PVP Team servers, simply no logical, lore nor ruleset framework for this, completely idiotic decision. Vanguard can only be a full on FFA PVP environment or full on PVE environment, nothing else makes sense given the context, size, and racial / class make up of the game.

Performance, one wonders what dark acts of digital devilishness they subjected that poor game engine to to make it run so un believable hideously on virtually every machine known to man. That poor performance isnt going away with better hardware, its ingrained deep in the binary cockels of the game, twisted, clumpy and unelegant. Just the fact that adding a hardware sound card reaps for me on average 7-10 more fps than with onboard sound screams bottleneck somewhere deep down.

Crafting is a true travesty in the game, a crafter is absolutly undependant upon anyone else to level up, meaning that because useful item recipes are so ungodly cumbersome to execute that very few crafter produce needed items for sale. Now if the crafting system was actually fun… there would at least be that, but its not, its tedious and unfullfilling. Diplomacy, please, its a weak diversion punctuated by tiresome dialog that must be grokked to be successful, in itself not actually bad, just … boring, irritating, and often quite silly.

Worst of all though, even worse than the ever present bugs, mysterious hitching, uninspired quests and totally and utterly, heartbreakingly grueling inability to solo at a remotely satisfying pace is the absolute lack of other players in the game. 3 continents full of content, sights, ruins, some truely breathtaking vistas, but the game is for the most part underutilized and unpopulated. There are not enough people to actually group with even if you wanted to. There are a few big guilds but they are hesitant to accept new people because turnover is so ungodly high. It all adds up to a MMO disaster, one that makes even Anarchy Onlines much maligned launch look tame.

-Gooney