http://vanguard.tentonhammer.com/index. ... y&ceid=634

Reeks of SWG to me.

I cant help but think of EQ2 when I read that

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I can't help but think of LOL when I read that

Verant / SoE did a good job with EQ, shrug. I enjoyed playing it for 5 years.

I think EQ's history was one of Brad's visions being tempered by a few wiser souls who knew things like how to implement actual, functional game mechanics. In VG, it seems Brad didn't have enough people around him to give him those much-needed reality checks... like, your game engine performance is crap, etc.

EQ2 has been a fantatic game. They really stayed with it and the last two expansions delivered some great content.

EQ2's launch has been nothing compared to VG's bumpy road.

Muli

My most sincere hope regarding VG is that they take it much more towards what EQ was in regards to difficulty and time investment vs. reward (even if it does mean that I'll once again never see end game).

I think maybe I appreciated VG a bit more in some ways because I had few expectations. Countless fanatics were jumping around exclaiming "OMG ITZ BRAD MCQUAID HE MADE EQ LOLOLOLOL"(oh wait, he's just the one that talked the most on the forums) when in reality it was Brad COMBINED with John Smedley and a number of the higher ups at Verant(originally) that made the game successful. People that went into it expecting it to be the next EQ were probably let down the most.

Now that I think about it, what was that one Korean game where you shot the projectiles in the air at angles against 4ish people at a time online and earned points etc? Personally I went into Vanguard looking at it as another source of entertainment, not as a WoW killer replacement. At that, I think it delivered.

The two biggest problems right now - lack of players, and lack of content upper levels. The biggest is probably the lack of players - there is a LARGE amount of the game world not being used. The landscape is probably as big as WoW's if not a little bigger but without all the players there.

Gunbound.

I don't find this shocking at all, other than it came much sooner than anyone anticipated.

However, on the flip side. This is probably the best thing that could happen for Vanguard. I'll give the Devil his due. SoE isn't the monster fuck up machine they once were, and their recent track records with EQ2 stand out with much more positive than negative. If anyone can unfuck Vanguard, its some of those dudes combined with some of the Sigil devs.

Simple solution to unfucking the game in my opinion?

Eliminate the McQuaid Factor.

This man has done nothing but harm the games image since the very early days of its conception. His constant shrilling on fan sites doing more to promote sales than address issues and concerns paved the way for its inevitable destruction. He chose to completely ignore the internet gaming community, and instead insisted on pretending this was 1997 and tried telling us what we, as gamers, wanted out of Vanguard.

Gamers aren't stupid sheep anymore. They know when they have a giant plate of bullshit set before them. They have tasted it and dined on it for years. He tried to cover it in sugar whipped chocolate and disguise it.

He failed, as the current server populations show. This has been said time and time again. Remove this man from power, the game will thrive.

Blizz/WoW has done a lot to temper the SOE beast. EQ2 is quite good and VG still has a lot of potential even if they don't have the 8 billion served of WoW.

I'm playing a blood mage and it's fun. It's like a necro cleric. I think healers in general got a good rub to encourage folks playing them. I do agree they need to boost the population since it's a group centric game. The rifts will help with starting groups, but in the end you still need more bodies on.

Meh, it's only like 1.5 million in America isn't it? With only 3.5 million copies of TBC sold? Once you cut out China/Korea WoW isn't that popular. Still more than any other MMO though.

Last I read it was a tad over 2.5 million in North America. Nothin' for nothin' but shortin' them a million subs is quite substantial.

Isn't that popular relative to what? Monopoly?

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

Yeah, I mean, what do other games like HL2 sell? I mean, I know on PS2 Guitar Hero sold like 750,000 units and was considered INSANELY popular.

2.0~ mill for an MMORPG PC game is like... unheard of.

WoW has met, and exceeded any expectations they could have set for it. Honestly, its downhill from here.

I will never enjoy going from the 40 to 25 man raid content. Nothing ever will convince me that it was a good idea for the longevity of the game.

Who knows what they have in store for the future. More 40 man (heck, even 50+ man stuff once in a while) would be great.

Isn't that popular compared to the number they keep bragging about. TBC copies sold are less than original copies.

There are a lot of people who don't feel like they should be obligated to pay for more content, surprisingly.

It's to be expected though, a lot of WoW's community came from the single player genre. (Even though SC, WC, etc had expansion packs) They think the notion of buying an expansion just to level "and not be ganked" is absurd. There's a lot of clueless players who are still holding out.

I'd be interested in seeing new figures after the 10-day trial and online upgrade. PS: Asian players don't have to buy any actual copies of the software, as well, so units sold will of course be lower, because they're not the same thing as actual WoW subscriptions. They'd be significantly less since they aren't require to purchase any additional software.

Gunbound, that was it - that game was pure genius.

I left VG but I still play Gunbound.

Gunbound is retarded.

"So are you Skycrasher"





^ See what stupidity looks like when you post something idiotic Skycrasher?

When someone like me thinks you're a god damn 'tard; somethings up. Shut up unless you have something worth a damn to actually add.

Back, I hope to, comments that make sense from the rest of you (Not that Skycrasher will be able to stay away from this, Probably just HAVE to come back and prove my point).

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"People sometimes say that ideas cannot be stamped out by force. The Albigensian Crusade proves them wrong. Ideas can be stamped out by the elimination of everyone who holds the ideas." - Quote :"Middle Ages" by Morris Bishop.

Wow, that came out of left field.

I can't have an opinion that says Gunbound is retarded.

Sorry gwiber almighty enforcer of the Lanys Boards. /bow

For the simple concept behind it, it is a surprisingly addictive game. If you can look past the simple graphics/concept, the gameplay is actually pretty good.

But you are entitled to your opinion =p

It's worms, online.

I haven't played it in a while, but it's still good times.

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Marauder Harabakc Goat

Old news?



http://www.f13.net/

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can anyone copy that here? Blocked at work.

This is the blog post that I hoped I would never write. I recently became aware of some "things" about the internal goings-on at Sigil, but for the sake of the people that I know that work there I've kept them to myself. Or should I say "worked" there. According to f13.net, "at approximately 4:30PM today, Sigil employees were told to meet outside. At which point they were terminated. On the spot." You can see the article at http://www.f13.net.

I was able to get confirmation on this tonight from a couple of very reliable sources. So the company has now officially been driven into the ground. Here is what most people don't know, outside of Sigil.

Brad McQuaid has been an absentee manager at Sigil for months. Not only has there been a leadership vacuum at Sigil, with the employees there left twisting in the wind, but I have been able to confirm that Brad hasn't even bothered to be at the office.

Since last year.

Reliable sources confirmed to me that Brad hasn't been at the Sigil offices save a couple of brief visits since December of last year. Whether or not he was supposed to be the creative force behind the game as we were lead to believe, he was the leader of Sigil and at a time when the game was under a deadline and his people (many of whom left promising or lucrative positions elsewhere to hitch their wagons to his star) were left to fend for themselves. That's right. When the shit was hitting the fan, and the game was under crunch, Brad went all Brian Wilson on his people. I'm not sure what the psychology of that was, or whether the producers there didn't want him around. Whatever the case, he wasn't able to show the leadership to rally the troops, or even to keep them up out of the dirt. To their credit, the people working at Sigil remained professional even in the face of the lack of professionalism from the top.

As a fansite operator, I can testify that Brad wasn't around for us either. As a matter of fact, Brad never showed support for the affiliate program. Whether you believe that the Affiliate Program was a good idea or not, the CEO of the company should probably support it. When we challenged Brad on his record of (lack of) support for the program, he let us know that he thought it was better spending his time posting on sites like FOH and MMORPG.COM, to evangelize the program. Evidently that took a lot of time, or it just wasn't possible to cut into his Hero-Clix schedule.

It would be amusing how fast the denizens of FOH are throwing dirt on Sigil's grave were it not so tragic for the lives and careers he's irreparably harmed. Irony at it's finest.

The bottom line for me is this;

I can't believe that the CEO of the company can't make an appearance at his own company for 4 or 5 months if to do nothing more than lend moral support. I have heard that Brad is worthless for anything important, and a lot of people probably found him an irritant. I know that most of my later interaction with Brad wasn't positive. His fansite presentation at E3 2006 left me cold. Jeff Butler had a ton of energy and told us a lot about his vision for the game, but Brad couldn't have looked less interested in being there. On one of my visits to Sigil, Brad was overheard telling someone in a customer/community position not to give an answer to a question, and if someone asked why, just to "tell them I'm eccentric." The best he had to contribute was dismissive. So Mr. Eccentric, how does it feel to have a mud-hole stomped in you by effing Turbine?

In the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you that I'm pissed that I wasted 2 years on developing a community at my site for a game that is nothing more than a steaming pile of shit. I'm pissed that the good people (and good developers) that I care about at Sigil are now in the street, and Brad still has millions and Jeff Butler a job. I'm also pissed that the game was so badly mismanaged and allowed to get to this point. I'm also pissed that the good people at my site have dedicated so much time to help each other only to see this happen.

I truly hope that all my friends at Sigil will land on their feet. I also sincerely hope that no one ever gives Brad another cent to make a game or to start a company and put other's livelihoods at risk. It's evident that Brad lacks the skills, dedication, or maturity to handle that situation.

In the end, this game may someday be good. Tomorrow, when this news is announced a lot of the SOE haters will just jump ship, whether SOE had anything to do with this game failing or not. Fact is, it has (failed.) And fact is, it's not SOE's fault. The blame for this one falls squarely at the desk where the buck should stop. The CEO's office. The empty one in the corner.

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

Shrug... I doubt some fansite op. has real ideas about what Brad was REALLY doing. Heh. Sounds like a knee-jerk "TOLD YA SO" reaction.

Thanks for posting though. I appreciate it

I don't know, if you read some of what Brad wrote at FoH, there were times it clearly seemed like he had no clue what was going on with the game. His posts were PR spin 100% and that was it. I feel bad for the devs that DID take the time to keep the community up to date as far as new things and bug fixes, people like nino at FoH and Cylus as SV.

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Jittan - Warrior - Lanys - Dead
Rugal - Hunter - Blackhand - Cethin Chimera - Way past gone

Yeah, Brad's posts on the FoH boards were terrible. It was like he took a year and a half old press release for Vanguard and copied it over and over again. Then he started getting trolled and went all emo saying shit like "If my posting here isn't appreciated then I won't do it anymore". After he got trolled more, FoH basically told him to apologize for his emo like behavior. He did, but 2 second later the Press Release posts kept coming.

Personally, I hope SoE does right by these the people that were let go and rehires all of them. I honestly don't blame Sigil as a whole for the faults of the game, I blame lack of direction from the leadership within the company. Running a game on autopilot just doesn't work. And some asshole coming in to buy pizza for a meeting and leaving doesn't count as leadership. This could be what the game needs to start turning it around...who knows.

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/shrug for a month after release he was no where to be found.

When the people that work for you don't know where you are for an entire month, something fucked up is afoot.

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Marauder Harabakc Goat

Capitalism doesn't give two shits about its workers. SOE will cherry-pick the creme and cut the rest loose.

Jack Handy called. He wants his deep thoughts back.

And apparently this was a 2nd edit, one other choice line in the first edit was the following:



http://www.silkyvenom.com/forums/showth ... post283371[/quote]

And now Smed makes it official:

http://forums.station.sony.com/vg/po...?topic_id=9105

[/quote]

so whats wrong with that? sounds like mcquad has just a basic paycheck position and has no influence. who gives a shit? leave the man alone.

Leave the man alone? Are you serious? The guy supposedly hasn't been to work in about 8 months, leading to what a lot of people are saying was the stagnation that eventually tanked this game.

http://fightingthephalanx.blogspot.com/


We are talking that Brad sat at home and spun PR on his BABY of a game, of which he had no clue what was going on. Rumour is that most of the team says lack of management direction is what brough it down.

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Jittan - Warrior - Lanys - Dead
Rugal - Hunter - Blackhand - Cethin Chimera - Way past gone

You're an idiot.

What happen to Miggent, was he transferred to the new MMO, kept in Vanguard, or?

He got the boot along with the rest of Sigil's staff.

SOE is picking people up from sigil, but not that many.

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"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." -Henry Louis Mencken
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VEGETARIAN -Noun (vej-i-tair-ee-uhn): Ancient tribal slang for the village idiot who can't hunt, fish or ride.

Blizzard has a habit of catering to the whiners who rally under the banner of the "Casual Gamer" (Which is bullshit, a "Casual Gamer" dosen't go to the message boards and make 20-page posts about the stats on their gear, but I digress.)

The problem is that there's no way to truly appease the whiner crowd, and Blizzard dosen't seem to realize that sometimes it's best to just leave well enough alone and people will deal with it. If you keep shoveling candy at the crying baby, they'll just keep crying when they want more candy.

Best example right now is that people are already complaining that Karazhan (10-man) isn't fair to casual gamers because "It's a raid zone". 10-man is a raid? Only in the most technical sense of the word, come on.

I'm not going to be an idiot and say WoW is going to die because of this. Who knows, maybe the constant watering down of everything will attract and keep more short attention span kids and keep the subscriber base high. Maybe us old, cranky MMO-Vets are past our prime and are like the old man griping about kids and their rock music.

Not really.

Brad wasn't around. He has nothing to do with the problems the company faced. What, did he hold some sort of insane power over them where no one could step up and lead or complain?

I don't know what you do for a living (do you have a job?) but I've learned a lot about management in my current and past positions, and just because there may be a lack of leadership, doesn't mean shit can't get done, or things can't be delegated.

Yep, you're an idiot. But feel free to keep pretending the man was managing a Dairy Queen.

It's obvious that someone took power in Brad's absence. The problem is that how good can that secondary person do when that person wasn't the one who came up with the idea. Brad had to be there to guide the patch, but he wasn't by the look of things. The fault rests on his shoulders at every single step of the process of developing the game. He gave up, plain and simple. That's why players who bought the game and paid the monthly subscription cannot just say "leave brad alone about the game."

Well what other solution is there? The paying public can't FORCE him to go to work. It's a stupid exercise of futility....

They have new leadership now and kept Brad on staff as a name place paycheck only. He has nothing to do with the game anymore I suspect. (Even though Givin thinks I'm stupid for thinking this.)

Yea, there's no other solution but to get new leadership there, but that won't erase the fact that Brad failed his loyal playerbase.

The question remains, but sadly will never be answered, will there ever be another game that can recapture the allure and amazement that players had in EQ with Kunark and velious?

No game to this day has given me that "Oooohh Aaaaah" more than Sebilis, Cabilis, The Great Divide, North Temple of Veeshan, Western Wastes, and cities such as Kelethin and Freeport.

I tried extensively to find these things in Vanguard Beta, but found them only half there, such as Kojan and Leth Nurae. Brad failed on his vision, and again all blame rests on him.

See, that is where you are wrong.

Sigil does not have new management. Sigil is gone. It doesn't exist any longer. And the main fault lies within one man.

We are not talking about some shift manager or team lead here. We are talking about the head of your company abandoning you for MONTHS prior to your pilot titles launch, and a very critical stage of its development. It is plain as day he didn't know left form right and continued his PR racket anyway from some secluded cave or squatter house in parts unknown. The constant drivel he posted telling people that technology will catch up to his game, when the simple fact of the matter is he didn't even know a simple color coded con system was going in for quests in his own creation.

Two weeks prior.

Even mentioning his name will still be associated with the product will have negative repercussion for months to come, in a time when the game needs positive light shown on it.

He failed. His original Dev team that squandered their time and resources form playing Battlefield 2 and eating Cheetos all day failed. And the good and talented guys that finally got on board and actually gave a damn at the end of the day paid the price. He'll ride off into the sunset with his 2nd trophy Ferrari while everyone else hits the unemployment line.

Hey Givin, who's that quote from, the one in your sig? Sounds like something Kirei would have said, haha.

Remember Omishi? Dark Elf wizard. Thats what he said after Fallen Legacy killed Avatar of War for the very first time.

We used to have a billboard of Omishi quotes. He was a funny motherfucker.

YES I remember him. I was grouped with him at the Treant camp in SK when he hit 29 and finally got his group ports. He gave me a free ride to Gfay.

oh man, omishi was a odd dude... Another FL person that was odd was that cleric who always talked about poop.......... hmm had a chick name. damn, time makes my memories lose

Didnt Omishi make a comeback after spending about a year in the commons tunnels, only to get murdered multiple times(by casting his epic i believe) in ToV, then ported himself back to tunnels? That might be mistaken for another wizard(or likely ebay) though, i forget...

Lusion is probably the mangina that was constantly talking about poop.

The wizard you are thinking of that made a "comeback" was Erat. He was fucking terrible.

And yes, Omishi was great...

Rawr, Chod, haven't seen you since Vanguard Beta =p.

Wonder what the new MMO is about????

Anyway, I place a lot blame of Brad's shoulders. He's a visionary but I do not believe he really understands how to drive the car. Brad can paint a good picture but he obviously did not manage this game very well. It appears to be he saw the ship sinking and began thinking how he could get some money out of this. It's a shame...


Anyway, with what SOE has done with EQ2 I hope their next MMO is similiar to what EQ2 is today. It's a very good game and I am also hoping this rush into the MMO industry will slow down. Everyone is begining to understand the cashcow it can potentially be but, it's really causing a flood of lack-luster games to enter the market.

Plus the player base is becoming to thin amongst all the games. Between people getting new favorites or trying this or that. Eh, maybe everything will slow down a bit now and everyone can take a lesson from this.

Take care,
Muli

I seem to recall there used to be a "EQ Faces" or something like it site.

There was an Omishi listed there under the Lanys server section. But it was a GORGEOUS Asian female pic... not some dude.

I recall she had some quote about "Liking Wood Elf Males" being the right kind of guys to hit on her in Game. And yes her avatar was listed as a Male.

Never having met the avatar in game myself. it did make me wonder. Always has.

Meh, anyway, back to Sigli/SOE stuff.

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"People sometimes say that ideas cannot be stamped out by force. The Albigensian Crusade proves them wrong. Ideas can be stamped out by the elimination of everyone who holds the ideas." - Quote :"Middle Ages" by Morris Bishop.