Vanguard was indeed a great game and definitely the best PvE MMO I have ever played. Its a real shame it never came into its own after the horrible launch. They screwed people big time back then.
Still, I admire and respect Sigil's plans and "vision"(tm) for Vanguard since they implemented alot of ideas which we used to love in EQ and miss dearly in modern games. They had great, in part the best, people in the industry working on the game, Keith Parkinson and Steve "
Aruspex" Williams being among them. It makes me kinda sad to see that their marvelous work dwindles down to meaninglessness.
If only SOE would have held their word and would have taken care of the game the way it deserved, they might have turned the boat around and kept Vanguard alive and floating. Right now, who in their sane mind would start playing a game like this seriously when there is no chance of new content comng out anytime soon?
In sight of recent events in the industry, I think the best chance for Vanguard to survive ist to bring in alot of new players by doing what others have done sucessfully: go free-to-play. SOE already has everything in place to do this. They have expereince with microtransactions from Free Realms and even recently with EQ as well as a cash store. Vanguard also could support all kind of store items like mounts, housing items and plots, etc. Should Vanguard ever be able to generate money, only then there might be new content and a future coming.
Anyway, some time ago Brad posted an extensive VG post-mortem on his blog which is a very interesting read for anyone interested, especially the comments.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4