Producer Letter – October 2012!

Greetings all!
It has been a little while since the last Producer’s Letter for Vanguard so I figured it was time to share what’s been going on behind the curtain again. First, I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Harvey Burgess and I’m taking over as the Producer of Vanguard. I’ve been playing the game a ton lately and can easily see why so many of you are playing and enjoying it. I am having a blast and I can’t wait to help grow such a great game.
As many of you know we have been growing the Vanguard team as of late. You have had a chance to read a little about each one of them through their “spotlight” pieces. In the near future, you can expect to read about a couple more additions to the team. When there are additions to a team, there also comes a time when we see people leave. It is with much respect we say goodbye to Salim “Silius” Grant on the Vanguard team. Salim will be moving off of the team to enjoy another great opportunity here at SOE. With Salim’s departure, we will be welcoming Steve “Moorgard” Danuser to the team as the new Creative Director. You’ll learn more about Steve in a Developer Spotlight article after SOE Live.
Within the next several weeks you’ll start to see more of the things that we’ve been working on. You all know that we’ve been working on City of Brass; well I can tell you that our plan is to have it launched by late November. Besides City of Brass, you can count on seeing some changes and improvements to several core systems that could use some love. More details will be coming within the next couple of weeks as well as next week at SOE Live.

Talk to you all again soon and see you in-game!
Harvey “Rahtiz” Burgess
Producer

Moorgard!

This is fantastic news! I wish Silius well ,just as long as he is departing Vanguard .

Grunk wrote:

^^ You just gained 100 cool points and a bag of chips.

whats with the constant revolving doors. do you guys draw straws to decide who gets stuck on vg?

Best wishes to Silius on his future endeavors!
Welcome Rahtiz and Moorgard! Glad to have you on board and look forward to working with you!
~ Val

Shal wrote:

No, what this boils down to is that the market place and the items there has saved Vanguard. They are probably gonna go in a new direction with this game just like they did with EQ2. I think currently and honestly this is a good thing.
I think Silius did a good job with what he had to work with over the years of this game (which was bare and minimum) I am sure the guy needs/wants a break from staying up at night thinking about the hungry wolves of players screaming his name, with venom spewing forth.

I wish Silus well and hope whatever projects he works on he remebers next time to put the Wyrms in game content and not in little cracker jack boxes.

Godspeed Silius, and welcome Rahtiz and Moorgard!

Welcome Rahitz!
First I have had my issues with Silius, but he is a very talented dev and responsible for some of my favorite content, so I wish him the best in his future endeavors.
However Moorguard is a fantastic addition to Vanguard, and a hardy welcome back to SoE dude!!!
Now to whats important:
Rahitz/Moorguard: Please rectifiy the one seriopsu failing we have had here from the upper team, communication. The dev team has been doing a great job, we see Wiggie, Hobie, Cethos, TlLoch14, and GPdude posting alot we very much appreciate it. Extra cudos to GPDude as it is rare to see a hard work behind game coder posting with a game player base.
We never saw Andy, and Silius had it for a while, but really we need more interaction from you and Moorguard's position. Even if you just post to say hi to new player, post your fav song your listening to as you pound away making the next great encounter or quest, just show us your here and your a part of Vanguard. Maybe even show up in game to goof around with some players.
The long term Vets in this game feel to be a part of this game unlike any other, and I am not sure how familiar you are with the history here, but we as paying players have gone through some tough times. So we feel we have earned that right of being a part of the game, like Toronto Maple Leaf fans we have stuck through thick and thin, and well just like them its been alot more thin than thick.
So while we welcome a changing of the guard, Please understand some of our equal hesitation.

while i am also glad to see silius go, he still deserves kudos for being a guiding hand behind the most intricate and involving crafting system in MMO's today. while this sphere has been neglected for a while and eroded by cash shop goodies, it is still one of the things people talk about when they try to describe how Vanguard is different.
The overwhelminging negative response you will find in the forum threads comes from changes made without explanations. This community will welcome with open arms someone that tries to work with them on issues and is up front about why things are being done. Things like taking away bard drums and nullifying many hours of game time acquiring them has never been explained, it just festers.
slamming all the clickie effect items and potions into a few illogical global refresh timers (again, many hours spent gathering and questing for these items) only to have them put partially back in another haphazard approach still has the players wondering what the team was thinking.
The inability to execute a single patch without breaking major gameplay is something that needs to stop.
The obvious lack of Q&A can be partially overcome with player help, but not on live servers please, win back the trust and you will see players on test again.
It is still amazing to the community how a game without devs for almost 2 years ran with minimal lag. Now , with an army of devs we cant even do raid encounters without 30 second ping spikes to 9999ms . Something seriously wrong happened back in April during the 24 hour maintenance that has never been explained or resolved. Trust me, it isnt equipped effects or clickies , all those existed before the current raid lag issues.
It is time to man up and do the job. I will continue to play Vanguard until you pull the plug or ask me to turn out the lights. Just be honest with us and try to do right by the game.

leavwiz wrote:

+1

Welcome aboard Rahtiz and Moorgard.
I'm hoping this will somehow change the non-existant droprate of the KDQ bow recipe that has been in the game "supposedly" for 3+ years. Silius please leave the thumb drive with the "Bow of 1k Lies" on the table on your way out.

leavwiz wrote:

Agreed! And while we are mentioning issues...
It was good to see the Warrior and Paladin finally get the class balancing they needed but it seems the effort stalled out before we DKs got the bump we need to be competative with the other two.
http://forums.station.sony.com/vg/p...?topic_id=59058
Would be nice to see this completed.

Welcome Harvey. Welcome Steve. Goodbye Silius. More DPS for Hayatets. That is all.

One MAIN thing I would request is to please ante up your communication skills.. Just talking and listening to your playerbase will really make a huge difference. Pls.. You are you and dont try to fill someone elses shoes. Make your mark here in VG. As everyone else has said it, we been here thru thick and thin and we are still here. To Silius man you have a creative mind I wish you the best.

Silius, fare ye well, though I am but recently returned to the game and so my interaction with you is very sparse.

Rahtiz, welcome! It will be good to get to know you!
Moorgard, OH MY GOSH. Hi. You (and Blackguard, but I've 'followed' you/Mobhunter for longer, since EQ1) are the primary reason(s) I followed Green Monster Games/38 Studios (still so sorry about that), but I'm happy to see SOE has welcomed you back. Hurray and welcome!

Guard Moor.

Hail and well met,
A warm welcome to all.

diplo?

Thanks for the welcome, all!
Communication with players is something of a passion of mine, so you can expect that of me for sure. Reading the forums for the last few weeks has helped me learn some of your key concerns, and I look forward to all of you continuing my education.
I will be at SOE Live this week, so I look forward to seeing some of you at the Vanguard panels. Don't hate me if I look a little lost--this is a BIG game with a lot of details and names to learn!
We'll talk more soon...