Brad McQuaid, American game designer and co-creator of EverQuest series and developer on Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen, has passed away at 51. Once upon a time, McQuaid stated that his mission in his career as a unique MMO creator was "to create worlds, not games." It was with deep sorrow that the official EverQuest twitter account announced his passing on Monday of this week.
McQuaid was largely associated with EverQuest but also had a hand in many other games. McQuaid initially caught the attention of John Smedley of Sony Interactive while he was developing one of his first games WarWizards 2, a shareware RPG demo that released in 1995. Smedley hired McQuaid and his partner Steve Clover to Sony Interactive Games to work on a mass multi-online role-playing game later to be named EverQuest. Later on, McQuaid would go on to found Visionary Realms in 2013 and would work on Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen, and sought out help from fans to help fund the project via Kickstarter. As of the release of this article, the fund had raised $460,657 of a $800,000 goal.
Now, several fans and coworkers alike have been sharing their condolences with the community. The official Facebook page of Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen made the announcement on their page earlier this morning and said, "Brad was a visionary, a mentor, an artist, a trailblazer, a friend, a husband, a father. He touched thousands of lives with his dreams and concepts." Many fans on their page have noted that McQuaid was practically the father of the modern-day MMORPGs and paved the way for games like World of Warcraft.
A developer of Pantheon and coworker at Visionary Realms, Benjamin Dean left a message on the MMO forums stating, "Thank you, Brad, for bringing us together through your worlds. Rest in peace, Aradune. All of us at Visionary Realms offer our deepest condolences to Brad’s family and during this most difficult time, we kindly ask that you respect the privacy of Brad’s family." Aradune was McQuaid's Twitter handle, an account whose last messages were used to promote the upcoming game Pantheon. One user on the Visionary Realms Facebook page commented, "I hope there is a memorial of him in Pantheon," a gesture not uncommon within the gaming community.
There is no word yet surrounding the circumstance of exactly how McQuaid passed, but it was stated that he was at home with his family. At this time, the family is asking the EverQuest community to respect their grief and privacy.
Sources: PC Gamer