VG

Completing the Isle of Dawn

stargrace October 29, 2009 3 Comments

Yesterday a pretty hefty patch was implemented in Vanguard, and sadly it seemed to break more then it fixed. For one, it broke the Isle of Dawn riftway, which meant that none of us could get off of it to explore the rest of Telon even after we reached level 10 and accepted (and in some cases, completed) the quest to speak with the rift seeker. It also seems that special recipes for crafting on the Isle of Dawn are not showing up in recipe books, which means progressing specific chains was impossible.

Not exactly the glorious second day I wanted to show to a newcomer to the game but it also wasn’t something that really bothered either of us. We spent the day finishing off old quests that we still had kicking around in our journal, and made the dreaded flight to the Temple located up a hill in order to finish the main chains. This temple is a place I have died more times then I can count. It’s difficult, respawns tend to be quick, and there are named located in various parts.

It was fun to hear another persons views on the quests, and see his excitement as we completed our sets of armor including a cloak. Once you’ve done the main chains on the Isle of Dawn you finish off the quests that reward you little trinkets, these can be right clicked and combined together to create a bracelet that levels up with your character and grows in power.

Hopefully we’ll be able to leave the island before too long, and explore the rest of Telon. With the new mentor system, this is something I am looking forward to the most.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Through New Eyes

stargrace October 28, 2009 2 Comments

Yesterday I managed to convince a friend to give Vanguard a try. The station access pass is $30/m and gives you extra EQ2 character slots as well as access to all of the other SOE titles, so it wasn’t that difficult. I’ve gone on and on about Vanguard in the past to anyone who would listen, so he was eager to try it and see what I was talking about. He created a Dreadknight, which is Vanguards equivalent to a shadowknight, and I created a druid, which in Vanguard is a nuker. I did also have a very small heal, druids get points called phenomenon points and these are spent when you cast a few select spells (like the heals, or a nuke). You can save up 20 of these points at a time (or at least I could at my low level) and you gain them back by defeating mobs.

When I first created the druid it was a LOT of fun. They have some very high damage spells, some snares and roots. In Vanguard you can move while you cast, at a slower pace then normal. This makes kiting (with a speed buff) exceptionally fun and easy, bringing back fond memories of EQ1.

Experiencing the game through the eyes of someone who has never played before was great. I’ve convinced a few friends over time to give Vanguard a try, and even if they don’t stick with it long term they’ve all enjoyed their visits to the world of Telon. The bugs have been greatly reduced, and it runs far better then it ever has. On the Isle of Dawn with 40+ people in the zone I experienced 0 graphic or technical issues aside from getting stuck between a pile of rocks, and lets face it that was probably my own fault for trying to wiggle in there.

As the druid leveled up it became apparent to me that while these casters did have amazing firepower they are also exceptionally squishy, and unless I had room to move around killing could become a huge problem. There is one portion of the island that is caves, and I needed help with that, another portion is an indoor temple, again I would require help. The encounters were made very easy with the help of the dreadknight, who took the time to level up crafting and diplomacy too.

The newcomer to Vanguard absolutely LOVED harvesting in the game, and I can’t blame him. It’s very nice to whip out an actual axe and hack away at a tree to watch it groan and eventually topple once you’ve cut through it, plus harvesting can be a group or solo activity, with greater resources being the result of a group effort. He was intrigued by the entire crafting process and its complexity, which is something I’ve always really enjoyed. Vanguard may not be the game it was promised to be at launch, but it’s developed and progressed beautifully on its own terms.

Next? Getting off of the Isle of Dawn, when crafting, diplomacy, and adventuring are all at level 10. Then it’s time to mentor with my higher level characters and complete some content that I haven’t been to in a very long time. I’m looking forward to exploring some lower level dungeons, the game is refreshing, and I like that.

Wednesday! I hope everyone has a fantastic day no matter what game you find yourself in.

Mentoring, Crafting, and just Exploring

stargrace October 9, 2009 3 Comments

Instead of wandering around wizard city, or questing in Norrath, I decided to spend most of my evening yesterday (once power was restored) exploring Telon again, getting familiar with my characters in the hopes that I’d spend more time in Vanguard over the next little while then anything else. I’ve played off and on since release and while it’s never exactly been my ‘main’ game, I’ve always had fun. A huge factor of this is of course my guild, Safe Haven. Every time I log in there are no less then 10 people around and in the evenings that expands to 30-40 people. We’re not even the largest guild on the server (Seradon) I believe the Platinum Order is the largest.

Kanad from Shattered decided to play as well, and we met up in Thestra (Renton Keep) to test out the mentor system. He was playing his 14 shaman and I decided to play my 19 psionicist (enchanter). In Vanguard mentoring has a level range of 5, and there seem to be a few bugs. The instructions claimed I could still use my spells, but I would get unknown error messages if I tried to cast a spell that I had not already gotten one version of by level 14 (my mentor level). Once I was unmentored the spells worked fine. Once he leveled to 15 I was no longer able to mentor him until I hit level 20, granting the 5 level range again.

We worked on URT (United Races of Thestra) quest chains. By the end of the evening we had completed both the gloves and the shoes, then we decided to break and mend, get our new spells, etc.

It had been a LONG time since I crafted anything for anyone, but I still remember the click frenzy known as Vanguard crafting. I spent hours upon hours working on orders in order to farm sigils. One feature Vanguard has that I really enjoy is the vgplayers web site, where the achievements of your characters are auto-blogged. You can find the blog I have for Faydai (my 44 blood mage) here. Of course the main reason I mention crafting is that a guild mate requested an upgrade to five pieces of jewelery and I actually disco’d two of the five pieces (granted, only one shows up on that blog atm). I believe discoveries re-set every time the server re-sets but perhaps it doesn’t any more.

In any case, I was pleased to be the first person to make those particular pieces, and happy that I hadn’t forgotten how to craft. I delivered the bits and decided to call it a night, I may not have done a whole lot of leveling, but it was still fun. I’m looking forward to getting a lot more Vanguard time in the future (especially since this happens to be a long holiday weekend, Monday is Thanksgiving here in Canada).

Until then, happy gaming and I’ll see you in Norrath Telon!

Wandering through the Bog

stargrace September 10, 2009 2 Comments

I may not write about Vanguard all that often, but I still happen to play (and enjoy) the game a fair amount, and since I didn’t do all that much in EQ2 yesterday (more about that later) I decided why not. Vanguard is one of those games that I wish more people played. The population is exceptionally small (especially on servers like Sartok (pvp) or Halgar (EU) compared to Seradon (the most populated server). There IS a community there if you look for it, and it’s very close knit. I’ve been in the guild Save Haven for a number of years now, and lately there has been a surge in numbers and higher level characters in the guild which is something I haven’t seen for a very long time. Members are partaking in raids now, and on any given night there are 10-30 people around, which I think is fantastic.

My main problem in VG is that I feel so lost when I come back to the game – I don’t have the faintest idea where I should be leveling, or where I can actually handle the encounters. I look at the map to get a rough idea of what zones are where and what level it is aimed at, but that doesn’t always help.

I have a handful of quests on me, so I typically pick a “chunk” (zone) and off I go, hoping that it’s enough to gain me a little experience. Last night I was hunting bog creatures in order to find a very rare bracelet that one of the creatures seems to have eaten or stolen from a lady. I hunted for an or or so but saw no sign of the bracelet, I think it must have been digested.

I wanted to do a little crafting, but apparently there’s a pretty sever bug right now that eats up your crafting supplies without giving you anything in return, so I decided to avoid it for the night and just spent my time quietly questing, talking to guild mates and finding my way around. It was a great way to spend an evening.

I’ve been pretty pro vanguard since release, despite the bugs and issues with performance, I always felt that the good surpassed the bad, and I’ve always personally enjoyed playing. I don’t debate that the release was absolutely horrid, but for some reason something still keeps me coming back for more.

Time to go draw a name for a contest I was hosting over on the Beckett MOG forums for an umbra sword, so I’ll end this post early today. Hopefully I’ll get a little more game time in, we’ll just have to see!

Happy gaming no matter where it finds you.