I’m not going to bullshit you with worthless phrases like “the game has potential”. I don’t care about Vanguard’s potential, you don’t care about it, nobody cares. A game is either worth wasting your time on or it isn’t. It’s binary like that. Besides, whatever potential Vanguard might have, it’s going to take a whole hell of a lot longer to make it happen now, with half the dev team fired.
One reason I’m still playing is that there are no alternatives that appeal to me. I’m done with WoW, it was fun while it lasted, but raiding and retarded guild drama burned me out. I tried LotRO during open beta but the overwhelming feeling of sameness to WoW was an instant turn-off. People seem to like it but it isn’t what I’m looking for. Return to EQ and ruin the fond memories I have of this game? No way. EQ2? Three times is enough. EVE? Never managed to get into it and that’s not for the lack of trying. Age of Conan and Warhammer Online are still months away.
I’m actually having fun in Vanguard. It is possible, even with all the apparent flaws. I kill stuff, I get equipment upgrades, I get to see new content and I’m doing it with a static group of great people and an active guild. That’s all I need, and Vanguard provides it. At some point the question of whether it all could be better becomes irrelevant. That’s the main reason I’m still playing.
Broken content pisses me off. Crashing and corrupted textures piss me off. Rogues being complete gimps pisses me off. Boring-ass faction grinds and mind-numbingly long collection quests piss me off. Collect five dusts to make one powder that can be combined with a vial to produce a beacon of which you need 15 to make a boss mob spawn? Fuck that.
Playing Vanguard can be an infuriating experience, but going on an old-fashioned dungeon romp with a good group in a non-instanced dungeon simply outweighs it all. Before Vanguard, I didn’t realize how much I’ve been missing this style of gameplay. WoW’s instances, while well-designed and fun, are very linear and heavily scripted. It’s just not the same thing, and after WoW’s success and Vanguard’s failure, we’ll never see this type of old-school MMORPG gameplay ever again. Vanguard is probably the last chance to experience it. And that’s my final reason.