More Sigil news
http://pc.ign.com/articles/615/615444p1.html
May 17, 2005 - There are a lot of MMOs out there now vying for the public's attention. World of Warcraft certainly seems to have the attention of the world at the moment, but gamers are a fickle lot and other designers are looking for a way to break in and have as much success. Sigil Games is one of these groups. They've been working on their new MMO called Vanguard: Saga of Heroes for quite some time now. Among other notable team members is one of EverQuest's designers and former VP of Sony Online, Brad McQuaid. He and the rest of the team have much different ideas about what makes a perfect MMO than your average designer today. After getting the chance to sit down and take a look, the differences in approach were pretty apparent.
Instanced zones are a relatively new thing in the world of the MMO. These zones are shards off of the player populated zones where groups of adventurers can cross over and have a dungeon crawl to themselves without having to worry about sharing space, having kills stolen, or waiting in lines to attack a monster that spawns once in a blue moon. Many of the newer MMOs, like World of Warcraft and EverQuest 2 have taken to this approach, with some bit of success. But
Sigil feels that instanced zones cut away from the appeal of an MMO altogether.
The big question is, how do you keep camping at bay when you don't offer instanced zones? The answer is actually a simpler idea than you might think. Groups of characters that find themselves on one quest or another that wind their way down into the depths of a dungeon will have plenty of opportunity to simply slaughter creatures along the way as you might in an MMO. What's different here is that one of these creatures will drop an item that can be used "map" to an adventure route that will take players through dungeons on their own little personalized quest. Instead of removing players from the world into an instanced dungeon, these items will actually act as an activator for the game to spawn enemies dedicated to that group. Other adventurers will not be able to target them for attack, nor will they be able to loot any of their corpses. After a group of monsters has been defeated, the group will get a new direction to wander, putting even more enemies in their path as they wander, eventually culminating in a dungeon boss battle.
The hope here is that players will still be able to have the feeling that they're running around inside of a living breathing world because they'll be able to see other parties running around with them at all times without having to sacrifice the idea of tailored quests.One of the other big differences from recent MMOs is the idea of travel being more important than usual. Players will be able to purchase modes of transportation, such as horses or boats (even at early levels), but there won't be modes of quick travel. Exploration and discovery is a main focus in Vanguard and allowing players to simply zap from place to place through teleportation or other transportation methods apparently kills the buzz. It'll be interesting to see how gamers react to this considering the Sigil is quite happy that their game will have one of the largest seamless gameplay areas ever created.
Like other MMOs, players will all start out in a different area coinciding with their chosen race. Each character will be high customizable, though those options weren't in the game yet, and will begin at level one in the three main spheres of the game which are adventuring, diplomacy, and crafting.
Adventuring is pretty much what you would expect. Under this sphere sits everything from martial combat to spell casting. Everything that a player would need out in the wild fighting monsters falls under its sway. Some of the features in this sphere include a new combat system that challenges players to think a little bit more about what they're doing. Warriors and the like can actually combo their moves together. A successful opener can transition into a bridge which if successful can be followed by a finishing move that deals a ton of damage.
But combat will be more interesting as well when interdependency takes over. Different classes will have special combination moves that allow them to fight more successfully with each other. For instance, some fighter attacks might open up the possibility for another class to use one of their abilities that can only be used in that situation.
Spellcasters will also have to spend a good deal of attention on making sure they're properly prepared for a quest. A memorization system, somewhat akin to the Guild Wars skill system, will make sure that magic users are having to pick sets of spells out carefully. Vanguard won't include the same rigidity as seen in Guild Wars however as players can swap out spells whenever they choose.
The second sphere of diplomacy adds another interesting layer that hasn't been done before. This kind of action almost could be called a war of words. Players that practice at diplomacy will have several options with which to convince NPCs to do what they want. One "battle" demonstrated showed a female character on task trying to get a guard captain to stop being lazy and get back to work. What followed was a series of attempts using different tactics like threats, guilt, charm, and so on to convince this guard to get back on rounds. Choosing the wrong talking points could lead to failure, but the successful diplomat sent the captain back on patrol.
This skill set basically gives players an optional way to play the game and go about things. For example, players that don't have high diplomacy skills won't have the chance to get into to see a king, whereas those with high skill levels might be able to convince a guard to give them an audience.
Finally, the last sphere of gameplay is crafting. Crafting is a pretty popular pastime for most MMOs, especially those that cater to the real role-playing crowd. But crafting has never been particularly interesting. It unfortunately involves simply moving up to a crafting device, hitting a button, and watching to see if the process was successful or not. While it does the job, sitting around and doing this all day can even wear out the heartiest of gamers.
Crafting in Vanguard takes a different approach and challenges players to be completely active in their efforts to make an item. Firstly, players will need to find recipes to know how an item is made. Secondly, the components, tools of crafting, and crafting abilities have to be set. Once all that is done, players can move to a crafting device and begin the mini-game.
Crafters will each have a certain amount of crafting points that work pretty much like mana. Every action taken will use up some of these crafting points. Along the way, complications will come up within the crafting process. Players can then choose to ignore them, or deal with them, which costs even more points. The quality of the item made will depend entirely on how perfectly the item was made. Have too many complications that aren't taken care of and the item won't come out so good. Crafters will have to decide what complications are worth taking care of and which aren't.
Sigil definitely has some fresh ideas for their game that could be popular. It is another fantasy MMO in a market that already has many, but Sigil also believes that the spins they put on these ideas, such as the human city based off of an Arabian Nights style, will outweigh any waning interest in the subject matter.