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Fan Faire 2008
Vanguard News: 

Part One

By Dalmarus

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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 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!





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.