Poll: Was Brad Mcquaid Overrated?

[Octavian]

Brad answered me on Twitter multiple times and gave insightful feedback into the development and core values of Pantheon. It was so apparent that he was more than a developer. He was a dreamer. Visionary Realms was aptly named. Brad McQuaid was not someone who toiled away on a team, doing something he didn't care about for a paycheck. He had a vision. He wanted to create something memorable and special. And I've seen more than enough interviews/dev streams from him to know that he didn't have any ego about it at all. He just loved what he did.

I would vote underrated if it were an option. Brad McQuaid was a rare type of person. A childlike sense of wonderment, a big dreamer without concern of skepticism, and the ambition and work ethic to get it done. All while being kind. RIP to an absolute legend, more than deserving of any hype, accolades, and adoration that is sent his way.

[Elizondo]

Brad the Steve Jobs of MMOs

[Kohedron]

He’s a genius. He’s managed to keep creep autists out of society by making a super addicting game. He’s a hero.

[Jibartik]

Originally Posted by long.liam [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

MMO's were already a thing before EQ. They were called MUDs. Also, a few MMos came out before EQ anyway Meridian 59 for example. Brad Mcquaid wasn't the only one working on the original EQ. It was a whole team of Programers, Software developers, graphics artists etc. Brad just lead it. He mostly just told people what to make and they made it for Him.

Think of it like a movie, there are good directors and bad directors. If you take a great cast, and staff, and put a good director in charge, they make magic, if they put a bad director in charge its garbage.

Brad was a good director, but also a drug addict.

[Jibartik]

Originally Posted by Octavian [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Brad answered me on Twitter multiple times and gave insightful feedback into the development and core values of Pantheon. It was so apparent that he was more than a developer. He was a dreamer. Visionary Realms was aptly named. Brad McQuaid was not someone who toiled away on a team, doing something he didn't care about for a paycheck. He had a vision. He wanted to create something memorable and special. And I've seen more than enough interviews/dev streams from him to know that he didn't have any ego about it at all. He just loved what he did.

I would vote underrated if it were an option. Brad McQuaid was a rare type of person. A childlike sense of wonderment, a big dreamer without concern of skepticism, and the ambition and work ethic to get it done. All while being kind. RIP to an absolute legend, more than deserving of any hype, accolades, and adoration that is sent his way.

yes he is also a saint

my vote: not overrated.

[Toxigen]

I’d have ripped a few gaggers with Brad.

[WokeCat]

I think Vanguard got a really super unfair take too. I upgraded my computer to play it... and when it finally came out I was super excited. I'm pretty sure I had been playing WoW for a bit at this point, and as soon as I was in Vanguard I started having flashbacks from EverQuest.

It was like I was finally "home" after being severely disappointed by EverQuest 2. But then I started to notice major frame-rate issues. This was back in the day, you didn't really shop online, you actually drove around to various "computer" stores trying to find upgrades for your computer. I think I upgraded everything, and the game still ran terribly.

I remember seeing in magazines about how if you had a $6,000 NorthWest computer, the game would run amazing, but I just couldn't bring myself to squeeze the trigger. Apparently everyone had this same problem, so the game was mostly unplayed by the majority of us who tried it at launch.

I asked a friend who actually did get to experience Vanguard if it was similar to EverQuest, or at least as good, and his response was that it was a million times better and that the loot system and dungeons were extremely inspired by EQ 1, but also way more exciting.

I take what he said fairly seriously because he is a YouTuber whose EQ videos regularly get over 5k views. He not really a casual person, and he still stands by those statements.

[Jibartik]

Is there any documentary or behind the scene about that game? My imagination always was he was just high out of his mind passed out at home while they made that game.

[Danth]

Originally Posted by WokeCat [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I remember seeing in magazines about how if you had a $6,000 NorthWest computer, the game would run amazing, but I just couldn't bring myself to squeeze the trigger.

I had a newer, but average-quality PC and it ran Vanguard decently enough that performance was not a serious complaint. I think the issue was more a case of poor optimization and hardware/drivers: If you happened to have a system basically similar to what they did their very limited tuning for, you were okay-ish, otherwise, it was touch-and-go. A lot of folks with nominally superior computers to my own reported crippling performance issues.

I don't think Vanguard is unfairly maligned--it did have a great many problems, after all. I do think that under the mountain of problems there was a good game hidden in there. That being said, I also think there's an element of "wrong game at the wrong time." Vanguard was something of an anti-WoW trying to release right at the peak of Warcraft's popular growth phase. Even if VG had been complete and stable, I expect it would not have done all that well commercially just due to the timing.

As for McQuaid, his most important skills were on the PR and promotion side of things. He was very good at drumming up interest and corporate support, at least until Vanguard turned into a fiasco. The idea of 3D MUDs was not a new idea in the mid 90's--dang near anyone who had logged onto such games imagined sticking them in a realtime/3D environment--but not many people could convince major corporations to bankroll such a project.

Danth

[Lampolo]

Nah Vanguard sucked because McQuaid was too interested in silly little systems like his parlay mini game. That dude had no idea what made games good and fluked out on eq and who ever he was working with