Weekly Newsletter 11_05_07: Change

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Updated Fri, Jan 02, 2009 by Dalmarus

11_05_07 Newsletter

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Change

November 5, 2007 - By Dalmarus

“There is nothing permanent except change” – Heraclitus

Everywhere you look, change surrounds us. Sometimes the change is small and sometimes not quite so much. Now while I think it’s safe to assume that old Heraclitus didn’t have taxes on the brain while writing this, he certainly makes a good point. Change is all around us and without it, nothing new or exciting would ever come about. We all go through changes whether we wish to our not.

Vanguard and Ten Ton Hammer are no exception. The past weeks have seen some pretty incredible changes for both. Last week Ralsu announced that he was moving on to harvest ponies for Ten Ton Hammer and handing the reigns of the site over to me. I still haven’t managed to get a hold of our own Shocky Monkey, but everyone is working so hard, even if we did, he wouldn’t have an excuse to zap us back to work anyway.

Change is certainly on the wind for Vanguard, much as it is in some form for every evolving MMOG on the market today. Even though winter is fast approaching for those of us in North America, this wind has the sweet scent of a spring breeze – filled with the promises of rebirth and growth.

There is no denying that Vanguard had a very rough beginning, the details of which have long been hashed out in a multitude of previous discussions, so let’s allow that dead horse to rest in peace. In the past months, server merges combined with drastic performance increases, have drawn back a number of old players and has begun to lure new players in as well. As I’ve scoured the various Vanguard forums this week, I’ve continued to see a steady stream of “I’ve Come Back” or “New Player Here” threads. This can only mean good things for Vanguard and our community.

With the Vanguard development team safe and back to work, they were kind enough to take some time and give us some Halloween event excitement. Although the timing certainly could have been better for myself (since I work odd hours), there were a number of people that had a chance to come out and play with the development team. I managed to catch the tail end of one event just long enough to get a decent shot of an Undead Troll.

The news for the week didn’t end there though. Thom Terrazas, Producer of Vanguard posted a great Producer’s Letter. There’s a lot of great information in there, but what really caught my eye is this:

“In the past few weeks, the team has been examining all of the fundamental game mechanics and discussing what we think it is fun to play and what is not. The great thing is we are not holding anything back – everything is fair game!”

Now although we can all see the potential pitfalls with this kind of statement, be sure not to take it out of context. Thom goes on to state in the letter that the players will be the major influence on changes, and even talks about opening a forum section devoted to “If I was in charge” ideas.

Along with everything else, Thom states they are going to make a more concerted effort in communication with the Vanguard community. We’ve all heard this before, and we’ll all hear it again, but I’d like to have a little faith that we’ll actually see it. Despite the fact that many players have had some rough reactions to the way SOE has handled games in the past, improvements have been seen. Look no further than EQ2 for a good example of this. Week by week, the game continues to bring more players into the fold, so they have to be doing something right.

Even with an increase in communication, there will still be plenty of players that won’t feel we’re getting enough, like the forum poster that demanded daily updates to the “Works In Progress” section of VGPlayers. Any increased form of communication will be a boon in my eyes.

The stage is set everyone. Vanguard has been making headway in the improvement department and I for one am hoping it continues to grow.