To jump right into the fray, let me first say one thing: The key to any online game’s success is in its community. For
Vanguard, things are looking extremely positive. The following is a narrative of my adventure and the things discovered while at
Fanguard, Jan. 2006.
My weekend began on Friday, thankfully benefitting from a later flight by being able to sleep in a while before dashing off to the airport. Once there, I met up with
Tamison from
Vanguard Crafters and her husband, not knowing they would be on my flight. There were several delays for the oddest of reasons… a single light that needed to be replaced, testing the engine, making sure everything was just right… Eventually we departed after a 30 minutes delay on a very smooth flight to San Diego.
Once in the beautiful, sunny city (certainly, compared to Seattle in its rainy months), I checked in to the hotel, dropped off my stuff, and took a look around the lobby area. While several folks had mentioned meeting up at Quinn’s, a restaurant/bar in the hotel, not a soul was to be seen aside from
Brad McQuaid and a friend having some early dinner. Eventually, I was rescued and pointed in the right direction: a separate tower about 10 minutes down a path along the harbor. More and more familiar faces and names popped up and I knew I was in the right place. I registered and got my fancy Affiliate badge. There were still about two hours to kill before the evening’s official events, so myself and
Pirotess decided to grab some dinner at the fancy restaurant in the West Tower. Picture a world where decent meals were given high-class gourmet prices. A restaurant where when you decline a beverage and just want normal water… they give you an
$8 bottle of Italian mineral water. Yes, that was the restaurant we went to. Good food, but entirely too pricey.
Eventually, the first formal event of the
Fanguard began, on the 4th Floor (one flight of stairs up from the 2nd floor. Go figure). A nice room was set out with tables, a bar, and a little table with fruit, cheese and crackers. After a bit of mingling,
Cindy Bowens took the podium and introduced the event we all came to attend. The developers, designers and artists all present at the party introduced themselves (with the most memorable moment being
Paul Luna’s impression of a faulty crow sound effect driving off audio/music guy
Todd Masten from the podium, concluding his introduction.) After the introductions, Cindy introduced the first contest: A game where we all received a sheet of paper with several statements in boxes (such as “I have played MMOs for over 5 years,” or “I have been banned from the Vanguard forums.”) The game was to go around and meet people, getting them to sign off on one of the boxes. The person who was able to get all the boxes signed first was the proud winner of two Crossfire X850 graphics cards from
ATI. The first two raffle winners were also drawn and received
X-Fi soundcards from
SoundBlaster. Afterwards, everyone was released to mingle at will. There was a lot of great socializing as people dared to approach even those wearing cargo kilts and strike up a conversation. Some rumors were passed around about a room party, but I wouldn’t know anything about that. I don’t know
what they were talking about.
The next morning began bright and early at 8 o’clock. I woke up and helped get all the
Vanguard Spheres swag ready for deployment. The first stop was, however, a breakfast for all the affiliate fansites along with Cindy and
Glip. Then, the real festivities began. At 10, the doors to the demo room were opened and fans were greeted by a gigantic poster of
Jeric and the Vanguard logo that took up an entire wall, four computers set up running copies of Vanguard that were piloted by several developers trading off throughout the day, and two computers in the corner showing off the current build of the character creation process. The first thing that struck me as I entered the room was the sound. Steel clashed with armor, maces pounded bluntly onto skin and fur. All this was apparent before I even drew close to the screens to see what was going on. Through several doors on the other side of the room were two tables manned by
Fricka and company from
The Safehouse, as well as us guys from
Vanguard Spheres. We had flyers, posters, magnets and CDs promoting the site and its exclusive content. Of course, by now, you must be wondering “what about the game!?” Don’t fear, I’m about to get into that.
On the four gameplay machines, several areas were showcased as the developers teamed up and tackled the challenging areas. As the adventurers started up, they all rode in on horses of varying sizes and decorations. It was demonstrated how horses were equipped and acted like backpacks when nearby. It was also revealed that combat on horses was not an option initially, as being attacked would knock you off your horse. Brad McQuaid played as his infamous
Aradune Mithara, a twinked-out level 50 GM ranger character with all green mail armor, a hooded cloak, and… of course… twin flaming swords (and let me add that the flaming effect was sweet, though they were mainly just showing off particle effects to us. These weapons/items will be extremely rare).
AR or “
Jerrith” was playing his high elf cleric with a very cool-looking shield that glowed red around its edge. Another player was a wood elf shaman (not a race combo available in the final game), who showed off several non-robe caster outfits as well as an ice-covered mace and a quarterstaff that glowed blue on either end.
The area the four were in was a mountainous region. When they turned, an enormous structure in ruin was revealed before them, a mid-40s dungeon called
Dargun’s Tomb. It was revealed that this was formerly a home of the dwarves, but it was abandoned and has now been overrun by
gnolls and
ogres. Brad also mentioned that once players explored even further into the subterranean depths, they would discover the
ghosts of angry dwarves, upset by the disturbance of their old home. On the stone patio leading into the dungeon, many gnolls wandered around on patrol. Though they stand upright while still and walking, once actively running they will drop to all fours and charge, a very nice touch. In the first hallway an ogre patrolled up and down, demonstrating that thankfully spawns weren’t all static and would wander as well as simply stand around. Stealthy gnolls were discovered waiting for players as Jerrith unintentionally drew the attention of one on patrol. The gnoll shamans would even briefly come back to life after being killed in the form of a glowing green spirit with a small amount of health.
The second area shown was none other than the
Ruins of Old Targonor. The players started out in a beautiful lush foresty area with all kinds of ruined stone structures everywhere.
Skeletons decked out in all sorts of armor patrolled and attacked the players. Eventually, a named boss was encountered: a gigantic undead troll named
Garzonag the Guardian. Aradune and company slew the creature and descended into the incredibly spooky depths of the catacombs below our beloved ruined city. Inside were some of the most shocking undead models I’d seen to date. Roaming the hallways were
invisible specters with rotted skulls, wielding golden glowing bastard swords. Also amongst them were disturbing amalgamations of bones and muscles called
constructs of decay. Their front “hooves” were formed from skulls of other creatures. When attacked, they would rear up onto their hind legs to display an intimidating three heads (though it seemed that its animation sets were as of yet incomplete).
Over on the other side of the room, many people crowded around for a glimpse at what the future of character creation might have in store for us. The depth that creation is going into is nothing short of jaw-dropping. After choosing your continent and race, you were presented with three screens filled with sliders and drop-down choices. The first page was
Proportions: Body, (which allows you to make your character wider or skinnier in general) Height, Torso, Shoulder Width, Chest Height, Chest, Legs, Feet, Arms, and Hands. Next up was
Nose & Ears: Nostril Pitch, Nostril Width, Nose Length, Nose Size, Ear Size, Ear Length and Ear Height. Even further came
Mouth: Mouth Position, Mouth Width, Jaw Width, Jaw Length, Chin Width, Chin Length, Upper Lip and Lower Lip. And finally was
Hair & Face: Hair Style, Facial Hair, Hair Color, Skin Color, Face, Cheek Height, Cheek Width, and Cheek Fill. All in all, extremely complex system that allows you to make wildly different characters. At this stage of development, the changes were perhaps too extreme on the sliders, but I’m certain it will all be toned down and finalized for release.
Eventually, the demo had to come to a conclusion, but the events kept rolling on. Moving back down to the 2nd floor, we were introduced to the second contest which was called “
Live Quest.” The concept was this: We all grouped up into teams of 6-10 and received a bag with instructions. Each bag had a list of items that we needed to procure. A fetch quest, basically. However, the items ranged from “troll skin” to “pixie dust” to a “worn knife sheath.” So each team was charged with the task of not only procuring these items, but to be as creative as possible with how they interpreted the items. The winning team would each receive a copy of
Vanguard:Saga of Heroes on release, signed by the developers.
The next scheduled event was a panel discussion about Vanguard’s gameplay with Brad McQuaid and
Jeff Butler. The discussion was led into however by the very first showing of the infamous gameplay video promised to the community for some time. It was, needless to say, packed with eye candy and some amazing shots. Though I didn’t catch when the video would be premiered on the website, hopefully it will show up some time this week. The discussion itself was filled with a variety of great questions ranging from the connections between a post-launch implementation of player cities and a more involved PvP on those alternate rule set servers to the common issues of casual, core and hardcore gameplay. As they always are, Brad and Jeff answered the questions with honest answers, free from anything that could be interpreted as "PR BS." They mentioned that they are at the point now where things are being categorized as implemented in stages. While player cities will be a post-launch endeavor, player housing is still in and will be there by launch. While crafting is interdependent and not group-oriented, there are paths that can be taken to introduce group crafting in the future. While some things may not make it in by launch, they were clear to point them out and never want to lie and give false hopes. The MMO genre is, by nature, never fully complete and a good MMO will never be 100% done, always growing and bettering itself.
Following the discussion were several roundtables covering a variety of topics. They came in two batches: First off was Community discussion with Cindy Bowens, Glip, and Paul Luna, with 'breaking into the game industry' in the other room with
Zack Karlsson and new PR manager
April Jones. The second batch consisted of meeting the GMs, as well as meeting the community Affiliate sites. All four discussions were well-handled and very informative about their respective topics.
All good things come to an end, and so did Fanguard, as we all piled into the final room filled with large tables and the promise of a fancy catered dinner. The meal was a Caesar salad followed by chicken, potatoes, vegetables and an amazing raspberry/blueberry tiramisu for dessert. Cindy and Glip went up to the microphone for the final contest results. First up was the announcement of the winners for Live Quest (though sadly, the contents of all our bags wasn’t revealed in full. It would have been great to see what other folks came up with.) Then, came the final raffle winners. The most surprising and amusing moment was when Glip picked the very first winner… stared almost in disbelief, and announced “…
Ultar” (the OVFs rather infamous forum troll). Shocked as well, he stood up and wandered over to receive his prize of dual ATI cards, followed by Glip’s reassurance that “this proves that the winners really are random.” The night then dragged on into the early hours of the morning with the ongoing party continuing on in several rooms. Or so I’ve heard. Good times were had by all.
The following morning was rather hazy in comparison, and ended up being a very thankfully lazy day allowing me to reflect and collect the chronicles of a day and a half onto paper. Thanks for reading this long-winded recollection, and I hope to meet you at the next event!
