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Lawlz rumor about VG devs quitting may be true
Kraenee
Member Posts: 166
Spoke to a SWG dev and according to him most of the devs left in VG are from the EQ2 team. According to him the VG guys took off or most of them so now SOE is having to shift some peeps around to continue to develope VG. After pub 6 goes live in SWG some of the devs "may" come from the SWG team but most will be EQ2.
Thought it was funny is all and you may want to know.
If the EQ2 team continues the work on the game then it does stand a chance. Funny how history repeats: EQ 1 Brad screwed it up and SOE fixed it.... now VG.
BTW for those of you that didn't know it was the addition of the EQ2 team in beta 5 that did alot of the work to get it sorta ready for live. SOE gave brad them for two weeks before going live.
Thought it was funny is all and you may want to know.
If the EQ2 team continues the work on the game then it does stand a chance. Funny how history repeats: EQ 1 Brad screwed it up and SOE fixed it.... now VG.
BTW for those of you that didn't know it was the addition of the EQ2 team in beta 5 that did alot of the work to get it sorta ready for live. SOE gave brad them for two weeks before going live.
Comments
This I do believe. What I want to know is why they are leaving. I highly doubt they are leaving because the game turned out to be a flop. I wouldnt leave a nice creditable job if the company was having trouble. There must be a reason(s) behind closed doors.
I am one of the few that actually likes SOE. Yes, I do not agree with the CU or the NGE. Yes, I am a pre-CU vet. Yes, I do think LucasArts had a larger say into the implementation of the NGE than we all think. Yes, I think EQ2 wasnt great at launch, but now is a great example of an awesome MMO.
-FawD
I'm sure there will be an offical announcement regarding Sony's and Sigil's relationship pretty soon. And I do believe it will bring a smile to my face. Can't wait for it.
You're going about rumor mongering completely wrong. Next time, have the rumor make some logical sense. And don't put "Lawlz" in the title, that's just unprofessional.
Oh my god what else are we going to hear.
One thing I know for sure. VG HAS BECOME AN OBSESSION!!!!
Most likely they are being given the option to "Quit or Fired" situation. The game is tanking and cut-backs deffinently WILL happen.
If you don't believe me go look at sales records (they -HAVE- to publish that information incase of stock holders).
Not to mention I know several friends that work at different gameing stores. Apparrantly VG is just collecting dust. I was going to get LOTRO, but 1) I have no money and 2) it's off the shelves before I take drive 30minutes to the store.
My guess is a few maybe leaveing so as to not have a bad game developed on their list of accomplishments. What I mean by this is they arn't responsible for the future of the game. Thus putting it on your resume won't hurt you. Get what I mean?
SOE will take it over and it'll be picked up in a year to an enjoyable game like EQ2 did.
I played to level40 got tired of it. couldn't stand killing 1 more damn minotaur and got absolutely sick of waiting for flying mounts and alchemy that they promised. (Broken promises seams to be a Brad thing. Happened in EQ1) I know they ran out of money, but whos fault is that? Theirs.. they dicked around for so long they ruined it for them selfs. THEY are to blame for the horrid state of the game. Game companies need to get their priorities straight and apparantly Sigil failed in this department. Sorry, but I have no intentions on paying for a beta that works half-assed.
To all you that are enjoying the game. Fantastic. You are the few that do and be proud of it, but saddly you are a minority. As the majority hates the pile of crap for what it is. Just my 2cents.
Most of the dev team is the "EQ2" team. There are other smaller teams that also work on the various games that SOE publishes.
Art is done by once again the "EQ2" team. So if the SWG team needs artwork they must call upon the "EQ2" to do it.
Right now the SWG team is working on pub 6 and some of the EQ2 team is working on VG.
It makes sense overall for SOE to have floating teams as apposed to one team per game.
The biggest hurdle will be the game code in VG. SWG and EQ2 are the same engine for the most part so working on a unreal engine may take some time to get used to.
The unreal engine does not do a good job on compressing textures and correct me if I'm wrong but I always thought it didn't actually compress textures.
Time will tell if they can fix VG enough to make it worthwhile. Problem is there are 2 major games comming out within a year so the pie will be sliced even thinner.
My guess will be that because VG is pretty much empty they will have to work on some new story arcs as well and overall content but first nail down the bugs and server glitches.
I am wondering where this story about SOEs devs comes from. The game is owned and developed by Sigil. SOE is the producer. This means that the devs working on the game are hired by Sigil. SOE staff work for technical support, marketing, packaging, distribution etc. The only case that devs from Sony work on VG is that Sigil pays SOE for them. Thats how these things work. Until SOE buys VG from Sigil, I dont believe that Sony devs can work for VG.
They quit the team from EQ1, because they screwed up. When you screw up and play with other peoples money and waste their time they give you these two options: Quit or Fired.
SOE Fixed EQ1, SWG(work in progress), Now it will be VG.
The first mistake Brad made was useing the Unreal engine for a damn MMORPG. Half the engines power won't even be used. It was a stupid mistake. Unless expects to implement full physics and realtime into the MMO. It won't happen and a game on this massive scale can't support those 2 in the first place. so he basically used an engine built for FPS style for an MMO. I'm developing my own MMO and can officially say that was an idiotic move on his part as far as functionability and affordability.
No it is not. The 30M invested in VG was payed by Sigil. SOE does not really care about VG. If VG fails, Sony will just dump it. If it is true that Sony wants to buy it, that means that Sony believes the game will earn them alot of money. Otherwise why invest money in saving an awful game that you have not invested in?
LMAO you really think Sigil has payed off the loan in full? Don't make me laugh.. even harder.
They have NOT paid it off and Brad even announced they needed 250k subscribers for a few steady months to finish paying it off. That obviously was unrealistic. So who do you think helped pay it? SOE.
They also would take the project, because like other failure games they picked up. They repaired and in the long run gained profit through proper advertisement lead by a team leader who's not a complete idiot who thinks of his "vision" more then his customers.
I do think it MIGHT get dropped, because it's with the Unreal engine of which SOE isn't all to familiar with for MMOs, but who knows.
No it is not. The 30M invested in VG was payed by Sigil. SOE does not really care about VG. If VG fails, Sony will just dump it. If it is true that Sony wants to buy it, that means that Sony believes the game will earn them alot of money. Otherwise why invest money in saving an awful game that you have not invested in?
not invested? It always amazes me how people think hosting a persistent game like VG costs nothing.
No it is not. The 30M invested in VG was payed by Sigil. SOE does not really care about VG. If VG fails, Sony will just dump it. If it is true that Sony wants to buy it, that means that Sony believes the game will earn them alot of money. Otherwise why invest money in saving an awful game that you have not invested in?
Nope wrong again. SOE did give money to Sigil that is what publishers do. SOE gave in not only money but the EQ devs as well to help finish the project before it went live. Brad himself said so along with John Smedley.OMG...lol. SOE employee's work for SOE, not Sigil. SOE was hired by Sigil to house the game servers and operate the hardware that VG plays on(server farm). SOE doesnt do any of the programming, they don't have rites to the game. They arnt in the same building, they are seperate companies.
At what capacity would SOE lend their DEV's out to Sigil..? Shoring up a few errant quests..?
The only arguement many have here is that Vanguard didn't run on their computers well enough and instead of upgrading or buying a modern system, they choose to cancel and look for a game more accessable to them. But since they feel and attachment and would really like to be playing VG, they cannot. Because they are poor saps that are too lazy to pick up an extre shift at the cofee shop so they can start saving for a modern gaming rig.
So, go on and complain about VG, make up your lies. Issues you may have HAD in beta or 2 months ago are gone. Performance is not an issue for the majority of the gamers who have modern or updated rigs. Sure people left VG, I'm not dening that. That is a matter of coarse for ANY MMORPG. But there is not this mass exodus that left the server empty either. Most players are now residing in aread of mid-level content. They have migrated to more content.
Newbie areas are intended for your first 14 levels. Which can be had easily within 2-3 days. From there is where the game gets interesting and where many of the non-adventurous types get stymied. Because there is no clear path or direction. Renton keep, Skawlra Rock,,,etc You need to travel to get to the new hotspopts away from the newbie lands.
Problem is Vanguard lets you happen upon them, and not a shiny gold thread of linear quest that moves you directly into that content. I bet most the people who quit did so around lvl 19-20 when that leap must be made.
Brad sold his share for over 5 million....! SOE re-bought Varent...!
Hmmm, second time in these posts that I've seen you act condescending trying to present your point of view, and both times you seem to be offering opinions based on ZERO personal knowledge or fact, oughta try to have a few of those before you start telling people what is, and what isnt possible.
Where did the story come from, how about Brad McQuaid? Think that might be a reliable source?
http://forums.vanguardsoh.com/showthread.php?postid=1704390
You may not believe it, but it did happen. FYI...they either could have been on contract, or paid thru SoE, which in turn was billed to Sigil, lots of ways for it to happen.
Yes folks, it's FACT, SoE, AT SIGIL'S REQUEST, sent some designers and artists to help work on Vanguard, as early as 11/30/06.
May as well add this cut and paste of it for those who dont click the link...
SOE, at our request, has sent some designers and artists up our way to make Vanguard even better. That's it. We appreciate it very much, and they are working just like Sigil people are working under Sigil's schedule and management. I hope there are no conspiracy theories about this. It's as simple as that.
We also hired a beta tester too. The more help the better.
thanks all,
Brad McQuaid
CEO, Sigil Games Online, Inc.
Exec. Producer, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes.
I must say some of your minds go far in to this fantasy world of yours.
Dude... you are really retarded. Go back to school and learn Buisiness 101 again. Contracts are contracts.. peroid!
Sigil hired a company called SOE to house and host the game servers, Marketing of the game and their billing. Since Sigil is a Gaming House and not a publisher they needed to shop around. Brad is real close to Smedly(SOE), so it was a natural choice. Since brad made SOE what it is today I'm sure they work closely with each other. but seeing that SOE itself doesnt have another MMORPG in the making, they are betting on VG making it big for future revenues. In a few years VG will have 300-400k subs and slowly moving up. The biggest hinderance is VG's hardware requirments, which won't be an issue in 2008.
The deal's finer points are in the contract, but SOE probably funded the marketing and Boxing and distribution of VG out of Pocket. Since they also provide other services the contract probably stipulates that SOE gets $3 of the $14 it cost every month. Since Vanguard is pulling in some $900,000/month (based of 70k subs) you can see that both are profitable and can actually make quit a bit of money over the next 2~7 years.
I'm being extremely conservative here. If VG maintains approx 150,000 subs a month thats over $2 million/month in revenue. You can see how a small niche game like Vanguard can remain completly viable with only 150k subscribers and has nothing to be alarmed about if they projections of 700k subs never see's the light of day.
So go ahead and paint your Doom & Gloom posts, too many people love freeform travel and their boats and houses. The ability to fly or seek out dungeon afer dungeon after dungeon.... it never ends.
Player made boat:
Zvorak,
You are making an awful lot of assumptions, and it doesnt look like you have much fact.
Do you KNOW, as in, have you seen, and fully understand what the legal agreement between Sigil and SoE? I know I'm not, but you are making those assumptions based on what it seems you THINK that contract says.
You are talking about Sigil, and Vanguard being profitable over the course of 2 to 7 years, but it seems like you are making some massive leaps. Think Sony is charging $3 per $15? So that's all their cost to pay for the servers and bandwidth? To employ the people who are providing the support to that system? You realize that it's not just profit until the game has paid back, or earned what was originally spent on it right? You realize that people who work on the game have actual salaries, right? You realize that back in 2001, the average computer game developer was making just over $61k a year, right? So with inflation, that's probably $68-70k a year. Think they just have one of those people? Think that the rest of the staff earns a paycheck as well? Think they have any building or equipment overhead?
The last part, is if you invest your money today, would you want to wait 7 years before you first started seeing return on your investment? Most investors would balk at that, because it's not a sound investment to do that at all. They want returns, and as quickly as possible. You see investors realize that market trends change, and if you have to project 8 years to become profitable, then the market is likely to change, and who knows if you'll ever hit those marks.
Based on basic numbers, it would be easy enough to beleive that it could reasonably take 30-36 months to break even on a game like Vanguard. That's 3 years AFTER release, plus the 5 years of development, so 8 years to get to break even? Now those are all estimates based on reasonable business math, I'm not proclaiming that I"m right, or that ANY of those numbers are accurate, simply because I have NO idea what they are, but guess what, unless you are one of the top people at Sigil, or doing their books, you dont either. I'm sure you could take numbers at the other extreme as well....either or, they need subscribers to get profitable faster. Only they know how many, and how fast, anything we say is simply guesswork.
Could VG become a financial success? Sure, but it needs plenty of subscribers, and McQuaid's origianl estimates of needing 500k at the end of year 1, and slowing ramping from there would have to pan out. Could it happen? Sure, I suppose.
Your optimism for VG is cool, but right now, it's not looking like it's a massive financial sucess. There are plenty of things that could change, or the numbers could be all different who knows? Thing is, while they can add people, I think they'll be hurt in the long run, as more competition enters the marketplace, while it may be the only Sandbox out there, it'll suffer because that's no longer the mainstream, it's niche.
Either or...I wish VG the best of luck. I hope it doesnt bite the dust, because that's a bad thing for the industry as a whole.
Also...none of this has ANYTHING to do with VG being a good game. If you are enjoying it, keep on doing just that!
In a typicial publisher/dev contract for a game, a good dev house can expect to earn around 13-19% of monthly subscription revenue. That is until the game earns out. Earns out is a special term that means all of the development costs for the game have been repaid. In full. When a game earns out, it can earn a greater percentage of monthly subscription fees ... say 18-24% of monthly subscription fees.
That's how contracts work in the games biz. Please rework your math if you've ever made a post using another financial model to fit within these guidelines. Thanks tons.
Almost forgot, the rate of burn for a 100 man studio is around 900k per month +,- on benefits offered, and location of talent. Just round it up to a cool million for easy math sake or put the studio in Fargo ND for 600k.
I am aware of all of that. Industry standards dictates that the publisher (SOE) got a majority of the profits from the BOX sales. That most likely payed off a good portion of the server farm and the additional $210,000/month (estimated) helps pay for the continuance of their service. I don't have the exact figures, but Brad did discuss some of these minor details a few weeks after the announcment was made many mons ago. And thats typically how games houses and producers structure the contracts.
Secondly, as long as Sigil is making nearly $900,000/month or even $100k/month it's still profitable. The $32 million is already spent, maintaining the MMO cost very little (respectively) so the Venture Capitalists will get their money back slowly.
Investors will balk at a 7 year return on an investment..? Dude, that relativly a short time frame for some VC projects. Casino's don't expect profits till about 11 years in. Not everything has to be Google or WoW to make a profit.
Brads didn't say they "needed" (there you go against, putting your slant on things) 500k subs to be profitable . He suggested that Vanguard might have as high as 500k user after the first year. Occording to his last reports, they were nearing 200k. Far short of his predictions.... but that doesnt make for a flop or a "OMG, Sigil going to have to sell". It just means that VG is having a slower growth than expected.
Quite frankly, VG will probably have 300-350 users by middle of 2008. I think the harware requirments alone will harm the sales and word of mouth for a long time to come. Also, WoW players are burning out.... Burning Crusades was demolished by top players and their already bored. LOTR will be amusing and phun, but it offers no sustainability. Alot going to happen in the next 10 months. But in the end Vanguard will be there, waiting for all the burnt out refugee's seeking a game with more to offer. Vanguard will be waiting for them.... and probably with a new expansion pack and a highly refined game.
-Zvorak