Randolph Gets The Boot: Vanguard

The ineffably and appositely named Boots Randolph's signature tune would have made a fine backing track as I tramped up the ramp to New Targonor over and over this morning. Did you ever notice how long that thing is? Or how confusing the entrances to Ahgram are, never mind the maze of streets once you get inside?

Faster than a speeding camel...

I was on foot (or camel) because Vanguard is off life-support. Long ago, when the Vanguard dev team was down to two men and a dog and the dog was only part-time, Randolph the Thematically Inappropriate Reindeer became untethered from Glorian,Telon's version of Christmas (don't worry, I had to look it up) and became flyable all year round. Well, who knew how long Vanguard had left? Glorian might never come again.

But it did. Against any sane odds Vanguard clung on and now here we are looking at a future filled with Glorians-to-Come. In preparation for the once-thought impossible conversion to Free To Play, the dev team has "quadrupled". I think that means there are four of them. Anyway, it's wonderful news for everyone.

Except Randolph.They took away his magic dust. Randolph's hooves don't sparkle any more. More importantly, he doesn't fly. Not on April Fools Day (no Telonian equivalent, as far as I know). Not at Easter (ditto). Next December, for one month only, he'll take to the air. Until then it's shanks's pony. Or any pony. Just don't try to ride into town on a reindeer because this one doesn't only not fly, he doesn't even move. I think that's a bug. Nice to see some things in Vanguard never change.

The road goes ever on

I'm not as annoyed about Randolph's demise as I was when I replied to Ardwulf first thing today. Randolph was never meant to last all year and he does look pretty daft. Still, I think that they could have waited until the purported level 20 flying mount quest is in before removing him. It seems petty to do it this way round.

Let's not focus on the negatives, though. Randolph wasn't the only contentious freebie niggling away at some veterans' sense of justice. His presence rankled but so did the absence of the Bracelet of Lucky Charms from any character made before the Isle of Dawn tutorial appeared. All the way to fifty it's a best-in-slot item that you get for completing the main quest-lines on the starter island. It upgrades automatically every ten levels so that you never outgrow it until you hit the post-50 end game, when you can go for the grown-up version, the Kamelot Crystal Cog.


If you made your character before the Isle of Dawn existed, or if you decided to start in one of Vanguard's many very excellent racial starting villages, this must-have was a can't-get. Until now. If you're paying and playing today, there's a Bracelet of Lucky Charms waiting for each and every one of your characters (although I think you might have to get to Level 10. My level 8 Goblin just got a blank look). Which is why a procession of rakis, orcs, goblins and even humans from Team Bhagpuss were trundling up that ramp.

Fox included for scale

Along with the Bracelet they all picked up a title (The Loyal) and a foot-high banshee companion pet called an Ancient of Telon. I also took the trouble to grab the massive 88-slot Gatherer's Sack Of Collectables for everyone who didn't already have one. Get it while you can, I say. It's meant to be for the Mekalian Extravaganza of Science and Technology, which is only supposed to last a few weeks. The MEST Fair's been running non-stop for several years but how much longer will that be allowed to go on?

Beware, gnomes. First they came for Randolph...

Last Stop, Everybody Off!

A couple of news items turned up in my reader yesterday and started me thinking. Rift decided to flag some servers for "large scale trial programs" and asked everyone on them if they wouldn't kindly mind leaving and Gods and Heroes went F2P. 

I've done quite a few betas over the years and I'd become used to having one or two icons on my desktop that offered me something for nothing but my time and goodwill. When it came to playing a game full-time and having ownership of my characters, though, I knew I'd have to put my virtual hand in my virtual pocket and come up with a credit card number. That had an obvious downside: I only have so much money so I could only justify subscribing to one or two MMOs at a time. Which was also the upside: the subscription fee acted as a kind of quality control.

Back when I began playing MMOs trying a new one meant buying a box and paying every month if you wanted to stick with it. That wasn't so much of a problem because there weren't that many MMOs to try and every new one that came along was something of an event in itself. It was worth shelling out just to say you'd been there when it happened.

Shadefallen - last Defiant out please turn off the lights

A few years on there were a lot more MMOs and few people would have wanted to stump up cash just to try them all. How lucky we were that free trials turned up, then! What a co-incidence! Free trials meant a week or two of low-level play to give you a taste of a game in the hope you'd buy the box and sub if you got hooked. That was better in some ways, because you knew going in you'd probably be done with the game before the trial ended and you wouldn't have wasted a penny. Still, there was the nagging worry that the new game might sink its claws in and you'd be stuck paying after all, which acted as some sort of a brake.

Millrush - lalala! We can't hear you!

Now there are hundreds of MMOs and most of them don't ask for any money at all. There's all kinds, too. Fantasy, Science Fiction, Super Heroes, Funny Animals, Crime. It's like being at the comic store all over again. And quite a lot of them are good. Good enough that once upon a time they thought they'd be able to sell you a box and charge you a monthly fee.  Only that didn't work out so well, or maybe it didn't work out as badly as all that but even so the other guys who'd dropped the fee were doing even better... Whatever, everyone went whaling.

Faeblight - There goes the neighborhood...

All of which brings me back to Rift and Gods and Heroes. Scott Hartsman nailed his colors to the subscription mast a long time back. In fact he pretty much scrambled up after them and nailed himself up there as well. I sense a retrenchment in recent months, however. It's going to be awfully painful if he has to pull out those nails and climb back down, but he's leaving clear wiggle-room with his "Right now, absolutely no plans whatsoever" reply to Eurogamer back in November when they asked if Rift had any contingency plans to move away from subs.

 Rift's done well with its subscription model, though. Can't argue that. If one day it does flip over and go Free to Play (and I'd bet it will although probably later rather than sooner) Trion can expect a massive surge of interest and publicity and a tsunami of returning exes. It's a solid gold game and it will be around for a long time. How it raises funds is the least interesting thing about it.

So? I can buy those and put them on a rat!

Gods and Heroes on the other hand never really got off the ground. I was in the beta and I could never even get the client to run. Sentiment was strongly against the game even being ready to launch when it did, let alone charging both a box fee and a subscription. When I saw the Massively article yesterday my first thought was "Is that thing still going?" Now it's free to play, will I try it? Well, there's a nominal fee for the client, so not yet. But even if that last barrier wasn't standing in my way, then no I probably wouldn't.

STO : You can walk about! Outdoors even!

Because I just don't have the time! This is the thing about all these great MMOs moving away from the old pay to play deal. Now I have all these extra games I could be playing but no-one gave me any more hours in the day. On my list of AAA F2P MMOs that I haven't yet even tried out yet there's Age of Conan, City of Heroes and Lineage2, with Star Trek Online due in a few days and Aion next month. Any one of those would justify a full month of concentrated play just to decide if it was worth carrying on.

Here's the thing. I'm paying to play Rift right now and I'm still not logging in. Forget Free-to-Play, I'll be happy if more games just go Free-to-Forget-to-Play !