Fan Faire 2008 Vanguard News: 

Part One

By Dalmarus

Headlines Pankhor Zhi - Diplomacy Dungeon? Teleportation in Telon Fishing! Buddy Key Expiration Rumors Bank Space Issues Expansion Pack Plans Mentoring System

---

August 21st, 2008


Fan Faire 2008 has come and gone, but while I was there, the Vanguard: Saga of Heroes team pulled out all the stops in an effort to make everyone attending feel welcome. There may have only been a four to five official Vanguard panels, but as I mentioned in this week's edition of Dalmarus' Vanguard Chronicles, they took out enormous amounts of time to answer every question people could throw at them.

Rather than torture you with my ramblings like normal, to save some time (and a bit of your sanity), I'm going to jot down some highlight pieces of news gathered from the various panels, so enjoy!


Pankhor Zhi - Diplomacy Dungeon?
Pankhor Zhi was originally designed to be a diplomacy dungeon! I'm not sure about anyone else, but this was the first I'd heard that such a thing had even been considered at any point in Vanguard's development. While this is not going to be implemented any time in the foreseeable future, just the fact that it's even a concept was pretty exciting to me. As for Pankhor Zhi's current status, it will remain unchanged. The city not only has hallways too narrow to allow normal adventuring within, but according to Silius, it's also a nightmare where performance is concerned. While not confirmed, it's my guess that Pankhor Zhi was one of the first cities built, and as such, has some of the worst coding. One day, I can hope the Dark Elves finally receive a city worthy of their heritage.

Teleportation in Telon
Teleportation had been discussed while the team was in the process of mapping out plans for the Riftway System. While the system was being implemented, it was decided that more teleportation was not necessary at this point in time for the game since a number of classes have group teleport abilities to reach a local altar. As time goes on and the game eventually expands to perhaps include a new continent, it will be looked at again.

Fishing!
Fishing will not be ready for release in Game Update #6. There - I said it. While it's disappointing to some, it's certainly not the end of the world, and the overall news about fishing is actually pretty exciting. The system was almost completed before the majority of all resources were focused on completing the Isle of Dawn so the game could have a free trial with a much smaller download size available to the public. Just talking with the team, it was easy to see they were very excited about the system and will get it implemented soon after the release of Game Update #6.

Buddy Key Expiration Rumors
Buddy Key expiration rumors have been put to rest! If the card your Buddy Key is printed on does not list an expiration date anywhere on the card, then there is no expiration date associated with that code. If that same card does have an expiration date, such as December 31st 2008 for the Collector's Edition Buddy Key cards, then they will indeed expire on those dates. Save both yourself and Customer Service some pain and suffering by checking those Buddy Key cards you still have. If you have some with expirations on them, be sure to hand them out soon!

Bank Space Issues
Bank space is an issue that is still being looked into. Silius and the team stated they absolutely want to be able to grant more bank space to players, but it is going to be a major undertaking and require a lot of time to complete. While it may sound easy enough, they need to be sure that there are no mishaps when such a system goes live or there are going to be fires in the streets if people log in to find they are missing any items from their bank stores. It will take time, but it is something that's on the list.

Expansion Pack Plans
While the thought of an expansion pack is certainly something sweet to dream about, it's just not going to happen in the very near future. That doesn't mean the team doesn't want to do one, it's just not going to happen anytime soon. Silius stated they would love to do one and already have a number of ideas they'd love to implement, including a new continent. As a positive note on this though, the main reason this isn't going to happen yet is that it simply would not be fair to the player base. They would rather take the money that would be used by marketing, distribution, etc and focus that towards not only continuing to fix issues in the game, but to also flesh out a lot of areas in the game. This includes revamping and populating a number of existing dungeons within Telon that are currently mapped out, but empty.

Mentoring System
This was one of the most exciting things discussed during the panel in my opinion, the addition of a mentoring system. Basically, this would allow any higher level character to temporarily lower their character's level, power level of skills, and items, to an appropriate level to be able to play with any of their friends. This would also allow you to go back and explore the multitude of dungeons we've all missed, but be able to do it with the full challenge and excitement that was intended rather than simply running through it with your high level characters. Silius emphatically stated that he loves mentoring systems and that even though it will take a lot of time, it is being discussed, and he can't wait until they can get it coded and implemented.