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Jumping into the world of Telon for the first time? Thinking about taking the plunge? Check out these fantastic resources suggested by a veteran of the world of Vanguard: Saga of Heroes!

The folks at SOE wanted to be sure we knew about Vanguard's upcoming 4th of July event. The Gnomes of Mekalia have a mad on for science, and they're going to show us what they can do with their mad science in the sky. In honor of the holiday, the gnomes are holding the Mekalian Extravaganza of Science and Technology (known to most as MEST). The event was originally slated to begin on June 24th, but has now been delayed until later in the week. Just the same the explosions should begin on the live servers sometime thiscoming week.

To participate, you're going to want to head to New Targonor, Khal, Ahgram, or Tanvu to catch up with one of the Heralds of Telon. They've got a special goodies. It's an event everyone from soloers up to raiders can enjoy, because the quests are geared for every playstyle. They even reward Ancient Platinum Coins, which will help people working towards their racial mounts! For the full monty head to the outskirts of Mekalia to check out the Gnomish festival. The Pyrotechnics Experts, Arcane Investigators, Size Analysts, and the Flight Researchers all have quests that will get you into the spirit of the holiday. Enjoy the show!

It's no secret that Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is a gorgeous game, we've given it very worthy spots in One Shots many times in the past few weeks. But every once in a while, someone's able to capture a game in a light that makes already amazing graphics become even better. And that is certainly the case with this Vanguard user-made trailer that's been sweeping forums.

The trailer shows off the main draws to Vanguard, such as the large open world, access to many fantastic mounts, ships, and other travel methods, and the epically large dungeons with equally epic monsters to destroy. The trailer is apparently so good at what it does, Silius, the lead game designer, even congratulated the makers on a video well done.

Go ahead and click on the link below to jump to the land beyond the break and watch the trailer for yourself!

[Thanks Ricky!]

Sony Online Entertainment is responsible for quite a number of MMOs, and they've got a useful system in place to allow communication with people across their game worlds. However, many people either don't know about this system, or simply don't know how to wrangle it into doing what they want. To help with this, SOE has written a guide illustrating how EverQuest players can chat to their friends in other games.

The games that EQ players can send both private messages and in-game mail to are EverQuest II, Planetside, Vanguard, The Matrix Online, and Star Wars: Galaxies. It's also possible to communicate with players on different EQ servers, but many of the servers have abbreviations that must be used in the commands -- these can be found in the guide. Now don't go acting all surprised when you're hiding from a guild raid on another server and your guild master sends you a tell!

Adventurers of Telon! Gather 'round, and prepare yourselves for battle. The latest in the ongoing series of huge updates to Vanguard: Saga of Heroes has arrived! Game Update 5 is now officially on the live servers. Though the game has had a long and rocky history, the patch notes on the official site are something to smile about. Called "Telon Rides On", with good reason, there's something here for players from the newbie zones all the way to the endgame. We've already been through a bunch of this before, but let's do a quick highlight reel anyway:

• Racial mounts! You may remember these critters from the exclusive video and screenshot preview we had on the site a while back. If you're looking to get hooked up with one of the 18 different available mounts, make sure to go check out the appropriate City Faction Registrar.
• Anti-Hitching/Performance improvements. "Yeah, yeah," you're saying to yourself, "I've heard this before." But don't take it from the devs ... apparently the game really is running more smoothly.
• New and improved spell effects. You can get a load of these in our video showcase of all the new toys Psionicists and Blood Mages now have. Both of these classes also received major updates to their abilities, to go along with their new whizbangs.
  
• Tons more, including UI tweaks, an overhaul of the Quest Journal/Quest Tracking, and a brand-new petition system.

You can get a look at the new Game Update straight from the source; our interview with Game Designer Lenny Gullo has it all from their side of the fence. Ride On, Telon!

Sony Online Entertainment is hiring for a few positions, and is soliciting resumés on its game forums.

Specifically, it's looking for customer support representatives to work with knowledge base articles for Free Realms and Vanguard. The job descriptions note that SOE's knowledge base articles are extremely important because they're the first and most common point of contact for customers. The CSRs will be responsible for producing, reviewing, and regionalizing knowledge base content.

The jobs appear to be entry level -- only a couple of years of gaming experience and a high school diploma are required. So if you know your MMO stuff, you live in or near San Diego (or are willing to move there, presumably), and you're out of work, e-mail SOE your resumé. You never know; it might be good.

I have a confession to make: While I was waiting for the Age of Conan launch, I decided to dip my toes back into Vanguard for a bit. It wasn't as crazy of a proposition as you might think. I've always liked Vanguard. It was never the design that was flawed -- it was the execution. Vanguard failed not because it was a bad game, but because when it launched it was a horrible, buggy, crashing, slow, unplayable mess. I know this because I was in late-stage beta, and that experience made me pass over the game when the launch date finally rolled around.

However, a crack SOE development team picked up the pieces of the broken dream of "the Vision," as McQuaid called it, and they've been working feverishly to stitch them together into something both exciting and stable over the last year. Last week, spurred by a desire to just have some fun, I dusted off the copy of the game I bought this fall and rolled up a Necromancer. I didn't expect much. I was just killing time until the Age of Conan launch started. Surprisingly, Vanguard grabbed me. Without really intending to, I was having more fun in an MMOG than I had had in a long time -- so much fun that when the AoC servers finally came up, I was still playing Vanguard. All this week, while logged into AoC, I've been thinking about Vanguard. I'm seriously contemplating putting Age of Conan on ice for a while to go play Vanguard some more. I was enjoying myself that much. What's so great about this allegedly terrible game that I'm willing to play it over the brand new blockbuster flavor-of-the-month?

In an interview with Allakhazam, Vanguard producer Thom Terrazas talked about how his game is going right now, how it is currently being improved, and improvements that can be expected for the future. Allakhazam wasn't afraid to ask the tough questions, bringing up the game's less-than-stellar launch, and asking Terrazas to pinpoint the areas that have held back Vanguard until now.

Terrazas admits that the performance and system requirements of the game during the launch period lost them a lot of players, but promises that these issues are well behind them now, with a lot of optimization to the client. His advice is to get in the game and join a guild, and promises that his team listen do the community and make updates accordingly. But with the next generation of MMOs already upon us, is it too late for Vanguard to recover?

A lot of hot topics come up again and again on the Vanguard forums. Will the rumored Vanguard free trial replace the existing racial homelands? Will Age of Conan and other upcoming games kill Vanguard? Is SOE going to make a "hardcore" server for the trufans, and what will that do to normal servers if they do? Ten Ton Hammer's Dalmarus says, enough with these dead horses. The free trial won't avoid the traditional starting areas. Players don't seem to be flocking to Age of Conan. There is no hardcore server in the works. All dead horses who have been beaten long enough, and deserve a rest.

But there's better news, a sort of bright light coming from that heap of ashes over there. New players are coming to Vanguard; old players are returning. Server populations are increasing, and the game is finding its place in the world. Why focus on dead horses when there's live ones standing all around? Dalmarus makes excellent points. Vanguard has had troubles, but it's far from dead.

Genda of The Grouchy Gamer was a gamer with a dream; to hitch himself to Sigil's rising star. He created a one-stop shop for all news and information about Vanguard's crafting sphere, joined the Vanguard affiliate program, and gained a unique outsider's perspective to what would become one of the MMO world's most legendary disasters. It's a story of how lack of leadership and vision could turn EverQuest's spiritual successor and the hard work of dozens of talented designers, artists and programmers into tears in a parking lot in Carlsbad, California.

The retrospective is in three parts. In the first, Genda tells about Brad McQuaid's departure from SOE and the first news about the game that would become Vanguard, his lunch with the late fantasy artist Keith Parkinson, and Brad's increasing absence from the Sigil offices. The second part tells how many of the best innovations in Vanguard died on the vine because the programmers were busy rewriting all the scripts from the Unreal 3 engine and the increasing trouble within Sigil. The last part brings Vanguard from its troubled beta, through its disastrous launch and acquisition by SOE.

The official website for Vanguard: Saga of Heroes has done a great job of highlighting some of the best content in the game. A few weeks back they put up an official guide to the gulch in the Ksaravi, a place called "Poison Gulch". In the light of the upcoming Game Update 5, they've continued this series, offering opportunities to folks looking to get in early and start working up to those amazing new mounts.

Last week they offered a new insight into the game's hidden treasures with the Legend of Trengal Keep. Their guide offers insight into the story behind this intimidating locale at the hearth of Thestra. Struck by meteors, haunted by bands of vicious orcs, the place is unsafe for the lone adventurer - the overarching quest line is definitely not for the lone adventurer.

That said there are five different quest-providers, offering everything from solo to full-group expeditions for explorers in their early 30s. They sound like varied and interesting challenges, with some quest threads even sending players clear across the continent to places like the Wardship of the Sleeping Moon. A great chance to explore the gameworld and its context.