Vanguard - Sage of Heros was not finished at launch

Johnhost · July 2007

EQ is like your first kiss. You'll never get that feeling back again

But with Vanguard, we're not stopping at first base.

Here's to hoping we all score.

-Brad McQuaid, CEO Sigil Games Online

I thought I might shed some light onto what Vanguard was, what it was supposed to be and where it is now.

Going on about a year or two ago I heard about Vanguard from the "Classic Server" thread on Everquest's official forums. From the very first day I was inspired by the FAQ and direction this game was taking. It was truly looking like the spiritual successor to EQ.

As most people know Microsoft was the first publisher. I remember reading posts from the MS guy who visited Sigil often. About six months prior to launch the whole project from the forums point of view was going well, Brad posted allot, the devs posted allot and there seemed to be this synergy.

Then the news came that MS was dropping the project. Brad has posted as to what happened, but overall it had to do with the Vision™ being compromised. According to Brad MS originally had some MMO managers but then moved them off the project and replaced them with people who had worked on Zoo Tycoon, obviously a very different game. I guess Brad felt the relationship wasn't working, and MS felt the same. So Brad needed to find other funding quickly. He got some investors together and kept the IP.

Sigil as a whole was apparently not run well as I believe Brad was not the type to work well under allot of pressure. Perhaps he had some personal problems, I don’t know. But it was reported he was out of the office allot. He himself admits that he couldn’t handle it, especially the layoffs when the SOE buyout happened.

That is when Brad talked to his ‘ol pal Smed and they reached an agreement to buy the Vanguard IP. Originally they were only going to publish it, but it soon became clear the game was far from ready and there was no more capital to finance it. So SOE bought the game and the decision was made to launch it.

LET ME BE VERY CLEAR…..

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes was UNFINISHED at its launch! The money simply ran dry! The reason VG has so many problems was because it’s not done being developed yet. Sigil released the game early because they had to make payroll. Brad, Smed, the devs and the players never wanted any of this to happen, but it did. SOE after buying the game could then continue the work of finishing it.

Everyone has different ideas as to what makes an MMORPG good or bad, and everyone likes different things. Vanguard had a clear purpose. That purpose was labeled the Vision™.

The Vision™

Open ended zone-less world
Little or no instancing
Defined classes
Defined races
Flying mounts, z axis combat, etc
Static Player housing, sitting and lying in furniture
Next Gen game mechanics like triggered bosses in dungeons
Caravan System
Unrivaled graphics, keeping the game cutting edge for it’s entire lifecycle
Community driven game, with emphasis on groups

That is simply some of the things covered in the FAQ. MOST of these things are in the game now, however they are not polished and fully developed yet.

What you have is a game which is being finished post-launch. Everyone (especially Brad I am sure) wish it could have gone down different. But I truly think the game is amazing and has loads of potential still. Once the game is more finished, the paint and polish added, it will be the best MMORPG to date.

Here are some links I suggest you check out about what Vanguard was meant to be:

Silky Venom Vanguard FAQ

Silky Venom Vanguard WIKI

Vanguard:Saga of Heroes "A Complete Compilation"

Videos, Screenshots, and more. The newcomers guide to seeing Telon

An Introduction to Vanguard: Saga of Heroes

Lore Excepts from Silky Venom (Originally on the Vanguard website)

More Lore fragments

And finally the famous Brad interview describing what happened to the money

Elikal · July 2007

Err... I dont mean that in a mean way... but have you been on Mars the last months? I mean, this is old news, we all knew, and now we are about... 6 steps further or so. Personally, I think even with 2 more years VG would be crap, because I think the vast majority who did NOT decide to play VG or leave did so because they didnt like the Vision. Many MMOs lived up very well even tho they lacked a lot of features, but the WORLD and game system were interesting. VG is just a sterile, boring game no matter how many more hardcory 1999 "visions" they would have implemented. Its not what is NOT there that is the problem, there is already far too much of this VISION inside and now we are on the phase to convince SOE to make a NGE in VG.

Oh and to the first kiss quote: my first kiss was a girl. A short time after that I realized I am gay. So much for this EQ nostalgia. I know many EQ1 vets in EQ2, SWG and LOTRO, and NONE OF THEM wants a corpse run or such crap again. I am just quoting, I never played EQ1. It was just far too much presumed, mythical visions instead of solid market research and pragmatic approaches. There are no answers in visions.

tombear81 · July 2007

Despite being old news I think the original OP should be stickied to the top of this forum. Not because I hate VG but because this is the truth of its "release" and lets face it its even now endlessly debated. Plus I think some people on here really need to just plain admit this is a fact.

Maybe it can be "de-stickied" if / when SOE makes the game reach the state that the game should have been released in ..

Grunty · July 2007

I see someone has recently learned how to copy and paste.

caldis · July 2007

The question I have is how long is it going to take them to complete the game?

Since SOE has taken over they've had one or two patches that added next to no content and just provided a few bug fixes. They are planning on adding one Raid Zone in a short while but no more for the rest of the year. There hasnt been much talk of any other content being added the rest of this year, except the newbie Trial Island. At this rate there wont be any players left because they'll have gone through all the content that's in the game 4 times over.

The truly new and interesting things they talked about, like player run cities and diplomacy that affects the gameworld have been pushed back to expansion. Who will buy an expansion for this?

I enjoyed the game for awhile but it quickly lost it's appeal and I dont hold out hope that they'll ever achieve more than a sliver sized fraction of what they hoped for and promised.

Smackr · July 2007

I have never played vanguard because I have heard that its most pve-playing (I prefer games with alot of pvp) but I have wach over some videos/images and it seems like to be a beautilfull world with alot to explore and do! and to me it does not look unfinish at all

godpuppet · July 2007

Maybe you should make this post on the official forums and see what happens.

MrAzgaard · July 2007

Originally posted by Smackr

I have never played vanguard because I have heard that its most pve-playing (I prefer games with alot of pvp) but I have wach over some videos/images and it seems like to be a beautilfull world with alot to explore and do! and to me it does not look unfinish at all

Heh.... promo vids and image of the landscape says it all....

i have free trial keys if u want.....

Even ordered the special edition.

I got robbed, but it took me 5M to notice it!!!!!

And i do not have any respect of the company who runs it now...

So.... I rest my case

Oh did i tell u that i am

JamLD · July 2007

I quiver everytime I see "The Vision" mentioned.

I still like VG though and plan on sticking it out to see what happens.

Oh, and godpuppet, I miss your old forum pic. It made me laugh everytime I saw it.

BuzWeaver · July 2007

Brad's analogy of the first kiss is partly why the game failed. The arguments or opinions have been made that people can't experience that same feeling they had when they first played EQ, I beg to differ. What made EQ a game that has people still talking today is that it gave people a sense of community and belongingness. The game had depth and it had meaning, complemented by lore. You felt you were accomplishing something and the risk reward system, though harsh to some, was a driving force that allowed people to improve their character and the motivation see what was around the next corner.

mk11232 · July 2007

Originally posted by Johnhost
I thought I might shed some light onto what Vanguard was, what it was supposed to be and where it is now. This was a nice statment, too bad you didn't really fact check anything nor the revealed history of the game..this was a "it was MS and everyone's fault not McQuaid's fault! While I hate rehasing old news the OP needs to have his facts corrected before anyone suggest stikie again.

Then the news came that MS was dropping the project. Brad has posted as to what happened, but overall it had to do with the Vision™ being compromised. According to Brad MS originally had some MMO managers but then moved them off the project and replaced them with people who had worked on Zoo Tycoon, obviously a very different game. I guess Brad felt the relationship wasn't working, and MS felt the same. So Brad needed to find other funding quickly. He got some investors together and kept the IP. This statement needs to be checked and fixed, overall the vision was compromised by McQuaid himself, it was revealed after the mass layoffs that the primary reason Microsoft canned the game is because they found out that McQauid and bunch were frauding MS. They spent most of their time creating demos especially for MS officials, demos that did nto represent the game with features that woudl never be impliemented. Also MS wanted Sigil to meet certain milestones to ensure that the game would be ready in time for the Vista launch or soon thereafter, but McQuaid and crew were f'ing around and could not reach even ONE of the milestone sets, why would MS continue to fund a game by a bunch of programers that showed consistently that they were no where near a finsihed game. He didn't "get some investors together to keep the IP" he conned some people into giving him money to PAYOFF the money MS paid into the game, MS was the owner of the IP and the only way Sigil could continue on VG was to return to MS the money wasted by McQuaid's fraud.

Sigil as a whole was apparently not run well as I believe Brad was not the type to work well under allot of pressure. Perhaps he had some personal problems, I don’t know. But it was reported he was out of the office allot. He himself admits that he couldn’t handle it, especially the layoffs when the SOE buyout happened. I will give McQuaid the benefit of the dobut when he stated that he was out of the office trying to promote teh game, while he was able to promote the game (and he did TOO good a job at this) there was nobody with experience to handle Sigil. The same lack fo milestone progress that haunted their time at MS continued and became worse when Sigil was by themselves.

That is when Brad talked to his ‘ol pal Smed and they reached an agreement to buy the Vanguard IP. Originally they were only going to publish it, but it soon became clear the game was far from ready and there was no more capital to finance it. So SOE bought the game and the decision was made to launch it. Your timeline is off, Sigil needed a publisher to handle the servers, someoen with the capacity and expierence necessary to ensure that teh clusters will stay up and running. Sigil approached Soe for this and they formed a partnership where SOE would publish and host only the game. The decision to launch the game was nothing of SOE's pushing, the decision rested soley with Sigil which was really decided by a total lack of funs. They pushed out the game in alpha, knew they fucking were defrauding the customer simply so they can get $$$. What happened, well people realized real quick what Sigil pulled and they were pissed, very very very pissed, probably the most pissed off people in a launch. Anyways, of the 200,000+/- copies sold adn subscriptions more than 1/2 were gone first month, since then the game bleeds more subscribers every month (look at teh sales track of the game over luanch till 5 weeks later). The bleeding was so serious that Soe, via Smed, stepped in and bought the VG IP from Sigil and took over the game (many claim that this is exactly what SOE wanted, but i'm neutral as to this theory). Anyways, since taking over SOE has done an amazing job trying to reshap and fix VG (over 1200+ bugs in the last update anyone??)

LET ME BE VERY CLEAR…..

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes was UNFINISHED at its launch! The money simply ran dry! The reason VG has so many problems was because it’s not done being developed yet. Sigil released the game early because they had to make payroll. Brad, Smed, the devs and the players never wanted any of this to happen, but it did. SOE after buying the game could then continue the work of finishing it. People are very pissed off by the unfinished state of the game, but mroe importantly people are mad because they were lied to by Sigil and McQuaid himself. The game was a huge letdown to all fans. Whats even mroe outrageous is the fact that the game was in developement over 5 years, in the first 3 years McQuaid was too busy defrauding MS to actually create a game. In fact, in the interviews after the firings it came out that the game we see now is abuot 1/5 of of the world it should have been. Moreimportantly it was revealed that the game we see now was completely coded and drawn in the precedign 18months BEFORE the launch of the game. WTF were McQuaid and crew doing in the last 5 years, it wasn't creating a game. This game shoudl have died when MS realized that they were being lied to.

The Vision™ Biggest joke in the gaming world, the vision was out there but NONE of it made it into the game at launch nor are any of the vision componetns in teh game now 6months later, rather then go into teh list I will say th

Open ended zone-less world--aka chunking now, up to 5 mintues to cross chunk boundaries, still exist even fi its been lessened

Little or no instancing - no content that would require instancing, there was no content, no raiding, no high end content, you were to do kill missions over and over and over again

Defined classes classes were great, but then the huge problem of "balancing" entered the equasion between pve and pvp, and some classes were soo overpowered which brough on major nerfs during the launch months even before they finished the game, priorities were never a good thing at Sigil

Defined races - races are cool, but they don't interact in any cohesive fashion, the story archs don't intertine of why one race is made at another..they're fixing that later part though

Flying mounts, z axis combat, etc - not in game at launch and onlyu in the game in terms of "renting" now, haha feel sorry for hte people that won monts on the last day of beta

Static Player housing, sitting and lying in furniture - housing not in launch, only added later and only lvl 1 houses..furniture forget it who needs furniture you don't need furnitre...and remember that E3 06 video of housing being a tavern where you sell stuff..A COMPLETE FUCKING LIE ADN THEY KNEW IT AT THE TIME THEY MADE THE DEMO...THEY ARE FRAUDS

Next Gen game mechanics like triggered bosses in dungeons - dungeons everywhere in the game...problem...no content in the game, opps while they designed all sorts of places they NEVER popoulated over 3/4 of the game world

Caravan System - never implemented and still isn't in the game, a new caravan sytle is in development but won't bei n the game for a couple months yet

Unrivaled graphics, keeping the game cutting edge for it’s entire lifecycle - a lie, the grahpics sucked and were not cutting edge, started out around 5-10fps and now 6 months later people proclaim high and low that they are reaching a high 20FPS!!! omg so cutting edge, and is it DX10 graphics for the true cutting edge and future...nope they're based on the DX9 specs that they had 5 years ago...but don't let facts get in the way of proclimations

Community driven game, with emphasis on groups bigest joke, of the 13+ servers at launch are all being merged into 4 servers, and only 1 Eu server...groups don' t exist becasue people don't exist...ever group with a npc to do missions??

and am i sore at VG YES i am and pissed off for what happened and the way I and others were flat out lied to, but my response was to outline the problems on OP's post as well as add commentary to other things

Zorgo · July 2007

What a revelation, no one who came to this forum had ever considered that Vanguard was released unfinished. You my friend have openned up a new world for Vanguard players, and I am sure that when this information gets dissiminated, it will be the nail in the coffin of this game. Thank you so much for your detective work, Sherlock.

Remember, it is never too late to take a stand on an important issue long after everyone recognized it and has the support of nearly the entire mmo community. You are a maverick among the herd.

Do your research, people new Vanguard would be unfinished BEFORE it even launched.

godpuppet · July 2007

Originally posted by JamLD

I quiver everytime I see "The Vision" mentioned.
I still like VG though and plan on sticking it out to see what happens.
Oh, and godpuppet, I miss your old forum pic. It made me laugh everytime I saw it.

The Toaster one?

Just for you mate, ill bring it back.

Johnhost · July 2007

Originally posted by mk11232

Originally posted by Johnhost
I thought I might shed some light onto what Vanguard was, what it was supposed to be and where it is now. This was a nice statment, too bad you didn't really fact check anything nor the revealed history of the game..this was a "it was MS and everyone's fault not McQuaid's fault! While I hate rehasing old news the OP needs to have his facts corrected before anyone suggest stikie again.
Let's take a look at that statement again...Vanguard was promised to be X.Y.Z. It didn't get finished so we never got to see the end result as originally intended.
Then the news came that MS was dropping the project. Brad has posted as to what happened, but overall it had to do with the Vision™ being compromised. According to Brad MS originally had some MMO managers but then moved them off the project and replaced them with people who had worked on Zoo Tycoon, obviously a very different game. I guess Brad felt the relationship wasn't working, and MS felt the same. So Brad needed to find other funding quickly. He got some investors together and kept the IP. This statement needs to be checked and fixed, overall the vision was compromised by McQuaid himself, it was revealed after the mass layoffs that the primary reason Microsoft canned the game is because they found out that McQauid and bunch were frauding MS. They spent most of their time creating demos especially for MS officials, demos that did nto represent the game with features that woudl never be impliemented. Also MS wanted Sigil to meet certain milestones to ensure that the game would be ready in time for the Vista launch or soon thereafter, but McQuaid and crew were f'ing around and could not reach even ONE of the milestone sets, why would MS continue to fund a game by a bunch of programers that showed consistently that they were no where near a finsihed game. He didn't "get some investors together to keep the IP" he conned some people into giving him money to PAYOFF the money MS paid into the game, MS was the owner of the IP and the only way Sigil could continue on VG was to return to MS the money wasted by McQuaid's fraud.
I don't claim to be an expert in MMORPG design or even software design. But I wonder very much if the talented people recruited from SOE (most hired back) intended to "defraud" MS like you say.
FACT: After the HUGE success of Everquest Brad and friends dreamed of the next project, doing all the things that wasn't possible before. Hence came Vanguard
FACT: The industry was shaken by the 800 pound gorilla called World of Warcraft which changed everything.
FACT: Microsoft (according to Brad interview) understood that it was going to spending more time and money to produce a top quality game. After all the core team came from SOE and were already highly skilled at creating MMORPG's on a timetable.
FACT: The milestones needed to produce a game like Zoo Tycoon and an MMORPG are very different.

Sigil as a whole was apparently not run well as I believe Brad was not the type to work well under allot of pressure. Perhaps he had some personal problems, I don’t know. But it was reported he was out of the office allot. He himself admits that he couldn’t handle it, especially the layoffs when the SOE buyout happened. I will give McQuaid the benefit of the dobut when he stated that he was out of the office trying to promote teh game, while he was able to promote the game (and he did TOO good a job at this) there was nobody with experience to handle Sigil. The same lack fo milestone progress that haunted their time at MS continued and became worse when Sigil was by themselves.
Let me give you an example of how things change. Even in beta (which ran a long time) the layout of zones were being tweaked. They didn't want to have a mediocre experience, but zones that would be as
enduring as the EQ zones were. This kind of creativity takes trial and error. In addition they wanted to include the players in the process as much as possible.

That is when Brad talked to his ‘ol pal Smed and they reached an agreement to buy the Vanguard IP. Originally they were only going to publish it, but it soon became clear the game was far from ready and there was no more capital to finance it. So SOE bought the game and the decision was made to launch it. Your timeline is off, Sigil needed a publisher to handle the servers, someoen with the capacity and expierence necessary to ensure that teh clusters will stay up and running. Sigil approached Soe for this and they formed a partnership where SOE would publish and host only the game. The decision to launch the game was nothing of SOE's pushing, the decision rested soley with Sigil which was really decided by a total lack of funs. They pushed out the game in alpha, knew they fucking were defrauding the customer simply so they can get $$$. What happened, well people realized real quick what Sigil pulled and they were pissed, very very very pissed, probably the most pissed off people in a launch. Anyways, of the 200,000+/- copies sold adn subscriptions more than 1/2 were gone first month, since then the game bleeds more subscribers every month (look at teh sales track of the game over luanch till 5 weeks later). The bleeding was so serious that Soe, via Smed, stepped in and bought the VG IP from Sigil and took over the game (many claim that this is exactly what SOE wanted, but i'm neutral as to this theory). Anyways, since taking over SOE has done an amazing job trying to reshap and fix VG (over 1200+ bugs in the last update anyone??)

To correct myself I was wrong (wrote this late at night). First the game was originally only a Platform Published product which meant Sigil would develop it and SOE would publish and do the CS and marketing. And originally that was going to be done by MS. However after launch the unfinished, buggy and very unstable and almost impossible to run on an average machine Vanguard was bleeding uncontrollably and needed capital to keep going. SOE specializes in this, and frankly I think SOE saw this would be a good game in the future.

Without Microsofts extensive QA department (according to Brad) Sigil couldn't really test. Only one QA guy and no money to hire others. Obviously SOE can put those resources in place.

LET ME BE VERY CLEAR…..

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes was UNFINISHED at its launch! The money simply ran dry! The reason VG has so many problems was because it’s not done being developed yet. Sigil released the game early because they had to make payroll. Brad, Smed, the devs and the players never wanted any of this to happen, but it did. SOE after buying the game could then continue the work of finishing it. People are very pissed off by the unfinished state of the game, but mroe importantly people are mad because they were lied to by Sigil and McQuaid himself. The game was a huge letdown to all fans. Whats even mroe outrageous is the fact that the game was in developement over 5 years, in the first 3 years McQuaid was too busy defrauding MS to actually create a game. In fact, in the interviews after the firings it came out that the game we see now is abuot 1/5 of of the world it should have been. Moreimportantly it was revealed that the game we see now was completely coded and drawn in the precedign 18months BEFORE the launch of the game. WTF were McQuaid and crew doing in the last 5 years, it wasn't creating a game. This game shoudl have died when MS realized that they were being lied to.

Again was it only Brad and the management team that were making the game for five years? Did the artists like Keith Parkinson or the coders who did a major overhaul on the engine do anything? Then there is the pre-planning issues. I am sure during these phases the cost of production was very low, especially considering they had only a handful of staff. Sure when the team grew and meat was put on the bones Zoo Tycoon managers didn't want to fund a big budget MMO anymore. Problem was the engine was already prepared that way, the art and pre-production designs were already prepared that way. The game was built to be zoneless, and unfortunatly Brad overshot the tech a few years.

I was in the beta since 2.5. I believe that was before 18 months of release, the game didn't look terribly different then it did from launch. Obviously they hand built the dungeons, they hand built the cities (no random generated zones). They went to work like Disney might have on Snow White. It tooks years and millions to make.

The Vision™ Biggest joke in the gaming world, the vision was out there but NONE of it made it into the game at launch nor are any of the vision componetns in teh game now 6months later, rather then go into teh list I will say th A complete load of rubbish

Open ended zone-less world--aka chunking now, up to 5 mintues to cross chunk boundaries, still exist even fi its been lessened This was being worked on day and night before they ran out of money

Little or no instancing - no content that would require instancing, there was no content, no raiding, no high end content, you were to do kill missions over and over and over again Most of the content was planned to go in didn't because they game launched early.

Defined classes classes were great, but then the huge problem of "balancing" entered the equasion between pve and pvp, and some classes were soo overpowered which brough on major nerfs during the launch months even before they finished the game, priorities were never a good thing at Sigil PVP was not developed fully, again launched too early

Defined races - races are cool, but they don't interact in any cohesive fashion, the story archs don't intertine of why one race is made at another..they're fixing that later part though Story was being worked on, but it's an unfinished book. What you are reading and seeing was the rough draft.

Flying mounts, z axis combat, etc - not in game at launch and onlyu in the game in terms of "renting" now, haha feel sorry for hte people that won monts on the last day of beta If only the game had time to finish these features

Static Player housing, sitting and lying in furniture - housing not in launch, only added later and only lvl 1 houses..furniture forget it who needs furniture you don't need furnitre...and remember that E3 06 video of housing being a tavern where you sell stuff..A COMPLETE FUCKING LIE ADN THEY KNEW IT AT THE TIME THEY MADE THE DEMO...THEY ARE FRAUDS Was intended, couldn't make it due to lack of money, early launch

Next Gen game mechanics like triggered bosses in dungeons - dungeons everywhere in the game...problem...no content in the game, opps while they designed all sorts of places they NEVER popoulated over 3/4 of the game world Would have populated, but game ran out time

Caravan System - never implemented and still isn't in the game, a new caravan sytle is in development but won't bei n the game for a couple months yet Would be if had time

Unrivaled graphics, keeping the game cutting edge for it’s entire lifecycle - a lie, the grahpics sucked and were not cutting edge, started out around 5-10fps and now 6 months later people proclaim high and low that they are reaching a high 20FPS!!! omg so cutting edge, and is it DX10 graphics for the true cutting edge and future...nope they're based on the DX9 specs that they had 5 years ago...but don't let facts get in the way of proclimations The game is capable of more even it's doing now. DX10 was fully planned for the future. The problem again, cost money and takes time to bring the graphics to their potential, Sigil ran out of both

Community driven game, with emphasis on groups bigest joke, of the 13+ servers at launch are all being merged into 4 servers, and only 1 Eu server...groups don' t exist becasue people don't exist...ever group with a npc to do missions?? Would you pay full price for a book that was half writen and no edited, that's what VG is...UNFINISHED!!!!!!!

and am i sore at VG YES i am and pissed off for what happened and the way I and others were flat out lied to, but my response was to outline the problems on OP's post as well as add commentary to other things

Brad didn't come out and tell everyone..."hey Vanguard isn't going to be a good game, we ran out money and our publisher is zoo tycoon focused and wants to sell XBox360's and doesn't give a shit about MMORPG's anymore." No Brad didn't say that right off. He worked from what I understand to save the game once things with MS went south. Perhaps if SOE had been involved in a greater way and sooner the game could have been completed. But this is what it is.

I get sick and tired of people comparing VG to other games with bigger budgets and long development cycles and who obviously had the capital and manpower to finish the game. I doubt Bizzard or Turbine had to change horses in mid stream or planned on having the graphics be anything better then EQ Luclin graphics. The only game comparable to VG in terms of graphics is Everquest 2. Lord of the Rings has nice backgrounds, but their Avatars look like shit. WoW is a cartoon so no need for realistic or good graphics there and everyone else aims for mid-low end machine hardware. After all little Johnny isn't gonna be able to play WoW if it's got VG graphics.

If Vanguard had began to develop a couple of years later it probably would have been DX10 cutting edge oriented even more so then it is now. The MMORPG gaming world has changed since Brad left SOE.

NeuroXl · July 2007

that is all a bunch of BS ...

everything in the original post is excuses ... excuses excuses excuses .. and im my experience .. where there is excuses .. there is nothing but bullshyt and laziness

truth is .. brad wanted to make a good game .. realized how hard it was ... and him and his " devs" got lazy

they decided instead to scam everyone and make profit off selling a hunk of junk ...

so he forked out an unfinished piece of crap ... used key words like " vision" to market it .. and then when MS was giving him problems .. he brought in SOE who he knew wouldnt be able to keep their greedy hands off it .. and dumped it for a profit onto them ...

it was all BS from the begining ... the funny thing is .... we who have experience with eq .. SOE .. verant .. the people from sigil .. and a hundred other MMO's saw this coming a MILE AWAY ...and tried to WARN everyone on this forum and in other forums .. heck even the VG forums ... and all we got was flamed .. and here we are a year later .. and all those idiots who were flaming us .. are on our side .. saying how bad the game is and they knew it all along ...

BS

Kraenee · July 2007

Originally posted by Johnhost

Originally posted by mk11232

Originally posted by Johnhost
I thought I might shed some light onto what Vanguard was, what it was supposed to be and where it is now. This was a nice statment, too bad you didn't really fact check anything nor the revealed history of the game..this was a "it was MS and everyone's fault not McQuaid's fault! While I hate rehasing old news the OP needs to have his facts corrected before anyone suggest stikie again.
Let's take a look at that statement again...Vanguard was promised to be X.Y.Z. It didn't get finished so we never got to see the end result as originally intended.
Then the news came that MS was dropping the project. Brad has posted as to what happened, but overall it had to do with the Vision™ being compromised. According to Brad MS originally had some MMO managers but then moved them off the project and replaced them with people who had worked on Zoo Tycoon, obviously a very different game. I guess Brad felt the relationship wasn't working, and MS felt the same. So Brad needed to find other funding quickly. He got some investors together and kept the IP. This statement needs to be checked and fixed, overall the vision was compromised by McQuaid himself, it was revealed after the mass layoffs that the primary reason Microsoft canned the game is because they found out that McQauid and bunch were frauding MS. They spent most of their time creating demos especially for MS officials, demos that did nto represent the game with features that woudl never be impliemented. Also MS wanted Sigil to meet certain milestones to ensure that the game would be ready in time for the Vista launch or soon thereafter, but McQuaid and crew were f'ing around and could not reach even ONE of the milestone sets, why would MS continue to fund a game by a bunch of programers that showed consistently that they were no where near a finsihed game. He didn't "get some investors together to keep the IP" he conned some people into giving him money to PAYOFF the money MS paid into the game, MS was the owner of the IP and the only way Sigil could continue on VG was to return to MS the money wasted by McQuaid's fraud.
I don't claim to be an expert in MMORPG design or even software design. But I wonder very much if the talented people recruited from SOE (most hired back) intended to "defraud" MS like you say.
No but it's obvious that Brad and the upper crust did.
FACT: After the HUGE success of Everquest Brad and friends dreamed of the next project, doing all the things that wasn't possible before. Hence came Vanguard
SOE saved Brads ass on that one too. known fact:
FACT: The industry was shaken by the 800 pound gorilla called World of Warcraft which changed everything.
Because it was a game that actually had some polish to it and people found it to be fun. Plus the timing of it was very good as well. I don't believe we will see another MMORPG that will have that kind of success. I'd be playing it if it wasn't for the cartoon graphics.
FACT: Microsoft (according to Brad interview) understood that it was going to spending more time and money to produce a top quality game. After all the core team came from SOE and were already highly skilled at creating MMORPG's on a timetable.
Fact Microsoft allready spent 30 million on the project and Bradco couldn't produce squat.
FACT: The milestones needed to produce a game like Zoo Tycoon and an MMORPG are very different.
Fact: For 30 million My company can build you a turn key mall in less time: Fact: Time management is very important for any major project along with planning. In fact planning is the most important. Sigil had neither.

Sigil as a whole was apparently not run well as I believe Brad was not the type to work well under allot of pressure. Perhaps he had some personal problems, I don’t know. But it was reported he was out of the office allot. He himself admits that he couldn’t handle it, especially the layoffs when the SOE buyout happened. I will give McQuaid the benefit of the dobut when he stated that he was out of the office trying to promote teh game, while he was able to promote the game (and he did TOO good a job at this) there was nobody with experience to handle Sigil. The same lack fo milestone progress that haunted their time at MS continued and became worse when Sigil was by themselves.

That is when Brad talked to his ‘ol pal Smed and they reached an agreement to buy the Vanguard IP. Originally they were only going to publish it, but it soon became clear the game was far from ready and there was no more capital to finance it. So SOE bought the game and the decision was made to launch it. Your timeline is off, Sigil needed a publisher to handle the servers, someoen with the capacity and expierence necessary to ensure that teh clusters will stay up and running. Sigil approached Soe for this and they formed a partnership where SOE would publish and host only the game. The decision to launch the game was nothing of SOE's pushing, the decision rested soley with Sigil which was really decided by a total lack of funs. They pushed out the game in alpha, knew they fucking were defrauding the customer simply so they can get $$$. What happened, well people realized real quick what Sigil pulled and they were pissed, very very very pissed, probably the most pissed off people in a launch. Anyways, of the 200,000+/- copies sold adn subscriptions more than 1/2 were gone first month, since then the game bleeds more subscribers every month (look at teh sales track of the game over luanch till 5 weeks later). The bleeding was so serious that Soe, via Smed, stepped in and bought the VG IP from Sigil and took over the game (many claim that this is exactly what SOE wanted, but i'm neutral as to this theory). Anyways, since taking over SOE has done an amazing job trying to reshap and fix VG (over 1200+ bugs in the last update anyone??)

To correct myself I was wrong (wrote this late at night). First the game was originally only a Platform Published product which meant Sigil would develop it and SOE would publish and do the CS and marketing. And originally that was going to be done by MS. However after launch the unfinished, buggy and very unstable and almost impossible to run on an average machine Vanguard was bleeding uncontrollably and needed capital to keep going. SOE specializes in this, and frankly I think SOE saw this would be a good game in the future.

The game was supposed to be finished and Microsoft would Market it for Vista and Xbox.

LET ME BE VERY CLEAR…..

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes was UNFINISHED at its launch! The money simply ran dry! The reason VG has so many problems was because it’s not done being developed yet. Sigil released the game early because they had to make payroll. Brad, Smed, the devs and the players never wanted any of this to happen, but it did. SOE after buying the game could then continue the work of finishing it. People are very pissed off by the unfinished state of the game, but mroe importantly people are mad because they were lied to by Sigil and McQuaid himself. The game was a huge letdown to all fans. Whats even mroe outrageous is the fact that the game was in developement over 5 years, in the first 3 years McQuaid was too busy defrauding MS to actually create a game. In fact, in the interviews after the firings it came out that the game we see now is abuot 1/5 of of the world it should have been. Moreimportantly it was revealed that the game we see now was completely coded and drawn in the precedign 18months BEFORE the launch of the game. WTF were McQuaid and crew doing in the last 5 years, it wasn't creating a game. This game shoudl have died when MS realized that they were being lied to.

Again was it only Brad and the management team that were making the game for five years? Did the artists like Keith Parkinson or the coders who did a major overhaul on the engine do anything? Then there is the pre-planning issues. I am sure during these phases the cost of production was very low, especially considering they had only a handful of staff. Sure when the team grew and meat was put on the bones Zoo Tycoon managers didn't want to fund a big budget MMO anymore.? Problem was the engine was already prepared that way, the art and pre-production designs were already prepared that way. The game was built to be zoneless, and unfortunatly Brad overshot the tech a few years. Huh? SWG and L2 are zoneless are they not? And L2 is built with the same engine as well. L2 has been out for 5 years BTW.

The Vision™ Biggest joke in the gaming world, the vision was out there but NONE of it made it into the game at launch nor are any of the vision componetns in teh game now 6months later, rather then go into teh list I will say th A complete load of rubbish

Open ended zone-less world--aka chunking now, up to 5 mintues to cross chunk boundaries, still exist even fi its been lessened This was being worked on day and night before they ran out of money So? they've been working on it for six months now WITH money.

Little or no instancing - no content that would require instancing, there was no content, no raiding, no high end content, you were to do kill missions over and over and over again Most of the content was planned to go in didn't because they game launched early.

Defined classes classes were great, but then the huge problem of "balancing" entered the equasion between pve and pvp, and some classes were soo overpowered which brough on major nerfs during the launch months even before they finished the game, priorities were never a good thing at Sigil PVP was not developed fully, again launched too early

Defined races - races are cool, but they don't interact in any cohesive fashion, the story archs don't intertine of why one race is made at another..they're fixing that later part though Story was being worked on, but it's an unfinished book. What you are reading and seeing was the rough draft.

Flying mounts, z axis combat, etc - not in game at launch and onlyu in the game in terms of "renting" now, haha feel sorry for hte people that won monts on the last day of beta If only the game had time to finish these features

Static Player housing, sitting and lying in furniture - housing not in launch, only added later and only lvl 1 houses..furniture forget it who needs furniture you don't need furnitre...and remember that E3 06 video of housing being a tavern where you sell stuff..A COMPLETE FUCKING LIE ADN THEY KNEW IT AT THE TIME THEY MADE THE DEMO...THEY ARE FRAUDS Was intended, couldn't make it due to lack of money, early launch

Next Gen game mechanics like triggered bosses in dungeons - dungeons everywhere in the game...problem...no content in the game, opps while they designed all sorts of places they NEVER popoulated over 3/4 of the game world Would have populated, but game ran out time

Caravan System - never implemented and still isn't in the game, a new caravan sytle is in development but won't bei n the game for a couple months yet Would be if had time

Unrivaled graphics, keeping the game cutting edge for it’s entire lifecycle - a lie, the grahpics sucked and were not cutting edge, started out around 5-10fps and now 6 months later people proclaim high and low that they are reaching a high 20FPS!!! omg so cutting edge, and is it DX10 graphics for the true cutting edge and future...nope they're based on the DX9 specs that they had 5 years ago...but don't let facts get in the way of proclimations The game is capable of more even it's doing now. DX10 was fully planned for the future. The problem again, cost money and takes time to bring the graphics to their potential, Sigil ran out of both

Community driven game, with emphasis on groups bigest joke, of the 13+ servers at launch are all being merged into 4 servers, and only 1 Eu server...groups don' t exist becasue people don't exist...ever group with a npc to do missions?? Would you pay full price for a book that was half writen and no edited, that's what VG is...UNFINISHED!!!!!!!

and am i sore at VG YES i am and pissed off for what happened and the way I and others were flat out lied to, but my response was to outline the problems on OP's post as well as add commentary to other things

Brad didn't come out and tell everyone..."hey Vanguard isn't going to be a good game, we ran out money and our publisher is zoo tycoon focused and wants to sell XBox360's and doesn't give a shit about MMORPG's anymore." No Brad didn't say that right off. He worked from what I understand to save the game once things with MS went south. Perhaps if SOE had been involved in a greater way and sooner the game could have been completed. But this is what it is.

Let's be real. Brad is a promoter nothing more nothing less. Both of the games he's been a part of needed SOE help.

Also rich companies DON't just throw money away becasue they feel like it. They are looking for a return on their investment and hense this is why they are rich.

I get sick and tired of people comparing VG to other games with bigger budgets and long development cycles and who obviously had the capital and manpower to finish the game. OK stop right there! MS and SOE gave them aprox 35 to 40 mil for the project and they have had 5 years to produce the game! I doubt Bizzard or Turbine had to change horses in mid stream or planned on having the graphics be anything better then EQ Luclin graphics. NO they worked on a planned game with content. The only game comparable to VG in terms of graphics is Everquest 2. Lord of the Rings has nice backgrounds, but their Avatars look like shit. WoW is a cartoon so no need for realistic Umm my dwarf looks alot like the ones in WOW. or good graphics there and everyone else aims for mid-low end machine hardware. Because that's the smart move! Especially after the whole EQ2 debacle. After all little Johnny isn't gonna be able to play WoW if it's got VG graphics. Once again you go where the market is because it's smart.

If Vanguard had began to develop a couple of years later it probably would have been DX10 cutting edge oriented even more so then it is now. The MMORPG gaming world has changed since Brad left SOE.

I have no doubt the game would still be a mess becasue of bad management. The MMORPG gamming world has changed. We expect better games for our money and we all don't want to be beta testers for a game we are paying for. Sorry but it seems over 170,000 people agree with this. This game will end up a should've, could've, would've game at best.

Deathstiny · July 2007

man that was like a bad history lesson.

Anybody who hasn't been hiding under a rock for the past 3 years knows exactly what Vanguard was supposed to be, what it was, and where it is now.

Based on its "Vision" Vanguard is simply the biggest failure in MMO history. Simple as that. It was supposed to be the next EQ (read MMO revolution). Instead it barely missed vaporware status (it only dodged that because SOE had pitty) and finally settled on 3rd grade discount bin crapware ($9.95 any futureshop/BestBuy).

Can we please move on? Nothing that SOE can do will change that. Monorail cat has left the station. We all hoped and got disappointed. That happens in life. Time to move on.

toadkiller · July 2007

"I get sick and tired of people comparing VG to other games with bigger budgets and long development cycles and who obviously had the capital and manpower to finish the game"

Get a clue - VG had the second largest budget and development time of any mmorpg after Blizzard - 30-40 million and 5 years was plenty of time for any competent company to finish a game

So what are these "other games" with bigger budget and longer development cycles ?

Of course with McQuaid at the helm and his co-producer banging the marketing lead while his wife worked there also ,Sigil was the prime example of what a company should not be -

The more publicly Vanguard dies a horrible death the better ,as it serves as a great example of what not to do in mmorpg development -

Zorvan · July 2007

Originally posted by toadkiller

"I get sick and tired of people comparing VG to other games with bigger budgets and long development cycles and who obviously had the capital and manpower to finish the game"

Get a clue - VG had the second largest budget and development time of any mmorpg after Blizzard - 30-40 million and 5 years was plenty of time for any competent company to finish a game
So what are these "other games" with bigger budget and longer development cycles ?

Of course with McQuaid at the helm and his co-producer banging the marketing lead while his wife worked there also ,Sigil was the prime example of what a company should not be -

The more publicly Vanguard dies a horrible death the better ,as it serves as a great example of what not to do in mmorpg development -

QFT.

I've never made a game in my life, and couldn't code to save my life. but give me 40 million and a timetable of 5-6 years, I'll give ya the best game money can buy.

CharslesT · July 2007

It was not finished at launch and it is not finished now.

Thank you.

No. Thank me. I saved you 50.00 and membership dues. Play eq 2 if you're a MMORPG freak and need a great one.

mk11232 · July 2007

I'm sorry OP but you truely are living in a world of complete make believe and fantasy about what happend with VG. VG had over 5 years of development, 5 years and this game was the crap they could do in 5 years. It is well known and admitted that teh game we have now was only developed and created in 1.5 yeras before launch, what were they doing in the previous 4 years before that??

and as to the money situation how much money did MS invest in VG before trashing it 30 MILLION DOLLARS your goign to tell me that money was the problem, 30 fucking milliion dollars on development and they "ran out" is bs. They had all the dough in the world for any game because it was supposed to be the best and it failed miserbly, McQuaid failed plain and simple the vision failed (and don't call him Brad your not his freaken best friend or knwon to him on a personal basis in which first name is okay)

Do your reserach adn look through all the post, especially all the ones at silky venom and you can read what transpired from people other then McQuaid. He was proven to be a liar and the fact that you seem to be basing your opoinion on "according to Brad's interview" shows that you have not looked beyond the liar and to the ground floor people. Please go there and read the interviews the admissions and the horrior of what was Sigil and of McQuaids waste of 30 million dollars and 5 years of people's lives.

Johnhost · July 2007

Originally posted by NeuroXl

that is all a bunch of BS ...

everything in the original post is excuses ... excuses excuses excuses .. and im my experience .. where there is excuses .. there is nothing but bullshyt and laziness

truth is .. brad wanted to make a good game .. realized how hard it was ... and him and his " devs" got lazy
they decided instead to scam everyone and make profit off selling a hunk of junk ...
so he forked out an unfinished piece of crap ... used key words like " vision" to market it .. and then when MS was giving him problems .. he brought in SOE who he knew wouldnt be able to keep their greedy hands off it .. and dumped it for a profit onto them ...

it was all BS from the begining ... the funny thing is .... we who have experience with eq .. SOE .. verant .. the people from sigil .. and a hundred other MMO's saw this coming a MILE AWAY ...and tried to WARN everyone on this forum and in other forums .. heck even the VG forums ... and all we got was flamed .. and here we are a year later .. and all those idiots who were flaming us .. are on our side .. saying how bad the game is and they knew it all along ...
BS

Rather then flame you I will simply say look at the credits for Everquest and it's expansions up to Velious. Everquest was the most successful MMORPG up to that time. This was at a time when it seemed crazy to charge monthly to play a video game. And at the helm of development for this game was Brad.

Elapsed · July 2007

Vanguard reminds me of AC2, which was no where near finished when it was released. AC2 had a good launch but quickly dropped off. It had engine performance problems much like Vanguard.

AC2 eventually released an expansion to try to regain subscribers, but it didn't. Within a few months of the failed expansion pack they announced they were shutting it down. The sad thing was that when AC2 shutdown it was actually a good game. They finally fixed it up near the end of its life.

I could see this happening to Vanguard, though Sony has a lot more money to keep the game limping along.

I love the concepts of Vanguard, but the poor engine performance really keeps me away. I didn't play AC2 at launch because of the laggy engine.

RPGBeech · July 2007

Originally posted by Johnhost

Originally posted by NeuroXl

that is all a bunch of BS ...

everything in the original post is excuses ... excuses excuses excuses .. and im my experience .. where there is excuses .. there is nothing but bullshyt and laziness

truth is .. brad wanted to make a good game .. realized how hard it was ... and him and his " devs" got lazy
they decided instead to scam everyone and make profit off selling a hunk of junk ...
so he forked out an unfinished piece of crap ... used key words like " vision" to market it .. and then when MS was giving him problems .. he brought in SOE who he knew wouldnt be able to keep their greedy hands off it .. and dumped it for a profit onto them ...

it was all BS from the begining ... the funny thing is .... we who have experience with eq .. SOE .. verant .. the people from sigil .. and a hundred other MMO's saw this coming a MILE AWAY ...and tried to WARN everyone on this forum and in other forums .. heck even the VG forums ... and all we got was flamed .. and here we are a year later .. and all those idiots who were flaming us .. are on our side .. saying how bad the game is and they knew it all along ...
BS

Rather then flame you I will simply say look at the credits for Everquest and it's expansions up to Velious. Everquest was the most successful MMORPG up to that time. This was at a time when it seemed crazy to charge monthly to play a video game. And at the helm of development for this game was Brad.

No one is arguing that Brad and company did not create something magical with Everquest.

It was a revolutionary game that broke all the rules for previous games and was a huge

success.

Fast forward five years, Brad and company try to recreate their success.  Only the world has

changed and they haven't. The unpolished, unfinished, unbalanced, untested, and unoptimized

code that was Vanguard could not survive in the 2007 marketplace.  Most people simply are not

willing to pay a premium price for substandard products.

Based on the interviews, it is not too hard to conclude that Brad and company were just plain

lucky the first time around.  The difference between luck and skill is that skill is proactive. It

looks around and adapts to changing conditions where luck just throws its hat out there and

hopes for the best.    That Sigil was not aware how WoW had changed the MMO landscape

is damning proof that their initial success was attributable to luck more than anything else.

MortisRex · July 2007

Originally posted by Johnhost

Rather then flame you I will simply say look at the credits for Everquest and it's expansions up to Velious. Everquest was the most successful MMORPG up to that time. This was at a time when it seemed crazy to charge monthly to play a video game. And at the helm of development for this game was Brad.

Rather than flame you, I will simply say "look at the server populations of the Vanguard servers". And at the helm of development for this game was Brad.

Kyleran · July 2007

Originally posted by MortisRex

Originally posted by Johnhost

Rather then flame you I will simply say look at the credits for Everquest and it's expansions up to Velious. Everquest was the most successful MMORPG up to that time. This was at a time when it seemed crazy to charge monthly to play a video game. And at the helm of development for this game was Brad.

Rather than flame you, I will simply say "look at the server populations of the Vanguard servers". And at the helm of development for this game was Brad.

I think its obvious, the people really responsible for making EQ 1 a success didn't work for Sigil... they must have jobs at Blizzard or something right now...(oh wait...I think I read that was true somewhere)

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Vanguard - Sage of Heros was not finished at launch

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Vanguard - Sage of Heros was not finished at launch

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Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV