Brad McQuaid is probably the greatest mind in the industry for creating games - but let's face it, he's not the hero everyone's making out to be. His games, though amazing, were both sold to SOE. Its partly why we're in this situation to start with. His next game, if it gets made, will end up being bought out just the same. Sorry. I really am.
I see it this way, is games is good enough to be bought by a major publisher. While Vanguard might not have been given the chance it deserved. Everquest changed and revolutionized the MMO genre forever. Sound pretty heroic to me. The man has a huge amount of talent no doubt about it!
Sort of a double edged sword. SoE buys out EQ-1 and the game is still popular and running today, thank you Brad! SoE buys out Vanguard and the game is not up to snuff, thank you Brad; shame on you SoE? In my own opinion, Vanguard never had a chance to survive because it's foundation software was so badly planned and flawed that all the king's money and all the king's men could not rebuild Vanguard again! You can't call SoE greedy while in the same breath saying they spent millions and kept the game running for years. Logic would tell you that selling 560,000 copies at launch would make a good foundation for a profitable game and fixing it, if it were possible, would continue to put more money in their pockets while they migrate the EQ-1 players over and sunset a much older game. The fact that EQ-2 has a instant level 85 program to push migrating and new players into the game at almost end game level shows they have ways of migrating players who don't want to wash away years of game progression to start at level 1 again.
Funny how he is accorded luck with everQuest and Failure with Vanguard. Dunno I played both for a long time, near 6yrs with EQ and over 7 with Vanguard. Yeah Brad you suck, you made only two games worth 13 yrs of game play! I know this: EQ 1 was great, VG was awesome, Pantheon will surpas both, and I HAVE put my money where my mouth is, I am a Consultants pledger, any moron can spout crap on a forum, but I put hard earned cash down on the tabel to back my crap, you Scharp?
Always cracks me up when folks who don't know or live with someone know exactly what he is doing with his next project. Tell me Scharp are you on his latest project team and can verify this is what he will do?
What's wrong with them being sold to SoE? You do understand that without SoE this game wouldn't have been made right? Or that it would have shut down a while ago yes?
I'm sorry. I don't see how anyone who played VG and enjoyed it can be anything but beside themselves with joy that Brad is making another game. And with developers from VG and EQ1 at that!! I know open beta can't come soon enough. Let me at some Pantheon!!
Brad made mistakes, Microsoft made mistakes, Sony made mistakes, lets get over it, grow up, and look at the success of EQ an VG despite Sony! So.. who hasn't made mistakes? I know I have! And I like to think I am forgiven and now do a better job having learned something in the past years! Look out there at the MMORPG landscape and you will not find anything that comes close to a EQ/VG hybrid combination like Pantheon has an opportunity to deliver. Will it be perfect? Is anything ever really perfect? OK, you get the idea of what I'm trying to say. Right? Brad is trying to keep "our" dream alive and at this time, as best as I can see, Brad is "our" only hope!
