What happened to Brad Mcquaid?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I'm assuming he left because he wanted to make another oldschool MMO and knew that Sony wouldn't back that kind of product, especially as a subscription based MMO.

Rule of thumb is: If a dedicated video game developer says they don't want to back a subscription based MMORPG, then that probably means you should examine why subscription MMORPGs aren't favored by them anymore rather than stomp off to kickstarter. Case in point: He's not paying attention to the times too much...

[Edge-]

Rule of thumb is: If a dedicated video game developer says they don't want to back a subscription based MMORPG, then that probably means you should examine why subscription MMORPGs aren't favored by them anymore rather than stomp off to kickstarter. Case in point: He's not paying attention to the times too much...

It can still work, SOE has just repositioned themselves as a purely F2P company, they're not looking to publish/develop any more subscription based MMO's, and that's fine.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

It can still work, SOE has just repositioned themselves as a purely F2P company, they're not looking to publish/develop any more subscription based MMO's, and that's fine.

Pure subscription-based MMOs aren't sustainable unless your either CCP or Blizzard; or you go F2P and offer a sub that brings with it bonuses (LotRO, STO, SWTOR, Rift, etc).

[Edge-]

Pure subscription-based MMOs aren't sustainable unless your either CCP or Blizzard; or you go F2P and offer a sub that brings with it bonuses (LotRO, STO, SWTOR, Rift, etc).

FFXIV seems to be doing pretty good right now. Darkfall has been chugging along (though reportedly with heavy subsides from the Greek government, I can't say whether this is true or not) for some years. Then there's UO which is still doing just dandy.

I agree, they're more of a niche now (outside of WoW) and it's harder to justify a subscriptions, but they can still be sustainable.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

FFXIV seems to be doing pretty good right now. Darkfall has been chugging along (though reportedly with heavy subsides from the Greek government, I can't say whether this is true or not) for some years. Then there's UO which is still doing just dandy.

I agree, they're more of a niche now (outside of WoW) and it's harder to justify a subscriptions, but they can still be sustainable.

FFXIV hasn't had enough time to go F2P. Your average sub MMORPG goes F2P around the year and a half/two year mark. Same with ESO.

UO's development requirements are so small that they don't need more 50k subs to make a profit.

In today's day, we keep seeing too many new MMORPGs expecting SWTOR numbers, or even EVE numbers. Neither are attainable goals in the long run. Punlishers nowadays will need to either 1. ensure that they can make a profit off of subscriptions under 100k, or 2. just find another business model. Hybrid F2P with optional sub for benefits works fine atm.

[zito]

FFXIV hasn't had enough time to go F2P.

FF14 will never go F2P at this point. It has it's own niche market that has little to no competition to keep it P2P forever as long as the quality of the game is good (which it has been).

[dextersmith]

I remember him, this was him right?

It certainly seems to be him.

His comments here and on the net are so monotonous, it's everyone else's fault........he's made mistakes because [trivialize actions and deflect here] he's too passionate/cares too much (sounds like a job interview). He cares so much that "[he] was also away from the office a LOT during the last 4-6 months before [they] launched in Jan 2007."

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...1#post25377961

When I found out about the six month too early release and the future layoffs, I immediately went out, found some people to help me, and started approaching investors, looking for some extra money that would give us that extra 6 months. We failed to find some, though. The situation was just a bad one -- the game was almost done, SOE and MSFT made some sort of complicated deal that I was not privy to, a lot of money had already been spent... it just wasn't something an investor could easily wrap his head around. So that extra $$ for an extra 6 months just never happened. I learned a lot, but I was also away from the office a LOT during the last 4-6 months before we launched in Jan 2007.

Anyway, I certainly made my share of mistakes. Ultimately, the death blow of sorts was the regime change with Microsoft, and all of their MMO guys leaving the company and the new group assigned to us not being fans of MMOs and wanting us to abandon our core design and turn Vanguard into a WoW-clone. All of my stress and anxiety ultimately came from that event. But now I know how hard I can push myself, how involved or in love with a project I can safely become. I know more about managing larger teams and setting up middle management properly. I think I was a decent CEO and now I think I could be a good CEO.

I've certainly seen the posts where people have urged me not to take a CEO role with Visionary Realms. They look at what happened with Vanguard and the mistakes made and that's their opinion. I certainly respect their opinion, but I don't think it's taking everything into consideration that should be. Like I said, I know myself so much better now and can look back at my mistakes and be determined not to repeat them. I like taking the negatives that happened with Vanguard and turning them into positives by doing a better job this next time around. If I don't, then I'm simply a defeated ex-CEO. And I don't want to leave it at that. I want another shot at it.

Does a good CEO exploit limited company (crowd) funds for personal gains? Does a good CEO pay employees then "[attempt] to ask for the money back"?
http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/07...matter-of-mon/

How did this shot work out?

Why was the (former?) drug addict given access to the money?

[Teebone]

There is a "Cult of McQuaid" that exists based off his popularity from his EQ1 days. I mean, the guy is fantastically talented when it comes to designing games. A lot of what was laid out for the systems in Pantheon is awesome stuff (needing to acclimate to your environments, meaning putting on "warmer" gear with worse stats when you enter a snowy area, slowly being able to equip normal gear over time as you acclimate etc.) and it's absolutely a game that I'm interested in on a conceptual basis.

There are just folks who are so fanatical about what he's done that they'll ignore anything and everything negative about him and the work he's done. They're kinda creepy, I've fun into some in various comments sections/forums, and they totally do strike me as "culty".

He was one of the worst community managers ever. I know I bash the current pantheon of WoW devs but they are still... slightly... better than he was. The true irony in all this is people like Furor and Tig who once crusaded against him (anyone from EQ1 will never forget the 'z axis exploit' fiasco) are becomming more and more like him.

[stellvia]

IMHO I think purely F2P games end up disappointing, because the content updates end up being cheap/filler, and/or not very many of them, the polish isn't there and its often generic content on top of that, etc. Or they intentionally weave a lot of fuckery into the game to compel you to spend money on cash shop, but what you buy usually doesn't even eliminate the F2P fuckery, merely lessen it.

I'm a proponent for hybrid subscription models if Free* is going to be involved at all ... freemium I guess some people call? But the subscription should basically eliminate all of that F2P fuckery -- not give me 500 funbucks a month to spend on the cash shop or something like that. All F2P "compulsions" should be gone, and anything outside of typical skins should be available to subbers for in-game cash instead if needed. (Flag them untradable to F2P of course to prevent abuse.)

[Edge-]

IMHO I think purely F2P games end up disappointing, because the content updates end up being cheap/filler, and/or not very many of them, the polish isn't there and its often generic content on top of that, etc. Or they intentionally weave a lot of fuckery into the game to compel you to spend money on cash shop, but what you buy usually doesn't even eliminate the F2P fuckery, merely lessen it.

Which games are you thinking about when you say this?

Tera? Still delivering pretty steady content updates without too much cash shop fuckery, especially not with the core gameplay. Subscription is totally optional.
Rift? They're starting to trend a bit towards the cash shop getting more involved in gameplay, but it's still very well supported with solid content updates and is perfectly playable without spending a penny. Subscription is totally optional.
Aion? Yup, still getting roughly the same size/rate of content as it did as a P2P game, and the cash shop can be pretty much ignored.
GW2? B2P, I know, but it's not suffered in terms of its updates (small, but very frequent) or the cash shop messing with gameplay.
PlanetSide 2? Totally playable as anything you can purchase that affects gameplay can be purchased with certs (which aren't terribly hard to earn) and weapons are primarily side-grades. Subscription is totally optional.

So which MMO's are you talking about?

I'm a proponent for hybrid subscription models if Free* is going to be involved at all ... freemium I guess some people call? But the subscription should basically eliminate all of that F2P fuckery -- not give me 500 funbucks a month to spend on the cash shop or something like that. All F2P "compulsions" should be gone, and anything outside of typical skins should be available to subbers for in-game cash instead if needed. (Flag them untradable to F2P of course to prevent abuse.)

Freemium is still F2P, it's just a slightly different flavor. Even in games that use a freemium model, they still encourage folks to spend more money in the cash shop (just as WoW and EVE do, as well), so it's not terribly different.

The game I mentioned above that use a freemium model don't really provide anything in terms of additional content or ways to make the cash shop irrelevant when you're subscribed. PS2 gives boosts and a stipend (though that's a sub to all SOE games), Tera gives some boosts/perks but nothing that makes the cash shop much less attractive, and Rift provides a bunch of perks that also don't make things in the cash shop all that less attractive. They're all a good value (if you enjoy the games), but they're hardly vehicles that disincentivize heavy use of the cash shop.

[stellvia]

GW2's content updates are primarily cheap storytelling additions. Which is fine if all you want is a visual novel, but not exactly meaty on effort or content. You're also mentioning basically the small fraction that are not as bad, out of ... 100s? And surprise surprise, all but GW2 started as sub before dropping to F2P or are "Freemium" as I defined.

I would rather pay a sub and get a game solidly supported with real content updates, than call a handful of XYZ quests and some script spit into NPC dialogue boxes on existing or rehashed maps/models, "content".

It's resulted in the majority of the market being stuck 10 years in the past or more for development styles.

[Edge-]

GW2's content updates are primarily cheap storytelling additions. Which is fine if all you want is a visual novel, but not exactly meaty on effort or content. You're also mentioning basically the small fraction that are not as bad, out of ... 100s? And surprise surprise, all but GW2 started as sub before dropping to F2P or are "Freemium" as I defined.

Yup, it's a different form of content. They've more recently come with new zones to help beef up more content (as well as the ability to replay the stories), so it's not as if it's just small little story bits and nothing else. For a lot of folks, they prefer that to the giant updates that come with a game like Rift or WoW. I know I'm a fan of the smaller, more frequent story updates in GW2 and while I don't strongly prefer them to big updates, I am definitely very happy to have a different type of content coming out at a difference pace. It keeps me logging into the game pretty regularly without ever overwhelming me with how much is provided at once.

As for the 100's of bad F2P's, you're right. There are a ton of shitty, low budget import games. I generally don't count them because they're not really significant players in the MMO market. They exist in the same niche they've always existed in, a small little niche for ultra-low budget imports published by shitty megapublishers. Though the interesting thing is that the number of them that's been coming over has been dropping over the years, as has the rate at which they are closed down/abandoned. This is a direct reflection of how the bigger players in the Western market are impacting the overall F2P sphere, folks now have some very solid options for F2P titles rather than shitty low budget import schlock.

As for them transitioning, you're right, the vast majority did start as P2P. Partially because when most of them launched, big-budget F2P games simply weren't a thing, that's only something that's beginning to come around. Additionally, everyone wants to see if they can hit it big with subscriptions, because the reality is that while F2P games can be insanely profitable, the stability and potential big numbers that can come from a subscription option are too tempting. They want to get as much of that initial money as they can while shooting for success there, knowing nowadays that a F2P relaunch (which is essentially a second launch) is always there in case they don't see as much revenue as they'd like.

I would rather pay a sub and get a game solidly supported with real content updates, than call a handful of XYZ quests and some script spit into NPC dialogue boxes on existing or rehashed maps/models, "content".

That's totally cool. Personal preference is fine. But to say that F2P games (including freemium) don't have any big, meaty updates provided for free is simply untrue (which you strongly implied in your post). Again, games like Rift and Tera, neither of which provide any additional content/access to things through their subscriptions, both provide pretty big updates at a pretty steady rate for free. Both just recently launched completely free expansions, as a matter of fact. Not as big as say, a traditional WoW expansion, but these were release 1. for free and 2. without a year+ content gap, they were both still supported during the developments of their expansions.

It's resulted in the majority of the market being stuck 10 years in the past or more for development styles.

I'm confused as to where this comes from. How are they stuck 10 years in the past? What is the modern development style that they're not using?

[stellvia]

Well, with the stuck in the past, I guess that points more to the also-rans. At least games like Tera and GW2 chose their own combat style. Rift and Aion are pretty similar to WoW in style, but at least in Rift's case you had the quad-spec available to really change up gameplay. (Granted WoW has closed that gap somewhat over the years with dual spec)

But even some of the larger players, like the Ragnarok Online2 release -- still had a game that played like a mix of Classic WoW with current accelerated leveling curves.

Maybe it's asking for too much, but what I'd like to see is a mix of those large 6-12 month updates with the "storytelling" updates coming in monthly to bridge the gap. They are admittedly low on development time, so it shouldn't be a major imposition. Blizzard made a few strides towards that in MoP for example, with the unfolding story on Thunder Isle and the quests out in Barrens before Siege of Orgrimmar. But that was mostly just daily hub unlocks, more than the Living Story type things GW2 offers. And of course, once the raids launched, all of those updates were over -- you ended up with the year+ gap until Warlords.

I've currently held off on Warlords, but we'll see. It was hard enough for us to scrap together 10 competent people for H10 content in MoP, so I'm really doubting I would find a Mythic raid team that wouldn't make me want to beat my head against a wall. (Since its 20man now, and I don't want to commit to more than 2-3 nights a week. All the really dedicated people seem to migrate towards the 5night guilds.)

[Edge-]

Well, with the stuck in the past, I guess that points more to the also-rans. At least games like Tera and GW2 chose their own combat style. Rift and Aion are pretty similar to WoW in style, but at least in Rift's case you had the quad-spec available to really change up gameplay. (Granted WoW has closed that gap somewhat over the years with dual spec)

They're similar to WoW in the same way WoW is similar to its precursors like EQ1 or Asherons Call (and many non-MMO's before them). It's simply static combat, something that's still a thing in many games today because it's a fully functional combat system that works.

I don't see why sticking to one combat system rather than another is somehow being "stuck in the past". I mean, I'd take Counter-Strikes gunplay (which comes from many games before it) that doesn't bother with the ADS (aim down scope) nonesense that is a big part of many modern shooters. I hardly consider one being an "evolution" over another, they're simply different options, little more.

But even some of the larger players, like the Ragnarok Online2 release -- still had a game that played like a mix of Classic WoW with current accelerated leveling curves.

Well, RO2 pissed off RO players because it has about as much to do with its previous installment as a seagull does with my keyboard. It's very much designed in the same vein as MMO's of the past decade, you're correct. But it being a bad game is far more caused by the fact that it's simply poorly designed as a whole rather than its choice of combat system.

Maybe it's asking for too much, but what I'd like to see is a mix of those large 6-12 month updates with the "storytelling" updates coming in monthly to bridge the gap.

What updates for what game who what? >.>

I mean, as for storytelling updates, that doesn't fit most of the MMO's on the market. They're not designed around telling a story as part of the core game. TSW, GW2, SWTOR, sure, those games are partially designed around a story at their core. WoW has been slowly changing to adopt more of an emphasis on story as well. But most other games? Story is there, but hardly a focus, and they don't have the systems to really tell any kind of engaging story.

They are admittedly low on development time, so it shouldn't be a major imposition.

Not always. There's a reason that BioWare stopped with the class stories, and that's because it was far too expensive in terms of time and money. It depends on how the games present that story. A few text crawls and a quest hub is cheap, you're correct. But that's also generally not well received by players because it's pretty boring. But tossing in new voiced quests with animated cutscenes, a range of new activities to support the storyline added in, new easter eggs and the rest that generally comes with major story updates in games like SWTOR or TSW is expensive. It takes time and money to put in what is essentially finite content. Story content doesn't have high levels of replayability, while a daily quest hub or a dungeon does.

Blizzard made a few strides towards that in MoP for example, with the unfolding story on Thunder Isle and the quests out in Barrens before Siege of Orgrimmar. But that was mostly just daily hub unlocks, more than the Living Story type things GW2 offers.

You're right, they have been moving towards it with varying levels of success (I was bored to tears with the story they presented while leveling in MoP and eventually just started ignoring it all, but that's just me).

As for the comparison between GW2/WoW, I'd disagree. GW2 has added quite a solid amount of content with its living story updates, especially during season 2. It's just that since it's all presented in such a piecemeal format, people forget how much it adds up to. In the 3 months that it took for the Thunder Isle patch to come out, GW2 would have had roughly 6 updates, complete with 1-2 hours of story content per update (so between 6-12 hours of just story content), as well as added a few zones (since S2 started they've been adding new zones with permanent events running) that have their own little stories going on. Overall, it's a remarkably similar amount of content, it's just not all presented at once like a major patch is in WoW or other games. And remember, this is content that's being provided for free for everyone who owns the game, there's no subscription wall preventing players from accessing it. If my roommate wants to log back in today (he hasn't played in about a year), he could see the new zones added since S2 started and could cheaply purchase all the story content (something added at the player request, as folks who missed S1 story were upset at its temporary nature).

[stellvia]

You can PM instead if you like, but I've been curious as to whether they've actually been making decent money with GW2. Discussing it in the actual GW2 thread isn't very fruitful because of all the rabid fans that don't consider the big picture. IE: They point to box sales and believe it's $60 profit per box when I ask about continuing revenue, or point to the supposedly active accounts when I ask what kind of profit they're actually making from the cash shop, etc.

The first year's financials would have been padded heavily by box sales, but the 2nd year's would be a fairly good judge of ongoing revenues.

[dextersmith]

Wow this discussion quickly changed.

[SirRobin]

Wow this discussion quickly changed.

Well its not like there is much to say about Brad anymore. He does have some talent and he was part of something big. Then he took his own shot and face planted so badly that it not only cost a lot of folks their jobs, but also got them fired in about the most humiliating way possible. Then he tried to retcon his own history and the only ones who fell for it were the very few who desperately wanted too.

I might even feel sorry for him if he wasn't stuck in a pit of his own digging.