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Vanguard releases October producer's letter
Vanguard's new producer, Harvey "Rahtiz" Burgess, released a new producer's letter today to keep players informed on what's been going on since the F2P launch. Burgess mentions more team members coming aboard, more changes in the coming weeks, and what may be a big blow to the community involving Salim "Silius" Grant, but it's not exactly bad news for him. While it's not exactly a giant pumpkin full of news-candy, Burgess also makes mention that City of Brass will finally be out by late November, plus more information on top of last week's SOE Webcast about player studio. For the full story, hop on over to the official Vanguard website.
A Vanguard fifth anniversary year-in-review
It's that time again -- time to look back on a year of Vanguard: Saga of Heroes and see what changed and what stayed exactly the same. The game is now five years old, and the last year has been relatively exciting for the community. Vanguard is just one of those titles that seems to want to last forever. The playerbase is loyal, mature, and truly dedicated to this aging title. Will the players' efforts pay off? We took a look back on the last year to see what the larger announcements were. There were some surprises and even updates (yes, actual updates to the game), something that is still affecting the community. While other games might publish monthly or even weekly updates, the Vanguard players are the camels of the greater MMO community and have learned to live off very little development fuel. Bear in mind that as I type this, an update is being played through on the test server.
The Tattered Notebook: Highlights from the Destiny of Velious webcast
With Destiny of Velious just around the corner, the team at SOE has announced a webcast schedule to provide details about the upcoming expansion and answer player questions. The first one was this past Friday and was attended by Senior Producer Dave "SmokeJumper" Georgeson and Siliam "Silius" Grant, whom Vanguard fans might recognize. While the show was brief, the duo did touch on many different areas -- from itemization to raids and even to the addition of new public quests. Read on for highlights from the first Velious question-and-answer session.
EverQuest II Destiny of Velious webcast schedule released
The EverQuest II development team is gearing up for the long-awaited Destiny of Velious expansion, and part of said gearing up involves disseminating information to the masses. Starting today at 4:00 p.m. PST, SOE will be hosting a series of live webcasts designed to spread the word about Velious as well as give anxious players a chance to have their questions heard. The webcasts will be taking place every Friday for the next month, with various guests and topics scheduled for each. Tonight's segment features Dave "Smokejumper" Georgeson and Salim "Silius" Grant, and the duo is scheduled to talk a bit about new Velious zones, raids, and more. Player-submitted questions are also on the docket, so visit the official EQII forums to submit yours. If you're looking for a bit of a preview, head to EQ2Wire, where Feldon shares his experiences with past SOE webcasts as well as the full schedule.
SOE's Silius talks EQ2 travel revamp
EverQuest II's upcoming content patch is growing seemingly larger with each press release. We've already examined the additions to player housing, end game raids, and a bevy of new visuals. Now, the official site teases us with a lengthy preview of the travel revamp that will also debut with the Halas Reborn patch. "In general we really want our customers to spend less time travelling and more time playing the game and having fun. That's not to say that travel and exploration is not fun for some people, but not everyone enjoys having no choice in the matter. The curious player will still explore and discover if they wish, we have not taken that away. We have however made it easier for the various modes of travel to get people together requiring as few zoning screens as possible," said Sony Online Entertainment's Salim 'Silius' Grant. Check out the full list of changes over at the official EverQuest II website.
Rumor: Server merge may be in the cards for Vanguard
Server merges are a fairly touchy subject with just about any MMO community. For some, they're a sign that a company is putting a game on life support. For others, it is viewed as a way for a company to pool resources and effort in maintaining a smaller server structure so they can redistribute funds and manpower into improving the game. In either case, it still beats having one's favorite MMO shut down altogether. That's why we were interested to note a somewhat cryptic post on the official Vanguard forums made by Salim "Silius" Grant, the game's Lead Developer. While he doesn't state that he is definitely talking about server merges, the thread is named "the big merger" and merges are the primary topic in the thread. The post in question reads: "[w]e are still working out the details on this. We are finalizing the process and running it through QA while working on the marketing side so we can get the word out to people and a good bit of forewarning. Hopefully we can get the official word out soon. Sorry for the lack of updates but it really has just been constant QA of the process so we can have as few bugs as possible once this occurs. This combined with getting the other content releases out the door has made things rather hectic around here." We contacted Sony Online Entertainment for clarification, but were told that there are currently no plans on the horizon for server merges in Vanguard. What precisely Grant could have been talking about in his forum posting if this is the case is something we're going to have to wait and see.
Vanguard paints a rocky road to come in the year ahead
While the holidays are a time full of cheer and special events, things in Telon aren't looking as bright as usual.In a recent announcement to the Vanguard community, the team has decided to be as frank as possible and outline the road map for the game in the year ahead. Due to limited resources and a new focus on bug elimination over ambitious content releases, some of the game's anticipated updates are being shelved indefinitely. Those features include the Halls of Shattered Souls, Pankhor Zhi, Nexus, and the anticipated "alternate advancement" system.
Future Vanguard update to fix the players' choice of bugs
An upcoming patch to Vanguard has been designated as the "Player's Choice" update, and recently the players decided that it should be focused on bug-squashing. The next phase of this process is now underway, and players can submit their choice of which bugs to fix at this thread. There are a few guidelines for people planning to put in their two cents, the most important being that each person can only submit one bug, and they should do their best to avoid repeating previously suggested ones.The thread will be open for two weeks, and after that time, a poll will be created for forum-goers to vote on Vanguard's worst bugs so that they can be targeted with priority. When one player asked why the devs wouldn't simply work off the bugs submitted by players with the "/bug" command, Salim "Silius" Grant replied, "This way we are hoping to get the most high profile bugs that the players want fixed right away. Digging through /bug does not tell us just how important or how many people are seeing this problem." If the whole thing goes to plan, a bunch of really irritating bugs should be eradicated when the update rolls out.
Programmer Jason Weimann discusses his work on Vanguard
Further to their chat with Lead Designer Salim "Silius" Grant last week, Allakhazam has posted an interview with another Vanguard staffer. This time it's Jason "Ikik" Weimann, a programmer that joined the team in April of 2007, long after what we'll tactfully refer to as a very unfortunate launch period. Fans of Vanguard will happily tell you how much better things are nowadays, and Weimann has had a part to play in these improvements, both in things that the players can see, and in behind-the-scenes refinements that have helped other members of the development team in performing their roles.One of Weimann's most noticeable contributions to the game is the current iteration of the riftway teleportation system, which he had found to be unsatisfactory before he flew in and tidied things up. Some of the things he's working on right now were in fact mentioned by Salim Grant in his interview, such as the alternate advancement and item enhancement systems that will go live in the coming months. His dream project for Vanguard would be a little different though; he'd love to design and code a brand new class for the game. May we put in a request for some kind of pirate/ninja/zombie combination? No? Why not?
Vanguard to get expansion-sized serving of free content in coming months
We're not going to call it an actual expansion until they do, but it sounds like there's a serious amount of new content in the works for Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. The game's lead designer Salim "Silius" Grant was recently interviewed at Allakhazam, and he spilled the beans about what to expect in the way of patches over the next few months. We're talking two new dungeons with both group and raid components (which were previewed at SOE's Fan Faire '08), an Alternate Advancement system that might sound familiar to fans of EQ1/2, item enhancement, and an increase to the level cap.Whether or not SOE decides to tie all of this new stuff together as an expansion of sorts is of little consequence, because -- and here's the best part -- it is all intended to be free. For a few specifics: currently, the level cap will raise to 55, and this does mean that classes will be getting a mix of both new abilities, and upgrades to older ones. The AA system will be modeled after the one found in the original EverQuest, and there will be passive bonuses like stat and run-speed increases, as well as class-specific bonuses. As for the dungeons, one will help players to get from level 50 to 55, and the other will be for 55's and will feature some AAs. To get the full scoop on these things and more, make sure to check out the rest of the interview with Silius.
Fan-made Vanguard trailer has community talking excitedly
It's no secret that Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is a gorgeous game, we've given it very worthy spots in One Shots many times in the past few weeks. But every once in a while, someone's able to capture a game in a light that makes already amazing graphics become even better. And that is certainly the case with this Vanguard user-made trailer that's been sweeping forums.The trailer shows off the main draws to Vanguard, such as the large open world, access to many fantastic mounts, ships, and other travel methods, and the epically large dungeons with equally epic monsters to destroy. The trailer is apparently so good at what it does, Silius, the lead game designer, even congratulated the makers on a video well done.Go ahead and click on the link below to jump to the land beyond the break and watch the trailer for yourself![Thanks Ricky!]
