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It breaks down to…

… things to expect immediately:
More performance fixes
Fellowships (in test – release next patch?)
Better LFG functionality
More solo content
More small group content

…and things to expect in the near future (few months..?)
Raid content

…and things to come (an expansion – the next expansion..?)
Player cities

 SilkyVenom.com discussion  -  Original FoH post and discussion

Q. Who exactly made Vanguard ship early? Was it Brad that made that decision? Or was it Smed and SOE telling him to launch or else?If SOE ordered him to release it early, I’d have to give Brad a small break. If not, then he’s getting what he deserves.

A. Had I had the financial resources, ability to place the product later, etc. I would have given us about 3 more months to get more polish in, more high level content in, and to distance ourselves from the WoW expansion.That said, we knew the launch date for many months before we released. And we made a promise and we stuck to it. I understand why that date was given and why we had to stick to it and I don’t blame anyone.

We made our own share of mistakes that took up time that in 20/20 hindsight would have made up for those 3 months perhaps. I do believe, again in hindsight, that we entered beta too early because of the release date we had with MSFT — otherwise it would have been held off quite a while and a lot of time getting things working first operationally with MSFT and then again with SOE could have been avoided (e.g. would have only had to do all that once). Much of the roughness of our systems would have been worked out before people from outside Sigil and our publisher would have been able to have been addressed under that scenario as well. I’ve mentioned the pain in learning the hard way how different it is to manage a company of 100 people vs. a team of 23 was. We had a very experienced team, arguably the most, but it was still a team, from the designer all the way up to me, that had only made MMOGs that had lasted 3 years and taken 23 people, or expansions that had lasted one year.

Had I a time machine, I would go back and do a LOT of things differently, but then life doesn’t work that way. We didn’t repeat a lot of mistakes we’d already made, but made a lot of new ones given the team size, how ambitious the game was, and the fact that it took 5 years, not 3. Switching publishers, while necessary, also took a lot of time. It also took a lot more effort running the company from a non-creative standpoint than I had thought it would. With EQ, Smed and others handled the business side of things and I, my managers, and my team were able to focus on the game.

As Kendrick posted, we did scale back several times and significantly, but again looking back I probably would have scaled things back more so.

I do take issue with the assertion that I promised a bunch of stuff we didn’t deliver. I do fully admit my writing style is verbose and I made a significant effort to hype the game, but at the same time I also made a huge effort to manage expectations and let people know what might not make it in release, what was an expansion idea, etc. Sure, that changed as we got farther along with development. You can look up my posts and look at old copies of the FAQ and see the scaling back that took place (both what Kendrick mentioned and other stuff). And thinking back on it, while I posted a lot of these changes, the FAQ should have been kept more up to date.

I will say I think we did a pretty darn good job overall. We released a game that is probably 80% of what we’d originally planned outside of sheer landmass. We did not completely re-design major systems in beta other than diplomacy — we revised crafting and harvesting and made some tweaks to combat in terms of pace, how complex it became at what level, etc. But the notion that we threw a bunch of stuff out just isn’t accurate — again, some of the perception likely comes from starting beta when the game was really still in alpha. Probably the biggest features that didn’t make it in that I think would have been very cool (or some variant thereof): AES fully realized, fellowships, caravans.

Again, had we a few more months I think the game would have been more polished. That is one of the biggest things WoW taught us, the importance of polish, AI, general accessibility, etc. Launching near TBC was nuts, but again something that couldn’t be avoided. Switching publishers also took time, but we would have had a LOT less time to make the game had we not done so. MSFT underwent a lot of internal changes and had to focus on getting out the Xbox 360 — switching to SOE was simply another change that reality dictated during this long 5 years.

I think the biggest things that are hurting the game right now are:

1. Performance. We simply asked too much of the engine. Tech becoming faster and cheaper will help us with this issue over the next 6 months, but that’s 6 month’s that *might* have been avoided. That, and we would have had more time to polish and fix bugs and get better and more complete high level content in (and maybe even a more workable AES). We did run into this a bit with EQ 1 being one of the first hardware only games, but not to this extent. Ideally, you launch with both a flexible engine that grows with you and also in a tech window that doesn’t mean that a lot of your players feel the need to upgrade their machines significantly. Failing that ideal, however, I’ll take the more flexible, planned for the long term tech, and bite the bullet for overshooting in terms of tech than the former (undershooting and/or launching with inflexible MMOG tech that isn’t easily upgraded over the years to come).

2. Underpopulated servers. The reason we are enhancing the LFG system (other than it’s always a good idea in general) is because it’s too hard to find a group. One of the biggest reasons it’s too hard to find a group is that we were overly worried the newbie yards would be over populated the first couple of weeks post-launch that we opened with too many servers. That’s why we are working on better LFG tools, having to seriously consider overland teleports, etc. If a world at peak hours had 4-5k people on it, this wouldn’t be nearly the problem it is.

3. Launching so close to TBC. I never thought we were going to, but Blizzard’s launch date was a moving target and things could have worked out better there. Again, though, I think a decent percentage of WoW players are going to want a game like Vanguard (or any other MMOG this year) once they are burned out on the WoW expansion, so I think in the next 4-6 months this issue will become less and less as painful.

4. Marketing. There are two groups of ex-EQ 1, UO, DAoC, etc. players out there: the ones that look back fondly on the years they put into EQ 1 and those who don’t — either they’re upset or, more often, they simply have had their lives change and they don’t have the time to play another EQ 1. So when they heard about Vanguard and all of the EQ 1 people working on it they didn’t even give it a chance — they simply assumed Vanguard would be as hard core as EQ 1 (when it absolutely isn’t). We totally underestimated that second group, and I think if we had got the message out that Vanguard was not just another EQ with all of its time sinks, tedium, leveling times, necessary raiding, need for contiguous time commitments, and somehow got that message clearly and strongly through to that second group we would have launched more strongly. This is another issue, however, we will survive, not just by changing the marketing message, but mainly through viral marketing. Those ex-EQ 1 players who *do* buy Vanguard, and enjoy it, *will* slowly but surely let that second group of people know that Vanguard does *not* equal EQ 1 with better graphics in the ways some people look back, sigh, and mutter ‘never again’, but that it *does* have the elements in it that made EQ 1 a great game (as well as many of the cooler UO/SWG elements, new systems like Diplomacy, greater immersion, etc.)

So a lot happened in the almost 5 years it took to make Vanguard. We made our share of new mistakes, we were a bit too ambitious in terms of world size and feature set, we were definitely too ambitious in terms of performance, we lost some time switching publishers, we still could have used another 3+ months of dev time, the market changed in general, we did lose some time learning how to organize and manage a 100 man team, and it would have been damn nice to have not launched almost right on top of the juggernaut that is WoW’s expansion.

Certainly none of the above mistakes were planned for. Many/most were unexpected. Some of the mistakes were directly our fault, and some more indirectly and some totally beyond our control. I could write another one of my missives going into a lot more detail and maybe one day I will, but I will spare you my verbosity tonight. No matter what ,however, I was CEO and the buck stops here. None of the above do I use as an excuse as if life was unfair to us. We made some bad calls and were put into some bad situations. But I should have known better, planned better, and reacted better, so I take full responsibility. Most assuredly I cannot stress how proud I am of the Vanguard team, past and present, and all of the hard work, sweat, and tears that were put into the game. The team was and is incredible and it was an honor working with them. So regardless of screw-up or mistake, I take responsibility and apologize. The team should feel nothing but pride and a great sense of accomplishment.

That said, I still believe very strongly that we planned many or even most things correctly and that we launched a game that was 80+% the game we had planned to launch (again, other than totally reworking Diplomacy, tweaking some systems later in beta than I would have liked, and shrinking the world a LOT). And again I humbly but strongly stress all of the hooks and stubs that are in the engine, gameplay code, tools, etc — they *will* pay off. While Vanguard stands on its own as a fun game, despite the bugs and performance issues that we all know exist and have been talked about in this thread and others, it’s also set up such that we have years and years of cool features, content, land masses, etc. planned out in detail that will make the Vanguard of 2007, as cool as it is, pale in comparison to the Vanguard of 2008, 2009, etc. Relatively quickly, player run towns with an RTS element, ship and mounted combat, Diplomacy expanding to become more integral with factions, organizations, etc., user generated content, and so much more are really going to make this game shine. That, and even though it does require a lot of horsepower in terms of tech today, those issues will become less and less relevant as time goes by, with PCs getting so much faster and cheaper, RAM and bus speeds getting so much faster, graphics cards getting faster, physics cards, DX 10, utilizing Unreal 3.0 tech more and more, going into expansions with tools and tech that while still could use a lot of improvement are finally at a point where a lot of R&D won’t be necessary and that time will be much more efficiently spent putting in content, features, etc.

And finally I still feel very strongly that going seamless will really pay off as the live team adds efficiently to the existing world, databases of items and such can be updated en masse to slow MUDflation and at the same time refresh the world and make it feel more dynamic, ship travel and exploring vast archipelagoes becomes more integral, planes with unique physics models appear miles up into the sky, non-Euclidean Portal technology is used to build unheard of dungeon layouts, Underdark-style ‘chunks under chunks’ are added, the ability to load any art asset anywhere is more fully realized, and yes even the controversial ‘unibody’ system allows us to create *that* many more item & armor sets, adding even stronger visual variety to player characters in such an item-centric economy… I still feel firmly that even if we were early and our system specs initially high that all of this tech will pay off big time, especially in the mid to long term, given a genre that thrives on newness and patching, that demands a game world that remains interesting and compelling for year after year.

Anyway, the pages and pages that I posted promoting Vanguard, to get the word out, was the truth as best as I knew it at the time and I updated it as soon as it was obvious something would work differently or not make it in by release. And anything I did miss was unintentional, but the buck still stops here. Where I wasn’t clear, or where I failed to manage expectations — all of that was my responsibility. So while apologetic wherever and however we failed, overall I have no regrets looking back at the 5 years Sigil has been around and look to the next 5 years with even more anticipation. A lot of new mistakes were made, but we took notes and have long memories.

In summary, had a lot of the above not occurred then I think Vanguard would be nearing 300k or 400k and not 200k. A lot of the above caused the game to start out more slowly than I had hoped, anticipated and planned for. But still looking at both sales and retention, the game is doing well, even if in a more ideal world it could be doing even better. The team continues to work their butts off, fixing bugs, optimizing, putting in content, tweaking and balancing, and we have our first expansion and where we want new live content to go planned out for when the timing is right to begin that endeavor. So while all of the above, this post-mortem of sorts, may come across as critical and looking back negatively (and not by accident — much of this thread is doing just that, so this post is certainly not off topic), Vanguard is still far, far from a failure by any means. Few PC games, MMOGs or otherwise, do more than 100k units, and we surpassed that in a couple of weeks. So even with regrets, some kicking myself, and a lot of ‘dammit, if only…’ coming out of part of me, the rest of me is damn proud of what we have accomplished, and what we will and are accomplishing, and most importantly extremely honored to have worked with such a team and that so much of that team continues to march onward. Ultimately I am very grateful to God, MSFT, SOE, EQ, and so many other people and products for the opportunity to have been able to do this again. Few get to make even one successful MMOG, much less two. And fewer still given $8M to make the first one and over $30M to make the second.

*humbly bows*

What does it mean to the average player and how does it affect the gaming experience of the innocent players who do not stoop to external means to get ahead in the game? It’s often at the core of some heated forum debate or trade channel flaming session.

This video clip has MTV talking to some of the top players in the virtual gold/platinum market that feeds WOW and other massively popular MMORPGs.

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MMOSite writes …

“Vanguard: Saga of Heroes will be the premier third generation massively multiplayer RPG. A vast, seamless, immersive virtual world filled with elements of familiar High Fantasy, including traditional themes and more, all depicted using cutting-edge graphics technology. Sigil s expertise and experience in the field will bring groundbreaking static and dynamic content to the genre. Vanguard will build upon the successes and strengths of earlier MMOGs to improve popular game mechanics and features, but also address these pioneering games mistakes and deficiencies. Vanguard will focus heavily on interdependence, challenge, and reward, while simultaneously addressing tedious and annoying issues, including camping, excessive downtime and more.”

The interview covers several unique questions, and exposes a few unique points. I’ve highlighted a few, but you can read the whole article at MMOSite.com.

MMOsite.com: How do you come up with so many abilities/spells? Have any other games or works influenced your work?

Darrin McPherson: Good question.  We have a lot of influences.  Games we have played, books we have read, movies we have seen.  It is not any one source, but more a collection of them.  It is not easy and we often feel pretty thinly stretched.  It is not because we run out of ideas, it is much more that we run out of new things to do within our limits.  A good example of what I am talking about can be had by comparing a video game to a pen and paper game.  Pen and Paper designers are not constrained by things like Interface, Animations, NPC assets, Sound and Particle Effects.  Our limitations are very real and it can be tough to do something new time and time again using the same building blocks.  The challenge is fun though!

MMOsite.com: Concerning abilities, the official website states that: “Some will be usable throughout combat, some will have to be prepared and are usable only a finite number of times per combat.” I am curious about the second portion, the “finite amount of times per combat”. Can you give us any more information about this?

Darrin McPherson: Some abilities are limited in their use, either by long refresh timers or special expendable pools.  Players are encouraged to only use some abilities when they are in sore need of their effects.  Your standard fireball spell can be used whenever, but we only allow you to use Meteor Storm once every so often.  This allows us to make Meteor Storm much more powerful than your typical spell.

Read the whole interview at MMOSite.com

VanguardMMORPG reviews the interview highlights below, but you can read the entire interview at FiringSquad.com

Vanguard Mounts & Flying Mounts
FiringSquad brings up one element that will stand out as unique in Vanguard – Mounts. Unique in that there are lots of variations from horses & unicorns, to hell hounds & battle cats, to boats & who knows what else. Perhaps most unique are the flying mounts that are not restricted to a set of flight paths but allow free travel.

Nick Parkinson indicates that mounts will play an intregal part in the gameplay of Vanguard from as early as level 9 or 10
“The size of the world is immense and players are going to want some way to keep travel time at a reasonable level…you’ll be able to get your first horse pretty early on…constant upgrades…are available after that…”

Vanguard’s Visual style & depth of game play.
Nick Parkinson goes on to outline 2 other significant elements that help set Vanguard apart from the other MMORPG’s out there. 

“I think two things will separate us from the crowd. First, our visual style – the late master fantasy artist Keith Parkinson served as art director at Sigil until he passed on in late 2005. He established the look of Vanguard through the eyes of a painter and as a result, it feels much more alive and organic – much like an oil painting.

Depth of game play is the other big thing. There’s just so much to do. Gameplay is broken into three separate spheres. Two of them, adventuring and crafting, should be familiar to most players. But the third, diplomacy, is something that’s pretty new to the MMOG genre…”

Vanguard using a highly modified version of the Unreal engine
Vanguard uses the Unreal engine, but Nick Parkinson outlines that numerous updates, revisions, alterations & refinements have been made by the Sigil team to make the FPS engine work for this MMORPG.

“We’re constantly working with the guys over at Epic…making tweaks and adjustments…Our graphics engine is more of a hybrid at this point…We licensed the Unreal engine…we’ve had to make a lot of modifications…to make it into an MMOG engine that will fill Vanguard’s needs.”

Sigil’s Partnership with Microsoft
FiringSquad starts off with a few questions about the split-up of Sigil & Microsoft that ended with Sigil buying back the rights to Vanguard and moving on to SOE (Sony Online Entertainment).

Brad McQuad answered these questions with…

“We remain good friends with the folks at Microsoft and look forward to creating a AAA MMOG for them, even though it will be a 3rd party Windows game now, and not a first party. We had some differences, but the biggest catalyst here was that we found the opportunity to buy the publishing rights back, which is good for Sigil no matter what else did or didn’t happen.

Like I have been saying, this gives us even more (perhaps even unprecedented with a game this far along and this big) control, a chance to be a co-publisher, and to all around have more influence on how Vanguard turns out. Even were things perfect (and things are never perfect), it was an opportunity that couldn’t be passed up on.

So we are still a 3rd party windows title and an important MMOG for Microsoft from a platform perspective — short term as an XP game and long term as a game that is perfect for highlighting and taking advantage of what Vista will offer users. Vanguard is a perfect game, again thinking long term, to take advantage of Vista’s more entertainment-centric approach, increased use of graphics and tools for game developers. Online gaming is also very important for Vista.

Lastly, Vanguard screams for a native 64 bit client at some point because of its seamless world. When the time comes for a 64 bit client, when graphics cards are even more powerful but also cheaper, when RAM prices go down, etc. we will be able to access more than 2 gigs with a 64 bit client and then load up a huge amount of the world at one time. Right now you can see 4+ km in the game — which creates views and an immersiveness that MMOG gamers love. With a 64bit client and a lot of RAM, we will be able to load up much more of the world at one time and the way we have architected the engine ahead of time, knowing where technology, operating systems, etc. are going to go in the future, it will be very easy to create vistas in the game (pardon the pun) where you could see 10, 15, maybe even more km. So the switch from being a first to third party windows title still helps Microsoft out, especially longer term with Vista. This is one of the key reasons they were fine with our asking them if we could exit from the deal if we found funding to do so.

In addition to that, I know its such an overdone PR line to say that we’re still good friends with all the folks up there but it’s the honest truth. There’s a lot of good people up at Microsoft who put a lot of hard work into Vanguard and want to see it succeed just as much as we do.” – (Brad’s response quoted in its entirety from the FiringSquad interview)

Sigil’s Partnership with SOE
Nick Parkinson goes on to explain why Sigil chose SOE

“…the simple answer is because for what we need they’re the best at, plain and simple…SOE will be handling distribution, data center operations (hosting the game, etc), technical (not in-game) support and will be helping us a lot with marketing. All areas where SOE really shines…logistically they make a lot of sense too. They’re just down the road from us here in San Diego and a lot of us have worked with them before, so we’re already familiar with one another…”

Vanguard prepared for evolving MMORPG market
Vanguard has been in development for several years and the MMORPG market has changed significantly during that time. FiringSquad wonders about intimidation Sigil might be feeling entering a field that has expanded so much?

Nick Parkinson turns that around by suggestiong that these changes just make it all the better.

“It is more excitement really. The biggest change…has been the size of the market. There’s so many more people playing online games now…”

Vanguard release date?
Finally FiringSquad asks about “what we’re all anticipating When can we expect the game to launch its beta test and when is Vanguard’s official launch scheduled?”

Nick Parkinson responds

“We’ve been in closed beta for a while now actually and are quickly nearing Phase 4 – which will see a lot of new people be brought in to help test the game. As for a launch date, all we can really say at this point is Q1, 2007.”

Thanks to the guys over at FiringSquad.com for posting the interview – you can read the entire Vanguard MMORPG interview at