Comments:
'Hrmmm...' by Wilhelm2451
Submitted on 2007-04-20 19:59:14 CST
Is SOE destined to become the land of misfit MMOs?
'yeah' by darrenl
Submitted on 2007-04-20 20:46:08 CST
That was a great show in the 80's...The Misfits of MMOs...ummmmm.
...seriously, it's an interesting theory.
'...although' by darrenl
Submitted on 2007-04-20 21:17:54 CST
If SOE did buy it out, how would they differentiate/sell/market VG from EQ2. Hmmmm....I need to think about this one a bit.
'dount it, but who knows' by Sente
Submitted on 2007-04-21 13:11:50 CST
Although I think that SOE may have deeper pockets than many other companies and probably can hide some less fortunate MMOG investments in the total budget of SOE, I don't see a compelling reason to get Vanguard/Sigil.
Matrix Online and Planetside are different, non-fantasy niches in the MMOG space and SOE might have been interested not just in the games, but perhaps some technology and people associated with it, or perhaps some later game already in the works by those studios.
Vanguard is in the fantasy speace, which they have a lot of inhouse experience with, plus some games (EQ and EQ2) that is probably doing ok.
Plus the amount of money spent on MxO etc were probably much less than the $30 million for Vanguard. I am quite sure if SOE would make a move here that they ensure that they do not have to pay that amount of money to the original investors.
If Brad McQuaid said that they need 250k+ subscribers to break even, I would assume that this is in order to get back the total investment within a certain number of years. I cannot imagine that they would need that much to break even on operational costs, that is probably much lower.
With 250k subscribers paying about $15 per month, that would mean $45 million per year, plus the game sales giving a couple of more millions as well. So with around 50k subscribers, the numbers before any expenses would be closer to $9 million per year.
If SOE picks it up, I think that will be at a point where they do not have to pick up the investor bill, or if Sigil happens to have some other very interesting game in the works.
'Profitability and vs EQ2' by scytale2
Submitted on 2007-04-22 05:17:20 CST
Firstly I definitely agree on the issue of profitability. 50k-100k subscribers is plenty to cover operational costs and with the right number of servers it's probably enough for the players too.
However, Vanguard is not a 50k-100k type of game. It's easily the best MMO on the market at the moment or at least it would be, if there was a bit more content in some areas, no bugs and less of a need for a Formula 1 engine in the PC. I don't play it any more due to the above 3 and that's probably the same for all of the people who have left. However, when I have a new Vista PC, a bit more confidence in the bugs and an ability to level up any race, because there is content for it, then I'll be back.
The current playerbase is about what the game deserves in its current pre-release state.
As far as comparison to EQ2, I have always felt that EQ2 was there for those EQ players who wanted to keep playing. It's not as good a game as WoW, but its market is there due to its community and the nice resource that SOE throws at it in terms of continuous expansions, just like they did with EQ to keep it going.
Of the two, I'd play Vanguard (if I could) and I think most people would, including 90% of the WoW play-base imho, if they fix their many gremlins.
It's a snap buy, if SOE pick it up for a song and I think it's good for players too.
'My Experience with Vanguard' by Edar
Submitted on 2007-04-22 08:07:29 CST
I purchase Vanguard 15 days ago. I'm a casual player who play mostly off peak times and with no friends currently playing MMOs.
Let me do some math here. Complex MMORPG + Casual Player + Weird Play Times + No Friends = It doesn't look good. But, I'm having a good time playing Vanguard anyways.
I never had any problem to find casual groups to advance in the most difficult areas and I do not think that the advance of my character is slower than other games (in fact I think is faster than EQ2, or at least I'm enjoying this more).
I read about people leaving the game in almost every forum about Vanguard, but in the game it appears to be more people every day. I don't know what is happening, or maybe if this is only happening on my server (RP server). I do not have any numbers with me neither, I just only know what I see.
But let's say that this is true. People is leaving the game every day. Sigil in fact could not maintain the game for a long time with a low population, but Sony can do it, and if they want to do it I'm with them.
I think Sigil is a great group, but they didn't know how to handle the community. The game also still have tons of bugs and balance issues, but I could not find any play stopping bug yet. I don't know, I will keep playing.
And for the Formula 1 PC, I don't know, currently I have a mid-range PC and I'm playing Vanguard at 1280x1024 in ultra high quality (full effects) and is running at 40-50 fps without problems. Maybe I just have the right setup...
'I haven\'t yet played Vanguard, and don\'t plan to because...' by trollonfire
Submitted on 2007-04-22 09:49:33 CST
I'm very irritated with SOE on several fronts:
1) Increasing the monthly station access price to 29.95/mo, while not really fixing anything in many of the games players have come to know and love. I\'m sure two different departments were involved in the price hike, marketing and overall operations choosing this route, and the indvidual dev teams don\'t have a say, but considering how most of their games have flagging or non-existant populations, this pisses me off. You\'re adding $5/mo, not adding any new benefit to the customer, and the game choices suck, with a couple of exceptions (EQ and EQ2, the two games SOE can rely on for income at this point). Until SOE can come out with a new, polished, full-release game and not the train wreck that Vanguard is, SOE\'s dumping money into a MMO vortex that will continue to hurt SOE\'s viability in the long run.
2) SOE cannot fix a game to save their lives. In almost any SOE MMO I\'ve played, SOE manages to kill the fun out of the game in some way. SWG is the exception, as Lucas was stuffing his big nose and fat, turtleneck-covered neck to ruin that game; but overall, SOE has managed to squeeze all the fun out of many of these games. Back when EQ started, it was the gigantic nerf bat whenever people were doing things they hadn\'t anticipated, even though they were implemented in the game (the 6-wizard manaburn of bosses, the 2-man soloing of Lodizal are ones that come to mind). This problem continued into EQ2\'s launch (Anyone remember the \"Hey, this AGI-based skill doesn\'t work the way we thought it would, set\'s nerf ALL AGI-based classes rather than fix the problem!). And now in Vanguard, while SOE is only the producer, you\'d think that as the producer they\'d have more say in what needs to get fixed. Hopefully they get up to speed fast and close the exploit loopholes, because right now that game is in serious danger of total collapse.
''I haven't yet played Vanguard, and don't plan to because, part 2' by trollonfire
Submitted on 2007-04-22 09:50:14 CST
Had to cut this into 2 posts, sorry.
Sony as a whole has managed to blunder along the past few years. SOE isn\'t anywhere near as profitable as they hoped, which is why they upped the price. The PS3 (And yes, I know it\'s a different department than SOE, but it\'s still a part of Sony, folks) is another napalm covered hot topic that Sony\'s trying to sweep under the rug and hope the Fae from EQ2 come and spread magic \"make it all better\" dust that will bring the company back to it\'s prior glory days. SOE needs a solid game, that is polished, not going to hammer every PC into the ground at release if we want something other than baseline graphics, and be different/niche. SOE: WE DON\'T NEED ANOTHER HIGH FANTASY MMO! (Sorry for the caps). Give us something new, for god\'s sake; I\'d love to see a true Battletech game out there... or something mech-based. Planetside has mecs, yes... but it also looks like a 90\'s Tron clone. SOE, take me back to the old EQ days when people loved you.... bring me back!
'SOE... EQ... loved?' by Heartless
Submitted on 2007-04-22 12:08:30 CST
Morgardin,
Last I remember, when SOE took over EQ... there wasn't very many happy souls. EQ was loved because of what Varrant did, not because of what SOE did. And even then, EQ can thank most of it's success on being in the right place at the right time.
scytale2,
You are fooling yourself if you think Vanguard could be the best MMORPG on the market. The players have clearly voted otherwise.
Sente,
Subscribers * $15 does not equal a games operating budget. When will people stop making this stupid calculation and pretending that the derived amount will answer all the problems of the game. Money has never fixed a damn thing in any MMORPG.
'money and problems' by Sente
Submitted on 2007-04-22 18:49:59 CST
Heartless,
You are putting in statements regarding the calculation that were never made. Whether a certain amount of money will help fix Vanguard's problems or not may be a topic for discussion, but was not part of my comments.
To me, base operational costs are what is necessary to keep the game up and running so people can play. Any updates, bug fixes or new development is not really included there.
I do not think that your reference to Brad saying they needed 200k+ subscribers to break even would include just this, so the question is what did he mean then? Most likely Sigil has to get the financial backers return on investment within a certain number of years.
'My complaint about this post' by QforQ
Submitted on 2007-04-23 01:29:24 CST
Is that this is just based off rumors. LFG has posted many rumors before that I've seen, including one that SOE was planning to make an official forum for Vanguard...which more than 2 months later hasnt happened. This blog post has no credibility at all because it's based off of rumors from some forum on the interweb. It only serves to stir up trouble and discussion about something that we have no clue about.
We have idea about Sigil's plans to turn over Vanguard to SOE, or if they have any plans at all to do so. We havent had any hints or clues that they were planning to do so in the first place...so I dont really understand why this article is given so much credibility and attention.
'Are things really this bad already ?' by Dathmar
Submitted on 2007-04-23 10:57:51 CST
Sorry to highjack this thread - its sort of related.
I am hearing that Vanguard is losing lots of subscriptions - is this really true ?
P.S. I see (well hear actually) that Taloncast has stopped as the host has stopped playing Vanguard
Personally I think SOE would not pick this up unless things were REALLY BAD at Sigil and only then with a view to eventually replacing EQ2 with it perhaps....in the distant future ?
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