Things I wish I’d Known Earlier
stargrace There are of course in every game, those things I’d wish I’d known before I started playing too much. I’ve made a post about that before concerning Vanguard, and the list now grows, though this is more or less an idea of what a new player to Vanguard should do. Number one, turn off regionsay if you’re at all easily offended by certain topics of conversation or pure idiocy. It’s no different then ‘barrens chat’ as the saying goes. The conversations can at times be exceptionally crude, and I turned off those channels almost immediately. There are alternatives, far better.
/autojoin set craft,dip
That’s the command to autojoin the craft channel, as well as the diplomacy channel- at least on Seradon it is. The craft channel is by far home to some of the nicest people I’ve met, who answer questions not only about crafting, but other spheres so long as you’re not rude and ignorant about it. Silius himself visits the channel often to get the players opinions on thing and to talk about upcoming changes. At any time of day there are people giving away spare crafter gear that they don’t need, offering their craft services, answering questions and the like. Suffice to say, were it not for this community (which is quite large) I’d not be having nearly as much fun in Vanguard. After time you start to learn who are the ‘regulars’, I’ve never come across a more helpful bunch.
The diplomacy channel is much the same, though a little more subdued. People give away spare diplomacy gear, answer questions about parle’s, and other numerous things. It’s a great (though slightly smaller) community and you can easily figure out the regulars as well. Those two channels plus guild are more then enough for me to feel as though I’m not alone in game, and thus I keep regionsay off, unless I’m LFG (which I rarely am, I group almost exclusively with my guild).
I’d also highly suggest getting a guild. There are numerous active ones on Seradon, some larger then others. My guild’s been recruiting fairly steady, at one or two people every second day. Some play more frequently (like myself) and others log on a time or two as they try to find their place in Telon. There’s a guild recruitment tab, but I’ve found it some what annoying in trying to find a place called home. I’d rather go to the vgplayers.com site and search the server specific forums to find an active guild that suits my needs, or at least post there mentioning that I’m looking for a guild.
There are so many commands and things one can learn by simply joining the channels mentioned above and lurking (which is what I do most of the time unless I’m congratulating someone or need a question asked). For example, today Satia hit 25 mineralogist (woot!) which means she can now join a crafting society, something of which I’d never even know about were it not for these channels. Vanguard does a very poor job of leading a player around. That means you need that community to find your way through the world. You need to rely on experienced players to figure out what you should (or can) do next (like the unicorn and shadowhound mounts which are new to me). It’s not a bad method of learning at all, I quite enjoy it.
Anyhow, so I’ve hit 25 and I’m going to join a society. Well, two to be precise. There are three in New Targonor in Thestra, and there are three in Ahgram in Qalia. You can actually do the first two quests of each society, and get the experience as well as the item rewards (red craft gear, always a great thing to have) before having to settle down to one society per continent (Kojan again left out here, blast that unfinished continent). In New Targonor there’s the Imperial Trade Organization, Arcane Camarilla, and the New Targonor Trading Company. Each one has a different reward, and based on your crafter build you’ll want to choose one to join in the end.
Ahgram’s societies are the Society of Invention, the Merchant’s Guild, and Cabal. Again you can do the first two quests of each society, and then settle down to one after that so you can obtain the red gear and the experience. There’s a great bunch of information on these that you can find here. Just another small intricate part of why I like Vanguard. Lots of busy work. I’m not just grinding workorders to get my levels, I’m doing plenty of crafting quests, and delving into my character more and more by customizing these smaller portions of them. The same can be said with diplomacy, as at level 31 you chose to work for a ‘house’ in New Targonor and can rise in ranks and obtain useful gear / titles and the like from them.
I may still be fumbling my way around Telon, but I’m having lots of fun doing it. Yesterday I also managed to finish my Hunter’s League pants with Growlius, next we’re slowly working on the breast piece (I say slowly, because we need 80 uncommon drops between us, and the area is always full of other groups attempting the same thing, which is a huge annoying pain. SoE really needs to change the number of mobs that can drop your pieces, or have them drop for an entire group rather then each person individually).