Nino...One of the upsides of VG.

[Utnayan]

That brings up a very valid point as well.

Never hire your buddies. Because when it comes time to make them shit or get off the pot, you become that "world class enabler" and wham - nothing gets done.

[Usha Starchild]

Originally Posted by woqqqa

I don't suppose you know why EA cancelled Ultima X: Odyssey? Seems to me that game had just enough WoW in it combined with UO to take the market by storm.

I had left EA at that point. I'm pretty sure it was canned because they were worried it would become another Earth and Beyond/motor city online. They were not confident with the product in a now very competitive market.

[Usha Starchild]

Originally Posted by Eternal

Ultimately it is squarly on him for not managing the budget. He had enough time and money, and to be quite frank, sometimes the past is a good predictor of the future: only going live forced them to face the realities and work with the focus and intensity required. If SOE told em to cruise till July the game would have released broken as well. SOE managers knew it and said might as well let em swim.

As an aside, anyone remembers Brad getting all puffy when someone told him to fire some of his developers? Well, it was easy to be the Manager that Feels and Cares(tm) when you're paying with MSFT/SOE cash. And showed his inability to crack the whip, consequences be damned. And hence the state of game.

I think you know nothing about game development. Goals are set and broken in 99.9% of all games. We never completed a game on time when I was at EA. In fact a game is never done until we were forced to push it out the door. We would be doing bux fixes or adding stuff til the last second.

When I say forced I dont even mean by our own company. We were forced by our commitment to our sharholders to meet financial crap each quarter. We were always bummed to ship something we didnt feel was finished.

[Jait]

Originally Posted by Usha Starchild in regards to Eternal

I think you know nothing about game development.

Oh I can confirm that sir. I just got done reading another of his/her/it lovely posts. I think I need to go wash my eyes out with bleach now...

[Go Outside]

I didn't believe that certain people could really drag a message board down but this thread has already been derailed into a bash Brad thread proving Nino right all along. Ironic.

[WhoCaresNotMe]

Originally Posted by Go Outside

I didn't believe that certain people could really drag a message board down but this thread has already been derailed into a bash Brad thread proving Nino right all along. Ironic.

I have a great idea. Vanguard could have it's own forums. Moderated as lightly or as specifically as they wanted. I am copywriting this in case any of you get any notions.

[Goliath]

Utnayan is smart and honest/blunt.

[Eternal]

Originally Posted by Usha Starchild

I think you know nothing about game development. Goals are set and broken in 99.9% of all games. We never completed a game on time when I was at EA. In fact a game is never done until we were forced to push it out the door. We would be doing bux fixes or adding stuff til the last second.

When I say forced I dont even mean by our own company. We were forced by our commitment to our sharholders to meet financial crap each quarter. We were always bummed to ship something we didnt feel was finished.

And I think you know nothing about business and human resource management. There are products where goals are set and broken and there are those where goals are met. Some succeed and some fail. That's all there is to it.

[Eternal]

EDIT
nm, not worth trying to reason with a flamer.

[Slick Willey]

5 years and $30 million is a hell of a lot of time and money to get a MMORPG done . . . .

[Daelos]

Originally Posted by Slick Willey

5 years and $30 million is a hell of a lot of time and money to get a MMORPG done . . . .

And they missed the target by perhaps 3-5 months, but in the process made a game that is the most fun MMOG on the market today, and has the potential for even more serious awesomeness.

[Hachima]

Originally Posted by Slick Willey

5 years and $30 million is a hell of a lot of time and money to get a MMORPG done . . . .

Not really. FF12 for example took 6 years. They have a team of 150 right now. I don't know how long it took to get that team. Let's say year 1 was just Brad and a few people hiring and year 1 they had a team of 150. It was probably a lot more gradual but anyway use that as a scenario.


30 million with 4 years of 150 employees. That is only $50,000 per employee right there. We haven't even taken any out for all the other expenses. Software licenses, engine licenses, building lease, hardware, bills and more bills and don't forget huge supplies of Red Bull =).

Anyway, it's pretty easy to see that all that money could get used up pretty easy.

[kcxiv]

Originally Posted by Daelos

And they missed the target by perhaps 3-5 months, but in the process made a game that is the most fun MMOG on the market today, and has the potential for even more serious awesomeness.

While, i agree with you. Stuff like that on here will make you a Vanboi! Actually, i was a Vanboi growing up. Actually still am. They make the best shoes period.

[Witoubo]

Originally Posted by Go Outside

I didn't believe that certain people could really drag a message board down but this thread has already been derailed into a bash Brad thread proving Nino right all along. Ironic.

Brad is just a convenient target (one he kinda made himself into unfortunately). These boards are mostly about the cheap snipe, the one liner and the easy rant. I did my share of "postmortem" style analysis about VG, quite frankly it was an interesting series of events leading up to and following launch. Really though there is a point where everyone has to move on.

People who like the game have to realize any talk about VG is going to draw open hostility. Take their discussion elsewhere, I dunno, the VG community forums?

The haters have to realize no matter how much they hate the game, how much they despise any perceived or actual wrong doing, someone is going to like the game. While these boards do offer a decent sized platform, ranting and railing isn't going to convince some publisher or developer to "shape up." Microsoft dropped VG for a reason. There are people out there just as smart as you who can come to logical conclusions without you beating it into them 500 times. Let it go.

[Tancred]

"So drop your Ut rips on anything SOE/Sigil/MCQuaid releated - because that is flat out fucking false. I rip on companies that release shit software, like Vanguard, covered up in a sliming pile of dogshit marketing that ends up fooling the majority of it's customer base. Sigil and MCQuaid are the target now BECAUSE THEY ARE DOING IT AS WE SPEAK"

You see this is my problem with you.

The number of times companies have released shit products and compensated for it with marketing is in the thousands or more. I could point to a dozen in the last 2 months without trying. It's STANDARD PRACTICE. To crusade against it is a recipe for a nervous breakdown because overhyping your crap is the #1 mechanic of global commerce.

My problem is your assertion that it fools the majority of the customer base. To think you have to continually rail against it in every thread here to save the rest of us poor fools from ourselves and the predations of McQuaid is mind-bendingly arrogant. We are capable of thinking for ourselves and discerning the truth. ALMOST NOBODY, I guarantee you, read Brad's posts and said "OMG that looks awesome here take my money NOW!". Most of us thought the obvious: it looks overambitious and a lot of the features sound like vapourware. MOST of us, however, were prepared to give it a little "wait and see" rather than embarking on an embittered crusade fuelled by our need to exorcise the pain in our soul from our mistreatment by Brad in the EQ days (and don't try to deny this last part or i'll dig up the posts where you baldly admitted as much).
Sure a few people will read the fluff and buy it blindly. A fool and his money are soon parted. This is another of those universal constants and your ranting won't save those people either.

You have good points. Go ahead and keep making them. But for fuck's sake stop trying to save us all. We don't need it and your messiah complex is boring.