While many praise you for your high level of
involvement with the gaming community, others criticize you and suggest
that  listening to the community could impede your ability to
remain focused on your own vision for Vanguard. What do you have to say
to critics who feel that listening to the vocal minority will result in
Vanguard losing its edge and becoming a watered down version of your
original plan or, worse yet, a WoW clone?

   

- Shayalyn

I listen to lots of
things--my gut, my upper managers, my team, the posters on the regular
boards, and the posters on the beta boards. I interact a lot
on large MMOG sites like Fires of Heaven and MMORPG.com because they
get a lot of hits, have a lot of lurkers, and I want to get not just
the news out about Vanguard, but also make sure I address any
misinformation to make sure other people reading don't get the
wrong impression about the game (like that it's too hard core,
etc). 



By no means do I give any more weight to [the opinions of] one [forum]
over another, except possibly our closed beta boards, since these are
the people playing the game. My posting and interaction, like
I said, is to gather feedback, tell people about Vanguard, and clear up
any misconceptions or misinformation. The result will not change
Vanguard's overall vision at all. The vast majority of changes
we have made to the game come from us playing the game and from
listening to our beta players. 

- href="http://www.sigilgames.com/team/bradmcquaid.html">Brad
McQuaid, CEO, Sigil Games Online, Executive Producer