Vanguard chatter

[Venkman]

I couldn't be bothered to find that multi-page VG thread, so decided to bring this hear. Read the below and tell me what game you think it's about.

The first clue I had that something was wrong was that nobody was working. Everyone was standing around talking. It seems that all the Maya and Max dongles were missing, so none of the artists could work. Someone had come in over the weekend and taken them all. The internet connection was also down, along with the email server. No one from IT could be found, which wasn’t entirely unheard of since IT support at Yosemite Entertainment was typically pretty bad, but not being able to find any of them when all the important servers where down was strange.
...
He was down from corporate, but not directly in the chain of command. He pretty much cut to the chase and said that they were closing the studio and that some of the people in the meeting would now go upstairs for a separate meeting

Then click this link*

The more things change...

* I used TinyURL to keep the mystery alive ;). It's a safe link.

[Trouble]

Bill something or other was laid off two weeks later when XXXXX corporate decided they didn’t need that much middle management now that there was nobody left to manage.

That's great.

[Venkman]

Yea, deep irony there. I just hope Bill saw that coming. When you're put in the role of "efficiency expert", you're at as much risk as those being efficientized.

[Baldrake]

Admittedly, I only read part 1, but this doesn't seem comparable at all to the Vanguard situation. Assuming we accept that sometimes you have to shut down a whole studio, didn't they do it about as well as possible? They got the news out quickly and they offered good severance and relocation packages. It sucks to have someone stand in front of a whole studio and read out a list of names, but when it's a large group, I can't think how else to do it better -- I'm sure most people would rather know right away than, say, sit at home waiting for a phone call or letter. What do you think? Was management particularly insensitive given the job that had to be done?

[UnSub]

Admittedly, I only read part 1, but this doesn't seem comparable at all to the Vanguard situation. Assuming we accept that sometimes you have to shut down a whole studio, didn't they do it about as well as possible? They got the news out quickly and they offered good severance and relocation packages. It sucks to have someone stand in front of a whole studio and read out a list of names, but when it's a large group, I can't think how else to do it better -- I'm sure most people would rather know right away than, say, sit at home waiting for a phone call or letter. What do you think? Was management particularly insensitive given the job that had to be done?

Mass layoffs are never easy to do, but perhaps it could be better handled than reading names out on a list of people who get to stay.

Also, sending in someone who has never been seen before as a chainsaw consultant is a bit iffy - it would be nicer for a recognisable face to be the one pulling the trigger and being sympathetic about it.

The second part of the story talks about the game's mismanagement that no doubt helped its cancellation (definite Sigil link there), while the third part is about a licensing contract and how Sierra tried to get around it.

[Lantyssa]

Mass layoffs are never easy to do, but perhaps it could be better handled than reading names out on a list of people who get to stay.

It is difficult to get the proper information to a bunch of people fast enough that speculation and worry doesn't devolve the situation into a worse nightmare.  I don't think there is a non-sucky way to do a mass lay-off.

[Merusk]

Mass layoffs are never easy to do, but perhaps it could be better handled than reading names out on a list of people who get to stay.

It is difficult to get the proper information to a bunch of people fast enough that speculation and worry doesn't devolve the situation into a worse nightmare.  I don't think there is a non-sucky way to do a mass lay-off.

Last Lay-off I was a part of they pulled us all in for the mass-meeting, told us when and why we'd be shutting down, and that they'd be having short one-on-one meetings to go over our severance packages etc throughout the day and that after the meetings we'd be free to leave for the day if we felt we needed to.  It was the President of the Division having this conversation with us, not some moke in from main-office corporate.

 The one-on-ones were had with the Division President and our immediate supervisor and lasted from 10-25 minutes each.  Pre-arranged relocation offers were made in those meetings if they were made at all.   We were also given written recommendations and explanations of why we were seeking a job, signed by our Supervisor and the DP with their contact information.  Company fax/ copiers were made available to us for resumes as well as pointing us at several places within the company that needed our skills if we were willing to relocate there.

It still sucked pretty hard, but it was professional and well-ordered. If I had to go through it again, I'd rather it went that way.

[Chimpy]

Last Lay-off I was a part of they pulled us all in for the mass-meeting, told us when and why we'd be shutting down, and that they'd be having short one-on-one meetings to go over our severance packages etc throughout the day and that after the meetings we'd be free to leave for the day if we felt we needed to.  It was the President of the Division having this conversation with us, not some moke in from main-office corporate.

 The one-on-ones were had with the Division President and our immediate supervisor and lasted from 10-25 minutes each.  Pre-arranged relocation offers were made in those meetings if they were made at all.   We were also given written recommendations and explanations of why we were seeking a job, signed by our Supervisor and the DP with their contact information.  Company fax/ copiers were made available to us for resumes as well as pointing us at several places within the company that needed our skills if we were willing to relocate there.

It still sucked pretty hard, but it was professional and well-ordered. If I had to go through it again, I'd rather it went that way.

That is your standard, well-run, fortune500 kind of layoff though.

The video game industry seems to operate a lot more like the entertainment industry where people with 'creativity' and little real business acumen are in charge of running the ship than your traditional businesses. Creative businesses tend to have their largest failings in how to deal with difficult people issues. Every company in the entertainment business I have worked with has had some form of major problem when there are 'un-fun' personnel issues. If one of them closed I am sure the layoffs would have been equally, if not moreso, insane as the Sigil firing was. Hell, one place I am certain the owner would have done it smack dab in the middle of the company christmas party and grinned while seeing the reactions of people.

[Merusk]

Agreed.. but that wasn't the position put-forward to which I was responding. 

[Lantyssa]

It still sucked pretty hard, but it was professional and well-ordered. If I had to go through it again, I'd rather it went that way.

I guess I didn't give any company enough credit to handle it that well.

[Muggi]

Sad to say, but I've pretty much given up on VG myself.  I tried the vanboi thing, stick it out til raids, etc etc but..I started working up an alt 2-box, got to the mid-20's and remembered I had nothing but faction grinding and hours of killing for that one rare quest item to look forward to..ugh

Loaded up DDO and having fun again, while I wait for an AoC or WAR Beta invite.  Most of my guild is playing DDO or WoW as well.  I'd forgotten what fun a game with at least primitive mob AI can be!

[shiznitz]

I did log into VG again last week for an hour. Jesus, my server (Hilsbury) was D-E-A-D. Took almost 10 minutes for a global chat to scroll out of the chat window. There are only 10 lines of text in my chat box. Ghost town. My sub expires today.

[Bill]

Well, I played VG since launch and took a two month break after burning out from two intense months of play. I've recently resubbed and personally the population problems don't affect me, I have a solid guild on Gelenia (which is the biggest server) and play with friends mostly.

The latest patch (1849) has really improved performance and crashes for most people so it's going the right direction.

[Azazel]

Sounds like the direction it's already gone in is down the toilet...

[rk47]

Well, I played VG since launch and took a two month break after burning out from two intense months of play. I've recently resubbed and personally the population problems don't affect me, I have a solid guild on Gelenia (which is the biggest server) and play with friends mostly.

The latest patch (1849) has really improved performance and crashes for most people so it's going the right direction.

[WindupAtheist]

Huh?

[Lt.Dan]

Huh?

It's the latest in mole technology - laser-eyed ring tailed bandicoot

[shiznitz]

From the official boards, the server merger is about two weeks away. They have even decided to merge Florendyl, the RP server, after peak activity has fallen to 400-450 players, down about 30% in the last month, according to the dev. If that 400-450 is average activity across all 13 servers, then the game is probably hovering around the 50k subscriber level.

The last patch did noticeably improve performance, incidentally. I tried it out for about 10 minutes earlier this week. That said, I don't knoiw how this game comes back without a major promotional effort paired with an expansion, something the current subscirber level probably doesn't warrant investing in. EQ2's RoK expansion will get the Christmas season marketing budget, for sure.

[Sky]

Any money taken away from EQ2 and put into Vanguard makes baby jesus poop his loincloth.

[Kageru]

From the official boards, the server merger is about two weeks away. They have even decided to merge Florendyl, the RP server, after peak activity has fallen to 400-450 players, down about 30% in the last month, according to the dev. If that 400-450 is average activity across all 13 servers, then the game is probably hovering around the 50k subscriber level.

That calculation seems inaccurate. They are reducing the game to 4 servers, which they would not be doing if they had 50K subscribers. I've also heard the heuristic  4 x peak equals current subscriber base, so that looks like about 24K. Which also matches Brads earlier statement that the servers were designed for 5-6k, assuming he meant subscribers not concurrently online.

They are also neatly caught in their own incompetence because a lack of high end content combined with no instancing means a likely train wreck at the high end for any population large enough to support new players. Nor do I believe they have the subscriber base to fund developing a raid game from scratch.

I find it very hard to believe this game will not be closed or abandoned in the next 3-6 months.

[Tale]

Vanguard is in the "50% off" bin at my local EB's sale.

[Azazel]

I saw that too. To be fair, though, EB also has some decent stuff in those sales.

[Tale]

Generally the decent stuff is 10-20% off though :)

[sam, an eggplant]

Until a couple of weeks ago I would have believed that 25k subscribers would be enough to keep a MMO on life support. After auto assault, though, I'm not so sure. SOE may kill it yet.

[Oban]

They kept MXO with less...

[Azazel]

Generally the decent stuff is 10-20% off though :)

I've picked up FEAR and it's expansion, HoMMV, Company of Heroes, Rome Gold & Alexander, Star Wars Empire at War, Titan Quest, Prey, Guild Wars & Factions and plenty of others from their 50% off and 2-for-$50 sales. I do admit that all of the above stuff hasn't been in "new release" status when I've gotten them via sale, but hey. Not to mention any number of older, cheaper $10-20 titles I may have played (or not bothered to) in the past on backups and now have legit copies of.

It really depends on the store though. Two of the EBs near me dont have much at all, while there's one in town on Elizabeth Street which seems to always have tons of worthwhile PC stuff when it's sale time.

Of course, they also have large amounts of non-selling shit though in those sales. I imagine Vanguard is in the latter. Like the odd copy of Auto Assault I still see on shelves.

[Oban]

...
Like the odd copy of Auto Assault I still see on shelves.

Don't forget to pick up a time card

[Venkman]

They kept MXO with less...

Important because SOE keeping an MMO alive is different from NC doing so. The former can afford to look at things differently because they're all extensions of a common infrastructure and have the virtue of having a separate development team focused on that as both a resource and business need. NC seems to leave more autonomy with the developers whereas all games SOE picks up are assumed to be part of their All Access Pass. I don't know how much of AA has been internalized. If enough, it makes sense to cancel. If not enough then cancelling it was NetDevil's call, for the same reason. Which is odd considering Jumpgate is still going.

[Trippy]

NCsoft owns AA outright so they can do whatever they want with it.

[CharlieMopps]

I think SOE can fix it. I hate smeadly and all but SOE has some good coders despite him. They are probobly huridly trying to get the engine stable now and will later build the scripting tools they need to create content. Then they will release some expansion and treat it like its a new release. My bet is on: "Vanguard: A Brave New World"

[Simond]

They kept MXO with less...

MXO wasn't in direct competition with at least one of SOE's own games, though.

[Engels]

Not to mention that the personel and infrastructure needed to keep VG alive has to be at least double what MXO takes. Just a hunch.

[Numtini]

This is interesting. Apparently SOE is targetting Vanguard subs who used to be EQ2 subs and offering them free EQ2 until September.

While this is great for EQ2, I can't come up with any way in which this is good for Vanguard.

[Slayerik]

This is interesting. Apparently SOE is targetting Vanguard subs who used to be EQ2 subs and offering them free EQ2 until September.

While this is great for EQ2, I can't come up with any way in which this is good for Vanguard.

So THIS is why they acquired VG? :)

[Venkman]

I thought that had been established: more development team, maybe more players. I doubt that they expect some huge boost to EQ2 from whoever they get from VG though.