It's funny to see all thse drama queens come in here crying how Sigil ripped them off, and how they were misled by Brad's vision and how there life is in complete shambles because of this ... If you don't play the game why do you care how many subscribers there are?
I care because I would really like this game to succeed, and want to follow its progress. I care beause this will dictate wether or not I get another $OE or Brad McQuad product again- population size shows how happy the players are. I care because I keep hoping I'll return to this game when it is ready, but if the population is not there, I will not. And finally, I care because I bought a game that was in beta, hense getting a product that I was told was ready when, in fact, it was not, and, feeling ripped off by that, I'm hoping the low population sizes will teach Brad and $OE a lesson.
Didn’t what? Didn’t want to work with Lucasarts again? In fact Biowear refused to make KOTOR II because they had so many problems with Lucasarts the first time around.
I wonder who came up with the idea for those crappy minigames in KOTOR, they certainly don’t seem like Biowear…
And the problems that SOE had with Lucas Arts forcing a lot of the bad changed in SWG is why Smedley basically said that they will never do another licensed development again.
What the heck the game is already broken, with SOE it will be Doomed.
What I would like to know is this; obviously this takeover had to be in the works on some level as a contingency before the game was released.
Now, the real question is - did SOE know the real state the VG was in before it launched? We know that Brad stated the whole thing about having no choice about when to launch; that they had made commitments and were forced to launch the game. If SOE is now going to bail SIgil out, why was the game shoved out early in the first place? SOE now just has that much more repair to do.
The only thing I can think of is that Sigil/Brad really lied up a storm about the sorry state VG was in at launch or else SOE knew and did nothing about it, hoping the game would get on its feet (or else if not, putting them in a stronger bargaining position to take ownership).
What the heck the game is already broken, with SOE it will be Doomed.
What I would like to know is this; obviously this takeover had to be in the works on some level as a contingency before the game was released.
Now, the real question is - did SOE know the real state the VG was in before it launched? We know that Brad stated the whole thing about having no choice about when to launch; that they had made commitments and were forced to launch the game. If SOE is now going to bail SIgil out, why was the game shoved out early in the first place? SOE now just has that much more repair to do.
The only thing I can think of is that Sigil/Brad really lied up a storm about the sorry state VG was in at launch or else SOE knew and did nothing about it, hoping the game would get on its feet (or else if not, putting them in a stronger bargaining position to take ownership).
SOE's current business plan is to have a large stable of mediocre games in the Station Pass lineup. They devote very few resources to maintaining the games so they don't cost a lot to keep going and then they sit back and let the monthly subscriptions roll in.
SOE got out of the innovation business when they realized they couldn't compete with Blizzard.
Well.. tbh, the fact that Brad has not commented on it yet actually backs this rumor up.
If it were not true, or no such " plans" or " discussions" are going on behind the scenes this would allready have been pounded in the ground by Brad easy
Brad hasnt commented on it yet, so im inclined to believe there is a big part of truth in it.
Just to bring myself up to speed. Has anything else surfaced the last couple of days, or are you people still discussing the post by someone in 'Vanguardflames' , having heard a rumor about soe taking over vanguard?
Funny how most dramaqueens here only look at SWG as what could happen instead of EQ2. Looking at the bad instead of the good. SWG was a bad buggy game and made worse. EQ2 was horrific and made VERY good. Seems people are far too immature to give SOE props for the turnaround of EQ2, instead basing all opinions on SWG.
Funny how most dramaqueens here only look at SWG as what could happen instead of EQ2. Looking at the bad instead of the good. SWG was a bad buggy game and made worse. EQ2 was horrific and made VERY good. Seems people are far too immature to give SOE props for the turnaround of EQ2, instead basing all opinions on SWG.
cant agree more, EQ2 is by far the best PVE mmo on the market easily
Interesting thread. It's amazing how many people don't know how corp. america works. People are so clueless yet they act like they are the expert on big business. If Sigil does sell-out. I hope the best for them and look forward to something else from them in the future. A valiant effort. /deep bow.
Originally posted by Reklaw Make of it what you will, folks. As we've pointed out, it's just a rumor. Sigil is not responding to the rumor at this time. We'll let you know when (and if) we learn more. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumor
The fact that they (Sigil) have not in the last few days denied it, and that affiliate sites have it up in their "News Section" lends a lot of credibility.
I don't expect Sigil to deny it if it could mean more lost subscribers, the announcement will be made after the end of the month when subscriptions for at least one more month are in.
No more Trivial MMO's, let's get serious "again". Make a world, not a game What I listen to
They lost huge long before lauch when they annonced that SOE was involved. After what they did to swg, everyone knows how badly you can get @%$@$@% over by SOE. I don't care about how good they did with EQ2, i know how bad they can be. The simple mention of SOE chases thousands of people away instantly.
Now that this rumor came out, that graph will keep going down for a while, probably steeper too.
SOE is to avoided like the plague, but if you must spend $$$ on an SOE game, buy a very large tub of lube too, you will need it.
I can understand the sentiment related to the anti-SOE perspective, really I can. But I just want to ask, could they REALLY do much worse than Sigil already has?
Honestly. Vanguard was an MMO miscarriage; it was dead before it even was born. Sigil and Brad over-hyped the game, and prematurely released an inferior product that has crashed and burned. Hardware issues, performance problems, the continual swinging of the nerf bat (BEFORE fixing functionality issues too, might I add). Sigil and co. have proven they have most definitely NOT got the talent to make it in this industry, and if we're all lucky, anyone and everyone associated with this project will never work in the business again.
At least with SOE, they have a budget. They can afford to stream in new content, and pay new programmers to work on fixing the game. They specialize in purchasing dead/dying games, and trying to turn them around. I don't believe VG will ever succeed, but maybe they could at least offer it some redemption.
I hope SOE acquires the product; humble Brad and his big mouth once and for all. Let the McQuaid fanboi's realize he's not some noble, dignified visionary, but just another guy trying to make a buck. If nothing else, SOE can at least give the dead horse a proper burial.
Best of luck to SOE, hopefully you can salvage something from the train wreck that is Vanguard.
Waiting for something fresh to arrive on the MMO scene...
Yes Sony can do worse are you kidding? They want instant return on their money. You know the first thing they will do is some lame combat upgrade like they have done in every game they get their mits on. Then they will pushs out unfinished pay expansions before they fix any of the base games problems. It is printed right in their employee handbook on the Sony website in the chapter titled "confuse'em and bill'em"
I think Vanguard has a good base game to build on and enjoyed the trial I did, but by they time they work out the kinks some heavy hitting titles will be on the market. Problem is I fear getting involved in yet another sony game. I've seen way to much of what they do to MMOs.
Props to JMoney95 and Cerr - woot! EQ2 is the best PVE game on the market and it constantly improves. Vanguard could be just as good as the rest with time, but Sony I believe was probably misled and will once again have to throw alot of extra cash at a game to fix it. Considering the attitudes of alot of the people here, I'm surprised companies are still willing to waste money on development for a consumer base that is seriously whiney!
...and I refuse to play PVP so don't start with the WoW crap.
Amazing how people will jump all over a chart they think shows Vanguard is dieing, yet dispute a chart made by the same person showing Vanguard is growing.
A chart showing # of total character doesn't mean the game is growing. No game would ever show negative character growth. Characters on accounts that are no longer active are still counted in the total by definition. Unless they deleted every character on every account that cancels, it is impossible for the chart to go down. Almost no MMO in history follows that policy, so this same trend would match any MMO, including failed ones.
Please read the whole story behind the "player growth" charts before spewing more ignorance. Characers can be linked back to accounts..>!
Merritt's charts do not include leveling in diplomacy as a criteria. He specifically excluded it. Also, one other small item. Using those same numbers that people are citing as showing such drastic declines, Merritt estimated the number of active subscriptions at 175K and climbing.
Make sure you use the correct term - 175K accounts not subscriptions. Of the 175K accounts,
some are real and some are buddy keys. The buddy keys never paid for the box or the monthly
fee so they are nothing more than a free ride and brought no income to Sigil.
The graph suggests that a cash crunch is coming sooner rather than later. Perhaps the
rumor has surfaced to prepare people for what is coming.
Yes, it was active accounts, not subscriptions and I suspect that the cash crunch is already here. Otherwise they most likely would not have released early.
Either way, that's "registered" accounts, not "active". All Meritt is doing is taking a count of all characters listed on Vanguard Players and making the guess that each account holds 3.4 characters out of the 12 possible allowed (8 for regular accounts).
Vanguard Players doesn't de-list characters on cancelled accounts, so on that fact alone it's impossible to know which characters belong to active accounts and which don't.Actually it was based on this statement : www.silkyvenom.com/forums/showthread.php. So? Nothing mentioned about "active" accounts there. Meritt estimated that of the hundreds of thousands of characters that have been created, he believes they belong to 175k players. Not active players, certainly not actively subscribing players; just players.
Do you get what you're implying by saying 175k "active" subscribers? You're saying that everyone who has ever registered an account is still playing, on average the accounts hold 3.4 characters each, and a lot of those characters are still level 1.
Merritt's charts do not include leveling in diplomacy as a criteria. He specifically excluded it. Also, one other small item. Using those same numbers that people are citing as showing such drastic declines, Merritt estimated the number of active subscriptions at 175K and climbing.
Come on Dude do you really believe that? Beside the point that people who only do diplomacy has to be extremely small, there is no way they have more than 50-75k people subscribed to Vanguard and shrinking every week.
And your numbers are coming from which source?
Merritt explained his methods, where and how he got the data, and what he concluded from it. Do I believe the numbers are completely accurate? No.
Until, however, other people can come up with tangible, clearly explained information that proves more accurate than his, I'll tend to believe that his numbers are probably more accurate than theirs.
He then assumed each person has 3.4 alts per account. That would give you about 180, 641 subscribers. For that to be true you have to assume that:
No one has canceled their subscription.
All the buddy key passes bought the game and have an active subscription.
People only make 3-4 alt characters per account.
They do not delete characters from the vgplayers db nor the game data in general. For example, I made 6 alts. I have canceled my account. My characters still show on vgplayers.com.
If you believe those 3 line items above are true then yes VG has 175 subs. Oh and to the "increasing" statement. VG only sold about 13k boxes last month (March 2007). That is not an indication that the game in increasing.
Studies have shown that about 40% of MMORPG Players remain loyal to a particular MMO, even if I give you that no one has canceled their VG sub and that the other 2 items above are true, that comes to a value of: 70,000 subscribers.
I am going to make the bold statement that all 3 items above are not true which would place the subscriber count around 40-60k. That number is far short of the 250k required to make a profit and way short of the 500k Brad estimated prior to launch.
Are you honestly saying that you think VG has only 70k people paying for the game ..? You believe that 50% of the people who bought the game the first week are gone..?
50% ...? And that since they sold closer to 200k "boxes", that those who bought the game after release have since vanished and are 100% not playing anymore..?
Just playing the game and being out in the wildness away from ANYBODY, High up in the mountains I still come across small parties searching for kewl shit.
Point is, Vanguard has a THRIVING community and no matter what the naysayers believe, those few people that have left hasn't harmed the community one bit. I do believe those who left the game couldnt play it because their computers are complete shi!t, so their angry and wan't to down Sigil because they couldn't enjoy VG.
I just don't think a game can be much worse than Vanguard.
I honestly never thought I'd say this, but a NGE might actually make VG worth a damn.
OK, give me an honest reason why VG is as bad as you suggest..? Or is it that your 14 years old aswell and can't afford a modern Rig like the rest of the people who complain about Vanguard..?
Your a staff Writer and you come to the VG forums to "thrash" Vanguard, but you add no reasoning behind your claim. Thats pethetic and unacceptable in journalism.
Spoken like a true newbie... You were 13 years old when I was beta testing Everquest. There warn't games like Oblivion, Never Winter Nights, there was no Battlefield or Halo... Everquest was the vision of Brad McQuaid. And the sole reason why you started playing WoW in highschool.
-Zvorak
Uhm. no EQ was NOT the sole reason. Not even close. In fact UO, Meridian 59, and other mmo's came out long before EQ. And Ashoeron's Call was only a month or two behind (Microsoft destroyed that game, but that is another story..).
EQ became for a time the 800 pound gorilla of mmo's. But it was not first, it was not the best (at least in my opinion, AC1 was much better and less buggy). But somehow for some reason it bestowed God or at least Prophet status on Brad, a title that I think was largely undeserved. Despite all the nostalgia, there was a LOT wrong with early EQ. But it did show that there was massive money to be made in mmo's.
And the fact is - EQ in the early Brad days was just as buggy as VG is today - 8 years later. It seems that Brad did not learn much. The difference is that in 1999 there were only 3-4 mmo games to choose from, so EQ and Brad could get away with poor mechanics, bugs, missing content, and all the usual. But this is 2007, and there is now some real competition out there.
Are you honestly saying that you think VG has only 70k people paying for the game ..? You believe that 50% of the people who bought the game the first week are gone..? 50% ...? And that since they sold closer to 200k "boxes", that those who bought the game after release have since vanished and are 100% not playing anymore..? Just playing the game and being out in the wildness away from ANYBODY, High up in the mountains I still come across small parties searching for kewl shit. Point is, Vanguard has a THRIVING community and no matter what the naysayers believe, those few people that have left hasn't harmed the community one bit. I do believe those who left the game couldnt play it because their computers are complete shi!t, so their angry and wan't to down Sigil because they couldn't enjoy VG.
Well actually I would be surprised if it has more than 50k active subs. And I am 99% certain thar far more than 50% of the people that bought the box have since left - including me and about 2/3 of the people I started with.
I would hardly call VG "thriving". More like on life support.
Just for grins I logged onto my old account (since I have a Station Account I can still do that..) while ago to check the noobie areas - and there was not one single person in the zone.
Comments
And the problems that SOE had with Lucas Arts forcing a lot of the bad changed in SWG is why Smedley basically said that they will never do another licensed development again.
What the heck the game is already broken, with SOE it will be Doomed.
Unaware of the Jestor?
http://about.me/JestorRodo/
Friends enjoy his classic Vblog - https://www.facebook.com/GoodOldReliableNathan
Now, the real question is - did SOE know the real state the VG was in before it launched? We know that Brad stated the whole thing about having no choice about when to launch; that they had made commitments and were forced to launch the game. If SOE is now going to bail SIgil out, why was the game shoved out early in the first place? SOE now just has that much more repair to do.
The only thing I can think of is that Sigil/Brad really lied up a storm about the sorry state VG was in at launch or else SOE knew and did nothing about it, hoping the game would get on its feet (or else if not, putting them in a stronger bargaining position to take ownership).
Now, the real question is - did SOE know the real state the VG was in before it launched? We know that Brad stated the whole thing about having no choice about when to launch; that they had made commitments and were forced to launch the game. If SOE is now going to bail SIgil out, why was the game shoved out early in the first place? SOE now just has that much more repair to do.
The only thing I can think of is that Sigil/Brad really lied up a storm about the sorry state VG was in at launch or else SOE knew and did nothing about it, hoping the game would get on its feet (or else if not, putting them in a stronger bargaining position to take ownership).
SOE's current business plan is to have a large stable of mediocre games in the Station Pass lineup. They devote very few resources to maintaining the games so they don't cost a lot to keep going and then they sit back and let the monthly subscriptions roll in.
SOE got out of the innovation business when they realized they couldn't compete with Blizzard.
Well.. tbh, the fact that Brad has not commented on it yet actually backs this rumor up.
If it were not true, or no such " plans" or " discussions" are going on behind the scenes this would allready have been pounded in the ground by Brad easy
Brad hasnt commented on it yet, so im inclined to believe there is a big part of truth in it.
Will they lay of Brad? nah dont think so.
Just to bring myself up to speed. Has anything else surfaced the last couple of days, or are you people still discussing the post by someone in 'Vanguardflames' , having heard a rumor about soe taking over vanguard?
Funny how most dramaqueens here only look at SWG as what could happen instead of EQ2. Looking at the bad instead of the good. SWG was a bad buggy game and made worse. EQ2 was horrific and made VERY good. Seems people are far too immature to give SOE props for the turnaround of EQ2, instead basing all opinions on SWG.
cant agree more, EQ2 is by far the best PVE mmo on the market easily
Interesting thread. It's amazing how many people don't know how corp. america works. People are so clueless yet they act like they are the expert on big business. If Sigil does sell-out. I hope the best for them and look forward to something else from them in the future. A valiant effort. /deep bow.
The fact that they (Sigil) have not in the last few days denied it, and that affiliate sites have it up in their "News Section" lends a lot of credibility.
I don't expect Sigil to deny it if it could mean more lost subscribers, the announcement will be made after the end of the month when subscriptions for at least one more month are in.
No more Trivial MMO's, let's get serious "again". Make a world, not a game
What I listen to
They lost huge long before lauch when they annonced that SOE was involved. After what they did to swg, everyone knows how badly you can get @%$@$@% over by SOE. I don't care about how good they did with EQ2, i know how bad they can be. The simple mention of SOE chases thousands of people away instantly.
Now that this rumor came out, that graph will keep going down for a while, probably steeper too.
SOE is to avoided like the plague, but if you must spend $$$ on an SOE game, buy a very large tub of lube too, you will need it.
I can understand the sentiment related to the anti-SOE perspective, really I can. But I just want to ask, could they REALLY do much worse than Sigil already has?
Honestly. Vanguard was an MMO miscarriage; it was dead before it even was born. Sigil and Brad over-hyped the game, and prematurely released an inferior product that has crashed and burned. Hardware issues, performance problems, the continual swinging of the nerf bat (BEFORE fixing functionality issues too, might I add). Sigil and co. have proven they have most definitely NOT got the talent to make it in this industry, and if we're all lucky, anyone and everyone associated with this project will never work in the business again.
At least with SOE, they have a budget. They can afford to stream in new content, and pay new programmers to work on fixing the game. They specialize in purchasing dead/dying games, and trying to turn them around. I don't believe VG will ever succeed, but maybe they could at least offer it some redemption.
I hope SOE acquires the product; humble Brad and his big mouth once and for all. Let the McQuaid fanboi's realize he's not some noble, dignified visionary, but just another guy trying to make a buck. If nothing else, SOE can at least give the dead horse a proper burial.
Best of luck to SOE, hopefully you can salvage something from the train wreck that is Vanguard.
Waiting for something fresh to arrive on the MMO scene...
Yes Sony can do worse are you kidding? They want instant return on their money. You know the first thing they will do is some lame combat upgrade like they have done in every game they get their mits on. Then they will pushs out unfinished pay expansions before they fix any of the base games problems. It is printed right in their employee handbook on the Sony website in the chapter titled "confuse'em and bill'em"
I think Vanguard has a good base game to build on and enjoyed the trial I did, but by they time they work out the kinks some heavy hitting titles will be on the market. Problem is I fear getting involved in yet another sony game. I've seen way to much of what they do to MMOs.
I honestly never thought I'd say this, but a NGE might actually make VG worth a damn.
Waiting for something fresh to arrive on the MMO scene...
...and I refuse to play PVP so don't start with the WoW crap.
When I read the topic I somehow had the following thought: SOE is just like the garbage collector in java. Strange...
---
Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Please read the whole story behind the "player growth" charts before spewing more ignorance. Characers can be linked back to accounts..>!
some are real and some are buddy keys. The buddy keys never paid for the box or the monthly
fee so they are nothing more than a free ride and brought no income to Sigil.
The graph suggests that a cash crunch is coming sooner rather than later. Perhaps the
rumor has surfaced to prepare people for what is coming.
Yes, it was active accounts, not subscriptions and I suspect that the cash crunch is already here. Otherwise they most likely would not have released early.
I assume you're referencing to this post maybe?
http://www.silkyvenom.com/forums/showthread.php?p=242091#post242091
Or another similar.
Either way, that's "registered" accounts, not "active". All Meritt is doing is taking a count of all characters listed on Vanguard Players and making the guess that each account holds 3.4 characters out of the 12 possible allowed (8 for regular accounts).
Vanguard Players doesn't de-list characters on cancelled accounts, so on that fact alone it's impossible to know which characters belong to active accounts and which don't.Actually it was based on this statement : www.silkyvenom.com/forums/showthread.php. So? Nothing mentioned about "active" accounts there. Meritt estimated that of the hundreds of thousands of characters that have been created, he believes they belong to 175k players. Not active players, certainly not actively subscribing players; just players.
Do you get what you're implying by saying 175k "active" subscribers? You're saying that everyone who has ever registered an account is still playing, on average the accounts hold 3.4 characters each, and a lot of those characters are still level 1.
I doubt it.
And your numbers are coming from which source?
Merritt explained his methods, where and how he got the data, and what he concluded from it. Do I believe the numbers are completely accurate? No.
Until, however, other people can come up with tangible, clearly explained information that proves more accurate than his, I'll tend to believe that his numbers are probably more accurate than theirs.
Meritt came to that conclusion based on a total character count on vgplayers of 614,181. http://www.silkyvenom.com/forums/showpost.php?p=242091&postcount=40
He then assumed each person has 3.4 alts per account. That would give you about 180, 641 subscribers. For that to be true you have to assume that:
They do not delete characters from the vgplayers db nor the game data in general. For example, I made 6 alts. I have canceled my account. My characters still show on vgplayers.com.
If you believe those 3 line items above are true then yes VG has 175 subs. Oh and to the "increasing" statement. VG only sold about 13k boxes last month (March 2007). That is not an indication that the game in increasing.
Studies have shown that about 40% of MMORPG Players remain loyal to a particular MMO, even if I give you that no one has canceled their VG sub and that the other 2 items above are true, that comes to a value of: 70,000 subscribers.
I am going to make the bold statement that all 3 items above are not true which would place the subscriber count around 40-60k. That number is far short of the 250k required to make a profit and way short of the 500k Brad estimated prior to launch.
Are you honestly saying that you think VG has only 70k people paying for the game ..? You believe that 50% of the people who bought the game the first week are gone..?
50% ...? And that since they sold closer to 200k "boxes", that those who bought the game after release have since vanished and are 100% not playing anymore..?
Just playing the game and being out in the wildness away from ANYBODY, High up in the mountains I still come across small parties searching for kewl shit.
Point is, Vanguard has a THRIVING community and no matter what the naysayers believe, those few people that have left hasn't harmed the community one bit. I do believe those who left the game couldnt play it because their computers are complete shi!t, so their angry and wan't to down Sigil because they couldn't enjoy VG.
OK, give me an honest reason why VG is as bad as you suggest..? Or is it that your 14 years old aswell and can't afford a modern Rig like the rest of the people who complain about Vanguard..?
Your a staff Writer and you come to the VG forums to "thrash" Vanguard, but you add no reasoning behind your claim. Thats pethetic and unacceptable in journalism.
Uhm. no EQ was NOT the sole reason. Not even close. In fact UO, Meridian 59, and other mmo's came out long before EQ. And Ashoeron's Call was only a month or two behind (Microsoft destroyed that game, but that is another story..).
EQ became for a time the 800 pound gorilla of mmo's. But it was not first, it was not the best (at least in my opinion, AC1 was much better and less buggy). But somehow for some reason it bestowed God or at least Prophet status on Brad, a title that I think was largely undeserved. Despite all the nostalgia, there was a LOT wrong with early EQ. But it did show that there was massive money to be made in mmo's.
And the fact is - EQ in the early Brad days was just as buggy as VG is today - 8 years later. It seems that Brad did not learn much. The difference is that in 1999 there were only 3-4 mmo games to choose from, so EQ and Brad could get away with poor mechanics, bugs, missing content, and all the usual. But this is 2007, and there is now some real competition out there.
What worked in 1999 does not work now.
Well actually I would be surprised if it has more than 50k active subs. And I am 99% certain thar far more than 50% of the people that bought the box have since left - including me and about 2/3 of the people I started with.
I would hardly call VG "thriving". More like on life support.
Just for grins I logged onto my old account (since I have a Station Account I can still do that..) while ago to check the noobie areas - and there was not one single person in the zone.