Vanguard: Saga of Heroes: Game Update - It's Been a Long Road

Stradden

MMORPG.com's Carolyn Koh recently traveled to Sony Online Entertainment's Fan Faire. While there, she spoke with Vnaguard Lead Designer and Acting Producer Salim Grant about the current state of the game.

At the recent SOE FanFaire in Las Vegas, I made a point to speak with Salim Grant, the Lead Designer and Acting Producer of Vanguard: Saga of Heroes to get an update on the game. He spoke with passion and enthusiasm, if not a little fatigue.

"We've worked hard. Very hard in the past two years," he said, "to make Vanguard what it should have been at launch. Finally, we are at a point where we are deciding what to do next instead of asking what we needed to fix next."

Read Game Update - It's Been a Long Road

metalcore

I agree, Vanguard has the best dungeons.

Dungeon crawl and grouping, is what makes VG so good, a PvEers paradise.

EQ1 had some very cool dungeons and VG just takes on that experience and improves on it.

Whilst you can solo, you can raid, by far grouping is the most fun and most rewarding in any game, VG excells at it.

DarbiiRue

All of that is well and good, but they need to relaunch it, and SOE needs to put more devs on the team. I absolutely adore the game, but unlike EQ2 with its consistent updates & expansions, Vanguard doesn't get looked at very often. I thought when I returned last, that it would be a terrible game, and I was so incredibly wrong. The game ran perfectly fine, on max on my machine, and it was gorgeous.

But due to its somewhat small player-base, even on Seradon, the cities feel like empty holes in the game, which threw me.

I think, with all the work they say they've put into the game, they need a relaunch, with incentives to new players. They need a larger dev team & they need to advertise.

This game, whether SOE likes it or not, could theoretically beat out EQ2's population if the game is given a chance at a comeback.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love this game. I love it. I just wish they'd (SOE) put more effort into it.

Bodeus

Originally posted by Splinki


All of that is well and good, but they need to relaunch it, and SOE needs to put more devs on the team. I absolutely adore the game, but unlike EQ2 with its consistent updates & expansions, Vanguard doesn't get looked at very often. I thought when I returned last, that it would be a terrible game, and I was so incredibly wrong. The game ran perfectly fine, on max on my machine, and it was gorgeous.
But due to its somewhat small player-base, even on Seradon, the cities feel like empty holes in the game, which threw me.
I think, with all the work they say they've put into the game, they need a relaunch, with incentives to new players. They need a larger dev team & they need to advertise.
This game, whether SOE likes it or not, could theoretically beat out EQ2's population if the game is given a chance at a comeback.
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love this game. I love it. I just wish they'd (SOE) put more effort into it.

they have already "relaunched" the game.. from another interview with Salim "Silius"..

 

mmorpgfocus.com/forum/showthread.php

 

MMORPGFOCUS.COM TEAM: We recently put up an article about Vanguard talking about how the game is in such a good, polished condition now that it almost deserves a relaunch. Do you think Sony will put some extra resources behind marketing the game again now that it’s really improved?

Salim Grant: Well, what a lot of people don’t realize about Vanguard is that we actually did do a relaunch. When Isle of Dawn came out, we did a relatively large marketing push, considering the game budget. After that, I think in January it was, we got Fileplanet for seven days front page. We had banner ads for a couple weeks. Obviously we’re on steam. There’s been a lot of marketing for Vanguard given a small budget. Unfortunately, some people just don’t see it. I mean, Fileplanet has four million plus people looking at their pages and we got a decent amount of traffic coming from that. Doing another relaunch, I don’t know if it would happen anytime soon if it does. I don’t know. Sony treats us well and we’re a part of the family. They do what they can for us but obviously Sony has other horses in the stable it has to take care of and every horse has to kind of fend for itself in the end. If it makes this much money and that much money has to go to things like staff and things like that…

 

---

So from what Silius says Vanguard isnt making enough money to do ANOTHER relaunch.

Katilla

Originally posted by Splinki


All of that is well and good, but they need to relaunch it, and SOE needs to put more devs on the team. I absolutely adore the game, but unlike EQ2 with its consistent updates & expansions, Vanguard doesn't get looked at very often. I thought when I returned last, that it would be a terrible game, and I was so incredibly wrong. The game ran perfectly fine, on max on my machine, and it was gorgeous.
But due to its somewhat small player-base, even on Seradon, the cities feel like empty holes in the game, which threw me.
I think, with all the work they say they've put into the game, they need a relaunch, with incentives to new players. They need a larger dev team & they need to advertise.
This game, whether SOE likes it or not, could theoretically beat out EQ2's population if the game is given a chance at a comeback.
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love this game. I love it. I just wish they'd (SOE) put more effort into it.

 

agreed, i liked my free month return trial, but the game felt so empty compared to before, i ended up soloing the whole time, which got boring.  Then i died in the middle of a dungaoun and forgot about the whole corpse run thing lol. they really need to do some sort of "relaunch" thing, where they let vets in again, as well as the general public and advertise it right.

Aarinak

Originally posted by Splinki


All of that is well and good, but they need to relaunch it, and SOE needs to put more devs on the team. I absolutely adore the game, but unlike EQ2 with its consistent updates & expansions, Vanguard doesn't get looked at very often. I thought when I returned last, that it would be a terrible game, and I was so incredibly wrong. The game ran perfectly fine, on max on my machine, and it was gorgeous.
But due to its somewhat small player-base, even on Seradon, the cities feel like empty holes in the game, which threw me.
I think, with all the work they say they've put into the game, they need a relaunch, with incentives to new players. They need a larger dev team & they need to advertise.
This game, whether SOE likes it or not, could theoretically beat out EQ2's population if the game is given a chance at a comeback.
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love this game. I love it. I just wish they'd (SOE) put more effort into it.

QFT--a relaunch and a little money would actually be positive for Sony... I just wish they would....

 

Sovrath

Originally posted by Splinki


All of that is well and good, but they need to relaunch it, and SOE needs to put more devs on the team. I absolutely adore the game, but unlike EQ2 with its consistent updates & expansions, Vanguard doesn't get looked at very often. I thought when I returned last, that it would be a terrible game, and I was so incredibly wrong. The game ran perfectly fine, on max on my machine, and it was gorgeous.
But due to its somewhat small player-base, even on Seradon, the cities feel like empty holes in the game, which threw me.
I think, with all the work they say they've put into the game, they need a relaunch, with incentives to new players. They need a larger dev team & they need to advertise.
This game, whether SOE likes it or not, could theoretically beat out EQ2's population if the game is given a chance at a comeback.
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love this game. I love it. I just wish they'd (SOE) put more effort into it.

 

I read one of the saying that they did do a relaunch of sorts with the Isle of Dawn, given their resources. I think what you mean is that they need to relaunch it as if it was a brand new game. I would say that would be the best thing.

However, given that they said their budget is proportional to their players, they do what they can.

My thought is that players need to support this game and hopefully it will grow slowly. Sort of like Eve.

I tried Vanguard when it was launched but wasn't really interested in it. Just wanted to see what it was about. Though I didn't have a huge difficulty running it, there were obviously a lot of bugs. Now, the game runs rather well, still a bit creaky here and there because of the huge world. But WOW! I have never been so impressed with a world as I am with Vanguard's. It really is amazing. And the more I play the more I want to play. I even want to make alts which is usually not my style.

Though it won't be my main game (as Aion is really more my style) I have made a decision that I will always have a Vanguard account. Even if I need to attend to other things and can't play much. It simply is a game worth supporting. The sense of exploration of vast lands is incredible. If one has a bit of patience for some bugs here and there and really likes a sense of old school game play, and can either be proactive with finding a guild or is a solo player, then they really should try Vanguard.

It won't hold your hand. You will die. You will explore and then be chased down and if you like that type of thing, a bit of danger here and there then it really is an enjoyable game.

Yesterday I learned about Hilsbury Manor. I decided to go there while waiting for the Girlfriend to come over. What a blast. It is a bit dangerous for my lvl 23 Dread Knight but it is doable. At least some of the outer grounds. All I wanted to do was try to get inside, even if I perished. It was one of the few times in playing a game that i was a bit sorry that the Girlfriend was coming over as i was extremely intrigued and wanted to press on.

Vanguard is filled with those types of moments. When you look and discover a cave and just have to know what is in there. I've spent some time the last few days fighting Lizard men and some sort of Lizard occultists on some of the most beautiful beaches I've ever seen in a game. Only to do some exploring and see this amazing tower. Renting a Wyvern I flew over and realized that they it was inhabited by some pretty tough cyclopses which I needed for a quest. 

I have to say that I am having a blast. The game truly gives the quintessential dungeon crawl.

If players can have some patience and just accept the game for what it is and not lament that Sony is not throwing huge resources into the game then I think they can have a great time.

asfaraslarry

 I was thinking about giving this a try again.  I played a few months of beta before launch, and even with the issues, I could see the potential.  My preferred style of play is not to group all that often, and that is my biggest road block, but I played the original EQ in beta and a few years of release, so I understand what and why it is the way it is

One pool of players that might be a good target are some of the more hard core players that are coming off WoW and trying LotRO (which I play and love and have a lifetime with, but am looking for a break), and not finding enough dungeon crawling.  There are also those who have played the past two years and are feeling burned out, especially after MoM was released, and they feel the game changed drastically.  I think they should figure out a way to get the attention of those folks.

As for me, I may just break out the old credit card and fire it up again

Falc410

sadly, this comes a little late. Vanguard was the MMORPG I had most fun with besides good old EQ1. Even if they have fixed a lot of bugs, there's still so much that doesn't work. Just a few days ago I received a free month from SOE to log back in and have a look at the changes.

 

So still nothing of the Alternate Achivements (which were originally promised at launch date and then really promised to be included within the first 3 months), still a lot of the same old graphics bugs. Even though I upgraded my computer in the meantime Vanguard doesn't perform any better for me and I still can't see tree's or bushes in the Halfling starting area.

 

And my guess is that Sartok is dead for sure. It was a very nice experience being in one of the top guilds on this FFA PvP Server but with a playerbase of 200 or what it is nowadays you can't expect people to come back to the game.

 

Well I'm moving on but still with tears in my eyes when I watch this Video from Games Convention 2006 when they showed video footage of flying dragons which everyone should be able to fly everywhere. They promised it for release and the release was promised for Winter 06 - we all know what happened. Vanguard did really die because of false promises and false advertising. I remember people crying in the forums - oh no this game is gonna be so hard it's gonna have corpse runs again, I want WoW easy game. Well I don't really remember having to corpse run in Vanguard since it was never in the game, not even in beta (I was alpha tester and still have screenshots over a period of 2 years). Similiar to what happened to Vista - bad PR managed to fail a good (or at least not bad) product.

openedge1

This game has had more than enough time to grow and be accepted.

Relaunch is a waste.

Vanguard is really behind the curve now in visuals, playability, and the population is too small to make any more effort.

SOE needs to focus on it's moneymakers. EQ, EQ2, Free Realms. They just keep Vanguard as a Station Pass incentive anyways.

Let VG go, concentrate on their current stable of good games, and their future titles that look very good actually.

Say goodbye to VG as it is already dead.

Sovrath

Originally posted by asfaraslarry


 I was thinking about giving this a try again.  I played a few months of beta before launch, and even with the issues, I could see the potential.  My preferred style of play is not to group all that often, and that is my biggest road block, but I played the original EQ in beta and a few years of release, so I understand what and why it is the way it is
One pool of players that might be a good target are some of the more hard core players that are coming off WoW and trying LotRO (which I play and love and have a lifetime with, but am looking for a break), and not finding enough dungeon crawling.  There are also those who have played the past two years and are feeling burned out, especially after MoM was released, and they feel the game changed drastically.  I think they should figure out a way to get the attention of those folks.
As for me, I may just break out the old credit card and fire it up again

 

If your style of play is not to group that often then seriously... this game is for you. It will be hard and at times you will have to be either very careful or do content that is a little bit lower for your level but as my style of play is not to group often, I have been having the best time.

If you find you have some performance issues then look at the threads that help you optimize your performance. Esepcially if you have a Nvidea card. Using the Nvidea control panel, adding vanguard and making some tweaks made a huge difference for me. Just have some patience for odd bugs here and there and you will be fine.

Greymantle4

Or you could do what my wife and I did......We bought Secrets of Faydwer for 5 dollars on Newegg and go back to EQ which gets updates and support.

just1opinion

Originally posted by Zeppelin4


Or you could do what my wife and I did......We bought Secrets of Faydwer for 5 dollars on Newegg and go back to EQ which gets updates and support.

 

Secrets of Faydwer?  Do you mean EQ2 or the original EQ?  Sorry....I'm just unclear which one you meant.

enamelizer

Great article, I enjoyed reading it.

As a new player to VG, I must say how much it surprised me. The only things I had heard were about how bad the launch was and had written the game off entirely. When they came out with Isle of Dawn and the free trial, being bored with EVE, I gave it a go and found an amazingly rich world with things to explore and challenges to overcome around every corner.

However, I was soloing in my free time and not really knowing where to find groups, I started to feel much like other posters here, that the world was lonely and empty, and so I gave up on it because soloing got too hard.

Forward to about a month ago and I was really becoming dissatisfied with EVE's complete lack of content, and noticed my VG account had been activated again.

Well this time I found a good grouping area and was invited to a guild that focuses on helping new players. What a difference a guild makes in this game! There are lots of new players, but also lots of vets that use the guild to find groups for their alts, so the mix of players is really great.

Anyway, finding a regular group to level with makes a world of difference. the entire game is really geared towards grouping, so finding a group to play with, or even someone to point you to where players are grouping is really the key to getting all you can out of this game.

neonwire

Originally posted by openedge1


This game has had more than enough time to grow and be accepted.
Relaunch is a waste.
Vanguard is really behind the curve now in visuals, playability, and the population is too small to make any more effort.
SOE needs to focus on it's moneymakers. EQ, EQ2, Free Realms. They just keep Vanguard as a Station Pass incentive anyways.
Let VG go, concentrate on their current stable of good games, and their future titles that look very good actually.
Say goodbye to VG as it is already dead.

 

I agree. This game is never going to make a come back and as newer games come out its situation will get even worse. SOE would be foolish to waste any more time and money on it.

Besides I recently started up the trial of EQ2 again and its a much better game. The landscapes certainly arent as good as Vanguards but the SOGA character models in EQ2 are very well done as opposed to Vanguards which just look really stupid. Maybe if Vanguards dev team remade their hideous character models then my opinion of their game might improve. The contrast between the beatiful landscapes and the ugly badly made character models was always very jarring for me.......which is strange because a lot of the monster models looked rather good.

Also the "seamless open world" which seems to get used as a big selling point for the game was a big turn off for me and also lots of other potential players too as it just simply means that a lot of time is spent in Vanguard travelling. That doesnt make the gameplay any more interesting. In fact all of this "freedom" only served to expose how lifeless these mmos actually are as opposed to being immersed in the game world. So you can travel to that mountain off in the far distance......errrmm.....great. Whats on it? Some more mobs standing around waiting to be killed. Woopy!

Sovrath

Originally posted by neonwire

Originally posted by openedge1


This game has had more than enough time to grow and be accepted.
Relaunch is a waste.
Vanguard is really behind the curve now in visuals, playability, and the population is too small to make any more effort.
SOE needs to focus on it's moneymakers. EQ, EQ2, Free Realms. They just keep Vanguard as a Station Pass incentive anyways.
Let VG go, concentrate on their current stable of good games, and their future titles that look very good actually.
Say goodbye to VG as it is already dead.

 

I agree. This game is never going to make a come back and as newer games come out its situation will get even worse. SOE would be foolish to waste any more time and money on it.

Besides I recently started up the trial of EQ2 again and its a much better game. The landscapes certainly arent as good as Vanguards but the SOGA character models in EQ2 are very well done as opposed to Vanguards which just look really stupid. Maybe if Vanguards dev team remade their hideous character models then my opinion of their game might improve. The contrast between the beatiful landscapes and the ugly badly made character models was always very jarring for me.......which is strange because a lot of the monster models looked rather good.

Also the "seamless open world" which seems to get used as a big selling point for the game was a big turn off for me and also lots of other potential players too as it just simply means that a lot of time is spent in Vanguard travelling. That doesnt make the gameplay any more interesting. In fact all of this "freedom" only served to expose how lifeless these mmos actually are as opposed to being immersed in the game world. So you can travel to that mountain off in the far distance......errrmm.....great. Whats on it? Some more mobs standing around waiting to be killed. Woopy!

 

I think this had the exact opposite effect for me. I felt like I was playing in a world as opposed a game where you can only enter certain areas if you were on the appropriate quest. But since this game is a bit of a throwback, people will either like it or hate it.

I like being able to go to that hill and find a new leveling area. or find that I'm outmatched and have to run for my life.

I had an experience where it was late at night (or more like 1:30 am) and I headed toward what I thought was a castle. Though I noticed things were a bit run down I didn't really pay enough attention, just walked my horse to the door and opened it. Suddenly I saw npc's running toward me and thought "hey, what a nice touch to have greeters at the castle". Then I realized they were zombie skeleton things and were more than 10 lvls above me. That's when i ran. I was completely, for lack of a better word, delighted at that mistake.

The game feels very different from EQ2 and LOTRO. I have the EQ2 game up for comparison and though I could go on as to why EQ2 is a good game, it's also a rather goofy game. It has a bit too much of the whimsical for my taste.

I would say that I have agreed with you about Vanguard's models but the more I play the more I sort of see the logic in them. I don't think they are any worse than LOTRO's models. Which also suffers from the beautiful world/odd avatar syndrome.

Ngeldu5t

I say cudos to all the work they did on VG but unfortunately,it's just too late

Sovrath

Originally posted by Ngeldu5t


I say cudos to all the work they did on VG but unfortunately,it's just too late

 

It's not too late if you just want to log in and have some fun. However, I really don't think this game would ever have been a huge thing because of its game design.

ursin

~sigh~ i played VG for a year, loved it in spite of the bugs, but the bugs drove us away until they 'fixed' it...... got a free month, went to play, my maps were broken because i had old UI stuff... threw it out, and now the game crashes at launch requiring a full uninstall / reinstall.... not feeling that ambitious yet. next free month i will. maybe.

roaland

I honestly think that if  Vanguard made an expansion and packaged it together with the original game and actually did some advertising that it would help. But it would be a gamble that i doubt SOE is willing to take at this point. They have multiple games with low sub bases and i don't see them doing anything outside of EQ2 to raise there bases atm.

Krayzjoel

I had thought about trying out this game a couple of months back, but if the population isnt very good then i may hold back on playing. The game looked promising too.

 

Sovrath

Originally posted by Krayzjoel


I had thought about trying out this game a couple of months back, but if the population isnt very good then i may hold back on playing. The game looked promising too.
 

 

I would say that if you are the type of player who wants to be in a game that has a lot of hustle and bustle, akin to Stormreach in WoW or hte 21st hall in the mines of Moria in LOTRO, then Vanguard is probably not for you. You either have to be proactive and join one of the many guilds that cater to new players (and they exist) or you have to be one who likes to solo and make his/her own way.

Otherwise you will be dissapointed.

Greymantle4

Originally posted by girlgeek

Originally posted by Zeppelin4


Or you could do what my wife and I did......We bought Secrets of Faydwer for 5 dollars on Newegg and go back to EQ which gets updates and support.

 

Secrets of Faydwer?  Do you mean EQ2 or the original EQ?  Sorry....I'm just unclear which one you meant.

 

The original EQ  

rwyan

 Secrets of Fawdyer was an EQ expansion.  I believe it came out around the time EQ2 had its Kunark expansion released......

I recently jumped back into VG to check out the Isle of Dawn and must say, the game has improved vastly from a technical perspective.

I feel for the dev team here because its obvious they have a lot of talent and have put a lot of heart into the game, it shows, especially with the Isle.  I hope it continues to grow because the team could use more resources to invest in the game and marketing.

The biggest and most glaring flaw with the game in general are the missing threads.  Features and content just doesn't tie into one another.  Players can build ships and sail around - but the experience ends there.  No sea monsters, no hidden away content to discover.  Diplomacy is fun but it feels like a completely seperate mini-game.  There are no areas in the game where your diplomatic skills will enhance your adventuring experience (imagine a quest where you could either take a brute force approach or take a more diplomatic/peaceful approach).  Or better yet, gain access to an 'adventuring' quest through successful parley's with npcs.  I think if the devs start to approach content additions in this manner, and start cross pollinating these gameplay mechanics, the game could really become something special over time.

 

 

 

Trueth

Silius is a fail. Sub numbers over the past 2 years have declined. Yeah some newbies join, but many more vets leave. They leave out of boredom and SOE/Silius' lust to chase the WOW buck while not infringing on the EQII subscribers. If he has put his heart and soul into vanguard then he is a heartless souless creature indeed. Worst lead developer and smallest development team ever. All 4 of them, wtf can they do?

 

ajm563

I hate to so blunt, but let's be honest.  This game has been on life support for 2 years.  It's time to pull the plug.