Soaring Through The Skies of Telon #Vanguard #VGSOH #VGD
stargrace 
For those who may have missed the news, you can now explore Telon under the new ‘Free to Play’ model, and while I do have a few.. concerns, with this model, it’s nice to see Vanguard getting some attention.
One of the first things I did was visit the new marketplace and check out what was for sale. It follows pretty much the same pattern as the rest of the SOE games, there’s gear, potions, house items, mounts and the like. I decided to purchase a flying mount pictured above. There are two choices, one is a griffon and the other a wyvern. I was pleased to find out that gold members receive a discount to anything they purchase from the marketplace, although I have to admit I was less-than pleased with my new flying mount. It doesn’t handle very well at all, and doesn’t fly nearly as smooth as the mounts that you can rent in game from NPC. In order to use these purchased mounts you also must be at least level 50 in any one of the three spheres, thankfully I qualify because I’m a 51 mineralogist on my main, a blood mage (currently sitting at level 47 in adventuring).
When F2P was introduced there was also a slight revamp of loot drops for some bosses, and I expect they’ll be nerfed shortly if they haven’t been yet. People were linking loot that was far better than anything else you could obtain in game previously, with stats like 250 crit chance and other obscene numbers. There’s a patch today to fix some glitches and I’m hoping that the lag and disconnects that players may have been experiencing will also be addressed.
Telon is beautiful, and has always been. I’m pleased that more people will give it a shot and perhaps even stay a while. It’s nice to hear channels being used again (when they work), and as a long time player it’s satisfying to know that the game is getting at least a little more attention than in previous years.
If you’ve been away from the game for a while, there’s no better time to see how things have changed, even if it’s just to fill the lull between another game release. As always, happy gaming! No matter where you find yourself.