I'll be fair, i've tried vangard several times, Well more then several times, It's just not interesting to me. It's probably not very interesting to a lot of people, and thier (Vanguard's Team) performance adjustments that they've made dosn't readily appear to effect my computer which still runs vanguard like a sluggish overfed walrus.

I'll stick to Eq2 for now, And give V. the undecorated uninstall from my system. You would figure a game that takes over 20 gigs of hard drive space, would be far more appealing.

If any one person asked me why i didn't like vanguard - It's not fun for me, From the get go (Though i do admit, Character creation is probably it's best feature) The game runs slowly, There's no excitiment from level 1 - Which immediatly feels like your grinding towards level 2. The quest format itself is uninspired (And hard to read, for those of us who need thick glasses) and basically is a form of go kill this, Go fetch that, go herd this.. etc). You could say that i'd have to get into the 20's to really enjoy the game - Well any game that requires me to play for 4 weeks to get to 20 to enjoy it, Dosn't deserve to be played. I've much better uses for my time then to suffer through something that might get better..

One note for those who are thinking of suffering thier way through the game - I don't know if this applies to everyone, however there is a shiny free bag available to players - a 70 slot crafting bag, a 50 slot diplomacy bag and a 36 slot adventure bag. I didn't partake in the bags, Since i figured i wouldn't be back.
Thats it.
-B-

Well, if you read my last blog, you'll know how frustrated I was with the level 11 Leatherworker quest. That frustration hasn't really gone away. I ended up having to buy refined cotton and leather from a higher level outfitter in order to complete the quests. Apparently at some point the quest was changed to requiring leather bundles and cotton bales, but the special recipe for refining wasn't. I can only assume that it is a bug, but the GM who responded to my petition said they could neither confirm or deny a bug, and couldn't help me. I've decided I don't like playing "big games" where the GM's treat customers like a gathering of pixels. I like smaller games where I'm a real person behind the pixels, a customer who deserves honesty, respect, and to be listened to.

So after finishing that, I went on to try to go back to doing work orders to level. Complications have ruined that for me right now, though. It's just too frustrating to feel that I'm not in control. I need to do more reading on how to distribute points, what I should look for in equipment, stuff like that. This game is very much NOT cut and dry when it comes to crafting. And while I'm not a min/maxer, and never have been, I can tell that in order to advance without getting mad at the game, I'm going to have to do that to some extent.

So I went back to adventuring. I love my Disciple as an adventuring class. We're (my husband and I that is) still able to find a steady stream of quests to do, and our leveling rate continues to seem reasonable. The only problem with adventuring is that they somehow seem to only have "half done" loot tables. The big money really is in crafting. Adventuring just doesn't bring in enough to even keep up with armor and weapons, and repairs there of, much less give you extra for buying a plot. Everyone I know who has a plot is a crafter of some sort. An imbalanced economy can kill a game as fast as anything, and I'm afraid at this point that it might already be too late. The only saving grace will be that if the developers can do a loot table pass and raise coin drops for adventuring, as well as armor drops. This will take some of the reliance on crafters for gear off the adventurer's head for a while, and let things even out.

It's still early, I realize. But there are some big things wrong with the game that I would have hoped had been fixed in the multi-year development and beta testing rather than in release. There will always be problems in the first months after release, and there will absolutly always be bugs in the game. No way around it. But imbalances in the economy that seperate "crafter" from "no crafter" as deeply as these to, and serious bugs with the crafting system, seem to be things that are going to end up breaking the game for me. Going to keep plugging away, though, and hope for a patch...soon.

In the region of Tursh I'm accepting every quest offered in hopes to familiarize myself with the area. Upon waking I discovered that I had learned Crucible of Words and One Fell Swoop by osmosis. I'm ecstatic that I managed to learn something with no effort expended. There were some unfamiliar icons near my status bar. I right clicked them in hopes of more information. They disappeared. It would seem right clicking buff icons cancels their effects. Those ToolTips are vexing. There is a fix for this. In the settings is an option to view ToolTips only when Alt is pressed. This setting having been chosen I can now look around me with greater ease. I am wondering if there are any creatures which drop loot on a semi regular basis. My purse is lonely for coin and my arms are cold from the lack of armor. Here is the first time sink I've run across. Slaying creature after creature for a little coin. I'll have to content my self with killing those delirious brownies. Not the edible kind. These little straps drop coin and sometimes loot. The positive faction is also a plus. Although I'm not sure why I'll be needing that faction just yet. Prior experience in MMOs has led me to believe that somewhere down the line the faction gleaned at lvl 6 will prove helpful, even necessary.

I started out with Vanguard when the preorder folks went live. Things were a little buggy as far as social server going up and down constantly, but I always figure you're taking your chances with a brand new game release.

I did okay with the initial quests. I'm a human sorcerer in kind of an arabian culture. I think the main city is Khal (I hope I'm spelling that right).

I started playing mainly (okay only) because my husband has been so excited about Vanguard and he abandoned me in WoW. I picked my character based on his starting character choice so at least we could try and adventure together.

My first complaint, and this is a huge issue for me, is that it's so freaking dark! I mean I'm getting eyestrain trying to see (and yes, I do have my torch turned on). If I could figure out how to brighten up my monitor without hurting it I would do that. And the day to night cycle seems to happen fairly quickly. I feel like I've barely had any daylight and then it's night again. Grrrrr.

My second big issue didn't happen until I reached level 7 and there started to be a death penalty. I respawn at the altar just fine, but my gear is all at a tombstone in BFN. Let me get this straight. I'm fighting something (with all my armor and gear) and it beats the crap out of me and kills me. Now I get to run back to where it killed me, naked and unarmed, and try my luck again. Who's idea of fun was this? Body run can be bad enough. Body run naked and unarmed is just sadistic. Yes, I know you can get little baubles to soulbind gear to travel with you, but I'm not exactly rich as a starting character.

I have somewhat enjoyed the crafting mini game. I started out as an artisan but got frustrated with trying to find resources and not getting killed. I switched to tailor and took cloth gathering and skinning. I figured (rightly) that skinning is a multitask operation. I get adventuring xp for killing the critter and crafting xp for stealing it's hide.

I have been dabbling a bit in diplomacy. It's definitely different. I wish I could figure a way to get more cards. Some of the early quests I've gotten I have not been able to get past. I've gained some experience in the meantime so I suppose I need to hunt up the people and give it another try.

I haven't been thrilled so far, but I'm going to keep trying in the name of marital harmony (either that or find another hunting buddy in WoW).

I will say that so far my experience with the community has been reasonably good - except for all that dang WoW bashing in general chat.

Velea and I lay on the top of the grassy bluff, overlooking the narrow strand between the agitated ocean and the rocky cliff protecting Tanvu from the worst of the weather. Beside us in the wind-whipped grass lay a Lao'Jin refugee and a pair of full sacks. Directly below us was a house, hidden from view from most of the top of the cliff. Just off shore lay a dragon boat riding high at close anchor. One of the boats that I remember well, having been transported in one just like it to Sheng Village such a short time ago. Clearly visible in front of the house was a battle between monks fighting in two different styles.

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So yesterday I told you about how great the three day pre-release was, right? Well, I'm not quite sure how they managed it, but somehow someone managed to introduce so many bugs, game breaking bugs, into the game between Monday night and Tuesday night that the game was almost unplayable yesterday. And parts of it totally WERE unplayable. I'm rather disappointed, I've got to say. So here's what's wrong:

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Normally, I'd start blogging a new game with a character introduction and a bit about the game. In fact, I've helped write a review of Vanguard: Saga of Heroes that should be appearing on the site soon. But I just finished a quest that made me say out loud "Oh that is just cool!" so I had to share it with you.

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