The newest Vanguard patch has introduced a mentoring system to the game that lets players sync their level with a low-level friend so they can group together across Telon. All a player needs to do is group with anyone five or more levels below them to become a mentor. A mentor's abilities and stats will scale down, but experience will be gained as normal.

Up to five players can mentor one person at the same time, which means a group of friends can all enjoy the new program together. Sony Online Entertainment invites new players to try out the Vanguard 14-day free trial in conjuntion with the new mentoring program to get a helping hand in the game.

More information on the mentoring program can be found after the jump.

As we reported, the Vanguard development team recently listed a bunch of changes being made to the Disciple and Necromancer in order to help address some class balancing issues. Well, the Telonian Tribune just listed the Shaman changes that you'll currently find on the test server.

The list summarizes a whopping 41 changes being made to Shamans, including an increase in potency to the Lethargy line and the ability to have your "pet out when shape changing to the skin of their patron and vice versa." Check out the full list of changes after the jump.

It looks like the Vanguard development team has been busy working on some class balancing issues, and the first two classes to be tackled were the Disciple and the Necromancer. The long list of changes was outlined in the most recent edition of the Telonian Tribune on the game's official Web site.

Necromancers received a ton of changes, including a bunch to minions. For example, minions will now last up to 24 hours and have had their HP values doubled. Also, level 53+ Necromancers may now have up to three minions. The Disciple changes include updates to Inner Light, Feign Death, Paralyzing Sweep and other abilities.

Check out the all of the changes for both classes after the jump.

After a long wait, the Vanguard team has posted concept art of the Druid, Necromancer and Sorcerer weapon sets. Each set features a main hand and off hand weapon.

These three classes have been waiting for awhile to get a glimpse of their weapons, which the team addressed in the post: "You might have thought that we forgot about 3 certain classes when we were featuring some of the new weaponry. Never fear, this week we were able to wrangle the final 3 weapon set ups for everyone to check out in all their glory."

Vanguard developers have once again taken the time to answers questions submitted by fans, and this Q&A session focuses on the top 10 questions as ranked by the game's community members.

According to the developers, new raiding content will be available when the Halls of Shattered Souls launches in the next couple of months. As for more casual dungeons, they're planning on working on Pankor Zhi in the future. There are no current plans to expand song compenents for bards, but steps may be taken to help PvP gameplay if the team gets more resources.

You can read the full Q&A session after the jump.

The Vanguard developers have answered a new series of questions submitted by community members, and they provide some general comments on their future plans. For example, they may possibly implement more items with platinum coins in the future, and they are revamping the salamander caves to give players level 52 and up some more content.

As far as veteran rewards for loyal players are concerned, the dev team says they would have to be fluff items that won't imbalance the game, but didn't mention if such items will actually be implemented. They are reviewing the block forumula and varying blocks for the tank classes and will continue to adjust and add more storage space to the game globally.

You can read the full Q&A after the jump.

Last year at Fan Faire, Vanguard players got a chance to watch movies made by Lenny “Tiraslee” Gullo, which gave us a sneak peak at things to come in Vanguard.

This year, things took a different turn.  Tiraslee was without his nicely edited movies.  Instead, he sat next to Lead Developer and recently promoted Producer, Salim “Silius” Grant, who let us see the up and coming for Vanguard directly from the game's Test Server.

In the A Look Into the Future of Vanguard panel, a packed conference room got a chance to be walked through what is on the horizon for Vanguard.

What is that horizon? Pantheon Part B (PotA-B), AAs, new dungeons, new loot and new overland raid bosses.

The Vanguard dev team has once again answered players' questions, and this segment covers all sorts of topics. When asked for more details on the AA system that is being created, the devs said it will be similar to EverQuest's AAs. There are no plans to merge the servers in the near future, and there are no future plans for the continent of Kojan in terms of conent.

As for class changes, "post 50 bonuses should help the rogue stay at a DPS value close to what they are now" with regards to the recent changes to melee DPS. In response to a question about class revamps, the devs said they "will try to take care of class issues we feel are things that need to be resolved."

You can read the full Q&A after the jump.

The Vanguard team is letting players submit suggestions for which in-game bugs they'd like to see fixed in an upcoming update. You may submit only one bug in this forum thread, so make it the one you definitely want squashed!

The thread will run for two weeks, and then the list of bugs will be placed in a poll so players can vote on which ones really need to be fixed. You can read the full post after the jump.

Back in January we broke the news that the Vanguard development team was hard at work on a content update that looked more like a free expansion. Sony Online Entertainment just notified the community that the long wait has finally come to an end. In a few short hours, all Vanguard servers will be coming down and tomorrow morning, long time players will have plenty to keep them busy!

The Halls of Pantheon is finally here. The first part of the great architect Artera's story has finally been released and now is your chance to prove to the gods of Telon you are worthy of their blessings. Within the halls you will be asked to do many things as you increase your favor with the gods until finally correcting the imbalance of creation and unlocking the path that leads into the halls of shattered souls and the truth behind the gods of Telon and their years of silence. It is up to you adventurers, crafters, and diplomats to unlock the secrets within the halls and prove once again that the inhabitants of Telon are a force to be reckoned with.

Check out the patch notes in it's entirety, after the jump.