Vanguard free-to-play relaunch this month
With the huge number of free-to-play MMORPGs hanging around nowadays, loitering in shopping centres and being mouthy to security guards, one could play nothing but their typically-decent starting levels and still not run out of games. Add Vanguard to that list, from August 14.
With the huge number of free-to-play MMORPGs hanging around nowadays, loitering in shopping centres and being mouthy to security guards, one could play nothing but their typically-better starting levels and still not run out of games. If you're speeding through them, though, fear not, as SOE has dated the free-to-play relaunch of Vanguard: Saga of Heroes for Tuesday, August 14.
"Over the past couple of months, we have been working hard to improve the game in order to prepare for the influx of new and returning players," Vanguard community relations manager, ahem, 'Zatozia the Torturess' said in the announcement.
As is customary for Sony Online Entertainment's F2P offerings, there are optional subscriptions--but only one tier this time. Free players face certain restrictions which you can get past by paying the old fee of $15 per month or coughing up microtransaction money.
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replyAlice O'Connor posted a new article, Vanguard free-to-play relaunch this month.
With the huge number of free-to-play MMORPGs hanging around nowadays, loitering in shopping centres and being mouthy to security guards, one could play nothing but their typically-decent starting levels and still not run out of games. Add Vanguard to that list, from August 14.-
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From wikipedia: Gamespy awarded Vanguard the "Biggest Disappointment" award for 2007. Vanguard also won the awards in the categories for "Least Fun", "Most Desolate" and "Lamest Launch" in the MMORPG.com MMOWTF Awards for the worst games of 2007.
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True, but it was also *recently* voted #3 on the best MMO's on the same exact site.
http://forums.station.sony.com/vg/posts/list.m?topic_id=57917&post_id=694434-
I think the fact that it's still going 5 years after those dubious awards is some testament to it's playability.
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I remember some buddies of mine going on and on about how Vanguard was going to be the best MMO ever. I listened to one of them explained how there was like seven gameplay systems involved in wiping your ass or whatever.
Thing is, I think what these guys were getting at is that Vanguard was the ultra hardcore MMO they wanted. I can't remember, maybe it had some of the original EQ people on it. When WoW showed that there were multiple millions of people willing to pay to play an MMO, the EQ's of the world jumped on the "let's make it mainstream friendly!" bandwagon, and "dumbed down" their games to make them more palatable to the masses. Vanguard was the direct opposite of that approach.
And so maybe what happened is that Vanguard was able to retain enough paying players to stay afloat, but it never really got much bigger. Their decision to focus on a particular niche probably both confined them to a small audience, as well as endearing themselves to that audience. I guess so long as it's profitable and there's no big impetus to expand that this might be able to continue on. But if they're hoping to expand the base with F2P then they might have some targets in mind and that might be a problem.
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It's a great MMO for those who like the old school eq'ish type of game. I'm looking forward to it, personally.
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Also, this "Removed Class Restrictions: We removed the class restrictions for all races. You can now create that special combination of character that you dreamed about making!"
Hell. Yes. -
Most of my old Quake buddies became EQ junkies back in the day, and like most EQ junkies bitched about how modern MMO's were lacking in comparison (for all their stupid EQ junkie reasons). Then Vanguard came out and even those guys thought the whole game sucked, I don't think any of them got over level 30. So based on this, I really don't believe that this is a great MMO for those who like the old school eq'ish type of game. I think that was just marketing hype.
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I'm actually curious to try this just to see Brad McQuaid's vision for a more current gen EverQuest experience. I know the game is plagued with a lot of problems but being a huge EQ fan, it'd be neat to check this out since it's free just to roam the world a bit and give it an afternoon's worth of play.
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I personally think EQ has aged better then vanguard has.
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Thing is it's not current gen anymore. It feels dated :\
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Uh no. WoW is the current generation of My Little Ponies.
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Please, WoW has always been and forever will be easy mode.
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I remember at max level as a barbarian in EQ I had to sit on the ground real time for about 30 minutes to fully recover my health.
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WoW doesn't even have any zone based hunting. In EQ another group could accidentally wipe yours out by screwing up a pull. Danger lurked at every corner. If you died in the middle of a dungeon it was hell getting your stuff back and it was a stiff penalty if you let your corpse rot.
I don't miss the long waits between battles, the overcrowded zones or the fact that it rewarded players who spent days at a time camping items. Made it almost impossible to get loot. I do miss the overall sense of danger the game had. Vanguard seemed to have some of that but they never got a chance to finish it.-
Yea, unfortunately the parts I loved and remember so fondly are also the parts that the time-limited me of now would RAAAGE at. Trains to zone, inability to play effectively without a full group, the overall slow pace (leveling, healing, medding, killing, travel, recovery after death), the harsh death penalty (which they've largely negated even now)...great for nostalgia, horrible for fun. :(
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This is the only MMO I got excited about since the original EQ. It had a ton of potential but the game was released in an almost Alpha state. Tons of quests available but not complete, bugs like crazy, missing areas, etc. Killed off the community in a couple of weeks.
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Tera?
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From what I understand, Tera has a system where you can use real currency to purchase a month's worth of game time as an in-game item and sell it on the auction house as a commodity. These are sold cheaply enough that a max-level player can farm up enough gold relatively quickly (requires around three hours a month) and thus never have to spend any of their own cash to maintain a subscription.
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more information here: http://tera.enmasse.com/chronoscrolls-faq
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me too, sadly I won't touch it until it is. I've about had enough of these $15 monthly MMORPGs.
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RIFTcc
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TSW will be f2p by 1st quarter 2013 is my bet.
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AO has a FTP element for Rubi-Ka, but Shadowlands etc. are still subscription based last time I had heard about it.
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I can't believe that game was still around..i thought it died a long time ago.
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