Pumping Irony

Ok, the good news: Game Update #3 Phase 1 is being implemented as I write this!

UPDATE 3 – PHASE 1

· Ksaravi Gulch
· Guild Hall Trophies
· Player Housing / Guild Housing
· Optimizations/Bug Fixes
· Spam Filter

1. Ksaravi Gulch
The low to high teens adventuring area of Ksaravi Gulch in Qalia has been revamped. It now features new group and solo content, with many quest lines for either type of player as well as an enhanced storyline, additional items and the chance to fly into battle on an elite black wyvern mount.

* 3 all new solo quest lines offering 20 new quests
* 12 group quests in an exciting new group quest line
* Fly into battle on an elite black wyvern
* All-new rewards, like Coronarian Gloves and Ice Ember poison

2. Guild Hall Trophies
The Guild Hall Trophy item can now be placed in a house or any Guild Headquarters. The buff from the trophy will be shared by all guild members that are online. There will be three trophies to choose from (one for each of Vanguard’s icon characters).

The Guild Hall Trophy can only be picked up by the person who placed it.

3. Player Housing / Guild Housing
All player housing areas should have a crafting center within one chunk’s distance. You will find crafting trainers, vendors, taskmasters, and stations. In addition, a few select areas (including all of the islands) have had flying mount renters added.

In addition to that, Guildhall adventuring drops should now be much easier to obtain. Mnalus Fungus will now rarely drop off most mobs in Lair of the Mnalus. Mummy Dust will now rarely drop off most mobs in Nusibe. Fiend Blood will now rarely drop off most mobs in Rhaz Inkur.

4. Optimizations / Bug Fixes
Fixing bugs and optimizing the game have been a big priority for us. We’ve put in fixes for over a dozen high-profile client crash fixes as well as hundreds of bugs. We’ve fixed a major memory leak and even made some sound optimizations. On the whole, a lot of players’ performance should improve with this patch.

With this patch, we’re also laying the groundwork to start implementing optimized NPC models. You should see them start showing up in the near future (likely in Qalia first).

5. Spam Filter
Ask, and you shall receive! It’s been in the works for quite some time, but Game Update 3 unleashes the code that should help eliminate a lot of the spam you may receive in-game. The code works similarly to those featured in other SOE games, in that it automatically filters messages flagged as spam, and reports them to Customer Service.

Source: VGPlayers.com

When I first saw the bit about the black wyvern, I got all excited, hoping they’d completed the first true flying mount quest ahead of schedule, but as it turns out, the black wyvern is a temporary mount in the Ksaravi Gulch zone which they had mentioned in a post I’d skipped over a few days earlier.

Now for the bad news:

Vanguard Development Moves to the San Diego Studio

The Vanguard development team is relocating its offices to SOE’s San Diego campus effective Monday, October 15, 2007. As part of the integration into the SOE family, the developers will benefit from having access to shared resources and the combined experience of SOE’s other game development teams. As a result, not every Carlsbad employee has been invited to stay with the development team.

Under the new leadership of Thom Terrazas, an eight-year SOE veteran, SOE will continue its commitment to Vanguard and its players. The remaining Vanguard team members are going to continue to deliver on an exceptional product. They are a creative force in the online games space and we look forward to continuing the vision for Vanguard and to continue to deliver groundbreaking game play. SOE remains committed to seeing Vanguard grow and prosper.

Source: VGPlayers.com

That’s right, SOE is integrating the Vanguard team yet again and letting go more developers. This time the axe has fallen on Director of Development David “Hasium” Gilbertson and Steve “Aruspex” Williams, who was interviewed in Episode 17 of the Voyages of Vanguard podcast.

Forum links courtesy of Jaye:

Hasium’s goodbye post
PhAtHoM’s hello post

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 16th, 2007 at 4:39 pm and is filed under MMO Gaming, Vanguard. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.