Mobhunter has reported that Jeff Butler has resigned from Sony Online in order to work on a new gaming project in development by Brad McQuaid, who also left Sony Online late last year.
This has been confirmed by our sources.
Jeff Butler was one of the founders of EverQuest with Brad McQuaid and Executive Producer on a number of EverQuest expansions. He was also involved in a number of other titles being developed by Sony Online.
Submitted by Baelish, 3:32 PM EST
I was wondering if maybe they left becuase of recent compromises made in The Vision... Or maybe the compromises can now be made because they have left?
The Compromises I'm talking about are the things like Translocates, Soulbinders, /Targetgroupbuff on, etc...
Things that are generally good changes, although they don't seem like they fit into The Vision as we've come to know it in the past...
I don't remember what Brad's statements were for leaving (and Jeff hasn't really made any yet). But I dunno, I'm just not sure what changes I might expect from this sort of stuff.
Well, I just have ta hope, ya know? 
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Lashanna had this to say about Reading Rainbow:
I was wondering if maybe they left becuase of recent compromises made in The Vision... Or maybe the compromises can now be made because they have left?The Compromises I'm talking about are the things like Translocates, Soulbinders, /Targetgroupbuff on, etc...
Things that are generally good changes, although they don't seem like they fit into The Vision as we've come to know it in the past...
I've been wondering about this myself. However, the fact that all these nice changes start to finally happen at the same time that those two jump ship makes me VERY reluctant to look at anything they may be working on now. I didn't get these improvements in EQ just to go looking for a game that doesn't have them.
He played in the beta.. joined the company when it went live to head up the initial CS team. He moved up to producer of the team during Kunark... This is common knowledge...
Don't these sites do -any- research at all?
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And I was all like 'Oh yeah?' and Rowyl was all like:
Don't these sites do -any- research at all?
Nope, 
You know anything about any of this, though?
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Rowyl stumbled drunkenly to the keyboard and typed:
He played in the beta.. joined the company when it went live to head up the initial CS team. He moved up to producer of the team during Kunark... This is common knowledge...
Oh yah! Now I remember hearing all that before.
Hummm, you might disregard my first post then. I'm not sure that it really applies, now that I realize just who they are talking about (and that said person is NOT a founder).
There are different people to run a bussiness. People who start bussiness, people who develope bussiness, people who just put thier name on a bussiness. People who know how to help a bussiness die. Ect Ect.
So maybe these guys jobs are done in EQ and they are ready to move on?
Look at AOL and all the changes they go through all the time. So Steve Case is the founder. Does not mean he is a decission maker. I quite often heard him say talk to blah blah or that will be out in the yearly report or some such because he did not know the answer. And he would let the person in charge of that project field the questions and such.
People do not become who they are alone.
These guys who are working on a new project, game, whatever. Good for them. It may be good or it might not. I'm sure EQ was not thier first. And obviously it wont be thier last.
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Ryuujin had this to say about Punky Brewster:
Hmm, well I'm more interested in seeing what 2 of the founders are working on NOW.
Honestly, Im not.
Brad is pretty much "The Vision" in the flesh and "The Vision" = bad for EQ.
I honestly feel the game has benefitted without his guiding hand.
Ferrel!
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Ferrel had this to say about Robocop:
Brad is pretty much "The Vision" in the flesh and "The Vision" = bad for EQ..
The "Vision" = the GD reason EQ lasted, unlike AO and DAoC
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Tier had this to say about Captain Planet:
The "Vision" = the GD reason EQ lasted, unlike AO and DAoC
Explain further if you please. Quantify, justify if you dont mind.
Ferrel!
The "Vision", as in restricted view of class balance, nerfs and changes, has only one objective: To give the players they miss. This way, you will be driven to level and move on in the world. If not for leveling being hard, everyone would get to 60 in no time and get disinterested quickly.
Anyway, you get the idea. The Vision makes players feel like constantly lacking, and that's exactly it's objective.
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Ferrel had this to say about Punky Brewster:
Explain further if you please. Quantify, justify if you dont mind.
The vision = kill mob A, get experience points B, maybe end up getting phat lewts C, waiting longass downtime D. Rinse repeat.
Although it's highly simple, it's been proven to be quite addicting. Most humans do infact like the skinner box "push the button get a cookie" type games.
That's why after even quitting the game, many go back. It's just plain addicting for many.
I'm pretty confident that is what 'The Vision' is at heart
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Ferrel wrote this then went back to looking for porn:
Honestly, Im not.
Oh haven't you heard?
They're working on this game called "QuestForever". It's kinda like DEKUMUD but with a 3d interface! It sounds cool!
But Brad's version of the Vision was -too much- of a time sink. His refusal to put in things like /targetgroupbuff and soulbinders was just ignorant. It removed very very small portions of the timesink and made players happy. Stuff like that is really a win-win situation had these been put in earlier. Brad was too attached to the original Everquest. It was his baby and he didnt want to give it up. Once he lost it, he left. That is my take on the whole thing. [ 01-07-2002: Message edited by: Pesco ]
The XG philosophy is, "Humans were made imperfect so that they would live by helping each other."
EQ is a group game, built around the classes helping each other. The world is for travel in groups, fighting in groups, and questing in groups. If you don't want to play a group game, why are you playing EverQuest?
I always imagined Brad's "vision" as a small group of friends meeting on-line a couple times a week. If they didn't already know where they wanted to go, they would decide on a place, and then, as a group, go there. Do you remember when traveling from Qeynos to Freeport was an adventure, and not an inconvenience? Well, that's the vision.
Now obviously, this vision isn't one-hundred perfect. But on issues like binding and teleports, well, they were working as intended. Soulbinders wouldn't be a big deal if there were places for melees to bind outside cities. Of course, those (three?!) places are out of the way and not really worth it, so melees will never need to ask for a bind ever again.
They nerfed the vision!
So to recap. A lot of EQ's "problems" aren't from the game; they're from the players. If you can imagine how absurd it is to call a lack of story content in a racing game a problem, then you'll see where I'm coming from.
Rar.
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Check out the big brain on Pesco!
The Vision = Timesink yes....But Brad's version of the Vision was -too much- of a time sink. His refusal to put in things like /targetgroupbuff and soulbinders was just ignorant. It removed very very small portions of the timesink and made players happy. Stuff like that is really a win-win situation had these been put in earlier. Brad was too attached to the original Everquest. It was his baby and he didnt want to give it up. Once he lost it, he left. That is my take on the whole thing.
Wow... That's pretty much exactly what I was thinking, ^_^
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And I was all like 'Oh yeah?' and Pesco was all like:
The Vision = Timesink yes....But Brad's version of the Vision was -too much- of a time sink. His refusal to put in things like /targetgroupbuff and soulbinders was just ignorant. It removed very very small portions of the timesink and made players happy. Stuff like that is really a win-win situation had these been put in earlier. Brad was too attached to the original Everquest. It was his baby and he didnt want to give it up. Once he lost it, he left. That is my take on the whole thing.
Ah yes but didn't Biggy-Brad criticize the amount of downtime in EQ in post-employment interviews?
Or is that a plot to save face in light of the positive reaction to the new changes? (there isn't much I'd put past Verant employees!)
