Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Whether Vanguard is (Not) a "Failure"
healz4u
Member Posts: 1,065
It is a moot issue (the conclusion we reach will be of little or no consequence). Vanguard is not Dark and Light (pun intended). It is not a black or white question. Rather, it is not a binary question: success or failure? It is a success for many; it is a failure for many. Any discussion of the matter will be a profound rhetorical exercise in futility, laden with personal insults and perspectives of opinion that many believe to be fact.
Perhaps we can reach agreement on the following to resolve this matter:
Was the release of Vanguard a failure? Yes.
Is Vanguard a commercial failure? Unknown.*
Is Vanguard a creative failure? Some say yes, while others say no; still others say both.
*SIGIL was a commercial failure, but now SOE is responsible for VG's commercial success.
Comments
I hate comercials. Especially creative commercials.
Has this thread failed?
Some say yes some say no
At this time Vanguard is a business failure.
Over $30 million spent, one company folded, jobs lost, not enough revenue to turn a profit.
Under new management, but still has poor subscriber performance and sales, unable to turn a profit.
Many believe this defines a business failure, but few do not.
And that is why...
Conservatives' pessimism is conducive to their happiness in three ways. First, they are rarely surprised -- they are right more often than not about the course of events. Second, when they are wrong they are happy to be so. Third, because pessimistic conservatives put not their faith in princes -- government -- they accept that happiness is a function of fending for oneself. They believe that happiness is an activity -- it is inseparable from the pursuit of happiness.
On topic:
Release - Flop, very hard to recover from if history is any indication.
Sales - Appear to have been decent, but retention of subscriptions were a flop, due to release and well, you know the rest..
At present - I would venture VG can be considered a failer due to the two reasons above, but mostly because it isn't selling well, its got scores of bad press, and word of mouth is not good. SoE may pull its feet from the fire eventually, but lets face it, Vg is old news now, gamers have moved on. By the time SoE can say they have a "finished" game (as in, at least what you'd expect from a game you pay for), Vg will be a footnote in games past IMO.
Overall, I give VG an F.
This basically sums up that post.
----------
"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
I would say that at the present Vanguard is a commercial disaster, what was released was different than what Brad hyped. Different enough that atleast 150k people did not subscribe after the first month. Sigil made such a loss it sold Vanguard to SOE probably for a pittance compared to the cash put in, Sigil turned into vapour and half the staff became unemployed. I say that makes it a commercial disaster, as for the future I don't see Vanguard getting back that initial figure of 200k.
A creative failure? I'd say that those DEVs were pretty good considering they had no scripting tools to work with. However that managment decision to deny them what they needed to create Vanguard made it a creative failure before it even had a chance. Vanguard was a nice idea, but the guys that had the job of turning that idea into reality weren't given the tools they needed. So I'd say the finished product which is what you pay for is a creative failure.
I fear VG will only survive now like all its station pass bretheren, SWG probably has about the same amount of subs and it's been put on a skeleton crew for how long now? VG was a good idea that went hideously wrong and shares many parallels (gameplay) with DnL, though DnL has had longer to recover it is still not good enough for P2P (it's F2P now). I have a feeling that SOE might make VG F2P with a cash shop for buying gear in the future. I think VG would be very suited to this model of gameplay and perhaps reducing the client to a smaller size with a relaunch?
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis
On topic:
Release - Flop, very hard to recover from if history is any indication.
Sales - Appear to have been decent, but retention of subscriptions were a flop, due to release and well, you know the rest..
At present - I would venture VG can be considered a failer due to the two reasons above, but mostly because it isn't selling well, its got scores of bad press, and word of mouth is not good. SoE may pull its feet from the fire eventually, but lets face it, Vg is old news now, gamers have moved on. By the time SoE can say they have a "finished" game (as in, at least what you'd expect from a game you pay for), Vg will be a footnote in games past IMO.
Overall, I give VG an F.
Have to agree.Not enough was done, so now if anything does get done its well too late to happen. If they made the game 110% better next week, how many old players do you think that news will pull back? I would say not many, not by just saying we have patched and fixed the game come back and check it out (what and spend £9.50 ($20 or so) for a month, not a bloody chance. But, that wont happen anyways, its still getting slow updates and by the time it does start to show that it is a game that might be worth going for, it would be out of contention because most probably WaR,AoC, PotBs, GaH and any other's would probably have been released by then. That would have it more than double the difficulty trying to pull back players and get new subscribers to go for it.
If a game has a bad start its difficult to recover, if that poor start still shows poor/slow attention after several months who then would consider it. My opinion is that sony will have to do something unheard of to pull back subscriptional players, though i doubt it will recover myself.
Overall F for complete Failure.
Was there ever any doubt? Of course it's a failure in every conceivable, measurable form. Creative? With no tools to create this MMORPG they would have done better to try for "Pac-manland Online". Would have been better received and probably more playable.
By the way "Pac-manland Online" is a registered trademark of Balisidars Industries inc. We retain all rights and priveledges unless you want me to sell it. Then we can talk :P
Never be afraid of choices. More choices are always good things.
As long as the game is running, and the people that enjoy it are able to continue playing, then no the game isn't a failure.
I think H4U was talking about the general idea of failed. Not specifically comercially, and I even thought that he indicated that it was a commercial failure. (edit: To clarify, he didn't intend to, but yeah, it's rather obvious)
In the broader sence of is it a failure then like I said, no. People are playing, they are enjoying, and as long as they can do so the game is doing what the game is supposed to do, entertaining someone. As long as it does that then it hasn't failed.
Wish Darkfall would release.
So Urdig, with your low expectations, you'd say DnL isn't a failer? After all, there are a couple people that log in now and then, I guess its a success. Failer doesn't mean they've unplugged the servers.
A person in a deep coma isn't dead, but they ain't doing the hokie pokie either!
You can enjoy failures. Its your right! Many people like Battlefield Earth too.
But in the end, that doesn't make it any less of a failure.
Vanguard isn't really a just a fialure . . . the most public video game trainwreck since Dike Nukem Forever. Its like the movies Heavan's Gate or Cleopata -- the kind of implosion that draws the attention of the industry.
Kepp in mind that Vanguard was not only a commercial failure but it killed its company. Most failures never rise to that level.
Vanguard will be looked upon for a long time by investors and developers as a notable milestone in the progress of online entertainment. If we start seeing other new launches go down in flames venture capital will start fleeing from the area just as fast as it flowed in after WoW. People will talk about the bubble bursting and Vanguard will be seen as the first sign.
Of MMOs continue to have successful, Lotro-like releases then Vanguard will just be the signal that "hardcore" MMO gameplay is dead.
He said it
He said it
Totally off-topic, but Tenebroso--that Michael Jackson Gollum is amazing. Creepiest avatar ever.
To determine if you think VG is a financial success or failure ask yourself this:
Assume your salary was dependent on a small percentage of VG's monthly subscription fees. Would you want your livelihood and the livelihood of your family dependent on that?
Why? Because the servers shut down in about a month.
I think you missed what I said. In the broader sence of is it a failure then like I said, no.
H4U is right. If you were judging the games commercial success as of today it would be a failure. But business doesn't work like that. WILL it be a failure? Only time will tell, and untill the time comes that the servers are shut down, then no it's not a failure.
DnL is still up and running. If 2k people are playing, and NPcube (or whoever they are) are willing to keep it going then it hasn't failed.
There is no benchmark to determine failure. A game sells this many, or it only has this many subs isn't a benchmark. Is it making SoE money? Who the hell knows. I don't, and neither does anyone else here.
Are the current subs paying the dev. staff? Is it covering all of the overhead required to maintane the game? Who knows. SoE hasn't said. They never said how much they paid for Sigil, and no one here knows how much it's costing SoE to dev. the game currently.
Maybe it isn't making money. Maybe it's breaking even. Hey, charity groups don't make money. Are they failing?
The benchmark of failure isn't set by you, or anyone else on these boards. It's set by SoE, and thier commitment to the game. As long as they are willing to keep the power turned on the game hasn't failed.
Commercially, by the standards set by previous MMO's, yes it's failed. But commercial success isn't as hard to come by as people seem to think around here. As long as the person, or persons in charge are making a buch, then as far as they are concerned the game is successfull. Success exists at all kinds of levels. From the very small to the WoW huge, and just because the game isn't matching up to one lowely gamers criteriea for success doesn't make it a failure.
Cryptic wasn't shooting for millions of subs when they made CoH. Those guys just wanted to make a super hero MMO. It never even reached the same number of players that EQ did. Does that make it a failure?
Anarchy online is still going. You can even play the original game for free. Is it a failure?
SWG, yeah, there's another one. It's still up and running.
Just because the game failed YOU doesn't mean it's a failure to the people playing it. I guess some people just can't grasp the concept of to each his own.
Wish Darkfall would release.
How about we assume that the devs salaries are based on recieving a check from SoE, and SoE's desire to keep them employeed.
They get paid by SoE, not VG.
VG is a product of SoE, and not a sole entity any more. It's not quite the same as if Sigil still owned VG. SoE has income from other ventures, enough of it obviousely to pay it's employees.
After all, SoE hired new devs. They didn't lay off SoE employees.
Wish Darkfall would release.
Let's see what dictionary.com has to say about failure :
/?fe?l
y?r/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[feyl-yer] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation –noun
fail·ure
1. Lack of success. The operative question here is would anyone call Vanguard a success ?
If so, in what way was it successful ?
2. nonperformance of something due, required, or expected. What could cone reasonably
expect from an MMO in terms of general performance, stability, quality of customer
experience, retention of customers, profitability, etc. Would other MMOs want to imitate
Vanguard's example ? People and companies want to imitate what works - for example
the WoW clones.
3. subnormal quantity or quality - quantity as in number of subscriptions beyond the free or
honeymoon period. Perhaps your position is that the software quality of Vanguard is / was
acceptable to the general gaming populace ?
4. This definition is not applicable.
5. This definition would apply to Sigil the company, not the game.
6. Same as 5.
7. Same as 1. However this definition indicates that even though the individual is still employed
and still has a career, his career is still viewed as a failure. Can someone's career be viewed
as a failure today and a success later on ? Yes. And I think that as of this time, Vanguard must
be viewed as a failure. Can it still succeed or be successful ? Yes, the potential is there as long
as the servers are still functioning.
By my reckoning, four out of seven definitions of failure are applicable to Vanguard and two are
applicable to the company that created the product. One must ask can a product be viewed as
successful (the opposite of failure) if it's release drove the company that created it out of business ?
Would anything about Vanguard be considered a desirable or expected outcome of creating a
product or worthy of imitation ? If the answer is yes, that is where Vanguard would be considered
successful. Please enlighten me as to what desirable or expected outcome Vanguard achieved.
If you can not provide one desirable or expected outcome, then I must conclude there is a lack of
success which again is the first dictionary.com definition of failure.
Sigil went under, people lost their jobs, some got new jobs with the buyout company. The game hardly works and it did not have a significant player base to the point that a few months after launch one of the main projects is server consolitation.
Does it need to be any more clear it has failed?
Now the reasons it failed:
did the concept fail or was it becasue it was launched in an unfinished crap technical state? We will never know. MMOs get one shot at launch, f*ck that up and you are doomed. Someone will need to make another game like Vanguard and launch it in a high quality state to see if it is the concept or quality. Pretty big gamble, wouldn't you say?
i'm not so sure it was the concept. After all, 200k people bought the game when it launched, so clearly, some sort of market exists for a game like VG. However, the overwhelming majority left the game soon after it launched, and they've apparently spread the word that it's not a game worth playing or even paying for, given the population issues now.
Bugs, exploits, lack of endgame content, grouping problems, poor optimization, hitching, lag, and a whole other host of issues morphed into a lethal combination that sucked out most of that gamer market. But I think there are most likely still folks that wanted a game like VG. It's just that Sigil utterly failed to turn that concept into a workable game. THAT is the larger problem at work here, and why SOE has so much work ahead of them to try and bring the game up to par.
I , too, think that the concept is not the cause for the bad name the game has now. It was the half-baken rushed release, the technical issues it had and to a lesser extend still has, and the outright lies that sigil's management hurled in the community's face. I don't think that SOE will be able to repair the damage to the game's reputation, even with a flawless second "release". Too much competition out there anyway, and with the upcoming WAR and AoC the situation will still get worse.
Not to state the obvious, but when you get bought out, have to fire staff, merge your servers, and have less than 30,000 subscribers...
Hell, even easier than that, when you have to sit down and ask "Was my game a failure?", than the answer is more than likely a "Yes, and a horrible failure at that."
I don't even understand why this is in question. People can't seriously be wearing blinders THAT thick...
Waiting for something fresh to arrive on the MMO scene...
Leave this game alone please, we have enough beating of this dead horse over and over again. If you enjoy it, than good for you if not just focus on others. But i hope this game will really be much much better if SOE gona relaunch it again by the end of this year...
RIP Orc Choppa
I doubt it. How can you revive a dead horse.
Sigil was an unqualified failure. Vanguard as a game is not entirely a failure ... yet. However if SoE cannot increase the subscriber numbers then it will certainly die a final death when they decide to use the server hardware for something more profitable.
I still firmly believe they bought the game bascially to block anyone else from buying a non-EQ direct competitor to the EQ line, which is a shame. In that regard Vangaurd is good for SoE, it protects EQ2. In the hands of a better games company Vanguard could have really have been something, however stepping back there is logically little reason why SoE should invest any real money in this game in preference to putting the same funding into EQ2. Indeed there seems little reason why Sony would want to invest anything more in SoE itself either - that brand has horrible associations now, years after the SW:G NGE saga the loathing lives on and will hover like a dark cloud over every MMORPG game SoE ever release - these are people you cannot trust, and that taint will linger on SoE's brand until they close shop.