Vanguard: Saga of Heroes

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
Developer(s)	Sony Online Entertainment (Formerly Sigil Games Online)
Publisher(s)	Sony Online Entertainment
Designer(s)	Brad McQuaid
Engine	Unreal Engine 2.x Modified
Platform(s)	Windows
Release	January 30 2007 Early Access: January 26 2007
Genre(s)	MMORPG
Mode(s)	Multiplayer

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is a high fantasy-themed massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) created by Sigil Games Online, and now developed and run by Sony Online Entertainment. Originally, the game was co-published by Sony Online Entertainment (SOE), and the company producing it, Sigil Games Online. The game was released on January 30 2007, with an early access date of January 26 2007 for pre-order customers. On May 15 2007, it was announced in a press release that Sony Online Entertainment had completed a transaction to purchase key assets of Sigil Games Online, including all rights to Vanguard .

The game initially sold around 242,000 copies, while the number of active subscriptions (those who play longer than the free month included when buying the game) was estimated to be around 130,000, to drop in the next months to about 40,000. In July 2008, the developers announced they wanted to attract old and new players as the game had reached a much more presentable state.

On September 10, 2008, the developers released a significant update to the game with a new area (the Isle of the Dawn) designed to be a stand alone area utilized by the 14-day Trial so that curious gamers can try the game.

Cost

The game comes on PC DVDs, and though price varies, it can be typically seen for approximately $29 at stores such as Fry's Electronics. As of June 2008, there are eBay sellers selling the collector's edition for approx $9.00 + shipping. This pricing may not last long due to rising interest in the game, as subscriptions increase and lapsed players return to the game. Vanguard is also available for purchase through download from SOE or from third-party web hosts.

There were two different versions of the game released. A standard version, and a more expensive, feature-rich collector's edition. The special collector's edition contained a Guild Kit, art book, cloth map, soundtrack CD and 3-month Station Player subscription, plus a special Hero Card and in-game player item. The collector's edition also contained ten buddy keys, or free trials, that when given to a friend will allow them to test the game out for 10 days. If they decide that they wish to continue playing, they will not lose their character, and can opt to purchase the game and continue their account.

Like many large-scale MMORPGs, Vanguard has a monthly fee to pay for bandwidth, server maintenance, and new content. A one month subscription costs US $14.99 as of June 2008. Users can pay an optional premium for access to additional web-based features. Vanguard is also part of the Sony Online Entertainment Station Access package, for which users can pay a single $29.99 monthly fee for access to several SOE online games.

Gameplay

File:Vanguard Human Races may2006.jpg

The six human races

As with any MMORPG, Characters in Vanguard: Saga of Heroes are a player's avatar in the game environment. Twelve characters can be created on a regular account (it used to be only 8 for the first year and a half). At creation, the name, gender, race, appearance, and adventuring class of the character are chosen and will not be changeable later. After his or her creation, the character can start play either in the starting area of his or her chosen race or in the new (as of September 2008) starting zone called The Isle of the Dawn. The character can pick a crafter class and two harvester skills within the game, but is in no way forced to do so.

Race

There are 19 races, listed in the geography section below. Races differ in appearance, special abilities, diplomatic affinity, and adventuring class selection. To help distinguish the races (aside from looks), every race has also one special active ability that unlocks at a certain level (between level 1 and 12, depending upon race). Perhaps the most dramatic special ability is that of the Dark Elves who are able to summon a dragon to help in battle for short period of time.

Overview of Spheres

Vanguard offers three primary arenas of play: Adventuring, Crafting and Diplomacy. The maximum level in each of the three spheres is 50. These spheres are mostly independent of each other, even if that independence is now less than in the very beginning. There is also a fourth, very limited sphere, Harvesting, which knows no level, and has no quests, except for the initial one. There are no restrictions on the spheres other than adventuring due to race or adventuring class.

Each of these four spheres has its own equipment tab on the character window, which allows the player to equip the gear set appropriate to the activities they wish to perform without carrying around different sets of gear in their bags. Once a character performs an action in a sphere, he automatically switches to the corresponding equipment set, and his visual display changes likewise.

Adventuring

The Adventuring sphere features the traditional set of MMORPG activities: completing quests and killing mobs. Quest rewards are usually more significant than killing mobs or 'grinding'. Advancement is achieved through obtaining adventuring experience points. Solo and casual advancement is possible, but the quickest progress and best rewards come from group content.

In general, the majority of the classes in Vanguard are hybrid classes (as compared to the initial classes made famous by Dungeons & Dragons). Most classes have some healing ability, most classes have some magical spell casting abilities, most classes have the ability to "buff" themselves and other group members with enhancing spells. One result of this is that successful dungeon exploration groups can be formed out of many different combinations of classes.

The hybrid nature of many classes makes them more complex than some of the other MMORPGs with an abundance of abilities to learn. To the casual gamer this complexity can be challenging - at least compared to the most popular MMORPG World of Warcraft.

In combat the different classes have abilities that depend on other classes to achieve maximum results. Every class can use an ability that causes one or more 10 second vulnerabilities to occur on the target. Other classes can potentially use their class-specific attack or spell take advantage of a specific vulnerability and inflict extra damage. (A complete list of the vulnerabilities can be found on the Ten Ton Hammer web site [1].) Although this system is fully implemented, in practice most players ignore it and the game certainly does not require that attention be paid to it.

Characters have attributes and skills which can be increased with leveling. All classes have reserves or 'pools' of health, endurance and energy which they rely on to survive (save monks and rogues who do not have an energy pool). Health and energy increase with levels and attribute increases, but base endurance is locked at 100 points throughout the game.

The game provides for class customization to some extent. Starting at level 10, characters are rewarded with points which can be spent to increase their attributes. Some classes are given specialist paths at certain levels (usually 15 or 30), which influence the way they play the game by offering them new abilities and encouraging them to alter their equipment and attributes to take advantage of these. There are also 'learned abilities' to be acquired by studying certain mobs, and some from dropped items looted from high-level mobs.

There are currently 15 adventuring classes to choose from:

• Protective Fighter (tank, wears heavy armor)
  • Warrior (mostly melee damage, some group buffs)
  • Paladin (some healer abilities)
  • Dread Knight (some magic damage abilities, some ability to drain health and add it to their own)
• Offensive Fighter (melee damage dealer, wears medium armor)
  • Ranger (dual weapons, bows, stealth, some druidic magic)
  • Rogue (dual weapons, some abilities based on use of daggers, stealth, poison)
  • Monk (a class designed around the build-up and expenditure of "jin" points in battle, feign death, 3 subclasses)
  • Bard (group buffer, crowd control, general utilities such as great speed of travel, invisibility, and levitation)
• Defensive Spellcaster (healer, has ability to summon others from a limited distance)
  • Cleric (healing over time, wears heavy armor, some tanking ability, 5 subclasses)
  • Shaman (healer and damage dealer with damage-over-time spells (dots), wears medium armor, some fast heals, 3 subclasses)
  • Disciple (monk healer, able to use endurance to heal instead of energy, wears medium armor, feign death)
  • Blood Mage (healing and crowd control, able to drain own health in exchange for magical energy, wears light armor)
• Offensive Spellcaster (magic damage dealer, wears light armor, has escape teleport)
  • Sorcerer (by design they are supposed to inflict the most damage per second, invisibility)
  • Druid (snares, runspeed, damage-over-time spells, limited healing abilities)
  • Psionicist (mind and crowd control, illusions, damage-over-time spells)
  • Necromancer - (pet, damage-over-time spells, feign death, 2 subclasses)

Probably the most unusual class designs of Vanguard are Monk and Disciple, who features a fight system that accumulates a counter called "jin" through various abilities, to open other abilities that use the gained points up again, and the Blood Mage who has a similar system called "blood points" and comes with a large set of abilities to redistribute damage in various ways.

Vanguard's class system is designed for group content. All of the classes can perform one of the three major MMORPG roles: tank, healer, or damage dealer. Tanks and healers are supposed to perform their job about as well as their peers, although in specific situations one class will be better than another. DPS classes vary in their roles: for example the bard, while it belongs to the offensive fighter group, is more of a support class and crowd control specialist than a pure damage dealer.

Solo play is possible, but, as in many MMORPGs, the classes differ in their solo performance. Vital solo abilities - namely to take damage, to heal, and to kite (slow the opponent and run away while attacking from range), or to fear-kite (the same, but fears the opponent periodically again instead of running away) - are distributed unequally amongst the classes. Blood Mages are perhaps the most effective at solo play with their combination of healing, damage dealing, and crowd control. Rogues are widely considered to be the weakest at solo play due to the fact that most of their abilities can only be used so long as they do not come under direct attack from their target.

The adventuring classes were not initially designed with PvP in mind, and balancing them for this activity has been an ongoing, difficult process which has not as yet been completed. Some powers and abilities work differently in PvP; some do less damage so that weaker classes cannot be killed in one hit by high damage output characters, allowing them to react when attacked.

Crafting

The second 'sphere' of Vanguard is Crafting, and involves creating in-game items using recipes and raw materials. Crafting recipes are a set of actions that must be performed in a particular order to produce a final result. Each of these actions costs 'action points,' taken from an action pool. The maximum number of action points available varies with each recipe. During the crafting process, "complications" may arise which affect the crafting process, usually but not always negatively. The crafter can attempt to correct complications or resume crafting and deal with the consequences or benefits of ignoring the complications.

A character's Crafting level is independent of his or her Adventuring level. It is possible to advance Crafting without engaging in adventuring or combat, and without funneling harvested raw materials from experienced Adventuring characters to the crafter. Crafting experience comes primarily from work orders and crafting quests. Work Orders are commissioned by NPCs who provide raw materials. The crafter then produces the requested items, receiving Crafting experience, money, and possibly items or recipes in return. Crafting proficiency is not represented simply through skill advancement, but uses an experience/level system much like adventuring. Each work order or quest gives an amount of experience. When a player earns enough experience, they gain an additional Crafting level. Every ten levels crafters can start working with a new tier of resources to create more powerful items after they complete a training quest.

Vanguard Crafting currently has three styles of items that can be made, each local to one continent. The styles offer different types of bonuses on created items, have different appearance when worn, and each has unique items not available in the other styles. A Kojani style sword looks different from a Thestran or Qalian style sword, and may have different bonuses. To learn the different styles of recipes crafters will have to complete quests on each continent and earn faction with the local artisans of each. For some items such as player-owned boats, housing and guild halls, significant faction is required for that continent's artisans to be able to create those items. Thus crafters are able to create only certain types of housing or ships. The most dedicated crafters are able to craft styles of items from all three continents.

There are three crafting classes and each of these has two specializations. The player can choose a specialization when they reach level 11 in the "parent" crafter class. It is possible to switch specializations, but doing so will permanently remove all recipes of that specialization, including any rare and difficult to obtain recipes. Repeatedly switching between specializations is not recommended, but the opportunity to change is available. While changing specialization is possible without too severe a penalty, changing the parent class carries a substantial penalty, resulting in being reset to level 1 with no skills, basically wiping out all the work done in the original class. Since crafting can be done independently of the other spheres, it's generally better to start a new character if you wish to change classes instead of wiping the old skill with an existing character. The crafting classes are Outfitter (Tailor or Leatherworker), Artificer (Carpenter or Mineralogist), and Blacksmith (Armorsmith or Weaponsmith)

While each specialization has various types of items that they can create, as well as sharing some items with their corresponding classmate, in general Tailors craft Light Armor and backpacks; Leatherworkers craft Medium Armor and Saddlebags; Carpenters craft ships, housing parts, focuses, and wood weapons; Mineralogists craft stone weapons, jewelry, focuses, and housing materials; Armorsmiths craft Heavy Armor and Horseshoes; and Weaponsmiths craft Metal weapons and Horseshoes. Each class also can craft various expendable items which provide buffs and utility effects, ship and housing parts, and other items. At the very high levels some crafters can obtain special recipes to assist adventurers in creating materials used to upgrade their quest armor.

Diplomacy

File:VanguardDiplomacyBoard.jpg

The Diplomacy game board.
The bottom half represents the player.
The top half represents the computer opponent.
To the right is the Dialogue Point Marker.
To the left is the Statement play area.
In the center are the available Expression types.

The third "sphere" of Vanguard, Diplomacy, allows a player to influence factions and to gain benefits for themselves or other players by means other than simply killing large numbers of enemies. As well as obtaining faction, gear and money, an additional reward of successful Diplomacy are Civic Benefits, are usually in the form of city-wide buffs triggered by city diplomats for the benefit of the Crafting, Adventuring or Harvesting spheres, and which affect everyone in the city regardless of whether they participated in the diplomatic parley or not. Diplomats are also expected to play a primary role in Player City management at a later stage of Vanguard's development.

Diplomacy gameplay borrows elements from collectable card games. A player gradually increases their total reservoir of cards as they advance in level and complete Diplomacy quests. A player must also choose a five card "hand," which can be customized to the needs of each individual "parley".

The Diplomacy encounter is known as a parley. At the beginning of a parley, both players start with a pool of Dialogue Points (the number of which depends on the encounter difficulty and the player's diplomatic skill). The goal of a parley is to use Statements (cards) to influence the diplomacy marker. Every turn the participant who controls the diplomacy marker has their dialogue point total decrease by one. When one participant reaches zero dialogue points, they have won the parley. As the player progresses toward this goal, actual spoken dialogue appears in a popup box, detailing the conversation that is taking place and thus tying the mechanics of the card game back to role-playing.

As a character advances through Diplomacy he or she earns titles that can be displayed front of the character name, e.g. 'Messenger' or 'Ambassador'. These titles represent skill levels, not classes. Diplomacy "classes", or areas of specialization, have been mentioned as a possible future design element but are not currently part of the game.

In addition to skill level, which is gained by performing any Parley, Diplomats must also manage Presence. Presence represents the character's status in a part of the community (called a 'Station') such as Crafters, Outsiders, or Academics. Status accrues slowly by parleying with people of the appropriate station, but the majority of Presence gains come from clothing - a Diplomat might wear a ragged shirt to raise Outsider Presence or Silk Pants to raise Noble Presence.

Performing Parleys usually results in a reward of "Information", such as "Rumor of Blackmail" or "Evidence of Trends". When enough of these items have been collected, they can be turned in to certain NPCs to receive cash, clothing, or items. It should be noted that, at present, no actual information is gained, merely an item in the character's inventory with an appropriate name. That is, receiving a "Rumor of Arcana" will not reveal to the player any additional information about the game world.

As of this time, there is no PvP (Player versus player) element to Diplomacy, but it has been stated that the system was designed with the goal of players being able to 'duel' diplomatically in mind. What, if any, benefits or consequences this will have is unknown.

At present, one adventure area in the game requires the skills of a high-level diplomat in order fully exploit the location. The developers have stated that at least one more adventure area will make extensive use of the diplomacy sphere. Also, high level diplomats are required if a guild seeks to build a Guild Hall.

Despite this, diplomacy remains the least well integrated area of the game. The Diplomacy Sphere was an ambitious attempt to create something entirely new in the gaming world but its actual implementation has fallen short of the designers stated goals.

Harvesting

Most adventurers also learn Harvesting, which forms a fourth simple sphere. A character can have a primary and a secondary harvesting skill, out of the five available. This is freely selectable, even if many people prefer to choose their harvesting skills in harmony with their crafting class, or to take advantage of their racial harvesting skill bonus. These profession skills are Reaping, Skinning, Lumberjacking, Quarrying, and Mining. Each player also has a generic "Harvesting Skill" attribute as well as the two profession-based skills, which controls how well he can help other players with their harvesting.

Like most skills of the other spheres, the harvesting skill is limited to a maximum score of 500. Each 100 points in Harvesting allows the character to obtain access to a higher-level tier of harvestable items. Obtaining higher level tools and clothing for the new tier resources increases potential yields as well.

Much more than Crafting and Diplomacy, Harvesting requires, at higher levels, travel into dangerous areas, so experienced adventurers will more easily become experienced harvesters, especially skinners who need to kill high level creatures to obtain hides. While in some areas it is possible for low level adventurers to obtain high skills, having a lower Adventuring level limits the potential locations to which a character can travel safely, and those few areas can become crowded.

While crafters can do work orders without it, harvest is required for crafting items which other players can use. Special rare and ultra rare harvest is required to make higher quality equipment. Houses, ships, and even more guild houses require an enormous amount of normal items to be gathered.

Game world: Telon

Vanguard is set in a high fantasy world called Telon. There are 19 playable races, many of which are drawn from or inspired by traditional high fantasy sources such as the work of J. R. R. Tolkien and the tabletop fantasy roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons.

Geography

There are three continents.

• Thestra – A land resembling northern and eastern Europe, with mountains, wetlands, and forests. Thestra is home to the major cities of New Targonor, Bordinar's Cleft, the mountain home of the Dwarves, and Leth Nurae, home of the High Elves. Seven races are present on Thestra: the Thestran Humans (Europeans), High Elves, Dwarves, Lesser Giants, Halflings, Vulmane (wolflike humanoids) and Varanjar (German-style human barbarians). The famous Ancient Port Warehouse raid area is located at the southwest end of Thresta.

• Kojan – An island chain with an Asian flavor, Kojan is home to six races: the Kojani Humans (Asians), Half-Elves, Wood Elves, Raki (foxlike very short humanoids), Goblins, and Orcs. Kojan contains mostly content only up to level 20. There are still many small islands in the Kojan area which are almost void of content.

• Qalia - This southern continent (pronounced KAY-lee-uh) has a Middle Eastern feel, with great deserts and rugged mountains, and is home to six races: the Qaliathari Humans (Arabs), Mordebi Humans (Africans), Dark Elves, Gnomes, Kurashasa (catlike humanoids), and Varanthari (Turkic-Mongolic style human barbarians).

There are two other noteworthy separate areas.

• Isle of Dawn, the trial area, is technically an own continent, even if it contains only a single chunk (you cant leave it but through the teleporter at the end of the main questline, or not at all if you are only on a trial account) and there are many hints that it is supposed to be part of Kojan (for example, crafting workorders and quests give Kojan faction).

• Lothenland was an ice continent initially planned, but it didnt made it into the release and hasnt shown up ever since.

Travel

Upon reaching level 10 in any of the three spheres, players can buy mounts, usually horses. There are also various other mounts, and quests for mounts in the game, such as a quest for Diplomats to get a diplomacy horse, or special quests to get a Unicorn or a Shadowhound. As of Game Update 5 in May 2008, each race has its own unique mount type, which can be purchased by players who gain enough faction with that race. These racial mounts are colorful and unique creatures such as giant ants, spiders, rhinos, turtles, etc.

In the course of the game, players can leave their continent of origin. This can be done through the Riftway Network, or by ship (ships were not operational at the game's launch). The Riftway network is a set of some 25 large glowing stones which allow players to teleport instantly from one stone to another. The only limitations are cost (there are 5 tiers of cost ranging from zero cost to the stones that cost 1/2 a gold piece per use) and a level cap (the more expensive stones can not be used by low level players even if they have the money).

Ships are currently available as either Tier 3 (Sloop) or Tier 4 (Caravel). Tier 5 ships (Galleons) have been designed but have not been released (there is still debate internally as to when to release the Tier 5 ships). Sloops are available in three variants, one for each continent, and each continent allows a number of options for the color. Caravels additionally also vary in respect to the figurehead, each continent allowing different variations.

In early 2008 permanent flying mounts were added to the game, as a reward for what is perhaps the hardest and longest questline in the game. Players can also rent a flying mount at some locations (nearly all next to rift stones) for five minutes.

Housing

File:Vanguard Housing may2006.jpg

A player home, Tier 3 "Threstan One Story with Thatch Roof"

One can build one house per account, which is shared between all characters of the account. Houses provide the player with a huge additional inventory, and with a place to comfortably exchange items between his different characters, who can reach the house easily with a special teleport spell. The player can also give other player characters privileges, like the permission to open doors in his house, or the allowance to enter items into a chest.

The first step to build a house is to purchase one of the predefined, not instanced house plots, which are located in various housing areas all over Telon. After the purchase, which varies between housing areas (2.5, 10 or 30 gold), house plots also requires a weekly upkeep (25, 60 or 90 silver). Building a Guild Hall requires purchasing a special guild hall plot which is a lot more expensive both in the purchase (20, 30 or 40 plat) as well as in the weekly upkeep (20, 27 or 32 gold).

After owning the plot in question, the player has to choose the house type he wants to build. Each continent has an individual list of currently four choices, between Tier 3 to Tier 5, which each require different crafted materials and look differently from houses on the other continents. Some materials can be purchased from housing merchant NPCs standing in every housing area, but most of them have to be crafted from harvested items. For guild halls, who come in two variants, the required materials as well as the necessary crafting are massive and require the highest level crafters and harvesters; additionally, the help of a highly diplomat is required for guild housing.

Houses offer two types of inventories. First of all one can simply place items into them, called "fixtures". Any item can be placed into a house, even if many items show up as a simple default cup-like graphic, therefore one cannot graphically distinguish between them. Second, every house type allows a certain number of chests, 2 to 5 for normal houses, and 8 or 12 for guild halls.

Dungeons and raids

Telon contains a large number of dungeons with a broad range of size and theme, found in many types of locations; some are very large. Although most of the dungeon content is aimed at the 'full-group' encounter (six players) there are numerous areas, particularly at the lower levels, designed for solo play and small groups (2-3 players.) All dungeons are open "public" dungeons; there is no instancing anywhere in Telon.

Vanguard added a major raid dungeon, the Ancient Port Warehouse, in late 2007. It uses a sharding system similar in some ways to traditional instancing to reduce overcrowding during the period following its release on the live servers. This implementation allows up to ten separate raid groups to operate in a single shard (copy) of the dungeon, with extra shards spawning as needed to accommodate more groups. It is not yet known whether this type of sharding (used also in EverQuest II) is to be used permanently in APW or in future raid content released by the development team.

In addition to the Ancient Port Warehouse, Vanguard features several overland raid enounters. Another raid dungeon, the Pantheon of the Ancients, is scheduled for re-release in late 2008 (the Pantheon exists already as a dungeon for level 30 characters).

Servers

When the game was released, there were three types of servers - Player versus Environment (PvE), Team Player versus Player (Team PvP) and Free-for-All Player versus Player (FFA PvP). The game was released with 14 servers but following disappointing sales and player retention, the 14 were merged into just four servers:

• Xeth PVE US (merged from Thunderaxe, Woefeather, Gulgrethorm, and Hilsbury)
• Seradon PVE US (merged from Targonor, Florendyl, Flamehammer, and Shidreth)
• Halgar PVE EU (merged from Gelenia and Infineum)
• Sartok PVP US (FFA PvP, merged from Tharridon, Varking, and Frengrot)

The original servers were: Thunderaxe (US/PvE), Florendyl (US/Role-playing Preferred/PvE), Woefeather (US/PvE), Wulgrethor (US/PvE), Targonor (US/PvE) (unofficial oceanic), Hilsbury (US/PvE), Shidreth (US/PvE), Flamehammer (US/PvE) (unofficial French), Tharridon (US/FFA PvP), Varking (US/Team PvP), Gelenia (EU/PvE), Frengrot (EU/Team PvP), and Infinium (EU/PvE).

SOE announced on May 31st 2007 their intention to begin merging servers; the mergers were completed in August 2007. All player-owned housing was reset at this time, causing some controversy among the player community. The mergers left Vanguard without a dedicated Roleplaying server and without a Team PvP server.

Development history

File:Vangold1024.jpg

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes

Sigil's original Vanguard team was composed of many EverQuest developers, including designer Brad McQuaid. Development began in early 2002 and a publishing deal with Microsoft was announced in April 2002. The game's title was announced on March 16, 2004, exactly five years after EverQuest was released. Sigil displayed the game's first screenshots in April 2004 and announced that Vanguard would use the Unreal engine 2.0 in May 2004.

In May 2006 Sigil reacquired the marketing rights to Vanguard from Microsoft and announced that Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) would become the co-publishers of Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. Sigil maintained full control of development, funding, intellectual property rights, and in-game customer service (GM and Guide programs). Although SOE was responsible chiefly for marketing, publication, distribution, subscription services and maintenance of game servers, some of the SOE's game designers and artists did participate directly in the Vanguard's development</ref>[2]</ref>.

Beta Testing for the game began in-house in August 2005 and continued until January 23, 2007. Preorders were opened on January 26, and the game officially launched worldwide on January 30 to lukewarm reviews and widespread criticism.

On May 15, 2007, four months after the game's release, Sony Online Entertainment announced they had acquired all assets of Sigil and retained much of the Vanguard development team to work for Sony and to continue developing Vanguard.

Game updates

Game Updates (GU) have now been established as a regular upgrade of the game, once about every two months. Between the GU, random smaller content updates are added to the game as well. Players can try out new content on the Test server, before they hit the regular servers. Unlike other SOE titles, there are no Addons (expansions) for Vanguard planned at this time.

• Game Update 3 - Released Oct 16, 2007 (Phase 1), and Dec 12, 2007 (Phase 2). Introduced Raiding. Also added Holiday content such as the flying mount Randolph, the flying reindeer, which where disabled again Jan 9 2008.

• Game Update 4 - Released Mar 11, 2008. Introduced permanent flying mounts (Griffons and Wyvens) and changed the Riftway System again. Removed Character Customization to allow helmets.

• Game Update 5 - Released May 28, 2008. The main feature being racial mounts.

• Game Update 6 - Released September 10, 2008. Features a new trial island where new characters can start, new customizable character models and class balance fixes and over 1,500 bug fixes.

As for future improvements and updates, many Vanguard players on the official forums have created a list of improvements to be made. These can be seen at the official Vanguard: Saga of Heroes forum.

Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) involvement

On May 5th 2006 Sigil announced that they had reacquired marketing rights from Microsoft and that Sony Online Entertainment would take over marketing of the game. According to the terms of the deal, Sigil would maintain full control of development, funding, intellectual property rights, and in-game customer service, and SOE would be responsible for marketing, publication, distribution, subscription services and maintenance of game servers. However, some of SOE's game designers and artists did participate directly in the Vanguard's development.

This partnership represented a homecoming of sorts for Sigil CEO Brad McQuaid who was - along with Sony Online Entertainment CEO John Smedley, Bill Trost and Steve Clover-- one of the four original developers of Everquest for SISA (Sony Interactive Studios America renamed Verant Interactive in 1999).

On May 15, 2007 Sony Online Entertainment announced they had acquired all assets of Sigil and retained over half the developers of Vanguard to work for Sony and to continue developing Vanguard. Brad McQuaid gave an interview two days later to F13.net but since then has not made any public comments about the game [3].

Community

Many fans of the original EverQuest followed the development of Vanguard closely. Sigil opened official forums before even releasing a title, in July 2003, and was periodically revealing concept art, screenshots, and settings history and lore. Some of the artwork was created by well-known fantasy artists such as Brom, Don Maitz and the late Keith Parkinson.

Much of the community had formed around the Sigil website forums, but there were also events such as fans visiting Sigil, IRC chats, and contests. A "Community Summit" was held on October 7 2004 that showed Vanguard to an audience from the game's own community.

For release, Sigil decided to eliminate centralized forums in favor of a controlled community structure consisting of a network of approved websites which would be regularly visited by official Community Liaisons, and which in theory would be granted privileged access to interviews and promotional content. There was considerable criticism of this strategy on some forums.

Upon its acquisition of Vanguard, SOE almost immediately abandoned the Sigil "controlled community" format, making vgplayers.com the central site for Vanguard support, much as is done with their other similar MMO titles.

Criticism

Gamespy awarded Vanguard the "Biggest Disappointment" award for 2007. Vanguard also won the awards in the categories for "Least Fun", "Most Desolate" and "Lamest Launch" in the MMORPG.com MMOWTF Awards for the worst games of 2007.

There have been numerous criticisms of the game by the game press and the fanbase.

• The game was released before it was ready, leading to:

• Content was low for high-level players, and spotty even in some lower-level areas. Much planned high level content was not included at launch.
• Large numbers of bugs and performance issues, which make gameplay difficult, and on some systems rendering the game virtually unplayable.
• At release, performance was poor on many systems, including some high-end configurations. For example there was no anti-aliasing, and anisotropic filtering support was buggy.

In April 2007 Brad McQuaid, CEO of Sigil Games Online, addressed these issues and provided some explanations:

"Had I had the financial resources, ability to place the product later, etc. I would have given us about 3 more months to get more polish in, more high level content in, and to distance ourselves from the WoW expansion." Full quote

McQuaid also alluded to the game's performance issues: In March 2007 McQuaid alluded to the cause:

"For a variety of reasons and mistakes on our part that I won't get into right now, Vanguard was released with system spec requirements that were too high for January 2007. " Full quote

In the months following the release, the game code has been updated and many bugs have been fixed. On at least one web site (MMORPG.com) Vanguard is - as of July 2008 - routinely in the top 15 games, as ranked by visitors to the web site. In both May and August 2008, that same website (MMORPG.com) revisited Vanguard and gave the updated version a favorable response. However, no major game magazines or web sites have chosen to re-review the game with a scored rating since mid-2007.

Reviews

Rating	Details/Link
Negative	Vanguard - Anti-Review on GamersWithJobs
7/10	Vanguard: Saga of Heroes Review on TrustedReviews
Positive	Vanguard: Saga of Heroes : Video Review on HEXUS.gaming
7/10	Vanguard: Saga of Heroes Review on Games Asylum
D-	Vanguard: Saga of Heroes Review on 1up
8/10	Vanguard: Saga of Heroes Review on Game-Spectrum
C+	Vanguard: Saga of Heroes Review on Game-Revolution
7.5/10	Vanguard: Saga of Heroes Review on GameSpot
3/5	Vanguard: Saga of Heroes Review on GameSpy
6.7/10	Vanguard: Saga of Heroes Re-Review on Ten Ton Hammer

External links

• Official Vanguard: Saga of Heroes site
• Official Vanguard: Saga of Heroes community website