Vanguard - I don't give a fuck if it's dead, It's still brown as fuck (Download link in 1st post)

Tenks_sl said:

I'd probably rank PvP issues near the bottom of the list as well. Vanguard was a PvE game first and foremost. And it even failed in that end.

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No doubt there were more important things going on than pvp. The whole company was struggling to stay afloat the entire time I was there. Trying to fix pvp issues was like watering the lawn while the house was on fire. That said, there were some basic non-systemic pvp specific problems that could be addressed with minimal resources and that's what I tried to focus on. Before I asked for resources, there was literally zero allocation for pvp. There were lots of small things that took 5 minutes to fix that made pvp a little more viable (though still far from ideal). But like I said, the game was pretty far from ideal as it was.

The GM's of Vanguard were some of the best

Rezz_sl said:

Nino, I believe, was the musician who did a lot of Vanguard's music. Healhammer or something similar; I feel like I remember him being a cleric in EQ. Anyway, yeah, Vanguard had pretty stellar music.

Healers in general (not sure if Shaman was a healer or not, I just remember Bloodmage/Disciple/Cleric) were silly overpowered while I was playing. I think it was an issue with a self buff and self spell that combo'd or something, but a cleric could be healing at full tilt and still out-DPS average/good dps on a lot of fights. I'd like to think the dudes I ran with were just badasses, but a healer that could reasonably tank as good as/better than equally geared actual tanks, heal like a champ, and out DPS even leveled/geared DPS was a bit much hah. It started to fall off towards the 50s (again, close to release) but they were incredibly powerful, even solo.

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Can confirm Bear Shaman OP. Solo'd bosses no problem, farmed named no problem.

Even tho we weren't able to collect any packets from a pvp server I did figure out the details on how to enable the client to make another character your offensive target by default. So having a PVP enabled server is not out of the question at some point.



On a side note we are able to spawn all the different boats but they are not drive-able yet we are still working on that part.

Vanguard had some fantastic bugs. I remember, as a bard, that I could solo almost anything because with the right combination of levitate and speed you can get yourself stuck inside a rock where you couldn't target anything and nothing could target you, but pbaoe dot songs that you started singing before getting stuck would continue to tick, so it was just a matter of pulling named mobs near a rock and waiting for 30 minutes while they ticked down.

The z axis was also really easy to exploit. I used a similar pbaoe strategy to solo the entire gladiator / coliseum quest line for that uber (at the time) weapon.

Actually, running around the vast world and soloing named mobs was as close as I've come to the feelings I had as a bard during kunark / velious era EQ. The only problem was that there was no population, end game, economy, or social hubs to support that skeleton. Lisa if wasted potential, but I still had an enjoyable 6 months or a year or so.

Then again, I also loved shadowbane even during the height of the SB.exe fiasco, so maybe I just have a high tolerance for those shenanigans as long as the game is open-ended enough.

The one thing EQ, VG, and SB all got right, in my opinion, is that you get dropped into a massive world with very little guidance, and there's a huge sense of accomplishment as you figured things out on your own. Unfortunately, that's also probably one of the (many) reasons those last two games never really took off.

Nothing like a good old nostalgia post.

Vanguard never reached the "fun factor" of Shadowbane. Even if Shadowbane itself was pretty shallow. But actually stealing inventory from people as a thief is about the most fun you can have in a video game.

Vinyard_sl said:

The GM's of Vanguard were some of the best

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GM Unpoco RIP babe

Tenks_sl said:

Vanguard never reached the "fun factor" of Shadowbane. Even if Shadowbane itself was pretty shallow. But actually stealing inventory from people as a thief is about the most fun you can have in a video game.

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Shadowbane was awesome but it's easy to see why, even without the glaring bugs it had, it was doomed to fail. Wolves feast on the sheep, sheep leave, wolves starve. Having hardcore pvp be the only element of gameplay while also having everything you worked for be taken or destroyed can only last so long.

It was fun for me because I was in my servers #1 guild. I'm sure it sucked for everyone we massacred.

Japanfour_sl said:

the music in vanguard was choice. Thestras elven forest music was my favorite.




anyone know where I could get the OST?

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todd masterson has some up on his site. you might be able to torrent the full ost but definitely know that a lot of the bgms are on youtube.

I played on Sartok until it closed down. PvP was buggy and with a few classes a retarded one-shot fest, but it still was awsome. No safe zones, no level restrictions, no instances, so you could fight over raid content. And the group vs group and low level PvP was awsome.

Also lol at Ebonlore. Always fun to see them get banned.

Didn't it take them months to get helmet art in? I remember not having visible helmets for a long time.

Yeah no helmets forever. Then their first pass was pretty abysmal, if I remember right.

Wasn't helmets at the cost of changing facial meshes and polygon counts and making the character models look uglier and lower definition and shit. In the end, most helmets looked terrible anyhow. Capes on the other hand were awesome. Terrible physics, but at least looked cool.

Yeah helmets tooks months to get in. When they were implemented is was a mess. Those capes though....

I remember Psionicists could keep you perma-locked in PvP. Literally nothing you could do.

Is this still on track for any kind of release this year?

Krassus_sl said:

Is this still on track for any kind of release this year?

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The starter areas are getting filled as we speak with quests and such. IoD is done completely I believe.

Raki never did get their tail.

They also adjusted character models like a year after launch, intending to make them look more "heroic". Logged in one day and my gnome's shoulder mantel was clipping into his chest.

Greeting's since it's time for a update figured I would give you some stats this time instead
of commit logs. Our content team has been kicking butt so this one is for them and all the
hard work they have been doing.

Following adventuring quests have been scripted per chunk
(Only Adventuring has been touched and some quest rewards still need to be added)

Bordinars Cleft - 67
Caial Brael - 29
Cliffs of Ghelgad - 23
Dahknarg - 73
Grimsea Watch - 6
Halgarad - 5
Hathor Zhi - 13
Isle of Dawn - 37
Khal - 70
Leth Nurae - 70
Lomshir - 41
Martok - 30
Shang Village - 12
Tursh Village - 44

Total - 520


Spawn scripts which include hailing, Quest dialog, Quest drops etc etc

Bordinars Cleft - 152
Caial Brael - 285
Cliffs of Ghelgad - 70
Dahknarg - 178
Grimsea Watch - 8
Halgarad - 12
Hathor Zhi - 17
Isle of Dawn - 39
Khal - 379
Leth Nurae - 99
Lomshir - 182
Martok - 405
Ocean Watch - 10
ShangVillage - 13
Tanvu - 335
Three Rivers Village - 8
TurshVillage - 335

Total - 2527


Spell scripts we just started working on not that long ago but they are coming along nicely.


I would like to personally thank everyone on the team for dedicating their free time to help bring
Vanguard alive again. Thank you