I practically found my face hurting because I didn’t realize I was smiling at the game so much.

I own it, and want to wait to get a better graphics card, but I’m starting to shake a bit:)

One thing I am proud/happy for: My friend who’s a total Vanguard addict, spent about 4 hours one night showing me everything about the diplomacy system. I look back now at that, with the prospect of actually playing the game full-time, and am so glad I learned all that.

One of the problems with Vanguard’s truly awful car-crash of a launch was that while many players couldn’t even get the game to run at all, others, of whom I was one, found they had PCs that could play it pretty well from day one. Consequently some people were having a great time from launch day while others were tearing their hair out.

Three years on, virtually all of those game-breaking bugs are gone and the game plays as smoothly for most people as any MMO. The world of Telon is gorgeous and fascinating and there’s enough content to keep the average MMO player busy and contented for a year or so. I’m still playing Vanguard (by coincidence I was alreadiy logging in to it when I started this post) and I plan on playing it until the last server goes dark, which I hope is a very long time from now.

I’d recommend anyone who likes MMOs and hasn’t tried it to give it a go. It’s a quiet game now, but by no means dead and you really don’t need to know people already playing to get started. It’s very solo/small group friendly all the way to the mid-40s (and there are only 55 levels).

I completely agree with Beau on the attitude of the hardcore elite in Vanguard. They were like that in Beta and in my opinion it was their carping and complaining that led to a raft of changes in late beta that would have limited its success even had there not been all the techincal problems.

I can’t really agree on the compliments for the current development team, though. I do think Silius has genuinely done his best, and the Isle of Dawn shows that it’s not technical competence or imagination that’s lacking. The problem is that Vanguard has never had anyone in charge who has a clear idea of where it should be going and the strength of will to take it there. It really needs to be taken by the scruff and shaken back into shape, the way EQ2 was.

Nevertheless, even if nothing ever changes in Telon again, it will remain one of the best MMOs ever made.

First of all I think Vanguard has the very best “Newbie” zone. The Isle of Dawn is chock full of great quests and I never once felt like I was “grinding” while there.

Once I got to Qalia I will never forget the jaw-dropping experience when I was able to fly a mount and see the vast desert of Hakrel for the first time. It’s just a lot of fun to explore the world, finding interesting quests and strange nooks of things to do. No other MMO has that same vast feeling.

I don’t know what the future for the game holds, and I’d hate to assume, but I do know that I’ll be there to support it where I can.