Vanguard Collector's Edition

List Price: $59.99 Discount Price: $16.95

Features:

• A vast and detailed world: Explore two large continents and an archipelago riddled with dungeons and adventures.
• Create and customize your character: In a world of thousands, carve your own unique destiny and appearance choosing one of 19 different races from Orcs and Goblins to Dwarves and Elves.
• 15 professions to choose from: Choose from one of 15 exciting professions including Paladin, Ranger, Sorcerer, Psionicist, Bard, and Rogue.
• Dynamic reactive combat system: Build chains of special attacks and reactions with Openers, Bridges, and powerful Finishing moves
• Dozens of unique mounts: With dozens of unique mounts to collect, you can race into battle on your warhorse, command the skies on the back of your dragon or join friends and embark on a sea-based adventure to discover faraway lands.

Accessories:
PC Gamer (1-year)	Games for Windows: The Official Magazine

Customer Reviews:

This review is just for this edition. [Posted on 2007-10-13]
I'm not even going to talk about gameplay. I put that review on the regular version of this game. I will just talk about this package.

It's a very nice box, looks great on your shelf.

The art book is too small, I was let down. The art is great, but it's on tiny pages and half of the book has lore written in it. Less text, more art on bigger pages please.

The in-game cloak was cool at first but is a waste. The cloaks were originally decent at lower levels but the stats dropped. You will randomly get a cloak out of 3 possible options, adventuring, diplomacy or crafting. Overall the cloak was a let down like the art book.

The guild trophy, who the heck knows as it's barely getting added next week! Look at the date I wrote this and look at the date this game launched! Right now it's an ugly wooden trophy board that can't be dropped. It WILL have 3 different buffs, unlike the cloaks you are supposed to be able to choose which sphere the guild buff helps. It will be a small buff for all of your guildies that are online. It can go in a guild house, no guild HALL required. That's a good thing, guild halls are a lot of work. I think this trophy might actually work out for us!

Trial keys...well the game was very unstable at launch so everyone I gave a buddy key to quit. I still have some saved, but they are working on a free trial now. It was never really worth it.

Three months of station access was cool. It lets you look at certain stats on their vgplayers site. It's cool, but the stats are often incorrect. In the end this isn't anything special. Another let down.

The audio CD is great, but there were more audio tracks released on fan sites pre-release that couldn't fit on the disc. Slightly let down by that, but it's a great CD! You'll like it!

Cloth map is cool, but it's stiff cloth with cheap print. It's not impressive, but it's cool to have. I've never used it for anything, but that's me. If you were hoping for an in-depth impressive cloth map you'll be let down by it, but it's still decent.

Honestly, I regret purchasing it at launch. I rated the stars for the gameplay because it specifically asks about the GAME. I'd rate this package as 2 stars.

Pass on it! [Posted on 2007-11-03]
Absolute Crap game. It's sad that a game released in the time of Massive MMO's is even allowed. Cannnot hold a candle to LoTRO or WoW.

Dont waste your money [Posted on 2008-03-02]
graphics are very good and taxings *gf8800* but worth it

pve was fun but not a lot of end game content, grinding and standard quest just like eq but with more push towards quest for gear/exp, took me 2 months to get to lvl 50

game is hackable or at least it was 6 months ago, SOE did nothing about this cept temp ban

pvp is broke,just about every class has a "I win" button, 90% of the time who ever gets the jump wins

To me VG is nothing but a cash cow for SOE that was released 6 months too earily, it came out, they fixed some of the major bugs but left alot of minior bugs and with every patch they put out that tried to fixed the bugs, they would end up fixing 2 or 3 bugs but creating a dozen new ones *anyone remember when the paldians could spam redimtion, I remember it did around 1.5k dmg and had no refreash timer and this bug lasted for at least a month* I was on a pvp server think of the hell that bug caused. the game is missing just about all the good stuff that made eqI great and eqII so/so *eqI/eqII from 5 years ago*

Finally something different in the MMO realm [Posted on 2008-05-28]
If you're bored with the never-ending grind of most MMO's, then Vanguard is the game for you.

Unlike any other MMO out now, Vanguard has three DISTINCT arenas in which to focus and level your character. Adventuring is the well-known grind of kill quests featured in every MMO. You have 15 classes to choose from and about as many races and starting areas. I think this is more than almost any other MMO.

However, if you're over the killing grind (as I am), then you'll really appreciate the other two ways to level (completely independant of your Adventure level): Crafting and Diplomacy. VG crafting is one of the most fun and challenging out today. It offers you choices during the actual crafting that effect the outcome, quality and possibly even your ability to finish a crafted item. Having the correct tools or utilities handy effects your choices.

Diplomacy is something not found in any other MMO. It's a social arena, and you 'combat' by playing cards, much like Magic the Gathering. Higher level diplomats can even grant city buffs, for Adventurers, Crafters or Diplomats, by winning enough parleys (the diplomatic combat) in a given city.

Either way, Vanguard offers pretty scenery, tons of classes to choose from (with not nearly enough character slots unfortunately), and something to do when you're sick and tired of just killing things.

Game is OK, CE is decent [Posted on 2008-06-21]
Vanguard itself is your typical MMO. More often than not you're given tasks to defeat a certain number of enemies or to collect a certain number of an item and, just like all other MMOs, this entails the vast majority of what you'll be doing.

There are some exceptions, but they are the exception. It's pretty standard for the genre.

The technical performance of VG has improved significantly. The game stopping performance problems are long gone.

The CE has some decent extras, and considering the price that you get it for it is certainly worth it so long as you're okay with the game play itself. In fact, I would suggest not bothering with the purchase of the boxed retail copy of VG unless it's the CE.

I'm fairly burned out on the repetitive nature of the MMORPG genre as a whole so I'll leave my comments at this.

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