Brad McQuaid Site Updated

[Ancalagon]

Originally Posted by Bongk

So he was suppsoed to come here and say "my new game sucks I wouldn't buy it if I were you"

It is a business man, not a college frat he is attending for shits and giggles.

And the second point, why do you care if he fired people or not, would that make his games better?

Look, I'm no starry-eyed idealist. As the CEO of Sigil he could not have done other than he did in lying habitually in order to hype his game. Coming here and lying was his prerogative. Our prerogative (a) was to see through his bullshit at the time, which many, though sadly not enough, did (and belated kudos to Utnayan who, though shrill and venomous to the point of excess, was dead-right in calling BS on everything Brad promised), and (b) to never give him the benefit of the doubt again.

As to why I care about the manner in which he fired people: it speaks to his spineless, slimy character, and I'm disinclined to buy products peddled by spineless slime. Besides that, no reason.

[kcxiv]

lol Every major company has spineless scum. So if we wanna go that route. We will never again by anything that is funded by a major company. lol

[Ancalagon]

Originally Posted by kcxiv

lol Every major company has spineless scum. So if we wanna go that route. We will never again by anything that is funded by a major company. lol

a) It was another reason not to buy Vanguard, but not the primary and certainly not the only reason.

b) There's a difference between a company employing people that are scum, and a company being created and run by someone that's scum. If Joe Dick in Microsoft Human Resources is a douchecunt, it doesn't really alter my opinion of Microsoft's software. But if Brad, CEO of a company that only has one to-be-released product, is scum, I don't think it's wrong to let that influence your buying decisions.

[Malakie Torsade]

Originally Posted by Ngruk

Here's where I find fault with this sort of thread (In addition to the lame ass drug jokes).
EQ did NOT have a lot of awful ideas that should have never made it, none. There were some design flaws, some tech issues, bugs for sure, exploits? Yep.

But for what it was, when it was, it was 'perfect' to us. We had no barometer, nothing to go off of, and that in and of itself takes HUGE balls and HUGE vision.

How do you come to this conclusion? Just because it was "the first" (and it really wasn't) doesn't mean that they can't have bad ideas. I'll again use the spellbook meditation example. Who in their right mind would think it would be OK for certain players to spend a very significant part of their playtime staring at nothing but icons?

No, being first doesn't make you immune to bad ideas/implementations.

But what he did, and they did, with EQ was genre/industry changing in ways no one here, including me, had even a smidgen of talent to know or create.

Come on now. While I do have fond memories of EQ, lets not over dramatize. A lot of what they did was borrowed from other games (UO, various text based MUDs, etc.) While I have absolutely no problem with that, lets not pretend they created something from nothing. They took previous ideas and concepts and evolved them... which, again, I have absolutely no problem with.

I tip my hat to him and his team for creating one of my all time favorite gaming experiences, because like many of you no matter what I play or when I'll always have the 'man I remember Blackburrow....." to hang on to.

I'm not trying to sound overly down on EQ. I spent untold hours over 4 years or so playing it and I wouldn't change that. However, I can also look back and see a lot of the flaws. From looking at those issues as well as things that were proposed for Vanguard and on these forums I honestly don't feel I would want to play a MMO that he had significant control over.

[Soygen]

I agree with Malakie. Fact is, Everquest is the reason for my fondest gaming memories. I loved the game, for all its faults. However, I'll be the first to concede that it had a lot of faults, even when we didn't have something to compare it to. There were definitely some shit ideas in the game, some of which I'm sure are still in the game. That said, I looked past them as I liked a lot more than I hated.

[wild_whiskey]

EQ was the most immersing game experience I've ever played - to date even. The way it was crafted was so convincing and appealing, I've never felt like part of a world like I did with EverQuest. Every game since EQ has felt "me too", gimmicky and focus-grouped. I agree the genre has progressed in many ways, but nothing as captivating as EverQuest has come around.

I've always attributed this to McQuaid and felt like if the planets aligned again, and there was a sensible person there to keep his arbitrary stupidity in check and weed out the bad ideas from the good ones, he could be a very successful creative director for a new MMO. Giving any one person too much control in a project with such a large scale and a huge financial backing is a recipe for disaster.

It's not impossible to re-experience the original immersing feel of EverQuest. Many gaming genres manage to do this by putting in creative content and drawing the player into a purposeful setting. Other developers do this quite often. Half-Life (esp. episode 2), Metal Gear Solid, Systemshock/Bioshock, etc.

[Jerrith]

Originally Posted by serrathen

The problem with Brad in Vanguard was simple - he didn't play his own fucking game,

That's totally wrong. I'd say Brad and Jeff Butler were both in the top 5 of Sigil employee /played time in beta, the others being Tagad, Dantrin, and myself.

he listened to the wrong people and tried to make it like a WoW / EQ2 clone instead of relying on his so called "vision".

Perhaps. I'd say much more the former (WoW) than the latter.

[Ninen]

Originally Posted by Malakie Torsade

How do you come to this conclusion? Just because it was "the first" (and it really wasn't) doesn't mean that they can't have bad ideas. I'll again use the spellbook meditation example. Who in their right mind would think it would be OK for certain players to spend a very significant part of their playtime staring at nothing but icons?

No, being first doesn't make you immune to bad ideas/implementations.

Was staring at the icons Fun? No.
Was I happy when they changed that? Yes.

But it *was* immersive, it was part and parcel to the whole "look you little fuckers, this is our world, these are our rules, make your fun out of living in it." It was part of the whole that has us remembering this shit 10 yrs later, 5,6,7 yrs after some of us quit playing.

It comes back to the sandbox vs amusement park issue. Do *you* have more fun on a carefully scripted, fully homognized, all sharp edges removed experience?

Or do you prefer something that still has those rough spots, those places and rules that Suck Hardcore; but that give you something to overcome?

What about the 5th time? 10th? 100th?

Be it sandbox vs amusement park, be it carrot vs stick, be it Human Psychology and how we gain tolerance to experience.

We all *want* a 100% pure drip feed of fun. But there's very few places in all of recorded history where that situation has ended well. Humans, as currently wired, need balance; and that means a certain portion of misery for every portion of joy.

Be it by design, fate, or purely accidental, EQ gave us a very solid mix of this.

[Zarcath]

As many faults as EQ has/had, their mistakes is what others learned from and improved on. I would say the only problem EQ had was on the production end. Had they known then what they do now about running the teams and providing content, it could have made for a better game for sure, but different lessons would have been learned.

Had EQ not come out first, it would have been Asheron's Call or Anarchy Online.

There's a difference between what people like, what people think other people like and what people say they don't want but secretly do, or at the very least, tolerate. The entire paradigm of giving a shit what your consumers say is brand new. There are countless old corporations that don't care what the consumer says and rely on focus groups. I don't know what you guys really expected to happen back then in terms of developer turn around to feedback. Even today, the industry isn't all that transparent.

Blizzard is in the unique position that they can do whatever the fuck they want and not have to worry about anyone else.

[Malakie Torsade]

Originally Posted by Ninen

Was staring at the icons Fun? No.
Was I happy when they changed that? Yes.

But it *was* immersive, it was part and parcel to the whole "look you little fuckers, this is our world, these are our rules, make your fun out of living in it." It was part of the whole that has us remembering this shit 10 yrs later, 5,6,7 yrs after some of us quit playing.

Immersion needs to be balanced with fun or at least interesting game play. What if they would have made your character have to go back to Neriak every hour to go to the bathroom? Or your character dies after 1 year due to old age? These are things that could add immersion but shouldn't be implemented because they take away from the actual gameplay.

I'm not saying every second you spend in-game should be enjoyable. Without consequences or the feeling that you have to work for some things, the experience feels shallow.

It comes back to the sandbox vs amusement park issue. Do *you* have more fun on a carefully scripted, fully homognized, all sharp edges removed experience?

Or do you prefer something that still has those rough spots, those places and rules that Suck Hardcore; but that give you something to overcome?

I like difficult, not tedious. I don't have an issue with some achievements taking time, but the general gameplay should not be dragged down with tedious things that add nothing to the overall enjoyment. Finding a happy medium is very difficult I'm sure but there are some things that should be thrown right out.

[Zehn - Vhex]

Originally Posted by Requiem

You have no idea what you're talking about. I played the shit out of both Sojourn and Meridian 59, and wow. Just wow. Do you even know what Sojourn is or how it's related to EQ? Did you even play Meridian 59? It's more like Wolfenstein than it is like EQ.

I played the hell out of Quake and Doom and it was definitely an inspiration to future generations. But I wouldn't say Quake was the first true FPS and in ground-breaking new territory and that only a visionary like Romero could conceive of taking a side scrolling shooting game and making it 3D.

I'd say that Quake improved on the games that came before it and that Romero was in the right place at the right time but I know enough about his track record since then to know that I should stay the fuck away from anything he puts his hands on.

Pretty much the same deal here with EQ. It made MMO gaming popular due to a function of it improving on other games foundations and coming out at the right time. But I know enough about Brad and his track record to know to stay the fuck away.

[Szlia]

Originally Posted by Ninen

Be it by design, fate, or purely accidental, EQ gave us a very solid mix of this.

At this point I am pretty sure that anything that was good in EQ was unintended.

[kcxiv]

Originally Posted by Zehn - Vhex

I played the hell out of Quake and Doom and it was definitely an inspiration to future generations. But I wouldn't say Quake was the first true FPS and in ground-breaking new territory and that only a visionary like Romero could conceive of taking a side scrolling shooting game and making it 3D.

I'd say that Quake improved on the games that came before it and that Romero was in the right place at the right time but I know enough about his track record since then to know that I should stay the fuck away from anything he puts his hands on.

Pretty much the same deal here with EQ. It made MMO gaming popular due to a function of it improving on other games foundations and coming out at the right time. But I know enough about Brad and his track record to know to stay the fuck away.

I wouldnt stay the fuck away, but i would seriously do more research on the game at hand.

I have said this before, VG despite how fucked up of a release it did have, has the best game mechanics out of any mmo that i have played. I havent played all. NO LORTO and no War hammer, but i played more. I still find how they do gameplay more fun then the rest.

Game engine is beyond fucked. I dont think anyone will argue that, but the actual combat and classes. Better then the others i have played.

I just know next time he's involved i do better research and wait for a damn trial. lol

[Ancalagon]

Originally Posted by Szlia

At this point I am pretty sure that anything that was good in EQ was unintended.

Way too cynical. I'm not sure why it's so difficult to look back at EQ without either basking in semi-warped nostalgia or standing in stark judgment of all the ex post ways in which the game failed. The game was excellent on one hand because it was, for many of us, our first experience in such an open-ended, lore-rich, community-driven world. For some, Ultima was this and EQ was what came after. For others, Asheron's Call, or DAoC, or, hell, WoW was this. At any rate, this feeling can perhaps be rekindled in an ephemeral way, like listening for a second time to a song that gave you serious chills the first time you heard it and feeling a slight tingling sensation, but it can never be fully replicated.

Other parts of EQ were intended to be enjoyable and they were indeed enjoyable. Guk is an oft-cited example: the dungeon's layout was excellent (intended), the loot tables were tantalizing (intended), and the mob ratios were, at least at the time, pretty damn good (intended) -- but what was probably not intended was the way the dungeon built community and the way the layout led to things like gigantic trains which left players with such great memories (hindsight being rose-colored).

In sum, saying all that was right with EQ was unintended is being far too jaded.

[Zehn - Vhex]

Originally Posted by kcxiv

I wouldnt stay the fuck away, but i would seriously do more research on the game at hand.

Fair enough. VG, like a lot of MMO's in recent memory, suffered from having a handful of good idea's drowning in a sea of shit. Things like virtues in LOTRO, AP in WAR, auto-loot in Spellborn, etc...

Diplomacy was one of those things where if they had pulled it off, it would have been pretty tits and I liked how it eventually evolved. It's just a shame it never went anywhere.