Vanguard Saga of heroes

[Norathorr]

Anyone ever play this or still play it? I never had a go but wondering if its worth taking a look.

[username17]

Haven't played it in a few years but I highly doubt it's gotten any better.
Another one of SOE's ghost town MMOs

IMO the best non-p99 MMO is FFXIV

[Swish]

If you play anything SOE, play Planetside 2 :p

[Norathorr]

Shame Vanguard is dead. From what I heard it had a rushed and buggy release that put alot of people off but it was actually in concept the true inheritor to EQ1. If no one plays I guess its not worth the effort. As for planetside it looks good for what it is, but im not really into shoot em ups!

[Pringles]

Supposedly the game is amazing now, but they totally jacked up their launch (I played in beta and ~6 months after launch)..... so its dead forever.

[Snagglepuss]

When Vanguard launched its F2P, there was a huge spike in population, but since then it's dwindled. A few months back, there was a group of P99'ers who had a guild to explore the game. Vanguard is a game that is much more fun to play with a consistent group.

That being said, it is a phenomenal game with a huge world to explore. It can feel a bit empty if you aren't near a popular leveling zone, but it's worth exploring and experiencing. It's failure was truly a great loss. Vanguard was truly the heir to EQ.

[Bruman]

I played at F2P launch, and chunk crashing that kept ruining my crafting WOs (three nights in a row) pissed me off so bad that I quit at like...level 19.

I just fired it up again this week, having fun again. This time instead of bothering with crafting though (my goal was to make my own armor since most quest rewards weren't F2P-usable), I'll either just sub or buy unlockers. I still have some station cash left over from EQ.

It just seems whenever the game gets even a little bit of attention, all sorts of bugs and crashing and stability issues come back, which is a shame. F2P launch was really the last hope for the game, and they botched it.

I still recommend the game for people who have never even tried it. If you like EQ, you'll probably love it, provided you get a stable experience. Just realize that yes, there are the boring WoW-style bear ass quests, but you can easily ignore than and just level in the huge amount of awesome dungeons that the game has. Also has excellent classes.

[Sularus Oth Mithas]

Went and tried it a couple months ago. I played for a week, didn't see another player and have not gone back since.

[Rhambuk]

If you play anything SOE, play Planetside 2 :p

No more scifi mmo's please...

anyway vanguard was great but there is no playerbase, if you get to max level there are a couple of guilds that do stuff but you have to solo to the end which is hard depending on your class. Think of getting to endgame in eq with no groups or other players, fine for a necro/shaman/druid. nearly impossible for a war rog etc

[Dullah]

No more scifi mmo's please...

anyway vanguard was great but there is no playerbase, if you get to max level there are a couple of guilds that do stuff but you have to solo to the end which is hard depending on your class. Think of getting to endgame in eq with no groups or other players, fine for a necro/shaman/druid. nearly impossible for a war rog etc

Pretty much this.

I have to say, Vanguard was my favorite MMO outside of EQ, and would have beaten out EQ had it been working and not full of bugs and exploits back when people actually played it. Its an amazing game today, but because of the failed launch nothing they could possibly do will revive it. Just the way the industry works.

Everything from the graphics to the music and world look and feel amazing. The classes in Vanguard are like EQ on steroids. By far the best classes ever seen in an MMO hands down (loved my disciple). As far as the way it plays and looks, its actually stood the test of time better than any game 7 years after launch. If Vanguard launched brand new today in its current state, it would be a hit as it was way before its time (would shit all over ffxiv).

All the servers have been merged, including the resent merge of the EU and US server. There are enough people playing to find groups if you just want to experience it, but for a game that feels so grand, its disappointingly barren.

[rusty81]

Vanguard is still one of the best MMO's to date. Of course player base is a problem and the lack of pvp kills me too.

I hear they re-hired Brad McQuaid though?

[Dullah]

They rehired McQuaid to do a relaunch around the beginning of 2013, but he was only there a couple months. I'm guessing his ideas were probably out of scope for SOE as they've never given Vanguard the resources it needed out of fear it would be more successful than EQ2. They pretty much bought it out just so they wouldn't have to worry about a real studio making it into the best mmo ever.

Right now McQuaid is putting a team together for a new MMO tho. Only thing on the distant horizon that is currently peaking my interest.

[Mandalore93]

Thought the game looked great, but just like EQ2 the fact that it's completely empty was pretty bad. Would have loved to play through the dungeons though, they looked sweet.

[citizen1080]

U can start free but you will end up subbing..that Orange gear is too sexy to let rot in your bank. I have a raid geared bard..but just not enough pop to keep my interest

[Cyph]

I tried (once again) to get into it before returning here. It is a good game although the biggest issue is the population, especially during off peak hours. The whole floating ! quest system (and the sheer amount of quests) was a turn off, as was the graphics; for some reason I really dislike them.

[Aenor]

Excited about Brad's new MMO. Vanguard was a blast. I played through beta and until the PvP server merge with Ascendency, which merged with Xanit K'Ven. For whatever reason, it was about a year before the first raid zone was introduced. So many players had reached the level cap by that point and sat around waiting for it, then burned through it quickly and there was nothing left to do at the high end. They made an amazing game but couldn't keep up with the pace at which players burn through content.

This was absolutely the successor to classic Everquest and the only other game I've played that I truly got lost in. I would still be playing today if it had a population.

[k2summit]

I player for a while shortly after launch, but went back to EQ because of bugs / system req's at the time. Couple months ago I resubbed 2 accounts and boxed a bear sham and a drunken monk. Getting to 55 was fun as shit honestly. Every single dungeon is cool as shit imo. So at 55 I joined a raid guild with the monk. They did APW clears once a week mainly for nostalgia purposes, which was cool at first cuz I hadn't seen it in my previous stint playing. They did all world bosses too. Herein lies the problem for me. It stagnated very fast. There simply wasn't enough content. Now, there are devs, and they do rollout new content occasionally, but it just wasnt enogh for me. Overall 7/10, and still a really solid game.

[Weekapaug]

I played for a bit a couple of months ago as well as a couple of years ago. Yes, there was a bad release and, yes, the game still manages to be super buggy, but I gotta say that SOE as well as the small but dedicated community have done a lot to tune the game for having low populations, offer support, etc.

I very much would love to get a toon to high levels and see what I've never gotten to in the past. The only reason I stopped this time was because I found out a friend was playing EQ live and he talked me into coming back and checking out the new stuff, so I did. Otherwise I would still be playing.

[Buellen]

Played it when it launch buggy etc etc


Decided to try it again about 2 months ago was a very nice experience.

You no longer start it your races starting city. You can choose to start in their newby island (HIGHLY recommend you do this if you trying out the game) or you can start in your races continent at a central location. any race can play any of the classes available in game and no one starts kos with other races in the game like before. You can make yourself kos with certain quests but take some effort.

The classes are more powerful than EQ class equivalent. You have lot of abilities you gain as you level. Everyone can solo just some classes can do it much better.

The game world is HUGE and roughly designed around 3 cultures of human history.

1) dark age Europe your classical fantasy setting

2) Feudal japan

3) Persian culture Arabian nights style with lots of undead thrown in.

You can level though grinding or quests. You level adventuring , crafting and diplomacy.

Diplomacy is an interesting if time consuming aspect of the game where you can generate <chunk > zone wide buffs for everyone in that zone<chunk>. diplomacy battles are through a card game.

Crafting in Vanguard is by far more interesting than EQ. It is one aspect of the game I am totally addicted too.

Repeatable quest hubs exist through the world in outposts which you can complete to gain gear and nice chunk of experience. you can also complete regular quest line though most of the zones.


The game word is HUGE you can easily out level some quests. The game world is gorgeous and you can easily loose yourself in just exploring.

Overall if love everquest you will have a lot of fun in vanguard.


Garue 49th level Half elf Warrior // Buskier 34th Level Human Cleric