Development History
Sigil's original Vanguard team was composed of many EverQuest developers, including designer Brad McQuaid. Development began in early 2002 and a publishing deal with Microsoft was announced in April 2002. The game's title was announced on March 16, 2004, exactly five years after EverQuest was released. Sigil displayed the game's first screenshots in April 2004 and announced that Vanguard would use Unreal Engine 2.0 in May 2004.
In May 2006 Sigil reacquired the marketing rights to Vanguard: Saga of Heroes from Microsoft and announced that Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) would become the co-publishers. Sigil maintained full control of development, funding, intellectual property rights, and in-game customer service (in the form of the Game Master and Guide programs). Although SOE was responsible chiefly for marketing, publication, distribution, subscription services and maintenance of game servers, some of SOE's game designers and artists did participate directly in Vanguard's development.
Beta Testing for the game began in-house in August 2005 and continued until January 23, 2007. Pre-orders were opened on January 26, and the game officially launched worldwide on January 30 to lukewarm reviews and widespread criticism.
On May 15, 2007, four months after the game's release, Sony Online Entertainment announced they had acquired all assets of Sigil and retained much of the Vanguard development team to work for Sony and to continue developing Vanguard.
Read more about this topic: Vanguard: Saga Of Heroes
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