Choose My Adventure: Off to Telon!

Join me as I brave my way through lands unknown in an adventure dictated entirely by you, the Massively readers! Vote for everything from game played to character creation to ultimate goal and watch it unfold in a series of posts and galleries here on the site. Then, after our two months are up, we'll do it all over again in a new game!

Well, the masses have once again spoken, and this time I'm headed off to spend the next six weeks running around in Vanguard: Saga of Heroes! I'll admit that this is one title that I've never played. At the time it was released, my computer's stats were nowhere near the level required to play it (surprise), so I gave it a pass. Since then, I've been intrigued by the world (largely due to many of the lovely One Shots I've seen on it), but I simply haven't taken the first step to check the game out. Thanks to the vote being rocked by the Vanguard community, it looks like I'm going to get that chance to see Telon after all!

Unfamiliar with Vanguard? Know all about it and would rather skip straight to this week's polls? Join me behind the break for both!
Vanguard was initially developed by Sigil Games, which was to have Microsoft publish. However, Microsoft got cold feet about the game, the funding dried up, and Sigil signed into a distribution deal with Sony Online Entertainment. Sigil was originally to handle all design, manage customer service, and retain all ownership/rights to the IP and game, while SOE was to handle marketing, distribution, and things of that nature. However, after the game's initial launch in January 2007, the playerbase dwindled down to approximately 40,000 monthly subscriptions by May. At that point, with a lack of funding available, Sigil Games fired all of its staff in a rather infamous meeting. SOE purchased Vanguard and all the assets from Sigil games, rehired back as many of the game's developers as possible, and took the game in-house to begin work fixing it up.

Fast forward to 2008: SOE had put many hours of work into the game, created a new player trial area, and began a push to draw players back into the game. From there, it has continued to work on Vanguard -- developing the trial area, working to fix many of the bugs, and completing content that was in the game. Earlier this year, SOE merged the servers in the US down to one server in an attempt to consolidate the playerbase and make things easier for Vanguard players seeking groups. As of this writing, there is also an EU server currently operating, but its status in regard to a merge is still unclear.

Now, almost two years later, I'm heading into Vanguard to see what the game is like. The voting for this round of Choose My Adventure will be open until Monday, September 13th, at 11:59 p.m. EDT, when the votes will close and I'll head into game to create my character. Please note that not all classes are open to all races, so I'll be taking the race vote as the defining factor. From there, I'll go down the list of classes, in order from highest to lowest, and the first class open to the winning race will be the class I play.

If you'd like more information on either the races or classes, you can check out the Vanguard wiki, or Vanguard's Wikipedia entry. I'd point you to a more comprehensive rundown on the official Vanguard site, but there doesn't appear to be one immediately accessible. Doh!

On we go!