oh smedley

cadalano · Post by **cadalano** » February 17, 2006, 5:24 pm

good read from Penny Arcade. i bet smed's sorry he opened his cakehole. check their news from yesterday if you want to see the previous comments he made:

Well my comments about EQ II seem to have made the rounds. Judging by the response I’ve seen on line and all the mail I got it would seem a lot of people feel the same way I do.

I actually got a mail from John Smedley this morning that I might as well share with you. It seems only fair to give him a chance to respond here.

Normally I like you guys a lot.. even when you dig on us.. but it felt like you went personal on our artists. Low blow IMO

We have some of the most talented artists in the business and EQ II is a gorgeous game. Certainly art style is a subjective thing.. and if you want to bag on the art then that’s certainly your right. But unless and until you’ve had any of your art in a game calling people robots just seems weak.

John Smedley
President, Sony Online Entertainment

I agree that SOE probably has some very talented artists working for them. However none of that talent is making its way into the final product. I think that the problem is EQ II has no unifying artistic vision. It’s a game designed by committee and that’s a sure way to kill creativity. If I were to look at individual portfolios I’m sure I’d have plenty of nice things to say about the artists that work there. But I’m not, I’m looking at EQ II and at looks terrible. Is that their fault? No I think it’s the fault of the corporate machine they are trapped in.

Art is indeed subjective. I gave you my impressions and that’s all. You see it differently and that’s great, good for you. To tell me that I am not qualified to have an opinion on the graphics in a game until I’ve worked on one is pretty ridiculous. Plenty of people tell me my work is shit and none of them ever made a fucking web comic.

John mentions that he normally likes us. Maybe that’s true but I doubt it. I’m not sure we’ve ever had anything nice to say about an SOE product with the exception of maybe Planetside. In fact just to give you an idea of what they really think of PA I’ll share another email exchange with you. One we got a while ago when we were looking for help with Child’s Play 2004.

This was Roberts first email to SOE about working with us on Child’s Play:

I work for Penny Arcade, and every year we hold our Child’s Play Charity- an event that brings together gamers to donate toys, games and cash to Children’s Hospitals across the nation. Last year we did over $250,000, and this year it’s going full steam, but we’re also doing a Charity Auction Dinner on December 9th. A ton of companies are donating some pretty big ticket items (Nintendo’s giving a tour of their facilities, Valve’s contributing a lifetime subscription to steam, etc.), and we were thinking it would be beneficial for all parties if SOE were able to donate some lifetime accounts to some of your games.

We didn’t hear anything back from them and so Robert followed up again.

Hi, everyone- I hadn’t heard back from anyone but I just wanted to followup to see, just in case, if there was ANY interest in this from you. It’s one of those win-win situations, and the other MMOs I’ve pitched this to have been really eager to jump on board. The charity dinner is coming up on Dec. 9th, so I wanted to get all of this squared away. Thanks!

Finally a response came from Chris Kramer the director of corporate communications for SOE. He didn’t say anything about Child’s Play, he simply posted a link to PA and cut out a piece of Tycho’s news post. Here’s his entire email back to Robert.

From: Kramer, Chris
Sent: Monday, November 22, 2004 9:23 AM
Subject: RE: Child's Play and SOE!

http://www.penny-arcade.com/

"When screens began to pour out of SOE for EverQuest II, I suggested that they were leveraging a powerful piece of rendering technology, but what was being rendered was devoid of any life or character. Flip through the "art" book for the game next time you're at EB, stuck in line behind the guy with all the Goddamn trade-ins. You won't understand why they went through the trouble of binding a book like that. The images that accompany your standard Harry/Malfoy slashfic resound with more vigor."

Obviously he was pissed that we didn’t like the EQ II visuals. So much so in fact that he refused to talk to us about Child’s Play much less actually help out. Robert followed up one last time to make sure we were clear but of course he never heard from them again.

I’m sorry, Chris- are you saying you won’t contribute to a charitable organization that helps sick kids because of a poor review of your art book?

Penny Arcade is an outlet for our honest opinions on games. This is not a review site like Gamespot or 1up. It’s not a news site like Joystiq or Evil Avatar. We are two gamers and this is what we think about games and we can do this for a living because a lot of people seem to agree. In every interview we do we always get asked “how do you feel about Penny Arcade being such a force in the industry?” Well I’m not sure Penny Arcade is exactly. PA is like a blow horn for the community. I think Gamers are the real force in the industry.

-Gabe out

Funkmasterr · Post by **Funkmasterr** » February 17, 2006, 5:35 pm

It's funny cause the cr gaming guy here at work was foaming at the mouth last night about that article he wrote. I couldnt help but laugh, I think I irritated him... he should have spit in my face.

Animalor · Post by **Animalor** » February 17, 2006, 5:55 pm

I like the fact that Smed went to bat for his art guys. That was way cool of him and cranks him up a notch in my book.

Gabe' always been critical of EQ2's art and style. He's also featured every week or so on http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/ and Blizzard does tend to plug penny-arcade.com pretty often.

It isn't even a question that WoW has the edge on EQ2 in artistic style. The engine for the game is so dated that they have to.
Is EQ2 as bad as Gabe makes it out to be? IMO absolutely not. EQ2 has absolutely gorgeous environments and the newbie island is a very poor showcase for what they do with EQ2.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » February 17, 2006, 6:43 pm

We have some of the most talented artists in the business and EQ II is a gorgeous game. Certainly art style is a subjective thing.. and if you want to bag on the art then that’s certainly your right. But unless and until you’ve had any of your art in a game calling people robots just seems weak.

John Smedley
President, Sony Online Entertainment

Calling out someone for criticizing art because they aren't artists is as bad as being the first to make a Nazi reference in a thread.

Hitler could have created better player models using only MS Paint!

Mr Bacon · Post by **Mr Bacon** » February 17, 2006, 6:59 pm

Winnow wrote:
We have some of the most talented artists in the business and EQ II is a gorgeous game. Certainly art style is a subjective thing.. and if you want to bag on the art then that’s certainly your right. But unless and until you’ve had any of your art in a game calling people robots just seems weak.

John Smedley
President, Sony Online Entertainment
Calling out someone for criticizing art because they aren't artists is as bad as being the first to make a Nazi reference in a thread.

Hitler could have created better player models using only MS Paint!

As I recall Winnow, they do publish a fairly professional looking comic.

Nick · Post by **Nick** » February 17, 2006, 9:28 pm

Smedly just looks like a dick for saying "ZOMG YOU CANT TALK U ARENT AN MMO ARTIST" importantly forgetting the simple fact he is utterly wrong in such a ridiculous statement.

Kylere · Post by **Kylere** » February 17, 2006, 10:44 pm

I think they are both wrong, Gabe needs to get TehWoWCock out of his mouth, and Smed needs to take the foot out of his.

Of course I will never buy a Sony product again unless they make the first Star Trek Style Holo room and price it under 1k.

Dregor Thule · Post by **Dregor Thule** » February 18, 2006, 5:27 am

What does everyone expect Smed to do, agree that EQ2 is a pile of shit artistic style-wise? Jigga, please. Personally I think it was pretty juvenile of Gabe to pull out some Child's Play example and I'm glad he eventually recanted the statement.

And for the record, while PA is a great strip that I read religiously, I wouldn't want Gabe doing concepts for a game I was making that wasn't specifically a PA game.

Nick · Post by **Nick** » February 18, 2006, 6:54 pm

No one expects anything from Smedley, I really don't think they care enough.

But when you read someone saying someone elses opinion on computer game graphics are irrelevent and "weak" because they don't develop computer games that's just plain retarded. He could have picked better wording to put Gabe down or defend his game in about 2 seconds. Literally two seconds.

two. MAX.

As for whether you agree with Gabe or not, it doesn't really matter. It's that whole maddox "your opinion" picture all over again.

And I agree, PA rocks

Kwonryu DragonFist · February 18, 2006, 7:22 pm

Nick wrote: But when you read someone saying someone elses opinion on computer game graphics are irrelevent and "weak" because they don't develop computer games that's just plain retarded. He could have picked better wording to put Gabe down or defend his game in about 2 seconds.

Yeah! That's retarded alright!

That's like saying that Crocop lacks a good submission-game even though you haven't fought in Pride or UFC!

Even someone who is totally untrained in any kind of fightingstyle can see THAT after watching a few of his fights.

You don't need to be the champ to notice that Carlos Newtons striking is a bit lacking as well!

You don't need to be an artist to be able to appreciate art.

Niffoni · Post by **Niffoni** » March 2, 2006, 11:21 pm

Okay.. what am I missing?

Why did Smedley send the PA guys 1200 Krispy Kreme donuts?

http://www.penny-arcade.com/docs/don2.jpg

And why didn't he send them to me??

A few people have made the comment to me that it was nice of SOE to send us one donut for every subscriber they have. The other funny remark I heard was that this is the best product SOE has ever shipped. You guys are mean.

Sionistic · Post by **Sionistic** » March 2, 2006, 11:24 pm

Niffoni · Post by **Niffoni** » March 3, 2006, 1:27 am

Dude!! I'm gonna rip on SOE in my blog or someshit, and make passing mention to XBOX 360s.

Reeeeeeeeelin' em in!