More on Vanguard
I've played a little more Vanguard the last few days, and have some impressions to report.
First of all, if it's "more hardcore" than WoW, the way in which this manifests is not immediately apparent; the first few levels are going just as fast as one might expect and I'm not having significant difficulty with any monsters I need to kill for my quests (though trying to kill sometime even a level higher than me is tougher than it'd be in WoW, certainly).
The crafting game is odd but interesting; I'm not sure yet how useful it's going to be as I'm still fairly low-skill. The diplomacy game, by contrast, is annoying. I am particularly peeved by having to pick five cards to use in a given interaction before I know what my opponent's strengths and weaknesses are, and in general having to pick one's conversational strategies before a debate isn't exactly high in verisimilitude.
But now I've seen the graphics in daylight, and boy is it pretty. This isn't of itself enough to make me keep playing the game if the quests aren't fun, but...wow. Pretty.
Anyway, more on this as it develops.