I Want My Secret Sauce!

Page Two

One comment on the official forums that stood out to me recently was a comment that said that Vanguard had "cookie cutter graphics". The game in motion is entirely different from what one sees in a screenshot. Of course there are always differences; however, the screenshots do not come close portraying the depth, shading, light effects or the vibrancy of the terrain. I have to admit that I was starting to feel that there weren't enough color differences to give me that "other world" feeling. Seeing the game in action put those doubts to rest. I sat in awe at the level of detail.

Let's take for instance the mounts in the game. There are quite a few different mounts that players can have.

GM Elaisu

Jeff says "If you think you could ride it, it can be a mount." as he rides by on Fluffy the wonder cat.

Not fluffy the big bad mountain lion, Fluffy the tabby. You have to laugh as you see Jeff's character mounted on this massive tabby running at speeds that you will never see on your own mount. He admits that Fluffy moves so fast that he often runs into buildings, mountains, trees, etc. Needless to say, Fluffy won't be in the game. However, flying mounts will. This is an aspect that excites me. No more one way Griffons. These bad boys go up and down and sideways. Imagine the new areas that you will be able to explore that you cannot reach from the ground!

A big feature of today's demo was player housing. The first thing I thought of when I saw the player housing was the Horizons model. Meaning, you gather the materials to build the house, you need crafters to make the various areas of the house. However, when your house is finally completed you can decorate it with the various crafted items in game.

I've played quite a few games as a crafter. For those of you that don't want houses, there is also the option to build guard towers. These towers will actually spawn NPC guards.

Guard Tower

With that said this system is better than SWG and EQ2 as well. It is a true 3D game. Each item can be placed in any position at any angle. It's a simple system of drag and drop. The mouse wheel does the angle position.