Newsroom
Newsroom
General : McQuaid Returns to Gaming
Posted Jun 21, 2010 by Jon Wood
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.
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.
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.
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.
Oh Jar Jar McQuaid, not yousa again. Yousa bein in big dudu dis time!
This is gonna be fun...
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.
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.
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.
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.
I remember back when VG was in development Brad would frequent the VG forums and proclaim how his game was only meant for a certain group of people, and the rest of us would never get a beta invite even if we were the best testers in the world.
There's only one developer I like less than Brad. I strongly doubt he will be able to create anything casual, anytime, ever. He was so gung ho about VG being hardcore it was like... dude lay off the speed.
Seriously, I lost all respect for this guy when I found out he laid off his team in the parking lot.
Abominations like Farmville come to mind in that context <shudder>. But it seems popular, so to each their own <shrug>
I personally am happy to see him back since it wont cost me a dime unless I pay for whatever he makes. Until then I eagerly await for what he has in store.
All you guys attributing design greatness or failure to Brad or any single designer should understand no games are made and designed by one person. They are made by teams. That is why its so hard to hire good designers based on a shipped titles; you never really now what they actually contributed. They might have spent the entire dev cycle crunching data tables in Excel.
At the end of the day Brad has secured his place in MMORPG history as an innovator and visionary, and while there are many stories of his fall they will never diminish his achievements. Time will tell if history can repeat itself for Brad.
Lets see what the future brings.
Half decent summary
http://www.socialtimes.com/2008/07/social-games/
Gets my vote. However I will remind you that Brad was the CEO of Sigil (if memory serves me rightly), therefore HE was the "buck stops here" guy who made all the important decisions. However, I will agree that times change and sometimes people do too, depending on the circumstances into which they are put.
I really hope for his sake that he manages to get back on top in the eyes of the MMO industry.
if there is money to be made from it or at least get from investors...
I am a berliever in Mr. Mcquaid,but not at this point in time,because this era of gaming is too much focused on cheap development and jumping on the facebook bandwagon.
When i here him mention "social" i know it means a game ,i couldn't care less about,that tells me it is probably a facebook,or browser app and everyone will be sending twitter's ....no thanx for now,i'll wait until he gets his act back in gear and tries to bring us another great effort as Vanguard was.
Well, I did like the concept of VG
/signed
A failure not too long ago run out of the industry, hmm maybe he can start a game with Richard Garriott and Gaute Godager.
I wish him much luck.. Glad he is back.
There are 7 names that, if they are attached in any way to a company, I will never do business with.
John Smedley, Mark Jacobs, David Bowman, Tasos Flambouras, Richard Garriot, Jack Emmert and Brad McQuaid
That would be my list too, good call.
Hey, I liked the "Vision" he had for Vanguard. If Microsoft hadn't bailed...more importantly if they had managed to get another publisher aside from SOE the game had very good chances of taking a positive turn/direction. Heck I'd most likely be subscribed to it!
That SOE got involved got the ball rolling in a negative direction in my view. I refuse to attribute Vanguard's lack of success and staying power to McQuaid's vision of how a MMO should be. Now, his lack of managerial ability, if accounts are true, can be questioned. But his ideas with proper financial backing (and I stress proper as in a company that isn't tainted reputation wise like SOE) could most certainly still produce that old school, actual World instead of "game" type MMO if given a chance.
Add in Derek Smart and you just about covered 'em all.
Failures need to stay away. No room for failure anymore if the past 5 years has been any indication.
I'll have the wait-and-see approach. I didn't play EQ past Velious and I didn't try VG until a lot was smoothed (about 1 or so years after release), so I didn't see the worst of these games directly. I can only go by what other people are saying here. It doesn't fill me with confidence about what this guy can or can't do on his own. It won't hurt to see what he does, but I won't give it much of my time either.
John Smedley is the name on that list I dislike the most by far after how he treated SWG players when CU got changed to the NGE. The fact that the NGE happened without players' knowledge after they bought the expansion that provided content for skillsets that were no longer going to exist, that was just the top of the wrong.
Brad MCtwat has gone back into business? Guess he got tired of playing his violin to mountains and has been snatching those meds off co workers desks again, think I'll have to do an interview with him soon!
Please do!
Seconded!!
I am glad Brad is back, Vanguard (despite its rough launch) ceratinly got me back into MMO, Sadly it was $OE handling of it that killed it for me, The way teh cut out updating Diplo, then crafting, then butchered crafting, then added more raids (with an epic arc) then butchered it,
I hope that this time Brad gets to keep control of it, I cant wait to see what he comes up with next, as one guy said, it wont cost a penny unless you buy his product
Good list, but i dont think Smedley belongs in that failure pool
Smedly is the kingpin of murdering mmos and should be front and center on any do not touch list. Just listen to the guy give an interview and then ask yourself if he even understands that he is making a game and not some vehicle to get revenue from people. He can't even be bothered to talk about what makes games fun anymore and only talks about pricing and market demographics.
Not sure I'm ready to abandon Richard Garriot yet. He might be past his prime of just got invovled with some companies that didn't work well with how he goes about making games. Worth another shot I think.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned Gaute Godager or David Allen yet.
how was brad long gone before luclin? luclin released in December 2001 and he left October 2001? He had a hand in Luclin. Now PoP he was long gone but doesnt mean there wasnt a creative plan project he was on that focused on the next expansion after luclin was to be released and he could of contributed to some of the concepts.
Brad coming back is the worst thing to happen to the MMO since he released that pile that is refered to as Vanguard. No one in there right mind can be excited about this news in any shape way or form. He must think that we have forgotten his greatest mistake and are ready to forgive him. Sad thing is that he is going to do what he did in Vanguard again and people are going to buy into his hype of whatever he is developing. Hopefully and I truely mean hopefully SoE doesn't give this douche money to create EQ3 at his crappy ass new company. Some people are just not meant to be the Boss. Just wish those people who arnt meant to would figure this out.
He has some very good ideas. But like alot of creative people they have trouble runing companies because they are just not practicaly minded.
Vanguard was only spoiled when they tried to release it early because SOE got greedy and wanted their money.
SOE purchased Verant in June 2000, which started the removal process of Brad. He was "promoted" off the EQ project to Chief Creative Officer of SOE. Just like soe promoted Raph Koster to Chief Creative Officer in 2003 shortly after the release of SWG and his eventual departure when his contract was up.
These guys were promoted off their respective projects. That is why he was long gone.
I'll see if I can find the link where Brad talks about Velious being the last project he was involved with.
The tall tales I hear from nutters like this just get funnier by the day.
I think Brad might be the shining hope for the future of MMORPGs, for PvE anyway. I just wish someone would team up with him and make sure whatever his next project is, it'll have DAoC style RvR combat.
Richard Garriot, Brad McQuaid, Tasos, and Jacobs, are responsible for some of the most innovative heavy impact MMORPGs to ever release. Hell Brad and Richard are the fathers of the entire genre. I don't understand the hate.
It's called what you have done for me lately. I really don't have a problem with most of the guys on the list short of the SOE guys.
People don't remember the big pioneering successes of a Garriot or McQuaid or they weren't even into MMORPG's back then, they only remember the latest failures.
As the saying goes, "you're only as good as your last success".
Scars of Velious was F*ing ingenious, loved that expansion. After that things moved farther and farther away from the initial greatness and wonder of the game.
Yet you still have no proof that he didnt have a role in Luclin. Why wouldn't he? SoE is about money why would they not keep brad in the loop. The reason for those guys to want to leave after being acquired is all about salary and the fact that they will not move up anymore in there careers in SoE. And people like brad and im sure Raph too i look at personal experience when our company was bought and the key engineer on our team was contracted to work for the new company for the next two years. He still did everything with our projects that the new company bought us for but the new company just wasnt treating him how he wanted to so he ended up leaving. So when we release the new project im not going to say he had no part in it because he did he just wasnt part of the end result. So to actually think that Brad had no hand in Luclin is complete, complete, completely naive on your part and you undoubtly have a man crush on Brad. When your gettin paid by a company they want you to work. there not just paying him and putting him in a room. If thats what there wanted to do to Brad they would of just fired him. Its disgruntle employees that want to cry foul because of how they've been treated after the transistion. So get off Brad He had a hand in Luclin I'd be willing to put money on it. And i mean Yeah he might of not been part of the end result but brad had a hand in it is all.
I'm having a hard time here, I have only played mmo's since the inception of SWG (helped launch the title) but from that time I don't recall seeing any new or innovative systems in mmo's that didn't already exist in video games. Crafting which obviously wouldn't have shown up in offline console games but again for the life of me I'm trying to think of what these prophets brought to us that hadn't been shown to us before by console/pc/offline game devs.
No i remember, its just if you release a bad game thats ok but when you release utter garbage thats another. Vanguard was a playless heep of mess that just told me i would have a more productive time dropping a DUECE. Brad screwed me, he screwed 99.98% of the purchasers of Vanguard on release date. So I sir will let you purchase his next heep and if it sells then ill give it a go. But i wont be a sucker like i was on Vanguard.
Offline game your thinking of is Star Ocean Series, i know that is 1 offline game that has alot of crafting type elements
A "sophisticated" social game? Will players be required to wear top hats and tails to play? How can it possibly fail???
I wonder what drugs have fueled Brad's delusions this time? Mescaline? OxyContin? Laudanum? Or will he go back to the tried and true nose candy that he loved and loved him right back?
How many professional sports teams sack players they are contractually obligated to pay? Or trade them to other teams including retaining the responsibility to pay a portion of their salary? Or huge corporations that must pay massive severence packages to their VPs should they get canned?
No, it is very possible and plausable for a company to "promote" a problem child off a project or into a position where they cannot cause harm. Such as when they aquire a company like SOE did to Verant or when they want to make changes to a project, but have an entrenched manager in the way. Like they did with SWG/Koster and EQ/Brad. Get it? They were no longer key employees and that is why your analogy fails.
Want some snippits to back that up? Ok.
[Link 1]
After Sony Online Entertainment acquired Verant Interactive, Brad McQuaid was promoted to Vice President of Premium Games and Chief Creative Officer. He found the lack of hands-on influence over the game upsetting, leaving Sony to create Sigil Games with Jeff Butler in January 2002.
[Link 2]
Brad McQuaid was the co-designer of "EverQuest," managing the development team from the project's inception until its launch. He later became a founder of Verant Interactive and its Vice President. After Verant's acquisition by Sony Online Entertainment, Brad McQuaid served there as Vice President of Premium Games responsible for "EverQuest," "Sovereign," "PlanetSide," "Star Wars: Galaxies," and several currently unannounced projects. In addition, McQuaid was the company's Chief Creative Officer. He resigned amicably from the company in October 2001. McQuaid is one of the most respected online game developers in the industry, featured in with numerous articles in publications such as "The Wall Street Journal" and "Time Magazine." "PC Gamer" named him one of the "Next Game Gods" in their November 2000 issue.
[Link 3]
Some were "promoted" off the team. Like Brad McQuaid. He was moved because they were "borderline ready to revolt".
You say Brad left over salary and no job growth potential? He was a fucking VP -AND- Chief Officer. On top of that he made enough money to start his own company and you want to insult me?
Soe promoted Brad off the team and started changing the game. Just like they did with Raph Koster and Star War Galaxies. Sorry if you can't see the trend there, but when a company wants to make a change and they can't get rid of the people they employee, they "promote" them to other areas.
Brad is an idiot who screwed up 2 dream jobs. I could go on about the shit he his guilty of and what a nutjob asshole I think he is. However, his game designs that I have experienced are excellent. Even when they are buried under the mismanagement and unfinished pile of crap that was Vanguard, the core potential was better than almost any other game in the last 5-6 years.
There is a reason why EQ took such a dramatic turn between Velious and Luclin and why soooooo many people call Luclin the beginning of the end. It is also the same exact time when SOE bought verant and Brad was promoted to some office job out of the way.
You have to be blind not to see it.
Im not blind to see it i just dont see it being true. And lack of hands-on can mean anything. He might of wanted full control and yet he was only allowed to give opinions. So that doesnt mean he didnt have a part in its development and thats what i said. Just because Brad might claim he didnt have enough hands on only means he didnt get the amount of hands-on that he wanted. You prove nothing with this quote.
At least I give enough supporting information and sources to back up what I think the situation was and don't have to resort to "man crush" statements.
Though I am not sure what you think lack of hands on influence could possibly mean. Especially when we the subject we are talking about is Brads direct influence on that expansion and the reason listed for his departure was his lack of influence on the game.
The last expansion Brad had direct hands on control of [velious] was consider by many to be the single best expansion and time period of EQ. Then Brad is promoted OFF the EQ team and replaced by someone else and the very next expansion is considered by most as the beginning of the downward spiral of EQ.
You are free to believe what you wish and I have no smoking gun to clearly show the exact time and statements made why Brad left. However I think the situation speaks for itself to anyone looking at it objectively.
Thanks for the post!Hi I'm .Its great to be a part of this awesome venue and look forward to meeting you online here.
uhhhh....well I got only two letters to say in response to this news....
P U
All I can say other then that is i'm not looking forward to any of it...my experience from vanguard, everquest and the others....well those above me have stated enough already...no need to reiterate it again...
Ok your not hearing what im saying because i do get what your saying and yes you did provide links. But just because it says lack of influence thats a broad statement because it could just mean he didnt get to influence it as much as he wanted or would of liked. And that was my point. Yes it could mean he had nothing to do with it but I highly doubt that i feel he just didnt get the love he wanted for the new SoE family and they didnt put alot of the ideas he prolly would of liked to see in Luclin.
I hear what you are saying, but for the most part you are speculating against what has been provided. Taking the stance that anything is possible doesn't mean it is plausible.
Despite all the informaiton given, the changes in creative control, the changes in ownership of the company, the changes in leadership, the formation of the austin studio, the creation of the EQ2 team and all the other massive changes that occured between Velious and Luclin, you still want to speculate that somehow it might be possible that Brad is still had time or influence enough to affect Luclin?
Raph Koster went through the same exact promotion Brad did. Do you think it would be fair to say that Raph might have somehow been responsible for the changes to SWG once he was promoted off the team?
Of course Brad wasn't getting the love from SOE. That is exactly why they bought him out and gave him a meaningless job until he quit out of frustration. That is very common in business acquisitions.
(Mod Edit)
I never said he affect Luclin I Just said he had a part in it. He worked on something that was in it. You are just speculating what Lack of influence is aswell just like me. This was all said because someone said brad had no part in it. No part means he didnt touch it at all and all i said was he more then likely did some work with Luclin it just was LACKING and he decided to move on.