User Reviews (11 - 21 of 86)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

Don't waste your money

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 11 / 18
Date: March 12, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I am really disappointed with this game. I feel like I just threw away my $50.00 for nothing. I have played beta (not on this game but others) and I must say that this game is beta. The startup quests really, really suck. I made it to level 7 when the death penalty starts without ever getting an explanation of what it would be. I am still uncertain if/how much of a experience penalty there is. I only know there would be a penalty at 7 because during my many deaths before level seven I got the notice that there wasn't a penalty until level 7.

And why did I die so many times? Because the respawn rate is ridiculously high. The quest says go kill 10 wolves, well you only have to find 1 wolf because as soon as you find kill it, it respawns. So you kill it again, and again, and again, until it finally wears you down, cause there is no time in between to heal, and you die. Then when you respawn, you are not in the starting area, but in the first town. I had no idea which way to go to find the starting area where my low level mobs were. Since it appears to be absolutely impossible, (even with sprint) to get away from a mob, I died again, and again, and again.... The map system is extremely bad. I pretty much can't make head or tails out of it. Where are the roads? What are all those dots? Some of the dots appear to be locations for my quests. How do I know which quest? They turn green and red, why? Why are there dots all over for places I have never been? Why aren't all these questions answered in game?

I have yet to figure out anything about crafting and diplomacy. So far all I do is kill mobs that are thick as fleas on a dog, and don't even move, (so I guess "mobs" is not the right word, maybe it is "Rocks", cause they have as much personality.) My prior experiences with Death Penalty's and Maps, don't leave me much hope.

Everyone raved about the graphics, but I am not seeing it. When I installed the game all the settings were turned way down, and the game was glitchy. I wanted to see the wondrous graphics I was promised, so I turned all the settings way up, and the game is still glitchy, no worse then before so I don't think the glitches really have anything to do with graphics, and the graphics suck. Burning crusade is much better. I really hope that I missed some setting that will suddenly make it look awesome, but I really doubt it.

It is a miracle I even made it to 7. I quit the game many times due to frustration. The only reason I kept logging back in is because I kept sitting around feeling very angry that I had been cheated, and guilty for wasting the money, and I would decided to try it again in a vain effort to get my $50 out of it.

Bottom line, if you want to pay to play beta, then go ahead and buy this. If not, give them another 6 months to a year and it might be ready.

Why so much hostility?

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: September 29, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Having read most of the 75 posted reviews to date, it is very clear this is a "Love It or Hate It" game and there's no in-between. But there's not been anything significant posted in several weeks, so I felt a need to update anyone considering this MMO. Most of these posts (sadly) do not do this outstanding game justice.

First of all, I played EQ1 since Kunark and have been searching for something to fill that addiction ever since. I've tried DAOC, EQ2, AC2, Guild Wars, WoW, SWG, and several others, but nothing (and I mean nothing) has been able to fill that EQ1 void like this does. I have an extensive MMO background to base my opinion upon.

Now, obviously, there are huge similarities between this and EQ1, being developed by the same minds. However, there are so many improvements, drawing from all of the above mentioned MMO's that it leaves one to wonder how can there be so much hostility towards this game??

I will be the first to admit that this is not a 3rd generation MMO. I don't believe such a thing exists yet. This does however (given the chance) draw the gamer into its environment and provide an immersive, fun gaming experience whether for hours on end, or just a short period.

Being a "mature" gamer (35+), I for one despise the WoW-kiddie environments and all the BS smacktalking and region spam that goes on in most MMO's. I think that in general VG provides a more mature community, and from what I have encountered over the last 8 months of playing VG, most of the people you ask questions of are more than willing to help you get the answer or explain why something is the way it is. Most of the hostile reviews that I have read are transparent enough to know that either they didn't give the game enough of a chance, or couldn't get the desired group within the first 5 minutes, so quit the game altogether. WTH? Give it a chance people.

My "main" currently is a level 38 Disciple. This class is a combination of a cleric & a monk, and can solo extremely well (as well as very desireable in a group). I can solo mobs up to 2-3 levels above me depending on the number of "dots". Anyone who says they can't beat same level mobs solo, doesn't know how to play their class. I've tried them all and all classes are self-sufficient, just in different ways.

This is not a game that you are going to "conquer" within the first 90 days. Nor is it meant to be. Buy this game only if you are looking for an open ended, fun, relationship-building experience that is going to last you several years. I read several times on these posts phrases like "waste of money" and "not worth the monthly fee". How much do you spend at the movies for a 2 hour joyride? I consider VG extremely cheap entertainment.

Here are the GOOD vs. the BAD in Vanguard:
(BAD)
- laggy at times (now made worse by the server merges)
- incessant gold-seller spamming (granted most to all MMO's have this)
- occasional crash-to-desktop issues
- some minor bugs still exist in quests
- lack of "raid" content (for now)
(GOOD)
- outstanding graphics (at any setting)
- challenging and fun quests/missives that reward experience accordingly
- a complex faction system requiring you to have to earn your player renown and status
- a HUGE (at least 10 times larger than WoW) expansive world to explore with multiple continents that have a distinctly different feel to each
- a new Diplomacy sphere which is fun and immersive
- excellent player crafted items making crafting a worthwhile endeavor
- a mature player base (for the most part)
- huge replayability factor, making alt characters almost a necessity in order to learn all the aspects of the various starting areas
- multiple mount options starting at level 10, several of which require very involved quests

Now I do have certain minor beefs with some of the recent changes to the game (such as making all gear "bind on equip"), but these pale in comparison to the overall abuse this game is taking from what seems like 70% of the reviews.

As you can see, the GOOD outweighs the BAD in Vanguard. Hopefully, this info will aid those with an open mind to give this worthy game a chance.

So close...yet so far. Still a lot of promise.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: October 13, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I got into this game during beta, I've been playing it since launch. I watched Sigil fall apart and SOE jump in. The game development is handled so poorly it's getting ridiculous.

Set yourself free is the slogan, the image is an adventurer soaring high in the sky wherever he wants to go. Not gonna happen for you in game. STILL, you can only fly on rentals for a couple minutes. They don't even work very well either, they will poof and cause you to fall to your death. Pretty annoying when you PAY for it, then have to run back and buy another one. Don't forget that you need to go find your corpse where it dropped you. Perhaps some day they can fix this and add in the quest for flying mounts. They already finished the quests on their end, but they haven't been added yet.

Guild halls were just barely added, but they require more work than anyone imagined. That's fine though, I appreciate the hard core side of it. WoW is pathetic, any step away from WoW is good. The problem is the over camped quest items you need that nobody can get without spawn camping on the hour. Not only do you have all the guilds from 4 different servers trying to get them (they had to have a server merge because the population is dying), you have the jerks camping them to sell them. It's not hardcore, it's lame. They admit this and are gonna fix it...it's fixed on their end. They've said it's been fixed on their end for a month now yet we still don;t have it live yet. See a trend?

They promised so many things and they couldn't deliver at launch. That was fine with me, you create a beast of a game you deserve a little slack and extra time in my book. Sigil tried to push updates in quickly and just broke the game further, now SOE takes forever to do ANYTHING. I'm still paying for this game because I enjoy my guild mates, but I don't know how much longer I can allow the poor development to drag it's feet and charge me money. I understand the mess they had to clean up and how much time is needed, but it's getting to be too much effort for the reward.

The 3 spheres don't work very well with each other. Adventuring and Crafting have the relationship you'd expect, but Diplomacy has been downright pointless since launch. They decided to make diplomacy finally worth it by making the guild hall construction require top tier diplomats. That just created a rush of mad grinders and players botting their way up. They are supposed to be needed in raiding whenever they actually add that. The diplo and craft grinds can really split up a guild if you are not careful.

This game still has a lot of promise and could be something some day but they need to start getting things done quicker. They are losing their fanbase the longer they take to get this to what it should have been at release. This game will eventually need PVP introduced to PVE servers, they talked about putting PVP on PVE servers but it's never happened thanks to the PVP being terrible on the PVP servers and everything else being a cluster-fudge.

I am very down on this game right now, but it has it's redeeming qualities still. It has unique classes and plenty of customization for now, most of my guild mates play their characters uniquely. I have had more fun with my Disciple than I have ever had playing another class in any other mmo. There are less complex classes like Sorcerer, but Rogues and Disciples are by far my favorite because of their complexity.

Plenty of quests, this game has a lot to do at most levels. I have seen official reviews bashing some of the quests because they were poorly written, but those have been re-worked. There was a lot of typos in the beginning. I have always enjoyed the quests, they even have some adult humor in the game that is not so obvious as other games. This game has a lack of lore behind it, but it has amazing lore buried down in the much ignored diplomacy quests. I thought the Kurashasa (cat race) initial diplomacy quests were great and as I traveled they still kept my interest.

They didn't want portals in this game, but they were forced to add them because of how buggy the game was. The boats would drop players in the water and the game would crash, they could not leave it like that with how large the world is. The game doesn't crash anymore, the boats don't drop you anymore, but the portals have stayed. They caved. That bothered me, but I can get over it. There is still plenty of hard core left in this game.

Crafting is respectable, it is very deep like SWG had. It is perhaps the longest grind in the game. It's complexity is GREAT! The rare items you need for great crafted items are GREAT! However, the way you level is by doing work orders for NPCs. Boooooooooooooooring. They needed to mix it up here, it's insane doing the amount of work orders needed. I know, I did them for 50 levels. They have introduced rest xp and lowered the xp curve so it's much easier now. I don't know exactly how it is now because they did this after I got to the top tier, but guildies have said it's better now.

Plenty of positives and negatives with this game, sadly the positives are overshadowed by things like no flying mounts, no helmets, no tails on animal races, no raiding, no decent pvp etc. The good news is that they have done a lot with the performance issues this game has had.

The community is better than WoW and EQ2, reminds me of the old SWG crowd. Sadly the majority is busy complaining, but when they are playing the game and focused they are great people.

I can't really recommend this game right now, but I hope you do come check it out. I don't see any other decent mmorpgs coming out. Most everything these days are WoW clones. This game was built with the right idea, huge world with tons of customization. Details, depth, freedom. SOE has been slow, but they have tried to stick with that original plan. I have hope still.

Annoyingly ubiquitous

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 10 / 16
Date: January 31, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The original creators of Everquest set forth to develop what they originally wanted Everquest 2 to be. From the start this project was ambitious.

The game has some unusually high system requirements, and you shouldn't even try to play it with the minimum. Once the game is fired up, it is beautiful. If you have the luxury to crank your settings up to the max, it's the best looking MMORPG to date. Unfortunately the praises stop there. At the time of it's release, the game is far from production ready. It's a typical Sony deployment where everything promised in the game is not available and will probably be so in future patches, some of which will probably cost additional money. The game play is nothing new, it's a typical time sink grinding on the same mobs over and over. Not a very diverse set of character models either. The diplomacy idea in Vanguard while unique, offers very little to add to the enjoyment of the game.

Considering the time sinks in these games, most people will only have time to commit to one MMORPG. I would encourage most people to give Vanguard try at least, however, I think it's going to leave most people feeling hollow and unimmersed in the game. There are far better options out there right now that offer a much deeper level of play, for far less of a time sink. Considering this is a Brad McQuaid endeavor, it should be no surprise that a considerable amount of time needs to be spent to accomplish anything. They are going to have a hard time competing with the games that have figured out the time balance in gameplay.

Dead on arrival!!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 12 / 21
Date: February 10, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game was obviously released before it was finished, probably to generate income for Sigil and Sony Online while they continued to work on it. So unless you are interested in paying $[...], and then a monthly fee to take part in a beta, stay away from this game.

I would say give it a chance in 6 months to a year, but by then better games will already be out (Age of Conan, Lord Of The Rings Online, etc.). Also the future of this game is in doubt with Sony Online holding the reigns...just look at what they did with Star Wars Galaxies. I suspect that very few people will be willing to burn their precious time online working out the bugs in this game, after all this is something the developers should have done in the first place.

Some other notes on the game:

1. The graphics are not that great. The Elder Scrolls Oblivion has better graphics and it was released a year ago.

2. The character models have a plastic, mannequin like appearance.

3. The animations are stiff and choppy.

4. The landscapes outside of starting areas are empty.

This game was meant to compete with World of Warcraft, and offer an alternative. However it's interface is almost exactly the same, and the beginning quests are no different than the standard WoW "Hey buddy go kill 10 wolves and I'll give you a nickle" crap.

Sorry to say but this game doesn't offer much new, and what it does offer doesn't justify paying good money for.

MMO GIGO

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 8 / 13
Date: February 28, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Absolute garbage.. Played the beta and still majority of the major issues are still not resolved. What a total letdown.

Least fun MMO I've played

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: May 06, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Maybe I'm getting jaded, but bleh. Everquest with better graphics. (Or at least in some people's opinions; I personally find the characters rubbery and the landscape to be stuck somewhere in the uncanny valley - it wants to be realistic, but it fails in exactly the wrong way for me to be able to suspend disbelief.)

The combat sphere isn't particularly innovative. You attack something, you hit many buttons, it dies, you repeat. They've added chains, which at least give you a reason to pay attention to the buttons you're squashing, since it's the only feedback you have to let you know when you can use your finishers. Quests are mostly of the "kill X of this" variety.

Crafting is ... an unholy nightmare unless you're the hardcore masochist type. Buttons with the same effect move around from recipe to recipe, not for any reason of convenience, but so it's harder to create bots. Complications may or may not be a pain (it varies from patch to patch as the devs thrash randomly around trying to find a balance).

Diplomacy is the new sphere, but is unfortunately nearly completely undeveloped compared to everything else. What there is of it though is split. Civic diplomacy is mind numbing: find some NPCs and play the same cards over and over and over and over. The quests are some of the best I've seen: they make the world seem alive as you scurry all over the world negotiating and bribing and diplomating. If anything's worth playing for, it's this sphere, especially the racial beginner quests which really give you a sense of the various races sensibilities.

Four months after launch, the client is still buggy as all getout, and when I logged in to see if things had improved (I was one of the eager many there at launch but left in disgust), I still had 3 crashes in the hour and I bit I was on.

On top of this, you've got the community from hell. While there are some good people there, it's rife with "I don't do pickup groups" type personalities, so unless you're moving to Vanguard with a bunch of friends, or are great at meeting people, you're pretty much out of luck in a game where grouping is almost required.

The game shipped early and uncomplete when Sigil ran out of money, and it shows. There's talk of a relaunch with the first expansion (due in a few months), and I'd highly recommend waiting until then if you're interested in giving it a shot. Mostly, I'd recommend another game.

EQ players review of vanguard

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 9 / 16
Date: March 14, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I know when i was searching reviews i needed to know if my pc would run it so heres my specs at the start for easy finding
amd 4600 dual core, with 2 gb ram and a onboard geforce 6200 (256mb)
it runs low settings alright, and just to see what stuff looks like i can run it on all highest > i get about 2 FPS but you can look around for pretty environment pictures or w/e
IM 100% sure its the video card holding back, geforce 7800+ would be much smoother

*so you know where I'm coming from about 5 yrs of EQ as my main RPG, I think it had excellent gameplay, but was a tad bit slow in the later levels.*
now my review of vanguard SOH
first off, this is a very good video preview/review, it shows you many things that arent really explanable in a written review.
[...]

overall It's a very good game,
extremely massive, >> think oblivion times something like 5+ the terrain is alot like oblivion as well, ((all realistic and beautiful))
the monsters are well done, with good detail and again very realistic looking, and high detail.
if your looking for bright, colorful, magical worlds, >> maybe not for you, (yet) hehe, as im sure they are going to put out many expansions.

the gameplay is wonderful, as you can fight several monsters the same level and have a completely different experience with each one.
the spell system for monsters is done well, and loot is great compared to everquest low levels. ((to give u an idea at lev 16 shaman i have aprx 1400 hp's and 2400 energy/mana)) not TOO much stuff drops as to kill the player market though, or overpower the crafted armors, which is nice.

fights are done the best ive ever seen in a game before: ive played most games out there. ((you are constantly doing something, never just sitting there hitting the attack button and your very strongest spell/skill)), and you can vary your play style depending on what type you like.

THE HEALERS ARE FUN! omgz amazing huh? they did a good job with the healers ((shaman/bloodmage at the least, havnt tried cleric/diciple))
It's so nice to be able to either DPS by spells, > melee, or heal group, or all 3 if your good enough (which lets you learn more as you go and max out your effectiveness.)
an additional comment on their battle system is the finishing moves, these moves are very deadly and come right after you do a critical hit, but they pop up and go away if your not paying attention, keepign it active.

Quests are very well done in my opinion.... however they could use a bit of storyline, >> maybe the team from HoMM4 could hop on to the quest team here. Very nice rewards for quests, and most quests are fairly simple and straightforward: i.e. go kill 5 spiders and collect their venom >> the bigger ones go up to 15-30 kills that ive seen, so you wont spend days on one quest. the XP rewards for quests at lower levels is pretty decent, probably 5-10% chunks depending on quest and level.


CONS:
the game goes a little slow> in the aspect of the overall goal of leveling up.
so to those hardcore gamers and people with no life: Yay you will be 500% stronger and richer than everyone else throughout the whole game:
as well as the traveling, >> im sure this will get looked at later on, (and possibly a porting system such as PoK for those EQ players)
there are a big number of bugs still to be worked out. however, the team is very active and constantly working on fixing and upgrading things throughout the game ((server xp value went up a bit ago, changes to spells / skills changes to monsters, changes to crafting everything.
just everything in the game is being worked on.
the crafting is slow: boo, ((however it is fun for a while)), .... but as it will take you several several hours ((my guess is a few days RL time)) to get to a spot where you can start making good money or really useful items))
harvesting is fun, its nice to see trees fall down, a little disapointing that you cant clear cut everything in your path, but very exciting to see interactive environments. the leveling system on harvesting is pretty well done, you will get lots of materials, level up harvesting and the specific skill (mining / lumberjacking / reaping etc etc)

im sure im missing tons of stuff as this game is huge, so any questions email me at [...]

Its like someone peed in your favorite icecream

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 9 / 16
Date: March 22, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The title basically sums up everything this game is. Yea yea, it was released early.... It has bugs... Ok we all know this. PLAY AT YOUR OWN RISK. The game has potential. HAS potential. Right now, it's a frustrating pathetic excuse for a game, not worth paying a monthly charge for. It should be free until all the bugs and kinks are worked out. The leg is terrible. Why is the lag terrible? I don't know - WoW works absolutely fine. Furthermore - Unless you're a sadomasochist, the community on the PVP servers is filled with extremely immature people who will kill you as soon as they see you, and continue you killing you until you log off. On the flip side - You can go on a PVE server, walk around for hours, without seeing someone, find quests that require groups to complete, and not be able to progress. Ontop of all this, dying in the game = very unforgiveable. You lose exp, and risk dying multiple times trying to get your tombstone. Add in the pvp aspect of it, and your tombstone = bait for gankers. I really did try to give this game some time to grow on me... The first day I was very close to trying to get a refund. When I found that a refund is absolutely not possible, I tried to enjoy myself. Between server crashes, being killed repeatedly, bugged quests, bugged environments, constantly lag, and a very immature vulgar community of players, I found this game to be beyond playable and urge anyone to STAY CLEAR OF IT. Do yourself a favor - DO NOT BUY THIS GAME. It has been one headache after another, and frankly that is now how something YOU PAY FOR should be. It's too much of a hassle - Maybe there will be fixes several months down the line, as of now, it's terrible and utterly horrible. Play WoW instead - And if you already play WoW, this game will serve as a reminder to how superior WoW is.

Well-Conceived Game - Crafting Is Superb

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 16
Date: May 24, 2007
Author: Amazon User

First, this game is well-designed, fun and challenging. What makes the game interesting is that the World is huge and there is lots to do and the leveling process does not require as much grinding as other games of this type.

Second, the crafting part of this game is awesome. There are numerous challenges - called work orders - that require lots of patience to complete. The crafter must use different tools and must deal with complications - things that go wrong - by using tools or, for example, reducing the heat of the forge. This is the best crafting game around now by far.

Third, the diplomacy part of the game is challenging and can be lots of fun if you spend time to learn how to do it. It involves playing cards against the computer - and anticipating the computer's next move. The rewards are quests not available to everyone else.

Fourth, the game seems to have lots of players at least on the shards that I play on.

Fifth, some of these reviewers seem to be reviewing beta versions of the game - the game has changed quite a bit since it was released.

Review Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next 

Actions