[VG] Producer's Letter

[The Bog]

I wished nothing but success and victory to both Brad and Vanguard, but in my review and on this board I was unerringly critical of the game. I did not go in there trying to hate it, but I came out doing so because, ultimately, it was really goddamn bad. I refuse to be nice about a game that is not good. Sorry, folks.

[tad10]

Originally Posted by Twobit Whore

I'm pretty sure it's an apt analogy.

No you dipshit. It would have been an apt analogy if he denouced WoW then turned around and created a game just like WoW.

Holy fuck. Do you even know what the word 'analogy' means?

[Sunder]

analogy

Main Entry:
anal·o·gy Listen to the pronunciation of analogy
Pronunciation:
\ə-ˈna-lə-jē\
Function:
noun
Inflected Form(s):
plural anal·o·gies
Date:
15th century

1: inference that if two or more things agree with one another in some respects they will probably agree in others
2 a: resemblance in some particulars between things otherwise unlike : similarity
b: comparison based on such resemblance
3: correspondence between the members of pairs or sets of linguistic forms that serves as a basis for the creation of another form4: correspondence in function between anatomical parts of different structure and origin

Apparently, neither do you.

[The Bog]

GRAMMAR FIGHT.

[Draegan]

Originally Posted by tad10

No you dipshit. It would have been an apt analogy if he denouced WoW then turned around and created a game just like WoW.

Holy fuck. Do you even know what the word 'analogy' means?

Nope.

[tad10]

Originally Posted by The Bog

GRAMMAR FIGHT.

Fortunately Sunder is on my ignore list for being completley retarded and bringing up VG in some unrelated thread (like a Rock Band or GH3 thread or something equally bizarre). So I've got no fucking clue what he wrote, nor do I particularly care. So no grammer fight.

However cripple fight is this way ->

Cripple Fight - 503 - Watch - South Park Zone

Edit: For Mr. Draegan

Analogy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[etchazz]

i would never make fun of anyone for having a drug addiction (being a former addict myself). however, drug addiction aside, i think brad deserves the criticism he's getting because of how awful VG really is and how much he pumped the game up. i think taking cheap shots at brad for having a drug addiction is wrong, but taking cheap shots at him because VG is the gigli of video games is perfectly fine.

[Sunder]

Tad just has a problem with anyone who speaks out against VG. He's so emotionally invested into this game, he just can't stand anyone who would say anything bad. Talk about sticking your head in the sand. He is the king of fanboys.

[Arbuste]

Originally Posted by Ngruk

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.

The post was not about your management style. But about Sigil's. And according to reports, it sucked.

It's easy to criticize the guy coming out "airing the dirty laundry", but you have to take into account the way he was treated by his company. He's the one who has the right to decide if he owes them something. Personally, I believe it was a mistake for his future career, because many potential employers will see what he wrote the same way you did. I think it's unfair, but it's the way things work.

And as to the dev team speaking up... It's been explained that their management was not very receptive. Maybe they tried? If your boss is an asshole, what are you supposed to do? Alert Microsoft behind your boss's back? Leave with your 2 months dev experience and find a better job? I don't think so.
I don't know if you've ever worked in a fairly large company at a peon level, but sometimes, nobody gives a shit about what you think. You can't always play the diva. It might get you fired faster than you can say "I respectfully disagree."

The way I see it, Sigil's management was not totally stupid, but merely unqualified to manage such a project. And they chose to live on hype and lies. There are quite a few companies doing that, especially in software development.

You don't have the right to blame the employees. They are the ones who got fucked over the most (them, and a little of MS and Sony's money, maybe.)

About the pandora's box comment, also: The only good thing that can happen here is for this topic to die. I'm not sure what *you* were trying to achieve. Talking the Intraweb dwellers into reason?

[Hatorade]

Vanguard is to fanboys as ______ is to baseball. Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

[Noah EQ2]

Originally Posted by Arbuste

The post was not about your management style. But about Sigil's. And according to reports, it sucked.

It's easy to criticize the guy coming out "airing the dirty laundry", but you have to take into account the way he was treated by his company. He's the one who has the right to decide if he owes them something. Personally, I believe it was a mistake for his future career, because many potential employers will see what he wrote the same way you did. I think it's unfair, but it's the way things work.

And as to the dev team speaking up... It's been explained that their management was not very receptive. Maybe they tried? If your boss is an asshole, what are you supposed to do? Alert Microsoft behind your boss's back? Leave with your 2 months dev experience and find a better job? I don't think so.
I don't know if you've ever worked in a fairly large company at a peon level, but sometimes, nobody gives a shit about what you think. You can't always play the diva. It might get you fired faster than you can say "I respectfully disagree."

The way I see it, Sigil's management was not totally stupid, but merely unqualified to manage such a project. And they chose to live on hype and lies. There are quite a few companies doing that, especially in software development.

You don't have the right to blame the employees. They are the ones who got fucked over the most (them, and a little of MS and Sony's money, maybe.)

About the pandora's box comment, also: The only good thing that can happen here is for this topic to die. I'm not sure what *you* were trying to achieve. Talking the Intraweb dwellers into reason?

To publicly bash a company that "gave you a chance" in the industry really makes you wonder if they appriciated the opportunity. Many teams / games are crap but you learn from them - what works and what doesn't. Fact of the matter is THEY SHIPPED, period. Every one of the VG employee's have great portfolio work and experience to come back to and learn from. Hell, maybe the figured out this is not the industry for them. Behind the curtains its not all "airchair/gaming fun" - it is actual work.

As far as "Speaking up" goes, it boils down to proof and facts. If something is not going to work, you need facts and a solution that will. Most of the time people say something will not work, maybe some facts but no plan of action with examples to show a solution. Why no solution? Either they are lazy or to afraid to stick their neck out as the idea to solve the problem, just incase it actually fails too!

99% of the readers on this forum would kill for the experiance at VG simply for the technical/design experiance. Having to deal with an interview question like "why did VG flop and what could have been done to fix it" or something like that is valid and shows you can learn from mistakes.

MMOs are huge fucking projects. 1000s of moving pieces to control, manage and document. Lots of "no so fun" work. There were probably mistakes made everyday but each one can be learned from.

VG taught the MMO community alot about itself and the ideas we "once loved and have fond memories of" are just the typical nostalgia memories we have of bad accidents from our childhood that we joke about as adults (BB Gun / bad sleding or skateboard accident analogy).

[Bloodget]

99% of the readers on this forum would kill for the experiance at VG

uhu are you sure? I think more than 1% of the readers have a job they don't want to lose over some experience at VG...
More than 1% don't want to work in the game industry.
And i am not sure i would employ a former VG dev over any other candidate...in fact i would be REALLY scared. It is like saying the designer of the Titanic got good exp. ...right!

[Braen]

But at least the designer of the Titanic learned to make the watertight bulkheads go all the way to the main deck.

Valuable information! Too bad he went down with the ship...

Say.. That sounds like the designer of Vanguard!

[Hachima]

Originally Posted by Ngruk

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?

I would have to say its a perfect example of how not being open to suggestions and not being honest will hurt a project. Unfortunately the main focus people pull out of the post is possible drug abuse by Brad. However the part about anyones ideas getting shot down, and having to sneak around to even try to get a change in the game is the real insight I got out of the post.

I remember around the release of the game something like durability was put in and Brad didn't even know about it until the last minute. Maybe this was one of those 'lets just sneak it in' mechanics? Brad's posts made him seem like he was open to trying new things and finding what worked. In reality the picture I get is that management told the devs they were inexperienced and their ideas and opinions were wrong and to just do it their way.

I can understand why people would be upset with those type of working conditions. If an employer thinks people are wrong for being upset for being lied to about raises, being pushed to work overtime illegally, then that's sure not an employer I'd want to work for.

[tad10]

Originally Posted by etchazz

i think brad deserves the criticism he's getting because of how awful VG really is and how much he pumped the game up.

My problem with this post is that, like most VG bashers, you're equating the game as she is today with the buggy, missing post-40 content game that was released a year ago.