Five years. Thirty million dollars. A company of dozens of people, and a fan community trusting in the Vision. All for nothing. That's Vanguard: Saga of Heroes in a nutshell, and the big story in the last two weeks was the (unsurprising) purchase of the game by Sony Online Entertainment for an unspecified sum. The very first notice of the purchase came on May 15th from SOE"s Chief Executive Officer John Smedly on the newly-opened Vanguard boards, and in an interview with Gamespot. He explained the basics to an anxious community: the game won't be changed in drastic ways, the priority at first will be stability, Brad McQuaid's role will be as 'consultant' on the game. Like a white knight on a charger, Sony Online rode in to save the Vanguard players from Sigil's dissolution.

 We didn't realize how bad the damage was until the next day. MMOG forum and commentary site F13.net posted an interview with an anonymous and now ex-Sigil employee. The entire team on the project was fired in a callous, thoughtless manner. Though SOE would go on to re-hire about fifty percent of the people asked to 'come out to the parking lot' that day, the impression left by the interview was unmistakable. The forming was was one of incompetence, nepotism, and a simple unwillingness to take responsibility for a project that apparently only really began development in earnest 45 months into the game's production.

F13's next interview made that picture even clearer, as they spoke with BradMcQuaid himself and asked the tough questions. The image from the interview is of a man who has been through something horrible, and isn't quite sure how he was to blame. Just the same, he is. We're shown the image of a leader gone from the office for the entirety of last year and part of this one, a leader without even the spine to be present at the firing of his entire staff. It's hard not to feel sorry for him, in some ways. What other response can there be to statements like, "Well, this is going to sound corny but it's true. I would have broken down in tears."

Both interviews are simply not to be missed, as beyond the value in explaining what happened they do a great job of placing the Vanguard debacle in context. From comments in the interview with McQuaid, it becomes apparent that in some ways Vanguard is the last, spectacular explosion from Ed Fries' efforts to create unique games for Microsoft (an effort that resulted in Psychonauts and an Oddworld title for the Xbox, among other things). F13 nailed it, and they deserve a lot of credit for taking on the story.

For additional viewpoints, bloggers have been considering this story from a number of angles. Some of the best questions raised include: SOE is now a hero ... but for how long? How can you make a Massive game with no QA? Why didn't anyone see this coming?