[Eomer]

Originally Posted by Arkturus

I think, THINK, his point was you have to be pretty naive to think SoE has no influence on Vanguard. Sigil might own the rights to the game, but they are piggy-backing on SoE's network.

It's like trying to say ABC has no influence on Lost. They don't produce it...they just own the network it gets shown on. Pretty powerful position I'd wager.

Oh I agree that they'd have some influence. But the point is, SGO owns the rights to VG and it's development, and SOE is simply a publisher. They don't swing nearly as big of a hammer as they would in a more typical developer/publisher relationship. Basically, SOE can't issue an ultimatum to SGO about a design decision and expect them to follow through automatically, because SGO could just pick up their ball and leave.

Originally Posted by Cantatus

And Microsoft had no influence on Vanguard either, right? But didn't we find out otherwise when that deal dissolved?

That's just the point. MS didn't like where things were going. In a normal developer/publisher relationship, they'd force SGO to make changes to the game to meet their expectations, and SGO would have no choice but to do so. In this case, they were unable to force SGO into doing what they wanted, and either they or SGO initiated the termination of their partnership.

Originally Posted by Grabbit

Work calls me and I have to be there in two hours. I decide to spend another hour with my group and then leave for work. 10 minutes before I leave we wipe and it's going to take at least 30 minutes to get back to our corpses. I choose to take the xp hit (which is pretty big) and go to work. When I log in after my shift I may be down some xp and but at least I'm ready to play again instead of having to find a search a rescue team.

That sounds good, actually. Having a double death penalty (if you didn't get a res) in EQ was always kind of crappy. Not only would you have to somehow fight to your corpse buck nekkid, you wouldn't get the experience back either. Course, I was a cleric, so that was never an issue for me personally, but I heard it sucked.