Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Vanguard SoH- F2P Draws Closer

When..oh.. when are those June loyalty rewards coming to Vanguard. I want a house! I'm a lowbie, I'm poor and I'm pretty damn happy to gain a house for being loyal by subscribing. Until then I'm racking up on crates (May rewards) which I will open once I am higher level and can afford one gold per box. I have a lot of them across three characters. Some of them might contain raid lewts!

If you read the forums you'll see a lot of complaining over raid loot being handed out in boxes (they are no trade), or boats... or houses... or whatever being handed out. Honestly, the population is so small that there are not massive amounts of these items being handed out, there could be but the population is so small. By the time free to play rolls out these will be gone and you can just buy them in the cash shop (lol, I jest).

I don't see F2P reviving this game without some sorts of changes. Sure, it is a great game but it really isn't getting any younger, the competition is tough this summer when F2P is to be released. This game needs to build on what it has without hurting it's niche all the while appealing to new players. The game  has been neglected to a point and it is down to two servers (US/EU), it really needs a revival. The game has been on life support for a while now and I think it really needs a push in the right direction.

In preperation for free to play the dev team has been working hard on revamping some starter areas and I'm so glad to see this. These areas REALLY needed to be tuned a bit. Some of the classes can be brutal to start off and this could really be a turn off to new players. No, we don't want watered down content but we want people to ENJOY their time in the wold, right? Or maybe not, maybe we would prefer it to continue to stagnate and go back onto life support? Eh, not me.

Last night I was talking to Dire about the game, it's the only MMO I play regularly these days. He doesn't understand why I am so drawn to Vanguard. Maybe it is because it is fresh to me, it reminds me of EverQuest, it's a gorgeous and massive world, maybe it's the classes I enjoy. I can't say exactly why. Housing, appearance tabs, questing, quest tracking- All of these are a strong pull for me but plenty of games offer this stuff.

I suppose the weirdest thing is nostalgia. Well, it reminds me of two times that I enjoyed in my MMO history. First being EverQuest, my glory days- Which were not so glorious honestly, as far as gear and items go. I was always broke, I was always busting my behind in that game, but the people, the great times made the game... THAT WAS EPIC. Not the gear, the flipping memories and friends and the good times, hell even the bad times! Then it reminds me of classic WoW. A bit more laid back but still having a bit of a challenge. Still room for friends and good times. But less time consuming. Time is not a commodity I can spare as much as I could... It never was really. I spent too much time playing (EQ) and since then I've grown up a lot. I still LOVE to play but I have to be a grown up about it. I still want to feel like I get things done and have fun, VG is good about this. Thus far at least.

So, just some thoughts that have been brewing as I look over the sluggish forums. I do hope F2P helps this game get back into shape, draws in new people but players will have to bend and accept changes if they want to see this game flourish and pull off the life support status. I do what I can to try to promote this game on my own site because I truly have such a love for it. It does still have a lot of bugs, it is considered old (though younger than WoW and EQ2), it still has a death penalty, but it's still good. I truly want to see this game as a real contender for players.

On a lighter note, Dire decided to pop back in with Station Access. I don't know if the game will hook him, so far it hasn't. He is just all about D3, which I have pretty much quit playing- Good game but not feeling like playing it- But yeah, he's playing a little with me on the side. He's really tired these days and short on time, that is a big part of it.

I hope to drawn him in and get him playing it with me as a main game but I just don't know if that is going to happen. I'm glad he gave it another try. We've run the dungeon outside Veksal's Exchange and a bunch of quests, we're only a smidgen away from 13. Here's to hoping that he sees it through my perspective one day. He's still talking about EQ, so I might be picking that up a little on the side with him. We'll see. I miss us having a game we play together.

Safe adventures!


  1. I don't think F2P will bring in the hordes for Vanguard either, but it's bound to bring in somebody! I'd love to have another good run at Vanguard but I fear the competition from The Secret World, City of Steam alpha and GW2 Beta Weekends and eventual launch isn't going to leave much time.

    Is it still one house per account, I wonder? I already have a house, albeit in escrow. That one is tradeable, though, so if the Vet Reward one turns out to be No Trade I can keep that and move the other to one of my F2P accounts when the time comes. Same with my sloops, come to think of it, now everyone on the SA account has a Brown sloop too.

    1. They haven't said anything about the housing limit going up. On the forums today it was posted that we'll get a tier 3 house for lvl 20+ characters, this Friday.

      Oh, I think F2P will indeed bring in new players I just sort of get tired of reading on the forums how changes will water the game down and son on, just a bit of vent I suppose. I'm all for bringing in new blood to this game and I hope F2P is a great success and embrace changes that help.

  2. AnonymousJune 06, 2012

    Hmm, looks like I need to get a move on leveling my characters! My highest is only 10 and I'll want to grab a house while I can!

    Great post by the way. I can't explain why I'm so drawn to Vanguard either, I really love the game - I never played Everquest (1) so I have no nostalgia for that particular bygone era of gaming. I guess I do miss old-school WoW though so it might be that.

    Also regarding the griping on the forums, I've seen this before twice. Both with the DDO free to play conversion and then subsequently LoTRO's there was a significant and vehement opposition from the 'old-guard'. They seemed to not want anyone to know about their 'semi-private little game'. Vanguard desperately needs many more players, I get that hordes of 'lolkids' might spoil the mature and helpful atmosphere, but they're unlikely to stay in the game given it is pretty challenging.

    I hope the conversion does bring in plenty of new blood.

    1. Thanks! I see the same people complaining about this and that and I sometimes wonder why they still play because they seem to complain about every direction the game goes. I think we'll have to do a bit of bending with F2P but I think it will be worth it to help the game and community grow!

      GL on getting your levels for the house, it'll be worth it!