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Alganon Previews: Hands-On Preview
In Phoenix, we had some hands on time with Alganon and a chance to talk to the team that built it. What we found is a potential hidden gem due out this fall.
By Dana Massey on September 02, 2009
;)
With the loads of big companies and licensed MMOs on the horizon, sometimes smaller, independent titles can slip through the cracks. When Quest Online invited MMORPG.com out to Phoenix to see Alganon, I honestly had no idea what to expect. I knew it was a cartoony looking game with a strange name, but not much else. What I found was one of the most pleasant surprises I’ve had in quite some time.
Alganon should be very familiar to MMO fans. It’s not revolutionary in any way, which is unto itself a bit of a revolution. Quest Online is a small, privately funded company based out of Phoenix, but unlike many such companies, while they have grand dreams and aspirations, they’ve clearly focused on a very solid, stable and attainable MMO for a team of their size (about 40 people).
“[Alganon is an] MMOG that isn’t biting off more than we can chew, but that still provides people with what they want,” said President and Co-Founder David Allen as he demonstrated the game and the tools that built it.
At launch, hopefully later this year, Alganon will feature two races and four base classes (that eventually expand into 12). It’s a level based game, chalked full of quests and is set in a traditional fantasy world that visually clearly owes a lot of inspiration to World of Warcraft, but fictionally evokes memories of EverQuest and other more traditional fantasy.
It’s also a subscription based game. Allen was very clear about this fact. Alganon was developed as a subscription game and that is what they feel works best. They have no urge to change that, and despite pressure from potential publishers and investors, they’ve remained true to that goal.
;)
The most unique aspect of Alganon is their class system. Players begin with one of four very basic classes:
- Ranger: They’re exactly what you’d expect, with a bit of a twist. On top of ranged damage and support, they also specialize in anything related to what Lead Designer Hue Henry calls “AI manipulation.” Things that trick, confuse or confound NPC enemies.
- Soldier: This is the single target tank class. Sword and board, or two-handed weapons.
- Magus: The area of effect (AOE), damage per second (DPS) class should be very familiar to casters from any MMO.
- Healer: Guess what? They heal.
So what’s unique about this? Nothing… yet. Quest Online knew what people expected and wanted from a fantasy MMO, so they didn’t reinvent the wheel for no reason. Each of these classes does exactly what you would expect them to do and will continue to do that over the course of their entire career.
What’s unique is the next twist. They wanted to let each person make the class their own, and so they’ve allowed each of the three classes to sub-specialize in a second field and those are not always what people might expect. The idea is that no matter what they do in this second category, they will always be perfectly effective in their core role. This means people don’t need to worry that the Soldier that just joined the group cannot tank. He can. The question becomes, what else can he do?
;)
They’ve broken it down into three sub-specialties per class. Players can choose to mix and match, but ideally, they would go 100% into a specific category, which essentially just provides a second full skillset without any sacrifice to the first. These specialties are:
Soldier: On top of their single target DPS skills they can specialize in:
- Tactics: This tree provides the soldier with buffs that help himself and the group.
- Weaponry: For the more offensive tank, they gain additional DPS abilities.
- Protection: This line lets a tank become a multi-target tank and absorb even more damage to protect the group.
Magus: Aside from their AoE DPS role, they can specialize in:
- Frost: A Frost Mage can… wait for it… tank. That’s right, the Tank Mage is back.
- Fire: This focuses the Magus on a role as a single target offensive force. Ideal for bringing down an individual enemy.
- Storm: Buffs and debuffs get added to the magical arsenal.
Ranger: These woodsmen can augment their support and AI manipulation as follows:
- Guardianship: This breed of Ranger gains the ability to become a multi-target tank.
- Lifeblood: A ranger who takes this path learns the arts of natural healing.
- Instinct: For more offensive flair, get some DPS skills in your bow.
Healer: Don’t want to just stand back and watch health bars, but for some reason chose healer anyway?
- Spirit Mastery: A DPS driven option for the Healer that lets him not only give life, but take it away.
- Channeling: These guys add buffs to their healing arsenal.
- Divination: For group oriented healers, this lets people heal more than one target at a time.
Obviously, some of these are expected and some of them are not, but this solves an age old problem for MMOs. It lets people create a character that matches their desired play style, but doesn’t make it confusing or leave the possibility for a player to gimp their core role. With this system, a potential group always gets what it expects and usually has some redundancy.
;)
Another nice feature is the Studies system. Alganon took a page from EVE Online and made some of the game’s progression offline in origin. This system works in conjunction with traditional advancement and lets players study, in real time behind the scenes, to improve in specific areas. This balances things out and lets more casual players who might not have thousands of hours to dedicate to keep up with their comrades.
Studies predominantly take on two forms. They can either gate content, such as studying to unlock a new ability or chain of quests, or they can be used as an alternative to another form of advancement, such as studies that improve stats.
;)
Map of Ardonya
One of the areas where the size of the team likely did hold them back is races. For launch, Alganon will only feature two races, each on their own side and on their own landmass.
The humans are the core option. They represent the Asharr, one of two sides. They are exactly what you’d expect and begin their careers in the the Asheran Forest on in the Southwest of Ardonya. For launch, the game will have two enormous domains for them to explore: Asheran Forest and Haggon Marsh, to the Northeast.
At a glance, that doesn’t sound like much. This is just two of many areas on the planned map, but after extensive exploration and tours, it is obvious that the areas are large and varied. There is a wealth of content that should keep people entertained for quite some time and given the Quest Online team to expand organically outward in much the same way Lord of the Rings Online expands their world through free updates.
Eventually, on the Asharr side, the Humans will be joined by the Sylvan, Dronar and Kodian races. The Sylvan are a magical, ethereal race. They are not quite the traditional elves, although they are in tune with nature. The Dronar have a lot in common with generic fantasy Dwarves, their a hardy race from the deep North, but physically they are extremely large and built. Finally, the Kodian are an animal race, in this case bears. They’re a bit more naturalist and make wonderful Rangers.
Sounds solid. I especially like the kudos system.
I'll definitely give it a try.
Some of its ideas remind me a lot of Guild Wars though. Sort of a marriage between GW and WoW it seems.
The "Sylvan" race sounds a lot like the Sylvari in Guild Wars 2 :P
Hmm..Sounds almost as they try to use the "We are not trying to reinvent the wheel spin" as a marketing slogan for a game that is just another "soloable and easy style" MMO's that has been released to the MMO scene lately...
WoW
EverQuest 2
LOTRO
Runes Of Magic
Warhammer Online
Age of Conan
Aion
+ a boatload of asian titles with identical gameplay but with online store
Are but a few already existing "easy mode MMO's", how many more can the market handle ?
Sure "Kudos" is a nice feature and all, but that is all it is, a small feature. Every new games comes with small features that no other game has, EQ2 has a unique and splendid mentoring system for example, but no one will call EQ2 unique because of that small feature.
Maybe it's just me, but it saddens me that the market in MMORPG's has been corrupted in this way, It blocks all atempts to make a true next generation game.
Good luck with Alganon :)
Looks nice. I looked at the UI screenshot in their screenshots section.
lol
WoW anyone?
Sounds like this could be a great game. Only drawback is starting with only two races. I like to play Dwarves or Elves, so when they decide to finish (er, "expand") their game, I will check it out.
Although you might be right about the "dont reinvent the wheel" part, there is a major difference between Alganon and all the other P2P MMOs out there. QOL is an independant company, we are only 40 people. We do telework all over the world, connected through a deeply thought out and streamlined collaboration system. We really mean what we say. There is the real prospect of an indie MMO. There is the real prospect of a fun multiplayer game in a persistent world, created by avid MMO players for avid MMO players. Yes we play WoW, yes we played EQ, GW and pretty much every massive online title since the invention of "akkustic kopplers" as we say in germany. We love what we do, we really believe we can provide a game that is entertaining and is more than worth playing.
There is passion in this game - passion for games and most of all passion for this specific genre. We put everything we got into this experience, may it be financial and/or private risk.
You can say whatever you want, we live in a "mostly" free world. But whatever you say, you cannot change the facts.
The team behind Alganon is enthusiastic, dedicated and talented. We do everything it takes to provide the best game and service we could possibly provide. You are looking at a project that is not vaporware, a WoW clone, or anything you might call it. It is unique in its foundation and every single person work on it is motivated over the limits to make it as enjoyable and successfull as imaginable.
Marketing slogans are not an indicator for a good or bad game. Most of the time the marketing people have nothing to do with the game development or design at all. You have to make a clear distinction there. Just running around calling every new game a copy of an older one is not leading you anywhere. It mostly reflects what you think about your daily life. You need to start accepting the true nature of things, they evolve over time and eventually lead to an open door to the next iteration of your own reality. You can wake up one morning and believe single player games are your thing. Or you can decide MMORPGs with a fantasy setting are you thing and you crave for something unseen and evolutionary. You may not find it the same day, but you might feel motivated to look for it, or even create it on our own.
Chris,
QOL Tools Lead Dev
I am worried about the Kudo's system. Maplestory did the same with the ame system, but it only became a commodity where you could pay people to fame you. It also leads to scams where people get fame and run or people pay for fame and get nothing. Watch out Alganon.
Not impressed. This will not succeed as a subscription based title. I love smaller teams making good games, but the issue here is not solid games that have been done before, but rather the ones that have not done whats been done before. Clearly Alganon is a generic fantasy mmo that will be so dreadfully average and cartoony, that it wont stand up to any of those who have done the same previously and yet are still successful. In other words, you cant beat WoW at their own game. Just as no diablo clones became more popular or anywhere close to that of the original.
If a smaller team wants to be successful, "re-inventing the wheel" is actually the key to success, the issue lay in the difficulty in such a task. I would rather say, Innovation is the key actually. It is that innovation which will be the selling point, compared to generic titles of bigger companies which use an already known franchise to sell their game. Take LOTR for example. Other titles such as Guild Wars was successful because of their innovation, which involved an unheard of business model and backed that up with a style of play (instances) to keep costs low, but done in such a way where it was not bad at all.
If any of Alganon's devs end up reading this, which no doubt they will. Do not expect much interest or positive reactions. If innovation, major innovation, isnt there and as part of the selling point, then you have no chance at success....unless you consider a maximum of 50k subs (if you are lucky) a success. I would suggest re-examining that business model as well.
Though Rabenwolf's post is well thought out, I say it's still too early to give my opinion one way or another. Me? I'm looking forward to the game, but can't call is a success nor flop until the test of time rears its ugly head.
But I will say Indie all the way :)
#K
To Chris: Good on you, great to read a genuinely passionate post from a developer here.
I most like the sound of this: They’ve also added Families to the game, which is a choice made at character creation. Families start out as glorified chat channels. Players tell the game whether they’re an achiever, explorer, etc. and then they are grouped immediately in a general chat with like-minded individuals. Over time, this family provides a few alternative quests and achievements related to that style of gameplay. Explorers will be encouraged to see the world, and so on.
Reminds me of the class and race channels in Earth & Beyond, but with added purpose. Designers of the biggest games overlook this kind of feature repeatedly, and at the peril of their games. Just look at WarH'Online.
Yeah, I'm not impressed either... Why would I play a game that is being "traditional" when I can just play the other games that created the tradition in the first place? So no I def won't be playing this.. though at least they are honest about it, so props for that.
Where is the PVP?? No, I don't mean some lame ass duel or arena - Open world racial based PVP.
I'm no fan of WoW graphics, this could be something that turns people off.
The crafting sounds kind of cool, but I don't like getting the same sword from crafting as you can from raiding - A raid sword should be better than a top notch crafted sword, even if it's just a little better.
I'll want to see an open beta. NO not the open beta only for people who pre-order. OPEN BETA.
As a small dev team I'm sure those guys would be happy with 25-50k subs.
Not every game needs 300k+ subs to be a success. As long as the game is fun people will play it, it doesn't need a load of innovative features.
The game sounds like it has potential. As one above me said, where is the PvP? Throw faction based PvP in it and we might just have a solid game.
I totally blanked on that and forgot to put it in the article, apologies.
PvP should probably get an article onto itself for this game, but basically, there won't be any at launch. Why? The reason is that they want to do a completely concurrent and independent system. IE: Every single skill/ability in the game starts at the same place, but has a way it works for PvP and one for PvE. They are then balanced and tuned independently of each other.
As a small dev team I'm sure those guys would be happy with 25-50k subs.
Not every game needs 300k+ subs to be a success. As long as the game is fun people will play it, it doesn't need a load of innovative features.
That can be true if you do not include the investors as part of the equation. The money invested in the project doesnt come from no where, investors get on board. All investors want the best return possible with their investments. A development company equally will be limited by the success of a game. Take WoW for example. Prior to WoW Blizzard had a much smaller number of staff, a smaller building...ect With WoW's huge success, the greater numbers and profit, allowed for Blizzard to beef up their staff significantly, hire the best of the best, and actually have their own building built, which is now Blizzard HQ. All this requires millions of dollars, none of it would have been possible if their product was just scraping by.
Furthermore, no doubt the goal of this games developers as well as investors, is to reap as much rewards as possible, which in turn go into building upon the title as well as the company and even worth of the developers themselves.
i don't get it
how is this a hands on preview?
it read as a list of content and features of the game - - - copy and paste from the Alganon website?
i guess there will be more tomorrow so this is a preview of the hands on preview?
anyway, the crafting bit sounded interesting but it always does on paper doesn't it? implementation is usually craptastic, though i hope they stick to giving options for creating the highest gear as opposed to raiding for it (gawd how boring)
as for raiding i have always found this a very sad sad endeavor and i do hope that it is kept to a minimum (unlikely though, look at what happened to lotro for example)
interest in this game for me has gone up and down so often i'm not sure where it is now - the lowest ebb was the chaotic beta process - - - what was it like 10 ways to sign up but only one of the addresses was the correct one? and ultimately i didn't get chosen - WTF? i always get in but i guess my sign up was at an address that sent my request into the ether
ultimately this uhm "preview" has perked things up again - well written anyway
I admit, I thought about what you're saying while writing it. It's called "hands-on," because I sat there for quite a while and played the game. I also interviewed the core people, which in this particular field, is entirely necessary for any kind of on-site preview since there is no way to actually play the full breadth of a game in a few hours.
Definitely could have included more specific things I noticed, but it's not one of those games that has crazy features that people need to get a feel for. It played like an MMO and all the things they told me seemed to be in there in some shape or form... Beyond that, it looked nice (which I noted) and had a good flow (which I noted).
While I can't say if I'll really enjoy this game, I'm sure I'll check it out - I always check out new mmos, but I think the team is doing something right from a business perspective. They're not trying to go after the entire market, they've decided on a particular group (hard to say how big it is) and focusing their development on that group. I think to be successful in the current mmo market, you need to go after 1 group of gamers. Trying to get several, or all, seems to be one of the biggest issues we've run into with developers these days. You just can't satisfy everyone, but you sure can spend a lot of money making a game that no one is happy with.
A smaller team and budget focusing on a particular group and not depending (hopefully) on bringing in a huge player base to succeed is probably the best strategy. Personally I think if more developers focused on smaller groups, making that game really give their target group what they've been asking for, we'd have a lot more good (to great) games on the market. Hopefully there would be 1 or 2 that are doing the type of things I want.. :D
Naturally this is my take on our current mmo market.
This. A lot of indies and small firms work like this nowadays. Even large firms, with the exclusion of Bioware and NCSoft, either started out this way with their first mmo, or at least hired a substantial amount of smaller firms that were, like this, borderline freelancers. This is most often how a lot of people get their feet wet in the industry, unless they do java based class projects. So "kudos" to Chris for being honest about how their company is actually run. THAT is revolutionary to some, in and of itself.
Furthermore, yes they aren't trying to reinvent the wheel. Another game recently basically said that, called Aion. It seems to be working pretty well for them, so "if it ain't broke".... That being said, they are trying small things here and there to give it its own spice. Being that they are a decentralized company, this is the best strategy to go with. It gives investors what they are familiar with in turns of return potential confidence, and valuable experience to the team itself.
Besides, a company like this most likely doesn't have deep-pocketed investors. That is a plus right off the bat. It means they are less likely to try and macromanage the dev team, to allow them to better produce the game THEY want. Once profits start turning, and they will for a game like this, IF they can continue to keep overhead/ marketing down, you might find more content/ updates/ bug fixes/generally happier devs than you would a normal AAA title. Little by little, it might suprise you- in a good way, not in a streaking 80yr old aunt/ NGE kind of way...
I was thinking the same thing... There's no way I'm paying to play this. F2P, I'd give a try.. but not on a subscription basis.
Been checking this game out for a while now. So I will be waiting to get into open beta to check things out for myself before commenting on things I haven't experienced.
You can eat pizza from 20 different joints and know it's all pizza, but everyone has a favorite pizza joint......no?
I don't think this game has any chance of sucess and hopefuly I am wrong on this.
This is much more related to a flawed business model then to the talent of the development team. They could be 40 achieving what an army of 80 would do else where.
Could someone define me what kind of niche gamer population is this company aiming for? The casual gamer right?
Last time I checked the market was overflowed of limonade bamboo blade MMO. If I was an investor I would have pulled out long time ago.
Much props to a small indie group trying to develop and put out their own P2P MMO. They've got a tough road ahead of them, no doubt, but I will certainly be following the development and release of this game with great interest.
So you haven't tried it and it already failed? Huh?
That's some good stuff there.
Take a good look at what happened to the Chronicles of Spellborn. Their team was enthusiastic, dedicated and talented too. Lack of funding and poor marketing destroyed their game. Don't go that way.
I was thinking the same thing... There's no way I'm paying to play this. F2P, I'd give a try.. but not on a subscription basis.
And I was thinking the opposite. Although I am not impressed yet either. I belong to the targeted audience for this game, I suppose. I might try it out.
Anyway, hands on information is much appreciated by me.
I think people can get burned out of a particular game even if they still like the basic gameplay so i think trying to attract WoW players who are bored of Azeroth is (or may be) a viable model. The main thing is knowing that friend-gravity means that you're very unlikely to get millions of subs and therefore the initial investment money can't be too big. Basically i think a game company could make money being very like WoW or very unlike WoW and the big failures have been companies that tried to be both at once. So i think if they concentrate on making a very solid and polished soloable, quest-grinding, PvE themepark game with some new elements then it could go okay if they didn't borrow too much.
However I do wonder if it's possible with such a similar visual style. I think there's room in the market for a whole bunch of WoW-clones with very distinctive visual styles - as graphics are one of those areas where everyone has different (and often quite extreme) likes and dislikes - but so similar i'm not sure. On the other hand there are people who like WoW's style but very strongly dislike the character models. If i was involved in this game i'd maybe try some market research identifying those and seeing if they like Alganon's versions as that's one little niche they could potentially claim - although Allods may be competition on that front.
Last time I checked the market was overflowed of limonade bamboo blade MMO. If I was an investor I would have pulled out long time ago.
I think the games that have done relatively well over the last few years have either been very similar to WoW or very dissimilar.
The structure witch is a lot like WOW,more so than the EQ side of WOW, is a ho hum idea.They wanted to give players diversity,copy the sub class system from FFXI.
P2P vs F2p always a tough call,i feel this game will have to have a constant "trial"if it hopes to get customers to step in the door.This is the only way this game has a chance,i think this is why their publishers are calling for F2P they know there is a VERY small market out there right now.Not only is the market small,but AION is not even released yet ,neither is FFXIV,so man good luck on hoping for subscriptions.
BTW...you "DO" need unique ideas,if you are a no name developer,people are not going to play the same old ho hum leveling game.This is why you constantly hear people saying they are going back to their maxed out WOW players.That structure is actually one oif boredom,players have seen that picture once and will not go through that again,especially since they already have their WOW players,they are not going to leave for a cheaper version of the same.
2 Races,big time fail,it looks of cheap budget ,small developer.I played 6 races in FFXI,most felt is was the bare minimum,2 is just way too limiting in every aspect.I think even Ryzom has 3 and it looks weak.I know Aion went with 2 races,i also knocked them for doing the same,their reasons are obvious,they are leaving the rest of the game out,to sell the players expansions.It allows for a faster design and easier route to get the game out the door,but i am not buying into it ..sorry.
Biggest flaw this developer chose?OFFLINE skills of any kind are just awful,it irks me like you cannot believe.
The reason should be obvious,the reason you play a game is to "PLAY THE GAME",not have some timers or spreadsheets you checked off do it for you.I want the satisfaction of knowing i played ALL of the game and earned all of it,i hate the lazy approach.I did not like afk mining in RFO,i did not like that checking off spreadsheets in EVE one bit,and honestly i will never like that structure in a game.Now if it was real life and i could get paid for working offline and doing nothing,ya sounds good,but gaming is something we "WANT" to be playing it is not like work,something we want to get around doing.
This game IMO will have a VERY tough time,ever breaking even,it is a no name company that cannot build off of hype or it's name or it's marketing,so man best of luck,they will need it.
Ok, small correction here - 2 races at START, eventually 6 races will be playable so NOT "big time fail", look at Runes of Magic - started with only 1 playable race (humans) - adding another (elves) in a few weeks, and before you say it RoM IS f2p, but has a sizeable player base.
I agree Alganon may have a tough time breaking even - but thats why the publishers are trying to get the Dev team to swap from a subscription model to a f2p model, they see more of a potential for generating income for a game of this type that way.
Alganon brings a few nice little touches to the MMO genre, such as kudos points and families - so give it a chance and don't just sit there in ignorance shouting "FAIL!" and throwing out the old "WoW" cliches that everyone seems to do with EVERY new MMO that comes out nowadays...and, nobody is forcing you to buy it, simple answer it its not for you...don't play it.
I am slightly amazed at how many people are saying that this game will fail. There's absolutely no way of knowing becuase this game is in BETA.
You want global PvP? Why not play Darkfall? I hear there's plenty of that in there.
I think this game is going to do successfully enough for an Indi developer. I've taken a look at all the videos and am excited to try this game. If I don't make it into the beta, then I'll definetly be checking it out when it hits the shelves. Mind you, last game I actually purchased off the shelf was WoW when it first came out and only played that for a year.
If you haven't checked out the video featuring the developer tools, do! It's absolutely amazing from a programming perspective.
Poor souls, trying to beat WoW.
Its a shame that independent studio decided to make another WOW clone. Its and i am sorry i have to say this : foolish.
Huge companies with much larger investment tried them selves at WOW cloning. Mostly because they had to do it, since big investors do not understand originality or taking risk.
But most of them failed - not because their games were not good. But because you dont need another WOW.
Independant studio should go on and do what no big studio can - innovate , make something completely different.
Its a risk. But its only way they can succed
That said. I wish them all the luck. And i am sure Alganon will be good game for people that have some issue preventing them from playing WOW
If it looks like WoW and has to be paid like WoW .... then why not simply play WoW? I'm pretty sure Blizzard is much better at it's own game then anyone else.
I support all passionate Indie companies .... but ... i only see this succeed as a F2P ... then they might get the WoW-emulator market :)
I wish them strength and luck.
Where i wish them luck i do not see a bright future for this game. There is just nothing that sticks out about it. Its in a field with some big players and I am not sure it can compete.
I was all for supporting this game, I like to throw my money behind indies, I like the fact that it uses a sub based model, I liked the promise of a lot of the core systems, and the fact it looks artisically lile WoW dosent bother me, but...
95% soloable? The only real group content being raid orientated?
All of a sudden my interest is at 5%.
If it looks like WoW and has to be paid like WoW .... then why not simply play WoW?
simple answer, once you've completed all the WoW content, levelled your toon to cap and get bored with the raids...whats WoW got to interest you?
a New "WoW Clone" gives you all new content with a familar play style, always that to consider...
Next to the fact that WoW expansions regularly bring nice new chunks of content and it's quite a job completing all it's content (even without alts on horde/all. ), i am convinced that if you are bored with WoW you will also be to bored to play this.
It's the same feeling I felt when I was playing Runes of Magic. If I wanted to play something that looks and feels like WoW, why would I play a cheap ripoff of it instead of the real, polished thing?
Why does everyone think that WoW players are going to start playing a cheap knockoff? Because the names and places are different? It still looks, walks and talks like WoW with about a quarter of the content and about a fraction of the subscribers. Hell, even if Darkfall is a piece of garbage, at least they 'tried' to do something different with it.
Wasn't this game originally announced as a skill based or some hybrid class/ skill system where you picked skills from a pool and put points into them?
Anyway the ranger sub-specialities look very nice, I can see many diffrent rangers running around with very diffrent play styles.
But warrior ones? It reads like a rince and repeat of Prot/DPS tank in WOW. I would be more imrpessed if it added somethign new to the class, not just improving one of the classes already known roles, furthur pigeonholing that class into that path. Why tank as a DPS warrior if you have one specilizing in protection?
This is not an exact wow clone, they are adding new concepts to the game around deites, crusades, live content, and several other touches that may really help differentiate it.
QFT!
Everyone thinks they're a reviewer on this site these days. If the game doesn't conform to THEIR standards, it's FAIL, WoW clone and then the mission is to bury it with negative posts on forums.
I don't understand why people don't just move on to another game they like instead of concentrating on the ones they dislike.
There are many games on this site that I dislike and would never play, but I have better things to do with my time other than judging them and posting FAIL messages on their forums.
I guess some people have nothing better to do.
I think they stayed with the skill/class hybrid system in their own way. They added levels but in a way it still feels as if what skills and class/specialization you have counts more than actual levels.
The only thing that sucks is that with levels now in-game items will probably have lvl requirements to use like any other mmo and that sucks. I would prefer a sort of skill system for weapons, the more you use one type of weapon the more proficient you are with it and better weapons of that type you can use.
I like how this game is being made. From the start, even the story, they are shaing it to be a PvP or RvR type of game later on.
come on folks this is David Allen we're talking about. He'll find a way to drive this thing into the ground yet.
"Horizons" anyone?
This acually sounds enticing. Classes seem like the old days, when if you wanted a "tank" you looked for a tank. Everyone has thier roles. I hate games today that allow everyone to be everything. I also loved what he said about all the face sliders and detail put into building your toon is "a waste of time" I agree. After your done you never see faces again.
Time will tell.
It's the same feeling I felt when I was playing Runes of Magic. If I wanted to play something that looks and feels like WoW, why would I play a cheap ripoff of it instead of the real, polished thing?
Why does everyone think that WoW players are going to start playing a cheap knockoff? Because the names and places are different? It still looks, walks and talks like WoW with about a quarter of the content and about a fraction of the subscribers. Hell, even if Darkfall is a piece of garbage, at least they 'tried' to do something different with it.
I'm not sure they will but either way i think this game is more about picking up ex-WoW players or people who are still playing WoW even though they're bored of the world. I played EQ for six years and enjoyed it but eventually got burned out. If there'd been a game that was like a copy of EQ but visually different i'd probably have tried it.
I would try a copy of EQ as well, but eq is 10 years old and WOW is 5 years old. It is way too early to make a copy of WOW.
In the end I can't handle those cartoonish graphics full of hello kitty color.
Neither asian game with big swords that weight 5 tons.
At least I can troll on these forums and have some fun ! ! !
Thanks for the Hands on preview. I have followed this game for a long time now. Really excited for it. The WOW-clone thing is getting old though some of you guys need to see a game for what it is and not just take a look at it and say oh its a WOW clone. It has features from alot of games not just WOW. Read their site and follow the game in the forums, this game already has fostered a nice passionate following. The community features are great and the game has plenty of features that allow the player to play the way they want to. I like the class structure. I like that you can play as a healer and spec dps but it does not take away from your ability to heal. (unlike WOW) I like the skills system allowing you to unlock new paths for advancement and customization and even quest lines. I like that the characters will physically change based on what they do and how they play.(read their site) I like that deities will play a strong role in the game allowing for you to follow your own god and then go on crusades with other followers(players) to earn Karma for your god by doing their will. They will have battlegrounds and a ranking system. I like the families sytem and the library.You can be a legion Warlord and give instructions to battalions and parties. I also like that they have built the UI for modding making it easy to change or enhance. I'm excited to see the prophet and warden classes. The crafting will be robust and important to the world and the playerbase. Reading the site it seems they have a clear goal as to want to accomplish and where they are going. Nice to see a group of hard working indi developers bring something to the table. Also read their site PVP is a big part of their plans. They are 40 people thats it. I always support indi artists and I think the gaming world needs more of it. I send my first kudo to them.
If someone were to ask the question,"Why should I play Alganon over WoW," how would you answer that. I choose WOW, because it's arguably the best MMO on the market. With subscription based games, the majority of people only have time and the money for one. So that one must, in their eyes, be better than every other MMO on the market. Since millions upon millions feel WoW is "better in their eyes," how do you convince them that Alganon is better, or worth leaving their characters they've spent many months on? I'm not convinced there's enough people out there completely tired of their old game, or enough of an untapped market, to fill your game with subscriptions. When your game doesn't have any new or revolutionary features to pull people away, that's the only people you are really left with.
After reading the article, I have to say I am considerably more interested in Alganon than I was before.
I think the Kudos system sounds promising, although the potential for abuse makes me a bit uneasy.
I think the Families system sounds good, too.
But what most caught my eye was this: "Of course, there will also be larger raid content that players expect, although Henry insisted that 95% of the game’s content will be solo-able if the player so chooses."
A great many MMO players (myself included) enjoy grouping only occasionally. In most MMOs this means you end up skipping a lot of great content (the instances in WoW, for example). So, basically, in WoW I feel like I am paying a subscription fee for a lot of content (instances, raids, and PvP) that I either do not, cannot, or very seldom play due to the difficult logistics of finding groups that plagues most MMOs. This really irks me.
So, I am curious about the proportion of Alganon that is instanced and whether that instanced content is accessible to solo players (via scaling and/or the use of AI). This would be a huge leapfrog past WoW for me, anyway, all other things being roughly equal.
I am also curious about the subscription. If Alganon charges a WoW-level subscription price (say, 15$/month), that will be a turnoff for many. But if the subscription fee is lower, I think this, too, will greatly impact the game's success.
In any case, I'll be watching this game with interest.
Wrong wrong wrong!. You obvious just glanced at the story, but did not comprehend. I think they are on the right track. Far too many of these games pile on the feature list while doing none of them well. This game has possibilities, they also seem willing to listen to what the players want.
There are so many poorly thought out MMO's out there, it seems nice that someone has looked at what makes games fun and acted on it.
I am very tempted to give this game a try.
I have been playing Alganon for quite a while now, and though I cannot give out details I would like to say...Very nice! I have played WoW since onset and played AoC up to 3 level 80s and until they made bear shammans more melee than heals. This Alganon is something I feel people are going to want to play! Wish I could say more....
I was going to keep my mouth shut about that, but since someone mentioned it, the guy did create Horizons. That can be taken both ways. It can be taken as, "these guys have experience," or "...not another Horizons failure..."
I like the look of it, generally don't care for the cartoony look, but this looks like a definite graphical evolution over WoW. This is also sounds good, their spin on basic systems sounds interesting. Definitely worth keeping a eye on.
I've stopped believing regular subscription fees should be $15/mo, because these numbers are just arbitrarily put out there and are the "norm," because not enough people have questioned it. Although I will continue to pay these fees as long as I want to play a MMO, I do not see the value in playing a inferior game for the same price as a superior game. If Alganon is $9.99/mo, I'll commit to buying the box when it releases. Otherwise, I have Ulduar, ToC 10man, and Icecrown when that patch releases, to keep me busy until Cataclysm releases at the end of next year.
I have a friend who's been playing Alganon in beta for 5 months, and he said he'll likely not subscribe, so I won't be influenced by this post really.
I was going to keep my mouth shut about that, but since someone mentioned it, the guy did create Horizons. That can be taken both ways. It can be taken as, "these guys have experience," or "...not another Horizons failure..."
I wasn't going to dig up ancient history in the article, but just to clear up some things.
David Allen was the original creator of Horizons, but there are two important things to remember. One, the game that eventually launched had virtually nothing in common with the original concept. He'd left long before that. Two, the original concept's biggest failure was that it tried to do too much. A theme of what I saw down there is that they have a very realistic and grounded design and plan. Thus, in that respect, he learned some important lessons there.
This is good. I really want an indie game to succeed. I want people to learn that you do not have to be Blizzard or have their subscription numbers to be a profitable venture. But, what I want to ask you, personally, as a member of the team making this game: Why would I play this game, that seems exactly like WoW, instead of playing WoW?
Edit:
I wanted to add, along with Nate's post, that I chose WoW because this games seems strikingly similar to that type of game, and that type of game is far and away more popular.
You're kind of irking me, Dana You forget to mention the whole pvp thing, then the hands on is more like a features list and now you're sort of defending this joker, like he is your cousin or something.
A lot of folks have made good points on this game - What is the price, btw? No way in hell I'm paying $50 +$14 per mo. for a game that hasn't done much new and won't even have PVP until sometime way later.
I wasn't going to dig up ancient history in the article, but just to clear up some things.
David Allen was the original creator of Horizons, but there are two important things to remember. One, the game that eventually launched had virtually nothing in common with the original concept. He'd left long before that. Two, the original concept's biggest failure was that it tried to do too much. A theme of what I saw down there is that they have a very realistic and grounded design and plan. Thus, in that respect, he learned some important lessons there.
That's a good point Dana, and thanks for clarifying that for everyone. It is good that they are starting out small and building on top of that as the game goes on, but I just wish they could of distinguished thier game from the crowd a lot better. As another poster has said, WoW is only 5 years old and Blizzard has already released news of the next expansion. With the average gamer still not even through with Naxx, how does Alganon expect to attract players that are interested in that kind of gameplay, when they are still playing WoW, LoTRO, and the other similar games with class/level/quest based systems? I know there are people who are tired of the games out, and will no doubt try Alganon, but I wouldn't bet my company on enough of them to come to support the game. By creating a game too similar to WoW and other games, they've basically bet that. I agree with others, when they say this game probably doesn't have a prayer as a $15/mo subscription game, but may do better under a different plan. Maybe a pay as you go content plan, like DDO, or a lower subscription fee, such as $9.99/mo.
Personally I like some of what Alganon is trying to do - but hate the other part.
What I like
They are starting small and going to expand. Thats what ALL mmos should do. But then the BOX version of the game should not be charged for and subscription should be lower ? Or even free ? For me its ok to start with subscription but dont charge ppl for a box if 90% of the game is coming later.
Kudos system sounds great. I hate going into a random groups now cause most of the time they dont get half the way - ppl leave for all sorts of reasons or dont know whats up or down of their character. Giving ppl chance to vote on how each member of a group did (0 meaning he left before we finished) sounds like a great way to give ppl indications on what they are in for.
What I hate.
Offline skill system. Eve online did it yes.. That game is a sandbox game created around diffrent values than raiding and simple item gathering. How will raiding content be balanced if ppl can train some abilites/stats offline ? Is it a level playing field for those that start one year after the game launches ? I think this is a very important question for this game since alot of the content is supposed to be added afterwards.
Alternitive way to get things. To me it sounds that even the offline system can get you items. SO.. you can get abilites - stats AND items while offline ? I mean ... why log in at all?
Subscription - and offline skill system ... I stated a topic about how the sub MMOs are now trying to find new ways to "force" ppl to stay subbed if they want to enjoy their game at all. To me a game sold in a box should not be forcing ppl to pay subs with any kinda offline training system. EVE- online has used their subscription system as the ONLY way to maintain their game and build it up. NO expansions from CCP are charged for and thats how it should be if ppl are buidling a game around offline training system. To me - almost every sub based MMO games are going to try to adapt to this system now - Forgetting that they have to create BALANCED content for their players. EVE - ONLINE creates its OWN balance because its a sandbox game. THere are no Eve-online PVE raids - or group runs to finish quests... Still even WOW are gonna try to squeze more money out of ppl by litterally force them to stay subbed - EVEN if ppl are not playing the game at all. And if they do not pay and progress.. then they can't enter raids cause they dont have the abilites / stats to get in.
You can read my post about this issue here.
www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/249806/The-sub-MMOs-are-fighting-back-.html
I was thinking about trying this game out.. but this system made me deside not. PPL are talking about how f2p games are forcing ppl to use item shops and are not giving out lvl playing fields for all players. How the hell can a sub based MMO with offline training system give level playing field for any content in their game ? The answer is simple - they can't. To me these subbased mmos that are also charging ppl money for the BOX and Expansions are taking this to far - showing pure greed in their buisness model.. much more so than what the F2P games are doing.
Alganon ? No thx.
Well, I'm going to try this out when it launches....I like the look, and I like the approach you are taking. I do hope that the content will hold up; I'm a slow player, it takes me a long time to get through what most power gamers absorb in the first month, but so far everything I see here looks like the kind of game I want to play.
Had they done this in any other setting outside of fantasy I might have tried it out. So sick of the sword and sorcery style of play.
Other than that, if they go with a subscr and online download 25% of a boxed version cost, they may be able to keep the game going.
Hi everyone, this is Dan, the lead Server developer over at Quest Online. I was really glad to take the time to read this article, and especially all the comments that followed. I felt like saying "I agree" to so many of the postings, good and bad. The fact is, we're a small company that can move in different directions once the game is released. Alganon will be released with a solid foundation for soloing because that is the easiest way to develop a game with a small team of people. We will bring in PvP and more hard-core raid content as the game develops. We're wide open to customer feedback about the development of the game. Our intention is to build a solid foundation of the basics for a fantasy-world MMOG, from scratch, based on the hard work and creativity of the individuals on our team. Hopefully that game will be fun to play. If it is, then people can expect it to develop rapidly into more developed end-game content, because the people on this team are outstanding - there's no bureacracy here, the only thing we suffer from is long work hours and a small team.
At launch, the game will also feature some instanced dungeon crawls, typically found at the end of a chain of quests. One thing Henry emphasized, though, is that they work to make these meaningful. For example, in one quest, they eventually have to kill a kobold master before he raises a dead god.
It turns out though that later, when they enter an area of the world infested with those same kobolds, now in complete chaos. Why is that? You killed their leader earlier on and have since sent them into disarray. It’s just a small touch, but it makes people feel quite important.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
No.
No.
No.
This is exactly what is wrong with modern MMO design. "Instances", "chain quests", "phasing".
Whatever happened to the concept of everyone existing in the same world? Why do dev's insist on giving us a drama play script we are "forced" to act out or sit through as a captive audience instead of given us a world?
Hello all,
Regarding the hands-on preview I thought it was a great synopsis of what is currently implemented in the game. As many people love to call any new release a 'WoW clone' I feel that is really a bunch of nonsense. If anything WoW is an EQ or UO clone, they did it first, and WoW simply added/refined what was clearly established before they decided to test the MMO market only 5 years ago. Yes, the graphics do resemble WoW to an extent, but I still see qualities about it that make it unique. I also think their ideas of a 'family' system, offline skill ups via the 'studies' system(as long as it does not completely equate to those that ACTUALLY play the game or it would be quite silly imo), in addition to the 'kudos' system are very intriguing to say the least. One concern I have is regarding their idea of a 'controlled release'. I can certainly understand WHY they want to do such a thing and limit the number of people that can actually sign on as a new paying customer each month for server stability reasons, but honestly I can see MANY people getting upset if they cannot keep up with the number of people ready and willing to pay the money to begin play only to be told it is 'full' for the month. Other than this issue, I for one am looking forward to trying this game, it looks like it will have some very cool and unique ideas implemented and if they can pull it off it could do very well imho.
-Tashani
You know, I really feel bad for these guys. They've obviously put a lot of work and money into developing this game, but when I look at the screenshots and read the preview I just can't but think of this slogan:
"Why reach for the stars when you can reach for a coat hanger?"
If you aim low, you're not going to get very far, and sadly this game has the feel like it aimed low. Yes, WoW was an EQ clone, but the level of polish and player gratification that it brought to the genre was a huge, genre shifting innovation. Where's the innovation here - the classes are WoW classes, the class specifics are just locked in WoW talent pools, the races can be found in various other games. They're going to roll out PvP? That's never been tried before. I bet someone spent 3 weeks making dance animations for the characters.
I wish them all the luck in the world, but when I see all the work that they've done, it's just depresses me. When it comes to making computer games, the motto should be "Innovate or go home."
Take a good look at what happened to the Chronicles of Spellborn. Their team was enthusiastic, dedicated and talented too. Lack of funding and poor marketing destroyed their game. Don't go that way.
Good points. I wonder if matters would have been different if they hadn't shot themselves in the foot with the first IP bans, and if Acclaim had not dragged its feet for months. I'll always suspect that Acclaim knew about their problems and was just biding its time.
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/388/feature/3477/Alganon-Behind-The-Scenes-At-Quest-Online.html
The promised follow up.
Vesa, do you remember my misgivings about Spellborn? It had a doomed feeling from the start. Much like the original Horizons or Saga of Ryzom. Dave Allen's original vision for Horizons was MUCH different from what launched, after he was backstabbed by Bowman. That DA has made it back from all of that, is the reason I'm going to give this one a try. That, and the fact that I like solo content ^^ I have neither the time nor patience to waste my play time Looking For Group.
Hmmm... You mean Dave Bowman is there to back stab him again?... I suspect that DA learned several lessons from that time. Given his talent and imagination(I remember the original vision for Horizons) I'm glad he made it back. I plan to give this one a try.
Given that around 2/3's of the western player base is PvE, lacking PvP to start in a PvE centric game is no problem. MMO PvP has never really impressed me. If I want PvP I'll go play UT3 or Quake4, or Quake Wars.
Even if parts of the game were very similar to WoW it might end up a much better product in short order because Vivendi sucks up all the money WoW makes and somehow looses most of their good programming talent on a regular basis.
If this game gets 100k subs it will take off like a rocket because the money is going directly to support the game. not some global company with a ton of failing operations.
I'll try it when it comes out and stick around for a while. that is unless it is a complete failure...and from what the reviewer said it shows a lot of promise, so we can scratch that one off the list. I'v been dying for an Indie to make a P2P mmo that isn't complete garbage.
Just to see where the company goes. Hell mabye they get 100k subs and double their staff and release a huge free expansion.
You won't know unless you give em a shot. All not playing it is gonna do is sink a potentialy good company before it even gets a chance to show what they can do.
To the makers of Alganon, consider this:
Release the game Free-to-Play, and keep it forever Free-to-Play, for those zones and races you release at the launch. Add a subscription/upgrade option that will eventually give players the higher level content and additional races as you make them available. You get lots of folks trying it, and people who are reticent to pay for an admittedly 1/4-baked game will feel better about it.
It may require higher numbers of servers, but you'll get a millions of folks playing and talking about the game. If this model can make the developers of a crap game like Runescape $60 million+ per year, there's no reason it won't work for a game that has similair production values to the dreaded MMO whose name we dare not speak.
Free Realms hit 5 million registered users in a few months because it launched for free, and DDO seems to be experiencing an uptick in buzz since announcing players will be able to try it for free and play part of it free forever.
More players = more buzz = more youtube videos = more interest.
If your game is as good as you believe it will be, it will translate into subscribers.
I'm intrigued enough to try a demo.
I'm not a WoW hater, but I am a casual player and the sheer size of WoW is daunting. I would rather start playing a game just as it launches - see the community grow and have a role in helping it take shape.
That can be true if you do not include the investors as part of the equation. The money invested in the project doesnt come from no where, investors get on board. All investors want the best return possible with their investments. A development company equally will be limited by the success of a game. Take WoW for example. Prior to WoW Blizzard had a much smaller number of staff, a smaller building...ect With WoW's huge success, the greater numbers and profit, allowed for Blizzard to beef up their staff significantly, hire the best of the best, and actually have their own building built, which is now Blizzard HQ. All this requires millions of dollars, none of it would have been possible if their product was just scraping by.
Furthermore, no doubt the goal of this games developers as well as investors, is to reap as much rewards as possible, which in turn go into building upon the title as well as the company and even worth of the developers themselves.
But different investors have different definitions of "best." Some go for highest return, others go for secured return. Each has benefits and drawbacks. To get a high return, you usually have to face a high risk of loss. If you're going for a more guaranteed return, it likely won't be as high as something that involved more risk.
Pick a service or consumer-goods industry and you'll see a variety of business sizes and models. For all the Starbucks and Krispy Kremes out there, there's also a bunch of smaller independent coffee shops and donut shops that are doing just fine by their owners' standards. Or clothing - how about you try being innovative with a shirt. There's something to be said for doing one thing and doing it well. Just a few examples.
It may not be your ideal business model, but that doesn't make it any less valid.
I'm not that familiar with Maplestory, but how did the fame system impact the game? Was there any sort of reward based on your fame?
From the brief description that Dana provides, it looks the impact of Kudos will be minimal. Seems like it'll only be useful for PUG-ing. If (when) players start exploiting it, won't people just start ignoring it?
Horrible advice. F2P games have a negative aura immediately attached to them. That is the last thing they need.
I wish them luck.
Horrible advice. F2P games have a negative aura immediately attached to them. That is the last thing they need.
I wish them luck.
F2P games only have a negative reaction to hard-core gamers. Normal folks and casual gamers are willing to give a game a shot, and are certainly more likely to try it if the barrier to entry is just a download.
This game is going to have a stigma at the start as being a "WoW Clone". The likelihood folks will stop paying WoW $15/ month to pay Alganon $15/ month, even after a 14 day trial period, is low. The only conceivable way to avoid this is to allow people to get into the content and invest some time in it, a personally be able to dispel any "WoW Clone" talk for themselves.
Especially since this game is based on their own proprietary technology. The beginning is going to be brutal with all sorts of bugs, you can't avoid it. People, en masse, are not very likely to shell out money for an unfinished product. If they're not paying for the game, they're less likely to just walk away while you work out the inevitable kinks of a new technology going live.
Bad communities develop not soley because a game is F2P. It's far more complex than that. F2P games get a huge number of people who sample the game, but the bad eggs end up staying with games where it's easiest to exploit, cheat and abuse. The problem with many F2P games is that they do not consider that it game design.
They may choose that they want to roll it out slowly, though, and start with a few thousand subscribers to help work out the kinks gradually. It seems like a waste of an opportunity to ride the excitement that comes along with a release. You can only release once, really. Excitement will never be higher than it is around release day.
i liked the idea, don't add too much.... keep it simple and have a bit there for everyone to do at their own pace. Don't overload them with races (everquest 2), don't overload then with grind and killer raiding (vanilla wow), don't have stupid crafting and fix it later (tabula rasa, lotro, CO).
Don't promise so much then can't deliver (WAR, AoC Etc).
Some nice ideas, from a wealth of different MMOs, from Eve to Everquest to WoW. I mean on here people will bitch and moan about everything, they're MMO players who probably don't shower a lot.
Probably the same type of people that saw "beyond good and evil" scoffed and went 'just adult zelda, been done' and didn't buy - the type of person i hate. Prejudgements are wrong. i always try games, if i didn't i might actually believe IGN, and that's something i'll never do.
they wouldn't know a decent game if it ripped their own ass out.
Take a good look at what happened to the Chronicles of Spellborn. Their team was enthusiastic, dedicated and talented too. Lack of funding and poor marketing destroyed their game. Don't go that way.
There is a BIG difference here. Chronicles of Spellborn had HORRIBLE art direction IMHO.
There is a BIG difference here. Chronicles of Spellborn had HORRIBLE art direction IMHO.
Well, it was certainly a different art style... But over all the graphics were pretty good. Some of the animations seemed a bit stiff, but thats a matter of taste. The main thing that stuck out in my mind was the combat system. The rotating deck was a cute idea, but one risked carpal tunnel syndrome using it.
Couple that with the horrible fragmentation of the player base at launch because of that very ill considered IP ban, and you start out with two strikes against one. Then Acclaims foot dragging for the NA launch didn't help matters. Not to mention they didn't even have a credit card option for subscription until almost two months after the NA launch, and one sets the foundation for the lack luster subscriptions we witnessed.
WoW this game has no chance in hell to succeed. Firstly we have a small company making a cookie cutter mmo. There are plenty of mmos like this one out already. Last time a small company attracted the mass market was when Mythic made DaoC and introduced battlegrounds , a new concept. This big twist on classes ? Yeah, it's been done before by F2P games like Crowns of Power, or Runes of Magic in some way. So in the end, you are trying to compete with the likes of WoW and Aion, with crappier graphics, and undoubtadly less polish. Meanwhile you want a subscription based game while offering the same features as free2play games. Yeah this has only one way of ending.
It never ceases to amaze and amuse me, how people can write off a game before they have even played it.
Look around at the vast majority of MMO's(especially the 5 ton gorilla that is WoW) and you will see that they have all stolen ideas from each other, and from other forms of entertainment before them. This fixation on "innovation" by some people is blinding them to some of the consequences.
In the realm of functionality, does one have to re invent the wheel, every time one builds something that uses them? Round wheels are so "old fashioned!" been there, done that!...
In reality, its how one applies existing concepts, and the attention to detail(professionalism) and the fun factor that matter. Sure "innovation" *can* be good. But *only* if it works well with existing infrastructure, Innovation for its own sake(to appease the jaded...) is not only pointless, but usually turns out to be counter productive. Personally, I don't see them attempting to compete with Aion or WoW for that matter. Aion is PvP centric(Given that its NCsoft, how could it not be? ^^) . WoW on the other hand is well... WoW. No one in their right mind would set out to compete with it at this point. I suspect Dave Allen is MUCH wiser than that. Lets give it 6 months to a year after *launch* before we start proclaiming its "doom", shall we? ^^
I've been around for a long time and sometimes games surprise me. However this is one of those times where you see the train wreck coming from a mile away. Think Archlord and Codemasters original subscription plan. I didn't say innovation is a must, but for a small company to succeed with the big dogs in the pay to play market they need to set themselves apart somehow. Without innovation how will they do that ? They can't match the graphics, they can't match the polish, due to the fact all that takes loads of money. Blizzard spends a lot of money on postponing their products just to make sure they are ready (I am not a big fan of Blizzard mind you). Small companies can't do that. That is why most small and indie games usually come out pretty buggy at first and it is their innovation or niche appeal that keeps them alive.(EvE, Wurm etc.) What I have done is taken my experience watching games fail, the reasons for why they failed, and compared those points to this game. We have a match.
Well I beg to differ. It is quite obvious you did not read the article nor the subsequents ones. They are not trying to out Wow, Wow. They are avoiding the every feature in the book syndrome and focusing on integrating the features they will have to work well together. That can't be said of many MMO's. Until we get to beta test it, we won't know if they have been successful.
While it is always ok to be skeptical, you post goes way beyond that. So the only match we have is that you don't have a clue what you are talking about.
Kudos to Rabenwolf for the well thought out responses. I must agree with you on everything; you show great prowess of the gaming world; not to mention you are articulate, which makes reading your posts enjoyable.
To Dana: Man you have a lot of typos in your post (to the point where you really seem less like a professional and more like a freshman in college)… Ever think about proofreading your blogs before you post them? Interesting read regardless.
Shohen: I don’t think your “current take on our mmo market” is all that accurate. As Rabenwolf has already stated this isn’t just a team of 40 guys, its 40 guys plus investors. The investors didn’t pour their money into a team looking for minimal return.
The problem with focusing on a small group is that the probability of that demographic expanding is fairly low. And let’s face it, the demographic that QOL is focusing on is no small group, but an extremely large group already dedicated to hugely successful titles (two of which are coming out with insanely new makeovers that look to add extra innovation to an already trite genre: WoW Cataclysms and GW2)
Even though this game has several features that separates itself from WoW, at first glance (you can go to their website and look at videos) it seems like a carbon copy of WoW, with less promise since it is being brought to you by a small unheard of company. And if this company is not seeing some decent profits within its first year, they are not exactly going to be expanding in the investor department. If a game doesn’t see huge profits soon (creating the game and launch puts a lot of financial stress on a company), the rate in which they can push out new content will be brought to a devastatingly slow speed if not put it on a several month hiatus till it can build up enough revenue to pay its employees for 1 month of new content. Maybe this game has what it takes to just skim by, but who wants to be just average in one of the most successful markets in our economy? Not to mention it’s extremely dangerous to do such a thing.
When an independent gaming company enters the subscription based realm of MMO’s they are throwing down with the biggest and best companies. Hell, LotRO can’t even compare to the WoW, and it’s using, quite possibly, the most monumental IP in existence: Lord of the Rings.
Kainis: You bring up a fairly valid point; Aion recently said the same thing as QOL; “if it ain’t broke, then don’t fix it”. And Aion is doing quite well post-launch (I still don’t think it will be that great of a game, despite my absolute love for Guild Wars and Dungeon Runners, and as a corollary NCSoft); however something tells me that Aion’s case is slightly different than that of QOL’s… whether it be the fact that Aion is using a sweet graphics engine, that its setting is something never really seen before on the western MMO scene, that it’s being produced by a pretty big company, or that it boasts a tremendously in-depth character creation system (which despite what QOL says, it DOES indeed matter to a lot of gamers; I’ve spent my fair share of time just rotating the camera around just to gaze upon how awesome my character looks). So in short I don’t think you can really compare the two games.
You say with absolute certainty that “a game like this” will rake in profits. What makes you so sure (I’m, obviously, not convinced)? Are you talking about all fantasy based games? Or just all WoW-clones? And not all WoW-clones are successful; Runes of Magic being the exception; its business model is good and it pulled off being a clone (never actually played the game, so not sure how the later was done).
I just also wanted to give props to Tupodawg999, I hate your name but very solid post with great points.
To Lashbane’s post #33: You make the common fallacy that people can’t make accurate predictions about a game based upon desired at-launch features, company directions, and company history. How do you think people make money off the stock market? Same logic is applied to the MMO gaming industry.
A combination reply to Butterball and JonMicheal Post # 44:
“I don't understand why people don't just move on to another game they like instead of concentrating on the ones they dislike.”
I can say with certain absolute fact that many of us who are dissenting against this game do spend time playing games we enjoy; but we also like sharing with the community our ideas and thoughts about up-and-coming games. The same standards apply to you as well: If you don’t want to read our critiques, don’t. We’re not forcing you to not play/buy the game. Some of us, like myself, feel we have something valuable to offer potential buyers; anybody who is likeminded with me benefits from my posts; even someone who is not likeminded would benefit because it helps them analyze a group of individual's opinions to help better determine if this game is right for them or not.
To Frobner: Nice post. Great points. Wish I could commit further but I am running out of time.
To Marlon B’s post #36: I was planning on wrapping up my post with something similar to what you so eloquently said. Since you beat me to the punch, I’ll just quote you,
“If it looks like WoW and has to be paid like WoW .... then why not simply play WoW? I'm pretty sure Blizzard is much better at [its] own game [than] anyone else.”
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Games I’ve stopped playing: WoW
Games I play: Guild Wars, Dungeon Runners
Games I am looking forward to: GW2, maybe the new WoW expansion
Originally posted by Dubhlaith
This is good. I really want an indie game to succeed. I want people to learn that you do not have to be Blizzard or have their subscription numbers to be a profitable venture. But, what I want to ask you, personally, as a member of the team making this game: Why would I play this game, that seems exactly like WoW, instead of playing WoW?
because WoW is full of knobheads and fanboi's.
It's funny how you make a point that is completely contradictory to what you're actually trying to say.
You're trying to say your friend dislikes the game.
What you actually said is your friend likes the game enough to play it for 5+ months.
Call me insane but if I don't like an MMO it won't get 5 hours out of me let alone 5 months.
I dunno ... could be it's just fun enough while it's free but not worth paying for?
I've beta-tested TcoS since the early closed beta .... never played it live.
I dunno ... could be it's just fun enough while it's free but not worth paying for?
I've beta-tested TcoS since the early closed beta .... never played it live.
I played Spellborn once it finally went live with Acclaim. Not a bad game all things considered, but the combat system hammered the hell out of my fingers and wrists. Its too bad the company has gone bankrupt. 5 months?? I can tell if a games worth my time in a few weeks. If it has promise, I'll give it a couple of months(launch tends to be stressful for just about any game). I'm really looking forward to Algernon as I've followed Dave Allen's work for a long time. His vision for his original game was exceptional. But being back stabbed by Bowman ruined all of that.
Sorry, this doesn't look interesting enough or innovative enough to be worth a monthly subscription. It's seems to be just another generic fantasy MMO. I do wish the development team well and hope they can prove me wrong.