March 2008

Pantheon of the Ancients

stargrace March 17, 2008 2 Comments

This weekend the guild was busy, a few new members joined the ranks and we had 14+ people on no matter the time of day. I’m used to being the only one on until noon or so. Kalaso (paladin) Growlius (dreadknight) Photons (sorcerer) and Lanatra (on her sorcerer as well) and I decided to head into the depths of POA (Palace of the awakened? Plane of anguish? Plane of air?) and see if we couldn’t get some quests done. There’s some amazing gear rewards in there- or so I had heard. The group was a little rocky, we’d never really played as a team together. That’s the one thing about Vanguard that’s hard to learn. If you don’t start off leveling in the game with a group, when you finally get one you’re on rocky ground. We killed our way to one quest giver, had a few deaths from a soul eating snake that refused to let us kill her minions, then made it to where the quest was supposed to ambush us with 100 one dot mobs for our updates.

Except the ambush never happened. Apparently POA has been bugged for a long time now, and this GU didn’t fix it. Bleh. So we headed down another alcove, got yet another quest to lead some elder some place (I know, my descriptions are amazing hms?) and when we got to his location- he was also not there.

Pooey.

So we decided to give up on POA (5% experience in four hours of game time is never a good thing) and we headed to the Wardship, which is on Thestra. Have I mentioned lately I love the new rift changes? Well, I do. We spent a little bit of time picking up the quests, needed 30 trogs or some sort. They were on a very long respawn timer and competition showed up, so after finishing only one of the quests the group decided to call it a day. Started doing a few of the quests later on, which also had competition (why not just group up?!) and I spent the rest of the night watching “August Rush” (wow, very inspirational) and completed my T5 house.

That’s right, finally completed a new home for myself. It’s much larger then my previous one, and can hold 5 chests for storage. Screen shots will follow once I get myself settled in. For now furniture is just scattered about as I decide what to keep and what can go. Tonight hopefully I’ll get some more exp, I’m inching up on level 34 and I get a few spells that level.

Was nice to see Tipa poke in game over the weekend as well, didn’t see any of Anakh, saw Borgio quite a bit (uhms, very drunk, might I add) and Mayadhros was there as well later in the evening. Oh, and Lunestra, if you’re reading *waves* and welcome to SH.

Now THAT is an ugly Vulmane

stargrace March 16, 2008 1 Comment

Things have been busy lately, so I haven’t had time to update. In game I’ve now hit 45 mineralogist, as well as 33 bloodmage. I’ve also gotten 5,000 faction with the Kojan Artisans which means I learned the T5 granite brick / cornerstone / beams / panels / shingle recipes. Gozad from Safe Haven also gave me the brick manual for Journeyman, which helps a huge amount. It means on houses where I need to make 300 bricks, I can make them 20 at a time instead of 3 at a time (5 at a time next level). I’ve been building a T5 house for Skaara, and myself. One for Gozad in the works, and a T3 house for Growlius.

Speaking of Growlius, above is by far the most amusing glitch I have ever seen. Growlius is my vulmane friend (dog like) and we were doing a quest to incriminate Old Woman Sparrow for treason against Lord Hugo. Hugo gave us all disguises to wear to sneak into the Redsparrow camps un-noticed. How on earth Growlius could be considered to be “un noticed” I’m not sure. None of our faces changed at all with the other outfits, except the poor Vulmane. Tipa, be thankful your eyes don’t look like THAT above. His face is also still fur-covered, which is hard to see from the screen shot. Amusing, to say the least.

We’ve gotten a couple more recruits in guild which is great. Nightly now we have between 10-16 people online. Raids in Vanguard are 18 people only (why so SMALL, gah the population thing takes it’s toll after time) so we are closing in at least on that.

Random pet peeve is people who think classes have to be played a specific way or else you’re not any good at it. Other then that the game has been fantastic thus far. Hopefully tomorrow or Tuesday I’ll have a post about my new T5 house. Oh, and I’ve decided to level up a carpenter next, go figure.

Safe travels!

Moving On Up

stargrace March 13, 2008 4 Comments

Satia glanced around the dismal forest of Eastpoint, her hands hanging limp at her sides. Blast those halflings! Or dwarves.. or whatever they were who’d moved in next door. The swampy muck under her feet could barely be considered grass any more. The log cabin her neighbour had built was leaning to one side. It was time for this Kojani half elf to return to her roots. Thus it was that Satia packed up her meager belongings and moved to Daegarmo Isle, off the coast of Tsangs Tomb, in Kojan. She’d received a letter refunding her the rest of her house payment, and immediately sought out a prime location to build a new home.

After hours of searching, she’d found it. Located on the top of a giant hill, with the island below her, she could gaze at the other homes as the sun rose (if the sun ever came out, so far she’d seen naught but rain). Crafting was just out her backyard, and a Pegasus vendor sat close by. Ah yes, now THIS would be home. She figured the last limestone house was a little small. Her eyes settled on the plot of land. Granite, that’s all that would do here. Besides, looking to her left was the intimidating guild hall of some clan. There was no way she could compete with that, but she didn’t want to be one of those run down shacks, either.

The construction of the home would be slow going. It’s requirements were greater then the previous. 220 Kojani granite housing bricks, a kojani skarn cornerstone, 22 juniper mortar (which the vendor kept in steady supply), 80 shingles, 100 prime panels, 50 prime beams, 15 mithril fasteners, and 15 vielthread window coverings. Oh yes, this would be quite the project.

What a huge difference between the size of a house, and the size of a guild hall. I’m still proud of my little plot, nestled on the hill. Along the backside of it is the crafting area, a little climb down. There are ruins on the island, and it’s got plenty of character. Most of the plots have been there a while, their homes completely built. I imagine that this one’s owner must have moved on to greener pastures, or maybe their business fell through, allowing the plot to come back up for sale.

Feel free to visit. Chances are I’ll be on the island, crafting, getting my Kojan faction (I need 5,000) in order to learn my brick and cornerstone (and shingle) recipes. That’s the difference between a 2.5g and a 10g plot (no offence to Borgio, who bought the old plot I owned). 10g is close to pretty much everything. Much prettier, and a good excuse to build a T5 house. It was a pain to take everything out of the house though, and store it some place. That includes everything inside of my chests.

Vanguard MMORPG Chat Log

stargrace March 13, 2008 No Comments

<~MMORPG_Taera> Greetings and welcome to MMORPG.com’s Live Chat on irc.coldfront.net! I’m your host, MMORPG.com’s community manager Laura "Taera" Genender. Joining us today is the Vanguard: SOH team!
<~MMORPG_Taera> Our guests will do their best to answer as many questions as possible, but due to limited time and a high volume of inquiries, they may not be able to answer every single one. Users are limited to one question at a time, and you will be notified if your question is rejected or discarded.
<~MMORPG_Taera> To ask a question, please /msg MMORPGBot Yourquestionhere
<~MMORPG_Taera> Now it’s time for introductions! Feel free to start sending your questions to MMORPGBot while our guests introduce themselves!

<+MoonliteSOE> Hi all! Im Sharon Morris, Head GM Moonlite; my team looks after all of your in-game petitions. Nice to see you all!
<+Ellyra> Hi everyone! I’m Julie aka "Ellyra", the Community Representative for Vanguard. Thanks for showing up, and I hope we can have a great chat!
<+PhaThom> Hello Everyone! Thom Terrazas here, Producer for Vanguard & mid-level Paladin on Seradon. I want to thank MMORPG for hosting the chat and all of you in attendance. Thank you for coming!
<+Silius> Hello everyone this is Silius, glad to see you all here.
<+Gebron> Hello everyone, this is Gebron the Demented… Code Monkey and technical Hub of All Blame. Thanks for coming, and please throw tomatoes at me this time, I still have bruises from the potatoes last chat…
<+GlipSOE> Hey everyone, I am Nick Parkinson aka Glip the Gnome. I am basically a miniature, better looking version of Thom. I’m involved in all things production (scheduling, coordinating, making fun of Silius, etc). Thanks for having us SMILEY<img mce_tsrc=" />

<@MMORPGBot> creasian asks, "Is there any news of a retail re-release and if do, how it will be handled?"
<+PhaThom> Hello Creasian, We are just starting Update #5 which includes a NEW starting area that we can keep our new players in the same general starting locations
<+PhaThom> The NEW area will help us in having an awesome acquisition program to market out to new players. A Re-Release will be evaluated when we are ready to launch that new island
<+PhaThom> Also, there may be some confusion on what a re-release is to some. Once we have the Isle of Dawn (The NEW area), we will have what we believe to be a very nice introductory to the game that transitions you very nicely into other areas. That is key to doing any re-release.

<+MMORPGBot> feythe asks, "Can we expect veteran awards to be taken away from accounts that did not actually deserve them?"
<+Silius> We are not going to remove free items from people because of a mistake on our end. These items are a gift and would have been attained by those that got them early if they stuck around. Hopefully we can release some more at a later date now that we are aware of what the problem was and can avoid it.
<+PhaThom> What we’re discussing at this point on the veteran rewards to actually create some additional items that we can give to only those that deserve it. We may not be able to taketh away, but we can giveth more to the rightful owners….

<+MMORPGBot> bvar asks, "Hi Id like to ask the question How far out are the developers currently with there next raid dugeon. What kind of things can we expect from it, and do the developers plan on working on raid dugeons continously to keep the raiders satitisifed in VG"
<+Silius> We have our next two dungeons in mind but planning on those will not start till later. Currently we will be releasing more overland raid mobs like we did with GU4 progressing the storyline of Haelifur and Torkald and his brothers.

<+MMORPGBot> kenji asks, "How is the balance (mit, evasion, hp, aggro) between the three tanks. And are all tanks truly viable in most situations."
<+Silius> Tanks are currently at a point where we are satisfied with the balance between them.

<+MMORPGBot> silentnoise asks, "What does SOE feel about the current reaction to Gu4 and how long before they will implement a patch to correct the issues?"
<+GlipSOE> Well, anytime you take something like customization away you expect a bit of backlash. So in that regards, we weren’t too surprised. However, we did what was ultimately in the best interest of the game – and as more folks get the chance to hop in game and play that’ll become more and more apparent.
<+GlipSOE> The flying mounts are going to have a pretty good reception too once players start finishing off those quests. Very few things are cooler than flying over all your buddies on a Griffon or Wyvern.
<+GlipSOE> As for when we’ll be patching next to fix any bugs that were introduced with GU4, expect something next week!

<+MMORPGBot> stabfast asks, "What is the real reason behind the group 4 Changes from Game Update 4? This is a game breaking change that will highly influence the vast majority of your current subscribers. Group 4 plays a vital role in the raiding experience as it is not only a means of fail safe from wipes, but also a play base substitution system for certain encounters. Please, give us a REAL incite into this change and not the same old "it’s
<+Silius> The reason is the same as has been posted a few times by me. Group 4 was never meant to loot. Only the people who participated in the killing of the mob were ever supposed to loot.

<+MMORPGBot> cyrcle asks, "What classes, if any are planned to be looked at or revamped for Game Update 5?"
<+Silius> Psi, Shaman, Cleric, Sor, Ranger, Bloodmage, and Disc

<+MMORPGBot> settha asks, "What are Vanguards long term plans after Brass City and GU 5?"
<+PhaThom> One of the things that will be looking at and I say "One" because we have plenty that we are planning on…is Progression Paths
<+PhaThom> We want to make sure they flow well throughout the world. From the Teens through level 50 content.
<+PhaThom> Truly, we have a lot of items on our roadmap at the moment and our focus is update 5 at the moment. The further we plan ahead makes it difficult to stick to
<+PhaThom> Our plans are laid out but we know that things change and we could potentially have something that needs to be placed that the top of the list from many different angles…

<+MMORPGBot> psikotick asks, "Why do AEs now go through Ward Shield for clerics as though it doesn’t exist? Secondly, why only one Argent Coil per Kotasoth kill, and only 1 egg per Dressla kill for Wyvern quest?"
<+Silius> That’s what we decided when the mount was put in. Dresla is an overland encounter getting a mount egg off of her is a bonus.

<+MMORPGBot> jazaar asks, "Why has the game decided to make such a dratic change and limit loot distribution amoung guilds whom have built a large player base?"
<+Silius> If you are talking about group 4 changes, it is a bug fix that was meant to be fixed a long time ago. We never intended loot to be distributed to more people then the people who actively killed the mob.

<+MMORPGBot> bob_niac asks, "Are bards always going to be Melee Heavy or will there be provisions made to allow Spell-Singers?"
<+Silius> Cannot speak on that at the moment, but when we start planning out AA then that may be something we put on the table.

<+MMORPGBot> dafuzzle asks, "what are your plans for the future in Vanguard?"
<+Gebron> Well we’ve sort of answered the question from a gameplay standpoint, but I can speak to the technical side of the fence.
<+Gebron> As you’ve no doubt noticed, we’ve made great strides in improving frame rate in the game, and next we’re tackling hitching.
<+Gebron> We’re about to start testing code which greatly, and I do mean greatly, reduces hitching in the game. We’re not done with it, and we’re excited enough about the result that we may be releasing it in phases rather than make you wait…
<+Gebron> the inevitable goal is to try and get the game to where it practically never hitches. We’re getting close! The change to how the game feels without hitching is… oh so sweet!

<+MMORPGBot> dificeman asks, "What kind of changes can we expect in GU5?"
<+GlipSOE> Update 5 is going to be focused around the new starting island that Thom talked about earlier. The goal of it is to provide a consistent (and awesome) newbie experience that will lead into the real meat of the game.
<+GlipSOE> There’s a handful of other features that we also have planned for GU5 (such as the class updates Silius mentioned) but at this point we’re not going to promise anything that isn’t finished yet. But we’ll definitely have the new starting island SMILEY<img mce_tsrc=" />

<+MMORPGBot> durnt asks, "when will they add gallions into the game- tier 5"
<+Silius> Trying to get it in as a part of update 5.
<+Ellyra> The question should be, "When they are in game, who is going to build one for Ellyra?" SMILEY<img mce_tsrc=" />

<+MMORPGBot> jrod asks, "When will the game trial be open?"
<+PhaThom> Trial: So we already have a lot of work completed on the Isle of Dawn and we are very busy on it for Update #5. However, the Isle of Dawn may launch just after Update #5 or as a subset of Update #5.
<+PhaThom> . I would love to put a date to it but as soon as I do, it may change and I will most definitely be “killed” by my team members :

<~MMORPG_Taera> Thank you for all the great questions! We will continue answering questions for another 15 minutes, but at this time, MMORPGBot is no longer taking new questions SMILEY<img mce_tsrc=" />

<+MMORPGBot> annul asks, "Why is it that spells longer then longer then instant now move to the target your selected on even if you started casting on a different mob… like cast a dot on one and check the mez on another and bam the dot is now on the mezed mob, im a lvl 48 necro on seradon."
<+Gebron> To be quite honest, that’s the first I’ve heard. We’ll certainly look into it, as that sounds quite annoying. We figured you were happy enough that your pets now hit your new target, we may as well stop your spells from hitting.
<+Gebron> kidding!

<+MMORPGBot> siela asks, "Will you be going through each of the classes the same way you have done for Druids, Necros, Paladins, Rangers, etc? Will it most likely be done several classes per patch? (When are Bloodmages a bot’o love? /wink)"
<+Silius> Yes

<+MMORPGBot> fujitsu-xeth asks, "Monks got some attention in gu3, but nothing in game update 4. Feign death dealy still isnt live, our class lead has been MIA for over a month, and drunken and dragon monks are wondering when they will get their useless skills fixed or changed to something meanigful. Stuff like foolhardy swagger (doesnt transfer hate) or sun dragons corona"
<+Silius> Monks received a pass recently and as we finish up the classes we will still fix bugs along the way. There are currently no plans to revisit monks again in the near future outside of bug fixing.

<+MMORPGBot> snapcase asks, "Are there any plans currently in the works to make the long-fabled RP-Ruleset server?"
<+GlipSOE> There are no plans for a dedicated RP server, but if you head on over to the forums Ellyra has opened up an RP section. SMILEY<img mce_tsrc=" />

<+MMORPGBot> mekron asks, "are there any plans to bring any of the classes that were not in launch to game?"
<+PhaThom> Honestly Mekron, we’re not planning on bringing any un-delivered classes to the game in the very near future. Basically in a round about fashion, not at this time
<+PhaThom> I would like to hear what you are interested in though

<+MMORPGBot> sanic asks, "will NPC boats ever get implemented to compliment other forms of travel like the riftways"
<+Silius> NPC boats have never been turned off. I can look into possible problems with them but they have been functioning since launch day.

<+MMORPGBot> khocha asks, "Any info you could give us about fishing? And with fishing, will there be a purpose? Such as a cooking your catch to make food?"
<+Gebron> Fishing is currently still in early development. We’re playing around with lots of ways to put "hooks" throughout the rest of the game that "tie" into fishing.
* +GlipSOE takes 10 points of pun damage
<+Gebron> We’ll have a more formal announcement with the full feature list in the near future. Stay tuned to the test server.

<+MMORPGBot> customprofil asks, "Will we be able to have a place like in SWG to hold our macros we create?"’
<+Gebron> We have a growing list of UI polish features, and we are starting to hand them out. Expect that one to come SOON™.

<+MMORPGBot> lsat asks, "Will we eventually see water mounts?"
<+Silius> Currently not planned but you never know.

<+MMORPGBot> gunney asks, "How is subscribership (game popularity) currently doing? on the rise I hope"
<+PhaThom> We’re “officially” not permitted to go into subscriber numbers unfortunately, but I would like to say things are very very good after our Free Play session recently ended going into Update 4 ?
<+PhaThom> not ? … = SMILEY<img mce_tsrc=" />

<+MMORPGBot> phathom asks, "Why is Phathom so hot?"
<+PhaThom> This seems to a problem that follows me everywhere I go…
<+PhaThom> Silly Taera SMILEY<img mce_tsrc=" />
<+PhaThom> I know you wrote that question originally
<~MMORPG_Taera> Oh, he wishes!

<~MMORPG_Taera> Thank you very much for joining MMORPG.com, the Coldfront team, and the Vanguard: SOH team for a wonderful Dev Chat! Round of applause to our guests, and a big thank you for joining us!
<~MMORPG_Taera> Logs will be posted shortly on MMORPG.com SMILEY<img mce_tsrc=" />

<+PhaThom> Thank you all!
<+GlipSOE> Moonlite is actually a fembot
<+Gebron> So long, and thanks for all the fish.
<+Ellyra> Thanks everyone for sticking around, and providing us with some great questions.

<~MMORPG_Taera> We apologize if we didn’t get to your question, we had almost 200 questions and only 60 minutes SMILEY<img src=" />

Impressions on GU4

stargrace March 12, 2008 5 Comments

Servers came up yesterday two full hours before they were scheduled, which was a good thing. I’ve noticed that Vanguard typically seems to say they’ll be down for 4-6 hours but end up being up before the designated time. Always a plus in my eyes. I logged into game, and three of my characters faces were very noticeably different. The kojan half elf (Satia) is ok, she escaped mostly unharmed, as did the Kojan human (Arysh pictured above). However, Ishbel the dark elf, Ysandria the high elf, and poor Minxes, the Thestran Human, were not so lucky. Their eyes are too big, chins are far too long, and faces too narrow. Yes, it’s something I noticed. Will I quit the game over it? No of course not. I’m attached to my characters but I’ll make due. It’s not the end of the game like so many had prophesied. I eagerly logged in game to see if I could cover up those ugly heads with helmets.

Well, my characters are all lowbie still, they don’t wear the most unique of gear. Satia especially due to the fact that she wears cloth. Her helmet is huge and looks like the popes hat dyed a few different colours with a large blue stone in the middle. At least her face is ok though. Arysh can now gore people to death with her horn (pictured above) and Minxes can simply fall backwards and stab out an eye with the sharp spike on the back of her helmet. There’s an option to turn those off though, so again I’m not too concerned.

Half the guild logged in and ran towards flying mounts right away. From what I’ve heard there’s a few bugs at the start, when you agro some griffins the babies won’t drop their feathers, or something. I’m not big enough to test this out myself yet, needing quite a few more levels (the flying mount quests start at level 45). You get some pretty great gear upgrades from the quests though, and speaking of gear upgrades, wow. Green gear was given an overhaul and revamped, it can now compete with crafted gear. Which is exactly something I wanted to see. Vanguard crafted gear was 10x as good as pretty much anything out there for that level aside from APW gear. No longer is that the case. Is there still a market for crafted? Of course, always will be, but it won’t have the exact power that it used to hold before over adventurers. That’s fine by me speaking as a crafter, I hated the way I basically ‘controlled’ the game through my wares. I made lots of money very fast selling lowbie items because nothing quested could compare. Now you might argue that I deserved it, for the hours and hours I devoted into crafting. Doing quests, working faction, but that’s no more time then any adventurer puts into their character (except of course I level slower, since I don’t adventure nearly as much as I craft).

Dusts dropping from nodes. This is something that was a fantastic change- however it needs to be toned down. They drop far too frequently. Dusts will soon be worthless. I’d like them to at least still retain their value on the market. No, not the crazy 3-5p I’d seen on some crystals, but there’s got to be a smoother method of implementing this. I basically got a dust off of every harvest, and plenty of rare ones. They also added items to mobs that you can deconstruct into a rare resource or dust. I like this idea, but I fear it will just lower the price even more of crafted goods, with an influx. Depending on how many people adventure and get these to drop. In my day of playing yesterday, I saw at least 14 drop. I deconstructed into resources instead of dusts due to the huge amount of dusts that dropped.

I see the game is down right now (for a hotfix I assume) and I can’t check notes because the vanguardplayers is down for maintenance as well. I logged in with an extra 10fps, which was great. The new riftways (once you fix your version of infomap, drox, core, or whatever other custom UI you use) are amazing, the lowered costs on flying mounts also great. They nerfed the veteran reward potions from 2h to 1h, which was a shame, but on the plus side the timers are now out of game, fantastic.

Numerous bugs were fixed, too numerous for me to name and I’m pleased with all of that. It’s great, and over all I feel that this GU was a huge hit. People were excited. Now, remember I also don’t keep public channels on. Apparently not everyone shared in my opinions over the GU and they made this very apparent. Silius himself came into the craft channel again when I asked if the rifts worked based on your adventure level only (they’ll only unlock if you’re in a level range of the rift) or if it was all spheres. No one could answer for sure so he piped in and let me know it was for all spheres. I love the changes to the names of nodes. I dislike the large round circles they’ve placed over the heads of mobs for a con system. Mobs work by dots, two dots is solo, three is small group (though most can solo) four is small group five is full group, and six dots is a raid encounter. They look like horribly drawn eyes hovering over the mobs heads. I also dislike how the named in game ALL HAVE THEIR NAME SPELLED IN CAPITALS, SO YOU CAN’T MISS THEM. I think that was going overboard. Yes, it makes them visually easier to see (they’ve also increased the spawn rates on named, and ALL named drops are bind on pickup and can not be deconstructed any more) but did they have to take it that far? I play Vanguard for the challenge, if I can’t tell if a named is really a named or not, maybe I need to switch to Hello Kitty.

I still stand by the game though as a loyal customer. I think even more good things are planned for the future, and I know their subscriptions are up over the last five months, so they’ve got to be doing something right. We’ll see what today’s tweaks hold.