Pre-Release FAQ

[Kethra]

Due to all of the confusion on pre-order, pre-release, release information, I'm going to include official FAQ (as found on the Beta Status page).

1.) Release Issues

• When does Vanguard launch?
• January 30th, unless you preordered.

• How much will Vanguard cost per month?
• The North American subscription fee for Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is $14.99 monthly with discounts offered for longer subscription commitments. For players who already have a Station Access subscription, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is included in the $24.99 monthly fee. Players can now pre-order Vanguard: Saga of Heroes digitally and at retail. Additionally, gamers that pre-order the retail version will receive an exclusive endurance buff scroll that will allow their character to sprint for longer periods of time (one per account). Pre-order customers will need to complete their purchase of the full game in order to continue playing after the early access phase.

• Will Vanguard be included in the Station Pass?
• Yes

• Can I buy game cards for Vanguard?
• Yes

• What are the servers that will be available at launch?
• In addition to the servers listed below, we have overflow servers on standby that are ready to be brought up whenever they are needed.

8 US PVE
Thunderaxe
Woefeather
Gulgrethor
Targonor
Hilsbury
Shidreth
Flamehammer
Florendyl (RP Preferred)

1 US PVP (FFA)
Tharridon

1 US alt PVP (Teams)
Varking

1 EU PVE
Gelenia

1 EU PVP (Teams)
Frengrot

• Where are the servers located?
• North American servers are located in San Diego, California while European servers are located in Amsterdam.

2) Preorder/Beta Issues

• Why can’t I log in to beta anymore?
• The Vanguard: Saga of Heroes open beta closed on January 23 at 11:59 p.m. PST.

• Where are the beta forums? I can’t see them anymore.
• They were closed when beta closed, testers can no longer access them.

• I preordered, when can I start playing?
• Early access for Vanguard: Saga of Heroes will commence January 26 at approximately 10:00 a.m. PST. Gamers who placed pre-orders either at retail or digitally will get to experience Vanguard: Saga of Heroes before the game’s official launch on Tuesday, January 30th. Players can select from multiple servers in North America and Europe and are not restricted by region. A link to a list of server names has been released on
• http://www.vanguardsoh.com. A character’s selected server during the early access phase will remain the same once the game launches.

• I was in Beta 5, will I need to reinstall the game when I buy it?
• No, in fact it would be better if you didn’t. You will only need to patch a couple megabytes (~5) if you were up to date on the beta patches, whereas someone installing fresh will have a larger day 1 patch.

• My preorder key lets me play early, how long do I have after release before I have to enter my retail game key?
• You will have a few days, but its best to enter it as soon as you are able to.

3) Technical Issues

What are the minimum system specs? What about the recommend specs?

MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

• Windows® 2000/XP/Vista
• 100% DirectX 9.0c compatible computer
• 100% DirectX compatible keyboard or input device
• Processor 2.4 GHz Intel processor or 2400+ or higher model AMD processor
• 512 MB RAM
• Vertex and Pixel shader 2.0 compatible hardware with 128MB of texture memory
• 100%DirectX compatible sound card
• 56K + Internet Connection
• 16X Speed DVD-ROM
• 20 Gigabytes Hard Drive Space

RECOMMENDED SPECS

• Windows® 2000/XP/Vista
• 100% DirectX 9.0c compatible computer
• 100% DirectX compatible keyboard or input device
• Processor 3.0 GHz Intel or 3500+ AMD processor
• 2 GB RAM
• Vertex and Pixel shader 2.0 compatible hardware with 256MB of texture memory
• DirectSound compatible audio hardware
• Broadband Internet Connection
• 16X Speed DVD-ROM
• 20 Gigabytes Hard Drive Space

• When launching Vanguard I press PLAY and nothing happens or I receive the following error: “The application has failed to start because d3dx9_31.dll was not found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem.”
• The reason that you are receiving this error is because you may not have the newest version of DirectX as of October 2006 on your computer. You can download the new version via the link below:
• http://www.microsoft.com/windows/directx/default.mspx.

Be sure to restart computer after installing Directx and in some cases you may need to uninstall your previous version before installing the newest one.

[Kethra]

Some extra FAQ not included above:

• I was in closed beta, how do I put in my pre-release access key?
• The keys that you received from the retailer that you purchased the product from are pre-order keys which also enabled beta access. If you have not registered these keys you can do so at https://secure.station.sony.com/vang...key_consume.vm

• How many characters can I have?
• 8 per account

More info on PvP?
Details on each ruleset

Free for all server:
Minimum level 7
20% soft level difference (explained below)
15% coin loot
PvE item durability is disabled on ability activation and PvP death causes a chance for each equipped item to take a large hit
Releasing your spirit after a PvP death takes you to your bind point. You will not drop a corpse.

Team server:
Minimum level 7
20% soft level difference
15% coin loot
Durability is no different than a PvE server
Releasing your spirit drops a corpse (with no experience loss) and transports you to the nearest altar
Defensive targeting and grouping is restricted

The Teams

Shadows of Kaerellun

* Dark Elf
* Kurashasa
* Varanthari
* Orc
* Goblin
* Vulmane
* Varanjar
* Lesser Giant


Order of Alurad

* Wood Elf
* Raki
* Dwarf
* Halfling
* High Elf
* Half Elf
* Qaliathari
* Mordebi
* Gnome
* Kojani
* Thestran Human


Details as quoted from Elrar -
Quote:
We have support for additional teams, but we feel this is the best initial setup that supports the content and has people able to find opponents from a fairly low level.

The soft level difference means, while your ability to attack someone above the minimum level is unrestricted, if you are more than 20% of their level higher than them, they suffer no penalty and you gain no reward.

The percentages are easily adjustable and we will be enabling coin banking for PvP servers.

• Will my beta characters be transfered to a live server?
• When the test server launches post release, it will be brought up initially with characters from the beta 1 server as a thank you for our long time testers, and we will add qualifying characters from the newer beta servers over time as we monitor the population and needs of the test server. Only characters created on or before January 18th will transfer to the test server and only characters that were accessed from December 15th to present will be copied.

[Ceyllynn]

thanks!

[Everclear]

Originally Posted by Kethra

MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
• 56K + Internet Connection

I could not imagine playing this on dial up

[squonk]

Hi all, In case there are still people who dont know! I had a closed beta key consumed and needed to consume a preorder key for early access over the top of my existing closed beta key. I wrote to Sigil and received the following email ---

Greetings,


The keys that you received from the retailer that you purchased the product from are pre-order keys which also enabled beta access. If you have not registered these keys you can do so at https://secure.station.sony.com/vang...key_consume.vm

PS make sure your logged into your station account after clicking this link

[Kethra]

Originally Posted by squonk

Hi all, In case there are still people who dont know! I had a closed beta key consumed and needed to consume a preorder key for early access over the top of my existing closed beta key. I wrote to Sigil and received the following email ---

Greetings,


The keys that you received from the retailer that you purchased the product from are pre-order keys which also enabled beta access. If you have not registered these keys you can do so at https://secure.station.sony.com/vang...key_consume.vm

PS make sure your logged into your station account after clicking this link

Thank you, added to the FAQ.

[Kethra]

Updated:

Character slots

[Yackov]

Dang, friend sent me here saying he thought it would be more fun that WOW, and after reading around sure sounds like it would be. Unfortunately, my graphics card is only 64 and no chance (laptop) of being able to upgrade.... oh well. Some day I will be able to afford a new comp.

[Kiril]

Originally Posted by Kethra

[*]How many characters can I have?[*]8 per account[/list]

Is this per server or across all servers? I won't have 8 characters, but there may come a time I want to explore different areas.

[Ysharros]

Originally Posted by Kiril

Is this per server or across all servers? I won't have 8 characters, but there may come a time I want to explore different areas.

Per account *generally* means across all servers... but don't quote me.

(Which raises an interesting question - if housing is per account also, does that mean one house is it? Or one house per account per server? Hrm!)