Bye Vanguard and Wizardry Online

I’m sure you’ve all heard the news about SOE closing down Vanguard, Wizardry Online, and two other MMOs.

Vanguard is a game that I always wanted to play more, but I could never seem to keep it on any kind of daily schedule. I always thought of it as a “crutch” game - I knew if there was absolutely nothing else to do, and I didn’t want to spend any money, I could always fire up Vanguard and be entertained for a little while. It had its faults, though. Mostly I think it suffered a lot from a slow, laggy combat system. But one thing I will always credit Vanguard for is introducing me to those deck-building card game thingys that everyone but me seems to play. After playing with Vanguard’s Diplomacy, I suppose I now understand why people go nuts for games like Magic and Hearthstone and whatever fifty million other card games are out there.

Wizardry Online was universally panned, but I found it fun in a weird, quirky sort of way. Not enough to play a lot, though. Anyway, people who are always complaining about “yet another carebear themepark MMO” should have liked WO, because it was a throwback in many ways. It reminded me of RPGs back in the early 1990s. But it was just too weird for a Western audience I guess.