Vanguard: Saga of Heroes Year in Review

by Zinn

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Introduction

Where do I start? So much has happened to Vanguard Saga of Heroes in 2006. When the year began we knew little about Vanguard other than the “Vision” and some conceptual theories regarding the core game play mechanics of combat, diplomacy and crafting. As the year has passed not only has the Beta progressed but so has our knowledge. We now know a great deal about each class, combat, crafting, diplomacy, death penalty, end game design, and general game mechanics. When 2006 started Vanguard was a distant wish with little chance of releasing in 2006. Now as 2007 dawns Vanguard is not just a distant hope but a game we will soon be able to play. While we wait on release lets take a look at Vanguard in 2006.

Beta stages 2-4

Vanguard entered Beta 2 on December 15th of 2005. Beta 3 began on August 11th ending on December 13th, 2006. In Beta two, Sigil attempted to test and refine its core systems of combat, crafting, diplomacy and harvesting. All four systems underwent massive change during this period. In Beta 3 the continent of Qalia was added; the entire continent of Thestra was closed down and revamped; and the first starting area of Kojan was added. Beta 4 has started by adding the final two Kojan starting areas.

Combat

Combat underwent drastic changes in 2006. In Beta 2 Vanguard combat was very reactive with combat being based around the ability to perceive upcoming enemy attacks. The player had many meaningful choices and was rewarded for reacting well to what her enemy was doing. To make such a system work fights had to be very long and combat very slow. It’s reported that this system didn’t go over very well with many of the testers and resulted in many combat revamps. The signature feature of the old system, perceiving enemy attacks, is now long gone and unlikely to come back. Combat is much faster paced now and less reactive, although Sigil is still constantly tweaking combat and has plans to make it more reactive and to give players more meaningful choices during combat.

Vanguard will release with 15 classes. Two classes, the Berserker and Inquisitor, will be added some time after release. Much information has been learned about each of the 15 classes including detailed spell and ability information. For a closer look at individual classes take a look at our class guides, which are constantly being updated to reflect all new information.

Crafting

During 2006 we learned a great deal about Vanguard crafting. There will be 3 crafting classes at release, the Blacksmith, Artificer and Outfitter. The last crafting class, the Alchemist, will be added sometime after release. Each crafting class has 2 subclasses. Crafting is regarded in beta as extremely well done. Unlike most other games crafting in Vanguard actually requires some thought and skill. Experience and levels are gained by doing Work Orders for NPCs. Work Orders are quests given by NPCS to make useful items for NPC guards and townspeople.

In addition to armor and weapons, players will be able to construct boats, housing and any item that one sees in an NPC building. Players can buy plots of land and build residential, commercial and industrial structures. Some time after release city building will be added to the game. City building will allow players and guilds to build towns, fortifications and outposts out in the wilderness. Crafting may play a role in the health of these player made cities. For a more thorough explanation of crafting see our crafting preview.

Diplomacy

Diplomacy will no longer be level based but rather skill based from skill level 0 to 500. There will be 4 main Diplomacy classes, Thug, Philosopher, Demagog and Charlatan, which will become available at skill level 150. Each class will divide into two subclasses at skill level 350. Diplomacy will affect the world and players within it. Players can use diplomacy to create area wide buffs and to influence NPCs to open quests for crafters and adventurers.

Diplomacy will be one of the main vehicles used to reveal game lore and the storyline to players. As a player engages in a diplomatic encounter with an NPC the NPC will reveal information to the player. This information may add lore, storyline and sometimes may direct the player to quests. Diplomacy will also open up quest lines to players and access to NPCs that he would otherwise not be able to access. Once city building is introduced Diplomacy may play a role in keeping player cities healthy and running smoothly.

Vanguard Stratics’ excellent October Diplomacy preview provides further details. 

Harvesting

Harvesting at one time looked to be quite revolutionary. Sigil had planned for harvesting classes and actual harvesting combat whereby players would get special attacks, buffs, debuffs and actually engage in solo and group combat with a resource. All this sounded great in theory but it did not work as well as Sigil intended in beta. Sigil removed all harvesting classes and special attacks. Harvesting is now quite simple. Click on a resource to begin the harvesting encounter and then loot it when the resource is depleted. Each player can gain skill in 2 of the 5 harvesting skills, mining, quarrying, skinning, reaping and lumberjacking, Groups can harvest the same resource and extract more from that resource than an individual. Harvesting is no longer level based but skill based. Harvesting like Adventuring, Crafting and Diplomacy has its own separate tools and armor.

Game play

When the year began Vanguard’s game play was centered on gaining experience by killing monsters. The success of World of Warcraft’s quest-directed game play has likely affected the design for Vanguard and could possibly affect every new MMORPG for 2007. In 2006 Vanguard changed its philosophy to quest-directed game play. Quests will lead players around the world of Telon and comprise a substantial portion of the player’s experience.

This has caused quite a bit of controversy. While quest-directed game play may be the wave of the future many players do not like being led by quests. Quests make it harder for groups to stay together as people are constantly leaving once they finish their quest. In Vanguard, players will have options--they can either quest from level 1-50, or level grind by killing monsters without questing. There will be many dungeons to crawl and places for players to grind or camp if they wish. Brad McQuaid, CEO of Sigil Games, has said it is Sigil’s intention that pure grinding will be a slower way to level than questing. Sigil here is trying to walk a delicate balance and appeal to both types of players, questers and those who dislike questing.

Even with quest-directed game play Vanguard is still designed to be a group oriented game. Early in 2006 we learned about the 20-60-20 philosophy. Sigil’s concept for all levels of gameplay, including, the endgame, is content distribution that is roughly 20% for raiding, 60% for single groups and 20% for solo and casual (2-3 players) play. Sigil has said that players will be able to solo from level 1-50 but that the rate of progress will be slower than when grouped.

Death Penalty

Vanguard has a dynamic death penalty where the death penalty changes depending on the level of difficulty of the enemy the player is fighting. One of the signature parts of Sigil’s vision for Vanguard has been a significant death penalty--a penalty that has enough sting to make players fear death and to teach and reward players for playing better. The new death penalty has eliminated corpse runs for most deaths. This has caused a great amount of controversy and has caused many people to claim the vision is being “watered down.” But in all fairness, Brad McQuaid has said for quite sometime that he is not committed to corpse runs, rather that he doesn’t care what the penalty is, as long as death stings. This penalty has been evolving all year. Brad explains the latest version of the death penalty below.


Below are links to the two latest versions of Sigils death penalty.

• New Death Penalty
• Old Death Penalty

End Game Loot Policy

Contrary to what many people believe Vanguard’s endgame is not designed around raiding nor is it designed to give raiders any edge in gear. Vanguard’s endgame is designed to reward those that use all of the game’s endgame attractions. The best gear will come mainly from single group activities but the best gear will also come from a variety of content including solo/casual content, raid content, quests, crafting, diplomacy and other activities. If you want the best gear you will have to do all the activities or trade for the items that come from play styles you choose not to play.

To learn more about Sigil’s endgame loot plan, please take a look at Brad’s endgame loot posts below.

• Post 1
• Post 2
• Post 3
• Post 4

Challenge

Many people talk about Vanguard being more challenging but what does that mean? How will Vanguard be more challenging or difficult than other games? Bill Fisher, senior game designer, talked a little bit about what Sigil means by challenge in our dungeon interview with him.  He said:


In vanguard there will simply be a smaller margin of error. Mistakes will be more costly and have a much greater chance of causing your group to wipe. Combined with a stiffer death penalty simple mistakes will cause a great deal more pain. When EQ1 was released the margin of error was quite low which forced groups to play better. Small mistakes could wipe your group. People were not only forced to learn how to play their character but how to group, choose a leader, listen to that leader, pull to safe spots and so on.

In EQ1 and DAOC every player had to learn these basic fundamentals of good grouping or they would have difficulty gaining invites to groups and continue to level. In EQ1 if you played poorly you simply did not find good groups. People quickly learned to cooperate, listen and work together as teams. In my Vanguard beta experiences this is the case. Small mistakes are much easier to make and the cost of these mistakes is much more painful. Players are simply taught to play better and work better as a group in Vanguard.

In more modern games fundamental grouping skills were rarely needed because the margin of error was so large. In newer games people could make all kinds of mistakes and the group would live. But even if they died death penalties were very small. If someone went AFK, or had no idea how to play their class, or if they would run ahead and pull agro it wouldn’t matter because your group could still win. Games like EQ and Vanguard encourage good group play while many recent games do not.

Playing in Vanguard beta I have noticed the difference in the margin of error. Simple mistakes and sloppy play have large repercussions. Players are forced to play better and they do get better. I find there is a greater feeling of accomplishment. The margin of error is the fundamental difference in challenge and one of the key parts, in my opinion, of Vanguards vision.

SOE

In May of this year, in a shocking move, Sigil announced they had bought back the publishing rights from Microsoft and had entered into an agreement with Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) to publish Vanguard. This caused a great uproar in the community and a strong backlash towards Vanguard from much of its fan base. For a few weeks after the announcement, anti-SOE threads dominated all Vanguard forums. But like most controversies this one died down with time. Many people still don’t like SOE, but are primarily concerned not about which company is publishing Vanguard, but about the quality of the game itself.

Brad McQuaid explained that the move to SOE was in the best interests of Vanguard. He said that partnering with SOE would allow for a longer beta and a better and more complete game at release. For the most part Sigil did refused to explain the true reasons behind the move. A few days ago Todd Masten, Senior Game Desinger at Sigil Online, made a statement on the Fires of Heaven forums, which seems to explain why Sigil may have parted ways with Microsoft. He said:


Looking at Brad and Todd’s statements together it’s not hard to draw the conclusion that Microsoft may have been pressuring Sigil into a much earlier beta and release than they had intended. If this is true then the merger with SOE in retrospect looks to have given Vanguard a much better chance of success.

Respect and communication

One thing we learned about Vanguard in 2006 is that neither Brad nor any of the Sigil developers actually sleep. Amazingly they post continuously at all hours on the forums. Not just Brad, but many of the developers post on the forums and interact with the fans. Most game developers over hype their games promising everything and delivering little. With Vanguard it’s the fans who have over hyped the game and driven up expectations. Sigil and Brad have done their best to manage expectations with Vanguard. Brad has spent a good amount of time on the official vanguard forums trying to keep expectations for Vanguard within reason and attempting to correct any misconceptions. Sigil is trying something quite novel by treating their fans with respect and honesty in an industry known for treating fan bases like cattle. Sigil should be applauded for their interaction with the fan base. It is a model that other developers should learn from.

The Vision

All year long Brad has told people that Vanguard will not be a game just for hardcore player or for casuals but will be targeted towards the core player or average player. Brad has said that you cannot stereotype players. Rather players simply like different types of game play, game features and game styles. This does not make any game style or preference superior to any other.

Brad has explained that Vanguard’s systems--from its endgame loot system to dynamic death penalty-- will attempt to offer something for most types of players and play styles. Vanguard will offer quest-directed game play for questers and group and solo play for those who prefer to adventure alone or with a partner. There will be content for solo players, group players and raiders. But the important point is that Vanguard is trying to reach out to most, if not all, play styles whether one is a quester, crafter, diplomat, raider, casual player, hardcore player, EQ1 fan, WoW player or something else. Sigil is trying to offer content for these different types of play styles while not watering down the challenge or infringing upon other styles of game play. Take a quick look at the end game plan. Everyone can play the end game as they wish. If a player doesn’t wish to engage in diplomacy, raiding or in soloing/casual content they don’t have to. They will still be rewarded playing the game how they want to play it. Players can simply play the game the way they want if it does not infringe upon other people’s enjoyment. That seems to be what Vanguard is all about: offering content choices for everyone.

For the longest time, no one listened to Brad McQuaid when he preached that Vanguard was not a hardcore game but a game for everyone. Rather, people stuck to their preconceptions of Vanguard. But slowly it has begun to dawn on people that Vanguard is not exactly the game they thought it would be. Many have become upset or disillusioned because Vanguard is quite different than what they decided it would be. They may be upset about Bind on Equip items, Trivial Loot Code, the endgame not being centered around raiding, the lack of corpse runs, inclusion of maps, quest-directed game play or something else. This has recently caused a great deal of backlash posts saying that Brad and Vanguard have “lost the vision.” I would strongly disagree and point out that if they had been listening they would have been aware that Brad and Sigil have talked about most if not all of these design decisions for years now. This is something that happens in just about every game, when a game does not turn out exactly as people want, they cry foul and raise a ruckus on the boards.

The Community

Anyone visiting the Official Vanguard Forums (OVF) might be shocked to look back and see what the community and the forums were like at the beginning of the year. The OVF used to be a friendly place where arguing, disagreements, rants and attention seeking posts were the exception, not the rule. Now we don’t need to read long before feeling deeply sorry for Elar and Glip, the official forum moderators. While the OVF has degraded in quality it is still much better than most game forums this close to release. Glip and Elar deserve a great deal of praise for the work they have done keeping the boards as civil as they are. Fortunately for Glip and Elar the OVF (except for technical forums) will be closing at release.

The in game community is something Brad and Sigil have been talking about for many years. Sigil has said they hope to use in game mechanics to make better communities and bring back the importance of player reputation. Mechanics such as long travel time, regionalized economies, group-centric play, player interdependence, stronger death penalties and a smaller margin of error all are part of sigil’s plan to make communities stronger and better. When I entered beta I had my doubts that Sigil would be able to bring back strong communities to a genre that has for the most part abandoned the idea of community. But I have been very impressed with Vanguard’s in-beta game community in terms of its skill and maturity. It has been many games since I have joined pick up groups but in Vanguard I am constantly amazed at the nice people I meet in pick up groups. It is quite refreshing and I hope this better community will carry over to release.

2007 and Release

What do we know about release? We know that there are two stages of beta left. We know that all 3 continents, 14 starting areas, and 15 adventure classes are in the game now. We know that Brad has said Beta 5 will last about 4 weeks and the NDA will be lifted in Beta 5. The question then is how long will beta 4 last? Sigil appears to be pushing strongly for a March/April release. Will they make it?  People seem to feel quite strongly one way or the other. While we could have a release as early as March or April most games do get pushed back and I would not be surprised to see a summer release. My number one rule about releases is never to trust anything a developer or game company said about their release. They almost always get pushed back.

While many are impatient to play we all benefit when games take their time and do not rush to release. Brad has said that WoW has upped the bar as to what players expect from a new game’s release. Jeff Butler, Vice-President of Sigil Games, has said players will no longer tolerate a shabby release. Players will simply not give a game a second chance after a poor release. Most likely Vanguard has only one chance to impress the MMORPG fan base and that is at release. I hope Sigil takes their time. Brad has said time and time again we will not release until the game is ready. As much as I love Brad’s openness and honesty with the community he is still a game developer and one should always take what a game developer said about release with a grain of salt. I hope he keeps his word to us and does not release Vanguard until its ready.

Summary

Is there anything more exciting than a game about ready to release? Besides DDO there has not been a major MMORPG release in two years. Vanguard has now been in development about 4.5 years and its fan base cannot wait to play. I know I start drooling when I think of release. A lot has changed this last year to make us even more excited. We have learned about the classes, the endgame, the death penalty and so much more. But we also learned that the people making this game are darn nice people. Brad, Jeff Butler, Elar, Glip and all the Devs should be thanked for their hard work, honesty and great communication. They are a breath of fresh air in industry where it has become hard to trust developers. We should all take the time to wish them a happy holiday and a good rest for the hard work and great year they have given us.

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