For all those who say that FOH is not an official VG site and so the apology is not official enough, you have a point. And yet, out of all the VG affiliate sites, Brad chose FOH forums even from beta as His tribune. He has been often criticized for this choice, but has not changed his stance reasons known to himself. I don't think he was addressing the FOH folks exclusively. In fact, I would be suprised if He had picked another place and imho it would have appeared less public if he had done so.
It's not in any way official. If your going to apologize for the performance/reliability issues of a product, then your addressing issues faced by your customers. It's your Company, your product, your customers; therefore that apology should go out to them, not be heard third party.
One thing I have learned in business over the years is that the customer always wants to feel like they are your number one concern and priority. Telling customers that they should have attended the trade show in Vegas where you addressed their concerns does little to calm and assure them that you care.
I would also add that like it or not., many players have a distaste for large Guilds so affiliating yourself with them does little to bond yourself to the average user that will make up the majority of the player base. I believe at one point in time it was estimated that less than 20% of the players of MMoG's are "hardcore" meaning that embracing that 20% seriously hurt the overall revenue that you intended the game to generate.
This apology was more to the effect of two friends getting drunk while one slobbers over a drink telling the other how he screwed up his marriage instead of going to the wife and trying to patch things up; then expecting the friend to go out and communicate these feelings to the wife.
For all those who say that FOH is not an official VG site and so the apology is not official enough, you have a point. And yet, out of all the VG affiliate sites, Brad chose FOH forums even from beta as His tribune. He has been often criticized for this choice, but has not changed his stance reasons known to himself. I don't think he was addressing the FOH folks exclusively. In fact, I would be suprised if He had picked another place and imho it would have appeared less public if he had done so.
It's not in any way official. If your going to apologize for the performance/reliability issues of a product, then your addressing issues faced by your customers. It's your Company, your product, your customers; therefore that apology should go out to them, not be heard third party.
One thing I have learned in business over the years is that the customer always wants to feel like they are your number one concern and priority. Telling customers that they should have attended the trade show in Vegas where you addressed their concerns does little to calm and assure them that you care.
I would also add that like it or not., many players have a distaste for large Guilds so affiliating yourself with them does little to bond yourself to the average user that will make up the majority of the player base. I believe at one point in time it was estimated that less than 20% of the players of MMoG's are "hardcore" meaning that embracing that 20% seriously hurt the overall revenue that you intended the game to generate.
This apology was more to the effect of two friends getting drunk while one slobbers over a drink telling the other how he screwed up his marriage instead of going to the wife and trying to patch things up; then expecting the friend to go out and communicate these feelings to the wife. Great analogy
Blaming the launch date on being close to BC has nothing to do with how Brad and Sigil sold us out. I started into the game thinking it was going to be hardcore and difficult like EQ, as that's what I was promised. Where's the max levels in a year? Where's the slow levelling? Where's the difficulty? As soon as you quit screwing those of us over that supported you the whole time, then I'll accept an apology. Until then, may your mainstreamed sellout die a painful death you ass.
If anything this 'apology' makes me even angrier since I now know that Brad knew the game was crap when it was but into a box, put on a shelf, and I paid $50 for it.
Anything else I buy from a store, that is pure non-working crap, I can return. But not MMO software as the 'key' has been used and I am therefore stuck with it for all eternity...
If I put on my tinfoil hat I can see this buyer lock-in model being a valid business strategy:
1) Get a 5 mil loan based on the fact you have a great MMO idea. (+$5,000,000)
2) Hire around 20 people at $50,000 a year and have them basically make art for 5 years because investors love concept art. (-$1,000,000 per year or -$5,000,000)
3) Sell 250,000 boxes of concept art for $50 each. (+$12,500,000)
4) Sell 100,000 $15 subscriptions. (+$1,500,000 for a total of +$14,000,000)
6) Pay off $5,000,000 loan (+$9,000,000)
7) Profit - $9 million dollars.
Now, I realize that there is a lot of assumption here (they don't get 100% of the box sale or the subscription, there were probably less than 20 people all getting paid less, the 250,000 box sales and 100,000 subsciber numbers are probably high, etc.), but it wouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how to make millions off a failed MMO launch - especially when your product model guarantees that no one can return it.
I mean, even if we account for an additional $8,000,000 in costs from the above scenario, that's *still* a free $1,000,000.
I'd like a free million bucks... And I have this great idea for an MMO!
I wouldn't. I think they screwed up a potentially good game. But who cares, Age Of Conan just started Beta sign ups today! Maybe somebody will get it right.
Brad is a day late and a dollar short, and his selection of the FOH indicates this; he is living in the past.
He so overestimates FOH for us "hardcore" EQ vets that I do not know what to think. Yes, I have ONE friend that visits that web page and talks about it (very rarely).
Nevertheless, I accept his apology, and I want Vanguard to succeed for many and varied reasons. The most important of which is that the big-developers such as EA and Blizzard only produce safe titles.
Vanguard, its immense size and vision, is an immense risk. EA. MSFT (stock ticker symbol), et al. would not take those risks; they are risk-averse and therefore we can anticipate the same type of games from them, without a great deal of innovation. In fact, "Lord of the Rings" online is a safe title.
I want Vanguard to succeed, I think another competitor would improve the industry. However, we must be mindful that releasing the game incomplete hurts the industry.
Wow! I have to say that I now have alot more respect for Brad then I used too. It takes guts to admit you made a mistake, but it takes courage and humility to stand up in front of the world and accept responsibility for them. /applaud
He knew this, and was gunning for people like you exacitly. Its a marketing play, nothing more.
---------- "Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
Small add, Brad thinks his game performance issues will be swept away with coming systems. As much as this is a wonderful thought, its a plain-stupid illusion.
Look at EQ2. EQ2 never, never managed to fix the problem of dynamic performance leaks. An engine that is programmed to over-emphasise on polygon density, on character modelling and on texture size will always be unbelievably dependend on model-count and environment settings to run smoothly.
Now, EQ2 released in 2004 and still it does only run nicely in EVERY situation on a top of the line rig of 2007, sure thing, it runs nice when nobodies around on my machine or with 5 people and 2 mobs, but the fatal flaw of it will probably never vanish. It eats up hardware while showing you a more than ugly world, proximal environment and animation engine.
Keep hammering that fact in your brain, Brad, reality bites. The Vanguard engine will stand as the new symbol of "dude, I cant believe it lags while looking like THIS!"
Originally posted by pilto you notice my account creation date there, douchebag? i have been waiting for this pandering prick to release his new and broken game but that doesn't mean i haven't been keeping up.
From the first post, clearly not very well.
And the other handful you've made oh so elegantly in the other threads don't seem to lend much credence, either.
But I'll play along... How, exactly, did FoH ruin EQ?
Nop I don’t accept the apology, I would accept a refund though, but I doubt I will ever see my money back. I mean, really I couldn’t care less about his pitiful excuses. Bottom line is, Brad screws his game, I spent 60$ for nothing…so I don’t care why the game went wrong…that’s not my problem…
Then you shouldn't have boughten it in the first place.. Problem solved.. Have a little compassion. It'd be sad if you were laying on the side of the road dying and people just passed you by because, "It wasn't thier problem". Be a damn human.
Whoa, hang on. My intrent isn't to butt in, but I just can't help it.
Compasion?!? For whom? Brad? Why on earth should anyone feel compassion for him?
Correct me if I'm wrong on any of these points:
1) He was spending someone else's money that he convincedf them to fork over.
2) He drew from that pool as his "salary". I'm assuming this mind you. Maybe he supported himself some other way during those 4 or 5 years.
And you compare someone dying on the side of the road and someone who spent an amazing amount of someone else's money and then failed?
Brad created a game that MS predicted would flop. Brad knew it would flop. He would need at least box sales and around 200k subs to pull a profit after a year. He had to pull off many tricks in order to make this whole thing work, some of it very close to fraud. Then he asks for apology, another ploy to cool down the atmosphere. It's tactics.
Having said that I don't hold a grudge, he shall suffer the consequences anyway. I doubt he will ever have a chance like this again.
the website its posted on isnt even a affilated site with vanguard so the i am sorry post pitty me pitty me has no meaning to paying customers if he wants to really apologise for being a con artist and misleading people into buying a unfinished product lieing on the box about req spec's putting up with billing issues not to mention the mind numbing bugs that have ruined whole days upon days of peoples time,
Then his post shold have been on the vanguard website front page we are sorry not his YES HIS old guild website
that apology wasnt to us ripped of customers it may have well been a pm to an old friend for all its worth to us.
But hay what goes around comes around im pritty sure he is going to get his when the bills hit home.
Wow! I have to say that I now have alot more respect for Brad then I used too. It takes guts to admit you made a mistake, but it takes courage and humility to stand up in front of the world and accept responsibility for them. /applaud
I agree. It would be one thing if he just said "it's not my fault," but he owned up to it. I still won't buy his game until the major issues are ironed out (if then), but maybe now I'll actually be willing to try it.
MMO games played or tested: EQ, DAoC, Archlord, Auto Assault, CoH, CoV, EQ2, EVE, Guild Wars, Hellgate: London, Linneage II, LOTRO, MxO, Planetside, SWG, Sword of the New World, Tabula Rasa, Vanguard, WWIIOL, WOW, Age of Conan
Played Vanguard in beta and about a month during mid Feb. to mid March. Not playing currently but I am still interested in where this saga is headed and whether the game is going to recieve positive changes. Who knows, I may one day resubscribe.
But I have to say that my patience is running thin with Mr. McQuaid and company, especially after reading that last behemoth post of his on Fires of Heaven. He really is clueless. I've tried to empathize with how it would feel to be responsible for a 30 million dollar game not going well and what kind of pressure that would bring...but I don't really care anymore.
I think it's faily obvious at this point that Vanguard and Sigil are a reflection of McQuaid in every way. Maybe one day they'll have a vote of no-confidence and usurp the company from him...one can hope.
I think SOE being in charge of the game might actually improve it...how sad is that?
apparently i'm a vanbois, because i played in beta, i 'bugged' when i thought i needed to, i was involved in testing, i was involved on the forums, i have defended the game, i have played the game, i have enjoyed the game. i think the game is still quite broken, and i look forward to that being resolved so that i can 'even more' enjoy the game that i am already having fun with. people see 'pitful excuses', i see valid, realistic responses to the many things that can happen while investing FIVE YEARS of ones life and whole scads of peoples money into a project one believed very strongly in, and appears to still feel very strongly about. I am glad that BmcQ had the 'cojones' to step up and say what he did in the original, somewhat longwinded, post I see alot of things that still need to be fixed in this game, but i also see alot of things that i am willing to pay my sub until they are resolved. not everyones choice, doesn't have to be. anyways, i didn't vote, not because i'm a vanbois, but because on the whole i didn't see it as an 'apology' merely an acknowledgement of how things are, how they got that way, and how things will move on
but what do i know, i'm just a vanbois.
I am just curious but what if you were talking about a car here instead of an mmo? Would you still accept a car and pay for a loan that didn't work properly. I am in no way for or against this game but am curious in general as to why we as gamers allow unfinished products to keep being sold. I don't think anyone would put up with it if it was any other product. Like you said it is your choice and I am happy you are enjoying this game. No ill will towards anyone meant by this post its just a curiousity I have.
as consumers we pay for development of products every day. in your example of a car, buying a new car, you are paying for developments of that company. the money I am willing to pay Sigil right now is not for the product that is currently presented to me, I am willing to pay my money to help realize the game I am expecting to see a year from now. as a consumer that is my choice, and i am entitled to it in the same capacity that as a consumer you, and others, are able to say no more. this product does not deserve my hard earned dollars. if this product was all i was getting they wouldn't get my money either. i am expecting to see the evolution of this game, just as EQII evolved in the year after i said that they had gotten enough of my money
"We aren't going to ... Period. End of statement."
Marketing tactics galore. This is what you call an apology, its not even on the official fourms.
Heck he apologizes for the wrong things.
He KNEW the product was not finished, yet he lied to everyone it will be done and polished by launch.
He let preorders to be accepted before the nda was lifted.
There are NO warnings on the box that the game was incomplete or a work in process.
He flat out lied people out of thier money simple as that.
If he really cared for the gamers he would have simply not have the product released. Yeah i know zomg 30 milion dollars, publisher forcing game out the door, 5 years in the making, might as well release the game. Thats what the fans will say.
Hell many of us are still waiting for duke em nuke em forever, 10 years and nothing, well the developers could have pulled out a half ass game and sold it, but they refused to. Money was spent on it yet it never made it out.
Watching Fanbois drop their soap in a prison full of desperate men.
I voted "YES" for the simple reason I saw the train coming and stepped aside. I played the beta and knew what it would release like so I never bought the game. I'd feel differently if it had cost me money (especially the $100 collectors box I cancelled). I have no issues with anyone who voted "NO", I just gave up caring about VG or Brad awhile ago. I only even bother to read or post in this forum because it gets so funny.
That would be all the servers right now. Raid's have not been implemented and I have a really hard time imagining a whole lot of people who could do raids with 20+ people on screen plus another 3-5 mobs or more and spell effects etc...
He KNEW the product was not finished, yet he lied to everyone it will be done and polished by launch.
I don't ever remember hearing him tell us that after the NDA dropped. When the NDA dropped he said it was unfinished. Now if your talking about what he said to investors? I don't know.
Comments
One thing I have learned in business over the years is that the customer always wants to feel like they are your number one concern and priority. Telling customers that they should have attended the trade show in Vegas where you addressed their concerns does little to calm and assure them that you care.
I would also add that like it or not., many players have a distaste for large Guilds so affiliating yourself with them does little to bond yourself to the average user that will make up the majority of the player base. I believe at one point in time it was estimated that less than 20% of the players of MMoG's are "hardcore" meaning that embracing that 20% seriously hurt the overall revenue that you intended the game to generate.
This apology was more to the effect of two friends getting drunk while one slobbers over a drink telling the other how he screwed up his marriage instead of going to the wife and trying to patch things up; then expecting the friend to go out and communicate these feelings to the wife.
One thing I have learned in business over the years is that the customer always wants to feel like they are your number one concern and priority. Telling customers that they should have attended the trade show in Vegas where you addressed their concerns does little to calm and assure them that you care.
I would also add that like it or not., many players have a distaste for large Guilds so affiliating yourself with them does little to bond yourself to the average user that will make up the majority of the player base. I believe at one point in time it was estimated that less than 20% of the players of MMoG's are "hardcore" meaning that embracing that 20% seriously hurt the overall revenue that you intended the game to generate.
This apology was more to the effect of two friends getting drunk while one slobbers over a drink telling the other how he screwed up his marriage instead of going to the wife and trying to patch things up; then expecting the friend to go out and communicate these feelings to the wife. Great analogy
If anything this 'apology' makes me even angrier since I now know that Brad knew the game was crap when it was but into a box, put on a shelf, and I paid $50 for it.
Anything else I buy from a store, that is pure non-working crap, I can return. But not MMO software as the 'key' has been used and I am therefore stuck with it for all eternity...
If I put on my tinfoil hat I can see this buyer lock-in model being a valid business strategy:
1) Get a 5 mil loan based on the fact you have a great MMO idea. (+$5,000,000)
2) Hire around 20 people at $50,000 a year and have them basically make art for 5 years because investors love concept art. (-$1,000,000 per year or -$5,000,000)
3) Sell 250,000 boxes of concept art for $50 each. (+$12,500,000)
4) Sell 100,000 $15 subscriptions. (+$1,500,000 for a total of +$14,000,000)
6) Pay off $5,000,000 loan (+$9,000,000)
7) Profit - $9 million dollars.
Now, I realize that there is a lot of assumption here (they don't get 100% of the box sale or the subscription, there were probably less than 20 people all getting paid less, the 250,000 box sales and 100,000 subsciber numbers are probably high, etc.), but it wouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how to make millions off a failed MMO launch - especially when your product model guarantees that no one can return it.
I mean, even if we account for an additional $8,000,000 in costs from the above scenario, that's *still* a free $1,000,000.
I'd like a free million bucks... And I have this great idea for an MMO!
I like the fact that he gives a damn. this guy has a huge passion for this industry. He did what he could.
Id play the game, just for what he wrote there
He so overestimates FOH for us "hardcore" EQ vets that I do not know what to think. Yes, I have ONE friend that visits that web page and talks about it (very rarely).
Nevertheless, I accept his apology, and I want Vanguard to succeed for many and varied reasons. The most important of which is that the big-developers such as EA and Blizzard only produce safe titles.
Vanguard, its immense size and vision, is an immense risk. EA. MSFT (stock ticker symbol), et al. would not take those risks; they are risk-averse and therefore we can anticipate the same type of games from them, without a great deal of innovation. In fact, "Lord of the Rings" online is a safe title.
I want Vanguard to succeed, I think another competitor would improve the industry. However, we must be mindful that releasing the game incomplete hurts the industry.
What an excellent topic and discuss, though.
----------
"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
Look at EQ2. EQ2 never, never managed to fix the problem of dynamic performance leaks. An engine that is programmed to over-emphasise on polygon density, on character modelling and on texture size will always be unbelievably dependend on model-count and environment settings to run smoothly.
Now, EQ2 released in 2004 and still it does only run nicely in EVERY situation on a top of the line rig of 2007, sure thing, it runs nice when nobodies around on my machine or with 5 people and 2 mobs, but the fatal flaw of it will probably never vanish. It eats up hardware while showing you a more than ugly world, proximal environment and animation engine.
Keep hammering that fact in your brain, Brad, reality bites. The Vanguard engine will stand as the new symbol of "dude, I cant believe it lags while looking like THIS!"
Meridion
Strangely, what came to my mind after reading Brads post was this:
Hubert the Lion was haughty and vain
And especially proud of his elegant mane.
But conceit of this sort isn't proper at all
And Hubert the Lion was due for a fall.
One day as he sharpened his claws on a rock
He received a most horrible, terrible shock.
A flaming hot spark flew up into the air,
Came down on his head and ignited his hair.
With a roar of surprise he took off like a streak,
Away through the jungle to Zamboozi Creek.
He leaped in kersplash! with a shower of bubbles,
And came bobbing up with a head full of stubbles.
At first he just stared with a wide-open mouth
At the cloud of black smoke drifting off to the south.
Then he felt with his paws just in back of his ears
And he suddenly realized the worst of his fears.
'I'm ruined,' he shouted, 'oh what'll I do!
I'd rather be dead or go live in a zoo!
And if anyone sees me, oh what a disgrace,
So I'd better discover a good hiding place!'
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Two small points.
An apology without a refund is just marketing.
It "was" an honor working with them. Past tense?
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
From the first post, clearly not very well.
And the other handful you've made oh so elegantly in the other threads don't seem to lend much credence, either.
But I'll play along... How, exactly, did FoH ruin EQ?
Whoa, hang on. My intrent isn't to butt in, but I just can't help it.
Compasion?!? For whom? Brad? Why on earth should anyone feel compassion for him?
Correct me if I'm wrong on any of these points:
1) He was spending someone else's money that he convincedf them to fork over.
2) He drew from that pool as his "salary". I'm assuming this mind you. Maybe he supported himself some other way during those 4 or 5 years.
And you compare someone dying on the side of the road and someone who spent an amazing amount of someone else's money and then failed?
And one more things: "Boughten"?!?
Brad created a game that MS predicted would flop. Brad knew it would flop. He would need at least box sales and around 200k subs to pull a profit after a year. He had to pull off many tricks in order to make this whole thing work, some of it very close to fraud. Then he asks for apology, another ploy to cool down the atmosphere. It's tactics.
Having said that I don't hold a grudge, he shall suffer the consequences anyway. I doubt he will ever have a chance like this again.
Short and simple that post doesnt cut it
the website its posted on isnt even a affilated site with vanguard so the i am sorry post pitty me pitty me has no meaning to paying customers if he wants to really apologise for being a con artist and misleading people into buying a unfinished product lieing on the box about req spec's putting up with billing issues not to mention the mind numbing bugs that have ruined whole days upon days of peoples time,
Then his post shold have been on the vanguard website front page we are sorry not his YES HIS old guild website
that apology wasnt to us ripped of customers it may have well been a pm to an old friend for all its worth to us.
But hay what goes around comes around im pritty sure he is going to get his when the bills hit home.
MMO games played or tested: EQ, DAoC, Archlord, Auto Assault, CoH, CoV, EQ2, EVE, Guild Wars, Hellgate: London, Linneage II, LOTRO, MxO, Planetside, SWG, Sword of the New World, Tabula Rasa, Vanguard, WWIIOL, WOW, Age of Conan
But I have to say that my patience is running thin with Mr. McQuaid and company, especially after reading that last behemoth post of his on Fires of Heaven. He really is clueless. I've tried to empathize with how it would feel to be responsible for a 30 million dollar game not going well and what kind of pressure that would bring...but I don't really care anymore.
I think it's faily obvious at this point that Vanguard and Sigil are a reflection of McQuaid in every way. Maybe one day they'll have a vote of no-confidence and usurp the company from him...one can hope.
I think SOE being in charge of the game might actually improve it...how sad is that?
----------
Life sucks, buy a helmet.
as consumers we pay for development of products every day. in your example of a car, buying a new car, you are paying for developments of that company. the money I am willing to pay Sigil right now is not for the product that is currently presented to me, I am willing to pay my money to help realize the game I am expecting to see a year from now. as a consumer that is my choice, and i am entitled to it in the same capacity that as a consumer you, and others, are able to say no more. this product does not deserve my hard earned dollars. if this product was all i was getting they wouldn't get my money either. i am expecting to see the evolution of this game, just as EQII evolved in the year after i said that they had gotten enough of my money
"We aren't going to ... Period. End of statement."
ya. ok. whatever.
but what do i know, i'm only a vanbois i'm told.
Heck he apologizes for the wrong things.
He KNEW the product was not finished, yet he lied to everyone it will be done and polished by launch.
He let preorders to be accepted before the nda was lifted.
There are NO warnings on the box that the game was incomplete or a work in process.
He flat out lied people out of thier money simple as that.
If he really cared for the gamers he would have simply not have the product released. Yeah i know zomg 30 milion dollars, publisher forcing game out the door, 5 years in the making, might as well release the game. Thats what the fans will say.
Hell many of us are still waiting for duke em nuke em forever, 10 years and nothing, well the developers could have pulled out a half ass game and sold it, but they refused to. Money was spent on it yet it never made it out.
Watching Fanbois drop their soap in a prison full of desperate men.
I voted "YES" for the simple reason I saw the train coming and stepped aside. I played the beta and knew what it would release like so I never bought the game. I'd feel differently if it had cost me money (especially the $100 collectors box I cancelled). I have no issues with anyone who voted "NO", I just gave up caring about VG or Brad awhile ago. I only even bother to read or post in this forum because it gets so funny.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren