Tag: Brad McQuaid

PSA: Brad Mcquaid Memorial Stream Nov. 22 at 7p.m. EST


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MMO Fallout would like to remind our readers that Visionary Realms is hosting a community memorial stream in honor of the late Brad Mcquaid. The stream will be held tonight, November 22, at 7p.m. Eastern at the link above.

Industry Veteran Brad Mcquaid Has Passed Away


The industry has come together to give its final farewell to Brad Mcquaid who passed away in his home this week. He was 51 years old.

Mcquaid’s passing was made public by his coworkers at Visionary Realms on Twitter today.

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Brad Mcquaid has had a long history in the gaming industry dating back to the late 80’s. His impact on the MMORPG field can be seen with his work in Everquest and Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. Mcquaid left Sony Online Entertainment and went on to become Chief Creative Officer at Visionary Realms working on the MMO Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen.

Mcquaid is the second veteran developer from Sony Online Entertainment to pass away this week as just a couple days ago Matt McDonald also passed away.

[Editorial] A Moratorium On Pantheon Articles


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Those of you who read this website know that I hate to kick a guy when he’s down, so let me just preface this by saying that I believe Brad McQuaid is a good person, that Pantheon is being developed with good intentions, and that the man behind it is overall a nice guy.

So without further ado, I won’t be writing any more news pieces on Pantheon crowd funding attempts, and hopefully you will all understand why.

Back when Pantheon first launched its post-Kickstarter private funding campaign, I just had to write up a piece on how unappealing the campaign looked to potential backers, not to mention how poor the rewards were. Visionary Realms wants $5 a month just to post on their forums and $15 a month to chat with the developers during live streams. Feedback, something most developers (especially those desperately seeking an audience) would accept for free. I also noted that these plans give you absolutely nothing when the game actually comes out, presuming it ever does, and suggested my own plan to get people involved in a way that gives them more reason to subscribe, fund the game, and hand out rewards that will make people want to pledge.

Well that idea wasn’t taken, and apparently the website funding isn’t going too well because the company has turned to yet another source of income: Patreon. Patreon, for those of you who have never heard of it, is a bit like Kickstarter except your pledge is recurring. Patreon has become a good source of income for people who want to cut the advertising and give their audience the chance to fund directly. For Pantheon, it is yet another sign that the audience might be there, but they aren’t exactly chomping at the bit.

I actually held off on this piece for a couple of days to see how the Patreon would go, and so far only three people have signed up to the tune of $17. This time the proposed rewards are even worse than the forum subscriptions. $20 a month minimum gets a message sent to you in chat, on a screenshot of Pantheon. For $100 you can have a screenshot sent of an NPC you name. For $200, well, you get your name at the end of the credits.

Furthermore, Visionary Realms wants one thousand dollars minimum just to release a monthly progress video, and judging by the reward tiers they fully expected that some people would throw in hundreds of dollars for the most menial of rewards, as opposed to simply heading over to the main website and donating there for game-related goodies.

There are a lot of problems with Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen, but the primary one that I see is that Visionary Realms needs to stop treating it like it is already a hot commodity. This kind of attitude requires leverage, and at this point Visionary Realms doesn’t have any. The fact that even with its community, only three patrons have contributed ($17 total) should say everything about community enthusiasm.

MMOs need money, and money requires an active and loyal community. If you want money just to play ball, most people are going to go elsewhere, diminishing your active community and making your proposal look even worse to potential investors. When Pantheon does fade quietly into the dust, those same people who had been interested at one point will look back and say “boy I’m glad I didn’t pay anything into that.” Maybe by then Brad Mcquaid will look back and wonder how things would have changed if he had figured out how to bring in people rather than try to monetize them right at the door.

But then again, this is just my opinion.

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Pantheon Returns To Full Development


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Visionary Realms has announced that Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen is back in full development mode. Development initially ceased following an unsuccessful Kickstarter campaign, only to be revived under a team of volunteers last month. Brad McQuaid discusses in detail what the team is focusing on presently.

The Programmer’s efforts with the new network code are essential. Within 1-2 weeks we will be able to (internally) create accounts, create characters, and then log into one of the game’s zones. This requires the client to be able to connect to the servers, and the server code to be able to talk to the database. The good news is that we had some of this working before, so we can reference that.

Read the entire announcement at the link below.

(Source: Pantheon)

Pantheon Development Resumes With Volunteers


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Brad McQuaid has posted an announcement on the Pantheon website detailing the future of the MMO and Visionary Realms. The good news is that development will be resuming on Pantheon under a new remote team of volunteers. Visionary Realms is looking for people with experience in UNITY, as well as designers, moderators, and lore writers.

“When we do bring in funding and restart that campaign to reach out to Angel Investors, Publishers, and the like, and when we can have an office and paid employees, we will then look at the volunteer force and, on a case by case basis, determine if that person wants to and should become a contractor or, if they can re-locate, possibly a full employee.”

You can check out the entire announcement at the link below. Brad McQuaid has promised regular blogs detailing the company’s progress.

(Source: Visionary Realms)

Development Ceases On Pantheon


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Visionary Realms has announced that development on Pantheon has slowed to a halt, noting that the initial funding has been depleted and the studio can no longer guarantee paychecks to its employees. The post on the official website states that development has “slowed down,” while a tweet from KTAM Radio that was retweeted by Brad McQuaid states that development has ceased.

You heard it on #KTAMRadio first: @PantheonRotF to cease development due to lack of funds. Will resume when funding increases/resumes.

Visionary Realms is currently seeking investors for Pantheon. Any donations made until such funding is received will go towards keeping the website up.

(Source: Pantheon)

Pantheon’s Forum Subscription


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If you’ve been following Pantheon’s Kickstarter, then you already know that the project has failed to meet its goal within the allotted time. Like many other companies, Visionary Realms has ventured into a self-hosted private funding system where people donate directly to the the company rather than through a third party. Those with money to burn can head on over to the Pantheon website and throw in anywhere up to ten thousand dollars for the highest tiers of rewards. The $100 tier is actually a great deal, when you consider that it includes two copies of the game, plus alpha and beta access and a bunch of exclusive items and titles that gamers tend to go nuts over.

The $100 tier and higher also give lifetime access to the supporter and apprentice developer benefits. What are those, you ask? You must not have looked at the picture at the top of this article. For $5 a month, you gain the privilege of posting in the public areas of the forums and wikis, and access to the supporter forums. For $15, you get all that plus the ability to chat with the developers during live streaming. Oh and you get a special color for your forum avatar for both.

Now I fully understand people wanting to help get a game out the door, which is why Kickstarter exists, but fifteen dollars a month? For the privilege of posting on a forum and being either ignored or drowned out by the sea of voices? For the special opportunity to communicate with the developers while they Live Stream, a feat that a growing number of early-access developers have managed to provide for absolutely free? A special color next to your name? The chance to fully understand how to sink money into a pit and receive nothing in return? Because aside from what is essentially a more expensive and recurring version of Something Awful’s forum fee, you are ultimately paying for the good feeling of saying at least you tried to help. Subscribing over the course of a full year would cost $180, and you get nothing. Not a free copy of the game, no items, no titles, no nothing.

At this point you’re probably thinking “why not just pick a higher tier?” Understandable, but fifteen dollars a month for a lot of people is more feasible than a straight up payment of $180, and easier to convince those who have the money but might simply not want to part with such a sum at once. This is why many stores adopt a layaway plan, and Visionary Realms obviously understands this concept because they are using it themselves. Plans that cost over one thousand dollars all have the option to pay off over the course of a year, plus what appears to be about 20% interest.

So because I’m a problem solver, and I believe that this is a factor of bad planning rather than malicious intent (dear internet trolls), I have devised a method that I believe would bring more interest to the Pantheon forum subscription. The idea is simple, take the subscription and tie it into the layaway plan. Take the standard reward tiers and boost them up, and allow accounts to automatically fall into those brackets once they hit a certain cumulative total.

Just as an example and a rough idea, I’ve listed a personal draft of the new tiers, compared to the one-off price, which I would submit had I worked at Visionary Realms.

  • $25 Seeker’s Pledge – $40 (3 months). Includes beta access, digital copy, and name reservation.
  • $35 Fallen’s Pledge – $55 (4 months). Seeker reward plus title of “Fallen.”
  • $45 Explorer’s Pledge – $70 (5 months). Seeker reward plus title and item.
  • $60 Risen’s Pledge – $90 (6 months). Seeker reward plus title, item, and character slot.
  • $75 Founder’s Pledge – $110 (8 months). Seeker reward plus title, item, character slot, backpack.
  • $85 Warder’s Pledge – $140 (10 months). Seeker reward plus title, item, character slot, backpack, tunic.

And so on and so forth.

If you figure that the Kickstarter estimated date for delivery was January 2017, someone who pays $5 a month starting now would have put in $175 by 2017, or enough to go over the inflated Warder’s pledge by a fair amount. A person who pays $15 a month during that same time period would generate $525. Now I am not a marketing expert, but I think it is safe to say that offering reward tiers, even at the greatly inflated prices I have set above, would bring in more revenue than what I can only assume is a hope that people will simply choose the $100 or higher options to avoid the forum subscription altogether.

Like I said, I’m not a marketing expert, but I do know that $140 for the top pledge over the course of ten months is a lot more money than no dollars over the same time period.

Any thoughts? Drop a comment below.

Pantheon's Forum Subscription


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If you’ve been following Pantheon’s Kickstarter, then you already know that the project has failed to meet its goal within the allotted time. Like many other companies, Visionary Realms has ventured into a self-hosted private funding system where people donate directly to the the company rather than through a third party. Those with money to burn can head on over to the Pantheon website and throw in anywhere up to ten thousand dollars for the highest tiers of rewards. The $100 tier is actually a great deal, when you consider that it includes two copies of the game, plus alpha and beta access and a bunch of exclusive items and titles that gamers tend to go nuts over.

The $100 tier and higher also give lifetime access to the supporter and apprentice developer benefits. What are those, you ask? You must not have looked at the picture at the top of this article. For $5 a month, you gain the privilege of posting in the public areas of the forums and wikis, and access to the supporter forums. For $15, you get all that plus the ability to chat with the developers during live streaming. Oh and you get a special color for your forum avatar for both.

Now I fully understand people wanting to help get a game out the door, which is why Kickstarter exists, but fifteen dollars a month? For the privilege of posting on a forum and being either ignored or drowned out by the sea of voices? For the special opportunity to communicate with the developers while they Live Stream, a feat that a growing number of early-access developers have managed to provide for absolutely free? A special color next to your name? The chance to fully understand how to sink money into a pit and receive nothing in return? Because aside from what is essentially a more expensive and recurring version of Something Awful’s forum fee, you are ultimately paying for the good feeling of saying at least you tried to help. Subscribing over the course of a full year would cost $180, and you get nothing. Not a free copy of the game, no items, no titles, no nothing.

At this point you’re probably thinking “why not just pick a higher tier?” Understandable, but fifteen dollars a month for a lot of people is more feasible than a straight up payment of $180, and easier to convince those who have the money but might simply not want to part with such a sum at once. This is why many stores adopt a layaway plan, and Visionary Realms obviously understands this concept because they are using it themselves. Plans that cost over one thousand dollars all have the option to pay off over the course of a year, plus what appears to be about 20% interest.

So because I’m a problem solver, and I believe that this is a factor of bad planning rather than malicious intent (dear internet trolls), I have devised a method that I believe would bring more interest to the Pantheon forum subscription. The idea is simple, take the subscription and tie it into the layaway plan. Take the standard reward tiers and boost them up, and allow accounts to automatically fall into those brackets once they hit a certain cumulative total.

Just as an example and a rough idea, I’ve listed a personal draft of the new tiers, compared to the one-off price, which I would submit had I worked at Visionary Realms.

  • $25 Seeker’s Pledge – $40 (3 months). Includes beta access, digital copy, and name reservation.
  • $35 Fallen’s Pledge – $55 (4 months). Seeker reward plus title of “Fallen.”
  • $45 Explorer’s Pledge – $70 (5 months). Seeker reward plus title and item.
  • $60 Risen’s Pledge – $90 (6 months). Seeker reward plus title, item, and character slot.
  • $75 Founder’s Pledge – $110 (8 months). Seeker reward plus title, item, character slot, backpack.
  • $85 Warder’s Pledge – $140 (10 months). Seeker reward plus title, item, character slot, backpack, tunic.

And so on and so forth.

If you figure that the Kickstarter estimated date for delivery was January 2017, someone who pays $5 a month starting now would have put in $175 by 2017, or enough to go over the inflated Warder’s pledge by a fair amount. A person who pays $15 a month during that same time period would generate $525. Now I am not a marketing expert, but I think it is safe to say that offering reward tiers, even at the greatly inflated prices I have set above, would bring in more revenue than what I can only assume is a hope that people will simply choose the $100 or higher options to avoid the forum subscription altogether.

Like I said, I’m not a marketing expert, but I do know that $140 for the top pledge over the course of ten months is a lot more money than no dollars over the same time period.

Any thoughts? Drop a comment below.

Pantheon Flying Under Kickstarter Goal


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In case you haven’t been paying attention, Pantheon’s Kickstarter ends in just under a week. With six days left in the campaign, Pantheon’s Kickstarter has still yet to reach the halfway mark towards its $800 thousand goal. The fact that several high-level backers have apparently withdrawn their pledges doesn’t help the overall figures either. Regardless of what you blame the shortcomings on, it is more than evident at this point that, barring some magical second coming of Donald Trump, that Pantheon will not be meeting its goal.

As far as Pantheon goes, failure on Kickstarter is not the end of the game by a long shot. Brad McQuaid has posted numerous times on Twitter that work shall continue on the MMO while Visionary Realms seeks out alternate forms of investment.

(Source: Kickstarter)

Brad McQuaid Responds To Vanguard Criticism


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Brad McQuaid is seeking eight hundred thousand dollars via Kickstarter for Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen, and not everyone is falling over themselves to hand their money over. For many, the disastrous launch of Vanguard is still fresh on their minds, an event that is causing them to be less than confident in Pantheon’s prospects.  One gamer, Clmeas left the following comment on a Kotaku article promoting the Kickstarter.

Microsoft gave him $40,000,000 to make Vanguard with almost absolute creative control and he still released an unfinished, buggy, POS of a game after 5 YEARS in development.

The comment garnered a response from McQuaid himself, noting some of the challenges that Vanguard faced in its development from internal and external sources.

Microsoft funded us to almost $30M, after which there was a regime change at Microsoft and virtually all of the people we had been working with disappeared. The new people didn’t want to make Vanguard… they really didn’t want to make an MMO at all, and if they were, they wanted a Wow-clone-beater. We broke away from them and I turned to SOE and got them to fund as much as they could. Unfortunately, it fell short of the 6 months we needed, and the game was released too early.

WoW came in around $80M and they took at least 3 years to develop it (probably more, but 3 years after they *announced* the game — I have a feeling they were already working on it).

Star Wars: The Old Republic took at least 3 years, had hundreds of people involved, and cost between $150M and $200M (no one really knows for sure except the publisher).

Anyway, just some numbers for perspective. In any case, Vanguard was released too early but if you go check it out now it’s a solid game. The world is underpopulated but beyond that I’m still very proud of what we accomplished. 

It’s good to see that McQuaid is proud of what Vanguard has become. You can check out the Kickstarter for Pantheon here or follow the link on the side-bar.

(Source: Kotaku)