It’s an interesting read and I look forward to reading more. To his credit, I’m glad he’s decided to do this.

http://www.bradmcquaid.com/Brad_McQuaid/Blog/Entries/2009/6/29_Vanguard__Post-mortem_Part_1.html

I’m a software engineer for a living, and trust me – the vision is the easy part. It’s really easy to say “I want a game where five thousand people can play together at once!” but do it is hard. If you look at the tech, Blizzard has pushed very little despite being huge. The most interesting thing out there at the moment, technologically, is EVE Online. They’ve managed to grow to their current level with a single world, which at any given time has about 10 times as many players as one of WoW’s servers. But nobody seems to be going after their devs like rock stars…

But my main theory on the lack of forgiveness has more to do with the players. MMOs are, at best, average games. They’re dull, uninspired repetitiveness which subsist 20% on social experience and 80% on compulsive reward-driven compulsiveness. The sort of player attracted to those games don’t tend to be the most forgiving. MMO players are well-known for exploding on anyone who misses a heal in an encounter and inflicts a 20-minute penalty to their progress. Is it really any wonder that we’re less forgiving to the disappointment that comes from the two-year obsession we show with a game in development?

The issue for me was never Vanguard, it was “the Vision.” Everyone remembers EQ fondly and attributes it all to him. The truth is that Brad was forced out pretty darn early in that game. A lot of the “fun” came from him being gone and SOE eased up on the “Shut up players, we know what is best for you.”

I guess folks don’t remember how strong “the Vision” was when it came to game to design. If the Vision made something boring or dull, too bad. Brad wasn’t going to change. He was, in essence, a nightmare to deal with as a customer. Everything had to be “as he saw it.” He forgot that the players had say too. That is why I disliked him.

I don’t expect developers to bow to every player whim but when a huge community expects a change and they get “No, its how I want it” well… that guy doesn’t need to have decision making power.

Brad is an exceptional ideas man and designer. I’d be glad to see him in that role again. He should never, however, be given any decision making power or any job that contains the words supervisor, manger or lead.

From what I undertand that Vanguard was a failure of excecution and management more then it was a failure of ideas.

Reading the accounts of the designers who worked there was scary. If I worked there I would have stormed into Brad’s office and put him in a headlock until he agreed to at least commission the creation of proper tools for the designers. The careless disregard for how their project was managed and produced was shocking. There is lots of blame to spread around for the other people that were in charge at Sigil.

If you ask me Vanguard wasn’t really bold or original. It was basically an artistically bland, unpolished, unconvincing version of EverQuest with diplomacy thrown in.

I wonder if the MMO future will mirror the MUD past? Are we going to get to a point where everyone and their mom is running an MMO, and they’re all essentially lookalikes copying a handful of original successes? (Are we already there?) On our community sites, we’ll bicker about legal issues and whether a given idea is truly innovative or whether it was stolen from someone else (think rec.games.mud.* in the mid-90s). Our iconic developers will vanish. Then at some point, there will be a conjunction of elements, and something new and innovative will be born.

There’s a market for EverQuest New, though. I wish him luck with it.

I wrote 3 blog entries and did not mention Mount & Blade. I recommend everyone to google and download and play Mount & Blade. It is not a MMO, but it is an indie game that just rocks your socks. And you can play the first few levels for free, though this game is about player skill, not player skills and levels! Yeah, it is awesome. Because it has a VISION, hear, hear!

I tell you what, if Jesus would be reborn, we would criticize and frustrate him enough for what he did wrong during his first time on earth so that he would crucifiy himself and not return for a long time. Give Brad McQuaid another chance.

I play games because they are fun and exciting. I’d imagine all gamers play for similar reasons. Even the most hardcore gamers became hardcore, because at the beginning they were intrigued and entertained by a game.

And to make an entertaining game you need a man with a vision and with passion, not a salesman.