So ultimatley brad mcquaid has two games for comparison here, one a wildly great success (Everquest) which is still releasing expansions. And one considered a failure but has still outlasted some mmos, tabula rasa comes to mind. And yet the man is a complete failure as an mmo designer, the logic in this forum astounds even my open mindedness
Not a complete failure, but we do tend to judge people most by their last work, since it's naturally the most accurate representation of their current ability.
I would agree with you, However, his most recent work was more of a fail on time management than anything else. The vision for the game was rock solid, that's proven in how the game continues to grow today, albeit not very quickly.
I'd agree if we didn't know exactly what his decade long design document called for upon release. We know that only very few things missed launch; fellowships, AES, flying mounts (ownable); and none the biggest of cited reasons why people quit the game.
Performance, travel times, empty landmasses, etc.; all have accounts of Brad going on record accepting the downsides for what he felt were benefits in his design.
So time management wasn't a reason for Vanguard failing; it was the design. We got what was designed; and what was short of design people didn't really complain about.
Originally posted by sepher Here's Brad's evaluation of the publisher/investor climate back then: Originally posted by Orphes
Yes you say good business and you say Brad is a good businessman. Let's get back to where he got th $30M. Was that good or bad. If he would have been good he might have had 55M or if he was bad he might have had gotten 15M. Now we don't know, so there is an assumption made, hey he got 30M he must be a good businessman. For all we know he could have been the reason to as why they did not get twice that amount, and aswell he might aswell also be the reason that they recieved twice the amount of 15M. We simply don't know. He was responsible(alone?) to design the game and he was responsible(alone?) to get the team and lead that to the goal that he set out. Now in retrospective he was not able to lead his company to finish it's goals with the set budget. Maybe a good CEO would have been able to pinpoint and lead the teams so they had released Vanguard, regardless of which state it was released in, with 20M and got 10M left for running the company. Or, here, maybe a bad CEO would have not been able to get the team to produce Vanguard to the state it was released. There is alot of options and possible routes. So we can make an assumption. Yes he was a good businessman he got 30M, or the opposite of that as I tried to clearify above. The same as above could be said about his role as a designer. I think we have to divide problems like bugs and design though I don't think anyone can say "working as intended" regarding bugs, be it visual or performance. I have been looking for all the blames laid on him from former employees. As I can not recollect anyone saying he was a bad designer, all hints have been about him as a leader. Someone also mention something in the degree that opiate addiction is, but nothing about the designer. And great idea man, what do that have to do with one also have to be (the) a good or bad designer?
What are we talking about, the ideaman, the designer, the CEO or the businessman?
No, there is no assumption "hey he got 30M he must be a good businessman". Like Brad himself said, it was unprecedented. And like I've said, judging him amongst his peers that had similar first successes, the opportunities he crafted for Sigil as a businessman were unrivaled. There's no assumptions to be made, it was a business success to accrue that much funding.
"This game was expensive -- probably second only to WoW, although WoW cost more than double. I don't want to sound jealous, although I probably am to some degree to be honest, but Blizzard put $80M into development. No one else is willing or able to do that. Not Microsoft, not Sony. EA perhaps, and they're now back in the MMOG business with the Mythic acquisition (but at the time we started Sigil, they were still in a lot of pain over Sims Online, which is rumored to have been around $25-30M -- so at the time they were not interested in a game like Vanguard. And certainly not smaller publishers -- they definitely don't have that kind of money."
So basically, no, there's no cloud of mystery over whether he was a good business man or not, whether twice the amount was possible, etc. We know he secured an unprecedented amount of funding in tumultuous times for something that was far from a sure bet.
I would agree to mention him as a good salesman.
There's just no way to spin obtaining that amount of money and releasing on time (if not delayed) after nearly 5 years in development bad management in his capacity as CEO.
Yeah, have anyone said that he was a bad CEO because he got 30M? I'm saying that it is not anything in thatsaying that he was good at the position of being CEO.
I was saying something like.
Maybe a good salesman would have gotten more, assuminh that brad was a bad salesman. Maybe a bad salesman would have gotten less, assuming Brad was a good salesman. For all we know Brad could have been a mediocre one. We know he got alot of money, we know it was unprecedented, but we don't know any ifs. We just have to assume something based on the high amount of dollars he got.
As for him not being able to lead the company to finish his goals. What goals weren't finished? We know the design document and where Vanguard was supposed to be at launch amidst that seven year plan; only a few things didn't actually make it like AES and fellowships, and neither of those are oft cited reasons for Vanguard failing.
Again, my argument and everything I've said in this thread and quoted from Brad is to point out that every big problem Vanguard had at launch, and still has today, was a known quantity and downsides purposefully designed for because they felt the ups would outweigh them.
So again, there's no cloud of mystery or assumptions that need to be made about whether this or that was incidental or whether it was clearly desgined towards. Name the issue, and more than likely Brad has gone on record to say he intentionally made design decisions that called for the problem to be both known ahead of time and deemed acceptable.
And no, we can't divide problems like bugs, performance issues and design apart, because again, and as clearly stated by Brad himself above, bugs and performance issues were EMBRACED as detriments meant to be outweighed by benefits. Everyone playing Vanguard today or that played at launch and kept playing are people who did and still do feel the benefits outweigh the detriments. It's just that Brad was wrong in believing more people would feel the same. Bad design.
Bad performance on low hardware, demanding hardware requirements. I do think have to divide that from bad performance due to various issues, bugs bad optimised assets and such. Still Brad gave a reason for those things being there, in the magnitude of what Vanguard was as opposed to smaller and easier, a large code base will have more errors in it rather than a small one. He didn't say he intentionally made bad optimization, bad coding or whatever as a design goal.
Instead, why not just say that making a hardware demanding game was a bad design decision. Alot of the performance issue was due to other things aswell and why have those in the same package.
And about the ex-employee thing and opinions on Brad as a businessman and designer:
"f13.net: How long before those summer days did rumors of leaving Microsoft start flying around?
Ex-Sigil: Management told us they were shopping things around and were entertaining outside investors to complete the project. But actually leaving Microsoft as a publisher was never discussed until they told us it was happening and we were co-publishing with SOE."
Obviously that shopping and entertaining to outside investors was successful.
Yeah, he sold it pretty well it seems.
"f13.net: What tools were used to make the game?
Ex-Sigil: In-house stuff for the design side... but there was no scripting language for example, even though nearly everyone wanted one except for the people who decided if we got one or not.
f13.net: Because it would cost money to make these tools?
Ex-Sigil: No... because the people in charge just didn't want one"
Obviously money or bad business wasn't an issue and it was a design decision.
Maybe if he gotten a head over him that could have told him to implement those things.
"Ex-Sigil: SOE lent a few devs to us in the final days, but it was nothing like people think. I think design had 3 people, art 2, and programming 1 from SOE. They let us use their testing dept too somewhat. We felt somewhat reborn I guess, but with a sense of reservation. When the merger happened SOE embraced us, and spent a LOT of money on us right away. It felt really good.
f13.net: Do you know why they were willing to do that? Surely they saw the lack of... product within the project at that time.
Ex-Sigil: I don't know that they did really. They got the same show that MS did to some degree. I'll say this about Brad.. he's one hell of a salesman. He's VERY passionate about his projects, even so much as to be blinded from seeing reality.
f13.net: SOE knew Brad's game though. Smedley has been around through McQuaid Part 1 & 2 now.
Ex-Sigil: I know.. and I can't explain that part.
f13.net: Surely people around the office knew part of the history. What was the rumor mill like at this time?
Ex-Sigil: Some people were confused. Why would SOE buy a game that's a direct competitor to EQ2? There was always talk, but people who were working on the game continued to put their souls into it in hopes that we could somehow get it all together in the end."
Some obvious business triumphs there complete with the odds.
Yes, shure, he once again sold it pretty well. And here aswell maybe someone would have been on top on him saying 'No!'.
"f13.net: As in, just outright disappeared?
Ex-Sigil: Yep.
f13.net: Why? He was still posting on forums during this time...
Ex-Sigil: Well, he showed up to make mandates about game systems and design decisions."
"f13.net: What was the mood in the office by this time?
Ex-Sigil: People were still trying to stay upbeat, but certain people continually shooting down other's ideas started to take its toll. At least 2 people quit the team due to the heavy handed inflexible people on the class design team. When something isn't fun, except for the people who designed it, and others try to help, they'd get shot down... eventually people stop trying to help."
Obviously there was heavy-handed design philosophy, at least in part from Brad, that such an employee felt wasn't good.
Heavy handed design decisions, that sounds like Brad was the man in charge... Maybe he would not be the man in charge.
"f13.net: Doesn't the complete and utter failure, in hindsight, seem like a self-fulfilled prophecy though with only one QA member?
Ex-Sigil: The reasons for failure are too numerous to list, but can all be summed up by a lack of management. Brad, for all his faults at least made decisions. So did Jeff. Right or wrong, they took a shot. The people in charge now were so afraid to make the wrong decision that they made no decision at all."
Obviously the feelings of mismanagement came AFTER Brad's disappearance; and given what's been previously mentioned, we know that during the disappearance Brad was still serving in a design capacity whenever he did show up.
He also said right or wrong decisions, maybe it would have been better with most right descicion instead of describing it as taking a shot. In most cases it is better to make a decision then don't, I would add that it is always better to the right decision.
"f13.net: Would you say, honestly, that they are directly responsible for the unfortunate conclusion?
Ex-Sigil: A part of it. You can't leave out the insane hype machine, the process failures, and the poor design decision making at the very highest levels."
And that's self-explanatory.
Would he be in the very highest levels?
"f13.net: And what was the attitude by the team towards Brad and Jeff by now? Surely Brad's disappearance absolutely wrecked morale.
Ex-Sigil: Not really. When he was at work he was more an obstacle than a help. A lot of people wanted brad to just go away.
f13.net: That conflicts with a lot of the stories I heard about people leaving companies to join Sigil because of Brad...
Ex-Sigil: People did... a lot of people."
Given all the aforementioned complaints of obstacles being design decision related; what should I take from that? Brad in his capacity as CEO was terrible at attracting talent, but as a designer made good decisions that fellow staffers liked? I can't.
I would take it as Brad is not good in leadership roles, not knowing if was for design or business.
Where did you read in that that they was attracted to Brad as a CEO rather then a designer. People could have joined him for any of those positions aswell as leaving for any of those positions. And the obstacle would be possible to be there in any case, regardless of what you and I may believe or argument for.
"f13.net: At this point, why were you all getting decent press? Did Brad do most of the marketing for that (even though he wasn't in the office)?
Ex-Sigil: Yes. We got press because I think people wanted to believe Brad. They wanted it to be great and they got caught up in his passion."
Yet another thing I'd chock up to good business.
I would choke it up as good salesman.
"f13.net: Is there anything you want to add?
Ex-Sigil: It's hard. I really wanted Vanguard to be a great game, but it seemed like we were blocked by stupid decision making at nearly every step. Good people busted their ass, only to be shown the door because they weren't a 'culture fit' moving forward. I don't believe Brad is a bad guy like some people are painting him on the various forums right now. I DO think however, that he believed people wanted to play a game that HE liked, regardless of the masses of people telling him they didn't like his ideas. He ignored the opinions of people who worked for him, and busted their ass for him, and it cost him dearly, at least in reputation. So many of us jumped at the chance to work with Brad, only to find out he was a paper leader. You can only fool me once. I never want to work for Brad or Dave ever again. There was so much good in the team, so much effort wasted. None of the people listed above should ever work in any position of leadership. Though, Jeff might have a chance. He learned lessons from this, I think. The others did not. The whole ordeal has been rough. I know I'm exhausted."
So given all of the complaints of design related decisions and comments of absolute business miracles, why exactly should anyone be confused about whether Brad in a leadership position is best as an executive or creative force?
But... in a leadership position. It sounds like that is made to be the condition, it sounds abit errounous to have the condition at that level. Given your own quotes, do you think that Brad should have a leadership role, even if it is in the business or design side of things?
The above is a direct repudiation of any notion that he's a "good idea man".
The above is also a direct repudiation of any notion that he's a good 'leader'.
As or what we're talking about; you tell me. I automatically assumed by "idea man" you meant Brad occupying the same roles he did in EQ1, producer and designer. I'm saying he's bad for those roles as exhibited in Vanguard; but was good as a CEO/Chairman as exhibited with Vanguard.
He was a good salesman, maybe a good businessman, and a good designer. Bad at being at any of the leadership inherented part of those roles. I'm led to believe that when people say that Brad is a bad businessman they are refering to him as being that in the role of being CEO.
And when people talking about him as a good designer they not refering to him as having any leadership roles in that. I think alot of people have pointed out that he would need a head over him.
Saying "he's a good idea man" but separating the notion from an actual role he'd play within a development team doesn't have much of a point.
It does. Sometimes it feels like saying designer, that it would equall to have a leadership role. And sometimes it feels like businessman equals CEO. I think as I just mentioned that when someone talks about him being a good designer it would with people telling him 'no', with him apperantly don't have any leadership roles. So what are we seperating the idea man from design or [whatever role] from leadership. I would say I would seperate, businessman and designer from leadership.
And yes, naturally, why would there not possible to lay forth ideas to a design team to take care of?
So say what traditional job title in game development you believe Brad as an "idea man" should occupy. If it happens to be a producer or designer, then apply everything I've said in this thread in conviction of the idea.
...conviction of the idea. Those quotes above would be equally plausible for saying that Brad should having any businessman roles.
Becasue without seperating things. It almost sounds like that businessman he have to be the CEO. Designer then he have to be the lead designer. I think alot of things in this thread is based on the assumption that when talking about Brad being a businessman they have put it equal to be a CEO. I for shure have made that, I have been assuming that aswell. So saying that he would be a businessman in the next company would also apply everything in the qoutes you made.
Saying that he would be a businessman, without being the CEO, or saying that he would be a designer, without having any leadership roles baked into that.
Yeah I would say that he would be a designer, obviously his ideas are selling.
No investor in their right of mind would give him another $30mil to make another title. Now, if he's willing to shed some ego and step down a notch to settle with the title "producer" or executive creative designer, then I have no doubt people will still give him a chance. Vanguard was a story of lost money and time for investors all around. Not many people get a second chance because what happened to Sigil/Vanguard will always be on his resume.
Brad's problem is the same faced by Raph Koster and Richard Garriott.
The people most qualified to make the game are not the people most qualified to run the company that makes the game.
And the people who run the company think that gives them the experience and expertine to shape the game.
His other problem is that the people who want to play the type of games he designs are now a niche audience. The majority don't want the complexity of VG, they want WoW or Puzzle Pirates. Back in 2003 or whenever it was that VG development first got started, the mmo space still catered pretty heavily to the old guard/hardcore/traditional mmo player.
No longer.
This was made painfully clear when VG launched, and it generated a collective yawn because The Burning Crusade launched at the same time and absolutely demolished it. The bugs didn't help, but they didn't kill VG either. The market changed.
If McQuaid makes a comeback, and I hope he does, he's going to have to realize that his ideas aren't likely to net him the kind of capital to compete with Blizzard. He needs to get a small, dedicated dev house together and take his time making the title he wants to make, without the pressure of expectation laid on by partnering with a Microsoft or a Sony.
as i said earlier Brad should stay far away from new development. If he does anything he should reform Sigil, rebuy Vanguard and fix and finish what he started.
www.bradmcquaid.com "After the sale, Brad decided to take an extended break from games development and is currently pursuing his hobbies and spending time with friends and family. That said, as of late, he’s starting to get that itch again..." I thought some may actually be interested seeing this.
So ultimatley brad mcquaid has two games for comparison here, one a wildly great success (Everquest) which is still releasing expansions. And one considered a failure but has still outlasted some mmos, tabula rasa comes to mind. And yet the man is a complete failure as an mmo designer, the logic in this forum astounds even my open mindedness
Not a complete failure, but we do tend to judge people most by their last work, since it's naturally the most accurate representation of their current ability.
I would agree with you, However, his most recent work was more of a fail on time management than anything else. The vision for the game was rock solid, that's proven in how the game continues to grow today, albeit not very quickly.
I'd agree if we didn't know exactly what his decade long design document called for upon release. We know that only very few things missed launch; fellowships, AES, flying mounts (ownable); and none the biggest of cited reasons why people quit the game.
Performance, travel times, empty landmasses, etc.; all have accounts of Brad going on record accepting the downsides for what he felt were benefits in his design.
So time management wasn't a reason for Vanguard failing; it was the design. We got what was designed; and what was short of design people didn't really complain about.
I used the wrong word, I used time management to describe how the design was done or synonimous with the polish of the game rather. In short i think we agree here.
Released with 30 million dollars and five years spent? Yes, a business success.
It surprises me that you consider SIGIL INC. a business success because you seem like a very reasonable, thoughtful, and intelligent person. Your ideas are interesting albeit incorrect, respectfully, regarding the narrow issue over whether Brad McQuaid was a successful businessman/manager concerning SIGIL INC.
SIGIL INC. would probably make an excellent case study for Business School on business failure: bad marketing; extremely idealistic (and most-likely egotistical) leadership; lack of hands-on management(based on what I know); horrid communication with everybody; mis-allocation of resources (not enough coders); and I could continue.
EDIT: By no means am I pointing my finger at Mr. McQuaid or Sigil and saying, "you suck!" I started my first company while a sophmore in college. I have dissolved two companies of mine, and I had plenty of other failures and the wounds to show it. Believe me by no means am I trying to sound insensitive to the realities of the business world and its many and varied problems and challenges.
Agree.
But what is interesting is that Vanguard itself is an incredible product. What Brad lacks in leadership skills, he makes up for in being able to lay down and let people envision his creations.
Brad has great vision(tm), but is a hardliner. He doesn't or can't let others take control on certain aspect of a games development. (graphics, technology, etc). His choice to go with photo realistic crushed that game. If the frame rates were remotely acceptable, Vanguard would've been a hit.
As it stands, I was the only one of my 7 friends who bought the game, who could play! (I had the newly released 8800gtx).
Sigil would be a very insteresting case study indeed...!!
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
Yeah, have anyone said that he was a bad CEO because he got 30M? I'm saying that it is not anything in thatsaying that he was good at the position of being CEO. I was saying something like.
Maybe a good salesman would have gotten more, assuminh that brad was a bad salesman. Maybe a bad salesman would have gotten less, assuming Brad was a good salesman. For all we know Brad could have been a mediocre one. We know he got alot of money, we know it was unprecedented, but we don't know any ifs. We just have to assume something based on the high amount of dollars he got. Assuming anything when the facts are there is pointless, you know. It's convenient only if one were to intentionally want to not know what led to Vanguard's issues, and based on that not knowing, be able to say that Brad was a good idea man and not a good business man. The problem with assuming anything is that we don't NEED to, we DO know the reasons behind anything we care to want to know about given the transparency of Sigil. There's no MAYBE whether or not he's a good business man and if 30 million dollars was a good figure; it was an amount for an MMO studio UNRIVALED by anyone except Blizzard that had been making hits for a decade. So there's no confusion there for assumptions to be made. I've listed a bunch of business successes that you aren't taking into account. Not to be argumentive with you; but you're insisting on acting as if there's some cloud of confusion and things we can't possibly know when we do know more than enough to form better opinions about Brad. ====== Bad performance on low hardware, demanding hardware requirements. I do think have to divide that from bad performance due to various issues, bugs bad optimised assets and such. Still Brad gave a reason for those things being there, in the magnitude of what Vanguard was as opposed to smaller and easier, a large code base will have more errors in it rather than a small one. He didn't say he intentionally made bad optimization, bad coding or whatever as a design goal. Instead, why not just say that making a hardware demanding game was a bad design decision. Alot of the performance issue was due to other things aswell and why have those in the same package.
That is what I'm saying; that making a future-hardware dependent game was a bad design decision. For example, I'm not saying the design document specifically called for 4 seconds of hitching being mandatory; I'm just saying he knew hitching would happen and he deemed the benefits worth the coinciding detriments. The point being none of Vanguard's biggest release problems could be called accidents or something more time would've been fixed; since they'd for years been accepted as problems worth having. ====== Maybe if he gotten a head over him that could have told him to implement those things. Then there'd be no point in Brad being a lead creative force if he afterall isn't a lead. He has to know how to check himself. ====== Heavy handed design decisions, that sounds like Brad was the man in charge... Maybe he would not be the man in charge. In charge of design? That's my whole point, he was terrible at it when it came to Vanguard. ======= He also said right or wrong decisions, maybe it would have been better with most right descicion instead of describing it as taking a shot. In most cases it is better to make a decision then don't, I would add that it is always better to the right decision.
It honestly doesn't matter, from that employee we know both that Brad's design decisions were bad but that he at least made decisions. I was mainly trying to target one of the roots of the idea that Brad "mismanaged", the use of the word there was attributed to decision making not happening at all. ====== Would he be in the very highest levels? As far as Vanguard goes we know he was. I assume you mean in a future product though; and yes, yes he would be if you'd want a game to be made from his idea. For it to be his idea he'd have to dictate it's development, no? If someone else did, it'd cease to be his idea. ====== I would take it as Brad is not good in leadership roles, not knowing if was for design or business.
Where did you read in that that they was attracted to Brad as a CEO rather then a designer. People could have joined him for any of those positions aswell as leaving for any of those positions. And the obstacle would be possible to be there in any case, regardless of what you and I may believe or argument for. We do know whether it was design or business; it isn't the job of a designer to hire talent or accrue the money necessary to pay them. Though I won't argue that he leveraged his status as a designer as reason to trust him as a CEO. All I'm saying is that once under him, that employee at least felt Brad was a terrible designer. ====== I would choke it up as good salesman. Good marketing more than likely considering he sold nothing to the press. ====== But... in a leadership position. It sounds like that is made to be the condition, it sounds abit errounous to have the condition at that level. Given your own quotes, do you think that Brad should have a leadership role, even if it is in the business or design side of things? Leadership when it comes to business? Yes of course given his successes. For every business success I've mentioned; imagine if they were business failings. What if the relationship with Epic suffered and it became a Crystal Dynamics' type situation? What if Microsoft didn't agree to an amicable split and cancelled Vanguard outright? What if independent investors weren't obtained and the co-publishing pitch with SOE fell through? What if during Sigil failing, SOE wasn't convinced to purchase Vanguard and keep it running? Much could've happened if Brad wasn't a good business man. As a design lead though, obviously he wasn't too good. ====== The above is also a direct repudiation of any notion that he's a good 'leader'. Yep, but creative director, lead designer; whatever you want to title the position you believe Brad should helm in another job requires he be a leader if he's going to infact lead others in fulfilling his design. ====== He was a good salesman, maybe a good businessman, and a good designer. Bad at being at any of the leadership inherented part of those roles. I'm led to believe that when people say that Brad is a bad businessman they are refering to him as being that in the role of being CEO.
And when people talking about him as a good designer they not refering to him as having any leadership roles in that. I think alot of people have pointed out that he would need a head over him. Bad designer if bad design is the reason attributed to a failed product. And when people say he's a good designer that's EXACTLY what they're talking about; him in a leadership role if they're to refer to his EQ1 days or even what they like in Vanguard. He was a top-brass producer and designer in EQ1, and the same in Vanguard. ====== It does. Sometimes it feels like saying designer, that it would equall to have a leadership role. And sometimes it feels like businessman equals CEO. I think as I just mentioned that when someone talks about him being a good designer it would with people telling him 'no', with him apperantly don't have any leadership roles. So what are we seperating the idea man from design or [whatever role] from leadership. I would say I would seperate, businessman and designer from leadership. And yes, naturally, why would there not possible to lay forth ideas to a design team to take care of? Because then it'd become their ideas and their designs and absolutely nothing from Brad. That's how game development works anyway; this system designed by that person, that system designed by this one. Everything you like about Vanguard was of Brad's design however; if another person had input they might've suggested zoning, instancing, one continent and etc. Would you have been content with Brad as an "idea man" then? Probably not, you'd feel he needed more control over his idea and that'd require a leadership role. ====== ...conviction of the idea. Those quotes above would be equally plausible for saying that Brad should having any businessman roles.
Becasue without seperating things. It almost sounds like that businessman he have to be the CEO. Designer then he have to be the lead designer. I think alot of things in this thread is based on the assumption that when talking about Brad being a businessman they have put it equal to be a CEO. I for shure have made that, I have been assuming that aswell. So saying that he would be a businessman in the next company would also apply everything in the qoutes you made. Saying that he would be a businessman, without being the CEO, or saying that he would be a designer, without having any leadership roles baked into that. Yeah I would say that he would be a designer, obviously his ideas are selling. Not at all when it comes to conviction; because you can and I have listed a plethora of business successes and design failures. It'd only be equally plausible if an equal amount of business failures could be found that are actually applicable to Vanguard's biggest problems. And yes, his ideas sold and always sound good, but he's a terrible designer if judged when it comes to Vanguard (nothing wrong with counting EQ for a more weighed opinion), and there exists no role for "idea man". So saying he'd be a good idea man means basically he's best left unemployed and hypothesizing on boards the same way we do.
as i said earlier Brad should stay far away from new development. If he does anything he should reform Sigil, rebuy Vanguard and fix and finish what he started.
This would be a waste of everyone involved's time. Even if they made vanguard top of the line with next to zero glitches or issues, nobody would believe it. Even if people in this forum starting raving about how awesome it was 90% of you wouldn't give them the time of day.
Originally posted by sepher Because then it'd become their ideas and their designs and absolutely nothing from Brad. That's how game development works anyway; this system designed by that person, that system designed by this one. Everything you like about Vanguard was of Brad's design however; if another person had input they might've suggested zoning, instancing, one continent and etc. Would you have been content with Brad as an "idea man" then? Probably not, you'd feel he needed more control over his idea and that'd require a leadership role.
I'm not playing Vanguard because of one guy named Brad. I never read an interview and thought of it being nice that Brad made this game. Vanguard is the first game that I even learnt anything about the man behind it, that because I started t frequent and post on this board when I tried to get a buddy key for Vanguard. I did not buy Vanguard because of what some at that point unknown person posted on a for obscure forum like FoH, or for some older post here on mmorpg.com. I purchased it as what I was presented with at that moment, but not the history and "hype" done before.
(I play, and I've played, alot of games but there is only a few that I frequent any boards or join any discussions about them.)
If another person would have had any input, if Vanguard was instanced, zoned, one continent and all that. I would not know of how it is today. All I can say is that I would not want Vanguard today to be based on zoning and instancing or a smaller world. It's not like they can change what I know of Vanguard in this aspect today. And also I hardly think that I would any less content, if I liked the game, if Brad was not in a lead position and the game looked as you suggested on those parts.
Bottom line is, at the end of the day, Vanguard as a game was a failure, and Sigil as a company was a failure. You can place the blame on anything you want, design, management, or a combination of both. But you can't dispute the fact that all this happened while Brad McQuaid was the CEO, the head of the company.
Arguing over semantics only distracts from the core issues, which is really, Vanguard and Sigil were failures. I'll just say that I can guarantee you investors who have given Brad money to make this product don't view this as a design failure, they most definitely see this as a business failure. To them, they only care about the bottom line, and whether they get to make their money back & more or not. And without investors, Brad isn't going anywhere. He was lucky to have gotten that much from Microsoft, since M$ sucks at making MMO's and they kinda just threw $30 mil at Brad thinking he could rediscover EQ1's magic. I doubt in today's age he'll be able to get that lucky again.
Well said Mardy. Brad got an unprecedented amount of money back in a time when developers veiwed the mmo genre as easy pickings and Brad was the rock star of the industry just coming off everquest. That pretty much made him the highest paid free agent in the industry.
The one fact that is being overlooked here is that when Brad was with SOE he created a monster successful mmo. When he had oversight and management he was successful. For its time, everquest was a well designed game.
As for brad getting another deal as sweet you are correct. Just from the fallout and handling of the collapse I doubt anyone wold sellect him in a leadership role again.
Well, he said it a LOT that hardware would fix Vanguard's performance issues; and constantly cited EQ1's circumstances as rationale of why its ok, all the while admitting that such issues were "downsides" they accepted. "I agree that MMOGs often launch with more issues and problems than single player games. And it is usually because MMOGs are that much more complex. Vanguard is also a very ambitious game. One could argue we could have made a simpler game and launched it either sooner and/or with less bugs and issues. But our philosophy, which goes back to EQ 1, is to go for it and be ambitious and try some crazy things. Yes, there is a downside to this (for example, performance issues because we used the latest tech and made a seamless world as opposed to going lower tech like WoW). But the upsides we feel outweigh the downsides, especially long term. As I've posted we have probably 5+ years of new game mechanics, lore, areas, dungeons, themes, features, etc. planned out for expansions and to be patched in over time by the live team. To that end we put a lot of hooks in the engine to make this doable without having to re-write as many things in the future. Also by using the latest tech, it will be MUCH easier to take advantage of future tech (new versions of shader languages, taking advantage of tech that is just now becoming available in graphics cards or tech that we know is coming but doesn't exist yet, DX10, physics cards, and much more)."
Source: http://www.fohguild.org/forums/mmorpg-general-discussion/27527-vanguard-yet-another-double-exp-weekend-8.html#post683153 "I still think, especially longer term, the decisions we made, for the most part, were the correct ones. What we will be able to do with this game, both feature-wise and in terms of using technology not just for eye-candy but also to enhance gameplay (say, use physics cards) I am confident will have been the right call in the long run, and MMOGs are all about lasting months and years. I don't regret EQ 1 being hardware only, although it was one of the first to do so and people had to run out and buy voodoo cards."
Source: http://www.fohguild.org/forums/retard-rickshaw-hall-shame/27044-why-all-nerd-rage-against-vanguard-97.html#post689790 "But yes, every few years people do upgrade their PCs, especially gamers, because they want to play the latest games that use the latest tech. No, the average person doesn't upgrade or buy a new system as frequently, but then Vanguard is a more of a gamer's game and also a game designed to last a long time -- we're in this for the long haul. And as more and more compelling games come out that use or take advantage of higher tech, there will be more and more of a reason for gamers to justify upgrading. Lots of people upgraded for EQ 1, for Doom 3, etc. The precedent is there."
Source: http://www.fohguild.org/forums/retard-rickshaw-hall-shame/27044-why-all-nerd-rage-against-vanguard-97.html#post689794 "What's missing are environment shadows -- character shadows are there, although they need some tweaks. We are waiting on a hardware solution for environment shadows which should happen in the next couple of generation of cards. So right now you have character soft shadows unless there are too many chars on the screen, and you have some shadows with the trees. Given the complexity of our world, we wil have to wait for a hardware solution before we add the rest."
Source: http://www.fohguild.org/forums/retard-rickshaw-hall-shame/27044-why-all-nerd-rage-against-vanguard-104.html#post690361 "I don't think either the EQ 1 or EQ 2 launch suffered significantly from their hardware specs and the tech level they used. Many people want a more immersive and technically advanced engine, especially when it comes to virtural worlds. Does this mean these games won't achieve WoW numbers as quickly? Most likely. But the idea was to make a certain type of game for a certain group(s) of players. WoW is great and it's different and their lower system spec requirements have allowed them to penetrate Asia and also the very casual player who doesn't keep or care about his system specs."
So yes, the whole hardware deal and performance issues were entirely intentional and designed towards. There's an endless amount of Brad defending Vanguard's requirements while talking about his dual-Xeons and how people will upgrade because its a "gamer's game"; and how the upsides would outweigh the downsides. Bad design decision. As for SOE forcing Sigil's hand, they EXTENDED the Vanguard beta 2-3 months AND sent developers over to help with the game. Yes, Brad was complaining at the time about how if he had 3 more months everything would be ok, how if in 6 months hardware would've fixed things; but come on; Sigil had at least 2-3 more months before collapsing and the game still suffered from bad design decisions that had to be amended. Even after the SOE acquisition it took awhile until the staff was ticked down to what it is now; and even existing now as a fraction of what it once was now, over two years have passed and that's plenty of time. Vanguard resembles nothing of Brad's claims of what 3 more months or 6 more months of time would've afforded the game. Vanguard was designed poorly and will suffer forever for it; and nothing about the design was an accident, it was deliberate and Brad is accountable for it. That "released too soon" spiel doesn't fly. And again; show specifically how any of Vanguard's problems are related to bad business decisions and not bad design decisions, and then I'll be inclined to believe it. Not to be argumentive or difficult; its just that no one has linked anything in Brad's capacity as a chairman and CEO; and the reponsibilities that go with it, to Vanguard's problems. You know what? I'll even buy the "Brad is a good idea man"; because it doesn't mean Brad is a good designer, and that's my whole argument. Designers have to know how to both have ideas and rein them in to something workable. Mona Lisa's smile and all; That said though, there's no job title for "idea man". No one will ever hire a person to write hundreds of pages in design documents about what their dream MMO is, and then task another person to mull over it and craft it into an actual workable idea. A GOOD idea has to be workable; or else what's the point? Every single person on this board can think of their dream MMO that can't possibly be made with 30 million dollars and 5 years of time; actually getting the chance to do it and failing at it though wouldn't make us good "idea people" or designers. We'd have been quite crafty though to convince someone to give us that much money and time.
All of those quotes fall right into the time period where Brad is trying to deal with the collapse of his game and trying to save his company. What was he supposed to say, "Yeah the engine sucks, because we bought a game engine that wasn't suited for our project and had to completely re-write it". You are taking the words of someone desperate to save his company and trying to use it as proof that they delivered vanguard in the state it was intentionally? Step outside of yourself just for one minute and look at things from another perspective.
Imagine for one second if Brad had to report to someone and presented the unreal engine as his choice. He would have to explain just how many man hours would have to be spent on retooling the engine to make it do what they wanted to do. An engine that wasn't designed to do what they were setting out to do. All it would have taken is one person with oversight to say no. Just one.
However, when you have no accountability that type of decision never gets made. You don't really have to justify your choices or listen to different views. When you have absolute authority those are the types of decisions you can make, regardless of your ability to run a business.
Even lead designers have to get authorization on their ideas. No company is going to give absolute control to a lead designer to make whatever choices they want. Even they have to report their progress and direction for approval. When you remove that oversight you allow people that have heads full of ideas to do whatever they want regardless of their ability to make it happen with follow through and follow through is the weakness of creative minded people like him.
Originally posted by sepher Because then it'd become their ideas and their designs and absolutely nothing from Brad. That's how game development works anyway; this system designed by that person, that system designed by this one. Everything you like about Vanguard was of Brad's design however; if another person had input they might've suggested zoning, instancing, one continent and etc. Would you have been content with Brad as an "idea man" then? Probably not, you'd feel he needed more control over his idea and that'd require a leadership role.
I'm not playing Vanguard because of one guy named Brad. I never read an interview and thought of it being nice that Brad made this game. Vanguard is the first game that I even learnt anything about the man behind it, that because I started t frequent and post on this board when I tried to get a buddy key for Vanguard. I did not buy Vanguard because of what some at that point unknown person posted on a for obscure forum like FoH, or for some older post here on mmorpg.com. I purchased it as what I was presented with at that moment, but not the history and "hype" done before.
(I play, and I've played, alot of games but there is only a few that I frequent any boards or join any discussions about them.)
If another person would have had any input, if Vanguard was instanced, zoned, one continent and all that. I would not know of how it is today. All I can say is that I would not want Vanguard today to be based on zoning and instancing or a smaller world. It's not like they can change what I know of Vanguard in this aspect today. And also I hardly think that I would any less content, if I liked the game, if Brad was not in a lead position and the game looked as you suggested on those parts.
We're not talking about revising the past and how Vanguard wouldn't be what it is today. We're talking about based on what Vanguard was and intended to be, that Brad is a "good idea man". The only way Vanguard and the "Vision" was ever put into effect is because he was in a leadership role. In a future project if he doesn't have that leadership role, then he can't be an "idea man" if he isn't the first and last word of it.
So all I'm saying is leadership comes with being the "idea man" people think Brad wants to be. There's always a dozen or two designers that help out the lead designer, but the lead designer always gets the credit because he is that first and last word. Suggesting he be anything less means him not being what you want 'em to be. Finally leadership and ideas are one in the same; because there's no point in an idea that people can't be led to facilitate. It's a bad idea and that's what a lot of Vanguard was.
Originally posted by sepher Because then it'd become their ideas and their designs and absolutely nothing from Brad. That's how game development works anyway; this system designed by that person, that system designed by this one. Everything you like about Vanguard was of Brad's design however; if another person had input they might've suggested zoning, instancing, one continent and etc. Would you have been content with Brad as an "idea man" then? Probably not, you'd feel he needed more control over his idea and that'd require a leadership role.
I'm not playing Vanguard because of one guy named Brad. I never read an interview and thought of it being nice that Brad made this game. Vanguard is the first game that I even learnt anything about the man behind it, that because I started t frequent and post on this board when I tried to get a buddy key for Vanguard. I did not buy Vanguard because of what some at that point unknown person posted on a for obscure forum like FoH, or for some older post here on mmorpg.com. I purchased it as what I was presented with at that moment, but not the history and "hype" done before.
(I play, and I've played, alot of games but there is only a few that I frequent any boards or join any discussions about them.)
If another person would have had any input, if Vanguard was instanced, zoned, one continent and all that. I would not know of how it is today. All I can say is that I would not want Vanguard today to be based on zoning and instancing or a smaller world. It's not like they can change what I know of Vanguard in this aspect today. And also I hardly think that I would any less content, if I liked the game, if Brad was not in a lead position and the game looked as you suggested on those parts.
We're not talking about revising the past and how Vanguard wouldn't be what it is today. We're talking about based on what Vanguard was and intended to be, that Brad is a "good idea man". The only way Vanguard and the "Vision" was ever put into effect is because he was in a leadership role. In a future project if he doesn't have that leadership role, then he can't be an "idea man" if he isn't the first and last word of it.
So all I'm saying is leadership comes with being the "idea man" people think Brad wants to be. There's always a dozen or two designers that help out the lead designer, but the lead designer always gets the credit because he is that first and last word. Suggesting he be anything less means him not being what you want 'em to be. Finally leadership and ideas are one in the same; because there's no point in an idea that people can't be led to facilitate. It's a bad idea and that's what a lot of Vanguard was.
What I'm saying is that if tha peast would be different the present day would not look the same. So content with Brad would be no reason to be or not to be content, as I assumlingly would not even recognise the name Brad. Maybe his forum name, like I recognise Ikik, Silius and other that posts on the official board.
It's an impossible question to answer and the reason is given at the beginning of my reply.
All of those quotes fall right into the time period where Brad is trying to deal with the collapse of his game and trying to save his company. What was he supposed to say, "Yeah the engine sucks, because we bought a game engine that wasn't suited for our project and had to completely re-write it". You are taking the words of someone desperate to save his company and trying to use it as proof that they delivered vanguard in the state it was intentionally? Step outside of yourself just for one minute and look at things from another perspective. Imagine for one second if Brad had to report to someone and presented the unreal engine as his choice. He would have to explain just how many man hours would have to be spent on retooling the engine to make it do what they wanted to do. An engine that wasn't designed to do what they were setting out to do. All it would have taken is one person with oversight to say no. Just one. However, when you have no accountability that type of decision never gets made. You don't really have to justify your choices or listen to different views. When you have absolute authority those are the types of decisions you can make, regardless of your ability to run a business. Even lead designers have to get authorization on their ideas. No company is going to give absolute control to a lead designer to make whatever choices they want. Even they have to report their progress and direction for approval. When you remove that oversight you allow people that have heads full of ideas to do whatever they want regardless of their ability to make it happen with follow through and follow through is the weakness of creative minded people like him.
Does it really matter if he openly admitted his design decisions sucked, or as you think he did, in a moment of hysteria gave reasons why the design decisions sucked? The end result would be the same in terms of this debate; we know he was flawed in his capacity as a designer.
When it comes to have chosen an engine (which is heavily a design decision anyway outside of licensing and maintaining working relationships), we know before and after launch Brad's feelings towards it like I previously pointed out:
"I agree with you that we need to continue to optimize, and we are. But at the same time, we've made huge strides since beta 2 and have confidence we'll contiue to do so. Also, while the Unreal engine is very fast (one of several reasons we chose it), do keep in mind that we've so heavily modified it to a. make it an MMOG engine and b. to give it per pixel lighting, bump mapping, specularity, environment maps, etc. and c. to make it a seamless world engine as opposed to a zone based engine that it barely resembles the engine any more at all. We do share a lot of ideas with Epic and even some code (for example, we already have some 3.0 code in the game), but they are truly different engines now, as was always the plan."
So launch hysteria has nothing to do with it. We have testimonials about each and everyone of Vanguard's biggest problems and can trace them to bad design decisions, and so it isn't unreasonable to call the guy a terrible designer; at least when it came to Vanguard.
And yes one person could've told him that no, it doesn't make sense to have a seamless, zoneless world with weather and all that; but then you wouldn't have Brad's "Vision". You're attempting to assert that a person over him would've been good because of what...? All of Brad's decisions were made for a reason, and there were no business failings that made him unable to facilitate exactly what his flawed designers called for.
He SUCCEEDED design wise at everything he set out to do for launch short of fellowships, ownable flying mounts, AES and maybe one or two other things that were not the most complained about issues at launch.
We got EXACTLY what Brad wanted. It makes no sense to say he'd have been a good idea man or whatever else if there was a person above him to refuse all of his ideas; because everything you like about Vanguard is a RESULT of the bad designs. Benefits and detriments go hand and hand; they can't be divided up, or else Blizzard would've created a seamless world that required future hardware; they didn't specifically because of the issues that come with it that Brad wholly embraced feeling the benefits outweighed the detriments wrongly.
My take is, the only thing Brad did wrong, was try to be a cool boss. I remember during the development of vanguard, the released pictures of them working on the game etc etc. I always remember seeing their breaks/ snack room stocked to the tee in Mt. Dew and other soft drinks. their development floors ( the cubicals) were a playground, everyone was too busy setting up there work space with past game icons, and cartoon character models/action figures. So i think while yes you could call it mis management, i think its was he tried to be too cool of a leader, allowing the staff to go at will. Then to tell the truth I think, ask Nick, i think the project got alot of hmm desire let loose, after the passing of a iconic person with in thegame. there are many reasons vanguard didn't live up to its potiental, MS didn't really help... Sony back balled him... they knew they were about to get a yard sale mmo cheap. The emplloyees... hmm i wonder how much of 30 million was spent all everyone having top of the line action figures and mountain dew stock, not all, but alot of them seemed to turn their back on Brad and help thrust the dagger deeper as the company crumbled down.. I am sure if Brad were to make a new game, he would take lessons learned from this development, and apply to new project. I mean heck for all of us tire changers, cafe workers, nurses, shop keepers etc etc, we still make mistakes at work... so should we be forced to hide in ridecule and embarassment, should we be considered the lowest of life form at Brad was right after.. I say no, I mean haven't you ever did something stupid.. walked off the porch thinking the porch steps were there? Only difference is Brads mistake had more zeros attached to it, and well guess what it wasn't your money so get it over it, it was his money he lost, he's paid the cost !
So it closing, i hope Brad does attempt another game.. heck we need more, lord knows all of the games today kinda stale and reak of each other.. i mean we have one watered down way to play all the games.
I dont think its a good idea to make a creative company, such as Pixar or Sigil (or Bioware etc) look any different than you described.
What Sigil lacked was good management, but you dont need to kill creative for getting better management. You just need some boring gray guys who are good at doing such things as well, aside from the colorful artists.
Thats the thing where Sigil failed, in my impression.
[quote]For it to have garnered enough funds to be the second most expensive cereal ever with no prior successes as a company, begun by Kellogg's and put out by Post, I'm going to cite the guy behind the the business of it a business behemoth to have pulled it off.[/quote]
That's not buisness acumen. No amount of business acumen could ever achieve that. It's called trading on your name and past success in the hopes that anything you do is bound to strike gold twice.
He got all that because of who he was and what his past was, not because he was a phenomenal wheeling and dealing business tycoon.
The real mistake was in the judgement of the investors. There's a reason no other designer has achieved that level of initial unproven investment: because it's risky business, and businesses generally strive to avoid such colossal errors of judgement. That's probably why Microsoft pulled out.
Sepher I don't know if you just don't understand what is being said or you are purposefully changing words around.
What brad is doing in all of those FOH posts is trying to save his game by downplaying their failures. Who said hysteria? You claim they purposefully designed the engine to require future hardware, but the facts are that vanguard didn't even run on current hardware due to bugs and horrible coding. Look at all the issues they had with the 8800 series during release. It ran worse than low end cards. The fact is that the team working on the engine failed to get their job done. They didn't purposefully chose to make the game run bad, but brad hoped and prayed people would stay around long enough for hardware to overpower their failure to code the engine properly. I remember reading one post from a vanguard dev talking about how the engine had serious problems with nvidia cards and the horrible time they were having getting support from nvidia.
You are really trying to say that is a design choice to make the engine not function properly and not the failure of people to follow through on their given job? Why would they purposefully code the engine to not work with the top of the line graphics cards during its release? What possible purpose would that serve?
The end result is that conceptually vanguard is a solid game by design. Most of the games problems stem directly from management to staffing issues. There just was not enough talent to get the job done. From mismanaging time and money all the way to bad hiring practices which filled the team up with amatuers and family members.
If you ever worked with someone like brad you would know how important it is to have someone to keep them grounded. Not just to stand around and say no, but to keep them focused and not run around constantly creating change and implementing new ideas.
Sepher I don't know if you just don't understand what is being said or you are purposefully changing words around. What brad is doing in all of those FOH posts is trying to save his game by downplaying their failures. Who said hysteria? You claim they purposefully designed the engine to require future hardware, but the facts are that vanguard didn't even run on current hardware due to bugs and horrible coding. Look at all the issues they had with the 8800 series during release. It ran worse than low end cards. The fact is that the team working on the engine failed to get their job done. They didn't purposefully chose to make the game run bad, but brad hoped and prayed people would stay around long enough for hardware to overpower their failure to code the engine properly. I remember reading one post from a vanguard dev talking about how the engine had serious problems with nvidia cards and the horrible time they were having getting support from nvidia. You are really trying to say that is a design choice to make the engine not function properly and not the failure of people to follow through on their given job? Why would they purposefully code the engine to not work with the top of the line graphics cards during its release? What possible purpose would that serve?
The end result is that conceptually vanguard is a solid game by design. Most of the games problems stem directly from management to staffing issues. There just was not enough talent to get the job done. From mismanaging time and money all the way to bad hiring practices which filled the team up with amatuers and family members.
If you ever worked with someone like brad you would know how important it is to have someone to keep them grounded. Not just to stand around and say no, but to keep them focused and not run around constantly creating change and implementing new ideas.
You got amazing patience :P
But you have stated exactly the issue as I see them. I've worked with people like this and seen companies go down in flames just like Sigil due to the very issues you mention.
Brad should have been the CTO or Chief Architect or what is maybe the Chief Visionary Officer.
One exercise I did in my company was have all the management take Myers Briggs testing. This is amazingly insightful and helps you understand that people are fundamentally different. As a logical person there are people I talk to that just can't seem to get what I consider to be an obvious logical progression. I gotta think they are complete idiots. But studying things like the myers briggs shows that people process things differently. There are people that intuit things more or work on emotion and logic seems alien to them
Anyway, Myers Briggs is great because with training it helps people work together more effectively as a team. It helps people understand each other better and also know better how to capitalize on individual strengths. It lets you root out those idea people so you don't have them running the company :P but instead use them for ideas
I'm an INTP and have kinda trained myself to be an INTJ. Part of understanding this stuff also helps you understand your own weaknesses so you can compensate. I'm also an N which makes me more visionary but again I know that and again I try to focus on doing things to compensate or find a good ESTJ to help me. Left to my own devices or being ignorant, I'd happily walk my team right over a cliff being focused on my ideal or vision while the machine around me is falling apart.
Anyway if you are interested this in this stuff go to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator. I think when I took a class on this it was a real epiphany! Lots of things really fell into place for me.
It is so funny that you mentioned the myers-briggs, because I was going to mention the exact same thing in my last post. You said it far better than I ever could have tried to.
Wonderful tool for learning how to communicate with co workers and utilize strengths/identify weaknesses.
Sepher I don't know if you just don't understand what is being said or you are purposefully changing words around. What brad is doing in all of those FOH posts is trying to save his game by downplaying their failures. Who said hysteria? You claim they purposefully designed the engine to require future hardware, but the facts are that vanguard didn't even run on current hardware due to bugs and horrible coding. Look at all the issues they had with the 8800 series during release. It ran worse than low end cards. The fact is that the team working on the engine failed to get their job done. They didn't purposefully chose to make the game run bad, but brad hoped and prayed people would stay around long enough for hardware to overpower their failure to code the engine properly. I remember reading one post from a vanguard dev talking about how the engine had serious problems with nvidia cards and the horrible time they were having getting support from nvidia. You are really trying to say that is a design choice to make the engine not function properly and not the failure of people to follow through on their given job? Why would they purposefully code the engine to not work with the top of the line graphics cards during its release? What possible purpose would that serve?
The end result is that conceptually vanguard is a solid game by design. Most of the games problems stem directly from management to staffing issues. There just was not enough talent to get the job done. From mismanaging time and money all the way to bad hiring practices which filled the team up with amatuers and family members.
If you ever worked with someone like brad you would know how important it is to have someone to keep them grounded. Not just to stand around and say no, but to keep them focused and not run around constantly creating change and implementing new ideas.
Of course I understand what is being said. It's you who's attempting to imply more than what's really there. Where in any of the above did Brad say, "I'm trying to save my game by downplaying the failures"?
Of course he wouldn't even if that was his motive; but what does the motive matter if the argument is about the reasons for the failure? That's what I'm arguing; the reason. Whether or not the reasons were rooted in his capacity as a Chairman and CEO or as a designer.
And of course it didn't run right on current hardware; because Brad designed the game to work best for FUTURE hardware. As he admitted many times and as I provided to back up my argument.
And yes they did purposefully choose to make the game intensive beyond its time. Brad has admitted to accepting the amount of bugs and performance issues Vanguard had for the benefits, as stated above.
And why did they code an engine that didn't work correctly at release? For the "hooks" as he kept saying. He felt it was worth it to release a game dependent upon future hardware and an eventual Unreal 3 update. No need to ask me the explanations are all above.
And no, the end result is that Vanguard was fundamentally flawed by design; as shown above in Brad's own words and employees own words.
You're ignoring facts and filling in what you ignore with assumptions. That's fine because it paints exactly the picture that you ant; that Vanguard failed for every other reason except Brad's design and that he's a brilliant designer. It isn't true though; and ultimately what I'm arguing is why I myself can't accept the idea that Brad is a "good idea man" when he had all of the horrible ideas that I posted above, and when he accomplished everything business wise that I posted above.
Originally posted by sepher Of course I understand what is being said. It's you who's attempting to imply more than what's really there. Where in any of the above did Brad say, "I'm trying to save my game by downplaying the failures"?
I wasn't gonna follow up to any of your posts but this one just completely cracked me up. Brad wasn't a moron and when he was struggling to survive, money running out, the game not being what he wanted, what do you honestly thing he is going to do?!? Or do you really think that he was happy with the game and it's state at launch??
I mean come on there is a ton of documentation on this sad story and it is really very obvious what happened.
He was spinning as best he could and hoping and praying that he could launch the game, make enough money to stay afloat long enough to fix the game.
His buddy Smedley bailed him out and gave him enough money to at least make the attempt. It would be a riot to know if he did this knowing full well that it would fail and SoE would get to pick up the game for penny's on the dollar. Or maybe Brad was able to really sell them on the idea that it would work...
in any event, Brad would never say, I'm trying to save my game by downplaying the failures.... At least not till after it failed and even then he might not legally be really able to say something like that. It might open him up to potential legal issues if he said things to sell the game to SoE and then later says something that shows he was lying... Who knows what was said behind closed doors.
Anyway this final post from Brad I think really shows what his state was. This is after the game died and he no longer was able to spin things or had any illusion that things might work out... What probably isn't shown was some of how he was demorilized and really retreated from the company under the guise of getting funding. I'm sure he was trying but I'm also sure he was realizing he had just walked his company and all the people that were looking to him for answers over a cliff...
Originally posted by sepher Of course I understand what is being said. It's you who's attempting to imply more than what's really there. Where in any of the above did Brad say, "I'm trying to save my game by downplaying the failures"? Of course he wouldn't even if that was his motive; but what does the motive matter if the argument is about the reasons for the failure? That's what I'm arguing; the reason. Whether or not the reasons were rooted in his capacity as a Chairman and CEO or as a designer. And of course it didn't run right on current hardware; because Brad designed the game to work best for FUTURE hardware. As he admitted many times and as I provided to back up my argument. And yes they did purposefully choose to make the game intensive beyond its time. Brad has admitted to accepting the amount of bugs and performance issues Vanguard had for the benefits, as stated above. And why did they code an engine that didn't work correctly at release? For the "hooks" as he kept saying. He felt it was worth it to release a game dependent upon future hardware and an eventual Unreal 3 update. No need to ask me the explanations are all above. And no, the end result is that Vanguard was fundamentally flawed by design; as shown above in Brad's own words and employees own words. You're ignoring facts and filling in what you ignore with assumptions. That's fine because it paints exactly the picture that you ant; that Vanguard failed for every other reason except Brad's design and that he's a brilliant designer. It isn't true though; and ultimately what I'm arguing is why I myself can't accept the idea that Brad is a "good idea man" when he had all of the horrible ideas that I posted above, and when he accomplished everything business wise that I posted above.
Fact: the game had massive issues with nvidia 8800s during release.
Fact: the game often ran better on lesser video cards during release than 8800's
Fact: the same developers (what was left of them) fixed many of the flaws in the game engine and the game runs well on 8800s and below.
Those are not design choices. Those are the result of a team of developers not getting their job done by the release date. Be it lack of ability, man power, know how, leadership or direction, the condition of the engine during release was a failure not a planned event.
You really think the master plan was to make a game that runs so horrible that no one, not even with the best available systems on the market, could possibly play the game? Honestly can you see anyone sitting around a developers meeting and proposing to the team working on the engine that is be a piece of crap at release and hopefully in a few years technology will catch up to resolve the problems?
Everything you posted is brad talking after the fact. The damage was done and admitting flaws to the public would have killed what little hope there was of saving his business and most likely his career.
Originally posted by sepher Of course I understand what is being said. It's you who's attempting to imply more than what's really there. Where in any of the above did Brad say, "I'm trying to save my game by downplaying the failures"? Of course he wouldn't even if that was his motive; but what does the motive matter if the argument is about the reasons for the failure? That's what I'm arguing; the reason. Whether or not the reasons were rooted in his capacity as a Chairman and CEO or as a designer. And of course it didn't run right on current hardware; because Brad designed the game to work best for FUTURE hardware. As he admitted many times and as I provided to back up my argument. And yes they did purposefully choose to make the game intensive beyond its time. Brad has admitted to accepting the amount of bugs and performance issues Vanguard had for the benefits, as stated above. And why did they code an engine that didn't work correctly at release? For the "hooks" as he kept saying. He felt it was worth it to release a game dependent upon future hardware and an eventual Unreal 3 update. No need to ask me the explanations are all above. And no, the end result is that Vanguard was fundamentally flawed by design; as shown above in Brad's own words and employees own words. You're ignoring facts and filling in what you ignore with assumptions. That's fine because it paints exactly the picture that you ant; that Vanguard failed for every other reason except Brad's design and that he's a brilliant designer. It isn't true though; and ultimately what I'm arguing is why I myself can't accept the idea that Brad is a "good idea man" when he had all of the horrible ideas that I posted above, and when he accomplished everything business wise that I posted above.
Fact: the game had massive issues with nvidia 8800s during release.
Fact: the game often ran better on lesser video cards during release than 8800's
Fact: the same developers (what was left of them) fixed many of the flaws in the game engine and the game runs well on 8800s and below.
Those are not design choices. Those are the result of a team of developers not getting their job done by the release date. Be it lack of ability, man power, know how, leadership or direction, the condition of the engine during release was a failure not a planned event.
You really think the master plan was to make a game that runs so horrible that no one, not even with the best available systems on the market, could possibly play the game? Honestly can you see anyone sitting around a developers meeting and proposing to the team working on the engine that is be a piece of crap at release and hopefully in a few years technology will catch up to resolve the problems?
Everything you posted is brad talking after the fact. The damage was done and admitting flaws to the public would have killed what little hope there was of saving his business and most likely his career.
Fact: A majority of players that quit, probably didn't quite because they had an 8800 and it didn't work.
I'd say things like hitching, chunk times, too big an empty world and etc. were larger reasons, and those were all results of bad design decisions.
I'm sure you could find a thousand smaller issues that'd be difficult to trace to an explicit design decision; but what matters is that the BIGGEST cited problems, out of Brad's mouth and the top ten lists from around launch time; can all be traced back and have been traced back in this post to bad design decisions from Brad.
And again, we KNOW they had everything done that they wanted short of fellowships, and a few other things. They called the game 80% done and expressed exactly what WASN'T done. So any assumptions you make otherwise are just that; but I rather go with the developers' words rather than assumptions.
The same goes for lack of ability, lack of manpower, engine; so forth and so on, we know they had 100+ people and for at least half of it equipped with veterans from other MMOs, we know that not only did they have the Unreal 2 engine and Epic's support; they had code from Unreal 3 before it was available.
So again, I have to go with the developers instead of what you care to make assumptions about.
Do I think Brad intentionally made the game unplayable on the BEST of hardware? It depends on what your definition of "unplayable" is. What I believe is that all the players whom stuck around and weren't bothered by the performance issues, really didn't much mind the problems. The fun outweighed the performance issues for them. Take WoW for example; everyone was "loot sliding" for a week if not longer after launch, but the fun exceeded the problems. I think Brad expected fun to exceed the amount of problems for Vanguard and it didn't.
So yes, of course he was conscious of the issues of releasing a game with "hooks" meant for future hardware and future engine updates, he admitted as such as I posted above, but the fun didn't outweigh the problems in his design upon reception.
And again; I've posted excerpts from years before the fact as well, specifically to show that he was consistent from before launch up until after launch. To me, it doesn't matter when he said it; those are his reasons. Whether or not you believe he's telling the truth it doesn't really matter, because again, my argument is that he was great at business but sucked at design. We have him on account of making bad design decisions but great business moves; we have an employee testifying the exact same. As far as him being a great designer when it comes to Vanguard and a bad business man, we have absolutely no evidence of it; merely assumption built entirely off ignoring the evidence we do have on the contrary.
Comments
Not a complete failure, but we do tend to judge people most by their last work, since it's naturally the most accurate representation of their current ability.
I would agree with you, However, his most recent work was more of a fail on time management than anything else. The vision for the game was rock solid, that's proven in how the game continues to grow today, albeit not very quickly.
I'd agree if we didn't know exactly what his decade long design document called for upon release. We know that only very few things missed launch; fellowships, AES, flying mounts (ownable); and none the biggest of cited reasons why people quit the game.
Performance, travel times, empty landmasses, etc.; all have accounts of Brad going on record accepting the downsides for what he felt were benefits in his design.
So time management wasn't a reason for Vanguard failing; it was the design. We got what was designed; and what was short of design people didn't really complain about.
No, there is no assumption "hey he got 30M he must be a good businessman". Like Brad himself said, it was unprecedented. And like I've said, judging him amongst his peers that had similar first successes, the opportunities he crafted for Sigil as a businessman were unrivaled. There's no assumptions to be made, it was a business success to accrue that much funding.
"This game was expensive -- probably second only to WoW, although WoW cost more than double. I don't want to sound jealous, although I probably am to some degree to be honest, but Blizzard put $80M into development. No one else is willing or able to do that. Not Microsoft, not Sony. EA perhaps, and they're now back in the MMOG business with the Mythic acquisition (but at the time we started Sigil, they were still in a lot of pain over Sims Online, which is rumored to have been around $25-30M -- so at the time they were not interested in a game like Vanguard. And certainly not smaller publishers -- they definitely don't have that kind of money."
Source: http://www.fohguild.org/forums/683280-post849.html
So basically, no, there's no cloud of mystery over whether he was a good business man or not, whether twice the amount was possible, etc. We know he secured an unprecedented amount of funding in tumultuous times for something that was far from a sure bet.
I would agree to mention him as a good salesman.
There's just no way to spin obtaining that amount of money and releasing on time (if not delayed) after nearly 5 years in development bad management in his capacity as CEO.
Yeah, have anyone said that he was a bad CEO because he got 30M? I'm saying that it is not anything in thatsaying that he was good at the position of being CEO.
I was saying something like.
Maybe a good salesman would have gotten more, assuminh that brad was a bad salesman. Maybe a bad salesman would have gotten less, assuming Brad was a good salesman. For all we know Brad could have been a mediocre one. We know he got alot of money, we know it was unprecedented, but we don't know any ifs. We just have to assume something based on the high amount of dollars he got.
As for him not being able to lead the company to finish his goals. What goals weren't finished? We know the design document and where Vanguard was supposed to be at launch amidst that seven year plan; only a few things didn't actually make it like AES and fellowships, and neither of those are oft cited reasons for Vanguard failing.
Again, my argument and everything I've said in this thread and quoted from Brad is to point out that every big problem Vanguard had at launch, and still has today, was a known quantity and downsides purposefully designed for because they felt the ups would outweigh them.
So again, there's no cloud of mystery or assumptions that need to be made about whether this or that was incidental or whether it was clearly desgined towards. Name the issue, and more than likely Brad has gone on record to say he intentionally made design decisions that called for the problem to be both known ahead of time and deemed acceptable.
And no, we can't divide problems like bugs, performance issues and design apart, because again, and as clearly stated by Brad himself above, bugs and performance issues were EMBRACED as detriments meant to be outweighed by benefits. Everyone playing Vanguard today or that played at launch and kept playing are people who did and still do feel the benefits outweigh the detriments. It's just that Brad was wrong in believing more people would feel the same. Bad design.
Bad performance on low hardware, demanding hardware requirements. I do think have to divide that from bad performance due to various issues, bugs bad optimised assets and such. Still Brad gave a reason for those things being there, in the magnitude of what Vanguard was as opposed to smaller and easier, a large code base will have more errors in it rather than a small one. He didn't say he intentionally made bad optimization, bad coding or whatever as a design goal.
Instead, why not just say that making a hardware demanding game was a bad design decision. Alot of the performance issue was due to other things aswell and why have those in the same package.And about the ex-employee thing and opinions on Brad as a businessman and designer:
"f13.net: How long before those summer days did rumors of leaving Microsoft start flying around?
Ex-Sigil: Management told us they were shopping things around and were entertaining outside investors to complete the project. But actually leaving Microsoft as a publisher was never discussed until they told us it was happening and we were co-publishing with SOE."
Obviously that shopping and entertaining to outside investors was successful.
Yeah, he sold it pretty well it seems.
"f13.net: What tools were used to make the game?
Ex-Sigil: In-house stuff for the design side... but there was no scripting language for example, even though nearly everyone wanted one except for the people who decided if we got one or not.
f13.net: Because it would cost money to make these tools?
Ex-Sigil: No... because the people in charge just didn't want one"
Obviously money or bad business wasn't an issue and it was a design decision.
Maybe if he gotten a head over him that could have told him to implement those things.
"Ex-Sigil: SOE lent a few devs to us in the final days, but it was nothing like people think. I think design had 3 people, art 2, and programming 1 from SOE. They let us use their testing dept too somewhat. We felt somewhat reborn I guess, but with a sense of reservation. When the merger happened SOE embraced us, and spent a LOT of money on us right away. It felt really good.
f13.net: Do you know why they were willing to do that? Surely they saw the lack of... product within the project at that time.
Ex-Sigil: I don't know that they did really. They got the same show that MS did to some degree. I'll say this about Brad.. he's one hell of a salesman. He's VERY passionate about his projects, even so much as to be blinded from seeing reality.
f13.net: SOE knew Brad's game though. Smedley has been around through McQuaid Part 1 & 2 now.
Ex-Sigil: I know.. and I can't explain that part.
f13.net: Surely people around the office knew part of the history. What was the rumor mill like at this time?
Ex-Sigil: Some people were confused. Why would SOE buy a game that's a direct competitor to EQ2? There was always talk, but people who were working on the game continued to put their souls into it in hopes that we could somehow get it all together in the end."
Some obvious business triumphs there complete with the odds.
Yes, shure, he once again sold it pretty well. And here aswell maybe someone would have been on top on him saying 'No!'.
"f13.net: As in, just outright disappeared?
Ex-Sigil: Yep.
f13.net: Why? He was still posting on forums during this time...
Ex-Sigil: Well, he showed up to make mandates about game systems and design decisions."
"f13.net: What was the mood in the office by this time?
Ex-Sigil: People were still trying to stay upbeat, but certain people continually shooting down other's ideas started to take its toll. At least 2 people quit the team due to the heavy handed inflexible people on the class design team. When something isn't fun, except for the people who designed it, and others try to help, they'd get shot down... eventually people stop trying to help."
Obviously there was heavy-handed design philosophy, at least in part from Brad, that such an employee felt wasn't good.
Heavy handed design decisions, that sounds like Brad was the man in charge... Maybe he would not be the man in charge.
"f13.net: Doesn't the complete and utter failure, in hindsight, seem like a self-fulfilled prophecy though with only one QA member?
Ex-Sigil: The reasons for failure are too numerous to list, but can all be summed up by a lack of management. Brad, for all his faults at least made decisions. So did Jeff. Right or wrong, they took a shot. The people in charge now were so afraid to make the wrong decision that they made no decision at all."
Obviously the feelings of mismanagement came AFTER Brad's disappearance; and given what's been previously mentioned, we know that during the disappearance Brad was still serving in a design capacity whenever he did show up.
He also said right or wrong decisions, maybe it would have been better with most right descicion instead of describing it as taking a shot. In most cases it is better to make a decision then don't, I would add that it is always better to the right decision.
"f13.net: Would you say, honestly, that they are directly responsible for the unfortunate conclusion?
Ex-Sigil: A part of it. You can't leave out the insane hype machine, the process failures, and the poor design decision making at the very highest levels."
And that's self-explanatory.
Would he be in the very highest levels?
"f13.net: And what was the attitude by the team towards Brad and Jeff by now? Surely Brad's disappearance absolutely wrecked morale.
Ex-Sigil: Not really. When he was at work he was more an obstacle than a help. A lot of people wanted brad to just go away.
f13.net: That conflicts with a lot of the stories I heard about people leaving companies to join Sigil because of Brad...
Ex-Sigil: People did... a lot of people."
Given all the aforementioned complaints of obstacles being design decision related; what should I take from that? Brad in his capacity as CEO was terrible at attracting talent, but as a designer made good decisions that fellow staffers liked? I can't.
I would take it as Brad is not good in leadership roles, not knowing if was for design or business.
Where did you read in that that they was attracted to Brad as a CEO rather then a designer. People could have joined him for any of those positions aswell as leaving for any of those positions. And the obstacle would be possible to be there in any case, regardless of what you and I may believe or argument for.
"f13.net: At this point, why were you all getting decent press? Did Brad do most of the marketing for that (even though he wasn't in the office)?
Ex-Sigil: Yes. We got press because I think people wanted to believe Brad. They wanted it to be great and they got caught up in his passion."
Yet another thing I'd chock up to good business.
I would choke it up as good salesman.
"f13.net: Is there anything you want to add?
Ex-Sigil: It's hard. I really wanted Vanguard to be a great game, but it seemed like we were blocked by stupid decision making at nearly every step. Good people busted their ass, only to be shown the door because they weren't a 'culture fit' moving forward. I don't believe Brad is a bad guy like some people are painting him on the various forums right now. I DO think however, that he believed people wanted to play a game that HE liked, regardless of the masses of people telling him they didn't like his ideas. He ignored the opinions of people who worked for him, and busted their ass for him, and it cost him dearly, at least in reputation. So many of us jumped at the chance to work with Brad, only to find out he was a paper leader. You can only fool me once. I never want to work for Brad or Dave ever again. There was so much good in the team, so much effort wasted. None of the people listed above should ever work in any position of leadership. Though, Jeff might have a chance. He learned lessons from this, I think. The others did not. The whole ordeal has been rough. I know I'm exhausted."
Source: http://www.f13.net/index.php?itemid=561
So given all of the complaints of design related decisions and comments of absolute business miracles, why exactly should anyone be confused about whether Brad in a leadership position is best as an executive or creative force?
But... in a leadership position. It sounds like that is made to be the condition, it sounds abit errounous to have the condition at that level. Given your own quotes, do you think that Brad should have a leadership role, even if it is in the business or design side of things?
The above is a direct repudiation of any notion that he's a "good idea man".
The above is also a direct repudiation of any notion that he's a good 'leader'.
As or what we're talking about; you tell me. I automatically assumed by "idea man" you meant Brad occupying the same roles he did in EQ1, producer and designer. I'm saying he's bad for those roles as exhibited in Vanguard; but was good as a CEO/Chairman as exhibited with Vanguard.
He was a good salesman, maybe a good businessman, and a good designer. Bad at being at any of the leadership inherented part of those roles. I'm led to believe that when people say that Brad is a bad businessman they are refering to him as being that in the role of being CEO.
And when people talking about him as a good designer they not refering to him as having any leadership roles in that. I think alot of people have pointed out that he would need a head over him.
Saying "he's a good idea man" but separating the notion from an actual role he'd play within a development team doesn't have much of a point.
It does. Sometimes it feels like saying designer, that it would equall to have a leadership role. And sometimes it feels like businessman equals CEO. I think as I just mentioned that when someone talks about him being a good designer it would with people telling him 'no', with him apperantly don't have any leadership roles. So what are we seperating the idea man from design or [whatever role] from leadership. I would say I would seperate, businessman and designer from leadership.
And yes, naturally, why would there not possible to lay forth ideas to a design team to take care of?
So say what traditional job title in game development you believe Brad as an "idea man" should occupy. If it happens to be a producer or designer, then apply everything I've said in this thread in conviction of the idea.
...conviction of the idea. Those quotes above would be equally plausible for saying that Brad should having any businessman roles.
Becasue without seperating things. It almost sounds like that businessman he have to be the CEO. Designer then he have to be the lead designer. I think alot of things in this thread is based on the assumption that when talking about Brad being a businessman they have put it equal to be a CEO. I for shure have made that, I have been assuming that aswell. So saying that he would be a businessman in the next company would also apply everything in the qoutes you made.
Saying that he would be a businessman, without being the CEO, or saying that he would be a designer, without having any leadership roles baked into that.
Yeah I would say that he would be a designer, obviously his ideas are selling.
I'm so broke. I can't even pay attention.
"You have the right not to be killed"
Brad's problem is the same faced by Raph Koster and Richard Garriott.
The people most qualified to make the game are not the people most qualified to run the company that makes the game.
And the people who run the company think that gives them the experience and expertine to shape the game.
His other problem is that the people who want to play the type of games he designs are now a niche audience. The majority don't want the complexity of VG, they want WoW or Puzzle Pirates. Back in 2003 or whenever it was that VG development first got started, the mmo space still catered pretty heavily to the old guard/hardcore/traditional mmo player.
No longer.
This was made painfully clear when VG launched, and it generated a collective yawn because The Burning Crusade launched at the same time and absolutely demolished it. The bugs didn't help, but they didn't kill VG either. The market changed.
If McQuaid makes a comeback, and I hope he does, he's going to have to realize that his ideas aren't likely to net him the kind of capital to compete with Blizzard. He needs to get a small, dedicated dev house together and take his time making the title he wants to make, without the pressure of expectation laid on by partnering with a Microsoft or a Sony.
as i said earlier Brad should stay far away from new development. If he does anything he should reform Sigil, rebuy Vanguard and fix and finish what he started.
www.preparationh.com/
Not a complete failure, but we do tend to judge people most by their last work, since it's naturally the most accurate representation of their current ability.
I would agree with you, However, his most recent work was more of a fail on time management than anything else. The vision for the game was rock solid, that's proven in how the game continues to grow today, albeit not very quickly.
I'd agree if we didn't know exactly what his decade long design document called for upon release. We know that only very few things missed launch; fellowships, AES, flying mounts (ownable); and none the biggest of cited reasons why people quit the game.
Performance, travel times, empty landmasses, etc.; all have accounts of Brad going on record accepting the downsides for what he felt were benefits in his design.
So time management wasn't a reason for Vanguard failing; it was the design. We got what was designed; and what was short of design people didn't really complain about.
I used the wrong word, I used time management to describe how the design was done or synonimous with the polish of the game rather. In short i think we agree here.
It surprises me that you consider SIGIL INC. a business success because you seem like a very reasonable, thoughtful, and intelligent person. Your ideas are interesting albeit incorrect, respectfully, regarding the narrow issue over whether Brad McQuaid was a successful businessman/manager concerning SIGIL INC.
SIGIL INC. would probably make an excellent case study for Business School on business failure: bad marketing; extremely idealistic (and most-likely egotistical) leadership; lack of hands-on management(based on what I know); horrid communication with everybody; mis-allocation of resources (not enough coders); and I could continue.
EDIT: By no means am I pointing my finger at Mr. McQuaid or Sigil and saying, "you suck!" I started my first company while a sophmore in college. I have dissolved two companies of mine, and I had plenty of other failures and the wounds to show it. Believe me by no means am I trying to sound insensitive to the realities of the business world and its many and varied problems and challenges.
Agree.
But what is interesting is that Vanguard itself is an incredible product. What Brad lacks in leadership skills, he makes up for in being able to lay down and let people envision his creations.
Brad has great vision(tm), but is a hardliner. He doesn't or can't let others take control on certain aspect of a games development. (graphics, technology, etc). His choice to go with photo realistic crushed that game. If the frame rates were remotely acceptable, Vanguard would've been a hit.
As it stands, I was the only one of my 7 friends who bought the game, who could play! (I had the newly released 8800gtx).
Sigil would be a very insteresting case study indeed...!!
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
-Nariusseldon
This would be a waste of everyone involved's time. Even if they made vanguard top of the line with next to zero glitches or issues, nobody would believe it. Even if people in this forum starting raving about how awesome it was 90% of you wouldn't give them the time of day.
I'm not playing Vanguard because of one guy named Brad. I never read an interview and thought of it being nice that Brad made this game. Vanguard is the first game that I even learnt anything about the man behind it, that because I started t frequent and post on this board when I tried to get a buddy key for Vanguard. I did not buy Vanguard because of what some at that point unknown person posted on a for obscure forum like FoH, or for some older post here on mmorpg.com. I purchased it as what I was presented with at that moment, but not the history and "hype" done before.
(I play, and I've played, alot of games but there is only a few that I frequent any boards or join any discussions about them.)
If another person would have had any input, if Vanguard was instanced, zoned, one continent and all that. I would not know of how it is today. All I can say is that I would not want Vanguard today to be based on zoning and instancing or a smaller world. It's not like they can change what I know of Vanguard in this aspect today. And also I hardly think that I would any less content, if I liked the game, if Brad was not in a lead position and the game looked as you suggested on those parts.
I'm so broke. I can't even pay attention.
"You have the right not to be killed"
Well said Mardy. Brad got an unprecedented amount of money back in a time when developers veiwed the mmo genre as easy pickings and Brad was the rock star of the industry just coming off everquest. That pretty much made him the highest paid free agent in the industry.
The one fact that is being overlooked here is that when Brad was with SOE he created a monster successful mmo. When he had oversight and management he was successful. For its time, everquest was a well designed game.
As for brad getting another deal as sweet you are correct. Just from the fallout and handling of the collapse I doubt anyone wold sellect him in a leadership role again.
All of those quotes fall right into the time period where Brad is trying to deal with the collapse of his game and trying to save his company. What was he supposed to say, "Yeah the engine sucks, because we bought a game engine that wasn't suited for our project and had to completely re-write it". You are taking the words of someone desperate to save his company and trying to use it as proof that they delivered vanguard in the state it was intentionally? Step outside of yourself just for one minute and look at things from another perspective.
Imagine for one second if Brad had to report to someone and presented the unreal engine as his choice. He would have to explain just how many man hours would have to be spent on retooling the engine to make it do what they wanted to do. An engine that wasn't designed to do what they were setting out to do. All it would have taken is one person with oversight to say no. Just one.
However, when you have no accountability that type of decision never gets made. You don't really have to justify your choices or listen to different views. When you have absolute authority those are the types of decisions you can make, regardless of your ability to run a business.
Even lead designers have to get authorization on their ideas. No company is going to give absolute control to a lead designer to make whatever choices they want. Even they have to report their progress and direction for approval. When you remove that oversight you allow people that have heads full of ideas to do whatever they want regardless of their ability to make it happen with follow through and follow through is the weakness of creative minded people like him.
I'm not playing Vanguard because of one guy named Brad. I never read an interview and thought of it being nice that Brad made this game. Vanguard is the first game that I even learnt anything about the man behind it, that because I started t frequent and post on this board when I tried to get a buddy key for Vanguard. I did not buy Vanguard because of what some at that point unknown person posted on a for obscure forum like FoH, or for some older post here on mmorpg.com. I purchased it as what I was presented with at that moment, but not the history and "hype" done before.
(I play, and I've played, alot of games but there is only a few that I frequent any boards or join any discussions about them.)
If another person would have had any input, if Vanguard was instanced, zoned, one continent and all that. I would not know of how it is today. All I can say is that I would not want Vanguard today to be based on zoning and instancing or a smaller world. It's not like they can change what I know of Vanguard in this aspect today. And also I hardly think that I would any less content, if I liked the game, if Brad was not in a lead position and the game looked as you suggested on those parts.
We're not talking about revising the past and how Vanguard wouldn't be what it is today. We're talking about based on what Vanguard was and intended to be, that Brad is a "good idea man". The only way Vanguard and the "Vision" was ever put into effect is because he was in a leadership role. In a future project if he doesn't have that leadership role, then he can't be an "idea man" if he isn't the first and last word of it.
So all I'm saying is leadership comes with being the "idea man" people think Brad wants to be. There's always a dozen or two designers that help out the lead designer, but the lead designer always gets the credit because he is that first and last word. Suggesting he be anything less means him not being what you want 'em to be. Finally leadership and ideas are one in the same; because there's no point in an idea that people can't be led to facilitate. It's a bad idea and that's what a lot of Vanguard was.
I'm not playing Vanguard because of one guy named Brad. I never read an interview and thought of it being nice that Brad made this game. Vanguard is the first game that I even learnt anything about the man behind it, that because I started t frequent and post on this board when I tried to get a buddy key for Vanguard. I did not buy Vanguard because of what some at that point unknown person posted on a for obscure forum like FoH, or for some older post here on mmorpg.com. I purchased it as what I was presented with at that moment, but not the history and "hype" done before.
(I play, and I've played, alot of games but there is only a few that I frequent any boards or join any discussions about them.)
If another person would have had any input, if Vanguard was instanced, zoned, one continent and all that. I would not know of how it is today. All I can say is that I would not want Vanguard today to be based on zoning and instancing or a smaller world. It's not like they can change what I know of Vanguard in this aspect today. And also I hardly think that I would any less content, if I liked the game, if Brad was not in a lead position and the game looked as you suggested on those parts.
We're not talking about revising the past and how Vanguard wouldn't be what it is today. We're talking about based on what Vanguard was and intended to be, that Brad is a "good idea man". The only way Vanguard and the "Vision" was ever put into effect is because he was in a leadership role. In a future project if he doesn't have that leadership role, then he can't be an "idea man" if he isn't the first and last word of it.
So all I'm saying is leadership comes with being the "idea man" people think Brad wants to be. There's always a dozen or two designers that help out the lead designer, but the lead designer always gets the credit because he is that first and last word. Suggesting he be anything less means him not being what you want 'em to be. Finally leadership and ideas are one in the same; because there's no point in an idea that people can't be led to facilitate. It's a bad idea and that's what a lot of Vanguard was.
What I'm saying is that if tha peast would be different the present day would not look the same. So content with Brad would be no reason to be or not to be content, as I assumlingly would not even recognise the name Brad. Maybe his forum name, like I recognise Ikik, Silius and other that posts on the official board.
It's an impossible question to answer and the reason is given at the beginning of my reply.
I'm so broke. I can't even pay attention.
"You have the right not to be killed"
Does it really matter if he openly admitted his design decisions sucked, or as you think he did, in a moment of hysteria gave reasons why the design decisions sucked? The end result would be the same in terms of this debate; we know he was flawed in his capacity as a designer.
When it comes to have chosen an engine (which is heavily a design decision anyway outside of licensing and maintaining working relationships), we know before and after launch Brad's feelings towards it like I previously pointed out:
"I agree with you that we need to continue to optimize, and we are. But at the same time, we've made huge strides since beta 2 and have confidence we'll contiue to do so. Also, while the Unreal engine is very fast (one of several reasons we chose it), do keep in mind that we've so heavily modified it to a. make it an MMOG engine and b. to give it per pixel lighting, bump mapping, specularity, environment maps, etc. and c. to make it a seamless world engine as opposed to a zone based engine that it barely resembles the engine any more at all. We do share a lot of ideas with Epic and even some code (for example, we already have some 3.0 code in the game), but they are truly different engines now, as was always the plan."
Source: http://www.fohguild.org/forums/mmorpg-general-discussion/25222-lots-new-vanguard-info-released-plus-videos-screenshots-12.html#post575294
So launch hysteria has nothing to do with it. We have testimonials about each and everyone of Vanguard's biggest problems and can trace them to bad design decisions, and so it isn't unreasonable to call the guy a terrible designer; at least when it came to Vanguard.
And yes one person could've told him that no, it doesn't make sense to have a seamless, zoneless world with weather and all that; but then you wouldn't have Brad's "Vision". You're attempting to assert that a person over him would've been good because of what...? All of Brad's decisions were made for a reason, and there were no business failings that made him unable to facilitate exactly what his flawed designers called for.
He SUCCEEDED design wise at everything he set out to do for launch short of fellowships, ownable flying mounts, AES and maybe one or two other things that were not the most complained about issues at launch.
We got EXACTLY what Brad wanted. It makes no sense to say he'd have been a good idea man or whatever else if there was a person above him to refuse all of his ideas; because everything you like about Vanguard is a RESULT of the bad designs. Benefits and detriments go hand and hand; they can't be divided up, or else Blizzard would've created a seamless world that required future hardware; they didn't specifically because of the issues that come with it that Brad wholly embraced feeling the benefits outweighed the detriments wrongly.
My take is, the only thing Brad did wrong, was try to be a cool boss. I remember during the development of vanguard, the released pictures of them working on the game etc etc. I always remember seeing their breaks/ snack room stocked to the tee in Mt. Dew and other soft drinks. their development floors ( the cubicals) were a playground, everyone was too busy setting up there work space with past game icons, and cartoon character models/action figures. So i think while yes you could call it mis management, i think its was he tried to be too cool of a leader, allowing the staff to go at will. Then to tell the truth I think, ask Nick, i think the project got alot of hmm desire let loose, after the passing of a iconic person with in thegame. there are many reasons vanguard didn't live up to its potiental, MS didn't really help... Sony back balled him... they knew they were about to get a yard sale mmo cheap. The emplloyees... hmm i wonder how much of 30 million was spent all everyone having top of the line action figures and mountain dew stock, not all, but alot of them seemed to turn their back on Brad and help thrust the dagger deeper as the company crumbled down.. I am sure if Brad were to make a new game, he would take lessons learned from this development, and apply to new project. I mean heck for all of us tire changers, cafe workers, nurses, shop keepers etc etc, we still make mistakes at work... so should we be forced to hide in ridecule and embarassment, should we be considered the lowest of life form at Brad was right after.. I say no, I mean haven't you ever did something stupid.. walked off the porch thinking the porch steps were there? Only difference is Brads mistake had more zeros attached to it, and well guess what it wasn't your money so get it over it, it was his money he lost, he's paid the cost !
So it closing, i hope Brad does attempt another game.. heck we need more, lord knows all of the games today kinda stale and reak of each other.. i mean we have one watered down way to play all the games.
Err, what you describe is basically Pixar.
Pixar is a huge success.
I dont think its a good idea to make a creative company, such as Pixar or Sigil (or Bioware etc) look any different than you described.
What Sigil lacked was good management, but you dont need to kill creative for getting better management. You just need some boring gray guys who are good at doing such things as well, aside from the colorful artists.
Thats the thing where Sigil failed, in my impression.
[quote]For it to have garnered enough funds to be the second most expensive cereal ever with no prior successes as a company, begun by Kellogg's and put out by Post, I'm going to cite the guy behind the the business of it a business behemoth to have pulled it off.[/quote]
That's not buisness acumen. No amount of business acumen could ever achieve that. It's called trading on your name and past success in the hopes that anything you do is bound to strike gold twice.
He got all that because of who he was and what his past was, not because he was a phenomenal wheeling and dealing business tycoon.
The real mistake was in the judgement of the investors. There's a reason no other designer has achieved that level of initial unproven investment: because it's risky business, and businesses generally strive to avoid such colossal errors of judgement. That's probably why Microsoft pulled out.
Sepher I don't know if you just don't understand what is being said or you are purposefully changing words around.
What brad is doing in all of those FOH posts is trying to save his game by downplaying their failures. Who said hysteria? You claim they purposefully designed the engine to require future hardware, but the facts are that vanguard didn't even run on current hardware due to bugs and horrible coding. Look at all the issues they had with the 8800 series during release. It ran worse than low end cards. The fact is that the team working on the engine failed to get their job done. They didn't purposefully chose to make the game run bad, but brad hoped and prayed people would stay around long enough for hardware to overpower their failure to code the engine properly. I remember reading one post from a vanguard dev talking about how the engine had serious problems with nvidia cards and the horrible time they were having getting support from nvidia.
You are really trying to say that is a design choice to make the engine not function properly and not the failure of people to follow through on their given job? Why would they purposefully code the engine to not work with the top of the line graphics cards during its release? What possible purpose would that serve?
The end result is that conceptually vanguard is a solid game by design. Most of the games problems stem directly from management to staffing issues. There just was not enough talent to get the job done. From mismanaging time and money all the way to bad hiring practices which filled the team up with amatuers and family members.
If you ever worked with someone like brad you would know how important it is to have someone to keep them grounded. Not just to stand around and say no, but to keep them focused and not run around constantly creating change and implementing new ideas.
You got amazing patience :P
But you have stated exactly the issue as I see them. I've worked with people like this and seen companies go down in flames just like Sigil due to the very issues you mention.
Brad should have been the CTO or Chief Architect or what is maybe the Chief Visionary Officer.
And yes such a position does exist in tech companies that are successful. It has many names
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_visionary_officer
One exercise I did in my company was have all the management take Myers Briggs testing. This is amazingly insightful and helps you understand that people are fundamentally different. As a logical person there are people I talk to that just can't seem to get what I consider to be an obvious logical progression. I gotta think they are complete idiots. But studying things like the myers briggs shows that people process things differently. There are people that intuit things more or work on emotion and logic seems alien to them
Anyway, Myers Briggs is great because with training it helps people work together more effectively as a team. It helps people understand each other better and also know better how to capitalize on individual strengths. It lets you root out those idea people so you don't have them running the company :P but instead use them for ideas
I'm an INTP and have kinda trained myself to be an INTJ. Part of understanding this stuff also helps you understand your own weaknesses so you can compensate. I'm also an N which makes me more visionary but again I know that and again I try to focus on doing things to compensate or find a good ESTJ to help me. Left to my own devices or being ignorant, I'd happily walk my team right over a cliff being focused on my ideal or vision while the machine around me is falling apart.
Anyway if you are interested this in this stuff go to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator. I think when I took a class on this it was a real epiphany! Lots of things really fell into place for me.
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Ethion
It is so funny that you mentioned the myers-briggs, because I was going to mention the exact same thing in my last post. You said it far better than I ever could have tried to.
Wonderful tool for learning how to communicate with co workers and utilize strengths/identify weaknesses.
Of course I understand what is being said. It's you who's attempting to imply more than what's really there. Where in any of the above did Brad say, "I'm trying to save my game by downplaying the failures"?
Of course he wouldn't even if that was his motive; but what does the motive matter if the argument is about the reasons for the failure? That's what I'm arguing; the reason. Whether or not the reasons were rooted in his capacity as a Chairman and CEO or as a designer.
And of course it didn't run right on current hardware; because Brad designed the game to work best for FUTURE hardware. As he admitted many times and as I provided to back up my argument.
And yes they did purposefully choose to make the game intensive beyond its time. Brad has admitted to accepting the amount of bugs and performance issues Vanguard had for the benefits, as stated above.
And why did they code an engine that didn't work correctly at release? For the "hooks" as he kept saying. He felt it was worth it to release a game dependent upon future hardware and an eventual Unreal 3 update. No need to ask me the explanations are all above.
And no, the end result is that Vanguard was fundamentally flawed by design; as shown above in Brad's own words and employees own words.
You're ignoring facts and filling in what you ignore with assumptions. That's fine because it paints exactly the picture that you ant; that Vanguard failed for every other reason except Brad's design and that he's a brilliant designer. It isn't true though; and ultimately what I'm arguing is why I myself can't accept the idea that Brad is a "good idea man" when he had all of the horrible ideas that I posted above, and when he accomplished everything business wise that I posted above.
I wasn't gonna follow up to any of your posts but this one just completely cracked me up. Brad wasn't a moron and when he was struggling to survive, money running out, the game not being what he wanted, what do you honestly thing he is going to do?!? Or do you really think that he was happy with the game and it's state at launch??
I mean come on there is a ton of documentation on this sad story and it is really very obvious what happened.
He was spinning as best he could and hoping and praying that he could launch the game, make enough money to stay afloat long enough to fix the game.
His buddy Smedley bailed him out and gave him enough money to at least make the attempt. It would be a riot to know if he did this knowing full well that it would fail and SoE would get to pick up the game for penny's on the dollar. Or maybe Brad was able to really sell them on the idea that it would work...
in any event, Brad would never say, I'm trying to save my game by downplaying the failures.... At least not till after it failed and even then he might not legally be really able to say something like that. It might open him up to potential legal issues if he said things to sell the game to SoE and then later says something that shows he was lying... Who knows what was said behind closed doors.
Anyway this final post from Brad I think really shows what his state was. This is after the game died and he no longer was able to spin things or had any illusion that things might work out... What probably isn't shown was some of how he was demorilized and really retreated from the company under the guise of getting funding. I'm sure he was trying but I'm also sure he was realizing he had just walked his company and all the people that were looking to him for answers over a cliff...
f13.net/index.php
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Ethion
Fact: the game had massive issues with nvidia 8800s during release.
Fact: the game often ran better on lesser video cards during release than 8800's
Fact: the same developers (what was left of them) fixed many of the flaws in the game engine and the game runs well on 8800s and below.
Those are not design choices. Those are the result of a team of developers not getting their job done by the release date. Be it lack of ability, man power, know how, leadership or direction, the condition of the engine during release was a failure not a planned event.
You really think the master plan was to make a game that runs so horrible that no one, not even with the best available systems on the market, could possibly play the game? Honestly can you see anyone sitting around a developers meeting and proposing to the team working on the engine that is be a piece of crap at release and hopefully in a few years technology will catch up to resolve the problems?
Everything you posted is brad talking after the fact. The damage was done and admitting flaws to the public would have killed what little hope there was of saving his business and most likely his career.
Fact: the game had massive issues with nvidia 8800s during release.
Fact: the game often ran better on lesser video cards during release than 8800's
Fact: the same developers (what was left of them) fixed many of the flaws in the game engine and the game runs well on 8800s and below.
Those are not design choices. Those are the result of a team of developers not getting their job done by the release date. Be it lack of ability, man power, know how, leadership or direction, the condition of the engine during release was a failure not a planned event.
You really think the master plan was to make a game that runs so horrible that no one, not even with the best available systems on the market, could possibly play the game? Honestly can you see anyone sitting around a developers meeting and proposing to the team working on the engine that is be a piece of crap at release and hopefully in a few years technology will catch up to resolve the problems?
Everything you posted is brad talking after the fact. The damage was done and admitting flaws to the public would have killed what little hope there was of saving his business and most likely his career.
Fact: A majority of players that quit, probably didn't quite because they had an 8800 and it didn't work.
I'd say things like hitching, chunk times, too big an empty world and etc. were larger reasons, and those were all results of bad design decisions.
I'm sure you could find a thousand smaller issues that'd be difficult to trace to an explicit design decision; but what matters is that the BIGGEST cited problems, out of Brad's mouth and the top ten lists from around launch time; can all be traced back and have been traced back in this post to bad design decisions from Brad.
And again, we KNOW they had everything done that they wanted short of fellowships, and a few other things. They called the game 80% done and expressed exactly what WASN'T done. So any assumptions you make otherwise are just that; but I rather go with the developers' words rather than assumptions.
The same goes for lack of ability, lack of manpower, engine; so forth and so on, we know they had 100+ people and for at least half of it equipped with veterans from other MMOs, we know that not only did they have the Unreal 2 engine and Epic's support; they had code from Unreal 3 before it was available.
So again, I have to go with the developers instead of what you care to make assumptions about.
Do I think Brad intentionally made the game unplayable on the BEST of hardware? It depends on what your definition of "unplayable" is. What I believe is that all the players whom stuck around and weren't bothered by the performance issues, really didn't much mind the problems. The fun outweighed the performance issues for them. Take WoW for example; everyone was "loot sliding" for a week if not longer after launch, but the fun exceeded the problems. I think Brad expected fun to exceed the amount of problems for Vanguard and it didn't.
So yes, of course he was conscious of the issues of releasing a game with "hooks" meant for future hardware and future engine updates, he admitted as such as I posted above, but the fun didn't outweigh the problems in his design upon reception.
And again; I've posted excerpts from years before the fact as well, specifically to show that he was consistent from before launch up until after launch. To me, it doesn't matter when he said it; those are his reasons. Whether or not you believe he's telling the truth it doesn't really matter, because again, my argument is that he was great at business but sucked at design. We have him on account of making bad design decisions but great business moves; we have an employee testifying the exact same. As far as him being a great designer when it comes to Vanguard and a bad business man, we have absolutely no evidence of it; merely assumption built entirely off ignoring the evidence we do have on the contrary.