http://www.pcgamer.com/john-smedley-has-left-daybreak-games-to-start-new-company/
Brad any chance to team up with your old partner now? :)
edit: guess this is more off topic, i would have deleted and posted it there if we had that option
Heya Oberon. Guess you missed Brad's blog post here on the site.
https://www.pantheonrotf.com/blogs/151/170/my-response-to-smed-s-stepping-d
I think (read: hope) there's no real chance of Smedley becoming involved in Pantheon. He's a brilliant guy and will probably be successful wherever he ends up, but this most likely isn't the place. The direction which he steered late Everquest for instance brought his company a lot of short term money, but it also alienated the subscriber base. Those kinds of business decisions are counterintuitive to what is being done here. It would be like hiring a former oil company CEO to oversee forestation.
Jitai said:
I think (read: hope) there's no real chance of Smedley becoming involved in Pantheon. He's a brilliant guy and will probably be successful wherever he ends up, but this most likely isn't the place. The direction which he steered late Everquest for instance brought his company a lot of short term money, but it also alienated the subscriber base. Those kinds of business decisions are counterintuitive to what is being done here. It would be like hiring a former oil company CEO to oversee forestation.
We could always be wrong, but I'm with you. On so many levels it seems improbable. I don't know that Pantheon is the kind of game he'd want to make. He is probably used to a bit more generous budget (and Salary) when it comes to developing games. He might be able to attract a different kind of investor, but only if he could convince them Pantheon was a mass appeal game and he could make it work. He has opportunities of his own to pursue. It just doesn't seem likely that he'd be interested or that Brad would want to change the nature of the game.
Kayd said:
We could always be wrong, but I'm with you. On so many levels it seems improbable. I don't know that Pantheon is the kind of game he'd want to make. He is probably used to a bit more generous budget (and Salary) when it comes to developing games. He might be able to attract a different kind of investor, but only if he could convince them Pantheon was a mass appeal game and he could make it work. He has opportunities of his own to pursue. It just doesn't seem likely that he'd be interested or that Brad would want to change the nature of the game.
Yea I agree. Seems like the two are philosophically on opposite ends of the spectrum at this point. I wouldn't be surprised if the two have a discussion about Pantheon and Smed even offers up some advice but actually joining the project seems pretty far fetched. With all that said, I really have no basis for this opinion outside what Brad described in his blog post.
Brad has already answered this question twice now guys, once in his blog which shows how far apart their mindsets are when it comes to this type of MMO and a second time in an MMORPG.com thread stating that Smed will not be working for us but he wishes him the best of luck in anything he chooses to do.