Brad McQuaid: The Once and Future King?2009-11-09 00:00:00Ten years after the release of EverQuest — one of the most beloved and revered MMOs of all time — one if it’s creator’s Brad McQuaid has apparently resurfaced. For a while there have probably been more sightings of Elvis and Osama Bin Laden then the reclusive Brad McQuaid.Due to his bungling and mismanagement of Sigil and their subsequent failure Brad has been portrayed as an arch-villain in the MMO world in recent years. We are a very unforgiving community it seems. Failure is something that rabid MMO fans have a hard time dealing with. We crucify our MMO messiahs when they fail and never let them forget it. Today’s hero is tomorrow’s zero.The Vision and the HypeGoing back a few years I remember the buzz surrounding Sigil all too well. Many MMO players impressed by the success and impact of EverQuest were hoping for another revolution in virtual worlds with Brad’s 2nd project: Vanguard. Although we appreciated many of the advances of Blizzard’s new WoW, we saw many trends we didn’t like. We felt that MMOs had yet to realize their full potential.Entire communities, websites and fans were invested both mentally and financially in Vanguard and they followed its progress with fanatical interest. My wife and I even ventured down to Las Vegas to attend a fan event called Fanguard where I wrote one of my first articles.At that fan gathering in Vegas I was fortunate enough to meet Brad, Jeff and the team. Little did I know of the chaos and turmoil that was really going on at Sigil. Years later after reading my article I admit that much my praise and fervor was due to my own hopes and enthusiasm for the genre that I had projected onto Vanguard and the people at Sigil.Later in 2006 at E3 I visited periphery of the SOE booth — the actual inside of the booth was by invitation only and for the “press”. Outside the booth I managed to track Brad down and spoke with him just briefly; this was right after they sold Vanguard to SOE. He seemed on edge and perhaps too preoccupied to talk to me at length.Months later after Sigil started to fold and ...
