Philosophy of Two Unique Classes

An Interview with Darrin “Talisker” McPherson

By Lady Sirse

[Editors Note: We just got this in today. While it's just a tad late, we hope you enjoy the information!]

In what seems to be becoming a Fanguard tradition, I had a chance to sit down

with Darrin “Talisker” McPherson. Sigil Games Online’s Senior Game Designer and I played tag it seemed all day Saturday January 28, 2006. We were finally able to find each other in the chaos after the closing banquet. What did we talk about among the excited chatter of over a hundred people? Philosophy of course!

While we talked, we focused on the unique classes that will be in Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. Everyone has been speculating, hoping and adding their thoughts across the Vanguard Community from the Official Forums to the Fan Sites. In this interview we talked about the Disciple and the Dread Knight. What was the concept behind these classes and what would we be able to look forward to? Darrin tried to shed some light on these two classes. I think he did a great job!

We began talking about the Disciple. This class is one of the Healers in Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, but comes at the task from a much different angle than we are used to seeing. Darrin smiled a bit as he began, “It’s more of a self contained healer. He is not a utility class in that he has no buffs. He uses his internal energy to do his job…” What does this mean? It means that the philosophy of the Disciple is that of a martial artist in tune with his internal energy and the energy of the world around him. Moving and flowing with the currents of this energy and with the flow of battle, the Disciple will be able to form bonds with friend and foe alike.

The Disciple will be able, through these bonds, to act either defensively or offensively. With a defensive stance, he can share his chi with a member of his party to heal them, or offensively he can debuff a foe. This will help to make the foe easier to kill for his party. Not only will he be able to do this, the Disciple will be able to add to the actual damage done to the enemy by wielding weapons not normally seen on a healer. Swords, staffs, knuckles and handwraps keep this class in line with the concept of the martial healer.

According to Darrin, the Disciple will use the bonds he makes with his foes to be an ideal choice for crowd control duties. Dust off those Tai Chi tapes and brush up on your soft martial styles to have an idea how the Disciple is going to move in Telon. He also added that we should get ready to see some new types of graphics for this class as well, “You’ll see things similar to what is found in the movie “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”. The way the character holds the swords and moves will be very unique.” I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to see these graphics in action!

We moved on to chat about the Dread Knight. These two words are capable of sparking speculation in historic proportions. Happy to have a chance to dispel some of the growing misconceptions, Darrin said, “Think of Batman, or of Punisher, they are similar to the Dread Knight. They do what it takes to get the job done and then go back to everyday life. They aren’t evil per se, they just do what it takes.”

The Dread Knight is one of the Defensive Fighters that will appear in Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. It has the distinction of being the most arcane of all the tank type classes. This class will draw upon the dark magic of Telon to make themselves menacing in battle. Darrin touched on one of the ways that they will be able to do this. He spoke about their aura in battle. “They will have an interesting aura of fear in battle. It will build up a debuff effect. The Dread Knight’s primary target will be affected the most. The fear effect will build up quickly, while on all the foes within the area of effect though the build up will be slower. This effect is progressive, meaning that once the primary target is dead and you switch to the next one, the build up will add on from where it had already built to. Now though, it will rise even faster.”

It’s clear that though the Dread Knight may be fearsome in battle, they aren’t a shady figure cloaked in the darkness of evil. They are merely a fierce defensive fighter that will do anything to make sure that a given task is accomplished. They live by the ideal that the end justifies the means. What will be your take on this class? Will you lurk in the shadows enveloped in darkness? Will you take on the more pragmatic view, doing what needs to be done? I look forward to watching how the community as a whole will interpret this in their game play and role play.

With this look at the philosophy behind the creation of these two unique classes in Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, I think that we can really see how much thought and work is going into all areas of the game creation. I look forward to learning more as the information starts to come out more and more are we move closer to launch. I am grateful to Darrin for being patient as we struggled to coordinate a time for this interview and to his ride for waiting just a bit longer to leave the event!

Images shown are NOT ingame screenshots, they are 3d artwork created by Niborea here at Vanguard Ten Ton Hammer