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Reviewing a massively multiplayer online game is a lot like discussing religion; no matter what opinion you may have about the subject, no matter how well you formulate the reasoning behind your opinion, there will be people who are so passionate about their own opinions that they can't fathom yours. I suppose they are a lot like Oprah.

Oprah fans, this is your wake-up call. If you cry on-camera I'll kick you straight off the stage. We don't cater to sissies around here, though I've been told that our more refined readers do ruminate over the column while sipping merlot from a crystal goblet, chit-chatting about the artistic values of game design and smiling without showing their teeth.

Without further mincing of words I give you my official Vanguard: Saga of Heroes First Impressions Article. I shouldn't need to tell you this, but the game changes constantly. What is true at the time of writing this article may not be true in the future, though I can travel there, and to the past if needed to edit this article for accuracy. [Click here for proof. *Warning - Sound*]

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes First Impressions

Publisher: Sony Online Entertainment
Developer: Sigil Games Online
Official Home Page: VanguardSoH.com
ESRB Rating: Teen
Release Date: January 30, 2007

First up, I would personally like to see this game succeed. That won't cloud my opinion of the game, but it is important that you know that I am not one of the Vanguard bashers that roams the Interweb. I am also not a fanboi. I would like to see the game succeed because I believe that the industry needs another high profile title. World of Warcraft has done wonders for the genre, but we are quickly tying our horse to the one-trick-pony stable. I feel the same way about Vanguard at launch that I feel about any newly lauched game. I hope they succeed. Hundreds of people have poured their hearts and souls into this title. To wish ill in the game, as some players are wont to do, just seems wrong somehow. Now that you know where I'm coming from, let's see where I've been.

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes has long been touted by its developers as a "Next Generation" MMOG that is revolutionary rather than evolutionary. Brad McQuaid the Executive Producer of Vanguard and former co-designer of EverQuest describes the game as follows;

"Our aim, quite simply, is to offer an alternative to an online gaming genre that is dominated by a few very large and quite excellent games right now (Final Fantasy XI and World of Warcraft come to mind). Why? Because life, especially entertainment, is about choices. And, really, so is Vanguard itself. It’s about freedom of choice. It contains content and quests and adventures for all sorts of people -- casual players, 'core' players, and even those who spend a lot of time in these games raiding in large groups -- we're all about making a world that is inclusive, *not* exclusive. Vanguard offers a freedom that players have never before experienced -- you have a wide variety of races and classes to choose from, unparalleled capability to customize your character, multiple ways of advancing your character, be it traditional adventuring, to an exciting system of harvesting and crafting, to a brand new spin on gameplay called Diplomacy where you use your wits and not your sword to decide the outcome of events and make your mark on the world…"

Graphics

The graphics in Vanguard follow much closer to their EverQuest and EverQuest 2 roots than they do to the cartoon style, low-poly count graphics found in the current market champion, World of Warcraft.

There will be times when I guarantee that you will simply stop fighting or traveling or whatever it is that you may be doing to just look around. The architecture and enviroment not only looks epic, it "feels" epic. The fantasy world of Telon has its own character or flavour so to speak with three distinct continents all with their own distinct setting. Qalia is a desert continent. Thestra is a continent filled with expansive forests and mountain ranges while Kojan is a series of smaller islands which delivers a "Far East" theme.

• Cities and Villages of Qalia
• Cities and Villages of Thestra
• Cities and Villages of Kojan

As one would expect from an art department originally guide by the late Keith Parkinson, the art direction is contiguous, never seeming to shock the player into feeling that an area or piece of architecture is out of place. The water and sky effects look tremendous. Players who enjoy the vibrant palettes of World of Warcraft over the more earthy and realistic palettes of EverQuest 2 may be disappointed or uninterested. If anything bad can said about the environmental graphics it is that because they skew towards realism they are sometimes rather bland.

It is important to note that many players may have difficulty playing on any graphics setting higher than "balanced" which is a shame as that setting doesn't shed a particuarly favourable light on the artwork.

While the envionmental art is for all intents and purposes excellent, the character art is left wanting. The textures used on equipment and clothing for player characters, non-player characters and many of the mobs are dry. Characters can be customized in many ways, right downt the size of their arms and legs, but players are only given a choice of four hairstyles. Some aspects of the character artwork appear to have been given great attention while other areas simply seem unfinished.

Animations are limited. With my Raki Disciple for instance, I learned the second level of one of my martial arts moves, but there is no animation at all, even though the first level of the same move had one. You would never know that the character attacked if you didn't watch the combat results window.

• Races of Qalia
• Races of Thestra
• Races of Kojan

One of my favourite aspects of a game has always been the spell effects. Like the character graphics, the spell effects seem unfinished. You could say that I like shiny things and it would be true. So far there have not been many shiny spellcasting moments in Vanguard on any of the classes that I have tried. To be fair, druids appear to have some fancy spell casting effects, but I have yet to give a druid a whirl.

Audio

The unsung heroes of gaming are the hard-working folks who create the music and sound. This is an aspect of the game where Vanguard truly shines. The music, ambient and otherwise is perhaps the best in the industry.

I actually found myself humming one of the songs while I was driving to a hockey game. The music, moreso than the graphics adds "fun" to the game.

The ambient sounds and combat sounds are average at best.

Gameplay

The number of race/class combinations is astounding. Each race is given a unique racial ability. It remains to be seen how these abilities will affect the end-game, but some seem much more powerful than others.

Combat is far less forgiving in Vanguard than in any other mainstream MMOG. The classes are specialized and grouping is strenuously encouraged. Death results in an experiece penalty which though I personally feel gives the game more excitement is disliked by many. One incredibly annoying aspect of combat is that if you are jumped and run from mobs they chase you seemingly forever. They will eventually give up, but the chase distance is incredibly long.

Solo play is possible, especially at the lower levels, but it is evident from the beginning that group play is emphasized. If nothing else, Vanguard is a game built around community. Making friends early on will benefit any player.

Unlike most current and upcoming games, this title does not have any instancing. Purportedly a decision made to promote community and grouping, the lack of instances is creating "camping" problems that many players thought they had put behind them when they left the original EverQuest. A great example is a quest given to every player who start as a Kojani. To complete this quest you not only require a group, but you are required to kill a mob that spawns once every 20 minutes. If another group is waiting for the mob in front of you the wait is even longer. This results in a fun factor of zero. When groups who don't like to share show up you have a fight over who can hit the mob first to get credit for the kill. It gets ugly in a hurry and tempers flare. Add to this the fact that killing the mob doesn't always give everyone on the group credit for completing the quest and you have a veritable hornet's nest that explodes every 20 minutes.

Unlike World of Warcraft or EverQuest the quests don't necessarily lead you on to the next logical adventuring area. Even at low levels you will be required to grind through the local flora and fauna to gain experience. Though I am sure this appeals to some "old school" gamers it won't appeal to many casual gamers who prefer to be given a storyline or at least a line of quests to play through. Mindlessly walking out to the closest field to lop the head off of animals doesn't seem like a next-generation design idea.

Loot, a staple "hook" in most MMOG has been disappointing so far in Vanguard. I have played five classes to level 10 and have yet to loot an item that seemed in any way special. The lure of the loot lottery is what keeps many players playing. Without it, I predict many will simply go back to their previous game and leave Vanguard behind.
Gameplay also includes two other spheres, crafting and diplomacy. I haven't had time to give either of these spheres adequate play time to form an educated opinion, but many players are thoroughly enjoying them.

Crafting, as one would expect allows the player to create items either for themselves or to sell to others. The crafting tutorial is wordy, but will set a new player down the path of the crafter.

Harvesting is one aspect of crafting that I have enjoyed in other games, mostly because I could do it while I was adventuring. My initial attempt at harvesting in Vanguard left me staring at a quest screen that told me to make my two harvesting skill choices. How? Where? What are the options? I've seen so many buggy quests that I never know if I have stumbled upon another one or if I am simply too dense to figure out the answer. The short answer was that it was a bug. I was never given the quest screen with the choices. Abandoning the quest and attempting it again gave me the final step of the quest.

• Crafting Preview
• Crafting FAQ

Diplomacy remains a mystery though it is a "card game" that numerous players seem to love. It is rumoured that diplomacy will unlock otherwise unavailable quests and rewards. I have only spent four or five hours exploring Diplomacy, but it was a very effective break from adventuring and questing. I can understand why so many players enjoy it.

• Beginner's Guide To Diplomacy

Final Thoughts

Can you have final thoughts of a first impression? I'm going to try. In a nutshell, the game feels unfinished and unpolished. Most MMOGs have birthing pains, but Vanguard seems like it came out of the womb at least three months early.

The Bad

• The game crashes to desktop at times.
• Lag can turn your powerhouse machine into a doorstop. Many players are experiencing low framerates.
• Connection to chat and social servers is lost frequently.
• Lack of a fully structured tutorial
• Many guards in Leth Nurae send you to the Psionicist trainer, no matter what directions you ask for.
• Invisible walls sometimes stop your forward progress
• Quest tracking toggle is reset every time you logout.
• Loot isn't very exciting for the new player.
• Cities built by the same team that put the minotaur in a labyrinth or that wrote the song Hotel California. Once you enter, you can never leave.
• Mobs often fall through the world, attacking you from the first circle of Hell where you can't attack back.
• Loot icon appears over vanquished mobs even when there is nothing to loot.
• Train!!! Mobs follow you seemingly forever, only to hop on an unsuspecting bystander on a whim.

The Good

• Plenty of races to choose from, though all are humanoid.
• Many specialized classes
• Healers are fun to play.
• You can ride at horse at level 10
• The music is as good as you'll find in any game.
• Environmental art is exceptional.
• Bards can create their own songs
• The world is gigantic and feels epic.
• You can cast spells while moving!
• Three separate and unique spheres of gameplay.

From first impressions it appears that if EverQuest was your thing, then Vanguard will likely become the new love of your life, if and only if they can get the bugs out in the next couple of weeks. The similarities are too frequent to mention, which isn't surprising given the fact that Brad McQuaid is at the helm. If on the other hand, you enjoy World of Warcraft because of its polish and structure you might want to pass on Vanguard until it matures.

Some additional references for those thirsting for more information.

• Vanguard U.I. Database
• Guide to .ini optimization
• Complete list of slash commands
• Hotkeys for dummies
• Guide to Vanguard statistics
• Maps of Telon
• Spawn maps
• Class guides

Enjoy, and please do tell me what you think of the game. It is an ambitious title that will take hundreds of hours of play to review properly. The complexity of Vanguard's gameplay and even the lore that surrounds it is substantial.

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