With the Xeth merge complete, and the other servers merging by the end of the week, you can expect to see some new features in Vanguard!

-Brotherhoods will be available Friday, August 31st
-Guild Hall Plots will be available in-game Tuesday, September 4th
-The character move command will also be available Tuesday, September 4th

Dies ist der letzte Eintrag meinerseits, mit der Auflösung der Team-PvP-Server werde ich mein Abo auslaufen lassen. Ohne Frage hat das Spiel nachwievor Potential, es macht vieles richtig und dennoch genug falsch. Neben der technischen Hürde hat die viel zu geringe PR-Aktivität sicherlich einen entsprechenden Anteil, an dem geringem Interesse der Spielerschaft und ohne dieses geht es nicht. Nach rund 7 Monaten Spielzeit, was etwas weniger ist als ich mir erhofft habe, ist es also Zeit auf Wiedersehen Vanguard zu sagen.

http://vgplayers.station.sony.com/newsArchive.vm?id=220&section=News

Server Merges to Begin Tuesday, August 28th 12:01 AM PDT

The much anticipated server merges will begin on Tuesday, August 28th at approximately 12:01 AM PDT. The process will take a few days and require a bit of downtime. The schedule for the merges is as follows:

Xeth PVE US 12:01 AM PDT August 28, 2007
-Thunderaxe
-Woefeather
-Gulgrethor
-Hilsbury

Servers will be brought down at 12:01am (pdt) August 28, 2007
The expected down time is anywhere between 7 and 12 hours, with the new merged server being brought back up sometime after 7:00 AM PDT.

Seradon PVE US 12:01 AM PDT August 29, 2007
-Targonor
-Florendyl
-Flamehammer
-Shidreth

Servers will be brought down at 12:01am (pdt) August 29, 2007
The expected down time is anywhere between 7 and 12 hours, with the new merged server being brought back up sometime after 7:00 AM PDT.

Sartok PVP US FFA 12:01AM PDT August 30, 2007
-Tharridon
-Varking
-Fengrot

Servers will be brought down at 12:01am (pdt) August 30, 2007
The expected down time is anywhere between 7 and 12 hours, with the new merged server being brought back up sometime after 7:00 AM PDT.

Halgar PVE EU 5:00 PM PDT August 30, 2007
-Gelenia
-Infineum

Servers will be brought down at 5:00pm (pdt) August 30, 2007
The expected down time is anywhere between 7 and 12 hours, with the new merged server being brought back up sometime after 12:01 AM PDT.

Über den Spruchicons / Makros in der Mitte unten seht ihr die Anzeigen für die Rest-XP (Adventuring/Crafting/Diplomacy) im Layout des DroxUI, analog könnt ihr euch auch die farbliche Marking des Levelbalken im Charackterbildschirm anschauen. Ja der Char hat u.a. 100% Bonus im Adventuringbereich.

Zudem erhaltet ihr im Chatlog (rechts unten) nun bei der XP-Abrechnung einen Hinweis auf den Anteil der Rest-XP, den ihr gutgeschrieben bekommen habt.

a) Ich will in Dungeon xyz (sehr schick übrigens die aktuelle Entfernungsangabe, sowie der Dungeonlevel – fehlt nur noch ein Elite vermerkt bei den entsprechenden Dungeons)

b) Ich möchte Quest abc machen

c) Ich bin schon in einer Gruppe und wir suchen noch … (LFM)

d) Raids Incoming

Alles in allem sehr schick geworden, nur mit dem Autojoin fürs LFG hadere ich etwas.

Die Umsetzung ist letztendlich gut gelungen, auch wenn sie Richtung Mainstream geht. Ich mag nicht klagen, da sich Pro & Contra irgendwie die Waage halten.

Guild Halls
The Brotherhood System
Bind on Equip
LFG Improvements
Rest Experience
Level Based Diplomacy
Diplomacy UI
Deconstruction
Item Level Requirements
PVP Bug Fixes
Crash Fixes & Optimizations
Quest Journal & Quest Tracking
Item UI
Scrolling Combat Text
Additional Patch Notes

Guild Halls
-Be the first to build a grand Guild Hall Although Guild Hall Plots wont be available until after server merges, quests to help you on you way are in game for those who cant wait to get started

Bind on Equip
- All equipable items that were bindable are now either bind on equip or bind on pickup, with the majority of the items being bind on equip.

Improvements Made to LFG
- The Looking For Group tool is receiving a revamp, and now youll have the ability to display which quests youre working on, as well as which dungeons youd like to explore when looking for a group. There are many other options that allow the LFG tool to be tweaked to your liking

Resting Has its Rewards
- Heroes may now rest in Vanguard Resting increases the rate at which a hero will gain adventuring, crafting, or diplomacy experience.

Diplomacy Becomes Level Based
-Diplomacy has moved from a “skill-based” system to a “level-based” system to increase the opportunities for sphere interdependence.

Revamping the Diplomacy UI
-Speaking just became a bit easier. Diplomats can now double-click cards during parlay to play them as if you had clicked the “Speak” button.
-Cards that are unusable due to refresh timers will now be dimmed until ready to play.

Deconstruction
-Deconstruction kits are now available for purchase from vendors for a minimal cost Use these handy kits to convert items into a resource or dust.

New Item Level Requirements
-All equipable items in the Adventuring, Crafting, and Diplomacy spheres now have a minimum level to equip associated with them.

PvP Fixes Implemented
-Many bugs have been banished from PvP to make combat more effective and fun for all those taking part

Crash Fixes and Optimizations
-The Vanguard Team has put a lot of effort into both improving game performance and eliminating bugs that cause crashes. Highlights can be found in the full patch notes.

Find Your Way with Quest Tracking
- Your Quest Tracker is making some changes for the better. Not only is the layout bigger, but youll better be able to decide which quests you see, which are hidden, and scroll over Tracker text for a brief summary of that quest

Helpful UI Changes to Improve Item Identification
- Keeping in line with our efforts to make Vanguard easier to understand and more intuitive, we have added a variety of improvements to items including descriptions of abilities and percentages of proc chances

Scrolling Combat Text
- You can now switch on scrolling combat text in your Settings panel There are many ways to tweak this option to make it most effective for your play style.

Additional patch notes include many exciting changes to game play For the full listing, please visit the Game Update section of VGPlayers. Join in on the discussion about GU2 on the Official Vanguard: Saga of Heroes forums

An item preview system is currently coded and awaiting a code review, as well as testing. Those speed-bumps aside, we just wanted to let folks know that it was on the plate, mostly eaten and will be finished asap, unless it gives me indigestion.

Currently, it works as such:

1) When you mouse-over an item, the tooltip w/ the item’s stats pops up. If you have auto-compare on (under the Interface tab in Settings), the appearance of the item will automatically replace the appearance of the same slot that you currently have equipped. The compare window will, of course, also spawn.

2) If you don’t have auto-compare on, you can mouse-over the item and trigger the preview by pressing and/or holding SHIFT; in some cases, this way makes it easier to preview the item on your character because the extra compare tooltip doesn’t eat up screen real estate and get in the way.

3) Both of the previous mechanisms work even if you don’t have an item equipped in the previewed items slot.

4) The preview of that item’s appearance will remain on your character until you are no longer examining the item, at which point it is replaced by what you have equipped.

Misc:

* Mounts are currently disabled for preview, for technical reasons that I won’t bore you with; am actively working on a half-finished solution, though, so maybe in the future.

* Preview currently works for Brokers, Vendors, Quests NPCs and other item examine methods that work with compare; it does not work for links sent to you by other players. Again, maybe in the future, as I’d like that as a player just as much as y’all.

* You can preview anything, even if you can’t use it. And when I mean anything, I mean that the ugliest Orc Warrior in the game can preview that gorgeous, sleeveless robe and feel just as much as a man as the preening High Elf Sorc.

Finally, and perhaps the most imporant, I have no idea as to when this feature will make it Live; the code is functionally complete in it’s current state, at least in my eyes (lol), but it needs to pass testing and a code review, of course.

- Einführung von Gildenhallen (neue Arbeit für alle Crafter)
- Freischaltung des Brotherhood-System (EP im Team sammeln, selbst wenn man offline ist)
- Veränderungen des BOE/BOP-Systems (Bindable Items ade -> entweder BOE oder BOP)
- LFG-Tool erweitert
- Rest-XP wird wie angekündigt eingeführt
- Veränderung des Levelsystems für Diplomaten
- Diplomatie-UI angepasst
- Deconstruction angepasst
- Item-Level-System überarbeitet (Equipment Expertise wird abgeschafft, Min-Level etc. eingeführt)
- PvP-Bugfixes
- CtD-Fixes
- Item-UI aktualisiert
- SCT wird eingeführt (konfigurierbarer Scrolling Combat Text)

Wer die Details lesen mag, hier der englische Originaltext (VgPlayers) von Hasium.

Hey Everybody,

Here are the long awaited details of Game Update #2. There is variety of good stuff in there as well as a couple of items that are sure to be controversial. The Update addresses several performance issues, some long needed polish, new features and some changes to help the economy.

The Update will be pushed to test very soon. We need as many people as we can to bang on it while it’s on test. QA has done a great job finding most of the major bugs, but we really need the players to put Update 2 through its paces before we can push it to Live.

We will make a Game Update 2 post where the changes can be discussed and Dev’s will be responding to.

Hasium

Game Update #2

1. Guild Halls

2. The Brotherhood System

3. Bind on Equip

4. LFG Improvements

5. Rest Experience

6. Level Based Diplomacy

7. Diplomacy UI

8. Deconstruction

9. Item Level Requirements

10. PvP bug fixes

11. Crash To Desktop fixes and Optimizations

12. Quest Journal and Quest Tracking improvements

13. Item UI

14. Scrolling Combat Text

1. Guild Halls

Guild Hall plots are now available for purchase! They operate in a similar manner to regular housing in regards to overall construction but require new components. Building a Guild Hall will require efforts from all three spheres of Vanguard.

Crafters will need to learn brand new recipes for all three continents. There are new quests for different key parts of the Guild Hall structure, the majority which are for the mineralogist specialization. Other crafting trades will have some component recipes as well though.

Among the new recipes, a special mortar assembly recipe is introduced. This recipe requires components obtained from high level adventuring areas. Fetching these items will be very dangerous. You will want to bring a group.

Diplomats will be needed to obtain permissions to construct the Guild Halls as well. Without the correct documents obtained from the local government, the land owner will not be allowed to build a Guild Hall. However, obtaining this documentation will not be a simple task.

Finishing construction of a Guild Hall will take much more investment than building a smaller house due to the sheer size and space. However, once completed, they will be a great place for your guild to gather and store treasures, in addition to being a mark of pride for your group!

2. The Brotherhood System
Brotherhoods are a method for you and your friends to gain experience for each other, even when some of you are offline.

Features

· All experience you earn is split amongst the members of the fellowship, even members who are offline.

· When you are in debt or have lost experience, your experience will be devoted to repaying your debt/loss before you resume contributing to the brotherhood.

· Brotherhoods are completely independent from groups; you can be a member of both at the same time.

Limitations

* Brotherhoods can have a maximum of six members.
* You must be within five levels of every member of the brotherhood in order to join.
* You must be within a few meters distance to invite a player to your brotherhood.
* If you leave your brotherhood or are removed, you may not join another one for four hours of online played time.
* Members who are offline do not receive their experience until they log on. (Be careful when using the system to level up rarely-played characters, as their skills will fall behind, thus they will be very weak for their levels!)

Getting Started
Interested in creating a brotherhood? Simply target your friend, right click your defensive target window, and select “Invite to Brotherhood.” You may then administer the brotherhood from the social window (default key ‘O’) “Brotherhood” tab.

3. Bind on Equip

All equipable items that were bindable are now either bind on equip or bind on pickup, with the majority of the items being bind on equip. Here is a quick overview of the affected items:

· All equipable items that were bindable are now BOE or BOP

· All uncommon and common items are BOE

· All rare world loot items are BOE

· All rare (and higher) items that are not on world loot tables are BOP

· All containers are BOE

· Quest rewards will remain soulbound as they were before this change

This change was made for a variety of reasons.

* Removes items from the functional trade economy after the item has been used once.
* Helps regulate economy as items are effectively removed from trade.
* Changes to the deconstruction system allows all players regardless of sphere to feel a “gain” even after they have upgraded items in a slot, we did not feel that binding an item to our customers and presenting them with nothing back for its value was worthwhile.

4. LFG Improvements

There is a new LFG button that is located in the group area of the UI (left side of the screen), which brings up the new looking for group and looking for more tabs of the social window. This will disappear once a player joins someone else’s group, but it will remain for group leaders until their group is full. It automatically brings up the LFG tab for non-grouped players, and the LFM tab for group leaders.

The looking for group tab allows players to set which dungeon(s) or quest(s) (from the list of quests that the player currently has in their journal) they would like to work on, and then see a list of other individual players or group leaders. Players and group leaders in the list will be sorted based on their level relationship to you and how closely their preferences match yours, so those that are near your level and are looking to do the same dungeon or quest will be sorted highest in the list. The LFG tab also includes the option to auto accept group invites. If the player doesn’t turn on that feature, they will see the name, level, and class of the group leader and the name, level and class of each of the current group’s members when they are sent a group invite, at which time they can choose to accept or deny the invite as normal. If a player selects a group leader in the search list, they will get the new option to send a request to join that leader’s group, at which point the group leader will see the name, level, and class of the player that is requesting to join the group and the leader can choose to deny the request, or to send a group invite to that player.

The looking for more tab works like the LFG tab, except that it lets a group leader select the archetype(s) and/or class(es) that the group is looking for, in addition to setting the dungeon(s) and/or quest(s) that the group would like to find more members to do.

Both the LFG and LFM lists show individuals looking for a group and group leaders looking for more members. Hovering the mouse over a player in the list will show more info about them, such as what dungeons or quests they prefer, and if it is a group leader the tooltip will also show what archetypes or classes the group prefers and a list of all of the current group members’ names, levels, and classes.

5. Rest Experience

Heroes may now rest in Vanguard! Resting increases the rate at which a hero will gain adventuring, crafting, or diplomacy experience. As the hero gains experience in a particular sphere, rest of that type is exhausted. Rest for each sphere is separate, and is designated by a blue bar on the character sheet of the corresponding sphere. For adventurers, rest is also displayed on the experience bar. Camping allows a hero to rest, occurring more rapidly at outposts. A hero may tell if he or she is at an outpost when a tower icon appears next to his or her class icon.

6. Level Based Diplomacy

Diplomacy is moving from a “skill-based” (1-500) system to a “level-based” (1-50) system. In this changeover, your skill will be automatically converted to level. For instance, if you were skill 120, you would now be level 12. If you were 123, then you would be level 12 with 6 bubbles filled. NPCs and items are also converted as well, as will be the difficulty of conversations. This move allows us to fit Diplomacy more easily into creating content for the game, greatly speeding up the way we make content and reducing the places in which bugs can crop up – while also increasing the opportunities for sphere interdependence.

7. Diplomacy UI

* Double-clicking cards in your Diplomacy strategy during a parlay will now play them as if you selected the card and clicked the “Speak” button.
* Cards in your Diplomacy strategy are now dimmed when unusable because they are still refreshing.

8. Deconstruction

Deconstruction is no longer process oriented. Deconstruction kits will be sold by vendors and each kit will have ten charges. Right-clicking the kit and then clicking on the item you wish to deconstruct will give you the option to convert the item to a resource or a dust.

* Common items should convert into attuning dusts or common resources
* Uncommon items should convert into resonance dusts, common resources and sometimes a rare resource
* Rare items should convert into resonance dusts, focusing dusts, rare resources and sometimes ultra rare resources
* Anything above rare follows the same rules as rare

9. Item Level Requirements

The rules for who can equip items has been streamlined, equipment expertise was too confusing for many players. This puts a stronger emphasis on gaining levels to allow players to equip more powerful items. It also restores demand for items that were trivialized due to the varied range of Equipment Expertise per item type and slot.

* Items in Vanguard now have a minimum level required to equip.
* This only applies to items that are equipped on the adventuring, crafting, or diplomacy tabs of the character sheets. Mounts are excluded from this limitation.
* Equipment Expertise has been removed from the game.
* Any items you were wearing that are higher then 5 levels above you will not be removed until you remove them yourself.

10. PvP bug fixes

We spent some time fixing some of the more egregious bugs

· Abomination grafts that produce a damaging effect has been reduced against players.

· Bards can no longer pulse an invis effect while in combat.

· See invis now functions properly – you can no longer see other players that are invis if you don’t have a see invis buff unless they are in your group.

· There is a new 40% damage cap on any single ability in PvP.

· Players may now rotate while rooted.

· Pets were previously hitting for full damage in PvP. They have now received a half-damage modifier to be in tune with the half-damage modifier applied to other damage types.

· You can now use abilities on pets in PvP. Previously, they would be immune to many types of abilities they shouldn’t have been immune to.

11. Crash To Desktop fixes and Optimizations

* 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.

12. Quest Journal and Quest Tracking improvements

Some improvements have been made to the Quest Tracker.

* The layout of the quest journal window has been changed to allow more info to be shown at once, your list of quests is on the left, and the info for the quest you have selected is on the right, making for less scrolling.
* The Work Orders and Locations tabs have also been changed to the new layout.
* A new button, “Auto-track” has also been added which brings up a new window to set options for the new auto quest tracker feature.
* Auto quest tracking is on by default and in its default state, quests that you accept or quests that are updated during your play session will appear automatically in the Quest Tracker, but will be removed from the Tracker after several minutes if you don’t do anything to progress that quest (complete quest objectives).
* There is now an option to have the Quest Tracker continuously list all of your quests at once
* There is an option to filter out quests that don’t have counters (such as kill X / X).
* You can still manually track quests as before, but the auto tracking options make the tracker a bit more useful now.
* You can now mouse over the name of a quest in the Quest Tracker to see a tooltip that shows the summary for the quest, allowing you to refresh your memory about a quest without having to open the quest journal.
* The details part of the quest under the quest name in the Tracker now get removed/collapsed once you complete a quest, which allows for more quests to be shown at once. Also note that the Quest Tracker display can be made larger in layout mode if you would like to have it show more quests at once.

13. Item UI

* Items that contain an associated ability should now display the description of that ability, if a description is available.
* Items with offensive and defensive “Rating” modifiers, in addition to the actual Rating, will now display a percentage for that specific modifier against an equal level NPC. This addition will add some clarity to the previously confusing Rating system.
* Items will now display the actual percentage that an attached “Chance on Hit:” proc will activate.

14. Scrolling Combat Text

* You can now switch on scrolling combat text in your Settings panel.
* The Scrolling combat text will speed up and slow down depending on how fast text enters the world.
* New Slider bar to toggle transparency of the scrolling combat text. This will allow players to choose settings where the text is less obtrusive, while other players can chose a setting so they can achieve maximum visibility of the text.
* New option to use multiple layers of scrolling combat text (in order to place crits and more important text on one layer and less important information in another layer with a more transparent look).
* New option to use multi-column scrolling combat text. This will slow down the necessary movement of text (since more text can sit on one line). This setting will be very useful in raids when there is a lot of damage spam.

Hasium:

Edit: Anbei die Übersetzung welche Eovania gepostet hat.

Server

Es wird 2 US PVE, 1 EU PVE sowie 1 US PVP Server geben.

- Xeth PVE US
• Thunderaxe
• Woefeather
• Gulgrethor
• Hilsbury

- Seradon PVE US
• Targonor
• Florendyl
• Flamehammer
• Shidreth

- Halgar PVE EU
• Gelenia
• Infineum

- Sartok PVP US FFA (free for all)
• Tharridon
• Varking
• Frengrom

* Alle existierenden Server verschwinden und jeder zieht auf einen neuen Server um.
* Jeder Charakter erhält einen kostenfreien Umzug nachdem die Serverzusammenlegung stattfand.
* PVP Spieler werden in der Lage sein zu PvP ODER PvE Server zu ziehen.
* PVE Spieler können nur zu anderen PVE Server umziehen.
* PVP Regeln und Vorschriften richten sich nach der FFA.

Xeth, Seradon, Halgar und Sartok sind die Server die die meisten Stimmen erhielten.

Florendyl RP Server

Die Umfrage zeigt 76% für das beibehalten von Florendyl während 24% sich dagegen aussprachen. Warum um Himmels Willen haben wir uns entschieden diesen Server trotzdem zusammen zu legen während die Gemeinschaft eindeutig sich dagegen ausspricht? Während der Zeit in der die Umfrage stattfand sank die Bevölkerung von Florendyl um 30%, zusätzlich zu den 10 bis 30 % der anderen Server. Um ein gesundes Gleichgewicht zu erhalten muss dieser Server zusammen gelegt werden. Ich selber hielt mich einige Zeit auf Florendyl auf und sprach mit Spielern welche sich zuerst gegen eine Serverzusammenlegung aussprachen, jedoch nun der Meinung sind dass es das beste ist. Hoffentlich wächst die Bevölkerungsanzahl wieder und wir können einen eigenen RP Server in der Zukunft starten, jedoch im Moment ist es die beste Entscheidung.

Team PVP

Im Moment haben wir zusammen gefasst um die 400 – 450 Spieler auf unseren Team-PVP Servern. Dies ist einfach nicht genug für reellen PvP in einer Weltgrösse wie Vanguard. Deshalb werden vorerst alle PvP Server zusammen gelegt und unterliegt der FFA Regel. Irgendwann in der Zukunft wenn die Bevölkerung wächst, werden wir einen Team PvP Server in´s Auge fassen.

Charakter Benennung

* Die Priorität der Namensbehaltung eines Charakters ist abhängig von:
*
o Zuerst erstellt und muss in den letzten 30 Tagen gespielt worden sein.
o Zuletzt gespielt
* Diejenigen die einen gleichen Namen haben werden gekennzeichnet und beim nächsten log-in wird ein neuer Name ausgewählt werden müssen bevor man sich mit diesem Charakter in das Spiel einwählen kann.
* Eine Bitte: Solltet ihr einen Charakter haben der lediglich zum “abladen von Gegenständen” vorhanden ist (mule charakter), wäre es nett wenn ihr diesen löschen könnt um anderen Spielern, welche diesen Namen ebenfalls benutzen und aktiv damit spielen, die Möglichkeit zu geben diesen behalten zu können.

Haus

* Der Preis für den “Plot” (Haus) eines Spielers wird dem Spieler in Form von Münzen ersetzt.
* Die Rohstoffe um ein Haus zu erstellen werden dem Spieler durch das “housing resource escrow” ersetzt (Treuhändler für Hausrohstoffe).
* Die in voraus bezahlte Miete wird dem Spieler ersetzt.
* Gegenstände etc. im Haus werden beim Treuhändler hinterlegt.

Wir haben uns diese Angelegenheit näher betrachtet um herauszufinden was die beste Lösung ist. Nachdem wir uns die Einzelheiten näher angeschaut haben, wäre das übernehmen von Besitzrechten und Häusern in ein Chaos ausgeartet. Deshalb haben wir uns dagegen entschieden.

Viele Spieler zeigten sich besorgt dass nicht genügend Plots vorhanden sein werden. Es gibt um die 3000 Haus-Plots auf jedem Server. Auf allen vorhandenen Servern sind um die 20 – 25 % davon belegt. Zudem haben viele Spieler Häuser auf verschiedenen Servern. Nach der Serverzusammenlegung sinkt dadurch die Anzahl der Häuserbelegung. Deshalb sind wir zuversichtlich dass es mehr als genügend Platz für alle gibt.

Boote

* Boote werden als “needing to be named” (Benennung erforderlich) gekennzeichnet.

VGPlayers Issues

* Wir arbeiten noch an Einzelheiten.

Seelen welche in der Welt zurückliegen

* Alle Seelenanteile werden verschwinden.
* Alle Gegenstände welche mit zurückliegenden Seelenanteilen in Verbingung stehen werden eurem Treuhändler übergeben.
* Erfahrungen an den Seelenanteilen werden euch gut geschrieben.

Post

* Alle ausstehenden Postsendungen werden an den Versender zurück gesendet.

Freundesliste

* Wir arbeiten noch an Einzelheiten. Wir arbeiten an einem Weg dass ihr die Freundesliste behalten könnt, jedoch kann es passieren dass ihr eine neue erstellen werden müsst.

Gildennamen

* Wir arbeiten noch an Einzelheiten.

Marktgegenstände

* Gegenstände welche beim Börsenhändler zum Verkauf stehen werden an den Verkäufer zurück gesendet.

Message edited by Eovania