I recently got accepted into the third phase of Vanguard's beta and I am looking forward to exploring the world of Talon to see if all the rumors are true. I had heard a lot of reports about the graphics of Vanguard being subpar and the gameplay being tedious in the previous phases of their beta. It would be refreshing if this new phase introduced some changes that fixed those problems. After playing World of Warcraft I am not sure if I could go back to playing a time consuming and hardcore MMORPG. Its not that I am a carebear its just that I have much less time now that I am working. Back in college I could play 5 or 6 hours in row which was required for some of the longer raid targets. Now with WoW I find myself being able to play for a maximum of 4 hours in a row. I just have too many other things that gang up to steal my attention away from gaming.
There are a couple of things that I do miss about the older MMORPGs that World of Warcraft is missing. The major one being a larger selection of classes and races. World of Warcraft is very limited in classes since they found it easier to balance for pvp fighting. While pvp is very fun I'm not sure its worth keeping the class choices so low. Also World of Warcraft can get annoying at times because of its high number of immature players. The ease of the gameplay encourages gamers of all types and ages to try out the game. Thus the amount of questions, random invites, and begging for gold is much higher in WoW then the older generation games.
Vanguard has a few other things going for it besides the small perks of being hardcore. They're exploring new systems for crafting, questing, and handling player death. Now while some of their choices for these new systems might have a hardcore edge to them they are at least trying new ideas. Ideas like putting the death penalty on a sliding scale based on what action killed your character. It's worth at least trying the game out to see how these ideas are panning out. If the gameplay is too hardcore I will probably not be too interested but if I see they are trying to be challenging without being time intensive I might stick around.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Vanguard Vs. World of Warcraft
Posted by Relmstein at 8:49 AM
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4 comments:
I'd like to know how it turns out. Friends of mine (with whom I started out in EQ forever ago and joined in WoW later) have expressed an interest, but are also a bit leery of Vanguard living up to the hype.
Please report on what you are permitted to discuss. I know I'm looking forward to learning more.
Nobody likes the taking an experience hit when they die. I'm not against some sort of death penalty but the old EQ way is not the future.
WoW handles death well with the ghost walk and removing all buffs and pots (except flasks). I wish the original EQ would have had a similar system.
Truth be told, I quit EQ around level 30 because of the death penalty. It was just too much of a time investment. Now that WoW has come along without the penalties, I doubt many ex-EQ vets would be willing to return to it.
From what I understand of the sliding scale death penalty only advanced raid encounters would mimic the EQ death penalty. I think the majority of death penality events would be somewhat similiar to WoW.
I think the Sigil guys realize that the market isn't as hardcore as it used to be and hopefully they toned down the game since the beta 1 reports.
I agree with what you said about the community in World of Warcraft and how making an MMO more "hardcore" would probably remove many of the immature players; especially the pathetic beggars. Oh how I hate beggars.
At the same time however, I also feel that hardcore games breed hardcore pricks; those players who can't be bothered to help anyone and to even ask them if they know where an inn is located, is to labeled NOOB.
Is there no trade middle ground? Are we destined to play games that are either to easy or to hardcore?
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