You begin to cast a spell: Vanguard’s Akkirus has been dispelled from the vision

Indeed, an enormous Vanguard Beta Leak of epic proportions that doesn’t break the NDA. Akkirus is the handle of Steve Burke who held a Senior Design position with Sigil for at least two years. I’m unaware if Burke fled on his own accord, if he was shit-canned or if he simply vanished. However, what is certain is that Steve Burke is no longer developing the developings on Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. This is a tremendous loss for “the vision” especially during Vanguard’s crucial beta development. Steve Burke was assigned as the lead for Vanguard’s quest team and assumed a myriad of other responsibilities and was one of Sigil’s very few prolific game designers.

How I came across the beta info I was tipped off by a friend over on by secret mechanical instant messaging gadget thus quickly engaging my skillset in justice scene investigations. First, I scoured Sigil’s employee biography page which provides concrete evidence that Steve Burke is no longer with Sigil Games Online as his biography has been removed. Being the stalker, I mean investigator that I am, I wanted to try and pinpoint the time frame for when Burke left. Looking at Sigil’s employee bio page via google cache on January 26th shows no bio for Steve Burke concluding his departure isn’t as recent as I first thought.

Another important fact is that I shot off an e-mail to Steve Burke’s Sigil work address and it bounced back, meaning it no longer exists, so even if he were furtively flagged covert to the Marvel mmog Sigil is developing his company e-mail address would still function. On the other hand, his forum handle does in fact exist and is still flagged the almightly blue, albeit his last post in the public forums was back in October and the moderators have been extremely lazy in updating the who is who list and adding developers that have been hired onboard within the last 6 months. However, I was also tipped off that Burke was still working on Vanguard as of early December.

So, I have somewhat of a timeframe, not as pinpoint as I would have liked, but sometime between December and January Burke left his senior design position with McQuaid & company for one reason or another. I went ahead and checked several Vanguard fansites and I found no news on Burke’s departure or any mention of it and of course nothing officially from Sigil. Normally, most companies don’t make formal announcements on departing employees, but I still find this to be important for anyone following Vanguard or who may be thinking about playing it down the road.

Many mmo enthusiasts, mainly Vanguard fanbois seemingly forget about the developers who implement and design content. The developers like Steve Burke who are on the frontlines making the design come to fruition, bringing a virtual world too life. Brad McQuaid is a CEO, busy running his company and working on several projects. McQuaid is not some miraculous game designer that’s going to save his fanbois cherry from their nostalgic Everquest experiences. Development is a collaborative environment. How many fanbois know of Bill Trost or any of the other original developers no one hardly discusses or gives credit too.

I’m wary about the current state of Vanguard. A year ago I thought Vanguard would heavily cannibalize subscriptions from Everquest 1 & 2. My viewpoint has been changing more during the last sixth months, with the departures of John “Kendrick” Capozzi, another former senior designer and now Steve “Akkirus” Burke, as well as the unfortunate death of Keith Parkinson. The core Vanguard developers belonging to this original vision dubbed in McQuaid’s Everquest era is fading before our eyes. The recent NDA beta leaks about Vanguard’s lackluster in engaging content certainly does not help Vanguard’s current on look and the recent influx of new associate designers with little to no experience have a lot too prove. I believe there is only two other original game developers left.

I was able to salvage a part of Burke’s development on Everquest that I posted on the fohrums last year. I couldn’t dig up Burke’s official biography via google cache or in any other searches, maybe someone else will have better luck if they look for it.

For Scars of Velious, he was able to populate Thurgadin A and help with a few other zones. He wrote and implemented the Coldain Ring quests, which concluded with a large scripted war in which players helped the dwarves in their effort to fight off an invading army of giants. He began another, similar line of quests with the Coldain Shawls, but had to hand it off to other designers when he was tasked with other work.

On Shadows of Luclin, he was responsible for Shar Vahl, Hollowshade Moor, Grimling Forest and Acrylia Caverns. Some of Acrylia Caverns was also handed off to other designers when he was promoted to Lead Content designer. Steve also participated heavily in the design of the Alternate Advancement systems.

As a lead, he worked with the team to revamp the newbie quests in all starting cities and headed the effort to revamp Cazic Thule, which was one of the most underused zones in the game at the time.

On Planes of Power, he worked with the team in the early phases of concepting story and high level gameplay elements before coming to Sigil.

I wish Steve “Akkirus” Burke the best of luck in his future endeavors and hope for the best. Replacing his talents in writing, scripting, and content implementation will not be easy for Sigil. I doubt even their last 5 new associate designers could make up for one prolific senior designer.