From an old
interview (http://everquest.allakhazam.com/news/sdetail414.html?story=414) with Brad McQuaid on Allakhazam's Magical Realm.

The EverQuest players are fanatical about the game, which has led over the years to its share of criticism, fair and unfair, of both you and Sony. What is your reaction to the level of criticism you sometimes hear.

It varies, really, and you’re right – sometimes it’s fair and sometimes it’s unfair. We certainly made our fair share of mistakes during the learning process of developing, launching, and then maintaining and updating a massively multiplayer game.

There are several factors that make MMOGs unique, including the fact that these games can be patched. New content, new features, fixes, and adjustments can (and should) be made after the game launches. And while I think this is one of the greatest strengths MMOGs have, it has also led to some frustration amongst players when the status quo is changed on them. Overall, I think it’s just something that will take time for both players to get used to and for developers to get better at. Sometimes, in the attempt to balance or tweak something, developers can make a problem worse, or overreact to it. Likewise, players can sometimes lose sight of what’s really good for the game as a whole and instead get upset about a change they perceive adversely affects them personally.

Another issue is what I call ‘MMOG Burnout’. When you play a game for a few days or a few weeks, and then grow tired of it, it’s usually not a big deal. You shrug, put it back on the shelf, and grab the next game. With MMOGs, however, one typically plays them significantly longer. And this is where the Catch-22 arises: it seems that often, the longer a player plays a game, the more upset they are when they finally do become burnt out on that game. This is a bit ironic when you consider that, typically, the better the game the longer it keeps the player enthralled. What’s the solution? Well, that’s a tough one… hopefully it’s something players will begin to recognize more often, and that they’ll leave or take a break when they start becoming really irritated or upset. Also, hopefully developers will do a better job at recognizing irritants and addressing them while at the same time safeguarding the health of their game in its entirety.

Lastly, you have the fact that we’re still well within the first generation of MMOGs. There simply aren’t that many out there. I think you currently have a fairly large group of people that are interested in massively multiplayer online games in general, but have yet to find one that really fits their needs and tastes. Since there are so few MMOGs (and since many of the ones that have been released are rather similar), many players are forced to either not play or play the game that most closely fits their tastes. In a sense, they have no choice but to settle. When you combine that with natural burnout and the fact that these games change and are patched, then, over time, the features or other aspects of the game the player never really cared for become more and more annoying. The solution here is, of course, to let the genre mature and to support these games so more and more of them will be developed. That way the games will not only get better through natural competition and through developers learning what works and doesn’t work, but also there will be more choices. Players will be able to dial in more accurately to the MMOG that fits their tastes… are they more of a power gamer? A role-player? A casual gamer? Do they prefer PvP or PvE? Is fantasy their thing, or is it science fiction? Do they prefer a game more focused on item acquisition or skill development? Are they looking for alternate non-combat related advancement mechanisms?

Until these issues are addressed in the many ways they need to be, there will be criticisms. Gamers are vocal people, and online gamers have the wonderful avenue of expressing their likes and dislikes on the Internet, on various message boards and such. This is good – good for the player and good for the developer. The feedback is priceless. And while some of the criticisms take the form of flames and can be hurtful, I think the majority of it is very healthy. Developers need to continue to interact with their player base and to listen.

Why did I post this question and it's answer? I think it nicely gives the larger picture about how games like EQ and their player bases change over time. How the rise in membership of the bitter druid's club might mark the success of the game and not it's failure. How nerfs really do make the game better in the long term from giving abilties to other classes like more healing to druids and shaman or making charm less overpowered in a new expansion.

Players will be able to dial in more accurately to the MMOG that fits their tastes… are they more of a power gamer? A role-player? A casual gamer? Do they prefer PvP or PvE? Is fantasy their thing, or is it science fiction? Do they prefer a game more focused on item acquisition or skill development? Are they looking for alternate non-combat related advancement mechanisms?


I've always maintained that you can't do a good job making a game satisfying to both casual and hardcore players. You gotta pick your target audience and go for it. A casual player game is going to be aimed at people who play X hours per week versus a hardcore game might be several times more hours per week. And you've got to make progress in the game scale to that level.

Trying to satisfy both is nuts. Casual players will feel like the game is time intensive for them to see any significant progress and hard cores will burn through the content too fast. As you ramp up to solve the hardcore problem, casual players feel like they'll never get to the end game and they give up.

Trying to satisfy both is nuts. Casual players will feel like the game is time intensive for them to see any significant progress and hard cores will burn through the content too fast. As you ramp up to solve the hardcore problem, casual players feel like they'll never get to the end game and they give up.

I totally disagree.

What has made EQ cool is the way it brought so many different types of gamers together. With many different styles.

Just because it can be messy doesn't mean it was wrong. Messy is fun sometimes.

But they need to keep working hard to address diverse gamer issues. It is a problem when the design overly segregrates playstyles. It's not necessary. Some separation, like during Kunark, is fine; too much separation and you lose some of the magic that EQ had.

Lol, editing out that long post, no one cares about all of that except me :).

I did enjoy reading that interview and can't wait for Brad's new game, Vanguard, to come out.

That was a damn good read. Thanks for posting it. Brad McQuaid knows his stuff.

Hehe, rember when 90% of all posts about Brad were flames? :)

I sure do, and often well deserved. Time and distance has allowed most to forget many of the issues on which Brad was simply wrong and too stubborn to change his mind about. I can only hope that he's learned some things about game design since he left the EQ team, because all the great ideas in the world mean squat if one of your decisions pisses people off too much to play your game, and you cant admit your error.

Tiane, the part with "hopefully it’s something players will begin to recognize more often, and that they’ll leave or take a break when they start becoming really irritated or upset." applies to you 100%.

The original EQ greatly exceeded projections for the number of players, and it grew in leaps and bounds with every expansion until Brad left. Nothing is perfect and the game, the developers and customer support sure weren't and aren't. You have to evaluate the game overall looking at the good and the bad. Was it fun to play? Did you get many memorable hours of enjoyment? Do you still enjoy playing? This last question is the key - because when you answer no it's time to take a break and not go all bitter about all the shortcomings. If all you can do is focus on every little shortcoming and flaw of the game, the developers, etc etc it's time to take a break.

That you assume I spend all (or indeed, any) of my time lately playing shows a serious misunderstanding of what, not just I, but any player who doesnt play much anymore has to say about EQ. I have many times taken months at a time off from the game, I just dont choose to advertise it with dramatic goodbye posts and such. I find that they refresh me, so that if/when I do come back again things seem a little less tired, but the fact is that the underlying issues simply have not changed in years and years.

EQ's problems are evident whether you play the game or not. The very first defense of people who are unwilling to examine the problems of the game is the "well if you hate it so much just quit" defense, followed by "well you dont even play so why do you come here and read about it?", followed by "you havent played in over a year, nothing you say can possibly apply." And the fact is, that's not any sort of defense at all. That's just trying to shore up your own beliefs by refusing to hear any other opinions.

I might ask you the same thing... if you dont want to hear differing opinions than yours, why do you read messageboards? But that's completely irrelevant to the issues of EQ, Brad, or anything else that has to do with MMOG's.

Debate the issues and the concepts, leave the personal crap out of it.

I do read boards to learn things and see different points of view. I post to hopefully let others get the same from reading them as I do. I also think it's not productive to be at either extreme of 'everything is perfect' or 'everything is broken' as neither viewpoint is helpful in improving things. As such when I see things turning too negative I tend to post to counter it. Strong emotions also tend to make people gravitate towards the extremes and a cooling off period which for EQ is a break from the game can move them more towards a middle ground.

Perhaps we have BAKs instead of VAKS?

Ah, well, all game designers have their groupies...:)

I totally disagree.

What has made EQ cool is the way it brought so many different types of gamers together. With many different styles.



That was true up through about Velious. Once Luclin and later expansions came in, a greater division became apparent and the powergaming class pretty much became dominant. Once PoP and LoY came out there was nothing for casual gamers to do any more without grinding tradeskills or grinding xp in the same spot for days, etc. Just my take, and that's why I finally quit for good last fall. :)