Adventuring across the plains of Telon
The principal gameplay element of Vanguard Sage of Heroes is taking part in missions and quests. Anyone familiar with the genre will be accustomed to the bulk of adventurer’s missions where you set off to kill a group of beasts or search for a missing artefact in return for a reward and adventurer points. There are branching missions, the option to repeat some quests and a sophisticated flag system where characters can be marked by a number of events (including, but far from being limited by, picking up or being handed an item).
In the first hour of gameplay, I’d picked up 8 different quests all of which varied in difficulty and excitement. You’re introduced with a number of easy quests, such as slaying a few fang whelps or impressing some of the dwarf trainees based at the starter village of Bordinar’s Cleft and soon enough you’ll level up and be able to tackle some of the more ferocious creatures, learn new spells and develop your character into a hero of the land. The beta phases is currently littered with bugs and suffocated by lag. It’s taken me two weeks to be able to play the game enough to be able to write this preview, due to the numerous crashes or times that I quit with frustration. A beta test is designed to iron out these problems and the guys from Sigil seem to be doing a great job. The world is changing daily with updates and fixes as they battle to get the game close to perfection before release. I’m not going to lie, the developers have got a big job on their hands, but with a huge community already waiting in the wings and an excellent feedback system, I’ve got faith that Vanguard Saga of Heroes will be an engrossing MMORPG that will capture our imagination and put us firmly into the mindset of an adventurer.
Click for larger imageThose quests that weren’t bugged we’re rewarding and entertaining to play and the rewards for your hard-work, such as coins, armour, magical spells or (as well as gaining levelling points) make it all worthwhile. As your experience grows participate in more arduous quests where you may have to walk a long way to your goal to slay creatures or collect multiple items that may be hidden in different places. Aside from the standard quests, that improve your adventurer level, there are also two other types of play style where you can level up.
Click for larger imageThe development of your character is carried out through the three spheres: adventuring crafting and diplomacy.
Adventuring
Adventuring will be familiar to anyone who’s played an RPG. By defeating monsters, finding items, collecting and delivering artefacts (as well as dozens of other quests) you’ll level up in this skill. Classes are broken into four basic categories, protective fighter ("tank"), offensive fighter (melee damage dealer), healer (defensive caster), and arcane caster (magic damage dealer). While it’s nice to go off exploring all the nooks and crannies of this world alone, there are many times where a quest may be too much of a risk on your own. The raid play style allows you to join other explorers in tackling a particularly tough NPC and share the dropped loot as a result. This is also one of the ways to obtain rare items.
Solo combat doesn’t quite feel right at the moment. You’re currently limited to a locked-on battle; meaning if you go running off it’s likely that your target will chase you. Targeting an enemy doesn’t always happen on the first click of a mouse and occasionally a target will move out of your vision meaning that you’ll have to twist and turn 360 degrees in order to gather them in your sights. The music that accompanies a fight gets the adrenaline pumping and the characters and creatures animate well. Each creature has a level of difficulty so by hovering the mouse pointer over the animals you’ll be able to see whether you can match their skill or whether you need to gang up with a fellow adventurer or wait until your level has improved. There’s still a bit of work to be done, but when fighting works well, it’s a satisfying battle in which you can use your magical abilities and special moves in order to defeat them.
