SOE bought the game because of BM's connectiont to eq1. My guess is he had some high ranking friends in the SOE rank and file that convinced the others to bail BM out.
No SOE did not buy the game to keep it off the market. SOE could have done that without revealing they bought the code and ip. SOE would have never even hinted they did that and probably would have put in some kind of NDC to keep anyone from blabbing about the purchase. Companies do that all the time.
Vanguard never was a threat to the EQ series. If it was the game would be going like gang busters. At best IF the FTP works SOE will have a niche game on their hands like DCUO and FR. Will not have a large population. Just enough to turn a profit that's respectable enough to keep the server on.
The murder of SWG was committed by Lucas Arts, possibly by George himself. LA couldn't get past their ego's(or George's) that the ip should be greater than WOW(it isn't). My guess is LA forced SOE to do the NGE. SOE faced the revokation of the rights to the ip to do a mmorpg. I've worked in the software industry and know that the person that wants and pays for the code being written has the whip hand. My guess: the fault is 90% LA, 10% SOE. TOR bears my suspicions out that LA forced the NGE on SOE. The game is basically NGE 2.0. The same percentage applies between LA and BW.
As to BM's return: the man did help produce Evercrack. If SOE can keep him drug free and give him a reality check to his ideas, then the game might amount to something and be successful.
IMO on all this.
This is quite possibly one of the most itelligent posts I've seen on MMORPG.com in a very long time. Well played, sir, well played.
I make spreadsheets at work - I don't want to make them for the games I play.
Usually the people that have vision/ideas for things are the worst people you can actually put in charge of things...Sounds like thats what happend with VG.
I do not like their f2p model, but VG was one of my top 5 mmos of all time, left when their admission of not working on the pvp side, till pve was done (which means never) killed off the pvp server.
I was looking forward to playing again, but I probably wont unless they start coming out with a lot of content or something...Which if everyone does, it will fail, since people have to have faith, but I can't take the leap, since I have bought TSW/GW2, unless I dislike both of them or something....Then maybe I will reconsider the leap.
Interesting how he has been back with SOE since February but we are only finding out about it now. Hopefully means he was hard at work on Vanguard all that time and FTP is about to hit hopefully sometime this month.
SOE bought the game because of BM's connectiont to eq1. My guess is he had some high ranking friends in the SOE rank and file that convinced the others to bail BM out.
No SOE did not buy the game to keep it off the market. SOE could have done that without revealing they bought the code and ip. SOE would have never even hinted they did that and probably would have put in some kind of NDC to keep anyone from blabbing about the purchase. Companies do that all the time.
agree -- straight from the press release (May 2006), MGS = Microsoft Game Studios
“As the (Vanguard) development process is ongoing and constantly shifting, it became clear that MGS and Sigil had varying visions and direction for the title’s development,” said Brad McQuaid, CEO of Sigil Games Online. “In the best interest of Vanguard, it was decided that we would buy back the publishing rights from Microsoft.”
Sigil went with SOE for publisher because their original pubisher, Microsoft, had different goals
Interesting how he has been back with SOE since February but we are only finding out about it now. Hopefully means he was hard at work on Vanguard all that time and FTP is about to hit hopefully sometime this month.
Earlier this year the community manager was being very cryptic about things she couldnt fully announce, and that several old faces were back on staff. There was specualtion then McQuaid was back, but they kept things hush hush, which pissed off the community. Probably smart marketing, as waiting to announce McQuiads return close to the f2p launch will spark more interested. If it was announced in Feb people would have forgotten about it by now.
Why on earth would anyone consider this to be good?
McQuaid was the worst thing that ever happened to Vanguard, and the game didn't start to rise in popularity until his departure and Sigil being snatched up by SOE.
Not good imho, he should have stayed wherever he was.
What an ignorant post. Say what you will, but MMOs wouldn't be what they are today without Brad Mcquad.
Your post is the ignorant one bro. The entire reason Vanguard launched so poorly can be attributed to that dumbass. They promised an enormous amount of content on release and probably could have done it had his, coke snorting piece of shit, self not decided proper developer tools were unnecessary in game development.
Speaking to "MMOs wouldn't be what they are today without Brad" Well there were three major mmos at the time of everquest, We had UO, AC, and EQ, Of the three EQ was the only one to turn in to a gear treadmill raider game and thats what mmo's are today for the most part, Thanks but no thanks brad.
It did have an enormous amount of content.....you seem completely ignorant of the reason behind its failure. One word, 'performance'.
The coke thing came from one disgruntled employee. There have been no other confirmations of that, even from other disgruntled employees.
I may be wrong about this, but I'm pretty darn sure that Brad was gone by PoP, the expansion most point to as the 'gear grind solidified' expansion.
But like it or not, I doubt this genre would be here at all without EQ. UO and AC were in a fair fight and they lost. They didn't get to set the tone of the movement, I'm sorry. But there is a movement - and for that we should thank Brad. For without him, who even knows if this site would exist and we could debate the merits of mmo's at all.
Simple fact is that EQ attracted numbers that made business take note. The other two didn't. More people liked EQ, so that became the model. Those who didn't like that model were simply in the minority. The argument that EQ should not have defined the genre is just a way of saying, 'i don't like having the minority opinion because I get less of what I want'. But many don't realize this and instead say stuff like, 'No players of mmos like what the genre has become'.
Well, there is some accountant looking at the pre-EQ numbers of less than 50 to 100,000 subs. Then they look at EQ at its hieght with 500,000 subs. Then look at the post-wow subs of up to 12 million. That accountant thinks you can't do math. What we have attracts tens of millions. What we had attracted tens of thousands. Face facts, people like the current model.
==========
But I mostly responded here to state unequivocly for the record:
Brad failed at business management. This is the reason VG failed. He couldn't manage time people or money in such a way to get the product polished by release. But there's no doubt, it is still a diamond, just not a polished one. The reason VG is still alive at all is because, VG is still one of the best mmo's ever made from a creative perspective. And that was the part Brad shined at.
I am positive Brad's role will be in the creative department. No one will let him hold the purse strings ever again.
Just sub to the station access and play all SOE games with gold membership for the price of 1.
I am looking forward to EQ3, so not a SoE hater, but they have no games I want to sub to or play, other than maybe VG, I would still like to see a return of the PvP server, and more content before that even.
PS2 looks like it may be good, so maybe if it has something in the gold membership it would be a good move, but no idea on that, on two levels, me liking PS2, and it having something in the membership.
Can't we all be just happy that VG is risen from the grave?
I for one is happy, even if it's Brad he still had plenty of innovating ideas some good some bad and the good once whent into the game, like the mini game of crafting and diplomacy.
Now when VG going F2P SOE will put out more content and fix old ones, true SOEs F2P model is really crappy but it has worked with the other titles it uses for some odd reason.
Why on earth would anyone consider this to be good?
McQuaid was the worst thing that ever happened to Vanguard, and the game didn't start to rise in popularity until his departure and Sigil being snatched up by SOE.
Not good imho, he should have stayed wherever he was.
What an ignorant post. Say what you will, but MMOs wouldn't be what they are today without Brad Mcquad.
Oh, so its his fault they are linear, shallow pieces of crap.
No, no. Its his fault there is an industry for you to whine about.
Why on earth would anyone consider this to be good?
McQuaid was the worst thing that ever happened to Vanguard, and the game didn't start to rise in popularity until his departure and Sigil being snatched up by SOE.
Not good imho, he should have stayed wherever he was.
Why on earth would anyone consider this to be good?
McQuaid was the worst thing that ever happened to Vanguard, and the game didn't start to rise in popularity until his departure and Sigil being snatched up by SOE.
Not good imho, he should have stayed wherever he was.
quoted for the interwebs truth
As we all know these forums do know allot more then what actually happend.
What exciting plans do you have in store for Vanguard? As MMOs grow older there are often areas in the game where the loot and rewards aren't as good as in other areas. This unfortunately encourages players to choose a specific region or quest line for their level and ignore much of the rest of the game. One of the things we're working on to get ready for the free-to-play (FTP) launch is a re-itemization of the majority of regions in the game. This means we're going through areas and making sure that quest rewards and boss loot drops give you great items. As a player you'll be able to explore and level up in different areas of your choice without having to worry that you're missing out on great loot that drops elsewhere.
THATS what happends if you have a REAL designer on the team !!!! :-))
Hey everyone I'm getting bored reading about all the bickering over this guys return, maybe it's time we gave the guy the benefit of the doubt and see what he brings to the game...After all life is hard enough and wouldn't you want a second chance from your boss if you had made mistakes in the past?
Let me tell you I've been away from this game for quite a few years but recently re-subbed and yes many of the bugs like falling through the game world are still present. But I played and gave this game 100% effort previously and only left due to the drop in population and having returned I started a fresh character and am still loving the feel and diversity this game has to offer over many of the newer games. Having three spheres makes it stand out and I have engrossed myself deeper into the game than when I first started and am having fun.
There are many vets playing this game on the Telon server though the Halgar server has a lot lower population as many from EU have transferred across to the US server, which makes for more opportunity of groups 24/7. I'm sure once it goes F2P this will get the EU server busy again with many more folks to play along side. I do hope that they do not just make it so you have to roll on a F2P server as all our hard work will be lost.
The thing which I like about this game is you can roll 12 characters and have such a wide range of races and classes and this prevents the game getting boring, unless you start them all from the isle of dawn that is. However the plus about the starter isle is that you can play all the three spheres to level 10 before going into the main world and this sets you up for a solid start.
Are there better games to play out there, sure but they don't have as much depth in my personal opinion and if SOE can revamp the game to an extent where they add value and not make the new content detrimental to the old like they have on the F2P EQ1 servers with that crappy loot which makes playing EQ1 weak and simple, rather than the challenging game it used to be.
I'm a UK player and the game has cost me £8.99pm which is the price of an average meal to eat out these days so feel it's good value for money. For anyone who has not played the game before, check out the 14 day free trail here http://vanguard.station.sony.com/isleofdawn/ and while I'm sure many will tell you how poor the game is, I would suggest you try it your self then judge, I feel you will be pleasantly suprised.
As for Brad returning to this game way back in February this year, only time will tell whether SOE made the right choice, but they didn’t bring him back just to fill his pockets for free so I imagine they are better placed to asses what he has to offer to help this game progress and whilst I'm not bothered personally whether he's a nice person or idiot all I care is that he is able to contribute to make this game better.
Some thing else which concerns me is the amount of anger vented on these forums, many moons ago this used to be a fun place to post, however nowdays all we seem to get is people crying about x, y, z... It would be nice to hear a few positive posts and some of the good things about our games we play as I know that even poor games have their pluses. We just don't appreciate them enough and all seem to focus on the negatives due to hard times in our daily lives.
Have fun all and I look forward to what you guys have to say and add....
Comments
This is quite possibly one of the most itelligent posts I've seen on MMORPG.com in a very long time. Well played, sir, well played.
I make spreadsheets at work - I don't want to make them for the games I play.
Usually the people that have vision/ideas for things are the worst people you can actually put in charge of things...Sounds like thats what happend with VG.
I do not like their f2p model, but VG was one of my top 5 mmos of all time, left when their admission of not working on the pvp side, till pve was done (which means never) killed off the pvp server.
I was looking forward to playing again, but I probably wont unless they start coming out with a lot of content or something...Which if everyone does, it will fail, since people have to have faith, but I can't take the leap, since I have bought TSW/GW2, unless I dislike both of them or something....Then maybe I will reconsider the leap.
Just sub to the station access and play all SOE games with gold membership for the price of 1.
Interesting how he has been back with SOE since February but we are only finding out about it now. Hopefully means he was hard at work on Vanguard all that time and FTP is about to hit hopefully sometime this month.
agree -- straight from the press release (May 2006), MGS = Microsoft Game Studios
http://www.silkyvenom.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3611
“As the (Vanguard) development process is ongoing and constantly shifting, it became clear that MGS and Sigil had varying visions and direction for the title’s development,” said Brad McQuaid, CEO of Sigil Games Online. “In the best interest of Vanguard, it was decided that we would buy back the publishing rights from Microsoft.”
Sigil went with SOE for publisher because their original pubisher, Microsoft, had different goals
a year later, May 2007,
SOE bought Sigil because Sigil was a failing ship
EQ2 fan sites
Earlier this year the community manager was being very cryptic about things she couldnt fully announce, and that several old faces were back on staff. There was specualtion then McQuaid was back, but they kept things hush hush, which pissed off the community. Probably smart marketing, as waiting to announce McQuiads return close to the f2p launch will spark more interested. If it was announced in Feb people would have forgotten about it by now.
It did have an enormous amount of content.....you seem completely ignorant of the reason behind its failure. One word, 'performance'.
The coke thing came from one disgruntled employee. There have been no other confirmations of that, even from other disgruntled employees.
I may be wrong about this, but I'm pretty darn sure that Brad was gone by PoP, the expansion most point to as the 'gear grind solidified' expansion.
But like it or not, I doubt this genre would be here at all without EQ. UO and AC were in a fair fight and they lost. They didn't get to set the tone of the movement, I'm sorry. But there is a movement - and for that we should thank Brad. For without him, who even knows if this site would exist and we could debate the merits of mmo's at all.
Simple fact is that EQ attracted numbers that made business take note. The other two didn't. More people liked EQ, so that became the model. Those who didn't like that model were simply in the minority. The argument that EQ should not have defined the genre is just a way of saying, 'i don't like having the minority opinion because I get less of what I want'. But many don't realize this and instead say stuff like, 'No players of mmos like what the genre has become'.
Well, there is some accountant looking at the pre-EQ numbers of less than 50 to 100,000 subs. Then they look at EQ at its hieght with 500,000 subs. Then look at the post-wow subs of up to 12 million. That accountant thinks you can't do math. What we have attracts tens of millions. What we had attracted tens of thousands. Face facts, people like the current model.
==========
But I mostly responded here to state unequivocly for the record:
Brad failed at business management. This is the reason VG failed. He couldn't manage time people or money in such a way to get the product polished by release. But there's no doubt, it is still a diamond, just not a polished one. The reason VG is still alive at all is because, VG is still one of the best mmo's ever made from a creative perspective. And that was the part Brad shined at.
I am positive Brad's role will be in the creative department. No one will let him hold the purse strings ever again.
I am looking forward to EQ3, so not a SoE hater, but they have no games I want to sub to or play, other than maybe VG, I would still like to see a return of the PvP server, and more content before that even.
PS2 looks like it may be good, so maybe if it has something in the gold membership it would be a good move, but no idea on that, on two levels, me liking PS2, and it having something in the membership.
Can't we all be just happy that VG is risen from the grave?
I for one is happy, even if it's Brad he still had plenty of innovating ideas some good some bad and the good once whent into the game, like the mini game of crafting and diplomacy.
Now when VG going F2P SOE will put out more content and fix old ones, true SOEs F2P model is really crappy but it has worked with the other titles it uses for some odd reason.
If it's not broken, you are not innovating.
Khaaaaan! Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!... mr mquaid is back... *table flip*
No, no. Its his fault there is an industry for you to whine about.
quoted for truth
As we all know these forums do know allot more then what actually happend.
/sarc off
Whow, this is cool:
What exciting plans do you have in store for Vanguard?
As MMOs grow older there are often areas in the game where the loot and rewards aren't as good as in other areas. This unfortunately encourages players to choose a specific region or quest line for their level and ignore much of the rest of the game. One of the things we're working on to get ready for the free-to-play (FTP) launch is a re-itemization of the majority of regions in the game. This means we're going through areas and making sure that quest rewards and boss loot drops give you great items. As a player you'll be able to explore and level up in different areas of your choice without having to worry that you're missing out on great loot that drops elsewhere.
THATS what happends if you have a REAL designer on the team !!!! :-))
McQuaid is a douche of the highest caliber.
Why anyone would celebrate his return from -anywhere else- is beyond me.
Please elaborate.
Hey everyone I'm getting bored reading about all the bickering over this guys return, maybe it's time we gave the guy the benefit of the doubt and see what he brings to the game...After all life is hard enough and wouldn't you want a second chance from your boss if you had made mistakes in the past?
Let me tell you I've been away from this game for quite a few years but recently re-subbed and yes many of the bugs like falling through the game world are still present. But I played and gave this game 100% effort previously and only left due to the drop in population and having returned I started a fresh character and am still loving the feel and diversity this game has to offer over many of the newer games. Having three spheres makes it stand out and I have engrossed myself deeper into the game than when I first started and am having fun.
There are many vets playing this game on the Telon server though the Halgar server has a lot lower population as many from EU have transferred across to the US server, which makes for more opportunity of groups 24/7. I'm sure once it goes F2P this will get the EU server busy again with many more folks to play along side. I do hope that they do not just make it so you have to roll on a F2P server as all our hard work will be lost.
The thing which I like about this game is you can roll 12 characters and have such a wide range of races and classes and this prevents the game getting boring, unless you start them all from the isle of dawn that is. However the plus about the starter isle is that you can play all the three spheres to level 10 before going into the main world and this sets you up for a solid start.
Are there better games to play out there, sure but they don't have as much depth in my personal opinion and if SOE can revamp the game to an extent where they add value and not make the new content detrimental to the old like they have on the F2P EQ1 servers with that crappy loot which makes playing EQ1 weak and simple, rather than the challenging game it used to be.
I'm a UK player and the game has cost me £8.99pm which is the price of an average meal to eat out these days so feel it's good value for money. For anyone who has not played the game before, check out the 14 day free trail here http://vanguard.station.sony.com/isleofdawn/ and while I'm sure many will tell you how poor the game is, I would suggest you try it your self then judge, I feel you will be pleasantly suprised.
As for Brad returning to this game way back in February this year, only time will tell whether SOE made the right choice, but they didn’t bring him back just to fill his pockets for free so I imagine they are better placed to asses what he has to offer to help this game progress and whilst I'm not bothered personally whether he's a nice person or idiot all I care is that he is able to contribute to make this game better.
Some thing else which concerns me is the amount of anger vented on these forums, many moons ago this used to be a fun place to post, however nowdays all we seem to get is people crying about x, y, z... It would be nice to hear a few positive posts and some of the good things about our games we play as I know that even poor games have their pluses. We just don't appreciate them enough and all seem to focus on the negatives due to hard times in our daily lives.
Have fun all and I look forward to what you guys have to say and add....
Bandit
Asbo