I decided yesterday to get station access. I seem to switch my subscriptions around every month, so I wasn’t surprised when I began feeling the twinge to play Vanguard (not to mention EQ1) again. I wish SoE offered some sort of family plan along with station access. In my house there are three EQ2 accounts, although now it’s two EQ2 accounts and one station access account. It would be nice to see more variety for billing options. Anyhow, Kasul and Gozad were both in game as well. I wasn’t feeling all that social (hey, it happens, I like to talk but don’t always like to group) and so I hung around trying to get used to my keys again. I’ve always enjoyed Vanguard to quite a large degree, but the population coupled with lack of a guild to call home prevents me from making it my ‘main’ game (that and sinking 4+ years into EQ2 now). Anyhow. I noticed I had a new /claim item. Opened it up excitedly, and found resting inside a new camel mount for each of my characters. I named this one Spit, pictured above with my Raki paladin sitting proudly. It’s 30% speed, which is pretty good for a low level mount. My level 41 blood mage is riding the quested mount that gives 70% speed. Of course when you add horse shoes it’s faster, but I’m not complaining. I also got 25 experience potions (in Vanguard potions count for tradeskill, adventure, and diplomacy as well as quest experience. I’d love to see this implemented into EQ2) for a 50% bonus (for an hour) to all spheres.
Nestled deep into the package was also a wand that let me changed my shape into something ‘cool’. Randomly. Always being an avid lover of clickies, I transformed into the wyvern in the screen shot. Giggling, because they’re very tiny, I ran around Khal causing issues for guards. The raki turned into a pile of ooze. Figures.
A LOT has changed and been added to Vanguard since the last time I played, and I played not all that long ago. In fact as I browsed through the patch notes trying to see what had been added since I played last, it was practically enough content to count as an expansion. There have been pages upon pages of fixes for everything in every sphere, there have been quest areas opened up with over 700 items added, new camps, new factions, new raids.
I also got an email about the new harvest quests added to Telon. An explanation on the thanksgiving holiday (more or less). While the forums didn’t speak very highly of the quests, it’s nice to see that the game is still going strong with added content.
The channels were busy as always. Again I always stress to join the /craft channel (on Seradon at least, it may be called something else on the other servers) and /dip. I also highly suggest getting the very simple to install map mod at Sorsha.
Kasul and I explored around the Three Rivers area with our level 11’s before calling it a night. For anyone out there reading who does play Vanguard, if you know of a friendly family type guild on Seradon (active of course) let me know! I’ll more then likely add more Vanguard posts (along with EQ1) over the next little bit, though EQ2 is of course still my main game of choice.