Au tour de Brad

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This is the transcript of an interview with Brad McQuaid via telephone which began at 1:40AM and finished at 3:09AM on May 17th, 2007. As before, I am adding no personal comments to this article outside of what is presented in the interview.

f13.net: What was the relationship in the office between Microsoft and Sigil prior to the split?

Brad McQuaid:: As I've posted a number of times, there was a regime change at Microsoft where they reorganized a lot of their game studios. The people who were in charge of the Vanguard project on the Microsoft side went elsewhere and a completely new group of people were put in place. In that new group of people, the upper management side were also in charge of getting the Xbox 360 out the door. So, the PC games at the time were not receiving a lot of support and I don't blame Microsoft for this at all. When you've got billions of dollars spent trying to launch a new console and millions on the PC titles, you're gonna make sure that the Xbox 360 kicks ass - I think they did a good job of that. The lower level people were put in charge of our project were people who didn't have any MMO experience. They had done Zoo Tycoon 1 & 2. We tried very hard to bring them up to speed and with open arms to show them the differences and similarities between developing an MMO and a single player game - the scale and things like that. That just didn't seem to work. Previously, the people who were dealing with us committed to us - verbally - that they, Microsoft, wanted and were determined to launch a AAA Massively Multiplayer Role-Playing Game - and to do whatever it took to make sure that happened. While that's not down on paper - as no company ever would put down on paper - that was our understanding. Under the new regime, that commitment, nobody remembered it.

When games like WoW were getting heavily into development and dollar amounts on games like EQ2 and WoW were becoming public - we said it would always be our understanding and agreement that we would compete with these guys. They backed down off of that and said that it was no longer their goal and at that point, the money started drying.

f13.net: So, Microsoft simply wasn't ready to compete and they had previously failed projects...

Brad McQuaid:: You have to understand how Microsoft works - and like I said, I don't blame them. They're given different marching orders from a corporate level when it comes to large expenditures. If you go back to Xbox 1 there was a lot of concerns. Can it handle Nintendo and Sony and Sega? Microsoft, you're big, but you can't have the console arena. Microsoft said "we're gonna do it, whatever it takes." The Xbox 1 was ok, and the Xbox 360 is doing great - and that, well, that was their mandate: To do whatever it took to start dominating the console market. They may not be there yet, but they're a lot farther along than they were with the Xbox 1. They had made that decision at some level to look ahead at online gaming and really do the same thing with MMOs. The day or the day after I left Sony, Ed Fries - I think the general manager at Windows Gaming - and other publishers called me, EA and NCSoft, but I had known Ed from before and had a relationship with him. I just knew that Microsoft, when they put their mind to do something, there's no stopping them. They were ready to make the next big MMO. A couple years into the project there was a significant change - the gaming group - and that was no longer the mandate. It took several months to really figure that out. When you have the Zoo Tycoon team assigned to you and the upper manager is in charge of your project and in charge of launching the 360... he must have had ten seconds a day to bother thinking about Vanguard. As there are - and I don't want to sound bitter - in large corporate entities, they make changes. When that change occurred, our relationship started going downhill. We knew what we needed to be competitive with World of Warcraft was in jeopardy.

f13.net: People have said that Microsoft were completely hands off in the development...

Brad McQuaid:: Well, before the transition, they weren't completely - but we were working hand in hand. It was a fantastic relationship. After the change they became completely hands-on.

f13.net: What did that do with the game?

Brad McQuaid:: It slowed down development significantly. Managing the game from their perspective, well... We tried to explain how MMO development is different from Zoo Tycoon and that explanation just wasn't being agreed with or understood - one of the two, I'm not sure. They wanted detailed schedules going out for months that were fairly inflexible. The more artistic a project is, the less schedulable it is down to the long term. I'm all for scheduling - but you have to be flexible. What if a technology doesn't work out? What if you find a better way to do something? You have to be flexible. Especially in pre-production. They wanted everything systematically and that it would take exactly this amount of time, this amount of art assets, and this amount of people to make, say, a dungeon. Are we talking about a premiere dungeon? A level 30 dungeon? A raid dungeon? A dungeon for core gamers? A dungeon where we can reuse certain art assets? Are we talking one where new art is used? There are a lot of variables there. There's not a lot of flexibility there. Our interpretation of that early on is that they don't understand MMO development. Later on, we determined that the decision was made that this is how the studio would be run regardless of the game.

f13.net: I was told that Microsoft actually came in and set a firm release date when you all were somewhere between 55 and 65 percent done.

Brad McQuaid:: Before the regime change, they had committed to us that they would adjust budgets and time frames to make sure it was a AAA game. These things take a long time to develop. Changes are happening, getting more expensive and customers are expecting more. We went back a couple of times together with [the managing team] to increase our budget or increase our time here and there. They were totally cool with that and understood that it was necessary to remain competitive.

After the regime change, that was considered "we were late" or "mismanaging" or "not adhering to strict schedules." It was looked upon not as staying competitive or making a AAA WoW-level game but rather that we were doing something wrong. They frowned upon us needing more time or money. When we'd ask for it, it was considered that we were making errors. Each time that occurred the micromanagement would increase. More and more Microsoft people would come down and try to analyze what was going on. Where we were "messing up." What they could do to "help us." Until finally they flat out said no. No more money, no more time. Your release date needs to be in the July 2006 time frame and that's it.

They didn't have their MMO people anymore really, and they had a major priority of getting the Xbox 360 out which cost billions and billions of dollars. Our ability to petition this to higher-ups and get any attention just really wasn't there.

I don't want to appear to negative here... but this happens with large corporations. There are changes and changes in mandate and focus, and clearly the Xbox 360 is doing very, very well. It has great titles and Microsoft is sitting fine. It's not like they made a catastrophic corporate error. I very much respect Microsoft as a whole and there are a lot of great people there and I'm definitely not one of those "I love Linux and hate all things Windows guys." I understand that all these things happen. Unfortunately it happened to us.

f13.net: Right after the split and before the tragedy the other day, that's when people claim you started to be in the office... not quite as much. Can you explain why?

Brad McQuaid:: We need to back up a little bit. After we split from Microsoft - because obviously we couldn't ship the game in an unready state - we had to go out and do something. Find money to make the game that we could and all dreamed about. We cut a deal pretty quickly so that we could get into SOE's E3 kiosk. We ended up having to meet payroll and to pay the bills. We needed to raise money. We went out and found some people who specialized in venture capital and I worked with those people immediately following the deal coming together. I started working with them on putting a deal together to fund the game to completion and fund the company post-completion and to possibly start a second title. It was basically "get money that we needed." So I started working with these people, it was a learning experience - I'd never really been in the private investor/VC world - and we started that process. I was in and out of the office quite a bit. Demoing the game, showing it to potential investors and putting together the documentation. All sorts of stuff you have to do for that kind of money.

f13.net: So that time being out of the office was business?

Brad McQuaid: It was a bummer. Even going back to SOE, I want to make games. The executive producer side of things is more fun than the CEO business side of things. But it had to be done, right? So it was a bummer leaving a lot of that behind and it simply had to be done.

f13.net: The SOE-speak was vague in their press release, what are you doing on the game now?

Brad McQuaid: Pretty much what the press release said. It will become more clear and more announced in the future. I'll be posting on message boards, working with the creative/marketing team on Vanguard, perhaps future things... projects, and working as a consultant in that area. Which are some of the things I really enjoy like posting on message boards.

f13.net: Like FoH?

Brad McQuaid: If that had gotten to me, I'd have gone under in 1998.

f13.net: I don't know. You refuse to post on f13, even though you said you "read us daily."

Brad McQuaid: No offense, it looks like a lot more people read FoH and I was posting on there to get the word out about the game. I had no intention to argue or or debate about the game. It was to show people that there was a difference. F13 is a smaller group of guys that really gets into MMOs - the analysis of MMOs and what makes them work. I enjoy reading it, it just doesn't seem like the same type of forum [as FoH].. On FoH, some people would say - "Oh Brad, you're just here promoting, go away." I say, "well, if that's your feeling, let me know." A bunch of other guys say "stay" and well, as long as I'm welcome here that I would. I was simply too engaged with other stuff to get into the more esoteric and more philosophical parts of MMO design which f13 is a bit more focused on...

f13.net: Well, it's irrelevant these days since everyone links to everyone else.

Brad McQuaid: This is true.

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.

f13.net: Actually, 9 out of 10 people believe that "The Hub of All Blame" is Gilbertson and Fisher. Do you even want to comment?

Brad McQuaid: No. They're great guys, personal friends of mine and I can understand why people can be upset with them. While I understand it, I disagree on a professional level. Going further would have to wait for an SOE interview.

f13.net: Do you think some of that contributed to some of the eventual problems that arose?

Brad McQuaid: I can't answer that, but when a company grows and you start being a manager, it's worrisome to hire somebody from outside though. So your inclination is to hire from the inside, your downside to that is that. Growing a company really, really fast is tough. I certainly made my share of errors and there are books written on it. It's not something easy. It goes back into something I said earlier about how quick this industry is expecting more and more - Everquest cost 8 million dollars, WoW cost 80 Million. Jesus. That's in a period of how many years?

f13.net: There were three questions people really want answers to... the first being, why weren't you at the office on launch day?

Brad McQuaid: Launch day?

f13.net: Apparently they had "cake and champagne."

Brad McQuaid: In general, I had just found out about future events and what was likely or possible to occur... and it broke my heart. Emotionally, I just couldn't be sitting there celebrating and putting on a big smile when I knew the troubles we might be facing in the future.

f13.net: Next, I was told there was no launch party... Most companies I know, I've been to a few of them, they have launch parties in the face of utter defeat or complete success - what happened there?

Brad McQuaid: Are you talking about a party for employees or media?

f13.net: Media and employees. A launch party.

Brad McQuaid: We had hoped to have a big one... well, my favorite one was with Velious. We went to Vegas. We had all the media down one night and a fan-faire another... There were enough things going on with launch and financial realities, that it just wasn't going to work out. I think they had a big hot dog and burger cookout and let everyone go early.

f13.net: And the next party... god, I am a fucking cynic. Why weren't you at the firing party?

Brad McQuaid: Well, this is going to sound corny but it's true. I would have broken down in tears.

f13.net: I have since discovered that SOE didn't even know it was going to go down like that. They had something else planned, something less cold. You read the interview right?

Brad McQuaid: The Long and Morbid tale one?

f13.net: Well, let me just read it back. I've now had multiple people say the same thing. It's uncanny. Not a single one of them seem to have embellished. That Andy Platter - who no one knows, they don't even know what he did at Sigil.. Dave Gilbertson, Ryan Elam, and Donna Parkinson - well basically "You're all fired, some of you may be rehired by Sony Online Entertainment" an-

Brad McQuaid: I know those people and have a great deal of respect for them, but that sounds awful cold the way you said it...

f13.net: No, you don't understand. Everyone said the same thing. I have confirmed it with no less than six people. That they used the phrase "you're all fired." On that day. In a parking lot. My big problem with this is, well, I don't know your relationship with Bill Fisher, but at this event he made a joke about his stock options buying him a new house. I don't even know how you can comment on this.

Brad McQuaid: I would find that hard to believe.

f13.net: Uhm....

Brad McQuaid: I think, this is speculation... there was some turmoil on design and Fisher was doing very well and he was one of the people who wasn't let go. If you can imagine perhaps a designer who was let go having some animosity for Bill and maybe hearing that he said something like that or maybe they overheard him sarcastically talking to one of his buddies like "huh, oh, yea, I'm gonna go buy a car now." Ya know, we're not talking those kind of dollar figures I don't think. I can imagine him going "Woo hoo, going to buy a new car" and I can imagine a third party not knowing Bill's sarcastic joke-around with the guy's personality and hearing it and taking it in a bad way, you know what I'm saying? I wasn't there. But I sincerely doubt that he said that in the way it's being construed.

f13.net: Going another direction, I know that there was at one point, a coup that was attempted. On the business side, what happened to the relationship with you and Jeff Butler?

Brad McQuaid: When you work with someone as long as Jeff Butler and I have - a long time... you're basically business partners. You agree on most things but there are certain things you do not agree on. We have been described as an old married couple. So, ya know, we've had our disagreements. In the early days, everything was new and we had all these wild and cool ideas to share with each other. And then after the stress of running a business together and seeing each other everyday, we could complete each other's sentences. We've had our disagreements, but I wish him the best in whatever he's doing.

f13.net: This is something that, well, I've already got the people involved to corroborate... did the affair between April Jones and Jeff Butler actually affect anything in development?

Brad McQuaid: I'm not going to comment on their personal life.

f13.net: Not their personal life, the office life due to it.

Brad McQuaid: Uhm, I have a lot of respect for them. In general, I mean, you work together so much and so many hours in game development and it's creative and people have common interests. This guy watches BSG, this guy collects comic books. You make lots of friends. Relationships form that are more serious than friendships. The only way to stop that would be to basically fire people on the spot and draw some line in the sand. I don't even know how to define that, the legalities. Or do what most companies do and forbid relationships. But we're in games, I don't want to work in a dry environment. I want to goof off and have friends. Obviously something like... a scenario like that isn't good for the company. Is there an easy solution... how to not let that occur.

f13.net: I'll be honest, you touched on my next question. I heard that, well, apparently it was an open secret. That's fine. Whatever. It happens in every office. But the real problem was, well, seemed to have been that - Jeff's wife still worked there. How do you... you know, never mind, it needs to come from them.

Brad McQuaid: It made it worse, that's all I'll say.

f13.net: I'm going to do a 180 here. Apologies. But you're a religious person. You've said that angels and demons not being in EQ while you were there isn't just because of your religious beliefs. What was the core reason?

Brad McQuaid: There are different symbols, beings, supernatural beliefs - belief systems that people have that are active today in this world. Gods, demons, angels, others. I guess, in a textbook, would be world religions. You can't avoid offending everyone. Let's take angels. Christians generally believe that angels are real. Many other people don't. That they're mythological beings. Most people don't believe that dragons are real. Or that a griffin is real. Putting a griffin in your game though, versus an angel - is much less a problem. What we decided to do was to avoid anything that's from a major religion. There's some fundamentalist Christian that won't let their kid play period. Dragons, dungeons, death. Whatever. There's also going to be more moderate Christians who are going to let them play EQ or DAoC because there aren't demons or angels or something. We're creative enough people, why not just use the plentiful fantasy out there and not elements of major religions. I also wanted to not use symbols, even from dead religions. While I definitely think it would be great to take themes from mythologies like East-Asian, Norse, Egyptian and things like that - let's avoid using an ankh or whatever. Let's come up with our own religion and our own symbol that means life. This is a different world. Maybe we don't have the time or creativity of Tolkien - who borrowed from mythologies. We're not going to make our own huge religion, but at least come up with our own pantheon of gods and symbols and whatnot. That was just one of the things I wanted to do early on - by simply avoiding offending people if we can. To an atheist sure, an angel is no different than a griffin. But Johnny's mom will let him play our game.

I am a Christian so this probably goes back to me seeing 'Deities and Demigods' and kind of being bummed about that even though I still play [D&D]. It would have made me feel better if they had not used - or rather, had other creatures that weren't demons. So, is this kind of like, "if I'm going to be involved in making games, can a kid play this without being bother by it or his parents saying get away from that evil stuff!" That's the origin of it, but by no means is it me trying to hoist my religious beliefs on anybod-

f13.net: That cuts directly to the core of something I've heard from at least a couple employees who are upset. Someone is alleging - and I'm sure I'll get a straight no comment, but please just deal with the question... Did you distribute religious materials and offer promotions based on people who took you up on it?

Brad McQuaid: Absolutely not. No and no. Nor would I ever.

f13.net: Ok.

Brad McQuaid: I believe very much in spreading the gospel of Christianity through ones actions. I don't think you're going to force or debate anyone into believing something. It's got to be based on your actions and morals. On top of that in a work environment - and on top of that, in a management position - it is completely unacceptable to do anything like that and I wouldn't dream of it.

f13.net: Fair enough. So, a lot of people talked about this Andy Platter guy. From two people, I got the exact same response. Neither know who he was, or what he did, or why he played any role in the firing of employees. Simply to explain to the employees reading this - who was he and what did he do?

Brad McQuaid: He was the Director of Operations. He tested servers, websites, and so on. Most of the developers would probably not interact with him. He had also been out of town recently with a family illness. I'll stop there. As for why he was involved in that event, I have no comment because I wasn't there. As the company grew, well, it's another sociological thing. The company gets big enough, it leases another building. Then the people in the first building are like "what do those guys do?" That's just more human nature stuff. If you're a programmer you don't interact with design much. What does that guy do? I haven't seen anything he's done. Is he a waste of space? Well, he could be the best designer on the team. That's just people.

f13.net: I've kind of got a family tree of the company going here and normally this isn't tolerated. I'm trying to figure out - because I know you didn't have final say in a lot of things, specifically hiring practices among non-design folks...

Brad McQuaid: The larger the company got, the more we had to build up middle management and delegate responsibility.

f13.net: Well, how did nepotism run so freely to the point that - there's just, ugh, so many family members in this company. We've got brothers, brother-in-laws, a wife - how did this happen? Did you need that many people?

Brad McQuaid: Two answers. I don't know enough about well. I don't have a family tree. I don't know if this is a higher than normal number. You may have that information. I don't. The other thing too is, when you need to rely on somebody or know somebody or vouch for somebody, especially in a creative environment and know how they interact with people... well, you find a lot of pre-existing friendships and relationships. Because so many interests are shared, even some relationships that didn't exist beforehand - it's likely to happen just like it does with MMOs. You spend all this time with people and have a real relationship with people. I honestly don't know if there's more or less in Sigil.

f13.net: Ok.

Brad McQuaid: We didn't encourage it. We did encourage the general concept of "Hey do you know this guy, can you vouch for him?" "Well yea, I've known this guy six year. He's intelligent and super creative and he won't steal your car."

f13.net: Well of course, there's "I've known this guy 22 years, he's my brother. In secret, he's a big douche."

Brad McQuaid: That's the risk. And then you find out and you hopefully get rid of both. The industry is not that big. Basically, if you say "hey, I vouch for my brother" and then you hire him and they both turn out to be jerks, ya know, you're gonna hopefully get rid of them. When it comes time to recommendations, it's going to get around. Formally or informally. That stuff doesn't work out so well. More times than not, you get a good person than you get some guy who can't hold down a job.

f13.net: Ok, here's a loaded one. A number of people have said there was one QA member up through at least beta 3 or 4. How did an MMOG survive with one person dedicated to quality assurance.

Brad McQuaid: The original plan was to use Microsoft's vast testing facility. We were to keep a small testing team at Sigil -

f13.net: But one?!

Brad McQuaid:: No. A small team that was very close to the dev team and use the massive facility at Microsoft. When that relationship went south and we were scrambling for money, we simply did not have the room to grow.

f13.net: Can you talk about The Vision a bit?

Brad McQuaid: Well, it goes way back to Everquest.

f13.net: Well, we know that.

Brad McQuaid: I honestly don't know when it started. I probably started using... I think it had to do with something I commented on - why some games - well, you can tell if a development team really had their hearts in it or not, regardless of the type of game it may be. I think for any game, you need a vision. Either a visionary or visionaries and if you don't have that, you kind of meander around and I don't think you get nearly as strong of a game. Or anything. A piece of art. Anything creative. Unless there's a strong vision. My guess is I was doing a long-winded post back in 1999.

f13.net: Finally, is there anything you'd like to say to the people who were let go without warning. You weren't there, and you're the type of guy that would have said... something.

Brad McQuaid: I'm really sorry it went down that way. The way that it did. I can promise you that I and everybody in upper management did everything they possibly could to avoid this happening. Sigil was everything to us. It was our dream. Starting our own company. Providing a great working environment. You know, we worked months and months - as great as SOE is, and it was great working with them as a partner - as some people said "Brad, why did you sell out to.." We didn't. We had hoped that Vanguard would be more of a success. It turned out we all worked very hard. Did the best we could. I thank everyone for pouring their hearts and souls into the game. I think it's a great game. I think it has huge potential. When I've talked and made posts about the future of Vanguard and talked about Vanguard next year - I do believe that it was planned and architected to be an amazing game. We hoped to do it as our own company. It didn't work out that way. I'm sorry.

As CEO, I take full responsibility and the buck stops here. I did everything I could and so did everybody else to make it work. But it didn't. I hope that everything works out for you guys in the future. If there's anything I can do - recommendations, things like that for all of you guys - please don't hesitate to contact me. I hope that you learned a lot in your time at Sigil and that you've become a more valuable asset in the games industry than when you first started. I wish you guys the best. I'm sorry that I wasn't there the day that people were let go. But honestly, these months have been very, very heartbreaking for me. Emotionally I couldn't have handled it. I would've been sitting there bawling my head off. You can ask anybody who knows me about the heartache I've felt because things didn't work out for the company. I do believe Sony will do a great job. I know they will.

That doesn't make it any easier for someone who lost their job. It's got to be a horrible thing. You can ask people when I had to fire one person who really deserved it, I'd have to take the afternoon off because it was so hard for me. And that was firing someone who deserved it. Laying people off was just too much. I guess I'm too empathic in some ways. I took the role of CEO very seriously, that I was responsible for every person there. Their well-being. It got harder and harder as the company. It was a weight on my shoulders. Please, again, if there's anything I can do to help you out. Do not hesitate to contact me. And I wish you guys the very best.

f13.net: Thank you.

[Addendum: There are sites that are assuming things. Brad already knew about the relationship between April Jones and Jeff Butler. The management at Sigil knew about the relationship and that's why I asked in such a short manner, but the need to clarify has come up. Divorce was already in effect. Jeff and Michelle were seperated and going through a divorce. April was dating Jeff. It was not something that was under lock and key.]
Non, mais en meme temps tu ne pretends pas etre developpeur.

Sinon bonne interview a part le passage sur la religion, je ne vois pas trop ce que ca vient faire la dedans...et le passage sur les "affaires" entre employes aussi ca n'a pas vraiment sa place.

Ce que j'en retire c'est qu'il blame Microsoft et qu'il ne prend aucune responsabilite sur lui, comme s'il ne faisait pas partie de l'equation.
On pourrait esperer mieux d'un CEO.
Citation :
Publié par Fenrhyl Wulfson
Peut-être un brave type, sûrement le plus mauvais patron que j'aie jamais vu. Mais ferais-je mieux ?
Je ne sais pas si tu as suivi le projet Ryzom, Fenrhyl. Mais de le genre "je vis dans une autre galaxie que la votre" David Cohen Corval était pas mal non plus (ah ces posts mystico-ludiques ! ) et il a fini de la même manière que notre bon vieux Brad.
Il y a des moments j'en viens à préférer le côté businessman pragmatique d'un Marc Jacobs chez Mythic.
Mais bon c'est un ancien avocat. On ne se refait pas
Entre lui et Richard "Lord British" Gariott, on ne peut pas dire que les visionnaires légendaires des MMO de la première époque se soient avérés être de bons gestionnaires au fils du temps.
Citation :
Publié par Vic Mackey
Non, mais en meme temps tu ne pretends pas etre developpeur.
Bah lui non plus, au mieux manager, mais il ne se dit pas développeur.

Citation :
Publié par Vic Mackey
Sinon bonne interview a part le passage sur la religion, je ne vois pas trop ce que ca vient faire la dedans...
Certaines personnes virées disent qu'il distribuait des "grigris" religieux à ses employés, d'où la question.


Citation :
Publié par Vic Mackey
et le passage sur les "affaires" entre employes aussi ca n'a pas vraiment sa place.
Comment tu veux que ça se passe bien dans les bureaux quand un des dirigeants travaillent dans les locaux avec sa femme et sa maîtresse ?
D'ailleurs le PS à la fin précise bien que l'affaire était connue avant même le recrutement...
Même si la question parait déplacée d'un point de vue "affaire personnelle", elle a quand même sa place quand elle est posée au gars qui a recruté tout le personnel.

Au final, si on l'écoute, tout le monde est formidable, et ce n'est de la faute de personne. Dur à croire quand même; quand on voit le résultat.
A mon tour d'être pragmatique. Pour moi Brad maintenant fait parti de l'histoire ancienne. Son projet que j'appellerai VG v1 va rejoindre les autres cas pratiques (dans la catégorie "ce qu'il ne faut pas faire) étudiés dans les écoles de commerce spécialisées dans ce secteur.

Maintenant ce qui compte, je parle pour ceux qui s'intéressent vraiment au projet, c'est l'avenir. Quelles vont être les actions concrètes de SOE pour relancer ce titre, sous quels délais, le marché européen va t'il être plus pris en considération...

Et là je ne parle pas des annonces faites (ca c'est de la communication et c'est de bonne guerre vu le contexte), je parle de concret.
Soit SOE reprend l'offensive dans les toutes prochaines semaines avec un plan d'action cohérent et ils ont encore une carte à jouer, soit ils traînent des pieds et l'érosion des joueurs continuera (et même s'amplifiera en fin d'année).
L'avantage c'est que dans les 2 cas on va être vite fixé.
Citation :
Publié par Misere
Maintenant ce qui compte, je parle pour ceux qui s'intéressent vraiment au projet, c'est l'avenir. Quelles vont être les actions concrètes de SOE pour relancer ce titre, sous quels délais, le marché européen va t'il être plus pris en considération...

Autant je peux imaginer SOE faire en sorte de rendre VG fonctionnel et y apporter des modif pour toucher plus de monde afin de le rendre plus rentable.
Autant je ne peux pas imaginer SOE "tenir compte du marcher EU"; ils ne l'ont jamais fait, ou alors trés tardivement, et il n'y à pas spécialement de raison que ça change.
Citation :
Publié par karismo
Entre lui et Richard "Lord British" Gariott, on ne peut pas dire que les visionnaires légendaires des MMO de la première époque se soient avérés être de bons gestionnaires au fils du temps.
Ce sont deux choses totalement différentes, on ne s'improvise pas PDG Je ne veux pas faire ma psychologie de comptoir mais depuis que je suis le projet je suis sûr d'une chose : Brad est très certainement un excellent créatif mais... c'est tout ^^

Ce qui manque à Vanguard c'est un management et une gestion communautaire de premier ordre. Maintenant qu'il y a prescription je ne me retiendrai pas d'en parler, sur le forum réservé aux affiliés c'était vraiment le bordel sur la fin. Sigil, Brad and co. en ont pris pour leur grade et c'était amplement mérité. Quand tu vois que sur ce jeu il y avait un et un seul Customer Relationship, alors que partout ailleurs tu as une petite équipe (2 ou 3 personnes sur Spellborn alors que le budget et la taille ne sont certainement pas comparables), je trouve ça inadmissible.

On a posté il y a deux mois une liste de souhaits et d'idées sur MP, que l'on a traduite, aucune réponse et pourtant on a relancé l'affaire sans cesse. Pareil pour la localisation, nous avons tous relancé le sujet continuellement et pourtant aucune réponse de leur part si ce n'est des "je vais voir et je vous tiens au courant". La gestion communautaire reposait en partie sur le programme d'affiliation, or ce dernier manquait cruellement de moyens. Le résultat ne s'est pas fait attendre.

Je pense, peut-être à tord, que leur échec vient en grande partie de leur incapacité à gérer une communauté. Oui les bugs sont gênant, oui j'aurai préféré jouer en français, etc, mais si je n'avais pas eu l'impression d'être pris pour un abrutit par Sigil je n'aurai jamais résilié.

Enfin bref je m'arrête là. Pour revenir au sujet, l'interview de notre cher Brad, la vérité (non elle n'est pas ailleurs, ni au bout du couloir ) se situe très certainement entre les deux interviews, chacun ayant sa propre vision et ses propres rancunes.
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Publié par Piou60
Bah lui non plus, au mieux manager, mais il ne se dit pas développeur.
Je dis ca parce qu'il apparait avec le tag "developer" sur les forums Vanguard.
Ceci dit, manager ou developpeur, il n'a pas travaille comme il aurait du, et je ne crois pas qu'il faille lui chercher des excuses du genre "Toi t'aurais pas fait mieux".
C'est tout

Citation :
Publié par Piou60
Comment tu veux que ça se passe bien dans les bureaux quand un des dirigeants travaillent dans les locaux avec sa femme et sa maîtresse ?
D'ailleurs le PS à la fin précise bien que l'affaire était connue avant même le recrutement...
Même si la question parait déplacée d'un point de vue "affaire personnelle", elle a quand même sa place quand elle est posée au gars qui a recruté tout le personnel.
Les personnes concernees etaient en instance de divorce quand le gars a commence a sortir avec une autre nenette du bureau. Donc je ne vois pas trop de probleme. Et puis des affaires comme ca il y'en a de partout.

Moi ce qui me gene plus en revanche c'est de voir que des familles entieres freres et soeurs etaient employees dans la boite, et donc que ca recrutait non pas grace aux competences mais grace au copinage. Et que Brad ne soit pas au courant montre bien combien il etait implique dans les affaires de sa boite.

PS: j'arrive pas a retrouver son profil sur les fofos officiels. J'ai cherche les posts de Aradune Mithara, et rien.
Citation :
Publié par Fenrhyl Wulfson
Peut-être un brave type,
Certainement pas.
S'il avait été présent lors du licenciement de masse de Sigil, ne serait-ce que pour soutenir le regard de ceux qui ne sont pas repris par SOE et qui doivent faire une croix à contre cœur sur le boulot parfois énorme qu'ils ont fourni, là, à la rigueur, ça aurait été un brave type et un mauvais gestionnaire, là, il aurait assumé ses responsabilités, mais ce n'est pas le cas, contrairement à ce qu'il affirme.
Actuellement, il reste un bon vendeur de rêve, ce qui est déjà intéressant.

Je ne sais pas du tout ce qui s'est passé dans le coin privé des « affiliés », mais je veux pondérer ton message, HellR.
Il n'y avait peut-être qu'une personne dédiée officiellement aux relations client, et manifestement elle s'est mal débrouillée ou manquait cruellement de moyens, mais d'un autre côté, on a pu voir certains développeurs qui s'investissaient à fond dans leur projet prendre sur leur temps libre pour discuter avec la communauté, l'informer, prendre en compte ses remarques, et de façon efficace.
Pas de bol, certaines de ces personnes ont été licenciées, pendant que SOE assure le maintien d'un salaire plus que confortable à certains incapables.
Citation :
Publié par Vic Mackey
Moi ce qui me gene plus en revanche c'est de voir que des familles entieres freres et soeurs etaient employees dans la boite, et donc que ca recrutait non pas grace aux competences mais grace au copinage.
Ha ben voilà...çà explique bien des choses...(en particulier que VG soit si inégal).Pour avoir travaillé dans un milieu proche, je confirme qu'il y a rien de pire que le copinage, c'est comme çà qu'on se retrouve avec de mauvais graphistes et autres bras cassés (mais attention !Ils se prennent pas pour de la m...hein !) et les personnes réellement compétentes sont soit gênées dans leur travail soit poussées vers la porte par jalousie.

@Misere : petit hs, dsl, mais Marc jacobs est pas mal non plus dans un autre genre...une vraie girouette et conteur de craques hors pair.C'est pas mieux.
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Publié par Jactari
Certainement pas.
S'il avait été présent lors du licenciement de masse de Sigil, ne serait-ce que pour soutenir le regard de ceux qui ne sont pas repris par SOE et qui doivent faire une croix à contre cœur sur le boulot parfois énorme qu'ils ont fourni, là, à la rigueur, ça aurait été un brave type et un mauvais gestionnaire, là, il aurait assumé ses responsabilités, mais ce n'est pas le cas, contrairement à ce qu'il affirme.
Actuellement, il reste un bon vendeur de rêve, ce qui est déjà intéressant.
On peut critiquer la manière dont ce sont déroulés les évènements depuis la release, par contre pour tout ce qui touche au relationnel/personnel je me garderai bien d’émettre la moindre critique. Nous ne savons strictement rien de ce qui s’est passé... De plus Brad a été embauché en tant que consultant créatif, je ne sais pas si c'est un habit de parade mais en tout cas créatif il l'est et s'il est bien cadré je ne pense pas que ça soit un incapable.

Citation :
Publié par Jactari
Je ne sais pas du tout ce qui s'est passé dans le coin privé des « affiliés », mais je veux pondérer ton message, HellR.
Il n'y avait peut-être qu'une personne dédiée officiellement aux relations client, et manifestement elle s'est mal débrouillée ou manquait cruellement de moyens, mais d'un autre côté, on a pu voir certains développeurs qui s'investissaient à fond dans leur projet prendre sur leur temps libre pour discuter avec la communauté, l'informer, prendre en compte ses remarques, et de façon efficace.
Sur les 26 forums affiliés, combien étaient un lieu d'échange entre Sigil et ses clients ? Très peu, je dirai moins de 5 et aucun fansite européen. De plus, même ceux qui avaient la chance de recevoir certains développeurs se plaignaient de la situation. Et puis entre nous, ce n'est pas le rôle des développeurs et je pense à juste titre qu'ils avaient autre chose à faire. Ce n'est pas ce que j'appelle une gestion communautaire.

Mettons de côté les fansites affiliés anglophones (17 sur 26) et intéressons-nous aux fansites européens. Est-il normal pour un produit se voulant international et ayant des serveurs européens, de n'avoir aucun échange avec ses clients européens ? Quand je dis aucun c'est vraiment aucun... On a eu deux messages d'Elrar sur le forum MP (on est parmi les plus "chanceux") et encore on a dû lui tenir la main et limite poster le message à sa place. Lors de la release catastrophique ce sont les fansites européens qui ont joué le rôle de "pseudos" Community Manager (discuter avec Sigil, transmettre les infos, etc).

Le programme d'affiliation est une bonne chose, malheureusement il a été exploité à 10% de ses capacités...
Pour ce qui est de « l'incapable » je fais référence aux responsabilités qui n'ont manifestement pas été assumées jusqu'ici, et pourtant, les « responsables » en question sont repris par SOE, et leur avenir plus ou moins assuré.
Je ne dis pas qu'ils sont incapables dans tous les domaines.

Pour ce qui est du personnel, moi, je ne me retiendrai pas, les témoignages que j'ai lus sont suffisamment clairs et crédibles pour que je sois sûr que certaines personnes ont fourni un travail remarquable, auraient aimé continuer sur ce projet et se sont fait virer comme des malpropres, quand on connait les raisons de la fermeture de Sigil et de la reprise par SOE, et qu'on voit que les responsables sont déjà en train de calculer la surface de la piscine qu'ils vont creuser dans leur jardin ou de calculer le salaire qu'ils vont réclamer en tant que consultant, c'est dur à avaler.


Pour le programme d'affiliation, je n'ai pas grand chose à dire, et je suis d'accord avec toi sur l'anormalité de certaines choses, notamment l'absence presque totale de communication ciblant les joueurs européens alors que le produit est vendu explicitement et directement auprès d'eux.
Je tenais juste à préciser qu'en dépit de l'échec de ce programme, certains employés de Sigil ont réussi à assumer correctement des responsabilités qui n'étaient normalement pas les leurs.
(Je pense à des développeurs qui ont participé très régulièrement à certains forums, et c'est considérable quand on a conscience du boulot à part entière que représente le fait de passer quotidiennement ne serait-ce que sur un seul forum pour y relever les questions et les remarques pertinentes, les prendre en compte dans son projet, y répondre intelligemment, etc.)
D'un autre coté est ce que Vanguard est vraiment un échec?

Je ne sais pas mais les serveurs n'ont pas l'air bien remplis...

En tous cas ont ne peut pas vraiment critiqué ce qu'il c'est passé tous cela nous dépasse.
Commercialement, c'est un échec.

L'objectif etait à 500 000 abonnés. La version faible tournait a 300 000.

Il a été vendu 200 000 boites. A ce jour, le nombre d'anbonné serait entre 70 et 90 000.

Le jeu est sorti avec de gros problèmes techniques même si ce n'est pas handicapant pour jouer ca peut devenir frustrant, voire d'avantage si on a une petit config ou une configuration non-optimisée. Des améliorations ont été apportées, mais ca reste un jeu gourmand.

La communication et la publicité du jeu a été mauvaise.

Maintenant, le jeu est bon. Vraiement très bon. Il n'est pas mort. Il est entre de bonnes mains. Et d'après ce que j'ai lu, SOE s'est investit pour sortir le jeu, déjà avant sa reprise compléte. Donc, je ne vois pas pourquoi il l'abandonnerait.

C'est juste frustrant de voire le foirage de Sigil alors qu'ils avaient une bonne équipe et de bonnes idées. Le jeu aurait vraiement pu sortir convenablement avec un peu de pragmatisme.
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Publié par bardy hyrsys
C'est juste frustrant de voire le foirage de Sigil alors qu'ils avaient une bonne équipe et de bonnes idées. Le jeu aurait vraiement pu sortir convenablement avec un peu de pragmatisme.
Justement, non, l'équipe était mauvaise.

Quand des bugs majeurs remontés depuis 1 an n'avaient jamais été corrigé durant la beta (surtout avec un temps de développement aussi long, presque 5 ans, très gros budget, énorme équipe de 100 personnes), on était déjà en droit de se poser des questions sur la qualité de l'équipe et sa réactivité.

Qu'il y avait individuellement de bons éléments au sein de Sigil, c'est certain, mais si l'équipe, la somme de ces individus est à l'ouest, ça donne ce gros ratage comme on peut le voir aujourd'hui.

Il n'y a pas à chercher plus loin.
Il suffit d'une poignée de personnes incompétentes pour te faire foirer le boulot de plusieurs dizaines d'employés compétents. Donc non l'équipe n'est pas forcement mauvaise, elle a certainement mal été encadrée. Ensuite tu parles d'une équipe de 100 personnes mais combien y avait-il de développeurs réellement ? Est-ce que la proportion était cohérente ? N'y avait-il pas trop de personnel non-opérationnel / administratif ? Bref arrêtons les interprétations ça en devient ridicule, une chose est sûr Sigil s'est planté pour plusieurs raisons, pour les détails nous n’en saurons jamais rien et de toute façon la vérité est ailleurs
Posté par bardy hyrsys
Citation :
L'objectif etait à 500 000 abonnés. La version faible tournait a 300 000.
Avec le type de gameplay revendiqué par Vanguard le nombre de 500 000 comptes actifs m'a toujours semblé irréaliste dans les conditions du marché actuel.

Personnellement j'aurais plutôt penché pour un chiffre plus réaliste de 150 - 250K, un peu plus que Eve Online (autre jeu de "niche") en raison de la nature plus conventionnelle du background.
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Publié par Le Saint
Justement, non, l'équipe était mauvaise.
Non, la direction de l'équipe était mauvaise. Le travail fournit est bon, le jeu est bon, mais s'il y avait eu un management de l'équipe le résultat aurait été meilleur.


Citation :
Publié par Le Saint
ça donne ce gros ratage comme on peut le voir aujourd'hui.
C'est ton avis. Personnellement, Vg est très bien. Je ne vois aucune raison pour laquelle je changerais de jeu bien qu'il puisse y avoir des problèmes.
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