With every "official" post from Sony about Vanguard, my hopes of Vanguard being fixed and fun again are basically washed away.

I love how they announce a Necro Class lead btw, and are still using the Players as class leads.  What a joke.

There is no way Vanguard will survive to see the year 2009.  Such a waste of talent.

well just as history has shown us, it's typcial for Sony to make new changes and completely revamp a potentially killer game while ignoring the real issues,eventually killing the game, and causing people to quit and pray for a new MMO to hit the market...

and what's worse, they always target the most unique part of a game that keeps the diehard fans happy.... and slowly but surely remove what originally made the community interested in the first place....

I hope Sony get out of the MMORPG business completely.

I also hope AOC doesn't fail us 

Reading the SOE boards is definitely not the place to draw conclusions about Vanguard demographics. These boards by their very nature are populated by the vocal minority. The silent majority of players are leaving, or have already left, they do so without writing 1000 word " I quit essays"  lambasting SoE employees and everyone else who has the audacity to disagree with the purity of their vision for Vanguard.

Personally, I am disappointed to see the removal of EE, I liked the fact that it allowed me that little bit more opportunity to make my monk a bit different from all the other monks in the game. I have no problem with everything being BoE, since the whole concept of hand-me-downs will not sustain a vibrant crafter economy, and the new prices of crafter made gear will be reflected in the change. 5000 pieces of level 5-20 common armour on in the marketplace is really not going to be missed by me.  Adventurers being able to deconstruct their own armour is an exciting thing.

 I love the whole concept of deconstruction in Vanguard, but keeping it in the sole preserve crafters just meant that dusts etc. were rare on the broker and kept the prices of the best crafter made gear too high. Just like harvesting by adventurers provided a wider access to harvested rares, now deconstruction by them will provide the same benefits to the enhancements.

I will add here I have a 24 Monk / 29 Mineralogist so I I am not talk as someone who is looking for cheap adventure gear, but wants to see the whole economy of Vanguard benefit. I am glad they have reduced the amount of crafter xp required to level. The whole crafter WO grind was seriously out-of-wack.  This is a multiplayer game and crafting xp is a uniquely solo experience. I found it soul destroying grinding out WO after WO,  the current crafting experience in Vanguard is better suited to someone with autism, someone comfortable with a fixed routine and a high degree of repetition, Unfortunately for myself, and I believe humans in general, I am not well equipped to perform the same actions repeated, over and over for hours on end.

SoE have, as far as I understand it, the best raiding MMORPG in the industry. EQ1 has tons of varied raiding content for all levels from sub-level 50 to level 75. Catering from raid sizes of 18 to 72. These raids have tremendous scripts requiring complex strategies, and skillful players who have a deep understanding of their class abilities. It also knows how to provide interesting content and run a game without having a subscription base of several million subscribers.

Why exactly does making crafted items BoE suck?  Because you can't sell them later when you're done?  If that's it then I don't buy it.  The economy is already jacked to hell and everyone has too much money already. 

Aside from the obvious gratification of being able to sell off our used gear this actually makes sense to a degree.  If the items aren't BoE then the market becomes flooded with similar items from crafters leveling up.  If you're looking for realism then BoE makes sense in most cases as well because most armor had to be custom made and fitted.  Hence only really rich people were runninig around in plate armor and when they stopped using it they couldn't just sell it to the next Joe looking for some shiny metal armor.  Weapons are a different story but hey it's a game, right?  Even here you'll hear people making arguments about custom draw-strengths on bows, etc.

So what we're complaining about here is something that requires more time and commitment from players and putting it down at the same time because it's like WoW?

De-constructing items I don't have much of an opinion on but I would point this out.  Any moron can take something apart - it takes a skilled craftsman to put it back together.