Future of Vanguard in Question (1 Viewer)

[Frybread]

Bad news for the MMO industry, a somewhat unique take on the genre is getting whipped.

(I still haven't played it)

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Vanguard: Saga of Heroes producer and Sigil CEO Brad McQuaid has revealed via a forum post that the company and publisher Sony Online Entertainment are currently in discussions about the developer's future, including a possible acquisition.

Sony Online has released an official statement mentioning only that the publisher and operator is "in discussions with Sigil regarding the future of Vanguard and Sigil Games in Carlsbad."

McQuaid himself is currently only able to add that "it means that right now Vanguard," Sigil's original fantasy MMO released in January of this year, "is doing decently but not as well as we hope," and that "SOE is going to be getting more involved with Sigil and Vanguard - our relationship is going to become even tighter - much tighter," so that the game can "both continue to be worked on and improved and debugged and optimized."

In his lengthy forum post, McQuaid points to a number of factors that are currently holding Vanguard back from mass adoption, including misguided marketing that the game requires as much team dedication and time as Everquest.

Technical reasons, too, he adds, are keeping the game from more players, relenting that "for a variety of reasons and mistakes on our part that I won't get into right now, Vanguard was released with system spec requirements that were too high for January 2007," and that only time, along with a few performance related tweaks, would make that transition more manageable.

According to McQuaid, what the game is in need of is a re-launch, with "targeted marketing campaigns, an all-around successful move by gamers to the next generation of hardware, continued good word of mouth ‘viral' marketing by those who are already playing, enjoying, and re-subscribing," and that all of that "could and should ramp up by the end of the year."

That can only happen, he says, with a "funded and supported Sigil and a well marketed Vanguard" -- something that can only occur with tighter integration with Sony Online, though both parties are currently stopping short of a full out acquisition announcement, or any changes in staff and management.

More on the discussions or formal announcements are expected from the parties soon.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=13731

For Mcquaid's post,
http://forums.station.sony.com/vg/posts/list.m?topic_id=8569

 

[Lesson25]

I feel maliciously gleeful yet sad at the same time.

 

[dermien]

vanguard is so terrible that it can only improve, so this is good news.

 

[The Squealing Fairy]

Wow. I'm of two minds when it comes to Brad McQuaid. On one hand, he brought to me, my very first 3D MMORPG. It was what I'd been wanting.... or the closest thing to it. But with that, he also brought me EXP loss, hell levels, broken boats, and sense heading. Then again, I spent more time socializing while waiting for that boat. On the PvP server, it gave me opportunities to fight because people had to get on the boat with me. And I met a lot of people on my PvE server while EXP ressing them. But while I enjoyed those things, I also understand that I'm a different person now than I was 7 years ago. I don't have huge windows of time to dedicate to grinding experience anymore.

The bottom line: Much like a defunct relationship. I enjoyed some parts of the experiences in games that were like EverQuest. I learned some things and I met great people... but I don't ever want to go back.

I actually do hope that he can get Vanguard to not suck. Or at least get me to want to play it. I didn't have a desire to, because it the way he'd described it on the Vanguard site made it sound like the same old song and dance.

 

[Lesson25]

IMHO, the reason why Vanguard "is doing decently but not as well as we hope" is because it is virtually indistinguishable from other MMORPGs. The MMORPG market isn't like any other gaming market. E.g., normal RPGs: a true RPG fan will pick up even mediocre RPGs if he doesn't have any alternatives at the time. An MMORPG player however will (almost) always have a MMORPG he is actively playing; to earn his attention, you need to compell him to give up his max-level well-geared character on that game to start over from scratch on your game. That something can be star-wars tie-ins or pirates or ninjas or the promise of superior PvP or whatever, but you definately need something to distinguish you from the existing market other than "we're like the other games but better".

& the only thing distinguishing feature I've heard about from Vanguard is some type of diplomacy mini-game. :-/

 

[dermien]

Vanguard was released with system spec requirements that were too high for January 2007

Vanguard: The final boss is a computer that can run it.

 

[Khatib]

If Vanguard's system req's didn't exclude 1/2 to 2/3rds of my guild and RL friends, I'd probably be playing it right now.

Sadly it does though, and I don't feel like jumping into it alone right now, so I'm just not doing much of anything with MMOs other than training skills in EVE atm.

 

[Runned]

Frybread got me the game for Woodshelfmas, it's pretty fun these days. I just killed a guy who apparently owns a car that is worth more than my house.

 

[Khatib]

Just don't gank his wife

http://www.qj.net/WoW-player-harras...eat-up-by-woman-s-husband-IRL/pg/49/aid/91058

 

[mven]

My biggest issue with Vanguard is that since well before release it has steadily moved further and further towards being just like every other game on the market. If they had stuck with being more hardcore the game might have been worth playing. I have no real interest in playing WoW much less WoW that runs like shit.

 

[Runned]

Hardcore is a funny word, especially when it is applied to video games (that you play while sitting down, and not moving anything except your hands.)

 

[colekutz]

:shifty:

 

[(Un)conscious]

Hardcore is a funny word, especially when it is applied to video games (that you play while sitting down, and not moving anything except your hands.)

so true

 

[Unregistard]

iono... i uninstalled because it started crashing a lot after a patch, and I was pretty much completely out of HD space.

i mostly had fun playing it, but i honestly don't miss it, and havn't had any serious desire to re-install.

 

[colekutz]

When we stab in Warcrafts Crusade, we come to know that for 4 of us it is NOT the first internet game we have taken effort to play.

It was many years ago when in boarding school that 4 of us began to play the internet game Motor City Online. Even from years in Europe and Argentina those 4 of us have found deep love for cars of american muscle from the decades of the 1960 and 1970 AD. To play such a game allowed us to race drag and play with so many thousands of parts that we knew from a world outside our computers as prosperity had allowed us to own 3 such cars of american muscle that were also real.

This is internet game:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_City_Online

Then one evil man who carried initials of EA informed all of us that a woman by the moniker of Sims had told to him that he must shut off the internet game we were so in love and in riches of cars with. So angry was 3 of us that a koosh was torn in a way the makers said it never could be.

We still click every week on the game Motor City Online to discover if it will work yet again, but as of date in May 2007 AD, it has not.

We also still do own the 3 cars of American muscle that are real and not in any game but since the bakery and move to America to be here for a long duration is complete we have bought car 4 which is Plymouth Baracuda but many of us joke that no 340 cubic inches engine is one of true muscle power!

We do hope that for those who play Vanguard internet game, it is not made broken by a man who is yelled at by the woman Sims.

 

[mven]

Hardcore is a funny word, especially when it is applied to video games (that you play while sitting down, and not moving anything except your hands.)

I like hardcore porn and I move nothing but my hands while watching that either! Why can't I have a hardcore video game too?!! Oh wait..

 

[Naolin]

He should have mentioned releasing it just before the expansion of the biggest MMO around was probably a mistake.

True its kinda sad the game isnt doing well (although I must admit I didnt like it during beta) ,but on the other hand its funny how the self proclaimed WoW killer isn't well killing WoW.

 

[dermien]

Really why did Brad feel it needed to have such over the top graphics? People would have played it if it had Everquest graphics (pre-luclin) if it was fun. Look at WoW. I was a member of these boards and everyone insisted Vanguard was going to do better than WoW because of WoW's "kiddy" graphics. Woah! Looks like a well done style is better than graphics.

 

[Jan]

self proclaimed WoW killer

Brad never, ever considered anything of the sort. From the very beginning he wanted to make a MMOG that catered to a niche market, and focus on making it enjoyable for this niche. The only reason it ended up turning more and more accessible is the publishers breathing down Sigil's necks.

 

[Unregistard]

Really why did Brad feel it needed to have such over the top graphics?

Vanguard was not intended to be released yet. By the time they WANTED to release, the machine reqs would probably have been reasonable.

Unfortunately, they ran out of money and got bought, neutered, and shoved out the door for a quick buck about a year before they were really ready.

Thus instead of an interesting niche game with rich, cutting edge graphics, we got yet another Warcraft clone with lame unfinished graphics that runs like crap on 90% of the currently available hardware.

pms

 

[mven]

The graphics in vanguard are kinda weird. Like some stuff is overdone to the point that it's almost annoyingly bump mapped. Other stuff like the water isn't even comparable to EQ2 or LOTRO's water implementation. I think in some respects even the water in DAoC looks better than Vanguard's.

I do get the feeling that the way Vanguard is now is nothing like what Sigil had envisioned. Once they went from being with MS to being with SOE there were a lot of things that seemed to change. You started seeing bullshit about how VG was designed to appeal to the "Core" mmo audience rather than the hardcore players or casuals. Things like quest icons and map waypoints and less dark "nights" started showing up. Now they have upped the exp gain significantly, removed most of the sting of the death penalties, made travel a bit less annoying when you die (i.e. bind/altars everywhere), etc etc etc. The further along this game goes down its current path the more it becomes like WoW.

I am certainly not a marketting/business analyst but it just seems to me that these people don't really understand what players want and instead are trying to copy what they think made WoW sell. You can't compete head to head with a game that already has a huge established fan base... A game that can pretty much run on a toaster with it's low machine requirements... A game that was designed from day one to be pretty close to what it is today... Etc etc etc... With a game that requires a top of the line machine, still doesn't run well, and is being turned into a watered down version of the already successful ubergame...

It makes me sad that yet another game has decided to take the easy road to failure... *shrug*

 

[Ged]

I'm actually enjoying Vanguard, but what you said abut water, you're right. They also decided that certain underwater areas will have crystal clear-no-different-from-ground-view, while other areas are completely foggy. Eh? But aside from that, at the moment if it doesn't get any more like WoW, it'll still be different enough for me to play it.

 

[Jan]

Well, lake water is usually muddy, whereas flowing water and sandy seas will be clearer.

Water still looks like ass. I remember being stunned by DAoC: Shrouded Isles's pixel shaded water, and even that looked better than Vanguard's does at the moment.

 

[Naolin]

Brad never, ever considered anything of the sort. From the very beginning he wanted to make a MMOG that catered to a niche market, and focus on making it enjoyable for this niche. The only reason it ended up turning more and more accessible is the publishers breathing down Sigil's necks.

I got sight of the VG bandwagon rather late and when I did most fan boys where shouting "AMG THE END OF WOW IS NAER". I must have mistaken that for the creators intention as well.

Ah well we can only hope future MMO's learn from the mistakes made by Sigil.

 

[dermien]

In other news EQ2 expansions announced: Sarnaks playable race, Kunark open for play. Neriak and playable race to be added free of charge soon. EQ2 looks like a viable option.