[Johnny Hazard]

Intervjuv med Brad himself: http://www.f13.net/index.php?itemid=562#more - enjoy!

[DeadHead]

Introduction to David Gilbertson

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks here at Vanguard as we get integrated into the SOE family. As you can probably imagine, it can get a little hectic as we get everyone set-up with email along with getting offices, cubicles, and computers moved around. I had hoped to get this letter of introduction out to you sooner, but between integration fun and a bout with the stomach flu it took me a little longer than I expected. So here I am. My name is David Gilbertson and I am a recovering crunch-aholic. I’ve been working on Vanguard since the beginning, some 5+ years ago. I’ve had my hand in most aspects of Vanguard with most of my later time spent producing. I’m looking forward to continuing working with Vanguard and our team as the producer and Director of Development with SOE.

The integration process is ongoing, so please have a little patience with us as we get everything up and rolling. We haven’t forgotten about you! We released an update last week and we are working on another update this week to fix some exploits. While we are working on a Game Update for the upcoming weeks, we are mainly focusing on bug fixes and polish. We have come a long, long way since release, but we know we have a ways to go still.

One of the first things on the list is planning out the best way to merge servers. We should have an announcement in the next few weeks on what the plan is. You, our players, have been asking for it and it's needed. The world of Telon needs be a healthy a place with plenty of players to group, trade and adventure with. That’s our number one priority.

We are also working on improving performance across the board. Programming is working on optimizations while Art is optimizing all the NPC humanoids. When the latter is completed, you should see a significant boost in performance whenever you see NPC’s. The Design department is fixing bugs as fast as they can in addition to adding Raid content to the game.

In the not so distant past, our communication to you certainly wasn’t the best. Going forward that will change, I will do my best to level with you and set realistic expectations.

So, I want to say thank you on behalf of the Vanguard team and SOE, for your patience and for being a part of the Vanguard Community. We are excited about the new possibilities and we hope you will join us for the upcoming adventures. I know I’m looking forward to it.

David Gilbertson  aka Hasium

David "Hasium" Gilbertson
Director of Development
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes"

[Tahlanos]

 


Inte en minut för sent...

[Johnny Hazard]

Ny patch mina herrar!

Build 1843 Patch Notes

This is primarily a bug fixing patch, in addition to the notes below:

309 bugs have been fixed
Roughly 50 were Crafting issues
Roughly 115 were Quest issues
Roughly 90 were Spells / Abilities

[DeadHead]

Får se vad det innebär då. Annars var väl den roligaste "fixen" från min synvinkel denna:

"You can now zoom the camera out much further from your character."

Inget specifikt om prestandan än så länge, dröjer nog några år månader ytterligare.

[Ceder]

En ynka skill har de "fixat" för Dread Knight... Suck jag blir så less...

[DeadHead]

Första intrycket efter senaste patchen är att prestandan blivit lite bättre, känslan är att det flyter på lite mjukare nu i alla fall.

Och här lite information om kommande server-sammanslagningar:

Hey Everyone,

Here are the details on the server merge. We don’t have a firm date as we are still getting all the back-end details worked out. The intent is to have them done within the next three weeks. We will announce a date as soon as we have it.

Please feel free to comment as I know you will. I will try and clear up questions as they arise. I realize that not everyone will be happy with all of the decisions, but I’m open to suggestions if someone presents a better idea and it’s something that is feasible for us to implement in time.

 

Servers

    * There will be 2 US PVE, 1 EU PVE, and 1 US PVP server.
          o Thunderaxe, Woefeather, and Gulgrethor would merge into server A PVE
          o Targonor, Hilsbury, and Shidreth would merge into sever B PVE
          o Tharridon, Varking, Flamehammer and Frengrot would merge into sever C PVP FFA
          o Gelenia and Infineum would merge into server D EU PVE
          o For Florendyl we will be soliciting feedback via a poll and discussion as to whether or not the players think it should be merged.
               1. We are open to considering the option of leaving it up with the understanding that the population is way under what it needs to be to be healthy but we wouldn’t recommend it.

 

    * All existing servers will go away and everyone will be moved to new servers.
    * We will post a poll so you can vote on the new server names.
    * PVP players will be able to move to PVP OR PVE servers.
    * PVE players will only be able to move to PVE servers.
    * PVP rule set will be FFA.

 

Characters that have not chosen a server will be moved based on popularity of servers.

    * US characters moved this way will be on a US server.
    * EU players moved will be on an EU server.
    * PVP players will be moved to the new PVP server.
    * Each character will get one free server move after the merge.

 

Character Naming

    * Characters name priority is based on
          o First created, if also played within the last 30 days
          o Last Played
    * Those characters that have name collisions will be marked, and upon next login will have to choose a new name before that character can log in.

 

Housing

    * The price for the player’s plot is refunded to the player in coin.
    * The resources used to generate the house are refunded to the player via the housing resource escrow.
    * The current upkeep balance will be refunded to the character
    * Fixtures and items in the house will be placed in the escrow.

 Boats

    * Boats will be marked as needing to be named.

 VGPlayers issues

    * We are still working out the specifics on this.

 Corpses left in the world

    * All corpses will go away.
    * Any items left on corpses will go to your escrow account.
    * Exp on the corpse will be returned to you.

 Mail

    * Any pending mail will be returned to sender.

 Friends list

    * We are still working out the specifics on this.

 Guild names

    * We are still working out the specifics on this.

 Market items

    * Items in the market will be returned via mail.

 

One to Two weeks prior to the consolidation, players will be able to type a slash command (MOVESERVER) that will select what server they want that character to reside on. 

[Tahlanos]

Första intrycket efter senaste patchen är att prestandan blivit lite bättre, känslan är att det flyter på lite mjukare nu i alla fall.

Är det patchen eller för att det blir mindre antal folk på servern ?

  Skönt det är förbättringar i alla fall

[DeadHead]

Är det patchen eller för att det blir mindre antal folk på servern ?

Nja, jag tror inte att skillnaden i hur mycket folk det är på servern är så stor från tisdag till onsdag!

Det kan även vara inbillning, men det var i alla fall känslan igår. Inget revolutionerande dock!

[Pruneboy]

Kände också att flöt på lite bättre igår, vad det nu kan bero på.

[DeadHead]

Någon dag gammal "nyhet" från vgplayers:

Hey Everybody,

It’s time for an update as I promised last week. I had hoped to get this posted up earlier but the patch gremlins had other ideas. Integration is moving along very well. We are getting Vanguard hooked into the various areas like QA (Yeah!) and forums.

I have heard from more than a few people expressing concern as to whether or not SOE is really committed to seeing Vanguard be the successful game we all know it can be. The team has had multiple resources thrown at it in an effort to get us up and running as quickly as possible from QA to marketing and PR. So put simply, they are.

Ok, let’s get to the meat of it.

Welcome to the new age of Vanguard! Otherwise known as “What is the Vanguard team working on because it sure doesn’t seem to be tails!”

In our continuing effort to develop a better rapport with the community, we will be posting our milestone goals as well as our game update patches going forward. The awesome apart of that is you, the community, will be able to see what the team is working on and offer feedback via polls and discussion threads. This works out great for both of us, you are no longer left wondering what on earth the Vanguard team is working on and we get some great directed feedback on upcoming priorities, features, and content.

Milestones

Going forward we will be posting on www.VGplayers.com the teams current milestone goals and tasks. An individual milestone typically spans about 6 weeks in length. Please keep in mind that some tasks will spill over into several milestones. As the tasks are completed, they will assigned to a Game Update patch and be pushed out to the Test Server and then to the Live Servers.

 Game Updates

We will also be moving to a more consistent patch schedule. Approximately every 6 weeks we will push a game update. This game update will be comprised of some percentage of new content, new features, and new art that was completed in the previous milestones. We will still be patching in the weeks in-between the game updates with bug fixes, performance upgrades, and everything else not covered.

We will get the milestone goals posted as soon as possible with the contents of the game update patch following a few days later. As always, feedback is appreciated.

Thank you for your support!

--Hasium

Vanguard’s Milestone 1 goals.

    * Performance / optimization increases
    * Fix bugs
    * Raid content
    * Finish features that were almost complete before the SOE acquisition occurred.

Here are some of the tasks the team is working that will help us achieve those goals.

Design

Bug Team

The bug team is, as one would imagine, working on bugs. Bugs being worked on range from big things like broken quests and abilities that are not working to minor things like typos and missing text. At the end of this milestone, players should be able to observe a noticeable reduction in bugs. High profile fixes will be mentioned in patch or update notes while the majority of other bugs fixed will go in quietly.

Content Team

The content team is busy working on one of the premiere raid dungeons for Vanguard. The Ancient Port Warehouse in Thestra is currently in the works. The team is currently planning population for group and raid content as well as itemization, and diplomacy population. The art for the dungeon has already been finished.

Diplomacy Team

The diplomacy team is currently in the beginning stages of converting the diplomacy system from a skill-based system to a level based system. There will be no huge diplomacy gameplay changes, the switch is more about representing the same information in a different (better) way. Aruspex will be posting the details in another thread.

The diplomacy team is also working on putting together some cool looking tier 4 clothing options as well as adding House quests.

Crafting Team

The crafting team is putting in the quests to allow crafters to learn how to create Guild Houses. Yes, that’s right; Guild houses are finally coming to Vanguard!

Programming  (extra superfluous words have been removed)

    * Fixing memory leaks
    * Fixing bugs that cause CTD’s / client memory issues.
    * Fix the last remaining bugs for Brotherhoods
    * Raid UI and tools support
    * A more intuitive LFG tool with better functionality
    * Rest exp.
    * Changing Diplomacy from skill based to level based.

Art

Environment Team

The team’s primary task this milestone is working what we’re calling the “trial island”. The island is being built using highly optimized existing assets in an effort to establish a new art content pipeline that is able to produce, in laymen’s terms – cool looking stuff that won’t make your computer explode – quicker than we’ve previously been able to do so.

The overall benefit for the trial island is that we are working on heavily optimizing existing assets. The knowledge learned through this will then be applied to existing art assets in the game therefore increasing performance. In addition we will be using the completed island (which will feature a couple dungeons as well as diplomacy and crafting content) as a free downloadable “Vanguard demo”.

Character Team

The character team is optimizing the humanoid NPC’s that are used in villages, cities, dungeons, etc. which will give a significant performance boost.

The character team is also working on new armor sets for use in an upcoming high end raid dungeon.

[DeadHead]

Lyssnade på en intressant intervju med David Gilbertson som Überguilds Radio har gjort. Det pratades om en hel del, men det mest intressanta tyckte jag var när de började prata prestanda, och de förbättringar de jobbar på inom det området.

Han tog som exempel att när man går in i Tursh, så är grafiken idag upplagd på så vis att om där står ex. ett bord, så ska grafiken till bordet hämtas från "paketet med bord". Likaså vad gäller träd, byggnader, npc, allt.

Detta innebär i dagsläget att när du går in i Tursh, så ska grafikdata laddas från hårddisken från uppemot 200 sådana här paket, vilket leder till en massa laddande från hårddisken, och därmed dålig prestanda.

Det de jobbar med nu (och som kanske släpps redan denna vecka) är en uppdatering där man optimerar områdena, så att istället för att ha ett paket med bord, ett annat för stolar, ett tredje för träd osv, så försöker man klämma in allt i optimerade paket för det specifika området, dvs ett paket kan då komma att innehålla flera olika saker i ett.

Han nämnde skillnaden som enorm i de tester de gjort, och för att ta exemplet med Tursh igen så hade antalet paket att ladda in grafikdata från reducerats från drygt 200 till runt ett dussin.

För övrigt så lägger de nu i stort sett all kraft på att optimera och fixa buggar, istället för att släppa en massa nytt innehåll. Två stora raiddungeons är inplanerade innan årsskiftet, och flying mounts ska ligga max två månader bort enligt den nuvarande planen.

Vidare kan nämnas att de jobbar hårt på att sammanfläta crafting och diplomacy mer med själva äventyrandet. Ex. kan en raid som tar med sig en duktig diplomat, kanske övertyga en vakt om att släppa in dem bakvägen till en boss, och därmed slippa slåss mot en massa trashmobs på vägen.

En crafter skulle kunna hitta en smedja, och tillverka en nyckel till en låst dörr, och därmed få samma fördel, eller tillverka en bro över en stor ravin för att slippa ta en enorm omväg osv.

Gilbertson lät väldig entusiatisk kring de möjligheter detta skulle kunna innebära.

[Pruneboy]

Låter som spännande saker på gång. Kommer ta ett tag, men de når nog fram till slut med VG.

[guest1327]

Men det är ju lysande.. Då finns det ju någon mening med diplomatin.

[DeadHead]

Vanguard Build 1849 Patch Notes 07/05/2007 –


GAMEPLAY NOTES

- Captain Jiral, the City Dockmaster who ported people to Strandan, Ahgram and the Upside Defense Garrison has been removed.  With the addition of the riftway, his services were no longer required.

- The Bloodhowler Elementalist’s Enfeeblement spell no longer lowers their opponent’s strength to 0.

 

ADVENTURING NOTES

- Bard – Humming Blade I now removes 20% max energy as intended.
- Bard – Thread the Needle now actually reduces damage by the amount that it states
- Bard – Increased the damage of Razor Parts Silk
- Bard - Gamael's Blades of Flame has been moved to level 26
- Bard - Fasant's Chant of Corruption has been moved to level 30
- Bard - Gamael's Blades of Venom has been moved to level 36
- Bard - Briel's Aria of the Clouds has been moved to level 20
- Bard - Suann's Transforming Transition has been moved to level 42
- Bard – Shatter the Mountain has been added to trainers at level 40
- Bard – Added Eaon's Booming Bellow to trainers at level 46
- Bard – Added Asilam's Call of the Siren to trainers at level 42
- Bard – Added Eaon’s Eerie Echo to trainers at level 28
- Bard – Added Weirlaun's Expiating Echo at level 18
- Bard – Singing Blade has been added to trainers at level 14.
- Bard – Hummingbird Darts In has been added to trainers at level 10
- Bard – Lightning Kisses the Ground has been added to trainers at level 20
- Cleric - Soul Schism III is now usable at level 48 instead of level 34
- Cleric – Fixed a bug that was causing Speed of Ghalnn to always be activated
- Dread Knight – You can now use Throwing Axes
- Paladin – Increased the damage of Sunburst II-IV
- Paladin – Sunburst I-IV are now all on the same refresh timer.
- Paladin – Your rescues should now permanently give you 1 Virtue Point when they are used and you have less than 20% health.
- Psionicist – The Mindspy abilities will no longer make your abilities unusable when cast on Constructs.
- Psionicist – Adjusted display description of Phantom Thought to match its effects.
- Rogue - Rogues will no longer resist the “sprint” ability.
- Warrior – Power Attack is no longer restricted to be usable in combat.


CRAFTING NOTES

- The recipe “Imbalanced Wood Shaft” should now properly show up in the Secondary Components section of the recipe book.
- Copper ore should now be listed as a Novice Blacksmith item in its description.
- Some taskmasters have changed their movement and positioning.
- Infineum Fire Stoker should now have the proper bonus to effectiveness.

DIPLOMACY NOTES

- Writ Facets are no longer soulbound. Gems that can be built from these facets will be soulbound.


GUI NOTES

- A "Repair All" button has been added. (OMFG!!!)


CODING NOTES

- Fixed a client crash that sometimes happened when selecting a crafting recipe.
- Reduced the frequency of garbage purges. They will now only occur once your client has under 100MB of system memory free, and there is more "stuff" to purge. This will reduce the amount of "hitching flashes" to only the times when you really need them to prevent the game from crashing.
- Textures should now take up a great deal less system memory, reducing the number of crashes from out of memory errors substantially.


~The Vanguard Team