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Vanguard - Saga of Heroes Released
An anonymous reader writes "After years of promises and fan hype, Sigil Games Online and SOE has released Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. I've been playing the pre-release the last few days and I've been really enjoying it. I scoffed at the idea of diplomacy in a MMOG, but Sigil has done something with it I've never seen before. They made it a card game...within a game. MMORPG.com has a preview of the Beta game, and Gamespy offers up out of the box impressions of the game on Launch day. GameTrailers has a launch day trailer and dragon mount video to give you an idea of what it looks like in action. Whether the game turns out well or not, the fans are happy that it is finally on the shelves."
To clarify on the parent post as well as my own post below, diplomacy in EVE-Online manifests itself just as it would in the real world: - Alliances and wars spanning dozens of different factions, encompassing tens of thousands of players - Non-Aggression Pacts and mutual defense treaties - Issuing of temporary hunting passes, rights of safe passage through space - Alliance membership conditions requirement corporations to patrol the claimed region(s) of space - Defections, "corporate" secrets, and espionage, etc. All of of the above were once generated, applied, and enforced by players, without any in-game mechanics. Since then, Alliances exist in an "official" capacity, though many of the required provisions rest solely in the hands of the players. Oh, and lest I forget, there's also the incredible wealth of lore and intrigue added by the developers since the game's launch, which is another game in itself.