Quote:
Originally Posted by R Flair
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Vanguard could have been the pinnacle, but wasn't in my eyes. There is no comparing it to EQ simply because they had to compromise, release early and change the nature of the game into something it should of never been.
In the beta, you could see the potential for it to be a bigger better EQ, but that is definitely not what came out the other end. For all its glorious parts, it had equal measures of shit to bring it down. Huge inspired world, vast unpopulated wastelands. Amazing classes, horrible spammy combat lacking resource management. Great itemization, shitty quest progression. Then all the convenience crap they added like fast travel, weak death penalties, caravans and easy soloing.
Even without the money they had to make Vanguard, Pantheon could be a much better game by simply staying closer to the EQ design. Shit EQ only had a budget of a few million. With modern tools and an engine like Unity, they could produce much more with even less money.
Not that I wouldn't want to play some Vanguard again on an emu, but I don't think it should ever be compared to EQ. It can't stand beside it. It can't even sit in the same room. Theres a reason why EQ was 20x as popular and why there isn't nearly as much interest in emulating it.
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IDK about that.
I'd say it just released at a bad time, when WoW as at its peak and most had moved on and were fully addicted to WoW during the WOTLK era with a monster hit success expansion pack.
VG beat EQ in many ways for all its flaws if you stuck it out. Copying EQ would have been a bad idea commercially, I don't like it THAT much where I'd like to see it redone and replay it. Just not enough emergent gameplay.
The wastelands were not really wastelands, they added serious depth to the world and traveling. Especially on Qalia, I loved the landscape and running south it was epic. That continent was the most well-done and immersive even with it being largely unfinished. Other areas I stayed away from.
The market for EQ1 isn't there and I don't think they intended for VG to be a spiritual successor to EQ. I was merely comparing it on "MMO essentials" basis, pound for pound. The commercial success of VG is largely irrelevant and subject to forces outside of these factors.
For example another Modern MMO, The Elder Scrolls Online, held 1 million subs and was overall a worse game than Vanguard was at launch. Comparing modern MMO's is the only comparisons to be made, and TESO doesn't have shit on Vanguard in any way shape or form.
Instances are disgusting, and that's where Vanguard truly was the EQ1 experience modernized and done right.
As far as your combat comment, I have never heard spammy before. The class you played probably was on my no list. If you stuck to the big classes you didn't encounter any of that.
The itemization kicked the shit out of TESO, despite how unfinished Vanguard was and its content. Great design for limited resources. Too bad SOE fucked up the budget instead of giving it the "long-term" matrix treatment. We could have got a few more years out of it. For this reason again, I don't care about Pantheon. I like the modern itemization when its done correctly (WoW, VG). Not the ultra basic +1 STR ring.