Brian Hook joins Verant Interactive

Keeper wrote in with the report on Everquest Stratics web site, that Brian Hook, who lately left Id, has officially relocated to Verant Interactive. Click below to read the full release.

BRIAN HOOK JOINS VERANT INTERACTIVE'S POOL OF PROGRAMMING TALENT.

- Highly regarded programmer to work on next generation technology San Diego, June 3rd, 1999 - Hook, formerly of Id Software and programmer on both Quake 2 and Quake 3, is a veteran of the games industry. His credits also include being one of the chief architects of the Glide API during his tenure at 3DFX; development work on the OpenGL code base at Silicon Graphics; and he has written numerous articles for magazines such as Dr. Dobb's Journals and Game Developer. He brings with him seasoned talent and an immense knowledge base.

"Verant is committed to both massively multiplayer gaming as well as cutting-edge 3D technology," said President and CEO of Verant Interactive, John Smedley. "Insuring that we have the talent and expertise to lead the way in both of these fields is critical to our company's goals, and adding someone of Brian's caliber to our already strong programming team is going to help us make the best games out there."

"I'm very excited to have Brian on board," said Brad McQuaid, Verant Vice President . "I believe successful games are made from both great technology and great design, and Brian brings us a lot of talent in both of those areas."

"Verant is the perfect place for me. I'm a huge fan of their games, and the opportunity to work on Verant's future titles is just too good to pass up," said Brian Hook. "I strongly believe in Verant's commitment to making the best Massively Multiplayer games out there, and I'm excited to be able to contribute to a product line that will be the benchmark against which all other Massive Multiplayer games are judged. People are going to be blown away when they see what Verant is working on."

Hook will be involved with programming and technology in both current and future Verant projects. Verant Interactive is an independent development studio that develops cutting-edge online games. Based in San Diego, California, Verant Interactive has a staff of over 70 employees who consist of the development teams responsible for the online games Tanarus and EverQuest. "

Comments

THIS IS AWEFUL!!!

[alta]

Ok, this is not good news for most of us current everquest players. Right now I play EQ for about 5 hours each night. The "/played" command says I've been ONLINE PLAYING my charecter for 13days 11 hours. Visually, this game isn't that advanced. It has POOR textures, and VERY blocky charecters (low poly count). It is even full of bugs with many broken quests.

Now it's got a wonderful programmer coming to work on it. I hope he doesn't make the game any better. I don't want more reasons to spend MORE TIME in front of that computer.

Enyar - lvl 16 - High - Elf Wizard
Server: Solesek Ro

Much more information...

[alta]

Voodooextreme has an interview with the man himself. Check it out http://www.voodooextreme .com/articles/interview_hook2.html

Re:So what games have Verant written before?

[Fizgig]

Um,
"Based in San Diego, California, Verant Interactive has a staff of over 70 employees who consist of the development teams responsible for the online games Tanarus and EverQuest. "

Re:So what games have Verant written before?

[Fizgig]

There, I changed it. Now it reflects your complaint :)

Re:So what games have Verant written before?

[Des Herriott]

Their current game is Everquest, a very addictive multi-user first-person RPG.

Particularly bad for those of us in Europe (see that other story today :-) since it's online only.

If you want to keep a life, don't start playing this game. Or at least, put an alarm clock beside your computer so that you don't suddenly realise you're supposed to be getting up for work in half-an-hour's time.