Filed under: Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
Vanguard Game Update #3 went live tonight. This is a biggie, including the introduction of Ancient Port Warehouse and Overland raids, further optimizations, a Khal revamp, new areas for player housing, and holiday content. Hopefully, the long-promised Trial Island is not far on this patch’s heels.
Welcome news for all those level fifties anxious for new content–and they threw some bones to the rest of us peons, too. Player reception to this update should be a fair indicator of whether Vanguard has a bright future or is just treading water until the axe finally falls. It’ll also serve as a good barometer of SOE’s true level of commitment to their red-headed stepchild.
My game is still patching, so not much else to add at the moment. Get the gory details over at station.com.
On this week’s Shut Up We’re Talking podcast, Brent from VirginWorlds dared suggest that despite all our bitching, MMORPGers LIKE grinding on some level. I immediately thought, “Hell no!”
As I finished my fifth “Kill 10 scary monsters and return to me with 10 scary monster scalps” quest in Vanguard tonight, something hit me. I was having a good time. And damn it, Brent had a point. But the fact remains, even if Marilyn Monroe is dangling a carrot in front of me, eventually I’m gonna get tired of looking at her. It’s not a question of whether or not MMOs will ever be grind-free. All “grind” really implies is that something has stopped feeling rewarding. Or perhaps more accurately, grind begins once repetition and monotony outweigh potential reward.
As the Ancient Gaming Noob pointed out in the same podcast, there are things that’d be downright monotonous that become a lot of fun if say, you’re engaging in those tasks with a group of friends. The multiplayer element of MMOs throws a random factor into tasks that, if performed solo, would become brain-numbingly repetitious pretty darn quickly. The right group dynamic offers a built-in social element, an added tactical element, and the extra satisfaction of working as a team that turns even the most repetitive Whac-A-Mole Furlbog rep grind into a night well spent.
If there’s enough variety to how they make me jump through hoops, I’ll do it again and again. Sometimes I want Marilyn dangling the carrot. Other times I’ll settle for Jayne Mansfield. I am a pretty simple animal. Initially all designers had to do is change the pretty scenery every so often, make the monsters bigger and scarier, throw me some coins and decent loot here and there, and I’d grind ’til the cows come home. This is where WoW lost me. They began using the same old formula for every rep grind and virtually every dungeon and every form of character advancement.
I don’t necessarily need an MMO that plays like a console game or an FPS. Eventually it’ll be a fun twist once someone actually gets it right–but honestly, for all my longing for that ‘next-gen’ title to blow the lid off the industry like UO or WoW did, all game companies really have to do is come up with more clever ways to throw me off: different formulas, different game mechanics, and different types of character progression.
Filed under: Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
Today marks my first full week as a resident of Telon. My bloodmage reached level 14 this afternoon. There’s no shortage of quests at these early levels. In fact, they seem to pop up in huge clusters. I’m finding by the time I’ve made my way through 3/4 of them, I’ve dinged, run to town to buy spells, and then come upon yet another cluster of quests that pull me away from the region I had been exploring. I guess I’m not a completist when it comes to these things.
Almost everything you kill in this game impacts your reputation with one faction or another, either positively or negatively. I’m not sure how significant a role reputation plays in the game at so early a stage. I just hope it doesn’t come back to bite me on the butt down the road. I’m of the mindset that reputation should have positive repercussions for those with outstanding rep with a particular faction, but it should never be used as a glass ceiling to prohibit players from obtaining certain crafting patterns or access to a dungeon. I don’t have time for that type of silliness.
I had my first opportunity to try my healing shoes on for size in a small group quest outside the Neamsong Bunkers this week. I did okay, considering my group was composed of a sorcerer and a rogue. After our first wipe, I quickly learned that the traditional healing spells in my toolbar were just not energy efficient if I was gonna do a halfway decent job keeping my small band of adventurers alive. “Entwining Vein” is my friend. The spell drains life from a foe and transfers the hit points to an ally, allowing the bloodmage to mend allies and mutilate enemies all in one handy incantation.
The fun factor of this game, admittedly, has been much higher than I expected and technical difficulties on my new comp have been virtually non-existent. I did experience two crashes to desktop, both this weekend. Neither made me a happy camper. Otherwise it’s been smooth sailing.
