Early Adopter or Luddite:

Do You Get Sucked Into the Hype?

By Medeor

I love new stuff. I’m
consistently the victor and victim of the New Stuff delivery
vehicle.  I’ve also attended way too many business classes that
discuss product development and delivery.  I’m going to take you
on a meandering (but short) walk down a path that diverges from the
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes topic for a bit, but it all comes back
together, I promise.



Ok, now back to how many classes I overpaid for. One nugget of useful
information that I did retain from all that schooling is the idea of
how hype and the customer mentality work together...or in opposition,
as the case may be.  A fairly famous graph called the Gartner Hype
Cycle encapsulates this idea in a nice picture.



Let me walk you through the Gartner Hype Cycle briefly and then you’ll
understand what this has to do with Vanguard.  When an idea is
born from a breakthrough in technology, the visibility of that idea
skyrockets.  In fact it over-shoots its intended abilities (i.e.
“Hey, this is a cool new idea for cooling soda cans!” Then, through the
magic of hype: “Hey this is a way to combat global warming!”). 
Once the lofty expectations are created, there is no place to go but
down.  The newness wears off, the technology takes longer to
perfect, the reality of inflated expectations becomes clear and then
whammo!--it’s into the Trough of Disillusionment.  In my circle,
we call this the cold slap in the face of reality (i.e. “Maybe this
thing will only cool soda cans, after all.”).  Now that we’ve
brought expectations back down to Earth, we begin to re-examine the
potential of the product and realize that this new technology will
still take us places we’ve never been.  Now though, we have a more
gradual acceptance and new build-up of visibility, built on more
realistic expectations: this is the Slope of Enlightenment (i.e. “This
thing really cools the soda cans quickly; I bet it will do great with
beer cans”).



href="http://vanguard.tentonhammer.com/modules.php?set_albumName=site_images&id=gartner_curve&op=modload&name=Gallery&file=index&include=view_photo.php"> alt="Gartner Curve"
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hspace="4" vspace="2">The biggest question asked at new technology
forums is always: Where are we on the hype cycle?  Here is where
we tie my explanation back together with Vanguard--thank you for your
patience.  I would hazard a guess that the Vanguard community is
now on the Slope of Enlightenment.  The unrealistic expectations
have worn off, and while this game will break significant new ground,
it won’t eliminate the need for all other forms of entertainment.  



One of the side-effects of dropping off of the Peak of Inflated
Expectations is that the sound of people jumping off the bandwagon can
drown out the good news of incremental improvement.  Think of the
news that Sigil Games Online (SGO) and Sony Online Entertainment (SOE)
are now co-publishing Vanguard. The reality of SGO actually getting
more control over the production was lost in the noise of “SOE is
eating my game!”



The negativity has been almost palpable on the forums and general
discussions as delays are announced and the game mechanics come to
light.  The consumer always has a mental image of the game fitting
perfectly into their play style and desires.  The game developers
always (well, almost always) start out with the best intentions of
granting each gamer their every desire in order to fit those mental
images.  Somewhere along the way, the product becomes reality and
as the actual image becomes clearer, the developer and the gamer
realize that they may have been looking at two different pictures.
 



So Medeor, you ask, what’s it all mean?  Well, let me tell
you.  It means that the gears of href="http://vanguard.tentonhammer.com/modules.php?set_albumName=album04&id=Thestran_human_diversity&op=modload&name=Gallery&file=index&include=view_photo.php"> alt="Thestran Humans"
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hspace="4" vspace="2"> progress are in motion and that we should
all put on our glasses of +5 Reality, not the Rose Colored Lenses we’ve
been wearing.  We are in for a wonderful journey into new lands
using some never-before-seen technologies, mechanics and
graphics.  Soak it all up and be patient.  The path is
gradually sloping, but it is heading in the right direction.



The true nay-sayers will be left on the side of the road and those of
us continuing along the path will see the ups and downs of the news and
developer/customer reactions.  We will ultimately end up with a
game to play and a world to explore, at which point we can re-focus on
things like which race and class we want to start with, and leave the
bickering to the pros.  Watch the Vanguard Ten Ton Hammer
community for positive, new and exciting (but realistic) information.



This ends the lesson on business product development. Please let me
know if you would like to circle back offline and reach low hanging
fruit with compatible synergies while we complete a paradigm shift (I
had to justify my student loans by using all of these words in the
lesson).  



Where do you think Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is on the hype cycle? 
Do you agree or disagree with me? Stop by our href="http://vanguard.tentonhammer.com/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&p=3065#3065">forums
and let me know.

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