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General: McQuaid Returns to Gaming
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
An update on his personal blog states that Brad McQuaid, one of the men behind Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, has returned to game development, now in casual/social game form.
His blog goes on to state that the company, which he has co-founded, will later go back to making MMOs.
I am pleased to announce that I am a co-founder of a new company based here in the San Diego area. We’re starting small and growing as needed. Our focus is going to be on bringing some sophistication to casual/social gaming. At some point we will also return to developing MMOs.
After a needed 3 year break from 11 years of working on massively multiplayer games with the large teams, budgets, and 3-5 year development cycles I think this will be a nice change of pace. I’m also very excited to be involved in a genre that is relatively new to me. I look forward to bringing MMO design principles to casual/social gaming.
Check out Brad's blog, here.
Cheers to the folks at Massively for catching this during a crazy E3 week.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
I have been watching his blog for some time, even though VG wasn't very successful I still believe that Brad has some interesting points to make in the MMO industry. One thing is for sure though, Brad certainly wasn't "CEO" material when he was in charge of VG. Yes, he has great vision and a flare for design, but he's not got what it takes to drive a project in my opinion. Brad was more of an engineer than a manager and should have stayed that way.
However, people can change depending on the circumstances that they are put in. And for that, I wish Brad all the best.
Top 10 Most Misused Words in MMO's
can someone elaborate on what 'social gaming' is? the only thing that comes to mind is second life....
Please don't tell me he's going to advance Farmville or any Facebook application.
I f**king hate Farmville.
He who keeps his cool best wins.
Sounds to me like Brads company doesn't know which direction to take ultimately for an MMO. So instead they're going to "test the waters" by making a few low budget social gaming products. Perhaps whichever spikes the greatest interest will give them a direction to take.
An interesting idea, but one drawback. The customerbase that social gaming is aimed at isn't necessarily the same customerbase that MMO's are aimed at.
Top 10 Most Misused Words in MMO's
Oh Jar Jar McQuaid, not yousa again. Yousa bein in big dudu dis time!
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
This is gonna be fun...
Currently Playing Path of Exile
He might be a great developer, but he is absolutely terrible at running a company and of course he thinks it is everyone else's fault when the company has problems. I have some good friends that worked with him in Carlsbad and they have nothing good to say about him whatsoever when it comes to running a company. He made a lot of promises he could not keep.
Well maybe he has learned his lesson and will let others run it while he develops. Somehow I don't see that happening.
Care much worthy news.....
This man is solely responsible for the death of vanguard in the slowest possible manner.
He is a corporate stooge that kept the sale of VG to SoE hidden until it was done and pissed his developers off so much that they messed up the game code before they left.
Dont play any of his games, even if they are good he will sell you out in a heartbeat and ditch you all to go make "sophisticated social/casual" cash shops.
Oh and if you see him @ E3 orr around spit on him for the thousands of VG gamers that he duped.
He is Richard Garriott but with a +10 to sellout.
This is nothing but good news for us around here. I mean anything that hastens the demise of games like Farmville and that style of clueless click gaming has gotta be good? Right? and nothing is better at killing off or driving away casual players as Brad "I hate people so I make games to cause them pain" McQuaid.
YAY...he's off to make newer, more "sophistocated" versions of Farmville! JUST what the gaming world NEEDS!
Uhm....not.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
Good to see him coming back. McQuaid is a hero, in my book. It was sad to see SOE destroy everything good about EverQuest and then repeat the process with Vanguard. Some 'friends' he has there.
I pray to god he hires his BFF Salim Grant.
Precursor to the apocalypse. McQuaid should just stop while he's behind ... He's only going to make things worse.
Are you f'n serious?!?!?
SoE didn't destroy Vanguard, nor did they destroy EQ for that matter. What happened to Vanguard rests solely and completely on Brad's shoulders. The game tanked b/c, while he may be a good developer, it seemed painfully obvious he doesn't know as much about management as he thought he did. The story from former Sigil employess all seem to tell the same story, Brad was great at making promises, but not very good at keeping them, and even worse at keeping his team properly focused and productive. It was his mismanagement that destroyed whatever may have been good about Vanguard. He should really stick to developement/production and leave the management aspect to people that know what they are doing.
As for EQ, you can't lay the blame for that solely at SoE's doorstep. Brad was still w/ SoE, and designed the xpacs that started EQ on it's slow descent, SoL and PoP. Most people also don't know that he designed the base of what would become EQ2, hence why EQ2 and Vanguard are so similar. I am by no means saying Brad is solely responsible, nor is SoE...EQ became what it did b/c the market changed over the years, and the devs tried to squeeze those changes into a frame where they just didn't fit well.
People love to bash SoE, and in some cases SoE deserve it, but this isn't one of those cases.
Move along folks, nothing new to see here folks.
Just an minor news piece about someone who's place in making new advances in MMORPG's is over.
Hey Brad, tell Richard hello for me.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Yet another prime example of why the MMO industry and its products are total crap.The same old failures just keeping creeping back in...
When I saw the topic, I thought, "Oh great! Cryptic hired a new developer."
Brad must have run out of coke money and needs to get some income rolling in.....
in all seriousness though, he is a damn good game developer, and if there is any one individual out there that can bring people a game that they can fall in love with, it is brad.
Just stay off the coke brad.
Yep I can see it now a dark ages version of Farmville where you'll have to typ/hail before you can interact with a merchant.
Should sell millions.
I also noticed for the first time that Brad has a punch me face, not a smed punch me but a punch me face none the less
McQuaid always one for 'Visions'. Look where his Visions got his companies. Maybe his Vision will do to social gaming as a whole what it did to his MMOs....
One can only hope.
Does Brad have a single casual bone in his body? He despises casual gamers and now is going to "improve" casual / social games? The proverbial hell has frozen over it seems.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
Brad was bad at running a BUSINESS, but the elements of vanguard are much better than most mmos have come up with in years. Had there been someone with business savy in a position to tell Brad NO!, then Vanguard might have turned out differently. Even with the mess it is in, it is still a better game than anything soe has done since he left.
Also, Brad was LONG GONE from soe before planes of power and luclin. The last thing he worked on was Velious, which is widely considered to be EQ's best expansion. Blaming Brad for EQ2 is a bit over the top since he wasn't around for years and years when it was in production and couldn't possibly have any power over what direction the game would take. Maybe he came up with some design ideas before the game went into production, but that doesn't mean it wasn't butchered to death when soe took full creative control... just like soe did when they kicked Raph Koster out and took over SWG and when they bought the matrix and everquest and EQ2 and vanguard and basically anything they touch.
That being said, Brad is going to screw up this new company as well. Social gaming is so far out of his area of interest and he is far to late to jump on the bandwagon to do anything serious. Perhaps this is just an attempt to restore some credibility.
Thats because it wasn't made for you, or anyone on these forums. It was made for the 63 million worldwide Active players who do.
Its not my style, but I can appreciate a few things about it.
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