Brad McQuaid: I was the Creative Director and Executive Producer on EQ 2, as well as the author of the first EQ 2 design doc, from 1999 (its inception) to October 2001 when I left SOE. I was also the Producer on EQ 1 for its full development period, co-author of its design document, and also either Producer or Executive Producer on Kunark, Velious, Planetside, Sovereign, and SW:G.
Also, several other key people at Sigil were also on the EQ 2 team in varying capacities, some up to the April 2002 time frame or so.
Our goal at the time (1999-2001) was to make a true sequel for EQ and to improve upon it.
Obviously, after I left, the game went through several more executive producers and managers and designers and doesn't resemble very much in its final form what it was designed to be early on. The game evolved, design changed, goals and target audience changed, etc. (note, this is not a criticism in anyway, but merely what naturally occurs when the reigns of a project are handed over to other people during the development cycle of a project, as well as the natural result of changing goals (for example, I believe SOE has since made it very clear that later EQ 2 was *not* designed to be a true sequel to EQ 1 but more of a complementary game, designed to appeal to other types of gamers, and to co-exist with EQ 1, *not* replace it)). In other words, I am *not* commenting on how EQ 2 turned out or changed in terms of whether I agreed with those changes – truly, that’s not my business, but SOE’s.
But there are undoubtedly some obvious similarities because of the people involved during both the origin of both games. That said, Vanguard's design was created after we left SOE and was written from scratch, without any reference to EQ 2 (those designs, afte all, did not belong to us) and the core game, many of its goals, and its target audience are very different, especially if you dig a bit below the surface.
Some people have called Vanguard the spiritual successor, or at least a spiritual successor, to EQ 1, and while that’s not technically true, I can understand people’s reasoning. At the time, I and others were tasked to create a worthy sequel to EQ, and while again the Vanguard design was written both later and separately and by not only me but many other people, some of whom were at SOE and some of whom were not, and some of whom were involved with EQ 2 and EQ 1 to some degree, while others not, it was not meant to be a sequel at all, but truly its own game. An analogy might be that a music album was made, and then the group broke up, and some went on to make a new band, while others stayed and re-formed the original band, and then they both went and made new albums.
With Vanguard, though, we took a step back and did not explicitly design a game to be the sequel to EQ (whereas with EQ 2, that was our task and goal). Rather, our goal was to design a next generation fantasy MMOG based on a totally different world, along with old ideas that trace back before EQ to the MUDs we played, as well as with the goal of building new systems on top of proven foundations (for example, Diplomacy). So, similarities, yes – that’s natural, given that we're talking about some of the same people. But built on our original design for EQ 2? Absolutely not. We started anew, looking back at EQ 1 again, other games we'd worked on, and then back to the MUDs we'd enjoyed so much previously to working on EQ 1.
EQ 1 in many ways was a an attempt at translating mechanics and ideas we'd examined in detail while playing those MUDs from a non-commercial text based medium into a commercially viable 3D world. With Vanguard, we went back again to those core MUD fundamentals and, taking what we'd learned since then, and also considering both the successes and mistakes we'd make in that first 'translation', approaching the core foundation of the game again, trying to do an even better job this time. And then, as mentioned, building upon that foundation other, newer, more untested ideas like Diplomacy, or reactive combat systems, Perception, meaningful travel, a seamless world, etc. In other words, ideas that occurred to us after we'd formed Sigil as ways to grow the genre and move it forward into the 'third' generation of MMOGs. But again we built these newer systems on top of our latest attempt at capturing what made MUDs tick, such that were one of new ideas to fail, we'd still have that proven foundation to fall back upon.
So instead of Vanguard descending from EQ 2, which did descend from EQ 1, which did descend from MUDs (mostly of the DIKU variety, which were our favorites), instead we went back to the source, and built the MUD foundation again, and then took all of our experiences and lessoned learned, and built further from there. So more accurately Vanguard descends from MUDs directly, with these new ideas built on top and then our experiences building EQ 1 as well as being involved in the genesis of games like EQ 2, EQoA, SW:G, and several other MMOGs being referenced as learning experiences, helping guide us to hopefully do a better job at both making a commercial and graphical MUD as well as bringing the genre forward with new ideas built upon a solid, proven foundation.
Anyway, I thought this was a good opportunity to talk about this, although I've made similar posts in the past, because people do note some similarities between Vanguard and both EQ 1 and EQ 2 (and other MMOGs), and so questions and observations are made. But when you dig deeper, you find many of those similarities superficial and actually dissimilar more than similar when you look even deeper, below the surface, examining our actual approach, philosophy, and, most importantly, implementation.
Ultimately, Vanguard is not meant, nor was built, to be a better or different EQ 2, nor an EQ 3, but its own game. Rather, it was built to be a better commercial graphical MUD than what has been built to-date (and when I say better, I mean better for our target audience, not better period). Superficial or 'skin deep' similarities exist because many of us worked on all or some of those games to varying degrees and at different times, and because we are always determined to learn from the strengths and weaknesses of other, previous MMOGs, as we'd be fools not to.
Lastly, in one sense WoW too is very similar to EQ, as is DAoC and other similar games. That is because those developers too wanted to make a similar type of game (a graphical, commercial MMOG built on solid MUD principles). Other online games, say Tabula Rasa or D&D Online, have clearly not been built similarly, but with very different goals and approaches (see another post I made about the different types of MMOGs and the varying approaches and motivations behind them). The difference with Vanguard is, unlike, say WoW or DAoC, Sigil employs key people who actually worked on EQ, EQ 2, etc. whereas these other developers did not, or at least did so to a much lesser degree. (This answer is courtesy of Silky Venom)
Last Updated: 2006-11-06[/b]
