Vanguard: Saga of Heroes Forum » General Discussion » Brad McQuaid Site Updated

Originally posted by Daffid011

Originally posted by sepher 

Of course I understand what is being said. It's you who's attempting to imply more than what's really there. Where in any of the above did Brad say, "I'm trying to save my game by downplaying the failures"?

Of course he wouldn't even if that was his motive; but what does the motive matter if the argument is about the reasons for the failure? That's what I'm arguing; the reason. Whether or not the reasons were rooted in his capacity as a Chairman and CEO or as a designer.

And of course it didn't run right on current hardware; because Brad designed the game to work best for FUTURE hardware. As he admitted many times and as I provided to back up my argument.

And yes they did purposefully choose to make the game intensive beyond its time. Brad has admitted to accepting the amount of bugs and performance issues Vanguard had for the benefits, as stated above.

And why did they code an engine that didn't work correctly at release? For the "hooks" as he kept saying. He felt it was worth it to release a game dependent upon future hardware and an eventual Unreal 3 update. No need to ask me the explanations are all above.

And no, the end result is that Vanguard was fundamentally flawed by design; as shown above in Brad's own words and employees own words.

You're ignoring facts and filling in what you ignore with assumptions. That's fine because it paints exactly the picture that you ant; that Vanguard failed for every other reason except Brad's design and that he's a brilliant designer. It isn't true though; and ultimately what I'm arguing is why I myself can't accept the idea that Brad is a "good idea man" when he had all of the horrible ideas that I posted above, and when he accomplished everything business wise that I posted above.

Fact: the game had massive issues with nvidia 8800s during release.

Fact: the game often ran better on lesser video cards during release than 8800's

Fact: the same developers (what was left of them) fixed many of the flaws in the game engine and the game runs well on 8800s and below. 

 

Those are not design choices.  Those are the result of a team of developers not getting their job done by the release date.  Be it lack of ability, man power, know how, leadership or direction, the condition of the engine during release was a failure not a planned event. 

You really think the master plan was to make a game that runs so horrible that no one, not even with the best available systems on the market, could possibly play the game?   Honestly can you see anyone sitting around a developers meeting and proposing to the team working on the engine that is be a piece of crap at release and hopefully in a few years technology will catch up to resolve the problems? 

 

Everything you posted is brad talking after the fact.  The damage was done and admitting flaws to the public would have killed what little hope there was of saving his business and most likely his career. 

Fact: A majority of players that quit, probably didn't quite because they had an 8800 and it didn't work.

I'd say things like hitching, chunk times, too big an empty world and etc. were larger reasons, and those were all results of bad design decisions.

I'm sure you could find a thousand smaller issues that'd be difficult to trace to an explicit design decision; but what matters is that the BIGGEST cited problems, out of Brad's mouth and the top ten lists from around launch time; can all be traced back and have been traced back in this post to bad design decisions from Brad.

And again, we KNOW they had everything done that they wanted short of fellowships, and a few other things. They called the game 80% done and expressed exactly what WASN'T done. So any assumptions you make otherwise are just that; but I rather go with the developers' words rather than assumptions.

The same goes for lack of ability, lack of manpower, engine; so forth and so on, we know they had 100+ people and for at least half of it equipped with veterans from other MMOs, we know that not only did they have the Unreal 2 engine and Epic's support; they had code from Unreal 3 before it was available.

So again, I have to go with the developers instead of what you care to make assumptions about.

Do I think Brad intentionally made the game unplayable on the BEST of hardware? It depends on what your definition of "unplayable" is. What I believe is that all the players whom stuck around and weren't bothered by the performance issues, really didn't much mind the problems. The fun outweighed the performance issues for them. Take WoW for example; everyone was "loot sliding" for a week if not longer after launch, but the fun exceeded the problems. I think Brad expected fun to exceed the amount of problems for Vanguard and it didn't.

So yes, of course he was conscious of the issues of releasing a game with "hooks" meant for future hardware and future engine updates, he admitted as such as I posted above, but the fun didn't outweigh the problems in his design upon reception.

And again; I've posted excerpts from years before the fact as well, specifically to show that he was consistent from before launch up until after launch. To me, it doesn't matter when he said it; those are his reasons. Whether or not you believe he's telling the truth it doesn't really matter, because again, my argument is that he was great at business but sucked at design. We have him on account of making bad design decisions but great business moves; we have an employee testifying the exact same. As far as him being a great designer when it comes to Vanguard and a bad business man, we have absolutely no evidence of it; merely assumption built entirely off ignoring the evidence we do have on the contrary.

Originally posted by ethion

Originally posted by sepher 

Of course I understand what is being said. It's you who's attempting to imply more than what's really there. Where in any of the above did Brad say, "I'm trying to save my game by downplaying the failures"?

 

I wasn't gonna follow up to any of your posts but this one just completely cracked me up.  Brad wasn't a moron and when he was struggling to survive, money running out, the game not being what he wanted, what do you honestly thing he is going to do?!?  Or do you really think that he was happy with the game and it's state at launch?? 

I mean come on there is a ton of documentation on this sad story and it is really very obvious what happened. 

He was spinning as best he could and hoping and praying that he could launch the game, make enough money to stay afloat long enough to fix the game.

His buddy Smedley bailed him out and gave him enough money to at least make the attempt.  It would be a riot to know if he did this knowing full well that it would fail and SoE would get to pick up the game for penny's on the dollar.  Or maybe Brad was able to really sell them on the idea that it would work... 

in any event, Brad would never say, I'm trying to save my game by downplaying the failures.... At least not till after it failed and even then he might not legally be really able to say something like that.  It might open him up to potential legal issues if he said things to sell the game to SoE and then later says something that shows he was lying... Who knows what was said behind closed doors.

Anyway this final post from Brad I think really shows what his state was.  This is after the game died and he no longer was able to spin things or had any illusion that things might work out...  What probably isn't shown was some of how he was demorilized and really retreated from the company under the guise of getting funding.  I'm sure he was trying but I'm also sure he was realizing he had just walked his company and all the people that were looking to him for answers over a cliff...

f13.net/index.php

 

You're able to form whatever opinion you want about Brad being given 30 million dollars and nearly 5 years of development time. Obviously you think it wasn't enough; but I think he was just bad at design and that 60 million dollars and 10 years of development wouldn't have produced any better a result.

Brad's always been wishy-washy on blame Microsoft, blame Sony or blame himself. If you consider it bias on my part to not agree with him when he blames the former two then that's perfectly find; but you gotta admit it's hard to believe the second most funded MMO ever with that amount of development time wasn't significant enough; or at the very least see where I'm coming from in my stance even though you don't agree with it.

The engine didn't work, because people didn't get their job done.  That is a fact, unlike your speculation that it was designed to not work (seriously?)  Honestly how many years does a team need to work on an engine, before you blame the people working on it for not being able to get it done and not blame the person who chose the engine?  The game tanked, because nothing worked, not because the design was flawed.  The team was filled with inexperienced members who struggled to get things done and managers who had no business being in charge of project.  The team had 1 quality assurance member, just 1.  All of these things come straight from developers mouths, not my speculations.

You are hinging your beliefs on the words of a man desperate to save his company.  Someone who had nothing to lose at that point and was hoping for a miracle.  What incentive did he have to be honest about his inability to run a company?  Sorry I just don't put faith in his words that you do. 

I can point to a time when brad made a great game with his concepts, because he had oversight.  I can also point to his failure when he was in charge of the entire company, but the game itself still had more potential than the vast majority of stinkers on the market.  See where the difference is between the two examples?

I work for someone very much like brad and when they are not kept in check things go to hell, but can produce amazing results with someone put in charge to keep them focused.  I also know a sigil dev who has repeated much of what I say above.   While I think he is one of the smartest players I have ever played with, I don't understand how he was put in charge of anything at sigil.  Zero experience in development and was just starting to learn programming as a result of getting the job.  

Originally posted by Daffid011

The engine didn't work, because people didn't get their job done.  That is a fact, unlike your speculation that it was designed to not work (seriously?)  Honestly how many years does a team need to work on an engine, before you blame the people working on it for not being able to get it done and not blame the person who chose the engine?  The game tanked, because nothing worked, not because the design was flawed.  The team was filled with inexperienced members who struggled to get things done and managers who had no business being in charge of project.  The team had 1 quality assurance member, just 1.  All of these things come straight from developers mouths, not my speculations.

You are hinging your beliefs on the words of a man desperate to save his company.  Someone who had nothing to lose at that point and was hoping for a miracle.  What incentive did he have to be honest about his inability to run a company?  Sorry I just don't put faith in his words that you do. 

I can point to a time when brad made a great game with his concepts, because he had oversight.  I can also point to his failure when he was in charge of the entire company, but the game itself still had more potential than the vast majority of stinkers on the market.  See where the difference is between the two examples?

 

 

I work for someone very much like brad and when they are not kept in check things go to hell, but can produce amazing results with someone put in charge to keep them focused.  I also know a sigil dev who has repeated much of what I say above.   While I think he is one of the smartest players I have ever played with, I don't understand how he was put in charge of anything at sigil.  Zero experience in development and was just starting to learn programming as a result of getting the job.  

 

 

Whatever you mean by "the engine did not work", don't impose it on what I'm saying. I'm merely saying the performance issues that came with the engine were deemed acceptable (hitching, aesthetic limitations like shadowing, the overally dependency on future hardware).

So yes; those downsides were designed torward in order to reap future benefits (a seamless world free of hitching, Unreal 3 features, the game reaping benefits from new graphic card releases).

Again, what Brad overestimated was the amount of people that'd put up with the accepted problems and fund the game's development until those benefits could be realized. I call it bad design whether or not Vanguard had succeeded or not; Brad was absolutely fine with the old paradigm that "MMO's are never done" and used it as a crutch to justify his aforementioned bad design decisions. And I'm speculating about nothing; you're merely ignoring what's ready-visible in Brad's own words.

And yes I'm hinging my beliefs on the CEO, Chairman, Executive Producer himself. Should I trust you more than him to tell it better? You're the one attaching extras to what's plainly visible. It's like a kid that saw his dad in a Santa suit and refused to believe the dad isn't Santa. You're the one going the extra mile to believe what you want; I'm merely accounting for what's visible and factual (the business successes, the terrible reception to the design), and the accounts of Brad himself and people around him including the employee.

And no, I don't see the difference at all between your two examples because there ARE no specific examples at all. Brad was executive producer and a designer at EQ the exact same way he was at Vanguard. The lead designer reports TO the executive producer; meaning he was his OWN oversight at EQ as well. So design-wise, he was just as restricted at Sigil as he was at EQ. The only extras at Sigil was his capacity as chairman and CEO, and again, you can't cite a single failing within those two executive capacities that hindered Vanguard more than helped.

So basically, imagine what you will about Brad being a visionary, so on and so forth, but I'm going to keep my opinion that he clearly failed at doing exactly what you believe he's good at doing.

Originally posted by sepher

Whatever you mean by "the engine did not work", don't impose it on what I'm saying. I'm merely saying the performance issues that came with the engine were deemed acceptable (hitching, aesthetic limitations like shadowing, the overally dependency on future hardware).

When they hit the crossroad so they had to make a choice.

Why did they have to make this choice, what led up to that?

Limitiations on shadow, that was a descicion made to make performance better, it's more of a switch to turn on/off. You're saying it is a bad design decision to make the engine dependent on future hardware and when they make a choice to lessen the performance hogs. It's also a bad design decision.

So yes; those downsides were designed torward in order to reap future benefits (a seamless world free of hitching, Unreal 3 features, the game reaping benefits from new graphic card releases).

The game today, does it perform better or not with hardware avaible at release?

Again, what Brad overestimated was the amount of people that'd put up with the accepted problems and fund the game's development until those benefits could be realized. I call it bad design whether or not Vanguard had succeeded or not; Brad was absolutely fine with the old paradigm that "MMO's are never done" and used it as a crutch to justify his aforementioned bad design decisions. And I'm speculating about nothing; you're merely ignoring what's ready-visible in Brad's own words.

And you are aswell ignoring that he has said the game had to be released earlier as the funds ran out. They are today, according to Silius, at the point where they would have wanted to be at release. At which time they had alot more people working on the game. And considering what fixes they actually manage to do withing the first months.

And yes I'm hinging my beliefs on the CEO, Chairman, Executive Producer himself. Should I trust you more than him to tell it better? You're the one attaching extras to what's plainly visible.

It just as much extras added when saying that he is a good CEO, whatever. To run a company with $30 000 000 you have $6 000 000/year, you've only have had to pay the bills on time. He should have been able to run it for 10 years with half of the staff.

It's like a kid that saw his dad in a Santa suit and refused to believe the dad isn't Santa.

Sigil was not succesfull, nor was Vanguard at release. You have not yet seen who the Santa is, you're saying that it is your  father, when it could be your uncle/brother or whatever.

You're the one going the extra mile to believe what you want; I'm merely accounting for what's visible and factual (the business successes, the terrible reception to the design), and the accounts of Brad himself and people around him including the employee.

And that is also a design that wasn't at the point where Brad would have wanted it to be. Why are you ignoring that?

And no, I don't see the difference at all between your two examples because there ARE no specific examples at all. Brad was executive producer and a designer at EQ the exact same way he was at Vanguard. The lead designer reports TO the executive producer; meaning he was his OWN oversight at EQ as well. So design-wise, he was just as restricted at Sigil as he was at EQ. The only extras at Sigil was his capacity as chairman and CEO, and again, you can't cite a single failing within those two executive capacities that hindered Vanguard more than helped.

So there really a 50/50 chance.

So basically, imagine what you will about Brad being a visionary, so on and so forth, but I'm going to keep my opinion that he clearly failed at doing exactly what you believe he's good at doing.

Sepher, please realise that there are other sigil devs that have spoken about what happened behind the scenes.  None of them had their investments (savings) invested in the future of the company.  None of them are reported to be strung out on opiates.  None of them were gone from the business they were supposed to be running for over six months.  None of them were facing a 30 million dollar failure with thier name so clearly tied to the project that they most likely will never work in the industry again. 

So if you want to put faith in brad, by all means go ahead.  It isn't like the failure of his company and death of his career could possibly motivate him to be less than honest in those posts you cling to is it?  I choose to believe the similar examples of other devs that show a different story.

Of a company filled with inexperienced workers.  A company where people in charge of development groups refused to work as a team.  A company that rushed to finish the majority of the game in the last 18 months.  A company that was mismanaged and improperly run to the point that is could not complete tasks. 

You choose to believe the engine performed so poorly as a result of choices made at the design level and were considered acceptable for release.  I say you are flat out incorrect, because after the engine had some more development time put into it, it runs fine enough.  It didn't need future technologies to make it go, it just needed the bugs fixed and optimization done.  That is a result of people not getting their job done, plain and simply.  You can drink brads cool aid all you want, but that does not change the fact of what happened.  The game was buggy and incomplete, not designed poorly. 

The game runs fine on machines from around the release of the game, which pretty much proves your theory incorrect.

One more point, brad was plenty accountable to people while he was at soe.  He was an employee at 989 studios.  He was owner and ceo of everything at sigil. 

If I were to form a development house I might give McQuaid a shot at coming up with another gameworld.

I loved the original EQ and still enjoy Vanguard, although I have been offline for several months and have yet to get back in-game and see all the changes that have been made.

I think McQuaid has a great eye for coming up with immersive worlds I just don't  think I would let him have control of the entire company, maybe just use him for his ideas and such then let people that have a grasp of what needs to be done to implement those ideas take over.

Originally posted by Slampig

If I were to form a development house I might give McQuaid a shot at coming up with another gameworld.

I loved the original EQ and still enjoy Vanguard, although I have been offline for several months and have yet to get back in-game and see all the changes that have been made.

I think McQuaid has a great eye for coming up with immersive worlds I just don't  think I would let him have control of the entire company, maybe just use him for his ideas and such then let people that have a grasp of what needs to be done to implement those ideas take over.

you might be right on 1 condition 

he would have to design his new computer game on  a netbook

Originally posted by Serrix79

If i was Blizzard i would hire him. Throw him in as a team leader on the new mmo project . Then watch the magic unfold.

 

Look BM was and still is the vision behind one of the games that revolutionized this industry as we know it. His publisher backed out on him with vanguard and he basically had no choice but to go with sony. In all fairness to BM , EQ was THE game untill sony bought out verant and took over total control of the game. So it doesnt take much to see what happened with VG. The publisher of a game really holds all the chips. I dont fault the guy for what VG was released as. I fault sony and microsoft.

 

More and more i hear people saying they miss the feel that EQ and UO gave them. It is going to take an icon in the industry to compete on a real level with what blizzard has produced. At this point in time noone can come close but that doesnt mean blizzard has the best game on the market. That just means blizzard has made the most easily adaptable game  for the widest audience range to date.

"shrug" just my thoughts"

Wait, all this arguing, and someone missed this post?

*insert standardized statement about how Sony freaking OWNED VERANT.  They did not buy it out*

Originally posted by Urael

www.bradmcquaid.com

"After the sale, Brad decided to take an extended break from games development and is currently pursuing his hobbies and spending time with friends and family. That said, as of late, he’s starting to get that itch again..."

I thought some may actually be interested seeing this.

ok give him a netbook to design his next mmo it migh actually end up playing nice  on a intel  i7 quad core with quad graphic card and quad hard drive

The guy has a great sense of imagination and has lots of fantasy. However, the team as a whole didn't work eventually. The game was a wreck at release. Over 30 million dollar down the drain. Really sad. SOE made it shine though. Although it's still not good enough for my personal taste. I re-subbed two or even three times (don't know anymore), and even after two years I was hitching across the screen although I had a very good gaming system. Overall the game is pretty decent (some things really made me go "wow this is SO cool"), the population was and still is way too low for such an enormous world, and the performance was sucky-sucky-five-dollars.

I really hope this guy gets another chance to set his mind to work. But I also hope that he won't be in charge at the next project.

I like the new Blogpost, it starts getting really interesting.

I hope he sooner or later starts a new project. I'm looking forward to it. Especially since, after checking out the new MMO list, I still fail to see any alternative to Vanguard on the MMO market.

Granted, I'm happy in Vanguard overall, but still I would love to see some chance for an alternative game experience somewhen in the future, if even at the most distant horizont.