In another time and place Vanguard was meant to be a haven for the old-school MMO player, the kind of people who suffered through early game play mechanics like corpse-runs and hell levels and thought it perfectly normal, even desirable. Turned sour by the perceived “dumbing-down” of the genre by titles like World of Warcraft, there was a feeling of an itch unscratched, a space asking to be filled where the disaffected hard-core MMO players of old could find solace.

Of course, this kind of thinking almost never *really* pans out. But in the case of Vanguard, it met its first death for other reasons entirely…

Without rehashing entirely too much history and unfounded rumors, let us say that Vanguard ultimately started its decline because of poor product management and some technical problems that to this day bedevil the title. What most people do not realize, however, is how close the game actually came to delivering on its stated goal of offering up a sand-box like environment that would let you adventure freely, largely unencumbered by “zones” and “instances”. In fact, Vanguard to this day has only 2 instanced areas in its entire HUGE play-space: The Isle of Dawn starting area for new players and one Raid area later on in the game, both added post launch.

And this game is MASSIVE. In science-fiction there’s a term, Big Dumb Object, used to describe “any mysterious object in a story which generates an intense sense of wonder just by being there.” Think the original Ringworld by Larry Niven or the smaller ring habitats of the Halo series. That’s what being plunked down into the world of Vanguard is like, the setting itself is part of the experience, a fantasy world that at times seems nearly boundless. And it’s not just full of empty space either, there are areas of the game fully fleshed out that most people will never see. The people behind Vanguard thought BIG and it shows, they fully expected it to be the next big thing and designed the game to hold those teeming masses.

So you have a huge world, largely realized, and gameplay mechanics more difficult that most other MMOs out there, but not overly so. What could possible go wrong? More than anything, the one thing that started Vanguard down its journey to the afterlife and beyond was the horrible performance issues the game suffered from at launch.They were crippling and as it turned out, largely not fixable for years because of poor technical design decisions when the game was being built on a modified Unreal “2.5” game engine. Players pleaded for performance fixes and changes but none came in the first few months, things behind the scene with Sigil and SOE had hit rock bottom and finger pointing had lead to a development team largely left paralyzed. Players left, *in droves*, and in just a few months after launch, the fate of Vanguard was obvious to all but a few dedicated fans.

And then things start to get *really* weird.

“It’s not how big it is, it’s how you use it..”

The years tick by and development on Vanguard slowly trickles down to a near halt, is revived for a new starter zone, character models and raiding zone, and then stops. The dreaded “maintenance mode” is announced and all bug fixes and developer support are halted. At this point, Vanguard is well and truly dead, It’s reached its end point and will go no further. And yet…the game goes on. Players continue to subscribe and even thrive from time to time as the MMO world around it waxes and wanes. Word of mouth keeps the game going, with utterances like “The best and last true MMO out there” becoming common cause in the back channels of the MMO players world. In the larger world, a shift is occurring as more and more MMO titles leave the “free to player” stigma behind them and embrace what is proving to be a very profitable and successful strategy for the western markets. Once the area of cheap Asian trash MMO’s, free to play (f2p) has been embraced and modified for the sensibilities of westerners and titles like Lord of the Rings Online, Everquest 2, Age of Conan and scores of others are now not just surviving but *thriving*. Long starved of oxygen by World of Warcraft, other MMO’s have adopted a winning strategy just as the Juggernaut of the MMO world starts to lose market, and most importantly, mind share.

Which brings us, more or less, up to the present with Vanguard. Now a cult favorite that’s survived 2 years of neglect, the game none-the-less managed to undergo some important performance changes before that dread “maintenance mode” announcement. There are still issues here and there, that can’t be denied, but with a little tweaking players can by and large eliminate 95% of any performance issues. And if your so inclined, there are even performance guides out there for people wanting to take that tweaking to the next level, but it’s not really necessary. Visually, the game does very well. Character models are perhaps a weakness at times, but the world is visually an amazing treat for the eyes.And in this day and age, advances with things like the post processing FXAA tool allow you to visually tweak the game to look just about how you want it while adding low performance hit anti-aliasing.

So you have a cult-sleeper like hit on your hands that offers a massive, open world to explore, 19 races to choose from, 15 classes and 3 “spheres” of gameplay. You look around and see how well other f2p games have done and indeed, your own recent efforts in that area have turned in huge profits and player increases for other MMOs once thought gone to seed. So what do you do? You guessed it, you give the game yet another chance, put some developers on to transition it over to f2p and offer up some new game content and bug fixes.

And that’s wonderful, because quite honestly this game is really, really fucking good.

In a time where other games are emphasizing how easy things are to get into, how no choice you make is final, Vanguard gives you a sense of accomplishment without beating you over the head and rubbing your face in the mud. You are going to die, and sometimes it’s going to suck, but it teaches you to pay attention to what you’re doing in the game. And the class choices are fantastic, diverse and fun to play. Vanguard was meant to an immerse world you could get lost in and accomplish things, and all of that is still there. The community is by and large, fantastic, but a little trepidacious about the upcoming (still rumored to some) transition to the f2p model.

So change and renewed life is coming to Vanguard, and I for one welcome it with open arms. The Free to play announcement is expected in March, around the time Everquest 1 goes live with its own free to play version. And so Vanguard goes on, too stubborn to die and facing an optimistic future. And those, my friends, are words I *never* expected to write.