Vanguard: Saga of Heroes Exclusive Vanguard State of the Game Q&A

[Ralsu]

SOE Affirms its Dedication to Vanguard

The journey has been tough for Vanguard from its wildly-hyped development to its rocky launch. Even though Sony Online Entertainment has poured the man hours and resources into the title it purchased from the now defunct Sigil Games, the stigma of stability issues and not fully substantiated hype still plagues the game's buzz on the web. Current Vanguard subscribers know a good thing when they see it, but will SOE ever be able to overcome the bias of the general public?

Salim Grant, Senior Game Designer for Vanguard, fielded an array of tough questions from Ten Ton Hammer's Danny "Ralsu" Gourley. Grant's answers address SOE's commitment to the title, outline the priorities of the development team, and reveal a little about the future of Vanguard.

On May 8, 2009, SOE revealed the Naratoz Focus of Chaos, a sort of epic weapon for the Psionicist class. What other traditional end game content will Vanguard players see? Will we be getting epic quests or alternate advancement?

[Salim Grant]: We are planning on releasing alternate advancement and the epic weapons released with Pantheon.

Read the full interview here.

[Ralsu]

I'd like to thank SOE for tackling my hard questions. I'll leave it to the readers to rate the answers, but I just want to note that SOE could have just refused my interview request since I did not include any batting practice fastballs in the mix.

[Protect]

Those were some tough questions, and I like the answers. While I don't ever see me going back to VG (as it requires a ton of time IMO) it is good to see some new stuff, and good things happening to it.

[Romans]

Those were decent questions, but hardly tough.

Silius, et al Vanguard Staff - Unban me, I have questions to ask too. I know you don't like discussing things that don't revolve around Slappy, or how many Silius name sakes you can add to the game, but unban me so we can talk.

I'm glad someone finally got a PVP answer out of Silius. The answer was weak sauce. And is an indication that he would build Kamellot Incorporated junk for PVP'ers rather than work on...oh I don't know:

Having PVP last more than 3 seconds
Healing vs. Damage ratio in PVP
Worthwhile use of Infamy (arena boxes suck)
Cracking down on 3rd party hacks
Stealth vs. perception inbalance
Macro one shot kills

Just the basics. But no, Silius' first thought is Kamellot Incorporated Daily Quests for PVP'ers.

Get MCP in the lead developer chair. Give players a classic server with team pvp.

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The point Silius fails to grasp is that PVP is its own content. PVP has no level cap, it never runs out, never ends and can happen anywhere. PVP often revolves around PVE encounters (because we fight over them). Sartok does not need "PVP Game Designers", as he says - Sartok just needs the smallest bit of your time to work on things like those listed above.

Silius - Caring is easy, if you try.