Hi all, I've tried to get into Vanguard a number of times; firstly on release (that didn't work well...), then maybe 3+ years ago (played it for a couple of weeks but was sent away for work and never got back into it), and recently a few weeks ago on the Isle of Dawn. Unfortunately I've lost my account details for the first two so am using this new account (which is a shame as that was my main EQ1 and EQ2 account ) So yeah, I'm thinking of trying out again since the F2P model seems fairly open and non-restrictive. My last attempt to get into the game didn't go so well, more or less I found the IoD to be boring and (unimaginative) quest heavy. Everyone on there was doing their own thing, not talking and to be honest it feel as isolated and lonely as some of the newer MMOs these days. Some of the posts here suggest that the IoD isn't the best place to start, what do you all think? How long does it go for (level wise)? My other concern is whether there are other Australian players online and/or how the population is as peak Australian time (which is obviously offpeak US time). What else.. hmm... I think I'll probably roll a bard again, I love the bard; so versatile. Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
The Isle is kind of a 10 level tutorial. Original starter areas are nifty, but the game has been modified to cram you into three generic ones which offer the same adventuring gear you'd get from IoD. There is a noteworthy presence from down under. On my last character, I started it in Tursh, you just need a tiny amount of coin and can pretty safely hike over to Three Rivers and rift away, I then went through Cai'al Brael so I did not get the Bracelet of Lucky Charms but haven't really missed it in the slightest; just have always liked Kojan starting areas and had not tried that one. I can't really advise anyone doing it that way, just pointing out the possibility. Bards are great fun and once you get some songs going, are generally welcome to any group, they can even use two with one boosting damage and the other doing protection. I guess my suggestion would be to prepare to do some soloing, don't get group anxiety; it may be dry sometimes or you might get in a bad mix, but with a little perseverance there's some smashing good fun to be had.
Thanks Amnath for the reply. I'm willing to hang in there and give it a shot. To be honest, the most recent crop of MMOs just don't do it for me. Probably like my others here I'm pinning hopes on EQN, but in the meanwhile, I'm more than happy to give Vanguard another shot and hope to find what everyone else has who loves it
I always recommend isle of dawn as a start point for your first character because of the condensed environment for all gaming spheres. Get a feel for the game, and then start toons in the other areas. welcome back
Have you tried contacting CS to see if you can recover your old account? Those guys sometimes work miracles.
Apaelias said it. Some guildies of mine have joined their open runs off and on for quite some time and give the impression they're quite a decent bunch. I haven't even considered any "game shopping" since coming here, as for the EQN thing I really have no opinion, suppose it will be a newer design but usually anything that's really big, I wouldn't fit into anyway. Perfection would be a de-bugged Vanguard with steady release of new content, but I can probably live with minorly problematic VG and the eventuality of Cavern of Wonders and stuff like that.
Ohh, many replies I'll stick with Isle of Dawn for this first character (a lot of things are coming back to me though). I actually saw the Reverence thread over at the guild section and I think I even recall them from my earlier ventures into Vanguard. In regards to my old account, I'm fairly certain it was associated with an ISP related email that I no longer have access to. It is a shame but no big loss on the scheme of things. I've always been a fan of old school MMOs. I simply adored the original Everquest and played on <redacted> for a bit but the community there isn't exactly the best (plus the numbers are really low during Australian times). I was a fan of DAoC and even dabbled in some user made MMO style Neverwinter Nights modules. I've floated about other MMOs (never played WoW nor do I have any interest to) but never really found anything that captured that spirit, fun and community that older MMOs had. Not saying that Vanguard is an old MMO but it and the community seems far more mature and helpful. I want that feeling of earning my place, where advancement and rewards aren't handed on a platter and people love to group together. Thanks everyone for your replies. I really hope I stick around this time - Please don't mention that here. Thanks. - Piestro
Well, decent replies are often responded in kind. Especially from me right now as I have too much time on my hands. It's a matter of perspective, and to some, a 2007 game has a "dated look", but for some of us here who may have started with the first home video console (Magnavox tennis thing), a notch down from photo realism doesn't seem so bad. You have work here from a creator of Everquest and one of the original Dungeons and Dragons artists. It's designed for ages 18 and up, not 13, and definitely not 8--nothing averse towards children, just that it's more of a chess mentality than tic tac toe. That being said, due to the necessities of commerce, we've received many options to shortcut the earnings process. You can get powerful experience potions and level 1 flying mounts. If you want to work, don't be hesitant to use the "turn off xp gain buff" and do the griffon quest. Don't expect to see it all on one character either. I'll say that there is a "main path" which there are almost always groups doing and perhaps it's best to follow this on a first character, but there are alternatives which are also worth doing but quite a bit harder to get the interest for. Essentially you can gauge your own difficulty level; I'm not exaggerating when I say it's physically possible to reach 55 in about two weeks, but if you want to let it take two years, that's also fine. On f2p you get a generous amount of access but eventually you'll most likely want to buy a few item unlocker potions. Sometimes I think that when attempting some of the Vanguard procedures, it was intended to be irritating and frustrating, definitely succeeds at it and makes you want to grind your teeth out--then when you relax and it's just a game, you're addicted and brush it off and keep going. I love that. Never found much else that could pull it off as well.
Thank you once again Amnath. I live a 'normal' life I guess, work lately has been quiet but that will change soon. I won't lie; Vanguard does have an odd visual look, it's not really to my tastes but it is by no means horrible. Strangely enough, I prefer the original EQ1 models to most things these days, at least they had character! I'm in no rush to reach anywhere or within any time, I just want to experience something new, different and old (if that makes sense). I would imagine my first character would follow 'the main path' but I definitely don't mind adventuring out in the wilderness, even if it is with just one other like minded adventurer. That was the beauty of these games; a huge world with areas hidden away in corners where you never know you may find someone. To be honest, I miss games (and the time) where people would get to know each other and enjoy the journey rather than being focused on getting the next quest or reaching the next level. Hopefully I'll be able to jump on tonight, I planned to do so last night but that didn't go to plan.
The Isle of Dawn is a great place for new players to learn how to play the game. It has a little bit of everything! It is also a good place for returning players to remember how to play! As you learn the game, you can then go outside of the comfort of the area.
Here's a strange question; I remember Vanguard having different character models back in the day. Is there a way to use these? The reason I ask is because I find some of the models (mainly the human-type ones) to have this... doll like look to them. It seriously freaks me out (as I have a some what irrational fear of dolls). I'm going to have to reroll my bard to one of the wolf models Piestro; No problems, sorry about putting it there! Oh, I'm Venexia over at the EQN reddit. That was/is the name of my character here on Vanguard that I'm having difficulties deleting
Character details were turned down in order to increase performance. You can still customize although to do so, you have to purchase "shave and a haircut" from a general vendor, you have to use this and log out then customization works. Cruising around looking definitely works, I recently discovered something decent that no one ever told me about and I don't think anyone cares about, even though it's really good, I may keep it a secret. I have no lowbies any more but I have a couple of warriors to keep xp locked in the 30s and 40s to occasionally support efforts in those ranges. Do you mean Vulmane? Amnath is a Vulmane, the lore tells me that I occasionally eat elves--have become kill on sight in Leth Nurae and so I keep holding out the notion of going to destroy a good bit of it. It's a totally pointless waste of time but I think it would be different and fun. If you bother to do the actual Vulmane starting quests, they're sorta neat and you wind up with a lil' spirit wolf pet. Although I think the area might be tough to reach under the current starter system.
Does that "shave and a haircut" address that... doll look? Or is it simply another go through the character customisation that you are given when creating a new character? And yeah, Vulmane, I love dogs so going wolf is the closest thing to it
To an extent. On my non-Vulmanes it seemed like they took away one of the mouth sliders and you can't not have a puffy mouth any more; you can change the features a good bit and usually do grey or yellow eyes or something, so if the contour/width/depth type stuff is what looks too dollish to you, then yes you could nix it, but at best they're still going to look like a customized Vanguard character. Most people in the interface menu hide helm, hood and sometimes cloak--there actually are not very many decent looking helms, but you also have an appearance tab which allows you to select the six or so articles of clothing that are displayed and replace them with something more to your liking. I always thought it was odd that a "mask" has no appearance whatsoever, but they don't. By using those options, all toons that I have are visually identifiable, whereas if you just took the default stuff, you're kind of hard to see at all. By picking Vulmane, you'll have the option to start in IoD or Tursh; Tursh is easy to escape from, but Dahknarg (Vulmane home) is not easy to enter; going to be back in about 30 minutes if you would be interested in making that trek, difference being, Tursh will give you the IoD gear set and IoD of course the full tutorial.
Thanks Amnath. I know it sounds silly, but I was looking at my bard and seriously had shivers going down my spine. (Comes from visiting relatives when I was younger; once particular relative had this collection of life size porcelain dolls, all dressed up and sitting on chairs, couches, etc. Their eyes would follow you everywhere...) I'm still at work, so alas, won't be on for a few more hours at least.
Sheesh...the luxuries of being able to do anything non-work related from work. Much as I would probably enjoy porcelain dolls, clowns, Guy Fawkes masks and the picture of Dorian Grey, I can understand about it. I wanted to roll a Raki as well, but when I found they were stuck at being two inches tall, I couldn't keep it. Going to throw this out for general information, I don't pressure anyone into anything but presenting facts in order for people to make their own choice. Anyone could catch up Vulmane starter stuff from a higher level, but, if someone wanted to get it as early as possible, here's what would happen. The game would start you in Tursh and you would need a small amount of coin, someone might donate, if not you may have to play a few levels anyway. From Tursh you would follow roads south towards Three Rivers and then use the rift there--that part's fairly safe, it's on a dirt path just south of town. It costs 4 silver to rift to Veskal's Exchange and then you rent a griffon (right beside the rift) for 25 copper then heading towards Dahknarg. Rental mounts are awkward--on the mounts tab, ground mounts go in the head slot, but flyers at the feet, you have to drop the mount item into the foot slot then right click it. Once you mount and start moving, tap space bar twice to launch, then page up to elevate, page down to descend. When you cross "chunk" lines there are some potential flying bugs--godwalk, which makes you walk in air indefinitely, or a complete dismount, possibly with no parachute and you go splat. Prior to level 11 there's no tombstone to recover. Rental ordinarily lasts 5 minutes which gets you quite close to Dahknarg, the newbie quests are in little outposts slightly to the west of the city and you should be able to achieve this area. I don't think I can legally say how to make it more than 5 minutes, but that should be long enough for the particular trip; those flight bugs are uncommon for most people but they do happen. In all cases, even if you start your adventuring elsewhere, starting diplomacy in your racial city also gives a good taste of lore. Each spot also has a "faction registrar" person, who gives a necklace allowing you to collect specialized coins. These coins allow you to purchase level 45ish mounts and armor. The difference is mostly cosmetic, Vulmane surprisingly offers a wolf mount, they are all different. You can fight for any city you choose. All offer a pegasus. No one does it much any more, but you can actually obtain the pegasus at a low level. The stuff uses platinum coins that drop from bosses whose names are entirely capitalized. Mostly these are deep in dungeons, but there are some in the 10s and 20s not hard to get to that respawn quickly. In order to do it, you have to turn off xp and farm them out for a good week or so, which always seemed mind numbingly repetitive to me, but that gives you a flyer earned by your own effort. None of those coins are cash, they are just tokens that only work with that city's mounts and armor vendors. You can't see the real armor until you have the faction to purchase it. This faction will correspondingly increase in some places and decrease others, which is why I am kill on sight in Leth Nurae. If you get frustrated looking for the mailbox or a particular vendor, city guards can be asked for directions and they will spot your map.
Funny enough, I'm a software tester. I would've been going to Vegas during the time SOE Live is on but work decided they couldn't spare me. Bugger! My work is pretty cool though, as long as the work gets done they don't mind what I do online (as long as it's safe for work and nothing illegal or silly). Yeah, dolls, clowns... I can't do them well. I guess that's why they are irrational fears and not rational fears I seem to remember Three Rivers from many many many years ago. Something about spiders? That said, I guess spiders are around everywhere in these types of games. Lucky I don't have an irrational fear of them! I'll try to finish IoD first (after rerolling) seeing that I probably won't be going back or doing it again (I'll much rather start off on the mainland). Thank you for your post as well, a lot of good information in there, especially about the coins and mounts, as I didn't know.
Haha, gaming may be a little silly, but it's not quite illegal, just that it is easy to violate some of the terms and they are pretty serious about watching for that and enforcing it--except for the area of character names, which aren't supposed to be absurd or pull from any media or game names, and I've seen a fair few that were that way. There's at least sixteen versions of spiders, but I can't think of a clown type foe, a good thread would be some suggestions for types of monsters that haven't been included. In certain spots we can fight books, but there's probably quite a few things that haven't showed up yet. Yes, trying to spew out stuff that I had no clue about on my first character...even with the three separate spheres, the game will tell you that you don't have to do them all, which is true...you could just skip adventuring and do crafting, and crafting levels will unlock higher rifts. But most people will do adventuring and skip the rest, however, both diplo and crafting can make your adventuring life easier at higher levels. No one told me that. But they come together, sort of. Not sure how you can reroll onto the Isle and start on the mainland. Most original starter areas include a solo dungeon or unique event that's pretty interesting; you're required to do a dungeon to finish Isle that may be a bit much to solo, so on the one hand it's kinda cool that you can find some help and beat it, on the other hand, at that point, if no one else is around, there would literally be nothing else to do. The Tursh one was different in that the quest line is like a solo path through a bigger dungeon that's groupish. Oh, and I am not sure specifically about a Vulmane bard. Although it is true that all races can become all classes now, if you start f2p you would have to buy unlockers for some races and/or classes past level 20. If you tried to do a weird combo in its racial starting area, they might not have that kind of trainer. Generic trainers are up in the generic starting places so it wouldn't matter.
