October 26, 2007
Is this week over yet? Here are some silly screenshots:
Here is Andorn from Vici Infinito, giving me the extended tour of their guild hall. He showed me their cool archery targets, and then took me through the hidden path in their wall that lead to another room. Very cool stuff! He even told me the story of the Sock Party, which I featured in my last entry. I’m not revealing any details!
I bumped into Drox the other day in Plains of Anguish. I was starstruck! Here’s the larger-than-life creator of that amazing UI so many love to use.
Last night I discovered the new “mark” feature, which allows you to put an icon over the head of groupmates. It’s supposed to help with identifying MT’s and other key people in a group or raid. I’m just excited that I can put huge cogs and flames over people’s heads. The diamond is my favorite I think, but I plan on wasting another couple of hours flipping back and forth over the list the next time I’m in a group. God help my groupmates.
Total change of subject, but doesn’t Nodgelos sorta look like a cross between Frodo Baggins and those little fuzzy trolls that were so popular in the 80′s?
Finally, here’s an exclusive sneak peek at the new optimized NPCs that are going into the game soon. Talk about a performance increase!
Stay safe San Diego.
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October 23, 2007
Our guild is really close to being done with construction on our guild hall. We bought up our plot the day they became available for purchase, yet it’s taken us a while to gather up the materials and get it all crafted. So seeing it completed will be a huge relief. In anticipation of that, I wanted to post up some fantastic shots of guild halls in Thestra and Kojan. The Kojan shots are of The Burning Legion’s guild hall, and the Thestran shots are from Vici Infinito’s guild hall. Congrats Bludtung, Andorn, and your respective members, great work!
Here is The Burning Legion’s guild hall, over in Kojan. What a view!
You can tell they are focused on staying lean and mean while they wait for raid content….
…and they hit the books too. Strong of mind and body!
I have no idea how people think stuff like this up, but I love it. This is a walkway made out of rugs, carefully placed to form a suspended stairway. Very impressive!
Here is Vici Infinito’s guildhall, in Thestra.
In the great hall, they have the guild trophies of all three heroes – Elia the crafter, Jerric Targonor the adventurer, and Idara the diplomat. In the background you can see their creative talents – carefully placed flaming logs to spell their guild initials.
The dining hall is open, and everyone who visits the buffet is welcomed with roasted meats and a warm basket of bread. Very neat work in the construction of the buffet!
What Thestran hall would be complete without a bar? I believe those are rugs used to form the base of the bar – again, it’s amazing that someone would think of that!
This is by far the best example of Telon’s brightest and most talented. I think I’ll take a rain check on this party though.
Hopefully next week I’ll be able to show you a glimpse at the Qalian guild hall, when we get ours completed.
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October 16, 2007
Boy am I glad that tomorrow I’m going to my happy place. The timing could not be better after the latest news from Vanguard.
Here is the official announcement. Cut to the chase – Hasium is gone, and PhAtHoM is in. Yes, that’s how he spells it. Every time I see it all I can think of is that scene from L.A. Story – “Big C, small a, small n, big D small e big E…” I just hope he’s been a fast learner since he first introduced himself to the Vanguard community.
Top it off, Aruspex is gone too. What a big effing buzzkill. I can only assume this means that diplomacy wasn’t popular ($) enough to keep around. Last week, there was some news that future diplomacy development was suspended, and those concerns were allayed by the fact that Aruspex and his team were moving over to work on putting in the optimized NPCs, and that they would return after that was done. Now both Aruspex, and the guy who posted that, are gone.
Vanguard is a game that *literally* has layers of content still buried under pixelated mountains. But as the team shrinks, and the original faces leave, the chances of seeing that content diminish as well.
For me right now, this feels like EQ’s Plane of Mischief all over again, only on a much larger scale. Sure, PoM had a lot of flaws and broken quests, but it had a really tight and cozy community of players who had devoted their time exclusively to this zone. The hope was always that there would be some polish put on the quirky, broken, quests. Instead, it was turned into a cookie cutter, bland, easy-to-reach revamped zone that was far less popular than the original version. My fear is that this will happen on a gamewide level here in Vanguard. I’m sure many will say this has already been done.
Personally, I expected that things would be more or less quiet until the end of the year, when the planned PR campaign for Vanguard would kick off. The fact that this happened, in October, just a day before GU #3, and a week after Cylus announced his departure, well, how the heck do you put a positive spin on that?
What really kicks me is that I finally reached a zen-like state in running a guild, and yet there’s non stop drama from the top of the game. Rich.
Someday, somewhere, someone needs to seriously write a book about all of this. Seriously. Until then, I’ll head over to Silky Venom over my morning coffee and bemoan the fact that yet another dev on the tracker no longer works for the Vanguard team.
On a positive note, I bought a new gaming system. I guess upgrading my computer is my version of the whole “eat a pint of ice cream” reaction to the news. Pricey, I know, but fewer calories.
Bring back the puppets god dammit.
Beach time.
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October 13, 2007
I did a double dipper in podcasting this week. I’m still co-hosting with Troy on Voyages of Vanguard, and this week we interviewed Lumio, the talented comic/podcaster/Art Assistant Site Manager for Vanguard Vault/Staff comic for Ten Ton Hammer/former friend of the server hamster. He’s just as amazing out of game too, as we learned through the interview. He works with his family to broadcast an Iranian Christian television show for children, which is truly amazing given the political and religious atmosphere in Iran right now. It was great to sit down and talk with him, and my hat goes off to him for all the work he does.
Along with the interview, we also go over the caster classes in Vanguard, and each of us gives our top three artistic achievements in Vanguard. Here is my favorite, the magic mouse placeholder mob graphic:
In revenge, Lumio had me on his show this week, and let me ramble on and on about myself. I’m really happy he’s started his podcast back up, after a small hiatus, and I love the idea of shining the spotlight on individuals of the Vanguard community. You can check out the show here, and find out the answer to the question, “If one synchronized swimmer drowns, do the others have to also?”
Mmuugg put in a new entry over at his Vanguard Blog. It’s all about his adventures in the gold-lined halls of Zossyr Hakrel. Great screenshots too!
Lastly, Virginworlds turned 2! Happy Birthday!
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October 9, 2007
You’ve seen the screenshots, and maybe even ran underneath them as a newbie from Kojan, but how many have actually been up to the floating islands over Jalen’s Crossing? If you are level 9-14 and have a partner or a small group, it’s worth a peek.
Above: I’m at a place called Vertigo!
To give some background, the Raki are a foxlike race that fled their homeland after it was destroyed by the Ulvari. They traveled to Telon on the floating islands, called the Arks of Harmony, which became a safe haven and a place to store important information on how to protect themselves from future threats. Over time, though, the Raki were driven from their islands by the Yukionnas and their minions.
To help the Raki, you need to head to the bridge underneath the islands, over at Jalen’s Crossing. You can get two quests from Cammora, who is standing behind the runic portal that takes you up to the Arks. One is a diplomacy quest that involves talking to the three spectral raki up on the main island and asking them to give up some of the books they guard.
Above: Scenic tranquility of Water Island, juxtaposed by the ominous presence of a tombstone.
The main quest is called “Taint of the Yukionna.” It asks you to travel up to the main island, and then from there, follow the path around the tower in the center to click on one of four elemental portals. Once you port to a particular elemental island, it is locked to all other groups for either an hour, or until you complete the event. I did, however, notice that these portals were buggy at times, and wouldn’t allow anyone inside even when there was no one else in the zone but me.
When you reach an elemental island, you have to make your way to the back in order to locate and activate another one of the runic portal structures. The boss of each island appears after you click it, and you need to then kill and loot the heads of each Dominatrix boss. There is a neat little twist to this quest – you must kill all the mobs on the island before you activate the runic portal. If you do not, then whatever is still alive will come running straight to the portal you just activated. Most of the mobs here 3 dot level 10-12 mobs. The nameds that can occasionally pop up are 4 dots, as are all the bosses.
Above: About to click the runic portal in Air Island. Looks clear to me, yep!
Once you do that, the island respawns, and you have to re-clear it as you work your way back to the entrance portal, where the boss is now standing. Again, if you don’t clear it, then whatever is alive will come running at you when you engage the boss. If you group with people who like to touch stuff (like me), you might want to warn them to pry off their mouse button so they can’t click on anything by “mistake.” I’m not saying I actually did that, but I can say that I know how many mobs are on the island, and that it takes less than 2 seconds for them all to reach the portal.
Above: Len’Sytra, the Water Dominatrix. What is a water dominatrix anyway?
Once you’ve completed all four islands, you can port back down to the bridge to turn in your heads and get a nice shoulder item. Supposedly, there is also a way to get into the tower on the main island too. As you kill the bosses, each is supposed to drop an orb, and if one person collects all four, they can unlock the door to the tower. I didn’t get any orbs while I was there, but I’d love to know if anyone has, and whether they made it into the tower. There looks to be a sparkly anti-gravity elevator inside, and I would love to see what that leads to.
Above: Preparing for battle on Fire Island.
Overall, apart from some issues with the wonky runic portals, this seemed like a great area for a small group around level 9-14 to explore. Even if you don’t do the content, it’s worth it to port up just for the views. Be careful what you click though!
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October 2, 2007
I’ve been spending way too much time in the boringly safe confines of town lately. Time to roam around.
Spires Keep, seconds before my griffin poofed and I dropped to my death. I need to see this place soon.
Named Cyclops in the Liath Desert – I’m not scared. Not at all.
Ksavari Gulch – How to build a better mousetrap. I wonder if we can put a few of these in Mekalia.
Cave near Fallen Cove – Everything about this place says don’t go in. So of course I put on sneak and went to the deepest parts of the cave.
Ruins in Sorrow’s Heart – This place would make a really cool guild hall.
A Temple of Xennumet tour entry is coming soon. In the meantime, I got a promotion and am now the co-host over at Voyages of Vanguard. Episode 21 is out, have a listen!
Lumio has a new episode out from his show “Vanguard Voices.” He interviews Lifebane, the necromancer class leader. It’s very cool to see a new episode after a bit of a hiatus!
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