SOE to own VG - Sigil fires employees

[Hozz]

lol@not as bad as Horizons.

Thats a ringing endorsement if ever there was one.

[Samflam]

And to be fair to Blizzard, TBC launched without a hitch. So they learned from THAT mistake. (Of course, they seem to have forgotten many other lessons)
My bet is the next retard magnet is going to be the new Jeff Butler/SOE game.

[Wizerud]

I see the thread has gotten to the point where it's better to just scroll down each page looking at the poster names for anyone relevant to show up.

[Zerai]

WoW initial release was terrible, but they did fix it. It also wasn't permanently terrible. The loot lag and such was just at prime time. So while it was crippling, at least there was some points you could play the game mostly bug free.

They should have learned from Open Beta though. Going from open to release, nothing changed.

[tad10]

LOTRO's probably had the best release of any recent game I can think of -- followed by WoW (except whatever servers were fubar on launch day).

I actually think VG's actual launch day was "okay" (as compared to say SWG) -- the 1-10 content was okay, servers didn't crash. The trouble started once people got out of the newbie areas -- buggy areas, buggy quests etc. The Tsang bugavators, the Ark areas being closed if someone logged off while up there, etc.

Then things really got out of hand in the 20s maybe 2 weeks in -- the CIS questline was fubar for like a week and half or two weeks. People started getting the XP loss bug. Etc.

[Pillik]

1/4 the posts in 3 days to to the "[EVE] BoB+LV vs The South East" in 90 days.

This thread delivers.

Lets be honest. When Brad sold out and let his "Vision" go to Smedly and SOE back in the day (As us old schoolers say), who actually thought he would be part of a project that actually had hope and would revolutionize the MMO industry.

WOW might have been 80 mil to make, but they also had two huge games that set precedent for the game they have now. Two single player and multiplayer adventure/RPG/MMOs (Diablo), and three RTS single/multi player games that the game was modeled after. (Socketing is now becoming a part of WOW.)

Sigil had nothing. If they couldn't bargain 80 mil with MS which I'm guessing is the biggest business that owns the whole world, then Brad or whomever has poor negotiation skills. Shit, gates probably pisses 80 mil away wiping his ass with chinese rice paper.

EQ2 I think had the same problems. A game that was released to early because it wanted to compete with WOW. And Blizzard was the only company willing to delay the release of it's game to ensure an AAA product.

As lame as WOW might be now for a lot of players, its setting the precedent in time, money, and creativity spent to make a successful MMO. WOW is now "The Vision", and it sucks that Brad has lost the ability to see what was once a good Vision for present and future MMOs.

[Sinter1]

So who started the whole gayness of an AAA project/mmo? Is it so hard to say stellar, really good, the shit?

[Neric]

Originally Posted by rinthea

You criticiszed everything without any fucking thought process involved.

That's the impression you got from my postings?

You lucked out in the end that the whole kit and kaboodle went your way.

If you think that luck was involved, I can't help you.

I could go into detail why business decisions like the one from Microsoft to pull out of this project aren't based on luck or superstition, but I have the feeling that it could be a bit over your head. People may interpret this as sign of arrogance, but I think in this case it's well justified.

[Deris]

Originally Posted by Grady

Many of WoW's servers were still in beta a full year and a half into it. They had a relatively atrocious launch as well, but most people get all riled up when you point that out.

WoW's launch was near flawless for me on Deathwing minus the occasional loot lag. I just wasn't a complete fucking retard, noticed which guilds/communities were going where, and steered VERY clear of those servers. Ymmv.

A large closed/open beta at this point is nearly required to get any amount of testing completed really - in house QA is very slow, and isn't focused, and also no matter how much you pay your QA Testers, players will always find more bugs by virtue of sheer numbers. Blizzard's beta was perfect in the respect that they actually turned content OFF to the public when it was "finished" or mostly ready. Focused Beta Tests are absolutely required to get any realistic work done, and with 500+ players running around a fresh newbie zone - all those bugs you have are bound to pop up, instead of 15 spread across all the zones.

[Gnome Eater]

You'll never ever catch me defending Neric again, but Rinthea you are completely wrong. Neric didn't make outlandish predictions that turned out to be correct.

He made absolutely obvious predictions and consistently tried passing them off as earth-shattering and grandiose conclusions, and kept trying to argue and rile people up in an arrogant manner.

If you think that he got lucky you are dumber than even he is.

[rinthea]

Originally Posted by Gnome Eater

You'll never ever catch me defending Neric again, but Rinthea you are completely wrong. Neric didn't make outlandish predictions that turned out to be correct.

He made absolutely obvious predictions and consistently tried passing them off as earth-shattering and grandiose conclusions, and kept trying to argue and rile people up in an arrogant manner.

If you think that he got lucky you are dumber than even he is.

The point I was making, was he was anti VG. Everything to do with the game. So yes, he was right on a few things. Yes these some of these were obvious, he trolled and we didnt need to be reminded about it constantly.

But he was anti all VG, regardless of whether or not it was true, fiction or hearsay. Law of numbers says your going to get some things right. Many things he has been flat out wrong, not predictions, but plain and simple ol facts at the time he was posting. To anyone who actually knew it, it stood out like a soar thumb.

Thats my problem. He was biased about it all. No thought at all. If it was to do with VG it was bad, regardless of the truth. End of story.

He was lucky that his bias lined up with VG's obvious future.

PS Neric, I dont interpret as a sign of arrogance, I interpret it as a sign of delusion.

[Duhulk]

Is it so hard to say stellar, really good, the shit?

These days? Fucking right, and very expensive. The industry has spend too long building up technology without establishing good software foundations to make using the technology anything but a time consuming pain in the ass. There's a few good solutions out there that help, but not nearly enough.

[gremlinz273]

Originally Posted by Sinter1

So who started the whole gayness of an AAA project/mmo?

It comes from the movie industry, from at least the 1920s.

[Phelps McManus]

Originally Posted by Lodin

You may have a valid point in some respects, but Brad brought a lot of this on himself. Like you said, he was a double-speaking salesman that not only didn't deliver, but fucked over 50+ employees in the process and didn't even have the class to show up when he fucked them.

In my case, I spent the better part of a year beta testing Vanguard along with my guild, trying to make Vanguard a quality game. Guess what, it turns out that that time was wasted, not only mine but virtually everyone's in beta, because they didn't even have the staffing, the tools, or the management to make the game better than it was. My guild worked closely with many of the developers, one in particular, and nearly everything we tried suggesting, reporting, etc got shot down by this crew of morons that were running the game in Brad's "time off." I feel I and many others have a valid reason to bitch. Did we lose anything substantial? No, but we were swindled one way or another, and I'm pissed for the employees that trusted Brad and did lose something substantial.

This was posted in a another thread that was, for some reason, closed. It incensed me though, so I wanted to respond.

How did Brad fuck over 50+ employees? Are you always considered fucked over when you get fired? I imagine most of these people lived a dream for at least 3 years thanks to Brad. They got to do something fun with hopes that it would entertain millions, and they got paid for it. Brad created 100 jobs that most computer science graduates dream of one day landing.

I understand why YOU are upset. You wasted a good year of your life on a video game. I don't know what payoff you were expecting but obviously the game in its current state didn't deliver. You walk away completely empty-handed.

Meanwhile, those 50 employees were fired from one failed project in an otherwise booming industry. They have 3-5 years of experience that no future employer is going to hold against them because of how Vanguard turned out.

I wonder how many of those fired employees would do it all over again if they had the chance. If the first few years were worth getting fired in the end or if they would rather have worked somewhere else (hopefully) more stable.

I know YOUR answer and have no sympathy for the time you or your guild lost. If you didn't like doing it at the time, you certainly didn't have to.

[Gnome Eater]

Originally Posted by rinthea

T
He was lucky that his bias lined up with VG's obvious future.

How can he be lucky for expressing something obvious?