John Smedley hired by Amazon to produce MMOs
- Thread starter zero_name
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KCXIV
Molten Core Raider
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He ran H1Z1 both versions into the ground too. It took the hiring of major AAA dev's to turn them ships around and ALOT of time, they basically had to remake a whole new game both versions! and 1 is going through a major major overhaul.
It had 100,000 people in the first month. Admittedly most of them bailed because of technical problems though, but that game could have easily been turned into something that had a small but loyal fanbase like EQ/EQ2. They did most of the changes that needed to be done, but it took them 5 years and then they closed it. That's why he is a terrible manager. They also made changes to that game that were truly terrible and ruined the experience.
Ambiturner
Ssraeszha Raider
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Yep, Vanguard just needed more time and it would have really taken off!
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VG was good - is poor programming Brad's fault? The 'vision' behind the game was solid.
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Ambiturner
Ssraeszha Raider
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The game was good. It was fun - I'd play today. It ran like crap, but it had some charm about it.
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Yep classes were good and unique. Combat was solid, cast when running was a cool idea. The world, what was finished, had charm. It just was unfinished and the chunking was bad. Dungeons were solid, it was servicable, but had tons of problems too. If they could of eeked out another year of financing to finish it it could of been way better. Its still being emulated so it must of had some impact on a few people.
I would put this game in the realm of shadowbane. Good ideas just clunky on the boarder of being broken.
I would put this game in the realm of shadowbane. Good ideas just clunky on the boarder of being broken.
Tmac
Adventurer
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Sometimes the problems in a game are so foundational, time is never the solution. It generally comes down to leadership.
Take Bioware for instance. I'm sure if we got the nitty gritty on Vanguard, it'd read very similarly.
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Vangaurd was the pinnacle of gaming, If only Brad had more money, and time, and talent, and skill, and ability, and charisma, and leadership qualities, well I could go on for days. But if you ignore all that then the man was fucking god, I mean look at this shit and tell me you ready to shell out the dollaroo's. I fucking dare you.
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Zehnpai
Molten Core Raider
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I will never forget the thread on the VG alpha forums where they were polling to see how long it should take to kill a trash mob.
There was not a single poll option for under 2 minutes. For a standard, out in the wild, run of the mill, xp trash mob. I think the highest voted option was like 8 minutes or some shit.
This was in a game where, at the time, mobs only had a regular attack and a kick that would stun you for .5 seconds. That was it. Nothing cast spells, nothing had special attacks or debuffs. Just auto attack and the occasional stun.
8 minutes of that.
Every goddamn mob.
They were so out of touch it wasn't even funny. Not just Brad but the echo chamber of idiots that kept posting such shitty ideas.
There was not a single poll option for under 2 minutes. For a standard, out in the wild, run of the mill, xp trash mob. I think the highest voted option was like 8 minutes or some shit.
This was in a game where, at the time, mobs only had a regular attack and a kick that would stun you for .5 seconds. That was it. Nothing cast spells, nothing had special attacks or debuffs. Just auto attack and the occasional stun.
8 minutes of that.
Every goddamn mob.
They were so out of touch it wasn't even funny. Not just Brad but the echo chamber of idiots that kept posting such shitty ideas.
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Zapatta
Krugman's Fax Machine
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Star Wars Galaxies is the perfect example of continually kicking itself in the balls listening to fucks who only played the forum and not the game.
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Utnayan
I Love Utnayan he’s awesome
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No. That would have gone up Brad's nose at the time and nothing would have been better with the game. It would have been wasted financials. Hell, he would even admit that at this point I would bet.
Have to remember here, Sigil imploded before this game launched. People were having affairs on their wives in the office, Brad was talking about a mystery pirate island which didn't exist and was in a drug induced delusional frame of mind and in a bad spot (Sounds like he is a lot better now, so that's awesome)... About the only thing you would have seen with more money and time would have been A&E showing up at the office for a free for all Intervention Mini Series with an early explosion of Swapsmut.
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Big_w_powah
Trakanon Raider
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Grim1
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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VG was a fucking great game. But you needed a monster machine. I had just built a new mini cray when VG came out so never had any issues.
Unfortunately when Sony took over, they assigned 2nd rate devs to the game and fucked it into the ground trying to fix it. VG definitely needed fixing so that people on welfare could play it. Sony wasn't the company to do that though since VG was a direct competitor to EQ2.
Unfortunately when Sony took over, they assigned 2nd rate devs to the game and fucked it into the ground trying to fix it. VG definitely needed fixing so that people on welfare could play it. Sony wasn't the company to do that though since VG was a direct competitor to EQ2.