Vanguard: Saga of Heroes Sunset FAQ - NEW INFO added on 7/24/14

What will it require to keep Vanguard alive. Many of the players have a lot invested in the game, in both time and money.... What will happen to the estates (homes and mansions) of the players when Vanguard is obliterated by SOE? Let me guess...All gone, and no way to recover any of it...


I believe that it can be saved. The reduction in cost of game items was a good thing. Those who will leave quietly, are most likely gone already. Those who are still here, will not leave, but will either quit online gaming entirely, or look for another supplier for their entertainment needs...

I do like my Vanguard.. thanks for listening

It's really a shame. You kill this game and you don't give a chance for a revival with a private server or anything... I don't understand why...) money money money

No company ever says "okay emulate our stuff" for their games.

There is an EverQuest emulator project but it isn't endorsed or okay'd by SOE. Much like there have been similar projects for Ragnarok Online.

If someone were to reverse engineer Vanguard like they did the other applications for emulators then we'd have something but well... Good luck with that.

well before the deadline I intend to fraps my whole inventory, stats, characters, ect. Sooner or later, someone will create a stable emu server, maybe 10 or 15 years from now when tech improves. frankly while I understand sony's postiton in not making the game info open source, I still think its kinda of a prissy thing to do for something your throwing away.

However, all this said, id just as soon NOT have to fraps everything. So before my toons are offered up to the sacrifice of the uncaring gods. is it possible to get the original DATA files on my characters that are on the sony datatbase? yes I know I don't own them, but it'd be sure nice if I could get them anyway.

I have a FAQ.

Where is Mekalia going to be reopened?

Well isn't this a kick in the face...

Just returned after a few months away and now this.

While I understand that SOE can do whatever they want with the game not allowing someone emulate or buy the game seems a bit petty. It is a lot like the child who takes his ball and goes home except in this case the child also decides to burn down the playground. While it is true SOE does not owe us an explanation a statement of the reasoning behind this decision would be beneficial. Right now SOEs reputation has taken a huge hit with those of us who play vanguard.

First, yes a better explanation would go a long way - especially when you think about many, many older games that are still running, some with smaller playerbases than Vanguard. Yes, yes, we all know it's a business decision to feed more resources into the new baby, but sometimes that's not good enough when you look at those games that are still running (EQ included).

I look at it like this: It's the kid with an older ball playing with a couple of his friends. The older ball isn't the greatest, nor is it as popular as the kid would hope it would be, but nevertheless, his friends still enjoy playing with it. Then, the kid's parents buy him this new fangled and popular ball so the kid tells his friends that they can't play with the old ball anymore, and he won't give any of them the old ball to keep using, even though he will never use it again nor sell it to someone else to use. So they either have to play with the new ball or they can just sod off.

Yeah, I'm very sad about losing Vanguard, there is no value to having a subscription or station access anymore without it, so unfortunately for the first time in several years I have no reason to continue and will cancel my SoE subscription entirely....

Isn't there anything you can do to allow an emulator to exist? If some other company has rights to the graphic engine can't you sell them the game so they can run it?

Or, if the company that owns the graphic engine doesn't exist, shouldn't legal rights have a statute of limitations, that they run out when the company dissolves? It is pretty pointless to lose a game that people are willing to pay money for.

Its all about to kill Vanguard. But there are so much MMORPGS and lots of them are still better as those SONY got and lots of new ones coming out, are a lot better as those SONY will copy in future from other company's. The commercial point of view, to close one game, where SONY just have to farm the money is so unclear. Specially because SONY already owns it. SONY has to win new customers for the new games the want to sell but kick people they already have. That kind of thinking is so special.

Will the Vanguard: Saga of Heroes Website and/or Forums be available after the service shuts down?
All Websites and Forums associated with Vanguard: Saga of Heroes will be removed after the service shuts down.

Since August 1st we will all look like VG never existed .... it will be damn hard to pretend so.

Personally, I do not see why sunset Vanguard...when EQ...though yes the originator of it all, is still up and they are expanding it. V:SOH is by far better than EQ 1. Maybe SOE was just again ahead of their time with Vanguard like with Galaxies.

As for your comment Microman, Difference in SOE games and others is level of completion at release, level of detail in game, and effort put in to keep them running.

Galaxies was one of the best games, followed closely by Vanguard. EQ2 is good but I would rather see you sunset some of them you are but add the buggy Dragons Prophet to the list and maintain Vanguard. I have been working to recruit players to Vanguard just to find out its going away. Sad Sad day.

I will miss it like I do my Master Bounty Hunter from Galaxies ( not the village grind though).

Been playing since Vanguard first came out, but this is (obviously) my first post here.

To me, this is similar to what happened to City of Heroes: Someone advised NCSoft to simply switch the game off, with no explanation given, and the players have never forgiven them for it. Granted, it's known that CoH was making money even at sunset, while there's no known financial data for Vanguard (as far as I'm aware, anyways), but nonetheless, it seems SOE is making NCSoft's exact same mistake. Without solid evidence to the contrary, this is the logical assumption. Were Vanguard in the hole and sinking fast, they'd likely tell the playerbase, if for no other reason than to stop speculation and let us know they had a concrete reason for doing so.

I play EQ2 and DC Heroes as well (Station Access since it was first offered), so this is less of a blow for me than for exclusive Vanguard players, but it's still rather disheartening. And unlike Galaxies, Vanguard aficionados have nowhere to go after this. I'm glad I paid attention to the updates before I went and spent any more Station Cash in Telon.

I can only hope we all find a new home in another world where we feel at home, once the gates into Telon have been closed off to us.

Sad but true. They removing everything.

Tho I agree with people here it's sad that SOE is killing Vanguard, see it this way.

Vanguard was merely a good idea that got messed up badly by Brad's lack of Leadership.
It was full of bugs and hardly a game ready for release when SoE baught brad out and took over cleaning up the mess and actually make it a playable game.
Without SoE we wouldn't even have had the chance of playing the game that many of us followed just because it was Brad's project.

Problem is, there is only a very small playerbase left in Vanguard, and if SOE is killing it now it means SOE can't even make enough money of it to justify the small crew of people that works on a game that they have only kept alive for the playerbase. Not a single expansion have been made.
I don't believe the few server resources it takes in their datacenter is the problem. It's a pure matter of that they can't justify tying up any staff members to service a game that isn't making any money at all.

The reason EQ is still running after 15 years is that even a lot of the old players is gone It still have a fair and very dedicated playerbase that has actually rosen since they made it F2P

As to why they are just shutting it down without giving a reason or not trying to sell it, think of how many online games we have ever seen being either sold or turned into public domain ?
Think that can be counted on 1 hand.

They propably arent too keen either to give code away that could give people an insight in how their infrastructure and client/server communication is working, even they could make a small amount of money selling it

But still a sad day..
Vanguard R.I.P

Very sad that the game will be shut down....

Fill me in on this. I havent played Vanguard since you guys took it over instead of back up brad. Thats irrelevent.

What bothers me is that you are closing down the game. You obviously wont be re-luanching it in the future. WHat possible reason could you have for not sharing the source code with people who could provide further nejoyment to fans of the game? I get not wanting them to profit off of your game. But lets be frank, A) it isnt YOUR game.. id argue 0 people currently involved were there for the original development of the game and more importantly B) I dont think anyones intent is to release vanguard under their name and start charging subs....

personally emulated/private servers are great and allow people to play games that were 9/10 much better before they were molested by greedy devs making changes which dont benefit the genre but benefit the kiddies hence their wallets.

Anyways TLDR - explain what it is you guys tell yourselves to justify keeping people from using something that is just going to otherwise rot?

Its like me letting a gallon of milk go bad even though someone else would gladly use/drink it.

Then again, this is the company who is releasing EQN as F2P lol. Ugh, it hurt just to type that.