New Magazine - Massive Online Gamer, and its Preview of Vanguard

I'm not only an online junkie I also subscribe to a lot of magazines. My travel schedule has taken me to new heights of magazine fun. A recent addition to the magazine rack is Becket Massive Online Gamer. The first issue came out a few months ago and the latest one hit the shelves recently. This latest edition includes a three page preview and a one page Sphere discussion about Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. The writer definitely pays homage to Brad McQuaid, and then goes on to point out the qualities that make Vangaurd different, new and exciting. While the article won't leap out at you (our faithful readers) with new information, it did smack me in the face with an interesting notion:

The fact that characters can, through crafting and experimentation, innovate new recipes will likely mean that Telon will develop differently on each server. In the real world, societies exist through interacting on a social and natural resource level, thus adapting themselves to these environments. It's inevitable that Telonian societies will change, and change differently on different servers.

This one paragraph sent me reeling...what if each server was completely different due to the fact that a few (or a lot of) people took experimentation with crafting so far that the gear available on one server was significantly better (or just a lot different?) than on other servers. My mind races with possibilities for the variations that could occur. I've never heard of this type of scenario being possible in an MMO with any kind of real impact. The typical differences that characters can make on the world are usually temporary and/or purely cosmetic, not game-altering.

One reason I wanted to put in a plug for these guys includes the fact that I saw no gold digging in the making of the magazine (meaning I believe they are gold free - Becket is a Sports Collectibles company which is owned by Apprise Media (specializing in trade shows and publications for automotive and home) which is ultimately owned by Spectrum, an equity investor, but I didn't review their financials in their entirety). So on a cursory review, they look clean, but we'll keep our golden eye on them.

• Becket MOG has recently updated their website and you can check it out (as well as subscribe) here