Spent some time in Vanguard yesterday afternoon, between doing groceries, cleaning the house, and writing those blasted Beckett articles (for Vanguard, it counts as research, right?) that proved to be harder then I thought they would. Growlius decided to reactivate his account, and I was VERY happy. I leveled up my blood mage with his Deathknight pretty much from 20+ and it was always a goal of ours to hit level 50 some time. It took a little while for him to go through his quest journal and figure out what buttons did what (it’s been a few months) but before too long we were on our way back to Plains of Anguish to smite undead and save the town,
He also got the /claim item that included the pack camel and the wand that transforms you into a cute illusion (or deadly, depending on what you get morphed into). The ferocious cat on the left side is me, and the little pixi looking creature on the right is him. The sword he’s holding is actually bigger then him, and the grass covers us when we’re standing around, we’re just that short. It’s hard to fight that way, with everything looming (quite literally) over top, so we quickly changed back to normal and headed off to the Graveyard and then to a small village to kill some Forsaken Scholars, knights, and steeds.
Since my Beckett article is about the changes in Vanguard, I headed over to the test server to take a peek at a few of the changes they’re implementing. One of them is a big one. Well, two of them. The one that interested me the most though was of course FISHING!
That’s right, after a LONG two year wait, fishing is finally being put into the game. It’s not like EQ2 fishing either. Or WoW fishing. You go through a tutorial in Tanvu, pick up your rod and reel, and some bait. Then you learn the fishing skill while Tien teaches you the basics. You learn that fish are elusive creatures in Vanguard, and fishing itself is quite complex. You have to cast out your line, stop it at a particular section of water and be sure not to cast too close to the fish or they scatter. Once the line has been cast you wait around for a fish to take notice of it. When you’ve got one on your line, it tugs in a WASD direction (or arrow keys if you prefer) and you have to move in the same direction using your keys. Follow the fish properly enough times (fish moves to the left, hit the left arrow key type of deal) and you’ll automatically reel it in.
That’s not all there is to this skill though. If you happen to hook a particular fish, you can unlock combos that you have to key really fast, each combo relates to a specific species of fish. Once you’ve unlocked combos for fish types you can master the species (their words not mine). Fish have particular habits as well. Some are around more in the day then the night. Some can only be reached by galleons (that’s right, I said it!) and have to be fished deep in the sea waters. There’s all kinds of particular bait and while it doesn’t really matter which you use, some is better for situations then others.
After wandering around on test it was time to head back to the live servers for a guild meeting. Safe Haven meets once a month to go over any concerns members may have, bring up events, go over any new policies (like the new dues system we have since we now own a guild hall and it costs 50g a week in upkeep). Over 20 people showed up, and it was a great way to meet everyone. Even Kasul and Growlius managed to come. The guild is fairly active with a good number of people but of course everyone has their real lives and most people play other games aside from Vanguard, so things can get strained at times. Finding groups to accomplish what you need to get done.
Hopefully, with all of the great changes that are due, the player base swells a little. We’ll just have to see. In the mean time, I’m having a blast.
Can you fish for sea serpents? That would be cool. It’d be like UO when you were fishing and this sea serpent attacked you and you were alllike…’wait, maybe I should have invested in some combat skills on this character’…and then you died. Good times!