Slashdot and everyone else has been reporting it: Sigil Games' assets were predictably bought out by Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) this week, followed swiftly by terminating all but 50 of the employees. Sigil has a huge debt to Microsoft still, so the dissolution of the company and sale of all assets was to be expected.

The most interesting reporting has been done by F13.net who have two interviews up: one with a terminated employee and another with Brad McQuaid himself, titled appropriately: The Hub of All Blame.

For me, the biggest issues with Vanguard were graphical: It was ugly and even on a mondo PC it got an awful framerate. The combination of those two factors always spells doom for any game, MMO or otherwise. If you're going to push the boundaries of minimum system requirements, your game should be absolutely stunning to look at. With the bar set by WoW's low requirements and beautiful art direction, Vanguard never had a chance regardless of the rest of the game.

SOE's only promised change for Vanguard is to improve the performance, but I can't see them optimizing it enough or making it pretty.