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Voyages of Vanguard #3
Sat, 26 May 2007 22:19:00 GMT [download/play]

This week in the Voyages of Vanguard, Troy talks about moving beyond Sigil, and learning to deal with the negative criticism that seems rampant in the public channels. He also describes a number of the top problems with Vanguard, and he discusses a number of tips and techniques in adventuring, crafting, and harvesting. He winds down the show with what his characters are doing in the game, and a spotlight on his primary character, Ratook Redhand.

State of the Game

Top problems with Vanguard

Tips of the week

Adventuring & Crafting Notes,

Thought On the Game

Three Wishes for Vanguard

What my characters are up to

A special Spotlight on Ratook

Thanks for listening!

A podcast devoted to Sony Online Entertainment's Massively Multiplayer epic, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. Your host, Troy, delivers the news, strategies, and guides to the world of Telon. Voyages of Vanguard is part of the VirginWorlds MMO Podcast collective found at http://www.virginworlds.com

Episode 3 Discussion Thread

'Good episode, just some thoughts' by Gigawatt
Submitted on 2007-05-27 03:57:06 CST
As the title said, I just had a few thoughts.

Vanguard is nearly laughable when it comes to it's "polish"

There is no reason why people should have to look online for command codes. It takes away from the whole immersion of the game, and really comes off as amateurish on the developer's parts.

It takes one day to add a few menus with those commands and features built in (such as the interface save feature)

Kind of a joke on Sigil's part. I think this is what scares a lot of people away. They really need to get the beta feel out of the game.

'Just one more thing about the cheating...' by Gigawatt
Submitted on 2007-05-27 04:32:13 CST
There was a rampant exploit for duping in Vanguard. There was no third-party program involved for the exploit that was being used in large amounts. There was also an experience exploit allowing people to level incredibly fast.

It has been fixed already, however, there are numerous other exploits for Vanguard. I have seen these *in person*

They range from using in-game mechanics, third party programs, and packet sending/receiving. As Sigil/Sony is trying to fix the bugs that currently exist in the game, it's hard for them to keep up with the amount of cheats that are available to people. Thankfully the population is low and generally has people who enjoy the game for what it is. If it was more populated, I can assure you this issue would have been addressed publicly.

Also...Punkbuster. Punkbuster is a joke of a protection client. If people want to cheat that badly, they can get around it by visiting one of the major exploit/bug websites. The only thing Punkbuster protects against are the non-computer savvy gamers.

If you would like a list of these sites I can e-mail them to you for a look. They are nice to use to see what kinds of exploits and cheats are out there, so that you know what to look for.

I do not personally cheat. The best way to help the community is to know what cheats/exploits exist. This involves visiting those websites and studying up on them. Unfortunately, the three major bug/exploit sites have a new exploit every hour and they will never, and can never be shut down. The good thing though is the game developer's do regularly visit these sites

'Interfaces' by varka
Submitted on 2007-05-29 21:52:12 CST
Good episode again Troy.

I think it was a little heavy on the reciting of item stats towards the end, but that's probably just my opinion. I would prefer if items are going to come up that it's more in context of quest rewards/named drops for different classes. eg. I think I remember hearing about your TK leggings from the quest. Would be good to hear recommendations on which class groups have decent rewards from those quest areas instead of just a list of the stats on one item.

Having said that, I love hearing about what your characters are doing, so don't take what I said above as a request to stop doing it :)

I also agree with Gigawatt about the Sigil UI needing some work, but.... the vgsohinterface.com community has done some great custom UI's (including the much awaited Drox 2.0 which was release no less then 2 hrs ago! Yay!).

I hope Sigil improves their support of the modding community though through improvements in the underlying code. A complaint many developers in the community have made.