CRAFTING: 

Vanguard features a full fledged Crafting system. There are many different crafting classes and players can make things ranging from armor, to tools, to boats and houses.

Each crafted item has a quality rating (A - D) and includes the crafters name.

Vanguard has an innovative Work Order system, where crafters can get small quests to make things for the city, in order to level up. This is a great idea in that it means that crafters are not flooding the market with lower level gear and instead can level their crafter without actually producing a bunch of worthless junk on the market.

Crafters make use of harvested resources. Every Character shall have 2 spheres of items it can harvest, such as Lumber and Stone, or Skins and Plants. Vanguard improves on other MMOGs by allowing Group Harvesting. If players harvest together they shall receive greater resources and an increased chance for rares. Unfortunately Vanguard suffers from a scarcity of harvestable resources. Since it is hard to consistently find things to harvest, forming a harvesting group shall be ultimately futile.

DIPLOMACY: 

Vanguard introduces a new way of playing MMOGs with their Diplomacy sphere. Each character can perform Diplomacy quests in addition to their normal Adventuring. Diplomacy XP is tracked separately.

Diplomacy is all about lore and Back Story. Players travel to NPCs in the various cities and engage them in Parley. Parley is played out by playing various Diplomacy cards which represent certain conversational aspects, such as Witty Comments, or Rude remarks. About half the time a card is played the Parley progresses with a bit of conversation. At the end of a Parley a player has a very nice chunk of lore to read through.

We found the Diplomacy quests to be consistently more enjoyable than even the excellent Adventuring quests involving monster slaying. The amount of lore and the coolness of that information is quite fun to discover. No other MMOG has yet to offer the players their backstory and lore in such an engaging fashion. It is fun.

Sample Diplomacy

Below is a sample of the Kurashasa starting diplomacy line. Skip this section if you want to discover this information in-game.

The Kurashasa are Inter-Dimensional Cat people. They have a mortal enemy, these gargoyle like creatures. They have been trying to exterminate them for eons and are finally close. Alas, the gargoyles have escaped to Telon. The Kura follow to this new world in order to eradicate them.

Telon is a big planet full of many races and riches. In order to achieve their aims the Kura need help from their interdimensional allies. In the Kura interdimensional transport hub (the Temple of Qur'Xa) are 5 other Interdimensional races. The Kura hope to enlist their help in defeating the gargoyles on Telon.

As a player your job is to convince them to help.

The Sybarites are reptilians ruled by a Prince. They are very rich and with their money you can buy the services of the other races.

The PyreLords are quite strong and vicious. They are hard to please.

The Shapers are undead golem makers who worship feeling.

The Umbrals  are wolf like trackers.

The Nyth are shape shifters.

In order to get their help you must convince the Sybarite Prince to assist the endeavor. He shall help if you get his 4 underlings to promise their assistance.

Talking to each underling results in a series of sub-quests.

For example one Sybarite wants another one Killed. In order to get them killed you need to enlist an Umbral.

The Umbral shall help kill the Sybarite if you assist in tracking down his Azien nemesis who has escaped to Telon.

You enlist the help of another Nyth to track down his fellow, by sneaking the Nyth into Telon disquised as a sword.

Once you defeat the evil Nyth the Umbral shall agree to assassinate a Sybarite, so the original Sybarite says he shall do as the Prince demands.

The Sybarite to be assassinated wants you to arrange a contest between his bodyguard and a Flesh golem of the Shapers in order to prove which is stronger.

The Nyth shall help you if you can relieve their constant pain. You can do this by convincing the Shapers, who are knowledgeable about Feelings and Feeling manipulation to turn a Volunteer Nyth into a feeling converter. This converter shall take all the pain from a host Nyth and convert it to pleasure for itself. But it shall take a Shaper to create such a change in an Nyth.

It is all very fun to progress through, and gives a ton of back story and a complete tale. Hopefully all Diplomacy tasks are as engaging.