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Vanguard 服务器合并计划

Tue, 26 Jun 2007 15:24:46 +0800

原文：官方网站

为了更好地为玩家服务，增加服务器内玩家数量，建立更好的游戏环境。SOE将在不久后推出服务器合并，但现在还没有具体的时间。

按照现在的计划，原有服务器将被合并成 2个美服的PvE、1个欧服的PvE、和一个美服PvP服务器。具体的合并服务器如下：

Thunderaxe, Woefeather, Gulgrethor 合并
Targonor, Hilsbury, Flamehammer 和 Shidreth 合并
Tharridon, Varking, 和Frengrot合并成PvP服务器
Gelenia 和 Infineum 合并成欧服
Florendyl 将会投票决定去向

还有关于合并后转服的说明：

服务器名称将投票决定
PvP服务器可以转服到PvP服务器或者PvE服务器
PvE服务器可以转服到PvE服务器
PvP的规则将被设定为FFA
每个游戏角色都可以得到一次免费转服机会。

更多的内容请查看全文：

Hey Everyone,

Here are the details on the server merge. We don't have a firm date as we are still getting all the back-end details worked out. The intent is to have them done within the next three weeks. We will announce a date as soon as we have it.

Please feel free to comment as I know you will. J I will try and clear up questions as they arise. I realize that not everyone will be happy with all of the decisions, but I'm open to suggestions if someone presents a better idea and it's something that is feasible for us to implement in time.

Servers
There will be 2 US PVE, 1 EU PVE, and 1 US PVP server.
Thunderaxe, Woefeather, and Gulgrethor would merge into server A PVE
Targonor, Hilsbury, Flamehammer and Shidreth would merge into sever B PVE
Tharridon, Varking, and Frengrot would merge into sever C PVP FFA
Gelenia and Infineum would merge into server D EU PVE
For Florendyl we will be soliciting feedback via a poll and discussion as to whether or not the players think it should be merged.
1. We are open to considering the option of leaving it up with the understanding that the population is way under what it needs to be to be healthy but we wouldn't recommend it.
All existing servers will go away and everyone will be moved to new servers.
We will post a poll so you can vote on the new server names.
PVP players will be able to move to PVP OR PVE servers.
PVE players will only be able to move to PVE servers.
PVP rule set will be FFA.
Each character will get one free server move after the merge.
Character Naming
Characters name priority is based on
First created, if also played within the last 30 days
Last Played
Those characters that have name collisions will be marked, and upon next login will have to choose a new name before that character can log in.
Housing
The price for the player's plot is refunded to the player in coin.
The resources used to generate the house are refunded to the player via the housing resource escrow.
The current upkeep balance will be refunded to the character
Fixtures and items in the house will be placed in the escrow.
Boats
Boats will be marked as needing to be named.
VGPlayers issues
We are still working out the specifics on this.
Corpses left in the world
All corpses will go away.
Any items left on corpses will go to your escrow account.
Exp on the corpse will be returned to you.

Mail
Any pending mail will be returned to sender.

Friends list
We are still working out the specifics on this.

Guild names
We are still working out the specifics on this.

Market items
Items in the market will be returned via mail.
The Dev Team responds to your questions:

I didn't see any mention of items or coin left in banks and what’s to come of them?
[Gebron] What’s contained in your character’s bank account is “part of you” and goes where you go. When you transfer to a new server, all your items and money will still be at the same bankers, just as they are now. Since this is a fantasy realm, the bankers don’t even charge a fee!

Any chance of adding server forums?
[Hasium] Brenlo? We are reviewing the current forums and will address this soon.

Not allowing PvE folks the same opportunity to move to a PvP server - Why is this?
[Gebron] PvE players have had a different experience leveling than PvP players. Also, part of PvP character development is your reputation and interaction with other PvPers, both good and bad, and coming in as a “new” high-level character is a bit of a culture shock to the established community on the server. I am confident the PvP community will agree.

Will you be doing a mass mail out to player who does not frequent the boards?
[Hasium] yes.

What is the future health & longevity of a MMO that is reducing its servers
[Hasium] Much better actually. With a healthy population on the servers it becomes much easier to find groups and make friends. Historically, many MMOGs have had server consolidations and gone on to have increased population.

I have a request for them to reconsider about the server 'name' collisions rules.
I searched VGplayers for a name and calculated a collision based on stated rules. I noticed the following issue.
Another Person created the named first. They played actively for one day (total) to a level of 4. They logged in frequently and again yesterday because they are using the character for a bank bot.
It seems extremely unfair to force the loss of a name on someone who has actually USED the name to create a reputation, leveled in adventuring into the 30's, crafted into the high 20's and created 1000's of crafting items with that name, reached a diplomacy skill of 200 and played the character consistently for the entire life of the character because the other person created it two days earlier and uses it often to hold items, yet; doesn't think the name is important enough to be their main character.
Therefore I request this reconsideration. Is it possible to award name collisions to the person with the highest collective "level". Meaning Adv level + Craft level + Diplo level = collective level.
[Hasium] I agree that doesn’t seem fair. What if in addition to first created and played within the last 30 days, we added that the character had to be above a certain level like 10 to keep the name? That should rule out the mules.
[Gebron] As we get closer, we are running the same kinds of scenarios internally. If we need to expand the rules a bit, we will. Certainly “scaling” the priority based on level is a good idea.

I have a question as a guild leader. The announcement stated that those who did not chose a server would be placed in the "popular" server....exactly what does that mean?
[Hasium] That was an old note that should have been deleted. Every server is being moved to a new server so there is no requirement to choose a server before the merge.

Would we need to move our items off the broker?
[Gebron] All items in mail and broker will be returned to the original owner.

Will we need to pick up the escrow to our bags first before placing in house?
[Gebron] All items in escrow will remain in escrow through the transition.

What will be the new starting place? Based on race? I'm Thestran but I live in Qalia. Will I be coming online in Ahgram or in NT or will it be the town you started your character in? Or your last location you logged off?
[Hasium] You will log in at the same place you logged out.

How can we expect stability to be? Even with the low populations, performance still isn't at it's greatest. With 3 or 4 servers merging, I expect it to be worse.
[Gebron] Server stability has been increasing, and we are currently at about 1/10^th the chunk crashes we had a month ago, and in fact at the current rate a player should be expected to encounter a server crash on average once every 200 hours of play. Client-side stability is still an issue, and every patch brings us closer to acceptable client stability. Wow, that was a big non-answer to your question, and it is a very good question, so let’s try and ACTUALLY answer it! At the end of beta, we got nearly 7000 players on a single server simultaneously, and did performance tests. We got nearly 600 people in the same chunk at the same time. We were very happy with the results of those tests… other than the obvious bad effect on frame rate of having that many players in the same place, the servers performed well. Now, we haven’t had that many players on a server SINCE then, so I am personally going to remain concerned about this piece of it until I can see evidence that it isn’t a problem. I am very confident, when all is said and done, that if we do run into a performance bottleneck we can get past it quickly.

Please keep in mind the question refers to performance, but the primary concern with regard to that many players is SERVER performance. When there are 7000 players on the server, YOU only have to worry about the 50 or so that are close to you. The other 6,950 players are not communicating with you at all, and your PC doesn’t really even know about them. On the other hand, even if there are only 200 people on the server, if they’re all within 20 meters of you, your client performance is going to suffer. THAT is the hardest problem to solve, and one which keeps me and every other MMOG developer up at night.

How will the new economies work? Some players on other servers may have a larger amount of coin over another. Example: Server A may consider 1pp chump change, while on Server B 1pp is alot.
[Gebron] This certainly will cause an adjustment period. Economies are dynamic and it is up to the Vanguard team to constantly monitor and tweak the game to keep the economies intact. We will continue to do so.

After the merger, will character transfers be available in any way - free or paid? This would be if someone didn't like their server, as if it were overpopulated or underpopulated.
Every character will be given one free server move to a server of their choice.
[Gebron] We feel that since we are asking you guys to endure this transition, it is only fair that we also credit each and every character with a free server transfer, once that ability goes live, which should be SOON™.

Are Florendyl players going to be able to transfer off the server to another? I assume the answer is yes, but it was not stated as so.
[Gebron] Florendyl players will also be granted a free server transfer, obviously under the same constraint that they cannot transfer to a PvP server.

Is it possible for those of us with housing to have our upkeep frozen until the merge? The news of this announcement means those of us with plots will still be paying upkeep for a lot that is pointless to develop.
[Hasium] We are looking into doing this now.

f13.net 对 Brad的电话访谈

Fri, 22 Jun 2007 13:52:26 +0800

原文：f13.net

这是f13.net对 Vanguard 原执行制作人 Brad McQuaid 5月17日的一次电话访谈内容的副本。

访谈主要内容涉及到微软（游戏发行公司，原来负责Vanguard的发行）和印记公司（Vanguard制作公司）的合作，包括Brad提到因为后来360发行后，微软个人电脑游戏策略的变化，以及新的负责人（先前负责制作动物园大亨）从而对Vanguard项目导致的矛盾（微软将让Vanguard在2006年6月中旬发布），后来在E3期间Brad与SOE（全球最大网络游戏发行公司，EverQuest 发行公司）洽谈，最终发行方改为SOE（虽然2007年发布的版本仍然是不完整的，远不到AAA的标准），与微软的合作结束。

后来又谈到这次裁员的一些内部消息和细节问题，还有印记公司存在的内部成员很多都是亲戚的非正常关系（虽然Brad 用不知道作为否认）。

因为本文并没有和游戏内容有非常紧密的关系，所以没有做翻译，只提供原文作为参考。

原文名字为”所有抱怨的中心点：回顾“

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.]

SOE 并购 Sigil Games Online

Wed, 16 May 2007 15:02:02 +0800

消息来源：官方论坛

索尼在线娱乐公司于美国西部时间5/15宣布接收Sigil Games Online公司的所有资产，包括现在正在运营的网游巨作《Vanguard : Saga of heroes》 (中译：先锋：英雄史歌)。

索尼在线娱乐公司(SOE)的财务总监John Smedley 宣布了这一消息，Sigil 公司里的一半员工将留任，继续开发Vanguard，这个开发团体的大小将相当于另一网游作品无尽的任务2 的开发团队大小。

原来的 Sigil Games Online 总裁 Brad McQuaid 将作为 Vanguard : Saga of Heroes 的创意顾问而 Dave Gilbertson 将接替他的职位。

由于这一改变，原来开放官方论文的立场有所改变，现在Vanguard已经有了一个游戏性讨论的官方论坛：http://forums.station.sony.com/vg/forums/show.m?forum_id=5

声明原文如下：

Hello Everyone,
Today I would like to formally announce that SOE has acquired the assets of Sigil Games Online, including Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. As a part of this acquisition, we are bringing on approx 50 people from Sigil in order to insure that Vanguard continues to grow. SOE is dedicated to making sure that Vanguard is well taken care of and that we provide the same level of service we do for our other titles. In the near future we will come out with a publishing plan that will largely be driven by the strong player community that Vanguard has already built up. We plan on supporting Vanguard for many years to come, and you can expect many content updates as part of your subscription. Down the line we will of course be coming out with new expansion packs, but right now the focus is on making sure Vanguard is running the way it should be.
We are also officially opening up forums. In the past, our deal with Sigil didn't allow for this, but as with our other games we feel this is an important part of communicating with the playerbase. You can expect a strong presence from our community team as well as the development team members. While we realize that Sigil had said they wouldn't open up general forums, at SOE we feel this hampers our efforts to communicate effectively with the players. We will continue to support the fansites in a big way, and will be contacting many of them directly to discuss what this change means. By no means do we want to lose the strong fansite support by making this change, but we do think it's important to have a forum for players to communicate directly with SOE.
A few other items I wanted to mention
1. Brad McQuaid will be consultant to SOE as a creative advisor for Vanguard. Dave Gilbertson will be the person directly responsible for the day-to-day management of both the Sigil Carlsbad office as well as Vanguard.
2. We do not plan on making any major changes to Vanguard. Any changes are going to come from the team itself. We aren't mandating any big changes to the game. We've learned a thing or two with our experiences with the NGE and don't plan on repeating mistakes from the past and not listening to the players.
3. We do plan on spending a lot of time cleaning up legacy issues with Vanguard and making sure the game's performance improves.
By way of comparison, this team is approx. the same size as the EQ2 team and I feel like that team has done an amazing job improving EQ2 since it's launch. We intend to do the same thing for Vanguard and it is our hope that the players feel like we're doing right by them.
Smed

EverQuest II发布新的资料片

Fri, 11 May 2007 11:05:16 +0800

根据友站消息：

索尼在线娱乐公司于 2007年5月10日宣布无尽的任务2(EverQuest II)的最新一部资料片也是第四部资料片库那克的崛起 (Rise of Kunark) 正在开发中，预计将于今年11月13日正式发布。

其中等级上限将提升至80，会有新的玩家种族可以选择。

你可以访问诺拉斯中文在线获得该新闻的完整消息。

VG craft macro

Sat, 05 May 2007 21:15:35 +0800

原文：rexroth 的网志

作者：义诺

之前做trade一直都搞不懂macro怎么用，所以一直用滑鼠按，按到了30级后受不了了，上网找了一些有关marco的资讯，因为我比较笨，一直到看到有人用图解说才了解，所以我自己做了这个图解，希望更多还不了解的人能因此受益。

这张图是你在做trade时会出现的bar，当然我这是t4时的才有这么多图，这里的重点是红色的表示step，不用管他小圆点，从左到右就是step1至stepx。小圆点是craft时的分界，你要从左做到右。
绿色的字表示在该step你有那些action，当然我这也是高等之后才有这么多技能的，从左到右一样是action1至action7，每个action能做的事都不同，但是有在做trade的就知道，每个action通常你只会用到其中的2种至3种。

这张图就是我的marco了，我用了三排，但第三排不常放东西。
从左到右我的第一排放的是

START
4/15更新这部份
/craftingselectstep 1
/craftingselectaction 3
/craftingselectaction 2
/craftingselectaction 1
这样改的用意在你如果做半成品，3是用5个，不能就用2，因为有些wo会把supplied放在2，改成这样就不用换。

而我底下放的是这个：
/refineadditem "Water"
/refineadditem "Bandages"
/refineadditem "cleaner"
/refineadditem "solvent"
也就是你做该物品所需用到的东西。随着等级提升，你一次能放的东西也会变多的。

2-1
/craftingselectstep 2
/craftingselectaction 1
这是第2个macro，通常我在他底下，也就是第二排会放一样的step但不用action如
/craftingselectstep 2
/craftingselectaction 2
这样可以在需要时交替使用

略

4-4
/craftingselectstep 4
/craftingselectaction 4

FINISH
/craftingselectstep 6
/craftingselectaction 1
/craftingselectaction 3
/craftingselectaction 2
/lootall

结束这个hotkey比较特别，为何列了3个action是因为结束时有时你ap不足，action1需要100点的ap你的品质不会掉，action3 需要50点ap你的品质会掉约2-5点我没试过，action2不用ap但品质会掉5-10点，按这个macro只要按一次，不足100点他会选3，不足 50点就直接选2，做完了之后，再按一次，就能拿取你做好的东西。

最后要说的是，每种物品制作时，那个step不是固定出现在第几，所以，当你遇到放在不同位置时，你就要去修改你的macro的数字，来符合你当时做的物品的位置，看到这儿我想你应该就会想到一件事，那就是如果你每次只是做单一个物品时，用这个还不如自己直接按来的快。
所以呢，我觉得这是很适合做batch这种work order的做法。

投票结果 - 你会在先锋中选择PvP服务器吗

Tue, 01 May 2007 18:05:17 +0800

投票已经结束，下面是投票结果

你会在先锋中选择PvP服务器吗？

我只喜欢PvE服务器	41
PvP服务器是我的最爱	30
无所谓阿，看朋友去哪里	31

Diplomacy消息(Writ)

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 17:07:05 +0800

原文：東方傳奇

作者：Siufu

vgtact.com/showthread.php...#post22401
vgtact.com/showthread.php...#post21112
vgtact.com/showthread.php...#post21969

首先是Writ，会在下一个test patch出现。假如说Civic Diplomacy是影响一个城市的内政，那么Writ就是城市与城市之间的外交关系。从以前的资料，一共有9个外交中心：
Thestra：New Targonor、Bordinar's Cleft、Leth Nurae
Qalia：Khal、Ahgram、Hathor Zhi
Kojan：Tanvu、Caial Brael、Martok

Writ就市从一个外交中心拿到，然后跑到另一个外交中心的任务，当然期间会牵涉到parley。

你需要有150 skill去开始，你需要有足够的prestige faction才可开始，以前的资料是500+。当你完成一个writ，亦可得到目标城市的prestige faction。

Writ的奖品是七个颜色的宝石：
Ruby Druse 红 (+demand)
Emerald Matrix 绿 (+reason)
Sapphire Glance 蓝 (+inspire)
Topaz Shank 黄 (+flattery)
Onyx Ribbon 玛瑙 (+parley)
Diamond Chip 钻石 (?)
Iolite Aspect 堇青石 (?)

这些宝石要拿去Lamplighter Lapidarian换Gems，有可能得到normal或super两种等级，所以总共有14种类型的Gems。然后你可以买一些Mask面具，将这些 Gems插入面具内。不同的配搭会有不同的效果，例如插两个Ruby Asters会是+2 demand，但插三个却不是+3。

vgtact.com/showthread.php...#post21946

另外会有Diplomacy armor quests，地点会是Qalia和Thestra，我想会是较长篇的quests。适合Tier 1的装备。可能有些人已超过了tier 1，不过其实有任务可做也很好玩的，假如你有时间，不妨创造一些其他种族的角色，玩一玩那些diplomacy race quest，每个都很有趣很有故事性，例如Dark Elf会不停叫刺客杀人，Raki原来是外星人。

另外最近已在Adventure zone加入Diplomacy：

Vanguard Build 1780e Patch Notes 3/21/2007 – TEST SERVER

DIPLOMACY NOTES
- Tomb of Raiders in Nusibe Necropolis now has Civic Diplomacy. Requirements are 250 Diplomacy skill and 450 Outsider Presence. One lever is active – Traps of Nusibe.

vgtact.com/showthread.php?t=3154

总括来说，skill需要150（NPC最高是200），presence则要230呢，所以还是先要grind civic dip拿多些presence衣服。

Writ开始的地方会乱数出现一些NPC，你要和他们parley，赢了他们就消失，然后乱数又再出现NPC，直至出现指定的NPC，赢了他，才可拿Writ任务。
Petitioners (150 skill, 150 noble)
Advisors (175 skill, 190(?) noble)
Deacons (200 skill, 230 noble)
Speakers (150 skill, 150 noble) <-- Writ NPC

Writ的目标也可以选择，例如在CB，就有四个选择：
CB -> Tanvu (kojani)
CB -> Tanvu (halfelf)
CB -> Martok
CB -> CB (wood elf to raki)

每个有不同故事，例如CB->Martok是联同Martok去把Tanvu烧城。

奖品是宝石（使用它的NPC还未在游戏内），faction和prestige。

Riftway 简介

Sat, 28 Apr 2007 21:52:32 +0800

原文：http://www.pactofshadow.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=128200

作者：darktemple

新的patch 以后,增加了一种传送的方式.叫 riftway. riftway 分为3个独立的网络.每个网络连接了一些区域. 按照相近的等级来分的.

网络1

Wildgrowth Forest
Magi Hold
Blighted Lands
Lomshir Plain
Qa Riverbank
Strand of the Ancients
Coterie Infineum Sanctuary
Renton Keep
The Deebs
Vault of Heroes
Tawar Galan*
Ahgram*
New Targonor*

网络2
River Palace
Jathred’s Twist
Zossyr Hakrel
Ruins of Vol Tuniel
Frostshard Lake
Beranid Hills
Tawar Galan*
Ahgram*
New Targonor*

网络3
Plains of Anguish
Flordiel
Razad
Wyrmwing Slopes
Pankor Zhi
Tawar Galan*
Ahgram*
New Targonor*

带*号的是终点.也就是说这些地方只能是终点.不能从那3个地方到其他地方..

需要使用上述网络.需要达到以上每个地方找到 riftstone.通过点击来unlock 他们.然后以后就可以使用了.

每次使用需要一个Riftway shard..general vendor 处可以买.62cp一个.

使用界面如下

官方更新请参见：http://vgplayers.station.sony.com/newsArchive.vm?id=103&section=News

Vanguard:Saga of Heroes 发布宣传片中文字幕版

Sat, 28 Apr 2007 01:31:29 +0800

Vanguard Launch Trailer 的中文字幕版。

准备了若干个月，终于做完了，赶在五一前发出来了，希望可以吸引更多人来到这个游戏。

480 * 270 的清晰版本地下载地址：这里这里（推荐）

当然，我也上传了一个版本在Youtube上，但是画面小了之后，看不清楚字幕了，如果要求不高的话，也可以点击查看全文观看Youtube在线版本。

ps.感谢香草的天空公会的叶子提出的宝贵意见

ps又ps:如果对youtube访问速度不理想，可以查看土豆网的在线版本

[Mount Quest]Shadowhound

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 15:35:44 +0800

原文：http://www.pactofshadow.com/bbs/showthread.php?p=1532344#post1532344

作者：williamr

经过将近20小时的折磨，终于把这个冗长的任务做完了。虽然任务提示基本已经很到位了，但还是觉得有些细节需要跟大家分享一下，可能可以帮以后做的朋友节省一点时间。

在进入正题之前，有几点要提醒一下：

这个任务很大一部分时间要花在跑路上，要跑遍3个大陆，建议大家定位在能够传送的地方，我定位在Kahl，需要垮大陆时GATE回去传送就行。

evac可以减少许多跑路的时间。lev也会在任务过程中带来不少方便，有这2个技能的朋友会快一些。

任务中要杀的所有怪都不超过30级4dot的水平，除了最后一步我都可以solo（本人做任务时lv 36，nec)，不过多些人做快一点，因为要杀非常非常多的怪，动不动就几十kill...我大部分是跟Yelin双打的

每一步的任务地点（包括下一步的NPC的位置）都会在地图上有标记，下面的流程有些比较简单的地方不是非常详细，具体数字可能有少许出入，我只是把比较容易卡住的地方详细讲一下，其他的看任务提示就完全可以了。

任务流程：

任务在Kojan大陆的Martok接，具体位置在Gaxton Village，NPC叫Witch Doctor ...
Martok的fac可以在西南部的Khenvor屠杀兽人来修，需要杀到dynamic rating 201+，不会很久。懒得修的话不妨试一下隐身接，这一步我没实验过（因为我有FAC- -）但是过程中有一步的NPC（在northern border，超级远，幸亏有mailbox) KOS我，只好换个号买了个隐身石头mail过去给大号，还好成功了-0-

第一步叫你去K大陆某处（海上，最后完成任务也是这里）找个人说话，然后叫你跑去Q大陆找个人继续任务。这个人会接连给你2个任务，首先是去CIS上面一点杀若干地狱犬，然后是在Lomshir的一些幽灵，简单，有些小破奖励。

然后回T大陆，在Spider Bluffs某营地（撤退点附近）接到6个系列任务（这里一共是7个任务，但是有一个就是叫你完成其他6个，真是无语），杀些小动物，都不难。奖励是个破手套。

接着去要第一次去RTK，2个17kill的任务，也都不难，奖励是个破项链。

下来跑回Q大陆，在东北的Strand of the Ancients接连做2个任务，第一个是杀4种动物：老虎，狮子，乌龟和蛇。前3种都很好找，其中狮子的掉落几率比较低，象我这种RP差的人就要杀很久了- -还好狮子需要得最少。蛇这一步卡了我和Yelin很久，杀了很多小蛇都没见到，后来查了下资料才发现要杀的是一种白色的大蛇，离开任务提示地点很远（大概在西南方向），我OOXX...第2个任务是去蜥蜴人营地屠杀3DOT的蜥蜴人，要收集3种羽毛各35根，一个蜥蜴随即掉1-3根，考验RP的时候又到了...我们做那天这里超级多人，有4，5队，在那拖了2个小时，真背- -

然后回到T大陆刚才的营地，又有3个系列任务（也是3+1），一个在Shrine of Flame, 一个在RTK，一个在Ocean Watch。除了RTK的另外那2个都不难，而这个第二次去RTK的就有点BT，要杀里面的wrog结尾的那种狗，城堡外面有很少量的pop，里面没深入进去不知道哪里有（任务说里外都有）。反正大部分人都在外面绕圈子camp，人多的时候要杀很久（要杀32个），这个应该是任务的难点之一，我看有些老外说杀了若干小时都没杀全的- -我是挑了个人少的时候去，也用了1个多小时。奖励是个裤子。

过了这个系列任务之后，那个营地的NPC说以后都不用再来了，会叫你跑去遥远的northern border继续任务，开始另外一个难点-0-这个一步一共要杀80个怪，是3种信徒，还要杀随便一种信徒的领导者。3个CAMP有1个在 Falgarholm，另外2个在Frostlake，那3个领导者据说是定时pop，我碰到个人说他camp了6个小时没见到，不过我运气不错，去到就看到一组人在杀，杀到一半，叫他们组上我，居然update了- -看来是前面杀狮子的RP积攒下来了-0-

快到尾声了，接下来还是要跑一大段到wardship of the sleeping moon接下一步，仍然是一个类似上一步的任务，3个camp有一个在NT，两个在Forest's Heart，好远...不过这步的领导者比较容易刷，我在NT那个CAMP刷了1轮就出来了。完事了还要跑回wardship交任务- -有个马包的奖励，忘记是这步还是上步给的了。

最后一步终于来了，回到Q大陆，找任务开始阶段那个NPC，他会告诉你怎么样抓你的狗。来到任务地点，位于Q大陆西北的Lothesi Steppe，是个山洞，29，30级4DOT的怪，先屠杀洞里的怪，杀够6瓶血，然后进洞里面的祭坛（地图有标），是一个圈，圈上有6个骷髅。用杀好的血点亮骷髅，注意点亮的时间有限制，好象不到2分钟，要在6个骷髅同时两的时候使用陷阱（任务给的那个盒子），然后便会刷新BOSS，30级4DOT的一个人（法师，DOT比较猛）以及2DOT的狗，狗杀了会不断刷（始终保持在1只）。杀的时候不能出那个圈子。杀完之后刷新一只不KOS的狗，跟他说话后回去营地交任务，这步就完成了。

还没完，要跑回K大陆找开始阶段的第二个NPC交钱-0-10G，可以选鞍的样式。

所有的奖励属性都可以在这个帖子：
http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showt...ht=shadowhound 里面看到，不过里面的流程少了最后几步。写得匆忙，有错的话请指教，有什么问题可以在游戏里问我(bangbang)或者yelin

后记：这个任务是对耐心的极大考验，跑路，杀无数怪（基本没经验），还要CAMP NAMED- -不过下次PATCH之后狗和独角兽会提升到70，50的属性，加上独特的外形，个人觉得还是值得地-0-