SoE to publish Vanguard

[Praxus]

Ack, just heard the news.

[Gnome Eater]

Originally Posted by Aradune Mithara

Yes, nothing with beta is going to change.

What about File Planet? AT least change that please? ;p

I hate to make speculation about something I absolutely have no information too, but this will have zero impact on my decision to purchase the game.

The only thing that will have an impact is how my friends or people I trust will like the game during open beta, and the various reports that filter out, and how good the PvP is on the special servers. I imagine that personally I am unlikely to be the type of consumer that is targetted by Vanguard, as I lack that ability to play MMORPG's for truly extended periods of time, and as such the ability to solo efficiently is a must have for me in an MMORPG. The other thing, is that my vision of what constitutes a game that is fun for me is about the opposite of that of the VG fanboys on the main boards, who seem to desire a masochistally hard game just so they can feel hardcore in an MMO.

Brad, by buying back the rights to VG I am sure you took a big gamble financially, so regardless of me playing it or not, I wish you that Vanguard will be a great success.

[Abalieno]

Originally Posted by Frax

I'm still not sure there is room for even more fantasy MMOs out there, especially ..

Especially without any significant different IDEA.

The point here is how it can make sense for SOE to support three games (EQ Classic, EQ2 and Vanguard) that compete directly *against each other*.

This just goes beyond every logic.

At this point it would be better if Brad's team was reabsorbed by SOE to concentrate EITHER on EQ2 OR Vanguard.

Vanguard made sense till now because it was in direct competition. Now the situation is just absurd.

[Lhon]

My theory:

Microsoft: It's costing us over $6 million a year to fund this, when can you ship?
Sigil: In 12 months...maybe.
Microsoft: That's another $6 mil. Hmm, 90% of your testers have quit in disgust. 100k box sales won't cover the next year's development costs. We're pulling your funding.
Sigil: ****!
Microsoft: Hey SOE, want to buy the rights to Vanguard for $1?
SOE: No, but would you take 5 plat in EQ2 on the Blackburrow server?
Microsoft: Sold!
Sigil: SOE rocks!

[findar]

Originally Posted by Abalieno

The point here is how it can make sense for SOE to support three games (EQ Classic, EQ2 and Vanguard) that compete directly *against each other*.

the point is 3 games you would normally pay $15 a month each ($45 total) for you can get for $25 a month for.

+ as co-publisher they get money on sales.

+ the "casual" gamer likes to play multiple games, selling the all-access pass. i know some of us are "OMG ONE GAME RIDE TILL I DIE" but a lot of people like to take a break and play other games, and for only $10 more they have access to how many extra games? this is the big selling point.

[Hebbin]

Originally Posted by Cuppycake

Quick question for Smed or Brad -
With the change is it still planned to have no 'official forum' for Vanguard and let the forums be community fansites instead?
Just wondering if SoE will be hosting forums like they do for the rest of the games on their lineup.

Yeah, community websites run by ige.
http://wow.azzor.com/445/truth_about_IGE.php

[Kodylan]

Originally Posted by Lhon

My theory:

Microsoft: It's costing us over $6 million a year to fund this, when can you ship?
Sigil: In 12 months...maybe.
Microsoft: That's another $6 mil. Hmm, 90% of your testers have quit in disgust. 100k box sales won't cover the next year's development costs. We're pulling your funding.
Sigil: ****!
Microsoft: Hey SOE, want to buy the rights to Vanguard for $1?
SOE: No, but would you take 5 plat in EQ2 on the Blackburrow server?
Microsoft: Sold!
Sigil: SOE rocks!

That wasn't even remotely funny. Congratulations on that.

[Genjiro]

http://www.vanguardsoh.com/forums/sh...&postcount=823

Statements like this are the things that make me think of the old saying,

"Burn me once, shame on you. Burn me twice, shame on me".

I remember how that turned out the first time for the monks after SOE got a hold of us.

[Skars]

He's just saying things can change. Not a startling revelation.

[Reolien01]

Originally Posted by Olio

The purpose of MGS is primarily to make sure that the games are developed for MS platforms and are as difficult to port off as possible. If the game is written in DX9(10) and has even moderate success then they can chalk it up as a success reguardless of who publishes it.

Olio

That is some sweet info you just tossed us.

I see what you did there.

[Antarius]

Originally Posted by Genjiro

http://www.vanguardsoh.com/forums/sh...&postcount=823

Statements like this are the things that make me think of the old saying,

"Burn me once, shame on you. Burn me twice, shame on me".

I remember how that turned out the first time for the monks after SOE got a hold of us.

Statements like the above are what make me think of the old saying

"There's an old saying in Tennessee—I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee—that says, fool me once, shame on—shame on you. Fool me—you can't get fooled again."—

[Dahlrek]

Originally Posted by Faille

Certainly, but take the case of mentoring. I know some people at Sigil was interested in having something similar to mentoring implemented into Vanguard. I'm sure they would love to see how it was implemented in EQ2, what mistakes were made and corrected, and basically have a better idea for how it might be applicable to use in Vanguard, if they do decide they want it.

Will this new partnership be open to such sharing of ideas, or you both be kept very seperate in this respect?

It's not like they need some special business arangement to borrow design-level things from EQ2; EQ2 sure didn't when they took mentoring from CoH. Any idiot can look at what other games are doing, see what they did wrong (thx stupidly obvious shit like weapon procs not being scaled down), and put together their own version. Hey Brad, what about armor sets? ZOMG Brilliant!! You might as well ask if they're going to have conference calls about the concept of levels. Stuff like Smed mentioned, like the patching system or the billing system (usually handled by the publisher), or datamining tools (handled by the dev house engineering and design teams), are stuff that is obvious to share, since it's not part of the core tech that the game actually runs on, but is tremendously helpful in shaving off a solid amount of dev time on the engineering side.

Originally Posted by Smed

As for gameplay stuff.. it's precisely because of the gameplay that we're interested in Vanguard. Like the old saying goes "If it ain't broke.. don't fix it". I realize I'm setting myself up nicely by saying that, but hey.. it applies.

Is this the place where I'm supposed to ask if racial xp penalties are still in EQ1?

[Northerner]

Ha! If nothing else I am certainly amused by this.

Vanguard? I'll try it eventually and form an opinion then. I will say that SOE's involvement sure is not a positive though from my perspective.

[Genjiro]

Originally Posted by Antarius

Statements like the above are what make me think of the old saying

"There's an old saying in Tennessee—I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee—that says, fool me once, shame on—shame on you. Fool me—you can't get fooled again."—

Down here in Georgia we don't like them folk from Tennessee.

Goofy sayings aside, it's not going to affect me checking out VG if the combat is good. I don't care if SOE, MS, or Starbucks produces the game if the combat is lackluster, so I will reserve judgement till beta. The prospect of the game being sold out to SOE down the road and chopped to pieces like it was in EQ1 though isn't reassuring, oh well.

[Reolien01]

SOE is one of the leaders in the gaming industry. The highest point in Vanguard marketing, imo, is the CGonline cover. If you have a kickass product and your product relies on sales of thousands of people you HAVE to have a top noch marketing company. If you don't have this kind of marketing, your product will be doomed to fail.

Hell, Red Bull wouldn't be what it is today because of their marketing tactics.