Vanguard: Dev Chat Log

[draganess]

Question and Answer session

On Wednesday, March 12th, the developers from SOE's Vanguard: Saga of Heroes stopped by the MMORPG.com IRC to talk about their game. Today, we present you with the chat log.

MMORPG_Taera: Greetings and welcome to MMORPG.com’s Live Chat on irc.coldfront.net! I’m your host, MMORPG.com’s community manager Laura "Taera" Genender. Joining us today is the Vanguard: SOH team!


MMORPG_Taera: Our guests will do their best to answer as many questions as possible, but due to limited time and a high volume of inquiries, they may not be able to answer every single one. Users are limited to one question at a time, and you will be notified if your question is rejected or discarded.

MMORPG_Taera: To ask a question, please /msg MMORPGBot Yourquestionhere

MMORPG_Taera: Now it’s time for introductions! Feel free to start sending your questions to MMORPGBot while our guests introduce themselves!

Moonlite: Hi all! Im Sharon Morris, Head GM Moonlite; my team looks after all of your in-game petitions. Nice to see you all!

Ellyra: Hi everyone! I’m Julie aka "Ellyra", the Community Representative for Vanguard. Thanks for showing up, and I hope we can have a great chat!

PhaThom: Hello Everyone! Thom Terrazas here, Producer for Vanguard & mid-level Paladin on Seradon. I want to thank MMORPG for hosting the chat and all of you in attendance. Thank you for coming!

Silius: Hello everyone this is Silius, glad to see you all here.

Gebron: Hello everyone, this is Gebron the Demented… Code Monkey and technical Hub of All Blame. Thanks for coming, and please throw tomatoes at me this time, I still have bruises from the potatoes last chat…

Glip: Hey everyone, I am Nick Parkinson aka Glip the Gnome. I am basically a miniature, better looking version of Thom. I’m involved in all things production (scheduling, coordinating, making fun of Silius, etc). Thanks for having us

Question: creasian asks, "Is there any news of a retail re-release and if do, how it will be handled?"

PhaThom: Hello Creasian, We are just starting Update #5 which includes a NEW starting area that we can keep our new players in the same general starting locations

PhaThom: The NEW area will help us in having an awesome acquisition program to market out to new players. A Re-Release will be evaluated when we are ready to launch that new island

PhaThom: Also, there may be some confusion on what a re-release is to some. Once we have the Isle of Dawn (The NEW area), we will have what we believe to be a very nice introductory to the game that transitions you very nicely into other areas. That is key to doing any re-release.

Question: feythe asks, "Can we expect veteran awards to be taken away from accounts that did not actually deserve them?"

Silius: We are not going to remove free items from people because of a mistake on our end. These items are a gift and would have been attained by those that got them early if they stuck around. Hopefully we can release some more at a later date now that we are aware of what the problem was and can avoid it.

PhaThom: What we’re discussing at this point on the veteran rewards to actually create some additional items that we can give to only those that deserve it. We may not be able to taketh away, but we can giveth more to the rightful owners….

Question: bvar asks, "Hi Id like to ask the question How far out are the developers currently with there next raid dugeon. What kind of things can we expect from it, and do the developers plan on working on raid dugeons continously to keep the raiders satitisifed in VG"

Silius: We have our next two dungeons in mind but planning on those will not start till later. Currently we will be releasing more overland raid mobs like we did with GU4 progressing the storyline of Haelifur and Torkald and his brothers.

Question: kenji asks, "How is the balance (mit, evasion, hp, aggro) between the three tanks. And are all tanks truly viable in most situations."

Silius: Tanks are currently at a point where we are satisfied with the balance between them.

Question: silentnoise asks, "What does SOE feel about the current reaction to Gu4 and how long before they will implement a patch to correct the issues?"

Glip: Well, anytime you take something like customization away you expect a bit of backlash. So in that regards, we weren’t too surprised. However, we did what was ultimately in the best interest of the game - and as more folks get the chance to hop in game and play that’ll become more and more apparent.

Glip: The flying mounts are going to have a pretty good reception too once players start finishing off those quests. Very few things are cooler than flying over all your buddies on a Griffon or Wyvern.

Glip: As for when we’ll be patching next to fix any bugs that were introduced with GU4, expect something next week!

Question: stabfast asks, "What is the real reason behind the group 4 Changes from Game Update 4? This is a game breaking change that will highly influence the vast majority of your current subscribers. Group 4 plays a vital role in the raiding experience as it is not only a means of fail safe from wipes, but also a play base substitution system for certain encounters. Please, give us a REAL incite into this change and not the same old "it’s

Silius: The reason is the same as has been posted a few times by me. Group 4 was never meant to loot. Only the people who participated in the killing of the mob were ever supposed to loot.

Question: cyrcle asks, "What classes, if any are planned to be looked at or revamped for Game Update 5?"

Silius: Psi, Shaman, Cleric, Sor, Ranger, Bloodmage, and Disc

Question: settha asks, "What are Vanguards long term plans after Brass City and GU 5?"

PhaThom: One of the things that will be looking at and I say "One" because we have plenty that we are planning on…is Progression Paths

PhaThom: We want to make sure they flow well throughout the world. From the Teens through level 50 content.

PhaThom: Truly, we have a lot of items on our roadmap at the moment and our focus is update 5 at the moment. The further we plan ahead makes it difficult to stick to

PhaThom: Our plans are laid out but we know that things change and we could potentially have something that needs to be placed that the top of the list from many different angles…

Question: psikotick asks, "Why do AEs now go through Ward Shield for clerics as though it doesn’t exist? Secondly, why only one Argent Coil per Kotasoth kill, and only 1 egg per Dressla kill for Wyvern quest?"

Silius: That’s what we decided when the mount was put in. Dresla is an overland encounter getting a mount egg off of her is a bonus.

Question: jazaar asks, "Why has the game decided to make such a dratic change and limit loot distribution amoung guilds whom have built a large player base?"

Silius: If you are talking about group 4 changes, it is a bug fix that was meant to be fixed a long time ago. We never intended loot to be distributed to more people then the people who actively killed the mob.

Question: bob_niac asks, "Are bards always going to be Melee Heavy or will there be provisions made to allow Spell-Singers?"

Silius: Cannot speak on that at the moment, but when we start planning out AA then that may be something we put on the table.

Question: dafuzzle asks, "what are your plans for the future in Vanguard?"

Gebron: Well we’ve sort of answered the question from a gameplay standpoint, but I can speak to the technical side of the fence.

Gebron: As you’ve no doubt noticed, we’ve made great strides in improving frame rate in the game, and next we’re tackling hitching.

Gebron: We’re about to start testing code which greatly, and I do mean greatly, reduces hitching in the game. We’re not done with it, and we’re excited enough about the result that we may be releasing it in phases rather than make you wait…

Gebron: the inevitable goal is to try and get the game to where it practically never hitches. We’re getting close! The change to how the game feels without hitching is… oh so sweet!

Question: dificeman asks, "What kind of changes can we expect in GU5?"

Glip: Update 5 is going to be focused around the new starting island that Thom talked about earlier. The goal of it is to provide a consistent (and awesome) newbie experience that will lead into the real meat of the game.

Glip: There’s a handful of other features that we also have planned for GU5 (such as the class updates Silius mentioned) but at this point we’re not going to promise anything that isn’t finished yet. But we’ll definitely have the new starting island

Question: durnt asks, "when will they add gallions into the game- tier 5"

Silius: Trying to get it in as a part of update 5.

Ellyra: The question should be, "When they are in game, who is going to build one for Ellyra?"

Question: jrod asks, "When will the game trial be open?"

PhaThom: Trial: So we already have a lot of work completed on the Isle of Dawn and we are very busy on it for Update #5. However, the Isle of Dawn may launch just after Update #5 or as a subset of Update #5.

PhaThom: . I would love to put a date to it but as soon as I do, it may change and I will most definitely be “killed” by my team members :

MMORPG_Taera: Thank you for all the great questions! We will continue answering questions for another 15 minutes, but at this time, MMORPGBot is no longer taking new questions

Question: annul asks, "Why is it that spells longer then longer then instant now move to the target your selected on even if you started casting on a different mob… like cast a dot on one and check the mez on another and bam the dot is now on the mezed mob, im a lvl 48 necro on seradon."

Gebron: To be quite honest, that’s the first I’ve heard. We’ll certainly look into it, as that sounds quite annoying. We figured you were happy enough that your pets now hit your new target, we may as well stop your spells from hitting.

Gebron: kidding!

Question: siela asks, "Will you be going through each of the classes the same way you have done for Druids, Necros, Paladins, Rangers, etc? Will it most likely be done several classes per patch? (When are Bloodmages a bot’o love? /wink)"

Silius: Yes

Question: fujitsu-xeth asks, "Monks got some attention in gu3, but nothing in game update 4. Feign death dealy still isnt live, our class lead has been MIA for over a month, and drunken and dragon monks are wondering when they will get their useless skills fixed or changed to something meanigful. Stuff like foolhardy swagger (doesnt transfer hate) or sun dragons corona"

Silius: Monks received a pass recently and as we finish up the classes we will still fix bugs along the way. There are currently no plans to revisit monks again in the near future outside of bug fixing.

Question: snapcase asks, "Are there any plans currently in the works to make the long-fabled RP-Ruleset server?"

Glip: There are no plans for a dedicated RP server, but if you head on over to the forums Ellyra has opened up an RP section.

Question: mekron asks, "are there any plans to bring any of the classes that were not in launch to game?"

PhaThom: Honestly Mekron, we’re not planning on bringing any un-delivered classes to the game in the very near future. Basically in a round about fashion, not at this time

PhaThom: I would like to hear what you are interested in though

Question: sanic asks, "will NPC boats ever get implemented to compliment other forms of travel like the riftways"

Silius: NPC boats have never been turned off. I can look into possible problems with them but they have been functioning since launch day.

Question: khocha asks, "Any info you could give us about fishing? And with fishing, will there be a purpose? Such as a cooking your catch to make food?"

Gebron: Fishing is currently still in early development. We’re playing around with lots of ways to put "hooks" throughout the rest of the game that "tie" into fishing. * +GlipSOE takes 10 points of pun damage

Gebron: We’ll have a more formal announcement with the full feature list in the near future. Stay tuned to the test server.

Question: customprofil asks, "Will we be able to have a place like in SWG to hold our macros we create?"’

Gebron: We have a growing list of UI polish features, and we are starting to hand them out. Expect that one to come SOON™.

Question: lsat asks, "Will we eventually see water mounts?"

Silius: Currently not planned but you never know.

Question: gunney asks, "How is subscribership (game popularity) currently doing? on the rise I hope"

PhaThom: We’re “officially” not permitted to go into subscriber numbers unfortunately, but I would like to say things are very very good after our Free Play session recently ended going into Update 4 ?

PhaThom: not ? … =

Question: phathom asks, "Why is Phathom so hot?"

PhaThom: This seems to a problem that follows me everywhere I go…

PhaThom: Silly Taera

PhaThom: I know you wrote that question originally

MMORPG_Taera: Oh, he wishes!

MMORPG_Taera: Thank you very much for joining MMORPG.com, the Coldfront team, and the Vanguard: SOH team for a wonderful Dev Chat! Round of applause to our guests, and a big thank you for joining us!

MMORPG_Taera: Logs will be posted shortly on MMORPG.com

PhaThom: Thank you all!

Glip: Moonlite is actually a fembot

Gebron: So long, and thanks for all the fish.

Ellyra: Thanks everyone for sticking around, and providing us with some great questions.

MMORPG_Taera: We apologize if we didn’t get to your question, we had almost 200 questions and only 60 minutes

Taken from here