Vanguard Review
I worked my ass off to write this so I figured I have the right to post it in all manner of places, including this one.
So, I fell back into the Vanguard beta at the beginning of the year, when Mort got his beta invite. I've been playing since, and I figured some of you might want to know what it's like.
It's worth noting before I start that the game was released early. It's unfinished - even in an industry where the product is by definition never truly "finished" - and lacks polish in many places, and sometimes this shows rather glaringly. Sigil felt that an early release and subsequent flow of income was healthier than continuing development with increasingly scarce funds - after 5 years of development, I can't say I find this attitude unreasonable. The game is too rough for some; my opinion is that it was *just* finished enough for release, but it really depends on one's personal assessment of what constitutes readiness for release.
I won't comment on the Sigil/SoE link other than to say that so far, SoE seem to have kept their distance from the product itself. Long may this continue. That said, players of other SoE games will recognise the launcher-system, the daily maintenance cycles, and the "player" area provided on the official site.
Listos
Since this review got rather larger than I expected, I'll put a summary here:
-- big world, slow travel, horses, camels & more, and flying mount goodness at later levels!
-- lots of races and classes, all distinct in playstyle; something for everybody
-- character customisation is decent but still needs work
-- combat is standard ability-use fare with some enjoyable tweaks
-- there is a death penalty, but it's not EQ-bad and it can be mitigated though not entirely avoided
-- lots and lots of loot of varying qualities, including player-made gear of almost every type
-- player housing is in on preset building plots (similar to Horizons), but somewhat buggy; guild housing and player cities planned for later
-- three main "spheres" of activity (adventuring, crafting, diplomacy) which can be levelled totally independently of each other; harvesting is a "sub-sphere" tied primarily to adventuring, since the higher-tier harvestables can only be found in the higher-level areas
-- graphics are good if you like the very realistic style, and great if you have the hardware to render them
-- performance is patchy but improving, and highly dependent on hardware
-- there are many game-stopping bugs; most aren't affected, but those who are get hit hard.
If you're easily frustrated by bugs or generally not sure if you really want to try Vanguard, I'd advise waiting or, if you can, getting a buddy key to try it for free for a bit. My personal assessment is that the bugs aren't game-breaking, but I've also made a decision to play despite the bugs, until I hit one which sets my frustration meter above my enjoyment meter. Since every patch brings a slew of improvements across the board, including many bug-squishings, I'm hopeful that the frustration meter is, if anything, going to go down over time.
Much has been said about the "hardcore" nature of Vanguard, most of it little more than hot air. More accurate might be to say that Vanguard is designed to be slower than most other games out there now. Progression is slower, the acquisition of wealth and items is slower, and earning things of value takes a great deal of work. That said, the same holds for WoW once the end-game is reached, so the main difference is that Vanguard has a slower path to the end-game, which latter is of relatively lower importance than it is in WoW. Still, it's not a grind-fest and it's not just for people who can play 8 hours a day, even if it's not quite as friendly for short playing-spans as other games. Once the fellowship system is working correctly, people will be able to "fellow" with their friends and share any experience they gain while their fellows are offline, which should help keep people together.
World/mobs/environment:
The world of Telon is large, with no insta-travel routes like griffons or teleporters. Currently there are teleport-people used to get from one continent to another, but I believe the aim is to get rid of those in favour of ferry-crossings like the one between the two continents in WoW. Running from place to place takes quite a long time, though several classes have run-speed buffs and everyone can get a horse at level 10, which will up your speed by around 40-50%. Higher-level horses are faster.
The world is "seamless" with no instances, though tech being what it is, it's not really seamless. It's divided into chunks, and crossing chunk lines still causes a certain amount of stop-time while stuff is being redrawn, at least on my somewhat creaky card. That said, I haven't died crossing a chunk line since way back in beta, so they're definitely improving things.
Most areas are fairly thickly populated with mobs in varying level and difficulty ranges. Some areas are still quite empty, but since population is ongoing that's not too surprising. Most of the areas I've been to at my level range (up to 13) have been more than populated enough to keep me on my toes. Aggressive mobs have red names, non-aggro have yellow names -- though with NPCs it gets a bit more complicated and their names can vary from red (we hate you) to green (we love you), passing through orange and yellow on the way. Factions exist and play a sizeable part in how a character will be received during their travels through the world; you can, of course, gain faction by doing the right things, usually killing the right mobs, or lose faction, usually by killing the wrong mobs.
Opponents are ranked according to a "dot" system as well as by their level, where 1 and 2-dot mobs are standard easy solo fare, 3-dot mobs are designed for tough solo/duo fare, and 4- 5- and 6- dot mobs are for progressively bigger and more competent groups. There is some variance within this system, however, so not every level 10 3-dot mob is identical: some classes will take them down at equal level with ease, others will die horribly, and some monsters will be much squishier for their 3-dotness than others. It's a visual guide, if you will, but not set in stone.
While there are many "standard" mob types (spiders, snakes) that you'll see almost everywhere, there are also tons of localised monsters like crocodiles, slimes, gnolls, orcs, faeries (good and bad) and so on, depending on where you go.
Characters:
The array of races and classes is quite large, which was a stated aim and one, I feel, they have fulfilled pretty well. Each continent (there are 3 right now) has about a half dozen races to choose from, and each race has a variety of classes open to it. Aside from the "standard" gaming races of high elf, dark elf, human and dwarf you can play continent-specific humans, barbarian races, half-giants, goblins, and even orcs. There are "animal" races too: a wolf-based, a cat-based, and a fox-based (Vulmane, Kurashasa and Raki). Note that none of them have visible tails yet, though this is one of those "we'll do it when we can" things.
Classes have been broken down into "tasks" in the also familiar gaming style: defensive fighter, offensive fighter, healer, and offensive caster -- there, however, it pays not to draw too much from previous experience. Effort has been made to give each class a unique flavour and considering there are currently 15 to choose from, they've done a decent job. I've tried 9 of those classes myself and they each play differently, even within the same "task" group. In the Defensive Fighter group, for instance, a paladin plays quite differently from a dread knight and the warrior is equally distinct. There seems to be plenty available for each person's preferred playstyle - enough, even, to tempt people over into other styles. I don't normally play clerics, for instance, but I'm having tons of fun with one now.
Progression is along the usual level template, though at level 10 characters can start to diverge. Each character gets a standard allocation of points per level, which varies by race/class combo, with "free" points left over that the player can allocate as desired within the specified caps per level. You can't pump *all* your free points into strength, for instance, so we won't see any truly extreme builds - on the other hand, if this were possible we'd be seeing cookie-cutter uber templates within weeks, so this is probably a good thing. It allows for some player control of attributes, which gives greater variance, while preventing must-have extremes.
Character visual customisation; some love it, some hate it. There are sliders for many different aspects of a character's physical appearance, from the slant of the eyes to the width of the body. However, it is important to note that all Vanguard characters use the same basic "skeleton", whatever race they may be; this was done to reduce the overhead on fitting armour & weapon models to different races and allows them to merely scale things to the right size. On the whole, it seems to have been a wise decision since the variety of armour and weapon styles is pretty dazzling. Anyway - it's possible to make fairly distinct characters even with the very poor number of face and hairstyle choices we currently have (4 faces + 4 hairstyles for most races). Once they increase the faces and hairstyles, which I'm confident they will, it'll be even better. Note that currently it is possible to modify your character's appearance at any time, a feature I hope they'll keep; I've never understood why most games feel we have to be deprived of such a basic way to "bond", if you will, with our characters, past the first stages of creation.
GUI/graphics/performance:
The style of the graphics in Vanguard is highly realistic; I'm not going to debate the merits of one style over another, since that's largely a matter of personal taste. In this given style, however, the graphics in Vanguard have the potential to be gorgeous. I say potential, because you need a pretty hefty graphics set-up to get the most out of the game right now - this is intentional. The game is designed to be bleeding-edge now and "standard" in a couple of years or so, rather like EQ2 was when it was released. Even so, the visuals are reasonable even on a "basic" system, and in many cases I can see how they would be downright gorgeous if I had the ability to see them. Some of the landscape vistas are stunning, and most of the models, from trees to mobs, are very detailed. Some say the particle effects are very scarce and rather poor, for instance for spells - since I'm not picky in that department, and in fact prefer less flash-bang, I've not noticed it.
The game plays adequately on my dual-core 3.8, 2gb RAM, ATI x1300pro system, which is well over a year old and with what I'll kindly call a sub-par graphics card. I get about 15-25 frames per second in most places, which is tolerable and certainly playable. There are a variety of tweaks and tricks one can do to improve performance on any given system, and those have worked well for me.
The user interface is reminiscent of... just about every other game out there now, and what most call the WoW-style. As such, it doesn't take too long to become familiar with what buttons and key combos do what. For most, it's perfectly adequate, and there is some basic customisation available with the default UI. For more pernickety people, like me, there are third party UI-modifications. They're legal, since all they do is modify information that all clients have, and they can drastically alter the look of your UI. There aren't too many out yet but their number is growing and should please just about everyone, from defaulters to frenetic customisers.
Chat and social options are fairly standard. Players can create their own chat channels at will, complete with passwords and the like. The GUI-part of chat includes custom choices on size, colour, location (which tab shows what), and so on, also fairly standard now.
Social options for finding friends, enemies, groups and guildmates are still quite rough, but improving.
Gameplay:
Again, anyone who has played any other MMO released within the last 3-4 years will be familiar with the basic gameplay in Vanguard. Characters have abilities, melee or spell, which are purchased or otherwise acquired/earned every couple of levels. Each ability has an associated cost in "endurance" or "energy (mana)" and may have a windup time also; each ability also has a cooldown timer: common abilities have low timers, and the more uncommon ones have longer timers. Some abilities will have enhanced effects if an ally is flanking the opponent: either you will do more damage, or the ally will, which enhances group play. And Vanguard is, as has been stated by Sigil many times, primarily a group-oriented game.
Combat is therefore fairly familiar: pull or otherwise aggro mob, offload whatever it is you have that's of use, and hope you win. However, there are several elements of added spice and which set Vanguard apart from other games. For one, each class gains "reaction" abilities at varying levels, which are triggered in different ways. For a warrior, for instance, a critical melee hit on a given ability use can trigger the "chain" reaction ability. This reaction is only available for instant consumption - if any other action is taken after the trigger, the reaction ability will grey out again. Most of these reactions provide extra damage and other goodies such as stuns, roots, and so on. Aside from those there are "counter-attacks", available very briefly after a block or a parry, "rescue" abilities which require a defensive (allied) target, and so on.
Aside from this, many abilities can cause "weaknesses" in opponents, which can *only* be exploited by an ally. In solo play, therefore, you just ignore those. In duo or group play, however, certain class combinations can cause significant extra damage by being aware of these weaknesses and exploiting them correctly - which means working out who should do what, when, for maximum effectiveness. Of course, you can just ignore those entirely and again, won't suffer; it just adds an entertaining tactical element. I suspect that in later play, or against tougher opponents, this will be far more valuable and may even be required for victory.
It's not quite the almost turn-based, ponderous, thought-provoking combat Sigil had originally envisioned for Vanguard, but it plays smoothly and has enough going on to keep you busy. "Auto-attack and walk away" is not, generally, a very good strategy in Vanguard.
Death:
The death penalty in Vanguard has gone through many iterations in beta, and may still change over time. Currently, the penalty only comes into play at level 7 or higher, so that you have a chance to find your feet before you get smacked over the head with the penalty-stick. From level 7 onward, when you die you have a 10 minute window for resurrection on the spot, or you can opt to "respawn" at the nearest Altar. If you respawn you will leave a tombstone in the spot where you died. You can then either summon said tombstone to the altar, in which case you'll take an xp-hit and your items will take a durability hit, which will cost in repairs; or you can run back to the tombstone itself and recover your gear and most of your lost xp. Resurrection and recovery come with the least associated xp hit; summoning your tombstone to the altar comes with the greatest hit. This is standard for Vanguard's general risk vs. reward model: the smaller the risk, the smaller the reward (or in this case, the bigger the penalty).
The experience penalty isn't as onerous now as it has been in the past: if you recover your tombstone or get resurrected, it's been a matter of a couple of percent of level at around level 10, and is nothing you can't recover in a few kills.
Death penalties have been the subject of much debate for and against, but they're central to the basic concepts in Vanguard and I hope they stay that way. Corpse runs can be hugely frustrating, but they also provide some of the best stories and memories people have in games. In any case, it's possible to sidestep the corpse-run effect if one wants - it'll cost you, but nothing's free in the world of Telon. A more middle of the road method of mitigating deaths involves "soulbinding" one's equipment; it's easily done, and it means gear won't be dropped on death so you don't have to run entirely naked to do your recovery; the downside, however, is that soulbound gear can't be traded to anyone else once it has been outgrown.
At this time there is a nasty bug affecting some characters, where tombstones disappear and cannot be recovered, which means that characters are losing gear, not to mention xp they can't recover. I have been fortunate enough to avoid this one, but it is causing much frustration at the moment and is one of the major bug-chases going on.
Quests/Solo/Small-Group/Group:
Like most other games, Vanguard comes complete with a dizzying array of quests, quest-givers, and quest-lines, not all of which are indicated by the now-standard neon sign over an NPCs head. Some quests are triggered by looted items, and some NPCs deep in the wilds also have quests. The lore associated with quests is relatively sparse right now, though it's improving - back in beta there was almost no lore associated with quests; now, most local quest lines involve local storylines, if not the world at large. For the wider stage of lore, players will want to explore the Diplomacy sphere, whose quest lines deal with politics, feuds, and the goings-on of the wider world (as well as with much more mundane and personal matters) - but we'll get to that later.
Another big debate in recent years has been the quest vs. grind debate. My take on this is that a grind is what you make it. All games have time-sinks and different players will perceive this as varyingly onerous. Some players don't mind killing the same thing over and over 500 times; so either it's not a grind for them, or it's an enjoyable one. Until we can all agree on what we mean by "grind", in any case, it's a pretty empty debate.
Suffice to say that one *can* advance entirely through quests in Vanguard, but that this requires a willingness to move from area to area and find said quests. Most of the characters I've played have encountered a plateau-stage where most of the quests I can do are a little too tough, so I either have to wander around killing stuff off my own bat, or go find somewhere else with quests I *can* do. Players who primarily group, however, seem to have much less trouble in this respect: every area has several "dungeons" (even if they don't look like your average dungeon) which are intended mostly for non-solo play and which provide a much steadier flow of both experience and items - and the latter are, as expected, generally better in group areas than they are in solo ones.
Sigil have been up front about Vanguard being "mostly" for group play. This doesn't mean that solo play and raid play have been ignored, but that the majority of the game is tuned for groups. I solo for the most part, and though I've only got to the teens, I haven't had any real trouble nor felt a lack of content. I certainly haven't had to grind away for hours in a way I didn't find entertaining, just to be able to level; in fact, I've not felt I've had to grind at all. I've also duoed a fair bit and have found that even with just one more person, the style of the game and of fights changes considerably - you can take on more and tougher creatures, as expected, which means you can do more things, or do things earlier than you might if you were alone.
Having groups as a primary target doesn't mean everyone else is out in the cold. And enough effort has been poured into making the group experience enjoyable and exciting that, really, it's more than worth a try - even for habitual hermits like me.
Loot:
Vanguard is advertised as an item-centric game, and indeed the variety of "stuff" is huge. The less common an item, the more valuable and wonderful it will be, as is common in games now. Similarly, there's a general correlation between tougher opponents and better item drops, which is also standard fare.
Spheres:
Vanguard has three "Spheres" of activity: Adventuring, Crafting, and Diplomacy, each of which can be levelled separately or not at all. It's possible to be a level 50 adventurer and never have touched either crafting or diplomacy; conversely, if you have the time and the inclination, any single character could become accomplished in all three spheres.
Each Sphere has its own set of attributes and equipment, and its own flavour, and while the adventuring sphere is very familiar to anyone who has played MMOs before, both crafting and diplomacy are quite different and, in the case of diplomacy, downright innovative.
Crafting includes (currently) three base professions: Blacksmith, Artificer, and Outfitter. Blacksmiths work with metals and can make the standard armour and weapons as well as horseshoes and other more specialised stuff. Artificers are workers in stone and wood; they make some weapons, spell focuses and jewellery, as well as many of the components for houses. Outfitters work with hides and fabric and can make medium and light armour as well as crafting clothes, diplomacy clothes, and the like.
Each base profession can be specialised at level 11. Blacksmiths can become either weaponsmiths or armoursmiths, and will gain specialised recipes while losing their ability to adequately make items in the non-specialised area; in other words, a weaponsmith can make great weapons but will not be very good at all at making armour. Artificers can specialise as Carpenters (wood) or Mineralogists (stone). Outfitters can become either Leatherworkers or Tailors.
Aside from this, each continent has its own crafting style and crafting recipes, which foreigners have to work to earn if they want them. Each tier (1-10, 11-20, etc) has its own quests and rites of passage. To add to that, various NPCs around the world provide access to special recipes.
I won't go into the crafting process here or this review will balloon out of all proportion. Suffice to say that it's complex and involved, and currently not for the faint of heart. However, it relies more on player skill than any other crafting system I've seen to date, and will keep rabid crafters (like myself) both busy and most likely ranting for years to come. There are balancing and bug issues with crafting as there are in most of the other parts of the game, and some people have been hit hard with bugs. For the most part, however, and for most people, it's playable.
Diplomacy is based on a card-game concept. Novice diplomats are given a starting "deck" based on their race and class, and will acquire new cards as they progress. Encounters with NPCs are called "parleys", and involve choosing a hand of 5 cards to play. Cards come in 4 basic colour-coded types, have an associated cost to play, and provide gains in the form of points to play other cards or in influence. Influence is akin to a tug of war, and is represented by a scale on the side of the parley window. For each turn that the influence counter is on your side, you get points towards winning the parley; conversely, each turn the influence counter is on the opponent's side, *they* get points towards winning, and thus towards you losing the parley. Each tug towards victory on the player's part reveals a little more information in the conversation window.
Diplomacy can be a frustrating but also surprisingly addictive sphere. Opponents vary from easily beaten to head-on-wall smackingly difficult, requiring many parleys while you work out the best hand with which to beat them.
At higher levels, diplomacy leads into "civic diplomacy" where players, usually in groups, can influence entire cities and provide all manner of bonuses to *all* players in the area, which can affect all three spheres. While the Diplomacy sphere is not as fleshed out as the other two it's being expanded on and refined all the time, and is getting more interesting with each pass.
State of the Game, Playability
Currently, Vanguard is still definitely very buggy. Some people aren't hit as badly as others, as in my case, but those who *are* hit can find the game totally unplayable. That said, to balance out the rants elsewhere, this is absolutely not the norm. It's certainly bad when it happens, but the vast majority of players can play at least adequately. In my case, most of the performance issues I'm seeing are due to my own lackluster setup. I do crash to the desktop on a regular basis, but even that can be mitigated by regularly flushing the graphical engine caches - which, again, has a lot to do with my poor rig. There does seem to be a memory leak issue but this is hardly unique to Vanguard and, indeed, is common in many games these days. It's being tracked down, of course, and each patch brings significant performance enhancements as well as the usual slew of early-game fixes.
On a more specific levels, many classes (in all spheres) are still being balanced, as are items, monsters, and just about everything else in the game. This can cramp some players' style and for those, I would advise waiting. If you can live with bugs and occasional issues, Vanguard is well worth trying right now; if you can't, waiting a few months should see significant enhancements and much less frustration.
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About me
I started playing MMOs with Asheron's Call in 2000, and haven't looked back since. I've been in almost a dozen betas and have paid-to-play just about everything out there, with long stints in AC, SWG, WoW, EQ2, EVE and most recently Vanguard. I'm a member of a stunningly wonderful tribe of people called The Knights Who Say Ni, a true community in the best sense of the word. I can't possibly use 5 words when 12 will do.
So, I fell back into the Vanguard beta at the beginning of the year, when Mort got his beta invite. I've been playing since, and I figured some of you might want to know what it's like.
It's worth noting before I start that the game was released early. It's unfinished - even in an industry where the product is by definition never truly "finished" - and lacks polish in many places, and sometimes this shows rather glaringly. Sigil felt that an early release and subsequent flow of income was healthier than continuing development with increasingly scarce funds - after 5 years of development, I can't say I find this attitude unreasonable. The game is too rough for some; my opinion is that it was *just* finished enough for release, but it really depends on one's personal assessment of what constitutes readiness for release.
I won't comment on the Sigil/SoE link other than to say that so far, SoE seem to have kept their distance from the product itself. Long may this continue. That said, players of other SoE games will recognise the launcher-system, the daily maintenance cycles, and the "player" area provided on the official site.
Listos
Since this review got rather larger than I expected, I'll put a summary here:
-- big world, slow travel, horses, camels & more, and flying mount goodness at later levels!
-- lots of races and classes, all distinct in playstyle; something for everybody
-- character customisation is decent but still needs work
-- combat is standard ability-use fare with some enjoyable tweaks
-- there is a death penalty, but it's not EQ-bad and it can be mitigated though not entirely avoided
-- lots and lots of loot of varying qualities, including player-made gear of almost every type
-- player housing is in on preset building plots (similar to Horizons), but somewhat buggy; guild housing and player cities planned for later
-- three main "spheres" of activity (adventuring, crafting, diplomacy) which can be levelled totally independently of each other; harvesting is a "sub-sphere" tied primarily to adventuring, since the higher-tier harvestables can only be found in the higher-level areas
-- graphics are good if you like the very realistic style, and great if you have the hardware to render them
-- performance is patchy but improving, and highly dependent on hardware
-- there are many game-stopping bugs; most aren't affected, but those who are get hit hard.
If you're easily frustrated by bugs or generally not sure if you really want to try Vanguard, I'd advise waiting or, if you can, getting a buddy key to try it for free for a bit. My personal assessment is that the bugs aren't game-breaking, but I've also made a decision to play despite the bugs, until I hit one which sets my frustration meter above my enjoyment meter. Since every patch brings a slew of improvements across the board, including many bug-squishings, I'm hopeful that the frustration meter is, if anything, going to go down over time.
Much has been said about the "hardcore" nature of Vanguard, most of it little more than hot air. More accurate might be to say that Vanguard is designed to be slower than most other games out there now. Progression is slower, the acquisition of wealth and items is slower, and earning things of value takes a great deal of work. That said, the same holds for WoW once the end-game is reached, so the main difference is that Vanguard has a slower path to the end-game, which latter is of relatively lower importance than it is in WoW. Still, it's not a grind-fest and it's not just for people who can play 8 hours a day, even if it's not quite as friendly for short playing-spans as other games. Once the fellowship system is working correctly, people will be able to "fellow" with their friends and share any experience they gain while their fellows are offline, which should help keep people together.
World/mobs/environment:
The world of Telon is large, with no insta-travel routes like griffons or teleporters. Currently there are teleport-people used to get from one continent to another, but I believe the aim is to get rid of those in favour of ferry-crossings like the one between the two continents in WoW. Running from place to place takes quite a long time, though several classes have run-speed buffs and everyone can get a horse at level 10, which will up your speed by around 40-50%. Higher-level horses are faster.
The world is "seamless" with no instances, though tech being what it is, it's not really seamless. It's divided into chunks, and crossing chunk lines still causes a certain amount of stop-time while stuff is being redrawn, at least on my somewhat creaky card. That said, I haven't died crossing a chunk line since way back in beta, so they're definitely improving things.
Most areas are fairly thickly populated with mobs in varying level and difficulty ranges. Some areas are still quite empty, but since population is ongoing that's not too surprising. Most of the areas I've been to at my level range (up to 13) have been more than populated enough to keep me on my toes. Aggressive mobs have red names, non-aggro have yellow names -- though with NPCs it gets a bit more complicated and their names can vary from red (we hate you) to green (we love you), passing through orange and yellow on the way. Factions exist and play a sizeable part in how a character will be received during their travels through the world; you can, of course, gain faction by doing the right things, usually killing the right mobs, or lose faction, usually by killing the wrong mobs.
Opponents are ranked according to a "dot" system as well as by their level, where 1 and 2-dot mobs are standard easy solo fare, 3-dot mobs are designed for tough solo/duo fare, and 4- 5- and 6- dot mobs are for progressively bigger and more competent groups. There is some variance within this system, however, so not every level 10 3-dot mob is identical: some classes will take them down at equal level with ease, others will die horribly, and some monsters will be much squishier for their 3-dotness than others. It's a visual guide, if you will, but not set in stone.
While there are many "standard" mob types (spiders, snakes) that you'll see almost everywhere, there are also tons of localised monsters like crocodiles, slimes, gnolls, orcs, faeries (good and bad) and so on, depending on where you go.
Characters:
The array of races and classes is quite large, which was a stated aim and one, I feel, they have fulfilled pretty well. Each continent (there are 3 right now) has about a half dozen races to choose from, and each race has a variety of classes open to it. Aside from the "standard" gaming races of high elf, dark elf, human and dwarf you can play continent-specific humans, barbarian races, half-giants, goblins, and even orcs. There are "animal" races too: a wolf-based, a cat-based, and a fox-based (Vulmane, Kurashasa and Raki). Note that none of them have visible tails yet, though this is one of those "we'll do it when we can" things.
Classes have been broken down into "tasks" in the also familiar gaming style: defensive fighter, offensive fighter, healer, and offensive caster -- there, however, it pays not to draw too much from previous experience. Effort has been made to give each class a unique flavour and considering there are currently 15 to choose from, they've done a decent job. I've tried 9 of those classes myself and they each play differently, even within the same "task" group. In the Defensive Fighter group, for instance, a paladin plays quite differently from a dread knight and the warrior is equally distinct. There seems to be plenty available for each person's preferred playstyle - enough, even, to tempt people over into other styles. I don't normally play clerics, for instance, but I'm having tons of fun with one now.
Progression is along the usual level template, though at level 10 characters can start to diverge. Each character gets a standard allocation of points per level, which varies by race/class combo, with "free" points left over that the player can allocate as desired within the specified caps per level. You can't pump *all* your free points into strength, for instance, so we won't see any truly extreme builds - on the other hand, if this were possible we'd be seeing cookie-cutter uber templates within weeks, so this is probably a good thing. It allows for some player control of attributes, which gives greater variance, while preventing must-have extremes.
Character visual customisation; some love it, some hate it. There are sliders for many different aspects of a character's physical appearance, from the slant of the eyes to the width of the body. However, it is important to note that all Vanguard characters use the same basic "skeleton", whatever race they may be; this was done to reduce the overhead on fitting armour & weapon models to different races and allows them to merely scale things to the right size. On the whole, it seems to have been a wise decision since the variety of armour and weapon styles is pretty dazzling. Anyway - it's possible to make fairly distinct characters even with the very poor number of face and hairstyle choices we currently have (4 faces + 4 hairstyles for most races). Once they increase the faces and hairstyles, which I'm confident they will, it'll be even better. Note that currently it is possible to modify your character's appearance at any time, a feature I hope they'll keep; I've never understood why most games feel we have to be deprived of such a basic way to "bond", if you will, with our characters, past the first stages of creation.
GUI/graphics/performance:
The style of the graphics in Vanguard is highly realistic; I'm not going to debate the merits of one style over another, since that's largely a matter of personal taste. In this given style, however, the graphics in Vanguard have the potential to be gorgeous. I say potential, because you need a pretty hefty graphics set-up to get the most out of the game right now - this is intentional. The game is designed to be bleeding-edge now and "standard" in a couple of years or so, rather like EQ2 was when it was released. Even so, the visuals are reasonable even on a "basic" system, and in many cases I can see how they would be downright gorgeous if I had the ability to see them. Some of the landscape vistas are stunning, and most of the models, from trees to mobs, are very detailed. Some say the particle effects are very scarce and rather poor, for instance for spells - since I'm not picky in that department, and in fact prefer less flash-bang, I've not noticed it.
The game plays adequately on my dual-core 3.8, 2gb RAM, ATI x1300pro system, which is well over a year old and with what I'll kindly call a sub-par graphics card. I get about 15-25 frames per second in most places, which is tolerable and certainly playable. There are a variety of tweaks and tricks one can do to improve performance on any given system, and those have worked well for me.
The user interface is reminiscent of... just about every other game out there now, and what most call the WoW-style. As such, it doesn't take too long to become familiar with what buttons and key combos do what. For most, it's perfectly adequate, and there is some basic customisation available with the default UI. For more pernickety people, like me, there are third party UI-modifications. They're legal, since all they do is modify information that all clients have, and they can drastically alter the look of your UI. There aren't too many out yet but their number is growing and should please just about everyone, from defaulters to frenetic customisers.
Chat and social options are fairly standard. Players can create their own chat channels at will, complete with passwords and the like. The GUI-part of chat includes custom choices on size, colour, location (which tab shows what), and so on, also fairly standard now.
Social options for finding friends, enemies, groups and guildmates are still quite rough, but improving.
Gameplay:
Again, anyone who has played any other MMO released within the last 3-4 years will be familiar with the basic gameplay in Vanguard. Characters have abilities, melee or spell, which are purchased or otherwise acquired/earned every couple of levels. Each ability has an associated cost in "endurance" or "energy (mana)" and may have a windup time also; each ability also has a cooldown timer: common abilities have low timers, and the more uncommon ones have longer timers. Some abilities will have enhanced effects if an ally is flanking the opponent: either you will do more damage, or the ally will, which enhances group play. And Vanguard is, as has been stated by Sigil many times, primarily a group-oriented game.
Combat is therefore fairly familiar: pull or otherwise aggro mob, offload whatever it is you have that's of use, and hope you win. However, there are several elements of added spice and which set Vanguard apart from other games. For one, each class gains "reaction" abilities at varying levels, which are triggered in different ways. For a warrior, for instance, a critical melee hit on a given ability use can trigger the "chain" reaction ability. This reaction is only available for instant consumption - if any other action is taken after the trigger, the reaction ability will grey out again. Most of these reactions provide extra damage and other goodies such as stuns, roots, and so on. Aside from those there are "counter-attacks", available very briefly after a block or a parry, "rescue" abilities which require a defensive (allied) target, and so on.
Aside from this, many abilities can cause "weaknesses" in opponents, which can *only* be exploited by an ally. In solo play, therefore, you just ignore those. In duo or group play, however, certain class combinations can cause significant extra damage by being aware of these weaknesses and exploiting them correctly - which means working out who should do what, when, for maximum effectiveness. Of course, you can just ignore those entirely and again, won't suffer; it just adds an entertaining tactical element. I suspect that in later play, or against tougher opponents, this will be far more valuable and may even be required for victory.
It's not quite the almost turn-based, ponderous, thought-provoking combat Sigil had originally envisioned for Vanguard, but it plays smoothly and has enough going on to keep you busy. "Auto-attack and walk away" is not, generally, a very good strategy in Vanguard.
Death:
The death penalty in Vanguard has gone through many iterations in beta, and may still change over time. Currently, the penalty only comes into play at level 7 or higher, so that you have a chance to find your feet before you get smacked over the head with the penalty-stick. From level 7 onward, when you die you have a 10 minute window for resurrection on the spot, or you can opt to "respawn" at the nearest Altar. If you respawn you will leave a tombstone in the spot where you died. You can then either summon said tombstone to the altar, in which case you'll take an xp-hit and your items will take a durability hit, which will cost in repairs; or you can run back to the tombstone itself and recover your gear and most of your lost xp. Resurrection and recovery come with the least associated xp hit; summoning your tombstone to the altar comes with the greatest hit. This is standard for Vanguard's general risk vs. reward model: the smaller the risk, the smaller the reward (or in this case, the bigger the penalty).
The experience penalty isn't as onerous now as it has been in the past: if you recover your tombstone or get resurrected, it's been a matter of a couple of percent of level at around level 10, and is nothing you can't recover in a few kills.
Death penalties have been the subject of much debate for and against, but they're central to the basic concepts in Vanguard and I hope they stay that way. Corpse runs can be hugely frustrating, but they also provide some of the best stories and memories people have in games. In any case, it's possible to sidestep the corpse-run effect if one wants - it'll cost you, but nothing's free in the world of Telon. A more middle of the road method of mitigating deaths involves "soulbinding" one's equipment; it's easily done, and it means gear won't be dropped on death so you don't have to run entirely naked to do your recovery; the downside, however, is that soulbound gear can't be traded to anyone else once it has been outgrown.
At this time there is a nasty bug affecting some characters, where tombstones disappear and cannot be recovered, which means that characters are losing gear, not to mention xp they can't recover. I have been fortunate enough to avoid this one, but it is causing much frustration at the moment and is one of the major bug-chases going on.
Quests/Solo/Small-Group/Group:
Like most other games, Vanguard comes complete with a dizzying array of quests, quest-givers, and quest-lines, not all of which are indicated by the now-standard neon sign over an NPCs head. Some quests are triggered by looted items, and some NPCs deep in the wilds also have quests. The lore associated with quests is relatively sparse right now, though it's improving - back in beta there was almost no lore associated with quests; now, most local quest lines involve local storylines, if not the world at large. For the wider stage of lore, players will want to explore the Diplomacy sphere, whose quest lines deal with politics, feuds, and the goings-on of the wider world (as well as with much more mundane and personal matters) - but we'll get to that later.
Another big debate in recent years has been the quest vs. grind debate. My take on this is that a grind is what you make it. All games have time-sinks and different players will perceive this as varyingly onerous. Some players don't mind killing the same thing over and over 500 times; so either it's not a grind for them, or it's an enjoyable one. Until we can all agree on what we mean by "grind", in any case, it's a pretty empty debate.
Suffice to say that one *can* advance entirely through quests in Vanguard, but that this requires a willingness to move from area to area and find said quests. Most of the characters I've played have encountered a plateau-stage where most of the quests I can do are a little too tough, so I either have to wander around killing stuff off my own bat, or go find somewhere else with quests I *can* do. Players who primarily group, however, seem to have much less trouble in this respect: every area has several "dungeons" (even if they don't look like your average dungeon) which are intended mostly for non-solo play and which provide a much steadier flow of both experience and items - and the latter are, as expected, generally better in group areas than they are in solo ones.
Sigil have been up front about Vanguard being "mostly" for group play. This doesn't mean that solo play and raid play have been ignored, but that the majority of the game is tuned for groups. I solo for the most part, and though I've only got to the teens, I haven't had any real trouble nor felt a lack of content. I certainly haven't had to grind away for hours in a way I didn't find entertaining, just to be able to level; in fact, I've not felt I've had to grind at all. I've also duoed a fair bit and have found that even with just one more person, the style of the game and of fights changes considerably - you can take on more and tougher creatures, as expected, which means you can do more things, or do things earlier than you might if you were alone.
Having groups as a primary target doesn't mean everyone else is out in the cold. And enough effort has been poured into making the group experience enjoyable and exciting that, really, it's more than worth a try - even for habitual hermits like me.
Loot:
Vanguard is advertised as an item-centric game, and indeed the variety of "stuff" is huge. The less common an item, the more valuable and wonderful it will be, as is common in games now. Similarly, there's a general correlation between tougher opponents and better item drops, which is also standard fare.
Spheres:
Vanguard has three "Spheres" of activity: Adventuring, Crafting, and Diplomacy, each of which can be levelled separately or not at all. It's possible to be a level 50 adventurer and never have touched either crafting or diplomacy; conversely, if you have the time and the inclination, any single character could become accomplished in all three spheres.
Each Sphere has its own set of attributes and equipment, and its own flavour, and while the adventuring sphere is very familiar to anyone who has played MMOs before, both crafting and diplomacy are quite different and, in the case of diplomacy, downright innovative.
Crafting includes (currently) three base professions: Blacksmith, Artificer, and Outfitter. Blacksmiths work with metals and can make the standard armour and weapons as well as horseshoes and other more specialised stuff. Artificers are workers in stone and wood; they make some weapons, spell focuses and jewellery, as well as many of the components for houses. Outfitters work with hides and fabric and can make medium and light armour as well as crafting clothes, diplomacy clothes, and the like.
Each base profession can be specialised at level 11. Blacksmiths can become either weaponsmiths or armoursmiths, and will gain specialised recipes while losing their ability to adequately make items in the non-specialised area; in other words, a weaponsmith can make great weapons but will not be very good at all at making armour. Artificers can specialise as Carpenters (wood) or Mineralogists (stone). Outfitters can become either Leatherworkers or Tailors.
Aside from this, each continent has its own crafting style and crafting recipes, which foreigners have to work to earn if they want them. Each tier (1-10, 11-20, etc) has its own quests and rites of passage. To add to that, various NPCs around the world provide access to special recipes.
I won't go into the crafting process here or this review will balloon out of all proportion. Suffice to say that it's complex and involved, and currently not for the faint of heart. However, it relies more on player skill than any other crafting system I've seen to date, and will keep rabid crafters (like myself) both busy and most likely ranting for years to come. There are balancing and bug issues with crafting as there are in most of the other parts of the game, and some people have been hit hard with bugs. For the most part, however, and for most people, it's playable.
Diplomacy is based on a card-game concept. Novice diplomats are given a starting "deck" based on their race and class, and will acquire new cards as they progress. Encounters with NPCs are called "parleys", and involve choosing a hand of 5 cards to play. Cards come in 4 basic colour-coded types, have an associated cost to play, and provide gains in the form of points to play other cards or in influence. Influence is akin to a tug of war, and is represented by a scale on the side of the parley window. For each turn that the influence counter is on your side, you get points towards winning the parley; conversely, each turn the influence counter is on the opponent's side, *they* get points towards winning, and thus towards you losing the parley. Each tug towards victory on the player's part reveals a little more information in the conversation window.
Diplomacy can be a frustrating but also surprisingly addictive sphere. Opponents vary from easily beaten to head-on-wall smackingly difficult, requiring many parleys while you work out the best hand with which to beat them.
At higher levels, diplomacy leads into "civic diplomacy" where players, usually in groups, can influence entire cities and provide all manner of bonuses to *all* players in the area, which can affect all three spheres. While the Diplomacy sphere is not as fleshed out as the other two it's being expanded on and refined all the time, and is getting more interesting with each pass.
State of the Game, Playability
Currently, Vanguard is still definitely very buggy. Some people aren't hit as badly as others, as in my case, but those who *are* hit can find the game totally unplayable. That said, to balance out the rants elsewhere, this is absolutely not the norm. It's certainly bad when it happens, but the vast majority of players can play at least adequately. In my case, most of the performance issues I'm seeing are due to my own lackluster setup. I do crash to the desktop on a regular basis, but even that can be mitigated by regularly flushing the graphical engine caches - which, again, has a lot to do with my poor rig. There does seem to be a memory leak issue but this is hardly unique to Vanguard and, indeed, is common in many games these days. It's being tracked down, of course, and each patch brings significant performance enhancements as well as the usual slew of early-game fixes.
On a more specific levels, many classes (in all spheres) are still being balanced, as are items, monsters, and just about everything else in the game. This can cramp some players' style and for those, I would advise waiting. If you can live with bugs and occasional issues, Vanguard is well worth trying right now; if you can't, waiting a few months should see significant enhancements and much less frustration.
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About me
I started playing MMOs with Asheron's Call in 2000, and haven't looked back since. I've been in almost a dozen betas and have paid-to-play just about everything out there, with long stints in AC, SWG, WoW, EQ2, EVE and most recently Vanguard. I'm a member of a stunningly wonderful tribe of people called The Knights Who Say Ni, a true community in the best sense of the word. I can't possibly use 5 words when 12 will do.