The MMO Notebook

A large portion of my second night playing Vanguard involved riding a flying reindeer. As part of the holiday festivities, players were given access to Randolph, the red-nosed reindeer. I tracked him down in the city of Tanvu and tested him out. I flew him around for a bit just for the fun of it, but the real reason I got him was because of the Riftways.

Riftways are portals to other areas of the game world. Vanguard’s massive size makes travel long and tedious, so they put in the riftways to help. In order to travel from one riftway to another, you must first unlock them by visiting each one. Normally, that would be a pain, since you would have to travel on foot to each one. Ol’ Randolph helps out by flying over the land and well away from any danger. Even so, it still took a very long time to get from one riftway to another. I can’t say it enough – Vanguard’s landmass is huge. Each riftway is marked on your map, so you don’t have to search for them. I grew weary of riding Randolph after about an hour and a half, so I flew back to Tanvu and let him go. Once in Tanvu, I checked my quest log and got back to work becoming a hero.

I had a few interesting quests. One led me to a house that I needed to search for a missing villager. I looked over both floors of the house but didn’t find any clue. Back upstairs I noticed some poles leaning against a wall. The poles led up to a window. I slowly scaled the poles and emerged onto the roof where I was quickly attacked by two foes. Taken by surprise, it was a touch and go fight for a few seconds, but I was victorious. I soon found the body I was looking for and completed the quest.

Another quest involved a task given to me by a Jin master. He wanted me to find four Essence of Jin and absorb them. This took me around the surrounding area, slaying creatures as I went. The Essence’s were floating “glowies” that were dispersed across the countryside. Most of them never moved, but one of them roamed the beaches and I had to track it down.

One quest that I really liked, even though it was rather easy, wanted to test how well I was following the path of Jin. To test my agility I had to find a mushroom located atop a high boulder. Once I found the boulder, I noticed that it was actually several boulders spaced slightly apart. I had to nimbly jump from one boulder to the next until I reached the mushroom. I tried eating the mushroom, but to no avail.

Other quests involved trading a man crab for fish, saving a Lao’Jin house from Ra’Jin attack, slaying X number of komodo dragons, and slaying X number of boars. On a side note, where is it written that every MMO must have their own version of boar that we must kill? It gave me Lord of the Rings Online flashbacks.

All the quests kept me busy throughout my first couple nights of play. Quest experience is big, so it is well worth doing them, even though the Jin theme begins to wear thin after awhile.

–Wolfen