Comments on: SOE Fan Faire ’09 — Complete Vanguard news from the keynote

By: Tipa

Tipa — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 01:34:49 +0000

Pirates of the Burning Sea is not strictly a SOE game — they publish it and run the servers, but it is independently developed and maintained by Flying Lab. It’s not too odd that SOE isn’t treating it like its own game.

By: Ramon

Ramon — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 19:12:21 +0000

Would be fun if Vanguard rose from the dead. It seems lots of group-type people are playing it, so it would be one of the niches (next to DDO and old EQ) for the more social players.

By: Loredena

Loredena — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 14:46:09 +0000

There were 4 vanguard panels. I did not end up attending any of them, but http://www.completeheal.com/ attended them all and wrote them up pretty thoroughly. He quoted one of the devs telling them the game is making money, and that the player base is increasing, albeit slowly, although they did acknowledge that they have a lack of resources currently.

By: Openedge1

Openedge1 — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 13:56:25 +0000

I think I see two Vanguard apologists so far…lol

“Vanguard still makes money”

Eh, how does a person know this unless they work for the company. Any anecdotal data on that?

“The stuff I’m hearing from talking to people here is that VG is ok, it’s actually growing right now.”

Is that at Fan Faire? Who are these” people” there (wherever there is) that say it is growing…players?

Actually nothing points to either of the above statements being true, until SOE says so.

Weird how this happens when a game is dying (Tabula Rasa had many a player stating the exact same things above). I think when the above statements start to appear, and the company is not saying them? We can write off the game.

By: Fan Faire and Guild News « Shattered

Fan Faire and Guild News « Shattered — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 13:54:01 +0000

[...] the announcements of the next patches for EQ and EQ2. You probably have also seen comments on what was missing from there too, but that may just be a construct of us on the outside as I hear they had developer [...]

By: We Fly Spitfires

We Fly Spitfires — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 11:57:22 +0000

Lol, ouch.

By: Ogrebears

Ogrebears — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 04:09:20 +0000

Planetside, and Vanguard are dead, there really is nothing to announce.

By: Sisca

Sisca — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 02:14:08 +0000

As a note they also didn’t mention Pirates at the keynote either.

There were several Vanguard panels during Fan Faire including one about the future of VG. I know that Spouse Aggro, among others, were covering it so you can probably find more details there.

The stuff I’m hearing from talking to people here is that VG is ok, it’s actually growing right now.

I haven’t heard anything mentioning Planetside and Pirates only had 1 or 2 panels during the entire conference. My instinct is that those two would be next on the block but at least everyone that attended got an item for Planetside, there was nothing on the list for Pirates. Heck there was even an item for Matrix Online. Make of that what you will since SoE doesn’t actually own that one, only publishes it.

By: James Taylor

James Taylor — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 18:00:47 +0000

Will be a sad day if/when Vanguard and Planetside bite the dust. Not saying it will happen, but things aren’t looking good. I’m shocked they didn’t mention either of them at all.

Weren’t they at least showing off new Vanguard stuff, like the Pantheon, at FF? Guess that helps a little.

By: Lazaretto

Lazaretto — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 16:02:28 +0000

Matrix got yanked because the revenue from subscriptions didn’t cover the costs – especially their intellectual property fees. Vanguard still makes money, just not enough to hire more developers or even replace those that left since the last FanFaire – i.e. Phatthom, Ichie, Glip etc… Content will keep coming it will just be very slow due to lack of resources. If you like that game, there is still a lot of stuff to do but yes I agree it’s clear it’s at the bottom of the list in the SOE pool of MMOs. If I see Smed, I’m going to ask him about the future of the game and the perceived lack of support.