First off , some background for those who may not know anything about Vanguard (VG)...

Vanguard was supposed to be the spiritual successor to Everquest (EQ), developed by Brad McQuaid who was the driving force behind EQ. An MMO with a more "hardcore" focus than World of Warcraft (WoW), basically it was to be EQ with updated graphics and a completely open world. Without going into all the sordid details that led to a horrible launch, let's just say that VG was released at least 6 months before it was ready. It was very buggy and brought top end gaming gaming systems to their knees at launch. Oh and while Brad may have some great ideas about MMO gaming, he never should have tried to manage it. Honestly not sure he could manage a hot dog stand :)

So the game releases in January  2007 and sells 250K boxes on the promise of  a better EQ. Despite the bugs, initially I think at least half of those sales converted to subs because it was a good game despite the bugs. It had a massive world that was absolutely gorgeous, many unique classes and an engaging combat system. Then Brad and Sigil sold the game to Sony Online Entertainment...

Having experienced what SOE did to both EQ and Star Wars Galaxies, I was already afraid but thought the game was so much better than anything else on the market, I trusted SOE yet again, thinking that they had the money to fix the game and realize it's potential. Silly me :)

Right off the bat, SOE fired at least half the dev team from Sigil.....I.e., a lot of the people who already knew the code and could work with it. Fairly quickly they started to WoW-ify the game. Made death meaningless, got rid of equipment expertise (really unique in MMO's at the time as it let you really focus on certain aspects of your character via equipment as opposed to stats) and added way too many insta ports, making travel fairly trivial.

To be fair, the dev team did do a wonderful job in actually making the game playable in that same time frame. 6 months in, performance was vastly better and most major bugs quashed....but at the same time, they were killing those aspects of the game that made it unique.

Each time they did one of these things, it drove away some of those people who wanted something different than WoW. So the servers got emptier and emptier...Being designed as a group-centric game, the empty servers were not enticing to new players as it was harder and harder to find a group unless you were in a tight knit guild or had regular friends to play with . So subs continue to shrink as more people leave than new subs come in...

Now to me the bread and butter of an MMO are those hard core players who will stay subscribed for years because they love the virtual world and the community that such a world  generates.

But over time, SOE has done apparently everything they can to alienate that type of player, changing core systems in the game and trying to make it more WoW-like in hopes of huge subscription numbers. The thing is, people who like the WoW style of game already have a very well polished and bug free game to play in WoW, so why should they come play Vanguard?

Over the years, SOE has consistently pulled devs off of Vanguard to work on other SOE titles, and as far as I can see never done any marketing at all to bring in new people. Everytime it seemed to me that they really were drawing in more people than were were leaving, they would willy nilly change something and drive off yet more of those hard core folks who would be happy to pay for the game for years.Like me :) I saw the writing on the wall after only a year, so I consider myself lucky. As it stands today, I think VG has maybe 5 full time devs...Oh, and they can't fix any graphic bugs these days cause they don't have a graphics guy anymore. Not to mention Silius, the lead dev/producer, has been loaned out to EQ and working on EQ's new expansion for months now.

Now as a lovely holiday present to all those loyal customers who have been pumping money into VG for years, Silius posts that everything they had promised was in the works is no longer an option, and yet another server merge is likely, hehe, there are only 4 servers now...how much more can they merge. This is the death knell for a game that had so much potential...

In reading the official VG forums, I am seeing so many staunch supporters of the game now saying this is the last straw. And it is truly the last straw, with a merge down from 4 servers and no real new content, it's obvious to me that SOE is getting ready to pull the plug but want to milk what subs they still can til the end, ala Matrix Online. Not to mention scrapping things that the devs have said are complete except for testing. If that content is that close to complete, why scrap it? Finish it fer god's sake, instead of heading off onto completely different tracks that require yet more work and time.

Bottom line, it seems to me that SOE has continually lied to to the player base in terms of what to expect from VG. And now the lies are coming due...SOE may not understand this, but for many of us gamers, VG was the last straw. Like myself, I see many people saying they will never give SOE another penny. SOE has burned me 3 times on games, I am done with them. Long term SOE have screwed themselves, as even if they come out with the ultimate game, many of us will not even take a look...simply because it is SOE. I am seeing this attitude becoming  more and more prevalent amongst gamers that I know.

 As much as I still think, despite everything, that VG is really the best MMO experience out there, they are not getting any more of my money.The way SOE treats their paying customers is almost a text book example of how NOT to treat customers. If you want to keep people playing your MMO, deliver on your promises and stop flat out lying to them just to string them along for another few months of subscription fees.

Most of us gamers will put up with a lot of  crap to play a game we like, but lies and deception will turn us off to anything else you ever do. Deceit is NOT a good business model imho.....

SOE could have made this into a premier MMO if they'd only put some money and resources into it, but now it looks like just another failed game that had great promise. There is a market for niche games, just look at EveOnline, very much a niche game that has continually grown in subs since release. I honestly can't think of any other MMO that can boast of a continually increasing sub base.  Eve is the one MMO I always end up going back to periodically. Most MMO's once I've quit, I really never go back, but somehow Eve always draws me back.....been playing it off and on for years now :)

In closing, I have to say if you want to experience a huge, open world with an incredible amount of content before it's gone, give VG a try. There is an amazing amount of content in VG for beginners. Sadly not that many people to play with any more but it is an amazing world to explore. Experience it before it is gone for good.



My 2cp....