Lost Worlds
There are so many incredible sights in Vanguard. Zones that are majestic, beautiful, maybe even scary and terrifying. Lost because the zones are empty, no one venturing back into them.
My pick this week of the Lost World zone is Ca’ial Brael the capital city of elves and rakkis. What a majestic city in the trees.
The kid who buys the $25 flying mount and parks it directly on top of a rift: “Look at me! Look at me!” No one carries, Billie. And you are really only ticking people off who want to use the stone to go someplace. Buying something on the store doesn’t show the rest of us anything other than you are a dumbass.
The guy who plays 15 minutes of the game and then starts this long diatribe on how it isn’t as fun or good as World of Warcraft. Tommy, no one cares. You need to experience hours of game before making an opinion. Everyone knows that the game isn’t perfect, but often the rough cut jewel sparkles the most. There is a magic about the game and some snotty nosed xbox player isn’t going to see that in 15 minutes. Move on but don’t clog the chat channel with your worthless opinion.
The gamer who somehow thinks that his five year old $300 Dell laptop is going to play the game. And then whines and bitches on all the channels as to why his game his laggy and chuggs. The game was a stretch of technology six years ago, made only slightly better with today’s multicore processors and gigabytes of RAM. Realize this game is not for the half-hearted gamer, it really isn’t, so unless you have a decent computer look elsehwere. Please don’t play nor waste my time trying to figure out the magic settings that will make the game run on a piece of shit.
I am settling down into the game, on week two. It is now about organizing my two accounts and figuring out what each character needs and what their immediate goals are. This week I seemed to get mired down into a ton of little side quests that did little to add levels or potential, but truly added more capabilities to the group.
One of the big challenges for me this week was to get all of my crafters so they could use continental crafting. What I mean by this is that each continent in Vanguard has their own recipes: Thestra, Qalian, and Kojan. You can do a quest that opens up each continent’s recipes. I have four primary crafters, with three more that I have just started. This creates a huge time sink to get all of them to have continental recipes. This morning, I essentially finished my last quest and need to just hand it in.
At present I have 22nd leatherworker (Ratook), a 16th fabric workers (pidglet), a 19th weaponsmith (Okthank), a 16th Woodworker (Dagulas), and a 10th level armorsmith (Malthoria).
I also have been working on grinding some adventuring levels in the game. I have far too many characters, but that is how I like to play. Some players simply love to get one guy to maximum level and then be done with the game. For me, I like to slowly level 12 guys all sharing resources and combinations.
I have a 35th ranger (Ratook), a 36th necromancer (Pidglet), 18th level shaman Daarnash, 18th level cleric (Pumpkinpuss), 17th level sorcerer (Toddan), 16th level Bloodmage (Tarograss), 12th level paladin (Edaw), a 11th level psionicst (Darkmaze), a 8th level shaman Okthank, a 11th level monk (Malthoria), and 13th level cleric (Dagulas).
Next week I am going to look into joining a guild. Also on my plate is to find a house, although I am not economically set up yet to support a plot or even the structure which I have been told can be expensive over time.
I am looking to continue with a level in all my adventurers and crafters. Main goal for the weekend is to get enough harvests to make some decent gear for all my guys and to get a smattering of levels.
Now that I have returned to the game, it seems this time the crafting and adventuring is a bit more easier. Perhaps it is nothing more than I know what I am doing this time. In the old days everything was still too new and no one knew what to do, but now everything has been etched in stone for years and one can find anything on the game via the web.
I have a weaponsmith and a leatherworker to 20th level now, so I can finally start giving my guys weapons and gear that is better than anything found. I love that about the game: Crafted stuff in general is better than monster loot. Here is a few pictures showcasing what I made. The gear that is yellow is made by another one of my characters, sent via the mail system the new recipient is tickled pink with his new gains:
New gear made by my own guy!
More goodness from my toons!
I cannot explain my joy in having made this gear for my guys — it has taken years but I am finally reaping the benefits of my original voyages in the Vanguard world.
So this weekend I decided to take the next step in my ongoing plunge back into Vanguard. I went to http://www.vginterface.com/ and downloaded a new GUI interface. For those who may not know what that is, it is a custom Graphics Users Interface using tools supplied by the Sony that allow independent developers to create a specialized and many times better interface to the game.
In this case I downloaded a compilation mod called Tbird which offers among many enhancements, a new map, a new crafting design, and all new graphics for the basic attributes of the game.
VGinterface of Tbirds crafting screen
What joy I am having adventuring and crafting in Vanguard. I also have to tell you that I am back to dual boxing again and simply love it.
I have come full circle it seems today when I visited Tanvu on the Kojan continent. It was here that I remember spending most my days in the early years of Vanguard. It take me back to 2007 yet sadly I do not think many of my friends from back then are on any longer. I do not even remember their names, except for one or two and I know those people are gone because they were in my guild — I still belong but no one has logged in over more than four years.
Sad to see so much lost potential. I hope Sony spends some effort and money to try and push players back into the lost and forgotten zones. Perhaps it will never be more than a niche market little game, but even still I think they should be able to make a going at it.
At least I hope. . . .
I do not remember the last full week of game play that I had in Vanguard? But today marks the first full week back to playing the game in a long time. I am the type of player that doesn’t just “mess around” with a game. I either jump in with both feet or I just don’t play it. In the old days I had two accounts, those that followed me from Everquest I and Everquest II and hence they also made their way to Vanguard. I also toyed with the idea of playing for free, but it isn’t as if $30 a month kills me financially and I don’t like the feeling of missing out on stuff because of it — so I resubscribed.
I was a bit dismayed that Sony does not offer other ways to pay for the accounts. I would have liked to used Paypal but in the end just put it on a credit card. I was thinking of doing the 3 month plan for $30 but opted for the standard $14.99 a month. I would like to note that a reason for seeking other sorts of payment options was because I have often had problems using a credit card with Sony Online. A card that works flawlessly on Amazon will balk and fail on buying a subscription at Sony.
Originally I started playing almost immediately at launch, and according to the various websites, this would have made it probably around February or March of 2007. At the time I was listening to podcasts over at http://www.virginworlds.com with a weekly show by Brent Lassi. It was specifically Vanguard that made me want to make my own show and thus I created a Voyages of Vanguard. I played Vanguard furiously for at least 2 years, using my experiences as my commentary at Voyages of Vanguard. I had a great host named Karen that made shows with me back then, and she is now writing for many online MMO websites. By 2009 I had stopped playing and for 4 years I had nothing to do with the game.
One of the many detractors from Vanguard was the that I had friends playing other games. Vanguard is also a tough and unforgiving world and as time went by the writing was on the wall. It also seemed that Sony had given up on the game. There was great chaos it seemed over at Sony and Vanguard simply slipped through the cracks — and it was highly obvious.
Back last August the smartest thing Sony has done in years they made the game free to play. Although that sort of model does not fit well for me, and nor have I ever truly supported this model, it made perfect sense for Vanguard. They also made some very intelligent moves in making the game liberal with what you got for free — so much so that it is my opinion more players are using Sony Cash to buy ingame items. My verdict is out still on some items you can purchase as it circumvents crafting and questing, something that seems wrong. Time will tell, but I hope they do not fall victim to the idea of placing all highly sought after items in the game as something you can just buy.
I am having a great reunion with the game. My friends and I are back to playing it. They are playing for free and love it. I am paying for two subscriptions and having a blast too. I am doing both adventuring and crafting, but perhaps will venture into diplomacy sometime too — but that seems as daunting as crafting. I have made up so many new characters it is ridiculous. Each class plays differently and they all seem so fun to play. A ton of adventuring quests keep me busy at night with friends. And trying to level in crafting on the odd times is both exhilarating but exhausting.
Many troubling aspects are still in the game. They lag and the chunking are as bad as ever, but now at least we all have computers with so much more horsepower that it is less noticeable. I tend to fall through the earth at least once a week and die horribly or get snagged on some simple rock and spend 5 minutes figuring out why I can move. Many quests are broken and some character classes seem far more powerful than others.
Overall though I enjoy my return and tell others that it is worth downloading and playing — Hey! It’s free so how can you go wrong and my friends can attest you really, really don’t need to buy anything to have a blast in the game.
I am even thinking of returning to Podcasting. I am waiting a month or two but would love to hear from others on if they would be interesting into listening to my show again.
I recently returned to playing Vanguard after more than 5 years away from the game. One of the major reasons I came back was the liberal Free to Play aspects of the game, but ironically I upped my subscription to both of my accounts already. Nice thing about this is that at any time, I can go back to a relatively painless free month of the game.
One of the main goals that I decided when returning to the game is that I wanted to truly try to become a crafter in the game. Last time I played, I barely got a guy to 15th level before getting so frustrated and tired of the game and just quit.
This time I have started several characters on crafting, covering all my bases. I have already got two to 15th level and another one to nearly 20th. I am still having a hellish time at it, with so much frustration that many nights i just scream and quit the games.
I like the challenge of it, but think the mechanics are too unforgiving and just cruel. Essentially you get 2000 points to build something, each action costing anywhere between 50 and 100 points. Each action gives some quality to the object and some progression of finishing it. This makes it exciting, but adding to this mix is what is called Complications — failures of your crafting that can randomly occur at any stage, any number of times. Thus, no matter how hard you plan your creation can be destroyed at the last few hundred points because of random complications.
This just seems wrong. You tend to always run out of points on a A+ quality item or end up with hundreds of points on a crappy C quality item. There is simply no way to plan for complications, even worse often you cannot prevent or correct them because it requires a tool or ingredient that you do not have access to. I have been in situations where I have 1000 points left with only 250 points needing to complete an object and still fail because of complications.
My advice is to reduce complications by 20 to 30 percent. I can see why so many people start to craft and then give up around level 10. Something needs to be done.
I have been recently told that many recipes are now worthless because they have not been updated in years and random treasure is often better than crafted gear — that is a big mistake as well and needs to be corrected over the coming months.
Last couple of weeks I have returned to Vanguard: Saga of Heroes and with that I have been getting involved with good old fashion pick up groups. Of course with that, you tend to see a stereotypical pattern of players. Here is my imaginary, yet so real, pick up group player makeup.
Terry, a twenty-eight year old guy, living in his grandma’s basement, out-of-work, and lives and breathes the game. He has eighteen alts, all the crafting classes covered, the best gear, and you always find him as a guild leader or group leader. Strangely, he is so highly organized and knowledgeable you ask yourself why he is living in the basement, without a girlfriend, and no job?
Jeff Jefferson, who plays an Ogre mage aptly named JeffJefferson. This kid is twelve-years old, and his mom has found that the recent MMO is a cheap and proficient babysitter. While mom is off getting some at the bar, the group is getting their fill of Jeff who constantly begs for money, equipment, and cheats. He is of the age and mentality that he thinks there are special power-ups and moves in the game — what little he reads, he still trying to get that special power to unlock by moving North, North, Jump, West, Duck, North, North?
Wanda, a forty-five year old, divorced over weight mom of six, who has no apparent income and often complains her kids have no shoes, socks, or pants, yet she is playing twenty-four — seven on the game with a rig that would make Jeff Gordon blush. She is a whiz at statistics, spells, and skills yet she tells you she can’t find a job. The only thing that grates you more than her stories, is that she calls you “Hun” all the time — belittling you down to one of her six mangy kids.
Mike, the thirty six year old bachelor, who is tanked by 5 PM on three cases of beers — and for the love of god don’t ask him which beer is better, or you better close the chat channel. Mike is introverted and without girlfriends; yet all his characters are scantily clad females with names like LargeTitus InYourFace. After you comment on his deplorable name, he keeps telling you, “Get it!!?!! its Large tit s in your face, get it? Get it??”. after about a minute of you shaking your head sadly, he says: “Get it!!?!! its Large tit s in your face, get it? Get it??”. Ya, Mike I get it!!!
Brad Jockitch, the over-the-hill-muscle-bound-boob, that recalls his glory days when all the world bent over backwards for him, how the chicks dug him, his boss glorified him, and his family put him on a pedestal of pure ivory. Now Brad is sunk to poppin’ oxycotin every fifteen minutes, half of the time AFK while he is off using the “bio-break” or getting himself another whole-wheat tuna sandwich. “I was one-tenth of a second away from making the Olympic Shot Put team!!” ahhhhh Brad, shot put isn’t measure in time? …………… Long tenable silence, “Did I say Shot Put ((gurgle)) ((gurgle)) I meant Lacrosse, sorry I have sixteen various kinds of painkillers in my system.
Tina, To-Hot-Handle, Torres. Oh ya baby, I often get Tina in my group, ya baby!! Twenty-two, hot, and sexy….willing to talk the talk, and walk the walk….go to her website and she is dripping all over the site in hot and sexy poses. She is willing to find backwaters of any world and seek out the promiscuous in all and all a good night. The strange thing is, is that she has a horribly sounding voice — something between a buzz saw and a pig being strangled to death? Ahh, Tina, lets not do Teamspeak…..
And finally, Svenoluntski Horg’ufanslengorthoria, some swedish multi-millionaire who could pay me more money than I can dream of, to dance naked in Time Square …. could even make Bill Gates blush with envy, yet he is more concerned with playing with a bunch of fat American tools in a dungeon called Chaotic Chamber of Scintillating Hellfire. He types perfect grammatical English, yet can barely chirp a word in English — everything he says sounds like he is asking for another scoop of Hagen Das Ice Cream — Sorry, Sven, I don’t have any Strawberry Ripple HagenDas!!
Ahh yes, my fantastic a typical MMO group. The problem is, you ask, is where do I fit in that list of characters? Well, mull that over while I pop another 1995 Bush Lite (excellent year for American beer), I walk my sixteen dogs, papoose four of my troll looking kids on my back, pop a few painkillers, order my next $8000 dollar Dell, while filling out my government cheese request, and talking to my rabbi why I can’t find the perfect man — man, did I say man, I meant woman, yah, that’s it woman — darn those meds….
Disclaimer: All names are pure concoctions, its their personalities that are real: believe it or not.
Josh, Fizzlegiggle Tizzletops, the emoter, thirty-something guy who plays the off-the-wall classes, that no one else wants to play, but often critical to group mechanics. Josh is the player who just loves using his emotes at the end of every battle and chest drop. He plays the dancers, the cook, cabin boy, the grease fitter, or seamstress. Josh spends more time researching and implementing the craziest emotes one could imagine – his gear and skills are all underpowered but man he can shake his ass and do head stands until the dragons come home.
Greg, the Griefer, Henderson — a guy who has been stepped on all his life and finds nothing more pleasurable than to grief all groups of players. This sadistic fiend will sneak his 100th level assassin into a newbie zone and constantly challenge new players to duels – often under the cloak of some role-playing flag. He finds great pleasure in training hordes of mobs onto unsuspecting groups; and his favorite tactic is finding items with nearly identical names of rare finds, then rob unsuspecting shoppers with such audacious gimmicks. He has the best the world can offer, but all gained through nefarious exploits. He lives in a shadowed world awry with his own logic and twisted view of reality – never understanding why he can’t find acceptance among his fellow gamers.
Gary, the Righteous-Ninja-Looting-Paladin. He is the guy, who if you are unlucky enough to group with, will ninja loot every single drop in the game and explain that he as use for the item on one of his many alternate characters. Gary invariably plays righteous, noble, and moralistic classes like paladins, clerics, jedi, or knights – yet will rob you blind and screw you out of every single copper coin he can get his mealy hands on. Gary will whine and waffle on about how he never gets anything good, yet when you examine him he has legendary and epic gear that you only dream off – his response is that is that he has friends that have gear that makes his look like newbie crap.
Mitch the Malcontent, a forty-five year old family man with wife and kids, a great job, and rosy income yet everything sucks: the game sucks, the company sucks, the world sucks, just everything sucks. No matter how good the experience is, it sucks….no matter what kind of loot is found, that sucks too. Talk of where the game is heading and how the development of new expansions ends with Mitch forcasting its demise, and that sucks as well. Mitch just brings everyone down with his low balling stories of getting screwed, and how in the end, the Man is just grubbin’ you into the ground.
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