From the horses mouth.
"Smed is a friend, a mentor, someone who believed in me and gave me fantastic opportunities, and as I've said in the past, something everyone should know: without Smed, there would be no EverQuest."
"I did mention we don't talk as often as I'd like -- we did come to a point a few years back where we disagreed on something pretty fundamental: He believes the MMO genre has not only changed, but the audience has changed, and that to make successful online games, the 'old' approaches are obsolete. I had to respectfully disagree."