Vanguard: Another Vanguard Preview

Vanguard Preview

With the removal of the Vanguard NDA, I would like to give you all a look into the world of Telon, and into the gameplay of Vanguard: Saga of Heroes; at least from my perspective and how I viewed my time in the Vanguard Beta thus far, as we move into the open beta phase for this game.

To begin with, I've been in the Vanguard Beta since mid/late August of this past year-although a bit lightly playing during the first month or so. While I was not in during the prior phases, I have watched the game develop and progress through a large part of the third beta phase, through the fourth, and now into the fifth and final phase of testing before the game's release.

The game has improved an awful lot during this course of time and I've been amazed at how much the team has been able to do to take Vanguard from where it was at the early stages of phase 3 to something that actually resembles a game now. And a fun game too. However, I won't dance around the issue: the game is still incomplete, and it'll be incomplete upon its release. Sigil themselves have openly admitted to this.

Several systems, and two classes, will not be ready for the actual release of the game, however Sigil has promised that they'll be working hard to make sure they come in post launch, along with the 4 to 5 years worth of content they've planned out post-release.

While there are some incomplete areas of the game, the world and the three spheres themselves are pretty sound in their gameplay as is, and it'll be interesting to see how far they get fleshed out.

Graphics, Telon, and Travel
The world of Telon is... big. Even during my time playing, I can't really say that I've seen all of it (well, beyond the areas that haven't been opened yet), and it is one of the bigger MMO environments out there. The world of Telon encompasses three different continents: the European-esque Thestra, the Arabian-esque Qalia, and the Oriental-esque archipelago of Kojan. Along with these areas, there's supposedly quite a few islands dotting the seas of the world that players can discover. To give an idea on the size of the continents, on my first character, started up on Qalia, I traveled from my starter town to the main city of Khal for my race (Qaliathari). It required me to travel through the city, down the side of a mountain, and then a ways over towards it. While I could clearly see Khal from the top of the mountain with my view distance maxed out, it sure looked far away-and the trip itself felt like I had gone a fair distance a well. However, opening up my map, it barely looked like I moved anywhere. Looking over the rest of the continent, I knew I had a whole lot of exploring to do in my future.

It's probably a good thing that players are able to get a mount at fairly early levels. The first mount I was able to get my hands on was at level 8 with my first Disciple character when Kojani humans were still required to start on Qalia as Kojan hadn't come up yet. However, along with the various mounts you can get-and many different variations, many of which improve in speed statistics-there are other ways to travel, such as by boat (either the ferries between continents, or your own personal boat-and yes, you can take friends along), to flying mounts that players can obtain at higher levels.

Travel is a big part of Vanguard, and simply exploring the vast areas of Telon are very rewarding. While it is my least favorite of the continents, Qalia is still a beautiful place (I'm just not a desert person). Filled with vast expanses of desert, savanna land, craggy mountains, deep valleys, the greener areas along the Qa river, and far south I've heard tell of deep, dark jungles; Qalia has a lot of different areas to explore-although I have found them to be rather bland. I can only take so much desert at a time, and yellow/brown grasslands don't really offer up much variation to me.

Thestra felt like at throw back to Dark Age of Camelot, with several regions looking similar to the Scandinavian realm of Midgard, while the regions the elves called home reminded me of the Celtic Hibernia, and south to the Thestran human lands, I couldn't help but feel reminded of the English Albion. However, Vanguard offers much more powerful graphics than even the updated Dark Age can offer, and the vistas present on Thestra are breath taking. The cities are also huge, intricate, and well detailed (check out the screenshots section for some of these).

Kojan is an interesting place. The Wood Elf and Raki areas are built deep into a forest, with cities in the trees with a glowing radiance from the windows, hidden away in their huge forest. The Orcs and Goblins live in a primitive, triable, and almost prehistoric looking region that the Martok tribe calls home, and the Humans and Half Elves live in the very oriental styled regions of the Empire, which runs out of the city of Tanvu.

The areas of Vanguard are well done, well detailed, and they are graphically beautiful. However, beauty comes at a price and future players might well be feeling that on their pocketbook. Older computers may not even be able to play Vanguard at all due to its graphical power. Players with cards less powerful than the x800/GF6800 may not be able to play beyond the very lowest of settings, and the GF5000 series and lower need not apply. However, the x800/GF6800 can get the game running at high performance, which will keep their frame rates reasonable while keeping a great looking world. Players with more powerful graphics cards will be able to enjoy the graphics even more so.

Adventuring
When people think of a fantasy MMO, the first thing that comes to mind is adventuring out into a dangerous world filled with monsters and other vicious creatures, and doing battle with them for fame and fortune. Vanguard certainly is no different in this regard and players are free to engage in battle with a variety of foes across the three continents. The combat system itself has gone through quite a few changes over time until it has come to its current version.

While I can't speak from experience, Vanguard once had a vastly different combat system than it does now-one that operated more similar to a turn based system, where players could queue up attacks (think Neverwitner Nights 2, if you've played it). It also allowed them to perceive the attacks of their enemies and use reactionary skills to take advantage of situations. However, many players seemed to find this system painfully dull, so it was scrapped.

Through a few other changes, the combat system now relies on a fairly standard combat formula that has been tried and true through many other games-although it has its twists, so it isn't entirely standard, but don't expect massive innovation. Melee combatants rely largely on their endurance bar, which is used up by using various special moves in combat. Endurance decreases very quickly, but also increases very quickly. In a way, it's almost like a bar that keeps combat moving in a 'turn-based' style, as players manage their endurance, waiting for it to regen once its empty after a few moves, but it doesn't feel turn based at all. It's a novel way of combining normal MMO real-time combat with the original system Sigil had tried, although it can come off feeling to similar to standard MMOs. Casters, however, work exactly like you would imagine from any other game, relying on their mana bar, which takes longer to use up, and much longer to regenerate than endurance.

However, a bit different than your standard MMO fair is the reactionary system and skill chain system that is in place in Vanguard. Combat isn't so much about spamming off random abilities for a lot of classes. Instead, the player is able to work through various skill chains, combining opening skills, with different bridge skills, that finally lead to finishing skills that are more powerful than other abilities, and can only be activated if a skill chain is completed effectively. This is somewhat similar to the skill chain system found in Final Fantasy XI and EverQuest 2, except the chains themselves are actually rather useful, and each ability increases in power and has different effects, depending on when they are used in a chain. Essentially, its a more in-depth, more powerful, and more varied system than other games. It also actually has a reason to be used. Along with this, there are certain skills that can only be used in certain situations-such as after you dodge, or after you've successfully identified the spell a spellcaster is casting, which can open up different counter attacks, or abilities that can prevent the caster (for example) from harming your group.

Perhaps one of the biggest boons of the games is for Healers and Tanks. Healers are usually stuck in the back lines of the party, simply casting their healing spells, while Tanks are just focusing on their mob, using taunts to keep aggro. However, in Vanguard, each player has two targets: an offensive target as well as a defensive target. This allows healers to have a mob targeted that they can be actively fighting, while casting healing spells all the while on their defensive target-they never have to worry about scrambling between targets. Also, healers tend to benefit from dealing damage to their targets. Blood Mages and Disciples, for example, cannot effectively heal their groups at all, unless they are attacking their enemies. Tanks have the added benefit that they can use rescue abilities on their defensive target, while actively tanking and attacking an offensive target, to ensure that they take the brunt of damage and draw attention away from that character in danger.

It's also worth note to say that, even though there are a bunch of classes in Vanguard, and they are all split into one of four archetypes (protective fighters, healers, offensive fighters, and offensive casters), that they all seem to play rather differently from each other. All of the healers do their job in very different ways, the tanks all have unique abilities that make them stand out from each other, the offensive fighters all have special abilities that make them different (bards have a fairly in depth song mechanic, rogues are masters of stealth and finding openings, rangers blend ranged and melee, and monks have various counter attacks and three different ability line branches they can choose from), and the offensive casters all have different roles in the groups, beyond doing damage-either with crowd control, to protection from magic, to back up healing, or running around with an undead pet.

Also, for those of you who enjoy soloing, there is plenty of solo content for you out there as you level up. While the rewards aren't as good as group content (although they are adequate), and the speed is slower, you can successfully level through Vanguard on your own. Group content is the main focus of this game however.

The combat system is pretty fast paced over all, and while it isn't that terribly different from a lot of MMOs on the market (even more so if your playing straight damage dealing classes), there is enough added gameplay to combat to make sure that it stays interesting and moderately fresh compared to other games, even if it isn't vastly innovative.

Crafting
Adventuring isn't the only thing you can do in Vanguard, further proving that one thing this game doesn't lack is choices. I'll be honest though, I'm not much of a crafter. I've never really enjoyed crafting in any MMO I've played before, and I was skeptical that I'd enjoy Vanguard's crafting system. I was, mostly, wrong. While I still have a difficult time getting into crafting, this is honestly the only crafting system I've ever actually enjoyed in an MMO before.

Crafting is more than simply combining materials and hitting a 'create' button, then waiting for a load bar to run by the screen, similar to what happens in most other MMOs. Crafting in Vanguard is actually an active process, where players need to participate in an items creation through various stages, while managing 'action points' that determine the number of moves that players have during crafting.

The system itself is a turn based system, with various stages put into it-representing the various stages one would go through when actually creating an item. Each of these stages have various actions that players need to go through (actions that increase their progress in creating the items) and actions that players can optionally do (largely actions that increase the quality of the item). However, players must remember that they only have a limited number of actions they can take during a craft, represented by their action points, before they fail at their craft. Thus, crafting is about micromanaging action points and the quality of the item. A player has to make an item of the highest quality possible, while ensuring that they do not run out of points.

As when actually creating something, complications can arise during a crafting phase. These complications will have various effects, such as reducing the quality of the item, or increasing the cost of action points, for example. These complications can be remedied by the player at the cost of action points, and potentially items. Complications can also be ignored, but their effects will continue to be in effect until the end of the craft, or if the player decides to remove them. Likewise, while complications can cause problems, other events can happen too that give the player special abilities they can use to increase the quality or progress of their item, helping them out.

Leveling up in crafting is also not a simple matter of grinding out thousands of worthless items and then th rowing them away, such as in many games. Instead, players can take crafting quests from taskmasters. These quests give them a recipe and most of the required material for the crafting process. Crafters are required to make a certain number of items and then turn them into the taskmaster. While the player is still indeed creating 'worthless' items, they're hardly throwing them away. Instead, along with gaining experience through these quests, they also are getting money in return. This means that a crafter can actually make a living crafting, and does not have to support himself with an adventuring sphere, if he doesn't want to. Of course, they are free to create items that players will buy for a fair share of cash too-which is the primary way of making money as a crafter still. The taskmaster quests mostly allow for the support, not as much for real profit.

The crafting system is much more in-depth than you'll find in many other MMOs, requiring some actual thought and strategy on the crafter's part. However, the whole process starts out pretty simple, allowing the player plenty of time to adjust before things get to terribly complicated. Over all, the system is pretty simple too and it doesn't take long to get the hang of it. The general reception to crafting in Vanguard has been pretty positive, and I'll have to agree. It's still pretty simple, but with enough substance to make it an enjoyable, thoughtful experience.

Diplomacy
Along with crafting, Diplomacy offers another area of gameplay for players seeking to do something besides adventuring. Diplomacy is Vanguard's 'unique' system, not really found in any other game before it. It's also surprisingly addictive.

The Diplomacy system is, essentially, a card game-and one that simulates a conversation far better than I could have ever imaged a card game doing. Players begin with a number of cards that they must build a strategy out of-the cards that they'll be playing during diplomacy parley's. Players begin with 5 card slots, but gain more slots as they gain more skill. These cards have different effects that give the player an advantage in various ways in a parley-although almost every card offers the opponent a bit of help to, if they are able to take advantage of it.

Diplomacy is actually a bit hard to explain and it really needs to be experienced to truly understand it. It also can take a little bit of time to get the hang of it, but after a few parley's, players should be able to get the basic idea down, and can start building some powerful strategies to use against their opponents, and start figuring out how they can win.

There are a few ways players can participate in diplomacy. The first way is through race-specific quest lines, which are the 'newbie' lines for beginning diplomats. Each of these lines offer a great insight into the lore, personality, and way of life of each of the races. The storylines are also very well written with a great deal of variety between all of the races. The other way is through Civic Diplomacy, which opens up after the race-specific quests. Civic Diplomacy allows players to perform various parelys in a city to activate certain city-wide buffs, spawns, and events that can only happen through Civic Diplomacy. However, different players will have different goals-certain parely types will work against other ones. So, not every buff, not every spawn, and not every event can be active at the same time. Instead, they work against each other. One type of parley will increase certain buffs, but reduce other ones, for example So, players will need to group together if they wish to get one type of buff active.

Diplomacy is not without its problems however. It's a new system in the game, with the old system having been scrapped because it was to easy and far to boring. Thus, the current Diplomacy team is behind the other spheres. Diplomacy also may suffer from getting a bit dull and repetitive for some players. While I haven't found that to be the case yet, I can see it happening.

While it may be incomplete, there are some fairly neat sounding systems that'll be coming in over time, such as the PvP system that allows players to duel each other in Diplomacy, as well as a political party Diplomacy PvP system. Diplomacy PvP will be on all servers, since it is consensual.

Bugs and Release
As Vanguard moves into Beta 5, there are of course a number of bugs in the game yet-as to be expected with any MMO in beta. However, there is also a lot of unfinished content (some of which was mentioned earlier in this preview) and quite a bit of content that isn't tested/adequately tested yet. If the game is to be released in the near future, it may be getting released a bit to early. In fact, the development team seems to be under the same impression, although they have been adamant about working hard on this game post-release to get everything working proper.

I guess I'm not terribly surprised. It seems like no MMO is ever released where the developers would like it to be, although it still unfortunate to hear this happening for Vanguard, as the game has a great deal of potential. I've also heard the promise from development teams that they'd work on a game hard after release before, only to see that not to be the case so much. However, considering how active the team has been so far and how dedicated they seem, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to see them keep their word.

What they do have in right now is plenty to create a solid, compelling game. There's a whole ton of content and more quests than you will probably find yourself able to do. There's plenty of content in Vanguard, but there's still more coming down the pipelines-things that couldn't get in at release. Vanguard will probably suffer from that, but its still up in the air to see how badly its affected-or if some of those missing systems are able to work their way in before the release of the game.

Conclusion
In the end, Vanguard has progressed an awful lot over the months that I've been able to test it. It's grown into a fun, compelling MMO with a lot of potential (and quite a bit of that potential has been realized already). The three spheres are fairly solid-even Diplomacy, although it is far from a completed aspect of gameplay-and there's quite a bit to do in the game. While it needs more polish, a few more systems to get into place, and some more content test-and I'm rather skeptical that it'll be able to receive the attention it needs before release-it is still a fairly solid and enjoyable game.

While there's still quite a bit more I could talk about, the best way to truly know if an MMO is for you is to try it out. I'll recommend it as being plenty worthy of a try, if nothing else.

Also, if you have any further questions, be sure to pop on over to the forums and feel free to ask!