which dual-boxing combo's work for my style.

The macro ability of the game is good but the /follow ability is identical to old EQ in it's mechanics and doesn't corner as well as WoW.

[Korruptor]

Following up...

So far I'm still amazed with the game.

I've danced around with multiple classes both solo and dual boxing and have settled with a fun combo of Ranger+Necro both Dark Elves!!!! I've always wanted a Dark Elf ranger back in EQ so finally I'm able to scratch that age-old itch. Rangers are great ranged and melee DPS'rs and the necro's dots and nukes are mapped up with my ranger shots.

Send pet in to tank and punch the target from range. Both classes have lots of utility, pretty cool.

The fact you can use macro's to target corpse and loot makes alts far easier to manage!

[moosejaw]

Nice to hear that. I really liked EQ and I may check out the Vanguard trial. I think I looked at it during open beta and it was quite the mess. Pretty funny that the follow problems still exist.

[Elesar]

If it is the same as when I triple-boxed it, follow it a bit tricky at first, but once you are used to having to sweep your corners and pause for the followers, its not that bad. Due to that reason though, it is best to either avoid confined spaces, have a solo player that can scout corners and pull for you, or break follow and do it yourself.

I played for the first year the game was out, and recently tried to go back, but only one of my friends could get it to work on their system. Still has an issue with blocking out Ventrilo as well :\

This game is my MMO home, as it was my first, and I would love to see it fully compatible and with decent populations, but I'm afraid that is unlikely :S

[Korruptor]

The population is low in that there are few servers but there are quiet a few people going through the trial. The game isn't a ghost land.

Also, I found that converting your trial to a normal account merely costs the month sub fee of 14.99. There is no free month technically but you don't need to pay $40-$50 to "buy" the game. So I converted both my trials.

[Mooni]

Loved it. I usually played as a (whatever the wolf-type) Shaman or Blood Mage or Disciple. I imagine you could have a tank/healer combo that would actually do well there, though. (those duos could thrive in EQ)
Do you have sympathetic moves keybound or something? Or are you just ignoring them for now?
Actually I don't know if they'd even come up with a double ranged group like yours.

But wow, what a great game! Yeah the launch fell apart, and my computer really couldn't handle it. It's weird that they mention Vent problems - we were on vent all the time back at the beginning.

[moosejaw]

Thank you LOLARENA maintenance. I am downloading the Vanguard trial right now.

[Korruptor]

[quote='Mooni',index.php?page=Thread&postID=170119# post170119]Do you have sympathetic moves keybound or something? Or are you just ignoring them for now?
Actually I don't know if they'd even come up with a double ranged group like yours.[/quote]Kinda, for example, my ranger (main) casts his lightning arrow shot and the necro at the same time begins casting hit dot/snare. Then while the necro pet is tanking i fire my staple DD shot and the necro fires off bone spike.

The macro engine is very flexible. The same key for the necro's /assist and /cast "Bone Spike II" is also followed with /cast "Necropsy". So if the target is alive he nukes it, if it's dead he attempts to rip body parts off. The ranger forage ability is also paired under my loot script so if i'm not targetting a corpse i'm foraging with auto-loot (must disable the warning about looting BoP items for it to work).

On a ranger note... forage is great for making arrows. Once per gaming session all you need to do is select the arrow/bolt crafting pattern you want to make and then use a macro to /assemble each time you have the parts to make them.

I haven't spent a ton of time working on my spells/macro setup because the normal mobs ("oo"'s ) die too fast. Taking on the "ooo"'s will no doubt force me to rethink this since they are tough elite types.

Here is a great macro link:
[url]http://www.vanguardsagaofhero.com/Vanguard-Hotkeys-for-Dummies[/url]

If you happen to decide on playing on the Xeth server send a tell to Diederich (that would be after the trial since trial accounts can't send tells).

Here are some additional links:
[url='http://www.tentonhammer.com/vanguard/guides']http://www.tentonhammer.com/vanguard/guides
http://www.vanguardsagaofhero.com/Vanguard-Guides
http://www.vgnecro.com/article/Must-Have-Necro-Macros

[Kromtor]

I'm done with WoW, I had tried Vanguard but it was a long time ago. What's the maximum group size? It sounds like it'd be fun to multibox especially for people who actually have multiple boxes =)

[Korruptor]

I believe the max size of a group is 6.

My necro/ranger combo is currently sitting at lvl 16 but my leveling slow isn't a bearing on the game. I've just been busier then usual.

It's a very large world to explore, and very beautiful at that.