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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."
Sounds like they subscribe to the Art of Demotivation.
Collector's Edition
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
O RLY? http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/05/10
Whole heartedly agree..
As the article states, the thing Brad is very good at is selling and bullshit. I have seen them man in action and he can sell ice to eskimos but backing up the wind....not so much. I was not surprised by the statement of 'the dungeon was made especially to not show the flaws' for E3.
What I am really surprised by is the nepotism....seriously, rule of thumb is to keep the team seperate at all times. Hell, Brad should have known himself considering there was a few rounds of it under his hat on the EQ team (I distinctly remember a tale of a GM who got involved with the head of the CS department I believe and a whole firestorm of problems internally). If he idly stood by and let brothers, in-laws, and wives get hired, he deserves every bit of fury that the gaming public can put on him.
BTW, the dismissal is low by ANY standards. A mass trap&kill like that is total bush league...and if that douche talking about his house is the truth, the guy needs a serious schooling in 'tact' before he goes to another place.
It's pretty easy to criticize when things go wrong. But in order for something like an MMO to be completed and succeed, a tremendous number of things need to go right. And even when that happens, like with Everquest 2 (which is a fun, profitable game), you still get criticized.
Vanguard had a lot of problems, but if you actually read all the interviews, the core of their problems seems to be excess optimism. They tried to create the end-all and be-all MMO, and they didn't have what it took to succeed.
They didn't have the money or time to achieve their vision. And they didn't have the discipline to narrow their vision to fit the resources they had.
A lot of the rest of their problems seem to be less significant (or facets of the lack of discipline). You can say Brad ought to have been in the office at some events, but that doesn't make any money change hands. Employees' feelings don't make an MMO succeed. Hype doesn't make a bad game good or an over-hyped game bad. The practical things are the ones that matter.
Vanguard now has become the biggest flop vs hype in MMO history.
I'll take it you've never heard of The Matrix Online.
A game that didn't hold your hand to the point that you almost can't get lost, or fail, or lose anything ever, unless you actually try. EQ was famous for brutally punishing players for mistakes, and often even just arbitrarily (spawning a cyclops 2 feet from you that can kill you in 1 second), but as annoying as that was, it was actually preferable to the risk free 'you can run away from anything mechanics' that dominate later games.
A game where death was something that actually hurt, as opposed to the 15 second inconvenience it is in most games now. In early EQ dying sucked. If you survived a difficult fight, or an unwanted add, or whatever, it was truly elating. If someone saved your ass you were grateful, they'd just saved you 20 minutes of travel and 2 hours worth of monster killing not to mention a possibly difficult corpse recovery...
So let me get this straight. The game is difficult, you can't run away from a fight that is too much for you, a single random spawn while you're fighting other mobs could result in you being overwhelmed, and if you die from such a cheap occurance you not only have to waste half an hour getting to your corpse, you then have to repeat 2 hours of mindless grinding just to regain your lost progress? Two and a half hours of boredom is my punishment for daring to try to kill one more mob at once than I should, or being around when a mob spawns?
FUCK THAT.
I'm sorry, forget whether or not death has "meaning". My time has meaning. We're talking about a genre that is already defined by taking the least amount of content and turning it into the maximum amount of time spent by the player by requiring lengthy "grinds". At least when I grind in WoW I'm making forward progress. Two hours is a full night's session -- if I logged on one night, ground away for two hours, then the next night had to repeat the exact same process because I'd gotten unlucky and died, I'd cancel my subscription. It's already sketchy enough deliberately wasting my time so as to acrue more monthly fees, but to actually set me backwards as "punishment" for the game being cheap would be the final straw.
I can't imagine how groups would form in EQ, unless you already knew everyone involved. At least, I'd never join a PuG, because I'm never going to want to risk losing 2 hours of actual progress because of someone else's screwup. In a WoW PuG I'm only risking the actual time I spend with the PuG (plus some gold), they can't actually undo the progress I've made before.
If I want an RPG where death has meaning, I'll play nethack. At least in nethack the game knows how to be both hard and give you plenty of ways to escape or otherwise survive deadly situations.
The enemies of Democracy are
Sigil = Ion Storm
Vanguard = Daikatana
McQuaid = Romero
EQ1 = DOOM
Details here... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daikatana
Same as it ever was.
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
The MMO industry is shaping up to be much like the movie industry. There's a ton of money to be made, and everyone knows it, and everyone wants a piece. But making a blockbuster, or even breaking-even, is HARD. Really hard. And expensive. And so the only way to be profitable is to make a lot of them, some good and some bad, and hope you come out ahead.
Worse, at least the movie business is rather mature. There are lots of people who know what they're doing, more or less. The MMO business is in its infancy. It's as if movies had been invented in 1970, then Jaws comes out in 1976, and you have a dozen production companies striving to reproduce that one huge success.
In this day and age, just getting an MMO out the door is basically a success.
I can't imagine how groups would form in EQ, unless you already knew everyone involved.
;)
The risk of someone else screwing up and getting you all killed was far less than the risk of getting yourself killed if you tried to do anything interesting by yourself.
At least, I'd never join a PuG, because I'm never going to want to risk losing 2 hours of actual progress because of someone else's screwup.
I hear ya man, I mean, I know you only logged in to watch that little xp bar move forwards. The actual socializing, and working as a team, and so on are all secondary concerns.
In a WoW PuG I'm only risking the actual time I spend with the PuG (plus some gold), they can't actually undo the progress I've made before.
Not only that. If you spend any time with a group (pug or otherwise) that doesn't directly result in "progress" that time must have been "wasted".
My time has meaning.
Yes, I can see that. I certainly understand how you wouldn't want "playing the game" to get in the way of "progression".
We're talking about a genre that is already defined by taking the least amount of content and turning it into the maximum amount of time spent by the player by requiring lengthy "grinds".
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?
At least when I grind in WoW I'm making forward progress. Two hours is a full night's session -- if I logged on one night, ground away for two hours, then the next night had to repeat the exact same process because I'd gotten unlucky and died, I'd cancel my subscription.
I would too, if I were you. But then I won't "grind" so after two days I don't look at my "progress bar" see that it hasn't moved, and cry about all the time I've wasted. Instead, I have 4 hours worth of enjoyment to look back on. Why cancel my subscription? I'm having a blast. Its the people fixating on the xp bar, grinding away in one spot, night after night, that get frustrated and burnt out.
It's already sketchy enough deliberately wasting my time so as to acrue more monthly fees, but to actually set me backwards as "punishment" for the game being cheap would be the final straw.
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.
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'.
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
It was (and still is) a good idea.
WoW's "solution" of just removing all the risks and obstacles to progression has led to a soulless experience.
As for WoW's endgame... that's a different story. And I'll concede that WoW endgame is pretty good... if you happen to be in the minority of players who play frequently and regularly enough to fit into an organized raiding guilds schedule. Unfortunately, most players never see that
...ever been in a Turkish prison?
Real journalists tend to conduct the most worthless, uninformative interviews. Have you ever read an interview about a game before? The journalist hasn't played the game. The questions are extremely generic because the journalist doesn't have a clue.
Journalists are some of the least-informed, least-interesting, least-curious people. If they don't care about the subject of the interview, you get PR drivel. If they do care, they are biased and not objective and after the interview is edited, you basically get the journalist's spin rather than information.
These interviews were good because the interviewer cared about the answers and the subject.
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 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?
... at some point you've explored everything in your level range but you don't have enough exp to move on because you died, so grinding you go.
...and then he wonders why he's not welcome in a raid guild.
No. I didn't mention it specifically, because negative xp is not the only way it can be handled. Other games have had meaningful death penalties without negative xp.
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.
That's utterly naive. Yes, that's how it worked out, but not how it was originally designed. The designers never thought for a moment that the rare items were going to get camped like that... they thought the players that ended up with them would consider them a bonus.
And for what its worth, in the original EQ you didn't *NEED* those camped weapons... they were nearly insignifant boosts over much more easily obtained items, and were never 'make or break' must haves.
And was punishing you for those "unfortunate artifacts" [stupid deaths] part of the "vision"?
No. It wasn't but not throwing out the baby with the bathwater was why they were left in. EQ had issues, lots of issues... that was one of them. No question. But WoW's solution was even stupider than leaving the problems as they were.
Sorry, but especially EQ requires grinding to advance, which is why you said the penalty for death was "2 hours of monster killing". That's grinding, boyo.
No, its not. Sorry. Your wrong. 2 hours of sitting in one spot is grinding... going to the same place everyday is grinding. But monster killing is what that game was if you didn't like killing monsters EQ wasn't a good game to play. There are lots of approaches to killing monsters that don't equal grinding.
There was enough content at most level ranges to allow for several deaths. If you died incessantly and continually than the issue isn't the game, its the player.
what every EQ refugee I've spoken to has said is a great improvement.
And yet here we are... and many more like me.
That's why I'm able to take it easy when I'm leveling -- no matter what happens, I'll either go forward or not move at all, never will I go backwards.
Yeah. That's WoW in a nutshell. No matter what happens, you can't lose. Whee. Even the worst player in the world can make it to max level.... the worst player in the world WILL make it to max level
EQ was a popular unforgiving game. Eve is a popular unforgiving game. Both of them had flaws and could be improved. There is room in the market for a good unforgiving game that rewarded skill and intelligence more than simply punching in the clock and getting your dose of 'progress' like WoW does.
Brad offered the promise of making that game with Vangaurd... that is why it had the hype it did.
I sure as hell don't want to spend 2 hours killing -- even spread out over time -- just to regain what I lost due to a glitch in the game. That is the height of lame.
Everybody agrees with you on that point. OK. EVERYBODY. EQ had its share of problems... that was certainly one of them.
To stay out of the MMO minefield I will instead use racing games as an example. Grand Prix Legends on the PC and, well any racing game on the consoles.
GPL is brutal, the cars are a bitch to handle, require real skill, have full length F1 races, are fragile as hell and have random breakdowns. This means that if you make a mistake that could easily be the end of the race, if you drive the full 2 hours succesfully you can still be out by a random failure or simply running out of fuel.
Compare this to console racing games, no random failures, damage model is a health bar (no sudden death by loosing a wheel), races are at most a few minutes, the AI sucks donkey balls and you can usually easily make up a mistake and overtake all of the computer racers even if you are way behind.
Two totally different ways of doing the same game type.
Which is better? Well, for me they both got their place. Console racers on my PSP (I own a DS as well, no big consoles) for a quick fix and GPL and similar on the PC for when I am at home and got the time for them.
Driving a full race, definitly makes you more aware of the risks. Go for first and overtake the leader (well, 2nd, 3rd Oh okay, overtaking the guy with the smoking engine 5 laps behind the leader) OR play it safe and get the 2nd place points and NOT risk wrecking your car on the finishing lap.
Choose right and you win, choose wrong and 2 hours of gameplay are, wasted?
HOLD ON ONE FUCKING SECOND
What kind of player would consider those hours wasted? Are you so shallow that that you think 2 hours spend playing a game is only worth it if you the game tells you, you are a winner?
Surely it is the game itself that should be fun? Two hours racing EVEN if I crash in GPL is FUN! Every single lap. The risk of NOT finishing the race on adds to it. No victory without defeat. What is the thrill in completing Monaco in 3rd place if you didn't feel like it took all your skill and a lot of luck to do it?
I get more satisfaction from GPL then a console racer. Offcourse GPL takes more time BUT it also gives me more.
On the other hand I can't just run GPL while travelling on the train, nor would I want to loose my GPL race because the conductor asked for my ticket, a console race, well, who cares, no risk, no punishement.
So I can see your point BUT I can also see why you are absolutly wrong.
In MMORPG's the "risk" is in taking on higher level mobs, more of them and with the risk of adds. For non MMO players who are still reading, MMO's offcourse got no saves, so death cannot be as brutal and simple as in single player games. Permanent death is considered to extreme as well so avatars when they bite off more then they can chew have to be brought back into the game world. Usually a player respawns at a fixed location with some punishement (loss of XP, temporary stats decrease, equipment loss). Sometimes these punishments can be lowered by travelling back to the area of your death.
How harsh this punishement is depends on a lot of things. Some games have almost no penalty, some make you long for real death.
WoW and Everquest 1/2 for instance both asked you to go back to your place of death to lower the penalty. The difference being that in WoW you travel back as an immortal ghost who cannot be attacked or attack. A save run that is purely a time waster.
In Everquest 1/2 and Vangaurd the corpse run is done while you are alive BUT under influence of a stat punishement. In Vanguard even with your best gear missing. So you have to fight your way back in a reduced state to your death body that is probably surrounded by the same mob that killed you in the first place.
So what does this mean?
Well, lets mention another game, Star Wars Galaxies. At one point people in that game KILLED THEMSELVES to safe having to travel back to base. Suicide as a fast travel option, desirable gaming tactic OR the sign of complete and utter ruin. Discuss.
In LoTRO if you do NOT die when yo
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
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.
Just about everyone and their brother was trying to come up with the next WoW, after seeing the money that Blizzard was raking in. Heck, it started before that, with the success of EQ1.
A MMO that has more than 100,000 subscribers is basically printing money. Keep the customers happy, and you have a great revenue stream that keeps on coming. Sure, you can release some non-MMO and make xx% on those 100,000 copies, and have to patch it. Or, you can release a MMO, make that same money, and keep on making money from your monthly fee while you do those patches. Gee, I wonder what many companies tried to do?
Yep, make MMOs. LOTS of them. Look at some of the crap NCSoft is putting out. Some of them are old Korean games that are simply getting a re-skin. I liked CoH/V for simple fun, but most of their titles have been crap.
The problem lies in the fact that most of these MMOs were bad ideas that only got worse as the corruption and nepotism set in. Everyone wants to get in on that "sure thing" revenue stream that a successful MMO has. So, there was some nepotistic investor "bloat".
Brad simply had a major leg up on the competition. Simply having his name associated with Sigil and V:SoH meant that people were going to pay a LOT more attention to this game than any other new game publisher was going to get. And that extra attention, coupled with the Brad "fanboi" syndrome, meant a guarantee of a certain intial sales figure. Hello, Investors!
So, this shouldn't really surprise people THAT much. Sure, you wish Brad and Sigil had better motives and intentions, but making and running a MMO is pure business. Brad figured that out, and became just like any other business man. He did his best to ensure his own profits, and screw the guys who really got him there: the developers.
The sad part here is folks are getting bent out of shape over this, and it happens all the time in other businesses. Someone buys out company, brings in various "pet investor friends", milks the company a little, then sells it off. The employees that made the company get shit on, and the investors make a fortune.
Welcome to the real world, MMOs!
"What exactly is enjoyable about a game you cannot lose?"
It's not that you cannot lose, it's that you have to work to succeed. You can grind out XP and gold on easy mobs all day and be bored stiff, or you can try to solo group quests or go into dungeons that actually require a modicum of teamwork and skill to complete.
A low death penalty encourages you to take risks and do fun, challenging stuff because the only real penalty for failure is failure itself. You don't have to go do boring stuff for 2 hours to make up for the failure. You can try to do the fun stuff again, try a different strategy, or a different group of people without having to worry about being forced to go back to boring crap.
Remember the old carrot and stick thing? Death penalties are sticks. EQ had a big stick, WoW has a small one. (Insert obvious phallic joke.) Loot and bragging rights are the carrot. EQ and WoW both have pretty equivalent carrots.
A bigger stick doesn't make the carrot sweeter for most people. It's the challenge you have to overcome to get the carrot that matters there.
Bragging about how big your stick is just masochistic and every bit as shallow as the phallic equivalent.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.