Developer Spotlight – Meet Silius!

As mentioned in the March 2012 Producer Letter, we will be introducing you to members of the Vanguard: Saga of Heroes Development Team through special Developer Spotlight features. First up is Silius!
Developer Spotlight – Meet Silius!

Awesome post, glad to see the spotlights coming out. I am not sure what the Planes of Fire content is Silius mentioned, I will have to do some research on that but I am happy to hear they got plans outside of f2p. As far as the dungeon revamps, I would like a more detailed explanation of this.
Although I am happy to have new content, I hope the revamp refers to taking old dungeons never finished or itemized and completing them and not revamp as in like they did with Magi Hold, i.e. taking an existing dungeon and reworking it into end game content. There are enough rarely explored areas of the world that were intended as dungeons that never got worked on. Some have mobs and just need quests and itemization and some are completely empty. So my plea to the Devs is go after the unused stuff and only touch existing content if it needs itemization tweaks or bug fixes.
Thanks again for the spotlight, I look forward to reading the rest.

Quert@Telon wrote:

There are Soooooo many shut off dungeons areas in this game ..... The ones that were open in beta and launch that were shut off due to people not knowing where to gather to do anything , because there was too much to do oddly enough. Mob population was severely thinned out and many areas depopulated and shut off. Some areas they just forgot there were mobs in and never itemised the named mobs in. I've periodically at varying levels rechecked alot of them that remain barren. They have some areas in dungeons that actually have mobs - like a whole wing of it that are empty and forgotten. Plenty of potential for expanding the game.

I don't particularly like the choice of the name "Plane of Fire" as it's remniscent of "Everquest" if that is indeed the "City of Brass" call it City of Brass or COB or whatever , dont let the other titles being worked on bleed into this one. I do realise that there is alot of cookie cutter content that occurs in all game, and theres been things from both genere games that have flipflopped which can be expected.
On a side note ... yes we know Silius ... well anyone who's been around a while does .....
Better yet for those of you who have been around for a while and Don't know .... You can Spawn a Killable version of this developer in the arena , when you kill him the reward is his Head ~ that may drum up some arena activity.
I'd love to be given a ballpark figure on the amount of developers that are working on "Vanguard" , and not "Just" the free to play launch version that is being worked on, as in after the free to play version hits do we go back to less than a skeleton crew and become abandonware again .......

Oh and will there be any advertising.....
~Kids Today Have The Attention-Span Of High-Speed Lint~

Quert@Telon wrote:

People used to lower standards acting like people used lower standards.
Gidoo and Naylie made a podcast a few months ago detailing new content and going into specifics. Go read the EQ2 forums and check out how devs and CR interact with the playerbase.

Roadkilled@Telon wrote:

I am sorry you have so much bitterness in you to feel you have to direct it towards anyone trying to approach the game and its teams development in a positive light. I have been around long enough to not swallow every sugar-coated pill that comes down the pipe. I and everyone else who's been loyal followers to Vanguard have faced lots of anger and dissapointment over the years with the way the game has been handled. It does not mean we mindlessly lap up any atention and all is forgiven, but we dont and should not constantly barrage them with hate and anger.
My post was only to show my approval that, as opposed to recent actions from those in charge we are starting to see promises made and kept. To you it may seem as "used to lower standards acting like used to lower standards", that is your preogative I approve of these baby steps yet I understand that it is baby steps and SOE has far to go to completely sway the playerbase that they are truly dedicated to bringing Vanguard up to where it should have always been.
I do not need to go elsewhere to see how devs and CR should interact with the playerbase, I play enough other MMO's to see how others do things and know how all should do things. My concern is with Vanguard though and not those others. I give positive feedback when they do something good, even small accomplishments should be praised. I also do not hesitate to give criticism if I feel they have erred.
I would suggest you practise doing the same, you seem to need it in the area of helpful and productive criticism. Learn to voice your concerns and give helpful advice on how to improve what you see as lacking. Otherwise you just come across as a Troll and acomplish nothing. Your above attempt failed at that and just came across as not only contemptful of the team working on Vanguard but borderline a personal attack towards me.

Loyalty rewards....

Just a "suggestion":

Revamp the augment slots on the Visonary's Signet of Promise". (This may require pulling out augments which others ahve already put in, or flagging it to a different item and re-enabling the /claim item.)
Add "specialty" augment slots to them.
Grant people the ability to pick up these "specialty" augments from the Loyalty Rewards time, and possibly in the future for other happenings.
As it stands, the Visonary's signet of promise is more like "The Visonary's Signet of Broken Promises". The availible slots for it are just "meh" anyways. Two gems, two primals, and Two etherences.. so 68 HP, +6 to a stat, and...+402 to flurry or rage resist.. yay! =/

Wanted as loyalty item: Frickin' crate crusher that never gets expended. kthnx.
We don't need useless pets and titles, but that would rock

Jakkal@Telon wrote:

Telyrant actually got that last week, it dropped for him after named run, we are both compulsive crate openers and he will not hesitate to link it and rub it in for you Jak lol
OT:
Haven't we already "met" Silius...I thought this was for us to meet the new Dev's or is this another way to put us off for a while...
Silius, it still kills me to this day that you play a Rogue as your main, yet you leave us so neglected and broken, why man?
Please fix us

I think that City of Brass/Jhor Razkur/Plane of Fire (whichever name you want to call it) will be a pretty fun place and would be happy to have it released but the part I am looking most forward to is the 24 man dungeon with AA's, I think a lot of us are.
Also curious to know if any class rebalancing would happen with the F2P conversion. I think that end game itemization and caps and set bonuses would need to be thought over more before proceeding with new, more difficult content with greater rewards. Also people's broken epics should be looked into in the near future.

Torveld wrote:

I wasn't really that impressed with the two raid encounters we tested, but will take Torveld's word on the rest since he spent many hours helping to test the content. Hopefully all his efforts weren't wasted.

Byaaah!!!

Dravid@Telon wrote:

^^^ This
Compared to Gidoo and Naylie's podcast segment where a CR rep and a dev sat down and recorded a great segment of content specifically addressing players' concerns and also future content ; the "Developer Spotlight – Meet Silius!" post is about as informative as telling us "Silius likes cats". People came out of the woodwork and resubbed or started playing again when that got put out. A lot of people, myself included, even came back over the summer when the first "big bug bash" or whatever it was called got announced. The changes were minimal, but it was certainly nice to see that SOE was actually going to do something to the game after around 2 years of nothing. So for around 2 years people kept reporting bugs and asking about bugs, but SOE was silent. Go read the EQ2 or EQ forums and you will see a vibrant playerbase with tons of dev interaction which oddly enough comes from the same company that runs this game.
Silius if you are serious about bringing VG to where it should be and are on a budget, most people are going to be fine with you saying that you are going to fix bugs and then make it polished enough to go F2P. It is a great/the best MMO out there now and you have a loyal playerbase. Just be somewhat honest and specific about what you are going to do even if you have no plans for new content and just want to do bug fixes. It obviosly does not work to try to fix 12 different things in each patch. Pick 1-3 issues/bugs every week and fix them instead of doing odd things like changing end game raid encounters, fixing a broken animation, and doing backend server stuff that makes the lag worse all in a short period of time.

Welcome Silius and I at least hope that you can try to work on "issues" with this game. 2 years ago, I made so many bug reports on the Isle of Dawn that it wasn't even funny. Question though, why add new content when the dev's won't fix what is wrong with this product. I mean, since you say you love playing Vangaurd, then surely you listen to the people and what they have to say and if not you should. Make a new toon and hang out in the Isle for some time and see what people are stating with bugs and such. I can point off at least 10 harvesting nodes and their locations that will not let you harvest from them and like 2 years ago that hasn't changed. I can run through 2 places of the map and have also submitted those locs and got the standard response from a GM. And yes page 12 of the customer handbook states, "Thank you for your interest in Vangaurd but we are aware of this issue and are addressing it." Sorry for the snide comment but it is frustrating. And the kicker, I love selling items for 1 copper and the buyback is 300,000,000 copper. Love it.
I don't want to seem like I am bashing the product, but come on please. Fix what's broken first BEFORE ADDING NEW CONTENT.
On my final note Silius if you do read these posts please do something about this cause it's horrible.

I was hoping for something a little more in-depth, but maybe you guys just can't talk a lot about future plans. Hopefully that changes soon.

Still, I like this.

Welcome back to the game Silius, as you can see the forums haven't changed much
Hope you enjoy your time back here and the challenges it is sure to throw your way, but we all appreciate any new content, fixes, and updates that may come our way.

Sorry, not sure how to do the quote thing but "Also, those who maintain active accounts between April 20th and the free-to-play launch will be granted an additional set of rewards that can be claimed after free-to-play is live."
My question is...I am a Station Pass person. Will I have to have a real account active and not just Sataion Pass? I have been noticing troubles with EQ2 and it not counting as a "real" sub even though I am activly playing both games. If it doesnt count I want to be sure to drop SP and pay for VG outright Please let me know

Adalia wrote:

+1 This is a good question I just picked up station pass. If it does not count as a sub i am going back to subbing Vanguard only.

Welcome back Silius.

Enkur wrote:

Should be covered with station pass... I've had one for quite a while now and have been included in every game's rewards program.

Graye@Xeth wrote:

EQ2 will not let me gift items...it says I have to have a active sub. That is why I ask. I honestly do not want to miss out. After going SP, my account seemed to be missing other items as well (to be able to switch server is another example). The missing things are not to big of a deal right now...but station pass has for sure stopped me from being able to do/buy things I could a month ago before I switched to station pass.

nt