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Vanguard Saga of Heroes Introduction (1)
| Welcome, if you will, to the third-age of MMORPGs. Let's say the first began with Ultima Online, EverQuest, Asheron's Call and Dark Age of Camelot - games that had a deep appeal for a particular audience, but could never quite manage to attract a mainstream following. Then came the second age. City of Heroes, World of Warcraft, Eve and Guild Wars started to knock out the elements of the genre that put off the majority of gamers, and perfectly suited those who had just taken up broadband and were looking for something to do with it. Well, now we're ready for a third age; a range of games that, essentially, take the post-WoW MMORPG as a starting point and run from there. |
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| Make no mistake. WoW is very much the elephant in the room where these games are concerned. All the players in the market - new and old - know that they need to either compete with Blizzard's monster or attract a different audience. While some games are doing the former, using big-name licenses to pull in mainstream punters (Lord of the Rings: Shadows of Angmar and Age of Conan come immediately to mind), Vanguard seems to be positioning itself slightly differently. Its geneology - developer Sigil was co-founded by Brad McQuaid and Jeff Butler, both instrumental in the development of EverQuest - might give you the idea that Vanguard isn't exactly targeting the first-timer. In fact, it seems designed to provide a bigger, more complex, more grown-up alternative to WoW. Think more choice, more depth and fewer long-term limits. |
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| 'Bigger' and 'more' are very much the themes here. The world itself - Telon - consists of three huge, completely explorable continents, modelled after European, Asian and Middle Eastern settings. You also get a huge range of character races and classes and some enormous skill trees to start off with, plus such lofty long-term goals as flying mounts to ride on and virtual property you can build and decorate. There are even areas that you'll only be able to access by air or boat. 'Forget the other MMORPGs', Vanguard seems to be saying 'I want to be your one and only, not just now, but for the rest of your life.' |
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| To this end, you get one of the most flexible character setups in the business. Sigil has made a lot of the 19 different playable races and 15 classes, and they've been right to. As well as the usual variations on Elves, dwarves and Halflings, there are several different races of men (in civilized and barbarian varieties). On top of these, the game throws in furry fox-like critters and cat-people in the Asian continent of Kojan, a race of scary-looking wolfmen, plus orcs, goblins and half-giants. The professions are sensibly split into defensive and offensive fighters and defensive and offensive spellscasters. However, as well as the usual tanks (the Warrior, the Paladin), ranged weapon and stealth types (Ranger, Rogue), healers (Cleric and Shaman) and heavy weapons dudes (the Necromancer, Sorcerer and Druid) there are some well thought out hybrids. The Dread Night, for example, is basically a tank with fearsome magic powers, while the Blood Mage is a healer with a nice side-line in offensive spells. |
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| As usual, not all professions are open to all races, but all in all, there's such a massive choice here that if you can't create two or three characters you'd like to play, there must be something wrong with your imagination. Producing all these variants must have required a huge commitment on Sigil's part, and I suspect that balancing them must be a nightmare. Only time will tell how well they manage it. |
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| Like most MMORPGs, Vanguard is primarily combat-driven, but real effort has also gone into making sure that it's not all dull right-click then sit-back stuff. Like Guild Wars or City of Heroes, you get a nice, responsive system of attacks and defences where the combos almost chain themselves together, and Vanguard also throws in a good system of reactive attacks and counters that only become available when specific conditions are met. More impressively, the game shows a real commitment to non-combat gameplay. I don't really go in for crafting myself, but you can see how much thought has gone into virtual manufacture and shopkeeping. |
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Diplomacy, meanwhile, is something new entirely. Modelled on a trading-card game, the system has you playing debate-themed cards in order to drive a gauge up and down between you and your 'opponent'. Things are complicated by the fact that each card played allots you and your opponent certain colour-coded points, and you both need these in order to play specific cards. It's relatively complex at first, but there are good tutorials and it's certainly not impossible to get your head around. What's more Vanguard really runs with the idea, throwing in a whole tree of diplomacy quests that offer an alternative means of advancement. |
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| Perhaps the biggest draw of Vanguard, however, is the world itself. Powered by a heavily modified Unreal 2 engine, this is a feast of gorgeous textures, lighting and reflection effects, where - provided your system has a high-end GPU and a lot of RAM, you can expect enormous draw distances, truly panoramic landscapes and some great atmospheric effects (even if the rain is over-used in some locations). This is a game where even the trees look amazing. There are glitches here and there, and the odd clumsy bit of modelling, but overall this is as close to Oblivion as MMOs currently get. A lot of attention has clearly gone into landscape, architecture and creature design, and - as in WoW - it's tempting just to explore and see everything the three continents have to offer. |
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