f13.net

Thoughts?  Just heard of this.  In beta.  Launching around Halloween.

Site (http://www.alganon.com/)

The naming is painfully trite generic fantasy (Evil races use lots of x's and k's.  NO ONE HAS EVER THOUGHT OF THIS BEFORE), but the graphics (http://www.alganon.com/uploads/screenshots/alganon-ui.jpg) remind me of Dungeon Runners in a pleasant way.  Might be the font. 

Also:
:headscratch:

lol at the ui.

Since everyone loves the WoW default UI so much, i mean WHY NOT?!

Well, the male cameltoe on the home page is novel.

Wait a minute...... This is David Allen's ( Horizons, Demise, and Moria) new project I heard about years ago that he started  after he left/ got kicked out of Artifact.   :uhrr:
I had no idea that they got this far with it.

Well.....  good for him.

The graphics reminded you of something that wasn't World of Warcraft?

Dungeon Runners has a cartoony style reminiscent of WoW's, so no.

Yes, but that screenshot is just obscene.

Heh. Their banner is brazen enough to claim "a unique fanatasy realm..." or some such. Then you go to the screenshot section and the UI shot is WoW. Almost literally. Color for color, window for window. I mean, c'mon folks. Did they license the UI from Blizzard or something?

Starcraft II: Blizzard SDK hasn't launched yet.

Is the world still called Asheroth?

Buddy in that one screen shot seems to be questing in the Barrens there.

Back in the day, people were mocking DAoC's UI has a ripoff of EQ1's, particularly with the addition of / commands. MJ even said in response (paraphrase): "our players are going to show up having been trained by EQ1, why we would do a UI any other way"?

Say what you will about the person or the game, but that is a very realistic statement. Nobody expects a non-promoted fantasy stereotype small-ish MMO to capture a jillion new people off the street. They're entering a genre already mature, and hoping to cannibalize a chunk of existing players. If your whole game is a knockoff of the most popular one in the space, then yea, you're looking to purposely ape all the features to ease the barrier of entry.

This is about the only interesting thing I can see in this game: that it's so uninteresting  :awesome_for_real:

Alganon was more fun when it had the original world map, complete with "Tanglevine Valley", "Karr'gath", "The Lair of Ixonya", "Zul'Nak" and "Blackrock".

http://www.alganon.com/uploads/screenshots/Misty_Ghost.jpg (http://www.alganon.com/uploads/screenshots/Misty_Ghost.jpg)

I was going to make a crack about Misty Ghost and how I've seen all her videos, but then I noticed Lame Zombie in the background and that just took the cake.

The editor is hotness.

Blackrock is still on the map.  :ye_gods:  You know what? This is on my radar, I mean the guy brought us Horizons right?  How bad can this be?  :awesome_for_real:

The mechanics of the original Horizons before all the shit went down and it turned into the horror that it eventually became were actually pretty interesting.  Robust and involved faction systems, no locked sides, ability to choose your allegiance and that sort of thing.  At least, the mechanics as they were described at that stage were interesting.

But they tried to do way too much at once.  Plus David Allen got kinda screwed on the business side of it, from what I understand, so about the only resemblance the "Horizons" we got bears to his original game and the information we had way back then is 'you can play dragons'.

Some of the original Horizons ideas kind of shine through in Alganon, but it really does look like a supremely unambitious project.  Sure, it's better than the supremely overambitious project that the original Horizons was, but seems a little too far in the other direction, now.

Oh, and for anyone interested in back then, I still have this one height comparison chart (http://mnemnosyne.com/horizonslineup.jpg).  With all the races they were planning on putting into the original game.  Mind you, each of these races was meant to play significantly differently and I think a lot of them had unique "classes" planned (I say "classes" because if I remember right it was meant to be a class-less game).  Supremely overambitious indeed.  I wish I had more of the documents from their old website describing the races, the mechanics, and the world, because it was really rather interesting.

Perhaps David Allen has learned that if you can't 110% guarantee delivery of a feature, it is better to never mention it? I mean, I love MMOs that promise the Earth, but thus far a lot seem to delivery just Zimbabwe.

Then they have to nerf it to East Timor due to the imbalances it caused.

Horizons had a couple of other things that *nearly* worked and that I wish would make it into some other MMO:

1. Database-like interface to inventory, auctioning and purchasing. Customizable searching, sorting, filtering -- all kinds of goodness I haven't seen anythng like it except in the ultimate database-interface-game (EVE).
2. Crafting where you choose/design the visual components of the object you're crafting. For example, you choose the sword pommel, guard and blade appearance (in addition to stats). More interesting than just stamping out a completely pre-made foozle.

Neither of the above were perfect, and the crafting wasn't fully implemented when I played it. Oh well. Memories of the indescribable lameness of fighting giant maggots with abilities that were half-baked and bugged beyond belief, and an overall UI that sucked (and not in a good way). 1999-2004 were interesing years in MMO-land...

Well, I liked the flexibility of the HZ UI.  Too bad they "fixed" the game, it might have been OK.  I quit when the resource nodes started fighting back. :oh_i_see:

A few beta keys here.
http://www.mmogamer.com/10/09/2009/alganon-private-beta-key-giveaway-20-keys

Keys for this piece of garbage lovely game are now up on Fileplanet (http://www.fileplanet.com/promotions/alganon/).

Seeing more screenshots from it now with the beta going and whatnot, this seems to be Limbo of the Lost Online.

But, but - Burrgle Buckethead.

(http://www.alganon.com/uploads/screenshots/VegeThicket.jpg)

Is it just me, or is the Bloom / HDR in that scene OH GOD MY EYES, I CAN'T SEE ANYMORE.

It's absolutely just you.

1. That's at the low end of the spectrum for Bloom.
2. As far as I can tell there is no HDR, just poor lighting.

That is a lot of bloom? I guess you never played Guild Wars?

Will there be angels?

Or dragons?

Allen did the angels and Bowman did the dragons, right?  I'm not sure that even between the two, they could make a good MMO.  Not that they'd ever get together again although that would be interesting to watch.  I'm sure Allen would beat the snot out of Bowman.  That sort of bitterness might make you strong enough to go seriously stabby on your nemesis.  I wonder what ever happened to David Bowman.  Does he still make games?  Or is he living in a cardboard box at the bus station?

Steady diet of government cheese and living in a van down by the river.

What is unique about this game?

I think there's an NDA so you would know as much as anyone would be able to tell you by looking at their website.  Just by looking at that, it seems you can learn some things offline and there's a somewhat more involved social system set up.  And there might be angels.

You do not need a battle.net account to play.

http://blog.eldergoth.com/2009/10/alganon-nda-lifted-here-are-my-thoughts.html

tl;dr version:

Win.

They lifted the NDA?

I'll give you my levels 1-5 impression.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, they are the most sincerest bunch of assgoblins on the planet. This is a WoW clone. I don't mean that in the sense that it tries to be like WoW but different. No, it tries to fucking XEROX WoW. It's like WoW without good art direction. The mechanics, menus, interface, art style is EXACTLY THE SAME AS WoW, only less competent. This is so imitative, it should be a DMCA violation. If you woke up drunk from a 3-week bender of coke, hookers, crystal meth and Red Bull mixed with vodka, you'd think you were playing WoW.

It's also shit.

Some good laughs were to be had by looking at the pictures though. Reminds me of WoW early beta. If I were to go by looking at the screenshots alone, I wouldn't buy this. Good thing a couple reviews helped cementing that decision  :wink:

I think that DA had some good ideas back when he was still working on Demise. When it got to Horizons, probably everyone with a sliver of understanding about game development, game mechanics or simply gaming experience should have dismissed the Horizons concepts - yeah the ones with the angels and demons and dragons - as unrealistic.

Good thing to see he's gotten better at promising stuff.

Massively Community Interview with Alganon Devs

http://www.massively.com/2009/11/11/alganon-community-interview-your-questions-answered/

Alganon is the next WoW killer.  And once it's killed WoW, it will wear it's skin.

I'd f*** Alganon

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/ba/Silencelamp7.jpg)

Achievements exist in the real world?  The hell?  Like God's sitting up there with a checklist with boxes like "Bought a Lamborghini Reventon" and "Fucked a Cheerleader" and every time he checks one of them off, you start to emit light and get this "BWOMMMMM" sound effect?

Or does he mean, like, it's possible to achieve things in the real world?  In the same way that it's possible to store keys on a ring in real life without taking away valuable pocket space you could use for extra suits of armor or potions?

"Yes, there are things in Alganon that players will find familiar and similar to other games, but every choice was planned, designed, and built by our team specifically for Alganon."  Well, fuck.  It's like they started from the same position as the most successful MMO ever made, and tried to design a game around that.  After that, analyzing each of the decisions to be made, they tried to find the most successful options available.  By an amazing coincidence that surely nobody could have predicted, they were mostly the decisions made by the most successful game, so they ended up with a game that's a lot like WoW.  But don't worry, because they looked at the alternatives, and they aren't as good.  So even though their game is largely mimicking a hugely polished and massively successful game it has no real hope of competing with and therefore it will be promptly crushed and forgotten, it's the best possible game in existence.  I can't fault that logic!

Have you seen a movie called The Bucket List? It's really not that hard of a concept.

Is this game even free2play?

I would imagine it'd have to be.  I mean, it is not just similar to WoW, it's a near one to one copy, with shittier graphics, and gameplay.  I can't see how they wouldn't get their asses sued off by Activision if and when they ever tried to release the game.

http://www.google.com/search?q=trophy%20case

Speaking of blatant WoW ripoffs, someone needs to make a Allods Online thread.

There is one (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=17119.0).

Hehe, I just want to point out that I definitely would not be playing an MMO after such an adventure........I would get checked out for diseases by a doctor before logging on.......... :why_so_serious:

I would not call that one a wow rip off.

I've never understood why talentless assclowns try to copy WoW when they could steal it.  Hire a janitor to slip you a few USBs of the code, buy some servers in the mountains of Venezuela, run WoW and slash the price in half.  Get Chavez involved to protect the business and not recognize any foreign lawsuit, in return altering quest text to subliminally support the Bolivarian revolution.

David Allen on Alganon's similarities to WoW: "We meant to do that, really (http://www.mmogamer.com/11/14/2009/alganon-interview-with-david-allen/3)".


 :ye_gods:

The stupid.. it hurts..

Sounds reasonable. WoW marketing needs to only utter the words "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" and their players feel more validated in their choice. Meanwhile those not playing WoW suddenly realize they want PvPvEvR, less levels, more timesinks, no levels, XP bars for every skill and niche niche niche, all with WoW budget but it mustn't feel like WoW.

Then 4 companies with MMOs in the pipeline see all that going on and go "hey, we've got some of that and if we're honest our game doesn't really feel like WoW after all". Then they get cancelled.

Alganon goes "Subscription Free" (http://www.alganon.com/news-detail/id/335)

Not sure what exactly it's supposed to mean -- from the wording of their announcement it appears the game box still comes with price tag, but at the same time their web site offers the client download by the looks of it so uhmm... confusing. Maybe the download is only up while they have the trial/beta (http://www.alganon.com/trial) going and won't be there after the April launch. Guess have to wait and see.

It wasn't a terrible generic diku clone when I played it.

Well, it's not the most terrible game I've ever played. Unless the box is $100 it might be worth it. Are they going to introduce micro-trans later as a bait and switch or will this be something akin to Guild Wars?

That announcement talks about some "Tribute Market System" which is supposed to be their "real-dollar transactional framework". They say you'll also get some tribute points simply by logging in but guess the short answer is "yes".

This is, actually, a brilliant idea.

Imagine, if you will, the next level of money-hat-printing.

Blizzard sells a $15M SDK to VC-funded MMO startups.
Blizzard hosts the "content" these guys create on white-label production clusters that they get to point WorldOfCloneCraft at.
Blizzard takes a percentage of the monthly subscription.

Everybody wins!  The MMO startups can be putting their exciting new levels and character classes online as fast as their art team can model 'em.  No need to pay a bunch of cranky software engineers to clone WoW when you can just buy it off the shelf.   No need to debug tricking billing system problems.  What's not to like?

Any company that deploys a game this way and survives increases the revenue stream *and* might buy SDK II: The Expansion.

The comedy reaches a level of sublime I have rarely seen. (http://www.massively.com/2010/03/10/david-allen-leaves-alganon/)

O M G!

 :ye_gods:

I read this news over an hour ago and I'm still giggling. Simply amazing.

wait, what?  :ye_gods:

Now we just need this game to be picked up by EA and the cycle will be complete.

I cannot stop laughing.

Wouldn't that break the 7th seal to hell or whatever?  :ye_gods:

It's like an inside joke except the insiders consist of every gamer over the age of 25. So awesome.

God, I hope they let him post on the forums. Please Jesus Mary and Joseph, I will pledge myself to you and join a monestary if you let it be so, I will tithe until I have nothing left, please let this happen, and I will adopt non-white non-asian autistic HIV-positive babies addicted to crack, please, I'll do anything, please. Amen.

Serek Dmart making a WoW clone?  This is going to be a trainwreck.

GAH  :ye_gods:

I'm making a new thread just for that forum post.

Well, if someone had any doubts the very existence of Alganon was in fact deliberate troll of the highest calibre...

srsly, this shit can't be for real  :awesome_for_real:

edit: official company press release (http://www.qol.com/companyPress.php#031010)

He "brings a distinguished resume of over twenty years of game development and a reputation for getting the job done".

 :grin:

I guess they went outside and tried to see if any of the homeless people on their block would agree to be CEO and when no one would, they felt like there was no alternative.

THANK YOU JESUS! (http://www.alganon.com/forums/index.php?/topic/4607-quest-online-announces-leadership-change/page__p__39830&#entry39830)

There's a thread for that: http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=18916.0

There cannot be enough threads for that.

I guess now I need to pick me up some urban crack babies with AIDS.

You know what?

SO WORTH IT.

How are these people getting hired? Where do I send my resume? Hell, I can use some easy money - all I have to do is act like a giant tool; right?

Well, downloader runs at 2 mb/s, there does not seem to be much stress on their servers.  :grin:

God, that was awfull. Not even Serek Dmart can save this game.

 :ye_gods: :ye_gods: :ye_gods: :ye_gods:

Still, you cant fault their marketting. This is probably now one of the most famous games on the net.  :grin:

Whooops... sorry.  :ye_gods:

What does that mean?

For those that missed it, he commented on his Gamasutra article:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/27688/Quest_Online_Fires_President_Hires_Derek_Smart.php (http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/27688/Quest_Online_Fires_President_Hires_Derek_Smart.php)

He comes if you call him

I wonder if having this guy against you counts as positive resume material.

It also seems like he's straying awfully close to the "please keep talking, my lawyer is taking notes" line.

The game is incredibly boring. The classes are called: Soldier, Ranger, Healer, Magus. I kid you not.

They have subforums for Damage Dealers, Tanks and Healers.

I managed to get to level 5 (took about an hour, I guess) as a Magus. I spammed 1 spell for 3 levels, got an upgrade, spammed that for 2 levels and got an AOE variant of the same spell.

The graphics are bad. They look cheap and the design of the starting area is uninspired.

The quests are standard 10 rat tails and FedEx quests. There was one quest that made me almost quit right there, I was told to run to location X, the guy there told me to run to location Y. That's it. (Fed Ex gives you 50 xp, killing a rat 3 levels below your own gives you 150 xp)

The only good idea I saw was the option to train some skills offline (Think Eve's skill system). You could train things like Athletics (more Stamina), Intelligence etc. There also was something called Social Skills, according to the tooltip those open "special" quests.

Still an awful game, though.

Wait, so catasses will have to quit the game to go "level up" their "Social Skills?"  Is that actually as clever as it sounds?

Well, its the only way cattasses will ever gain any social skills...  :why_so_serious:

Actually there is an ingame interface but the training keeps running while you are not online.

But your idea is better. I better run and link it on their forums.  :awesome_for_real:

I was thinking more broadly.  As in, what does it mean for all of us that there's still someone who thinks that adding this retard to any project, in any state could, even using the broadest imaginable definition of the word, save it.

I didn't think the graphics were that terrible considering the game.  The font and it's size are horrendous though.

Moving Lum's quote and the discussion here - since I'm taking the conversation in a general Alganon direction, and not about the "Forum Circus" like the other thread.


Very true. I had a slightly different issue, but it is very closely related.  For me, coming in late in the game, it was "Okay, we have a working quest system - but it works like WoW, the most popular MMO on the market. Do we make it work differently? Or do we add a social networking site? Both will differentiate us. Both will have positive results. Well.... why reinvent the wheel?"  and so I chose things like MyAlganon, Bind on Guild, Dual Roles, etc. instead of changing the UI or graphics. The idea was: if people already enjoy it, and use it, then we should use the cost it would take to change it to improve other areas instead. "If it ain't broke...."  FAIL. Lesson learned.

What I learned (and hope to share here) is this:
Simply post the headline "New Development Studio plans Fantasy MMO!" with no other information, and the first few pages on every MMO forum, and the "truth" in every MMO buyer's mind, will be that the game is another WoW clone. They've seen it too many times to think otherwise. It will take a difficult and challenging (and expensive) fight to prove to people that it is not. If you can't afford to fight that battle, you will fail.

Why? Because the clone label is a death sentence. If you can't break it, you lose. This isn't "Those cookies smell like the one's my grandmother used to make, they must be great!" In the MMO market it is "My grandmother wore an apron. You have an apron. DIE YOU MOTHERF**KING APRON-WEARING GRANDMA CLONE! DIE! DIE! DIE!"

Adding new features doesn't help in that fight - no matter how many you add or how much work goes into them, the words "tacked on" can nullify any new feature in the "Clone/Not Clone Debate." They can make the game fun, yes, but they can't stop people from stabbing you in the face for wearing an apron (metaphorically).

We made the mistake of rubbing our two nickels together and using the warmth to add new features. We should have used it to change the basics. The tech can do it, too, and that makes me feel even worse.

Example of how:
(Trying to avoid WoW language for you here - makes the post longer, but will do. I don't think in words very often, my brain tends to clump ideas together rather than just store them as words. I always have to translate before speaking anyway. Thus the wall of text I leave behind me.)

Winning a battle in Alganon is getting one of the variables of the enemy to 0 before they get yours to 0. We designed one style of play to be "reduce the variable on multiple targets" (Essence Magus) - so this style of play would be the beloved expert in "one-on-many situations where someone else can worry about your variable." Our dual role system meant we also wanted to give them a choice on a second role. The possible choices we decided on were "keep the enemy AI where you want it focused (Storm Magus)", "survive an attack from many opponents (Frost Magus)", "reduce that variable on single target as fast as possible. (Fire Magus)"

(Note: Certain encounters would have gimmicks that break this pattern, this is the "rule" that exceptions won't exist without.)

To handle the "survive multiple attackers" we created a status effect that would sit on enemies (Frostbite). Each time you used it, it would increase in value and if you used it on many enemies, you would soon be surrounded by many enemies with this status effect. You could even apply it to multiple enemies at a time, if you could skillfully manipulate their location in space. The status effect could then be "shattered" off the targets, and this would not only protect the variable of the Frost Magus, but also increase their variable - it keeps them alive. Gameplay would consist of trying to manipulate physical space and number of targets so you could apply this to as many people as possible, then weigh whether or not it was time to shatter them, or if you should build more... This process isn't effective at reducing the variable of the enemy, so the player would need to balance between the "stay alive" cycle and the "kill them" cycle - again, based on physical location, number of enemies, your own variables, and even the presence or lack of allies.

This cycle isn't WoW clone, it's definitely not "Wow Mage Clone" but that doesn't matter. In the ForumWars, it can easily be defeated by saying it is "tacked on" to one.

The cool thing is, that same technology can be used ACROSS teammates to create cross-player combinations. Maybe one player could apply the status, a second could "activate it" and the third can get the benefit. The same status effect can be used in multiple combinations, if I shatter it with action X, it does one thing. If I shatter with Y, it does another. We planned future classes doing this - but we didn't have the manpower (because of the small budget) to get them in.

EDIT- Chopping to split up the wall of text!
EDIT 2 - tried to make a phrase I used sound less "Ooh, he thinks he's so smart" and just point out "my brain is weird" like I meant.

Part 2:


Yeah. I didn't touch the code, but I was present in meetings where these concepts were talked about, and offline discussions were planned for solving these problems, and later followup meetings reported them as fixed. I know that we used C++ instead of LUA for speed, and there was much discussion and planning to make sure that the bases were covered and that it was a good decision.

Also, due to the low budget, pay at QOL was low, independent contractors get no benefits (instead, we get the joys of self-employment tax), and work-from-home sounds great until you realize you haven't left the house in days. It can be hard to find people who work well in that environment, so I would guess (but don't know on this one) that it wasn't exactly a cakewalk to find the talented employees we did find.


I agree. Only once did I hear of us accepting "because WoW does it" as a valid reason to do something -- that was the fact that we wanted to make it a walk in the park for people to bring UI interface mods over from WoW. David's plan was: If you have a favorite UI mod in WoW, you should be able to make the Alganon Equivalent without starting from scratch. It still has to be changed to match all that we added and changed, but make that as easy as humanly possible to do.

The rest of the time, there needed to be another reason, or it didn't fly by me. I'm not a fan of "calling people out" in a meeting, but I always took people aside privately and made sure that was the case.

Unfortunately, "because players shouldn't struggle trying to figure out what to do" is "looks like WoW"'s conjoined twin. Often, you can't afford the bills it would cost to kill the monstrous one without also killing the good one - but dammit, if I had a time machine, I'd go back and force myself to kill them both. Good twin, be damned.

Hopefully this explains a lot - I'm willing to answer any other questions people may have in this post - in fact, to answer the question before you ask it: I am a "such a retarded ass clown" because I knew we didn't have the money to make a "WoW Killer!" but I didn't realize the hatred that came from the similarities would prevent us from being profitable enough to make better games. Totally my fault. Sorry. Please stop stabbing me now.

Sooooooooooooooooooooooooo....


Aside from the :popcorn: what do you guys think about the Graveyard for this?  :oh_i_see:

There's a reason Schild didn't create an Alganon subforum, I think.


Warcraft more or less does this: you're allowed two specializations you can swap while out of combat, most classes can fit two or three roles, they've recently updated all the class descriptions at character generation to tell you exactly what each is capable of, and the new LFG tool allows you to specify which roles you want / are capable of fulfilling.  Tank / healer / damage isn't new and exciting, and Blizzard hasn't been idle.  The only chinks in Warcraft's armor at this point is that some classes are single-role, that you need a tank/healer for most group content, and that the shortage of people willing to play tank / healer subjects DPS to longer wait times for instances.

DIKU is Blizzard's hunting preserve.  The only way to escape from being ran down and having your skull turned into a trophy for Blizzard's wall is to not go there, and it's only going to get worse as Blizzard continues to refine their system, the pace of which actually appears to be accelerating.

I think one thread is enough, It has always seems to me that the graveyard was for games who had such potential, or even some really compelling things about it, it just didn't live up to expectations (or the pulse here had weakened and the bat country party bus crashed).

I believe to get a graveyard plot, a game must first have a MMO sub forum.

Plus, these threads DELIVER. I don't see this fail-train coming to a halt any time soon.

I skipped most of the wall of text after this bit, and skipped the following post entirely.

The quote above makes me feel that you still don't "get it". It's not the cloniness. It's the "like WoW, only not as good" factor.

I mean, I haven't played WoW for going on 18months now, and I do play around in LOTRO, which in many respects is a WoW clone. It does have some major points of differentiation though. Visually/Graphically, it's not like WoW at all. And the IP. Back in the day I'd have gladly played SWG if it were EverQuest 1 reskinned, but instead Raph clusterfucked it intop SimBeru, complete with Wookee hairdressers. With LOTRO, It's nice wandering around a 3-d representation of Middle-Earth. Going to Weathertop, visiting Elrond in Rivendell, and then reminiscing about the part in Peret Jackson's films where Frodo, Sam, Pippin and Merry grinded slugs and evil dwarf bandits for an hour and a half to achieve some deeds.


Didn't/wont play your game though. But here's an example of what BF:BC2 calls Epic Fail, that has nothing to do with Granny wearing an Apron.


Yeah, that playerbase is just never happy..   :oh_i_see:

I never logged back on.

As a rough rule of thumb, if you are cloning a competitor product (especially the market leader), you can't just make it a bit better and expect to see customers come on board. Customers already have things invested with the original product and, in the case of MMOs, that investment can be huge in terms of both time and money.

In order for a competitor clone to come in and start to grab some market, it has to be about 10x better than the original. How you define 'better' is hard, since it can involve a lot of different aspects, but I'm willing to believe that, having not played WoW in years and Alganon ever, that Alganon is not 10x better than WoW.

The only word that comes to mind for this game is 'insipid'. It's like going from drinking the world's most wonderfully cold and full bodied bubbly lager to drinking some nasty warm flat metal tasting near-beer. It wouldn't have to be a WoW clone to fail. It just doesn't have any charm or depth and even if it were free, I wouldn't want to log in because there would be no enjoyment in it.

Well Alganon will probably be the best FTP DIKU out there.  It's certainly better than ROM or Allods.  (from what I've seen)

I do hope that was meant to be in green.

It's terrible.  I couldn't get past, well, the terribleness. 

I took advantage of my sick day and read all this Alganon silliness. I'm more and more convinced that no diku-mmo will ever be successful again. The whole concept is tapped out. Finished.

The Old Republic could be huge DIKU success.

Go gather 15 Sith helmets and 10 Wookie tusks.

They weren't using them anyway.  :why_so_serious:

Yeah, buts thats just to make fuel for your speeder.

I've played all three.  They're all pretty ugly.  I just think Alganon is the best of the three.

I'm going to disagree, Allods is LIGHT YEARS ahead of this title. For many, many reasons, and most of it, is competence in execution.

In what way though?  Allods had a shitty experience curve and the stats were wacky.  The combat system was spammy as fuck too since there was no auto attack.

Alganon's font and letter were shit.  I don't really care about the UI looking exactly like WOW.  It's funny and it makes the company look like hacks but it didn't detract from the actual game experience.

The online wiki/help resource they had in game, along with the social stuff and the "offline" skill training was actually a pretty interesting system.  I'll give the props on that.

Runes of Magic is pretty well polished, is Alganon really better? That'd mean I would have to at least try it.

I guess we all have our different tastes. I found Allods to be fairly woohoo neat-o, RoM to be nice but not enough for me to care and Alganon to be the most lifeless, generic thing ever.

ROM is pretty damn generic too.  Just as generic as Alganon.  Allods had lore and story to it that was interesting but the gameplay was terrible.

QUEST ONLINE RELEASES ALGANON™ AS FREE-TO-PLAY (http://www.alganon.com/forums/index.php?/topic/5204-alganon-goes-free-to-play/)

(http://img835.imageshack.us/img835/253/f2pchart.jpg)

"After almost four years of development and a much publicized false start in December 2009, under new experienced leadership and guidance, Alganon was finally completed and officially launched at the end of April 2010."

I threw up in my mouth

Hmm, if I'm at home this weekend, I'll download it for a laugh between Puzzle Quest 2 breaks.

I just checked my email. The title of one of them was:

It's gonna getcha!  :drill:

I clicked the link the The Nameless One was right there waiting to stare into my soul. Can we use and mention his forum name instead of his real name (mangled or not) 'cause it's pretty damn funny IMO. I think I want to change it slightly and call him the BVDBandit.