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xnolanx
02-12-2014, 12:42 AM
I take a 4 month break or so and ... wtf is happening?

Donations for exp potions? wtf... no classic

xnolanx
02-12-2014, 12:42 AM
not classic i tell you

Clark
02-12-2014, 07:43 AM
lol

JayN
02-12-2014, 08:19 AM
RnF isnt even safe anymore, this heading to retail i can feel it!

Sorrow*qc
02-12-2014, 08:58 AM
it's not like they will get funded, 10 days for almost 500k still needed

Rec
02-12-2014, 09:00 AM
someone can pledge 500k at any moment. Glad you're catching on to how kickstarter works.

Coridan
02-12-2014, 09:19 AM
Sure someone can, but no one will. Also, 800k is not really enough to get an MMO going. They really needed to make their stretch goals.

Sobee101
02-12-2014, 09:23 AM
The staff put quite a bit of time into this game. And rogan funds it for the most part…So if they want to give away exp pots to support something then more power to them.

Rec
02-12-2014, 09:43 AM
Sure someone can, but no one will. Also, 800k is not really enough to get an MMO going. They really needed to make their stretch goals.

They're not going to make a MMO with 800k, the same people who are going to pay for the rest are the same people that will rescue the kickstarter.

Swish
02-12-2014, 11:11 AM
They're not going to make a MMO with 800k, the same people who are going to pay for the rest are the same people that will rescue the kickstarter.

Praying this doesn't turn into a SOE buyout like Vanguard.

Man0warr
02-12-2014, 12:02 PM
Sure someone can, but no one will. Also, 800k is not really enough to get an MMO going. They really needed to make their stretch goals.

Kickstarters like this are merely hype builders and info dumps - they aren't meant to completely fund the game. It let's Brad show possible investors that there is interest in the game he wants to make. That may backfire since there has been a low backer total but high average donation per backer - which indicates there may not be that big of a market for such a game (honestly the idea of an old school MMO is niche anyways).

skipdog
02-12-2014, 12:10 PM
Meh, I hate how kickstarter is being used.

People should invest in something to get a stake in that investment.

Man0warr
02-12-2014, 12:14 PM
The game industry as a whole is broken right now. The cost of development of AAA games has skyrocketed so much that only a few franchises are successful. Only a few ways to fix it - 1) Raise price of games (consumers are obviously against paying more than the 50-60 we pay now) or 2) Figure out how to make games cheaper, which they have so far failed at. It's also one of the only industries where you can continuously fail at your job (Producer or Director of a game) and still get hired at another company to do the same job. Not to mention the rampant nepotism.

At least Kickstarter allows some legit small dev teams to create games that are fully crowd funded and don't require going to corrupt publishers.

pharmakos
02-12-2014, 12:55 PM
Praying this doesn't turn into a SOE buyout like Vanguard.

Quote from Brad, taken from the comments section of his interview with Boogie2988:

"In a nutshell, our publisher was Microsoft and we had a deal with them to make a new AAA MMO. For about four years everything was going well and we were almost ready to start some early alpha testing of the game. Then there was a regime change at Microsoft, with the VP of their games devision leaving the company along with just about everyone who worked for him. The new group that was assigned to our project wasn't interested in doing an MMO. They accused us of being late and over budget. They wanted to push us out the door and launch the game one year early.

This would, of course, result in total failure. So I went out and did two things: I approached SOE, asking them to take over publishing Vanguard and to fund us to completion. At the same time, I went on the road and approached a variety of investors, seeing if we could drum up some interest to invest in the game and the company, again to give us the funding we needed to complete the game.

In the limited time we had, we failed to raise any additional funds from investors. SOE, however, was able to step in and help out. They assumed the publishing rights to the game and were able to fund us for six more months. That was, of course, better than nothing and the best they could do at the time. But we really needed 12 more months. With only 6 months we ran out of time before we could polish and optimize the game. So when the game was released in January of 2007, it wasn't in very good shape. The game sold 250K units very quickly, but then the majority of players ended up quitting by level 2 or 3. Why so quickly? (you could achieve level 2 or 3 in a couple of hours). But the players couldn't enjoy the game in its unoptimized state unless they had the latest and greatest PC and graphics card. And even then the game didn't perform that well.

A few months after launch SOE decided to buy both Sigil and Vanguard. They were again a bit strapped for cash and couldn't keep the Sigil office fully staffed (at Vanguard's launch we had something like 105 employees). So about 50% of the company was laid off. The whole situation was horrible, but I need to stress that if SOE hadn't been able to come in and help as much as they could, things would have been even worse. At the very least, Vanguard did ship.

SOE then focussed on optimizing the Vanguard client and server tech. Eventually the game was playable by most average PCs, but by then critical mass and momentum had been lost. Players had left with a bad taste in their mouth and many were not willing to come back and give Vanguard another chance. So Vanguard continued on as an SOE game and, over time, became an MMO that I'm very proud of -- it was a lot of fun and most of the new game features like Diplomacy turned out to be pretty cool. The players that remained became a small but passionate and loyal bunch.

In fact, only just recently did SOE decide to shut Vanguard down. The game was up and mostly playable for 7 years. Most of the employees that were laid off were able to take their 4+ years of game development experience and land jobs elsewhere in the industry.

But there's no getting around the fact that things got ugly in early 2007. People who had poured their hearts and souls into Vanguard were laid off right after the game launched. It was a dark time and I was in a dark place. I made my share of mistakes... perhaps I could have seen what was coming, or kept more money in reserve for a rainy day. I was out of the office quite a bit talking with investors and pitching the game. I was therefore absent during a lot of these trying times. As the game sort of fell apart, so did I. There was a lot of stress and anxiety.

So anyway, that's the short version I guess. The good news is that I know myself a lot better now and have learned from my mistakes. So have the other guys on my team who were Sigil employees at the time. Our project now is smaller and the team not nearly as large. We're able to turn the negative that was the Vanguard situation into a positive, by building on our experiences and setting things up a lot smarter this time around.

-Brad"

skipdog
02-12-2014, 01:19 PM
The game industry as a whole is broken right now. The cost of development of AAA games has skyrocketed so much that only a few franchises are successful. Only a few ways to fix it - 1) Raise price of games (consumers are obviously against paying more than the 50-60 we pay now) or 2) Figure out how to make games cheaper, which they have so far failed at.

At least Kickstarter allows some legit small dev teams to create games that are fully crowd funded and don't require going to corrupt publishers.

Yeah, there are a LOT of gamer idiots out there ready to fork out money because 'OOOH PRETTY SCREENSHOTS AND PROMISES!!'

I don't hold it against developers when there are enough mouth-breathers ready to fund your project who get no stake in its success. It's a brilliant idea.

Honestly though, there have been a ton of high quality indie games released in the last couple years that were able to be made without swindling money from kickstarter idiots.

jarshale
02-12-2014, 01:44 PM
At least Kickstarter allows some legit small dev teams to create games that are fully crowd funded and don't require going to corrupt publishers.


I think we're going to see more and more "indie" MMOs coming out through crowdfunding like kickstarter. People are realizing that you just can't throw ludicrous amounts of money at a game to make it successful. For example, TOR was one of the most (or maybe the most) expensive game ever made, and it was a fucking mess and went free to play almost instantly.

So we probably won't see another giant like WoW anytime soon, but hopefully we'll see more smaller scale and specialized MMOs. They'll stop trying to appeal to everyone, and start thinking up interesting concepts and play styles to appeal to certain groups. This will also hopefully encourage healthy communities. I played with many of the same people for years on EQ, but 99% of the people I played WoW with I never saw again after a week or so.

Roth
02-12-2014, 01:56 PM
Yeah, there are a LOT of gamer idiots out there ready to fork out money because 'OOOH PRETTY SCREENSHOTS AND PROMISES!!'

I don't hold it against developers when there are enough mouth-breathers ready to fund your project who get no stake in its success. It's a brilliant idea.

Honestly though, there have been a ton of high quality indie games released in the last couple years that were able to be made without swindling money from kickstarter idiots.

Just watching the pantheon video, I think they're going to miss the point. I think it's going to end up like whatever other new mmo comes out and they will try to add in some gimmicks and it won't work. It's going to end up feeling exactly like every other mmo out there even if they change a lot of things up.

Coridan
02-12-2014, 02:17 PM
You aren't "investing" with kickstaryer. You are pre-ordering whatever reward it is you want. If you don't feel the reward tier is worth the money you don't buy it. Investment is completely different, just because both of thesr are giving money to the company beforehand doesn't mean it is an investment.

baalzy
02-12-2014, 02:49 PM
You aren't "investing" with kickstaryer. You are pre-ordering whatever reward it is you want. If you don't feel the reward tier is worth the money you don't buy it. Investment is completely different, just because both of thesr are giving money to the company beforehand doesn't mean it is an investment.

Question: What if you pledge a bunch of money, the kickstarter succeeds, and the lead of the project snorts all the money up his nose or swallows it in pill form with a splash of 800 dollar a bottle scotch and the project never completes? What happens to your money then?

Tecmos Deception
02-12-2014, 03:00 PM
All I know is that if any of you guys are spending much money at all for any games that are remotely new, instead of playing (or replaying) all the great games from the late 80s up to 2000ish, then you're doing it wrong.

baalzy
02-12-2014, 03:04 PM
All I know is that if any of you guys are spending much money at all for any games that are remotely new, instead of playing (or replaying) all the great games from the late 80s up to 2000ish, then you're doing it wrong.

http://sc2.sourceforge.net/

Best standalone game of all time.

Raavak
02-12-2014, 03:06 PM
Praying this doesn't turn into a SOE buyout like Vanguard.Looking at Brad McQuaid it looks like he is sleeping in his shirts, maybe in his car (anybody else notice that?). So yeah, fear that he will sell it out is realistic.

Kayso
02-12-2014, 03:11 PM
someone can pledge 500k at any moment. Glad you're catching on to how kickstarter works.

I'm willing to fund it for 33% of the funds raised and my 500K back.

250K buys a lot of pills -- won't need to steal 'em anymore. Hook me up, McQuaid!

Man0warr
02-12-2014, 03:54 PM
Question: What if you pledge a bunch of money, the kickstarter succeeds, and the lead of the project snorts all the money up his nose or swallows it in pill form with a splash of 800 dollar a bottle scotch and the project never completes? What happens to your money then?

Then you get nothing and your money is gone - it's already happened a few times and will probably happen a bunch more for the games that got funded in the last couple years that need to start showing a product.

Sgt1stClassPerkerwood
02-12-2014, 03:58 PM
I would also hate to be Brad and know that everything hes made and sold out on turned to shit. That would drive me to change my image back to its true glory

India
02-12-2014, 04:54 PM
I went back and found an interview Brad did with F13 regarding the issue with Microsoft - bit different than what he's now claiming happened.

*****

This is the transcript of an interview with Brad McQuaid via telephone which began at 1:40AM and finished at 3:09AM on May 17th, 2007. As before, I am adding no personal comments to this article outside of what is presented in the interview.

f13.net: What was the relationship in the office between Microsoft and Sigil prior to the split?

Brad McQuaid:: As I've posted a number of times, there was a regime change at Microsoft where they reorganized a lot of their game studios. The people who were in charge of the Vanguard project on the Microsoft side went elsewhere and a completely new group of people were put in place. In that new group of people, the upper management side were also in charge of getting the Xbox 360 out the door. So, the PC games at the time were not receiving a lot of support and I don't blame Microsoft for this at all. When you've got billions of dollars spent trying to launch a new console and millions on the PC titles, you're gonna make sure that the Xbox 360 kicks ass - I think they did a good job of that. The lower level people were put in charge of our project were people who didn't have any MMO experience. They had done Zoo Tycoon 1 & 2. We tried very hard to bring them up to speed and with open arms to show them the differences and similarities between developing an MMO and a single player game - the scale and things like that. That just didn't seem to work. Previously, the people who were dealing with us committed to us - verbally - that they, Microsoft, wanted and were determined to launch a AAA Massively Multiplayer Role-Playing Game - and to do whatever it took to make sure that happened. While that's not down on paper - as no company ever would put down on paper - that was our understanding. Under the new regime, that commitment, nobody remembered it.

When games like WoW were getting heavily into development and dollar amounts on games like EQ2 and WoW were becoming public - we said it would always be our understanding and agreement that we would compete with these guys. They backed down off of that and said that it was no longer their goal and at that point, the money started drying.

f13.net: So, Microsoft simply wasn't ready to compete and they had previously failed projects...

Brad McQuaid:: You have to understand how Microsoft works - and like I said, I don't blame them. They're given different marching orders from a corporate level when it comes to large expenditures. If you go back to Xbox 1 there was a lot of concerns. Can it handle Nintendo and Sony and Sega? Microsoft, you're big, but you can't have the console arena. Microsoft said "we're gonna do it, whatever it takes." The Xbox 1 was ok, and the Xbox 360 is doing great - and that, well, that was their mandate: To do whatever it took to start dominating the console market. They may not be there yet, but they're a lot farther along than they were with the Xbox 1. They had made that decision at some level to look ahead at online gaming and really do the same thing with MMOs. The day or the day after I left Sony, Ed Fries - I think the general manager at Windows Gaming - and other publishers called me, EA and NCSoft, but I had known Ed from before and had a relationship with him. I just knew that Microsoft, when they put their mind to do something, there's no stopping them. They were ready to make the next big MMO. A couple years into the project there was a significant change - the gaming group - and that was no longer the mandate. It took several months to really figure that out. When you have the Zoo Tycoon team assigned to you and the upper manager is in charge of your project and in charge of launching the 360... he must have had ten seconds a day to bother thinking about Vanguard. As there are - and I don't want to sound bitter - in large corporate entities, they make changes. When that change occurred, our relationship started going downhill. We knew what we needed to be competitive with World of Warcraft was in jeopardy.

f13.net: People have said that Microsoft were completely hands off in the development...

Brad McQuaid:: Well, before the transition, they weren't completely - but we were working hand in hand. It was a fantastic relationship. After the change they became completely hands-on.

f13.net: What did that do with the game?

Brad McQuaid:: It slowed down development significantly. Managing the game from their perspective, well... We tried to explain how MMO development is different from Zoo Tycoon and that explanation just wasn't being agreed with or understood - one of the two, I'm not sure. They wanted detailed schedules going out for months that were fairly inflexible. The more artistic a project is, the less schedulable it is down to the long term. I'm all for scheduling - but you have to be flexible. What if a technology doesn't work out? What if you find a better way to do something? You have to be flexible. Especially in pre-production. They wanted everything systematically and that it would take exactly this amount of time, this amount of art assets, and this amount of people to make, say, a dungeon. Are we talking about a premiere dungeon? A level 30 dungeon? A raid dungeon? A dungeon for core gamers? A dungeon where we can reuse certain art assets? Are we talking one where new art is used? There are a lot of variables there. There's not a lot of flexibility there. Our interpretation of that early on is that they don't understand MMO development. Later on, we determined that the decision was made that this is how the studio would be run regardless of the game.

f13.net: I was told that Microsoft actually came in and set a firm release date when you all were somewhere between 55 and 65 percent done.

Brad McQuaid:: Before the regime change, they had committed to us that they would adjust budgets and time frames to make sure it was a AAA game. These things take a long time to develop. Changes are happening, getting more expensive and customers are expecting more. We went back a couple of times together with [the managing team] to increase our budget or increase our time here and there. They were totally cool with that and understood that it was necessary to remain competitive.

After the regime change, that was considered "we were late" or "mismanaging" or "not adhering to strict schedules." It was looked upon not as staying competitive or making a AAA WoW-level game but rather that we were doing something wrong. They frowned upon us needing more time or money. When we'd ask for it, it was considered that we were making errors. Each time that occurred the micromanagement would increase. More and more Microsoft people would come down and try to analyze what was going on. Where we were "messing up." What they could do to "help us." Until finally they flat out said no. No more money, no more time. Your release date needs to be in the July 2006 time frame and that's it.

They didn't have their MMO people anymore really, and they had a major priority of getting the Xbox 360 out which cost billions and billions of dollars. Our ability to petition this to higher-ups and get any attention just really wasn't there.

I don't want to appear to negative here... but this happens with large corporations. There are changes and changes in mandate and focus, and clearly the Xbox 360 is doing very, very well. It has great titles and Microsoft is sitting fine. It's not like they made a catastrophic corporate error. I very much respect Microsoft as a whole and there are a lot of great people there and I'm definitely not one of those "I love Linux and hate all things Windows guys." I understand that all these things happen. Unfortunately it happened to us.

f13.net: Right after the split and before the tragedy the other day, that's when people claim you started to be in the office... not quite as much. Can you explain why?

Brad McQuaid:: We need to back up a little bit. After we split from Microsoft - because obviously we couldn't ship the game in an unready state - we had to go out and do something. Find money to make the game that we could and all dreamed about. We cut a deal pretty quickly so that we could get into SOE's E3 kiosk. We ended up having to meet payroll and to pay the bills. We needed to raise money. We went out and found some people who specialized in venture capital and I worked with those people immediately following the deal coming together. I started working with them on putting a deal together to fund the game to completion and fund the company post-completion and to possibly start a second title. It was basically "get money that we needed." So I started working with these people, it was a learning experience - I'd never really been in the private investor/VC world - and we started that process. I was in and out of the office quite a bit. Demoing the game, showing it to potential investors and putting together the documentation. All sorts of stuff you have to do for that kind of money.

f13.net: So that time being out of the office was business?

Brad McQuaid:: It was a bummer. Even going back to SOE, I want to make games. The executive producer side of things is more fun than the CEO business side of things. But it had to be done, right? So it was a bummer leaving a lot of that behind and it simply had to be done.

f13.net: The SOE-speak was vague in their press release, what are you doing on the game now.

Brad McQuaid:: Pretty much what the press release said. It will become more clear and more announced in the future. I'll be posting on message boards, working with the creative/marketing team on Vanguard, perhaps future things... projects, and working as a consultant in that area. Which are some of the things I really enjoy like posting on message boards.

f13.net: Like FoH?

Brad McQuaid:: If that had gotten to me, I'd have gone under in 1998.

f13.net: I don't know. You refuse to post on f13, even though you said you "read us daily."

Brad McQuaid:: No offense, it looks like a lot more people read FoH and I was posting on there to get the word out about the game. I had no intention to argue or or debate about the game. It was to show people that there was a difference. F13 is a smaller group of guys that really gets into MMOs - the analysis of MMOs and what makes them work. I enjoy reading it, it just doesn't seem like the same type of forum [as FoH].. On FoH, some people would say - "Oh Brad," You're just here promoting, go away. I say, "well, if that's your feeling, let me know." A bunch of other guys say "stay" and well, as long as I'm welcome here that I would. I was simply too engaged with other stuff to get into the more esoteric and more philosophical parts of MMO design which f13 is a bit more focused on...

f13.net: Well, it's irrelevant these days since everyone links to everyone else.

Brad McQuaid:: This is true.

f13.net: For everyone involved, do you have a Google Alert on "The Vision?"

Brad McQuaid::Hm. No. I have it on McQuaid and Sigil I think. I should probably put one on "The Hub of All Blame" as well.

f13.net: Actually, 9 out of 10 people believe that "The Hub of All Blame" is Gilbertson and Fisher. Do you even want to comment?

Brad McQuaid:: No. They're great guys, personal friends of mine and I can understand why people can be upset with them. While I understand it, I disagree on a professional level. Going further would have to wait for an SOE interview.

f13.net: Do you think some of that contributed to some of the eventual problems that arose?

Brad McQuaid:: I can't answer that, but when a company grows and you start being a manager, it's worrisome to hire somebody from outside though. So your inclination is to hire from the inside, your downside to that is that. Growing a company really, really fast is tough. I certainly made my share of errors and there are books written on it. It's not something easy. It goes back into something I said earlier about how quick this industry is expecting more and more - Everquest cost 8 million dollars, WoW cost 80 Million. Jesus. That's in a period of how many years?

f13.net: There were three questions people really want answers to... the first being, why weren't you at the office on launch day?

Brad McQuaid:: Launch day?

f13.net: Apparently they had "cake and champagne."

Brad McQuaid:: In general, I had just found out about future events and what was likely or possible to occur... and it broke my heart. Emotionally, I just couldn't be sitting there celebrating and putting on a big smile when I knew the troubles we might be facing in the future.

f13.net: Next, I was told there was no launch party... Most companies I know, I've been to a few of them, they have launch parties in the face of utter defeat or complete success - what happened there?

Brad McQuaid:: Are you talking about a party for employees or media?

f13.net: Media and employees. A launch party.

Brad McQuaid:: We had hoped to have a big one... well, my favorite one was with Velious. We went to Vegas. We had all the media down one night and a fan-fare another... There were enough things going on with launch and financial realities, that it just wasn't going to work out. I think they had a big hot dog and burger cookout and let everyone go early.

f13.net: And the next party... god, I am a ****ing cynic. Why weren't you at the firing party?

Brad McQuaid:: Well, this is going to sound corny but it's true. I would have broken down in tears.

f13.net: I have since discovered that SOE didn't even know it was going to go down like that. They had something else planned, something less cold. You read the interview right?

Brad McQuaid:: The Long and Morbid tale one?

f13.net: Well, let me just read it back. I've now had multiple people say the same thing. It's uncanny. Not a single one of them seem to have embellished. That Andy Platter - who no one knows, they don't even know what he did at Sigil.. Dave Gilbertson, Ryan Elam, and Donna Parkinson - well basically "You're all fired, some of you may be rehired by Sony Online Entertainment" an-

Brad McQuaid:: I know those people and have a great deal of respect for them, but that sounds awful cold the way you said it...

f13.net: No, you don't understand. Everyone said the same thing. I have confirmed it with no less than six people. That they used the phrase "you're all fired." On that day. In a parking lot. My big problem with this is, well, I don't know your relationship with Bill Fisher, but at this event he made a joke about his stock options buying him a new house. I don't even know how you can comment on this.

Brad McQuaid:: I would find that hard to believe.

f13.net: Uhm....

Brad McQuaid:: I think, this is speculation... there was some turmoil on design and Fisher was doing very well and he was one of the people who wasn't let go. If you can imagine perhaps a designer who was let go having some animosity for Bill and maybe hearing that he said something like that or maybe they overheard him sarcastically talking to one of his buddies like "huh, oh, yea, I'm gonna go buy a car now." Ya know, we're not talking those kind of dollar figures I don't think. I can imagine him going "Woo hoo, going to buy a new car" and I can imagine a third party not knowing Bill's sarcastic joke-around with the guys personality and hearing it and taking it in a bad way, you know what I'm saying? I wasn't there. But I sincerely doubt that he said that in the way it's being construed.

f13.net: Going another direction, I know that there was at one point, a coup that was attempted. On the business side, what happened to the relationship with you and Jeff Butler?

Brad McQuaid:: When you work with someone as long as Jeff Butler and I have - a long time... you're basically business partners. You agree on most things but there are certain things you do not agree on. We have been described as an old married couple. So, ya know, we've had our disagreements. In the early days, everything was new and we had all these wild and cool ideas to share with each other. And then after the stress of running a business together and seeing each other everyday, we could complete each other's sentences. We've had our disagreements, but I wish him the best in whatever he's doing.

f13.net: This is something that, well, I've already got the people involved to corroborate... did the affair between April Jones and Jeff Butler actually affect anything in development?

Brad McQuaid:: I'm not going to comment on their personal life.

f13.net: Not their personal life, the office life due to it.

Brad McQuaid:: Uhm, I have a lot of respect for them. In general, I mean, you work together so much and so many hours in game development and it's creative and people have common interests. This guy watches BSG, this guy collects comic books. You make lots of friends. Relationships form that are more serious than friendships. The only way to stop that would be to basically fire people on the spot and draw some line in the sand. I don't even know how to define that, the legalities. Or do what most companies do and forbid relationships. But we're in games, I don't want to work in a dry environment. I want to goof off and have friends. Obviously something like... a scenario like that isn't good for the company. Is there an easy solution... how to not let that occur.

f13.net: I'll be honest, you touched on my next question. I heard that, well, apparently it was an open secret. That's fine. Whatever. It happens in every office. But the real problem was, well, seemed to have been that - Jeff's wife still worked there. How do you... you know, never mind, it needs to come from them.

Brad McQuaid:: It made it worse, that's all I'll say.

f13.net: I'm going to do a 180 here. Apologies. But you're a religious person. You've said that angels and demons not being in EQ while you were there isn't just because of your religious beliefs. What was the core reason?

Brad McQuaid:: There are different symbols, beings, supernatural beliefs - belief systems that people have that are active today in this world. Gods, demons, angels, others. I guess, in a textbook, would be world religions. You can't avoid offending everyone. Let's take angels. Christians generally believe that angels are real. Many other people don't. That they're mythological beings. Most people don't believe that dragons are real. Or that a griffin is real. Putting a griffin in your game though, versus an angel - is much less a problem. What we decided to do was to avoid anything that's from a major religion. There's some fundamentalist Christian that won't let their kid play period. Dragons, dungeons, death. Whatever. There's also going to be more moderate Christians who are going to let them play EQ or DAoC because there aren't demons or angels or something. We're creative enough people, why not just use the plentiful fantasy out there and not elements of major religions. I also wanted to not use symbols, even from dead religions. While I definitely think it would be great to take themes from mythologies like East-Asian, Norse, Egyptian and things like that - let's avoid using an ankh or whatever. Let's come up with our own religion and our own symbol that means life. This is a different world. Maybe we don't have the time or creativity of Tolkien - who borrowed from mythologies. We're not going to make our own huge religion, but at least come up with our own pantheon of gods and symbols and whatnot. That was just one of the things I wanted to do early on - by simply avoiding offending people if we can. To an atheist sure, an angel is no different than a griffin. But Johnny's mom will let him play our game.

I am a Christian so this probably goes back to me seeing 'Deities and Demigods' and kind of being bummed about that even though I still play [D&D]. It would have made me feel better if they had not used - or rather, had other creatures that weren't demons. So, is this kind of like, "if I'm going to be involved in making games, can a kid play this without being bother by it or his parents saying get away from that evil stuff!" That's the origin of it, but by no means is it me trying to hoist my religious beliefs on anybod-

f13.net: That cuts directly to the core of something I've heard from at least a couple employees who are upset. Someone is alleging - and I'm sure I'll get a straight no comment, but please just deal with the question... Did you distribute religious materials and offer promotions based on people who took you up on it?

Brad McQuaid:: Absolutely not. No and no. Nor would I ever.

f13.net: Ok.

Brad McQuaid:: I believe very much in spreading the gospel of Christianity through ones actions. I don't think you're going to force or debate anyone into believing something. It's got to be based on your actions and morals. On top of that in a work environment - and on top of that, in a management position - it is completely unacceptable to do anything like that and I wouldn't dream of it.

f13.net: Fair enough. So, a lot of people talked about this Andy Platter guy. From two people, I got the exact same response. Neither know who he was, or what he did, or why he played any role in the firing of employees. Simply to explain to the employees reading this - who was he and what did he do?

Brad McQuaid:: He was the Director of Operations. He tested servers, websites, and so on. Most of the developers would probably not interact with him. He had also been out of town recently with a family illness. I'll stop there. As for why he was involved in that event, I have no comment because I wasn't there. As the company grew, well, it's another sociological thing. The company gets big enough, it leases another building. Then the people in the first building are like "what do those guys do?" That's just more human nature stuff. If you're a programmer you don't interact with design much. What does that guy do? I haven't seen anything he's done. Is he a waste of space? Well, he could be the best designer on the team. That's just people.

f13.net: I've kind of got a family tree of the company going here and normally this isn't tolerated. I'm trying to figure out - because I know you didn't have final say in a lot of things, specifically hiring practices among non-design folks...

Brad McQuaid:: The larger the company got, the more we had to build up middle management and delegate responsibility.

f13.net: Well, how did nepotism run so freely to the point that - there's just, ugh, so many family members in this company. We've got brothers, brother-in-laws, a wife - how did this happen? Did you need that many people?

Brad McQuaid:: Two answers. I don't know enough about well. I don't have a family tree. I don't know if this is a higher than normal number. You may have that information. I don't. The other thing too is, when you need to rely on somebody or know somebody or vouch for somebody, especially in a creative environment and know how they interact with people... well, you find a lot of pre-existing friendships and relationships. Because so many interests are shared, even some relationships that didn't exist beforehand - it's likely to happen just like it does with MMOs. You spend all this time with people and have a real relationship with people. I honestly don't know if there's more or less in Sigil.

f13.net: Ok.

Brad McQuaid:: We didn't encourage it. We did encourage the general concept of "Hey do you know this guy, can you vouch for him?" "Well yea, I've known this guy six year. He's intelligent and super creative and he won't steal your car."

f13.net: Well of course, there's "I've known this guy 22 years, he's my brother. In secret, he's a big douche."

Brad McQuaid:: That's the risk. And then you find out and you hopefully get rid of both. The industry is not that big. Basically, if you say "hey, I vouch for my brother" and then you hire him and they both turn out to be jerks, ya know, you're gonna hopefully get rid of them. When it comes time to recommendations, it's going to get around. Formally or informally. That stuff doesn't work out so well. More times than not, you get a good person than you get some guy who can't hold down a job.

f13.net: Ok, here's a loaded one. A number of people have said there was one QA member up through at least beta 3 or 4. How did an MMOG survive with one person dedicated to quality assurance.

Brad McQuaid:: The original plan was to use Microsoft's vast testing facility. We were to keep a small testing team at Sigil -

f13.net: But one?!

Brad McQuaid:: No. A small team that was very close to the dev team and use the massive facility at Microsoft. When that relationship went south and we were scrambling for money, we simply did not have the room to grow.

f13.net: Can you talk about The Vision a bit?

Brad McQuaid:: Well, it goes way back to Everquest.

f13.net: Well, we know that.

Brad McQuaid:: I honestly don't know when it started. I probably started using... I think it had to do with something I commented on - why some games - well, you can tell if a development team really had their hearts in it or not, regardless of the type of game it may be. I think for any game, you need a vision. Either a visionary or visionaries and if you don't have that, you kind of meander around and I don't think you get nearly as strong of a game. Or anything. A piece of art. Anything creative. Unless there's a strong vision. My guess is I was doing a long-winded post back in 1999.

f13.net: Finally, is there anything you'd like to say to the people who were let go without warning. You weren't there, and you're the type of guy that would have said... something.

Brad McQuaid:: I'm really sorry it went down that way. The way that it did. I can promise you that I and everybody in upper management did everything they possibly could to avoid this happening. Sigil was everything to us. It was our dream. Starting our own company. Providing a great working environment. You know, we worked months and months - as great as SOE is, and it was great working with them as a partner - as some people said "Brad, why did you sell out to.." We didn't. We had hoped that Vanguard would be more of a success. It turned out we all worked very hard. Did the best we could. I thank everyone for pouring their hearts and souls into the game. I think it's a great game. I think it has huge potential. When I've talked and made posts about the future of Vanguard and talked about Vanguard next year - I do believe that it was planned and architected to be an amazing game. We hoped to do it as our own company. It didn't work out that way. I'm sorry.

As CEO, I take full responsibility and the buck stops here. I did everything I could and so did everybody else to make it work. But it didn't. I hope that everything works out for you guys in the future. If there's anything I can do - recommendations, things like that for all of you guys - please don't hesitate to contact me. I hope that you learned a lot in your time at Sigil and that you've become a more valuable asset in the games industry than when you first started. I wish you guys the best. I'm sorry that I wasn't there the day that people were let go. But honestly, these months have been very, very heartbreaking for me. Emotionally I couldn't have handled it. I would've been sitting there bawling my head off. You can ask anybody who knows me about the heartache I've felt because things didn't work out for the company. I do believe Sony will do a great job. I know they will.

That doesn't make it any easier for someone who lost their job. It's got to be a horrible thing. You can ask people when I had to fire one person who really deserved it, I'd have to take the afternoon off because it was so hard for me. And that was firing someone who deserved it. Laying people off was just too much. I guess I'm too empathic in some ways. I took the role of CEO very seriously, that I was responsible for every person there. Their well-being. It got harder and harder as the company. It was a weight on my shoulders. Please, again, if there's anything I can do to help you out. Do not hesitate to contact me. And I wish you guys the very best.

f13.net: Thank you.

Morningbreath
02-12-2014, 05:39 PM
Brad should make running for office his next project. He seems like he would fit in well.

xnolanx
02-13-2014, 01:16 AM
The staff put quite a bit of time into this game. And rogan funds it for the most part…So if they want to give away exp pots to support something then more power to them.

Not knocking this project one bit.. I'm sure a small handful of the community knows I've been here for a while..

Just trying to get a discussion .. Merely just a surprise to me to randomly pop onto the homepage for the server with something of that magnitude..

Edit: Just surprising news to me.. Wanted to share it with everyone..

JayN
02-13-2014, 01:24 AM
Brad should make running for office his next project. He seems like he would fit in well.

This !


how many times will a junkie lie to you to get money for a fix? Every single time.


How many times will you fall for the junkies story, hopefully not more then twice!

NextGenesis88
02-13-2014, 01:38 AM
Not knocking this project one bit.. I'm sure a small handful of the community knows I've been here for a while..

Just trying to get a discussion .. Merely just a surprise to me to randomly pop onto the homepage for the server with something of that magnitude..

Edit: Just surprising news to me.. Wanted to share it with everyone..

I think people just need to look at the big picture here. Maybe they didn't need to go as far as early Velious on the main server, but seeing it maybe on a seperate one only so they take nothing away from it. Either way it doesn't effect me so maybe I can't speak on that part. I see the xp pots and items as items they normally would give out for GM events and such and nobody ever complains about those. I think the problem people have is with people getting to pay money and get some items. But what they need to remember is the money is not for the P99 guys. It's for a GREAT cause that is in all of our best interests seeing as the type of MMO we enjoy. I think the P99 guys went that far with it because they really want to see this game succeed and they were going to need a ton of help to make their goal (which they still do).

People should take a step back and really think about this... we should be fighting for a game like this to be made whether you think it will fail or not. Every game being made can succeed or fail. We and the MMO industry needs a game like this again that is built upon. The games have just strayed so far away from what we came to know and love and I am kinda shocked at how many people don't seem to even give a shit. For making such a big move like this I think people should really see that this is a very important thing to Nilbog and the guys. I salute them. They are supporting something that could even have negative effects on their own server, but it's just that important. (by negative effects I mean people may quit P99 completely for this game)

Open your eyes, sit back, go get some pixels and let's get this game supported! It is absolutely absurd if people don't care if this doesn't happen or do well. Like the guys here say, if you aren't supporting of this in any way then you cannot complain about how shitty mmo games are today and that they need to make them more like EQ.

I mean Brad and the guys themselves came to our very own EQEmu server to personally fill us all in on this game. That's so exciting in itself to me and since when does that type of thing happen? I think this is a very unique and special thing we now have going here.

Sorry I type way too much all the time. I just like to type a lot. (especially since I got my first mechanical keyboard. XD Cherry Reds!)

xnolanx
02-13-2014, 01:55 AM
I think people just need to look at the big picture here. Maybe they didn't need to go as far as early Velious on the main server, but seeing it maybe on a seperate one only so they take nothing away from it. Either way it doesn't effect me so maybe I can't speak on that part. I see the xp pots and items as items they normally would give out for GM events and such and nobody ever complains about those. I think the problem people have is with people getting to pay money and get some items. But what they need to remember is the money is not for the P99 guys. It's for a GREAT cause that is in all of our best interests seeing as the type of MMO we enjoy. I think the P99 guys went that far with it because they really want to see this game succeed and they were going to need a ton of help to make their goal (which they still do).

People should take a step back and really think about this... we should be fighting for a game like this to be made whether you think it will fail or not. Every game being made can succeed or fail. We and the MMO industry needs a game like this again that is built upon. The games have just strayed so far away from what we came to know and love and I am kinda shocked at how many people don't seem to even give a shit. For making such a big move like this I think people should really see that this is a very important thing to Nilbog and the guys. I salute them. They are supporting something that could even have negative effects on their own server, but it's just that important. (by negative effects I mean people may quit P99 completely for this game)

Open your eyes, sit back, go get some pixels and let's get this game supported! It is absolutely absurd if people don't care if this doesn't happen or do well. Like the guys here say, if you aren't supporting of this in any way then you cannot complain about how shitty mmo games are today and that they need to make them more like EQ.

I mean Brad and the guys themselves came to our very own EQEmu server to personally fill us all in on this game. That's so exciting in itself to me and since when does that type of thing happen? I think this is a very unique and special thing we now have going here.

Sorry I type way too much all the time. I just like to type a lot. (especially since I got my first mechanical keyboard. XD Cherry Reds!)

+1

fadetree
02-13-2014, 09:19 AM
+2