The Long and Morbid Tale of Sigil Games Online: Interview Edition

[Azazel]

I have nothing useful to add for the moment on the topic, so I'll just say kudos to Schild. Good job on the interview, mate.

[Endie]

Dead right: that's why my evenings are spent doing a postgrad course towards my masters - M883: Requirements Gathering in Technology Management - for my masters.  It's not what I enjoy doing, but I know I need to do it better.

I just slogged through (managed a B, which frankly was generous given my total lack of interest and corresponding lack of effort) my last graduate level project management course

Who did you do it with?  What you do as a job seemed not a million miles removed from my own work, even if the details of language and target are different.  I'm genuinelly intrigued as to your experience with it.

If you're doing the software management, you're not going to have time to sling the code or design the cool quests or in fact do anything but manage. It's a lot of hard work, and about the only perk is when it gets done right and on time and on budget -- you can take some comfort in the fact that all those red-hot talented designers and coders only got there because you did a shit ton of heavy lifting behind the scenes...Of course, I'm just biased. My Master's is in Computer Science -- software management courses are more of a token gesture for me. I certainly don't want to do that heavy lifting. :)

Yeah, I'm doing it for the same reason I learned C# when MS first released the language specs, or when Java first launched, or half a dozen stupider bets: paranoia.  I saw what happened to the Cobol guys in 2001 and I always want an "out" if the bottom falls out of what I am currently doing.

[Lietgardis]

Yeah, but you shouldn't have to root through code for apparently off-the-cuff numbers because you shouldn't be using literals in every quest. 

That's what I mean by "data-driven."  I don't care how the server handles the data, I just want to connect modules and enter numbers, and I want to review and change them after the fact in a tabular format.  I think exporting it to some slow-ass scripting language is a waste of the server's time when it could just read from data tables, but hey, I'll let the server programmers make that call.  I just care that it's efficient to go back and change large chunks of data at once, and that it's compartmentalized in such a way that the QA department trusts that I haven't fucked up anything else in the process.

Efficient maintenance is critical to live service.  Data-drive as much as possible.  If you really want to maintain that bitch for the next 10 years with a billion tiny script files, good luck; you'll need it.

[Raph]

The other was more of an enviromental engine for a "living world". It would rain and rivers would swell. Leaves would fall from trees and pile up, creeks became rivers which became lakes and everything was affected by the climate. Snow would amass in drifts according to the wind etc etc. The demo I saw included rain puddling and washing out the sides of a dirt mound and some snow effect. This was over 2 years ago but I would not be surprised to see the environmental engine resurface. In terms of immersability, a game sporting that kind of environment control has incredible potential, imo.

That was my R&D group. We showed the environmental stuff in a demo reel for the PS3 announcement at E3.

[Soulslinger]

You know I've started thinking about the whole "Small group prototype MMO project" thing that Jeff will supposedly be heading up and remembered something very interesting. While I was onboard at SOE, there were a couple of small projects being worked on, mostly POC stuff, but kinda cool. One was called Tapestry and was going to be more of a virtual community ala Second Life... but on steroids. The other was more of an enviromental engine for a "living world". It would rain and rivers would swell. Leaves would fall from trees and pile up, creeks became rivers which became lakes and everything was affected by the climate. Snow would amass in drifts according to the wind etc etc. The demo I saw included rain puddling and washing out the sides of a dirt mound and some snow effect. This was over 2 years ago but I would not be surprised to see the environmental engine resurface. In terms of immersability, a game sporting that kind of environment control has incredible potential, imo. Then again, it could be a dead project and Jeff could be working on Epic Weapons for EQ3.

That was my R&D group. We showed the environmental stuff in a demo reel for the PS3 announcement at E3.

Did you guys do anything with it?    It looked amazing.

[Raph]

The other was more of an enviromental engine for a "living world". It would rain and rivers would swell. Leaves would fall from trees and pile up, creeks became rivers which became lakes and everything was affected by the climate. Snow would amass in drifts according to the wind etc etc. The demo I saw included rain puddling and washing out the sides of a dirt mound and some snow effect. This was over 2 years ago but I would not be surprised to see the environmental engine resurface. In terms of immersability, a game sporting that kind of environment control has incredible potential, imo.

That was my R&D group. We showed the environmental stuff in a demo reel for the PS3 announcement.

Did you guys do anything with it?    It looked amazing.

I can't tell you anything else about it, sorry. :)

[Zodiac]

If you're doing the software management, you're not going to have time to sling the code or design the cool quests or in fact do anything but manage. It's a lot of hard work, and about the only perk is when it gets done right and on time and on budget -- you can take some comfort in the fact that all those red-hot talented designers and coders only got there because you did a shit ton of heavy lifting behind the scenes.

I can't tell you how true it is that if you are manager, you have no time to code or design. I often joke with people that I program in Word and Excel, sometimes PowerPoint :) Coming from being an individual contributor myself, to not doing any of what I was good at was a drastic change for me. And it really takes a totally different mentality. A Manager is a leader but also an enabler. Without the enabler portion, a team can't function cohesively.

Did I mention you need to use Word instead of Visual Studio? :D

[TGB]

Project managers rarely get named as influential. They're not rock stars. But fuck if they're not the keystone of whether your game is shit or not.

They are also the ones who try to maintain the stupid Gantt chart and have to corner people on deadlines.  It's a thankless job, and it's miserable, but they are the ones who will update the docs, keep the team moving and be the all around bad guy questioning every little change and the reasons behind it.

No one likes the pragmatic voice when everyone else is spouting grandiose ideas, but they will try to keep things in check.

[Morat20]

Who did you do it with?  What you do as a job seemed not a million miles removed from my own work, even if the details of language and target are different.  I'm genuinelly intrigued as to your experience with it.

Hell if I can remember the professor's name -- it was done online (our school is getting big on that), and I rarely attended his face-to-face classes (they were awkwardly timed for someone having an actual day job). We used Royce's Software Project Management as a textbook, with a shit-ton of references to project documents (from DoD project guidelines to IEEE papers to 'amazing management solutions' some people were selling (that was done as analysis, not as 'hey, good idea!).

Our final project -- some 40% of the grade -- was a complete set of artifacts for a minimum 5 man-year project. (Mine turned out to be about 8). Had to do the whole damn thing yourself, too.

Mostly I learned a lot of proper names for things I did daily, and occasionally the reasons why. Even had an actual useful suggestion or two for my manager to streamline something.

From the class, I could basically see how all the stuff we covered -- from businesses cases down to work-breakdown structures and development cycles -- applied to what I was doing. In terms of my job, I didn't see 90% of it -- I did some architecture design, but someone else translated it into documentation to show our customers/bosses. I mostly did straight-up development and assessment work.

About the biggest surprise was seeing how much leeway our particular team had -- most of the stuff out here adheres to a very rigorous project development plan, but our team -- due, I guess, to the way we're tasked with working -- has the freedom to adopt those rigorous government standards to a very tailored process.

Also, Gantt charts are pretty useful.

Yeah, I'm doing it for the same reason I learned C# when MS first released the language specs, or when Java first launched, or half a dozen stupider bets: paranoia.  I saw what happened to the Cobol guys in 2001 and I always want an "out" if the bottom falls out of what I am currently doing.

My latest baby, a genetic program designed to mine financial data and construct trading models (I was doing day-trading AND a futures market -- talk about a cast-iron bitch. That sort of leverage means either you are solid fucking gold or in the toilet. Happily for me, I am solid gold -- although I spent six months learning a lot of 'What doesn't work' lessons) was done in C# -- not even remotely the best language for it (although it has a lovely GUI-driven operation to it that saved me tons of work). I did it in C# because I didn't know C# sharp and it was a perfect excuse to learn it.

[palmer_eldritch]

Can anyone who's actually in the game describe what's fun about it (if anything?) After six months of polishing, is this going to be something worth trying out?

I am no longer in the game but played it for a while and enjoyed it.

The classes to me seemed as fun as any other game. They were not original, but did have a few original features (bards writing their own songs, which were effectively spells, for example - not as revolutionary as it might sound but more interesting than just getting this spell at this level etc).

I liked the random elements of the dungeons. Sometimes, in some places, a nasty named mob might appear, with the promise of phat lewt, and sometimes it would not. Go to an instance in WoW or LotR (great games both imho) and you always know what to expect.

I liked the fact that there were no instances and you could bump into other players at any time. The pros and cons of that are probably obvious, but for me it was good.

There is, in fact, a lot of content on Qalia, the continent I played on. It's not an empty place. I heard the same may not be true on other continents.

There are some fun quests. One where you spray a lizardman leader with pheremones and large monster of some kind emerges from the river to do something nasty to him comes to mind. Most of the quests are standard kill or fetch, but shouldn't upset you if you can accept that in other games.

I only played to level 20. However this is not like level 20 in WoW - it takes longer to level.

If you're wondering why I quit, it was partly the prettyness of LotR and the fact that my friends who didn't have high-end computers were playing it. Also, I was put off when I discovered just how long (as in lots of stages) and complex some of the higher level (20+) quests are.

I'm not disputing the faults other people have identified in the game, particularly the fact that much of it was damn ugly even on a good PC. I'm saying it's not total shite and if they offer a free trial in six months, my advice for what it's worth is that it may be worth trying.

[AaronC]

There's really a big difference between a Leader and a Manager. A good Leader is not necessarily a good Manager, and vice versa. The best Leaders and Managers have qualities from both realms, but when a Leader who lacks managerial qualities is put into a position of power in management, disaster strikes. Interestingly, when a Manager who lacks leadership qualities is put into a position of power in leadership, more often than not you don't get disasters, but rather, simply mediocre products (but it will be finished to a reasonable extent).

QFT.

WTF was Fisher thinking bragging about getting a house while the company is being shut down?

[WindupAtheist]

Nice interview.  The fallout thread at Silkyvenom was a riot.

[Hoax]

Nice work f13.

[KyanMehwulfe]

Quite the intrigue.

[Soulslinger]

There's really a big difference between a Leader and a Manager. A good Leader is not necessarily a good Manager, and vice versa. The best Leaders and Managers have qualities from both realms, but when a Leader who lacks managerial qualities is put into a position of power in management, disaster strikes. Interestingly, when a Manager who lacks leadership qualities is put into a position of power in leadership, more often than not you don't get disasters, but rather, simply mediocre products (but it will be finished to a reasonable extent).

QFT.

WTF was Fisher thinking bragging about getting a house while the company is being shut down?

If you knew Fisher, you wouldn't be surprised.

[Tale]

Great interview Schild, good questions.

[Sogrinaugh]

I DO think however, that he believed people wanted to play a game that HE liked, regardless of the masses of people telling him they didn't like his ideas

Again, back to smart business. Regardless of what some old timers might think, to be successful you cannot merely design a game you would enjoy playing. In fact, I'd wager a lot that most successful games are not played by their designers very often. These are experiences that respond to both personal and business needs, and command budgets that require much more than just "do I like it?" for validation.

Im about to fuck up the spelling of his name, but "Shigeru Myamoto" - the designer (maybe lead programmer too?) of the original Super Mario Bros, Zelda, and Metroid, designed (maybe still designs?) with that philosophy.  I can still remember reading an interview with him in a Nex Gen magazine (dunno if that gaming mag still exists... haven't played consoles in like 8+ years) where he said that.  "I design games that i find fun to play."  I remember this clearly because it was in such stark contrast to the design philosophy of the lead designer (maybe also programmer?) of Street Fighter 2/trubo/etc etc.  He designed games he thought other people would enjoy...

Maybe the Shigeru/Brad way is only possible with single-player games?  Because you aren't competing against anyone else, you are just having fun in this little digital world, sorta like a glimpse into the creator's mind.  If that mind is very creative and imaginitive, you have alot of fun.

EDIT:  Scratch that above paragraph.  Shigeru also did Super Mario Kart, which was a competative game.

[Margalis]

A lot of really great things are the product of a singular vision. A lot of really lousy things are too. It really depends on what your vision is.

Designing for yourself is a lot easier than designing for a target customer that you can only theorize about. If you don't understand why they find something fun making something they find fun is going to be tough.

That said, listening to feedback from the people on your own team is something everyone should do. And feedback from players can be very useful as well if analyzed correctly.

[Strazos]

Well, it's clear that Brad too very little of the criticism and advice from others to heart. Comparing Miyamato to Brad really isn't fair, if only because we don't know precisely how the former handles other people on his teams.

Seeing as no game he has ever touched has ever been anywhere near the terrible quality of Vanguard, I can only assume that while it may be his singular vision driving a project, he probably does take what other people say into account.

I mean, really....Metroid, Zelda, Mario.....have any of their games ever been BAD?

[Stephen Zepp]

I'm in a unique position in that my (game development industry) job puts me in contact with developers from all walks of the industry--from educators to indie developers to AAA developers. (For those that don't know, I teach game engine technology, specifically our products, to new customers in 3-5 day intensive boot camps).

It's interesting that especially when I see AA/AAA teams that come together to a boot camp, I can pretty much tell who will be successful as a team and who will not--simply by how they approach learning a new engine. It's especially pertinent when I get an artist/producer/coder combination, because you can watch how they approach problems, and predict what will happen with their team.

What has surprised me over the last two years is that very commonly (probably > 80% of the teams that have come to my training), both artists and designers/producers have little to no understanding of the limits and best practices of the underlying technology, and basically say "coders make that shit work", and move on. The teams that I am confident will be successful are those where the coder(s) are strong enough personality wise to say "hey, no, that's not going to work, and here's why", and the producers/artists sit back and say "hmm, ok, how can we make it work then--this is what we want", and the team works together to solve the problem.

Little anecdote: back when I first heard about Vanguard, I checked out their web page, and the only team members that were listed were artists and producers--not a single "initial team" member that had credits on the web page was a coder by trade...and I said to myself, "I don't care if they are using Unreal, or any engine--this game is going to suck horribly"...and it turns out that what we got as customers turned out to be exactly what I predicted.

True story: I did an onsite training session for an AA dev studio who's VP was a name that pretty much everyone in the industry would recognize as soon as they checked him out--with some huge credentials. Their company was coder driven, and I gave them a 4 hour lab to do a mini-game using our tech. 3.5 hours into the project, the team lead (a coder) decided to re-write the entire game logic to handle an "off in the weeds" case that wasn't part of the original project requirements--and of course they didn't meet our self-imposed "deadline". What it demonstrated to me is that single person (or single division) driven "visions" are actually dangerous to any project's success, and I think Vanguard was simply this exact scenario on a $30 million scale.

Both innovation and pushing the bleeding edge of technology are good things--I don't think any of us would argue against that. And while most consumers (at least here on f-13) have been blaming "Teh Vision(tm)" for Vanguards apparent failure, what the interview told me is that it wasn't what they wanted to do, but how they approached doing it as a team that caused the ulitmate failure.

I think Morat discussed the "iterative process", which is something I personally recommend whole-heartedly when it comes to finding the fun factor in a game--and it sounds as if every time the team leaders got feedback that the fun factor wasn't there (or the technical capability wasn't, or whatever), they ignored it completely instead of applying the feedback to the product...and I hope that a lot of the red names posting here think about that 20 years from now (or 10, or whatever) when they are the team leads.

Great interview btw Schild...I knew you had it in you ;)

[McCow]

Great interview.  Thanks Schlid.

I still can't get over the 1 QA comment.

[pants]

I'll just echo the comment that EQ/Vanguard appears to be classic second-system effect, and that Fred Brooks really does know everything there is know about software engineering.

[Fargull]

Nice.  Very nice.

[Kalei]

Informative interview to say the least!

Especially this part,

"Ex-Sigil: We gave demos to high-level Microsoft people frequently. These demos were often just dog and pony shows where content was created specifically for the demo. There was no intention that this content ever be used in game. When you spend 30+ million on a project, you want to see results. They became more and more suspect as time went on, and more and more people got involved."

This begs an answer on so many legal levels it's not even funny.

If Microsoft were to read that, they'd be wondering if they were set up from the beginning.

[Jerrith]

giveExperience(L_SCALAR_CONST * iThisLevel );

As a programmer, that sounds great, however, you need to consider that while some of the designers had the technical mindset needed to do what you suggest, there were those that did not. 

Efficient maintenance is critical to live service.  Data-drive as much as possible.  If you really want to maintain that bitch for the next 10 years with a billion tiny script files, good luck; you'll need it.

Agreed.  When you find out that repeatable quests that give "high" experience are too good, being able to run a single query to track them all down and adjust them is huge.

In the end, if you were going to only have one or the other (a data table or script based system), I'd say the first is the better choice.

WTF was Fisher thinking bragging about getting a house while the company is being shut down?

If you knew Fisher, you wouldn't be surprised.

I do know him and I am surprised.  Sounds more like a misinterpreted, poorly timed attempt at humor.

Ex-Sigil: There was input all around, but at each level, that input was simply discarded by the decision makers. Basically there were a handful of people who made decisions, regardless of input from anyone else.

This is the sort of thing I consider inaccurate.  In my own experience, sometimes my input was accepted, sometimes it was rejected.  It's the decision makers job to do just that, make decisions, and sometimes they have a perspective you don't, and make a decision you don't agree with.

---

Rather than focus on Ex-Sigil though, and risk this post going excessively negative, I'll point out one thing I think I've learned from being a coder at Sigil about how Vanguard ended up:

There needs to come a point where iteration on systems stops, and polish and bug fixing takes place.  Sure, there are going to be ideas on how to make any iteration better, but there comes a time when the cost of implementing them is such that polish, somewhere, will be lost, bringing the whole game down.

Really, every department was at fault, in one way or another, and could have done things differently.  Design, pushing for the best systems possible, puts pressure on people to pass that stop point.  Testing, small as you were, you should have been more vocal, and in coding's face about issues so that people really knew just how much needed to be done.  Coding, you needed to have the discipline to stop when you knew there were major issues remaining.  Management, providing the necessary resources is only part of the equation (well done, except for staffing testing, and perhaps staffing management).  Keeping track of what is being worked on, and making sure people are working on the appropriate things is critical.  Being stretched too thin is no excuse, as you are the only ones who can fix that.

[schild]

Jerrith, were you even at Sigil 2 days ago?

[Jerrith]

Jerrith, were you even at Sigil 2 days ago?

No, my last day was 3/12/07.  I still keep in touch with people there though, via Email, IM, etc.  I was there from before beta started, to about a month and a half after release.

[DataGod]

Interesting read. Nice interview Schild

Lots of really grat interesting posts here.

And what a classy way for the company to treat its employees, that "buying a house comment" just wow.....

Sometimes the best tools come in [small packages: http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1206294

I started using that last year, its pretty damn amazing when coupled with a development paradyme like Feature Driven Development. OTOH I deal in data bases and software development.

[Margalis]

Well, it's clear that Brad too very little of the criticism and advice from others to heart. Comparing Miyamato to Brad really isn't fair, if only because we don't know precisely how the former handles other people on his teams.

I always wanted to make a large writeup out of this, but I'll condense it here. There are four types of talents:

1. People with no talent.
2. People with no talent who get lucky once. (Brad, most dot-com millionaires)
3. People with enough talent to repeat success in a narrow field. (ID, Tarantino)
4. People with enough talent to repeat success in a variety of pursuits. (Miyamoto, Isaac Newton, JMS)

The problem is that if someone has one hit to their name, you can't tell which one of these they are. They could be the guy who got lucky or they could be the genius who is just awesome at everything.

I always makes me really happy to discover that someone I am familiar with is responsible for something really cool that I had no idea they were involved in. For example JMS wrote some old cartoons including Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors. Who knew? Clearly the guy has talent. That sort of talent that can be repeated across project types is something to celebrate as it is quite rare.

[Tcharels]

Jerrith, you always have been a great guy, but you honestly had blinders on. People could have, all around, handled things better, but to claim this was the result of anything other than a massive deficit of leadership from Sigil's management is naive at best.

I may have left a while back, but I know, from talking to people who have left since then, or people who got hit with the inevitable two days ago, that nothing has changed since I left. Leadership, from the functional lead level to the executive management level, showed a remarkable inability to drive consensus, follow a schedule, work with the publishers, or treat the employees with respect. And honestly, even without that feedback, an environment like that doesn't change, unless management changes. Since I left, what has happened? A VP left.. other than that, it was "same as always" till the day they shipped. People like William Fisher, David Gilbertson, Todd Masten, and Lee Harker running the show, with occasional seagull management from Brad. The rest of the management team was... uninvolved in the game. Perhaps their way of sleeping at night while doing nothing to try and improve things.

Just a thought. Told you I was still a bit bitter, but only because if they had been willing to ditch some of their towering pride and ego, perhaps this never would have happened. That, and almost two years of non stop 80+ hour weeks, you always hope there's be more to show for it than "Special Thanks" and your friends being laid off, while the biggest problems in management go on to SOE to do whatever they'll do. Maybe they'll learn from this lesson.

Nah.

Cheers.

[Falwell]

Evening all,

In advance I apologize for the forum ID if anyone finds that insulting with current events being taken into account. I've been using this name for, Christ, 18 years roughly (feeling old again) and I'll be damned if I change it because another old fat guy bought the farm.

Anyways, just wanted to comment on this interview first and foremost. One of the best ones i've read in gaming journalism. Especially if it all passes muster. I think the thing that irked me, like so many others, the most was the manner of these people's dismissal. To do THAT to people who gave such a massive commitment of time, heartache and passion to your project is inexcusable. As the old addage goes, a companies integrity is evident first and foremost by the manner in which they treat their employees.

I'll cut it off here before I turn into mega-negative Nancy and just end it by, again, thanking you for a great interview.

[TGB]

WTF was Fisher thinking bragging about getting a house while the company is being shut down?

If you knew Fisher, you wouldn't be surprised.

I do know him and I am surprised.  Sounds more like a misinterpreted, poorly timed attempt at humor.

I have been tossing ex-Sigil's statement around and it never jived with me.  The following are assumptions that are based upon both business knowledge and experience.  None of the statements should be accepted as fact, just well-founded educated guesses.

First, there were no actual stock options.  Stock options come into play once a company goes public.  The only options that Fisher would have would be common-stock and those would only be paid out if the company was actually acquired.  It wasn't.  Sigil's assets were acquired, and therein lies the key.

Ok, Sigil still has debt.  The only reason not to sell a company, but to sell its assets, is if there is so much debt that it's just too much of a financial burden.  Just playing with conservative numbers, let's say that Sigil still owes Microsoft 15 million not to mention quarterlies to the IRS.  Just because Sigil closed its doors, doesn't mean that the debt goes away.  The only way to erase debt is through bankruptcy, but bankruptcy won't just eradicate the money owed.  All of the assets, the amount owed, the time it has been owed, and even more factors regarding the debtors are taken into consideration.

The Cubs have a better chance of winning the World Series than Fisher has of actually getting any options.

Knowing what I do about business law, and the understanding I have in regards to business in general, well I can only come to one conclusion.

If the statement was actually made, it had to have been intended to be sarcastic.  While inappropriate and wrong on so many different levels, it probably wasn't intended to be a true statement.

There seems to be this feeling that those on the top are walking away with the bank.  They aren't.  They can't.  Well, technically speaking, they can, but they will probably find themselves in prison for embezzlement - granted it will be a country club prison.  In the next few days, expect there to be a bankruptcy filing, if it hasn't already been filed.  The dust hasn't even begun to settle yet and once it does, hopefully there will be a better understanding as to what actually happened, why it happened, and the mistakes won't be forgotten a few years from now.       

[Trippy]

First, there were no actual stock options.  Stock options come into play once a company goes public.

That is incorrect.

[schild]

First, there were no actual stock options.  Stock options come into play once a company goes public.

That is incorrect.

Completely incorrect. Not just incorrect ;).

[Endie]

4. People with enough talent to repeat success in a variety of pursuits. (Miyamoto, Isaac Newton, JMS)

Whoah.  Derail, but you are lumping Isaac Newton in with the producer of Walker, Texas Ranger?!?  I think you needa fifth category, there.