Raging Douchebag Week: Day 4
Posted on
Thursday, April 26, 2007
by Gary A. Ballard
Day 4's Raging Douchebag comes from the world of video games, specifically Massively-Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games, or NAMBLA. You might think I'd honor such luminaries as Derek Smart, or any one of the mouth-breathing executives at Sony responsible for the PS3. You might even believe my favorite pigfucker John Smedley would be honored, as he's had a banner year. But no, today's Raging Douchebag isn't the Head Pigfucker, though he's been linked with the Smed in the past. Raging Douchebag #4 is none other than Everquest and Vanguard creator Brad McQuaid.
Mr. McQuaid has been a very public douchebag for a long time due to the success of his original MMOG, Everquest. Never one to attribute luck and timing to the success of Everquest when his ego could take the credit instead, McQuaid was the founder of The Vision™. A thoroughly execrable mindset, The Vision™ was utterly convinced of its own infallibility, much like the Bush administration. Nothing was ever broken with Everquest, the players just weren't playing to The Vision™. Camping? That was an exploit, not mandated by the punitive death penalty. Kiting? Another exploit because The Vision™ says no one should be able to solo for experience. Corpse runs? They added excitement to the game, implying the game was dead boring otherwise. Alchemy? Working as intended, even when clear evidence indicated it was doing no such thing. Everything that didn't fit McQuaid's tiny mindset for how the game of Everquest could be played was a bad thing, including swift leveling, quick travel, and most things that removed tedium from the game.
You'd think that after years of consumer dissatisfaction and complaints and being removed from any contact with the Everquest brand he founded would have given his ego a humbling blow. But Raging Douchebags do not realize their mistakes, they repeat them, because nothing is ever wrong with their attitude. It's always the other asshole's problem, never the Douchebag's.
That ego led him to leech off of Microsoft's considerable teat for years, building the game that was going to the first THIRD generation MMOG (as if we'd ever left the first generation). Vanguard, Saga of Heroes was to be the be-all end-all game that pushed the MOG medium into new levels of immersiveness. It would be the hardcore game for the hardcore, the game for the people who loved Everquest and were disappointed in the "dumbing-down" or "easy mode" of later MMOG's, particularly World of Warcraft. It wouldn't be Everquest 2 with a new name, no it wouldn't be that. There would be corpse runs, and grouping and a heavy emphasis on endgame raids. There would be no quick travel from continent to continent, there would be harsh death penalties, and all the things that made Everquest an absolutely soul-grinding experience. This wasn't the game for WoW-tards as some of the more vocal members of the Hardcore Community dubbed those who liked games that didn't punish players. This would be HARDCORE!!!!
And then beta happened. Microsoft gave up on the zombie turd that Vanguard had become, pulling its funding of the game that shambled like an undead monster. Sony Online Entertainment, home of Brad's original creation Everquest, signed up to publish and host the game. But in what appears to be a canny move on their part, SOE only gave McQuaid a limited amount of time to release the game. The resultant release has been a trainwreck, made bearable only by the fact that certain things like billing were handled by SOE and thus weren't going to be screwed up by lack of testing. The game itself, on the other hand, was a bug-ridden mess.
Gameplay reeked of Everquest 1 with a few updates pinched from other games. The graphics engine choked even the fastest computers. Features like diplomacy, long-promised as a defining innovation in gameplay, turned out to be poorly implemented and poorly-supported. High-level content, especially raiding content, appears to be sparse when it exists at all. And one by one, all of the features that were touted by McQuaid as things the hardcore begged for have been whittled away. Leveling has gotten faster. Fast travel methods have been added in. Corpse runs are no longer necessary. Death penalties have been lessened. And through all of it, McQuaid has claimed that this isn't a lessening of The Vision™. No, Brad, it really is and that's ok, because The Vision™ sucked. It was a horrible way to design a game, and a horrible standard to put players up to.
Your game appears to be on life support. Rumors about the closing of Sigil abound. Subscribers numbers you once claimed would be around the 500,000 mark have struggled to get above 100,000 by all accounts. The game has failed, and with it, your vision. Perhaps if you stop thinking of yourself as an infallible gaming god, you could make a good game. Everquest had a great deal going for it, including a vast world with tons of lore to explore. Had you listened to the customers just a little bit, it might have become the game we all envisioned it could be. But instead, you chose to be a Raging Douchebag, and so I honor you with the title Raging Ranger Douchebag of Mithril. That's not a flaming sword, douchebag, but it sure does burn.
Mr. McQuaid has been a very public douchebag for a long time due to the success of his original MMOG, Everquest. Never one to attribute luck and timing to the success of Everquest when his ego could take the credit instead, McQuaid was the founder of The Vision™. A thoroughly execrable mindset, The Vision™ was utterly convinced of its own infallibility, much like the Bush administration. Nothing was ever broken with Everquest, the players just weren't playing to The Vision™. Camping? That was an exploit, not mandated by the punitive death penalty. Kiting? Another exploit because The Vision™ says no one should be able to solo for experience. Corpse runs? They added excitement to the game, implying the game was dead boring otherwise. Alchemy? Working as intended, even when clear evidence indicated it was doing no such thing. Everything that didn't fit McQuaid's tiny mindset for how the game of Everquest could be played was a bad thing, including swift leveling, quick travel, and most things that removed tedium from the game.You'd think that after years of consumer dissatisfaction and complaints and being removed from any contact with the Everquest brand he founded would have given his ego a humbling blow. But Raging Douchebags do not realize their mistakes, they repeat them, because nothing is ever wrong with their attitude. It's always the other asshole's problem, never the Douchebag's.
That ego led him to leech off of Microsoft's considerable teat for years, building the game that was going to the first THIRD generation MMOG (as if we'd ever left the first generation). Vanguard, Saga of Heroes was to be the be-all end-all game that pushed the MOG medium into new levels of immersiveness. It would be the hardcore game for the hardcore, the game for the people who loved Everquest and were disappointed in the "dumbing-down" or "easy mode" of later MMOG's, particularly World of Warcraft. It wouldn't be Everquest 2 with a new name, no it wouldn't be that. There would be corpse runs, and grouping and a heavy emphasis on endgame raids. There would be no quick travel from continent to continent, there would be harsh death penalties, and all the things that made Everquest an absolutely soul-grinding experience. This wasn't the game for WoW-tards as some of the more vocal members of the Hardcore Community dubbed those who liked games that didn't punish players. This would be HARDCORE!!!!
And then beta happened. Microsoft gave up on the zombie turd that Vanguard had become, pulling its funding of the game that shambled like an undead monster. Sony Online Entertainment, home of Brad's original creation Everquest, signed up to publish and host the game. But in what appears to be a canny move on their part, SOE only gave McQuaid a limited amount of time to release the game. The resultant release has been a trainwreck, made bearable only by the fact that certain things like billing were handled by SOE and thus weren't going to be screwed up by lack of testing. The game itself, on the other hand, was a bug-ridden mess.
Gameplay reeked of Everquest 1 with a few updates pinched from other games. The graphics engine choked even the fastest computers. Features like diplomacy, long-promised as a defining innovation in gameplay, turned out to be poorly implemented and poorly-supported. High-level content, especially raiding content, appears to be sparse when it exists at all. And one by one, all of the features that were touted by McQuaid as things the hardcore begged for have been whittled away. Leveling has gotten faster. Fast travel methods have been added in. Corpse runs are no longer necessary. Death penalties have been lessened. And through all of it, McQuaid has claimed that this isn't a lessening of The Vision™. No, Brad, it really is and that's ok, because The Vision™ sucked. It was a horrible way to design a game, and a horrible standard to put players up to.
Your game appears to be on life support. Rumors about the closing of Sigil abound. Subscribers numbers you once claimed would be around the 500,000 mark have struggled to get above 100,000 by all accounts. The game has failed, and with it, your vision. Perhaps if you stop thinking of yourself as an infallible gaming god, you could make a good game. Everquest had a great deal going for it, including a vast world with tons of lore to explore. Had you listened to the customers just a little bit, it might have become the game we all envisioned it could be. But instead, you chose to be a Raging Douchebag, and so I honor you with the title Raging Ranger Douchebag of Mithril. That's not a flaming sword, douchebag, but it sure does burn.
Labels: MMOG, Raging Douchebag Week
posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 4:01 PM
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