Sigil collapses like a house of cards

I wish I could’ve been there, 4:30 pm, May 14th, enough was enough - justice took place. No, this wasn’t revenge by those who wanted Sigil’s downfall, it was justice for the continual mistakes and bad calls made by Sigil’s failed leadership - this collapse was the shockwave from one of the biggest budget flops the mmog genre has seen… Sigil employees in the building were told to gather outside, where they were promptly shit-canned, and left with the foreboding message to come back the next day and fill out their paperwork to see whether or not their future is with SOE. Devastating for most, imagine all the developers who poured their hearts and souls into Vanguard for years, only to see it end this way, but those with talent and experience will stay or move on and prosper.

Who will make Vanguard better?

Past leadership needs to go, no more McQuaid, no more Butler, both had their chances – it is time for them to move along and go back to their roots on developing muds for non-profit play.

Employ new lead programmers - various dupe bugs running rampant for weeks on end is unacceptable. Release a separate client that will run well on computers that don’t cost a kidney and a few extra ribs on the side.

Keep the content developers who know their shit onboard - mmogs use different engines, learning a new toolbox takes time.

As for the art department, I’m not sure. I do know, I don’t like a lot of Vanguard’s animations, I don’t like whoever decided “the unibody” was the way to go when it came to the character models. I don’t like that the UI was a pimply faced, third degree burned, butter faced, mongoloid leper that hooked on the side when loading into a new chunk. In other words, it wasn’t hot and the functionality needs further tuning.

Over a year ago I posted that Vanguard needed to be canceled, after playing the beta I knew, and anyone else with some common sense, that Vanguard wasn’t ready to be pushed out the door for at least another year – they ran out of money and had to release, but the time was there, Sigil had plenty of time…

In a way, Vanguard has been canceled, the team will be restructured and SOE will take the reigns. Let a new era begin, let the old Vanguard become a classic text book example on how to not develop a mmog - overall, a big risk on a generic fantasy IP with very few fresh features that never saw the light of day. Even if development turned out differently, with the same IP, I honestly believe the game would not have seen the 400-500k target in subscribers they were after.

While many might consider this news bleak, this is a bright future for Vanguard and those who play. Those enjoying the game, despite all its flaws and want to see new content added should be very thankful SOE rolled a saving throw and scooped up Vanguard, if they didn’t, it wouldn’t have been canceled, it would have died for good.

Hat Tip: F13