Where are they now?

[Aredhel]

I won't be giving out names, but the devs and GMs I've been able to keep up with are now working for:

Mythic/EA (at least 5 of them)
Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment (at least 2)
Turbine (1 for sure...maybe 2)
Nexon (4)
Slipgate Ironworks (1)
SoE and variations thereof (not sure...some)
misc IT jobs (at least 1)

If anyone has more information on games our "family" has gone to, or companies, feel free to add it in, ok? Sure miss the old gang!

That said, we do have GAME UPDATE #4 to mention. Here's the info:

1. Flying Mounts
2. Riftway Revamp
3. Character Optimizations / Helmets
4. Overland Raid
5. Class Updates
6. Refund Points
7. Veteran Rewards
8. Bug Fixes / Performance
9. Patch Notes

1. Flying Mounts
With Update 4 we have added the first two permanent flying mounts into Vanguard. Griffons and wyverns are now available for players to attain. Head to Southwatch to begin the griffon quest and to Ancient Port Warehouse for the wyvern.

2. Riftway Revamp
Also featured in Update 4 is a revamp to the riftway system. At level 10, once arriving at the first outpost after the newbie experience, the player will encounter the first riftway stone. These riftways are placed within all similarly leveled outposts, and are available immediately as options for travel. In addition, there will be a quest-giver at each riftway with ‘region introduction quests', giving an overview of what content is to be found in each region as well as a delivery quest to visit a main quest giver in that region located near the riftway.

UI
Riftway locations are represented on the map. When moused over they will show an outpost name, region name, and level range. If the riftway is available to the player it will show up in color, and if not then it will be grey. When an available riftway location is clicked and the player has required cost, the player is teleported to that location.

Cost
Riftways will be tiered and color coded by level range and each tier will have a different cost to travel. This will ensure that lower level players should always be able to afford to get to where they need to go while at the same time not trivializing the cost for higher level players.

3. Character Optimizations / Helmets
These two updates go hand in hand, because one allows us to do the other. First, we have done a lot of optimizations to player characters. By eliminating extra bones in the PC model faces we were able to add several visible helmets - which would have otherwise been interfered with by those extra bones. The end result is less customization in the facial area but better performance for the character models and brand new visible helmets.

4. Overland Raid
Many years after being driven into hiding by his murderous brothers, Fengrot Foulbreath has emerged from his slumber beneath the stagnant waters of Thelaseen. Although diminutive compared to his brothers, Fengrot makes up for this by being twice as cruel and ill-tempered as any of the other Sons of Torsheim. Having made a pact with Krigus, spirit of disease and decay, Fengrot hopes to use the spirit's power to destroy his most hated enemy - his brother, Torkald Who Mourns.

Fengrot is an overland raid target appropriate for 18 well equipped, high level players.

5. Class Updates
Three adventuring classes have received significant attention this update. They are the druid, dread knight and paladin. The main thing we did with each class was, after fixing broken or underdeveloped abilities we sat down and took a look at each of the three classes and evaluated where it was with our overall vision. After that, we made the necessary changes, be it altering abilities, adjusting DPS or a variety of other things. For a complete list of the updates, check out the detailed notes below.

6. Refund Points
If you've ever regretted putting attribute points into a certain stat as you level up, we now have a way for you to fix that! Players can now purchase refund points for all non-automatically allocated attribute points from their trainers. The initial refund will be free, but then the price will rise progressively each additional time refund points are purchased.

7. Veteran Rewards
Veteran Rewards have been added to the /claim window. Rewards include titles, special items (such as vanity pets) and a set of furniture to place inside your house. Veteran rewards are available for players who have had active accounts for six months or more. Additional rewards are available every two months after that. Enjoy!

8. Bug Fixing / Performance
A good deal of time this update, especially for the programming department, has been spent fixing bugs and improving performance. In terms of the bugs, we tried to target issues that fell into one of two categories. First we obviously wanted to make sure any game breaking issues or bugs were fixed but after that we tried to focus on getting rid of as many small, annoying bugs as possible. Usability is a big focus, and we want to make sure the play experience is as seamless for players as possible. A full list of our bug fixes and performance tweaks can be found below.

9. Patch Notes
Vanguard Build 2002 Patch Notes 3/11/2008 - GAME UPDATE 4

GENERAL
- Wyvern flying mount quest is now available
- Griffon mount quest is now active
- There are now no fly zones around certain areas of content.
- Helmets are now visible
- Riftways have been revamped
- Veteran Rewards are now available for those who have been around for 6 months or longer.
- All adventuring consumables now share three cooldown timers. Each consumable either has a 2 minute shared cooldown (for all health, energy, and endurance renewal consumables), a 5 minute shared cooldown (for all 'burst' buffs) or a 15 minute shared cooldown (for all long duration buffs).
- All 30 minute duration buffs from item clicks have had their duration reduced to 15 minutes.
- Anevka's Renewal now shares a cooldown with low cooldown crafted consumables.
- Named NPC items have had their item power increased.
- All named drop items are now BOP
- All named drop items are no longer deconstructable
- All named now spawn more often
- PVP - All fears should now stun in pvp. They will all be set to half the duration of your normal fear, with 30% diminishing returns and have a 25% chance to break on damage.
- Recasting mez on a target will no longer strip the previous mez. This is also true if the mez attempt is resisted.
- Refresh timers will now count down while offline.
- Quest timers will now count down while offline.
- Fix for a pet ability exploit.
- You can now right-click on a player name link in the chat window to get a context menu for that player, which allows you to do various things like send them a tell, ignore them, add them to friends list, and more. You can also right-click on a player in the game world to get a context menu for them that has the additional options that require you to be close to them, such as inspect, invite to brotherhood, caravan, etc
- Holding down shift and left clicking on an item in your inventory when the market/broker window is open will paste the name of the item into the item search field of the broker window, unless you are currently typing in the chat window, in which case it will paste an item link into the chat window as normal.
- Right-clicking on one of your friends in the friends list of the Social window now brings up a context menu for that friend, allowing you to send them a tell, invite them to a group, and more.
- NPC's that are rare spawns/bosses will display their names in all capitals so they can be distinguished from other NPC's.
- Added display option for showing the dot strength of NPC's in the 3D view (called show NPC difficulty).
- Added display option for player cloak. Now it can be hidden if desired.
- Added option to hide player helmets.
- Teleporting dockmasters have been removed from the game
- All adventuring trainers now have an XP reduction ability which will reduce XP gain to 0 when toggled on.
- You may no longer loot a raid NPC if you were not one of the 18 people engaging the NPC.
- You can no longer drain life to someone engaged in a different raid.
- You may no longer swap in equipment while casting
- Casting any spell at all will now force a dismount if you are in combat. If flying, you will be unable to cast. This also applies to bard songs.