Vanguard : Watch how boring our game really is!

Ten Ton Hammer has a set of four Vanguard:SoH beta videos up for your viewing pleasure. Unfortunately for Brad and friends they are just four more reasons not to play Vanguard.

Comments

• The animations are stiff and repetitive. They do not look dynamic or fluid at all.
• Whack. Whack. Whack. Nothing stellar at all found in the combat portions. Actually the combat looked quite boring and repetitive.
  
• Did that big bad wolf just run through solid stone? Yep it did. Next generation graphics... same old problems.
• Can the camera be any more jerky? It is commendable that they shot in game footage instead of a developer hacked ride by of the game world, but god damn is the camera really that laggy in the game? Were the graphical settings turned up a little bit high?
• Hello I am "insert NPC name here" and my legs don't work. Once again this is supposedly a next generation MMORPG, but the NPC's still don't move and still need little indicators over their head to get the players attention. After playing with Everquest II's voice acting I was quite surprised by its effectiveness. Even if I just want to skip through the bullshit and get to the quest/merchant/etc. it was still nice that an NPC would beckon for me to come over and talk.
• Did I mention how BORING combat looked? Just checking.
• The one thing that I did like was the UI that was in a couple of the videos where they were fighting in the desert. It looked clean and manageable. It was hard to tell what everything did, but it seemed like there was a good and solid base to play the game.

Vanguard:SoH is going to fall flat on it's face. An MMORPG just can't afford to launch with next generation graphics when the majority of gamer's computers are still last generation. World of Warcraft hit on the fact that a lot of potential gamers just don't have souped up gaming rigs. Next generation graphics require bigger budgets and the choice to go with better graphics means you are sacrificing a good 3/4 of your potential customers. No I don't have numbers to back that 3/4 up, but the WoW vs. EQ2 has been more than enough evidence to convince me.

I truly feel sorry for Brad and friends... I truly do.