Brad on the Vanguard/SOE deal

Post by **Lyion** » Wed May 10, 2006 6:21 am

More spin, but I think if you read under the lines there are some interesting observations.

"I realize some of you really don't like SOE.

But I need to make something very clear here, and some of you might not like it, but I am who I am, and I am honest and will always be with you guys:

1. I have not agreed with some of the design decisions SOE has made with some of their games. Some of them are not what I would have done (while others are). This is simple disagreement in terms of philosophy. This doesn't make me dislike anyone, or think poorly of anyone.

2. I think SOE has made good games since I left. Again, I would have perhaps made them somewhat different had I remained there, but that doesn't make their games not good. If you guys don't like them, or how they've changed, then that's fine too. It's all about choice. And in this case, since we retain creative control over Vanguard, not only are there more choices, but there is no danger of Vanguard being changed into something else (or, for that matter, EQ 2 being changed into something else because of Sigil).

3. Many people at SOE are my personal friends, including Smed, who is one of my best friends. If some of you are so filled with hate that you are going to just insult people, some of whom are my friends, then Nick and other moderators are going to intervene and I am not going to answer questions from people who include hate in their posts.

4. I am very excited about the opportunity to work with many of my old friends again and think that Vanguard brings a lot to the suite of games they already have, but is also a very different game. So this helps SOE.

5. I think SOE hosts games very well -- perhaps the best out there. I know Vanguard will be taken care of in terms of operations and support at SOE. So this, combined with an opportunity to work with old friends, combined with the opportunity for Sigil to become a co-publisher is a HUGE opportunity and good for Sigil."

Microsoft, for all their blather, has been an ass MMO company. The AC franchise bombed in part because their server hosting and backend support was just complete ass.

Just something else to consider in this MMO Soap Opera.

Tikker · Post by **Tikker** » Wed May 10, 2006 8:10 am

I wonder if EQ still runs all the old SUN ultra2's it was on when I was there, heh

Post by **Lyion** » Wed May 10, 2006 8:16 am

And if MS wouldn't allow Sigil to backend anything on Unix, which seems highly likely.

EQ servers were run on NT, but backoffice was on Solaris, I think. Running the whole thing on Windows probably wouldn't be optimal and might've been part of the problem with Sigil/MS.

Tikker · Post by **Tikker** » Wed May 10, 2006 8:18 am

lyion wrote:And if MS wouldn't allow Sigil to backend anything on Unix, which seems highly likely.

EQ servers were run on NT, but backoffice was on Solaris, I think. Running the whole thing on Windows probably wouldn't be optimal and might've been part of the problem with Sigil/MS.

I walked around their server farm in San Diego, there was nary a windows box to be found there

Menlaan · Post by **Menlaan** » Wed May 10, 2006 8:26 am

The other thing is they might have been putting huge pressure on them to put it on XBox 360 as well as part of the class platform services they are putting together. The servers, cross platform pressure, and release timing probably all had something to do with it.

Menlaan

Tikker · Post by **Tikker** » Wed May 10, 2006 8:35 am

Menlaan wrote:The other thing is they might have been putting huge pressure on them to put it on XBox 360 as well as part of the class platform services they are putting together. The servers, cross platform pressure, and release timing probably all had something to do with it.

Menlaan

I suspect that's a bigger part of the puzzle than anything else

Post by **Lyion** » Wed May 10, 2006 8:52 am

Tikker wrote:
lyion wrote:And if MS wouldn't allow Sigil to backend anything on Unix, which seems highly likely.

EQ servers were run on NT, but backoffice was on Solaris, I think. Running the whole thing on Windows probably wouldn't be optimal and might've been part of the problem with Sigil/MS.

I walked around their server farm in San Diego, there was nary a windows box to be found there

Interesting...

http://www.vanguardsoh.com/forums/showt ... hp?t=20669

See if you can guess which user is me in this thread, and check out MGS and Sigils replies.

Menlaan · Post by **Menlaan** » Wed May 10, 2006 9:57 am

My guess: http://www.vanguardsoh.com/forums/member.php?u=5133

By the way, I'm not sure that Sangria counts as a "type of wine"...

Menlaan

Post by **Tossica** » Wed May 10, 2006 10:00 am

and no mention of the nameless tavern? Bah... fair weather friend, you are.

Zanchief · Post by **Zanchief** » Wed May 10, 2006 10:01 am

http://www.crscott.net/

Ayup, that's our Lyion all right.

Post by **Lyion** » Wed May 10, 2006 10:35 am

Tossica wrote:and no mention of the nameless tavern? Bah... fair weather friend, you are.

Ouch, pwned.

Captain Insano · Post by **Captain Insano** » Wed May 10, 2006 12:39 pm

In the last 8 months since I started playing EQ again there has been one rollback and one time the server's were all fubared in the middle of their anniversary shit.

Other than that the servers seem pretty stable.

mofish · Post by **mofish** » Wed May 10, 2006 1:35 pm

EQ2s servers have been super stable, no lag, no downtime that isnt scheduled that I can remember. A couple of times had to reboot, took 10 minutes servers were back up. SOE does now how to maintain/run servers/patchers effectively.

Captain Insano · Post by **Captain Insano** » Wed May 10, 2006 5:21 pm

yah I remember that about eq2 also...no problems even from day one.

Post by **Martrae** » Wed May 10, 2006 5:23 pm

They had that meltdown right at the beginning but things since then have been pretty smooth.

Markarado · Post by **Markarado** » Thu May 11, 2006 1:05 am

EQ2 ran beautifuly while I was playing. The only issue I had was how far the servers were away from me. I always had more lag than everyone else =\