Hmm VG where to begin?
First the things I really like:
• The number of classes and definition of classes. In other games if I want to play a healer I have to choice of playing the character created for that function or not. In VG I have a choice of four classes from a light armor nuker/healer to a plate wearing melee toon. The same goes for casters, tanks, and melee dps.
• The world is big. A lot to explore if you chose
• Crafting system is much more than just click a button once you have the materials. I have been leveling crafting and while it can be a grind the system make crafting a commitment and thus rewards people that will put in the time more.
• Extra stuff like boats (I have a sloop) and player housing is nice.
Now what is bad or broken:
• The game was released six months too soon. The number of bugs is really unacceptable and their poor results fixing them so far leaves little convinced. Major bugs like for example a broken quest which would not let crafters to do their specialization at level 11 took weeks to fix right. The QA before releasing a patch does not seem to exist. Case in point a specific fix in the release notes was terribly broken when it went to live. Testing for just one minute would have highlighted the problem. I can see something that they were not changing breaking but this was something specifically called out for in the release notes and not tested.
• Performance is horrible. My pc will run BF2142 just fine but will see single digit FPS while standing still in a near empty area crafting. Dungeons with a full group are unplayable. I stutter and hitch all the time and the main reason I started crafting more.
• Stability is bad. After this last patch I can CTD 3-4 times during a one hour span. It is also the only application on my PC which can completely lock it up requiring a reboot.
• The devs seem to guessing in their changes to “balance†classes. They will up the damage in one patch then nerf it in another.
• The big picture “vision†is missing for various aspects of the game. While it does take time for things like the economy to stabilize there was huge holes in how VG was setup. It really rewarded the people who started crafting from day one and hosed those who came later.
• Did I mention the game was released too soon? The biggest drawback is that they are still adding content and tweaking the existing content so any decisions may come back to bite you later.
I cancelled my account but will still keep all my stuff and will see if they can polish this game before I try it again.