McQuaid spins his side of the story

Finally, the aftermath begins. Brad McQuaid emotionally drunk dials F13, Schild picks up and conducts a full disclosure interview that would end up as glossed over puff piece if done by the mainstream gaming press. The interview dredges up McQuaid’s take on the relationship and politics between Microsoft and Sigil, the management changes on Microsoft’s end that lead to incompetence with differing opinions on mmog development; scandals - including top management’s inability to keep their pen out of the company ink; and a lot more dirty laundry with the spin ultimately ending with McQuaid taking responsibility and apologizing to his former underlings.

Following Vanguard’s progress and looking back over the years, and now learning the the gory details on how all this shit played out behind-the-lines is fucking sad and pathetic - some of it, akin to something found scribbled in a gossip rag leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I’m left wondering if McQuaid was really cut out to be CEO or even an “idea guy” for that matter.
A few clips, followed by my own comments:

f13.net: What was the relationship in the office between Microsoft and Sigil prior to the split?

Brad McQuaid:: As I’ve posted a number of times, there was a regime change at Microsoft where they reorganized a lot of their game studios. The people who were in charge of the Vanguard project on the Microsoft side went elsewhere and a completely new group of people were put in place. In that new group of people, the upper management side were also in charge of getting the Xbox 360 out the door. So, the PC games at the time were not receiving a lot of support and I don’t blame Microsoft for this at all. When you’ve got billions of dollars spent trying to launch a new console and millions on the PC titles, you’re gonna make sure that the Xbox 360 kicks ass - I think they did a good job of that. The lower level people were put in charge of our project were people who didn’t have any MMO experience. They had done Zoo Tycoon 1 & 2. We tried very hard to bring them up to speed and with open arms to show them the differences and similarities between developing an MMO and a single player game - the scale and things like that. That just didn’t seem to work. Previously, the people who were dealing with us committed to us - verbally - that they, Microsoft, wanted and were determined to launch a AAA Massively Multiplayer Role-Playing Game - and to do whatever it took to make sure that happened. While that’s not down on paper - as no company ever would put down on paper - that was our understanding. Under the new regime, that commitment, nobody remembered it.

When games like WoW were getting heavily into development and dollar amounts on games like EQ2 and WoW were becoming public - we said it would always be our understanding and agreement that we would compete with these guys. They backed down off of that and said that it was no longer their goal and at that point, the money started drying.

Jon Grande worked at Microsoft and help pitched Vanguard and secure the deal between the two, I remember when he left to work at Sigil. Cue the change up of numerous positions and corporate shifts are never filled with rainbows and dancing unicorns - new conflicting agendas put on the table and the new tide rises and brings about change. There always seemed to be some underlying misdirection between the the parties. Peter Moore announcing Vanguard as both a PC and Xbox 360 game and Sigil denying the claim several times, although leaving the option somewhat open and advertising for a Xbox 360 programmer for the longest time.

f13.net: I was told that Microsoft actually came in and set a firm release date when you all were somewhere between 55 and 65 percent done.

Brad McQuaid:: Before the regime change, they had committed to us that they would adjust budgets and time frames to make sure it was a AAA game. These things take a long time to develop. Changes are happening, getting more expensive and customers are expecting more. We went back a couple of times together with [the managing team] to increase our budget or increase our time here and there. They were totally cool with that and understood that it was necessary to remain competitive.

After the regime change, that was considered “we were late” or “mismanaging” or “not adhering to strict schedules.” It was looked upon not as staying competitive or making a AAA WoW-level game but rather that we were doing something wrong. They frowned upon us needing more time or money. When we’d ask for it, it was considered that we were making errors. Each time that occurred the micromanagement would increase. More and more Microsoft people would come down and try to analyze what was going on. Where we were “messing up.” What they could do to “help us.” Until finally they flat out said no. No more money, no more time. Your release date needs to be in the July 2006 time frame and that’s it.

They didn’t have their MMO people anymore really, and they had a major priority of getting the Xbox 360 out which cost billions and billions of dollars. Our ability to petition this to higher-ups and get any attention just really wasn’t there.

I don’t want to appear to negative here… but this happens with large corporations. There are changes and changes in mandate and focus, and clearly the Xbox 360 is doing very, very well. It has great titles and Microsoft is sitting fine. It’s not like they made a catastrophic corporate error. I very much respect Microsoft as a whole and there are a lot of great people there and I’m definitely not one of those “I love Linux and hate all things Windows guys.” I understand that all these things happen. Unfortunately it happened to us.

There was a communication breakdown between Sigil and Microsoft. In the early stages of Vanguard’s beta, Microsoft would bring in groups of people to play test, it was hilarious, yet annoying and shitty. All these asshats would descend into the game, causing havoc in their wake and paid to answer shit like: What did you think of the game? and What would make it better? These dipshits would rail against Vanguard in general chat and talk about how WoW and Halo were superior. Vanguard was in such an early stage there is no way in hell that type of feedback testing helped or was needed. When McQuaid found out about he got all huffy-puffy on the beta forums and was upset, a lot of the Vanguard testers on the forums were rattled and had no idea or focus of what was going on or what they should be testing. McQuaid had little fucking idea about what was really going on in and out of the game.

Granted, early beta felt like a cheap mod you could find on any nwn modding site and Sigil was pushed into beta when it wasn’t ready. In Sigil’s defense they were experimenting with several game systems, innovation takes time and Brad bit off more than he could chew with his lofty promises and there was no way the dev team could complete them. However, other shit irked me, such as several lead devs tweaking the full experience curve, wasting days of their time leveling characters with some folks over on Silky Venom and throwing out excuses for not focusing on smaller unpolished chunks that really needed their time and energy. It was the worst mmog beta I’ve ever been in, and I wasn’t impressed with the development process, it was more sporadic rather than finish and polish one area first than move onto the next.

f13.net: And the next party… god, I am a fucking cynic. Why weren’t you at the firing party?

Brad McQuaid: Well, this is going to sound corny but it’s true. I would have broken down in tears.

I have a lasting message for McQuaid for avoiding face when it came time for the axe swinging: Grow a fucking set and get the fuck over yourself. What a piece of work, “I was emotionally distraught and couldn’t handle it, so I avoided it all together” is not a good excuse. Snort a Paxil, check your wussy emotions in your QQ money baby pillow and step the fuck up and be the messenger. I didn’t want to believe the rumors or assumptions, shit happens to everyone, maybe it was a medical emergency, or a death in the family, maybe he was really fired - you never know the whole story until you hear it firsthand from that person or you’re along for the ride. Now, that I know the truth, McQuaid is a selfish crybaby, who couldn’t take charge and be there for his company when shit really hit the fan and had to apologize to his former employees on some obscure anti-Vanguard fansite, what a fucking disgrace.