Fan Faire 2008 Vanguard News: 

Part Two

By Dalmarus

Headlines Sorcerers to be DPS Kings Buddy Reward System Multi-Threading Processing, SLI, and Crossfire Brokers Come Together Galleons to Remain on Docks Crafters Want More to Sell Sorting Recipes High Level Content on the Horizon Pantheon of the Ancients - The Gods Await The Future of Vanguard Raiding

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August 22st, 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!


Sorcerers to be DPS Kings
It has been confirmed that Sorcerers will be the highest DPS (damage per second) characters in the game, just as they were always intended to be. With the class reviews/revamps finally coming to an end soon, Sorcerers will once again be the kings of the mountain. Other classes may have their combat numbers tweaked some more, but further testing is required.

Buddy Reward System
A lot of players have been taking not only the time, but their own money, to spread the word of their love for Vanguard and the team has taken notice. While it's still just in the development planning stage, there is talk of an upcoming Buddy Reward System. Basically, it will allow you to get "credits" for every person you give a Buddy Key to that subscribes to the game at the end of their trial period. There may also be a way for players to enter the name of the person that referred them, but that's just a guess from me since a free trial will be out soon. The "credits" may be used for anything from free play time, to being able to buy new titles for your characters. All of this is nothing more than discussion at this point, but it's an interesting idea and exciting that the Vanguard team is taking notice of the community's efforts to spread the word!

Multi-Threading Processing, SLI, and Crossfire
This is another item that is on the list for things to get done some time after the release of the Isle of Dawn trial. It's going to be a huge coding task, so don't expect it any time soon, but it is something that is on the list and will be getting worked on. Multi-Threading processing will allow CPU's with multiple cores to process the game much more efficiently, and SLI and Crossfire refers to utilizing both video cards (NVIDIA and ATI respectively) for those that have them installed. When this day comes to pass, the beauty and performance of Vanguard should blow us all away.

Brokers Come Together
Brokers are being merged! That's right - no more having to traverse all three continents in an attempt to get everything you want to up on the market. Not only are all the brokers being merged, but you'll also be able to have 50 items for sale at any given time rather than a combined total of 45 as it stands now if you were to max out a broker on each of the three continents. There will also be a time limit for items to remain on the broker, so those worried about trash items flooding the market for months on end should breathe easier.

Galleons to Remain on Docks
Galleons are completed, both the art and the coding, but they will have to remain in their virtual docks a while longer. The team wants to wait until there's content that will require galleons before bringing them over to the live server. Their point is, why have a galleon if there's nothing special you can do with it? A number of community members disagreed, some more vocally than others, stating just having the goal of creating one would be enough. It will take a guild effort to build a galleon, similar in effort to that required for a guild hall. As Joodah pointed out, if they went live, players would find a use for them, including guild meetings/parties. Time will tell, but don't hold your breath waiting for a galleon until there's something special for them to be used for (such as fishing in deeper waters).

Crafters Want More to Sell
This topic was a bit of a sore spot for some people, but for others, it was a non-issue. There are no numbers that support the crafter's plea. Basically, the debate comes down to adventuring gear now being better in some cases than crafted gear. This argument could go back and forth for eternity, and in some aspects, it did during the panel discussion. Although no definitive statements came out of it, the team was busy writing notes down for ideas to discuss later. As a personal note, I do buy a decent amount of crafted gear. After attempting to try my hand at crafting, I finally put my level 23 Armorsmith into permanent retirement and have not complained about a single price I see for crafted gear since. By the way, I didn't even start crafting until after they had made the process easier and increased the experience, so thank your local traders today.

Sorting Recipes
The crafters in the game have a number of legitimate concerns and complaints, one of which is the absolute cluster of a recipe system. When this particular topic was brought up, Silius stated that the crafting recipe menus are horrid. As soon as they get a new interface programmer, they will be implementing a system that will allow crafters to sort their recipes in a number of ways, and cleaning up large amounts of the clutter that currently exists.

High Level Content on the Horizon
Once the Isle of Dawn trial is completed, a large portion of the team's focus is going to be squarely centered on high level content. The developers are more than aware that the level 50 characters in the game are either bored or getting there. The next big piece of content will be the revamped Pantheon of the Ancients. After that, there are further plans in the works, including The Nexus.

Pantheon of the Ancients - The Gods Await
One of the coolest things the community members attending Fan Faire got a chance to see was a teaser for Pantheon of the Ancients. The Pantheon will be split into two pieces, an overland area, and an underground raid dungeon. The overland area will be similar to the Griffon Mount quest in that it will require a 6-man team to work closely together to achieve their goals. The Hall of Shattered Souls will be the raid dungeon inside Pantheon and you will not have to have full APW gear to complete the raid. The preview video stated, "What lies within the Hall of Shattered Souls? Pain... Suffering... Agony... The Truth." I've never made any attempt to hide the fact that I'm not a raider, but that teaser was enough to make me seriously consider becoming one.

The Future of Vanguard Raiding
You've been patient for almost a full week, and as a reward, I've saved the biggest news (in my opinion) for last. All future raid content in Vanguard will be 24-man. So what, you say? Ancient Port Warehouse is already 24-man? Not quite. For a long time now, players have been complaining that even though you can bring 24 people into APW, only 18 can participate in each fight, and only those 18 that fight have access to any loot dropped by the target. Moving forward, you will need all 24 people for each big fight and every last one of them will have loot rights. While this won't solve any arguments over the current situation with APW, it's exciting news for everyone moving forward! No longer will loot be left to rot simply because it dropped for a class that wasn't in the battle.