The Great Land Rush

Last week SOE began the process of merging all existing servers into 4 - One FFA PVP, one EU PVE and two US PVE. Server names were decided through a poll, the names with the highest votes were picked. Some argue if the server merges were really necessary, the people who do are just naive. When Vanguard was launched there was approximately 200k subs, recent numbers show it's now around 20k. The world of Telon is so vast with land, sea and skies to explore that many servers and a low population is just not practical.

Since the server merges were announced there were obvious concerns: housing. It was named "the great land rush" and it took Telon by storm. Each house build on the old server would be deconstructed and all items placed in the housing escrow. The untouched world of the Xeth server features idilic housing plots scattered across Telon. The more desired plots, those with access to a riftway and other services were the target of this land rush. As the server was bought online, characters conveniently placed in these hot spots logged on either to snap up their location or to find, with great disappointment that they were too late.

The main target of this assault was The Deebs. With a riftway, mount vendor and a crafting outpost, it is a favourable location. Unfortunately, as it is human nature there were others with crueler intentions. Telon Real Estate PLC is open for business! Greedy entrepreneurs snapped up prime locations with the intention of selling them on, at an inflated price - some of these plots reached 30 platinum. It's rumoured too, that goldsellers joined in on this little scam. Left: Sunset over Deeb Valley.

Sony, however acknowledge this problem and close the doors on Telon Real Estate PLC. Their solution is to beef up other housing areas by adding riftways and other necessary services - thus making The Deebs seem less of a premier location.

The tale of events mentioned above is, infact the carebear version of what happened. While the population of the PVE servers hide behind their ruleset, the members of Sartok face a larger problem or is it a solution? The land rush is still there but is in a state of hibernation. People logging on to grab their location were met with a surprise - a visit to the altar! Take a PVP server, lots of people, bad fps and limited prime locations and what do you get? Carnage! How do the members of Varking react when the ties between Shadow and Order have been shattered? The response to the only PVP alternative is a divided one. Team PVP provided a happy medium in between carnage and a PVP environment. The problem however was unavoidable, and who knows, when subs rise, team PVP may make a return.

Server merges were not all bad, as I may have lead you to believe. The population of each server is very healthy and server status is showing each to be on "medium" capacity. With game update 3 coming shortly, bringing the first raid dungeon to VG, hopefully population will gradually rise. The distance at which you can see another player on land is quite limited. The distance at which you can see another character or mob in the sky is much greater and it is an awesome sight when you look to the skies and see a trail of players setting off on an adventure - population!

Much to the disbelief of the players, the server merges went off without a problem and I was able to login promptly and found only one problem... too much talking in general!
Since I began playing Vanguard again I have been searching for a guild to join. As alot of the best content in Vanguard is grouped based, it is best to have a party of regular players to group with. When server merges were announced, I held off looking for a guild until after the merges when the dust had settled. I can now proudly say I am the newest member of The Ancient Order - I look forward to future adventures with you guys!

Comparing the game now, to what it was at launch, you can see how far the game has come. The game appears to be going in the right direction, with regular game updates coming on time and now server merges, the game is showing real hope.