I'd be interested on your thoughts on Vanguard vs AoC? Lots of AoC vs. WoW out there; a Vanguard vs. AoC would be a good read.

While AoC had (and has) it's issues, I'm a patient person, so that's not what really pushed me to try Vanguard. Actually the fact that people were comparing the AoC launch to the horrible Vanguard launch reminded me of the game, and I hit up the forums/website to see how it was doing. There seemed to be a general momentum of people joining up and trying Vanguard, many of them ex-AoCers.

After the grueling download what I found was really a gem. The game has soul... A large choice of unique races, each with unique abilities and starting areas. Then you move on to the classes, every one I tried felt significantly different from the others, different take on the roles than I've seen before, and a couple of truly unique ones.

The actual game is just MASSIVE, so much to explore and see. Other than the character art, the environments are just gorgeous.

Really to me AoC felt more like Guild Wars, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but not what I was expecting. I played the classic EQ back in the day, and loved it. Vanguard is the only other game to give me that feeling since.

I am thinking of Vanguard as well. I picked up Lord of the Rings on a super special. It is pretty fun, but just a little empty. I suspect that everyone is at a high level leaving my poor guy pretty alone in the newbie areas.

That is one thing that WoW has going for it. So many players still offer other lower character levels to group.

What is your favorite thing about Vanguard?

Favorite thing...

I don't feel like I'm on a "track" railroaded through content areas/quests. Not sure if that makes sense...

I'm in no rush to level really, I hop on my horse (Diplomacy Quest Reward at level 10, so early), and just explore. Or go crafting (which is actually pretty interesting), or spend time reading the surprisingly well developed diplomacy stories (you play kind of a Collectible Card Game for diplomacy).

Heck, I'm even strangely addicted to harvesting resources... Its weird.

So favorite thing is the openness I guess, the fact that I am able to enjoy myself in much more than grinding or quests.