Originally posted by UnSub

Originally posted by Jefferson81

Originally posted by Netspook

No, MJ is not the new Brad.

Having said that, I had a lot of respect for MJ pre WAR lauch. But his behaviour lately, has been extremely unprofessional and I've lost all respect for the dude.

Ie, going crazy after that comment from Blizzard, which imo was no big deal, screaming "the gloves are now off" and whatever, acting like a spoiled child against ppl on forums, just because they don't bend down and worship him/WAR, etc.

Well, when it comes to mature, professional behaviour, or should I say the lack of, then maybe MJ = Brad after all.

 

What comment from Blizzard?

Could you provide a hotlink please?

 

Here's a good summary of the back and forth between Jacobs / WAR and WoW recently. Kaplan of WoW came out and said a few fairly common sense things (IMO), Jacobs responds with a few broadsides. It was a nerd slap fight.

Also, the comment about NDAs came from Jacob's himself. He made a comment about rating games by how fair ahead of launch the NDA lifts, then got smacked by the irony of being judged by those same standards that indicated Mythic had about "the minimum score you should expect from a MMO publisher" for WAR.

As for Jacobs is McQuaid: no. There is evidence that McQuaid drove Vangard into the ground through mismanagement, while Jacobs appears to be working hard on getting things moving (albeit often in the wrong direction). Both may be egotistical bastards, but I think the lead dev for any studio needs a hide like rhino skin to survive all the scrutiny.

A few fairly common sense things? Dude, you are freaking bias.

Forget about Mythic, if say Richard Garriott or Raph Koster come to a famous media outlet and said he was bored out of his skull and thinking of quitting WoW at level 30 because of the horrible gear grind and raiding over and over again. What do you think Blizzard will react? 

Of course, there is no significant gear grind at level 30, it is a issue but for a much later level. If someone take it blow it out of proportion in a major media outlet to make you look bad, would you react to it?

You see, this Kaplan dude, who used to be guild leader for one of the most hardcord raiding guild in Everquest history. He's now WOW game director came out to a major media outlet and complain about leveling being too slow at level 13 to the point he want to quit, what do you think people gonna react? 

Give me a freaking break, a dude lead a guild which has rules if you don't wake your ass up and drag it to the raid at 3am in the morning on time, you got your ass kicked from the guild came out and said leveling is slow at level 13.

I don't think MJ could do any different in this situation. If he did not respond, EA suits will question him why didn't he respond? 

Originally posted by Netspook

Well, when it comes to mature, professional behaviour, or should I say the lack of, then maybe MJ = Brad after all.

Love it! Wery well said and anyone arguing simply forgot Brad.

No , not even close.

Originally posted by UnSub

rhino skin

Too bad his skin is more like 8 years old white QQ kid.

To the OP.  It's been a month since launch, has Mythic closed down their studio and sent all their employees out to the parking lot to fire them? 

No?   Then MJ has done a better job with WAR than McQuaid did with Vanguard.

Originally posted by Kurush

  Brad is kinda close to Garriot, in that regard.  Both men were former legends who took a largely hands off role in developing games that ultimately wouldn't live up to their hype.  I don't think they're really bad for it. 

Sorry but McQuaid should have at least had the decency to face all those people in that parking lot when they were fired instead of relying on his cronies to do the dirty work.

It doesn't matter if he got 'caught up in his vision' or not.  He was still in charge and he should have faced the consequences.   The fact that he avoided facing those people because he 'felt bad' is inexcusable. 

MJ strikes again. Would you belive it, he now claims that WAR is a success and that retention rates are like in the +70% on the VN boards. Absolutely hillarious

Xfire numbers, BS or not (I guess most poll people would argue not):

www.xfire.com/games/who/Warhammer_Online_Age_of_Reckoning/

show that gameingtreand is down like -60% from 4 weeks back (This tuesday 18470, tuesday 4 weeks ago 45060) . Say what you want, but this is new record, no other game in history have had a steeper drop. Not even Vanguard!! So wake up and lets be honest to ourselves instead of continuing that "hey I am mister communicator, so honest and your MMO buddy". MJ in my eyes you are bordeline Hoax. Talk less and get your shit together or I am also out of here (in spite of WAR not being too bad).

Originally posted by ScamMan

MJ strikes again. Would you belive it, he now claims that WAR is a success and that retention rates are like in the +70% on the VN boards. Absolutely hillarious

Xfire numbers, BS or not (I guess most poll people would argue not):

www.xfire.com/games/who/Warhammer_Online_Age_of_Reckoning/

show that gameingtreand is down like -60% from 4 weeks back (This tuesday 18470, tuesday 4 weeks ago 45060) . Say what you want, but this is new record, no other game in history have had a steeper drop. Not even Vanguard!! So wake up and lets be honest to ourselves instead of continuing that "hey I am mister communicator, so honest and your MMO buddy". MJ in my eyes you are bordeline Hoax. Talk less and get your shit together or I am also out of here (in spite of WAR not being too bad).

would you believe it, someone thinks the majority of the gaming population uses xfire. i dont and almost no one i played with in EQ1 through WAR uses it and thats over a 9 year period of MMO gaming. I played WAR, didnt care for it enough to keep playing but stop acting like xfire means jack shit.

Originally posted by Kurush

 

Brad McQuaid's problem was that he was too hands off, if anything.

Read some of the postmortems for Sigil that were written by former staff.  Brad didn't ruin Vanguard.  He wasn't even there for most of its development.  He was too busy hyping it up and trying to run the business side of things.  If anything, it would have benefited if he had actually helped to make the game, since Sigil's main problem was its moronic upper-middle management, from what I saw.

Instead, Brad got too caught up with his vision.  He didn't even realize the game wasn't going to deliver nearly what he wanted, that it was actually going to be crap.  Brad is kinda close to Garriot, in that regard.  Both men were former legends who took a largely hands off role in developing games that ultimately wouldn't live up to their hype.  I don't think they're really bad for it.  They're just people who performed better in a design role than a production role.

If you want to look at somebody who made actual strategic decisions which lead to a game's outright collapse, look at Bill Roper.  He's still a good guy, though.  With the exception of one or two people, everybody at Flagship had good things to say about him when they left.  Shit, he liquidated his pension to help pay his employees one more month.  Can you imagine giving up all of your retirement funds just to give your employees one more month of safety, especially in this kind of economic environment?

There aren't really that many villains in the games industry.  It's mostly people who make serious mistakes with the best of intentions.

Mark Jacobs does have a problem.  He really does need to shut his mouth a bit about other studios.  I'd say the same thing about Blizzard.  Ok, your games are pretty solid.  Even with WAR's serious problems, and it does have many, it's the third-smoothest AAA launch we've seen in recent memory (LotRO was probably the smoothest, followed by WoW).  Who gives a shit?

Nobody is perfect.  Even Wrath is going to launch with bugs.  There are about a half-dozen major bugs in my class alone which you have to use weird workarounds to even have them playable.

 

I agree 100%

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Originally posted by ScamMan
Say what you want, but this is new record, no other game in history have had a steeper drop. Not even Vanguard!! So wake up and lets be honest to ourselves instead of continuing that "hey I am mister communicator, so honest and your MMO buddy".

---

How about some facts - please provide links to xfire figures for AOC & Vanguard from release to 6 weeks in.

Looking at AOC in old posts - they are down from 95k at release to 3.3k - so lost 96% of their player base in 6 months. Which means they must have like 30,000 players left. I would say thats far worse than WAR or any other game in history.

Originally posted by _Shadowmage

 

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Originally posted by ScamMan
Say what you want, but this is new record, no other game in history have had a steeper drop. Not even Vanguard!! So wake up and lets be honest to ourselves instead of continuing that "hey I am mister communicator, so honest and your MMO buddy".

---

 

How about some facts - please provide links to xfire figures for AOC & Vanguard from release to 6 weeks in.

Looking at AOC in old posts - they are down from 95k at release to 3.3k - so lost 96% of their player base in 6 months. Which means they must have like 30,000 players left. I would say thats far worse than WAR or any other game in history.

 

First of all I did not say WAR lost -60%, I said Xfire trend went down -60% in 4 weeks. After that I say no other game over the last years (at least since I have started using it) has had such a violent drop. Absolutely none. No game ever have had -60% is 4 weeks, Vanguard NO, AoC NO, Hellgate London NO, and so on... And then finally I am saying, I doubt that -60% is a particularly good sign, in particukar when they merge servers now and are supposed to see increased activity. The all time record of -60% in 4 weeks is a bad omen.

Originally posted by Omega3

Brad McQuaid hyped lies. Mark Jacobs didn't. There is nothing to comparate.

Originally posted by Netspook

No, MJ is not the new Brad.

Having said that, I had a lot of respect for MJ pre WAR lauch. But his behaviour lately, has been extremely unprofessional and I've lost all respect for the dude.

Ie, going crazy after that comment from Blizzard, which imo was no big deal, screaming "the gloves are now off" and whatever, acting like a spoiled child against ppl on forums, just because they don't bend down and worship him/WAR, etc.

Well, when it comes to mature, professional behaviour, or should I say the lack of, then maybe MJ = Brad after all.

*edit* I guess I didn't read the last line of what I quoted so ignore my first line *endedit*
 

Well I guess you are just taking it from a different perspective than I am for the OP.

When I was in Vanguard beta and Brad announced the "awesome magazine deal"... were you around for that?  Where if you bought a certain issue of this magazine you got into beta... "straight to the front of the line with no waiting".

And it turned out that you had to wait until some future phase.. I mean I didn't care as I was in beta already.

Anyway the point is someone complained and Brad came onto the forum and told the guy he didn't want him in his community.. because these magazine people were good people and he just called them liars.

Well I was just over at WAR VN forums... with the big list of patch notes going to test server I guess.. not sure as I don't play anymore but stop by now and then.

Anyway this was one of MJ's reponses in that thread...

"But things are going pretty much as expected here. We pre-release huge patch notes that are, by and large, full of buffs to classes. And what becomes the focus of some of the usual posters? The things we didn't do and/or the debuffs. In terms of getting me down, nah, like I said, pretty much as expected."

Now I'm sorry but when you are a representitive of a company you are held to a higher standard or should be.  Your job/company also depends on those people you are now being a sarcastic ahole to...

I've seen some very odd posts from MJ lately... and I honestly did think of Brad McQuaid.

Simply due to the irratic and very unprofessional behaviour...

Which leads me to think...

Either things are going very badly at some level between him and EA... aka someone at EA isn't happy with the numbers WAR has...

Or he finally figured out that after spending $860 MILLION on BioWare.. that and the Star Wars MMO are the only thing EA cares about..

Or he had picked up a drug habit.. that was at least one rumor with Brad.

Anyway I think people are picking up to much on the "lie" factor.. instead of the irratic and unprofessional behaviour.. which right now Mark Jacobs is clone of how Brad McQuaid was acting just before Sigil went boom..

Oh and no I am not making any statement about WAR/Mythic... just the behaviour of one person .. compared to another.

This topic is OFF TOPIC,this is not MMORPG related ,this is questioning some one's character.Just because some of you people seem to think he has no opinions but all of you do,just because he is a ceo,you are still being every bit as two faced as he is by judging his character as if your own is top notch to judge others by?is this what most of you flamers are doing? saying your character is so far above everyone else you can judge some one you barely know?

You have two choices,you want developers to keep quiet and ignore the public or do you want them to take part and have interaction with the public?If you choose the latter then you better be prepared to accept both sides and not just some one who comes on to forums and paints you a pretty pink pony and tells you how great you are,that would be pathetic or not?

He has an opinion so what,you have the right to question others opinions not there character,unless like i said you are at the top of the heap and think you are better,neither i nor yourself have the right to say who has better character.

Originally posted by Wizardry

This topic is OFF TOPIC,this is not MMORPG related ,this is questioning some one's character.Just because some of you people seem to think he has no opinions but all of you do,just because he is a ceo,you are still being every bit as two faced as he is by judging his character as if your own is top notch to judge others by?is this what most of you flamers are doing? saying your character is so far above everyone else you can judge some one you barely know?

You have two choices,you want developers to keep quiet and ignore the public or do you want them to take part and have interaction with the public?If you choose the latter then you better be prepared to accept both sides and not just some one who comes on to forums and paints you a pretty pink pony and tells you how great you are,that would be pathetic or not?

He has an opinion so what,you have the right to question others opinions not there character,unless like i said you are at the top of the heap and think you are better,neither i nor yourself have the right to say who has better character.

Actually your post is off topic.

Mark Jacobs -> Mythic Entertainment -> WAR = MMO.

Stop trying to derail the topic...

As far as I know this thread wasn't about Mark Jacobs having an opinion or being less or better than anyone.  Its about a lack of professionalism.. which oddly enough at least when I worked for EA (Ultima Online) was something they stressed in training.  How you act.. what you say.. is seen as a representation of the company.

To bad we can't get some of the EA management on here to discuss whether they agree with Mr. Jacobs.. or with his behaviour...

Originally posted by Timberwolf0

Originally posted by Omega3

Brad McQuaid hyped lies. Mark Jacobs didn't. There is nothing to comparate.

 

It comes to something when people have to make up their own words to sustain an argument.

This thread is ridiculous and should be locked.

There is no way this comparison is even close.