This game isn't dead yet ? they lose over 100k a day on this pile, Server costs , electricity , employee salaries, and soon unemployment comp and contract buy outs. . If their was ever a mmo dubbed "the titanic" this one is it....
ICE-BERG !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just my Opinion
I know this is your opinion but this game will be fine it will never be as big as WoW but they never thought it would and there not loseing money
wanna make a wager maybe ? It will take a few months to see how it pans out , but i'm pretty confident in my analysis
This game isn't dead yet ? they lose over 100k a day on this pile, Server costs , electricity , employee salaries, and soon unemployment comp and contract buy outs. . If their was ever a mmo dubbed "the titanic" this one is it....
ICE-BERG !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just my Opinion
I know this is your opinion but this game will be fine it will never be as big as WoW but they never thought it would and there not loseing money
wanna make a wager maybe ? It will take a few months to see how it pans out , but i'm pretty confident in my analysisLoL if anything brad will sell it to SOE and it will be around for a long time and yes ide bet on that!
This game isn't dead yet ? they lose over 100k a day on this pile, Server costs , electricity , employee salaries, and soon unemployment comp and contract buy outs. . If their was ever a mmo dubbed "the titanic" this one is it....
ICE-BERG !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just my Opinion
I know this is your opinion but this game will be fine it will never be as big as WoW but they never thought it would and there not loseing money
wanna make a wager maybe ? It will take a few months to see how it pans out , but i'm pretty confident in my analysisLoL if anything brad will sell it to SOE and it will be around for a long time and yes ide bet on that!
read my oother post, that is my analysis. That is my position is that the game will either do 2 things , be sold or cancelled . Really the game would make more money if it was just canceled, right on a renewal period bam , just shutdown the servers lol . They make almost all the money back
Sure, get a buddy key and try it out first... if you have the patience to wait hours for the massive game download and then the equally massive patch. You may find it's worth it for a free peek.
For me though, it's definitely not worth the time. Sure, they may be doing a good job of ironing out the worst of the bugs (according to pro-VG posts I've read, have to assume some of it's true at least) but that's not even the problem. Neither was the performance a particularly deciding factor, since my system could well cope with the strain (though of course there's still no excuse for such shabby coding).
What had me cancelling my subscription inside the first month was a whole raft of other reasons that are fundamental weaknesses of the game... whether that's the fault of the original design, or of having to compromise in an attempt to reach a more economically viable audience size I can't say. What I can say is that I found the game visually unappealing (the art was detailed, but there was no `style' to it, no artistic direction) and the gameplay completely unoriginal. It's the same tired old questing model as all the other MMOs out there, it's the same bland `wildernesses' filled with uniformly scattered, level-specific mobs waiting to be harvested.
The world is huge, sure, but that's not much of a drawcard when there aren't enough players on each server to make it feel populated, and the NPCs are the same old store mannequins standing around waiting to give you inane quests they could be doing themselves (since they're usually much higher level than you anyway). The so-called drawcards are little more than gimmicks - flying mounts and boats (if/when they appear) merely offset the larger scale of the world, which would otherwise take forever to travel across by more conventional means. As for the Diplomacy and Crafting systems, for me they quickly changed from `innovative and interesting' to `repetitive mini-games', little more than a sidetrack to break the tedium of the rest of the game... might as well just turn on Windows Freecell.
The much-vaunted "character diversity" is a joke - physically all the races are the same body model with a different head stuck on like Pez dispensers. The ability to control eye closeness and nostril flare is pointless given that you spend 99% of your time looking at your character's ass as it plods woodenly through empty zone after empty zone, while other peoples' characters are usually moving by too fast to make out that level of detail. More obvious elements of distinguishing characters such as hairstyle, clothing colour, accessories etc., are by contrast absurdly limited, so it still feels like you're in an Asian MMO where all the characters of one racial type are clones. The classes are mostly shameless WoW clones with few options for skill variance, so that one tanking warrior is more or less exactly the same as all the other tanking warriors.
Finally, I found the combat system to be competely without an original idea. It's the old 1-2-3 keypress combo, standing around watching second-rate animations while waiting for the computer to roll the dice and decide the combat for you... either that or the running/kiting tried-and-true tactic for casters and ranged attackers. If you happen to be on a PvP server it feels exactly the same as WoW - no particular incentive to fight against another player except for the sheer "thrill" of it, which wears off pretty fast. Considering what other MMOs due for 2007 release are offering in terms of combat innovation (actually trying to bring an element of player skill into combat), this game felt out-of-date from the moment it came out of the box.
So yeah, give it a try if you have nothing better to do... but keep your expectations suitably low, and be prepared to consign it quickly to the trash heap when the half-dozen or so truly promising releases for this year start appearing. Games that will inevitably look better, play better and be more immersive than Vanguard can ever hope to be. Games you will actually WANT to play, not just time-fillers.
Sure, get a buddy key and try it out first... if you have the patience to wait hours for the massive game download and then the equally massive patch. You may find it's worth it for a free peek. For me though, it's definitely not worth the time. Sure, they may be doing a good job of ironing out the worst of the bugs (according to pro-VG posts I've read, have to assume some of it's true at least) but that's not even the problem. Neither was the performance a particularly deciding factor, since my system could well cope with the strain (though of course there's still no excuse for such shabby coding). What had me cancelling my subscription inside the first month was a whole raft of other reasons that are fundamental weaknesses of the game... whether that's the fault of the original design, or of having to compromise in an attempt to reach a more economically viable audience size I can't say. What I can say is that I found the game visually unappealing (the art was detailed, but there was no `style' to it, no artistic direction) and the gameplay completely unoriginal. It's the same tired old questing model as all the other MMOs out there, it's the same bland `wildernesses' filled with uniformly scattered, level-specific mobs waiting to be harvested. The world is huge, sure, but that's not much of a drawcard when there aren't enough players on each server to make it feel populated, and the NPCs are the same old store mannequins standing around waiting to give you inane quests they could be doing themselves (since they're usually much higher level than you anyway). The so-called drawcards are little more than gimmicks - flying mounts and boats (if/when they appear) merely offset the larger scale of the world, which would otherwise take forever to travel across by more conventional means. As for the Diplomacy and Crafting systems, for me they quickly changed from `innovative and interesting' to `repetitive mini-games', little more than a sidetrack to break the tedium of the rest of the game... might as well just turn on Windows Freecell. The much-vaunted "character diversity" is a joke - physically all the races are the same body model with a different head stuck on like Pez dispensers. The ability to control eye closeness and nostril flare is pointless given that you spend 99% of your time looking at your character's ass as it plods woodenly through empty zone after empty zone, while other peoples' characters are usually moving by too fast to make out that level of detail. More obvious elements of distinguishing characters such as hairstyle, clothing colour, accessories etc., are by contrast absurdly limited, so it still feels like you're in an Asian MMO where all the characters of one racial type are clones. The classes are mostly shameless WoW clones with few options for skill variance, so that one tanking warrior is more or less exactly the same as all the other tanking warriors. Finally, I found the combat system to be competely without an original idea. It's the old 1-2-3 keypress combo, standing around watching second-rate animations while waiting for the computer to roll the dice and decide the combat for you... either that or the running/kiting tried-and-true tactic for casters and ranged attackers. If you happen to be on a PvP server it feels exactly the same as WoW - no particular incentive to fight against another player except for the sheer "thrill" of it, which wears off pretty fast. Considering what other MMOs due for 2007 release are offering in terms of combat innovation (actually trying to bring an element of player skill into combat), this game felt out-of-date from the moment it came out of the box. So yeah, give it a try if you have nothing better to do... but keep your expectations suitably low, and be prepared to consign it quickly to the trash heap when the half-dozen or so truly promising releases for this year start appearing. Games that will inevitably look better, play better and be more immersive than Vanguard can ever hope to be. Games you will actually WANT to play, not just time-fillers.
Not bad for a jaded, one sided point of view. Now my one sided view.
Your post seems to fail to take into account one major factor. The game was released months early, unfinished, stuff missing and some things not working quite right.
Boats are in game.
Artistic direction is subjective. Hence I do not believe this to even be a point to consider. I say toMARto, you say toMAYto.
Combat, agreed nothing really new here, but then there was nothing really new in WoW, CoX, Ryzom, LOTRO, EQ2, AA, etc etc. True there are titles in the pipeline that offer a different way of doing things in an MMORPG, but at no point did I EVER think that VG would have a new refreshing style of combat.
Animations. I still can not for life of me see where people are coming from on this. I think the animations look fine and they offer some much nicer combat moves than other games like WoW.
Character Diversity. Yes I agree this is pretty sub par at the moment. However, I fully believe they will add more options in the near future. I notice that you can completely change your avatar at any time ( from the login screen ), such as hieght, colour, hair style, face style etc etc. Expect more art work to be added to improve character item diversity.
Populations. Server dependant for a start. I see plenty of people out and about on my travels. Depends on what time you are playing.
Crafting. I think this will always be an issue in any game. After all making the same thing in real life can be very boring. I used to drive a lathe, occasionally having to make hundreds of components, all the same. very tedious. Anyway, it's difficult to devise a system that allows you to make something consistantly in game, whilst allowing the player to become a better crafter ( level up ) to be able to produce more items. And keeping a fair balance.
You seem to display all the symptoms of someone who expected way too much. Forget the "hype". One must remember that reading up on a new game and all it's features is a bit like reading a great book. Your imagination runs wild, you read bits you like and visualise it. Then the film comes out and you hate it because it is not how YOU imagined it would be. It fails to live up to your version.
Go back and read some of the blurbs on the back of old spectrum games, they sound great. The reality however was very different, that difference was technological constraint.
For the record, here are the last 15 days patch notes;
Build 1792 March / 28 / 2007
Vanguard Build 1792 Patch Notes 3/28/2007
NOTE: This patch is noticeably larger than previous updates because we are adding new art assets to the game. Look for more news about this coming soon!
GAMEPLAY NOTES
- Fix for DoTs not working in PvP
- Experience rates for killing NPCs have had a significant increase. The experience changes start as a small amount at low levels and scale up to a large amount in the early twenties. From then on the increase remains fixed. This increase should be very noticeable for players 15+. This change is in response to actual player leveling times not meeting our original target times within many different subsets of the player population. This increase will bring us much closer to our goal without exceeding it.
- The cost to repair items with high rarities has been reduced.
- Amplifying abilities are now capped at 10 times original strength.
- Amplifying abilities no longer works for all abilities in the ability line. Diminishing returns still applies to everything in the ability line.
- If an ability is taken to full amplification strength it will now experience an extended refresh time.
- Lull type abilities now state that they have a chance to aggro on resist rather than leaving that information to be a surprise.
- All lull type abilities now have the same chance to be resisted.
- Player Housing: All existing housing permissions have been wiped to support new permission functionality.
- Player Housing: The information you receive from inspecting a plot, building, and construction site has changed. All information is now included in one UI window with tabs for each section. All players will now be able to get basic information about what they are inspecting even if they are not the owner of the plot or building.
- Player Housing: Permissions are now set for a plot instead of for a building. You can now specify various permissions for plots through check boxes. Mouse over the check boxes in the Create Permission window to get an over view of what the permission allows.
- Player Housing: Players can now give guild access via guild ranks to their plots and buildings.
- Player Housing: The permission system will continue to expand as more features are added to player housing.
- Player Housing: You now have the ability to recall to your house. Check your ability book under the general section for the new ability.
- Player Housing: You can now preview the required construction materials for a building type by clicking the "Building Details" button on the construction tab.
- Player Housing: Plot prices will now update dynamically. You upkeep price will no longer be locked in when the plot in purchased.
- Player Housing: Coin for upkeep is no longer entered as copper. A coin bar is now present with the proper denominations.
ADVENTURING NOTES
- Bard – Fox Overtakes Hare has had its damage increased, now roots the target for 6 seconds, has had its refresh timer dropped to 20 seconds and will crit much more often.
- Cleric – Anathema VII has been removed because it was a copy of Doom I.
- Cleric – Turn Undead now has the correct display numbers and floating text.
- Blood Mage – Conduct, the Conducive Symbiote granted ability no longer requires a symbiote to use.
- Blood Mage – Plated Symbiote now states how much damage it will return when you are attacked.
- Blood Mage – Conducive Symbiote and Quickening Symbiote can only be cast on a single target one time every 5 minutes.
- Blood Mage – Blood Feast is now a toggled ability. It has also been changed to work as an aura. This makes it go away when you die and work for multiple BMGs in one group.
- Blood Mage – Symbiotes are now soulbound
- Blood Mage – All symbiotes now state that there can only be one on a target at a time.
- Disciple – Fixed a display bug with Leech’s Grasp. It now displays the correct amount of endurance drained.
- Dread Knight – Fell Aura (dreadful countenance rank 3) no longer pulses on and off while it is applied
- Dread Knight – Dread Tide (dreadful countenance rank 5) now applies itself to the opponent as intended.
- Dread Knight – Slay now deals damage, roots your opponent, is usable at 20% target health, costs 30 endurance and crits 50% of the time instead of directly killing your opponent. Also has a 20 second refresh.
- Dread Knight – Slay now opens chains when it crits.
- Necromancer - Necromancer abomination no longer requires that all the grafts be reequipped after relogging. Additionally, if you log out with your minion still summoned, you will no longer have to recast it when you log back in.
- Necromancer - Monstrous Sundering Fist now correctly grants Sundering Fist IX. This increases the damage of the fist.
- Paladin – Vanquish is now more likely to critical.
- Ranger – Form of Precision no longer jumps to level 4 when you are supposed to be at level 3.
- Ranger – Moved Intercept I to level 12 and Speed of the Wolf to level 12
- Ranger – Fleetblade now costs 15 END, down from 22 END.
- Rogue – Knee Break now gives feedback when its used.
- Rogue – Ravage now actually exploits Mesmerized or Lethargic.
- Rogue – Shroud of Shadows is now usable only in stealth.
- Rogue – Fatal Stroke will now open attack chains on critical.
- Warrior – Shield Wall now increases block chance by 80% for 15 seconds and has a 10 minute refresh timer.
- Warrior – Commands can now be used out of combat
- Warrior – Smash has had its refresh time lowered to 8 seconds.
- Warrior – Riposte has had its refresh removed.
- Warrior – Riposte has had its damage increased
- Warrior – Blade’s Bite now costs the intended 10 endurance.
- Warrior – Offensive Stance now increases damage by 20%, accuracy by 10% and reduces mitigation by 10% (down from 20%)
- Warrior – Adjusted the level progression of Stinging Cut. Levels are now 14, 22, 30, 38, 46
- Warrior – Stinging Cut V has been added to trainers.
- Warrior - Adjusted the level progression of Blade’s Bite. Levels are now 30, 38, 46
- Warrior – Blade’s Bite III has been added to trainers.
- Warrior – Both Stinging Cut and Blade’s Bite now add an initial chunk of hate and some hate over time. The hate is now applied over 15 seconds, instead of 30.
- Warrior – Commands have changed. Single target commands and group commands no longer share a common refresh timer. You can perform a single target command followed immediately by a group command with no delay. All group commands continue to share a common refresh timer. All single target commands continue to share a common refresh timer.
- Warrior – Group commands now have a refresh timer of 30 seconds, down from 45.
- Warrior – Strike Now has a refresh timer of 45 seconds, down from 60
- Warrior – Commands no longer incur global refresh
- Warrior – Defensive type commands now last for 8 seconds instead of 6.
- Warrior – Killing Blow has had its damage greatly increased, its endurance cost drastically reduced and it can now open chains on crits…which should happen often.
- Warrior – Increased the hate reduction on Withdraw and made it consistent across all upgrades.
- Warrior – Removed the mitigation penalty from enrage.
- Warrior – Battle cries are no longer tied to the same refresh timers. Each can be performed individually.
- Warrior – Shout of Fury IV is now available at level 36 and Shout of Fury V is available at level 48.
- Warrior – Shout of Fury now lasts for a flat 12 seconds across all levels
- Warrior – Roar of Rage has a slightly different level progression to make for a more smooth progression of hate. The new levels are: 22, 32, 42, 50
- Warrior – Roar of Rage IV is now available on trainers at level 50
CRAFTING NOTES
- Abandoning a work order will now remove all work order items related to that work order
- Kojani ship and house quests now require Kojani faction.
- A very high level quest concerning crafting catalysts has been added in Ahgram.
- Fixed description of second tier furnace failure as it had the description of a different attached to it.
- Adjusted the stats on cloaks with Melee Evasion.
- Diplomacy deconstruction quests have been added. They are available to tailors and weaponsmiths.
- Fisher’s Pen no longer gives a double-dose of Thestran Watch faction for a successful work order hand in. You should only get 10 Thestran Watch faction now.
- You will now see crafting and assembly recipes in the trainer list even if you do not meet the faction or flag requirements.
- Splitting a stack of crafted items will no longer cause the maker's mark to be lost on the new stack. You will also now be able to restack the items.
- Corrected a travel journal entry for the Understanding Nyi quest.
- Fixed some pieces of crafting gear that were set to the wrong rarity level.
- Rotten Material should no longer have an invisible AP penalty
- Gwartak Clan Shortsword should now raise shortsword skill instead of longsword skill
- Current furniture recipes are now available on outpost trainers as well.
- An addition has been made to crafting advisors that should now let you see the tutorial restart option if you are still level 1 or 2 in crafting and still did not see the restart option. This should solve all issues relating to players unable to continue the crafting training.
- Work Orders - Fixed issue with tier 5 work order tables that was causing cash items rewards to be replaced with the infamous “Ghostbuster” item.
DIPLOMACY NOTES
- All Diplomacy Chest items are now enabled for deconstruction.
- All Diplomacy Shoulder items are now enabled for deconstruction.
- All Diplomacy Waist items are now enabled for deconstruction.
- All Diplomacy Leg items are now enabled for deconstruction.
- All Diplomacy Foot items are now enabled for deconstruction.
- All Diplomacy Hand items are now enabled for deconstruction.
- All Diplomacy Held items are now enabled for deconstruction.
- Tursh Academics now give appropriate rewards for Incite parleys.
- Thestra tier 3 Diplomacy waist items now correctly equip to the waist slot and are no longer masquerading as shoulder items.
- Thestra tier 3 Diplomacy ring items now correctly display ring icons
- Writs are now available with the Royal Petitioners of Bordinar’s Cleft for diplomats of at least 150 skill and 500 prestige faction with the city of Bordinar’s Cleft. Look in the Chamber of Petition to find them cycling among the other dignitaries.
- Writs are now available with the Capuchehaies of Ahgram for diplomats of at least 150 skill and 500 prestige faction with the city of Ahgram. Look in the Ahgram Audience Chamber to find them cycling among the other dignitaries.
- Writs are now available with the Speakers of Ca’ial Brael for diplomats of at least 150 skill and 500 prestige faction with the city of Ca’ial Brael. Look in the Antechamber of the Sun to find them cycling among the other dignitaries.
- Tursh Academics now give appropriate rewards for Incite parleys.
- Thestra tier 3 Diplomacy waist items now correctly equip to the waist slot and are no longer masquerading as shoulder items.
- Thestra tier 3 Diplomacy ring items now correctly display ring icons.
- Tier 3 shoulder items are now available on Plots informants. Trade in your tier 3 rumor and evidence of plots to receive them.
- All Tier 3 Ring items now offer at least 2 different types of Presence. Items that offered 2 Presence types now offer 4. Items that offered 3 Presence types now offer 4. Some values have been adjusted upward as well.
- Diplomats with 1000 Prestige faction in one of the nine major cities on Telon can now trade in this faction for a unique title. Seek out the various rulers/administrators of the nine cities (King Mithdor, King Baran, Warden Iona, Magistrate Jadedragon, etc.) and speak with them to earn this title.
- A mysterious Prestige Altar has appeared on all three continents. Those who carry titles of great prestige can approach them, hoping for even greater title of honor and a gift of experience.
- Tier 2 Horse Quest available for diplomats on Qalia of at least 200 skill. See Haftan the Black in the main square of Ahgram. You must have completed the Tier 1 Horse Quest and have a young courier horse on your person to accept the quest. Haftan will supply one at no cost if you don’t have one. Side quests along the way will provide opportunities to acquire tack, horseshoes, and courier saddlebags as well.
- Tier 2 Horse Quest available for diplomats on Thestra of at least 200 skill. See Svena Remniol in the court of King Targonor in New Targonor. You must have completed the Tier 1 Horse Quest and have a young courier horse on your person to accept the quest. Svena will supply one at no cost if you don’t have one. Side quests along the way will provide opportunities to acquire tack, horseshoes, and courier saddlebags as well.
- Tier 2 Horse Quest available for diplomats on Kojan of at least 200 skill. See Poet Kan Ya in Tanvu to begin the quest. You must have completed the Tier 1 Horse Quest and have a young courier horse on your person to accept the quest. Kan Ya will supply one at no cost if you don’t have one. Side quests along the way will provide opportunities to acquire tack, horseshoes, and courier saddlebags as well.
- “It’s My Party” is now available in the Black Orchid Forum with Duchess Perthia Hilthorn for diplomats of at least 326 skill who have 250 or more faction with House Hilthorn.
WORLD POPULATION NOTES
- Beranid Downs - Overland population in the Beranid Hills, Fields of Despair and Plains of Anguish has been thinned out.
- Celestine Ward - The rare candle drop rate from NPCs deep within Vol Tuniel and Thelaseen has been increased.
- Jathred’s Twist – The back of Vault of the Hidden has received a named NPC and itemization pass.
- Jathred’s Twist - Morr the Mighty, Sharram and Zahn at the Minotaur camps in Jathred’s Twist should now drop the correct loot.
- NPC - Tishra the Blood Priest – Fixed a bug where the unattackable version could get aggro on players and attack them.
- Nusibe Necropolis – The Cleric/Paladin quests, Blessings of Vol Anari, have been fixed. NOTE: Players currently on the quest will need to abandon the quest. Also, players will need to delete the Mysterious Crystal and/or Crystal of Holy Blessings, and obtain a new one by re-entering the dungeon from the entrance.
- Nusibe Necropolis – Esprit Sparkles has been revamped. NOTE: Any Shaman currently on this quest will have to abandon it and start it again from the Dire Spirit.
- Nusibe Necropolis – Necromancers should keep an eye out for a quest-starting orb.
- Nusibe Necropolis – The Wrath and Spirit of Nusibe will now show face again, whereas before they never spawned.
- Nusibe Necropolis – Caress of the Dead no longer hits Clerics and Paladins. No really. This time it’s true!
- Nusibe Necropolis – The Sentinel of Nusibe will no longer assist other minions in the area.
- Quest – The Purification of Graystone – A two-handed maul option has been added to the rewards for this quest.
- Quest – The Purification of Graystone - Players who have selected the one-handed mace, the two-handed axe, or the martial staff will be able to permanently trade in their selections for the two-handed maul.
- Quest – Penetrating The Core – The components will no longer drop if you have the dagger made.
- Quest – The Purification of Graystone - The quest to exchange the one-handed mace for the two-handed maul will also allow players to exchange the mace for any of the other melee weapons.
- Quests – Weapon rewards for the quest The Purification of Graystone have been adjusted.
- Quests - A martial staff and a focus item are now available as rewards for the quest The Purification of Graystone. Any players who have already completed the quest and selected either the martial sword or the staff will be able to exchange them at the Spirit of Valor for their respective alternatives.
- Quests - Kill count updates for the quests offered by the Spirits of Vengeance will no longer occur at many times their intended rate.
- Rahz Inkur - Fixed a typo in a popup text alert
- Rahz Inkur – It should no longer be possible to accidentally activate beacons while not on a seal thereby causing them to vanish.
- Rahz Inkur – Certain NPCs within Rahz Inkur will now drop vials at an increased rate.
- Rahz Inkur – The number of beacons needed in order to activate a seal has been reduced to 15.
- Rahz Inkur – Vials, dusts, and powders can no longer be sold to vendors.
- Rahz Inkur – The helm stats for the main questline have been adjusted.
- Rahz Inkur – 5 shimmering zull portal shards are now required in order for them to be activated at a seal.
- River Valley - Flowers in the river valley can now be looted without the item requirement. Drop rates and spawn rates have also been increased.
- Thelaseen – Ancient elven chests now have a chance to drop candles in place of a chance to drop armor pieces.
Items
- Cloaks, both crafting and adventuring alike, have seen an appearance pass to increase the variety of tints and models available.
- Level 41+ Adventuring Armor has seen a preliminary appearance pass; this should result in many new models and tints. A future pass may be needed to consolidate tints from individual areas and dungeons.
- Low level Qalian Bows have had their appearances fixed/updated.
- Some mid-level Thestran crossbows were found to be hiding about 50 meters away from their owners. The crossbows have been confiscated and replaced with more timid models until such a time that they decide to play nice.
- Some Graystone and Beranid Downs items have had their restriction flags updated; this will result in the Heroic items becoming Soulbound and the rest becoming non-Soulbound if they were previously
GUI NOTES
- Crafting steps will now show a progress bar for each individual action family below it so that you may more easily gauge individual progress and the effects of complications.
- Crafting action families will no longer sometimes stop refreshing or not appear as disabled correctly when they are complete.
- Added item compare to the UI, which activates by pressing Shift while examining an item. Alternatively, you can enable the new "Always Show Item Compare" setting for 24-hour pants comparison coverage.
- You will now see faction and flag requirements you do not meet listed in the crafting recipe description on recipe trainers.
- Items on merchants and in the loot window will now show as fully charged
- The stack number and charges of items being randomed for will now be visible.
- Escrow merchants will now correctly show stack and charge counts on items.
- Item examine tooltips should now show charges for all charged items, not just those that activate an ability.
- Items in the merchant window will now show charges.
- Trivial work orders will no longer be displayed as downright impossible
CODING NOTES
- When the "Tooltips Require Alt" setting is enabled, hotkeyed items will no longer show their item examine info unless you are holding Alt.
- Fix for some instances of NPCs showing a small amount of health after dying.
- Responsiveness should be improved when targeting something with many buffs/debuffs. This was particularly noticeable when targeting another player in PVP.
- Fixed a bug that caused stacks of loot to be converted to a single item when auto-looted after a random roll. This was most obvious when randoming for harvesting loot.
- Updated our version of OpenAL to a much newer version. This should now properly enumerate your sound devices and allow you to choose your native device (such as an X-Fi sound card) instead of just using the generic hardware or software devices (which are still available). Remember that you will need to completely quit out of the game and restart it after changing your sound device (found in the Audio tab of our Settings window) for the game to start using that new device. We recommend that you make sure you have the latest drivers for your sound card before selecting a device other than "Generic Hardware" or "Generic Software" and that you switch back to your previous sound device if you experience sound problems with the new device. You may want to compare sound quality and frame rate with each device to determine the best choice for you. If for some reason the game will not run after you have selected a new sound device, you can edit your VGClient.ini (found in your Vanguardin directory) and change the line that starts with "OpenALDeviceName=" to read "OpenALDeviceName=Generic Software" then save that file and try Vanguard again.
- Added new command, "/unlockcorpse", which unlocks the NPC corpse to the anyone in the world. You must be the corpse owner to use this command.
- Added new command, "/unlockcorpsetoplayer", which unlocks the NPC corpse to a specific player. If no first name is supplied, the defensive target is used.
- Added new command, “/decaytime”, which shows you the time left before an NPC corpse decays.
ART NOTES
- PC/NPC names are now opaque again.
~The Vanguard Team
Build 1780 March / 23 / 2007
Vanguard Build 1780 Patch Notes 3/23/2007
The following two updates went live with this morning’s (3/23) server restart:
Adventuring Kill Experience Update
Experience rates for killing NPCs have been increased significantly. The experience changes start as a small amount at low levels and scale up to a large amount in the early twenties. From then on, the increase remains fixed. This increase should be very noticeable for players above level fifteen. This change is in response to actual player leveling times not meeting our original target times within many different subsets of the player population. This increase will bring us much closer to our goal without exceeding it.
NPC Hit Points
Challenge level two and three NPCs have had their hit points reduced at levels above ten. The reduction will be small, but it will increase slightly each level.
~The Vanguard Team
Build 1780 March / 22 / 2007
Vanguard Build 1780 Patch Notes 3/22/2007
GAMEPLAY NOTES
- Disenchant – All abilities that remove Enchantments from opponents (including – Strip Enchantment, Asilam’s Disenchanting Cry, Despoil and Disenchant) now have a tool tip description that states their effectiveness levels.
ADVENTURING NOTES
- All Classes – You can no longer train two auto attacks. If you do not have an auto attack on your hotkeys, you should be able to find one on the general tab of your ability book. If there isn’t one there, please visit a trainer.
- Bard - Asilam's Beguiling Call is now available at level 32.
- Disciple - Baiting Strike is now a melee ability. Accordingly, it now uses endurance instead of energy, can only be used from melee range, and is now instant. Additionally, the tooltip and combat text associated with Baiting Strike should be more revealing. Baiting Strike should now animate correctly, as well.
- Dread Knight – Tier 3 of Dreadful Countenance (Fell Aura) now applies the actual third tier effect rather than reapplying the tier two effect.
- Necromancer - Added Drain Life V to trainers.
- Necromancer – Diseased Claw no longer heals your opponent.
- Paladin – Fury of Valus has been added to trainers at level 50
- Paladin – Cry of Prowess has been added to trainers at level 48
- Paladin – Increased the healing power of Lay on Hands
- Paladin – Protector’s Fury will no longer generate as much combat spam as it once did.
- Paladin – Added Judgment of the Unforgiving to trainers at level 46
- Paladin – Added Deny Life to trainers at level 36
- Paladin – Added Forbiddance to trainers at level 48
- Ranger – Blade of Storms now has a particle effect for the AE portion of the ability.
- Ranger – Offensive form now only increases melee damage. It also increases accuracy and lowers parry and dodge. Tool tips have been added.
- Ranger – Evasive Form now increases dodge and parry, but lowers damage. Tool tips have been added.
- Ranger – Precision Form now increases ranged damage and accuracy as well as dexterity.
- Rogue - Lacerate V was doing less damage than intended. This has been corrected.
- Shaman – Boon of Hayatet now only procs on melee attacks.
- Shaman - Added the ‘Thrown’ skill.
- Shaman - Added Ranged Attack to shaman trainers.
- Sorcerer – Your rings are now soul bound so they will not drop when you die.
CRAFTING NOTES
- Some complications have had their descriptions updated.
- The crafting organizations in New Targonor and Ahgram now give reduced continental and city crafting faction for successful completion for their work orders.
- Crafted bows have had their proc chances increased slightly
- Crafted bows stats have been updated where they were found to be lacking
- Crafted bows have had their effects attached properly and the effects have received some visual lovin’
- Fixed the problem preventing certain players from starting some of the ship quests even though they met the requirements.
- Corrected a problem with the turn-in of the Thestran Caravel Mast Mount quest.
- Corrected several items that were not being accepted in the deconstruction recipes.
- Corrected several outfitter recipes that were incorrectly asking for Bales instead of Bolts. This was only a display error.
- The quest for the Medium Kojani Sail is no longer repeatable.
- The display name of Mithril Yellow Barding has been corrected.
- Corrected the tier display information on certain resonating dusts.
- Gwartak Clan recipes now have a required grade line.
- A bug with the Decoration assembly in one of the Merchant’s Guild quests has been fixed.
- Most Kojan outfitter trainers will now let you train apprentice bags.
- The wood staff for the Qalian style quest now properly displays that it requires two boards.
- A spelling error in the Qalian journeyman tier quests has been fixed.
- Gwartak Shortsword has been brought in line with the other Gwartak items.
- Linne Owit’s “Dull Knives” advanced work order should now be given to artificers, not blacksmiths.
- Another instance of quest-only items coming out of supply packs has been fixed.
- Amateur Tier Quest Thestran cotton shoe recipe now actually states it will be making foot patterns, not hand patterns, in the action family.
- Fixed a bug in the recipes for the Fiend Hunter quest line that was resulting in grade-A destroyed material.
- Additional hail dialogues have been added to special quest NPCs to help players determine the necessary prerequisites.
- Fixed a bug in the Rewrought Infineum Light Armor recipe that was resulting in a failure item, regardless of grade.
- Artificer - Martial Staffs have had their levels increased
- Blacksmith - Crafted claws can now be equipped by disciples
- Outfitter - Crafted cloaks that missed the last item update have been updated
- Found a way to make crafted item names longer
- All rare and heroic special crafting tools are soulbound.
- Corrected an issue with the prime panel recipe.
- Many quest recipes have been updated to display their required grade.
- The Seer’s Amulet recipe now displays its required grade.
- Added Qalian and Kojani stone hammer recipes to Artificer instructors.
- Seer’s Amulet now boosts your reasoning as well as problem solving for crafting skills.
- Many advanced work orders have had their rewards updated.
Havesting
- Corrected the name of Gnarled Timber.
DIPLOMACY NOTES
- All tier 3 Informants have had their loot tables standardized by rarity and percentages. No longer will you receive one bauble for Evidence and four for Hearsay!
- Petitioner Goldsmith will no longer give out the quest “Dwarven Lagniappe for the Elven Queen.”
- Corrected loot table issues with Informants across Telon.
- Corrected some grammar issues with Informants across Telon.
- Diplomacy Held items now offer Presence in a minimum of two categories.
- Grammar and spelling fixes on Diplomacy Held items.
- Luminary Calliria now has a diplomacy skill level and is Clergy.
- Tomb of Raiders in Nusibe Necropolis now has Civic Diplomacy. Requirements are 250 Diplomacy skill and 450 Outsider Presence. One lever is active – Traps of Nusibe.
WORLD POPULATION NOTES
- Bordinar’s Cleft – The “Meet Your Instructor” quests for each class originating out of Rille’s Encampment now become available after completing “Remove the Head, and the Body Dies”
- Bordinar’s Cleft – The NPC “Kargor Iceblade” has been deactivated.
- Bordinar’s Cleft – The NPC “Guard Derbran Koboldbane” no longer blocks the Thestran Exchange Broker.
- Bordinar’s Cleft – The NPC “Sten Ironbrow” no longer falls off the bridge. It was sad times for him there for a while!
- Bordinar’s Cleft – The NPC “Acolyte Jula Frozensword” no longer clips through walls.
- Bordinar’s Cleft – “Lena Blackfire” no longer clips through walls.
- Cliffs of Ghelgad – Nimat Sekamqu will continue to speak and offer his wares, even when it is night.
- Cragwind Ridge - The quest Death From Above can now be completed.
- Cragwind Ridge - In addition to fixes to Death From Above, a new quest line has been added to Cragwind Ridge.
- Dahknarg - Minor updates to Travel Journal Entries: Fixed some directions to trainers, general goods venders and the banks.
- Gorgalok – The rare spawned NPC “Greshlok” is no longer invulnerable.
- Halgarad - Minor updates to Travel Journal Entries: Fixed some directions to trainers, general goods venders and the banks.
- Marsh of Peril - Players should now be able to collect the correct number of troll knuckles for the quest “Tolls for Trolls” in the Marsh of Peril.
- Martok - The travel journal entry for the Test of Will in the Rothrak Ogre Mound now correctly shows the location of the test chamber.
- Martok – The quest “Scavenger of Bone” now provides updates for Gloomscrys when slain.
- Martok – The quest “At the Root” now requires players to slay Yukionna within the Gardens of Xia’Liu.
- Mekalia – The experience gained while using the Ventilation Grates in Mekalia has been removed.
- Misthaven – The NPC “Grento Gartrus” will now pause once being hailed.
- Nusibe Necropolis - A curse will no longer be applied to you if you already have that same curse currently on you.
- Nusibe Necropolis – Curse traps no longer trigger on Clerics and Paladins.
- Nusibe Necropolis - The delay on the damage traps have been increased a bit.
- Nusibe Necropolis - Clerics and Paladins may find their backpacks a little heavier as they enter the Necropolis. Check your bags; there might be something new there.
- Nusibe Necropolis – Long ago, a small band of treasure hunters ventured to the City of the Dead. All but one fled out of fear. The sole adventurer, brave and without fear, entered alone. This adventurer fought long and hard into the necropolis, but his life came to an end before he could reach the Halls of the Warrior. Seek his remains.
- Nusibe Necropolis – Caress of the Dead will no longer linger at 1 second.
- Pantheon of the Ancients – The Trial of Death should now reset more quickly due to inactivity.
- Rahz Inkur - Zull Palace Scarabs have had their immunities reduced and can now be crowd controlled and stunned.
- Rahz Inkur - Majordomo Nerox in Afrit has promised vast riches and rewards to those adventurers brave enough to step foot inside Rahz Inkur and face head on the might of the Zull.
- Renton Keep - Zihurr Invasion – Fixed a bug that could prevent players from receiving credit for killing the Ant Queen.
- Renton Keep - Zihurr Invasion – Increased the availability of the Ant Queen to reduce the bottleneck on the quest.
- Renton Keep - Badger Aggression – You must now kill 8 badgers to complete this missive.
- Renton Keep – The quest “An Embarrassing Loss” has been fixed and is now completable. Some quest text has been modified slightly.
- Renton Keep – The quest “The Wisps Must Pay” has been changed to “The Rekk Must Pay” and now chains after “An Embarrassing Loss” has been completed.
- Rindol Field – Guard Ryebridge will now be willing to give directions to those who ask.
- Shrine of the Flame – The quest “Silver’s Delivery” (Part 1) has had a journal location added to it and the summary text modified for clarity.
- Shrine of the Flame – The quest “Silver’s Delivery” (Part 2) has had a journal location added to it and the summary text modified for clarity as well as removing the text suggesting to a following quest.
- Shrine of the Flame – The quest line “A Fairy’s Scorn” has been deactivated.
- Skrilien Point – The quest “Enter the Ra’Hazi” now states that it will reward coin and not items for completion.
- Southwatch – The quest “Lover’s Quarrel” now points to “Lookout Point” rather than Silvertalon Pride Roost.
- Three Rivers – The Quest “Tome of Stone” has had its summary text slightly modified to provide a more clear objective.
- Three Rivers – The “Unsorted Books” required to interact with in order to complete “Tome of Stone” now instantly respawns.
- Zaraj Arena – A mailbox has been added to the arena.
- Zaraj Arena - Trakan should have far less hitpoints now, and should also do more damage.
Items
- Some items from particularly regular NPCs in the Sands of Sorrow have had their rarity adjusted to “Common” and their item level adjusted to the region’s lowest level NPC because, well, the items were common. The NPCs that rewarded those items are currently restocked with items of their previous rarity and are now rewarding those items at the intended regularity.
~The Vanguard Team
Build 1780 March / 19 / 2007
Vanguard Build 1780 Patch Notes 3/19/2007
GAMEPLAY NOTES
- The Khal teleport-in location has moved off the docks. The teleport-out location has not changed.
- Ranged damage over time abilities had a bug causing them do almost no damage. This has been fixed.
- A rounding bug with ability tooltips was found and fixed. This was causing some abilities to display in the tooltip as doing less damage than was done with the actual ability.
- Damage numbers in ranged attack tooltips now show the value properly scaled by your dexterity.
- Repair Bots will now despawn after 2 minutes
- Food once again restores health. You no longer need to sit before you eat to gain this benefit.
- Phoenixes should once again fight back
ADVENTURING NOTES
- Cleric, Necromancer, Psionicist and Sorcerer – Added indication to your invisibility abilities that states they have a chance to break early.
- Blood Mage – Mortal Calling is now out of combat only
- Disciple – Essence Thief has had its damage increased
- Disciple – Astral Walk is now out of combat only.
- Dread Knight - Scythe of Doom has had its damage increased
- Monk - Iron Hand has had a significant damage increase.
- Monk - Secret of Flames has had a significant damage increase and the chance to land a bonus fire DoT has been increased.
- Monk - Secret of Ice has had its chance to freeze increased and the freeze duration increased. This freeze prevents the target from moving or attacking and does not break on hit.
- Monk – Storm Stride will no longer attack your opponent from a distance when used outside of combat. It will actually transport you.
- Monk – the following abilities have had their damage increased:
Crescent Kick
Dragon's Rage
Sundering Dragon Claw
Jeering Kick
Spinning Fists
Hammer Fist
Three Finger Strike
Goading Slap
Eagle Claw
Tiger Pounces
Trapping Mantis Claw
Withering Palm
Steal the Wind
- Necromancer – Removed the duplicate auto attack. Depending on which auto attack you had, you may have to visit your trainer and retrain auto attack.
- Necromancer – Heart of the Overlord no longer removes hit points from the necromancer that owns the abomination with it equipped. This will prevent death loops if you do not have enough hit points to cover the debuff. (This is a temporary fix until we adjust the heart graft slot further).
- Necromancer – Fist and claw DoTs should now stack with each other.
- Necromancer – You can now find all of your level 10 abilities on the arcane spellcaster trainers.
- Necromancer – Scourging Fist grafts now actually grant abilities.
- Necromancer – Increased the damage on Sundering Fist Grafts. These used to be doing the same damage as their uncommon counterparts.
- Necromancer – Added a placeholder particle to Death Shroud
- Necromancer – Claw of Devastation II no longer heals.
- Paladin – Wrath of Vol Anari can now be performed.
- Paladin – Aegis Strike has been added to trainers at level 6
- Paladin - Shield of Chastening has been added to trainers at level 42
- Paladin – Shield of Rebuke has been added to trainers as level 34
- Paladin – Shield of Resolve has been added to trainers at level 38
- Paladin – Shield of Solace has been added to trainers at level 44
- Paladin – Succor has been added to trainers at level 50
- Paladin - Blessing of Vothdar’s duration is now one hour. It is no longer toggled.
- Paladin – All levels of Guardian’s Assault cost 20 endurance now.
- Paladin – Virtue Point regeneration is now 60 minutes (in game) per point across all level ranges, down from 100-80 minutes.
- Paladin – All attacks that previously did not give text output should be fixed.
- Paladin – Shining Beacon now actually forces affected foes to target you.
- Paladin – Shining Beacon now has a 30 second refresh timer, down from 60s.
- Paladin – Increased the damage of Shining Beacon and added fiends as allowable targets.
- Paladin – the following abilities have had their damage increased:
Champion's Might
Guardian's Assault
Sentinel's Blessing
Vanquish (versus undead only)
- Paladin – Both lines of Boons now last until canceled.
- Paladin – Zeal now halves the endurance cost of abilities while active.
- Paladin – Dictum of Valus and Sunburst are now nearly impossible to resist.
- Paladin – Increased the damage of Dictum of Valus
- Paladin – Increased the damage of Sunburst
- Paladin – Paragon now partially stacks with other spells that increase primary attributes
- Ranger – Cripple now removes your opponent’s stance.
- Ranger – Increased the effectiveness of Regrowth.
- Ranger – Intercept can now be used at any time.
- Ranger – Cloak spells should now last until you toggle them off.
- Rogue – Some Ink item icons have been updated
- Rogue – Some typos have been fixed with poison reagents
- Rogue – Flechettes should no longer break stealth
- Rogue – the following abilities have had their damage increased:
Knee Break
Trick Attack
- Rogue – Dramatically increased damage on Water of Life, Scarlet Flame and Azure Flame poisons.
- Shaman – the following abilities have had their damage increased:
Bite of Nag-Suul
Hamstring
Vicious Bite
- Warrior – Rend Armor and Whirlwind upgrades are now available on trainers.
- Warrior – Waylay should now open all finishers.
- Warrior – Whirlwind will now only open the Decimate line upon crit.
- Warrior – Whirlwind will now open all finishers.
- Warrior – Shout of Defiance II and III now properly display the amount of hate added.
- Warrior – Battle Frenzy and Veteran’s Furor no longer stack.
- Warrior – Brutal Strike VII now deals proper damage
- Warrior – Brutal Strike VII now costs endurance.
- Warrior – The fourth version of Grim Determination is now properly named Grim Determination IV.
- Warrior – Disarm will now only work on humanoids
- Warrior – Warder’s Bulwark no longer erroneously displays that it strips 2% mitigation every hit.
- Warrior – the following abilities have had their damage increased:
Coercion
Warder's Bulwark
Battle Frenzy
Cleave
Defenseless
Veteran's Furor
Kick
Smash
CRAFTING NOTES
- Bows and crossbows of the sniper and of the assassin now display their proper names.
- Fixed issue where journeyman’s recipes were resulting in the wrong item when adding striking crystals
- Fixed issue resulting in legendary rarity items coming from base attuning dust only crafted items. (Note: any items that have been generated using this error have had their rarity changed to reflect the components that were used to make them.)
- Reminded the work order loot tables that they should be dropping tier 4 and 5 horseshoe recipes for blacksmiths
- The revamping of cloaks has been completed. All craftable cloaks should now have the proper stats this includes the new attribute cloaks.
- Rare saddlebag recipes have been removed from game. Saddlebag and rare saddlebag recipes have been consolidated and made to work like normal bag recipes work.
- Crafting XP for tier 3 and higher has been increased per process. This was done to compensate for the length of recipes at those tiers.
- Mineralogists should no longer be offered any bow recipes.
- Gwartak Clan recipes should now display the proper minimum amount of refined resources.
- The smoke complications should have updated descriptions.
- Gwartak Clan armor should now be usable by more classes.
- Crafting faction items have had their stats updated.
- Some minor conversation issues were discovered with the Ahgram crafting faction NPCs. These have been fixed.
- Gwartak Clan Dagger is now rare.
- Gwartak items have had their level standardized. This may increase the level/power of certain produced items.
- Some quest and special recipes now require higher grades to successful complete the item as intended. Failure to do so will result in destroyed material.
- Amateur tier quest crafted items should no longer bring up the No Drop confirmation window.
- Resonating shards/crystals of deflection have had their names updated to Revenge
- Items made with resonating shards/crystals of revenge have had their names updated from ‘of Levitation’ to ‘of Revenge’
- ‘of Revenge’ items should now have the proper ability attached to them
- All focusing dusts that previously listed jewelry settings as options have been updated to not display this option as you cannot make jewelry settings.
- Artificer jewel refining recipes now have the option to attune jewels with either an attribute or a resistance.
- Artificer jewelry recipes can now have attribute attuned jewels used in them.
- The following dusts have been removed from loot tables as they were no longer used
Focusing Powder of Reason
Focusing Shards of Reason
Focusing Crystals of Reason
Focusing Powder of Vigilance
Focusing Shards of Vigilance
Focusing Crystals of Vigilance
Focusing Crystals of Absorption
They have all been converted to cash items for your selling enjoyment.
- Blacksmith recipes for throwing axes have had their default damage type set to slashing.
- Blacksmith recipes for throwing hammers have had their default damage type set to crushing.
- Most Artificer furniture recipes have been added to instructors.
- Tursh and the Southwatch crafting outpost now give Thestran Watch faction for work orders.
- Crafted rods should now have right click effects on them like other wand type items do
- Fixed description of resonance powder of the sniper, removed jewelry from the list of items that can be enhanced as you can only enhance tier 5 jewelry with this mod
- Fixed description of Marksman resonating items to display earrings as a possible enhance item.
- Updated linings that are enhanced with Wizardry dusts to display proper name and description
- Updated requirements for Initiate and Journeyman upgrade recipes.
- The Dune Eagle Trading Company building has been re-organized. Izzet has moved upstairs to her office as well.
- Apprentice quests now display you have learned the recipe on screen in addition to notifying you via dialogue box and chat box.
- Harvest charm recipe was added for lower level charm makers.
- Charm recipes have had their descriptions updated and their action point total increased slightly.
- Charms and the charm quests in general have been updated/refined.
- Some quest recipe actions were costing 25 points when they should have been costing 0. This has been fixed.
- Gratosha now doesn’t give Martok outfitters and artisans duplicate improved tools.
- Workman’s Shirt of Problem Solving now has a graphic.
- Ahgram crafting faction advanced work orders have their rewards updated.
- Some advanced work orders were not showing up to players when they should have been. This has been fixed.
- Harvesting - Some crafted harvesting helms have had their stats adjusted.
DIPLOMACY NOTES
- Neck items are now standardized to new Presence values (generally higher by 10-50%), and in weight and other statistics.
- Ring items are now standardized to new Presence values (generally higher by 10-50%), and in weight and other statistics.
- Tier 3 Thestran Clothing is now live on Informants there.
- Tier 3 leg and foot items mysteriously swapped places from Trends to Plots and vice versa. They have been smacked on the nose and sent back to their proper item tables.
- Now that Thannis Heartsworn will successfully give out “Playing Matchmaker,” Samantha Rusten will correctly give out “Local Maidens” (the second in the “Moonstruck Fool” quest line) so that you can actually make it to “Playing Matchmaker.”
WORLD POPULATION NOTES
- Beranid Hills - The Graystone dungeon in Beranid Hills is now fully itemized.
- Bordinar’s Cleft - A select number of Gwartak Griffonhunters will no longer instantly respawn.
- Celestine Ward – Ancient ritual candles are no longer governed by trivial loot code.
- Dahknarg - The Dahknarg Guard hail text has been fixed. They are again offering directions.
- Falgarholm - The various wolves of Falgarholm now allow players to skin their corpses.
- Gorgalok – Rare spawns now drop loot when you kill them. Huzzah!
- Jathred’s Twist - Prince Azad in Jathred’s Twist now offers a quest to any adventurers willing to heed his call.
- Jathred’s Twist - Several of the rare overland NPCs will now appear at their correct (increased) rate.
- Jathred’s Twist - The minotaurs in this area will now reward arena reward tokens
- Khal - Guard Suty will now properly give directions to the ship to Kojan.
- Khal – Guards will now give you the proper directions to the artificer instructor.
- Nusibe Necropolis - City of the Dead has received a population and itemization pass. This dungeon is designed for small to full size groups of players levels 45 and above.
- Pantheon of the Ancients - Tashini no longer casts AOE spells on the escorting party.
- Pantheon of the Ancients - Major overhaul of the final encounter to ensure it performs more reliably.
- Pantheon of the Ancients - The Avatars of Mara and Caia now have an immunity set on par with the boss mob encounters in Vanguard.
- Pantheon of the Ancients - Minions of the Reaper will now despawn after the Avatar of Caia receives enough damage to awaken her sister.
- Pantheon of the Ancients - Lowered the damage output of the Minions of the Reaper as well as an amount of their hitpoints.
- Pantheon of the Ancients - The Avatars of Mara and Caia no
Before I buy this game, I want to try it. No trial, no buy. If anyone has a buddy key and don't need it email me at russellb1975@sbcglobal.net
I'm not gonna get suckerd into buying a game without testing first. If I like it, i'll buy it. It actually seems like it has potential, but so MANY mixed reviews. I want to judge on my own. But with a test drive.
Me = Kid who saw a kitten use the sandpark to make his pooh pooh
I tell the staff about it, but they tell me it is designed that way. I won't go play into the sandpark with kitty's pooh pooh digged somewhere. Of course, I warn my friends about the kitten using the sandpark as pooh-poohing area. The staff show more concern with me warning my friends then with actually removing the pooh-pooh...even removing the pooh pooh now isn't like removing it right away (by release), won't interest as many folks now as it would if they would have taken immediate action.
Kitty's pooh pooh= raiding enforcement, 20% of the sandpark is litten with pooh pooh...gross!
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Sure, get a buddy key and try it out first... if you have the patience to wait hours for the massive game download and then the equally massive patch. You may find it's worth it for a free peek. For me though, it's definitely not worth the time. Sure, they may be doing a good job of ironing out the worst of the bugs (according to pro-VG posts I've read, have to assume some of it's true at least) but that's not even the problem. Neither was the performance a particularly deciding factor, since my system could well cope with the strain (though of course there's still no excuse for such shabby coding). What had me cancelling my subscription inside the first month was a whole raft of other reasons that are fundamental weaknesses of the game... whether that's the fault of the original design, or of having to compromise in an attempt to reach a more economically viable audience size I can't say. What I can say is that I found the game visually unappealing (the art was detailed, but there was no `style' to it, no artistic direction) and the gameplay completely unoriginal. It's the same tired old questing model as all the other MMOs out there, it's the same bland `wildernesses' filled with uniformly scattered, level-specific mobs waiting to be harvested. The world is huge, sure, but that's not much of a drawcard when there aren't enough players on each server to make it feel populated, and the NPCs are the same old store mannequins standing around waiting to give you inane quests they could be doing themselves (since they're usually much higher level than you anyway). The so-called drawcards are little more than gimmicks - flying mounts and boats (if/when they appear) merely offset the larger scale of the world, which would otherwise take forever to travel across by more conventional means. As for the Diplomacy and Crafting systems, for me they quickly changed from `innovative and interesting' to `repetitive mini-games', little more than a sidetrack to break the tedium of the rest of the game... might as well just turn on Windows Freecell. The much-vaunted "character diversity" is a joke - physically all the races are the same body model with a different head stuck on like Pez dispensers. The ability to control eye closeness and nostril flare is pointless given that you spend 99% of your time looking at your character's ass as it plods woodenly through empty zone after empty zone, while other peoples' characters are usually moving by too fast to make out that level of detail. More obvious elements of distinguishing characters such as hairstyle, clothing colour, accessories etc., are by contrast absurdly limited, so it still feels like you're in an Asian MMO where all the characters of one racial type are clones. The classes are mostly shameless WoW clones with few options for skill variance, so that one tanking warrior is more or less exactly the same as all the other tanking warriors. Finally, I found the combat system to be competely without an original idea. It's the old 1-2-3 keypress combo, standing around watching second-rate animations while waiting for the computer to roll the dice and decide the combat for you... either that or the running/kiting tried-and-true tactic for casters and ranged attackers. If you happen to be on a PvP server it feels exactly the same as WoW - no particular incentive to fight against another player except for the sheer "thrill" of it, which wears off pretty fast. Considering what other MMOs due for 2007 release are offering in terms of combat innovation (actually trying to bring an element of player skill into combat), this game felt out-of-date from the moment it came out of the box. So yeah, give it a try if you have nothing better to do... but keep your expectations suitably low, and be prepared to consign it quickly to the trash heap when the half-dozen or so truly promising releases for this year start appearing. Games that will inevitably look better, play better and be more immersive than Vanguard can ever hope to be. Games you will actually WANT to play, not just time-fillers.
Not bad for a jaded, one sided point of view. Now my one sided view.
Your post seems to fail to take into account one major factor. The game was released months early, unfinished, stuff missing and some things not working quite right.
Boats are in game.
Artistic direction is subjective. Hence I do not believe this to even be a point to consider. I say toMARto, you say toMAYto.
Combat, agreed nothing really new here, but then there was nothing really new in WoW, CoX, Ryzom, LOTRO, EQ2, AA, etc etc. True there are titles in the pipeline that offer a different way of doing things in an MMORPG, but at no point did I EVER think that VG would have a new refreshing style of combat.
Animations. I still can not for life of me see where people are coming from on this. I think the animations look fine and they offer some much nicer combat moves than other games like WoW.
Character Diversity. Yes I agree this is pretty sub par at the moment. However, I fully believe they will add more options in the near future. I notice that you can completely change your avatar at any time ( from the login screen ), such as hieght, colour, hair style, face style etc etc. Expect more art work to be added to improve character item diversity.
Populations. Server dependant for a start. I see plenty of people out and about on my travels. Depends on what time you are playing.
Crafting. I think this will always be an issue in any game. After all making the same thing in real life can be very boring. I used to drive a lathe, occasionally having to make hundreds of components, all the same. very tedious. Anyway, it's difficult to devise a system that allows you to make something consistantly in game, whilst allowing the player to become a better crafter ( level up ) to be able to produce more items. And keeping a fair balance.
You seem to display all the symptoms of someone who expected way too much. Forget the "hype". One must remember that reading up on a new game and all it's features is a bit like reading a great book. Your imagination runs wild, you read bits you like and visualise it. Then the film comes out and you hate it because it is not how YOU imagined it would be. It fails to live up to your version.
Go back and read some of the blurbs on the back of old spectrum games, they sound great. The reality however was very different, that difference was technological constraint.
Woah! Heh, no need for the spam attack dude... I don't think even people who LOVE the game would bother reading through all those update notes. And besides, it's a moot point really - I had heard/read almost no hype whatsoever about Vanguard prior to its launch. In fact, the little I had heard they seem to have delivered. I'm certainly not coming from a position of bitterness or disillusionment. I'm also not an ex-SWG player, so I don't hate Sony (in fact I played Planetside back in the day and thoroughly enjoyed it).
I guess my feelings toward Vanguard are grounded in what I, as an MMO consumer, would and should expect from an MMO release in 2007. The standard is set by the market, both in terms of game finish (just because Brad/VG admitted to a failure in this regard certainly doesn't make it excusable), game innovation and game quality. I don't think there are many out there who could seriously argue that, by the end of this year, Vanguard will still be a comparable and competitive product in the MMO world.
I accept your refutations of some of my points, such as server populations... after all, I signed off after my `free' month was up so I have no idea what the community is looking like today except from others' postings (which are almost always biased one way or the other). However I still can't find anything in your reply which might change my fundamental opinion of the game - that it's just more of the same old thing, but bigger and far more cumbersome. All your points are either "It's subjective, let's agree to disagree" or "Yeah I agree it's not that great, but it was never going to be" or "Yeah I agree it's not that great, but it's gonna change soon (I hope!)". Sorry mate, but you're just not selling me. You may be able to overlook its mediocrity, but I can't.
Woah! Heh, no need for the spam attack dude... I don't think even people who LOVE the game would bother reading through all those update notes. And besides, it's a moot point really - I had heard/read almost no hype whatsoever about Vanguard prior to its launch. In fact, the little I had heard they seem to have delivered. I'm certainly not coming from a position of bitterness or disillusionment. I'm also not an ex-SWG player, so I don't hate Sony (in fact I played Planetside back in the day and thoroughly enjoyed it).
I guess my feelings toward Vanguard are grounded in what I, as an MMO consumer, would and should expect from an MMO release in 2007. The standard is set by the market, both in terms of game finish (just because Brad/VG admitted to a failure in this regard certainly doesn't make it excusable), game innovation and game quality. I don't think there are many out there who could seriously argue that, by the end of this year, Vanguard will still be a comparable and competitive product in the MMO world.
I accept your refutations of some of my points, such as server populations... after all, I signed off after my `free' month was up so I have no idea what the community is looking like today except from others' postings (which are almost always biased one way or the other). However I still can't find anything in your reply which might change my fundamental opinion of the game - that it's just more of the same old thing, but bigger and far more cumbersome. All your points are either "It's subjective, let's agree to disagree" or "Yeah I agree it's not that great, but it was never going to be" or "Yeah I agree it's not that great, but it's gonna change soon (I hope!)". Sorry mate, but you're just not selling me. You may be able to overlook its mediocrity, but I can't.
Totally fair and reasoned reply.
Although I wasn't trying to win you round, simply countering some your opinion with some of my opinion.
Again, the crux of the matter is expectations Vs real world restictions. I agree that one would expect the genre to have moved on in terms of execution. But yet again we come up against personal taste. Some people wanted more of the same with some knobs on. Others want something far more 'modern' in its approach.
This game isn't dead yet ? they lose over 100k a day on this pile, Server costs , electricity , employee salaries, and soon unemployment comp and contract buy outs. . If their was ever a mmo dubbed "the titanic" this one is it....
ICE-BERG !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just my Opinion
I guess you are doing their finances since you know their exact expenses....that or you have a very VIVID imagination.
And please post your opinion in smaller font next time.
I am not going to resort to big colorful letters, but if you are interested in the game, shooting for a trial key first, never hurts. No need to throw around your hard earned money without sampling the product.
The game was way over-hyped and too many expectations were laid heavily down upon the shoulders of this game. However, if you look at some other forums, the same this is beginning to happen there. Over-hype and over-inflated expectation are starting to raise their ugly heads. Won't name any game names, but I think we all know the top two that most are banking on at the end of this year and beginning of next.
Now, the current game going out this evening is a bit different. There was hype, there are high expectations. It's competing with a classic trilogy and a Hollywood blockbuster. But, we know the tune on this game, so I think after the next 2 weeks there could be an alternative for a few.
We shall see...
All I want is the truth Just gimme some truth John Lennon
I think it's one of the best mmo's out there. But as I learnt by playing VG, a good game doesn't necesserily mean a fun game. I think this game has all the things you could ask of a modern game to day, even more so IF you played it virtually lag-free like me ( I seemed to be one of the very few who played this game at a good frame rate all the time).
However, as I said, I didn't think it was very fun.
Time is something they really don't have, considering that LOTR, WAR, Conan, and other games are coming down the pipeline. They've got to squash as many bugs as possible, overhaul and optimize performance, and work to bring in new players while trying to retain as many of the ones they have now. If any of those newer games offer a more stable, polished, and immersive experience for players at launch, VG will be in deeper trouble than it already is.
Hope, on the other hand, is a fair thing to have. I don't think anyone really wants the game to fail. I know I had quite a bit of hope for it, especially considering the devs behind the game, and seeing the game as it is was a massive disappointment. But hope, just like faith, shouldn't be blind. It should exist, yet be tempered by the reality of the way things are now. They've got a long ways to go to catch up to where they should have been at launch.
And just having hope, or giving them time to get the game in order, isn't enough to justify subscription fees for many people. Not everyone likes to pay for potential. That's just the way it is.
for those of you wondering about this game... go get a buddy key from some nice folks you know and download the game. play it, love it, buy it! it is the greatest mmo ever made. you won't regret it. just be sure to finetune your system and make sure that you have good system. don't listen to all these people saying this game sucks blah blah. they are overexaggerating. as long as you kept your good system in tune, you will be fine. DOWNLOAD VG GET BUDDY KEY
I love statments like "This is the best game ever, there is no denying it.!" and that's in responce to hundreds of people denying it. Blanket absolute statments make me giggle.
Comments
wanna make a wager maybe ? It will take a few months to see how it pans out , but i'm pretty confident in my analysis
who me ?
wanna make a wager maybe ? It will take a few months to see how it pans out , but i'm pretty confident in my analysisLoL if anything brad will sell it to SOE and it will be around for a long time and yes ide bet on that!
wanna make a wager maybe ? It will take a few months to see how it pans out , but i'm pretty confident in my analysisLoL if anything brad will sell it to SOE and it will be around for a long time and yes ide bet on that!
read my oother post, that is my analysis. That is my position is that the game will either do 2 things , be sold or cancelled . Really the game would make more money if it was just canceled, right on a renewal period bam , just shutdown the servers lol . They make almost all the money back
who me ?
Sure, get a buddy key and try it out first... if you have the patience to wait hours for the massive game download and then the equally massive patch. You may find it's worth it for a free peek.
For me though, it's definitely not worth the time. Sure, they may be doing a good job of ironing out the worst of the bugs (according to pro-VG posts I've read, have to assume some of it's true at least) but that's not even the problem. Neither was the performance a particularly deciding factor, since my system could well cope with the strain (though of course there's still no excuse for such shabby coding).
What had me cancelling my subscription inside the first month was a whole raft of other reasons that are fundamental weaknesses of the game... whether that's the fault of the original design, or of having to compromise in an attempt to reach a more economically viable audience size I can't say. What I can say is that I found the game visually unappealing (the art was detailed, but there was no `style' to it, no artistic direction) and the gameplay completely unoriginal. It's the same tired old questing model as all the other MMOs out there, it's the same bland `wildernesses' filled with uniformly scattered, level-specific mobs waiting to be harvested.
The world is huge, sure, but that's not much of a drawcard when there aren't enough players on each server to make it feel populated, and the NPCs are the same old store mannequins standing around waiting to give you inane quests they could be doing themselves (since they're usually much higher level than you anyway). The so-called drawcards are little more than gimmicks - flying mounts and boats (if/when they appear) merely offset the larger scale of the world, which would otherwise take forever to travel across by more conventional means. As for the Diplomacy and Crafting systems, for me they quickly changed from `innovative and interesting' to `repetitive mini-games', little more than a sidetrack to break the tedium of the rest of the game... might as well just turn on Windows Freecell.
The much-vaunted "character diversity" is a joke - physically all the races are the same body model with a different head stuck on like Pez dispensers. The ability to control eye closeness and nostril flare is pointless given that you spend 99% of your time looking at your character's ass as it plods woodenly through empty zone after empty zone, while other peoples' characters are usually moving by too fast to make out that level of detail. More obvious elements of distinguishing characters such as hairstyle, clothing colour, accessories etc., are by contrast absurdly limited, so it still feels like you're in an Asian MMO where all the characters of one racial type are clones. The classes are mostly shameless WoW clones with few options for skill variance, so that one tanking warrior is more or less exactly the same as all the other tanking warriors.
Finally, I found the combat system to be competely without an original idea. It's the old 1-2-3 keypress combo, standing around watching second-rate animations while waiting for the computer to roll the dice and decide the combat for you... either that or the running/kiting tried-and-true tactic for casters and ranged attackers. If you happen to be on a PvP server it feels exactly the same as WoW - no particular incentive to fight against another player except for the sheer "thrill" of it, which wears off pretty fast. Considering what other MMOs due for 2007 release are offering in terms of combat innovation (actually trying to bring an element of player skill into combat), this game felt out-of-date from the moment it came out of the box.
So yeah, give it a try if you have nothing better to do... but keep your expectations suitably low, and be prepared to consign it quickly to the trash heap when the half-dozen or so truly promising releases for this year start appearing. Games that will inevitably look better, play better and be more immersive than Vanguard can ever hope to be. Games you will actually WANT to play, not just time-fillers.
Your post seems to fail to take into account one major factor. The game was released months early, unfinished, stuff missing and some things not working quite right.
Boats are in game.
Artistic direction is subjective. Hence I do not believe this to even be a point to consider. I say toMARto, you say toMAYto.
Combat, agreed nothing really new here, but then there was nothing really new in WoW, CoX, Ryzom, LOTRO, EQ2, AA, etc etc. True there are titles in the pipeline that offer a different way of doing things in an MMORPG, but at no point did I EVER think that VG would have a new refreshing style of combat.
Animations. I still can not for life of me see where people are coming from on this. I think the animations look fine and they offer some much nicer combat moves than other games like WoW.
Character Diversity. Yes I agree this is pretty sub par at the moment. However, I fully believe they will add more options in the near future. I notice that you can completely change your avatar at any time ( from the login screen ), such as hieght, colour, hair style, face style etc etc. Expect more art work to be added to improve character item diversity.
Populations. Server dependant for a start. I see plenty of people out and about on my travels. Depends on what time you are playing.
Crafting. I think this will always be an issue in any game. After all making the same thing in real life can be very boring. I used to drive a lathe, occasionally having to make hundreds of components, all the same. very tedious. Anyway, it's difficult to devise a system that allows you to make something consistantly in game, whilst allowing the player to become a better crafter ( level up ) to be able to produce more items. And keeping a fair balance.
You seem to display all the symptoms of someone who expected way too much. Forget the "hype". One must remember that reading up on a new game and all it's features is a bit like reading a great book. Your imagination runs wild, you read bits you like and visualise it. Then the film comes out and you hate it because it is not how YOU imagined it would be. It fails to live up to your version.
Go back and read some of the blurbs on the back of old spectrum games, they sound great. The reality however was very different, that difference was technological constraint.
For the record, here are the last 15 days patch notes;
Build 1792 March / 28 / 2007
Vanguard Build 1792 Patch Notes 3/28/2007
NOTE: This patch is noticeably larger than previous updates because we are adding new art assets to the game. Look for more news about this coming soon!
GAMEPLAY NOTES
- Fix for DoTs not working in PvP
- Experience rates for killing NPCs have had a significant increase. The experience changes start as a small amount at low levels and scale up to a large amount in the early twenties. From then on the increase remains fixed. This increase should be very noticeable for players 15+. This change is in response to actual player leveling times not meeting our original target times within many different subsets of the player population. This increase will bring us much closer to our goal without exceeding it.
- The cost to repair items with high rarities has been reduced.
- Amplifying abilities are now capped at 10 times original strength.
- Amplifying abilities no longer works for all abilities in the ability line. Diminishing returns still applies to everything in the ability line.
- If an ability is taken to full amplification strength it will now experience an extended refresh time.
- Lull type abilities now state that they have a chance to aggro on resist rather than leaving that information to be a surprise.
- All lull type abilities now have the same chance to be resisted.
- Player Housing: All existing housing permissions have been wiped to support new permission functionality.
- Player Housing: The information you receive from inspecting a plot, building, and construction site has changed. All information is now included in one UI window with tabs for each section. All players will now be able to get basic information about what they are inspecting even if they are not the owner of the plot or building.
- Player Housing: Permissions are now set for a plot instead of for a building. You can now specify various permissions for plots through check boxes. Mouse over the check boxes in the Create Permission window to get an over view of what the permission allows.
- Player Housing: Players can now give guild access via guild ranks to their plots and buildings.
- Player Housing: The permission system will continue to expand as more features are added to player housing.
- Player Housing: You now have the ability to recall to your house. Check your ability book under the general section for the new ability.
- Player Housing: You can now preview the required construction materials for a building type by clicking the "Building Details" button on the construction tab.
- Player Housing: Plot prices will now update dynamically. You upkeep price will no longer be locked in when the plot in purchased.
- Player Housing: Coin for upkeep is no longer entered as copper. A coin bar is now present with the proper denominations.
ADVENTURING NOTES
- Bard – Fox Overtakes Hare has had its damage increased, now roots the target for 6 seconds, has had its refresh timer dropped to 20 seconds and will crit much more often.
- Cleric – Anathema VII has been removed because it was a copy of Doom I.
- Cleric – Turn Undead now has the correct display numbers and floating text.
- Blood Mage – Conduct, the Conducive Symbiote granted ability no longer requires a symbiote to use.
- Blood Mage – Plated Symbiote now states how much damage it will return when you are attacked.
- Blood Mage – Conducive Symbiote and Quickening Symbiote can only be cast on a single target one time every 5 minutes.
- Blood Mage – Blood Feast is now a toggled ability. It has also been changed to work as an aura. This makes it go away when you die and work for multiple BMGs in one group.
- Blood Mage – Symbiotes are now soulbound
- Blood Mage – All symbiotes now state that there can only be one on a target at a time.
- Disciple – Fixed a display bug with Leech’s Grasp. It now displays the correct amount of endurance drained.
- Dread Knight – Fell Aura (dreadful countenance rank 3) no longer pulses on and off while it is applied
- Dread Knight – Dread Tide (dreadful countenance rank 5) now applies itself to the opponent as intended.
- Dread Knight – Slay now deals damage, roots your opponent, is usable at 20% target health, costs 30 endurance and crits 50% of the time instead of directly killing your opponent. Also has a 20 second refresh.
- Dread Knight – Slay now opens chains when it crits.
- Necromancer - Necromancer abomination no longer requires that all the grafts be reequipped after relogging. Additionally, if you log out with your minion still summoned, you will no longer have to recast it when you log back in.
- Necromancer - Monstrous Sundering Fist now correctly grants Sundering Fist IX. This increases the damage of the fist.
- Paladin – Vanquish is now more likely to critical.
- Ranger – Form of Precision no longer jumps to level 4 when you are supposed to be at level 3.
- Ranger – Moved Intercept I to level 12 and Speed of the Wolf to level 12
- Ranger – Fleetblade now costs 15 END, down from 22 END.
- Rogue – Knee Break now gives feedback when its used.
- Rogue – Ravage now actually exploits Mesmerized or Lethargic.
- Rogue – Shroud of Shadows is now usable only in stealth.
- Rogue – Fatal Stroke will now open attack chains on critical.
- Warrior – Shield Wall now increases block chance by 80% for 15 seconds and has a 10 minute refresh timer.
- Warrior – Commands can now be used out of combat
- Warrior – Smash has had its refresh time lowered to 8 seconds.
- Warrior – Riposte has had its refresh removed.
- Warrior – Riposte has had its damage increased
- Warrior – Blade’s Bite now costs the intended 10 endurance.
- Warrior – Offensive Stance now increases damage by 20%, accuracy by 10% and reduces mitigation by 10% (down from 20%)
- Warrior – Adjusted the level progression of Stinging Cut. Levels are now 14, 22, 30, 38, 46
- Warrior – Stinging Cut V has been added to trainers.
- Warrior - Adjusted the level progression of Blade’s Bite. Levels are now 30, 38, 46
- Warrior – Blade’s Bite III has been added to trainers.
- Warrior – Both Stinging Cut and Blade’s Bite now add an initial chunk of hate and some hate over time. The hate is now applied over 15 seconds, instead of 30.
- Warrior – Commands have changed. Single target commands and group commands no longer share a common refresh timer. You can perform a single target command followed immediately by a group command with no delay. All group commands continue to share a common refresh timer. All single target commands continue to share a common refresh timer.
- Warrior – Group commands now have a refresh timer of 30 seconds, down from 45.
- Warrior – Strike Now has a refresh timer of 45 seconds, down from 60
- Warrior – Commands no longer incur global refresh
- Warrior – Defensive type commands now last for 8 seconds instead of 6.
- Warrior – Killing Blow has had its damage greatly increased, its endurance cost drastically reduced and it can now open chains on crits…which should happen often.
- Warrior – Increased the hate reduction on Withdraw and made it consistent across all upgrades.
- Warrior – Removed the mitigation penalty from enrage.
- Warrior – Battle cries are no longer tied to the same refresh timers. Each can be performed individually.
- Warrior – Shout of Fury IV is now available at level 36 and Shout of Fury V is available at level 48.
- Warrior – Shout of Fury now lasts for a flat 12 seconds across all levels
- Warrior – Roar of Rage has a slightly different level progression to make for a more smooth progression of hate. The new levels are: 22, 32, 42, 50
- Warrior – Roar of Rage IV is now available on trainers at level 50
CRAFTING NOTES
- Abandoning a work order will now remove all work order items related to that work order
- Kojani ship and house quests now require Kojani faction.
- A very high level quest concerning crafting catalysts has been added in Ahgram.
- Fixed description of second tier furnace failure as it had the description of a different attached to it.
- Adjusted the stats on cloaks with Melee Evasion.
- Diplomacy deconstruction quests have been added. They are available to tailors and weaponsmiths.
- Fisher’s Pen no longer gives a double-dose of Thestran Watch faction for a successful work order hand in. You should only get 10 Thestran Watch faction now.
- You will now see crafting and assembly recipes in the trainer list even if you do not meet the faction or flag requirements.
- Splitting a stack of crafted items will no longer cause the maker's mark to be lost on the new stack. You will also now be able to restack the items.
- Corrected a travel journal entry for the Understanding Nyi quest.
- Fixed some pieces of crafting gear that were set to the wrong rarity level.
- Rotten Material should no longer have an invisible AP penalty
- Gwartak Clan Shortsword should now raise shortsword skill instead of longsword skill
- Current furniture recipes are now available on outpost trainers as well.
- An addition has been made to crafting advisors that should now let you see the tutorial restart option if you are still level 1 or 2 in crafting and still did not see the restart option. This should solve all issues relating to players unable to continue the crafting training.
- Work Orders - Fixed issue with tier 5 work order tables that was causing cash items rewards to be replaced with the infamous “Ghostbuster” item.
DIPLOMACY NOTES
- All Diplomacy Chest items are now enabled for deconstruction.
- All Diplomacy Shoulder items are now enabled for deconstruction.
- All Diplomacy Waist items are now enabled for deconstruction.
- All Diplomacy Leg items are now enabled for deconstruction.
- All Diplomacy Foot items are now enabled for deconstruction.
- All Diplomacy Hand items are now enabled for deconstruction.
- All Diplomacy Held items are now enabled for deconstruction.
- Tursh Academics now give appropriate rewards for Incite parleys.
- Thestra tier 3 Diplomacy waist items now correctly equip to the waist slot and are no longer masquerading as shoulder items.
- Thestra tier 3 Diplomacy ring items now correctly display ring icons
- Writs are now available with the Royal Petitioners of Bordinar’s Cleft for diplomats of at least 150 skill and 500 prestige faction with the city of Bordinar’s Cleft. Look in the Chamber of Petition to find them cycling among the other dignitaries.
- Writs are now available with the Capuchehaies of Ahgram for diplomats of at least 150 skill and 500 prestige faction with the city of Ahgram. Look in the Ahgram Audience Chamber to find them cycling among the other dignitaries.
- Writs are now available with the Speakers of Ca’ial Brael for diplomats of at least 150 skill and 500 prestige faction with the city of Ca’ial Brael. Look in the Antechamber of the Sun to find them cycling among the other dignitaries.
- Tursh Academics now give appropriate rewards for Incite parleys.
- Thestra tier 3 Diplomacy waist items now correctly equip to the waist slot and are no longer masquerading as shoulder items.
- Thestra tier 3 Diplomacy ring items now correctly display ring icons.
- Tier 3 shoulder items are now available on Plots informants. Trade in your tier 3 rumor and evidence of plots to receive them.
- All Tier 3 Ring items now offer at least 2 different types of Presence. Items that offered 2 Presence types now offer 4. Items that offered 3 Presence types now offer 4. Some values have been adjusted upward as well.
- Diplomats with 1000 Prestige faction in one of the nine major cities on Telon can now trade in this faction for a unique title. Seek out the various rulers/administrators of the nine cities (King Mithdor, King Baran, Warden Iona, Magistrate Jadedragon, etc.) and speak with them to earn this title.
- A mysterious Prestige Altar has appeared on all three continents. Those who carry titles of great prestige can approach them, hoping for even greater title of honor and a gift of experience.
- Tier 2 Horse Quest available for diplomats on Qalia of at least 200 skill. See Haftan the Black in the main square of Ahgram. You must have completed the Tier 1 Horse Quest and have a young courier horse on your person to accept the quest. Haftan will supply one at no cost if you don’t have one. Side quests along the way will provide opportunities to acquire tack, horseshoes, and courier saddlebags as well.
- Tier 2 Horse Quest available for diplomats on Thestra of at least 200 skill. See Svena Remniol in the court of King Targonor in New Targonor. You must have completed the Tier 1 Horse Quest and have a young courier horse on your person to accept the quest. Svena will supply one at no cost if you don’t have one. Side quests along the way will provide opportunities to acquire tack, horseshoes, and courier saddlebags as well.
- Tier 2 Horse Quest available for diplomats on Kojan of at least 200 skill. See Poet Kan Ya in Tanvu to begin the quest. You must have completed the Tier 1 Horse Quest and have a young courier horse on your person to accept the quest. Kan Ya will supply one at no cost if you don’t have one. Side quests along the way will provide opportunities to acquire tack, horseshoes, and courier saddlebags as well.
- “It’s My Party” is now available in the Black Orchid Forum with Duchess Perthia Hilthorn for diplomats of at least 326 skill who have 250 or more faction with House Hilthorn.
WORLD POPULATION NOTES
- Beranid Downs - Overland population in the Beranid Hills, Fields of Despair and Plains of Anguish has been thinned out.
- Celestine Ward - The rare candle drop rate from NPCs deep within Vol Tuniel and Thelaseen has been increased.
- Jathred’s Twist – The back of Vault of the Hidden has received a named NPC and itemization pass.
- Jathred’s Twist - Morr the Mighty, Sharram and Zahn at the Minotaur camps in Jathred’s Twist should now drop the correct loot.
- NPC - Tishra the Blood Priest – Fixed a bug where the unattackable version could get aggro on players and attack them.
- Nusibe Necropolis – The Cleric/Paladin quests, Blessings of Vol Anari, have been fixed. NOTE: Players currently on the quest will need to abandon the quest. Also, players will need to delete the Mysterious Crystal and/or Crystal of Holy Blessings, and obtain a new one by re-entering the dungeon from the entrance.
- Nusibe Necropolis – Esprit Sparkles has been revamped. NOTE: Any Shaman currently on this quest will have to abandon it and start it again from the Dire Spirit.
- Nusibe Necropolis – Necromancers should keep an eye out for a quest-starting orb.
- Nusibe Necropolis – The Wrath and Spirit of Nusibe will now show face again, whereas before they never spawned.
- Nusibe Necropolis – Caress of the Dead no longer hits Clerics and Paladins. No really. This time it’s true!
- Nusibe Necropolis – The Sentinel of Nusibe will no longer assist other minions in the area.
- Quest – The Purification of Graystone – A two-handed maul option has been added to the rewards for this quest.
- Quest – The Purification of Graystone - Players who have selected the one-handed mace, the two-handed axe, or the martial staff will be able to permanently trade in their selections for the two-handed maul.
- Quest – Penetrating The Core – The components will no longer drop if you have the dagger made.
- Quest – The Purification of Graystone - The quest to exchange the one-handed mace for the two-handed maul will also allow players to exchange the mace for any of the other melee weapons.
- Quests – Weapon rewards for the quest The Purification of Graystone have been adjusted.
- Quests - A martial staff and a focus item are now available as rewards for the quest The Purification of Graystone. Any players who have already completed the quest and selected either the martial sword or the staff will be able to exchange them at the Spirit of Valor for their respective alternatives.
- Quests - Kill count updates for the quests offered by the Spirits of Vengeance will no longer occur at many times their intended rate.
- Rahz Inkur - Fixed a typo in a popup text alert
- Rahz Inkur – It should no longer be possible to accidentally activate beacons while not on a seal thereby causing them to vanish.
- Rahz Inkur – Certain NPCs within Rahz Inkur will now drop vials at an increased rate.
- Rahz Inkur – The number of beacons needed in order to activate a seal has been reduced to 15.
- Rahz Inkur – Vials, dusts, and powders can no longer be sold to vendors.
- Rahz Inkur – The helm stats for the main questline have been adjusted.
- Rahz Inkur – 5 shimmering zull portal shards are now required in order for them to be activated at a seal.
- River Valley - Flowers in the river valley can now be looted without the item requirement. Drop rates and spawn rates have also been increased.
- Thelaseen – Ancient elven chests now have a chance to drop candles in place of a chance to drop armor pieces.
Items
- Cloaks, both crafting and adventuring alike, have seen an appearance pass to increase the variety of tints and models available.
- Level 41+ Adventuring Armor has seen a preliminary appearance pass; this should result in many new models and tints. A future pass may be needed to consolidate tints from individual areas and dungeons.
- Low level Qalian Bows have had their appearances fixed/updated.
- Some mid-level Thestran crossbows were found to be hiding about 50 meters away from their owners. The crossbows have been confiscated and replaced with more timid models until such a time that they decide to play nice.
- Some Graystone and Beranid Downs items have had their restriction flags updated; this will result in the Heroic items becoming Soulbound and the rest becoming non-Soulbound if they were previously
GUI NOTES
- Crafting steps will now show a progress bar for each individual action family below it so that you may more easily gauge individual progress and the effects of complications.
- Crafting action families will no longer sometimes stop refreshing or not appear as disabled correctly when they are complete.
- Added item compare to the UI, which activates by pressing Shift while examining an item. Alternatively, you can enable the new "Always Show Item Compare" setting for 24-hour pants comparison coverage.
- You will now see faction and flag requirements you do not meet listed in the crafting recipe description on recipe trainers.
- Items on merchants and in the loot window will now show as fully charged
- The stack number and charges of items being randomed for will now be visible.
- Escrow merchants will now correctly show stack and charge counts on items.
- Item examine tooltips should now show charges for all charged items, not just those that activate an ability.
- Items in the merchant window will now show charges.
- Trivial work orders will no longer be displayed as downright impossible
CODING NOTES
- When the "Tooltips Require Alt" setting is enabled, hotkeyed items will no longer show their item examine info unless you are holding Alt.
- Fix for some instances of NPCs showing a small amount of health after dying.
- Responsiveness should be improved when targeting something with many buffs/debuffs. This was particularly noticeable when targeting another player in PVP.
- Fixed a bug that caused stacks of loot to be converted to a single item when auto-looted after a random roll. This was most obvious when randoming for harvesting loot.
- Updated our version of OpenAL to a much newer version. This should now properly enumerate your sound devices and allow you to choose your native device (such as an X-Fi sound card) instead of just using the generic hardware or software devices (which are still available). Remember that you will need to completely quit out of the game and restart it after changing your sound device (found in the Audio tab of our Settings window) for the game to start using that new device. We recommend that you make sure you have the latest drivers for your sound card before selecting a device other than "Generic Hardware" or "Generic Software" and that you switch back to your previous sound device if you experience sound problems with the new device. You may want to compare sound quality and frame rate with each device to determine the best choice for you. If for some reason the game will not run after you have selected a new sound device, you can edit your VGClient.ini (found in your Vanguardin directory) and change the line that starts with "OpenALDeviceName=" to read "OpenALDeviceName=Generic Software" then save that file and try Vanguard again.
- Added new command, "/unlockcorpse", which unlocks the NPC corpse to the anyone in the world. You must be the corpse owner to use this command.
- Added new command, "/unlockcorpsetoplayer", which unlocks the NPC corpse to a specific player. If no first name is supplied, the defensive target is used.
- Added new command, “/decaytime”, which shows you the time left before an NPC corpse decays.
ART NOTES
- PC/NPC names are now opaque again.
~The Vanguard Team
Build 1780 March / 23 / 2007
Vanguard Build 1780 Patch Notes 3/23/2007
The following two updates went live with this morning’s (3/23) server restart:
Adventuring Kill Experience Update
Experience rates for killing NPCs have been increased significantly. The experience changes start as a small amount at low levels and scale up to a large amount in the early twenties. From then on, the increase remains fixed. This increase should be very noticeable for players above level fifteen. This change is in response to actual player leveling times not meeting our original target times within many different subsets of the player population. This increase will bring us much closer to our goal without exceeding it.
NPC Hit Points
Challenge level two and three NPCs have had their hit points reduced at levels above ten. The reduction will be small, but it will increase slightly each level.
~The Vanguard Team
Build 1780 March / 22 / 2007
Vanguard Build 1780 Patch Notes 3/22/2007
GAMEPLAY NOTES
- Disenchant – All abilities that remove Enchantments from opponents (including – Strip Enchantment, Asilam’s Disenchanting Cry, Despoil and Disenchant) now have a tool tip description that states their effectiveness levels.
ADVENTURING NOTES
- All Classes – You can no longer train two auto attacks. If you do not have an auto attack on your hotkeys, you should be able to find one on the general tab of your ability book. If there isn’t one there, please visit a trainer.
- Bard - Asilam's Beguiling Call is now available at level 32.
- Disciple - Baiting Strike is now a melee ability. Accordingly, it now uses endurance instead of energy, can only be used from melee range, and is now instant. Additionally, the tooltip and combat text associated with Baiting Strike should be more revealing. Baiting Strike should now animate correctly, as well.
- Dread Knight – Tier 3 of Dreadful Countenance (Fell Aura) now applies the actual third tier effect rather than reapplying the tier two effect.
- Necromancer - Added Drain Life V to trainers.
- Necromancer – Diseased Claw no longer heals your opponent.
- Paladin – Fury of Valus has been added to trainers at level 50
- Paladin – Cry of Prowess has been added to trainers at level 48
- Paladin – Increased the healing power of Lay on Hands
- Paladin – Protector’s Fury will no longer generate as much combat spam as it once did.
- Paladin – Added Judgment of the Unforgiving to trainers at level 46
- Paladin – Added Deny Life to trainers at level 36
- Paladin – Added Forbiddance to trainers at level 48
- Ranger – Blade of Storms now has a particle effect for the AE portion of the ability.
- Ranger – Offensive form now only increases melee damage. It also increases accuracy and lowers parry and dodge. Tool tips have been added.
- Ranger – Evasive Form now increases dodge and parry, but lowers damage. Tool tips have been added.
- Ranger – Precision Form now increases ranged damage and accuracy as well as dexterity.
- Rogue - Lacerate V was doing less damage than intended. This has been corrected.
- Shaman – Boon of Hayatet now only procs on melee attacks.
- Shaman - Added the ‘Thrown’ skill.
- Shaman - Added Ranged Attack to shaman trainers.
- Sorcerer – Your rings are now soul bound so they will not drop when you die.
CRAFTING NOTES
- Some complications have had their descriptions updated.
- The crafting organizations in New Targonor and Ahgram now give reduced continental and city crafting faction for successful completion for their work orders.
- Crafted bows have had their proc chances increased slightly
- Crafted bows stats have been updated where they were found to be lacking
- Crafted bows have had their effects attached properly and the effects have received some visual lovin’
- Fixed the problem preventing certain players from starting some of the ship quests even though they met the requirements.
- Corrected a problem with the turn-in of the Thestran Caravel Mast Mount quest.
- Corrected several items that were not being accepted in the deconstruction recipes.
- Corrected several outfitter recipes that were incorrectly asking for Bales instead of Bolts. This was only a display error.
- The quest for the Medium Kojani Sail is no longer repeatable.
- The display name of Mithril Yellow Barding has been corrected.
- Corrected the tier display information on certain resonating dusts.
- Gwartak Clan recipes now have a required grade line.
- A bug with the Decoration assembly in one of the Merchant’s Guild quests has been fixed.
- Most Kojan outfitter trainers will now let you train apprentice bags.
- The wood staff for the Qalian style quest now properly displays that it requires two boards.
- A spelling error in the Qalian journeyman tier quests has been fixed.
- Gwartak Shortsword has been brought in line with the other Gwartak items.
- Linne Owit’s “Dull Knives” advanced work order should now be given to artificers, not blacksmiths.
- Another instance of quest-only items coming out of supply packs has been fixed.
- Amateur Tier Quest Thestran cotton shoe recipe now actually states it will be making foot patterns, not hand patterns, in the action family.
- Fixed a bug in the recipes for the Fiend Hunter quest line that was resulting in grade-A destroyed material.
- Additional hail dialogues have been added to special quest NPCs to help players determine the necessary prerequisites.
- Fixed a bug in the Rewrought Infineum Light Armor recipe that was resulting in a failure item, regardless of grade.
- Artificer - Martial Staffs have had their levels increased
- Blacksmith - Crafted claws can now be equipped by disciples
- Outfitter - Crafted cloaks that missed the last item update have been updated
- Found a way to make crafted item names longer
- All rare and heroic special crafting tools are soulbound.
- Corrected an issue with the prime panel recipe.
- Many quest recipes have been updated to display their required grade.
- The Seer’s Amulet recipe now displays its required grade.
- Added Qalian and Kojani stone hammer recipes to Artificer instructors.
- Seer’s Amulet now boosts your reasoning as well as problem solving for crafting skills.
- Many advanced work orders have had their rewards updated.
Havesting
- Corrected the name of Gnarled Timber.
DIPLOMACY NOTES
- All tier 3 Informants have had their loot tables standardized by rarity and percentages. No longer will you receive one bauble for Evidence and four for Hearsay!
- Petitioner Goldsmith will no longer give out the quest “Dwarven Lagniappe for the Elven Queen.”
- Corrected loot table issues with Informants across Telon.
- Corrected some grammar issues with Informants across Telon.
- Diplomacy Held items now offer Presence in a minimum of two categories.
- Grammar and spelling fixes on Diplomacy Held items.
- Luminary Calliria now has a diplomacy skill level and is Clergy.
- Tomb of Raiders in Nusibe Necropolis now has Civic Diplomacy. Requirements are 250 Diplomacy skill and 450 Outsider Presence. One lever is active – Traps of Nusibe.
WORLD POPULATION NOTES
- Bordinar’s Cleft – The “Meet Your Instructor” quests for each class originating out of Rille’s Encampment now become available after completing “Remove the Head, and the Body Dies”
- Bordinar’s Cleft – The NPC “Kargor Iceblade” has been deactivated.
- Bordinar’s Cleft – The NPC “Guard Derbran Koboldbane” no longer blocks the Thestran Exchange Broker.
- Bordinar’s Cleft – The NPC “Sten Ironbrow” no longer falls off the bridge. It was sad times for him there for a while!
- Bordinar’s Cleft – The NPC “Acolyte Jula Frozensword” no longer clips through walls.
- Bordinar’s Cleft – “Lena Blackfire” no longer clips through walls.
- Cliffs of Ghelgad – Nimat Sekamqu will continue to speak and offer his wares, even when it is night.
- Cragwind Ridge - The quest Death From Above can now be completed.
- Cragwind Ridge - In addition to fixes to Death From Above, a new quest line has been added to Cragwind Ridge.
- Dahknarg - Minor updates to Travel Journal Entries: Fixed some directions to trainers, general goods venders and the banks.
- Gorgalok – The rare spawned NPC “Greshlok” is no longer invulnerable.
- Halgarad - Minor updates to Travel Journal Entries: Fixed some directions to trainers, general goods venders and the banks.
- Marsh of Peril - Players should now be able to collect the correct number of troll knuckles for the quest “Tolls for Trolls” in the Marsh of Peril.
- Martok - The travel journal entry for the Test of Will in the Rothrak Ogre Mound now correctly shows the location of the test chamber.
- Martok – The quest “Scavenger of Bone” now provides updates for Gloomscrys when slain.
- Martok – The quest “At the Root” now requires players to slay Yukionna within the Gardens of Xia’Liu.
- Mekalia – The experience gained while using the Ventilation Grates in Mekalia has been removed.
- Misthaven – The NPC “Grento Gartrus” will now pause once being hailed.
- Nusibe Necropolis - A curse will no longer be applied to you if you already have that same curse currently on you.
- Nusibe Necropolis – Curse traps no longer trigger on Clerics and Paladins.
- Nusibe Necropolis - The delay on the damage traps have been increased a bit.
- Nusibe Necropolis - Clerics and Paladins may find their backpacks a little heavier as they enter the Necropolis. Check your bags; there might be something new there.
- Nusibe Necropolis – Long ago, a small band of treasure hunters ventured to the City of the Dead. All but one fled out of fear. The sole adventurer, brave and without fear, entered alone. This adventurer fought long and hard into the necropolis, but his life came to an end before he could reach the Halls of the Warrior. Seek his remains.
- Nusibe Necropolis – Caress of the Dead will no longer linger at 1 second.
- Pantheon of the Ancients – The Trial of Death should now reset more quickly due to inactivity.
- Rahz Inkur - Zull Palace Scarabs have had their immunities reduced and can now be crowd controlled and stunned.
- Rahz Inkur - Majordomo Nerox in Afrit has promised vast riches and rewards to those adventurers brave enough to step foot inside Rahz Inkur and face head on the might of the Zull.
- Renton Keep - Zihurr Invasion – Fixed a bug that could prevent players from receiving credit for killing the Ant Queen.
- Renton Keep - Zihurr Invasion – Increased the availability of the Ant Queen to reduce the bottleneck on the quest.
- Renton Keep - Badger Aggression – You must now kill 8 badgers to complete this missive.
- Renton Keep – The quest “An Embarrassing Loss” has been fixed and is now completable. Some quest text has been modified slightly.
- Renton Keep – The quest “The Wisps Must Pay” has been changed to “The Rekk Must Pay” and now chains after “An Embarrassing Loss” has been completed.
- Rindol Field – Guard Ryebridge will now be willing to give directions to those who ask.
- Shrine of the Flame – The quest “Silver’s Delivery” (Part 1) has had a journal location added to it and the summary text modified for clarity.
- Shrine of the Flame – The quest “Silver’s Delivery” (Part 2) has had a journal location added to it and the summary text modified for clarity as well as removing the text suggesting to a following quest.
- Shrine of the Flame – The quest line “A Fairy’s Scorn” has been deactivated.
- Skrilien Point – The quest “Enter the Ra’Hazi” now states that it will reward coin and not items for completion.
- Southwatch – The quest “Lover’s Quarrel” now points to “Lookout Point” rather than Silvertalon Pride Roost.
- Three Rivers – The Quest “Tome of Stone” has had its summary text slightly modified to provide a more clear objective.
- Three Rivers – The “Unsorted Books” required to interact with in order to complete “Tome of Stone” now instantly respawns.
- Zaraj Arena – A mailbox has been added to the arena.
- Zaraj Arena - Trakan should have far less hitpoints now, and should also do more damage.
Items
- Some items from particularly regular NPCs in the Sands of Sorrow have had their rarity adjusted to “Common” and their item level adjusted to the region’s lowest level NPC because, well, the items were common. The NPCs that rewarded those items are currently restocked with items of their previous rarity and are now rewarding those items at the intended regularity.
~The Vanguard Team
Build 1780 March / 19 / 2007
Vanguard Build 1780 Patch Notes 3/19/2007
GAMEPLAY NOTES
- The Khal teleport-in location has moved off the docks. The teleport-out location has not changed.
- Ranged damage over time abilities had a bug causing them do almost no damage. This has been fixed.
- A rounding bug with ability tooltips was found and fixed. This was causing some abilities to display in the tooltip as doing less damage than was done with the actual ability.
- Damage numbers in ranged attack tooltips now show the value properly scaled by your dexterity.
- Repair Bots will now despawn after 2 minutes
- Food once again restores health. You no longer need to sit before you eat to gain this benefit.
- Phoenixes should once again fight back
ADVENTURING NOTES
- Cleric, Necromancer, Psionicist and Sorcerer – Added indication to your invisibility abilities that states they have a chance to break early.
- Blood Mage – Mortal Calling is now out of combat only
- Disciple – Essence Thief has had its damage increased
- Disciple – Astral Walk is now out of combat only.
- Dread Knight - Scythe of Doom has had its damage increased
- Monk - Iron Hand has had a significant damage increase.
- Monk - Secret of Flames has had a significant damage increase and the chance to land a bonus fire DoT has been increased.
- Monk - Secret of Ice has had its chance to freeze increased and the freeze duration increased. This freeze prevents the target from moving or attacking and does not break on hit.
- Monk – Storm Stride will no longer attack your opponent from a distance when used outside of combat. It will actually transport you.
- Monk – the following abilities have had their damage increased:
Crescent Kick
Dragon's Rage
Sundering Dragon Claw
Jeering Kick
Spinning Fists
Hammer Fist
Three Finger Strike
Goading Slap
Eagle Claw
Tiger Pounces
Trapping Mantis Claw
Withering Palm
Steal the Wind
- Necromancer – Removed the duplicate auto attack. Depending on which auto attack you had, you may have to visit your trainer and retrain auto attack.
- Necromancer – Heart of the Overlord no longer removes hit points from the necromancer that owns the abomination with it equipped. This will prevent death loops if you do not have enough hit points to cover the debuff. (This is a temporary fix until we adjust the heart graft slot further).
- Necromancer – Fist and claw DoTs should now stack with each other.
- Necromancer – You can now find all of your level 10 abilities on the arcane spellcaster trainers.
- Necromancer – Scourging Fist grafts now actually grant abilities.
- Necromancer – Increased the damage on Sundering Fist Grafts. These used to be doing the same damage as their uncommon counterparts.
- Necromancer – Added a placeholder particle to Death Shroud
- Necromancer – Claw of Devastation II no longer heals.
- Paladin – Wrath of Vol Anari can now be performed.
- Paladin – Aegis Strike has been added to trainers at level 6
- Paladin - Shield of Chastening has been added to trainers at level 42
- Paladin – Shield of Rebuke has been added to trainers as level 34
- Paladin – Shield of Resolve has been added to trainers at level 38
- Paladin – Shield of Solace has been added to trainers at level 44
- Paladin – Succor has been added to trainers at level 50
- Paladin - Blessing of Vothdar’s duration is now one hour. It is no longer toggled.
- Paladin - Removed erroneous crossbow specialization.
- Paladin – All levels of Guardian’s Assault cost 20 endurance now.
- Paladin – Virtue Point regeneration is now 60 minutes (in game) per point across all level ranges, down from 100-80 minutes.
- Paladin – All attacks that previously did not give text output should be fixed.
- Paladin – Shining Beacon now actually forces affected foes to target you.
- Paladin – Shining Beacon now has a 30 second refresh timer, down from 60s.
- Paladin – Increased the damage of Shining Beacon and added fiends as allowable targets.
- Paladin – the following abilities have had their damage increased:
Champion's Might
Guardian's Assault
Sentinel's Blessing
Vanquish (versus undead only)
- Paladin – Both lines of Boons now last until canceled.
- Paladin – Zeal now halves the endurance cost of abilities while active.
- Paladin – Dictum of Valus and Sunburst are now nearly impossible to resist.
- Paladin – Increased the damage of Dictum of Valus
- Paladin – Increased the damage of Sunburst
- Paladin – Paragon now partially stacks with other spells that increase primary attributes
- Ranger – Cripple now removes your opponent’s stance.
- Ranger – Increased the effectiveness of Regrowth.
- Ranger – Intercept can now be used at any time.
- Ranger – Cloak spells should now last until you toggle them off.
- Rogue – Some Ink item icons have been updated
- Rogue – Some typos have been fixed with poison reagents
- Rogue – Flechettes should no longer break stealth
- Rogue – the following abilities have had their damage increased:
Knee Break
Trick Attack
- Rogue – Dramatically increased damage on Water of Life, Scarlet Flame and Azure Flame poisons.
- Shaman – the following abilities have had their damage increased:
Bite of Nag-Suul
Hamstring
Vicious Bite
- Warrior – Rend Armor and Whirlwind upgrades are now available on trainers.
- Warrior – Waylay should now open all finishers.
- Warrior – Whirlwind will now only open the Decimate line upon crit.
- Warrior – Whirlwind will now open all finishers.
- Warrior – Shout of Defiance II and III now properly display the amount of hate added.
- Warrior – Battle Frenzy and Veteran’s Furor no longer stack.
- Warrior – Brutal Strike VII now deals proper damage
- Warrior – Brutal Strike VII now costs endurance.
- Warrior – The fourth version of Grim Determination is now properly named Grim Determination IV.
- Warrior – Disarm will now only work on humanoids
- Warrior – Warder’s Bulwark no longer erroneously displays that it strips 2% mitigation every hit.
- Warrior – the following abilities have had their damage increased:
Coercion
Warder's Bulwark
Battle Frenzy
Cleave
Defenseless
Veteran's Furor
Kick
Smash
CRAFTING NOTES
- Bows and crossbows of the sniper and of the assassin now display their proper names.
- Fixed issue where journeyman’s recipes were resulting in the wrong item when adding striking crystals
- Fixed issue resulting in legendary rarity items coming from base attuning dust only crafted items. (Note: any items that have been generated using this error have had their rarity changed to reflect the components that were used to make them.)
- Reminded the work order loot tables that they should be dropping tier 4 and 5 horseshoe recipes for blacksmiths
- The revamping of cloaks has been completed. All craftable cloaks should now have the proper stats this includes the new attribute cloaks.
- Rare saddlebag recipes have been removed from game. Saddlebag and rare saddlebag recipes have been consolidated and made to work like normal bag recipes work.
- Crafting XP for tier 3 and higher has been increased per process. This was done to compensate for the length of recipes at those tiers.
- Mineralogists should no longer be offered any bow recipes.
- Gwartak Clan recipes should now display the proper minimum amount of refined resources.
- The smoke complications should have updated descriptions.
- Gwartak Clan armor should now be usable by more classes.
- Crafting faction items have had their stats updated.
- Some minor conversation issues were discovered with the Ahgram crafting faction NPCs. These have been fixed.
- Gwartak Clan Dagger is now rare.
- Gwartak items have had their level standardized. This may increase the level/power of certain produced items.
- Some quest and special recipes now require higher grades to successful complete the item as intended. Failure to do so will result in destroyed material.
- Amateur tier quest crafted items should no longer bring up the No Drop confirmation window.
- Resonating shards/crystals of deflection have had their names updated to Revenge
- Items made with resonating shards/crystals of revenge have had their names updated from ‘of Levitation’ to ‘of Revenge’
- ‘of Revenge’ items should now have the proper ability attached to them
- All focusing dusts that previously listed jewelry settings as options have been updated to not display this option as you cannot make jewelry settings.
- Artificer jewel refining recipes now have the option to attune jewels with either an attribute or a resistance.
- Artificer jewelry recipes can now have attribute attuned jewels used in them.
- The following dusts have been removed from loot tables as they were no longer used
Focusing Powder of Reason
Focusing Shards of Reason
Focusing Crystals of Reason
Focusing Powder of Vigilance
Focusing Shards of Vigilance
Focusing Crystals of Vigilance
Focusing Crystals of Absorption
They have all been converted to cash items for your selling enjoyment.
- Blacksmith recipes for throwing axes have had their default damage type set to slashing.
- Blacksmith recipes for throwing hammers have had their default damage type set to crushing.
- Most Artificer furniture recipes have been added to instructors.
- Tursh and the Southwatch crafting outpost now give Thestran Watch faction for work orders.
- Crafted rods should now have right click effects on them like other wand type items do
- Fixed description of resonance powder of the sniper, removed jewelry from the list of items that can be enhanced as you can only enhance tier 5 jewelry with this mod
- Fixed description of Marksman resonating items to display earrings as a possible enhance item.
- Updated linings that are enhanced with Wizardry dusts to display proper name and description
- Updated requirements for Initiate and Journeyman upgrade recipes.
- The Dune Eagle Trading Company building has been re-organized. Izzet has moved upstairs to her office as well.
- Apprentice quests now display you have learned the recipe on screen in addition to notifying you via dialogue box and chat box.
- Harvest charm recipe was added for lower level charm makers.
- Charm recipes have had their descriptions updated and their action point total increased slightly.
- Charms and the charm quests in general have been updated/refined.
- Some quest recipe actions were costing 25 points when they should have been costing 0. This has been fixed.
- Gratosha now doesn’t give Martok outfitters and artisans duplicate improved tools.
- Workman’s Shirt of Problem Solving now has a graphic.
- Ahgram crafting faction advanced work orders have their rewards updated.
- Some advanced work orders were not showing up to players when they should have been. This has been fixed.
- Harvesting - Some crafted harvesting helms have had their stats adjusted.
DIPLOMACY NOTES
- Neck items are now standardized to new Presence values (generally higher by 10-50%), and in weight and other statistics.
- Ring items are now standardized to new Presence values (generally higher by 10-50%), and in weight and other statistics.
- Tier 3 Thestran Clothing is now live on Informants there.
- Tier 3 leg and foot items mysteriously swapped places from Trends to Plots and vice versa. They have been smacked on the nose and sent back to their proper item tables.
- Now that Thannis Heartsworn will successfully give out “Playing Matchmaker,” Samantha Rusten will correctly give out “Local Maidens” (the second in the “Moonstruck Fool” quest line) so that you can actually make it to “Playing Matchmaker.”
WORLD POPULATION NOTES
- Beranid Hills - The Graystone dungeon in Beranid Hills is now fully itemized.
- Bordinar’s Cleft - A select number of Gwartak Griffonhunters will no longer instantly respawn.
- Celestine Ward – Ancient ritual candles are no longer governed by trivial loot code.
- Dahknarg - The Dahknarg Guard hail text has been fixed. They are again offering directions.
- Falgarholm - The various wolves of Falgarholm now allow players to skin their corpses.
- Gorgalok – Rare spawns now drop loot when you kill them. Huzzah!
- Jathred’s Twist - Prince Azad in Jathred’s Twist now offers a quest to any adventurers willing to heed his call.
- Jathred’s Twist - Several of the rare overland NPCs will now appear at their correct (increased) rate.
- Jathred’s Twist - The minotaurs in this area will now reward arena reward tokens
- Khal - Guard Suty will now properly give directions to the ship to Kojan.
- Khal – Guards will now give you the proper directions to the artificer instructor.
- Nusibe Necropolis - City of the Dead has received a population and itemization pass. This dungeon is designed for small to full size groups of players levels 45 and above.
- Pantheon of the Ancients - Tashini no longer casts AOE spells on the escorting party.
- Pantheon of the Ancients - Major overhaul of the final encounter to ensure it performs more reliably.
- Pantheon of the Ancients - The Avatars of Mara and Caia now have an immunity set on par with the boss mob encounters in Vanguard.
- Pantheon of the Ancients - Minions of the Reaper will now despawn after the Avatar of Caia receives enough damage to awaken her sister.
- Pantheon of the Ancients - Lowered the damage output of the Minions of the Reaper as well as an amount of their hitpoints.
- Pantheon of the Ancients - The Avatars of Mara and Caia no
eidit: some colours added
Before I buy this game, I want to try it. No trial, no buy. If anyone has a buddy key and don't need it email me at russellb1975@sbcglobal.net
I'm not gonna get suckerd into buying a game without testing first. If I like it, i'll buy it. It actually seems like it has potential, but so MANY mixed reviews. I want to judge on my own. But with a test drive.
Comparaison:
Vanguard = sandpark
Me = Kid who saw a kitten use the sandpark to make his pooh pooh
I tell the staff about it, but they tell me it is designed that way. I won't go play into the sandpark with kitty's pooh pooh digged somewhere. Of course, I warn my friends about the kitten using the sandpark as pooh-poohing area. The staff show more concern with me warning my friends then with actually removing the pooh-pooh...even removing the pooh pooh now isn't like removing it right away (by release), won't interest as many folks now as it would if they would have taken immediate action.
Kitty's pooh pooh= raiding enforcement, 20% of the sandpark is litten with pooh pooh...gross!
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Your post seems to fail to take into account one major factor. The game was released months early, unfinished, stuff missing and some things not working quite right.
Boats are in game.
Artistic direction is subjective. Hence I do not believe this to even be a point to consider. I say toMARto, you say toMAYto.
Combat, agreed nothing really new here, but then there was nothing really new in WoW, CoX, Ryzom, LOTRO, EQ2, AA, etc etc. True there are titles in the pipeline that offer a different way of doing things in an MMORPG, but at no point did I EVER think that VG would have a new refreshing style of combat.
Animations. I still can not for life of me see where people are coming from on this. I think the animations look fine and they offer some much nicer combat moves than other games like WoW.
Character Diversity. Yes I agree this is pretty sub par at the moment. However, I fully believe they will add more options in the near future. I notice that you can completely change your avatar at any time ( from the login screen ), such as hieght, colour, hair style, face style etc etc. Expect more art work to be added to improve character item diversity.
Populations. Server dependant for a start. I see plenty of people out and about on my travels. Depends on what time you are playing.
Crafting. I think this will always be an issue in any game. After all making the same thing in real life can be very boring. I used to drive a lathe, occasionally having to make hundreds of components, all the same. very tedious. Anyway, it's difficult to devise a system that allows you to make something consistantly in game, whilst allowing the player to become a better crafter ( level up ) to be able to produce more items. And keeping a fair balance.
You seem to display all the symptoms of someone who expected way too much. Forget the "hype". One must remember that reading up on a new game and all it's features is a bit like reading a great book. Your imagination runs wild, you read bits you like and visualise it. Then the film comes out and you hate it because it is not how YOU imagined it would be. It fails to live up to your version.
Go back and read some of the blurbs on the back of old spectrum games, they sound great. The reality however was very different, that difference was technological constraint.
Woah! Heh, no need for the spam attack dude... I don't think even people who LOVE the game would bother reading through all those update notes. And besides, it's a moot point really - I had heard/read almost no hype whatsoever about Vanguard prior to its launch. In fact, the little I had heard they seem to have delivered. I'm certainly not coming from a position of bitterness or disillusionment. I'm also not an ex-SWG player, so I don't hate Sony (in fact I played Planetside back in the day and thoroughly enjoyed it).
I guess my feelings toward Vanguard are grounded in what I, as an MMO consumer, would and should expect from an MMO release in 2007. The standard is set by the market, both in terms of game finish (just because Brad/VG admitted to a failure in this regard certainly doesn't make it excusable), game innovation and game quality. I don't think there are many out there who could seriously argue that, by the end of this year, Vanguard will still be a comparable and competitive product in the MMO world.
I accept your refutations of some of my points, such as server populations... after all, I signed off after my `free' month was up so I have no idea what the community is looking like today except from others' postings (which are almost always biased one way or the other). However I still can't find anything in your reply which might change my fundamental opinion of the game - that it's just more of the same old thing, but bigger and far more cumbersome. All your points are either "It's subjective, let's agree to disagree" or "Yeah I agree it's not that great, but it was never going to be" or "Yeah I agree it's not that great, but it's gonna change soon (I hope!)". Sorry mate, but you're just not selling me. You may be able to overlook its mediocrity, but I can't.
Woah! Heh, no need for the spam attack dude... I don't think even people who LOVE the game would bother reading through all those update notes. And besides, it's a moot point really - I had heard/read almost no hype whatsoever about Vanguard prior to its launch. In fact, the little I had heard they seem to have delivered. I'm certainly not coming from a position of bitterness or disillusionment. I'm also not an ex-SWG player, so I don't hate Sony (in fact I played Planetside back in the day and thoroughly enjoyed it).
I guess my feelings toward Vanguard are grounded in what I, as an MMO consumer, would and should expect from an MMO release in 2007. The standard is set by the market, both in terms of game finish (just because Brad/VG admitted to a failure in this regard certainly doesn't make it excusable), game innovation and game quality. I don't think there are many out there who could seriously argue that, by the end of this year, Vanguard will still be a comparable and competitive product in the MMO world.
I accept your refutations of some of my points, such as server populations... after all, I signed off after my `free' month was up so I have no idea what the community is looking like today except from others' postings (which are almost always biased one way or the other). However I still can't find anything in your reply which might change my fundamental opinion of the game - that it's just more of the same old thing, but bigger and far more cumbersome. All your points are either "It's subjective, let's agree to disagree" or "Yeah I agree it's not that great, but it was never going to be" or "Yeah I agree it's not that great, but it's gonna change soon (I hope!)". Sorry mate, but you're just not selling me. You may be able to overlook its mediocrity, but I can't.
Totally fair and reasoned reply.Although I wasn't trying to win you round, simply countering some your opinion with some of my opinion.
Again, the crux of the matter is expectations Vs real world restictions. I agree that one would expect the genre to have moved on in terms of execution. But yet again we come up against personal taste. Some people wanted more of the same with some knobs on. Others want something far more 'modern' in its approach.
running late......snip
I guess you are doing their finances since you know their exact expenses....that or you have a very VIVID imagination.
And please post your opinion in smaller font next time.
going on.
Played around 14 hours over last weekend, had one crash, had a really good time
got my Orc over to Veskals exchange on Thestra and got more quests to do.
Tried playing on monday, in three hours I had five crashes, one was at the character
selection screen, this makes me wonder just how stable there servers are.
The game has good graphics, sound, and interesting stuff to do, but there is hardly
anyone around, so why all the network lag?????
Like someone said, it must have been that badger walking by, that was so funny.....
Cal
Now, the current game going out this evening is a bit different. There was hype, there are high expectations. It's competing with a classic trilogy and a Hollywood blockbuster. But, we know the tune on this game, so I think after the next 2 weeks there could be an alternative for a few.
We shall see...
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth
John Lennon
Sorry, but it's by no means the "the greatest mmo ever made".
It's not even a good mmo - it's fair at best and has many problems.
And the op is claiming that the complainers are "overexaggerating" ?
That's the pot calling the kettle black.
However, as I said, I didn't think it was very fun.
Giving it time and hope is fair.
However, giving it hard earned money for it's current state........no thanks.
Hope, on the other hand, is a fair thing to have. I don't think anyone really wants the game to fail. I know I had quite a bit of hope for it, especially considering the devs behind the game, and seeing the game as it is was a massive disappointment. But hope, just like faith, shouldn't be blind. It should exist, yet be tempered by the reality of the way things are now. They've got a long ways to go to catch up to where they should have been at launch.
And just having hope, or giving them time to get the game in order, isn't enough to justify subscription fees for many people. Not everyone likes to pay for potential. That's just the way it is.
is this thamoris alt?
Im going to sell you a dream.
I love statments like "This is the best game ever, there is no denying it.!" and that's in responce to hundreds of people denying it. Blanket absolute statments make me giggle.
Arioc Murkwood
Environment Artist
Sad but true.