Vanguard: To VG or not to VG
Stonesmasher Enclave was a disappointment, not a dungeon at all, a fort and a few camps scattered around. They were orcs, or something orc like, with trained fighting bears. I don’t know for sure if the bears were trained, but they did fight. Once we got the hang of it, we could handle four or five at a time. We looted a few good drops. It was fun in a pulling large groups, grinding and shooting the bull kind of way. Certainly not the, I don’t know what’s around the next corner, excitement.
Not that we didn’t have thrills. We pulled a few very large groups, being outside, we ran away. My Warrior and Mark’s Priest died once. There is a 24 bear in the area that isn’t aggressive unless you put an arrow in him. I arrowed him twice by mistake. The first time we just ran, he chased us a long way. The second time Mark wanted to give him a try. We couldn’t do any damage to a bear ten levels higher than us. Mark’s Priest died in the escape.
After an hour I got antsy and we headed off to Khegan’s End. It’s listed as a “Premiere” dungeon. There was a much larger, higher level, group going in ahead of us. They seemed too tentative and we hop scotched with them for a little while. The spiders we encountered were harder than we’ve done before, but doable one at a time. When I pulled four, Mike used his Psionicist powers to evac us and we went back to Stonesmasher Enclave and the orc grind.
Mark and I dinged 15 which seemed a good point to consider staying with Vanguard or not. Our plan was to give it a fair try then decided. Our only alternative seems to be WoW. I believe Mark would like to give EQII another shot, but Mike doesn’t like it and I’m not that excited about it either. I’ve tried EQII again recently and, while it’s a lot better than launch, it didn’t draw me in. Mike wants to try Pirates of the Burning Crusade. I’m down for that, but we have no idea what kind of fun it will be. I’m becoming intrigued with the talk about Lord of the Rings Online, though I’m not a fan of the book or movies. I think we could have some fun with EVE as well, the boys are uninterested.
Not that Vanguard isn’t a good game. As mentioned many times before, we play twice a week for 2 to 2 ½ hours. We need a game we can jump into and have jammed-packed fun during that short time. Wandering around wondering where to go next doesn’t work; we make no progress and it’s not fun. We need concentrated excitment. In addition, I get easily bored doing the same thing over and over. I need a range of options.
It’s not clear if Vanguard is the game for us. Finding the right places to fight hasn’t been easy. Not that it ever is with a new game and uncharted content. As of now, we’ll continue. I’ve got no idea where we should fight next tough.