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Nepotism and Incompetence - Sigil's Legacy
Visceral Monkey writes "In the wake of SOE's purchase of Sigil and Vanguard , there are a number of questions to be answered. The commentary site F13, purveyors of usefully cynical opinions, have a pair of fascinating interviews on the subject. The first is an anonymous discussion with a former team member, laying out the working conditions at Sigil prior to the end. The second is a talk with Brad McQuaid, one of the men behind EverQuest and the captain of the debacle that is Vanguard. Both interviews highlight the nepotism, incompetence, corruption, and evasion that were the last day of Sigil Online Games."
f13.net: How long, roughly speaking, did you work for Sigil?
Ex-Sigil: A Few.
f13.net: Were you there during the Microsoft years? Or at least, before the split.
Ex-Sigil: Yes.
f13.net: In terms of hands-on involvement, how much did Microsoft make their presence known?
Ex-Sigil: Initially they stayed fairly hands-off, but as things got further along they wanted to see results of their money.
f13.net: Can you elaborate on that a bit?
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. Though, they were mostly just oversight. They never sent anyone down here to actually work on the project.
f13.net: Did they set the milestones?
Ex-Sigil: They set monthly milestones. They wanted a succesful MMOG. They had so many false starts with other things that they just wanted a profitable game.
f13.net: They weren't trying to be the next WoW?
Ex-Sigil: Anyone who thinks you can make a WoW killer these days is foolish to try. You need to be your own game. WoW is a juggernaut and really needs to not be the watermark for success. WoW is a tough subject around Sigil too...
f13.net: Why?
Ex-Sigil: There are a lot of people, Brad included who were certain it would be a short-lived game. Some, in fact, including Brad, never played it. WoW should have been the example of 'look at what a good game can do!' when instead it was often spoken of like a bad thing.
f13.net: As WoW grew, did Microsoft expect more results from their new investment? Did the pressure get put on at any point?
Ex-Sigil: No.
f13.net: Then when did Microsoft grow suspicious that they weren't going to get an actual product out of Sigil?
Ex-Sigil: When they started testing it themselves.
f13.net: Or rather, talk about how and when things started going downhill.
Ex-Sigil: Tt's hard to say really, management never communicated stuff like that to us. Often times I feel like they told us more spin and nonsense then they told the public.
f13.net: So management kept everyone in the dark as much as possible?
Ex-Sigil: Completely.
f13.net: What was the rumor mill like at this time? Surely people had friends and spoke to eachother.
Ex-Sigil: Sure. People who had contacts at MS kept getting info that they were really unhappy with things, and at the same time, we had a set-in-stone release date of June/July... 2006. Or rather - that was when Microsoft was going to cut of funding.
f13.net: How long before those summer days did rumors of leaving Microsoft start flying around?
Ex-Sigil: Management told us they were shopping things around and were entertaining outside investors to complete the project. But actually leaving Microsoft as a publisher was never discussed until they told us it was happening and we were co-publishing with SOE.
f13.net: At this time, how far along was the game itself?
Ex-Sigil: Well... if you call what we shipped 100%, I'd put the game at around 65%.
f13.net: What were the terms of the alliance with SOE at this time, if you knew?
Ex-Sigil: Co-publishing, with Sigil retaining all IP rights... is what we were told.
f13.net: What was SOE's involvement from beginning the partnership up until E3 2006?
Ex-Sigil: No hands-on influence from SOE, only leveraging of SOE assets like testing.
f13.net: Let me backtrack a little bit, simply for background - what was the hierarchy like within Sigil?
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.
f13.net: Wh
You can say that all you want, but you and I seem to be in the minority. The average gameplayer WANTS pointless difficulty. They want artificial obstacles. It somehow gives them a feeling of accomplishment.
I don't mind difficult. What I do mind is punishment for failing to meet that difficulty, especially since it sounds as though like most game developers SOE can't distinguish "hard" from "cheap".
It's bad enough that MMOs make you grind, though as you can tell by the fact that I'm subscribed to WoW I put up with it. But to be forced to regrind is just ridiculous.
This is why even though I loved Diablo II I never actually got through Hell difficulty. It just pissed me off too much when some Multiple Shot+Lightning Enchant+Fire Enchant boss would one-shot me and I'd lose every bit of experience I had earned that whole day. The only way to ensure forward progress was to never try to do anything difficult. I'd rather just start a new character.
I much prefer WoW, where if I want to throw myself at something I have no business trying just to see if I can pull it off, I can, and if I'm wrong, then I lose five minutes and some gold. Actually, sometimes I wish WoW was harder, and it would be okay because the penalty for death is reasonable. I'm ever so glad they decided not to copy the Diablo II mechanic.
The enemies of Democracy are
I notice you don't mention the exp penalty for death once in this post. Did you completely miss the point of my post which was very specific, or are you deliberately ignoring it so that the concept of not liking negative progress is the same as only caring about forward progress?
;)
Who defined it like that? Everquest wasn't meant to be a game you 'finished'. It was meant to be a game you explored. There was plenty to do at 20th level, and even more to do at 30th. The game at 50th wasn't going to disappear, so what's the rush?
The makers of the game built it that way. That's why in EQ you have the rare spawns that drop the loot that get camped all day, because they want that one mob to take up literally days of your time. Of course it was never meant to be "finished", because then you'd be done and might cancel. Actually producing enough content that you could see it once then move on, but still play for more than a month, is impossible. So all MMOs from UO to EQ to WoW are based around "grinding" or "farming" locations, dungeons, mobs. Because you have to do the same thing many, many times.
And I'm not in a rush. I have no problem progressing at a nice leisurely pace, and doing things that don't cause any direct progression at all. But then, if I'm sick of the content at 20 and want to see the content at 30, then yes, that progression is important, because that's the only way to see that new content. Having a death penalty that makes it so that you have to spend more time to get the same progression certainly is the opposite of encouraging a leisurely pace.
I am okay with not making forward progress. I am not okay with having what forward progress I have made UNDONE by either a mistake or a cheapness in the game. What is so hard to understand about that?
You are the one who decided that not seeing the progress bar move amounted to 'wasting your time'. The key to having fun in a mmorpg is ignore progression and just have fun. You are going to progress anyway - some days fantasticly - other days none... but there's no reason to fixate on it.
No, seeing the progress bar move BACKWARDS is very, very much "wasting my time". Even right here, you seem to deliberately omit that part. You should have said "You are going to progress anyway - some days fantasticly - other days none - and other days negative such that you will completely undo every bit of progress you may have made the day before, so maybe you won't progress anyway."
As for EQ being 'cheap' in terms of arbitrary and completely unjust deaths: That there would be a wandering cyclops that could squash you if you weren't paying attention and let it get too close WAS part of the vision, but getting squashed on a zone-line or re-spawn were unfortunate artifacts of the game engine and never really part of the 'vision'.
And was punishing you for those "unfortunate artifacts" part of the "vision"? They couldn't get rid of the artifacts that lead to cheap deaths, but kept in the mechanic for punishing you for cheap deaths. Sounds like their "vision" could have used some lasik.
When vangaurd was announced the premise was that he'd recognized that that that the game mechanics and game vision have been at cross-purposes -- the most efficient way to "progress" was the least fun ("grinding") while the most fun path through the game (exploring new areas, challenging new creatures, taking risks, etc) resulted in the worst progression. So one of Vangaurds mottos was that the most efficient path also be the most fun. So even people fixated on progress would end up having fun in spite of themselves
How can you explore new areas if you aren't high enough level to reach them? And I'm sure it was tons of fun "exploring" the same zone for the Nth time because an "unfortunate artifact" made it so that the last time you "explored" the area didn't count. Then you "take a risk" (like crossing a zone boundary) and die, so you get to "
The enemies of Democracy are
I am also an ex-Sigil employee. I was not there for the mass firing... I left earlier. But I have no doubt that it went down exactly as this person says. That's how things are run at Sigil. It's the most unprofessional place I have ever worked. Hell, the McDonald's where I worked when I was a kid was more professional and had better morale than at Sigil. My quality of life went up about 100% after leaving there.
The meeting was even worse than this guy said. I heard that someone asked if there was going to be any kind of severence for people getting fired and when he didn't get an answer and asked again, Donna Parkinson... a direcor... managment... was overheard to say "would someone please answer this asshole." Nice touch, huh? That doesn't surprise me either.
There were dozens of problems with this project. But the bottom line comes down to mismanagement. Brad and Jeff isolated themselves from most of the company, leaving management of the the project, company, and personnel to the directors, namely Platter, Gilbertson, and Donna Parkinson (the former Office Manager turned Director of Business Development). And I can't think of one person at the company that has any respect left for any one of them.
The thing that sucks is that most of us there at Sigil left other jobs to be there. Some people turned down other offers and stuck it out to finish the project and finally get some kind of pay off for the rediculious hours and demands we had put up with. Now we all walk away with nothing. Oh, wait.... not all of us. Some people are house hunting with what they made from the sale of the company. The rest of us got nothing for our years of work and the sacrifices we made.
I keep reading comments like none of these people should ever be given management positions again. I agree. Hell, I wouldn't hire them to run a hamburger stand. And I will leave any project that they are ever attached to in the future. They don't deserve another chance or one bit of my respect.
To all of you in management that are moving on to SOE or got paid for your share of the company, I hope you all sleep well tonight and enjoy your new jobs and your money from the sale (I don't care how much you did or didn't get, you got more than the rest of us). I still believe what goes around comes around. So I am hoping that all of us that you have screwed over the past few years find a way to land on our feet again in spite of our names being attached to your company. And I hope other people finally see you for the back-stabbing, greedy, childish assholes the rest of us from Sigil already know you are.