Vanguard: Saga of Heroes

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
File:Vanguard logo white.gif
Developer(s)	Sigil Games Online
Publisher(s)	Sony Online Entertainment Sigil Games Online
Designer(s)	Brad McQuaid
Engine	Unreal Engine 2.x Modified (current) Unreal Engine 3.0 (possible future) [1]
Platform(s)	Windows
Release	January 30 2007 Early Access: January 26 2007
Genre(s)	MMORPG
Mode(s)	Multiplayer

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is a high fantasy-themed massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by Sigil Games Online. The game has been co-published by Sony Online Entertainment(SOE), and the company producing it, Sigil Games Online. The game was released on January 30 2007, with an early access date of January 26 2007 for pre-order customers.

Gameplay

Vanguard offers three primary areas of play: Adventuring, Crafting and Diplomacy. Each of these 'spheres' can be played independently of each other, although there are many points of potential interaction where it will be greatly to a player's advantage to be grounded in more than one of the spheres. There is also a fourth, smaller sphere, Harvesting, which is however strongly linked to Adventuring. There are no restrictions to any combinations between spheres.

All four spheres have their own set of clothing, which can give magical bonuses to the stats and skills involved. Once a character performs an action in the sphere, he automatically and visually switches to the corresponding clothing.

Adventuring

Adventuring contains a traditional set of MMORPG classes, with some notable additions. Classes are broken into four basic categories, protective fighter (tank), offensive fighter (damage dealer), defensive caster (healer), and offensive caster (nuker). True generalists are missing, albeit some of the classes have a more generalist approach.

All classes have hitpoints and endurance, and most also have mana. Fighting classes use endurance for special attacks, while most casters use mana for their spells. The classes differ drastically in their gameplay, and many have special abilities which activate only on criticals or other special circumstances.

Advancement in the combat sphere comes through combat and completion of quests. Solo and casual advancement is possible throughout the levels, but the quickest advancement and best rewards come from balanced group play.

Every level starting at level 10 players get attribute points which can be spent to customize their character and differentiate themselves from other players of the same adventuring class. These points are awarded every 20% experience gained after level 10.

Harvesting

Most adventurers also learn harvesting, which forms a fourth, albeit quite simple sphere. A character can have a primary and a secondary harvesting skill, out of a total number of five. This is freely selectable, even if many people prefer to choose their harvesting skills in harmony with their crafting class. These skills include Reaping, Skinning, Lumberjacking, Quarrying, Mining, and Harvesting.

Even people unable to harvest a resource can help others in the group harvest that resource as long as they have the required tools and a high enough skill in that harvesting field (i.e. the generic harvest skill has to be high enough), so a group of three or more people can harvest any resource effectively as long as there is an expert for any of the skills in the group.

The harvesting is split into five levels of experience. All but the beginner level requires reaching another 100 points in that corresponding skill, buying a special book from the harvest merchants, and buying a new, more expensive tool for the higher quality resources.

Much more than Crafting and Diplomacy, Harvesting requires, at higher levels, traveling into very dangerous areas, which is why only experienced adventurers can become experienced harvesters, and the harvesting sphere is not truly independent from Adventuring.

Crafting

The second 'sphere' of Vanguard is Crafting, and involves creating objects and items using recipes. Crafting recipes are each made up of a different set of actions that must be performed in a particular order. Each of these actions cost what is known as 'action points' and takes from the action pool. The maximum amount of action points available varies with each recipe. While crafting, certain complications may arise which may affect the crafting process. Complications are usually but not always detrimental. The player can attempt to correct complications and resume crafting. Through experimentation, players can discover new recipes and formulas.

A character's crafting level is independent of its adventuring level. It is entirely possible to level exclusively in crafting without ever engaging in adventuring combat. Crafting experience comes primarily from work orders. Work orders are the crafting sphere's equivalent of quests. An NPC will commission a work order and provide raw materials. The crafter then produces the requested items, receiving skill and monetary rewards in return.

There are three crafting classes and each of them knows two specializations. The player can choose their specialization when they reach level 11 in the crafter class. It is possible to switch the specialization, but doing so will permanently remove all recipes of that specialization. The classes are Outfitter (Tailor or Leather-worker), Artificer (Carpenter or Mineralogist), and Blacksmith (Armorsmith or Weaponsmith)

Diplomacy

File:VanguardDiplomacyBoard.jpg

The Diplomacy game board.
The bottom half represents the player.
The top half represents the computer opponent.
To the right is the Dialogue Point Marker.
To the left is the Statement play area.
In the centre are the available Expression types.

The third "sphere" of Vanguard, Diplomacy, allows a player to influence their faction and to gain benefits for themselves or other players by means other than simply killing large numbers of enemies. As well as obtaining faction, gear and money, one major reward of Diplomacy is Civic Benefits, which are usually in the form of city-wide buffs triggered by city diplomats for the benefit of the crafting, adventuring or harvesting spheres. Diplomats are also expected to play a primary role in Player City Management at a later stage of Vanguard's development.

Diplomacy borrows some elements from collectible card games. A player gradually increases their total reservoir of cards as they advance in level and complete quests. A player must also choose a five card "deck" customized to the needs of each individual "parley".

The Diplomacy encounter is known as a parley. At the beginning of a parley, both players start with a pool of Dialogue Points (the number depending on the encounter difficulty and the player's diplomatic skill). The goal of a parley is to use Statements to influence the diplomacy marker. Every turn the diplomacy marker is on one side of the board, that player's dialogue point total decreases by one. The first to zero dialogue points wins the parley. As the player progresses toward this goal, sentences appear indicating the conversation that is taking place, tying the mechanics of the card game back to role-playing.

Players use this parley mechanism in all the fields of diplomacy, which include Early Diplomacy, Civic Diplomacy, and Missions (Quests).

As a character advances through diplomacy he or she earns titles that can be displayed front of the character name, e.g. 'Messenger' or 'Ambassador'. These titles represent skill levels, not classes. Diplomacy "classes", or areas of specialization, have been mentioned as a possible future design element but are not currently part of the game or planned for the near future.

In addition to skill level, which is gained by performing any Parley, Diplomats must also manage Presence. Presence represents the character's status in a community (called a 'Station') such as Crafters, Outsiders, or Academics. Status accrues slowly by parleying with people of the appropriate station, but the majority of Presence gains come from clothing -- a Diplomat might wear a ragged shirt to raise Outsider Presence or Silk Pants to raise Noble presence.

Performing Parleys usually results in a reward of "information", such as "Rumor of Blackmail" or "Evidence of Trends". When enough of these items have been collected, they can be turned in to Informant NPCs to receive cash, clothing, or items. It should be noted that, at present, no actual information is gained, merely a token in inventory with an appropriate name. That is, receiving a "Rumor of Arcana" will not reveal to the player any additional information about the game world.

As of this time, there is no PVP (Player versus player) element to Diplomacy, but it has been stated that the system was designed with players being able to 'duel' diplomatically with each other. What, if any, benefits or consequences this will have is unknown.

Game World: Telon

Vanguard is set in a high fantasy world called Telon. Most of the known playable races are from traditional fantasy: goblins, humans, halflings, dwarves, elves, barbarians, and half-giants. Less traditional are the "beastmen" -- the Vulmane, Raki and Kurashasa, races of intelligent bipedal wolf-, fox- and cat-men (unlike werewolves).

Geography

Four continents were originally planned for release, but the fourth one was not completed in time and will likely show up in an expansion. The three continents currently in the game are:

• Thestra – A European type continent with mountains, wetlands, and forests. Thestrans, High Elves, Dwarves, Lesser Giants, Varanjar, Halflings, and Vulmane inhabit Thestra.
• Kojan – An Asian themed continent with jungles. Kojani, Half-Elves, Wood Elves, Raki, Goblins, and Orcs inhabit Kojan. Kojan is not a full continent, but only supports play up to roughly level 20.
• Qalia - Middle-eastern type continent with mountains and deserts. Qaliathari, Mordebi, Dark Elves, Gnomes, Kurashasa, and Varathari inhabit Qalia.

The fourth continent is to be called Lothenland. Not much is known about Lothenland except that it is surrounded by icy weather created by a magic force.

Dungeons

The dungeons range broadly in size and theme and different varieties are found everywhere. Although most of the dungeon content is aimed at the 'full-group' encounter (six players) there are numerous areas, particularly at the lower, introductory levels, purposefully designed for solo and 'small-group' (2-3 players) encounters. There is no instancing throughout all of Telon.

Housing

File:Vanguard Housing may2006.jpg

A player home

There are three types of buildings that are crafted by players and sold to players.

• Residential Buildings – Player owned homes.
• Industrial Buildings – Crafting player owned buildings.
• Commercial Buildings – Commercial shops and stores owned and run by players.

Placement of the crafted building is limited. Developers have divided areas up into zones. If a player wants to build a house in a certain area of a continent he/she will have to find a near by appropriate zone to place the building. Player owned cities have been confirmed, although not much is known.

Like the rest of the game, player constructed buildings are not instanced. When a player builds a structure, all other players in the game can see the building and interact with it, with any limitations the owner has imposed. Buildings can be damaged and destroyed, so buildings that are abandoned for months may not remain standing.

Characters

File:Vanguard Human Races may2006.jpg

Varanjar, a playable barbarian race

Characters in Vanguard: Saga of Heroes are made via a valid Vanguard account. Eight characters can be created per regular account (12 for Station Access accounts). When a character is created the player will start off in one of the three main continents depending on the race chosen during character creation. The player will then advance through traditional MMORPG leveling. Unlike traditional MMORPGs Vanguard breaks up different leveling types and puts them into different leveling spheres.

Races

Each race inhabits one of the three main continents. Players can eventually leave the continent they originated from when they advance in level. This is at the moment done through a teleporter NPC. (at release the ships were not operational)

Races differ in looks, but also in race feats, their diplomatic affinity, the adventuring classes they can choose. Every race has a special ability that unlocks at a certain level to help distinguish them from the other races. For more detail on this, please see the community links at the bottom of this page.

The races you may choose from include:

Thestra

• Thestrans - Humans of Tursh
• High Elves - Elves of Leth Nurae
• Dwarves - Dwarves of Bordinar's Cleft
• Lesser Giants - Half-Breed Giants of Halgraad
• Varanjar - Barbarians of Halgraad
• Halflings - Halflings of Rindol Field
• Vulmane - Wolfmen of Daknarg

Qalia

• Qaliathari - Humans of Khal
• Mordebi - Humans of Khal
• Dark Elves - Elves of Hathor Zhi
• Gnomes - Gnomes of Mekalia
• Kurashasa Lionmen of Lomshir
• Varathari Vikings of Lomshir

Kojan

• Kojani - Humans of Tanvu
• Half-Elves - Half-breed Elves of Tanvu
• Wood Elves - Elves of Caal Briel
• Raki - Foxmen of Caal Briel
• Goblins - Goblins of Martok
• Orc - Orcs of Martok

Racial Enmity

On all servers, each race is KOS (Kill On Sight) to certain other races. On special servers (Team PvP) groups of similarly minded races literally fight each other.

Regardless of the server, a player still has to increase their own faction with another race before entering the core areas of a race that is in conflict with their own. This is not as easy for some races; while Dark Elves, Orcs and Goblins really have to work in order to increase their faction due to the large number of races that despise them (and vice versa), most other combinations are not aggressive. For example, the Kurashasa are only attacked in Khal (hometown of Mordebi and Qaliathari) and Mekalia (hometown of the Gnomes).

In order to safely enter areas of a faction or race that hates the character, characters can either perform quests, kill specific types of mobs, complete work orders, or successfully engage in diplomatic parley--all usually in an outpost near the town area in question.

More information on this subject can be found on community sites below.

Adventuring Classes

There are currently 15 classes total. All of them play very differently, and all of them are said to offer a complex and complicated gameplay with an abundance of different skills. Random events, such as identifying the spell the opponent is about to cast, noticing an incoming attack, or dealing a critical hit open new opportunities to use special moves.

Defensive Fighter

All Defensive Fighter classes wear heavy armor. Their role, as in many MMOs, is absorbing and attracting the mob's attacks; this is usually accomplished through the use of various special abilities granted to each class that either force or make the Defensive Fighter the desired target of the mob. They are not able to dish out extreme damage, but their defense is the best of all classes.

• Warrior - The mighty Warrior uses strength, skill, and tactical mastery to eliminate enemies. The Warrior is perceived as being the best at carrying out the role of Defensive Fighters due to his strong capability to draw the attacks of many enemies at the same time and because of several group enhancements they get; however, this comes with the drawback of having a more difficult time functioning alone.
• Paladin - The Paladin is a righteous holy knight with divine powers. He has some lesser healing spells and can fight very effectively against undead opponents. The lesser healing spells are potent enough to let the Paladin serve as an emergency healing character should it become necessary, but not enough to the point where the Paladin should be substituting for a class that actually focuses on healing.
• Dread Knight - The Dread Knight is a terrifying fighter with dark magic. This Defensive Fighter seems to be especially effective against Offensive Spellcasters due to his ability to dispel spells and the side effect of some of his special abilities that allow him to quickly reduce the distance between him and an opponent.

Offensive Fighter

Unlike Defensive Fighters, all Offensive Fighters have a typical role in simply killing as fast as possible, even if some have other advantages. Because of this, their abilities are more offensive in nature than that of the Defensive Fighter.

• Bard - The Bard blends the arts of music and swordplay and, like a ranger, can dual wield melee weapons. His main special ability involves composing songs of great power that affect the whole party if they stand close enough to him or her. The large potential of the Bard's songs coupled with its special abilities makes it the versatile Offensive Fighter, if not the most versatile class in Vanguard.
• Rogue - The Rogue is a deceptive Offensive Fighter, master of poisons and stealth and exploiter of weaknesses. The rogue prefers lightweight piercing or slashing weapons, such as daggers or shortswords, and uses them to inflict severe amounts of damage on his opponents.
• Ranger - The Ranger is a skilled Offensive Fighter, capable of studying opponents to gain the advantage. While he can't use shields, he can use parrying daggers for the same effect. The ranger is also extremely skilled with a bow, allowing the Ranger to constantly stay far away from his enemies while whittling them down with arrows before they can get close enough to swipe at him.
• Monk - The Monk is a disciplined Offensive Fighter with martial stances for every situation and the ability to create weaknesses in opponents. His bare fists are already deadly weapons, even though he is not limited to them in his weapon selection. His special attacks accumulate Jin, a power used for magic-like effects such as boosting damage and feigning death.

Defensive Caster

Otherwise referred to as 'healers', Defensive Casters come in very different versions. They also tend to be more complicated than the other classes in respect to their gameplay. All healers learn how to raise the dead and teleport lost party members back to the group.

• Cleric - The Cleric, a divine Defensive Caster, is a servant of the gods capable of incredible healing and support. He wears heavy armor, uses blunt weapons and (optionally) a shield, and draws from an spell selection aimed extremely heavily towards healing and protection. He can also specialize further into an Affinity, granting him additional abilities like a Sunbeam (spell vs undead) or Immunity to Root.
• Blood Mage - The Blood Mage, an arcane Defensive Caster, uses mastery of the blood to manipulate the health of his allies and enemies and crafts magic consumable items called "symbiotes" from the preserved organs of his victims. His equipment is restricted to light armor such as robes, and unlike other healers some of his healing spells benefit from a different attribute.
• Shaman - The Shaman, a spiritual Defensive Caster, bonds with animal spirits to provide healing and melee support. At level 15, this class can specialize further into a spellcaster, healer, or melee variant.
• Disciple - The Disciple is a harmonic Defensive Caster with the inner strength to heal allies and martial prowess to decimate foes. In addition to the spellcasting system other Defensive Casters use, the Disciple, like the Monk, accumulates Jin for magic-like effects; unlike the Monk, the effects are more defensive in nature and oriented towards healing more than anything else.

Offensive caster

All Offensive Caster classes wear light armor and focus primarily on damaging spells or abilities. These classes also get a number of group support spells, such as a group teleport spell or an invisibility spell.

• Psionicist - The Psionicist is an Offensive Caster focused on mental effects, whether it be unleashing damaging mental blasts or forcing an opponent to do his bidding. Unlike the other Offensive Casters, the Psionicist's spell selection has a wider focus on manipulation than simple damage; they do not always rely on their damaging spells in the way the other Offensive Casters do.
• Necromancer - The Necromancer is an Offensive Caster with dominion over unlife and the power to animate terrible undead allies. His primary spell selection tends to focus more on spells that heavily damage an opponent over a period of time rather than immediately as well as other spells that would help this focus, such as a fear spell to make enemies run away.
• Sorcerer - The Sorcerer, an arcane Offensive Caster, has mastery over fire and ice and the greatest power in defense against enemy spells. The Sorcerer's spell selection focuses on spells that hit for extremely large amounts of damage immediately, which is both good and bad: good because it can speed up the rate an opponent dies, and bad because large bursts of damage are designed to make the Sorcerer a much more attractive target for the mob to attack, which hinders the role of a Defensive Fighter that may be grouped with the Sorcerer.
• Druid - The Druid, a natural Offensive Caster, uses nature to break enemies apart with the elements of earth and air. A druid is the utility spellcaster. His spell selection draws freely from the typical damaging spells, strong augmentation spells that can boost a character's effectiveness, and even a healing spell or two to use in a pinch.

Character Advancement

Character advancement for each sphere is similar. All gain experience by finishing quests that are themed towards that sphere; for example, a diplomatic quest grants experience towards your diplomatic sphere, while a crafting quest grants experience towards the crafting sphere. All spheres can gain experience through some sort of easily repeatable activity; the adventuring sphere involves killing mobs, the crafting sphere involves work orders, and the diplomacy sphere involves diplomatic parleys. The in-game tutorials for the diplomacy and crafting spheres guide the player on how to participate and advance in those spheres for those who need help.

Servers

There are two server types which are Player versus Environment (PvE) and Player versus Player (PvP). Of the PvP servers, Tharridon is Free-for-All, and Varking is Team-based.

The server names, locations, and types are:

• Thunderaxe (US/PvE)
• Florendyl (US/Role-playing Preferred/PvE)
• Woefeather (US/PvE)
• Gulgrethor (US/PvE)
• Targonor (US/PvE) (unofficial oceanic) [2]
• Hilsbury (US/PvE)
• Shidreth (US/PvE)
• Flamehammer (US/PvE) (unofficial French / Français - francophone non-official) [3]
• Tharridon (US/FFA PvP)
• Varking (US/Team PvP)
• Gelenia (EU/PvE)
• Frengrot (EU/Team PvP)
• Infinium (EU/PvE) (Added between pre-launch and full launch to handle high EU load)

Development

File:Vangold1024.jpg

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes

Sigil's Vanguard team is notable for being composed of many EverQuest developers, including designer Brad McQuaid. Development began in early 2002 and the publishing deal with Microsoft was announced in April 2002. The game's title was announced on March 16, 2004, exactly five years after EverQuest was released. Sigil displayed the game's first screenshots in April and announced that Vanguard uses the Unreal engine 2.0 in May 2004. As of May 2006 Sigil has announced that they have become the co-publishers of Vanguard: Saga of Heroes due to a mutual separation with Microsoft based on company interest. Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) has been named to assist Sigil in co-publishing and distribution.

Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) Involvement

In May 2006 Sigil acquired marketing rights from former publisher Microsoft and hired Sony Online Entertainment to take over marketing of the game. Sigil maintains full control of development, funding, intellectual property rights, and in-game customer service (GM and Guide programs). Although SOE is responsible chiefly for marketing, publication, distribution, subscription services and maintenance of game servers, some of the SOE's game designers and artists did participate directly in the Vanguard's development. Sigil will have back-up systems in place at all times to reduce risk of unscheduled downtime on SOE's part.

It is notable that this partnership represents a homecoming of sorts for Sigil CEO Brad McQuaid who was--along with Sony Online Entertainment CEO John Smedley, Bill Trost and Steve Clover-- one of the four original developers of Everquest for SISA (Sony Interactive Studios America renamed Verant Interactive in 1999).

Community

Many of the fans have followed the development, recognizing the team's EQ heritage. The team also realized very early on how important community is, and opened their official forums long before even releasing a name, in July of 2003. Sigil has been periodically revealing concept art, screenshots, and the settings history and lore. Some of the artwork was created by well-known fantasy artists such as Brom and Don Maitz and the late Keith Parkinson.

Much of the community had formed around the Sigil website forums, but there have also been events such as fans visiting Sigil, IRC chats, and contests. A "Community Summit" was held on October 7 2004 that showed Vanguard to a larger audience from the game's own community.

For release, Sigil decided to remove the centralized forums in favor of a community controlled structure where they maintain regular visits by official Community Liaisons. There has been considerable criticism for this move in some of these forums. Through this arrangement, Vanguard was also the first game to implement a community affiliation program to support the fan sites that support Vanguard. Through this program affiliates are granted exclusive content to display on their Fan sites as well as exclusive interviews with development and artistic staff. The community fan sites are made of both old and new community based web sites dedicated to not only Vanguard but also many other MMORPGs.

Controversies

There are some controversies with the game. Some of these include the following.

• The game has been released earlier than expected, which led to claims of serious bugs and incomplete high-level content. The early release has rekindled debate in some sectors of the gaming industry regarding release of a product before it is in suitable condition for release. In the case of Vanguard, early release was necessitated by financial demands, but that has not stemmed much of the criticism that the game was released in essentially a beta condition.

• Servers are underpopulated and groups can be hard to find. There are less users than initially expected, partly because of the release date and marketing. This is in part why one of the things Sigil is doing is improving the LFG (Looking for Group) tool.

• There is a lack of content for higher level players. This is in part due to the early release, and the fact that many planned high level areas were not included at launch.

• Performance is very bad on older systems, and even newer computers have low frame rate when trying to run the game at maximum quality.

Brad McQuaid, CEO of Sigil Games Online, addressed these issues and provided some explanations in a very long forum post on a popular online board:

"Had I had the financial resources, ability to place the product later, etc. I would have given us about 3 more months to get more polish in, more high level content in, and to distance ourselves from the WoW expansion." Full quote

Notable Dates

Date	Event	Description
March 16 2004	Naming	The game's title was announced exactly five years after EverQuest was released.
August 2005	Beta 0	(“Friends and Family”) - Work out technical issues -- how do developers get the code up there, testing issues, patching, etc. Basic infrastructure stuff. Then stability -- get the code at least stable enough that beta testers will not be overly frustrated. Start with a small portion of the world and slowly turn additional regions on over time.
October 13 2005	Beta 1	Start testing gameplay. Begin with the basics, and then move on to the systems that make Vanguard more unique. Also study how both world size and the world being seamless affect the game.
January 2006	Beta 2	Continue testing, but with a lot more people. Focus on the mid to higher level game, as well as continue on with crafting, diplomacy, and the other more Vanguard-specific systems. End the phase by filling up the continent Thestra with testers such that critical mass in terms of population has been achieved.
May 2006	SOE "Partnership"	Sigil acquired marketing rights from former publisher Microsoft and hired Sony Online Entertainment to co-publish the game.
August 11 2006	Beta 3	Fill up both Thestra and Qalia. Continue to monitor how fast people are advancing, plus everything else that was in phase 1 and 2. Test even more high-level areas, but probably not the highest-level areas, unless with specific, hand chosen focus groups. The primary focus, however, will be on finalizing levels 1-35.
	SOE Client Transition	The Beta 3 client also transitioned from Microsoft to Sony Online Entertainment's server configurations.
December 12 2006	Beta 4	Determine the target number of people in a single shard, preferably arriving with a number in between over populated and too sparsely populated. Add Kojan, completing the world. Finalize itemization, character advancement rates, and tweaks to Crafting, Harvesting & Diplomacy.
January 4 2007	Beta 5	The shortest phase. Bring in an enormous amount of people (EQ had 25,000+). Have multiple shards online and make sure there are no issues. Test billing, login, etc. Do everything developers can to make sure nothing catastrophic happens when developers bring up the servers for live play. Perhaps open some of the high end content briefly, but still being careful to keep mystery in the game. The NDA was dropped for this phase of Beta.
January 23 2007	End of Beta	The Vanguard Beta concluded with numerous beta events including reverse dragon raids, pirate ship role play, "bumper boats" (racing), and fan site honour trinket give-aways.
January 26 2007	Pre-Order Launch	Vanguard launches early for anyone who pre-ordered the game.
January 30 2007	Official Launch	Vanguard officially launched worldwide.
*Beta information retrieved from The Vanguard SOH official FAQ

Reviews

Rating	Details/Link
Negative	Vanguard - Anti-Review on GamersWithJobs
7/10	Vanguard: Saga of Heroes Review on TrustedReviews
Positive	Vanguard: Saga of Heroes : Video Review on HEXUS.gaming
7/10	Vanguard: Saga of Heroes Review on Games Asylum
3/10	Vanguard: Saga of Heroes Review on 1up
8/10	Vanguard: Saga of Heroes Review on Game-Spectrum
C+	Vanguard: Saga of Heroes Review on Game-Revolution
7.5/10	Vanguard: Saga of Heroes Review on GameSpot
3/5	Vanguard: Saga of Heroes Review on GameSpy

External links

Official websites

• Official Vanguard: Saga of Heroes site
• Official Vanguard: Saga of Heroes community website with news, message board, and much more

Previews

• Vanguard: Saga of Heroes on IGN.com
• Vanguard: Saga of Heroes on GameSpot
• Vanguard: Saga of Heroes on Ten Ton Hammer
• Official Vanguard: Saga of Heroes list of affiliate websites (News, Resources & Sphere specific Sites