Vanguard: Saga of Heroes Hands-On - Environments, Character Creation, Teamplay

After a couple of years of being dominated by Blizzard's World of Warcraft, could the massively multiplayer role-playing genre be in for a shakeup? That's the aim of Sony Online Entertainment and Sigil Games with Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, a fantasy-themed RPG where you can live and adventure in an online world populated with elves, humans, dragons, and some unique new races. Vanguard has had an interesting development history, as it was originally going to be published by Microsoft, but then SOE picked it up after Microsoft and Sigil parted ways. Now it's in the final stages of development and we had a chance to participate a bit in the ongoing beta test. What we discovered is that Sigil hopes to lure players by giving them a sense of awe that the company feels is missing from the current lineup of massively multiplayer RPGs.

The world of Vanguard is going to be very huge, but perhaps the most interesting thing about it is that the game is able to render its landmasses seamlessly, so they're not separated in different sections. You could easily walk from one end of a continent to the other without encountering a level load. We adventured in Qalia, one of the three massive continents that will ship in the game at launch. Qalia is described as being sort of inspired by Arabian Nights, and this is indeed an arid place, full of desert palms and giant scorpions. If you like panoramic vistas, then this will be your game. For example, after finishing the opening tutorial missions we found ourselves standing on the edge of a cliff, looking down upon the huge city in the valley below. This wasn't a painted skybox. We could actually walk down and into that city, if we wanted. As the Sigil team explained, if you can see it in the game, odds are there's a way to get there, either by walking, flying, or sailing.

How you get around can be an interesting affair, too. You'll be able to buy or construct (if you have the know-how and the resources) any number of ships to go sailing on the huge ocean. Though Sigil will likely have ways of teleporting you quickly to different continents (sailing to them would take upwards of an hour), you'll still be able to roam around the big blue sea for adventures. You'll also be able to battle other ships, though at launch this will be limited to fighting atop the decks. True ship-to-ship combat is something that's being planned for addition sometime after launch.

If ground travel is your thing, you'll be able to quickly gain a basic mount, such as a horse, at level 10. That may seem a bit early, but mounts will be important for moving around the huge areas of the game. Besides, all the cooler mounts, such as unicorns, will have to be earned by advancing to higher levels. Flying mounts will come at around level 40 (the top level cap is 50), and the cool thing about these is that you can control the mount directly and fly wherever you want, unlike the flying mounts in World of Warcraft, which fly along predetermined flight paths. Indeed, Sigil co-founder Jeff Butler (and one of the two EverQuest creators at Sigil) showed us his character flying around on a magnificent dragon.

We got to participate in some of the fun ourselves by creating a character and adventuring both solo and in a team. The number of different races and classes to choose from is impressive, as are the customization features that let you tweak your character's appearance right down to the eye spacing. We chose to play as a human paladin, but we could have chosen from up to 15 different classes. The classes are roughly divided into categories, so "protective fighters" include the warrior, paladin, dread knight, and the inquisitor; while "offensive fighters" include the ranger, rogue, and monk. Then there are "healer" and "caster" class categories. The number of potential character classes and appearances is impressive, though said it was still a bit too early to say how many characters each player will be able to maintain at any one time.

After character creation, we were promptly dropped into the starting area for humans, around a huge lighthouse with plenty of quests to pursue. As you might expect, many of these involved going out into the wilderness and killing X number of a certain beast, or going out and recovering Y number of a certain material. Another quest had us collecting tiny poisonous scorpions around the human camp, releasing them in the middle of a hostile camp, then watching the bad guys run in panic. While some of the low-level foes are easy prey for a beginning character, the danger is getting caught up against multiple foes at the same time, or taking on a monster that's a couple of levels higher than your character's experience level. Thankfully, the game is very forgiving if you die and you can resurrect for free with all your stuff, at least until you get to level 7. After that, you'll have to start being a lot more careful about dying, because there will be a price to be paid.

The good news is that there should plenty of stuff to do whether you like to play solo or with a group. "I consider no solo content in a massively multiplayer game like a door slammed in my face," Butler said. Still, we found that group play was a lot more exciting than our solo play. One neat feature that aids team play is the ability to easily rescue fellow teammates in trouble. Basically, you're able to designate a teammate and intercept damage intended for that teammate. It's like taking a sword blow for the team. Other features allow the easy chaining of attacks to create special "combos" as well as making it easier for teammates to work together. For instance, a rogue may knock down an opponent, giving your warrior an opening to stomp on them.

The progress that we saw in Vanguard is impressive, and the game is really starting to come together after years in development. With its huge, beautiful environments and potential for role-playing, it's easy to see why SOE is betting big on the game. Sigil plans to continue the ongoing beta test for a while, but if all goes according to plan, we should see Vanguard launch in early 2007.