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Topic: Aradune gets a rez (Read 16634 times)
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March
Terracotta Army
Posts: 501
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Those with talent and drive. These people are great - they require little management, get shit done by themselves and do it well.
Sage advice. It still boggles my mind that both McQuaid and Jacobs both said star performers were no good for their teams. I suspect the inoperable phrase is "little management" Small companies often fail the transition to large companies because the Management that worked when you were small, doesn't work when you are big. The smartest founders are the ones who promote themselves to the board and hire real managers to manage their growth. |
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HaemishM
Staff Emeritus
Posts: 42666
the Confederate flag underneath the stone in my class ring
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Get it in writing.
Sorry, if you made it past the age of 25 without learning that fucking lesson, AND you actually thought a company like Microsoft would honor verbal agreements made by people who are no longer employed with the company, you really are the oxy-addled drooling idiot everyone thinks you are. You'd think after having been screwed out of the EQ pie by Smedley, he'd have learned that shit before he ever talked to Microsoft. Or at the very least, if he was any kind of conscientious employer (he wasn't, but still), he would realize that not getting things in writing could mean his employees starve. The whole part about "all-star" egos is ROFLCOPTERZ. First off, there were no All-Stars on his team, just a lot of fuckheads who kissed his ass and Keith Parkinson. If you can't manage all-star egos, the problem isn't their egos, it's your management skills.
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Draegan
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10043
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What is really sad is you guys talking about him so much it's on page 2. I don't think it's worth the schadenfreude.
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HaemishM
Staff Emeritus
Posts: 42666
the Confederate flag underneath the stone in my class ring
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We love kicking douchebags?
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Dtrain
Terracotta Army
Posts: 607
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There is no way this will stop being entertaining. It's the ultimate 2 for 1 deal - the thrills of a 90s era rock star game dev in free fall crash and burn, excited by the catalyst of early MMO standards being exposed for crap. I wouldn't be surprised if his next move was to marry some Romanian girl in space.
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UnSub
Contributor
Posts: 8064
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Sage advice. It still boggles my mind that both McQuaid and Jacobs both said star performers were no good for their teams.
In both cases it seems that there were star performers causing problems. However, there is a difference between inappropriate problems - such as husband and wife going at it doggy-style in the next cubicle during the lunch hour - and appropriate problems - such as "these systems aren't working correctly and the design is flawed". It's not easy to deal with the appropriate problems if you think that you are always right. |
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Sjofn
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8286
Truckasaurus Hands
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Did Jacobs ever actually say that? I remember the horrible yelling man-child saying it, but not Mark Jacobs.
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God Save the Horn Players
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Lantyssa
Terracotta Army
Posts: 20848
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I only recall Barnett speaking on the subject.
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Hahahaha! I'm really good at this!
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UnSub
Contributor
Posts: 8064
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Barnett was the source of that particular quote, but various behind-the-scenes views of how Mythic operates make a great case for certain devs not being able to handle criticisms and make adjustments.
Sure, the leadership theory that leaders are completely responsible for the culture of their company is a bit over-simplistic, but Mythic has a poor reputation for understanding its players and Jacobs was well known for arguing his point without ever listening to the other side.
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LK
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4268
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I feel like I'm in that last category. >_<
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"Then there's the double-barreled shotgun from Doom 2 - no-one within your entire household could be of any doubt that it's been fired because it sounds like God slamming a door on his fingers." - Yahtzee Croshaw
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aeiouy
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6
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I got a weird vibe from why he is doing this now. I just saw the first two installments yesterday. Later on I was listening to some generic MMOG related podcast. One of the ones where everyone goes around the horn and for some boring reason have to say what game they have playing this week? (I deserve scorn and ridicule for listening to it in the first place, I understand.) I was listening to an installment from a few weeks/months ago and they were talking about Bill Roper and the problems he had and how he managed to work through it by providing a mea culpa and doing a post-mortem on his experiences with his company. Hearing post-mortem twice in 12 hours for the first time ever as it related to MMORPGs was a bit jarring for me.
It certainly made me think what some others have said, that this is totally self-serving and a blatant attempt to try and let people know he is available and that he didn't really do anything wrong. In general I am pretty non-plussed about game developers/designers. I don't care what they do or who they do it to... if I like the game I play it, if I don't I don't. The issue with him and Sigil though, has been the first, and so far, only time I have ever actual held serious contempt for someone and what they did revolving around the development of the game and beyond.
The reality though, is if he has an ability to help design an MMORPG he could be useful to someone, and his baggage would mean jack and squat as almost no MMORPG players, let alone non-players, have any idea who he is. Sure a bunch of board jockeys like myself might chime in, but it would not have any actual impact on a game's development beyond what he could actually do or not do for the game. I guess that is the big question, though. Does he actually have any skills or abilities to bring to the table?
My assessment of what happened with Sigil is he did not have anywhere close to the requisite business management experience to run that company and did not hire anyone competent, that I know of, to run the operations side. Being the VP in charge of development in a subsidiary of a massive company does not provide all the requisite experience for running your own business. He needed someone to run the show from an operations standpoint, and it never seemed to me like that ever happened. That doesn't even take into account all the design side decisions.
So you throw out the potential of him being any kind of operations guy in a business, and the only question is, is he a capable developer/game designer? I have no idea myself. I don't think he did much of that with Sigil, and I think history has clouded how much he really did with EQ.
I don't claim to be a SOE/EQ/Sigil/Brad historian, these are just my personal observations from over the years, and certainly some of my assumptions could be based on things that are factually wrong.
Could you really see Brad leading a design team for someone else? I would have a hard time trusting that he has the necessary management skills to keep that ship on course. Could he be a second-banana designer/developer? I don't know. Could he keep his ego in check? So my question is, he is seemingly doing this to get back in the marketplace, but what is his target? He can't really expect someone to give him the keys to the kingdom again, especially not in this economic climate and with the Sigil history easily known. So where is he trying to go?
I would caveat all this with the fact that I have been a massive EQ fan since the beginning. It offered an amazing and unique experience that has not been duplicated for me. Hindsight, though, tells me a lot of that was purely coincidental and/or dumb luck. Not to mention with all the Brad bashing I have read over the years, I question how significant and impactful his role was on the original game. I certainly realize now that many more people deserve some of that pie, at the very least.
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aeiouy
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6
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Those with talent and drive. These people are great - they require little management, get shit done by themselves and do it well.
Sage advice. It still boggles my mind that both McQuaid and Jacobs both said star performers were no good for their teams. I suspect the inoperable phrase is "little management" Small companies often fail the transition to large companies because the Management that worked when you were small, doesn't work when you are big. The smartest founders are the ones who promote themselves to the board and hire real managers to manage their growth. The thing with McQuaid was this was almost the exact opposite. He was essentially a middle-manager in a large corporation and tasked with running a small business. Just like it is often a mistake for the small business owner growing big to hold on to the reins, it is at times equally as bad to do the opposite. All has to do with skill sets really. Certainly someone could be good at both. Bill Gates was good at both. A lot of people are not though, as you said. |
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aeiouy
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6
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Interesting assumption you made there. |
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dusematic
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2250
Diablo 3's Number One Fan
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lol
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Goreschach
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1546
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Interesting assumption you made there. Butthurt much? |
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Salamok
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2803
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Aradune needs to get his ass punted to India for his next project. If this were one of the requirements i'd be all for someone throwing $$ at him.
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