In the news today..

[Joejccva]

<img style="margin:8px 8px 8px 8px;" src="http://www.vanguardspheres.com/gallery/files/1/1/7/new-VGnews-icon.jpg" border="0" alt="" align="left" width="100px" />
There is alot of discussion going on as the game progresses, more interviews, more beta invites going out, and more info about the game as we get closer to seeing that release date sometime this winter. Many things to discuss as our friends over at Sigil Games Online have done some new interviews.


First and foremost, Aredhel from Vanguard Spheres had an exclusive GM interview with GM Keejay about Chicken...Sigil's pet prize!. GM Keejay is another member of "The Pit" who sheds some light on her duties at Sigil and how her work coincides with the other GM's.

Arrakiv of Warcry talks with Operations Manager, Mike Butler about Unsung Interview Series in which Mike discusses his day to day ventures at the office. We are happy that he is with Sigil as he plays an important role in the IT operations of the company to keep everything up and running.

Our friends over at MMO Craft had an interesting discussion with Associate Game Designer, Daniel Newman about Vanguard Crafting and how the principles are currently in place, and what we can look forward to. It has info about recipes, items used, functionality, and more!

Shayalyn at TenTonHammer brings yet another interview to the table. This time it's with developer, Vince Napoli about Caravans. Lots of great info about caravans finally! They discuss exactly how caravans will work in the game as far as travel times, staying with your group/guild while offline, death in caravans, and other tidbits of info! It's a great read!

And last but not least (as far as interviews is concerned), there was a roundtable discussion over at IGN involving the President of Sigil Games Online, Jeff Butler about Are online worlds too complex?. Very interesting article regarding how MMO's of our current gen, and the next gen come into play and how their future relates. Are they getting too complex? Or do they need some gas to make them bigger and with more technology? Jeff discusses his thoughts on the subject.


Also...this just in regarding the beta invites:

Originally posted by Aradune Mithara on 9-12-06:
The burning question

Update: problem appears to have been solved. Beta invites are going out again, including 500 CGM invites, today.

I will keep you guys posted.

edit: because we are inviting so many people into beta (which is one of the key functions of beta 3 -- fill up a server and stress test everything), please understand that we likely will run into times where we have to temporarily stop invites and fix/tweak/optimize the network code, npc pop, etc (anything related to server performance). I can't say when because I can't look into the future (anyone have a crystal ball handy? ), but I just wanted to say that up front because you guys deserve to be kept informed. You guys are part of this development and beta process that in the end is going to make a great game. Really, you guys are part of the extended Vanguard team and family and we simply couldn't make nearly as good of a game without your presence in the game and fantastic feedback.

*bow*

Also for more clarity reading what I just wrote: the invites today have ALREADY gone out. And we're hoping, barring what I just wrote about above, to keep it up just as before, with invites going out, 1000 per day, each work day, until we've filled up the world. And since we won't have the world totally open (e.g. all regions of the world ready for testing) until mid-late Beta 4, we may stop invites when the current world is full and then resume invites (I'm talking about the non-CGM pools -- we will still get all CGM in, very soon) when we open more of the world. For example, South Qalia is going to go open soon, and then Kojan in beta 4, etc.

2 New TOD Mini-Videos from Jerrith:

Jerrith also made two new videos that can be found here. Check them out!