[tdewey10]

It'll be a year since the last content update in about a month - logging on the server last night there wasn't a lot of chat on the channels or people in NT or Khal. At some point SOE is going to shut this baby day - and I'm thinking that point is going to be relatively soon.

As such I'm going to take one more spin around Telon and level up a new toon (class TBD) to 40 or 50 in some of the old great dungeons: Karrus Hakrel, CIS, Xennument or maybe head out to Dargun's or a few of those places in Thestra I never visited much. Why just 50? there isn't much of the new content that I"m interested in nor am I interested in raiding. Why slowly? So hopefully I can drag in a few old timers back too.

[tdewey10]

Originally Posted by tdewey10

As such I'm going to take one more spin around Telon and level up a new toon (class TBD) to 40 or 50 in some of the old great dungeons: Karrus Hakrel, CIS, Xennument or maybe head out to Dargun's or a few of those places in Thestra I never visited much.

Did the Raki Run to Tanvu for the better starting area and made it to 7. Tentatively my plan is to level to 10ish tonight in Tanvu/Rajin Stronghold and then run the diplomacy quests for the early dip mount (and IIRC saddlebags) . Once I've got the mount I'm going to try Islands in the Air solo and see how that goes - if poorly I'll go back to the Magi Hold/Tanvu area for leveling and then try Tomb of Lord Tsang before heading to Qalia for CIS or Thestra for Hillsbury (if it's still lower level - not sure what's changed).

Going to stream my little adventures on justin.tv (link will get put in my sig). Unfortunately the windowed chat bug limits me to mostly streaming solo content.

[tdewey10]

Originally Posted by tdewey10

Going to stream my little adventures on justin.tv (link will get put in my sig).

Sweet revenge that might jog some memories from folks who leveled in Tanvu.

http://justin.tv/tad10/b/280832977

[AsheMan]

Seeing those framerates made me realize the biggest reason why I had stopped playing. How can you tolerate that? It's like playing in slow motion.

[tdewey10]

Originally Posted by AsheMan

Seeing those framerates made me realize the biggest reason why I had stopped playing. How can you tolerate that? It's like playing in slow motion.

That's from justin.tv/dub capturing software - not the game. The software doesn't capture the total framerate (less than half maybe 15-18ish fps tops).

Play is smooth except right when entering Tanvu - maybe 35-45fps on average with my card (MR 5450 IIRC). I would need some kind of hardware capture or maybe the latest top end NVIDIA card to get 30+ fps capture with the dub software. The lack of players = smoother frame rates in towns ;-)

Edit:

Grey Raki Can't Jump

http://justin.tv/tad10/b/280855908

[mmorpeegee]

I had my last hurrah over Christmas. I figured the game wasn't going to be around much longer so I wanted to see it before something happened. I did it with a 2 box which was really fun. I was all done within a month though. I only reached the mid 30's but that was enough for me. I think EQ spoiled me forever.

[tdewey10]

Originally Posted by mmorpeegee

I had my last hurrah over Christmas. I figured the game wasn't going to be around much longer so I wanted to see it before something happened. I did it with a 2 box which was really fun. I was all done within a month though. I only reached the mid 30's but that was enough for me. I think EQ spoiled me forever.

The leveling has changed significantly from release - it's way too fast now: you're going through items and levels so fast it isn't really worth it to go on the questlines for the better heroic items (e.g. Lord Tsang's Tomb) you'll only get a few days worth of use. Back in the old days you'd use a heroic from LTT for 10-12 levels which was a like 3 weeks so spending 2-3 days getting the heroics made sense.

Siliius & SOE really don't understand the game or the games' market. They've taken the original EQish model (slow leveling, significant time betwee sub-endgame weapon upgrades) and moved it to a WoW model (rush to endgame and use those weapons a long time - leveling weapons are disposable).

Edit: That said I'm still having fun - just shows how well the class system and basic combat was designed. First real boss kill (Couldn't get to the Rajin Grandmaster because I kept falling off the roof)

http://www.justin.tv/tad10/b/280977215 Short 2.5 minutes sorry for the grass.

[tdewey10]

Hit 16 and I'm going to say that leveling is roughly 2 to 3 times as fast as it should be too this point. Just based purely on the amount of quest content I'm avoiding compared to my first run through back in Jan/Feb 2007. For comparison:

First time around (Jan/Feb 2007) duoing or full group for most. Note that when I say "all" I meant all working. A few quests didn't work well (especially Island in the Sky was/still is very buggy).

All Lao'Jin Quests (Starting Area/Tanvu/Magi Hold area)
All Ra'Jin Stronghold Quests
All Martok Island/Inside Magi Hold Quests (not many working)
Most Island in the Sky Quests
Early Tsang Tomb Area quests (Lotus Hold, Orc) except for Kojunki Portal and Gataro Hold quests (don't think GH was working then).
Most/All Blighted Lands Quest (For sure Seven Brothers questline)
All Asylum Quests

This time around (Mar 2011) to level 16 (mostly solo)
Most Lao'Jin Quests (Starting Area/Tanvu)
Most Ra'Jin Stronghold Quests.
No Martok/Magi Hold quests.
No Island in the Sky quests (still buggy ;-))
All Asylum Quests
Some Early Tsang Tomb quests (Lotus Hold, Orc)
-Kojunki Portals,
-2/4 Gataro Hold quests.
No Blighted Lands Quests
3 small FedEx quests (Rift and go here quests) that I don't recall being in originally.

The Magi Hold area Lao'Jin quests/Martok incursion quests/and interior of Magi Hold was a lot of xp and one of the biggest differences this time around (probably spent two solid days just in these areas). And again, a lot more mobs were killed on the way to, or as part of, the first leveling experience (including a lot of time in Rajin Stronghold and Magi Hold and Islands in the Sky).

* * *

Still having fun (see my .sig) but I really see where the folks bitching about the xp changes are coming from. VG was designed for us to level slowly (as compared to WoW/Rift).

[mmorpeegee]

To me the levels seemed super fast up to 30 and then it felt like hitting a brick wall. I lost all interest at that point. In EQ when it was slow like that, I used to just grind with friends night after night, but it wasn't possible for me to do that in Vanguard.

[tdewey10]

Originally Posted by mmorpeegee

To me the levels seemed super fast up to 30 and then it felt like hitting a brick wall. I lost all interest at that point. In EQ when it was slow like that, I used to just grind with friends night after night, but it wasn't possible for me to do that in Vanguard.

You can't sit in a room and have your puller pull to you and grind for XP. This is not SOE's fault - Sigil put too short leashes on mobs and didn't create a lot of empty rooms in their dungeons. Also it's just inefficient compared to quest XP (though might have made sense had SOE ever added in AA).

This is actually a bad design decision by Sigil, IMHO, because (except for the puller), it's a nice experience to sit with your group between pulls and chat. It should be a reasonable way to XP and it's not right now.

That said there are two ways you can grind in VG (one of which I did last night in the Five Brothers area while I was streaming)

(1) Pick an area full of placer mobs/loot pinatas (e.g. Five Brothers (teens), CIS (twenties), Tar Janishar area (thirties), Isles of Madness/Karrus Hakrel (low forties), Xennumet (high forties)) and focus on killing placer mobs, trash mobs and the loot pinatas when they pop. It's a nice grind because once in a while you get an upgrade, and you end up getting a lot of stuff you can sell for cash or even auction.

(2) Pick an area with rare/ultra-rare quest drops (e.g. ToLT for symbols, VT area for VT drops, Karrus Hakrel for Aqual Orbs, Isles of Madness for Xennu Energy Shard) and just grind the mobs for drops.

Neither is really the same as EQ grinding - so I understand why some/lot of people don't like either option. I can think of one reason what's wrong witht the above right now: you have less freedom to choose what and where to grind (unless you want to be crazy ineffficient) - also most of the quest rewards/better loot items are soulbound/BOP so you end up with a lot of nice looking vendor trash. Again, not entirely SOE's fault here - Sigil changed a lot of things (e.g. Xenn quest items like the lev cloack) from BoE to Soulbound.

Anyway, understand where you're coming from just wanted to offer my .03.

[Arctic_Slicer]

Yeah I quit Vanguard: Saga of Heroes about 2 years ago now. April 2nd 2009 was the day my account ceased to be open and I haven't looked back since. The game was decent 4 years; sure it had stability issues but it was a pretty fun game. All of the changes that were made to the game later that year while failing to address the bugs and stability issues that were driving people away was what eventually ruined that game for me. My friends I used to jokingly call it "Vanguard: Saga of Instability" but we were having a blast in one of the few truly hardcore games on the market.

Currently I'm playing back in old Norrath having just resubscribed to EverQuest for the first time since 2005. I actually rolled a character on one of the new progression servers and it took my 2 hours of mob kills to get to level 2; it don't get any more hardcore than that. After a couple of days playing on the progression server I went and logged back into my old main toon to see if I could find any of my old friends; I didn't find any but I made a bunch of new ones and joined a guild. I finally finished my Kunark epic and have been doing a few other random quests and just been having a pretty good time.

In the 6 years since I quit EverQuest I played many different games but never found another I enjoyed as much. Playing the game again I'm starting to wish I never left; sure the game has gone through quite a few changes over the last 12 years but the game seems to have changed less in 12 years than Vanguard: Saga of Heroes did in 2. Modern EverQuest with it's 17 expansions remains one of the most hardcore games on the market and with 17 servers running it is SOE's most popular game.

[mmorpeegee]

Originally Posted by tdewey10

Anyway, understand where you're coming from just wanted to offer my .03.

Yep I agree with all that. I kind of can't blame Sigil too much because to me, EQ was the first game to really have camping and grinding like that. After a while people complained about it (because it was kind of boring), so along comes WoW with the solution which is to keep people moving and "doing stuff" with the constant questing.

But personally, after playing both games, I found that the constant questing became just as tedious and boring as sitting in a room and just grinding mobs, if not moreso. At least with the EQ way, you could choose from many different places that interested you, then sit around chatting while fighting too, and it was less manic than having to constantly be running from quest 1, to quest 2, to quest 3, to quest 4, etc.. That constant "get quest, kill x, run back to hand in" repeated over and over got really tiring for me.

It's only after playing WoW and then going back to EQ that I realised, I preferred the old way! But sadly, all the games since WoW (including Vanguard), have just gone with the WoW way (constant questing). I can't blame them because if you go on numbers, WoW is more popular by far, but the subscription numbers don't tell the whole story. So yeah, I still think the EQ way was better :P

With Vanguard, not only could I not do that kind of thing, but also the fact that none of my real life friends play the game made it worse. And then especially on my last visit, there weren't even any other players in the game to group with. I think the most people I ever saw in a zone together was about 3 or 4. Very dead

[Lonestryder]

Originally Posted by mmorpeegee

...and it was less manic...

I have to agree with your assessment, mmo.

After playing RIFT for a bit, I got the constant anxiety of the frenetic environment. Perhaps I have just been unluckly enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time in that game, but with the constant sound of fighting and things blowing up, it makes for a decidely tedious eperience.

It is interesting that some folks find camping to be tedious, but constant, everlasting action to be "fun".

And so it goes.

[tdewey10]

Originally Posted by Lonestryder

I have to agree with your assessment, mmo.

After playing RIFT for a bit, I got the constant anxiety of the frenetic environment. Perhaps I have just been unluckly enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time in that game, but with the constant sound of fighting and things blowing up, it makes for a decidely tedious eperience.

It is interesting that some folks find camping to be tedious, but constant, everlasting action to be "fun".

And so it goes.

/agree with both you and mmo here. The quest grind is more tedious than just xp and gridning mobs (for all the reasons stated). It's one reason I never leveld an alt above 15 in Vanguard or WoW until now. One time through is enough. I took a break from questing to just grind crafting.


And yeah LS, I felt exactly the same way about Rift - explosions everywhere.


Edit: Arctic - was playing TLP servers but the Mage Pet OP issue just annoyed me too much.

[Arctic_Slicer]

Originally Posted by tdewey10

/agree with both you and mmo here. The quest grind is more tedious than just xp and gridning mobs (for all the reasons stated). It's one reason I never leveld an alt above 15 in Vanguard or WoW until now. One time through is enough. I took a break from questing to just grind crafting.


And yeah LS, I felt exactly the same way about Rift - explosions everywhere.


Edit: Arctic - was playing TLP servers but the Mage Pet OP issue just annoyed me too much.

Yeah the mages were overpowered but the guys exploiting that issue tend to be multiboxing 2-3 mages in solo mode so they don't really affect the grouping game. After 3 weeks most of those kinds of players are level 50 so if you're just starting out and want to enjoy a good group based game pre-50 then there is no way those guys can't ruin your fun unless you let them.