by Karen Hertzberg on Jan 01, 2007
by Zinn
style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Editor's
Note: This
review was written and submitted for Sigil's approval in November when
just one area of Kojan was online--the Martok area. These
impressions come from an earlier time in beta. The game has
evolved even more since that time.
Looking at different areas of the game, you can see the evolution of
the design of Vanguard. In the old Thestra, quests were unsophisticated
technologically and in design. There were not many quests, and there
was little direction to game play, which seems to have been more
focused on grinding. Qalia illustrates a shift in philosophy to
quest-directed game play and more sophisticated quests. Kojan takes
this change a step further and is much better done; the quests seem
flashier, there are no gaps in quests like on Qalia or Thestra,
and there is more direction to lead you to your next location. But
it’s not only
the design that has changed; it’s the quality of the quests
and
the game play. Qalia was much better done than the original Thestra.
Kojan is better
than Qalia and the new Thestra seems to be better still.
Another area of improvement is content. When you look at Qalia and
Thestra, you don’t see as many MOBs packed together as in
Kojan.
The world is huge but it’s not empty or a
wasteland. Kojan
goes a step further and seems to have both greater variety of MOBs in a
small area and more MOBs packed together. There seems to be a lot more
content packed into Kojan than you would see in old Thestra or Qalia. I
have not explored enough in the revamped Thestra to say if this is the
case there or not. I don’t mean to imply here that there is
not
enough content on Qalia or Thestra but rather there is a tremendous
amount of content on Qalia and Thestra—so much content that
it’s a bit overwhelming. What stands out as different about
Kojan
is the greater density and variety of MOBs.
What I like about the quests on all three continents is that they are
focused around small quest hub areas, which was one of the big
advantages WoW quests had over EQ2 quests. By using small quest hubs,
there is a lot less running and tedium, and players can spend more time
actually playing the game than running around playing deliveryman.
On Kojan’s first day of release, it looked more polished and
flashy than the starter areas on Qalia and Thestra. Sigil has done
something very right with Martok, and this bodes well for all content
as Sigil polishes Vanguard prior to launch.
Brad McQuaid, CEO of Sigil Games, recently posted quite an epic post
about the direction of Vanguard’s development on the beta
boards.
It is arguably the best developer post that I have ever seen and should
be a post that everyone gets to read. His post goes through just about
every area of the game, the changes Sigil is making and why.
href="http://vanguard.tentonhammer.com/modules.php?set_albumName=album17&id=Martok_7&op=modload&name=Gallery&file=index&include=view_photo.php">
style="border: 0px solid ; width: 150px; height: 113px; float: left;"
alt="Martok" title="Click to enlarge"
src="http://vanguard.tentonhammer.com/files/gallery/albums/album17/Martok_7.thumb.jpg"
hspace="4" vspace="2">But what impressed me
about the post is what Brad said about what
people like and dislike about the game. He said people like many
different aspects of game play for many different reasons. Everyone
thinks his own ideas about game play are superior and should take
precedence. But in reality, no one person’s ideas are
superior.
What Sigil is trying to do in many different areas of Vanguard is reach
out to people who like different things. This is quite evident in
Martok.
Martok was very well-received by almost all he beta testers but for a
variety of reasons. People may like the fun quests, the lore, the
direction or leading nature of the quests, the chaotic and warlike
atmosphere of the island, the amount of content packed into the island,
or just the general quality of the game play on Martok. The point here
is Martok appeals to people of different play styles whether you are an
old style EQ1 player or a quest-directed WoW player.
Beta testers often look for the hook that will keep people playing. I
think they found this hook with Martok. But the hook is quite different
depending on your play style. For me, the hook is the
quests—small, achievable tasks that keep you playing. I
wanted to
log off of my Shaman in Martok, but I couldn’t. Four Hours after I
said I was going to log off I was still saying, “Just one
more
quest!” The quest line just naturally flows here from one to
another.
I should note the storyline in Martok is very well done and the lore is
great. The Diplomacy quests should add a lot more to the lore and
story. Martok is an absolutely fabulous area.
With Thestra back online now and most of its revamp completed, the new
Kojan area and Thestra changes really show how much progress this game
has made. If Qalia and the rest of the game can be brought up to the
Kojan standards of game play Vanguard will be quite an amazing game.
Kojan and the new Thestra are both evidence that the Sigil developers
are not only listening to the beta testers but that they get it and
understand what people want and what is needed to make Vanguard a great
game.