Why would anyone want to play Vanguard?

I started to see a couple blogs and forums referring to a incident in Vanguard where characters were losing experience when they crossed into a different zone server. The bug was rare but rumours started circling that a couple of bans were passed out when players discovered they could regain the lost xp by re-zoning back. Apparently a GM simply noticed the 9% jump in experience and thought it best to simply ban the player for cheating. Some are using this incident to try convince the few people who play Vanguard to abandon ship. One post I read asked with all the bugs, errors, and lag why anyone would even want to play Vanguard?

It made me think a lot about what reasons I might have for picking up the game. While I did beta test Vanguard for awhile, I have yet to pick up a copy. This is mostly because I saw how unfinished the game was three months ago and doubted they would have it ready in time for January. Despite this the game does have some things going for it which have definitely peaked my interest more then the other MMORPGs which are releasing this year.

4 Reasons Vanguard Peaks my Interest:

1) Its Large
Vanguard is huge from what I have seen and has more square footage in it then any game I've played since classic Everquest. Now while most of this area is bland wilderness it at least allows room for the developers to expand. In the future they could allow player towns, new dungeons, or farms to be placed in these areas. A lot of MMO's don't like to plan ahead by including areas for future growth which is why they are always having to introduce newly discovered continents.

2) It has a higher Barrier of Entry then WoW
While I'm not a hardcore player I do miss the playerbase of classic Everquest sometimes. The barrier of entry for World of Warcraft is so low that anyone can cross on over. This has had a profound effect on player skill levels, guild loyalty, begging, and the general stupidity that is general chat. A lot of players think they are entitled to being run through a dungeon, given money, or given information for free. Basically, they treat everyone else as a NPC and themselves as the only "real" player in the game.

3) Its focused on PvE
Too many developers think they need to implement a PvP system but underestimate the amount of work it takes to integrated it with the rest of the game. Often this causes a near constant state of nerfs and buffs based on issues where the PvE and PvP side of the game overlap. A MMORPG needs to be balanced for one or the other and not yanked back and forth depending on who whines the most in your forums.

4) It has more Classes and Customization
The nature of class based games is that the complexity of group interaction depends on the variety of classes. A lot of the newer games such as Lord of the Rings and Warhammer are trying to stick with a small amount of classes in hopes it makes balance easier to achieve. However, I believe this will have the effect of squeezing too many players into classes they might not like. I predict much higher burnout in any game with under 7 classes to play as players might have problems finding one that fits their particular playstyle.

Honestly, at the moment I'm simply waiting for the developers to finish debugging Vanguard and fill in some of the empty spaces. I still have a lot on my plate with the Burning Crusade which has a decent amount of content left for me to play through. The way things currently stand I see myself being done with the Heroics and Kharzhan around the beginning of the summer. Since I don't plan on rejoining the full time raiding circuit I will probably pick up another MMO then. Here's crossing my fingers that Vanguard becomes a game worth playing by then.