David Allen, the President of Quest Online LLC (QOL), spoke to our own Garrett Fuller about their upcoming fantasy MMORPG Alganon. Topics range from the game's offline progression system, to their company's business philosophy, to an inside look at MyAlganon, the powerful community tool they're developing around their game.
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MMORPG.com: |
Tell us about MyAlganon. How does this tool work with the game? |
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David Allen: |
MyAlganon is the core community system for the game that supports subscriptions, sharing of media, blogs, groups, streams, and more. It also serves as the portal to the Alganon Library, which is a real-time repository of all game data (items, creatures, skills, abilities, resources, spawns, and more). Players can also access the Guilds and Characters repositories via MyAlganon as well. Essentially all Alganon data and details are at the fingertips of the players through MyAlganon. This is also where players will register their subscriptions and core accounts. |
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MMORPG.com: |
What was the philosophy behind the Studies system? How can players use it to advance? |
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David Allen: |
Our goal was to reward the player not just for playing, but for subscribing as well. I wanted a system that allowed a veteran casual player to obtain support in areas a new power gamer couldn’t get by playing 20 hours a day. With Studies, a player can plan the support growth of their character out over a period of years. |
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MMORPG.com: |
The game remains in closed beta, how has testing been going? Is there an open beta on the horizon? |
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David Allen: |
It’s keeping us very, very busy. We decided not to hold an open beta; we get so much information from our closed BETA members already, and will be offering exclusive BETA access to those who participate in special events and pre-orders. We want people with a vested interest in Alganon to BETA test the game and provide feedback. |
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MMORPG.com: |
Explain the business philosophy behind Alganon, creating an MMO is a huge undertaking and you are seeing some great success in development. |
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David Allen: |
When I proposed this MMOG to my business partner back in January of 2006, I told him we would have to build all of our own tech from scratch if we wanted to do it right, and we would have to minimize overhead and ensure none of the traditional corporate garbage waste ever took place. This allowed us to control our design and development, bring our team together, grow at a proper pace, and maximize every investment penny. As far as I know QOL is the only privately financed MMOG company in North America that’s majority owned by the founders, and owns all of its core technology (Client, Server, Tools, Installer, Patcher, Billing). We are very proud of Alganon and the great company that has been built in creating the game. |
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MMORPG.com: |
What do you look forward to most with Alganon? What can MMO players expect? |
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David Allen: |
I think what is planned for the game overall; the future races, domains, deity integration, instances, Domain Control, PvP, and more. We’ve built a pretty aggressive 3-year release plan with Alganon that ensures our players receive free and substantial content updates for some time to come. Alganon has a rich history and core to grow into a very strong MMOG. The initial release allows players to get established, begin their character studies, and start exploring the world and growing as the game itself grows. I do think one of the best things about QOL and Alganon is we don’t have anyone telling us how to do things; we don’t answer to any publishers or marketing teams. We only answer to the players, and that’s the way it should be. |
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