Another lead designer leaves sigil.

[Malvesti]

I thought this board had kind of become a place where gamers can discuss games at a pretty high level. If all you want is tidbits of comment from Brad, there are lots of other places for that (i.e., the Vanguard forums). On this board, Brad shows up on the same level as the rest of us. He's not the god/gamemaster of our MMO world. Brad shouldn't get special protection from the flamers or the haters. I'd rather have Brad, Smed, et. al. not post here, than post here only on the condition that they're protected from the meanies.

If you're going to ban Ut for a rabid point of view, you should also ban the sycophants.

I guess I'm just rephrasing what Hiram and Tripamang just said...

[Gnome Eater]

This to me has nothing to do with special priviledge, but it has to do with 'even ground'. As long as you are anon like me, you can spout what you would like, with minimal consequence to you or your job - I can flame, call people names, and do whatever I like, devs/CEO who do, even if they come here they represent the company they work for and cannot reply in tone. You can call them out, they cannot 'call you' out. Asking questions for the sake of lobbying softball questions is stupid, but asking questions they are not able to answer just for a show of machism and to get some tough guy cred among a forum is stupid.

You cannot make accusations against which a person cannot reasonably defend themselves.

[Reolien01]

Originally Posted by The Hiram Key

But Brad...you have a sizable population of testers, excuse me, wasted potential testers who could have a look at your game now and help you fix it. Why don't you take a look at your stupid fucking Beta invite process and find out how some people who are complete fucktards get beta invites and others...MANY FUCKING OTHERS BRAD never do get invited.

I don't even know how you can respond to that asinine post. I would really like to hear what Brad thought when he reads that comment.

[Reolien01]

Originally Posted by Malvesti

If all you want is tidbits of comment from Brad, there are lots of other places for that (i.e., the Vanguard forums).

I would rather have him post anywhere then there. Horrible forum filled with a community begging to be in beta. Brad used to be a member of FoH so he has every right to post on here whether its to apease others or not.

Originally Posted by Malvesti

On this board, Brad shows up on the same level as the rest of us. He's not the god/gamemaster of our MMO world. Brad shouldn't get special protection from the flamers or the haters. I'd rather have Brad, Smed, et. al. not post here, than post here only on the condition that they're protected from the meanies.

I love how gaming companys can relate and be on the same level as the rest of us. He doesn't get special protection from flamers, hell, look at your horrible post; No one is protecting Brad, nor my brain, from it.

Posters like you who sit and bash companys like these are ridiculous. You shit down the necks of the designers for making THEIR game. If you don't like it don't play it. If you want to throw in your ridiculous 2 cents then make your own game. If you think you have a "right" to piss all over Brad, Oloh, and Company you are soley mistaken. The NDA exists because of the skewed representations people throw all over the forums because of the negative impact they recieved from the bugs or problems in the game.

[Papillon]

Originally Posted by Aradune Mithara

In other words, enjoy yourselves, but what I needed to say, and what Oloh and others needed to say, has been said. I now return to making Vanguard and promoting it. Celebrate perhaps if you feel you've driven us off, although I think you do this board a disservice (but I'll let the regular posters here decide that). Good bye.

I guess after release you will see way more bitching about Vanguard and all kinds of game systems - no matter how good the game will be. While I don't necessarily agree with people doing that, is that the reaction we may expect to see from Sigil? You still plan on not having official forums after release?

He may be missinformed and may got some things wrong and he may not like Vanguard so far and for sure he is breaking the NDA - but visiting a MMORPG fansite to call someone an intentional liar and say "good bye" to all is the appropriate reaction of your choice to that? Sorry to say that, but you confuse me lately

I remember days when you would have had better ways to handle that. Doesn't sound too good for me. Still having high hopes for Vanguard.

[Duppin]

Originally Posted by Creediki

Again I call bullshit.

That's okay, you're just wrong again.

See, the thing you need to understand is, anyone who is a spokesperson for a major corporation has other things to take into account than sucking up to particularly mouthy customers. They have to be concerned about the perceptions of the media, their stockholders, their bosses (if applicable), etc etc etc.

I'm sure we would all love to live in your utopian world where everyone can be honest with everyone else all the time, but it's simply not how it works, and no amount of you "calling bullshit" and decrying "spin" is going to change that. Making you, or Utnayan, or whoever happy is NOT the only concern that someone like Brad or Smed or Gallenite has when making a post on boards like these, and you're a jerkoff for not realizing that.

[Digo]

I kind of wish this board had a reputation points system so we could red dot the shit out of retards instead of suffering their drivel. Brad, Smed, et al that post here, for every degenerate retard that flames or whines, there are 10 more of us that are interested in what you have to say, even if we don't play your games.

edit: It's not a matter of "coddling" the devs, but extending a bit of respect and professional courtesy. This is a forum of higher standing than the toxic waste of bnet, isn't it? Some of you people should grow the fuck up. Anonymous internet flaming isn't some red badge of courage or protocol dictated by the url.

[Malvesti]

Originally Posted by Reolien01

Posters like you who sit and bash companys like these are ridiculous. You shit down the necks of the designers for making THEIR game. If you don't like it don't play it. If you want to throw in your ridiculous 2 cents then make your own game. If you think you have a "right" to piss all over Brad, Oloh, and Company you are soley mistaken. The NDA exists because of the skewed representations people throw all over the forums because of the negative impact they recieved from the bugs or problems in the game.

You're fucking ignorant. I haven't bashed Vanguard at all in this thread. The only thing I've commented on is people trying to silence dissent. Go back and read if you care.

You're also stupid because you appear to have missed the fact that the NDA only silences people who like the game, not people who hate it.

I've said before and I'll say again that I'm hoping Vanguard is good but I'm neither a fanboi or a hater. My most recent comments are that Brad seems to be looking for a protected forum to spin his game, and that certain posters here are wanting to ban those who dare to point out Vanguard's weaknesses.




I also like hearing what the devs have to say. I just don't think it's appropriate for others here to try to silence people who dare to disagree or complain.

[Dynalisia]

Utnayan really is something. I wonder how many people still think he's an ordinary gamer out to improve the world of MMO's.

[Duppin]

Originally Posted by Malvesti

You're fucking ignorant. I haven't bashed Vanguard at all in this thread. The only thing I've commented on is people trying to silence dissent. Go back and read if you care.

Dissent is one thing. I approve of dissent, as long as it's done in a way that makes you look like a reasonable person bringing up reasonable concerns.

What I have a problem with, is people like Utnayan. If I were Smed, or Brad, or whoever, I'd say "You know what? Fuck that guy. I'm tired of reading his drivel. I'm not posting on those forums anymore."

One of the things that's made this forum so cool over the last little while is the direct dialogue with people who shape both the games we play now, and the games we'll be playing in the future.

Conduct like Utnayan's jeopardizes that.

[findar]

Originally Posted by Reolien01

Brad used to be a member of FoH so he has every right to post on here whether its to apease others or not.

news to me!

[Malvesti]

Well, there's a definite difference between Ut and Brad, right? Brad is invested in this game, etc. You can certainly get good information from him. But you know it's going to be slanted and he's going to conceal or minimize the negatives. Ut, even if he is obessively angry with the game, doesn't have a financial interest in it one way or the other.

The way I took Brad's last post was "if you let people like Ut post here, I'll stop coming" which I think is inappropriate. I also think it's wrong for him to characterize everything he says as truth and clarity and anything the complainers say as lies.

[Ceefo]

Originally Posted by Malvesti

Ut, even if he is obessively angry with the game, doesn't have a financial interest in it one way or the other.

Nevermind the fact that he's obsessively angry with a game he's never personally played, but is in fact basing all of his anger on things he's 'heard' from people who decided to ignore the NDA.

[Krones]

Originally Posted by Nebuchadnezzar

Those boards have sunk so low so fast. "Beta" must be a mating call for morons.

The original Vanguard community was fucking fantastic if you were into armchair design and wanted too help shape and mold Vanguard into a remarkable world, something different, a mmog with advanced concepts and ideas, potential, tremendous fucking kick-ass potential, the funding was there, the development team was there, the early community support was there.

Think about it, how many positive leaks have you read besides from Oloh, which are discredited by many who know his history since he is McQuaid's lap dog and the conglomerate game sites who know absolutely fucking jack-shit about mmogs compared to any veteran on this board? I've read constant pessimistic outlooks ever since beta 0, including private channels from friends of friends breaking the nda, etc. Friends whom I trust more than any of those cocksuckers. Why all the fucking negativity when Vanguard had one of the most outstanding pre-beta communities ever?

Vanguard's early community downfall was inevitable, nothing lasts forever. I’ve noticed that a lot of the core vanbois didn't stick around after McQuaid announced Sigil would be shit-canning their forums in favor of third party forums after Vanguard's release, aside from the few die-hards still sticking around. Not worth it, no beta invite, no forum as we once knew it.

Still despite the death of one of the best communities, the majority of Vanguard's early followers would have made excellent alpha testers before adding random signups and starting the transition to a disastrous closed public beta and Vanguard didn't take advantage of that. I'm not talking about Oloh and his cronies either.

Sigil fucked up the selection process early on, while random beta picks are fair and needed for optimization, Vanguard needed a large decent core of hardcore alpha testers early in the creation process who are understandable, respectable and patient. Testers who don't fucking need, but more than anything else desire and want too put up with the bullshit that comes with early development. Yes, I know these testers are still out there, but that's not the point.

The sorry ass retention numbers for beta floating around only prove Sigil fucked up, someone please tell me what exactly McQuaid was expecting after the majority of those random pickups have played EQII and WoW for the last year? Gosh, Idiot! comes to my mind. It's too late to fix that fuck up now and Sigil has to basically start over with a substantial credible testing base in phase 3. Frustrating for those players who really could have made an impact on Vanguard. I'm scraping the surface, I'm not even going to dilvulge all the nitty-gritty details I've fucking heard from trusted sources on how Sigil has handled Vanguard's early testing phases.

Maybe Vanguard's beta retention will improve when they zerg invite another 5-8 thousand testers and their proposed 3rd gen mechanics such as combat, crafting and dueling npcs with canned phrases should be more polished. However, despite all that shit I just wrote, the most detrimental outlook too Vanguard is the fact Sigil lost three of their most talented (senior) designers in the last year, a massive fact and that alone hurts Vanguard's development more than anything else.

Vanguard@E3 compared to the progress we witnessed last year should be very interesting.

[Digo]

Originally Posted by Malvesti

I also like hearing what the devs have to say. I just don't think it's appropriate for others here to try to silence people who dare to disagree or complain.

There is a world of difference between respectful debate and accusatory shit flinging. The latter needs to stop.