I think the most telling section is this one 

"f13.net: What was the mood in the office by this time?

Ex-Sigil: People were still trying to stay upbeat, but certain people continually shooting down other's ideas started to take its toll. At least 2 people quit the team due to the heavy handed inflexible people on the class design team. When something isn't fun, except for the people who designed it, and others try to help, they'd get shot down... eventually people stop trying to help.

f13.net: How was QA treated through the course of development?

Ex-Sigil: QA?

f13.net: QA.

Ex-Sigil: QA was one person up until about November... ONE.

f13.net: What.

Ex-Sigil: 100% serious.

f13.net: What? How? This is an MMOG.

Ex-Sigil: Vanguard had one internal tester for probably 95% of the design cycle.

f13.net: Doesn't the complete and utter failure, in hindsight, seem like a self-fulfilled prophecy though with only one QA member?

Ex-Sigil: The reasons for failure are too numerous to list, but can all be summed up by a lack of management. Brad, for all his faults at least made decisions. So did Jeff. Right or wrong, they took a shot. The people in charge now were so afraid to make the wrong decision that they made no decision at all.

f13.net: Surely members of the team that weren't decision makers read forums and knew Sigil was doomed. Did people just blissfully ignore this stuff? I mean, comeon, the writing was on the wall.

Ex-Sigil: Oh, people knew. The only people that didn't know seemed to be the people capable of making the decisions to change it.

f13.net: Who are these people who took over after Brad and Jeff disappeared. Who can we pin the tail on?

Ex-Sigil: Dave Gilbertson, Bill Fisher, and Darrin McPherson... Ryan Elam too, but he spread himself thin by trying to do too much.

f13.net: Can you talk about them a bit? As, for most people, those names mean nothing.

Ex-Sigil: Dave was the VP. Bill is now lead designer, and Darrin heads up the class team and is responsible for class balance.

f13.net: Going down the list, what was each persons contribution to the eventual... failure?

Ex-Sigil: Let's just say they refused to listen to anyone on how to fix what was broken.

f13.net: Did they work as one unit, or are they each responsible in their own way for driving the project into the ground?

Ex-Sigil: Well, they were so pig-headed and arrogant that they believed we were all wrong and they were right.

f13.net: Did anyone have the experience out of those people to actually live in that sort of ivory tower?

Ex-Sigil: No. Dave was a modeler on the project and somehow became VP. Bill left SOE having shipped only Velious and some stuff in Luclin. Darrin left Westwood after Earth and Beyond tanked. Bill and Darrin worked together on this project through release - they were also arrogant and refused to listen to anyone else. To be fair, I don't think Dave did any of this intentionally, he was just in WAY over his head."


Darrin McPherson is Talisker by the way. 

And we're suprised monks are f'd up!  No wonder he's on 'vacation'

I knew it.

All I have to say.

I knew it.

There's a reason the quality of fixes seems as if it came from one person over the entire game, and now we actually have proof.

I refuse to see how some of you try and stay so positive, Vanguard to this point is one of the biggest busts in the MMORPG business and unless SOE has a miracle planned, the game is going to fade into obscurity. Every day I log on it seems there are less and less people playing.

Go go 1 man QA! Alot of things make sense now...

http://www.thenoobcomic.com/daily/strip254.html

Bring out the gimp!