Vanguard: Saga of Heroes

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Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
Developer(s)	Sigil Games Online
Publisher(s)	Sony Online Entertainment Sigil Games Online
Designer(s)	Brad McQuaid
Engine	Unreal Engine 2.x Modified (current) Unreal Engine 3.0 (possible future) [1]
Release date(s)	January 30, 2007 Early Access: January 26, 2007
Genre(s)	MMORPG
Mode(s)	Multiplayer
Rating(s)	ESRB: Teen (T)
Platform(s)	Windows
Input	Keyboard, mouse

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is a high fantasy-themed massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by Sigil Games Online. The game has been 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.

[edit] Gameplay

Vanguard offers three primary areas of play: Adventuring, Crafting and Diplomacy. Each of these 'spheres' can be played independently of each other, although there are many points of potential interaction where it will be greatly to a player's advantage to be grounded in more than one of the spheres. There is also a fourth, smaller sphere, Harvesting, which is however strongly linked to Adventuring. There are no restrictions to any combinations between spheres.

All four spheres have their own set of clothing, which can give magical bonuses to the stats and skills involved. Once a character performs an action in the sphere, he automatically and visually switches to the corresponding clothing.

[edit] Adventuring

Adventuring contains a traditional set of MMORPG classes, with some notable additions. Classes are broken into four basic categories, protective fighter (tank), offensive fighter (damage dealer), defensive caster (healer), and offensive caster (nuker). True generalists are missing, albeit some of the classes have a more generalist approach.

All classes have hitpoints and endurance, and most also have mana. Fighting classes use endurance for special attacks, while most casters use mana for their spells. The classes differ drastically in their gameplay, and many have special abilities which activate only on criticals or other special circumstances.

Advancement in the combat sphere comes through combat and completion of quests. Solo and casual advancement is possible throughout the levels, but the quickest advancement and best rewards come from balanced group play.

Every level starting at level 10 players get attribute points which can be spent to customize their character and differentiate themselves from other players of the same adventuring class. These points are awarded every 20% experience gained after level 10.

[edit] Harvesting

Most adventurers also learn harvesting, which forms a fourth, albeit quite simple sphere. A character can have a primary and a secondary harvesting skill, out of a total number of five. This is freely selectable, even if many people prefer to choose their harvesting skills in harmony with their crafting class. These skills include Reaping, Skinning, Lumberjacking, Quarrying, Mining, and Harvesting.

But even if you are normally unable to harvest a resource, you can help someone in your group harvesting a resource as long as you have the required tool and a high enough skill in your own harvesting field (i.e. the generic harvest skill has to be high enough), so a group of three or more people can harvest any resource effectively as long as there is an expert for any of the skills in the group.

The harvesting is split into five levels of experience. All but the beginner level requires to reach another 100 points in your corresponding skill, buy a special book from the harvest merchants, and buy a new, more expensive tool for the higher quality resources.

Much more than Crafting and Diplomacy, Harvesting requires on higher levels to travel into very dangerous high level areas, which is why only experienced adventurers will become experienced harvesters, and the harvesting sphere is not truly independent from Adventuring.

[edit] Crafting

The second 'sphere' of Vanguard, Crafting, is considered by some to be one of the most complex and detailed crafting systems in MMORPGs to date. Crafting recipes are each made up of a different set of actions that must be performed in a particular order. Each of these actions cost what is known as 'action points' and takes from the action pool. The maximum amount of action points available varies with each recipe. While crafting, certain complications may arise that can affect the crafting process. Complications are usually but not always detrimental. The player can attempt to correct complications and resume crafting. Through experimentation, players can discover new recipes and formulas.

A character's crafting level is independent of its adventuring level. It is entirely possible to level exclusively in crafting without ever engaging in adventuring combat. Crafting experience comes primarily from work orders. Work orders are the crafting sphere's equivalent of quests. An NPC will commission a work order and provide raw materials. The crafter then produces the requested items, receiving skill and monetary rewards in return.

There are three crafting classes and each of them knows two specializations You choose your specialization when you reach level 10 in your crafter class. It is possible to switch the specialization, but you will permanently lose all recipes of your specialization. The classes are Outfitter (Tailor or Leather-worker), Artificer (Carpenter or Mineralogist), and Blacksmith (Armorsmith or Weaponsmith)

[edit] Diplomacy

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 centre are the available Expression types.

The third "sphere" of Vanguard, Diplomacy, allows a player to influence their faction 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, one major reward of Diplomacy is Civic Benefits, which are usually in the form of city-wide buffs triggered by city diplomats for the benefit of the crafting, adventuring or harvesting spheres. Diplomats are also expected to play a primary role in Player City Management at a later stage of Vanguard's development.^{[citation needed]}

Diplomacy borrows some elements from collectible card games. A player gradually increases their total reservoir of cards as they advance in level and complete quests. A player must also choose a five card "deck" 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 depending on the encounter difficulty and the player's diplomatic skill). The goal of a parley is to use Statements to influence the diplomacy marker. Every turn the diplomacy marker is on one side of the board, that player's dialogue point total decreases by one. The first to zero dialogue points wins the parley. As the player progresses toward this goal, sentences appear indicating the conversation that is taking place, tying the mechanics of the card game back to role-playing.

Players use this parley mechanism in all the fields of diplomacy, which include Early Diplomacy, Civic Diplomacy, Regional Trade, Writs (Embassies), Consular Embassies, Missions, and Consul.

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. Unlike other spheres of Vanguard, Diplomacy Classes are not a mandatory part of the sphere. There are a number of opportunities to specialize during the course of advancement as a diplomat, but there is no requirement to do so.

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 players being able to 'duel' diplomatically with each other.^{[citation needed]} What, if any, benefits or consequences this will have is unknown.

[edit] Game World: Telon

Vanguard is set in a high fantasy world called Telon. Most of the known playable races are from traditional fantasy: goblins, humans, halflings, dwarves, elves, barbarians, and half-giants. Less traditional are the "beastmen" -- the Vulmane, Raki and Kurashasa, races of intelligent bipedal wolf-, fox- and cat-men (unlike werewolves).

[edit] Geography

Four continents were originally planned for release, but the fourth one was not completed in time and will likely show up in an expansion. The three continents currently in the game are:

• Thestra – A European type continent with mountains, wetlands, and forests. Thestrans, High Elves, Dwarves, Lesser Giants, Varanjar, Halflings, and Vulmane inhabit Thestra.
• Kojan – An Asian themed continent with jungles. Kojani, Half-Elves, Wood Elves, Raki, Goblins, and Orcs inhabit Kojan.
• Qalia - Middle-eastern type continent with mountains and deserts. Qaliathari, Mordebi, Dark Elves, Gnomes, Kurashasa, and Varathari inhabit Qalia.

The fourth continent is to be called Lothenland. Not much is known about Lothenland except that it is surrounded by icy weather created by a magic force.

[edit] Dungeons

The dungeons range broadly in size and theme and different varieties are found everywhere. Although most of the dungeon content is aimed at the 'full-group' encounter (six players) there are numerous areas, particularly at the lower, introductory levels, purposefully designed for solo and 'small-group' (2-3 players) encounters.

It has been stated, by Sigil, that there will be no instancing throughout all of Telon.

"Dungeons simply exist within the world. Walk over a hill and you might find a human castle taken over by orcs, delve into a chasm and you might find the cavernous entrance to a mini dungeon or play area. There is no loading – you simply enter and leave. Of course, many monsters have “leashes” which stop them from being “trained” too far from their dungeon of origin."1

[edit] Housing

A player home

There are three types of buildings that are crafted by players and sold to players.

• Residential Buildings – Player owned homes.
• Industrial Buildings – Crafting player owned buildings.
• Commercial Buildings – Commercial shops and stores owned and run by players.

Placement of the crafted building is limited. Developers have divided areas up into zones. If a player wants to build a house in a certain area of a continent he/she will have to find a near by appropriate zone to place the building. Player owned cities have been confirmed, although not much is known.

Like the rest of the game, player constructed buildings are not instanced. When a player builds a structure, all other players in the game can see the building and interact with it, with any limitations the owner has imposed. Buildings can be damaged and destroyed, so buildings that are abandoned for months may not remain standing.

[edit] Characters

Vanguard playable human races

Characters in Vanguard: Saga of Heroes are made via a valid Vanguard account. Eight characters can be created per regular account (12 for Station Access accounts). When a character is created the player will start off in one of the three main continents depending on the race chosen during character creation. The player will then advance through traditional MMORPG leveling. Unlike traditional MMORPGs Vanguard breaks up different leveling types and puts them into different leveling spheres.

[edit] Races

Each race inhabits one of the three main continents. Players can eventually leave the continent they originated from when they advance in level. This is at the moment done through a teleporter NPC. (at release the ships were not operational)

Races differ in looks, but also in race feats, their diplomatic affinity, the adventuring classes they can choose. Every race has a special ability that unlocks at a certain level to help distinguish them from the other races. For more detail on this, please see the community links at the bottom of this page.

The races you may choose from include:

Thestra

• Thestrans (Human sub race - European Inspired)
• High Elves (Elf sub race)
• Dwarves
• Lesser Giants
• Varanjar (Barbarian sub race)
• Halflings
• Vulmane (Beast Race - Lupine)

Qalia

• Qaliathari (Human sub race - Middle-Eastern Inspired
• Mordebi (Human sub race - African Inspired)
• Dark Elves (Elf sub race)
• Gnomes
• Kurashasa (Beast Race - Feline)
• Varathari (Barbarian sub race)

Kojan

• Kojani (Human sub race - Asian Inspired)
• Half-Elves (Elf sub race)
• Wood Elves (Elf sub race)
• Raki (Beast Race - Vulpine)
• Goblins
• Orc

[edit] Racial Enmity

Races are KOS (Kill On Sight) to each other. On special servers (Team PvP) those races literally fight each other.

Order of Alurad/Lao'Jin

• Wood Elf
• Raki
• Dwarf
• Halfling
• High Elf
• Half Elf
• Qaliathari
• Mordebi
• Gnome
• Kojani
• Thestran Human

Shadows of Kaerellun/Ra'Jin

• Dark Elf
• Kurashasa
• Varanthari
• Orc
• Goblin
• Vulmane
• Varanjar
• Lesser Giant

On regular servers, a player still has to increase their own faction before entering the core areas of a race that is in conflict with their own race. This is, however, not as easy for some races; while Dark Elves, Orcs and Goblins really have to work their faction for any town area of the Order, and members of the Order will be attacked in Dark Elf, Orc and Goblin territory, most other combinations are not aggressive. For example, the Kurashasa are only attacked in Khal (hometown of Mordebi and Qaliathari) and Mekalia (hometown of the Gnomes).

To be able to enter towns areas which are at enmity to their own race, characters can either perform quests have to do quests to gain faction with that town. Such quests can be gained from outposts, or one can simply kill enough undead or other opponents of that race on their territory.

More information on this subject can be found on community sites below.

[edit] Adventuring Classes

There are currently 17 classes total, 2 of which did not make it to the release. All of them play very differently, and all of them are said to offer a complex and complicated gameplay with an abundance of different skills. Random events, such as identifying the spell the opponent is about to cast, noticing an incoming attack, or having dealt a critical opens new opportunities to use special moves.

[edit] Defensive fighter

All tanks classes wear heavy armor. Their role, as in many MMOs, is absorbing and attracting the mob's attacks, for which they get special abilities. They are not able to dish out extreme damage, but their defense is the best of all classes.

• Warrior - The mighty Warrior uses strength, skill, and tactical mastery to eliminate enemies. When being in his defensive stance, he is widely perceived as the best pure tank, but lacks in the special skills of the other tank classes.
• Paladin - The Paladin is a righteous holy knight with divine powers. He has some lesser healing spells and can fight very effectively against undead.
• Dread Knight - The Dread Knight is a terrifying fighter with dark magic. He seems to be especially effective against casting opponents, as he can dispel spells like the casters, and gets special moves to go into melee with an opponent very fast.
• Inquisitor - The Inquisitor is a dominating weaponuser capable of turning psionic power against foes. The Inquisitor is not playable as of release.

[edit] Offensive fighter

All damage dealers classes wear medium armor. Their typical role in party is simply killing as fast as possible, even if some have other advantages.

• Bard - The Bard blends the arts of music and swordplay, and, like a ranger, can dual wield melee weapons. He can compose songs of great power that affect the whole party if they stand close enough to him or her.
• Rogue - The Rogue is a deceptive offensive fighter, master of poisons and stealth, and exploiter of weaknesses. He uses the dagger as melee weapon.
• Ranger - The Ranger is a skilled offensive fighter, capable of studying opponents to gain the advantage. While he can't use shields, he can use parrying daggers for much the same effect. He is the master of the bow and of dualwielding, he can use stealth much like the rogue, and he gets the probably best list of buff spells of all warriors.
• Monk - The Monk is a disciplined offensive fighter with martial stances to approach every situation, and to create weaknesses in opponents. His bare fists are already deadly weapons, even if he is not limited to them in his weapon selection. His special attacks accumulate Jin, a power used for magiclike effects. As ranged weapons he uses Shuriken.
• Berserker - The Berserker is an offensive fighter that thrives on taking damage. The lower his health goes, the more damage he can dish out. The Berserker is not playable as of release.

[edit] Defensive caster

Central to any effective party, healers come in very different versions. They also tend to be more complicated than the other classes in respect to their gameplay. All healers learn how to raise the dead and teleport lost party members back to the group.

• Cleric - The Cleric, a divine defensive caster, is a servant of the gods capable of incredible healing and support. He wears heavy armor, and uses blunt weapons and optionally a shield. As a class, he is probably the best buffer and has the best healing spell selection in the game. Being a tank rather than a damage dealer, he is also very hard to kill when soloing, albeit he wont kill his opponents fast. He can later also specialize further into an Affinity, granting him additional abilities like a Sunbeam (spell vs undead) or Immunity to Root.
• Blood Mage - The Blood Mage, an arcane defensive caster, uses mastery of the blood to manipulate the health of his allies and enemies, and craft magic consumeables called symbiotes from the preserved organs of his victims. His equipment is that of a caster, so he is limited to robes, and unlike other healers he even benefits in some of his healing spells from a high intelligence score.
• Shaman - The Shaman, a spiritual defensive caster, bonds with animal spirits to provide healing and melee support. At level 15, this class can specialize further, either into a spellcaster, healer, or melee variant. He also gets very good buffs.
• Disciple - The Disciple is a harmonic defensive caster with the inner strength to heal allies and martial prowess to decimate foes. The healer version of the Monk uses the jin power gained from his melee attacks for healing, but also has some normal healing spells based on Mana. Just like the other healers, he also gets great buff spells for allies.

[edit] Offensive caster

All Offensive Caster classes wear light armor and focus on damaging spells or abilities. In Vanguard these classes get a number of group support spells, such as group teleport or invisibility.

• Psionicist - The Psionicist is a psionic caster with the power to play with the minds of enemies, unleash mental blasts, and provide some support to allies.
• Necromancer - The Necromancer is an mage with dominion over unlife and the power to animate terrible undead allies. He also gets the most powerful damage over time spells of the game, and the fear spell to temporarily get rid of opponents.
• Sorcerer - The Sorcerer, an arcane offensive caster, has mastery over fire and ice, and the greatest power in defence against enemy spells. All in all this class deals probably more damage than any other.
• Druid - The Druid, a natural offensive caster, uses nature to break enemies apart with the elements of earth and sky, and gets the best list of buff spells of all nonhealers.

[edit] Leveling Up

You gain adventurer levels by getting adventurer experience. You gain adventurer experience from solving quests and killing opponents. While all races start with the same stats at level 1, from level 10 on they will gain extra attribute points whenever they hit 20% of a level.

[edit] Race and class restrictions

When creating a character the player must pick a race and then pick one of the available classes for their race.

Note: The Inquisitor and Berserker classes are not in the game on release, but it has been noted that they will be patched in at a later date.

There are rumors that the races that will be able to play Inquisitor will be: Dark Elf, Gnome, Half Elf, Kojani Human, Kurashasa, Lesser Giant, Orc, Qaliathari Human, Raki, Thestran Human, and Vulmare. The races that will be able to play Berserker will be: Dark Elf, Dwarf, Lesser Giant, Mordebi Human, Orc, Qualiathari Human, and Raki.

[edit] Servers

There are two server types which are Player versus Environment (PvE) and Player versus Player (PvP). Of the PvP servers, Tharridon is Free-for-All, and Varking is Team-based.

The server names, locations, and types are:

• Thunderaxe (US/PvE)
• Florendyl (US/Role-playing Preferred/PvE)
• Woefeather (US/PvE)
• Gulgrethor (US/PvE)
• Targonor (US/PvE) (unofficial oceanic)^{[citation needed]}
• Hilsbury (US/PvE)
• Shidreth (US/PvE)
• Flamehammer (US/PvE) (unofficial French / Français - francophone non-official) [2]
• Tharridon (US/FFA PvP)
• Varking (US/Team PvP)
• Gelenia (EU/PvE)
• Frengrot (EU/Team PvP)
• Infinium (EU/PvE) (Added between pre-launch and full launch to handle high EU load)

[edit] Server Name Trivia

Woefeather was originally going to be named Woefather after one of the Thestran Giants. However it was typo-ed on the announcement and so far the typo-ed name has stuck.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Development

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes

Sigil's Vanguard team is notable for being composed of many EverQuest developers, including designer Brad McQuaid. Development began in early 2002 and the 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 and announced that Vanguard uses the Unreal engine 2.0 in May 2004. As of May 2006 Sigil has announced that they have become the co-publishers of Vanguard: Saga of Heroes due to a mutual separation with Microsoft based on company interest. Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) has been named to assist Sigil in co-publishing and distribution.

[edit] Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) Involvement

In May 2006 Sigil acquired marketing rights from former publisher Microsoft and hired Sony Online Entertainment to take over marketing of the game. Sigil maintains full control of development, funding, intellectual property rights, and in-game customer service (GM and Guide programs). Although SOE is 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. Sigil will have back-up systems in place at all times to reduce risk of unscheduled downtime on SOE's part.

It is notable that this partnership represents 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).

[edit] Community

Many of the fans have followed the development, recognizing the team's EQ heritage. The team also realized very early on how important community is, and opened their official forums long before even releasing a name, in July of 2003. Sigil has been periodically revealing concept art, screenshots, and the settings history and lore. Some of the artwork was created by well-known fantasy artists such as Brom and Don Maitz and the late Keith Parkinson.

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

For release, Sigil decided to remove the centralized forums in favor of a community controlled structure where they maintain regular visits by official Community Liaisons. There has been considerable criticism for this move in some of these forums. Through this arrangement, Vanguard was also the first game to implement a community affiliation program to support the fan sites that support Vanguard. Through this program affiliates are granted exclusive content to display on their Fan sites as well as exclusive interviews with development and artistic staff. The community fan sites are made of both old and new community based web sites dedicated to not only Vanguard but also many other MMORPGs.

[edit] Controversies

Some of those include:

• The game may have been released earlier than expected.

The game launched January 31st "to the sound of crickets." ^[1]

The early release has rekindled debate in some sectors of the gaming industry regarding release of a product before it is in suitable condition for release. In the case of Vanguard, early release was necessitated by financial demands, but that has not stemmed much of the criticism that the game was released in essentially a beta condition.

Brad McQuaid, designer of the game, addressed the issue prior to release in the Official Vanguard forums, writing the following:

"We all agree performance is #1 -- we expect to see about a 10% improvement by launch for low-mid level machines. There's only so much we can do in the time we have.

We don't want to rush things but like I said we have a solid launch date. People are crunching and working long hours but the financial reality is we need to launch commercially, and soon.

I know that's not the answer you want to hear, nor I, but it is what it is and I've always been straight up with you guys. We will have a lot of work to do post-launch and the first couple of months post-launch will be just as busy as beta 5 with lots of patches, bug fixes, new features, etc. In that sense, things won't change.

I promise you we are doing the best we can with the time we have, even though we all, the players and Sigil wish we had more time, but like I said, there are financial realities. We are still I believe the 2nd most expensive MMOG to-date after WoW and that is something, despite the desire to have more time, I have to be grateful to both MSFT and SOE for."^{[citation needed]}

• Claims of serious bugs that have shown during the first few weeks of release.
• Some high level content may not have been in game at time of release.
• High population "chunks" were known to drop players at random times.
• De-Centralized Community may be an attempt to "quiet the naysayers".

[edit] Notable Dates

[edit] External links

[edit] Official websites

• Official Vanguard: Saga of Heroes site
• Official Vanguard: Saga of Heroes community website with news, message board, and much more

[edit] Previews

• Vanguard: Saga of Heroes on IGN.com
• Vanguard: Saga of Heroes on GameSpot
• Vanguard: Saga of Heroes on Ten Ton Hammer

[edit] Community Websites

• Official Vanguard: Saga of Heroes list of affiliate websites (News, Resources & Sphere specific Sites
  • Silky Venom - All-round game information, news, atlas, wiki, gallery, forums, and much more
  • Vanguard Atlas and Guides - Maps, Quest, NPCs Database. Over 150 labeled maps
  • Vanguard Ten Ton Hammer - Class and race guides, articles, message board
  • Vanguard Spheres - An overall Vanguard: Saga of Heroes wiki
  • Vanguard Vault - Vanguard: Saga of Heroes News, Trailers, Screenshots, Previews, Reviews, Guides
  • Vanguard Radio - An online radio station dedicated to the community of Vanguard
• Vanguard Tact: Diplomacy with Tact - an official affiliate fansite
• Vanguard Crafters: Your Independent Source for Vanguard Crafting - an official affiliate fansite
• Vanguard Roleplayers.com - Roleplaying community for Vanguard.'

[edit] Videos

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROdfDowh4jg - Official Trailer
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEHmDlK6pKg - Official trailer
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLSui2sC7DE - Gameplay Video
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CC66V1W1lw - Flying Mounts
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09JeI-g2rGM - Beast Mounts
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owkx2e3aiXQ - Diplomacy Video
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV3d_NSKzyg - Harvesting (mining)
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GK_XWepcXv0 - Harvesting (lumberjack)
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSv7LZ-IeK0 - Crafting

[edit] Reviews