Vanguard: Saga of Heroes

Encyclopedia : V : VA : VAN : Vanguard: Saga of Heroes

This article or section contains information about a computer and video games>computer or video game .
It is likely to contain information of a speculative nature, and the content may change dramatically as the game's release approaches and more information becomes available.

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is a high fantasy-themed massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) in development by Sigil Games Online. The game is set to be co-published by Sony Online Entertainment(SOE), and the company producing it, Sigil Games Online. With gamers estimating a winter of 2006 release date, Vanguard is currently in the second phase of beta testing.

Contents

1 Development
2 Community
3 Setting
4 Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) Involvement
5 External links

Development

Sigil's Vanguard team is notable for being composed of many EverQuest developers, including designer Brad McQuaid and the late artist Keith Parkinson. Most of the developers have worked on other MMORPGs and other EverQuest-related games. From its small beginnings, the team has grown to several dozen.

Development began in early 2002 and the publishing deal with Microsoft was announced in April 2002. The game's title was announced on March 16, 2004 — exactly five years after EverQuest was released. Sigil displayed the game's first screenshots in April and announced that Vanguard uses the Unreal engine in May 2004. As of May 2006 Sigil has announced that they have become the co-publishers of Vanguard: Saga of Heroes due to a mutual separation with Microsoft based on Company interest. Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) has been named to assist Sigil in co-publishing and distribution.

Community

Even with its distant release date (based on McQuaid's comments that an MMORPG takes at least three years to build) a community has begun to form around the game. Many of the fans have followed the development, recognizing the team's EQ heritage. Sigil has been periodically revealing concept art, screenshots, and the setting's history and lore. Some of the artwork was created by well-known fantasy artists such as Brom and Don Maitz and the late Keith Parkinson.

Much of the community has formed around the website's forums, but there have also been events such as fans visiting Sigil, IRC chats, and contests. Fans that have visited Sigil are prominent members of the MMORPG community, including uberguild leaders, webmasters, and bloggers. A "Community Summit" was held on October 7, 2004 that showed Vanguard to a larger audience from the game's own community.

Vanguard was also the first game to implement a community affiliation program to support the fan sites that support Vanguard. Through this program affiliates are granted exclusive content to display on their Fan sites as well as exclusive interviews with development and artistic staff. The community fan sites are made of both old and new community based web sites dedicated to not only Vanguard but many other MMORPGs. This list of Vanguard fan sites includes, but is not limited to; “The Druids Grove”, “Silky Venom”, “Vanguard Stratics”, “Vanguard Spheres”, “Vanguard Tact”, and “The Safehouse”.

Setting

Vanguard is set in a fantasy world called Telon that features wizards, monsters, warriors, and undead. So far, the most prominent continent is Thestra — inhabited by humans, elves, and others. The continents of Qalia and Kojan have also been mentioned, but little has been revealed about them.

In the game, Thestra has been relatively recently invaded by an undead army, forcing many of the continent's inhabitants to flee their long held cities and reform away from the menace. Most of the known playable races are from traditional fantasy: gnomes, humans, halflings, dwarves, elves, barbarians, and half-giants. Less traditional is the vulmane, a race of intelligent bipedal wolf-men (unlike werewolves).

Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) Involvement

In May 2006 Sony Online Entertainment acquired marketing rights from former publisher Microsoft. This deal has been controversial in the Vanguard fanbase community because of SOE's questionable reputation amongst former players of EverQuest and Star Wars Galaxies.

Nevertheless, Sigil maintains full control of development, funding, intellectual property rights, and in-game customer service (GM and Guide programs). SOE is responsible chiefly for marketing, publication, distribution, subscription services, and maintenance of game servers.

It's notable that this partnership represents a homecoming of sorts for Sigil CEO Brad McQuaid who was--along with Sony CEO John Smedley, Bill Trost and Steve Clover-- one of the four original developers of Everquest for SISA (Sony Interactive Studios America renamed Verant Interactive in 1999).

External links

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.