The slings and arrows....

It's odd, but I've really been having a very large EQ2 kick as of late. Its not odd because of EQ2 per say, but its odd because BC is staring me right in the face saying "You know you waaaaant it". I'm as confused as you are..with most of the MMO world playing the crap out of BC, I find myself drawn to EQ2.

I hit level 22 with my Fae Ranger doing Crushbone last night. Its kind of embarrassing, but I also learned something new as well. When I buy equipment, armor mostly, I look at stats...specifically Strength because that stat increases the damage I do. I follow the same procedure for my swords, jewelry and my bow. Two nights ago I got what I thought was a great bow. It was imbued, had +3 strength and it also made great coffee...but its firing delay was 7.0 seconds. Yikes. So, suffice to say, my ranger was...shooting...very...slowly. We were linking our equipment, and me thinking how smart I was, liked my +3 str imbued bow/coffee maker. A guildie said that maybe I should try the one he picked up which had a 2.4 second delay. Ohhhh boy what a difference. I was an arrow shooting machine gun. Never even knew that stat was there until I was told yesterday. Like I said embarrassing, but a good lesson to look at the whole picture when trying to equip your character.

Enough of that...on to something more laughable, like the specs for Vanguard. Here they are:

Required Specs:

Windows® 2000/XP
100% DirectX 9.0c compatible computer
100% DirectX 9.0c compatible keyboard or input device
Processor 2.4 GHz Intel processor or 2400+ or higher model AMD processor
512 MB RAM
Vertex and Pixel Shader 2.0 compatible hardware with 128MB of texture memory
100% DirectX compatible sound card
56K + Internet Connection
16X Speed DVD-ROM
20 Gigabytes Hard Drive Space

Recommended Specs:
Windows® 2000/XP/Vista
100% DirectX 9.0c compatible computer
100% DirectX 9.0c compatible keyboard or input device
Processor 3.0 GHz Intel or 3500+ AMD processor
2 GB RAM
Vertex and Pixel Shader 2.0 compatible hardware with 256MB of texture memory
DirectX compatible audio hardware
Broadband Internet Connection
16X Speed DVD-ROM
20 Gigabytes Hard Drive Space

This has been a pet peeve of mine for a while now...and I think its time for me to bring it out in the open for my own sanity. Required or Min Recommended specs for a game, not just this one, are complete horse shit. It has always been horse shit and I hope to Buda that the insanity stops. I'm sure that most of you have played Vanguard...the majority have at least read the Beta Preview on this site and on others. Let me but it bluntly...you WILL NOT have a pleasurable Vanguard experience if your machine is at the "Required Specs" for this game. I would even venture to say that the "Required Specs" listed would not give you a pleasurable experience with any present day MMO...with exception to WoW.

Look at the Hard Drive Space. The Beta was 16-18 Gigs....I believe that the retail game is in the same ballpark (correct me if I'm wrong...please). The 512K RAM is laughable so I won't even go there. 56K modem??? Are you kidding me?If you're interested in the game at all, and I'm not saying you shouldn't be, the Recommended specs are the bare minimum you'll need to run this game.

I would love it, if the gaming industry would just do away with this kind of dubious spec definition. Its a simple question really...I want to know what machine I would need to run the game so that I get an average of 30 FPS (Frames Per Second). At 30 FPS, you get a great game experience for any title in any gendre. If they can set that kind of standard, then I would be a happy man. Until that day...buyer beware.

D out.