Wiping the slate clean, Sigil Games Online refreshed the character selection screens for Vanguard's January 30th official launch. Pre-orders earned a three-day head start, but were summarily turned away by February 2nd if they had not yet purchased the retail version or digital download of the final game. But if the shelves of your favorite video game outlet are any indication (not to mention the digital market), then people are doing just that -- repopulating the lovingly-crafted world of Telon, the Vanguard canvas, in a silent procession of thousands.
That procession of thousands is comprised of players with a decidedly 'hardcore' MMO palette. Even the dearth of in-game tutorials supports this notion, as those individuals arriving in Telon without a working knowledge of standardized MMO game mechanics will, undoubtedly, be at a loss. But Vanguard isn't here to teach you how to drive. It's here to show you the open road.
I remembered the vista from the vertigo-inducing cliffs above the port city of Khal. I decided -- even with the strong character-driven intro for the oriental Kojani -- that I was ready for 1,001 nights of Arabian-styled adventures on the continent of Qalia. Amidst 15 adventuring classes, 19 races, a multitude of starting locations (as opposed to, say, one tutorial island), and a completely untethered compass of directions to travel without load screens, Vanguard's "set yourself free" slogan isn't any bait-and-switch gimmick. It's a dare. Not to mention a daring task for the developers of the purportedly second-most-expensive MMO to date (as far as R&D costs).
When it comes to peeling off the cosmetic facade of the typical MMO, you'll immediately see where a lot of that research and development went. The up-to-your-ears immersion of traveling without restriction -- given the expected creature-based roadblocks of a PvE landscape -- cannot be underestimated. Hundreds of feet up on those Qaliathari cliffs, I'm given just a taste of all the travel modes I can aspire to: Staring off into the mirror-flat oceanic horizon I imagine my maiden voyage toward a distant shore; looking down over the twin-sickle arms of Qalia's "gateway to the continent," Khal, I picture my descent astride a Pegasus; or I merely escort a pack animal down the cliff's sheer pathway and visualize the panorama flashing by on the back of a black stallion that the Qalia region is renowned for. Nearly every structure is inhabited with citizens, decorations, and all manner of Pier 1 furnishings (but I certainly didn't have a skeleton key to every doorway. No surprise, given my novice level.)
One sphere of gameplay that opens a lot of doors is the Diplomacy sphere, exciting not only for its MMO genre debut, but also for its tightly-crafted originality. Who knew that a cat-and-mouse game of cards would work so well in an MMO? But it succeeds brilliantly. The Diplomacy tutorial is lengthy, even brutal if you absorb its introductory stages all in one sitting, but is easy to catch onto when put into play. And, as any good minigame should be, it has an addictive quality, made even more potent knowing that completing a quest depends on this skilful political maneuvering. And when you undertake diplomatic quests as various as making a camel cry (seriously), to extracting info from the local merchants about gold-extorting guards, going back to simple courier missions for this type of storyline development is laughably elementary by comparison.
Still, a detractor during your adventures in Telon is the pedestrian level of writing. The quests in Vanguard are not poorly written by any means, but merely procedural, conveying local concerns with a dry, textbook-minded approach. I have yet to meet an NPC with a personality, or a mission with a memorable objective, but thankfully the quests gradually grow in size and stature until they finally mark themselves as memorable … if only due to the width and girth of your explorations. Vanguard doesn't create dense adventures through narrative might, but through contextual rapture, making its realistic-fantasy a believable proposition, bearing in mind how completely enclosed you are within its environment-- right down to actually felling trees to collect timber resources (crafters rejoice!).
The NPCs are much less convinced, however. The one-line quips a character spews out sound like they were voiced by Bob from Accounting, or Nancy from down the hall. Gnomes yell out "Snuggles!" as a goodbye. Your "/cheer" resembles a voice-cracked teenager, ecstatic that he just scored a free bag of Cheetos. Men and women bust out the exact same dance moves. The hardy-har set of brainstorm-session chuckles does little more than descend Vanguard into a needless level of parody. This weak comedy fire could ignite with greater vigor through sharper writing or situational comedy, as opposed to the juvenile antics that ring completely false here.
But feeble emotes and colorless voice-acting still can't break the horizon-to-horizon imagination that grips the world of Telon. They are, after all, only peripherals in a game of this nature. And since Vanguard's true nature isn't saturated in a pulp level of fantasy magics, it makes every discovery that much more enriching, and every exploration that much more engrossing (it's somewhat distressing, though, that the soundtrack does nothing to deepen the Edenic imagery).
But, when the two leading guilds on the Gulgrethor server are named "Pain" and "Redemption," it's obvious that the players are implementing their own ideologies and imaginings into a game that faithfully puts inertial thrust into their hands. The developers aren't so much saying "Look at what we made!" as they're saying "Look at what you can make." This super-sized sandbox is the exact modus operandi that's wins EVE Online countless awards. The worlds-apart difference here, however, is the amount of competition Vanguard has to stare down without flinching. Sigil Games Online isn't catering to the fast-food type of MMO gamer. But they still just might bring a few subscribers in from the Blizzard.
Vanguard shows every promise of reining in that niche audience it's dishing up for, holding a modest piece of the online gaming pie, and slow-cooking its success for the next several years. It'll clear you of your MMO zone-claustrophobia within minutes, it'll grant you a sense of permanency in a genre growing increasingly ephemeral, and Vanguard will not only show you the open road, it'll let you build your own.
