General: Brad McQuaid's New MMO Named

SBFord

Brad McQuaid promised that all would be revealed about his new project. As of today, we now know the name of the game on which he works according to the latest in a series of Tweets.

Enjoy pic.twitter.com/4eqm524Q4S

— Brad McQuaid (@Aradune) January 3, 2014

asmkm22

How is this guy still getting funding for his ideas?  Seems like anything he touches goes to hell.

jagd241

Good stuff!

Lobotomist

Anything he touches ?

He worked on original EQ. Didnt see this go to hell.

And he worked on Vanguard. That was overly ambitios and was first of AAA MMOs that failed.

It was a big shock at the time. But than every other new AAA MMO failed too. And Vanguard proved to be the LAST real MMO attempted. In fact if his company was not closed and Vanguard sold to SOE , who kept it on ice so its not competing with EQ. Vanguard would probably be best MMO around.

That being said - Braid is good designer , but horrible producer. He should not be in charge of the game , just its design.

 

Xthos

I look forward to seeing what he has.  VG and EQ are in my top 5 mmos.

Geeky

I agree Lobo.  Vanguard wasn't really given a chance as soon as SoE bought it.   

Tibernicuspa

Originally posted by asmkm22
How is this guy still getting funding for his ideas?  Seems like anything he touches goes to hell.

Haha what? EQ1 is still going and he almost singlehandedly created it. Him and ONE other person.

And Vanguard's design wasn't why people stopped playing it. The design is largely why its still around and so well loved despite SOE's best efforts to kill it.

I kind of wish this game wasn't so over the top cartoony, with high fantasy involving gods and (I assume) raids. Buuut, it seems like it's going to be a complex group based game, so it's automatically on my list to try.

F2Pelerin118

Awesome, VG is my favourite MMORPG - I'm interested to see what this will be like.

DashiDMV

Wonder if Brad considers this game his opiate to the masses.

fantasyfreak112

Brad is done in my opinion. He's more then welcome to prove me wrong though.

JeroKane

Originally posted by Lobotomist

Anything he touches ?

He worked on original EQ. Didnt see this go to hell.

And he worked on Vanguard. That was overly ambitios and was first of AAA MMOs that failed.

It was a big shock at the time. But than every other new AAA MMO failed too. And Vanguard proved to be the LAST real MMO attempted. In fact if his company was not closed and Vanguard sold to SOE , who kept it on ice so its not competing with EQ. Vanguard would probably be best MMO around.

That being said - Braid is good designer , but horrible producer. He should not be in charge of the game , just its design.

 

Are you serious? Where you even around during launch?

If SOE didn´t step in and throw in an extra 25 million in funding, the game wouldn´t have even been launched!

As Microsoft saw Braid was just burning Money and pulled out half way during Development!

If SOE didn´t step in 5 months after launch and bought up his studio + game, Vanguard would have been shut Down 5 months after release!

And in SOE´s defense. The first year and half they put quite a decent size dev team With experienced devs on the game and managed to fix most of the serious issues, like continious rubber banding issues and constant hanging when you crossed chunks! They also added quite a bit of content to make the game more Complete.

But no one came back and the server pops continued to decline, so at a given point SOE stopped throwing Money at it and removed most of the devs and put it on life support.

That is just the blunt releality of current day economics! You get one shot With Your games today! At launch and when you fail, you´re done for! You cannot expect SOE to just keep throwing Money at a game that didn´t attract any players but the hardcore few.

Their last attempt was to create a New centralised experience With the Isle of Dawn to bring New players together in one big starter zone and even that didn´t help.

At one point, enough is enough.

SOE simply doesn´t have the funds like Square Enix has to completely redevelop the entire game and release Vanguard 2.0.

It´s too risky, especially in todays economic climate.

For SE it turned out a success With FFXIV:ARR, but it could have easily tanked and caused a severe Financial blow to SE.

ITPalg

Originally posted by Lobotomist

Anything he touches ?

He worked on original EQ. Didnt see this go to hell.

And he worked on Vanguard. That was overly ambitios and was first of AAA MMOs that failed.

It was a big shock at the time. But than every other new AAA MMO failed too. And Vanguard proved to be the LAST real MMO attempted. In fact if his company was not closed and Vanguard sold to SOE , who kept it on ice so its not competing with EQ. Vanguard would probably be best MMO around.

That being said - Braid is good designer , but horrible producer. He should not be in charge of the game , just its design.

 

Vanguard still is going with people playing, devs producing content, bugs fixed, server optimizations done, etc.

ITPalg

Originally posted by JeroKane

Originally posted by Lobotomist

Anything he touches ?

He worked on original EQ. Didnt see this go to hell.

And he worked on Vanguard. That was overly ambitios and was first of AAA MMOs that failed.

It was a big shock at the time. But than every other new AAA MMO failed too. And Vanguard proved to be the LAST real MMO attempted. In fact if his company was not closed and Vanguard sold to SOE , who kept it on ice so its not competing with EQ. Vanguard would probably be best MMO around.

That being said - Braid is good designer , but horrible producer. He should not be in charge of the game , just its design.

 

Are you serious? Where you even around during launch?

If SOE didn´t step in and throw in an extra 25 million in funding, the game wouldn´t have even been launched!

As Microsoft saw Braid was just burning Money and pulled out half way during Development!

If SOE didn´t step in 5 months after launch and bought up his studio + game, Vanguard would have been shut Down 5 months after release!

And in SOE´s defense. The first year and half they put quite a decent size dev team With experienced devs on the game and managed to fix most of the serious issues, like continious rubber banding issues and constant hanging when you crossed chunks! They also added quite a bit of content to make the game more Complete. They continue to do so.

But no one came back and the server pops continued to decline, so at a given point SOE stopped throwing Money at it and removed most of the devs and put it on life support. The devs increased. You are sounding like reading an old newspaper.

That is just the blunt releality of current day economics! You get one shot With Your games today! At launch and when you fail, you´re done for! You cannot expect SOE to just keep throwing Money at a game that didn´t attract any players but the hardcore few.

Their last attempt was to create a New centralised experience With the Isle of Dawn to bring New players together in one big starter zone and even that didn´t help. The IoD is a more concise newbie experience. You can still start on the mainland without everything in a smaller, easier to find area. That is all IoD is for. Once on the mainland it is still the same.

At one point, enough is enough.

SOE simply doesn´t have the funds like Square Enix has to completely redevelop the entire game and release Vanguard 2.0.

It´s too risky, especially in todays economic climate.

For SE it turned out a success With FFXIV:ARR, but it could have easily tanked and caused a severe Financial blow to SE.

 

 

Kossuth

The last real mmo... That's so laughable a statement that you made my day.

expresso

If he screws up and gives me a ranger class that does NOT START LEVEL 1 WITH A RANGE WEAPON I will not be happy, he pulled that crap at the launch of  Vanguard.  Had to go beat up some monks  with a damn short sword, the fact I recall this even now shows how much that rubbed me up the wrong way.

AwDiddums

Originally posted by expresso
If he screws up and gives me a ranger class that does NOT START LEVEL 1 WITH A RANGE WEAPON I will not be happy, he pulled that crap at the launch of  Vanguard.  Had to go beat up some monks  with a damn short sword, the fact I recall this even now shows how much that rubbed me up the wrong way.

If I had created the game I wouldn't have even given you the sword, would have made everyone fight for their first weapon with their bare hands.

I mean talk about a deal breaker, jumping straight into an MMO world with clothes,weapon,bags and sometimes even a mount. Make it bloody hardcore and have them start off butt naked.

 

bobfish

Brad has many faults, but he's one of the few MMO designers to understand the concept of a creating a world to play in. Sure, he's more than a little partial to theme park questing, but when he can create an immersive world a few quests aren't a bad thing.

 

Problem is, the guy has ZERO project management skills, and he definitely shouldn't be allowed to run a company by himself.

 

I don't take anything on blind faith and I don't condemn people or companies for their mistakes, so I'll watch this, I'm sure I'll love his ideas, but it remains to be seen if he has the people around him that he needs to actually deliver on anything he promises.

AwDiddums

Originally posted by bobfish

Brad has many faults, but he's one of the few MMO designers to understand the concept of a creating a world to play in. Sure, he's more than a little partial to theme park questing, but when he can create an immersive world a few quests aren't a bad thing.

 

Problem is, the guy has ZERO project management skills, and he definitely shouldn't be allowed to run a company by himself.

 

I don't take anything on blind faith and I don't condemn people or companies for their mistakes, so I'll watch this, I'm sure I'll love his ideas, but it remains to be seen if he has the people around him that he needs to actually deliver on anything he promises.

No matter what we think about Brad (tbh I'm ok with the guy, he's never done me any harm) there are ppl out there that have put enough faith in him to get this project off the ground.

 

Ozmodan

Originally posted by Lobotomist

Anything he touches ?

He worked on original EQ. Didnt see this go to hell.

And he worked on Vanguard. That was overly ambitios and was first of AAA MMOs that failed.

It was a big shock at the time. But than every other new AAA MMO failed too. And Vanguard proved to be the LAST real MMO attempted. In fact if his company was not closed and Vanguard sold to SOE , who kept it on ice so its not competing with EQ. Vanguard would probably be best MMO around.

That being said - Braid is good designer , but horrible producer. He should not be in charge of the game , just its design.

 

Vanguard?  Even if you managed to remove all the bugs it still would at best be a mediocre game.  Personally, I would much rather play the original EQ.  Even if they had released it with bugs removed and additional content added it would have played 2nd fiddle to EQ2 and Wow, they were both better games.

Brad was a one hit wonder and Vanguard was a disaster that might have been competitive when released if they had time to fix the buggy game and add the content.  They were out of money and he could not get more funding, so he dumped it on SOE.

What was released was an alpha version of the game.  So there was definitely not a success story there.

If Brad were to stick to developing the game and find someone to handle the company and financials the new game might have a chance, as it is, you are just throwing money away on whim.

tawess

That was perhaps the most generic title in 2014

 

Did not really tingle my funnybone.

arieste

And there i thought he'd call it  "Epic Fail 2: The Vision Strikes Again"

Agathos88

You guys are really something else.

Nightbringe1

I hope Brad's new project is successful. Both EQ and Vanguard are among my favorite games.

 

I also hope he finds a decent producer to manage production.

JC-Smith

Brad doesn't always get a fair shake. Obviously he's made some mistakes, but who hasn't? Live and learn.

He's a good game designer though, and I wish him luck with his new game.

Dauzqul

This new title is too typical and cheesy. Rise of the Fallen? I will probably forget the name by the end of this day.

It should've just been a 1-word title: Pantheon.

 

----

Vanguard is a sweet MMO. Most underrated MMO, IMO.

 

The

Tekaelon

VG was a sweet MMO that was unfortunately not fleshed out at launch. The world and game mechanics though were very nice. I looking forward to seeing what he can do here.