Sony Online Entertainment invited the Destructoid crew to their exclusive MGM suite, so with the helmet on our head, we showed up in style. A few minutes later I had a beer in one hand and a pen in the other as I sat down with Paul Luna from Sigil Games to talk about the upcoming MMORPG Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. We covered classes, servers, downloads, jobs, gameplay, mounts and more. I've got all the details for you after the jump, so hop on a griffin and keep up!

Also, check back later for some brand new screenshots from the game that they gave us.

Update 2: Ok, I lied. Here's a nice quality video of the flying mounts in action in the game. And below is a gallery of new pictures Sigil Games gave to us.

Vanguard: SoH has nineteen races across the land that group into three main alliances. Thestra is the traditional European fantasy alliance, with seven races to choose from. Kojan is the Asian alliance with six characters available. And Qalia is the Arabian based alliance that offers six more races to play as. From there, each character has four classes to choose from: protective fighter (3 sub-classes), offensive figther (4 sub-classes), healer (4 sub-classes), and caster (4 sub-classes). Certain classes and sub-classes are open to some races, but some classes are also restricted for each race -- the example Paul gave us was that wood elves can't be dread knights. There's plenty to choose from too, I saw the typical elves, orcs, goblins, foxes, wolves and more, and Paul assured us that skills are well balanced across the board as you level up.

The game's for Windows XP, but they're going to start on a Vista patch right away. He went to log on to a server and told us that there should be about eighteen servers at launch, with a 5,000-ish limit for each server. While it loads we see some concept art and he tells us about Keith Parkinson and his influence on the game's art style. The game loads up and he tells us how excited fans are about the ability for user created interfaces with the help of XHTML. We ask about requirements and Paul manages to change the topic once successfully before we bring them back to the subject. The uncompressed download is 17GB, which has been known, but he doesn't give a flat out minimum requirements list. He does note that there's many quality setting sliders to adjuct the game's appearance.

We bring up the housing feature in the game and Paul gets genuinely pumped up as he explains it all to us. It's not quite as simple as building lots of land and building on them -- the available land for purchase is only around civilzations, and you can only build certain buildings in certan areas. This way Vanguard sets forth an aesthetic standard for players to follow. In other words, people won't get a chance to take screenshots of a thousand shanties and strip clubs surrounding a castle.

Paul's ready to tell us about gameplay but we set aside his plans with questions about mounts in the game. He lists horses, camels, shadow-hounds, unicorns (we laugh), and wolves as land mounts, and griffins, pegasus, wyverns, and wurms as flying mounts. I remember there being more in the workings but we let him keep talking while he describes how they plan on allowing mounts to battle other mounts in the future, and not just on land, but in air also. Images of a more exciting Eragon dance around in my head as he keeps spewing out details. You can expect horse mounts at level nine, and necros will have pets, and rangers can charm animals temporarily as well. Before we get too googly-eyed, Niero asks about the evil level twenty drag that MMORPGs often fall victim to, but Paul assures us the gameplay isn't like its competition.

The first thing he talked about were the two different tanks in the game -- offensive and defensive. This should allow for more than one tank bitch designated to each group of fighters. From here he mention how his character could gain blood points with certain attacks that he could save up and use later for stronger attacks. One special attack that he told us his wife would do in the guild was warp to the back of an approaching mob and 'backstab' them, thus turning them all around and giving the guild a few easy, powerful blows.

For player jobs he stressed the replay and exploration value of the game -- that one job in one continent could be completely different in another place in the world. Then he talks about "group harvesting," which allows guild members to partake in jobs that they don't have but other guild members do possess. Along with the job system, there are action points and creation points, where you need both for using your job for creating an item. He only skimmed over this process, but he assures that it will help keep the economy from being flooded with an overwhelming amount of similar items. I think he even mentioned that crafting would be different depending on your location in the world.

We're running out of time and have to leave soon, but we quickly talk about how wars will eventually work when they occur. You'll be able to raid towns and take over others' buildings, but you can also hire plenty of guards and other people to watch over your homes. He also brings up the controversial leveling method where the game's equation for experience caters to the casual MMORPG gamers, helping them level more quickly to keep up with their hardcore friends. He also throws in that they've got extensive gold-farming methods of detection too. We don't have any more time to talk about it, but chances are you'll either like it or hate it if you play the game anyways. We give our thanks, grab a few more beers, and head out with some sweet swag in our hands. Expect some more prizes! :)