Brad McQuaid’s New MMO Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen

Anyone who has ever played Everquest or Vanguard should already know the name Brad McQuaid. However, he’s no longer a member of SOE. In fact, he’s on to his own project–unveiled on Friday, January 3rd.

This new MMO, Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen, will Kickstart later this year. McQuaid has projected development to take up to 3 years with a long period of beta testing. He has already planned to include early footage of the game on the launch of the Kickstarter campaign–however, some skepticism has arisen since his Vanguard release back in 2007, which he addressed a forum post yesterday:

“If I need to, yes. I really don’t want to dwell on the past — it’s time to be forward thinking and to get excited about the future. That said, you guys need to know that we’ve learned from our mistakes so some discussion may be appropriate. If we aren’t honest and we don’t learn from the past, then the past was simply a failure and a defeat. I refuse to look at it that way and we won’t be defeated by the mistakes of the past, because we are going to learn from them and do a better job this time. I’ve learned so much, especially about myself, because of both my successes and my failures.

For me it all came in a frustrating sequence. 9 times out of 10 a person fails, fails, fails, and then succeeds (if he ever succeeds at all). For me it was 1. huge success (half a billion dollars of profit for Sony, etc.), 2. Commercial failure (I say commercial because I still think VG was awesome in many ways and I’m still proud of it)

Anyway, the success first and failure second really jacked with my mind. I became extremely arrogant, thinking whatever I touched would turn into gold. And then when things didn’t work out so well on my second try it was really quite a blow to me because I had deluded myself big time. I ended up in a bad place and I never want to be back there again, ever.

But also in learning more about myself over the years, I know this is what I want to do for the rest of my life: make MMOs that I and other gamers want to play. It’s just who I am and it’s the only thing that professionally makes me happy.

I just don’t want to get bogged down in the past too much. If it makes sense to discuss something about the past, then I’ll participate. But to be totally upfront and honest, I’m here primarily to promote my new game. It’s a blast talking with you all, and I’m here for that as well, but let’s spend most of the time here together facing forward. We will need your feedback and opinions in order to insure we make the game you guys want and that I want. It’s about community building and being accessible.

Anyways, I hope that makes sense.”

Obviously, there hasn’t been enough content to spread the word of Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen, but I’ll be sure to keep you updated as they release.