SOE official owns Vanguard

[darkov]

Okay, as it's no longer a rumor, new thread.

Originally Posted by Smed

Hello Everyone,

Today I would like to formally announce that SOE has acquired the assets of Sigil Games Online, including Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. As a part of this acquisition, we are bringing on approx 50 people from Sigil in order to insure that Vanguard continues to grow. SOE is dedicated to making sure that Vanguard is well taken care of and that we provide the same level of service we do for our other titles. In the near future we will come out with a publishing plan that will largely be driven by the strong player community that Vanguard has already built up. We plan on supporting Vanguard for many years to come, and you can expect many content updates as part of your subscription. Down the line we will of course be coming out with new expansion packs, but right now the focus is on making sure Vanguard is running the way it should be.

We are also officially opening up forums. In the past, our deal with Sigil didn't allow for this, but as with our other games we fill this is an important part of communicating with the playerbase. You can expect a strong presence from our community team as well as the development team members. While we realize that Sigil had said they wouldn't open up general forums, at SOE we fill this hampers our efforts to communicate effectively with the players. We will continue to support the fansites in a big way, and will be contacting many of them directly to discuss what this change means. By no means do we want to lose the strong fansite support by making this change, but we do think it's important to have a forum for players to communicate directly with SOE.

A few other items I wanted to mention

1. Brad McQuaid will be consultant to SOE as a creative advisor for Vanguard. Dave Gilbertson will be the person directly responsible for the day-to-day management of both the Sigil Carlsbad office as well as Vanguard.

2. We do not plan on making any major changes to Vanguard. Any changes are going to come from the team itself. We aren't mandating any big changes to the game. We've learned a thing or two with our experiences with the NGE and don't plan on repeating mistakes from the past and not listening to the players.

3. We do plan on spending a lot of time cleaning up legacy issues with Vanguard and making sure the game's performance improves.

By way of comparison, this team is approx. the same size as the EQ2 team and I feel like that team has done an amazing job improving EQ2 since it's launch. We intend to do the same thing for Vanguard and it is our hope that the players feel like we're doing right by them.

Smed

I'm happy about this.

http://forums.station.sony.com/vg/po...?topic_id=9105

[Ysharros]

Doh, you beat me to it

[Naiya]

2. We do not plan on making any major changes to Vanguard. Any changes are going to come from the team itself. We aren't mandating any big changes to the game. We've learned a thing or two with our experiences with the NGE and don't plan on repeating mistakes from the past and not listening to the players.

cautiously optimistic. I'll be sticking around and anticipating changes for the better until they prove this statement to be completely untrue.

(damn my optimistic attitude - it's going to get me in trouble one of these days)

[Pirotess]

Rofl. Gotta love it. I hope its just your link thats broken. Here's my first look at the new forums from SoE to improve communication.

SoE burned alot of their bridges with me not with the NGE but with their Exchange program. If they had built EQ2 with Exchange as part of the program from the get go, I wouldnt have had a problem with them. Adding it into the mix regardless of how "segregated" it was from the rest of our servers after launch was a horrible idea and cost them hundreds of subscriptions just from my guild and friends of the guild alone. Here's to hoping they dont try it on Vanguard.

[Ysharros]

You're not alone, Naiya. I plain cold practicality, SoE own most of the games I will consider playing right now -- EQ2, SWG, Vanguard, so being a hater is mostly cutting off my own nose to spite my face. And, maybe the *did* learn something from the NGE. We'll see.

/group hug

EDIT -- Piro, link is fine, I've tried going direct. I think the site is getting hammered badly. Would make sense.

[darkov]

I think Smed at least is a very clever person, he may not be a great game designer, but he knows his business. I also like the fact he compared it to EQ2, as that game has honestly gone from strength to strength after a terrible release.

Vanguard may never be huge, but as long as the server I play on is well populated and the game is fun, then it doesn't matter, I don't care about how many servers or subscribers there are beyond my server.

[Odball-1]

I'll be sticking around as long as there is a test server to call home, and the game doesn't go completely to hell in a handbasket.

I'll just wait and see.

[FEDS-91]

Just copied / pasted what I wrote in the other thread.

From the Smed statement:

2. We do not plan on making any major changes to Vanguard. Any changes are going to come from the team itself. We aren't mandating any big changes to the game. We've learned a thing or two with our experiences with the NGE and don't plan on repeating mistakes from the past and not listening to the players.

I'm honestly completely shocked he admitted to that. As a subscriber and player of Vanguard (easily the best MMO experience in my opinion since pre CU SWG) I'm still a bit pissed about the acquisition and am very nervous about this. I love Vanguard, so much so, that I'm actually not going to quit immediately with this news. I'll wait it out, but this time, if things start going away from where I think the game should go, I'm done, out, no questions asked, no 2nd chances. We'll see what they do with it, but I'm not hopeful. Goddamn I really hate to give $OE money for this, but right now my MMO options are best left with Vanguard until one of the SWGemu teams finishes and I am still as of right now enjoying the game.

We shall see.

[gelfling]

Count me as another who is cautiously optimistic although I was heartened to read Smed's admission regarding the NGE.

...gelfling

[Ralsu]

Originally Posted by gelfling

I was heartened to read Smed's admission regarding the NGE.

Yes! I think it was a huge thing to come out as the CEO of a company and admit that one of your policies led to terrible results. That was very encouraging.

Now, the next step is to be sure not to repeat the mistake. It's one thing to see the error of your ways. To mend ways is another matter.