yea...I read somewhere the full game will take 20GB of hard drive space. That's just....insane. I'll have to buy a new hard drive for sure.

yeouch lol. looking at the screenshots, and reading how its seamless and huge, that's not so hard to believe though (assuming they're not bullshitting of course ) Hopefully I'll get in today, if not I have tomorrow off as well hehe. And then we shall see

Here's an article.

Preorder thing is 10GBs in the box plus a 7GB patch download, full install for the full game reported to be 20GBs.

http://mmostrategyguides.com/vanguard_- ... .html#more

I will have to go buy a larger hard drive /cry - I'm poor right now and I just got paid!

Liking it so far. Played for a few hours yesterday, got a lvl 4/3/1 ranger. Customisation is amazing; only Oblivion is on a par with it of the games I've seen, and the graphics remind me a lot of GW (I'm only on med graphics, poor pc couldn't cope with more) You can choose from 15 races which are split into 3 nations (so this determines which island you start on, and each race has its own starting town too) and 16 different classes.

Adventuring is pretty much standard EQ2/WoW stuff. Hotbar with skills on it that you can buy/upgrade. Click on monster, unleash skills, loot monster. It's possible to solo but its more friendly towards small groups. Monsters use a similar system to EQ2 to con what you'll be able to take but using dots instead of arrows (2 dots is soloable, 3 would want 2 people etc etc). The world is seamless and apparently huge. The outdoors is for both solo and grouping, as are the mini-dungeons, but there are also raid dungeons for large groups.

Crafting is pretty good, its nothing really amazing but the grind is less painful. I've taken Outfitter, with Skinning and Reaping as my harvesting skills. You need different sets of clothes btw, so wear crafting clothes when crafting to gain bonuses, armour for adventuring and harvesting clothes for harvesting! The game will switch between suits automatically for you or you can do it with one single click.

To craft an actual item, you need raw materials plus utility supplies (these are things like Solvents, for cleaning the cloth in my case) then go to click on a workstation, choose the recipe/what utilities you wish to use, and are then presented with a gui of the workstation. You basically follow the process; so far with me it tends to be "Choose cloth", then "Design/Pattern", then "Sew" (this is where I can also clean it and upgrade the quality of the item), and finally "Fold". You use Action Points for each thing you do; you mustn't run out of action points or you can't finish the product, and the stuff to improve quality will use up a lot of them. There are also encounters that can happen and in order to counter them, you also need action points, so you have to find a balance between quality and also saving enough points to finish up.

However, to grind you don't have to go out and gather 3000 raw leather to turn into belts. Nope, you get work orders. These basically come in a few different forms, generally either 1 item, a few of the same item, or lots of the same item, and can reward you with either money and exp, money items and exp, or all the above plus chance of a rare. You are given (theoretically, you never see it) the materials for the work order and can use the recipe only that amount of times (so for 3 items, you can use it 3 times; screw up and you only make 2 items to turn in) so you don't have to grind for mats for hours. The more items you manage to make/better quality they are, the better the reward you will receive.

Then theres Diplomacy. I've only done the tutorial on this so not certain how it fits in yet, but its a nice idea. Think of it as Speechcraft in Obliv, except you use cards. These cards are used to build Expression and Influence, which you in turn use to win diplomacy points, which will win you the discussion. It's kinda hard to explain, but the tutorial does a good job at it.

I would love to see the graphics on max settings; its a beautiful game so far. I chose a Thestran Human so I started out in a gorgeous place, all rolling green hills, wide blue rivers and small woods (well i actually started out in a cemetry... lovely); from what I've seen there are desert areas, oriental-feeling areas, african feeling areas and god knows what else. The horses I've seen so far are bloody realistic and everything just looks... nice. Animations are sometimes a bit dodgy... my ranger is quite worrying with her longsword, she looks like shes going to stab herself in the stomach, not the monster!

Total install took 24 hours for me (thats a 2mb connection) so if you think you can handle that and can get hold of a preorder pack, I'd say go for it. I'm on Beta Server 2 as Pevil (duh)

Oh and yes, NDA is indeed lifted so I'll post some screens soon

Lol @ the 7gb patch. So the first expansion disc is the actual patch on dual layer dvd

after that download i'd sure pay for that! lol. Imagine... format the pc and have to do that all over again... ouch.

jesus christ, what a download!! Not for me, I have a download limit of 10 gig a month...I can buy extra (5€ for 5 gig) but I can't afford that right now so...

Despite having read the short review Pev just posted, what's so special about this game? The huge seamless word? The special skills like diplomacy? Just wondering cos it sounds pretty much like your average MMORPG...or does it?

Reading about Belgian ISPs always makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

Like I said, there's nothing crazily new. The Diplomacy is pretty unique but til I'm sure exactly how it all fits in, its nothing amazing. The seamless world is nothing new (UO did it 9 years ago) but it is much nicer to play than WoW in that regard. The crafting is kinda new but also not; it's basically EQ2 with the ability to improve recipes with experimenting (you can put in slightly altered/better ingredients to get different stats and stuff on items)

I would certainly class this as a 'true' MMO however, much like UO (stuff like WoW and EQ2 I class as partial MMOs) simply due to the feel of it and what can be done (housing and boats play a large part in that). That said, if/when Darkfall comes out it should beat Vanguard into the ground, and VG still doesn't come within a mile of UO. It's gonna take a lot for any MMO to be a true MMO like that one tbh. But if you fancy giving a new one a go, I certainly wouldn't put you off playing this game, I'm enjoying it a lot.

well, Shiny and I are now ready for the release. I bought use two hard drives today...our 30 and 60 GB drives just weren't enough. I bought her a 160 PATA and myself a 160GB SATA which are currently formatting. Bring it on, Vanguard!

30 and 60 gig? Wtf, you guys were still living in HD stone age?

My pc has a 160 gig (seagate) and 120 gig (Maxtor ) HD...maybe i should feel superior now!

But all kidding aside, good news. Bring me home some gold so I can sell it for dollars!

I'm debating over getting it or not. It's a great game but with WoW I don't wanna just go dropping that so soon to start yet another MMO, plus I know a few real life people on my WoW server whereas I'll know no one on Vanguard. We shall see.

You'll know me, and Shiny. :p WoW is teh 1337 sux0r, but to each their own. I guess you'll be addicted to burning crusade until reality rushes in and you realize it sucks...like Shiny and I with guild wars.

You bastard...I can only afford GW for now. Think of the children!! Oh, and of the poor bums.