Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, Sony Online Entertainment's newest MMO baby (developed by Sigil Games Online), closed its Beta doors to make final preparations for going live on the 30th of this month. A three-day headstart event launches on the 27th for pre-orders. I briefly visited the land of Telon and strode away with mixed reactions as to what may be the MMO genre's most ambitious undertaking to date.
The planet of Telon is ultimately The World According to Keith Parkinson. While executive orders are carried out by several EverQuest alumni, Keith piloted the drawing board from stem to stern, his legendary fantasy art forming the thematic anchor for the immense, seamless (non-instanced) Vanguardian landscape.
I'm standing on a scintillating beach, a scaled Kojani suit of armor and a sorcerer's staff on my person, a band holding back my ponytail, and a fu-manchu mustache on my face. The Asian junk ships moored to the dock and the black dragon-riding shogun ahead of me completes the oriental fantasy image. Then I look further inland and see a coastal village in flames, soldiers attacking unarmed citizens, and several other soldiers in similar armor to mine that are keeping their distance, refusing to participate in the bloodshed. Above their heads is the telltale moniker: "Cowardly Soldier."
I make my way up to the dragon-mounted captain, his dark-winged beast twisting about, screaming silently at the other players gathered about the floating yellow icon over his head -- an instantly recognizable MMO convention: Speak to this person; get excited.
My orders are shocking, but I am a duty-bound servant of the Emperor and the Kojani Empire. I will not falter. I charge toward the burning village and fulfill my promises to the captain: I bring several Kojani citizens to their death, the satisfaction coursing through me that I am following the orders of my Emperor. I persuade some of the Cowardly Soldiers to obey their orders as well, I verbally and physically slap around others that do not listen until they come to their senses and attack the "rebels." I loot coffers of gold from the destroyed homes and return them to the captain. He is pleased with my loyalty.
The end is near, and we assault the home of the rebel village's leader. I leave his monk bodyguards in embarrassing heaps on his lawn; I burst through the doors of his domicile, until I finally come face to face with the rebel leader. He senses an immeasurable guilt in my countenance, one that was only hinted at earlier, but one that I ignored and pushed beyond. The rebel leader breaks my blind loyalty, senses that there certainly is some good within me, and without my consent, banishes me from the ruinous site of his desecrated village.
When the blinding light subsides, I am at the outskirts of another fishing village, my soldierly uniform and imposing sorcerer staff stripped of me. I'm in the plain, white garb and thin-soled boots I'd selected on the character creation screen. And if the rebel leader is correct, here I will rededicate my life to seeking, discovering, and cultivating the Lao-Jin, the positive internal energy force, within my own battered and blinded spirit. With a map that aims nowhere but here, in a fish-strewn village located at the mouth of a wide, swift-current river, bereft of any weapons (but for my small repertoire of spells, lucky me), I prepare for the first chapter of my saga, seeking to shake the nightmare of that violent, militant prologue from my countenance.
* * * * *
But where to begin? Vanguard: Saga of Heroes steps up as the self-proclaimed flagship of massively-multiplayer online gaming's "third generation." And, standing on the shoulders of giants, Vanguard takes, in its opinion, the best and most enduring elements of MMOs since their popularly-accepted inception with EverQuest (and also from the "second generation" of MMOs, including a certain World of Warcraft), even if some of those particular things don't set well with every community of gamers.
Things like zero non-instanced locations, while attempting to diminish "camping." Things like a challenging combat model, without resorting to grinding. Things like traditional party roles (offensive fighters, defensive fighters, casters, and healers) with the unconventional addition of Diplomats to the social and political climate of Telon -- a sphere of gameplay, along with adventuring and crafting, that carve out greater overarching pursuits for players as they outline their character's career.
And with a five-year plan solidly in place, the designers of Vanguard are taking their 6,000 square kilometer map (only 500 sq km of which are landmassed right now) and removing the training wheels from every aspect of geographic exploration. At around level 10, your character will be able to acquire a mount; sure, it's only going to be a horse -- at first -- but there is an entire chain of increasingly magical and fantastical beasts awaiting the higher-level stables. Funds permitting, even the oceans will hold no boundaries, as players purchase customizable ships with sizes ranging from fishing boats to certifiable galleons to populate the sea lanes. Undersea adventures are in the works, as well as destinations that can only be reached by flying.
But if the only way to really get to know a land is by traveling on foot, then I'm off to a knowing start. If you've seen the characters, architecture, and landscaping artwork, then you already know whether the EQ2 aesthetic turns you on ... or turns your stomach. I'm a card-carrying member of the latter camp, but the miles-long vistas are still awe-inspiring. The architecture gets its building permits from the Soft-Core Fantasy Construction Co., but there's no arguing that Parkinson was reaching for majesty. And even though the character customization screen resorts to the decidedly low customization options of slider bars (should I make my clone smile or frown?), the concept of playing in a world where you can actually make a difference in the social politics and political boundaries is a compelling argument.
And nothing says 'make your mark' like player-built cities ... with the added option of packing up your belongings, selling your humble abode, and moving up or moving on when the time strikes. Keith Parkinson's love of the natural makes for a millipede of compass directions containing dramatic landscapes, I-can-see-for-miles-and-miles cliffside terraces, towering (no seriously, towering) forest canopies, and endless blue horizons. I remember standing on the waterfront of that second fishing village and watching a small ship navigate its way out of the river's mouth and into the ocean's embrace, thinking "Damn, they must be headed for adventure." The joke's on me if that was an NPC craft during the beta, but the possibility of captaining your destiny with such a literal convention is a very real and very attainable goal for each and every Vanguard player.
Yes, they'll make you earn it. Just because the dev team removed all the barriers to exploration doesn't mean they're making it easy. In early levels, the sense of adventure sometimes boils down to "trade me five crab claws for ten fish" to accomplish your mission, but those trite run-throughs tend to be a staple of the MMO early game. And while no MMO developer wants to blow their proverbial wad in the tutorial levels, the Kojani's introduction of blind obedience and calculated repentance is -- no joke -- a memorable opener. I snuck quick peeks into the Thestran and Qalian continents' introductions, but found them immediately less motivated in their storytelling conventions.
The traditional Western European fantasy option, Thestra, dropped me at the foot of an arcane university stumbling over a problem with an exploded tower and restless, undead farmers. The Middle Eastern fantasy option, Qalia, put me at the top of a delirious cliff with a far-flung view of a capital city and a bay opening holding up twin lighthouses like victory torches. Again, the views ain't bad if you aren't perturbed by the waxed-over appeal of the heavily-modified Unreal engine graphics (the comparisons to EQ2 are qualified and accurate).
Unlike the mascot-heralding EQ2, however, Vanguard eschews the Antonia Bayles and Lucan D'Leres in order to make the players the game's centrifugal force. And that's a given with any MMO, but the dumbed-down "dark force" that has risen over Telon makes for an unfocused character drive -- unless this generic "dark force" is an element that emerges with greater clarity far beyond the first levels. But, as it stands, the saga of these heroes must be woven by the players with their own player thread, and they must construct narrative tapestries out of local skirmishes, vague social misunderstandings, and generally mean-spirited creatures. There's the sandbox kids; go play!
That short-sighted assessment may ring unfair considering my painfully short stint during a beta event, but if the heavily-nuanced and gentle prose of the game's background lore is any indication, then Vanguard is relying more on environmental immersion to hook gamers rather than epic conflict or any other world-shattering impetus. Oh sure, there'll be battles aplenty, but the meat and potatoes of the Vanguard Experience is much more spread around the plate. And while the possibilities feel quite endless considering the constantly-shrinking trust given to MMO gamers nowadays, Vanguard feels encapsulated in a layer of bubble wrap and plain-vanilla stylings. The creature compendium is nothing you haven't buried a million times before, the construction is nothing you haven't explored end to end already, the suits of armor aren't anything you hadn't already dropped off at a Tolkien Goodwill center, and the weaponry wouldn't impress a customer eating dinner at a Medieval Times restaurant.
And yet, I still want to be one of those sea captains at the helm of my own merchant vessel, trading goods along the coastal towns. I still want to seek out my own secluded isle, hop onto my hippogriff, and soar up to my villa perched atop a nigh-unreachable precipice. I still want to hone my diplomatic skills, so that speaking with high-ranking NPCs will cultivate propositions of peace, or preparations for war. I still want to walk the boulevards and back alleys of player-constructed cities. And, despite my misgivings about the rarely-invigorating "soft-core fantasy" trappings, I still want to explore what Vanguard has to offer. And perhaps the thing that speaks volumes greater than my misgivings ... are my hopes for a game of this magnitude, my thanks for producers that once again trust their player base with so much freedom, and the tens of thousands of players that will relish in the possibility and promise of writing their very own saga of heroes.
