Kranky Kraut

F13.net has an interview with an ex-Sigil employee. It’s a morbidly fascinating read. Some of the sad high points:
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.
[...]
Ex-Sigil: [...] The [...]

Tags: MMORPG, Sigil, SOE, Vanguard

Details on SOE’s acquisition of Sigil are slowly emerging. It doesn’t look pretty but it could be worse. From Smed’s posting on the official forums and his interview with GameSpot:

Staff will be downsized from about 100 employees to 50
The remaining developement team will be approximately the size of EQ2’s developement team
Dave Gilbertson will be responsible for [...]

Tags: MMORPG, Sigil, SOE, Vanguard

F13.net reports of mass-firings at Sigil, Grouchy Gamer corroborates it. Ugly businiss, especially the fact that the people who busted their asses for Sigil and Vanguard are treated in such a manner. It’s not awfully surprising in a socio-economic climate in which employees aren’t seen as human beings but as resources to be used (up) and discarded on a whim.
An interesting bit from Grouchy [...]

Tags: MMORPG, Sigil, SOE, Vanguard

Rabid hatred of SOE has always been part of the Vanguard fan community identity. Apparently, Brad McQuaid is seen by some as an impeccable knight in shining armor whose strong sense of integrity prompted him to leave that den of nefarious money grubbing that is SOE and set out to build a better company that [...]

Tags: MMORPG, Sigil, SOE, Vanguard

Ok, that was about the last thing I expected. SOE will publish Vanguard, Microsoft is out of the picture. How the hell did that happen?  Smed is probably cackling like a maniacal devil right now. I know I would if I were him. I find this surprising because from all the PR bullshit one would [...]

Tags: MMORPG, Sigil, SOE, Vanguard