As the market starts to see more and more MMOGs, Sony launched another fantasy game for the fans. Vanguard: Saga of Heroes features a beautiful world, Telon, and a live universe. There will be not only killing monsters but also some rewarding other features.
Born in a world where World of Warcraft and Guild Wars are one of the top leaders, Sony and Sigil come up with something that they hoped will change the way of MMORPG. They succeed in a small part but let's go on and see what they have in store for us.
For the players wanting to do something more for themselves other than kicking asses, Vanguard offers them the possibility to become harvesters, crafter and diplomats.
Harvest and more harvest
As you roam the lands, various raw materials are encountered. Wood, minerals, plants can be harvested by players and sold or turned into goods. There are five harvesting skills available and each player can have a primary and a secondary harvesting skill. You can choose between Reaping, Skinning, Lumberjacking, Quarrying, Mining, and Harvesting. After choose your desired skill you will be able to harvest the corresponding raw material but only if you have the necessary equipment and level. As you advance in the game, you will find or get more advance harvesting equipment, allowing you to harvest more and more materials. As for the level needed, at each 100 skill points you will need to buy and learn a book allowing you to harvest more advanced material.
At later levels you will need to travel to dangerous areas to harvest rare and expensive material so harvesting and adventuring go hand in hand. Don't think that these material can be found anywhere. No way, you must search for them. The minerals can be found only near the mountains or in the mines, who most of the times are full of unwelcoming creatures. Plants can be found in woods who by no means are a safe place. The list can go on but I will leave you the pleasure of finding yourself the pleasure of looking for one more cotton plant or one more silver.
Crafting the items
From the raw materials you collected you will be able to craft items. Or otherwise were no point to risk your life collecting them, isn't it? The crafter classes are Outfitter (Tailor or Leather-worker), Artificer (Carpenter or Mineralogist), and Blacksmith (Armorsmith or Weaponsmith) and the player can choose only one class so try to choose your class well. At crafting level 11 you will be able to choose a specialization (the ones in the brakes) and you will start learning recipes. If you want, it is possible to switch the specialization, but doing so will permanently remove all recipes of that specialization which is not a nice thing.
You will need a crafter equipment which will give you bonuses to your crafting skills. So keep an eye on the crafting equipment vendors.
I must say that crafting it is both time spending but also exciting. Why? Because being able to craft an item and sell it and your name shown on the item is quite a thing. Why time spending? Crafting recipes are each made up of a different set of actions that must be performed in a particular order. Each of these actions cost what is known as 'action points' and takes from the action pool. The maximum amount of action points available varies with each recipe. While crafting, certain complications may arise which may affect the crafting process. Complications are usually but not always detrimental. The player can attempt to correct complications and resume crafting. Through experimentation, players can discover new recipes and formulas.
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This means that not all the crafting sessions are the same. Taking work orders will allow you to increase in level without much expenses and this way you will craft and craft to gain better and better recipes and equipment. Some may say that it resembles like farming and I would say that I agree with them but at least this kind of farming is interesting.
Diplomacy
Last but not the least, diplomacy is used to either gain personal advantages or for the whole city (Civic Benefits).
Diplomacy borrows some elements from collectible card games. A player gradually increases their total reservoir of cards as they advance in level and complete quests. As you advance in diplomacy level you will be able to take more and more cards in your “hand”.
At the beginning of a parley, both players start with a pool of Dialog Points (the number depending on the encounter difficulty and the player's diplomatic skill). The goal of a parley is to use Statements to influence the diplomacy marker. Each card played will allow you to move the slider to your favor according to a certain method. There's no point revealing it here because it's much to say but the words war it's quite hard. You must change your tactics with each discussion because they are very different and try to bring the dialog points to zero. The first to zero dialog points wins the parley. As the player progresses toward this goal, sentences appear indicating the conversation that is taking place, tying the mechanics of the card game back to role-playing.
In addition to skill level, which is gained by performing any Parley, Diplomats must also manage Presence. Presence represents the character's status in a community (called a 'Station') such as Crafters, Outsiders, or Academics. Status accrues slowly by parleying with people of the appropriate station, but the majority of Presence gains come from clothing -- a Diplomat might wear a ragged shirt to raise Outsider Presence or Silk Pants to raise Noble presence. The more presence the easy will be for you to win a conversation.
Roaming the lands
The land of Telon is the home of Vanguard. 15 races are present in the game and they range from the already known ones: humans, elves, ogres, dwarves to beastmens : cats, wolves and foxes.
The classes available in the game are divided into four sections: protective fighter (tank), offensive fighter (damage dealer), defensive caster (healer), and offensive caster (nuker). The advancement in levels can be done through killing and doing quests. It is possible to play solo but the developers insisted on playing with a team and while playing this way you will also gain a lot of fun but also more experience.
As you take the quests, you will be carried all over the map to finish them. Scouting, collecting resources, killing monsters are just a part of the quests you will be given. Each completed quest will give you money, items and of course experience. Some quests will be possible to complete solo but a big part of them will need a group. Why? Because the monsters are too strong or too many to handle them alone.
The fighting style has something particular about it. Combos. For example, some actions lead to another actions, complementing them and becoming very powerful. For example after a critical blow you will be able to use a finishing move, dealing a lot of damage in a very short time. This makes the player alert, getting ready to start or finish the combo. This is why each fight is alive, keeping you glued to your chair. As you enter a guild, the feeling of hacking the enemies with your teammates is glorious.
To travel faster on the map, you will be able to use mounts. If at the beginning you will have a slow mount, in the end you will use a faster but expensive to buy mount.
{pagebreak}Gameplay: 78
The game has everything you need into a MMORPG. Adventuring, harvesting, crafting and even diplomacy is here to make your gaming experience a pleasant one. Even if the game may seem hard at the beginning, as you enter in a guild and start to find our more info from the experienced players you will start lo love this game.
Graphics: 86
Even if Vanguard was plagues with several bugs at the date of release, Sigil and SOE managed to fix most of them in short time. The updates are done frequently and the game is constantly improved. Telon has a stunning visual, both from a artistic and technological point of view. Some areas are luxurious but as you explore the land you will discover dramatic landscapes too.
Sound:82
The soundtrack is very attractive and the developers created the sound accordingly to the area you are located. Arabic music, evocative sounds in the elven cities, all try to complete your gaming experience. The sound combat is the way it should be and you hear the swords clashing, the enemy burning and so on.
Multiplayer: 79
There are lots of players in the game and the servers are having a small lagg. Sometimes you will experience a lagg spikes but this happens in most online games.
Hardware: 65
Even on a monster computer you will experience some glitches and the game's performance could be improved. You will need some tweaking before you will manage to play the game as you should.
