Yesterday, Blizzard released the beta site for their new MMOG: www.worldofwarcraft.com. It seems very cool, and the fact that they've got a beta page available means that they just might be starting that beta soon (pickme pickme pickme).

Today is also Everquest's fifth anniversiary, and they are marking it with festivities and joviality. I'm still playing, having taken maybe 8 months off during that entire span -- it's amazing to think of how long it's been.

Tucked right in between those two, at midnight pacific, was something else that was pretty amazing...

About two years ago, Brad McQuaid decided to leave Sony and the game he created, Everquest. At that time he was a director and found himself overseeing five games in various stages of development and deployment, and he really wanted to be deeply involved with only one game.

So, he left. About three months down the road, he formed Sigil Games Online. Despite the fact that he didn't have a product, fans and people in the industry started taking notice. They started accumulating familiar names, mostly from EQ, but also from AC, or SWG, or UO. They put up a message board, and people (including me) started posting there -- and it was actually civil discussion! There was some Game-X-bashing, but for the most part, we managed to get along and have intelligent interchanges and share some great ideas for a game.

This all grew up around a game that hadn't even had a title released -- we knew it was a MMOG, and that's about it. Players and fans kept posting, and members of the development team would post, and an air of excitement grew. Anticipation's a wonderful thing.

So anyway, last night I'm in chat with a bunch of other fans, and a dev pops in. That's not unusual at all... it's almost commonplace now. Then another popped in, and another. Talk seems more excited than normal. As it gets later -- closer to midnight, Pacific time, more and more developers show up. The mood gets almost gleeful. We hear about their gigantic takeout order from the place that sells boba tea. We hear them say "Wait, I'll get ______ in here." Eventually, more than half of the team, including the office manager (!), is in chat, and the screen's flying. The mood's euphoric.

Midnight, PST, and the Vanguard: Saga of Heroes page goes live. We have a name to attach to this game we've been discussing for months! We have lore, and pictures, and a gigantic FAQ! And we have an entire team of programmers, designers, producers, and artists there with us in the room as we're racing through it pointing out the cool things we just noticed to each other.

By itself, it's just a website launch. But being there live, seeing the devs who have put so much work into it, and them seeing us get to appreciate some little bit of that work... it was fun. It was great. We got to see the passion and excitement that they had for this project. It was almost like the feeling we had when we presented our game -- just a bit of that euphoria.

As I write this, it's just past 6 AM on the west coast. The community manager for Sigil just told the room that she was on our way in to work. Also in this room is Sigil's IT director, who is babysitting the site and making sure that everything runs smoothly. He says that they're getting a lot of traffic from Europe right now, but the east coast is about to hit big. He also says that there are about half a dozen people who have been working all night and will probably work a full day today, as well. It's a glimpse inside the studio, a chance to get to know the players. It's something I think more studios should do... because I've enjoyed it immensely.

By the way, this is their studio logo:

woo hoo