Vanguard goes free to play

[Nadia]

been free to play since 08/14/2012

game site
http://www.vanguardthegame.com/

http://vgplayers.station.sony.com/newsA ... nt&id=1374

[Nadia]

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/03/28 ... ith-gifts/

While many newcomers to Telon might be checking out Vanguard for the first time when it goes free-to-play this summer, loyal subscribers wondered, "What do we get, apart from an influx of newbie chat questions?" To that, SOE replied: "GIFTS. And lots of them."

Each set of rewards will only be available for a limited time, with more sets to come between now and the F2P relaunch.

http://forums.station.sony.com/vg/posts ... c_id=56942

Note: This update is currently only on Halgar. It will be published to Telon on Thursday, March 29, 2012.

Veteran Loyalty Rewards

To thank Vanguard players for their loyalty over the past years, we will granting a series of special rewards between now and the launch of Vanguard Free to Play. Your Way! These rewards will only be around for a limited time so tell your friends to log in and collect them.

The first set of rewards includes:

Title: "The Loyal"
Banshee Pet
Bracelet of Lucky Charms (IOD)

These rewards can be claimed by going to the Heralds of Telon in Khal, Ahgram, Tanvu, and New Targonor. Make haste because these rewards will only be around for a short time!

Keep an eye out for other loyalty rewards in the near future.

[Nadia]

Brad returns to Vanguard
http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/07/05 ... d-mcquaid/

Brad Q&A
http://vgplayers.station.sony.com/newsA ... nt&id=1425

How long have you worked at Sony Online Entertainment?

I joined Sony Interactive Studios/989 Studios in 1996. Our group spun off later into its own company, Verant Interactive, which was later bought by SOE. If you group all of that together, I was directly or indirectly part of Sony for five years.

Then, after a long break, I returned to SOE in February of this year. It's great to be back!

[Kulaf]

Hopefully for Brad's sake that is the highest rung up the corporate ladder he chooses to take, because he doesn't belong any higher.

[Nadia]

Free classes have been announced:
Warrior, Rogue, Monk, Cleric, Disciple, Sorcerer, Necromancer

membership matrix
http://vgplayers.station.sony.com/image ... p_page.jpg

SOE is still making some revisions to the matrix
http://forums.station.sony.com/vg/posts ... c_id=57701

Greetings Everyone!

As we continue to progress toward the Free-to-Play transition, we are considering making a few changes to our Free-to-Play matrix. Below are some of the ideas we are discussing internally. We'd love to add your feedback to the mix before we make any decisions! Please note that this thread will be heavily moderated to ensure useful, constructive feedback.

For COIN allowance, we bumped the coin limit from 1 plat to 3 plat for FREE players.
For ITEMS, we included "Uncommon and higher" for FREE players. Some items will still be limited but it will be on a case by case basis.
For In-game Mailing, we give FREE players full access, but at higher mailing rates.
For CHAT, we give FREE players full access.
For the BROKER system, we give FREE players full access, but at higher broker fees for placing items up for sale.

http://forums.station.sony.com/vg/posts ... c_id=57822

Here's a wall of text about rails, itemization, and Vanguard for anyone that is interested.

We are very mindful of "rails" because guiding playings is very important but exploring every corner of a game is very rewarding and important to what we want from Vanguard. The team is very much in agreement about how much hand holding and how much "rails" we want into game.

For instance the 1-10 areas are very high on the hand holding scale, they are designed to show all of the mechanics of the game to a new player and be short enough that an experienced player can get through them before becoming bored with the game.

11-20 is designed to start taking the training wheels off. We stop teaching game mechanics and start giving players more abilities and start developing the class to show the uniqueness of Vanguard. We also start pointing players to dungeons as an option to soloing so that players are nudged into the social aspect of the game while still allowing for players who want to solo and do their own quests at their own pace if thats what they want to do.

After level 20 the area's that we revamped we done in such a way as to create a flowing or "railed" experience within the chunk. If you go to one of the revamped chunks you should be given a planned experience of the story of the area. If the story or the quests are not to your liking there are always other area's to visit. We also left enough chunks alone that if you want a more free flowing experience you are free to visit old content. After finishing a chunk a lot of the time a hand off quest will be given but players will also be able to visit a Riftstone and see all of the other area's of the game they can explore.

Throughout the entire revamping of the game we attempted to "normalize" a lot of the items so that every area was viable and each type of player would be able to find something to do.

When playing go adventuring after the next patch they should have a fairly good idea of a risk/reward of what they are doing.

All of the solo quests of the revamped content gives rewards of the similar quality. This gear is in a lot of places better than what players used to get. This should free solo players from feeling that they HAVE to do URT/Hunter's League/CIS quests because the gear is so much better. They are still there for anyone that wants a larger story arc but they should feel much less required.

Group quests give better rewards than solo quests. This should hopefully edge players into doing group content instead of just playing solo. We want players to be social and by giving better rewards for group content we hope to make players want to play together.

We also itemized thousands of named Overland NPCs. If you see a named NPC and kill it for the most part expect a reward. There are however some NPC's that were intentionally left out of itemization since they are involved in quests or have very fast respawns.

In addition we redid dungeon itemization for almost every sub 50 dungeon. This was done so that every single dungeon is a viable option to adventure in. Dungeon gear is going to be some of the best for the level. This will become especially apparent when killing 5 and 6 dot Dungeon NPCs. This gear is harder to obtain but it should be worth it.

See you all in Telon.

[Nadia]

http://vgplayers.station.sony.com/newsA ... nt&id=1437

Greetings Telonians!

The Vanguard Saga of Heroes transition to free-to-play is just around the corner! We are pleased to announce that the official launch date is Tuesday, August 14, 2012! Mark the date on your calendar!

Over the past couple of months, we have been working hard to improve the game in order to prepare for the influx of new and returning players. If you have not heard about all the changes, check them out for yourself in game and out of game! In the coming week, you'll start to notice even more changes as we move toward the official free-to-play launch.

Some of the more notable changes include:

New Website: Our official website has received a major facelift and has a new URL - http://www.vanguardthegame.com.

Vanguard Marketplace: The Vanguard Marketplace offers several categories to browse - Services, Mounts and Pets, Appearance and Equipment, and Housing.

Starting Areas Revamp: New characters will now start one of the following starting areas: Cliffs of Ghelgad, Tanvu, Three Rivers Village, Tursh Village, or the Isle of Dawn.

Removed Class Restrictions: We removed the class restrictions for all races. You can now create that special combination of character that you dreamed about making!

To view more changes, check out all the recent game update notes and log in game today!

We hope to see you in Vanguard soon!

Zatozia the Torturess
Community Relations Manager

[Nadia]

free to play review
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game ... 237/page/1

Final Score 6.5
Pros
Beautiful art style
Dedicated & active community
In depth game play & character customization
Vast, explorable game world

Cons
Diplomacy & crafting are a chore
F2P restrictions become a huge pain
Game engine lacking after 5 years

[Nadia]

ftp changes

everyone can play any race, any class, to any level for free. You can also own a house, create guilds, and do a bunch of other things.

http://www.vanguardthegame.com/free.vm