Home

Monday Morning Bad Awakening

Submitted by Abalieno on April 30, 2007 - 08:37.

It's all ultimately good news

Maybe. Depending on perspectives. But your credibility isn't that high at present.

I'll make a tighter quote-play than Krones:

SOE is in discussions with Sigil regarding the future of Vanguard and Sigil Games

Vanguard is doing decently but not as well as we hoped

SOE is going to be getting more involved with Sigil and Vanguard - our relationship is going to become even tighter - much tighter

When people start getting burned out of the Warcraft expansion (pardon the pun), we need to make sure that the game is more polished and will play on lower end machines

they think to themselves, "ah well, were I younger and had my life not changed, I'd give it a shot, but I just don't have the time for another EQ with better graphics right now."

there are arguably a lot of people who by mid to end of this year in the MMOG gamespace for whom Vanguard could potentially be very attractive

Yeah, arguably. Pretty much the same number of players who can find SWG attractive post-Raph.

SOE is now, objectively, a dock where MMO ships go wreck. Vanguard, SWG, Matrix Online, Planetside, EQ and, to a lesser extent, EQ2. With the years instead of growing resources, SOE has worn them out.

I still see a 500k+ game, I was just off by a year for a variety of reasons

I don't know, if this was politics the best thing you could do is to admit you were wrong and failed, and resign from a management/lead position to do something that fits you better.

I wouldn't like seeing Brad fired or out this industry. But I'd like to see him stepping down from his position.

You had your chances. And a whole lot of them. Drop ego and pride, step back, and let others have their own as well now.

» login to post comments

Re: Monday Morning Bad Awakening

Sheepherder (not verified) on April 30, 2007 - 15:38.

Ultimately good news? All he's gotten SOE to commit to is:

1. The game, as it stands, is broken.

2. To fix the game would require time, prefferably SOE's time (considering their experience).

In short, he has managed to get SOE to state the obvious, and this is good news? This is the sort of answer you get when the company you're dealing with is unwilling to risk a potential return on their investment which may still arrive despite a botched product, so rather than telling the developer to go fornicate himself they give him something noncomittal. Then again, considering SOE's reputation maybe it's their noncomittal answer which is the good news he's referring to.

» login to post comments

Re: Monday Morning Bad Awakening

Kritspit (not verified) on May 1, 2007 - 22:10.

Brad: "I still see a 500k+ game, I was just off by a year for a variety of reasons"

Trans: I couldn't get enough ignorant asshats to buy into another of my incomplete games due to those jerkoff NDA breakers who warned the rest I'd be using their subscription money to finish existing content like the bad habit it is. [Insert infamous disclaimer about how a MMOG is never done excuse here]

Cesspit: "I don't know, if this was politics the best thing you could do is to admit you were wrong and failed."

Instead, he clearly stated that the transition to SOE bought him the time needed to release a game when it was done. Then he stated that he suddenly ran out of money even with SOE and over a $30M budget. Another lame excuse to finish content on the subscriber dime once again.

The latest pity campaign is just more of the same. He wants people to continue funneling out money until 2008 where he will then charge for a semi-bug-fixed expansion as a thank you gift. How else can he afford to fill his own pockets and drive around in the latest Ferrari?

It would be one thing if gamers were only spending around $100 to learn another one of his historical lessons, but here you had consumers standing to invest thousands on equipment that wasn't going to do them any damn good.

Gamers were warned by fellow gamers. They took a good heaping of grief to tell the truth despite gaining absolutely nothing for their trouble except implied lawsuits from McQuaid. While in the meantime, hundreds opened up their naive wallets yet thousands were spared in the long run. Oh well, you can't save 'em all.

It's blogs and boards like these who I'd much rather give my support and gratitude. If it were not for you, I would have been sucked in big time. It's probably not said enough. We appreciate all you do!

» login to post comments

Re: Monday Morning Bad Awakening

Stranger (not verified) on May 15, 2007 - 01:19.

I just heard all of Sigil just got canned? Anyone know anything?

» login to post comments

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.