vanguard: saga of heroes

Vanguard Testing The Waters With Fishing

2:40AM Mike Fahey | Sony Online Entertainment’s Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is finally on the road becoming a real massively-multiplayer online RPG as fishing makes an appearance on the game’s test servers. More »

Vanguard Getting A Fresh Start, New Character Models

12:20AM Mike Fahey | A less tenacious, more sensible MMO company would have long left Vanguard exposed on the side of a mountain to languish until death, but not our friends at Sony Online Entertainment. No, big things are in store for Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, starting with a brand new starting area and updated character models that could be out as early as this week. Taking a cue from Everquest 2, they’ll be launching a new starting area that doubles as a trial version of the game called the Isle of Dawn. Subscribers will be able to choose from their race’s starting area or the Isle, which allows players to adventure up to level 10 before moving on, or in the case of free trial players, forking out some cash. Also included in the update will be the eagerly anticipated new character models, which promise to make the men manlier and the women not-quite-as-manly, which is always a good thing, unlike releasing an update for your floundering MMO weeks before the release of Warhammer Online, and while thousands of bug fixes sounds like a good thing, it does pretty much indicate thousands of bugs to be fixed. Hrm. Get Ready for Game Update 6! [Vanguard Players via Eurogamer] More »

Vanguard: Saga Of Heroes Designer Strikes Back

1:30PM Logan Booker | Vanguard: Saga of Heroes was meant to be the World of Warcraft killer – much like Warhammer Online is supposed to be now. When Vanguard came out, it didn’t make a massively stellar impact. The game was buggy and incomplete, and eventually, developer Sigil was chopped to bits. If you thought everything was done and dusted however – think again. Designer Vincent Napoli recently posted on the Fires of Heaven message board – a Vanguard community site – about his very personal experiences on working on the game. From the post: Brad Mcquaid didn’t do shit. (News Flash?) He’s had an opiate addiction for years now, which only got progressively worse as the project failed. His cumulative face time with sigil designers in the most crucial final years of development? Approx: 15 minutes. And some of the time was spent begging for legitimately acquired narcotics (Or in times of desperation, jacking them from people’s desk). The lead designers didn’t do shit. (News Flash?) Sigil fired all of their golden-boy, EQ-Genius designers (Save One) who this board once speculated simply “left.” It wasn’t even secretive. It all happened on the same day. Apparently the post is a response to a GameSpy article on gaming’s biggest disappointments in 2007. And accepting the award… [Fires of Heaven via Blue's News] More »

SOE Resurrects Vanguard Accounts For The Holidays

12:40AM Mike Fahey | Did you try Vanguard: Saga of Heroes when it launched, only to cancel your subscription once you realised what a buggy mess it was? Sony Online Entertainment wants you to give the game another chance. From now until January 3rd, SOE is reactivating Vanguard accounts that have been inactive for at least 60 days, giving old players a look at how far the game has progressed since those first, clumsy, stumbling steps. Oh come on, Vanguard wasn’t that bad. I have to admit that during the end of my stint playing the game I was starting to enjoy myself. My main issue with it wasn’t so much the bugs (bugs can be fixed) but the lack of people playing. I actually got into a group one time within an entire month of playing, and while I had a blast it just drove home the point of how sparse the population was. For me, MMOs are all about playing with other people, so when it came time to go over my MMO budget, Vanguard didn’t make the cut. Maybe I’ll pop on over the holidays to see how things are going. I hear helmets show up now! Vanguard FREE Play December 18th to January 3rd [Curse.com] More »