Sigil - planless

A recent forum post of former Sigil-worker Kendrick sheds light on some of the things that went wrong in the development process of Vanguard. 

1st, Sigil planned a way too large game world:

The world size at launch WAS cut down dramatically.

Plan A was to ship with Thestra, Qalia, Kojan (a much larger Kojan) as "starter" islands, 3 "intermediate" islands about 75% of the size of the starters, and one huge "advanced" continent 4x as big as a starter, and quite a few small theme islands, with a level cap of 100 on release. The starter continents would have contained 1-30 content, intermediates 30-70, the advanced 70-100, and the theme islands would vary. [...]

Plan D is what you see now, with a downsized Kojan, and that started around 2005.

They planned to implement the quadruple (!) size of a current world. A world that is so large right now that you often feel lost in the middle of nowhere. Not until 2005, three years after the start of the development, they discovered the weight they took on their shoulder might be a little too much. And switched to the somehow doable current version of the landmass.


2nd, their staffing was unbalanced:

For the entire time I was with Sigil, the Art department was the largest department by far. It was only at later stages, after a goodly bit of the world had been constructed, that they ramped up designer staffing.

This may explain why many classes appear generic and superficial, why several class-race combinations lack of game world background. Why interracial and cultural conncetions are missing,...


3rd, Sigil exploited their art workers:

And almost the entire time I was there, the Art department was in crunch mode, furiously trying to build as much of the world as they could, at the same time having to go back and rework things as engine tech and building methodology evolved.

Four long years of crunch mode. Four years work-weeks of 60+ hours. This is madness?! *looks angry* This is [Sparta] Sigil!

When do companies finally learn that demaning 'the extra mile' every day does not lead to better results? Art is a creative job. If you don't give your workers some time to regenerate and to develop new ideas, the creeps and characters they design become soulless digital things you just bash on.


4th, content overload and lacking gameplay / code depth:

It was still easier to tweak geometry and apply new shaders than it was to just throw out already built work, btw.

The oft-cited "redesign(s) of the game" last year were almost entirely gameplay and code, both much easier to do than reworking art assets that had taken nearly 5 years to construct.

Art content can easily be added. It's 'just' feeding the databases. Gameplay is what matters. What makes the people play the game.


5th, too much self-esteem, over-estimation of their ressources:

Do it better than they (Blizzard) did, and do it bigger, while still retaining what we liked about EQ1.

Translation: produce a wonder. You CAN make it better than Blizzard - but then you'll have to make it smaller if you want to get done within 3-4 years. Or you make it bigger but similar in design. But you can't make both.


6th, quantity but quality in staffing:

Polish does need help, partly because the content designers there need more experience under their belts (and they're getting it...the hard way), and partly because things were rushed. Bugs happen, especially in a rushed environment, but they're doing a fair job of squashing those.

Translation: we hired tons of content designers - still they had no idea what they were doing. Maybe instead of teaching it to them "the hard way" they should've down-sized the content mass and give the experienced designers some time to share hints and tips?


7th, hardware requirements:

From my point of view, that's Vanguard's biggest shortcoming. Poor performance is real for many. Gameplay decisions, art style, etc, are subjective, some like it, some don't. But it's hard to decide if you like it or not if you simply can't run the game.

Exactly. When you release a game, you better make sure a lot of people can play it. Especially MMORPGs where a lot of marketing and information is spread by word-of-mouth. If the word spreads but not the game because the people don't want to or cannot afford a new computer system, you won't be able to refinance your development investments. Brad McQuaid, the producer of Vanguard, said they developed Vanguard 'for the long term'. As soon as players' hardware catches up, they would buy the game. Well, when I get a new computer system, I want to play the latest releases to test my new power horse on high details.

When the players have catched up to Vanguard hardware-wise, Vanguard will have to compete with Age of Conan or Warhammer. And that competition, I'd say, will be won by the later two due to overall better game design.