Originally posted by Daffid011

Originally posted by Redemp

 You folks need to get off the pedestal ,  the only reason you've been able to enjoy Vanguard this long is because SoE rescued it.

 

I keep hearing people say this same thing about Vanguard and I just don't understand where it comes from. 

 

What exactly was Vanguard "rescued" from?

 

Did SOE rescue Vanguard from early release with proper funding?  No.

Did SOE rescue Vanguard from a horrible launch?  No.

Did SOE rescue Vanguard from a painfully slow death?  No.

Did SOE rescue Vanguards reputation by putting the SOE logo on the box?  No.

 

 

I'm not sure what SOE rescued at all.  All of those things were going to happen with or without SOE.  It isn't like SOE rescued Vanguard from being a complete failure. 

 

The only thing that is noteworthy that SOE has done is "rescue" Vanguard from being purchased by another developer.  Looking at how many other failed games are being purchased by game developers who relaunch those games I think it is safe to assume Vanguard could have been in the same situation if it were not for SOE being involved.

 

 

 

Er what?

Vanguard was developed by Sigil.  Sigil was dumped by Microsoft because the game was bad.  Developers were jumping ship from Sigil because management was bad.  Vanguard had no publisher and no one was touching that game.  SOE came in and signed on as a publisher but Sigil was the developer.  Sigil released the game and no one bought it.  Most of the people who did buy it couldn't play it because it was busted.  The game launcehd with two classes that were never even finished.  There were quest chains that just stopped at level 12.  You had a quest and couldn't continue because the game didn't update the quest.  That was 100% Sigil.  0% SOE.

Next, SOE purchased the game.  So at this point they are both the developer and publisher.  They went in, fixed it.  Made it run on most machines.  Fixed quest chains.  Cut out completely broken content.  Built a new starter island.  Finished content that Sigil never finished in Beta.  Built development tools so that customer support could actually do their job.  Polished some graphics.  Then after all that they gave it to everyone who had a station account.  They made it free to play for 2 months for everybody.  They made it free to all station players for 6 months.  And the result was people didn't play it.  The game didn't appeal to people.  Since the game didn't draw players, and station pass access people don't even touch it then they started shrinking the dev team.  Now its on life support and not one developer in this reality can save this game because its not a game that appeals to a large audience.  I have a station pass and I log in for 10 minutes ever few months and I'm only reminded that the game sucks and delete it.

Originally posted by Daffid011

Originally posted by Redemp

 You folks need to get off the pedestal ,  the only reason you've been able to enjoy Vanguard this long is because SoE rescued it.

 

I keep hearing people say this same thing about Vanguard and I just don't understand where it comes from. 

 

What exactly was Vanguard "rescued" from?

 

Did SOE rescue Vanguard from early release with proper funding?  No.

Did SOE rescue Vanguard from a horrible launch?  No.

Did SOE rescue Vanguard from a painfully slow death?  No.

Did SOE rescue Vanguards reputation by putting the SOE logo on the box?  No.

 

 

I'm not sure what SOE rescued at all.  All of those things were going to happen with or without SOE.  It isn't like SOE rescued Vanguard from being a complete failure. 

 

The only thing that is noteworthy that SOE has done is "rescue" Vanguard from being purchased by another developer.  Looking at how many other failed games are being purchased by game developers who relaunch those games I think it is safe to assume Vanguard could have been in the same situation if it were not for SOE being involved.

 

 

 

Please show me another company who is willing to buy it out, and make a offer.  We head there was one a year or so back.  But honestly in the shape vanguard is in my money would be on gamersfirst, after all they just bought FE and it was a flop.

No sigil was failing, they approached soe, not the other way around.  They new they had a flop thus soe agreed to buy them out. 

Folks so forget the alpha and beta of Vanguard and all that went on.  And folks complaining that soe is criminal on how they advertise the game.  I would point at eq1, and eq2  DO you see any ADVERTISING???? NO, and those are the mainstay games that everybody keeps saying the reason why soe bought them out.  SOE has never advertised any of their games much except DCUO and what a flop that is.   Now and then I see a banner add for eq2 extended but really the only advertising that SOE gets is word of mouth.

Honestly do you really thing with all the bad publicity that vanguard has that anybody will come play?  Take a look at the free 45 days that all of us got because of the hack.  Do you see the servers packed,  NO!.

Honestly I want to see a game company try to buy them out, is it going to happen, I very much don't think so. No game company going to touch this game.

Originally posted by gt4980b

Er what?

Vanguard was developed by Sigil.  Sigil was dumped by Microsoft because the game was bad.  Developers were jumping ship from Sigil because management was bad.  Vanguard had no publisher and no one was touching that game.  SOE came in and signed on as a publisher but Sigil was the developer.  Sigil released the game and no one bought it.  Most of the people who did buy it couldn't play it because it was busted.  The game launcehd with two classes that were never even finished.  There were quest chains that just stopped at level 12.  You had a quest and couldn't continue because the game didn't update the quest.  That was 100% Sigil.  0% SOE.

Next, SOE purchased the game.  So at this point they are both the developer and publisher.  They went in, fixed it.  Made it run on most machines.  Fixed quest chains.  Cut out completely broken content.  Built a new starter island.  Finished content that Sigil never finished in Beta.  Built development tools so that customer support could actually do their job.  Polished some graphics.  Then after all that they gave it to everyone who had a station account.  They made it free to play for 2 months for everybody.  They made it free to all station players for 6 months.  And the result was people didn't play it.  The game didn't appeal to people.  Since the game didn't draw players, and station pass access people don't even touch it then they started shrinking the dev team.  Now its on life support and not one developer in this reality can save this game because its not a game that appeals to a large audience.  I have a station pass and I log in for 10 minutes ever few months and I'm only reminded that the game sucks and delete it.

We will never know who might have gotten involved with Vanguard, because SOE was the first person Brad approached.  Sigil and SOE signed a deal before Brad ever went looking elsewhere.  Brad said as much in his blogs. 

Tell me what company in their right mind would want to be involved in a project that has 3 companies already involved?  SOE/Sigil publishing partnership and Microsoft still being owed a balloon payment? 

SOE has spent the last four years throwing table scraps at Vanguard and the summary of their efforts is that they almost got the game into decent enough shape to be launch ready.  Most of that was finishing projects Sigil had already started.  Then they undid all the positive with the horrible 51-55 half assed content.  That is the summary of four years of salvation? 

Again I have to ask what exactly was Vanguard rescued from, because I am not seeing it.

Was it rescued from a terrible release?  no.

Was it rescued from becoming a failure?  no.

Originally posted by erictlewis

Please show me another company who is willing to buy it out, and make a offer.  We head there was one a year or so back.  But honestly in the shape vanguard is in my money would be on gamersfirst, after all they just bought FE and it was a flop.

No sigil was failing, they approached soe, not the other way around.  They new they had a flop thus soe agreed to buy them out. 

Folks so forget the alpha and beta of Vanguard and all that went on.  And folks complaining that soe is criminal on how they advertise the game.  I would point at eq1, and eq2  DO you see any ADVERTISING???? NO, and those are the mainstay games that everybody keeps saying the reason why soe bought them out.  SOE has never advertised any of their games much except DCUO and what a flop that is.   Now and then I see a banner add for eq2 extended but really the only advertising that SOE gets is word of mouth.

Honestly do you really thing with all the bad publicity that vanguard has that anybody will come play?  Take a look at the free 45 days that all of us got because of the hack.  Do you see the servers packed,  NO!.

Honestly I want to see a game company try to buy them out, is it going to happen, I very much don't think so. No game company going to touch this game.

How can I possibly name companies who might buy Vanguard?   I was pointing out that there have been a lot of various companies buying up underperforming/failed games, putting in some development and rereleasing them.  So it is a very good possibility that someone might do the same for Vanguard.  There have been rumors of several offers being made to SOE for Vanguard. 

Originally posted by Daffid011

 

 

This is the saddest part of the whole situation.  Vanguard, even with all of its problems is still better than most games on the market.  With proper support it could still draw in a decent number of players, because it fills a niche that isn't being addressed.

It's a four year old game that crashed and burned on its launch and which has been abandoned by its developers except as a free paycheck from the small number of players  who still choose to log in.

SOE just gave people 45 free days of play for all their games. VG hasn't shown any marked population improvement, and people this site and elsewhere knew about that free game time. Exactly how is VG supposed to draw a decent number of players if it can't even gain the interest of its former playerbase?

I agree with what you are saying, but 45 free days to a dead unsupported game that could close down any day isn't exactly going to draw in crowds.  Not to mention the 45 days arn't some promotion but some sort of apology for the security breach.

Players need to feel confident that a developer is going to support a game.  Otherwise there isn't much point in investing time into that game when there are so many other choices.  Regardless of the untapped potential in a game. 

It is funny how the conversation starts about saving the game but always turn into a history lesson on whose fault it was .What difference does it matter, the game isn't getting love from anyone. Sheesh...

Hey, since Gamersfirst, I think that's who it is, is buying everything of late and converting them to FTP, SOE should sell VG to them.  I would be all over that.  Imagine owning APB, FE and VG?  And revitalizing them with FTP and new devs.  WoW.

Originally posted by Xeonsoldier

It is funny how the conversation starts about saving the game but always turn into a history lesson on whose fault it was .What difference does it matter, the game isn't getting love from anyone. Sheesh...

Well to be completely fair, this thread didn't start out as the typical save vanguard rah rah rah post and it most certainly has the overtone of SOE not being responsible enough to deserve having the game.

Arrested development for sure.  Or maybe suspended animation?

Actually *pushes his specs back up his nose* I saw quite a few people coming back to Vanguard in the wake of the hacker fiasco and the guild I belong to is always busy. It's a marked improvement on how it felt when I first picked the game off Steam a year ago; I tried it for a few days and left because it was so bloody barren. But with people it's actually a hell of a good PvE game, I may cautiously say one of the best. I just got off a group at level 16 in Khegor's End and we had one absolute stonker of a boss battle at the end of the dungeon crawl - it felt proper epic.

And it's good because the original content is there, but also because SoE made it playable. So there, I'm giving credit where it's due.

But now I think it's time to open up Vanguard with a, (carefully thought out), F2P model.

I'm not shaking the hand of hyperbole when I say if this game received a notable population spike with a F2P model it could be golden. Nevermind the worries about a degredation of the quality of player and all that, that's what ignore lists are for. Just getting bodies in would really resurrect this game - it's stable enough and got the content to go places.