Brad McQuaid, CEO of Sigil Games, made a lengthy forum post this past weekend discussing the current status of the MMORPG Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. He first addresses and confirms the rumors that Sony Online Entertainment is in talks with Sigil of not only helping out with Vanguard, but also a possible acquisition of the entire company. Next, he states, "Vanguard is doing decently but not as well as we hoped… the bottom line is that SOE is going to be getting more involved with Sigil and Vanguard – our relationship is going to become even tighter – much tighter."
The rest of the post notes plans of optimizing and maximizing the experience of Vanguard with the MMO community. Things mentioned include system optimizations, a complete rejuvenation of the game experience and a new marketing campaign. "What the game needs is a re-launch of sorts, including targeted marketing campaigns, an all-around successful move by gamers to the next generation of hardware, continued good word of mouth ‘viral’ marketing by those who are already playing, enjoying, and re-subscribing…all the while the Vanguard team is putting in more content, the live team filling out high level content as well as adding to areas of the game’s vast seamless world which are a bit empty."
Lastly, McQuaid elaborated a little more about the upcoming first expansion pack for the MMORPG. It’ll add "RTS style city building, ship to ship combat, jousting, and a second ‘half’ of the Kojanese Archipelago that makes ship travel meaningful.., rewarding exploration, with lots of new areas (both in the existing world and in the extension of the archipelago)… Not to mention pirates with canons, or other players and their ships on the PvP servers." The current release date is early 2008. McQuaid also mentioned that a total relaunch of Vanguard is planned for the end of the year.
Our review of Vanguard can be read here.
