Quote:
Originally Posted by Seredoc
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I was in Beta on Vanguard, and yeah the drama was that microsoft had been pushing for Brad and Co. to speed things up or set a definite time table. Well then SOE comes in and says "COme back to us cuz you know how we work and will give you more money in the end than M$ will if you work on our timetable". So everything switched over and we went from beta 1 to beta 4 in a month. Newbie zones were broken, quest mobs were kos to quest givings, there were horrible mis-cons when trying to fight in...well, anywhere. And to kick it all off, with all these bugs they go forward and announce a release date.
So to recap, we're submitting logs to get stuff fixed in newbie zones, not even mentioning the(pardon my "french") shitstorm that was mid range or high lvl content fixes, when we get a message basically saying that they're going to be releasing in 3 to 8 weeks. So a month and a half, to fix the entire level range of mobs. Plus quests. Plus terrain. Not to mention adding content for the six or so number of newbie area that had 4 mobs in them for 100 people to fight over.
SoE is trash gaming, EQnext can be better than original eq and I will not play it because SoE should go out of business.
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That still sounds to me like a company had two different publishers, and couldn't come to an agreement on a set timetable for release. Yes, SoE could have taken faith in Vanguard and let it bleed money for another year. Instead it sounds like they gave the team money when Microsoft was pulling out. I highly doubt the Vanguard team signed a contract with SoE thinking they'd give them more than a few months for a release.
That might be the view from players, and I get that. But having been a developer/IT guy, it really sounds like Vanguard suffered from some really bad development.
If you google "Why Vanguard Failed" you'll see links to interviews all stating that basically Brad sucked as a manager, and that there was a lack of directions/support for the devs. And that SoE pretty much was completely hands-off except for stating "we want a game out" and lent them some developer support.
This link, whether it's valid or not (although it does line up with a blog post Brad himself made a few years ago detailing the same events) makes it sound like it was just the team itself to blame, not SoE.