| First off, the guild that tested Sigil's raid content and recently left Vanguard is now playing WoW, so they certainly aren't the typical "OMGZ WOW IS SO EASYMODE!!1" Vanguard players.
Secondly, I never once said any of these features were "promised," and in fact, I don't necessarily think changing the features is a bad thing. My point was that Sigil left the FAQ up for so long with mechanics and features that are now long dead that I suspect many people looking forward to Vanguard because of those mechanics and features will be dissapointed. If you want specifics I'll throw out a few:
1) Caravans, this supposedly 3rd generation feature just lets you log out for 3 (I believe) hours and end up at the bind point of the caravan leader when you log in again. 2) AES (Advanced Encounter System) is virtually non-existent in the game. Brad even stated in his recent post that this was over-hyped and will only be in the game to a much smaller extent. 3) Tactile/aimed combat system. The whole combat mechanic where you aimed your strikes to certain hitboxes on your target, including the wound system, was scrapped back in beta 2.0. 4) Boats, also in the game to a lesser extent than was originally implied. 5) The whole chain combat system is an extremely shallow and boring mechanic. Not nearly as involved as was previously implied. 6) Diplomacy may eventually live up to the hype that it has been given by Sigil, but it won't by release. It has a lot of potential, but that's Vanguard in a nutshell, potential and no follow-through. 7) Unique and in-depth character customization (in terms of gameplay, not graphics). This is quite possibly the biggest downfall of Vanguard IMO. After you hit level 20, you get maybe 5 more new spells until 50, the rest are just new ranks. On top of this, with the exception of a few classes with paths (monk, shaman), all characters of the same class will play exactly the same. There is pretty much no option to advance your character in a different route than someone else. 8) Lore, or lack of it. There are lots of small story lines throughout Vanguard, some better than others, but most people enjoy the over-arching lore the most. Why is this city here? Why do the dark elves and gnomes hate eachother? Why should I bother fighting at all? What is the threat to the world? Etc, etc, etc. Vanguard is seriously lacking in large scale lore, at least in-game. 9) Faction systems, or once again, the lack of it. Faction plays very little role in Vanguard currently. I'm sure they are working on this, but I doubt they will be able to get an in-depth and interesting faction system up and running by release, or even a few months after.
Now, all these could change and/or become better, but realize that this game is 3-4 months from release. Someone mentioned they are just "experimenting" with mechanics and gameplay features. I'm sorry, but you don't experiment with core game mechanics 4 months before your game comes out, that's just bad design policy.
I'd like to note that I'm not some disgruntled player or a Vanguard basher by nature. I put in a lot of time into the game, but there comes a point when you have to ask yourself, "do I want to be involved in another EQ2?" Where it takes months, if not years, to get the game to a solid and fun state? My answer to that question was no, and many other people felt the same way. I think Vanguard had a lot of potential that was squandered with poor development decisions and mismanagement. When Brad responds to his community asking where certain features are by saying that Sigil ran out of time and money, that shows a fundemental flaw within the company. I think Vanguard will be a mediocre game on launch, and hopefully it will one day reach its potential, but the outlook just isn't looking very good. | 