Nepotism and Incompetence - Sigil's Legacy 68
Visceral Monkey writes "In the wake of SOE's purchase of Sigil and Vanguard , there are a number of questions to be answered. The commentary site F13, purveyors of usefully cynical opinions, have a pair of fascinating interviews on the subject. The first is an anonymous discussion with a former team member, laying out the working conditions at Sigil prior to the end. The second is a talk with Brad McQuaid, one of the men behind EverQuest and the captain of the debacle that is Vanguard. Both interviews highlight the nepotism, incompetence, corruption, and evasion that were the last day of Sigil Online Games."
Brad was not responsible for EQ1's success. (Score:1, Insightful)
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As the article states, the thing Brad is very good at is selling and bullshit. I have seen them man in action and he can sell ice to eskimos but backing up the wind....not so much. I was not surprised by the statement of 'the dungeon was made especially to not show the flaws' for E3.
What I am really surprised by is the nepotism....seriously, rule of thumb is to keep the team seperate at all times. Hell, Brad should have known himself considering there was a few rounds of it under h
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No, but to his credit, he deserves credit for being able to say no to the player base.
WoW is the natural evolution of Everquest. It does practically everything the players wanted from everquest.
The irony is that WoW by giving players everything they want, has no point. Its easy. Its dumb. It has no soul. Everquest, by refusing to give in to the players forced the players to adapt and cope. When you accomplished something in Everquest (pre Luclin), it felt like an acco
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Ever run into a Fel Reaver?
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You miss the point. Losing to anything in the game - including a "fel reaver" - has no consequences. The worst thing that happens? You have to waste some time running back to a corpse (a brief flash in the pan compared to the time sink that is travelling around mindlessly when you're alive) and/or you have to pay a pittance to repair some equipment.
Warcraft's strong point is that anyone from an idiot to a genius can pick it up and play it, and it's failing point is the same. It's
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The guild I'm in (and this isn't too uncommon) hasn't even got to the end of Karazhan.
EQ was a timesink - nothing more nothing less. If anything WoW a good chunk of that and look where it left EQ... I honestly think most former EQ players (and I run into them all the time on Wo
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The guild I'm in (and this isn't too uncommon) hasn't even got to the end of Fear.
There, I oldschool Everquested it for ya. To say WoW raiding is somehow better than EQ raiding means you've never raided EQ. I haven't raided EQ for years, but I recall it being a ton of fun, challenging, and very very enjoyable. It's been a while since I've played a game t
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If you read what I wrote specifically excluded hardcore endgame raiding from what a trained monkey could do.
So we agree.
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A game where death was something that actually hurt, as opposed to the 15 s
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I got over that a few years ago. I now only enjoy games if there is an actual reward for my work, instead of just being allowed to grind to the next level. I enjoy plot, puzzles, and other such rewards. I do not enjoy mindless tedium in order to experience more mindless tedium.
I recently started pla
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I don't mind difficult. What I do mind is punishment for failing to meet that difficulty, especially since it sounds as though like most game developers SOE can't distinguish "hard" from "cheap".
It's bad enough that MMOs make you grind, though as you can tell by the fact that I'm subscribed to WoW I put
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Back in the late 80s, I used to play a MMORPG called Shades (in those days, they were known as MUDs). It was a proper hack-and-slash MUD, not one of these wimpy 'no PKing allowed' MUDs that came afterwards.
If you were killed by a bot or by another player, you lost half of your points.
If you were killed by another player in a fight you started, you lost EVERYTHING.
There were ways out of fights - for a small points penalty, you could flee (or for a larger points penalty,
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The risk of someone else screwing up and getting you all killed was far less than the risk of getting yourself killed if you tried to do anything interesting by yourself.
At least, I'd never join a PuG, because I'm never going to want to risk losing 2 hours of actual progress because of someone else's screwup.
I hear ya man, I mean, I know you only logged in to watch that little xp bar move forwards. The actual socializing,
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Who defined it like that? Everquest wasn't meant to be a game you 'finished'. It was meant to be a game you explored. There was plenty to do at 20th level, and even more to do at 30th. The game at 50th wasn't going to disappear, so
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No. I didn't mention it specifically, because negative xp is not the only way it can be handled. Other games have had meaningful death penalties without negative xp.
That's why in EQ you have the rare spawns that drop the loot that g
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Several things were put in the game that the "hardcore" players kept asking for, faster transport, easier binding, more uber loot in much harder places to get, tying tradeskills to levelling, and chang
It is about tastes (Score:3, Interesting)
To stay out of the MMO minefield I will instead use racing games as an example. Grand Prix Legends on the PC and, well any racing game on the consoles.
GPL is brutal, the cars are a bitch to handle, require real skill, have full length F1 races, are fragile as hell and have random breakdowns. This means that if you make a mistake that could easily be the end of the race, if you drive the full 2 hours succesfully you can still be out by a random failure or simply running out of fuel.
Compare this to console
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EQ2 no longer makes you go get your corpse to reduce anything. When you die, you suffer a 0.5% xp penalty, which you can either recoup by killing mobs, or if you go off-line for a few hours, it clears itself.
Even at high levels, it only takes a few mobs to erase 1 death's debt.
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I'm sorry, but the people who actually yearn for this type of game are a much smaller number than the people who play games to enjo
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What exactly is enjoyable about a game you cannot lose?
It makes the leveling part of the game quick and enjoyable (for the masses) and made the end game where they would focus on challenge and teamwork (for the "hardcores"). They combined the best of all worlds and dropped most of the boring crap and that is why it is popular.
The masses and the hardcores are different gro
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What exactly is enjoyable about a game you cannot win?
It's the nature of the genre. It's not win or lose - it's the journey. If I enjoy the journey, what's your beef?
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Nothing. I have no problem with anyone enjoying WoW. In fact I think its great that you have a title that's designed for your tastes.
I however, don't enjoy the journey in WoW. I find it a pointless endeavour where I don't have to think to progress, where simply being awake is enough. I find that profoundly unsatisfying.
I would like to play a more challenging game. It would be nice if someone wrote a good one. I don't expect you to play it.
I had hoped Vangaurd would b
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It's not that you cannot lose, it's that you have to work to succeed. You can grind out XP and gold on easy mobs all day and be bored stiff, or you can try to solo group quests or go into dungeons that actually require a modicum of teamwork and skill to complete.
A low death penalty encourages you to take risks and do fun, challenging stuff because the only real penalty for failure is failure itself. You don't have to go do boring stuff for 2 hours to
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Does that mean 8 million people are soulless idiots? Or that 8 million people just want to fuck off and forget the shit in the lives for short stints could also be made. Who wants to play a "game" and be "entertained" by being "brutally punished." And yes I realize that comment leaves itself open to S&M jokes, but seriously...
20 minutes of travel and 2 hours of monster killing just to retrieve your corpse? Sounds less like creative/intelligent game design and mo
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Yes. The popularity of reality TV adequately proves that.
Who wants to play a "game" and be "entertained" by being "brutally punished." And yes I realize that comment leaves itself open to S&M jokes, but seriously...
Civilisation? Masters of Orion II? DialboII "Hardcore" (permadeath)... there is no shortage of games out there that have the capacity to obliterate a player.
20 minutes of travel and 2 hours of monster killing just to retrieve your corpse? Sounds less
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Yes. The popularity of reality TV adequately proves that."
-> How is a person an idiot if they choose a different game than you? Are you the sole arbiter of popular culture?
"Who wants to play a "game" and be "entertained" by being "brutally punished." And yes I realize that comment leaves itself open to S&M jokes, but seriously...
Civilisation? Masters of Orion II? DialboII "Hardcore" (permadeath)... there is no shortage of games out there that have the capa
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So WoW is a game that can be challenging if you deliberately handicap yourself. I don't deny that. Anything can be made hard if you deliberately avoid the easy route and/or handicap yourself. That doesn't make the game itself hard though.
The point is, a game was made for your tastes, it is called "Vanguard".
I'm not sure Vangaurd is any good. I haven't played it. The reviews have been terrible... and not because its "hard", but because its not finished yet. The fact t
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I'll take it you've never heard of The Matrix Online.
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My point is that The Matrix Online is pretty much unrecoverable in terms of floppiness. If SOE had wanted to do something with the game, they would have by now. They'd have given it the storytelling and development resources that its original designers had envisioned for it. Plus, the hype that came with the movies was tremendous, but unless they release a sequel/prequel movie, they're never going to have that opportunity again.
On the other hand, Vanguard still has a chance to
Demotivators (Score:4, Funny)
Re:A favor (Score:5, Informative)
Ex-Sigil: A Few.
f13.net: Were you there during the Microsoft years? Or at least, before the split.
Ex-Sigil: Yes.
f13.net: In terms of hands-on involvement, how much did Microsoft make their presence known?
Ex-Sigil: Initially they stayed fairly hands-off, but as things got further along they wanted to see results of their money.
f13.net: Can you elaborate on that a bit?
Ex-Sigil: We gave demos to high-level Microsoft people frequently. These demos were often just dog and pony shows where content was created specifically for the demo. There was no intention that this content ever be used in game. When you spend 30+ million on a project, you want to see results. They became more and more suspect as time went on, and more and more people got involved. Though, they were mostly just oversight. They never sent anyone down here to actually work on the project.
f13.net: Did they set the milestones?
Ex-Sigil: They set monthly milestones. They wanted a succesful MMOG. They had so many false starts with other things that they just wanted a profitable game.
f13.net: They weren't trying to be the next WoW?
Ex-Sigil: Anyone who thinks you can make a WoW killer these days is foolish to try. You need to be your own game. WoW is a juggernaut and really needs to not be the watermark for success. WoW is a tough subject around Sigil too...
f13.net: Why?
Ex-Sigil: There are a lot of people, Brad included who were certain it would be a short-lived game. Some, in fact, including Brad, never played it. WoW should have been the example of 'look at what a good game can do!' when instead it was often spoken of like a bad thing.
f13.net: As WoW grew, did Microsoft expect more results from their new investment? Did the pressure get put on at any point?
Ex-Sigil: No.
f13.net: Then when did Microsoft grow suspicious that they weren't going to get an actual product out of Sigil?
Ex-Sigil: When they started testing it themselves.
f13.net: Or rather, talk about how and when things started going downhill.
Ex-Sigil: Tt's hard to say really, management never communicated stuff like that to us. Often times I feel like they told us more spin and nonsense then they told the public.
f13.net: So management kept everyone in the dark as much as possible?
Ex-Sigil: Completely.
f13.net: What was the rumor mill like at this time? Surely people had friends and spoke to eachother.
Ex-Sigil: Sure. People who had contacts at MS kept getting info that they were really unhappy with things, and at the same time, we had a set-in-stone release date of June/July... 2006. Or rather - that was when Microsoft was going to cut of funding.
f13.net: How long before those summer days did rumors of leaving Microsoft start flying around?
Ex-Sigil: Management told us they were shopping things around and were entertaining outside investors to complete the project. But actually leaving Microsoft as a publisher was never discussed until they told us it was happening and we were co-publishing with SOE.
f13.net: At this time, how far along was the game itself?
Ex-Sigil: Well... if you call what we shipped 100%, I'd put the game at around 65%.
f13.net: What were the terms of the alliance with SOE at this time, if you knew?
Ex-Sigil: Co-publishing, with Sigil retaining all IP rights... is what we were told.
f13.net: What was SOE's involvement from beginning the partnership up until E3 2006?
Ex-Sigil: No hands-on influence from SOE, only leveraging of SOE assets like testing.
f13.net: Let me backtrack a little bit, simply for background - what was the hierarchy like within Sigil?
Ex-Sigil: There was input all around, but at each level, that input was simply discarded by the decision makers. Basically there were a handful of people who made decisions, regardless of input from anyone else.
f13.net: Wh
How to conduct an interview 101 (Score:1)
Re:How to conduct an interview 101 (Score:4, Insightful)
Journalists are some of the least-informed, least-interesting, least-curious people. If they don't care about the subject of the interview, you get PR drivel. If they do care, they are biased and not objective and after the interview is edited, you basically get the journalist's spin rather than information.
These interviews were good because the interviewer cared about the answers and the subject.
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An interview that sounds more like a casual conversation is personal, informative, and to the point. An interview that lets the interviewee ramble on for 4-5 paragraphs feels too artificial to me. I prefer f13's style greatly.
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"We want to come back to SOE" (Score:5, Funny)
Sometimes things go wrong (Score:4, Interesting)
Vanguard had a lot of problems, but if you actually read all the interviews, the core of their problems seems to be excess optimism. They tried to create the end-all and be-all MMO, and they didn't have what it took to succeed.
They didn't have the money or time to achieve their vision. And they didn't have the discipline to narrow their vision to fit the resources they had.
A lot of the rest of their problems seem to be less significant (or facets of the lack of discipline). You can say Brad ought to have been in the office at some events, but that doesn't make any money change hands. Employees' feelings don't make an MMO succeed. Hype doesn't make a bad game good or an over-hyped game bad. The practical things are the ones that matter.
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I find Sigil very easy to criticize. ONE QA!? What the hell? Let me repeat that, one single QA. One person to test the entire game. For projects far less complex we use 10 times the number of QA people Sigil used. It's beyond mind boggling that a project of Vanguard's complexity has one single person doing QA. If that is not worth criticising,
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Brad explained this in his interview. Focusing on only having 1 QA person misses the big picture.
You're right about the bad management though.
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Deja Vu (Score:4, Insightful)
Vanguard = Daikatana
McQuaid = Romero
EQ1 = DOOM
Details here... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daikatana [wikipedia.org]
Same as it ever was.
This just in... (Score:1)
Most MMOs will be flops (Score:4, Insightful)
Worse, at least the movie business is rather mature. There are lots of people who know what they're doing, more or less. The MMO business is in its infancy. It's as if movies had been invented in 1970, then Jaws comes out in 1976, and you have a dozen production companies striving to reproduce that one huge success.
In this day and age, just getting an MMO out the door is basically a success.
Another Ex-Employee Chiming in (Score:4, Informative)
The meeting was even worse than this guy said. I heard that someone asked if there was going to be any kind of severence for people getting fired and when he didn't get an answer and asked again, Donna Parkinson... a direcor... managment... was overheard to say "would someone please answer this asshole." Nice touch, huh? That doesn't surprise me either.
There were dozens of problems with this project. But the bottom line comes down to mismanagement. Brad and Jeff isolated themselves from most of the company, leaving management of the the project, company, and personnel to the directors, namely Platter, Gilbertson, and Donna Parkinson (the former Office Manager turned Director of Business Development). And I can't think of one person at the company that has any respect left for any one of them.
The thing that sucks is that most of us there at Sigil left other jobs to be there. Some people turned down other offers and stuck it out to finish the project and finally get some kind of pay off for the rediculious hours and demands we had put up with. Now we all walk away with nothing. Oh, wait.... not all of us. Some people are house hunting with what they made from the sale of the company. The rest of us got nothing for our years of work and the sacrifices we made.
I keep reading comments like none of these people should ever be given management positions again. I agree. Hell, I wouldn't hire them to run a hamburger stand. And I will leave any project that they are ever attached to in the future. They don't deserve another chance or one bit of my respect.
To all of you in management that are moving on to SOE or got paid for your share of the company, I hope you all sleep well tonight and enjoy your new jobs and your money from the sale (I don't care how much you did or didn't get, you got more than the rest of us). I still believe what goes around comes around. So I am hoping that all of us that you have screwed over the past few years find a way to land on our feet again in spite of our names being attached to your company. And I hope other people finally see you for the back-stabbing, greedy, childish assholes the rest of us from Sigil already know you are.
Why does this surprise so many? (Score:3, Insightful)
A MMO that has more than 100,000 subscribers is basically printing money. Keep the customers happy, and you have a great revenue stream that keeps on coming. Sure, you can release some non-MMO and make xx% on those 100,000 copies, and have to patch it. Or, you can release a MMO, make that same money, and keep on making money from your monthly fee while you do those patches. Gee, I wonder what many companies tried to do?
Yep, make MMOs. LOTS of them. Look at some of the crap NCSoft is putting out. Some of them are old Korean games that are simply getting a re-skin. I liked CoH/V for simple fun, but most of their titles have been crap.
The problem lies in the fact that most of these MMOs were bad ideas that only got worse as the corruption and nepotism set in. Everyone wants to get in on that "sure thing" revenue stream that a successful MMO has. So, there was some nepotistic investor "bloat".
Brad simply had a major leg up on the competition. Simply having his name associated with Sigil and V:SoH meant that people were going to pay a LOT more attention to this game than any other new game publisher was going to get. And that extra attention, coupled with the Brad "fanboi" syndrome, meant a guarantee of a certain intial sales figure. Hello, Investors!
So, this shouldn't really surprise people THAT much. Sure, you wish Brad and Sigil had better motives and intentions, but making and running a MMO is pure business. Brad figured that out, and became just like any other business man. He did his best to ensure his own profits, and screw the guys who really got him there: the developers.
The sad part here is folks are getting bent out of shape over this, and it happens all the time in other businesses. Someone buys out company, brings in various "pet investor friends", milks the company a little, then sells it off. The employees that made the company get shit on, and the investors make a fortune.
Welcome to the real world, MMOs!
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I think that it's far sadder that this sort of behavior no longer provokes outrage in some people, like yourself.
Do you really that's it's okay that this is business as usual?
Really, people that pr