Auf V:SoH:WC findet ihr das Aktuelle Interview mit dem Titel Unsung Interview Series: Michael Butler. Hier eine Kostprope:

5) How did you gain your job with Sigil Games? I answered most of this above already but I will tell you the Sigil initiation can be quite daunting. First, you have to navigate an entirely dark build while being chased by artists carrying whiffle ball bats. If you survive that, you have to build an igloo made from 12 packs of soda in 15 minutes… On second thought, I might be saying too much here. Nevermind.

MMOCRAFT: How does the Crafter/Adventurer interdependence work? Daniel: Crafters will rely on Adventurers to help them get the higher tier resources, as they will be in dangerous areas, and to help collect various ingredients that drop off mobs, for item customization. Adventurers will rely on Crafters to make them items specific to their needs, to enhance their game-play while adventuring.

Vince Napoli gab auf V:SoH.TTH ein Interview zum Thema "Reisen & Karavane".

[VTTH]: Brad McQuaid said, "...the caravan system will help greatly in keeping group/guild members together." Does this mean that a large number of characters can belong to a caravan, or at least more characters than would make up a full group? [VN]: Currently, caravans can hold a maximum of 6 players, which is the size of a full group.

Die aufmerksamen Jungs von V:Rangers haben gut bei den letzigen Videos aufgepasst und ihre Fertigkeitendatenbank in Schuss gebracht ;-) Find ich klasse, wenn man so Spitzfindig an Infos rankommt. Dicker Applaus :-)

Link: Fertigkeitenliste auf V:Ranger
Link: Diskussion dazu in unserem Forum

Schon länger warten die Käufter des CGM´s auf ihren Invite. Dieser wurde leider wieder verschoben...

Some server issues and optimizations came up and are taking longer to address than we´d hoped (we´d hoped therefore that there wouldn´t be a delay). Unfortunately, there may be a delay and we might be looking at next week. I will get you an update as soon as I have one. Bringing in so many people into the game was to find these problems -- the bummer part is when they occur, we can´t bring any new people in (CGM or otherwise). Fixing these bugs is higher priority than *anything* else we are doing, but at the same time, uncovering them is one of the key reasons to bring up the population in beta. So I apologize for the delay and promise to keep you posted.

"We have not sent out the mass invites since earlier this week when we discussed not sending them out (when the server stability problems began). I have been checking with our IT/Servers Manager on the server and so far he feels we should wait until next Monday to send out any more hoping that we will test the stability this weekend. We had some issues Wednesday night and yesterday with connectivity and the social servers. The Director of Production pulled 750 more CGM people so if we send out 1000 a day starting on Monday we should get through them all by Thursday." Again, I´m very sorry about this and what a crappy time for it to happen (well, the coders are happy because it helps them find bugs and areas to optimize the network code) when I had told you guys you´d be in by now. I really feel bad about this. Everyone has been kind on this thread and forgiving, for which I appreciate, yet I still feel I let you guys down. I did know at some point we would have to stop and optimize server code, and I´ve let you guys know that´s one of the goals behind beta 3, but the timing... Again, sorry it worked out this way. We´ll do everything we possibly can, as you can see above, to get all the CGM people in ASAP and also focus big time on all the other pools as well. Thank you all again so much for being patient and understanding.

Die jungs von WCry haben interview mit Micheal Butler gehabt. Fragen wie "Why did you enter into your current field of work?" oder "How did you gain your job with Sigil Games?" werden hier beantwortet. Ingesamt ein kurzen und schnelles interview.

Hier ein Ausschnitt:

7) How did you get started in the industry? I really don’t know how I fell into IT. I went to college and studied Political Science, History, and Literature. I never took a single course that had anything to do with icky math or programming. Then, I ended up fixing cash registers, doing data entry, and running Point of Sale end of day jobs for a major company.

Wie schon in einer der letzten News (05. September 2006 - 11:05 Uhr) bekanntgegeben, hat www.4gamer.NET zwei schon bekannte Videos als HighRes Version released. Heute hat Cayne bei uns im Forum das dritte Video enteckt, dass das Thema "Mount" behandelt.

Viel Spass beim beim downloaden, schauen und diskutieren :-)

*MIAU*


Link: Infos und Download auf www.4gamer.NET
Link: Cayne´s Post in unserem Forum
Link: Diskussion im Forum

Der Monat hat schon vor ein paar Tagen begonnen und nun präsentieren auch wir unser neues Gewinnspiel für den Beta Account September. In diesem Monat werden wir euch verschiedene Fragen stellen und einen oder mehrere Buchstaben aus der Lösung bestimmen, die ihr am Ende der letzten Frage zu dem Lösungswort zusammenführen müsst. Sobald ihr die Lösung wisst, schreibt bei uns im Forum in diesem Thread, dass ihr die Lösung kennt. Per Zufall wird dann jemand ausgewählt und die Lösung eingefordert, ist diese richtig, dann haben wir einen Gewinner. Ansonsten gelten die selben Teilnahmebedingungen wie bei dem letzten Wettbewerb.

Die erste Frage lautet:
Name einer Startstadt in Vanguard mit 11 Buchstaben. Nehmt aus der Lösung den ersten und vierten Buchstaben.


Link: Für Fragen stehen wir euch hier Rede und Antwort
Link: English Version of this announcement

Zwei "neue" Videos sind heute Nacht online gegangen. Sie waren bereits gestern Abend im BitTorrent-Verteiler vorhanden.

EMSFull.avi ist praktisch das -ganze- Video zu EMSIntro.avi. Der Flug führt weiter auf einer der fliegenden Inseln und zeigt am Schluss einen Kampf gegen Mobs, die in den Gebäuden der Insel sind.
ForGamersIII.avi zeigt einen gruppendynamischen Kampf in einem Dungeon. Das ganze dauert knappe 10 Minuten.

Leider kann ich nur wieder die Qualität des Videoencodes bemängeln. Imo sollten die Leute die diese Videos aufnehmen lieber etwas die Grafik während der Aufnahme runterdrehen und sich ein Tutorial (Wie encode ich ein DivX-Video richtig) durchlesen.

In addition to the Mini-Videos taken by Jerrith (a Sigil programmer and long time MMOG player) and made available by yours truly and our awesome affiliate sites, I´ve also been working on several in-game videos. These are .avi files using DIVX for compression, otherwise the files would be HUGE – please make use of the variety of codecs out there that will enable you to view the videos and/or take the advice of those who post where to find these codecs on this thread and elsewhere. A few differences, however: 1. These are taken at Very High settings with *everything* turned on that can be right now (world lighting, tone mapping, all available settings to maximum, HDR, and more). I am using a very high end system (dual 3.8ghz, ATI x1900xt, Xfi card, XP 64, etc.) Why? To show Very High, as opposed to Jerrith´s Mediums, and also to compensate some for the significant hit FRAPs slaps you with. You’ll still see some roughness with our animations as they are not fully optimized, as well as some hitching as my system loads different areas – again, please keep in mind that the game is still in beta, has many optimizations coming, and I simply show off different areas of the game regardless of how polished or finished they are (although all areas are live on beta with people playing in them -- the exception would be the video that shows the Qalian capitol city Aghram, which is not yet open to beta players and while one of the largest, if not the largest cities ever created in an MMOG, it’s neither done nor accessible on beta (though it will be soon)). *** by no means should you assume that you will require such a system to play Vanguard when it is commercially released, even at High Settings**** 2. The videos are longer (and the files bigger) than Jerrith´s and so are in lower resolution and less clear. I am also less experienced with Premiere, so my noobness there will show. But I do cut between different sets of FRAPs videos as opposed to his, which are one ´encounter´. The lower resolution means you don´t feel as in-game, but the upside is you get more variety and longer videos. 3. In the videos I either use my play character with GM powers or Aradune, my GM character, with GM powers (I usually don´t play my regular character with GM powers, but did so in the videos to expedite things). In some of the videos you basically see Aradune follow a group of players as they adventure -- I´m pretty much tagging along. I do however, sometimes, intervene, and when I do, given that Aradune is invulnerable and level 50, mobs die pretty quickly, so please take note of that when I take down a mob in one or two swings. The regions with combat that I do show are for areas under level 20. 4. I do also include some still shots showing some of the game publications Vanguard has appeared in (shameless plug on my part – what can I say?) as well as some general art and some concept art for the game as well. Hopefully you find them interesting and informative, despite their commercial nature. Again, just like Jerrith´s videos, these are videos taken for MMOG gamers, either fans of Vanguard or just fans of MMOGs in general. They by no means take the place of the more professionally put together videos that are being put together for more high profile sites and publications that we are working with SOE on -- essentially, they have a different target audience, message, and purpose and therefore compliment each other. I´ve made four so far, and until I get some tips on how to use Premiere better, I´ll stick to these four. I will either provide the link and/or give the link to our affiliate sites to put up. You are welcome to mirror the videos -- in fact, you are encouraged to do so in order to help with bandwidth -- thanks Like Jerrith´s videos, these are taken live from Beta 3 and anyone who happens to appear on them are under NDA so please don´t bother them with questions as they will not be able to answer them or even acknowledge that was them. I will try to answer any questions you might have on various message boards, be it our official boards or elsewhere. Again, these are rough and meant to satisfy people interested in Vanguard or are experienced with MMOGs in general. They also therefore include flaws, especially as some of the areas depicted are new and unfinished. Accordingly, please take them for what they are. All of the videos are taken from Qalia, although future videos will undoubtedly include Thestra if these turn out to be popular and interesting to those viewing them.

Vanguard Tact wollen wohl ein BitTorrent-Netzwerk für die Videos aufbauen, das der Traffic für die Fanseiten reduziert wird. Eine sehr schöne Idee, jedoch aus meiner Sicht ein zweischneides Schwert, da es mit P2P-Netzwerken grundsätzlich Probleme gibt. Davon mal abgesehen, wir alle lesen/hören/sehen täglich, das P2P Netzwerke illegal sind, bzw. in einer Grauzone stecken. Und wer selber mal WoW gespielt hat, geht den tollen BitTorrent-Patcher ;-) Leider haben die Jungs auch noch keinen Tacker gestellt, um die daten einigermasen zu verteilen. Ich hoff, es wird einen privaten Tracker hierfür geben, da ich (und sicherlich auch viele andere), nicht bereit sind über öffentliche (und somit auch meist illegale) Tracker zu arbeiten.

Announcing VGTact Broadcast Machine Posted by Traldan on 05.09. at 18:26 I´ve just finished adding Broadcast Machine to our server. This allows you to download files (videos, mostly) as torrents to your computer. If you´ve never used BitTorrent before, it´s a program that allows you to download a file in lots of small pieces - the file downloads faster, and it doesn´t use as much bandwidth on our end. For more information on BitTorrent, read here. If you don´t have a bittorrent client installed, check out Azureus or µTorrent. Anyway, this is available at http://www.VGTact.com/bm . Download the .torrent file of the video you´d like, open it in a bittorrent client, and download away! I´ll be adding more of the videos recently released by Aradune and Jerrith as soon as I can. Edit: Sorry! Fixed the link

Und noch ein Video von Brad. Leider gibt es nicht viel zu sehen ausser einen kleinen Rundflug in diesem Video. Schön anzuschauen, wenn man es noch nicht kennt.

Brad’s Beta 3 Mini-Videos In addition to the Mini-Videos taken by Jerrith (a Sigil programmer and long time MMOG player) and made available by yours truly and our awesome affiliate sites, I´ve also been working on several in-game videos. These are .avi files using DIVX for compression, otherwise the files would be HUGE – please make use of the variety of codecs out there that will enable you to view the videos and/or take the advice of those who post where to find these codecs on this thread and elsewhere. A few differences, however: 1. These are taken at Very High settings with *everything* turned on that can be right now (world lighting, tone mapping, all available settings to maximum, HDR, and more). I am using a very high end system (dual 3.8ghz, ATI x1900xt, Xfi card, XP 64, etc.) Why? To show Very High, as opposed to Jerrith´s Mediums, and also to compensate some for the significant hit FRAPs slaps you with. You’ll still see some roughness with our animations as they are not fully optimized, as well as some hitching as my system loads different areas – again, please keep in mind that the game is still in beta, has many optimizations coming, and I simply show off different areas of the game regardless of how polished or finished they are (although all areas are live on beta with people playing in them -- the exception would be the video that shows the Qalian capitol city Aghram, which is not yet open to beta players and while one of the largest, if not the largest cities ever created in an MMOG, it’s neither done nor accessible on beta (though it will be soon)). *** by no means should you assume that you will require such a system to play Vanguard when it is commercially released, even at High Settings**** 2. The videos are longer (and the files bigger) than Jerrith´s and so are in lower resolution and less clear. I am also less experienced with Premiere, so my noobness there will show. But I do cut between different sets of FRAPs videos as opposed to his, which are one ´encounter´. The lower resolution means you don´t feel as in-game, but the upside is you get more variety and longer videos. 3. In the videos I either use my play character with GM powers or Aradune, my GM character, with GM powers (I usually don´t play my regular character with GM powers, but did so in the videos to expedite things). In some of the videos you basically see Aradune follow a group of players as they adventure -- I´m pretty much tagging along. I do however, sometimes, intervene, and when I do, given that Aradune is invulnerable and level 50, mobs die pretty quickly, so please take note of that when I take down a mob in one or two swings. The regions with combat that I do show are for areas under level 20. 4. I do also include some still shots showing some of the game publications Vanguard has appeared in (shameless plug on my part – what can I say?) as well as some general art and some concept art for the game as well. Hopefully you find them interesting and informative, despite their commercial nature. Again, just like Jerrith´s videos, these are videos taken for MMOG gamers, either fans of Vanguard or just fans of MMOGs in general. They by no means take the place of the more professionally put together videos that are being put together for more high profile sites and publications that we are working with SOE on -- essentially, they have a different target audience, message, and purpose and therefore compliment each other. I´ve made four so far, and until I get some tips on how to use Premiere better, I´ll stick to these four. I will either provide the link and/or give the link to our affiliate sites to put up. You are welcome to mirror the videos -- in fact, you are encouraged to do so in order to help with bandwidth -- thanks Like Jerrith´s videos, these are taken live from Beta 3 and anyone who happens to appear on them are under NDA so please don´t bother them with questions as they will not be able to answer them or even acknowledge that was them. I will try to answer any questions you might have on various message boards, be it our official boards or elsewhere. Again, these are rough and meant to satisfy people interested in Vanguard or are experienced with MMOGs in general. They also therefore include flaws, especially as some of the areas depicted are new and unfinished. Accordingly, please take them for what they are. All of the videos are taken from Qalia, although future videos will undoubtedly include Thestra if these turn out to be popular and interesting to those viewing them.

Jerrith lässt sich auch nicht bitten und bringt uns das dritte Video von sich. Gute 65MB Video zeigen euch, wie Kraelx im Temple von Dailuk erlegt wird. Schön auch, das Leute ihr Leben lassen ;-)

This long fight is part of an encounter route in the Temple of Dailuk that can only be activated by a player (in this case Ladroj) who has completed one of the earlier quests in the temple. Early on in the fight, Ladroj gets a critical hit with a fireball, drawing Kraelix onto him resulting in a quick death. Around the same time I fail to cast enough healing on Morgh, our tank, and he dies as well. From there, Syrok takes over and I keep everyone alive until the end, where Kraelix starts using his most powerful attacks. Everyone dies but me, and luckily, my last hit just manages to kill him before he can finish me off.

My favorite because people DIE!

Brad verwöhnt uns mit dem dritten Video. Es wurde diesmal in HOHER Qualität gespielt. Leider ist der Encode (für meinen Geschmack) nicht gelungen, da die Qualität durch die Kompression gelitten hat (und das bei einer Pixelbreite von 720!). Ich hoffe, es taucht noch eine wirkliche "HighRes" Version des Videos auf. Der Download ist schlappe 122MB gross. Zu sehen ist ein Flug über die Stadt, eine kleine Wanderung an der Stadtmauer und ein Kampf.

Brad’s Beta 3 Mini-Videos In addition to the Mini-Videos taken by Jerrith (a Sigil programmer and long time MMOG player) and made available by yours truly and our awesome affiliate sites, I´ve also been working on several in-game videos. These are .avi files using DIVX for compression, otherwise the files would be HUGE – please make use of the variety of codecs out there that will enable you to view the videos and/or take the advice of those who post where to find these codecs on this thread and elsewhere. A few differences, however: 1. These are taken at Very High settings with *everything* turned on that can be right now (world lighting, tone mapping, all available settings to maximum, HDR, and more). I am using a very high end system (dual 3.8ghz, ATI x1900xt, Xfi card, XP 64, etc.) Why? To show Very High, as opposed to Jerrith´s Mediums, and also to compensate some for the significant hit FRAPs slaps you with. You’ll still see some roughness with our animations as they are not fully optimized, as well as some hitching as my system loads different areas – again, please keep in mind that the game is still in beta, has many optimizations coming, and I simply show off different areas of the game regardless of how polished or finished they are (although all areas are live on beta with people playing in them -- the exception would be the video that shows the Qalian capitol city Aghram, which is not yet open to beta players and while one of the largest, if not the largest cities ever created in an MMOG, it’s neither done nor accessible on beta (though it will be soon)). *** by no means should you assume that you will require such a system to play Vanguard when it is commercially released, even at High Settings**** 2. The videos are longer (and the files bigger) than Jerrith´s and so are in lower resolution and less clear. I am also less experienced with Premiere, so my noobness there will show. But I do cut between different sets of FRAPs videos as opposed to his, which are one ´encounter´. The lower resolution means you don´t feel as in-game, but the upside is you get more variety and longer videos. 3. In the videos I either use my play character with GM powers or Aradune, my GM character, with GM powers (I usually don´t play my regular character with GM powers, but did so in the videos to expedite things). In some of the videos you basically see Aradune follow a group of players as they adventure -- I´m pretty much tagging along. I do however, sometimes, intervene, and when I do, given that Aradune is invulnerable and level 50, mobs die pretty quickly, so please take note of that when I take down a mob in one or two swings. The regions with combat that I do show are for areas under level 20. 4. I do also include some still shots showing some of the game publications Vanguard has appeared in (shameless plug on my part – what can I say?) as well as some general art and some concept art for the game as well. Hopefully you find them interesting and informative, despite their commercial nature. Again, just like Jerrith´s videos, these are videos taken for MMOG gamers, either fans of Vanguard or just fans of MMOGs in general. They by no means take the place of the more professionally put together videos that are being put together for more high profile sites and publications that we are working with SOE on -- essentially, they have a different target audience, message, and purpose and therefore compliment each other. I´ve made four so far, and until I get some tips on how to use Premiere better, I´ll stick to these four. I will either provide the link and/or give the link to our affiliate sites to put up. You are welcome to mirror the videos -- in fact, you are encouraged to do so in order to help with bandwidth -- thanks Like Jerrith´s videos, these are taken live from Beta 3 and anyone who happens to appear on them are under NDA so please don´t bother them with questions as they will not be able to answer them or even acknowledge that was them. I will try to answer any questions you might have on various message boards, be it our official boards or elsewhere. Again, these are rough and meant to satisfy people interested in Vanguard or are experienced with MMOGs in general. They also therefore include flaws, especially as some of the areas depicted are new and unfinished. Accordingly, please take them for what they are. All of the videos are taken from Qalia, although future videos will undoubtedly include Thestra if these turn out to be popular and interesting to those viewing them. -Brad

Zwei Highres Versionen (mit Teilweise neuem Inhalt) sind auf 4Gamer.NET aufgetaucht. Leider fehlt der Kommentar dazu und wurde durch Musik ersetzt. Ich würd euch gerne mehr dazu sagen, aber der Bericht auf der Seite auf Japanisch ;-) Schauts euch einfach an, sind schöne Bilder dabei. Morgen, bzw. Übermorgen soll einn weiteres Video erscheinten, zum Thema "Mounts". Wir werden euch entsprechend auf dem Laufenden halten.

Link1: Video zum Thema "Schiffe"
Link2: Video zum Thema "Player Housing"
Link: Diskussion im Forum

Vanguard Spheres präsentiert uns ein recht nettes Interview mit dem GameMaster T. Thomas. Fragen wie "What is it that you like about your job, in particular?" oder "Do you really enjoying RolePlay a lot, since you came from that background, it seems!?" werden beantwortet.

Q: What dimension to you hope to bring the world of Telon? The fourth? I think by now it’s pretty obvious, but I don’t mind going over it again. I want to see dynamic events in Vanguard that are above and beyond anything you’ve seen or imagined in an MMO so far. I want to open up possibilities. I want to tell stories. I want to present truly intelligent, challenging and interactive entertainment. And I want a pet monkey. The world of Telon will truly benefit from my having a pet monkey.

Wir werden mal wieder verwöhnt :-) Brad hat nocheinmal ein Video zur Verfügung gestellt.

Zu sehen ist ein Gruppenkampf gegen einen "Sentry of Xarkrafi", inkl. ein Add ;-) Kamera war wieder sehr ruhig gehalten, so das man gut verfolgen kann, was vor sich geht.

Jerrith’s Notes specific to the VG-Inside2Garg.avi mini-video: This is a video from deep inside one portion of the Temple of Dailuk, where we’re fighting two sentries of Xarkrafi, as part of an encounter route to summon Xarkrafi himself. Morgh had left just before this fight started, and so the monks and I end up taking most of the damage. Cir keeps the second sentry under control with a variety of stuns, mezes, and at one point, a simulacrum (an illusion which the sentry disbelieves just a few seconds after it is cast).

Wie im Forum zu lesen ist, werden neue GM´s gesucht. Die Vorraussetzungen sind eigentlich wie immer. Guter Umgang mit anderen Leuten, entsprechendes Wissen zu MMORPGs, einen gewissen Kenntniss-Stand, was das InGame leben betrifft, usw...

Game Master Candidates should have an extensive understanding of MMO gameplay and its related issues. Experience running Pen and Paper RPG campaigns is desired. This position requires patience, flexibility, solid written and oral communication skills, self-discipline, and the ability to work well in stressful situations. The position requires flexible hours. Good people skills are a must.