Vanguard NewsVanguard Sage of Heroes

Filed under: EverQuest, EverQuest II, Pirates of the Burning Sea, PlanetSide, Interviews, The Agency, Star Wars Galaxies, Vanguard, Free Realms, Legends of Norrath, DC Universe Online

Online credit card fraud is big business and even MMORPGs aren't safe from it's far reach. We recently had a chance to sit down with Executive Director of Global Customer Service, Brad Wilcox, and discuss how SOE is dealing with gold selling and power-leveling services for their games. They are taking this war so seriously that they have put all transactional business under keen gnomish scrutiny.

Can you tell us how this fraud prevention task force came to be?

Brad Wilcox: Since the inception of EQ1, we always had components of a fraud prevention team. These were game masters and individuals tasked with looking at the game economy and making sure that people weren't exploiting. Since September 2007, we started to see a big increase in fraudulent activity in regards to stolen credit cards. That is when it was decided to put a few more resources specifically related to the fraud that was happening with accounts and subs being created with these stolen credit cards. That's when we formed what we call the NUGIT team, which stands for Norrathian Underground Gnome Investigation Team. As you can tell by the name, our employees enjoy having as much fun on the back end as we do on the front end of these games

Continue reading SOE hires crime fighting gnomes to fend off credit card worms

SOE hires crime fighting gnomes to fend off credit card worms originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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What happens at Fan Faire, stays at Fan Faire

Filed under: EverQuest, EverQuest II, Pirates of the Burning Sea, PlanetSide, Events, real-world, The Agency, The Matrix Online, News items, Star Wars Galaxies, Vanguard, Everquest Online Adventures, Free Realms, DC Universe Online

Vegas, city of lights, nightlife, and SOE's Fan Faire! Sony has announced that they will once again be heading for Vegas to party down in high-rolling style. This year they'll be holding the event from June 25th to 28th at Bally's Hotel. The location they've picked is right in the middle of various Vegas attractions - although we're sure if you're there for the SOE party, you won't need to worry about that too much.

Having attended last year's Fan Faire, we can definitely say that it's a great weekend of fun and interesting panels, nice people - and this year's lineup appears to be just as interesting. So far the scheduled events include:

• Special announcements and sneak peeks of upcoming SOE titles at the Third Annual Community Address from SOE President John Smedley
• Autograph signings with members of the original EQ development team and other key contributors
• Lots of in-game tournaments; and live, game-themed competitions and quests
• Developer forums and roundtables
• Cool giveaways and other fun items!
• Player of the Year

To top it all off, prices for Vegas vacations are quite good, currently. So if you've been thinking about getting away, really dig SOE's games - or upcoming titles, and enjoy partying down with a great bunch of friendly, welcoming people, then definitely make some plans to attend this year's Fan Faire.

What happens at Fan Faire, stays at Fan Faire originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 18 Mar 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Love is in the air in Vanguard: Saga of Heroes Valentine's event

With Valentine's just around the corner, MMO gamers who are into Sony Online Entertainment's Vanguard: Saga of Heroes won't have to worry about getting their special someone a proper in-game gift that day. The developers have included some neat Valentine's Day items that people can give to their loved ones as presents.

All the major cities within Telon will be decorated with special gift wrapped packages that contain an abundance of fun Valentine's Day goodies. Players can decorate their home or Guild Halls with stuffed heart-shaped pillows or wall adornments, flowers, chocolates and gifts galore.

All of this will be available this February 12 around the cities of Tanvu, Targonor, and Ahgram. This event definitely puts the mood into the season as hopeful romantics can show off their affections with these special in-game goodies offered on Vanguard: Sage of Heroes.

Sony Online Entertainment's latest game update for Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is getting ready to hit the test servers. While we're waiting for it to show up though, the folks at SOE have announced some of the big things coming for Game Update 5.

First off, there'll be new racial mounts in the game. These range from giant spiders to rhinos, and are faction point based. This means that you can actually take the questline for acquiring a specific racial mount once you've gotten into the good graces of a particular race, though you may end up being hated by another while you're grinding for tokens.

Game Update 5 also hosts some fixes for performance and overall coolness. These fixes include a new anti-hitching code that should increase performance, as well as some improved particle effects for certain classes.

Lastly, specific classes have gotten themselves some attention from the devs. We'll let SOE explain that one:

This update we have given significant attention to three more classes. Blood Mages, Psionicists and Sorcerers have all received a lot of developer attention. Abilities that may have been broken before have been fixed, spells have been tweaked and upgraded or updated and all three classes should be more in line with their intended vision in terms of power and utility. Specific tweaks and updates will be listed in the patch notes.

Good news, right? Expect to see some very happy players once the game update hits the test servers. In the meantime, feel free to check the source link below for more information.

Yummy Vanguard Screenshots
See More Vanguard Saga of Heroes Screenshot at IGN.comSee More Vanguard Saga of Heroes Screenshot at IGN.comSee More Vanguard Saga of Heroes…

Some of you may recognize the image above as a close depiction of the famous artwork entitled "Construction Workers Take a Lunch Break on a Steel Beam Atop the RCA Building at Rockefeller Center".

However, what happens when art aficionados playing Sony Online Entertainment's Vanguard: Saga of Heroes decide to add a little culture into their online gaming? The result would probably look something like the screenshot below, taken by team spirit guild member Torkyn of the Halgar server.

The image was featured as the screenshot of the week on the VGPlayers website and provided a rather amusing look at the game. Anyway, that's it for today's update on Vanguard. We hope you come back again to this spot for more updates regarding SOE's premiere fantasy MMO title.

Sony Online Entertainment's latest game update for Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is getting ready to hit the test servers. While we're waiting for it to show up though, the folks at SOE have announced some of the big things coming for Game Update 5.

First off, there'll be new racial mounts in the game. These range from giant spiders to rhinos, and are faction point based. This means that you can actually take the questline for acquiring a specific racial mount once you've gotten into the good graces of a particular race, though you may end up being hated by another while you're grinding for tokens.

Game Update 5 also hosts some fixes for performance and overall coolness. These fixes include a new anti-hitching code that should increase performance, as well as some improved particle effects for certain classes.

Lastly, specific classes have gotten themselves some attention from the devs. We'll let SOE explain that one:

This update we have given significant attention to three more classes. Blood Mages, Psionicists and Sorcerers have all received a lot of developer attention. Abilities that may have been broken before have been fixed, spells have been tweaked and upgraded or updated and all three classes should be more in line with their intended vision in terms of power and utility. Specific tweaks and updates will be listed in the patch notes.

Good news, right? Expect to see some very happy players once the game update hits the test servers. In the meantime, feel free to check the source link below for more information.

SOE brings real money transactions to Vanguard [Updated]

Filed under: Fantasy, EverQuest II, Business models, MMO industry, Making money, News items, Vanguard

Yesterday Joel "Raijinn" Sasaki announced on the official Vanguard forums that players will soon be able to use Live Gamer Exchange to sell their virtual items for money in the real world. Sony Online Entertainment, the developer behind Vanguard, already works with Live Gamer on EverQuest 2 to provide users a way to trade their in-game loot for cash in the real world.

The ethics of RMT aside, the addition of Live Gamer to Vanguard gives players interested in participating in the service a sanctioned, safer means of doing virtual-to-real-world business, forcing the deals through official channels rather than leaving players at the mercy of eBay, PayPal and other third-party sites to resolve disputes.

Live Gamer's pending arrival in Vanguard has been announced a little over a month after John Smedley, President of SOE, said in an interview with Virtual Goods News that the RMT service wouldn't make an appearance in the game. We reached out to SOE for clarification yesterday but as of this writing have not received a response.

[Thanks, Chris!]

EDIT: We were contacted by Mr. Smedley after this article went live to clarify that in the interview he gave last month he said that StationCash wouldn't make it into Vanguard, not that no RMT service would ever appear in the game.

SOE brings real money transactions to Vanguard [Updated] originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 13 Mar 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: EverQuest, EverQuest II, PlanetSide, Events, real-world, The Agency, The Matrix Online, Vanguard, Everquest Online Adventures, Free Realms, Legends of Norrath, DC Universe Online

Looks like things over at Sony Online Entertainment are really gearing up for this year's Fan Faire in Las Vegas. Sure, you know something big has to be coming because it's the 10th anniversary of EverQuest this year, but to sweeten the deal SOE is looking for player input. Did you hate that you didn't have enough time for Q&A on your favorite SOE title last year? Would you have preferred to hear John Smedley sing something other than Guns & Roses at karaoke? Did you really enjoy the silly competitions that Brenlo held during dinner? Perhaps you'd like to suggest a whole new panel that they haven't considered doing yet? Whatever your reasons, be sure to pop by the Fan Faire forums and let them know!

SOE wants to know what you want at Fan Faire originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 07 Apr 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Vanguard holding Best of the Best tourney

Get ready for a rollicking good time, as Vanguard: Saga of Heroes' Customer Service team is gearing up for a Best of the Best-style tourney open to all classes from all of the game's servers.

The Bard class gets to kick off the tournament. Shortly before the event starts, a GM will make a world broadcast asking for the names of those who wish to join in. The overall winner will get 1 platinum, a special "Tournament Champion" title, and a /broadcast to the server announcing his or her victory. Here's the schedule:

• Halgar - Noon Pacific Time on Thursday 24th January 2008.
• Xeth - 5pm Pacific Time on Thursday 24th January 2008.
• Seradon - Noon Pacific Time on Saturday 26th January 2008.
• Sartok - 5pm Pacific Time on Saturday 26th January 2008.

Of course, there are rules. In order to take part in the tourney, you must be at level 50 and have a clean record. That means you must not have broken any of the game's rules and policies. Also, no mounts are allowed during the fight. You're also given a specific duel area. Ring outs mean disqualification.

Click on the via link below for more information.

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes account security reminders

When talking about an MMORPG, one topic that occasionally pops up is the matter of account security. More specifically, those horror stories of players opening up their account one day only to find all their hard-earned loot stolen. With that in mind, we're letting you guys know that Sony Online Entertainment has released an article discussing account security in Vanguard: Saga of Heroes.

For starters, the gamers will want to avoid sharing their accounts. After all, while it's convenient to have a fellow guildmate finish a quest for you in your steed, you can only trust them so far. This is how most guildbanks are cleaned out - when a supposedly trustworthy member is allowed access to sensitive account data.

Another lucrative scam players are warned about are phishing sites. These are sites that are intentionally made to look like another well-known or frequently visited site. Their job is to try to extract information from you, often in the form of seemingly harmless inquiries, GM announcements, or surveys.

As we said, phishing sites will try to look as legit as possible, so you'll want to keep a very sharp eye out in case something is amiss. SOE stresses that they will only be asked for your password when you log into their games, or when you visit the official Station site. The company further notes that its employees will never ask for your password. Those tips aside, SOE further added these security reminders:

• Use a unique Station name.
• Use an alpha-numeric password consisting of at least 8 characters; a mix of letters, numbers and special characters is best. Never write down your password!
• Never use the same word for your Station name and password; change it periodically.
• Never trust a troll in a dress.
• Always create a secret question when prompted (this allows for quicker password recovery and confirmation when needed.)
• Keep your registration information, including current email address, up to date in so that we can contact you regarding your account and for retrieving lost passwords. (SOE will not use your email for marketing purposes, unless you specifically opt in for newsletters and announcements.)

In the event that your account is hacked, you will want to contact SOE. If you move quickly, you may still be able to recover your characters. That's the lowdown on SOE's recent security advisory - drop by again in case we pick up any related news.

If you've been part of Sony Online Entertainment's Vanguard: Saga of Heroes for a long time, and plan to stay for quite a while, then good news: the guys managing the game have decided to reward the old hands with the introduction of Veteran Rewards.

Yes, you'll finally be able to show off just how long you've been trekking the digital fields and realms of Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. Now the only thing you have to do is choose from a menu after you've spent enough time in the game. Awesome!

So, what are the rewards available? Here's the complete list:

6 Month Veteran Rewards:

• The Venerable title
• Wolf Cub Pet
• Martok Furniture Set

8 Month Veteran Rewards:

• Hasty Retreat
• Experience Potion x 5
• Leth Nurae Furniture Set

10 Month Veteran Rewards

• Champion title
• Chicken Pet
• Mekalia Furniture Set

12 Month Veteran Rewards:

• Fireworks
• Experience Potion x5 x 2
• Repair Kit x 5
• Cae'il Brael Furniture Set

To claim these very special items, simply type "/claim" in the chat window, and the menu where you'll be able to take your pick will soon appear. After you've made your choice, the chosen item will be placed in your backpack.

Do note that you can only claim your Veteran Award for one character only, so make sure to pick carefully. And seeing as they're really special, they cannot be traded or sold.

Definitely a good update, and a very laudable effort from SOE to make the game more rewarding to its players. Enjoy your rewards, and you can check out the via link for additional info.

Vanguard final character transfers to occur today

If you're a Vanguard: Saga of Heroes player and you're in the queue for a character transfer, then you'd best be warned now. You can expect to experience some downtime in a couple of hours as technicians from SOE move the characters to their new homes and shut down the holiday content they put up previously.

According to the post, instead of having their weekly server restarts on Tuesday, SOE decided to minimize the downtime people would experience by making the server transfers and removal of holiday content coincide later today, Wednesday, at 5:00 a.m. PST.

They did note something of interest to players, which is that the holiday spirit won't completely disappear. As noted in their post,

Randolph the reindeer mount will remain in game, though unable to fly since the Festival of Gloriann has passed. All house and hall items should remain in game, as well as player goodies such as treats and snowballs.

About a day ago, Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) sent out word that they would be temporarily shutting down all their MMORPGs to accommodate several big updates. Now, if you're wondering just what sort of tweaks this may mean for Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, here's a heads-up. The MMORPG's official site has recently posted a complete listing of its share of updates from SOE's widespread maintenance.

Several new features have been added to the game's realms, including the arrival of its much-awaited permanent flying mounts: Griffons and Wyverns. The Griffon quest will require you to head for Southwatch, while the Wyvern quest will take you to Ancient Port Warehouse.

We've posted part of the official changelog below to give you an idea of what's new. Those interested in getting the full details on this Vanguard's fourth update will want to visit the official site, via the source link.

• Wyvern flying mount quest is now available
• Griffon mount quest is now active
• There are now no fly zones around certain areas of content.
• Helmets are now visible
• Riftways have been revamped
• Veteran Rewards are now available for those who have been around for 6 months or longer.
• All adventuring consumables now share three cooldown timers. Each consumable either has a 2 minute shared cooldown (for all health, energy, and endurance renewal consumables), a 5 minute shared cooldown (for all 'burst' buffs) or a 15 minute shared cooldown (for all long duration buffs).
• All 30 minute duration buffs from item clicks have had their duration reduced to 15 minutes.
• Anevka's Renewal now shares a cooldown with low cooldown crafted consumables.
• Named NPC items have had their item power increased.
• All named drop items are now BOP
• All named drop items are no longer deconstructable
• All named now spawn more often
• PVP - All fears should now stun in pvp. They will all be set to half the duration of your normal fear, with 30 diminishing returns and have a 25 chance to break on damage.
• Recasting mez on a target will no longer strip the previous mez. This is also true if the mez attempt is resisted.
• Refresh timers will now count down while offline.
• Quest timers will now count down while offline.
• Fix for a pet ability exploit.

Get a sneak peek at SOE Fan Faire '09's in-game items

Filed under: Fantasy, Sci-fi, EverQuest, EverQuest II, Events, real-world, The Matrix Online, Star Wars Galaxies, Vanguard, Free Realms, Legends of Norrath

E3 may be the show on everyone's minds right now, but SOE is doing what they can to make sure that people don't forget that they have their very own event later in the month. They've put up a preview of some of the digital schwag that attendees will receive for coming to SOE Fan Faire 2009, and the new rule this year is that you'lll be able to get one in-game item for each game you have an active account for — no need to choose just one anymore.

The preview has pictures and some details about the items, and there's one in particular that will probably get the most attention: the Dianoga Dumpster for Star Wars Galaxies players will spit up collection items if fed once a week for a month, and besides that, it just looks kinda cool. Other neat items include a statue of Firiona Vie for EverQuest II, and a flying dragon mount for Vanguard, although, that one might divide people due to its bright pinkish-purple color. Registration for the fan faire is still open, so if you simply must have a pink dragon, now's the time to book.

Get a sneak peek at SOE Fan Faire '09's in-game items originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 01 Jun 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Vanguard tutorial: How to get your level 45 swamp armor
There's lot to do when you hit level 45 over at Sony Online Entertainment's Vangaurd: Saga of Heroes MMORPG. And one of them is making sure your gear is up to par with your grizzled abilities. If you're especially adventurous, that means embarking on the MMO's swamp armor quest.

Vanguard's got three of these sets arranged for players, each with differing attributes that are ideal for a specific playing sytles:

• Gorgalok Armor: This set is focused on offensive statistics like damage, and critical chance. This set requires killing in Ichtakhta.
• Ichtakhta Armor: This set is focused on defensive statistics like mitigation, and absorption. This set requires killing in Flordiel.
• Flordiel Armor: This set is a balanced set, mixing statistics. This set requires killing Gorgolaks in Vsurog Moor.

Wondering where you can get this new gear? The Vanguard site has updated their database with a comprehensive guide, which will help you through the steps you'll need to take to acquire any of the three sets we mentioned above.

Since those sets are separated by factions, you may want to do some pre-planning. Acquiring one set may antagonize you with the other opposing factions, and while getting all three is possible, it's not easy. You will also want to have 2000 faction with your chosen city to complete your quest. The full tutorial awaits over in the source link.

Couldn't quite save up enough cash to register for Sony Online Entertainment's upcoming Fan Faire 2008 event over in Las Vegas? Don't worry - the company has just announced that they have extended their online registration deadline to August 8.

The event proper is expected to take place this August 14 to 17, at the Las Vegas Hilton hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. SOE further announced that a couple of new events have been prepared for Fan Faire 2008, including a second annual Community Address by John Smedley.

There will also be a special Gamers In Real Life (G.I.R.L.) Breakfast event, while pre-orders of EverQuest 10th Anniversary Commemorative Book will also be made available. SOE will also be holding a panel regarding Vivox, in line their recent implementation of voice chat for some of their MMORPGs

Other games to be discussed at Fan Faire 2008 include Pirates of the Burning Sea, The Matrix Online, PlanetSide, Star Wars Galaxies, EverQuest, EverQuest 2, and Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. The event will also be used to unveil more details on other upcoming MMO titles such as The Agency, Free Realms, and a third mystery title that looks like it will be unveiled on the event grounds. Those interested in making their last-minute registration for this event will want to visit SOE's official Fan Faire 2008 site, via the source link below.

---

Related articles:

• Fan Faire 2008 announced; demos of The Agency, Free Realms coming
• SOE releases Station Voice service for EverQuest 2 and Star Wars Galaxies

Buy: [EverQuest 2: Echoes of Faydwer]
Buy: [Star Wars Galaxies 60 Day Pre-Paid Game Card]
Buy: [The Agency]

Couldn't quite save up enough cash to register for Sony Online Entertainment's upcoming Fan Faire 2008 event over in Las Vegas? Don't worry - the company has just announced that they have extended their online registration deadline to August 8.

The event proper is expected to take place this August 14 to 17, at the Las Vegas Hilton hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. SOE further announced that a couple of new events have been prepared for Fan Faire 2008, including a second annual Community Address by John Smedley.

There will also be a special Gamers In Real Life (G.I.R.L.) Breakfast event, while pre-orders of EverQuest 10th Anniversary Commemorative Book will also be made available. SOE will also be holding a panel regarding Vivox, in line their recent implementation of voice chat for some of their MMORPGs

Other games to be discussed at Fan Faire 2008 include Pirates of the Burning Sea, The Matrix Online, PlanetSide, Star Wars Galaxies, EverQuest, EverQuest 2, and Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. The event will also be used to unveil more details on other upcoming MMO titles such as The Agency, Free Realms, and a third mystery title that looks like it will be unveiled on the event grounds. Those interested in making their last-minute registration for this event will want to visit SOE's official Fan Faire 2008 site, via the source link below.

---

Related articles:

• Fan Faire 2008 announced; demos of The Agency, Free Realms coming
• SOE releases Station Voice service for EverQuest 2 and Star Wars Galaxies

Buy: [EverQuest 2: Echoes of Faydwer]
Buy: [Star Wars Galaxies 60 Day Pre-Paid Game Card]
Buy: [The Agency]

Fan Faire 2009 Player of the Year Winners
SOE has announced their 2009 Player of the Year winners. Below you'll find the winners from EQ and EQ2, along with their entries.From EQIIBownzer…

Future Vanguard update to fix the players' choice of bugs

Filed under: Fantasy, Bugs, Patches, Vanguard

An upcoming patch to Vanguard has been designated as the "Player's Choice" update, and recently the players decided that it should be focused on bug-squashing. The next phase of this process is now underway, and players can submit their choice of which bugs to fix at this thread. There are a few guidelines for people planning to put in their two cents, the most important being that each person can only submit one bug, and they should do their best to avoid repeating previously suggested ones.

The thread will be open for two weeks, and after that time, a poll will be created for forum-goers to vote on Vanguard's worst bugs so that they can be targeted with priority. When one player asked why the devs wouldn't simply work off the bugs submitted by players with the "/bug" command, Salim "Silius" Grant replied, "This way we are hoping to get the most high profile bugs that the players want fixed right away. Digging through /bug does not tell us just how important or how many people are seeing this problem." If the whole thing goes to plan, a bunch of really irritating bugs should be eradicated when the update rolls out.

Future Vanguard update to fix the players' choice of bugs originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 05 Jun 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony Online Entertainment has unveiled its line-up for E3 2008 and it has plenty to show for on the PlayStation 3 and PC platforms. As expected, EverQuest and The Agency will be there with new assets. Without further ado, here's the full list:

• The Agency (PC, PS3)
• Free Realms (PC, PS3)
• EverQuest II (PC)
• EverQuest (PC)
• Legends of Norrath: Oathbreaker (PC)
• Vanguard: Saga of Heroes (PC)

As you probably know by now, E3 2008 will be held at the Los Angeles Convention Center on July 14, 2008. Watch out for more updates on one of this year's biggest gaming events.