As many of you know, Vanguard didn’t do so hot when it was released.  The bottom line was that it was released too early -- we needed at least another 6 months to further optimize and to debug.  Although almost 200,000 people signed up right away, the vast majority of players quit the game by level 2 or 3.  This leads me to believe that most people’s issue was performance.  Yes there were bugs, and yes there were too many servers at launch, making it difficult to find other people and to successfully group.  But the biggest issue was that the game simply ran horribly slow.  Now while I’m not trying to cry over spilt milk, I would encourage people who tried Vanguard and left, as well as those who never tried it, to give it a shot.  The Vanguard team at SOE has done a LOT since release -- the client runs much faster and they’ve stomped on many of the bugs and other issues.  I’d love to see the game re-launched with new marketing, etc., but in the meantime you can try the game out for free for 14 days:  http://vanguard.station.sony.com/isleofdawn/  Check it out -- I’d love to hear what people think of the game as it is today, as opposed to when it was launched.  I’d also love to get some feedback regarding this blog.  And for general comments and questions, please email me at:  aradune@hotmail.com