Vanguard: Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, a leading contender in the Third Generation MMO Race - by Kegyen

Every gamer knows it's out there. It is elusive, like a date with Beyonce, and hard to get, like her cell phone number. It calls to all of us, as would a siren of old, tempting with addiction and preoccupation. It is the holy grail of gamers, a treasure beyond hope of finding...the perfect Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. We haven't seen it yet, but one has the promise to bring us closer to it than we ever have been.

Marking the generations of MMORPGs is an imprecise science. Some define the first generation as Ultima Online, EverQuest and Asheron's Call. Others would put Meridian 59 in with them. I have even heard people call the old Neverwinter Nights massively multiplayer. Clearly, the only thing people can agree on is the difference of opinion regarding these generations. Yet, out of this quagmire comes a game that claims to be a third generation game, one that can take advantage of what has gone right and what has failed in previous games, even new ones yet to hit the shelf, such as the much vaunted World of Warcraft and EverQuest 2. From the original creators of EverQuest, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes promises to propel us to new heights and might just edge us all closer to MMO perfection.

Who better to lead a self-proclaimed new generation of games than the people that defined the standard of earlier ones? If Vanguard can make the impact that EverQuest did, we are truly in for a treat. At this early stage of development, not a whole lot is known. We'll piece together bits and pieces of knowledge from interviews posted at http://www.sigilgames.com and http://www.vanguardsoh.com/ as we try to take a look at the larger picture of Vanguard.

What will make Vanguard different from everything else on the market? According to a recent interview with Senior Programmer Amanda Poe, part of that answer lies in the AI: "If I were to pick my top beefs with most MMO AI, I would list pathing, combat predictability, and lack of flair/individual goals on the part of the NPCs. I'm hoping to dedicate a good portion of my time towards making mobs have agendas and behaviors of their own. As for combat, there is a fine line to walk, in my opinion. If there is no predictability to an NPC's actions, it may appear that it is just cycling through random actions and will be frustrating to the player because it takes away the player skill of learning how to fight different types of mobs. On the other hand, if they do the same thing all the time with no inventive behavior, it gets boring."

If they can accomplish this, it will truly be a new standard, but what exactly makes Vanguard a third generation game? Game-creating guru Brad McQuaid had this to say on the subject: "I don't think everyone agrees yet on what 1st, 2nd, or 3rd generation means... I tend to group M59, UO, and EQ into the first generation, and then AC 2, SW:G, etc. into the second. Given that our game will come out after all of these, we usually call it a third generation game. In other words, we'll have the time to watch and play both of these generations, observing the good and the bad, and learning from both."

Add to that their game will ship well after Worlds of Warcraft and EverQuest 2, Vanguard will truly have a library of the genre to study from. Yet is there danger that with so many ex-EverQuest team members, Vanguard will simply become a clone of EverQuest? Not so, says VP and Co-Producer at Sigil Games, Jeff Butler: "No... as a team we are looking to evolve. We are dedicated to building on our past successes and moving in new directions, while taking care to not 're-invent the wheel' when we don't need to. After all, with the news of games on the horizon, it's fairly easy for an avid player to guess where MMOGs are headed in the short term. Our experience with first and second generation games has shown us that third generation games need to implement so much more, and that is our plan."

Ambitious indeed, and we, as gamers, can only hope they are able to deliver. Speaking as someone who has played most of the MMOs available today and is currently back where it all caught fire in EverQuest, I am more than a little excited to see what McQuaid and company can put together the second time around. We've all learned the hard way to tame our expectations before a product is released, but perhaps once again these vets of Online Gaming will hit another home run, and redefine the genre.