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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
O RLY? http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/05/10