On our guild boards, one of the dudes was asking about Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, if we were going to try and worm our way into the beta.
WTF, I thought that was years away, wrote I.
Nah, think it’s soon, wrote he.
I think he’s high because I checked around their site and I can’t find anything other than it will be “some day.” I read the FAQ. Here’s an excerpt:
1.4.1 What do you mean by a ‘third generation MMORPG’?
We usually use the word ‘generation’ more like an ‘era’… when a group of games come out around the same time, were in development mostly around the same time, and therefore couldn’t use each other as reference nearly as much as older games, we call that a generation.
Under that definition, M59, UO, AC, EQ, etc. were all first generation. They pretty much just had MUDs to look back on and be inspired.
When you get to AC 2, SW:G, EQ 2, and WoW, all of the developers are able to look back not only at MUDs but also at what worked and didn’t work with the first generation of MMOGs.
Vanguard will have the advantage of looking back at both generations, learning again from what worked and didn’t work with all of those games. In other words, we will be able to analyze EQ 2, WoW, etc. too.
That doesn’t mean our definition of ‘generation’ is ‘right’ or ‘official’, but that is the rationale we use when we refer to Vanguard as a 3rd generation massively multiplayer role-playing game.
heh. Kinda ballsy.
Seems like they missed a generation there, so they’re probably more like fourth generation, although if they take long enough to give birth to this thing, could be fifth generation. Just saying.
Fair warning about Vanguard – from what I’ve heard, it’ll be even more punitive than the original EQ was, regarding death, damage and the like. They want it to be “super-ultra-mega” HARDCORE – opposite of what WoW has done with their game.
Honestly, I’m not sure what direction Vanguard is headed in and I have been following the pre-development for over a year now. They have all ready announced a few dumbed-down game mechanics like the silvery cord. The mechanic that leads you via a cord to X point, etc. That doesn’t sound very hardcore at all.
I guess a fair assumption would be a middleground of sorts with more of a focus on group interdependency than solo play. I guess you could consider it a direct opposite of WoW, but not more punitive than EQ. Whenever someone brings up the question if the game will have solo content or not, Brad usually replies, “there will be casual content, more on this later.” Casual content? Vague as all hell.
The game will most likely require a longer time investment to reach the cap than WoW and offer a few more robust systems, like crafting-harvesting but, I don’t think it will be hardcore like EQ was pre-Velious. So far, there really is nothing new or innovative on paper. The dynamisms and advanced spawning-flag systems that are planned have been done in numerous games before. I think a lot of the combat mechanics will be based on DAOC’s system, we might see group skill chains like FFXI, the spawning system will borrow concepts from UO and SWG. We will know more when E3 rolls around. It’s a 30 million dollar investment with the potential of cross development platform for the Xbox folks, I don’t think they can make it too niche for the hardcores.
Probably the #1 thing that I’m looking forward too, is the overall potential, being the fanboi I am, I like Sigil’s team of developers. Kendrick, Akkirus, Tagad, Aradune, Myrlokar, etc. I know what these guys are capable of from a pve persperctive, so it will be interesting to see what they come up with, even if it’s nothing revolutionary in a different shiny. I think the game will definitely lack easter egg type humor though, to preserve their high-yawn-fantasy setting. Honestly, from a game vs game perspective, D&D online sounds much more interesting to me right now.
Vanguard is very near to vaporware.