Oh, go on then:
Slashdot Games: Sigil Drops Microsoft
And our little bit of the internet goes berserk again as one of the most messianic promised lands for the hardcore MMO gamer bounces from one of the most conspiracy ridden corporate names in computing, to one of the most reviled names in the MMO industry.
To be honest, I’ve not really been following Vanguard as closely as I ought to, being of that age now where the idea of a bloody tooth-and-nail struggle for progress and self-worth looks less and less attractive as a way of wasting my remaining spare time. Easy mode is the mode for me, and by all counts, Vanguard is not going to be easy mode gaming. But that’s okay – god knows there are enough easy-mode MMOs out there for folks like me now, and many of the people anticipating Vanguard want something very different – a game that presents them with significantly greater challenges that the current WoW-centric genre. I'm sure there's a place for both.
Anyway, this latest turn of events seems to have had the usual effect; message-board wailing, anonymous wringing of hands, and the always amusing calls to boycott the game, months, and maybe years, before it’s even released. Kranky Kraut has a great deal of more insightful analysis over this particular teacup storm, and indeed seems to be making something of a specialty out of Vanguard’s development progress, so go over there to find actual research and relevance.
But I’ve seen stuff like the current cyber-crusade before and seen it vanish just as quickly, usually having achieved little – incensed fanboys with delusions of Che Guevara, dropping F-bombs anywhere they think people will listen, burning with the belief that they know better than the professional programming people, and that it’s up to them to stick one to The Man for all of us by -gasp- withholding $10 a month from the Evil Corporation’s money-bin. Down with Porsche Driving Game Devs! Death to the Aristocracy!
Gabe and Tycho sum it up the best, I think, in a recent unrelated, but essentially relevant cartoon. It always comes down to Van Hemlock’s Choice in the end: put up and shut up, or quit, and let’s face it, if you care enough to argue the toss in a two-hundred post messageboard thread, or organise a sixty gnome sit-in ‘protest’ in Ironforge, odds are you are no longer psychologically capable of quitting anyway. Talk all you like – you’re still going to pay and play – you’re just not going to enjoy it as much as the larger, and more sanguine, player demographic who have never heard of SOE and the NGE, have barely heard of Microsoft and just want to do heroic deeds in imaginary worlds, without the aid of a soapbox. My advice to the angry anti-corporate firebrand would be relax, wait and see, and if you don't like it, just walk away... assuming you still can of course.
I’m sure one day, we’ll all look back on this and laugh. If we even remember…