By: G. Lance Brazell Aka: -Avalon-
Vanguard advertises many great and wonderful new things to the MMO industry,
but as of a couple of months after release, does it really deliver what it hoped
for yet? They wanted to add a new level of player made items such as houses,
boats, and more. There are other things, like fellowships, caravans, and the
like. Are they in, and how do they stack up in the modern world of massively
multiplayer online games. The whole of the game is broken into 4 spheres (most
say only 3, but I think that if really thought about, there is a fourth). Each
sphere has its own tools, worn equipment, and skills.
Harvesting
There isn't much new here. Players collect their tools and their harvesting
outfit and set off into a dangerous landscape full of all sorts of monsters and
such. Harvesting is its own sphere in its own right because it requires a
completely different set of equipment down to the pants the character is
wearing. It is broken into several different basic categories: Quarrying (for
rocks and gems), mining (for metals), lumberjacking (for wood), skinning (for
hides), and reaping (for plant based items). The biggest hardship in harvesting
is in the fact that players sometimes, depending on starting area, have to track
down the trainer who could be hiding in a crevice in a town full of hills, or
have to run 5-10 minutes away from where the player started to the bottom of a
hill and look behind a rock to find him.
The characters start by getting a simple quest to go chop down basic trees or
mine some rocks. Then, The characters get a quest to combine them, and finally
have to choose a primary and a secondary harvesting skill (and turn off the
other three), based on the simple quests which have only shown the player the
basics of one of the five harvesting skills. The good news is that players can
always go back and switch to a different harvesting skill at any time. The bad
news is twofold. First, when players re-specialize into another harvesting
skill, they lose all of their points in the other skill that they subbed out,
and then start back at 1 for the new skill. If a player ever decides to go back
to the skill they originally had, they will do this again, and be back at 1 for
the original skill, having forgotten everything they ever learned about it,
having had some sort of strange lobotomizing procedure done when they switched
the first time. Secondly, since, currently, there are harvesting trainers only
in the major starting city locations, players will most likely have to travel a
good 15-20 minutes to get back to them and start their harvesting up. So, if a
player has decided to level up as an adventurer, and then pick up harvesting
later on, they will find they must do a great deal more traveling to obtain
their skills than if they had started back when they were level 10 or less.
There is a bright new part of harvesting though. In Vanguard, players are not
limited to pretty much solo gathering of the many resources. They can team up
with someone to collect the items, as other players can harvest the same
resource with each other for a better result. If a player is teamed up with
someone else who knows the same skill, they will gather much more of the
resource, and also have someone to hang out with the whole time. If they do not
have that skill, they will need to purchase a specialty tool that allows them to
help harvest that specific resource, but cannot harvest it themselves.
Crafting
For once in my personal MMO history, there is a game that I have become
addicted to in terms of crafting. Vanguard has made crafting a truly complex and
well-thought out endeavor. To start with, players have three basic skill-paths
for crafting: Outfitting, Artifice, and Blacksmithing. There is of course the
usual beginner's tutorial to teach players the very most basic parts of
crafting, and then they throw them to the wolves to pick up everything from
there until they reach the end of their first tier of crafting.
To craft, players have to have gathered basic resources such as metals, wood, or
hides, and then get other basic supplies such as oils, fuels, adhesives, cures,
etc. Players also need to know recipes to forge these items together using the
unique process that Sigil has created for crafting. The classic sequence is a
1+1/1+1 method, where players first supply the basic item (1), then modify it
using a two step process (+1/1) to increase the progress and quality, then
finish the item (+1), all to build an item. There are several sub-abilities for
each step along the way with different costs and specialties of their own. The
enemy of any crafter are the points. Those pesky things keep many crafters from
completing a recipe just to get some junk to sell and continue crafting. The
reason is that Sigil threw in complications along the way, examples are snagged
threads, broken tools, and heat exhaustion, all of which can be overcome if the
player wishes to spend the extra points to work them off. If they are not worked
off, those complications will cost any other ability either extra points or
reduced quality.
At the end of the first tier, players will embark upon a quest to specialize who
they are and what they craft. Since I am playing a blacksmith, my choices are
weaponsmithing and armorsmithing. In other skills players have multiple choices
that lead to making all sorts of things. Two of the more innovative items that
can be built are houses and boats.
Other games have had them, but not in quite the same way. Houses can actually be
crafted in Vanguard. It requires decently high levels in artifice, collecting a
lot of wood, and a lot of rock. A player can buy the land then hire on another
player to build his house, and put their specialized house on the land. I say
specialized because everything in Vanguard comes in a wide variety of styles:
Thestran, Kojan, Qalian, and a basic style. So, theoretically, players could
have a guild hall, built by a professional Qalian artificer, which looks like a
sultan's palace in the middle of the very Dark Age looking Thestran continent.
Boats are a great addition to any MMO, and more awesome is the fact that they
can be crafted by players. The boats come in the same styles as all other
crafted items in the game, but can be tiny, small, large, etc. Depending on the
size of the boat, players will be able to sail into different places around the
world. Places that can be navigated are the wide oceans, the many bays, and even
streams and rivers that run far inland to allow a player access to hard to get
places with ease.
Diplomacy
This is quite possibly the most innovative part of Vanguard is the new
diplomacy system. Finally, someone has introduced a way for players to talk to
the various non-player characters wandering around the world in a real
game-changing manner. The effects of these interactions can be anything from as
little as earning a little bit of extra coin, getting some prestige, and having
someone killed, all the way up to things like reducing prices on vendors, giving
bonuses to crafting, harvesting, and the like, all across the region.
Diplomacy is done by playing a card game a lot like a very complex version of
War mixed with Pinochle, or if you have played it, Magic: The Gathering.
Diplomacy has four suits: Reason, Logic, Flattery, and Demand. There are also
different forms of conversation such as inciting the person, getting into a
gab-fest of gossip, and some others. To play this game players have to develop a
strategy made up of five cards. Then they talk to the NPC and begin a battle of
wits with cards.
To win, players only need to keep their score above zero by the end of the game.
This is done the easiest by keeping the score at one or more for the majority of
the game. The cards played will build up certain suits for the player and the
opponent at the same time, while gaining overall points for the player's side to
win. Some cards will require a great deal of points in a particular suit though,
so the player needs to be very careful about their strategy building. Overall, I
think it is a great new way to spend time while you are in the city.
Adventuring
The most important part of any MMO as far as most people are concerned. This
is the ability to wander around, kill monsters, and gather up a hoard of
treasure and renown. Vanguard does not disappoint in this area, at least not too
much.
With fifteen classes, and more than fifteen races, players need not worry about
lack of choices for character creation. And since the classes are all very
different in their styles of play, and the races each have good variations among
their benefits and disadvantages, there is no end to replay ability. That is, if
a player has time to do so, since the advancement rate in Vanguard is skewed
pretty heavily in the direction of a hardcore player that has some time on their
hands to spend leveling up their character.
Players can solo pretty effectively from one all the way to about 20-25, but
then most character types begin having strong difficulties without a group to
back them up. For that brief introductory period, the player is given a tidbit
of info and help along the way as far as game mechanics goes so players will
have to figure out the majority of how to perform different actions all on their
own.
These tidbits do get players on to quests that give a decent back story of why
they are there and what they are doing in the story of Vanguard, which is a very
well thought out, in-depth, storyline featuring Gods, cataclysms, wars, and all
the other good stuff any fantasy world worth being in should have. What are
missing are the directions to help players find that storyline.
Once past the beginner's areas, the game explodes outwards, as if they were
confining the player in a small closet since they were born then throwing them
into the vast wilderness of Africa with only a few pieces of info to guide them
on their way. At first this may seem extremely daunting, but after a week or
two, players learn the basics of travel and how/where to go at each point in the
game.
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Summary
Vanguard has a lot to offer in areas with crafting and diplomacy, but
adventuring seems to get a bit tedious with the long travel times and slow
advancement rate that requires that most players adopt an old time method of
grinding and lather-rinse-repeat. Harvesting helps to break up the monotony of
killing one after the other though, and since it is required to harvest
materials so that a player can craft, it all ties in together fairly well
overall.
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