A little over a year ago, I wrote a post-mortem on the fall of Sigil. Other players and would-be designers chose to concentrate on Mr. McQuaid’s personal failings, or upon the reports of his peculiar office habits as the head of a studio.

My own analysis at that time was that Vanguard had failed, not because of the issues within the studio per se, and not because of the one man marketing tour de force that McQuaid had become, but because the game’s overall design was simply too ambitious for release.

Had Vanguard cut its scope during one of its monumental five beta stages, who’s to say that the world of Telon would have been any less grand. Did Vanguard truly need THAT many races and THAT many cities spread across THAT many continents which included THAT many features and systems to be a good, solid game? No, and a competent project manager could have reigned in the scope at multiple points in development as a short term hit for a longer term win. The only other option would have been to postpone release, and in a perfect world, perhaps that would have occured.

But, as the ads remind us, we don’t live anywhere near Perfect, and in the really, really real world, we have to deal with the much vaunted triple constraints of any project. As the old Project Management axiom teaches us, I can perform any task you want and I can do it cheaper, faster, or better (pick two).

For many companies, time and money often equate. Sure, you have some level of flexibility with the timelines, but at some point, the money set aside for the project simply starts to dry up. Unless you have a consistent supply of quality developers who have no problems working for reduced pay (or none at all), you’re going to have to release the product at some point, or risk not releasing at all.

I bring all this up today because Mark Jacobs over at EA Mythic has announced some changes to the release version of Warhammer: Age of Reckoning. While some players immediately cite only negatives with the decision, I can’t help but finding myself joining the ranks of those applauding Mr. Jacobs for taking the short term hit in favor of the long term goal. In making this choice, Mr. Jacobs is showing that he has no problem re-evaluating the scope of his project in favor of quality over quantity.

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