SOH VanguardVanguard - Saga Of Heroes

Gamasutra's weekly column , "Saling The World", covers the top five sellers for every available platform in the United States, Japan, and Europe, providing an important update of sales patterns worldwide. This week's charts, with data taken from

Ma Bell, Meet Joe Gamer: Sony Online Entertainment Ushers in New Era - PR Newswire
SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 20 /PRNewswire/ — Sony Online Entertainment LLC (SOE), a worldwide leader in massively multiplayer online games, is poised to revolutionize the way gamers stay connected with sophisticated new voice services where fellow gamers

Popular Video Reviews - Gamespot News
Rumour surfaces about new controller from Microsoft; Konami rep. claims new '16-way' d-pad will be bundled with Pro Evolution I saw an entry on MTV's Multiplayer blog yesterday that claimed it could reveal the secret behind PixelJunk Eden's wonky

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.

Coming Back to Vanguard
MMORPG.com is featuring an article entitled "How I Came Back to Vanguard". It's a nice look at one departed player's perspective…

Filed under: Fantasy, Screenshots, Vanguard, One Shots

We've been really glad to see a few screens coming in from Vanguard lately. With such a rough launch we wondered if this pretty MMO would be given a chance to shine here. Wookers, one of our regular One Shots contributors has been vacationing from Middle-earth in the lands of Vanguard and has sent back some screenshots. He writes: Thought this was just a beautiful view of Jalen's Crossing as I was riding in with my character, Wookori, to pick up more quests. It is indeed a lovely sky and the way the light shines from behind the building ahead looks pretty cool.

Have you taken a nifty screenshot from your travels in a world we haven't often been able to feature here? All MMOGs are welcome, from the small to the large, from old to new! Just pop them into the mail to us here at oneshots AT massively.com along with a quick description. Yours could be one of the upcoming screens featured here!
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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.

What's in Store for Vanguard?
I'm glad you asked. SOE lays it out in picture and word for the curious ones among us. A lot of changes are detailed or hinted at on the official…

New Character Models Being Uploaded to Test Server
This brief post on the official site pretty much says it all. The new characters shown at Gencon are being loaded up on the test server for people to…

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.

SOE provides handy guide to cross-game communication in EQ

Filed under: Fantasy, Sci-fi, EverQuest, EverQuest II, PlanetSide, Game mechanics, Tips and tricks, The Matrix Online, Star Wars Galaxies, Vanguard

Sony Online Entertainment is responsible for quite a number of MMOs, and they've got a useful system in place to allow communication with people across their game worlds. However, many people either don't know about this system, or simply don't know how to wrangle it into doing what they want. To help with this, SOE has written a guide illustrating how EverQuest players can chat to their friends in other games.

The games that EQ players can send both private messages and in-game mail to are EverQuest II, Planetside, Vanguard, The Matrix Online, and Star Wars: Galaxies. It's also possible to communicate with players on different EQ servers, but many of the servers have abbreviations that must be used in the commands — these can be found in the guide. Now don't go acting all surprised when you're hiding from a guild raid on another server and your guild master sends you a tell!

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Gen Con's SOE Meet and Greet sounds like fun. Hang out with the developers, have a few drinks (ID required). Let them know your ideas. Hear about…

Coming Back to Vanguard
MMORPG.com is featuring an article entitled "How I Came Back to Vanguard". It's a nice look at one departed player's perspective…

If you've been checking out your status on the Vanguard: Saga of Heroes servers and have noticed that you're still stuck on the same server, don't fret. Sony Online Entertainment has put up a new post explaining why you're still there and what they're going to do about it.

According to this new post, it seems there were a LOT of you who wanted to transfer servers, so much so that they weren't able to transfer everyone this week. To alleviate this, however, SOE will be moving the rest of the people in the transfer queue to another server on January 15, Tuesday. The transfer will coincide with the weekly server restart, so you guys should probably be used to the usual downtime that comes with server restart day.

In any case, you may want to sharpen those swords and go kill some baddies in the meantime. It's only a couple more days, anyway, which shouldn't detract much from your gameplay experience. Enjoy!

SOE Gen Con Meet and Greet
Gen Con's SOE Meet and Greet sounds like fun. Hang out with the developers, have a few drinks (ID required). Let them know your ideas. Hear about…

Vanguard Test Server Patch Notes: Isle of Dawn!
A new patch has hit the test server, this marks the first time players can test the new Isle of Dawn (soon to be trial island)!! All players are…

Filed under: Fantasy, Sci-fi, EverQuest, EverQuest II, PlanetSide, Game mechanics, Tips and tricks, The Matrix Online, Star Wars Galaxies, Vanguard

Sony Online Entertainment is responsible for quite a number of MMOs, and they've got a useful system in place to allow communication with people across their game worlds. However, many people either don't know about this system, or simply don't know how to wrangle it into doing what they want. To help with this, SOE has written a guide illustrating how EverQuest players can chat to their friends in other games.

The games that EQ players can send both private messages and in-game mail to are EverQuest II, Planetside, Vanguard, The Matrix Online, and Star Wars: Galaxies. It's also possible to communicate with players on different EQ servers, but many of the servers have abbreviations that must be used in the commands — these can be found in the guide. Now don't go acting all surprised when you're hiding from a guild raid on another server and your guild master sends you a tell!

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Vanguard Dev "Ichie" Says Hi From E3
Vanguard Game Designer, Ichie, has been showing off Vanguard at E3. He is demoing the game, showing live raids and live gameplay to all interested. …

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes' Black Wyvern Down quest walkthrough
SOE has a new update for Vanguard: Saga of Heroes and it has everything to do with big, black wyverns. Specifically, the rescue of big, black wyverns from the Ksaravi vermin.

SOE's latest Vanguard: Saga of Heroes update is actually a full-blown walkthrough for the Black Wyvern Down questline. It'll give you directions for who you should talk to, what you have to pick up, and who you have to kill to get the loot you've been looking for.

If you're a low-leveled character, it'll give you the chance to ride a wyvern, if only for a short time.
More importantly, it's also a good chance to try out group battle dynamics for the group portions of the questline, as well as the chance at some sweet loot.

We suggest you grab some friends and try it out. The experience, both in terms of character growth and player growth will definitely be indispensable.

The ever so popular Infomap Advanced just got better! Soresha released the new version 1.9 today. It has many new enhancements, you can read…

SOE giving out in-game bags for Vanguard anniversary
On January 30, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes will be celebrating its first anniversary. For the lore of the world, it might not mean much, but to players, it means one important thing: freebies. That's right! Sony Online Entertainment has seen fit to give the denizens of the world of Telon a special treat, and it comes in the form of one of three equippable bags.

Here are the three bags for your perusal:

• Avarem's Messenger Bag
• This is the bag of Avarem, famed messenger of Telon. His swift feet made him a legend in the realm of delivery.
• Equipping this bag will increase your run speed.
  

• Silius' Enchanted Utility Pouch
• A bag used by the master crafter Silius. Said to be a sadist, Silius' insatiable hunger for crafting made him a legend in the world of Telon. Some even say this bag is made from the skin of crafters which is why it seems to enhance the base attributes of the person wearing it.
• Equipping this pouch will increase your crafting attributes.

• Jansan's Valise of Ages
• This valise was used by the great diplomat known as Jansan. His accomplishments have been lost in the winds and nowadays are nothing more than fairy tales told to aspiring diplomats. Of these stories there is one about a valise that granted him great presence and held an endless amount of information.
• Equipping this valise will grant you 40 presence.

While you can only pick one bag per account, these bags certainly look like they have their uses. We're sure you can find something to do in Telon while waiting for these freebies to come out. As for us, we'll be covering the latest news and info in the world of Vanguard: Saga of Heroes.

See what's new at SOE! To kickoff the 2008 SOE Fan Faire, SOE President John Smedley will provide opening remarks to more than 1000 video game fans at the Hilton Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. The second annual "Community Address" combines a live Read More

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 20 /PRNewswire/ — Sony Online Entertainment LLC (SOE), a worldwide leader in massively multiplayer online games, is poised to revolutionize the way gamers stay connected with sophisticated new voice services where fellow gamers Read More

Couldn't quite save up enough cash to register for Sony Online Entertainment's upcoming Fan Faire 2008 event over in Las Vegas? Don't worry - the company has just announced that they have extended their online registration deadline to August 8.

The event proper is expected to take place this August 14 to 17, at the Las Vegas Hilton hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. SOE further announced that a couple of new events have been prepared for Fan Faire 2008, including a second annual Community Address by John Smedley.

There will also be a special Gamers In Real Life (G.I.R.L.) Breakfast event, while pre-orders of EverQuest 10th Anniversary Commemorative Book will also be made available. SOE will also be holding a panel regarding Vivox, in line their recent implementation of voice chat for some of their MMORPGs

Other games to be discussed at Fan Faire 2008 include Pirates of the Burning Sea, The Matrix Online, PlanetSide, Star Wars Galaxies, EverQuest, EverQuest 2, and Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. The event will also be used to unveil more details on other upcoming MMO titles such as The Agency, Free Realms, and a third mystery title that looks like it will be unveiled on the event grounds. Those interested in making their last-minute registration for this event will want to visit SOE's official Fan Faire 2008 site, via the source link below.

• Fan Faire 2008 announced; demos of The Agency, Free Realms coming
• SOE releases Station Voice service for EverQuest 2 and Star Wars Galaxies

Buy: [EverQuest 2: Echoes of Faydwer]
Buy: [Star Wars Galaxies 60 Day Pre-Paid Game Card]
Buy: [The Agency]

One Shots: Galloping into Jalen's Crossing

Filed under: Fantasy, Screenshots, Vanguard, One Shots

We've been really glad to see a few screens coming in from Vanguard lately. With such a rough launch we wondered if this pretty MMO would be given a chance to shine here. Wookers, one of our regular One Shots contributors has been vacationing from Middle-earth in the lands of Vanguard and has sent back some screenshots. He writes: Thought this was just a beautiful view of Jalen's Crossing as I was riding in with my character, Wookori, to pick up more quests. It is indeed a lovely sky and the way the light shines from behind the building ahead looks pretty cool.

Have you taken a nifty screenshot from your travels in a world we haven't often been able to feature here? All MMOGs are welcome, from the small to the large, from old to new! Just pop them into the mail to us here at oneshots AT massively.com along with a quick description. Yours could be one of the upcoming screens featured here!
%Gallery-9798%

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Voyages of Vanguard Podcast #51: Interview with Ichie
A new voyages of vanguard episode #51 is out! This episode they interviewed Vanguard's game designer, Ichie. They will be talking about lore,…

Filed under: Vanguard, Tip of the Day

Jumping into the world of Telon for the first time? Thinking about taking the plunge? Check out these fantastic resources suggested by a veteran of the world of Vanguard: Saga of Heroes!

Continue reading Tip of the Day: Vanguard resources

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Harbingers (Part 3)
I enjoyed Harbingers parts 1 and 2. Now part 3 ups the ante and kept me interested all the way to the end. Harbingers (Part 3) is available here….