1. I wish I had more time to support the fan and affiliate sites. With Cindy not here, I'm short handed. For many years we balanced supporting the fan and affiliate sites by supporting both them as well as me evangelizing the game on heavily trafficked MMOG oriented sites. This hasn't been nearly as true as of late, and I regret that, but at the same time there are only so many hours in a day. And right now I need to reach out to people who either don't know about the game and/or have the wrong impression about it much more than I need to preach to the choir. Yes, that's blunt, but it's also the truth.

2. The assertion that I post more on other sites than this one, or give more attention to other sites than this one, or provide more information, exclusive or otherwise, or more screenshots or videos, or really anything to sites other than this one is, with all due respect, completely ludicrous. Look at the information posted here, the videos, the posts, the information, how I refer on other sites back to this site, etc. And most of all, look at post counts. You'll find the truth by doing so, and it won't be hard to find.

3. I am eternally grateful to the people on this site who support the game both here and elsewhere. I am also very grateful to the fan sites. This gratitude, in particular to the affiliate sites, has been shown in the past more so than it is now because of the stage the game is at now. Right now we are focused on getting the word out again to those who don't know about the game and/or those who have an inaccurate opinion or assessment of the game.

4. At this stage of development, where we are mere months away from launching (first quarter 2007), what I am doing in #3 above is the correct thing to do, period. I am reaching out to these people, and formal marketing and PR are reaching out to other demographics but who also fall into the same category of either knowing little to nothing about the game and/or having a false impression of it. We have spent years building a strong community here. We have also spent a lot of time in the past supporting the fan/affiliate sites (with exclusive screenshots, dinners at E3, and much more). Again, now we enter a new phase, and that phase is to reach out to others again by me posting on general MMOG sites that receive a lot of traffic and also by more formal marketing and PR (doing things for journalists, focusing on the big sites and publications, placing ads in magazines and soon on the major sites, etc.) This is also a phase where the community we have built and to whom we owe a great deal could (and many are) help me with this endeavor.

5. This will shift again after the game is launched. Fan sites and affiliate sites who do not receive a lot of traffic, assuming they do a good job, update often, etc. have a huge opportunity to reach out to Vanguard players (not those interested in the game generally and not those testing, but actually players). Once the game is launched and assuming the game is a success, which I think is a very safe assumption, players will seek out sites that are much more focused. Crafters will go to Vanguard crafting sites. Diplomats will head to those focused on Diplomacy, spoiler sites will appear (unfortunately, but inevitably). Communities of players will sub-divide naturally into sub-communities seeking out that which interests them and those who share their interests. Casual gamers will go one place, raiders to other places, core gamers to others. Those who prefer role playing will find their homes. Those who like to catalog items and their rarity will find their homes. All of this has happened with games from WoW currently all the way back to the days of EQ 1 and UO. It's just the natural order of things. There are phases to building community with an MMOG, and those phases change and evolve. First you build a strong central fanbase. Then you support the more focused fan sites, and those who have decided to become our affiliate sites have been given preferential treatment in that area. But then you reach out as I am doing on a more personal level to people who were not drawn into the community for whatever reason, and at the same time hit the market hard and heavy with conventional marketing (interviews, ads, exclusive information, seeking to attract relatively mainstream gamers (and even non-gamers) who aren?t already following the game closely or at all).

But again, the phase we're in now is to take this solid foundation of more than 100,000 registered members of this site and reach out. I'm part of that. Others at Sigil who have the time to do so are part of that (although most other Sigil folk post on our beta boards, collecting feedback about the game, organizing focus testing, asking people for input on the areas of the game for which they are responsible. And while this is exactly the right thing for them to do, unfortunately, for those who are not in beta, this is not readily visible. But it *is* occurring). Of course, once the NDA is lifted, this will naturally change and you'll see a lot more posts by other Sigil people because there won't be closed off private beta boards.

And then, like I said, after launch, the community will continue to build and also naturally form into sub-communities and you'll see a lot more traffic drawn to those fan and affiliate sites who have decided to make their purpose more focused (which is good ahead of time planning). At that point you will also see me spread out to the more popular specialized sites, as well as other Sigil people. Also, again I think safely assuming the game is a success, we will have the budget to hire a lot more people whose responsibility it will be to support these sites and who themselves focus on specific aspects of the game (the world, the spheres, etc.) and who will then naturally and through working with the live team and customer service team become specialists in those areas of focus as opposed to the generalist I need to be at this time and phase of development.

Anyway, I hope that makes some sense to you all. I know it to be true because I've seen all of this happen both first and third hand over the last decade. I hope in the meantime, during this phase, that those of you who are already believers in Vanguard and/or owners of fan and affiliate sites put yourselves in my shoes and understand where I am coming from and what I must do and why there are very different phases during the long development cycle of building both a massively multiplayer game and the essential community that must co-exist with that game for it to become more than a game, but a long term home and service to hundreds of thousands of people.

Like I have said, I have limited resources and only so many hours in a day to which to devote my life to making this game everything it can, should, and will be (not to mention my other responsibilities as CEO and one of two executive producers). The same is true for the team who is working incredibly hard to wrap up this monumental and unprecedented project. To that end, I humbly ask that all of you take a step back and realize this, what is going on, what must go on, and what phase we are in terms of building community and spreading the word about this incredible game. If you feel ignored or neglected, and I can see how many specialized fan and affiliate sites do, I *am* sorry, but I am also confident that your time has been well worth it and that if you continue to keep the faith and keep your site going and get ready for the sub-communities that are coming in mere months, that you will see shortly that it was all most certainly worth it. Again, I wish I had more resources to help you in the meantime, but then I wish for a lot of things that would make this great game and fantastic community shaping up even better than it already is. Thankfully, I have a LOT more resources than I did with EQ, and look at both what a success that game was and the incredible community that built up around it ? my God, the game is seven years old and still going strong.

I am proud of what we have all accomplished -- damn proud -- in terms of the game, the beta, and the community. And I am also extremely grateful, especially to those who have worked so hard to support this game who aren?t on the payroll ? to you, my eternal thanks. While not perfect, we have built something I think no other game has to-date, and most certainly done a better job than we did with EQ and other games we were involved with directly. So hang in there and know that the appreciation, respect, and acknowledgement of how important you are now and how priceless you will become has not been lost or forgotten in any way, shape, or form.

And, again, sorry to repeat myself, but for those of you not running these sites who are simply convinced that I am somehow neglecting the official site, please not only understand what I am doing and the phase we are in, but with all due respect, do a reality check and look at the number of posts I make here, the time of day I make them, the videos and screenshots I make available here first, the references back to this site I make constantly, etc. I think you'll find a lot less to worry about or get emotional about than some of you think is warranted. The facts, quite frankly, speak for themselves.

thank you for listening,


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