Vanguard: Saga of Heroes Preview
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Category: News ArchiveHits: 988
Keith Parkinson, the renowned fantasy illustrator most known for his EverQuest covers, is onboard as the art director for Vanguard. As a result, the game looks fantastic. They are going for a high-fantasy, epic look, and they are succeeding at creating that feel. The large city they were the demonstrating, New Targonor, is the largest city I've seen in an MMOG, and it's not just a matte painting either, as you'll be able to go most everywhere in the city. While the models and landscaping were nice, what really impressed me were the textures. While they are all normal-mapped, the game will load in a higher-detailed set of textures as you get closer. As an example, they showed what happens when you approach a rock wall; as we got closer, you could see the texture getting more detailed. In the end, we were about 12) away from the rock and were able to see nooks and crannies that weren't visible 10' away.
