Vanguard: It Has Pretty Trees

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes was one of the few games I've purchased in the first week. I'm usually a lot more cautious with my money (comes from not having much). But I did, and ran home, jumped online and started playing. First thing I noticed was that all the characters looked the same. Well, all of the same race/gender. All human males look alike, as well as all dark elf females. Very disappointing since I love having a unique character. The second thing I noticed was that all the characters were ugly. Yep, they were ugly and decidedly low-tech. Fat arms, matte eyes, odd torsos, they were not too great. This contrasted greatly with the second thing I noticed: the trees are gorgeous! I've never seen trees depicted so beautifully in a video game before. Best of all though, was that they swayed in the virtual wind. Between the trees and the blades of grass swaying it made the world of Vanguard look so much more real than any other virtual landscapes I've seen in a game. Well, this isn't really a review - more like a forward to the following screenshots which capture some of my time in Vanguard.

A Warrior's World
It's nice to be able to see so far. Most games like EQ2 and World of Warcraft keep you bottled up in convenient mountains so you can never see more than 1/4 mile or so. If that fails, they just fog it up so you can see that far anyway.

A Warrior's Night
They night sky is very beautiful. All the wispy clouds with the stars behind them and the bright moon add a lot to a night-time jog.

A Warrior's Stance
Actually, he's my druid. But he looks like he could do some pretty good whacking with his staff, eh? He's fun, and most of all, I found a character model that didn't look like poo!

A Warrior's House
Ok, so that's not my house. But it would make a nice house, right?

A Warrior's Face? What the...
Yep, this was actually a very large factor in my leaving Vanguard. The developers started mucking around with character models and somehow mage kept getting changed back to this monkey. A fat, goofy-armed mage is just not very impressive.

Well it's been almost a year, and I've heard good things about the changes Vanguard has seen since then. So I've decided to give it another try. It has always had potential, and who knows, maybe they've gotten rid of the poo-men!

Good Times, Great Oldies

Every so often I reminisce about World of Warcraft, and all the fun I had when I while I was playing that game. I love looking through my old screenshots I'd take as I played - there's some good ones. Here's a few of my favorites:

Dustyboots and Daphoosa Do Goldshire
Nothing quite like getting drunk while laying at odd angles on fence-posts.

Dustyboots does Desolace
A paladin must not lose faith, even in the most desolate of places.

Dustyboots fishes for women
There's still plenty of fish in the sea.

Jeddak and Arnara do Stranglethorn Vale
Brother and sister go on a safari.

Jeddak does the Scarlet Monastary
A leasurely stroll through a place of faith and learning.

Dance of Friends
What better way to celebrate a victory than to get down and boogie?

Saxifrage and the Moon
Elves have a curious attraction to the moon.