I finally have a computer that's close enough to give it a whirl, but don't feel like spending any money on it right now. And to be honest, I think EQ2 or Eve-Online or most other things would be a better investment. Why? Because Vanguard is almost dead. Population is at a trickle. They've continued to merge servers and the diehards remain. They won't leave until the servers shutdown. The game doesn't have a future in my view. I don't want to invest in a character in a game that I don't feel will be around several years from now. I think Vanguard is tainted by its original failures before launch. Having SOE buy the rights to Vanguard did not remove this taint. In fact, it might have made it worse since that just makes Vanguard another SOE mmo. Vanguard got lost in the crowd of SOE games. Vanguard has always seemed somehow weak or confused or clumsy. That has always bothered me and makes me not trust it and without trust I do not want to touch it.
I have nothing against Brad McQuaid as a designer. I don't like WoW games. I liked SWG the way it was before NGE. I don't like the 'iconic heroes' that Smedley barfs out of his mouth. But none of this has anything to do with Brad. In fact, Brad was well aware of all of the things that would make Vanguard more WoW-like or 'easier' and supported them for the most part. As a designer he understood the need for some of those things, but as a designer he could see past the trees and see the forest itself. The same can't be said for most players who regurgitate what they've seen in one place and crap it out in another. Most players do not have any understand about game design or MMO development. They just have a rough handle on what they think they like in these games. For hte most part, most designers will pick apart any game from any company whether it's WoW or Aion or EQ2 or something from an indie company. Designers are very open minded about these things and love to discuss it. It's not a war between WoW and other games. It's not a war between veterans and noobs. It's just a very confusing place and I hope you don't get lost in it because i've been there and know how it's.
I've recently played DDO, Entropia Universe and have thought about trying Dawntide in its open beta. Personally, I think the game will flounder unless it can really figure out where it belongs. So many MMOs fail and for many reasons. Right now Eve-Online looks real good to me.
I also think that with all of the fuss about MMORPGs, we're losing sight of single player RPGs and just how fun they can be. I hope that as an industry it's not left to the wayside. MMOs are not the holy grail. A quick run over to store.steampowered.com opens up a world of history to people. Some of hte RPGs I have on my wish-list are: Gothic I/II/III/IV, Evil Islands: Cursed of the Lost Soul, Kings Bounty: The Legend, Torchlight (diablo-like), Baldures Gate 1/2 (quest-oriented), Icewind Dale 1/2 (combat-oriented), Wizardry series (all the way back to the 80's), 1701 A.D. (wanted to check this one out, although it's not really rpg), and on and on and on. There're a number of them from the 80's and early 90's that offer a very unique style of play that's hard to find anymore. So many great games out there, in fact, there're too many to enjoy in a single lifetime. And this is not accounting for all of hte games that have yet to be. All of the awesome potentials to be realized.
I've skipped a crapload of strategy/pseudo-rpg games like Jagged Alliance 1/2.
As for running OLD games, go on over to
http://www.dosbox.com/. I've used and works very well.
So much history, so much possibility, and so little time.