I also tested VG from back at the point where it was mostly Silky Venom tags running around and there was very little content actually opened and played it for probably 9 months after launch....
I agree with most of your assessment. The game was BRUTALLY hard to level in and such early on. Group mobs were much harder to kill than at launch, the leveling process took far longer, and early on there was even a wound system in place which progressively lowered your stat pools. As it got closer to launch, things got easier and easier. In addition, they had primarily tested 1-30 content. Then they made leveling easier again prior to launch and then shortly after launch had double exp weekends. They facilitated people BLOWING past the content they had actually tested.
I completely disagree with the assessment that the bugs were a result of the changes to dumb it down though. The higher end content simply wasn't tested. There were some game breaking bugs that were simply bugs. They never figured out their texturing whatsoever. I was one of the first to get to the hub in APW and did so without clearing the bosses. All I did was walk through a wall in the lobby turn on bard speed/lev song, run down on top of the hub, and /stuck. I then did this with a disciple and summoned people down and we were capable of clearing backwards or skipping the early bosses if we wanted. There were ANY NUMBER of places you could exploit by simply walking into the wall without much effort at all. I reported countless instances like this during beta and live and they were never addressed.
The botched their content due to dumbing it down, but that game was doomed due it's engine/graphics and its lack of proper Q&A regardless of its content, frankly. I can honestly say bard in Vanguard is one of the most fun classes I have ever played in ANY MMO and I've played dozens...but Vanguard was, simply put a catastrophic waste of potential.
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