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Alganon General Article: Behind The Scenes At Quest Online
Quest Online LLC has taken a unique approach to MMO development and when we were in Phoenix to see Alganon, we also got a glimpse into how they hope to change the way people build MMOs.
By Dana Massey on September 03, 2009
Quest Online LLC is a unique MMO company. During a recent visit to Phoenix, the developers of Alganon did more than just demonstrate their debut MMO product, they showed off how their company works and what makes it different from their competitors. As a company, they seem to have two core philosophies: build it themselves and never waste a dime.
QOL is independently funded through private investors who, according to Co-Founder David Allen, have all bought into their vision and give him and his team the latitude to follow their vision.
The biggest surprise though is that the company is entirely remote. When they brought me down, they didn’t tell me this, Allen wanted to see my reaction. I thought we were making a pit stop at his house to grab a cup of coffee, but no, that was the headquarters.
;)
In an upstairs office, he has a PC, complete with three giant monitors where he conducts his daily business. Largely, they stay connected through Skype. There were constant meetings and text conversations flying by the entire time I was there, he even interrupted the demonstration a few times to track some bugs and tasks with the team. And don’t take that as a complaint. Too often, during press demos, it seems as if the entire company has shut down for a dog and pony show. It was refreshing to know that business continued as usual. It gave me a more honest view of what they were up to.
To stay coordinated, they use a series of web-based software solutions. Jira is a tool that helps them track tasks, work hours and bugs. Confluence provides them with collaborative workspace, which is a fancy way of saying that’s where all their documentation, spreadsheets and other information lives. And as mentioned, Skype keeps them in verbal and visual touch.
As a distributed company they can and do employ people from all over the world. Much of their art is done by a group in Romania, but still, the core of this roughly 40 person team remains in Phoenix. At dinner that evening, a dozen or so members of the team dropped by Allen’s home for a BBQ. They are distributed, but clearly also get some face time in as well.
It takes a special kind of person to have the discipline to work at home, but for a small company trying to compete in a very expensive field, the sacrifice makes sense. According to Allen, if they ran the company in a more traditional manner, he estimates they could easily spend two to three times as much as they do.
The other big difference between QOL and most every MMO I’ve ever seen is that they do everything themselves, and I do mean everything.
;)
They didn’t license Unreal, buy HeroEngine or any of these other third party solutions. Every single thing in Alganon is developed 100% in-house by their team. This is very rare. Some MMOs license everything from the graphics engine, to the billing system, all the way to the trees in the world. The only possible exception to this, according to Allen, will be integrated VOIP. They do intend to eventually adopt it, and will almost assuredly turn to a third party for that out of pure practicality.
The Alganon Editor is how the game is put together. As anyone who has tried to play with the Neverwinter Nights or Unreal editors know, these tools can be complex, but also quite powerful. It’s a lot of work to build and maintain one, and usually the more custom to a project it is, the more convoluted it gets.
Allen demonstrated their Alganon Editor to me, and I am not exaggerating when I say that within minutes I was fairly confident that had he let me, I’d have been able to edit just about anything about the game and start producing content.
I’ve worked with these tools professionally and for fun, and the Alganon Editor may just be the simplest, most straightforward and powerful tool I’ve seen. Quite literally, every content aspect of the game - from the way the world looks to what skills and abilities characters have - exists within this editor. Someone could, theoretically, take this tool and make an entirely new game out of the same content.
And no doubt they will. Allen admitted that Alganon is – he hopes – the first of many projects. They have a concept for a second MMO, although they have not and will not actually actively pursue it until after Alganon is launched and established. That said, they’ve planned for the future with their tools.
;)
I wondered if these tools, since they’re so neatly done, are something they eventually intend to license to others, but Allen said simply, “No, that’s not the business we’re in.”
With Alganon itself, they’ve set out to do a core handful of features well, rather than doing too many without fully fleshing any of them out. Over time, they want to expand the game organically and make sure anything the player sees is fully realized. It remains to be seen whether players will stick with a product that only has a couple races and classes, but there is some precedent for this. EVE Online for example launched as a shell of what it is today and grew over time. QOL is looking for a similar path.
Take for example Player vs. Player, which was conspiculously absent from yesterday’s preview. While they’ve set the game up to have to opposing forces, the fact is that for launch, it simply is not in the cards. They don’t have time to do it the way the want to, so it won’t be on the agenda.
Ultimately, they intend to clone every skill and ability in the game and individually tune each half both for PvP and PvE. So for everything from a simple sword attack to the way armor absorbs damage, there will be two totally independent set of statistics. This should provide them with greater flexibility and less unintended consequences. It’s a major undertaking, one Allen was baffled that hasn’t caught on more generally, but it’s how they believe it should be done and they’d rather hold off on PvP until they can do it right, rather than just letting people smack each other around in some half-assed variation.
With a company trying to build its own tools, its own engine and a completely new game on a small budget, there is little room for error. If they’re only doing a few systems, but promising to do them well, they cannot screw them up for launch. Allen has adopted a no-BS management structure to make sure things go smoothly.
;)
He told me quite frankly that they work in a pretty strict sink or swim environment. People either are self-sufficient or they aren’t and move on. He calls QOL a “company of experts,” and if someone doesn’t pull their weight, they’re quickly let go. In a few cases already, the company has parted ways with people who for whatever reason just couldn’t pull their weight.
While he notes that the original concept and design of Alganon are his, he admits freely that it is no longer “his game.” The designers, led by Lead Designer Hue Henry, an alum of Cheyenne Mountain, have long since taken the foundation he laid out and made it their own and that’s exactly as he wants it.
As a team, this setup appeared to work for them, at least from my limited glimpse inside.
During my hands-on time, I ran across a few different bugs. In one case, some models got swapped, which caused some big, ugly broken buildings to appear in one of the cities. In another, through an absurd series of events, I made my character virtually invulnerable.
I was playing off their working server, so I didn’t expect a bug free experience, but finding them was a boon. I saw exactly how they handle these things.
Within moments, they were already discussing them, figuring out what went wrong, entering them into their software and by the next morning when I met Allen for breakfast, they had all either been fixed or identified and had people working them. They didn’t waste any time.
I’ve been at companies that probably would have required a board meeting and three different TPS reports to sort out what they did right before my eyes (hyperbole, I admit, but you get the idea).
The pink elephant in the room is, of course, Horizons. David Allen was the original creator of one of the more epic MMO failures in history, so people do wonder why this will be different. It was launched by Artifact Entertainment in 2003, two years after Allen had left the company. The game still exists today under the name Istaria: Chronicles of the Gifted.
Allen himself admitted he learned a lot from that experience; it appears to be the basis for his no-BS/sink or swim management style, for example. Saying that is one thing, and doing it is another.
;)
The fact is his version of Horizons never made it to market. The game he designed was much grander, much more off the wall and what eventually landed on people’s desktops was only a shell of that. Contrast this to Alganon, which if anything might be too familiar and realistic. He’s learned not to try and do too much with too small and inexperienced of a team.
The proof of all of this will be in the final product, but at least to date, he’s saying all the right things.
The fact is, that in this economy and in a market where products are both extremely expensive to produce and risky to launch, QOL is doing what it takes to exist as a small, independent, American developer. They’ll be a wonderful trial balloon to see if developing online games can actually be legitimately done online. Say what you will about Alganon, but if they’re successful, they could become a model that ushers in a rebirth of the independent North Ameircan MMO studio.
Interesting stuff, Dana. Thanks for posting this.
As I mentioned in the thread for yesterday's article, the game has possibilities. Yes, it looks WoW-ish, at least from the screenshots, but I am not put off by the UI or the graphics. In some ways, they are pleasantly familiar.
One of the advantages this company has is that, conceivably, the game's direction can adjust and evolve more easily than say, the ten-ton behemoth that is WoW/Blizzard. The ability to make creative and unique course corrections in a small company might just give QOL the edge in the market that they need. It's like comparing the "turning radius" of a sports car to that of an aircraft carrier. Sure, an aircraft carrier is huge and formidable, and nobody's about to "take it down", but sometimes being small and maneuverable has its advantages.
I wish this company well. A number of people asked in yesterday's thread why an MMO player would choose this game over WoW since (I imagine) WoW has more content, more options, and a greater level of polish. I think that's a really REALLY good question.
My feeling is that if Alganon turns out to be very WoW-like BUT, for example, leaned toward being more solo-friendly than WoW (something I'd sure like to see), or more PvP-oriented (eventually), or less expensive, for example, this game will find the sling it needs to -- if not slay "Goliath" (I hardly expect that!) -- at least hold its own on the MMO battlefield and stay viable.
Alganon has some nice features, but I am curious as to what will really set it apart from the "Big Boys" out there.
Good article. I don't know if this game would grab my interest, but it's nice to see an indie company with a solid plan and determination to utilize it.
I like how they are creating their own gaming engine. Although this may be tough to do initially eventually they will have a product that is uniquely theirs. This will open a lot of doors for them in the future as far as producing other MMO's.
Alganon is getting quite some attention from MMORPG ;)
The way they work and go about things appeal to me ... good to hear they have such a good design tool, as i think that does make half the game. Now, if they would make it partially available to players so they can create their own little pieces of content in the game ( dungeons? Interior design?) .... THAT would pull people in.
As Will Wright (creator SIMS) once said, the current gaming market consists laregely of people that want to express them selves through games, there for these games should be largely build by players. It's the future of gaming and in the process lowers development costs.
I hope to see more of it soon. I had been send a beta key ... but they took it back
Im kind of excited for this game, im not sure why yet. It seems new yet familiar.
Hm. I'm following this one a bit now since a year or so and I've been following Horizons since long before it's launch, played it for a year or so but don't play it anymore. I've no hard feelings against anyone, I've seen Allen did his share of failures, Bowman as well and now Vitrium is working hard to keep it alive. Soooo ... if Allen learned from his past - my respect to him. I wish him and the team all the best for the future, proof will be in the pudding of course.
The optics of Alganon are at least to me nice looking, seem not to eat much performance so the market is not very limited, it looks atmospheric to me - I like it. The features are not so much mine, I miss a more non-combat interactive environment with housing, crafting etc. so probably Alganon is not for me. But power to them, every successful mmo out there is a good thing and teach us at least lessons about ideas and how they work or if they don't why maybe not.
I enjoyed this article very much, from the "no bs" management style to the inhouse engine & tools to the overall direction it has me interested.
Ok, so they aren't loking to "do anything new" but I like their work-ethic.
Their duality approach to PvE & PvP, setting up both to be designed as independant systems really chimed with me, it was something I had always hoped a brave developer would try instead of just trying to shoe-horn a PvE system into a PvP role or visa versa.
I would loved to have seen them developing some emergent content systems but for an Indie that may be too cutting edge a biscuit to try chewing it this early in development, hopefully they can evolve into this later in the game's development.
So this has become one of only 3 titles I am going to follow closely.
I've always wondered why game's continued with the "bolt it on" approach to everything. PvE, RvR, Raids etc .. always just bolt it on. I understand back in the early days why this was done (ease) but newer MMO's have always followed the same approach which struck me as odd.
Its always seemed to me that "balancing" has always been a major issue in MMO's. Be that balancing raid content with group/solo content or balancing player vs player interaction with AI Vs player interaction. Refreshing to finally see a company try to step away from the bolt it on method and truly seperate the systems. It should allow for far easier balancing within the game. Adjusting how much damage / debuff / snare or whatever a skill has in PvP wont effect the skill at all in PvE which is refreshing.
It will allow the team to truly work on balancing each side of the game (once they add the PvP of course) without messing up the other aspects. It should allow for faster balancing too since they only have to look at the ramifications of a skill change in that one aspect of game play rather than over the whole system. How many games have you played where a skill was "nerfd" for being too powerful in PvP and in doing so that made it totally usless in PvE or Visa-versa?
I hope they take this model even further to split thier game aspects for balancing.
Take DAoC for example. Loved that game until RA's and ToA. Why? RA's gained through RvR has a HUGE impact on the PvE game too. Raids/groups wanted RR5+ tanks etc to roll with. So RvRin became a must do for the PvE players in order to compeate. Then ToA hit with artifacts and MLs which were "must have" items/abilitys for RvR. So the RvR people were forced to PvE in order to compeate in RvR. Bad model IMO. (Suxed for me since I had specific RvR and PvE characters that I was now forced to do the other on)
Actions should only bring rewards for the sphere associated with them.
Eg. PvP combat rewards should only effect PvP. PvE rewards should only effect PvE. Raiding rewards should only effect raiding. etc.
This makes balancing issues alot easier too. You dont have to balance PvE rewards for PvP. You dont have to balance PvP rewards for raiding etc etc. Of course there would be common "base stats" on all types of gear. but specifics could all be fine tuned. Procs on PvE weapons only proc on MoBs. Debuffs on PvP weapons only work on players etc etc. Abilitys wont fire on the wrong type of target .. raid gained abilitys wont fire on regular PvE mobs or players ... and so on. AoC tried this with the heroic defence/attck stats gained on raiding armor, it was a step in the right direction IMO. (Dunno if they still work with this model long time since I played AoC)
This allows people to play in the spheres they enjoy and want to progress in without having an impact on other spheres. So what if the raiders have uber-leet raid gear? Wont help them in PvP. So what if the PvP'rs have death weapons .. wont touch a raid mob ... You could go so far as to have different "gear tabs" where you have 2 or 3 "sets" of gear .. your PvP gear. Your PvE gear and your raid gear ..
I'm not saying limit what people do. If they want to play all sphere's they should be able to do so, I just dont agree with the model that you can raid 24/7 and have gear that outstrips the people who PvP 24/7 or visa-versa. Keep gear / abilitys gained within a sphere WITHIN that sphere. Cross overs should be very limited.
Its my hope to one day play a game that manages to balance all aspects of playstyle. Be it PvP. Raiding or solo/small group play. I dont see why people feel that if you spend 15 hours a week "raiding" you should have better gear than people who spend an equal amount of time / effort in another sphere (be that PvP grouping or crafting) Rewards should always relate to the effort invested. Sure people will argue man-hour stats (if 24 raiders spend 15 hours for 12 items bler bler) but that could all be balanced. I dont think I've ever seen anyone argue that gear should be easier to get in ways other than raiding .. just that it should be acheiveable in some form.
(Btw I was a raid leader in EQ DAoC and WoW for many years so I'm not knocking raiders .. just pointing out that raiding. although fun, seems to be the staple "gear-grind" method for current MMO's and I personally feel that its an injustice to all non-raiders out there who put in at least equal amounts of effort - Notice I said "equal amount of effort" .. I dont support the whiners with the "me gear now" attitude who feel they should get gear just for paying a sub.)
On that note, I've been following Alganon with the wife and we're both interested in playing it. Happy to pay a sub based on what I've seen and heard from the Dev's at this point. Sure the game may flop badly, it may also go on to be great. If your not willing to "risk" (<--lol) a few bucks thats fine, no-one is telling you to. It has enough "uniqueness" that I'm willing to drop some cash on it and although I see the art style being very similar to WoW I really dont agree with the "clone" comments. After all the Dev's have been totally honest and said they are adding a few new things to give it a new feel and hope to add more over time with community support, progress tends to come slowly so I dont expect the "next gen" MMO to hit for a long time .. until then I'm happy to take things slow and get some new idear's to keep my gaming fresh.
I was quite interested at their development editor video on their site, and you got to see it in action first hand (jealous). I was hoping they would reveal more about it, since us developers out here tend to pay attention to the lessons learned by other people in the zany hope of not falling in the same holes. The editor looked very slick, I must say.
Thanks for the interesting review. This is the first I have heard about Alganon and I'll definitely be following their progress into open beta and release.
There are a lot of aspects that appeal to me - MMO yet plenty of soloable content, graphics that are appealing yet not over the top or excessively cartoony, quests, and having fun. The family and kudos systems sound like excellent ideas as well. I'll be looking forward to seeing more on the combat system and character animations, as well as the overall challenge level of the content (hopefully not as easy and dumbed down as Warcraft... hint hint).
I'd just like to mention, regarding people saying they won't pay for a subscription based game - $15 is about what you pay for a lunch out. A month's subscription $ provides a heck of a lot more value than a burger. I would rather pay upfront than have a good game degenerate into an item mall where the people with the most cash have the most advantage in game.
This game definitely has me interested and I wanna give Alganon a shot...I hope it ends up being successful in some form or fashion.
I have to say that the Original Horizons was pretty far from what was released. Angels, demons, dragons and more all as possible races. Just as the tip of the iceberg. The entire thing seemed very outlandish but me and a few friends followed it closely for a while because the ideas were new and just plainly seemed awesome. It was released much later as the horizons we know today before the name change. Horizons was a decent game but all the constant changes showed and it lacked any content, minus the crafting system which hooked me for a while, (and i am an avid PvP player as well as at the time a hardcore gamer). So it had its ups, but the `` in house crap `` that occured obviously affected the game and it was nothing to what we expected, just another game that failed its potential with a differant Dave at the helm.
Anyways the reason i posted this was because i loved Allens ideas and i still do. Trying to make a game with the best of your ideas is awesome. Personally i feel the gaming world if filled with mediocre ambition for better games, sort of feels like if they make 100 dollars they seem to be happy. Even if the game was rotten. I will certainly be trying this game simply because there are some people who make games for gamers not for the average dollar. MMOès have probably been plagued by disapointment more then any other genre if you have followed them since i have. Ultima Online 2 and the original horizons being 2 big ones fromt he early days where only Asherons Call and EQ were the new big contenders. So seeing Him at the helm again sort of makes me hope that his ambition carries forward a bit and we migh actually get to play an MMO for the gamers and not the investors.