Sony Online Entertainment has announced free reactivation for all deactivated Vanguard accounts for more than a 60 day period, until July 31^st. Attempts to re-populate the servers anyone?

In a statement released from the Vanguard tower, the producer himself named the strategy as a “win-back program”. As an old-school MMORPG gamer, one is forced to remember back to the gold old days of Everquest when similar win-back attempts were also made. Could this spell trouble for Vanguard with low subscription levels? With its original release date of 30^th January 2007, initial sales of the game rose to 242,000 copies. However after the free one month trials ran out, so did the numbers of continued subscriptions, resulting in a drop to 130,000 active players after the first month. A further slump to 40,000 subscriptions was announced several months later. With the impending release of Wrath of the Lich King due later this year for World of Warcraft, and Warhammer Online scheduled, could this be a case of too little too late?

With the promise of bug-fixes, new features and a new starter island (Isle of Dawn) all planned for release after the middle of August, the most notable change on a personal level is the Character Revamp Phase 2.0, seeing more customisation abilities and a general “bulking up” of the current models. In comparrison to other games and character creation, Vanguard did leve a bitter taste in my mouth and I felt like it could have provided so much more. That said, as a long-standing lover of World of Warcraft, there are many who apprecite the less cartoonish standard and realism of the Vanguard models. It will at least be fairly interesting to see the upcoming changes.

For those of you interested in the official statement from Vanguard, you can view it here. I for one will not re-visit Vanguard, but for those that do, enjoy your free game play!