The Angry Raider

I downloaded the Vanguard trial and I’m giving it a solid go, on my own of course. I have a big post about Vanguard planned for the near future. First I have to actually play a character to 10 and figure out what all is different about the game.

One thing I’ve consistently liked about Vanguard is its immersing fantasy environment. As I work through the quests and try to get to level 10 before the trial ends, but I’m not going to rush. This game is about enjoying the progress of your character, not rushing to the endgame to start raiding. Dungeon crawls figure more prominently in Vanguard than, say, Warhammer Online, but not nearly as much as World of Warcraft and EverQuest 2. That said, Vanguard has two dungeons before you leave the island: one at 5 and one at 10.

My first impression of running around on the island is that there are a lot of other players there. I think creating a new-player zone for everyone was a brilliant idea on Sony’s part. It does away with the ghost town feeling that the other starting zones suffer from. It also lets players experience new quests that are better designed for starting out. It reminds me a lot of Timorous Deep in EQ2 and the blood elf/draenei starting zones in WoW. You can tell the developers learned a few things since launch.

The questions on Vanguard fans’ minds are, will this be enough to attract former players? Who is the Vanguard player base? What can Vanguard offer that other games can’t, and will people care enough? Only time will tell.