January 31, 2007
I did some really fun stuff last night in Thestra, and had so much fun that I think this will be my hangout spot for the near future.
Above: Killing Trolls in the Cave of the Urugog
I did a whirlwind tour of a few areas that are good for levels 9-15, thanks to Faunis. We did several quests near the Vault of Heroes (The Lost Yeti was my favorite, they’re so cool!). The highlight was crawling around the Cave of the Urugog, where I knocked out a couple of quests and picked up several upgrades in the process. Then we met up with Andaraiel and headed over to Veskel’s Exchange, where we bumped into Orkoh and Trismegustus, to go spider killing and reach the Kaon Portal. In a nutshell, it was an awesome night. As you can tell, I think Curse-gaming’s database is awesome too!
Above: Really wishing I had brought that Star of Elendil right about now!
The cool part is that many guildmates are in that area, and I’m planning to set up a caravan for any others that want to get here. It’s interesting, because so often, when the subject of Vanguard comes, you always see the question, “Is it like EQ?” It dawned on me last night that it most certainly is not, but for it to be like Everquest, you’d have to turn the clock back about 7 years.
I thought back to when I first formed Revelry and Honor in Everquest. For many players, the whole concept of guilds was new, as was the idea of a gaming community. There were some guilds that had some pre-planning and organization, but for the most part, it was Everquest where most players cut their teeth on things like DKP, raiding, FCFS, calendars, rotations, etc. Heck, just getting to know the server community you played on was a game within a game, and finding reliable friends to group with took some time. There was a kind of “social learning curve” that was new to everyone, and that took time to master (some still haven’t mastered it!)
During the beta phase of Vanguard, there were dozens and dozens of guilds that had already formed and were organizing for the game! In Revelry and Honor, people have known each other long enough that members are past the social pleasantries, and already focused on organizing groups, doling out upgrades to members, coordinating travel, and sharing information about chunks. I’m guessing that many other guilds have already been doing the same, with great efficiency.
I think the online gaming community as a whole is wiser, more organized, and more jaded when it comes to guilds and server communities. The social grey area of EQ has long since been explored, and you can’t put that geenie back in the bottle. While that means that future games have a harder time delivering that sense of freshness and mystery that EQ did, for me it’s actually more fun to know that on day one, I’m able to tackle the game’s content with friends and guildmates that I know and trust.
Above: Safely out of the spider cave, in front of the Kaon Portal exit.
….Now if only my guild would trust me more on pulling! I swear I won’t bring more than 12!
Posted by jayernh under Archive,Vanguard Level 10-15 | Comments (1)
January 30, 2007
Last night I knocked out a few more quests in Qalia with Faunis, but towards the end of the night, the plan was to head over to Tursh, so that we could do some dungeon work there and hopefully link up with even more guildies.
Above: New Targonor! Here’s where I camped last night. When I logged in today, I was at an altar near the Vault of Heroes.
By the time we reached Khal, though, I had long since turned into a pumpkin, and was heading into zombie territory. The trip to Tursh would be at least another 30 minutes, maybe even more with deaths. What to do?!
Caravan!
If you aren’t familiar with the caravan function, or don’t know how it works, here’s the rundown. The caravan is designed for situations where a group of friends wants to stay together in the same spot, but not everyone has the time to make the trip. Up to 5 people can join a caravan, and then when they log back into the game, they have the option of entering near the caravan leader’s most current location.
Above: Running through New Targonor. This reminded me of ToV. Where’s Sontalak?!
There are a few parameters though. The first is that if you join a caravan, you must log out within 10 minutes after joining for it to work. At that point, you must remain offline for at least 2-3 hours (some say two, others say three, so I’ll update when I can verify the correct time) in order to be able to get the option of entering at the caravan leader’s bind point. This is not meant as a ghetto Call of Hero, it’s for people who need a hand with a long trip, but aren’t in any rush to get there. My situation last night was exactly what the caravan system was designed for. It could also be handy for arranging guild travel to a raid destination. Just have the members join a caravan at the end of one evening, and when they log in the next night, they are at the new bind point, close to the raid target.
There’s a few tips I’d suggest if you are trying to form a caravan. First, obviously you need to be grouped, and the leader of the group is the caravan leader. To make a caravan, the leader clicks on a member in the group, and then right clicks their name in the offensive target window. That will bring up a menu of options, and one is “invite to caravan.” The member can then accept the invitation and voila, the caravan is made!
You can see your caravan information in the social window (hit “o” on the keyboard) by clicking on the “caravan” tab. That will show you the countdown clock to when you have to camp.
Later, when you log back in (I logged in about 12 hours later but it only takes a couple of hours for the options to work), you get these choices at character select:
Above: Caravan options window at the character select.
Based on where I logged in today, the caravan option is based on the nearest altar (I’m assuming bindstone too) where you caravan leader currently is. You can also just choose to cancel the caravan and enter the world where you had normally camped, so if your caravan leader tries to get you to log into a nasty location, just say no!
I’m really happy this feature is in game, and I know I’ll be using it a lot. It’s perfect for my playstyle and playtime, and I’m loving the fact that I can travel and still get a good night’s sleep. Now if only Sigil could implement this in real life….
Posted by jayernh under Archive,Getting Started in Vanguard,Vanguard General | Comments (3)
January 29, 2007
Last night, I spent a little more time in Tanvu doing quests and getting blessed. But I also played around in in the Khal starting area. And boy did I find trouble!
Kurtz and I did a little gataro hunting last night, and man are they fierce. They live in an area called the Sanctium, and there are a few quests given out by the Water Serpent, a wurm-type creature that stands on the shores nearby. (His quests are needed for the Blessing of the Serpent)
Above: I didn’t have time to check this out more closely but I thought it was a really cool spot. It’s a set of rocks by the shore that spout out water every now and then. I thought it was a volcano till I got closer. Very neat.
If you head to this area, be ready for fast respawn, especially in the pit outside. The other thing we noticed was that when I tried to pull them with a shuriken, they wouldn’t move towards me, so I didn’t bother waiting around and ended up charging them usually.
After wrapping up the quests here, I did a little soloing on Jaye, the wood elf ranger who expatriated to Khal from Ca’ial Brael to Khal. I can’t put my finger on it, but I love hunting in Qalia. Even though my home of Ca’ial is probably the most visually stunning city in Telon, I prefer the sands of the Qa Desert.
I worked on the starting quests — killed a bunch of scorpions, caught a bunch of scorpions, laid a scorpion trap on the Kasavari….the only thing that would have topped it off is if I had been turned into a giant scorpion on my way to Khal, to scare the poo out of the rioting prisoners outside the city.
Besides spending a lot of time around scorpions, I also met up with a manticore. I noticed him circling high above, and eventually tracked him down among some rocks near the Raia outpost. I began to wonder if it would be possible to get him to follow me to Khal, because he might like the hustle and bustle of the city. Even though he’s a level 16, 5 dot mob, and I was only level 6, I figured I had a chance if I used my racial ability. When activated, I turn into an Okami wolf pup, which gives me increased speed an immunity to any movement impairing spells.
Above: I’m in the foreground, in the form of an Okami. I still have the twigs in my hair that I have as a wood elf!
I got about 20 feet before he got me. He’s now on my “to do” list of mean mobs to kill when I get older and stronger.
Above: Dead.
My little tip of the day that I learned last night is the Quest Tracker. I didn’t know this existed, but it’s terrific. If you click on the “Quest Tracker” in your quest journal, or double click the name of the quest, it appears in checklist form on your main screen in the upper right corner. It’s very handy if you have several quests and want to be able to keep track of a few that you are working on simultaneously. I’d like to figure out how to move the text up into the corner a little more, but I’m sure there is a UI that will do that soon, if not already.
Posted by jayernh under Archive,Vanguard Level 1-10 | Comments (2)
January 28, 2007
Now that the game is live, I am finally getting to group up with my husband, which always makes a challenging evening that much more difficult.
We wanted to start in the same area together, so I rolled up a Kojani monk named Erika and he made a Half Elf disciple named Kurtz. We did our unspeakable acts of cruelty in Shang Village, endured humility in Dellerjuba Village on the first night, so last night we were ready for some real fun.
Above: Fighting in Stronghold. Don’t you try any of that flapping crane nonsense on me mister!
We began by catching a chicken….well it was really more like a creepy looking goose, named the Golden Ostard. The thing runs around the area behind Master Tallon’s house, near the red shrine with the jin crystal, and you have to click the leash in your inventory to capture it and bring it back. It’s a neat little quest, and the potion reward was nice considering it was from a newbie quest. I was really hoping that we could keep the leash, because I know a few gnomes that could use one, but no luck.
We also did a quest to retrieve a mushroom from the top of a large rock. I fell a few times trying it, although I swore I felt a pair of hands on my back the last time I plunged to the ground. Eventually we both got the mushroom and worked our way through the Ghost Wind quests.
We had a little confusion on the quest path later on that night. We had done some of the Stronghold quests, but weren’t high enough to do the group ones (like rooftops). We ended up clicking the mysterious essence in the abandoned hotel, and got ported to a quest area that seemed too high for our level. The better spot was heading to Garu’s house, near the Yeti, and doing his tests first.
Now, I’m not really a big fan of tests, mainly because I always manage to screw them up. But I loved these tests (even though I managed to screw them up!)
The test of wisdom was a series of riddles, and if you get them wrong you get smacked in the head. 50 smacks later, I figured out all the answers to the riddles and passed the test. (The answers are fire, soul, promise, name, broom, and key if you want to avoid being pummeled)
Above: Testing our mental prowess in the Trial of Wisdom. Stop hitting me!
My real favorite, though, was the Leap of Faith. We had to walk to the end of a plank that overlooked Tanvu, and prove our faith in jin. I love stuff like this. In Everquest, my favorite spot in game was the hidden bridge in the Deep. I loved slowly following the line of people, as we all tried to follow the little brown bags of dropped shruikens that marked the path. Or better yet, trying to sprint across with no real idea if you were aiming correctly along the bridge. In Everquest 2, I loved jumping down to Longdrop Falls, and hoping that I didn’t overjump and miss the little pond below.
Above: One….two…… THREE!!! (Below)
This jump didn’t fail to deliver, and I didn’t even screw this test up! My faith in jin must be strong, because I survived the jump and landed safely back at Garu’s room.
We finished our evening by reaching Master Ashaine and getting another series of tests. We’ll work on them tonight and then try to head back to Stronghold. There’s a woman crying somewhere inside that we still need to find. Very sad.
Posted by jayernh under Archive,Vanguard Level 1-10 | Comments (5)
January 27, 2007
But man was it headache!
Pretty much everything that could go wrong for me did go wrong yesterday. It’s a good thing it’s only a game!
First, I snuck on after the kids began to nap, eager to log in and make my toons, when I get “You do not have an active Vanguard Subscription” at the character select, with an “OK” button at the bottom. Now, personally, I feel there should have been another button saying, “Sorry but you are mistaken, I was in beta and put in the pre-order key, check again darnit,” but since there wasn’t, I was out of luck for the time being. I tried going to the link where you enter the beta key, and of course it said that the key had already been consumed. I could have told you that!
I found comfort reading threads on the other fansites of players complaining of the same thing and commiserating with each other. I also ran around the house frantically trying to find that extra pre-order key I had gotten a while back, but of course, when I clicked the link to the station site to enter the key, the site was down. I finally was able to get into my account through the patcher, and entered the key from there. Success!
I had just enough time to create my characters before naptime was over. I ended up making Jaye, a wood elf ranger, Erika, a kojani monk, and Randall, a dwarf cleric and the guild whipping boy. Sadly, even after being in beta for months and months, I can’t decide whether I want to focus on playing a ranger or a monk. I’m a ranger at heart, but the monk class in Vanguard really interests me. Unless something changes, I’ll be playing Erika when I’m on.
Later that night, it was finally time to log in, form the guild, and settle down for some fun hunting! All I had to do is get one silver, find a “Guild Registrar” from my starting city of Tanvu, buy a charter, invite 5 other people, and Revelry and Honor would be official again. Easy enough, I thought……
After two hours of bugged invites, random group disbandings, chat servers suddenly pooping out, and the error messages when trying to activate the charter, we were on the verge of just giving up for the night. To top it off, my Ventrilo mic wasn’t working right for half the night. (I still don’t know how I got it to work) But we finally got all the planets to align, everyone camped to desktop, made a toon in the same starting area, logged back successfully, and the charter worked! There were still problems with trying to invite people on and off all night, but at least we had the name over some of our heads!
Above: “Strangers from distant lands. Friends of old. You have been summoned here to form Revelry and Hon…..Ah crap, are we bugged again?!”
While it was a frustrating night, I put it in perspective later on. I remember many nights in Everquest when the chat servers were down. I remember tons and tons of bugged raids in Planes of Power, sometimes so bad that it caused us to be unable to raid a particular zone. I even recall having to raid in /ooc and /auction at times. And apparently there is a raid bug going on right now in WoW with the new expansion. So the grass isn’t always greener.
The only complaint I have about the whole experience is that it would be nice to see the official Vanguard site have some sort of “status” area, so that we get clear and quick communication on issues like this. I think everyone tends to have a lot more patience with problems when A) they know it’s not just them and B) they know that the devs are aware of it and are working hard to fix it. Trying to get that information from 6 different fansites, and still not getting any official answer, was very frustrating.
I did get a chance to settle down for some hunting after all that, and I was really pleased with the performance of the game. There was a lot of improvement just prior to launch, and last night when I logged in, there was yet another noticable improvement.
As I made my way around the newbie zone, I even spotted some notable faces!
Here’s Moorgard, Mobhunter extraordinaire and former EQ2 dev. He doesn’t look like a Green Monster to me!
When I saw this famous name I almost died! I tried hailing him a few times but he didn’t answer me. I guess I didn’t say the right phrase. Somehow I doubt I’ll be seeing his name much more though.
Can’t wait for more fun!
Posted by jayernh under Archive,Vanguard General | Comments (1)
January 24, 2007
Last night was the most visually stunning night of gaming that I have ever had.
I find it ironic that I stumbled on a post earlier that day with a link to the original intro video for Everquest, from way back in 1999. After touring Telon by griffin once more (for the last time in beta, but hopefully not the last time ever!) I had that same sense of awe that I did 8 years ago. But in Vanguard, the world around you isn’t just a backdrop. It’s an encompassing, humbling, breathtaking world. It plays as important a role as any boss mob or piece of end game armor would. Last night, as I camped from the beta server for the last time, I felt like I had peeked at some places that will be the basis for many epic tales and fond memories.
Above: Stiirhad. This volcano was once home to the dark elves, who fought for their existence against attacks from the Mordebi and Ahgramun. While they succeeded in driving them back, the dark elves were finally driven from Stiirhad by elementals, who took over the volcano and drove the Dark Elves to Hathor Zhi.
Obviously, the big question still is performance. The good news is that, in the last few days of beta, there were several patches that brought a noticable improvement in performance. Based on the beta update page, it looks like performance will continue to improve after launch.
Above: Stiirhad. Below: Floating Temple above Jalen’s Crossing in Kojan.
Below: Dragon attack in Ca’ial Brael. The beta events for the last night were a lot of fun.
Two days till Launch!
Posted by jayernh under Archive,Vanguard General | Comments (3)
January 22, 2007
Over the weekend I checked out a really cool, low level dungeon right outside Lomshir called The Serpent of Siharis. On the surface, it doesn’t even look like a dungeon, because it’s just the rotting hull of a ship run aground. But there are roaming dead all around the ship, and it becomes clear that something sinister is going on.
Above: Bracing for a pull at the bottom of the demon temple.
As my group headed onto the ship, we met up with the ghostly captain, who told us what happened. Apparently the ship ran aground on top of a temple, unleashing a horde of undead on the beach and causing the untimely deaths of the crewmates. He asked us to destroy the portals in the temple below the ship, to stop the influx of demons that had been seeping into our world.
We made our way below decks, and soon found the hole in the hull that opened to the temple. For a low level dungeon (levels 8-12), it sure was impressive! It was huge, and full of Ahnd’ka demons who cast a menacing shadow as they stood guard along the walls. The architecture reminded me of Qur’xa temple, which makes sense since the demons had stolen the secrets of planar travel from the Kurashasa.
Above: Eerie shadows from Ahnd’ka Demons.
Pulls here seemed fairly straightforward. The demons are usually clumped in twos or threes, but the groups seem spaced out enough that it’s easy to avoid overpulls of multiple groups.
We crawled to the bottom, but unfortunately did not meet up with the boss. Instead, we decided to celebrate with a group handstand. We stunk so bad at coordinating it, though, and the only thing that could have helped us was to have had the boss spawn right behind us as we were counting to three.
Above: Can Henry Kissinger do this?!
Overall, it was a fun crawl. It’s nice to be able to tackle dungeons even at a low level, and this certainly was no throw away, space wasting, mob lined tunnel. The layout and quests involving it are meaningful and eye-catching. It’s a great spot for anyone near lomshir. Hopefully next time I’m back there I’ll get to see the boss–and do a better group handstand!
Here’s a few shots from the Griffin Event on Friday night. I only got to ride one for about 15 minutes, because soon after they put in the griffin vendor in Halgarad, the servers had to come down for a patch. I got to see some neat stuff in that short time though!
Here I am heading into Ironfor…….er, wrong game!
If I get to do one thing in this game, it will be to push Corka off this bridge.
Can’t wait to find out who we can blame for this getting here….
Posted by jayernh under Archive,Vanguard Level 1-10 | Comments (1)