Cyliena 
News broke tonight that John Smedley has stepped down from leading Daybreak. This action follows the recent DDoS attacks, as well as his social media outlash and subsequent deletion of accounts. Taking over the helm for Smedley is COO Russell Shanks, who has been with Daybreak since it was 989 Studios.
A Daybreak spokesperson stated that “John Smedley will be taking some time off from the company for the near-term and transitioning to a different role to be determined. Upon finalization of his plans, further communication will be provided.”
Further from MassivelyOP:
Smedley oversaw the company’s transition from Sony-owned Sony Online Entertainment to Columbus Nova-funded Daybreak Game Company earlier this year. He made headlines this summer after he spoke up —forcefully — about his harassment at the hands of Lizard Squad e-thugsresponsible for the bomb threat that diverted his plane nearly a year ago, among other alleged crimes. In apparent retaliation, the hackers assaulted Daybreak’s game servers with multi-day DDoS attacks and offered a $5000 reward for the defacement of Smed’s father’s grave.
Last week, he deleted his Twitter and Reddit accounts, saying he would “miss the interaction with […] players” but wanted to avoid distractions that stopped him from doing what he liked doing: making games.
Saw the massivelyop tweet first but… naturally I came right on over here. 😉
Not a complete surprise, is it? Also, with that dancing, long-haired skeleton dancing and starter instances in double figures… things aren’t exactly “dying” afterall, even if there’s some trouble at the top. Crazy damn industry.
Will check back tomorrow. Have a good night, y’all.
er uh… too much “dancing” there, sorry. can I partly blame ttobey’s compelling animation–?
Maybe it’s the pessimist in me speaking, but there goes the man who pretty much was the guarantee the EQ franchise would not go away. It’s good we just had two successful TLE launches.
It’s the exact opposite actually. With him finally gone EQ franchise can have a brighter future.
I would love David Georgeson as CEO. They need the vision and the enthousiasm.
Not sure if joking.
I’m with Palandrel. We need more focus on fluff, marketplace, and nothing that matters whatsoever.
Georgeson managed a near impossible feat. I managed to dislike his “guidance” more than I’ve disliked Smedley’s.
Agreed.
You want someone that all the employees are afraid of?
ouch — uhhh
Smokejumper tooked our meatbeasts away just ’cause he thought so. T.T
I agree with you Noctew. EQ and EQ2 as we know them is the creative offspring of many people, most of whom have already departed the company throughout the years, with Smed being one of the last bastions of the original vision. Anything created without the direction of the vanguard will not feel like EQ.
We had a terrible lead designer for EQ2 for a few years though. He forced through Stat Consolidation. He removed the Isle of Refuge. He was sharply against Public Quests and basically sabotaged attempts to get developer time to support them. He asked “How does WoW do this?” in every design meeting. Fortunately he’s no longer at Daybreak.
Given the success of WoW vs. EQ2, asking how they do something isn’t necessarily a bad idea. You don’t need to copy WoW, but it is possible to look to that game for inspiration. As much as I hate to say it, WoW keeps adding new things that work. The EQ2 team doesn’t have such a good track record in that regard. You can learn from your competition without being a copy cat.
He wanted to copy everything. He dumbed down all the overland zone difficulty from Antonia to Nek forest to Kunark. He forced an unwilling team to nerf it all to solo mobs. 🙁
I still don’t think asking how other games handle situations is a bad idea. The thing is he didn’t realize though is that EQ2 wasn’t those other games, if people wanted those other games they would just play those games. Looking at another game and seeing how they solved problems and encouraged player engagement is great, copying their solutions is not.
Also with the difficulty thing, I’m kind of hoping the new servers prove that people want that difficulty back and maybe we can see some kind of change on the real servers, though I doubt the devs have time for it.
Who thought of the different difficulty levels of the same instances? That was the best idea I’ve seen in ages. That’d be who I’d have in charge, IMHO. Someone who tries to make everyone happy, but not to the point of ruining everything. XD
*sigh* I miss group content in overland.
I still can’t comprehend why people are so upset regarding making the original overlands into solo zones. The only time I ever saw people actually grind heroic overland zones was 10 years ago and that was only because each server was flooded with people and dungeons were usually full. Take a look at Enchanted Lands, 3/4th’s of the land wasn’t never populated with players. People either b-lined over to Runnyeye and Rivervale OR had to do a heritage quest. People always favor dungeons over overlands when it comes to grouping since dungeons have better loot. Period.
Also if I recall, Kunark was all solo overland zones from the start.
lol, sounds like he was against players having fun.
Why are you blaming me!
Obviously because dancing. 😉
Yes, because there was so much dancing in my head that I kept dancing the word “dancing”. Distracted like a demon duck on a dock!
I think I found the inspiration for the EQ2 dance.
Skip to 1:35 in this video and watch the guy 2nd from the left:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfR9iY5y94s
OMG! I always wondered where the heck that dance came from! XD
Oh wow
Perhaps now DBG can have a future… he was the one I wanted to have fired last year.
About time.
I think Smedley would make an excellent replacement for RadarX.
can we say the hackers won ?
On a 1-0 score. Because of Smed’s own-goal.
/..\ I was honestly rooting for him, trying to lure the loser squad into jumping the shark like last time and getting some legal action.
Finland’s judge that slapped that prick on the wrist and turned the one loser they caught loose, what a schmuck.
And the assholes won. :\ Watch them gloat and take the reins again now. /..\
Ok, now that Georgeson and Smed. are gone, the team can start to develop the real Everquest 3. The one the fans and long time players want, not that Disney like game who popped out of nowhere. Honestly, how could they come to that direction? We can see a link between EQ1 and EQ2. I’m sorry but right now there’s no link between EQ2 and Next (Next … Such a generic word). I know the game is not ye tout, but let’s have a look to landmark and see how it looks. That gives you a first idea of what they’ve done with the world … OMG, if only they could restart EQ3 development from scratch …
And who exactly will be funding this?
I’m not sure how I feel about this. I can’t tell how many of the recent problems (as in the last 2 years) fall on his shoulders. I have been with the franchise since EQ1 beta and just dropped my subscription when they came out with the Rum Cellar release in EQ2. It was just a tiny straw that broke this camels back. It doesn’t mean I hate the games or the company, just speaking with my wallet that I’m not happy with how things are going.
For Smedley I hope he wasn’t let go because of the DDOS attacks. But I could see it being for many other reasons. It’s a volatile industry and I just hope the future for this company improves and I really hope maybe EQNext will be better than I’m currently expecting it to be. Everything lately just feels like a money grab. I know they need to make money but a great game will make money without nickle and diming your loyal customers.
Change can be good though scary for people. Hopefully new leadership brings in new views/focus to the various DBG projects.
Also will be interesting to see what new role John has within DBG after he returns from his holiday.
I wouldn’t expect too much change. Russell Shanks has been at Smed’s side since the beginning.
I’m sad. Smed has been with me throughout my gaming career. I liked him. (Maybe I was the only one). He was a gamer first, executive second. Did he make mistakes? Absolutely. Who doesn’t? We have plenty of armchair CEOs in this circle of gamers and they all think they know better – but until you are sitting in the big chair, you really have no idea. I think he did what he thought was best, what his advisers thought was best. Only hindsight is 20/20.
With all the crap he’s been through the last few years with the Lizard Squad attacking him, his family, and his company, it’s no wonder he has stepped down. And I truly hope he can find some peace from all of it and can resume a life and career that brings him happiness.
I’ll miss Smed 🙁
Thanks for this, Caela. One thing I’m sure of is that we don’t have anything close to the full story. I can’t even begin to imagine coping with the degree of attack he has had to endure – I don’t think anyone can really understand what it’s like to have your privacy (and your family’s privacy) so egregiously invaded over a period of time until it happens to them.
Get a clue, folks, this isn’t a movie, this is someone’s real life. The degree of distress is impossible to comprehend from the sidelines.
Plus it isn’t a requirement that a company’s customers “like” the CEO. What matters is whether the people who work for that CEO respect him and turn out something that works. Despite some hitches along the way it’s kept me going for over 14 years. And, evidently from one of the testimonials posted here on the Wire, some of the employees have been around a very long time as well. That carries more weight with me than a popularity contest.
Bottom line, the fact that we even have the world of Norrath to hang around in and complain about is due to the hard work and pioneering vision of people like Smedley. A back handed compliment, I’m sure, but there it is. Sometimes it’s useful to see what’s actually there rather than what we think isn’t, or should be, there.
I don’t agree.
Just shows the new owners want the company to be profitable, and anything that jeopardizes that will get in trouble. Everything I have seen since the acquisition points to making the company more profitable. So if people willing to spend money on something, then daybreak games will look at implementing it.
-.- So why don’t they go after the LoserSquad?
Who says they aren’t?
In today’s world where the crook is the victim and the victim is the crook, it wasn’t a smart move on Smed’s part to have had that type of dialog with them. 10-15 years ago Smed would be a hero for standing up, but not in todays world… Sad times…
Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out, Smed.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Best thing I have red about Daybreak games since they where founded 🙂
Hope they find a good replacement and not some money hungry tie from CN.
Well considering I have blamed Semd for what happened to my beloved SWG all those years ago. With the lies, the half truths, and we were really never know why they took a great game and dumbed it down for the masses. We had something special with that game, and he destroyed it. So pardon me if I don’t cry over this. To me this was a long time coming, and finally we gotten rid of the bad apple in the bunch. Hopefully now they can turn this ship around and actually put back on path for eq2. I could care less about h1z1 I tried it, and it was boring. Eq3, is for a different demographic I am almost sure that most folks who play eq2 would not like eq3.
SWG got the Star Wars licence pulled. It wasn’t the company that ran the game, it was the company that owned the rights to Star Wars. >.> That was pretty sad. I never got to tame a mount. :\ I just barely got to try SWG out, annnnnd it’s gone.
Dumbing things down for masses is a no brainer. Masses = $
I do like how EQ2 has different difficulty levels for the instances. Much better option, having variety.
The real story about the NGE:
http://community.crowfall.com/index.php?/topic/5792-gordon-walton-are-you-the-one-who-brought-us-the-nge/
Thank you for that Feldon, I very much liked what I read. I get he was the lead dev. In fact I had talked to him face to face. I had actually went in 2006 to Atlanta as part of the community feedback during soe fanfaire. The entire thing is he admitted that they were going to split the player base, we all warned of this, and we lost 80% I kid you not I lived through that. I tried to play the nge, but I eventually moved over to EQ2 100%, I had been playing both games about 50% as we had guild in Eq,EQ2, Planetside, and SWG, and yes wow. Yes we were that big at one time and even had a race car with our guild initials on the back as the one guy who was an officer did race. Most of us are scattered, a few play SWTOR, STO, but for the most part the other 300 left gaming all together to play the ps and xbox games. It is sad this happened to such a game, but things change all the time. Yes the dev was responsible, but it happened on Smedley’s watch, and SOE management forced the change despite what the community was telling him.
Thanks for the link Feldon,
A good read and one now answers a few questions about that ill fated move,SWG was buggy yes but what a game to throw the baby out with the bath water was sheer stupidity the fact that so many people left proved it such a shame.
Of course it gave me the chance to try other games out and i landed at EQ2 properly after playing the free month at launch 8 very happy years later it was time to move on from that game too but at least i left under my own steam rather than being forced out by an unplayable mess SWG became.
Maybe the new parent company got sick of his constant lying making them look like idiots. I don’t think this is really going to change anything for EQ2 though, the only good person to get fired for EQ2s benefit was Smokejumper. SJ almost destroyed EQ2’s future by himself, forcing so many bad updates on the game for almost no reason and even after community backlash.
Good bye Smed, i dont miss you.
No its time to look forward, to a better future for EQ2!
When an investment firm swoops down and buys a company:
a) “Reorganization”
b) Massive layoffs of the worker bees.
c) Layoffs of middle management.
d) Company president takes time off to be with family.
Mr. Smedley departing was not unexpected. Perhaps he expected to be the exception.
What I’m not looking forward to is:
e) Sell off of “problem” properties.
/*
“We’ve all heard about chief executives who jumped for the exit while offering this timeworn excuse: “I’m resigning because I want to spend more time with my family.”
Bad earnings, an investigation or something worse generally follows.”
John Bussey
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303492504579113641917654208
I wonder if Brasse would be willing/able to do the job? It’s a huge step away from what she was doing before, but she loves the game, is familiar with the style and direction, has heaps of spirit, and is just all around awesome.
But yah… it is a huge step away from what she was doing before, and seems like an overwhelming thing to do from my point of view. Still, She’d be my pick if she felt up to it. ^_~ Or whoever decided to add the different difficulty levels of instances to fit different play styles. That was the best decision I’ve seen in a game. (Although, I do wish the plundered furniture was available in the solo zones. XD)
She’s with Trion now, and I think probably better as a community lead than a CEO.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha! I am definitely not CEO material. It requires a degree of hard-nosed business skill that I lack. I could never make some of the hard decisions and partake in the difficult discussions that a CEO does.
Community is my home and utilizes the foremost of my skillsets, such as they are. =)
I am indeed very happy at Trion, although I wish all my former colleagues well. As I posted on FB, Smed granted me a new life with the games he fostered, for which I remain very grateful.
Whups – Morgan, can you give me a different avatar? I am no longer a Daybreaker. =)
Well, glad you are happy. ^_^ I know I wouldn’t touch being a CEO. >.>
smed was alot better than SWG Raph Koster!!!
I hope that is says that FR will come back..
I wonder how many lizard wanna be kids read and post here. Is a sad day when the terrorists win. Hmm… Drone strike time?
Love him or hate him Smed had enough integrity and/or capability to draw admirable comments from people in his company. There is a term to describe the state people are in who think it’s easy and they could jump right in; unconscious incompetence. You don’t know what you don’t know.
Best wishes to Smed. Maybe he can take the gloves off and go for lizard blood now.