Pan'Theon: Rise' of th'e Fal'Len - #1 Thread in MMO

Nice, Vision 2.0 inc...

Denaut_sl said:

"Idea men" are entirely pointless. What matters to a project like a video game are not nebulous "big ideas", everyone has those. Hell, you probably have ones just as good as the ones Brad or I have. What matters are the thousands of tiny ideas that solve complex and difficult problems. You can't plan those, and they can't all come from one head because something like an MMORPG is too large and too varied for that.

What matters for someone like Brad is the ability to put together a good team, keep everyone moving in the same direction, and most importantly make sure there is money to pay the bills. That is what a good head of a video game company does.

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pretty much and I feel like he had some demons that he was dealing with to keep that focus last time around.. I think with a small team and a lot of the tools/tech already developed for him, he will have an easier go this time around..

Denaut_sl said:

"Idea men" are entirely pointless.

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Sure buddy. Because there's been so many awesome MMOs since EQ right? The developers of GW2 and EQN have solved/are solving very complex and difficult problems. Did they make/are they making good games?

Gecko_sl said:

He's going from MS' big bucks on a huge project to making a tiny niche game probably with few funds. If he couldnt release a decent game with Micro$oft, I'm not sure he can do much with the scarce funds he probably will gather. My guess is he'll go the kickstarter route. Anyone who contributes to Brad knowing he flushed 10s of millions of Bill Gates dollars down the toilet is ignoring history.

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fuck microsoft. can you enlighten us on how the relationship between M$ and VG went down?

Rhuobhe_sl said:

fuck microsoft. can you enlighten us on how the relationship between M$ and VG went down?

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Basically, Art Assets aside, VG as she was released in Jan 2007 was developed in about a year - most of the early functionality/combat system was just thrown out. There's a summary somewhere. Anyway, MS flipped out when they figured it out.

And you wonder why I'm less concerned about the team and more about the producer/CEO.

Microsoft got swindled pretty bad in that whole ordeal. I remember Brad trying to blame them for pulling the plug. Later on we found out that the funds were turning right into painkillers.

Burnesto_sl said:

Microsoft got swindled pretty bad in that whole ordeal.

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They should have had way more oversight. They handed Brad a ton of money and don't seem to really tracked it.

I'm confused how this man has so much acclaim. He had very little to do with what made EQ great. VG looks and runs like dogshit.

Why can't we have a bizzaro world where McQuaid actually does shit.

Ortega_sl said:

This smells of nostalgia. He's all excited now, but I foresee this coming to a close Vanguard style or even worse.

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i have absolutely no problem if this game comes out like vanguard, as long as it runs smoothly and has end game content. i know a lot of people didn't play VG, but even with all its faults and terrible hitching, it was a lot of fucking fun.

pointyboot_sl said:

I'm confused how this man has so much acclaim. He had very little to do with what made EQ great. VG looks and runs like dogshit.

Why can't we have a bizzaro world where McQuaid actually does shit.

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brad was one of the lead designers and producer. he is also known to be great salesman. he probably pitched the whole thing.

such insolence

pointyboot_sl said:

I'm confused how this man has so much acclaim. He had very little to do with what made EQ great. VG looks and runs like dogshit.

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Bad Troll is bad.

gogojira_sl said:

I hear that come up from time to time but I want to see the receipts. Honest question, if this is the case a reputable source would be nice. I'm specifically referencing EverQuest here.

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As we all should know, he co-wrote the EQ design document and was then moved up to producer, so the boot's just trolling. Brad gets to keep his credit for EQ. Now with respect to VG, my understanding is a lot of Brad's initial ideas were eventually thrown out and he gets a lot less credit for VG's design. I haven't talked to a Sigil employee in years about VG so take that last bit with as much salt as you want.

All I have to say about this topic is... Bought fucking time someone stood up in the industry and said enough is enough of the bullshit MMORPGs.

I'm absolutely NOT trolling. We may disagree about what's great about EQ, or if VG looks like dogshit, though.

If they just copy the VG class/combat system and put it in a non "chunked" world and iron out some of the bugs/lack of end game(Grinding/missives from 30+), I'd pay for it just out of principle.

tad10_sl said:

Sure buddy. Because there's been so many awesome MMOs since EQ right? The developers of GW2 and EQN have solved/are solving very complex and difficult problems. Did they make/are they making good games?

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Ideas are not the problem, ideas are never the problem. "Ideas" are useful as toilet paper if someone took the effort to write them down and less if they didn't.

tad10_sl said:

Now with respect to VG, my understanding is a lot of Brad's initial ideas were eventually thrown out and he gets a lot less credit for VG's design. I haven't talked to a Sigil employee in years about VG so take that last bit with as much salt as you want.

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Sort of. The full story, as usual, is a little more complicated than that.

tad10_sl said:

Sure buddy. Because there's been so many awesome MMOs since EQ right? The developers of GW2 and EQN have solved/are solving very complex and difficult problems. Did they make/are they making good games?

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GW2 is a good game, but it's not good for everyone and could be refined here and there. EQN is a question mark at this point. Rift was fun for a while, WoW was fun for a long time, so was EQ2 until I played it.
Many MMOs were fun enough and interesting enough to have me pay a monthly sub for years. The "awesomeness" you are referring never existed in a vacuum, but it was a combination of factors as it has been discussed over and over from 2004 until today and I'm sure we don't want to go down that road once again, do we?

I'm currently playing GW2, canceled WoW recently as I don't like 5.4.
I don't know how high your hopes can be, but mine are non-existant. If and only if a miracle happens and McQ makes the second coming of MMO Jesus, it'll be probably a low production value with decent gameplay (not good, decent, nobody can deliver "good" in a MMO). High production quality costs a fuckton of money, tens of millions, such a game wouldn't cater to an old EQ audience, but a new generation of less grumpy buggers with full wallets (their or their parents').

There is one thing bugging me in every single MMO game since WoW: currency purchased gear. The old D&D player in me dies a little inside. Loot should be looted from corpses. Every other option doesn't really make sense.

Miele_sl said:

There is one thing bugging me in every single MMO game since WoW: currency purchased gear. The old D&D player in me dies a little inside. Loot should be looted from corpses. Every other option doesn't really make sense.

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I've not heard this expressed but I can't get over a game that does this. I fucking hate realizing that I need to do one dungeon run 15 times to get a new helm or whatever. I'd rather do the run 15 times and get a pull at the loot slot machine. Isn't that the core of these games?

Does anyone actually like that?

Let's throw dailies in there to - it's the same shit. I'm not at work. Why treat it that way?