General Discussion

Patch notes for Vanguard's Game Update 6 have been posted on the official site for Vanguard.

Character Model Revamp
Player character models in Vanguard have undergone a bit of a revamp. Not only have they been optimized for better performance but they have been given a new, updated look. The revamped models are now capable of looking much more heroic and contain a lot more personality. Worry not though, for those players who don't necessarily want the heroic look, no customization options have gone away. In fact, we are reintroducing lots of facial customization as well.

Class Damage Updates
We have looked at and modified each class's damage capability, ensuring that each lands in their correct place in the spectrum of classes. We have looked at many things, from raid wide damage capacity to the tank's ability to control aggo, to the weak DPS of some healers and DPS classes. This was a relatively comprehensive pass to ensure that with GU6 raid targets are still killable. While the effects of these changes will primarily be felt at the highest end of the game, we are making sure that all levels of players are still functional. There has been extensive testing of these changes on the test server for the past several weeks and we'd like to thank all those players who have sent in testing logs – your efforts are greatly appreciated! For a more comprehensive list of class changes and updates, please read the list below.

Bug Fixes
In an effort to make the launch of the Isle of Dawn go as smoothly as possible, the Vanguard development team set aside a good portion of time this update to fix as many existing bugs as possible. We are pleased to announce that well over a thousand fixes are included with this patch. While many of them may not be immediately noticeable, we've included a more detailed list of those that are below.

Read more here.

Vanguard is still the game that best meets my needs. To me it is still in beta. I'll return once the first expansion is released or if SOE starts marketing this game. Right now there are not enough new players joining. No one wants to start a game where 3/4 of the players are level 40+.

So... um, yeah... wasn't there mention of a "Free Trial" with update 6 going live? I mean, wasn't that the purpose of the new starting area? Did someone at SOE not get the memo?

The devs say that free trial will be available some time next week.

"The Isle of Dawn, smaller-stand alone version should be out within the next week, barring any setbacks. If all goes well with the final round of testing, we will have it out at the beginning of next week."

forums.station.sony.com/vg/posts/list.m

Though Trial Island won't go live till next week you should be able to start playing now by following these links:

Go here and register a new Station account

Download the Station Launcher

All of SoE's trial accounts including Vanguard will be an option.

Thanks for the link. I downloaded the station doohicky and clicked on the "try" option, but I guess it's not ready for prime time as I got a message that states the launcher couldn't find the trial. Oops! I guess someone at SOE really didn't get the memo. Oh well, I'll try again next week.

Originally posted by marzguitarz

Vanguard is still the game that best meets my needs. To me it is still in beta. I'll return once the first expansion is released or if SOE starts marketing this game. Right now there are not enough new players joining. No one wants to start a game where 3/4 of the players are level 40+.

Actually there seems to be quite a healthy population at <25. Now that several people rolled a new toon after the Isle of Dawn went live there are even more.

Trial will begin next week. It was posted in their forums. Sorry I don't have the link at the moment.

About damn time, jesus, they are WAY over due on this type of update.