As the World of Telon Turns

A few former Sigil employees have let their feelings been known regarding this whole debacle.

Here is an excerpt from a very lengthy interview at F13:

"Ex-Sigil: It's hard. I really wanted Vanguard to be a great game, but it seemed like we were blocked by stupid decision making at nearly every step. Good people busted their ass, only to be shown the door because they weren't a 'culture fit' moving forward. I don't believe Brad is a bad guy like some people are painting him on the various forums right now. I DO think however, that he believed people wanted to play a game that HE liked, regardless of the masses of people telling him they didn't like his ideas. He ignored the opinions of people who worked for him, and busted their ass for him, and it cost him dearly, at least in reputation. So many of us jumped at the chance to work with Brad, only to find out he was a paper leader. You can only fool me once. I never want to work for Brad or Dave ever again. There was so much good in the team, so much effort wasted. None of the people listed above should ever work in any position of leadership. Though, Jeff might have a chance. He learned lessons from this, I think. The others did not. The whole ordeal has been rough. I know I'm exhausted."


Nino posted over at FoH: "I promised not to be publically scornful, but I will say this: I hope those truly responsible for the deep rooted failings of the company lay in bed tonight and relive the events that transpired today in their heads, over and over. For not ONE of you is without your job come tomorrow morning." Follow the link to read the whole thing.

Obviously, there's a lot of bitterness and resentment and I sure can't blame them for feeling that. Sounds like Sigil was full of wonderful musicians without a qualified maestro to orchestrate them.

The End of Sigil?

Life's been busy and I've fallen a bit behind in keeping up with various blogs and gaming sites. But what a shock to read F13 regarding the firing of Sigil employees. Supposedly an announcement is coming today so I'll have to keep an eye out to feed my curiosity. I may not have been fond of Vanguard, but having followed it for a few years I'd really gotten to like many of Sigil's employees. My heart goes out to those guys and I wish the best for them.

More surprising still was reading Grouchy Gamer. Assuming that what is posted here is correct, Brad had been a rare visitor to the Sigil office since last December. There are some other bits there regarding an irritating personality, but I take all that with a grain of salt.

I'm guessing SOE will pick up some of the cream of the crop of Sigil. And while I know many are upset about SOE having anything to do with Vanguard, I do believe the game can only improve from here. They may have botched SWG completely, but they did turn EQ2 around and have learned quite a bit from past mistakes. I'm not sure if I'd go back to Vanguard to give it another whirl, but I'm rooting for the game and hope it succeeds.

LOTRO Grouping Woes, Etc.

While I am really enjoying many aspects of LOTRO, my grouping experiences so far have been horrendous. I've met a lot of nice people but the majority seem to have this “every man for himself” attitude and just go charging into camps of elite mobs with disastrous results. I'm finding myself longing for a game with few quests at all, where you spend an hour or two with the same group of people and from level 1 you begin to learn what group setup and tactics work best for different circumstances. But I know that's unrealistic. No one will make that style of game anymore.

I'm sure I'll still be playing for awhile yet though. I like the setting and I even like my minstrel, which is a rare thing for me. I often play healers with my husband's warrior type, but usually don't enjoy the role very much and play some sort of dps/hybrid class on the side. But I think I'll be avoiding the group quests for just a bit.

I'm curious to see what they will be able to offer as far as housing goes. What I would really hope for is that there might be something similar to DAOC where you would have a vendor at your home, eliminating the ridiculously high auction house fees. It's gotten to where I'm vendoring most items rather than pay the high fees and risk the item not selling at all. They charge you a fee to place the item, and then charge another fee if it sells. Talk about double dipping.