I think the Vanguard team went through a few different sources of income, Microsoft was one of them, I believe. I had a friend who worked on the game, incidentally enough I think he was tasked with writing Diplomacy conversation exchanges, but the hours were murder. He worked, I think, 12-14 hours a day 6 days a week when development was really ramped up on it.
The game went through a few iterations of basic combat...nothing seemed to stick.
It seemed obvious to me when I tried it on launch, though, that the game was just not ready yet. Can't fault Blizzard for torturing their audience because they tend to release games after they've had tons of coats of refining and polish.
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