Other good suggestions:

• Everyone is entitled to their own opinions and choices, and I won’t try to impose what I think on them. (Also by Sekkite. Hey!)
• You are absolutely right, I DO need to learn to play! Thank you
• I see your point, you’ve made me change my point of view.
• Please detail in point format the reasons why you are quitting. Be as concise as possible, I am taking notes which will be forwarded to a Developer this afternoon. Thankyou. (That’s an lol.)
• I’m quitting WoW to go back to Vanguard.
• That warlock obliterated me with pure skill.
• We’re sad to announce that Tigole and Furor are pursuing other opportunities. Incidentally, we’re now hiring lead developers who will focus on providing content for the majority of the player base. (ouch. burn.)
• All right, you got me. I don’t really have 9 kids, a supermodel wife, two doctorates and a high-paying executive position at a Fortune 500 company. But I do bathe sometimes.
• That NE Hunter’s opinion is completely valid and should be taken seriously.
• They’re taking their time over there. (The poster explains, “I doubt most forum goers could spell it correctly.”)
• I don’t really have even a lay-person’s understanding of what it would take to add a feature to the game, so I’ll refrain from making any demands in that regard.

That last one is just anti-consumer!

(source post, where I blew my first Vanguard beta application cuz I was screwing around and prematurely submitted.)

Anyways, this week, all the speculation about what to do with a problem like Vanguard was resolved when it was assimilated into the Sony Online collective.

Don’t take my word for it. Let the reblogs do the talking:

f13.net — superlative job on nailing this story:

The Short and Morbid Tale of Sigil Games Online — The blood bath at Sigil Games Online when those, sans-parachutes, were shoved out of the plane. Figuratively.

Also, The Long and Morbid Tale of Sigil Games Online: Interview Edition — an interview with a freshly-fired Sigil Games employee. Interesting and engaging, but it really needs more swearing. I’d be swearing. And bitter. And probably drunk.

And there’s more! The Hub of All Blame: A Postmortem — a phone interview with McQuaid, including some pretty good gossip, but again, not nearly enough swearing. Or, presumably, drinking.

(An aside, anyone else getting a Yoko Ono vibe about the situation over there?)

Krones, of Plaguelands, wrote some sizzling commentary that I enjoyed (includes swearing):

Sigil collapses like a house of cards

Official: SOE scoops up Vanguard and about half of Sigil’s former staff — SOE’s Smedley announces the changes afoot for Vanguard.

Ex-Vanguard dev throws it down in a tell-all interview

Bonus! details from Grouchy Gamer: Brad McQuaid Abandoned Vanguard, Sigil — includes swearing and bitterness.

Lots of entertaining reading.

My favorite part was using a lackey to fire everyone. That’s sooo messed up.

How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat fish?

If you’re shopping around for a World of Warcraft gift for your faux WoW girlfriend, you might want to farm A Steamy Romance Novel.

It starts off strong, but becomes rather formulaic.

I’m a little disappointed with my fan mag’s Issue #2. Page 75 of the online AFK Magazine:

Rating every game on a scale of 8.0 – 10.0 is to be expected, but CMON, L2Edit or disband now.

I’ll probably saunter over there, eventually, after the noob areas have cleared out. And after I buy a new video card. Of course, I’d have to buy the Vanguard box too. And upgrade my EverQuest subscription to the All Access sub. So after all of that prep work and $$$, I’ll check it out. Probably.

Meanwhile, I’m looking for a regular guy (or gal) who’s blogging about their Vanguard adventures. Not a rabid Vansite or Vanboi/Vangrrl please, just a straight shooter who’s ad-van-turing. Leave a comment or send an email and I’ll read.

And speaking of bad Van puns, how long until someone “invents” the terms: Vangrind, Vancrack, Vancrash and Vantastic? I’ll bet someone already has.

(Image credit: Vanguard wallpapers, available on the Official Site)

For example, below is the World of Warcraft Google calendar containing the Darkmoon Faire dates and locations, the PVP battleground holidays and the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza. The calendar could really use the raid instance reset dates, especially Onyxia, but eh, can’t have everything. (The subscribe link is at the bottom.)

Several guilds have set up their raid schedules in Google, as have a few Everquest raiding guilds — not mine however, we don’t want the government to know our raiding schedule, nosey bastards.

On to Yahoo. If you’re widgetized — the desktop doohickeys — there are a few Warcraft widgets available (gallery of Warcraft widgets), including an RSS Breaking! Warcraft! News! feed, item search widgets connected to Thottbot or Allakhawhatsit, and several realm status widgets. Not available yet: a World of Warcraft in-game weather widget or a World of Warcraft Faked Patch Notes widget.

I didn’t find any EverQuest widgets, but there are a couple for Second Life — an auction widget, a brothel location search and news feeds. Not available yet: a Vanguard in-game Beta Cam (view the vast and empty landscape) or an EQ Day/Night Clock for noobs without adequate monitors or night vision.

Bringing this all full circle: a Yahoo widget for your Google calendar. (Note: a new version is expected shortly as the current one is … bug-riffic.)

Harness the power of the new technologies so that wherever you are, whatever you’re supposed to be doing (but aren’t), know what’s going on in your better other world.

Back to Vanguard, Microsoft is getting out while the getting’s good. Based on the HORRIFIC beta buzz swirling around Vanguard, it’s not a moment too soon. That’s me being blunt.

Here’s me being nice: Microsoft and Sigil had irreconciliable artistic differences. Now, Sony and Sigil can have artistic differences.

Did you want to get into the closed beta and try out Vanguard for yourself? Let me rephrase that. Did you want to get into the queue for Vanguard’s beta but for some reason you haven’t signed up on the Vanguard forums already?

Here ya go: the latest issue, June 2006, of Computer Games Magazine includes a code that will give you exclusive access to the Vanguard beta (queue). Plus, there’s pictures.

Heh, a couple of guys in my Warcraft guild went out Monday to pick up a copy, excited to give Vanguard a try. They weren’t too pleased about the queue thing since that’s not very evident from the cover. They tried to convince a few more guildies to get in the queue so we can have a merry little band running around in Vanguard.

This was me being nice: I don’t have $5 to spare this month on a computer mag.

I think if you’re a fan of something that isn’t available, that right there is the very definition of fanboi — real similar to buying tickets for the midnight showing of the newest Harry Potter movie.

This project — and it’s just a project until it’s almost go-time as far as I’m concerned — has so much goodwill, even I am amazed. We’re talking more goodwill than pre-release World of Warcraft. Incredible.

Anyways, I saw that The Safehouse has a vansite writeup of the vanfest which includes photos (score!). Crimony, after checking their front page, I think it’s safe to say that they’re fully committed to this Vanguard project: 15 of 20 front page items are vancentric.

That is going to be a shame when the goodwill runs low and people start to turn against the game, as we always do.

I’m keeping my expectations and my goodwill low. Pleasantly surprised is so much better than abysmally disappointed.