Ex-Sigil Interview on F13

Epic interview. This explains just about everything concerning what went wrong with Vanguard / what can go wrong concerning MMO / game development.

In short: during the Microsoft years, they handed over fake demos to their investor. As the investor (Microsoft) found out, they got out ASAP. Management was apparently quite... unsensitive regarding funding („Oh well we'll get it done and financed somehow...“). So was SOE. When they took over, they just put some money in. They weren't really involved, meaning they seemingly didn't really care to find out why Sigil was looking for new funding midst in development. This may be due to Brad McQuaid being „one hell of a salesman...“.

The producer thought WoW was a bummer – he didn't really KNOW it though cause he never played it. McQuaid didn't communicate important (any?) news to his colleagues. Overall, every decision maker behaved like an arrogant monarch, didn't really care about the opinions of those who were actually making the game, and didn't dare to help in any kind. For example they didn't see a need for a scripting language tool even though everybody demanded it thus severly hindering game development. And resulting in 9+ months crunch mode.

Problems were ignored. Not fixed. Because the one in charge was „one hell of a salesman...“ and „passionate“, but not rational and realistic, he didn't even know about the actual state of the game. When he played the beta, he realized what was going on – and ran away like prey. And the new management was scared to make decisions.

After all this mis-management, people were told to gather at the parking lot after work by email (!) – and then emotionless told that they were all fired, with some having the chance to be re-hired by SOE. Brad McQuaid wasn't there.

Right now, Vanguard has around 90,000 subscriptions and sold 200,000 copies of the game. That is 6,000,000€ out of sales and about 1,100,1000€ / month. The development of Vanguard cost Microsoft about $30,000,000, I'd suggest Sigil probably paid round about $10,000,000.

Well, let's end with a legendary quote:

f13.net: How was QA treated through the course of development?

Ex-Sigil: QA?

f13.net: QA.

Ex-Sigil: QA was one person up until about November... ONE.

f13.net: What.

Ex-Sigil: 100% serious.

f13.net: What? How? This is an MMOG.

Ex-Sigil: Vanguard had one internal tester for probably 95% of the design cycle.

another McQuaid

That guy is funny:

"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 we would have launched more strongly."

Source

Ok, let's see...

1. no time sinks - wrong. Long-lasting travel times and journeys, farming hours for crafting,...
   
2. no tedium - wrong, bashing on many different but soulless mobs to gain a level is tedious.
   
3. no leveling times - wrong. Leveling takes comparably long in Vanguard.
   
4. no necessary raiding - wrong. That'll come as soon as enough players have reached lv50 and when they demand more and new content.
   
5. no need for contiguous time commitments - wrong. It's even three meaningless grinds: adventuring, crafting and diplomacy.
   

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Mr McQuaid, you fail.

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.