SOE new MMORPG, smedley involved

[Skacer]

Wow Drift3r, someone who reads FoH boards posting here? The only thing I'll add is there was several ex-Sigil who refused to place blame on Brad. Either because they didn't want to ruin their rep in the industry or what have you. I read something to the effect that the team worked very hard to make a great game, they just failed. Who do you really blame for that? Sometimes people just fail. SOE threw them a bone and also gave several members of the team jobs. You can't really get mad at SOE for that.

 

[Skacer]

Originally posted by: coloumb
But to get back on topic - it sounds like Sony/SOE has taken serious look at the success of 2nd life and wants to see if they can "cash in" on the same genre and maybe take it a few steps further... However, with his track record, I only forsee them screwing it up somehow...

Makes sense, considering 2nd Life has an absolute ton of people and it is a hideously ugly game. If I were in the business looking at 2nd Life I'd probably be saying to myself "Jesus I could do this better" too.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Sony, of rootkit fame

That was not entirely Sony's doings, but that of SonyBMG, a different company that was a joint venture between Sony and BMG
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2...opy_protection_scandal

So, if one is going to play the rootkit card, one needs to also blame BMG.

 

[Drift3r]

Originally posted by: Skacer
Wow Drift3r, someone who reads FoH boards posting here? The only thing I'll add is there was several ex-Sigil who refused to place blame on Brad. Either because they didn't want to ruin their rep in the industry or what have you. I read something to the effect that the team worked very hard to make a great game, they just failed. Who do you really blame for that? Sometimes people just fail. SOE threw them a bone and also gave several members of the team jobs. You can't really get mad at SOE for that.

I understand that people fail but as with everything in life there are sometimes very fundamental reasons why people fail. I am not taking away from the effort of the grunt devs and artists that worked for Sigil that tried to put out a successful game. Yet the reason for this failure lays directly at of the top of the food chain in Sigil. The buck stops at the top when you fail this bad and it's clear that Brad did not know how to manage and run his company in such a way as to clearly set out and accomplish their goals in a timely manner. When the head of the company bails on his "Vision" and leaves his staff to fend for themselves after the second phase of beta testing and only shows tepid interest in what they are trying to accomplish it shows a lack of character and leadership IMHO. Of course that is just my old fashion opinion.

 

[CKent]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh

Sony, of rootkit fame

That was not entirely Sony's doings, but that of SonyBMG, a different company that was a joint venture between Sony and BMG
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2...opy_protection_scandal

So, if one is going to play the rootkit card, one needs to also blame BMG.

Absolutely, I determined BMG were garbage when they kept mailing me those stupid free CD offers when I was a kid. How does this absolve Sony though?

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: CKent

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh

Sony, of rootkit fame

That was not entirely Sony's doings, but that of SonyBMG, a different company that was a joint venture between Sony and BMG
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2...opy_protection_scandal

So, if one is going to play the rootkit card, one needs to also blame BMG.

Absolutely, I determined BMG were garbage when they kept mailing me those stupid free CD offers when I was a kid. How does this absolve Sony though?

I never said it did, I am certain that if BMG or Sony wished to stop it, they could have.

 

[jdport]

Having beta tested Vanguard... I can only go by my play experience, I don't know anything behind the scenes about "Brad mismanaging Vanguard" or anything else.... but it just seemed to me that the game failed because the "Vision" that was so highly touted and that sounded so awsome on paper, just didn't work in actual gameplay. So many of the ideas that Brad wanted to implement in the game just didn't work when put out for the players... the game wasn't fun. I don't know if those ideas just don't work, or if the technology wasn't all there to make them right... I think to a large extent the ideas just didn't work because they were created with the premise of players playing according to the vision.. and the Vanguard creators attempted to force the players to follow their Vision of how players should play, but players DON'T play that way and they can't be forced to.. and the more mechanisms you put in to try to steer playstyle a certain way the more unfun the game becomes.

That's just my take.. I don't think Brad ran the game into the ground, except in the fact that when his ideas were not working when put into actual practice, he wasn't flexible enough to let go of them. That's not entirely bad... it's probably better for Vanguard to go down in flames than to become a WoW clone... there are enough of those, so I'm all up for games trying to change things up. This one just didn't work though.

 

[hooflung]

Originally posted by: jdport
I didn't play SWG so I only go by 3rd party info but I never heard anybody other than you that thought SWG was so hot. There were aspects of it that were good.... but the class balance was all fubar'd, and there were jedi's running everywhere...

I don't know. The point is, yea SOE screwed it up... but that has been covered to death in every single post where SOE was mentioned ever since then... so maybe it's time to just talk about the actual subject of the thread

The game talked about in the original post didn't sound that great to me... not like something I'd actually play.. it sounded like an SOE version of Second Life... they probably looked at the revenue that "world" generates and decided they wanted to tap into that. It did make me curious though to hear more about it.

What SOE did was absolutely murder the ingame lives of their customers and say 'deal with it.' It wasn't a bug fix, or a balancing act. It was for all intents and purposes a new game which the majority didn't want. You can't forget history... buying into an SOE game especially one they didn't make, is riddled with doubt. Doubt they deserve.