So sad to hear this news this morning.
RIP Aradune. 
Yeah… 51. That’s too early.
McQuaid was the lead designer for the original EverQuest which ate years of my life and many others. His ideas laid the groundwork for this game, World of Warcraft.
The man with the plan is gone. Will anyone emerge to take his place?
7 Likes
He died on the 18th.
I never played any Everquest but now i feel like i should to see what he has done.
1 Like
that’s sad news for sure 
I spent a lot of time in EQ, still has my fondest MMO memories there.
The pantheon team are about to make the greatest game that has come out since WoW. The amount of love and soul that BM put into game design was unmatched. I have a feeling that now they are going to be even more motivated to create such a masterpiece in his honor, as he deserves.
The gaming community lost a good one this week, lads.
4 Likes
Its F2P now but its nothing like how it was when it first came out. Closest you can get to it would really be to play a homebrew server like Project99. Also to any mods thinking I linked something illegal I didn’t Daybreak actually has a deal with Project99 and they are cool with it as long as they don’t expand past the first 3 expansions.
There are also progression servers similar to WOW classic but they include alot of the QOL improvements added to the game such as spells at lower levels, faster XP, maps, shared bank, etc. They also require a sub to play.
Anyways I hate to hear that especially that young. I remember playing EQ first time around 2000 shortly after Kunark was release. Doubt there will ever be a way to recreate that feeling of a new style of game being completely lost with no idea what to do. At the time clipping plain was set really low and I remember getting lost in Qeynos newb area and unable to find my corpse. I was worried I would lose my rusty 2h sword and nearly full set of cloth armor lol.
5 Likes
Really sad to hear.
I played Everquest for 7 years and Everquest II for a few more.
The game of his I truly loved though was Vanguard. It was flawed and after being rushed out terribly was so full of bugs and engine issues that it met with disaster, but the feel and style of the game will forever remain my very favorite - and that was all Brad McQuaid.
Rest in peace, Brad.
Thank you for the wonderful worlds.
2 Likes
Why only the first 3 xpacs?
Pressure was on to expand to a larger audience. So some really bad decisions were made like instancing content and making the game more accessible to the lobby player type.
I totally get that reasoning but man, I had SO much fun during the LDoN Xpac (Lost Dungeons of Norrath.)
Those things were the real first wave of instanced stuff but required SO much teamwork, careful pulling and Crowd Control that I just had a ridiculously good time with a few guildies and people we met on our Server.
That’s so sad. I met my Husband in vaniller EQ.
=/
1 Like
Yeah there is a huge amount of diversity in the MMORPG genre. One of the primary reasons I say we can’t reasonably get everyone playing the same way. It’s not going to happen.
I mentioned probably a year ago at this point that the game could be far more configurable than it is today. Where you create a character and specify these things like a difficulty on world content, a party requirement, pvp, etc.
So when that character enters the world it can be modeled into an EQ 1999 experience or a 2019 BFA experience. This gives us all what we want without creating an entirely new IP / assets / etc.
Maybe offer a separate round of achievements for people playing the old MMORPG model over the new one. As an idea.
1 Like
Hurts to hear this , still cant believe it. He pretty much created the career of Jeff Kaplan and Alex Afrasiabi that helped make WoW so great. Probably many other great devs.
His “Visionary Realm” will continue. Pantheon is still coming.
Brad McQuaid will never be forgotten /kneel
1 Like