Vanguard: Saga of Heroes was a high fantasy-themed massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by Sigil Games Online and published by Sony Online Entertainment (SOE). The game was released on January 30, 2007 and initially sold around 242,000 copies, while the number of active subscriptions (those who play longer than the free month included when buying the game) was estimated to be around 130,000, to drop in the next months to about 40,000. On May 15, 2007, it was announced in a press release that Sony Online Entertainment had acquired key assets from Sigil Games Online, including all rights to Vanguard.
Following the acquisition by SOE, the focus shifted to bug fixes and gameplay improvements, allowing the game to reach a more presentable state by July, 2008. On September 10, 2008, Game Update 6 introduced the trial island, the Isle of Dawn, which also became the standard starting area for new regular characters. On October 8, 2008, the trial version was released. On August 14, 2012, Vanguard transitioned to a free to play model. The game was officially shut down on July 31, 2014.
Gameplay
As typical of MMORPGs, characters in Vanguard: Saga of Heroes were created by the player. The name, gender, race, and adventuring class of the player character were chosen and could not be changed later. Twelve characters could be created on one account and the character's appearance could be modified by the player at any time after character creation, from the character selection screen. The player could start the game in either the starting area of their chosen race or in the trial zone called the Isle of Dawn. The player also had the option of picking a crafter class and two harvester skills.
Solo play was possible, but, as in many MMORPGs, the classes differed in their solo performance because of the unequal distribution of crucial abilities. Typical soloing strategies, such as self-healing, kiting and fear kiting, were only available to some classes; likewise, controlling fights with crowd control, avoiding fights with stealth or invisibility, and terminating lost fights with fake death or emergency evacuation teleports was not possible for all classes. Some classes, such as the Necromancer, had more soloing options, while some others, like the Warrior, were more narrowly focused. Player vs player (PvP) was available on the Sartok FFA PvP server, in the PvP arenas, or on PvE servers using the /duel command. This aspect of gameplay had never been a priority for the developers. Vanguard classes were therefore not balanced with PvP in mind, and some classes were much more capable in this regard than others. For example, the maximum damage of a single attack was restricted to 20% of a target's maximum hitpoints, but certain classes could combine multiple instant attacks, resulting in "one-shotting", or immediately killing other players in one shot with no chance for the victim to fight back.
The second sphere of Vanguard was Crafting, and involved creating in-game items using 'recipes' and raw materials. Crafting recipes were a set of actions that had to be performed in a particular order to produce a final result. Each of these actions costed 'action points', taken from an action pool. The maximum number of action points available varied with each recipe. During the crafting process, 'complications' could arise which affected the crafting process, usually, but not always negatively. The crafter could attempt to correct complications or resume crafting and deal with the consequences or benefits of ignoring the complications. 'Diplomacy' is a concept unique to, or at least first introduced by, Vanguard. It was basically a card game inspired in style and rules by collectible card games. Diplomats could enable certain citywide 'civic' buffs and gain certain special items needed for end-game content such as Guild Houses, the Griffon Mount, and other important end-game quests. Harvesting formed a fourth, simple sphere. Characters had a general harvest skill, which controlled how well one could help others with their harvest, and could choose two out of five harvest types they wanted to specialize in, out of the pool of Mining Metal Ore, Quarrying Stone Slabs and Gemstone Samples, Lumberjacking Wood Timbers, Skinning Leather Hides, and Reaping Cloth Bales. Rechoosing these skills was possible, but all previous progress was then lost.