🌟 Internet Famous Jason Thor Hall / PirateSoftware / Maldavius Figtree / DarkSphere Creations / Maldavius / Thorwich / Witness X / @PotatoSec - Incompetent Furry Programmer, Blizzard Nepo Baby, Lies about almost every thing in his life, Industry Shill, Carried by his father, Hate boner against Ross Scott of Accursed Farms, False Flagger

[thx1138]

I apologize for not keeping up recently but is Jason back from his little hiatus?

 

[p1138]

I apologize for not keeping up recently but is Jason back from his little hiatus?

He's been back for weeks now pissing off the OSRS community while he tries to keep his head down because people are still shitting on him.

 

[Well Intentioned]

The list keeps going.
Petter Molyneux, Richard Garriot, Chris Roberts, Tim Schaefer.
Pretty much any dev superstar from the early days of gaming are all fucking hacks today or they've vanished altogether. Every fucking attempts at coming back (Always hat in hand on kickstarter or indigogo) by one of these ends up largely being a fucking scam.
I literally can't think of a single name I loved from that era that I don't curse today. Maybe Will Wright but he got out when he was still liked.

My favorite amongst the old school devs, although he was nowhere near the tier as the above names, is Brad McQuaid.

Spoiler: Details about an early MMO developer

He was the og lead dev for Everquest and the man was a grifter more or less from day one. Made a lot of promises and/or outright lied about a lot of shit. Two of the bigger ones, IIRC, was that there was a quest for a unique Paladin weapon but players hadn't found it yet (there was no such quest) and that there were 'hundreds' of quests that just hadn't been discovered yet in original EQ (context for those who aren't familiar with EQ: you had a text parser interface with NPCs to try and trigger quests. So you'd sit at an NPC and do things 'what goblins' 'fight goblins' what goblin bandits' etc until you found the magic words that would get them to respond. God forbid if a programmer omitted a key word or phrase...)

A lot of the hostility and behaviors that current-era MMO players emulate stem from a lot of the bullshit that Aradune (Brad's in-game avatar akin to Lord British from the Ultima series) would foist on folks, either lying about things, or putting out things in a weird/buggy state. Part of that is that MMO design as we know it was basically being invented as they went along.

The concept of raiding basically came from Aradune showing his ass to Kalaran (Alex Afrasiabi's first character) and betting he couldn't defeat Lady Vox, one of two dragon 'raid' bosses in base Everquest. Alex took the bet, marched in, dusted the dragon and...

Discovered that Lady Vox wasn't even itemized, so killing it rewarded players with literally nothing (largely because Brad was expecting them to fail.)

This wasn't a one-off -- there were numerous instances where things shipped unfinished or raid bosses weren't itemized properly. Folks might remember the Sleeper, who was essentially supposed to be part of a scripted event and was a one-time 'boss' that wasn't supposed to be killed. Wasn't itemized, but that was to be expected as it wasn't intended to be fought. But then you had shit like the Shadows of Luclin expansion which was completely unfinished and had encounters that weren't tuned properly (or even finished), bosses that weren't itemized, and a whole litany of problems.

This culminated in Aradune leaving Sony Online Entertainment/Verant Interactive (studio that was handling EQ as well as other games like Star Wars Galaxies, another MMO) and going off and starting not one, but two different studios, and trying to start up 2 different MMO titles: Vanguard and Pantheon.

He allegedly developed a meth habit (despite being a rather devout Christian) and died age 50.

It's really fascinating shit if you're interested about MMOs, why WoW became the juggernaut that it did, or why MMO players are such miserable shits.

E: Here's an ancient forum post involving an exchange between Brad and the leader of a raiding guild (emails are in the spoiler portion) and providing a bit of the context I was talking about.

 

[Gas18697]

I saw jason streaming Path of exile 2, did the Runescape community bully him out?

 

[Dante Alighieri]

I saw jason streaming Path of exile 2, did the Runescape community bully him out?

The only people who watch OSRS are OSRS players.

 

[Lambda]

It's impressive all of Mald's viewers show up and watch every stream whether he's staring at yaml files, playing PoE 2 badly, playing OSRS badly, or playing Silksong badly. Either Mald has the most loyal viewerbase in streaming history or it's clankers.

 

[Leaf Wage Slave Jr]

I saw jason streaming Path of exile 2, did the Runescape community bully him out?

They were willing to constantly DDOS their own game, just to chase him off.

Hard not to respect that, tbh.

 

[Full body]

The wplace Maldzone looks so nice now! That crossword goes on for ages lmao.

Maldverse has been back at it while we were distracted by the mega gnome construction

Publicar en el tema 'WPlace - Paint the world'

8 de Sep, 2025

• blargenheimer

Reacciones: x 11 x 3 x 1

funnily enough, it looks like the crossword is now being continued by unknowing Ace Attorney fans at the upmost part

EDIT: attached a (mostly) nongriefed image for reference if you want to help restore

 

[Smithfield Ham]

The list keeps going.
Petter Molyneux, Richard Garriot, Chris Roberts, Tim Schaefer.
Pretty much any dev superstar from the early days of gaming are all fucking hacks today or they've vanished altogether. Every fucking attempts at coming back (Always hat in hand on kickstarter or indigogo) by one of these ends up largely being a fucking scam.
I literally can't think of a single name I loved from that era that I don't curse today. Maybe Will Wright but he got out when he was still liked.

Yep. Those are "celebrity developers" who were good at marketing themselves but ran out of steam when they couldn't live up to the self-generated hype. Even though guys, with all the PR capital and connections they had, couldn't maintain fame for very long before apathy and backlash eclipsed it.

Now think about all the people who worked on some of the most famous and seminal games of the last century: how many developers can you name that worked on Space Invaders, Oregon Trail, Super Mario, Final Fantasy, Grand Theft Auto, etc? Maybe if you're really into that sort of thing you could name a couple, but most people couldn't name a single one.

So, being a game dev doesn't get you shit, and being an "auteur" game dev only sets you up for failure since it isn't the kind of job that lends itself to long-term fame or good will.

The ones who push themselves the most also tend to be the shittiest ones with a lot to compensate for.

 

[Pixy]

Yep. Those are "celebrity developers" who were good at marketing themselves but ran out of steam when they couldn't live up to the self-generated hype. Even though guys, with all the PR capital and connections they had, couldn't maintain fame for very long before apathy and backlash eclipsed it.

Whoah there, that's heresy. You're not seriously dissing the Game Gods, are you? These guys are serious business!

 

[Gas18697]

They were willing to constantly DDOS their own game, just to chase him off.

Hard not to respect that, tbh.

indeed got respect them for keeping there community clean from roaches.

 

[Smithfield Ham]

Whoah there, that's heresy. You're not seriously dissing the Game Gods, are you? These guys are serious business!
Ver archivo adjunto 7887435Ver archivo adjunto 7887439

Half of these guys look like the same guy and the only one I recognize is Schafer because he's fat and has a goatee. Real pantheon there, guys. Not another embarrassing tale of Icarian hubris at all.

It's really depressing that Schafer has the most integrity of anyone in this picture when he's made like four good games his entire career. I'm not counting the Monkey Island games because those were a team effort. I'm referring to the games that are his brainchild: the two psychonauts, Grim Fandango, and arguably Brutal Legend though a lot of people would disagree with me on the last once because it's a mess.

Edit: I didn't know Gaben was there and finding out he was is fucking cursed.

 

[Counterfeit Obol]

Half of these guys look like the same guy and the only one I recognize is Schafer because he's fat and has a goatee.

Young and thin Gabe Newell is kinda cursed, and this was a time when they remembered people like Roberta Williams existed, not trying to prop up the newest bicycle who spread her legs.

 

[Smithfield Ham]

Roberta Williams existed, not trying to prop up the newest bicycle who spread her legs.

The only 'Williams' I care for are Robin, Zelda and Ash.

Young and thin Gabe Newell

what the fucking fuck?!

 

[TrainWreckWatcher]

Didn't Gabe get skinny again now that he is retired?

 

[cigint]

Didn't Gabe get skinny again now that he is retired?

He will get fat a 2nd time and be even bigger, but there won't be a 3rd diet.

 

[Toxic BRAAAAP Mask]

Mald chimping out about having to moderate his shittily designed 'social sandbox' Blockgame.

Oh, so you're a game master now too? Not just dev larping?

Yeah, like you've never encouraged hundreds of spam tickets to get your way before.

Wow, even a wall of shame! Why not swat them too while you're at it?

As a nice bonus, making volunteer helpers work harder than they need to!

Backend huh? Now where have we heard that before, hmm...

Fuckin hilarious that so few people play the game they can't estimate the drop chance, but Jason has to sit on his anti-SKG throne and make people grind for eternity and the wiki volunteer go dig up the numbers through the streams. But yeah just keep Malding on Fagtree

 

[Sunflower Samurai]

Mald chimping out about having to moderate his shittily designed 'social sandbox' Blockgame.
Ver archivo adjunto 7890409Ver archivo adjunto 7890411

Oh, so you're a game master now too? Not just dev larping?Ver archivo adjunto 7890414Ver archivo adjunto 7890417

Yeah, like you've never encouraged hundreds of spam tickets to get your way before.
Ver archivo adjunto 7890418

Wow, even a wall of shame! Why not swat them too while you're at it?Ver archivo adjunto 7890407

As a nice bonus, making volunteer helpers work harder than they need to!
Ver archivo adjunto 7890446
Ver archivo adjunto 7890452

Backend huh? Now where have we heard that before, hmm...

Ver archivo adjunto 7890456
Fuckin hilarious that so few people play the game they can't estimate the drop chance, but Jason has to sit on his anti-SKG throne and make people grind for eternity and the wiki volunteer go dig up the numbers through the streams. But yeah just keep Malding on Fagtree

Social Sandbox MMO 1337 l4rp3r when the crushing reality of actually having to moderate the kind of people deranged enough to no-life said Sandbox experiences hits (and moreso because its all people who are either his fans or open to wasting time on participating in something he manages)
chat reflects streamer

Will he learn his lesson?

 

[Kuritan Deplorable]

Mald chimping out about having to moderate his shittily designed 'social sandbox' Blockgame.

Bro made a game with a major focus on social elements, and thought everyone would just get along? Put two people in a room, and you'll get three different positions for any possible argument. The entire point, frankly of all social games, is to make groups of people to fight with other people. You can take a stupid dress up game in roblox and people will fight over the validity of ratings for one fashion style over another to the point that the feud becomes outside news.

Jason, as always, is a petty tyrant and a sore loser. Now that actual human interaction is disproving whatever ideals he had about people and his community, he's seething out the gills. It is funny as hell to me that he's effectively speedrunning the fate of any PvP oriented MMO, and learning fucking nothing from the history of those mistakes. Not very well researched in his field, is he.

 

[WarJams]

Social Sandbox MMO 1337 l4rp3r when the crushing reality of actually having to moderate the kind of people deranged enough to no-life said Sandbox experiences

Welcome to social sandbox games. If you act like a bitch I'm gonna fight you. That's it. That's how this works in games like this—it's a social sandbox. Don't act like a bitch. It's not that hard to understand.