Interview With style="font-style: italic;">Vanguard
 Producer,
Thom Terrazas

by
Dalmarus

January 8th, 2008

Interviews

• href="http://vanguard.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=862">Part
  1: The Riftway System
• href="http://vanguard.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=864">Part
  2: Flying Mounts
• href="http://vanguard.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=868">Part
  3: Necromancers
• href="http://vanguard.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=870">Part
  4: The Ancient Port Warehouse Riftway System

Part 1: The Riftway System

Dalmarus: With the
addition of the Riftway System some time ago,
traveling the lands of Telon has certainly become a much more friendly
experience to the player with limited play time. Are there any plans to
add
even more stones to some of the more remote locations of either Thestra
or
Qalia? If so, will they be on their own network, or will they be
incorporated
into the existing three?

Thom:
We actually
plan on revamping the riftway system a bit
to make it a little more user friendly. Right now it can be sort of
confusing
(especially if you don’t have a riftway map handy) and there
are regions of the
world that don’t have proper riftway access. We plan on
addressing that in our
next update – we can give more details as we get a little
closer to it.

Dalmarus: Is
there any lore behind the decision to have the Riftway
System split into three networks? Was it meant to be designed as an
early guide
on appropriate content level areas? If not, can you explain why the
sites
within each network are grouped as they are? style="color: rgb(51, 102, 102);"> style="width: 230px; height: 219px; float: right;"
alt="riftway_stone"
src="http://media.tentonhammer.com/vanguard/gallery/albums/Vanguard-Item-Pics/riftway_stone.jpg"
hspace="10" vspace="10">

Thom:
Originally, it
was designed to be tiered into
different approximate level ranges. As I said above though,
we’re going to be
retooling the way the riftways work a bit in the not too distant
future.

Dalmarus:
While the majority of the Riftway Stones are set in very
useful areas, the stone at Pankor Zhi seems like an odd choice. Are
there any
plans to complete the Dark Elf city and add appropriate content to
justify the
stone's location? Are there plans to move this or any other stone in
the possible
future?

style="font-weight: bold;">Thom: style="color: rgb(51, 102, 102);">Over the
course of the next several updates we’ll be
reevaluating some of the underused areas in the game. Right now there
aren’t
currently plans to revamp Pankor Zhi but after we’ve given it
a more thorough
evaluation we’ll see. You will probably see some stones moved
around though –
or rather, more stones added.

Dalmarus:
Is there any discussion of adding in class specific
ports/gates similar to the Wizard and Druid of EQ1? If so, would they
be tied
into the Riftway System, or would they be a separate set within
themselves?

style="font-weight: bold;">Thom: style="color: rgb(51, 102, 102);">Yes ~ This is
being discussed at this moment actually.
We will be doing an evaluation of classes for the game overall but this
is one
reason to make sure that we fit abilities of this nature to the correct
class.