Little History: I knew about alganon the first time they said they were making it, I was looking forward to it as I love what indie companies make and wanted to see the Horizons idea put into perspective again. Saying that, following this game was hard since really there was no information on it at all, To my amaze I was accepted into beta in july. Being really excited I jumped into the game ASAP, download and everything went pretty smooth and I started up the client, damn that thing takes forever to load. After finally loggin in I at first got a little hearbroken on the fact that there were only 4 classes, but I went on. Right after noticing the classes I saw the UI…The character creation was exactly like wow’s , the entire set up matched perfectly and well this pissed me off. Character customization in general was bad, you only had some options which were pretty ugly too and not to mention that the females in this game look like body builders. After making my character I went into the game, first I was hit by a lot of bugs and graphical glitches and then looking at the UI in game and combat I ragequit, went to the forums and ranted how the game was a wow clone and it had nothing unique about it. I had applied for beta so I wasn’t gonna ignore it and I went back to the game after a month by when my glitches were fixed and I could play properly. Now I’ll give you my personal opinion on the game.

Graphics: People compare them to wow but in my opinion there the complete copy of runes of magic more than anything. In general the textures are fairly bad and stretched, armour looks pretty weird and it dosent look like what a p2p game should in 2009. Although the graphics are bad, the general environment is fairly well made and immersive. Performance for a game like this is also quite bad, you lag quite a bit and game can be jerky in genral.

Animations/Controls: Controls are pretty good, but the animations are poorly done from gliding when jumping to the way you die. Spell animations as a mage were fairly small and it didn’t give you the feeling of being powerful, very basic spell animations. Animations many times don’t match up with server too, so I could be firing bolts at a monster for 30 secs and it would take the server 5-6 secs mostly to sync the damage.

Quests: Nothing out of the ordinary here, your regular go here kill this, collect this. Although the quests have some story to them in my opinion it could have been executed a lot better. A LOT of the quests are bugged, I would say most of the high lvl quests don’t work.

Character progression: Very similar to wow, your stats are added automatically each level and you get your new spells from a trainer. Like wow this game also has talent points which it calls ability points but they do the same thing.

Gameplay: Your typical grab quests from one place, complete them , rinse and repeat. There are no instances or raids in game yet either. There’s only 2 races, one on the light side and one on the dark. You have four classes, soldier your regular tank, magus your mage, healer, ranger but without a pet. Gameplay is just like wow really.

Crafting: Again mostly like wow but a little more involved, a leatherworker can make gear but the armoursmith would make the same gear with different stats on it, not clear on how this works since crafting is quite expensive and mostly bugged.

Community: Mostly very mature and dedicated and also very helpful. In general though population is quite low. Also be aware that this game has the most horrid fanboi’s you’ll ever see so beaware of what you say or they might eat you.

Unique features: At this moment it has nothing unique about it besides the study system, which is little things you can study to improve your character overall but you just click start studying and wait for it to finish, rinse and repeat. And the families which to me seriously are just guilds but if not, just another chat channel. All the unique things would be added later on after release so we’ll see how that goes.

Pvp: Not yet implemented

Final comments: At this moment the game is filled with bugs and lacks a lot of content but it does have potential to be a great game. Dev communication is awesome and I think that is a major factor. If you’re a regular gamer I doubt you’ll enjoy the game since it’s mostly focused on giving the vanilla wow players what they want, pre BC and a mature community. I would not be buying the game but I did enjoy my time beta testing it and wish my best to the devs and players, hopefully one day I might even play too!
 

Originally posted by Gabby-air

Final comments: At this moment the game is filled with bugs and lacks a lot of content but it does have potential to be a great game.

Famous last words of dying games on the steaming pile of crap that the genre has foisted on us for the last 5 years.

Duke Nukem Forever has potential to be a great game also......

Game just isn't very good (or imho fun) in its current state.  Even if it was a F2P game I would still find it to be sub-par.  When I first heard about the game.  I was rather interested in it.  After spending time with it.  I couldn't see myself playing it now, or anytime in near future, unless alot of stuff is changed.

Originally posted by Roin

Game just isn't very good (or imho fun) in its current state.  Even if it was a F2P game I would still find it to be sub-par.  When I first heard about the game.  I was rather interested in it.  After spending time with it.  I couldn't see myself playing it now, or anytime in near future, unless alot of stuff is changed.

Even with all the cons of going f2p this game would be alot better off that way. Besides being a community focused game, which it doesn't even have much features regarding it's really nothing new and games like runes of magic are  a way better alternative.

F2P rarely works well for me unfortunately.

Yes RoM and DDO are having a blast with thier F2P models..but, it is not for everyone.

2 days in the DDO f2p have convinced me I would rather pay a LOTRO level sub EU than stay on US side.

RoM, F2P, provided you want to play limited hours...I got bored with it fast, but have kept an eye on the various forums for it.

F2P has its ups, for sure, I would love to not pay money to play a game, but, if I cannot put up with the chat all day (In before "leave chat in an mmo"), then I would rather pay a monthly sub ^^

Its a shame, I like that you can get the store points in DDO for free, but, unless I have been unlucky with the crowd online when I log in (during WoW US maintenance probably didnt help), I prefer to pay Codemasters (cant believe I just said that ^^)

 Tried the beta and if it was f2p I might casually tinker with it but it in no way is worth a sub or even initial purchase. Blizzard could almost have a lawsuit if they wanted to go for it.