VGNecro news archive, 2007-2011

And who are these VGNecro people?

by lifebane 2007-01-01 · about-us, admin, lifebane, staff

Lifebane (Site Admin)
A bit about myself I suppose is in order. First off I am an online game fan from way back when, dare I say back in the MUD days. But then one day I played this game that changed it all for me, Ultima Online turned this online gaming thing into what future MMO's would be. I have jumped around through most every MMO that has been made and have currently been spending my online time in Vanguard.

I have been involved with similar sites in the past though, between running various guild related sites to partnering with a friend on the now defunct necro.eqclasses.com (aka eqnecro.com) I actually began all of this class site business by simply writing up the things that people would ask me repeatedly in game, basically explain it once and put it where others could find it. Less in game stress for me hehe. Anyway, long story short, that evolved into doing what I have for necromancers in EQ and now in Vanguard. Of course nothing I have done would have been of importance if not for the necromancer communities that formed around these storehouses of necro lore.

I am currently the Vanguard Necromancer Class Leader, replacing the much honored Scarcius. An honor and a privilege really to be able to try to help out the community in a more official way, although still being able to do what I always have and how I have always chosen to do it. Nuff said.

Jonaphin (AKA The Code Monkey)
I have been coding sites and internet applications for companies for years now. I tend to be a very funny French guy who always has something humorous to say, even if at the least opportune times.. oops. I partnered with Lifebane to create VGNecro.com on a whim when we both noted the lack of a necromancer specific class site for Vanguard. My thinking was that with Lifebane's experience at this kind of thing and with my coding skills, well something good had to come of it. We'll let you all decide how much truth there was to that.

While I am not as involved in gaming as Lifebane is, I still get my gaming fix through MMO's when time permits. I have played WoW, Vanguard (briefly), LOTRO, SWG, and various pvp style FPS games.

Some time early in this sites development I was branded with the nickname of the Code Monkey, a name which I have grown fond of and laugh at every time I see it. The community members are great and have made this project a lot of fun. Ummm. vote Ron Paul!

Class Sites

by lifebane 2007-01-01

Here is our meager little list of Class Sites. Send in any new ones that are not already listed there and I'll be glad to add them in to Lifebane

VGNecro - http://www.vgnecro.com/forums/ ( DUH )

Vanguard Dread Knight - http://www.vanguarddreadknight.com/...b89cb512483933b

Paladins of Telon - http://www.paladinsoftelon.com/forum.php

The Steel Warrior - http://www.thesteelwarrior.org/foru...isplay.php?f=44

Vanguard Bard - http://vgbards.com/joomla/

Vanguard Monks - http://www.vanguardmonks.com/option..._smf/Itemid,27/

Ranger - http://foreststalker.com/forums/for...isplay.php?f=39

Safehouse - http://www.thesafehouse.org/forums/...isplay.php?f=50

Druid's Grove - http://van.thedruidsgrove.org/

VGPsi - http://www.vgpsi.com/forum/

Graffe's Wizard Compilation - http://www.graffe.com/forums/forumd...splay.php?f=104

Vanguard Bloodmages - http://www.vgbloodmages.com/forums/index.php?www

Clerics of Vanguard - http://www.clericsofvanguard.com/

Vanguard Disciples - http://www.vgdisciples.com/index.ph...1e&action=forum

Vanguard Shaman - http://www.vanguardshaman.com/forums/

Contibutors and important community members

by lifebane 2007-01-01 · about-us, contributors, important-members, vip

VGNecro.com was created to be THE location for the vanguard necromancer to come to when they needed information or simply wanted to discuss their class with other like minded Vanguard Necromancer players. While the initial framework and content was born from the twisted minds of Lifebane and Jonaphin, the site and the community itself have been a major factor in what the site has evolved into.

There have been those members that have stuck out or their individual accomplishments and contributions to this necromancer community and we feel that they should have their name listed here as a way of saying thanks for their part in making VGNecro.com what it is today.

Moderators (new and old):

1. Usuldaneriak
2. Dominus
3. Virulence
4. Nindydar (aka The Hunter, aka The Pink Elephant)
5. Keepeofstars (aka The PVP Necro!)
6. butterflyeffect

Contributors (past and present):

1. Scarcius (Former Necromancer class lead)
2. Polkadots (First to 50! TTH Necro Moderator)
3. Notleh (aka The Graft King!)
4. Stillheart (The lumberjack necro)
5. Laelith (Swamp Armor Quester)
6. Aarian (Roleplay Story teller)
7. Vanelir (Roleplay Story Teller)

1. Tyrant (Elitist Jerk formerly of Gulgrethor)
2. Elgarr
3. gomezie
4. xerokill
5. kiel
6. excedrin
7. acebreus
8. Nockturnal
9. guruk
10. kuruk

Respected wannabe necros (they started as other classes but then learned the error of their ways):

1. Supernaught (Panzy Paly of Seradon)
2. Illusive (Sorcerer that is a necro in denial)

1. Crunshii (the forum image and icon king)
2. Braxes (VGNecro logo contest winner)
3. Lumio (VGNecro logo contestant and panzy artist guy)
4. Creegan (VGNecro logo contestant and another panzy artist guy)
5. Synister (VGNecro logo contestant)
6. Eniss1 (VGNecro logo contestant)
7. Simplegreen (VGNecro logo contestant)
8. Cr8Insanity (aka Patrick , the Artist who made the original artwork that was modified by Braxes and that then won our logo contest. You can see a gallery of his creative work here, Thanks again for allowing us to use your artwork in our logo concept.

Info Links

by lifebane 2007-01-01

Here is the collection of links that we have chosen for general information about Vanguard. Items, Quests, Diplomacy and Crafting are all covered here as well as a few miscellaneous Sites such as Radio and Interfaces.

http://vgplayers.com/ - Vanguard Players
http://vg.curse.com/ - Item & NPC Database
http://vgtact.com/ - Diplomacy
http://vanguardcrafters.com - Crafting

http://vginterface.com/ - Interfaces
http://uberguildsradio.org/ - MMO Radio

http://radio.reflectionofdarkness.com/ - .REFLECTION Radio* Run by VGNecros very own Butterflyeffect for his / her two guilds, it's open for all to use; Winamp Required

So how do you all make this site work?

by lifebane 2007-01-01 · about-us, donation, pay-pal, support

Well now, the site itself is basically run and funded by Lifebane and Jonaphin. As you have seen there are some banner ads and such but the revenue generated by them is minimal due to the volume of traffic that a class specific one game site generates. We have not asked for nor received any kinds of donations or outside funding previously but since we have been having community members ask, we have setup a method for community members to help support the site and it's continued existence as well as possible upgrades and hrmm... future incarnations :)

For those of you wishing to donate, we setup [email protected] as a Pay Pal address for receiving donations. Our thanks in advance to anyone that wishes to help out, make sure you leave a comment on that Pay Pal message that tells us who to thank for the donation.

Privacy Policy / Terms of Use

by lifebane 2007-01-04

This is the web site of VGNecro.com, headquartered in Miami, Florida

We can be reached via e-mail at [email protected]

For each visitor to our Web page, our Web server automatically recognizes no information regarding the domain or e-mail address.

We collect the e-mail addresses of those who post messages to our bulletin board, the e-mail addresses of those who make postings to our chat areas, aggregate information on what pages consumers access or visit, user-specific information on what pages consumers access or visit, information volunteered by the consumer, such as survey information and/or site registrations.

The information we collect is used to improve the content of our Web page, used to customize the content and/or layout of our page for each individual visitor, used to notify consumers about updates to our Web site, used by us to contact consumers for marketing purposes and .

With respect to cookies: We use cookies to store visitors preferences.

If you do not want to receive e-mail from us in the future, please let us know by sending us e-mail at the above address.

From time to time, we may use customer information for new, unanticipated uses not previously disclosed in our privacy notice. If our information practices change at some time in the future we will post the policy changes to our Web site to notify you of these changes and we will use for these new purposes only data collected from the time of the policy change forward. If you are concerned about how your information is used, you should check back at our Web site periodically.

Upon request we provide site visitors with access to all information [including proprietary information] that we maintain about them.

Upon request we offer visitors the ability to have inaccuracies corrected in contact information.

Consumers can have this information corrected by sending us e-mail at the above email address.

If you feel that this site is not following its stated information policy, you may contact The DMA's Committee on Ethical Business Practices at [email protected], state or local chapters of the Better Business Bureau, state or local consumer protection office, The Federal Trade Commission by phone at 202.FTC-HELP (202.382.4357) or electronically at http://www.ftc.gov/ftc/complaint.htm.

It's my turn to fly....

by lifebane 2007-01-28 · beta, griffon, mount, news, screenshot

This was my Beta necro flying around on a griffon that I won in a game of teletag during the end of beta festivities. Really neat looking pet and damned useful for exploring those hard to reach places.

(Anyone catch the Titan AE song reference)

Welcome to Vanguard: Saga of Heroes January / 30 / 2007

by lifebane 2007-01-30 · patch, updates, vanguard

Vanguard Patch Notes 1/30/2007

Welcome to Vanguard: Saga of Heroes!
Congratulations! You are now one of the first to witness the exciting, dangerous, and ever-changing world of Telon. Telon is a living world, and like any world its early days is going to be fraught with turbulence. Expect us to have to “patch” any cracks as they appear for the first days.

We know you are excited to explore the world we created for you, and we are equally excited to have you here. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the landscape… enjoy the freedom… of Vanguard.

GAMEPLAY NOTES
- Abilities with a harmful component will no longer put other group members in a PvP contest.
- Spells that change form will no longer allow you to switch PvP teams.
- Quest items can no longer be sold to a merchant

ADVENTURING
- Shaman – Fixed an issue where you could receive your Patron Spirit quests too early causing you to not learn your Spirit Walk ability if completed before level 15. Those shaman who have finished the quests before level 15 should visit any shaman trainer to get their Spirit Walk ability upon reaching level 15. Followers of Tuurgin who have completed the quest line will need to speak to any Shaman Instructor and say “patronfix” to receive the Spirit Walk ability. NOTE: This only applies to those shaman who have completed the Patron Spirit questlines prior to this patch OR who were not yet level 15 when completed.

CRAFTING NOTES
- The Thestran amateur blacksmith quest now requires only three pairs of sabatons, not four.
- The quest the Artist’s Supplies will now ask for a specific type of quartz jewel.

DIPLOMACY NOTES
- The travel journal for “Stop the Calamity” has been updated with the correct location for Norrie Bilstro.
- Fixed issue with “Obtaining the Documents” in which you could speak with the quest targets in the wrong order, requiring you to start over again.
- Telyn Boarmaul will no longer try to kill orcs and goblins who try to take the horse quest from him. Caution in Ca’ail Brael is still advised for greenskin visitors…
- Martok now has Civic Diplomacy for Soldiers and Crafters. Greenskins rejoice!
- Mekalia now has Civic Diplomacy for Crafters. Bring Low the Underking!
- Martok and Mekalia’s Civic Diplomacy Trainers are now turned on and ready to train YOU!
- Graag has been made to heel quite a bit more in the newbie varanthari line. He should be easier to beat.
- The Spiritragers got the hint from Graag and have fallen in line with the others. They should be easier to beat.
- Hubert Ringsworth is no longer a terrifying opponent for young halfling diplomats. And he tells me he loves pumpkin and potato compote.
- Other decks here and there were also altered to make them a little more reasonable to play against. This will be an ongoing process.
- Kev Wematmani has remembered he is of noble blood, and not just a bookworm. He is now a Noble and you can proceed with the Civic Diplomacy Training quest in Khal.
- Increase the Watch now gives out the proper Accuracy buff.
- You should no longer receive double credit for Civic Diplomacy in Hathor Zhi.
- C’estari Erenai as well as many other NPCs have had their decks altered to make them more appropriate opponents. This will be an ongoing process.
- Civic Diplomacy Domestic levers removed from Ca’ail Brael. No Domestics in the city means no need for Domestic levers!
- Greatly decreased the decay rate of Civic Diplomacy levers in all Civic Diplomacy locations. Buffs will remain for a longer period of time as a result.
- There is now a Blackmail, Plots, Trends, and Arcana Informant in Three Rivers/Themnwar’s Shield and Veskal’s Exchange for your information trading needs!
- Apprentice Dalenax no longer does whatever it is gnomes do to not be in line of sight when you are looking right at them.

WORLD POPULATION NOTES
- Niyuturr's Scaled Greaves should now be appropriately named.
- Added a bindstone just outside of Tanvu city (PvP’ers rejoice!).
- Moved the altar in Jalen’s Crossing to an area with no NPC’s (and so ended the era of infinite death loops).

GUI NOTES
- Updated the trade window to color item names and a few other minor fixes.
- Items in a player trade will now show the correct stats and other data.

CODING
- Your characters' server names are now shown in the character select list.
- Items in a bank will now show the correct stats.
- The market brokers will now give proper information about why you can't place an item on the market.

~The Vanguard Team

2 Days into live and the state of the union... err.. game.

by lifebane 2007-02-01 · game-live, news, opinion, review

Well it's been 2 full days since Final Release!

New players are flooding into the lands and as expected this has caused some lag issues for players. The lag for the most part seems to be limited to client side and it is largely based on the power of the individual user's systems. Of the complaints I have heard from other players, the vast majority revolve around this lag or system limitation issue so I guess that speaks well of the rest of the game so far.

The game itself continues to get daily tweaks and content / update patches have been very detailed and stable for the most part. I have not personally seen the more traditional "patch to fix the patch that we patched earlier for the Big patch we did this morning" scenario that has become so prevalent in some other games. So far Sigil appears to be doing a solid job with release and the continued improvements / development.

Now don't mistake my comments as those of a die hard fanboy, I am sure we will have a more balanced view of the game when the initial "ooo ahhh" factor wears off.

For now though, I will continue to enjoy chucking bones at people and having my clawed little zombie buddy pummel them.

It's Alive! Alive! umm.... The Forums that is.

by lifebane 2007-02-01 · forums, news, setup

Great news indeed.

The forums are now setup and ready for posts and traffic. They will be undergoing some graphic work and layout tweaks in the near future but this will not impact the messages or the message database so no worries.

Go setup your account and join in the discussions.

OMG! What do the DOT's mean!?!?!

by lifebane 2007-02-01 · con, difficulty, dots

You look a bit battered and tattered my young necromancer. Having a bad day? Biten off more than you can chew more times than you care to mention perhaps? It seems quite apparent that you do not know your dots!! Yes, that is correct, DOTS, and no I do not mean the spiffy space age Ice Cream.

I have been asked more than a few times to explain the whole DOT thing as it relates to the target window. I dug around the web and found the "official explanation" of it so read below and be forever rid of the DOT confusion!!

The Official Explanation:

The number of Dots-
In general, the dots indicate the following information (although your class and character development will of course have a strong impact on your effectiveness in battle):

1. Can be safely engaged by most adventurers fighting solo. Adventurers with strong combat skills can fight multiple one-dot enemies at a time.
2. Can usually be safely engaged solo. Combat specialists might be able to take on two or three at a time, with some luck and planning.
3. Requires planning and preparation to fight solo. Avoid multiple Threes unless fighting in a group.
4. Don't attempt to engage unless you're in a group.
5. Don't attempt to engage unless you're in a strong and well-organized group.
6. Only the strongest and most proficient groups should even try. Probably best to wait until you’re a higher level, or are part of a raid
   

The color of dots-
In addition to the number of dots a mob has, the color of the dots is also significant. The colors may be different for each player, as they reflect a comparison between the player's level and the mob's level:

• Grey = Trivial meaning no xp.
• Green = 3 levels below you gives a little xp.
• Light Blue = 2 levels below you give a bit more xp.
• White = Same level as you so gives avg xp.
• Yellow = 1 level above gives a bit more xp.
• Red = 2 levels above gives quite a bit more xp.
• Purple = 3 levels+(i think) if you can kill this you got very lucky or cheated! Assume the xp would be large.

There you go fellow necros! The truth will set you free, err... or at least help you not get splattered all over the hillside by attacking something way too tough for you hehe.

Lifebane
vgnecro.com

Comments (1)

Welcome to VGNecro.com

by lifebane 2007-02-02 · news, the-beginning, welcome

Hello all and thanks for visiting our little piece of Necro Paradise. We are still working on the place, fixing this, tweaking that... the decor lacks a bit of well.. necro-ness still as well. Feel free to browse what is available and visit the forums.

We are open to suggestions and requests for making the site the new Necromancer home for the many Vanguard necros recently born. You can use the forums suggestions and bugs forum or simply send me an email directly with any feedback and such.

Lifebane

click here to send me an email!

Coming VERY Soon.....

by lifebane 2007-02-04 · news, vgnecro

Greetings fellow Necros!

I wanted to take a moment to let you know what the next big feature we will be rolling out in the next day or two is.

SPELL DATABASE! This will contain all the current Necromancer spells in the game with as much info as I have been able to dig up on my own. It is more user friendly and detailed than anything that I have seen out there so far so you all should appreciate it. You will have some pre-made spell listings to choose from and an additional search by name function so that you don't have to sort through all the spells looking for the one you really are after.

I would happily accept any additional spell info that some of the higher level necros might have which I do not yet have. If any higher level necros are interested in lending a hand gathering some of the missing spell data please send me an email and let me know.

Lifebane
VGNecro.com

The Spell Section is Now Live!

by lifebane 2007-02-04 · news, spells

Well our faithful Supreme Code Monkey has finished up the coding for the spell system quicker than expected...

( Note to self: get an extra banana for the supreme code monkey... he done good )

The spell interface is reachable through the top menu and the page itself should be fairly easy to use... we tried to make it as user friendly as possible. Give it a shot and let us know if you have find anything working in a buggy manner... we tested it internally extensively but we still may have missed something.. to err is human after all *ahem*

Wherever you might see a question mark we are still in need of that specific data. If you happen to know the data for anything you see marked with a question mark then please send it in so that we can try to maintain the most through and accurate Necromancer Spell Database for all our necro brothers and sisters out there.

Enjoy and send in any missing data you might have!

Lifebane
VGNecro.com

Comments (1)

Vanguard News Update - 2/2/2007

by lifebane 2007-02-04 · news, patches

Naming Policy Enforcement
In the near future Sigil will be evaluating all player names to make sure they are in accordance with the naming policy. Names that are not will need to be changed – we will post more information on this soon but in the mean time, please take a moment to go over the naming policy if you have not already.

Active Vanguard Subscription Now Required
As of 12:00pm PST on 2/2/2007 all players are required to have a valid retail game key to continue playing Vanguard. So if you have not yet picked up your copy, make sure to swing by your nearest store this weekend!

In the Works
Some of the top issues are aware of and working on currently:

• European players are currently unable to properly claim their Collector’s Edition benefits. We are aware of this and are working on it.
• Players who abandon diplomacy quests, lose quests due to server crashes, or fail to accept a quest the first time it is offered may never be able to do the quest again. This is being worked on.
• Sometimes, when going through certain areas, group members will “disappear”. Their character is still there, but other players are unable to see them. This is being worked on.
• There are still some bugs here and there with the social server, we are aware of these and working to fix them.
• Improving client side performance is still a priority, and our efforts in this area will be ongoing.

A moment of Silence for the Grasp of the Grave Dot Line

by lifebane 2007-02-05 · dot, grasp-of-the-grave, news, removed-spell

It had been noted that the "Grasp of the Grave" line of DOT's (The cold based one) was not on the trainers anymore. Scarcius was kind enough to investigate this for us and chased down his friendly neighborhood Vanguard friends and had the following to say:

"I asked Avair about this today and he said it was pulled from the game. He didn't think we would be seeing it again."

Farewell our cold little DOT buddy, you will be missed.

Comments (2)

Grasp of the Grave resurrected?!?

by lifebane 2007-02-06 · grap-of-the-grave, news

Our fearless Necro class leader contacted Sigil again regarding the sudden death of this dot line. Apparently stories of it's demise which they had told him previously had been greatly exaggerated.

Quote: Scarcius
"Its back. One guy says it gone the other says it staying. Guess its staying."

Although confusing this is good news at least. Three cheers for the Cold Dot! It got a Res!

Vanguard News Update - Monday 2/5/2007

by lifebane 2007-02-06 · claim-command, news, report-command

Coming Soon: The Report Command
Unfortunately, GMs cannot monitor every location in the game at all times, so there will be occasions when Customer Support does not see abuse or disruptions taking place. Players who wish to report such abuse should use the report command when it occurs. This command captures the last ten lines of visible text from the player’s text window, sending it to a file on the server. These files can only be accessed by Game Masters, so they can be used as evidence (unlike screenshots, which are easily manipulated). To use the command, simply type “/report” followed by a space and the player’s name who is being reported.

After the report has been filed please petition to lert the CS staff to your filing.

/Claim problems resolved
Many European players were unable to properly claim their Collector’s Edition bonus items. The network issues causing this problem have been fixed, so international players should now be able claim their items correctly.

Infineum Server Login Problem
A small portion of players on the Infineum server are reporting that they are unable to log into that server properly, and are unable to delete any characters on it. To solve this problem, simply create a new character (on any server) and then delete it. You should then be able to log in normally.

In the Works
Some of the top issues are aware of and working on currently:

• Players who abandon diplomacy quests, lose quests due to server crashes, or fail to accept a quest the first time it is offered may never be able to do the quest again. This is being worked on.
• Sometimes, when going through certain areas, group members will “disappear”. Their character is still there, but other players are unable to see them. This is being worked on.
• There are still some bugs here and there with the social server, we are aware of these and working to fix them.
• Improving client side performance is still a priority, and our efforts in this area will be ongoing.

Well it's official... We Exist!

by lifebane 2007-02-07 · elrar, news, official, vanguard-players, vgnecro-com

Elrar (Vanguard Community Moderator) was kind enough to add www.vgnecro.com to the links of Adventuring Class Sites over on the Official Vanguard Player's site (http://vgplayers.station.sony.com)

We are pleased to have been listed there amongst so many other well known sites and we will continue to do our best to make this site the place to go for all of the dark nasty secrets of the Vanguard necromancer!

Rejoice my dark brothers and sisters for our presence has been made officially known!

Comments (3)

A curse upon the Gods of Hosting!

by lifebane 2007-02-08 · interruption, news, offline

Greetings fellow necros. Our sincerest apologies for the apparent interruption in service which made the community invisible for a short while this morning.

We have not gotten a straight answer on why the hosting was not available / down... perhaps the gerbil on the treadmill quit running? Perhaps big-foot charlie tripped on our hosting server's network cable and disconnected it. Perhaps we shall never know....

If you have a moment to spare make sure you join us in cursing the Gods of Hosting for their cruel trick they played on us today.

New York Times does Vanguard!

by lifebane 2007-02-09 · brad, microsfot, new-york-times, news, soe

Apparently there are a few fellow gaming geeks over at The New York Times. They wrote an article about Vanguard and went to some length describing the development of the game and the role Brad played in it all.

It also touched on why Microsoft passed the game on to SOE... kind of made it sound like a corporate game of hot potato.

Interesting reading if you have the time.

Read the full article here

Comments (4)

What kinds of Grafts are there for my pet?

by lifebane 2007-02-09

So you've been digging through the innards of your fallen foes. You've amassed quite the collection of random body parts and some of them might look really good if you staple them on to your abomination! Yes! he won't mind, give him a little bit of a makeover.. a withered arm here, a monstrous diseased claw there.. hrmm... maybe glue on someone else's face.. hey don't laugh, it worked for Hannibal Lecter!

Right then, on with the serious stuff. Here is a current list of Known grafts, it is a definite work in progress so reply with any additions and changes that you might have info on. If you can include what creature and what zone you got it from that would be great!

Backbones
- Wiry Thick Backbone: Increases armor class.
- Wiry Backbone of Fortitude: Increases constitution.

Claws
- Diseased Claw: I: Direct Damage
- Diseased Claw II: Direct Damage (Looted from a Kojuko, zone: Spawn of Kojuko)
- Diseased Claw III: Direct Damage
- Diseased Claw IV: Direct Damage

- Sapping Claw I: Drains life from Target
- Sapping Claw II: Drains life from Target
- Sapping Claw III: Drains life from Target (Looted from a Ra'Jin, zone: Ra'Jin Stronghold)
- Sapping Claw IV: Drains life from Target (looted off of ? in Trengal Keep)

- Brittle Poison Claw: Poison DOT
- Wiry Diseased Claw: Diseased Claw II
- Sinewy Toxic Claw: DOT (50 points/tick for 4 ticks)
- Sinewy Ravaging Claw - 280 Damage
- Toxic Claw: Unknown
- Ravaging Claw: unknown
- Wiry Claw of Devastation: unknown
- Atrophied Claw of Devestation: 140-200+ dmg on even level mob (lvl 15)

Face
- Face of Freezing Frozen Step: this makes your opponent move slowely for a short period of time.
- Face of Fright: Grants the abomination the ability to fear his opponent. Slightly shorter then Necro Fear.

Fists
- Fist of Ice: I, II, III, IV Cold Damage
- Leaching Fist: I, II, III, IV Drains Life of Target
- Fist of Spirits: Area Effect Spirit Damage
- Wiry Rending Fist: 210 Damage
- Atrophied Fist of Rime: unknown - lvl 15

Hearts
- Heart of the Overlord: -250 hp from caster, +250 hp to abomination
- Heart of Blood Bonding: 10% of the damage done by abomination is converted to HP for the abomination. Upgrade is 20%
- Bloody Heart of Regeneration: Unknown how much regen is given
- Heart of Empowerment: +3 Life Points, Unknown

Legs
- Legs of the Colossus +10% to abomination damage
- Legs of Swiftness HP +2, adds 5% run speed increase to your abomination. Upgrade gives 10% run speed.
- Legs of Shadow +2 HP, 10% evasion

Ribcages
- Fleshy Ribcage - Adds Constitution.
- Thewy Ribcage - Adds +1 strength
- Sarcous Ribcage - Increases armor class.
- Sturdy Thewy Ribcage - increases strength - Lvl 30 (looted off of ? in Trengal Keep)
- Sturdy Fleshy Ribcage: increases constitution - Lvl 30 (looted off of ? in Trengal Keep)

Torso
- ?

No Longer Valid-----
- Gouging Claw was renamed Diseased Claw
- Stunning Fist removed from game.
- Fist of Life renamed to Leaching Fist.
- Backbone of Strength renamed to Thewy Ribcage.
- Backbone of Heartiness renamed to Fleshy Ribcage.
- Ribcage of Reinforcement renamed to Sarcous Ribcage.

Comments (3)

Vanguard News Update

by lifebane 2007-02-11 · news, update, vanguard

A quick bit of info from Vanguard regarding recent issues we have been experiencing. The warping in particular needs to get fixed soon.. very very annoying problem

Login Issues

An issue causing many players to be unable to log into the game has been fixed. If you were previously affected by this bug, please try to log in again – it should work now!

NPC Warping Issues
We are aware of the issues with certain NPCs warping away, then running or warping back to the player and are working to fix them. We will be sure to keep everyone updated.

Character Appearance Issues
Currently, some players are reporting that their character’s appearance sometimes changes from what they set it to. This is being fixed, but in the mean time please do not change your appearance “back to normal” as that will only make it incorrect when the bug is fixed.

Have a great weekend in Telon!

Known and Feared throughout the web!

by lifebane 2007-02-13 · destructoid, famous, in-the-news

Greetings my evil and vile little necromancers. As I was wandering through the site stats and such for the day I stopped a moment to stare at a sudden spike in traffic from one particular source. Being the conniving necro that I am, I went and investigated this source and was amazed to see... word of our dark abode has spread!

We were referenced in an article over at www.destructoid.com, a cross platform gaming news site. I do believe there is a necromancer hiding over there that snooped our news. Ah well, a necro in hiding is as good as any other necro in my humble opinion.

Go give it a peek and be proud that our little community was highlighted there. I browsed around a bit, the main contributor, Niero, has a good sense of humor. The site itself has a rediculous number of posts about games and game related media.

Vgnecro sneeks around Destructoid.com

Lifebane
VGNecro.com

Comments (2)

ugh.. and the mighty fall

by lifebane 2007-02-14 · destructoid, news, site-down

Well it seems that our brief moment of fame shot through bandwidth today and hit a previously set daily cap. This caused the site to shutdown around midnight or so. The cap has been removed now, but that still doesn't lessen the annoyance of the site having been down. Our apologies for the inconvenience... Now taking bets on the next site downtime!

In all seriousness, once the site grows beyond the current "safe" level of hosting restrictions we will migrate to another host never fear. This downtime wasn't a hosting capacity issue, it was a settings problem where not enough bandwidth had been allocated for a daily cap limit. I blame the code monkey!!

Bleh growing pains are well.. a pain!

Lifebane

VGNecro.com

Comments (5)

Graft Guide updated

by lifebane 2007-02-15 · abomination, graft, kekisha, parts, pet

Greetings fellow Necromancers. The Graft list project that I was working on previously has been adopted by an eager Necromancer by the name of Kekisha!!!

*Cheers and claps loudly*

Kekisha has been compiling all grafts into a list and hopes to build it out to include graft cast and recast times, damages, bonuses, etc. Check out the guide and see if there is any graft you know of that isn't listed and send the info over to Kekisha for inclusion in the next updated list when it becomes available.

Great job so far Kekisha!!

View the Guide Here

Comments (2)

Usuldaneriak joins the Twisted Crew of VGNecro

by lifebane 2007-02-16 · moderator, usul, usuldaneriak, vgnecro-staff

Greetings dark brothers and sisters, I have a bit of information to share with you all. The demented crew of vgnecro.com has grown in size by one today. Usuldaneriak has been chosen as VGNecro's first Moderator. Usul is a very knowledgeable necro with many an opinion on matters necro-ish.

Usul has been a contributor at TTH and also for the German affiliate site "Onlinewelten" for which he helps out with news and necro knowledge. I personally have known him online for years now since he was one of the most active Moderators I had the pleasure of working with back at necro.eqclasses.com. Usul did a great job back then and I expect to see nothing but good from him...errr.. good?!? More like bad I suppose, he is a necromancer after all.

Please join us in Welcoming the newest member to the VGNecro Staff.

Lifebane
VGNecro.com

Comments (2)

Feign Death quest guide gets major overhaul

by lifebane 2007-02-18 · feign-death, news, quest, rest-of-the-dead

Greetings fellow necromancers. I have gone back and done a ridiculously detailed rewrite of the quest guide for our Level 20 Feign Dead ability (aka Rest of the Dead).

There were many vague areas of the quest guide previously and a couple items that were borderline inaccurate (wrong named quest mob for example). The new revised quest guide was setup to answer the lingering questions that had not been answered previously and also to integrate as much of the actual game lore as possible.

Take a read and hopefully you will approve the new quest guide.

FEIGN DEATH QUEST GUIDE

Lifebane
vgnecro.com

Say adios to Spellplague...

by lifebane 2007-02-20 · removed, spell, spellplague

Greetings dark brothers and sisters once again. I have news of a question that had been asked repeatedly by fellow necromancers recently. There was a level 22 beta spell called Spellplague that seems to have gone missing since release. There was speculation as to whether this would be a quested spell or if it had in fact been taken away.

I spoke with Scarcius, our necromancer class leader, and he had the following to say on the matter of Spellplague:

" Spellplague is gone for now. It didn't actually work anyway. If they get coding support for it, it will return. "

So for now apparently, say farewell to this spell. And for those interested in what it was for, this spell slowed your target's spell casting speed by 25% for 30 seconds. That would have been very useful versus caster mobs.

Lifebane
vgnecro.com

Comments (4)

OMG! We are infested with Bugs!

by lifebane 2007-02-21 · bug-thread, bugs, issues, news, scarcius

Greetings and salutations fellow practitioners of the necro arts. I wanted to direct all of our members to the forums for a moment. Scarcius has asked that VGNecro maintain a detailed bug thread for him to help in his efforts to fix our necromancer woes.

The Bug thread has all known current bugs which impact necromancer game play. The thread itself is broken down into different sections to help locate any bug you may be encountering. If you are experiencing a bug of some form and it is not already on that list, then please reply to that same thread with as much detail as you can.

Our thanks in advance for helping us work on the issues.

The Official Scarcius Bug Thread

Lifebane
vgnecro.com

Comments (3)

Vanguard News Update - Tuesday 02/20/07

by lifebane 2007-02-22 · news, patch, updates

Memory Leaks
The next patch should fix two major memory leak issues that have been causing many players to crash to desktop somewhat frequently. After the fixes are patched, please let us know on the tech support forums or affiliate fan sites if these issues show up again.

Tooltip Fixes
There were several very annoying issues with tooltips (such as them not displaying an item’s correct stats) that have been fixed for the next patch. Deciding whether to roll on loot or not should be much easier now!

Gold Farmer Reporting
The community has been absolutely fantastic at helping us catch gold farmers by reporting them and pointing them out to us. Many bannings have happened already and many more are soon to follow. So please, keep up the good work and thank you!

Comments (1)

Vanguard News Update - Thursday

by lifebane 2007-02-23 · crafting-tool, news, quest-xp, tombstone

Quest Experience
As many players have noticed, this morning’s patch increased the amount of experience that was awarded for the completion of quests. The experience reward will likely continue to be tweaked over the course of the next few patches, but we will be sure to let everyone know of any additional changes.

Tombstone/Travel Journal Fix
The issue where players who have tombstones log out, then log back in only to find that they no longer have tombstone locations in their travel journal will be fixed with the next server restart.

Crafting Tool Fix
Many crafting tools were incorrectly flagged during the last patch. As a result, sometimes crafters would be unable to finish a recipe or work order because they were told they did not have the right tool – even if they did. This will be fixed with the next server restart.

Vanguard's first level 50... a necro woot!

by lifebane 2007-02-24

The first level 50 has emerged in Vanguard. Polkadots of Flamehammer. respected necro and part time resident here at vgnecro was the hard working character to do it.

Polkadots ground his way through the levels on a mission to hit 50 and was quite succesful obviously. He is a very knowledgable Necro and a helpful member of the entire necro community.

Congrats Polkadots on your Worldwide First!

Comments (5)

VGNECRO WANTS YOU!!!

by lifebane 2007-02-25 · contributors, hiring, lifebane, news, staff

So you like to play Vanguard do you? A necromancer no less?! Oh yes and you think you know so very much about the class huh, more than many? Well then you obviously need to become a part of the VGnecro Contributor Staff and help out your fellow necros in the vgnecro community!

Vgnecro.com is currently looking for knowledegable necros with a desire to help their fellow necro members out by becoming more directly involved in their new vgnecro home.

We are looking for those who consider themselves specialists / Gurus in a particular aspect of the game... Questing, PVPing, Soloing, Diplomacy, etc. These "know it alls" would help create and ensure our necro info on the site is accurate and valuable.

We are also looking for News hounds... those necros that are all over the net every day looking to catch-up on the latest Vanguard news as it relates to the game as a whole or directly to the necromancer class. The News hounds then filter through the junk news out there and then pass on through the site only the most relevant and useful news.. yep, the vgnecro version of "Vanguard news spam filter"!

We have a couple other areas which we are fleshing out which might be a fit for you depending on your background and likes, but these will be considered on a one by one basis.

If you are interested in becoming part of the necromancer community for vanguard then contact me at [email protected] . Give a brief description of what you are interested in and possibly any prior experience you may have on fan sites or journalism in general.

Lifebane
vgnecro.com

The scoop on the "Feign Death" upgrades

by lifebane 2007-02-26 · feign-death, feign-death-removed, rest-of-the-dead-iii, scarcius

We now have our first level 50 necromancer (woohoo Polkadots) and as such one would expect some of the mysteries of our class to have been solved. One in particular has been of interest to many necromancers in our community... the where and the how of getting those 2 upgrades for Rest of the Dead.. aka Feign Death in the world of Telon.

I spoke to our Necro Class Leader Scarcius recently and asked about this particular mystery. He thought it interesting himself so went off to investigate. He has since returned with news, some good and some bad.

The Rest of the Dead II spell is a dropped item. No confirmation of this actually dropping right now, it very well might be one of the many items yet to be introduced into the loot tables.

The Rest of the Dead III spell was removed. This was the level 50 upgrade that had the zero casting time. I am assuming this was a game balance issue but that is purely my opinion.

If anyone happens to find out more or actually can confirm the spell dropping somewhere please let us know!

UPDATE!!! A couple higher level necromancers have stated that they found Rest of the Dead II on a trainer. So based on that bit of info, this post may not be entirely accurate. Now it remains to be seen if the spell SHOULD be on the trainers at this point or if it is an oversight and it will be removed.

Lifebane
vgnecro.com

Comments (1)

Site Dead!! Then Reanimated!!

by jonaphin 2007-02-27 · news, outage, site-down

My fellow netizens,

The site was down for approximately 20 minutes, and we apologize on behalf of our hosting company.

Reason provided by the host:
We are experiencing an unexpected mishap with one of our primary systems. Our support board temporarily crashed.

Reason provided by VGNecro.com Staff:
The new intern tripped on the wire, shut down the server. The beer that was standing on the support board crashed into the power supply, causing a primary system shutdown. The main IT guy was gone to get some more beer. The intern leeked it all off the power supply, stuck his tongue in the fan. The fan recovered, so did the intern, so did the system, at least until the next time!

I urge you all to get back to work now, as Lifebane is deeply "disturbed" by this event and will whip left and right to appease his wrath.

Comments (2)

Vanguard News Update - Monday

by lifebane 2007-02-27 · adventure-xp, doubel-xp, news, vanguard-news

Double Adventuring Kill Experience Weekend
It is hard to believe it has already been one month since Vanguard was released! We know it is not always easy to be the first to explore new lands, so as a big thank you to all those adventurers out there who did just that – this weekend will be a server-wide double adventuring kill experience event.

Event start and end times will correspond with the daily server restarts.
STARTS: Saturday, March 3rd, 5:00am PST (Friday, March 2nd, 8:00pm PST for Europeans)
ENDS: Monday, March 5th, 5:00am PST (Sunday, March 4th, 8:00pm PST for Europeans)

Happy hunting!

Adventuring Kill Experience Increase
As we continue to gain more and more valuable data about player progression, we will also continue to tweak the experience curve as needed. In the next patch, we will be increasing the overall rate at which adventuring kill experience is gained by a small but noticeable amount to more properly align with our originally planned leveling times. This is separate from the double adventuring kill experience weekend.

Diplomacy Experience Increase
With the next patch, we will be increasing the rate at which diplomats gain experience by a small but noticeable margin. Please be sure to give any feedback on the affiliate fan sites.

Rollback Fix
A bug that may have been causing a very small amount of players to experience “rollbacks”, causing them to lose some experience has been fixed. Please report any instances of this still happening on the support or affiliate forums. Thank you!

COMING SOON

Adventuring Quest Experience
While we feel the overall rate at which adventuring quests give experience is now very close to where we want it to be, some additional minor (nothing drastic) tweaks may be required. We will be sure to keep everyone updated.

Expanded Deconstruction System
In the near future, we will begin to expand the deconstruction system to provide not only components for other craftable items, but for a great many other very worthwhile things as well. More on this later!

Four Dot Mobs
Players will soon find that fighting four dot mobs will yield much better experience rewards. Right now, they are not granting the experience that they should be. That issue will be fixed.

Flying Mount Quests Coming
Several quests that will enable players to ‘test drive’ flying mounts that they will one day acquire will be implemented on each continent soon. They will be in the mid teen level range.

Lifebane
vgnecro.com

The "OMG that NPC attacked me for no reason" Guide

by lifebane 2007-02-28 · aggro, faction, guie, kos

The "OMG that NPC attacked me for no reason" Guide

AKA The Guide to what races get attacked on sight in what cities

So you've been out traveling the world and found yourself getting pummeled without provocation huh? You are certain that it isn't your hygiene issues.. the stench of bloody gore and decay can be offensive sometimes you know. Ahh.. you use plenty of Fright Guard in the morning so it couldn't be that (yeah I know, Fright Guard.. LAME). The only possible conclusion then young necromancer is that you have Faction issues.

When you have bad faction with particular npc groups (factions) they will commonly attack you when they see you, this is referred to often as KOS (kill on Sight). There is always hope though, those NPC's don't always have to have you off of their Christmas Card lists. You can do a few favors here and there or perhaps slaughter some members of opposing factions to gain their favor. Obviously not the best way to build relationships but hey, whatever works is fine by me.

On to the good stuff! Below is a list by Major city that shows which Races would be attacked on Sight if they stepped foot into those cities. Small villages and outposts are typically not so picky about who visits so may not share the same faction issues as neighboring large cities have.

Ahgram:
Dark Elf, Goblin, Kurashaha, & Orc.

Bordinar's Cleft: Dwarf starting zone.
Dark Elf, Gnome, Goblin, Lesser Giant, Orc, Varanjar, Varanthari, & Vulmane.

Caial Brael: Wood Elf and Raki starting zone.
Dark Elf, Goblin, & Orc.

Halgarad: Varanjar and Lesser Giant starting zone.
Dwarf, Gnome.

Hathor Zhi: Dark Elf starting zone.
Dwarf, Gnome, Half Elf, Halfling, High elf, Kojani Human, Mordebi Human, Qaliathari, Raki, Thestran Human, Wood Elf.

Khal (Except for Foreign Quarter): Qaliathari and Mordebi starting zone
Dark Elf, Goblin, Kurashasa, & Orc.

Leth Nurae: High Elf starting zone.
Dark Elf, Goblin, Orc, & Vulmane.

Lomshir: Varanthari starting zone.
Gnome.

Martok: Orc and Goblin starting zone.
Dwarf, Gnome, Half Elf, Halfling, High elf, Kojani Human, Mordebi Human, Qaliathari, Raki, Thestran Human, Wood Elf.

Mekalia: Gnome starting zone.
Dark Elf, Dwarf, Goblin, Kurashasa, Lesser Giant, & Orc.

New Targonor:
Dark Elf, Goblin, & Orc.

Qur'xa: Kurashasa starting zone.
Gnome, Mordebi Human, Raki, Qaliathari Human, and Vulmane.

Rindol Field: Halfling starting zone.
Dark Elf, Goblin, & Orc.

Tanvu: Kojani Human and Half Elf starting zone.
Dark Elf, Goblin, & Orc.

Tursh: Thestran Human starting zone.
Dark Elf, Goblin, & Orc

Be careful where you tread and you should be relatively safe.. mostly.. kind of. If there are any corrections needed, please send them in and we will update the guide for you.

Lifebane
vgnecro.com

Flames of Haelifur Fixed!

by lifebane 2007-03-01 · ability-fixed, cylus, dev, flames-of-haelifur, silas

Greetings fellow necromancers and in particular greetings fellow dark elf necromancers. It seems that there is cause to celebrate!! The Dark Elf Racial Ability Flames of Haelifur had it's damage buff fixed in the last patch. This had not been announced openly but our hard working necro community tested it out and found there to be a notable damage increase in damage when the group is under the "pet's" influence.

Cylus (aka Silas) of Sigil Games stopped by the vgnecro.com forums to confirm that it had in fact been fixed recently by him personally and that the 10% damage buff is now active. Another bug nipped in the butt. Thanks for the fix Cy!

Relevant Forum Topic

Lifebane
vgnecro.com

Comments (3)

Player Made Focus Items Nerfed !!

by lifebane 2007-03-01 · cylus, dev-update, nerf, news, silas

There has been some debate recently about the quality and power levels of crafted items versus that of quested or adventure obtained items. Crafted items were in some cases considerably more potent than their adventure obtained counterparts.

Apparently the crafted items were not following the same rules as adventure items in regards to stat bonuses so they were adjusted. Cylus (aka Silas) stopped by the forums and verified / clarified this for us

Relevant Forum Thread

Lifebane
vgnecro.com

Comments (2)

Test Server Coming Soon

by lifebane 2007-03-01 · test-sever, update, vanguard-news

From the Vanguard Players Site: "Sometime this afternoon, players will be able to download the test server launchpad. The test server itself will remain locked for a short while longer (it will be open soon!) but players will be able to reach the character select screen. We will keep everyone updated!" Now as this particular Necromancer recalls, beta characters were to be moved to the test server once the game went live, so if we are fortunate we will have access to the old test characters and this might make testing out new changes and such with higher level characters that much better for our necro community. Lifebanevgnecro.com

Vanguard Patch #1... aka mini Expansion soon!

by lifebane 2007-03-02 · content, new-stuff, patch-1, vanguard

Greetings fellow necromancers, Do you smell change in the winds? I do.

Vanguard recently announced that on March 6th the weekly patch would be considerably larger than normal. This is because they are adding in additional content, graphics, and creature models

Additionally they have revamped to one degree or another various already existing dungeons. Lighting changes will make some of the darker dungeons which people have complained about much more visitor friendly... at least now you will be able to see what actually did go bump in the night. right before it beat you silly :)

Full Vanguard Patch #1 Article here

Lifebane
vgnecro.com

Comments (1)

Brrr... I feel a Chill. - aka Finishers 101

by lifebane 2007-03-08 · bone-chill, finishers, sealed-fate, shadow-feast

Greetings my dark brothers and sisters of the necromancer community; the air brings a new chill recently. I dare say a cold that chills you to the bone. Then again I could just say it gives us a Bone Chill... fine, fine.. Enough with the vain attempt at humor. Bone Chill... we got it! What is it?

Bone Chill is the 3rd finisher spell line that necromancers have. It is a fairly straight finisher in that all it does is damage; no debuff, no dot, no nothing fancy. This may seem a bit bland compared to the other finishers but when you consider them each for what they are then you will appreciate Bone Chill. I'll try to explain as best as this humble necromancer can manage.

First off, let's define a finisher and also the recent changes to how finishers work. A finisher is an ability that can only be used / activated under certain circumstances. In our case the finishers will only be activatable immediately after scoring a critical hit with a spell. Previously scoring a critical hit with a physical spell only allowed a physical finisher to be used and a spiritual finisher required a spiritual critical hit to activate. As of the last patch this was altered so that anytime there is a critical spell hit you can use any ONE of the finishers.

Sealed Fate is the first in our lineup of Finishers. This is a physical finisher since it causes physical damage. The damage it does is in 3 parts, a DD (direct Damage) component followed by two separate dot components which would take over 10 minutes to reach full damage capacity. This is great for a long boss type fights but not to hot for quick fights. This finisher can be used once every 3 minutes.

Next we have Shadow Feast our spiritual finisher. Again this is a spiritual finisher because it does spiritual damage. This is a DD with a debuff that steals constitution from the target and gives it to the necromancer for an hour as a buff. The buff does not stack so multiple casts wont benefit you at all other than the dd component. You definitely want to fire this off periodically to get the buff. This finisher can be used once a minute.

Lastly we have our newest finisher addition, Bone Chill. This cold Finisher does .. you guessed it, cold damage. It simply does Cold DD to the target and nothing else. The key thing here being that it has no refresh timer at all so you can use it for extra damage anytime you crit, kind of like the crit 1 - 2 combo punch. You will obviously find yourself using this new finisher much more often than you used any of the previously existing finishers before. The only reason to not use it often would be if you are fighting cold resistant critters.

Well there you have it, Finisher 101. Feel free to leave any comments or corrections if you believe that I am mistaken in anything.

Lifebane
vgnecro.com

Comments (3)

Egads! More Double Xp Weekend Goodness!

by lifebane 2007-03-08 · double-xp, grind

Fellow necromancers of Telon! Rejoice again for the time of Double Xp has returned! Picture it, another mindless weekend of grinding a thousand turtles or wolves! I like it! Send your spouse out of town! Buy your girlfriend / boyfriend a weekend at a health spa. Drop the kids off at weekend camp or anything you can do to free up that play time! The grind has returned for an encore!

As posted at the vanguard players site:

"Double – Double Kill Experience Weekend!

To put players right in the action of Game Update #1 and as a continued thanks to our community, we are giving players a second opportunity to receive double adventuring kill experience this weekend! (3/10/07-3/12/07)

Be ready to face new challenges and explore new lands as you dive into the depths of Game Update #1 and continue your adventures in Vanguard: Saga of Heroes!

The event is on all servers and corresponds with the daily restarts:

STARTS: Saturday, March 10th, 5:00am PST (Saturday, March 10th, 4:00am GMT for Europeans)

ENDS: Monday, March 12th, 5:00am PST (Monday, March 12th, 4:00am GMT for Europeans)

See you in Telon,

- The Vanguard Team"

Comments (6)

Spells section updated

by lifebane 2007-03-08 · bone-chill, finishers, sealed-fate, shadow-feast

Greetings once again. I have been busy toiling in the spell section and updating a bit of it based on recent changes in the world of Telon. The biggest tweaks were made to our various finisher spell lines. Those three spell lines: Shadow Feast, Sealed Fate, and the new Bone Chill line have all been organized under their own category, Finishers.

Additionally the refresh times and the descriptions have also been adjusted to reflect the changes made to those previously existing finisher spells. Have a peek and check them out.

vgnecro.com Spells Section

As always, feel free to send in any missing information that you may see within the spells section.

Lifebane
vgnecro.com

Main Internet Servers DOWN!

by jonaphin 2007-03-11 · downage, vanguard-community, vgnecro

Dear Community,

As you may have experienced today, several sites have been unreachable, including our beloved VGNecro.com

For once, our host was innocent... many of the main internet servers were down today, affecting mostly Canada, California, Florida, Michigan, and Washington.

You may find this information here:
http://www.internettrafficreport.com/namerica.htm

What does this all mean?
Our friends in Europe, Asia, South America, and Oceania shouldn't have been affected by this issue. For the rest of us, it might take up to a day for connections to websites to go back to normal.

Hang on, fellow netizens, we shall brave the tempest!

Comments (1)

Another victim!

by lifebane 2007-03-13 · dominus, moderator

Vgnecro.com is proud, well mostly proud, to announce the forced servitude ahem.. I mean the promotion of Dominus (Of the Flamehammer server ) to the lofty status of Vgnecro Moderator.

Dominus stalks the forums enough as it is so we figure we may as well make it official. Besides, he helps many a necro that post on the forums... well when he isn't posting spam that is.

So please join me in welcoming Dominus to the vgnecro crew... his brain pain has just begun

Lifebane
vgnecro.com

Comments (1)

Test Center Patch Notes - 3/16/2007

by lifebane 2007-03-16 · patch, test-center-patch, update

REMINDER
- Adventuring Sphere experience has been doubled on the test server. This is permanent.
- Crafting Sphere experience will be tripled through this weekend (ending Monday) on the test server.

ADVENTURING NOTES
- Blood Mage – Mortal Calling is now out of combat only
- Disciple – Astral Walk is now out of combat only.
- Monk - Iron Hand has had a significant damage increase.
- Monk - Secret of Flames has had a significant damage increase and the chance to land a bonus fire DoT has been increased.
- Monk - Secret of Ice has had its chance to freeze increased and the freeze duration increased. This freeze prevents the target from moving or attacking and does not break on hit.
- Monk – Storm Stride will no longer attack your opponent from a distance when used outside of combat. It will actually transport you.
- Necromancer – Claw of Devastation II no longer heals.
- Paladin – Wrath of Vol Anari can now be performed.
- Paladin – Aegis Strike has been added to trainers at level 6
- Paladin - Shield of Chastening has been added to trainers at level 42
- Paladin – Shield of Rebuke has been added to trainers as level 34
- Paladin – Shield of Resolve has been added to trainers at level 38
- Paladin – Shield of Solace has been added to trainers at level 44
- Paladin – Succor has been added to trainers at level 50
- Rogue – Dramatically increased damage on Water of Life, Scarlet Flame and Azure Flame poisons.

CRAFTING NOTES
- Gratosha now doesn’t give Martok outfitters and artisans duplicate improved tools.
- Workman’s Shirt of Problem Solving now has a graphic.
- Ahgram crafting faction advanced work orders have their rewards updated.
- Some advanced work orders were not showing up to players when they should have been. This has been fixed.
- Harvesting - Some crafted harvesting helms have had their stats adjusted.

DIPLOMACY NOTES
- Now that Thannis Heartsworn will successfully give out “Playing Matchmaker,” Samantha Rusten will correctly give out “Local Maidens” (the second in the “Moonstruck Fool” quest line) so that you can actually make it to “Playing Matchmaker.”

WORLD POPULATION NOTES
- Bordinar’s Cleft - A select number of Gwartak Griffonhunters will no longer instantly respawn.
- Khal – Guards will now give you the proper directions to the artificer instructor.
- Nusibe Necropolis - City of the Dead has received a population and itemization pass. This dungeon is designed for small to full size groups of players levels 45 and above.
- Pantheon of the Ancients - Tashini no longer casts AOE spells on the escorting party.
- Pantheon of the Ancients - Major overhaul of the final encounter to ensure it performs more reliably.
- Pantheon of the Ancients - The Avatars of Mara and Caia now have an immunity set on par with the boss mob encounters in Vanguard.
- Pantheon of the Ancients - Minions of the Reaper will now despawn after the Avatar of Caia receives enough damage to awaken her sister.
- Pantheon of the Ancients - Lowered the damage output of the Minions of the Reaper as well as an amount of their hitpoints.
- Pantheon of the Ancients - The Avatars of Mara and Caia no longer leave a corpse.
- Pantheon of the Ancients - The Avatar of Caia no longer becomes small after corporealizing.
- Pantheon of the Ancients – The final test, the Trial of Death, within the Pantheon of the Ancients has received an overhaul and should be completeable once again!
- Sea Watch Coast - A dozen more solo quests have been added to Strandan City in Sea Watch Coast (level 34+)

Items:
- Fixed a proc display issue with the Fae Hewn Crossbow. It should now report doing damage instead of healing the NPC (it was never actually healing the target).
- Azzuri’s armor set has had its stats tweaked
- Celestine Ward – The druid quest armor has had its +healing focus changed to +nuke focus. In addition, the armor now gives slightly more wisdom and slightly less vitality and intelligence.

~The Vanguard Team

VGNECRO reaches 500 registered members!

by lifebane 2007-03-16 · 500-members, milestone, news

Greetings fellow necromancers of Telon. It is with some sense of pride I report to you all that we have surpassed 500 registered users and 5,000 posts. This all within the first 1.5 months of our existance.

The stronger our community grows the more we will be unified when dealing with our devs and class leaders so that we can ensure that our voices are heard.

Thanks to all of you for helping us reach this milestone and to those that lurk around but never post.... REGISTER ALREADY! hehe. make it official and be counted amongst the rest of us.

Continue to spread the word to other necros in game and elsewhere! Send them here to the home where it's okay to play with dead things.

Lifebane
vgnecro.com

The Incredible Vanguard Bug-O-Matic - BETA

by lifebane 2007-03-17 · bug-o-matic, bugs, database

Greetings fellow Necromancers.

Are you tired of bugs and posting them in long arse threads of posts?

Have a bug or game issue you wish to make public and present to the devs and class leaders in a neat organized format?

Do you perhaps have a suggestion that you might want to toss out there for the devs and the rest of the necro community to share?

Well then, do I have the thing for you! I formally present to you all "The Incredible Vanguard Bug-O-Matic"!! This is a system that our in-house supreme code monkey Jonaphin has been playing with for a couple weeks in his spare time. It will hopefully make bug / issues / suggestions more organized for the community.

I know what you must be thinking.. "Like OMG Lifebane!! How do I use the Bug-O-Matic! What does it do?!?! OMG! OMG!" The Bug-O-Matic is a Vgnecro.com site tool which you can access from our site and it allows registered site users to read what others have posted already as well as post their own bugs / issues / suggestions. Here is a quick list of features:

* Lets you submit bugs / issues / suggestions

* Lets you search for bugs/ issues / suggestions already in the Buig-O-Matic's database

* It lets you post your own comments relating any bug / issue / suggestion that you view

* It lets you filter your search results by using the Advanced Mode of the Bug-O-Matic

* Exclusive Comment boxes are available for Class Leaders and Dev's to post in so you can check any Official Feedback that we might receive

* Exclusive Toggles are available for Class Leaders and Dev's to set the status of an item from "active", to "fixed", to "as intended", etc.

* The Bug-O-Matic works for all classes, not just Necromancers.

* Additional Functionality in the works for confirmation of submission so that you can see search results similar to the bug you are submitting in order to avoid duplicates.

A Couple things to keep in mind:

1. We are launching this internally to vgnecro only right now to beta test it and see if there are any sneaky bugs within the Bug-O-Matic!!!!
2. If you are posting a new item, make sure it does not already exist. If it does exist you are better off posting comments under the existing item.
3. When you submit an item it will not be immediately visible since it requires approval / censoring by the admin.
4. There are quite a few tweaks we will be making still and some added functionality but we thought it was ready enough to get more eyes staring at it and looking for issues.

PLEASE NOTE: If you have cookies on your system that have been there for awhile you will have trouble using the tool, use the methods on Jonaphin's previous cookie cleaning post to clear em out and let the new ones set in. That post is HERE

And finally... the Link:

The Incredible Vanguard Bug-O-Matic!!!

Undead Form Quest Guide Revamped

by lifebane 2007-03-20 · demilich, form-of-bone, form-of-wraith, lich, quest

Greetings my fellow necromancers of Telon. I was toiling late into the evening this past moon writing down with more detail my experiences while seeking my Undead Form. The previous writings I had on the matter were detailed enough for many to follow but it was not quite what I would have been satisfied with.

Feel free to browse the revamped Undead Form Quest Guide and may it guide you well when your time comes to undertake this most unholy of quests. AKA I Hope it helps out!

You can find the Undead Form Quest Quest Guide in the Quest section of the site or you can be lazy and just click on the link below:

The Quest for the Undead Forms

Lifebane
www.vgnecro.com

Comments (1)

How to beat a Vanguard Necromancer in PVP

by lifebane 2007-03-21 · beat-a-necro, pvp, pvp-strat

Ever wondered what is the best possible way to beat a Vanguard Necromancer in PVP? Tired of getting your backside clawed and violated by necromancers? Wish you could find a way to beat all of those conniving evil antisocial necro players?

There is one big secret to knowing how to beat them. It's actually really simple to comprehend once it is made evident to you. But keep in mind, you are going after a player who basically is used to playing by themselves most of the time, self reliant, not waiting for heals from other party members, not used to having others CC for them during a fight, someone used to running around fighting something that would tear them apart if it could only get a little bit closer.

If there is one thing a necromancer learns it is skills for one versus one encounters. So keeping all of these facts in mind, you must admit you face a formidable opponent with many factors in their favor. So how do you beat them?

Scroll down for the Spoiler.........

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YOU CAN'T BEAT A NECRO IN PVP! BWAHAHA! Sheesh... what kind of necro do you think I am that I'd tell someone how to kill my dark brothers and sisters. May you get shredded by abomination claws and find yourself suffering in torment you necro hater!!

Lifebane
vgnecro.com

Comments (5)

VGNECRO joins the Vanguard Affiliate Program

by lifebane 2007-03-23 · affiliate, affiliate-site, news, official, program

Greetings to our fellow necromancers. It is with great pride that we share with you today news of our accomplishment as a community.

Sigil - Vanguard has officially granted vgnecro.com the status of "Official Affiliate Site". This means that we will have more access to the designers and we can put up that spiffy looking Seal that says we are legit! Woohoo!

Our thanks to all of the vgnecro community for their efforts in growing vgnecro.com into what it is today and for helping us shape it in the future. Rejoice dark brothers and sisters for we are now hrmm.. OFFICIAL!

Read the official news item from http://vgplayers.station.sony.com below:

"New Affiliate Site – VGNecro!
03/23/2007

Please join us in welcoming VGNecro to the Vanguard Affiliate Program. VG Necro has established itself as an excellent resource for those of the Necromancer class including an interview with Vanguard Game Designer Michael Mann (Avair). You can read the interview here!

Thank you for your continued contributions to the Vanguard community! For a list of affiliates and to find out more about the program please vist our Links Page."

Lifebane
vgnecro.com

Comments (3)

Vanguard News Update - Thursday 03/22/2007

by lifebane 2007-03-23 · changes, hit-point-decrease, news, xp-increase

The following two updates will be going live with the next server restart:

Adventuring Kill Experience Update

Experience rates for killing NPCs have been increased significantly. The experience changes start as a small amount at low levels and scale up to a large amount in the early twenties. From then on, the increase remains fixed. This increase should be very noticeable for players above level fifteen. This change is in response to actual player leveling times not meeting our original target times within many different subsets of the player population. This increase will bring us much closer to our goal without exceeding it.

NPC Hit Points

Challenge level two and three NPCs have had their hit points reduced at levels above ten. It will be a small, but increasing reduction per level.

Sigil / Vanguard Thanks the community for their anti-gold farming help

by lifebane 2007-03-27 · banned, bannings, gold-famer, news, secondary-market

Greetings!

We would like to take a moment to thank our players for their assistance in helping us combat the RMT (real market trades), i.e. the gold selling and powerleveling organizations. Your assistance through reports and petitions has been invaluable to us in identifying these individuals and removing them from our game. Please continue to report individuals you suspect are involved in the transactions involving in-game items, money or services. With your help we have already banned more than 7 00 gold selling, powerleveling and solicitation accounts used by various organizations.

Some of these accounts were trial accounts and have resulted in our adjustment to the access a trial account has to some game mechanics. Moving forward trial accounts will not be able to be used in the delivery or advertisement of gold selling and powerleveling services.

Further, we would like to reiterate how important it is that players not participate in RMT or have any association with companies that offer these services. Please be advised that we consider supporting these organizations a serious policy violation, and grounds for action against the offending account, up to and including the termination of the account.

We remain very dedicated to the preservation and health of our economy and the integrity of our industry, and we hope that you, as players, expect nothing less.

The Vanguard Customer Support Team!

Vanguard - In the Works Page launched

by lifebane 2007-03-28 · development, in-the-works, news, updates

Greetings fellow necromancers. The folks over at Vanguard have gone ahead and setup a page where we can go to get an idea of what is in development soon and on a longer term basis. Great info to have and be aware of for certain! This is the link to the "In the Works" page and some copied over the current items in development:

In The Works Link

Short Term:

• Lots of big fixes!
• Art - Optimizing art performance
• Travel - Addressing ways to travel and travel times
• Item Economy - Addressing several item economy issues
• Xennument - Questlines and dungeon population (high 30s to mid 40s)
• Beranid Downs - Questline and population adjustments (high 30s to mid 40s)
• Expanding Hunter's League quest line (low teens to 30s)
• Afrit - Questline and population adjustments (mid to high 40s)
• Rahz Inkur - Questline and population adjustments (high 40s)
• Gorgalok Swamps - Questline, events and population adjustments (mid to high 40s)
• Mount Quests - Shadowhound and Unicorn (mid 20s to 30s)

Long Term:

General

• Greater LFG functionality

Adventuring

• High level raid dungeons

Art

• Getting visible helmets

Top Ten Bugs:

1. Group disconnect
2. Falling through the world
3. NPC hitpoints not updating correctly
4. Harvestable corpses getting stuck animating
5. Cull distance issues causing mobs to pop in too close
6. Client hitching
7. Client memory leaks
8. Ranged physical attacks having wrong timing with damage numbers
9. Rough player character movement (when you are watching other players)
10. Optimization

Vanguard Weekly Roundup

by lifebane 2007-04-03 · news, vangaurd-players, weekly-roundup

Greetings fellow necromancers... so the Vanguard weekly roundup was published once again this past Friday. You can view the details of it at the official Vanguard Players site. A few interesting comments and tidbits as always but sadly the bulk of them were from the same site. Perhaps we can find a way to lure Brad and crew over to visit our little creepy corner of the web. I don't suppose leaving a few high end grafts laying about might lure him this way...

Lifebane
vgnecro.com

Hobbts? Schmobbits!

by lifebane 2007-04-10 · blog, hobbit, lotr, middle-earth, news

Greetings my fellow necromancers. I have come to chatter about all things Middle Earthish and fuzzy footed. Yes I am talking about those beloved little cutesy and somewhat pudgy Halflings..err.. oops.. I mean Hobbits of Middle earth!! I have been hearing so much chatter about the upcoming release of LOTR Online (Lord of the Rings Online for you acronym challenged people) that I felt the need to Blog!!

I was involved in a few phases of Beta, not the most recent one though since I tired of it back in the previous versions of beta play. What do I think about the game you ask? I thought it was okay and seeing the occasional movie character helped add to the feel of "OMG I AM IN MIDDLE EARTH WOOT! I WILL GO FORTH AND KICK ORC BUTT LIKE ARAGORN! RAWR!" Sadly, this novelty faded after a few weeks and returned to being just I am a lvl 14 Burglar,,, where do I go xp now! AKA the typical grind story. Not to mention.. I wanna be Gandolf! No real wizards of that caliber in game.. closest thing to him is a guy who plays with animals and casts some nukes.

Was it a bad game? No.

Was it better than Vanguard? Not Really.

Was it Different than Vanguard? yep.

The two games really can not be compared easily since they focus on two styles of play. Had they removed the LOTR association to the game it would not have the following it does right now. It would be another name in the ever growing list of MMO games. What it has going for it though that will make it competition is the Lord of The Rings Fan base. There are so many fans of the books and then later the movies that it is sure to lure in quite a few people.. much like SWG (aka Star Wars Galaxies) did and even DDO (Dungeons and Dragons Online) had a similar following.

This type of game designing is risky business since the target audience has certain predefined conceptions of what the game "WORLD" should be. And any deviation from the stories that the game is based upon tends to annoy the heck out of the die hard fans playing. This one aspect of these games in particular has time and again proven to be one of the major causes of discontent with those games. To create a new word where you define what is correct versus having to build by guidelines and not deviate from them really puts dampeners on what can be done in game without ruining the "feel" of the story it is based upon.

So what does Lifebane predict hrmm..... I think LOTR will initially draw quite a crowd, more so from the WOW player base than anything else since the games are to some extent graphically similar, hell the interface when last I was in Beta looked like a clone of WoW's default player / group windows hehe. However, people will not stay there long term, well the gamers won't. The fanboy types will stay indefinitely just like the Die Hard players are still lingering in SWG despite the bazillion combat revamps and total rewrites of the core game code. Guess I'll go toss some popcorn in the microwave and get ready to sit back and watch the show at release time.

Bloggage done.

Have an Opinion of your own? Check out the discussion in the forums!

LOTR Discussion Thread

Lifebane
vgnecro.com

Comments (3)

"The Calling: The Beginning, Part I"

by vanelir 2007-04-19 · roleplay, story, the-calling, vanelir

The question I have always asked myself is, "Where to begin?". In truth I am not sure myself where I shall begin, but I will try my best to start from the beginning. Before the cataclysm and the changing of Telon. Before the major cities rose above the scattered towns to stand as beacons for all near. I may be a little rusty, but please, hear my tale, for I doubt you have heard the likes of it before.

The Beginning

It would probably be best to start with my name, after all, I AM telling the story. My name is Vanelir B'Riva, of House Bragnaer Rivanal. I am an only child, decreed so by the fates, and the dark ways of the elves of Undercity. I follow the dark arts, the art of death and undeath. Necromancy. Most people speak the word in hushed tones, believing it to be dead to the known world, or just a fairy tale to scare children into going to bed. It is an art long thought forgotten and lost to all but the sages of Telon. Few study its mysteries, for fear of the unknown. I embrace it whole-heartedly. What is life without death?

I learned many things during my time in the Undercity, and although I was of noble birth, I had no desire to play games of intrigue with the other houses. Their petty squabbles meant nothing to me. I had a passion for one thing only. Power. Power beyond even the wildest dreams of the most long-lived sorcerors. I craved the power of the dead. To bring life to what was once dead, including myself. I studied hard and passed numerous magical tests with flying colors and some to spare. I was hated and revered by all around me. More than once I checked my back, waiting for a dagger to find its way to my heart. I dared them to try, to look into my eyes and see their was no hope of success. Oh how I relished it!!

I was only about a century old when I left the Undercity. I had long since graduated from the Academy, and they put me on menial tasks such as patrol duty, afraid of my growing prowess. That was well over several millenia go. I assume you understand the longevity for most elves, and usually they come no where close to even two millenia, but ah, with the powers of the dead, I have lived to see my sixth thus far. But I get ahead of myself. Once I left the Undercity, I went in search of legends. Of once grand cities now reduced to rubble, with ancient libraries stretching across the span of a castle! What magical runes might I find within these books? Over the years I have accumulated quite a collection, and many are the spells I know that most thought lost to the past. Resurrection of things long dead however, is my forte.

I wandered from land to land in search of lost treasures, artifacts, spellbooks, anything that would help further my quest for knowledge, and ultimately power. I wanted to be the most powerful magi to have ever lived! Ah, but the ways of the dark one are mistaken. I grew anxious as I gathered close that which I had sought. Even the gods themselves began to take notice. I was never so foolish as to challenge one, though more than once the thought crossed my mind. The spirits told me to wait. I would have time later. For they knew the future, the very existance of Telon was held within the Weave, the magic surrounding any and all things. They knew the calling would come soon, so they urged me toward my goal. I was to be the one to set them free from their unrest. To give them shape and form. To coax life to where there should not have been. Clerics have the power to resurrect newly dead allies or foes. But I, I sought to be able to resurrect ancient races. A cleric can resurrect because they have a soul to work with. I steal souls with which to work with. The fabric of the Weave itself warped and snapped under my fingers.

By the time I was five centuries of age, the land became still. Quiet. Nothing dared to breath for fear of breaking the silence. In the eerie quiet, the whispers began, soft at first, growing in intensity as time wore on. They were odd voices, for they were not of the living. They voices sounded like the dried leaves of autumn against grating bones. Voice of dead things. The Calling was here. They were calling....to me.

Comments (2)

"The Calling: The Beginning, Part II" Spirits Awakened

by vanelir 2007-04-19 · roleplay, story, the-calling, vanelir

Spirits Awakened

They were calling...to me!

That thought struck home. Of course they were calling to me! I am the most reknowned necromancer in all of Telon, who else would they call to?! Mind you not many are known as our nature tends to make us a recluse, but I was infamous! Ah, but we shall return to my gloating at a later time. I calmed my mind and cleared my thoughts, searching for the strongest of the voices. Several moments passed and I began to feel a pull, stronger than the rest, albeit faintly.

The spectre made himself known to me as Kalith Del'Roth. He imparted to me he came from the Dragon Era, named so for its obvious dominant race of dragons. He had been very powerful in life, and it seemed even in death his power had not diminished. At once I knew that I had to be careful around this being. He made it clear he once was of the Siksarva, a race of brutal, intelligient lizard-men. I had heard mentions of them in many of the tomes I had acquired over the years. Each excerpt clearly stated the Siksarva had been a race bent on conquest, enslaving other races to build their cities and serve as guinea pigs for their potent magics. Should I err even in the slightest, the balance between master and servant could and would surely be switched. I did not, at the time have any particularly powerful spells to protect me from such a being. But, perhaps, I mused, this liche could teach me more of his ancient arts. Spells lost to time itself!

The liche notified me that he was trapped in a tomb, high in the mountains of a long lost city. The seal to his tomb had been broken by a crypt-robber centuries before, but the poor soul had met with an undesirable fate when confronted with the protective wards. I pondered the challenge at hand. After many moments, I sent my thoughts to him. After so long in a tomb, his body had to have been turned to dust. I will let him inhabit mine, on certain conditions. I alone rule the body, mind, and spirit. He must teach me the ways of his people and their own malignant arts. Through me he could see his goal fulfilled, and help me rule all else, and with him, I would find magic not even the oldest, wisest sages could ever possibly hope to achieve!

As I laid out my travel plans, packing what belongings I would need and burying the ones I did not, he imparted to me what he remembered of his location. I laughed softly, thinking of the future to come. How dark it appeared! I would become the most feared being in all of Telon! Hosts of undead already awaited my call. Ghosts of long dead soldiers, wraiths of once powerful mages, and zombies and skeletons galore! No, there was no turning back now, I had come too far! The spirits, had awakened.

Comments (2)

VGNecros Second Featured Writer joins the crew

by lifebane 2007-04-19 · featured-writer, new-writer, roleplay, story, the-calling

Greetings fellow necromancers. If the previous two news items were not a hint, we have a new featured writer submitting their stories to vgnecro.com. This new writer is called Vanelir and as you will see, his writing style is different than our resident story teller Aarian but so far he seems to have the dark heart of a necro storyteller beating within him. With both of these talented writers telling us their tales it should definitely help to satisfy that hidden roleplayer / fantasy reader in each of us.

Looking forward to reading as "The Calling" plot unfolds.

Lifebane
vgnecro.com

Comments (1)

Brad posts to say he will post about SOE / Sigil News!

by lifebane 2007-04-29 · aradune, brad-mcquaid, sigil, soe, vanguard

Greetings fellow necromancers. Strange tidings in the wind. It seems Brad McQuaid, aka Aradune, posted that he would be posting some news about the SOE / Sigil relationship. Nothing of this has been seen yet but speculation leans towards SOE having purchased Vanguard from Sigil or something along the financial lines.

This is strictly conjecture at this point but it has most certainly caused quite the buzz. We will have to see what news we have tomorrow from the Lord of Vanguard, but for now, I leave you with the small post he made on the official Vanguard Site.

"It's all ultimately good news, but complicated enough to justify one of my verbose postings I should have my first Sigil/Vanguard update up tomorrow and then look for regular updates as to the future of the game here and on the affiliate sites (probably weekly or so, depending on what's going on). I will post here first and then immediately copy the post to a set of the Vanguard affiliate sites.

thanks,

-Brad"

Comments (1)

Vanguard Players new Featured Dungeon thingy

by lifebane 2007-05-03 · featured-dungeon, news, rakhasa-citadel, vanguard-players

Greetings fellow Necromancers. The fine folk over at Vanguard appear to have started up a new news article series that will feature the Dungeons of Telon. The information is basic and includes a few screenshots as well as a general idea where to find said dungeon and of course, the level range.

The debut of this article series covers Rakhasa Citadel in the continent of Qalia.

Read full article here

Lifebane
vgnecro.com

Comments (1)

Vanguard offers custom title to fellowship breakers!

by lifebane 2007-05-03 · contest, fellowship, news, vangaurd-players

Greetings once again brothers and sisters of the darker arts of Telon. We seem to have a double dose of news from the Vanguard Players site this day. First the Featured Dungeon articles and now news of a contest of sorts.

Apparently Sigil has gotten around to fixing up the fellowship system and now has it on the test server. What is this fellowship thing you babble about Lifebane? ahh yes, glad you asked. The quick and dirty version of it is as follows:

A fellowship is a group that up to 6 people can join that is a persistent linking of the 6 players xp earnings. Any xp earned by any of the members is divided amongst the members of the fellowship. This is true if members are online or offline. While this is a great way to try to keep a group of friends all at the same pace of leveling, it does tend to put the burden on those who play more often since they will be earning more than their fair share of the xp needed for all of the fellowship members to level.

No, this does not take the place of a group. You can join a group while still within your secret stealthy ninja fellowship group. This will not impact the "group" you joined xp at all. Only your share of the group xp will be impacted by your existing fellowship membership.

Here is the official info as posted on the Vanguard Players site:

"Fellowships 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 fellowship.
- Fellowships are completely independent from groups; you can be a member of both at the same time.

Limitations
- Fellowships can have a maximum of six members.
- You must be within five levels of every member of the fellowship in order to join.
- You must be within a few meters distance to invite a player to your fellowship.
- If you leave your fellowship 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 fellowship? Simply target your friend, right click your defensive target window, and select "Invite to Fellowship." You may then administer the fellowship from the social window (default key 'O') "Fellowship" tab."

Groovy sounding isn't? It is definitely not for everyone but die hard friends at least can use this as an alternative method of staying close enough in levels to be able to group later on. Ah yes, the title of this post mentioned a custom title didn't it?

Since this is currently live on test server only for testing purposes (Duh), Sigil has offered to give 3 players who go to test and try out the system custom titles for their characters on the live server. Generous of them right? Well there is that little thing about THREE players, so how do you get to be selected as one of the three? Quite simply break their fellowship system and tell them about it. The official contest custom title dealio is as follows:

"Win a Custom Title
Here is your chance to win a custom title of your choosing! The fellowship system is now on the Test Server and we would like to invite players to come break it for us. In fact, for the first three reproducible bugs sent to [email protected], the submitting player will get to choose a title for their character on a LIVE server. Chosen titles must be appropriate and in accordance to the naming policy, of course, but other than that – it is all up to you!"

There you have it folks. What it is, what it's for, and how to get yourself pretty much any title you want for your character... "Lifebane the Lord of Wenching"... I kind of like the sound of that.

Lifebane
vgnecro.com

Comments (2)

Vanguard launches yet another article series.. featured creatures!

by lifebane 2007-05-04 · featured-creature, news, sigil, ulvari

Greetings dark brothers and sisters. It would seem that the little imps over at Sigil have been busy little writers this week, yet another article series appears to have been launched. This new series is the Featured Creature articles and the first is the Ulvari.

The Ulvari look like something that stepped out of a samurai movie or maybe even escapees from the cast of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". Quite mean looking to be certain and found in and around the Blighted Lands of Kojan.

When I see this image though, I am suddenly reminded of another movie.... "Big Trouble in Little China", must be the bamboo wok he is wearing on his head.

You can read the official article over at the Vanguard Players site or be lazy and just click here .

Lifebane
vgnecro.com

Comments (2)

Looking for "RAID" Testers

by lifebane 2007-05-07 · guilds, news, raids, signup

For those that may be interested: Test Your Might – Raid Test Signups!
If the call of battle and glory thunders in your ears gather your allies and prepare to face mightiest of Telons foes!

We are now accepting applications from guilds to focus test raids and the raiding system for Vanguard. Selections will be made at Sigil's discretion.

Applications will be accepted from guild leaders only; multiple applications for the same guild may result in removal from the selection process.

IMPORTANT: All characters listed below must be created on Test Server prior to submitting an application. Guilds are required to have at least 24 members to be considered.

To apply please email the following to [email protected], include your guilds name in the subject of the email:

Guild Leader's Primary Character:
Server:
Email:
Guild's previous raiding experience:
Primary Playtime/Guild raiding hours:
Guild Character Class/Name on Test Server (Minimum 24 Maximum 30):
Note - Please list the guild leader character at the top of the list with an asterisk* (ex. Bard - Elrar*). Also please note the specific path of each shaman and monk.

Testing will begin soon and last for 2-3 weeks with multiple guilds selected throughout the process. Thank you for your interest!

To access the test server you must start the Vanguard Launchpad normally. Once you have completed scanning do not press Play - a "Test Server" button will be activated, click on this to launch the Test Server launchpad, this may require additional downloads. Once the launchpad has completed patching click play to launch the Test client. Most European players are unable to participate on the Test Server at this time - we apologize for the inconvenience.

- The Vanguard Team

Comments (1)

What is the deal with server restarts you say?

by lifebane 2007-05-09 · elrar, restarts, servers

Greetings fellow necromancers. For those of you that have noticed that the daily server restarts have not been happening for the last week or so and you have been wondering why.,.. behold an explanation!

James "Elrar" Nichols advised us of the following information:

"There will be no daily restarts until further notice while we work to improve performance and stability all around."

Of course there are the rumors of dupes being done during server restarts so whether this is performance tweaks or just slowing down the dupes while the fixes go in we still benefit from the lack of restarts for now.

Lifebane
vgnecro.com

Comments (1)

Vgnecro looking for slav....err.. staff, I mean staff!

by lifebane 2007-05-10 · contributors, hiring, lifebane, news, staff

It's that time again dark brothers and sisters... VGNECRO Wants you!!!

So you like to play Vanguard do you? A necromancer no less?! Oh yes and you think you know so very much about the class huh, more than many? Well then you obviously need to become a part of the VGnecro Contributor Staff and help out your fellow necros in the vgnecro community!

Vgnecro.com is currently looking for knowledgeable necros with a desire to help their fellow necro members out by becoming more directly involved in their new vgnecro home.

We are looking for those who consider themselves specialists / Gurus in a particular aspect of the game... Questing, PVPing, Soloing, Diplomacy, etc. These "know it alls" would help create and ensure our necro info on the site is accurate and valuable.

We are also looking for News hounds... those necros that are all over the net every day looking to catch-up on the latest Vanguard news as it relates to the game as a whole or directly to the necromancer class. The News hounds then filter through the junk news out there and then pass on through the site only the most relevant and useful news.. yep, the vgnecro version of "Vanguard news spam filter"!

We have a couple other areas which we are fleshing out which might be a fit for you depending on your background and likes, but these will be considered on a one by one basis.

If you are interested in becoming part of the necromancer community for vanguard then contact me at [email protected] . Give a brief description of what you are interested in and possibly any prior experience you may have on fan sites or journalism in general.

Lifebane
vgnecro.com

New sub lvl 50 spell drop stress and Avair's reply!

by lifebane 2007-05-14 · avair, dev-post, spell-drops, tlc

Greetings fellow necromancers. TLC and dropped lower level sspells has been a recent subject of debate and stress for many of us who were over the optimal level to obtain these spells in the dungeons where they are dropping.

TLC concerns have been the buzz over this recent reintroduction of these spells. Avair stopped by the forums to clarify how this should be working and had the following to say:

"The way it is supposed to work is this:

Sub level 50 abilities are supposed to drop off of a certain kill the first time you kill it, one per person in the group that qualifies for the dropped spell (such as 1 FD scroll dropping for each necro, etc.)

The level 50 ones are supposed to drop at a certain rate and be tradable, etc.

The situation we were trying to avoid here is to have high level farmers taking all of the scroll kills and scalping them to low level characters that couldn't compete for the kills. This was solved by essentially making the scrolls non farmable. The sub 50 scrolls should not be affected by trivial loot code or anything like that, but a player should not be able to get more than one of a spell from the sub 50 scrolls.

If this is not how it turned out, please respond to this thread, I'll be keeping an eye on it. Thanks.

- Forgot to add - these should drop in multiple places in the world as well."

Let's test out how this is in fact working and hope that there are no issues with how it actualy functions versus how it was supposed to be functioning.

Lifebane
vgnecro.com

Comments (1)

The Big news..SOE Acquires Sigil

by lifebane 2007-05-15 · acquires, brad, news, sigil, soe

Greetings once again fellow necromancers. Smed posted the much awaited update today about the SOE / Sigil deal over on the Official SOE Forums . Here is what he had to say:

"Hello Everyone,

Today I would like to formally announce that SOE has acquired the assets of Sigil Games Online, including Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. As a part of this acquisition, we are bringing on approx 50 people from Sigil in order to insure that Vanguard continues to grow. SOE is dedicated to making sure that Vanguard is well taken care of and that we provide the same level of service we do for our other titles. In the near future we will come out with a publishing plan that will largely be driven by the strong player community that Vanguard has already built up. We plan on supporting Vanguard for many years to come, and you can expect many content updates as part of your subscription. Down the line we will of course be coming out with new expansion packs, but right now the focus is on making sure Vanguard is running the way it should be.

We are also officially opening up forums. In the past, our deal with Sigil didn't allow for this, but as with our other games we fill this is an important part of communicating with the playerbase. You can expect a strong presence from our community team as well as the development team members. While we realize that Sigil had said they wouldn't open up general forums, at SOE we fill this hampers our efforts to communicate effectively with the players. We will continue to support the fansites in a big way, and will be contacting many of them directly to discuss what this change means. By no means do we want to lose the strong fansite support by making this change, but we do think it's important to have a forum for players to communicate directly with SOE.

A few other items I wanted to mention

1. Brad McQuaid will be consultant to SOE as a creative advisor for Vanguard. Dave Gilbertson will be the person directly responsible for the day-to-day management of both the Sigil Carlsbad office as well as Vanguard.

2. We do not plan on making any major changes to Vanguard. Any changes are going to come from the team itself. We aren't mandating any big changes to the game. We've learned a thing or two with our experiences with the NGE and don't plan on repeating mistakes from the past and not listening to the players.

3. We do plan on spending a lot of time cleaning up legacy issues with Vanguard and making sure the game's performance improves.

By way of comparison, this team is approx. the same size as the EQ2 team and I feel like that team has done an amazing job improving EQ2 since it's launch. We intend to do the same thing for Vanguard and it is our hope that the players feel like we're doing right by them.

Smed"

Who knows what more will pop in over the next couple days, but for now, at least this confirms much of what people had feared already. Fun times, fun times.

Lifebane
vgnecro.com

Comments (7)

Hasta La Vista, Baby or Affiliates, take your pic!

by lifebane 2007-05-21 · adieu, affiliate, news, sigil, soe

Well my fellow necromancers, it seems that the end of an era has come.... bid a fond farewell to the "Official Vanguard Necromancer Affiliate Site". it was a good run and much fun but Alas, the powers that be have deemed it necessary to scrub the Affiliate program despite all the hours and days of hard work that the various fan sites have put into supporting the Sigil Vanguard Community.

We appreciate all of the support that you have given to this, your "Official Vanguard Necromancer Class Affiliate Site". You made this a fun home for all of us. So once again, bid farewell to your "Official Vanguard Necromancer Class Affiliate Site".

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Oh yeah, you didn't really think that would stop us? No No No! I wanted to take the opportunity to welcome you all to the New "Vanguard Necromancer Class Site"! Bet I scared ya didn't I? Bwahahaha! I am evil yes I am, watch the necros cringe as they read the first part of this post hehe.

In all seriousness folks, I thought I'd post about the topic since this is part of the new SOE vision of how things will be with Vanguard. Groovy ain't it?

Adieu Affiliate Program!

Lifebane
www.vgnecro.com

Comments (10)

Elrar Out, Elionia in... new Community Manager for Vanguard

by lifebane 2007-05-24 · community-relations, elrar, michelle-butler, pr, soe

Greetinsg fellow delvers into the dark arts of Telon. It seems that after a week or so of silence, the new Community Manager has been announced. Check out the official announcement below:

"Introduction to the new Community Manager for Vanguard!

Michelle Butler joins SOE as Vanguard Community Manager

Greetings Fellow Vanguard Players!

Some of you might be familiar with my background but for those who are not, I thought a brief introduction was in order.

My name is Michelle Butler and I am known among many of you as Elionia.

I joined the MMO Community in March of 1999 with Verant/Sony Online Entertainment as a Game Master for EverQuest. I was then promoted to EverQuest Customer Service Manager and Guide Liaison in 2000. In 2002 I moved to the development side of SOE to become a Game Designer for EverQuest Online Adventures and the Frontiers expansion.

I joined Sigil Games in 2004 where I spent a year learning the design aspects of Vanguard and then became the Vanguard Customer Support Manager in 2005. I am pleased to continue working with the Vanguard team and community as the Vanguard Community Relations Manager. My existing relationship with the Development team will aid me in bringing you up-to-date news and events on a daily basis for Vanguard Saga of Heroes.

As I settle in over the next few days, I look forward to making contact with those who have know me for awhile and I am eager to get to know those who I have never met.

I hope to see you on the forums!

Michelle Butler

Community Relations Manager"

Comments (1)

WOWZER! Station Access Bonus Content!

by lifebane 2007-05-24 · lifebane, rant, soe, station-access-pass, trading-card-game

Greetings my necro brothers and sisters once more. It seems that the marketing gurus over at SOE have found an ingenious method of making us all want to subscribe to the Station All Access Pass! You can sign up for your all access pass, and yes.. you will be able to.... this is so exciting... wait for it... you ready ?? You will have access to.... not one... but TWO... ONLINE TRADING CARD GAMES! WOW! WOW! WOW!

Read the below for the official announcement, then read on for Lifebane's Rant if you choose:

"Station Access Bonus Content!

Station Access subscribers now receive even more bang for their buck! Station Access subscribers can find additional bonus content -- simply log in to the Stargate Online Trading Card Game and the Star Chamber Online Trading Card Game to grab your brand new, unopened starter deck."

Rant on:

While I appreciate the effort of trying to throw us paying Vanguard customers a bone in order to motivate us to dump a bit more coin from our pocket to theirs, I somehow do not find the thought of being given access to online TRADING CARD GAMES to be that thrilling. Don't get me wrong friends, I was a "Magic the gathering" freak back in the day, I had a blue / white "no you didn't" deck that would drive anyone mad within a game or two. But it was a TRADING CARD GAME.. you know, with cards that you held, you know.. in your HANDS. Call me a traditionalist perhaps, but an ONLINE TRADING CARD GAME pretty much kills the notion of Trading card games in general. Bleh. Anyway, enough of my purest ranting... on to the Vanguard related point.

I recall things like extra character slots for station access pass members I think back in EQ2 or was it SWG?!. If you really wanted to milk us for a bit of extra monthly money you might have had a tad more luck doing something to make us want to continue playing this game. Hrmm... let's see now, what can I come up with and not require a committee or quality action team be formed first.....

1. reduced maintenance fees on houses.
2. discounted rates from the mount masters.
3. extra character slot (although having it removed if you drop the pass program would kinda be a drag)
   
4. extra bag slot.
5. extra recall ability back to home city with a 24 hour timer maybe.

Note: All of these above options assume that they would be toggled on and off based on your participation in the Pass Program.

Okie there you have 5 options in 1 minute that I think would have been more appealing to those people playing Vanguard right now. Does it help promote cross game addiction, well no. Does it have a noted added value to my current setup and monthly subscription fee, yep.

Feel free to ignore my babble. But I found that offer such a weak attempt to lure more dollars out of us that I was compelled to post about it.

*hops of his soapbox*

Nuff Said.

Lifebane
vgnecro.com

Comments (4)

The Riftway Network - the who and how of it

by lifebane 2007-05-28 · rift-shard, riftway, riftway-netowkr, teleportes, travel

Greetings fellow necromancers. The folks at SOE recently posted about the in game teleporter / travel system of theirs called the Riftway Network. The information is good enough and should let anyone who reads it understand hwo to use the Riftway Network so I figured i"d plug it here for our community members to find it easily. The post went as follows:

"A forgotten power has returned to Telon. Ancient riftstones have come to life with their potent magic having been lost since the days of the Cataclysm. Channeling great energies from altars scattered across the world travelers are now able to venture forth via interlinking networks spanning all of Telon… Welcome to the Riftway!"

The Riftway is divided into three separate networks; these networks are connected through riftstones located at altars all around the world. Not all altars have active riftstones, however.

In order to use the Riftway you must have a riftway shard in your inventory, these shards can be found on any general goods vendor and are relatively inexpensive.

Once you have purchased a shard you must establish a link between at least two riftstones on the same network. In order to activate a riftstone for future use you must travel to its location and click on it. Once you have at least two riftstones active you may travel between them, each time you travel you lose one riftway shard.

When selecting a destination you will have a series of locations to choose from:

While you can see all network riftstone locations from this menu, you can only travel to the ones you have activated.

Connected to all networks are riftstones located in the cities of New Targonor, Ahgram, and Tawar Galan. These riftstones only contain enough energy for you to travel to them and can not send you to other destinations.

The three networks that make up the Riftway are divided up by the level of the content surrounding their locations

The following is a list of the three networks and the location of the riftstones:

Network I	Network II	Network III
Wildgrowth Forest Magi Hold Blighted Lands Lomshir Plain Qa Riverbank Strand of the Ancients Coterie Infineum Sanctuary Renton Keep The Deebs Vault of Heroes Tawar Galan* Ahgram* New Targonor*	River Palace Jathred’s Twist Zossyr Hakrel Ruins of Vol Tuniel Frostshard Lake Beranid Hills Tawar Galan* Ahgram* New Targonor*	Plains of Anguish Flordiel Razad Wyrmwing Slopes Pankor Zhi Tawar Galan* Ahgram* New Targonor*
* These destinations can be traveled to from any riftstone; however, you can not travel to any riftstone from them. If you wish to see the original post, click here. Fire and Brimstone did a fine job of tweaking the Telon world map to illustrate how the networks are connected using colored lines. You can check out their riftway map if you'd prefer to see it graphically: FAB Riftway Network Map Comments (1) The quest for the spell "Bane Expurgation" by lifebane 2007-05-30 · bane-expurgation, nusibe-necropolis, orb-of-burning-souls, quest, soul-orb-of-unlife When you travel to the Nusibe Necropolis you will find out rather quickly that the place can be quite deadly. If not by Traps then by the random curses being thrown onto you and your party members simply for being inside the necropolis. The debuff's in particular can be very annoying and debilitating. Never fear though, if you get a certain item and you do a certain thing... you will be able to cast a cure spell for these ailments that will save you and your party a whole bunch of heartache. I give you "The Quest for Bane Expurgation": This spell is obtained via a quest which is started by right clicking on an item that is randomly dropped by creatures in the Necropolis. The item in question is the Orb of Burning Souls. Alright then, so you found your Orb of Burning Souls. Right Click it and you get the following Quest offered to you .. and yes, you want to accept it. "Baleful Crossing (small group quest ) As you examine the orb, small flames erupt from the center and engulf your hand, though they do not harm you. You grasp the burning orb tighter and focus into it, looking through the flames. You see countless souls flowing deep within its core, and a screeching voice floods your mind saying, "Give me the essences of the dead" The flames quickly slip back into the orb, leaving your hand scarless. Quest Objectives Collect and combine 10 Souls Orbs of Unlife. Kill 50 Undead in Nusibe Necropolis. De story 50 undead and harvest 10 soul orbs of unlife from the dead denizens of Nusibe Necropolis. Combine the 10 soul orbs of unlife with the orb of burning souls." Okie folks, you can kill undead all day and night and until your eyes and hands bleed from playing the game and never once loot one of these from a corpse. Why is this you say? ahh... NECROPSY! These soul orbs are only available via necropsying the corpses in the Necropolis. They are fairly common so you will no doubt have gotten your 10 before you kill the 50 undead. Once you complete the quest you will have learned Bane Expurgation and can now cure the aillments which get tossed on you within the Necropolis... enjoy! Spell Information is available in our Spell Database ! Lifebane vgnecro.com Comments (5) Server Merges confirmed! by lifebane 2007-06-01 · david-gilbertson, official-news, serve-rmerge, update Greetings all of my fellow necromancers... well the ones that haven't run off to play clerics that is. At last there is some official word on the rumored server merges directly from SOE. Read the below article and prepare the incoming merge! "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" fun fun! Lifebane vgnecro.com Comments (1) New playable races?!?! by lifebane 2007-06-11 · advertising, lifebane, marketing, new-races, news Now when I first saw this latest news update on Vanguard Players I was absolutely certain that it must be somehow related to Vanguard... a promo maybe, cross selling initiative or some such. I mean SOE wouldn't be so obviously trying to market and make a buck, even if it was not in the least bit relevant. Noooooo, they wouldn't do that. Oh wait, didn't they try to get everyone to sign up for the more expensive all station access pass by offering us a groovy new ONLINE TRADING CARD GAME !! I am sure they learned their lesson so this leads me to believe that this must have simply been a case of incorrect text accompanying their image in the news article . To show that I am a good guy, I have added in what I assume to be a more relevant caption for the image.... I present you with an image of the upcoming new playable races! I'm thinking the chickens are evil looking so will more than likely allow for necromancer as a class choice! WOOT! Cornbane the Evil Chicken Necromancer shall walk the lands soon! Maybe at this rate we will soon have in game advertising too! Mind you, if all this marketing they are forcing down our throats somehow helps to fix the game with the profits earned then please make it so! Lifebane vgnecro.com Comments (11) New dev intro on vg players site by lifebane 2007-06-12 · interview, john-hegner, new-dev, soe-employee SOE has gone ahead and introduced us to another of the dev / design team over at the Vanguard Players site in an article called Meet John Hegner from Vanguard ! After the last butchered attempt at P.R. with a new team member popping into the scene ( LiKe OmG!! PhAtHoM R ThE L33Tn3sS! ) I was a bit comforted to see that this intro seems to have been with far more professionalism. He seems to be an able enough person based on the brief interview / article they posted. Here is the article text for your viewing pleasure! " What is your name? John Hegner What is your forum name? Zahariel What is your job title with Vanguard? Game Designer How would you describe your job? One part writer, one part orchestra conductor, three parts relationship councilor, shake vigorously and pour into a glass of two parts sleep deprivation and five parts awesome. When did you decide on this career? When I was in first grade and the teacher asked us all what we wanted to be when we grew up, I said I wanted to make video games. What do you think it takes to be successful in this career? Knowing what is fun and convincing others that everyone will think it is fun too. How long have you been associated with Vanguard? 1 year, 6 months, 14 days, 6 hours, 21 minutes at this time of writing. What other games have you worked on? Sovereign, Everquest 2, and Fall of Troy. What areas in Vanguard did you assist with in the creation process? I was one of the handful of designers who overhauled diplomacy, I also had a hand in on a good amount of the lore, from racial storylines, to the gods and dungeons, and how they exist together in the world of Telon. What is your favorite area of Telon? This is very difficult to narrow down. Obviously I have a bias toward my own work, but I think that the island of Martok just has this vibe to it that really works. The music, the weather, the fact that I'm an escaped slave of the Gulgrethor on a mission of vengeance; it all blends together very well. However, I also enjoy Leth Nurae, probably because I worked closely with the art team on it's revamp into a proper high elven city. What is your favorite NPC in Telon? Oooh, that's a toughy. I would have to say that it is Ghaldrid, the voice of Kaon. Do you have a favorite race or class and why? The Dark Elves are my chosen people due to their absolutely ruthless nature, but I have a special love for the kurashasans just because so much of my energy went into their back story. My favorite class is Dreadknight, I love playing the tank when it comes to adventuring. Do you have any advice for an individual breaking into this industry? Make contacts in the industry and sell yourself to them. Once you have someone on the inside you have a much better chance of having your special talents noticed and scooped up. Of course, this all assumes that you have talents that the industry wants, so I would say step one is finding out what you can offer the industry and doing that really well. If you have worked on a primary game play feature can you describe what you have done and tell us something about it? I worked on the diplomacy system. When we sat down to revamp it we asked ourselves two questions. What's doable with our current code time, and can we make a card game out of it. Knowing how successful the card games are in the Final Fantasy series, we took that base idea and ran with it. We're still running too. Is there anything about you that you think the community would be surprised to know about you? I am the voice of high elf males." Lifebane vgnecro.com Comments (2) The Server Merge Plan for Vanguard. by lifebane 2007-06-13 · merges, server-merge, soe Greetings fellow necromancers. it would seem that SOE has announced the tentative server merge plans. Here are the details as they exist right now: 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. Thunderaxe, Woefeather, and Gulgrethor would merge into server A PVE Targonor, Hilsbury, Flamehammer, and Shidreth would merge into sever B PVE Tharridon, Varking, and Frengrot would merge into sever C PVP FFA Gelenia and Infineum would merge into server D EU PVE For Florendyl we will be soliciting feedback via a poll and discussion as to whether or not the players think it should be merged. 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 First created, if also played within the last 30 days 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. Comments (4) Vanguard Hotfix 06/15/2007 by lifebane 2007-06-18 · changes, hotfix, patch, updates GENERAL NOTES - Rentable Mounts – Rentable mounts were inadvertently given a minimum required level of 40 with the latest patch. This has been corrected and they should once again be usable by everyone. - Resolved an issue that was causing some cash loot to have a value much higher then intended. ADVENTURING NOTES - Bard – Reverted the change made to Requiem of War. It once again does flat damage until the issues surrounding the ability have been overcome. - Bard – Several Instruments that were changed to be useable in the off hand have been made into two-handed items again. This fixes unexpected problems with instrument mod values. We will be adding high-level one-handed instruments in the near future. - Cleric – Fixed an issue where it was possible to have Speed of Ghalnn affecting your attacks at all times. Every cleric, regardless of affinity was affected by this. - Shaman – The damage and cast time on the Hayatet phoenix pet has been adjusted. The cast time was negatively impacting damage and preventing players from using other pet abilities. WORLD POPULATION NOTES - Quests – Many quests were not giving experience upon their completion – this has been fixed. - Xennumet – The Father Xenn encounter has been deactivated temporarily until such time that a fix for a major exploit can be made. ~The Vanguard Team Grafts! Grafts! Who's got the Grafts! by lifebane 2007-06-26 · graft-database, graft-depository, grafts, site-tool Greetings oh defiler of the recently deceased. Have you been enjoying your ever growing collection of random assorted body parts that you have gathered? Ever wonder what other grafts might be out there waiting to be ripped from the still warm corpse of your fallen foes? Well wonder no longer for "The Graft Depository" is here! The Graft Depository is a searchable / sortable database of all grafts that have been found to date in the lands of Telon. Feel free to browse through The Graft Depository and seek out the Ultimate Grafts you'd want to hunt down over time. If you see any incorrect entries or have additional information to contribute feel free to post comments or email me directly with any changes or new graft submissions. Many thanks to the Code Monkey (aka Jonaphin) for his hard work in getting this project completed and turning out another valuable vgnecro.com exclusive tool for the Vanguard Necromancer community. And of course, many thanks to Notleh for all his effort in organizing and cataloging the grafts. Enjoy the collection of bloody parts! The Graft Depository Lifebane vgnecro.com Arrrr... Pirates of the Burning Sea! by lifebane 2007-06-28 · advertisement, naval-combat, pirates-of-the-burning-sea, rant Greetings all. When I first noted this news item at Vanguard Players I had thought it perhaps an expansion for VG. Silly me yes I know. But I did find a positive spin to yet another marketing effort shoved in my face. Perhaps VG will be able to benefit from this game by borrowing / copying their naval combat system! Let's cross our fingers and pray to the gods of copy paste code that something positive does come of this advertising at least. Original Advertisement below: "Pirates of the Burning SeaSOE to Publish Pirates of the Burning Sea SOE and Flying Labs Software are thrilled to announce that Pirates of the Burning Sea will be published by SOE's Platform Publishing Label. Pirates of the Burning Sea features land and naval combat between France, Spain, England, and Pirates across the vast waters of the Caribbean circa 1720. Players will be able to explore thousands of missions and dozens of ports as they engage in this Massively Multiplayer adventure on the high seas. For more news and information please visit the Pirates of the Burning Sea website which delves deeper into this agreement." Lifebane vgnecro.com Comments (1) Server Merge about 3 weeks out... by lifebane 2007-07-02 · hasium, merger, server-merge, update Greetings fellow necros of Vanguard. The much awaited server merger is apparently 3 weeks out... then again I could swear I heard that same thing 3 weeks back! Ah well, patience is a virtue and we necromancers are known for virtue.. oh wait a minute, no we aren't.. we are evil corpse fondlers! Bleh! Here is the official word from Hasium: "I apologize but I do not have the Game updates ready this week like I promised. We had some challenges this week getting some processes resolved. As a result, the CTD/crash to desktop fix is still on the test server. We hope to have the patch ready to deploy next week. The good news is the fix should resolve many of the CTD/crash to desktop issues. I do not have the server merge details ready yet, but I can tell you we are about three weeks out from the server merges happening I will post more details as soon as I am able. Hasium" Lifebane vgnecro.com Comments (4) Vanguard Patch Notes 07/05/2007 by lifebane 2007-07-05 · fixes, patch, repair-all, update 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. 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 _________________ Lifebane VGNecro.com Comments (2) Milestone # 2 Preview,,, round 2! by lifebane 2007-07-09 · fixes, milestone-2, updates Greetings yet again oh delvers in things dead and most foul. Word has reached our sinister ears of another Milestone announcement over at Vanguard Players. Milestone #2 has been announced and in a general sense... it reads much like Milestone #1... Raids, Bugs, Performance, and Trial Island! Oh yes, and someone has begun to work on the Griffin mount quest.. yay flying bird cats!!! Read on friend! "Hey Everybody, Ok, on to Milestone 2 goals. We started work on it July 2nd so we are about a week into it now. The main focus will continue to be on optimizations and bug fixing, along with continuing work on some of the previous milestone goals like raids and the Trial Island. Game Update 2 is the next update coming up. As soon as the update makes it to QA, we will post the contents of it for everyone to discuss. Following QA, it will be pushed to the Test server. Expect it to stay there for a few weeks for the test players to bang on before it gets pushed to the Live servers. As always, feedback is appreciated. Hasium Milestones 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. Vanguard’s Milestone 2 goals. Performance / optimization increases Fix bugs Raid content Trial Island Here are some of the tasks the team is working that will help us achieve those goals. Design Content Team Work continues on the Ancient Port Warehouse at a pretty steady pace. Work on the Griffon, permanent flying mount quest has started. Design is working with Art on the trial island. The optimized humanoid NPC’s completed by Art in the previous milestone are now being implemented starting in Rindol Field. Diplomacy Team The diplomacy team is continuing working on putting together some cool looking tier 4 clothing options. The diplomacy team is also continuing work on adding House quests. Programming (only some extra superfluous words have been removed) Fixing memory leaks Fixing bugs that cause CTD’s / client memory issues. Raid UI and tools support Creating better tools for Customer Service. This will allow them to provide better in-game support for our customers. Working through the bug queue. This includes fixing some of the more annoying PvP bugs. See, there is some love for the PvP players. J Art Environment Team Warning, the following text is a direct copy from the previous milestone. There is no vast conspiracy of lazy typing from Hasium. It just means that work on the Trial Island continues. J 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 working on assets for the Trial Island." Lifebane vgnecro.com Comments (3) Milestone #1 update.... the look what we did post! by lifebane 2007-07-09 · mileatone-1, results, review, update Greetings necro brothers and sisters. Our esteemed SOE Rep Hasium posted on the Vanguard Players site his Milestone # 1 Update. This is their checklist of whatrthey completed out of the items they had committed to fix / create in their first stage of fixing the game.... have a read for yourself and judge it as you may. "Milestone 1 Wrap up Hey Everybody, Here is the long awaited Milestone 1 wrap-up. Overall we made some pretty good progress. It was our first time with our new scheduling process and while we had a few hiccups, most things worked out fairly well. We will continue to tune the process to become more efficient as well as getting the post Milestones goals out to the community sooner than we did this time. Some of these features will be included in game Update 2. The contents for Game Update 2 will be announced as soon as it’s pushed to QA. Hasium Vanguard’s Milestone 1 goals. - Performance / optimization increases - Fix bugs - Raid content - Finish features that were almost complete before the SOE acquisition occurred. Design Bug Team - Approximately 800 bugs from typos to broken quests were fixed. Many more were re-assigned to Programming. Guess what Programming is working on next. Content Team - Raid content for Ancient Port Warehouse o Completed population on the following three wings: § Entry Wing § Vault Wing § Cartheon Wing o Lore and Quests § The back story is complete and basic quest and diplomacy planning exists. o Diplomacy § Population planning is done and implementation is ready to go. o Rewards § Planning has been done and is awaiting iteration and approval. o Misc. § ‘Riftway’ portals throughout the dungeon are completed. o Time was spent testing and tuning all available NPC ability sets Diplomacy Team - Diplomacy was successfully converted over to level based. - Work on House quests and tier 4 clothing is continuing into Milestone 2. Crafting Team - Guildhall quests are finished and they will be included in Game Update 2. Programming - Fixing memory leaks o This is ongoing and will continue into Milestone 2 - Fixing bugs that cause CTD’s / client memory issues. o There were a couple of significant fixes that was patched to Live on July 05. - Fix the last remaining bugs for Brotherhoods o All fixed up. - Raid UI and tools support o We completed the initial raid UI and tools for creating raids and quests. Work will continue into Milestone 2 - A more intuitive LFG tool with better functionality o This has been completed and will be part of the next Game Update. - Rest exp. o This has been completed and will be in the next Game Update - Changing Diplomacy from skill based to level based. Finished o This has been completed and will be in the next Game Update Art Environment Team - Trial Island o Most of the basic land area has been created. o Most of the assets have been optimized and placement has started under the watchful eye of Design. Character Team - All the humanoid NPC’s that are used in starting villages have been optimized and are ready for design to place. - One new armor set has been completed for a yet to be named raid dungeon." Lifebane vgnecro.com Comments (1) Test Server offline Friday for Merge testing! by lifebane 2007-07-19 · downtime, merger, test, update Greetings oh masters of arts most foul. There is new word of Server Merge progress via the test center. The following notice was posted on the Vanguard Players Site today: "Hello everyone, As you know we have the server merge coming soon. We will be taking the test server offline early Friday afternoon to test the merge process. We expect the server to be down most of the afternoon. We appreciate your patience during this downtime." With merger tests on test now one woudl assume that the actual merger can not be too far off.... or so we hope. Lifebane vgnecro.com VGNecro Community Update by jonaphin 2007-07-24 · bugs, class-leader, gallery, jonaphin, news My fellow VGzens, Allow me to first bow to HIS EVILNESS Lifebane, who - as you may have heard from his far and deep reaching words or from other scary sources - has been promoted to the rank of Necro Class Leader. To me, this is a sign that the game is facing the right direction. Believe it from the mouth of a monkey, Lifebane will exercise all his longly craved power to help the whole Vanguard Community, and more precisely the Necro community, be heard and considered at the highest level. In this spirit, we have taken steps to facilitate our communications with the developers and other SOE folks. Some of you may already be familiar with the Incredible Bug-O-Matic. For everyone else, the Incredible Bug-O-Matic is a direct channel to the SOE team in charge of Vanguard SOH. You could metaphorically compare it to a prayer to the Almighty, or a complaint filing tool directly connected to the Police station. The new version of the Incredible Bug-O-Matic contains 2 changes: Bugs are now color coded. The text fonts represent the priority level of the bug as thus: Green: Annoyance Yellow: Can Impact Gameplay Amber: Severe Red: Game Stopping The INTERFACE bug category has been added at the request of the Vanguard Developers, which allows me to assure you this much: The Incredible Bug-O-Matic is used by the devs! Now chomp chomp! get to it! On a different note, for the greatest pleasure of the Vanguard Necro Community (we are such a spoiled kind!), I have upgraded the gallery. Make sure to pay it a visit. I guarantee you will be toying with it for at least ahem... well... 10 minutes if you're a monkey, for everyone else, play time may vary :p Now make sure to stay tuned (haha, tuned! pun..pun..) for new great stuff coming to our fantastic community this week, not the next! Oh, Lord of Evil, how dark does it feel to be envied by all other VG classes, heh? Jonaphin, Code Monkey, VGNecro.com Comments (4) The Necro top 10 issue List plus extras! by lifebane 2007-07-31 · feedback, lifebane, necro-issues, top-10 Greetings fellow defilers of the recently deceased. I have compiled the many posts, emails, pm's and such that I received and come up with the current necro Top 10 based on extremely scientific methods... stroke count! The more an item was mentioned, the more strokes it received. When all the information was sorted, I tallied up the strokes and used those totals to sort the list. Here is the list of the top 10 necro issues by the necro community . Top 10 Issues 1. Chunking Problems with pets. This includes evac, underworld journey, crossing a chunk, or being summoned. 2. PET INFO NEEDED: Let us see which buffs our abomination currently has and time remaining for them, stats, numerical health. Stc 3. Pathing Problems with pets. Adding an ability to summon your pet to your side and clear it's aggro state and attack target (when master is not in combat) might help fix his warping ways. 4. Dark Elf Racial: if you summon the dragon then dismiss it and resummon the abomination you need to re-equip all of the grafts for the abilities to show, or dismiss the abomination and recast it a second time 5. Have the wraith graphical appearance change every 10 levels as the lich form does and improve the look. 6. Levitate causing problems with movement due to changes in elevation. 7. Let more than one necromancer be able to "use" corpses. As it stands there is a huge disincentive to grouping with other necros since only one can necropsy, one can vile ritual, etc. 8. DoT information disappears from mobs "debuff" list when you change targets 9. Ghostly acolyte and such pets ( the ones that are supposed to increase hp / mana regen ) only currently do so when someone is at 50% or less and the amount is too small. 10. The Plague bearer minion's ability doesn't function properly with soul blight active on mobs, buff conflict. As an added bonus to our dev buddies, here are the 10 "runner ups" who who were not quite as unpopular yet still an annoyance to be certain. 10 additional issues, but not as "unpopular" as the top 10! 1. Pet names reset back to "Abomination" every time you log out. 2. Rest of the dead (feign) does not always clear mob aggro so they stay and camp the feigned necro. 3. If a mob is already debuffed with Soul Blight and you recast it, it cancels the original buff rather than extend the length of the effect. Same if two necros cast it on the same mob. 4. Spectre's Touch. It has a place in our spell line as a Cold-based DD spell, but the cast time is outrageous 5. Devouring Shadows does not stack between two necromancers. This makes duoing or grouping with multiple necros a bit harsh 6. "You can't see your target' messages are an annoyance and occur often and often the target "is" visible and not blocked. 7. If you're buffed with Corruption or Shadow Feast and you log out, then back in again, it resets some of the bonuses to 0, making it so you need to recast them for the benefits 8. Necromancers need a better graft system. Many of the grafts are useless and lack of information/numbers/and effects is very disappointing. More useful grafts, detailed graft info, by location graft tab, etc 9. Invis to the undead is does not work well, either make it so only that spell works against the undead or give us reg invis like everyone else. 10. Auto use of grafts does not function correctly so we are forced to create a macro. These issues will be posted on TTH, Vault, and the official forums as well as forwarded on to Avair and Taliskar today. Thanks all for taking the time to give feedback. _________________ Lifebane Necromancer Class Leader VGNecro.com Comments (4) How to turn anything into Undead.. the necro trick by lifebane 2007-08-02 · dark-rebuke, necro-trick, soul-blight, soul-trap, undead Greetings my macabre brother and sister necromancers of Telon. It has come to my attention that not all necros are conniving enough to think of how best to use their evil little necro abilities and the most unique trick in the Necromancer's arsenal escapes them. What am I babbling about this time you say? Well read on and learn. Necromancers can mez undead... quite useful for those undead infested regions of Telon to be certain. Sadly though, it is utterly useless against the living. A shame that we can not kill everything then if they rise again mez them!! Oh wait, what about turn them into undead while they still live and then mez them! skip that whole middle kill them first step. Well friends, now you too can do just this very trick by sending me 3 monthly payments of $ 29.99 and I will umm... oops. Guess I shouldn't try to sell you something you already have huh. My twisted sense of morality forbids me from charging for this so I suppose I'll dispense with what many necros consider common knowledge, yet others have never how do you say it.. connected the dots?! Starting at level 26 (upgrades at 34 and 44) necromancers obtain an ability called Soul Blight. This ability does the following: "Debuffs enemy spiritual resistance by 200 for a brief time and causes the target to become an undead creature, which in turn makes them susceptible to any abilities that effect the undead." Now let's re-read that last part one more time: "...causes the target to become an undead creature, which in turn makes them susceptible to any abilities that effect the undead." Hrmmm... wait a Second, at level 18 and then later at 40 we get a spell called Soul Trap which states the following: "A mez type spell for undead that prevents the target from moving, casting or attacking. Any damage done to the target after it is mez'd will break the effects of the spell. Only one target may be Trapped at once." Let's focus once more on that first sentence there: "A mez type spell for undead that prevents the target from moving," Great Scott! Holy Flux Capacitor! Does this mean what I think it does? Why yes it does! You CAN mez any creature under the effect of Soul Blight via your Soul Trap ability, yes I know, it's the revelation all over again. So there ya have it folks. How to pretend you are a mez master even when not on undead mobs. Keep in mind though that not all mobs can be mez'd. Okay I bet that sounded fun right? But wait! There's more!! Let's see now, if that Soul Blight ability will turn things into undead... is there anything we can abuse then with this? Oh yes.. indeed there is. Let's take a quick look at Dark Rebuke , an ability we get at level 18 (upgrades at 26, 34, 42, and 50). This ability states the following: "Spiritual energy attack which damages your target. NOTE: This spell causes additional damage to undead." Woah.. what was that line again? "NOTE: This spell causes additional damage to undead." So what you are saying is that I toss up Soul Blight and then I can mez things AND nuke them harder with my insta-cast Dark Rebuke DD? OMG OMG! It's the revelation part two! Remember kids, Soul Blight is your friend. Toss in the added benefit that paladins and clerics have some anti undead abilities and you can make for a nice group DPS boost by simply tossing on one debuff even if you do not intend to mez the target. Do make sure you let those arrogant holy roly types know that they weren't recently blessed with divine power and are kicking butt more because of it... let them know they owe it all to your dark evil conniving mojo! Seriously though, let them know what you are doing and train them to look for the buff, it can help quite a bit. Oh yes, did I bother to mention that this debuff lowering the targets spiritual resistance would enhance your own spiritual based attacks? hrmm... Enough rambling for one post. Think long on what I have said and intoxicate yourself in the glory that is necroness! err.. yeah.. I need some caffeine. To see a thread about this neat class feature, CLICK HERE PLEASE NOTE: There are certain problems / bugs currently with this ability. You can search for them in the Bug-O-Matic and find some in the recent top 10 Necro Issues that were sent to the devs for follow up. Lifebane vgnecro.com Comments (18) Did someone say RSS? by jonaphin 2007-08-09 · blog, community, feed, rss, vanguard Greetings, Vanguardians of all realms! I would like to announce our latest feature, coming right from the deep burning subterranean factory where all things VGNecro are whipped up to life. Did I say whipped? Yes I did. His Evilness Lifebane has reached the minuscule limit of his patience, and ordered me flogged for eternity for not working on the site while in vacation. Nevertheless, in a - very - short twitch of generosity His Cruel Majesty has offered me a deal which, for obvious (& deadly) reasons, I could not refuse. And this is how the official VGNECRO RSS FEED came to be. Make sure to subscribe to it, and never miss Vanguard Necromancer News, Tips, Tricks, Guides, Stories, Databases, YouNameItWeHaveIt! Your devoted code monkey Trading Innoruuk for Kali !! by lifebane 2007-08-13 · mmo, new-game, ramayan, soe Greetings fellow fondlers of things recently deceased. Word has reached my pointy blue ears of something strange brewing over at SOE, and no I don't mean Cylus's Spiced Berry Tea! It seems that SOE has worked an arrangement that would let them create a new fantasy based MMO game off of a Comic Series called Ramayan 3392 A.D.I know, I know... who cares Lifebane! It's just another MMO game! I agree on that point and the dark ones know all too well how flooded the MMO market is right now and will continue to be in the near future. So the question arises, who needs yet another MMO to muddy up the waters? Variety is the word that comes to mind when I try to answer that question. Something new even. This game is not based on the traditional fantasy genre.. aka elves, dwarves, orcs, etc. (aka Middle Earth). This game is based upon Indian Mythos and culture, definitely not something that we have had offered to us before. EQ, EQ2, Horizons, WOW, MEO, VG.... different game engines, same basic concept so far as the world you play in goes. How many more drunken dwarves or haugty high elves must you suffer before you scream "gimme something different!" Maybe this is the "something different" we have been waiting for!??! How will it work? What will be so appealing? Will it well.. suck? Can SOE pull this off or will it flop horribly? It is really too early to know but the fact they are steering clear of the commonplace fantasy mmo is at least a refreshing change and will merit being watched as it develops. The official SOE News Release: SOE teams up with Virgin Comics to bring Ramayan 3392 A.D. to the MMO world! It was announced this morning, that SOE is joining forces with Virgin Comics to create an MMO based off of the widely popular India-based comic book, Ramayan 3392 A.D. For those of you unfamiliar with the title, Ramayan is based on Indian lore. It's the hope of everyone involved, that with the development of this new title, that gamers will have the opportunity to experience themes of one of the oldest cultures on Earth. Breaking away from the traditional Tolkien-like MMO molds, Ramayan will infuse aspects of Indian culture such as duty, sacrifice, and karma, into the online world. The new union plans on developing the game in India, drawing on the creative talent of those individuals who created the original comic. More details relating to this announcement can be found here! Lifebane vgnecro.com Comments (5) An update on update 2 and the merge! by lifebane 2007-08-14 · hasium, merge, patch, update-2 Greetings once again brother and sister necrophiliacs. I happened upon an update of some interest over on the official SOE forums earlier that I thought I'd share here.... call it hope or false hope as you desire. It seems Hasium (aka. David "Hasium" Gilbertson - Director of Development - Vanguard: Saga of Heroes ) had an update that many of us have been eagerly waiting for. Read the copy below and marvel at the news..... " It may still go out this week, but it's starting to look like next week. We had some bugs pop-up at the last minute that we don't want to push Live. So we are working with QA to get them resolved. The server merge is still scheduled to kick off the week following update 2 assuming there aren't major problems with the update." Unbelievably there was not mention of yet another 3 week delay in mergers and updates so this might actually mean we are getting close finally. Time will tell of course but for now it is the most "solid" news wehave had regarding the time line for these big changes. Original Thread here Lifebane vgnecro.com Out with the old, in with the new by lifebane 2007-08-15 · community-rep, ellionia, ellyra, official, soe Greetings fellow vgnecro citizens. News from the halls of SOE has arrived that bids farewell to Ellionia. It seems she has gone off to another project and will no longer be our community rep. Stepping up to the plate now is Ellyra. Here is her official "hello" post. "I just wanted to take a moment to introduce myself to those of you in the Vanguard community who have not seen me around before. My name's Julie (aka Ellyra) and I'm the new Vanguard Community Representative. A little bit about me and my background. I started with SOE in January as an intern and have dabbled in a lot of different things since then. I'm nearly finished with my degree in Media Studies and Political Science (after many, many long years of school!) I look forward to continuing my career in gaming, as it's something I'm extremely passionate about. I've been gaming for quite some time. My first taste came back in 1994 or so when I found myself addicted to a text game called 'Legends.' The BBS I played on supported a dozen players, and wiped itself once a week. I was hooked from day one. From there I went on to play Doom on a BBS called H2H. As for MMO's, I've played a lot of what's currently out there, some more than others; EQ, EQII, WoW, LoTRo, and of course, Vanguard, to name a few. A few personal facts you may find interesting: My main character was a Shaman, but I've recently been spending more time playing my Dread Knight. I've toyed around with a Blood Mage, and dabbled in Diplomacy. Also, I have a tattoo on my left shoulder which says "Gold Spammers FTS." (Okay, not yet, but I truly believe our world, and the world of Telon, would be a much better place without gold spammers!) I look forward to being a part of this growing community. It's my goal to help the game, its players, and the fansites thrive by providing content, up-to-date information from developers, and hopefully a lot of fun in-between!" Lifebane vgnecro.com Game update #2 update again by lifebane 2007-08-16 · changes, server-merge, update, update-2 Greetings and salutations dark brothers and sisters. We have gotten some small news from Hasium regarding the infamous update #2. First the good news, rumor has it that we may see the update go live within the next day or two. Second, some previously announced features of this update have been changed or will not go live until after the server merger which is scheduled to be a week after the update #2 goes live. Below you will fine the "changed" portions of the update #2 announcement released previously: Guild Halls Guild Hall plots will not be available for purchase until after the server merge. But the quests will be live so you can begin acquiring the resources necessary to construct one. The server merge is expected to happen a week after GU2 goes live. Diplomats will now be needed to obtain permissions to purchase the Guild Hall plot. Without the correct documents obtained from the local government, the guild leader will not be allowed to purchase the plot. Obtaining this documentation will not be a simple task. • Must be Guild Leader to purchase • Must form a full group of guild members and have them be in the same zone. (6) • Must have completed the diplomacy quest and have the diplomacy item in the Guild Leaders inventory. • Purchasing the plot will expend the diplomacy item. The Brotherhood System Brotherhoods will not be going live until after the server merge. The server merge is expected to happen a week after GU2 goes live. Bind on Equip Any rare items already in the world, that would have become BoP and thus soulbound, will instead become BoE. All new items that drop will be BoP. This will prevent cases where characters could be stuck with items becoming Soulbound that they can't use. Item Level Requirements When GU2 goes live, crafting tools in your crafting tool bag will become soulbound when you use them in the crafting process. In the future, we will have a BOE confirmation when placing a crafting tool in an equipped crafting tool bag. PvP bug fixes (reworded) In PvP, graft abilities for necromancer abomination pets only now do 33% of their previous damage. Bards can no longer pulse an invis effect while in combat. This change results in attackers not losing their target in pvp combat with a bard that is singing a song with an invis component. In Pvp (reworded) In PvP, any single ability can not exceed 40% of the target players maximum health. 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. This means that pet damage now does 50% of their previous damage against player targets in Pvp. 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. This means that abilities that contain a stun, root, mez, ect will now affect a player's pet in Pvp. There you have it... updates to the update! Lifebane vgnecro.com Submit a Graft! Graft Depository enhancement. by lifebane 2007-08-17 · code-monkey, graft-jonaphin, submit-a-graft Greetings fellow defilers of dead things. The illustrious Code Monkey (aka Jonaphin) has churned us out a quick enhancement to the Graft Depository. This feature is a Submit a Graft function. When you go to the Graft Depository you will see a text link beneath the title bar that says "Submit a Graft" Click that link and the rest should be self explanatory. Now we can all begin to update the new grafts that are discovered. The submissions will be live in the Graft Depository once they are approved by VGNecro Staff. Our thanks to the code monkey, he has earned a few more bananas. Graft Depository! Lifebane VGNecro.com Comments (2) Server Merges to Begin Tuesday, August 28th by lifebane 2007-08-20 · date-set, merge, merger Well my fellow necros, it seems as if the much awaited merging of the servers has arrived. Hopefully this will go off without a hitch but in all likelyhood we should expect some problems at least the first one or two times.. hopefully after that they will have a better understanding of the process. Good luck all! See you on Seradon! As seen at the vanguard players site: 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. For more details on the upcoming merges, please visit the Official Vanguard Forums! Lifebane vgnecro.com Thar be grafts in them there corpses! by lifebane 2007-08-21 · abomination, brain, face, heart, new-grafts Greetings and salutations fellow fondlers of the fallen. If word has not reached your ears yet let me be the one to enlighten you to recent necromancer related developments in Telon... NEW GRAFT TYPES HAVE BEEN FOUND! Necros everywhere have been finding fun new body parts amongst the dead that they perform Necropsy upon. Faces, Brains, Souls and the return of the Heart grafts as well. While we all had already had a heads up regarding the upcoming new graft types, they were released sooner than we had expected and with no hooplah at all (note the lack of patch note mention). This had actually been slated to roll out with the next big patch but it snuck in on this one.. yay us! The bad news is that we do not have enough slots for all of these various types of grafts now so in order to give the abomination a brain or soul you must toss out something.. a ribcage or skin perhaps? This is how the graft system was originally thought out but I have it under good advisement that they may re-evaluate if they should add in any additional slots or not. cross your little necro fingers on that one. In light of this large number of new grafts that have plopped into Telon we have gone ahead and added the functionality to the Graft Depository to let you all add in new grafts as they become available. Neat isn't it? What's that you say? What the heck is a Graft Depository Lifebane? For those not in the know, here ya go: "This Depository contains knowledge of all the Grafts that you might find while using Necropsy on a corpse. Browse through our graft collection and marvel at the vile grafts that await being found. Remember, it's little things like playing with body parts that makes being a Necromancer in Vanguard fun!" The new graft types, they generally do the following: Heart: Heal enhancement or health regen for pet. Face: Have some form of a debuff on the enemy Brain: have effects that work on the master Soul: all kinds of strange stuff (invis pet, shift hp from master to pet, etc) Go explore and make sure to submit any new grafts to the Graft Depository!!! THE GRAFT DEPOSITORY! Lifebane VGNecro.com Hotfix Notes August / 22 / 2007 by lifebane 2007-08-23 · changes, hotfix, patch, soe, update Hotfix Notes August / 22 / 2007 GAMEPLAY - Dwarves - Earthen Embrace now removes poisons as intended. - Food again requires the correct level to be consumed. - Fix for 40% PvP damage cap. This damage cap now applies to all abilities except DoTs. CRAFTING - Crafting gear stat issues fixed - Artisan Decorative Tile Production Manual should now give the proper action when activated. (This change is not retroactive if you have already clicked this manual and received the stones flag. However, if you have a manual and use it, it should now give the proper flag.) - Vendetta striking affect has been fixed - Fixed an exploit that could allow players to add a secondary component to a recipe at any stage DIPLOMACY - Fix for diplomacy not dinging upon level up. ITEMS - Items that showed skill but not required level (ie, bows and crossbows) should again be equippable according to the required skill, not the required level. - The description for the item, Black Venom Gloves, has been updated to a more appropriate description. - The item, Moon Strike of Vol Tuniel, can again be equipped. - Neoderma's Fang now has the proper required level of 37. CODING - Fixed an issue with group members not showing properly on the map and mini-map. - Fixed an issue with the function keys not targeting players after they died. - Fixed an issue with the Housing Escrow Merchant now showing items correctly. Players should check a nearby Housing Escrow Merchant to see if they have been holding onto some items. Lifebane VGNecro.com OMG OMG! VOTE! VOTE! The Logo Vote commences... by lifebane 2007-08-26 · contest, poll, vote, we-want-a-logo Greetings fellow necromancers of Telon, you who frolic through the fields of the rottingly friendly cadavers. The VGNecro quest for a logo has neared it's end.... after 2 weeks or so of community member submissions, we have closed the submission process and created the VGNecro Voting system... oh yeah, tamper proof unlike some sunshine state voting machines!!! "But Lifebane you said we couldn't vote til Monday!" pfft. You can only vote once so it makes no difference to me when you vote, just so long as it is before End of Day Friday. In all honesty I basically gave Jonaphin an extra day or so to make sure the voting system was working right... as always the Code Monkey outdoes himself so we are ready to roll today! Each registered member will be allowed ONE Vote and once you cast your vote you can not take it back so choose wisely! If you are not a registered member and wish to participate, make a VGNecro.com account and join in on the electoral hysteria!! ( Click here to register ) You can go review the entries and cast your votes via the very professional looking "We Want A Logo" placeholder at the left navigation area of this site. That or click here to visit the VGNecro voting system. Thanks to all for their participation in submitting the designs as well as those who will take the time to vote on these great submission! Good Luck! Lifebane VGNecro.com Comments (1) VGNecro's new Logo! by lifebane 2007-09-01 · braxes, contest, new-logo, vgnecro-logo, winner Greetings fellow necromancers. The voting to see which of the many talented artists would win the "VGNecro.com Needs a Logo contest" is over!! The winner of the contest was Braxes! Our thanks to all the talented people who participated and to all of those involved in the voting process. We will be emailing all the participants to let them know who won and to thank them personally. Note: Due to popular demand it seems, we are looking into setting up a way to let others buy shirts with this design and if any of the other artists are willing to donate their submission we will try to set those up as shirt variations so that people can get their own personalized vgnecro.com gear. This idea was suggested to us by our members and it seems like a great way to accept donations to the site to help us with hosting and maintenance fees associated to keeping VGNecro.com alive. Expect to see more about this soon. Lifebane VGNecro.com Comments (1) Necro Learned Abilities Found!! by lifebane 2007-09-04 · learned-spells, rite-of-the-master, shadowmasters-pact, taliskar, testing Greetings all... after careful and tedious testing your faithful Necro slave. err.. class leader type managed to visit two mobs that had a new ability for us to learn. And...... well..... it Didn't seem to work!!! There was also something "odd" about the ability names as well. I went back to Taliskar and had him check on the abilities for me since obviously something seemed wrong. The good news is that we know exactly how to get the abilities and the learning portion is functional!! Yay! Now the bad news, I was unable to learn the new abilities off of the mobs because… I already had them. Back in beta when they were creating these abilities for us and getting them on the mob’s for us to “learn” them they had placed the abilities onto the trainers for testing purposes. The spells were never removed though and the game went live with them on the trainer. So basically none of us have been able to learn these “new” abilities because we already had them. As per Taliskar, they will stay on the trainers. At this point there is no reason not to tell you which abilities they are: Rite of the Master and Shadowmaster’s Pact. Both of these can be “learned” in Nusibe Necropolis or purchased from the trainer at the appropriate levels. So you decide, go learn them the hardcore Necro way and save yourselves a few gold or go buy them. Our thanks to Taliskar for helping us resolve the mystery of the necro learned abilities once and for all. Grats all lvl 50 necros! You now know all your Learned Ablities!! Lifebane VGNecro.com Comments (1) Downtime - Sept. 5th... Guild Halls and Brotherhoods by arathon 2007-09-05 · downtime, guild-hall-brotherhood, guild-hall-reminder, news Server and Station Downtime: Wednesday, September 5th As per the SoE announcement: : Tomorrow morning the servers will be brought down for a restart beginning at 5:00 AM PDT. The purpose of this restart is to bring new features to the game. The approximate downtime is estimated at 4 hours, with the server being brought back up on or around 9:00 AM PDT. In addition to this downtime, all Station services that require a log in will be undergoing maintenance between the hours of 7:00 AM PDT and 9:00 AM PDT. During this time, logins to any Station site, game, or forum may fail. The good news for Vanguard players is that we're killing two birds with one stone! Also, as another reminder: -Guild Halls must be purchased by a Guild Leader -Must form a full group of guild members and have them be in the same zone -Must have completed the diplomacy quest and have the diplomacy item in the Guild Leaders inventory. You may only own one "plot" per account in Vanguard. So you may not own a house and a Guild house. It's one or the other. Also included in today's patch was: GENERAL - The “/switchserver” command is now active. All players will be give one free server transfer. - Guildhall plots are now active. Go forth and buy! - Brotherhoods are live! ITEMS - Fixed a bug that allowed players to equip bows much higher level than they should have been able to. Arathon Guild Hall Upkeep Costs by arathon 2007-09-06 · guild-hall, news, patch, upkeep Along with the Guild Keep fix they implemented yesterday, Ellyra also keyed us in to some updated Upkeep Costs for the plots of land and Guild Halls ( Source ): Hobart posted this information a little bit ago: "The 10% upkeep cost was an error. Those were the plot prices back in beta. Through a bug we accidentally resurrected that old data. It is officially dead now. Normal plot upkeep is being returned to the prices they were before we made them zero. 2.5g plots are 25silver 10g plots are 60silver 30g plots are 90silver Guild Hall plots are going to be 50gold." Looks as though you'll be hanging on to a bit more gold than before. Character Move Schedule by arathon 2007-09-07 · character-move, elyra, server-change According to SoE's Ellyra ( Source ): The first of the character moves is tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, September 18th. If all goes well, then character moves will happen every Tuesday and Thursday subsequently. Any updates or changes will be posted here as well as on VGPlayers. Name Issues by arathon 2007-09-07 · name-change, name-fix, update Head GM Moonlite has posted some info regarding the merges and how name conflicts will be handled ( Source ): The announcement regarding how names would work with the server merges was posted on 13th June 2007, giving everyone plenty of notice that the oldest character that had logged in within the last 30 days before the merge would keep the name. This worked as intended. Please read the following carefully, as any petitions not correctly filled out, will be deleted. There are only three types of anomalies that we would now like to address and assist with via /petition. You own an account that has Bob and Bob1 (probably now named to Fred since you were prompted at log in to change) on it. You wish to swap the names over perhaps because Bob1 is your main, and Bob is your alt. You own Bob1, and have found Bob on server, and with absolutely no threat and under no duress, Bob has agreed to let you have the name. You own Bob1, and when you logged in it told you that you had to choose a new name. You picked the name too fast without putting thought into it and have since thought of a better name. (We can check that you were a character who had a number appended to the end, so if you were not, do not petition) If you do not fall into any of these categories, do not petition. In the first scenario you should petition from Bob and tell us the name of the two characters on your accounts. (We can check that you were Bob1 even if you changed it at login) You will need to tell us the name you want the Bob changed to, as we will need to change him before we change Bob1 back to Bob. In the second scenario you should BOTH petition at the same time, from the correct characters wishing to change names so we can tie both petitions together. We will also wish to speak to Bob to confirm he was under no duress when asked to swap. Bob will need to tell us which new name he wants to have as we can not do anything without changing his name first. It would be wise for Bob to give 5 choices of name in case the first is already taken. There are no guarantees you will get the name you require for the third scenario as it may be taken and all names must still fall in line with the naming policy. Please petition in game if you fall into the third category from the character requesting the change. When you petition, you need to tell us what your name was on your old server, and what you changed it to on the new. If you fall into the above categories, we will only assist once. This will begin today, Thursday 6th September at noon, and will end Thursday 13th September at noon. After this time, we will not assist with any first name changes unless they violate policy. The Vanguard Naming Policy can be found here http://vgplayers.station.sony.com/g...mingPolicies.vm Please help us to make this go as quickly, and as smoothly as possible by including all information required, and not petitioning if you do not fall into the above three categories. Please also understand that this make take some time, and we would appreciate your patience while we work towards getting to your petition. Thanks! Moonlite Hotfix Notes September / 12 / 2007 by lifebane 2007-09-12 · changes, fixes, hotfix, patch Hotfix Notes September / 12 / 2007 GENERAL - Fixed a bug with player chests where placing an item in a chest, moving that item inside the chest, and then placing a second item at the original location will cause those items to stack cause the first one to look like it was lost. - Fixed a bug with player chests where stack counts were not being saved when stacking items inside a chest. This would result in stack counts being wrong when the server restarted and items would have been lost. GUILD HOUSES - Upkeep has been turned back on. This affects all housing plots. - Made it so when you attempt to deposit escrow it cancels any trades you might have. - Fixed an issue with fixture not showing up in some Guild Halls that are in densely populated areas. CODING - You can no longer activate an item, such as summoning your mount, if you are in the process of casting. This should fix both a known exploit and crash. - Likely fix for the high level characters with certain gear not being able to chunk unless they unequip some of their items. Lifebaene leaves Vanguard for good. see ya folks by lifebane 2007-09-12 · lifebaene, lifebane, merge, name-change Greetings once again fellow necros, I bring news! In his place on Seradon, Lifebane now exists! YAY me! I managed to abuse that merger to get control of the name "Lifebane" in game and GM Moonlite swapped it out for me the day before yesterday. It was still buggy and I was halfway in each name for the first day or so though hehe. All better now! Farewell Lifebaene, LONG LIVE LIFEBANE! Lifebane VGNecro.com Comments (1) Thar be Cylus.. ahoy! by lifebane 2007-09-12 · cylus, get-to-know, picture Greetings fellow Necromancers of Telon. I glimpsed an interview done with none other than our some time visitor and punching bag Vanguard dev type Cylus. Obviously no groudn breaking new infoz for the masses to consume, but if nothing else ti sheds a little bit of light on our part time vgnecro resident. You can read the interview over at Vanguard Players but be warned.... with a mug shot like this, be afraid, be very afraid. Lifebane VGNecro.com Database Stress! Blame Jonaphin! by lifebane 2007-09-18 · code-monkey-jonaphin, database, forums-problems Greetings fellow necromancers. We are tweaking some database stuff on the back end so forums may be up and down for a short while this morning. Please be patient and feel free to blame the code monkey for all of this. Lifebane VGNecro.com Lumio Exclusive hehe... voice interview with me??! by lifebane 2007-10-01 · interview, lifebane, lumio, podcast, voices-of-vangurd Greetings fellow necromancers. It seems as though that artsy fartsy fellow Lumio over at the Vault trapped me and forced me to do an interview. I admit that he bribed me with a forum signature so I grudgingly agreed. If you feel like hearing my ramblings go check out Lumio's "Voices of Vanguard" podcast. Thanks for the fun Lumio, that was entertaining. Vanguard Voices #5 hosted by Lumio: Interview with Lifebane Lifebane VGNecro.com Comments (2) I guess there are some perks.... by lifebane 2007-10-07 · gift, lifebane, perks, phoenix-ascension Greetings fellow necromancers. I wanted to correct myself.. it seems that in that interview I took part of with Lumio I made a statement that was not true.. anymore that is. I stated that there were no real perks to being a class lead, only extra work on a volunteer basis basically. Well a few members of a guild on Seradon has since proven me wrong. Members of Phoenix Ascension mailed me what amounts to basically a full set of t5 crafted gear as a way of saying thanks for services rendered. Now it was not entirely without costs, but even the cost was absorbed by a grateful necro member of their guild. Needless to say I was stunned by their act of kindness. I guess there are perks sometimes. My thanks to those that were involved in this and I'd highly recommend talking to their crafters if you are in need of having things made. From my conversations with them they are very patient and nice people, quite a few of which are beta era veterans. Stop by their site and say hi or see what that group of folks are all about. Lifebane VGNecro.com Comments (2) LFG to become default OFF by lifebane 2007-10-14 · auto-lfg, gu-3, phase-1, phase-2, update Greetings once again brother and sister necros of Telon. For those of you that have grown quite annoyed at trying to sort through all of the people that are "LFG" yet in reality are not actually Looking for a group, good news has arrived. The powers that be have decided to set the auto ON aspect of the new LFG system to auto off. You can then set it to on when you are actually TRYING to get grouped!!! This will not likely make it into Phase 1 of GU#3 but expect it for sure in Phase 2. Lifebane VGNecro.com Comments (1) Must Have Dropped Abilities and Grafts! by lifebane 2007-10-14 · abilities, drop-only, grafts, mob-dropped Greetings fellow necromancers, I have gotten many a question recently regarding where to find our dropped spells and special grafts. To lessen the stress of being the waking necro reference set I have gone ahead and written these down so that they can be referenced more easily in the future. Feel free to click on the title of each graft or ability listed here to be sent to the page that fully describes the item in question. May this make your necro curiosity a tad more satisfied. Special Heroic Grafts! These grafts can only be found off of specific mobs and are better than any of the non-heroic counterparts. Claw of the Zull – This Heroic Claw graft can be found on the Warlord in Rhaz Inkur. This Claw does substantial DD damage. Skin of the Xakrin – This Heroic Skin Graft is found on the God King in Nusibe Necropolis. Fist of the Pyramids – This Heroic Fist graft drops off the 6 dot named in Abimissi Lake which is located NE of Tehatamani Harbor. Based on the grafts’ current statistics, this is a Great lifetap /pet heal type graft, but the Sundering Fists seem to be more actual damage. It would be very useful for a pet that is tanking to help keep their health up. Special Drop Only Abilities and Upgrades!! The following abilities are either new abilities or upgrades to existing abilities that can be only found on the corpses of dead mobs. Level 40: Rest of the Dead II This is a mob dropped spell that is learned by obtaining the "Tome of Rest of the Dead II" which can drop off of any of the boss mobs (writ or non-writ summoned) in Greystone Castle (the dungeon in Beranid Hills). The Tome is SOULBOUND so you won't be seeing it for sale. Level 42: Soul Meld The “Tome of Dead Man's Bargain” drops at Vault of Hidden ( Jathred's Twist ). It can drop off any of the Sentry Golems in that dungeon. The Tome is SOULBOUND so you won't be seeing it for sale. Level 50: Well of Corruption ( Corruption III ) This is a mob dropped spell that is learned by obtaining the "Tome of Well of Corruption" which can drop off of the bosses within the pyramids in Temple of Tehatamani. Death March ( Group Death Walk ) This is a mob dropped spell that is learned by obtaining the "Tome of Death March" which can drop off of any of the boss mobs in the Temple of Tehatamani pyramid / temples. Might of the Grave ( Group Power of the Grave ) This is a mob dropped spell that is learned by obtaining the "Tome of Might of the Grave" which can drop off of any level 51+ mob in Rahz Inkur. Breath of the Dead ( Group Hallow Breath ) This is a mob dropped spell that is learned by obtaining the "Tome of Breath of the Dead" which can drop off of the bosses in Karrus Hakrel. Lifebane VGNecro.com Comments (2) Hotfix Notes October / 19 / 2007 by lifebane 2007-10-20 · change, hotfix, patch, update Hotfix Notes October / 19 / 2007 GENERAL - Feather fall type buffs, such as the parachute one given when you fall off a flying mount, now make you fall straight down as was originally intended. - Fixed a bug with the way the guild description was word wrapping in the Guilds LFM tab of the social window. The description of the guild you have selected should be properly displayed now. CODING - Fixed some issues the Chat and the new spam filtering. Lifebane VGNecro.com Wildfires impact Vanguard.... the druids must be sad. by lifebane 2007-10-26 · california, offices, vanguard, wildfires Greetings fellow necromancers of Telon. On the off chance that you were not already aware of this fact, the main offices of Vanguard out in California have been having issues with those pesky wildfires out there. Their area had to evacuated as I understand it so this obviously means that there is no customer support, updates, etc going on right now. This is their official last official update on it: "Limited Technical, In-Game and Account SupportIn-Game support is in limited operation due to wildfires in the San Diego area, but response time may be delayed. Account and Technical Support is unavailable. We will keep you updated with any changes in the situation and appreciate your understanding. For your convenience our Self-help knowledgebase is also available at www.station.sony.com/kb with answers to your questions. E-mail support is also available any time at www.station.sony.com/kb." Lifebane VGNecroom Graft updates galore! by lifebane 2007-11-03 · grafts, guides, new-grafts, notleh, updates Greetings fellow necromancers. Recently we managed to resurrect Notleh from the land of the deceased and he has returned with much enthusiasm over the new grafts. So much was his enthusiasm that he went and built out his previous extensive graft list to include all of the new grafts since his departure. We have since updated the Graft Depository with all of his new information to make it complete once more. Notleh will likely not leave well enough alone and toss around his previous graft guide as well since much has changed and he has also learned more since that time. Keep an eye out for updates on that project. Thanks for the contribution Notleh and welcome back! Lifebane VGNecro.com Guide to Attuning to the Core in Nusibe Necropolis by lifebane 2007-11-04 · blade, core-of-hekketat, hilt, nusibe-necropolis, penetrating-the-core Greetings fellow defilers of the not so living anymore. Have you been frequenting Nusibe Necropolis? Chasing down the ever elusive Skin of the Xakrin perhaps? Well then, perhaps you might save yourself some of the looooong path of carnage it takes to get down to the Godking by taking the shortcut directly to the Core from outside of the Necropolis. Sounds groovy no? Okay then, here is what you need to do!! Head down to Lord Neferset's room (that being the floating skull in the sparkly light show within Nusibe) Once you are there, check the ground just north of Lord Neferset over by the ramp, you are looking for a skeleton on the ground. You will find a quest starter item called "Dried Moldy Note". Right clicking the note will produce the following quest text and start you on your way: Penetrating The Core Description: It appears to be a journal entry. It reads, "After deciphering the glyphs on the pillar at the entrance, I have decided to venture into the City of the Dead. I go alone, as Nekah and Forlen have both abandoned me and this journey. Perhaps they just quit, or fled out of fear?" "Either way, I am not afraid. I must find the blade and hilt from the warrior halls. Surely one of those undead will have them. When the two pieces combine together, I will stab the Blade of Hekketat into the core...and pray." Objectives Find the blade and the hilt from the dead in the warrior halls. Somehow combine them to create the Blade of Hekketat. Find the core, and stab the blade into it. * Blade of Hekketat Created * Stab Blade Into The Core On to the Warrior Halls: From Neferset's room, heading northwest will lead you in the direction you want to go. On the way down the stairs you will get the Hall of the Warrior or whatever text announcing you have arrived. Now kill and kill and kill untl you find the blade and the hilt. and Once you have both parts, click on one and they will combine themselves into the new and improved Blade of Hekketat. Now return to Neferset's room and head to the Core! To the Core: From Neferset's room, head west, once past the stairs take the first right. Continue west, and note, the mobs in that room are not aggressive but will assist any mob that you may fight in the room, aka.. DO NOT fight in that room! Go west down the stairs, Ta-da, the core of Hekketat! The obelisk thingy in the middle is the core. Stab the core with your spiffy new Blade of Hekketat by clicking on the obelisk... it will psyche you out.. be prepared hehe. sometimes it teleports you out, sometimes it doesn't if reports can be believed. At the very least expect to read this Quest text: WTF! yes I know... a bit confusing. Why did I just do all this running around?! Well the answer is quite simple, from now on instead of fighting your way through all of those mobs, you can simply use the mini obelisk at the entrance of Nusibe (just past the skele horse guardians outside) and you will be instantly teleported down to the core where you had stabbed the blade into. If you happen to be a summoning class people will love you long time for this since you can teleport down and summon the rest of the group past that unnecessary killing spree. Congrats! You are officially attuned to the core... that just sounds so World of Warcraft doesn't it?!? Lifebane VGNecro.com Comments (1) Updated info on the Necro Armor set for APW by lifebane 2007-11-19 · apw, armor, necro-armor-set, necromancer, screenshot Greetings fellow necromancers of Telon, yes all of the ones that were dreading the thought of wearing the Friar Tuck Brown colored armor set from APW. I bring most pleasing news from the devs. Apparently our mutterings and grumblings regarding the state of the armor have been heard and they have made some changes to the armor set. The changes are not yet "live" on test yet, but they have been made to the internal development servers. Here is the Quote: "'I have recently added spell accuracy to the necro set, as well as adjusted the points from vit to con/hp. I’m not quite sure when this will hit test yet. The color of the armor is black and grey, and always has been. The screenshot the other player posted was in a zone with a red sky and therefore, did the real colors no justice" The comments about the color of the armor are great to hear since the initial reaction to screen shots taken were horror and dismay at the friar robe concept. But here we have a new screen shot of that same armor set, but in a normal lighting situation. Lifebane VGNecro.com Comments (2) New VGNecro.com Moderator! buterflyeffect! by lifebane 2007-11-22 · buterflyeffect, moderator, staff, vgnecro-com Greetings fellow necromancers on this most festive day of slaying and devouring turkey flesh. I wanted to take a moment to announce that VGNecro.com has enslaved a new necro to be a moderator... buterflyeffect has graciously accepted his fate and is now officially a moderator here. As you have probably seen, he is very active on the forums and gets involved in discussions offering help and advice. Great guy to have moderating and participating in the community. Welcome to the freaky VGNecro.com crew buterflyeffect! Lifebane VGNecro.com Comments (1) Just in time for the Holidays - VGNecro Gear! OMG! by lifebane 2007-11-25 · donations, vgnecro-gear, vgnecro-shop, vgnecro-store Greetings fellow necromancers. It would seem that there is now a way to drag your Vanguard Necromancer addiction out beyond the boundaries of Telon and into the real world. Yes dark brothers and sisters, VGNecro Gear is finally here! This was intended to have been a quick follow up to the logo contest which unfortunately took much longer than anticipated due to problems with source files, DPI, legal permissions and the like. But at last our store of slightly overpriced necro gear has risen from the grave! The items are marked up so that each item that is purchased is donating some funds to the site to cover the various fees associated with running this community. Obviously there is no obligation but it seemed like a fair way to let people help out without having nothing to show for their "donation". You can find the VGNecro Store HERE. Here are a couple samples of things one might find there: Enjoy and err... Happy Cyber Monday hehe! Lifebane VGNecro.com Comments (2) Ellyra says come back!! by lifebane 2007-12-21 · come-back, ellyra, free-month, win-back-for-the-holidays Greetings fellow defilers of the recently deceased. It would seem as though SOE wishes to let those that left Telon a couple months or more ago come back and try out the world as it is now with the various changes which SOE has done to the Game. While obviously a smart move from a marketing perspective, I still await something more compelling to get more players in, Free Trials to new players rather than just old ones for example. Ah well, what do I know... I am but a lowly corpse fondling necromancer. Here is Ellyra's message as seen in the email that went out recently: " Hello! If you were not already aware, Vanguard has just begun a win-back for the holiday season, inviting all players who have been inactive for over 60 days, to come back and experience the world of Telon in a whole new way! We’ve reactivated loads of accounts, and look forward to showing off what a great game Vanguard has become! Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is giving the gift of gaming this holiday season! If you think you’ve experience all the world of Telon has to offer, think again. Better yet, play again, this time on us! Beginning on Tuesday, December 18th, all Vanguard accounts that have been inactive for more than 60 days will be reactivated until the New Year (January 20th)! The world of Telon is alive with the Festival of Gloriann! Towns are adorned with festive decorations and wintery cheer. Keeping with the spirit of giving, players can collect numerous gifts, sweet treats, and rewards – including Randolph, the reindeer mount which anyone can acquire and use to fly through the skies during the holiday season. In addition to the holiday content, log in and experience Vanguard’s premier raiding dungeon, Ancient Port Warehouse, which was part of the highly anticipated Game Update 3 that brought numerous bug fixes, performance increases, as well as exciting and challenging new quests for adventurers. Happy Holidays and safe travels in Telon, from the Vanguard Team! Best wishes, Julie "Ellyra" Burness Vanguard Community Representative Sony Online Entertainment LLC" Lifebane Vanguard Necromancer Class Lead www.vgnecro.com Character Transfers not quite done by lifebane 2008-01-12 · character-transfers, delayed, ellyra, moves Greetings fellow necros of Telon. If you were one of the unfortunate ones who thought that your character transfer had been botched or forgotten, never fear. It would seem as though the folks over at SOE simply fell behind schedule a tad, expect the moves to continue this coming week. Ellyra had this comment to say regarding the moves: "Due to an increased amount of requests, we were unable to move all characters that were in the transfer queue this week. We will be continuing character server moves on Tuesday, January 15th with the weekly server restart to ensure that everyone who requested a move will be transferred" Lifebane vgnecro.com We want the faqs and nothing but the faqs! by lifebane 2008-01-12 · butterfly, faq, forum, guides Greetings and salutations evil ones. I thought it appropriate and in the best interest of everyone that frequents this site to know about a growing new portion of the community, the F.A.Q. Forum. Now this is not our typical forum, it has some funky settings to mitigate some potential problems that could arise. As such only Mods and Admin can post new topics there. Community members can reply though and participate in any polls that may be tossed out. Butterfly has been hard at work coming up with clearer ways of explaining some frequent necro specific questions and doing a fine job of it too if I may say so. Go browse the new F.A.Q. Forum and toss Butterfly some feedback or requests, Butterfly needs stuff to do!!! Butterfly's F.A.Q. Forum! Lifebane VGnecro.com Comments (1) It's our turn now! by lifebane 2008-01-19 · avair, fixes, our-turn, taliskar, tweaks Hello once more my fellow corruptors of the living and defilers of the dead. It is with some enthusiasm that I share the news that it is finally our turn. Other classes have been seeing their issues, bugs, and power disparity levels adjusted in recent months while rarely has a single necromancer related item been addressed during those same months. Taliskar has told me that this is now "our" turn and has tasked our Dev buddy Avair with compiling wish lists and ability fixes and tweaks that we woudl like to see as well as the ones that are in need of bug fixes. The feedback requested was in two categories, one was for suggestions on "fun" changes for the class. Things that would add more of a necromancer feel to the class without adding any level of power to our class. This has been an ongoing discussion within this thread for some time now. The other category was for class specific tweaks to our abilities that woudl make our abilities more desirable as well as fix minor problems such as stacking conflicts and the like. This is being discussed within this thread. Since these talks began, the pet chunking bug has been addressed (crossing fingers on it being a final fix) as well as the soul blight and wraith plaguebringer minion debuff conflicts. Other items have been submitted already and the devs have been directed to review the bug-o-matic for more tweak friendly bug fixes. Let's make sure we give Avair and Taliskar as much useful feedback and suggestions as we can for this round of tweaks and fixes. Lifebane VGNecro.com Comments (1) Pet Zoning bug fixed!! by lifebane 2008-01-19 · darrin, fixed, pet-zone-bug, taiskar Greetings fellow necromancers of Telon. I have been in contact with the great and mighty Taliskar (aka SOE Dev) regarding our class and our issues. He gave me an update that was to say the least newsworthy. We are all very familiar with the problems out poor abominations have once we cross a chunk, evac, etc. They basically turn into erratic, disobedient, and dare I call it stupid minions that are no longer under our control. Well evil friends, Taliskar says that this has finally been fixed. The fix is currently only on the internal servers and has not yet made it to the test server environment. Let's cross our fingers and see what it looks like on test when it gets there. This is a quick snippet from my conversation with Taliskar that revealed this potentially great news! lifebane says (2:48 PM): omg fix pathing, the zone then pet gets retarded thing. Talisker says (2:48 PM): oh Talisker says (2:48 PM): that was fixed! Talisker says (2:48 PM): next big patch Lifebane says (2:48 PM): now THAT is news Talisker says (2:48 PM): Just fixed a few days ago Lifebane VGNecro.com Vanguard Patch Notes 1/24/2008 by lifebane 2008-01-24 · fixes, patch-notes, updates GENERAL - Fixed the rating display issues for Ammo. Ammo also no longer shows its min and max range values as being adjusted. - The Crafting and Diplomacy quest in progress bangs will now be displayed instead of the adventuring in progress quest bang as appropriate. - Fixed an issue with the spam filter and the regional channels, so spam will now be labeled as such for these channels. - Fixed several dozen typos and grammatical errors. - You no longer take falling damage while mounted on a flying mount. ADVENTURING - Cleric - Fixed a bug causing Strike Down not to stack with Speed of Ghalnn. - Cleric - Speed of Ghalnn no longer incurs global recovery - Necromancer - Added a line of text to the description of Despoiling Blight to indicate that the ability can only be active on one target at a time. This restriction has always been there, but it was never indicated. - Rogue - Drub now costs 8 endurance CRAFTING - All Gawrut Kern NPCs have been moved closer to the crafting area. - Korma Rett at the Tawar Galan crafting area now offers recipe training. - Kenta at the Tawar Galan crafting area now sells crafting equipment as well as utilities. WORLD POPULATION - Ancient Port Warehouse - Akym's Dagger is now displaying as a heroic instead of legendary weapon. In addition the damage and delay have both been increased slightly. Otherwise the stats remain relatively unchanged. - Ancient Port Warehouse - Ancient Eyelords will now aggro players from a further distance. - Ancient Port Warehouse - Zaygius will now drop a mold and a drop from his unique loot table instead of two drops from his unique loot table. - Ancient Port Warehouse - Malfunctioning Maintenance Spark is now hits slightly harder, has slightly more hp, and no longer drops ore or shadow diamonds. - Ancient Port Warehouse - The Prime Warden of Nusibe has the appropriate corpse despawn timer for a raid boss while loot remains on the corpse. - Ancient Port Warehouse - I-99 Shiver's Rune of Cold ability now has a root effect. - Ancient Port Warehouse - Zaraax's Infernal Gasp is now the proper spell type. - Ancient Port Warehouse - Core Processor: Fixed an issue that was causing the chunk to crash. - Pantheon of the Ancients - Pantheon Sentry now sees through stealth. - Quests - Players on the quest ‘Collect Samples of Ore for Donovan' will now be able to get the necessary quest drops. - Quests - A Call to Arms: Fixed an issue where all waves could be kited around until the final boss appears. - Quests - Bounty Hunt: The Groundserpent: Racfir Gravna will no longer escort you and will give you a location in your journal. - Quests - Collect Samples of Ore for Donovan: The axe now drops again from the Infineum miners/thralls. - Quests - Coming of the Wyrmtide: Fixed an issue where the agro NPC's would attack players that clicked on the war machines. The wyrms will now keep them busy. - Quests - Hunter's League Bounty: Velthezok Skawlra: The drop rate on the blue, red & yellow masks have been increased. The boss will now drop heads for everyone in the group. - Quests - Monster of Miles: Killing Mountain Mercenaries and Mountain Raiders will now update the quest. - Quests - Poison Supply (Part 7): Players will now lose their existing pet when thy use the charm potion. - Quests - Poison Supply (Part : The withered treebark will drop off the Aged Tree Bark again. - Quests - Raiding the Tombs: Fixed an issue where you could complete the quest without the hilt. - Quests - Stolen Treasures: Bladesinger Soalas will now offer the quest again if you declined the first time. - Quests - The Great Catch of '36: The travel journal location of Brock Stonefist has been corrected - Quests - URT: Cleansing the Crazed: You will no longer be able to click the URT Soul Render repeatedly on the same NPC. - Tar Janashir - Telquo Danas and Kurru will now offer normal vendor services. - Trickster's Haven - Call of the Hero will now work within the dungeon. ITEMS - Ring of Inhibition: Activating the ability will no longer take players out of stealth. - Cloak of the Pantheon is now unique. Lifebane VGNecro.com And some said it wouldn't last this long... by lifebane 2008-01-26 · anniversary, birthday, vanguard A couple short days away from saying "Happy Birthday Vanguard!" Many skeptics never thought the game would last this long based on the rocky start it had. Yet here it is, patches and fixes slowly churning their way out.. I did say slowly right? Raids added and housing fixed for the most part. Now if only they'd get those flying mounts in game though, then I'd call it major progress!! There are also rumors buzzing around saying that the trial island for new players is nearing completion.,, that should help out player populations when it happens. Is there more to be fixed? Most definitely! But in all fairness, the folks over at Vanguard have had a year of turmoil and insecurity where many friends and co-workers were let go from the company and the remaining ones no doubt worried for quite some time if they'd be following. Toss in the acquisition of Sigil by SOE and the corporate culture shock that ensued and you have a real roller coaster of a year. Despite these stressful complications and with the much smaller crew they still managed to contiue to improve the game. To the Vanguard team I'd like to say thanks for your efforts and for a job well done despite adversity! Don't get too big headed though.. better yet, quit wasting time reading this.. go code more stuff! Where is my flying gnome pulled chariot! Get busy! chop chop! Oh yes, this was posted on SOE"s official Vanguard site, a few little perks heading our way for the Anniversary it seems. Yay gifts! "On January 30th, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is celebrating its one year anniversary! For those of you who have been traveling the world of Telon, you'll be in for a special treat! All players will be able to choose one of three bags, representing each sphere of the game. Choose wisely, as you will only be able to claim a single bag per account. Avarem's Messenger Bag This is the bag of Avarem, famed messenger of Telon. His swift feet made him a legend in the realm of delivery. Equipping this bag will increase your run speed. Silius' Enchanted Utility Pouch A bag used by the master crafter Silius. Said to be a sadist, Silius' insatiable hunger for crafting made him a legend in the world of Telon. Some even say this bag is made from the skin of crafters which is why it seems to enhance the base attributes of the person wearing it. Equipping this pouch will increase your crafting attributes. Jansan's Valise of Ages This valise was used by the great diplomat known as Jansan. His accomplishments have been lost in the winds and nowadays are nothing more than fairy tales told to aspiring diplomats. Of these stories there is one about a valise that granted him great presence and held an endless amount of information. Equipping this valise will grant you 40 presence. We're also working on the first of many veteran rewards which will be making their way into the game soon. Players will be granted a special title in addition to other gifts that will be available to claim. These veteran rewards will remain in the game, so if you haven't quite reached a mark yet, you'll still be able to claim them when you do! Cake will also be on hand so that everyone can help celebrate Vanguard's one year anniversary! We can't thank the players enough for making the world of Telon what it is today. Your dedication and contributions to the game and its community are invaluable. We look forward to many more years of fun and excitement!" Lifebane VGNecro.com Hotfix Notes January / 25 / 2008 by lifebane 2008-01-26 · changes, fixes, patch, update Hotfix Notes January / 25 / 2008 GENERAL - Fixed a bug with swimming. You should now swim smoothly along the surface of the water instead of hopping along it. - Illusions now persist across chunk boundaries. - Fixed a pet pathing bug that would cause pets to run off into the distance repeatedly until despawned. - Fixed some falling through the world issues. - Fixed a bug with the Social window's dungeon list where it was not being updated enough. It now updates every 60 seconds, every time a player chunks, and every time a player moves to a new location within a chunk. - More fixes for network lag / server performance issues, especially in areas where there are a lot of players. - More client and server crash fixes. - You are now able to use the mailbox after browsing a market and closing the market window with the X button. - Custom pet names now persist correctly. - Combat text will now display in the correct order. i.e The slain message will appear last. - Looting your tombstone will no longer give you refund points. - You will no longer see a loot window when looting an NPC if they only have coin. You will just receive the coin immediately. ADVENTURING - All group and raid targeted spells should now affect pets in addition to the group members. This does not apply to bard songs. CRAFTING - Fixed some bugs with the assembly recipe list. You should no longer have to log out to get new recipes to show up in the list. ITEMS - You are no longer able to sell NO RENT items. - Items in the harvesting window no longer show misc wrong information about the item. - Items with +presence now properly update your presence stat when equipping and unequiping them multiple times. - Items with right click abilities that have long refresh times will no longer appear to have the cool down for all characters until you log out. Right click cool downs are only per character. Lifebane VGNecro.com Hotfix Notes January / 31 / 2008 by lifebane 2008-01-31 · anniversary-gift, patch, updates Hotfix Notes January / 31 / 2008 GENERAL - /claim will now give players the choice of one of three special anniversary bags. Enjoy! - Fix for Lull spells not working. - Fix for invis spells not fading when clicked off. - Patched in several art assets for later use, which is why this patch may seem a little larger in size than usual ADVENTURING - Bards – Fixed a bug that was making songs stack incorrectly with songs played by other bards DIPLOMACY - Diplomacy mask creation should now function properly. Newer diplomats should now have the masks showing up in their assembly lists. In addition, mask assembly tables should now be showing up next to the lapidarians in each city (Ahgram, New Targonor, Tanvu). WORLD POPULATION - Ancient Port Warehouse: Core Processor: The Assault Module and Defense Matrix have had their HP increased. The Core’s HP has not been touched. - Ancient Port Warehouse: Core Processor: Additional saw blade traps have been added. Beware! - Ancient Port Warehouse: Core Processor: Fixed yet another issue that was causing chunk crashes at the beginning and end of the fight. - Ancient Port Warehouse: Kotasoth: Fixed an issue with his venom breath not following the rules with players who had Hopton’s Sigil. - Quest: Collect Samples of Ore for Donovan: Fixed issue where clicking the infineum ore deposits would not work. CODING - Fix for a crash related to AoE buffs, raids, and pets - Fixed a bug that was messing up macros with apostrophes in them. Lifebane VGNecro.com Vanguard Patch March / 18 / 2008 by lifebane 2008-03-18 · changes, fixes, patch, update GENERAL - Fixed an issue with raid buffs being stripped when they should not be. ADVENTURING - Druid - Fix for an issue where druids could summon infinite pets. DIPLOMACY - Fixed diplomacy refresh timers, which were becoming bugged under certain circumstances. CODING - Made it so that you can attempt to use reactions even if the game thinks the target is out of range due to latency. These attempts will cancel any other active chains/counters. - Fixed a bug that was causing rescues to become unavailable (“Sorry it appears that reaction has timed out”) after your defensive target died. - Fixed a bug where some non-rescue abilities were being treated as rescues when certain other abilities were used, such as the monk ability “Errant Strikes.” - Lowered the volume on the RockGolem walk sound, and attached it to the footsteps volume slider as well. - Increased the default turn rate and mouse look rate. Settings slider still modifies this as per normal. Vanguard Wants YOUR Vote! -- Oh do they now? by lifebane 2008-03-23 · community-relations-team, vanguard, vote Greetings fellow necromancers of Telon. It woudl seem that amidst all of our disgruntled grumblings about recent changes and breakages to our class we as part of the overall community have been asked to go Vote for Vanguard! Basically the SOE Community Relations Team wants people to vote to see which game they play on any particular Friday. Currently they are asking for votes for where they will play on Friday the 28th. I think perhaps we should all go and vote, of course with an additional note in HUGE font that says Play on Vanguard and PLAY A NECRO! Perhaps then they might get a feel for all the messed up broke DPS funkiness we are dealing with right now. I think Ill go vote and be the first o toss out the Necro request :) The original article was as follows: "It's time yet again for the players to decide where the SOE Community Team will spend their Friday play time! At the end of every week, the members of the SOE Community Relations team get together in a game of the community's choosing. Last week, Star Wars Galaxies emerged as the winner, and has since received immunity from this week's poll. Vanguard has one of the most passionate player bases out there, so let's show them (via our vote) just how much we love our game!" You can vote on the forums within this post: http://forums.station.sony.com/station/posts/list.m?topic_id=11500008863 Lifebane VGNecro.com Comments (2) April 1st Maintenance..we hope. by lifebane 2008-03-31 · downtime, maintenance, servers Greetings fellow necros out there enjoying the Spring break from the human education slave drivers. The powers that be have decided to grace your April 1st date with a chunk of server downtime in the wee hours of the night. Hopefully this is only a server tweak and not a new introduction of bugs. One can only hope. "Beginning at 4am PDT/11am GMT on April 1, 2008 all game servers and community sites with be unavailable due to network maintenance. We expect this maintenance to take approximately 5 hours. We apologize for this interruption and will resume all game servers and community sites as soon as the maintenance is completed." Lifebane VGNecro.com Vanguard Patch Notes 3/26/08 by lifebane 2008-03-31 · changes, fixes, patch, updates GENERAL - A new riftstone has come back into phase in Tanvu - Added a point for a Tanvu Riftway to the Riftway window. - Fixed the issue where you would be dismounted if you mouse over your flying mount item in your inventory. - Problems with many sunken, floating, or clipping housing plots have been fixed. CRAFTING - Text errors in crafting specialization quests have been fixed. WORLD POPULATION - Coastal Graveyard - Siren's Rock has been lowered to a 2dot camp. - Cragwing Ridge - Big Dumb Brutes: Fixed an issue with not being able to mount the griffon - Nerkawl - Nerksawl's Rage has been slightly increased as he loses his temper with greedy adventurers. - Quests - Forest Enchanted Gauntlets now displays the correct number of Warped Wind Essences required - Quests - Forest Enchanted Pauldrons now shows the correct item name - Quests - Word on the Street now offers a compass location to the main NPC. - Quests - Above The Law: The tank reward for the quest has been slightly adjusted. - Quests - Living Sand Samples now displays the correct number of Sand Samples required - Quests - The Summoning: Jewel from an Ancient Relic will now be removed from your inventory if you abandon the quest. - Quests - To The Test Site: NPC Melkov Ullosa is now refered as a male instead of female in the quest log - Quests - Immunity Potion: The location for Mineralogist Acadd has been corrected - Quests - Black Wyvern Down (Part 2): Quest will no longer update until you have looted Ragged Manual of Toxins - Quests - Black Wyvern Down (Part 4): The correct NPC now spawns when clicking the censer - Quests - Satchel of Food now offers the correct quest when clicked - Quests - Mantidae Forged Gauntlets now lists the correct amount of Warped Wind Essences required - Quests - Deadly Tails: The amount of coin and exp rewarded on the repeatable version of this quest has been reduced. - Quests - Bugbear Jewels: Uncut Rage Rubies now drop properly. - Quests - Using the Weapon has been labeled as a group quest, from solo. - Quests - By Night: This quest has been temporarily removed from the quest giver NPC. - Quests - Griffons of a Feather Ch. 5: Creepy Cadavers: Chat's Broken Vessel works properly now. - Quests - Grielken's Treats: The required objectives have been reduced. - Tanvu - Ra'Jin Stronghold has been retuned to better fit a solo/duo dungeon. - Tanvu - Spawn of Kojuko has been lowered in difficulty. CODING - Fixed a couple common client crashes that appeared in GU4. - Fixed the sound device enumeration issue. You can now select your correct sound device. Lifebane VGNecro.com Vanguard Patch Notes 4/1/2008 by lifebane 2008-04-06 · fixes, patch, update Vanguard Build 2006 Patch Notes 4/1/2008 GENERAL - Adventuring and crafting assigner NPCs will now allow you to refund your attribute points. DIPLOMACY - Rakhashan diplomacy gear has been returned to Merchant presence. The Vol Tuniel set still has Crafting presence. Previously, both sets were unintentionally set to Crafting presence. - The Speaker's Mantle now fits in diplomacy containers. - The Qalian prestige altar has moved from under the water to a nearby cliff. WORLD POPULATION - Ancient Port Warehouse - Core Processor: The amount of saw traps activated at a time has been reduced - Ancient Port Warehouse - Core Processor: Both the Assault Matrix and Defense Module have had their HP reduced. - NPCs - Naranda The Grotesque: Fixed an issue with Breath of Redemption not being dispersible. CODING - Fixed issue where quests that were giving too much exp when using experience potions and other experience buffs now cap the experience reward correctly instead of giving zero experience. - Fixed many client crashes Lifebane VGNecro.com Another Chance to Switch Servers! by lifebane 2008-05-08 · character-move, server-merge, transfer It seems that our friends over at SOE have decided to allow our PvPbrothers and sisters a chance to move servers again before the merger. Now everyone and anyone can move if they choose to. fun fun. Here is what was written over at the Official SOE Site. "We recently announced that there would be two more (and final) opportunities for eligible players to transfer servers. We're relaxing the rules a little bit and are now allowing anyone to request a transfer to a PvE server! Character creation before the server merge is no longer a requirement. If you have moved before, you are welcome to move again! This is the perfect time to get your friends back in the game and on your server! The first move is scheduled to take place on Tuesday, May 13 th . The second will come sometime the following week. Still keep in mind: You should pack up all broker items, collect all tombstones, and collect any items inside your house. You do not need to tear down your house. You cannot move to Sartok, but are free to move to any other server. If you would like to take advantage of this server transfer, please /petition in game and include the names of all the characters on your account you would like moved, and the server you want them to be transferred to." Lifebane VGNecro.com House of Commons and General State of Affairs by lifebane 2008-06-27 · coming-soon, developera, houae-of-commons Greetings all, I wanted to take a moment to spread the news about the recent House of Commons. If there can be belief in what they say then we can expect to see quite a bir of changes in Vanguard in the next couple months. Obviously too long for many players but at least there are some short term plans for the game. This is what was posted over on the Official SOE Site: "Last night we had the pleasure of participating in a House of Commons chat hosted by the folks at Stratics! There was a nice turn out, with plenty of great questions asked! If you missed it, worry not – here's a small highlight of the evening's chat! Phathom, Silius, Glip, Tiraslee and Ellyra were all on hand to field questions from players for well over an hour. Things got off to a great start with Anon5387 asking when we'll be able to see a tiny sample of the new character models? Phathom jumped right in, and revealed that we'll be giving Fan Faire attendees the first real glimpse! "We are done with our Male models and wrapping up the next couple of weeks working on the Female models. We will be unveiling both models at the Fan Faire in Las Vegas August 14 through 17. We'll be giving a sneak peak to the players that show up that weekend and will follow up with them going live within the next couple weeks after." Thund, guildleader of BoTS on the Xeth server, spoke up for raiders when asking about the progress on Pantheon and the possibility of other dungeons for high-end players. Silius was happy to announce that work on Pantheon is coming along nicely. "[The] group portion is already populated and we are working out some of the unique abilities for the base pop right now. The raid dungeon is still be worked on by art and we are in the planning stages for its layout." He hinted that there are plans for future dungeons, but stated that the Nexus is the only one he's willing to talk about publically for now. Those who keep a close eye on the Community know that Vanguard has been receiving a well deserved burst of attention lately. Kanthar was curious about how this "second coming" has affected the team? Pathom joked that those around the office who could swagger were definitely walking around with a much stronger stride! "It has been awesome to see all of the players returning… Seriously though, things are looking great from the feedback we have been receiving lately." In a grand-finale of chatting, everyone on the Vanguard team had a chance to answer the question that asked, "If you could add any feature you want to vanguard right now, what would it be?" You can check out the answer to that question, and view the entire chat transcript over at Stratics!" Play for FREE~ Wowzer! by lifebane 2008-06-29 · come-back, free-game-time, free-mount http://vgplayers.station.sony.com/newsArchive.vm?id=614&section=News Our buddies over at SOE have extended a hand out to new and old players alike by offering them the gift of FREE game time and even a free mount. Here is their post over on the official SOE Site. "Those of you who have opted to receive newsletters and promotions from SOE may already be experiencing glee over the recent announcement that Vanguard is welcoming players back to the game, and letting them experience first-hand all the great changes and performance enhancements that have been made! Vanguard has been experiencing some much-deserved positive buzz, which is not only the result of improvements to the game, but also a testament to our amazing community who certainly do their part to get the word out! Here's our part! FREE game time! Those who had previously played Vanguard, but cancelled over 60 days ago for whatever reason, should find their accounts reactivated from June 26 th , 2008 until July 31 st 2008. Isle of Dawn, the smaller download version of Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, should be available at the end of the Summer, but we're ready to show off our stuff now by offering some free play time and a unique mount to previous players! We haven't forgotten our existing players – not only will they have more people to group with during this period, but they will receive a special mount as well once the promotion ends! So if you have a friend that quit the game, and you're ready to bring them back and show them how great the game is now, you can send them here for all the details!" Lifebane www.VGNecro.com Rumored upcoming Necro DPS Increases by lifebane 2008-08-11 · increase, lifebane, necro-dps, patch, update k folks.... rumor has it that multiple classes are getting dps boosts, but mostly casters from what I hear. The goal for necros specifically seems to be to improve their dps in high end play only for the most part (aka Raid). How well they pull that off you will see for yourself eventually. You can check out the test server to see what is there so far but be warned, it is not all there yet so don't make any assumptions. More is supposed to be there when they get the kinks worked out. Cross your fingers my necro brothers and sisters, let's see what the SOE gods throw our way this time around. Lifebane vgnecro.com Comments (2) Upcoming changes for Vanguard by lifebane 2008-08-25 · fan-faie, isle-of-dawn, necromancer, new-character-models, pantheon-of-the-ancients Greetings all. At the recent Fan Faire in LAs Vegas, SOE proudly announced their plans for the near future as it relates to Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. Much bragging was done about accomplishments they have made so far but a fair portion was dedicated to what is in the works. This in the works material for Vanguard includes new optimizedf character models, at least one revamped dungeon (Pantheon of the Ancients, as well as the long awaited newbie trial area, Isle of Dawn. Check out the youtube video below and see for yourself what is coming soon to an MMO near you.... Lifebane VGNecro.com Vanguard: to PVP or not to PVP by lifebane 2008-08-28 · age-of-conan, pve, pvp, soe, vanguard I have been hearing quite a bit of chatter lately about Vanguard and PVP or the lack of it really. When you consider the more popular and widespread MMO's out there as well as the newer contenders stepping into the mix lately, Vanguard is hurting badly in the PVP area. I am sure that SOE managed to do some market research and based on their findings they did not choose to focus heavily on PVP upgrades enhancements. Now look at the two most recent MMO's with enough buzz to warrant mention, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures and the upcoming Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. Both of them have heavy PVP aspects and seem to be what more people are looking for lately. Yes there is still plenty room for PVE for those less bloodthirsty MMO gamers out there, but PVP was not in any way an afterthought in these game's core design. I am inclined to say that the current MMO market leans towards adding in a solid PVP experience with these games based on the many articles and the high levels of interest in the new PVP heavy releases. So the question is will SOE try to improve on their current stale PVP environment, or will they just accept the fact that they are by comparison a PVE product with minimal PVP appeal. Then again would the current player base for Vanguard even want to see more PVP? Somethign to keep a close eye on folks. Lifebane VGNecro.com Comments (2) Vanguard Game Update #6 incoming.... by lifebane 2008-09-06 · isle-of-dawn, mmowarlord-com, new-character-models, upcoming-patch, vanguard The news from the folks over at SOE is that Vanguard players can expect Game Update # as early as this coming week. What does this mean? Well the game will FINALLY have a player test / trial area so that potential new players with interest in Vanguard can try the game out for 15 days or whatever for free by playing in the upcoming Isle of Dawn Trial area. For the non new players though, this means the release of the new character models. Did Vanguard need more pretty added to it? might that time have spent on something a bit more necessary? you decide for yourself :) Either way though, it will arrive in a download patch near you very soon. Below is the original article posted by SOE over on the official sites. "As early as next week, Game Update 6 will be hitting the Live server! The final changes have been made in response to the valued player feedback, and we're just about ready to release GU6 which will include thousands of bug fixes, the long awaited character model revamp, and our highly anticipated trial version of Vanguard, Isle of Dawn ! Isle of Dawn We're introducing a brand new starting area which will showcase all the best that Vanguard has to offer. New players will be able to experience the world of Telon on a trial basis while exploring the Isle of Dawn. Existing players can choose to start their new characters in their selected Race's standard starting area, or begin their adventures on the Isle of Dawn and enjoy new content up to level 10! The Isle of Dawn was separated from the continent of Kojan during the cataclysm. A village of battle hardened humans and a band of zealot hobgoblins have warred against each other for centuries on the Isle. Their mutual hatred for one another runs deep and even now they are locked in an ongoing struggle. Recently though, increasing numbers of ulvari have begun to surface on the island – much to the dismay of both the humans and the hobgoblins. Weakened by their perpetual war, the humans aren't able to capably defend themselves. Even now, their villages burn as they frantically seek aid. The isle is in desperate need of heroes. Thousands of Bug Fixes! Putting polish on the game is an ongoing effort! Although we've always been dedicated to making Vanguard play as smoothly as possible, this Game Update you can expect to see a great number of bug fixes – over a dozen pages of patch notes, to be exact! Character Model Revamp We've given Vanguard's character models a makeover, beefing up the men while enhancing the feminine features of our females. Not only have their bodies been given a revamp, but most of the facial customization that was available at launch has returned! You'll now have dozens of ways to make your character unique in appearance, all while increasing performance! Players will also have more options when it comes to armor. Each race now comes equipped with their own unique undergarments, which will be an optional replacement to the traditional clothing that currently covers the bare models. You can head on over the Test server forums to chat about the most recent Game Update!" Lifebane VGNecro.com MMOWarlord.com Play for free.. no really, free! by lifebane 2008-10-06 · isle-of-dawn, play-for-free, promotion SOE has extended their come back for free promotion and now anyone with an account that was dormant for more than 60 days can come play until October 18th. It seems like a good chance to sneek back in and see if changes made in recent months have been enough to alter your gaming experience or not. I am tempted to pop back in just to see how that Isle of Dawn turned out after hearing abotu it for so long. Read below for the original posting over on the SOE news area. "Even More Accounts Reactivated! Due to popular demand, we have expanded the recent account reactivation promotionall that was sent out to former players who had opted-in for promotional emails. Now Vanguard accounts that have been inactive for more than 60 days have been reactivated for free play through October 18th. With the new Isle of Dawn starting area and over 1000 bug fixes in our most recent update, there's never been a better time to revisit Vanguard. If you still have Vanguard installed, just log in and start playing. If you've misplaced your disks, you can reinstall the game through Station Launcher, our simple one-click application that delivers all your Station games, friends, and community news right to your desktop. So what are you waiting for? Come back to Telon and Set Yourself Free!" FreeRealms for free? ... beta ... hrmm by lifebane 2008-11-19 · freerealms, game, new-beta, soe Well SOE is trying their hand at making their very own cartoony style game. Cartoony as in the graphics appear to be WOW-like rather than their more typical attempts at making things look more real. Did I mention this is geared towards younger players? Sound utterly annoying? interesting perhaps? Well satisfy your curiousity folks. SOE is looking for players to sign up to Beta this game. " We're super excited to announce that Sony Online Entertainment's newest game, Free Realms, is now accepting applicants for its beta testing phase! Even if you’ve seen Free Realms videos online, you haven’t seen half of what the game has to offer. Create a character, battle fierce creatures, explore a lush new world, earn great items through quests, play fun mini-games, teach your dog to dance or dress him like a ninja... and level up doing all of it! Be among the first players to experience Free Realms! So, what are you waiting for? There’s a whole new world to explore!" Click here for the signup form Here are a couple videos for you... prepare for cuteness immersion! Harvest Day still running... Eat those leftovers and get back in game! by lifebane 2008-11-28 · events, harvest-day, holiday, soe Soe still has their Harvest Day events running where you can get some fun illusion items, get a umm. bird leg, or try out one of the new raid events specific to this Harvest Day celebration. Here is the latest PR from SOE for this: "Join the Lesser Giant Halgrim family as they celebrate Harvest Day in Vanguard Saga of Heroes!* The Halgrims have opened their doors in the city of Khal to all the citizens of Telon for a Harvest Day feast like no other. Join the feast and festivities, but beware. Not everyone is happy about the ritualistic consumption of birds during Harvest Day. The Vultureman and his followers will be looking to put a stop to Harvest Day, and you may end up as the main course! Harvest Day festivites include: * Several new quests revealing the story of Harvest Day in Telon. * A new Vulture Leg weapon that can be used as food and gives you a leg up on your enemies. * Four new raid encounters (level 20, 30, 40 and 50) with delicious and deadly rewards. * Five new illusion costumes ... you won't believe your eyes! * And much more! Show your gratitude to your hosts or just celebrate the glory of the hunt when you join the Harvest Day festivities with the Halgrim family!" Fun? You tell me :) Lifebane VGNecro.com Silius on 2009 and Vangaurd by lifebane 2009-01-22 · 2009, changes, silius, update, vanguard Silius recently posted about what he sees ahead in 2009 for Vanguard. He also tossed up a poll to see what it is that the community is most interested in seeing developed in the game. You can see the original post here but I have copied over the article for your ease of reference below and also plugged in the current % breakdown by option offered in that poll. "Greetings all, Well the holidays are over and we are very busy around the office now that everyone is back. The Christmas update took a lot of work to get out and everyday we are working on bug fixes related to it and of course older bugs. 2009 looks to be a very nice year for Vanguard as we spend some time looking to our future. We spent 2008 adjusting, tweaking, and bug fixing. In that time we managed to get out some new content but not nearly the breadth of content we wanted to get out. As many of you know we have started working on a level increase and alternate advancement on top of mapping out our content for the year starting with the Pantheon. Our team has changed hear and there over the past year and we are still working some kinks out but I feel very positive about where we are headed. So with that out of the way I want to get into some details and announcements. First thing is that the Christmas update spread our team a little to thin when considering the other things we were working on. This resulted in Pantheon not getting the attention I had desired throughout November and December. After evaluating where we were I was left with two options, demand unreasonable hours from my team and push out a product that none of us would be happy with quality wise or push the update back and do a smaller update for our anniversary. I opted for number 2 because you all deserve a higher quality product and I want the team to continue to enjoy working on Vanguard as they have over the past year and some change. Does this mean we are pushing it till infinity? Not at all but I do not want to give a date as I am still getting feedback form our QA department on what is realistic for them given some other things we have to do in the background. We will continue to push things to test and ask for assistance as it really is our best tool given the sheer size of Vanguard in contrast to our team. Something else to note is that we will be updating our in the works page. No this is not a joke, and April fools is 3+ months away. I cannot apologize enough for what has happened with this page but it is an item that we will be making an effort to keep up to date. So now that I have the good/bad news out of the way I want to give you something I hope is taken as good news. When looking at our schedule and how we have to focus our team there are always going to be some things we cannot spend time on do to player demand. Part of our planning for this year we want to involve the community more. So I am going to use this time to poll the community to see where they want our minds to head. We have taken some time to try to categorize things the best we can given feedback from the forums. We are currently working on setting up some player choice updates and we would use this poll as a basis for what we would do with them. Please keep in mind that these updates have to be small updates as we have larger projects in mind. Below is a basic definition of each poll option to better help with selection. Adventuring Group revamps: ( 15%) Solo/Small group 6-Man Non Adventuring Content: ( 18%) Crafting Diplomacy Housing Fluff (Fishing, Cooking, etc.) Raid/Guild Functionality: ( 29%) Raid content Raid UI work and bug fixes Raid functionality Guild UI work and bug fixes Guild functionality PVE Balance: ( 3%) NPC AI/Difficulty Class tweaks and fixes PVP Balance ( 8%) Class tweaks and fixes No New Content, stick to bug fixes only ( 27%) Necromancer Class Update. FINALLY! by acebreus 2009-11-22 · changes, class-update, patch, vanguard This article is a little late. But better late than never! After two years of nerfs and getting pushed aside, in September 2009 necros finally got a moment in the spotlight and we took full advantage of it! http://forums.station.sony.com/vg/posts/list.m?start=0&topic_id=50370 Necromancer Changes - The following abilities no longer require an npc corpse to work: o Plague Bringer's Ritual o Ritual of the Guardian o Ritual of the Servant o Ritual of the Slayer - Level 53+ necromancers may now have up to 3 minions. - Minions will now last up to 24 hours. (Excludes Ritual Animatus) - Minions have had their HP values doubled. (Excludes Ritual Animatus) - Minions now have 75% aoe mitigation. (Excludes Ritual Animatus) - A 6 slot bag designed to hold grafts only are now for sale on the necromancer instructors around the world. Additional bags have been added to the necropsy tables for every 10 levels. - Increased the damage on the Bone Spike line. - Reduced the initial delay on the DoT portion of Bone Rail to 2 seconds. - Increased the damage slightly on the Drain Life line. - The nuke portion of Death Touch has been removed. - Death Touch now requires the npc to be below 10% health to work. - Reduced the refresh timer on Death Touch to 3 minutes, from 30 minutes. - Increased the return ratio on Life Draught to 75%. - Necros now have both Lich and Wraith forms, and may switch between them. A form switch timer of 5 seconds has been added. The Guise of Mortality forms have been renamed to fit which form they represent. Switching forms will kill all your minions. Forms cannot be switched during combat. - The necro form quests have been removed. - The minion summon abilities have been added to the trainer. - Removed the endurance costs from the forms. - Ghastly Revenge and Necrotic Clutch are now openly available without flag restrictions. With this change, they will not stack with each other on the caster. - Removed the levitation effect from the Wraith forms. In response, a new self levitation ability has been added to the trainer called Weight of the Ghost. - Increased the duration on Ritual of Necropotence to 30 minutes, from 5 minutes. - Poison Burst has been renamed to Noxious Malady. - Noxious Malady (Poison Burst) will no longer be an aoe nuke. It now is a single target nuke with a 25 second debuff to accuracy, critical hit chance and spell mitigation at the highest level. - Increased the duration on Devouring Shadows to 60 seconds, from 24 seconds. - Increased the duration on Grasp of the Grave to 60 seconds, from 36 seconds. - Increased the duration on Plague of Infestation to 60 seconds, from 24 seconds. - Increased the duration on Torment to 60 seconds, from 32 seconds. - Reduced the refresh timer on Sealed Fate to 30 seconds, from 3 minutes. - Increased the HP on the abomination by a large amount. - Necrotic Clutch now properly displays in the buffs window instead of debuffs. - Ritual of the Slayer will now summon a caster version if you are in Wraith form. - Increased the damage on the Slayer minions. - Removed the wraith version Plague Bringer’s Ritual and added its summon to the lich version. When in wraith form, clicking it will summon the wraith version. - Removed the lich version Ritual of the Servant and added its summon to the wraith version. When in lich form, clicking it will summon the lich version. - Removed both Advocate’s Ritual spells. - Vile Ritual will no longer attempt to give your abomination energy and will give it health instead. - Vile Ritual cast time has been increased to 5 seconds. - All necro pet heals now scale past level 50 up to level 55. - Increased the healing amount on Blood Rite. - The return effect on Rite of the Master has been reduced to 33%. This is due to the abominations health increased by a large amount. - Increased the damage on Detonate Corpse. Guide and spell database updates coming soon! Check out our discussion HERE Comments (1) Triple PotA Faction! by acebreus 2009-12-09 · changes, holiday, patch, pota Its been a long time waiting, but now gaining pota faction will be x3 faster than before! All +50s around Telon rejoice! Randolph has also regained his flying powers and should keep them forever! He may fly slower than molasses, but its gotta be faster than running! Catch more details below! December / 9 / 2009 General Holiday content is now active. Faction gains will now be much faster across the world. Pantheon related item drop rate has been increased. Spell components are now more common. Randolph now flies year round, but not as fast as last year. T'was the night before the festival and up in the sky, Randolph was flying without batting an eye. He has learned to store magic which is something new, This will allow him to fly the entire year through. Unfortunate however it may be, He will have to fly slower to conserve energy. In a fit of generosity Silius flew to Pantheon in no time flat, To convince the vendors there is no need to charge plat. Or gold for that matter because that is not nice, So now the sigils have been reduced in price. But this did not stop his generous actions, For Silius figured what the heck lets up the gain of faction. And so now adventurers can spend more time with their friends, Knowing that the light at the end of faction's tunnel will quickly come to an end. An oh I bet you thought he was through, No no my friends there was one more thing to do. After seeing the gripes and anger from the fans, Silius decided to alter the drop plans. So now all over the world you will see, That spell components, and echoes will drop more frequently. This he did with a grin before saying goodbye, Jumping onto Randolph, and disappearing into the sky. "Until next year I bid you good day, And from the team here we wish you all a happy holiday." http://www.vgnecro.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=27294#27294 http://forums.station.sony.com/vg/posts/list.m?topic_id=51778 http://forums.station.sony.com/vg/posts/list.m?topic_id=51745 Pach Notes 1/13/2010 by acebreus 2010-01-27 · patch Happy Anniversary Vanguard! Visit the Historian of Telon in New Targonor, Ahgram, or Tawar Galan to receive a special anniversary gift package! General Fixed a crash related to merchants. /itemuse will now work on items that are equipped. Faction costs that increased due to the increased faction gains should now be back to their normal amounts. Pets will no-longer try to attack non-attackable npcs. Abilities and items that increase your proc chance will now increase your proc on heal chance also. The /wear command now allows you to specify 2 slots if you're wearing the same item in both slots. Example: /wear "my ring" LEFTFINGER RIGHTFINGER. If you have 2 of "my ring" it will put one in each slot. /remove will now allow you to specify a slot you want to remove the item from instead of an item name. Example: You can now /remove "primary hand" to unequip your primary weapon. /equip will now search your bags for items to equip before searching your equipped inventory. This means that you can now /equip 2 items of the same name without problems. Fix for a bug that made your pet attack you if you put it in guard mode and used an ability on an NPC that couldn't fight back. Quests New Artisan Saga quests are available. Visit your crafting contacts the Banisher Commander Ashlyn Blackshield in New Targonor, Lulu Hikat in Ahgram, and Kedara the Fiend Hunter in Tawar Galan in that order and as directed. Items Many of the repair and rigging tools were using icons similar to other tools. These have been updated so the tools can be told apart at a glance. The paladin 2h epic now counts as a shield properly when checking if you can use paladin shield buffs. Players can now send housing trophies to the owner’s escrow by right clicking on it, if they have the permissions to do so. You can adjust this in the edit permissions window. Diplomacy items will no longer auto-equip into diplomacy clothing. You can still put the items there, but they won't loot into those slots on their own. UI Added exp numbers to the exp bar. You must turn them on in the interface settings to see them. Added a stats tab to the character sheet, next to attributes. Abilities Fixed a bug that was causing stealth to be removed after combat for some players. COTH Spells will work in Pantheon again. Fire Pummel now works again. Mindspys Persist through camping now. ‘Proc on Heal’ effects now work when healing someone other than yourself. Raid Fixed following issues with Karax Woefather that made the encounter trivial. Fixed issue where obsessed wraith would do nothing when spawned and was an invalid target Fixed issue where unchained acolyte would not attack and could not be targeted Fixed issue where unchained keeper would not attack and could not be targeted Fixed issue where unchained ghast would not attack and could not be targeted Fixed issue with lit panels not using abilities OMG.. can it be.. Vanguard Bug Fix Update!! by lifebane 2011-08-11 WOWZER! The dev's over at SOE working on Vanguard (yes apparently there are one or two) have released a bug patch! Read below for details! Could this be a sign of updates actually being done and coming down the pipeline for this game? Players have been waiting for a mighty long time to see something done in exchange for their monthly subscriptions. Hopefully this is the start of something good. "All Vanguard servers will be brought down Wednesday morning, 08/10/11 at 4:00 am Pacific, for updating. The estimated downtime is six hours. Vanguard Bug Fix Update Release Note: Adventuring Ichtakhta NPC’s that are not quest NPCs have had their experience enabled. Meta-Mind: Energy regeneration effect now appears on the regeneration section of the stat tab. Union of Thought: Energy regeneration effect now appears on the regeneration section of the stat tab. The Gormal the Gargantuan event can now be run multiple times with out a server reset. Warrior Order all three abilities can now be toggled as needed. Items Touch of Karax proc on The Bludgeoner now deals damage. Ini-herat the Attendant now offers Sacred Solvent to allow for additional attachments to be removed without being destroyed. Inner Light with Haelifur disciple armor has been fixed to trigger the heal proc correctly. Corrected a targeting issue with Psionicist Pantheon Tier three armor five piece bonus. Quests Fixed an issue with the Shrine of Zephyr quest where you could repeatedly get a shard by abandoning and reaccepting the quest. The MEST quest, “Arcane Research” now correctly requires the “Dark Essence of Magic”." Another Patch for Vanguard?!? by lifebane 2011-08-24 As incredible as it may seem, we have yet another bug update/patch for Vanguard! Some class specific changes this time around which is a nice change since some of these bugs have been around a looong time. Hats off to SOE for finally giving this game some much needed attention, now stay on it! All Vanguard servers will be brought down Wednesday morning, 08/24/11 at 4:00 am Pacific, for updating. The estimated downtime is six hours. Vanguard Bug Fix Update Release Notes Adventuring: Adventurers should once again be able to visit Prince Julian. Items The Vampire Femur should once again have the correct set of attachment slots. Sacred Solvent has had its price corrected. The drop rate of rare items from the Bridge of Destiny such as Rage Filled Cloak have been increased. The Arachnidon Claws should no longer miss more than other claws. Blood Mage Pellets of blood now stack up to 10 for blue, green, and red. Cleric Boom of Spirit and Replenishing Strike all ranks Refresh from 20 to 10 seconds. Added a mana regeneration proc on attack when a Cleric is in Healer’s Focus. Disciple Inner Light VI (Modified) should now correctly stack with healing modification ability such as Purity. Dread Knight Fixed an issue with DC6 that caused some abilities, such as their Pet Abilities to not be usable. Druid Druid Epic has had its cooldown lowered to 15 minutes. Starfall V has had its damage increased and is harder to resist. Deadly Swarm IV has had its damage increased. Wild Growth V has had its damage increased. Solar Flare VI has had its cooldown lowered from 8 seconds to 6 seconds. Superior Venomous Thorns is harder to resist. Warrior Savagery has been upgraded. From A brutal slicing attack that does 150% weapon damage and causes your target to bleed, taking 275 damage and adding hate over 60 seconds. To A brutal slicing attack that does 200% weapon damage and causes your target to bleed, taking 600 damage and adding hate over 60 seconds. The Warrior Epic Mainhand has had its tooltip updated to be clearer on how it works as well as an issue where it would not always work as intended fixed. The Warrior Epic Offhand will now have a 10% chance on being hit to proc a bonus of 8% block for 10 seconds. Monk Monk’s should no longer take out their aggressions on their fellow group/raid members by way of Errant Strikes – Thundering Blows. Necromancer Necromancer’s pet ability Sneer and Ghostly Acolyte mana replenishment should both be more effective. Essence Stone for the Necromancer epic should now stack to 200 as well as fit into graft bags. Paladin Epic Two Hander no longer triggers Guardian Might but instead will gain a 5% bonus to melee damage. Epic Two Hander Block lowered from 28% to 14%. This bonus is also now only available in the Aura of Shielding stance. Psionicist Meta Mind should now properly stack with other energy regeneration buffs. Rogue Upgraded the bonus damage for using daggers on as a Rogue from Dagger Expertise from 1%, 2%, 3% ,4%, 5% to 5%, 8%, 10%, 15%, 20%. Shadowblade can now crit. Shaman Acuity IV Will now grant 3% Spell Strikethrough instead of 3% Melee Strikethrough. Hayatet’s Gift of Acuity Will now grant 5% Strikethrough to both Spell and Melee. ← All guides