Vanguard, Sigil and The Vision

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I don’t want to say I called it early, but I did call it. And early.

Batshit crazy, uh huh, uh huh

(source post, where I blew my first Vanguard beta application cuz I was screwing around and prematurely submitted.)

Anyways, this week, all the speculation about what to do with a problem like Vanguard was resolved when it was assimilated into the Sony Online collective.

Don’t take my word for it. Let the reblogs do the talking:

f13.net — superlative job on nailing this story:

The Short and Morbid Tale of Sigil Games Online — The blood bath at Sigil Games Online when those, sans-parachutes, were shoved out of the plane. Figuratively.

Also, The Long and Morbid Tale of Sigil Games Online: Interview Edition — an interview with a freshly-fired Sigil Games employee. Interesting and engaging, but it really needs more swearing. I’d be swearing. And bitter. And probably drunk.

And there’s more! The Hub of All Blame: A Postmortem — a phone interview with McQuaid, including some pretty good gossip, but again, not nearly enough swearing. Or, presumably, drinking.

(An aside, anyone else getting a Yoko Ono vibe about the situation over there?)

Krones, of Plaguelands, wrote some sizzling commentary that I enjoyed (includes swearing):

Sigil collapses like a house of cards

Official: SOE scoops up Vanguard and about half of Sigil’s former staff — SOE’s Smedley announces the changes afoot for Vanguard.

Ex-Vanguard dev throws it down in a tell-all interview

Bonus! details from Grouchy Gamer: Brad McQuaid Abandoned Vanguard, Sigil — includes swearing and bitterness.

Lots of entertaining reading.

My favorite part was using a lackey to fire everyone. That’s sooo messed up.

10 thoughts on “Vanguard, Sigil and The Vision”

  1. I don’t know if Brad’s batshit crazy or not, but it’s obvious neither he nor Jeff Butler should have anything to do with management ever again.

    And holy crap, ONE guy in QA all that time?

  4. Tseric might have quit… he needed to, certainly. Although after melting down in public, I certainly would have expected them to at least transfer him to another dept. if not show him the door. Poor guy. He really needed to quit a few months earlier.

  5. To be more ontopic about Sigil, that McQuaid interview was chock full of lies and half-truths.

    And he’s a coward who somehow finds the strength to post and “do interviews” like a methhead at 1 or 2 or 3 in the morning.

  6. f13.net: For everyone involved, do you have a Google Alert on “The Vision?”

    Brad McQuaid: Hm. No. I have it on McQuaid and Sigil I think. I should probably put one on “The Hub of All Blame” as well.

    I laughed really hard … not at Brad’s ‘quip’ either 🙂

    That interview is rather quite harsh, I’m surprised Brad continued to answer questions half way through. Reading both staff and manager interviews is rather revealing though, that Brad literally had no control or managerial balls to actually pull off a project like this.

    Shame really.

  7. I liked that “Everyone gather your stuff and meet out back for a meeting.”

    It was like shades of Old Yeller.

    Coooold, cold.

  9. This is no longer entertaining when people are getting fired and losing their jobs… while the (former) boss is still a millionaire. Most of the day-to-day workers didn’t really deserve this.

    On a slightly unrelated note, I really really really really really (plus a few more really’s) hate Tseric’s condescending and downright nasty attitude toward the customers on the Blizzard forums. So, I’m glad he’s gone, or fired, or off to pursue other things, or whatever. He never should have been a community manager in the first place.

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