[VG] Producer's Letter

[CylusSoulreaver]

Originally Posted by DeNaut

I am no longer in the industry and I never plan on going back. I make more money now and I work much, much less. It was a fools dream and I learned a hard lesson.

Hey man

The whole working 12-16+ hours/day @ 32k a year in North County, San Diego w/o overtime (against the law, hrm hrm) isn't "the norm" in the industry, at least from what I've seen as of late, so if you're ever interested in trying again, you know whom to contact!

Best wishes, mang!

[Zarcath]

Originally Posted by CylusSoulreaver

Hey man

The whole working 12-16+ hours/day @ 32k a year in North County, San Diego w/o overtime (against the law, hrm hrm) isn't "the norm" in the industry, at least from what I've seen as of late, so if you're ever interested in trying again, you know whom to contact!

Best wishes, mang!

It's only "the norm" for SOE. Management fudging time cards so they didn't have to pay you overtime. Man those were the good ol' days. Too bad I didn't realize it was illegal at the time.

[jayrebb]

Originally Posted by Grizzlebeard

Funnily enough, I hadn't heard of Tylenol till reading this thread. Something to do with living in England and Tylenol being a US brand maybe. However, thanks for not being an ignorant prick and jumping to conclusions.

Acetaminophen, also called APAP for short. Its much easier just to call it Tylenol because everyone knows what that is in the US.

[Wash]

Originally Posted by Hachima

Who's big idea was it that you didn't need a scripting engine... =(

That charge was replied to by someone somewhere in a thread I don't feel like digging up. But basically, the counter argument was that they had tools that were better than a scripting language. Whether that's true or not, I dunno.

[CylusSoulreaver]

Originally Posted by jayrebb

Acetaminophen, also called APAP for short. Its much easier just to call it Tylenol because everyone knows what that is in the US.

Try PubMed Home

Folks may take you more seriously if you could link a peer-reviewed article.

Otherwise, realize that no civilian calls "Acetaminophen," APAP.

[Gnome Eater]

The only people who need heavy duty opiates are people with real chronic pain problems, you don't need it to handle a mild tootache, just put some ice and don't be a pussy.

While the drug war is a completely retarded idea, giving opiates to people who just want to do cold water extractions because they read it on erowid is fucking retarded. They are serious medicines, with a very high addiction and abuse potential.

The people who made Oxy also got slapped with a huge lawsuit after they found that they had lied to the FDA about abuse potential.

[Ngruk]

Dismissing the obvious Pandora's box I'm opening by posting here I was wondering something.

Does it truly make people feel good about themselves to observe other people's misery and failure? Does it validate you to gloat over other peoples failings and the ruining of peoples lives/careers?

I barely know Brad, barely, but I sure as hell don't feel the slightest bit of happiness knowing his life is in turmoil, his dream and his vision came crashing down and in the process hundreds of people's careers were changed/ruined/screwed up in the process.

If anyone on this board could have legitimate reasons to root against Brad, Sigil, VG or any of it I'd imagine it would be someone like me running a competing company.

I feel the exact opposite of all those things. Listen, Brad has to take account for his part in all this, and I am hoping someday if he hasn't already, he will.

But this is real life shit folks, a persons life is at stake, or was, due to what is thought to be a serious drug addiction, a company was pretty much run into the ground, and there is a large contingent of people here dancing on both of their graves. Over what? A 40 dollar purchase? A bad game? Again, you make your own bed, he bears the burden of everything he impacted, I get that, but I would question the integrity of a team member, after the fact, airing the dirty laundry he did on a forum like this, in the fashion it was done.

I can only speak for me, a personal opinion and observation, but I can't fathom ANY possible scenario ever when I'd consider someone that did something like this to be a potential employee, no matter how talented or passionate they were.

You spend thousands of hours grinding in production of this massive 'thing', saying now that the entire time you knew it was all a train wreck, everyone and their mother was clueless and the company was a chaotic nightmare every second of the day but nowhere in that post did you claim to make your opinions of the goings on and your feelings known to anyone that mattered.

Had the bulk of the people in that company, if they truly felt and knew they were heading down a path of utter disaster, taken a stand, aired the dirty laundry, where would Brad and VG be right now?

I can only speak for myself but if 50% of my dev team stand up at an all hands and proclaim the current project un-salvageable I have to think things as we know it would come to a screeching halt. Hell if 5 people of the dev team say that then I am thinking there is something HORRIFICALLY wrong.

Understand this, anyone that has the slightest insight into who I am knows I am all about openness and honesty, and I am the last person on this planet to tell you anything or offer anyone advice in keeping their mouth shut, but at the end of the day what did that post accomplish?

Make someone who's clearly at a breaking point in their lives feel worse?
Make a group of people who clearly had passion for gaming, got caught in a meat grinder and were 'forced' to churn out something that was far from reaching it's potential feel worse?
Further validate an effort that has already lined up a million or say "I told you it sucked" gamers with more bravado?

I don't think the post told us anything we all didn't already know did it? We all know what VG was when it launched, as gamers anyway, that post, to me anyway, was the first episiode of FOH's version of Jerry Springer.

[Kreugen]

Originally Posted by Ngruk

Does it truly make people feel good about themselves to observe other people's misery and failure? Does it validate you to gloat over other peoples failings and the ruining of peoples lives/careers?

The Official Site of Major League Baseball: News: Mitchell Report

Don't you?

Okay thats beyond low, but the Jerry Springer episode started years ago, with the McQuaid hype machine all over this board. Some of us were even hyped the game before it even had a title or setting - back when we were all still playing Everquest. And then you had the legions that bought into such hype, and even went so far as to leave their current game and guilds to proudly proclaim "your game sucks, you should stop playing it, yada yada I'm waiting for Vanguard!" and other such childish nonsense. VG was touted at the second coming, but it had a lot of promises that seemed impossible - things like building a world so massive with so much content that thousands of the most hard core of the hard core could never consume it all. When you over hype and under deliver, you're going to hear about it.

That said, I do agree its goddamn tired.

[Ngruk]

Don't for a second think I am talking or preaching from a pedestal. I am more than ok with admitting to making more than my share of stupid mistakes, and I'll make more.
It happens, we're human, I just have trouble with the entire 'piling on' thing and the mob mentality that follows threads like this.
What happened was an unmitigated disaster, we all know that, it's just amazing that this all made so many people jump for joy.
I don't gloat in other peoples' misery, I have certainly spoken out of turn more than once, but I don't revel in other peoples lives falling apart.

[Kreugen]

Its completely normal to do so, though.

Baseball and its fans are angry at players that cheat (and get caught) It damages the validity of the sport, which for the suits with the dollars is just a fancied up way of saying "it could make us lose money." And you were likely angry when you spoke out about this and you sure as hell were justified.

Gamers and the game industry are angry at Vanguard for being such a high profile failure that can in turn damage the industry as a whole and give us less ambitious (and well funded) games to enjoy in the future, leaving us with nothing but the Warcraft juggernaut. A successful game in a genre we love means we'll see bigger and better in the future. The scrap heap of failure that Warcraft sits on like a throne of skulls however is likely to scare others away. And people are angry about that.

Reveling in misery is then a sort of satisifed punishment.

[Vatoreus]

It has to do with the amount of lies and perceived transgressions against the people who go on and on about it. If you were an employee at a company which was run the way it was, sure, you could leave, but what if you had moved to the location and didn't have an immediate way to make money to support yourself and your family?

You have to understand, the employees apparently weren't treated with the amount of respect it would appear you give your employees. They were taken out to a parking lot and told to fuck off pretty much, and not even by their top boss, he couldn't even have bothered to show up. I know I'd be pissed, but I also wouldn't be gloating over the smoldering remains of his career either.

It's understandable to a point and if you have a vindictive streak in you, it's what you would do to get back at the person you've been working overtime without getting paid for it for.

[Draegan]

I couldn't care less what happened but I perceive the situation as Brad got what was coming to him. I don't wish anything bad on the guy but from a industry point of view I hope he never comes back because it just deludes and drags down the MMO genre which happens to be the genre I love the most.

Edit:
Would you expect anything less from the dregs of humanity that post on FOH?

[dechire]

Originally Posted by Ngruk

Dismissing the obvious Pandora's box I'm opening by posting here I was wondering something.

Does it truly make people feel good about themselves to observe other people's misery and failure? Does it validate you to gloat over other peoples failings and the ruining of peoples lives/careers?

I barely know Brad, barely, but I sure as hell don't feel the slightest bit of happiness knowing his life is in turmoil, his dream and his vision came crashing down and in the process hundreds of people's careers were changed/ruined/screwed up in the process.

If anyone on this board could have legitimate reasons to root against Brad, Sigil, VG or any of it I'd imagine it would be someone like me running a competing company.

I feel the exact opposite of all those things. Listen, Brad has to take account for his part in all this, and I am hoping someday if he hasn't already, he will.

But this is real life shit folks, a persons life is at stake, or was, due to what is thought to be a serious drug addiction, a company was pretty much run into the ground, and there is a large contingent of people here dancing on both of their graves. Over what? A 40 dollar purchase? A bad game? Again, you make your own bed, he bears the burden of everything he impacted, I get that, but I would question the integrity of a team member, after the fact, airing the dirty laundry he did on a forum like this, in the fashion it was done.

I can only speak for me, a personal opinion and observation, but I can't fathom ANY possible scenario ever when I'd consider someone that did something like this to be a potential employee, no matter how talented or passionate they were.

You spend thousands of hours grinding in production of this massive 'thing', saying now that the entire time you knew it was all a train wreck, everyone and their mother was clueless and the company was a chaotic nightmare every second of the day but nowhere in that post did you claim to make your opinions of the goings on and your feelings known to anyone that mattered.

Had the bulk of the people in that company, if they truly felt and knew they were heading down a path of utter disaster, taken a stand, aired the dirty laundry, where would Brad and VG be right now?

I can only speak for myself but if 50% of my dev team stand up at an all hands and proclaim the current project un-salvageable I have to think things as we know it would come to a screeching halt. Hell if 5 people of the dev team say that then I am thinking there is something HORRIFICALLY wrong.

Understand this, anyone that has the slightest insight into who I am knows I am all about openness and honesty, and I am the last person on this planet to tell you anything or offer anyone advice in keeping their mouth shut, but at the end of the day what did that post accomplish?

Make someone who's clearly at a breaking point in their lives feel worse?
Make a group of people who clearly had passion for gaming, got caught in a meat grinder and were 'forced' to churn out something that was far from reaching it's potential feel worse?
Further validate an effort that has already lined up a million or say "I told you it sucked" gamers with more bravado?

I don't think the post told us anything we all didn't already know did it? We all know what VG was when it launched, as gamers anyway, that post, to me anyway, was the first episiode of FOH's version of Jerry Springer.

when you talk as much shit as he did on these boards , you can bet your ass a lot of people are gonna be pretty happy to see he's reaping in other areas what he has sown in the game world. Its like anything else in this world and being a game developer does not exclude you from it nor does it gain you any fucking pity. Its not like he lost his house or his beemer or his dirt bikes. he cashed in and walked away.

welcome to no sympathy night.

ps giving sympathy to addicts doe them no fucking good.

[Twobit Whore]

Personally I take no joy or solace in the knowledge that Brad may have a drug problem. As someone who has dealt with them both personally and via friends and family, I know it is no laughing matter.

Where I do get my entertainment though is from the people who for the last 2 years told me and the other doubters we were crazy. We hadn't played the game since Beta 0.001 and had no clue etc. etc. and yet we were 100% right the entire time. It's plain for the whole world to see, the facts, numbers and former employees all speak for themselves yet you STILL see the same tired excuses made by the vanbois.

If you want to enjoy the game, great.. but when I hear shit like 'Vanguard has turned the corner!' and 'It's the best game out there!' etc. then you are damn right I get a little satisfaction when more and more comes to light that makes them look silly.

[spentmotiff]

Originally Posted by Draegan

I couldn't care less what happened but I perceive the situation as Brad got what was coming to him. I don't wish anything bad on the guy but from a industry point of view I hope he never comes back because it just deludes and drags down the MMO genre which happens to be the genre I love the most.

I think this is the opinion of 90% of people on this board. While some people seem to have an unnatural hate for VG and Brad, most people here are interested in the MMO genre and how these things get made. When one fails in the spotlight with as much attention as VG did, it's only natural that people will discuss it.