Vanguard: Saga of Heroes

Vanguard, Sigil/Sony’s take on an MMORG, is out for 8 months now. Before it’s release many gamers had very high expectations, it was supposed to be the next big thing. Their timing was perfect, World of Warcraft was out for nearly two years and people had consumed all of it’s content. Tired of the endless grind they were very eager to enter this new world and to face it’s challenges. Warcraft’s ”The Burning Crusade” was not released yet, and Lord of the Rings, Shadows of Angmar was months away. Even hardcore communities from Everquest and Ultima Online were ready to abandon their old home’s and embrace the new MMORG King to be.

Just as thousands of other gamers I preordered Vanguard. This way I could take advantage of the free beta days upfront and settle in, before the crowds would flood the servers. I downloaded the game trough Sony Station, it took me about 24 hours, but that couldn’t kill my enthusiasm. I installed the game and after numerous (patch) downloads I was finally ready to enter the World of vanguard.

The first remarkable thing was the endless character customization, just about anything was provided to make your character look unique, race, face, hair and even body size. Together with the enormous amount of classes you could really create your ultimate virtual self, and damn it looked good! Ready to to explore the game world itself, I choose a server and entered my new home for the upcoming months. The starting area’s were nice, a decent introduction to the game mechanics and character movement, besides an overall tasty atmosphere. So far so good. I noticed a few bugs, mobs not showing, or halfway in a wall, but nothing that could really spoil the fun. After the first few levels it was time to move on, the continents capital was close, time to meet some people. I expected a large crowd of players, talking, questing or role playing in the local tavern. The city was enormous, nicely modeled, with a unique (middle) eastern atmosphere.

My disappointment was immense, the city was nearly empty, not only there weren’t any players, there was just the architecture, with a few mobs here and there. It was the first time I noticed the game wasn’t ready, not ready at all. A city of this size should have been full of life, mobs walking around, boats in the harbor, people at work, birds flying over etc… I was still optimistic, maybe all the players were questing? they will surely come when the game hits the shelves in a few days, right? So I explored the land around the city, it was just as empty. Again not only there weren’t any players, but the large pieces of land were empty as well. The few trees and mobs weren’t enough to take away the overall feeling of an abandoned world.

I pushed myself to give this game a change, so I leveled up a few characters and traveled all over the game world. I encountered some wonderful landscapes, amazing architecture and even some interesting quests. But the game was buggy, a lot of the promised features weren’t implemented yet, and there weren’t enough players to fill the enormous continents and cities. After a few months of trying, exploring and questing I left this game for what it was, an empty, unfinished attempt to produce an MMORG.

Sigil/Sony tried to calm down their players base, explaining why things weren’t finished yet, promising things will be fine in the end. Basically it was released because they were out of funds and selling half a game is better then nothing, right? The developers promised to fix things and add content and features in the months ahead. And they did, the performance issues are mainly fixed, new features were implemented, and they are still working on improvements of vanguard. If the game finally entered a more polished and finished state is a matter of expectations. Some game mechanics and features are better now. They merged their servers to have at least a more populated world and to reduce upkeep costs. If the game has a future I don’t know, sometimes communities that populate an MMORG can be very loyal and stick with it for several years.

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is not a bad game in itself, it tried to explore new options, like the crafting and diplomacy sphere. It has a wonderful character customization tool and the 3d artists did a good job in creating an interesting game environment. But the game was released to early, many gamers felt like playing a beta version of the game and left after a few months. Just to many bugs, to many repetitive quests and just to few players to team up with. Most returned to their former online games, or they waited for the next big MMORG hit to be, Lord of the Rings, Shadows of Angmar. Currently there are still communities enjoying the game, and if the screenshots make you warm inside, and you don’t mind spending some time looking for a group, give it a try. Find yourself a guild upfront can be a big help to get some social life starting within the game.

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