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Vanguard beta
http://www.ryandor.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3053		 Page 2 of 2
Author:  HellRazor [ Tue Jan 09, 2007 11:26 am ]
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You mean they will shut off new accounts after a month, or that open beta will only last a month?

I hate to get started in something for such a short timeframe, free or not. :)
Author:  Sydius [ Wed Jan 10, 2007 9:46 am ]
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HellRazor wrote:
You mean they will shut off new accounts after a month, or that open beta will only last a month?

I hate to get started in something for such a short time frame, free or not. :)


Open beta (and beta in general) will last only about another month by all estimates I have heard. The open beta is just to max out the servers and see what a good population for a server is like while they fix up the last few dozen bugs and finish importing the art. No major new features are expected at this point -- it is just bug-fixing/polishing.

So yeah. Less than a month, now. The game will be out soon. Too soon, maybe... but I am withholding judgement for now, since they seem to be releasing an extreme number of bug fixes every day (which means two things: that there are an extreme number of bugs, but that they are fixing them extremely quickly).

Beta has been going on for years now... it was just the traditional "closed" beta where you have to sign up and cross your fingers that you get in. My girlfriend and I got in via a gaming magazine that included beta subscriptions back in May or June.
Author:  HellRazor [ Wed Jan 10, 2007 10:50 am ]
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The graphics in the screenshots Ive seen don't look all that good - what's your opinion?
Author:  Sydius [ Wed Jan 10, 2007 12:45 pm ]
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My opinion is mixed about the graphics. The screen shots, first of all, are both old and don't do it justice. The in-game graphics are absolutely superb by any current standard, and my monster of a gaming machine cannot even maintain a decent FPS with the graphics maxed out. Maxed out, they are absolutely stunning. On "balanced", they are still better than any other MMO I have played (with the possible exception of EVE, but EVE has the advantage of far fewer polygons to render, given everything is floating in space), and I get decent FPS (>30). I say my feelings are mixed, though, because they are a little too much on the realistic side for my liking... think Oblivion, if you've played it, but with better human models. I tend to favor more "game"-like graphics... happy, vibrant colors you wouldn't see in real life. None of that in VG... a lot of earthy tones, and it gets very dark at night.

Max out the settings, and it is like looking at a painting. The trees (which are huge) sway back and forth in the wind, the moon/sun crosses the sky, the volumetric clouds look awesome... it's all unbelievably cool looking. It still has a few bugs to be worked out, though. Intersecting polygons and such. They even regularly broadcast that seeing things in the distance as being blurry is a feature (which can be turned off) and not a bug... heh (very nice effect, too).
Author:  Xuri [ Thu Jan 11, 2007 8:20 am ]
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Just finished downloading and installing Vanguard. Now I'm updating my DirectX version, and then I'll be ready to test the game.

Have european key though, so can't bother you ingame Syd ;P
Author:  Sydius [ Thu Jan 11, 2007 10:06 am ]
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That sucks that you got a European key. :-(
Author:  CMS [ Thu Jan 11, 2007 10:26 am ]
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I'd love to comment more on the gameplay. But, it's hard to get a true grasp when the game logs me out about every 10-15 minutes. Usually during combat. If this has been beta-tested for years, shouldn't these types of bugs already be smoothed out?

I've created three different characters and started in three different areas and still get this. Kinda hard to get higher than level 5 this way.

I HAVE noticed, so far, that I seem to be doing better in the "desert" land. :shrug: So, we'll see.

-Goldrush
*******
Author:  Xuri [ Thu Jan 11, 2007 10:47 am ]
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Sydius wrote:
The trees (which are huge) sway back and forth in the wind,

That part of the game doesn't really make any sense to me. I created a Wood Elf character and logged in, and the first thing I noticed was this HUGE MASSIVE tree swaying forth and back as if it was in the middle of a hurricane or something. :|
Author:  Sydius [ Thu Jan 11, 2007 10:53 am ]
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Xuri: Yeah. That instance is weird. In the "normal" forests, though, it looks appropriate. I think all the trees sway the same, regardless of diameter.

CMS: Yes, they should have been. Do you see people saying "CRASH!" a million times in the shout/ooc chat? If so, then it is a chunk crash, which happens every couple hours lately. They didn't start happening until they opened the doors and let thousands more in... all at once. :-P

If you are *NOT* seeing people go "CRASH!" a million times right before it logs you off... then it must be your system, in which case, I've not heard of that happening before. :-( Report it?
Author:  HellRazor [ Thu Jan 11, 2007 11:18 am ]
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Sydius wrote:
That sucks that you got a European key. :-(


What's the difference?

Important to me since I currently live in Europe but I want to play on US servers. :)
Author:  Xuri [ Thu Jan 11, 2007 12:18 pm ]
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Hmm. Are they running seperate servers for Europe and the US during beta?
Author:  CMS [ Thu Jan 11, 2007 12:24 pm ]
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After logging in and finishing the quest, I report that it crashed on me. I don't have my chat open, so haven't noticed if anyone else is having this problem. At first, I didn't even know I'd been logged out, since there's a delay from the time you "log out" and the time your character actually leaves the world. I could still move around, just couldn't interact...then I'd be kicked to the little loading screen that took me back to the character screen. It's happened during combat and during generic interaction with NPC's (both questgivers and merchant/trainers).

I'm pretty sure my system is fine. I've got:

P4 2.6 gig
ATI X1600 512 mb card
2.5 gigs of DDR RAM

If this game requires more than that, I guess I won't be playing it. :shrug:

I really want to get into the crafting system and try it out but I can't seem to make it far enough to find those trainers before I get frustrated with having to either log back in or restart the game. *sigh*

Ah, well, I'm stubborn enough to keep trying. Just not sure I'll be paying a monthly fee to play it if this keeps up.

-Goldrush
*******
Author:  Sydius [ Thu Jan 11, 2007 1:27 pm ]
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CMS: It's not your system. It's the sub-server going down. If you had your chat open, you would see everybody go "CRASH!" a lot right before you log out. The chat server is separate from the sub-server you are on, so you can still talk, even after the server your character is on is offline.

A month ago, you could go days without a sub-server going down. Recently, they go down every few hours. Supposedly, that's what this stage of beta is for -- to beef up the servers and stop the crashes caused by overload.

They really don't bother me since you don't lose more than a minute's worth of game play, but I heard there is a bug that causes your character to not save to the database if you are crafting, and so you lose more.

Really, I think you have to wait until the few days before the end of beta to judge whether or not to buy the game, at least from a bugs perspective.

...

Xuri: I don't know. I'm not sure if there are European servers or not. I think there are, but I really don't know.
Author:  Sydius [ Thu Jan 11, 2007 1:29 pm ]
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Even though the sub-servers come right back online, I am a druid and need to be online for an hour to get my special powers... so yeah... haven't had much chance to play with those. :-P
Author:  Xuri [ Thu Jan 11, 2007 2:54 pm ]
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Well, which servers do YOU play on, Syd? :P Names? Characters?
Author:  Sydius [ Thu Jan 11, 2007 3:23 pm ]
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I last played about 3 days ago, on "Beta Server" (1)... I have a lot of characters with random names, though. I never play one past level 7 since I want to figure out what I want to play and not have to re-do a whole bunch of quests once the game comes out.
Author:  Xuri [ Thu Jan 11, 2007 7:52 pm ]
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I'm currently playing two characters on the "PvP" server (no idea why I chose that over any of the others :P), one half giant warrior named Arne Stoutarm, and a wood elf ranger (heh) named Half Berried ;P
Author:  Coldfire [ Wed Jan 31, 2007 9:53 am ]
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can you post lowgrade screenshots?

like how it'd look on my system XFX 6800GS 256mb?

I would love to play this game but i wont buy it unless it plays without lag and looks at least as good as UO lol
Author:  Coldfire [ Fri Feb 09, 2007 1:06 am ]
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I happily report i will be getting this game.

I tried WoW and i couldnt get into it.

Is this game more skillbased or is there trees of skills and abilities like WoW?
Author:  Sydius [ Fri Feb 09, 2007 12:27 pm ]
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It's mostly item-based. I assume. I've not tried upgrading my equipment in the 10 or so levels of my druid yet (you get freebies from quests and as loot).

It does have skills... like UO. And a skill cap, with little +/- buttons to lock them going up, down, or keeping them the same.

The main focus seems to be on abilities. You get new ones every so often (every level, eventually, it seems). They're where the fun is. New spells, etc. All classes get the same set of abilities, though.

A druid is a druid and a paladin is a paladin in this game. The only thing that really seperates them is their equipment and to a lesser extent their skills (but their skills are likely to be close). It sounds bad, but, in practice, it's no worse than any other game I've ever played, and I rarely run into other druids to compete with.
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