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The development team for Vanguard: Sage of Heroes has released a brand new Producer's Letter offering up a state of the game. Despite the long history of problems and pitfalls plaguing the game, the team seems optimistic about their near-future projects. They've opened up a new win-back program, allowing canceled and closed accounts to come back and check on the game's progress. They're working on a brand new Game Update, GU6, which will offer up another large swath of content.

They're also making plans to finally introduce the free trial Vanguard players have long asked for. The Isle of Dawn will be a brand new starting zone for new players, a new hub city for existing players, and the central element of the trial. Finally, the already-impressive graphical presentation in the game is going to receive some modifications. You may recall that back in Update 4 some customization options were removed to make way for helmets and future improvements. Those improvements are apparently now on the way, and they plan to stagger the new character models as they come to the players. According to the letter, "Vanguard is a game about heroes. It's right there in the title even – Saga of Heroes. We're making it so players' character models look more heroic than they have in the past. This means that characters will have more definition and will just be able to look not only cooler but tougher in general."

Head over to the site to see the future of this innovative, if marred, game.

Lorin "DeadMeat" Jameson has been a big part of the new wave of communication between the players of Star Wars Galaxies and the folks at SOE who make it. It's therefore very much worth noting that Jameson is moving out of his production role on the project, to a development directorship at the Sony Online Entertainment - Austin studio. This announcement comes in Jameson's semi-regular producer's letter, which otherwise recaps the last few weeks since Chapter 10 hit the live servers.

Christopher Field is stepping into his position as Producer on the game, and generally notes his enthusiasm for the Star Wars IP in his first address to the players. Aside from his new position Jameson also notes that while Game Update 5 will be on the Test Server next week, Update 6 is going to be delayed. "The team is now pretty much focused on the Battle for Echo Base and I have to say that this is one of the most ambitious chapters we have attempted to date. The Hoth terrain and battlespace is huge and the features that are being added to support this classic Star Wars moment are incredibly exciting. In fact it is such a large undertaking that we will be delaying Update 6 until we have more of the pieces in place to ensure that we truly deliver on this encounter. Once we have broken up some of the larger development rocks for this chapter we will be able to pick up on the update tracks again."

Bruce Ferguson, senior producer on EverQuest 2, has put up a letter on the official game website outlining a number of the new gameplay pieces coming over the new few months. Tying into the Living Legacy promotion, numerous live events are slated to explore the world of Norrath like never before. Most exciting is Ferguson's announcement that the city of Veksar will be introduced to the game, a player-favorite from the days of the original EverQuest. Once submerged on the floor of the Lake of Ill Omen, where it stands in the Norrath of EQ2 is anyone's guess.

Ferguson also touches on some of the initiatives we've explored here on the site, like the revamp to the Runnyeye dungeon, the Void Invasion, and upcoming double XP weekends. If you're wondering when you can get double your effort, the first opportunity starts tomorrow! 6.14.08 - 6.15.08 and 6.28.08 - 6.29.08 are the weekends in question; make sure to read the full letter to get all the details.

Senior Producer for EverQuest Clint "Jourdian" Worley laid out a letter to the dedicated playerbase this week, looking back on developments in the game last year. He also looks ahead to the rest of 2008, teasing some of the updates to the game we can expect to see this year.

The big deal for 2007 was, obviously, the release of the Secrets of Faydwer expansion. Worley sees the expansion as a great success, with particular emphasis on the benefits reaped from their three-month-long Beta period. He states that this year's unnamed expansion (which they're already hard at work on) will receive the same treatement. He found the April Fool's day joke absolutely hilarious, and states that they're looking forward to a new, similarly in-depth quirk in a few months ... though he does note an on/off command will be available for players without a sense of humor.

Read on for more from Worley, including news about live events, bug fixes ... and server merges?