Vanguard - Saga of Heroes Previewed
Labyrrinth writes "The media blitz for the upcoming release of the new MMOG, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
has begun with 2 independent previews at IGN
and Gamespot
. From the article at Gamespot 'In days of old when knights were bold, elves with pointy sticks would totally beat up on a bunch of skeletons. You may have seen online games that take place in high-fantasy worlds, but recently, these games have become much more lenient on players, so that exploring, fighting, and even falling in battle has relatively minor consequences. Not since EverQuest of 1999 (a game that was infamously punishing back then and was clearly one of the main reasons why newer games got easier) has a new massively multiplayer game tried to offer a well-thought-out, but purposely steep, challenge.'" Normally I don't think previews are noteworthy, but Vanguard has been practically a black hole of information since development began.
For those of you WoWer's who never went through the Everquest days let me give you some situations where a "harder" game may have consequences:
Imagine having to spend 10+ hours of grinding to get level 29.
Imagine doing a 5+ endgame raid where you finally get the boss and you lose the roll on the loot. And so you leave your computer having lost almost a complete level of experience with wipes and not much to show for it. (And you though get groups together was hard)
Now imagine trying to keep a guild together or just general group tension down when wiping with any party can cost you the exp equivalent of 3-4 hours of mob grinding. Plus a ton of extra time and money in regents from having to summon all your corpses from under the feet of "Baron VonAssbeater".
I had alot of fun with EQ and a pretty successful guild. But I was also a teenager and this was the best that was available at the time. There is No Way in Hell I would put up with that stuff now.
I am and always will be a stereotype, because who in their right mind prefers mono?