SOH VanguardVanguard - Saga Of Heroes

When talking about an MMORPG, one topic that occasionally pops up is the matter of account security. More specifically, those horror stories of players opening up their account one day only to find all their hard-earned loot stolen. With that in mind, we're letting you guys know that Sony Online Entertainment has released an article discussing account security in Vanguard: Saga of Heroes.

For starters, the gamers will want to avoid sharing their accounts. After all, while it's convenient to have a fellow guildmate finish a quest for you in your steed, you can only trust them so far. This is how most guildbanks are cleaned out - when a supposedly trustworthy member is allowed access to sensitive account data.

Another lucrative scam players are warned about are phishing sites. These are sites that are intentionally made to look like another well-known or frequently visited site. Their job is to try to extract information from you, often in the form of seemingly harmless inquiries, GM announcements, or surveys.

As we said, phishing sites will try to look as legit as possible, so you'll want to keep a very sharp eye out in case something is amiss. SOE stresses that they will only be asked for your password when you log into their games, or when you visit the official Station site. The company further notes that its employees will never ask for your password. Those tips aside, SOE further added these security reminders:

• Use a unique Station name.
• Use an alpha-numeric password consisting of at least 8 characters; a mix of letters, numbers and special characters is best. Never write down your password!
• Never use the same word for your Station name and password; change it periodically.
• Never trust a troll in a dress.
• Always create a secret question when prompted (this allows for quicker password recovery and confirmation when needed.)
• Keep your registration information, including current email address, up to date in so that we can contact you regarding your account and for retrieving lost passwords. (SOE will not use your email for marketing purposes, unless you specifically opt in for newsletters and announcements.)

In the event that your account is hacked, you will want to contact SOE. If you move quickly, you may still be able to recover your characters. That's the lowdown on SOE's recent security advisory - drop by again in case we pick up any related news.

Fan Faire 2009 Player of the Year Winners
SOE has announced their 2009 Player of the Year winners. Below you'll find the winners from EQ and EQ2, along with their entries.From EQIIBownzer…

Stop The Vanguard Presses!
Vanguard Players brings us the latest community news, in their spiffy little newspaper format. Included in the latest newspaper… Ask a Dev a…

Sony Online Entertainment's latest game update for Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is getting ready to hit the test servers. While we're waiting for it to show up though, the folks at SOE have announced some of the big things coming for Game Update 5.

First off, there'll be new racial mounts in the game. These range from giant spiders to rhinos, and are faction point based. This means that you can actually take the questline for acquiring a specific racial mount once you've gotten into the good graces of a particular race, though you may end up being hated by another while you're grinding for tokens.

Game Update 5 also hosts some fixes for performance and overall coolness. These fixes include a new anti-hitching code that should increase performance, as well as some improved particle effects for certain classes.

Lastly, specific classes have gotten themselves some attention from the devs. We'll let SOE explain that one:

This update we have given significant attention to three more classes. Blood Mages, Psionicists and Sorcerers have all received a lot of developer attention. Abilities that may have been broken before have been fixed, spells have been tweaked and upgraded or updated and all three classes should be more in line with their intended vision in terms of power and utility. Specific tweaks and updates will be listed in the patch notes.

Good news, right? Expect to see some very happy players once the game update hits the test servers. In the meantime, feel free to check the source link below for more information.

Vanguard screenshot of the week: lunch break on a beam

Some of you may recognize the image above as a close depiction of the famous artwork entitled "Construction Workers Take a Lunch Break on a Steel Beam Atop the RCA Building at Rockefeller Center".

However, what happens when art aficionados playing Sony Online Entertainment's Vanguard: Saga of Heroes decide to add a little culture into their online gaming? The result would probably look something like the screenshot below, taken by team spirit guild member Torkyn of the Halgar server.

The image was featured as the screenshot of the week on the VGPlayers website and provided a rather amusing look at the game. Anyway, that's it for today's update on Vanguard. We hope you come back again to this spot for more updates regarding SOE's premiere fantasy MMO title.

Some of you may recognize the image above as a close depiction of the famous artwork entitled "Construction Workers Take a Lunch Break on a Steel Beam Atop the RCA Building at Rockefeller Center".

However, what happens when art aficionados playing Sony Online Entertainment's Vanguard: Saga of Heroes decide to add a little culture into their online gaming? The result would probably look something like the screenshot below, taken by team spirit guild member Torkyn of the Halgar server.

The image was featured as the screenshot of the week on the VGPlayers website and provided a rather amusing look at the game. Anyway, that's it for today's update on Vanguard. We hope you come back again to this spot for more updates regarding SOE's premiere fantasy MMO title.

SOE hires crime fighting gnomes to fend off credit card worms

Filed under: EverQuest, EverQuest II, Pirates of the Burning Sea, PlanetSide, Interviews, The Agency, Star Wars Galaxies, Vanguard, Free Realms, Legends of Norrath, DC Universe Online

Online credit card fraud is big business and even MMORPGs aren't safe from it's far reach. We recently had a chance to sit down with Executive Director of Global Customer Service, Brad Wilcox, and discuss how SOE is dealing with gold selling and power-leveling services for their games. They are taking this war so seriously that they have put all transactional business under keen gnomish scrutiny.

Can you tell us how this fraud prevention task force came to be?

Brad Wilcox: Since the inception of EQ1, we always had components of a fraud prevention team. These were game masters and individuals tasked with looking at the game economy and making sure that people weren't exploiting. Since September 2007, we started to see a big increase in fraudulent activity in regards to stolen credit cards. That is when it was decided to put a few more resources specifically related to the fraud that was happening with accounts and subs being created with these stolen credit cards. That's when we formed what we call the NUGIT team, which stands for Norrathian Underground Gnome Investigation Team. As you can tell by the name, our employees enjoy having as much fun on the back end as we do on the front end of these games

Continue reading SOE hires crime fighting gnomes to fend off credit card worms

SOE hires crime fighting gnomes to fend off credit card worms originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Vanguard holding Best of the Best tourney

Get ready for a rollicking good time, as Vanguard: Saga of Heroes' Customer Service team is gearing up for a Best of the Best-style tourney open to all classes from all of the game's servers.

The Bard class gets to kick off the tournament. Shortly before the event starts, a GM will make a world broadcast asking for the names of those who wish to join in. The overall winner will get 1 platinum, a special "Tournament Champion" title, and a /broadcast to the server announcing his or her victory. Here's the schedule:

• Halgar - Noon Pacific Time on Thursday 24th January 2008.
• Xeth - 5pm Pacific Time on Thursday 24th January 2008.
• Seradon - Noon Pacific Time on Saturday 26th January 2008.
• Sartok - 5pm Pacific Time on Saturday 26th January 2008.

Of course, there are rules. In order to take part in the tourney, you must be at level 50 and have a clean record. That means you must not have broken any of the game's rules and policies. Also, no mounts are allowed during the fight. You're also given a specific duel area. Ring outs mean disqualification.

Click on the via link below for more information.

Filed under: Fantasy, Sci-fi, EverQuest, EverQuest II, Events, real-world, The Matrix Online, Star Wars Galaxies, Vanguard, Free Realms, Legends of Norrath

E3 may be the show on everyone's minds right now, but SOE is doing what they can to make sure that people don't forget that they have their very own event later in the month. They've put up a preview of some of the digital schwag that attendees will receive for coming to SOE Fan Faire 2009, and the new rule this year is that you'lll be able to get one in-game item for each game you have an active account for — no need to choose just one anymore.

The preview has pictures and some details about the items, and there's one in particular that will probably get the most attention: the Dianoga Dumpster for Star Wars Galaxies players will spit up collection items if fed once a week for a month, and besides that, it just looks kinda cool. Other neat items include a statue of Firiona Vie for EverQuest II, and a flying dragon mount for Vanguard, although, that one might divide people due to its bright pinkish-purple color. Registration for the fan faire is still open, so if you simply must have a pink dragon, now's the time to book.

Get a sneak peek at SOE Fan Faire '09's in-game items originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 01 Jun 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Vanguard: Community manager reminders on handling new players
Have you been good to your resident newbie lately? This appear to be the latest topic of discussion by community manager Dalmarus regarding SOE's recent decision to reactivate cancelled accounts for their Vanguard: Saga of Heroes MMORPG.

As Dalmarus explained, this event saw an influx of once-retired players re-populating the servers. Former players who, on account of not playing for several months, are still getting used to the new stuff that they missed out on.

To this end, the Community boss sent out a reminder to all the game's active residents to try to be patient with their kin. Quoting a segment of Dalmarus' words of wisdom:

Take a second to ask yourselves this question and answer it honestly - How many people reading this were never confused about various things in the game such as, Using Weaknesses, Brotherhoods, The Riftway System, Item Deconstruction, Flying Mounts? Those are just naming a scant few of the multiple game mechanics that can confuse a new player. If no one had been confused by them (myself included), then I never would have posted those guides to help people out. There would have been no need.

Rather than ridiculing new players asking questions, we should be helping them.

As the community manager says, be cool to one another. Those interested in reading up the full letter will want to visit the official Vanguard forums via the source link below.

When talking about an MMORPG, one topic that occasionally pops up is the matter of account security. More specifically, those horror stories of players opening up their account one day only to find all their hard-earned loot stolen. With that in mind, we're letting you guys know that Sony Online Entertainment has released an article discussing account security in Vanguard: Saga of Heroes.

For starters, the gamers will want to avoid sharing their accounts. After all, while it's convenient to have a fellow guildmate finish a quest for you in your steed, you can only trust them so far. This is how most guildbanks are cleaned out - when a supposedly trustworthy member is allowed access to sensitive account data.

Another lucrative scam players are warned about are phishing sites. These are sites that are intentionally made to look like another well-known or frequently visited site. Their job is to try to extract information from you, often in the form of seemingly harmless inquiries, GM announcements, or surveys.

As we said, phishing sites will try to look as legit as possible, so you'll want to keep a very sharp eye out in case something is amiss. SOE stresses that they will only be asked for your password when you log into their games, or when you visit the official Station site. The company further notes that its employees will never ask for your password. Those tips aside, SOE further added these security reminders:

• Use a unique Station name.
• Use an alpha-numeric password consisting of at least 8 characters; a mix of letters, numbers and special characters is best. Never write down your password!
• Never use the same word for your Station name and password; change it periodically.
• Never trust a troll in a dress.
• Always create a secret question when prompted (this allows for quicker password recovery and confirmation when needed.)
• Keep your registration information, including current email address, up to date in so that we can contact you regarding your account and for retrieving lost passwords. (SOE will not use your email for marketing purposes, unless you specifically opt in for newsletters and announcements.)

In the event that your account is hacked, you will want to contact SOE. If you move quickly, you may still be able to recover your characters. That's the lowdown on SOE's recent security advisory - drop by again in case we pick up any related news.

Vanguard screenshot of the week: lunch break on a beam

Some of you may recognize the image above as a close depiction of the famous artwork entitled "Construction Workers Take a Lunch Break on a Steel Beam Atop the RCA Building at Rockefeller Center".

However, what happens when art aficionados playing Sony Online Entertainment's Vanguard: Saga of Heroes decide to add a little culture into their online gaming? The result would probably look something like the screenshot below, taken by team spirit guild member Torkyn of the Halgar server.

The image was featured as the screenshot of the week on the VGPlayers website and provided a rather amusing look at the game. Anyway, that's it for today's update on Vanguard. We hope you come back again to this spot for more updates regarding SOE's premiere fantasy MMO title.

About a day ago, Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) sent out word that they would be temporarily shutting down all their MMORPGs to accommodate several big updates. Now, if you're wondering just what sort of tweaks this may mean for Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, here's a heads-up. The MMORPG's official site has recently posted a complete listing of its share of updates from SOE's widespread maintenance.

Several new features have been added to the game's realms, including the arrival of its much-awaited permanent flying mounts: Griffons and Wyverns. The Griffon quest will require you to head for Southwatch, while the Wyvern quest will take you to Ancient Port Warehouse.

We've posted part of the official changelog below to give you an idea of what's new. Those interested in getting the full details on this Vanguard's fourth update will want to visit the official site, via the source link.

• Wyvern flying mount quest is now available
• Griffon mount quest is now active
• There are now no fly zones around certain areas of content.
• Helmets are now visible
• Riftways have been revamped
• Veteran Rewards are now available for those who have been around for 6 months or longer.
• All adventuring consumables now share three cooldown timers. Each consumable either has a 2 minute shared cooldown (for all health, energy, and endurance renewal consumables), a 5 minute shared cooldown (for all 'burst' buffs) or a 15 minute shared cooldown (for all long duration buffs).
• All 30 minute duration buffs from item clicks have had their duration reduced to 15 minutes.
• Anevka's Renewal now shares a cooldown with low cooldown crafted consumables.
• Named NPC items have had their item power increased.
• All named drop items are now BOP
• All named drop items are no longer deconstructable
• All named now spawn more often
• PVP - All fears should now stun in pvp. They will all be set to half the duration of your normal fear, with 30 diminishing returns and have a 25 chance to break on damage.
• Recasting mez on a target will no longer strip the previous mez. This is also true if the mez attempt is resisted.
• Refresh timers will now count down while offline.
• Quest timers will now count down while offline.
• Fix for a pet ability exploit.

Vanguard tutorial: How to get your level 45 swamp armor
There's lot to do when you hit level 45 over at Sony Online Entertainment's Vangaurd: Saga of Heroes MMORPG. And one of them is making sure your gear is up to par with your grizzled abilities. If you're especially adventurous, that means embarking on the MMO's swamp armor quest.

Vanguard's got three of these sets arranged for players, each with differing attributes that are ideal for a specific playing sytles:

• Gorgalok Armor: This set is focused on offensive statistics like damage, and critical chance. This set requires killing in Ichtakhta.
• Ichtakhta Armor: This set is focused on defensive statistics like mitigation, and absorption. This set requires killing in Flordiel.
• Flordiel Armor: This set is a balanced set, mixing statistics. This set requires killing Gorgolaks in Vsurog Moor.

Wondering where you can get this new gear? The Vanguard site has updated their database with a comprehensive guide, which will help you through the steps you'll need to take to acquire any of the three sets we mentioned above.

Since those sets are separated by factions, you may want to do some pre-planning. Acquiring one set may antagonize you with the other opposing factions, and while getting all three is possible, it's not easy. You will also want to have 2000 faction with your chosen city to complete your quest. The full tutorial awaits over in the source link.

One Shots: A moment of reflection

Filed under: Fantasy, Screenshots, Vanguard, One Shots

We don't get to see Vanguard: Saga of Heroes as much as we'd like to, but we appreciate the players there sending in beautiful images of their journeys. Today's peaceful image from Vanguard was sent in to us by Paksao from the guild Aequinox on the Seradan server. He tells us about his love of his home game: This is a shot of SOE's Vanguard, one of the most underestimated games I've had the fortune of playing. Look at the depth of the view, the things in the background. That's hot. One person said this game is like a unknown gem of the MMORPG world. I agree.

We know there are oodles of you out there reading, and we're betting that at least some of you are playing/have played MMOs - otherwise, why would you be here, eh? One Shots needs your screens, dear readers! So while you're out playing, or digging through your hard drive, grab some screenshots for us. Send them to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, server, and a brief description of what's in the screenshot. (Please, turn your UI off if possible.) In turn we'll give your screenshot and note to us a moment to shine, right here on Massively. How cool is that?

One Shots: A moment of reflection originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 26 May 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

There's lot to do when you hit level 45 over at Sony Online Entertainment's Vangaurd: Saga of Heroes MMORPG. And one of them is making sure your gear is up to par with your grizzled abilities. If you're especially adventurous, that means embarking on the MMO's swamp armor quest.

Vanguard's got three of these sets arranged for players, each with differing attributes that are ideal for a specific playing sytles:

• Gorgalok Armor: This set is focused on offensive statistics like damage, and critical chance. This set requires killing in Ichtakhta.
• Ichtakhta Armor: This set is focused on defensive statistics like mitigation, and absorption. This set requires killing in Flordiel.
• Flordiel Armor: This set is a balanced set, mixing statistics. This set requires killing Gorgolaks in Vsurog Moor.

Wondering where you can get this new gear? The Vanguard site has updated their database with a comprehensive guide, which will help you through the steps you'll need to take to acquire any of the three sets we mentioned above.

Since those sets are separated by factions, you may want to do some pre-planning. Acquiring one set may antagonize you with the other opposing factions, and while getting all three is possible, it's not easy. You will also want to have 2000 faction with your chosen city to complete your quest. The full tutorial awaits over in the source link.

Get a sneak peek at SOE Fan Faire '09's in-game items

Filed under: Fantasy, Sci-fi, EverQuest, EverQuest II, Events, real-world, The Matrix Online, Star Wars Galaxies, Vanguard, Free Realms, Legends of Norrath

E3 may be the show on everyone's minds right now, but SOE is doing what they can to make sure that people don't forget that they have their very own event later in the month. They've put up a preview of some of the digital schwag that attendees will receive for coming to SOE Fan Faire 2009, and the new rule this year is that you'lll be able to get one in-game item for each game you have an active account for — no need to choose just one anymore.

The preview has pictures and some details about the items, and there's one in particular that will probably get the most attention: the Dianoga Dumpster for Star Wars Galaxies players will spit up collection items if fed once a week for a month, and besides that, it just looks kinda cool. Other neat items include a statue of Firiona Vie for EverQuest II, and a flying dragon mount for Vanguard, although, that one might divide people due to its bright pinkish-purple color. Registration for the fan faire is still open, so if you simply must have a pink dragon, now's the time to book.

Get a sneak peek at SOE Fan Faire '09's in-game items originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 01 Jun 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Get ready for a rollicking good time, as Vanguard: Saga of Heroes' Customer Service team is gearing up for a Best of the Best-style tourney open to all classes from all of the game's servers.

The Bard class gets to kick off the tournament. Shortly before the event starts, a GM will make a world broadcast asking for the names of those who wish to join in. The overall winner will get 1 platinum, a special "Tournament Champion" title, and a /broadcast to the server announcing his or her victory. Here's the schedule:

• Halgar - Noon Pacific Time on Thursday 24th January 2008.
• Xeth - 5pm Pacific Time on Thursday 24th January 2008.
• Seradon - Noon Pacific Time on Saturday 26th January 2008.
• Sartok - 5pm Pacific Time on Saturday 26th January 2008.

Of course, there are rules. In order to take part in the tourney, you must be at level 50 and have a clean record. That means you must not have broken any of the game's rules and policies. Also, no mounts are allowed during the fight. You're also given a specific duel area. Ring outs mean disqualification.

Click on the via link below for more information.

Yummy Vanguard Screenshots
See More Vanguard Saga of Heroes Screenshot at IGN.comSee More Vanguard Saga of Heroes Screenshot at IGN.comSee More Vanguard Saga of Heroes…

MMO News Tidbits
Here's a bit of a roundup on what's happening in the virtual worlds!Warhammer Online 1.3 PTS Phase I is OverBlizzard Entertainment Shop Talk…

Filed under: Fantasy, Bugs, Patches, Vanguard

An upcoming patch to Vanguard has been designated as the "Player's Choice" update, and recently the players decided that it should be focused on bug-squashing. The next phase of this process is now underway, and players can submit their choice of which bugs to fix at this thread. There are a few guidelines for people planning to put in their two cents, the most important being that each person can only submit one bug, and they should do their best to avoid repeating previously suggested ones.

The thread will be open for two weeks, and after that time, a poll will be created for forum-goers to vote on Vanguard's worst bugs so that they can be targeted with priority. When one player asked why the devs wouldn't simply work off the bugs submitted by players with the "/bug" command, Salim "Silius" Grant replied, "This way we are hoping to get the most high profile bugs that the players want fixed right away. Digging through /bug does not tell us just how important or how many people are seeing this problem." If the whole thing goes to plan, a bunch of really irritating bugs should be eradicated when the update rolls out.

Future Vanguard update to fix the players' choice of bugs originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 05 Jun 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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One Shots: A moment of reflection

Filed under: Fantasy, Screenshots, Vanguard, One Shots

We don't get to see Vanguard: Saga of Heroes as much as we'd like to, but we appreciate the players there sending in beautiful images of their journeys. Today's peaceful image from Vanguard was sent in to us by Paksao from the guild Aequinox on the Seradan server. He tells us about his love of his home game: This is a shot of SOE's Vanguard, one of the most underestimated games I've had the fortune of playing. Look at the depth of the view, the things in the background. That's hot. One person said this game is like a unknown gem of the MMORPG world. I agree.

We know there are oodles of you out there reading, and we're betting that at least some of you are playing/have played MMOs - otherwise, why would you be here, eh? One Shots needs your screens, dear readers! So while you're out playing, or digging through your hard drive, grab some screenshots for us. Send them to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, server, and a brief description of what's in the screenshot. (Please, turn your UI off if possible.) In turn we'll give your screenshot and note to us a moment to shine, right here on Massively. How cool is that?

One Shots: A moment of reflection originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 26 May 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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With Valentine's just around the corner, MMO gamers who are into Sony Online Entertainment's Vanguard: Saga of Heroes won't have to worry about getting their special someone a proper in-game gift that day. The developers have included some neat Valentine's Day items that people can give to their loved ones as presents.

All the major cities within Telon will be decorated with special gift wrapped packages that contain an abundance of fun Valentine's Day goodies. Players can decorate their home or Guild Halls with stuffed heart-shaped pillows or wall adornments, flowers, chocolates and gifts galore.

All of this will be available this February 12 around the cities of Tanvu, Targonor, and Ahgram. This event definitely puts the mood into the season as hopeful romantics can show off their affections with these special in-game goodies offered on Vanguard: Sage of Heroes.

Vanguard's Game Update 5 preview brings racial mounts into the spotlight

Sony Online Entertainment's latest game update for Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is getting ready to hit the test servers. While we're waiting for it to show up though, the folks at SOE have announced some of the big things coming for Game Update 5.

First off, there'll be new racial mounts in the game. These range from giant spiders to rhinos, and are faction point based. This means that you can actually take the questline for acquiring a specific racial mount once you've gotten into the good graces of a particular race, though you may end up being hated by another while you're grinding for tokens.

Game Update 5 also hosts some fixes for performance and overall coolness. These fixes include a new anti-hitching code that should increase performance, as well as some improved particle effects for certain classes.

Lastly, specific classes have gotten themselves some attention from the devs. We'll let SOE explain that one:

This update we have given significant attention to three more classes. Blood Mages, Psionicists and Sorcerers have all received a lot of developer attention. Abilities that may have been broken before have been fixed, spells have been tweaked and upgraded or updated and all three classes should be more in line with their intended vision in terms of power and utility. Specific tweaks and updates will be listed in the patch notes.

Good news, right? Expect to see some very happy players once the game update hits the test servers. In the meantime, feel free to check the source link below for more information.