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Inside the Vision

A Hands-On Preview of
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes

By Shayalyn

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style="font-weight: bold;">Introduction

It was Vanguard Gamers Day, a special event to introduce a new massively multi-player online game to the gaming press. I sat in a room full of computers while 20 or so gaming journalists hunkered over their keyboards staring into their monitors. "How do I...?" they would ask, "Oh, and where do I...?" I found myself fielding questions from the reporters seated around me. You see, this introduction to Vanguard wasn't really an introduction for me--I've been playing in beta for months. It's just that now I've been given permission to talk about it.

I’ve been following Sigil Games Online and its upcoming MMOG
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes for well over a year. That’s not as
long as some, but long enough to put me squarely in the demographic
that has watched this game evolve from a decidedly niche title into a
game that is now taking aim at the masses.



In its early days, Vanguard appealed most to the EverQuest veteran--the
MMOG player who longs for a simpler time when men were men and
traveled many miles, naked and on foot, to retrieve their broken
corpses. (And they liked it, damnit!) But as Vanguard nears launch in
the first quarter of 2007, Sigil,
and Vanguard's publisher, Sony Online Entertainment, have begun reaching out
to the MMOG community as a whole and, perhaps more specifically, to
players who are ready for more depth and challenge than the World of
Warcraft juggernaut has to offer. 



Will Vanguard be able to deliver challenge, immersion, depth and fun in
a package that will have mass appeal? I’ve been spending some
time in Vanguard’s world of Telon, playing the game and
getting a feel for where it’s been, where it is now, and
where it’s going. I don’t know if anyone can answer
the question of whether Vanguard will succeed in reaching a broader
target audience, but I do have some new
insight. I’ve been in beta for a few months--long
enough to see some sights, and long enough to watch the game evolve.
But let’s begin at the beginning. Let me start by telling you
what you'll experience in Vanguard once you get there.