Fan Faire 2008
Vanguard News: 

Part Two

By Dalmarus

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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 href="http://vanguard.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=969">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 href="http://vanguard.tentonhammer.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=2097">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.