Vanguard: GameSpot First Impressions (E3 2004)

Andrew Park of Gamespot sits down with Sigil Games’ Jeff Butler, Brad McQuaid, and Keith Parkinson for an advance look at the studio’s upcoming MMORPG (Massively multiplayer online role playing game) at E3 2004. Microsoft Game Studios was on hand at E3 2004 with its upcoming massively multiplayer game Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. The game has been in development at Sigil Games, a studio founded by some of the original creators of EverQuest–designers Brad McQuaid and Jeff Butler, and fantasy artist Keith Parkinson.

The new game is currently in a pre-alpha stage, but it already features a number of built-out environments, including an expansive dry swampland lined with short grass and dotted with towering pillars of rock. We then moved to a huge town with cobblestone streets lined with crowded villas, past which townspeople bustled and across which the citizenry had hung its laundry out to dry. The team at Sigil will attempt to make the world of Vanguard completely seamless and continuous–that is, there will not only be no load times, but also, every single visual feature on the landscape will be a real 3D object you can reach.

According to Sigil’s Jeff Butler, the development team will attempt to make each part of the world of Vanguard contextually relevant. For instance, towns won’t just be places to sell the loot you’ve recovered from monsters; in fact, the game will have a crafting profession that thrives within towns and can advance in experience levels by completing quests and tasks within town, in much the same way that a typical adventurer finds experience and rewards by hunting in dungeons. In addition, the team clearly intends to make the world of Vanguard huge, and as Butler explained, Sigil also intends to make travel “meaningful.”

Check out the rest of this Vanguard SOH article/interview at GamepSpot.com! >>

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