Vanguard Details
Bastun_ie was remarking that he didn't see much in Vanguard that was innovative. There're no major new systems or ideas, no.
However, there are a few details that go further than previous games. A full 3D world that allows flying is not something that's appeared before, for instance. The graphics look good - more in the DAoC line than WoW, although I recognise that many people like WoW's cartoon style. There's housing, and you can place it anywhere - something missing, by and large, from the latest games, which either have no housing at all, something I miss, or a single defined and limited area. Crafting, so the Gamespot article says, will be both wide and deep. Travel is important again, rather than the 'port place to place that's been becoming common. And character death means something, which would probably bug me in practice, but which I like in theory, at least.
The screenshots look like there's a good variety of landscapes, and it's worth hoping that they won't transition along hard lines like in WoW - of all the aspects of the graphics, nothing looks stranger than seeing the two banks of the Southfury river being different colours.
It all sounds good, is the main thing - there's nothing in there that's making me think it won't work, and every other game I've seen so far has had at least one feature I don't like.
Posted by Drew Shiel at February 21, 2006 9:52 PM
"There's housing, and you can place it anywhere - something missing, by and large, from the latest games, which either have no housing at all, something I miss, or a single defined and limited area"
Ah - harking all the way back to UO, then. 'Cos that worked. (Well, actually, yes, it did work if you were one of the first people/groups onto a server and could grind cash, then find space to build. Everyone else got screwed).
"Housing you can place anywhere" - sorry, *not* possible. Or they have a different definition of 'anywhere' to the dictionary. Otherwise, I could drop my house to prevent someone else accessing theirs, or over a resource spawn spot. Pretty sure this will be a case of UO-style 'housing you can place anywhere except where we've blocked it with contours, terrain, scenery, and not within x distance from existing buildings, either.'
Posted by: at February 22, 2006 11:22 AM