Shows no sign of a 4/5 year development time. potential doesn't = a good game, theres far too many bugs to be playable..
- Flying mounts
- Player housing
- Future player cities
- Crafting
- future player economy
Being over ambitious with a game leads to a unfinished product, take PM for example and his games.
Less = more - You should set yourself a realistic goal to releasing a polsihed title and then add to it, not tried to do it all at once and fail...
Now people do not give games or things a second chance in life, you make a bad first impression and it'll follow you usually to your grave. Vanguard originally was Sigil + Microsoft but their ideas clashed when Miceosoft wanted it to be Vista only and for the 360. Microsoft also planned for it to be released even earlyer! Brad came crawling back to SOE and they saved the game and gave them a extra year.
However theres no sign of the 4/5 development time on this game, it's bug after bug after bug and then half finished features everywhere! On top of that theres no content and the worlds empty.... Where has all the time gone? It's the 2nd most expensive mmorpg developed and will it get it's money back? I don't think so, IMO SOE will stop funding like they did with Planetside and it'll become a dead game.
The quest system is basically what you have with WOW and the UI is a carbon copy of WOW too. It's obvious where alot of their inspirations came from. The Servers lag quite alot aswel and it really ruins your gameplay experience. Theres really nothing to do in the game but have a boring grind upto end level or craft....
Crafting is probally the best thing about the game it's actually quite good but again it's unfinished and buggy, the nearest thing i can pin it to is SWG/EQ2. It does become tedious and boring however and you'll soon be getting fed up with alot of the unfinished features of the game and the low populations.
Diplomacy is just a complete waste of time, it's basically a card game where you can't lose.... i don't see the point in not being able to lose, if you fail the first time then try try and try again till you win. It's also very tedious and once you've done it the first time it'll be the same the next and the next and the next.... quite pointless really.
Grouping is also very poor, your team mates will often disconnect due to the poor servers and turn invisible. Quite often this happens with NPC's turning invisible but when it happens to your group members it can cause you to all die as a result. Normally it happens when you walk through door ways and makes grouping unplayable.
PVP is another feature unfinished, it's pretty piss poor and lacks anything. Caster classes are very overpowered against anything else and it's just not fun. Theres no reward for PVP and only risk of being camped on lol.
In the end the gameplay is nothing special and very underpar and buggy. It was released far tooo early and will become more annoying than fun.
Graphics:
I thought were very bland and boring, the art style was generic and did not make use of the technical power of the Unreal 2.5 engine. I also find trees very odd looking and outta place and sway abit too much for my liking. You need a very powerful machine aswel and is the most demanding game on the market right now, however it isnt justified seeing as the graphics look poor. IF you don't have 2gb ram the forget playing because the game needs 2gb ram to run smoothly and looks horrible on medium to low. The animations are very pants aswel and horrible and the world seems lifeless and characters have no facial expressions. I hate how saggy peoples butts are aswel.
Overall the performance is horrible the graphics are generic and it's pretty poor IMO.
Sounds:
The music is quite ok but the sounds are repetitive and annoying, everything you hit sounds like tin. I can say no more about this really, the quality is horrible.
Value:
Your paying $50 for a game thats still in beta or about $30 if your in the EU and then $15 monthly fee or $18 in the EU. I would say its basic fees but considering the game isn't finished it's not worth it.
Overall its a game that had alot of good ideas but failed at everything. The game is not good at the end of the day and will take years at this rate to bring it upto standard. A worse launch than SWG or EQ2 put together lol.
Don't buy it, simple and if you want the original EQ experience then go play progression servers on EQ, this game isn't it. I believe the game will have about 50k subscribers within a year and constantly decrease until it dies.